Categoriescommunity service, Home selling, info for buyers, info for home owners, Metropolist, Seattle Real Estate, Seattledigs, Washington real estate

Why Brokers Are Joining Metropolist During a Crisis

Real Estate is profound work; a noble offering to the community we live in. When I do my job, the city I love thrives because the families I serve thrive. The trajectory of lives and generations is altered when we help people become homeowners for the first time, or sell property to move them into a new chapter of their life story. This pandemic-induced pause is offering us an invitation to think creatively and support one another. Seattle will be revived, and I am extending an invitation for you to join Metropolist for us to grow collectively.

Why should you consider joining Metropolist during a crisis?

Metropolist cares about the health of your business because we care about the health of Seattle; we care about you. As a broker myself, my job is to serve you so you can continue serving the people you care about. When I’m healthy, I have more energy to offer my family and my clients. I want the same for you.

Seasoned broker, Sarah Georger-Clark joined Metropolist in February this year. We asked her what the transition has been like for her.

“Here, I am energized. I have the freedom to express my personal brand and infuse who I am into the work I do. Metropolist is first about relationships; they are generous with their time and encourage collaboration to foster success, so every agent is able to best serve our clients.”
Read more from Sarah

Did you know that 42% of brokers with 6+ years experience make less than $5OK?
Brokers at Metropolist with 6+ years experience make $142K.

Unparalleled support.

At Metropolist, we operate at a high level of connection and collaboration. I don’t know about you, but I need the accountability–more some days than others!

  • Join our weekly Production Meeting on Zoom, Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. Email our concierge for your exclusive access to all of our broker-community-at-large learning opportunities.

We welcome vulnerability; that means we want you to come as you are–crisis-exhausted and looking for a place to refuel–and discover new ways to show up in your business despite current stressors.

To quote my favorite thought-leader, Brené Brown, “I define vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty; it is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.”

Education like no other.

What are you currently missing in your business? What are your struggles?

  • Education at Metropolist is customizable.
    The Metropolist Method is our approach to broker support. Every Monday, we offer virtual Skills and Contracts classes where we dive deeply into the minutiae of real estate’s necessary evils—that industry paperwork that can overwhelm us time and time again.We dissect topics so they are easy to understand and provide plenty of support to navigate with ease. I can guarantee a room of cheerleaders to encourage you when you want to throw your hands up. We won’t let you give up.
  • Clock hour classes at no cost to you—ever.
    Our Learning Lab is a Washington State accredited real estate school that offers a variety of clock-hour classes to area brokers. Metropolist agents receive access to these classes for FREE, giving you countless opportunities to learn, grow, and thrive in your business.Check out our upcoming, unboring Real Estate classes in our Learning Lab and sign up today!

Metropolist is focused on you. We will not capitalize on your fears. When you join us, we encourage you to bring who you are to the table so we can provide the best tools and resources just for you.

“Metropolist is there for agents the way I am there for my clients. For me, it was a big decision; a refreshing change for my business and personal life.”
-Sarah Georger-Clark

We stand out.

Don’t join Metropolist because of the crisis. Join us because of a change of heart; because you are ready to grow your business and yourself in new ways. I don’t want you perpetually worried about finances, wondering how your business is going to survive a crisis, because I don’t want that for myself. I am here to help you. We all are.

Learn the method. Join the madness.

Come to Metropolist if you want to connect with new and seasoned agents, sharpen your skills, add more resources to your toolkit, and stay accountable and excited about the business you love. Email me today and let’s chat about what’s important to you as you consider the next steps in your career.

We are agents of change, and we’re here to help you make a move.

by Chad Zinda, Designated Broker

Categoriescommunity service, economy, info for home owners, Seattle, Washington real estate

Top Skills to Develop During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In these truly unprecedented times, it is easy to lose focus with your business. One of the best ways to combat this is by learning new skills and expanding the products you currently offer your clients.

Whether it be virtual home tours or learning how to utilize your Instagram account more effectively, there are numerous ways you can be a resource for your clients while stuck at home. Here are some useful tips:

Expand Your Digital Offerings
Perhaps nothing is more important right now than expanding what you currently offer your clients online. One of the most popular avenues real estate professionals are going down is providing virtual home tours. However, targeted Facebooks ads and virtual staging are others that are worth looking into or expanding upon if you already offer them. These are important products to be comfortable with as they’re becoming more and more popular.

Beef Up Your Social Media Presence
It is crucial that you’re at your clients’ disposal for most of the day. Being more diligent about answering texts, phone calls and emails is very important, but perhaps just as important is keeping up with engagement on your social media accounts. During this pandemic, your current and prospective clients will have a lot of questions. Many people may message you via Instagram or comment on your Facebook posts with inquiries. Get in the habit now of responding to these folks daily, as this is a skill that will be valuable to your business even after this moment is well past us.

