The Residential Specialist, January/February 2014

January/Februa ry 2014

THE RESIDENTIAL SPECIALIST ■

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014

Are You Working With BOOMERANG BUYERS? INCREASING MORTGAGE RATES and Today’s Buyers Strategies for HIRING ASSISTANTS

HEAD OF THE CLASS Ron Canning, CRS, takes the reins as 2014 CRS president

CharaCter and

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January/February 2014 VOL. 13, NO. 1

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26 features

18 Head of the Class

By Michael Fenner 2014 CRS President Ron Canning knows firsthand how good education and solid negotiating skills can lead to success.

22 Coming Around Again

By Daniel Rome Levine After dealing with foreclosures and short sales, “boomerang buyers� are coming back.

26 Mindset Matters

By Melanie D.G. Kaplan As interest rates tick up, what can CRSs do to keep potential homebuyers in the hunt?

30 Support System w w w . c r s . c o m

By Mary Ellen Collins Need help? Assistants can build the foundation for a solid business.

Cover photo by Chris Cone

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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

By Ron Canning, CRS

inside CRS 36

Home prices look up; negative equity rate falls; and home search habits

GREAT FINDS Ring in the new year with tools you can use to keep your resolutions.

TECHNOLOGY

12

TRENDS

14

PIPELINE

16

UP CLOSE

34

GOOD READ

By John Pulley Electronic tools serving clients through the lifetime of a transaction gain momentum.

47 48

By Gwen Moran How can the influx of overseas buyers be a boon to your business?

By Emma Beck CRSs share the benefits of traveling out of town to further their education.

Wendy McNeil, CRS Keller Williams Realty Germantown, Tenn.

Reviewed by Allan Fallow Kick off the new year with five inspired business reads.

NEWS FROM THE COUNCIL 2013 NAR Conference Recap Expo Trend REALTOR® of the Year Awards Your Home newsletter

QUICK TAKES

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REFERRAL MARKE TPLACE ASK A CRS Advice from the country’s top agents

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Coming in the Next Issue ...

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SCHOOL ZONE

Don’t miss the bus. Learn how to best market homes in desirable school districts.

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APPRAISALS 101

How they work, who you’ll be working with and how to deal with under-appraised properties ■

WATER PRESSURE

How to deal with properties located on a floodplain ■

CRS PROUD

CRSs explain how earning the Designation changed their lives.

Would you like to be a source for a future story in The Residential Specialist? Send an email to mfenner@crs.com to be added to our potential source list. To see a list of the topics we’ll be covering, check out the magazine’s 2014 editorial calendar online at crs.com.

Specia li s t

EDITOR Michael Fenner Email: mfenner@crs.com Tel: 800.462.8841, ext. 4428 Fax: 312.329.8882 2014 COMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY PANEL Moderator: Clark Niblock, CRS Co-Moderator: Lois Cox, CRS 2014 COMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY PANEL MEMBERS Richard Bradford, CRS Gretchen Conley, CRS Clyde Cooper, CRS John Cotton, CRS Geri Kenyon, CRS Michael Maher, CRS Colleen McKean, CRS Michelle Rosenkoff, CRS Darlene Price Bailey, CRS Patricia Tasker, CRS John Stark, CRS Darlene Stouder, CRS Marylea Todd, CRS Kristin Triolo, CRS Beverlee Vidoli, CRS CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Mary Ellen Collins, Daniel Rome Levine, Gwen Moran OFFICERS: 2014 President Ron Canning, CRS

PLUS: An update on reverse mortgages

Chief Executive Officer Lana Vukovljak 2014 President-Elect Dale Carlton, CRS 2014 First Vice President Janelle Pfleiger, CRS 2014 Immediate Past President Mary McCall, CRS

PUBLICATION MANAGEMENT Tel: 202.331.7700 Fax: 202.331.2043 Publishing Manager Andrea Gabrick Email: andrea.gabrick@mcmurrytmg.com Managing Editor Rebecca Scherr Email: rebecca.scherr@mcmurrytmg.com Advertising Manager Andrea Katz Email: andrea.katz@mcmurrytmg.com Tel: 202.721.1482 Project Manager Katie Mason Art Director Chelsey Fredlund Production Artist Tommy Dingus The Residential Specialist is published for Certified Residential Specialists, General Members and Subscribers by the Council of Residential Specialists.

The magazine’s mission is: To be a superior educational resource for CRS Designees and Members, providing the information and tools they need to be exceptionally successful in selling residential real estate.

The Residential Specialist is published bimonthly by the Council of Residential Specialists, 430 North Michigan Ave., Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60611-4092. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL, and additional mailing offices.

Change of address? Email requests to crshelp@crs.com, call Customer Service at 800.462.8841 or mail to CRS at the above address.

The Residential Specialist (USPS-0021-699, ISSN 15397572) is distributed to members of the Council as part of their membership dues. Non-members may purchase subscriptions for $29.95 per year in the U.S., $44.95 in Canada and $89.95 in other international countries. All articles and paid advertising represent the opinions of the authors and advertisers, not the Council.

POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to The Residential Specialist, c/o Council of Residential Specialists, 430 North Michigan Ave., Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60611-4092.

COPYRIGHT 2014 by the Council of Residential Specialists.

All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

www.crs.com Jan uary /Feb

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DENT THE RESI

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IALI IAL SPEC ST ■

JANUARY /FEBRUAR Y 2

With Are You Working ERS? BOOMERANG BUY

S, takes the Ron Canning, CR S president reins as 2014 CR

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President’s Message | News from Ron Canning, CRS

Chris Cone

A New Beginning

The Council is moving in exciting new directions that will position it — and its members — for future success.

I am honored to represent the Council and its members over the next year as CRS president. As I look toward 2014, I am optimistic about the Council’s transformation and growth. We are taking bold steps to improve the programs and services CRS provides to its members as we position the organization for growth, make more efficient and effective use of Council resources, and better align ourselves with a strategic direction focused squarely on specific goals.

For example, the CRS Board of Directors has voted to clarify CRS member categories, modify the criteria for the Council’s Medallion Award and to adjust the CRS Reserve Policy. It also voted to waive the education and elective Designation requirements for individuals who have completed their Master of Real Estate degree with a concentration in residential real estate sales from REALTOR® University.

In the coming months, the Council will pursue strategic initiatives designed to recruit and retain new members; develop new educational offerings; raise public awareness of CRS; develop potential requirements for maintenance of the CRS Designation; develop a content framework for educational tools for independent brokers; provide resources to help members better position themselves in the marketplace; develop a concept and content for a new licensee package; and increase CRS’s mobile presence.

I look forward to working alongside the members of the Executive Committee, Board of Directors, committee members and staff who are working together to improve the Council and the real estate industry as a whole. CRS is pursuing these initiatives to help the organization provide even more value to the members, and we believe these efforts will position the Council — and its members — for future success.

I believe 2014 will be an extraordinary year for the Council, and I encourage all of you to take full advantage of everything the Council offers us to improve our businesses and help us deliver excellent service to our clients.

Keep moving and improving!

4 | January/February 2014

QuickTakes | Industry headlines, statistics and trends

Many homeowners who have previously allowed a home to fall into foreclosure are ready to re-enter the housing market, according to a recent study by LoanSafe.org and YouWalkAway.com. Nearly 80 percent of consumers who lost their homes during the financial crisis are interested in buying again, and 41 percent say their income is higher than when they first purchased a property. These so-called “boomerang buyers” also say that their debt obligations are not as severe as they were when they lost their home, with 63 percent reporting lower debt and 30 percent “significantly lower” debt.

The study finds that boomerang buyers are more willing to increase their initial investment in the purchase of a new property than in the past: More than 50 percent say they plan to make a down payment of 10 percent or more with their next home purchase. Higher down payments suggest that “after foreclosure” buyers are committed to avoiding the same mistakes the second time around, the report concludes.

Veterans’ Housing Needs Three-fourths of military families say owning a home is one of the most important things for service members returning home from service, according to a study by Century 21 Real Estate. A large majority of veterans (88 percent) say owning a home would make them feel safer. The other reasons veterans reported wanting a home were: a desire to have their own residence (73 percent); establishing a household (43 percent); and financial security (36 percent).

“Homeownership is a top priority for many, but is especially significant to those returning from a tour of duty,” says Rick Davidson, president and CEO of Century 21 Real Estate.

But the study finds that two-thirds of returning veterans face roadblocks on the road to homeownership, including the price of homes (36 percent), an inability to come up with a down payment (31 percent) and lack of personal savings (28 percent).

Home prices rose 3.2 percent in the third quarter of 2013 and 11.2 percent over the past year, according to a recent S&P/Case-Shiller Index report.

For the month of September, both the 10-city and the 20-city index composites rose 0.7 percent month-over-month and 13.3 percent year-over-year.

Although 13 of 20 cities posted higher year-over-year prices, 19 cities showed a monthly decline in September, the report says.

David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S & P Dow Jones Indexes, says: “The second and third quarters of 2013 were very good for home prices. Housing continues to emerge from the financial crisis: The proportion of homes in foreclosure is declining and consumers’ balance sheets are strengthening.

The longer-run question is whether household formation continues to recover and if homeownership will return to the peak levels seen in 2004.”

Kkant1937/Thinkstock; Videodet/Thinkstock; Designaart/Thinkstock

Boomerang Buyers

Home Prices Look Up

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QuickTakes | Industry headlines, statistics and trends

CAUTION RULES Despite an improving economy and housing market, many Americans remain cautious about the near-term outlook. Nearly twothirds of Americans believe the economy is on the wrong track, and 22 percent expect their personal finances to worsen in the coming year, according to Fannie Mae’s November National Housing Survey results.

Less than 50 percent of consumers say they expect home prices to increase in the next 12 months.

“We continue to see caution as the defining feature of Americans’ attitudes toward the economy and their personal financial situation. In this environment, the housing recovery is likely to improve, but only at a gradual pace,” says Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. “As the economy continues to improve and household balance sheets for most Americans are slow to repair, we continue to see the transition to a full housing recovery as a slow process. Upcoming fiscal policy discussions and labor market developments may also lead to some bumps along the way.”

An Aging Housing Stock The U.S. housing stock is getting older. More than 70 percent of single-family homes in the U.S. were built prior to 1990, and such homes constituted 60 percent of the homes sold through October 2013, according to a recent study from RealtyTrac.

“The high percentage of homes that are at least 20 years old and likely in need of some major repairs is eye-opening,” says Jake Adger, chief economist at RealtyTrac. “However, given the low inventory of homes available for sale in today’s market, this challenge of aging U.S. housing supply can also be an opportunity for buyers looking for a bargain and homeowners looking to update their living space and improve the value of their homes.”

Homes built before 1990 made up more than 75 percent of 2013 sales (through November) in 11 states: Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Illinois and Wyoming.

However, older homes made up less than 40 percent of 2013 sales in Utah, Idaho, Mississippi and Nevada.

VALUING HOMEOWNERSHIP • • • • •

74% still see homeownership as better than renting when building up wealth 71% still see homeownership as better than renting when saving for retirement 73% still see homeownership as better than renting for overall financial stability 80% still see homeownership as better than renting as an investment plan 70% still see homeownership as better than renting for creating an overall tax strategy

6 | January/February 2014

Comstock/Thinkstock

A recent study by Fannie Mae reveals that delinquent mortgage borrowers’ views toward the housing market have grown more favorable in 2013 compared with 2012, and the majority of them believe in the benefits of homeownership. The study finds that:

NEGATIVE EQUITY RATE FALLS

Dejan Stanisavljevic/Thinkstock; Mehmetdinler/Thinkstock; AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

The national negative equity rate fell in the third quarter, leaving 21 percent of homeowners with a mortgage underwater, down from a high of 31.4 percent in the first quarter of 2012, according to a recent report from Zillow. Rising home values helped bring more than 1.4 million American homeowners out of negative equity in the third quarter, while 4.9 million have gotten “above water” since the beginning of 2012. Approximately one-third of all U.S. homeowners own their homes outright, which brings the rate of negative equity among all homeowners to 14.7 percent.

Some of the areas that were hit hard by the housing bust are showing the biggest appreciation gains, the Zillow report finds. These markets include Sacramento, Calif. (34.1 percent), Las Vegas (33.3 percent), Riverside, Calif. (31.8 percent), San Francisco (25 percent) and Detroit (23.3 percent).

Home Search Habits A rapidly growing number of homebuyers use the Internet as a primary tool to find a home, according to data from NAR’s 2013 Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers. The percentage of buyers who use the Internet to search for homes rose from 71 percent in 2003 to 92 percent in 2013.

The percentage of buyers who found the home they ultimately purchased online rose from 8 percent in 2001 to 43 percent in 2013. By comparison, 48 percent of buyers discovered the home they purchased from a REALTOR® in 2001; that number declined to 33 percent in 2013. But 88 percent of buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker — a share that has steadily increased from 69 percent in 2001.

