dust bunnies must die (p. 12) • new brokers, listen up (p. 20)

DUST BUNNIES MUST DIE (P. 12) • NEW BROKERS, LISTEN UP (P. 20)
July/August 2009
A journal for real estate professionals published by the Virginia Association of REALTORS® • www.VARealtor.com
ANDREW KANTOR
PUBLISHED BY THE VIRGINIA
ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®
The Business Advocate for Virginia
Real Estate Professionals
John Powell, ABR, CRB, CRS, GRI
President
Cindy Stackhouse, GRI
President-Elect
John Dickinson, CCIM, GRI
Vice President
Pat Jensen, ABR, CRB, CRS, GRI
Immediate Past President
John Daly
Treasurer
R. Scott Brunner, CAE
Chief Executive Officer
[email protected]
Ben Martin, CAE
Vice President, Marketing & Communications
[email protected]
Andrew Kantor
Editor & Information Manager
[email protected]
For advertising information,
Brittany Sullivan at (410) 584-1968
or e-mail [email protected]
The mission of The Virginia Association of REALTORS® is to
enhance its membership’s ability to achieve business success.
Commonwealth magazine (ISSN#10888721) is published
bi-monthly by the Virginia Association of REALTORS®, 10231
Telegraph Road, Glen Allen, VA 23059-4578; (804) 264-5033.
Virginia Association of REALTORS® members pay annual dues
with a one-year subscription included within their dues.
Periodicals postage paid at the Glen Allen, VA post office and
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news, views, and issues. Read the perspectives
of your fellow Virginia REALTORS®. Join the
conversation at VARbuzz.com today.
Get it? Got it? Good!
In addition to the print version of
Commonwealth, VAR publishes electronic
newsletters at regular intervals, including...
...the online version of our print magazine,
published every month.
If you’re not receiving newsletters via e-mail from
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correct email address. Contact your local association
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Also, check the spam filter on your computer and
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firstword
Web impressions are lasting
impressions. So why ignore yours?
ENOUGH ABOUT BLOGGING already.
Yes, I hear you. It’s something
we’ve talked about a lot here at
Commonwealth and at VAR in
general.
So it’s completely understandable
that some of you are sick of hearing
about it.
For some folks, the word “blog”
(as we use it today) is overused and
overextended, much like the word
“hero.” It’s so all-encompassing it
doesn’t mean anything anymore.
And for others, the vision they
have of blogs is the trite nonsense
you find on teens’ Facebook and
MySpace pages.
Quoth Internet, er, writer
Maddox:
“The word ‘blog’ is literally shorthand for ‘boring’; a vulgar, overused
word that strikes your ear with the
dull thud of a cudgel to the soft spot
of a child’s head.”
Tone back the blogging. Got it.
Mea culpa; mea maxima culpa.
I spoke to a woman a few weeks
ago — someone in the industry who
isn’t fond of the whole blogging
thing. “I don’t blog,” she said. “And
I don’t let the people who work for
me blog either. We have better things
to do.”
So we’ll dial it back. No problem.
But we’re still going to talk about
Web sites. Your Web sites. They’re
important to your business. Critical.
How do people today find homes
and find Realtors®? They start on the
Internet — more than 80 percent of
them, per NAR. So your Web site is
the first impression you make with
most of your potential clients.
That means two things: First, that
you want to make sure people who
are looking for a Realtor® find your
site when they do their Google (or,
lately, Bing) search. Second, that
what’s on your site is interesting and
smart enough to attract them.
By far the best way to do both
those things is to update your site’s
content regularly with interesting
stuff. That’s why our obsession with
blogging; it’s the most common way
to keep a site fresh.
And people who update their
Web sites regularly find it makes
them money. In fact, after a couple
of years they say it generates 2/3
of their business. (See last month’s
Accessible Tech column to learn how
this happens.)
“
take this home with you:
You need to make your
Web site more interesting.”
So enough about blogging. Have
one if you want, don’t have one if
you don’t. But take this home with
you: You need to make your Web
site more interesting.
It will help you develop and show
off your knowledge. It will attract
potential clients to you. It will keep
people interested in you. And heck,
it’ll give me something to write
about in Commonwealth. ●
Andrew Kantor,
Editor
andrew
@VARealtor.com
JULY/AUGUST 2009
1
JULY/AUGUST 2009
Volume 16 ● Issue 4
contents
departments
4 quickhits
The latest news and tidbits
from around Virginia
8 stickysituations
Hasta la vista, baby: If you’re
going to terminate, do it right.
10 formfactor
Does your Form 600 include the
new CRESPA disclosure? It better.
12 accessibletech
Eight quick tips for making your
life a little easier (really!)
20 realtycheck
New brokers vs. long-time
experience: Listen up, all of you.
legallines
Lem Marshall is taking a break this issue.
in every issue features
1 firstword
22 rpacreport
26 varbuzzcontest
27 contactvar
16
Kill your Rolodex
Using a Rolodex to keep track of your clients? How very 1994
of you. (And if you think you’re high-tech for using Outlook,
think again.) If you want to grow your business — heck, if
you want to keep your clients — you need something more
powerful. Here’s why and what.
28 lastword
APEX Award of
Excellence winner
2
JULY/AUGUST 2009
www.VARealtor.com
quickhits
ANDReW KANToR
[Housing economy]
VHDA announces bridge loan from tax credit
VHDA has announced a new bridge loan product that will allow homebuyers
to apply the obama Administration’s $8,000 first-time homebuyers tax credit
towards closing costs.
It’s called the Homebuyer Tax Credit plus loan Program, and it’s not an
entirely simple thing. It acts as a “built-in second mortgage that allows borrowers to receive up to five percent of the home’s sales price, which can help cover
down payment and closing costs,” according to VHDA.
Buyers need to close on the loan by November 20, 2009, and — as you
might expect — there are various demons lurking in the details. Get the full
scoop at the VHDA Web site: www.vhda.com.
[The Realtor® Family]
[Convention & expo]
Francie Dalton to
keynote Convention
We’ve got another heavy-duty
keynoter signed up for the 2009
Convention & Expo (at the
Homestead, September 16-18,
varconvention.com) — Francie
Dalton, president of Dalton Alliances.
We could have found someone who
would entertain you, but — while
we like a good laugh at much as the
next guy — we thought it a bit more
important to bring someone on who
could give you a real to-do list to help
you, you know, boost your sales.
So forget vague generalizations
about “focusing on this” or “prioritizing that.” Dalton is an expert
and a consultant on leadership and
development. She’s been in The New
York Times and Investors Business
Daily, and on the CNN Financial
News Network.
She’s giving a one-hour keynote
with 15 smart, focused, powerful things you can start doing the
moment you’re back in your office (or
maybe even sooner). No platitudes,
just action items.
Bottom line: Be there or be square.
4
JulY/AuGusT 2009
VAR mourns the passing of Nathan Booth
Dr. Nathan Booth, who served
as VAR president in 2004, VAR
Realtor® of the Year in 2006, and
Northern Virginia Association of
Realtors® president in 1999, died
peacefully at his Alexandria home
on June 26. He made his mark as a
real estate industry instructor, advocate, and mentor.
“Nathan was in a class by himself,” said Christine Todd, NVAR’s
chief executive officer. “He loved
his students, his profession, and the
entire Realtor® family that he served
so well. On a personal level, I will
miss his enthusiastic spirit, our long
conversations about being raised in
New York City, and his love of God
and country. We will all miss him.”
