Real Estate Zealot

Use all the great tools Metrolist has to offer to create custom branded reports, informative presentations and interesting blogs with up to date statistics and reports on real estate in Colorado.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Mike Hixon from Hixon & Associates. Mike, welcome to the program, good to have you here.

Mike Hixon: Thank you.

Interviewer: We are talking about building a personal brand for realtors and the MLS and how that may all tie in and help but let's start with talking about brand and image, why is that important today for realtors?

Mike Hixon: Oh, brand and image is huge as far as establishing your brand, because everything that you send out, you want to have it branded, so down from your email to every bit of marketing literature that you send out, even to colleagues or associates as well, you know everything that's got your name on it leads people to you.

Interviewer: I tell people it should all look the same: your website, your Facebook, your Twitter, your e-mail it should all provide kind of the same service and lend some type of message and credibility.

Mike Hixon: Yes, exactly.

Interviewer: Which I imagine you do with all of your associates?

Mike Hixon: I do.

Interviewer: Some easy ways to do that, obviously we just talked about a few but if you are a realtor and you are just starting out and you say, 'What do I do about establishing a brand?", what would be the first thing you would give him?

Mike Hixon: Well you know it's interesting that you ask that because I just had a conversation with a colleague of mine, who went through a training course with me. Had I had the benefit of knowing a lot of this information upfront, it would have been huge.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Mike Hixon: You know I mean the first thing you've got to do is, you've got to setup an email that tells people every time you send them something what you do, and who you are.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Mike Hixon: I mean that's the first thing. And then of course you know your business relationship, how you are going to setup your office and the name of your office and how you are going to brand everything you send out, from letterhead to email.

Interviewer: I am an internet marketing guy and people always talk about that because that seems to be the wave of technology today and so forth, and a lot of people get wrapped up in it, but the bottom line is I still tell people, 'as you can do all that, this really still comes down to a relationship business', talk a little bit about that.

Mike Hixon: Big time relationship business, it is strictly relationship, you know I think I read, heard something the other day that says, "If you think you are a realtor, you are wrong, what you are is a marketer; and it's all about marketing. I mean people have to know your name, they have to see you, you have to have exposure, they have to see you somewhere and a lot of it is referral business, but you know there are a lot of folks out there that, if they see something on the internet, like YouTube or whatever that's their first point of contact and a lot of it is electronic now.

Interviewer: I hear a lot about how in the last 10 years, realtors are really breaking off into specialties, distressed property specialist, divorce specialist, whatever it may be, how important is that to incorporate into your brand?

Mike Hixon: I think it's important, I don't know that you want to just be strictly branded by one specific niche but, if you do a lot in general and your specialty is short-sales or REO, that's important to get it out specifically to your colleagues or you know other realtors in the business because a lot of times that's where I get referrals.

Interviewer: Lastly Mike, the MLS obviously is very cooperative and user-friendly for agents to help brand the agent and help talk about their personal marketing and so forth, talk about a few ways in which the MLS does that for realtors.

Mike Hixon: MLS is huge for realtors as far as getting information out to your colleagues in the business. So how do you use that as far as sorting up your listings is I think pretty important. I see so many times when you come across information that you are looking for, and it's just been skipped over, it's important information that you need, especially things that you are searching on, you know, but the more information you put in, the better off you are going to be.

Interviewer: Mike thanks.

Mike Hixon: You are welcome.

Interviewer: Appreciate you being here.

Mike Hixon: You bet. Thank you.

Learn more about How to Succeed in the Real Estate Market on Broker IPTV.

Scott Webber, owner of Fuller Sotheby's International Realty talks about the Denver area market and how Fuller Sotheby represents quality homes and provides excellence in real estate.

Today we are talking with Scott Webber, owner of Fuller Sotheby's International Realty here in Denver, welcome to the show.

Scott Webber: Thanks Dan, good to be here again.

Interviewer: Glad you're here, two years ago you had just bought Fuller Towne & Country Properties and I'm sure you heard a lot of people say, "Wow! That guy bought a firm at an interesting time."

Scott Webber: Well no doubt, the timing was suspicious and coincidental.

Interviewer: Right.

