Greg Rand's (gsrand) Blog

I am infurated with Zillow. Over the years they have been accused of being an enemy of the real estate brokerage industry, using our listing information to build website traffic and planning to use that against us once they do. I always defended them, but that's over. Zillow is the new Shiller. I...

I just completed a video on the subject of Branding and Positioning that will be part of the Certification Course we are launching next month, but I had to share it here after reading Mark Walser's thoughtful post on the subject. I am a big believer that one of the hardest things about this busin...

Our industry is beginning to recognize (on a large scare) that the residential real estate investor market is huge. NAR's most recent study showed it at about 1 in 5 transactions nationally, which was the lowest it's been in years, and likely to increase as the recession turns the corner. More an...

Charleston Median Sale PriceCharleston Home Values - Interactive chart

I am noticing a change in the media reporting, and the public sentiment about real estate investment. Wall Street volatility (madness) and government policy (meddling) has caused a flight to real estate in the past. The control and independence of real estate ownership is appealing when the world...

Here are a few of my favorite headlines from this morning's news: CBS News "Home Sales Tumble", CNN/Money "Disasterous Home Sales report", Yahoo Finance "Home Sales Plunge", etc etc etc. We all knew the market was artificially stimulated in March and April by the tax credit. In fact, the favorite...

I did an interesting interview this week on the radio with Mr. Belsky of Harvard. His study was the most balanced and thoughtful I've seen this year. Here is the podcast of the show. Here is the Harvard study.     

If I told you Apple stock was in decline and showed you a chart like this, would you be convinced? It's clear the stock is going down. But does this illustrate the trend?       This chart shows the performance of Apple stock today from 9:30am to 10:30am. Obviously this is a flawed measurement for...

It is estimated that 26% of all mortgage defaults today are "strategic defaults", or deliberate deadbeats who are simply walking away from their mortgages because they have negative equity. Let me be clear that I am not referring to people who are unemployed, were victimized by a predatory lender...

The most common feedback I get on this blog is from people who are annoyed that I am daring to be optimistic. I don't totally buy into the doom and gloom, and believe much of the pessimism out there is drummed up by the media. Yes, people are losing homes and jobs, but IPads are also flying off t...