Guest Blog Contributed by Chamber Member Lori Powers of Academy Mortgage Corporation

Spring is here — and with it comes the most popular time of year to shop for a home. Many people have mistaken ideas about down payments that keep them from becoming homeowners.

Here are five down payment myths and why they’re false:

MYTH 1: I must pay a 20% down payment.

Not true. The typical down payment today is between 5% and 10%, according to SmartAsset.

MYTH 2: My down payment has to be all my own money.

Not true. Borrowers have several options for saving for a home, including gifts from family, such as wedding gifts; grants from nonprofit agencies or public institutions; state down payment assistance programs; and employer assistance.… Read the rest

Guest Blog Contributed by Chamber Member Ron Le Vine, Efficient Portal

Over the years, we have had many people ask us about SEO. So, I thought I would write about it for a bit. First, I will start with some history and then get into how to think about SEO in the current times.

Back in the early days of the Internet people would build a site and then tell their friends and colleges about it. Sometimes the sites were useful. Sometimes not.

Later on, the search engines were developed with the idea of providing users of the Internet a way to search the thousands of websites for information they needed. Sites like Infoseek.com, Yahoo.com, and so on, came into being and successful by providing this service.… Read the rest

Guest Blog Contributed by Chamber Member Brad Kleiner of Sandler Training in Wilsonville.

5 Ways to Evaluate the Success of Your Team

Improving your efficiency or effectiveness is only as good as your method of determining and evaluating success. It’s easy to earn a win here or there, but repeated success over a long period of time can only be done through hard work, analysis, and reinforcement. Below, we have outlined five ways to gauge the success of your team, how you got there, and what to do to keep it up.

1. Establish a clear baseline.

First, you must establish a bottom line. This should be the level that you expect your team to operate at, if nothing changes. This is very much like a control group in a scientific experiment – an unadulterated sample for you to track along with actual performance.… Read the rest