Look to the Future
Take some time this weekend to really reflect on how you and your business reacted to the coronavirus outbreak. Very few people were ready for what happened (and what continues to impact our businesses), but that doesn’t mean you can’t be ready should this ever occur again. Additionally, take advantage of some of the numerous free webinars that are currently being offered online which speak to this topic. The goal is to come out of this period with more skills that’ll leave you better prepared for the future.
Agents, in what other ways are you learning and developing new skills during this pandemic?

Jameson Doris is RISMedia’s social media/blog editor. Email him your real estate news ideas at [email protected].

Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash

Categoriescommunity service, emergency preparedness, info for buyers, info for home owners, Seattle, Seattle neigborhoods, Washington real estate

How to Maintain a Positive Mindset During a Pandemic

My business partner and Designated Broker at Metropolist, Chad Zinda,  takes a deeper look positivity in these trying times:

When the quarantine first started, I was determined to be available to the whole Metropolist team; from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., I was making sure everyone else was okay and had what they needed to succeed. But then the stay-at-home order was issued, stretching us into unknown territory, and my routine was no longer sustainable. Flight attendants tell us the same thing before every flight. Put on your own oxygen mask first. I was struggling to find a new routine because I was too busy making sure everyone else could breathe.

You know those rumble strips on the road for truckers that wake them up if they begin to drift off? I was hitting those every day, earlier and earlier. Something had to change.

I turned to the most valuable activity, my trusted companion, exercise–of the body and of the mind–and I turned off the news. In the beginning, I was watching the news constantly. My screen time notification told me I was looking at my phone 30% more. And that time was spent consuming all bad news. I needed to reset if I was going to achieve a positive mindset.

Best Practices

  1. Notice how you are feeling. Identify your emotions.
  2. Ask your family and friends how they are doing. Listen. Ask how you can help. The state of our collective mental health deserves our attention.
  3. Learn something new. Remind yourself of your purpose.
  4. Be a good neighbor. Help your community thrive.

Resources & Activities

    • Brian Buffini is a Broker Coach and he has a great podcast.
    • Brené Brown leads with vulnerability and courage, and she can help you do the same.
    • I create and share weekly videos with my team via Mailchimp
    • I attend weekly classes to garner new business ideas and refine my skills to assist my productivity and keep me accountable.

In her podcast, Brené Brown says that when we are in crisis mode we either over- or under-function. I over-function. The key is self-care; to start with yourself. This pandemic is scary, and sad. We are experiencing a loss. We are all grieving “the way it was” and we are all dealing with it differently. It is okay to mourn. But I also have to remind myself that we won’t always be isolated and we won’t always feel this level of disconnection.

If you need a reminder of your purpose and new connections to motivate you, you are welcome to join us for our weekly production meeting every Wednesday at 10 am. We have tools and support to offer you to help you survive and thrive during COVID19 and beyond. Email me at [email protected] and I will send you an invitation so we can get back to business together.

By Chad Zinda

Photo by http://www.diwasphotography.com/

Categoriescommunity service, emergency preparedness, info for buyers, info for home owners, Seattle neigborhoods, Seattle schools, Washington real estate

How to Help Home-Bound Teenagers Cope

Stay-at-home restrictions are challenging for everyone, especially teenagers.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, teens – who would normally just be starting to enjoy life as independent beings in the world – are suddenly back under the purview of mom and dad. To make matters worse, many teens have had something extremely important to them suddenly ripped away: a lead in the school play, a varsity spot on the team, prom, graduation, a part-time job, etc. On top of that, their all-important social life is now off limits as well.

What’s a parent to do? While nothing will come close to replacing the life your teenager had been living, here are a few strategies to help your teen cope:

Make sure they’re informed. Teens are masters of disguising their true feelings, so don’t misread their cool demeanor as apathy. They might be getting the bulk of their information through social media, which is not always accurate and may be causing undue alarm. Be sure to calmly keep them apprised of the developments surrounding the coronavirus, explaining why the restrictions are important. Don’t withhold information out of fear of worrying them. Listen to a trusted news source together so that the information is coming directly from the experts, not their “overreacting” parents.

Give them a social outlet. It’s critical that your teenager is still able to connect with friends during this time. Encourage social distancing activities they can do with a friend, such as hiking, running or biking. Let them take the car to a nearby scenic spot and hang out side-by-side with a friend in another car. Give them privacy to use the family computer to host a Zoom “meeting” or Google hangout with multiple friends. At all costs, make sure your wifi is up to snuff so that your teens can easily text, use social media and Facetime to stay connected.

