Behind the scenes of my video shoot with Evoker

Because I was curious about what the experience would be like as I was planning this shoot, I thought it would be fun to share here how the day unfolded. First, a bit of inside baseball on the “who” behind the film. Evoker is a Chicago-based film company that specializes in helping real estate agents tell their stories. Compass worked with Evoker to plan film shoots for several of my colleagues over a couple of days in Seattle.

There was no script or storyboards, though a significant amount of planning went into the various locations and people featured. One of my favorite parts of the day was how we stayed on schedule! The entire shoot was planned to the minute on a “Call Sheet,” standard practice in the film industry but new to me. We made it to each location within minutes of the appointed time. Punctuality really is an expression of love in my book.

I started the day with a 7 am makeup “call time” with makeup artist Gaylinyet. I found her via Instagram by searching for Seattle makeup artists who my friends follow. Gaylinyet or “G” is a fellow mom of two little kids. The light in the Compass office was perfect that morning, and I can think of few things more relaxing than having my makeup done while chatting with someone who quickly felt like a friend. 

Following the makeup session, I drove to Madison Park where I had scheduled time at a friend and colleague’s listing. It was stunning–lots of visually interesting and well-lit spaces and room to spread out. We could have actually spent the entire day filming there and not run out of locations. Evoker suggested that I bring some artifacts along with me, so I had a few marketing materials and personal photos as props.

I set up my clothing choices (yes, there was a “wardrobe”) in the primary closet upstairs, feeling very pampered at this point. In choosing the clothes for the day, with some input from Evoker, I focused on things that looked seasonless and quite classic while still feeling like “me.” I rented a couple of sweaters from Nuuly and also wore my trusty faded black Levis and a pair of overalls from Alex Mill for the biking portion.

The first component that we shot was the interview. This is the source for the voiceover that plays throughout the film. I didn’t know the questions in advance, though the Evoker team did a pre-interview that helped them decide the questions to generate. It was shot straight through without retakes. From a ~20 minute  interview, they used under three minutes of dialog. It was interesting to see in the final product what they decided to use, and how they incorporated it with the other visuals we shot that day. The Evoker interviewer, Hannah, was also the producer and was very warm and easy to talk with. We had fun!

Next, my dear friend Holly came to the house for the “client” portion. Holly is also a former client, and we had fun pretending that this lovely home in Madison Park was her home that she was getting ready to list. We chattered about whatever came to mind because we knew that the footage of us would be silent, with my voice laid over it. Some of the marketing materials that I brought and am showing Holly in the video were from a tiny (like, teeny tiny) studio that I listed in Queen Anne, so it was a funny contrast between those images and the home we were actually sitting in.

After Holly headed out we shot a few more scenes of just me in the backyard, arranging pillows on the sofas, etc. to be used as needed. There were more re-shoots in this phase, and meticulous direction from the Evoker team of three to make sure they were capturing everything they needed.

I changed into my bike clothing at the house and we caravaned over to the University of Washington where we planned to meet Tyler and the boys to film the bike portion. There was some angst about parking on campus which is famously difficult, and we took a risk and parked on site in a staff area as I recall. Happily we didn’t get tickets! (If campus parking enforcement is reading this, sorry.) 

We had planned to meet at the Drumheller Fountain, one of the iconic spots on campus. On a clear day, which we had for the shoot, you can see Mount Rainier from the fountain. It’s a gorgeous vista. The most memorable part of this component was that there were brand new ducklings at the fountain, being babysat by a UW staff member. He shared that there is normally a ramp on the fountain so that the ducklings can get in and out, but it had been moved just days before for graduation. So he was acting as a duck parent, making sure they all stayed out of trouble. The brief imagery of the duck quacking at the beginning of the video captures this memory for me!

There were also various tour groups walking through (yes, the tour guides still walk backwards) and as we rode around and around the fountain we tried to avoid them.

When we filmed, our Urban Arrow e-cargo bike was brand new and we were (as we still are, actually) really excited about it. Those early days of glee are captured here!

I kissed the boys goodbye, and the film team and I headed to my boathouse for the rowing component to finish the day. My dear friend and teammate Deanna had agreed to take a double out with me for the shoot. We considered trying to get a launch to come out with us so that the team could film from there, but ended up keeping it simple and they filmed from land. We launched, rowed under the University Bridge and turned right back around to dock. The brief footage is also not my best rowing ever, but it gets the idea across. 

