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16 03, 2016

I Didn’t Hire FOUR Listing Agents!

By |2018-05-03T21:23:21-07:00March 16th, 2016|Broker-Agent Information|Comments Off on I Didn’t Hire FOUR Listing Agents!

There’s nothing like becoming an ACTUAL customer of a product to give you a different perspective. I have looked at Zillow and other third party sites a gazillion times in my career as a consultant, but it took actually selling a home to really open my eyes. We held onto our home in Buffalo, New York for a long time after moving to California. This year we finally decided to sell it. Once the home was live on third party sites, I became very interested in the agents who were featured on the property. I called each one to experience [...]

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22 02, 2016

Three Drivers of Economic Growth

By |2018-05-03T21:23:22-07:00February 22nd, 2016|Broker-Agent Information, Clients, Marketing, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on Three Drivers of Economic Growth

Sometimes, business owners fail to understand or focus on the basic elements of growing a business. As a consulting firm, we have a distance from the business that allows us to see things that business operators often miss. The funny thing is that we miss them in our own business. I remember talking to my Uncle Albert about this as a kid. He owned a house painting business that was very successful. It afforded him the opportunity to live on Plain Street in Historic Lewiston, NY. It is a charming street of grand, three-story homes with pillared center entrances. Because [...]

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18 02, 2016

Fox and Roach Broker Site Sets Bar Above Portals

By |2018-05-03T21:23:23-07:00February 18th, 2016|Main category|Comments Off on Fox and Roach Broker Site Sets Bar Above Portals

Love them or hate them, property search sites like Zillow® have set the bar very high in terms of the information that is made available to the consumer. I choose Zillow because they have hung their hat on an Automated Valuation Model (AVM) that they call the Zestimate. Real Estate brokers have built their websites off of IDX data. That started to change with the launch of ZipRealty and Redfin, which display web pages for every parcel in America. In this way, they are like the portals. Recently, websites like Howard Hanna have begun to do the same. Joining them is Berkshire [...]

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5 02, 2016

Realtor.com Seeks to Win the Super Bowl

By |2018-05-03T21:23:23-07:00February 5th, 2016|Main category|Comments Off on Realtor.com Seeks to Win the Super Bowl

Last January, I visited Mr. Robert Thomson at the News Corp offices in Manhattan to discuss his plans for the Realtor.com. Joining the meeting were two senior leaders of News Corp: his chief of staff and his chief of sales. They laid out their targets for their new company. What follows is our report card for them. Clear Vision #1: News Corp will leverage its media assets including Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, the New York Post, HarperCollins Publishers, and The Sun to drive consumers to Realtor.com. Successful Result: Thomson reports that Realtor.com average monthly unique users [...]

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4 02, 2016

Is Old School Print Set to Rebound?

By |2018-05-03T21:23:24-07:00February 4th, 2016|Main category|1 Comment

Print advertising and marketing has seen a striking decline. I love using the phrase that newspapers are like nursing homes. But that might be changing. Here are some thoughts. Years ago, I spent a few years working with a real estate magazine. We helped them expand into digital marketing – online portal, online advertising, agent and broker websites, etc. It was a good thing. We married their loyal customers to new services that escalated in revenue as print dropped off. The relationship remained the same, the revenue by product choice changed. One of the great boosts to the online marketing [...]

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13 01, 2016

Annual Swanepoel Power 200 Recognizes WAV Group

By |2018-05-03T21:23:25-07:00January 13th, 2016|Main category, Press Releases|Comments Off on Annual Swanepoel Power 200 Recognizes WAV Group

Howard Lund had a philosophy about lists. He said that it is great to be on the good ones, but don't take too much pride in it. He shared his thoughts on this whenever I made honor roll, or was recognized for accomplishments in sports. It is the type of fatherly wisdom that sticks with you. I think that Mr. Swanepoel and his team does a good job in their selection - a process too difficult to imagine. Its an honor to receive the recognition, and I am especially proud of my partner, Marilyn Wilson. Her dedication to her trade [...]

