A couple of weeks ago I attended a meeting of the Contra Costa Chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors in Danville, CA. Bill Brown, President of the California Association of Realtors (CAR) was the guest speaker at an early breakfast held at the Crow Canyon Country Club.

Angela Muetterties, President of Women’s Council of Realtors CCC, officiated the proceedings

When I tried to edit the video footage I had shot, I discovered a software problem that has taken me two weeks to sort out. I guess this post falls under the heading of – Better Late Than Never.

Bill spoke about the challenges in the real estate industry and the continuing impact of the subprime market collapse. Housing affordability was another hot topic.

According to news today, the challenges continue:

California and Florida continued to represent a disproportionate share of the country's new foreclosures. The two states accounted for 30 percent of mortgages starting the foreclosure process, the association said. "In states like California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, overbuilding of new homes created a surplus that will take some time to work through," Doug Duncan, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Last Friday, Jul 20th, I attended the Contra Costa County Women’s Council of Realtors breakfast at Crow Canyon Country Club. Jeff Davi, the Real Estate Commissioner for California was the guest speaker.

I managed to get a photo of Jeff with Angela Muetterties, 2008 WCR President. Angel is a fellow Keller Williams agent in our Danville Market Center. She is excited about growing the Women’s Council of Realtors and increasing community involvement and awareness of WCR.

Walking into the WCR event the first thing you saw was this. These three ladies are from Sugi Healing Arts. What better way to start a Friday??!!! Amy Erez, owner of Sugi, is on the left. I took advantage of the situation. The only drawback was they kicked me out of the chair so Karen Pinkston from Homeguard (on the left) could have a turn.

Jeff Davi spoke for about an hour. He gave us a quick overview of the changes taking place within the California Department of Real Estate and I, for one, think he is moving in the right direction. There is a big focus on brining as much technology as possible into interface between brokers/agents and the DRE.

Jeff covered a lot of subjects and answered many questions. Here is a clip of him addressing the housing affordability situation in California.

We are appreciative of the Women’s Council of Realtors for bringing the Commissioner to Danville and providing us the opportunity to hear what’s happening with the DRE and the housing industry in California.

I was the guest speaker on Tuesday at the Women’s Council of Realtors for southern Alameda County here in California.

It was another great lesson in how what seems simple to one person can often overwhelm others. Given the size of the group, about 60, I decided the workshop format would not probably not work for an hour talk.

I tried to focus the talk more of the why than the how of blogging, but that did not address all of the curiosity in the room.

After teaching blogging workshops to over 100 people in the Bay Area, I am of the opinion that the average business person would do much better hiring an Internet/Tech/Blogging coach for six months than to try and go it alone. Most real estate agents and affiliates that I have met rely on canned or templated “turnkey” solutions for their websites and technology needs. These solutions rarely perform to ‘sales pitch’ levels.

The Alameda chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors is very involved in our local communities and is a networking hub for those associated with the real estate industry. As such, I also tried to orient some of the talk around blogging as a basis for establishing an online netwroking presence.

My thanks to the WCR for the opportunity to address them. Thanks to Holly at the BalloonMan for one of my props.

Lastly, I hope you will be hearing more from this young man in the future. He is Joseph Natividad and we hope to have him as a regular contributor to our blog.

Joseph is a contributor to LIP – Life in Perspective, an East Bay blog founded by the Contra Costa Times for local high school students. I have been reading LIP for the last five months and have really enjoyed reading what these young adults have to say.