A Bradford West Gwillimbury realtor took a chance and it paid off.
Rose M. Sorbera from the Rose Real Estate Team and iPro Realty hosted her first seminar at the Bradford West Gwillimbury Public Library on Sunday and said the turnout exceeded her expectations.
The free seminar, “A Key to the Real Estate Market,” included a panel of local experts who were there to field questions from the audience in an effort to provide information on buying and selling property in today's climate.
“It was an amazing event and the feedback was so positive,” said Sorbera. “Everything looked amazing and was well organized and we had all the resources needed and then some from all of our team members. The library was incredible with helping us.”
Attendees told Sorbera and the panelists that the seminar was extremely informative and they got all the answers they could hope for.
“There’s always room for improvement, because this was my first one, but everyone was asking when the next one will be,” Sorbera said. “Even the panel of experts were telling me we need to do another one soon.”
Along with Sorbera, the panel was made up of Elechia Barry-Sproule, realty broker; Frank Del Vacchio, a sales rep; Krishna Menon, a mortgage agent; Carly Ladourceur, a real estate lawyer; Denise Balduckie, a financial planner; Carl Levy, a home insurance specialist; Jen Bevin, a home stager and smart-sizing expert; and Chris Hill, a home inspector.
“We were so busy,” said Sorbera. “I think I’m going to need even more experts in the room because we were being pulled from every direction. The panel of experts were so happy to be able to help and we wished we had more time.”
With the support of local businesses providing snacks and refreshments as well as door prices and loot bags, Sorbera said it tied everything together perfectly.
“The support was amazing from the local businesses, the attendees, the experts, and the library,” she said. “With the mingling and refreshments at the end we were actually even getting people from the library coming in and asking questions. We even had the councillor from Ward 1 (Cheraldean Duhaney) come because she wanted to see what it was all about and wanted to support it.”
The commonality in feedback from attendees was that they’d left with more answers than they could have even hoped for with the hyper informative panel.
“The reaction was a lot of people not realizing certain things and we created awareness about topics that attendees didn't even realize,” explained Sorbera. “Even if you don’t think you have any questions, as other people are asking questions you’re learning things you didn’t even know.
"Some supporters were just curious and then realized they had questions. Even if you don’t think you need it, come hear it out because you’ll realize there’s something here that can be beneficial for you.”
Seeing how successful the first seminar was, Sorbera knows they’ve filled a need with this and plan to continue them in the future.
“When I was asked by the panel and the attendees, the first thing that came to my mind was we’ve got to do this again in the coming months,” she said. “My whole objective is to fill a need and I was constantly being approached by people with questions and I couldn’t do it alone, so I finally brought everybody into a room together. That need continues.”
With the format proven to work, Sorbera thinks it’ll only get easier to run the seminars and is hopeful it will be a recurring event.
“With this one done, we have the set up,” she said. “We were so happy with this and we know there’s a need and people will come out and have the opportunity to get their questions answered. They want more.”
