The Real Estate Show with Tina Grimes 2021

Full Video Transcript Below

[00:00:00] Alice Lema: Well, good morning, Southern Oregon. And welcome back to the real estate show. I'm Alice Lema, I'll be your host today. I'm a broker here in beautiful Southern Oregon with John L. Scott real estate. And, you know, I just want to comment how busy of a week we still have here. It is December the holidays are right around the corner.

[00:00:27] It's cold, it's rainy. There's a lot going on and we're still, we still have so many transactions happening. We still have a lot of people putting their house on the market. It's just amazing to watch every day more and more listings coming on. And there's still a backlog of buyers out there. And all price points.

[00:00:45] And a lot of those new listings are, are getting looked at and offers being written. And it really does have that early spring feel. You know, it's, it's busy enough. A lot of us are feeling like it's more the February, March timeframe instead of December, but that's not a bad thing. We're actually really thrilled to have all the sellers entering the market finally.

[00:01:09] And getting some more homes for the buyers to choose from, and everybody taken advantage of the lower interest rates scenario. Cause you know, that affects the sellers too. If the interest rates go up that affects the buyers writing offers or the kind of offers the buyers write for the sellers. So yippee and thank you to all those sellers that put their house on the market.

[00:01:31] It's not a bad time, you know, the slowdown we normally have in the winter, we're just not having that, that lag like we usually do. So. So thank you and very exciting to see all the activity this week. We're going to be talking today to Tina Grimes. Speaking of all the activity, she's the CEO of the Rogue Valley Association of Realtors here locally.

[00:01:54] And it's going to be really interesting to talk to her this week, kind of about a year in review, the 2021 real estate market here in Southern Oregon has been all over the board. The supply problems and then the supply chain for building materials, labor, that sort of thing has all affected our local real estate market.

[00:02:14] She's going to be bringing us up to speed on some of the legislature things that happened this year, and also giving us an idea of what's coming with the legislators next year. It's going to be a really big hotbed of conversation and lawmaking here in the state of Oregon. And she's right in the thick of it, stays on top of all of it.

[00:02:35] So we're super excited to have Tina Grimes the CEO of the rogue valley association of realtors as our guest today. She's also going to be talking about some of the supply and demand issues just with real estate in general, as well as some of the things going on with the real estate brokers, themselves and commission and buyers letters and such. So stay tuned. Tina Grimeswill be our guest today. Rogue Valley Association of Realtors. We'll be right back. Do not touch that dial.

[00:03:02] Well, welcome back to the real estate show folks. And good morning again. I'm Alice Lema broker here in Southern Oregon with John L. Scott real estate. We're so excited to have Tina Grimes, the CEO of the rogue valley association of realtors with us today. Kind of doing a recap of what's happened this year and some things that are coming into 2022. Welcome to you.

[00:03:24] Tina Grimes: Well, thank you for having me.

[00:03:25] Alice Lema: Yes. Wow. It's been such a crazy year. And then we had our first anniversary of the Almeda fires. So why don't we start with that kind of, where do, where are things standing with that so far?

[00:03:37] Tina Grimes: Yeah, still definitely in recovery mode, but we are seeing some rebuilding happening for sure. And I know. Actually, it was just a couple of weeks after the first anniversary, we had an opportunity to sit down in a meeting with Representative, Pam Marsh and she, she talked about, she's working so hard on this.

[00:03:55] I have to give her kudos for what she has done at the state level to, to speed up this rebuilding process. Because, and people might wonder why it has to be at a state level when it's local, but it's because our state has statewide land use laws. Right. So any kind of variation from those has to go through the state level rather than the local level.

[00:04:18] So she's been working very hard to, to get some exceptions made for rebuilding, to get just changes made, to get more local control. She's got amazing ideas for doing some really creative rebuilding that would not price people out.

[00:04:33] Alice Lema: Oh, that would be wonderful!

[00:04:34] Tina Grimes: People lost their homes which has been one of the main concerns is that, you know, cause you can't, there's no way to win when we're losing manufactured home parks that have been there for 35 and 40 years.

