Maureen Mengel Blog

DOHA: Qatar's real estate market is heading to a 'soft landing' before taking a turnaround in post 2020, Barwa Real Estate Group CEO Salman bin Mohammed Al Mohannadi has said. Speaking to The Peninsula here yesterday, Al Mohannadi said Barwa is forecasting a soft landing going forward. Barwa forecasts soft landing for Qatar real estate market curated from Real Estate News

Would you get inside a driverless minivan? As part of its efforts to assuage public fears of driverless cars, Google spinoff Waymo released a 360-degree video of one of its self-driven minivans in action. VIDEO The video, which was highlighted by outlets including the  Washington Pos t and the  Verge , follows one of Waymo’s driverless minivans as it cruises through the streets of Arizona. The robot taxi company’s cars use LIDAR sensing and radar technology to identify objects such as other vehicles and pedestrians, along with high-resolution cameras to monitor changing road conditions. Computer vision also allows the self-driven cars to spot objects such as traffic lights and turns up to 300 yards away. In 2017, Waymo chose Phoenix and some of its surrounding cities as the metropolitan area in which to start test driving its Chrysler Pacifica minivans. In January, the state of Arizona approved the company’s application to start its own city transportation company ...

Inman is exploring what the future of real estate leadership should look like through a series of articles, Q&As with industry pros, and an upcoming five-part series called Leadership Week. Please send your feedback to leadership@inman.com . If you’re a leader who wants to join us for our exclusive Disconnect in The Desert event on March 26-28, or want to recommend a colleague, send a note to brad@inman.com explaining why. Tiffany McQuaid , president of McQuaid & Company , is not only a broker, but has a marketing and promotions background, which explains her unique approach when it comes to running her business. An Ohio native, she has particular expertise in capitalization and commercialism. Four short years after opening her doors, Tiffany has continued to grow the company and is now recognized globally as a rising top producer and innovator in the real estate world. Tiffany has a true gift for maintaining her boutique style real estate Firm, which focuses solely on the...

The Canadian commercial real estate market set another record for investments in 2017 and was one of only four countries in the world to do so, according to a new report from CBRE Ltd The report said there were more than $43.1 billion in investments last year, surpassing $34.7 billion in 2016, and CBRE predicts another record will be established in 2018. CBRE said strong tenant demand, coupled with declining vacancy rates which are at, or near, all-time lows in many Canadian markets, will lead to strong increases in rental rates. Canada's commercial real estate market sets another record in 2017: report curated from Real Estate News

Places on the upswing. Full List: America's Fastest-Growing Cities 2018 curated from Forbes - Real Estate

Reposted with permission from Rob Hahn.  Read part one of this post here . Yesterday’s post  on the keynote Vision Speech by Josh Team and Gary Keller at this year’s Family Reunion generated, uh, let’s call it “a bit of passion.” The early batch of commenters took issue — and not in a civil fashion — about what I wrote based on the Inman story. Except for the tone, that’s a fair criticism; if Inman got something wrong or left something important out of its coverage. Well, because we have the best readership in real estate here on Notorious, I was sent a video (in five parts) of the speech itself that Lori Ballen made and uploaded to YouTube. I linked to all of those in the original post. Then I watched it. Part 1 of the video is below and the video will auto-play the other parts: VIDEO Stop giving money to your competition Tom Ferry’s 7 tips for turning leads into commissions READ MORE Many thanks to  Lori Ballen  for recording the session and for s...

Reposted with permission from Rob Hahn.  Read his follow-up thoughts to this post here. Writer’s note: Some of the early comments focused on Inman’s reporting, and my reliance on that as some kind of a flaw. I have now watched the entire speech on video. I stand by my analysis in this post. If there is a flaw, please feel free to point it out, but don’t have it be because I wasn’t present at the speech. It’s all on video, and I’ve heard everything Josh Team and Gary Keller have said. If anything, Inman was bland and downplayed the coverage. It’s been a busy few days, and not likely to get any less busy for the foreseeable future, but I have to talk about  this . As Inman reported: Real estate franchisor Keller Williams debuted an artificial intelligence-based virtual assistant and referrals platform today, announcing to the world it has every intention of thriving in a changing industry. “We are a technology company. No. 1 that means we build the technology. No. 2 that m...

