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A New High Tech Real Estate Tip for Busy Sacramento Realtors
High tech Realtor plugs into real estate technology
When people call a Sacramento Realtor, especially when one of those persons is another real estate agent, why do they leave some other number for us to call back, like we walk around with pens and paper in our pockets? Or, like we can remember a random phone number or even want to? They know they are calling a cellphone. Why don’t they call from their own cellphone? Hello? Call Back from voice mail. Especially when they are asking a personal favor and the inquiry is not about a property listing, much less related to, say, a benefit to the individual, as in the callers are asking the Realtor to share a personal high tech real estate tip to help them to increase their own business.
I’m not even sure why people leave voice mails anymore since that kind of function has become so outdated. Today’s consumers almost feel like, dude, if we wanted to hear your voice, we would have called YOU. We want text messages. At worst, an email. But a voice mail is so, so, so, personal, dude! Time consuming. And obsolete. And then you want me to remember a phone number to call you back rather than me hitting Call Back? It’s enough that I listened to at least HALF of your message to start with. Who listens to the entire voice mail? High tech real estate communication is about text, email if you have to, and efficiency.
Your real estate clients are with it so you should be, too. You don’t leave a voice mail, you hang up and send a text.
We had a Cuban dinner party last night, consuming many Cuban Rum drinks (we carried those bottles of Havana Club Rum to the States from our Christmas trip to Cuba), and a lovely Cuban stew prepared by my husband, with black beans and rice side dishes, including plantains with bacon. The idea was our guests would bring potluck dishes. Since most of the guests were my team members, they walked in the door, one after the other, carting carry-out because, being busy real estate agents, they spent all day showing property and did not have time to cook. I laughed. I understand that dilemma. Our personal lives often go out the window in Sacramento real estate. It comes with the territory, and anybody who claims you can be a top producer and live a perfectly normal personal life is not a top producer.
During dessert, a Cuban rum cake contributed by the gracious and delightful Shaundra, we talked a bit about old technology, and I shared the story of my home falling in the ocean in the 1980s and how I used to cart my cordless phone out to the beach in front of my house in Ventura to sell real estate. I thought I was so high tech: bikini-clad lounging on the blanket with my newspaper, circling homes for sale, writing notes on a legal pad and chatting with buyers on my cordless, watching waves roll to shore. Cyndi Lauper style.
Shaundra mentioned a high tech real estate tip for organization, and brought up Alexa Echo from Amazon. You talk to Alexa, and it remembers everything you say, and shares information; it sounds better than Siri, who, btw, is often unavailable lately. Have you noticed that? You can ask Alexa to order pizza, send a cab to your home, find a client’s phone number and call or even buy merchandise on Amazon. Shaundra says she uses Alexa Echo to make up a grocery list and adds items to it throughout the week. When she’s ready to go shopping, Alexa emails the grocery list to her.
How cool is that? Perfect high tech real estate tip and big time saver. I wonder if one could synch Alexa to MLS to search for homes? I could email a home selling article from my work on About.com to potential sellers with Alexa. I might even be able to utilize Alexa to call back those agents who expect personal favors and don’t call from their cell.
Elizabeth Weintraub Embarks on a Trip to Cuba
Elizabeth Weintraub will appreciate classic cars during her trip to Cuba.
Usually at this time of year on Christmas Eve, I am not at home but instead am found in a warm tropical place somewhere around the world still working on Sacramento real estate. This year is different. For starters, I already enjoyed my 3-week wor-cation in Big Island this December and came back home a few days ago to tidy up business matters and am heading back out for a real vacation this time. This time a trip to Cuba with my husband. Plus, our house sitters are coming on Christmas Day to start caring for the cats.
Contrary to what people believe, travel has not yet opened up for a trip to Cuba. You still need to fit into one of the special 9 categories to travel to Cuba. You can’t just hop on a plane and yell Havana, here we come. And although there are now flights from LAX to Cuba, the jets fly only on Saturdays and you still need to qualify for the trip to Cuba. We’re flying a charter from Miami. Our travel agent is the same company that arranges Cuba trips for the California Auto Museum members. In fact, they have a trip planned for next May, in case you want to go, maybe before Cuban travel opens to all Americans.
