LAST DAY TO VOTE!

PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO VOTE FOR LAR 2009 OFFICERS & DIRECTORS.

The internet link and your personal numbers for voting are being sent to you again. You have until 5:00 PM, today, to cast your ballot.

Special “Thank You” to those members that have voted.

Click here to login to vote!

If you are a real estate agent who is also a licensed insurance agent in the State of California, we’d like to talk to you.

Contact Duke Leffler today to find out how to take advantage of your unique situation and add value to your business with PMZ Insurance Services.

Duke’s Direct Line: (209) 491-3414
Duke’s Email: duke@pmz.com

I know it’s kind of cheesy, ‘Get Smart,’ but if you’re interested in saving 40/45 MPG and would like a car you can park in practically any space, then this might be the solution for you.

Meet smart, the $11,000 car from Mercedes-Benz.

It features:

• 40 city 45 highway gas mileage
• air bags
• 3-cylinder engine, 5-speed automatic transmission
• 12cu. ft of trunk storage
• A/C optional
• Top speed 90MPH
• 0-60 in 12.8 sec.
• ABS

If you aren’t already feeling the crunch in gas prices, I’m sure by the middle of summer when gas prices have increased well over $4, this little car might start looking a little more attractive.

Thanks to Matt Keenan for submitting this one.

The Board of Directors of the Lodi Association of Realtors would like to meet with real estate agents and other new members to LAR throughout the area to discuss current services or ideas for new services LAR should provide.

The meeting will be held Friday, February 8th, 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM, at the Holiday Inn Express, 4300 Bangs Ave, Modesto - in the Central Valley Room.

LAR will be providing with pizza, salad & dessert. Please RSVP no later than Monday, Feb. 4th by email or by calling 209 (368-5316).

Along with suggestions on services, LAR would be glad to answer any questions about membership in LAR.

As published in RISMEDIA -January 2008.

The story of Starbucks is a wonderful example of reaching out and taking what you want, of perseverance, of holding that unquestionable desire close to your heart and never loosing focus of your desire. Howard Schulz created the culture known as Starbucks and turned that into a billion dollar retail operation, making a four dollar cup of coffee part of our way of life.

Schulz began his career selling coffeemakers, leading him to visit one his best customers, Starbucks and Co. in Seattle, which sold coffeemakers, beans and took great pride in educating their customers on the virtues of brewing. He fell in love with Seattle and the warm and loving family business. He lobbied to work for them, urging, persuading, cajoling, and persisting for one year until they finally hired him as director of marketing and operations in 1982. He says, “Life is a series of near misses. But a lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It’s seizing the day and accepting responsibility for our future.”

Forecasters who are looking ahead to 2008 see greener homes, high-tech comfort, and still-flat market.

Here are three key trends in the housing market that they observe:

* The color of the year is green. Surveys indicate that people will pay up to $5,000 for “greening” a home, says David Pratt, a principal in the Lorax Partnership consulting firm and president of the Baltimore chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. “Green is in because there is a higher level of awareness now of the issues surrounding the environment and, specifically, global warming.”

* High-tech comfort is in. Demand is on the upswing for amenities such as massaging bubble jets in tubs, mirrors with built-in, vanishing television screens,; super-quiet garbage disposals that are heavy-duty enough to crunch most dinner waste, dual-temperature beverage centers (warmer for wine, cooler for soda), and gas fireplaces with battery backups so they generate heat when the power goes out. “People are nesting and putting nice stuff in their houses,” says Brett Schoolnick, president of the Baywood Design & Build Group in Columbia, Md.

* Home prices will continue to fall. “The buyer has become disengaged from this market. They think prices will fall. So they wait to purchase. Then that puts downward pressure on the market,” says Anirban Basu, chief executive of the Sage Policy Group, “My sense is that the bottom of the housing market is likely to arrive sometime after 2008.”

via: The Baltimore Sun, Andrea F. Siegel

To open Microsoft Office Word 2007 .docx or .docm files with Microsoft Office Word 2003, Word 2002, or Word 2000, you need to install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for 2007 Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint File Formats and any necessary Office updates. By using the Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office system, you can open, edit some items, and save Office Word 2007 documents in previous versions of Word.

I know that it’s idiotic to have to install a program to open Microsoft Word documents, even if you already have Microsoft Word, but that’s Microsoft. (upgrade. feed the beast.)

Click here to go to the download page

The Price of the January 9th Lodi Association of Realtors’® Installation Luncheon has been CUT IN HALF! The LAR Directors decided to make it twice as easy for you to enjoy this important event. Colleen Badagliacco, 2007 President of the California Association of Realtors®, will perform the installation of our own Linda Bush as LAR’s 2008 President. It all happens Wednesday, January 9th at the Woodbridge Golf and Country Club. Excellent Food! Music! Good Fun! All at now the newly-affordable price of $25.00.

NOTE: If you’ve already paid the full $50.00 price for your luncheon ticket, you have two choices:
Either contact LAR for a refund, or bring a friend to the event! If you bring a friend, be sure to contact LAR for a ticket and seating arrangements. This noontime gathering promises to be a lot of fun.

Tickets are available now at the Lodi Association of Realtors office. Don’t delay!

Out of 15 different teams comprised of other local real estate brokerage, mortgage, and escrow companies, PMZ ranked number one this year in the annual Lodi Association of Realtors^® Can Stacking Competition for Charity.

This was all made possible by the valiant efforts of our PMZ ladies, Pam Harmon, Darcy Wendt and Kim Dale. Interestingly enough, this is reportedly only the second time the championship trophy has left Lodi since the competition was born.

Through the efforts of Harmon, Wendt and Dale, and other sponsoring companies, LAR was able to raise $18,000 dollars for donation to charitable organizations.

I can’t help but wonder, where the PMZ men were during the competition? Perhaps we will hear from them a little later on in the season? How about a little friendly competition?

‘Tis the season.

Online real estate firm Redfin offers seven recommendations for selling a home faster and for more money.

The seven tips come from an analysis of academic research, multiple listings service data, and from information posted on Redfin’s various Web sites.

1. Don’t overprice your property. According to a 2002 academic study of 3,490 California listings, homes without a price reduction sold for 97 percent of the initial list price, whereas homes with a price reduction sold for 88 percent of the initial list price.
2. Set your price to show up in Web searches. A September 2007 Redfin study analyzed how online search filters affect traffic to a listing. Because real estate sites filter on price in $25,000 or $50,000 increments, listings priced at or below these thresholds — $250,000 rather than $251,000, or $325,000 rather than $326,000 — get as much as 7.1 percent more online visits.
3. Debut on Friday. A December 2007 Redfin analysis of its online traffic for 119,079 listings across seven markets found that listings that debut on Friday get on average 7.7 percent more visitors in their first seven days than those that debut on the worst day, Thursday.
4. Get sellers engaged with your agent. According to several academic studies, motivated, active sellers are able to sell their property as much as 30 percent faster.
5. Market the property online. Promoting a listing on Web sites beyond the local Multiple Listing Service can drive a significant number of new online visits to a property. A December 2007 analysis of 121 Redfin listings found that promoting the listings on Craigslist resulted in an average of 6.8 online visits to the property for each Craigslist promotion.
6. Have sellers stay put. The study of 3,490 California listings, cited earlier, found that vacant homes were 9.5 percent more likely to undergo a price reduction.
7. Wait to list your property until neighboring foreclosures are off the market. According to a November 2007 report from the Center for Responsible Lending, a foreclosure costs neighboring home owners an average of $5,000 when listing their property.

Source: Redfin (12/14/07)