Posts tagged:Seattle

Thoughts on Leadership: The Journey to Somewhere New

By Gino Blefari

This week’s travels took me first to Seattle for AREAA’s 2018 Global + Luxury Summit and next to T3 Summit in Miami, an invite-only think tank for leaders and executives in the residential real estate industry.

I was proud to attend AREAA’s event in Seattle with Peter Turtzo, SVP of international operations for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices; Rosalie Warner, SVP of network services for HSF Affiliates; Troy Reierson, HSF Affiliates director of business development; and Teresa Palacios Smith, HSF Affiliates vice president of diversity and inclusion. As Teresa says, our organization is working tirelessly to ensure that every facet of what we do mirrors the diversity we find in the marketplace. AREAA was an opportunity to enhance that mission through idea sharing, networking and learning about ways to elevate the standards of our industry.

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Thoughts on Real Estate: A Crowded Market Spurs Buyer Creativity

By Gino Blefari

For many homebuyers, rising prices and low inventory continue to push the market seemingly out of reach. In the CoreLogic Case-Shiller September report, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco experienced the steepest price hikes with 13.5%, 7.6%, and 7.4% increases respectively since last year. Also, the National Association of REALTORS®  says existing home sales were down 1.7% last month.

Yet despite these market challenges, our research shows that prospective buyers, particularly Millennials, remain positive about the market and are determined to find the home they want. This may be, in part, to the resourcefulness of buyers who have found increasingly novel ways to make their bid stand out.

Our national Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homeowner Sentiment Survey released in September found that:

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Thursday Thoughts on Leadership: Book of Business and the Business of Books

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels find me in the rainy Pacific Northwest for meetings with the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northwest Real Estate team, including president/CEO Jason Waugh and Northwest Real Estate Chairman Mike Gain. I started off by speaking to our Seattle-based agents and managers then drove with Jason and the event’s keynote speaker, Ashton Gustafson, 174 miles on I-5 southbound to Portland.

I was thrilled to spend time with both Jason and Ashton—Jason for his consummate professionalism and leadership of the Northwest Real Estate brokerage and Ashton because I was intrigued by the speech he delivered in Seattle that spoke about the importance of connection. Essentially, Ashton’s message was that no matter how much you tweet or post or snap in today’s tech-centric world, real estate is still about genuine, personal connection. It doesn’t matter, he might argue, if you achieve real connection through handwritten notes, in-person meetings or even a casual drop by to visit a past client; real estate is not an online business. Real estate is a people business.

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