Expert advice, market reports, and tips from the Niagara Region real estate professionals.
“The rains descended and the floods came.” That statement applied to Noah, the Ark and the great flood, but it’s also a pretty accurate description of the weather we have been experiencing here in St. Catharines/Niagara the past few days.
Well, it’s been somewhere in the neighbourhood of 13 years since I first rolled out the weekly video series ‘Tips and Techniques’. The videos covered a vast array of topics, legal issues, regulatory issues, new real estate forms, specialty clauses, best practices, potential problems to avoid, agency issues. The list goes on and on. With over 46 years as a licenced realtor and over 42 as the Broker of Record/Owner of a large real estate company there have been a lot of situations crossing my desk over the years.
Whatever business interactions you have: be it a fabulous dining experience at a top-end restaurant, a service appointment to get your car repaired, or a week spent at an all-inclusive resort, when the whole experience rolls out seamlessly and without disappointment, it seems so simple, so natural. But none of that happens without an exceptional network of back-end staff working tirelessly behind the scenes. The corporate administrator's.
Recently, here at RE/MAX Garden City Realty, we put our training centre to good use once again with a seminar put on by Geowarehouse. Theresa Corindia was the presenter who fought traffic coming in from Toronto to put on the seminar, and she did a splendid job.
Every spring for over 40 years now, we at RE/MAX Garden City Realty Inc. set aside one night. A magical night in which we honour the outstanding sales achievements of the men and women of our company and sister company D.L.C. Easy Street Mortgages. Of course, these achievements are also recognized on an international scale at the Spring R4 Convention held each year in Las Vegas and at dozens and dozens of regional events around the globe.
“You don’t sell the steak; you sell the sizzle.” And with that sentiment, an entire industry was born – marketing. Here at RE/MAX Garden City Realty Inc., we’ve had a marketing department in place for well over 30 years. And it’s there to help the agents sell the sizzle.
I know! It’s a bit late to be talking about Christmas here in the middle of February, but with only one e-newsletter a month, and with last month’s Nuggets dedicated to our Christmas Gala, here we are. This event was unique enough that I thought it was worth sharing.
A lot of holidays and special events run for only one day. Not so with Christmas. At least not at RE/MAX Garden City Realty. Things actually start to ramp up in mid-November. That’s when the announcement goes out to our agents and staff reminding them of Christmas Caring and Sharing, and that’s when the donations begin. Then about that time, tree trimming in our offices begins and especially in our Grimsby office, where we also enjoy the annual Christmas Pot Luck. Always an amazing event
In some ways, Christmas can be bittersweet. Sweet because it is an enchanting time. For so many little ones, it’s a time where memories are forged that will last a lifetime. Think back over your life. Review some of your most cherished memories, and I’ll bet Christmas factors in there somewhere. Going with Mom and Dad to pick out a Christmas tree. On a corner lot or out at a farm. The forest smell as it climatizes to the indoors. Decorating the house inside and out. And the food. Golden turkey with all the trimmings. Apple or even mincemeat pie. Eggnog. Plum pudding with warm caramel sauce. On and on it goes.
Back in 1970, a man named Alvin Toffler wrote a book called Future Shock. In that book, he described future shock as “the dizzying disorientation brought about by the premature arrival of the future.” What he was saying was that things were going to move so fast and change at such a dizzying pace that you would be hard-pressed to keep up. Talk about vision. And I’m not sure even Mr Toffler, 55 years ago, would have believed how fast change would be taking place in 2025.
Back in the day, we used to have Tour of Property on a regular weekly basis. It was quite the event. A literal caravan of cars would head out from our RE/MAX office following a pre-ordained route through Niagara to personally inspect a number of our listings that were new to the market. And often these inspections, sometimes involving 30 or 40 of our agents would spawn an almost immediate sale, when salespeople walking through a house would think, ‘I’ve got just the buyer for this!’
