So, I’m hearing lots of belly-aching by people who are upset that Halloween Trick-or-Treating has been postponed for many of our towns because of the recent weather and power outages.  I’m here to tell you that there is a silver lining in all this.  Here are ten reasons why it’s AWESOME that we won’t be trick-or-treating today.

1. Awesome Deals on Candy: Do you know the BEST time to go shopping for Halloween candy?  November 1st!  The day after Halloween is when stores are re-stocking shelves for the holidays and the big bags of chocolate just don’t go with the theme so they deep discount the Halloween candy to get it out of the stores so they can get the holiday decorations up.

2. Costumes at Like 70% off!: Every once in a while it really pays to procrastinate.  If you haven’t bought your costume yet, you are in luck.  By tomorrow there will be deals galore at all the local stores.  The only thing better than buying Halloween candy in November is buying costumes!

3. You Won’t Miss all The GREAT Halloween Shows: Sometimes I get bummed out on Halloween because on Halloween night some of the best spooky tv programming takes place.  Watch the original Halloween with Jamie Lee Curtis or check out one or two of the Friday the 13th movies.  If you were out trick-or-treating with the kids half the night you would likely be too tired when you got home to watch these classics. As well, if you were planning on staying home anyway, you won’t have to be interrupted every few minutes with the doorbell ringing with trick-or-treaters…causing you to miss the very best parts of the movies! Now you have the opportunity to plan a night watching the tube with some fresh popped popcorn and nowhere to go.

4. You Set a Good Example for Your Kids: By remaining upbeat and positive about the opportunity to celebrate October 31st different than usual, you get to set a great example for your kids.  Don’t complain because there’s no trick-or-treating, because then your kids might complain when they don’t get their own way.  Instead, make a night of it by celebrating differently…spooky stories by the fireplace, maybe?

5.  No Long Wait for The Next Holiday: Many towns are choosing to simply postpone, rather than cancel Halloween trick-or-treating all together.  What’s awesome about this is that normally once October 31st is over it’s kind of depressing because we have three plus weeks of cold nights where it gets dark at 4 o’clock and many of us just focus on the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.  Well, if your town postponed Halloween for four or five days, that means that once trick-or-treating is over, your wait for Thanksgiving is that much closer!

6. No “sugar high” kids for now: Many moms and dads (teachers too) will be excited about this one…no kids over indulging in candy tonight to the detriment of household peace.

7. Time Stopped!: Don’t we all feel that time just moves too quickly? Our kids grow up too fast and it seems like time just goes by too fast.  Well, when you expect Halloween today and now it’s not for several days, its like time is standing still…so enjoy it!

8. Trick-or-Treat Galore: Normally towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire have trick-or-treating on one of two days…either Halloween night OR the Saturday before Halloween.  Most towns in MA & NH postponed Halloween and have rescheduled to either Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday of this week.  I’ve seen all four days being used.  If you really want to get your fill of trick-or-treating, you now have four days to choose from, or you could do all four…just find the towns that offer it on the days you want to participate.  For example, Marlborough is celebrating on Thursday while Littleton will be Friday.  There are choices for everyone.  Some towns may even go into next week!

9. No Snow Boots: I’ve never trick-or-treated in snow boots, but I can’t imagine that it’s fun. The weather reports are calling for much warmer weather later in the weak

10.  Everyone’s Safe: The very best reason to be happy that there will be no trick-or-treating tonight is that everyone will be safe.  There are still lots of hanging branches and downed power-lines.  Couple that with the dark streets still without power…we are all better off for no Halloween tonight!

What are you doing to find the bright side in Halloween tonight?

In a recent survey on our Facebook fan page we asked an important and timely question: What is the best Halloween Candy?  We offered several choices including Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Twix, Milky Way, M&Ms, Snickers, Twizzlers, Butterfingers, Dum Dums.  Those that completed the survey also had the option of adding their own selection if their favorite wasn’t listed.  The favorite candy by a long shot….Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  At RE/MAX Prestige we delve into important issues like this one because on our quest to be the most amazing real estate company in the entire world…we study what makes for other enduring products and services in the world?  Where did the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup come from?  How does it relate to our goal of being the best?

