Broker Blog

The Hokey Pokey – Daniel Casabonne, our top producing agent in Dollar Volume for in 2008, was sharing his experience and expertise with our Healdsburg and Cloverdale agents this week when he reminded me of the Hokey Pokey. Several years ago, Lori Bremner, our consummate commercial property manager, gave me a t-shirt that said: “What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is really all about”. I adopted this for the year in the sense that you “put your whole self in, and you take your whole self out.” Dan remembered this little mantra and shared it with the other agents. When he is “at work”, he is all the way in – fully committed. When he takes time for himself, he is all the way out – committed to his own well being and peace of mind. He doesn’t abandon his work – but he puts it in the proper perspective. This way he keeps a healthy balance and maintains his enthusiasm. Thanks, Dan, for reminding me of that important lesson in the Hokey Pokey.

Wine Country Group Update for February, 2009: Our business remains stable in light of all that is going on around us. In January, we closed 55 sides vs. 48 sides a year ago and 39 in 1/2007 and 38 in 1/2006. As busy as we were, our dollar volume in 1/2009 was $20,000,000 compared to $46,000,000 in 2008. So the median price of our transactions was down for that month. The same fact is reflected in our backlog of pending transactions which (as of 2/23) stands at 93 sales compared to 64 a year ago and reflects $42,000,000 in volume compared to $50,000,000 a year ago. Same with listing inventory which is down to 174 units compared to 187 a year ago and reflects a median price of $758,000 compared to $834,000 a year ago. Certainly, our activity in the REO market is largely responsible for this trend, not only in our firm, but industry wide. We do see market rate and high end listings and sales coming on line as the spring market unfolds.

We remain number one in market share in our Sonoma Valley, Healdsburg and Cloverdale markets. In the Sonoma Valley, we are selling twice as many units as our nearest competitor and we expect to continue that trend. Our Napa, Kenwood and Sonoma offices all had year over year gains in units closed for the month of January, 2009.

Best Real Estate Company: We are proud to be named the “Best Real Estate Company” in Sonoma in KVON’s 17th annual “Best of…” awards. Congratulations to all of our agents and staff for this recognition. Visit http://www.kvon.com/ to see the results of the survey.

Training: Congratulations to Joyce Davidson of our Sonoma office for planning and implementing two two hour training sessions in the past two weeks. The response to Joyce’s trainings has been very positive and we look forward to sponsoring Joyce in doing more training sessions throughout the year. This is consistent with our goal of generating more internal training opportunities for our Wine Country Group agents this year. Thanks, also, to Cheri Stanley and Daniel Casaboone who contributed their knowledge and skills to the training.

**Property Websites – Important Policy Change**: To my knowledge, we are the only real estate firm in Northern California offering free property websites to our agents for all of our listings. We appreciate that our agents have wholly adopted this marketing approach and to date we have developed over 717 of these interactive websites. Many thanks to Ally, Lourdes and Susie. Because of the cost to us to reserve websites we are implementing the following

POLICY CHANGE:
Effective 3/1/09, if:
1. A property website address is reserved, but unused for over thirty (30) days; or
2. More than one property website address is reserved for one property; or
3. A property website is reserved and it is a mistake; or
4. A property website is extended for over one year;
Then, the agent will be charged $25.00 for each occurrence.

Please note, for all other uses of the property website program, there will be no charge to our agents and it will remain a unique marketing tool that the company provides for each of our listings.

Welcome to our new sales agents: Susan Montgomery joins our Healdsburg office as part of the team handling the 40 unit Foss Creek Condominium project. David Katz, former Executive Director of California Trouts Unlimited and former ED of the Sonoma Land Trust joins our Sonoma office. David has a wealth of experience in land conservation, conservation easements, agricultural development and ag preserves, etc. If you have any sensitive properties that have these “issues”, David is a great resource for us. Also welcome to Zoe Stanowski in our Sonoma office.

Frame of Mind Coaching: I enjoy reading articles by Kim Ades who has a business called Frame of Mind Coaching. As you can guess from the title, she emphasizes the importance of “attitude” in all that we do – particularly in sales. Much of her training is done through Webinars and she has an interesting one coming up this Thursday, 2/26. It’s called “Let’s Get Thin”, and the speaker, Rob Sugar (ironically) is an “Emotional Eating” coach. His premise is that diets do not work, overeating is an emotional response to other stresses. Sounds interesting, at least thought provoking. For more, visit: this LINK.

Green Designation: If you are interested in receiving your “Green Designation” as a Realtor, several local classes are being offered. Visit http://www.car.org/education/designations/greendesignation/ for more information.

Closings: Closings for the period from 1/26 thru 2/20 include: Isaac Raboy (Sonoma); Ann Foley (Sonoma); Constance Sharpe (Glen Ellen); Tish Thames (Sonoma); Aimee Greco (Napa); Art Bowen (Napa); Penelope La Montagne (Healdsburg); Susan Irvine (Sonoma); Frank Trozzo (Napa); Patty Keiser (Glen Ellen); Christina Bourassa (Sonoma); Faeli Vyn (Napa); Curtis Kind (Cloverdale); Richard Hurst (Cloverdale); Monica Hernandez (Healdsburg); Jana Jones (Healdsburg); Barbara Sommerville (Sonoma); Corrie Sterbentz (Sonoma); Pat Brown (Sonoma); The following agents had two closings over this period: Jessica Detwiller (Napa); Herb Heil (Sonoma); Sheila Deignan (Sonoma); Diane Litchfield (Sonoma); and Jane and Ron Pavelka (Cloverdale). Cheri Stanley of our Napa office and Daniel Casabonne of our Sonoma Office had four closings each during this period. Doug Del Fava and Susan Parker of our Kenwood office closed five transactions during this time, and David Barker of our Napa Office topped the bunch by having seven closings during this period. Congratulations to all!

Congratulations to Roger Olson of our Healdsburg office for being awarded the 2008 Sonoma County Spirit Award by the Windsor Chamber of Commerce.

Birthdays: Birthdays for the month of January include: Robyn Makurak, Sharon Semenero, Linda Alioto, Danuta Mykytiuk, Mari Johnson, Diane Harris, Barbara Sommerville, Isaac Raboy, Katie Bailie and Kendra Martin. For February, birthdays include Randy Haak, Charlotte Schanzer, Scott Inglis, and Patti Keiser. Special wishes to Earl Shuttleworth who celebrates one of those “BIG” birthdays this week – and best wishes to all!