On Social Media Education

One of the most interesting threads of 2009 sort of blew up this past week over at Marc Davison’s place when he posted a heartfelt mea culpa about his past cynicism about social media.  Various heavy-hitter commenters came by and a full blown debate erupted.  Oh, it’s good stuff! But there was one topic within … Read more

Future of Mobile in Real Estate: B2B, not B2C

In my latest Inman column (link is for subscribers only, unless you made it in before the paywall dropped), I took issue with mobile for real estate, and called it the “eternal next big thing” for real estate.  I didn’t have the space really to address what I do think is the future of mobile … Read more

BlueScape Search: A Half-Baked Solution In Search of a Problem

Coldwell Banker just released its beta site (beta.coldwellbanker.com) this week, and on the whole, it’s a nice update.  Here’s the current homepage: And here’s the beta homepage: Frankly, they’re both very nice; the beta page strikes me as being a bit more ‘unified’ and more contemporary in look and feel.  The new search interface that … Read more

Realogy Dodges A Bullet; Future Looks Good

Almost a year ago, at a time when various folks in finance and real estate were ready to write eulogies for Realogy, I spent a few posts arguing that the rumors of Realogy’s demise were ahh… premature.  My basic point then was that the bondholders of Realogy have very little incentive to push Realogy into … Read more

Evaluating Professionals: Imperfect Solution for an Imperfect World

Original posted on The Notorious R.O.B by Rob Hahn. Agent ratings are back in the conversation, thanks to this scintillating op/ed by Kris Berg (link is for Inman premium subscribers only) who is one of the best writers in real estate today.  I have written about this topic before (here and here) and it continues to fascinate and puzzle me … Read more

Evaluating Professionals: Imperfect Solution for an Imperfect World

Agent ratings are back in the conversation, thanks to this scintillating op/ed by Kris Berg (link is for Inman premium subscribers only) who is one of the best writers in real estate today.  I have written about this topic before (here and here) and it continues to fascinate and puzzle me still. Kris’s point essentially … Read more

Giving Thanks

It’s Thanksgiving, and despite our culture’s continuous pull to rename this day Turkey Day or some such and shift the focus to the feasting, I’d like to keep the focus on the actual point of the day: giving thanks to the Almighty, and to family, friends, and others for the life we have. First, I … Read more

Reflections from REBlogWorld ’09: Branding in the Social Age

Original posted on The Notorious R.O.B by Rob Hahn. Greetings from Las Vegas — I’m not sure what time it is, even though I’ve been fully awake for, oh, a few hours.  But some of the discussions at REBlogWorld 2009 have been so great that I wanted to get something posted now. One of the more interesting sessions for … Read more