Stellar Client of the Week...
As much as we hear the horror stories in our business of the difficult client or agent, too often we seem to focus our time and energy on the negative experience we have with our clients. The difficult clients and negative stories are a dime a dozen. They seem to run the gamut from the office discussions to network chatters, but there are those few occasions when we come across a stellar client who have made our job so easy, and bring back that little ray of light for why we do what we do in this business.
Very rarely do we hear about the easy, cooperative clients, even rarer still is the lack of recognition we give these 4-5 start the stellar clients. Well, today I want to take to take this opportunity to recognize one of my stellar clients. Although I have to say that since venturing into real estate for the past seven years, I have come across more stellar clients then the difficult ones.
So, for this stellar client, let set the scene. In March-April 2009, a received a call from a friend of mine about a short term consulting opportunity to assist a past employer with getting some corporate financials completes in order to complete their financial returns. With great reluctance I accepted, because although I did not want to go back to working that side of the ladder again; I knew it would be short term, and let's be honest, I needed the money. So a week later I went in to my previous employer's office and met a young woman who was part of the new team that was brought in since I left seven years prior.
We developed a casual friendship and began talking casually. She later learned that I was a Realtor and talked very briefly about Real Estate and the $8000 Tax Credit. She mentioned that she was interested, but not ready to be a homeowner for reasons that most buyers fear. She did not want to buy a house that year, even though the tax credit would help a great deal, her car had broken down and she needed a new car and could not afford to maintain a car and mortgage payment at the same time. However, since I was on company time, I did not go into great details about the benefits of owning a home; accept to say I will keep in touch. For her car situation, I gave her some advice about car shopping online and which site to use to research, which she really appreciated. I continued with the assignment for two weeks, but doing that time I barely mentioned real estate again, unless she asked.
When the assignment was over I handed her my business card and asked her to call me with any questions she may have about the buying process. I added her to my buyer pool and sparingly kept in contact. 11 months later she called me out of the blue to ask about the tax credit extension and to let me know that she will be ready by April to purchase a home, so she can take advantage of the $8000 Tax Credit. I told her about the deadline for the $8000 Tax Credit and she was ready to move ahead.
The Timeline: She called me on January 10 for a brief discussion; I told her she needed to be pre-approved before we I can take her to preview properties, by January 13 she had done her homework and I got a letter from her credit union.
The earliest date she could meet with me to view properties was January 30 and February 6, 2010. However, due to the snow storm both appointments were canceled and re-scheduled for February 13, 2010. On Saturday February 13 I picked her up from a nearby train station that was half an hour away from where I lived, because she would not drive in the snowy condition; so from 11:00 am-4: 00 pm we saw five properties, because three of the properties were about 2 hours away round trip.
On February 15, we wrote a full price offer, asking for the usual 3% seller credit on a bank foreclosure, the second property she saw that day, which by the way, she had already made up her mind at that moment she wanted to purchase, but she also wanted to see the others just in case. Offer submitted on Tuesday February 16, which I was told had two other offers. On Wednesday February 17, listing agent called and emailed to see if that was her best and final offer, she raised the offer price by $500.00 for a nice even number.
On February 18, 2010 I got a call that the offer was accepted, but buyer had to first complete the bank addendum, stellar client's bank financials with certified funds payable to listing broker. The bank wanted to see her bank statement that showed where the money was coming from for stellar client to go to settlement, although they were giving back the 3% seller help. I mentioned that to my stellar client and had a brief discussion about using the statement for her 401K, which showed more than enough, although she would not be using that money. She was waiting for her tax refund and employee bonus which she expected sometime soon, but had not yet received.
The evening of February 18, 2010, stellar client emailed me to say that she had received her tax refund check which she would also provide a copy of to show that she would have enough to go to settlement.
On February 19, 2010, stellar client returned all singed required bank documents and returned to listing agent. On February 19 stellar client got certified funds and overnight to my office for Saturday delivery; however stellar client forgot to check the correct box on the UPS shipping bill, not to mentioned, that stellar client called me to apologize for the delay this may cause. I received certified funds on Monday February 22, which was then overnight to the listing agent.
In the mean time, stellar client shop her loan a bit for a better product and decided to go with BA for a new pre-approval , because she just happen to like their terms better than what was being offered by her credit union. Get this, stellar client had already contacted everyone on the list of inspectors I provided her and she selected a particular company because they had a two day turn around to get to the property.
On February 23-25, I called listing agent to see when we would receive the executed contract and he told me that the contract is on its way, because the bank is a bit backed up in paperwork. Mind you, he called or returned every call I placed to with a smile in his voice. On February 25 at 7:45 pm I received the executed contract from the listing agent and forward it on to my stellar client, with big CONGRATULATIONS in the email. Now we are waiting to perform the incidentals.
Although I have no guarantee of the final experience, I will say that there are those stellar clients that make all the difference in the worlds, they make our jobs worth doing and the sun shine a little brighter even with a streak of gray.
Let continue to focus our attention on the stellar clients, agents, and we will get more of them, because the energy we put out, is the energy we get back in return. Don't let the bad outweigh the good, there's a lot more good out there than not.
Comments(3)