January 2008

Dust off your cookbooks and shine up your pots. This year, ABoR is hosting a TREPAC Chili Cook-off and Beer Tasting set for February 12 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the ABoR Auditorium. Enjoy an eclectic selection of beers while you learn about the importance of investing in TREPAC. Tickets are on sale now!

Test your chili recipe against your fellow REALTORS® and affiliates, and you could take home a first, second or third place prize. If cooking isn’t your forte, consider supporting this event as an advertiser.

Two levels of tickets are available. For $25, you can sample all of the chili entries and the beers. For $30, you can sample the entries and beer and enjoy a full serving of your favorite chili and beer. At-the-door tickets are $35. To enter the chili cook-off contest, purchase tickets or learn more about advertising opportunities, contact the Government and Community Affairs Department at 512/454-7636 or government@abor.com.

   Happy New Year! Welcome to the first installment of the Chairman’s Corner. Each    month, I will answer your frequently asked questions, provide tips on the latest and    greatest industry tools and update you on market trends.

   Attention e-Key Users: If you are currently using e-Key Professional, did you know you    could save over $10 a month by downgrading to e-Key Basic and utilizing the free    Pocket Real Estate service? Available at no cost to ACTRIS participants, Pocket Real Estate Wireless (PRE Wireless) gives you access to live MLS content on the go. Visit http://www.abor.com/mls/wireless.cfm for more information and to sign up for the service. To change your Supra e-Key service, contact ABoR’s membership staff at membership@abor.com or 512/454-7636.

MLXchange Mapping: Did you know that the new MLS system has awesome mapping capabilities? With MLXchange you can create a list of homes for your buyer client, arrange the list in the order of showing, and then select “Map View” to map out the properties. You can also e-mail this list and map to your clients. For more in-depth information on utilizing this mapping features, contact the ABoR MLS staff at 512/454-7636.

I hope these tips help you maximize your productivity in 2008. Send your questions to me at 2008Chairman@gmail.com

Thanks!

Socar Chatmon-Thomas

2008 Chairman of the Board

ABoR is seeking active ACTRIS members with training experience to provide training for some of our MLS classes. Submit your resume along with three references to Kay Pennington at kpennington@abor.com by January 22. Interviews will be held in early February. For more details, call 512/454-7636, ext. 1101.

Over the past few years, ABoR has significantly increased the number of educational and networking opportunities it provides. We also allow our facilities to be utilized by local real estate associations, such as the Women’s Council of REALTORS®, Small Office REALTORS® and the Asian Real Estate Professionals group.

While we welcome the chance to assist our members, increased use of the ABoR offices has resulted in parking-related challenges. To make visiting ABoR more convenient, we will soon be reserving the surface parking lots surrounding our facilities for members and visitors.

Looking for more MLXchange training? In addition to the advanced classes, ABoR is offering two hands-on options: Open Labs and MLXchange Basics Hands-on.

Each one-hour Open Lab focuses on one of the following topics: CMA, searching, and client relations and Web sites, while the two-hour MLXchange Basics Hands-on class concentrates on searching, notification settings, the saved search manager and Client Gateway. Both training opportunities are held in the ABoR Computer Lab. Click here for a complete schedule of MLXchange courses and to register. Remember: for the hands-on training, you must bring your SAFEMLS token.