Holly Beller's Blog

Virtual Tours

Holly Beller (RE/MAX Excellence) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 20:23:51 -0700

Any agents in the Pacific NW know of a good virtual tour provider? I have 3 really great high end listings that need good tours online...help!

I Love Referrals!...Really!

Holly Beller (RE/MAX Excellence) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:01:21 -0700

We hear it so often...we see it on our fax cover sheets, on the back of our business cards, are told that we have to build our business by referral, and we should never be too busy for them...I could go on if I thought longer, but I won't.

I love them (or heart them, however you prefer) too! I got a call on Sunday from a Realtor in New York. her brother-in-law is moving to the coast and needs an agent....I'm on it honey! Oh, crap! I just realized I haven't called her back to let her know that we've made contact and he will be WELL taken care of. THAT, is the point of my post! Let me take a moment to call her now.

You see, this agent found me because she sees that I am doing a lot of activity in my neck of the woods. That is how I search for an agent to refer to as well, if I don't already have one in that area. But that also means that my call back to her may be delayed by the very nature of what we do! She called me less than 24 hours after contacting me to follow up and find out if I had shown her brother-in-law any homes yet!

There is no solution to my problem of being too busy. I'm certainly not complaining because in this market, I'm likely to be hung from the handle of the Clam Pan downtown! I don't want people to think I'm to busy for them because I will always make the time available, IF you are asking for it.

So instead of crying in my cheerios that I'm too busy, I will embrace the nature of working by referral and remember that I too, am waiting for that one call back and maybe she just got a little busy and that is a GOOD SIGN!

I'm ranked!

Holly Beller (RE/MAX Excellence) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:06:00 -0700

I am pretty excited and proud of myself after hearing from my broker this morning that I rank among the top 3 agents in the county according to our MLS. The frustrating part is trying to figure out what statistics the ranks were based on. The one thing I have figured out is that it is nearly possible to rank yourself any way you want to depending on what information you search by. If I search ONLY residential sales in the past 6 months in our area, I rank number 1. If I search residential AND condominium sales, I drop to number 3, BUT ONLY when you search by dollar volume! If you search by number of listings, I jump back up to number 1! Very interesting...I'm sure it all has to do with my bank repo's and that I will dual agency a bank repo in a heartbeat...but,hey! I don't mind being called the repo queen if it puts food on the table!

Thoughts on advertising...

Holly Beller (RE/MAX Excellence) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:03:01 -0700

Our local high school's soon-to-be-newest alumni came around yesterday looking for yearbook ad sponsors. I was thinking of buying a small or medium sized ad and encouraging our nations youngest and brighteset stars to begin their financial future by purchasing a home...what better way to begin then going in with 3 or 4 buddies and buying a house rather than renting one for 4 years of college? I'm in a small community so I probably would be encouraging purchases outside of my coverage area...but referrals are great! Wonder what I should concentrate the bullet points on? Getting a referral to your mortgage professional would be a good one probably...it is so easy to be taken advantage of!

I'm OD'ing on Active Rain!

Holly Beller (RE/MAX Excellence) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:39:33 -0700

Ronald Gillis thanks for inviting me to this group! I have been on Active Rain about a week and am hooked! I can't beleive I typed my name into Google yesterday and found myself at the top...2 weeks ago I was on the 3rd page! Not entirely sure if that is from my involvement here, but I'm guessing it is!

I am pretty proud of myself as of yesterday afternoon! I found Localism and sponsored my city. I am the only one in my entire county it looked like, and I was shocked to find that an associate in another branch office of ours prides herself on internet marketing and I passed her in points yesterday and found that nobody has claimed her city on Localism...I feel like I found something she doesn't know about for only $9/mo instead of the hundreds I hear she spends every month on marketing herself. I'll have to shoot her an email and let her know her city is available!

Monday already?

Holly Beller (RE/MAX Excellence) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:44:48 -0700

I spent the most beautiful weekend showing property and washing my windows...sometimes I wonder, "Can we just skip Monday?". But thankfully it is a beautiful Monday as well, and allthough it was a succesfull weekend with 2 new buyer prospects (one already a homeowner), I'm feeling a little lost in the office. Perhaps it was all that sun hitting me in the face through my sparkling windows this morning! I keep thinking that I want to make my list for tomorrow and head out for the rest of the day. And as I type, I see a bank of clouds headed our way so that must mean I should stay here and work. Foiled again!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Holly Beller (RE/MAX Excellence) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:24:05 -0700

BEAUTIFUL weather this week and I wake up this Friday morning to ...blah....rain. But it is still a great day! Pat myself on the back - I am RE/MAX Excellences' newest desk fee agent! Yippee! I am so excited to build MY business the way I want it! In reality, it doesn't change things for me too much; but mentally it gives me a great boost! I already feel the karma. Yesterday, I received a great offer on a piece of land, which the seller was delighted with and signed in a heartbeat. And, this morning I received a call that an offer is coming on one of my bank foreclosures...good things are happening!

My First Time

Holly Beller (RE/MAX Excellence) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:31:54 -0700

All right...so it's my first time writing a blog on this site...pretty close to the first time writing a blog ever to be honest! Little frightened here! I am eager to get into the Active Rain community and network with other professinals in my area and around the world if possible! I would love to hear from anyone who is in a simialr market as mine. Long Beach is heavily supported by tourism, fishing and logging. Needless to say, income levels are not the highest in those fields so first time homebuyers are few and far between it seems. Or maybe that is just how it looks in this market. A lot of our buyers are looking for second homes or vacation rental type property and will pay cash since they have it available for retirement or through a home equity loan. My biggest struggle right now is keeping track of buyers, who is ready to buy and when and most importantly, WHAT they want! So many customers stop by and say that they want to prepare for retirement, but are not quite sure what they want to do yet. Ouch - you tell me what you want and I'll make it happen...you tell me you don't know what you want - and I get overwhelmed! We've got raw land, we've got land ready to build; we've got ocean front or we've got ocean views, we even have canal or lake views; we've got walking distance to town or we have rural acreage; we've got fixers (boy do we ever!) we have new construction - we have manufactured homes up the kazoo! Name your poison! :) How does everyone keep it straight? Hmmm....that was a good start...TTFN!