Monthly Archives: June 2012

Why Work So Hard?

Well, here’s another great reason.  This is a letter of reference from one of my first time buyer couples:

As first time home buyers, we were nervous about finding our first home and establishing a relationship with our agent. Brenda was referred to us by a mutual friend who admired her professionalism and wonderful spirit. Brenda left a wonderful impression after our first meeting. She LOVES first time buyers and helped us to understand the process, was patient and detail oriented when showing us each home, and offered support during each step. She understands the market and takes pride in her work, something that you will see after your first meeting with Brenda. She has a heart of gold and we thank her for making our first purchase special.

-Cameron

Real Estate Referral Letter

There is no higher compliment in my business than referrals from past clients. Not only does it help create a firm foundation for your business, but it just plain makes you feel good.  Here’s one that made my day:

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Recommendation for Brenda Briggs

Selecting the right realtor can be a daunting task, as there are so many agencies and qualified individuals available in today’s marketplace.  After interviewing several, we chose Brenda as she was ‘down-to-earth’, easy to talk to, and very professional in her approach.  She more than exceeded our expectations!

Rather than feeling like just clients of hers, we felt “special”.  We knew that she was doing her utmost to find a buyer for our property.  She answered our calls and emails promptly, listened to all of our concerns, offered valuable advice, and made the whole process of selling our house run smoothly.  If she felt a room needed a special something, she addressed the situation herself, rather than asking us to do so.  She instinctively knew what needed to be done to make the house sell, and she succeeded in short order in a slow moving market.

Brenda excels at negotiations, and has perfected the art of dealing with buyers and sellers.  She possesses just the right touch when anxiety flares on either side, remains professional in all aspects of the transaction from the signing of the listing agreement to the closing, along with demonstrating integrity in her business relationships.  We always knew that she was there for us, representing our best interests at all times.

We appreciate all the extra work that Brenda Briggs did to make the sale of our property a reality.  We cannot recommend her high enough!

Jaine and Brian Parry

And by the way…these people are special to me.  I never knew them before I listed their home, but they are now a part of my history…and hopefully my future as well. 

Home is…?

I read an editorial in Smithsonian the other day, and it made me really stop and think about Home.  I am in the business of helping people buy and sell homes, so it’s easy to get into the mindset of homes as products.  This really defines home as the place people go to nest, doesn’t it?  Move the nest; the building isn’t home anymore; the NEXT building is home…the place where the nest rests.

If that is true, then home is a building where a group of people gather and it can be anywhere.   The Smithsonian article said that original homes might have been a campfire around which the usual group of people gathered, day after day.   But I say, it wasn’t the campfire…it was the people around it who constituted home.  I wouldn’t feel at home looking across a crackling fire at a stranger…would you?

So home is not a building or even a place; rather, it’s the people who gather there, over and over, day after day.  It’s the ones you know will show up, the ones who always come to the campfire.  Gather: It implies a voluntary movement towards some central point…in our analogy, a campfire.  You don’t call it a gathering if the ones there were forced to go there, or went on their own, reluctantly.  It’s a gathering if people just come, over and over, day after day.  You can depend on it, in other words.   Home eliminates a lot of unknowns, then, if you have the same ones gathering, every day, day after day: you know they will be there.  It feels safe.

If you think about all of that, it sounds wonderful, except that there are people who show up every day, day after day, to suck the life out of you and one day toss your carcass aside.  Hahahaha.  That’s not pretty, now is it?   So home must also imply some level of mutual goodness, mutual protectiveness, some level of nobody being a bloodsucker.  There are a lot of bloodsuckers out there, people!  You know its true.

So…it ain’t all good, just because people gather.  Home must be a gathering of people (and cats) who have everyone’s best interest at heart…really care about one another and are interested in others’ wellbeing as much as one’s own (might be a bit of a stretch for the cats).  Now that beats a building all day long, don’t you think?

And you thought I was going to be serious.  I tried; I really did.  But…not a chance.