August 6, 2021 President's Message

August 6, 2021 President's Message

Håfa Adai fellow Members of GAR!!

I am not sure about you, but the year seems to be going by fast. We already have to start thinking about our Halloween Costumes and Christmas Presents soon. Lets welcome August with more sales and listings. Here is my update and news:
  • July was Realtor Month and with that we ended the last 2 weeks of the month with free classes and training. To add a bit of ‘icing to the cake’ the Board of Directors also voted to make all CE Certificates for those 2 weeks of classes and trainings for FREE!!! I have to say that I am still a bit shocked that not even half of our Association took advantage of this opportunity, but to those that did well done and I hope you got more than just free CE’s from those 2 weeks. 
  • July 31st was the last day to submit nominations for our annual election of our Leadership. I want to thank all those that accepted their nominations and wish all of you luck at the election on August 31, 2021. Please be sure to cast your vote for your Leadership team when the election starts. Everything will be done online and you do not have to leave your bed, office, car or wherever you are!
  • The Governor lifted all restrictions on August 01, 2021 with the exception of the mask mandate. This means that offices, showings and open houses can be all done without an appointment. Please exercise caution still when conducting your day to day business and home life as the lift does not mean that COVID is lifted as well. Please continue to wear your masks as mandated and to continue to Sanitize your hands and listings. 
  • GRPR 101 Trainings are all done, but this does not mean that you cannot request for help or for a quick tutorial. Besides what is available on the GAR website on how to use the app you can reach out to your GRPR committee for help when you need it. You  can even ask me if you want. The goal is to have everyone on the same understanding of the usage before the next phase of updates roll out. The app for our phones will be out as soon as Apple gives their final approval.
  • GAR App. I am excited to say that GAR is FINALLY going to be getting an app. I was able to preview a bit of what’s to come and its perfect. There will be push notifications for all calendar events coming up, all bulletins and newsletters will be sent to the app for ease of finding, our Realtor card will be available digitally, all of our Realtor Benefit Partners who offer discounts to Realtors will be listed along with what they have to offer, current list of Realtors for ease of verifying if someone is licensed (with over 540 members it can be tough to keep up with the list), MLS Input forms, Rules and Regs, and more. This is going to be super useful and a timesaver for all of us. 
  • The Community Service Committee successfully completed a 2nd drop to the Rigalu Foundation, which benefited the Foster Home in Barrigada Heights. Next project will be to help students and a school or two. If you have some items you want to donate or if you want to help out please contact Justin Brown or Madeline Campos. Thank you to those that have already and continue to donate items, money and time for this great cause.
  • The Member Benefit Committee is currently working on increasing the list of partners who are willing to be added to our ever growing list of vendors who offer discounts or items to our members. If you know a business who would like to be added please contact CJ Sachdev or Chris Bawar.
  • The forms in our ZIP Forms are made available to us through the kind Leadership of the California Association of Realtors. They have set forth a few rules for us to follow. Mainly we are not allowed to use any other platform besides Zip Forms to fill out the forms completely. As soon as the forms have been filled out via Zip you are then allowed to use any other platform for signature or safekeeping. We are NOT allowed to give away the forms nor print blank forms without the watermark. Members cannot make changes to the forms on their own, this must be done through the Board and for the entire membership. You can use your own forms if you wish, but I want to stress that CAR will not allow or tolerate anyone copying their forms. 
  • MLS Division of Commission. I will be sending out a separate memo later on this, but I want to make known that our rules currently state that members only have to make known the Selling side of commission and not the listing side. You can ask what the listing side is getting and even ask to negotiate the commission if you feel it is not fair, but they are not obligated to tell you. 
We have more classes, training, events, social mixers, and group activity coming up for the rest of the year. Please keep on reading the GAR newsletters and whatsapp updates for more information on these. Thank you for reading and please thank your leadership team, when you run into any of them, for their commitment to our Great Association. Have a spectacular August!

Shawn Blas
2021 GAR President