Meet Trish and Bob Hartwick, Northern Michigan Realtors

Look for three things: full-time agents who live here, a track record across the specific markets you care about (a Walloon Lake buyer and a Petoskey in-town buyer are found in different places), and a marketing plan written for your home rather than a template. The Hartwicks' version of that plan is the North Star Buyer Blueprint, and it is worth asking any agent you interview for theirs. Then ask how you will hear what buyers and their agents are saying about your home, and how often.

A solo agent is one person's calendar. A team means two experienced agents on every deal and people behind them handling marketing, showings and paperwork, so nothing waits. With the Hartwicks, Trish or Bob is involved in every transaction.

Yes, and it is a large part of what they do. Trish and Bob represent sellers and buyers every day, which is also why they know what buyers in each market are looking for right now. Selling a place downstate and finding one Up North, or trading a cottage for a year-round home, is a single conversation.

Coldwell Banker's program for marketing higher-value homes to affluent buyers nationally and internationally: dedicated luxury listing sites, a print magazine, and a network of luxury-certified agents across the country. Trish is a Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist, and the Hartwicks use the program for qualifying homes around Harbor Springs, Petoskey and Charlevoix, so a waterfront or golf-course listing here is seen by buyers in Chicago, Detroit and beyond.

Yes, and not the way most businesses do.

AI did not arrive at Hartwick Up North Homes as software taken out of a box and switched on. Since January 2025, Bob and Trish have put steady effort into building the foundation it runs on: how real estate is practiced in Northern Michigan and the rules that govern it, what clients have said about working with the Hartwicks over 30 years and the habits behind that record, the brand and the standards that come with it, and where the business is headed. Every member of the team, human and virtual, works from that same foundation. An AI that understands the industry, regional practices, and proprietary processes is useful. One that does not is a liability, and getting it to the first kind took months. During that time, virtual and human team members learned from each other and made the business more efficient.

The work is collaborative in the ordinary sense. The team sets a goal together, the research gets done and the findings pulled together, and then there is discussion, debate, and now and then a proper argument between the people and the software. Nothing reaches a client until it has been read, edited where needed, and approved by the team.

Day to day, AI helps with the office side of the business: gathering market data, analysis and planning, brand and copywriting, marketing for Hartwick Up North Homes and for the properties the team represents, and the information technology the business runs on. Think of it as a small group of business consultants and technologists who know the Up North market and are on call at any hour.

What it does not do is the part that matters most. It does not show a home, price one on its own, negotiate, or take the phone call at nine at night. The point of the technology is time: it gives Bob and Trish more of it for the work they got into this business to do, helping people find, sell, and love their homes Up North.

More than thirty years each. Bob began in resort development here in 1989; Trish arrived from Central Michigan University shortly after. They founded their own team in 2004 and have been with Coldwell Banker Schmidt in Petoskey since 2011.