GET. A. GRIP.

This is the time out generation. This is the generation where there were no consequences for bad behavior. This is the generation of entitlement lifestyle, or placated entitlement, to teach children that everything is a bed of roses. NO COPING SKILLS and no need to teach anger management, poor, poor parenting, when it is the parents’ job to teach children how to make it in life, EVEN when things don’t go his/her way. Maybe teaching how to lose gracefully is MORE important. Because you’re gonna lose sometimes. You are going. to. lose. But, parents, because you have not taught your children the truth, you get this. Listen little crybabies, your parents know life is hard because they worked to pay YOUR way. And yet you are ungrateful cretins.

You know sports, right? You know one team wins. ONE TEAM. You don’t see the losing team killing the winners! Can you even grasp that? Are you that stupid??

Listen up, brats. Here’s a news flash for you. Life is hard. Life is full of disappointments. Yes, it is full of celebrations, joy, winning, happiness. But there are also disappointments, hardships, terrible tragedies, accidents that cause irreparable damage. You’re the smartest people on the planet, or so you believe (you are SO wrong); figure this out! Learn to control your emotions, for God’s sake. No level of education, nor professional paychecks nor little lifestyle choices mean shit if you have to kill someone because your candidate lost. And guess what, little terrorist. They don’t mean shit in prison either, as you will discover. By the way, MOST politicians lose. Did you even KNOW that?? This is the freaking dumbing down of my country.

Have you even HEARD about hurricanes or tsunamis, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes? People DIE in these tragedies. Life is hard, life is tough. You have zero value if you cannot grasp that simple concept. Zero.

I cannot WAIT to see you claim mental illness. Oh I know it’s coming. It MUST be someone else’s fault because you are perfect, right. You? The one who can’t handle a little bit of disappointment. By the way, ‘snapping’ is not mental illness, criminal. No freaking way. “Snapping” is “no coping skills”.

Any person who bludgeons her father to DEATH because her political candidate lost, because it ‘pushed her over the edge’, has NO place in society. This is a terrorist ticking time bomb. I hope the death penalty applies and if not, I guess we pay for your miserable failed life in prison. Good riddance. I’m done with this insanity.

Boost Your Existing Home Desirability to Buyers

The years 2023 and 2024 were challenging years for existing home sellers. That’s in general; there were some warmer markets. But overall builders captured the market with huge and I mean HUGE incentive dollars for buyers. The problem existing home SELLERS have is that their homes are not new, and they should not be priced alongside new or newer homes. And yet some are.

The problem I see is that often, sellers spend tens of thousands of dollars on their homes getting them ready to sell, and promptly add that dollar amount to their dream price. That NEVER works, folks. What sellers spend is actually required to bring their home back to life to be worthy of the market; it’s not icing. They replace worn out flooring, leaky roof, repair wet crawl space, put in a new water heater, update appliances…all of the things buyers EXPECT to see when they are shopping homes on the market. Today’s buyers do not want to do DIY. They want older but they want it to BE new. See the conundrum?

There’s that dirty word no seller ever hears: Market. The internet makes my job much harder in a way, because it fools people into checking the square footage box, the acreage box, the age box and POOF! There’s your home value. Not. Not not not! Please hear me when I say this: There are a thousand other things to consider when deriving a price for your home and NONE of the online home sites consider any of them. So they tell you a dream price and you buy it, hook, line and sinker.

Remember the ‘nose blind’ commercials? It’s real. But there’s ’emotion blind’ too. Buyers don’t care that your parents built this home; they don’t care that this used to be your room as a child! They have never seen this house, and they don’t see it through your emotion lenses. The automated valuation models don’t know that your back yard view is of a propane dealer or that you have termites eating your floor joists. The AVMs don’t know that there is a plan to put an interstate alongside your property line! AVMs don’t know that your kitchen appliances are forty years old, or that the bathrooms are that age too. They look at age, square footage, zip code and then they grab others with those criteria and give you an average. Most of the time, they are wrong. Read that last sentence again, please.

