I have noticed that in almost all sales – Real Estate is no exception – salespeople tend to have up and down cycles in their sales stream. Most just attribute this to luck but I think there is more to it than that. I think they work hard to create leads and then when they are working the leads they stop generating new ones.

This creates a cycle where leads are generated, then there are sales, then there’s a down period, and the cycle begins again. In my opinion, it is important to cut out the down periods by continually creating new leads and improving all systems.

It seems that the same type scenario occurs in all phases of our business. Whether we are working on leads, systems, or marketing. We get motivated and work hard to generate or improve and then we cycle into a sloppy phase.

So…my question is how do we stay motivated to continually improve our lead generation techniques, systems, marketing, etc.?

Here are some ideas to stay in the groove:

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People buy things for its “utility”, the pleasure or service received from a product or service, be it food, clothing, house cleaning, a car, a wide-screen TV, a computer, a hair cut, a manicure, and …a home.

I can attest first hand to the fact that when I show potential homebuyers a home, I don’t hear: “Oh look honey, we can make $15,000 on this kitchen when we go to sell it in 7 years”, or, “Wow, this wonderful back yard will net us $50K in 2015. People generally don’t think like that. They are looking at a home for its potential use and pleasure, its utility.

This doesn’t mean the homebuyer shouldn’t be prudent with their money. Most people should eventually buy a home, but not everyone and not at every point in their lives.

Obviously, responsible lending practices, coupled with a true understanding of what one can afford in a home are omnipotent. And the time to determine what one can afford is not in the kitchen of that “dream home” that was just viewed, but in advance with your lender and REALTOR®.

There are those that argue that a home’s future appreciation is extremely important in making a purchasing decision. I certainly don’t advocate purchasing a home to experience negative equity! But are we talking short term, or long term?

Homeowners benefit from the power of leverage. Over 10 years, a $10,000 investment in the stock market at a normal 10 percent rate of return would yield Continue reading this post

On Tuesday we launched the premier of the “Ask the Experts” live real estate forum. Thanks to our terrific panel of experts, a great turnout and active participation from the audience, the forum was a success!

Overall, participants rated each of the experts with marks of excellence for presentation and content covered. Due to the positive response, we’ll be continuing the series, so stay tuned for future Ask the Experts!

If you weren’t able attend, here’s your chance to hear the valuable information and advice the experts gave out to real estate professionals.

Listen to the full version:

Or, listen to the individual experts here:

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The Denver real estate market remains a true buyers market. Fervor is supported by July’s housing inventory of 25,673 homes which dropped from 26,104 listings the prior month, according to numbers recently released by Metrolist, Inc.

The drop in inventory is affirmed by the 5.74% increase in homes sales during the month of July as compared to 2.87% a year ago. Residential property benefited the most with a sales increase of 7.98% in July over June and 6.54% as compared to the same month last year. Denver area condominiums and townhomes took it on the chin though with a dip of -2.91% and -10.36% respectively.

The average days on market has continually dropped during the course of the year with an YTD average of 104 days.
Last month we observed a slight uptick to 98 as compared to 97 in June. Next months results will determine if we’re to continue the overall declining trend of days on market or take a turn to the upside.

Unfortunately, while sales increased, the average sales price took a turn for the worse with an overall dip of Continue reading this post

Mitch Ribak went live on the air with the Barry’s on Real Estate Radio USA on Friday to talk about his newly launched 100MPH Marketing software for real estate agents.

For those of you who have been following Mitch’s blog posts here, he’s having an excellent year down in Melbourne, Florida, even in a down market. And he’s not catering to REO’s, foreclosures or short sales.

Listen to Mitch’s radio interview. He also talks about how he’s been able to develop a marketing system that produces high ROI results from the HomeGain BuyerLink program. Continue reading this post