You're OK, We're OK, They're Locked Up !

Hi Folks,
   I hope all is well.

   Not many companies have the audacity to say this publicly, however, if you cannot be honest when speaking to the good people who visit your website and blog, to which you've dedicated over a decade working on and enjoying...well, then is it all really worth it? With all of that babble out of the way, we had some malware hit our site last weekend. Immediately, I know this question would be on the minds of at least 99% of you: We had no compromise of personal data. This was not a breach, but more of a nuisance than anything else.

   I'm not one for acting like a parrot, but let me repeat that line above: We did not experience any compromise of personal data. This was not a breach, but more of a nuisance than anything else.

   This particular type of malware was a low-level one, which would redirect you to advertising for things that could be considered moderately vulgar, and if you've experienced any weird pages ("Redirects") via our site last weekend, I personally apologize, however, we have not received any reports (yet, we prefer to err on the side of caution!).

   Thankfully, the good folks at Hostway, the company that hosts our web server/web site (they are referred to as a "hosting company"), maintain our website on a PCI/Secure server, and they snapped into action to help us rid the pesky code that caused the issue. Kudos to the whole team at Hostway!

   Now, some of you who feel infuriated by those that make such malicious attempts on websites, such as the ones perpetrated against Apple and GoDaddy just recently, will take solace in the following updates I will now provide you with, so keep reading!

   We have been in business for 10 years, and we have an extensive reach into many emerging markets that are ripe for the "Rent to Own Home" model to stoke their Housing Markets and Economies. One such market region is Eastern Europe/Ukraine/Russia. With some well-cultivated local contacts, and along with the U.S. Consulate Offices in 2 different countries (and yes, a few Federal Agents in the family doesn't hurt, either!), we have been able to locate the source of this intrusion via traffic/timing pinpoint, and have apprehended the group of snot-nosed teenagers (18-20 year olds) who did this. If I had time, I would fly there for their trial, and spit in their faces! However, I believe in our system of justice, and we model ourselves on not being barbaric and crude as many others tend to be.

   The sad thing here is that with the amount of work they put into their devious art, and with their intelligence, they could have collectively worked with us to advance their Economies, and make even more money. Well, I certainly hope they will enjoy their jail cell, which I have been made aware of the physical locations they are being held. I did a quick Google search on these places, and I think they'll be paying quite well for their sins. To this, I smile, and I say, "May all of those out to disrupt our economy enjoy the comforts of a rotten filthy jail cell". Hey fellas, here's a tip for your stay behind bars: Don't drop the soap !!

   We bring you truth, whether it's admitting a bump in the road, or showing you how powerful our site is in helping you Buy a Rent to Own Home or Sell a Rent to Own Home.

Would You Like Our Blog Posts Sent Directly to your E-mail? Here's How:

1. Locate the "Subscribe by E-mail" box on the Right Side of your Screen.
2. Type your E-mail address in the box, and click "Submit"
3. Check Your E-mail and Confirm Your Subscription...it's That Simple !

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
Rent to Own Homes and Real Estate Blog for HomeRun Homes: http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Websites: http://www.lease2buy.com and http://www.homerunhomes.com


TAGS: #malware #redirect #blog #website #renttoown #home #hosting #webserver #website #housingmarket #Europe #Ukraine #Russia

And Then There Was a Podcast...

Hi Folks,

   Glad to have you back here today.

   We live in a world that is constantly on the go. We live on our mobile phones, Blackberries, Droids, IPhones, IPads, laptops, etc. While some people enjoy finding time to read through their favorite Blogs and Feeds, the vast majority of people do tend to have a hard time nowadays.

   Podcasts have become immensely popular, since you can listen to them on any device that can play MP3 (Sound) files. Basically, for those who are not familiar with this, a Podcast is a portable broadcast, and as it applies to the world of Blogs, it is the spoken version of a Blog post that you can listen to while on the go.

   For almost a year, I have been personally recording Podcasts of the most popular and most heavily-trafficked posts on my Blog. The negative is that is takes such a long time to record, edit, upload, link, etc, for each Podcast. This huge amount of time makes it virtually impossible to have a Podcast for every single on of my Blog Posts, of which some of you had E-mailed me about since I began Podcasting last year.

   We recently have been evaluating a number of different products to automate this and meet the requests mentioned above. We have decided on one of these products called, Odiogo, which automatically generates a Podcast shortly after I have made the Post. This is now an active feature, and you can begin using it right away with the "listen now" button that is directly under the Title of each Blog Post.

   Now, the one "drawback" for you is that it is a computer-generated voice (and if you don't like my voice, this might actually be an improvement for you). However, we look at it as a trade-off; In order to have a constant stream of portable content for you, we had to take this route with the computer-generated voice. Going forward, we will evaluate some more natural-sounding voices, but for now, we wanted to make you aware of this new feature that is "live" right now.

