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Posted On Thursday, 09 November 2023 00:00 Written by

When most businesses think of innovation, they think of what I would consider to be transformational innovation. What I am referring to is the big advancements that revolutionized organizations and whole industries, such as the founding of social media giant Facebook (now Meta), the first electric vehicle, or moments like the iPod making its debut at Apple.

These are the innovations that entrepreneurs and leaders dream of, picturing a scenario where their ROI is tremendous, they make differences in the world, and they ultimately leave competitors in the dust.

But while focusing on this transformational innovation is certainly one strategy to have, the reality is that a one-time breakthrough only has so much staying power, even if it is as powerful as those aforementioned examples. If you catch lightning in a bottle, as they say, using it to try to stay ahead of the competition truly leaves you missing a large part of the big picture.

Concerning yourself only with large advances in and outside of your industry means your scope of significance as an organization is actually quite small! You and your team then miss out on everyday opportunities that Anticipatory Leaders and Anticipatory Organizations who think exponentially take charge of.

Drawing Connections to Everyday Innovation

In this age of digital transformation, Anticipatory Organizations do not just focus on the big opportunities alone, as they are aware that putting everything else on the back burner will only leave them disrupted while they wait. Instead, those with an Anticipatory Mindset know they must focus on everyday innovation, where their team and organization expand their focus to continuous improvement, developing inventive solutions to everyday problems.

While Hard Trend future certainties are nearly everywhere you look, such as the ever-increasing prevalence of artificial intelligence, the aging of the Baby Boomer generation, the datafication of our marketplace, and the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), what Anticipatory Leaders also realize in harnessing everyday innovation is that there are just as many Soft Trends that they can influence.

The difference here is that they choose to influence those Soft Trends, whereas others may wrongfully assume those low-hanging-fruit opportunities are not something worth investing energy in. But just as Hard Trends and Soft Trends are both very much vital to low-risk innovation and anticipatory thinking, so is the connection between everyday innovation and transformational innovation!

As the age-old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Everyday innovations are integral stepping stones to something much bigger — transformational innovation. Everyday innovation is facilitated by influencing the Soft Trends that you can influence, which pre-solves problems that are part of a bigger Hard Trend that is certain to come. By partaking in everyday innovation, you are building toward that big transformational innovation moment!

Disruption Provides Opportunity for Everyday and Transformational Innovation

Not long ago, we witnessed the progress from 4G to 5G because of one of the three digital accelerators I identified long ago: bandwidth. This jump was a revolutionary increase in bandwidth that is already exponentially changing the way we do business, as well as changing our personal lives!

With this increase to 5G speeds, how the Internet of Things advances regarding smart devices and connectivity dramatically increased with it, enhancing infrastructure systems and ultimately making our lives easier. But any Anticipatory Leader will tell you that living in the moment is only so lustrous. We all know what is coming next — 6G.

However, all of the little innovations along the way within the connectivity we have with 5G will enable you to really leverage the powers of 6G when the time comes. Plus, if you really think about it for a second, you cannot time travel ahead to the days of 6G with a brilliant, transformational innovation right off the bat, just as you cannot time travel backward and bring some 5G-based innovation with you to take the world by storm the day 5G debuted.

It is a Hard Trend future certainty that 6G and beyond will be here before we know it, and there will be a transformational innovation opportunity that comes once in a lifetime as a result. But leveraging what we have now with everyday innovation will get you to your goal much faster, among accomplishing other feats along the way that give your business or organization staying power.

Proactivity Puts Your Mind at Ease

Learning to leverage Hard Trends and Soft Trends, just as we learn to put our energy into everyday innovation just as much as transformation innovation, is not solely about being the first to something. It is about making a significant world for your business or organization to thrive in while ensuring your future as a business or organization.

The goal is to move to a consistent mindset of proactivity and to not have one that is solely reactive. Trying to bring transformational innovation to your business or organization is a way to be proactive, but we must learn to take the steps of everyday innovation that lead us there. By utilizing my Hard Trend Methodology, you make any type of innovation far more certain and low-risk than trying to react to the disruptions as you are dealt them.

