Marianne's Blog

As an Active Rain newbie, I often struggle to identify interesting topics that I feel will be of value to the community at large.  Amazingly enough, it dawned on me that I have a wonderfully inspirational & heart warming personal story to share.  Following, please find a story about a little boy ...

Last year was a banner year & my best year thus far.  Amazingly enough, I was even recognized for my accomplishments in our RE/MAX International newspaper.  Call me naive, but I thought that once you got to a certain level of production that you'd simply stay there.  Suffice it to say, I was caug...

Read this in the Sunday edition of our state newspaper... Fannie Mae Will Require First-Time Home Buyers To Get Counseling Before Closing! Effective Jan 1, 2009, Fannie Mae will require counseling for home buyer's relying on nontraditional credit or obtaining a MyCommunityMortgage loan to purchas...

The past year has been one of many valuable lessons learned, whether I wanted to learn them or not.  That being said, it's sometimes difficult to maintain a positive attitude in an economic sea of chaos!  When in need of inspiration to turn that frown around, I often peruse the Internet for compe...

I recently read an article in either Fortune or the Wall Street Journal that was most fascinating.  We're all keenly aware of disorders such as: ADD, ADHD, OCD, etc.  At this juncture you might be wondering where I'm going with this, but it appears that a new disorder was recently discovered that...

In fiscal 2005 we had an average of 156 to 165 residential listings available in our MLS region, which is a huge geographical area encompassing several coastal communities of great beauty.  It was in that cycle that we experienced new trends and patterns such as multiple offers and escalation cla...

On the March 15th. airing of the NBC Today Show famed real estate expert, Barbara Corcoran chose Astoria, Oregon as "one of the best areas to retire for city people in pursuit of a quieter place".  View the article at: http://www.barbaracorcoran.com/While I agree with most points in her article, ...

"Conceige" level customer service is what I strive to provide each & everyone of my clients, day in &  day out!  I'd like to believe that the customer service level that I provide is one of my true points of differentiations between me and my competitors.That being said, I'm reminded of a sales &...

 As I said in my previous blog entry, Dale Carnegie once stated, "Act Enthusiastic & You'll Be Enthusiastic"  I had a blog response that reminded me of a time when employed as a National Sales Manager with Nabisco.  I'd come off doing both my job as well as my region managers job as he was critic...