Help them earn money. Your teenager may be depressed about losing a job, but you can easily come up with some jobs around the house for your teen to take on to earn some money. Have them help you with some small tasks related to your job while you’re working from home, or a project that will get them outside, such as spring yard clean-up. While the financial incentive is a big plus, the real benefit is getting their minds focused on something other than the situation at hand.

Keep student athletes in shape. While staying active is essential for all teens in this situation, it’s particularly important for your student athlete who is used to a rigorous work-out schedule, and could respond negatively to suddenly being sedentary. Check in with coaches to see if they’ve put a work-out schedule in place or are perhaps hosting online group workouts. Remind your athlete that keeping their fitness level up is essential so that they can return to sports without missing a beat.

Embrace family time. While the hectic pace of life before the pandemic might have made you and your teenager ships that pass in the night, you’ve now got lots of time together, so make the most of it. Eat meals together, binge watch a series together, play cards, get the old photo albums out, etc. The idea is to make sure your teenager doesn’t stay holed up all day in his or her room. So make some interactive time mandatory.

Photo by Steinar Engeland on Unsplash

Categoriescommunity service, economy, emergency preparedness, info for buyers, info for home owners, Seattle neigborhoods, Washington real estate

These Days We’re All Staying In – But We Can Still Show Up

By April Critchfield

I interact with a lot of real estate teams and their coaches on a daily basis. I see what they’re doing to stand out in their respective markets, and I see how they are always coming up with new and exciting ways to implement the working basics of real estate into their businesses.

That’s why, when our country recently started dealing with the most unprecedented changes due to COVID-19, I was anxious to see what they would do to keep their momentum, while staying safe and practicing social distancing.

It was no surprise to me that it was almost an effortless shift. The team leaders, coaches and clients of Workman Success Systems have always had the ability to work remotely, and for the most part, do work remotely. So, when offices started to close and people were starting to keep their distance, the social connection and client communication never stopped.

New “best practices” for virtual open houses and listing appointments started to emerge, and it wasn’t lost on me that the people I have been working with put immense thoughtfulness into every action they took, from hosting virtual walk-throughs to putting their own clients at ease and genuinely listening to their concerns about the next steps to take with their own real estate decisions.

At a time where communication could be so easily lost, I have heard about more tips, tools and opportunities to connect than ever before. We live in a digital world, and it’s sometimes so easy to just send a text message or “like” someone’s status update, but today, and especially now, it’s not enough. Adding the “extra touch,” sending a handwritten note to dropping off some toilet paper and hand sanitizer on someone’s doorstep, is showing that you’re actually thinking of that person.

The common theme so far has been to keep moving forward—keep working, and keep your focus. Have compassion and empathy for those whose opinions differ from yours. (We are still all entitled to our own opinions, after all.) With the shifting world around us, we just need to be creative to keep our communication lines open.

If you’re wondering how to move forward with your own real estate business, or you have questions about coaching, I invite you to connect with us! We’re all in this together. What has been working for you? Please don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments below.

Please stay safe and here’s to your health!

April Critchfield works with real estate team leaders and coaches and is a team member of Workman Success Systems in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is also a REALTOR® in Utah. Contact her at [email protected]. For more information about real estate teams, or real estate coaching, please visit www.WorkmanSuccess.com.

Categoriescommunity service, info for buyers, info for home owners, Seattle, Seattle neigborhoods

Best apps to use in Seattle, WA

Known for being the largest city in the Pacific Northwest with a land area of 83.7 square miles, Seattle can be overwhelming. Thankfully, there are a number of apps that can make life easier if you’re in Seattle. Whether it’s finding your way around the city or deciding on what restaurant to dine in, these mobile apps will be your guide:

1. OneBusAway

Get real-time transit information for Seattle, Tacoma, and the Puget Sound with OneBusAway. This helpful app provides you with the schedule of selected public transit vehicles in those areas, along with its routes and stops.

2. Parkopedia

Find the perfect parking spot with Parkopedia, a comprehensive app that tells you where to park in Seattle. Users can simply enter their current location or an address and the app will provide the parking space availability in real time.

3. Pay by Phone

Pay by Phone allows you to pay for your parking in seconds. All you need to do is download the app (it’s available on both Android and iOS), enter the location code of the area you want to park in, and indicate how long you’ll be parking for. You can even extend your parking hours anytime.

4. Seattle Times Mobile

The Seattle Times is the largest and longest-running newspaper in Washington state. The award-winning newspaper’s mobile app keeps you up-to-date with the latest local, national, and international news. Users can only access 15 articles per month for free or pay $9.99 per month to continue reading.

