Owasso, OK

Owasso is a growing community. We're the kind of town where we were all excited when Wal-Mart decided to build a supercenter here. That was several years ago and since then, we've added a Home Depot and a Lowes and lots of new restaurants.

One of the newest features to come to our town is the brand new "Owasso" Magazine. This publication is the vision of its founder, creator and editor Anna Holton-Dean. The first edition just hit the streets and the response around town is...wow!

Here's a pic of the first cover.

I sat down with Anna today to get to know her a little bit better and to find out about the magazine. Here's a couple of facts about her that I thought were interesting...

She was born in Lake Charles, LA (anybody remember which hurricane hit there?)

She and her husband moved to Owasso in May of 2007 to take a job. On top of moving she also...

got married, graduated from grad school and lost her grandmother all in the same month. Needless to say, May 2007 stands out in her mind as one of those life changing moments when her life seriously changed.

I asked her why she decided to publish the new Owasso magazine. She told me that she had been thinking about publishing a magazine of some sort for quite a while. Most of this thinking happened when she was working as an editor for the Oklahoma magazine and other publications. Her husband was supportive and when they arrived in Owasso, she saw immediate potential. "There wasn't anything like it in Owasso," she said. So with a little bit of faith (or is that a lot???), their own money, a Macintosh computer and a ton of invested time, off she went.

When you pick up a copy, I think you'll agree that it was a good investment!

Currently, the magazine is free, but subscriptions are available. It will be published monthly beginning in October.

This first edtition focused on back to school with stories about the Owasso football program. However, each month will include stories on each of the following:

A special feature (like a person of interest)
A local church
A local business
A city official
An Owasso "when" photo
A dining directory

Anna wrote the copy for the entire magazine and edited it herself. In addition, she oversaw the pics, put together the intial advertising and worked with a graphic designer to create the beatiful Owasso logo for the cover.

She has a website up at www.owassomagazine.com. There will be content added to her website soon, so be patient as it is still under construction.

If you'd like to contact Anna to submit story ideas or to advertise, she can be emailed at publisher@owassomagazine.com

I'll post up a pic of Anna as soon as I get one that she "approves"

I have a nice couple who I'm working with right now who are going to be my buyers as soon as they sell their home. They're selling their home as a For Sale By Owner because they don't have enough equity in it to list it with a realtor.

Last night I took them to see a great new listing I have (generated from Active Rain by the way - more on that later). After we took the tour, I asked them how the sale of their property was going. "Pretty okay," was their answer.

Hmmm, at this point I have a decision to make. Do I help them by giving them some tips or not? I know many realtors who wouldn't help at all because they didn't list their house with a realtor. I'm more of the philosophy that we're all here to help one another and that what goes around comes around. So I visited with them about making sure the house was on Craigslist which was really funny because they went, "Craigslist? What's that???" So that was a fun conversation. You should have seen them light up when I told them it was FREE! I also talked with them about paying a buyer's agent and making sure it was clearly advertised, etc.

I didn't give them everything I've got in my bag of successful sales tactics, but I thought those two things would be helpful. After all, if they sell their house, they become my buyers...and that's a good thing!

Here in our area I'm seeing more people trying to sell their home as FSBO's this year than last year. Interestingly enough, I'm seeing less people using discount real estate brokerages and more FSBO.com sites. I wouldn't have expected that. I guess it's due to the decreased cost.

Do you help FSBO's? Are you friendly with people who are trying to sell their home by owner? What's your take on this situation?

"That showing time is too early for us. If you'll come at 12:30, that will work fine. Thank you!"

This was the message I got from a seller in our area tonight on my cell phone. I had called him earlier and had a left a message about showing his home tomorrow morning around 9:30. I know that can be early on a Saturday, but we've got to start early as that's when my buyers are available.

I haven't called this seller back yet (too late tonight), but when I do, there are a few things I'd like to tell him. See if some of these resonate with you.

First, do you really want to sell your house? Because if you do, asking a real estate professional to wait 3 hours later to show your house isn't going to get it sold. Not in today's market. When showing, we are usually on tight schedules. Coming back around to a neighborhood twice is sometimes simply impossible.

