Your brokerage needs to attract real estate pros who know how to do their jobs well. Offer training and resources to keep them engaged and at the forefront of the market.

The process of establishing a written agreement with a consumer is a prime opportunity to explain what you do and the value you bring to the transaction. Keep in mind that selling the value of an intangible service, such as what you offer to buyers and sellers, may take extra thought and explanation.

Salespeople should cultivate a minimum of four stakeholders in an organization for a prospective sale to gain different viewpoints, writes Colleen Francis. "The biggest single mistake that I see salespeople make is that they go in with a single view or a single threaded approach, and when they only have one contact, they've created gatekeepers," Francis writes.

Newsletter platforms such as Beehiiv and Substack are wooing TikTok and Instagram creators with accelerator programs, selling the benefits of their own subscriber data and sponsorship opportunities with advertisers such as Hims, Netflix, Hubspot and Penguin Random House. Industry experts discuss why newsletters appeal to short-form video creators for owned, engaged audiences, long-term relationships with brands and as a way to combat TikTok's "underconsumption core" trend and uncertain future.

Some would-be home buyers are waiting for borrowing costs to drop even lower. Is that a wise strategy?

This article from MakeUseOf discusses essential devices for creating a smart home, covering a range of categories including smart speakers, lighting, thermostats, and security systems. It emphasizes how these devices can enhance convenience, energy efficiency, and security in the home by allowing users to control and automate various functions through apps or voice commands.

Connecticut real estate pro Carla Presz used arts and crafts to help her ill daughter feel purpose at the end of her life. Now Presz is supplying hospitals with art kits.

A five-step model can aid business growth, and executive coach Dominik Szot of the firm MIA discusses questions to ask at every phase of expansion. At a certain stage, entrepreneurs should "effectively delegate responsibility to others, which requires monitoring their performance and accepting a certain level of mistakes," Szot notes.

North Carolina is offering financial assistance to first-time buyers in flood-prone areas, part of the state's goal of improving low-income and minority housing. Advocates are focusing on federal and state funding to make homes more resilient to extreme weather events, particularly for vulnerable communities that are disproportionately affected by such disasters.

Federal Reserve officials held interest rates steady at their most recent meeting, but minutes suggest that a rate cut could be coming in September. A majority of officials indicated that "if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy," according to the minutes.

Newly released data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that US job growth was significantly weaker than previously believed, with a downward revision of 818,000 jobs in March 2024. This marks the largest adjustment since 2009 and lowers the average monthly job gains from April 2023 to March 2024 to 173,500, down from 242,000.