Introducing Cathy Meyers Exit Desert Ocean Agent

SpotLight on Cathy Meyers, Realtor Exit Desert Ocean In Victorville

This is a Spotlight on one of the Agents at Exit Desert Ocean Realty:
Cathy Meyers, She has been with Exit DOR in Victorville for over one year. Prior to Exit Dor she worked at Freedom Realty in Hesperia. First thing to say is that Cathy is an awesome, hardworking and caring realtor. She puts her all in on the job. She puts her clients concerns first.
If you need a realtor, Cathy Meyers is your choice, but read on before you make your choice.

General Real Estate: She has taken several courses in real estate to protect consumers. At Exit she has been involved in Residential sales, Short sales, Foreclosures, contracts, negotiation, marketing, Mls operation, commercial and buyers. She regularly takes courses that further her understanding of legal matters and consumer protection. She has also taken courses in real estate motivation and organization and goal Setting. She often takes advantage of training events offered by Mike Ferry Organization or SSI.
Cathy brings some interesting resources to Real Estate.

NLP:She is an avid learner and practitioner of NLP. She spend one year and hundreds of hours in learning NLP. She is coached by a NLP Coach in mastering life skills and using nlp as a means to achieve her goals.
Stager: Something Cathy is good an anyway is arranging a home. But she went further and took a course in Staging. If you want to add several thousand dollars to your value and decrease your time for the sale of a home, let Cathy Stage it for you. Yes there is a cost, but selecting her $1000 or $1500 or $3000 program is worth every penny. She will do an awesome job for you. I know, I have used her and was very satisfied.

Investment Cathy brings a wealth of information to the Real Estate Field. She and her Husband David have been investing in Real Estate for over a decade. From Rental homes to Triplexes. They have experience in buying in Washington, Arizona, and California. As an investor Cathy works with a Group of investors who not only teach the skills and strategies of investment. She is a member of her investor group and is an assest to anyone who is in need of some of the ins and outs of buying investment real Estate.
Pool Homes: Cathy loves to specialize in pool homes. She has a web site dedicated to helping pool home sellers and pool home buyers. She was so convinced that pool homes was a good idea that she bought her own pool home in Apple Valley last year. Way to Go Cathy. If you want to see one of her incredible Pool Homes go to http://www.cathymeyers.com/
There is a lot more to say about Cathy than this blog will allow. She is one of the 125 plus agents at Exit Desert Ocean that we care about and are proud of.

Thanks for Reading Val Rensink, Exit Desert Ocean Realty
Associate Broker, Owner, Realtor E-pro
School Information For Apple Valley and the High Desert
Community Information Local information
ci.victorville.ca.us
http://ci.victorville.ca.us/ For information on Victorville
http://www.vvchamber.com/ Chamber of Commerce in Victorville
http://digital-desert.com/victorville-ca/ High Desert Information.

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Your second worst real estate nightmare

Your Second Real Estate NightMare,
Have you ever had a Dream, of particular intensity, disturbing, maybe frightening?
Here is mine. A perfectly priced home in a great neighborhood. With finished landscaping, It is in "move in condition." With 3 bedrooms and 3 baths. That means two suites. A great Floorplan, Built by a local well known builder, known for his trust and value. And there it is!!! No interest. This is a great community. We are in the high desert where we overall have the lowest pricing on housing in the California market.
I have check with other agents, I have called agents who recently had buyers in the same area, to see if they have other interested buyers, I have advertised paper and internet. This coming week I will network with other agents at a management retreat. I usually shoot the pictures because I am so particular, I had someone else shoot the pictures. I did a virtual tour. Where are the buyers? I know they are out there and they are looking for a great deal.
You take a look tell what if anything I am doing wrong. This home has to much going for it.
http://www.13163schoonerdr.com/
http://tours.justsnooping.com/2286752/?
Thanks For Reading Val Exit Desert Ocean Realty
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What's Your Beef?

What's Your Beef?
Have you ever done anything unethical, illegal, immoral? Let me define the words.
Morals is what is in you. Your own personal morality. That sense of being true to yourself.
Ethics is what happens that is not good between you and someone else. That sense of not being true to them. You know, the Golden Rule. Do unto to others....
Legal is what our state and federal legeslators put on the law books.
So something might be immoral even though it is not illegal. Something might be ethical but not moral.
And Something might be both ethical and moral but not legal.
A Grievance committee is the front line of considering what another agent or the public brings against a fellow realtor in accordance with the code of ethics. To be on the grievance committee you must attend a 3 hour training with a lawyer- we use one that is on retainer with VVAR. The Code of ethics is the guide to say what are the professional standards that a realtor should do.
So when I sit on the Grievance committee there are several questions that come before us when we look at a complaint. The basic complaint is "what's your Beef?" We examine the beef to see if based on the complaint there is an alleged violation of the code. We don't decide punishment or guilt or innocence. We take at face value the information and pass it along with recommendations to the Professional standards committee for their decision. We critique the the Beef to see if it is polluted, tainted, spoiled etc.
It takes a consumer some real work to present a complaint/ a beef, but when it comes we abide by the code.
Above our own personal opinions and above the examples of wrongdoing in the code we are to decide by the standards themselves.
So what is the point of this Blog? Make sure your beef is fresh and good. Don't let it get examined by the committee. Keep your word and keep your client happy. In fact the bottom line of many of our discussions about cases presented goes down to one thing. Keep in touch with your client.
Thanks for reading
Val Exit Desert Ocean REalty
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Is Active Rain going to be in the top 100?

