Club Chaos Agents - All Things Hollish, Wacked, and Jacked

I want to take a moment here to wish Jon Washburn ALL the very best in his new and future endeavors. Jon Washburn and Bob Stewart brought me into the rain, gave me shelter during the storm, then encouraged and supported me while I helped them build and grow this great network.

I owe a great deal of my experience and success to these guys for giving me the chance, for supporting me through thick and thin, and for bringing me on board to the AR team and family.  I am forever grateful to them for letting me take deep root in the soil of this great community. 

Thank you Jon for a wonderful journey! May all things good and prosperous be yours and in abundance.  The direction and path you are taking today is exactly where you are suppose to be at this time in your life and during your adventure...

Stay true to your passion my friend... always! Do something "AMAZING!" Crush It!

Today it is official so I'm announcing my new role.  It really is going from "A" to "Z". 

My thought was if I said from "A" to "Z" many of you might figure it out.  I'm sure some of you already have.  I’m excited to announce that I'm now the Industry Outreach Manager at Zillow.

Over these past few days I've spent a great deal of time with some really awesome people learning all about my new company, their culture, the products and services, but most importantly, their passion as a team for helping connect real estate professionals with consumers. 

"I'm 100% confident that I am in the right place and working with the right people and company."

The relationships I've developed here in the rain mean more to me than anything.  I'm so thankful for all I've been blessed with here over the years, and I'm very enthusiastic and excited for what the future holds.  I'm also committed to bringing even more value and meaning to those relationships by sharing new and exciting ways/tools to help you get more business and maximize your efforts while spending less time and money to do it.

I'll continue to work from the greater Bay Area in California, but I'll still be mobile.  I'll be doing many of the same types of things you are used to seeing me do here on ActiveRain.  Social media and marketing training, classes and seminars, webinars, speaking at national events, and providing education and support for the many tech tools, products, and services I can offer you.

Those of you who know me know that I have a passion for sharing real estate technology, widgets, and all that tech-y and useful kinda stuff.  I have written about so many different companies and tools that can help increase your business, save you time or money, or just simplify your life.  There really are lots of choices in real estate both for agents and consumers and I'm feeling positive and confident that I've found a single solution that will serve and bring great value to both sides.

So now it's official, I'm on board, I'm part of the  Z-team and very excited!  As I continue to get adjusted, trained, and adapt to my new role, it will be difficult for me to resist the temptation to want to share everything I learn as I go along.  So I promise I won't fight it, I WILL be sharing.  :-)  I'll open some huge doors of opportunity for many of you, and create some great ways to contribute to your growth and success. 

Fasten your seat-belts, hang on tight because from the "" in Activerain, to the "" in Zillow, it's going to be a fun and exciting ride!  Here's a link to my profile when you need me.  As I've said in the past, and it still holds true today, my door is always open to you and I'm looking forward to our continued growth and successes together!  :-)

I'm excited to announce that I am taking on a new role and change in the Real Estate Industry!  

Over the past few years in my role as Community Manager for ActiveRain, I've learned so much and grown in so many ways.  During this time my role has included helping many thousands of people and that work has been immensely rewarding and exciting.  However, I am now moving to a new place with my career. 

To all my friends at ActiveRain, a big "Thank You" for all your love, support and friendships over the past few years.  I also want to thank the staff and my good friends here inside ActiveRain for all their hard work, and for the passion that they sweat into this network each and everyday.  It's been a wonderful learning experience.  Getting to witness the growth and changes on AR has been an honor and privilege.

I feel blessed to have so many great friends and such a truly authentic extended family here. 

I look forward to telling you all about this new challenge that I have accepted in the days ahead.  I'd spill the beans right now, but I have to head out the door... I'm running off to get married in a couple weeks. Then ActiveBrad's spending his honeymoon in some untold locations.  I am not leaving the AR network or all of my friends and family here, I'm just merging onto a different road up ahead and creating a new and exciting path.

So wish me luck, I'm looking forward to YOUR future as I plan to still be part of it.  :-)

The rest of the scoop coming soon ...to be continued

No matter the path you travel, make a difference in the world and enjoy the Journey...

Well, I have lost the count of the number of offers I received yesterday but they continued to arrive. Proof, once again, that all I have to do is go out of town. I have learned one thing from this experience. When we go to Yellowstone National Park, I will hire another agent to answer the phone, process paperwork and handle negotiations for me because yesterday was a bit overwhelming.

