I am back in the office after a week's vacation. It is hard to get back in the groove after being out of town for a week, but all the laundry to do at home, and mail at home and the office bring you down to reality rather quickly! I hope your summer is going great. Things are picking up here at the Board office. We have had some new members join and that is always fun to be around their excitement. I will be posting some Education classes coming up and some fun things also. Please be sure to let me know if you are enjoying this blog or if anyone is even looking at it!
Have a great upcoming weekend!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Summer is Here!
Well, it is officially summer now since the Memorial Day Holiday is history. I trust everyone had a good 3 day weekend. OR maybe you were fortunate to show property and even write a contract! Things seem to be picking up here at the Board office with lots of phone calls about lockboxes and ActiveKeys. We even sold a flyer box Friday! We carry flyer boxes, Blackberry key fobs, lockboxes, and car chargers for the ActiveKey. If there is something else you would like to be able to buy through us, let me know and I will see what we can do for you! That is why we are here!
Hope everyone has a good week coming up and that we have a little less rain than we have had. Add to this blog if you feel so inclined!!
Hope everyone has a good week coming up and that we have a little less rain than we have had. Add to this blog if you feel so inclined!!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
It's Thursday afternoon on the eve of a 3 day weekend! We had a good RBOR meeting this morning with reps from Crystal Bridges Museum and Dr. Compton, superintendent of Bentonville schools as guest speakers. We are so fortunate to have great schools in our area and a fabulous facility like Crystal Bridges in the making!
RBOR is putting on a big annual golf tournament for SPECIAL OLYMPICS on June 5 at wonderful Shadow Valley Country Club. We need GOLFERS - teams of 4 - at $75.00 per person!! Entry fee covers green fees, cart, event bag, and lunch. We also still need sponsors, items for goody bags, and anything else you might want to donate! Let me know if you are interested...
RBOR is putting on a big annual golf tournament for SPECIAL OLYMPICS on June 5 at wonderful Shadow Valley Country Club. We need GOLFERS - teams of 4 - at $75.00 per person!! Entry fee covers green fees, cart, event bag, and lunch. We also still need sponsors, items for goody bags, and anything else you might want to donate! Let me know if you are interested...
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tomorrow morning is our regular monthly meeting at the Embassy. Busy busy day today. There are always last minute things to take care of. I think our REALTORS have been busy too since we have had a lot of calls for lockbox issues!
This is going to be a busy fun summer for the Board and our members. Watch for info on upcoming events so you can become involved with your Board.
Whoops - just remembered I haven't done an agenda for tomorrows meeting!
Talk to you later...
This is going to be a busy fun summer for the Board and our members. Watch for info on upcoming events so you can become involved with your Board.
Whoops - just remembered I haven't done an agenda for tomorrows meeting!
Talk to you later...
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Here it is Tuesday and the weather is perfect and I am inside this office wanting out!! I guess we are never happy. When it rains we want pretty weather and when it is pretty, we want to be outside! I am trying to get into this blogging stuff and I should like it, because I like to write. So you may have to read some dribble now and then.
Just a reminder that our membership meeting is Thursday at 8:00am. I know it is early, but you might be up getting your kids off to school for their last week or next to last week of school, so just come on by the meeting and see what you can learn or maybe meet a new realtor friend.
Hope you are having a good week!
Just a reminder that our membership meeting is Thursday at 8:00am. I know it is early, but you might be up getting your kids off to school for their last week or next to last week of school, so just come on by the meeting and see what you can learn or maybe meet a new realtor friend.
Hope you are having a good week!
Friday, May 15, 2009
Friday - weekend - Blog
IT IS FINALLY FRIDAY! Lot's of calls for shackle codes and ActiveKey questions! That means you all are out there showing and selling!! Things must be looking up!! Have a great weekend! Enjoy the SUN when it SHINES!!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Educational Opportunities!
GRI 201 to be held at ARVEST Ballpark Community room on July 8 and 9th. Call the Rogers Board for registration form or check our website at www.rogersbor.com. Classes coming in August, September, and October!
GRI 201 to be held at ARVEST Ballpark Community room on July 8 and 9th. Call the Rogers Board for registration form or check our website at www.rogersbor.com. Classes coming in August, September, and October!
Rogers Board Membership Meeting next Thursday, May 21st. Breakfast - Speaker will be a representative from Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville. Come find out what's new! Call the Rogers Board office at 636-5875 or e-mail rogersbd3@cox-internet.com.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Top 10 Tips for Real Estate Agents Using Twitter
by Emma Sorensen
Social media is here to stay and everyone’s using Twitter. But if you’re worried about how to best use it, here are propertyadguru.com’s Top 10 Tips for real estate agents using Twitter:
1. Understand what Twitter is and plan before you tweet. Twitter is about posting short updates of less than 140 characters, which have been described by some as a little like a mobile phone text messages for the Web. It’s all about telling your followers about what you’re doing at that moment. Look closely at examples of how others use it.
