I started my real estate career trying to make sure that people got value from me before ever asking people to utilize my services - I call it my "give before you get" philosophy. One way that we have provided benefits to the public is to provide classroom material that targets a variety of buyer and seller viewpoints. When we started 5 years ago our classes were sponsored just by me and my partner, Michael, and we held the classes at the Phinney Neighborhood Center - which was also near our home office. I had been an active member and wanted to give back to my community too.
So, we did that for years and eventually we were asked to provide my partner's most popular class, the "No Fluff Real Estate Investing and Financial Analysis" seminar for an organization that did adult education classes called Discover U. They folded last year for no one knows what reason other than it had been sold, and subsequently closed less than a year later.
Anyhow, we've been looking for ways to get back into it when a fellow AR member, Paul McFadden, suggested we approach Renton Technical College. We had a successful meeting and now are set to provide 8 classes of content for the Spring Quarter!
Topics range and one is even specifically designed just for women. We're pretty excited. What topics did we find timely for today's RE environment? I'll put the titles below to give you an idea.
Why Women Should Buy Real Estate
Short Sales & Foreclosure - Demystifying the process
Selling Your Home in this Market
Getting a Loan Today
Diversify Your Portfolio With Real Estate
Real Estate Investment Analysis
Should I Buy or Sell Now?
Ask the Experts - A Panel Discussion for Real Estate Investors
The great part is that since these topics are malleable in terms of the information we can provide they really don't become stale. We've also been able to address a variety of concerns that the public and our consumers have today. The short sale and foreclosure seminar will be able to speak to both people who are going through the process as well as those that are trying to invest by buying some of these distressed properties.
The class that I'll be most interested to see how it is embraced (or not) is the one for women only. Considering that for many years now the 2nd largest demographic of property purchasers has been single women, it makes sense to give a class targeted specifically to women's issues when buying property.
You can find a list of the classes and sign up information on our www.TeamReba.com website under events or just use this link.
Happy New Year!
I've been talking about this for many years, writing about it again as recently as August 2008, and I've found that the more I get into deep conversations with people we learn that there are closer than 6 degrees of separation between us. They don't even have to be "deep" in the realm of really intimate personal details but more about experiences, hopes, dreams, etc.
Last night was a perfect example.
My partner, Michael, and I decided to stop by two neighboring listings of mine (about half mile apart) and walk our dogs between the two and then hit a new local pizza place called Pizzeria Pulcinella on Rainier Ave S in Seattle in the Lakeridge neighborhood on our way back. While sitting and enjoying our meal, I struck up a conversation with a young lady, Julianna, who happened to be one of the 2 daughters of the owners. Over the course of several questions I asked regarding the restaurant, I also threw in a couple of more personal questions such as, "since you're in college, are you planning on joining the restaurant industry like your parents, or will you do something else?" She replied that she preferred to go into teaching.
Many of my good friends are teachers so I prodded her with more questions which eventually uncovered the focus for her degree is educating special needs kids. Her reason for being so interested in this very specialized area? She had been a caregiver about 3 years ago for a young girl with special needs who had died at the age of 16. This young lady's name who had passed is Devin. The experiences that Julianna had with Devin were so profound that she decided to dedicate her future to working with more children of special needs.
The connection? Devin was a friend to one of our client's children, Alex, who also just passed away in November of 2008. We had just attended his life celebration only 3 weekends ago. Julianna knows both of the mothers, and so do we. Alex's mom, Vicki, is one of our clients and she got us involved in the fundraising efforts of CTC Kids (Children's Therapy Center) which is just for kids with the most severe disabilities and who have more extreme special needs than those of mainstream kids. We've been proud supporters for about 3-4 years now, and while we didn't meet Devin, she had just passed away before we attended our first fundraiser - which made for a very emotional event since her mother, Susie, got up to speak after a very moving video that had been produced over that past year. We'd just seen Susie again at Alex's life celebration so it was interesting to have run into this other connection so soon after. I made sure to pass on to both Vicki and Susie the news of what Julianna was up to and they both were so excited to see my email note to them and to know that their children had had such an impact on another human being/person who had helped care for them.
Seems those skills I use to help clients figure out their hopes and dreams and how those translate into their future are also good for finding close connections.
For me, it was tremendously heartwarming to hear what this young lady had to say. To think, it was only about an hour of off and on conversation that got us to the realization that we had more in common that Michael's love of this family's other restaurant (Vince's in Renton) and pizza. These are the kinds of connections that really make a local place turn into a special place in my mind and heart.
Many of you know that we've supported Treehouse for years in their back to school clothing drive and other activities. One reason I am drawn to this organization is due to the fact that I am adopted, and I know that had my parents not taken me in at the young age of 3 weeks, it would have been very likely that I would have ended up in a foster program.
The kids that are in foster programs need more support than what the state and their foster family can give them. Typically they suffer from lower grades from being moved around, the stress of being in foster care, and this usually results in lower graduation rates - and foster kids, when they "age out" at 18, also have a higher rate of homelessness than any other demographic group (50% or higher). This also increases the likelihood that these kids will end up being the victim of assault, forced prostitution, drug/alchohol abuse, or murder.
As a person who's living revolves around the successful housing of others, and whose own work in non-profit is geared toward lowering the incidence of human trafficking and sexual assault, reaching and supporting these kids in their younger years is imperative to improving their life-long condition.
I hope you'll take a moment to do "a couple of clicks" that won't cost you anything more than a few moments of your time. The annual Strangercrombie contest currently shows only 13% of the votes going to Treehouse. While these are all worthwhile organizations, I hope you'll help support Treehouse in their quest to win this year's generous program. Vote and forward it on!
Cheers,
Rebecca "Reba" Haas
Team Reba of RE/MAX Metro Realty
425-970-3697 office
www.TeamReba.com/blog - for articles on real estate and related topics
I'm a big animal fan and have had domestic pets throughout my life. Dogs are a big part of the household and as someone who has lived in the Seattle area a long time (20 years) I and my 4-legged buddies have benefitted from the off-leash areas that dot the city.
COLA - Citizens for Off-Leash Areas, is the non-profit responsible for these little puppy oasis' in our fair city and in October they hold their biggest fundraising event which is called Dog-o-Ween. And, yes, you guessed it, it's dogs (and now sometimes their owners too) in costumes! It's a great time and there are vendors as well as silent auction events going on at the same time. Food is available and they have a contest for the costumes. Here are a few photos that I've taken over the past few years of some of our pets and those of our friends while at this event.
A friend of mine has a husband that works for this firm, Real Carriage Door Company. They do some beautiful custom work and bring a truly authentic look and feel to the homes that fit the character of the doors they create.
While they recently moved their location to Gig Harbor, WA it seems that their products find their way to areas all over the country. Hence, why I am writing about them on AR, because it's always possible that an agent or consumer in another state might be looking for a custom door or carriage doors for their property. Goodness knows we asked for recommendations on products, contractors, and remodels ALL the time!
Check out the photos in their gallery. It made me want to own a Craftsman or Prairie style home again. But, I'm sticking with my modern one for now and will go that way again some other year. In the meantime, I'll just have door lust...
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