I’m going to say this and hope you will listen. Real estate agents see thousands of homes each year. We see the best of the best and the worst of the worst. We know how to value your home. By the way, your market is not the same as the one 20 miles away from you. Real estate is LOCAL. Know that when we come to meet you and your home, our goal is to find out your STRATEGY for selling your home. In other words, how motivated are you and why. That’s critical. And then we talk to you about the repairs you’ve had to do, the ones you plan to do, the age of the systems, what you love and what you hate about the home. Then we investigate the building materials (like Masonite or polybutylene) and whether or not you are in a flood plane. We check for easements and private streets and road maintenance agreements. And we check the HOA and covenants. ALL OF THAT makes a difference folks. All of it. AVMs do not consider them, by the way.

But the bottom line is that unless you have made your old house new in all of the ways, you cannot price it alongside new construction. Even if, may I say, the quality of construction may be better. So please, consult a real estate agent (me) and let’s just talk about it. Oh, and then please listen. I will tell you the truth. And then I will help you actually sell your home.

I’m Brenda, a real estate broker with Premier Advantage Realty. Call me.

I Am A True Crime Junky

As usual, I turned on a true crime YouTube video to watch while I had my morning coffee. OMG yet ANOTHER husband murdered by his wife, who had some skill hiding his body, apparently. I heard the same words and phrases. Like 1) smell of bleach; 2) new mattress; 3) new gun purchase a couple of months before the murder; 4) help moving the body; 5) help cleaning the crime scene; 6) extra marital affair; 7) children; 8) mapped the drive while carrying a corpse (okay that’s my turn of phrase); 9) DV accusations against the dead guy (yeah, my phrasing again). I said, “Are you kidding me??? Again???”

The point is this. PEOPLE, future CRIMINALS, listen UP! There are millions and MILLIONS of true crime fans who know how to use the internet and cannot WAIT to help take you down. We assist law enforcement all the time. ALL the time. And we are everywhere…even in the dark! I know! We sit there with our fingers poised above our keyboard just waiting to come after you. What PLANET are you on, what rock do you live under that you do not know this?? Have you not heard, “It was a YouTuber who gave us the tip we needed”? If you don’t know that, you are an idiot and clearly not smart enough to pull off the murder of your spouse, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your partner, your mother, your child, your whole family or your DOG. We’re gonna get really, really, REALLY upset with you. You don’t want that, you really really do not.

We can tell you did it just by looking at you, and then by what you say, and by you rocking back and forth and eating your lips. You broadcast your lie without even talking. And you know, often, it is the privileged ones who try to pull off this horror. Your god is money. Or sex. Extra marital affairs apparently make people freaking STUPID. But hey, that won’t matter in prison. Your God will become your commissary fund. I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard a prisoner whining about their commissary fund. All of a sudden your new squeeze, your fancy car, your mansion are replaced by BOO HOO COMMISSARY.

So. We have the following to catch you:

THE INTERNET
Body language experts
Profilers
Crime scene investigators
Medical examiners
Really really good detectives and police officers
Luminol!
Experience watching a thousand others like you who were already caught
Map time
GPS
Infotainment
CCTV (that is closed circuit tv)
Ring and other such doorbell cams
OTHER cameras
Dash cam
Cadaver dogs!
DNA testing capability
Helicopters
Really fast cop cars
Microscopes
ELECTRON microscopes
Plant scientists
Anthropologists
Okay computers
Triple digit IQ
Tenacity
Ingenuity
Compassion and passion
A love of humanity and the law
Oh this is huge: cameras in Walmart. hahaha. Walmart somehow gets on the radar most of the time.
Credit card records
Receipts
Grizzly True Crime
Hidden True Crime
Crime Talk
It’s a Crime
Gray Hughes Investigates
Plunder
Law and Crime Network
Court TV
Nancy Grace
Harsh Reality
Explore With Us
Surviving the Survivor
And a thousand more
Eye witnesses!
Kick Ass attorneys

