News

Annual GBREB Scholarship Event

For additional information, please visit the Foundation page, here. 

Did you miss our June Newsletter? Read about upcoming BOMA Boston events, news, and educational opportunities!

Read the June BOMA E-News

Lapatin on the Law is a monthly legal update for RHA Members

Click Here for Lapatin on the Law

How to Create Value

A review of recent relevant large scale deals with lease-up and sale components

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Registration: 7:30 AM

Program: 8:00 AM - 9:30 AM

Putnam Lobby Auditorium | 100 Federal Street | Boston

Moderator:

Robert Griffin, Co-Head of US Capital Markets, Newmark Knight Frank

Panelists:
Jack Connelly, Head of Acquisitions, UBS Asset Management
Jessica Hughes, Managing Director, Tishman Speyer
Charles Leatherbee, Executive Vice President, Skanska

Click Here for registration

Questions? Contact Josh Cooke, Assistant Director of Events & Marketing at JCooke@gbreb.com

To renew your membership with REFA, please see below. The final deadline for renewals is March 31, 2019. 

Renew the Following Ways:

Pay Online
If you are an individual member with REFA, you pay pay online by credit card by clicking here. Having trouble logging in? Email  Courtney for your user credentials.

Pay by Fax or Email
Return a copy of your dues invoice with payment information to 617-588-0286 (or secure efax line) or scan and email to cmchugh@gbreb.com.

Pay by Mail
Return a copy of your invoice and payment information (credit cards or checks payable to REFA) to:
REFA Membership, Three Center Plaza, Mezzanine Suite, Boston, MA 02108.

*Please note the deadline for renewals is past due as of January 31st, 2019. The final deadline for renewals is March 31st, 2019. 

 

Click the button below to read the RHA NextGen Member Newsletter - 2019 Kick Off

Click for Newsletter

Attention CBA Members: Help support your colleagues by voting for the Special Recognition Awards! Voting closes on Friday, February 8th at 5 p.m.

  

Rising Star
Collaborating Professional of the Year
Landlord of the Year
McCall Leadership Award

  

In order for your vote to count, your 2019 Membership dues must be paid. To check the status of you Membership, please contact Dominic Carter at 617-399-7874 or Kayla Burmeister at 617-399-7863.

  

Award winners will be announced at the CBA Achievement Awards on March 21st.

Click Here to Vote!

Click the button below to read the RHA NextGen Member Newsletter - March 2019

Stories include:
-2019 NALP Course Recap
-NextGen Member Spotlight: Ryan Monaghan - Area Manager, Beacon Communities
-NAA Industry Report: Why 2019 is the Year of Sales in Multifamily
-Featured New Community: The Kendrick

Click for Newsletter

Cancelling Scheduled Elevator Inspections & Acceptance Test Re-Inspection Fees

 The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Professional Licensure Office of Public Safety and Inspections has recently issued an advisory regarding a change to the Massachusetts Elevator Regulations, 524 CMR 1.10 (4) regarding canceling scheduled inspections and change to OPSI Policy regarding fees for acceptance test re-inspections.
 
Effective June 1, 2018 all types of inspections canceled by the owner or contractor within ten days of the scheduled inspection will result in forfeiture of all fees and a requirement to refile for said inspection.   Owners or contractors cancelling inspections within ten days of the scheduled date are required to re-submit application and payment in order to have the elevator re-scheduled.
 
Due to the large number of elevators requiring re-inspections for acceptance tests the department will charge a $400 fee for all acceptance test re-inspections. Effective May 1, 2019 a $400 fee will be required for each re-inspection needed to pass an acceptance test.  Prior to May 1, 2019 the department did not charge for the 1st re-inspection.

Owners and contractors are advised to pre-inspect elevators prior to submitting a request for inspection, so that a re-inspection is not necessary.

Monday 3/18 & Tuesday 3/19 Public Hearing On Wetlands By-Law and Real Estate Sales Tax

The Boston City Council will be holding two public hearings next week of interest to the real estate industry.    Both hearings will be held at Boston City Hall in the Iannella Chamber, 1 City Hall Square 5^th Floor.  Members of the public are welcome to attend.

WHAT:  Wetlands ByLaw
DATE:  Monday, March 18^th
TIME:  11:30
Docket #0250 - An ordinance protecting local wetlands and promoting climate change adaptation in the City of Boston.
SPONSORS:  Councilors Wu, O'Malley, Flaherty, Edwards, Essaibi-George, Flynn, Janey, McCarthy, Zakim and Campbell

WHAT: Real Estate Transfer Tax
DATE:  Tuesday, March 19^th
TIME:  2:00 p.m.
Docket #0187 - A hearing regarding a petition for a special law re: An Act Authorizing the City of Boston to Establish an Investor and Commercial Properties Transfer Fee.
SPONSORS:  Edwards, Janey, Wu, Ciommo, Essaibi-George, Flynn, Garrison, O’Malley, Zakim and Campbell

The Greater Boston Real Estate Board Scholarship has been established to provide scholarships ranging from $500 to $5,000 to graduating high school seniors who reside in Boston or the Greater Boston area.

