Capital Homes

Agents, Have You Heard From Jennifer@realestateclientreferrals.com?

I’ve gotten several emails a day for the past few days from Jennifer.  Like is she my new best friend or something?

It looks like she wants to be!

She wants to send me referrals.  She wants to make me the Numero Uno agent in Columbia Heights County in the District of Columbia.

She wants to help me to climb that ladder of success!

But wait!  DC has no counties!   And there is no Columbia Heights County in Maryland or Virginia either!

And hey, if I do not act PRONTO, I will lose out to one of a bunch of other agents – Jennifer actually listed the names of my competitors. although I'd never heard of any of them.  Of course, I’ve never heard of Columbia Heights County either.

So, Jen!   I have no idea what your deal is.  What do you charge for the leads?  How does it work?  And you know what, even if I did have to buy leads, and I don’t, why would I respond to someone who knows so little about my market that they actually think there are counties in our nation’s Capitol!

And are the buyers and sellers who sign up for your services, all allegedly pre-qualified, dumb enough to not pick up on these silly little details?

Get you act together, girl!

Showing In The Dog House

We've all seen the showing instructions on the Multiple Listing Service:

"Fido, the family dog, is friendly.  He might lick you, but he won't bite."

OK, that's reassuring. 

So you and your clients get to the front door and hear the welcoming bark - or is this the bark usually reserved for the mailman?  Or burglars?  It's hard to tell.

But you're armed with doggy treats, and you know his name, so you turn the key and open the door.  And the dog is, indeed, friendly.

He's humping your leg!

"Down, Fido!  Stop that!  No!  We've just met and I don't do that sort of thing on the first date!"

Yikes!

A favorite chapter in The Irreverent Guide to Real Estate is "Your Family Calls Him "Fido";  Your Agent Calls Him "Fang".  And it talks about things most agents are uncomfortable discussing with their clients.  While a dog, any size, any breed, or any age, can be a huge obstacle to selling your home, a smart agent appreciates the puppy is a beloved family member.  If they want the listing, they will want to be very careful about how they communicate to you the challenges of selling with Fido in residence.

Agents, even those who are dog people, are usually reluctant to enter a house where the owners are not home, but the dog is.  Your sweet puppy earns his Purina by warding off intruders, and we're right up there with the UPS guy, only worse!  We come inside the house!

I've been bitten.  She was a tiny little thing that lived in one of my listings, and I thought that dog was my friend.  Then out of the blue, she bit my hand, and for a minute I thought I might never play the flute again.

If I ever sell my house, Wilie the hyper-active-Labradoodle-puppy will go live with my sister and her Dog Whisperer boyfriend between the time the sign goes in the ground and the day the home-inspection contingency is removed.  I don't want to put the dog or my colleagues and their clients through the distraction - he's so cute they won't pay attention to the house!

Or he'll hump their legs and they won't be able to pay attention to the house!

Cheryl Conover Hanks Memorial Service

Cheryl's memorial service will be at 3:00 pm on Friday, December 14th, 2008.

We are holding it at the McLean Gardens Ballroom, 3811 Porter St., NW, Washington, DC 20016

There will be a reception following the service, and of course, anyone who knew Cheryl is warmly invited to attend.

For some amazing photos of Cheryl, click here.

Remembering Cheryl Hanks - The New Patron Saint of Real Estate

Yesterday, while I was getting the buyers' final  initials on a contract that took a month to negotiate,  my Blackberry rang.  It was my friend Monica Belisan, and as I excused myself to answer it, I knew it might be really awful news.  And it was.

Many Washington area agents knew Cheryl Hanks.  She was a best friend and former office-mate, and she died Monday night.  She went to a friend's wedding in Amman, Jordan, and had a cerebral hemorrhage after the festivities were over.  That was about two weeks ago, and she seemed to be on the path to recovery.  Her friends all prayed like crazy, but it must have been her time.

It was the call I was praying would not come. So I got the deal I was praying for and lost the dear friend I was praying for.  Bummer.

Her friends and colleagues have been in shock.   

Cheryl was an amazing friend and an amazing real estate agent.  When we first got to know each other, we were sharing an office at Pardoe Real Estate in Georgetown. 

My first surprise was hearing her speaking Arabic on the phone.  Huh?  I'm told she was far from fluent, but I was sure impressed!

We moved to WC & AN Miller at the same time, and she became the top agent in my old office.  I grew to envy her discipline and the way she seemed to somehow balance  being the real estate queen of Tenleytown (her neighborhood) with having a life.   She was known throughout her neighborhood as the person who organized "First Friday" dinners at Guapo's, a neighborhood watering hole.

What I most respected about the professional Cheryl was how she was able to do a whole lot of business without sacrificing quality - her real estate practice was a total class act.  And while most of her listings and sales seemed to be really big, gorgeous homes, she provided the same wonderful service to her first time buyers - the champagne taste beer budget clients.

She had done a lot of volunteer work for groups promoting peace in the Middle East.  Her parents were diplomats, and while growing up, she lived in Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia and Jordan.  While attending school in Paris, she lived above the cafe pictured in the film Avenue Montainge - our favorite chick flick.

Before real estate, Cheryl was known as Dr. Hanks, and was a tenured professor at Northeastern University.  Her specialty was early childhood development, and her magnum opus was a paper called "Mommy, Daddy, and the Midnight Visitor", about young children sleeping with their parents.  Now I have to read that one!

She was part of my posse.  She and our friend Monica and I had a standing Sunday night date after our Opens to meet at her adorable mini-Victorian house to watch "Desperate Housewives".  We took a vacations to Barbados, a place we both loved, and we flew to Ireland where I played flute at her daughter's wedding. 

Cheryl was, like me, a major devotee of Saint Anthony, who helped us find car keys, parking spaces in Georgetown, and buyers for our unsold listings.  Yesterday, we were talking about the people she would want to see in heaven, and while everyone else was talking about her first husband and her mom and her old best friend Mary O'Brian O'Brian, Monica and I looked at one another, started to laugh, and said, "Saint Anthony will be the first one she looks up!"

She was younger and thinner than me, worked out 6 times a week at the gym to my 1 or 2 (in a good week), she drank only good wine (no Gray Goose or Makers Mark) and not as much as I did, and she seemed to be really healthy.

We shared a hairdresser and an old boyfriend. 

This is just not fair!

I am convinced that Cheryl's intervention ratified my contract yesterday and that she will help us resolve any issues that come up before settlement.  She is now someone I can pray to for help with my love life, real estate deals, dieting, and other life challenges.  And I really, really miss her.