Welcome to another edition of an annual tradition, in which I go back and grade myself on my predictions made at the start of this year. My track record so far: 2010 Predictions: 6 for 10 (.600) 2011 Predictions: 4.5 for 7 (.642) 2012 Predictions: 2 for 7 (.286) 2013 Predictions: 4.5 for 7 (.642) 2014 Predictions: 3 for … Read more
I’ve been on the road driving all around Florida since Labor Day, so obviously, blogging has been light. But I was sent some news by a reader — again, the best informed audience in real estate — and I was really struck by the forceful language. CALBRE (California Bureau of Real Estate) has released a Licensee … Read more
Yesterday, I gave a presentation at the Pacific West Association of REALTORS Broker Summit which I named “Bring the Pain”. To be fair, I ask all my speaking clients whether they want the Light, Medium, or Heavy and PWR picked heaviest of the heavy. One of the things I mentioned was a recent Working Study … Read more
Earlier today, the National Labor Relations Board handed down its ruling in the Brown Ferris case. If you are a brokerage who belongs to a national franchise, like Coldwell Banker or Keller Williams or REMAX, or even a regional franchise, like Crye-Leike or Windermere, could I suggest that you take your mind off of Zillow … Read more
I recently found this post on GeekEstate, which was from a while ago, that asked a provocative question: There are some proponents for the entire industry ceasing syndication entirely (specifically to Zillow). The thinking is generally “with no listings, Zillow would become irrelevant and lose all their traffic, all that traffic would frequent agent/broker websites, and the result would be … Read more
At the Inman Connect conference that just wrapped up, there was a “town hall” on a variety of topics featuring industry thought leaders like Marilyn Wilson of the WAV Group, Mark McLaughlin of Pacific Union, Joseph Rand of BHG Rand Realty, and Katie Maxwell of Intero. One question I asked was about Project Upstream, the recently … Read more
This is (hopefully) a brief post, inspired and triggered by something I saw on Facebook today. My friend Lisa Heindel, a broker in New Orleans, wrote up a post dealing with REALTOR.com’s partnership with AirBnB. It appears that a number of people in NOLA are not particularly happy with AirBnB, and Lisa isn’t too thrilled … Read more
As my readers know, the recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) handed down its ruling in Monell v. Boston Pads. I wrote about that case and cautioned against irrational exuberance from the results, because the results were not exactly a huge victory for the real estate industry’s position. Thing is, Bararsani v. Coldwell Banker, the … Read more
Let me tell you a story. It may be fiction, it may be nonfiction. It’s about a man, who may or may not be a Ivy League-educated lawyer who is the chief counsel for a Democrat Congresswoman with enormous power in the House. Let’s say his name is Dave. He may or may not be … Read more