Scott Webber: But you know when you have been at this business for 35 years and you're committing for another 20 years, what's a little blip in the market?

Interviewer: There is bound to be a few.

Scott Webber: Yeah, you know when it's a long term commitment you know these are just the up and downs in the business and you are prepared to deal with whatever market comes at you.

Interviewer: Well let's talk about that, how has it been over the last two years? Can you give us a quick assessment of where you are at and where the market is at, at this time?

Scott Webber: Well, you know the market is definitely recovering, I mean we are clearly seeing listing inventories getting smaller...we are seeing more buyers in the market. So the balance between the supply and the demand is, is definitely improving. We've seen more sales in the luxury segment so far this year, than we saw all of last year.

Interviewer: Talk about the luxury market, obviously Fuller Sotheby's has been well entrenched in there and that's been a difficult market over the last two years both for buyers and sellers in all the ways. You said it's getting better... the outlook is that it will continue to improve? Some people are concerned about a double dip, what do you think?

Scott Webber: I don't think this double dip rumor is anything worth worrying about.

Interviewer: Sure.

Scott Webber: I mean, I think people are just gaining more confidence in the overall economy all the time and we are, we are definitely seeing that in the way people are spending today, you know people are definitely much more liberal in their spending and so the luxury segment has picked way up, we are having way more showings, way more contracts, in fact multiple offers.

Interviewer: For disclosure, obviously I work in the luxury market, I have a lot of luxury listings. One of the things that I run up against and I'm sure you hear a lot of as being owner of the company is, Fuller Sotheby's wouldn't be interested in selling my home, mine is not a luxury home.

Scott Webber: Yeah clearly, our program is oriented towards the segment of the market that is maybe $500,000 or above, but really our brand is more about the quality factor than it is about the luxury segment. You know we're really just an organization with a brand and with a philosophy that's oriented around the concept of quality, and just really doing things with excellence. And so every one of our clients benefits from that commitment and that philosophy regardless of the price point. Last year, we sold a property for $50,000, and we also had the highest sale in the market at $9.2 million. So you know, we are selling everything in-between, and we take as much pride in selling the property that's on the lower average sales price range as we do in the luxury segment.

Interviewer: I tell people all the time that, you know, yes we sell million dollar homes, and if yours is not a million dollar home, don't worry, you'll just get the million dollar service.

Scott Webber: That's exactly right, that's exactly right.

Interviewer: Yeah, all right, what's left on the horizon, what do we have to look forward to where is the market heading?

Scott Webber: Well, I think we're just going to see continual improvement you know we are really fortunate in Denver, you know Denver you know there is, there is immigration into Denver, there is a lot of companies moving here, there's you know there's, there's growth, there is, Denver is very fortunate and, and so I see the Denver market you know itself you know getting stronger, I see the national marketplace getting stronger, I think that you know that the future is bright, very bright.

Interviewer: Yeah, people still want to live in Denver.

Scott Webber: Absolutely. It's a good place to be.

Interviewer: Thanks for being here.

Scott Webber: Thank you Dan, good to be here.

Justin Knoll, President of the Denver Board of Realtors talks about the ongoing merger discussions.

The Denver Board of Realtors, Jefferson County Association of Realtors and the North Metro Denver Realtor Association are discussing a merger to have greater strength, greater numbers and a greater voice.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Justin Knoll, President of the Denver Board of Realtors and Justin welcome to the show.

Justin Knoll: Glad to be here, thanks for having me.

Interviewer: Thanks, well you are obviously in the news a lot, all of us REALTORS® have been hearing discussions about the Denver Board merging with one or more associations and I guess it's common knowledge now that the Jefferson County Association of Realtors, North Metro and Denver Board are going to merge and come together.

Justin Knoll: Well that's the talks that we're having right now and there is no secret in the past that we have had these discussions with all of the associations throughout the Denver Metro area, but the Denver Board is pleased to be in discussions with Jefferson County Association of Realtors and the North Metro Denver Realtor Association. If this does go through and we do have a unification go through, it would represent 5000 members and would be the largest local association in the state of Colorado.

Interviewer: Well that would be exciting for you know everybody involved, and I guess the next question from somebody watching is well how soon will this happen?

