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LAS VEGAS, NV- Our Relocation Director Catharine Pappas was a speaker at the 2010 Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® (LeadingRE) conference March 9-11, at the Encore at Wynn hotel in Las Vegas. The annual event attracted 850 top real estate brokers, managers, relocation professionals, sponsors and guests from the U.S. and eight countries around the world. Participating brokerages represented one-third of the U.S. real estate market, with annual sales production of over $280 billion. The event’s sponsors included Grand Sponsor HGTV’s FrontDoor.com.

The conference featured an impressive line-up of nearly 150 industry and LeadingRE member speakers, who addressed a wide range of topics impacting the real estate industry. Keynote presentations included Guy Kawasaki of Apple Computer fame; FHA Commissioner Dave Stevens; Ron Peltier of HomeServices of America; elite adventure racer and female firefighter Robin Benincasa; leadership coach Mike Staver; market strategist and speaker Steve Harney; and real estate technology coach Matthew Ferrara.

“The insights offered by our speakers at this conference were extraordinary,” notes Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® President/CEO Pam O’Connor. “As the real estate industry continues to respond to market shifts and changes in client needs and preferences, the willingness of our members to share success strategies with one another continues to help distinguish our network and make these firms the leaders in the markets they serve.”

Pappas presented information on 2010: The Year of the Short Sale.

Dickens-Mitchener is the local representative of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®, the largest network of over 600 premier locally-branded firms producing almost $300 billion in annual home sales. LeadingRE provides a broad range of brokerage services to its affiliates, including lead generation, branding support, luxury marketing, Web exposure and technology systems, and state of the art learning and credentialing.

I recently had the opportunity to be at the opening of Richard Ritter: 40 Years in Glass at Western Carolina University. The show is a retrospective featuring more than 75 amazing works in glass from 1969-2009. This show will also be exhibited April 9-May 15 at the Green Hill Center for NC Art.

Richard Ritter, born in Detroit, Michigan in 1940, studied to be an artist and became an illustrator for an advertising firm. After 5 years as an illustrator, he decided to take a class in metalworking. It was his desire to incorporate glass elements into his pewter castings that ultimately led him to glassblowing.

In 1971, Richard enrolled in a summer session at the Penland School of Crafts in Mitchell County taught by Mark Peiser. It was a later session that same summer with fellow glass artist Richard Marquis that proved to be pivotal. Marquis had recently spent a year in Murano. His course gave instruction on working with glass using a highly complex version of the murrini process. A process that was first developed by the Phoenicians and early Romans, a murrini is a cross cut slice made of glass threads or canes that convey a design or color pattern.

Richard Ritter taught classes back in Michigan as well as became one of Penland School's first artists in residence. In 1980, he and his wife, Jan Williams, permanently settled in Bakersville, near the school.

What separates Richard from many glass artists working in the field today is that he makes all his glass- the clear or opalescent components to the color rods that compose the murrini slices. Developing the chemical compositions to achieve a certain color as well as knowing which colors can and will combine witout an adverse reaction is slowly becoming a lost art.

His compositions are known by glass collectors and institutions throughout
the world. Flowers, faces even insects such as dragonflies and ladybugs are made from countless hours of painstaking work. Drawing a design, arranging the color rods, melting, stretching, slicing and then working with hot glass to incorporate all the elements into larger highly complex works are just the basic steps in his process. Many fellow artists as well as other respected authorities consider him to be one of the most highly skilled artists working in the medium.

Richard is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council. His work has been exhibited internationally and is represented in public and private collections including the Corning Museum of Arts and Design the White House permanent craft collection, the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Additional information and images available: www.ritterglass.com, www.habatatglass.com

Ed Jones
Realtor/Broker
D: 704.602.6864
ejones@dickensmitchener.com

Dickens-Mitchener is proud to announce that Marcia Teal has joined its team as Sales Manager of the Eastover office effective immediately. Marcia, having been an active broker since 1989, brings a wealth of experience to Dickens-Mitchener with years of sales and experience as the Broker in Charge position at Bissell Hayes. In addition to her job as Broker in Charge, she will focus on Training and Recruiting. Vicky Mitchener, President of Dickens-Mitchener, says "Dickens-Mitchener has stayed competitive in the past 18 months during a difficult business climate by consolidating offices, eliminating duplicate services and creative agent sales strategies. Our firm is well positioned for 2010. We are thrilled that Marcia has joined our Leadership team and look forward to her innovative ideas and management style."

