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,
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
Posted on August 20, 2009 by Russell Shaw
At any given time we all have a limit. That limit varies depending on a number of factors: the nature of the problems, the emotion tied to the problems, how far down into "seriousness" one is, even how well rested or hungry one is at the time. Bottom line, it becomes too much when there is more external push against self than there is left of self to push back. I’m really not interested in proselytizing but I ran across this little gem the other night and I saw so much potential for anyone who could understand it that I
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
Posted on August 3, 2009 by Russell Shaw
It’s true. I really don’t like salespeople, I don’t like to listen to a sales pitch and anytime someone says, "I just need twenty minutes in person to explain it to you", I already know in advance that whatever it is I don’t want it. And, for sure, I don’t want to listen to them explain it to me. It is also true that I have made my living on straight commission since I was 17. I have not had a "job" or worked for wages, I’ve lived on commissions all these years. Several times over the years people who
Posted on July 3, 2009 by Russell Shaw
Here is a link for a webinar I did about a week ago for Number 1 Expert. You do have to fill out a short form to listen and give them them information to get to the actual recording. It is about an hour long and you will see slides on the screen that are in sync with my answers. They titled the talk, "How to Stay Positive in Uncertain Market Conditions". Some good stuff.
Posted on June 19, 2009 by Russell Shaw
This was passed along to me by Benn: We are a small real estate company in Md. We are trying to expand our clientele do you have any advice on how we can grow our business. We are looking to attract more listings without paying a lot of advertising expense. We tried the expired listings but most of the time the homeowner phone number is not listed. Thanks, (name deleted) I’ve deleted your name, so in case you feel insulted by what I am about to tell you – you can feel a little less insulted because no one but
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
Posted on May 29, 2009 by Russell Shaw
A few short years ago when I was doing my original research for shaftingrealtors.com (when I first became enraged with Realtor.com) I found something very interesting. There was a site (a rather stupid looking site with an even more stupid, long and impossible to remember URL) hosted on AOL that was beyond critical of Realtor.com. That site is no longer up (and I have since removed shaftingrealtors, when NAR politely asked me to). What was interesting was that it was impossible for me to find the person who had put up that site on AOL. Their name showed up nowhere
Posted on May 26, 2009 by Russell Shaw
Here are some factual statements: Most people who enter the real estate business are gone in just a few years. Most real estate agents, who stay in the business, are not very successful. To be in the top 1% of all agents in the U.S. would require about 50 – 60 sales a year. Most agents, who are successful, (50 – 60 sales per year) do not really know why they are successful. They think they know but they are usually wrong. Only about 25% – 30% of the top 1% of all agents actually know why they are