Justin Knoll: Certainly, there is a lot to happen, there is a lot of things that can be in the mix here, but we hopefully bring something by the end of the year, would be our hope.

Interviewer: Okay and then as a member of Denver Board like myself or somebody who is in North Metro they are saying to themselves, okay if we all merge that means we can all kind of participate in everyone's events, is that right?

Justin Knoll: Sure, we want to maintain the culture of each association and make sure that we actually mesh these things. One thing that technology has done for our community here and for Denver in general is really shrunk the size of what we do, no longer are there neighborhood specific things going on. It's easy for us to jump in the car and be in one of these associations or another in matter of time, of no time and really we want to have that congruence here, that meshing of culture. So yes, we would like to do that and collaborate with information and resources.

Interviewer: And you know for the REALTOR® out there that's the primary benefit for them right now.

Justin Knoll: I believe so, as so much is changing in our world, so much technology is changing, we have to have a greater voice when it comes to political things and by having a merger like this go through, it really does give us greater strength, greater numbers, a greater voice to do those things, to explore opportunities that maybe we hadn't been able to do in the past. So for the members, yes I think it would be very much a value added benefit.

Interviewer: And I imagine, on your side of the coin, by doing this, you are going to improve efficiency, lower cost, provide more services, am I right?

Justin Knoll: Absolutely, I mean redundancy is always an issue when you have competition. So we'd like to do that, but we'd also like to be more forward thinking, not just stopping the bleeding but how do we progress quicker. So many things are thrown at us all the time and we want to be able to not just adapt and change, but to be progressive and to change with them, and then offer the members things that maybe their company can't do anymore, which we are seeing where everybody is somewhat hunkering down and contracting if you will.

Interviewer: I imagine you've got your executive board, and they have their executive boards and you got to figure out who is going to be kind of calling all of the shots that type of thing right.

Justin Knoll: Yes absolutely, that's part of the process is figuring out leadership from here and who is in, and where strengths really lie. One of the things in this process has been finding out where strengths do lie and how do we call upon those to make sure that we are put in the best position.

Interviewer: Final two questions, you know members are probably saying, okay where can I get more information and can I participate in the discussion?

Justin Knoll: Absolutely, we really want our membership feedback in this, and that's one of the things we're going to be doing coming up is really engaging the members and being proactive about what, what would this mean to you, what would you want from an association that's now this big and this combined. We do want that feedback; you could always contact anybody in leadership at any of the associations. We will be reaching out with focus groups and all such things, but for information you can always hit our websites at denverrealtors.org and the North Metro Association and the Jefferson County Association their websites will also have that information.

Interviewer: Justin, I wish you much luck in getting this together, it's a big job.

Justin Knoll: Absolutely. Thank you very much.

The Realtors Property Resource is a valuable real estate tool that gives you in-depth property knowledge to enhance your listing presentations. There is even a new mobile app to let you log-in from your smart phone!

Interviewer: Today we are talking with David Barber from Re/Max Unlimited, and the topic is RPR. First of all David, welcome to the show.

David Barber: Thank you Dan, it's nice to be here.

Interviewer: Lot of agents don't know what RPR is or what those initials stand for, so let's start there.

David Barber: Okay RPR is the Realtors Property Resource. This is an ambitious project started by the National Association of Realtors and their end goal is to catalog 157 million parcels of property in the United States. It's been in existence for a little over 24 months and is becoming alive in a lot of markets and being a very valuable tool.

Interviewer: And obviously they are partnering with your local MLS is which is where they are getting a lot of the data I assume.

David Barber: What they are doing is consolidating data in this area from Metrolist, and also from a lot of public records. So, in the past, when you used to spend a lot of time going to different public sites to gather information, their goal is to have it all in one location.

Interviewer: Yeah I think that's what I like best about it, when I've used it, I can see the data that's coming from your local MLS and then it gives me a side by side comparison about the data that's coming from the public records so you can see if it kind of jives.

David Barber: Exactly, and it is based on what's called the realtor evaluation model, where companies like Zillow and Trulia are using an automated evaluation model that are basically just granting public record data. This allows us as realtors to personalize the information we know about the market place whether that property backs to a busy street or has an enhancement that makes it a little more valuable.

