Episode 1: Jessica Garard

Michelle Linton hosts the first "Beyond the Sale" podcast, featuring Jessica Garard, who reflects on her two-year tenure as president. They discuss the board's efforts in educating members on industry changes, implementing the buyer broker model, and launching the Wellness Committee for member support. They highlight the introduction of the Realist property data tool and community initiatives like supporting 30 kids through Casa for the Kids and the Northern Arizona Housing Fund. The conversation also covers the association's consumer awareness campaign, regional MLS discussions, and the importance of continuing education and advocacy.

Transcript

Hello, Hey everyone, and welcome to our very first podcast, beyond the sale. Empower members beyond the transaction. I am your host, Michelle Whitton, and I am so excited to watch this podcast as a way to connect with our members. We know that being a realtor is more than just clothing deals. It's about understanding your benefits, staying ahead in the industry and being a part of a strong community. That's exactly why we're doing this podcast, to keep you informed, to help you grow and make sure you're getting the most of your NAAR membership. Today, I have a very special guest, someone who has dedicated the last two years to leading and strengthening our real estate community. Joining me is Jessica Garard, I guess. Welcome to the show. How does it feel up to be on the other side after two years as president? Well,
Michelle, honestly, it's, it's a huge mixture of emotions. You know, it's definitely a relief. You know, it took a lot of my time, but I really miss, you know, I really do miss being president, but luckily, I'm still part of the board and still collaborating and, you know, I'm still part of the great team that we have at NAAR and it's been so fun to watch the last two board, well even beyond before that. As you know, you know, we started as president elect and then Vice President, um, it's just been so fun to watch our board grow over the last five years. And boy has it had to with all the changes
reflecting on last year. What was something that you're just so part of that we accomplished as a board, you know, all the
things that we our membership, had to go through as far as just changes in our industry, it kind of feels like so long ago. I don't know if it does to you, but yeah, it feels like we've been doing it this way forever, but with all the lawsuits and just the way of, you know, bringing the buyer broker, I thought our organization did a great job of educating its members, bringing all the forms and education we could as soon as possible, so that our members were ready to take on the changes when they needed to be implemented. And I honestly think that our Northern Arizona agents are doing a great job of implementing the buyer broker. I hear of other places that aren't, and I'm really proud to know that fly tap agents are taking that seriously, and part of that too, I remember it was
like the bomb that was going to go off, or the train had left the building there. So it's such a relief to be on the other side and have those tools in place for our members. Totally. One thing I thought was super great that we did last year was getting better help former members through the Wellness
Committee, totally so the wellness committee came along two years ago. Our board thought it was really important for our members to have, actually a committee, you know, that focus on just the well being of us as realtors. You know, we all know that we you know, we went through so much during COVID. We had go through so much with all the changes, and we're constantly doing all we can to help our buyers and sellers, and we take on those emotions. So we need to make sure that we're good inside too, and so being able to bring better help audits and affordable option for counseling services for our members was huge, because I don't know about you, but I'm happy to say I see a counselor that helps me immensely, and it's just such an easy way to to see a counselor an affordable price at The convening, the convenience of your home, and it was we had a lot of members take advantage of it, and we hope that members will continue to this year.
Absolutely. And for our members out there don't know, there are three sessions through better health that are available to us as a member of benefit, which is great because, let's face it, sometimes it's stressful, the interrupter and life is just stressful. Great, too. Um, and
I don't know if this is correct, so we can cut it if it's not, but, um, I think we get it. We also get it at a discounted rate, if you continue on past those three free
sessions, awesome. And then trees, the shaking her head, but yes, so you know, sweet that is super great. Um, let's move on to the Coming Soon status. For listings. How has this, you know, changed
the way our memories are gay business. Do you think so? Our board was excited to bring the Coming Soon stats back to our membership on. Um, you know, we as an organization have gotten some plaque as to what Realtors do we, of course, know and our clients do know all the great benefits we bring to our agent or for to our clients. But um, coming soon allows us to one, help sellers who aren't quite ready to put it on the market, but want to build that buzz and kind of get some, you know, just some feedback on what the pricing is. Two, it's great for our buyers agents to to know of listings that hit the market prior to them going out to all the syndicated websites. And it's we definitely think it's just another tool for our agents to use if they want to, you know, even still, need to use it, but giving them the opportunity to, I think was a great is a great benefit, and I'm really glad for it decided me too.
I love the buzz that it creates, and I think it's powerful for us as agents to have that, that people buyers, can come to us first genuine bat properties that will be coming on the market is that before it goes out to the masses. All right. So another thing we did last year is we switched over to realist, which is a new property data tool that N, A, A R introduced,
how's it benefiting members? First of all, I want to thank all the members that took the time to come out and test the two differing options we were going between realists and CRS, and through the feedback of our membership and our board, the ultimately decided to go to realist, and hopefully you all have had a chance to use it. I mean, the reports are great. All the county records are uploaded to that report straight from our MLS. It's a great tool used for comparables, tax records, demographic statuses. There's so much that realist has that really, if you're using it, you're probably only using the tip of, you know, just the surface of it, and there's so much more to dive in. They have great customer service. So I'm really excited about our our contract with them, me too.
It's going to be great. I feel like they make it easy to learn about it through their web tutorials, which is exciting, right? So it's hard to learn something new. Oh, let's talk about our community, empowerment community. We did so many great things last year. One thing we did was we supported 30 kids through Casa for the kids Giving Tree program at Christmas, which was incredible,
totally. So one of you know, one of the things I love most about being a realtor and being a member of NAAR is what we do in our community. And sometimes it's hard to feel like you're making a big impact or getting back singularly, but as an organization, please, I hope all the members know that we all together are giving back quite a bit, and it's just, you know, it's an easy way to volunteer with our organization if you don't have any ideas.