By around 2 pm, we were all wrapped up and I was back to my typical status as someone who is *not* starring in a film! I loved the entire day, the care and support that the Evoker team put into the planning and execution of the shoot, and the finished video is beyond what I expected. 

My goal for this video is to make it easy for clients, friends and family to connect me with their colleagues. I’m also looking forward to using it as a way to build relationships with other agents, especially those in different markets from Seattle who may have clients here that need help buying or selling. 

I hope that it resonates with you!

2022 Year in Review

I am so grateful for my clients for trusting me in 2022! It started with navigating a hectic spring sellers’ market and is ending with finding our footing in the shifting tides of the second half of the year. A few things that make me smile from some of my top homes of the year are below. Thank you for your support!

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An Architect’s Eye

On a Saturday evening, a former colleague connected me about helping her sister and by Tuesday we were under contract on their home. We got to meet the seller, an architect who stewarded the home since the over the decades and hear her stories and vision.

Capitol Hill Charm

My client for this charming condo spends her days as a nurse caring for cancer patients, so finding a restful retreat that was close to work but with enough distance to recharge was the assignment. She’s making it her own with unique finds and a sense of style inspired by her time in NYC.

Cooperating at Crestview

The charm of Seattle’s historic co-op buildings never fails to spark joy for me. With some strategic painting and minor fixes, this home was ready for showtime and my seller clients were delighted to receive an offer above list price after just a week on the market.

Olympic Manor Stunner

When the listing agent called to share that my clients and friends had won, I had to pause to pick myself up off of the floor. Victory for a home in Seattle’s iconic mid century neighborhood doesn’t happen every day! With west-facing views and a ton of space, the best days for this home are still to come.

Cedar Park Charmer

Everything happens for a reason–we had to believe it when our first offer didn’t stick, and then the original buyers walked out on this one. My clients are over the moon to be settling into a slightly larger home with room for their toddler (and his truck collection.)

Planes, Trains and Townhomes

Never have I felt so much like a supporting actor in a James Bond movie as when I tracked my friend/seller down at Heathrow airport, sent the offer for review while she was in the air, and got it signed while she took a train to Zurich. The cash was in the bank 8 days later. We still need to toast with martinis!

Cedar Park Garden Dreams

As the market shift deepened at the end of the summer, we had the opportunity to maintain an inspection contingency for this home, and negotiated a significant reduction so that my clients could address necessary issues before moving in. The lush, mature landscaping was not one of those issues–it’s perfect just the way it is!

San Remo Sensation

The curved facade of the 1906 San Remo co-op follows a winding street in Capitol Hill and creates very unique wedge-shaped floor plans. The south facing windows were our major feature to highlight for this listing, and we timed photography to capture the fall foliage. We received an offer within 15 days, while similar homes at the time took nearly 50 days to sell.

Crown of Queen Anne

One of the things I often tell clients is that when they find the home for them, they’ll be so grateful they waited for the right one. This first-time purchaser lost out on her first offer, and is thrilled to be making this Queen Anne view home her own.

History, Revisited

The theme of this listing, an estate sale with multiple parties involved, was to honor how much their parents had loved the home. I was able to front the funds for the updates necessary for the home to appeal to its next owner. We received 8 offers and closed the chapter for the family on a happy note.

A Love-filled First Home

For a teacher and a psychiatrist, this updated house in the south end is an ideal first home, with space to host family and friends and enjoy everything about this stage of life. Her dad is a broker in Portland, and it passed the test with him as well!

Let’s go to Lynnwood

With a pair of clients who were beyond generous and brought me snacks on our long tour days, it felt all the more special to see them emerge victorious in a multiple offer situation for this Lynnwood townhome. A strong communication strategy with the listing agent set us up for success.

The Ballard Tudor

Witnessing my dear friend get married in the backyard of the home I helped her buy was truly a peak moment of work/life integration and happiness. There was even a rose-covered trellis already blooming. It doesn’t get any more “meant to be.”

Montlake Modern with 20s Roots

This fully updated Montlake gem was the ultimate landing spot after a pandemic boomerang from Europe, to Bainbridge Island, to Seattle, Washington. After moving almost every August for the last few years, these clients could not be happier to put down roots and stay a while.

