professionalism: My letter to fellow Realtor and Billings Mayor Tom Hanel - 08/12/14 04:37 AM
I woke up this morning to some sad and frustrating news.  As another city in Montana was debating about passing an ordinance which would protect LGBT individuals from discrimination the vote came down to the tie-breaker from the mayor.  The mayor of Billings is also a Realtor, his name is Tom Hanel.  We met once about 5 years ago.  Tom is a friendly and approachable guy, he's a long-time Realtor and was a budding leader at the state level who backed off once elected as mayor of Billings.  

Billings has been grappling with an NDO for a while now, other … (24 comments)

professionalism: Zillow strikes again, and why they lead better than most associations - 12/09/10 04:11 AM
“American home values dropped $1.7 trillion”
 http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/09/real_estate/home_value/index.htm?hpt=T2
Zillow is a very interesting and comprehensive site, in fact I noticed that just last week despite years and years of suggestions that REALTOR(R) organizations take the lead on ratings and reviews Zillow will now take the lead on ratings and reviews. The continued crux of association leadership is the concern that, “what will this do to the agents that get bad reviews?!?” (To answer, push them out of the business hopefully!) However there’s concern with leadership across the board that associations should not take aggressive steps such as ratings and reviews because the … (1 comments)

professionalism: Who will lead? - 08/05/10 04:22 PM
As the REALTOR(R) image continues to slip in many aspects leaders of associations, brokerages, and the industry find themselves facing a critical junction as the new market emerges.  Gone are the days where the phone rang with new prospects almost every day, the lack of need for broker accountability, and endless association funds - instead those who skated by on new business and burned bridges are finding other lines of work, brokers are looking at quality over quantity, and REALTOR(R) associations are having to make tough choices in terms of services and benefits to local agents and the public. 
The market is changing too, … (7 comments)

professionalism: The End of an Error - 08/02/10 05:47 PM
This is the the second attempt of a blog post, the first was a little narrow-focused and upon writing it I got to thinking about a listing practice in Missoula (and probably a lot of the US) that is now DOA.  The old trick, "Lets price it up and we'll negotiate down when a buyer comes along."  So that said, I'd like to thank you all for reading this eulogy for a dead practice that worked in NINA (no income, no asset) loan-era.
Pricing up to negotiate down had a good run, it was an awesome technique in an age when people could … (2 comments)

professionalism: Thoughts after an over-priced home tour - 06/05/09 06:51 AM
Yesterday there was a 12 home Realtor lunch tour on the south side of Missoula.  All of the houses were larger/newer homes in newer subdivisions, priced between $350,000 - $600,000.  For those of you unfamiliar with our market, that's probably what you'd consider the "top end" right now, there's higher priced stuff, but these are mostly large homes with 4+ bedrooms, newer, big lots as high as 2 acres, etc. 
After completing the tour it was sobering what is going on in our "top end" market, the general disconnect between agents and sellers, and how people still don't realize the changing … (6 comments)