A thorough, informative guide to the real estate industry, with clear explanations and solid advice.
A debut manual explores the fundamentals of being a real estate agent.
In this business book, Graff addresses fellow real estate agents, particularly those who are new to the profession. In thematically organized chapters, the volume offers wide-ranging advice on everything from joining the right brokerage to pricing a listing. The guide dissects the variety of agent-broker relationships that exists, lists the basics of preparing for the licensing exam, describes the traits and tactics of successful agents, and steers readers through strategies for building a client base. The author explains how to host an effective open house, how to manage paperwork and procedures, and how to establish a professional online presence. The book’s insights and tips range from the general (what buyers and sellers look for in assessing potential agents) to the hyperspecific (scripts for reaching out to prospective and past clients by phone). Graff discusses broad industry factors like iBuyers, interest rates, and cyclical trends, pointing out how agents can triumph even in challenging times by understanding these aspects clearly and reacting appropriately. The manual shows why agents’ up-to-date and detailed knowledge of their unique markets is the key to providing clients high-quality service that will allow their businesses to be both profitable and sustainable.
Graff is cleareyed about the industry, noting several times that average real estate agent earnings are modest and that the majority of those who acquire a license leave the field within five years. He encourages readers to be among the minority who make it a viable career by setting appropriate expectations—particularly financial ones, as new agents will have to support themselves until they start earning commissions—and continually updating their knowledge of their clients, regions, and the industry as a whole. The book repeatedly reminds readers that agents are independent contractors responsible for planning and managing their own businesses, and it supplies concrete counsel about how to do so. Some portions of the guide will be primarily of interest to more sales-oriented readers—for instance, Graff’s endorsements of direct mail outreach and follow-up calls to former clients are unlikely to click with individuals who throw out junk mail unread and decline calls from unknown numbers—making the book most appropriate to the niche audience it targets. All readers will find the manual well written and easy to follow, useful for both a quick reference and as a broad outline of what it takes to flourish in the business. Readers who are considering a career in real estate will find the volume a valuable overview that helps them understand what it is like to work in the industry, while those who are already knowledgeable about the fundamentals will find it a worthy blueprint for developing a strong foundation in the business and figuring out how to hone the most crucial skills that are needed for long-term success.
A thorough, informative guide to the real estate industry, with clear explanations and solid advice.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2021
ISBN: 979-8985275001
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Ellimat Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Highly instructive for would-be tycoons, with plenty of entertaining interludes.
Well-crafted memoir by the noted media mogul.
Diller’s home life as a youngster was anything but happy; as he writes early on, “The household I grew up in was perfectly dysfunctional.” His mother lived in her own world, his father was knee-deep in business deals, his brother was a heroin addict, and he tried to play by all the rules in order to allay “my fear of the consequences from my incipient homosexuality.” Somehow he fell into the orbit of show business figures like Lew Wasserman (“I was once arrested for joy-riding in Mrs. Wasserman’s Bentley”) and decided that Hollywood offered the right kind of escape. Starting in the proverbial mailroom, he worked his way up to be a junior talent agent, then scrambled up the ladder to become a high-up executive at ABC, head of Paramount and Fox, and an internet pioneer who invested in Match.com and took over a revitalized Ticketmaster. None of that ascent was easy, and Diller documents several key failures along the way, including boardroom betrayals (“What a monumental dope I’d been. They’d taken over the company—in a merger I’d created—with venality and duplicity”) and strategic missteps. It’s no news that the corporate world is rife with misbehavior, but the better part of Diller’s book is his dish on the players: He meets Jack Nicholson at the William Morris Agency, “wandering through the halls, looking for anyone who’d pay attention to him”; hangs out with Warren Beatty, ever on the make; mispronounces Barbra Streisand’s name (“her glare at me as she walked out would have fried a fish”); learns a remedy for prostatitis from Katharine Hepburn (“My father was an expert urological surgeon, and I know what I’m doing”); and much more in one of the better show-biz memoirs to appear in recent years.
Highly instructive for would-be tycoons, with plenty of entertaining interludes.Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780593317877
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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