Veteran REALTORS®, the street in literature, ice cream banking, and talk like Inspector Gadget
With the flurry of articles harping on the financial, career, and general life failures of the Millennials, the Fiscal Times’ slide show 7 Recession Status Symbols gives this generation a much needed ego-boost. The sluggish economy gives rise to a socially and eco conscious, non-materialistic, and open-minded generation.
Fanboys around the world are lining up for iPhone 5, released today. The reviews came in earlier this week from the technorati press – most of it positive.
Koenig & Strey is helping veterans become REALTORS®. This program will provide assistance to qualified veterans, including real estate school and licensing fees, NAR dues, insurance and other fees and costs. Veterans are highly disciplined and used to overcoming obstacles—a perfect fit for real estate.
Sometimes you want to have a bit of background music but you’re not sure what you want to hear. Songza, one of Time‘s 50 best websites of 2012, will help you pick based on your mood.
The New Yorker recently noted how several recent novels, as well as some from the past, use real estate or a home as almost a character itself, representing the rise and fall of a family or neighborhood.
Tired of low returns on your savings account? How about interest in ice cream or coffee coupons? One entrepreneur in Pittsburgh has opened a community bank alternative as part of his ice cream parlor after being hit by multiple overdraft fees from his own bank. Customers who deposit $100 can earn $5.50 a year in coupons for ice cream, coffee or waffles. The bank also makes loans and cashes checks. However, there’s no FDIC insurance or other guarantees…
Time for a kitchen remodel? How about a $100,000 stove? Not in the budget this year? Well, here are some kitchen tips and tricks that will make your cooking taste like it came from one.
Shiver me timbers, we missed international talk like a pirate day! But being an outlaw means breakin’ some rules. Have a belated celebration with the natural pirate beverage – rum!
Flowers are not only beautiful to look at, but will boost your productivity. Having flowers at your desk and in your office can ease depression and negativity and promote creativity.
‘Handsfree’ is certainly a popular term in mobile phone technology, but a new invention goes to the other extreme. Hi-Call Gloves have a built in mic and speaker so you can look just like Inspector Gadget as you listen through your thumb and talk through your pinkie. Of course you’ll also look crazy, but at least your hands will be warm as you talk. Still in the development stage, the gloves use bluetooth technology so are compatible with most smart phones. And capacitive touch build in so you can text and surf Facebook without taking the gloves off.
New Construction upturn, rent-to-own housing, and your brackets
Plenty of economists and executives have fallen on their faces predicting a resurgence in housing in the past five years. But while the jury is still very much out for the overall market, there is reason to feel hopeful about new construction.
Bank of America says it has begun a pilot program offering some of its mortgage customers who are facing foreclosure a chance to stay in their homes by becoming renters instead of owners.
In today’s technological age, do business cards still serve a purpose? The Los Angeles Times thinks not. Younger people are shunning paper business cards as lame and wasteful and social media is the new replacement.
About 85 million people manage their professional networks with LinkedIn. Some 77 million smartphone users have downloaded the Bump app, which allows them to bump their phones together and instantly exchange contact information. Others carry a personalized quick-response code that smartphones can scan like a hyperlink. And, of course, there’s always Facebook, email and digital business cards. If they do take a paper card, some said they use a smartphone app to snap a picture of it and instantly digitize the card’s information. Then they toss it into the nearest trash can.
It’s something to consider when prospecting Generation Y clients.
Prepare yourself: on July 1, as many as 8 million college students will see their interest rates on federally subsidized student loans double, from 3.4% to 6.8%.
Are you more worried about your basketball brackets than your bottom line this month? March Madness can take over your life (and work) if you let it. Lifehack lists 5 tips to enjoy the madness while getting your work done.
So you undoubtedly heard the fairy tale about the turnip princess as a child. Or the one where the maiden escapes the witch by transformering herself into a pond. No? Well, probably that’s because researchers in Germany have discovered a trove of over 500 new fairy tales locked away in a vault in Bavaria. They were gathered in the mid-19th century by a contemporary of the brothers Grimm from the folktales of Bavarian peasants. Widely admired in his day, the collector Von Schönwerth’s work has mostly faded into obscurity. With this new find maybe we’ll be sharing the tale of the miserly farmer and a money-mill.
Millennial Bosses, Mother’s Day, and Earning Cents Using Facebook
With a slumping economy, several years of a less-than-stellar stock market, and a desire to be active, Boomers are serving in the workforce longer than previous generations. The result? Greater numbers working for younger bosses. Fortune has an interesting article on how this reversed generational dynamic can work.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition released its annual Out of Reach Report for 2011 on the state of the nation’s rental markets. Where is it most expensive to rent overall? And as compared to income? No real surprises that San Francisco comes out on top with 5 Bay Area counties leading the pack.
Mother’s Day is this Sunday, May 8th. While considering gift options, here’s a list of Mother’s Day gifts to avoid.
The latest scoop on Facebook? Earn cents for viewing ads. And, in case you’re having trouble keeping pace with Facebook’s ever growing list of “enhancements,” we provide a courtesy reminder to check that you’ve updated your security and news feed settings.
If you’re looking to provide relief to the Alabama tornado victims, donations are being accepted through the Alabama Association of REALTORS® Disaster Relief Fund.
The Pew Research Center, a non-profit ‘fact tank’ that tracks Americans’ attitudes to the press, religion, each other, and the world at large through research and polling, usually has something worth reading on its website. Recently the focus has been on ‘Millennials‘, the generation born after 1980 who are coming of age now. A recent survey has backed up what is generally assumed to be true about this generation, sometimes known as Generation Y:
- Tech-savvy and hooked into social media
- More liberal than conservative
- Highly educated (partly as a result of the recession)
- Multi-cultural and diverse
- Less religious than their parents
- More optimistic than previous generations
While Millennials are different in some ways then their parents and grandparents, they still put ‘home ownership’ towards the top of their list of life priorities. REALTORS® should take some time to understand where this next generation is coming from, where they’re going, and how to reach them.
How much do you share in common with the Millennials? Pew has a quick and easy online quiz to see which generation your habits and technology uses most closely mirror. How you answer will place you on a spectrum ranging from the Silent Generation (born 1928-45) to Boomer (1946-64) to Gen Xer (1965-80) to Millennial (1981+).
Looking for more information and resources? The library at realtor.org has a some free eBooks available to members on the topic:
- Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings are Revolutionizing Retail
- Y-Size Your Business: How Gen Y Employees and Save you Money and Grow your Business
- Future Marketing: Targeting Seniors, Boomers, and Generations X and Y
