Be Kind At Bens Bells with Tony Ray and Darren - Live Tucson Real Estate Update

Happy Saturday! Okay, so I'm really excited today, and you can see I'm wearing my Be Kind Ben's Bells logo button, and we are going live. But first, before we move, I want you to notice over to the left, we're in downtown Tucson, and you can see the Be Kind Ben's Bells wall, which is a tile mural. And then it's funny because El Tour de Tucson is next week. I'm going to talk to you about that, and it's got the Ride Tucson stuff on the Be Kind. So we're going to spin around here because we're in the dark and I'm a little shaded. Can they see that?

Yeah, they can see that, but they couldn't see you without the hat.

Which is fine, I don't need to be seen. It's totally fine not to see me. This is Ben's Bells. We're right in front of the new building, which is a new apartment complex here in Tucson, and there's one East and one West Broadway. I'm gonna let James spin around and show you the two buildings. The building on the left is a new tower that came up about a year, I think, ago, and that building is rented out. Those are luxury apartments that rented for about $2,400 a month, and then the building to my right over here is the new twin to that building, and it's— those are 3-bedroom condos running about $3,000 a month. Who knew that that would happen in downtown Tucson? I also want to tell you a little quick tip. If you scan back over there to that podium, what you're seeing over there at the Be Kind podium is actually going to become a 6-story marketplace in that triangle right there. So that development was just announced. It'll be 6 stories with apartments and commercial and retail stuff and a courtyard, so very European. European in flavor from what I could see on the development maps. And then we're right in the heart of downtown Tucson, so let's scan over here and I'm going to show you Ben's Bells Shop. So Ben's Bells Shop is this cute little house-looking office that's right in the middle of downtown, and we're gonna do a great Ben's Bells event tonight for Second Saturday, and I'm gonna be in front of our office at 216 Congress— sorry, it's 216 East Congress— and We'll be in front of the office from 6 to 9. It's Second Saturday, so it's going to be a blast. If you come visit us down there, we're going to be promoting Ben's Bells products. They have a new ornament out, which they do every year, and the ornament is the dove ornament, and it actually is blush pink, I believe, is the new color for the year. And we're going to also have a balloon guy making balloons, those funny animal balloons for the kids, and then we will have a photo board, so you can take full photos and post them and go viral with them for Ben's Bells to promote the charity. And somebody's gonna win some really cool prizes, the person who gets the most likes and shares. So that's a really cool event we have going on. I would love it if you would come visit Darren and I and support Ben's Bells. Get out of the house, come down and play with us tonight. It's gonna be a blast. So let's go take a look in here because Ben's Bells makes a lot of really beautiful products. And all of this is the Be Kind Project. And it's about random acts of kindness and doing the smallest of things and what an effect it has on others. And I have to tell you right now, with all the sadness I'm seeing on Facebook and all these places, there's a lot of political hate and stuff going on. And I would love to see all of us promote, be kind, and let's get out there and change the world one person at a time. So let's pop in. I want to show you the Ben's Bells shop.

Dennis says hi.

Hi, Dennis.

Woo-hoo!

Thank you for popping over to C2S on Real Estate Facebook. So we're in the studio area. Am I okay on— you're good. So we're in the studio area and they actually have studios here if you want to come volunteer. Ben's Bells has these beautiful studios. You can come down and you can actually make the beautiful ceramic products with them. And you can bring a group, you can do a birthday, and you set it up with their coordinator who does volunteer coordinating, and they actually set up the whole thing for you and your friends to come down and just volunteer, paint ceramics, and make these beautiful Ben's Bells products for the charity. So the studios are in here, in different areas over here, and I'm going to back away for you to just stay there. And then you can see the— I'm going to point over there. There's a beautiful courtyard, and then there's some studios over there. Very fun stuff. Yeah, so what you're looking at is this really nice event courtyard that they do rent out for events, which is right in the heart of downtown. So that's nice to to know. And then they also have studios where you actually get to go paint and do fun stuff with the ceramics, and I'll show you what they make. Dennis Jensen, you're such a loyal fan, and we totally appreciate that. And Dennis Jensen, you just need to move to Tucson. Also, right next door— it's not open right now, but if you, if you do pop in here, there's a cute little shop called Riveted, and that little shop sells some really cool little old and stuff that you wouldn't find. It's like a little antique store, but it's boutique antique is what I'm calling it. So come on over here, I'm going to show you here.

