Smile!  Nothing works me up more than having my photo taken.  Especially when it’s a scheduled photo shoot.  I always get so nervous.  The backstory to this specific photo was that this week The Donald and I had a scheduled appointment to have new head shot photos taken.  The head shots were not taken for my fictitious acting career, but for my real estate career.  You know… for the standard REALTOR® business cards that say “call me for all your real estate needs!”

Actually, the pictures were taken so that the National Association of REALTORS® can update their online speaker directory for the upcoming annual conference and expo in November.  We were selected by NAR to present our “8 Ways To Profitable Property Management” at the conference which will be held in New Orleans November 5-8, 2010.

So while I am pulling together the 8 Ways seminar that I’m thrilled to present, I’m going to list out my 8 Ways This Scheduled Photo Session Sent Me Into a Tizzy that lead up to picture day:

1.  I have an extra baby tooth in the front of my mouth on the top.  Most people can’t tell, but I feel like it looks like a giant snaggle tooth.

2. I never know what to wear, so I always stick with black. Hey, it’s slimming.

3. It never fails, my hair doesn’t lay right on picture day.

4. I have this recurring dream that I’m in the 5th grade and school pics were taken just after gym class when I was all hot and sweaty.  Oh wait, that wasn’t a dream.

5. Double chin phobia.  Need I say more?

6. I desperately need to get out in the sun and get some color. (Hello Hawaii vacation this August!)

7. My nails really need a manicure.  Nevermind, I don’t have time and duh, they don’t show up in the pictures.

8. How can I say “cheese” without feeling cheesy?

Thankfully, the Photogenic Angels were looking over me that day and I actually ended up with a decent shot, snaggle tooth and all.  That, or maybe it was the Photoshop Magic Angels.  Not sure which, let’s just hope that they stick around until November.

I received some exciting news this week that The Donald and I were chosen to present “8 Profitable Ways to Property Management” at the National Association of REALTORS® Annual Conference and Expo! Therefore, we’re headed to New Orleans in November 2010 for a repeat performance. w00t!!

What’s odd is that I’m more excited this year than I was last year. I know what to expect and I know how much fun it was last year so there is no sense in letting my nerves eat me alive and stifle the excitement.

As you probably know, I’m a big fan of the REALTOR® brand and profession and not just because I am one. Every fall, NAR holds their annual conference where 25,000+ REALTORS® embark on a 4 day conference and huge expo trade show. The phrase “birds of a feather flock together” comes to mind when I attend these conventions… [insert sigh of content here]… I digress. Anyway, I’m proud of my profession and really like what I do.

Ok, so now it’s market research time. What kind of questions do you have about managing residential rental property? Or, if you’re a landlord yourself, what kind of advice or tips should I give in my presentation? Throw it out there, let’s see what sticks.

I can already taste the Cafe du Monde coffee and fresh beignets. Like I said… Sooo excited!

As Smokey The Bear would say, “Only you can prevent forrest fires.”  Uhh, no I can’t because I have tried.  I am speaking of the figurative forrest fire, not the literal ones.  I’ve been known to have too many irons in the fire at one time, but my irons have caught fire and now I’m right in the middle of a huge forrest fire and trying to put it out.  But it’s what I love to do, so here’s the 911, I mean 411 of what’s up.

First, Springfield’s 2nd annual Walk To Cure Diabetes was this past Saturday, May 22, 2010 at Jordan Valley Park.  It was a fantastic day for it and you can see all of the pictures here.  We had just over 500 people there and raised $75,000 for type 1 research.  It was great to have close friends and family come in town for it.  There was even a post on it, written by Scott Strange (who drove down from KC) over at Strangely Diabetic.  Not to mention, Sarah Blacksher wrote about it too.  It was a huge event and I will post on it and my thoughts about it later.

Next on my radar is RE BarCamp St. Louis. June 14th at the Stegton Regency Banquet Center in St. Charles/St. Louis, MO. All my REALTOR® friends getting together to talk tech.  I’m so thankful for outstanding friends like Chris Drayer and Karen Goodman (just to name a few) for their help in getting this off the ground.  You guys surely rock!!

