FSBO in trying times

May 11, 2009

A Washington Post article Friday highlights several homeowners that are selling their home For Sale by Owner right now.  To me, the interesting highlights are the varied reasons the home sellers give for going FSBO: Marginal equity. Some people just don’t have enough equity in their homes in this economy to support paying a real [...]

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Victory for Consumers – Low Cost Real Estate Services

May 5, 2009

The Department of Justice announced a settlement yesterday with the board that runs the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for Columbia, South Carolina, and it is a clear victory for consumers.  A year ago in May 2008, the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Consolidated Multiple Listing Service, Inc. (CMLS) for unfair business practices that [...]

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Why we are in this mess – Lehman Brothers

May 4, 2009

A New York Times article today is a sobering reminder and example of why we are in this economic mess.   Before Lehman Brothers blew up last September, they were betting heavily on real estate.   Their head of the global real estate group, Mark Walsh, made billions of dollars of loans and equity investments, that eventually [...]

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Life is Hell for Real Estate Agents

April 29, 2009

An article yesterday is a case study for why the real estate industry needs to change it’s business model: Here’s the net-net of the article: Real estate agent working 24/7, taking calls at 1:00 am and working constantly while on family vacations. Led to divorce (surprise) All for $60,000 per year before expenses Now, the [...]

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FSBO survey completed

April 28, 2009

Thanks to all that participated in the FSBO survey last week.  We had a better than expected response with over 50 people completing the survey and most of those respondents wanting to participate in the FSBO 2.0 website beta test. The Visa gift card has been awarded, but signing up for the beta test is [...]

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Pay it Forward

April 23, 2009

The pay it forward concept, from Catherine Ryan Hyde‘s novel “Pay it Forward” and popularized w-a-y back in 2000 (who remembers what crashing tech company they were at?) by the movie staring Haley Joel Osment (“I see dead people”), is a perfect guiding principle for almost everything we do, especially in business.  Pay it forward [...]

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Flat Fee MLS and Consumer Choice

April 21, 2009

An article written today about Flat Fee MLS gives good context to the uncompetitive real estate home seller environment for consumers in the US.  Real estate agents that try to offer their customers choice by putting their home listing in the MLS for a low-cost “flat fee” often meet resistance and artificial hurdles from the [...]

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Starting a business without leaving your house – Part 3 – Beta Customers

April 16, 2009

Perhaps the most important step you will take when starting your own company is to sign up beta customers.  What type of product you are selling and the type of customers you are targeting will greatly affect how you plan to reach these folks. However, regardless of how you reach out, the most effective way [...]

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[Anything] web 2.0 – Electric Dog Fences

April 14, 2009

I came across a site the other day while I was trying to solve a problem.  I needed an electric dog fence, commonly called an Invisible Fence, except little did I know Invisible Fence(TM) is actually trademarked and they don’t like you calling it that.  Similar to Kleenex, Q-tips, etc.   The problem was that the [...]

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Leadership

April 8, 2009

Peter Drucker has long been synonymous with management excellence.  Known as the “guru’s guru” and the “father of management” among other lofty titles, Drucker’s theory on leadership always struck me.   Leadership basically boils down to three tenets: Work hard. The leader should set goals, priorities, and maintain standards.  Leaders know they are not in control.  [...]

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