Who is Number 1? What is Hitwise? And Where is Active Rain?
Rank April/(January)
Site
Market share (percent)
1/(1)
Realtor.com
8.42
2/(2)
RealtyTrac
3.05
3/(3)
Homegain
2.75
4/(4)
Rent.com
2.75
5/(5)
RE/MAX Real Estate
2.59
6/(6)
Yahoo! Real Estate
2.23
7/(7)
Zillow
2.04
8/(8)
Apartments.com
1.68
9/(9)
ZipRealty
1.45
10/(19)
Coldwell Banker
1.44
11/(12)
Move.com
1.38
12/(10)
Century 21
1.38
13/(18)
Apartment Guide
1.34
14/(15)
MSN Real Estate
1.32
15/(13)
ServiceMagic
1.28
16/(NR)
VisualTour.com
1.24
17/(28)
Foreclosure Store
1.22
18/(11)
Homes.com
1.11
19/(16)
HUD
1.09
20/(17)
ForRent.com
1.03











This chart is taken from a report displayed to the real estate community of MRMLS. I am a member realtor of the multiple Region Multiple Listing Service. It is part of Inman Real Estate News. This last week I spoke with the former president of Inman news. He is now in a company that proceeds real estate websites that are consumer friendly. When I asked him about SEO, He commented that Inman news used to be in a number one websites position due to the fact that they reported on real estate. When they fell from first place on what they considered significant searches. He took up the project of spending $50,000, time and effort to raise their position only to end up going down. His comment, "how seo works is a mystery, you would do better to simply work your job."
Back to the Chart. Here are a few observations: posiitions 1-9 have not changed in position although percentage can vary. There is more movement in positions 10-20.
Although not shown here, making it into the top 100 is an ecomonic monstrous position. According to Hitwise, if you are in the top 100 you make up 69 percent of the market share.
"If the top 100 Web real estate sites capture most of the traffic associated with home buying and apartment rentals, traffic is even more concentrated in the top 10 Web sites, which claim 28.4 percent of all visits in the category."
If you have not heard of hitwise go and explore. For my part it presents the best of the best in many fields and in real estate you need to know who is on number one. Number one is the bench mark by which you judge everything else. My exploring led to requesting a free report of how my Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia real estate website is doing against the number one competitor. I have yet to read the report and gain any insights. We will see.
So Where is Active Rain? Are we in the Top One hundred? Answer- no. However Active Rain is an up and coming contender. Active Rain has threatened to break into the top one hundred. It has recently moved up 78 places as of this April and holds position 120 until the next reporting. That is not to bad for a free online community of networking real estate professionals and affliates especially when you understand that we started with 400 positions ahead of us in this calendar year.

Tracking numbers is so important, you cannot manage what you cannot track.
Thanks for reading, make it a great day.
Val Rensink Exit Desert Ocean Realty
My Daughter Elaine supports a Child through World Vision

My Favorite Camera.

What Camera do you use?
My background with camera's comes from being a school photographer for one year at Northwestern College in Orange City Iowa. I worked with Kate Hansen. It was mostly black and white with a srl nikon. But that helped to push my knowledge of camera's and their use.
Also it helped to frame my understanding of composition.

Now up to speed with today.

Here is a list of camera's that other agents have endorsed for the use of photo taking in real estate.
Kodak Easy Share v570, Nikon coolpix p5000, Canon s1/s, Rebel xt. What are the main features these cameras have in common? They all have an easy wide angle application. They are all priced under 500 dollars. They all have been used by real estate agents for the purpose of shooting pictures that will go into Magazines, on flyers and used in digital presentation on the internet. These cameras are used on a daily/weekly basis not by professional photographers but real estate agents. They are not shooting pictures for a photo magazine but for the purpose of getting the house sold. Getting a phone call. The Dream of all Real Estate persons the phone call to the deal, the interest.
Now let me tell you my pick and why. I purchased and use a Panasonic DMC-fxo1 silver.There are several features that I really like
1) 6.4 mega-pixel CCD 2) 28-102mm equiv. (3.6x) 3)Leica DC Vario-Elmarit optical zoom 4x digital zoom 4) Advanced Mega Optical Image Stabilizer 5)New 16:9 840x480 pixel 30fps movie mode 6)2.5-inch, 207,000 pixel LCD with high viewing angle option 7)16 scene modes New High sensitivity mode (ISO 800-1600) 8) Color options: Silver, Black, Pink, White. I bought the silver one.
In simple terms
1) It is small enough to fit in my palm, 2) I can control wide angle and less than wide angle with only a few changes and no lenses change. 3) it has a great image stabilization 4) I use two lumix recharageble batteries because I always shoot with flash and I hammer the batteries.

