Are Location-Based Services in Real Estate All Hype or The Next Big Thing? (Part 2)

Posted on 02. Sep, 2010 by Josh Ferris.

Last week we posted Part I of our interview with Ryan Neu, Real Estate Executive at SCVNGR and Garrett Nelson, Director of Media at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Executive in Washington. Read the rest of our interview with them below including how they use these services in their businesses and how they expect [...]

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Week in Review: Things We Liked from the Week That Was

Posted on 13. Aug, 2010 by Sherry Chris.

Social media’s power in capturing the public’s imagination was in full display again this week when a Jet Blue flight attendant quit his job after he “hurled obscenities at passengers over the airliner’s PA system, then deployed the inflatable emergency chute, slid down and fled.”  He instantly became an Internet sensation, spawning a Facebook page [...]

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Our Vook Debut

Posted on 15. Jul, 2010 by Sherry Chris.

Another exciting milestone at Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate– I’m proud to announce the publication of our first Vook! What’s a Vook I hear you ask? A Vook is a cutting-edge reading innovation that mixes the written word of a book with high-quality video. You can read your book as well as watch videos [...]

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Now What? The Homebuyers Tax Credit

Posted on 30. Nov, 2009 by Wendy Forsythe.

Now that the excitement and relief of the extended and expanded homebuyers’ tax credit has worn off, the real question becomes now what? It would be a huge lost opportunity if all of us in this industry failed to carry this hard fought government bonus to the next level. So, now what can agents do to [...]

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#BeatCancer: The Power of New Media

Posted on 19. Oct, 2009 by Wendy Forsythe.

You may have noticed this hashtag a lot over the weekend. It was the highest trending topic on Twitter. And that’s because a group of very clever people demonstrated the power of social media for social good. The goal was to set a Guinness World Book record for the largest social mass media message distributed [...]

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Will the Next Generation Brokerage Scrap Agents for Employees?

Posted on 25. Aug, 2009 by Nicolai Kolding.

Nine years ago, my boss, along with four other company employees, jumped ship for a boatload of stock options from an Internet-based real estate firm that promised to dismantle “old economy” companies like ours and, quite simply, take over the real estate world as we knew it. About a year later he and the others [...]

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Friday Blog Scan: Things We Liked from the Week That Was

Posted on 21. Aug, 2009 by Jason Steele.

Mellow Billow brings us the Top 100 Best Social Media Books, ever. If you were to read anyone of them, I think you would be 100% better at social than you are right now. Imagine if you read all of them. ‘Nuff said. Get out your surfboard. Wax up your game plan. Another foreclosure appears [...]

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Why is Change So Difficult & What to Do About It

Posted on 02. Apr, 2009 by Robert Albanese.

Through all of the turbulence of the past three years, it is interesting to look back on it all and ask, why is change so difficult for most of us to negotiate? More changes are likely to occur as we move toward the real estate industry of the future, so it would be helpful to deal with the concept of change-resistance and to better understand the reasons behind our change-averse culture.

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NAR’s March Release: Is the Media Too Positive this Time??

Posted on 24. Mar, 2009 by Nicolai Kolding.

Sorry to play the contrarian again, but why all the hoopla over NAR’s release this week? Was the news really good enough to elicit a “wow”?

Believe me, after absorbing one ugly headline after another (both fair and unfair) for years now, the industry could certainly use a positive spin on the numbers. Like many others I know, I felt that the media practically reveled in reporting bad news while too often failing to expand on the whole story. This time around, though, I must be missing something because I just don’t get why this is the month when the figures are being trumpeted as the possible first signs of a turnaround.

So pardon me if I’m flying against the positive media winds when I think February was barely different than prior months; as before, I see in the numbers reasons to be both cautious and cautiously optimistic. But I sure ain’t ready to call this yet.

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Splurge Vs Steal: A framework for your 2009 marketing budget

Posted on 06. Feb, 2009 by Camilla Sullivan.

Ever read those pages in the fashion magazines where they point out what designer items to splurge on, and what to buy cheaply as a knockoff? Well, given the current economic climate and pressure on marketing budgets, everyone is taking a second look at what really gives you the best return on investment. As a [...]

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