Above is the video I shared at Xplode San Antonio today, which was part of the Texas Association of REALTORS conference. This wasn’t a video we had made available to the public, but after my experience today, and a conversation with one of the attendees, we at HearItDirect decided this message needs to get out. … Read more
Over on the Raise the Bar Facebook Group, I posted a question to the thousand-plus members: Question for this group, because it has so many ultra-engaged and informed people in it. If your MLS proposed to change fees from a flat-fee subscription to a percentage of closed transaction (NB: FMLS in Atlanta area does this), … Read more
The perennial discussion around “what makes an agent bad, good or great” has taken an interesting turn. Some sixty odd comments into the thread, which featured numerous adjectives, we get this exchange between two brilliant people who know of which they speak. Josette Skilling, a REALTOR from Maryland, wrote: Great is in the eye of … Read more
My good friend Michael McClure (@ProfessionalOne on Twitter) has been banging the “Raise The Bar” drum for quite some time now. Recently, he wrote a post accompanying a survey in which he wants to establish “the baseline for professionalism” in the real estate brokerage industry: All that being said, let’s get to the point … Read more
A mere six days ago, NAR’s Chief Economist (and my doppelganger) Lawrence Yun released this cheery video forecast on housing for the remainder of the year: Lawrence is predicting a slight pickup for 2011 over 2010; he thinks the second half of this year will be better than the second half of last year. New … Read more
I was reading some Facebook status updates — signifying that obviously, I’m not a total social media moron who hates all things social — when I came across an interesting little comment: The post that Eric Bryant and Maya were talking about is this one by Jeremy Blanton. His conclusion: I think in the case … Read more
So earlier today, I get an email of some interesting real-estate related links from my friends at AOL Housingwatch (where I pen an occasional column or two). In it, I find this gem of a story: Mortgage loan originators will have to be fingerprinted and sign up to a central registry to do business in … Read more
From two eminence grises of the legal world comes this article those of us in the RE.net thinking about raising levels of professionalism in the real estate industry might want to think about. The money graf: There is, of course, no turning back: Law firms must be run in a businesslike manner. But they should … Read more
I’m working on Part 3 of the Does Size Matter series, but a conversation on Twitter turned fairly interesting and fairly intricate, so a quick little post. This post is heavy on inside-baseball stuff about the real estate industry and the RE.net. First, the setup of the debate: @ProfessionalOne (Michael McClure) whose company has adopted … Read more