SCAAR Monthly Updates

December | 2025

Preferred Partner Committee

🌟 Preferred Partners: Thank You for a Great Expo!

We had a fantastic Preferred Partner Expo at last month’s SCAAR Annual Meeting, and we want to extend a sincere thank you to all of our Preferred Partners who participated. Your energy, expertise, and engagement made the expo a valuable experience for our REALTOR members and a great success overall.

📣 Stay Connected on Facebook!

Be sure you’re following our Facebook page:

St. Cloud Area Association of REALTORS® – SCAAR

We are actively spotlighting our Preferred Partners and sharing timely, relevant, and educational content designed to help our REALTOR members gain valuable insights they can confidently pass along to their clients. This is a great way for Preferred Partners to stay visible and for REALTORS to stay informed.

🤝 Join the Preferred Partner Committee

We are currently looking for additional committee members who are interested in helping shape programming, marketing opportunities, and engagement for our Preferred Partner program.

📅 Next Preferred Partner Committee Meeting

February 16th | 10:00 AM

📍 SCAAR Office

If you’re interested in getting involved or would like more information, please contact Mary Ellen. We’d love to have you join us!

New Preferred Partners

Members, please check out our new Preferred Partners! Welcome…

Blue 72 Foundation - https://blue72foundation.org/

Enterprise Bank and Trust - https://www.enterprisebank.com

📢 Share Your Upcoming Events

If any of our Preferred Partners have upcoming events, webinars, classes, or educational opportunities, please let me know. We are happy to help share and promote these opportunities here so our REALTOR members can stay informed and pass along valuable information to their clients.

📄 Preferred Partner Resource Spotlight

We appreciate our Preferred Partners providing timely resources like this to support our members and their clients. Tri-County Abstract & Title Company / First American Title are providing a webinar on new FinCEN escrow rules. Check it out! https://explore.firstam.com/fincen-webinar/

As always, thank you to our Preferred Partners for your continued collaboration, education, and support of SCAAR and our REALTOR members.

Mary Ellen Richter, Chair

Preferred Partner Committee

612-532-7659

Humanitarian Committee

🎁 Adopt-A-Family: A Heartfelt Year-End Project

The presents are wrapped and delivered! In December, the Humanitarian Committee completed our final project of 2025—Adopt-A-Family. We hope our efforts helped make the holidays a little brighter for the family we adopted: a family of four, including a mom, dad, and two boys, ages 11 and 16.

This year’s shoppers were Trina Lavigne, Gary Robinson, Mary Ellen Richter, and Jan Cook, each selecting gifts for one family member. In addition, Kelly Travis picked up a $100 Coborn’s gift card to support the family. All gifts were wrapped and delivered on December 13. A heartfelt thank you to our shoppers and gift wrappers for their time and generosity!

🎀 Final Meeting

The committee held its final meeting on December 10, which included gift wrapping and a celebration of another successful year of giving.

🌟 Looking Ahead to 2026

We are excited to welcome Nia Castro as a new committee member in 2026! If you are interested in joining the Humanitarian Committee in the coming year, we would love to have you. Please contact Jan Cook or Kelly Travis at the SCAAR office for more information.

💝 Reminder: Charity Support

Participating in a charitable fundraiser? SCAAR will donate $50 to support your efforts!

👉 Click here for info and the request form

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2026! 🎄✨

From your 2025 Humanitarian Committee,

Jan Cook, Committee Chair

Lisa Kent, Member

Trina Lavigne, Member

Gary Robinson, Member

Mary Ellen Richter, Member & 2026 Chair

Kelly Travis, Executive Director of SCAAR

As the year comes to a close, we wish you and yours a joyful, healthy and safe holiday season! We look forward to serving you in 2026!

The Board Office will be closed Wednesday, December 24 through Friday, December 26 in observation of the Christmas Holiday. We will resume normal business hours on Monday, December 29. The Board Office will also be closed Dec. 31 and January 1 in observation of the New Year Holiday.

Happy Holidays!

Kelly & Nicole

Public Relations Committee

The PR committee met at 3pm at The House of Pizza this month. We plan to meet at 3:30pm for our next meeting on January 13^th, sponsored by Ancona Title.

