Marysville, WA

Sitting here in Marysville appreciating a work of art in our home...

This weekend I spent several hours with two teenagers creating the perfect gingerbread house. The siblings who constantly fight, stopped and worked up a "peace treaty" for the purpose of creating a masterpiece.

B and R each took over one side of the house, half of the roof, and either the front or back. They had 100% creative license to do anything they wanted to. While their parents watched, these two constant fighters cooperated.

The end result was a terrific piece of art. Both kids complimented each other upon a finished product...

Amazing what people can do when they rely on each other to finish a task, or to find common ground. If two teenagers can get along for three hours of creative food art, maybe we can one day have world peace....

Homes for Good have five new affordable rental homes that will soon be available in Maryville. Homes for Good, is a non profit organization providing assistance for families with children who have lost their homes to foreclosure and are at risk of being homeless.

Income Eligibility and Rent:

These homes are restricted to families in Snohomish County at or below 50% of the areas Median Income. For a family of 3, annual income would be $37,950 or below. Rent levels are set in compliance with HUD Home “Low Rent” levels, approximately $1,095 for a 3 bedroom homes. Rent includes utilities.

How it Works:

Home For Good's Equity First program offers participants the opportunity to live in the home of their choice now and then purchase the home for the same price as Home For Good originally paid for it, up to two years later, with a fixed, low interest rate assumable mortgage.

Each participant accepted into the program works through an individualized Home Buyer Action Plan designed to enable the participant to qualify for the conventional mortgage at the earliest possible opportunity during a two-year period. All mortgages are placed in Fannie Mae approved conventional loans at 30 or 40 year terms with fixed interest rates.

What Happens to Families After Loosing Their Homes to Foreclosure?

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, the overwhelming majority (76.2% of those experiencing foreclosure…were staying with families or friends. More than half (54.5%) stated that people were going to emergency shelters. Even more alarming, 41.6% of families who lost their homes were already living on the streets.

How to Apply:

Contact Homes For Good at 425-672-9098

Online Applications

Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation regarding Keller Williams models. For anyone familiar with KW, there is a model and/ or system for everything. The red book (MREA), the blue book (MREI), the white book (Shift), etc.. It is an incredibly powerful and dynamic system in which a company of 70,000+ agents are working and bettering themselves around a standard of models and systems which at their core are developed from International in Austin, TX; however, through diverse marketplace collaboration, constant interaction and a commitment to the individual agents the models are continually improved and developed. This is an incredibly powerful and insightful system which is currently unmatched it the industry and really has become the standards from which many great agents operate both in and out of the company. So you are still wondering what is the model? Well there are lots of them, but there seems to be a couple predominant models in the industry.

1) Broker Centric Model; where the goal is growth of the brokers brand and the agents serve the brokers vision on a business level. In exchange the broker typically touts success for agents because of the brand and offers training and various other services.

2) The Discount Model (often a desk fee model) where through economy of scale the agents are able to build a low cost brand while the broker is also able to meet his business needs through renting desks. This model does not offer any support, but on the surfaced would appear to be the least expensive. The comparison in agent lingo might be a flat fee listing vs a full service listing.

3) Agent Centric Model; this is somewhat of a hybrid between the two models and Keller Williams is the only company I know operating in this model. KW is really a training company that sells real estate. A quick review of www.KWConnect.com makes this very clear and this is definitely one of the value propositions to being a KW associate. KW also empowers and encourages agent branding; not company branding. KW agents participate in company growth and expense decisions through a leadership council (short of like a board of directors in the corporate world). Agents are individually incentivize for their efforts to grow the company through a profit sharing system where owner profits are split with the agents - oh, and after 3 years your profit share is vested and becomes a source of passive income. Essentially, this hybrid model has aligned agent motivation with that of the owners in terms of growth while also encouraging and teaching agents how to turn their agent brand into a business that develops into another source of passive income. Real Estate becomes the vehicle to achieve all other goals; much more than a job. The best part is that it's easy if you just follow the models! The last and most important piece of this model is the culture around which the company operates. The only way to truly understand this value is to experience it. I touched on this value proposition in my previous post.

I thought I better write this while I still remember what it's like to be in a broker centric model.

So I am found.. A few years ago as a budding real estate professional I was introduced to the book, "The Millionaire Real Estate Agent" by Gary Keller. Since then I have found success in various aspects of the real estate industry from residential sales focused on military buyers to luxury sales in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. However; the vision of wealth through real estate always seemed to be precluded by something that was missing, and until now it has been difficult for me to put a finger on the specifics. As fate would have it, I was recently given an opportunity to revisit the Keller Williams model and what I found was what the others are missing. A support structure and culture that is driven from the top with a true understanding and focus on empowering the individual associate. At the end of the day, Keller Williams Realty is modeled around supporting the dreams of its agents - however they are manifested.

WI4C2TS: Win-Win, Integrity, Customers 1st, Commitment, Communication, Creativity, Teamwork, Trust Success!

Who better to explain than Gary himself...

I just read Ken Blanchard's book "Raving Fans" and learned much! Since it was such a great, eye-opening read, I wanted to share the "Gold Nuggets" of wisdom:

Do not attempt to completely change how you currently do things in your organization. Simply add one small step at a time- The Rule of 1%...... Change how you are doing things by 1%....soon you will be creating raving fans out of your customers!

I highly recomend the next book you read to be Ken Blanchard's Raving Fans..... It is a short book, and reads in a storytelling manner that is easy to follow and impacting....

No matter what business you are in, this book will help transfomr your customers into raving fans!