Interviewer: Well as a realtor, if I don't know about it, what can I do on RPR that I can't do on say my local MLS?

David Barber: Well it's, if you think of it as a CMA on steroids. You've got a lot more detailed graphing, you have overlays or maps that you can do a lot more in-depth research. As a realtor, and this is a realtor-only benefit, you do need to have a NRDS number to log in and it gives you tools to enhance your listing presentation that a normal CMA doesn't offer.

Interviewer: Yeah, one of the cool things I thought was just the amount of data that they have on distressed properties. Obviously that's very big with consumers today, they want to know about foreclosure, short sales; people that may be in a distress situation and this is pretty well detailed and laid out there.

David Barber: Exactly, one of the other enhancements is that it gives you some visibility in what's going on in the world outside of our market. So if you have a relocation client, you can take a look at their property, see what they have and what it's worth in their market to kind of help them understand what it's going to be like in our market.

Interviewer: That's where, like the California buyer that comes out here, wants to know about the postage size.

David Barber: Absolutely.

Interviewer: Wow! It's right.

David Barber: Exactly.

Interviewer: All right, they are adding new tools to RPR all the time. You mentioned that they added some more two weeks ago, is that right?

David Barber: Yeah most recently, they've added some new mapping products, you can check flood zones, you can overlay price changes. They've also put in a mobile application, once you are set up and registered on the main RPR site you can log in from your smart phone.

Interviewer: I think I'll do that. David thanks great information.

David Barber: Thanks Dan.

Create customizable search templates for clients with Metrolist and PrimeAccess. Instantly know how many properties relate to your specific client's needs.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with David Barber from Re/Max Unlimited and the topic is PrimeAccess, a new functionality that they have implemented. Welcome to the show.

David Barber: Thank you Dan, it's good to be here.

Interviewer: How are you?

David Barber: Good, good.

Interviewer: So tell me, last year Metrolist launched some new beta functionality with new searches tell me what's that all about?

David Barber: Well there are a couple of things in the new beta searches. First of all, you get a running tally as you add criteria to the search, you get a running count of how many properties are falling into that category. So rather than hitting the "how many" button and you can constantly see up in the corner of the display how many properties match what you are looking for.

Interviewer: That's cool, that saves you a step.

David Barber: Absolutely, and one of the other nice things is you can customize the layout of the screen you are looking at, once you get search results back.

Interviewer: So almost like set up a template.

David Barber: Certainly, you can either do that and save it as a template or if you are looking for specific things, say you have a client that's looking for acreage property, you can go into a custom menu, add "acreage" and then pull that column directly to the front. So you can see if they are looking at, say 20 to 40 acres, you can look through that criterion very quickly.

Interviewer: And so maybe you haven't heard from them in a while and they want to say, hey is there anything new that's come up, you could easily go back to that template, is that right?

David Barber: Absolutely, you can save it and pull it up at any time. If you save it as a client search, it will always come up that way. If you save it as a default, then everything that you go in and search as will come up like that.

Interviewer: So I think what you are saying is, we don't have to change the display every time if we've got the same client looking for the same product.

David Barber: That's exactly what I am saying.

Interviewer: And do you say the best way to do that is to first set up the criteria and then save it for that particular person.

David Barber: You've got a lot of different ways that you can do it. It's a very dynamic system and you can adjust things as you move through your search or you can set it up with all the criteria and then save it for the client.

Interviewer: Do you use any specific customized options on a regular basis?

David Barber: It really depends on what my clients are looking for, if they are looking for particular neighborhoods you can save that. As I say, acreage properties, zip codes, school districts, or any number of things. It gives you a lot of freedom to search for which criteria is important to your clients.

Interviewer: Last, but not least, if an agent wants to find out more information about how they set this up, how do they do that?

David Barber: Go to www.metrolist.com and they can go to the help center or call Metrolist tech support.

Interviewer: And they will walk you through it.

David Barber: Absolutely.

Interviewer: David, great information, thanks for being with us.

David Barber: Thanks Dan.