And that’s just a FEW THINGS we will use to take you down. Listen if you cannot control your urges and think you need to kill your spouse, first, you’re an idiot and you’re going to prison. And second, we will catch you. We won’t give up until we do. We’ll find your spouse (or child) in the landfill, in the mountains, in the forest, in the swamp, on the side of the road, in your drains, in the water, under your concrete patio, above the ceiling tiles, bricked in the WALL. We’ll find them and then we will lift our eyes to you. You’ll recognize the look in the eyes of the detectives at that time, for sure. Then you’ll cry when you are found GUILTY and sent to that scary prison and you’ll realize that all of your friends won’t take your calls from, nor visit you, in prison. You’re gonna lose everything. And by the way if we have NOT caught you yet, don’t blink. Millions are coming for you and we are PATIENT.

One last thing. That woman with a magnifying glass at the top of this post? That’s an AI image. My first. Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? So yeah, you can add AI to that list up there.

Excellence Matters!

What you are about to read are MY opinions, to which I am ENTITLED. If it bothers you, just go away NOW. I will not miss you. I want people around me who can hear others’ opinions without going hysterical. That’s how YOU LEARN. And I especially like people with humor in their DNA. Get this:

While Janet Yellen, US Secretary of Treasury, cowered behind a lectern seemingly dreading press questions, her emblem fell off the lectern. Fell off! HOW HARD is it to hang a decoration? Forget about the gloom and doom being yapped our way from Yellen; the emblem fell OFF. I am shaking my head. And I’m laughing. Yep, laughing. This is a perfect, PERFECT demonstration of our entire country right now…and dare I say it…the world.

Yay! Everybody gets a trophy! We don’t grade tests, heck we don’t GIVE tests! We are allll okay, nay we are allll FANTASTIC. Oh and did I tell you? We are alll geniuses!! Isn’t that great? Let’s all clap our hands together! That, my friends, is the problem. Why? Because excellence matters, quality matters, logical thinking matters. As in…don’t use a puny little hanger certified to hold .5 pounds of weight and then hang a 2 pound emblem on it. For God’s sake, that’s NOT rocket science. Who was the dumbass who did that?? I want pictures. PICTURES, I say! Hold on to your little hat now: NOT EVERYBODY IS QUALIFIED TO HANG DECORATIONS. I can hear wailing and gnashing of teeth. WHO CARES??? Wail away. While I laugh, by the way.

Elon does rocket science. People who work for him do rocket science. Why? Because they actually learned something. They actually cared about excellence. And by god they are smart! Yes, that’s how you put rockets into space! You don’t dye your hair blue and scream at the ceiling demanding respect. You actually EARN respect. That’s how it works. You study, you actually read, oh and forgive me but you THINK. Hey, do you think the wheels might fall off of your car as you drive? Hahaha. Oh they will. They will. Well, not if you drive a Tesla. If you DON’T drive a Tesla, I bet shit is breaking on your NEW non-Tesla car! Hahaha. I know the look on your face right now. By the way the great unthinking ran from Twitter like rats from a sinking ship when a THINKER bought the company. That’s how it works. Do NOT come at the little special children who never had a cogent thought, expecting them to use logic. I laughed my ass of at that too. Laughing now just remembering it.

Listen, I’m watching economic news this morning hearing about more and more bankruptcies, more businesses closing and I swear, I’m actually laughing. I PREDICTED THIS CRAP when the idiots started making hard work and studying unnecessary…when they started making the laziest smooth brain the benchmark. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?? Oh I’m being logical. I just lost half of you. Think about having a glass…real glass…in each hand and banging them together. Then you say, “HEY they broke!” Welcome to America.

