A quick addendum (you’ll get the joke soon) to my post yesterday…. From the comments, a little discussion erupted because MRED — the Chicagoland area’s regional MLS — instituted a new rule about putting listings into the MLS, unless the seller opts-out. And then MRED provided a form: Seller Listing Exemption Addendum-1. Click through if you … Read more
So the last few weeks have been all sorts of interesting, and busy. Sold a house, bought a house, packed, moved, went to Inman, immediately went crazy waiting for Comcast to install the Internetz (who missed three appointments), then went to talk to a group of Government Affairs Directors, and then finally spoke to a … Read more
I’ve been in the real estate market the last few months. It has been an interesting experience all around to be a straight up consumer, both selling and buying. And I’ll tell you what: it has been absolutely amazing to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of the industry personally from a consumer’s … Read more
In the course of research for something I’m working on, I ran across an absolute gem: the white paper published by Cendant (the former parent company of what is today Realogy) in 2004 entitled, The Need for More Effective Online Marketing by Real Estate Professionals. The unnamed author(s) wrote the white paper for the … Read more
Every once in a while, some thought leader in the real estate industry issues a challenge, a plea, a lamentation about the inability of various parts of the industry to work together. If only we could set aside petty politics, set aside irrational suspicion, and figure out how to work together for mutual benefit, things could … Read more
At the Midyear meetings, I got into some conversations with fellow attendees about the whole MLS public website debate. Obviously. Again. Still. It was a lot of fun, and interesting thoughts were shared. But given that I have written that agent teams are the biggest threats to brokerages, I kinda got curious about something. Just … Read more
After all the chatter emerging out of Midyear, there really is no shortage of topics to think and talk about. There is merely the shortage of time. But I thought this topic needs to be addressed, and I’m quite surprised none of the usual commentariat has tackled it. At some point, we are going to … Read more
When I began writing this report, I did not think that a mere update on quarterly results would reach over 12,000 words and require so much work. After all, the annual report is the really important one, and the quarterly reports are mere milestones along the path. But with all of the changes going on … Read more
I have been asked for a recap of the events at NAR Midyear, but as I did not attend the Board of Directors meeting, and as I was busy doing other things, I felt it wasn’t really my place to give a recap. It is, however, my place to offer some thoughts — high-level, unusual, … Read more