By Melissa Dittmann Tracey

We all make mistakes sometimes, but a mistake delivered over technology can be a lasting one — even at times an “archived” one on the Internet that plays over and over again.

Maybe an embarrassing photo of you surfaced on Facebook for all of your clients to see, or you accidentally sent a document to the wrong client or hit the “reply all” button when making a snarky remark over e-mail. Such technology mishaps can certainly be damaging to your career, particularly if not resolved quickly.

In real estate, where technology is often more friend than foe, taking precaution to avoid tech blunders can be well worth the extra effort. According to a recent survey by Robert Half International, the top professional “technology etiquette sins” reported by human resource managers are being inconsiderate to others by taking calls anytime on a smartphone, venting on bad things about the workplace on social networking sites, using instant-messaging shorthand, and constantly pestering others using technology.

If you’ve committed a technology sin, the best thing to do is repent. Here are some tips from etiquette experts on how to handle the fallout from some unintentional errors that can occur over technology and, better yet, how to prevent landing yourself in a technology mishap to begin with.

Tech Mishap No. 1: Forwarding the wrong document to a client

The Oops Moment: You forwarded an important, personal document regarding a real estate transaction to the wrong client.

The Recovery: This can be a very damaging mistake, depending on the extent of the private information the document contained. Putting someone else’s private information in another’s hands, unintentional or not, can land you in professional or even legal trouble. “Your best bet is to try to appeal to the humanity of the person who received your e-mail mistakenly,” says etiquette expert Cynthia W. Lett, director of The Lett Group in Silver Spring, Md. “Explain to them that they received a personal document that was intended for another client you are working with, and that you would appreciate it if they would destroy the document immediately.” You should also notify the other client about your mistake and apologize.

Avoid This Mistake: The REALTOR® Code of Ethics says that REALTORS® have an obligation to preserve the confidential information of their clients (as defined by state law). Slow down to avoid such big blunders when sending personal documents.

Also, watch for the auto-fill feature on most e-mail programs when sending messages. Your e-mail may save your contacts; when you begin to type a name, it may automatically input the e-mail address of a client to whom it assumes you intend to send the message. Encrypt any sensitive records and files to keep them more secure when sending anything online, and make it a policy to never send highly confidential information over unsecure e-mail.

“Pay attention,” Lett says. “We do things too quickly without thinking clearly.” Before you send any e-mail, take your hands off the computer and put them in your lap for at least 20 seconds, carefully reviewing what you just wrote and who you are about to send it to, Lett advises.

Tech Mishap No. 2: An embarrassing photo of you surfaces on Facebook

The Oops Moment: That photo of you after you’d had a bit too much to drink at a holiday party or otherwise acting unprofessional may someday come back to haunt you, thanks to social media. Your friends can upload a photo and tag you, and voilà. There it is, for all your clients to see.

The Recovery: In Facebook, you can untag yourself in a photo by bringing up the offending picture on your screen and then looking for the “report/remove tag” link to get your name removed from it. This at least will remove the photo immediately from your page. However, the picture will still be on the poster’s page and possibly even surface elsewhere on the Internet. Contact the person who tagged you in the photo. Call her on the phone to make the conversation more human and urgent, Lett suggests. Ask her to remove the photo immediately. Many people who tag you in photos think you’ll appreciate it, and don’t realize you’d be hurt by it, Lett says.

Avoid This Mistake: Facebook has security features so that you can choose a setting where you must approve all tagged photos of yourself prior to them appearing on your page. You’ll get notified as soon as someone tags you and can approve or disapprove of it. From your Facebook account, visit “Privacy Settings,” click on “Edit Settings” for “How Tags Work,” and then review the settings you have in place. The security setting won’t prevent others from uploading embarrassing photos of you, but it can prevent the photo from appearing on your page for your contacts to see.

And this probably goes without saying, but try to take some caution so that embarrassing photos aren’t taken in the first place. Remember: “The photos posted of you and the comments you make on social networking sites can start to form your reputation,” Lett says. “Take steps to protect your reputation on social networking sites.”

Tech Mishap No. 3: Mistakenly hitting ‘Reply All’ to an e-mail message

The Oops Moment: You went to respond to a message with a sarcastic comment intended for only one other person’s eyes — a person with whom you may have a joking relationship. But you accidentally hit “reply all” to a company or group message. Now everyone sees your private message, and some may take offense.

