The lawn project

I’m all grown up now

I picked all the suits today and they fit and make me look great. I’m going to kill it at tomorrow’s listing appt.

Upgraded the Work Wardrobe

I finally took the next in 2013′s business plan, upgrading the work wardrobe. It was a decision I fought for so long because I am so comfortable, more personally than anything, in jeansm shirts, and a pair of boots. But with a little prodding from Joy, friends, and some colleagues I made the shift to buy a couple sports jackets, slacks, shirts, and a nice pair of shoes.

As a Marysville real estate agent it is important I look the part as to match the personna and professional I strive generate at every appointment. The biggest hurdle for a new wardrobe was that a more formal looking dress makes me feel stuffy- well it used too. Now I think I’ll feel more professional and confident in every situation and not get caught off guard in a shitty t-shirt and some worn out jeans.

I went to the Men’s Warehouse because the commercials are engrained into my head and Nordstroms breaks my wallet so much each time I shop their. Well, that is it for and hopefully this part of my plan works out.

My new listing Marysville

Toby Barnett | Keller Williams Realty NWRE LLC | toby@barnettassociates.net | (360) 653-1884 9708 59th Dr NE, Marysville, WA Huge Home and a Great Price 5BR/1+1BA Single Family House offered at $214,500 Year Built 1978 Sq Footage 22,662 Bedrooms 5 Bathrooms 1 full, 1 partial Floors 2 Parking 3 Uncovered spaces Lot Size 6,098 sqft HOA/Maint $5 per month DESCRIPTION Located in the heart of Marysville, this Rolling Greens home has excellent location to town, freeway and highways to commute to Boeing, the Navy base, or one of Everett’s many hospitals. The Rolling Greens neighborhood also has a huge neighborhood park that is accessible via walking trails. In addition to excellent location, this Rolling Green split level has been nicely updated. The home features a open floor plan with the kitchen looking into the dining and family room for easy entertaining or just pleasant daily routines. Off the dining room, access the deck for barbequing while enjoying backyard views and Mother’s Nature Window. The master and two guest bedrooms are on the upper floor with downstairs having a huge bonus room, went bar (which can be converted back to a bathroom), two additional bedrooms, and a partial garage conversion with plenty of storage space. This home is priced to sell and will bring its new owners great value at an affordable price. Don’t miss this opportunity. see additional photos below PROPERTY FEATURES - Dining room - Family room - Master bath - Mud room - Dishwasher - Garbage disposal - Refrigerator - Balcony, Deck, or Patio - Fenced yard - Sprinkler system - Yard - Double pane windows - Guest parking - RV parking - Fireplace - Hardwood floor - Wet bar ADDITIONAL PHOTOS Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4 Photo 5 Photo 6 Photo 7 Photo 8 Photo 9 Photo 10 Photo 11 Photo 12 Photo 13 Photo 14 Photo 15 Photo 16 Photo 17 Contact info: Toby Barnett Keller Williams Realty NWRE LLC toby@barnettassociates.net (360) 653-1884 For sale by agent/broker Posted: Jan 9, 2013, 1:25pm PST

In flight to Vegas

I am finally leaving to Las Vegas for the my 3rd annual Pubcon conference. Even though I am excited to learn new SEO as well as corrective SEO, I have the desire to be with my girlfriend. It’s not that I’m already home sick; it’s just that she arrived back Saturday from a weeks trip to Alanta. Needless to say we didn’t spend much time together between our two trips and I met up with Jake for the Seahawks Game.

Saturday, Upon picking up Joy and her girls, I ran into my dad at the airport. Not strange, however, when it was unplanned and sheir coincedence. Dad drove down his wife’s son so he could pick up his fiance and new baby who just flew in from Rio. It is still odd to have a step brother even though I consider him my dad’s wife’s son. Guess I’m still not willing to accept I have more than one brother – LOL.

The rest of Saturday was just as good as the morning and Joy, the girls, and I drove home slowly taking in the sites and stopping and stores for Halloween decorations. After a few stops we finally made it home and we all set up our spooking decor – my job being outside in the cold. LOL its cool as I started to sweat and I enjoy outside. We still have to get pumpkins and I hoping Joy and the girls can wait till I return since I really enjoy doing stuff with them. A very different thought process I once had.

Random Thought [inflight cheezits are good]

In 2012, I took a few vacations and have done tons of stuff: Arizona, Soap Lake and Sun Lakes, Moses Lake (for a waterpark), Kelso, a handful fo trips to the mountain, Lake Cavanaugh, crabbing on the Sound, and … hmmm … probably look at Facebook and get more to the list. Oh yea, Zombie shooting in Snohomish. So I’m definitely not hurting in the travel and fun department.

Random Thought: [the guy seated infront of me has odd skin]

Now that I am airborn, and have sometime to kill, I am running through my new Motorola XYBoard. Pretty sexy machine I might add with a bluetooth keyboard. The mouse stick embedded in the keyboard is tough to use and its faster just to stick a finger to the screen and mouse around instead of moving that little stick with my sausage fingers. So far I’m pretty impressed by the load speed of applications, the fluidiness in applications, and how thin the tablet is. I opted to tether the 4g to my Verizon account versus buying a mobile hotspot – less shit to worry about especially if I am showing homes.

