2008 BRAC Committee Report

Builders & REALTORS® working together

By Graham Wojciechowski
Co-Chair

Butch Wahlsmith
Co-Chair

The purpose of the Builder/REALTOR® Alliance Committee is to build better working relationships between builders and REALTORS®. We do this through networking and education.

We started our year with the Builder's Preview on January 23rd at the Worthington DoubleTree Hotel with 25 builders discussing and showing their company direction, model changes, new subdivisions and new features for 2008. We all enjoyed this continued, worthwhile annual event.

We had our first BRAC Meeting on February 11 and had over 100 committee members attending. Our feature discussion focused on the market forecast for 2008. Greg Hrabcak, Real Living Business/The Commercial Partnership and (2008 CBR President) addressed the commercial market.

Marianne Collins, Senior Vice-President of Insight Bank, shared her opinion and thoughts on what is happening and is coming in the mortgage area.

And Robert H. Schottenstein CEO/President of M/I Homes provided his thoughts on the new home market.

While some of the current issues and challenges were discussed in depth, all three speakers spoke of 2008 improvements and opportunities for us to pursue.

Our March 10th meeting featured discussion was from Sharon Wong of Ready-Set-Sell. She gave an interesting and helpful presentation on staging a home and getting it to sell (hopefully faster) which can apply to both new and existing homes.

BRAC meeting topics for the remainder of the year include:

• Parade of Homes presentation (3 speakers) and REALTOR® tour in June.
• Netique/Lead follow-up
• Working with the Auditor's websites
• Speed networking
• And two bus tours of new homes and condos (N.E. and N.W. areas)

We're looking forward to an educational, productive and fun year for BRAC.