Happy New Year!  Not only does Rosh Hashanah ring in the Jewish New Year in the Fall, but the Cincinnati Real Estate New Year starts then as well.  Not really sure why, but the annual ‘Circle of Excellence’ numbers are tracked from Oct. 1 of one year – Sept 30 of the next year.  And I am happy to report that for 2011 we are once again in the Circle of Excellence,  the top  10 – 14% of agents in the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors and have been for 4 of the last 5 years.  Not bad in this economy, especially since the qualifications have not changed with a declining market!

Also not bad since I got into the business of selling modern homes 8 years ago as a ‘part time’ gig.  Little did I know when I started on this journey that there were SO many other modern aficionados out there – and so many homes that needed proper representation!   Not only is it no longer part time, but is now a family affair with my husband Arlen adding his time and expertise to the team.  But our team is actually much bigger than just the two of us – something I don’t talk about a lot but deserves not only recognition but explanation.

In the state of Ohio, a real estate sales person’s license must be held by a broker in a brokerage.  We are real estate sales persons, or Realtors, and our brokerage, our larger team, is Keller Williams Advisors.  So even though we have the sporty and very different green signs noting cincinnatimodern (our brand), we are Keller Williams Agents and very proud of it.  Keller Williams is very unusual in that they not only allow (gasp), but encourage self branded agents.

Instead of pushing the company name like most other brokerages do, Keller Williams instead works very hard to attract top agents who already run successful businesses (all Realtors are independent contractors, working for commission ONLY) and give them tried and proven tools to grow their individual businesses.  They are also forerunners in technology, the first national company to use a state of the art paperless contract system with electronic signatures.  They did not get to be the #2 real estate company in the country by accident, and it is a pleasure to be associated with a company who is as dedicated to our success as we are.

Internet presence is far and away the #1 marketing tool when you are selling a house, and our listing system feeds our listing to literally hundreds of Real Estate portals all over the web.  NO listings have a better web presence than ours do.  This may be why that even though our Keller Williams Advisors office in Cincinnati, only 5 years old, is the #2 volume real estate office in the entire Cincinnati MLS, and our listings have the lowest days on the market of any top producing office.  Can you tell I am proud to be associated with such a great company?

So in this NEW YEAR, the key to selling your house is to price it appropriately.  Plain and simple, that is what it takes.  The key to buying is to get yourself pre qualified by one of our recommended lenders (or one of your own) and take advantage of historic low interest rates and great home prices.  We have had great success in this market and we want to help you be successful, too whether you are buying or selling!

p.s. – if you are considering a career in real estate, give me a call – I would love to share my experiences with you.