Look, a college degree used to mean something. But the smooth brains monetized the degrees, handing them to anyone who could pay for one, or have ME pay for one FOR them…and now people show up waving their diploma screaming, “Hire me or I will throw a fit!” and I just sigh. What a freaking waste of paper. BS degrees, or even BA degrees are not worth the powder to blow them to hell. Same thing for masters’ degrees. Thank you, Smooth Brains. I actually EARNED my degrees. I lost sleep studying, I read books and books and books, I took tests tests tests and oh yeah, I LEARNED. By the way, I will NOT hire unqualified people, I don’t care what color you dye your hair.

I went to one of those doc-in-the-box places a few years ago when I had bronchitis. The ‘doctor’ shuffled in (yes shuffled) wearing bedroom slippers. BEDROOM SLIPPERS! Not kidding. And people wonder why I don’t automatically genuflect at the sight of a white coat. I want to know if THAT person graduated at the bottom of the class. Pretty sure my doc-in-the-box did.

Let’s talk about yelling and screaming in support of the ones who want to behead you WITH A MACHETE! ON TV! I’m shaking my head while it is still attached to my body. Somebody show these idiots that video for God’s sake. Never mind, it won’t do any good at all.

Why am I finding this shit funny? Hahaha. Well, what else am I going to do? I have a fully functioning brain. I was able to see this disaster coming YEARS ago. Still laughing. Pepsi closed their Chicago operation? Well I wouldn’t want to make sugar water in a war zone. Good for them! Oh and they gave no notice? Well if they HAD, the entire factory would have been razed by mad little children who have zero coping skills. In other words: WE DID THIS TO OURSELVES. Still laughing. And the instantly unemployed say, “I don’t have a job now!” Well what the HELL did you expect?? Whom did you vote for?? How much violence are you willing to tolerate? Well apparently all of it until it costs you your job.

I had a friend who had a spoiled grandchild who loved to get in the family gatherings and have screaming temper tantrums. Most of her family members just looked uncomfortable. Not my friend. She put the kid in a bedroom and told her to scream as loudly as she wanted in there, and then she closed the door. Well, holy shit, the screaming stopped. No audience. That’s called being a parent. That’s called intelligent thinking. That’s called not letting the children take control. In America, or whatever this country is called now, children with zero talent, nothing to contribute, are in control. And people wonder why shit is going upside down.

There’s no WONDERING here!! Somebody predicted this and that somebody wanted it to happen. And the general population were too dumb to see it coming. Well, not ALL of the population. Some of us actually have intelligence and foresight. But we also have no power, so we’re tied to the the tracks upon which the idiot train runs. The only solution is for all wheels to come off and have the idiots unable to move forward. They won’t know how to put the wheels back on; that requires thinking and SKILL. I’m picturing an ape scratching his head.

We have people in charge who cannot do basic math, who have JUST NOW discovered Venn diagrams. How can any marginally smart person think you can hand out billions of dollars to criminals and expect hard working people to support that to their own detriment? Everybody has a limit. Everybody. Yeah, look out the window, pal. It’s happening. Oh yeah, let’s hand the reins to people who wear the right clothes, who are in a super minority, who have no idea what the rest of the world even LOOKS like. Let’s put THEM in control. This train is about to run out of tracks and the ‘conductors’ are too dumb to look beyond the control stick or whatever you call that thing.

The worst thing for me is knowing that people are so dumbed down, they will continue to vote in other dummies. Nobody, not ONE of them, had better cry around me when the shit hits the fan for good. Because at that time, there will be no reason not to clock them. I probably won’t be laughing when this happens and it will.

My country used to be the place everyone wanted to come to, everyone wanted to copy. Now, my country has ‘aspired’ to mimic third world countries. My country seems determined to have bullet ridden buildings, unpaved streets, criminals lauded, children abused, a greater and greater lack of things we have come to expect and enjoy…like food…, and a dictatorship with a double digit IQ at the helm (I may be giving too much credit there). Why? They’ve never been anywhere else, so they can’t know what we have here in America. Countries all over the world are struggling to survive rampant stupidity, and that’s what it is. There is an effort to instill mass slavery and yet the anti-slavery crowds cheer for this movement. THEY CHEER!!! Zero critical thinking skills. Well, it is said that you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone. That, my friends, is true. And we are about to learn something. By the way, a double digit IQ is AVERAGE AND BELOW, for the ones who don’t have a clue what that means.