“
Nathan was in a
class by himself.”
Booth was perhaps best known
as a fierce proponent of education — he was an instructor of
international real estate; professional standards practices and
policies; technology tools; and real
estate finance; he served as chair
of the Virginia
Real Estate
Educational
Foundation;
and VAR
named him
the Outstanding
George Rink Educator of the Year
in 2003 for his service as a real
estate instructor and industry leader.
NAR named Booth an Omega
Tau Rho Medallion of Service
recipient in honor of his local, state
and national industry participation
and dedication, and he was serving
on NAR’s board of directors at the
time of his death, advocating for
certification programs and continuing education.
Thanks to his interest in the
international aspect of real estate,
Booth was well known outside the
U.S. In a note to Todd, Aleksander
Scheller, president of the Polish
Real Estate Federation in Warsaw,
wrote, “For us, Nathan was, is and
always will be a part of the Polish
Realtors®’ community and its history. He was a unique, noble man
who made us feel privileged every
time he was present with us.”
WWW.VAReAlToR.Com
[Housing Economy]
Brookings Institute: Virginia headed for economic recovery
All right, we all know that economists, as a whole, haven’t got a clue. It’s all guesswork, based on principles derived before the information revolution turned everything upside down. Still, they get it right sometimes — often enough to make
them worth listening to, especially when you’re hunting for a bit of good news.
With that good news is research from the Brookings Institute. The economic
conditions in the country’s 100 largest metro areas it looked it seem to indicate
that Virginia may already be recovering from the nation’s economic downturn.
Brookings ranked those 100 metros on overall economic health; Washington,
D.C., ranked 14th, Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News ranked 16th, and
Richmond ranked 46th.
Even better, all three Virginia-area metros are showing signs of recovery, with
growth in both employment and output in the first quarter of 2009.
One reason for Virginia’s strength: The strong government or military employment presence in all three of our major metropolitan areas.
So, to paraphrase Winston Churchill — this may not be the beginning of the
end, but hopefully it’s at least the end of the beginning.
Volume 16 ● Issue 4
[Risk Management]
Distressed sales
and E&O insurance
There’s been some concern lately
with all these short sales and
foreclosures going around:
Does your E&O insurance
cover you if you err or
omit during one of these?
The general answer is Yes, if
you’re covered by VAR-endorsed
insurer Pearl. Feel better?
JULY/AUGUST 2009
5
quickhits
[The Realtor® Family]
Area real estate icon dies
Ellis Edmond “E.E.” Bayliss Jr., 84,
a real estate broker of 53 years and
owner of E.E. Bayliss, Jr. Realtor,
died in June in Winchester.
Bayliss was VAR’s Realtor® of the
Year in 1977 and former president
of the Blue Ridge Association of
Realtors®, where he was the first
Realtor® to become a life member
of the organization.
[legislative Affairs]
Lem, Blake, and
Virginia’s new laws
Got questions about the various new
laws that just took effect (at least the real
estate-related ones)? our two in-house
counsels, Lem Marshall and Blake
Hegeman, created a 30-minute video
explaining the most important ones and
how they affect Realtors®.
Check it out at www.VARealtor.com/2009laws.
[Housing economy]
[member Benefits]
T-Mobile discounts
now in-person, too
T-mobile now offers VAR
member discounts for in-store
purchases. It’s simple: When
you’re in a T-mobile store, tell
the salesperson that you’re eligible for a discount, and that
your code is 9966TMOFAV.
You’ll save on phones, get a
10% discount on your monthly service
charges, and save the $35 activation fee.
Government loosens requirements for refinancing
More homeowners can now take advantage of the Home Affordable
Refinance Program (HARP), which allows people with Fannie- or Freddieguaranteed loans to refinance at a lower, fixed rate.
The government has raised the cap on HARP refinancing from 105% to
125% of the home’s value, giving a potential lifeline to upside-down owners.
The higher loan-to-value amount doesn’t mean people can now borrow
more than their homes are worth, of course. It means that if they already
owe that much, they can apply for HARP assistance.
The downside: It will still take those homeowners a long time to become
‘rightside-up’ — as many as 12 to 17 years, by some estimates. On the other
hand, for homeowners who want to stay put or who want to avoid the whole
foreclosure mess, the new HARP requirements could make a huge difference.
Get the details at makinghomeaffordable.gov.
[legislative Affairs]
There’s a new residential disclosure statement in town
As you hopefully know already, once again the Virginia Real
estate Board has changed the Virginia Residential Disclosure
statement — this time to add some text about stormwater
detention facilities.
The language doesn’t affect sellers; it advises buyers that, if
they’re concerned about stormwater detention facilities, they
need to exercise whatever due diligence they think is necessary to determine if there are any on the property (probably
by contacting the local zoning or planning office).
Here’s the new language that needs to be included:
The owner makes no representations with respect to the
presence of any stormwater detention facilities located on
the property and purchasers are advised to exercise whatever
due diligence they deem necessary to determine the presence of any stormwater detention facilities on the property, in
accordance with terms and conditions as may be contained
in the real estate purchase contract, but in any event, prior to
settlement pursuant to that contract.
6
JulY/AuGusT 2009
The new form is currently available for download on VReB’s
Web site (www.dpor.virginia.gov/dporweb) and is effective
July 1, 2009. (VAR will add it to our forms library soon.)
It must be given to all prospective buyers after July 1, 2009
(unless the seller is exempt from the requirements; exemption
rules have not changed).
Even if you took the listing before July 1, 2009, you still need
to have your sellers sign the new disclosure form. If you gave a
buyer the old form before July 1, you don’t have to replace it.
But any forms you give out after that date must include the
new language.
once again, because our lawyers want to be clear about
it: It doesn’t matter when you took the listing. If you are giving
a disclosure form to a prospective buyer on or after July 1, it
must be the new one.
For another real estate form affected by the laws that took
effect July 1, check out Form Factor on page 10. ●
WWW.VAReAlToR.Com
Pearl of Wisd m
Botched contract termination resulted
from neglected paperwork
a Real-Life Claim Situation involving Documentation
by Clara Miles
SITUATION
A real estate agent listed a piece of residential property for which
potential buyers entered into a purchase and sale agreement with
the seller, conditioned upon the buyers obtaining financing. During
the escrow period, the buyers provided two earnest money checks,
which were deposited in the agent’s escrow account. However, the
buyers later decided to back out of the transaction after their loan
application was purportedly denied by the bank.
PROBLEM
The agent independently made the decision to return the earnest
money to the buyers.
MISTAKE
The agent did not obtain written approval from the seller to release
the funds from the escrow account and failed to obtain the buyers’
written termination notice.
RESULT
After learning the buyers may have withdrawn their loan application to pursue the purchase of another property, the seller filed suit
against the buyers seeking specific performance under the contract.
The seller also sued the agent claiming negligence and breach of
fiduciary duty for releasing the earnest money without authorization.
The buyers argued that they were entitled to the earnest money
because they properly voided the contract by citing the financial contingency, while both parties asserted that the lawsuit was caused by
the agent’s negligence by not making sure the contract’s termination
was done so in writing. The case was settled with the agent paying
money to the seller, who agreed to withdraw the specific performance claim against the buyers.
