The recession holds answers to the real estate industry’s troubles – if it’s willing to listen. Otherwise it might just find out who’s buried in Grant’s tomb.

Matthew Ferrara offers a radical idea on leads management: Only assign new leads to agents who have a track record of turning prospects into closings. Imagine that!

There are two basic reasons why companies fail: unwillingness to embrace the obvious changes of their day, and a smug rejection of customer feedback. At Barnes and Noble, you can get both.

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.

Real estate market got you down? REALTORS can learn the correct spells and incantations to keep the bad housing spirits away.

If the housing market fell nearly 17% the month after the original housing tax credits were supposed to end, what’s going to happen when they really do come to an end? Are REALTORS ready for the Day After?

Perhaps the Aflac spokesduck can teach real estate brokers how to avoid quacking-up by the time the housing market turns around.

The real estate and mortgage industries are paying the price for Fannie Mae’s free-lunch fraud. Looks like the people who couldn’t afford “affordable housing” most weren’t just consumers, but its most vocal advocates.

Are social network games just for fun – or powerful sales tools. Matthew Ferrara explores the Gen X / Gen Y sales potential of Farmville and other social media fun.

Riddle me this: How is it that the industries that charge the least for their products and services seem to have more more advanced technology than those that charge the most? Some time ago, we wrote that REALTORS might want to take a look at how gas stations were using technology to market ancillary products [...]

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, [...]

Live from NAR Starts Friday – with Matthew FerraraThose who do not learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them. So said someone we’ve all long forgotten, but I’m sure you can Google it. But rather than worry about who said it, shouldn’t we be worrying about whether we’ve heeded the advice? [...]

According to everyone with a microphone, now’s the best time to buy a home in decades. The recession has pushed home prices and mortgage interest rates so low that affordability has never been better. We’ll even throw in a few free Bernanke Bucks to help you cover closing and commission costs, and rebate you the [...]

The real estate industry is ripe for a serious game changer. By that, I don’t mean some company that comes along fiddling with  commissions or cutesy technology marketing. I’m talking something that causes customers to stand up and say,  Wow! I’m definitely working with that company. We’ve talked about this before in our [...]

According to the Wall Street Journal real estate blog, a “W” or “U” shaped recovery is shaping up to be the most likely curve for the real estate industry, if not the economy as a whole. According to one property mortgage insurance group, there’s still another 12% drop to go in most markets. [...]