Analyzing NAR and FNMA’s January Releases

Posted on 26. Jan, 2009 by Nicolai Kolding.

At 10am this morning, the National Association of REALTORS® released its year-end summary of existing home sales (their commentary can be read here).  As with our prior monthly analyses, we simply want to focus here on the figures that are most important to those within the industry.  Therefore, for both the national and four regional areas, we will look [...]

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Is Facebook the New Birthday Card?

Posted on 12. Dec, 2008 by Sherry Chris.

Ok, some of you might think this post is just a little self serving, because it is sort of about of my birthday, but not really. It’s really about people taking the time to do something nice, and using social media as the distribution channel. Many of you know that an important part of our [...]

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To Do’s in 2009 (but you could get started now!)

Posted on 11. Dec, 2008 by Wendy Forsythe.

Okay, I admit it. It’s rough out there, it’s rough in here, it’s rough everywhere.  That doesn’t mean we can give up. I think there are a lot of agents and managers out there who have given up. They may still technically have a real estate license or hold a managers title, but they are [...]

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Attention: Agents, Brokers, Builders, Lenders… We have some work to do!

Posted on 08. Dec, 2008 by Sherry Chris.

When I saw the headline in the Saturday New York Times entitled “It May Be Time to Think About Buying a House”, I thought to myself…  “Good, a positive article about the housing market.” A few of those, coupled with the rumored drop in the 30 year fixed to 4.5%,  might just be what we [...]

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Are Real Estate Mobile Search Apps a Good Idea?

Posted on 04. Dec, 2008 by Jason Steele.

I have never been a fan of technology for the sake of technology.  Although tech ideas can be very high on the cool scale they tend to usually be very low on the ROI or usefulness scale.  I am sort of perplexed by all of the hype surrounding real estate search on your mobile phone.  [...]

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Tough Times, Tough Decisions

Posted on 02. Dec, 2008 by Sherry Chris.

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When it Comes to Content, Think Consumers First

Posted on 01. Dec, 2008 by Camilla Sullivan.

Sitting down to work on our website content strategy for 2009, our discussion quickly dove to the core questions at the heart of things:

“What do home buyers and sellers want to know?”
“What information is useful enough for them to spend their time on?”
“How has the market changed most recently and how can we best adjust [...]

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Giving Thanks…

Posted on 26. Nov, 2008 by Sherry Chris.

How does one really put into words a meaningful and heartfelt Thanksgiving message? Do you start by making a list of what we have to be thankful for? Or making a list of people you would like to thank? Both of those lists would be very long for me, and probably for you too.  As [...]

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Analyzing NAR’s Monthly Release

Posted on 25. Nov, 2008 by Nicolai Kolding.

Yesterday the National Association of REALTORS® issued its monthly release of existing home sales.  Rather than add to the many existing articles that understandably lean towards the consumers’ perspective, we believe there are trends and statistics that aren’t being highlighted that could help practitioners in our industry plan ahead.  You may find some of what [...]

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Get Big or Get Boutique

Posted on 20. Nov, 2008 by Nicolai Kolding.

The days of the single-office, generalist, residential brokerage may soon be over.  Those who survive this down market will most likely have done so because they will have made the choice between getting bigger or becoming a specialist firm, a boutique.
This is a common theme within any industry facing the kinds of historic challenges that [...]

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Simple Steps to Building a Social Network

Posted on 18. Nov, 2008 by Sherry Chris.

Social networking becomes less complicated when you break it into simple steps. Last week, I presented this concept at NAR to a predominately broker owner audience. As promised, I am sharing an edited version of the presentation right here.

Click here for a larger version of this slideshow.

The four categories, as we see them are:
Social Media [...]

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