The Recovery: Some people have lost their jobs over this very scenario. Get on the phone if there’s anything in your message that could potentially hurt anyone’s feelings, apologize, and try to explain yourself, Lett says. Your top priority is to concentrate on repairing the damage from the person most hurt by your message. By having a voice conversation, you share your emotion, tone of voice, and energy in apologizing much better than an impersonal e-mail apology could ever communicate.

Avoid This Mistake: Avoid using your work e-mail to send any humorous or overly personal e-mail chains. Use a private account so there’s no mix-up. Keep all of your company e-mail communications professional in tone. And before you ever press “send,” make sure your e-mail message is going to the right person.

Tech Mishap No. 4: Calling your client by the wrong name

The Oops Moment: When talking on the phone or sending an e-mail, you mistakenly call your client “Jim” when his name is really “Bob.”

The Recovery: Call your client back immediately — even if the mistake was made over e-mail. Voice-to-voice interaction on the phone makes the conversation human again, Lett says. She suggests starting the conversation jokingly as you laugh, like “Hello, Jim. I mean, Bob. You know what, you look so much like someone I know named Jim and I was just talking to him, and I had his name in my head. Please forgive me, Bob.”

Avoid This Mistake: This can be one of the worst etiquette mistakes you can make because it’s so personal, possibly more offensive than even misfiling a document, Lett says. Avoid multitasking so you can concentrate when speaking or crafting a message to your client, so that you can avoid making such mistakes while distracted.

Technology Mishap No. 5: Inconsiderate phone use

The Oops Moment: Your phone rings, and you answer it while you’re out with another client showing him homes.

The Recovery: Tell the person on the other line that you’re meeting with another client and that you will have to return her call once you’re finished. Apologize to your other client for the disruption.

Avoid This Mistake: Make it a point to not pick up the phone when you’re out with another client — if you do answer those calls, it makes the client you’re with feel like he’s unimportant to you and the client who called you feel like you’re rushing her off the phone. Let your phone go to voicemail when you’re out with another client, and set your phone to vibrate so it won’t be distracting by constantly going off. Also, try to avoid other inconsiderate phone uses: Don’t call a client back or take a call while waiting in line at Starbucks or while driving. The loud background noises may make it difficult for your clients to hear you and for you to hear them. (Tip: If you must use the phone when you’re out, use the “mute” feature on your phone whenever background noise gets too loud.) Your best bet is always to pay your clients respect by waiting until you can get to a quiet place to call them back so that you can focus on the conversation, experts suggest.

“Rudeness will tick people off faster than humiliation,” Lett says. “If you’re out with a potential client who’s looking for a house and you’re getting text messages from other clients and you stop to take care of those text messages in front of that client, you will probably not have that client by the end of the day. There’s nothing people hate more than being ignored because of technology. It sends the message that you care more about your phone than the person sitting in front of you.”

If you’re given a choice to either invest $1,000 in a two-year bank certificate of deposit or bury that money in your backyard, don’t spend too much time thinking about it, because for all practical purposes you’ll come out the same either way.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) say you’ll earn 83 cents more with the CD than burying your money, so the CD’s probably the better deal. But after you factor in the gas to get to the bank to buy your CD you’re probably better off going with the buried money and just taking advantage of inflation.

So, where should you put your money? Andreas Rauterkus, an assistant professor of finance at the UAB School of Business, says you should buy a house.

“First-time home-buyer rates are around 3.8 percent for a 30-year mortgage, so if you can afford a $1,000 mortgage payment monthly for 30 years then you can buy a $250,000 home right now,” says Rauterkus.

Lary Cowart, an assistant professor of real estate and finance at the school, says you don’t want to wait too long, though. Because once prices start moving, it won’t take long before price changes affect the advantage of today’s low rates.

“Holding out to try and find the lowest price is not a good strategy because if the house were to go down 10 percent but the interest rate goes up 1 percent you are not gaining anything,” says Cowart. “If rates go up 1 percent, say from 4 to 5 percent, that is a 25 percent increase in the interest rate; so the mortgage payment goes up by more than 10 percent and the amount of house that can be purchased goes down by more than 10 percent. People fail to realize that and it is another little thing that will cost them big over the 30-year life of the loan.”

Of course, whether you can buy at all depends on lenders’ willingness to make a loan today to anyone except those with the best credit profile and plenty of money for a downpayment, and that’s a big question today. It makes you wonder if the reason banks aren’t lending is because they don’t have any money available because it’s all buried in the bankers’ yards.

