Field Guides are one-stop resource packages on dozens of subjects of interest to REALTORS®. On each page you’ll find links to articles, books, web sites, statistics, and other material on each subject. The list of the most-used field guides from Information Central for the month of April 2013 was released today:
- Field Guide to Quick Real Estate Statistics
- Field Guide to Open Houses
- Field Guide to 1031 Exchanges
- Field Guide to Opening a Real Estate Brokerage
- Field Guide to Marketing Tips for REALTORS®
- Field Guide to Real Estate Office Policy Manuals
- Field Guide to Preparing & Staging a House for Sale
- Field Guide to Listing & Selling Luxury Properties
- Field Guide to Buying vs. Renting
- Field Guide to Farming & Prospecting
Have an idea for a new field guide? Let us know!
NAR members and Association staff can borrow up to six electronic books, digital audios and/or videos at no cost, through the Virtual Library eBooks Collection.
Members can also borrow up to three books for 30 days from the Library Catalog for a nominal fee of $10. Call Information Central at 800.874.6500 for assistance.
7 Money Rules for Life®
by Mary Hunt
Americans young and old are flunking their finances. A shocking 77 percent live paycheck to paycheck with no savings. And 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, while 49 percent could cover less than one month’s expenses if they lost their income. In the face of this bleak financial picture, bestselling author and finance expert Mary Hunt offers 7 Money Rules for Life®. This no-nonsense and encouraging book gives readers the keys to get their money under control and get prepared financially for the rest of their lives.
Anticipate
by Bill Thomas and Jeff Tobe
Anticipate provides business readers with a practical how-to approach for taking their customer-supplier relationship to one that is more sustainable and more mutually profitable. Much of the discussion on customer experience has centered on the hospitality or retail industries and has showcased the discrete techniques organizations use to deliver better service and create more satisfied customers. Anticipate extends and integrates those techniques to deliver an end-to-end customer experience that can be applied in any industry, by any type of organization. Get proven guidance on how to design and implement a customer-focused journey that moves beyond the transaction and satisfied customers, to a relationship and culture that creates and leverages loyalty — and the profitability that comes with it.
iConnected
by Ben Harvell
Whether at work or at home, syncing multiple Apple devices can help you achieve an organized, streamlined, harmonized life. With this unique resource, you discover how to get the most out of AirPlay and iCloud, Apple’s streaming and cloud services. Featuring a four-color design and packed with helpful codes, tips, and tricks, this accessible book shows you how to write a document on an iMac at home and then continue editing it on an iPad while on the go without worrying about synching the devices to each other. Perhaps you’re interested in watching a movie on an iPhone during the commute home and then stream that movie to an HDTV via an Apple TV once you’re back on the couch. Those are just a sneak preview of the tutorials in this book that will show you how to take full advantage of the cross-family integration of Apple’s products.
The Introverted Leader
by Jennifer Kahnweiler
In our outgoing, Type-A business culture, introverts can feel excluded, overlooked or misunderstood, their reticence mistaken for arrogance or even lack of intelligence. And their inconsistent people skills often cause their careers to plateau. But Jennifer Kahnweiler shows that not only can introversion be managed, it can even be a source of strength. Ask Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, leaders she cites as shy introspectives who have developed ways to thrive in a challenging environment.
Start Your Dream Business
by Sarah Wade and Carole Ann Rice
Do you harbour dreams of being your own boss and doing something that you are truly passionate about? Do you have a great idea on the back-burner, but fear giving up the security of a regular salary? Start Your Dream Business reveals the journeys and secrets of people who took that first scary step towards their dream and set up their own businesses. Through these inspirational stories, the authors show and analyse how these individuals, from all over the world, achieved entrepreneurial success. Filled with instructive case-studies, practical advice and coaching tips, this book guides the reader through the many stages of starting a business, avoiding the common mistakes, and overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way. For all those who feel unfulfilled at work, who feel that their creativity is not utilised, not appreciated, Start Your Business proves that with the right mindset and the right skills, anyone can make that change they’ve been dreaming of, to go from day job to top dog!
