AGBeat Columnist: Kathleen Cosner
Katie Cosner, occasionally known as Kathleen, or KT, is a Realtor® with Cutler Real Estate and is active in her local Board of Realtors® on the Equal Opportunity & Professional Development Committee. She has been floating around online for a number of years, and is on facebook as well as twitter. While Katie has a few hardcore beliefs, three in the Real Estate World to live and die by are; education, ethics, and the law - insert random quote from “A Few Good Men” here. Katie is also an avid Cleveland Indians fan, which really explains quite a bit of her… quirks.
What two journalists’ mistakes can teach Realtors about ethics
What journalists and Realtors have in common Two things happened recently with wildly different writers for local paper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Connie Schultz, wife of Senator Sherrod Brown, used to be an opinion columnist. She mainly focused on social issues and human interest pieces while working at the PD, and up until one of her rare columns, did not typically ...
Microsoft’s ‘avoid the ghetto’ app causes uproar
Microsoft’s patent is now approved Pedestrian Route Production is the description of the patent Microsoft has recently registered with the U.S. Patent Office for their mobile GPS application, and it sounds relatively inoffensive. Not for some. Beginning with a not-so-clever CBS Seattle station, it has been re-coined the “Avoid the Ghetto” app. The app will be installed on Windows mobile devices and ...
How Cleveland, Ohio is overcoming it’s six year economic crisis
Cleveland – bankrupt in 1976 Cleveland, my hometown*, is in the news again, thanks to 60 Minutes. We aren’t usually known for awe-inspiring events here. Dennis Kucinich, former mayor, and current Congressman had to declare the city bankrupt in 1976, as the Cuyahoga River caught on fire in the summer of 1969. Pro athletes leave town as if they are on ...
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Bad appraisals killing real estate deals – is there a solution?
The tiresome issue of the misunderstood appraisal Raise your hand if you’re tired of hearing about low appraisals in the news. Raise your other hand if you have no clue what the definition of a “faulty appraisal” even is. If both of your hands are in the air, that’s awesome, mine were. Let’s go back to class here for a ...
Open letter to Santa asking for wisdom for Realtors and world peace
My Christmas wish In the spirit of, well, Christmas, instead of asking for a ton of glittery, sparkly, furry, and even cool electronic things beneath our trees this year, a few of us Realtors have a different kind of request. We feel that we may need to be imparted with the gifts of knowledge, the age old art of double checking ...
NAR launches Realtor University, offers major discounts for their Masters Degree
Education opportunities available to Realtors We have a lot of education opportunities available to us, through our companies, boards, and online. These opportunities are going to get much bigger in the very near future. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) will be offering a Master of Real Estate degree via Realtor® University in 2012. The cost of the degree program is ...
Banks severely limit how REO agents phrase MLS listing descriptions – outrageous
Truth in advertising is dead. Thanks, banks. Someone, somewhere, has decided that truth in advertising no longer matters. Many corporate clients, meaning banks, have started dictating what can, and cannot be said in the MLS. It isn’t about getting the property sold, but “selling” the property. This has made working the REO niche a tad complex at times. Ultimately, a ...
NAR housing summit – analyzing the five new recommendations
October housing summit results “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein The National Association of Realtors (NAR) never fails to disappoint. NAR had a Housing Summit for October with all the fanfare of the circus coming to town. Economists, business leaders, Congress-types, and industry professionals were to be in attendance. The recommendations were ...
Could vigilant Realtors have helped curb real estate fraud?
Rising to the challenge Choices are always available to us. We can ignore issues, be complacent, and allow things to remain status quo without offering real, attainable solutions, or we can choose to be proactive about what is screwed up in the real estate industry. Just being angry and bitter is not nearly enough to change a policy, or to ...
Occupy Wall Street protesters lack realistic expectations
The Occupy Wall Street movement Some (like the Occupy Wall Street protesters) will disagree, but there have actually been good, if not necessary improvements born of the housing crisis. Many will not recall this fiasco, but there was a time when tenants were getting the boot while paying rent to landlords who were pocketing the cash, and yet skipping out on ...
Recycling the concept of home equity insurance in a down market
Revamping an old concept The concept of equity insurance has been around longer than TNT & USA have been showing daylong marathons of Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, and NCIS. Really, the idea goes back since around the time of Prohibition, and began as land insurance. It kind of fell off the map for a few decades, re-appeared ...
The evolution of the Broker Price Opinion – harsh words on industry changes
The evolution of broker price opinions Broker Price Opinions- I spend a good portion of the working week completing quite a few of them, just as many other Realtors do. Even before the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, BPOs could not be used for new, purchase, government backed loans. What they were used for (and are still used for) is dropping PMI, ...
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