Read the UAB press release in which the researchers talk about buying a home today.

More on lenders’ tight lending policies

More from NAR on why home ownership matters

By: Tom Shapiro, Founder & CEO of Digital Marketing NOW

You want prospects to visit your Web site and become familiar with your brand, information, and listings. The problem comes when prospects leave your site without contacting you. When they leave, they often check out the competition, forgetting about you and your brand. And the odds of being contacted by these prospects dwindle the longer they’ve been away from your site.

To be successful with digital marketing efforts, you must increase the number of “touchpoints” your brand has with prospects. When prospects spend time with your brand, you increase the chances of them hiring you for their real estate needs. Many big real estate brokerages embark on huge advertising campaigns to stay top-of-mind, but you may not have the marketing budget to constantly display your messages everywhere.

Even with a limited budget, though, you should ensure that your Web site visitors repeatedly come into contact with your brand. Focus on being exactly where your site visitors are going online at precisely the right time. The key to digital advertising success is to create highly targeted, highly timely marketing campaigns — a winning combination for an individual real estate practitioner or a brokerage of any size.

An effective way to accomplish this is through “retargeting” efforts, such as:

Site Retargeting

The most basic type of retargeting, this is an online advertising campaign configured to be displayed to those who have visited and left your site. Depending on your site and retargeting solution, you can configure the campaign to show ads to only those who did not submit an online form while on your site, ensuring that you’re effectively reaching those who “got away.” The ads appear in a multitude of online destinations based on the ad networks involved.

Let’s say a couple is interested in buying a three-bedroom, two-bathroom property. They visit and then leave your site without filling out your online contact form, and continue their Web research. Perhaps they visit their local newspaper’s Web site. If you’re running a site-retargeting campaign, your ad could appear on the newspaper’s site, reminding them about you and how you can meet their real estate needs.

Site retargeting is most effective if you segment your audience. You can show ads specifically about condominiums to someone who has visited the condo pages on your site, or display ads about apartment rentals to prospects that visited your apartment listing pages. This way, your messages are highly relevant to each person’s needs and online experiences.

Another key to success with site retargeting is to write custom ad copy that assumes the prospect has already visited your site. By offering a special incentive and a clear call to action, you can “bring them back” to you.

As with any retargeting campaign, you can set a frequency cap for the number of times prospects see your ads, and you can also designate an expiration date for the ads (e.g., “show the ads up to five times and only within seven days after they left my site”).

There are many solutions on the market, such as AdRoll.com, Retargeter.com, and FetchBack.com. The right solution depends on your goals, market, and budget.

Search Retargeting

Search retargeting is another useful mechanism for getting in front of those who have visited (and left) your Web site. With a service like Google Remarketing, you can show online display ads to those who search for your real estate keywords in Google and click on your Google AdWords ads but then leave your site. Your Google Remarketing ads appear when those site visitors then go to sites in the Google Display Network, which covers thousands of sites, including CNN.com, YouTube.com, and many others.

Google enables you to specify sites within the Google Display Network for your ads to appear. You can also exclude sites based on your preferences. Your ad copy should be written with the knowledge that these visitors have already clicked on your Google ads, checked out your site, and gained some familiarity with your brand.

With a typical Google AdWords campaign producing conversion rates of between 2 and 10 percent, Google Remarketing empowers you to keep your brand top-of-mind for the other 90 percent to 98 percent of prospects who clicked on your Google ads.

Beyond Search Retargeting

Other search retargeting programs, such as by Simpli.fi and Chango.com, go a step further by building repeated touchpoints with prospects. Now, you can more effectively target people who have used any of the major search engines to look for real estate in your target geography, regardless of whether you’re running search ads. This type of retargeting enables you to target prospects on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, even if they haven’t been to your site or clicked on any of your ads. With Simpli.fi’s platform, your campaign can extend beyond the search engines to practically any site where a user may search for information, including CNN.com, Amazon.com, and so forth.

This type of search retargeting repeatedly gets you in front of prospects who might otherwise not know about you. Plus, you’ll reach them precisely at the time they’re looking for real estate, dramatically increasing your chances of winning their business.

