C Tann-Starr

What does Global Edge, have to say about my girlfriend Poppy Dinsey? Our very own lovely and talented Club Chaos SnarkyGirl darling from London, UK has made the coveted "The World's Most Powerful Property People - Top 100" list!

How cool is that? I think it's awesome!

Poppy D has also managed to come in at a tie with the Active Rain Real Estate Network for her Globrix blog. She and this network are both ranked in the top 10 at number 5! If you haven't read her Active Rain Thoroughly British blog, you are in for a sweet treat. If you haven't seen the SnarkyGirls videoblog, you may want to look up the definition of snarky / snarkism before you watch (LOL).

To quote Poppy D from her Globrix blog regarding her stellar international ranking: "Personally, I was thrilled (and somewhat shocked) to rank so highly. I think I now know how it feels when new bands hear their song playing in the background of the cafe in Eastenders for the first time, marvelous. I do have to add though, that I think one super-duper property blog was slightly cheated by not making the cut. I don't know how AgentGenius escaped the rankings, but AgentGenius is definitely worth adding to your feedreader."

I love Agent Genius. I love SnarkyGirls. Lani Anglin-Rosales (Agent Genius) and Poppy Dinsey (Globrix) ROCK! When it comes to writing wonderful articles, savvy marketing, real estate blogging and search engine optimization, these Social Networking Divas are brilliant.

Featured @ Club Chaos

The lovely A. Jin in the main conference room at REMAX People Realty

A. Jin contacted me the day she and her lovely family planned to drive to New York City from Canada. After relocating to New York State and settling in Brooklyn on Friday, she made arrangements to meet with me the next day. I picked her up Saturday and we, accompanied by one of her cousins, spent that afternoon and most of the evening together having mad fun chatting about our families and getting to know each other. She discovered the Active Rain Real Estate Network from using search engines. Googling her targeted area lead to my blog. She looked at other New York agents before deciding to select me as her Realtor.

BTW, I am ranked number 19 on the New York Sate home page and number 3 for Queens County. TannStarr.com links back to my three Active Rain blogs and I am very happy people enjoy my blog posts enough to trust me with their housing needs.

It's official. We signed a Buyer's Brokerage agreement today and I must say I am looking forward to spending some quality time with my new friend. BTW, she has a wicked sense of humor and is fluent in French! I got to enjoy some very interesting Ear Candy today (LOL).

I even got to play phone tag with Susan Mangigian and Melody Botting between real estate assignments. A. Jin got to chat with Susan while we were in my REMAX office and guess what? We are going on an AR Road Trip together in a couple of weeks to hang out in PA with the lovely Mangigian family. Susan, AJ and I are going to collect some PA Eye Candy together. How cool is that?

The only question left to settle is do we travel with or without the little minions. Hmm... I could use some girl time... Maybe I'll keep you in suspense until I post the pictures (LOL).

Thank you, Active Rain. I would not have made a new friend and gained a wonderful new client for my firm if it were not for your Real Estate Network. You guys (and Claire) ROCK!

If I had the money I would buy this house. Once upon a time someone loved it...

I was saddened to see it in such disrepair as it grinned at me from a barren yard...

I marveled at the stonework and longed to see the inside... I wanted to leave my card for the owner.

Alas, there was no mail box, no sign, no post, no plastic folder... There was nothing for me to do but wait

and hope that one day soon someone would come to care for it the way that I wanted to.

Once upon a time someone loved this house... I knew I could love it too...

(Jamaica Estates, Queens County, New York)

Kew Gardens, Queens County, NY

My girlfriend Liz Moras wrote a spankin' blog entitled, "What do you feel passionate about? What Lights Your Fire?"

ART is my number one choice. That is why I am addicted to eye candy. I am always on the hunt to enjoy a beautiful moment and I believe that is why, as a Realtor and Artist, I have a "thing" for the older neighborhoods. I like mature trees, large lot sizes and the privacy of detached homes. Older homes have interesting character. Sometimes, when I am off on my turtle runs, I have such a hard time choosing my eye candy because there is just so much of it to go around in New York City.

I own thousands of photographs and continue to shoot pictures every single day. I sketch ideas and doddle all of the time. That is not the same as getting ready for a major gallery show and I am definitely overdue for one. Lately, I just haven't been able to schedule as much blogging time or artistic time as I would like because business has been picking up and the little minions have been in rare form, making it nearly impossible for me to play in my paint and fool around with my photography.

I would love to sit and write about everything that I have been up to but I only have a moment (I have an appointment) and I really do want to answer the question Liz posed.

What lights my fire? Art. Definitely art. I love being an artist and am very passionate about my work. Art is my first love.

Reading her post reminded me that I really need to get back into being an artist. I've been neglecting that aspect of my personality for most of the year while building my real estate business as an independent contractor. I do have lots of creative moments (like when I mix a little music and put together a few videos) but sometimes when one has pressing issues a person has to take a break from his or her regularly scheduled program. I've been cutting back on a number of activities (mainly my artwork) because I was concentrating on the market more than my personal preferences. I know it is time for me to reverse that trend and bring a little more balance to the use of my talents. I am determined to seriously start painting again. Liz just lit a fire under my blogger's butt and I am going to get the rest of my pending paintings finished so I can send them off to my representatives at the Ward Nasse Gallery in Soho in time for the new year.

