LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

Congratulations, you’ve landed the job of your dreams!

The catch is, it’s located across the country and now you need to sell your home, buy a new one, plus move your spouse, your children, your mother-in-law, every stick of furniture you’ve collected since college, and your two poorly-behaved French bulldogs ten states away before the school year begins. (No stress there, especially given your MIL’s running commentary and love of catastrophizing.)

Fortunately, I can help you with the transition, so let’s get to this week’s Glennda Gazette right now, because there’s no time to waste.

ONCE UPON A TIME WITH GLENNDA

If you want to buy or sell quickly, you must work with the right agent.

And if you’re in real estate, you must be the right agent. (This matters when time’s not a factor, too.)

Let me give y’all an example. A few years back, I went on this listing appointment where the house was owned by a mother and daughter. The daughter lived in town and the mother was out of state. That day, I was set to meet with the daughter.

When I got to the potential listing, oh, my stars, the house was completely cattywampus. It was only half painted and everything was in the middle of the floor. The carpet was ripped up and the agent had already put it up for sale, instead of giving the owners the time to get it squared away first. (Now, when this happened, the market was at its absolute pandemic peak. I’d normally tell my clients they shouldn’t be too concerned about making repairs because people just wanted to get in these houses, and they’d be willing to take on the work, be it painting or re-carpeting.)

But there’s a difference between a listing that could use some updating and a place in total chaos. No one could look past the piles of what was undone and see themselves living there—it looked like a war zone! Even worse, I saw the listing pictures where all that chaos was captured on film and I thought, This can't be real.

It occurred to me that no one had leveled with these sellers, because if they had, the house wouldn’t be listed in this condition. I said to the daughter, “I'm telling you, your agent has done you a disservice because no one is going to pay you the money that you want for the house in this condition.”

The daughter replied, “I agree with you 100%, thank you so much for your honest input. But the tricky part is, you're going to need to talk to my mom and get her on board.” I'm, like, “Absolutely, no problem I'll give her a call as soon as I get into the car.”

(Let me say this, if as an agent, you aren’t comfortable picking up the phone and talking to anyone in any situation, tell me and we’ll work on boosting your confidence in a later newsletter.)

But before I could do anything, the daughter placed a hand on my arm and said, “Please don't call her from the car. I’m not kidding, she's really, really, really difficult and I don't want you to be distracted driving.”

I nodded, but I knew in my head I’d call the mom as soon as I got in the car because bad news doesn't get better with time. So, I called and I laid out what needed to be done. The mother said, “Okay, great, what's your fee?”

I told the mother what my fee was and she said, “You're joking, right? My current real estate agent is doing it for X.” (Now, if your first inclination in this situation would be to cut your fee, again, drop me a line so I can coach you past this in a future edition.) I laid out the facts for that mother. I said, “You're not happy with your current real estate agent and your real estate agent now has cost you thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars with their advice.” But this woman was not about to be dissuaded by facts. She said, “I'm not paying you more than X.”

My response? I told her, “I’ve got bad news for you. Michael Jordan doesn't work for a discount. I am the Michael Jordan of real estate. If you want to work with me, this is my fee.” This is not a negotiation—this is a hard and fast fact. Never undervalue what you bring to the table as an agent. So she said, “Then I don't need to talk to you anymore,” and she hung up the phone.

But I wasn’t worried.

Not more than three days later, guess who called me? That’s right, the daughter! She said, “Hey, Glennda, I'm almost done with everything that you recommended. I'd love for you to come back out and take a look at the house.” I just laughed and said, “I can, but I don't think your mom is gonna work with me.”

The daughter said, “No, I've talked to her, I've told her you're our only option because you told me the good, the bad, and the ugly. And you handled my difficult mom so great that you are the only choice for us.”

Do y’all know what happened next?

I got that listing sold and closed over list price with multiple offers. Because I am the Michael Jordan of real estate and no one can throw me off my game.

Let’s all be more like Mike.