Lisa Dempsey is the branch manager for Prudential Gary Greene in Humble.

Every week, we ask a managing broker for their thoughts on the top three stories from the week before.

This week, we talked with Lisa Dempsey, the branch manager for Prudential Gary Greene in Humble.

1. How Cody Phillips of Prudential Gary Greene is Shaking, not Stirring, His Marketing Efforts

Social Media is a new way for us to connect to our clients; is often misconstrued as a business platform, it’s an interaction platform. Something that’s going to create a memory of the agent in the client’s mind. It’s a way to reach out to folks we may not interact with. It’s that touch you can make that’s still personal while impersonal, much like picking up the phone.

2. Houston Housing Overcomes Adversity

We’re probably around 12 to 18 months away from a housing shortage, things are going so well. For our company, we’ve had the best May in company history, and that’s 50 years of the company, and counting the markets of 2006 and 2007.

3. Are Strategic Defaults the Answer for Underwater Homeowners?

We are Realtors; we’re not attorneys. We cannot advise consumers on the contractual obligations with their lender. We can advise them on approaches, from short sales to modifications.

In our market, we do have a lot of short sales, but with PMI, banks have been able to cover any losses. I know, with foreclosure transactions, that it doesn’t always make sense, that someone would be forced out of a house after paying $250,000, and an investor buys it for $125,000 – but that’s the market.