2. Every word matters. You only have 140 characters, think carefully about how you choose to spend them?
3. Personalize your Twitter account, but keep it professional. Make sure to think business and include all your relevant contact details in your profile, choose a relevant name, add a photo, include a short bio and make new friends or follow other relevant businesses using the “find people” function.
4. Tweet. You can’t just sit there – you need to be active. Twitter is social – so participate, and find your Twitter voice. Read propertyadguru.com’s article on Twitter: to tweet or not to tweet.
5. You need to be followed, and follow. But remember: it’s about quality, not quantity. There’s no point having the most followers if they’re not remotely interested in what you’re doing.
6. Think big and be creative with your Tweets. No one will care much for hearing about what you ate for lunch, but they might be keen to know you sealed a big deal, or have a great new property for sale. Whatever you tweet should be newsworthy.
7. Don’t overdo it. Think about the frequency of your posts. Nobody likes a spammer and the aim is to keep your social network alive and expand it through Twitter, rather than annoying people.
8. Learn the Twitter commands. Using the @ symbol before someone’s username is a reply and the user will receive notification. Using the # means it is tweet about a certain topic or event (#icny is Inman Connect New York). You also have the facility to send and receive direct messages that don’t show as a public tweet.
9. Think about how you can best use extra Twitter related applications. There are many such as: tinyurl.com, budurl.com, tweetdeck.com, twitterfeed, Twitter for mobile, twitpic.com, ffwd.com’s Twitter Connect for Video, or Facebook’s Twitter function.
10. Keep up-to-date with some of the fantastic Twitter advice sites. twitip.com is jam-packed with useful information. UK comedian Stephen Fry has even been advising on Twitter best practice (and he should know, he has 100,000 followers).
But overall, just enjoy it.
You can also follow propertyadguru.com on Twitter: twitter.com/propertyadguru
Thanks to Property Ad Guru (“Make the most of your online advertising”) for allowing us to reprint this article.
(Flickr photo/logo by szlea)
Copyright 2009, eFrog Pond, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified.
Social media is here to stay and everyone’s using Twitter. But if you’re worried about how to best use it, here are propertyadguru.com’s Top 10 Tips for real estate agents using Twitter:
1. Understand what Twitter is and plan before you tweet. Twitter is about posting short updates of less than 140 characters, which have been described by some as a little like a mobile phone text messages for the Web. It’s all about telling your followers about what you’re doing at that moment. Look closely at examples of how others use it.
2. Every word matters. You only have 140 characters, think carefully about how you choose to spend them?
3. Personalize your Twitter account, but keep it professional. Make sure to think business and include all your relevant contact details in your profile, choose a relevant name, add a photo, include a short bio and make new friends or follow other relevant businesses using the “find people” function.
4. Tweet. You can’t just sit there – you need to be active. Twitter is social – so participate, and find your Twitter voice. Read propertyadguru.com’s article on Twitter: to tweet or not to tweet.
5. You need to be followed, and follow. But remember: it’s about quality, not quantity. There’s no point having the most followers if they’re not remotely interested in what you’re doing.
6. Think big and be creative with your Tweets. No one will care much for hearing about what you ate for lunch, but they might be keen to know you sealed a big deal, or have a great new property for sale. Whatever you tweet should be newsworthy.
7. Don’t overdo it. Think about the frequency of your posts. Nobody likes a spammer and the aim is to keep your social network alive and expand it through Twitter, rather than annoying people.
8. Learn the Twitter commands. Using the @ symbol before someone’s username is a reply and the user will receive notification. Using the # means it is tweet about a certain topic or event (#icny is Inman Connect New York). You also have the facility to send and receive direct messages that don’t show as a public tweet.
9. Think about how you can best use extra Twitter related applications. There are many such as: tinyurl.com, budurl.com, tweetdeck.com, twitterfeed, Twitter for mobile, twitpic.com, ffwd.com’s Twitter Connect for Video, or Facebook’s Twitter function.
10. Keep up-to-date with some of the fantastic Twitter advice sites. twitip.com is jam-packed with useful information. UK comedian Stephen Fry has even been advising on Twitter best practice (and he should know, he has 100,000 followers).
But overall, just enjoy it.
