San Diego, Like Toronto, Has Some Beautiful Turn-Of-The-Century Buildings

Just recently I attended the National Association of Realtors (NAR) convention in San Diego. If you have never been to San Diego, I highly recommend it.

I stayed in a hotel which was created from a bank building built in 1926 in the heart of the Gastown District… an area of 1880-1930 structures which has now developed into an exciting area of restaurants and patios.

The convention started off on Thursday with an all-day brainstorming (8 am to 5 pm) between about 40 of the top real estate agents from across the USA (and one other Canadian besides myself). Because noone is from a competing area, there’s a free exchange of the best ideas Realtors are using to grow their businesses.

Friday I drove up to the Rancho Santa Fe area just north of San Diego for a video interview with Joe Stumpf from By Referral Only. Joe has been a mentor for Sally and I and our Team since 1993. It was interesting to see his broadcast centre and participate with him in his training of Realtors continent-wide.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday were spent attending classes all day, each day with dinners with fellow agents each evening – a terrific opportunity to learn more and see what trends are coming.

The Americans are still suffering badly from the real estate downturn. Many classes (which I didn’t need to attend) were on how to manage Short Sales – situations where the seller has less equity in his home than the amount of the mortgage.

One agent I spoke with from Northern California had 1 in 8 homes in his community currently under foreclosure! He said property values were back to those of the early 1990s. This decrease in value has actually caused them to be back into having many multiple offer situations ironically.

I spent several hours late Monday afternoon and evening sitting in a Gaslamp Starbucks assembling my notes and prioritizing what exciting things I could bring home to our Team and to our Toronto real estate clients.

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