Broker Blog

Veterans Day: Another real estate executive, Tom Tognoli of Intero Real Estate Services, highlighted Veterans Day in his weekly update today. He sites the definition that “A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to The United States of America for an amount of “up to and including my life”. I find that a powerful thought and it gives me pause to wish all veterans, and current service men and women, safety and peace in their lives.

Frank Howard Allen Wine Country Group REO and Short Sale Forum:

We will be having a REO and Short Sale Forum for our Wine Country Group agents on Friday, 11/21 from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, at the Kenwood Depot, 314 Warm Springs Rd., Kenwood. If you are handling REO or Short Sale transactions, your attendance is mandatory at this meeting. If you are not handling these transactions, you are still welcome to attend. The meeting will be in three parts:

11:35 to 12:15: Jeremy Olsen, legal counsel for the North Bay Association of Realtors, will be providing his perspective on the challenges that these transactions bring to us as sales agents and to our industry in general. He will also be available to answer your questions regarding NorBAR's and CAR's experience with these transactions.

12:15 to 12:45: A review and discussion of the recently announced policies and procedures that our company has adopted regarding REO and Short Sale transactions.

12:45 to 1:30: An open sharing and idea exchange regarding “best practices” relating to REO/Short Sale transactions.

The forum is a “brown bag” affair, so bring a sandwich and/or piece of fruit. We will have water and soft drinks available.

Please RSVP to your office administrator by 11/20 so that we can know how many chairs to set up.

In a separate matter, Cheri Stanley of our Napa office is organizing a brain storming/idea exchange session for agents in the Napa Valley who are handling REOs and Short Sales. This will take place at First American Title Co. at noon on Wednesday, 11/19. If you have an interest in attending this, please let me know. Cheri hopes to make this a monthly event while we are still dealing with the foreclosure and short sale market.

Texting Listing "Solution": We are exploring a texting solution for listings that has an ID on a sign rider which an individual can enter into their PDA and receive back an entire copy of the MLS public details including photos. The listing agent is notified of the contact and given the individual's text address for future farming activities. This service will cost agents $8.00/sign rider/month - i.e., 5 different sign riders equals $40.00/month. Can you please let me know if you are interested in this program and if would commit to pay for the service for a one year contract term. Thanks, and also let me know if you have any questions.

Closings: Closings for the period from 11/3 through 11/7 include: Robyn Makurak (Sonoma); Herb Heil (Sonoma); Jana Jones (Healdsburg); Mike Caselli (Sonoma); Diane Litchfield (Sonoma); Daniel Casabonne (Sonoma); Erin George (Sonoma); and Deke DeKay and Diane Harris (Healdsburg). The following agents had two sales during this period: Frank Trozzo (Napa) and Penelope La Montagne (Healdsburg). Congratulations to all!

Birthdays: Birthdays in the past week include Mechel Boucher, Susan Irvine and Jana Jones. Best wishes to all!