NEW FHFA DIRECTOR CONFIRMED The U.S. Senate in December approved the confirmation of U.S Rep. Melvin Watt (D – N.C.) to head the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA). Watt, who will oversee the governmentcontrolled mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, served for 20 years as a member of the committee that oversees housing policy. He was nominated by President Obama in May. National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) chairman Rick Judson says of Watt: “His nearly two decades of experience working on housing issues as a member of the House Financial Services Committee makes him the right man for the job during this critical period as Congress debates changes to overhaul the U.S. housing finance system. NAHB looks forward to working with Rep. Watt in his new role as FHFA director to help revamp Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to create a U.S. housing finance system that ensures liquidity and stability for homeownership and rental housing.”

When President Obama nominated Watt in May, he said: “Mel has led efforts to rein in the unscrupulous mortgage lenders. He’s helped protect consumers from the kind of reckless risk-taking that led to the financial crisis in the first place. He knows what it’s going to take to help responsible homeowners fully recover.” www.crs.com | 7

QuickTakes | Industry headlines, statistics and trends Challenges for Renters between 2007 and 2011, the study finds. This demand has depleted rental inventory and pushed rents higher, but that has triggered growth in the recently struggling new-home construction market.

“The gravity of the situation for the large proportion of renters spending so much of their incomes on housing is plain,” says Eric Belsky, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard.

“We are losing ground rapidly against a chronic problem that forces households to cut essential spending. With little else to cut in their already tight budgets, America’s lowestincome renters with severe cost burdens spend about $130 less on food each month, and make similar reductions in health care, clothing and savings. And while many choose longer commutes to lower their housing costs, the combined cost of housing and transportation means even less remains for other expenses.”

Home Flipping Declines In the third quarter of 2013, 32,993 single-family homes were “flipped” (purchased and resold within six months), according to RealtyTrac’s Q3 2013 Home Flipping Report. That is a 35 percent decline from the second quarter and a 13 percent decline from the third quarter of 2012, the study finds.

Real estate investors made an average gross profit of $54,927 on their property flips, up 12 percent from $48,893 in the third quarter of last year. More than 75 percent of high-end property flipping occurred in just a handful of markets: the New York metro area; Los Angeles; San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; and San Diego.

8 | January/February 2014

Regulation M at t e r s

Forty-nine percent of Americans think the government hasn’t gone far enough in regulating financial institutions following the 2007–08 financial crisis, according to the Pew Research Center.

Vaeenma/Thinkstock; Feverpitched/Thinkstock

A growing number of renters are finding it more difficult to find housing they can afford, according to a recent report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Half of U.S. renters pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent, an increase of 12 percentage points from those who did so a decade earlier.

More startling, 27 percent of renters pay more than half their income on rent, up from 19 percent 10 years ago.

The report attributes the trend to rising rental prices combined with falling wages: Between 2000 and 2012, median rents increased by 6 percent, while median renter income fell 13 percent. The percentage of Americans who rent housing rose from 31 percent in 2004 to 35 percent in 2012.

Falling ownership rates have boosted demand for single-family rental homes: Approximately 3 million existing homes went from owner-occupied to rental occupancy

Great Finds | Tools of the trade

year won Ring in 2014 with the promise that you won’t break your New Year’s resolutions. Take your personal and professional goals to the next level — whether you’re looking to drop a few pounds, eat a little bit healthier, or get more creative — with these tools.

time out stuartkhall.com Got seven minutes? That’s all you need to get in a good sweat with the 7 Minute Workout, an app that makes every minute count. Pump up your workout with 12 high-intensity, 30-second bodyweight exercises. Voice prompts walk you through each step, and countdown timers let you know when you can rest. Available on iOS.

free

gym rat gym-pact.com Want to make sure you make it to the gym? Make a deal with yourself: Work out or pay up. The Pact app can help. With this app, you’ll earn cash each time you check in at the gym or track a workout—and lose it for each commitment missed. Those who slack off end up paying those who meet their goal; activities are verified by GPS or photos. Users must work out at least once a week for 30 minutes. The app has more than 40,000 gyms in its database, so there’s no fooling the system. Available on iOS and Android.

water proof vat19.com The best ideas can come in the weirdest (or wettest) of places. That’s where the recyclable AquaNotes Waterproof Notepad can save the day — and your thoughts. Write down who you need to call, what you need to do or whatever brilliant idea strikes while you’re in the shower. The pad’s suction cups, water-resistant erasable pencil and 40 perforated tear-off sheets ensure that your ideas won’t wash away.

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free

health bite calendars.com If you’re looking for constant motivation to get and stay healthy this year, hang A Year of Healthy Living 2014 calendar on your wall. Indulge your mind, body and soul with healthy recipes like February’s Cabbage Soup with Apples and Walnuts, weekly affirmations, and inspiring tips and strategies.

14.99

picture perfect canon.com Smartphones make it easy to snap great photos, but too often that’s where they stay — on your phone. If you’ve resolved to print more pictures this year, check out the Canon PIXMA Wireless Printer. The compact, portable gadget prints quality photos directly from your iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and compatible Android devices. It also can print from your computer single- or double-sided documents in no time. The printer and multicolor ink cartridges are easy to use. All you need is a Wi-Fi connection.

159.95

www.crs.com | 9

Technology | Streamlining your business

paperless chase

By John Pulley

Less than 10 percent of all contracts in North America are signed electronically.

Source: Adobe

10 | January/February 2014

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lectronic documents and sophisticated digital tools for managing them have been a boon for real estate agents like K. Duncan “Doc” Martin II, CRS. In November, a young Air Force couple stationed in San Antonio asked Martin, of Niblock Co. REALTORS®, to sell their house. The husband, who had been reassigned to Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia, was at the time deployed to Bahrain.

Armed with a cellphone and a Microsoft Surface tablet, Martin went to work.

He sent the airman a listing agreement via the zipLogix Digital Ink electronic signature program and told him how to provide a digital signature. Martin used a document-management application,

OneNote, to record an ongoing narrative of his interactions with the couple. And he employed the SkyDrive cloud-storage service to archive everything that transpired during the transaction.

“We communicate through Digital Ink, email and text messages,” Martin says. “We rarely have a phone call.”

For many years, the industry was unavoidably reliant on pulp products to conduct business — not to mention the filing cabinets to keep all those forms straight. Paper documents got the job done, but at a high cost in lost productivity, grindingly slow transactions and costly errors. In recent years, the emergence of electronic documents has freed real estate agents from the tyranny of paper. It has

Yagi Studio/Getty Images

Electronic tools that serve clients through the lifetime of transactions are gaining momentum.

increased efficiency and accuracy, and in many cases, it’s just what clients want.

Old School “Without question, technology has improved our ability to manage documentation,” says Ridge York, CRS, with RE/MAX By the Bay in Portland, Maine.

“REALTORS® who embrace it are significantly more efficient, in my opinion.”

For much of York’s 20-year career, the paper chase ran him ragged. If his client wanted to write an offer on a Sebago Lake property, York would ferry the potential buyer to his office, 30 minutes away, and hand-write a carbon paper contract, have the client sign it, and drive back to Sebago.

The listing agent might have to drive 40 minutes in the other direction to get the necessary signatures. If there was a counteroffer, even more paper and emissions would be produced.

“It used to be pretty crazy,” York says.

“It took days to get a contract signed. Now it can take minutes or hours.”

York routinely uses zipForm electronic documents, SkySlope online transactionmanagement software and DocuSign, an industry leader in cloud-based electronic signature technology.

“We make it simple for the agent and the client,” says John Gallagher, who leads DocuSign’s real estate practice. “They used to meet at the 7-Eleven parking lot at night to get an offer signed. Our customers don’t have to do that.”

Tool Time Before going electronic, Kimo Smigielski, CRS, with Sandwich Isles Realty in Hawaii, ordered condominium document packages for clients that “could easily be over 300 pages of paper. Keeping this organized and stored safely was difficult at best,” he says.

Electronic document management has made those tasks easier to track. Among the tools Smigielski relies on are DocuSign and “cloud-based storage solutions such as Dropbox, which allow me access to files, photos and documents anywhere I have Internet access,” he says.

After Martin closes a real estate sale, he drags the complete record of the engagement from OneNote onto a DVD, which he can access if needed. “We’re saving paper and saving gas,” he says.

Having instant access to old records has advantages, says York, who uses Dropbox and Google Drive, among other tools.

Cost Matters In 2012, REALTORS ® spent more on technology than they did in 2010, registering a median of $822 spent on tech for their businesses. Brokers spent a median of $1,122. That’s according to the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS ®’ Technology Survey Report 2012, the latest data available.

The report also found that REALTORS® valued tools the most that helped them work quickly and conveniently, such as forms software, mobile apps, tablets, property databases and CRM solutions.

Apple iPads were the tool that REALTORS® most often planned to purchase, and half of REALTORS® already used iPhones.

If his accountant requests documents associated with a house he sold three years ago, no problem. “I don’t have to go through a box in the attic,” he says. “I can go to Dropbox, pull up the file in minutes and email it.”

Shirley Matlock, CRS, with RE/MAX Advantage Realty, “has gone completely paperless,” she says. Using Dotloop, a Web-based platform for managing documents online, she and her colleagues store listing agreements, contracts, addenda, processing forms and other documents in the cloud. “Everything has to be uploaded,” she says.

Smooth Moves For some CRSs, digital document management also provides peace of mind.

Switching from paper to electronic forms eliminates many mistakes — omissions or sloppiness — that could otherwise create big headaches.

“Having documents available through email eliminates the illegibility caused by repeat fax transmissions, [thereby] maintaining the ability to clearly read a fully executed document,” Smigielski says.

Encryption features of digital document management provide a level of security and privacy that paper documents can’t match.

And there is the ever-present bugaboo of simple human errors on paper forms that require extensive documentation. Digital management systems, such as DocuSign, require completion of all required signatures.

“A broker’s biggest fear is that a transaction goes wrong and there is a lawsuit or a fine,” Gallagher says. “It’s on the agent or compliance officer of the brokerage to fill forms out correctly and completely.”

John Pulley is a writer based in Arlington, Va.

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Trends | Today and tomorrow

foreign affairs How can the influx of overseas buyers be a boon to your business?

Approximately 27 percent of REALTORS® worked with international clients within the past year.

Source: NAR 2013 Profile of International Buying Activity

12 | January/February 2014

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he United States. Those outside this country might think of it as the land of Hollywood, Wall Street, Disney World … or great real estate. The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) 2013 Profile of International Home Buying Activity found that in the 12 months ending March 2013, foreign buyers accounted for $68.2 billion, or 6.3 percent of total U.S. existing home sales.

The report also revealed that international buyers typically fall into two categories. The first are those who reside outside the U.S. and purchase homes as investments or for vacations or visits of less than six months a year. The second are recent immigrants or temporary visa holders who will reside in the country for more than six months. For either group,

getting their attention, gaining their trust and handling their transactions requires a detail-oriented, knowledgeable approach, likely beyond what REALTORS® are doing for their domestic clients.

Be Visible Bruce Ailion, CRS, has seen his business at RE/MAX Greater Atlanta in Marietta, Ga., transition to approximately 70 percent international buyers. He says that initially, these buyers saw his advertisements on REALTOR.com, Zillow.com, Trulia.com and his own website. That’s not unusual, according to the NAR report: Respondents said 23 percent of international clients came through website and online listings, up from 20 percent the previous year. Only referrals from previous contacts or clients (26 percent) were more common.

DNY59/Getty Images

By Gwen Moran

On the Map Once he handled several successful transactions, Ailion began seeing an influx of international referral business.

“Relationships are so important when you’re dealing with international buyers. I’ve seen them actually agree to less competitive deals because they trusted the people who were involved with them more than they trusted other people who could negotiate better on their behalf,” Ailion says.

As he saw the promise of international clientele, Ailion began investing in cultivating those buyers. He has participated in several investment property shows in Tel Aviv, Israel, and in October 2013, he exhibited at the International Investor Property show in London. A large group from Greece and a potential buyer from Dubai both scheduled meetings with him in Atlanta after he attended that show. “I didn’t expect such a strong response, but I’m happy about it,” he says.

Gain Trust Some international buyers may be looking at U.S. real estate as a secure investment, while others may be here on a short-term basis for work or education. Some buyers may be used to purchasing very small units in their homelands, while others may be interested in having multiple generations of family live under one roof. In any case, agents must be able to explain the process and costs of purchasing real estate in the U.S. in great detail.

“You have to be prepared for these buyers, and you have to prepare them,” says Hanne Sagalowsky, CRS, with Ebby Halliday REALTORS® in Dallas.

Daniel Kijner, CRS, with Fortune International Realty in Miami, has an attractive resume for foreign buyers. He conducts real estate transactions outside the U.S. and represents foreign buyers interested in U.S. real estate. Before he was a REALTOR®, he had a background in international trading.

Real estate might be local, but that doesn’t mean the buyers have to be. People from Canada, China, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom are the top international buyers, according to the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® 2013 Profile of International Home Buying Activity.

The report also revealed that international buyers are buying single-family homes in markets such as Florida, California, Arizona, Texas and New York.

They also showed interest in many other states.

