When the National Association of REALTORS® Board of Directors meets, the meeting always starts with a benediction and the Pledge of Allegiance. At the board’s meeting in mid-May, the pledge was led by REALTOR® James T. Elcock, a Vietnam veteran and broker-owner of Elcock Properties in St. Charles, Mo.. On this Memorial Day, REALTOR® Magazine pays tribute to all the REALTORS® who have served or are currently serving in the armed forces, and to those with family in the military, by sharing Elcock’s inspirational message.
James T. Elcock, Pledge of Allegiance, NAR Board of Directors, May 2010
By Katherine Tarbox, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
This morning I read an article on CNN.com about handwritten letters in the digital age. While producing the Masters Series videos, I’ve spent days watching how top-producing real estate pros run their business. Each has their own secret sauce, but every one of the practitioners we’ve profiled has stressed the importance of touching people.
Sue Smith, SRES, associate broker of RE/MAX Premier in Dulles, Va., keeps stacks of thank-you notes in her office and home. She makes a point to sit down at the end of the day to quickly write thank-you’s to the people who attended her open houses or who called her for a lead. Smith felt that people remembered her more because she took the time to write the note and mail it. Continue reading »
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
During the 2010 Midyear Legislative Meetings & Expo a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of watching real estate pros and YPN members Brian Copeland and James W. Nellis II participate in a panel on how to use video as a promotional tool. Here are four tips they offered to attendees:
Make stuff people want to watch. Most people aren’t interested in videos that amount to a commercial. They would rather be informed and entertained. So instead of producing a video of you talking about why you’re so great, make one in which you present yourself as an expert on a topic related to real estate. For example, Copeland, who is based in Nashville, attracts consumers by producing videos that highlight neighborhoods in the area. “I don’t sell homes to start with. My first sale is the neighborhood,” he says. Continue reading »
By Katherine Tarbox, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of heading to Miami Beach, Fla., to meet “The Jills,” a top-producing team specializing in selling luxury homes. Jill Eber and Jill Hertzberg, of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, bring decades of experience to the business and have saturated the Miami market with their brand. As we filmed them for the Masters Series, people even stopped them on the street to ask, “Are you one of the Jills?”
By building a brand that penetrated their local market, they were able to sell the homes of celebrities, including Shaquille O’Neal and Mike Piazza. In turn, this exposure brought them even more business. Watch the Masters Series to learn how they built their brand.
By Todd Carpenter, Social Media Manager, National Association of REALTORS®
Industry leader Russell Shaw recently asked if you would prefer to be referred to as a used-home salesman. Russell knows that if you look at being a REALTOR® in the long run, then you shouldn’t be selling houses. You should be selling relationships.
Joe Ferrara understands this as well. Joe offers various services to the real estate industry and is best known in the RE.net for co-founding the Sellsius Real Estate blog. In building his Internet presence, Joe doesn’t spend all his time focused on SEO, or branding, or syndication of his content through Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. Joe concentrates on building relationships.
The most powerful example of this I can think of was the Blog Tour USA project. This cross-country tour of the United States in an RV brought together bloggers from across the country. It united social media-savvy agents nationwide, when many hadn’t even met others in their own local markets. It directly led to me meeting people like Mariana Wagner, Kristal Kraft, and Jason Berman for the first time.
That one event led to Jason and I working together on REBlogWorld. That then led to my considerable involvement in RE BarCamp. That eventually led me to apply for my position at NAR.
Thank you, Joe. Without your desire to build relationships, I wouldn’t be writing on a REALTOR® Magazine blog today.
I can’t possibly repay such a favor with this post, but I hope it will help, because Joe is ill and could use some help right now. I’m asking you to help because Joe deserves it. Relationships are everything. No, relationships are the only thing. Please help.
One issue that wasn’t settled at NAR’s Midyear Legislative Meetings was the question of what constitutes a “recognized search engine.”
In November, the NAR board of directors approved a policy change clarifying that the indexing of listing data from a real estate broker’s Web site by recognized search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, did not constitute scraping—a practice prohibited under NAR’s Internet Data Exchange (IDX) policy.
Now, Realogy, the Parsippany, N.J., company that owns several major franchise brands, including Century 21 and Coldwell Banker, wants its franchises included in the category of recognized search engines. On Wednesday, Realogy Chairman Alex Perrielo brought a proposal to NAR’s Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee, which referred the request to a work group for further study.
Stay tuned . . .
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
What makes REALTORS® relevant in the real estate industry? In a word, information. That’s why the REALTORS Property Resource™ is so important, Dale Ross, RPR’s CEO, told NAR’s Board of Directors Saturday at the 2010 Midyear Legislative Meetings in Washington, D.C.
“As REALTORS®, we have to know more about properties than anyone else,” Ross said. “Whatever has to do with that property, we need to have that info.”
The REALTORS Property Resource™, a database that will eventually cover every property in the United States, will pull in data from public records, prior transactions, MLSs, transfer taxes, and other relevant sources. It is one of NAR’s Second Century Initiatives.
In his update to the board, Ross said Continue reading »
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
In a move bound to please real estate commentator Fred Glick, the National Association of REALTORS®’ Board of Directors approved a recommendation to adopt a statement of multiple listing policy pertaining to property pictures as a condition of inclusion in an MLS.
Here is the statement in its entirety: Continue reading »
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Although not without dissent, the National Association of REALTORS®’ Board of Directors passed a recommendation at the 2010 Midyear Legislative Meetings today to amend Article 10 of the Code of Ethics to prevent discrimination against colleagues or consumers on the basis of sexual orientation. The change, which met with applause, was passed unanimously by the Professional Standards Committee earlier in the week.
Here’s the article with amended language (additions are underlined): Continue reading »
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
In her president’s report during the NAR Board of Directors Meeting in Washington, D.C., today, Vicki Cox Golder said REALTOR® University would help “raise the bar” of the profession through an initiative to create an accredited degree-granting university program.
Richard Rosenthal, a Venice, Calif., broker and NAR Liaison for Special Projects, built on this point in a report on the program. He said a blue-ribbon panel started work this year on the initiative, which will result in degrees in majors that include real estate sales and marketing, real estate brokerage, and appraisal.
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