With uncertainty lingering after Hurricane Harvey, the greater Houston real estate market saw further gains in both sales and pricing. Inventory expectedly remains fairly tight as many homes that were listed for sale had to be taken off the market to make repairs or rebuild. You may read more about the latest market statistics here. One thing that is certain is that Houstonians are resilient.

While it seems like this year has flown by and we have had our share of trying times, there is still reason to celebrate. REALTOR® Celebration will be held on Thursday, December 14 and will be the official swearing in of the 2018 HAR Board of Directors and will honor the REALTOR® of the Year, Chance Brown, and John E. Wolf Community Service Award recipient, Pamela Hughes. You may read more about them and the event here.

Kenya Burrell-VanWormer will do an amazing job for all HAR members as the 2018 HAR Chair of the Board, as she cares deeply about making the industry and our association better. There is no one more prepared to take the helm than Kenya, and her past service in leadership positions with HAR, TAR and NAR makes her one of the most qualified leaders ever for HAR. You may learn more about her by reading her bio here.

One of the most giving organizations in real estate is the Nancy Owens Memorial Foundation, which held its 16th annual luncheon last month with Joan Lunden as its featured speaker. The former morning show icon spoke eloquently about her personal battle with breast cancer and the way it changed her life. More than 750 guests attended the event, at which $105,000 was presented to a doctor with the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine. To see pictures of the event, you may read here.

As we worked through the Matrix switchover last month, we had relatively few issues, which is a testament to most of you being prepared. If you haven’t taken a class yet, please make sure you do so. You can probably figure out how to use Matrix by just trying it out, but the class will help you get up to speed much faster. Many of the Matrix power-users have said great things about it. Change is never easy, but this was out of our hands since CoreLogic chose to discontinue the product, with HAR being the very last MLS in the country on Tempo. As you use Matrix, please make sure to let us know your feedback so we can make it even better.

This has been one of the best professional years of my life leading this great association that has now grown to 37,000 members. I can’t tell you how proud I am whenever I’m introduced as being the chair of HAR when I have attend industry events and conferences. There is a sense of awe that people have when HAR is mentioned. I leave my official position as chair with that same sense of awe for all of you.

I’ll still be around,

Cindy Hamann
HAR Chair of the Board