Hi, it’s a beautiful fall morning on the Suwannee! I just couldn’t help but share a picture.

This picture is right after Hurricane Matthew came through Florida. Gainesville and the surrounding counties were spared for the most part. Only a few trees down but not as bad as last month’s storm where we had a lot more rain. On the river, we had 20 mph wind gusts and light sideways rain 🙂 It simply made for an exciting and beautiful day on the river. The grandkids sure enjoyed it!

Unfortunately our east coast didn’t fair as well. There was significant flooding in St Augustine, Jacksonville, and South Carolina. Here is the link to some videos of the flooding that I shared on our Business Facebook page 

With destruction comes re-birth. It is the natural process of life but our hearts go out to those affected.

The few weeks prior to the Hurricane were spent traveling and working mobile-ly. I attended the CMLS (Council of Multiple Listing Service) annual convention at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas for our Local Board of Realtors where I serve as MLS Vice President. What a hoot! Both the conference and the town. The gist of the future of the MLS is they need to be ready to adapt to the inevitable change that is happening driven by technology. The link to the presentation below sums it up well (in my opinion). Notorious R.O.B. gave a very entertaining and insightful presentation on the future of MLS. Click here for the link.

Again another adage of popular wisdom: “Adapt and evolve or get left behind”. The crux is that old ways of Realtors not sharing information (all the homes listed and sold) are hard to let go of for many reasons (fear of replacement being the top reason, the second logistics and service). However, inevitably technology will cause some destruction of current the MLS as we know it and the creation that comes from it will eventually make information more easily accessible, understandable and measurable – ultimately making the home finding process easier. I am excited to be a part in helping work through the transitions that will take place. Not likely in the next two years but I would guess in five we will know where it’s going.

After the conference we rented a truck and spent the next two days sightseeing 900 miles of dessert! From Vegas to the Red Rock mountain, the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon Western Rim, the Painted Desert, and finally the Grand Canyon Southern Rim before sliding into the airport for our “Red Eye” back to Gainesville. I’ll leave out the details of almost missing our flight and only being saved by it being postponed an hour. Whew!!!! I’ll just say…don’t always trust your phone to auto adjust to time zones.

We were home for one day and closed on our River House. Yay!!!! Then put the bike on the auto train out of Sanford to Virginia for a few days of wet, beautiful, exciting riding through the mountains before the sun came to join in on our ride back to Florida. I loved it all! The train ride was a fun, economical, and great way to make progress traveling during sleeping hours. I highly recommend it.

Being gone so long we were ready to be home so we had a 15 hour day on the bike ride back to Florida. That’s some crazy traveling!

Thankfully with that wonderful technology that’s ever evolving how we do business, I was able to continue keep up my work flow easily. Having made it through our busy season the market is slowing down to a normal pace and not the hectic load we have during the summer and early fall. If you have properties to sell or rent you should make the most of the next month by having the property in optimal condition and correctly priced to take advantage of the activity thru October because come Thanksgiving and Christmas not many folks like to move.  Enjoy your fall weather

Click on the link to see all the pictures and video. Don’t miss the Helicopter dropping into the Grand Canyon and some wild Elk love!