HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan made an appearance at the National Association of REALTORS® Midyear Legislative Meetings on Wednesday to laud the work of his agency in promoting housing policies and programs that acknowledge the equal rights of gay and lesbian Americans. The agency makes clear that sexual orientation is no barrier to accessing any HUD programs, he said.
“We have a broad requirement that housing opportunities should be available to all persons regardless of sexual orientation,” said Donovan, who spoke to members gathered for a reception of the National Association of Gay & Lesbian Real Estate Professionals (NAGLREP).
But Donovan noted that there is still a long way to go on the civil rights issue that has rapidly been gaining ground in recent months and years. Noting President Obama’s strong support of marriage equality and recent same-sex marriage cases brought to the U.S. Supreme Court, Donovan added, “There is still an urgent need for legal protections based on sexual orientation.” The 45-year Fair Housing Act does not include sexual orientation as a protected class.
NAGLREP Founder and CEO Jeff Berger said he was delighted by Donovan’s appearance at the meeting and his commitment to ending discrimination in housing faced by the LGBT community. The movement clearly has momentum, he said.
Berger cited the group’s drive, working with Wisconsin REALTORS®, to get sexual orientation included as protected classes in the NAR Code of Ethics. That change was approved by NAR’s board of directors at the Midyear Meetings in 2010. Now, an effort is underway to add Code of Ethics protection based on gender orientation. The proposal will be voted on by the NAR Delegate Body at its meeting in November. Berger also hopes to get NAR to include LGBT data in future versions of its Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers and Member Profile. “It will give REALTORS® a truer picture of who is in their markets if lesbians and gays and same-sex couples were acknowledged,” Berger said.
In less than four minutes on a chilly January afternoon back in 2009, U.S. Airways Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger made a series of focused, yet impossibly calm decisions that saved the lives of 155 people. “I had to set priorities. And thanks to a lifetime of training, I was able to synthesize what I knew to solve a problem I had never seen before.”
A flock of Canadian geese disabled the Airbus aircraft shortly after takeoff from New York’s LaGuardia Airport, forcing Sullenberger and his crew to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River. Beyond the extraordinary skill required to land the plane safely in the frigid waters, Sullenberger was hailed for his personal commitment to ensuring that every passenger and crew member was safely evacuated.
As the concluding speaker at the NAR Leadership Summit on Tuesday, Sullenberger noted that he spent those critical moments before the landing neither thinking about his family nor praying, but rather concentrating single-mindedly on getting the plane and his passengers through the ordeal. “I had to focus on the task at hand, despite the stress,” he explained. “I only did the highest priority items and I had to do them well. This required the discipline to ignore everything else.”
In many respects, this was the day he had been training for during four decades as a pilot. “My first thought was, ‘This can’t be happening.’ Things like this don’t happen to me. I had never faced a situation in 42 years that I couldn’t immediately resolve.”
Sullenberger’s feat in the cockpit, widely described as “miraculous,” has led to a new career as an author and on center stage, in which he reflects on the attributes and experience that led to the successful outcome. “Never stop investing in yourself. Never stop investing in learning,” he said. “We have to keep growing and we have to keep reinventing ourselves. And change before you are forced to by circumstances.”
A longtime leader to improve the already exemplary professional standards in his industry, Sullenberger noted that he had been working for years as a safety advocate before he became an instant media hero. “Remember that your reputation is built on one interaction at a time, one day at a time. With each interaction, there is an opportunity for good, ill, or indifference. We have to choose which it is going to be.”
By Wendy Cole, Managing Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
A year ago, Daryl Braham, CRB, GRI, was featured in REALTOR® Magazine as a standout broker for seamlessly juggling his duties as broker-owner of Prudential Premier Real Estate in Fargo, N.D., with his role as CEO and co-owner of innovative home construction company Heritage Homes. Somehow he also managed to serve as 2011 President of the North Dakota Association of REALTORS® at the same time. We wrote about his company’s distinguished honor in being named one of seven national finalists for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Dream Big Small Business of the Year award, chosen from 75 impressive semi-finalists. Representing the Midwest region, Heritage Homes was recognized for its pioneering business practices, including its focus on women buyers, and for great success in driving local economic growth.
Braham (left) and Leslie were elated at their company's Dream Big Award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
What a difference a year makes. This week Braham and co-owner Tyrone Leslie found out that the dream had come true. Heritage Homes was just named Dream Big Small Business of the Year by the U.S. Chamber. The company was cited for it exemplary performance in the areas of staff training and motivation, community involvement, customer service, and business strategy. “This was our Oscar moment,” said a giddy-sounding Braham, the day after receiving the award at a luncheon in Washington, D.C. “We had tears rolling down our cheeks. We were blown away.”