Harry Burnett “H.B.” Reese was born on a farm in York County PA in 1879.  He grew up working on the farm.  In 1900 he married and went on to have 16 children.  In 1917 HB went to work on a dairy farm owned by The Hershey Company…yes the famous chocolate making company.  HB was inspired watching everything that the Hershey Company did and at night he would go home and experiment with his own chocolate candy inventions in the basement of his house.  His very first candy bars were named after his kids, including The Lizzie Bar and The Johnny Bar. H.B. tried selling his experimental candy bars around the region, but to no avail.  Then he invented the “penny cup” a chocolate cup filled with peanut butter that was sold for a penny.  The heavenly tasting chocolate bite was an instant hit.  Local stores bought them by the box and soon he left the Hershey dairy farm and formed H.B. Reese Candy Company. Due to the economic constraints of the war and limited availability of materials, he chose to solely concentrate on his peanut butter cup line.  Although the H.B. Reese and Hershey relationship was contentious, it’s interesting to note that Hershey bought the H.B. Reese Candy Company some 40 years later.

What does this all teach us about greatness in the real estate world?  I think the most important lesson here is that if you want to build an enduring business, like we continue to do at RE/MAX Prestige, you must do so with passionate people.  Our agents live and breath real estate, just like H.B. did with chocolate.  When you are passionate about what you do…only great things can come of it.

It’s our fourth annual RE/MAX Prestige Costume Contest.  Wear your costume to work on Monday, October 31st…HALLOWEEN and post a photo of yourself AT THE OFFICE on our FACEBOOK page at www.Facebook.com/MYREMAX.  On Tuesday morning we will announce the winner of our contest.  You can’t be the winner if your not in costume at the office and you can’t be a winner if your photo is not added to our FB Fan Page!

Here are the prizes:

Third Place – $25 Gift Certificate to Amazon.com

Second Place - $50 Gift certificate to Amazon.com

FIRST Place - $100 Gift Certificate to Amazon.com AND our autographed book bundle with these awesome autographed books:

Selling Luxury Homes – Jack Cotton

Game Plan – Steve Murray

The Thank You Economy – Gary Vaynerchuk

Crush It – Gary Vaynerchuk

Tuned In- Stacey Alcorn

Last week, we wrote an article regarding one of our agents, Karen King, winning the Massachusetts Association of Realtors’ Good Neighbor Award – an award doled out to the most community-conscious agents in the commonwealth.  However, winning this award does not truly portray the immense amount of effort Karen has invested into the town of Monson, Massachusetts…

As the clouds loomed over western Massachusetts on June 1^st, Karen was on her way back from a real estate training class.  During her ride, Karen received a few phone calls from her team members telling of weather reports of a tornado warning for the Greater Springfield area.  By the time she got home to her husband in Monson, the thunderstorm had begun to yield golf ball-sized hail and, abiding the advice of the weather reports, took shelter in her basement.  The house began to shake as the power went out at her house, and thankfully their house had endured the storm without too much damage – however, in the eerie silence following the tornado passing, Karen and her neighbors stood outside their homes and watched the F3 tornado barreling eastward toward Palmer.

Monson didn’t have power for days following that, and as people emerged from destroyed home with nothing but the clothes on their backs, Karen could only describe their condition as uncannily similar to the dust-covered survivors of the September 11^th attacks.  All in all, 95 homes in Monson (population: 8,560) were completely razed, while a total of 245 properties (17% of Monson’s households) were affected, including the severed steeple of the First Church of Monson, the police and fire stations, Monson’s Town Hall, and most of the cell phone towers in the area.

Immediately following the incident, RE/MAX Prestige started a foundation with several thousand dollars to go to tornado victims in western Massachusetts, people from across the commonwealth texted (the only form of communication due to the failed cell towers) Karen asking how they could help, and ended up sending donations by the truckload to Monson, Springfield, and other towns in the area.  The First Church of Monson, despite their fractured structure, began serving 2,500 meals per day by only volunteers, and was eventually accompanied by the Red Cross, National Guard, FEMA, and MEMA (the Mass. chapter of FEMA).  It got to the point that Karen and the local volunteers had too much, and had to forward a lot of the donations to other local towns.  Personally, though, Karen and her husband hosted thirteen people in their own house, whom were originally pulled out of the rubble in Palmer by Karen’s cousin.  She even opened up some of the houses that she had on the market to families that needed shelter, “making lemonade out of lemons” as she called it.

Karen saw an immediate need for action to be taken when speaking with FEMA volunteers, since they were handing out $250 for each family, but had very poor communication when doing so.  She took charge right away and was therefore invited to the “crisis command center,” comprising of all authorities in charge of communicating and assisting with the tragedy.  Equipped with this information, Karen now became a de facto ambassador between the authorities and her extensive sphere of influence in Monson.  Most of her outreach was in the form of her and some volunteers handing out flyers, water, and food throughout the streets of the small town.   One woman whom Karen assisted even called her group “angels in the street,” leading her to start her unofficial group, which she named the “Street Angels.”

