Another Relocating Buyer Finds the Perfect Home in Northern Virginia
When a corporate or government relocation buyer is picking up and moving to an entirely different state for their job, the house hunt is something that happens very quickly. In the case of a recent relcoating buyer and and his family that were relocating from Vermont to Virginia, there was a lot of nervousness on the part of the buyer. When placing the referral, our relocation division wanted to make absolutely certain there would not be one single day during the week house hunting trip that this family was in town that the agent chosen would not be available. Knowing that I had prior committments, as any agent worth a damn would have during the summer selling season, I pulled in an agent to help me work this buyer relocation as a team.
A lot of agents may have struggled to do it all themselves to save from losing any of the commission. That's the mistake a lot of agents make in general...they put their needs first. The job of a fiduciary is to put the client's needs first. Of course, as a Top Producing Agent with Long & Foster Real Estate, I understand that my livelihood is not dependent on the commission from this deal or that. It is based on giving exemplary service to as many clients as I can reasonably help and gaining referrals from those past clients in return. It's a business model that fuels itself. When choosing an agent to join me in this transaction, I hand selected someone who had the contractual knowledge, similar style and would never make the buyer feel they were imposing.
Moving from Vermont, this buyer had sat in his living room and poured over listings from the far end of Prince William County to a Leesburg in Loudoun County. That's a large area to cover in a week. Having a conversation about the lifestyle the buyer wanted, including commute time and community amenities was key. Once we talked and I learned that having playmates nearby for his nearly four year old daughter was key, we made a plan to keep our search to communities with amenities, including a community pool. Those are the things buyers with children request more times than not. The easiest way to ensure playmates in the neighborhood was to go to the communities with that kid magnets.
We eliminated some areas off the bat, based solely on school ratings and commute. In the end, we were left with the Bristow-Gainesville-Haymarket area and Leesburg. Initially, this buyer and his family thought they would want to be "back near the action" in a more suburban feeling community with shops only a few minutes away. They had lived on five acres overlooking a large lake in Vermont and had nearly two hours to commute to shops. In the end, once we hit the outlying area of Leesburg, bordering Lucketts, this family had found the best of both worlds. They found a home overlooking mountains that gave them a little more space and a view, which turned out to be something they were beginning to miss about Vermont. They also found the home in a community with amenities which had drawn many families with kids. Finally, they were much closer to shops (about twenty to thirty minutes) than they had been in Vermont and had easy access to a commuter train.
In the end, the arrangement I had made with the partnering agent turned out to be useful in a way neither of us could have predicted. The buyers weren't needing coverage all day, every day so we were able to work together to help them find a home at each appointment. The partnering agent became the agent of the four year old who had nearly made it impossible for her parents to focus on homes with her overwhelming level of excitement. Having the other agent present to play with, distract and learn to tour homes in a calmer manner, allowed the parents and I the mental space to tour the homes and really learn what fit the bill. It could not have worked out better.
Are you facing a relocation move to Northern Virginia and need someone to help you focus your efforts in a very short period of time? Give me a call at 703-402-0037 or ask your relocation specialist for me by name--Chris Ann Cleland with Long & Foster Real Estate.
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