   Feel free to hop onto the Blog and listen or download the Podcasts (remember, as I mentioned above, there is a short lag of a few hours from when the Post is made and when the Podcast for that Post is generated). We would absolutely love your feedback on this.

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com

Happy Blog Birthday And Some New Housing Numbers

Hi All,

   As the month of March has arrived, we are glad to be celebrating our 1-Year Blog Anniversary. We started the Blog as a source of information regarding our Rent to Own website, and it has blossomed into a machine that keeps pumping out info on the Real Estate Market, Housing and Economic Numbers, Rent to Own, along with experts and professionals providing their invaluable info, comments, and opinions. Thanks for sticking with us, and remember, our Blog can be delivered directly to your E-mail as soon as we post (See the right hand side for subscription options - yes, it's free, and you will NOT be on a mailing list - it is only a subscription to receive the Blog posts, we promise!).

   In the spirit of keeping the information machine running, Pending Home Sales and Construction numbers were released this week, and we would like to take a look at them together with you today.

   Pending Homes Sales dropped 2.8% from December 2010 to January 2011, and is down 1.5% from January 2010 to January 2011. It is interesting to point out that the numbers are 20.6% above the "cyclical low last June", according to the National Association of Realtors®.

   In terms of Construction numbers as a whole, they dropped 0.7% from December 2011 to January 2011, and also dropped from January 2010 to January 2011, to the tune of almost 6%. Private Construction dropped from December 2010 to January 2011, with Nonresidential Construction dropping almost 7% during that period. Another interesting point here is that Residential Construction increased by 5.3% over December 2010. Public Construction was up 0.1% from December 2010 to January 2011, with Highway Construction dropping 0.7% during that period, while Educational Construction increased 1.7%.

   Does a decrease in Highway Construction, coupled with an increase in Educational Construction indicate a stronger emphasis on building more schools vs. building more infrastructure, or is it just an aberration? What are your thoughts?

   Thank you again for being a part of our Blog and a part of our family !

Have a Great Weekend, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com

Holiday Wishes From HomeRun Homes

Hi Everyone,

   Hope your week is going smoothly. At this time, you may very well have visions of sugar plums dancing in your head, so I will make this short and sweet today !

   I just want to take this time to thank you for being a dedicated reader of my blog, and to say that I truly and genuinely appreciate the time you have spent reading my observations, views, (and sometimes even my rants!), and further, I hope that you've learned a thing or two along the way. As always, you can always contact me in order to suggest any topics or issues for me to investigate, review, and post in this blog. I am ready, willing, and able to accommodate you, as always.

   This will be our last post until Monday 12/27, so to our friends that celebrate Christmas, I wish you the Merriest Christmas ever, from our family and our company to you and your family. May the season bring you peace, serenity, and joy.

Have a Great Weekend, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com

Grandma's Lesson, HR 5623, and More...

Hi Everyone,

Happy last day of June to all of you! I cannot believe that we are turning the page into July. Time truly flies !

I wanted to share a funny story with you from my younger years (way, way back!), when I was a big collector of baseball cards. Everyone knew that I loved collecting baseball cards. One day, my grandmother knew that I was looking for a Pete Rose rookie card, which I knew as quite a pricey item. She went to her local hobby shop, and they had the card, so she kindly asked for the price, and they said two fifty. Not wanting to make the purchase without having me checking the card first, she called me up and I was on my bicycle to her house within minutes. Once we got to the store, I saw that it was definitely the card I wanted. My grandma dug deep inside her little purse, and she pulled out two dollars and fifty cents. The guy behind the counter looked at her like she was crazy, and said, "Sorry, two fifty means two hundred and fifty dollars". After giving my grandma adequate cold water to snap her back to reality from the "sticker shock", I came to realize a very valuable lesson: "In Writing".

I just cannot say this enough. I referred to it a while back (Mortgage Horror Story Blog Post), when I had to re-learn that lesson the hard way. May you all learn from this so that it may never cause you heartache and problems.

On another front, some good news came across the wires yesterday, which basically stated that the House OK'd the extension of tax credit closing deadline. This Bill, the "HR 5623", would give people some breathing room, should the Senate pass it when they vote on it. Per the Inman News Website, there are approximately 200,000 people who were under contract by the tax credit expiration of 4/30, but they will miss the closing deadline, which was today.

On the website front, we had our Rent to Own Home Blog posts streaming on our home page. however, there were some errors coming up from the Content Aggregation service, so we have removed it for now. As always, you can read, follow, and interact on our Blog right here !


Have a great day, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Top 6 Housing Features that Define Comfort

Hi Everyone,

Hope you have had a great week, and the Memorial Day Weekend is upon us. Literally...it's hours away !

