gracekeng

San Jose Mercury News report talks…real estate market

gracekeng — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:09:18 +0000

San Jose Mercury News reporter Sue McAllister talked to SILVAR members about the challenges of writing about the current real estate market. McAllister, who has been with the Mercury News since 1999, is the go-to writer for the newspaper’s real estate section.

“This is the most interesting 12 to 18-month period in Silicon Valley real estate that I’ve ever covered. It has been really challenging to accurately cover this market.”

When it comes to finding stories to print about real estate, McAllister looks for stories that are timely and affect a great number of people,also they are original. “I get a lot of my best stories from my readers,” McAllister said. “I absolutely welcome those kinds of calls from all of you.”

With the number of stories about foreclosures and declining prices, McAllister has heard many complaints that her headlines are too scary or misleading. However, she encourages people to read the whole story before jumping to conclusions.

McAllister has received a lot of criticism from general readers and the Realtor population, and shared that it is nearly impossible to make everyone happy. An agent asked her why she wrote only negative news. She said: “I really do try to not paint the market with too wide a brush, I have to tell the both sides of the story” she said.

The circulation of the newspaper has gone down in the last two years. In light of this change, However,if we include both print and online media , the number of people reached in 2007 is actually 1.223 million which has gone up.

CRS realtors meeting today at Monterey about Blogging

gracekeng — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 04:40:30 +0000

Today Northern California CRS Chapter gathered at the Monterrey Plaza Hotel for the 3^rd Quarter Chapter Networking and Education Session. Pat Kitano of Domus Consulting Group talked about blogs at today’s Northern California CRS Chapter meeting. Blogs are online diaries or commentaries giving way to the next generation of online exposure. Blogging is quickly becoming the most widely used symbol of real estate marketing. He said the single real estate blog can attract more traffic than traditional web sites and the social medium is the latest and newest ways for the people connects to each other.

www.linkedin.com is like your online resume

www.facebook.com white page

www.twitter.com the broadcast to your network

www.friendfeed.com your knowledge

He said the “ hard sell” is dead. This is the information age. There are a ton of information and real estate information. It is up to the Realtors to analysis the data and lead the buyers and sellers to go through the buying and selling processes.

In the afternoon, Brad Anderson from the www.activerain.com ( real estate blogging site)

He said activerain.com just opened the localism at the web in the state of Washington. It attracted 200,000 Washington realtors joined. Brad shares with the easy method from www.activerain.com/activebrad of how to set up your own blog at the activerain.com. He has another web site http://renetblog.com/ will talk about some tips. Dave Blockhus http://siliconvalleyrealestateinfo.com of CRS members shares his experience of blogging

Silicon Valley Realtors present scholarships to high school graduates

gracekeng — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:56:15 +0000

The Silicon Valley REALTORS® Charitable Foundation, the charitable arm of the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS® (SILVAR), has presented scholarship awards to 18 graduating seniors from public high schools in Silicon Valley. Each student received a $1,000 scholarship.

SILVAR’s scholarship program, now on its ninth year, recognizes students who have exemplified outstanding achievements in academics, extracurricular/employment activities and community involvement. The selection committee included representatives from the local business community, area high schools, area colleges and SILVAR.

Students who received scholarships from the Foundation, the schools from which they graduated are Cupertino High, Fremont High, Gunn High, Homestead High, Los Altos High, Los Gatos High, Lynbrook High, Menlo Park Atherta High, Mountain View High, Palo Altos High, Prospect High, Santa Clara High, Saratoga High, Westmont High, Wilcox High and Woodside High.

Cammie Brodie 2008 Chairwoman of the foundation said: “ In our industry, we feel fortunate to be able to give back to the community by providing scholarships to these very deserving students.” I feel the same way

Home Ownership Fair 2008 on April 5th Saturday

gracekeng — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:16:30 +0000

The road to home ownership fair 2008 will be an interesting event!Date: April 5^th Saturday 10 Am – 4 PM

Place: Santa Clara Convention Center

5001 Great America Pkwy, Santa Clara

How to get there: Take light rail to the stop of the Great American Station

Who sponsor this: Santa Clara county association realtors, Mercury News and WaMu.

What you will get: home ownerahip related information from 80 information tables and 24 educational seminars

What you will learn: Steps to buy a home, home buying assistance programs, Credit counseling and repairs and how to avoid a foreclosure.

Realtors care for the Silicon Valley

gracekeng — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:01:57 +0000

The HIF Benefit Committee of SILVAR, will hold the 10^th annual Home for the fundraiser on Thursday October 18^th from 5:30 to 10:30 at the Avalon Nightclub in

Santa Clara. Home for the Holidays features a Halloween theme with a gourmet buffet, live and silent auctions, a raffle, live music, dancing, fortune telling and other fun stuff. I went a couple years in past. It is a fun and charity event. The proceed will help the needed families of Santa Clara and

San Mateo counties. From http://www.hifinfo.org explains more in details: “ HIF’s emergency housing grants are a homeless prevention program. In collaboration with a network of social services agencies, HIF makes grants of up to $1,000 to low-income individuals and families threatened with homelessness or uninhabitable conditions. These grants may be used for a variety of housing expenses, including rent, mortgage, utilities and certain repairs. The situation must be due to a recent unforeseen emergency and the clients must demonstrate their ability to meet future expenses once the grant is received.”

It is a good example of the members from our Silicon Valley Realtors Association do care for the local residents.