You can also follow propertyadguru.com on Twitter: twitter.com/propertyadguru
Thanks to Property Ad Guru (“Make the most of your online advertising”) for allowing us to reprint this article.
(Flickr photo/logo by szlea)
Copyright 2009, eFrog Pond, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified.
Speaking of Technology
The Rogers Board is on Facebook as a group! Won't you be our Friend? Are you on Facebook? We are hoping to improve our profile on Facebook too, and start utilizing it! Join us! Make some new contacts and find old friends. Maybe they need to buy or sell a house! Also, the following article was one I found on Twitter and may give you some needed information.
Your President's Message:
Our Seat at the Table
This month, as I prepare to go to the Washington D.C. Mid-Year Legislative meeting, I am reminded how serious the situation is for our country. As your President, I will represent our board in scheduled meetings with all of our Arkansas delegates. The opportunity is overwhelming to sit at the table and be able to discuss Arkansas, and Northwest Arkansas issues that affect our Realtor’s clients.
I am sure each real estate office has seen and talked to people about using the $8,000 home buyer tax credit. Let me review a little history and why I think it is so important for each of us to support ARPAC (Arkansas Realtors Political Action Committee).
It is through ARPAC and NAR (National Association of REALTORS®) that we all have a seat at the table. Let’s look again at some of the information that NAR has offered to us as REALTORS®. In 2008, Congress created a $7,500 first time home buyer tax credit. It went into effect April 8, 2008 and was set to expire July 1, 2009. Big problem! It had to be repaid over a 15-year period. People viewed it as a debt and not a benefit.
NAR, working with Realtors across the country, was successful in getting changes made. The repayment feature of the credit was eliminated and the time line to extend the credit moved to the end of 2009. The original amount of $7,500 was changed to $8,000 or 10% of purchase price. The 2009 tax credit does not have to be repaid. For instance, if you only have a $3,000 tax liability you’ll get the balance your credit.
Unfortunately NAR was not successful in removing the repayment of the 2008 credit and attempting to make the credit available to every home buyer. There is lots of difference between a debt owed and receiving a refund back.
NAR is supporting the continuation of the $8,000 tax credit or raising it up to $15,000 and including every home buyer. What would this do to our market, if every one could get an $8,000 to $15,000 tax credit? This would stimulate our economy more than anything, by giving money directly to the people who will use it to stimulate the housing market.
Every REALTOR® has the opportunity to get this information. It is provided to us and we need to utilize it. This information came to us as a power point presentation and can be downloaded and presented to your home buyers or at an office meeting. If you want information on all of this, go to Realtor.org and log in.
State issues: I’m going to repeat my call to people who contribute to ARPAC, it is just so needed at this time. We need a seat at the table. One of the issues that I would like to mention again, every time the Arkansas Legislator’s session opens, there are some of the state legislators who want to tax our commissions. Our seat at the table should keep that from happening. If nothing else, that should be enough to ensure your support for ARPAC and keeping our seat at the table.
Last month I talked about expenses or investment. It is an expense if we don’t use it and an investment if we do use it. In Arkansas we get a tax credit for a contribution to ARPAC. A $50/person or $100/couple tax credit comes straight off our Arkansas income tax. Let’s use it to our benefit.
Local issues: I want to talk about an issue I think our membership needs to know, the issue of BPO or broker price opinion. I know the other side of this is appraisals.
A word of caution from an appraiser, if you don’t have a chance of a listing as an agent, you are not supposed to do BPO's. There have been agents turned in to the Arkansas Appraisal Board; resulting in the loss of their license because they are doing BPO's without a listing potential. You must have a listing potential. It was brought to my attention that there are some groups who are asking agents to do BPO's to establish a value with no intent of giving the agent the listing. Be careful!
It is an honor to go and represent our board in DC. We have scheduled NAR briefings and meetings with each of our legislators. The government has no good plan. With so many interests groups we will not get a 100% of what we need or think we need. But, we will get our chance to voice our opinion, giving us more tools to work with in the market place.
I am hearing about an upturn in the number of property showings. That is encouraging news. Keep it up.
Keep your head up. Northwest Arkansas will recover faster than the nation. When you hear news on the television, they are talking national not local. They are talking about the rest of the world; they are not talking about Northwest Arkansas.
We are buying a seat at the table, not buying votes. Our seat at the table gives us the opportunity to express our opinion for our clients and Realtors.
The “M” in May means Money! Have a great day. This is a good place to live.
Thank you.
Jerry Danehower
This month, as I prepare to go to the Washington D.C. Mid-Year Legislative meeting, I am reminded how serious the situation is for our country. As your President, I will represent our board in scheduled meetings with all of our Arkansas delegates. The opportunity is overwhelming to sit at the table and be able to discuss Arkansas, and Northwest Arkansas issues that affect our Realtor’s clients.
