The Greater Albuquerque Association of REALTORS® would like to thank our members, speakers, affiliates, and the two responsible committees – LEAP and Community Relations – for making our inaugural REALTOR® Week and Grande Open House Weekend such an amazing success! And, since so many members asked, the open house weekend was President-Elect Jon Schnoor's idea.  Next time you see him, please give him a huge thanks!

While the new annual events will continue to grow and improve over time, we had unprecedented particpation for all our REALTOR® Week events.

Celebrate Albuquerque Day

More than 200 REALTORS® and their guests registered for our first Celebrate Albuquerque Day on April 15th. Gay Oppedahl, Director of Economic Development for the City of Albuquerqe, spoke to a full house about the city's partnership with the private sector to stimiulate economic growth for the area.

Gary was followed by Dr. Brad Winter, Interm Superintendent for Albuquerque Public Schools and Celina Espinoza, Director of Communications and Coomunity Outreach for Albuquerque Police Department. Both speakers spoke about improvements their perspective organizations have made over the past few years and introduced ways the REALTORS® can get involved to help to make even more improvements. Before lunch by Rex's Burgers, attendees learned about "local tourism" initiatives by Tania Armenta, VP of Marketing, Communications and Tourism for the Albuquerque Convention and Visitors Bureau and Eric Searle of McKee, Wallwork and Company, ACVB's ad agency.

The afteroon kicked off with a very passionate presentation from New Mexico Tourism Secretary Rebbecca Latham who taught us the value of tourism to tax payors and what it means to be New Mexico True. All attendees were certified as New Mexico True Ambassadors and learned how we, as individuals and businesses, can join the New Mexico True campaign. Please check out one of their beautifully intense videos below.

The afternoon was wrapped up this very busy day with fun, informative local history lessons from Jon Ashworth, Lori Lindsey, Melody Groves and a wine tasting from Casa Rondeña.

Albuquerque Metro Trends and Opportunities through 2040 by Dr. Arthur C. Nelson

Between the morning and afternoon session, more than 220 REALTORS® and members of the public signed up to hear Dr. Nelson's findings on the future of Albuquerque Metro area's real estate market and urban planning development.

Good news for Albuquerque! Highlights from his presentation include a trend to "new urbanism" –  walkable, mixed-housing communities, more retirees moving to the area, a trend towards smaller houses, more renters (although Albuquerque is expected to have a higher homeownership than the national average) and opportunities to create new, comercial/mixed use centers by tearing up large parking lots and older commercial buildings for redevelopment. Click here for more details about Dr. Nelson's presentation.

The Mini ABQ Expo

Between the preparation for GAAR's Grande Open House Weekend and the REALTOR® Week presentations, well over 600 people visited the REALTOR® Building last week. This was great news for the 20 Affiliates that participated in the Mini ABQ Expo. Thank you to our REALTORS® and Affiliates for making our Expo successful – and for making sure there was plenty of handouts for homebuyers at the open houses.

GAAR's Grande Open House Weekend

And now for the truly unexpected...

We had over 500 houses participating in our Open House Weekend. That's over six times the number of open houses held in a average April weekend!

GAAR had hoped to have at least double the norm, with 150 to 200 houses on the tour. We ordered 300 signs to be on the safe side and invested in over $7,000 in advertising. We were blown away by the overwhelminly positive response to the event. Thank you to all participating REALTORS® for sharing signs, waiting for balloons and for waiting for us to approve and upload your listings.

Through our advertising and social media efforts, over 1,700 visitors viewed the gaar.com/openhouseweekend page to view the map of all open houses. That doesn't include open house traffic directed by radio ads to look for the blue open house signs.

And, because we have had such positive feedback about the Open House Weekend and all of the REALTOR® Week events, we absolutely plan on holding an even bigger and better affair next year, so hold on to your GAAR's Grande Open House yard signs!

Thank you to our Contributing Sponsors

The following companies contributed monetary donations to help fund ABQ REALTOR® WEEK activities.

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