Only 7 percent of purchases were more than $1 million, and 63 percent of buyers paid all cash.

“French are different from British, who are different from Germans and people from Central and South America. You need to understand their mindset and build a personal relationship and trust before building a business relationship,” he says.

While every individual is unique, there are some cultural norms among people from the same part of the world. Kijner finds that his clients from Israel value common relationships above most everything else — if you’re introduced by someone trustworthy, it carries a great deal of weight in the relationship. His German and Swiss clients tend to be extremely punctual and demand a great deal of precise detail in their meetings.

One big question remains: If you don’t speak the language of most of your foreign buyers, should you hire a REALTOR® or even an assistant who is fluent in the language? Kijner advocates doing so, but Sagalowsky worries that person may not be communicating as you would if you spoke

with the client directly or hired someone to translate your words rather than develop a relationship. Bottom line: Do what you think is best for your business.

Be a Tax Guide REALTORS® working with international clients need to know the basics of any transaction, such as buyer preferences about property size and location, how long they intend to live in the property and how they intend to finance it.

In addition, agents must act as guides and information-gatherers, Sagalowsky says. In particular, REALTORS® will need to explain the realities of mortgage financing and property taxes to international buyers. The NAR report found that cost, taxes and insurance were the reasons 36 percent of would-be foreign buyers didn’t complete U.S. transactions, while financing issues were cited by 26 percent of them.

In addition to being an open and honest guide to U.S. real estate issues, REALTORS® also need a working knowledge of how the tax laws in the buyers’ country of origin might affect them if they’re not U.S. citizens, Sagalowsky says. Directing foreign buyers to a good accountant who understands international tax issues can be an invaluable service to them.

Finding and working with international buyers requires some additional legwork from REALTORS®. They must reach out and build relationships with foreign buyers and provide a potentially higher level of information, guidance and support than many U.S.-based clients need. But the extra effort can be worth it.

“There is a lot of international business coming into this country,” Sagalowsky says.

“You need to be prepared, but if you are, this can become a big part of your business.”

Gwen Moran is a writer based in Wall Township, N.J., and is a frequent contributor to The Residential Specialist.

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Pipeline | Strategies to grow your business

field trip CRSs share the benefits of traveling out of town to further their education.

A journey is best measured in friends, not in miles.

—Tim Cahill

14 | January/February 2014

T

hey’re few and far between — those moments when Jeff Wu, CRS, with Agent Knows Homes in Tysons Corner, Va., can disconnect and clear his mind. But he decided to do just that in Rehoboth Beach, Del. He wasn’t on vacation, however. He was at a two-day CRS course, distancing himself from his office to work on the business — not merely in it. “There’s something about the mind-set when you’re not in your region,” Wu says.

“You’re enabling yourself by putting yourself in a place to succeed mentally.”

CRS courses offer REALTORS® an enriching educational experience. But for those willing to travel out of town to attend them, they also can provide fruitful opportunities to network with

agents outside their area and a break from day-to-day responsibilities. Also, many agents find that the road trip gives them the time they need to focus on improving their business.

Building a Network Gail Butler’s mentor and real estate instructor encouraged her to enroll in out-of-area courses to complete her CRS Designation. “Go away; stay in the hotel; give it your full attention,” he told her.

Butler, a CRS with Prudential Pritchett-Moore Realty in Tuscaloosa, Ala., took her first two-day course in Biloxi, Miss., back in 2001. Since then, she’s taken two other courses away from home. Butler says she has gotten a lot out of engaging in the sessions and interacting with fellow participants and course trainers.

Mediaphotos/Getty Images

By Emma Beck

And her business hasn’t suffered from her time away: She reeled in six referrals from the three courses. “It’s networking you don’t get in your own town because locally you’re taking the class with the competition,” she says.

At a CRS course in Delaware, Wu picked up a useful relocation data technique that informs where he will travel for CRS courses. By reviewing NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS ® Relocation Reports, agents can gauge where people moving into their local communities are coming from. The CRS certified instructor who taught that course, Chuck Bode, CRS, suggested registering for courses in those locations to meet the local agents in an effort to secure referrals if and when their clients move to your area.

Whether it’s networking or learning better business strategies, the benefits of traveling to a CRS course can prove innumerable.

But Butler doesn’t like to tell her staff every lesson she learned at a course. “I don’t want people to feel that they don’t need to take the class,” she says. “Go out of town and reap all the information you can. Invest in yourself!”

“Go out of town and reap all the information you can.

Invest in yourself!”

Pre-Course Prep Before leaving, look at your county’s records to see who owns real estate in your area but lives in the area you’re traveling to, says Jerry Foss, a CRS with Windermere Professional Partners in University Place, Wash., who has taken CRS courses out of his region for the past 20 years. Foss then sends letters to these contacts, letting them know he’ll be in town and requesting to meet if they’re thinking of selling or buying more property in his home area. “I’ve done that six times and I’ve had four responses,” Foss says.

When enrolling in courses, decide if cost or convenience holds higher importance. Staying in the hotel where the course will be held, for example, cuts out travel time, though another local hotel

Striking the Balance Disconnecting is important to get the full benefit of time away, but it’s hard to truly drop everything. Here’s how these CRSs have found that balance.

“I have a notepad where I write down responsibilities that come up.

Writing it down gets it out and off of my mind.”

—Jerry Foss, CRS, Windermere Professional Partners, University Place, Wash.

“You handle what you have to handle no matter where you are. But a lot of stuff can wait until you get back. So handle the five things that are important as opposed to the 15 things you’d normally do.

Do it during breaks or lunch.”

—Gail Butler, CRS, Prudential Pritchett-Moore Realty, Tuscaloosa, Ala.

might be less expensive. Registering early can mean course discounts as well as cheaper airfare and better hotel deals.

Shake the stress of missing workrelated calls by setting expectations with staff and clients before leaving town.

Wu suggests changing your voicemail to include approximate time frames of availability. Shut off your phone during sessions and limit how often you check your email while on break. Use that time to network or follow up on questions with your course instructor, he says.

“You’re not saying, ‘Hey, I’m playing hooky!’” Wu says. “I think your clients — current and potential — and colleagues are respectful of you pursuing professional growth so you can do better for them.”

He likes to take a class every two months to every quarter. He schedules them in advance, forcing himself to work around that blocked-out time. In addition to the benefits of learning new things and meeting new people, he says he often gets a lot from the drive or flight home or the long walks on the beach in his down time.

“A lot of people are busy, busy, busy and don’t think they need to get outside of that,” Wu says. “You have to put yourself in a position to get the information, to learn and to have those ‘ahas.’

[When you are out of your home city], you’re disconnected and thinking about the next-level stuff.”

Emma Beck is a writer based in Washington, D.C.

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Up Close | Profiles of people to watch

wendy mcneil,

CRS

Keller Williams Realty, Germantown, Tenn.

CRS since: 2010 Contact: 901.221.5100; wendycmcneil@ gmail.com

What’s your favorite thing about your work?

The biggest thing for me is helping people fulfill their dreams and goals. There are no two clients that are the same. Sometimes, they aren’t even sure what they are looking for. I like helping them in that process as well.

Making money isn’t as important to me as helping my clients.

with me because they know I will offer an honest opinion. That is how it works with clients, too. They feel comfortable sharing their information because it’s safe with me.

What’s the best piece of real estate advice you ever got?

Real estate is a business. I was advised to take CRS 200 (Business Planning and Marketing for the Residential Specialist). I found it to be invaluable. It teaches you how to be organized, how to keep information and records so you can better manage your tax benefits, and how to keep up with your current clients and prospects. I think every REALTOR® should take this course.

To what do you attribute your success?

Personal integrity. Commitment. Desire. You have to be dedicated and also willing to make changes as the industry and economic environment evolves.

How has professional education helped your career?

For me, education is everything. I got my GRI and ABR in my first year. I have nine designations and two certifications. The education prepares me to better serve my clients. After taking my first CRS course, I immediately joined the Council and my local chapter.

I served as co-chair on one of the committees, learning how the chapter process worked. In 2010, I was the secretary of the Mid-South CRS Chapter. In 2011, I was the president-elect, and in 2012, I was the president.

What have been some of your biggest challenges?

In 2010, I suffered a head injury. I had a concussion and suffered from post-concussion syndrome. I had short-term and long-term memory loss, slurred speech, and I wasn’t allowed to drive for several months. So, my business obviously went idle: I didn’t know if I could function, so working with someone was not a possibility. As I recovered, I continued to stay plugged into the industry. My participation in organizations, like CRS and staying on committees, were my lifeline to the industry. I continued my coursework and earned my broker’s license during that time.

It would have been easy for me to have retired my license, but I love real estate. I wouldn’t have stayed around during all that time of healing if I did not love the industry. I love the people I come in contact with.

Real estate is who I am.

How do you market yourself and your services?

Most of my business comes from referrals from previous clients, friends and from CRSs across the country. I’m known for my integrity. People know that I’m a woman of my word, and they trust me. Not just in real estate: People come to talk to me when they need another perspective on something, and they feel comfortable

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I would love to be on an association’s board of directors and one day be the president. I would like to become more involved with CRS nationally and with the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

I want to help move the industry forward proactively and not have it be only reactionary.

16 | January/February 2014

Trey Clark

REALTOR® since: 2006

How did you get started in real estate?

I’ve always enjoyed real estate. I was a military wife, raising four children, and we moved a lot. I wasn’t a REALTOR®, but when we bought houses, I always wrote my own offers. REALTORS® would say to me, “You can’t do that.” And I would say, “Sure, I can.” I bought five houses like that without any issues. Prior to becoming a REALTOR®, I was in retail management and then property management of a storage facility. In 2006, the property I managed was divested, and I started looking for another job. I quickly realized this was the perfect time to become a REALTOR®. I had a friend who had been in retail management with me, and he was now the broker of an office. After completing real estate school, I hung my license at his brokerage. I stayed at that office for about three years, and then I transferred to Keller Williams.

“I love the people I come in contact with. Real estate is who I am.”

Wendy McNeil, CRS

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18 | January/February 2014

HEAD CLASS OF THE

2014 CRS PRESIDENT RON CANNING KNOWS FIRSTHAND HOW A SOLID EDUCATION PAIRED WITH GOOD NEGOTIATING SKILLS CAN LEAD TO SUCCESS — FOR AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ORGANIZATION.

Chris Cone

A

By Michael Fenner

As the middle child in a nine-child family, 2014 CRS President Ron Canning, CRS, learned how to negotiate and manage different personalities. “My mom had a real estate license for a short time and sold a few homes somehow, all while raising a large family. I remember going on showings with her and being bribed with candy to be good and watch over my younger brothers and sisters who also came along.”

“I used the same tactics with children of clients of mine, so I guess one could say my training started rather early for this wonderful career,” Canning says.

His ability to handle his sometimes unwieldy siblings stood Canning in good stead later in life: He was a high school teacher from 1972 – 79. Likewise, his skills as an educator served him well when he entered the real estate profession himself in 1977.

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The Residential Specialist caught up with Canning shortly after he was installed as the 2014 CRS president to discuss his background, his commitment to the real estate industry and his vision of what lies ahead for the Council of Residential Specialists.

What was your background before real estate, and what attracted you to the profession?

Prior to my real estate career, I was a high school teacher at my alma mater, LaSalle High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. Being a

teacher, I had various jobs in the summer. I thought real estate sales would be a complementary profession to teaching that would allow me to work full time in the summer and part time during the school year.

Essentially, REALTORS® help people make major decisions affecting their lives, much like the role of an educator. My career as an educator was a natural fit in real estate. Helping people work successfully through challenges in or out of the classroom transferred into my real estate sales. I had built a network of parents, colleagues and later even students that began

to use my services as a REALTOR®, both as buyers and sellers.

I recall one very stubborn client seller who was being unrealistic during negotiations with a buyer, and we were about to lose a very good offer. My experience dealing with similarly willful high school students early in my career as a teacher helped me identify her real motivation: She grew up in the home and she was too emotionally tied to it. So she couldn’t see herself leaving.

Once we acknowledged and discussed this, we were able to work through the negotiations and close the transaction.

I also liked the flexibility and the potential income that being a REALTOR® provided.

How did your training as a CRS help you build a successful career?

First and foremost: The quality of the courses and the instructors elevated the profession for me. Having a master’s degree in education, I was skeptical about the instructors and course content, but I found my experience with the classes to be superior. My CRS Sales class (CRS 202) taught me how to use a series of probing questions to discover what a buyer’s real motivation was to buy a home. I remember CRS Certified Instructor Frank Kowalski, CRS, asking us in class if we wanted to be chauffeurs or professional sales people.

That hit home with me. The content, systems, materials I received in CRS courses helped me to succeed, and the confidence I gained made a real difference in my listing and sales record.

When did you get involved as a volunteer leader for the Council?

Chris Cone

I attended my first Ohio CRS Chapter Meeting in the mid-’80s and decided immediately to serve on a committee at the request of the late Bill Connors, CRS, of Dayton, Ohio, who was the chapter president. The following year I became secretary/treasurer for the chapter and then ultimately the president a couple of years later. It was natural for me to get involved 20 | January/February 2014

because I like effecting positive change, and I believed I could do that for the Ohio CRS Chapter.

