2009-07 Commonwealth

DUST BUNNIES MUST DIE (P. 12) • NEW BROKERS, LISTEN UP (P. 20)

A journal for real estate professionals published by the Virginia Association of REALTORS® • www.VARealtor.com

July/August 2009

Andrew Kantor, Editor

[email protected]

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JULY/AUGUST 2009

PUBLISHED BY THE VIRGINIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

The Business Advocate for Virginia Real Estate Professionals

John Powell, ABR, CRB, CRS, GRIPresident

Cindy Stackhouse, GRI President-Elect

John Dickinson, CCIM, GRIVice President

Pat Jensen, ABR, CRB, CRS, GRI Immediate Past President

John DalyTreasurer

R. Scott Brunner, CAEChief Executive Offi [email protected]

Ben Martin, CAEVice President, Marketing & [email protected]

Andrew Kantor Editor & Information [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 offi ce and additional mailing offi ces. USPS Per. # 9604.

Postmaster: Send address changes to: Commonwealth magazine, 10231 Telegraph Rd., Glen Allen, VA 23059-4578.

Custom Publishing Services provided byNetwork Media Partners, Inc. Executive Plaza 1, Suite 900, 11350 McCormick RoadHunt Valley, MD 21031

Get it? Got it? Good!In addition to the print version of Commonwealth, VAR publishes electronic newsletters at regular intervals, including...

If you’re not receiving newsletters via e-mail from time to time, it may be that we don’t have your correct email address. Contact your local association of REALTORS® to enter your address in the database. Also, check the spam fi lter on your computer and authorize any email from VARealtor.com.

VARbuzz.com. Your virtual café for real estate news, views, and issues. Read the perspectives of your fellow Virginia REALTORS®. Join the conversation at VARbuzz.com today.

Web impressions are lastingimpressions. 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 fi nd on teens’ Facebook and MySpace pages.

Quoth Internet, er, writer Maddox:

“The word ‘blog’ is literally short-hand 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 fi nd homes and fi nd Realtors®? They start on the Internet — more than 80 percent of them, per NAR. So your Web site is the fi rst 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® fi nd 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 stu� . 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 fi nd 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.)

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 o� 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. �

...the online version of our print magazine, published every month.

take this home with you:

You need to make your

Web site more interesting.”

fi rstwordANDREW KANTOR

JULY/AUGUST 2009 www.VAReALToR.com2

quickhits

stickysituations

formfactor

accessibletech

realtycheck

The latest news and tidbits from around Virginia

Hasta la vista, baby: If you’re going to terminate, do it right.

Does your Form 600 include the new CRESPA disclosure? It better.

Eight quick tips for making your life a little easier (really!)

New brokers vs. long-time experience: Listen up, all of you.

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rpacreport

varbuzzcontest

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16 Kill your RolodexUsing 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.

APeX Award of excellence winner

legallinesLem Marshall is taking a break this issue.

JULY/AUGUST 2009VoLUme 16 ● ISSUe 4 contents

in every issue

departments

features

JulY/AuGusT 2009 WWW.VAReAlToR.Com4

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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 “pri-oritizing 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, power-ful things you can start doing the moment you’re back in your offi ce (or maybe even sooner). No platitudes, just action items.

Bottom line: Be there or be square.

[Convention & expo]Francie Dalton to keynote Convention

[Housing economy]VHDA announces bridge loan from tax creditVHDA has announced a new bridge loan product that will allow homebuyers to apply the obama Administration’s $8,000 fi rst-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 borrow-ers to receive up to fi ve 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.

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, advo-cate, and mentor.

“Nathan was in a class by him-self,” said Christine Todd, NVAR’s chief executive offi cer. “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.”

Booth was perhaps best known as a fi erce proponent of educa-tion — he was an instructor of international real estate; profes-sional standards practices and policies; technology tools; and real estate fi nance; 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 certifi cation programs and continu-ing 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 his-tory. He was a unique, noble man who made us feel privileged every time he was present with us.”

