With April already upon us, the Houston real estate market continues to be the talk of the country. List after list names Houston at or near the top in a variety of areas. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: aren’t you glad to live and work in the greater Houston area? I know I am.

I’m also glad that we have such a strong commercial membership at HAR. Many other local REALTOR® associations across the nation don’t even have commercial divisions, but ours continues to thrive. Our annual Commercial EXPO will be a great example of that when it is held on April 15 (tax day, in case you forget). You may read all about it on pages 30-31. Don’t miss this great event.

We’ve also been listening to your feedback about the Supra ActiveKEY and some of the issues around its battery life. While some of it just comes down to the trade-off between security of the system/up-to-the-minute data and battery life, we have worked with Supra on a firmware update that was automatically sent to all of the units on March 10-so hopefully you’ve seen some improvement since then. You may also read about other ways to help extend the battery life on page 44.

It is also important to recognize and value the life of the very homes we are helping to buy and sell. I am so very proud that HAR is the first MLS in the country to provide a Historic Home Finder feature. We were honored to have Houston Mayor Annise Parker shoot the introduction video for the feature on HAR.com. You may read all about it on page 23.

Speaking of politics, we still have runoff elections in some races from the March elections…and still have May municipal elections in many towns around Houston. There is still time to register for the May elections, and we want to make sure the REALTOR® vote counts. You may read about the election timeline and see who HAR recommends on page 19.

Every day someone talks to me about HAR, and I can’t tell you how honored I am to continue to serve as your chair. As always, please let me know if there’s anything you think we should be doing or could be doing better. I hope you know that HAR truly is YOUR association.