[00:04:44] You cannot put in something new without pricing out the people that used to live there.

[00:04:49] Alice Lema: Well, when did you see what those are going for now? They're over $150,000 nuts.

[00:04:54] Tina Grimes: But my parents live in the Meadows RV park and the Meadows, mobile home park, not RV park, mobile home park in Central Point and there's manufactured homes and they're going for, you know, almost $300,000.

[00:05:06] It's crazy. And they're getting it. Yeah. Yeah. They're going for just as much as stick-built homes right now.

[00:05:12] Alice Lema: And they're all older.

[00:05:13] Tina Grimes: Yeah. Yeah. So it's crazy. It's just a crazy, crazy market and crazy time. And, and yeah. So I think, I think we'll see some creative things happen in 2022. Definitely some more rebuilding going on.

[00:05:25] Alice Lema: So did a representative, Pam Marsh have any specific ideas that we can talk about or she just, you know, kind of off making things happen as best she can.

[00:05:36] Tina Grimes: A little of both, some specific ideas, but none of it right now, they are just that ideas. None of it is actually on paper or, or in any kind of way, ready to be looked at and passed or anything. So I hesitate to say anything, cause I don't want to put words in her mouth.

[00:05:56] Alice Lema: Yeah. Because sometimes I know you can talk about things and sometimes yeah. Yeah. But we'll keep an eye on that. Cause you know, we'll see what comes next year with some of those creative rebuilding ideas and, and also the exceptions. You know, we don't get a lot of exceptions granted in anything in Oregon. So, okay. So we had a busy year in real estate in general. Some of the legislative sessions changed more rules on us, which, which they do from time to time. Can we talk about some of those? Cause we had something changed in the, the love letter, the buyer letter we have coming changes in commission and disclosures. Let's cover some of that Tina.

[00:06:38] Tina Grimes: Sure. Well, probably the biggest one that directly affects the consumer for sure is that the bill that the state legislature passed that goes into effect starting January one that buyer love letters are now prohibited.

[00:06:52] Alice Lema: Let's talk about what that is in case somebody doesn't know what we are talking about.

[00:06:55] Tina Grimes: So that's when and actually you're the one that's in the trenches on this, so you can correct me if I'm wrong. But that is when a buyer in addition to their sales offer, or their offer to purchase ,that get the, that they give to the seller, they write a letter explaining how much they love the house and, and you know why they would want to live there.

[00:07:13] And, and that goes along with the offer to purchase for the seller to look at. We've seen for quite some time when sellers will say up front, no love letters accepted. And that, so that's been a practice in place for awhile, but it's not been a legislative thing. Well, now it's actually going to be legislatively prohibited to submit any kind of a love letter.

[00:07:33] And the reason that is, is because all too often that love letter will talk about their family life or their, or their family structure. It will maybe include a picture and I haven't heard about this happening locally. They may have, but I haven't heard about any of it, but I know in some areas that's been a source of major concern for discrimination practices.

[00:07:54] So Oregon, we're the first state in the country to pass, to make it legislatively, not allowed to have a love letter. But that is what's going to happen effective January is that buyers will not be allowed to write a love letter along with their offer to purchase.

[00:08:10] Alice Lema: So yeah, the state really wanted the seller to make their decision in a business like fashion.

[00:08:16] Tina Grimes: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And in fact, I've even heard of some, thankfully the multiple offer frenzy is dying down, but there for a while, when we were seeing multiple offers on almost every single sale, I was even hearing about some agents who had started even blocking out the names on the offer to purchase. They were and they just, basically, put the details of each offer on a spreadsheet with the dollar, the details of it and put that out to present to the seller. They were truly making the decision based on purely objective terms.

[00:08:49] Alice Lema: Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, the stories I heard up north and kind of the greater Portland area where some buyers that lost their bids were concerned that they were unfairly rejected based on something to do outside of the offer they made.

