CAR's REimagine!

A couple of weeks ago I attended the California Association of Realtor’s annual conference, entitle REImagine! I had never attended one of these events previously; in fact, the only similar event I did was to go to a Century 21 event in my first two years working in real estate. Between the craziness of the Covid market, which was so hectic, the loss of my mom and then the slow-down in the real estate market of the past year, I was feeling the need to be re-inspired. I reached out to my good friend Sheri to see if she would join me and with her yes, we went.

This year the event was held in Anaheim, quite close to Disneyland. We booked a hotel just a five minute walk away, which was great because it ensured we at least got a little exercise at the beginning and end of each day. We waited too long to book our flights, so we ended up flying out of San Francisco instead of Santa Rosa, but the timing of the flights was good as we both drove down and back in between the worst of the traffic.

Sheri has attended quite a few of these events over the years. She has been involved in her local Realtor’s association and those roles often required attendance at the business end of things. While the rest of us were going to workshops or checking out the expo floor, officers and committee members from the various associations were in their own meetings, starting early in the morning and often running into the evening. From the minute we got in the car together and really, until we got in the car to drive home, all our talk was about real estate (we finally ran out of that on the way home and talked about our grandchildren!). Sheri is super professional, wise beyond her years, very inspiring and just a lot of fun. We have known each other since we were in grammar school in Elk, so pretty much all of our lives, though there were years in there after high school where we weren’t in touch. When I started in real estate I worked at Century 21 in Mendocino and she was my office-mate.

We arrived in Anaheim on Monday afternoon and walked down to the convention center to check that out and see how long a walk it was. We also found a convenience store to get a couple of gallons of water since neither of us was interested in drinking the stuff out of the tap with the chlorine we aren’t used to tasting. We opted for dinner in our hotel and an early night in preparation for the coming few days. One oddity at dinner was the robot who delivered our food. We had lots of regular waitstaff as well and when we asked were told it was supposed to be more hygienic to have the food delivered by the robot; in any case, a human had to take the plates off the robot’s tray and set it in front of us. It made for an amusing time at least.

Tuesday was the first day, but an optional one. There were several paid events and Sheri and I had chosen the Broker’s Conference. This was a day packed with many different speakers, most focused on office management and recruitment, but a couple of updates on risk management and on the increasing use of artificial intelligence.

Wednesday and Thursday were the main days of the conference. I noticed that Wednesday was better attended than Thursday and my hunch is that because we were in Southern California there were a lot of agents who drove in for the day. Sheri and I attended workshops mostly together on both days but we did a couple of separate ones and then shared notes. We also made our way through the expo, mainly to do the “treasure hunt” so we could be included in the raffle at the end of both days (we didn’t win anything, but there were some really nice prizes). After that was done, we then went to two District meetings where we saw our association in action and that was very interesting.

The District we are part of includes Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin, Lake and Solano Counties. These one hour sessions at the end of the day brought together everyone who had attended various business meetings throughout the day to do reports to the whole. The big issue had to do with raising annual dues and it was contentious but civilized and it was fascinating to listen in. Instead of CAR being this amorphous blog out there I saw the people behind it and the work involved and I quite liked it.

On Wednesday evening we had signed up for a trip to Disneyland’s California Adventure. We boarded buses that dropped us off and were guided through the entrance and along to a special area set aside for us inside the park. There we had a tapas-style dinner and then were free to roam the park. We walked all over, but the timing wasn’t great - some of the rides were closed for the day and the ones that were open had 30-60 minute waits, which would have taken up most of our evening. We found that the carousel was only a five minute wait, so we decided to laugh it up on the whimsical characters there - I ended up on a skunk facing the wrong way!

On the Thursday evening Sheri and I were invited to join the our District for a lovely dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. It was a chance to get to know some of these agents from other areas a little better plus we were very well fed. It was a wonderful end to a busy week.

Overall, I am very glad I went to this conference. I felt a learned a lot, but most importantly, it did reinvigorate me and re-inspire me to dive back into my work as a real estate broker. The conference provided me with valuable insights into the latest trends and best practices in the industry, which I am excited to apply to my work. I am confident that these new ideas will help me better serve my clients from now and into the future.