I certainly have received far more from my volunteering for the Council on many levels than I have given. I have become close friends with fellow Designees throughout the country. I have been the beneficiary of both incoming and outgoing referrals with other CRS Designees for years, which has added to my bottom line.

I also feel I have fostered a sense of community in the chapter and national leadership by working closely to achieve our mission. Recently, I championed an unpopular change in the Council’s regional vice presidents’ position. Leadership requires, at times, tough decisions to be made, and doing so can only make you a stronger leader.

What have your years in leadership taught you, and how will that insight help you lead the organization this year?

People need to be heard and respected for their contributions, regardless if I personally agree with a comment, an idea or an outcome of a vote. Respect comes from the Latin word respectus, meaning “to regard, to look back.” As a leader, I believe we need to step back at times and take a second look at an idea that may not be popular but would be for the good of the community at large. When facing controversial issues, I have found that keeping an open mind to both sides and giving ample opportunity for dialogue to take place can go a long way to a good outcome. Dealing with conflict constructively is essential, and my teaching background gave me ample opportunity to learn how to do just that.

I have also learned to recognize the talent of others, to reach out to them and to help them contribute and thank them for their involvement. I am a firm advocate of sending recognition to others — recognition helps to make people

Get to Know…

Ron Canning, CRS, GRI, SFR

• • • • • • • • •

Broker/Associate, Comey & Shepherd REALTORS®, Cincinnati, Ohio CRS since: 1984 REALTOR® since: 1977 President of the Ohio CRS Chapter: 1998 and 2002 CRS Regional Vice President: 2004 – 2009 CRS Medallion Award: 2006 Ohio CRS of the Year: 2000 REALTOR® of the Year, Cincinnati Area Board of REALTORS®: 1996 Taught Principles and Practices of Real Estate, Cincinnati State College, 1981 – 2013 • High school teacher, 1972 – 1979 • Master’s Degree in Education, Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio • Bachelor of Arts, Christian Brothers College, Memphis, Tenn.

feel welcomed and valued. It can help encourage them to contribute their time and talent in the future.

Where do you see the real estate industry heading in the coming years and beyond? What are the big issues and challenges REALTORS® will encounter?

In spite of all of the challenges that we face in the housing market, I’m optimistic that we are headed in the right direction.

More importantly, CRSs can help their clients understand how any potential changes in the mortgage interest tax deduction or mortgage lending restrictions may ultimately affect them.

It will be imperative for all REALTORS® to embrace new technologies in their business to remain competitive and to deliver outstanding service to their customers and clients. Homebuyers and sellers will always need the expertise and service that CRSs can deliver. Nothing can replace face-to-face communication when it comes

to guiding the customer through all facets of a real estate transaction.

What kind of legacy would you like to leave with the Council?

One of my overall goals is to improve our grassroots chapters from an organizational and financial position in order for them to focus on educational offerings, programs and networking events for their members.

They are our ambassadors and increasingly have been the source of membership recruitment, retention and leadership for the Council. I believe, given the right structure and resources, they will be even more successful. In addition, I hope to re-energize our members to take full advantage of our improved classes, webinars, programs and tools so they can provide better service to more clients and therefore earn more money.

Ultimately, I hope this will be my legacy that I leave the Council.

Michael Fenner is the editor of The Residential Specialist.

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COM AROU AG L AFTER DEALING WITH FORECLOSURES AND SHORT SALES, “BOOMERANG BUYERS” ARE COMING BACK.

Last October in Mount Pleasant, S.C., Maria Woodul, CRS, told the nervous young couple across the table exactly what they didn’t want to hear. “This is going to take a lot of discipline,” she said. “In order to get where you eventually want to be, you’re going to have to cut back on your spending and start saving toward a possible down payment.”

The fact that Woodul, with Carolina One Real Estate, was sounding more like a financial planner than a REALTOR®, as she did in many other meetings in 2013, was a function of the young

22 | January/February 2014

iStockphoto/Thinkstock

BY DANIEL ROME LEVINE

MING OUND GAIN couple’s situation. The husband had been a homebuilding contractor when the local housing market tanked. Before long, they couldn’t afford their mortgage payments. Foreclosure followed in 2011.

Now that their financial situation had stabilized, they were ready to buy again.

In South Carolina and across the country, these so-called boomerang buyers are flying back into the market. More than 7 million people lost their homes to foreclosure or a short sale in the housing crash, according to RealtyTrac, and now, like

Woodul’s clients, many of them have improved their finances and are eager to buy again.

In 2013, 553,000 boomerang buyers who had a foreclosure or short sale over the previous six years bought new homes, according to a study by Irvine, Calif.-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting. This accounted for more than 10 percent of all homes purchased in 2013, an increase from 4 percent in 2012. The study predicts 3.3 million boomerang buyers will purchase homes between now and 2020. www.crs.com | 2 3

Because these buyers have been through a financial disaster and, in most cases, have had their credit ruined, working with them requires special knowledge of lending programs as well as the ins and outs of credit restoration. But, most of all, CRSs can help these clients by providing straightforward, honest information and patiently standing by their side as they undertake what is likely a years-long journey to once again realize the American dream.

Money Matters Convincing clients to exercise fiscal discipline is just one of the ways Woodul helps her growing number of boomerang buyers. Most important, she introduces them to a lender who can detail the steps they must take to re-establish their credit so they can apply for a mortgage.

Woodul often sits in on these meetings to offer advice as well as moral support.

“Because of their situations, these people are usually pretty disheartened and frustrated when they come in,” she says, “but

Annual Foreclosures 2007 – 2013 2007: 404,849 2008: 861,664 2009: 918,376 2010: 1,050,500 2011: 804,423 2012: 671,251 2013 (through October): 400,888 Source: RealtyTrac

24 | January/February 2014

“Because of their situations, these people are usually pretty disheartened and frustrated when they come in, but I always tell them … there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

I always tell them that if they are patient and flexible, and take the necessary steps, there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

Trey Hardwich, a lender with Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp., in Montgomery, Ala., advises boomerang buyers to find out if they qualify for a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) or other government loan that has more lenient requirements than a conforming conventional loan. “What all lenders want to see, though, is a re-establishment of credit history,” he says. He advises boomerang buyers to have at least three lines of credit that are current and in good standing for more than one year since a foreclosure. “It helps if you have an installment loan, such as a car loan. I also tell people they can take a small loan from their local bank, put it in a CD as collateral for the loan and pay it off in 12 months.” Most important: Buyers need to pay their bills on time.

Hand-Holding Required Phoenix was one of the hardest-hit cities in the housing crash; now a large number of people who lost their homes are

re-entering the market. Nearly 4 percent of all boomerang buyers identified in the John Burns study live in the Phoenix metro area. Only Riverside, Calif., and Los Angeles had higher numbers of boomerang buyers.

Zachary Storey, CRS, an associate broker with Service First Realty in Phoenix, says boomerang buyers have accounted for about half of his buyer clients over the last three years. He expects that number to increase going forward.

“We’re marketing heavily to this segment of the market,” he says.

Because these buyers have complex f inances, setting clear and realistic expectations early in the process is critical, Storey says. Once he has analyzed each situation, he details the steps his clients will have to take to become eligible for a loan, how long he expects the process to last and the biggest hurdles they are likely to encounter.

He stresses the importance of being f lexible and resilient because of the unpredictable nature of the lending market, and he doesn’t make any promises. “Working with these buyers is a very hands-on process,” he says. “You want them to feel comfortable, but at the same time they have to have realistic expectations. You have to be their coach, their cheerleader and occasionally act as a referee, throwing a f lag and saying, ‘No, you can’t do that.’ ” A young boomerang buyer couple who reached out to him in 2010 was especially challenging. The husband, a selfemployed real estate investor, and his wife had declared bankruptcy and had several properties foreclosed on two years before.

“Their credit was demolished,” Storey recalls. Now they wanted to buy again.

“When can we do it?” they asked.

“This is going to be a very difficult process, but we have the tools in place to try to

A Boomerang Buyer’s Story

Tuomas Kujansuu/Thinkstock

In 2010, Suzanne McGowan and her husband owned a home in Santa Rosa, Calif. After the birth of their second child, their home loan payment tripled. “An attorney advised us to declare bankruptcy and do a short sale on our home,” she says. The short sale was completed in December 2010.

McGowan’s mother-in-law, Terriann McGowan, CRS, with Admiral Real Estate in Rohnert Park, Calif., put the couple in touch with a lender to help them figure out how to become homeowners again. The loan officer told them the bank required a three-year wait for a new loan following a short sale, and they had to have good credit. “He told us we could improve our credit by taking out two secured credit cards and leaving only a small amount unpaid on them each month, about $10, so that we could establish a reporting history with the credit agencies. The longer we could do this, the better, he said, but beyond six months was optimal,” McGowan says. Their credit situation was helped by the fact that she and her husband had been in their jobs longer than two years.

After the short sale, they rented a four-bedroom house and worked out a lease-to-own plan with the owner.

Because they followed their lender’s instructions, they were able to restore their credit and qualify for a loan that closes in February [2014].

“Yes, it’s been frustrating playing the waiting game,” McGowan says, “but we are excited about being homeowners for a second time.”

help you through it,” Storey told them. He explained the loan requirements for each of the lenders most likely to give them a second chance and options available under current FHA, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae programs.

He then put them in touch with three loan officers so they could get a range of opinions on the steps they needed to take to repair their credit. He also advised them to order copies of their credit reports and review them for accuracy. “The best thing a REALTOR® can do with these clients is to build a team of people you can trust to get the job done,” he says.

The process was helped along significantly, Storey says, when the hus-

band landed a sales job early in 2011. He could establish a record of regular earnings and income tax filings.

Over the next two years, Storey stayed in close contact with the couple to make sure they were taking the steps he and the lenders recommended, such as re-filing the past two years of tax returns and opening new credit card accounts and paying them off monthly to establish a clean credit history. “You cannot rely on the client or the loan officer to move the process along,” Storey says. “We [REALTORS®] have to be the ones who push everyone toward the finish line.”

Storey’s clients finally crossed that finish line in October 2013, when they closed

on a 4,000-square-foot, six-bedroom home. They paid $308,000 with the help of an FHA loan.

Even though Storey has helped hundreds of such clients throughout his career, he never tires of seeing their ecstatic reactions to becoming homeowners once again, and he is always filled with a strong sense of personal and professional pride. “Yes, they are challenging cases,” he says, “but they are also a phenomenal opportunity to have a lasting and positive impact on someone’s life.”

Daniel Rome Levine is a writer based in Wilmette, Ill., and is a frequent contributor to The Residential Specialist.

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26 | January/February 2014

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ary Jumes, CRS, with First Weber Group in Glendale, Wis., often says she’s “only” been at this job for 20 years. “As much as you know,” she says, “there’s still much to learn.”

She hasn’t, for example, figured out how to get inside the heads of homebuyers. But these days, she knows people are nervous about the prospect of rising interest rates, anxious about the economy, and not always sure if they want to buy or keep renting.

So Jumes makes it her job to educate and explain. “I show them the long-term benefits of buying, and I tell them to be thankful that it’s not a 10 percent interest rate, because then your payment would be this much.” After Jumes makes her case for homeownership — you’re building your own equity rather than someone else’s; you can paint the walls whatever color you want; you can have pets; you’ll be part of a community — she then lets potential buyers sleep on it. “They have to let it sink in,” she says. “And not everyone is ready today. So I ask when I can call back and harass them again. It’s a process, but I’m patient.”

B y M e l a n i e D. G . K a p l a n

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Not Taking It to the Limit Elise West Greenberg, CRS, with Fox & Roach REALTORS® in Blue Bell, Pa., has noticed homebuyers in her area taking a step back and carefully analyzing their next moves. The average home price in her market is about $450,000, and her buyers are asking questions such as, “What if one of us loses our job?” “What if I need a new roof?” “What if taxes go up or maintenance costs are higher than we expect?”

Greenberg says that today people are more concerned with getting a reasonable price and being able to handle the monthly expense, rather than thinking about real estate as a good investment. “People are buying more now because it’s a lifestyle 28 | January/February 2014

decision,” she says. “I’m hearing about practical matters.”

Bolin says that while some of the wealthiest people in the world have made their money through real estate investments, for most of us that’s not the case.

“Buying a home is buying shelter,” she says.

“It’s a place to live.”

Greenberg finds that her buyers — with rare exceptions — don’t go to the top of their financing limit. In fact, they might reconsider that extra bedroom or swimming pool they wanted or plan to add on later.

When Mara Fisher, a senior mortgage consultant with Trident Mortgage Co., in Blue Bell, Pa., is pre-approving someone, she asks, “What payment do you feel comfortable with?” It’s the rare buyer these days who wants to spend the maximum amount he or she can borrow, she says. “Most people today don’t want to stretch themselves and don’t want to be house poor.”

