On Friday, Illinois will become the 19th state to ban texting while driving.

A law that takes effect on New Year's Day also takes aim at distracted driving by making it illegal to e-mail while driving or talk on a hand-held cell phone while driving in a highway construction zone or a school zone or to surf the Internet by cell phone while driving. LINK

If you've been using Microsoft® Internet Explorer, you'll find that it's easy to begin using Mozilla Firefox. Click Here to view the article.

Please make sure, if you are dialing in the city of chicago, that you append 312 and/or 872 area codes to the phone number you are dialing. if you don't, your call will not be completed.

We are very pleased to announce Chicagoland's most powerful Real Estate staff website! We have just finished a migration/upgrade with our staff website and are very excited about the new technology available to us. The website is built on the same technology that many fortune 500 companies use as well as many big name websites. We are excited to offer you this level of technology, here at SourceOne Realty.

Furthermore we have upgraded our server capacity to provide an even quicker website than before. We hope you enjoy the new look/feel of the website, and if you have any ideas for it, please email us at it@ppcre.com. The sky really is the limit, enjoy.

Your IT department serving you,
Steve and Steven

According to Mashable.com (LINK) Twitter and LinkedIn are syncing. You can now post to Twitter and it will show up in LinkedIn, vice versa. For the agents that are already on the social side of real estate, this is great news!

Chris DeJong - Bank of America - Well congress has passed the extension of the tax credit. It has been expanded to include anyone moving who has been in their home 5 years. Income limits have also been raised so that more people will be able to take advantage.

We are still waiting for all the details on FHA condo changes. There have been some announcements about compromises but I am waiting to see the actual letter.

Rates are holding at about 5 percent for fixed (Conv and FHA). Some a bit higher and some a bit lower depending on credit and such. 5 Year ARMS are still just below 4Pct. These are great for a first time buyer. If you have a listing that is tough to sell offer a buy down. Who wouldn't want to buy a house with 3 or 4 oct money. Ask me how and I will show you the numbers.

Good luck and Happy Veterans day

Chris DeJong - Bank of America

"T-Mobile USA said Wednesday that it had restored voice, text messaging
and data services that left nearly two million customers disconnected
from its wireless network Tuesday evening." (LINK)

Just a reminder that the city of Chicago will have a new area code starting in November: 872. (LINK)

I recently received an eMail from Oakley signs. in the eMail there was an opportunity to get a free eBook about twitter. I replied to the email and in return I received this very intuitive eBook about Twitter Training for Real Estate Agents. It is very thorough about twitter and how to become a pro. Please take the time to look over it. Click here to download the eBook that was provided by Oakley Sign and Graphics

Hello All~

On thursday October 15th, I will be training Agents on our SalesAspects Platform. You are all welcome to join the classes I am offering. There will be two classes. The classes will be at 10am and 2pm, they will run about 1.5 hours each. I will be going over Contact Relation Management (CRM), how to import contacts and send out eCards to potential clients. Also i will go over how to setup your website and add your listings. So please join me on the 15th at the Hinsdale office.