Dusting off the blog machine (again) after a conversation last week with my friend Jim Duncan in Charlottesville. Jim’s blog was one of the first blogs I started to follow when I kicked things off here at NRVLiving.com, and while I’ve fallen off the wagon a time or three, he’s kept on going. In fact, I think he writes a few different sites, somehow.

We were talking about things happening in our respective real estate markets, and about how he’s remained consistent with things all these years. His advice was unsurprisingly simple – “keep writing.” And he challenged me to keep going … loser buys the next round when we’re able to see each other again.

It’s good advice. There’s something helpful about being able to coalesce all of these jumbled thoughts into something that I hope is useful for those that read it. Sometimes it helps me better verbalize what I’m seeing in the New River Valley real estate market, and it certainly is invaluable to be able to reference things written 9/10/11 years ago, and see what’s different/the same.

So while there’s plenty to talk about during this global pandemic that is COVID-19, we’ll start with something a little more local – we’ve MOVE(d)Boldly and partnered with @properties.

Nest Realty – all fifteen of our offices, in five different states – has entered into a formal partnership with @properties, based out of Chicago, and we are extremely excited about it. You can read more at the link here, where some of the reasons are outlined. We’ve always been proud of our marketing collateral, which – I’m biased – are second to none to anything else in the New River Valley. We’ve always looked at our tech stack with a critical eye, looking at how we can make it better for agents and consumers alike – and when we couldn’t find something that fit quite right, we built it from the ground up. And we’ve ALWAYS focused on what makes our individual markets unique, and looked for ways to be a part of supporting and being part of those communities. We don’t believe that we can open a Nest office just anywhere and make it a “one size fits all” approach.

So what’s this mean for our clients? Nothing, from the perspective of what they see when they work with Nest Realty. We are, and will be, Nest Realty. Our agents, however, will be a part of a phenomenal network, one that will ramp up even more our cutting-edge design services, our proprietary technology suite, and – unique to our industry – health care.

This is a partnership that both sides were excited to enter into, and one that’s going to pay dividends to our agents and clients for years to come. The future is going to be awesome so stay tuned, this is gonna be fun!