Friday, January 30, 2009

Skill building Workshops resume!

Every Monday evening at 6:00 pm Doc Rodgers will be facilitating our weekly workshop. We will also have the same workshop on Thursday at 1:00 (facilitated by me). To be the best we can and to meet your goals this year, you should plan on attending one of these weekly. “Practice is just as valuable as a sale. The sale will make you a living, the skill will make you a fortune; Practice to develop the skills.”

Bring your “Script Book” with you. I look forward to a very productive year for us!

Mon Feb 2 Building Your Business on Purpose
Thurs Feb 5 “ “ “

Mon Feb 9 Prospecting Expired Listings
Thurs Feb 12 “ “ “

Mon Feb 16 Business Planning
Thurs Feb 19 “ “ “

Mon Feb 23 Prospecting FSBO Listings
Thurs Feb 26 “ “ “

Don’t Forget: CBOLT Sessions
Every Wednesday at 1:00 pm – large conference room or log-on at home.

Linda's schedule w/o 2/2/09

I will be at Hondros Monday and Wednesday trying to find us some new talent!

CBWS office hours

We will be extending the same office hours that we had for January into February.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you,

Joe King

CVG Survey - Participate!

Holly thought this might be something to put on the office blog. They have extended a survey for CVG airport through this weekend (rating Cincinnati Greater to surrounding airports as far as price, etc). The address is:http://cvgsurvey.com/

Monday, January 26, 2009

New Purchase Contract

The Cincinnati Area Board of REALTORS® Board of Directors has approved a few changes to the CABR Contract to Purchase for use by REALTOR® members. Below is an explanation of the changes to the Contract to Purchase. The updated Contract to Purchase-Ohio is available under Contracts in Virtual Office>Agent Tools. Because we had depleted our printed inventory of the former Contract to Purchase-Ohio, the updated version is at the printers now and should be available in a couple of weeks. I’ve attached a copy of the updated version to this message. HOWEVER, the changes made WERE NOT significant to the point that your current supply is outdated. PLEASE CONTINUE TO USE YOUR SUPPLY OF CONTRACT TO PURCHASE-OHIO UNTIL YOUR SUPPLY IS DEPLETED.

Changes in the Contract to Purchase

Clause 3, Financing Contingency has been revised, to clarify that the settlement charges the seller is agreeing to pay are those allowed by the buyer’s lender – not the seller’s (in the event it is a short-sale, lender-owned, etc.).

Clause 7, Seller’s Certification the seller is no longer required to certify the municipality in which the real estate resides. This has been added as a buyer’s responsibility under Clause 15, Buyer’s Inspections.

Clause 8, Homeowner Association/Condominium Declarations, Bylaws and Articles has been expanded to include the Association’s schedule of monthly, annual and special assessments/fees.

Clause 17, Title Insurance has been amended to provide more flexibility in payment options for owner’s title insurance. Previously, if the buyer checked the box indicating that he chose to purchase owner’s title insurance, the seller was obligated to pay the entire cost of the premium. The clause has been changed to allow the parties to agree on an amount that the seller will pay up to, but not to exceed.

Clause 19, Conveyance and Closing “homeowner/condominium association fees” has been added to this clause.

CABR - CE class - Appealing Property Tax Valuations

† Appealing Property Tax Valuations
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
1-4 p.m.
Held at the Cincinnati Area Board of REALTORS®
14 Knollcrest Drive, Cincinnati OH 45237
3 hours CE credit—fulfills Ohio elective creditFee: $30 CABR members/$40 non-members

Lunch & Learn - 1/27/09 11:30

Lunch and Learn – Tuesday – Jan 27 @ 11:30

Reminder: Topic: Whole House Inspection – Cost of Repairs

Friday, January 23, 2009

Other interesting BLOGS

Here are some other blogs:

http://docsblog.thewrittenblog.com/ (Doc Rogers)

http://www.therealtorstoolbox.blogspot.com/

http://thegreatnortheast.blogspot.com/

http://thecincyblog.com/

Mike Kieffer

Office meeting notes 1/20/09

Thanks to Mike Kieffer for handling the meeting this week while Linda was on vacation. Mike went over how to use “Snag it” again. There is a one time charge of $49.00 for this program. He did warn everyone on what you snag and how you use it. You don’t want to violate copyrights. You can snag anything and drop it in anywhere you want it. For example (since it was Inaugural Day) he showed how easy it was to go to President Obama’s website and snag his letterhead and copied it into Word and made his own “Mike Kieffer for President” letterhead for 2013. He also showed how you can put a hyper link from MLS into your blog and/or your profile. You want to put things on your blog that would interest your clients. He talked about how he put data from Realist on to his personal web site. He showed what you can do with Photo Shop. How you can make a chair disappear from a room, trim the shrubs in front of a house, change color of grass, change brightness of photos, resize a photo, etc. It’s pretty amazing what you can do if you know how to use all these programs.

