Cliff Stevenson

A few weeks ago I had someone post a comment on my blog that was a little less than flattering. This was posted by 'Fellow REALTOR®' (he didn't use the proper trademark but due to recent events I'll add it for him/her here) and his/her email address was ipfreely@remax.com.

"wow, you are one angry REALTOR, wonder if your clients feed on your negative energy and negative energy......do you hav ...

I was showing homes to a client of mine this past weekend, and we walked into a home that was filled with air-fresheners.....everywhere. There must have been an air-freshener in every room in the house.

This showing reminded me of 2 things....

1) I detest the Febreze commercial currently on the air that interviews a REALTOR® who sprays Febreze on her client's furniture prior to an open ...

This is going to be more of a rant than an observation, so if a critical look at the real estate industry annoys you, or does not interest you.....then this post probably is not going to do anything for you.

I'm getting a tad frustrated with REALTORS® describing their 'marketing plan' as a 'unique' plan.

Let me explain.

I have seen marketing plans that I would call 'unique'....as they incl ...

I wanted to explain a little bit about my business model and how I do my business. There are a lot of REALTORS® in our industry that do things a little differently and I think I'm one of them.

I'm not going to go so far as to say that it's a unique approach, as I do know other realtors that are taking my approach and are doing a fantastic job with it, but I think that those of us that are op ...

There is a lot of talk about commissions out there and I'm speaking about real estate commissions.

It's been in the news a lot lately - the Canadian Real Estate Association's struggle with the competition bureau. A lot of that centers around reduced commissions structures in our industry. I just thought I would weigh in on the subject a little bit, and give my two cents on commissions and ho ...

If I have client who is looking to purchase a home in Vancouver, I will do some work in trying to find my client a REALTOR® that I think that they may fit with in Vancouver. I will look up some REALTORS®, ask some questions, look at their production level, talk about the neigbourhoods they are active in - that kind of thing. I will do some work for my client to help them connect with a REALTO ...

I wanted to give an account of a really good example of the power of Twitter and social media in general. Twitter is a micro-blogging platform, and in Twitter, you choose to follow individuals, and those are individuals that you're wanting status updates from, and the instant information they put on Twitter.

I was following a REALTOR® by the name of Ian Watt in Vancouver, and one day Ian Wat ...

I want to talk really quickly about the importance of working with a REALTOR®. I know this is probably gonna sound a little bit like a sales pitch, but I want to talk about a specific instance that I went through with clients.

I had some buyers that purchased a home, and there were some issues with the home that we found out that I knew we could have remedy to. There were some concerns that ...

If I were to target this subject to somebody in the real estate industry, it's probably of benefit to new REALTORS® coming in, but I think to anybody out there that professionally refers services, people, individuals, contacts to clients they may have.

I think this is pretty important. Make sure you have a good relationship with and understand the person or business that you are referring. I ...

I'm going to go on a real quick rant about part-time REALTORS® in my industry. Now, I want to really be clear about something before I get into this. I was a part-time REALTOR®. When I first made the transition into the real estate industry, I was working a full-time job, a corporate job, and I was working as a REALTOR® in evenings and weekends, trying to break into the industry to the point ...