Three years ago, while visiting friends in the wine-producing Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France, Timothy McDonald decided he wanted what they had: a chance to experience small-town life in what is sometimes described as an unspoiled and more affordable version of Provence. A year later McDonald home his wife, Kathleen Brooker, took a mortgage on their paid-up Seattle home and plunked down $200,000 in cash for a 15th-century former shop house in the remote agricultural village of Azille (pop. 1,100), 90 minutes from the Toulouse airport. The couple, both in their early 60s, plan to spend several months a year there after she retires someday from her job as executive director of Historic Seattle. (McDonald, a semiretired architectural preservationist, already spends a month at a time there.) While some aging boomers might put a premium on convenience or a place that can accommodate future physical limitations, McDonald and Brooker bought in a town without even a train station and from a contractor whose idea of tasteful renovations included removing the handrail on the narrow staircase of the three-story stone structure. And why not? They’re fit bikers, runners and history buffs who care more about the town’s proximity to Cathar Romanesque sites and enjoying their French, British and Swiss neighbors. “We wanted to have a bigger life, rather than have a bigger home in the U.S., and ironically we found it in a small French town,” says Brooker. Of course, American billionaires and celebrities have always lived large in Europe. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen reportedly keeps a staff of 12 at his hilltop villa in St. Jean Cap-Ferrat, along the Côte d’Azur. George Clooney‘s 30-room palazzo on Italy’s Lake Como has starred in many A-list parties. What they’re currently finding, says Ronan McMahon, who reports on real estate trends for the International Living website, is that European prices peaked between 2006 and 2008 and are now all over the map. Stratospheric London and Paris prices never fell that much and have headed back up. But an exodus of youth from rural France and Italy has made homes like the one Brooker and McDonald bought somewhat more affordable. But a weaker euro, low interest rates and crashing real estate prices in parts of the euro zone are prompting more ordinary American Europhiles to look at buying a piece of the Old World .  Then there are Europe’s real estate bust areas, which unlike, say, Nevada and Florida haven’t started their comebacks. McMahon’s advice for those areas: Wait until prices have fallen dramatically and be prepared to hold for a while. That makes him bullish on Spain and Ireland but bearish on Portugal’s Algarve and the Greek islands of Crete, Mykonos and Santorini, where prices are down only 30% from their peak. By contrast, along the scenic Ring of Kerry, near McMahon’s Adare, County Limerick, Ireland base, $100,000 can get you a country cottage, a newly built modern home or a building plot with views of the Atlantic. All would have fetched $500,000 at the peak. In Spain deal hunters have been scooping up apartments in failed developments from banks selling for one-third of the 2007?08 list price. A two-bedroom, two-bath apartment on the Costa del Sol with distant views (on a clear day) of the ocean less than a mile away can be had for $100,000. Beyond the state of the real estate market, consider how a purchase fits into your overall finances and whether you’re really game for the practical, legal and personal challenges of maintaining a home in another country and possibly retiring there. Visit the area you’re considering multiple times, rent a place (rather than staying in a hotel), shop for food, do laundry and get the full residential experience, good and bad. Ask yourself what you’re looking for: a base for travel or a charming destination? A primary or second home? Or maybe just a vacation place that you’ll also rent out? Read Full Article: [link url="https://storify.com/genarohilley/the-cindy-shearin-group-everything-you-need-to-kno"] Read More: [link url="http://manhattanvillage.info/"] [img src="chrome-extension://baockdcbjglcifghbgakofkmajnjfkki/images/icon.png"]

Posted by randfish NOTE: All of the slide decks in this post are free to download and distribute, as are any of the stats/graphics in them (please reference the source if you do). Hopefully they'll be helpful learning tools and will make your deck-building processes easier than mine have been! The past few weeks have been a whirlwind for me, and they're not slowing down anytime soon. Just 2 weeks ago, I jetted off to San Marino (a small country in the northeastern part of Italy) with my travel blogging wife,Hannah Smith from Distilled, Marcus Tandler + Niels Dorje of TandlerDorje, Gianluca Fiorelli and Google'sAvinash Kaushik (along with several great local speakers). Below are two of my presentations from that event (Be-Wizard): The Evolution of Google's Rankings [video src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=google-ranking-evolution-2011-110312032701-phpapp01&rel=0&stripped_title=the-evolution-of-googles-rankings&userName=randfish"] 弹出 View more presentations from randfish Social Media Marketing for Traffic + SEO [video src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=social-media-traffic-seo-2011-110312073857-phpapp02&rel=0&stripped_title=social-media-marketing-for-traffic-seo&userName=randfish"] 弹出 View more presentations from randfish From there, I headed to Rome, where, thanks to the US State Department and LUISS University, I gave a talk on entrepreneurship and told the story of SEOmoz, which contains my usual level of oversharing and transparency: The Story of Moz: 1981-2011 [video src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=entrepreneurship-marketing-rome-2011-110314132129-phpapp01&rel=0&stripped_title=the-story-of-moz-19812011&userName=randfish"] 弹出 View more presentations from randfish In Rome, I also did a video interview with Robin Good of MasterNewMedia on a number of SEO related topics. After our interview, he filmed my presentation of the "Story of Moz" deck above, which, depending on quality, may be available sometime in the near future. Next up was London for the awesome Link Building event from Distilled (can't share decks from that, sorry) followed by 2 days at home in Seattle and then a mad dash to Phoenix for Infusioncon (just before Link Building V2 in New Orleans). At InfusionCon, I gave a fairly comprehensive, SEO 101 style talk that was quite well received: 10 Steps to Great SEO: InfusionCon 2011 [video src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=infusioncon-10-steps-seo-110322133122-phpapp02&rel=0&stripped_title=10-steps-to-great-seo-infusioncon-2011&userName=randfish"] 弹出 View more presentations from randfish One thing I've noticed that's very powerful as a marketing/influence tactic for me personally is the sharing of my slidedecks on services like Slideshare. Because I'll often tweet the link to the presentation as I go on stage or just prior, I'm able to give the audience an opportunity to download and follow along. This has several cool effects: The slideshow URL gets tweeted and re-tweeted and seen by thousands more people than just the few hundred usually in the room. Those attendees are often the most active sharers, resulting in a terrific, positive re-inforcement cycle (so long as I do a good job) :-) Having the slideshow seen by so many often means it goes to the frontpage of Slideshare, getting even more exposure. When I spend a dozen or more hours making a slide deck for a presentation to 300 people, it's great to know that there's the potential to get much more exposure via inbound marketing of that content afterward The slideshow pages contain lots of links, which drives visits to many web marketing sites I reference, as well as SEOmoz itself. Those sites who get traffic often send me notes of thanks (when it's I who should be thanking them for making my job easier) and everyone wins as the audience gets valuable links and the sites, Moz included, get high quality, relevant traffic. If you're on the road at events large or small, let me highly recommend this approach. And, hopefully, these slide decks prove useful, too! My next few trips will take me to SMX Munich, where I'll be leaking our first results from the user surveys and correlation data collected for the 2011 version of the Search Engine Ranking Factors. After that, I'm off to SMX Sydney, where I'll be on a number of panels around SEO topics. In late May, we're working to hold an informal, free Moz meetup with Avi Wilensky's ProMediaCorp in New York City (dates/specifics TBD) followed immediately by Distilled's Boston PRO Training seminar and, finally a keynote of SMX France in Paris in early June.