Heritage Homes has 24 employees and reported sales of $19.4 million last year, up 20 percent from a year earlier in a market in which new home construction starts were down nearly 20 percent. “We were told we had one of the best business plans they had ever seen in this competition,” added Braham, who is also currently NAR’s political fundraising liaison.
Had Heritage Homes waited until next year to apply for the award, its business success may well have kept it out of the running. Eligible companies must have revenue below $20 million. “This was probably our last chance to win,” Braham said.
Braham is understandably proud of his employees and their tireless efforts to keep Heritage at the top. “We have a great team, and we’ve empowered them all to execute on their great ideas. Everyone on the team is a leader,” he said. Among the company’s innovative practices: “We have mandatory reading. And it helps. Everyone had to read Jack Stack’s The Great Game of Business, which helps you see how to turn business into a game. Everyone working with us has an important role.”
The award included a plaque and a $10,000 cash prize.
By Wendy Cole, Managing Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Is it an art show or an open house? Brett Bender, a sales associate with Prudential Fox and Roach in Philadelphia, has decided that his listing for a 4,000 sq ft. single-family home in the City of Brotherly Love can do double-duty. Bender, who is also an artist, is taking advantage of the big marketing push behind the REALTOR® Nationwide Open House this weekend, April 28 and 29, to “stage the walls” of the unfurnished home with dozens of his journal drawings and paintings. He’s using Facebook to spread the word about the art reception he’s holding in the house on Sunday, and hopes the event will generate buzz for both the property and his evocative creative work.
REALTORS® and real estate associations across the country and worldwide hold thousands of open houses in their communities as part of the event, which is intended to give a boost to the spring buying season. Practitioners should keep in mind that nearly half of all home buyers visit open houses during their home search, according to the 2011 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers survey conducted by the National Association of REALTORS®. And the extra atttention this weekend, along with record home affordability, could well bring a notable foot traffic boost to homes on the market.
What other distinctive ideas are you incorporating into open houses this weekend?
By Wendy Cole, Managing Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
I just returned from ten days in Cuba. It was a personal trip that offered a fascinating glimpse into one of the country’s great conundrums: how to balance people’s desire for greater economic freedom without compromising the country’s deeply-held socialist principles. My visit, as part of a group, was enabled by the “people-to-people” license program restarted last fall by the Obama Administration. (Such visits to the island-nation are designed to foster meaningful cultural exchange between U.S. citizens and Cubans. They were initiated during the Clinton years and suspended while Bush was in the White House.)
I was particularly intrigued to see how Cuba’s new property law that allows citizens and permanent residents to buy and sell real estate was playing out. Ushered in with much fanfare in November, this market-oriented reform is a major shift from a half-century of socialist, state-run housing policies.
What’s evident wherever you go in the country (and we traveled to five cities): The housing stock is aging and badly decaying. The 50-year trade embargo with the United States and the loss of the Soviet safety net in 1991 mean Cubans must make do with what they have or can make, notwithstanding the contributions from the few countries they maintain economic ties with. (Plywood and light bulbs are sorely needed, for example.) Still, the beauty of the neo-gothic, colonial architecture still comes through in many places, along with the peeling paint and crumbling walls.
Our personable and knowledgeable guide, Mirelys Gonzalez, is a typical Cuban home owner. She lives with her husband and five-year-old daughter in a two-bedroom flat, constructed on top of the Havana home she grew up in. The extreme housing shortage means that multi-generational living arrangements are quite common. It also means that divorcing couples are more apt to erect a wall within the home they have shared and continue to occupy the same property long after the marriage has ended. The reason for all this togetherness is that no one can be assured of finding a new affordable place to live. Continue reading »
By Wendy Cole, Senior Editor, REALTOR Magazine®
Sustained job growth and improved access to capital are the two roadblocks to gettting the economy back on track, Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay, Jr. (D–Mo.) told the Equal Opportunity-Cultural Diversity Forum Tuesday at NAR’s 2011 Midyear Legislative Meetings. Since 2007, 8.4 million jobs have been lost, he said. “While 244,000 jobs were created last month, this country requires a good deal of momentun for the economy to prosper,” Clay said.
