Former Coldwell Banker Previews International President to give keynote at AREA Retreat

Posted on May 9, 2014 by AREA

May 5, 2014 – Through the good efforts of Ronna Brand, of Brand Realty, Beverly Hills, California, Betty Graham, immediate past president of Coldwell Banker Previews International, will head an all-star team of speakers and panelists that are to be featured at the 2014 AREA Retreat to be held on the 13-15th of October in Napa, California.

The event, which is the 7th annual AREA Retreat, is being held at the Embassy Suites Convention Center in Napa and will also feature Gordon McDermott, President of Auracom International; known, world-wide, as America’s preeminent language, linguistic and cultural training consultation firm.

Napa AREA Retreat

Also attending the event, as a special guest, will be Monsieur Pierre S. Cargot, a noted French wine expert, a graduate of the Sorbet and a truffle cultivator. He will debate John Bergman on the relative merits of French vs. California wines. This event could be carried on the Food Network if they wish to pick it up. Negotiations are currently not underway.

Heading up panels will be Ken Libby of Stowe, Vermont; George Harvey, Jr. of Telluride, Colorado; Chris McElroy of Fort Collins, Colorado; Cynthia Carley of Lake Arrowhead, California and Gail Hartnett of Boise, Idaho. Topics will be specially created for audience participation as well as to be unique in nature.

Panelists will include Jay West of Los Cabos, Mexico; Cathy Travis of Victoria, British Columbia; Heidi Rickard-Rizzo of Marine County, California; John Bergman of the Wine Country; Ruth Kruger of Aspen, Colorado; Ron Phipps of Warwick, Rhode Island; Don Bullock of Orlando, Florida; Miriam Dunn of Scarsdale, New York; Susan Cohan of Naples, Florida; Iris Riley, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Ryan Asoa, Arcadia, California; Rod Woelfle, Aspen, Colorado; Laurie Wing; Park City, Utah; Jeanne Radsick, Bakersfield, California; Gary Brasher, Tubac, Arizona; Joe Malec, Waterdown, Ontario; Dave Pike, Denver, Colorado; Tom Wescott of Calgary, Alberta; Ellen Francisco of Malibu, California; Patricia Pipkin of Santa Fe, New Mexico; Meri Crandall of St. George, Utah; Steve Goddard of Los Angeles, California; and Hans Hansson of San Francisco.

Attendees will enjoy an extraordinary luncheon at Tra Vigne; St. Helena’s adventure in melding Tuscany with the wine country; a guided tour of the Culinary Institute of America, which is housed in the old Christian Brothers Winery; A wind tasting adventure at the world famous Chateau Montelena Winery and, the grand finale will be cocktails and dinner at the elegant Napa Country Club.

For information please contact Carl Bosse at Associated Realty of the Americas carl@areamericas.com or 1-520-625-9207.

Photo Credit: jumpyjodes via Compfight cc

Thoughts on Odessa

Posted on May 5, 2014 by AREA

By: Carl Bosse

Today, May 2, 2014, news arrived that the uprising in Ukraine has spread all the way to Odessa. In March, 2009, I went to Odessa to visit with Telman Abbasov, President of FIABCI Ukraine and his secretary, Victoria Banker in order to welcome them as members of AREA.

My, things have changed in our very small world since then.

Odessa, a port city, is known as the “Pearl of the Black Sea.” When I arrived at their very primitive airport, Victoria greeted me and, much to my surprise spoke English fluently without any sort of an accent. One could have guessed she might have been from St. Louis. For the next two days I was their guest, and after checking in at the London Hotel (complete with a Beefeater at the front door) I was given the royal tour.

It reminded me, at least in the center portion, of St. Petersburg and, I was to learn, its’ development was part of that internal renaissance that Peter the Great instituted to try to assimilate Eastern Europe into the modern era and meld into Western European culture. This was in the 1700’s.

The city center is beautiful with great gardens and majestic buildings all sitting above the Port, itself, where we visited a business fair (see the first picture) where Telman was promoting FIABCI. However, leaving the city center and the balance of the city seemed very third world in nature.

While I was told that crime was not a problem, after I arrived back in the US, I found that my credit card had been copied, and a perfect set of three cards had landed in Dalton, Alabama and had been used at the local Wal-Mart to buy some big time appliances. I had registered at the hotel on a Tuesday left Thursday morning and arrived back in the States on Friday afternoon. The only time I used a card was at the hotel.

Telman, who looks like the classic eastern European gentleman, spoke very little English and Victoria was a masterful translator and cultural interpreter. We communicated on a very high level.

I found him to be a man of considerable vision and am pleased to see that his pet project of creating an MLS service for the whole of Ukraine has made great strides.

A highlight was having dinner at a very formal Russian style restaurant where all of the servers were dressed in colorful peasant dresses and looked wonderful. The menu, all in Russian, was extensive and Victoria helped me with the ordering. I had authentic Borsht for the first time in my life and then several other exotic dishes, all very tasty, consisting of typical Russian fare.