This scholarship will be guaranteed for two years.  Applicants will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Demonstrated Academic Achievement
• Leadership Experience and Extra-Curricular Involvement
• Demonstrated Financial Need
• Short Answer Response and Essay Response

In order to apply for this scholarship you MUST:

• Be a class of 2019 graduating high school senior
• Reside in Boston or the Greater Boston area (click here again to check to you live in this region) or see the list below:

Acton, Arlington, Ashland, Avon, Bedford, Bellingham, Belmont, Boxboro, Brookline, Burlington, Cambridge, Canton, Chelsea, Concord, Dedham, Dover, Everett, Foxboro, Framingham, Franklin, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hudson, Lexington, Lincoln, Malden, Mansfield, Maynard, Medfield, Medford, Medway, Melrose, Millis, Milton, Natick, Needham, Newton, Norfolk, Norwood, North Reading, Randolph, Reading, Revere, Sharon, Sherborn, Somerville, Stoneham, Stoughton, Stow, Sudbury, Wakefield, Walpole, Waltham, Watertown, Wayland, Wellesley, Weston, Westwood, Wilmington, Winchester, Winthrop, Woburn, and Wrentham. 

• Submit a 2019-2020 FAFSA
• Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident

The deadline to apply is April 1st.

 

 

Elevator Inspections:  Overtime Update

  The Office of Public Safety and Inspections has announced that overtime for elevator inspections are are available again.

You may now request overtime for Annual, Placard Removal, New Construction, Modernization, Repair, Alteration, and Fire Service Inspections.

The application and overtime payment must be submitted through the IPS Portal prior to the request being made. Requests for overtime inspections should be sent to elevator.overtime@mass.gov with a copy to elevator.scheduler@mass.gov. Please make your requests at least two days prior to your desired date. Include the type of overtime inspection, and the requested date and time in your e-mail. You must attach a Pre-Inspection Checklist if you are scheduling a New Installation or Modernization.

All types of inspections are still available on regular time. If you wish to request an inspection on regular time please follow the procedure currently in place by sending your request to elevator.scheduler@mass.gov. Specify in your request that you wish to have the inspection done on regular time.

Please note that the procedure for scheduling regular Overtime Fire Service at night has not changed. You must submit your payment for, and schedule Fire Service Overtime at the same time that you pay for your Annual Inspection. The Fire Service Inspection must be completed prior to the Annual. If the OTFS is not performed prior to the Annual, the unit will be written up, and the Fire Service will be tested during the day at the 90 Day Re-Inspection. Regular Overtime Fire Service must be scheduled by phone call to our office, not through e-mail.

Top five ways for your brokerage to have success with training

By: Inman Content Studio
Courtesy of: Inman News

Competition for talent in real estate is fierce. And one of the strongest differentiating factors for your brokerage is found in training and continuing education.

It’s something Dan Nelson, VP of Performance Excellence at Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® (LeadingRE), feels passionate about and the reason LeadingRE has prioritized educational offerings for its network of 565 brokerages.

How can you be that brokerage that develops agents in a way that no one else will? How can you ensure you don’t lose your best talent because somebody else is providing more effective training?

Here are some things your training program needs in order to attract and keep top performers.

Accountability partners

Accountability means a commitment to learning and growth from the top. For your brokerage to focus on education, it should be woven into the fabric of the organization.

“If your leadership doesn’t talk about how valuable education is, it isn’t important to your company — no matter what your literature says,” said Nelson.

Accountability also means partnering with a designated person who will hold you to your commitment. For anyone who has joined a gym, this will feel familiar. You will make progress and see change by working out regularly on your own. But if you embark on a fitness program with a friend, you will see true transformation.

“You both show up because you’re letting the other person down if don’t,” said Nelson. “You’re performing in front of someone else, which ups your game and drives you to do better. The same is true of learning and training.”

Offer personalized learning

Each of your agents is at a different stage and has different needs. Why would one program serve them all?

The LeadingRE Institute platform offers learning paths that provide custom training based on the agent and his or her goals.

“We have learning paths for leaders and sales associates, as well as paths for marketing and technology,” said Nelson. “But the learning path doesn’t just tell you what content to watch. It organizes the content, so you know the most effective way through. It also helps leaders hold you accountable and ensure you’re getting the value from the courses.”

Brokerages that provide customized learning options see the impact across their organization.

