The 2010 Home Show, sponsored by the Building Industry Association, takes place March 27 and 28 at the Emerald Coast Conference Center. ECAR’s Public Relations Committee, with help from the Board of Directors, will man the ECAR booth. As representatives of ECAR, they will remind the public they should always Rely on a Realtor®. The upcoming ECAR Home Buyer & Seller Seminar, Saturday, April 17, presented by Bryan Kiefer, local real estate instructor and attorney, will also be promoted. The seminar will focus on short sales and foreclosures from the perspective of the buyer and the seller. The seminar is offered free to the public and requires no registration. As with all ECAR functions open to the public, no members will be allowed to promote their personal real estate business to members of the public and will only represent Realtors® and ECAR.

Please help promote the Home Show by printing this flyer and putting it out in your office or emailing it around to friends, family, and customers.

The 2010 Leadership Development Program kicked off Friday, March 5 with the annual R.O.P.E.S. session which fosters teamwork and communication. This year’s leadership candidates are: Cathy Alley, Sissy Carroum, Jeffrey Fontenot, Maria Howell, Glenda Janczewski, Nancy Norris, Matthew Osgood, Marion Russell, Sharlyn Thomas, and Pam Weeks. The goal of the program is to prepare interested Realtors for ECAR leadership positions. Twelve of the current eighteen Board of Directors graduated from the program.

The candidates will meet several times throughout the year for classes and will travel to Tallahassee for Great American Realtor Days in April and to Orlando for Florida Realtors Convention in August. The 2010 Leadership Development Program is chaired by Sam Kinkaid, and the Vice Chair is Lisa Norton. Check out the video to see the fun they had Friday. You may even want to consider applying for the program yourself next year!

Make plans to attend the annual District 9 Summit to be held Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at the Navarre Conference Center from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The price is only $5 and includes lunch! The focus this year is on the military and the Emerald Coast. Speakers include Lt. Col. Gary Bloomberg from the 7^th Special Forces, Kay Rasmussen, the Director of Defense & Economic Initiatives with the EDC of Okaloosa County, and many more. Over 250 Realtor® members from across District 9 are expected to attend – making this a great networking opportunity. District 9 is made up of Pensacola Association of Realtors®, Navarre Area Board of Realtors®, Santa Rosa County Board of Realtors®, Emerald Coast Association of Realtors®, and Bay County Association of Realtors®.

There are also sponsorship opportunities available for affiliate members. Two levels are offered this year: Patriot Sponsor ($25) and Freedom Sponsor ($100). For more about the program or to sign up to sponsor the D9 Summit, click here.

The Northwest Florida State College has programs for you! Computer Skills II, Excel, and Power Point courses are being offered at the Niceville campus of NWFSC. Each course will take place 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. for three weeks at only $25 per course, or $50 for both.

JUST ADDED! Computer Skills II is offered April 5, 12, 19, 27, May 5, and May 10. This course requires a good working knowledge of computers. You will develop skills in the use of spreadsheets, files, and the internet. By the end of the course, you will have been exposed to many of the Windows functions. Please bring a flash drive.

Excel is offered April 22, 29, and May 6. This course will teach you to crunch numbers quickly and easily using basic formulas and functions. You will create a personal budget using Excel’s financial feature and will learn how to make data visually impactful; learn to edit, move, and print data; and learn how to create charts.

Power Point is offered May 13, 20, and 27. This course will teach the fundamentals and some of the more advanced features of Power Point. The first class will cover the basics just to get started. Afterwards you will progress into more interesting features that utilize WordArt and ClipArt. You will learn how to spice up your presentations with sound and animation.

To register, click here and return to any campus location listed at the bottom of the form. If you need more information, please contact Amanda at 729-6084.

Property managers are invited to attend an informational/training session on the Automated Housing Referral Network (AHRN.com) and an overview of the housing office policies and procedures at Eglin AFB and Hurlburt Field. AHRN.com is a free resource for advertising rentals to incoming military members. Special Forces and their families from Fort Bragg have already started arriving and need housing. Eglin Air Force Base has partnered with the Workforce Development Board of Okaloosa and Walton counties to present the Off-Base Housing Rental Referral System. The Automated Housing Referral Network (AHRN.com) program is sponsored by the Department of Defense and is used by military members around the world to find housing. Military members and their families arriving at Eglin AFB and Hurlburt Field will use this program to secure available housing in our community.