Measure, Measure, Measure

With any type of retargeting campaign, track, measure, and analyze your results. Clicks and conversions are useful metrics. You can also configure special landing pages with dedicated or dynamic phone numbers. Or take the lower-tech route of simply asking prospects how they found out about you and if they saw any of your ads online. Assess your efforts to determine your campaign’s value. That way, you’ll ensure that your retargeting initiative is providing the biggest bang for the buck.

Source: REALTOR® Magazine

According to housing experts in a recent Kiplinger article, here are some predictions for the real estate market in the coming year:

Home prices stabilize: Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, predicts that home prices nationwide may still drop another 3 to 5 percent in 2012, but the new year will most likely finally bring a leveling off of home prices before gains start to take shape in 2013. When markets do begin to stabilize in the new year, “price appreciation tends to spread unevenly, creating a lot of confusion about where the recovery is occurring and when,” David Stiff, chief economist at Fiserv Case-Shiller, told Kiplinger. “Even within a single city, more desirable neighborhoods will stabilize first, while prices in other neighborhoods may fall at a rapid pace.”

Housing affordability high: Housing affordability — the ratio of median home prices to median family income — will likely remain at record levels in 2012. Homes in many cities are “substantially undervalued,” the Kiplinger article notes. That may even lead to a mini bubble with double-digit spikes in prices, such as an increase of 10 to 15 percent in a given year in some markets, housing experts say.  

Low mortgage rates: Helping to keep affordability high, low mortgage rates are expected to continue on in 2012 — at least the first part of the year, economists predict. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the most popular among home buyers, has been hovering under a 4-percent average the past few weeks, staying in record low territory. Rates are expected to stay between 4 to 5 percent in 2012, predicts Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, an industry publication.

Sales increases: The National Association of REALTORS® has already been showing a tick up in sales taking shape with increases in existing-home sales during the summer and early fall of 2011. High inventories of homes continue to flood the market but a drastic slowdown in new-home building the past three years is “gradually easing the surplus,” the Kiplinger article notes.

Foreclosures: Foreclosures remain the problem and still plague many markets. After a slowdown with lenders processing the paperwork, foreclosures have began to pick up once again. About 1.84 million home loans are 90 days or more delinquent and 2.17 million have finished the foreclosure process but aren’t up for sale yet, according to RealtyTrac data. Alex Villacorta, director of research and analytics at Clear Capital, told Kiplinger that he predicts regardless of the downward price pressure caused from foreclosures, overall home prices won’t fall as long as lenders bring additional foreclosures to the housing market at a steady pace.

Source: “What’s Ahead for Home Prices in 2012,” Kiplinger (January 2012)

The Pending Home Sales Index,* a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, surged 10.4 percent to 93.3 in October from 84.5 in September and is 9.2 percent above October 2010 when it stood at 85.5. The data reflects contracts but not closings.

At NAR’s request, the affidavit that Freddie Mac requires servicers to obtain to help curb fraud in short sale transactions has been changed to reduce practitioners’ unreasonable exposure to liability. NAR members had expressed concern that the original language left them open to liability for statements made by parties to the transaction over which they had no control. Watch and share the short video below and this resource page.

Read more at: http://tinyurl.com/wrar11-19-11

The NAR Board of Directors meeting at the end of the 2011 REALTORS® Conference & Expo in Anaheim on Monday voted to rescind a Multiple Listing Service policy on the display of Internet Data Exchange (IDX) listings on franchisors’ Web sites.

A work group has been tasked to broaden the policy to address listing displays over mobile devices and via social media (with a broker opt-out option). Listing data sent via RSS (Really Simple syndication) won’t be included because of the difficulty in controlling access to RSS feeds.

In other changes to MLS policy, directors took the following actions:

• Sales price information. Amended the Statement of MLS Policy and the implementing model MLS rules to allow MLSs to require reporting of sale prices by participants. In “non-disclosure states,” if sale prices are provided by the MLS to government agencies and or third-party entities for uses other than those authorized in the amended Policy Statement, sellers may request that their sale price not be provided to such entities.
• REOs. Gave MLSs discretionary authority to require listing participants to disclose whether listed property is a foreclosure, bank-owned, or real estate-owned (REO).
• Lockboxes. Increased from $200 to $300 the maximum security deposit associations and MLSs can require for lockboxes.