The second thing I'd like to ask this guy is, "Do you ever watch the news?" Surely he knows about this little mortgage crisis our country is currently experiencing.

How about this one..."Do you have ANY idea what the interest rates are doing right now?" My mortgage officer friends tell me that they're quoting rates only for that immediate moment in time to people making loan application because things are so unstable right now. Today's rate was closing in on 6.6 and we're probably looking at 7 pretty quickly. Rising mortgage rates mean higher payments. And what exactly is it that we don't have a lot of due to the rising (and may I say ridiculous) gas prices? Yes, that would be extra money for higher payments!

I want to ask him also if he has any idea how many less houses are selling right now as measured against last year. Does he know the stats for our area? Apparently not.

Now, why is any of this important? Why does it matter? Because the answers to these questions are obvious. If you're a breathing human being who lives in America, you know that we're in the midst of a market slow down. If you're a seller, you've got to be super savvy to be successful in selling your home right now. And that means being flexible in the showing of your home. If a Realtor calls you to show your house, get the appointment scheduled and get out of the way! That Realtor might be bringing you the person or couple who falls in love with your home. If you make it hard for us to get into your home, you're really only hurting your odds of success! After all, my buyers have PLENTY of houses to pick from. Not getting into yours just isn't that big of a deal anymore.

For this poor guy, we probably won't be seeing his house tomorrow. Bummer for him!

Hello again. I thought that I would pop in and share some thoughts. In business our ongoing desire is to make our customers; or that prospect we have happy. We are ever striving to do it through "the best price" or " the best product" or the "best advertising". We all want the be the best, and that is great because that is what our country is built on. But as I write this I am thinking of another component, a lesson I learned from my family.

As my three children grow, I am continually looking for the "new" "best ever" thing to bring them joy and build lasting memories. It goes from the baseball glove and ball (which have now somehow completely disappeared), to the fishing pole (which my son reminds me continually of the danger of fish hooks). Next we move on to the motorcycle, which I must admit was barrels of fun until it was run into the wall. Yes, I had him get back on it and ride to get over the fear, but the boy still won't touch it. In an effort to help him over this phobia I even rode the thing around the backyard. All went real well until about 15 minutes before I was explaining to the neighbors how a grown man could run through their fence on a kids motorcycle.... you fill in the blanks. Yes, the motorcycle reminds me of some of my great marketing campaigns. Great on paper, but about the results... not so much.

Moving on, there was the new Play Station. This was immediately ditched for the out-dated, hand me down, Nintendo from somewhere in the 1990's. So as my oldest approaches his teens my search has reached a feverish pitch. Then suddenly it happened. Picture this, it is a Friday evening, the kids are all wanting dinner, but everything is on hold, waiting on the arrival of grandma. Grandma wants to eat dinner with us, and is traveling from 2 hrs away to do so, therefore we will wait dinner. Grandma arrives, but she has a box with her. The kids open the box, and out they start pulling.... bubble wrap. We are talking about what had to be 50 foot of 3 foot wide strips of bubble wrap. Not just cheap little bubble wrap, no the high quality big bubble, guaranteed to make a loud pop every time bubble wrap.

Hunger was forgotten. Desires to go to the park were forgotten. That ongoing plea for a capgun suddenly went silent. There was bubble wrap that required popping. As it was placed on the floor and the walking and stomping began you could not hear yourself think. Soon even my wife was involved. After several minutes of watching the kids my wife said "you just can't help but smile when you pop bubble wrap". On this there was no age limit, just simple happiness. Soon the kids came up with new ideas for the bubble wrap. The oldest wrapped himself in it and asked if his mother would tape him up. Of course she refused, but no worries, no dissatisfaction, just on to another bubble wrap idea.

So now I sign off to go on to my quest of the day, which is to figure out how to add a little "bubble wrap" to my agency. I want them to just have to smile every time they see me. Have a great weekend!

P.S. break out the bubble wrap this weekend.