Salespeople love referrals. They’re the sincerest form of compliment and a remarkably cost-effective route to new business. The idea of attracting referrals is so popular that sales trainers who bill themselves as referral gurus make fortunes promoting magical systems that supposedly deliver more referrals than an agent can handle, all in return for tuition at a three-day seminar. What they talk about for three days is a mystery to me.  Referrals are really pretty simple stuff.  A lot of it you can only acquire through perfect practice of your scripts, over and over, of referral-generating and referral-cultivation tactics.  

Referral Truths and Consequences

First American CoreLogic, a member of The First American Corporation family of companies and America's largest provider of advanced property and ownership information, analytics and services, announced this week the release of REiSource, a new Web-based real estate information gateway to the most complete and accurate suite of property profiles, new homeowner and refinance lists, resale trends, mortgage leads and custom reports for title insurance companies.

As i was researching the current market in the USA I came across this and found it to be wonderful new's.

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1. Salt Lake City

Median Home Sale Price: $246,700
Percent Change: 14.1%

Prices in Salt Lake City continued to climb as the city remains largely unaffected by the nationwide housing downturn due to low unsold inventory and a stable lending environment. This median-priced, ranch-style home was built in 1993 and has views of the surrounding mountains. There are five bedrooms and two baths across 1,800 square feet of interior space. The home also features a two-car garage and a rear patio. It is listed for $245,000 through Secure Real Estate.

How can a virtual world be used to possibly benefit real estate businesses and learning venues in the real world?

That was the question in my head when, yesterday, after over a year of thinking about it, I became Nikko LeFavre. Nikko lives in the 3D virtual world called Second Life.

If you haven't heard about Second Life you're not alone, my wife had never heard of it and was fascinated. A nutshell explanation is that it's an online community in 3D. Depending on your membership level, you can buy virtual real estate -- ultimately with real dollars. (What a concept, huh?) Residents can also trade services, buy/sell commodities, develop land, auction property, and so on.

New real estate wiki for real estate industry is launched. 

History of wikis in real estate
BiggerPockets (launched in 2006) claims to be the first real estate wiki but it unfortunately closed down in May 2007 due to lack of sufficient content.  Introduced shortly therafter, and still going strong, is InmanWiki (part of InmanNews, InmanTV and InmanBlog).  

Great article in USA today about the largest luxury home builder in the nation Toll Brothers - and how the CEO Robert Toll has been forced to amend his strategy in light of the new market reality:

Robert Toll's father, Albert, was a multimillionaire investor by age 24, then lost it all in the 1929 stock market crash. To support his family through the Depression, Albert delivered laundry and sold used cars. Gradually, he rebuilt his fortune by buying discounted real estate bonds. By the end of World War II, he owned several office and retail buildings.

Robert, 67, who goes by Bob, remembers the hard-learned lessons his father taught him and his younger brother, Bruce. "Be careful, be wary," he recites. "You make a mistake, it could be your last."

Creating an online community is a great way to get in front of residents in your target market 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

Below is a link to a long video (42 minutes) from InmanTV about building your niche online.  The speakers provide tons of great advice about building a niche, developing a business plan, engaging consumers and becoming a neighborhood expert.  Most of the content relates to blogging, but it also works for interactive neighborhood websites.  It's long, but if you have the time you will get a lot out of it.

If you’re interested in growing your business this way, I’m happy to provide suggestions on how to get started.

In today’s slower market, with fewer advertising dollars to spare, determining and marketing to your specific niche is vital to your success.  Focusing your efforts too broadly will result in thousands of dollars lost in marketing efforts that likely will produce little to no results.

By focusing on a niche, whether it is a neighborhood, first-time home buyers or vacation homes, you will be able to focus your marketing efforts and dollars on a specific group while greatly increasing your knowledge of the niche, ultimately making you the expert those buyers and sellers want to work with.

In the era of real estate information becoming more and more readily available, the role of the real estate professional is undoubtedly changing.

In his blog post, Are You Smarter Than Your Consumer?, Allen Wright asks a very good question that all real estate professionals should be asking themselves every day.

Check out this great post at: http://www.realblogging.com/are-you-smarter-your-consumer and let us know what you think!

THE PERFECT STORM OF INFORMATION   From the advent of the MLS information was the key.  The access to this information was “the” reason the consumer used a real estate agent.  Need to find a house? A buyer almost always had to work with an agent to find the current listings available.  Need to sell a house?  The operation works in reverse and an agent was needed to perform the 4 P’s – Price It, Put up a Sign, Put It in the MLS and Pray.   There are literally hundreds of data aggregation sites available for the consumer to visit.  This does not count the tens of thousands of agent sites that have IDX or other MLS portals.  Then there is the too numerous to list sites that offer home valuation services where the consumer can discover the value of their property.  Compounding this service is the multitude of agent sites offering free CMAs as a way to lure the consumer.   Recent circumstances has caused a proliferation of foreclosure sites and the once niche market offering “exclusive-access” to foreclosed properties is gone.  Even the segmented For-Sale-By-Owner market is serviced by various websites specific to that market.