We recently took a poll amongst people advertising their Rent to Own homes on our website, and we asked them a very specific question: "What do you consider the most attractive features of your home and neighborhood?". We posed the same question to people looking for a Rent to Own Home on our website, but we changed it slightly to say, "What would you consider the most attractive features of a potential new home and new neighborhood?" The results were tallied, and we have summarized the top 6 of them, since they were the most popular by a landslide. Here is what we found out:

6 Housing Features that Define "Comfort":
1. Ability to make the rental or house payments
2. Proximity to Employment
3. Proximity to Family
4. How easy it is to get around locally - bus routes, trains, etc
5. Amount of traffic in (1-mile) perimeter around the home.
6. Proximity to Houses of Worship

If you are all thinking the same thing I am, it is amazing that the majority is primarily concerned with being able to make the payments. I wonder if we had done the same poll 3 years ago, if the results would be different? We can only wonder. Incidentally, take note of #3 ("Proximity to Family") - my Mother-in-Law lives overseas - so I am living outside that particular rule (wonderful lady - but space is good, universally).


OK, this week, we have been syndicating our Blog across may more Social Media sites, and, we are very proud to announce:
Our Podcasts are now available on ITunes for Free Download. The exact link to our ITunes Store is:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=373351426.

We will try to make at least 1 or more Podcasts per week, coupled with our 3 +/- Blog Posts per week.


A few reminders: We offer very generous referral fees (contact us here for more information). Also, the Pending Home Sales index will be released next Wednesday, June 2nd, and it will cover the month of April. Keep your eyes peeled for that one.


May you have a fantastic Holiday Weekend.
And as always, Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Facebook, Twitter, Podcast...

Hi All,

Hope you had a great week!

We just finished up with an interview for a new website focusing on home buyers in the 20-35 year old range, and that article should be out late month (or early June), so we will keep you posted.

It's been a really quiet week in terms of Economic News for the Real Estate/Rent to Own Market. We are just watching the market and that horrendous spill in the Gulf.
We pray that they cap it before it damages the wildlife and the local Gulf businesses. As a side/personal note - Gulf Shrimp and Gulf Oysters have always been my weakness.

We have just had our Facebook profile shortened to a much prettier address:
http://www.facebook.com/homerunhomes, and as some of you already know, our Twitter Address is: http://www.twitter.com/homerunhomes

Do you see a pattern emerging in the naming?


OK, so a News Flash: We are boldly looking to endeavor into the world of Podcasting, which for those of you who are not aware of them, they are basically Blog Posts, but in a voice recording that you can download and play on your Ipod or MP3 player.

Now, I am not crazy about my recorded voice, however, a lot of you have spoken and asked me to do this. So the answer is, "Yes", I will give it a try.

If our team is able to successfully organize the techie side of it, I will post the Podcast here on the Blog. Apparently, this saves a lot of time when you can listen to the Blog as opposed to reading it. Please be patient as we try to figure this one out - I'm off to do some voice exercises now (kidding).

Please check back Monday for more news!
Have a great weekend, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !




My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-820fd66e75f39e338c13a2a4fd033585}

US Cities, Secrets of Rent to Own, and Joy

Happy Monday to All,

We hope you had a productive weekend.

First, we would like to thank all of the winners of the Free Copy of "Secrets of Rent to Own", and we hope you enjoy reading it and putting what you learn into action! For those of you who missed out, you can check out this handy guide, "Secrets of Rent to Own", at this link: http://www.lease2buy.com/rent2ownbook.php

If you would like to be included for a personal Pre-Blog notification of further contests and give-aways, please send an E-mail to homebuyer@lease2buy.com with the Subject Line, "This Blog-Reader wants in !"

On the flip side, we saw an interesting article worth mentioning, that discussed U.S. Cities In Free Fall, and I, personally, was amazed to see only Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville in the top 5. Orlando/Central FL was not in the top 5, and I found this actually encouraging. I don't know - I am open to your comments on this one. No matter what they say, there are deals to be had, and in some of these areas, there are pockets of recovery - again, I am open to comments on that as well.

On that note, I hope everyone has a great week. Be sure to choose "FOLLOW" us (Right Hand Column of this page) to be notified of new Blog updates, new contests, new information (and all around joy...OK, well, LOL on the "joy" part).

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning

Blog will move over to lease2buy.com website

So we are now working feverishly in order to move the blog under the umbrella of lease2buy.com

We are working with the kind folks at Google and our Hosting Provider in order to get this squared away.

I'll personally spare you the technical geeky details, but be assured that this will be a good source of behind the scenes information for you.

Juicy tidbit - here is a great link that shows when all of those vital economic indicators are released: http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/national_economy/nationalecon_cal.html