By Barbara Bishop
I’ve been living in the same house in Bel Air for almost 20 years. My husband and I discovered that we use one quarter of the house; that amounts to the bedroom, the master bath and the kitchen/den. Other rooms gathering dust were the dining room, living room, fireplace pit and three other bedrooms.
We were ready to downsize, aka sell our house. Easy , right? No way. We started down the path about a year ago, choosing a realtor that was a distant neighbor of ours, with years of experience selling homes. We decided upon a fair price, and the for sale sign was pounded into our front lawn.
I learned that listing your house on the MLS and having a sign in your front yard was not the end; rather it was just the beginning.
Problem was our realtor didn’t know, or care. She did not create a home web site. In fact she did not have the listing on her web site. The photographer she hired did not capture the best features of the house. The flyers had typos in them. Because of the errors that needed to be fixed, we were forced to postpone our listing date by several weeks.
We wanted to be to in the market by the beginning of May. By the time we were ready, it was Memorial Day. Then it was Mother’s Day. Then it was Father’s Day. Then it was the Jewish Holidays. Then it was Independence day. At least these were the excuses she had for why she didn’t want to hold an open house. I learned later that she felt she was “too experienced” to hold open houses. Oy.
Needless to say, we ended our relationship with her. Here’s where the “Good Taste” part comes in. In a chance meeting on the street several weeks later, while walking my dog, a neighbor of mine told me about her realtor that helped her to buy her house. She raved about how she knew this market, was well connected and would work her butt off for us. I called her immediately.
Jennifer (the new realtor) from the Maraia Group came to the house, expertly analyzed the property and set the sales price to obtain multiple offers. She staged the house to appeal to a 30-something, professional couple with young children, and pointed out to us a few areas of the interior that needed a little attention, which we promptly addressed. Then she had her photographer take great photos of the staged house, built a website, developed a typo-free flyer, and scheduled the first open house, designed for brokers. All of this, within 3 weeks!
Jennifer’s open house was well-attended. The former realtor’s attempt at an open house was dismal, to say the least. Things were looking up. Jennifer then held a buyer open house over 2 weekends. Within days, she had three offers!
And, they were the perfect demographic for the area. Within a few days, we had sifted through the offers, counter-offered, and came away with an accepted offer within 10 days!
As of this writing, we had the final walk-through with the buyers, all contingencies had been removed and the closing (aka funding) date is early next week!
Jennifer, thank you for your patience, professionalism, good humor and tenacity. The cookies and chocolates came at the perfect time as well.
Merry Christmas to me.
