It’s perplexing how often real estate industry questions are referred to social media for answers.  Some of the most basic questions of brokerage model, pay structure, technology tools, and marketing systems lack a unified research database where brokers and agents can begin their searches on an objective playing…

Geek Estate was started almost 8 years ago, July of 2007. Wow, that’s a long time ago. The amount of time I’ve personally invested in this is absurd. But I’ve generally loved every second of it. As most of you know, I’ve been working on Horizon for…

The Powerwall Home Battery is coming to a home near you. Via NPR: In an ambitious bid to move beyond the electric car market, Tesla has announced that it will start selling large batteries to let homeowners store electricity. The Powerwall home battery starts at…

In 1981 Al Ries and Jack Trout published Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. The marketing book became an instant classic. The authors were the first to suggest that consumers have room for just one “leader” in their minds for any given product or service. Safe…

I alluded to the industry combatting the portals with an Orbitz strategy in January of 2014, which turned out to be the case in February (2015) after Broker Public Portal was announced. The industry is taking a Orbitz strategy. Great. Though travel and real estate are very different industries – it…

Helping others changes you. Seeing the impact your money has on those less fortunate than you changes you. Seeing poverty with your own eyes changes you. The harsh realizion that the way we live in the United States is a fairy tale to the majority of the world is…

There have been many, many attempts at discount brokerage models, and those looking to dis intermediate the agent entirely over the past decade. Of course, Redfin and Zip Realty are two that come to mind first, because they reached fairly large scale and their brands…

[H/T to Matthew Slutsky]

Those that read tech and marketing blogs may already know: Google is releasing a major update to their algorithms that will heavily favor sites that are optimized for mobile. Search Engine Land has some responses to FAQ’s. The algorithm change only affects searches done on…

As you probably know by know, I question whether the National Broker Public Portal stands a chance to compete against the established portals (see articles here). I’ve yet to hear a good argument as to how it plans to become a top 3-5 portal — and…