PREVENTION
Because the real estate agent failed to reduce to writing the
buyers’ intent to terminate the sales agreement, the contract
remained in force. If the agent followed the proper procedures
established under both contract law and office policy, the problem
could have been prevented. A real estate agent should never disburse
earnest money deposits without being directed by court order or
having the written agreement of the parties. In the event both parties
lay claim to the funds that are being properly held, the agent can
move to dismiss the legal proceedings, interplead the deposit to the
court, and, in some cases, have the option to pursue an award of
attorney’s fees and costs. l
For more information, please contact your Pearl representative at
(800) 289-8170.
8
JULY/AUGUST 2009
www.VARealtor.com
formfactor
BLAKe HeGemAN
Forms — they’re the bread and butter of a deal. They’re full of
fine print and legalese, and not everyone “gets” the details.
And that often ends up as a call to our Legal Resources Center.
(Shameless plug: (800) 755-8271.)
So we asked our intrepid associate counsel (read: lawyer),
Blake Hegeman, to take one of the forms the LRC gets the
most questions about and illuminate it for us.
Remember, you can download this
and all VAR’s standard forms free at
www.VARealtor.com/standardforms,
where you can also access our ZipForm
electronic-form service.
This issue: VAR Form 600: CRESPA Disclosure
Hopefully you’re already
aware that any residential
purchase contracts for four
or fewer dwelling units must
include a consumer Real estate
Settlement Protection Act
(cReSPA) disclosure.
This year, the General
Assembly added language to
that disclosure to make it clear
that buyers cannot waive their
cReSPA rights, that the provisions can’t be changed even
by agreement, and that a seller
may not require the use of a
particular settlement agent as
a condition of a sale. l
Make sure that
the Form 600 you
use includes the
changed language!
10 JULY/AUGUST 2009
www.VAReALToR.com
accessibletech
ANDREW KANTOR
Eight things you should do right now
Let’s make your computer better — or at least give it
some annual TLC. (Really, it should be more often
than annually, but we’ll try to be realistic.) Take a few
moments and do a few things that will make your life a
little better in the long run.
1. Clean your keyboard and mouse.
If you have a desktop computer, turn your keyboard
over and gently (but firmly) rap the underside a few
times. Watch the crumbs fall. Say “Eew.” Sweep them
off your desk and repeat, rapping a little harder.
If you have a laptop you can also do this, but make
sure the machine is off and that you only tap gently.
Now take a soft cloth and mild cleaner — baby
wipes are great — and clean your mouse, top and
bottom. If you still have a mouse with a ball instead of
a laser or infrared beam, remove the ball, clean it, and
replace it.
Take another baby wipe and clean your keyboard,
including the keys. (You may want to wait till the
computer is turned off, as you’ll end up pressing a lot
of buttons.)
Admire how dirty those cloths are.
Want to go a step or two further? Get some canned
air at your local office supply store. Turn your keyboard sideways or upside down, and, keeping the can
upright, spray the heck out of it, especially between the
keys. Even better, use the brush attachment from your
home’s vacuum to suck out all the, um, stuff that’s
lurking there.
12 JULY/AUGUST 2009
2. Clean your computer.
Hot computers are unhappy computers. They fail more
often and don’t last as long, which is why they have fans
to cool them. But the big enemy is dust.
That canned air from step 1? You’ll need it again. If
you have a laptop, look for any vents on the back or sides
of your machine and (with the can upright) spray into
them like a mad person. Watch the dust come out.
Got a desktop? Get some tissues; you’ll be sneezing.
Take your vacuum and your canned air, and open your
machine. Really. (Ask around if you’re not sure how,
but it should be a matter of one or two thumbscrews, or
maybe just a lever.)
Unless you have a new machine or work in a NASA
clean room, there’s gonna be dust in your computer. Turn
on the vacuum, then use the canned air to blow the dust
out where the vacuum can suck it up. There’s likely a big,
metal thing with fins in there, possibly with a fan (see the
picture) — that’s the heat sink that keeps your processor
cool. Get as much dust out of it as possible.
Now take your vacuum to any fan openings on the
outside of the case. Dust often blocks the air holes there,
especially if your computer sits on the floor. If you want
to use your canned air, remember to blow from the inside
of the case out.
Finally, comment to your friends and relations about
the dust bunnies you befriended.
3. Backup. Twice.
If your hard drive died today, how much would you lose?
How many contacts? How many photos? How much
irreplaceable stuff? Because hard drive failures rarely
give warnings. One day you turn on your machine, hear
“Click click click,” and you’ve lost everything.
www.VARealtor.com
Which is why so many people will tell you to backup
your stuff. Often. Daily, even.
If your computer is on an office network, ask the
administrator if he does daily backups. If so, you might
be able to save your stuff to a network drive and let him
handle the grunt work. If not, though, you need a plan.
Your choices are fairly straightforward — there are
only a handful of reliable and realistic ways to do it: To
another hard drive, to blank CDs or DVDs, or to an
online backup service. (Flash drives — those USB keys?
— are a bad choice for long-term backup. Use them to
transfer files, not to keep them.)
An external hard drive can make backing up fast and
simple. Companies like Seagate and Western Digital make
“one-touch” units with built-in backup software, such as
Seagate’s Replica and WD’s My Passport Elite (500GB for
about $150). Plug ’em in to your computer’s USB port, go
through the usually-simple instructions, and you’re done.
Downsides: Even though you’re safe if your main
hard drive fails, your data are still in the same physical
location; in the event of theft or fire you could lose your
backup too. And external hard drives are just as susceptible to crashes as internal ones (if not more so).
Using optical media — burning to CD or DVD — is
an excellent long-term solution, although it’s a bit slower,
obviously. Just be sure to buy good disks. Of the easyto-find brands, Verbatim tends to be high on the lists of
archive geeks; blank disks from Taiyo-Yuden are usually
considered top of the line, but they’re a little harder to
find. Stored in a cool, dark, and dry place, these disks
should last decades, if not longer.
Even smarter: Make multiple backup disks and store
them in different places.
Finally, you can get your backups out of the same building where you keep your data by using Web-based backup.
There are many companies offering it — Carbonite,
Amazon.com’s JungleDisk, and more. The leader of the
pack is Mozy, which has three products to choose from:
the free service (2 GB of storage), MozyHome (unlimited
storage for a single computer for $4.95 per month, with
annual discounts), and Mozy Pro (pricing based on the
number of computers and the amount of data).
With these systems, you run a small piece of software
on your computer that regularly uploads your files to
the backup server, usually at night or while your
computer is idle.
Volume 16 ● Issue 4
One caveat: Trust, but verify. After you’ve backed up,
you’ll want to try to retrieve your backed-up files just to
be sure everything’s hunky-dory.
Many of you will have skimmed this section and won’t
back up. On behalf of those who heeded the warnings, let
me say it now: Told you so.
4. Clean out your hard drive.
The more junk you
have on your drive,
the slower it’s going
to run. (Kind of
like how the more
books on your
shelves, the harder
you have to work
to find a particular
one.) A full-fledged
hard-drive cleaMicrosoft’s free SyncToy 2 software is
one of many easy ways to keep your
nout might be the
files backed up.
subject of a future
piece, but at least
do the basics.
Do a quick sweep through your documents and get
rid of the things you don’t need — guaranteed you’ll find
some things. (Sort the list by size, so you can see which
will have the most impact.)
