The Business of Real Estate

By now, it’s been pretty well proven that real estate and all its questionable lending practices caused the economic disaster.  Sure there were other contributing factors – but, for the most part, without a down-tick in housing prices, we may have continued floating along tied to a balloon that ...

IMO, it doesn’t look like it, and if it’s not increasing, then it’s either status quo or declining – like a coin toss, there are only so many outcomes (heads, tails or on its edge). Clearly the workload is shifting.  Many buyers and sellers are taking on much of the due diligence that once creat...

Most of us learned at a very young age that nothing is free.  So, when I see – “post your listing(s) for free on XYZ.com” – I’m thinking………. what’s the catch? My problem with free is that I believe cost and value go hand-in-hand.  Personally, I’ll gladly pay a fair price for a product or service...

We hear a lot of talk about first-time home buyers and what Gen Y'ers will want, or not want in housing - but what about those seniors that are selling for the last time.  Or as important - who will want their houses? (clearly a generality - every locale is unique).In the Bipartisan Policy Center...

The more I read and understand the more I think the average member of the real estate industry truly believes the current commission/cost structure will not be reduced or disrupted any time soon. Spencer Rascoff, CEO of Zillow actually went so far as to say that: “start-ups that try to disrupt r...

We keep hearing about the virtues of renting.  Owning, we're told, appears to be out of fashion with the economic or business case in question (unless, of course, you can pick the price bottom). The mantra now appears to be "rent, rent, rent".  Most all of the industry website's seem to be catchi...

When will the art of the transaction change on a large scale basis?  And, when it does, what will it look like? A real life example:  Our brokerage took a new listing yesterday at 4:30pm.  By 5:00pm we had a full price verbal offer ($869,000), cash/no contingencies, an “as-is” sale, 30 day or soo...

If you sell cars, and could use cars.com as your own – would you attract more buyers and sellers of cars? If you sell insurance, and could use insurance.com as your own – could you capture more customers interested in buying insurance? If you owned a local flower shop, and could use roses.com on...

If you have a "land-valued" property to sell - you know the type, a teardown or home destined for significant renovation, and you want to sell it yourself directly to the most likely buyers (local builders, investors and individuals) go to http://teardowns.com/. Individual property sellers or pro...

Gentleman's Bet of the Day: Let's put our brands on a park bench then see which one generates more leads from real estate buyers and sellers? If lead generation is the key to an ongoing business - then a simple call-to-action aggressive Internet savvy brand will win every time. Want to use a stro...