Cindy Sheahan of Metrolist, explains the new Real Estate technology.com site a new member benefit from Metrolist.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Cindy Sheahan she is an account manager with Metrolist and welcome to the show.

Cindy: Hi Dan how are you.

Interviewer: Well, we are talking about RE technology I imagine RE stands for real estate technology. What is it?

Cindy: Real Estate technology.com is a site that is a comprehensive and objective site for real estate agents to go to find all kinds of information about the technology products that are out there?

Interviewer: And this available to me as a member of Metrolist?

Cindy: Yes it is it is available to you on our web page.

Interviewer: It's just a link of off there?

Cindy: Yes it is, you would go to our home page and on the left hand side just scroll down find RE technology link and click on that, log on, create an account and go ahead and do some research there.

Interviewer: So when we are talking about RE technologies some information that maybe on that site give me some examples of it?

Cindy: Well there is all kinds of product reviews so if you are looking into buying some type of new technology for your real estate business and you are not sure what to buy you can go there and do some research find some reviews from people who are using it people like yourself that are in the business and just get all kinds of great information all in one place so that you don't have to do the research and recreate what they have done already for you.

Interviewer: Right, I imagine everybody is talking about whether or not they should use an ipad in their real estate business so I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the first things I saw popped up on there. All right, it sounds like it's a big clearing house for all kinds of real estate resources, am I right?

Cindy: Yes you are right it is a one site stop that you can look at to find information about products you can get reviews on those products you can get tutorials on how to use those products and, in addition to that, there is all kinds of articles that are available and web sites and blogs and columns that are there that are available for you to do the research right there all in one place.

Interviewer: Got you, so you guys just decided to compile this for us as real estate agents who belong to Metrolist?

Cindy: It's been done for you by a third party RE technology.com and because it's embedded in the MLS it's available to Metrolist users at no additional charge.

Interviewer: Got you.

Cindy: It's also embedded on MLS systems all across the country so hundreds of thousands of agents are having access to this.

Interviewer: I would imagine things about smart phones, information about web portals, real estate web portals, things of that nature.

Cindy: Right you will find information about social networking and all the social media that's out there. You will find information about how to stay in touch with your clients, how to stay on top of business, anything that you might think of using to move your real estate business forward.

Interviewer: Sounds good. Thank you very much I appreciate it.

Cindy: Sure you're welcome.

Interviewer: Good information.

Instanet, an online real estate forms solution, has added some enhancements to the system for Metrolist users

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Cindy Sheehan she is an account manager with Metrolist and welcome to the show.

Cindy: Hi, thank you, thanks for having me.

Interviewer: Well we are talking about a topic that is kind of near and dear to your heart this is kind of where you spend a lot time and that's Instanet documents?

Cindy: Yes.

Interviewer: And recently there has been some enhancements to the program so tell us about that?

Cindy: Yes we've just recently made some enhancements. One of them is that you can save the document to Microsoft Word, which means that you can save it off site, off the Instanet system and work on it separately. And fill-able fields, that was a big one that everyone was asking for, so now the forms have fields that are fill-able; as much as you need to write in there, you can and they expand to take all the information that you need to put in there.

Interviewer: What types of fields are fill-able?

Cindy: Just about all of them! Additional provisions and the names of the buyers and when you save them in Instanet, you can view them in Microsoft word. You can save it that way, you can save them as PDF and see all the information that you have saved and you can click on the print preview button now and see what the information looks like before you print it.

Interviewer: Yeah that's good. So is this the same as expandable form fields?

Cindy: Yes.

Interviewer: You know its fill-able is just another word for it?

Cindy: Right, right they are expandable so they, they expand to take the information that you enter.

Interviewer: And I imagine some of the feed back you had been getting from consumers is well we could really like a print preview of this and this functionality and how that works before we go ahead and send it.

Cindy: Right so Instanet made these changes for us.

Interviewer: All right now I know one change that you are excited about is and realtors in general would be as glad is that there is an easier way now to upload documents into your MLS listing is that right?

Cindy: Yes, we have made it very, very simple all you need to do is go to your listing, open it up on the screen under the change listing tab and just click on upload documents. You can put in anything that you have. If you've got HOA documents or a roofing certification, a seller's disclosure, mold disclosure, really anything a buyer might ask you for, you can go ahead and upload it.