And if you think about it, this brings you tremendous peace of mind as a leader at your business or organization. When you know what to expect and, moreover, how you can leverage it, you have far more control over your destiny, even in the most uncertain of times.

So be proactive, and always think critically about your industry and the world outside of it! Anticipate what is to come and encourage your employees to do the same, so they can pre-solve problems before they become detrimental issues and identify. In doing so, seek out everyday innovation opportunities and leverage them to your advantage now. Trust me, they will amount to something transformational.

Posted On Thursday, 02 November 2023 00:00 Written by

Time is exactly the same for all of us. Some just make better use of their time than others! Many people are often confused by terms like “busy”, thinking that being busy is a good thing. Well, there is a HUGE difference in being “busy” and being productive! They are NOT the same thing, not by a mile. The major difference is that “busy” people tend to have little to no structure in their day and their lives seem to just merge one day into another. They create no differentiation from day to day, so they all just seem to run together. Also true, is that “busy” people tend to be highly reactive and bounce from one “urgent” issue after another. But unless you are working in the emergency room of a hospital, very few people find any real satisfaction being in a reactive mode all the time. The simple facts are proactive people tend to be significantly more productive than reactive people. Proactive people can focus tasks more clearly and provide a better customer experience than those that are bouncing around trying to figure out what they need to be doing next.

The best way I have found to transition from being busy and reactive to becoming productive and proactive is by scheduling! Understand that as an originator you have three main tasks to each day; Prospecting for new opportunities, processing those opportunities that are presented to you, and managing the communications of the first two. The more you layout your workday, week, month, and year, the faster you can learn to place all the proper tasks into the appropriate place in your schedule. When you do this, you can always relax and focus on what you are doing instead of worrying about what you are missing because you know your activities are scheduled and exactly where and when all the things you need to be doing will get done!

Scheduling is about taking control of your time and helps you execute your plan and complete your intensions, at the same time allows you to adapt to opportunities and outside influences as they appear. You can schedule your way to success if you just make the commitment to improve your life and your business by being intentional about what you do and when you do it. 

If you have any questions about this or any other questions about the prior topics discussed in these four business planning sessions for 2024, please just reach out: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Posted On Monday, 30 October 2023 00:00 Written by

New listings have posted their first annual increase since July 2022 as some sellers tire of waiting for mortgage rates to come down and others worry that prices will decline

New listings of homes for sale rose 0.3% from a year earlier during the four weeks ending October 22—a small increase, but the first since July 2022. That’s according to a new report from Redfin (redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage..

More homeowners are putting their homes on the market as mortgage rates remain elevated near 8%. Some sellers are accepting that rates are unlikely to meaningfully decline anytime soon and finally parting with their relatively low rates, while others are nervous tepid demand could cause home prices to fall if they wait any longer. It’s also worth noting that new listings were falling fast at this time last year as mortgage rates rose.

Buyers are welcoming even a small uptick in listings after nearly a year and a half of declines. Although many homebuyers are staying on the sidelines, with mortgage-purchase applications down 2% week over week to their lowest level in nearly 30 years, some house hunters are out there. Pending home sales posted their smallest annual decline in a year and a half (though that’s partly because pending sales were dropping at this time last year).

“Some people are selling right now because they’re concerned home values will go down, though that’s definitely not a foregone conclusion,” said Ali Mafi, a Redfin Premier agent in San Francisco. “Others are noticing an uptick in demand and testing the waters. My best advice for homeowners who are selling right now is to be realistic: Even though there are a few more buyers out there, this isn’t 2021. Price your home fairly so it will sell as fast as possible.”

Buyers’ budgets continue to take a hit with prices rising in much of the country and persistently high mortgage rates. Declining affordability has led to price adjustments: Roughly 7% of U.S. homes for sale had a price drop during the four weeks ending October 22, on average, the highest share on record.