We have maintained contact since then, but things did go quite after Crimea’s overrun. I sent him an email and then decided I might be causing more harm than good and backed off.

I pray for them. The rioters, as shown on television today, were right in heart of Odessa where all of the beautiful buildings and gardens are located, just above the port, itself.

Members of the TITUL Group of Odessa, Ukraine man their exhibit at the Eastern European winter real estate fair held in Odessa during the 2nd week of March. From left to right: Victoria Banker, special assistant to the President; Company president Telman Abbasov and the exhibit’s permanent hostess (name unknown.) Mr. Abbasov is also president of FIABCI Ukraine. FIABCI is the international real estate federation founded in Paris in 1945. Carl Bosse held a series of meetings with the company to discuss ways and means of working together.

Victoria Banker and Telman Abbasov gave Carl Bosse a wonderful tour of Odessa. Here, Victoria Banker points out some interesting features about the Grand Opera House, which is among the gems of Eastern Europe and is one reason the Odessa is called “The Pearl of the Black Sea”.

Victoria Banker, who was born and raised in Odessa and is completely fluent in English, and is Mr. Abbasov’s personal assistant, is shown with members of the television crew who filmed a meeting between Mr. Abbasov and Carl Bosse of AREA discussing the potential of working together. We made a video of the trip. It was very well done and AREA has it archived.

Knowing Your Online Reputation

Posted on February 18, 2014 by AREA

By: Dana Harris
Del Mar, California

Dana is AREA’s resident Guru on the practical use of the internet. He can be reached at dana@danaharrishomes.com 1-858-442-5423.

Over 95% of buyers and sellers start their search efforts on the internet. Almost 65% work with the first agent they meet. If they are meeting us on-line we want to make sure we are putting our real face on and that is one of quality, competence and character.

We’ve all done it: signed up on a website and created a profile with the intention of promoting ourselves in the best possible light. There are countless sites: Google, Yahoo, Realtor.Com, Active Rain, Post-let’s, your broker’s site, your personal site(s), all the consumer portals (i.e. Trulia, Zillow, Yelp, etc.) we use to accomplish this very serious and important task.

(How many on-line accounts do you have? Do you know them and manage them all? Have you changed companies in the last year or two? Do you know the passwords?)

These accounts become our on-line reputation and if they contain reviews or testimonials (Trulia, Zillow and Yelp), they can make or break us. Someone once said there is no such thing as bad press. That is just not true when it comes to the internet, especially in our business. Just ask any agent who has discovered something inaccurate or untrue published about themselves on the web.

The growing trend of rating brokers and agents makes this topic even more relevant as consumers have a chance to weigh in on your internet reputation with such ease. Just check out sites like Brokur, Mountain of Agents or Home Thinking.

So what do we do about it?

To begin, it can be as simple as seeing what others find by typing your name in Google and observing what comes up. (Please make sure you consider variations so you may have to add “real estate”, “agent” or your town at the end of the search string (i.e. Dana Harris Real Estate Agent Del Mar). Be thorough, and leave no stone unturned. Then consider ways to fix the problem(s)!

This topic was just covered recently in Inman News, which I highly recommend as an on-going source of information for helping all us navigate in this technical world that requires our utmost personal attention seven days a week.

Next time: “Fixing the Problem.”

Photo Credit: lastquest via Compfight cc

1031 Exchanges – USA Tax Rules

Posted on November 7, 2013 by AREA

By: Mark Casey
Boulder/Denver AREA Commercial Member

As AREA members we need to be aware of the benefits of the Tax-Deferred Exchange, under IRS Code 1031. The IRS Code allows an investor to exchange one real estate investment asset for another while deferring the gain and depreciation recapture on the sale of the first property. With 15% federal capital gains tax, plus the applicable state tax rate, plus the recapture of depreciation at your ordinary income tax rate, the potential for deferring taxes is huge… particularly if you have held the property for many years. On the sale of an investment property that has been held long enough to generate significant appreciation while a significant amount of depreciation has been taken, it is not unusual for 30% to 40% of the proceeds from the sale to be paid in taxes if the seller does not 1031 exchange into another property.

The IRS Code stipulates properties eligible for a tax-deferred exchange must be like-kind. For real estate held for investment, that gives you a lot of latitude. An investment home owned in California can be exchanged for an office building in Colorado. Raw land can be exchanged for a fully-developed building. Your 100% ownership in the building you are selling can be divided into two or three properties to create diversification. Even foreign to foreign investment properties may qualify for 1031 Exchange treatment. As long as the exchange is done properly the options for tax-deferred investments are virtually limitless.

The key to a successful exchange is planning ahead. Please feel free to contact me: Mark Casey at mark@TenantWisdom.com or call me at 303-665-6000.