Then go to your Control Panel and Add/Remove
Programs. (Vista users go to Programs/Programs and
Features.) Is there anything you don’t need? Maybe
programs that came pre-installed on your computer that
you never use? Remove them with extreme prejudice.
Common culprits are various CD burning applications
and media players.
Want to go a step further? A wonderful piece of free
software, CCleaner (ccleaner.com) will find and remove
all sorts of junk on your hard drive, from temporary files
to leftover junk from programs you deleted.
Finally, here’s one a lot of people miss: Get rid of fonts
you don’t need or use. Create a folder somewhere called
“Unused Fonts.” Then open your Windows fonts folder
(usually C:\Windows\Fonts) and move the ones you don’t
use there (hold down Shift while you drag them). You can
reinstall them if you want, but be real — if you’re using
that many typefaces, that’s a problem.
What fonts are unnecessary? The real question is what
JULY/AUGUST 2009 13
are necessary. There aren’t many. To make sure that Web
sites and documents display correctly, you only need
to keep the typefaces that are in these families (that is,
anything that starts with these): Arial, Calibri, Cambria,
Comic Sans (sadly), Courier, Fixedsys, Georgia, Lucida,
Modern, anything that starts with “MS,” Segoe, Small
Fonts, System, Tahoma, Terminal, Times (including
Times New Roman), Verdana, and any of the “dings”
— Webdings, Wingdings, etc. Anything else is gravy.
Now it’s time to go shopping.
5. Buy a bigger monitor.
Yes, it’s partially an excuse to treat yourself, but it’s
also about making it easier on your eyes, and about
making your desk time a little nicer. Besides, they’re
cheap. The much-loved, 22-inch (!) Acer X223 monitor sells for about $160. (If that’s too big for you, the
19-inch X193, which also garners terrific reviews, is
about $120.)
REALTOR®-to-REALTOR®
Courtesy APC
accessibletech
6. Get an uninterruptable power supply.
If you have a desktop computer, dump your power strip
or surge suppressor. Get a UPS. Blackout? You’ll have
time to shut down without losing work. Power flicker?
You’re unaffected. And it will actually protect your equipment from surges.
See, the dirty secret about surge suppressors is that the
crucial component in them (called metal oxide varistors)
wear out a bit after each surge. When the MOVs fail —
and thus the protection fails — there’s no way to know.
“Protection Active” lights will still glow green. So old
surge suppressors probably don’t do a thing.
7. Buy a domain name.
No, there’s nothing wrong with being jane@bigrealtyco.
com or [email protected]. But you might leave your
company and you might leave Gmail. Owning your own
domain name means having an e-mail address for life:
[email protected] or [email protected].
Owning a domain will set you back about $8 or $10 a
year. It’ll cost another $4 a month for Web hosting, which
you’ll need for e-mail even if you don’t create a Web site.
Companies like A Small Orange (asmallorange.com),
JustHost (justhost.com), and HostGator (hostgator.com)
make the process relatively painless, and will happily set it
up to auto-renew so you never have to think about it.
8. Upgrade your keyboard and mouse.
To advertise in Commonwealth
magazine, contact Brittany
Sullivan at 410-584-1968 or
[email protected].
14 JULY/AUGUST 2009
The 50-cent keyboard and 75-cent mouse that come standard with most computers are adequate, in the sense that
a 1982 Chevy Citation will get you to work as well as a
2010 Porsche 911 Carerra. For things you use every day,
though, why settle for the Citation?
Better mice and keyboards are more comfortable to
use, are easier on your wrists, and can offer functions that
make using your computer easier — controls for playing
music and extra buttons for common tasks, for starters.
But it’s also a matter of feel. Try out a top-of-the-line
Logitech VX Revolution mouse (or Key Tronic Designer
keyboard), and the cheap plastic thing that came with
your Dell will seem, well, cheap and plastic. And don’t
you deserve better? l
www.VARealtor.com
won’t you develop solid connections, you won’t be taking
advantage of what you know about them.
Sales require connections.
Connections require relationships.
Relationships require knowledge.
Getting personal
PICTURE THIS: YOU walk into a room. A woman comes
up to you. You recognize her, but only just. Then a tiny
voice whispers in your ear: “That’s Margaret Johannson.
You met her last fall at the SPCA fundraiser. She owned
a florist, retired last year. Husband died three years ago.
She was thinking of moving to a smaller house closer to
the shore.”
What would have been a generic conversation —
“Nice to see you again” — becomes a genuine connection: “How’s retirement? Did you ever get a place by the
water?” And so on.
When you’re in sales, it’s obvious which is better.
It’s the difference between an address book and what’s
called customer relationship management. CRM. A fancy
term for “knowing a lot about your customers and using
that knowledge to serve them better.”
It’s why your business depends on you using more than
a Rolodex and your memory.
Contact information isn’t enough anymore.
A mailing list isn’t enough.
Microsoft Outlook isn’t enough.
Your business depends in the short term on recruiting
clients, and in the long term on keeping them connected
to you. If you treat all your customers alike, not only
16 JulY/AuGusT 2009
If you have a small client list and like it that way, you
probably know most of the people you work with by
name. Barry Bridges, a broker at Weichert, Realtors® –
Bridges & Co., in Smith Mountain Lake, fits into that
category. He doesn’t use CRM because, he says, he
doesn’t need it.
“We’re a little different here,” he says. “Being a retirement destination type area, we have a tendency to get a
little bit closer to the client. In one-on-one relationships,
we just kind of become friends with our clients and end
up being in the Lions Club together.”
If you know all your clients and most of your potential
clients by name, more power to ya. But that’s not most
people. Most Realtors® can’t keep everyone in their heads.
That’s what CRM software is for.
And no, Outlook doesn’t count. Outlook is a contact
manager — a “glorified Rolodex” in the words of Gary
Hall, real estate CRM consultant and former real estate
agent.
“Outlook doesn’t help with follow-up or transaction
management,” he says. “It doesn’t help you remember
anything about these people — no notes on conversations
with them.”
And that’s the idea of CRM: You know a lot about
each of your customers, and that you use that information
to interact with each one of them in the best possible way.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all world anymore.
Every bit of information you have about your clients
makes it easier to personalize your contact — the message
you send and the method you send it.
Personalized contact makes you stand out.
You become their Realtor®, not a Realtor®.
www.VAReAlToR.Com
Knowledge is power
Not every CRM product is the same, of course, and it’s
beyond the scope of this piece to review or recommend
specific software. (Besides, one size doesn’t fit all.) But
they share some common features and offer some common possibilities.
Customer relationship management software lets you
enter and update detailed information about each of your
clients — much more than simply how to reach them.
(CRM systems geared toward Realtors® may track not
only clients but MLS listings as well.) It can then let you
use the information in a variety of ways to cement or
further your relationship.
The idea is that CRM is about more than collecting
lots of data. It’s about being smart enough to know what
it means and how to use it.
In a Rolodex or electronic address book, every entry
(i.e., every person) is a separate entity, unconnected from
everyone and everything else. When August 8 rolls around,
your Rolodex doesn’t know that it’s John Doe’s birthday.
When you get a new listing for a four-bedroom ranch,
Outlook doesn’t know that Jane Smith is looking for one.
CRM, on the other hand, is all about connecting the
dots — and knowing the differences between them.
If you want to send a monthly message, you can do a
mail merge. But if you want to send specific messages to
specific types of clients, you have to sort them yourself.
CRM software, though, is built to do different things for
different types of clients. It lets you group them anyway
you like, then treat each group the right way.
