Culture of Arrogance vs. Culture of Ignorance

This being election season, I suppose it’s inevitable that we’ll see politics infecting every conversation, including those on real estate and marketing. As a fairly longtime veteran of the political blogosphere, I want to keep the focus just on real estate, marketing and technology. But this has to be addressed, because I fear that we’ll … Read more

Analyzing the Move, Inc. Earnings Call

Move, Inc. — the folks behind Realtor.com and Top Producer — held its Q4 2007 earnings conference call recently. The transcript is available on Seeking Alpha. I think it’s well worth your time to check it out in full. Move did $286M in 2007, vs. $280M in 2006. Considering the shape that the real estate … Read more

Absolutely Brilliant

Kudos to Trulia for this: Trulia Voices is one of the most popular parts of our site. Our rapidly growing community has done a great job asking and answering real estate questions. Today, we’re excited to announce the release of our RSS feed widget for your Trulia Voices Answers. You’ll now have the ability to … Read more

A Great Website — Can It Work Here?

I just ran across this fantastic website (h/t Instapundit).  Carlust is such a great name for it as well. I really like Chris Hafner’s writing style as well — compact, personable, totally on-point.  Great blog writing, IMHO. It works beautifully for cars.  I know it can’t possibly work as beautifully for houses, since cars are … Read more

Anyone a Betting Man?

Now, this is good news from NAR: The integrity of data is a foundation to the orderly Real Estate market. The Real Estate Transaction Standards (RETS) provides a vendor neutral, secure approach to exchanging listing information between the broker and the MLS. In order to ensure that the goal of maintaining an orderly marketplace is … Read more

The Burden of Leadership

UPDATE:  I have been asked to take this post down by my colleagues at OnBoard, as they feel there is a conflict of interest inherent in a senior member of the executive team writing critically about a current client.  While I have my thoughts on that, in this case, I will defer to their judgment.  … Read more

How Do You Compete With WalMart?

So I’m trying to put my thoughts on cluetrain real estate together.  And while all those thoughts are swimming around my head, I read this fantastic interview of Alex Chang, CEO of Roost.com, over at 4Realz. Specifically, I read this section: I don’t think it is a stretch to say that the big brokerages are … Read more

Further Proof that NAR is Out of Touch

Thanks to InmanBlog, I learn that there is an ethical dilemma brewing in RE.net.  It appears that NAR has promulgated a new standard This standard falls under Article 12 in the Realtor code, which provides that Realtors “shall be honest and truthful in their real estate communications and shall present a true picture in their … Read more

Good Advice from Joe Ferrara

Over on Homegain’s blog, his new home, Joe Ferrara has a set of excellent advice for real estate agents: As in any profession, you get pigeon-holed, often unflatteringly and marketing yourself becomes an uphill battle to overcome a stereotype. There’s a better way. Elevate yourself to “expert” in your field. It does not matter how … Read more