First Real Estate Trade Show Wraps Up

Saturday, March 19, 2011 04:39 PM

The Spring Real Estate Trade Show in the Coast Inn of the North ballroom

Prince George, B.C. - It's estimated just under one-thousand people mingled their way past 29 booths at a Spring Real Estate Trade show at the Coast Inn of the North today...

The show was the brainchild of local Remax real estate agent Bill Ollinger and TD Canada Trust's mobile mortgage specialist, Teryle Zazelenchuck, to give city residents the opportunity for some one-stop shopping - to touch base with a number of service providers involved in or on the periphery of buying, selling, and renovating homes. Ollinger points out there was only one vendor for each service - things like eavestroughs and gutters, lawn & yard maintenance, in-home cleaning, a moving company, a real estate law firm and notary public.

In addition, the show featured five half-hour seminars which ran through the day. "We tried to think of what the consumer would want to hear about - to get the straight goods on - and listen for 15 or 20-minutes and then have the opportunity to speak to them one-on-one," says Ollinger. "You don't get those opportunities very often and some people think you have to pay for them, but that's not the case."

"The seminars ranged from home staging, which was sold out - we had 40 seats filled," he says. "We also had, which was the second most popular, our broker Sue Lynch do a workshop on 'Is a career in real estate for you?'. And they were all, I would say, well attended, it was better than what we thought it would be." (photo at right shows Jody Hunter of Hunter Inspections talking about troubleshooting a potential property purchase.

Ollinger says he's received mixed reviews from some of the exhibitors on the number of people through the show, but feels attendance was pretty good, given it's the weekend heading into spring break. He points out the trade show put on by local moms and dads with home-based businesses drew just a small crowd in their first year and had thousands through the door to their 3rd annual event two weeks ago.

"We have room for improvement and we're going to do a fall show, probably in late September, (but) I think for our first kick at the can, it's been very, very good. Our presentations went well, the facility is good, the exhibitors that we have are experts in their field and we're pleased with the overall outcome."

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