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21 12, 2015

RESO Elects 2016 Officers, Names New Directors to Its Board

By |2018-05-03T21:23:27-07:00December 21st, 2015|Main category|Comments Off on RESO Elects 2016 Officers, Names New Directors to Its Board

RESO just announced its new officers for 2016 and line up for its Board of Directors and that MLS firms reaching more than 600,000 Realtors have been Data Dictionary Certified. Here is the news release: Morrisville, NC – December 21, 2015 – The Real Estate Standards Organization, or RESO, announced today the election of its 2016 Officers and the addition of four new directors to its Board of Directors, as well as the re-election of two directors. Newly elected Officers of the Board of Directors: • Art Carter, CEO of California Regional MLS or CRMLS, Chair • Rob Overman, Chief [...]

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16 12, 2015

Is there a hidden downside to lead generation?

By |2018-05-03T21:23:27-07:00December 16th, 2015|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|1 Comment

Real estate lead generation research tells us only about 1 or 2 percent of all purchased online leads become transactions. Another way to say that is 98 out of 100 times, an agent fails to turn a lead into a client, or 98 times out of 100, they are being rejected. Yet, the conventional wisdom in real estate is that you only need to turn one lead into a transaction to pay for all the leads you’ve purchased this year many times over. But is there a problem with this logic? Is it looking at only one side of the [...]

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11 11, 2015

5 Hot Trends in 2016 to Look for at NAR

By |2018-05-03T21:23:29-07:00November 11th, 2015|Main category, Marketing|Comments Off on 5 Hot Trends in 2016 to Look for at NAR

This year’s REALTORS® Convention & Expo in San Diego traces its origins to the first Chicago meeting of the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges held May 12-14, 1908. One hundred and seven years later, some 20,000 real estate professionals will visit the San Diego Convention center where more than 400 organizations will display their offerings and pitch their products. 2016 promises to be a pivotal year of rapid adoption of sweeping innovations and the emergence of new powerhouses in the residential real estate matrix. Here are five hot trends to look for and listen at the workshops to learn [...]

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22 10, 2015

Upstream Agent Record

By |2018-05-03T21:23:32-07:00October 22nd, 2015|Main category|2 Comments

Many assume that Upstream is only about listings. In fact, there are six database categories that are contemplated for the application that solve a lot of problems for brokers of any size. The Need For A Single Agent Record Depending on the brokerage, the Agent Record – their office address, office phone, bio, headshot, cell number, social media profile, et. al. Agent Records are used in a lot of applications across the brokerage. Here is a partial list, but a common list for a brokerage of 1 agent in 1 MLS market. Broker Website/Agent Website MLS MLS Consumer Site Mobile [...]

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13 10, 2015

Better Market Reports

By |2018-05-03T21:23:33-07:00October 13th, 2015|Broker Technology Research, Main category|Comments Off on Better Market Reports

Graphs, Actives, Pendings, Recently sold, yadda, yadda. I have been reviewing the market reports across a variety of brokerages recently. They all seem to be missing the same little touch of information – an AVM. What Is A Market Report? The definition of a market report is hard to pin down. They are automated reports that tend to change based upon the state of the consumer. If the consumer is actively looking to buy or sell, the market report is like a listing alert. If the consumer is not in the market, the market report is like a stock portfolio [...]

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19 08, 2015

Why Millennials won’t buy Boomer McMansions

By |2018-05-03T21:23:36-07:00August 19th, 2015|Main category|4 Comments

Self-confession: I love surveys. Data is my kryptonite. I got hooked in my grad school stats class and I’ve never looked back. At Great Western Bank, I created the Realty Confidence Index, which surveyed face-to-face broker-owners in 23 states. At Fannie Mae, I got to pitch to reporters nationwide the most comprehensive housing surveys of its day. At Imprev, I helped craft and launch the real estate industry’s first Thought Leader Survey and continue to spearhead that effort. This all means I know intimately what Mark Twain meant when he popularized the saying, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics.” [...]

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