[The Realtor® Family]VAR mourns the passing of Nathan Booth

Nathan was in a

class by himself.”

quickhits ANDReW KANToR

Volume 16 ● Issue 4 JulY/AuGusT 2009

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All right, we all know that economists, as a whole, haven’t got a clue. It’s all guess-work, based on principles derived before the information revolution turned every-thing 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 employ-ment 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.

[Housing economy]Brookings Institute: Virginia headed for economic recovery

[Risk management]Distressed sales and E&O insuranceThere’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 WWW.VAReAlToR.Com6

[legislative Affairs]Lem, Blake, and Virginia’s new lawsGot 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®.

[member Benefi ts]T-Mobile discounts now in-person, tooT-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 eli-gible 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.

[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 fi rst Realtor® to become a life member of the organization.

[Housing economy]Government loosens requirements for refinancingMore homeowners can now take advantage of the Home Aff ordable Refi nance Program (HARP), which allows people with Fannie- or Freddie-guaranteed loans to refi nance at a lower, fi xed rate.

The government has raised the cap on HARP refi nancing 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 diff erence.

Get the details at makinghomea� ordable.gov.

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 neces-sary to determine if there are any on the property (probably by contacting the local zoning or planning offi ce).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 pres-ence 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.

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. ●

[legislative Affairs] There’s a new residential disclosure statement in town

quickhits

Check it out at www.VARealtor.com/2009laws.

Pearl of Wisd m


SITUATIONA 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.

PROBLEMThe agent independently made the decision to return the earnest money to the buyers.

MISTAKEThe 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.

RESULTAfter learning the buyers may have withdrawn their loan applica-tion 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 con-tingency, 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 perfor-mance claim against the buyers.

PREVENTIONBecause 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.

by Clara Miles

Botched contract termination resulted from neglected paperworka Real-Life Claim Situation involving Documentation

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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 provi-

sions 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!

JULY/AUGUST 2009 www.VAReALToR.com

Forms — they’re the bread and butter of a deal. They’re full of fi ne 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.

formfactor BLAKe HeGemAN


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.

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.

Eight things you should do right now

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 key-board 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.

accessibletech ANDRew KANToR

VoLUme 16 ● ISSUe 4 JULY/AUGUST 2009

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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 suscep-tible 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 easy-to-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 build-ing 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.

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 clea-nout might be the 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

Microsoft’s free SyncToy 2 software is one of many easy ways to keep your files backed up.


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 moni-tor sells for about $160. (If that’s too big for you, the 19-inch X193, which also garners terrific reviews, is about $120.)

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 equip-ment 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 [email protected] 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. The 50-cent keyboard and 75-cent mouse that come stan-dard 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? ●

ReALToR®-to-ReALToR®

To advertise in Commonwealth

magazine, contact Brittany

Sullivan at 410-584-1968 or

[email protected].

Cou

rtes

y AP

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accessibletech

JulY/AuGusT 2009 www.VAReAlToR.Com16

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 fl orist, 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 connec-tion: “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 diff erence 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

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 personalIf 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, fi ts into that category. He doesn’t use CRM because, he says, he doesn’t need it.

“We’re a little diff erent here,” he says. “Being a retire-ment 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 “glorifi ed 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-fi ts-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®.

PICTURE THIS: YOU

probably know most of the people you work with by name. Bridges & Co., in Smith Mountain Lake, fi ts into that category. He doesn’t use CRM because, he says, he


17

Knowledge is powerNot 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 com-mon 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, allow-ing them to (in theory) give you better service.

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 intelligenceKnowledge 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 informa-tion: 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.

