From France to California. From journalism to real estate. From sales associate to founder, executive vice-president, general manager, CEO, or president of some of the top companies in the US. Such has been the professional itinerary of Alain Pinel, an American real estate icon in constant search for business excellence. In Real Estate Behind The Scenes – Games People Play, Alain shows real estate professionals the path to ultimate success. A must read for agents, managers and company owners. Includes foreword by Gino Blefari, CEO of HomeServices of America
'Alain has given so much to real estate and real estate professionals fortunate enough to work with him. I consider him a mentor of mine. His leadership, his pure business intelligence, his values, his insights and his wisdom continue shaping our industry.' Gino Blefari, CEO of HomeServices of America From France to California, from journalism to real estate, from sales associate to founder, executive vice-president, general manager, CEO, or president of several of the top companies in the US, such has been the professional itinerary of Alain Pinel, an American real estate icon in constant search for business excellence. In Real Estate Management Strategies and Tactics, Alain shows managers of all levels, from office sales managers to CEOs, how to reach top performance and make success more predictable, measurable and sustainable. A must read for real estate leaders.
Everything you thought you knew about financing a house has changed. Your future depends on knowing today’s mortgage and credit realities: Relying on older information could cost you a fortune or keep you from buying a house altogether. In Homebuyers Beware: Who’s Ripping You Off Now? – What You Must Know About the New Rules of Mortgage and Credit, Carolyn Warren reveals the new realities of home financing and shows exactly how to take advantage of them, whether you’re buying your first home, refinancing, struggling with imperfect credit, or planning to invest in real estate. Homebuyers Beware reveals new secrets homebuyers simply can’t afford to miss and exposes new scams that target today’s eager consumers--including new loans that look great on paper but are every bit as dangerous as yesterday’s subprimes. Unlike other mortgage guides, this book fully reflects today’s radically new mortgage requirements, in addition to the latest federal housing legislation and how to improve your credit rating. Warren covers topics from real estate negotiation, to powerful tips on getting lower interest rates, to avoiding bogus junk fees, and everything in between: · High-tech “smoke and mirrors” that can trick you into overpaying · Quick, easy, powerful ways to fix your credit · Uncovering the costly secrets of the Yield Spread Premium · The latest laws and credit rules and what they mean to you · New plans for recovering from bad credit, foreclosures, or short sales “Carolyn Warren is my go-to expert for mortgage industry information. She not only helps you avoid rip-offs, she helps you know what questions to ask and how to ask them. Full of tips, scripts, and sample letters, Homebuyers Beware is an extremely valuable book that I recommend to all my readers!” --Alison Rogers, “Ask the Agent” columnist, CBS Moneywatch.com “In this fun-to-read volume, mortgage industry insider Carolyn Warren tells you what real estate cheats and mortgage scammers do NOT want you to know: the tricks, the deceptions, and the outright frauds that would otherwise add thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars to your mortgage. Get it. Read it. And take it to the mortgage broker with you. You’ll be glad you did!” --Clayton Makepeace, The Total Package, Makepeacetotalpackage.com “In Homebuyers Beware, Carolyn Warren directs her keen eye at the mortgage and credit markets in the wake of the housing bubble. With an insider’s knowledge, plenty of interesting anecdotes, and helpful reference information, Warren is a cheerful teacher leading readers down the path to homeownership and pointing out pitfalls along the way.” --Ben Meyer, InternetBrands.com
Exploring what it means to be a school, a coach, and a player in college basketball's Final Four, Feinstein exposes the driving forces behind one of the most revered events in American sports. Readers will also find dramatic stories from the officials and referees to the scouts and ticket-scalpers.
“[A] timely book . . . a wonderfully entertaining trip around the board, through 4,000 years of game history.” —The Wall Street Journal Board games have been with us even longer than the written word. But what is it about this pastime that continues to captivate us well into the age of smartphones and instant gratification? In It’s All a Game, Tristan Donovan, British journalist and author of Replay: The History of Video Games, opens the box on the incredible and often surprising history and psychology of board games. He traces the evolution of the game across cultures, time periods, and continents, from the paranoid Chicago toy genius behind classics like Operation and Mouse Trap, to the role of Monopoly in helping prisoners of war escape the Nazis, and even the scientific use of board games today to teach artificial intelligence how to reason and how to win. With these compelling stories and characters, Donovan ultimately reveals why board games—from chess to Monopoly to Risk and more—have captured hearts and minds all over the world for generations. “Splendid . . . A quick and breezy read, it doesn’t just tell the fascinating stories of the (often struggling) individuals who created our favorite games. It also manages to convey the entire sweep of board game history, from the earliest forms of checkers to modern-day surprise hits like Settlers of Catan.” —Mashable “Artfully weaves together culture, business, and ways games impact society.” —Booklist “A fascinating and insightful discussion not only of games past, but the socioeconomic and historical factors that contributed to their popularity.” —Chicago Review of Books
The People’s Property? is the first book-length scholarly examination of how negotiations over the ownership, control, and peopling of public space are central to the development of publicity, citizenship, and democracy in urban areas. The book asks the questions: Why does it matter who owns public property? Who controls it? Who is in it? Donald Mitchell and Lynn A. Staeheli answer the questions by focusing on the interplay between property (in its geographical sense, as a parcel of owned space) and people. Property rights are often defined as the "right to exclude." It is important, therefore, to understand who (what individual and corporate entities, governed by what kinds of regulations and restrictions) owns publicly accessible property. It is likewise important to understand the changing bases for excluding some people and classes of people from otherwise publicly accessible property. That is to say, it is important to understand how modes of access and possibilities for association in publicly accessible space vary for different individuals and different classes of people, if we are to understand the role public spaces play in shaping democratic possibilities. In what ways are urban public spaces "the people’s property" – and in what ways are they not? What does this mean for citizenship and the constitution of an inclusive, democratic polity? The book develops its argument through five case studies: protest in Washington DC; struggles over the Plaza of Santa Fe, NM; homelessness and property redevelopment in San Diego, CA; the enclosure of public space in a mall in Syracuse, NY; and community gardens in New York City. Though empirically focused on the US, the book is of broader interests as publics in all liberal democracies are under-going rapid reconsideration and transformation.
