Luxury Real Estate

By Robert Lockard

I have some good news and some even better news. The good news is that RE/MAX Cayman Islands just joined LuxuryRealEstate.com, expanding our global network even further into the Caribbean. The even better news is that Kass Canada Coleman, the Broker/Owner of Beachcastles and an agent with RE/MAX Cayman Islands is No. 6 on the list of top international RE/MAX brokers, based on residential commissions paid from January through April 2008.

It’s always nice to hear good news like this. Apparently the Cayman Islands are enjoying a very healthy real-estate market right now. Check out Kass’ website www.beachcastles.com for some in-depth information about the Cayman Islands, in case you’d like to go visit.


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. Good job, Kass, and welcome to the network! I’d like to include the actual list to back up this claim, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to yet. I hope you don’t mind. The above picture is from: www.beachcastles.com/home/team.php?id=0.

By Meghan Barry

Today I spoke with Jon Larrance of Perry and Co. in Denver, Colo., a member of the Board of Regents. I had called to thank Jon for completing a recent membership survey that we sent to our entire membership. Jon had a lot of great ideas and constructive feedback.

It is very important for us to receive honest input from members. We take this feedback very seriously, using it to refine our programs and products. Particularly in a challenging market, service is key. Communication with your customers can help you to provide top-quality service.

Just for fun, I took a look at some of the Perry & Co. listings on LuxuryRealEstate.com. If I ever move to Denver, I think I want this one: www.luxuryrealestate.com/850804



Editor’s Note:
Meghan Barry is the Executive Vice President of LuxuryRealEstate.com. She works closely with CEO/Publisher John Brian Losh to organize a variety of Luxury Real Estate programs, events and services. Like Meghan said, we really appreciate your feedback about our conferences and other services. Feel free to contact your Account Manager to let us know how we can better serve you.

By Robert Lockard

As a follow-up to my last blog entry, I’d like to report on the interview LuxuryRealEstate.com Publisher/CEO John Brian Losh enjoyed on Lakefront Radio on Friday, June 20, 2008. It went very well, and I have to give a lot of credit to hosts Mary Thompson, Chuck Thompson and Lee Kantor for asking great questions and being a lot of fun on air. They sound like they really enjoy their work.

You can listen to the full 38-minute radio show online.

Mr. Losh discussed the recent sale of Donald Trump’s $100 million estate and some other great news items. He also went into great detail about LuxuryRealEstate.com, the most-viewed luxury real estate website in the world, and several aspects of the Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate network, including membership requirements. He specifically focused on Atlanta, naming Harry Norman, Realtors, the Board of Regents member in Atlanta, and Jenny Pruitt & Associates, REALTORS® as two prominent members in the area.

As I mentioned earlier, I was really impressed by Lakefront Radio hosts Mary, Chuck and Lee. They were all so easygoing and patient in their approach at the microphone, something I found very refreshing in talk radio. Some shows sound like the speakers are constantly interrupting each other, but these hosts found a great balance in their style. Great job!

Mr. Losh said that some of the finest luxury locations in the world are in South America and East Europe. He also mentioned that his favorite city in the world is Venice, Italy because it’s so quiet, with no cars or motorbikes to disrupt the peace. His favorite city in the United States (besides his hometown of Seattle, of course) is Carmel, Calif., near Pebble Beach, because it’s “popular, but not too popular” and very relaxing.

All in all, it was a great radio show. I hope you’ll enjoy listening to it if you have the time. Be sure to check it out every Friday because the hosts are dedicated to talking about positive real-estate news that can sometimes fall by the way when large media outlets focus so much on negative news. Truly an admirable endeavor!


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. Be sure to visit the Lakefront Radio website to hear the whole program. It was very nice.

By Janice Ridge

As a member of Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate, you have the opportunity to be included in the referral opportunities that come through our network. We have seasoned staff working with our members to provide value through this unique network of the best of the best in luxury real estate. I also want to remind everyone in our community that we have excellent referral opportunities coming through daily from all over the world for you. In our membership we are happy to help with broker-to-broker, relocation and need-an-agent referrals. We only refer within our network to our members.

