Who do you work with most?

I work with a great diversity of clients from sophisticated investors to first time home buyers.  The majority of my clients are referrals from past clients who refer me to their friends and associates.

What are your strengths and areas of expertise?

My background in project management has helped me hone my skills at keeping often complicated transactions on track and on time.  I have also focused heavily on negotiating skills.   (Both by having taught negotiation courses and my own continuing education.) This has resulted in consistently saving my clients time and money. Communication is also king whether face-to-face, on the phone, via email or text—whatever it takes to keep my clients informed on a timely basis.  Knowledge of current/past inventories and market trends is also critically important to stay current with what is happening daily.  Last but certainly not least is marketing–which is marketing your house to buyers and/or marketing your offer to sellers.

How do you negotiate differently than most agents?

I plan the negotiation. I know what I am going to say when I enter into a negotiation—and work the plan.  Negotiation is also knowing how best to respond to various situations and individuals based on their personality. I never shoot from the hip as negotiating is a leaned skill that I have worked hard to acquire.  It requires necessary training to be good at it.

This is not an easy business and it requires consistent hard work—daily.  Few agents put in the time required to ‘be the best’.  I don’t sit back and wait for it all to happen. I am proactive, not reactive.

As an agent, what is most important to you? 

Handling all business matters with solid integrity and complete honesty.  I treat every client the way I would expect to be treated.  I also pride myself on being available 24/7 so I can provide the best service and responsiveness possible to all clients whether they are a first time home buyer or multi-million-dollar seller.  Staying educated on all of the latest listings, trends in my market areas is critical as is knowledge of the industry. Client confidentiality is also very important to me.

What is important to your home buyers? 

Finding the right home!

I also want my buyers to have a good exit strategy when they decide to sell. Is the intent to eventually rent the property? Then let’s discuss potential rents versus mortgage payments. Is the intent to sell the property? Then let’s discuss the factors that can impact a sale.

What can a seller can do to increase their profit on the sale of their property? 

There are two things that have the biggest impact on getting top dollar when selling a property.  A pre-home inspection and proper market preparation. The costs of doing these two things are tiny relative to the potential return.

Why market preparation?

To understand why this is so important is to know that buyers buy based on emotion. (They then justify based on logic.) You need to first get a buyer to fall in love with your house. (Or at minimum get them to like your house way more than the competition.) It’s pretty simple to create a luxurious bathroom, a cozy bedroom, a spacious living room, an open and uncluttered kitchen, etc.

Why do pre-home inspections?

It is high anxiety time for both the buyer and the seller because of all the unknowns. Are there problems with the house? What will they find ‘wrong’ with the property? What repairs will they ask to be fixed? How much will the repairs cost? Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone knew exactly what they were buying at the moment the offer was submitted?  Plus, a repair request asks for issues that were not apparent and therefore not taken into consideration as part of the offer price.

Once a buyer makes repair demands, the seller is at the mercy of time constraints which can impact cost. Plus, the buyer can demand who does the repair and to what standards.  A pre-home inspection would allow a seller to obtain estimates, choose the best price and then make the repair at his/her own discretion.  (If the seller chooses not to make the repair, estimates at least give the seller power in the negotiation.)

Why do you require buyer broker agreements for your clients?

A buyer broker agreement is similar to a listing contract that I sign with a seller. In essence, it is an employment contract. It states what I am going to do for them and what we will accomplish together. I like to think of it as a loyalty contract. When I am working with clients on contract, they know I’m 100% committed to reaching their goals. Working as their employee, I will do things for them that any other agent would consider too far outside of the box.

What is the significance of real estate designations? 

Designations show an agent’s commitment to education and on-going learning in the field. Some designations take years to obtain and are costly. When interviewing out of area agents for client referrals, I first turn to CRS agents. Having instructor experience myself, I feel the Certified Residential Specialist instructors are some of the best in the country.

Does being a million-dollar producer mean you make a million dollars every year? 

The public misperception is so great on this that I don’t use it as a marketing tool. It means that the combined sales prices of houses sold is well above the million-dollar mark.

Which begs another question. When an agent states they’ve been in the business for so many years, your next question should be “Is that consecutive years at 40-60 hours a week?”

In California 1 out of every 4 people have a real estate license. (A part-time agent makes less than minimum wage.) That’s a lot of selling Avon when the market is slow. Many agents make so few sales they go in and out of real estate like a revolving door. Plus, there’s risk your agent won’t negotiate hard for you because they’d love that paycheck. Moral of this question? Find an agent who works and has worked full-time for a long time and one whose eye is not on their paycheck.

Do all of your clients end up selling?

A large part of what I do is counsel people on their investments. With sellers, I’d like to see them hold onto their home for as long as possible. Leverage that investment to pay for their children’s college education, convert their home to a rental property so that it eventually pays for their retirement and/or medical expenses, build wealth over time instead of upgrading to a bigger mortgage, get tenants to pay their mortgages, etc.  So no, I don’t always advise selling. Not when it is in the seller’s best interest not to.

What is the best part of being in real estate?

Truly the best part is that if they aren’t already, the majority of my clients end up being life-long friends.  How often does a person get to say that about their job?

Photo courtesy of Dillon Scheps