PorterWorks Blog
Kudos to Claudia Wicks
Received this wonderful note from Claudia Wicks, friend, colleague and former owner of Base RE Classes which are now part of PorterWorks since Claudia retired:
Claudia Wicks - Instructor Lifetime Achievement Award - 12.2.2011
I just wanted to say thank you for all of the response I have received. I am truly honored.
Can Going Green Grown Your Business?
Okay. Unless you've been living under a rock (in which case you aren't doing much business anyway!) you have to have noticed a lot of talk about "green"--green building, green living, green products, etc. It's now hard to imagine life before green. But it should be clear that green is the direction every sector is heading so you've got two choices.
Expanding Education Solutions
PorterWorks has just expanded it's course lineup by acquiring Real Estate Base Camp, a well-respected collection of courses approved for real estate continuing education in Washington State. Retiring RE Base Camp CEO, Claudia Wicks, turned the reins over to Dave, a long-time friend and colleague, on October 15.
Ripe and Ready; Or Not?
Time was that if you did an internet search for the term "green mortgage" more than a million sites came up and there were some pretty creative ways banks were marketing the idea. Some banks would offer a discount on the rate, others would offer a reduction in closing costs. None of the options was truly a "green mortgage" backed by the secondary market; instead these were small incentives that individual companies would use--not unlike the days of offering free toasters to new account holders.
IMT & NRDC Team up for Transparency
It seems to be "all the rage" these days, the notion of full transparency. With burgeoning of networking and social media it's pretty hard to keep anything secret for long. Transparency can certainly present challenges to many, not the least of which are businesses but overall there are many benefits to the general public.
Luck o' the Green?
Those of you in the biz will find no surprise in this: getting an appraiser to recognize the greenness of a home is still pretty tough. According to Lew Sichelman, WSJ Digital Market Watch, in his article "Good luck getting a 'green' home appraised as such" getting that done is going to take some luck. But getting more appraisers and lenders to recognize the value of green homes is going to take more than luck. As he quotes
