Real Estate and Property Awards 2021

BUILD Real Estate and Property Awards 2021 6 a contingency free offer, other than the obvious contingency, such as clear title, and to offer $321,000, which turned out to be the highest offer by $1,000. The grateful buyer, who loves her condominium, and who had shopped with me for many years before setting her sights on this particular property, sent me a large bottle of Makers Mark and an effusive thank you note after the closing. I have a similar sixth sense for pricing listings, often convincing sellers to ask more money than they have any intention of asking, going against the I think short sighted advice of appraisers and boards of directors, cajoling the sellers into daring to hold out for the prices in which I believed, explaining the market to at first incredulous buyers, working with them patiently while they learned the hard way and at their own pace, and in the end getting the prices in which I believed. In this too, I proved to be the condominium whisperer. BUILD:What is your overall mission and what steps do you take to achieve this? JJMJ: Some agencies handle hundreds and even thousands of rental units, we handle ten’s – less than one hundred. I am sure the mass whole sellers make more money than I ever will, but my goal is quality instead of quantity. I turn down even upscale rental properties when they are too much too soon. I was offered virtually all of Tilghman Lakes to handle, when the complex was new, but I turned down most of the units there, judging that I was not yet ready. At that time, I did not see how I could hit the ground running and get that many Tilghman Lakes rented with good occupancy during their first year. Some realtors will accept most anything, then throw it on the wall, so to speak, to see if it sticks. I have accepted individual rental units in top drawer complexes, such as Ashworth and Bahama Sands, which other agencies had gotten booked for either zero weeks, or just one week, that week being suspiciously teenage house party week, and I got them fully booked for the summer and well into the off season. I have heard that the best fertilizer is the farmer’s footsteps. Although I have excellent and very caring checkers, I also walk through the units myself. The best thing for a rental unit is the stay of the owner (a few owners leave their places worse than they find them, but they are the exceptions), as an owner can notice more in a one week stay than I can notice in a half hour walk through. Even after half an hour, I usually notice just one more thing, on my way out. The next best thing for a condominium, after the stay of the owner, is for me to walk through it. There is no way I could pay anyone to be as highly trained as I am, to know as fully as I do the significance of what they see, and to care as much as I do. There are difficult, demanding owners who were fire breathing dragons for other agencies, and fired one agency after another, till they found our agency, and then clung to us for dear life, and in some cases literally till the ends of their lives. At most, perhaps all, other agencies, the owner of the agency never walks through the rental units from one year to the next. For example, the only time I saw the owner of the original rental agency for 301D Sea Cloisters II on site, I saw him heading up the stairs to 301A Sea Cloisters I with a long line of what looked like cleaners and repair people in tow. Presumably, he had been called to task for a lot of things which had gone wrong and unnoticed He reached the top of the stairs, figured out he was in the wrong place, then with the same line following him, headed down the stairs and went to the correct property a block away. It was almost comic. He got lost even trying to find his property. BUILD:Working in such a competitive industry, how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?What marks you out as the best possible option for your clients? JJMJ: One thing about my clients is that they get me. I was a piano prodigy growing up, my PSAT score tied for second highest in the history of the high school I attended, my SAT score was the highest in the history of the high school I attended, I am a Davidson man (Davidson College, sometimes referred to as the Harvard of the south, is noted for building character in addition to intellect), and I made the highest score in state history on one half of the real estate exam. One thing I learned from playing the piano is that no amount of trouble is too much trouble (to learn a difficult passage). This has been my motto throughout life. When I was in fourth grade, my parents would get up at three in the morning and make me stop studying and go to bed. I have an incredible work ethic and an unusually sharp mind, which I attribute to its having been well exercised from fourth grade through college. Lots of mental synapses were connected while I was playing the piano. In my senior recital, I played from memory unabridged works by Bach, Czerny, Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy. I recently memorized The Revolutionary Etude, a lot of notes that. But I have talked much about myself. I have stood on the backs of giants, and I don’t just mean composers and college professors. My father was a real estate agent before me. Although he specialized in the commercial real estate field, in which I have never worked, he set the standard for honesty and integrity. I am the brand, and making me look good prospers the business. If I did not have excellent assistance, I would fall flat on my face. My great secretary and good friend Eunice S., who once said she would never leave me alone with all this, worked for me till her husband prevailed upon her to retire at the age of 72 to become his full-time companion. When I visited her in a memory ward shortly before her death at the age of 92, the first words out of her mouth were, “I remember you!” Very touching, as she was not remembering much at that stage. It was her last gift to me, remembering me. Many of our clients still speak of her often and fondly. Jeanne S. was my right-hand