Fed Rates and Mortgage Rates Make it a Buyers Market Between the Fed Rates expected to stay low and the mortgage rates at all time lows, this is a good time to be buying. Low mortgage rates make it a good time to buy What a difference a year makes. In February 2019, it was reported on how it was increasingly difficult to find a market where it made more sense to buy than rent. Fast forward 16 months and one pandemic later, and it’s safe to say that the rent-versus-buy gap is only shrinking with each passing day. According to realtor.com, over 80% of most large metropolitan areas saw […]

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Video Meeting Etiquette: 7 Tips to Ensure a Great Attendee Experience There’s just no substitute for good manners in all of our daily interactions, and they’re certainly appreciated more than ever in workplace meetings. There are some age-old guidelines that comprise good meeting etiquette: Being on time Maintaining eye contact Paying attention Applying those same principles to our video meetings can go a long way toward a productive business environment. It can also help elevate your personal reputation into “great meeting host” territory. Traditional business meetings are too often considered unproductive because there are so many delays and interruptions. Reliable, easy-to-use video conferencing platforms have helped to restore meetings’ reputations, […]

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Make the Best Impression You Can You only get one chance to make a first impression. Make it count. It’s critical to show off the best you can every chance you can get. Online, you can make sure of that. But, also when people physically take a look at your products. Showing off your product or products relies on showing your product the best way possible. In most cases, great photography is a must. In the case of real estate, staging your homes is a critical aspect. Good photography and great staging can be used over and over again from your website presence to social media to physically showcasing your […]

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It’s amazing to think that it was just a few months ago that things were what we would perceive as being normal. In just a few short months things have changed dramatically. Yet, in that short amount of time, the way we think about where we live and how we live has completely changed. In more recent days, there has been more clamoring from people that the pandemic has forced their hand and has actually inspired investment in new technology or motivated a change in operations. These changes are adding up to huge impacts. One of the big changes is the work-from-home policy. What started as a way to keep […]

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Buying in the New Era The COVID-19 crisis accelerated many consumer behavior trends we’ve been witnessing for years. Consumers were forced to spend more time online out of necessity. And as a result, they began branching out, discovering new channels and gaining more confidence in online shopping. In a recent Channel Advisor poll, they polled over 1,000 active US consumers about their shopping habits to find out how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted their behavior since the beginning of March 2020. Ultimately, it was found that consumers are still discovering, researching and purchasing in many of the same ways — depending on their age breakdown. But the incremental increase in […]

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The Green Generation Millennials say sustainability is a shopping priority. Despite the fact that Millennials are coming of age in one of the most difficult economic climates in the past 100 years, a Nielsen global online study found that they continue to be most willing to pay extra for sustainable offerings—almost three-out-of-four respondents in these findings, up from approximately half previously. The rise in the percentage of respondents aged 15 – 20, also known as Generation Z, who are willing to pay more for products and services that come from companies who are committed to positive social and environmental impact was also strong—up from 55% in 2014 to 72% today. […]

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SMS is the New Business Essential Text messaging is the new business essential. While phone and email definitely aren’t dead, they’re hopelessly oversaturated. Email inboxes are overflooded. Customers and businesses both will often miss emails. Meanwhile, businesses often find themselves playing “phone tag” with their customers. That means they leave you a call and get voicemail. Then you leave them a call and get voicemail. It’s not a particularly enjoyable experience for either side. With texting, you can avoid all of these problems and reach the customer right away. Here are a few stats showing the importance of text. 98% of text messages are opened, compared to 40-50% for emails. […]

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The Data Tells All Today, almost 55 percent of internet users are on social media. They use it on a daily basis providing massive amounts of data to the platforms. This data is valuable for social media lead generation. The marketers can use it to target their audience directly. There are actually a few reasons behind it: Search engine marketing is now tough. It gets tougher with every new update. Many websites that previously ranked without any effort, now find it really hard to rank. These websites are searching for alternatives that can help them succeed in digital marketing. Even a new website requires a lot of budget just to […]

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COVID-19 has brought the world economy to a standstill. Almost every industry, with a few exceptions, has been hit hard. Certainly, the momentum of the travel industry was brought to a halt. While recent headlines such as travel bans and major event cancellations make that progress seem like a thing of the distant past, it’s important to remember the industry was healthy and shattering records before the pandemic hit. In fact, the world economy in general was doing fantastic. Despite these challenges, history has shown that industry is resilient. While we don’t know exactly when things will get back to some semblance of normality, we do know that it will […]

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