Interest in the Rates Greenberg says her buyers are also aware that every spike in interest rates will make a significant difference in their buying power, meaning they might have to lower their purchase price target by 5 or 10 percent.

Fisher breaks it down: “With a $200,000 loan amount at 3.5 percent, that’s a $900 payment. At 4.5 percent, you’re looking at $1,013. That’s a lot of money to someone.”

Fisher, like others tracking interest rates, doesn’t think this year will bring lower rates. The speculation is that by the middle or end of 2014, rates will be in the low 5 percent range.

Any number of things can affect the rates: news from the housing sector, retail sales, manufacturing numbers, jobless claims, international markets, consumer confidence and announcements from the Federal Reserve. “They can go up so quickly,” Fisher says. “All it takes is some

Wendell and Carolyn/Getty Images

Patience is a good trait right now, because “cautious” is the best general description for today’s homebuyers, say CRSs and brokers. And the data back up their on-the-ground experiences. The Fannie Mae November 2013 National Housing Survey found that nearly two-thirds of respondents believe the economy is on the wrong track.

“Consumer confidence is down,” says Alexis Bolin, CRS, broker-associate at ERA Legacy Realty in Pensacola, Fla., and she doesn’t think it’s just a hangover from the Great Recession. “We saw a lot of confidence shattered during the government shutdown, and there’s a general concern about the overall economy and job security.” She believes that insecurity is having a greater impact on the buyer mindset than rising interest rates.

But with interest rates slowly nudging their way north, a general feeling of economic uncertainty, and declining inventory bringing higher prices, many potential homebuyers are thinking long and hard about buying a home. But CRSs who can help put the market into perspective for their potential buyers and focus them on the long-term benefits of homeownership can still make the sale.

Talking About That Generation Real estate has always meant different things to different generations. But it is the millennials — college-educated, young professionals — who are proving to be a unique customer for REALTORS®, particularly as interest rates rise.

For starters, they have never experienced rates in the double digits, says Pam Woodall, president of Beach Community Mortgage in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. In fact, from 2006 to 2012, the annual average rate dropped every year, according to Freddie Mac, which has been tracking 30-year fixed-rate mortgages since 1971. Annual averages hovered between 13 and more than 16 percent between 1980 and 1984, while the annual average rate in 2012 was 3.66 percent. “Rates have been the lowest in the history of tracking rates for the past couple of years,” Woodall says.

Alexis Bolin, CRS, broker-associate at ERA Legacy Realty in Pensacola, Fla., says when rates jumped to 5 percent a few months ago, “first-time buyers were shocked and pulling back. Young people are used to seeing 3, 3.5 percent.”

Bolin says this generation of first-time homebuyers needs education and counseling more than anything else. “Their grandparents probably bought houses at 14 or 17 percent.”

Clint Freeman, CRS, broker associate at Coldwell Banker Best Realty in Ridgecrest, Calif., also finds that his millennial clients are particularly careful with money. “They want to bargain and get a good deal,” he says. “They know what happened in the last recession, and they don’t want to overextend themselves and get stuck. If they are qualified for $250,000, they might buy a house for under $200,000. They’ll say, ‘I don’t need a mansion.’ ”

good economic numbers, and they will go up one-quarter percent.”

Wendell and Carolyn/Getty Images

Overcoming the Hurdles Jean Floyd, CRS, a consulting broker at Keller Williams Realty Emerald Coast in Niceville, Fla., works with agents more than buyers. She spends a lot of her time talking to agents about buyer mindset and interest rates to help them make the case to their clients.

“I rely on the facts,” she says. “If people are having doubts, show them statistics for the year; show them that it’s a great time to buy. They will say, ‘When do you think it’s going to go up?’ ” She laughs.

“If people are having doubts, show them statistics for the year; show them that it’s a great time to buy.”

“I’ve been a REALTOR® since 1984. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can look at trends and statistics.”

The good news, Floyd says, is that there are “very few people who get into the housing market, who then turn around and then decide to keep renting.”

Greenberg agrees that the product isn’t the problem. “It’s just a matter of helping them through the hurdles,” she says. “As an agent, we have an easy job. At the end of the day, people still need shelter and still want to own a home. The dream is still there.”

Melanie D.G. Kaplan is a writer based in Washington, D.C.

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30 | January/February 2014

SUPPORT

Need help? Assistants can build the foundation for a solid business.

Ron Chapple/Getty Images

SYSTEM A busy CRS just landed two new clients, is writing an offer for another, and has three closings and an inspection scheduled for the coming week. Business is booming, so why isn’t she smiling? Because she’s exhausted just thinking about the calls, emails, documents and signatures that lie ahead.

“If you even have to ask yourself whether you need an assistant, you do,” says Leigh Brown, CRS, broker/owner of RE/MAX Executive Realty in Concord, N.C. “Many REALTORS® wait until it’s almost too late. It requires a mind shift from being a jack-of-all-trades to being the CEO of your own company.”

By Mary Ellen Collins

www.crs.com | 3 1

“

”

I KNEW I NEEDED AN ASSISTANT WHEN I KNEW I WAS GOING TO TREAT REAL ESTATE AS A BUSINESS.

Assess Your Readiness Alyce Dailey, CRS, with Keller Williams American Premier Realty in Baltimore, admits that hiring an assistant a few months into her real estate career felt a bit like putting the cart before the horse. “I knew I needed an assistant when I knew I was going to treat real estate as a business, not a hobby or a job. It was scary. You think, ‘Am I busy enough to keep an assistant busy, or do I need an assistant so I can go out and get more business?’ ” In her first six months, she closed five transactions and had a

baby. In the following nine months with an assistant, she closed 19 transactions. “We’ve consistently done more business every year, and I attribute a lot of that to hiring assistants to free up my time to generate leads.”

She now has an operations manager, a transactions manager, a marketing assistant and two virtual assistants. She estimates she closed more than 100 transactions in 2013.

Stacy Sanseverino, CRS, with Keller Williams Center City Realty in Philadelphia, hired her first assistant after she’d been in business for about seven years. She has a strong referral business, and building and maintaining those relationships takes a lot of time.

“When I got to two dozen transactions a year, I hit a ceiling,” says Sanseverino. “I thought about how much more I could be doing to reconnect with my base. Calling clients was fun and enjoyable, and I realized I would rather be the thinker and the problem solver and let other people implement the solutions.” The year before she hired her assistant, she had 24 transactions.

The next year, she had 54. And in 2013, when she added a showing assistant to her team, she closed about 70 transactions.

Define Roles

Before starting the job search, Brown suggests developing an assistant’s job description, which also clarifies the agent’s responsibilities. To do this, she suggests keeping track of every task you perform in a week, “including turning off the security alarm or making coffee,” she says. At the end of the week, divide the tasks into those that produce revenue and those that do not. Build the assistant’s job description based on the nonrevenue-producing tasks. “You have to learn to release or retain each responsibility,” Brown says. “Somebody else really can stuff the envelopes or put your clients’ names in the database.”

According to the NAR Member Survey, assistants are most often tasked with sending mailings, processing new listings, and scheduling listing presentations, closings and appointments. When Dailey hired her first assistant, she was looking for someone to take care of the basic but necessary tasks.

“That freed me up to bev one-on-one with the most important people and not worry about whether I had to go to the post office to get stamps.”

Brown also recommends bestowing a title that empowers your employee — for example, office manager instead of administrative assistant. “I try to make sure staff are invested in the business,” she says.

ca2hill/Veer

Surprisingly, only 17 percent of NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS ® (NAR) members have at least one assistant, according to the 2013 Member Survey. Perhaps agents with an independent contractor mind-set feel they have to handle everything, or maybe they have trouble relinquishing control. But CRSs with the CEO perspective can attest to the benefits that come from focusing on building business while leaving the details in someone else’s capable hands.

I’M MOST THANKFUL FOR …

“My operations manager’s high-level thinking and her ability to anticipate needs before they happen. My transactions manager’s attention to detail and ability to connect with clients.”

Alyce Dailey, CRS, with Keller Williams American Premier Realty in Baltimore

“The fact that things feel like they’re happening effortlessly.

And I’m always surprised when they are super organized in a way I never was.”

Allison Simson, CRS, owner/broker of Summit Real Estate in Dillon, Colo.

“My closing manager’s attention to detail and systems orientation, and the fact that she understands how each piece fits into the larger context. And my marketing manager’s social media and technical knowledge and her outgoing nature.”

Stacy Sanseverino, CRS, with Keller Williams Center City Realty in Philadelphia

“When I changed the title of my assistant to client care manager, she walked taller, and she was completely different on the phone.

She felt that she had ownership of the job.”

Hire Smart Once you have the job description, you are ready to find the right person. An effective hiring process can include conducting a personality assessment, checking candidates’ social media profiles and references, and conducting multiple interviews.

Allison Simson, CRS, owner/broker of Summit Real Estate in Dillon, Colo., uses the well-known DISC personality assessment tool to identify the people with the traits she wants. Real estate agents tend to have high D and I scores (dominance and influence), and organized assistants typically have high S and C scores (steadiness and conscientiousness).

“You don’t want someone just like you,” Simson says. “I’m an I with a lot of D, and I knew I needed someone who had a lot of C, who was more detailed and administratively mindful than I am.”

She admits to getting burned once when she didn’t follow her own advice.

“There was one woman who was lovely in person, she looked great on Facebook and she had a great recommendation. She didn’t score high enough on C [conscientiousness], but I thought, ‘She’ll be fine. It will work out.’ ” She wasn’t, and it didn’t.

At the end of the probationary period, Simson let her go.

Brown says REALTORS® should think about conducting two or three interviews to make sure the fit is right. “By nature we’re people-pleasers, and many REALTORS® go in trying to convince the interviewee they should come and

work for them. They wind up hiring the first person they like.”

Ask other team members or an outside expert to participate in an interview to get other perspectives. “If you have a headhunter or an HR pro in your database of former clients, they will likely be more than willing to help you interview,” Brown says.

Go Virtual Supplementing on-site support with a virtual assistant can be a cost-effective way to outsource certain tasks. Sanseverino and Dailey both have used MyOutDesk Inc., a San Francisco company that recruits skilled real estate assistants from the Philippines.

When Sanseverino’s closings manager needed database support, she hired a virtual assistant who schedules and solicits feedback on showings and does database projects. “The closings manager supervises her, and they Skype all the time,” says Sanseverino.

Simson opted to go local for a virtual transactions coordinator, who also works for other brokers. Among the advantages: “There’s so much drama that can go on with a deal,” she says, “and that drama is diminished because we don’t hear every word that everyone says!”

Every administrative task that a CRS can off-load means more time to follow leads. Admitting that you can’t — and shouldn’t — do it all is smart business.

“There are four people with every deal — the agent, the client, the lender and the person with the title company,” says Sanseverino. She had an epiphany one day about her assistant: “I can talk to my closing manager about 10 deals instead of talking to 40 people about 10 deals!”

Mary Ellen Collins is a writer based in St. Petersburg, Fla., and is a frequent contributor to The Residential Specialist.

www.crs.com | 3 3

Good Read | Resources in print

say the word Kick off the new year with five inspired business reads.

Reviewed by Allan Fallow

Thinking in New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity, by Luc de Brabandere and Alan Iny, Random House, 330 pages, $28

H

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”

—Ernest Hemingway

34 | January/February 2014

aving survived my fair share of corporate brainstorming sessions and off-site meetings, I started turning the pages of this creativity manual in a highly skeptical frame of mind. But as I came across the countless new “boxes,” or mental models, in which the authors have taught companies to think, I became a grudging convert to their cause.

Though the book desperately needs to break out of its own academic box, it genuinely aims to help businesspeople become flexible thinkers in a world where “most of us are averse to risk and [tend to] deny how rapidly and radically things are changing.” The goal of their five-step blueprint for new boxes (doubt everything, probe the possible, diverge, converge, and re-evaluate relentlessly) is to help you foster not just a practical new kind of creative process, but one that is sustainable, “enabling you and your organization to remain creative over the long haul.”

Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break Through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less, by Joe Pulizzi, McGraw Hill Education, 331 pages, $25

“C

ont e nt marketing” is a sales strategy that goes by many names, including “custom publishing,” “branded content,” “branded media,” “non-inter r uption marketing,” “inbound marketing” and occasionally “owned media.” Joe Pulizzi, who launched his own commercial firm called the Content Marketing Institute in 2007, offers a fistful of definitions for the term in his new book, Epic Content Marketing. My favorite is the one he devotes to “nonbelievers”: “Your customers don’t care about you, your products, or your services. They care about themselves, their wants, and their needs. Content marketing is about creating interesting information your customers are passionate about so they actually pay attention to you.”

Pulizzi accomplishes just that in this levelheaded but lighthearted work. The book’s short chapters, frequent subheads and myriad case studies make the topic as useful and engaging as content marketing itself must be in order to “gain leads and move [consumers] down the conver-

sion funnel.” As a 35-year veteran of the media industry, I was intrigued by the author’s take on the convergence under way between content marketing and traditional publishing. “Marketing organizations,” he claims, “are now realizing they can create content whose quality is equal to or better than what many media companies are producing.”