He implored attendees to “mobilize, organize and, in the words of social reformer Frederick Douglass agitate, agitate, agitate” to further the interests of the real estate industry. He concedes that proposed legislation to require home buyers to make 20 percent downpayments could be an “overreach” in an effort to counter lax standards that contributed to the housing downturn. Clay encouraged real estate pros to reach out to members of Congress to raise their concerns about issues that could adversely affect home ownership, including challenges to the MID, GSE reform, and the impact of short sales on credit scores.
By Wendy Cole, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Real estate practitioners are women and men of action, and they showed their stripes within days after the tornado ripped through the heart of Tuscaloosa, Ala., last Wednesday. Representatives of local REALTOR® associations from as far away as Illinois and Florida have already driven relief supplies to the parking lot outside the offices of the Tuscaloosa Association of REALTORS®. “There have been trucks filled with food, water, diapers, and clothing,” says Nicki Simmons, executive vice president of the Tuscaloosa Association of REALTORS®. “We’re providing a staging area for supplies that will be combined with other donations.”
The F4-rated storm left at least 40 people dead with 300 others still unaccounted for in Tuscaloosa (pop. 93
,000). Some 5,000 structures, including businesses, apartment buildings and houses were demolished by the tornado. Simmons said that one real estate agent from a neighboring county was killed in the storm.
Cindy Denney, GRI, CRS, president of the Tuscaloosa Association of REALTORS® and an associate broker with RE/MAX Achievers has been moved by the outpouring of help. “REALTORS® are so compassionate and generous,” she says, noting “huge portions of our community are gone.” Denney noted that Patton Real Estate, an independent brokerage that lost its offices, is already on the case to find a new building. “They found all their files intact in the rubble,” she says.
Tuscaloosa REALTORS ® have been busy with the relocation effort, providing local authorities with lists of rental buildings that have vacant apartments so that displaced residents people can leave temporary shelters.
Donations are being accepted through the Alabama Association of REALTORS® Disaster Relief Fund (www.alabamarealtors.com).
By Wendy Cole, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of REALTORS® has watched with horror at the events in Japan since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off shore on March 11, triggering a tsunami, unimaginable devastation and a nuclear crisis that is still unfolding.
As in the case of the recent earthquakes in New Zealand, NAR has identified four funds that the association believes are well equipped to provide disaster-relief services. NAR urges members who want to make a donation to consider one of these organizations.
“REALTORS® build communities here in the U.S., but we also have a role to play in the global community, as well. With that in mind, we want to express our heartfelt concern and support for the people of Japan during these trying times,” says NAR President Ron Phipps.
Jason Watabe of Mercer Island, Wash., NAR President’s liaison to Japan’s four real estate associations, has helped to develop additional support programs with the Seattle-King County Association of REALTORS®. “We cherish our business relations in Japan,” he said. “And we have to show our friendship by extending financial support in providing the victims food, water, heat and shelter for tonight and tomorrow.” The association has set up a site for those interested in contributing to both immediate relief efforts and and long-term shelter and rebuilding initiatives.
The Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA), based in Carlsbad, Calif., has set up a fund to help address Japan’s long-term needs and support future rebuilding of homes for the people of the hardest hit Tohoku region. Read about the initiative and how you can help.
Here are brief descriptions of the NAR-recommended funds along with helpful giving tips from CharityNavigator.org: Continue reading »
By Wendy Cole, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
The newly installed Speaker of the House John A. Boehner is known as much for his tough budget-cutting stance as his propensity for crying in public. Inside the Beltway, his wife Deborah is hardly known at all. That’s largely because during the 20 years her husband has served in Congress, Deborah Boehner has been busy tending to matters at home in suburban Cincinnati, including her business as a sales agent with Sibcy Cline. Current listings include a condo for $94,500 and a grand estate with an asking price of $3.5 million. Her resume also cites her as a relocation specialist, but don’t look for her to be packing her bags for D.C. anytime soon.
Despite the couple’s largely long-distance relationship, surely the GOP Speaker stays well-versed on the vicissitudes of the real estate business, at least in his wife’s southern Ohio market. That should be an encouraging tidbit for all practitioners.
By Wendy Cole, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
REALTOR® Magazine wants to hear from broker-owners who have substantially updated or redesigned their brokerage space over the past two years.
To participate in the contest, please go to http://www.realtor.org/rmobrokers/articles/2010/brokeragedesigncontest to complete an online form.
Winners will receive an iPad and be featured in REALTOR® Magazine.
We look forward to hearing from you.
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