Melissa Zavala: San Diego County Broker, Speaker, Author

I was pleased to once again be invited to attend the local Active Rain Meetup held in North San Diego County, and co-hosted by Jeff Dowler and John DL Arendsen.If you are reading the articles on AR, this week, then you may have heard that others in attendance were Matt Brady, John Meussner, Bill ...

It’s no secret to anyone who has been in the real estate business for more than a few years that this is the time of the when things begin to slow down. Real estate pros start focusing on Halloween costumes, Great Aunt Mildred’s pumpkin pie, and even getting the best deals on holiday gifts. This ...

What Is Pipeline Planner?If you haven’t heard the news yet, I’ve launched a brand new version of my real estate planner on Kickstarter just two days ago. I’m gratified to see all the support that I’ve received thus far, and hope you will check it out. In Pipeline Planner, I’ve built on the feedb...

 When I was a little girl, I used to see all of these well-dressed women driving fancy cars and putting up For Sale signs in my neighborhood. So, I got this idea in my head that real estate is just putting up a few signs, checking out a few homes, holding and attending a few open houses, and wait...

When I was a little girl, I used to see all of these well-dressed women driving fancy cars and putting up For Sale signs in my neighborhood. So, I got this idea in my head that real estate is just putting up a few signs, checking out a few homes, holding and attending a few open houses, and waiti...

Do you ever have trouble coming up with ideas for your social media posts? Do you throw those posts up at the last minute or are they something that you plan weeks months in advance? Whatever your social media style (or strategy), truth be told: social media pros are dishing out lots and lots of ...

The other day when I was reading posts in my newsfeed on Facebook I saw a post in the Lab Coat Agents group where an agent was seeking advice. When other agents were getting into the fray, this agent who wrote the post stated, “I did it because my sellers instructed me to do so.” To me, the subje...

A few weeks ago at a local Women’s Council of Realtors® meeting, I was asked to give a little talk about How to Beat the Real Estate Bullies: Smart Strategies for Surviving in a Shark-Eat-Shark Industry. While the talk was extremely informal, the topic is actually a pretty serious one.In an indus...

Last week was a really interesting week for me in the real estate business, as I got 6 awesome real estate referrals that I was able to share with the agents at my office. Lots of agents are seeking referrals in order to add more buyer and seller leads to their sales pipeline. So, I thought it m...

Home buyers, home sellers, and even agents call me all the time to ask my advice on some real estate matter. These aren’t necessarily homebuyers or home sellers that I am already working with, and these aren’t agents from my own brokerage. These are people who’ve come across my name or heard that...