And of course, there are all of the continuing education courses.  It’s a renewal year for Missouri real estate agents and The Donald and I have been teaching classes like crazy. There’s one going on tomorrow.

My new company web site should launch this week (or next).  And who knows whatever happened to that getpaul iPhone app.

Following that is the Dexcom/Omnipod event in Springfield.  This is scheduled for June 24th and was technically supposed to happen this year, but it was put on hold.  Now it’s back and in full force.

And uh, there’s that personal blogging thing.  As usual, the ball gets dropped here too.  It’s dying of smoke inhalation.

That is all.

QR Codes are barcodes generated for use in all sorts of things such as print, billboards, signs and even business cards.  Anything that you can print or post to, you can place a QR code on.  QR stands for “quick response” and they are to be used on-the-go with your mobile phone.  The idea is to scan the code using an app on your phone and instantly receive information about the product.  That information may be a phone number, a clickable web site, contact information that immediately adds to your address book, or a calendar event that automatically posts to your calendar.

So imagine driving by a real estate listing (or in my company’s case, a rental property) and you see a sign in the yard.  Now you want to know how much the house is listed for, but you don’t really want to call the agent.  However, the agent is tech savvy enough to place a QR Code on the sign or rider and you can scan it on your mobile phone as you drive by.  Wah-la you have all the information about the listing delivered instantly to your phone.  See! You will start to love QR Codes too.

I downloaded the QuickMark app for my iPhone from the App Store thanks to the suggestion of a friend.  It cost me 99 cents and so far I have been somewhat pleased with the purchase.  Granted, I’ve only been creating my own QR Codes and scanning them to test it out.  (I know, I’m a little bit of a nerd.)

It will be interesting to see where this goes and how we will use it, afterall it intrigued me enough to buy the shoes mentioned above.

Remember, I’m still a newb at this.  Got any suggestions for me?

Go ahead, give it a scan.

So here I am adding to my to-do list.  I’ve got web site overhauls to do to avoid future situations of awkwardness with not only other REALTORS® but clients as well.  Any suggestions?

I’ve been learning to code in Objective-C in order to get the Dizmang Properties GetPaul iPhone app launched. It will be a very minimal app but will have the ability to pull our available rentals if you’re in the market for one. However it’s more of a project goal for me as I love to learn new things.  It’s been a pretty interesting ride thus far.  I started this in late December and really thought that I could have it done by February 1st.  But considering that February 1st is tomorrow, I don’t think I’m going to hit my anticipated deadline.  I guess I didn’t take into account all the other stuff I have to do for work, such as 2009 year end reports for all of our Investors, closing out the year, taxes, and a whole load of other stuff.  I sorely misjudged my time commitment.  Oh well, it will be finished when it is finished.

Our app will be a free app.  The goal of it (besides my self satisfaction of accomplishing and completing a new project) will be to keep our available rental properties rented.  Three months ago we had 40 vacant rental properties (out of the 200+ that we manage) and that hurt us big time. Today we are down to only 9 vacancies, which puts us and our Investors in a much better position.  It feels good to finally get property rented.

Things you need to know about programming an iPhone app:

1)  You have to use the Apple SDK (software development kit) that uses Cocoa frameworks and the programming language is called Objective-C.

2) You must use a Mac to develop the iPhone application.  And yes, it looks pretty sweet on my new 27″ 1TB iMac.

3) It takes approximately two months to develop a good app.  Unless you are pressed for time because of other commitments (see mine above), then you just need to take your time and it’s done when it’s done.

4) The Apple SDK download is free, but you must pay $99 to Apple to submit your app to the App Store when it is ready. I’ll let you know once I get to this point.

5) There is a weird feeling of accomplishment when you finally see the app coming together in the simulator (see pic below).

Of course there is way more to it than what I’ve described here, but I felt that I needed to share with you what I was working on.  I’ll keep you posted along the way.  Maybe I should focus on just updating the Dizmang Properties web site.  That thing sucks.  I’m just saying.  (Yes, I am also the developer of that outdated piece).

