We are halfway through the year already, and we are not quite sure how that happened?!?

We would love to come on this week and share all about how we are crushing our goals and owning 2022, but that’s not exactly the case. Instead we are here to give ourselves some grace and give you a gentle reminder that it might be time to give yourself some too, if things haven’t gone exactly as planned this year.

Today we are sharing what has happened in our lives personally and professionally, what we have enjoyed this year, why we are feeling like things just haven’t clicked for either of us and how we plan to get ourselves back on track. There is no reason to give up just because life has thrown some curveballs your way and you aren’t where you wanted to be with whatever your goals are. 

You’re still here, you’ve got today, you’ve got the whole rest of the year and there is no reason you can’t make the most out of the time you have. We hope we can hold some space for you today and give you some encouragement to keep going. 

Let's dive in!

You don’t have to look very hard these days to realize the economy has taken a big shift in recent months. Inflation is running rampant, prices on just about everything have gone up, the stock market is down, and of course real estate is not immune from the macro market forces at work. Mortgage interest rates have gone up over the last couple months, and housing inventory is increasing, and the historic hot market we have been in is starting to cool off a little bit. The housing market cooling down is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you’re a buyer. Yes, you are looking at higher interest rates than a year ago, but inventory is inching up, prices are decelerating, not decreasing, and there is less competition. Instead of competing with 15 offers buyers are only competing with 2-4. And guess what? Home inspections are back! This is great for buyers. Sellers on the other hand, you are going to have to do a little more work to sell your house than a year ago. You’re going to have to make sure it’s cleaned up, it presents well, and it’s priced right. All that being said, we are not seeing signs of a major downturn, the market is just moving back to a more neutral place than it has been the last few years. Have no fear, we are here to give you some tips to help guide you to success whether you are buying or selling. Let’s dive in! 

Here in Minnesota our summers are pretty short, and we cherish them deeply, so we are doing a little happy dance over here now that summer has finally arrived. We know summers bring busy schedules with kids out of school, summer vacations, weekends on the lake, and happy hour with friends. It’s easy to want to slack off and let your business fall to the back burner, but in real estate summer is obviously a busy time for buying and selling, and you’ve also got to keep working on building your business. 

We know checking off that summer bucket list is important, as it should be, but as entrepreneurs we still have to find ways to stay productive, not hit that summer slowdown, and make sure we are continuing to fill our pipeline for later in the year when things start to cool off a little bit. One of the biggest things is just simply keeping in touch with clients, making sure you keep yourself on people’s minds, so that even if they don’t need a Realtor this summer when they do need one later in the year you haven’t been forgotten. We hope everyone has had a great start to their summers, and we hope to see you at a happy hour or barbeque somewhere, but for now let’s dive into the show!

Okay Busbench Babes, we are back, and we are diving into another episode about branding your real estate business. If you listened to our episode last week this is sort of a part two of that conversation, so if you missed that one you might want to go back and give that a listen before you get into this one. At the end of last week’s episode we left you with 5 actionable items on how to get started building your brand identity and this week Kristi is going to go deeper on each of those items to give you more detail on how to develop a working brand voice and strategy. This one is packed full of info so you may want to grab a pen and paper and jot some of this down, or write down any ideas you have that come to mind. Let’s dive in!

Branding is something we talk about here on this podcast all the time, and we are talking about it again today. The topic has become almost something of a buzzword, but the reality is establishing your individual brand, or your team brand is crucial to your success in real estate. At this point most people know you need a social media presence, and have probably heard you should be doing videos. It’s great that Realtors are getting on board with social media, but from what we are seeing there is still something being missed. We are seeing a lot of the same thing, and a lot of the individuality is being lost because everyone is following the same advice. On today’s episode get into how to get back to basics of how to make you stand out from the crowd, how to make a connection with your target audience, and how to cut through the noise and reach the people you want to reach. Let’s dive in!  

Cabin season is here in Minnesota, and we are here for it. Memorial Day has always been the unofficial kick off to summer here, and summer means lakes and cabins. Have you ever dreamed about owning a cabin? Or maybe a vacation home somewhere like Florida or Arizona? A lot of people have, but they aren’t quite sure how to go about making it happen, or how they could swing the payments on two properties. Beth is going to tell you how that dream of yours may be closer than you think. Let’s dive in!

Millennials, they get kind of a bad rap don’t they? They also make up 43% of home buyers which is currently the largest percentage of any generation. What does this mean? It means those of us from Gen X and the Boomers have to learn to better understand them, if we want to work together with them, and ultimately if we want to have them as clients. 

Things have changed rapidly over the last two decades with technology seemingly accelerating all the time. So of course the generations of kids growing up in a new technological age have changed. For those of us that fall into the Boomers and Gen X generations it looked a lot different growing up with no cell phones, no internet, no social media, and while most of us have adapted to these changes there can still be what almost amounts to a cultural gap between these “older” generations and the younger Millennials and Gen Z. The way things were done in the 70s and 80s are not how they are done today, and Millennials' expectations and desires have drifted away from the older ways of doing things, and this includes how they shop for and buy a house. 

We sat down for a chat with a Millennial couple who recently bought their first house in Houston and asked them all about their home buying experience, what was important to them when considering buying a home, how they chose a Realtor, how they chose a lender, and basically walked through their entire experience with them. It was very enlightening to hear their perspective on the home buying experience. We are so excited to share this with you, let’s dive in!