Category Archive

Industry Update

Spineless Cowards at NAR Scandal.com

Posted on March 20, 2010 by Russell Shaw

Here is a link from an email I just received.  The people writing at this website http://narscandal.com/ may or may not have something worthwhile to say.  But there is pretty much nothing they will ever say that will get any applause from me.  Why?  Because they go WAY out of their way to hide who they are.  Maybe it isn’t a "they" but only a "he" or a "she" – pretending to be a group of "concerned people". This isn’t a defense of NAR.  It is saying loud and clear – don’t take potshots or engage in name calling if

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Bank of America Achieves Surrealistic Central Status

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Russell Shaw

Maybe I should have titled this post, "Attention All Lawyers – Bank of America Has Lots of Free Money For You".  What you are about to read might seem like something out of a Franz Kafka novel or a Salvador Dali painting that was somehow brought to life.  Only it is verified and real. It is no secret in the real estate community what Bank of America does (and doesn’t do) regarding short sales.  In fact, typing, "short sales bank of america" into Google has this post right on the first page of Google.  Bank of America has routinely forced

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The Shadow Inventory = Shadow Gibberish?

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Russell Shaw

One of the more remarkable methods used (even by "Intelligence Agencies") to establish if something is true or not is to is to label it true if it came from a "reliable source".  Who said it?  If he or she is considered reliable or an authority the data is considered true or factual.  The other – perhaps even more silly – system in use is multiple report.  If a report is is heard from several areas or people it is "true".   Five or ten people hear the same thing and pass it along, it becomes a "fact". I have been

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Bank of America, RE/Max and Wells Fargo. From Very Bad to Great.

Posted on December 27, 2009 by Russell Shaw

For his ground breaking book, "Good To Great", Jim Collins and his research team looked into just about every public company in the United States to find those companies that made the transition from good to great.  Good is the enemy of great – which is why most companies and most people never make that leap.  They are good. They are not great.  To get on Jim Collins "great list" a company had to significantly outperform the other companies in that industry for  a minimum of fifteen years.  Making the great list wasn’t going to be a fluke.  Collins first

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A Professional REALTOR

Posted on September 23, 2009 by Russell Shaw

This post started as a comment to Matthew Rathbun’s brilliant post.   At the end I decided to make it a post Truly a great post, Matthew! I believe that the bulk of the clamor for “more professionalism” that emanates from agents is mostly self-serving gibberish. A person gets into real estate and then observes that the public does not tend to hold Realtors in extremely high regard. Personally, they want to be held in extremely high regard but can’t really see how they can differentiate themselves in the eyes of the public from all the other Realtors – so naturally,

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Bank of America Retard Division for Short Sales

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Russell Shaw

Bank of America is to be Highly Commended for their complete willingness to give so many intellectually challenged people jobs as executives. Sure, year in – year out, most other banks have always been willing to hire a few people who couldn’t think straight. But those other banks aren’t getting any awards for what they did for one simple reason: what they did was so darn common. Now any buzz kill who cares to can go look and find some other division of Bank of America / Countrywide that isn’t being run totally by retards (for example, their REO loss

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Foreclosures Surge?

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Russell Shaw

This was just now posted on AzCentral with the headline, "Foreclosures surged in July.  This is what passes for "reporting" by most media about the real estate market.  June foreclosures were 5,149.  July’s numbers (per the article) were 5,316.  A difference of 167 foreclosures or 3.24%.  And that is being called a "surge". I wonder if anyone’s paycheck went up at an annual rate of 3.24% they would ever consider it a surge? This isn’t to suggest that the number of foreclosures going up is ever a good thing – just that reading past the headlines and actually looking at

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ARMLS Comes Out In Favor Of Realtors!

Posted on June 11, 2009 by Russell Shaw

For Immediate Release: Arizona MLS Takes Stand on “Scraping” and “Indexing” RECENT NAR INTERPRETATION CREATES COMPETITVE DISADVANTAGE FOR REALTORS® PHOENIX, AZ – JUNE 10, 2009 – The Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service  (ARMLS) is taking a stand on a recent National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) ruling on the technical interchangeability of “scraping” and “indexing” as it pertains to display of the IDX Database on the Internet. A recent controversial interpretation issued through the Center for Real Estate Technology (CRT), NAR’s technology arm, advised members that “scraping” and “indexing” are in effect the same practice and represent misappropriation of the IDX

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Mike Orr and The Cromford Report

Posted on May 22, 2009 by Russell Shaw

Here is a professional quality video of Mike Orr of The Cromford Report giving a talk at a Mastermind meeting I attend every month.  It is about an hour long and the specific stats won’t apply if you are not in the Phoenix area.  His interesting and unique methods for tracking and predicting short-term price movement will apply.  If there is something better available I’ve not seen it.  Click here for the link to the video.

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NAR – Welcome to the Waffle House

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Russell Shaw

Just as a gentle reminder to all of what the actual purpose of the National Association of Realtors is supposed to be: "The core purpose of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® is to help its members become more profitable and successful."  You can see that here. Prior to reading this post – which most internet-savvy Realtors have now read – I didn’t know what "indexing" was and didn’t care.  That was something I only learned in the comments section of that post.  So I now ask, Is it possible that Paula was wrong to allow search engines to find all

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