I’m coming up on my 10 year anniversary in March 2010 of working with Dizmang Associates Real Estate here in Springfield.  When I first came to work for the company, I was paid $6.00 an hour and I think that The Donald expected me to be his secretary, answer his phones, take rent payments and make his coffee. All of which I did, and did quite well in my opinion. But I wanted to make more of myself, so I started taking on projects.  I had to prove that I was worth more and not just in the money department.

So, I worked with a few real estate buyers, implemented a checklist system for the office, designed and launched the company web site and phased in some procedures for managing the rental properties.  And that is just the nutshell version.  About four years into it, I got my own private office with a shiny nameplate on the door titled “Office Manager” and several more added responsibilities that I was thrilled to take on.

All the while, I have thought deeply about the opportunities that I have had with this company.  They (The Donald and The Mrs. Donald) have treated me well.  By giving me the tools I needed to make things happen, hearing out my crazy ideas and by letting me just do my thing, they have shown their support and have become my best friends.  That’s what makes it so easy to renew the proverbial contract with the company I work for.

Now here I am, ten years later, and effective January 1, 2010 my title officially changes to “Vice President of Operations” at Dizmang Properties, Inc.  A shinier new nameplate will grace my office door.  I will embrace new challenges and forge ahead with extraordinary ideas. 2010 is going to be a fantastic year!

All of this and I still make the coffee.

1. The biggest thing that happened was our big session at the National Association of REALTORS® annual conference and expo. The Donald and I presented “8 Effortless Tips To Tackling Rental Property Management” and everything went fantastic.  We couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome.  For more details see my Flickr page, or join our Facebook group.
2. My sister made a beautiful bride and pulled off a YouTube worthy wedding party dance complete with moves like The Sprinkler, The Q-Tip and some hilariously bizarre tiki moves.  I’m not even embarrassed to admit that I took part in it.  The wedding went off with relatively little, if no family drama.  The Flickr pics are all posted here.  Oh and welcome to our crazy family Ethan Hall!
3. I met up with friends (new and old) in real life.
4. My a1c has gone up ::hanging my head in shame:: and now I’m having to re-focus and continue to monitor things on the Dexcom a little closer.
5. Nonetheless, I still hate diabetes, which is fueling my passion for pulling off the 2nd annual Walk To Cure Diabetes this May here in Springfield.  Our “walk season” starts now and you can help us meet/exceed our goal of $50,000 by registering your 2010 walk team now.
6. Yes, there was a Hickok Family sighting at High Street Baptist Church for the first time in 9 years.  Thank you to the “Hillenblog” family for their warm invite, hospitality and words-can’t-describe-it Hillen Tacos.
7. We celebrated a turkey-less Thanksgiving with our best friends and it was a welcome change to the ordinary.

So there are just a few highlights.  What can I say? Life is good.  I’ll just try to do better at keeping you posted on how it all goes.  After all, there is an REBarcamp in the works, a new property management software and iPhone app in development, big growth for my company, real estate certified education classes awaiting approval, and maybe the book will be published this next year.  Who knows, but let’s just hope that my calendar can keep up!

Nonetheless, while I have done nothing but surf the ‘net, drink my coffee slowly and wait for the phone to ring this week (oh yeah, right), I have come across a useful Landlording site to teach me the things that every Property Manager and Landlord should know.  I must give props to my non-imaginary Landlord friend Bruce, who turned me on to this site.

Justin Palma hosts videos on his very nicely designed site called Landlording.tv.  His videos have taught me how to change out formica countertop end caps, install a dishwasher and has given me good suggestions for setting rental rates.  I love his real world approach, his laid back style and how his cameraman even answers his cell phone during the whole video taping.  I love seeing and meeting real Landlords like myself that are what Justin would call “in the trenches.”

Some other great sites I’ve seen, in addition to YouTube, is eHow, Expert Village and Do It Yourself.com.  However, it would be good for you to remember that even though all of these sites are fantastic and have videos that are very informative…none of them are taping their Landlording advice from the hot tub.

I’m just sayin’.