At the very least, Epic Content Marketing may help you better understand the next wave of residential real estate customers: “Millennials (now ages 19 to 34) actually expect brands to develop content for them, with 80 percent wanting to be directly entertained through content marketing.”

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, by Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown, 320 pages, $29

W

hen the Wall Street Journal asked 50 luminaries to name their favorite books of 2013, I was struck by how many of them — from Texas state senator Wendy Davis to Mitt Romney to Willie and Korie Robertson of Duck Dynasty — chose Malcolm Gladwell’s fifth and latest book, David and Goliath. For the most part, I heartily endorse their selection: The pop-culture guru’s take on how “advantages” are often no such thing is another typically against-the-grain voyage through stories whose morals we thought we knew, but which Gladwell retells to reach unexpected conclusions.

One of my favorite stories in David and Goliath presents Vivek Ranadivé, a technology entrepreneur from Mumbai who emigrated to California and wound up coaching his daughter’s middle-school basketball team to the national championship. Ranadivé admits he “knew nothing about the game,” and that his players

“were not very good.” Yet he noticed, and capitalized on, two little-used rules — that the opposing team has five seconds to inbound the ball, and 10 seconds to advance it beyond midcourt — to craft a virtually unbeatable defensive squad. The takeaway? David needn’t block shots if he can keep Goliath off the court.

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, by Brad Stone, Little, Brown, 372 pages, $28

A

mazon seems invincible these days, doesn’t it? In 2012, its 17th year in operation, the online retailing colossus grossed $61 billion in sales.

(Paradoxically, it also managed to lose money that year.) But as Brad Stone makes clear in his compulsively readable The Everything Store, the Internet giant’s success was anything but guaranteed: Around the time of its May 1997 IPO, for example, a graduate student at Harvard Business School counseled Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, “You seem like a really nice guy, so don’t take this the wrong way, but you really need to sell to Barnes and Noble and get out now.”

“Presumptuous.” “Twitchy.” “Obsessive-compulsive.” “Sphinxlike.” “Indifferent to the opinions of others.” Bezos garners all of those labels in just the first 44 pages of this book, but we should probably add one more — “ruthless” — to the trait list: Type “Relentless.com” into your browser and it defaults to — you guessed it — amazon.com.

So why shouldn’t REALTORS® stay out of The Everything Store? Because the man has become the poster child for single-minded customer focus: “If you want the truth about what makes us different,” Bezos told Stone, “it’s this: We are genuinely customer-centric, we are genuinely long-term oriented and we genuinely like to invent.”

Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, by Viktor MayerSchönberger and Kenneth Cukier, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 242 pages, $27

N

o self-respecting liberal-arts major should feel attracted to a book called Big Data.

But I couldn’t help being terrified and entranced by the picture this book paints of a future (and a present!) where data becomes the “raw material” of business itself — farmed, mined, sorted and sifted to spot previously unimaginable patterns, and propensities, in human behavior.

“The amount of data in the world is growing fast,” write the co-authors, “outstripping not just our machines but our imaginations.” That doesn’t stop them from urging us to imagine the effects of 10 million new photos uploaded every hour (Facebook), one hour of new video uploaded every second (YouTube), or 400 million fresh messages posted every day (Twitter).

Viewed optimistically, these vast new data sets should grant us the power “to harness information in novel ways to produce useful insights or goods and services of significant value.” They will allow us to better track the spread of the H1N1 virus by monitoring Google searches for flu-related words. Big data will help experts in the field of “socialnetworking analysis” predict Hollywood boxoffice revenues by gauging the frequency of tweets on a topic. And it will usher in the use of “sentiment analysis,” in which the datafied text of tweets is scanned for emotional states (optimism, gloom) or themes (innovation, litigation) that may signal stock-market trends in the making.

Their thought-provoking discussion of the showdown likely to result — “free will versus the dictatorship of data” — makes for a lively, timely read in this 30th-anniversary year of 1984.

Allan Fallow is a magazine writer and book editor in Alexandria, Va. Follow him on Twitter (@TheFallow).

www.crs.com | 3 5

Planning for the Future

Expo Trend

Course Listings

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inside CRS N E W S

F R O M

T H E

C O U N C I L

2013 NAR Conference Recap T housands of REALTORS® and real estate industry vendors flocked to the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (NAR) Conference and Expo in San Francisco in November. The Council’s annual meetings were held in conjunction with the Conference, and the 2014 CRS officers were sworn in during an inauguration ceremony on Nov. 9. Ron Canning, CRS, Dale Carlton, CRS, and Janelle Pfleiger, CRS, were installed as president, presidentelect and first vice president, respectively.

CRS President Ron Canning is a broker/associate for Comey & Shepherd REALTORS® in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has served on numerous committees for the Cincinnati Area Board of REALTORS®, the Ohio Association of REALTORS® and the Council of Residential Specialists.

In addition, Ron served as president of the Ohio CRS Chapter in 1998 and again in 2002, and he was a CRS regional vice president for six years.

He is a CRS Medallion Award winner and has taught real estate pre-licensing classes for the past 30 years. Canning holds a master’s degree in education from Xavier University. He became a REALTOR® in 1977 and received his CRS Designation in 1984.

CRS Designees, he says, “strive to be above the ordinary in our careers with the help of our education and

36 | January/February 2014

training provided by so many talented and generous individuals. Our Council is the pathway to that level of success.”

CRS President-elect Dale Carlton has been in real estate since the mid-1990s, and he became a CRS Designee in 2005. Since joining the Council, he has served on the CRS Board of Directors and several Council committees, including Education, Strategic Planning and International. Carlton is best known for his commitment to education.

As a CRS Certified Instructor, Carlton teaches several CRS courses, including Business Planning and Marketing (CRS 200), Income Properties (CRS 204) and Financing (CRS 205), and he has taught at real estate conferences throughout the U.S. He is a professor for REALTOR® University, a licensed attorney and broker/owner of Carlton Realty in Fayetteville, Ark. First Vice President Janelle Pfleiger is an associate broker with RE/MAX

Ron Canning, CRS

Dynamic Properties and is a consistent member of the RE/MAX Platinum Club. She sells about $12 million annually and has held the position of sales manager and recruiter. Pfleiger obtained her CRS Designation in 1987, and she holds the GRI, CLHMS and CDPE designations. She has been honored as the Alaska CRS of the Year, the Anchorage and Alaska REALTOR® of the year, a YWCA Woman of Achievement, and an Athena Society inductee. She is active in the community on the Children’s Hospital and Foundation board and is the incoming chair for the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce.

Celebrating Achievement During the inaugural ceremony, the Council’s 2013 president, Mary McCall, CRS, announced the winners of the Medallion Award, which recognizes CRS Designees who have excelled in their real estate careers and committed time and energy to serving the Council and its members. To be eligible for this award, nominees must have 15 years of continuous membership with the Council and tangible volunteer service for the Council at the state and local levels.

The three award winners honored truly embody these values. They are: Nancy Rogers, CRS, of Lake Buy Realty in Laurie, Mo.; Laura E. Shifrin, CRS, of Townsend Center Realty in Townsend, Mass.; and Gary Williams, CRS, of Coldwell Banker Burnet Realty in Edina, Minn.

McCall also presented the President’s Award to three worthy CRS Designees. The President’s Award recognizes individuals who provide exceptional support to the Council and its members; consistently demonstrate a high level of service; go beyond what is expected; always show respect for others; and foster trust by always acting with integrity.

The winners were: Faye Brock, CRS, of Century 21 Brock & Associates,

Wilmington, N.C.; Sharyn Rose, CRS, with Exit Realty Gulf Coast, Venice, Fla.; and Chris Tenggren, CRS, with RE/MAX Great American North, St. Charles, Ill.

Chapter Recognition The Connecticut, Minnesota and Hawaii Aloha chapters of the Council of Residential Specialists (CRS) were named the CRS Chapters of the Year during the inaugural ceremony. The Chapter of the Year award is given annually to CRS chapters in three categories — small, medium and large — to recognize their outstanding effort to advance the Council’s mission and further the organization’s goals and objectives at the chapter level.

The Connecticut CRS Chapter grabbed top honors in the small chapter category. This chapter successfully recruited lapsed members and national members who had never joined the chapter by sending targeted mailings and emails. It highlighted CRS events and courses in its newsletter. And it implemented an affiliated membership program offered to mortgage brokers, home inspectors, attorneys and other professionals.

The Minnesota CRS Chapter claimed the top honor in the medium-sized chapter category.

This Chapter of the Year worked to boost communication with members and potential members by sending monthly newsletters, promoting educational events and reaching out to its database of more than 700 CRSs. Its monthly digital newsletter includes an article by a CRS agent explaining why they are a CRS member and the value they see in CRS. It also promotes national events, such as Sell-a-bration® and the fall National Association of REALTORS® Conference and Expo. The Minnesota Chapter has secured three major sponsors, which helped it earn more

Left: Ron Canning, CRS Above: Dale Carlton, CRS, and Janelle Pfleiger, CRS

than $7,000 in non-dues income.

The Hawaii Aloha CRS Chapter won top honors in the large chapter category. This chapter worked hard to help the Council promote CRS courses, webinars and events, using social media to reach out to members and potential members. It also promoted the Designation and awareness of CRS through events such as CRS Week. It sent physical mailings of newsletters to promote classes and events, along with email blasts to chapter members. It has teamed with its state association of REALTORS® and all five local boards to feature chapter information and events in the updates those organizations send to their members.

The Hawaii Aloha Chapter also raised $10,000 in sponsorship money for its annual Chapter with a Heart event, and chapter leaders have attended tradeshows and events to spread the word about CRS one-on-one with potential members.

The awards were accepted by Sally Bowman, CRS, of Connecticut; Dan Boman, CRS, of Minnesota; and Denise Miyahira, CRS, of Hawaii.

www.crs.com | 3 7

inside CRS

Focusing on the Customer

C

RS held several free education sessions in San Francisco during the annual NAR meetings, and many of the vendors hawking their goods and services at the NAR Expo echoed the themes covered in the sessions: Namely, give customers what they want.

In the session Success Secrets Revealed, CRS Certified Instructor Frank Serio, CRS, drove home the notion that REALTORS® must have a sharp focus on exactly what individual clients want before they charge into a sales pitch about themselves. Today’s customer wants a REALTOR® who is both a market expert and a marketing expert. But they tend to gravitate more toward market experts who can offer specific knowledge about a given neighborhood.

Serio said studies show that consumers often take 16 to 21 months to consider buying or selling a property and complete a transaction. What’s more, 68 percent of consumers work with the first agent they stumble upon. That’s why, as Serio said, it behooves agents to make themselves “stumble-uponable.” Agents must consistently provide valuable local information to potential customers via blogs and social media in the months before they are ready to make a property decision.

Those who do will win more clients.

Further, success in real estate often boils down to REALTORS® ability to

38 | January/February 2014

craft a specific business plan and build a strategy that helps them follow through with it. “All too often we (CRSs) tend to overthink business and keep getting ready to get ready,” Serio said. It makes more sense to analyze the needs of your local market and follow a strategy that will help you serve those needs.

“Top agents are consumer-centric,” Serio said. Agents who possess what he called the “three Ds” — desire, dedication and discipline — stand a better chance of succeeding. REALTORS® who are driven to achieve the CRS Designation gain a higher level of education than the competition, and that knowledge enables them to put systems in place that will keep them consistently successful, he said.

Serio also cautioned attendees to take care when they describe current market conditions to potential clients. “The market isn’t great in all segments,” he said, noting that the recovery in some price ranges is very slow. REALTORS® should ask potential clients, “What segment of the market are you asking about?” The ability to deliver a nuanced assessment of various market segments can help agents separate themselves from the competition. After all, there is no shortage of agents who make a habit of saying, “The market’s great!” in an effort to win business from skittish potential clients.

At the CRS Member Update meeting, Council CEO Lana Vukovljak detailed CRS’s plan to position itself for growth, make more efficient and effective use of Council resources, and better align itself with a strategic direction focused squarely on specific goals.

In the coming months, the Council will pursue strategic initiatives designed to: recruit and retain new members; develop new educational offerings; raise public awareness of CRS; develop requirements for maintenance of the CRS Designation; develop a content framework for educational tools for independent brokers; provide resources to help members better position themselves in the marketplace; develop a concept and content for a new licensee package; and increase CRS’s mobile presence.

CRS is taking these bold steps in an effort to help the organization provide even more value to the members of today and tomorrow.

The Council is moving in exciting new directions that will position it — and its members — for future success.

Jan Hanus/Thinkstock

Planning for the Future

Getting Local

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RS agents’ undeniable expertise when it comes to pricing and marketing properties can help them build business. But they also must show potential clients that they possess the local knowledge that makes them trusted experts.

“People go to those they trust for knowledge,” CRS Certified Instructor Gee Dunsten said in the CRS education session he presented, Using Tech Lead Generation and Conversation to Grow Your Bottom Line. “CRSs need to be experts on their own community.”

