My nephew, Eamon, is an amazing guy. He's a sailor and has worked on tall ships and short ones. Now he's got a very cool job with an outfit called "UnCruise", and it takes him all over the place, Alaska, the Columbia and Snake Rivers, Hawaiian Islands, The Sea of Cortes, and through the Panama Canal to Costa Rica and the Galapoagos Islands.
So what a reat surprise when he called to say that he wanted to buy a house somewhere around Olympia, Washington. He's only be in the area for a while, but had a list of stuff he found on Zillow and Redfin. And with a budget around $130,000, he was ready to go.
Next step was to check out the agents in Olympia on ActiveRain, and there was one standout - Francine Viola. And after talking to her for a while, I felt confindent that Francine would treat my terrific nephew like she would treat her own terrific nephew.
The day of their first outing, Eamon called and was very excited. She showed him a bunch of places, and none of them were on his list. He was impressed.
He and Francine spent the next several months, with a couple of false starts. Then the magic happened, and he got the perfect starter home! The whole family got involved, with my brother and sister-in-law coming down for the hone inspection (Eamon was at sea). And the Portland family is planning to move the next family celebration at Chez Eamon!
One of my favorite things about ActiveRain is the resourse it offers when someone important to me needs to buy or sell a house outside of the Washington Metro Area!
And I have to say, when I looked for an agent to call with the referral, it wasn't about who had the most points in Thurston County or in Olympia. Francine does a great job of introducing herself in her ActiveRain profile. And she