The Whales…Wayland to Worcester and back with lipstick pigs

November 11, 2011

Wow…the Whales had quite the day!  Part of the huge success I have as a realtor can be attributed to the weekly sales team meeting I have with the 7 Hills BNI Group.  Each week we meet and have a chance to discuss what we do as professionals in our business and then part ways to pass referrals throughout the next six days.  (A huge thanks to Pam Crawford at RE/MAX Professional Associates for getting me started – the support and eduction I have with the fantastic group of people I work with is sometimes staggering!)

But back the Whales…

Fred and Ethel started the morning at 6am with a big cup of coffee and the laptop.  A quick blog post about the open house this Sunday at 72 Glenwood Rutland.  Followed by emails, Craigslist postings, a listing agreement, finalizing a lease agreement for later and verifying that an auction company has received the offer on the short sale listing so we can try to hold off the auction at the end of the month.  And then they are off!

Egads…they did not get the offer and YET AGAIN the “find me, fax me” fax upload function is not working!  Off to Office Max for Fred and Ethel to get that offer in!  Luckily there is one nearby!  Fred and Ethel make a note to call into the accessline on Monday morning and get the fax function corrected.  $7.68 for a five page fax is just not okay!

Fred and Ethel with meet with Sonia and Dave at their 2 bedroom condo in Marlborough to list it.  Sonia and Dave have outgrown their space and want to move into a big home.  Fred and Ethel played with their dog Lilly and had a quick game of “what’s in my room” with their daughter before signing the listing agreement and photographing the condo.

Now that the sale portion of Sonia and Dave’s day is done, they take off with their daughter, her friend, faithful dog Lilly in one car and Fred and Ethel get in the jeep with me to take a look at a few houses to begin their search.  They are hoping to find the “diamond in the rough” on a lake and we look at lake front in Wayland.  Fred and Ethel say “TEAR DOWN” and wonder if the plot shape will allow a nice 2 to 3 bedroom home to be built after this one has a date with a bulldozer!

Off to the next lake house in Wayland.  Much nicer but something is amiss.  The listing was on the market for 129,000 then off for a week and then put back on the market at 179,000.  Fred and Ethel review the house and all the major systems but find no reason for the $50k price increase.  It’s an odd layout and Sonia and Dave decide to call it a day.   The whales are off to stop back home and post up their condo listing.

Fred and Ethel sort through the pictures, call on getting a copy of the condo docs and verify all the information with public records.  Inputting the listing into MLS takes them about an hour total with the pictures.  From here, the magic internet will spread the listing to Realtor.com, Remax.com, Trulia, Zillow, amymullenrealestate.com and beyond.  Fred and Ethel will give it 24 hours to populate and then start to revisit the sites to make adjustments and monitor the activity.  This happens daily for all the listings and helps keep them at the top of any buyer’s home search!

Again with more coffee…these Whales are picky too…they said something about Starbucks??!!??  Really?

Fred and Ethel rush out of the house to make a home inspection in Worcester at 4pm with a buyer.  Egads…it didn’t go well.  The house has been completely redone on the inside and is an investor flip from a foreclosure purchase.  As the home inspector says…”It’s lipstick on a pig.  Take off the lipstick and it’s still a pig.”  Adam Camosse is a great home inspector and my buyer thinks the world of him.  We are waiting to find out why the house is held together in the attic with steel cables.  I don’t think we’ll like the answer.

A quick stop at the mail box to drop some prospecting letters in the mail for the morning.  Fred and Ethel learn the value of being “the first kid on the block” with expired listings!

Last appointment of the day!  Fred and Ethel meet the new tenants Mike and Amy at the rental listing in Marlborough to do a walk through of the apartment and sign their lease.  The client Lynne is very excited about her new tenants and Fred and Ethel are shown here pulling up the lawn sign!

*whew* so the whales had a huge day!  Listed, closed, viewed, inspected, prospected, blogged and of course took calls and meet new people!  They decided that their favorite part of the job was meeting new people and helping them!

If you want to learn more about Fred and Ethel, BNI and RE/MAX – let me know!