We are not traveling with a group, though. We have our own Cuban guide who will drive us around the island for our people-to-people educational tours where we will learn how to roll cigars, most likely sample exciting rum cocktails and explore unique marine life via snorkeling in Trinidad. Among other pre-planned itineraries such as lunches at mansions, private tours of castles and family plantations, there is also the obligatory visit to the Hemingway House, which is not to be confused with the Hemingway House in Key West. Every day a new adventure awaits during our trip to Cuba.
While I am away, the Elizabeth Weintraub Team will carry on our real estate business in Sacramento. My phone will be forwarded to Barbara Dow. Further, it will be practically impossible for me to check email because, if I am lucky, I might have 30 minutes awarded now and then, which is not enough time to respond to every email. It means I will be pretty much unplugged for our trip to Cuba. Honestly, I have not been unplugged for a vacation since our 2009 December trip to Vietnam. And even then I was able to check email. Internet is a lot easier to obtain in Vietnam than in Cuba, though.
I have 100% confidence in my team. I could not say that in 2009 but I do believe it today. I am thanking my lucky stars to be surrounded by such brilliance. The ability to rely on my team allows me to focus on my Spanish but, having once upon a time built a home in Mexico, I already know the most important thing I need to say: Un vaso de vino blanco, por favor.
Feliz Navidad.
How Much Worse Can It Get?
If you don’t want to find out how much worse it can get, don’t say it.
If you’ve ever said out loud to yourself: how much worse can it get, you’ll probably find out, sorry to report. It might be a good idea not to repeat those words, even if there’s nobody in the room to hear you say it. Especially if you don’t want to know. I’m not a superstitious person by nature. I don’t knock on wood. OK, not very often; further, finding products made from actual wood to knuckle rap is almost impossible in these days of plastics and magically bonded particles. Besides, I tend to go through life accepting things I cannot change — not stressing out over that stuff — because I spend a lot of time working on changing the things I CAN change. As a result, there is simply no time left for the things I cannot.
Take, for example, our upcoming trip to Cuba. I realize it will be horrendous to be at the airport in Miami by 4 AM on Christmas Day to wait 3 hours with hoards of people holding televisions, computers and floor lamps to board our charter flight to Havana. By our time clocks, it will be 1 AM in California. How much worse can it get?
How about finding out United Airlines has changed our lovely and convenient flight times from Sacramento to Miami? We had planned a leisurely arrival in Miami late afternoon, time to unpack, unwind, perhaps stroll on the beach, and then enjoy a lazy dinner with a cocktail overlooking the ocean. Retire somewhat early and receive plenty of sleep prior to our departure for the charter flight. How much worse can it get?
This is an excellent example of why NOT to buy tickets months in advance because the airlines can change your perfect plans without your permission. For example, Hawaiian Airlines handed me a 3-hour layover in Honolulu when I had originally paid for and approved a 40-minute timeframe for my earlier trip this month to Big Island and forced me to check out of my hotel 2 hours earlier than I had planed. I was so jostled that I accidentally threw my boarding pass into the trash 10 minutes before boarding, and this was after I had slipped the boarding pass between my lips during a trip to the restroom and tore off half of my lower lip because the paper dried like glue and got stuck. Good thing I figured out what happened to my boarding pass because the the last time I lost a boarding pass was in Miami, of all places, in 1988. I charmed my way onto the plane back then without it but I doubt that would work post-911 today.
To catch the flight for our Cuba trip over the holidays, we have to tumble out of bed at 3 AM because our flight now departs at 5:30 AM. Instead of a short layover, United Airlines has added an additional layover, and both of the layovers are long. We fly to Denver, then to New York and then on to Miami. As a result, we don’t get to Miami until almost 10 PM. If we are lucky, we will get to bed about midnight and then back up at 3 AM again. How much worse can it get?
I’m expecting the hotel in Havana will not let us check in before late afternoon, that’s how much worse it can get. We will fall asleep in the lobby, get arrested by the Cuban police for loitering and thrown into jail, I imagine. Or, let’s see, somebody could steal our luggage out from under my head where I will have placed it. But I’m really looking forward to going to Cuba. Because, hey, how much worse can it get?
