First things first...

I just read a friends newest post to her blog, and it made me so happy for her! She mentioned how hard, yet important it is to take one step at a time and really get through the moment of NOW. That really hit home with me, especially at this funny strange time of "late twenties." I am finding that I often want to live many different lives - but yet, need to focus all of my needs/desires/goals into just ONE! As if I already don't have a "focus" problem right?!

Anyway, it is a funny thing to really think that we are groomed our whole childhood pretty much to figure out the PLAN. What type of job/career will you have? What type of partnership? Kids/no kids, where to live, the list goes on. I am not impressed that my 20s are coming to an end soon (well, 2.5 years away still) and I am not checking off some of these big things, but truth be told instead of checking some of these things off, I find that I'm nervous even making the choice to check them off. Of course I can't help but read into all this...as usual :-)

I will stick to my good friend's advice in her newest blog post and have faith in the power of now....as they say first things first.

Septic Inspection??

Twice in the last month I've had buyers request septic inspections. No big deal right? Well the last two inspections I have attended have been big deals - one tank was buried down 5 feet - as opposed to the traditional 2 feet. Those people brought in their own excavator to dig down to the tank, my oh my.

Today, I attended another inspection that seemed it would be quite easy, as we could see the pipe exiting the home & I had the septic design. The septic design may have been just a tiny bit off - which caused some minor frustration to the inspector. I tried to make small talk, even the occasional joke - but after awhile there was silence. After standing out in the 35 degree brisk morning for a more than a few silent moments I finally heard the beautiful sound of the metal poke tool hitting the concrete septic tank!!!!

Soon after this the inspector was pulling the cover off the tank and getting down and dirty to inspect the interior of the tank (with flashlight and mirror!). Thankfully this particular tank was in great shape.

.....On to the next glamorous Realtor job.

Btw, I do love my job - I love that there is a different spin each and every day!!

How can Twitter really benefit me in the Real Estate industry?

This was a great question posed by Jeff Manson in the article: http://www.geekestateblog.com/can-twitter-really-increase-your-real-estate-sales/#

Like any new social media site, it can consume too much of our time and be seen as useless. However, these sites can be a tool to grow our business – if used correctly. I feel that Twitter is a great tool for those in the Real Estate industry because it allows you to build that much sought after rapport virtually! I’ve met many people in person that I’ve felt I’ve known for a long time because of Twitter. Many of those people have turned into clients too, although not sure of my exact conversion rate on this.

I see Twitter as a tool to eavesdrop (legitimately!) on the exact conversations I choose. Now, that is a powerful tool for many industries, not just real estate. Personally I use TweetDeck, a platform that allows one to organize their tweets, followers, and search columns. If this sounds crazy to you, try downloading TweetDeck (free!!) and see for yourself. One of my search columns is Bar Harbor, since that is the town my office is located in. Lucky for me, Acadia National Park is also based out of Bar Harbor, and therefore we see a lot of tourist activity. Anytime anyone in the world mentions anything about Bar Harbor, I see it. Obviously some of these tweets are useless to me – but many times someone may ask for dinner recommendation OR a specific hike to make sure they take while visiting. Once that rapport is established it could go anywhere. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shown property to that say “well, we’ve been coming here on vacation for 10 or 20 years, and thought it was a good time to buy a 2^nd home.” They are not the types that need to buy right now, but are simply considering it. Generally those are the type of people that a “soft sell” works much better on.

Like anything, you get out of it what you put into it. Happy Tweeting!!

Education galore!!!!

Tomorrow I'm heading to Portland for a 2 day "Innkeeping Bootcamp" hosted at the gorgeous Danforth Inn (by far my favorite place to stay in Portland). If you are wondering if I am in the market to buy an Inn, that is actually not true (well for now anyway :-)). I am going to take the class to learn more about the process a buyer and innkeeper go through when purchasing an Inn, or in other words purchasing a lifestyle. Our company, The Swan Agency Sotheby's International Realty has a specialty division that markets B&Bs and other lodging properties, so this is all content I should know by now. I feel that the more I can learn about during a somewhat "slow/down" market the better I will be in the future. Although, I don't feel much of a slowdown right now, craziness.

SOO...from the Innkeeping Bootcamp in Portland, I'll be heading up the coast of Maine to the Maine Association of Realtors convention hosted at The Samoset Resort (another fave of mine). From there I'll take several courses and I'm sure be overloaded with info come Thursday. This is my first MAR convention, and so I hear there is a lot of work but also a lot of play...I'll keep you posted with that.

Since I'll be gone for a few days I'm cooking up some food for the Mister - who normally can survive on black bean burritos. So far I've made him some crazy egg dishes - he prefers me not to call it quiche? oh boys.

I'll be blogging, facebooking and tweeting from both conventions so to keep up check me out:

@erica_bates

facebook.com/ericabates