A Turnaround Success

I stayed in close communication with the listing agent for this home, even after my clients decided to pass on it, fearing competition. When I learned that there were no other offers, I let my clients know and they decided to jump back in! Now, they and their sweet toddler daughter are enjoying walking to the park

Brand New on Beacon Hill

A pragmatic sensibility guided the home search for these clients. They love adventures and didn’t love the idea of spending weekends shopping for a new home, so they bucked the trend at the time of competing with multiple offers and we were able to negotiate on price and perform an inspection of a new construction home. Problem solved!

The importance of relationships with my broker colleagues

I spent a lot of time during the harried spring real estate market reflecting on how critical relationships with other real estate agents are for my clients’ success in the home search and the home sale process. A unique element of my work is that one day, I could be the “belle of the ball” as a listing agent representing sellers, and the next day I might be groveling among the hordes of agents representing buyers. Someday, I’ll figure out how to make an image that represents how this dynamic feels–it would be a listing agent as a king or queen on offer review date, high up in a castle opening the window to see a gleaming kingdom below, with the air filled with birdsong, contrasted with a buyer’s agent who looks like Smeagol, slogging through an unearthly muck.

It’s not all slogging through the muck though, because I’ve had a handful of wins for buyers even in competitive situations, and in every case, it’s because I either had a relationship with the listing agent or have been able to quickly build rapport to establish trust and collegiality prior the offer review date. This is a practice that I’ve built over years, and the commitment has paid off in the form of name recognition and even mutual admiration and support which has helped me win for my clients!

Here are a few of the ways I am strategic about laying the groundwork for these relationships.

• Save agents’ contact information in my phone contacts. Since 2016, I’ve saved the phone number of nearly every agent I’ve had a substantive conversation with in my phone. When agents call on my listings, I save their name and number and the listing they were calling about. This means that I have a record of previously communicating with someone i.e. “Jen, toured Bellora” and I know that I had been in touch with her in 2018. I’m able to answer by name and quickly reestablish rapport by sharing when we were last in contact.

• Read and mirror the listing agent’s communication style. Most agents tend to have a communication medium (phone, email, text, etc.) and style that they prefer. I act like a chameleon, and use their preferred mode of communication. I’ll even match the way someone always (or never) uses emojis to mirror their style.

• Follow up and follow through. When I request an inspection report on a listing for my clients who choose not to make an offer on the home, I let the listing agent know that they will not be pursuing the home. When a listing agent has an accurate guesstimate on how many offers they are expecting, it helps everyone to understand the potential competitive landscape. I actually won a home for buyers recently by following up to let the listing agent know we wouldn’t be writing an offer after all. It turned out that when no other offers came in, I got an update from the listing agent with this information. I passed it along to my clients because I thought they’d be interested to know, and sure enough they decided to pursue the home and we won it at list price with no competition.

Similarly, when I will be writing an offer, I am proactive in following up with the listing agent to let them know to expect our offer. I have seen others deploy the opposite strategy of sending an offer without any prior communication with the listing agent, but this approach eliminates the opportunity to gain potentially useful knowledge of the sellers’ motivations that could help to structure a winning offer.

• Provide feedback after touring listings. I tour several homes every week and get a push notification after most home tours with a request to provide feedback on the home. I know from representing sellers that information on how buyers responded to the home is invaluable for listing agents and sellers. This is the practice that I could use the most improvement. I prefer to send feedback in batches rather than ad hoc, but often by the time I circle back to it, the home is already pending.

In the future, I’d like to see a way that agents can rate and review each other to create a scorecard on aspects like professionalism and communication. I may eventually start requesting feedback from agents that I have worked with. I  could include a customized set of feedback with a buyer’s offer to show the listing agent that other folks in their brokerage have enjoyed working with me. Of course, there is a dark side to the game of reviews. There may not be a perfect solution for the negativity bias that tends to come into play in reviews, but I do think it’s an idea worth more thought.