Hotel Success Handbook
by Lucy Whittington and Caroline Cooper
If you are an owner or manager of a small hotel, B&B, Restaurant with Rooms, Inn or other guest accommodation this book is packed with ideas and tips for business success. Practical sales & marketing actions that you can use to improve occupancy, increase spend per head, and maximize profit. Find out how you can: – Attract the guests you want – Define your identity so you stand out from competition – Work with partners to be successful – Use the web to improve your business – Find traditional and online marketing strategies that work for you – Increase the lifetime value of each guest – Hire and lead a great supporting team – Keep your success going.
Make It All About Them
by Nadine Keller
In today’s commodity-based marketplace it is harder than ever to differentiate even the most superlative services and products. The sales presentation provides the most powerful opportunity to do so. Make It All About Them reveals the truth behind the traditional rules of presentations and offers sales professionals a new way forward. It explains why focusing on three key points trumps a presentation full of details, why plain English always wins over jargon, why the audience doesn’t need to know how important you are but how important they are, and other effective tactics.
NAR members and Association staff can borrow up to three books for 30 days from the Library for a nominal fee of $10.
Members and staff can also borrow up to six electronic books, digital audios and/or videos at no cost, through the Virtual Library eBooks Collection.
Extreme Productivity
By Robert C. Pozen
Harper Collins Publishers, 2012
In Extreme Productivity, Pozen reveals the secrets to workplace productivity and high performance. His book is for anyone feeling overwhelmed by an existing workload—facing myriad competing demands and multiple time-sensitive projects. Offering antidotes to a calendar full of boring meetings and a backlog of e-mails, Extreme Productivity explains how to determine your highest priorities and match them with how you actually spend your time.
Knock-Out Networking!
By Michael Goldberg
Building Blocks Consulting, 2011
Boxing, like networking, is a contact sport. The more and better contacts you make, the more wildly successful you will be! But times are tough. If you’re a sales rep, business owner, or job searcher you know firsthand that times are tough. Networking is the best way to make those contacts, develop those relationships, and achieve success. Bottom line! So if networking is so important, why don t more people network? Most people simply don’t know how so they fear what might happen at a networking function, cocktail party, mixer, or business meeting. These proven approaches have helped thousands of sales reps, sales managers, business owners, and job searchers change the way they develop relationships. And they will do the same for you!
The Energy Bus
By John Gordon
John Wiley & Sons, 2007
The Energy Bus, an international best seller by Jon Gordon, takes readers on an enlightening and inspiring ride that reveals 10 secrets for approaching life and work with the kind of positive, forward thinking that leads to true accomplishment – at work and at home. Jon infuses this engaging story with keen insights as he provides a powerful roadmap to overcome adversity and bring out the best in yourself and your team. When you get on The Energy Bus you’ll enjoy the ride of your life!
Peaks and Valleys
By Spencer Johnson, M.D.
Atria Books, 2009
A young man lives unhappily in a valley. One day he meets an old man who lives on a mountain peak. At first the young man doesn’t realize that he is talking to one of the most peaceful and successful people in the world. But in the course of further encounters and conversations, the young man comes to understand that he can apply the old man’s remarkable principles and practical tools to his own life to change it for the better.
Pedestrian & Transit-Oriented Design
By Reid Ewing and Keith Bartholomew
Urban Land Institute, 2013
Explaining how to design spaces for pedestrians while also accommodating transit needs, this book is an excellent reference for students, public sector planners and officials, and private sector designers and developers seeking to make places more pedestrian- and transit-friendly. Written by a noted expert on pedestrian design and planning, this handbook contains examples of zoning codes from different localities.
Common Sense Selling
By Van C. Deeb
Morris Publishing, 2009
Common Sense Selling tells an unforgettable story of vision, discipline, inspiration and motivation. Van will inspire, instruct and motivate you to become the best you can be in your sales career or as a business owner based on a resource we all have and rarely use: Common Sense!
