It's official.

This afternoon our female mail carrier delivered the document I've been waiting for and hoping to receive before we left for Georgia. That's right, I'm now a licensed real estate agent in both California and Georgia, legally able to work in both states as long as my license is current.

Should I help you with a transaction in CA while I'm living in GA or vice versa? Of course not. That wouldn't be practical.

But it is nice to know I can work in either state, leaving my options wide open for the future.

I got a phone call yesterday from my lender about 11:30am. He said his email to me wasn't going through and was instead bouncing back to him immediately. I checked my with my mail server and deleted all email I'd already retrieved to make room, thinking the large attachment he was sending was the problem.

Nope.

He was still having a problem emailing me, so I told him to go to my website and submit his message through my contact form there. Then he said something to me that caused me to literally drop my phone.

"Um...I think someone hijacked your web site. You might want to check it out."

I immediately went to www.craigmbeck.com and discovered he was right. My site was not there anymore. Instead, a holding page, advertising the current availability of my domain was planted right there by my *own* domain registrar! I was flabbergasted and told him I'd call him back as soon as I straightened this out.

A quick check with both my domain registrar and web host confirmed my growing fears. Incredibly my domain registration had somehow expired 5 days ago! Fortunately, I acted quickly, within the one week grace period, and nothing happened, but this could have been financially and professionally devastating. Considering I've got my web site and email plastered all over my business cards, stationary, and email signature, not to mention how that would look to someone who decided to check out my web site or email me back after I had met or worked with them in person, that would have been bad. The good news is that my lender is also a personal friend, so the damage was minimal and the holding page had only been put up that morning.

However, there are clearly a few lessons for anyone to take from my near miss experience:

A) If you maintain a web site for your profession or business, check it daily to make sure the site is doing what you *think* it should be doing.

This should be a given, but as you know, there are so many things that go on in a single business day, that checking your own site isn't always a top priority. However, you should make it one. I can tell you that after this little episode, I certainly will be checking in daily on my own.

B) Don't put too much faith in any one, or anyone's system, or even their back up system or contingency plans.

Although I host my web site with 1and1, I had purchased my domain earlier from GoDaddy on the recommendation of a friend who said they had great specials. And they do. I highly recommend them: When I called, I had an actual tech support person on the line in less than 2 minutes!

I had bought my domain before I even had a web site to pair it with, and I paid $3.95 for a year, making certain to enable the auto renew option so I could, "set it and forget it". Problem is, a year can bring about many changes. The tech at GoDaddy ensured me their auto renew system was functioning properly, but the credit card I had left on file with them had been closed. Their backup plan to this was to send an email to the address on file letting me know my registration of the domain name had expired and was unable to be renewed. That didn't work though, since my email on file is tied to that expired domain. Therefore, if I hadn't actually checked my site, or in this case had a fellow professional I was working with notify me, the week long grace period could have easily expired and I might have actually lost the rights to my own domain name!

C) The best price isn't always the best deal.

Sure, at the time, a year for less than $4 was great for something I wasn't certain I was going to use to the extent I do now. However, once I made a greater investment in my web site, especially in a professional realm, I should have gone to the extent to extend my ownership into the future. I'm now registered until 2015. To be honest, I'm not even sure what I paid per year. I was just out to protect my domain at whatever cost by that point, hardly a smart way to shop.

D) Locking your door is a good thing.

The only thing that protected me from someone stealing my domain was the fact I had locked it. Many domain name registrars require you to unlock your domain before you can make changes, such as renewals or DNS settings. However, much like Ebay used to face the issue before introducing proxy bidding, people may have bots or scripts running that could then beat you to the punch when you unlocked your domain to renew or make changes, similar to what the phone companies used to call "Slamming" and thanks to Federal Legislation, the reason you have to talk to a third party when changing phone services.

Why would anyone do this? The idea is simply to pick up any and all likely available domain names people could want and squat on them until someone approaches them to buy it and then profit from it. Call it the beauty of the American business model. You'd be surprised how many people make/made a good living doing this. A good example of unintentional squatting would be a site like www.MikeRoweSoft.com. You think Mike got a free Xbox out of them?

E) Your domain name, just like your given name, is worth protecting.

Once you've obtained your domain and have invested time, money, and effort into it, shouldn't you take care of it? Of course you should.

