Yesterday we were delighted to welcome Deborah Miller of Intero Real Estate in the Bay Area to the HomeGain headquarters in Emeryville, CA.

Deb Miller is a member of online marketing programs, AgentView and AgentEvaluator. Since the real estate market has changed over the years since she began the programs, she felt it would be a key move to meet with the HomeGain Team so they could assist her in updating her marketing strategies and positioning.

Think that you would like to reevaluate your current positioning with HomeGain programs to give your business an extra boost? Give us a call at (866) 512-7918 or email us. The HomeGain Team is always here to help!

Photos of Deb Miller’s Visit: Continue reading this post

Instead of doing my usual educational post, I figured I would tell you a quick story that is the reason I stayed in Real Estate.

When I lost my Internet Company in 2000 after the big bubble burst, I was offered several jobs from Radio groups to handle their national Internet efforts.  They were pretty high paying jobs all over $200k per year.  However, after talking with my girlfriend, now my wife, I realized that I just didn’t want to spend every day of  the month traveling.  I had just done that for the past several years and I was beat!

A friend of my better half was in Real Estate and she kept telling me I should get into Real Estate.  It’s a lot of work but with my personality I would do great…so she told me.  Continue reading this post

Life is about the journey … not about the ending. 

My earliest memory is when I was about 3+ years old.  For some strange reason, I recall that I was eating M&Ms one fateful day when I was told that my father wasn’t coming home anymore.  I later learned he was in a head on collision on a cold rainy day while driving to work.  He survived but was busted up pretty bad.  After a year or so of hospitalization, my parents’ marriage succumbed to the resulting stresses.

When I was 16, I left high school to go work full time in the construction business.  Back when my dear mother was raising two boys on her own and working two jobs to make ends meet it seemed the right thing to do.  My high school counselor said I was making a major mistake and that I’d never be able to go to college.  He didn’t know I don’t believe in the word “never” and fortunately I was

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It seems everyone had another life prior to real estate. Few people grow up saying, “I want to be a real estate agent!” Rare is the 18 year old that gets a license and does nothing but sell real estate the rest of their life.

I had a plethora of jobs in my youth. I got a job at McDonalds the day I turned 16 and have been pretty much working ever since. One summer in college I moved pianos. That job sucked. Another summer I had a brief stint installing guard rails for the Texas Highway Department. That was about as much fun as moving pianos.

I went to college for two semester’s right after high school. First was at Texas A&M at Galveston where I quickly found out going to a college where you could see the beach outside the English 101 classroom was not conducive to proper study habits. Rather than get kicked out, I packed up and moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas. There I quickly found out being 18, away from home and living in a college town that is jammed full of coeds, in a house with 5 other guys, was not conducive to proper study habits.

I pumped gas that semester in Austin (physically pumped gas – this was back in the day of full service gas stations) which did not pay well. One evening an ad came on the radio announcing that Motorola was hiring for entry-level workers in their semiconductor manufacturing facility. The pay was outstanding—$3.50 an hour (almost a buck over minimum wage!) and it had benefits – like vacation time, tuition reimbursement and health insurance. So I dropped out of college (“They can’t teach me anything!”) and applied for a position.

Fast forward 16 years. I was still employed at Motorola and Continue reading this post

Last week we kicked off the Lives of the Realtors series. So far we have heard from two amazing individuals, Ryan Ward and Mitch Ribak.

Later this week we will be publishing the past life of Phoenix Real Estate Guy, Jay Thompson.

Jay has had an interesting background prior to becoming a successful Realtor and one of the country’s top bloggers.

We will also be launching a new series about Realtors – A Day in the Life.
In the new series we will ask Realtors to talk about their current day to day practices, business philosophies, work habits, office set up and other daily items that make up a Realtors’ life.

Stay tuned, better yet, subscribe to the HomeGain Real Estate Blog.

Louis Cammarosano

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I consider myself very fortunate. I’m happily married with a very successful real estate career that is growing rapidly in a tough market.

Prior to beginning my real estate career, I was a restaurant manager looking to find a career where I could actually pursue something that I cared about and had passion for. I was already buying, rehabbing and selling homes so it was a natural transition to move into the listing and sales side of the business. Furthermore, working on those houses helped to provide a foundation that was more beneficial to selling real estate than any class that I ever took in college.

In October of 2003, my wife, Samantha, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Three days after the diagnoses, my wife looked at me and said “let’s buy a house”. It was the spirit that “not even cancer can stop us from realizing our dream” that still inspires me today to dream, work, strive and believe that nothing can stop the human spirit that has the strength to believe in themselves in the face of what can be the worst possible set of circumstances anyone can face – their own death.

Three years later, our daughter was born – the beauty and miracle that many take for granted was to us, almost a miracle. The chances that we could have a child were slim and many thought not possible. But the cancer battle and newborn child left us in less than great shape financially and the time I had spent caring for my wife emptied my pipeline of business and I was wondering if real estate was going to be a viable option for me and my family.

That’s when I made a fundamental paradigm shift into the online world – the “new” way of real estate, so to speak. Continue reading this post