Today's Real Estate market can be summed up in one word: OPPORTUNITY. It's easy to feel a bit glum about how much value your current home has probably lost. But there may be more to gain in today's market than to lose. I am continually surprised by the calls I get from past clients. It usually goes something like this "Hey, Shelly. We want you to come talk to us about selling our house... well, we still love our house, but we were just thinking that if we could sell it, we could finally make the move to that we've always wanted to make. We've been online looking, and we can actually afford to get a that we just couldn't afford before."

It's all about OPPORTUNITY. So- what are the highlights here?
1.) If you can come to terms with the inevitable lower sale price on your current home, you can make a move UP to a home where you can stay long term.
2.) There is momentum brewing out there- buyers are looking online,gauging the market even before reaching out to their REALTORS
3.) When you do list, make sure your online presence has "WOW" so those buyers can get excited about what they see, and so it will move them to ACTION.
4.) LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE! Low interest rates, low sale prices, and lots of inventory make this the strongest buyer's market in a long time.

Take a look at your own life, your current home, your future goals. If you have always thought that your "forever home" is different from the home you live in now, this might be a good time to make that move. And of course, call your Dickens-Mitchener agent today to help you take advantage of the OPPORTUNITIES on your horizon!

Shelly J. Rydell
Realtor/Broker
Accredited Buyer Representative
Dickens-Mitchener & Associates
704.649.6530-Cell
srydell@dickensmitchener.com

On Sunday, January 31st, Charlotte Observer arts critic and columnist Lawrence Toppman writes that the Bechler's Museum of Modern Art's "collection of paintings and sculptures equals anything you would find in a small museum anywhere on the planet." For years, we have all anticipated the opening of the new building designed by renowned architect Mario Botta, admiring its design while under construction on South Tryon Street. The Bechtler Museum puts Charlotte on the same cultural map from we where we find other great museums in the United States, Europe, or elsewhere. As Charlotteans, we share in the enjoyment of this major addition to our cultural menu for visual arts. As realtors, we can point to the Bechtler as an example how the Queen City has reached world class status as a cultural center and as a destination for arts.

Fitz Lee
Broker/Realtor
D: 704.602.4263
flee@dickensmitchener.com

I recently made the commitment to do a 100 mile(century) bike road in Lake Tahoe in June 2010 to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Team in Training. The goals is for me to raise $4300 by the middle of May. I made the decision to do it because I had to "larger than life" people in my immediate family fall ill in 2009. I have always participated in sporting events and love to cycle so it seemed a perfect match and a great way for me to give back. For the first time in my 41 years, I could say I was doing something significant and important that would make a difference in a life or death situation. I decided it was time to have a conversation about it with 7 year old stepson and let him in on what I was doing. He listened quietly and asked a couple of questions and then slowly walked into another room. I questioned whether or not I had done the right thing by talking to him about cancer at such a young age. He suddenly appeared from his bedroom with $2.00 in his hand and told me he wanted to give to my fundraiser. I was so touched. In our house, we have a board and he earns $0.25 for each good deed/chore he does. I started thinking about what that meant for him to give me his $2.00. It meant trying new foods he really did not want to try, feeding the dog a couple of times, cleaning his room and making an "A" on a weekly spelling test. He had worked hard to earn that $2.00 and had been saving it for a trip to Atlantis in April and now was insisting I take it for my fundraiser. On Sunday, he had a friend over and they were playing in his room. I heard the friend say repeatedly "This one...this one" and it went on and on. After about 30 minutes of listening to that, curiosity got the best of me and went into his room to see what in the world they were up to. His friend was going through all of his toys and they had made two stacks. One he was was to keep and one he said was to sell at a garage sale he wanted to raise money for my fundraiser. The same Power Rangers that had slept in his bed with him and comforted him through nightmares and bathed with him time after time were now in the "sell" stack. he was even making a price list and he was blissfully unaware of the current economic crisis because a marble cost $5.00 and a Star Wars bobble head was $10.00. His enthusiasm and desire to help me raise money for a good cause really put it in perspective for me that I needed to give this everything I can and 5am bike rides to train or "pounding the pavement" to raise the money is so insignificant because it was not only making a difference to someone stricken with a blood cancer, it was making a difference to my stepson!

More blogging to follow as my training gets underway. Click here to donate to my cause.

Cathy Speizman
Broker/Realtor
Dickens-Mitchener & Associates
704.258.1391
cspeizman@dickensmitchener.com