Realtors Care Day-A huge success

I want to start with a huge thank you to all area Realtors who participated in working on 31 houses in the Mecklenburg and Iredell counties. A special thank you to my team at our Troutman house location! Janice Bradsher, Adam Wood, Bob Warchol, Dawn Judge, Debi Hepfer, JD Whitmire, Kelly Berry, Sheena Sutton, Michelle Nantz, Rosemary Durham, Deborah Hernandez, Dave Edwards, Jean Cable, Lyn Briggs, Rick Odem and our Project Manager Darrell Long. Ms. Julia was very happy with the work done on her behalf be these people who gave freely of their time to help someone in need. We had a very hard day of work starting out in the rain and with a delay in getting materials. In the end we took off a crumbling deck and replaced it completely, painted the entire house, added new gutter, added a crawl space door where a piece of plywood had stood for years, added shutters and replaced attic vents on both sides. It was a tired crew at the end of the day but we had a lot of fun in the process.

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A new Real Estate tax tied to health care reform

Yes, there is a provision in the thousands of lines and pages of the health care reform detailing a tax on Real Estate to help fund the cost of this sweeping health care reform. I’m not going to get into the debate here whether or not this health care reform is good or bad for our country in general but you have to be living under a rock to think there will be no new taxes to pay for it. The problem I see is there are very very few Americans that have any idea how this will be paid for or how it will affect their health care needs. I don’t think our government representatives did a very good job explaining all of this to us before passing it into law. Now I will step off my soap box and tell you what I know to be the truth about the new Real Estate tax.

First, despite some press to the contrary, it does not affect all Americans that sale a home. It only affects those who make more than the capital gain limits for exemption under the current primary residence statue of $250,000 single and $500,000 married.

Second, it does not take effect until 2012. For additional information you can review the snopes explanation.

Todd Long
Coldwell Banker United Realtors

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Realtors Care Day

Last year several hundred area Realtors pitched in with a handful of area Contractors to work on house in need of repair. This year the Realtors Care Day is Friday April 23rd. There will be 31 sites, 700 Volunteers, 32 major sponsors and 30+ General Contractors. I am the site captain for a house on Talley St. in Troutman. I’m honored to say my father, a contractor of 35 years in Concord, will be our site Project Manager. We are painting an entire house, tearing off and replacing a deck, building a crawl space door and doing a few other minor repairs. It will be a lot of work in one day but we have about 18 ready willing and able Realtors who are excited to be helping someone in need. I have already met the very nice older lady who lives in the home and she is already very appreciative of our help. Our site will be one of the two media launch sites. You may see us on tv that evening! I’m sure this year will be a huge success and we will have a lot of fun in the process.

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Real Estate Bar Camp Charlotte #REBCClt

Coming up June 11th is a free Real Estate conference focused on technology used in Real Estate. It is called a Real Estate Bar Camp. The first event last year had about 200 agents from across North and South Carolina in attendance. This year’s event will be held at the Superior School of Real Estate facility. You will find a website with lot of details at the end of this post.

If you have never attended a Bar Camp here is a brief description. Typically, as is with this Bar Camp, the event is free to participants. A Bar Camp is an Un-Conference, meaning there is no set agenda of topics before everyone arrives at the site. At the beginning of the event anyone in attendance can stand up and “pitch” an idea such as leading a discussion on the use of Twitter for Real Estate, a discussion on hot mobile applications or using Facebook for Real Estate. Whatever the hot topics are at the time typically get pitched. As each pitch is announced and briefly explained the idea is written on a large post-it note and posted on the wall at the front of the room. If I remember correctly from last year, there were about 15 potential ideas for break-out sessions posted on the wall when all pitches had been concluded. After all pitches are finished, the participates at the event will make a mark with a magic marker on each break out post-it note they find of interest. The top ideas are assigned to the 3 break out rooms, for the next 3 hours, 1 hour for each session, and off we go for the day. The person who pitched the idea doesn’t necessarily have to be the leader of the discussion but often they are. An important note: these break-out sessions should be discussions not presentations. The same process happens after lunch.

As a participates I think you will REALLY like this format because you set the agenda based on what you want to learn not what someone else determines you need to learn. Be prepared for an open discussion format where you participate in the discussion sharing your thoughts on the topic.

RSVP ASAP at http://rebarcamp.com/charlotte/ .
Also a HUGE thank you to our sponsors so far. This event can not be free to agents with out the support of our sponsors. Superior School of Real Estate, CURE, MRIS, and Davis Farrell IDX.

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