When consumers decide to dip their feet in the big real estate sea, whether to sell or purchase property, most seek expert guidance as they began their journey into the somewhat unknown and fluid process. Traversing the winding road of contracts, negotiations, contingencies, escrow and title is a process that often takes a month or more to complete. It likely involves life savings, big mortgages or hefty sums of cash and is certainly not to be entered into lightly.
Selecting an agent to help is one of the first and most important steps in the real estate process. The common belief is all agents are the same, and anyone can do it. After all, there is no shortage of licensed agents and brokers. The truth is agents arrive at your door with diverse experience, education, ethics and abilities.
Today's real estate professionals wear many hats. Maybe too many for one person. On a typical day a real estate professional may need to write ad copy for a new listing, attend a home inspection and peer into a septic tank with issues (yes, Palos Verdes has many homes on septic systems), show property and manage the online marketing of both listings and lead development. An agent may be tweeting about your listing, sending you a hot new property via video taken while touring new listings, blogging about the local real estate market or checking an ever-present onslaught of email messages, obtaining repair bids and so on and so forth.
The perfect solution for me is to work with an agent who brings skills to the partnership that strengthens our ability to serve our client base with knowledge, experience and expertise. My son's initiation into the business dates back to designing my first newsletter in 1992.
What's our added value other than the obvious that Josh is of one generation and gender and I am of another?
He's is the technology expert. We were early entries into YouTube, blogging and other social media sites due to his influence. Chances are the buyer for your home will see it first online. He makes sure our listings are online early and everywhere. The technological aspect of our job demands daily attention and input. Your property enjoys worldwide exposure thanks to my writing and his marketing when you choose Charlemagne International Properties as your listing brokerage.
We work as a team on presentation and pricing. It's nice to have opinions from both Venus and Mars. We see and value different aspects of a property, much like the clients we represent. Like most women I place great value on the kitchen and master suite. He, on the other hand will notice things about the garage, home systems and land I might overlook. Gender and age are important factors when elvauating, selling or buying real estate. We often establish the value of a property, or the cost of a repair independently, then discuss and fine tune the price based on past experience both professional and personal.
I consider my strongest niche to be listing and selling homes on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and surrounding coastal cities. His favorite niche is income property, but we can cover and back each other up in top professional mode in both arenas. When one of us is out of town or I'm off traveling the world, our customer service remains seamless since we both stay current on every listing, escrow and buyer we are working with. The team approach works best for us and it gives our clients a balance of knowledge from both Venus and Mars, and a multigenerational viewpoint as well.
You're only as strong as your weakest link, and as a real estate team, our ability to offer a higher level of service to our clients is enhanced. That's beneficial to all.
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