Profiles

Properties, Podcasts and Parenting, Oh My!

Tasha Barrett and Jamie R. Swenson are Park Co. Realtors, “work wives,” mothers and podcast hosts. Together, they’ve created the “Realtor Moms Podcast,” a Fargo-made podcast were they discuss all things realty and motherhood.

Photos by Hillary Ehlen

“Thanks for tuning in to the Realtor Moms Podcast. We are Tasha and Jamie, full-time Realtors in the F-M and surrounding areas, and admittedly average moms. This is how we sell homes and try to keep our kids alive.”

This opening introduction is what a listener is greeted with upon starting an episode of one of Fargo’s newest podcasts: Realtor Moms Podcast

Meet The Realtor Moms

Tasha Barrett and Jamie R. Swenson are Realtors at Park Co. Realtors, “work wives,” mothers and podcast hosts. Together, they’ve created the “Realtor Moms Podcast,” a locally-made podcast discussing all things being a Realtor and being a mom. From realty topics like “How to Host an Open House” and “How to Love the House You’re In” to parenting subjects like “Mom Fail Fridays” and “FM-area Summer Events your Family Can’t Miss,” this duo answers frequently asked questions while also sharing humorous personal anecdotes. As entrepreneurs with a shared 13-years of experience as Realtors, they strive to be a library of information for local buyers and sellers.

Tasha Barrett is a mother to three daughters— ages 16, 10 and 6— and has been a Realtor with Park Co. for five years. She came into this profession after falling in love with the real estate industry while in the process of selling her and her husband’s old home and building a new one. Three months after setting in their new home, Barrett found herself still browsing real estate listings and properties. She shared that her husband, Mike, remarked that with all the time she was spending looking at homes online, she should consider looking into becoming a Realtor. 

Jamie R. Swenson has eight years of realty experience under her belt with Park Co. and is a mother to a four-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter. She has a history in real estate, having worked as a Realtor in Minneapolis, switching to a different career and then returning to real estate after missing the industry. “I got back into it and just jumped into it two feet first. It’s like a freefall because there’s no safety net when you go to a full-time, fully commissioned based real estate job,” she said, adding, “It’s been really great, it’s the best and one of the hardest jobs in the world.” 

Getting Started

The road to pushing “publish” on their first podcast episode was filled with research, planning and more research. Swenson said, “We were in the planning phase for nine months. We just wanted to do it right.” This planning phase involved researching recording equipment, learning about hosting platforms and compiling a list of over 75 potential episode topics. 

Originally, Swenson had an idea to make a podcast recapping all the new listings in the area, before admitting that that content would not necessarily appeal to a wide audience week after week. This desire to have a realty-based podcast morphed into one that shared Swenson and Barrett’s two passions: being Realtors and being mothers. 

“The details of the podcast are about real estate, but I think that being moms makes us the Realtors we are,” said Barrett, “[Being moms] gives some perspective to the whole process. Sometimes we forget that our clients don’t do this every day and we’re using lingo that they maybe don’t understand. Being moms teaches us to slow down and know we have to explain things. Because home-buying is something the typical person does five times in their whole life, not five times in five months like we do.”  

Tasha Barrett (Left), Jamie R Swenson (Right)

Content

The duo jokes that one thing they do not struggle with is coming up with content. They keep a shared digital list of episode content ideas that they are adding to almost faster than they can put episodes out. 

Some episodes they have produced or are in the pipeline include: Real Estate Lingo, How To Flip A House (Without Flipping Out), What Your Realtor Wishes You Knew and How to Invest in Real Estate. 

While they always have a determined topic they want to touch on, they also strive to keep the episodes authentic and enjoyable to both themselves and the listeners. 

“We don’t try and force what we are talking about. When we sit down to record, it has to be what we are feeling and what we want to talk about. If we don’t have the energy and the excitement, why would anyone want to listen to us?” said Barrett. 

If all goes according to plan, they record a new episode every week, even adding a bonus episode if time allows. 

Short and Sweet

Swenson and Barrett were strategic with not only the content of their episodes but the length of them too. Each episode length ranges from 10 to 20 minutes long. They noted that typically, Fargo-Moorhead area commutes are not as long as some other cities across the nation. Many enjoy listening to podcasts in the car, making hour-long episodes much too long for a standard Fargo commute. Barrett said, “We wanted quick episodes that people can listen to and finish by the time they park their car and go into work.” 

These brief episodes get straight to the point and make the content digestible to both a casual listener and someone invested in the industry. 

Personal and Educational

As Realtors, Barrett and Swenson get to meet and work very closely with many members of the community. The process of buying a home is time-intensive and very personal, so being a Realtor often means getting the opportunity to learn a lot about the clients and become a huge part of their lives for that moment in time. However, time, distance and schedules can sometimes get in the way of having these more-involved relationships with clients.

Through the podcast, Barrett and Swenson solve this problem by sharing their personalities and life experiences with listeners, offering an insight into who they are. Barrett said, “Now, they get to know me so that they can feel comfortable with me. No one wants to work with someone if they’re uncomfortable with them. Now, they can trust that I will do the very best job I can to walk them through the process.”  

Publically sharing both their expertise and their hearts, this podcast is now part of their business and will no doubt bring new clients their way.

A Creative Outlet

It’s healthy to have a creative outlet and this podcast serves as such for this duo. The women work well together and enjoy using this time to catch up, share successes and challenges and help be each other’s cheerleaders. 

These moms work hard in both their professional lives and their home lives. They enjoy getting to know their clients on a personal level, often sharing stories from home. In this podcast format, they get to combine both of these core aspects of who they are. “I enjoy the process of being able to take real estate and my family and being able to morph them together in a way that I can just be me and not to have to compartmentalize. I don’t want to do that, I want to be one person, and in this setting, I can and it’s just beautiful,” Barrett said. 

Episode by episode, these Realtor moms are educating the community while sharing relateable stories and always providing a laugh. To follow along with Barrett and Swenson, visit them online at realtormomspodcast.com, on Instagram at @realtormomspodcast and on Facebook at “Realtor Moms Podcast.” On these social media channels, they share PDF downloadables of information, quips about motherhood, giveaways and updates on episodes as they are published. Interested in real estate or not, these two sparkle behind the microphone and are sure to inspire even the most casual listener.

 

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