Man, I’ve had a fantastic week.  I had a great family come into town to pick out a house.  It was another one of those marathon weekends, but I always have fun. I really saved these folks some money too.   See, they were willing to pay more for the house than they got it for.  They wouldn’t have been smiling as big, but they would have done it.

The other agent is somebody that I have a lot of respect for as a listing agent.  This person knows how to get things done, which is probably why they are so successful.  (Thought I’d better lay that out since I don’t want to come across otherwise.)

While I like this agent, the bottom line is that I’m not working for her, I’m in this for my folks.  They’re the ones trusting me to do my best for them.  We made an offer a little lower than what the comps showed the house to be  worth.  Then the agent and I talked about a range of where we’d both like to land.  The other agent came back with a number and said that was the sellers bottom number.  Like written in stone bottom number.  Knowing the personality of this agent, I knew she would want to wrap up the deal ASAP.  I had a theory that if I just moved slow and drug this out, that I might get a little more out of this for my folks if I was the one in control of the gas pedal.   I told her that I didn’t know if my folks would go for that.  Since it was getting late, I said I’d call them in the morning and let her know.  The agent reminded me that we were only a few thousand bucks apart.  I said that I thought the gap was enough to send my folks back to the thinking chair, and at which point they maaaaay just have to go with an identical model house around the corner that was $5k cheaper.  I also told her that the listing agent for that house had e-mailed me saying that the seller would buy new carpet for my folks and let them pick the color.  The agent was on the computer looking at that house before I got done…….which was pretty smart.  The agent was like, “John, that house has white cabinets and I have those nice cherry ones”.  I was like, “Well, a few thousand bucks covers a lot of negatives.  Plus white goes with anything.”   Then the agent started in about how little the gap would make in my peep’s mortgage.  It was about $18 a month.  I told the agent to convince the seller that if they would only add $18 to their next mortgage, they can sell their house tonight.  That worked, because about 20 minutes later I got a call that they would meet our price. 

So, I am feeling pretty good about going the extra mile for my folks.  They are only going to be here short-term.  If they had gone with the $18 a month logic, they still would have felt the price gap when it was time for them to sell.  I always say that now is not the time to overpay for a house!

I also had a great time working with this agent.  This person is high energy.  I totally respect that this agent was trying their hardest for her peeps.  I also always learn a lot when I am working with great agents, I just wish there were more of them out there.

Why am I wearing a suit?  I’m the shorts and sandals Realtor!  Well, there’s a little story behind this, so I guess I’ll do like TV shows do sometimes where they tell you the end first, then the rest of the show is all about how they got to what you already know.

This all started out when a way cool couple found me online.  Actually, they found me twice!  I have an old friend from High School that I keep up with on Facebook who recommended me to them (Thanks Cathy!), but they already knew about me from this blog.  I truly felt like a rock star.

This way cool couple bought a house listed by an agent I knew from my old office.  She was kind of like the Grandmother of the office.  She has been an agent for several decades, and always shared her wisdom and high standards with all who listened.  I don’t think she really appreciated me wearing shorts and sandals while I practiced real estate, but I saved myself from getting a scolding with my charm.

So, when we got to offer time, I told Miss Anna that if her people would just accept our offer, I would wear long pants to the closing.  She chuckled…….probably in disbelief.  I guess if she thought I was serious she would have insisted we write that into the offer.

We had a great time working on this “Transaction” as she prefers us to call it.  She was always reminding us around the office that the word “Deal” cheapens what we do.  She had some fantastic sellers who had lived in the house since the early 1960’s.  Her client was happy that a way cool young family would be enjoying her home.  My people were happy to find something in that neighborhood and with a basement.  I was happy.  Miss Anna was happy.  It was all good!

So, for closing day, I busted out a suit I haven’t worn in over 2 years, put on a tie, and fulfilled my promise that I’d put on long pants for her.  Now, I never said ANYTHING about shoes and socks, so I just stuck with my shiny new sandals that I recently purchased for the 2010 Real Estate season (kinda like new clothes for the 1st day of school.)  The guy closing the loan had never seen me in anything but shorts, so he snapped this picture with his phone, sent it to the loan officer and the guy that owns the title company.  It is kinda hard to believe.