I will keep you guys posted and give you a few sneak previews. I'm actually working on a sketch of this house in Kew Gardens... Gotta run. Don't want to be late for my appointment. ;-)

Thank you, Liz. :-)

Just this morning I was commenting to Paddy Pizzapi (in a blog post) that today was going to be an interesting day. Little did I know just how wildly interesting it would become. I took my minions to work today. They braved a brewing storm to do two open houses with their Mama. We got in a little late, played a few games, ran from the Minion Blur's love taps and engaged in Gigglefest. The boys had a big day and actually fell asleep early. Yay! So here I am chilling, sitting in my home office checking my in-box, e-mail and listening to my voice mail when a message from the lovely A. Jin pops up to inform me she is a Canadian relocating to New York City and could I please return her call.

Wow... Paddy wrote a very interesting post just this morning entitled "Take A Chance On This One? What The Heck, Go For It!" Paddy was in the process of acquiring an overseas prospect interested in moving to Orange County from Israel as a direct result of her blogging on Active Rain. Very cool. I was reading this post when my Canadian message played and I found myself laughing at the fact that God definitely has a sense of humor. The timing of this really knocked me for a loop and I found myself thinking, "Oooo, I get an international prospect too? What are the odds of that? Too funny!"

I love irony. I immediately became distracted with laughter, didn't submit my comment on Paddy's post and promptly replayed my messages thinking that I might be getting spoofed by Mandycap. She's good. I have to be very careful. She fooled Richard and he's a lot smarter than I am. Believe you me, that little understatement says a lot (LOL). On the second go around I paid really close attention to the caller's accent while checking the area code on-line and oh my word - a legitimate number. My brain stopped working for a whole minute.

Wow...

My mouth dropped open. It's a real number from Canada. Hmm... what a yummy thought...

The only Canadian I know is the gorgeous Liz Moras and she lives all the way over on the other side. This is not a Pacific Coast spoof! So of course I had to immediately call Melody Botting and my Canadian gal pal Liz, after all, it is an Active Rain Canadian relocation. How do I know? It's where the majority of my Google juice comes from. Gotta share the good news with my Club Chaos girlfriends and the rest of the CC family after I confirm where the prospect got my number from. I am soooo excited! I'm like a little kid when I start Skyping people. I can stay on that thing all day while I am blogging with my headset on. The ladies and I had mad fun doing a quickie catch up game of phone tag and then I returned my prospect's call ready to handle her business once I realized it was a serious call and no one was prankin' me.

What a sweet woman. I was very happy to enjoy our brief but most delightful conversation. What an interesting accent! I wonder what a native New Yorker sounds like to a Canadian... hmm... but I digress... :-) After conducting a brief preliminary interview to discover what the family required, being the Curious George Realtor that I am, of course I had to ask, "how on earth did you find me?" I don't know why I was surprised to hear it, I expected it, assumed it to be true, but knew there was always the possibility that it just might be a referral... Woo-hoo! Ding, ding, ding! I was very pleased to discover she found me right here on-line. I guess I just didn't realize the Canadians were paying me any attention (LOL). How cool is that? I think it is absolutely awesome!

I love Richard Weisser's post about blogging being his business plan. I am so down with the AR-Blog program, SEO and getting on board with great ideas from veterans like him. I am happy to report that I absolutely love sharing my thoughts with my friends and having AR adventures with my children. Blogging about life and real estate is very easy to do when you care about your subject matter and the people you choose to share yourself with.

I love Active Rain. For me, it is all about the relationships and sharing ideas. I brag that you guys are my "mastermind group" and Club Chaos is my personal think tank (LOL). I have always believed that networking follows eventually (when people get to know a little bit about you and become comfortable with what they experience and learn). I do not know how long this family has been planning to relocate. I do know that with over 4 million Realtors the Jin family selected me. What an honor. I am so looking forward to starting a new set of friendships with this family. They are driving down from Canada tonight and we will be spending a little time together tomorrow and Saturday.

I feel like giving my pal Richard a virtual high five and sticking my digital tongue out at that rude agent who belittled his wonderful posts, business model, SEO efforts and dedication to blogging. It's positive moments like this that make me wonder why so many professionals who don't understand the benefits of blogging and Search Engine Optimization feel the need to attack us. Blogging is a crucial business practice. Google popped me right to the top of the list because of my Club Chaos activities (not to mention following the Amanda Hall rules of serial commenting - LOL).

Thank you AR Dudes (and Claire).

(BTW, the little minions 8, market reports 2, just in case you are following along with Paddy P and keeping score of my 2008 AR client stats.) I can not imagine living without my Club Chaos family, my R.E. Coach and accountability partner, my AR Mentors, my Localism blog, my Outside Blog, Mixpo and Active Rain. They all link back to TannStarr.com and have helped me revise my business model as an independent contractor so I can rise to a higher level of inter-dependent networking.

I know what's driving my marketing plan. Hey Anti-Blogger, what's driving yours?

http://www.TannStarr.com