Happy Easter OKC!

Today was an amazing day! Repeatedly throughout the day I just closed my eyes and basked in the warm breezes of Oklahoma. I am entering my third year in OKC and I still can't quite get over my love of the Oklahoma seasons. I think OKC is one of the best kept secrets in the entire USA. 4 distinct seasons but mild and short winters and only a few intolerable weeks of summer humidity, The remaining 44 weeks of the year are paradise.

There is so much to do and to see in OKC. On Saturday we took our 2 year old grandson to the big Easter Egg hunt on Council. From the press releases it was my understanding that they expected over 5000 people and there were over 100,000 (yes one hundred thousand) eggs prepared for the OKC children to find. We had so much fun encouraging our little one to fill his basket!

Later that evening, after my daughter and the foreign exchange student we are hosting, Kristina, spent some time at Penn Square Mall, we headed off to Bricktown. We rode a 3-D dungeon ride, helped Kristina pick out some postcards to bring back to Germany, and then took the canal water taxi tour. This tour was great and I learned quite a bit about our city. We ended the night with dinner at Earl's where we enjoyed true Oklahoma barbeque.

This morning off to church followed by brunch at my eldest daughter's home. We were delighted to watch our grandson search for more eggs and his Easter basket. Everyone played yard games and I thought how fortunate we were to live in such a beautiful city. I have spent many Easters traveling through blizzards to get to church in Northern Wisconsin. I can recall only a few warm Easters in 20+ years of living in Wisconsin. OKC is truly an urban paradise. No wonder our real estate market is so vibrant!

Jealous?

A comment was recently posted, I assume in rebuttal to my exclamations about OKC, expounding on the benefits of living and doing business in Louisville, Kentucky. I am sure Louisville is very nice but again I don't think OKC can be beat.

I find this resurgence of the second & third tier cities to be quite interesting and I think it is a trend to be looked at. These "lower level" cities have a unique opportunity to create cities that make sense whereas first tier cities tend to have sprawl that was established by market trends rather than with a purposeful plan.

OKC has benefited from the leadership of its past mayors who have had a vision for planned growth. OKC still has many undeveloped and underdeveloped tracts of land. There is a phenomenal opportunity to grow our city with a quality of life aspect and with deference to ecological concerns. We can and hopefully will build an environmentally friendly and sustainable city.

OKCMAR has launched its first Green Resource Council, a movement initiated and supported by the National Association of REALTORS. This group will eventually have a positive influence on our city planning and also within OKCMAR itself. If you are interested in working with the Resource Council please contact the OKCMAR membership department and your contact info will be forwarded to the council.

Here's an Interesting Thought From Inman

Adam Taflinger, MLS Help Desk Manager, attended the technology track at the Inman Conference in NYC this month. One of the thought-provoking concepts he brought back was a from a session on website marketing. The speaker suggested that REALTORS of the future will save a lot of money and increase their brand awareness if they eliminate their websites and put their time and energy into the FREE social media websites.

The speaker stated that was what he had done. He replaced his traditional website which was very static and any changes were more dollars to the website vendor he used, with a personalized link to the public-sided website his MLS offered (We offer this too.... keep reading), facebook page, linked in profile, free blog site and a twitter page. Of course he used this items correctly and purposefully. To understand how to use these items for business building please go through the DOMUS U tutorials and sign up for the webinars. This is a free service of OKCMAR.

While this isn't a recommendation from me it does lead to many of my articles and posts on this blog regarding website analytics. Unless you are tracking sales to website expenses you are doing yourself a disservice. It is essential that you fully comprehend and analyze where your closed transactions (not just leads) are coming from and then after all transaction-related expenses did your net from that sale outweigh your expense of the generation.

This is certainly something worth investigating, especially if you can't directly track a closed transaction(s) to your site or your site is costing you more than the net income you are generating from the site activity.

I found a great short little video from the San Francisco Inman Connect that I hope will give the members a sense of the information we are receiving when we attend this conferences. Connect to Inman Video Here.