Na R does such an amazing job being present and helping our community. We adopted grandparents and adopted seniors, supporting elderly community members, right? And also we sponsored the festival of science, yes, and that was in honor of Jim snook, because
they part of that, yeah. And
it was also awesome to have our our
board sponsor, WSB, teacher, beer, the realtor Relief Fund, which we know people all over the country are needing it more than ever these days. And then, of course, we support like crazy, which is very close to home, the Northern Arizona housing fund
absolutely share a little bit more with that for me meeting members up there who are not familiar. So
the Northern Arizona Housing Fund is a fund that's created, that has been created that we can we can donate to as Realtors through our escrows, through our local title companies. So if you have a if you have a closing, you can have some of your commission donated. A lot of the title companies will match your donations. Or you can even ask sellers and buyers to contribute out of their closing costs as well. Different organizations through town that help create affordable housing will come to housing solutions and ask for grants. There's a whole grant process that that they go through, that that money goes towards. So all that money is getting used in our area for affordable housing, which is really, really awesome. We
need it here. So in Northern Arizona, Association of Realtors, we also ran a consumer awareness campaign. Why was that important? Well,
a lot. If people in the public don't really understand what Realtors do, and there were so many news stories coming out, you know, I'm sure we all saw so many headlines that were just completely false. You know, accusing or just saying that we have minimal worth. We're not worth the amounts that we charge we've been coercing with each other and everything, all of those things are very false, and we just wanted to do something to maybe combat those stories, at least in our community and so. And I guess with our stakes, we partnered with the Arizona realtors in doing this campaign, so people may have seen our campaigns on the busses through town. We had Facebook and Google ads and make a little bit of radio and, yeah, I think it was just a way to get the community out there, just to know a little bit more about the value of having a realtor on your
side. Absolutely. It's so important, and we use so much for our community. I thought it was really great outreach. So everybody keep your eye out for the busses we're still cruising around flat, yeah. Another major thing we did in 2024 was starting discussions for a regional MLS with Prescott and the White Mountains. What's the potential impact of that? Well,
so we all know there's a lot of pub up out there of armless you know, wanting to come into different regions, and they already have in in the state, and we as an association, want to explore another option, just to give our membership all the options possible. So one of those, on which I really appreciate you and rest of the team who are still researching, getting that information so that it's ready for our members, is to start a regionalized MLS through other associations nearby, of course, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, because you're more in the know of it now, but, um, you know, it's still the beginning stages, but what it would do if it comes into fruition is kind of, you know, it would give our association more control of our local NLS. We would be able to keep a lot. We'll be able to keep more of the benefits that that we already give, the classes that we offer our wonderful local association and its staff, we'd be able to keep all of that, which, if we do align with harmless that's kind of an unknown. So we do have more control, we would have more control and know more of our fate and control more by fate. I believe if the regionalization did come into fruition, absolutely, we would keep control of what we're doing, and we would still be able to do everything we do for our community, which is great and so important to us as realtors.
So that's still in the process, and we'll keep everybody posted as that plays out. Let's hear listen about looking ahead with everything accomplished. What do you think's next for NA AI members this coming year, in 2025
Well, I think empowerment, innovation and collaboration will continue to drive our success. I really do believe that our members should focus, continue to focus on all the continuing education that's being brought I know we've got continuing education classes that go towards your license coming. There's a lot of different kind of lunch and learns. We had a stellar membership luncheon last week with the fire department and the council from Arizona realtors. It was a packed, sold out event, so we're going to be bringing more speakers like that. We want to, we want to fill the room and bring as much information as possible. I think all of our agents should continue to leverage the technology that is, you know, that is provided. A lot of times, agents don't know what is offered to them through our local association, the state association, and also the National Association. So often, agents are recreating the wheel when a lot of it's, you know, a lot of things are out there for them to use, right off, you know, up that, and also just continuing our community engagement. I mean, I've always, I believe that, like the realtors, are most community minded people almost anywhere. There are not many realtors that I know that if somebody even asked for help, they would drop everything and go help. And so we've shown that as an association time and time again, and I'm super proud to be, you know, a part of that. And then advocacy is a huge part of our association, as well being a realtor member, I don't you know. I know we all hear the ray pack a. Yes, and a lot of people don't really realize exactly what their investment goes to when it comes towards right pack. But there are so many things behind the scenes that our lobbyists are doing to help our members, but also just our community and the home buying process entirely. You know, there's lobbyists out by talking about insurance, capital gains, taxes, things that we in a local level may not be able to get done, but on a national level, we can actually make some huge movements in the right direction as far as home ownership goes. And I don't, I don't make a lot of members understand that their small investment in RAPAC helped do that every single year, absolutely
so everybody, please check that box for the $35 minimum repat contribution. I also thought it was amazing how this state lobbied our governor during COVID In 2020 to make us an essential service, we were able to work during that time period. Oh, 100%
there's just so many things that I think we all take it for granted to be able to do our jobs. I mean, even years and years and years ago, the fact that we can write contracts is all due to rake up. We are technically able to, you know, it's in the legislative, whatever law, that we are able to write contracts, and that would never happen if our lobbyists didn't fight for that. Yep, the Arizona Constitution near and there, that's called, right? I forget what article it is, but we Alissa, Article 27 thank you so much for joining me today for and for review you've done for NAR over the past two years. Well, thanks, Michelle. Thank you so much for sucking up and volunteering as well. I know our association is in such great hands, and I are just so excited to see how we grow and what our association can do this year, and I know it's gonna be great things, because you are an amazing leader. Oh, thank you.
It was a really great set. Worked with you the past two years, and I already miss you. Well. Thank you everyone for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and stay tuned for more conversations about real estate, community and leadership. See you next time you.