Office meeting notes - 5/19

Remember what this weekend is about. It’s not just the hot dogs and hamburgers but it’s about the people who are in and have been in the Armed Services who protect our freedom. Take time to say thank you.
The Previews Digital magazine will be pulled from MLS on Wed. May 20, proofs will be sent to all associates with listings on May 29 and all changes need to be done by Tues. June 2. The issue will appear online on cbws.com on June 15.
The Relocation Dept. was moved to Chicago on Sat. May 16. Joanne Figge is still the Relo director for Cincinnati and Jo Lay will be the Chicago Regional Director. Georgia Ceinkus will handle the buyer’s assignments to the Ohio agents and Barbara Behrns will handle the broker to broker & affinity assignments to Ohio agents. The Corp. team will include Andrew Schneider who will manage pre-marketing, Wendy Colloton & Susie Gray will manage inventory homes.
We just finished week #7 in the baseball contest. Doc was the only agent with a 7% listing this week. We have our average up from 2.98% to 3.18% since the start of the contest. Keep up the good work.
New appraisal rules may deflate property values. New guidelines that became effective last Friday are causing controversy with the mortgage industry and protest have been launched by both mortgage brokers & appraisers calling for immediate amendments. Specifically only lenders can order appraisals thru the Appraisal Management Company which farms out the work, the borrower must pay with credit card preauthorization, brokers or loan officers cannot pay for or order appraisals, only the lender can communicate with the appraiser. The intent is to lower the incidence of fraud and largely inflated values that were a factor in the mortgage debacle. Concerns that the appraiser assigned will not be familiar with the particular neighborhood surrounding the property and the Appraisal Management Co. can charge for its services and the buyer may have to pay increased costs or the appraisers may make less money driving out the more skilled & experienced who may offer less accurate appraisals.
Another new rule is that Realtors don’t have to agree to lower commission on Fannie Mae short sales.
If you did not attend the Prorealtour CBolt class last week you can listen to it on the CBolt site. This is an easy process for creating virtual tours for all your listings.