And because CRM software lets you track all your
client interactions, you can easily see exactly how you’ve
worked with every one.
A decent customer service department at, say, a bank
or credit card company, tracks all your contact with
the company. They can tell you “I see you called back
in March…” or “We sent that letter out on Thursday.”
That’s CRM, tracking their interactions with you, allowing them to (in theory) give you better service.
Volume 16 ● Issue 4
Keep in mind
CRM initiatives often fail because implementation was limited to software installation, without providing the context,
support and understanding for employees to learn, and
take full advantage of the information systems. —Darrell K.
Rigby, Frederick F. Reichheld, and Phil Schefter, “Avoid the
four perils of CRM,” Harvard Business Review
With a handful of clients, you can do that kind of thing
in your head. With more than a handful, you need help.
Get the data out of your head.
Get it into an organized system.
Once it’s there, you can do magic.
Business intelligence
Knowledge isn’t intelligence, of course. Knowledge is just
a collection of facts. Intelligence — which is more useful
— is about using those facts. And CRM is about collecting
lots of facts and then turning some intelligence on them.
Take a basic example. You have two pieces of information: today’s date and your clients’ birthdays. Add some
(very) basic intelligence and you can have a reminder to
send a card or a note — the ol’ tickler file. You can do
that with Outlook or a paper calendar, of course.
You can also do better. If you want to dazzle your
clients, you need to expand beyond those very basics.
“The old days of having a tickler file and all that — it’s
over,” says Tina Merritt, a Realtor® with Long & Foster
in Virginia Beach. “Yes, a Rolodex doesn’t cost a lot of
money but it does cost a lot in terms of time.”
In other words, a good CRM system will do some
of that dazzling for you.
If you had a perfect memory you could keep it all in
your head.
You don’t have a perfect memory.
Ticklers, for example, can go beyond the basic of
reminding you of a particular date.
JULY/AUGUST 2009 17
With CRM, the “trigger” can be more than a date.
Events can trigger other events — a new listing, a certain
amount of time passes, or something you enter into the
system. Unlike in a Rolodex, CRM data are connected.
That’s what gives the system its power.
A simple example: You enter the preferred contact
method for each of your clients. Then, once a month,
anyone who had “E-mail” checked would receive a message — a personalized one, of course. But the people who
chose “Paper mail” — and only those people — would be
incorporated into a mail merge when you sent something
by snail mail. Can you say, “postage savings”?
A more complex example: When you enter a new listing (or, possibly, when one appears in your MLS), your
CRM system might compare certain information about
it — location, type of building, number of bedrooms,
whatever — with your client base, then find matches.
Ergo, you don’t need to keep all your clients’ needs in
your head at all times.
Taking the idea of a tickler file to the next level is just
the start of what a CRM can do.
Because it lets you describe your clients in more detail,
CRM lets you treat them each differently. Current
clients want status updates; potential clients just need
a gentle reminders.
Good touch
Gone are the days when the ways of reaching your
clients were limited; it’s not just mail, in person, or
phone anymore. Add e-mail, Facebook, instant messages,
text messages....
With some clients, of course, the old ways work
perfectly. And adding e-mail to the mix certainly makes
things easier and faster. And kids these days, well, they
want more.
“If you don’t practice real estate the way your clients
do,” says Shawn Harris, owner and broker at Exit Metro
Realty in Alexandria, “if you can’t communicate with
them the way they want to be communicated with, you’ll
look like a dinosaur.”
It’s not just about sending a text message to their
smartphone. It’s about the right medium and the right
message. The personalized message.
At one end of the spectrum is the mass mailing — the
generic newsletter stuffed into an envelope with an Avery
address label.
The next step: Mail merging that letter so your clients’
names appear in the greeting (“Dear Joe…”).
Then you get into automatically-generated e-mails —
for example, when a new property matches certain clients’
interests. And then there’s personalized mail based on
Some CRM Tools
There are a lot of CRM and contact management tools out
there, although only about 40 are geared to the real estate
industry, according to Gary Hall, who runs GaryDavidHall.com,
where he reviews and sells software for Realtors®.
Here are four that tend to get a lot of attention.
1. Advantage XI
One of Gary Hall’s favorites (he said it’s easy to use and easy to
learn), it has both PC- and Web-based features. They include
contact management (naturally); built-in e-mail, calendar, and
desktop publisher; and a long list from the company:
• Inbound and outbound referrals
• Lead source and result tracking
• Customizable contact reports and graphs
• Mail Merge with internal word processor or Microsoft Word
• Direction mapping with Yahoo Maps
• Property information (with real estate module)
• Loan information (with lender module)
• Title work (with title reps module)
On the Web: advantagexi.com/advantagexi.htm
18 JULY/AUGUST 2009
2. Agent Office
RE/MAX adopted this package, which has a long and solid
track record. It’s also well documented, with plenty of training
materials to help you get the most from it. Besides the usual
contact-management features, the company says it lets you…
• Track a variety of your activities, as well as appointments,
deadlines, and to-do lists
• Develop professional-quality letters, flyers, postcards,
and brochures
•C
reate impressive competitive marketing analysis
presentations
•M
anage your online communications in one central location
•S
ave contact information from Internet leads and follow-up
with a single click
•S
ynchronize with other PCs and handheld devices including
Blackberrys.
On the Web: www.realtystar.com
www.VARealtor.com
categories of clients — one message for those interested in
the West End, one for those interested in the East End. Or
one for buyers and one for sellers.
Segregation and customization.
You put in the work up front — deciding how you
want to divide your clients (“hot Internet lead,” “warm
referral”), what your communications plans are (followups, birthday cards, etc.), and the best way to carry them
out. Then your CRM software takes it from there.
Clients in different stages of the relationship also need
different information. For those you just want to keep in
occasional contact with, you might use a “drip” marketing campaign, with messages sent out — by whatever
means — only occasionally.
(Shameless plug: VAR members have free use of Client
Direct, which allows you to create and mail custom newsletters to your clients: www.VARealtor.com/clientdirect.)
Some CRM systems offer a way for clients to connect
through the Web. Harris uses the Relay Transaction
System (www.rebt.com), for example. It automatically
updates her clients on the status of a sale (or purchase),
and allows them to check in whenever they like via the
Web. “When you enroll a client or transaction in to
Relay, if you update it, for instance with ‘Hi Tom and Jo,
termite inspection was done today and was fine,’ if you
don’t reach them or they can’t call you, they can check
Relay and see what’s going on,” he explained.
CRM software, no matter how sophisticated, can at
most do only what you ask it to — which means you
need to think about how and when you reach out to
your clients and potential clients. There’s work up front,
but a lot more time savings — and client impressions —
in the bargain.
Nothing can ever replace a firm handshake, a personal
call, and a smooth sale. So doesn’t it make sense to focus
on those things, not record-keeping and mail managment?
“The whole point of CRM is efficiency,” says Gary
Hall. “Getting more efficient means you have more time for
business.” The most common excuse he hears from Realtors®
who aren’t upgrading their contacts to a CRM system: “I
don’t have the time.”
His response: “Nobody has the time — you have to make
the time.” l
3. Real Future CRM
4. Top Producer
There’s a free version of this Web-based Realtor®-focused
CRM package, and the creators hope you’ll like it enough to
upgrade to either the Pro or Team edition. Some features,
according to the company:
• Print a list of today’s calls, appointments, and tasks.
