30% Commissions!?! Where Do I Sign Up? How do you get to be the world’s second most valuable company? “Insanely great” products, to be sure. But also out-of this-world margins and fat commissions. Like 30% on every iTune it sells online. 30%! Full-service Realtors, who charge a measly 6%-7%, can only dream about such lush...Read More
Gadget Overload If you’re over 50, somewhat technology-conversant, but definitely not a first (or even second) adopter, what do you call Apple’s proliferating galaxy of electronic gadgets (“iphone,” “ipad,” “itouch,” etc.)? My brother-in-law’s catch-term is “i.whatever.”Read More
“Fair Market Value,” Defined I, along with thousands of other agents, have developed a scientifically proven, 100% reliable way of establishing a home’s value. Ready? Here’s how you’ll know any given home is priced at fair market value: It sells.* Defining “Fair Market Value” That may seem unduly glib (if not harsh). Unfortunately, for many...Read More
A Realtor’s Investing Primer In addition to advising clients on real estate transactions, I occasionally get asked what I think about stocks (that’s what you get for following the market for 40 years — in my case, literally since I was 10 years old). Unfortunately, I don’t get paid for the latter, which allows me...Read More
“‘i’ on the Brain,” or, Apple’s Next Market?My daughter needs to wear an eye patch a few hours a day — which means one of my (or my wife’s) tasks before school is to her her find and put it on. Maybe it’s just because we’ve recently popped for an iTouch, iPod, innumerable iTunes, etc.,...Read More
Great Minds Think Alike I think I’ve got Steve Jobs’ next invention. It’s portable. It’s disposable. You can write on it. It never crashes or has a weak signal. And it’s very, very cheap. Give up? A piece of paper. Steve, call me . . . P.S.: the foregoing prompted by a week of virus-fighting...Read More