Leading indicators

Indicators of homebuying demand and activity

 

Value (if applicable)

Recent change

Year-over-year
change

Source

Daily average 30-year fixed mortgage rate

7.98% (Oct. 25)

Down from 8% a week earlier, but still near its highest level in 23 years

Up from 7.29%

Mortgage News Daily

Weekly average 30-year fixed mortgage rate

7.63% (week ending Oct. 19)

Highest level in 23 years

Up from 6.94%

Freddie Mac

Mortgage-purchase applications (seasonally adjusted)

 

Down 2% from a week earlier (as of week ending Oct. 20)

Down 22% to its lowest level in nearly 30 years

Mortgage Bankers Association

Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index (seasonally adjusted)

 

Unchanged from a month earlier (as of the week ending Oct. 22)

Up 4%

Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index, a measure of requests for tours and other homebuying services from Redfin agents

Google searches for “home for sale”

 

Down 12% from a month earlier (as of Oct. 21)

Down 12%

Google Trends

Key housing-market data

U.S. highlights: Four weeks ending October 22, 2023

Redfin’s national metrics include data from 400+ U.S. metro areas, and is based on homes listed and/or sold during the period. Weekly housing-market data goes back through 2015. Subject to revision.

 

Four weeks ending October 22, 2023

Year-over-year
change

Notes

Median sale price

$369,975

3.1%

Prices are up partly because elevated mortgage rates were hampering prices during this time last year

Median asking price

$384,375

5.4%

Biggest increase in a year

Median monthly mortgage payment

$2,738 at a 7.63% mortgage rate

10%

$5 shy of all-time high set a week earlier

Pending sales

70,325

-7.3%

Smallest decline since April 2022, partly because pending sales fell rapidly at this time in 2022

New listings

81,104

0.3%

First increase since July 2022

Active listings

841,697

-12%

Smallest decline since July

Months of supply

3.5 months

+0.2 pts.

Highest level since February

4 to 5 months of supply is considered balanced, with a lower number indicating seller’s market conditions.

Share of homes off market in two weeks

38.3%

Up from 35%

 

Median days on market

33

-3 days

 

Share of homes sold above list price

29.8%

Up from 28%

 

Share of homes with a price drop

6.8%

+0.1 pt.

Record high

Average sale-to-list price ratio

99.1%

+0.3 pts.

 

Metro-level highlights: Four weeks ending October 22, 2023

Redfin’s metro-level data includes the 50 most populous U.S. metros. Select metros may be excluded from time to time to ensure data accuracy.

 

Metros with biggest year-over-year increases

Metros with biggest year-over-year decreases

Notes

Median sale price

West Palm Beach, FL (13.1%)

Newark, NJ (13%)

Anaheim, CA (12.2%)

New Brunswick, NJ (11.4%)

San Jose, CA (11%)

Austin, TX (-5.9%)

Fort Worth, TX (-2.2%)

Houston, TX (-1.6%)

San Antonio, TX (-1.6%)

Tampa, FL (-1.3%)

Portland, OR (-1.2%)

Phoenix (-0.4%)

Declined in 7 metros

Pending sales

West Palm Beach, FL (9.8%)

Orlando, FL (7.5%)

Jacksonville, FL (3.7%)

Fort Lauderdale, FL (2.6%)

Cleveland, OH (1.2%)

Portland, OR (-21.2%)

Sacramento, CA (-18.7%)

Virginia Beach, VA (-18.3%)

Newark, NJ (-16.6%)

Atlanta (-16.4%)

Declined in all but 7 metros

New listings

Orlando, FL (18.7%)

West Palm Beach, FL (13.7%)

Miami, FL (13.6%)

Jacksonville, FL (11.4%)

Fort Lauderdale, FL (11.3%)

Atlanta (-24.9%)

Portland, OR (-14.5%)

Nashville, TN (-13.2%)

Columbus, OH (-12.7%)

Chicago (-12.1%)

Increased in 14 metros (5 biggest increases all in Florida)

To view the full report, including charts, please visit:

https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-new-listings-increase

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