Goodbye 2009! Hello 2010!

Did 2009 seem like the year of e-newsletters to anyone else?  I think AAR went digital with their publication Arizona REALTOR® Magazine in January.  PAR went digital with the Phoenix REALTOR® Forum, and ARMLS’ digital magazine Wave hit inboxes in August.  I’m not sure if going green or saving green was the bigger motivator???

As far as electronic communication at John Hall & Associates, we wrote fewer blog articles, but got more traffic and more interaction in 2009 than in 2008.  Blog traffic increased 40% compared to 2008.  The number of posts decreased 15% while comments increased 15%.  Here is a quick review of 2009, according to our Phoenix real estate blog…

January:

• We had a kickin’ kick-off event for our agents with Rick Mack, Jim Sexton, and a panel of successful agents.  The feedback for this event was awesome.  Agents especially loved the information shared by Attorney Rick Mack.  In fact he’ll be giving an encore presentation at our 2010 Kick-Off Event scheduled for January 12th.  Jim Sexton and Tom Farley will also be presenting updated market information and law changes.

• At the end of January we launched the Phoenix Real Estate Toolbar to help make life easier for agents in the Valley of the Sun.  We’ve had 243 installations thus far, averaging just over 20 a month.

February:

• Good information started to roll-out about the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.

• Feature Code Friday is born!  I think my favorite feature code highlighted was Near Light Rail.  (See March for how Feature Code Friday evolved.)

• Fannie-Mae publishes No Negotiation of Preforeclosure Sales Commissions – Woot!  (Freddie Mac would follow – see August.)

March:

• AAR’s Winter Conference in Prescott was an awesome event!  Partly due to the fact 2 of the 4 person technology panel are members of the John Hall & Associates family.

• Feature Code Friday with help from our audience converts to Flexmls Feature Friday, our most popular series to date.

April:

• The first of what looks like many RE Bar Camp’s in Phoenix took place.  It attracted hundreds of people from all over the country, facilitated excellent techno-learning, and was a successful day for the planning committee.

May:

• HVCC goes into effect May 1st.

• John Hall & Associates MDA Golf Tourny raised almost $20k for MDA.

• The Cromford Report is integrated into flexmls.

• How bout that new commish?!?!  Judy Lowe takes over as Real Estate Commissioner for AZ.

• Our brokers, Jim (his report) and Marge (her report) attended NAR Mid-Year conference to explain to Arizona Senators the importance of bringing changes to our state in regards to short sales and REO’s.

June:

• AZCentral.com’s Reader’s Choice Awards were announced.  Our native Phoenix brokerage was able to take top spot for Best Real Estate Agency in the West Valley and Best Real Estate Agency in the East Valley. (Still stoked on those!)

July:

• ARMLS and List Hub hook-up to supercharge our listing syndication.

• We start emailing our agents office bills.  Hey, better late than never!

• The SB-1271 saga begins!

August:

• Freddie Mac follows Fannie Mae’s lead and makes short sale commission non-negotiable.

• John Hall & Associates gets bad to the bone scanning, printing, emailing, faxing machines that received more positive feedback than anything else we did this year.

September:

• NAR started it’s successful campaign to extend and expand the home buying tax credit.

October:

• ARMLS begins publishing WAVE.

• Jim and Marge get elected to the Arizona Association of REALTORS® Board of Directors.

• Jim Sexton becomes the only 2 time winner of the Dean B Service Continuing Service Award.

November:

• Jim lays down his predictions for Phoenix Real Estate 2010 style.

• John Hall & Associates rolls out new in-house intranet, that rocks!  Proudly biased.

• NAR Conference and Expo 2009 and RE Bar Camp hit San Diego hard!

• Home Buyer Tax Credit is extended and expanded.

• NAR introduces Houselogic.com and RPR (aka Realtor Property Resource).

December:

• AAR announces relationship with Mongofax.

• ARMLS announces relationship with Listingbook.

• John Hall & Associates raised $5,470 for House of Refuge East.

The end of the year always reminds me of a funny quote I heard from a friend, “Life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end the faster it goes.”

Enjoy 2010!