Hi!

Okay, so we're in Ben's Bell Shop. Great. Hi, say hi everybody. What is your name?

I'm Jessica.

Jessica is here with us and she's holding down fort today. Yeah, um, so you guys make a lot of beautiful products. So there's like little, um, These are really fun. I just bought some of these myself. And these, um, you give these out to somebody when you see somebody doing a random act of kindness or just an act of kindness. And it says to that— it says to that person that we've acknowledged them and appreciate them. And this is something cool to pass kindness forward, right? And that's the goal of this. Yeah, so these are really neat. You can buy these. If you buy these to give out, buy a 10-pack or a 20-pack or whatever. And give them out. You keep them in your pocket, and I've noticed what happens for me is now I'm starting to be very aware of watching other people and what they're doing around me and watching these acts of kindness, which makes me more grateful every day, and it makes me appreciate Tucson more and the people around me. So it's really cool to even carry one of these in your pocket. It just changes things for you. Do you have that same—

I agree. Right?

It's kind of— it's a neat effect, what it does, just to be aware of act, you know, kindness.

Yeah, it makes you notice people.

Yeah, and we need this right now big time. This country needs more acts of kindness than ever right now. So there's some— these are for sale, right? These are the little bells that are for sale. Are these ornaments or bells? Um, they're both. They're both. Okay, so the little— the smaller ones could be used as ornaments. And, um, there is— if you know the Ben's Bells, um, What they are known for is that they hide, uh, what, a couple hundred a month?

200.

So 200 Ben's Bells are hidden around, uh, local areas every month, and those 200 are random act of kindness from Ben's Bells. And what happens is someone finds them and they get to take it home. It's been going on— do you know how many years this has been?

It started in 2002.

2002. So we're in 14— year 14. Yeah, so in year 14. So, um, they also have beautiful stuff like note cards and these giant mosaic tiles that you can put on walls. They have, uh, Be Kind mugs. There's hoodies. If you come down tonight to our office, they'll have a lot of these things there for sale. Um, Ian, the hoodies, the Ben's Bells hoodies are on sale. Yeah, so you can get a hoodie on sale, right? So you get one of these guys. I'll show you these. Look at Ooh, they're super soft. Look at how cute! You can wear that. And so if it's chilly tonight, you need to buy one of these, right? And then they've got their new leisure— what do you call it?

Athletic leisure.

Athletic leisure. At least I don't know how to say it. It's like athletic leisure wear. It's the cool Sporty Spice stuff, right? That's their new stuff is available. And then the ornament, the dove ornament, I talked about earlier will be there tonight, and that's blush pink, and that's the— this year's color is this guy right there, a little blush pink. Look, it's almost the color of my beautiful nails. Kidding. Um, these were past colors, right, for different years? Because there's 2016. So we have this each year, they highlight.

Okay, and then there's a special color, a special color. It comes in the blue, the yellow, and red and everything, like all of our belts.

So you can buy different colored ornaments, but there is a new one for each year.

Nice.

And it's exclusive for this year. There's never going to be pink ever.

Blush pink will not be done again, only this year. So we're going to say goodbye to Jessica and we're going to go back outside because there's some really nice people that want to come in here and shop, and we're going to get out of their way and we're going to continue outside. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Hi. Um, let's go this way.

Dennis says he loves Be Kind. What a great concept. We all need this right now, especially with everything going on.

I totally agree. It couldn't have come at a better time. We had planned to do this, and it just couldn't come at a better time. We're excited to promote them tonight and try to get some some more awareness for Be Kind and be out there on the streets. Second Saturday is gonna be packed tonight as always in Tucson. It's very fun, so it'll be a great event for everybody. Please come see us. We have, by the way, whoever comes to me tonight by 6 o'clock, we have 2 Ice Cat hockey tickets in my hands. Not right now, pretend they're here. I have them at the office and I will give them to the first person who walks up and asks me for them. The Ice Cats start at 7:30 at the Tucson Community Center. Everybody that's been to a game has said they're phenomenal fun. They're just outrageous fun. So if you want to go to the game tonight, you need to get to me at 6 o'clock at the downtown office. The first person in, I will hand them those tickets to go to the TCC. So we talked about Ben's Bells. I want you to come visit Darren and I. And by the way, Darren is out today showing property. Saturdays has become very difficult for us. So we thought it was gonna be a free day, but it never is. So Darren's out showing property. Hi Darren! And let's move on. So we know that the TCC has Ice Cats tonight, and I'm looking at my paper now because I have to cheat because I wasn't prepared because I've been out all week.

