GFC-CMLS Holiday Hours

Happy Holidays from GFC CMLS.
Our holiday hours will be ...


December 23rd 8:30 am - 3:00 pm

December 24th - December 27th Closed

December 28th - December 30th 8:30 am - 5:00 pm

December 31st 8:30 am - 3:00 pm

January 1st - January 3rd Closed

Greenwich Library offering Free Computer Training in December

The Greenwich library will be offering free computer training on various subjects.
There will be 10 different courses offered, such as Email Basics, Advanced Web Search, and PC Basics. All of the courses will be held in December.

Click the link below for more information:

http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/greenwich-post/news/local/42514-library-offers-computer-training.html

Thanksgiving Holiday Hours

The GFC CMLS will close at 3pm on Wednesday, Nov.25th and will be closed Thurs. Nov. 26th through Sat. Nov. 28th. Normal business hours will resume on Monday, Nov.30th.

For Supra support call - 877-699-6787.

New Version of Homebuyer Tax Credit

A revised version of the Homebuyer Tax Credit has been signed which has changed some of the rules, letting more potential buyers qualify.
The older version of the tax credit was set to expire November 30th.


Read more by clicking the link below:

http://rismedia.com/2009-11-08/expanded-version-of-tax-credit-will-allow-more-homebuyers-to-qualify/

DocCentral Training Starts October 28th

Training Webinars for DocCentral, a simple, efficient, no-cost solution that allows real estate professionals to digitize, organize, and share their documents online, will be held on

Wednesday October 28, 2009: 10am, 2pm, 7pm
Thursday October 29, 2009: 10am, 1pm, 4pm
Friday October 30, 2009: 10am, 1pm, 4pm

You can call the GFC CMLS office to register at 203-840-6674.

What is DocCentral?

Documents are stored on secure servers and accessible online 24/7 by agents and any other authorized transaction participants. By taking transaction documentation off laptops and out of filing cabinets, DocCentral eliminates redundancy, safeguards information, and provides an audit trail for today’s increasingly complex real estate transactions. With DocCentral’s offsite storage, courier costs are virtually eliminated while customer service is enhanced.

Using Rexplorer with Internet Explorer 8

RE/Xplorer and Paragon are now fully compatible with Internet Explorer 8. In order for REX to work properly with IE8, please go to http://support.rexplorer.net and click on the RE/Xplorer 2.x IE8 Setup button. Follow the instructions and make sure to run the setup utility in step 15.
If you would like a technician to walk you through these steps, please call the GFC CMLS office.

Doc Central coming soon!

DocCentral is a simple, efficient, no-cost solution that allows real estate professionals to digitize, organize and share their documents online.
If you are interested in becoming a beta tester for DocCentral please contact Chris Makowski at 203 840-6674 ext 228.
Real estate professionals who manage and organize their documents on DocCentral can now automate the entire contract lifecycle and secure signatures in a more simplified and streamlined process than the traditionally slow “print-ship-sign-copy-return-scan-fax" cycle. Save paper, time, and aggravation by managing your real estate transaction documentation online with DocCentral.
Documents are stored on secure servers and accessible online 24/7 by agents and any other authorized transaction participants. By taking transaction documentation off laptops and out of filing cabinets, DocCentral eliminates redundancy, safeguards information, and provides an audit trail for today’s increasingly complex real estate transactions. With DocCentral’s offsite storage, courier costs are virtually eliminated while customer service is enhanced. DocCentral will be made available to all GFC CMLS members in late October 2009. Training will begin in mid-October.

Single-family home prices rise for 2nd month in a row

Single-family home prices in the U.S. went up for a second month in June, and may show the three-year housing decline is showing signs of recovery.

Read the full story by clicking the link below:

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE57O31Y20090825

GFC-CMLS and Listingbook host Special Event

Be Bold, Get Your Listings Sold; Get Buyers from Kicking Tires!

450 Agents have Registered, Have You?

Greater Fairfield County CMLS and Listingbook are hosting a special anniversary event and you need to be there!
Nationally renowned motivational speaker JOE MEYER, along with Listingbook, will surely excite, motivate and encourage you in this special, one-time event!
REALTORS® who have seen Mr. Meyers in action describe him as energetic, passionate, informative, creative, humorous and very innovative!
Learn the secrets and core techniques to:

• Managing and Controlling your Listing Inventory

• Aggressive Marketing Methods sure to get your Listings Noticed and priced Right

• How to Work with and SELL more Listings to more Buyers

• How to obtain, work with and sell more buyers

You’re invited to join us for this free event. Don’t miss this special opportunity, click here to register.

August 6, 2009
Westport Country Playhouse
25 Powers Ct.Westport, CT
Registration & breakfast at 9:00 am
Presentation at 9:30am – 12:00pm

Sales rise 11% for New Homes in June

Sales rise 11% for newly-built homes in June, and it's the 3rd month in a row showing a boost in sales.