Make plans to attend this free training session at the Emerald Coast Convention Center on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 from 8:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. to learn how to utilize this free website for advertising your rentals to military members arriving at Eglin AFB and Hurlburt Field. Representatives from the Army’s 7^th Special Forces Group will also be in attendance and available to answer any questions. This is a great opportunity to let Eglin AFB and Hurlburt Field know that Emerald Coast Realtors are eager and willing to assist military members and their families with their housing needs. As soon as registration information is made available, we will let you know.

Contains vs Starts With

Many of you are familiar with the Quick Search available in the MLS. Any you may be familiar with using the address or subdivision/project name field on the Quick Search screen. But did you know that you add a wild card character that will change the logic of this field so that you can use it a different way?

These fields are called, in plain English, “Starts With” fields. Whatever you type into this search field must match what the listing field starts with. So if you enter Hollywood into the Street name search field, the address field of the listing must also start with Hollywood. If the street name of the listing starts with North Hollywood, it won’t match the search, and you won’t get that listing in your results. To get around this type of issue, you can enter a percent sign, %, at the beginning of the street name or subdivision/project name search field. This will change the field from “Starts With” to “Contains” so that the information in the search can be contained in the listing field. A good example of when you can use this is for the Silver Shells complex. Since the names of these projects don’t start with Silver Shells, it would be difficult to search for all the units in the same search. If you enter the percent sign and then put in Silver Shells, you’ll get all the units in the entire development.

Give this a try with your next search and see if it helps.

If you have any questions about this tip or anything else in the MLS, please call 850-244-2411. Or send an email to susan@ecaor.com.

The first Broker Breakfast of 2010 takes place Wednesday, March 17, 2010 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with ECAR! We won’t have green beer, but we will have green Kool-Aid! ECAR Leadership will update everyone on the latest from the FAR Mid Winter meetings in January, explain the position of the Florida Realtors on the latest short sale statute, update everyone on Amendment 4, and answer any questions you might have. Door prizes will be given out, thanks to our wonderful sponsors: Birchfield Mortgage, H&S Title, and Trees Plus. Make sure to wear something green (not for St. Patrick’s Day – because it’s ECAR)!

To RSVP, contact Michaela at michaela@ecaor.com or 243-6145, or sign up online.

US Census workers are desperately needed for Okaloosa and Walton counties. Destin and other coastal resort communities will have their Census forms hand-delivered rather than mailed to them. This means a lot of Census workers are needed! Because of your knowledge of the area, Realtors® are some of the most qualified to do this job. You set your own schedule, up to 40 hours a week and are paid by the hour plus mileage. Contact Frank Mayernick, US Census Bureau, Recruiter/Examiner at 259-9273 for testing times and locations and to answer any questions.To take the practice test, click here.

The 2010 Census is a count of everyone living in the United States and is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Census data are used to apportion congressional seats to states, to distribute more than $400 billion in federal funds to tribal, state and local governments each year and to make decisions about what community services to provide. The 2010 Census form will be one of the shortest in U.S. history, consisting of 10 questions, taking about 10 minutes to complete. Strict confidentiality laws protect the respondents and the information they provide.

Jim Phillips, an Assistant Program Manager for HAP (Homeowner’s Assistance Program) with the Department of Defense will speak to Eglin and Hurlburt military personnel, March 24 at Hurlburt’s Theater at 2:00 p.m. Recognizing that the Realtor® community is interested in learning more, but may not have base access, ECAR is offering a FREE class presented by Jim Phillips on Thursday, March 25 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at ECAR. Jim Phillips will explain HAP and answer any questions you may have. Contact Paula at paula@ecaor.com or 243-6145 to sign up! Check out the HAP website for more information.

The Women’s Council of Realtors® will host their monthly meeting on Thursday, March 11 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. This month’s speaker is Roger Enzor, Florida Realtors® Past President (1987) and Chairman of the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC). Reserve a seat today for this limited opportunity to hear Roger speak. Please email Vicki Hoover at vhoover@hstitleandescrow.com or visit the WCR website at http://www.mywcr.com/ for more information. The meeting will be held at the Destin Palms Conference Center off of Two Trees Road in Destin.

Download the guidelines, procedures, and application.

Sponsored by the Emerald Coast Association of Realtors® for the second year, the Emerald Coast Association of Realtors® $25,000 Women’s Challenger Tennis Tournament, as part of the USTA Pro Circuit, is scheduled for March 13 – 21, 2010. Opening ceremonies begin Saturday, March 13, and the free tennis tournament starts Sunday, March 14 at 9:00 a.m. at the Fort Walton Beach Tennis Center.  ECAR's International Council will be on-site throughout the tournament to promote the Emerald Coast to visitors from across the country and the world. For more information, click here.