First steps if you’re planning to buy a home in the spring

With spring rapidly approaching and new listings beginning to hit the market at a (slightly) faster clip, it’s exciting to think about diving into home shopping in 2022. The process can feel daunting, but here are the most important steps to get started:

1. Get your pre-approval. If you will need a loan to buy your home, the first step is to apply for pre-approval with a reputable local lender. This entails submitting your income information (paystubs, etc.) and most recent tax return, a list of assets and debts. The result is a letter from your lender that verifies that they have reviewed your finances and pre-approved you for a specific loan amount. One of the most common mistakes I see is starting the house hunt before completing a pre-approval. I coach my clients to avoid the pain of rushing the pre-approval process after falling in love with a house by completing this step early. It takes a lender from 2-5 days to complete the process, so this isn’t something you want to leave until the last minute! I am always happy to share recommendations for local lenders I have worked with and trust.

   Completing your pre-approval up front also helps you set a realistic budget for your home search. You will likely get pre-approved for more than you actually want to spend, and it is your job to decide on a comfortable monthly payment. You’ll also want to keep a cushion for unexpected costs that arise with moving and buying a home. Once you’re settled in your new home, you won’t want to feel like dinner out is going to break the bank.

2. Establish your search boundaries. When I work with people to find a new home, the folks who have clearly defined the areas they want to live tend to have success more quickly than if their search extends across multiple cities or counties. Narrowing down to criteria like home type (single-family, townhome, condo, etc.), number of beds/baths can come later, and will largely be informed by your budget.

   If you don’t know where you want to live yet, that’s ok! The process of exploring neighborhoods can (and should) be fun. Think about where you tend to end up when you have a free Saturday morning. What would it be like to live near that coffee shop you love to go to on the weekends, but have to drive to today? Are there places that you always enjoy visiting friends and family? Or maybe you’d like to spread out and get some more space. Your initial reactions and places you’re curious about can inform the beginning of your search. 

   As you learn more about the neighborhoods you’re interested in, and overlay your budget which you gained from your pre-approval letter, you’ll start to have a better sense of where it makes the most sense to concentrate.

3. Start a “no” box. This is pretty simple. As you come across things in your home that you know you don’t want to move to your next home, whether it’s minutes or hours away, just put them in a bag, a box, or start a pile in a little-used room. The more you lighten your load BEFORE you move, the less you’ll have to worry about when you arrive in your new home. This is, of course, easier said than done. :) But it’s what I wish I had done more of when I moved recently!

I am always happy to schedule an introductory call, video chat or meet up in person to answer your questions, share my insights and create your unique plan for you to achieve your home buying goal this year!

6 questions about selling your home in the winter with Seattle Refined

This article originally appeared on Seattle Refined, and answers some of the questions I get most often from sellers contemplating putting their homes on the market in the winter months. Feel free to get in touch with me for a customized selling plan for any season of the year.

Are you putting your house on the market between November and January? Maybe you accepted a new job that's taking you somewhere else. Perhaps you found another home that is an upgrade from your current property. Maybe you're selling for a more unfortunate reason.

Whatever the reason is, selling a home in the winter presents a different set of challenges compared with selling in the traditional spring and summer real estate season. However, there are some unique benefits to selling in the offseason too.

Here are some questions you may be asking yourself as you start the process.

1. Will anybody be looking to buy at this time of the year? In a year that's seen consistent low inventory (meaning homes available for sale), competitive situations, and rapidly increasing prices, new listings will be welcomed by buyers at any time of year. Last December in Seattle, the average home sold in 25 days and for 101% of list price. With inventory this year trending even lower than 2020, it's shaping up to be a favorable season for sellers.

2. What if it snows? Your home is staged and photographed, but the forecast calls for snow. What now? It's important to have contingency plans for minor, medium, or massive storms. A few flakes won't tend to deter folks from touring. If schools are canceled, you may want to wait for the storm to pass before listing your home, as the first week on the market is the most important chance to make an impression. It's important to convert prospective buyers from seeing the house online to actually visiting with their agent in person. Regardless of the severity, make sure to keep walkways clear and safe for entry. Consider extra rubber door mats to protect delicate floors.

3. Are holiday decorations appropriate? Holiday decorations are a great way to celebrate your family's unique traditions. However, when your home is on the market, your goal is to appeal to the broadest possible range of prospective buyers. Don't let your tree, menorah, or elf on a shelf become a distraction for someone who's trying to envision their family in this home next year. Your evergreen-scented candle or aunt Myra's annual holiday potpourri won't help. The only thing you want buyers smelling when they tour your home is the inside of their masks.

