It is hard believe, but we have passed the halfway point in the year. The past month was filled with planning and staff work on upcoming member events. We have busy schedule from now until the Awards banquet in October. Below I will list some of the events;
- CE scheduled for Put-In-Bay for July 22nd and 23rd.
- The Bob Strayer Memorial Golf Classic August 4th.
- RPAC Island Cruise and Elected Officials Reception September 2nd
- General Membership Meeting September 9th
- OAR Convention September 20th thru 22nd
- Awards Banquet October 13th.
- OAR leadership meeting July 20th & 21st Columbus
- NAR Leadership August 9th thru 11th Chicago.
In addition to the above list of events I will also be attending the following events;
The MLS committee met on July 1st and they will be reporting to the Directors on the outcome of their meeting. The Golf committee has met twice and also the Awards committee has met twice. This year’s Election and Awards banquet will be held at Castaway Bay on October 13th.
On July 6th we received a message from realtor.com that as part of their ongoing commitment to MLS partners they will now include the applicable MLS copyright information on all listings from your MLS displayed on realtor.com. This not only gives prospective home buyers confidence that the listing data on realtor.com provided by our MLS, is accurate and up to date, it will provide our MLS with important attribution and has the potential to protect the safety and security of your data.
The display of the copyright information for all listings on realtor.com from our MLS will launch by JULY 27, 2015. Please note the copyright will display as your full MLS name along with basic copyright information as shown below. No additional information will be displayed.
© 2015, Firelands Association of REALTORS® - All rights reserved.
To learn more about other new features and tools available to all brokers and their agents should visit www.realtor.com/engage
We received word on Friday July 10th that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced its final rule regarding Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. The rule is expected to be published in the Federal Register the week of July 13th and will take effect 30 days after its publication date. The rule lays out requirements based on Section 808 (e)(5) of the Fair Housing Act which requires the Secretary of HUD to administer the Department’s housing and urban development programs in a manner to “affirmatively further fair housing (AFFH). The rule defines “affirmatively furthering fair housing”, and outlines a revised process for HUD review of state and local governments’ steps to comply with the rules. Please note that the requirements to affirmatively further fair housing are not new, but have been in effect for decades.
And while nothing in the rule directly impacts REALTORS, it is important that the Board familiarizes itself with the requirements relating to an Assessment of Fair Housing and participate in the assessment process.
As a result of our relationship with the City of Sandusky, I was contacted by Matt Lasko Chief Development Officer for the City of Sandusky, in regards to helping him on a potential housing project. I have a meeting scheduled on July 16th to meet with him to discuss the market and potential interest in single-family new construction in Sandusky and if built, what a proposed sales price could be in order to determine how much subsidy is needed. I will report next month on the outcome of this meeting.
We have scheduled our RPR kick-off webinar for the members on July 29, 2015 at 10:00 AM. This will explain some of the features of RPR and the data that is available in this tool. Everything you want to know about a property is here in one place, along with some easy to generate, attractive and comprehensive reports for buyers and sellers. The staff will also have a one on one web session to demonstrate the special features of RPR for the MLS.
As we put the finishing touches on the fall schedule we will need to start work on the Ombudsman program, the 2016 budget, and our Christmas party.
Respectfully submitted,
David W Freitag RCE, CEO