I just sold this townhouse.  Know why it is significant to me?

Because it was the very first house I ever sold.

It was late Spring in 2005.  The ink was still drying on my real estate license when some friends of mine were in the market for their first house.  We looked for a few months and they decided on this place.  It was brand new.

I’ve got a few funny memories of this sale and this townhouse.

It was closing day.  I was really stressed out since this was going to be my first closing ever.  It seemed like such a huge deal at the time.

One of the things a Buyer’s agent has to do is get the Buyer’s earnest money check to take to the closing.  I had not thought about the earnest money since I turned in the Buyer’s original check to my office manager.  Here we were hours before the closing and I am in a mad rush to get my office to cut the check.

We get to the closing.  This was the last 15 minutes of a super hot market.  The closing was at 5 on Friday.  The title company probably had 15 closing that day.  Everybody was eager to get home.  I remember the closing attorney and the listing agent talking about the emerging trend of getting granite countertops.

Once the closing was done, I went out to my car and made sure I had all the documents I needed to take back to my office.  I was so relieved to have it done.

Then I realized two things:  That the closing attorney did not ask for my Buyer’s earnest money check AND they did not give me my commission check.  I had to run around the parking lot looking for her.  LOL, yes, I forgot that I was getting a paycheck since I was so focused on getting everything done and doing it correctly.

What did I do with that paycheck?  I bought a couch that we still have in our living room.

A while after my friends moved in, the husband and I were going out on a Friday night with another friend.  I picked up the other friend and we went to this townhouse.  The seller was on his computer watching some silly Star Wars Lego video.  I asked what it was and he said Youtube.  I was like “WHATtube???”  He explained that it was a site where people could upload videos for anybody to watch.  I remember thinking “Why would I want to watch a bunch of homemade movies when I have cable TV?”

I’ve remained friends with these sellers and this will be their 4th time using me.

I’ve probably never said it this directly, but I am incredibly thankful that they decided to put their faith in a guy with zero experience.  Getting started in real estate is very tough…or at least it was in 2005.  And now 14 years later, almost to the exact date, they have trusted me again.

(NOTE:  While that red BMW in the picture does look nice, I wanted to disclose it is not one of mine.)