I am sure each real estate office has seen and talked to people about using the $8,000 home buyer tax credit. Let me review a little history and why I think it is so important for each of us to support ARPAC (Arkansas Realtors Political Action Committee).
It is through ARPAC and NAR (National Association of REALTORS®) that we all have a seat at the table. Let’s look again at some of the information that NAR has offered to us as REALTORS®. In 2008, Congress created a $7,500 first time home buyer tax credit. It went into effect April 8, 2008 and was set to expire July 1, 2009. Big problem! It had to be repaid over a 15-year period. People viewed it as a debt and not a benefit.
NAR, working with Realtors across the country, was successful in getting changes made. The repayment feature of the credit was eliminated and the time line to extend the credit moved to the end of 2009. The original amount of $7,500 was changed to $8,000 or 10% of purchase price. The 2009 tax credit does not have to be repaid. For instance, if you only have a $3,000 tax liability you’ll get the balance your credit.
Unfortunately NAR was not successful in removing the repayment of the 2008 credit and attempting to make the credit available to every home buyer. There is lots of difference between a debt owed and receiving a refund back.
NAR is supporting the continuation of the $8,000 tax credit or raising it up to $15,000 and including every home buyer. What would this do to our market, if every one could get an $8,000 to $15,000 tax credit? This would stimulate our economy more than anything, by giving money directly to the people who will use it to stimulate the housing market.
Every REALTOR® has the opportunity to get this information. It is provided to us and we need to utilize it. This information came to us as a power point presentation and can be downloaded and presented to your home buyers or at an office meeting. If you want information on all of this, go to Realtor.org and log in.
State issues: I’m going to repeat my call to people who contribute to ARPAC, it is just so needed at this time. We need a seat at the table. One of the issues that I would like to mention again, every time the Arkansas Legislator’s session opens, there are some of the state legislators who want to tax our commissions. Our seat at the table should keep that from happening. If nothing else, that should be enough to ensure your support for ARPAC and keeping our seat at the table.
Last month I talked about expenses or investment. It is an expense if we don’t use it and an investment if we do use it. In Arkansas we get a tax credit for a contribution to ARPAC. A $50/person or $100/couple tax credit comes straight off our Arkansas income tax. Let’s use it to our benefit.
Local issues: I want to talk about an issue I think our membership needs to know, the issue of BPO or broker price opinion. I know the other side of this is appraisals.
A word of caution from an appraiser, if you don’t have a chance of a listing as an agent, you are not supposed to do BPO's. There have been agents turned in to the Arkansas Appraisal Board; resulting in the loss of their license because they are doing BPO's without a listing potential. You must have a listing potential. It was brought to my attention that there are some groups who are asking agents to do BPO's to establish a value with no intent of giving the agent the listing. Be careful!
It is an honor to go and represent our board in DC. We have scheduled NAR briefings and meetings with each of our legislators. The government has no good plan. With so many interests groups we will not get a 100% of what we need or think we need. But, we will get our chance to voice our opinion, giving us more tools to work with in the market place.
I am hearing about an upturn in the number of property showings. That is encouraging news. Keep it up.
Keep your head up. Northwest Arkansas will recover faster than the nation. When you hear news on the television, they are talking national not local. They are talking about the rest of the world; they are not talking about Northwest Arkansas.
We are buying a seat at the table, not buying votes. Our seat at the table gives us the opportunity to express our opinion for our clients and Realtors.
The “M” in May means Money! Have a great day. This is a good place to live.
Thank you.
Jerry Danehower
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Thank you!
Thank you, James Call, for setting up the Blog!
James is a part of the RBOR Technology Committee. Good job!
James is a part of the RBOR Technology Committee. Good job!
Quiz about the $8000 Tax Credit
There is a ton of activity out there surrounding the $8000 tax credit. See how much YOU know about it by taking this quiz at Realtor.org :
Rogers Board of Realtors
Welcome to the blog for the Rogers Board of Realtors. We serve realtors in Northwest Arkansas.
The mission of the Rogers Board of REALTORS is to:
The mission of the Rogers Board of REALTORS is to:
a. Serve our members and the public as the leading advocate of the real estate industry.
b. Be the community resource for real estate information and expertise
c. Provide education and resources that enable REALTORS to conduct business professionally and ethically
d. Maintain a positive REALTOR image through community involvement
e. Encourage member participation in REALTOR associations at the local, state and national levels.
If you have a suggestion or recommendation for something to put on our blog please let us know.
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