Tuck and roll, my people. Tuck and roll.

Innocence of Youth

Yep, Cat on a Leash

Speaking of gardens…For the first time ever in this home, I had nesting birds in one Loropetalum and nesting birds in the bluebird house. The Loropetalum is pruned into a tree shape and resides in the corner of my garden as an anchor plant. The Bluebird house is on the other side of the yard and has never hosted Bluebirds, ever.

This year I had a Cardinal pair nesting and a Chickadee pair nesting. They were a determined set of bird parents, building nests in earnest in order to lay eggs, which they did. Then they took turns guarding the dwellings from Zach my cat, and from me. Zach has an injury to his eye, which was there from the time I adopted him as a tiny little guy; the vet isn’t sure it didn’t happen in the litter, or during birth, but it doesn’t seem to slow Zach down or need any medicinal attention. I think it gives him character…as if he needed any more.

Zach’s kingdom is my fenced yard, from which he has no desire to escape. I planned to take him out for walks, so I leash trained him as a kitten, which turned out to be a good thing. More to come on that. But when it was time to venture out for a real walkabout? Nope, he wasn’t having it. So the vest and leash went on the shelf. But it came in very handy while my bird parents were nesting. Zach suited up in his ‘uniform’ twice a day, morning and evening, and we went into the little garden kingdom, with me holding him in check with the leash. This kept the birds safe but gave Zach the excitement of watching the birds and smelling the fresh air. It also gave me the joy of watching the bird journey.

I had a chance to learn the alarm call of Cardinal parents, and those of Chickadee parents. Later on, after the chicks had flown, I got to hear the songs of happiness. I loved this journey.

Both bird pairs fed their chicks when the eggs hatched. The dad Cardinal didn’t do much other than guarding and alarming before the eggs hatched, but once they did, he got busy, alongside the mom Cardinal. And both Chickadee parents worked equally hard throughout. Chickadees lay a LOT more eggs, by the way, than Cardinals. So I put out feed for the moms to keep their energy up.

The Chickadees were fun to watch because the food they brought to the chicks was nearly as big as their head and they were very wary of me and my cat. They checked us out thoroughly before entering the house, and they peeked out, often with a worm dangling from the beak. Very funny. One of the Chickadee parents peeked out and looked ALL around before flying out for another meal for the kids. I don’t know whether it was mom or dad, but it was adorable either way.

The first morning I went out and did not hear the Cardinal alarm cry, the silence seemed odd. I said, “Where are the mom and dad Cardinals?”. Zach didn’t answer. It was very quiet. I couldn’t get a look at the nest but I knew the babies were gone. Next day, no Chickadee noise either. Oddly, all of the other bird chatter was gone too. So they must have had all of their friends watching us when we were outside.

It was sad. I took a picture of the birdhouse Chickadee nest just to be sure, and yep, no baby birds. But now that I know how the saga works out, I’ll be watching. It was great getting to know the birds and Zach even got used to sticking close to me, hearing “NO BIRDS, ZACH!”, so much so that the first day he was allowed out without his leash, he stuck by my side anyway.

Animals. Amazing.

Have a lovely day, everyone.

Morning in the Garden

I hardly visit my small garden without pruning shears of some kind in hand. I don’t know the standard names for all of them; I just know some need to be tough and some need to be easy on the plants. This morning and most mornings these days I use the ones I call snippers. They are good for deadheading and for threatening plants back into the footprint I allow them to occupy.

My sister calls me the impatient gardener, laughingly, because I’m always ridding the garden of shriveled leaves, dying flowers, wayward branches; you get the drift. I realize that the real gardeners have the vapors when I talk about pruning at the ‘wrong time’; but I find that my plants love to be pruned. They always respond well, and maybe it is because I love them and it is important to me that they be healthy and lovely. And yes, I have sacrificed annual blooms for the sake of a healthy plant. That’s okay; they come back stronger and happier.

