The Business of Real Estate

If you've been following any of the discussions about MLS data, i.e who owns it, who should control it etc.  then we should be having a similar conversation about the big "what if"?   What if, the MLS's strengthen their position, form stronger relationships with each other and decide (again) that...

Say what?  Take a look around at the housing in your community (a generalization), then drive closer to a city center (i.e. Chicago, LA, NYC, Denver, Dallas, Miami, etc.) – Do you see homes that are totally obsolete? These home types appear to be everywhere, covering the entire economic scale.  A...

Today, Chris Smith over at Inman wrote about having businesses take down their Facebook pages immediately.  As it turns out we had "suspended" our account a few weeks ago.While our business model and goals are purely Internet based, we just couldn't figure out how to develop a strategy that justi...

Within the last week or so MLS data has come under a lot of fire.  One real estate brokerage recently launched a new product which essentially detailed the compensation history of an agent. The report however, caused so much controversy, most having to do with the inaccuracies of its data (which ...

In preparation for a meeting with one of the Internet’s big real estate information portals yesterday our management wanted to have a current handle on just how big the market is for redevelopment property i.e. teardowns.  The industry uses the term “infill” to accurately describe this type of re...

Here's the problem:About 30% of all transactions in the market are cash deals and most of these are being done with this kind of property: Deteriorated, often abandon housing stock from inner cities and certain urban markets Mostly functionally obsolete homes in affluent neighborhoods and second-...

For this month's NAR magazine online we were asked about our negotiating techniques and strategies for getting deals done in this difficult market. We think being calm yet assertive are important for getting buyer's and seller's to agree on terms. You can see what other agents had to say here.   ...

The credit for this question is not ours.  As many of you know,  W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne's book entitled Blue Ocean Strategy evaluates business strategy and the keys to a successful company.  They conclude that successful businesses are constantly in "simultaneous pursuit of differentiati...

For those of you that follow discussions about MLS’s and wonder about their future: structure, value, membership etc. you have to be wondering when/if one of these well trafficked, information-based open portals will flip the switch one day and become a full-service brokerage? If some have inform...

Is there a right and wrong way to buy and sell residential real estate?  Can selling yourself be the right strategy in some cases?  If someone wants to represent themselves in a purchase, are they doing themselves harm?   On the other hand, shouldn't every seller use a traditional real estate age...