• Assign the right follow up process to each prospect.
• Keep owners up to date on your marketing and closing of
their homes.
• Send an e-mail blast about your new listing to hundreds
of prospects.
• Receive instant notice of new leads that go directly into
your database.
• Mine your database to discover what client segment
generated the most business.
• Have contacts automatically added to and deleted from
mailing lists based on a dozen characteristics.
• See property values, price trends, mortgage rates, maps of
your listings and transactions, and industry news.
On the Web: realfuturecrm.com/public
Probably the best known CRM for the real estate business, it
offers a host of features and related products for marketing,
Web-site building, integration with MLS, an online postcardmailing system and more — too much to fit in this space. Basic
features, according to the company:
• Lead and contact management
• Time and task management
• Prospecting and marketing
• Listing and buyer presentations
• Listing and closing management
• Industry integration
On the Web: topproducer.com
“
It’s about the right medium and the right
message. The personalized message.”
Volume 16 ● Issue 4
JULY/AUGUST 2009 19
realtycheck
GARY DUDA
On the shoulders of giants: advice for new brokers
Generation Gap
Choose your agents wisely:
Kurt Negaard
With age comes wisdom, right?
Or does it just mean you get stuck
in a rut? What’s more valuable:
the experience of a, um, seasoned
broker, or the fresh ideas of one
who’s new to the game?
Answer: both. But not
everyone realizes it.
So we sent our intrepid
Realtor ®-on-the-street reporter,
Gary Duda, to ask new brokers
and experienced ones: What
advice would you give the other
group? Here’s what he found.
Napier Realtors ERA, Midlothian
If only he could go back to his early broker days and advise
himself, Kurt Negaard says he’d tell his younger self to focus
more on the quality of his new agents and practice better time
management.
“I would look very hard at who you bring on and make sure they are individuals
who are driven, who are outgoing, and who are willing to work and put in some
major hours early in their career,” he says.
Looking for agents who understand that “You have to spend money to make
money” is also a key — agents need to know you can’t be successful on a shoestring budget.
New brokers need to be aware of how much time is involved in managing an
office, particularly the selling brokers. You have to manage your hours well, he says,
because sometimes “it seems like the there’s not enough time in the day.”
And, he says, if a problem comes up, don’t automatically rush to the defense of
your agent. There usually is another side to every story.
“You need to listen to both sides of the story before you make a determination
on anything,” says Negaard. “You want to back up your agents, but there is always
another side to the story. It could have been your agent who screwed up.”
Make the office a sanctuary:
Gary Foster
RE/MAX 1st Olympic Realtors®,
Lynchburg
New brokers need to work to keep a positive office atmosphere, says Gary Foster.
Agents have enough chaos in their day;
being at the office needs to be an enjoyable experience.
“We think of our office as a sanctuary,” Foster says. “It’s
brutal enough out in the public. When the agents come back
to the office it’s a place to rejuvenate and revitalize and pick
up on the positive energy of your fellow associates.”
Foster would also advise new brokers to keep a hands-on
approach to training and conduct regular training sessions.
Open forums are good ideas, too. They allow agents to come
together and bring to the table what’s on their mind.
And, of course, keeping a high quality work force is
important in any office.
“Don’t lower the bar or lower the standards for accepting
new associates,” says Foster. “That can affect your existing
associates.”
20 JULY/AUGUST 2009
Give the personal touch:
Mike Lafoon
Coldwell Banker Lafoon Realty, Farmville
In his 49 years in the business, Mike
Lafoon says communication is the key
to running an office. Just talking to his
staff, he says, has helped keep a consistent
group of happy agents.
“Managers need to spend a lot of time with their agents,”
says Lafoon. “Compliment the job they are doing and let
them know that you appreciate what they are doing.”
Lafoon also emphasizes training. The world of real
estate has gotten much more complicated than it used to
be. A good broker needs to stay on top of changes.
“When I started 49 years ago the business was fairly
simple,” he says. “We had five real estate agents in town.
We did not have an MLS. We had a one-page listing agreement and we had a one-page contract.”
A broker has to make sure everyone likes where they
work. So you need to set some ground rules.
“We try to avoid any confrontations in the office,” says
Lafoon. “One of the first things we tell our agents when
we hire them is that we have a good relationship within
these walls and we expect that to continue.”
www.VARealtor.com
Agents have
lives, too:
Pat Bailey
Coldwell Banker
Countryside,
Smith Mountain
Lake
Pat Bailey says that a new broker
needs to be attuned to what is going
on in her agents’ lives. There are all
sorts of distractions that can affect an
agent’s business.
“Listen more and make time to talk
individually with your agents,” she
says. “There are a lot of outside things
happening in agents’ lives that you
don’t know about. By taking the time
to talk to them, you help them be
more productive.”
“
I’d say a good thing to do
is listen more and make
time to talk individually
with your agents.”
The personal issues that can derail
an agent could be divorce or financial
problems — or they just may get easily discouraged. Giving some added
attention not only helps keep agents
on track, it lets them know that their
broker cares — which goes a long way
toward keeping good agents.
It’s also a good idea to make certain there are not any agents who are
working against a broker’s efforts to
grow an office. Bailey says that her 20
years as a broker have taught her that
you have to watch out for the negative agents.
“There is always one in every group
that will discourage other people,” she
says. “Always look out for that negative agent and try to weed them out
of your office as quickly as possible.
Usually the negative agents are the
ones who aren’t productive anyway.”
Volume 16 ● Issue 4
Back Atcha: a message to the those
who have come before
Learn from others: Jonathan Kauffman
Nest Realty, Charlottesville
‘Learn new ways of doing the business’ is a tip for brokers of
all levels, says Kauffman. A first-year broker, he says brokers
need to avail themselves of new teaching methods. And yes,
that even means learning about blogs.
“The amazing thing is that I can be sitting in Charlottesville at ten o’clock at night and educating myself from brokers in California or
Florida,” he says. And yes, he encourages agents to maintain their own blogs.
Then there’s the team environment. There should be more of it.
“It’s seems when we start up in the business real estate is an individual
sport,” he says. “We are all trying to make money for ourselves, but if we can
work together as a team and share ideas and help each other, then everyone is
going to be more successful and productive.”
Learn the tech:
Scott Ruth
Long & Foster,
Richmond
Embrace new technologies — that’s the
advice Ruth would
pass along to his senior counterparts.
A broker for four years, Ruth says
that knowing the available online marketing tools out there is crucial. So while
YouTube (for video), Facebook (for
communities), and texting and Twitter
(to get messages out quickly) may seem
daunting to an older broker, they need
to understand what it’s all about.
“Whether they choose to use those
functions or not,” Ruth says, “they have
to have an understanding of how to use
them and how they affect their agents’
business.” Or else, “Their clients will
find agents who have the same understanding of technology that they have.”
And, he says, don’t be afraid of
learning from the people you work
with: “A broker’s greatest source of
learning is from his agents and what
they have learned.”
Stay active: Rick Sterling
Exit Realty Professionals, Virginia Beach
As a new broker, Rick Sterling believes staying active in buying and selling keeps brokers in touch with the challenges
their agents face. He’s been in the business for 23 years, but
a broker less than a year.
Too many brokers, he says, forget how difficult it was
to be an agent, because they no longer leave their office to show homes, do
inspections, or set up showings.