As the number of volunteers grew, the Street Angels began growing in abilities, as they formed a telephone hotline for information and help, set up tents for shelter, and – with the financial backing of a local banker – hung tarps at the ends of streets with food, water, and suntan lotion (something necessary in the middle of June!).  For additional donations, the Street Angels also sold t-shirts with their organization’s name on it for $20 apiece, eventually amounting to approximately $15,000.  This amount was accompanied by another $500,000 raised for the Monson Tornado Relief Fund.

Once the electricity came back after several days, Karen was able to elevate the mentality of the thirteen people staying with her by holding dance parties and ignoring the news.  Some of her RE/MAX Prestige colleagues, including Sara Gasparrini and Steve Levine, continued the momentum with monetary, manual, and material donations as well.  Having electricity back gave Karen and the Street Angels an incredible advantage through social media, as high school student Laura Sauriol changed her Facebook Group entitled “Monson Tornado Watch 2011” from a science-related research forum to a common place for people to communicate needs and offers for donations and assistance.  Karen herself started a page called “Monson Homes Available for Tornado Victims” to help people find homes on the market for temporary shelter and another one for “Monson Animal Lost and Found,” which found 100% of the animals claimed missing!

If you’re asking yourself “how could someone be a successful realtor and still make all of this happen?  What is she gaining from this?” you’re not alone.

“People have actually asked me ‘what’s you’re agenda?’”  Karen said.  “I can’t believe that someone would assume I was doing all of this for some sort of benefit.”  In reality, Karen was raised in a very giving environment: her mother was a major volunteer as Head of Women’s Auxiliary at Wing Memorial Hospital and recipient of the “Gold Award” for being an adamant leader in Girl Scouts.  Her efforts inspired a local girl to join the Springfield Chapter of the Red Cross, in which she is now the Director of Emergency Response.

“If I could inspire people to do great things like my mom did, I would consider it a success,” she stated.  “I don’t want to be thought of for just my real estate career.”  Karen constantly thinks of the poem “The Dash” by Linda Ellis, which challenges people to think about how they live their life between their birth and death.   “I’ve found the fire in my belly,” said King.  “I love real estate and working with people.  Right now the fire in my belly is the community work and making an impact in more peoples’ lives.  With the difference that I have made so far, I couldn’t turn back now…it’s not even a hard decision to make!”

After devoting the two months after the tornado entirely to helping the people of Monson, Karen resumed her real estate business in August, learning how to “work smarter, not harder,” by devoting days to real estate and nights to her community.  In combining those two interests, Karen volunteered to spearhead the efforts to sell homes in Monson that were going to be torn down.  Since the inception of the Street Angels, Karen has shared her model with the Red Cross and FEMA in the hopes to increase the efficiency of those two groups in future disasters.

If you would like to donate manual or monetary efforts, or even to listen to the story first-hand, Karen is always willing to be contacted on Facebook or by email at Karen@kking.com.

The Cheesecake Factory … if you are looking for a bite coupled with great service, check them out! www.CheesecakeFactory.com

On October 26, 2011 several RE/MAX Prestige agents as well as agents from all around the state gathered at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston for the Inman News Agent Reboot where we hold from the best of the best speakers in agent technology. Of course our two favorites were Inman Chief Evangelist, Chris Smith and local social network guru, Jimmy Mackin. We look forward to bringing some new technologies to our team. Some of the fun sites we learned about include tout.com and fiverr.com. You’ll get a first hand glimpse of the cool tools available at our November sales rally!

Jim Scanlon and William Renaud are just two nice guys who were born and bread in Dracut, Massachusetts and now run two extremely successful hardware stores in the area. Bill was the one that opened the first Kenwood Hardware store in 1985 right in Dracut, and ten years later he talked his now brother-in-law, Jim Scanlon into opening a second store in Pelham, now known as Bridge Street hardware.

Both hardware stores are packed wth everything anyone could ever need to maintain a home. They offer traditional hardware products, seasonal supplies, and now even offer expanded paint centers.

How do they compete against the giants like Lowes and Home Depot? Easy! They focus on the communities they do business in. Both locations contribute generously to the communities, focusing heavily on local families and organizations that need help. Their names are synonymous with the Dracut Scholarship Foundation, Pelham Good Neighbor Fund, and they offer their most precious resource, time, to countless other charitable organizations.

If you are looking for a local hardware store, where the staff and owners care about you like you are family (isn’t this concept refreshing!), there’s no question, you need search no more.

