Today is a very exciting day for Realty Executives International! I’m immensely proud to announce the launch of our new Realty Executives International Website at www.RealtyExecutives.com. In addition to our innovative new and improved web presence, we’ve also launched an extremely comprehensive intranet for our Broker/Owners and Executives which serves as a dashboard that will better implement business productivity on a daily basis.

The new Realty Executives International Website allows for property search functionality in the United States and Canada and is optimized for our consumers. The new design and features were developed with our ideal client in mind, while still providing our Broker/Owners and Executives with a state-of-the-art website that meets their needs.

As if that wasn’t enough, we’ve also launched our new back-end management system which is unlike any product or tool we’ve ever developed for Realty Executives International. Not only is it a robust intranet system but, it also provides a comprehensive platform which supplies our Realty Executives Broker/Owners and Executives with a dashboard that allows them to interact with the system for a wide-variety of uses on a daily basis. We call this system Executive Access and it provides the following amazing benefits:

• A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool to manage contacts and leads
• Listing management and access to the MLS
• An interactive experience as opposed to a static website that provides a lot of information
• Calendar management and alerts for business
• Management of business activities

I’m so pleased to announce this news and I’m looking forward to seeing how these innovative technological tools change the day-to-day lives of both our Executives and their clients.

CoreLogic released their monthly installment of MarketPulse which provides calculated insight into the state of our ever-evolving real estate market. While CoreLogic highlighted that the impending theme for last year’s industry was definitely “uncertainty”, they noted that the beginning of 2013 brings with it a slight amount of clarification, which in turn is slated to produce more positive fiscal results.

CoreLogic stated that, however it is a bit early to announce, the data implies that the fiscal cliff deal done on January 1 has created little change in our market across the United States. The good news however, is that recent research shows that the wealth effect of rising home values will help to increase sales.

According to MarketPulse (which is reporting on statistics from December 2012), home prices nationwide increased by 8.3 percent on a year-over-year basis. This is the biggest increase since May 2006 and also the 10th consecutive year-over-year home price increase. All but FOUR states are experiencing price gains compared to last year.

After more than several years of so much uncertainty, we’re starting to see the waters part and data is leaning towards the positive. CoreLogic said this about the market expectations for 2013, “While it is important to recognize the improvements to the mortgage market during 2012, we should continue to be vigilant in 2013. This year we will begin to transition to a more normal balance in the mortgage market. It’s a year that will also create more regulatory certainty.”

So what does this mean for your business? It means continue to build your sales pipelines, leverage the incredible technology out there for increased productivity and keep an eye out for more permanent infrastructure which will equal positive results for our businesses.

To read the full report, go to www.CoreLogic.com and sign in to download.