Keep in mindCRm initiatives often fail because implementation was lim-ited 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

JulY/AuGusT 2009 www.VAReAlToR.Com18

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 mes-sage — 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 list-ing (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 touchGone 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

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 XIone 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

2. Agent OfficeRe/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 • Create impressive competitive marketing analysis

presentations • Manage your online communications in one central location • Save contact information from Internet leads and follow-up

with a single click • Synchronize with other PCs and handheld devices including

Blackberrys.on the web: www.realtystar.com

Some CRM Tools


19

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 (follow-ups, 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” market-ing 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 news-letters 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.” ●

“

3. Real Future CRM 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

4. Top ProducerProbably 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 postcard-mailing 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 integrationon the web: topproducer.com

It’s about the right medium and the right

message. The personalized message.”


Generation Gapwith 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.

On the shoulders of giants: advice for new brokers

Make the office a sanctuary: Gary FosterRe/mAX 1st olympic Realtors®, LynchburgNew brokers need to work to keep a posi-tive 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.”

Give the personal touch: mike Lafoon coldwell Banker Lafoon Realty, FarmvilleIn 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 agree-ment 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.”

Choose your agents wisely: Kurt NegaardNapier 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 shoe-string 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.”

realtycheck GARY DUDA

“


21

Stay active: Rick Sterlingexit Realty Professionals, Virginia BeachAs a new broker, Rick Sterling believes staying active in buy-ing 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.) ●

Agents have lives, too: Pat Baileycoldwell 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.”

The personal issues that can derail an agent could be divorce or financial problems — or they just may get eas-ily 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 cer-tain 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 nega-tive agents.

“There is always one in every group that will discourage other people,” she says. “Always look out for that nega-tive 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.”

Learn from others: Jonathan KauffmanNest 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 Charlottes-ville 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 RuthLong & Foster, RichmondEmbrace new tech-nologies — that’s the advice Ruth would

pass along to his senior counterparts. A broker for four years, Ruth says

that knowing the available online mar-keting 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 under-standing 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.”

I’d say a good thing to do

is listen more and make

time to talk individually

with your agents.”

Back Atcha: a message to the those who have come before

Dee SprakerKeller Williams Realty

Manassas


As of June 25, 2009, the following REALTORS® and local associations have joined RPAC of Virginia as Major Investors. For more informa-tion 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.

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 ofReALToRS®, Roanoke

williamsburg Area Association ofReALToRS®, Williamsburg

* Hall of Famers

have contributed a

cumulative amount

of at least $25,000

to RPAC.

cRYSTAL R INVeSToRS ($2,500-$4,999)

Angela Dougherty William E. Wood

& AssociatesWilliamsburg

Mike MinneryRE/MAX Allegiance

Woodbridge

Todd RogersHometown Realty

Mechanicsville

Tom Stevens*Coldwell Banker

Residential Vienna

Stanley PalivodaCentury 21 Battlefield –

Tappahannock Dahlgren

Melanie ThompsonCentury 21

AdVenture Realty Fredericksburg

Jack TorzaLong & Foster REALTORS®

Mechanicsville

John McEnearneyMcEnearney

Associates, Inc. Alexandria

Dorcas Helfant-BrowningColdwell Banker

Professional Virginia Beach

Thomas Jefferson, III*Joyner Fine Properties

Richmond

Steve HooverMKB, REALTORS®

Roanoke

Dennis CronkPoe & Cronk Real

Estate GroupRoanoke

William ChoreyChorey & Associates Realty

Suffolk

Linda Belcher-BrownColdwell Banker

ResidentialManassas

Charles BurnetteBurnette Real Estate Sales Blacksburg

John DickinsonHall Associates Inc.

