10%

Hello all,

“10%”

I am kind of a numbers geek so there might be a couple of % signs in this email… This is the time of year I take a hard look at our numbers, compare year over year and project out for next year. We did have a handful of agents who’s business went a little south this year, this is going to happen in any market. However we had three handfuls worth who’s business went up 20%-40%! Everyone else went down or up fractionally. If you put everyone in one big pot our numbers were about 10% better in 2011 then 2010. What is really cool about that is the overall market remained flat in terms of the number of transactions, so we were able to gain 10% in a stagnant market. We are also hearing that there will be a 10% rise in transactions (not price) next year. In my opinion and what is really really cool about that is the 10% increase in transaction will not be divided proportionally amongst the Realtor world. Those of us who have kept their nose to the grindstone through all of this should receive the lion’s share of the increased transactions. The agents that stopped executing their business plans over the last several years will be left behind, many of them will be gone over the winter… Everything being said I am forecasting a 15%-20% gain for our agents next year. Thanks for all of your hard work and let’s have a great 2012!

Enjoy the coffee,

Joe

INSPIRATION FOR TODAY:

Today's true story is all the inspiration you will need!

Small World!
The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry to reopen a church in urban Brooklyn, arrived in early October excited about their opportunities. When they saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve.
They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc. and on Dec. 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished. On Dec 19 a terrible tempest - a driving rainstorm - hit the area and lasted for two days. On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church.
His heart sunk when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 6 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high.
The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home. On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity so he stopped in.
     
One of the items was a beautiful, hand-made, ivory colored, crochet table cloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall.   He bought it and headed back to the church.
       
By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers etc. to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area.
      
Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle.   Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "Where did you get that tablecloth?" The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials EBG were crocheted into it there. They were.  These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria.
The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten the tablecloth. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave.  Her husband was going to follow her the next week.  She was captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again.
The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the pastor keep it for the church. The pastor insisted on driving her home - that was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.
What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many said that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving. The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to the one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike?
      
He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety, and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a concentration camp. He never saw his wife or his home again for all the 35 years in between.
The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door, and saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.
A true story