Mediaboss Marketing

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Akron and Cleveland aren't known for their warm and fuzzy relationship.

Yet two real estate boards, representing 4,500 professionals in Northeast Ohio, are considering a merger that might blur lines between the cities and build a stronger, unified voice to highlight housing issues in the region.

Across the country, nonprofit groups that represent real estate brokers and agents are talking about consolidation. Faced with changing technology and a challenging housing market, these local boards are fighting to stay relevant, effective and affordable for their members. Now the Cleveland Area Board of Realtors and the Akron Area Board of Realtors could become one large organization, in an effort to combat the loss of dues-paying members.

Leaders of both boards say the discussions are still in their infancy. But they're hoping to know this year whether they can pull off a smooth marriage between two major metropolitan real estate boards. As local governments and other nonprofits groups talk up regionalism, proponents point to an Akron-Cleveland real estate board as a model that can work -- and one that might encourage other, smaller boards to join.

"There are a lot of agencies in Northeast Ohio, and there are a lot of organizations that are doing great things," said Howard "Hoby" Hanna, president of Howard Hanna Ohio and a member of a task force discussing the potential Cleveland-Akron deal. "But sometimes, they're doing the same thing. ... If there was a little bit more consolidation, we might get more done."

Chartered by the 1 million-member National Association of Realtors, local real estate boards represent the interests of members, including residential and commercial real estate brokers, agents and appraisers.

Put simply, these boards aim to make the profession professional, through a code of ethics, common practices, education and shared market information accessible through private real estate listing services.

Nearly 1,400 Realtor boards and associations are scattered across the United States. Seventy-two percent of them have 300 or fewer members. Eight, in cities including Miami and Houston, are super-sized, with more than 10,000 members. AABOR and CABOR fall in the middle, with 1,367 and 3,147 members, respectively, according to the Ohio Association of Realtors.

A more regional board would provide the same services and support, with greater efficiency, said Joanne Zettl, chairwoman-elect of the Cleveland board and a Realtor with Street Sotheby's International Realty.

For consumers, she said, a merger could mean that real estate agents in the region will be better informed, with access to national speakers and higher-quality education on housing issues.

Go here to read the rest:
Cleveland, Akron real estate boards may merge their houses, reflecting a consolidation trend

Published: Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 7:54 a.m. Last Modified: Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 7:54 a.m.

LAKELAND | The Polk County Sheriff's Office is warning about a new scam involving phony real estate listings on Craigslist.

Scammers, usually located overseas in remote areas, copy ads found elswhere on the Internet for properties that are for sale or rent by real estate agents. They repost them on Craigslist for well below market value under fake names.

Buyers or renters who fall for the hoax send a deposit to the scammer's bank account and wait for contracts or deeds to be delivered. The scammers keep the money and the victim is out of luck.

Local man Owen Castleman says his family was scammed.

It all started with his daughter needing a new place to live. He told her about a house he had seen in Lakeland, which she found online.

Same home happened to show up on Craigslist, Castleman said.

The Castlemans used a supplied email address to write to the supposed owners, who claimed to be missionaries in Africa. They wrote back and said they needed the Castlemans to wire money for the down payment of $500.

But after the money was sent, the scammers asked for more money and wouldn't turn over the key.

That's when the Castlemans grew suspicious. They located the real owners of the home and learned they'd been had.

Read the original:
Sheriff's Office Warns of Real Estate Scam

30-03-2012 07:35 TFI-News interviewed Florida DOT Secretary of Transportation Ananth Prasad, PE at the recent TFI-News US P3 Forum in New York where he discusses the P3 projects pipeline and explains when the next road deals will be coming to market.

Read more here:
P3-TV Interview: Florida DOT Transport Secretary Prasad on the Next P3 Road Deals - Video

30-03-2012 12:22 *Bonus video of marley attacking Alli: *get your very own CTFxC posters here : *Twitter: & *Yesterday's video: *Tomorrow's video: *Facebook: *Our (We The Kings) Tour Dates: *Subscribe to our main skit channel if u arent: Google+:

More here:
BEST INTERNET MEME EVER! - Video

The recent New Democratic Party convention in Toronto may have done more than just select Thomas Mulcair as the partys new leader. It may have also buried the prospect of online voting in Canada for the foreseeable future.

While Internet-based voting supporters have consistently maintained that the technology is safe and secure, the NDPs experience in which a denial of service attack resulted in long delays and inaccessible websites demonstrates that turning to Internet voting in an election involving millions of voters would be irresponsible and risky.

As voter turnout has steadily declined in recent years, Elections Canada has focused on increasing participation by studying Internet-based voting alternatives. The appeal of online voting is obvious. Canadians bank online, take education courses online, watch movies online, share their life experiences through social networks online, and access government information and services online. Given the integral role the Internet plays in our daily lives, why not vote online as well?

The NDP experience provides a compelling answer.

Democracy depends upon a fair, accurate, and transparent electoral process with independent verification of the results. Conventional voting may typically require heading down to the polling station, but doing so accomplishes many of these goals. Private polling stations enable citizens to cast their votes anonymously, election day scrutineers provide oversight, and paper-based ballots can be recounted if needed.

There are ways to build anonymity and oversight into an online election process, but as the NDP experienced, there is no way to guarantee it will be disruption-free. In the NDPs case, 10,000 computers were used in a distributed denial-of-service attack designed to overwhelm the online voting system and effectively render it unusable for authorized voters.

The only real surprise about the attack is that it took anyone by surprise. Not only is a denial-of-service attack typically cited as the most likely security disruption, the NDP experienced much the same thing at its last leadership convention in 2003. Reports from that convention which only involved a single ballot to elect Jack Layton as the new party leader indicate that there was a denial-of-service attack that similarly delayed the voting process.

Online voting threats are not limited to denial-of-service attacks. Security experts point to the danger of counterfeit websites, phishing attacks, hacks into the election system, or the insertion of computer viruses that tamper with election results as real world threats to an Internet-based voting system.

While several Canadian municipalities have successfully used Internet voting, those elections were unlikely to be viewed as targets for attack since groups seeking to disrupt an online election will likely prefer to take aim at high profile events that offer maximum exposure.

Douglas Jones and Barbara Simons, the authors of the forthcoming book Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count, note that people running pilots are likely to declare success, in spite of any problems that might crop up. However, it is dangerous to draw conclusions from what appears to be a successful Internet voting pilot. If the election is insignificant, there is little to no motivation to sabotage the election.

Read more:
Internet voting carries risk as show by NDP experience