As those of you who work with referrals on a daily basis can attest, it is important to know who you can count on to handle the various types of requests that come into a referral department. In that regard, I am calling out to all Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate members to contact me if you are interested in either receiving or placing referrals. To speak more about our referral program and how you can gain value from your investment through LuxuryRealEstate.com, please either email me at JRidge@LuxuryRealEstate.com or call me directly at 206.838.7728 with questions or ideas!

My bio: Janice Ridge is our Director of Membership and Relocation. She is a licensed REALTOR® in California and Washington. She has previously served as a director of relocation in the San Francisco Bay Area for a major residential real-estate brokerage, as well as managed sales and leads for one of the largest online real-estate marketing solutions providers.


Editor’s Note:
Since Janice already introduced herself quite nicely, I will simply comment on her blog entry. Janice is certainly an expert on the subject of referrals and relocation, so I’m grateful to hear her views on this matter. Referrals are extremely useful tools to building your business in ways you might not be able to see on your own. In fact, I wrote an article touching on the subject of relocation and referrals in the winter 2008 issue of LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine.

By Robert Lockard

I have some fun news to share about John Brian Losh, Publisher/CEO of LuxuryRealEstate.com and Broker/CEO of Ewing & Clark, Inc., Seattle's oldest real-estate brokerage.

Mr. Losh will appear on Lakefront Radio, an Atlanta radio show on Friday, June 20, 2008. He will discuss the luxury real estate market and high-tech trends with hosts Mary Thompson, Chuck Thompson and Lee Kantor.

The radio show is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. You can listen to the show live by visiting the Lakefront Radio website. That will be great. I’m sure Mr. Losh will have some great insights to share.

In addition to this radio show, Mr. Losh also appeared in the April/May issue of Unique Homes magazine. He was the focus of Ken Weingartner’s “Unique Personalities” section. Nick Antonicello, Director of Sales at Unique Homes, gave Mr. Losh a copy of that magazine issue at the 13th Annual Luxury Real Estate Spring Retreat this past April.


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. This is very exciting stuff. I can’t wait to listen to this radio show tomorrow.

By Meghan Barry

John Brian Losh and John Casey Losh traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyoming last week to visit longtime Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate member and new Board of Regents member, Real Estate of Jackson Hole. The weather was unseasonably chilly, with some snowflakes in the air on the 10th of June. Brian had a chance to meet with the sales staff, have a great discussion about the thriving real-estate market in Jackson Hole and share some words of wisdom.

Pictured are Chris Johnston, Chairman & CEO; Bob Graham, President/Associate Broker; John Brian Losh and Ray Elser, Responsible Broker.


Editor’s Note:
Meghan Barry is the Executive Vice President of LuxuryRealEstate.com. She works closely with CEO/Publisher John Brian Losh to organize a variety of Luxury Real Estate programs, events and services. Mr. Losh does a whole lot of traveling, going all the way to Italy to visit members over there and to many other locations around the world. Maybe he’ll come visit your neighborhood next.

By Robert Lockard

Check out this great article I recently read in the Arizona Daily Star, entitled “Home, art inside are both for sale.” I think the sellers in this article are onto something pretty smart by joining forces with a local art museum to sell their property.

Author Christie Smythe points out that showing art in a home can be beneficial for both the artists and the home sellers. Beautiful paintings, sculptures and other pieces of art can add something special to a home that makes it more memorable to potential buyers. Plus, the artists receive exposure to new viewers and their works of art are sold with the house.

This takes home staging to a whole new level. Ordinarily, a staged home isn’t sold in the condition in which it is first shown to buyers. But in this case, all of the art will stay with the house when it is purchased. That’s a pretty novel idea, I think. This is a smart solution because both art and real-estate markets in many parts of the United States are falling on hard times at the moment. Perhaps by joining forces, these two industries can prove that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The photo above is courtesy of Ilya Estate Photography.

Barbara Stahura, a talented freelance writer, brought this article to my attention. She recently interviewed John Brian Losh, the CEO/Publisher of LuxuryRealEstate.com, for an article she’s writing on “green” luxury homes for an upcoming issue of Steinway & Sons Magazine.


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. What do you think about this creative idea? What are some other ways brokers and agents can attract luxury real estate buyers in tough markets?

