Your real estate office contains much personal and financial client information. How do you keep it safe and secure? Minimize of the amount of client work you take home. Have work policies concerning data safety and recovery procedures, such as a "clean desk" policy to put away client information when not at your desk. Use a cross-cut shredder and convert paper files to electronic files. Regina Brown, a REALTOR® and a Certified Identity Theft Risk Management Specialist, adds that clients who become victims of identity theft due to a real estate agent’s “negligence” can sue the agent, the broker, and the office.

Posted on April 29 at 08:49 AM | Permanent Link | Add a Comment (0)

The business intelligence firm Information Builders recently launched its WebFOCUS U.S. Foreclosure Trends Activity Report as an online tool to track what's happening around the country with foreclosure rates. A year's worth of foreclosure data is presented for each state, based on information from RealtyTrac. What's nice about this site is the ability to drill down to find historical info as well as to manipulate the graphs to suit the individuals needs. You can change the type of graph to pie, line or bar, as well as data - total filings, per capita, a comparison to US per capita, etc. Currently data is based on March '08 numbers. If the site is regularly updated it could prove to be a useful tool.

Posted on April 23 at 10:53 AM | Permanent Link | Add a Comment (0)

InfoCentral celebrated National Library Week recently with five days of events for NAR staff and visitors to the library. We kicked off the event on Monday with donuts and coffee in the lobby. Activities continued throughout the week and included demos of our new Mac Pro computer and the videos we create on it, Amazon's new Kindle eBook reader and the ProQuest Database available to all REALTORS® via NAR's Virtual Library. Some fun activities included breakfast in the library on Wednesday, a bookwork cookie break on Friday (pictured above), a daily email quiz, an online scavenger hunt, and a hands-on beaded bookmark craft session. Staff from NAR and our institutes and affiliates were invited to all events. By the end of the week approximately a third of the employees in the building stopped by the library to celebrate with us.

Also launched during National Library Week is our ongoing book exchange. Staff and visitors are encouraged to bring in novels, DVDs, videos and other materials to exchange for something new to read or watch. We hope everyone enjoyed the week's activities and were glad to see some new faces! More photos after the jump.

More photos...

Posted on April 23 at 09:00 AM | Permanent Link | Add a Comment (0)