Charlotte, NC:
This month I am celebrating 35 years in real estate in the Charlotte market! September 4, 1979 I sold the first house I ever showed. It was an ugly, filthy, blue split level right on Sharon Amity Avenue, a major four lane artery with a double yellow line down the middle. We saw it on tour on Tuesday, when I declared, “no one is going to buy this dump!” I sold it to the first person I ever showed a house to the next day.
LESSON LEARNED: “There is a butt for every seat”.
A week later I listed my first house. It was right on Scott Avenue, another major artery, also with a double yellow line down the middle, except this one is also a one way street. I sold it myself the next day to a single guy who wanted Dilworth, an upscale history neighborhood, and could not afford the price tag, so he bought this one with the “busy street” discount. And, by the way, I sold it for $45,000.
LESSON LEARNED: Real Estate is a good investment! The tax value on that house today is $409,100, would sell for more …and the same guy owns it! It is a rental property.
The following week I got my second listing and it sold the next day. That home was owned by a family who worked for the old PTL Club that was located near the small town of Matthews, in the sphere of Charlotte. I had met her two weeks earlier when I was just starting out. She told me God was going to sell her house in two weeks, so I never even followed up with her. She called me two weeks later, listed the house and the contract came in the next day…exactly two weeks to the day from the time God told her it would sell.
LESSON LEARNED: Have Faith!
So I thought to myself, "this real estate thing is going to work out okayyyyyyyy!”. Before any of those homes closed interest rates went from 9.5% (yes, 9.5% and no one seemed to think that was a high rate) to 12%, and then headed for the upper teens by 1982! I did not sell another house until January 1980. I made it through that recession and I made it through this last one. I am a testimony to sweat equity!
LESSON LEARNED: Hang in there. You never know what is coming around the corner! And, nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Oh, I could tell you stories! It has been a long strange trip and a fantastic ride. I love all of you who have allowed me to travel with you along your journeys and made this such a wonderful career. With your help and with God willing, I look forward to many, many more years and many, many more people we can help buy or sell homes in the Charlotte region.
LESSON LEARNED: Nothing is worth anything, only but the people in your life!
Thank you all.
Eileen
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