The Dance of Balance
By Annie Pane
White Dove Publishing, 2005
The Dance of Balance is all out you and your personal choices. No matter what’s going right or wrong in your life, the stories and parables in this book show Feng Shui can help. Nationally recognized Feng Shui expert Annie Pane guides you room by room and situation by situation, teaching you how simply rearranging your space at home and at work can help you with promotions and raises, love and intimacy, and a myriad of family relationships. The dance of balance is about how to get what you want in your life, not about giving anything up or using oriental knick-knacks.
Field Guides are one-stop resource packages on dozens of subjects of interest to REALTORS®. On each page you’ll find links to articles, books, web sites, statistics, and other material on each subject. The list of the most-used field guides from Information Central for the month of March 2013 was released today:
- Field Guide to Quick Real Estate Statistics
- Field Guide to 1031 Exchanges
- Field Guide to Real Estate Office Policy Manuals
- Field Guide to Preparing & Staging a House for Sale
- Field Guide to Marketing Tips for REALTORS®
- Field Guide to the Best Places to Live
- Field Guide to Opening a Real Estate Brokerage
- Field Guide to Listing & Selling Luxury Properties
- Field Guide to Open Houses
- Field Guide to Buying vs. Renting
Have an idea for a new field guide? Let us know!
Field Guides are one-stop resource packages on dozens of subjects of interest to REALTORS®. On each page you’ll find links to articles, books, web sites, statistics, and other material on each subject. The list of the most-used field guides from Information Central for the month of February 2013 was released today:
- Field Guide to Quick Real Estate Statistics
- Field Guide to 1031 Exchanges
- Field Guide to Marketing Tips for REALTORS®
- Field Guide to Real Estate Office Policy Manuals
- Field Guide to Listing & Selling Luxury Properties
- Field Guide to Preparing & Staging a House for Sale
- Field Guide to Opening a Real Estate Brokerage
- Field Guide to Buying vs. Renting
- Field Guide to the Best Places to Live
- Field Guide to Short Sales
Have an idea for a new field guide? Let us know!
NAR members and Association staff can borrow up to six electronic books, digital audios and/or videos at no cost, through the Virtual Library eBooks Collection.
Members can also borrow up to three books for 30 days from the Library Catalog for a nominal fee of $10. Call Information Central at 800.874.6500 for assistance.
Full Voice, The Art and Practice of Vocal Presence
by Barbara McAfee
Your voice says a lot about you. Based on the tone and expression of your voice alone, your listeners may make up their minds about you before they even process the meaning of your words. And if what you say is at odds with how you say it, they can miss your message altogether. As important as our voices are, few of us know how to use them to their full potential. Full Voice offers a fun, tested method to harness the power of your voice to become a more effective and flexible communicator.
People Can’t Drive You Crazy if You Don’t Give Them the Keys
by Mike Bechtle
You don’t have to be controlled by difficult people! Strange as it may seem, other people are not nearly as committed to our happiness as we are. In fact, sometimes it seems like they’re on a mission to make us miserable! There’s always that one person. The one who hijacks our emotions. The one who seems to thrive on drama. If we could just “fix” that person, everything would be better. But we can’t fix other people. We can only make choices about ourselves. There will always be difficult people. But this fresh perspective on dealing with them can change your life — starting today!
Can I Have Your Attention?
by Joseph Cardillo
Can I Have Your Attention? is not your traditional self-help book that offers 12 simple steps to enhance brainpower. Nor is it a book on Eastern Wisdom, spirituality, or conventional meditation. It is an eye-popping adventure that combines ancient, high-speed attention-building processes with cutting-edge attention research in psychology, neurology, and biology. Through Joseph Cardillo’s engaging personal account of the world of human attention—which synthesizes the stories of more than two dozen experts—you will uncover surprising secrets about the workings of your own mind.
Idea Agent
by Lina M. Echeverria
There is perhaps no leadership challenge more daunting than managing creativity—and more urgent than delivering breakthrough innovation. How do you harness some of the most passionate, intelligent people in your organization without stifling them? How do you simultaneously unleash their energy and channel it into something tangible? Drawing on the author’s considerable experience assembling and nurturing cutting-edge teams at Corning Inc., Idea Agent shows readers how to juxtapose creative freedom with management rigor and lead dedicated professionals as they generate and execute one great innovation after another.