Check out the full story from the link below:


http://tiny.cc/GctpX

Power Outage June 27th 2009

This Saturday June 27, 2009, Connecticut Light & Power has to shut down power to the entire building in which the Greater Fairfield County CMLS office is located. In order to minimize the disruption, CL&P expects the shutdown to begin around 1:00am and last for about six hours, hopefully our systems should be available again by 7-8:00am. This is an estimate however, and it is possible it could be a little longer. During this time, RE/Xplorer, PC Access our “ftp” server and all data export activity will be completely shut down and inaccessible.You will still be able to use Listingbook or Paragon, which are housed out of state and will not be affected by our power being down. As always, there will be no listing input or modification functionality in Paragon, but you will still be able to run searches and hotsheets, create a CMA, etc . Additionally, because both our telephone system and the GFC CMLS website (http://www.ct-mls.com/) will also be inaccessible during the power outage you will not be able to access Paragon or Listingbook through our website. However you can access Paragon by entering http://cmls.fnismls.com/ or Listingbook by entering http://www.listingbook.com/ in your Internet Explorer address bar. As usual our technical support group will be available for assistance in using Listingbook or Paragon both Thursday and Friday, however, they will not be available during the power outage. Training guides are available in the Support section of the GFC CMLS website, under the Paragon and Listingbook reference sections. Additionally both Paragon and Listingbook have excellent built in help systems.GFC CMLS staff will be in the office to assist you by phone during our regular Saturday hours from 9am-2pm. Please note: the SUPRA keybox system will not be affected by the power outage. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience and understanding. We are doing everything in our capacity to make sure the effects of this downtime are as minimal as possible.

July 4th Fireworks Displays

The July 4th weekend is almost here, and if you're on the look-out for where firework displays will be this time around, here are 14 locations where you can check them out:

http://www.fairfieldcountyonline.com/articles/228/

Summer events in Connecticut

It's almost summer, and there are many events happening around Connecticut.

Through Labor Day, you can see the Hisss-terical Reptile show at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, in July there is the 30th Annual Sailfest & Fireworks Extravaganza in New London, and in August there's the SoNo Arts Celebration in Norwalk.

There are many others to check out, click the link below for more information:

http://www.ctvisit.com/PressRelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=20046

Allowing Tax Credit to be used as a Down Payment

The FHA (Federal Housing Administration) will allow it's lenders to let homeowners use an $8,000 tax credit as a down payment.

Read the details in the story by clicking the link below:

http://ecorealty.blogspot.com/2009/05/fha-to-allow-8k-tax-credit-as-down.html

Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft released the latest version of their new web browser, Internet Explorer 8 as a Windows High-priority update.

Fidelity is in the process of testing it for compatibility with RE/Xplorer and Paragon. Once it is compatible, we will post a message on our website (www.ct-mls.com), at which point it will be OK to download it.

Until then, please do not install any version of Internet Explorer 8, as your GFC CMLS programs will not work properly with it yet.
If you have already installed IE 8, please call your GFC CMLS Technical department for help uninstalling it.

Listingbook Learning Community

With the new Listingbook Learning Community, members of the GFC-CMLS can get Context based help while they are logged-in to Listingbook.

Click on Front Page near the top of the screen, and a box near the bottom right corner will change to topics that relate to the Front Page menu. If they click on Quick Search, they’ll see items relating to the Quick Search, and so on.

The Help Page can always be reached at the Blue Line (tool bar) at the top. There is also a FAQ section that helps answer many questions GFC-CMLS Listingbook users may have.

New ways to search the Internet

Looking for things on the web but can't quite find what you want? Here are some new ways to surf for information on the internet.
They work different ways; some are web services, others work as desktop applications, and a few are plugins that work with your browser.


Read more about them by clicking the link to the story below:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/160625/10_new_ways_to_discover_what_you_need_on_the_web.html

New Tax Credit for Homebuyers

Congress is considering a new tax credit for homebuyers. 10 percent of the purchase price of the home (up to $15,000) will be applied to the tax bill.
You'd have to buy a home within a year of the new bill's signature to qualify.

Read more details about this from the link below:

http://www.topix.net/content/ap/2009/02/housing-industry-welcomes-homebuyer-tax-credit

Events this Weekend

If you're looking for something to do this weekend, check out the many events happening around Connecticut by clicking the link below:


http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19092:this-weekend&catid=81:arts-features&Itemid=908

Free Computer workshops at Norwalk Library in January

The Norwalk Library will be holding an Intro to Windows XP workshop on January 10th, and a Microsoft Word basics workshop on January 24th.

Both workshops are free, and are first come/first serve.

Click the link below for more information:

http://www.norwalkplus.com/nwk/information/nwsnwk/publish/Local_2/Computer-workshops-for-January-at-Norwalk-Public-Library2981.shtml