Early in my career as a Realtor I received a call on phone duty to show a fairly expensive house in Mobile, Alabama. I got some basic information on the couple, called to make the appointment to show the home, left to meet the couple at the house. When I arrived I was a little taken back by the very young couple in faded blue jeans and flip flops. They were very interested in the house and said they would like to purchase it, it would be a cash sale! They just needed his parents to look at it and needed me to get more information, such as could they have a wrought iron fence with a large gate put across the front. I said I would be happy to find out, but no one else in the neighborhood had a fence in the front yard.

As we toured the house I tried to make conversation with the couple and was really getting nowhere fast, finally I asked him in a different way the same questions I had already asked, what he did for a living, he answered that he was the lead singer in a rock band, when I asked what band, he gave me the name which I immediately recognized as a new young band that had just won a Grammy and a three million dollar record contract. On the second tour of the house with his parents we read the covenants and found out the privacy fence in the front yard would not work in this neighborhood. My client looked through the sellers music collection, finding his CD and autographed it. The seller was freaked out to find out who had been in his house.

In working with the couple to find their perfect home that would afford the privacy they needed, as people were beginning to recognize them and mob them in public, I got to know them quite well. I found out before they called me they had made numerous calls to the listing agent who did not return their calls, to see the house I met them at. Also they had "worked" with other agents who would not show them what they asked for. The agents had assumed they needed a $60K starter home. This sale was the largest one I had ever made at that point. But the lessons I learned from that couple still follow me to this day. Never judge someone by their clothes or age and not to waste the money I spend marketing by not answering the telephone everytime it rings.