Month: October 2021

As a small-business owner, you’ve probably already started to think about the upcoming holiday rush and how you can best prepare to serve customers in the face of almost as much unpredictability as in 2020. It comes as no surprise that last year’s holiday shopping season looked a lot different than most, with the Covid-19 pandemic keeping many consumers out of brick-and-mortar stores and opting for curbside pickup or online retail instead.

According to an Adobe Analytics study, those businesses that offered curbside pickup saw 49 percent higher digital sales year-over-year compared with a 28 percent digital sales increase for those who offered only in-store shopping. And of course, internet retail saw a huge increase as shoppers browsed from the safety and comfort of their own homes: Online shopping surged more than 32 percent in 2020 from the previous year.

This article originally appeared on Inc.com. Read the full article here. 

I’m excited to release Thomvest’s real estate technology market map, which includes more than 240 companies operating within the residential real estate segment. This is the third update to the market map and includes over 100 additional companies — a testament to the pace of entrepreneurship in this segment. A high-resolution version of the map can be accessed here, the full list of companies is available here, and my commercial real estate market map is here.

So much has happened in the housing market over the last year — home pricing across the U.S. are up 16% year-over-year, interest rates remain near historic lows and housing construction starts are up meaningfully for the first time in more than a decade (for more detail on this, see my recent housing market update).

Times have also been good for technology companies in real estate — several companies in the sector went public over the last year, including Opendoor, Compass, Better and Blend (a Thomvest portfolio company). Venture capital activity in real estate has also remained quite strong — investment in the category reached $8 billion through the first 9 months of 2021, a record.

This article originally appeared on Thomvest.com. Read the full article here. 

Research shows that companies who make their employees feel valued through a variety of factors that make an employee happy, such as being paid fairly, having great perks and benefits, clear goals to be invested in, and a positive work environment, creates more loyal and productive workers.

The highest-rated companies with the Happiest Employees are segmented into two lists, Top 50 Large companies (more than 500 employees) and Top 50 Small/Mid-Size companies (500 employees or fewer), and based on anonymous employee feedback on Comparably.com to a variety of questions regarding happiness at work.

“In our annual analysis of where the happiest employees are, Comparably looks at a combination of metrics that contribute to happiness at work, from fair pay, benefits and clear goals to excitement for the company and the work itself,” said Comparably CEO Jason Nazar. “Despite the challenges of the past year-and-a-half, the top-rated companies on the list succeed at meeting the needs of their workers across these important factors.”

This article originally appeared on Comparably.com. 

For many of us, the largest single component of our accumulated wealth is represented by the value of our home. And yet, until very recently, we have been unable to access that wealth, which in many cases can be substantial. This has rendered a number of homeowners in a permanent financial state known commonly as “house-rich, cash-poor,” such that their wealth is tied up in the values of their homes, and they have access to limited liquidity.

“A lot of people are house-rich but cash-poor,” Ivy Zelman, chief executive of real-estate consultant Zelman & Associates, told the Wall Street Journal in September 2020. “If they bought in the last two or three years, even if they bought five months ago, they have equity.”

This article originally appeared on InternationalBanker.com. Read the full article. 

Whether you’re a parent working from home or an entry-level worker just starting out in your career, working at a company with a great work-life balance can be a great benefit. According to workplace culture site Comparably, work-life balance is especially important to employees.

“Finding a happy medium between the demands of work and personal life can be challenging, but flexibility has become increasingly more important over the past year,” Comparably CEO Jason Nazar said in a press release shared with Insider.

“The companies on our annual Best Work-Life Balance list are applauded by their employees for prioritizing a healthy work-life blend, ultimately leading to a more engaged and productive workforce.”

This article originally appeared on BusinessInsider.com. Read the full article here.