5. KING 5

For the latest local news, weather, traffic, and sports, check out the KING 5 app. Known for being a major news source in the Pacific Northwest, it has everything from breaking news to live-streaming newscasts.

6. Yelp

There’s only one way to find the best restaurants in Seattle: Yelp. Using the GPS on your phone, you’ll be directed to the city’s top restaurants and cafes. You can also filter your search by location, price, cuisine, and reviews.

7. Cocktail Compass

If you’re looking for the best bars or the nearest place to grab a drink, let Cocktail Compass tell you where. The free mobile app lets you search for bars in your area and provides you with the necessary photos, reviews, and directions to that particular watering hole.

Cocktail Compass also has a Happy Hour Countdown that shows you the nearest bars with a happy hour and how fast you need to get there before perks and freebies end.

8. Seahawks

Stay up-to-date with the latest Seattle Seahawks news, photos, and videos. The Seahawks app includes live updates, real-time stats and standings, and a schedule of the team’s upcoming games. You can even view, transfer or sell your Seahawks tickets through the app’s mobile ticketing feature.

The Seahawks mobile app is available for iPhone, Android, and iPad.

There’s no doubt that Seattle is one of the best cities to live in. Learn more about life in Seattle and its real estate offerings by getting in touch with Metropolist, email at [email protected].

Categoriescommunity service, events, going green, Seattle, Seattle neigborhoods, Uncategorized

Don’t Be a Stranger in Your Community

Have you been craving some more community involvement or some new friends here in Seattle?

Feeling like an outsider in your own neighborhood can be intimidating whether you are new to the area or thinking of branching out. You might be moving from a close knit community into an undiscovered one, leaving you feeling down in the dumps.

Sunset released an article that shares creative ways to help establish a community or contribute to an already existing one.

No matter your situation, if you become active in your neighborhood, you are sure to be appreciated and more connected.

Categoriescommunity service, events, Seattle

500 Bags Project – A great success!

We had a great time during our annual event to help some of the most vulnerable people in Seattle, those without a place to all home. We named it the 500 Bags Project this year. Who knows, maybe it will be 5000 Bags next year!

We are so thankful to have received some great media coverage and hope that it helps increase the donations for next year. Will keep you posted when we are ready to start collecting!

KIRO 7 interviewed me for a feature about the homeless problem in Seattle and our project. And KING 5 caught some tap of Jennifer Nelson. Great stuff!

Visit our Metropolist FB page if you ever want to check in on what we are up to and see if you can join in on the fun.

 

 

Categoriescommunity service, events

Habitat Build-A-Thon

One of the best things I’ve ever done was to spend 8 days in Baton Rouge a few years ago to build houses with Habitat for Humanity.  It was an amazing week of heat & humidity, rain, wind and a lot of hard work.  By the end of the week I’d been dubbed the “Realtor on the Roof”.  I met a lot of great people and got a real sense of satisfaction from the experience that has informed my ideas of community contribution moving forward.

Habitat helps create affordable housing for families in need all over the world every year.  So far they’ve built over 300,000 homes and counting.  But you don’t have to travel to participate!

The local Seattle chapter of Habitat for Humanity is holding a building-a-thon this month and they need your help.  If you don’t have time to volunteer right now then you can sponsor another person by pledging money toward their work hours.

Click here for details!

Please forward this to your friends and thank you for your support of this great organization.

Warm Regards,

Domenica
Windermere Real Estate

Categoriescommunity service, Windermere

Community Service Day

Our work is not about houses.  It’s about people.

We’re in the business of selling houses.  But more importantly, we’re helping people find a place they can call home.  Our commitment to service extends beyond each real estate transaction.  Every year since 1984, Windermere associates have skipped work for a day to complete neighborhood improvement projects.

Community Service Day is a great opportunity to give back to the communities where we live and work. In past years, our office has worked to clean and landscape several local schools, stretches of Alki Beach, and parks in need of extra attention.  Each office selects a project that best serves its community needs.

This year, our office is doing a large scale food drive for the West Seattle and White Center food banks.  On Wednesday June 16, we will be delivering bags to as many doorsteps in West Seattle as we can.  On Friday June 18, we will be back to collect any donations our West Seattle neighbors contribute.  In addition, our clients can drop off food donations at our office (4526 California Ave SW, 98116) Monday-Thursday next week or at the High Point Community Center (6920 34th Ave SW, 98126) on Friday between 9am-noon.

After all, real estate is rooted in our communities.  And an investment in our neighborhoods gives us all a better place to call home.

Warm Regards,

Domenica
Windermere Real Estate