4. What temperature is ideal? The last time you walked into a freezer, how close were your shoulders to your ears? It's not scientific, but you want a buyer to relax their shoulders when they enter your home. Around 68 degrees Fahrenheit is an optimal target for thermal comfort. This isn't the time to skimp on energy bills.

5. What about the yard? As mentioned before, safe walkways and entrances are paramount. The good news about selling in the winter is that you won't be agonizing over keeping your grass green. The rain does that already! Buyers will understand a yard that's on "hiatus," but this can be a great time to play up any outdoor entertaining spaces. Firepits and twinkle lights are welcome!

6. How do I make my home look its best? In the dark winter months, more light is better. This will be important both for listing photography, which is your home's first impression online, and for the experience buyers have while touring your home. If you're working with a stager, make sure they know which rooms will require additional lighting. Use warm bulbs and ensure they match. Both make a difference for photography and in-person tours. If you've been thinking about investing in cabinet or ceiling lighting, this is the season to go big. Buyers want light!

If you're ready to create your customized winter listing plan, a conversation with (yours truly!) Jessie Culbert Boucher, a managing broker with Compass Seattle, is a great place to begin. Jessie is a listing specialist with 83 listings sold in the last two years, so she's uniquely qualified to create a plan to position, price, and market your home successfully during any month of the year.

Taking my own advice

The other day, I found myself sitting in my car, as is often the case when I’m wrapping up a phone call with a client, giving my buyer clients the advice I needed to hear myself right at that moment:

“If you’re turning yourself into a pretzel before you make an offer on the house, it’s probably not the house for you.”

Setting the scene, a couple weeks ago I was considering a home for our family that fit several of our criteria, but not everything. It had two separate living areas and a really nicely finished lower level, but was missing a basement/workshop space. When you own 9 bikes (and...counting) this is pretty critical. And the need for a space that’s not in the main living area as a holding zone for the detritus that comes with two toddlers is a serious one too.

Tyler and I had gone back and forth on how we could repurpose an existing space, add on to the house over time, build a new backyard shed, etc. to make the house work for our purposes. We were turning ourselves into pretzels, before we even moved in.

“If you’re not all in, you’re all out.”

Writing an offer is a straightforward process, once the strategy is defined. For some reason I just couldn’t get myself to put the offer documents together. I paid attention to this sense of resistance. I knew that if I really wanted the home, I’d be motivated and excited to put the paperwork together and gather the required signatures. But I just wasn’t all in. 

“Try this as a thought experiment. Go to sleep tonight and pretend you’ve won the house, then see how you feel when you wake up in the morning.”

In my case, I turned this one around and went to sleep pretending we hadn’t gone for the house, and I felt great in the morning. We’re still in our tiny home for the foreseeable future, but we’re not going to squeeze ourselves into a new spot that, while it’s bigger, would ultimately force us to confront some of the same issues we have here. And I’ll keep listening to my own advice.

Deep Real Estate

Deep real estate is my shorthand for an approach to real estate inspired by author Cal Newport’s work, specifically his 2016 book Deep Work. Newport argues that the distractions of life and work online make it ever harder for our brains to stay focused on one task at a time, which limits our cognitive capacity and makes us miserable. I’ve been deeply (no pun intended) inspired by Newport’s framework of thinking and tactical suggestions for living a deeper life, and have spent the last several months since discovering his podcast, Deep Questions, ruminating on how to incorporate this philosophy into my work as a real estate broker. 

Can real estate be deep work?

This job is frenetic, all-consuming, and can often feel completely out of my control. On any given day I might wake up and have one expectation of the day, and then seven completely unexpected things have happened. It’s tempting to give into the swirl and say, well, there’s no way to control this so why even try? The days become consumed with emails, texts, app notifications and thinking, writing and doing the pursuits to grow my business sustainably for the long term are on the back burner. I’m not alone among workers this way--Newport’s new book cites a statistic that the average knowledge worker checks email every 6 minutes.

A few practices that I’ve incorporated to invite depth into my work follow. The impetus is admittedly selfish; to preserve my cognitive capacity and happiness, but I know clients and colleagues gain some spillover benefits. 