Dennis is wondering if you can get the Be Kind stuff online.

Yeah, Dennis, absolutely. They have a whole store on Ben's— if you Google Ben's Bells Be Kind That would be Ben's Bells Be Kind. They have a website and I wish I had brought that and I apologize. But yes, they have a whole store of fun things. And of course you could just fly into Tucson and I'll bring you here personally and we could buy stuff. Okay, but if that doesn't work, you can get these cool magnets. Check this thing out. It's a super magnet and everybody should wear one. So let's go to coming up today, this weekend, besides Second Saturday going to tonight, I wanted to let you know that there is the artist studios. It's called Open Studio Tours, and you can go to openstudiotours.com. And if you go there, they have all of the art studios in downtown, in the southern area of Tucson. All of them are open for self-guided tours, basically. So you can see all the cool stuff that these artists are making down here. And if you look, I don't know if you can see this, but this is the map of all the little The red dots mean those are all the studios that are gonna be open. Got it? So that's really cool, 'cause there's a lot of stuff going on for there. So you're gonna do artist studios. So let's talk about next week. Next week is one of our big events in Tucson called El Tour de Tucson. It's where all the cyclists are riding, which is cool, 'cause we couldn't have planned a better segue, 'cause the bicycles are on the Be Kind wall out there. That event starts at Armory Park down here in downtown Tucson. I think it's at 7:00 AM, but you'll want to check our website at seetucsonhomes.com and click on the things to do button and you'll go over to the events calendar and you can see what all the information. There's a route schedule and everything that they're doing. It's important to know their route schedule. As a REALTOR®, we show property. We have to know the route schedule for El Tour de Tucson because there are blocked streets running all the way through Tucson, Arizona, and it's a big, big event with a A lot of people, so you don't want to try to cross paths because you will be— there are certain roads that will be closed down. So if you're going to be out and about playing tomorrow, make sure you check the route schedule. So go to seetucsonhomes.com and then things to do, and then you'll click on the date for next weekend and you'll see El Tour in Tucson. Sorry, I probably should have brought water. The other thing I want to tell you about is next week is also this really cool event that I love to go to. It's at the Tucson Museum of Art. And the Tucson Museum of Art, I'm gonna show you the layout for all of the fun stuff. This is all the booths that are going on. There will be a ton of holiday artists and crafts and things to buy for next weekend. Okay, so you want to do that. I believe that event— do you know, James?

No.

I believe that event is 2 days, but I would check our website at seetucsonhomes.com and see if it's both days or not. And then my tech tip for you today is if you're gonna come down here this weekend and next weekend or anytime, tonight you can't park here because it's Second Saturday. So my tech tip is once again, drive straight through Tucson, get over to the Mercado, which is right off of Broadway exit, the Broadway-Congress exit. You just take a right when you're coming off and you head west. And at the very first light, you're gonna, pull into the Mercado, you can park there for free, jump on the light rail, and come back on the light rail. There's two light rail apps that will help you. You can go to Go Tucson, which is an app. It'll let you pay for your light rail rides right on the app and parking in Tucson later. You can also click on the— download the app called Tucson Streetcar, and it'll show you where the streetcars are all in route at all times, so you get an approximation of how long 1 is going to take to get to you. So there's two great apps, Tucson Streetcar and Go Tucson. Get those, go park over— now the other place you could park, by the way, is you could park over at any of the garages by the U of A, and if you park at the U of A garages, you would jump the light rail right at the main gate. You could jump the light rail there as well. Okay, I think that's it for today. Again, please come visit us tonight. We're gonna have a blast. We've got a balloon guy making cool animal balloons for the kids, and we've got a cool photo board to take photos. We're giving away prizes, and more than anything, we're going to support Be Kind. So please come visit us tonight. Darren says hi. He'll be back someday if I don't keep him showing property. And, uh, thanks for always tuning in. Have a great day. I'm Tony Ray Baker, ctucsonhomes.com, and my phone number is 520-631-8669. So call me.

Thanks a lot, everyone.

Bye.