Facebook’s face lift confusion provides businesses a good lesson in how not to confuse your customers while building your brand.

Traditional housing reports lack useful data for the modern real estate consumer. What Gen X and Gen Y need to know in the future goes far beyond the traditional CMA.

During the holidays, most of us are taking some time to slow down, enjoy the season, and recharge the batteries. It’s been a tough year – and next year will likely prove just as tough. But while it’s important to enjoy the festivities and good cheer, don’t forget that January 2 will likely be the [...]

Hindsight is always 20/20, they say. Unless, of course, you spend most of your time navel gazing. So it’s almost myopic to point out that some ideas’ time has come. And other ideas’ time has passed. On one hand, it’s time for every sale to include in-house ancillary sales. On the other hand, it’s time [...]

Download a copy of the latest survey of REALTORS by the Center for REALTOR Technology and you’re certain to be fascinated – startled, perhaps – at what’s happening on the Bat-belts of modern agents trying to make buying and selling homes a twenty-first century experience. While the report is no page-turner – in fact, it [...]

Peter Drucker said that the purpose of marketing is to make sales superfluous. That should come as welcome wisdom to the real estate industry that is comprised of so many reluctant salespeople who won’t telemarket, interact at open houses or even join Facebook (latest numbers show less than 35% of REALTORS with a social networking [...]

Why is it that some things just won’t go change? There, on my doorstep, was a reminder that some companies still don’t get it. Nearly two pounds of absurdity, neatly wrapped in a plastic bag, and personally delivered to to my front porch, was a reminder that the more things change, the more some things [...]

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 systems struggling to enter the [...]

It is the tendency of our age that many things are moving toward centralization. Like efforts to collectivize our economy, health care, school and retirement systems, similar proposals in the real estate industry tempt us to move control of our vital business data to a national system. Now REALTORS have the urge – under the [...]

Sometimes, you just have to learn the hard way. That seems to be the real estate industry’s preferred method of implementing technology tools – at least for the last twenty years or so. A herald comes over the hill, the masses become excited, everyone just starts doing it: And that’s when the highest risk to [...]

Here’s a question that’s certain to be avoided by the real estate industry: What are you planning to do on the day that “taking a listing” becomes totally irrelevant? It’s coming, of course, and it’s not just because of a “housing recession” or any such calamity. Real estate based upon consumer needs, not actual “listings” [...]

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Listen to this blog entry by clicking the play button above.
You can also click the podcast icon to listen in your default mp3 player.
Been having a great discussion with the fellow over at 4REALZ.NET over the new REALTOR.COM Home Estimator tool just released – and quite quietly, we might [...]

I never ceases to amaze me. With the industry in turmoil – real turmoil meaning homes aren’t selling, credit is harder to come by even for good borrowers and silly groups like the Austin City Council trying to kill local real estate with local environmental-efficiency upgrades before permitting a house to sell – the REALTOR [...]

Fact: 24% of Buyers found the home they actually purchased on the internet last year.
Fact: 80% of consumers stick to the first agent who “responds” to them.
Fact: 23% of real estate agents have an email capable phone.
Fact: You can’t make sales to consumers you continue to ignore.
First, let’s just put your first objection to rest, [...]

How do you know when an industry is dying?
Simply look for the Luddites.
As in the 19th century, when technophobes sought to smash the emerging factories who were “taking their jobs, the the spectacle we have seen in the past few years across the REALTOR community is not much different, as it tries to use MLS [...]