An unsupportive company atmosphere often drives agents away more than money issues. A strong culture will build up your brokerage, "because people want to work with people they trust," says Cole Slate, broker-owner of Slate Real Estate in Jacksonville, Fla. Learn how to create an inviting, winning culture at your firm.

Hinda Mitchell, the founder and president of Inspire PR Group, discovered the "secret sauce" of employee retention by asking a long-term team member why they stayed. Mitchell received a six-part answer that included mentoring opportunities, being trusted, and having work that felt purposeful and challenging.

If you're a leader who spends a lot of time ideating around disruption then you might need to escalate your commitment to purging such words from your vocabulary and finding simple ways to communicate your ideas, writes leadership coach Scott Eblin. "When we simplify our language and speak and write in words that most people use in everyday conversation, we make work more human," Eblin writes.

As inflation decelerates, the potential for lower mortgage rates is becoming a greater possibility.

Finding the right real estate agent is a critical step for LGBTQ+ home buyers. The process of buying a home involves many considerations, including affordability, space needs and potential compromises.

The average home equity in the U.S. has declined for the first time in over a decade, according to CoreLogic. However, the number of those who were underwater on their mortgage didn't change much.

McKinsey analyzed 63 use cases for generative AI and found that the technology "could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually" to the global economy. A wide range of industries will feel the effects of AI, but much of the gains will be concentrated in four sectors: customer operations, software engineering, marketing and sales, and research and development.

Advocates say a proposal to reduce the Anchorage's 15 residential zoning categories to two would promote the construction of new homes, townhouses and apartments.

Inversion of the Treasury yield curve has deepened after the Federal Reserve indicated it could raise interest rates an additional half-percentage point this year. The spread between 2- and 10-year Treasurys widened to 93 basis points after a Fed meeting this week. "The Fed runs the risk of solving one policy error of being too easy for too long with another policy error as they ignore the growing credit contraction and persistent losses from higher rates," says George Goncalves, head of U.S. macro strategy at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. "The Catch-22 is that for them to ease, something now has to break or the economy has to crack."

Small-business owners face a decision about whether to take out loans after the Federal Reserve paused interest-rate increases, financing professional Rohit Arora writes. Considerations include falling approval rates and past hikes that have brought the rate for Small Business Administration 7(a) loans, for example, to 12%.

In observance of Juneteenth in the U.S., SmartBrief will not publish Monday, June 19.