[00:09:06] Tina Grimes: And I know when we say discrimination, if people's minds immediately go to race, but that's not even necessarily what it is. It could be that you know, it could just be a personal implicit bias. Yeah. Fancy term for it. Implicit bias, where you, you are, you think of things a certain way and you don't even necessarily realize you think of them that way, unless somebody points it out to you.

[00:09:31] Cause we all have it, no matter how you were raised, no matter what color, gender lifestyle, anything you have, everyone has implicit bias because it's just the nature of. And so discrimination could take all forms. It could mean that, you know you know, it could be that I'll use this as an example, maybe a, you know, a retired couple of selling they're downsizing.

[00:09:51] And they had, they raised a family in their home for, you know, they lived there for years. They raised their kids there. They loved it there and they get into offers. And one is to a couple who has no children. And the other one is a couple that has many children. The couple that has no children offers more.

[00:10:07] But they're biased towards seeing another family with children live in that house. And so they take, you know, so if that's, that was the concern with the love letter piece is that, you know, there, it could cause discrimination practices, which then puts the sellers and the sellers agents in a, in a risk position.

[00:10:27] Alice Lema: Yeah. And, and once again, Oregon is first in the nation, so that's just kinda who we are. Isn't it. So one of the other changes that was talked about this year, and I don't really know where it stands yet is there's this there's this idea coming out of on the buyer side, disclosing to the buyers, what the buyer's agent is getting paid.

[00:10:55] Can we talk about that?

[00:10:57] Tina Grimes: Sure. Yeah. So definitely one of the things that. And this isn't just our industry. I think it's true of all industries across the board is an effort to be more transparent with consumers about what's really going on. So you know, for, for a long time, you know, sellers enter into a listing agreement with the listing broker.

[00:11:20] And part of that agreement is how much commission that listing broker is going to make for that. The listing broker then puts the property in the MLS and they make an offer of compensation to whoever the buyer's agent is. And for a long time, it's been I will say a standard of practice, not necessarily, but there's been this assumption, that's probably a better word that buyer's agents, that the buyers don't have to pay anything. To a buyer's agent because it's going through the listing broker when a sale happens well, Really, that's not quite the case because obviously that commission to the listing broker and then in turn from the listing broker to the buyer's broker is not going to happen unless the buyer buys the property.

[00:12:05] Right. So just so. The idea that a buyer's broker isn't doesn't, you know, the buyer doesn't have to pay the buyer's broker anything is a kind of a wrong, it's a missed assumption. So there were efforts made and this isn't a legislative thing. This is actually policy that came out of the national association of realtors, realtors nationwide, is that now MLSes must include that offer of compensation to the buyer's broker in any data we provide for you guys to put on your websites. It is up to you whether or not you display it though, you don't have to display it. If you don't want to, we just have to provide it so that you can display it if you want to. There's no requirement that you display it. It's your choice.

[00:12:50] Alice Lema: Okay so I love transparency. And I also love that this was an idea generated out of the national association of realtors directly. That self-regulation, I think the realtor organization is super good about that. I'm very proud of that. So the the publishing on the listing, for the consumer to see what the buyer is going to be paid. Is that what you're talking about?

[00:13:15] Tina Grimes: What the buyer's broker will get.

[00:13:16] Alice Lema: The buyer's broker, I'm sorry. Right, right. My mouth is going slower than my mind.

[00:13:21] Tina Grimes: So, you know, you can go, you go to you know, John L scott.com and you can look at listings. You can look at properties. Well, that, that information comes from what's called a data feed from the mls. And so the policy that passed is that MLS is, must now include that field, which before it was considered a confidential field. So now that field is no longer considered a confidential field. It must be included in the feed, but it's really up to the broker whose website that is, as to whether or not they actually want to display it.

[00:13:55] Alice Lema: I hope that all brokers choose to display it. But it's also nice for the public to understand the job that the buyer's agent performs. Because I think there was a lot of misconception, not only that, well, the buyer's agents working for free. Right. So and then I guess, oh, go ahead.

