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Midwest Canada Minute - November 23, 2008

By
Real Estate Agent with RE/MAX of Lloydminster

100 in Review

  Two years ago I sat down with Deanna Reschny, sales manager for the Lloydminster Source, and Robyn Newstead, accredited buyer's agent with the McClelland Group, in a local coffee shop to talk about the concept of writing a weekly commentary on Western Canadian real estate.  It would be published as part of the regional real estate guide plus circulated on-line to keep in touch with clients of the McClelland Group in five countries.  The primary goal was to bring the experience down to earth and not particularly polished like some of the television shows seen on HGTV.  One hundred columns later, we still haven't run out of things to say and neither apparently have our readers.

The articles have ranged from explaining how the Multiple Listing Service works to exploring some of the beautiful parts of Canada's Midwest.  My perspective hasn't always been well received.  One reader felt that a column on the sale of farmland to out of province investors created a barony/serfdom type of scenario.  A discussion on how to subdivide off acreages brought several phone calls, even an office visit, from farmers who thought I was promoting taking good land out of production.

Discussing the negotiating style of Realtors and their clients evoked a strong reaction from my industry peers who thought I shouldn't disclose those times when tempers flare and affect people's judgment.  They want the public to believe that the highly competitive field of organized real estate is really one big happy family.  The MLS system is successfully designed to promote the concept of brokerages cooperating with each other in effecting a trade; but in practice it can be closer to how NAFTA works.  The fact is that individual Realtors forge trust with each other over a series of negotiations; and like in any profession, some members are definitely easier to work with than others.

An article on people's quirks when buying or selling, prompted a friend to advise me to write more positively or else people would shy away from using our group's services in case their actions showed up in the newspaper.  I am pleased to report that there appears to have been little negative impact on business but nevertheless I have tried very hard since to limit my "ranting" to every third or fourth week. In fact this column never gets to you without editorial review from at least 5 people. Probably the best received column was titled "Here's Your Sign", which proved that laughter is often the easiest way to get a point across. 

Writing about a trip up the North Saskatchewan River this spring by jet boat, encouraged a lady who had grown up along its banks to call one summer morning to discuss her love of the area. Another stopped me on the street to speak about her father's deep attachment to the family farm, very similar to the one mentioned in a column entitled "Old Cowboys Never Die".  Every real estate transaction is a story in itself but I can't write about many of them, even if I wanted to, in order to protect people's privacy.

I am very grateful for the feedback as sometimes on Sunday evening when the deadline for the next week's paper looms, I wonder if anybody ever reads what I write or if it is worthy of anything more than lining the bottom of a bird cage.  Thank you for the opportunity to express myself; I hope we are still talking to each other at column 200.

Vern McClelland is associate broker with RE/MAX of Lloydminster.  For more helpful tips on buying and selling real estate, visit www.mcclelland.ca

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