SO MANY NEWER FEATURES: roof, heat/air, hot water heater, electrical, tile, carpet, paint, and it has been reinsulated. Extras include a fenced, level yard; attic storage; storage shed; driveway for off-street parking; and a huge deck. The fun play equipment can stay. This house has 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. It is a rare find to get the whole lot level. Cathy Glass, 865-384-8636, http://CathyGlass.com

I am having an open house at 72 Valley Forge Dr., Oak Ridge, TN, on Sunday, November 9, 2008, 2-4. Come see this great floor plan. It is so much more roomy that you have imagined. There are stairs for each level, but the square footage provides so much room for everything. There are 2 1/2 baths. The backyard patio area looks out to a wooded area with the sounds of the wind and birds chirping. Come see the condo and meet me!

Yes, this is the view from the back patio!!

Cathy Glass

IT ALL ADDS UP - BIG SAVINGS WITH MORE AMENITIES. For $101, 700 you get over 1, 600 sq.ft., 3 Bedrooms, 2 1/2 Baths, Living Room, Den, Fireplace AND newer:siding, roof, heat/air, hotwater heater AND assoc. pool, tennis AND all with no outside maintenance responsibilities. Square footage taked from tax records.

I met someone from this condo association yesterday that has been there for 30 years!

Cathy Glass, 865-384-8636, http://CathyGlass.com

Meg Burns, FHA Single Family Developement, is on CSPAN answering questions. She reminds people that, through Hope for Homeowners program, conumers in trouble with their mortgage can call 1-888-995-HOPE. They will give counseling and have the capability to redo a loan. The loan amount can be reduced!

She also reminds people tha when they get in trouble with their loan to call their lender. the lender wants them to stay in their home.

Cathy Glass, Cathy@CathyGlass.com

The last talk at that Tennessee Association of REALTORS® Conference was Zan Monroe. Have you heard him? He calls himself and edutainer, and he was...both education and entertaining! One of his goals is to inspire and educate 1,000,000 people by January 1, 2010. You need to go to his website, http://ZanMonroe.com and especially this page, http://zanmonroe.com/prod_library.htm . His talk was, "World's Greatest Listing Presentation." I am going to list some of the points he made. Do make sure you go to his website, though. You will find a wealth of great information. It will surprise you.

•·         Your listing presentation has to stop every seller dead in their tracks. Make yours better or get out of the business.

•·         Use a pre-listing questionnaire by phone and have it by your phone ready to use. Reason, "I need to do some research before we get together and that research will SAVE YOU TIME AND MAKE YOU MORE MONEY."

•·         He suggests that it's a myth that sellers want us to come to their house in the evening. He believes they want to meet at the office. The reason, he says, is that they want to make sure you are legitimate, are a real company, and they can always leave if they don't like you. (I seem to hear conflicting opinions about this.)

•·         Have a pre-listing package and deliver it to them before the meeting. Put everything and anything in it that will make the seller want to work with you.

•·         Have a pre-printed resume

•·         Do a CMA for your own information.

•·         Keep pricing the house a separate issue.

•·         Use absorption rate pricing, and do a comparative market analysis, a competitive market analysis, and a continuous market analysis

•·         A 6 months supply of houses is a balanced market

•·         After 30 days the first CMA is obsolete

•·         His belief is that print marketing is dead. (That is another one I hear conflicting opinions.)

•·         Some websites he mentioned are: http://zillow.com , http://trulia.com , http://propertyshark.com , http://propsmart.com , http://redfin.com

This is not every secret he shared with us, but it gives you a taste. Go to his website for more. Cathy

This is a continuation of my report on the Tennessee Association of Realtors® Conference of last week. Steve Murray, http://RealtyTrends.com  was one of our speakers. He spoke about all the newest trends in real estate.

• He remarked that real estate has gotten more competitive since 2000, and he also said that the year 2000 was the last time that we had a normal real estate market. Statistics show that it has gone from 6 units per agent to 5 units per agent.

2005       1.4 million REALTORS®

               8.4 million transactions

2008       1.1 million REALTORS®

               5.5 million transactions

2010       6.1 million transactions projected

•          The number of real estate professionals is expected to continue to go down in the next 2 years. We are currently down 100,000-150,000.
•          Agents, firms and the whole realty industry is expected to consolidate.
•          Consumers have not been requiring high quality agents.
•          We have had 1.4 million foreclosures so far, and there are supposed to be 900,000 more before this is all over.
•          Agents will be doing more outsourcing
•          Our focus needs to be on consumers and what they want how they want it.

