Ben Lauer's (benlauer) Blog

I'm curious, I've heard so many mixed opinions about the turbulent economy as of late, especially on Monday with the Lehman brothers and AIG on the verge of collapse. Obviously a scary time for everyone in America, but I ant the opinions of people who work in the real estate market daily.   My pe...

WE ALL DO IT.   Prospecting that is. Whether you know it or not, every day you prospect, some more than others but every time you talk to anyone about real estate that isn't already a client, you're prospecting. I define prospecting as any activity which will increase the odds of you doing busine...

Didn't you join Activerain for business reasons? Wasn't your initial endeavor aimed at getting a few referrals and building a relationship or two? I know it was mine. Somewhere along the way we've all become obsessed with points, which come from comments! I know it's been a focus of mine MAINLY b...

    I think it's very interesting. All around the country it's been nothing but doom and gloom in the housing industry. It seems like everyone is willing to turn a blind eye to some of the conditions and realities which obviously point to a healthy economy in the process of a rebirth. In Dallas o...

You know, advertising is like anything else, supply and demand. 1 of 2 things will happen here, either fewer agents/brokers will place adds which will make the ones left in there more valuable because there isn't as much competition. The other thing that could happen is that you keep paying the c...

I see a lot of people spending a lot of time blogging on active rain. But how is it that you actually start making money with active rain? Whats the importance of points and how does a digital watercooler really help all the agents around it become more profitable? One answer is that if you get y...

I see a lot of people spending a lot of time blogging on active rain. But how is it that you actually start making money with active rain? Whats the importance of points and how does a digital watercooler really help all the agents around it become more profitable? One answer is that if you get y...

I gotta agree with you here. The market is tough right now and when the market gets tough there ends up being a lot more creative financing and different things getting rolled into the contract than before. It's nice to get paid on the gross, I think we can all agree on that, but if we're really ...

Recently I've moved to a new area. I work in and around the Dallas market and I moved to one of the more posh areas of town where homes generally range from $350,000 to mulit-millions. This is a much harder market to break into and I've found myself becoming more creative and ingenuitive in my ma...