Does your home need updating to sell, but you don't want to do the renovation? We have cash buyers who will buy your home!
I have the honor and pleasure of serving as the 2026 President of the Conejo Simi Moorpark Association of Realtors. This blog series will chronicle my year and what goes in to being the President of a Realtor Association. In it, I will cover the highlights of the month. I will save you from the count of how many emails, phone calls, committee and Board meetings and all the other meetings that were involved.
Table of Contents
On Friday February 6th, I attended the "State of the City Economic Outlook Forecast" event given by the Thousand Oaks Rotary Club, which focused on Housing Affordability, especially for seniors. They had speakers from the City, from University Village, and Matthew Fineup from CLU's Center for Economic Research and Forecasting.
They talked about some of the issues preventing seniors from being able to move into affordable residential care facilities, as well as the cost of in-home care. They also had a panel with a financial planner, Senior Concerns, and a real estate developer.
On Monday, February 9th, I had the honor and pleasure to watch one of my Board of Directors get sworn in as the Treasurer for the Ventura County Chapter of AREAA, the Asian Real Estate Association of America. This is an association I've been a member of for several years now as well. They put on some excellent training and have partnered with our Association on several events. This was a fantastic event, complete with a traditional Dragon Dance and exquisite food.
The event was held at the Museum of Ventura County, in their event venue, which was a very nice mix of an open area and a large room with lots of seating. The Conejo Simi Moorpark Association of Realtors is proud to be a sponsor of this event and this group.
The very next morning, February 10th, our Association brought down the Chief Legal Counsel for the California Association of Realtors, Gov Hutchinson, to talk to our members about recent changes in the laws and recent risk management concerns. We broke this into two sessions, and I got to introduce him at both. The first session was exclusively for our "BOOMer" community, which is our Brokers, Owners, and Office Managers. This session focused on items that are a concern for those who run Brokerages. It touched on concerns about the unmonitored use of AI as well as new forms and issues they're seeing on the Legal Hotline. The BOOMers also had an opportunity to ask questions specific to their offices and needs.
The second session was open to our general membership. This covered a wide array of items from new landlord/tenant laws to the new County Fire ordinance to the new digitally altered imaging law, and beyond. Our members were able to ask Gov any questions they had as well.
Both groups found it very useful and insightful.
Last year, I started thinking ahead to what I wanted my legacy as President to be. During a Task Force meeting, we were discussing fire hardening and the rules that were being discussed, like Zone Zero, and the discussion led to a great statement. "If I harden my house, but my neighbor doesn't, my home can still catch on fire because of them." This led me to an idea to fire harden my local neighborhood and to create a "playbook" of sorts that Realtors can use to harden their neighborhoods or their farm. I partnered with two great agents in the area, Cassidy Hiepler and Dean Schefrin, and we're making it happen!
In February, we completed a major milestone for our project. We got officially recognized as a Firewise Community by the National Fire Prevention Association ("NFPA")
On February 12th, I had the pleasure of attending an event for Jeff Gorrel. The event was put on by Rosemary Allison, who is one of our Board members and a big political supporter. I was able to attend as a guest of Rosemary, due to needing to be politically neutral as the President this year.
This was a very fun event. Jeff and Rosemary spoke, as did Tony Strickland.
Every three years, we update our Strategic Plan to ensure that our goals are what they should be for our organization and to plot out our course for the next three years. It just so happens that our current plan expires at the end of the year, so the plan update falls in my year as President.
Working with our CEO, we decided that Jennifer Lobenhoffer of JSL Consulting, who hosted our orientation training, would be the ideal person to lead our Strategic Plan update. She did a fantastic job with our orientation, and her specialty is in Strategic Planning. This is going to be the largest and most in-depth planning session we've ever done, and I am confident that this will be a plan that will actively guide us, as opposed to being something that hangs on a wall and checks off a box. I'm eagerly looking forward to starting this process and working with our Association staff, our Volunteer Leaders, and our membership to accomplish this.