Reading about a camera in no way gives you the experience of shooting with the camera. You simply have to spend the time and try out the features. I recommend that you are systematic about it. That you paper and pencil the settings and the shot and spend the time seeing if you achieved the effect you wanted.
Two days ago I took pictures for a listing. It was a house on Yellowstone in the Spring Valley Lake association located in Victorville. I shot at about ten o'clock in the morning to avoid harsh overhead noon time sun(yes do adjust for daylight savings) I did my best to make sure that when inside the house I had the blinds open to an appropriate amount of light and that I had all the internal lights in the house on. Then when I get back to the office I use a program to crop, adjust exposure. I also use a stitching program in order to make the even a more panoramic picture. Then I resize so they upload quickly. Wow. I visited my Pine Ridge listing yesterday with a client and handed one of the two flyers with pictures on it to her. Looking at the flyer and looking at the home I was happy with how the Koi Pond appeared. I was glad the wide angle allowed me to capture the spaciousness of this home. Then today I will be caravaning my Pahute Home. It is a cute button of a home 832 sq-ft. The Wide angle lenses was perfect to make the smaller sized rooms look bigger. Not a deception for size is stated but to get the phone to ring.
If you visit one of my websites you will discover what quality of pictures I take with the Panasonic.
(Two of the homes in question are located in apple valley, one of them is located in victorville.)
All That for pictures here in Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley and the High Desert.
Thanks for reading this. Hope you enjoyed it. Val Rensink Exit Desert Ocean Realty located in Victorville.

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Look at 29 Palms you will get a pleasant surprise

What is so Special About 29 Palms?
Have you Taken a drive out to Twentynine Palms lately? I have. What a surprise.
In Victorville were I work we have the remains of the old, closed George air-force base. Yesterday I drove by the military housing. True is has not been maintained for 16 years. But what hit me was the size and quality of the homes. That is the size and quality compared to the housing that I saw in 29 palms for the military. To say the least the homes for our armed services certainly honors them and changes my perspective on what I thought it would be. ( by the way some very ecomonic awesome things are happening with SCLA)

But More, Something else surprised me about 29 palms. I recently downloaded and read the Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command at 29 Palms 2006 Economic impact statement. ( I did this because I have taken a great ten commercial property listing in 29 Palms) In the report once I read the Mission and the History there are numerous details, so to the point. Between the Military, the civilians dedicated to the Marine base and the construction work going on. There is a payroll in excess of 400 million a year. Wow!
But there is more and this one I haven't verified but my source I believe to be reliable. If you have every driven to twenty-nine Palms and looked at those palms and the water that comes out of the ground at that natural oasis, it might cause you to consider the following: The water Table is about 30 feet, yes 30 feet not 100 or 200 and the water available is measured for 300 to 1000 years. That is the water that is there, not any question of replenishing.
But More, There is a 475,000 plus square foot new super shopping center that is now leasing for anywhere between $1.65 to $2.20 a sq ft. A sign of a bright future.
There is the Mariposa Shopping Center which is reported to be a resturant and will lease at about $1.85 a sq foot. a sign of a bright future.
There is also the story about the local tavern which was purchased for about $200,000 for a building the size of a postage stamp (I don't know if the liquor license was part of the deal) and the town of Twentynine Palms wouldn't let them open because they did not have designated offstreet parking. Mind you they are not land locked, just not able to accomdate parking off street. Special means you had better know what is going on in the local Ordinance. All Real Estate is local.
Have you taken a drive out to twenty-nine Palms lately? There is more than meets the eye. So ask yourself why is Starbucks, Kragen, Rite Aid, and Walgreens building in 29 Palms? They don't make mistakes with locations of their business. Seemingly a smallish town on the often called backside of things is starting to wake up. Well come to the new Starbucks when it opens and smell the coffee. Opportunity is knocking in 29 palms.
Where I live and mostly work in Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Adelanto our market is so different from 29 Palms and it too offers great real estate investment and living opportunities. I am grateful to have a listing in 29 palms. If you are curious look on the Victor Valley Assocaition of Realtors or on Loopnet. Thanks Hope you found this blog interesting
Thanks For Reading All The Best Val Exit Desert Ocean Realty
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