Researchers in a new study appearing in the Journal of Housing Research investigated whether an agent’s looks could influence buyers’ overall impression of online property listings. About 1,500 home buyers took an online audiovisual tour of a typically priced home in their area hosted by one of eight agents varying in gender, attractiveness, and pathos—or how they enhance “the verbal description of the property with superlatives,” the
Tom Ferry: the main pitfalls that drive the huge failure rate among agentsImagine if a deadly disease hit earth causing a mortality rate even remotely near the failure rate of real estate agents — people would live in complete, utter panic.The failure rate in real estate is high — extremely high. Many people who were in your real estate class are unlikely to be in the business five years from now. While that sounds alarming, it’s your livel
realtor.comFarmhouse chic is all the rage in home decor these days, thanks largely to Chip and Joanna Gaines from "Fixer Upper," who play up this style in many of the homes on their show (Hello, "barndominium"). The recent news that "Fixer Upper" will soon be ending for good provides all the more reason to embrace this trend. Soon, it'll be all we'll have left of Chip and Jo! (Sniff.)But before you go all Beverly hillbillies on us, reme
A home insurance policy won’t cover every thing that could possibly go wrong with a home. The details are all in the fine print within the policy.“Insurance policies are like snowflakes; no two are exactly the same,” Ashleigh Cloud Trent, an insurance adviser with Swingle Collins and Associates in Dallas, told realtor.com®.Many standard policies do not include a few things that homeowners may assume they cover. Homeowners may need to inves
Many real estate professionals have become keenly aware of targeted wire fraud scams that include email impersonation tactics. A growing avenue cyber criminals are using to get highly sensitive financial data is known as spear phishing, according to Asaf Cidon, vice president of content security for Barracuda Networks, a data protection company.Spear phishing is a highly targeted and researched personal attack that is difficult to detect. Ha
Improved educational performance, higher civic participation, lower crime rates, and improved health remain the biggest social benefits linked to homeownership, according to a new research paper by NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun and research economist Nadia Evangelou, which appears in The Journal of the Center for Real Estate Studies. Some findings from the latest research cited in the paper include:Health. Children of homeowners tend to b
Painting can be one of the most cost-effective ways to spruce up a listing. But homeowners can also make a lot of mistakes with this common DIY job. Realtor.com® recently spoke with staging and color experts to find out some of the most obvious mistakes that they see most often.1. Choosing the wrong finish.Homeowners need to select a paint finish that correlates with the room’s purpose. "Many homeowners are nervous about using shiny semigloss
Step out of your box, and give it a tryWhen Myrtle Beach-based agent Abe Safe was newly licensed, he started out purely cold calling for a few months. As a new agent, he had little else to do, so he was committed.After he got comfortable making cold calls, he started on expireds and FSBOs. His goal was to make a minimum of 40 contacts per day.By the end of his first year, he closed 40 transactions, and roughly a quarter of those deals came from
Inexpensive fixes tend to offer the highest returnsKey Takeaways Sellers often lose money making high-cost renovations. Inexpensive renovations tend to offer higher ROI and present less risk than costly projects.Can you list the home renovations that get the best returns for sellers? If not, can you honestly claim to get top dollar for sellers’ homes?Tracy McLaughlinOn a podcast with Pat Hiban, Tracy McLaughlin shared her expert advice on home
Your sweat equity will pay dividends when the home sellsKey Takeaways The key to staging a home on a budget is manual labor with a detail-oriented focus.Staging a home on a budget isn’t as hard as you may think. As a real estate agent, you can advise sellers on how to instantly boost the appeal of their home using tricks of the trade that cost little or no money and bring a huge return on investment.Small changes add up to create buyer-friendl
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