As I stood in the center of the Seattle Aquarium, trying to maneuever into a quiet spot to talk with a lender, some kid ran into me, shrieking about the octopus feeding. I shot a photo of the octopus, but I emailed the wrong photo to myself, so this picture of the puffer fish will need to suffice:

I shot that photo with my BlackBerry camera. If I had brought my Nikon, it would have better photo quality. The Seattle Aquarium is amazing. While it's mostly geared toward kids, it was still a lot of fun. There are several tidepool exhibits where they encourage you to actually touch the stuff in it. With one finger and very gently. I had no idea that uni spines were so hard. You could probably break your foot, not just pierce it, if you stepped on one in the ocean.

Below is another picture:

This is a moon jelly fish. I think it's pooping. These were floating in a gigantic glass arbor over my head and passing by a couple of light sources in the glass structure on either side so you could see them better illuminated. They don't have those long dangly things but instead shoot out hundreds of fine fiber hairs about two- to three-inches long. One of the kids standing by me said he would like to have this exhibit installed over his bed. I could imagine myself counting jelly fish instead of sheep.

I also found myself totally charmed by the sea otters. They live such a life of leisure, twirling about in the water without a care in the world. One of them found a piece of a shellfish and was swimming around on his back, resting the shell bits on its stomach while feeding his face with both hands. Paws? Fins? Then he wiped his face with a quick swipe.

It was sort of chilly in Seattle yesterday. That's why Starbucks was started, I suppose. People need a hot beverage to warm them up. The sun came out about 4:00, and it was actually pretty nice, warm enough to go outside without a sweater.

We stopped at a sausage place to get a sampling of meat products. Some famous place my husband found, Salumi. They make all kinds of salami and a couple of really spicy ones. While we waited in line, I spoke with a woman behind me. She said over the past 12 months, it had rained in Seattle more than 340 days. But my husband said the wettest place in North America is probably somewhere in Alaska which gets 300 days of rain, so that can't be true.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

We collect feedback from our clients.  The story below was sent to me last week.  When I read stories like this it reminds me that we are making a difference in our jobs.  Knowing that we are helping people improve their lives and live their dreams recharges my efforts to do an even better job.

As we head into a new week think about what your clients are saying about you? What do you want them to say?

Keep in mind that the most powerful way to market your business is to have someone else talk about and recommend you.

Here is the story of Pam and Jerry Glaser from Seattle, WA

We took the Fast Track to Foreclosure Training 3-day course in September, led by James Harris, followed by a 3-day mentoring program with Geoff Nowlin.
 
Among other things, the Real Estate Training helped us learn the importance of forming a “Power Team.”  With that information, we were able to create a dream team of contractors, realtors and landscapers. Good people are crucial to your success! The team took us through finding distressed properties and numerous financing options and exit strategies. The mentoring program then allowed us to go deeper into each aspect of real estate investing, such as how to make offers on properties, how to calculate our maximum allowable offer and how to complete paperwork, etc.

Ultimately, the programs gave us the knowledge and confidence to purchase our first investment properties. So far we’ve purchased two properties. The first one--which we fixed up in eight weeks--was able garner $24,200 in net profit for us after being on the market for only two days. The other is now on the market, and we estimate we'll clear $50,000 from our first two sales.  

We've also made an offer on our dream home--an unfinished bank-owned home that’ selling for $250,000 under market value. Once it's finished, we'll have about $250,000 of instant equity.

If we hadn't learned the creative financing techniques from Trump University, we wouldn't have been able to find the cash to purchase it with zero-down.   Our plans are to expand into rentals, starting by renting our current home, and to continue purchasing foreclosures and bank-owned properties, hoping to net $10,000 per month.  

Why did we reach out to Trump University to learn about real estate investing? Our son started college last fall. When the time came to pay for tuition, we looked at the dismal state of the mutual funds where we had our children's college money and, given the amount of loss they had just experienced, knew we couldn't cash it in. We needed another source of income for college. With real estate prices falling, we saw this as our opportunity to jump into real estate investing, and saw Trump University as a vehicle to get us started.  

We certainly didn't want to look back at this time in a few years with regrets, saying ";;;;if we'd only given it a try...";;;;