I think some of my best photography lately has been while sitting at the traffic light at King and Market Streets.  Lightfoot just seems to watch over the courthouse lawn…

Cheers,
Heather 

Image Credit

So I was surprised to see media stories popping up yesterday reporting that Loudoun County Public Schools had brought criminal charges against parents Amy and Mark Denicore for their three children’s habitual tardiness to Waterford Elementary. You can click through and read articles at the Loudoun Times, the Washington Post, msnbc.com, USA Today, and WTOP. Numerous other blogs and sites have commented as well…it’s certainly struck a nerve. Based on what I’ve read in the articles, I’ve pieced together the following:

• All three kids are under 10 and attend the same school, Waterford Elementary
• The tardiness issue has been going on since at least last year, with combined 150 lates for all 3 kids
• Each has been late around 25 or so times this year
• Parents were arraigned this week and trial date is set for March 14th
• Charged with a Class 3 misdemeanor under the state’s compulsory education law
• LCPS says the parents were warned numerous times about the issue

The court of public opinion has been noisy in the comments sections of these stories, and seems to be divided into two camps: there should be parental consequences for the habitual lateness, or the school system is ridiculously overreacting. My take is that there should be some sort of middle ground on this.

There is no excuse whatsoever for your children being late to school that many times. Period.

I don’t care how many children you have, what their ages are, whether you work or stay at home.  The habitual late arrivals are a disruption to the teacher, the classmates, and to the children themselves.  I say this as a mom of four children who have not been late more than once or twice, each, their entire school careers. And mine are split between two schools. (I’m also the child of a retired high school teacher.)

Of course it’s hard and crazy and requires a lot of coordination, scheduling, cajoling, and hustling. Welcome to parenting a large family.

That being said, I’m amazed that the school system took the step to bring criminal charges against the parents. I’ve never heard of this happening anywhere across the country before. I’m curious what Loudoun County schools did to help these parents before they filed charges. What type of warnings were issued? Did they try to help the parents with this at the school level?

I’m parked and following this story; if anyone can provide some insight into what steps were taken before the charges were filed, I think we’d all love to hear it.

Cheers,
Heather

As a reader here in my little corner of the universe, you may (or may not) be aware that I hang my shingle with a Century 21 brokerage in Ashburn, called Redwood Realty. Anyone who knows me would be aware that gold is not my color of choice, and I’m not so much into blazers, so the chances of seeing me in one of those iconic jackets falls somewhere between slim and none, unless there’s a losing bet involved.

That being said, Century 21 created a bit of a buzz in the industry by choosing to spend a few million dollars to put out a television commercial. Not just any commercial, of course, but a Super Bowl commercial. If you were one of the folks still paying attention to the commercials in the second half of the game, you may have noticed the spot, which featured Donald Trump, Deion Sanders, and Apolo Ohno.  They represented smarter, bolder, and faster, which is C21′s new corporate slogan for its’ agents. Three pre-game commercials explained the premise, and led up to the final ad in the 3rd  quarter.

If you didn’t watch, take a peek first, then read on:

Smarter? Well, I spend at least one day a month either at an educational conference or taking continuing education. That’s not counting the classes that I teach. Yeah, I guess I could qualify for smarter.

Bolder? I certainly don’t dress as sharply as Deion. But I do make it a point to utilize the most cutting edge technology and marketing ideas to help my clients, and have done so since I first got into the business. (Single property websites, facebook advertising, social media, you get the idea. I’m happy to explain more if you’d like.) I’d consider myself bold.

Faster? In the sense of beating anyone in a race, especially on speed skates? Not so much. But I do think I’m quick to adapt to the changing market, and the tools I use keep me in constant communication with my clients. If that counts for faster, I’m in.

While I’m happy with the fact that Century 21, and Redwood Realty as well, provide some great marketing and systems that help my clients with either a selling or buying transaction, I do believe that most of the time that their decision to work with me has more to do with me than with the company I’m with.  (Any of my past clients care to chime in on this?)

It’s nice to see Century 21 provide some entertainment as part of the SuperBowl show, but I’m genuinely curious as to who noticed the commercial in the first place, and what they thought. Did it register for you that it was a Century 21 ad? And did you think it was entertaining? I’d love to hear your comments!

Cheers,
Heather

There’s been quite a dustup taking place within the real estate industry this week. A brokerage out in San Diego, ARG Abbot Realty Group, declared that effective immediately, they are pulling all of their listings off of third party syndication sites Realtor.com, Trulia, and Zillow, via an impassioned video posted on YouTube (a video syndication site, natch). The argument was that the evil syndicators were not displaying data correctly and thus muddying the water of the market really looks like.  That particular company seems to feel it’s not in the best interests of their consumer to permit their listings to be displayed there. All three of those sites are in the top five trafficked real estate sites nationally.

As a potential home seller, if your agent can’t explain what listing syndication is, please get another agent. Seriously. As the person hired to sell your home, it is most advantageous to not only put your listing on as many sites where there are buyer eyeballs as I can, but also to ensure that the photos display correctly, the open house information is there, the links to the virtual tours work, etc.  The blunt truth is that consumers flock to Realtor.com, Trulia, and Zillow because they are easy to use, and they all have slick mobile apps, too. Would you want your listing hidden from the consumers searching there?

That San Diego brokerage was arguing, in part, that the consumer needs to be able to contact the listing agent for information, and not whichever agent paid to put advertising on the page next to the listing. Honestly, when I’m trying to sell your house, I’m just as happy to answer questions from a buyer’s agent as I am from a potential buyer: I don’t want to represent the buyer, I just want to get the house sold, as I was hired to do. I don’t care where the buyer comes from as long as we can get them in the front door of the home.

I don’t list your home to fish for buyers. I list your home to sell it. 

Not only that, I refuse to double-side a deal; I decided several years ago that I would no longer represent a buyer and a seller in the same deal.  In my opinion, there is no way to completely represent each of your clients interests in the best way possible while working both sides of the deal.

I’m sure, as a consumer, that you could care less about what goes on in the real estate kitchen, you only need the results. So I want you to know that when I list your home, you will continue to have a featured listing on the big three syndication sites, and I will ensure that the information displays correctly. And you won’t ever have to worry about my company removing your home listing from a place where your potential buyer can find it.

Cheers,
Heather

(If you would like to read a full rebuttal explanation of how that video is full of misinformation, please read my friend Jay’s post here. He explains it eloquently.)

Also, here’s how one of my listings renders on each of those sites:

There are some mornings that I can’t help but hear my Nana singing Cat Stevens “Morning has broken…”  This is one of those mornings.

Cheers,
Heather