http://www.matthewferrara.com Building Real Estate, The Next Generation Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:18:16 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," So quipped Mark Twain after hearing his demise had been published in the New York Times. The same might be said today about the real estate industry. A lot of hullabaloo has been making its way through the web these days - the ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/bestdaysahead What one phrase has done more damage to the housing industry - consumer and practitioner alike - in the last two years? "I'm waiting for the bottom." Buyers have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for prices to hit their lows. Those REALTORS who didn't just quit (200,000-plus of them ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/housingbottom The people who told you the only thing that mattered was location, location, location: were lying, lying, lying! There is a simple solution to listings that don't sell – price, price, price. If you want to survive in the real estate business you must know the secrets of proper pricing. In ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/pricetosell What do Hyatt, FedEx, Microsoft, and Burger King all have in common? They all started during recessions. And today they each are winning companies in their industries. Every one of them understood that recessions cause both economic uncertainty and reveal new opportunities. Their success is a result of capitalizing on ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/growtowin It’s been said that price is the most important factor in the sale of a home. If that’s true, then why spend all that time, effort and money marketing AND why have a class called 37 Ways to Market Your Listings? Exposure. That’s right Exposure. No matter how well priced ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/37waystomarketalisting Join Nathan Fernandez, Technology Trainer at Matthew Ferrara & Company, as he reviews 5 FREE Web Based Applications that will improve your productivity and make you more efficient on the job. MORE THAN 97 PERCENT OF THE U.S. ONLINE POPULATION USES INTERNET APPLICATIONS, ACCORDING TO A SURVEY CONDUCTED BY FACETIME COMMUNCATIONS Internet ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/5freewebapps Go beyond the basics of presentations and grab your customer’s attention with this PowerPoint training class. Learn how to apply the enhanced PowerPoint features to transform presentations into powered-up communications with your prospects and clients. Click here to find out how you can become a PowerPoint power user! http://www.matthewferrara.com/frontpage/powerpoint-webinar-june-22nd You’ve seen it, everyone is using it and maybe you have even joined but how can Facebook help you make money in Real Estate? This class will give you a step by step process on how to start leveraging Facebook to prospect, build your Sphere of Influence, market yourself and ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/frontpage/fb_webinar_0625 The Expired Listings and For Sale By Owners are two great places for you to jumpstart your business. Start prospecting people who want to sell and need your expertise. We will teach you strategies and the necessary skills to get back to basics and increase your revenue opportunities. Learn more ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/frontpage/expired-seller-fsbo-webinar-2009 Go beyond the basics of presentations and grab your customer’s attention with this PowerPoint training class. Learn how to apply the enhanced PowerPoint features to transform presentations into powered-up communications with your prospects and clients. Learn how to: Get started with the easy 1-2-3 of slide creation Grab attention with images, shapes animatio, ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/powerupyourpresentations Winning Over the Expired Seller & FSBO Economic times are tough. Everyone is feeling the pinch. Inventory is flooding the market and financing is harder to come by. When times get tough you have two choices; get back to the basics or get out of the business! The Expired Listings and For ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/winninglistingsfsbos A month ago, I received the strangest email ever: An agent in LinkedIn blasted an email to her connections announcing her next open house. Sadly, it was little more than a cut-and-paste of the abbreviation-dumb newspaper ad she probably also ran. No photos, nor punctuation. Not even a hyperlink. More ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/ruinsocialnetworking You’ve seen it, everyone is using it and maybe you have even joined but how can Facebook help you make money in Real Estate? This class will give you a step by step process on how to start leveraging Facebook to prospect, build your Sphere of Influence, market yourself and ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/facebookwebinar These days, too many brokers are winding down the clock to bankruptcy, with lots of help from their sellers. Too much misplaced blame has been on buyers of late. Other than foreclosures, we have not looked hard enough at sellers' contribution to the inventory problem. And sellers are a problem. ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/emotionalintelligence Think back to the last time you used a really great product or service. Perhaps it was your first encounter with an iPod, which buried forever the notion that you'd "click" a fast-forward button or "insert" a compact disc into something. Maybe it was the experience of sliding open a ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/thats-bleeping-awesome Peter Drucker noted that when the general perception of a situation switches from "the glass is half full" to the "glass is half-empty," major innovative opportunities were possible. The change in perception usually starts with the consumer, not the industry. It rarely reflects a real change in the facts, more ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/points-of-perception It's true that I've never agreed with the National Association of REALTOR'S Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. It's nothing personal; but it's everything professional. I just don't understand why today's economists can't figure out why inflation is bad. Of all of the complexities of economics, inflation is pretty much the easiest ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/nareconomics [audio:http://www.matthewferrara.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ferrara-3.mp3] Listen to this radio interview by clicking the play button above. You can also click the podcast icon to listen in your default mp3 player. Matthew Ferrara spent the morning with Michael Saunders and Company recently, helping this market-leading firm leverage the latest sales, marketing and technology tools to reach for the ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/blog/company/msaunders_event Once again, as REALTORS converged last week for their MidYear meetings in Washington, D.C., the forces of stability and sameness were present, coming up with last-gasp-ways to protect the tattered vestiges of Real Estate, the Last Generation. New white-papers and shiny-Powerpoint presentations proclaimed the "we-can-renovate" mentality of Gen 2.0 MLS ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/10deadmls Fans of Spencer Johnson's book will recognize the theme in today's column: Something has definitely moved in today's real estate industry. For decades, the industry built by Baby Boomers for Baby Boomers has essentially run the same race through the maze, finding the cheese almost every time. Periodically, the cheese ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/who-moved-my-maze Why is it impossible for anyone - REALTORS, banks, media or economists - to accurately describe what is going on in the marketplace? If buyers are going to feel confident about moving back into the market, we should expect all of these groups to be providing clear, verifiable market facts ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/housingcrystalball If it's true that exceptions aren't the norm, why is the real estate industry built around them? In almost any other endeavor, exceptions are considered undesirable: unintended effects, accidents, unexplained occurrences. Not part of the plan, and generally bad. Exceptions are usually damaging - to the business plan, the mission, ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/next-generation/exceptionalsuccess Real estate is a tricky business. At some point, you'd expect things to "mean" what they say. Yet we're an industry that can't even decide what exactly constitutes a "bedroom."  In some markets, it's a broom closet; others extend the definition to unfinished attics. Of course, small dens and breakfast ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/dom Yesterday, President Obama announced he was prepared to break the law. After blaming the senior debt bondholders of Chrysler for pushing the company into Chapter 11, he sanctioned a plan to abrogate their covenants and force them to take pennies on their loaned dollar. No matter that their bonds were ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/contractjeopardy Like many other aspects of this recession, the spring real estate market is creating some surprises for the industry. On the one hand, buyers are starting to move off the sidelines, enticed by low mortgage rates and rising home affordability. This nice surprise offers real estate agents an opportunity to ... http://www.matthewferrara.com/rss/springsurprise