In business, it is commonly accepted that it can take decades to build up a solid reputation and only one careless act to destroy all of that hard work. You wouldn't knowingly let anyone slander you in the newspaper, so don't leave anyone the opportunity to trash your good name on-line.

Carelessness or ignorance, neither of which you or I can stake claim to any longer, is a weak excuse for inaction.

The buyer of my home removed all of his contingencies on Monday. Their real estate agent called to let me know before faxing over the paperwork. I also got a fax from the lender's agent that my loan was approved and Liberty Mutual's insurance agent faxed me 3 quotes to insure my new home in GA. The circle is certainly tightening up here as we prepare to move in just 3 weeks. I can't wait!

Even though I help people go through this process all the time, it never ceases to amaze me how complex the process of buying and selling a home can get, even more so through federal legislation to simplify it. I am not alone though. I've simply been dealing with a stressful situation over the last 6 weeks that is not unique - the selling of one home, while buying another.

Psychologists will tell you that among the top five most emotionally stressful events in life, moving is one of them. The other four are death of a loved one, marriage, child birth, and major injury. Side note: Last year my wife slipped on some loose stairwell carpeting and was in a wheelchair for 8 weeks. It was 4 days after we got married, on our honeymoon, and we had moved in to our new home less than a month beforehand -- in 5 weeks she experienced 3 of the top 5 and survived, so even you can make it through a move.

Once you've decided to take on a move, the first choice you have to make is whether to sell first or buy first. I could go on for quite some time about the logic and advantage of both sides, but in a nutshell it comes down to this: Is it more important to you to lock down the new home, or to sell the old one? That should be the onus of your decision. I chose to buy my new home first, while I still owned the old one.

While someone risky in that I could have been paying two mortgages if my home had not sold, I was confident in my ability as a real estate agent to stage, market, and price my own home accordingly. I sold it in 10 days while my next door neighbors home, which went on the market 3 weeks earlier than mine did, is still languishing on the market after 90 days and two price reductions. Object Lesson: Do NOT overprice your home. It will be your downfall financially and emotionally.

Although a typical move is done within the same state or locale, usually within 5-10 miles of the previous home, an out of state move is not as uncommon as you might think. When you consider moving on paper, the idea is simple: Sell one house, buy another, pack up, then move.

However, in the process of doing so you have to deal with agents. Who are these agents? They are people who are empowered to act for or represent another person or entity. And there's lots of them hiding in every nook and cranny of the home buying or selling experience!

As many as 4 individual real estate agents, who may have 4 completely different personalities, can be involved in this type of transaction! There's the agent representing your home sale, the agent representing the buyer's of your home, the agent representing the purchase of your new home, and the agent of the seller of the home you wish to buy. If you start working with agents who are couples or teams, or have transaction coordinators who handle all their paperwork, it can get even crazier!

Considering you've already got to deal with movers, home inspectors, appraisers, insurance agencies, contractors, termite inspectors, cleaners, escrow companies, lenders, banks, and your own family and pets, wouldn't you want to consolidate or coordinate some of those people and the information they relay through just one real estate agent or firm?

I certainly would. I'm dealing with 4 different agents right now, all working for different real estate companies in 2 different states and time zones, and that has certainly lead to some complications and confusion of the message when everything is getting filtered six ways to Sunday! It's a good thing I know what I'm doing.

The good news is that it's not as tough to do as it sounds. One agent can represent you for both the sale of your current home while helping you find a new one, if you're moving locally, or can refer you to a solid agent if you're moving out of state. In the absolute best case scenario, that same agent may even locate a buyer for your current home, as well as have a listing on a home you'd like to buy, meaning you'd only have to deal with one agent throughout the whole process if you had a problem anywhere along the line.

Is this realistic? Not so much in today's world with the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). Placement on the MLS allows specific exposure of your home to targeted buyers of homes, much more than any advertising campaign in the newspaper. Considering there are over 10,000 members just in the San Diego Association of REALTORS, who are all by proxy members of the MLS, that's a lot of eyeballs looking in the right direction.

Don't make the mistake of keeping your home off the MLS or not putting it on lockbox. These are obstacles to buyers. Remember, if you're selling your home, sell it. Don't just put it out there to languish. This comes back full circle to proper pricing.

A good agent can and will give freely all kinds of advice to you if you're thinking about moving. Whether you're looking for information on the sale or purchase of a home, get the facts first.

I'm here when you need me.