What have we been up to you ask?

The General Membership Meeting and Preferred Partner Expo – The PR Committee gave away a preferred partner AND a Realtor a FREE membership for 2026. We also gave away a Ninja cooler to Kate Legatt. Thanks to all who attended the Expo! We also gifted our first billboard to Jan Cook! Jan will run her free billboard in Feb 2026.

REMINDER – the more you come to happy hour, the more you can win!!

FREE quarterly billboard - We will draw out of the agent cards collected from Social Hour every quarter. Our next drawing will be held in April for a free billboard in May!

The progressive drawing – We will be drawn quarterly in 2026 (March, June, September and December) for our progressive cash drawing.

If the “cash pot” doesn’t go out, the winnings will be higher at the next quarterly drawing! In order to get your name into the progressive drawing, you have to attend the social hour and enter. You can put your name in the drawing every month. Meaning the more frequently you attend the social hours, the higher chances you have to win CASH!! 😊

2027 Sponsorship - Our 2027 Sponsorship sign-up sheet is open.

2026 is full - Thanks in advance for all of our 2026 sponsors for committing to sponsor a social hour.

Reminder, the fee to sponsor increased to $100 in 2026. $50 to cover pizza and $50 towards a progressive drawing starting January 2026!

December Billboard: Keep an eye out for our December Holiday Billboard! We wish you all a Happy Holiday Season!

December Social: Our December Social took place on the 9^th and was sponsored by Old National Bank. Tim Nelson won the door prize which was a beautiful meat and cheese holiday set. Thank you, Old National Bank!

We also had several drawings for the Social Holiday Party. Abby Erickson won 1^st place for her Christmas sweater, Jan Cook took 2^nd and Amber Laudenbach took 3^rd. Along with the sweater competition, we gave away 4 - $25 gift cards for the house of pizza. Thank you to all who attended.

January Social: Will be January 13^th, starting at 4PM at House of Pizza in St Cloud. January social is sponsored by Ancona Title, we hope you join us for Social Hour!

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1FWZMrusvB/

Sander, Jose, Jan and Lance served a meal at the Dream Center in December! We also brought them gifts of socks, hot chocolate and some candy treats.

JANUARY SOCIAL HOUR!

Jan. 13, 2026

House of Pizza West

4-6 pm

Education Committee

Upcoming Classes . . .

January 22 - USPAP. We are looking at moving this class due to the low registation. If you are thinking about signing up, please do so ASAP. If we do not hit our minimum #, we will have to reschedule or cancel the class.

Mike Brennan classes: I have a request out to Mike to reschdule the classes we were to have Dec. 12th.

Click here to register for any of our classes.

Professionalism

SCAAR has been getting several complaints again about agents not providing feedback or responding to phone calls or after showings leaving lights on, doors open, patio doors unlocked!

Please be professional and respond to other agents and make sure you leave the home you are showing the way you found it. Thanks!

Expo/Membership Meeting Task Force

Save the date :

November 19, 2026!

If you have ideas for a class or speaker, please email Kelly@stcloudrealtors.com.

Government Affairs Committee

NAR predicts generally positive recovery for 2026: Lower mortgage rates and a rising supply of homes are expected to open up the housing market in the new year, following three years of stagnation. The National Association of REALTORS® forecasted a 14% increase in existing home sales for 2026. Click here to read more.

House introduces Bipartisan Housing Package: On December 11, House Committee on Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.), Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance Chair Mike Flood (R-Neb.) and Ranking Member Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), released the bipartisan Housing for the 21st Century Act. The package introduces reforms intended to streamline housing production, modernize existing programs and give counties more flexibility to meet local needs. Click here to read more.

REALTOR Members on the Move!

Welcome to our New Members in Nov.! 🙂

DeAnn Burns, Results Support Services

Wesley Cavegn, Haller Realty

Julius Maki, Results Support Services

Alissa Ram, Edina Realty

Ellen Spiczka, Premier Real Estate Services

Hamsa Yusuf, Edina Realty

Member Transfers in November! 📦📦📦

Amanda Olson to Pemberton RE

Dropped Members in November! We are sad to see them go! 😢

None! Woo hoo!