I’ve written before about what real estate agents should do if they’re interested in helping their agents sell their homes quickly for the highest price possible. Lots of high quality property photos do the trick. It’s not the only trick, but it helps prospective buyers decide whether a house is worth visiting, thus worth buying.

But what if, as a buyer, you want to get the best deal you can get on a property in your town? In that case, taking the exact opposite approach to searching may help you discover some hidden deals.

Think about it: Property listings with no photos get less traffic, thus less showings, thus less competition. Because of this, they end up staying on the market longer and end up selling for less than they otherwise would. All because the listing agent was too lazy to snap some pictures and load them to the web.

It makes me wonder how much energy lazy agents will put into other aspects of the real estate transaction from marketing through negotiating a deal. If they can’t find the time to take photos, can they find time to negotiate a competitive closing price on their client’s behalf?

So there’s the opportunity: Dig through the dregs of home listings to find anonymous homes that will sell for less than they otherwise would. Sure, it’s a major pain that you shouldn’t have to go through, but the savings may make it worth the extra effort.

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Book of the Month: The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World

Gadget of the Month: Kensington Mini Battery Extender and Charger for iPod and iPhone
Web Site of the Month: Google Docs - Used to Write Technology Evangelist Posts
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Recently I have become more aware of people around me who are struggling to transition into the digital age. For example, I was recently introduced to someone who uses email to communicate, only because they have to for work. If it were up to them, they wouldn’t use it at all. What’s worse is that […]

This is a ChargeCarte by SmarteCarte in the Cincinnati airport that lets travelers pay to top of the batteries on their mobile devices and laptops:

This is the power outlet that’s no longer available to business travelers because SmarteCarte controls it:

I wrote about this in Feb 2007 when this first came out and suggested that this would lead to less free outlets for travelers:

Over time, It will surely become more difficult to find open outlets in airports with Smarte Carte power outlets installed since that would cut into the vendor’s profits. Contractually, the airport will probably have to waste money putting caps on non-Smarte Carte publicly accessible outlets. Ever seen a FREE luggage cart in an airport with Smart Cartes installed?

At that time, a SmartCarte representative contacted me (rather than comment) and said this wouldn’t happen.

It did.

I don’t blame SmartCarte for this. The Cincinnati airport has chosen to put a business relationship with SmarteCarte ahead of the travelers who pass through their airport every day.

Do the board members of the Cincinnati airport commission charge visitors to their homes for use of power? No? Then why do they treat their airport’s guests with such disrespect?

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Book of the Month: The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World

Gadget of the Month: Kensington Mini Battery Extender and Charger for iPod and iPhone
Web Site of the Month: Google Docs - Used to Write Technology Evangelist Posts
Technology Evangelist Podcasts: Subscribe to Podcast Feed
Technology Evangelist Videos: Subscribe to Video Feed

I’ve been an iPhone owner for about a year now, and I have jailbroken it off and on throughout the time that I’ve owned it. When I first got the device I jailbroke it to play with some of the apps people were developing, but I really didn’t see any that were must-haves, and they […]

Windows only
The other day I was having troubles with one of my machines regarding the .NET framework. As you probably already know many Windows applications require that you have a specific version of the .NET framework installed (1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, etc…) in order for them to function properly. Unfortunately Microsoft […]

Yahoo put out a rosy headline about their new data retention policy that limits the time they store data such as search logs, page views, and ad views, titled, “Yahoo! Sets New Industry Privacy Standard with Data Retention Policy.“

Great spin, but I don’t think that’s really why they did what they did. My guess is that they did this because they couldn’t figure out a way to create value based on user’s extensive search histories. Or their returns diminished to the point of not being valuable.

I can’t figure out how it wouldn’t be valuable to keep a rolling 1-year of data. Wouldn’t it be valuable to be able to look at someone’s behavior during the same time a year before, such as the holiday shopping season, to determine what a person may be looking for?

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Book of the Month: The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World

Gadget of the Month: Kensington Mini Battery Extender and Charger for iPod and iPhone
Web Site of the Month: Google Docs - Used to Write Technology Evangelist Posts
Technology Evangelist Podcasts: Subscribe to Podcast Feed
Technology Evangelist Videos: Subscribe to Video Feed

There has been more talk about web browsers in the last few weeks than any time I can remember in the past. Google Chrome came out of the Beta phase, Opera unveiled the first Alpha release of version 10, Internet Explorer 8 is suspected to have a 3rd Beta coming in the next month, and […]

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we […]

When Ryan and I originally planned out the schedule for this Giveaway, we thought we’d have no problem announcing the winners on the site by Friday at 8:00 PM Central Time. We thought wrong! There were over 80 people to notify via email that they won, before announcing the winners on the site. Believe it […]

Here’s a quick reminder for those of you who want to enter any of the Birthday Giveaways from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but haven’t actually entered. You have less than two hours at this point to do so. You will only be able to enter until 7PM Central Time tonight, December 11th.

Remember The Milk Pro […]