John Capozzi- “Dig where the gold is unless you just want some exercise.” “Location, location, location,” experts say is the most important real estate facet.  If you are a homeowner, a home seller, or a homebuyer, the timing element determines the amount of gold you mine from your home or your financing. “Is there still gold in them there hills?”  Watch out for the effects of inflation.  
Inflation is pushing onto the scene, and inflation is the archenemy of low interest rates.  This week the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, announced that the Fed would continue keeping their rate low, even in the face of rising inflation. The Fed vowed they would continue to buy mortgage-backed securities to keep mortgage rates affordable.  However, the bond markets have been running against the Fed's efforts like a game of chicken.  “Is there gold in them there hills?”  When it comes…
Posted On Monday, 02 May 2022 00:00 Written by
In today’s world of dealing with unproductive Internet leads, it is time to cultivate the tried and true methods of yesteryear, the referral. A referral is often a warm lead from a trusted source. But have you ever sent a referral to another broker, and then never heard from that broker again? Join the club.  What is your conversion rate on getting or giving referrals?  With over 2500 referrals given each day in the US between agents, you may want to focus on building a stream of income from this underserved resource. But when you are actively giving or receiving referrals, keeping track of status might be a challenge.  
The communication of status and updates might be consistent or ,all too often, you never hear what the status is. Did the client have a good experience? Did the referral result in a sale?  With the success or failure…
Posted On Friday, 29 April 2022 00:00 Written by
The 2022 National Football League Draft begins this week on April 28 and continues through April 30 when Mr. Irrelevant will be selected.  The ambition of many young athletes is to play in what is euphemistically called the “big show” meaning at the professional level. This brings to mind Jacob Hickman, a 6’4 290 lbs. offensive lineman from the University of Nebraska some 10 years ago. Those Cornhuskers are famous for developing offensive linemen.
Hickman said, “Playing in the NFL was never a dream for me. I kind of thought if that happened, it’s something I would do. Now, I’ve kind of gone in  a different direction.” Hickman, considered by the NFL in the top 10 in his position, did not pursue an NFL career saying, “The passion is gone.” What an insight for a player who could have been a high draft pick, commanding a six-figure salary plus bonus. But…
Posted On Friday, 29 April 2022 00:00 Written by
Corporations that create in this world facilitate so many integral pieces to contemporary life by way of manufacturing. Manufacturing is quite literally a backbone to so many other industries, generating components for medical devices, automobiles, electronics, and machinery that keeps everything progressing forward. All of these components frequently need to be replaced, or more often upgraded thanks to new innovations that create new capabilities and in turn create new needs.
In addition, global supply chain shortages are driving a new wave of nearshoring to put manufacturing closer to customer locations. New manufacturing plants will utilize the latest technologies in an effort to increase productivity and competitive advantage. Due to the fact that technology-driven exponential change affects everything, manufacturing businesses must always keep up.   Of all industries, this one is one that has to be anticipatory in both how they manufacture items, and in foreseeing disruptions and change long before they…
Posted On Tuesday, 26 April 2022 00:00 Written by
I have often thought that sports or the field of sports would be the last bastion in maintaining truth and honesty or at least doing it the right way. Let me lay out the definition of bastion which is: (as I understand it): “An institution, place, or person strongly defending or upholding particular principles, attitudes, or activities.”
This was the lesson I learned playing on the playground after school and on weekends. I guess I shouldn’t say after school since what we were learning on that playground were life lessons that would serve us well. On the playground, we were the last bastion. There were no coaches or referees or umpires to guide us. We had to figure it out ourselves. And do it quickly since we were running out of daylight! Time was of the essence as we needed to be home before dark. Oh, yes, we argued about a foul…
Posted On Friday, 22 April 2022 00:00 Written by
“You’ve come a long way baby” was a tagline used in a television ad to promote women using their tobacco product by citing how “far” women had come in society, but when it when it comes to owning real estate the  truth of the matter does show women have come a log way, but still have a way to go.  It wasn’t so long ago (1974) that women were not legally allowed to get a mortgage without a male as a co-signer, and as of today, women are outpacing their male counterparts when it comes to single women and securing a mortgage. Single women homebuyers outpace men  to the tune of 19% for women to only 9% of single men – and that stat comes to us from the National Association of Realtors. What’s really happening is an equally fascinating statistic: that women have bought more homes than single men…
Posted On Friday, 22 April 2022 00:00 Written by
When you think about brick-and-mortar retail, you may not be thinking about hyper-personalized shopping experiences, digital shopping engagement tools, blockchain-powered commerce, autonomous delivery, virtual shopping, contactless self-checkout, or supply chain visibility. These might seem like topics for eCommerce-only businesses, but that is no longer what the present or future holds.  
Before I go any further, let’s keep in mind that the retail industry is a behemoth in all societies. All of the goods and services we purchase as individual consumers come to us in a variety of different ways. Decades ago, we went to brick-and-mortar stores after being prompted by a coupon in the Sunday paper, listening to a radio commercial, or seeing an ad spot on television. In the early 1990s, a technology-enabled disruption happened with the commercialization of the Web and the option to actually purchase goods or services via web pages, and eCommerce was born.…
Posted On Tuesday, 19 April 2022 00:00 Written by
The rapid rise in interest rates have caught some off guard and are making a challenging market even more so. However, it’s important to put a few things into context. 1. Rising rates are not unmanageable by a long shot, and rates in the 5% and 6% range are not going to cause a meltdown as some on social media might have you believe. 2. Home prices are not rising as fast as they did last year, but just because some sellers are reducing their asking price on homes, doesn’t mean the housing market is falling, it means that they aren’t rising as fast as they were. 3. While there aren’t as many buyers bidding on the same house as there was before, estimates are that there are still far more buyers than sellers as we speak. 4. Last year the average cost of a mortgage loan was about 2.96%…
Posted On Monday, 18 April 2022 00:00 Written by
It’s another day and as you sit sipping your morning coffee (or tea) you may not realize that much of your day will be run by that “inner voice” that dictates how you see the world.   Those experiences of yesterday have a place in our brains that tell a story. The story is based on an experience you had at a given time in a particular situation, and your perception of that experience gets logged into a permanent file in your brain.  That thought may be a total misperception but will “rule” how you think, behave, and act … and then catalogue the experience next time a similar situation occurs. 
Here’s the thing… Most of the time, that observation can be good or bad, but either way, it becomes the blueprint for your thinking and perception going forward.  If you’ve had a good experience, you write a story.…
Posted On Friday, 15 April 2022 00:00 Written by
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