“I think it’s too easy to say ‘Well, just do this’ or ‘This is the way I used to
do it’,” he says. “The way we used to do it may not work anymore.”
Staying active in sales helps him understand his agents’ day-to-day issues. “It’s
too easy to lose touch unless you’re out there with your fingers in the pie,” he
says. (But never at the expense of managing your brokerage and your agents.) l
JULY/AUGUST 2009 21
rpacreport
GOLDEN R INVESTORS ($5,000)
As of June 25, 2009, the following
REALTORS® and local associations
have joined RPAC of Virginia as
Major Investors. For more information on the value of RPAC and how
your investment works to protect
your business, contact Meredith
Cox at [email protected] or
(804) 264-5033. Or, if you want
to get invested today, please visit
rpacofva.com.
Linda Belcher-Brown
Coldwell Banker
Residential
Manassas
Charles Burnette
Burnette Real
Estate Sales
Blacksburg
John Dickinson
Hall Associates Inc.
Union Hall
Dorcas Helfant-Browning
Coldwell Banker
Professional
Virginia Beach
William Chorey
Chorey & Associates Realty
Suffolk
Dedicated in the memory
of Peggy B. Byrd
Dennis Cronk
Poe & Cronk Real
Estate Group
Roanoke
Steve Hoover
MKB, REALTORS®
Roanoke
Thomas Jefferson, III*
Joyner Fine Properties
Richmond
Melanie Thompson
Century 21
AdVenture Realty
Fredericksburg
Jack Torza
Long & Foster
REALTORS®
Mechanicsville
Todd Rogers
Hometown Realty
Mechanicsville
Dee Spraker
Keller Williams Realty
Manassas
*Hall of Famers
have contributed a
cumulative amount
of at least $25,000
to RPAC.
John McEnearney
McEnearney
Associates, Inc.
Alexandria
GOLDEN R ASSOCIATION ($5,000)
Fredericksburg Area Association
of REALTORS®, Fredericksburg
Northern Virginia Association
of REALTORS®, Fairfax
Richmond Association of
REALTORS®, Richmond
Roanoke Valley Association of
REALTORS®, Roanoke
Williamsburg Area Association of
REALTORS®, Williamsburg
22 JULY/AUGUST 2009
Stanley Palivoda
Century 21 Battlefield –
Tappahannock
Dahlgren
Tom Stevens*
Coldwell Banker
Residential
Vienna
CRYSTAL R INVESTORS ($2,500-$4,999)
Angela Dougherty
William E. Wood
& Associates
Williamsburg
Mike Minnery
RE/MAX Allegiance
Woodbridge
www.VARealtor.com
STERLING R INVESTORS ($1,000–$2,499)
Julia Avent
Re/Max Allegiance
Arlington
S. Scott Avery
Avery Hess,
Realtors®
Dunn Loring
Wayne Babb
Re/Max Allegiance
Alexandria
Jerry Bartlett
Jobin Realty
Alexandria
Bob Barton
Barton Real
Estate Services
Richmond
Mary Ann Bendinelli
Weichert Realtors®
Manassas
Charles Bengel
RE/MAX Allegiance
Alexandria
Laura Benjamin
Roanoke Valley Association
of REALTORS®
Roanoke
Bob Blount
Re/Max Allegiance
Virginia Beach
Karen Bohlke Enriquez
Re/Max Select
Hampton
Michael Bosley
Re/Max Allegiance
Alexandria
R. Scott Brunner
Virginia Association
of REALTORS®
Glen Allen
Mary Dykstra
RE/MAX Valley
Realtors®
Roanoke
Angela Eliopoulos
Long & Foster
Real Estate, Inc.
Washington, DC
Sandee Ferebee
Prudential Towne
Realty
Virginia Beach
David Charron
MRIS
Rockville, MD
Benton Downer
Callie Dalton
Callie Dalton & Associates Downer & Associates
Charlottesville
Roanoke
Claire Forcier-Rowe
Coldwell Banker Elite
Fredericksburg
Libby Gatewood
Legacy Properties
Colonial Heights
Bill Gearhart
Coldwell Banker
Townside
Roanoke
Charlee Gowin
Prudential Towne
Realty
Virginia Beach
Kit Hale
MKB, Realtors®
Roanoke
Margaret Handley
M.C. Handley, Ltd.
McLean
Tom Innes
RE/MAX
Commonwealth
Richmond
Pat Jensen
Real Estate III - North
Charlottesville
Jo Anne Johnson
Westgate Realty
Group, Inc.
Falls Church
Betty Kingery
Lake Realty
Rocky Mount
Patricia Kline
Avery Hess Realtors®
Springfield
Luis Lama
Long & Foster
Real Estate
Falls Church
Volume 16 ● Issue 4
JULY/AUGUST 2009 23
rpacreport
STeRLING R INVeSToRS ($1,000–$2,499)
Barbara Jean LeFon
Rivah Realty
Montross
Andy Mason
Weichert Mason-Davis
Company, Inc.
Onancock
Kayvan Mehrbaksh
Sperry Van Ness
Vienna
Susan Mekenney
RE/MAX Allegiance
Fairfax
Tom Meyer
Condo 1, Inc.
Falls Church
Lee Odems
Buyer’s Advantage
Real Estate
Woodbridge
Gwen Pangle
Long & Foster
Real Estate, Inc.
Sterling
Gail Penman
Century 21
New Millennium
Stafford
Tracy Pless
Long & Foster
Real Estate
Reston
John Powell
Long & Foster Real
Estate, Inc.
Colonial Heights
Jane Quill
RE/MAX Presidential
Fairfax
Anne Rector
Long & Foster
Real Estate
Alexandria
Peter Rickert
Coldwell Banker
Residential Brokerage
Alexandria
Zinta Rodgers-Rickert
Re/Max Allegiance
Fairfax
Henry Scholz
Hall Associates Inc.
Roanoke
Cindy Stackhouse
Century 21 Stackhouse
& Associates
Dumfries
Mack Strickland
Strickland Realty
Chester
Trish Szego
ERA - Elite Group
Realtors®
Haymarket
STeRLING R ASSocIATIoN ($1,000–$2,499)
Greater Augusta Association of ReALToRS®, Staunton
Virginia Peninsula Association of ReALToRS®, Hampton
Christine Todd
Northern Virginia
Association of Realtors®
Fairfax
24 JULY/AUGUST 2009
Todd Wampler
Wampler Realty, Inc.
Daleville
Clifford Wells
Century 21
Nachman Realty
Norfolk
Contributions are not deductible for income tax purposes.
Contributions to RPAC are voluntary and are used for political purposes. The amount suggested is merely a guideline and
you may contribute more or less than the suggested amount.
You may refuse to contribute without reprisal and the National
Association of REALTORS® or any of its state associations or
local boards will not favor or disfavor any member because of
the amount contributed. 70% of each contribution is used by
your state PAC to support state and local political candidates.
Until your state PAC reaches its RPAC goal 30% is sent to
National RPAC to support federal candidates and is charged
against your limits.
www.VAReALToR.com
varbuzzcontest
HERE’S YOUR CHANCE to win a cool HD video camera just
for reading this magazine and VARbuzz, our official blog
and ‘water cooler.’
It works like this: Answer the questions below by reading this issue of Commonwealth. On August 10, go to
www.VARbuzz.com. There you’ll read simple instructions
(e.g., “Take the first letter of each word to spell out
the answer” or “What’s the opposite of answer
#3?”). That will give you the final answer and
instructions for sending it in.