The garden behind my townhouse is tiny. I fenced in the yard and promptly built raised beds all around. Each year for the first several, I widened the beds farther into the grassy area, hoping to have many flowers, few grass blades. It worked. In the center of my tiny grassy spot I have an 8 foot tall maple tree in a pot. I grew the tree from a twig, pruning it into what I call a Japanese shape, as it grew. It is taller than me now, so I’ll need a different strategy going forward. When it gets too big, I will donate it and start over. I guess I’m fostering the tree.

I prune away branches growing inside and across other branches, in part for the health of the tree and in part to keep it from becoming a sail…thus tipping over, pot and all. This tree came into my garden because I needed to shade part of the garden from the harsh afternoon sun. So it does double duty: It is beautiful and gives me joy, and it shades the plants that used to suffer because there was no shade to protect them.

Because my little garden is tiny, I can keep it weeded and mulched, and it is easy to deadhead the flowers. Nearly every square inch of space is occupied by a beautiful plant of some kind. I had a hellebore binge, a conifer binge; I have irises, lilies, peonies, calla and canna lilies, asiatic lilies, ferns, roses, hostas, gardenias, geraniums, hydrangeas, elephant ears, bear breeches, alliums, vinca, verbena, cone flowers, begonias, to name just a few. Yes, there are many more. I plant petunias, pansies and vinca seasonally with the intention to have color all season long. My conifers are dwarf or exceptionally slow growing, to save space. And I use a lot of vertical space too, so I have pots on columns, on the ground, in plant stands. I watched a young man with a garden smaller than mine, growing only green plants of different shades and textures and it was lovely. That sent me off on another tangent I’m glad I explored. I planted a cryptomeria during that phase, because of its texture.

The thing is, you never learn all there is to know about gardening. New hybrids come forth each year, changing everything you thought you knew, and creating excitement among us gardeners. There’s a brand new boxwood this year, did you know? Probably not available to mere mortals like me, but it will be all the rage, I’m sure.

The nice thing about gardening is that you go a long time before you age out of it. The only hard part for me is lugging in all of the pots for winter. I used to have no problems with that, but now, it’s a chore. Has to be done, though, because the plants can’t move themselves and I want them to live out the winter on the enclosed porch.

This season I’ve planted Kentucky Wonder beans on my arbor, to entertwine with the honeysuckle already there. I’ll be able to pick beans under the arbor, smelling sweet honeysuckle, in a couple of months and I can’t wait. Squash adds nice foliage to a flower bed, too, and you have the benefit of a yummy vegetable along the way. My sister says my beds are “Jurassic Park” beds because my plants leap out of the ground and vegetable plants go crazy. It’s all about soil amendment, really. Once you get it right, gardening is easy. Most of the time.

A well tended garden adds value to your life and to your property. Nothing looks sadder to me than a beautiful home left bare of plantings. If you don’t know how to grow plants, my guess is that someone like me would love to landscape your home…you pay for the plants of course. Because. Gardeners are addicts. Don’t say I told you.

I’m Brenda. I’m a real estate agent and I help folks buy and sell homes with my company, The Premier Advantage Realty. You can find me online at http://www.thepremieradvantage.com.

Hope you will plant a flower today!

How to be a Great Real Estate Agent WITHOUT Spandex

Photo by Ronu00ea Ferreira on Pexels.com

I’ll bet you thought I was going to tell you to Take A Class, or Mail Out Postcards, or Beef Up Your Social Media Presence….didn’t ya? HA! Fooled you again. Here’s what you do first: Examine yourself. Ouch! That might hurt some folks. Still true.