Make Your Contacts Count
by Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon
Make Your Contacts Count is a practical, step-by-step guide for creating, cultivating, and capitalizing on networking relationships and opportunities. Packed with valuable tools, the book offers a field-tested “”Hello to Goodbye”" system that takes readers from entering a room, to making conversations flow, to following up. Updated from its first edition, the book now includes expanded advice on building social capital at work and in job hunting, as well as new case studies, examples, checklists, and questionnaires.
Daring Greatly
by Brene Brown and Karen White
Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.
Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts.
The Power of Habit
by Charles Duhigg
In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.
At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.
NAR members and Association staff can borrow up to three books for 30 days from the Library for a nominal fee of $10.
Members and staff can also borrow up to six electronic books, digital audios and/or videos at no cost, through the Virtual Library eBooks Collection.
Identifying American Architecture
By John J.-G. Blumenson
W. W. Norten & Company, 1981
What styles of architecture are found in your neighborhood – Georgian, Prairie, International, Spanish, Colonial Revival? Identifying American Architecture enables the reader to determine styles and identify architectural terms by comparing real buildings with the book’s many photographs. Details – roofs, porches, windows and so on – are illustrated in the same manner, and all terms appear in an extensive 16-page index.
A Field Guide to American Houses
By Virginia & Lee McAlester
Alfred A. Knopf, 1984
For the house lover and the curious tourist, for the house buyer and the weekend stroller, for neighborhood preservation groups and for all who want to know more about their community — here, at last, is a book that makes it both easy and pleasurable to identify the various styles and periods of American domestic architecture.
Concentrating not on rare landmarks but on typical dwellings in ordinary neighborhoods all across the United States — houses built over the past three hundred years and lived in by Americans of every social and economic background — the book provides you with the facts (and frame of reference) that will enable you to look in a fresh way at the houses you constantly see around you. It tells you — and shows you in more than 1,200 illustrations — what you need to know in order to be able to recognize the several distinct architectural styles and to understand their historical significance. What does that cornice mean? Or that porch? That door? When was this house built? What does its style say about the people who built it? You’ll find the answers to such questions here.
Heart, Smart, Guts, and Luck
By Anthony K. Tjan, Richard J. Harrington, and Tsun-Yan Hsieh
Harvard Business Review Press, 2012
Do you have what it takes to build a great business?
In this book, three prominent business leaders and entrepreneurs—now venture capitalists and CEO advisers—share the qualities that surface again and again in those who successfully achieve their goals. The common traits? Heart, smarts, guts, and luck.
Though no single archetype for entrepreneurial success exists, this book will help you understand which traits to “dial up” or “dial down” to realize your full potential, and when these traits are most and least helpful (or even detrimental) during critical points of a company lifecycle. Not only will you know how to build a better business faster, you’ll also take your natural leadership style to the next level.
The Signal and the Noise
By Nate Silver
Penguin Press, 2012
Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”: The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.
With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver’s insights are an essential read.
2013 Swanepoel Trends Report
By S. Swanepoel, J. Conaway, R. Hahn, M. Cohen, M. Davison, and T. Mitchell
RealSure, Inc., 2012
Only one annual Report has, for the last 8 years, summarized the important facts every year and made them available in an objective and “advertising free” format. That has shaped the Swanepoel TRENDS Report into the most anticipated and valued resource of market intelligence available for real estate professionals.
Operating Ratio Report, 14th Edition
American Society of Association Executives, 2012
How do your key performance ratios – profitability, productivity and efficiency, liquidity, and revenue and expense management – compare against other organizations? Compare the data compiled from more than 2,800 organizations represented within ASAE membership against your own organization’s financial performance to identify opportunities for improvement or to help justify expenses in a particular area.