[00:14:15] Tina Grimes: And that's a secondary piece that got passed as well, is that the brokers can no longer advertise their services, whether you're listing broker or buyer broker, you cannot advertise your services as free, unless you genuinely are receiving no compensation for that service.

[00:14:31] Alice Lema: Well, what would be an example?

[00:14:32] Tina Grimes: So like for example, so buyers brokers, for sure cannot say, Hey, use me as your broker. It doesn't cost you anything it's free because I get paid by the listing agent. Well, that's not really true, as we said, because without the buyer buying the property, nobody gets paid.

[00:14:48] So. So that's a good example of that, you know, an example of what you could still. So at whether no matter what kind of broker you are, if you offer, you know, Hey, I will, I will do give you a free CMA for your house. You, you know, as, as a courtesy in, in hopes of getting their business, so that's the kind of thing you could still say.

[00:15:11] Yes. I'm offering that for free because you're not going to get paid for doing that.

[00:15:15] Alice Lema: Unless you tell them you're charging for that.

[00:15:17] Tina Grimes: Right. Right. But that's, that's the deal you can't, you can't. Andthe main thrust of that was to prevent buyer's brokers from saying, Hey, my services are free to potential buyers.

[00:15:28] Alice Lema: Yeah, well, it's, it's just so many changes and we've got more to talk about with Tina Grimes, the CEO of Rogue Valley Association of Realtors. Do not touch that dial. We've got more interesting conversation coming, right up.

[00:15:43] Well, welcome back folks to the real estate show. I'm Alice Lemaand I'm your host today, a broker with John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon. And we're having a super educational conversation with Tina Grimes, who is the CEO of the rogue valley association of realtors here locally. Thanks again, Tina, for being on the show today. So during the break, one of the things we started chatting about that I think is just such a topic of conversation in everybody's household, Southern Oregon is just how wild and crazy the market has been this year.

[00:16:17] What's it been like for you guys?

[00:16:18] Tina Grimes: Nuts. I mean, you know, so for people who don't understand, the Rogue Valley Association of realtors, we're not a real estate office ourselves. People like Alice and all the other brokers out there, they are members of ours and we're providing services to them. But as a result, we keep an eye on the overall market because obviously that affects our members.

[00:16:37] So it's been a crazy you know, we've seen the insane multiple offer frenzy and now offering way over asking price that we saw in the summer and early fall, thankfully, that is calming down. You know, but that's, that's partly driven by the extreme lack of inventory that we have. And that's a nationwide problem is the lack of inventory.

[00:16:56] And then ours was of course, grossly exacerbated by the Almeda fire and losing 2,500 homes. So we, our, our, you know, our inventory shortage became even worse. So I have an interesting piece here that I printed out. So Elliott Eisenberg, he's a national economist. And this was just night before last in his daily email, he said the homeownership vacancy rate is 0.9%., the lowest rates since at least 1956, the rental vacancy rate is 5.8%. This is nationwide.

[00:17:27] Ours is a lot lower here locally, the lowest rates since 1984. Existing inventory is 1.27 million, the lowest October reading in over 20 years. Built new inventory is at its lowest level since at least 1973. And the cost to buy a single-wide manufactured home, which we were talking about earlier, went from 55,000 pre COVID to 70,200 today.

[00:17:52] Alice Lema: Oh, that happened. Oh my gosh. I didn't know that that was nationwide.

[00:17:58] Tina Grimes: Yeah. I think it's worse for us because of the Almeda fire, but it's a nationwide issue. So, you know, the sad thing is I don't, there's not an easy fix on the horizon. You know, it, part of the problem is that there are so many subcontractors left the industry back in oh eight, nine after things crashed and never came back.

[00:18:18] So we got plenty of general contractors, but they don't have the subs available to do the work. And then. You know, the land, the land use laws, and this is not unique to Oregon, this is everywhere, but the land use laws make it so restrictive and cost prohibitive that they can't, it's hard for them to build an affordable house because contractors are not non-profits.

[00:18:42] Alice Lema: Yeah. And the fees alone for doing a new construction, I think the general public would be shocked. How many tens of thousands of dollars before you even buy a hammer?