By Robert Lockard

I just have a quick thought to share today. I wish I had more time to write more about this topic, but I’ll just do the best I can in a short space. I read a wonderfully informative Inman News article today entitled “Media create foreclosure hysteria.” As you can tell by the headline, this article is trying to explain what various media sources are currently saying and not saying to make our current real-estate troubles seem even worse than they actually are.

Perhaps there is not a concerted effort to cause a panic by inflating numbers. Maybe the reporters who are striving to meet their deadlines and report this important story to their readers simply don’t have enough time to fully analyze all the facts they’re reporting. Whatever the case is, author Bernice Ross points out some excellent facts in her article that have failed to be reported correctly or been lost in the editing process.

I especially like how she ends her article. She says, ”The question I would like answered: Why isn’t this positive news being reported elsewhere?” Now that’s a good question. This question has been raised many times and the answer is often simply that news distributors are in the business of selling news to readers and viewers and so they want to make their stories eye-grabbing and ear-catching. A story about foreclosure rates increasing slightly isn’t big news unless it’s spiced up a bit.

Ross points out that there’s plenty of good news happening in a variety of markets. I try to get the word out about these stories by publishing a weekly newsletter called the Week in Review with Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate members’ positive news stories. I also try to keep the LuxuryRealEstate.com Blog filled with great content from our members and employees.


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. Feel free to share your thoughts on what we can do to share the good news happening in our markets.

By Brian Langhorst

We are very pleased to announce that Hogans Real Estate and Insurance in Chestertown, Maryland is now a member of LuxuryRealEstate.com and Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate! Hogans Real Estate and Insurance serves the Eastern Shore of Maryland and has been a market leader for more than 50 years. Franklin Hogans is the broker/owner of this esteemed member.

Please view their listings and learn more about them on their profile or at www.hogans.com.


Editor’s Note:
Brian Langhorst is LuxuryRealEstate.com’s Membership Manager. He meets members’ unique needs through the dynamic services LuxuryRealEstate.com provides. It’s always nice to hear about how our network is expanding and assisting new members. Thanks for the update, Brian.

By Robert Lockard

I originally planned on writing this blog entry earlier this week on the proposed settlement between the National Association of REALTORS® and the Department of Justice that would allow multiple listing service members to make private MLS information available to non-members. However, immediately after the story broke, plenty of real-estate bloggers came up with all sorts of reactions, positive, negative and neutral. Now I’m having trouble coming up with something to add to their expert opinions. I hope you’ll bear with me.

I’ll start by quoting Malcom Forbes (1919-1990), the father of Steve Forbes, current publisher of Forbes Magazine, “It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem.” My knowledge of the MLS is certainly not as impressive as those who have already voiced their opinions, but I’ll just try to bring my thoughts to the table in an interesting way and you can feel free to correct me if I mistake some details.

It seems to me that this really shouldn’t be that big of a deal. I agree with what Geoff Lewis, Senior Counsel for RE/MAX International, said in Glenn Roberts Jr.’s Inman News article entitled “Blogosphere reacts to proposed NAR/DOJ settlement.” He basically said that a lot of the information that will be opened up to public use by this decision has already been made public through free online sites.

The majority of home buyers start their search for a new home online and so, if you think about it, they’re already finding the homes they’re looking for without needing to log on to websites controlled by MLS members. There’s a lot of free information already available online. For example, buyers don’t have to pay anything to search for luxury properties on LuxuryRealEstate.com, even though they can find more than 55,000 such properties in 100 countries on that site.

It’s advantageous for brokers to share information freely with buyers and sellers because then they can allow the right people to find the properties they’re seeking more quickly. At least that’s what I think.

As Mr. Forbes eloquently pointed out earlier, it’s easy to say what I think, but I might not have the whole picture. The MLS, which I understand is not a completely homogenized collection of listings but a variety of different ones in different formats, is not necessarily a public good. It was created by a private organization to give a competitive advantage to specific professionals, and there might be less of an incentive to provide this service if there are few limits to who can access it.

The Internet age is changing the way we think about many things, including marketing and real estate. But perhaps it’s still true that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Anyway, that’s my contribution to this wonderful exchange of ideas known as the blogosphere.


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. I welcome your input on this story. The Multiple Listing Service logo above is from: www.nsrealestate.ca/listings4.htm.