9. Personal News and Podcast Update!
Hi everyone! I've been MIA for a couple months because in addition to design projects
I've moved back to the mountains - for first time listeners I renovated a vintage travel trailer into my tiny dream home and have been living in it ever since, moving around every 5-6 months.
AND I've been working on getting my real estate license and have started working with amazing team at the Asheville Realty Group! This is something I've considered for a long time but wanted to wait until I found a place to call home base.
Why Asheville?
I grew up in NC and spent a lot of time in Asheville visiting friends especially in college. I spent over 10 years living in major cities like NYC, San Francisco, and Portland until in the midst of the pandemic I decided to move back to North Carolina.
After renovating a vintage travel trailer into my tiny dream home and spending 2 summer seasons in Maggie Valley, NC (about 25 miles west of Asheville in between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Smokey Mountains) I felt a deep connection for this area and community and am in daily awe of the inspiration and opportunity here.
Why Real Estate?
In my career in interior design I've been working adjacent to the real estate industry for years, partnering with agents, investors, developers, along with new buyers and active homeowners.
Now that I am running my own interior design business and have finally settled on a place to live for the foreseeable future it finally felt like the right time to move forward and pursue my real estate broker's license.
My interior design background has provided me with a deep understanding of how the aesthetic appeal impacts property value and revenue (for both selling and renting). As a real estate agent I am continuously expanding my knowledge and strengthening my data driven design approach- especially in investment rental properties like Airbnbs.
As many of you already know I am enthusiastic about designing tiny houses but also the tiny house lifestyle and fascinated by alternative ways of living and unconventional takes on "home" and what that means and looks like. As a tiny dweller, I am interested in owning property for personal use but also to create short-term and long-term experiences of tiny life and expanding the community. I've heard from many clients looking for tiny house land parcels that when they previously worked with real estate agents they were uninterested and often unresponsive. I don't measure success in this job by commission- it's delivering exceptional results while keeping the process as smooth and stress-free as possible. I'm excited to deliver exceptional real estate services to a largely underserved market and help my clients achieve their unique real estate goals whatever they may be and no matter the budget.
Anyone looking to buy/sell/ invest in Western North Carolina including Asheville, Hendersonville, Waynesville, Brevard, Black Mountain, and Maggie Valley I got you! Please use the link in the show notes to DM me
Specialties:
investment properties / short-term vacation rentals/ airbnbs
fixer uppers/ flips/ renovations
land to build a new home
land to park a travel trailer, RV, tiny house
land to develop campsites, RV parks, retreat centers, rental cabins, tiny house communities
While I will continue to take design projects across the country, my real estate focus will be in Western North Carolina, so if you or anyone you know is interested in buying or selling around these parts, holler at your girl!
Stay tuned next week- I'll be back with another new episode next Wednesday!
SOCIAL LINKS:
JOIN THE MAILING LIST:
FEEDBACK / EPISODE SUGGESTION FORM:
FREE RESOURCES:
Transcript:
“Hi, everyone. Happy July. I hope you've been having an amazing summer. I have been Mia on here for a couple of months now, and that is because I have some exciting updates for you. Today's episode should be pretty brief. Just gonna let you know what's been going on with me and ah, uh, week. We'll be getting right back to it all the tiny house interior design content you're here for. So, update number one I have moved back to the mountains in western North Carolina. If, uh, you're a first time listener, little, uh, context. I renovated a vintage travel trailer into my tiny dream home and have been living in it ever since, uh, for the last few years and have been moving around every five to six months. Um, I have also been working on getting my real estate license, which I'm really excited about. And I've recently started working with the amazing team at the Asheville Realty Group. And this is actually something I've considered for a long time, but for a few reasons, waited mainly to find a place to call home base, which I now have. I am going to be staying in the Asheville western North Carolina area for the foreseeable future in the tiny house. And I just feel so connected here. Um, I grew up in North Carolina, spent a lot of time in Asheville visiting friends, especially when I was in college, and I think over spending, uh, over ten years in such major cities like New York and San Francisco and Portland, really. I hit a point in the middle of the pandemic where I just kind of questioned rent and wanted to own something, but didn't know where I wanted to be. And I ended up deciding to move back to North Carolina. And after renovating my travel trailer into my tiny dream home, I spent last summer in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, which is about 25 miles west of Asheville. It's right at the gateway of the Smoky Mountains where the Blue Ridge and Smokies come together. It's gorgeous. And I just felt a really deep connection for the area. Being so close to nature, really, um, cathartic experience. I had gone through an emotional year before that and yeah, just really found inspiration and connection and opportunity here. And if anyone's asking, where did real estate come from? Uh, through my career in interior design, I've been working adjacently to the real estate industry for a long time, partnering with other agents, investors, developers, along with new homebuyers and active homeowners. I just kind of got to a place when I kind of realized where I wanted to live, at least for the foreseeable future. And now that I'm running my own design business, it felt like the right time to move forward and really pursue, um, getting my real estate license. So that's kind of where that came from. It's something I've thought about for a while and the pieces just recently came together and made sense. My interior design background has provided me with a really deep understanding of how the aesthetic appeal impacts property value and revenue, both in terms of selling and renting, long term and short term. I love that as a real estate agent, I'm expanding my knowledge and really strengthening my data driven design approach, especially working with investors in rental properties, airbnb and such. You already know, hopefully by the name of this podcast, that I'm really enthusiastic about designing tiny houses, but also I'm really fascinated by the tiny house lifestyle and alternative ways of living and unconventional takes on home and what home really means and what home looks like. As a tiny dweller myself, I'm really interested in owning property for personal use and also to create short term and long term experiences of tiny life and generally supporting and expanding the tiny, uh, life community. And I've heard from many clients and experienced myself that when you're looking for land parcels to do something with tiny houses or RVs, there are a lot of zoning and deed restrictions to look out for. And it's really hard to get real estate agents to kind of commit because it's less commission, typically lands less than houses. And a lot of the folks I work with are on really small budgets and they're not looking for a huge lots of acres, they're looking for a small land plot and need a professional that understands the real estate around tiny houses and those types of restrictions to help them. And that is definitely a driving reason that I chose now to do this, that I'm in this tiny life, in this tiny community, and really feel that there's an underserved market, um, that I'm excited to connect to because I feel like I'm already in this market. Um, and it just makes me really happy to help people achieve whatever unique real estate goals that they have, whatever size and whatever the budget, I don't measure success in any job by commission or by revenue alone. For me, it's really delivering exceptional results while keeping a pretty notoriously stressful process as, uh, smooth and stress free as possible. So that is the end of my update. Next week I will have a full episode with our usual content, so please do check back for that. And in the meantime, I'm excited to be back here. Thank you for bearing with me. And if you are looking to buy, sell, or invest in real estate in western North Carolina, holler at your girl.”