So…..that is why I am wearing a suit in the picture!

On a side note, I know I am critical of Realtors some times…………..okay, most of the time.  But I have to say Miss Anna is one fine agent.  She was polite, professional, willing to work through obstacles, kept her cool, remembered that the goal is that somebody gets to sell and somebody gets to buy.  Once we got past the contract, she was just as much on top of the “Transaction” as ever.  She communicated with me, took care of her client while understanding I needed to do the same.  I mean, that is pretty much what is missing in today’s modern agent.  I wish there were more like her out there!

I can’t tell you how many times my clients says things like “It looked so much nicer in the pictures.” or “This just doesn’t look as big as it did online.”

I guess since I’ve looked at so many houses online, I’ve kind of developed a sixth sense on this picture thing.  I thought I’d share with you what I notice.

1)  For starters, anytime you can see 3 walls of the room in the picture, they’re using a wide-angle lense.  No sin in that.  I do it too.  In fact, I kind of think all agents should do it.  It would prevent those pictures of a corner of the dining room where you can’t even see the floor or the ceiling.  But FYI, they do make the room always look bigger.  Look at the furniture and kind of use that to determine the size of the room.  If the room has only a love seat and a chair, and they are reaaaaaally close, you know its gonna be small.  The same thing with bedrooms.  You know how big a twin, full, queen, and king sized beds are, so you can see how much of the floor space the bed takes up.  Oh, and look out the windows that are in the picture too.

2)  When I am looking at the kitchen pictures, I take a close look at the cabinets.  If I see what looks like a nice, rich dark brown cabinet, then I look and notice the house was built in  the 1970’s………They are most likely from the LAST time dark cabinets were in style.  You know this is the case if the countertop is a butcherblock laminate.   Sometimes I’ll notice that a cabinet door is crooked, the range hood doesn’t match, the vinyl flooring is pulled up at the toe space because there isn’t shoe mold or quarter round.  Also, a house built in the 1990’s may have cabinets that look like a really light stained wood, but odds are they’re the  nasty pinkish looking pickled cabinets.  I have that kind in two of my bathrooms.  I just don’t know what people were thinking back then.

3)  Bathrooms can tell you a lot too.  Take a good close look at the faucets, or how they cut the tile around the toilet…if there is tile.  You know you have a tile job by somebody who just got their Lowe’s credit card if they didn’t cut the tiles to go under the toilet, but just filled the whole area with a lot of grout.  Speaking of tile.  Look at the grout lines across the whole picture.  If it looks darker in some areas, it will be stained up once you get there.

4)  This is one of my favorites.  I have been trying to come up with a name for it, but I haven’t had any luck.  I guess for now I’ll just have to call it “The backyard has some really bad feature and the agent just turns her back to it when she takes the picture” type of picture.  Some signs you are dealing with this is when you see something maybe really nice, but the angle is weird, or it is a close up of only one section of the yard.  Then when you go to see the house, you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know it backed up to New Circle/a retention basin/Wal-Mart/a 4 story apartment building.”  While you’re looking at the backyard pics, see if the wood fence matches all around, or if there are missing or loose looking planks.  The same goes for the deck. 

Of course, all of this only really applies if there are enough pictures to see.  I always get a little freaked out when I see only a couple of pictures of the outside of the house………especially if I know the agent doesn’t usually do that!

Another place you can use this info is when you’re booking a house or condo for vacation.  We just booked a house on Anna Maria Island and did all this.  We got burned once with this dump that must have had pictures from 10 years ago online……but that was before things like satellite pictures and some tech stuff that can help.    Any more, I look at every detail because it is just too easy to put lipstick on a pig with a camera. 

Anybody remember in the back of Parade Magazine where there’d be two pictures of the same thing, but  there were like 9 things that were a little different between the pictures?  It’d be something like a candy store, and in one picture there would only be 3 candy bars on the counter, but 5 in the other…..  Or one cookie jar was empty in one of the pictures.  If you know what I mean, just look at the real estate pictures under the same scrutiny.