[00:18:53] Tina Grimes: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I may not be quoting this exactly correct. So take it with a grain of salt, but a gentleman from the Oregon economic department this was a couple of years ago, made the comment that we he said, we need to build a certain number of new , new homes every year in order to keep up with supply and that could be apartment complexes. It could be single family homes, but a new dwellings every year, a certain number needs to be built. And for almost 10 years, we've only been building 10% of that each year. Yeah. So we have a lot of catching up to do huge amount of catching up.

[00:19:30] Alice Lema: So, and that really affects the prices.

[00:19:33] Tina Grimes: It does as well. Yeah. It's a basic high school economics supply and demand problem. We don't have enough supply, but we still have the demand. So therefore the prices are going up.

[00:19:45] Alice Lema: We are seeing more listings coming on the market, but they're being absorbed. Yeah. And it seems that the winter months are really active, unusually so. Are you noticing anything those lines?

[00:19:59] Tina Grimes: I would agree with that. Normally we see a huge slowdown in the winter, but last year, and this year we have not seen that. Last year we thought it was just because of the Almeda fire .This year it's but we're seeing similar numbers this year. So. It might be a new normal.

[00:20:15] Alice Lema: We're wondering about that because you know, if the impact of the remote worker, if some huge percentage of the remote working force never goes back and that affects the houses people buy and where people live .Then Southern Oregon, all of a sudden gets way more popular.

[00:20:35] Tina Grimes: Yeah. And that is actually a trend that I've seen them talk about on the national level is they're seeing, they're seeing a migration out of the urban core, into smaller towns and even more rural settings because of the ability to do remote work. Now COVID has changed a lot of things. That's just one.

[00:20:55] Alice Lema: I haven't heard any statistics about the schooling. If the folks that have school-aged children, how they're adopting or not. Cause I know some of the schools are offering hybrid, but I'm still getting a lot of requests for houses that have an extra room because they're going to be doing more at home. And that affects our supply as well.

[00:21:17] Tina Grimes: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Cause a family, you know parents and two kids that used to want a three bedroom house now are wanting a four bedroom house or a five bedroom house, even so that home office plus a school room.

[00:21:27] Alice Lema: We just don't have that. And so then a couple or a single person that used to buy a one or two bedroom. Now they're going into the three, exactly. Three bedroom, two bath. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:21:38] Tina Grimes: It's definitely changed the dynamics of the demand.

[00:21:42] Alice Lema: Yeah, it really does. So let's talk about how the agents for you guys were called members. But the, the brokers here in Southern Oregon how many did we have when the year started, have we seen an increase, a decrease? How is the agent population reacting?

[00:22:00] Tina Grimes: Well, let's see. I will tell you that we actually anticipated there to be a decline this year. And instead we saw the exact opposite. Yeah. We experienced a 10% increase this year. Yeah, we were, we were expecting about a four to 5% decrease and we instead got a 10% increase.

[00:22:23] Wow. So what changed, do we know?

[00:22:27] All I can figure is that the frenzy of the market attracted new licensees. So most of them are brand new licensees. They're not people moving into the area from somewhere.

[00:22:39] Alice Lema: Oh, I see. So they're locals that got licensed.

[00:22:41] Yep. Yeah. Well, I know during the initial shutdown, I feel like we're way past that now, but the initial shutdown, I did have a lot of phone calls from people asking me what it would take to become a broker in Southern Oregon, because they were in quarantine.

[00:22:58] Right. Yeah. And so that's how they spent their quarantine.

[00:23:02] Tina Grimes: Right. Getting their license. Yeah. I mean, we saw more this year than we saw last year and I thought last year was a lot. Yeah.

[00:23:08] Alice Lema: Interesting. So okay. So do we know what the membership is in Southern Oregon? Like about how many agents are there?

[00:23:15] Tina Grimes: Yeah, there's right at 1400. And that covers both Jackson and Josephine county. Okay.

