Tracy and Ashley promote attending TREC and Texas REALTOR events throughout the year for agents to understand the market, tools available and to network with industry partners across the state. In February, they attended the Texas REALTOR Winter Meeting. At this meeting, REALTORS discuss business affecting the association, address local trends, and network with other Texas REALTORS.
Before this event, Ashley was stressed about the first day because she was to present a 20-minute mock Graduate, REALTOR® Institute (GRI) class. Many people in the industry consider the GRI designation “Masters Degree of Real Estate”. During the presentation, Tracy watched her impress the room full of professionals and instructors with her teaching. The evaluators told Ashley, “They loved you so much! You are approved.” She was the only candidate at the Winter Meeting authorized to teach GRI, becoming one of only 28 approved GRI instructors in the State of Texas! This opened up opportunities to teach for their local association and several others. In conclusion, Ashley explained, “It wasn’t as scary as I made myself think for weeks. It was enjoyable. I was just myself and that worked. If you consider doing something you feel is out of reach or out of your comfort zone, Do it and don’t hesitate. If it is not meant to be, it will not work, but you will not know until you try!”
Looking back over the event, Tracy & Ashley were disappointed they could not participate in more activities. The event offered so many valuable classes and meetings scheduled so closely together that they were leaving events early or entering classes late. Another surprising thing, according to Ashley, was that one percent of the agent body attended this event. She explained that there are 170,000 agents in Texa, but only 1,700 agents attended. However, that is a record attendance for the Winter Meeting, about 500 more agents than they have ever had. Ashley said that our association is the second largest in the state with 27,000 agents in MetroTex, and only 30 of those agents attended this event.
There were many great takeaways from this meeting, Tracy and Ashley were pleasantly surprised with their interactions with the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC), a government agency that is a safeguard for consumers in matters of real estate transactions and valuations. They realized that some of the TREC commissioners are brokers and genuinely want feedback for proposed rules. The process is there are rule ideas and deliberation at this meeting. Next, the rules are proposed and put out for public comment. Then there is a waiting period for several months before changes are made. Tracy and Ashley saw some of the rules changed and adopted as revised based on comments made at the Winter Meeting. The biggest takeaway is that TREC wants feedback and cares about opinions. In addition to asking for opinions, TREC is improving its customer service from a five-week response for new applications to a four-day turnaround.
In the end, there was a lot of information to bring back to the agents here in Hunt County. Tracy and Ashley will continue attending these events, learning, networking, and letting others in the industry know where Greenville,Texas is on the map!