Thomas Courtney dropped by to remind everyone about the Coldwell Banker Foundation. He has a meeting with Joe next week to talk about goals for 2009 for the Foundation.

Jim Conway also dropped by to remind everyone about open enrollment coming up March 1st for the national group insurance plan from NRT. He suggested for anyone who thinks there is even a slight chance they might loose the insurance plan they have now either by divorce or job loss to sign a waiver so they can get in the national plan after the open enrollment is up. He said you will be getting an e-mail in the near future in regard to this so please read it carefully.

Next Week: Special Lunch and Learn at 11:30 – “Cost of Repairs” you don’t want to miss this one!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Free Generic "Office Suite"

I found a (LEGAL) generic clone of Microsoft Office. I has word, spread sheet, power point, access etc.

Here is the link to download and install:

http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

I opened the listing presentation with this program and it worked fine. You can use it to edit the listing presentation. AND IT'S FREEEEEEE!

Mike

Free Power Point Viewer for your laptop listing presentation

Below is the link where you can down load Microsoft Powerpoint viewer. This is free. You can install it on your laptop if you do not have the full version. You can "play" power point presentation (Listing presentation) on your laptop and edit it at work, so you don't have to purchase full power point.


http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=048DC840-14E1-467D-8DCA-19D2A8FD7485&displaylang=en#Requirements

Mike

IRS links for the $7500

This is the link for information on the $7,500 credit for first time home buyers

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=187935,00.html

Office meeting notes 1/13/09

Congratulations to Evelyn, Dawn, Liz, Bill, Doc, Shirley & Mike for receiving excellent “Service Satisfaction Surveys” back from their customers. The excellent comments agents receive on these survey would make great comments to put on your personal profiles on your web page. Don’t forget “Passport to Success” tomorrow at Receptions in Eastgate. Tim Duncan has volunteered to drive his van so be here in the morning. We want to welcome new agent, Gail Ash, to the office. Please sign up to meet with Linda to do your Business Planning for 2009. Sign up sheet on side of mailbox next to her door. Please come prepared to meet. Check where your business came from in 2008, how much money you plan on spending on your business and how do you plan to do it. Linda asked everyone, in the meeting, to make 5 goals and then how to achieve them. Some of goals where to work on their data bases, keep them updated and classify them into group A, B & C. They also said to get more organized, do more networking, work on getting better computer skills, call everyone on their calendar list, update their profile page, give out more business cards, follow up with their school alum, family, friends and get a designations to name a few. They also talked about how Face book and linkedin.com was another excellent way to get involved and connect with other people. Rates are down so this is a great time to call your customers, especially if they brought a few years ago with a higher interest rate and suggest refinancing. This is a good reason to call and keep in touch and maybe their circumstances have changed and they are thinking of making another move. Don’t forget to mention to your first time buyers the possibility of taking advantage of the first time buyer money available until July. Mike did another demonstration of the exciting new electronic listing presentation, the benefit of the $99.00 enhancement on realtor.com, the one time $49. Snagit and contact manager, forms, mail merge & labels in Outlook. Are you checking the Blog??

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Office meeting notes 1/6/09

Steve McGuire & Sean Rogers (Gary’s son) with Prepaid Legal Service Inc. was here to talk about your life events legal plan. For $26.95 per mo. for a family plan which covers all members of your family, who have not married and up to age 21. There is no contract to sign. You will have unlimited phone consultation, unlimited letter writing, contract review for up to 10 pages, look over traffic tickets (doesn’t cover drugs or drinking tickets), up to 50 hrs for IRS audit, drawing up wills and trusts, covering up to 75 hrs for law suits, and identity thief. There is also a business plan for $50.00. You can go to Steve’s website to check it out (prepaidlegal.com/hub/bethm) or call Sean at 515-5815.

Jennifer with Residential Title was here to pass out certificates to Holly for being #11, Bill for being #7 and Dawn for being #5 thru Nov. with closed title orders. Unofficial we are #3 in the company for 2008. She also brought new brochures which we are already putting in your sales packets which explain title insurance. These new brochures are more in depth than before and answer a lot of your client’s questions.

Please get on Linda’s calendar to meet with her for your “Business Plan for 2009”. Sign up is on side of mailbox next to her door. Be prepared to discuss what your plans are for 2009. Check 2008 sales and find out where your business came from and have a plan to follow.

The 2008 HUD statements were put in your mailboxes last week. Mike suggested that you also send the HUD’s to the buyer or seller that was not your client as a good will jester.

Next week after the sales meeting Mike will be doing his “Snag it and new on line listing presentation” again for anyone missed the last 2 or who would like to attend again.