By Bill Cherry, Realtor

Since 1964

I'll bet at least once a week Patty and I would get a postcard or letter from her, with her picture and all, telling us what a spectacular job she had done selling other expensive homes in the  beautiful community we loved and lived in near Houston.   The color photo of her with the toothy grin showed her to be an attractive woman about forty.  We didn't know her.

She wanted us to be her next clients, that is (in very small print) if we didn't already have our home listed with someone else. 

And then she added that she was way up on top in sales, nationwide, with one of the big real estate franchises.  If memory serves me, one of the top five producers.  In fact, she said she sold more than $20,000,000 every year.  (No, I didn't put too many zeroes in)

Now I have been in the real estate business since 1964, and not only have I never sold that much residential real estate year after year, but I don't personally know anyone else who has.  And I know a lot of people in this business.  So her self-proclaimed achievements on those postcards whose purpose was to prove-up her selling skills, were very impressive.  I have to admit that I knew in my bones Patty and I would eventually test her trap.

You see, I couldn't help but secretly wonder what she knew that I didn't know.  Maybe she had bought one of the $799 real estate sales methods that this one and that one advertise in our trade magazines.   Maybe I should have bought one rather than follow the way I had learned from Ebby Halliday and Henry Pomeroy, the old timers with the years of credibility.

Remember, I've been in this business for over forty years, and I can promise you that by reasonable measures, I've been very successful.  My file of client letters easily proves it.  But never 20,000,000 bucks worth of houses year after year.

Well, it wasn't long thereafter that my wife and I decided to sell our home so we could move to Dallas. We'd be closer to her son and grandsons, we reasoned.

(Patty had been a school counselor for many years at Apollo Middle School in Richardson before we married.  Briefly, our story is that we had known each other in college, married others, then years later married each other.  The perfect ending to a love story.)

I thought for the shear heck of it that rather than list our house with my own company, maybe we should put it with Miss Twenty Million, and see how she'd do and learn how she'd do it.  Patty agreed that we'd sign up.

Within moments of the agent driving out of our electronic gate, a multitude of her assistants began putting out the signs, placing brochures in the box attached to the signs, even getting ads written for a couple of real estate magazines.  And then we begin getting lots of mail from Miss Twenty Million.  Mail sending Patty best wishes on her birthday, another hoping we would have a great Thanksgiving and such.

But with all of that activity and the expressions of friendliness from our new friend, we couldn't overlook the truth.  Days had past and no one had come to see our house.  Not one! And Miss Twenty Million apparently thought we hadn't noticed because she didn't call. 

More than a month past.  Still no showing.  I called her.  Her assistant said she wasn't in.  But within moments another agent in her office called to set up an appointment for one of her clients.  Perhaps it was a coincidence.  I'm cynical enough to doubt it.

When they arrived, they were shocked when I met them at the door.  Sales people don't like for homeowners to be there when they show the home.  Let me say right off, I don't either.  And if you list with me, I want your promise you'll not be there when I show your home to my prospect.  You can ask me why.

I listened in as the agent and her prospects toured our home,  and I can tell you those people  weren't qualified to buy our house, and further, it wouldn't have fit their needs anyway.  That made me even more suspicious that it was a setup that's purpose was to pacify me.

By the end of the six month listing period, Miss Twenty Million had never personally brought a prospective buyer to see our house.  Other agents may have shown it a total of six times.  Not one offer.  One of Miss Twenty Million's assistants called.  "The listing is expiring tomorrow, and we're going to need to extend it," she said.

Sometimes I'm a bit cocky.  My friends forgive me for this.  I figured she wouldn't, but nevertheless I said to her, "No, let me tell you what we're going to do.  We're going to list it with my own company.  We're going to raise the price by $50,000 and we're going to show you how the old timers like me have sold real estate throughout our careers.  You're sure to be amazed when we're through."

The next morning I listed the house with my company, put it in MLS, and stuck our well-recognized company sign in the yard. I personally sold it in six days!  Six days!  And it would have been faster than that, but we were out of town for four of those days.

I sent Miss Twenty Million a copy of the closing statement.  She didn't respond.

Old timers like me have an awful lot of knowledge and ways of get things done.  To start with, we aren't listing factories....we are never working with more clients than we can well-represent.  And we have networks of clients and friends that stretch back throughout our careers -- people who know we know what we're doing and who know what we stand for.

Call me. 

I promise to have all of the available time we'll need to do what it takes to get your home sold.  And then you'll be able to assure your friends, "There's a lot to be said for the old way."

                                           Copyright 2007 - William S. Cherry

                                                       All Rights Reserved