“The most successful training programs deliver a blend of personalized and relevant content that fosters empowerment and accountability at every level. It’s about evaluating the agents in your brokerage to determine their specific needs, and then building a comprehensive and flexible curriculum available at the company level and at the office level,” said Sarah Pelton, VP of Learning & Development, Baird & Warner.

Create micro-learning opportunities

The always-on access we have today has the side effect of shortening our attention spans. And that’s not generationally specific. But rather than rail against the lost art of long-focus, your brokerage needs to create those micro-learning opportunities that fit the lifestyle of a top performer.

Phyllis Brookshire, president, Allen Tate Realtors, offers these tips: “Busy agents respond best to short segments on specific topics so they can ‘grab and go’ with personalized learning. Topics must be extremely relevant and speak to current market conditions and trends. Programs must be accessible and address different learning styles.”

By breaking learning into small lessons, you create more opportunities for achievement along the way, and that keeps your agents engaged and motivated to continue.

Make it relevant

It’s one thing to offer educational materials and training opportunities. It’s quite another to ensure the agents who go through your training understand exactly how the material is immediately relevant to their business.

“One of the Learning Pillars of LeadingRE’s Maestro Leadership program is developing a Growth Attitude. We focus on creating a learning environment for the leaders to really integrate an entrepreneurial spirit to leading their branch and their sales associates. Being a branch manager is not just a job. You are the CEO of your XX-million-dollar organization,” said Rosey Koberlein, CEO, Long Companies.

So, as you develop your training program or implement one from a source such as LeadingRE, make it crystal clear not only what your agents will learn, but why it matters to their success.

Everyone in your organization is going to engage in learning in some form or another. Ensuring that learning is essential to your brand and that you have the best tools available can help you build a culture of growth.

Atricle Courtesy of: Inman News
Written by: Teke Wiggin


Creative use of tech support, stock options, health insurance, financing and legal support can all help solidify a long-term brokerage-team relationship.

Whether you’re a rookie agent, a rising team leader or an established veteran broker, we can all benefit from sharpening our skills. Follow our “Back to Basics” series to learn fundamental strategies, tactics, philosophies and more from real estate pros across the industry.

Real estate agent teams are growing rapidly in number and strength. The trend is causing soul-searching among many brokerages.

In a sense, teams compete with brokerages. They can siphon off commission revenue generated by less experienced agents that would have gone to brokerages in the past. They’re also largely independent businesses — fickle and sometimes willing to defect on short notice.

Yet because teams can reel in so much business, many brokerages are nonetheless scrambling to build warm and cozy nests for them. Some newer firms have taken off like rocket ships thanks partly to their team-oriented focus.

Dangling attractive commission splits is, of course, a tried-and-true way to grab the attention of top producers. But there are plenty of other techniques that brokerages are using to hook and retain teams. Here are nine of them.

1. Stock options and signing bonuses

Given how much commission revenue teams can haul in, some brokerages are handing out big bucks to lure and lock them in.

One way is to pony up fat signing bonuses. Stock options are another. Options can be particularly alluring to team leaders when they are paid out in exchange for recruiting new agents.

That’s because recruiting is often part and parcel of running a team. So rewarding leaders for conducting business as usual can be a strong draw. EXp Realty and Fathom Realty are among firms that have found success with tying stock options to recruiting.

2. Revenue sharing 

Brokerage revenue and profit-sharing programs typically also reward existing agents for recruiting new agents. They do this by giving the existing agent a portion of the subsequent commission revenue generated by the new agent.

Like stock option recruitment rewards, these programs are particularly attractive to team leaders because leaders routinely bring on new agents. Keller Williams Realty popularized the idea with profit-sharing. And eXp Realty has put a new spin on it: revenue-sharing.

“If I close a sale today, theoretically, revenue share could be paid out at the same time,” explained Russ Cofano, former president of eXp World Holdings. “But that can’t be done in the profit-sharing scenario because you don’t know what your profit is [until later].”

Profit-sharing tends to be “less transparent, less immediate and a smaller number at the end of the day,” he added.

3. Health insurance 
Team leaders often nurture their juniors with leads, training, support and business tools. Brokerages that offer discount health insurance plans would allow leaders to make sure their rank and file are taken care of as well.

Many brokerages will claim to offer health insurance, but what they’re really offering is access “through a fancy webpage and a link to an insurance broker,” said Leslie Ebersole, a real estate consultant, in the Facebook group Inman Coast to Coast.

“The outside insurance broker has no obligation to enroll people with prior medical conditions and redirects applicants to the state ACA [Affordable Care Act] website/providers,” she said.

The independent contractor status of most agents has traditionally restricted brokerages from offering employer-like plans that could be cheaper. But health care reform announced in June of last year has opened the door for Realtors to create group plans that could be more affordable than what’s on tap in government marketplaces.

