Matthew explains the do's and don'ts on how to take photos in today's real estate industryWatch this video
It’s been at least a decade since real estate listings hit the web – plenty of time to try every trick to attract consumers. Unfortunately, some websites are still trying dinosaur ideas, scaring away the next generation real estate consumer.
Matthew's blog entry titled "NAR's RPR should RIP ASAP"Watch this video
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.Watch this video
For all the efforts to clear the U.S. housing market, the sheer scale of the real estate crash defies even the most aggressive approaches like short selling. What’s needed to get the country out from under a crushing debt crisis and inventory glut is an idea that’s been keeping markets healthy and wealthy for decades, Down Under.
YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, yet most REALTORS still haven’t figured out how tap into its traffic. Maybe that’s because their MLS listing sheets can’t play a video? Let’s change that.
Matthew Ferrara explores how properly staging a home’s unique value proposition can make your listings more competitive in a tough market.
The iPad’s destiny isn’t how it will revive newspapers and magazines, but how it will finally kill off the real estate property listing sheet. Hopefully.
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 most important day of the next twelve months. For REALTORS especially.
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 for NAR to give up the dream of one HAL-like central database. Didn’t they find the bellybutton lint the last time they tried it?
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 looks a bit like it was produced on a Commodore 64 with dot-matrix fonts – a few facts stand out, highlighting just how easy it should be for serious salespeople to scoop up market share in the months to come. And all they really need would be a Blackberry and a thousand bucks.
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 presence). So what can be done to improve the pathetic listing sheets, the photo-less listings or sea-sick virtual tours that are undermining so many sales? Perhaps a quick art lesson could help.
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 stay the same. Absurd, when you think of it: Who uses the Yellow Pages these days?