Dunsten said that in recent years, the real estate industry has not been strategic in its thinking, often ignoring what consumers want.

Sometimes the answer might be as simple as changing the way REALTORS® talk to their clients.

For example, Dunsten recommends agents refer to a property’s “initial market position,” as opposed to its “list price.” “We need to take ‘listing’ out of our vocabulary,” he said, just as the insurance industry transitioned from what used to be called “death insurance” to what we now know as “life insurance.”

Likewise, he recommends replacing the term “competitive market analysis” with “competitive property analysis.” This small change in language is important, Dunsten said, because it helps clients understand how their property will compete with other similar properties, not the entire local market.

The explosion of social media presents a huge opportunity for REALTORS® to connect with their clients and potential clients in a much more personal and effective way, Dunsten said. In a way, social media is a return to small-town America, where word of mouth is king. But it’s critical for agents to select the proper outlets to get their message out.

Dunsten said that Realtor.com has dropped to third place behind Zillow and Trulia in terms of mostsearched real estate sites. Why? Because sites like Zillow and Trulia tend to offer much more relevant information about local markets and neighborhood amenities than can be found elsewhere, Dunsten said.

More than 50 percent of consumers said the top factor that influences their selection of a real estate agent is the agent’s ability to furnish expert neighborhood or town information.

What’s more, statistics show that 101 million Google searches last month included the specific words “homes in.” Searches with “REALTOR®” had just 6 million. In fact, the search term “homes in” generates more inquiries than the top 10 leading real

estate websites and the other most popular real estate search terms combined, Dunsten said.

Thus, agents should take care to use the term “homes in (their town)” on their websites, blogs and social media communications.

This will increase their visibility to search engines, Dunsten said. Likewise, posting blog items about the businesses and neighborhood amenities of a specific community help position agents as local experts, both online and offline.

Consumer review sites like Yelp provide an important forum where agents can create a presence and attract new business.

After all, consumers’ reviews on Yelp deliver an assessment of their raw experience with a given business, rather than what the business claims they provide. And consumers tend to value those reviews more than any marketing message a real estate business might try to promote. Word of mouth, it seems, is the new currency in today’s real estate marketplace. But today, word of mouth is often online.

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inside CRS

New! The “Find a CRS” Mobile App CRS Designees know that the Council helps them connect with fellow top professionals. The new Find a CRS Mobile App (available on the iTunes App Store at bit.ly/1bEUE3L) provides a convenient way to help them find a CRS for a referral using their iPhone or iPad. The tool should make it even easier for CRS Designees to make connections and build a more lucrative referral business.

Whether you’re a current CRS, a REALTOR®, or a consumer looking to buy or sell a home, a few taps of a finger give you access to a database of the top 3 percent of all residential REALTORS®. Search by ZIP code, neighborhood or agent’s last name to find CRS agents in a specific area. Once you find an agent you’d like to work with, simply tap on his or her contact information to call, text or email.

Other features include: • Search by city, neighborhood, ZIP code, state or last name • Sort and filter results by criteria such as language spoken, specialization, certifications and designations • Streamlined view of member profiles including headshot, contact information and biography • One-tap connection to a CRS via phone call, email, or text message • Automatic offline access for searching when data connectivity is not available • Regular database updates to ensure you are always equipped with the latest list of Designees and contact information Download the new Find a CRS Mobile App (bit.ly/1bEUE3L) to your iPhone or iPad today. And please let us know how you like the app and give us a testimonial about how you used it to make or receive a referral by emailing marketing@crs.com.

Note: Currently the "Find a CRS" app is available only for iOS devices (iPhones and iPads).

Expo Trend

D

ocument management systems are hot in the real estate industry, as evidenced by the heavy presence of vendors big and small at the NAR Conference Expo. Many REALTORS® have come to recognize that they can better manage their business by using electronic document solutions. What’s more, many of their clients are demanding just such services.

After all, why make a trip to your REALTOR’S® office to sign or review a document in person when you can do it online?

As interest and revenue in the document management industry grow, a host of vendors are trying to stake their claim in the market. There has already been some consolidation. For example, the well-established company DocuSign acquired startup Cartavi in May of this year.

Glenn Shimkus, the founder of Cartavi, says he believes the market will be controlled by the bigger, more established players, while some of the upstarts looking to cash in on a booming industry will fade away.

Companies that achieve success will likely be those that understand and deliver on a promise of helping REALTORS® guide their clients through a home purchase or sale from beginning to end. REALTORS® and their clients are demanding transaction management solutions on the go, accessible via iPad, iPhone, Android or computer.

And vendors who can offer a way to collaborate electronically on documents with their clients and vendors will find themselves at the closing table more often. After all, Shimkus joked, “Closing business is a key part of this business.”

40 | January/February 2014

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www.corcorancoaching.com/

SPS This complete automated property marketing system for single agents, offices or enterprises includes: a mobile property website, automatic YouTube marketing, 1800 Call Capture, QR Codes, SMS TXT lead capture, print flyers, unlimited HD photos, street address URLs and more!

www.singlepropertysites.com/

Fellow CRS Reviews...

“Happy Grasshopper is very easy to use, with a number of quick email choices. I was worried that there wasn’t anything Real Estate-centered, but realized the true value is just to stay in touch. You can also track open rates and if any people unsubscribed. I like it!”

“Corcoran is committed to providing us with the systems and solutions needed to exceed our goals, and it’s the greatest investment we could have made for our company — our newfound confidence is beyond measure. They truly deliver in every way!”

“Create listing presentations without cost! The number of sites where listings are posted is impressive. A single campaign can be used on multiple sites, and with one button click your get a totally acceptable flyer on your listing. All-in-all a product that is impressive.”

Terry Simmons, CRS

Amanda Howard, CRS

RE/MAX Unlimited

Amanda Howard Real Estate

Pat Hackley, CRS

South Jordan, UT

Huntsville, AL

RE/MAX Around Atlanta Alpharetta, GA

»»»»»»

To participate in the Reviewed Product Program, contact products@crs.com www.crs.com | 4 1

C

CRSs Nab REALTOR® of the Year Awards

RS has long been recognized as the leading organization for residential REALTORS®. This year, 27 CRSs have been awarded the prestigious REALTOR® of the Year Award from the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. The award goes to one REALTOR® in each of the 50 U.S. states, along with Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia.

The recognition of these CRS Designees affirms the Council’s status as the home of industry-leading professionals who are raising the bar for residential REALTORS®.

Congratulations to these winners: Don Faught, CRS, California Amy Dorsey, CRS, Colorado Patricia Fitzgerald, CRS, Florida Judith Kalbrener, CRS, Hawaii Debbie Myles, CRS, Idaho Kurt Schade, CRS, Iowa Kathy Copeland, CRS, Kansas Jim Broadwater, CRS, Kentucky Frank Trapani, CRS, Louisiana Gail Arnold, CRS, Maine Janice Kirkner, CRS, Maryland Joan Witter, CRS, Massachusetts Deb Greene, CRS, Minnesota Judy Gudgel, CRS, Montana

Patricia L. Ohmberger, CRS, Nebraska Patty Kelley, CRS, Nevada George K. Wonica, CRS, New York Danny Brock, CRS, North Carolina Diana Zietz, CRS, North Dakota Marolyn Pryor, CRS, Oklahoma Allan Domb, CRS, Pennsylvania Ken Jackson, CRS, South Carolina Lorna Johnston, CRS, South Dakota Lance Lacy, CRS, Texas Lorine R. Williams, CRS, Virgin Islands Patricia B. Jensen, CRS, Virginia Karen Schweinfurth, CRS, Washington

RESOURCES • January/February 2014 Head of the Class Ron Canning, CRS, 2014 CRS President, Ron_canning@yahoo.com

Coming Around Again Terriann McGowan, CRS, Admiral Real Estate, terriann@terriann.com

Jean Floyd, CRS, Keller Williams Realty Emerald Coast, jeanbuysell@aol.com Elise West Greenberg, CRS, Fox & Roach REALTORS®, ListWithElise@gmail.com

Support System

Zachary Storey, CRS, Service First Realty, zac@phoenixreguru.com

Leigh Brown, CRS, RE/MAX Executive Realty, Leigh@leighsells.com

Maria Woodul, CRS, Carolina One Real Estate, mwoodul@carolinaone.com

Alyce Dailey, CRS, Keller Williams American Premier Realty, alyce@thedaileygroup.com

Mindset Matters Alexis Bolin, CRS, ERA Legacy Realty, alexisERA@aol.com Mary Jumes, CRS, First Weber Group, mjumes@REALTOR.com

42 | January/February 2014

Stacy Sanseverino, CRS, Keller Williams Center City Realty, stacy@stacylovesphilly.com Allison Simson, CRS, Summit Real Estate, Team@SummitRealEstate.com

Personalize, Reproduce and Mail This Newsletter to Your Clients

Edit

Leave YOUR HOME as is, or personalize the newsletter by adding your photo, logo, address and phone number to the mailing panel.* You can also substitute any article in the newsletter with one of your own. Edit the newsletter ­electronically by downloading the Microsoft Word version at www.crs.com/ yourhomenewsletter.

PLEASE NOTE: The images featured in the YOUR HOME newsletter may only be used within the PDF version of the newsletter. These images may not be reproduced or republished elsewhere outside of this newsletter format. CRS members are free to re-use the text of the articles contained in the newsletter, however.

Reproduce

Do it yourself with your office copier, or take the newsletter or electronic file (in addition to your photograph and any information you want inserted) to a printer who can prepare and reproduce the newsletter for you.

Distribute

Mail. If you photocopy YOUR HOME or use it “as is,” please note that it is designed to be folded in a Z fold with the words YOUR HOME facing out on one side and the mailing panel facing out on the other side. Postal regulations require that Z folds have three closures (tabs or tape) — one on top in the center and two on the bottom. For your convenience, we have placed asterisks (*) where the closures should be. Be sure to check with your local mailer or post office to make sure you have prepared your mailings properly.

Electronic File. Attach the customized newsletter file to an email to your clients or create a Web link to the file on your website. Consult your webmaster or technician to make sure the file is prepared correctly for these purposes, since these basic instructions will vary by person and system. * This newsletter is for the exclusive use of CRS members.

For a complete step-by-step guide to personalizing and ­reproducing the YOUR HOME newsletter, visit www.crs.com/ yourhomenewsletter.

HOME *

YOUR T I P S

A N D

T R E N D S

F O R

H O M E O W N E R S ,

B U Y E R S

A N D

2014 JA N /F E B

S E L L E R S

Fire Fight

T

WATCH THE CLOCK

K

ick off the New Year with a fresh attitude about home maintenance. After all, you don’t want to wait until the furnace conks out before you deal with it. Keep track of when you need to schedule service and how to keep things in good working order with The Weather Channel’s to-do list for January.

First, take a snow day to organize your files and review warranties and manuals for equipment, appliances and other tools. There, you’ll find how often to check or replace items.

Need a new washer and dryer? Post-holiday sales this month can also help you snatch a bargain.

Take a room-by-room inventory with photos or video. In the case of fires, floods or other disasters, a record of your possessions can be helpful when filing insurance claims.

Examine furniture and cabinets for loose knobs and hinges, and repair as needed. Fix squeaks in floors and stairs.

Also this month, keep crawl space vents open to control condensation beneath the house, and check insulation around outside pipes that are exposed to freezing weather.

angled extension cords? Power strips galore? Your home’s wiring system might be working overtime with all the new gadgets you received for Christmas — and it might be at risk for igniting a fire. Straighten out these wiring problems and more with tips from This Old House.

Have a licensed electrician walk through your home every five years to look at the wire insulation and the service panel and check for any code violations. If you’re doing it yourself, start by turning off the circuit at the main breaker panel.

Code requires outlets within 4 feet of a door and every 12 feet after that. Extension cords can be useful, but keep in mind that smaller-gauged cords can overheat and start a fire if overused. Adding more outlets can run about $100 per outlet on first levels and $200 upstairs.

Another fire hazard is overlamping, in which light fixtures have a bulb with higher-than-recommended wattage installed.

Check the fixtures’ wattage limit or use bulbs that are smaller than 60 watts.

Flickering lights aren’t just annoying — they could be a sign of wire trouble, too. The outdoor fitting where overhead cables from the power line come into the house, or frayed wiring in the weatherhead, causes the short when the cable moves. Call your electric utility provider to have the weatherhead replaced for free.

fast fact »

»»»»»»»»»»»

Snow has been reported in just about every locale in the United States, even in southern Florida.

Source: Farmers’ Almanac

B R O U G H T T O Y O U B Y Y O U R A G E N T, A M E M B E R O F T H E C O U N C I L O F R E S I D E N T I A L S P E C I A L I S T S

Positive Energy

W

as your last gas bill higher than usual? Cold air might be finding its way into your house. Conserve energy, save money and stay toasty with these tips from the Department of Energy.