Hey, Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. And yeah, that’s a bit harsh, but I’m guessing he was surrounded by narcissists and psychopaths. I feel his pain if that was true. Those types can definitely make you feel that way. And they’ll make terrible real estate agents, but they’ll be great owners and managers. That’s statistically proven. Apparently many CEOs are psychopaths or have psychopathic tendencies (what’s the freaking difference at the end of the day, is my question). Probably why I’m not a psychiatrist. And can I just say? I agree with Socrates. Self examination is the easiest thing you can do. DOING something about the things you find is the hard part. Acknowledging that you have things to fix is important. If you don’t find any, you’re a narcissist. Don’t go into real estate.

I have probably said this before, but real estate agency is about RE-LA-TION-SHIPS. Relationships, for the slower brains. Listen, it doesn’t matter how many classes you take; if you’re an ass, you’re going to fail. Why? Because you will not make connections. Connections; that’s the key. If you make good connections, real ones, the client will come back later and bring their friends.

But here’s the key: Learn to stop chasing the almighty dollar and LISTEN to your client and CARE about what they want and need. Real estate is a service business. Service. All of my clients can spot moneymongers a mile away. And then they call me. I actually care about my clients and guess what, if I cannot care, I don’t work with them. Why?

Because I cannot be a good real estate agent if I can’t connect. My clients very often become close friends, similar to family in some cases. It never fails that several of my clients invite me to their holiday dinners! Touches my soul, I’ll tell you. Such a compliment. But my clients know they are heard, that it is THEIR needs at the forefront, not mine. Take off the hardhat, put down the clipboard and cattle prod, put down your CALCULATOR, and listen to your clients.

How do you examine yourself? Well…let’s start with coping. How do you cope with stress? What are your coping mechanisms? In real estate, you’re going to have to cope yourself, and also help your clients cope. This is a stressful business. If you end up in some kind of conflict with ever single real estate transaction, then the common denominator is…wait for it…YOU! Figure out what you do, every single time, that upsets your clients so much that sometimes they just outright fire you. You need to do this; you need to know it and you need to FIX IT. Meaning fix YOU, not them. I you’re a narcissist you’ll blame it on them and ultimately you will fail at being a real estate agent. There are no secrets in real estate; it’ll get around the your are a tasmanian devil.

If your modus operandi is to start pushing your clients to do things your way, you are wrong wrong wrong. You work for them. NOT the other way around. Show some respect, get to know their fears and stressors and try to HELP them. If you can’t do that, you are in the WRONG business.

Notice I’m not talking about logistics. New agents have to learn the ropes, post classes. The real world is not what you learn in class. The PEOPLE part isn’t taught because it’s complicated. I’m not sure why people rush to be real estate agents, because many fail at it, but if it’s all about money…too bad. There’s more to it than that. You need to know yourself, and learn to read people. It helps to study age cohort influence on behavior. That is golden. It will help you a LOT if you actually study it.

Let’ talk about social media. First LinkedIn has become an ad spot. So I ignore it now. People do not shop for homes on Facebook; are you kidding me? If someone wants to connect with me it’s for the sole purpose of loading my inbox with ads. Nope, not gonna happen. You can tell people you are a real estate agent and they will promptly ignore you. There are tens of thousands of such messages out there. Post cards? What do you do with the ones YOU get? I toss them, ESPECIALLY the narcissistic huge ones. Those go in the bin first. Pop-bys? That’s a 20 year old concept. Doesn’t work. MAKE CONNECTIONS, PEOPLE. And THEN give a gift if you like.

By the way, I said social media is not effective; I did not say the internet isn’t. MOST clients go online. I’m going to say 99%. So definitely have a website, and please, remember it is for business, not tictok, not Onlyfans, not look at me look at me. Be a professional, a leader…but only if you want actual clients. No way I’m hiring you if you’re probably going to hit on my spouse. There, I said it. And some people are not impressed by expensive, matching handbags and shoes. They’re gonna imagine themselves not being able to afford those things and giving their money to YOU so YOU can afford them. See how this works?

And listen, the minute I figure out I’m a JOB to you, or I’m on your checklist? You’re out. In other words, be genuine. Does this take time? Yes. News flash: You’re going to have to put in the work. Don’t treat clients like homework. They will know.