Florida real estate offices are offering support to two agents whose daughters were among the 17 people killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14. Jaime Guttenberg Jaime Guttenberg , 14, daughter of Charles Rutenberg agent Fred Guttenberg, and Meadow Pollack , 18, daughter of Coldwell Banker Boca Resort and Beach agent Shara Kaplan, were both killed when a former student of the high school opened fire on Valentine’s Day, killing 17  and wounding 14 more  people. GoFundMe pages for the families of Guttenberg and Pollack have been set up for those who wish to contribute. Jaime’s father Fred Guttenberg has taken to the media and to public forums, including a town hall confrontation with Florida Senator Marco Rubio over gun laws, to express his outrage over the shooting that killed his daughter and 16 others. “She was a beautiful and kind and intelligent teenage girl. She danced with tremendous grace and she...

Inman is exploring what the future of real estate leadership should look like through a series of articles, Q&As with industry pros, and an upcoming 5-part series called Leadership Week. Please send your feedback to leadership@inman.com . If you’re a leader who wants to join us for our exclusive Disconnect in The Desert event on March 26-28, or want to recommend a colleague, send a note to brad@inman.com explaining why. Lisa Fettner is the vice president of marketing at ReferralExchange , where she leads all strategic and brand marketing efforts, and associated websites/services (TopAgentsRanked.com, Referralexchange.com). Her responsibilities include brand development/management, social media, website, email, events, public relations, evangelism, sales support and business/partnership development. We recently had the chance to chat with Lisa about the current state of real estate leadership, and her thoughts on what’s ahead for 2018. As a leader, what keeps you up at night...

Panelists spoke Tuesday at the Greater Richmond Association for Commercial Real Estate's annual market review and preview program held at The Westin Richmond. Panelists spoke Tuesday at the Greater Richmond Association for Commercial Real Estate's annual market review and preview program held at The Westin Richmond. Richmond region had a 'few big wins' in the real estate industry, panelists said curated from Real Estate News

The National Association of Realtors (NAR)  Pending Home Sales Index  (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator that tracks home sales in which a contract is signed but the sale has not yet closed, decreased 4.7 percent in the month of January to 104.6 from a downwardly revised 109.8 in December of last year. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun says the sharp downturn in contract signings is due to continued inventory shortages and the 0.2 percent uptick in mortgage rates (4.4 percent) : “The economy is in great shape, most local job markets are very strong and incomes are slowly rising, but there’s little doubt last month’s retreat in contract signings occurred because of woefully low supply levels and the sudden increase in mortgage rates,” said Yun in a statement. “The lower end of the market continues to feel the brunt of these supply and affordability impediments,” he added. “With the cost of buying a home getting more expensive and not enough inventory, some prospective buye...

As real estate investors, prospective homebuyers and brokers look back, 2017 could probably be called "The Year of Real Estate Records." Dozens of major real estate markets saw rent and home prices continue to rise, sometimes even hitting all-time highs, while building on years of steady growth since the housing collapse a decade ago. It’s truly striking, and with each day that passes, 2018 shows few signs of slowing down. In specific elevated markets such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Manhattan, this growth has led bearish real estate investors to worry about the possibility of a real estate bubble. As a luxury broker who works closely with Los Angeles’ homeowners and prospective homeowners every day, it’s my business to understand the ins-and-outs of the market to best help my clients. And as it turns out, there’s a lot of misleading (or flat-out false) information out there about LA’s elevated home prices. Below, I clear up three of the biggest myths about the LA ...

As part of its leap into the home security market, Amazon has reportedly agreed to buy smart doorbell and security camera company Ring. In a deal the details of which were not disclosed but Reuters estimated to be worth more than $1 billion, Amazon is planning to acquire the Santa Monica-based home security company Ring. Along with its video doorbells that allow homeowners to monitor front door visitors through a smartphone, Ring produces security cameras, floodlights and home alarms. “We’ll be able to achieve even more by partnering with an inventive, customer-centric company like Amazon,” a Ring spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Inman. “We look forward to being a part of the Amazon team as we work toward our vision for safer neighborhoods.” Over the last few years, Amazon has made large-scale strides to tap into the home security market — in October, it rolled out its Cloud Cam home security system and Amazon Key , a smart lock that lets delivery workers open ho...