Some of you may have heard about Mamoudou Gassama, an undocumented immigrant from Africa who saved a little boy that was dangling from the balcony of an apartment building outside of Paris. For those who haven’t seen the video, Gassama, with Spiderman-like speed and strength, fearlessly scaled four stories up the side of the building in less than 30 seconds saving the four-year-old boy’s life. The video of the rescue went viral around the world, and Gassama has since met with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, who offered the 22-year-old man French residency and a job with the Paris Fire Brigade. In one of his many interviews, Gassama said immigrating to France by fleeing his native Mali through Burkina Faso, Niger, and Libya, where he was “treated like a slave”, was far more dangerous than climbing a four-story building.
Mamoudou Gassama is a humble man, and a true hero. Contrary to what some people would have us believe, there are millions of stories of immigrants who have risked life and limb to pursue a better life, and who have gone on to make remarkable contributions to their new country… This is just one of them.
The top real estate sales coaches, like Mike Ferry, flat out tell their students that representing buyers is for losers. Driving buyers around to open houses, dealing with fickle lenders, and filling out multiple offer forms is a lot of work. To make matters worse, after doing all that work, you still might not get paid if your buyers' offers aren't accepted.
By definition, unintended consequences are the results of an action different from what was expected or planned. They are often referenced in relation to changes in policies. I have heard the term used for years, primarily related to government policies. Still, I didn’t realize until recently that much has been written on the subject, and most experts believe that there are three categories of unintended consequences:
This week's big news in real estate was the settlement of the class action lawsuits directed against the National Association of Realtors (NAR)...Despite what you may have heard from the media, if the settlement is approved, this would be a modest victory for both realtors and homebuyers. The lawsuit's deeply misguided proponents, including Steve Brobeck from the Consumer Federation of America, have been calling for an outright ban on broker cooperation. In that regard, they didn't get what they wanted.