Also for a link from your social media or personal website that is personalized to you from the public sided MLS go to our public sided search site home page, centraloklahomaproperties.com and in the lower left click on the members only link. This will take you to a page that will generate the link based on your associate ID in Tempo 5.

Its Heating Up in OKC!

For awhile there I thought I had brought Wisconsin with me to stay in our beautiful state. Watching the news this morning I was relieved to see temps reaching 50 for next week. The wonderful thing about making one's home in OKC is that true "winter" is only a few weeks long but we actually get a real winter with snow and cold temperatures. The four seasons is a wonderful offering for those looking to relocate to Oklahoma or Oklahoma City. Add in the lowest unemployment rate in the USA, home values that are low and stable, in the top 5 best places to start or relocate a business, and a city initiative that will make Oklahoma City the "place to be" for those looking for a vibrant urban life and frankly there is just no better place to buy a home and raise a family than Oklahoma City! Check out all the homes available in OKC on our public sided MLS search site.

It isn't just the weather that is heating up; so is the buzz for our spring technology conference. I have more of the skinny from the OKCMAR marketing department:

Key note speakers have been secured: Doug Devitre, Brian Boero & Gee Dunsten! In addition we will have presentations from HOMESOK.com regarding behavorial psychographics and how they are used to target internet advertising and from DomusU where members can learn how to hands on build various social media sites.

The conference will also feature panels and several CE courses and has 5 distinct tracks: Broker, Commercial, New REALTOR, Technologies and Social Media. Pick a track or mix them up it is all up to the attendee. The conference will also be available to any REALTOR in the state of Oklahoma and we are currently working with sister associations to get the word out.

The conference will feature a bloggers lounge sponsored by the GENnext task force as well as special recognition of the top 10 GENnexters. All participants will be entered into a drawing for a top of the line touch IPOD and GENnexters will also be eligible to win an IPOD Nano. Exhibition booths (which feature technology only) are filling up fast along with sponsorships. Interested in sponsoring this event? Contact Kelli McNeal - due to the scale of this event sponsorships start at $1000.

We are hoping to bring a "second life" conference experience to our GENnexters but are still in discussions regarding this. The conference costs vary dependent upon what the member wants.
One day registration $75 which includes all CE and the membership luncheon
Two day full conference registration $100 (Save $50!) which includes all CE and the membership luncheon
Luncheon only $20
CE package only $25
Registration will open this week

Bacon Frying in a Black Cast Iron Skillet

We had another successful sleepover with the two year old grandchild. The reason we are doing this is to prepare for grandson #2 in March (Yes we know it is another little boy). This morning went much better than the first. It made me think of how much I loved staying overnight at my grandma's. As the oldest of 5 it was wonderful to be the only child in the house and to have so much attention focused on me. Perhaps that is why to this day I love a stage.

Staying at Grandma's was an adventure! My grandparents owned a large dairy farm (From Wisconsin, remember? LOL) although it was pretty much just for them by the time I came around. My grandpa worked as a construction engineer for Boldt and my grandma was the dietician for a nursing home. The farm was mostly empty save for a few cows and pigs and several gardens. The old farmhouse was full of secret hiding places and tunnels and grandma boasted that John Dillinger hid out in the tunnels for several weeks. I think he was considered more of a celebrity up north rather than a fugitive from the law.

But the mornings were the best. Grandma and Grandpa never got out of the habit of rising at 4am to start their day. By 5am I was awakened to the wonderful smell of coffee perking on the stove and bacon frying in a black cast iron skillet. Grandma always made me pancakes with real maple syrup they had tapped and ice cold milk from the cows with the cream rising to the top. I still love the smell of coffee!

I guess that is really what owning a piece of ground and a home is all about, whether you live in Oklahoma City or Sugar Camp, Wisconsin. It is about a sense of belonging. A place to build memories for your children and grandchildren. It is about community. The best place in the world to start that journey is Oklahoma City. The REALTOR public sided site, www.centraloklahomaproperties.com , is a great place to start looking for that home. It is updated every 20 minutes with all the available real estate in the central Oklahoma area.

Home truly is where the heart is and thank you dear readers for allowing me the indulgence of a trip down memory lane.