Time Block Planning

I start the day by filling in the hard landscape of the day - the appointments on my calendar that are fixed and can’t be moved. As Newport recommends, when the schedule “breaks,” meaning an appointment runs over time or plans change otherwise, you simply “fix” or rebuild the schedule at the earliest opportunity. I’ve learned not to become overly attached to any schedule for the day, because there are often new complexities that get introduced as the day goes on--tours booked or canceled, urgent transaction communication to address, etc.

Music as a Deep Work Hook

Newport encourages building rituals around deep work: a sequence of activities that should be enjoyable and set the brain up to recognize that when these things happen, it’s time for deep work. The one I’ve implemented most consistently is the offer writing ritual. No one would want to hear their surgeon taking a phone call while they’re on the operating table, and I take writing an offer for the biggest financial transaction of someone’s life just as seriously. 

“Writing an offer” means selecting the relevant MLS forms, filling in the blanks on the forms with the terms desired or required to win, placing the forms in order and setting up the forms to be signed by my client. I like to start by physically writing a list of the forms that will be part of the offer--using a specific pen on a tactile and aesthetically pleasing notepad by Elum Design. 

When I’m writing the offer, I listen to an Odesza playlist on Spotify that I’ve trained myself to associate with this task. During this time, I don’t answer the phone, texts or check email. The result is a process that is more pleasurable for me--which is important if I’m writing 3-4 of these a week. 

Meditation

What I love about a meditation practice is that on days when I have meditated, I can sink deeply back into the feeling of sitting and breathing, at any time. I love this tool especially when having a hard conversation or a negotiation with another agent. Over time, I’ve become comfortable in a phone conversation with silence. The other party usually rushes to fill the silences and the more information they share, or the more quickly they seek to solve a problem by filling empty space with words, the more my side typically stands to gain. I’ve also found that smiling into a question--actually smiling as I ask something even over the phone when the other person can’t see me, can change the tenor of a conversation.

I’m not afraid to ask clients how they are feeling at various points in the process. “How do you want to feel when you set foot into your new home? What senses do you want to engage in those first moments?” and “How are you feeling today after finding out we won the home?” are examples of questions I ask to invite my clients to get grounded in their own feelings. These also help me get to know them and their needs better.

Digital Sundown 

My evening goal is to be reading on the couch at 9 pm without my phone. This isn’t always practical--sometimes negotiations stretch later into the evening and I’m required to be available to communicate past this time. But probably 10 days in a two week period it’s more than reasonable to put down the technology and give myself time to wind down before bed.

Unexpected things that are very hard to get

We all heard about toilet paper, then puzzles, and then chess boards had a resurgence this fall with the popularity of the Queen’s Gambit (I admit I haven’t started it yet!) I like to keep an eye out for things that are perhaps unexpectedly thriving during this time. Bikes are a big one--new bikes, used bikes, bike parts, cycling clothing, the list goes on. 

Pre-pandemic and pre-kids, I was a newly avid cyclist. I commuted via bike to my office downtown, joined friends for “donut and coffee shop rides” (my love language), and competed in cyclocross races. I upgraded from a too-small Windsor Willow purchased on craigslist after getting a taste of road bikes training for and completing a sprint triathlon in 2012. Fast forward to 2015 when I met Tyler and it only took a few months to get hooked. I got my first cross bike in February 2016, which Velo Bike Shop sweetly helped me source from Raleigh, then a used road bike and another beautiful red, white and blue Focus cross bike both from the same guy. I still remember meeting him on a rainy night at the Whole Foods in Interbay to acquire the road bike, then we later became better acquainted and when he posted the cross bike on Instagram, I sent a screenshot to Tyler, who surprised me with it on Christmas morning. 

Our last big adventure trip before the boys were born was to Moab in 2018 for dear friends’ wedding (really more of a mountain biking, hiking and canyoning rally) than a wedding per se, and I got the mountain biking bug in a big way there. Which brings us to this year, when we took the plunge and ordered a Santa Cruz Tallboy back in July. The Santa Cruz production line was inundated with demand or backed up with the pandemic, or both, and I didn’t get the bike until November! 

Tyler’s been selling bikes and parts for almost what he paid for them…another cottage industry in our basement along with my real estate biz. I’ve only been out riding a couple times so far but mountain biking is a relatively safe activity to do during the pandemic - outdoors and at a distance - and I’m grateful to have my own bike after a couple years of borrowing from friends.