               Two questions he suggested asking them are

•                  What would be the perfect process to sell this home?
•                  What ticks you off about real estate agents?

               Three things they want

•                    Communication
•                    Trust
•                    Relationship

•          Agents must shift from being a real estate expert to a neighborhood and community expert.
•          There is a shift from showing and telling to listening and sharing.
•          Video is going to be big!
•          Stop doing things and stop paying for things that don't get you business.

•          Whenever someone buys or decides to use a service, they weigh three things
•    Price
•    Trust
•    Convenience

•          There are two ways to go.
•    High value, high margin, low market share
•    Different (he at first said low) value, low margin, large market share

•          Consumers prefer a one-stop shop.
•          You must be able to respond to leads.
•          In defining "full-service" let the consumer tell you what THEY mean.

The last statistic I will share in this article is that of the top 200 companies in the nation in 2007, one of them was a residential online auction company and in that year had 2,800 closings!!! Cathy Glass

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Another really great speaker we had at the Tennessee Association of Realtors® Conference was Steve Murray, http://RealTrends.com . You should check out his website for an incredible amount of real estate statistics. He spoke about the recent trend in real estate.

He said that right now it is like being in the "fog of war." And no matter what you thought about your housing market, it isn't what you thought it was going to be. We now have a less than clear picture of "WHAT WE HAVE TO DO TO WIN."

He had so much information and statistics to share. He also can value a brokerage for you before you sell it and I think even find a buyer for you. One thing that was personally interesting to me is that he was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and lived there until the age of 5.

Did you know that home sales in California are UP by 36%, but the price is DOWN by 42%?

He said there are 3 things for a broker to focus on during this time:

•·         Lead...DON'T PANIC...get back to work

•·         Reduce Costs

•·         Grow Revenues

•·         Lead

There is so much to share from his talk that I will do it in a separate post. It is getting late tonight. Cathy Glass

I have been reporting on the Tennessee Association of Realtors® Conference, and yesterday was so full that I didn't have a chance to tell about all the wonderful speakers. I don't think I ever reported on Mark Porter, who started out his talk with a video called Cell phone Karma http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFuq01NvEnA

He also told us you can get the ® character just by typing ( an "r" and then another ).

He was mainly showing us how to do a mail merge in Outlook. I work 3 hours that evening, but I still have to practice more.

•·         Compress the picture using "compress picture

•·         Text wrap a picture using "tight"

•·         You can have more than one email signature

•·         You can drag email to your contacts and it automatically makes a new contact record, cut and paste the rest

•·         You can also drag the email to tasks and calendar

•·         Use "Alt-Tab" to jump between programs

•·         Vista users try the Windows key-Tab and see what it does-pretty cool!

•·         If you sending business to personal email or email to strangers, you can type ADV: and the subject in the subject line and give them a way to opt out

•·         You can back up your computer on Mozy.com or Carbonite.com

•·         The cheapest place to buy Microsoft Office might be Sams or Cosco

Cathy Glass, Cathy@CathyGlass.com

Tennessee GRIs! Did you know that if you join the Tennessee Chapter of GRI (http://tngri.com $25) you can then attend any GRI class for free (audit) or if you need credit, you can get a $40 discount? Also, there is a new GRI 6 class, and you can take it online. Did you know that?

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Back at the Tennessee Association of Realtors Conference in Chattanooga...Pat Zaby was our speaker this morning. His talk was on "Leveraging Customer Care," and was filled with valuable information.

•·         Get birthdates

•·         Make them glad they are in your database. He mentioned a good book, The Customer Loyalty Solution by Arthur Middleton Hughes

•·         Once a year update the database with new contact information

•·         Categorize your contacts

•·         Link contacts to other contacts

•·         You can put the addresses of houses shown in notes in the contact record

•·         Use the Invite Attendees feature in Outlook

•·         Mail merge your email-no bcc

•·         Continue to mail out to your database monthly, but at least every 6 months (he said a good virtual assistant for that is http://expresscopy.com

•·         Mention referral in every mail out

•·         Meet customers for lunch twice a week

•·         Make up a customer appreciation package

•·         I think the hardest for any of us to do would be to: after the closing  "go by and visit once a week for 8 weeks!"

His website is http://PatZaby.com