Wanna chat about this? I’m with The Premier Advantage Realty at 919-210-6113. Call me. I actually talk to people.

Baby Boomers Have Been Discovered

We live in an age of DON’T YOU DARE STEREOTYPE. In case you were wondering. But somehow picking on older people is okay? No, it is not.

It seems baby boomers have been discovered by a new generation, one who never knew anything about boomers until now and hey, we need a new group to bash. Plus, the name is kinda cool, because creativity was alive in the age of the boomers. Younger buyers have a letter. But let’s say it, let’s make fun, let’s attack, let’s act like all boomers are 90 years old and have no value. That’s stereotyping and it’s also wrong.

I just saw a headline about ‘younger buyers’ wanting baby boomers to redecorate. Deep breath. Calming down. Don’t tell other people to redecorate. You’re not shopping DECOR. Your agent should tell you that, unless they are inexperienced and not good at their job.

First: Younger buyers have no business telling anybody else how to decorate their home. I dare anybody to come in my house and tell me to redecorate. Wow.

Second: Who made you an interior design specialist? Stacking stuff on the floor and building a colorless, characterless home is not decorating.

Third: Do NOT dare to tell anybody how to live their cultural social existence. As long as they are not chasing you around with big old knives or shooting at you, it’s NONE of your business.

Let me clue you in on real estate wisdom, younger buyers. You are not buying decor. You are buying real estate. If you do not have the ability to look beyond some else’s decor, maybe you should wait a while before you try to buy a house, because you are shopping decorations and that’s not actually ‘home buying’. In case you were wondering.

I get it. Jewel tones and dark red paint are out out out. SO buy some PAINT. And if you don’t know how, well I just don’t know what to tell you: It’s not rocket science. I did rocket science; this ain’t it. But if you absolutely can’t do it, then ask the seller to make a concession so you can HIRE someone.

And let me also say, boomers who ARE on the front of the generation, might just tell you to kiss off, only in more colorful language. Boomers don’t whine and cry. They hit back.

You know, insulting an entire group of people out loud, in print, is wrong, unless you are God and I’m thinking you’re definitely not. Real Estate agents writing articles, I’m calling YOU out on this. Boomers might want to block all ‘younger buyers’ from viewing their homes. And it is your job to encourage your buyers to ‘look at the bones’. And if they like the house, for God’s sake, don’t insult the sellers.

This is the most important bit of information: EVERY generation of sellers AND buyers has its own needs, behaviors, goals. New agents, you CANNOT treat older buyers like they are dumb and out of touch. They are nuclear physicists, doctors, attorneys, scientists. Don’t insult them; rather, learn how to RELATE to them. Insulting them should NEVER be done. Never. Chances are you can’t hold a candle to their body of work and life.

I’m incredulous about that article. Incredulous. It’s an out loud, in print sign of stupidity and lack of professionalism.

Doing the Right Thing in Real Estate

I’m pretty sure we can all agree that politeness is harder to come by as each day passes. And every business is morphing into a different character, trying to adjust to constantly changing social landscape. But here’s one thing that should not change.

When you are allowed to enter the home of a stranger to walk your buyer clients through, to test cabinet spaces and check out closet size and configuration, peek into the crawl space, walk the property…the very least you can do is send feedback to the agent who lists this property for sale for these seller clients. After all, they have just let you stroll around their home.

You are doing a good thing for your buyers, and you are also getting paid. And you are also in the business with the listing agent who needs your feedback. Realize that these sellers want to know your opinion of the home because they may be able to make changes to make the home more appealing.

And if you ignore your obligation to provide feedback, you create more work for the listing agent, who now has to track you down, has to inform their seller clients that you didn’t provide feedback, just more annoying time sucking activities that would not be necessary if you, buyer agent, would do your job.

And it is the polite thing to do regardless.

Your friendly reminder from Brenda Briggs, Coldwell Banker Advantage. Find me online and by the way, I will let you know what my clients thought of your home if I am in buyer agency. That’s a promise.

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