The Conejo Simi Moorpark Association of Realtors has been a sponsor and a member of the Board of Directors for the California Lutheran University's Center for Economic Research and Forecasting since it's inception. Every year, they put on a large event where they release their findings and discuss where the local economy is, where it's heading, what problems they see, and what opportunities we have. They are also the six-time winner of the Case-Schiller "Crystal Ball" award, for the most accurate NATIONAL housing forecast, beating out The Federal Reserve, Moody's, Lloyds of London, Bank of America, and several other powerhouse economic firms.
This VIP event was held on February 23rd, the day before the main event, and we got a great preview of what was going to be discussed in-depth at the event the following day... in front of nearly 300 attendees. The event was held at the Herzog Wine Cellars in Oxnard and was an enjoyable evening. It was a great evening, and I was able to attend it with several of our Directors, our CEO, and it was nice to see our former CEO, Evelyn Schultz, there as well.
This was a very moving and educational event for me. One of the Committee Members of the Scholarship Committee, Brandy Plummer, setup a meeting for February 25th to go to the Conejo Valley High School during their lunch hour to tell them about the scholarships we offer to the community. The Conejo Valley High School is our "continuation school" for students who excel better outside of the normal high school system. The kids here have stories that will shock you. From working to support their families to stories of horrific abuse. I got to meet and talk with several of the Seniors, some were able to graduate much earlier than they would have at one of the regular high schools, and see just how the small class sizes and individual attention can really help these students out. The Conejo Simi Moorpark Association of Realtors, through our 501c3 Public Benefit Foundation, offers several $2,500 scholarships to students within our service area each year. Most are merit-based, but we also have a needs-based "Patron" scholarship for those with severe financial or personal distress. These are based more on the applicant's story as opposed to their grades and extracurriculars, like a traditional scholarship is. A few Seniors saved the information to apply, and some of the Juniors kept it for next year.
These are some incredible doughnuts that Brandy had made for the event. I swear I was good on my diet.... 😉
This year, the Fundraising Gala for "For The Troops", which is a fantastic local organization that sends care packages to the men and women of our Armed Forces, was held on February 28th at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. This is an elaborate event that honors local Veterans from a different war each year. This year, they honored those who served in Vietnam. The event Chairs this year were Supervisor Janice Parvin and Rosemary Allison.
There were all kinds of things happening at this event, from silent auctions to a live auction, to a Color Guard presentation from the Vietnam Veterans of Ventura County, to live bands and singing, and of course speeches and stories from the Veterans. The Chaplain for Naval Base Ventura County started us off with an Invocation. We later heard from Major Daniel Spencer, USMC and Reserve Officer in the California Army National Guard, about how much receiving the care packages meant to him and the men and women under his command.
We then heard from Supervisor Jeff Gorrell, Supervisor Janice Parvin, Rosemary Allison, and Sheriff Jim Fryhoff. We heard about their service, their family's service, and the four of them honored the Veterans in attendance.
One of the most exciting aspects of being President is getting to swear in the new members of our Association. This involves administering the Realtor Pledge, which includes that they will act ethically and have the best interest of their clients at heart at all times. This month, we had a large group of new members.
You may remember me writing about "Ninja Rick" in my posting about my January adventures, and some of you reached out with your own stories about him, which I greatly appreciate, as it helps to give more color to what's going on with this guy.
As a service to our members, we brought out a Senior Deputy from the Ventura County Sheriff's Department and a Sergeant from the Simi Valley Police Department to talk to our members at our Broker Tour Marketing Meeting on Friday, February 27th. They gave us some great information not only on Rick, who is well known to both agencies, but also some general safety tips for when we're out and about meeting clients and holding open houses.
With all of this going on, I was still able to write and negotiate two offers for a buyer, bring two listings online, place someone into a rental, and rehab a rental of mine that was left in deplorable condition by the tenant with over $8,000 worth of damage!
In addition, I host the premiere Realtor networking group, Agent Connect, twice a month! I've been hosting this meeting for over three years now. We are proud to be the FIRST Affiliate-driven networking group to return to the Conejo Valley following the Pandemic.
Man! This was sure a busy month! I didn't realize just how busy it was until I wrote this.
