A good agent works a minimum of 40 hours a week, but usually many more than that when business is good. You need to be available whenever your clients want you.

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Having said that, however, there is nothing stopping you from giving your friend a gift of cash as a thank you for referring a buyer to you. The difference between giving a friend a cash gift and providing a commission on a home sale is how it’s accounted for by the IRS.

The losses are affecting everyone from condo owners to former Regent employees to contractors who performed services at buildings once managed by the firm.

According to Sgt. Phil Cappitelli of CPD’s Financial Crimes Unit, no charges have been filed in the ongoing investigation.

Regent, according to its now-defunct website, was formed 20 years ago by Jay Strauss and Donald Doering. Services provided by the company included property management, real estate brokerage and apartment leasing.

In late January, a wave of Regent’s clients began questioning whether their funds were being siphoned by the company.

Paul Kolenda is the treasurer of one such condominium association, located at 1934 N. Washtenaw in Bucktown. He said he had a six-year relationship with Regent that began at a previous residence in Lake View. Kolenda described Strauss, the company’s head, as "a grandfatherly old man," and recommended his association hire Regent to manage their building.

Kolenda began to grow suspicious in December 2007. A vendor complained that a check written by Strauss on behalf of the association had bounced. Estimating the association had saved more than $380,000 for long-term maintenance projects, Kolenda requested his property’s bank records, and was shocked to find their account held a scant $50.

Kolenda said Strauss assured him that the money was being held in an interest-bearing account and the failure to transfer the funds was an honest mistake, attributable to the stress of his wife’s illness. "He said, ‘it’s just been crazy with my wife,’ trying to tug at our heartstrings," Kolenda said.

In early January, Kolenda began contacting the leadership at other Regent-managed properties. "That’s when I realized it wasn’t a little mistake or a one-time thing," he said.

He immediately terminated his contract with Regent and filed a police report. Within a week, more than a dozen other associations followed suit.

It was around the same time that Barbette Loevy, a former Regent employee, received a phone call telling her to come in and clean out her desk.

"I was out of town and someone called and told me to pick up my things and that they were closing," she said. "They told me absolutely nothing about why."

Loevy says she worked for Regent as a Realtor and was not involved in condominium management.

Strauss and other Regent employees declined to comment for this article. Their offices remain closed and their phone lines appear to have been disconnected. Mail strewn about in the entranceway and papers overflowing in the fax machine suggest the office has not been in operation for some time.

As the police investigation continues, the owners of the properties Regent once managed have banded together and formed a listserv to share experiences and exchange information.

"You can’t imagine what a mess it is," said Jay Shindler, treasurer of the condo association at 1920 N. Lincoln Ave., another Regent-managed property. "We’re trying to figure out where we are delinquent and how much, and what is paid and unpaid."

Kolenda’s building is having a particularly difficult time with that process. "We owe over $100,000 in bills for everything from water to electricity to trash to insurance," he said.

"Regent was paid to collect funds from the units, manage the building and pay the bills," he said. "Now, beyond impacting us, there are all of these vendors out there that are just stuck. You’ve got small business people out there that are struggling because of this, so the ripple effect just goes on and on."

Don Wilson, whose law firm is representing the residents at 921 N. La Salle, another formerly Regent-run property, says his clients requested that their handyman be given a Christmas bonus with their savings. "Not only did [Regent] not send the bonus, but they sent an invoice saying they had given him the bonus-when, in reality, they hadn’t even paid him his regular salary for weeks," Wilson said.

According to Vincent Lavieri, attorney for 1924 N. Washtenaw, part of the problem is that no one knows what bills have or have not been paid, a problem compounded by the fact that Regent’s management has not given association representatives access to their files.

Lavieri says all financial records are currently being held by Strauss’ lawyer, Camille B. Conway of Barnes & Thornburg LLP, who has promised to share them with their respective associations, but has stopped short of saying when they can expect to see that happen. Conway declined to comment.

"It’s causing problems for my client as well as the 45 or so associations that have been managed by Regent," Lavieri said, adding that they have "no way of knowing what the current state of the association’s affairs are or which vendors are legitimately owed money."