Field Guides are one-stop resource packages on dozens of subjects of interest to REALTORS®. On each page you’ll find links to articles, books, web sites, statistics, and other material on each subject. The list of the most-used field guides from Information Central for the month of January 2013 was released today:
- Field Guide to Quick Real Estate Statistics
- Field Guide to 1031 Exchanges
- Field Guide to Marketing Tips for REALTORS®
- Field Guide to Real Estate Office Policy Manuals
- Field Guide to Listing & Selling Luxury Properties
- Field Guide to Preparing & Staging a House for Sale
- Field Guide to Opening a Real Estate Brokerage
- Field Guide to the Best Places to Live
- Field Guide to Writing a Business Plan
- Field Guide to Buying vs. Renting
Have an idea for a new field guide? Let us know!
Field Guides are one-stop resource packages on dozens of subjects of interest to REALTORS®. On each page you’ll find links to articles, books, web sites, statistics, and other material on each subject. The list of the most-used field guides from Information Central for the month of November 2012 was released today:
- Field Guide to Quick Real Estate Statistics
- Field Guide to 1031 Exchanges
- Field Guide to Marketing Tips for REALTORS®
- Field Guide to Real Estate Office Policy Manuals
- Field Guide to Listing & Selling Luxury Properties
- Field Guide to Opening a Real Estate Brokerage
- Field Guide to Working with FSBOs
- Field Guide to Mortgage Interest Deduction
- Field Guide to Buying vs. Renting
- Field Guide to the Best Places to Live
Have an idea for a new field guide? Let us know!
NAR members and Association staff can borrow up to three books for 30 days from the Library for a nominal fee of $10.
Members and staff can also borrow up to six electronic books, digital audios and/or videos at no cost, through the Virtual Library eBooks Collection.
Hotels & Motels: Valuations and Market Studies
Appraisal Institute, 2001
This text presents a sophisticated, systematic approach to completing hotel market studies, financial forecasts, investment analyses, and valuations. It examines the macroeconomic factors that affect the supply and demand for lodging facilities and introduces a six-step process to evaluate a hotel’s profitability and value. Each step in the process is demonstrated with a case study.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
By Daniel Kahneman
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011
In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.
Appraising the Appraisal: The Art of Appraisal Review
By Richard C. Sorenson
Appraisal Institute, 2010
Reviewing appraisal reports is an essential quality-control function and today it is more important than ever. This second edition of Appraising the Appraisal provides practical instruction on the appraisal review process and helps promote greater understanding between reviewers and appraisers. Written by a seasoned professional, this useful guide describes common deficiencies in appraisal reports and offers tips for preparing careful and constructive appraisal reviews that can be applied by appraisers, lenders and other professionals.This new edition includes updated information on scope of work and data verification and real-world examples that highlight the qualities of both effective and ineffective appraisals. A new case study, handy checklists and sample review forms are also provided.
Before and After Disaster Strikes: Developing an Emergency Procedures Manual
Institute of Real Estate Management, 2012
Before and After Disaster Strikes: Developing the Emergency Procedures Manual, Fourth Edition is designed to be a guide and resource for real estate managers as they create the emergency procedures plan and develop the emergency procedures manual for the properties they manage. Designed with an all-hazards approach in mind, this fourth edition walks real estate managers through the necessary considerations when preparing for and reacting to a disasternatural or manmade. Covering more than just natural disasters, this edition provides an extensive look at how to address building emergencies from fires, power outages, or hazardous materials spills, to acts of crime and terrorism.
Appraising Conservation and Historic Preservation Easements
By Richard J. Roddewig
Appraisal Institute, 2011
Learn the intricacies of the appraisal process as applied to conservation and historic preservation easements!
Drawing on legal, regulatory and professional appraisal literature, Appraising Conservation and Historic Preservation Easements examines the valuation of conservation and historic preservation easements from the contradictory perspectives of the IRS, the courts, easement-holding organizations and appraisers.
Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century
The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, 2012
Contemporary family life in America has been examined from many perspectives but rarely through the lens of household material culture – the things we own and the ways we use our homes. Sociologists, cultural anthropologists, psychologists, economists, and policy makers have much to say about today’s families, but the methods of ethnoarchaeology take us directly into fresh new territory about modern households. This book explores the home lives of middle-class families in California, exposing vast material worlds and actual and idealized modes of life at home. It is a documentary record of the fascinating richness of these worlds and a unique visual journey into modern cultural history.