We’ll take the first 20 entries with
all the answers correct and draw
one randomly. That winner gets
a Flip Mino HD video camera.
Simple, huh?
Notes: This contest is only open to
current members of the Virginia
Association of REALTORS®.
Contest winners must skip two
issues before they’re eligible to win
again. All decisions about correct
answers rest with VAR staff, and
are final. Bribes are accepted but
not acted upon.
This issue’s questions:
1. What firm does Shawn Harris own? (Cover story)
2. What words were replaced by the phrase “the purchaser
or borrower is” in VAR Form 600? (Form Factor)
3. What brand of blank disks to archive geeks consider the
best? (Accessible Tech)
4. Text was added to the standard residential disclosure
statement regarding what kind of facilities? (Quick Hits)
5. What does Scott Brunner say he never gets invitations to
at his sons’ school? (Last Word)
1.
Realty
2.
3.
4.
5.
Remember: Hang onto this form until August 10,
when you’ll get final instructions at VARbuzz.com
and can fill in the…
FINAL ANSWER:
Last issue’s winner:
Sarah Hutchinson, Keller Williams Richmond West
Last issue’s answers:
1. The four-letter acronym for NAR’s new health
insurance program: RCHI
2. The man who won a $100 ExxonMobil gas card and a
$25 Starbucks gift card: Gary Dogon
3. The name of the NAR leadership team’s blog:
Voices of Real Estate
4. The fictional musical Scott Brunner suggested NPR’s
fundraising was like: Root Canal: The Musical
5. The group Victor Lund is founding partner of:
The WAV Group
The instructions given on VARbuzz were very complex — add this, subtract that, turn to this page, take the
square root, etc. — but the first one instructed you to
“Read all these instructions carefully before proceeding.”
That’s because instruction #17 was “Ignore the previous
instructions.” Instead, all you had to do was turn to the
back cover and name the person with the name badge:
Peggy Parker.
Congrats to all those who got it, and apologies to those
who didn’t read those instructions carefully.
The final answer: Peggy Parker ●
26 JULY/AUGUST 2009
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Advanced Access
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Bank of America, WorldPoints Credit Card
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Security Code SC1795VR
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To reach our Legal
Resources Center
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Call (800) 755-8271*
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at www.VARealtor.com —
click Member Services
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Home, Auto & Renters Insurance
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& Document Translation
Promotion Code VARM08
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E&O, Medical, Life, Dental Insurance
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Medical Expense Tax Benefits
Our CEO is Scott Brunner
(804) 249-5712
[email protected]
Volume 16 ● Issue 4
T-Mobile, Wireless Service
VAR Wireless Center (Coming soon)
Wireless Plans & Hardware
Zipform, Electronic Forms Solutions
For information about RPAC
Ask for Meredith Cox,
Director of Political Communications
[email protected]
VAR 2009 Leadership Team
John Powell, GRI,
ABR, CRB, CRS
President
Long and Foster
Real Estate,
Colonial Heights
(804) 520-5600
john.powell@longand
foster.com
Cindy Stackhouse, GRI
President-Elect
Century 21 Stackhouse and Associates
Prince William
(703) 580-0880 [email protected]
John Dickinson, CCIM, GRI
Vice President
Hall Associates, Inc., Roanoke
(540) 982-0011 [email protected]
John Daly
Treasurer
GSH Real Estate
(757) 481-8461 [email protected]
Pat Jensen, ABR, CBR, CRS, GRI
Immediate Past President
Real Estate III – North Charlottesville
(434) 817-9200 [email protected]
R. Scott Brunner, CAE
Chief Executive Officer
(804) 264-5033 [email protected]
JULY/AUGUST 2009 27
lastword
SCOTT BRUNNER
Don’t know much about history…
How I’m not smarter than my two fifth graders
If you really want to feel stupid,
hang out with an 11-year-old. Better
yet, twin 11-year-olds. Specifically,
my sons, Pate and Jackson, those
identical fonts of perpetual, peculiar,
preposterous questions.
Here I am, a reasonably savvy,
decently educated, youngish-in-adelusional-sort-of-way 45-year-old
man, done in by the queries those
boys lob at me.
I swear they should grow up to
be pollsters.
Forget deep existential, ecclesiastical questions about life under the
sun. No “Dad, what is the meaning
of life?” or “Is this really all there
is?” or even “Where do the words
go when you erase a chalkboard?”
(Granted, that last one isn’t exactly
existential, but it does have a certain
ponderous quality to it.)
Instead, there’s a delicious randomness to the kind of thought processes that offer up such jewels as “If
you swallow a burp does it come out
the other end?” and “Do Ukrainians
ever cut their grass?”
Basically, their questions seem to
be of three broad varieties — and one
rather narrow, recurring one.
28 JULY/AUGUST 2009
There are the obscurely factual
inquiries — questions for which
there’s surely a legitimate, scientifically proven answer; I just don’t
happen to know it:
How are we related to your first
cousins? (They’re your first cousins,
once removed… I think. Maybe.)
Which came first, airplanes or
dirigibles? (Beats me. Let’s Google it.)
Can a person bench press more
than his body weight? (Not this
person.)
Why do some animals die after
giving birth? (To avoid questions
like these?)
They also gravitate toward “this
or that” or “what’s your favorite?”
questions, forcing me to make choices
on matters about which I really have
no strong feeling:
Would you rather live in Africa
or Asia? (Asia, but only if the
Ukrainians agree to keep their grass
cut.) (Wait, they’re in Eastern Europe,
aren’t they? Okay. Asia it is.)
Who was a better president,
Reagan or Clinton? (Go ask your
mother.)
What’s your favorite ’80s band?
(That would be Journey. No, wait:
Huey Lewis & the News. I mean…
er… heck, I dunno! Why are you
doing this to me?)
Not least, there are the
outlandish situations they contrive — insidious little verbal
Rorschach tests that secretly I
worry may be intended to elicit
clues about my own fatherly
inadequacy:
If an airplane flew over
a volcano at the moment
it erupted, what would
happen to the airplane? ([Insert
mumbled, disjointed comment about
modern technology helping avoid
such situations here.])
Dad, if you were a lizard, would
you eat a fly? (For the record: No,
I’d wait for evolution to grow me the
appendages necessary to wield utensils, then get myself to Ruth’s Chris
for a real meal.)
And then the recurring, profoundly
inexplicable question, which takes a
number of forms, but always focuses
on a central theme:
Dad, what is your job? What do
you do at work everyday? Do they
pay you just to go to meetings? (I
suspect this explains why I never
get invitations to Career Day at
their school.)
The thing is, when you’re 11 years
old, Dads are supposed to know this
stuff, to have answers, to be a rock
of reliability in the choppy, uncertain
seas of childhood. Some days I don’t
feel much like a rock. Yet despite all
my stupidity — those occasionally
vague or dismissive or downright
wrong answers I spout — they
keep coming back, ready to give me
another chance, assured in their own
minds that I may not exactly be the
expert, but I’m what they’ve got, and
I’m trying, and maybe that’s enough.
I can live with that.
Dad, what’s your favorite Elton
John song? (Easy: I’m Still Standing.)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. l
Scott Brunner, CAE
is VAR’s chief executive officer. E-mail
him your ponderous
questions at scott@
varealtor.com.
www.VARealtor.com