From the Contra Costa Times to the New York Times, articles telling buyers – Now is the Time to Buy – are starting to appear. Finally we have the media’s agreement that it is a buyer’s market and their blessing to buy now.

Unfortunately, as usual, the media lags behind the industry by several months. Savvy buyers reading this blog have been active since the first of the year, their ducks are in a row and many of them are making the deal of a lifetime.

It will take several months of mainstream media singing the new tune before the average buyer begins to contemplate taking action. Waiting for the real estate market to bottom and waiting for the media to announce it has cost many potential buyers the deal they were hoping for.

There are many factors that influence the “good deal.” Relying on house price alone and not taking the other factors into consideration is foolish.

Rates Spike, Mortgage Markets "Utterly Unhinged" – For starters, it means that since last Friday, fixed mortgage rates have screamed higher - going from roughly 5.5% to 6.25% in a matter of days.  That type of move does not happen very often, and it was driven by two factors..

That jump in interest rates eliminates tens of thousands of dollars of savings on house price.

When the general public begins to accept that the market has stabilized, sellers will reenter the market, but they will be much firmer on price. Buyers will lose some negotiating power.

Now is the time to position yourself by getting in the game.

The Contra Costa Times ran a story last year on a blog site they created and host for East Bay high school students to contribute to. The Life in Perspective blog was an immediate hit with me.

I was impressed with the writing and the issues the young authors were contributing and taking on. I noticed pretty quickly that there were about half a dozen active authors and only two that I would call prolific.

One of these authors, Joseph Natividad, is a guest author on our blog as a result of his efforts on LIP.

Here’s how I think the CC Times dropped the ball. They had a two page spread in their paper introducing the LIP blog and the authors to their readership. As far as I can tell that is the end of the story.

So far this school year, I think I have seen only one post. This is a shame. Is the CC Times not interested in investing any real time in our students journalistic efforts.

I sent to editors at the CC times the following PR release on Joseph thinking it would make a great follow up article and it’s also a local interest story. Neither editor bothered to reply or forward it on.

Contra Costa Times Teen Blogger is a Success Story

Joseph Natividad one of the first bloggers for the Contra Costa Times LIP (Life In Perspective) Blog has entered the world of business blogging as a result of his participation on the CC Times LIP Blog.

Joseph was contacted by John Harper of The Harper Team, a local residential real estate team in San Ramon, CA. Mr. Harper had been following the LIP Blog since its launch and was impressed with the quality and diversity of writing by the teen contributors. “I noticed that Joseph was one of the most prolific bloggers and when I read his post on looking for a summer job, I offered him a paid position as a guest author on The Harper Team Blog,” said Mr. Harper.

Joseph attended the recent Inman News Bloggers Connect in San Francisco where he met with top real estate industry bloggers from across the nation. He is now a paid guest author on three real estate blogs including Caribbean Islands Realty.

A result of all of this is that Joseph has started his own blog  which he hopes to use to build his blogging business to support his way through college. Joseph is a graduate of St. Mary’s High School in Berkeley and will attend UC San Diego in the fall where he plans to major in economics.

“I have a strong interest in journalism and hope to build my blog into a business resource for myself as I work my way through college,” says Joseph. “Meeting The Harper Team has been amazing. They are helping me to see the potential that blogging has for my future and I am actually getting paid for what I love to do!”

Patrick Kitano, consultant to the real estate industry and author of the Transparent Real Estate blog, says, “The Harper Team is providing an innovative, practical service to college students like Joseph by mentoring them on the real estate business and having them research and write blog articles about it. In return, the real estate community benefits from new local voices who explain the intricacies of how to buy and sell real estate. In effect, it is vocational training that prepares college students for a career… every industry should be looking at blogging as an intern and recruitment strategy.”

