Here are some of the highlights from REALTOR® CONNECTIONS 2016 held Wednesday, March 23 at the Hamilton Convention Centre:

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RAHB AGM

  • Recognition of RAHB’s 95th anniversary
  • The 2015 audited financial statements were presented and received
  • RAHB CEO George O’Neill presented an update on Matrix and the regional MLS® System

Professional Development

  • Rebecca Mountain led a session on Online Lead Generating: The Simple Solution
  • Rick Shelley spoke on Multi-Residential: The Ins & Outs
  • Don Patterson presented CREA Update and Info for Commercial Practitioners
  • Pam Morton and Todd Targgart helped members Get (Re)Acquainted with Matrix
  • Industry leaders and service provides shared their expertise on a variety of topics in Knowledge Pods in the Exhibit Hall
  • Lunch Panel:  “Planning the Future”  Jason Thorne from the City of Hamilton and Mary Lou Tanner from the City of Burlington moderated by Keanin Loomis provided updates and insights on municipal planning initiatives

CONNECTIONS Café

  • RAHB President Kim Alvarez and CEO George O’Neill were on hand to meet and speak with members
  • RAHB Directors chatted with members about their ideas and RAHB services

Trade Show

  • Members met with suppliers of goods and services and left with great information and a few goodies

Realty Shoppe

  • The Realty Shoppe buzzed with activity most of the day and offered show specials and prize draws

MLS® Help

  • RAHB MLS® staff were on hand to answer your questions about Matrix and Fusion

Winners!

  • $95 Tim Horton’s gift card, for being the 95th RAHB member to register for REALTOR® CONNECTIONS (to celebrate RAHB’s 95th anniversary!) – Suzanne Burnside (RE/MAX Real Estate Centre)
  • $100 Keg gift card from the social media contest leading up to REALTOR® CONNECTIONS – Michelle Shivbarran (Royal LePage State Realty)
  • Free 2017 RAHB Dues draw at RAHB AGM – Darlene Wissenz (Sutton Group Innovative Realty Inc.)
  • Paid registration to CREA’s Canadian Commercial Forum in Toronto Regional Commercial Network, courtesy of the Regional Commercial Network – Nicolas von Bredow (Royal Lepage Marco Realty )
  • $50 Bon Appetit gift card, in the Member Engagement Committee’s “Get Connected” contest – Ken Murphy (Royal LePage State Realty)
  • X6 Laser Distance Meter for responding to RAHB’s REALTOR® CONNECTIONS survey – Rose Cipriani (RE/MAX Escarpment Realty Inc.)

REALTORS®4 Kids draws:

  • Sterling silver necklace – Stan Ivkovic (Royal LePage State Realty)
  • Rodney Carrington tickets – Roman Radojewski (Royal LePage State Realty)
  • Monster Jam tickets – Mary Atto (J.M. Edwards Associates Inc.)
  • Michael Kors wallet – Nicolette Wandio (Coldwell Banker Community Real Estate)
  • Gumball machine – Brian Gerrard (RE/MAX Escarpment Realty Inc.)

Realty Shoppe

Draws for three baskets of Realty Shoppe goodies, each valued at approximately $180

  • Kirk Sharpley (Keller Williams Edge Realty)
  • Natalie Pavkovic (Judy Marsales Real Estate Ltd.)
  • Larry Paletta (Re/Max Escarpment Realty Inc.)

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What happened at the RAHB AGM?

RAHB’s AGM on March 23, 2016 at the Hamilton Convention Centre included a brief overview of RAHB’s strategic initiatives for 2016 by RAHB President Kim Alvarez, the presentation of the audited 2015 financial statement by Audit Chair Lou Piriano and an update on Matrix by RAHB CEO George O’Neill.  Here are some of the details:

Kim Alvarez Strategic Initiatives

  • Strategic goals centre on ensuring RAHB addresses members’ needs
  • Strategic imperative known as Member Development, Service, Engagement and Enablement (MDSEE)
  • MDSEE is all about members – helping members expand their knowledge and skills, offering services REALTORS® need, engaging members and ensuring RAHB’s infrastructure (like MLS® service) is reliable

Lou Piriano – Audited Financial Statements

(Members received a link to the audited financial statement through the Annual Report emailed to each member on March 11, 2016)

  • Deficit of $47,335 at the end of 2015
  • Increases in both revenue and expenses: revenue increased by $208,100 and expenses by $399,541.

Contributing factors:

Increase in revenue

  • 6% increase in membership – increased dues income; however, also increased monthly service costs and decreased income from monthly service fees from the $6 reduction approved by directors in 2014
  • More professional development sessions, including designation courses (higher registration fees)
  • Rental income increased as per lease agreement
  • Decrease in investment income with decline in interest rates

Increase in expenses

  • Building operations increased 7%
  • Increase of 6.5% in MLS® services: increase in membership increased costs to provide MLS® services through Fusion and GeoWarehouse; increase in cost of digital/virtual tour packages; increased computer costs related to data sharing with STARRS members
  • Administrative and Office Expenses increased by 11%: salaries increased 3% (CPI increase); non-recurring expense in benefit payout for retiring staff; professional fees for CEO search; decrease in advertising and public relations costs; no member survey

Other factors

  • Increase in outstanding accounts over 2014 due to waiver of monthly service fee in December, 2014
  • Long-term prepaid expense continuing to decline

Karan Barker Scholarship Fund

  • Scholarships paid from interest earned
  • Four students received $2,000 scholarships

Reserves

  • According to policy, $50,000 was transferred to Building Reserve

Deloitte LLP appointed as auditors for 2016

 

George O’Neill – Regional Update

  • Overview of extent of area covered by eight associations participating in regional MLS® system – 8,200 REALTORS®, with 35% of total made up of RAHB members
  • Two separate initiatives – Matrix and ORTIS, the group overseeing and managing Matrix
  • Matrix is live and the sole MLS® system for Cambridge, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo and Oakville/Milton associations; Matrix is available to RAHB, Brantford, Niagara and Simcoe for listings search across all the regional associations, but not fully for listing loading and maintenance
  • RAHB has concerns to resolve with regard to ownership of listing data, ORTIS mandate and cost control, governance and decision making structure, MLS® Rules and service quality – all being discussed among eight associations
  • RAHB will not cutover to using only Matrix until, at the earliest, after the spring market and all concerns with ORTIS are resolved. Until that cutover, Fusion will continue to run for loading and editing listings, in parallel with Matrix for listings search functionality across the regional area. We know this is not ideal from a member use perspective, but we believe it is better to resolve these concerns now when any potential negative impacts to members is minor.