Union Hall

Dedicated in the memory of Peggy B. Byrd

GoLDeN R INVeSToRS ($5,000)

rpacreport


23

Julia AventRE/MAX Allegiance

Arlington

S. Scott Avery Avery Hess,

Realtors®

Dunn Loring

Charles BengelRE/MAX Allegiance

Alexandria

Jerry BartlettJobin RealtyAlexandria

Bob BartonBarton Real

Estate ServicesRichmond

Wayne BabbRE/MAX Allegiance

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STeRLING R INVeSToRS ($1,000–$2,499)

Bob BlountRE/MAX Allegiance

Virginia Beach

Mary Ann BendinelliWeichert Realtors®

Manassas

Laura Benjamin Roanoke Valley Association

of REALTORS®

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Karen Bohlke EnriquezRE/MAX Select

Hampton

Michael BosleyRE/MAX Allegiance

Alexandria

R. Scott Brunner Virginia Association

of REALTORS® Glen Allen

Angela EliopoulosLong & Foster

Real Estate, Inc. Washington, DC

David CharronMRIS

Rockville, MD

Callie DaltonCallie Dalton & Associates

Roanoke

Benton DownerDowner & Associates

Charlottesville

Sandee FerebeePrudential Towne

RealtyVirginia Beach

Mary DykstraRE/MAX Valley

Realtors®

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Margaret HandleyM.C. Handley, Ltd.

McLean

Claire Forcier-RoweColdwell Banker Elite

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Bill GearhartColdwell Banker

TownsideRoanoke

Charlee GowinPrudential Towne

RealtyVirginia Beach

Kit HaleMKB, Realtors®

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Libby GatewoodLegacy PropertiesColonial Heights

Patricia KlineAvery Hess Realtors®

Springfield

Tom InnesRE/MAX

CommonwealthRichmond

Betty KingeryLake Realty

Rocky Mount

Luis LamaLong & Foster

Real EstateFalls Church

Pat JensenReal Estate III - North

Charlottesville

Jo Anne JohnsonWestgate Realty

Group, Inc.Falls Church

Gwen Pangle Long & Foster

Real Estate, Inc.Sterling

Gail PenmanCentury 21

New MillenniumStaff ord


STeRLING R INVeSToRS ($1,000–$2,499)

Peter Rickert Coldwell Banker

Residential BrokerageAlexandria

Anne RectorLong & Foster

Real EstateAlexandria

Jane Quill RE/MAX Presidential

Fairfax

John PowellLong & Foster Real

Estate, Inc.Colonial Heights

Zinta Rodgers-RickertRe/Max Allegiance

Fairfax

Tracy PlessLong & Foster

Real EstateReston

Cindy StackhouseCentury 21 Stackhouse

& AssociatesDumfries

Mack StricklandStrickland Realty

Chester

Trish SzegoERA - Elite Group

Realtors®

Haymarket

Christine ToddNorthern Virginia

Association of Realtors®

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Daleville

Cliff ord WellsCentury 21

Nachman RealtyNorfolk

STeRLING R ASSocIATIoN ($1,000–$2,499)

Contributions are not deductible for income tax purposes. Contributions to RPAC are voluntary and are used for politi-cal 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.

Greater Augusta Association of ReALToRS®, StauntonVirginia Peninsula Association of ReALToRS®, Hampton

Susan MekenneyRE/MAX Allegiance

Fairfax

Tom MeyerCondo 1, Inc.Falls Church

Lee OdemsBuyer’s Advantage

Real EstateWoodbridge

Kayvan MehrbakshSperry Van Ness

Vienna

Barbara Jean LeFonRivah Realty

Montross

Andy MasonWeichert Mason-Davis

Company, Inc.Onancock

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JULY/AUGUST 2009 WWW.VAREALTOR.COM26

HERE’S YOUR CHANCE to win a cool HD video camera just for reading this magazine and VARbuzz, our o� cial blog and ‘water cooler.’

It works like this: Answer the questions below by read-ing this issue of Commonwealth. On August 10, go to www.VARbuzz.com. There you’ll read simple instructions (e.g., “Take the fi rst letter of each word to spell out the answer” or “What’s the opposite of answer #3?”). That will give you the fi nal answer and instructions for sending it in.

We’ll take the fi rst 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 sta� , and are fi nal. Bribes are accepted but not acted upon.

