Colorado REALTOR Digital Magazine October 2011 : Page 3
It has been my pleasure to serve as the President of the Colorado Association of REALTORS® this year. My Leadership Council faced some very tough decisions that would affect our Association and membership. One of those decisions included a state dues increase in a time where our economy and our memberships are so volatile. This as an opportunity to bring to the light the benefits of being a REALTOR® in addi-tion to reinforcing our message to the public “Make Sure Your Agent is REALTOR®. Our political efforts are one of the most important benefits we provide as an Association yet it continues to fly under the radar as far as a member benefit. If the REALTOR® Associations don’t lobby on behalf of the industry then who will? Who would help redefine agricultural land for property tax purposes, create on-bill financing for energy improvements, advocate against efforts to create on-bill financing programs which lacked accountability and mandated the assumption of liens by future homebuyers, attempts to mandate energy ratings on commercial buildings and residential rental properties, and negative impacts on the real estate market in general. Also this past session, CAR successfully ran legislation to permit property owners to seller finance up to three properties in any 12-month period without having to be licensed as a mortgage loan originator, and played a key role in banning the enforce-ment of certain private transfer fees; two measures which will improve and protect real estate transactions during these tough economic times. Other highlights from this year include: •The creation of a new for profit entity called CAR Business Services (CARBS). The purpose of CARBS is to provide significant non-dues revenue to CAR by creating and developing innovative initiatives that will result in a new generation of products and services to the REALTOR® community. We’re excited about the potential revenue that CARBS will generate which will allow us more flexibility in how we deliver ben-efits to our members. •We are proud to announce that we broke a five year record for attendance at our Annual Convention hosting over 1600 participants. Not only was it great to see so many members and affiliates networking but it also confirmed that our Board of Directors made another right tough decision to move to downtown Denver. page 3 | www.ColoradoREALTORS.com By Randy Reynolds, 2011 CAR President •One of our main focuses continues to be communicating better with our mem-bers. We continue to explore various avenues that will reach our members with information to help them in their business. This year we are going to look into the “igoogle” approach where members get to pick the information they want to receive from their State Association. •Anytime you have good leadership you have opportunities to do great things for the members. We are fortunate here in Colorado to have some great leaders not only leading our Associations but our industry. The Association now has three members serving on the Colorado Real Estate Commission the newest members are Chris McElroy from Fort Collins and Gina Piccoli from Durango. Doug Ring from Pueblo is chair of the Commission. The gavel has been passed to a very capa-ble group of leaders for 2012. Leading the Association will be Scott Matthias-President, Keith Kanemoto-President-elect, Sunny Banka-Treasurer, and Robert Golden-CAR CEO. My year has come to an end however we now “Come Together” to march on to a brighter future.
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