I had the pleasure of speaking at the Prince William County Association this past week. This Virginia county is a part of metro Washington DC and has been one of the hottest markets, in terms of appreciation, in the past year. The REALTORS I spoke to indicated that at this point the market does seem a little more rational, although, prices remain high. It seems that as long as people continue to move to the area the market will stay brisk. They indicate that as the federal government and its contractors continue to grow - so will the market.
The convention was well attended and had many vendors and education sessions. I spoke on two topics - Search Engine Optimization and Protecting Your Assets. Both were great sessions with good participation and a lot of excellent questions. It’s sessions like these that allow CRT to validate its efforts and receive feedback from the practitioners we serve.
This is also a good time to let you know that we want to hear from you. So drop us a note and let CRT know your tech questions and issues.
I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at this year’s National Convention for the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). I had a coveted Saturday morning breakout session on the topic of Technology Tools. The event was much more that I anticipated.
The event was held at the Hilton on 6th Avenue in NYC, an excellent venue. What a great location with lots to see (and hear) and easy access to La Guardia. When I arrived, the lobby was teeming with excitement. I made my way up to the registration area and saw at least 10 stations, divided up alphabetically. I just had to ask,
“How many attendees to you anticipate?”
“Over 2000″
This caught me by surprise. With the NAR Annual event coming up in another week, I did not study up on this engagement as much as I should have. Browsing the meeting material, I found a full agenda from Friday morning through Monday noon. The topics were all business.
I knew that the Hispanic home buyer was an important buyer, but here are some facts I thought I would post from the conference material:
- Hispanics accounted for half of 2.9 million U.S. population growth from 2003 to 2004.
- By 2010, one in four American consumers will be Hispanic.
- Hispanics are a key catalyst of economic growth with disposable income that has risen 29% since 2000.
- As their wealth increases, analysts predict Hispanics will spend more on financial services, homes, media and health care.
- Thirteen million first generation Hispanics comprise 40% of all Latinos.
- A total of 2.2 million new Hispanic households will buy homes by 2010.
On the technical front, I asked around to get a feel for how people are supporting multi-lingual web sites. I was hoping for someone at the conference to point me to a “magic bullet” I had not heard of yet. What I heard was that “on-the-fly” translation was still a fantasy and multi-lingual sites still require a great deal of effort to support.
I heard some encouraging news on the lending front though. Businesses are getting creative with lending that is more than just FICO® score with consideration being made for rental and utility payment history. This is good news indeed.
NAHREP is an excellent association dedicated to homeownership. I hope they ask me back next year. I had to return to Chicago early and wished I could have stayed for more of the program.
