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Keller Williams Family Reunion 2009 The Recap

Sunrise on Day one of KW Family Reunion

In a perfect prelude of what was to come, the sun rose on a clear, cool Orlando morning for the Keller Williams Family Reunion this year. This was my first time attending and I really didn't know what was in store. Many of the agents in my office who had attended previous KW Family Reunions were either excited for me or sorry that they would not be attending so I was beginning to get excited about the prospects of meeting new agents and learning a great deal in a compressed environment to improve myself, my business and to be able to bring something back with me that I could share with others. What happened was far beyond my wildest expectations.

Day 1 - Sunday and The Vision Speech

Sunday began with me attending my first of what was to be 5 technology classes over the course of several days. Since this was really what I want to use to improve my business, I felt that I would spend the most time in these classes - basically following the 80/20 rule. What happened over the course of the entire Family Reunion event was that the classes I expected to get the most from, I got the least and the classes I expected to help the least turned out to be the ones that I now feel were the most important. Funny how things like that happen. After the first early morning class, everyone who attended from my office met up and walked over to the annual Keller Williams Family Reunion vision speech by Gary Keller. I can't find a link to the whole speech, but, a pretty decent synopsis would go something like this:

Change your expectations. Expect that the next six months are likely to get worse before things get better. Plan on unemployment going higher. Plan on more bailouts, more federal intervention and more worries and run your business with that mindset....

$15,000 Tax Credit Out, Housing Crisis Largely Ignored in Stimulus

Now that the stimulus bill has passed the committees and is set to be signed by Obama as early as Monday, any hope that the bill would include help for the industry with the biggest problem and is the biggest reason we are in a recession is all but gone. While it could be argued that the $15,000 tax credit was not the right prescription, it would have sent a message that the problem was being addressed.

Bloomberg reports this morning that the bill weighs in at $789 Billion dollars and that instead of a $15,000 credit, there will be a $500 addition to the $7,500 tax LOAN already in place. Like most things in the behemoth, little details can be found. We could hope that they would remove the LOAN portion of the bill with all this money being thrown around, but, I suppose there is no real reason to address the core of the recession - the housing market. Why would we expect that congress would do that when they have so much money available to spend on pet projects? 4 Million dollars for tennis courts, 2 million for lights in Vega, 15 million for a sports park project that will create 15 jobs. Yes, that's $1,000,000 a job. Maybe I'm in the wrong business.

So my questions are these: Since the entire real estate industry in a primary and secondary way makes up approximately 20% of the total GDP, why is the housing crisis, which is the root cause of the recession largely being ignored in the stimulus? Should we be outraged? Do you think that the money is being spent wisely? Do you believe this stimulus bill will help you and your family?

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