[00:23:21] Alice Lema: Okay. Cause Klamath county has its own realtor group.

[00:23:26] Tina Grimes: Yeah. Yeah. But they've seen an increase too. I know they were a couple hundred and I think they're now they're pushing 250.

[00:23:33] Alice Lema: Wow. And that area is really growing leaps and bounds. The prices are going up up there too. Yep.

[00:23:42] Tina Grimes: So, so central, central, Oregon, I mean, we work closely with them too, the central Oregon association. They went, they boomed too, and members it's, it's all over the state. I think on a state level, we went from like, I want to say we gained a couple of thousand these this last year on a state level. So I don't know that that's the exact number, but I wanted, I pretty sure it was. 14 something at the beginning of the year. And the last number I saw was just shy of 16. so.

[00:24:13] Alice Lema: Wow. Wow. That's, that's really, there's been so many surprises coming out of the COVID and the Alamedafires.

[00:24:21] So let's see one of the other questions we wanted to ask you had to do with any new training requirements, you know, when we had our legislative session or has the association realtors changed or added any training?

[00:24:35] Tina Grimes: Well, one of the things that did change this last year that did get approved legislatively this last year that you guys will see starting in January.

[00:24:43] So for the people listening who aren't licensees and don't know this all real estate licensees are required to have 30 hours of education, continuing education every two years for their license renewal. And three hours of that 30 hours must be something that is called the law and rule required course or Lark. The initials spell Lark. So that's what we all call it. So one of the things that the legislature passed this last year is that that Lark course now must also contain an fair housing element. So it must contain instruction on fair housing and anti-discrimination practices. So that'll be a change that you guys as licensees see happen this coming year.

[00:25:23] Alice Lema: Great. Well, and the ongoing education that your office provides is amazing. I mean, we have people from out of the area comment on the the breadth and the depth of the topics and the quality of instructors.

[00:25:38] Tina Grimes: You guys are required to have 30 hours every two years, but we provide over 200 hours per year. So you definitely don't have to worry about hitting your minimum 30 hours.

[00:25:47] Alice Lema: Yeah. Yeah. And you always provide really interesting relevant topics you know, in Southern Oregon. So much of it is agricultural. You really have a lot of the percentage of the courses available and helping the agents understand more deeply the rural property, the laws, the zoning planning, the water, lack of water, which hopefully this winter will change some of that. Yeah.

[00:26:12] Tina Grimes: We're off to a good start.

[00:26:14] Alice Lema: We are, we are, as we're sitting here freezing in our offices. And what are some of the other services that the rogue valley association just provides in general? You've got your, your agents that you take care of. You've got some obligation to the general public. What is all that.

[00:26:34] Tina Grimes: Yeah. So one, so education is one of the big things we do, obviously, as we've just mentioned. One of the other big things we do in this, it's not only for the licensee, but also for property owners is we do a lot of legislative advocacy and we are protecting private property rights.

[00:26:50] We are advocating for wise taxation, for wise land use, for quality communities. So those are the kinds of things we advocate for. And we're one of the few trade organizations that doesn't just advocate for our members, but also for our members, clients. So that's something, and this is, this coming year is going to be huge because it's going to be such a big election year.

[00:27:09] So we're already gearing up for that to be a crazy busy year in that arena. So but you know, the, some of the things that are coming up, I know you know, mortgage interest deduction is always a big, hot topic of conversation at the state level. So we'll be watching that real closely to make sure they don't mess with that.

[00:27:27] And and then one of the other things that we definitely provide, and again, this is a consumer thing, is we enforce the realtor code of ethics. So if you have a complaint against a realtor, or if you feel like maybe somebody hasn't quite done what they should be doing correctly, then you contact us and we will walk you through the process.

[00:27:42] So those are some of the big things we provide. And then of course, just networking and fundraising. Unfortunately with COVID we haven't been able to do this the last couple of years, but the year before when things were still active, we would consistently raise between 60 and $80,000 a year for local charities.

[00:27:57] Alice Lema: So $60,000 and more wow. That is a ton of money. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Oh, go ahead.