Compass and Fathom Realty claim to offer coverage that actually can save their agents money.
To pull this off, Compass partnered with a benefits company, IdilusHR, that offers access to insurance, as well as other benefits such as dental, vision, etc. “While pricing varies nationally, the program offers value through a combination of  price, lower annual out-of-pocket expense and access to national PPO network,” a Compass spokesperson said in an email.

Fathom Realty CEO Joshua Harley said Fathom did it by contracting with an independent brokerage to create a “private label” plan. But not all agents can qualify for it.

“Ultimately, we had to choose between creating a plan that worked for every agent but saved no one money or creating a plan that was a fit for 70 percent to 80 percent of our agents but saved them a lot of money,” he said.

Cofano offered one way to target health coverage specifically at teams.

“I am not very close on this subject but there could be a possibility for a [team leader] to cover some portion or all of the costs of the insurance through the [team leader]/team member commission split,” he said.

4. Business loans
Business loans are quite the carrot to dangle to team leaders. Compass has been doing this by offering no-interest financing to agents. And it announced plans for its own credit card in November.

“It is my hope that this program will help alleviate the initial financial pressure that comes with looking to grow your teams,” Compass CEO Robert Reffkin said in a company-wide email that explained the loans.

Compass expects to have distributed more than $100 million of this capital to agents by the end of 2019.

“What better way to create retention than have someone owe you money?” Cofano asked.

Indeed, Compass agents are required to pay off the loans in full if they leave the brokerage, according to Compass spokeswoman Gabriella Lourie.

“Compass recognizes, however, that every agent’s situation is unique and is willing to discuss repayment options on a case-by-case basis,” she added.

Business loans represent one perk that Compass is unusually well-equipped to offer due to its massive venture capital funding. Cofano said he has heard anecdotally of other brokerages that have provided similar financing. But none specifically came to mind, he said.

5. Let team brands shine bright — like a diamond
Side, a high-tech brokerage that caters to teams, makes a point of subordinating its brand to that of its teams. Indeed, brokerages that accept a low-profile, behind-the-scenes role can appeal to team leaders. Leaders generally want to own relationships with customers.

“Our website is completely our own branding … I don’t even know if Side has any fingerprint on it at all,” Daniel Risman-Jones, co-leader of Ascend Real Estate, a team with Side, previously told Inman.

6. Make expansion easy
Team leaders can be hungry to charge into new markets. But the process can be tricky if their brokerage isn’t licensed in multiple states. This requires teams to partner with firms in other locales on a case-by-case basis, often a cumbersome process, according to Cofano.

Streamlining this relationship-building can be one way to please team leaders. Another is to simply get licenses in many states.

“A brokerage company like eXp can offer frictionless expansion to other markets because eXp is the broker and not a franchise,” Cofano said. “I believe that is a big reason they have successfully recruited teams from some well-known franchise orgs.”

7. Reduced commission caps for team members
This is pretty straightforward: “Many companies will offer reduced caps to team members, which results in the team member generating more team commission income that the [team leader] can take a piece of,” Cofano said.

8. Provide team-oriented technology
This is becoming a must for forward-looking brokerages, according to Cofano.

At the least, brokerages ought to offer internal communications platforms to teams. The most popular options are Slack or Microsoft Teams, he said.

Customer relationship management systems and accountability software geared toward teams, such as Sisu and FirePoint, are also highly valued by team leaders, said Brandon Doyle in the real estate Facebook group Inman Coast to Coast. Doyle is a co-leader of the Doyle Real Estate Team, a Maple Grove, Minnesota-based team at RE/MAX Results.

Matthew Rathbun, executive vice president of Coldwell Banker Elite, recommends the following team toolbox: MyOutDesk.com for virtual assistants; Follow Up Boss for customer relationship management; FiveStreet for lead management; Trello for task management; Slack for team communication; Grasshopper for phone communication; and SiSu for production tracking; and G Suite for email.

Similarly, Pat Hiban wrote a story for Inman about five tech tools you could group together for teams that cost just over $1,000 a year.

9. Community and legal support
Analogue support can also endear brokerages to team leaders.

Fathom Realty’s CEO, Harley, says Fathom is developing three types of mastermind groups for teams. The first will teach agents who want to create teams how to structure and hire for them.

The second is for smaller teams looking to take their businesses to the next level. And the third helps top-producing teams pinpoint the best ways to maximize team member productivity, satisfaction and marketing return on investment.

Rathbun, the executive vice president of Coldwell Banker Elite, said his brokerage equips aspiring and existing team leaders with sample team agreements, attorneys who can help with the legal work of setting up and maintaining teams, job descriptions for recruiting team members and team coaching.

“When they are respected, trained and supported, they stay with you and add a lot of value to your firm,” Rathun said about teams.