This issue’s questions:1. What fi rm 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 fi nal instructions at VARbuzz.comand can fi ll in the…

FINAL ANSWER:

Last issue’s answers: 1. The four-letter acronym for NAR’s new health

insurance program: RCHI2. The man who won a $100 ExxonMobil gas card and a

$25 Starbucks gift card: Gary Dogon3. The name of the NAR leadership team’s blog:

Voices of Real Estate4. The fi ctional musical Scott Brunner suggested NPR’s

fundraising was like: Root Canal: The Musical5. The group Victor Lund is founding partner of:

The WAV Group

The instructions given on VARbuzz were very com-plex — add this, subtract that, turn to this page, take the square root, etc. — but the fi rst 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 fi nal answer: Peggy Parker �

Last issue’s winner: Sarah Hutchinson, Keller Williams Richmond West

varbuzzcontest


27

We’re online at www.VARealtor.comour official blog is VARbuzz, at www.VARbuzz.com

If you have questions, we’re ready to help. During normal business days, we’re available from 9:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.

For membership and dues questionsAsk for Kim martin, membership Records manager [email protected]

If you’d like to have someonespeak at your association or brokerageAsk for lisa Noon, Vice President of member outreach, [email protected]

To find out about conferences, seminars, and professional educationAsk for Glenda Puryear, Conferences specialist or lili Paulk, Director of education, glenda or lili @varealtor.com

For questions about professional standards and the Code of Ethics Ask for Blake Hegeman,Associate [email protected]

If you need to know about professional designationsAsk for lynne Wherry, specialties and Chapter manager [email protected]

For information about RPACAsk for meredith Cox, Director of Political Communications [email protected]

If you’re interested in marketing or advertising opportunitiesAsk for Amanda Rainsford, marketing manager [email protected]

If you have comments or questions about Commonwealth or our Web sites Ask for Andrew Kantor, editor & Information manager [email protected]

To reach our Legal Resources Center (formerly the Legal Hotline)Call (800) 755-8271** You must register first at www.varealtor.com — click member services

Our CEO is Scott Brunner(804) 249-5712 [email protected]

Advanced AccessInternet marketing & Website Development

Bank of America, WorldPoints Credit Card

DNCSolution, Do-Not-Call solutionssecurity Code sC1795VR

FBR Direct, Financial Planning services

Liberty MutualHome, Auto & Renters Insurance

LLE Language ServicesTelephone Interpretation & Document TranslationPromotion Code VARm08

Office Depot, office supplies & Copying

Outstaffing, staffing & Payroll

Pearl Insurancee&o, medical, life, Dental Insurance

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John Powell, GRI, ABR, CRB, CRS President long and Foster Real estate, Colonial Heights(804) 520-5600john.powell@longand foster.com

Cindy Stackhouse, GRI President-electCentury 21 stackhouse and AssociatesPrince William(703) 580-0880 [email protected]

John Dickinson, CCIM, GRI Vice PresidentHall Associates, Inc., Roanoke(540) 982-0011 [email protected]

John Daly TreasurerGsH Real estate(757) 481-8461 [email protected]

Pat Jensen, ABR, CBR, CRS, GRIImmediate Past PresidentReal estate III – North Charlottesville(434) 817-9200 [email protected]

R. Scott Brunner, CAEChief executive officer (804) 264-5033 [email protected]

VAR Member Service Partners

VAR 2009 Leadership Team

(804) 264 -5033our phone number is

contactvarWe’D loVe To HeAR FRom You

Scott Brunner, CAE is VAR’s chief execu-tive officer. E-mail him your ponderous questions at [email protected].


Don’t know much about history…How I’m not smarter than my two fifth gradersIf 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-a-delusional-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, ecclesiasti-cal 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 ran-domness to the kind of thought pro-cesses 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.

There are the obscurely factual inquiries — questions for which there’s surely a legitimate, scien-tifically 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 con-trive — 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 uten-sils, 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

lastword ScoTT BRUNNeR

Documents

2009-07 Commonwealth