At the meeting, the Directors took actions on other areas of association business:

Nominating Rules

• Adopted a set of binding endorsement guidelines for members of the NAR Nominating Committee, alternates, and members of the Leadership Team to promote impartiality toward members running for association office
• Required that regions appoint an alternate representative as a non-voting member of the Nominating Committee to help ensure continuity on the committee.
• Established criteria for state or regional endorsements of candidates

Appraisal Policy

• Sent a set of property valuation principles back to a workgroup to ensure they don’t conflict with the NAR Code of Ethics. The principles would support independent valuations of real property. The Responsible Valuation Principles were developed by a workgroup of the Appraisal subcommittee and address the licensing of appraisers, coercion of appraisers to reach valuations, and compliance with the appraisal industry’s Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice.
• Changed the structure of the Appraisal Committee to be a broader based Real Property Valuation Committee. Members of the reconstituted committee, which came out of a valuation summit held earlier this year, will provide recommendations on valuation-related issues and will be composed of appraisers, brokers, and members engaged in other real estate disciplines.

Code of Ethics and Professional Standards:

• The Delegate Body adopted language to implement discretionary authority for boards and associations to require their members mediate disputes that would be otherwise arbitrated.
• The board also adopted a new Standard of Practice 3.9 to prohibit REALTORS® from accessing or using, or permitting or enabling others to access or use, listed or managed property on terms or conditions other than those authorized by the owner or seller.
• In the Delegate Body meeting, delegates changed the word “competitors” to “other real estate professionals” in a provision in Article 15 of the Code that prohibits the making of false or misleading statements about others.

 Federal Policy

• The board adopted a policy to oppose any efforts in the federal government to consolidate the operations of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Rural Housing Service. Under the policy, if the two agencies were consolidated, NAR would seek to ensure there’s no diminishment or disruption in programs.
• To help address what practitioners say is an increasing number of lawsuits against brokers alleging violation of Section 8 (anti-kickback) of the federal Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), NAR will create a group to examine the legislative, regulatory, administrative, and judicial terrain of RESPA and identify recommendations for changes.

Internal Business

• The board amended the association’s investment statement for governing the management of its funds, including its new REALTOR® Party funds. Among other things, up to 50 percent of funds may be placed with an outside investment manager, up from 40 percent.
• The board also authorized NAR to purchase a 2012 Master Policy for the Professional Liability Insurance Program for itself, its affiliates, and state and local associations and their wholly owned MLSs and affiliates.  The $1.2 million premium is 14 percent lower than this year’s premium.
• The Delegate Body changed Article III, section 8, of the NAR Constitution to broaden the definition of an NAR international affiliate to “organization” from “association” to reflect that many international affiliates aren’t structured as associations.

State and Local Political Activism

NAR will provide Issues Mobilization funding of $332,140 to the Oregon Association of REALTORS® for the next phase of their Coordinated Campaign to pass a Constitutional ballot measure in 2012 to permanently prohibit real estate transfer taxes in Oregon.

People

The Nominating Committee announced its NAR leadership slate for 2013: Gary Thomas of Alison Viejo, Calif., for president; Steve Brown of Dayton, Ohio, for president-elect; Chris Polychron of Hot Springs, Ark., for first vice president; and Bill Armstrong, Damascus, Maryland, for treasurer.

The Nominating Committee also announced that three NAR members have filed for office of first vice president: Bill Brown of Oakland, Calif.; James Helsel of Camp Hill, Pa.; and Thomas F. Salomone of Coral Springs, Fla., and for treasurer, Michael C. McGrew of Lawrence, Kan.

The Distinguished Service Award went to Adorna Carroll of Realty Three Inc., in Berlin, Conn., and PeggyAnn McConnochie of ACH Consulting in Juneau, Alaska. They’re the 79th and 80th recipients of the DSA Award, respectively.

The William R Magel Award went to Gary Clayton, CEO of Illinois Association of REALTORS®.

REALTOR.com

REALTOR.com President Errol Samuelson gave a report on NAR’s official consumer marketing site. The site now incorporates an international site on which U.S. property listings are made available to home buyers in other countries and automatically translated into 11 other languages. He also talked about changes to the site to bring listings and other information to consumers via mobile devices.

Past NAR President Cathy Whatley, who represents NAR on the board of REALTOR.com operator Move Inc., cautioned NAR members against surrendering too much of their data to data aggregators, such as Trulia and Zillow, that can’t be counted on to protect their interests.

