Real estate agents in my area were once again reminded this weekend in a very unfortunate way about  dangers that lurk in this business.  We found out this weekend the terrible news that one of our colleagues in another company was assaulted while showing vacant property.  She was also stabbed multiple times and left for dead.  The assailant was captured.  The agent is recovering.  But the consequences will remain for some time.

In an earlier post, one of our RealBlogging contributors, Stefan Swanepoel, announced the release of the new Real Estate Trends Report 2008.  I've read it...always enlightening.  A couple of days ago, Jack Peckham's Real Estate Cyber Convention featured a short snippet from Stephan giving highlights of three of the trends from his report.  You can se

The Luxury Home Council, a 1600 member group of REALTORS® who specialize in selling luxury homes, announced today the release of a new online version of their popular Accredited Luxury Home Specialist designation course. The ALHS course which will continue to be taught live nationwide includes information on national and local housing trends, specialized luxury buyer and seller needs, development and delivery of unique services, representation, liability and risk management, negotiating, builder services and marketing.

New real estate wiki for real estate industry is launched. 

History of wikis in real estate
BiggerPockets (launched in 2006) claims to be the first real estate wiki but it unfortunately closed down in May 2007 due to lack of sufficient content.  Introduced shortly therafter, and still going strong, is InmanWiki (part of InmanNews, InmanTV and InmanBlog).  

I just read this wonderful report from the Wall Street Journal

"Americans, Others
Acquire Luxury Homes
Despite Restrictions

By LORETTA CHAO and JASON LEOW
January 18, 2008; Page W1
Beijing

Once known for drab, government-controlled housing and ancient courtyard homes, China has become a land of multimillion-dollar apartments and soaring property values. And foreigners are trying to get in on the action.

I would love your input on this.

I am planning my trip to New York City to attend the Inman News conference January 9-11^th.  I understand that the Inman conferences are focused on and dedicated to the advancing technologies of our industry and they do an amazing job however, there is always one vitally important component missing at these events…the topic of recruiting. I would love to see more break-out sessions on this topic. Last Inman, there wasn’t even one.  In my world, recruiting, retention and training of agents is the key to survival and profitability in any market.  It is especially critical in a correcting market.  Without agents you have no one to blog, no listings to syndicate and no clients to experience your fancy map search.

Due to project commitments, I'm missing out on the NAR convention this year.  So, this year I'm relying on Stefan and RealtyU President, Bill Shue, along with our Marketing Director, Jay Medley to keep me updated on the highlights.  Below are a few short snippets from Bill.  I'll post more highlights in a subsequent post/podcast.

Annual conventions of professional and trade associations are usually uplifting events – rally gatherings that celebrate the achievements of the past year and pump up the attendees with enthusiasm for the future.   It will be interesting to see if the yearly gathering of the National Association of Realtors, slated to assemble in Las Vegas in mid-November, will find a way to establish an exuberance of optimism among the 20,000+ members and vendors who generally attend the event.