Let the sun shine in! During the day, open the curtains on the south side of your house. Feel a draft? Seal a clear plastic sheet to the inside of window frames or install drapes or shades that are tight and insulating. Caulking and

Say Yes to CRS

DID YOU KNOW?

s! al

I Lo

Buying or selling a home can seem like an overwhelming task. But the right REALTOR® can make the process easier — and more profitable.

A Certified Residential Specialist (CRS), with years of experience and success, will help you make smart decisions in a fast-paced, complex and competitive marketplace.

To earn the CRS Designation, REALTORS® must demonstrate outstanding professional achievements — including high-volume sales — and pursue advanced training in areas such as finance, marketing and technology. They must also maintain membership in the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and abide by its Code of Ethics.

Work with a REALTOR® who belongs in the top 3 percent in the nation. Contact a CRS today.

referr ve

*

Do you know someone who is thinking about buying or selling a home?

weatherstripping windows can also keep your home warmer.

The heat is on, so keep your heating systems up and running as efficiently as possible.

Follow the recommended maintenance schedules and change furnace filters once a month.

Fireplaces also can cause heat loss.

Keep the flue damper tightly closed unless you’re burning a fire. Grates made of C-shaped metal tubes and tempered glass doors can help keep the room warm when the flue is open.

Forty-five percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions.

Among the most popular goals: lose weight, get organized, spend less and save more, stay fit and healthy, and quit smoking.

Source: History Channel

Please mention my name.

This newsletter is for informational purposes only and should not be substituted for legal or financial advice.

If you are currently working with another real estate agent or broker, it is not a solicitation for business.

*

inside CRS » » » » » » »

S E A R C H C O U R S E O F F E R I N G S B Y C I T Y A N D S TAT E AT W W W. C R S . C O M

CRS Classroom Courses CRS classroom courses earn either eight credits (for 100-level, one-day courses) or 16 credits (for 200-level, two-day courses) toward the CRS Designation.

CRS courses listed below are subject to change. For more up-to-date listings, visit www.crs.com.

CRS 201 – Listing Strategies FEB. 18 – 19 BRENTWOOD, TENN. Williamson County Association of REALTORS® 615.771.6845 Instructor: Robert Morris, CRS

FEB. 18 – 19 FARMINGTON, MICH. Greater Metropolitan Association of REALTORS® 248.478.1700 Instructor: Gee Dunsten, CRS

MARch 3 – 4 CLIVE, Iowa Iowa Association of REALTORS® 800.532.1515 x1 Instructor: Jackie Leavenworth, CRS

MARch 17 – 18 INDIANA, PA. Association of REALTORS® School 610.560.4800 Instructor: Jackie Leavenworth, CRS

MARCH 12 – 13 HONOLULU

APRIL 7 WICHITA, KAN.

Hawaii Aloha Chapter of CRS 808.733.7060 x105 Instructor: Dale Carlton, CRS

Wichita Area Association of REALTORS® 316.263.3167 Instructor: Jackie Leavenworth, CRS

MARCH 24 – 25 TROY, MIch.

Ninja Selling

Michigan CRS Chapter 248.877.2337 Instructor: Dale Carlton, CRS

MARCH 26 – 27 SOUTH OGDEN, UTAH Northern Wasatch Association of REALTORS® 801.476.4216 Instructor: Doug Richards, CRS

CRS 206 — Technology FEB. 5 – 6 O’FALLON, ILL. Illinois CRS Chapter 309.579.2947 Instructor: Pat Zaby, CRS

APRIL 2 – 3 SIOUX CITY, IowA Iowa Association of REALTORS® 800.532.1515 x1 Instructor: Pat Zaby, CRS

CRS 210 – Referrals FEB. 27 – 28 SAN ANTONIO, Texas

FEB. 7 RENO, NeV. Sierra Nevada CRS Chapter 775.622.3881 Instructor: Terri Johnson, CRS Rich Buyer, Rich Seller, Part I: Positioning and Branding Yourself as a Luxury Market Expert

FEB. 5 SUNRISE, FLA. Miami Association of REALTORS® 214.485.3000 Instructor: Tami Simms, CRS

MARCH 13 ATLANTA Georgia Institute of Real Estate 214.485.3000 Instructor: Laurie Moore-Moore

MARCH 25 SARASOTA FLA. Sarasota Association of REALTORS® 214.485.3000 Instructor: Laurie Moore-Moore

Texas CRS Chapter 210.602.2488 Instructor: Gee Dunsten, CRS

Rich Buyer, Rich Seller Part 2: A Luxury Marketing Idea Blitz

CRS 202 – Effective Buyer Sales Strategies

CRS 103 – Maximize Your Potential...

Personally and Professionally

FEB. 10 – 11 BATON ROUGE, LA.

Miami Association of REALTORS® 214.485.3000 Instructor: Tami Simms, CRS

FEB. 10 CHEYENNE, WYO.

Greater Baton Rouge Association of REALTORS® 225.761.2000 Instructor: Chuck Bode, CRS

FEB. 26 – 27 CONWAY, ARK. Arkansas CRS Chapter 501.860.0400 Instructor: Rich Sands, CRS

APRIL 7 – 8 MALVERN, PA. Association of REALTORS® School 610.560.4800 Instructor: Gee Dunsten, CRS

CRS 204 – Buying and Selling Income Properties MARCH 4 – 5 MEMPHIS, TENN. Memphis Area Association of REALTORS® 901.685.2100 Instructor: Pat Zaby, CRS

Cheyenne Board of REALTORS® 307.634.0363 Instructor: Chandra Hall, CRS

APRIL 7 LA VISTA, NEB. Nebraska CRS Chapter 800.777.5231 Instructor: Chuck Bode, CRS

FEB. 6 SUNRISE, FLA.

MARCH 14 ATLANTA Georgia Institute of Real Estate 214.485.3000 Instructor: Laurie Moore-Moore

MARCH 26 SARASOTA, FLA. Sarasota Association of REALTORS® 214.485.3000 Instructor: Laurie Moore-Moore

Elective Courses Elective courses vary in length and credits earned toward the CRS Designation. Please visit the CRS website for details.

Negotiations: The Games People Play

MARCH 13 CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. Virginia CRS Chapter 804.294.5710 Instructor: Jackie Leavenworth, CRS

Note: Instructors listed on all courses are subject to change.

www.crs.com | 4 5

CRS eLEARNING

EARN FROM WHAT YOU LEARN Grow your business and boost your income when you learn invaluable new tools with our eLearning courses.

NOW EIGHT COURSES TO CHOOSE FROM

2 credits toward CRS Designation

8 credits toward CRS Designation

NAVIGATING THE SOCIAL MEDIA MAZE

KEEP IT SIMPLE WITH LOW-COST ONLINE MARKETING

Develop a social media strategy to set goals, target interactions, maintain consistent engagement, and assess the impact of your efforts.

The economy has changed and an agent’s marketing strategies need to change as well. Discover the world of online marketing.

MANAGING YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE

CREATING VALUE FOR YOUR CLIENTS

Learn how to manage your online presence across forums such as your business website, social media and real estate aggregator websites.

Learn how to be more valuable to your clients and maximize your income.

VIDEO MARKETING TO ENHANCE YOUR BUSINESS Identify uses, desired project outcomes, self-produced vs. professionally produced, home-tour levels and add on tags and titles.

Close more transactions by identifying your clients’ underlying interests beginning with first contact through post-transaction follow-up.

PUTTING TECHNOLOGY TO WORK FOR YOUR CLIENTS Expand your knowledge of today’s real estate technology to be better prepared to work effectively with online consumers.

Each course takes only 2 to 8 hours to complete.

eLEARNING COURSE PRICING: 2 credits 8 credits $30 $40 $50

Learn how to work with buyers and sellers of distressed properties in the online version of the popular classroom course. *This course also completes the core course requirement for NAR’s SFR Certification.

CLIENT NEGOTIATIONS: UNLOCKING HEARTS VS. LOCKING HORNS

CRS Designees CRS Candidates All others

SHORT SALES AND FORECLOSURES: PROTECTING YOUR CLIENTS’ INTERESTS (CRS 111)*

$125 $150 $175

Register for a course today by visiting CRS.com/education

All 8 credit courses are available for continuing education credit in some states.

Your referral source for the greater

Pittsburgh

ABR, CRS, SRES, GRI, CDPE

area

I help clients make the Wright move Nancy Wright, ABR, CRS, GRI

RE/MAX Realty Brokers 5608 Wilkins Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15217 OFS: 412-521-1000 x170 CELL: 412-508-0040 nancywright@remax.net

Serving Northern Virginia and the Dulles Tech corridor Re/Max Premier offices in

Ashburn, Fairfax and Purcellville Direct: 703-999-6535 Office: 703-318-0067

lisacromwell@remax.net www.LisaCromwell.com

NAPLES, BONITA SPRINGS, ESTERO, FT MYERS—FLORIDA

SOUTH FLORIDA

Serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, & The Palm Beaches!

RAY SINGHAL

,

Ph.D., CRS, CDPE

Marie Pimm,

Team Ray

Our Customers Are #1 Every Day!

Ray@RaySinghal.com Visit www.SinghalFlorida.com for more information!

Cell: 954-770-8083 Fax:

P.A.

Realtor—CRS, CIPS, e-PRO, GRI

(239) 770-3383

Marie@MariePimm.com www.MariePimm.com

www.NaplesBonitaEsteroHomefinder.com

888-371-9218

1750 N. Federal Hwy. Pompano Beach, FL, 33062

WEST COAST

H AWA I I

CANADA

BUILD REFERRALS

to your region from more than 36,000 CRS Designees and members with an ad in the Referral Marketplace.

Limited Space Available First Come, First Served Ask us about multi-issue discounts

Just call Andrea Hess at 202.721.1482 www.crs.com | 4 7

CRS REFERRAL MARKETPLACE

SOUTH

EAST COAST

Ask a CRS | Advice from the country’s top Certified Residential Specialists

transition time?

Q U ESTIO N : How easy is the transition from Windows-based computers to Apple devices? Is there a big learning curve, or is the transition relatively simple?

IN OUR EXPERIEN C E . . .

“I made the move four years ago and would not look back.

It takes some practice, but Apple computers are very user-friendly, and they do sync with everything Apple.”

“I came out of IT, and worked with PCs for 20 years. I made the switch to Mac about seven years ago. The Mac allows you to spend more time at productive work rather than working on technical issues (viruses, system errors, drivers, updates/upgrades, etc.).”

“I made the switch last year to iPhone, iPad, Mac Air and Mac desktop. I have found it very cumbersome to make the switch from the familiar, old, predictable PC. This transition was supposed to be easy, but it hasn’t been.”

Tempe, Ariz.

Eugene (Gino) Maycock, CRS

Rita Ferrell Lasky, CRS

larry@larrysunday.com

Colonial Realty

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices -

Nassau, Bahamas

Florida Realty

ginomaycock@gmail.com

Sarasota, Fla.

Larry Sunday, CRS Metro Realty Professionals

rita@ritalasky.com

discussions like this at the Council of Residential Specialists’ LinkedIn » » » » » Spage ee more at linkedin.com (linkedin.com/company/council-of-residential-specialists).

48 | November/December 2013

RECORDED December 13, 2013 RE/MAX Headquarters 5075 S Syracuse St. Denver, CO

Moderator - Tom Ferry

Real estate trainer and coach

DEVELOPING A TEAM: A CRS LEGENDS PROGRAM

Learn from energetic, nationally-recognized real estate coach and New York Times Bestseller Tom Ferry and top residential real estate producers as they discuss hiring help to move your business to the next level of success. The panel presentation videos will cover the entire hiring process from determining when to seek help all the way to training and managing someone once they are hired.

FIND OUT: • • • •

RECORDING CRS Members: $130 All others: $160

Panelists Include:

Knowing When it’s Time to Hire Help Preparing to Hire Some Help Finding and Hiring the Right People Getting the Most Out of the Help You Hire Leigh Brown, CRS Joe Clement, CRS Seth Dailey, CRS Duane Duggan, CRS Jim Romano, CRS Mario Romero, CRS

If you’re serious about making more money, view the videos this February!

PLEASE NOTE: Attendees of this event will receive 8 CRS Education credits towards the CRS Designation.

Purchase this February at www.crs.com/events/crs-legends.

MAKE CRS CONNECTIONS QUICKLY AND BUILD A MORE LUCRATIVE REFERRAL BUSINESS IN MINUTES Whether you’re a current CRS, a REALTOR ®, or a consumer looking to buy or sell a home, a few taps of a finger can give you access to a database of the top 3 percent of all residential REALTORS®.

Other features include:

. Search by City, Neighborhood, Zip Code, State or Last Name . Sort and filter results by criteria such as language spoken, specialization, certifications and designations . Streamlined view of member profiles including headshot, contact information and biography . One-tap connection to a CRS via phone call, email, or text message . Automatic offline access for searching when data connectivity is not available . Regular database updates to ensure you are always equipped with the latest list of Designees and contact information Download the new Find A CRS Mobile App to your iPhone or iPad here http://bit.ly/1bEUE3L or search Find A CRS within the App Store!

Scan here for instant access

Compatibility: Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

This app is optimized for iPhone 5.