[00:28:08] Tina Grimes: I just say, I'm hoping we can resume that in 2022.

[00:28:11] Alice Lema: Yes. Yes. We'll have to see how the variants go. But so we have to take a quick break. Don't touch that. Dial Tina Grimes, , CEO Grimes, I'm sorry. CEO rogue valley associate realtors. We'll be right back with more great info.

[00:28:25] Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the real estate show. I'm Alice Lema, your host today, broker John L. Scott. TinaGrimes is here bringing us up to speed on what's going on with the rogue valley association realtors. She is the CEO over at the rogue valley association of realtors.

[00:28:42] And one of the. Educational areas that you guys are so good about providing updates for the agents is fire prevention and the Firewise program in particular, you want to speak to them?

[00:28:56] Tina Grimes: Sure. Yeah. So this was actually back in 2019. Well, in early 2020 we started meeting with the city of Ashland. We partnered with them on a project just a Firewise awareness campaign. And actually it was all set to launch right after labor day. 2020. And then the fires happened and we said, okay, pause now. And so we relaunched the campaign this last spring in preparation so that people could use the summers to get themselves ready for summer to get themselves ready.

[00:29:24] But it's just an amazing campaign. We sent out postcards we've done social media, direct marketing, and this started, this was really targeted towards Ashland residents for starters. But we have seen a huge awareness. The Ashland Fire and rescue has reported a lot of people calling and saying, okay, what could I do with my home?

[00:29:43] We actually held a, a course for home inspectors. For them to be able to tell people what kind of Firewise initiatives they can take with their home to make it a little more safe and had 15 of our local home inspectors attend that class that are now certified to evaluate homes based on that.

[00:30:05] So that was a big thing that we did. And we'll be posting that list on our website here pretty soon. So. You know, that was one of the pieces and we viewed it as a pilot program. And so now, now that we know it was successful, we're starting to talk to other fire districts in the area.

[00:30:23] Ashland is its own fire district. So we've already met with fire district three, which is Eagle point, Sam's Valley area. We're going to be meeting soon with all, all of the fire districts in both Jackson and Josephine counties. We're going to be reaching out to them and saying, Hey, we'd like to partner with you on making people more aware of what they can do with their home.

[00:30:41] Alice Lema: That is so cool. And so proactive on behalf of consumers and our community in general. I just, I just love what you guys do at the rogue valley association of realtors. And so the inspectors that so there's 15 inspectors that have been trained to to do the Firewise.

[00:30:59] Tina Grimes: By the national. I got, I got to remember all the initials that it's, it's the national fire protection agency.

[00:31:05] I believe that's the whole name. But they sent someone out and it was a two day training. They gave up two full days of their business to sit in this training, to get certified, to inspect homes for Firewise features.

[00:31:17] Alice Lema: Wow. I don't know that anybody knows about that.

[00:31:20] Tina Grimes: Yeah. Well, it, it, it's, it's a recent thing. So like I said, I'm going to be getting the list of which of those inspectors attended and are now certified, up on our website so that people can go look for an answer. I mean, you don't have to be in the middle of a transaction. You could reach out to one of those inspectors and say, Hey, please come and take a look at my home and tell me what I need to do.

[00:31:39] Alice Lema: Yeah. That would be a great winter thing to do when it's not an emergency. Right. Wow. That's beautiful. So 15 inspectors recently certified for firewise prevention for your property. That is super cool.

[00:31:56] Tina Grimes: It's things from a, you know, what kind of landscaping to plant that's less, you know, fire prone.

[00:32:03] It's what kind of how far away fences should be from your house. What kind of screening material to put on your vents. I mean, it's, it runs the gamut.

[00:32:13] Alice Lema: Oh, see, we don't even think about that. We don't even think about that. That's so great. Well, I will be watching your website looking for that list. And can't wait, maybe you know, maybe we'll kind of email our, our brokerages.

[00:32:27] Tina Grimes: We'll send out an email to all of them, but we'll include it in the, in the weekly email, once we get that up on the site.