Bridge Street Hardware
757 Bridge Street
Pelham, NH 03076
603-635-1521

Kenwood Hardware
34 Broadway Road
Dracut, MA 01826
978-452-9009

Have you been dying for some great Italian food? Are you looking for something simply awesome that won’t break the bank. Mama’s Italian Restaurant right here in Dracut Massachusetts is EXACTLY what you are craving.

We are extremely excited to announce that we added a team member to our Executive Staff, John Downey, formally Vice President of Operations at Coco Early and Associates. John joins RE/MAX Prestige as our Chief Evangelist.

Having grown from 11 agents to 250 in the past ten years, and with massive continuing momentum, Stacey and I recognized the need to bring in additional executive team members that would, like us, be totally dedicated to providing and perfecting the agent experience at our firm. Since our goal has always been to provide for every agent at our firm a tomorrow that is even better than today, we committed our resources this year to finding great talent to gear up for amazing growth while at the same time offering added support to our RE/MAX Prestige family members.

This resulted in our bringing on former Zip Realty Recruiter,Doris O’Keefe as our Talent Director. In addition, we hired our Chief Innovation Officer, Dan Levine whose collective experience included working in several RE/MAX regional positions for RE/MAX of New England, RE/MAX of Europe, and RE/MAX of Indiana. Today, we bring John Downey into our great company as Chief Evangelist. As Stacey said to me, “I now know how it must feel for the Chicago Cubs to get someone like Theo Epstein,” because that is how momentous this is for us. Rounding out or executive team with someone of John Downey’s caliber is a huge win for the entire firm.

What is a Chief Evangelist? It is someone that is committed to finding opportunities for agents to thrive. There is only one reason that we have had staggering growth in agent count, market share, and territory coverage in the past ten years, and that is our agents. Our agents evangelize constantly to their customers, their families, and even other real estate agents. By doing so it enables us to attract additional great agents. The market continues to challenge us all and we watch as other firms cut their services (administrative, lead generation, advertising, etc.), but we have always believed that in tough times great agents need even more services, more support, and more opportunity – not less!!!

We are 100% committed to our company and each and every one of you. We are the destination real estate company where great agents come to fulfill lifelong dreams. We enjoy being a partner in your journey of whole life success. We are and will continue to be the best dang real estate firm in New England, and as such we are following in the shoes of other great firms, like Apple, Sun Microsystems, Southwest Airlines, and Inman News by bringing the best of the best into our company as Talent Director, Chief Innovation Officer, and today our Chief Evangelist.

You will be seeing John around and please welcome him warmly. After all, his number one goal is to help you reach yours.

I’m guilty! I don’t wear my RE/MAX balloon pin or my name tag as often as I should. I simply don’t think about it when I’m getting ready in the morning. The questions is, what is the cost of forgetting?

Last night I was flying home from Washington DC. I was dressed up in a suit and since I had been attending an event with several hundred RE/MAX agents I was wearing my little tiny RE/MAX balloon lapel pin. Lucky for me, I was wearing some really awesome shoes too. As the plane landed at Logan the woman next to me said “I really love those shoes.” Well, if there’s anything I just love to talk about, besides agent productivity, motivation, etc, it’s shoes. This perfect stranger and I had a wonderful dialogue about shoes. She then said, “So you work for RE/MAX?” She was looking at my lapel pin. How powerful is that? We work for a brand so well known that she recognized the logo!

“Yes! I am fortunate to have great opportunities in New England and I own 13 offices in Massachusetts and New Hampshire,” I replied.

“Do you do any relocation,” the woman asked?

“Of course! My agents are experts in relocation! Are you moving to the area,” I asked?

“No,” she replied. “I head up a fairly large relocation company based out of California. I handle the East Coast and one of my jobs is to find great real estate firms to align with. Are you interested in more relocation business?”

Well, you can imagine how the rest went. I made an amazing connection with someone because I was wearing a pin. What do you think I did when I got home? I went online and ordered 100 pins to put in my car. I can’t afford not to proudly wear my RE/MAX pin because really you just never know who’s buying a coffee next to you at Dunkins or who’s standing behind you at the grocery store.

I’m pretty sure I will achieve my dreams, aspirations, and life goals just a little quicker by choosing not to be a secret agent any longer. How about you? CLICK HERE if you are done being a secret agent too.

The RE/MAX of New England September Monthly Housing Report shows a steady increase of 3.5% in home sales across New England over September 2010. This also represents the third straight month of sales increases. Massachusetts was the only state in the region to show a decrease, of -2.1%, in sales. Overall pricing remains slightly down over this time last year, at -2.2%. Massachusetts and Vermont were the only states in the region to show an increase in price of 2.9% and 6.4% respectively, from September 2010.