Interviewer: Will that appear under the disclosures link, in your listing or will it be a separate link?

Cindy: You can do it either way you can either upload everything all together and call it disclosures or documents for, you know, "1, 2, 3 main street" or you can upload them each separately it's up to you.

Interviewer: But it will be that little blue link right at the top of the listings that we have got to click on.

Cindy: Right it will be in the Instanet box between the photo and the map on every listing detail sheet and it will save your documents.

Interviewer: Does it have to be a PDF can it be a word doc, Excel or does it or PDF is it?

Cindy: There are a lot of different formats that can be uploaded. So, it's pretty open.

Interviewer: that gives us some options. So, a little bit more and more people I imagine are using this?

Cindy: Yes

Interviewer: And this is some of the feed back you got about changes to make and so forth?

Cindy: Right, right.

Interviewer: And so how has this been received?

Cindy: Very well I think the document upload has been hugely well received its really easy to use now the fill-able fields was a real concern, people were asking for that to be changed and so there it is its changed. Being able to save things in Word is a nice thing too because you can work off-site you can save it to your computer and the fields are again expandable in word as well.

Interviewer: Well at least my transaction manager will be happy.

Cindy: Oh good

Interviewer: Thanks, good information! Thanks for being here.

Cindy: Sure, you're welcome. Thanks for having me.

A Realtor® has the expertise, knowledge, training and support of local and national realtors associations to professionally assist you in buying or selling your home.

Interviewer: Today, we are talking with Rohn Goldstein, CEO of the South Metro Denver Realtors Association, and Rohn welcome to the show.

Rohn Goldstein: Thank you.

Interviewer: Hey, we're talking about what a Realtor® is, you know, it's a term that everybody uses and some people don't know that there is a difference between a realtor spelled with a little 'r' and realtor with a capital "R"

Rohn Goldstein: Actually there is not a difference, because there is no Realtor with a little 'r',

Interviewer: Yeah.

Rohn Goldstein: There are real estate agents and there are those people who are Realtors® which means they have joined The National Association of Realtors. It also means that they have joined the Colorado Association of Realtors and their local association of Realtors, as in mine: The South Metro Denver Realtor Association. So, whenever anybody joins, it's called the tri-party agreement, they agree that they are going to join on all three levels

Interviewer: What the consumer wants to know, what's the difference between a Realtor® and a real estate agent?

Rohn Goldstein: I think that's a great question. To me, I liken it to a doctor or a lawyer. Would you want somebody who says, you know, I will cut your head open, but I don't subscribe to any ethical behavior. Well effectively, when you're hiring a real estate agent who is not a Realtor®, that's exactly what you are doing. You are hiring somebody that does not subscribe to any code of ethics

Interviewer: Yeah. Why are organizations important to Realtors® and to the industry and consumers in general?

Rohn Goldstein: For a variety of reasons; Number one: those organizations work, not only like I said, to provide codes of ethics, rules that the people can abide by, rules that consumers can hold them accountable to, but Number two: those groups, like ours, become amazing advocates for the consumer, right now, just like in several times in the past few years Congress or people who work for a variety of government agencies have thought that the easiest way to get money is to eliminate the interest deduction for homes, quite frankly we fight like the Dickens, because we think that that's the number one advantage for most consumers, is their ability to take that one item off their taxes, but there's a lot of other items, as well, that happen all the time, and so that advocacy we think is incredibly important.

Interviewer: You know, there are a bunch of consumers out there that do regular searches on the Internet for properties, and they are very well educated. They know the neighborhoods, they know the price per square foot, they know homes, they know comparisons and comparables, and they say to themselves, you know, why should I use a real estate agent, let alone someone who is a Realtor®, your answer to that would be?

Rohn Goldstein: Well, I liken it, once more, to that medical situation, you know, I found it pretty easy to look up my diagnosis for all different kinds of physical ailments on the computer. And you know that it gives tons of information. And you know how many times it's been right? Almost none. You know, I think it's good to have second eyes looking at things. I think it's why lawyers say, you would be a fool to have yourself as a client. I think you ought to have other opinions, I think you ought to have knowledge, I think that you ought to have people who see things in a different way, and can give you information. Now the decision is still yours as a consumer,

Interviewer: Yeah.