The size and scope of this case, Lavieri said, is extraordinary, as is the amount of work it will take the affected parties to get back on their feet. "I’m aware of other cases where property managers have been accused of misappropriating funds, but

Is it "realestate" in my email address or the embedded links to real estate listings?

Also, it appears that if I have a EMail witha WORD file attachment and EMail to a client with Yahoo Email address, then it goes to the bulk folder, while a file without an attachment goes to the InBox.
Some people that request I send Email to their Yahoo EMail address can not figureout how to view the bulk folder and/or always accept EMail from my EMail address.

No one knows exactly how Yahoo decides on what is spam. It would defeat whatever system they have if the answer got out. Adding an address to your contacts list is supposed to override the spam filters. Many business emails now even tell customers to do that.
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Jinn: “ O my master, what can I do for you”?

Rohan: “ Oh! You are just like the Jinn I had read in ALLADDIN. Well, can you get me a beautiful girl whom I can marry?”

Jinn: “ Yes Master! As you say”

Within a blink of the eye, the Jinn is present with a beautiful fair girl with lovely wide eyes who is dressed in a bridal outfit.

Rohan: “ Wow! She is so beautiful.”

Rohan asks the girl her name. The Girl identifies herself.

The girl: “ My name is Dream”

Rohan: “ Where do you hail from? I mean are you an Indian ?”

Dream: “ I live in your subconscious. I can visit you only when you are asleep”

Rohan: “ You mean I can never get to marry you in reality?”

Dream: “ No.”

Rohan: “ O Jinn why the hell have you brought this girl who does not exist in reality?”

Jinn: “ Because Master, she is the most beautiful girl according to you and as she said, she lives in your subconscious. Well you can enjoy being with her as long as you are asleep. The same with me, I shall vanish as soon as you wake up.”

Rohan: “ Then how can I get nearer to her in reality?”

Jinn: “ Well, it is possible only in one situation, I can put her inside the body of Pushpa whom you and your parents rejected this evening”

Rohan: “ But Pushpa is dark and Dream is exactly the opposite of her in appearance”

Jinn: “ But at least you alone would be knowing that inside Pushpa exists your Dream.”

Rohan: “ Well but Pushpa is not the delight of my eyes and not only that, others will laugh at me for marrying Pushpa”

Jinn: “ Well, then the world you live in is really ridiculous because they want to run away from realties. We here who live in your dreams know that Materialistic Perfection does not exist in the real world that you live in.”

At this point Rohan wakes up from his sleep and just ponders over his dream. He takes a decision there and there that he would marry Pushpa and he conveys this to his parents who somehow are convinced by Rohan but they are as astonished as to what changed his decisions overnight.

Rohan: “ Well Mom and Dad, there is nothing like perfect beauty. Contentment is what truly makes everything look beautiful”

What according you is the philosophy that Rohan has imbibed from the Jinn ? Do you agree personally to the conclusions drawn by Rohan after he wakes up ?

settle for what you can get because perfection and idealism is just a far fetched fantasy

I agree to a degree, but not entirely

Perfection may not exist but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek anything that is as near to perfection as you can. If we all settle for what we can get, then is there any point in pursuing anything in life?

I agree that happiness and contentment is key and it’s what make anything beautiful. However, there are degrees of happiness as well.

For me there is a threshold that I must exceed in order to be happy and satisfied witht he degree of happiness that I have, so in a way I set goals and criteria to what i am looking for. In this sense, I am seeking perfection.

I don’t agree with projecting an image onto others. This is like saying you want to cloud your own mind of your free will and deny reality for what it is. At the same time, you are not seeing the truth that you are in. It’s like another way of living in a fantasy or running away from your ‘problems’.

I am interested in what you think

Hope this helps

I am negotiating the commission that the agent receives when he sells my house. He is asking for 3% but Im sure I can negotiate a better deal than this. To anyone that has sold their house recently, how much did you pay to your realtor?

Sold a property in Girraween (Sydney) late last year. Our agent listed, advertised, did open houses and was always happy to be called at any time, we paid him 2.75% and no sale no cost – we had to sign an exclusivity deal for 3 months .