[00:32:32] Alice Lema: Super exciting. And then one of the other topics coming up, I think in 2022 that's gonna be a hot bed of controversy is energy efficiency. What's going on with that?

[00:32:42] Tina Grimes: So a lot of the local municipalities on well, at the state level as well, you know, are looking at cause energy costs just keep going up. And then they're going to just, they're not going to go down anytime soon.

[00:32:53] So they're looking at energy efficiency measures. Builders are starting to be more aware of energy efficiency pieces. And I know Ashland and Talent specifically, there are some builders that that's all they will build is energy efficient homes. So we're going to see a lot more of that. I think some of the, you know, from a legislative perspective, I know some of the municipalities are starting to look at energy score type programs.

[00:33:18] Those have their pros and cons because obviously a home that was built last year with energy efficient features is going to have one score. Whereas you know, that a hundred year old Victorian home that's being used as a B & B is going to score poorly.

[00:33:34] But you can, so you can't just look at the score you have, you have to take it in context of the property. So it's, you know, we're, we're hoping to embark on some education related to that and what, how that will help. And really try to approach it from a, Hey look, what you could do perspective, rather than a here's what you must do is, type of a stance.

[00:33:54] Alice Lema: Oh, that would be nice. It would be great if it could be voluntary.

[00:33:58] Tina Grimes: Yeah. So, you know, so, like I said, we're working, we're working with the municipalities that we're hearing about doing that. And then hoping to do some consumer education campaigns, similar, maybe to what we did with the Firewise stuff.

[00:34:08] Alice Lema: That would be great. So do you think that's gonna roll out in 2022, the energy efficiency?

[00:34:14] Tina Grimes: I hope so. We're still in the infancy stages, the conversations. So well, you know, that remains to be seen, but I'm hoping so.

[00:34:23] Alice Lema: And then I wonder about the inspectors again, cause we'll, we'll need to have a certain group of folks who are able to do those.

[00:34:32] Tina Grimes: That's on that front too. A big piece of it will be the appraisers. Cause I know they have had you know, they don't really have a way of appraising green features. You know, so hopefully that's something we can work with the state appraisal board on, and maybe we can come out with some, you know not requirements. That's not the word I'm looking for some parameters as to how they would appraise.

[00:34:52] Alice Lema: They would be adding value for some of those features. I see. So we always forget about those appraisers don't we, they need to be looked into. So going back to the Firewise certification, does any, do the appraisers have to have anything updated?

[00:35:12] Tina Grimes: That, that hasn't been a piece of it yet? Like I said, we, we started with the home inspectors, knowing that that would be something that the consumers could really utilize even outside of a transaction. So we wanted to get that piece done for. But this will be an ongoing project for several years.

[00:35:28] Alice Lema: And then going back to the energy efficiency score, how likely is it that it's going to be voluntary? I mean, I know you're just making a, a professional guesstimate, but I'm just wondering, you know, what your thoughts on that?

[00:35:41] Tina Grimes: I don't know because that's something that could be different from one municipality to another. Yeah. Yeah. And some cities in some cities, it has worked great in other cities that have already tried it, it has been an abysmal failure if they mandated it. In other cities that have tried voluntary, it has worked great.

[00:36:02] And in other cities where it's been voluntary, they've had no participation. So it's. You know, I don't know. I mean, it's really just going to depend on how they roll it out. The kind of education that gets done. I think it really hinges on the education that goes along with the program as to whether it succeeds or fails.

[00:36:17] Alice Lema: Yeah. I agree. Well, Tina Grimes, you are always a wealth of information and so fun to talk to. We'd love to have you back on the show early next year to kind of keep us apprised of how all these changes are coming about in the state of Oregon.

[00:36:32] Tina Grimes: Happy to, to come back anytime.

[00:36:34] Alice Lema: And our local Southern Oregon rogue valley association, CEO, Tina Grimes. Thank you so much. We'll be back next week. Have a beautiful Southern Oregon weekend. Bye now.