Rohn Goldstein: But the more information you have and the more skills you have behind you, the better you are going to be.

Interviewer: Rohn thanks. I appreciated you being here.

Rohn Goldstein: Thank you.

See more videos about real estate at BrokerIPTV.com

In this Broker IPTV video, Rohn Goldstein of the South Metro Denvers Realtors Association, introduces RPR, the Realtors Property Resource, a comprehensive tool to gather information on all properties sold and for sale.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Rohn Goldstein, CEO of the South Metro Denver Realtors Association, and Rohn welcome to the show.

Rohn Goldstein: Thank you

Interviewer: We are talking about a topic called the RPR and a lot of real estate agents don't know about this yet, so why don't you tell them what it is.

Rohn Goldstein: The National Association of Realtors has been kind enough to have a four-legged stool of technology, that is available to realtors. The first one that everybody knows about is realtor.com of course, and then the second one the people seem to know about a little bit is realtor.org which is an internal site that gives them tons of information about real estate. The third one which was announced a couple of years ago was called houselogic, it's a consumer site about how to care for your house, and then the fourth one, the one that we're so excited about called Realtors® Property Resource or RPR

Interviewer: Yeah. Now, when people ask me what it is, or other agents ask what it is, the best way I could describe it is that The National Association of Realtors has essentially put together a national database of homes that have been sold or are for sale correct.

Rohn Goldstein: That's correct, 147 million homes show up on RPR, and it derives data from all different kinds of sources, from multilists around the country, from public records around the country, from school districts across the country, from data sources, from the census... and pools all that information into one amazing report

Interviewer: Yeah! Well, give us a sample of what type of information is available on RPR.

Rohn Goldstein: Well, in just a couple of minutes I can pull up a specific address, get the mapping for the address, get all of the comparables or things that the County Assessor may be using, pull in data about the school districts, data about employment figures, data about whether this house is in foreclosure or some other stressed situation, give a range of value that RPR thinks that the house is worth, which, by the way, can be amended, if the realtor knows more information than the national database is pulling up, and all of that information and a 100 more items show up in the RPR survey.

Interviewer: I think the cool thing that they do here is they take information from your local MLS about what's being published about the property and then they take information from the public record and they cross-reference and marry the two, so you really have the best of both worlds.

Rohn Goldstein: You really do. You know, I used to have to pull information from multi list then go to public records, and then go to one mapping source, then go to a data source likes the census. All of that's in one thing.

Interviewer: Alright is it only available to realtors, or is it available to the consumer as well?

Rohn Goldstein: It's only available to realtors, it's part of what realtors pay for, when they pay for their membership, so consumers have no access, non-realtor agents have no access to it, lenders, appraisers, none of those have access to it. This is a realtor only service.

Interviewer: Alright, how do they access it?

Rohn Goldstein: I think, the easiest way is to go to Metrolist, as they always do, login and go to the tab across the top that says "search", when they pull down on the search button, they will see advanced, basic and different kinds of searches just like they always have if they look down the list. There will be one that says RPR, now the first time somebody goes to RPR they need to log on, and to do that they're going to need to know their national realtor database system number or NRDS number. They might have it on a card or they might have it on the back of one of the realtor magazines or if they don't have it in any of those other ways, they might just call their local association, who will be glad to give on that NRDS number, and they will be able to logon. If they have any issues at all, there is a 1-800 number for RPR, that'll help him through every step, really good people to work with.

Interviewer: Easier than that I use the live chat function on RPR. When I had a question I didn't even have to pick up the phone.

Rohn Goldstein: It's great, it just depends on whether you want to talk to somebody one way or the other, but either way they are there for you. I want realtors to take advantage of this.

Interviewer: Thanks Rohn. Good information.

Rohn Goldstein: Thanks.

Interviewer: Appreciate it.

In this video by IPTVBoyz, we find out what a reverse mortgage is and how to get one to turn your home equity into cash.