"I first met Joseph in the hallways at Inman's Real Estate Connect. I was taken by surprise. I'm not sure what I expected, but what Joseph presented was a young man clearly on a mission. He was polite, respectful, engaging, eyes bright and yet, did not seem the least bit intimidated by the surroundings of the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference. I've since added Joseph to my friends list at Facebook and have enjoyed our communications since that meeting. I'm looking forward to following him as he progresses through college and into his chosen profession. Needless to say, I'm already impressed, but I have a feeling I have only an inkling of the impact he'll have on his world."   -  Jeff Turner, President – RealEstateShows

“Helping Joseph into the blogoshere is not only important for the practical experience, the writing practice, and the research involved-it helps him craft an on-line presence/internet resume for colleges and employers to tap into throughout his career.” – Dean Guadagni – Dean’s Guide

Joseph was recently interviewed by Inman news which caused traffic to his site to spike as well as increasing interest in his story. As he heads off to college, he is wrestling with how to keep his lucrative blogging business going as he faces the demands of college life in an increasingly wired world.

Joseph is at UC San Diego studying journalism and economics. He is still contributing to four real estate blogs, though not as frequently.

There are a lot of smart, motivated students that could really profit from what blogging has to offer. It can be one of the greatest business tools they can use. It could help pay for their college education and it would probably put them in the position of having multiple job offers before their senior year of college begins.

I am more than happy to address any high school group or individual to share what we know about blogging and how it can be used effectively in varous business and personal scenarios.

I was the guest speaker on Tuesday at the Women’s Council of Realtors for southern Alameda County here in California.

It was another great lesson in how what seems simple to one person can often overwhelm others. Given the size of the group, about 60, I decided the workshop format would not probably not work for an hour talk.

I tried to focus the talk more of the why than the how of blogging, but that did not address all of the curiosity in the room.

After teaching blogging workshops to over 100 people in the Bay Area, I am of the opinion that the average business person would do much better hiring an Internet/Tech/Blogging coach for six months than to try and go it alone. Most real estate agents and affiliates that I have met rely on canned or templated “turnkey” solutions for their websites and technology needs. These solutions rarely perform to ‘sales pitch’ levels.

The Alameda chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors is very involved in our local communities and is a networking hub for those associated with the real estate industry. As such, I also tried to orient some of the talk around blogging as a basis for establishing an online netwroking presence.

My thanks to the WCR for the opportunity to address them. Thanks to Holly at the BalloonMan for one of my props.

Lastly, I hope you will be hearing more from this young man in the future. He is Joseph Natividad and we hope to have him as a regular contributor to our blog.

Joseph is a contributor to LIP – Life in Perspective, an East Bay blog founded by the Contra Costa Times for local high school students. I have been reading LIP for the last five months and have really enjoyed reading what these young adults have to say.

I’ve been looking for other bloggers in San Ramon, Danville, Dublin and Pleasanton, CA for months. There don’t seem to be many, in fact, I’ve only found two. So, I decided to create some.

I teamed up with Pat Kitano of TransparentRE.com to teach some blogging classes in the bay area. We have our third class coming up on Feb. 27 in Pleasanton. The focus of the classes has been oriented toward the real estate industry since we’re all in the industry, but I have been putting more and more attention into bringing in more business people from other areas.

Blogging is a fantastic way to increase your presence on the Internet. When I show people what is going on with The Harper Team site and the search engines like Google, their jaws hit the table. It’s one of those things that you really can’t grasp the significance of until you see it.

But this post isn’t about getting you to blog – it’s about a great group of bloggers I found throughout Contra Costa County. They’re the type of people that make you proud of your community. They’re an elite group of high school students and you can find them at I Should be Doing My Homework.

This is a blog community sponsored by the Contra Costa Times – our hats off to them. The CCTimes had an article on this group of bloggers on January 30 which is where I learned of them.

Since then, I’ve stopped in a few times and left a comment or two on some of the posts. There are a couple of students that are prolific writers. I doubt that they realize the impact that blogging can have on their futures at this time. In a year or two, maybe sooner, these students could be known-figures on the Internet with audiences in the tens of thousands. I’ll be interested to see where it all goes.

In the mean time, a salute to the students, their schools and parents and the Contra Costa Times.