“We’re pleased to see continued momentum for the third consecutive month,” said Jay Hummer, Executive Vice President, RE/MAX of New England. “The market continues to experience a slow, steady recovery and with inventory down, we hope to see prices start to rise as well.”

With any published material, we always encourage you to share our content and spread valuable information through social media, email and your local media. The Monthly Housing report is published the third week of every month. It is placed on the regional blog, homepage, and social media channels. Re-TWEET our message, share what’s happening in your market on our Facebook page, or sprinkle in your own expertise on local market data and send it to your local media outlets and clients. Regardless, this report has widespread traction and exposure. Use it to your advantage. To read the Monthly Housing Report, please click here.

We are so proud of Robbi Rubenstein who was last night recognized by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors with the MAR Good Neighbor Award. Robbi Rubenstein started the Central Massachusetts Chapter of the Well Spouse Association. The chapter provides a place where caregivers can take a temporary break from the job of care giving and find resources for them to better manage their lives.

Thanks to Robbi and to Karen King on their honorable achievements. This once again proves that great real estate businesses are built on a foundation of charitable and community philanthropy. Thank you to these amazing women who keep on giving.

We are extremely proud of Karen King for receiving the Massachusetts Association of Realtors Good Neighbor Award. When Monson, along with other parts of Western MA, was devestated by tornadoes this past summer, Karen King stepped up to the plate immediately. She opened her home and heart to those who were devestated. Since that day she has made it her life’s mission to help those in need…starting in her own community and beyond. Congratulations Karen. There is nobody more deserving of this honor.

This is an awesome opportunity for and your clients to get rid of all that junk that nobody else will take! For $30 per car load the Marlborough Rotary Club will take it all. You don’t need to be from Marlborough to participate. So…bring your junk!

RE/MAX Prestige is proud to be partnering with From the Patch to bring the magic of Halloween to every kid in MA and NH!

FROM THE PUMPKIN PATCH is dedicated to providing Halloween costumes to children from low-income families. Each year, local residents have donated hundreds of new and used costumes, accessories, masks, and jewelry to the cause. Just prior to Halloween, children are invited to a costume give-away and can pick out a FREE costume to wear on Halloween – and any other day they feel like it!

Costume Donations can be dropped off At any RE/MAX Prestige by October 21st.

Last Friday we were really excited to bring New York Times and Wall Street Journal Best Selling Author, Gary Vaynerchuk to RE/MAX agents of New England. Gary built his family liquor store into a $50 million wine empire known as Wine Library by practicing gratitude marketing and by embracing social networking. “He was the best speaker I’ve ever seen,” was what I heard many of the audience say as they waited in line to have his books, The Thank You Economy and Crush It, signed by Gary after the event. He was honest, to the point, and passionate that if you don’t embrace social networking, you will be a dinosaur in this business in no time.

At RE/MAX Prestige we take great care to make sure our agents are fully capitalizing on the ability to market and build businesses on social networking platforms…this is just one area where we lead the market in real estate. That’s why it was important for us to bring, Gary Vaynerchuk, the best of the best on this subject, to RE/MAX because we believe in the importance of offering the best to our agents so that they in turn do the same for their clients.

Andy and I are excited to announce that today RE/MAX Prestige made a significant acquisition that will leverage our market share and area dominance for years to come. The office formerly known as Century 21 Minuteman is now officially RE/MAX Prestige. With this merger we add several amazing agents including former owner of Century 21 Juergen Keller, Pemela Sherpa, and real estate veteran Paul Brouillette who has closed more than $150 million in business in his career. As well as the amazing additions to our talent pool, we are also excited to announce that as of 3:00 pm today, we are the proud owners of the former Century 21 office building with more than 4600 sq. ft. of prime office space on Route 110 in Chelmsford, right off of Route 495. This building has been a landmark in the real estate community for more than thirty years and we are proud to now hang the amazing RE/MAX balloon out in front. A major rehabilitation of the space will start early next week and we will officially move by November 1st. We owe a great deal of thanks to Juergen and Paul for giving us this opportunity. As well, we owe gratitude to our 250 agents who made this happen. When Jeurgen and Paul decided it was time for a change…they started asking around the real estate circles, “Where would be a great place to work?” and it was our agents that were loud and clear….RE/MAX Prestige!

Stay tuned for several other great BREAKING NEWS announcements that will be released in the coming weeks!