Quick, before it’s too late, go to the zoo for the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular.

In trying to find something interesting for everyone on this last weekend in October before Halloween, my friend, Erica, told me of this Roger Williams Zoo extravaganza. It sounds fantastic. It is not a free event, but the price seems reasonable. Here’s a glimpse of what RWZ’s site says:

Experience the glow of thousands of pumpkins, set in a magical display of artistry during this night-time Spectacular and feast your eyes on hundreds of artfully carved jack-o-lanterns depicting people, places and scenes from popular culture to old-time favorites and everything in between – all with painstaking detail and amazing intricacy! Don’t miss this unique, family friendly evening event, commended by the U.S. Library of Congress, featured by The Early Show, CNN and the Associated Press and hailed by USA Today as “extraordinary.”

The Spectacular was founded by John Reckner, an Oxford, Massachusetts postal carrier.  Inspired by a Vermont farm he had seen lined with glowing jack o’ lanterns, Reckner organized the first Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular in Oxford in 1988.  The 185 jack o’ lanterns featured in this first Spectacular were carved by local residents and displayed for only one evening on a hillside behind a local school.  About 300 spectators attended.  Today, Mr. Reckner, his family, and their crew of jack o’ lantern artists continue to bring the Spectacular to life.

The Spectacular has been open since October 8th and ends on November 1st. The zoo’s website indicates the best days to visit are Monday through Wednesday, since the attendance is smaller on those days, but they are open in any weather every day. There are additional entertainment activities in conjunction to the touring of the carvings.

Roger Williams Zoo is easy to reach off of I-95.

Sustainable Development & Restoration Business Conference

This week I spoke with Rob Bailey, founder of The SourceNewport conference being held this year in Newport, Rhode Island October 21-23, 2009. This Summit brings together financial resources for historic real estate investment and projects, success stories of new businesses in historic communities and a discussion about how Hollywood depends on historic communities, focusing on design guidelines and business solutions for sustainable & historic development.

More than the “green” marketing gimmick, sustainability is really a discussion about the future.  The adaptive reuse of existing buildings is one of the easiest and most cost effective paths towards sustainability.  To that end, SourceNewport is partnering this year with Sustainable Communities, Inc., and will be addressing the aspects of money and local policy.  ”Restoration of community has been the lifeblood of American tradition, and the secret formula for New England is the green economics of preservation and restoration”, according to Bailey, this is why he launched the event in Newport.

This week’s real estate insight:

Great old mills turned into fabulous live-work artist lofts, obsolete factories turned into shopping malls, defunct shopping malls turned into schools, old churches turned into condominiums, an old strip mall turned into a church. These are all examples of adaptive reuse, adapting and evolving existing buildings to suit present day needs. For more information, visit: www.sourcenewport.com.

On Wednesday night, October 14th, we gathered at the Wannamoisett Country Club in Rumford, RI for the Northern RI Board Installation dinner. This was a particularly important and proud event for me as Doreen LeBlanc was sworn in as our New President of our Board for 2010. Doreen has been at Residential Properties since April of 2002. She has been an outstanding agent in our office with wonderful leadership qualities. She will bring a high level of professionalism and integrity as she leads our active Board.

Debby Smith, also of Residential Properties since September of 2001, was sworn in as Vice President of the Board as well. Doreen and Debby will be a wonderful team working hard to represent the best interests of our Northern RI Board Realtor members.

Finally, John Bessette of Residential Properties is a member of the Board of Directors.
I believe this is the first time in our company’s history that we have two local Board Presidents from Residential Properties. Libby Isaacson is serving as President of The Greater Providence Board of Realtors.

Doreen and Libby will to attending the National Association of Realtor’s Conference in San Diego, California the second week of November.

I’m excited to say that we have entered a film into the 2009 REALTOR Party Video Contest! The contest was created to raise awareness in hopes to expand and extend the $8,000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit. The contest is being held on YouTube and ends October 16th. The winning video will be featured at NAR’s Annual meeting this November in San Diego.

Our two-minute video tells the story of local first time homebuyer, Andrea Larocque, and Kathy Vaillancourt of the Narragansett office. Andrea’s story is inspiring. She is a single mom who worked her way through school to become a radiology technician and struggled to get herself out of debt from her earlier full-time college days. She had spent the last couple of years looking for a home where she could raise her nine-year-old son, Isaiah.

Learn more about extending the Home Buyer Tax Credit.

Here’s our video:

I’ve done several articles before on what to look for in a Realtor®. The concentration was mostly on the agent, but everyone should also look at what the office behind that agent and the state association offers to buyers and sellers of real estate.

Not all real estate companies are alike, and without getting deeply into the inner workings of each particular group, I will try to give you an overview to highlight the general activities you can expect from the office behind the face. Obviously, this may be slightly biased to our organization.

For the seller of property, the foremost interest is how is my home going to be offered, that is, how professional, how many sales people, and how is it going to be “marketed.” Your agent is the salesman for the property, but in some companies (like ours) the other agents in the company will also be sales people for the property. In companies which have different models, the agent may be the only salesperson, unless they have a team of people working with them. That means, if your agent isn’t available, your property may not be shown.

But a bigger picture item is the marketing of the property. Marketing can be everything from placing a link on Craig’s List, to an ad in the local papers, company websites, virtual or video tours, floorplans, property websites, and possibly social network marketing. It can also include open houses, newspaper feature articles, features on radio shows or even television ads. Plus, the office may have a good internal network to promote the property to buyers working with other agents in the company.

Your goal is to clearly understand what the company is doing for you and not just your agent. The “behind the scenes” marketing and technology departments are important in today’s world. Having a vision as to what should be done for a particular property is important. And understand, not every property needs the same marketing approach. This is clearly the case of one size doesn’t fit all.

For the buyers out there, the company will offer other added benefits. Not only will your agent have a better understanding of the properties in the inventory of the company (most offices have their agents tour each property), but she will have the materials developed by the company to help understand the neighborhoods. In our case, since we have five strategically located offices, others in the company will help that agent understand the areas outside their community.

One other area to investigate. Does the company have a relocation department? If you are moving out of the state, you may need help in the new area finding a good agent to help you find the property in that new town. It is always better to have someone who knows something about you through a referral instead of walking into a new market with no help.

Finally, the local Realtor board, in RI it is the Rhode Island Association of Realtors (RIAR), is the oversight body to help self regulate the industry. Each state has their own group and these groups also have local boards to focus down on a subsection of the state. Rhode Island has five local boards. The state organization is a wealth of information and has a useful site at riliving.com. One other thing, the boards provide to the Realtor valuable educational resources on communication, legal information, technology, market statistics and ethical business practices. This keeps them informed on how to do business and what is going on in the market place. In the end, that will help you understand the real estate market better.