As a real estate broker, I damn near have a Batman utility belt. One surprise I did have and not sure why, is I thought I would have to ahve a 4g phone to add a 4g device on my account. Nope, but it will take a moment to get used to not doing emails on my phone. However, setting up and exchange server between all these gadgets would nice as to not confuse what message have been followed up with and when instead of looking at each device or always cc’ing myself.

Random Thought: [flight attendents are nice - Southwest]

As we approach the halfway mark of a 2:15 minute flight from Seattle to Las Vegas I think I will save other thoughts for future blogs. Cheers!

Shifting Real Estate Market

Snohomish County's Mid Year Recap
by: goingbigger

Real life can be a struggle

When real life gets hard the only thing left to do in soldier on. Or at least that is what I’m telling myself. As a Marysville real estate broker, I enjoy the benefits of self employment. Whether that is selling enough homes to take time and go skiing or work my butt off to hopefully get a home sold. Right now its the latter with a big struggle on 2 deals, both in Marysville, that have financing issues, roof leaks, and an inability to have title insurance.

To make work more challenging because I don’t have enough to do already, I’ve started working on a new relocation page for hospitals in Everett. The meat and potatoes are there, that sounds good as I’m starving, with all the main hospitals there yet during my research many more turned up. Mostly smaller private practice clinics that may eventually make there way to the list. The page is all text, which is el boring so tomorrow, since it is sunny, I’m going out to take photos – I’ll probably post a few on Facebook as well.

Also, I haven’t seen my girlfriend, other than lunch yesterday, since Sunday. That sounds like an easy fix yet I’ve been enjoying staying at my place. Since we have been dating, just over a year, I stay a lot at her house because she has two little girls and a dog. Where as my place has nothing and its quiet small – similar to my Kirkland studio. It doesn’t sound like a big deal just to drive to Arlington to see her yet when I live out of a backpack and drive during my job it sucks to get off work and hoof to another town (distance has ended a few my relationships). Needless to say it’s wearing on me. In one year she has stayed one time at my place. Sometimes I find it odd yet can understand. The guy with no kids has to make all the sacrifices.

We also discussed what it would look like if we got married and so far nothing for her would change yet everything in my life. Another big thing is where would all my stuff go? More likely in box her garage or my storage unit. A depressing thought. So who knows where it will as I really like her and don’t want to loose her yet if there isn’t balance I will end up loosing it and walking away from the relationship. Since I’m venting, she can be bossy.

Well that makes me feel a bit better getting it off my fat chest – yes – I’ve put on a few pounds as of late.

Marysville real estate and business update

The ski season is about over for me and haven’t made any more videos. I’ve been working on a mashup with the footage from the year and I have a short clip that I need to put up but unfortunately I’m terrible with video editing software.

The last time I went skiing was at the beginning of January yet the good news is I’ve been super busy with work and generating more real estate business for myself and our team. The latest project has been to team up with Jeff Latham with his plat the Marysville Meadows in north Marysville. This project is really exciting since I get to partner with a top in agent in the office and enhance current strategies to further build and grow business.

Tangent Thought: I should customize this blog even more as it is pretty plain but plugins are not allowed.

Part of the marketing I’ve been doing is blogging about the plat to help build traction to the page and it is definelty in my interest to do so. It was agreed that a portion of the sales generated from each lead will come back to me in the form of a referral. So who was once a competitor is now a partner in business. Booyao! I love it.

Well I better get back to work as I need to contact some clients and shoot some emails out. Peace out.

Past the first exam

Well I am finally about to do it; receive my real estate license. Monday, after finishing the course work, I sat down and took the course exam and passed with no problem. But now it off to take the State exam on Friday with the hopes that I pass the first time around and then these last three years of real estate experienced will be put to good use.

 

It really helped getting through the course working in the administrative role and learning the terminology. Now it applying the business degree and slang houses like crack…hehehe…that would be nice but unlikely in the real estate upheaval we are experiencing. That is all for me.

A contest within the real estate community…check it out.

Even though I have been looking at new jobs I still have a love for the real estate industry and the comings and going in it, especially when it comes the SEO side. There is a contest, and to us Spacers this is no new thing, to rank #1 on Google for the keyword Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World.

 

A little history about this contest. It was the brain child of Eric Blackwell (EricOnSearch) and REW (Real Estate Webmasters). The first post I seen was on RealEstate.Propeller.com, a site similar to Digg.com, and then I started back tracing it to the original posts. Now the contest has some worth to it in my opinion but has to be taken with a grain of salt. It is highly unlikely that the term would be used by a potential client to search for a real estate agent but it is proving to be a great challenge for people in the real estate industry to test their sites authority, SEO skills and resource availability against a larger community.

 

So what does the winner of the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World contest get? I believe a featured listing on a website as well as the personal recognition that they are skilled at what they do. So if you wondering who is the current leader just go to Google and type in the keyword, minus the quotes, Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World. Let us see who is the best, contest ends May 1, 2008. Check it out if you got a few spare moments while working, that is what I am doing.