REALTOR® University

REALTOR® University Board of Trustees Richard Rosenthal of Riverside, Calif., said the university is on track to receive accreditation by the State of Illinois and expects to roll out its first academic program in March 2012. Just under 300 people have submitted an expression of interest to begin studies at the university, far more than the 40 that NAR originally budgeted for. Rosenthal said the university is ready to handle 150 students.

The university’s scholarship program has gotten off to a great start as well. State and local associations have pledged more than $250,000 to find scholarships for students. NAR will be matching the money, bringing the total to more than $500,000. “This will ensure the brightest and best in the industry are encouraged to come to REALTOR® University,” Rosenthal said.

How can I submit an application?
You can access the online form here, or by visiting our main “30 Under 30″ page.

Who’s eligible to enter?
For the 2012 feature, any REALTOR® member of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® who is 29 years old or younger on May 31, 2012, and who has not been profiled in a previous “30 Under 30.”

What’s the deadline?
Applications are due by Jan. 15, 2012.

What are the judges looking for?
Several factors are considered  — business success is just one. Community and professional leadership also are important factors. We strive for balance: We want to ensure we have a diverse group of finalists in terms of business niches, gender, ethnic background, and geographic location. Finally, we look for compelling stories that bring to life innovative business strategies that have worked for you or obstacles you’ve overcome.

What is the selection process?
Initially, all applications are screened by REALTOR® Magazine editors to ensure all necessary information has been provided. In the initial screening, we also  winnow the group down to 75-100 semifinalists. A panel of judges then reviews this group, weighing the factors mentioned above, until a consensus is reached on 50 finalists. Of those, we tentatively choose 30 honorees and five alternates. The 30 are vetted with their local and state associations and with the state regulatory boards for ethical violations or disciplinary actions. If a finalist is disqualified for any reason, a replacement is chosen from the list of alternates.

Can I make changes to my application?
Yes. During the application period, you can retrieve your saved application using the e-mail address and password you created when you started the application. The application period for the 2012 “30 Under 30″ feature is from Sept. 30, 2011 to Jan. 15, 2012. After Jan. 15, the system will no longer available and your application will be considered final.

Can my broker or colleague provide supporting letters?
Recommendation letters in support of your application can be submitted, but are not required. They must be submitted online via a link on the application form. No e-mail, faxes, or snail mail will be accepted. A maximum of three letters can be submitted.

Can I submit other supporting documentation (awards, certificates, etc.)?
Due to the high volume of applications we receive (more than 500) we can’t accept other supporting documents. Awards, designations, and other honors should be mentioned in the application. The editors will contact you if clarification or additional information is needed.

What if I don’t yet know my closed sales volume or transaction sides for 2011?
You should indicate on the application that 2011 figures are estimates. If you obtain actual sales volume and transaction side data for 2011 before the Jan. 15 deadline, you can go back into the application and update that information, using your e-mail address and the password you selected.

Why do you ask about ethics violations and state regulatory actions? Will either eliminate me from consideration?
Our “30 Under 30” finalists represent the next generation of industry leaders and as such they should set an example of professional and ethical behavior. An ethical violation or disciplinary action does not result in automatic disqualification. The editors will consider the circumstances and weigh the incident against other factors in your application.

Will my sales numbers be independently verified?
Yes. If you are selected as a finalist, we will seek verification from either your broker or MLS.

Do I have to be a member of NAR?
Yes. Only REALTOR® members of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® are eligible. If you’re not already a member, you can join before the deadline and still submit an application.

I don’t know my NRDS number. Where can I find it?
Your NRDS number is your NAR membership identification number. You must enter your NRDS number to initiate the “30 Under 30″ application process. If you don’t know your number, you can find it here.

How will I know if my application was received?
An e-mail will be sent to the address listed in the application to confirm receipt of the submitted form. If it’s determined that the application is incomplete or missing some information, a second e-mail will be sent.

How and when will I be notified of the judges’ decision?
All applicants will be notified of their status via e-mail in May 2012.

Why is May 31 the birthday cutoff?
The feature appears in the June issue of REALTOR® Magazine and profiles practitioners under the age of 30.

I’m turning 30 on May 20. Can I still apply?
Unfortunately, no.

Whom can I contact if I have more questions?
Please contact Katherine Tarbox at ktarbox@realtors.org or 312/329-8403.

Go to “30 Under 30″ Main Page

2011 NAR President Ron Phipps remembers Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his impact on the real estate industry and encourages REALTORS® to be like Steve Jobs in our efforts to be architects for change in the housing industry and our country.