SarahGray Lamm~REALTOR~ 60K Hours of NC Real Estate Experience~

The annual Paws4Ever Dog Walk was held this past weekend at Southern Village in Chapel Hill, NC. The event was well attended on a beautiful Saturday which brought out pooches, some in costume, and their people for live music, browsing the booths of pet centric vendors, a silent auction of some unique hand crafted dog houses donated by local builders and many other unique handcrafts.

A lively demonstration by the Paws4Ever Drill Team was followed by the dog agility course demonstration and a popular round of Musical Sit! Finally, the pet parade left the village green for a walk around Southern Village.

Thanks to all who attended! We look forward to seeing you again next year!

(A Big thank you also to C Tann-Starr and her "mad" music production and video editing skills for this wonderful clip of some of our events!)

Are you the Ultimate Carolina Panthers Fan? Here's an opportunity you won't want to miss!

My company, Allen Tate Realtors, is offering a chance to win Four Lower Level Tickets to the Carolina vs. New Orleans football game on January 3, 2010! And not just tickets but the Ultimate Fan Package includes Field Passes, an autographed Panthers Jersey AND a 42" LG Plasma HDTV!

I would love to hear that one of my clients or real estate blog readers is the Ultimate Fan! You do need to be a resident of NC or SC so if you aren't but know someone who lives in one of our beautiful states, send them a link to my blog post! (Maybe you can get them to agree to take you to the game with them!) Or better yet maybe you'd like to buy some NC real estate...why miss these great opportunities! Good Luck!

You know that look on your doctor’s face when you say something like“I think I have a thyroid problem because I looked up my symptoms on WebMD and I figure I’ll be on meds now for the rest of my life. What do you think?”

Admit it, we’ve all gone running to the computer, logged on to WebMD and started selecting from the menu of questions designed to help determine what is wrong with us. You’ve ignored a symptom for too long. No time to be sick. So what are you to do when you decide enough is enough…you just have to make an appointment. Of course you’ll have to wait for weeks to get in and then wait for the test results to come in. Why not just head on over to WebMD and get yourself a quick diagnosis…you know help the process along, point the doc in the right direction, start getting a handle on your future.

If your doctor is as polite as mine, she will just smile (it might be a little tight…not sure) and just keep listening to your theories as she continues to listen to your heart, check your vitals and ask specific questions about when you first noticed this or that. She will not even roll her eyes as you suggest possible new medications you saw in a magazine ad or which a friend suggested (you know a friend with exactly the same disease.)

Being a gracious person she will not remind you that she has an advanced degree in medicine and that she has seen lots of folks with your complaint but that her experience and training have taught her to look at you as an individual and not as a bag of symptoms. She will not remind you that you are really good at what you do for a living and so is she; that you might be best served by letting her do what she does best…diagnosing your illness and deciding the treatment methodology. No, she will simply get on with it; quietly run her tests, ask her questions and explain to you the best course of action for your particular situation.

She is an experienced professional and will not be swayed by the opinion of a computer program, no matter how sophisticated, and available to everyone on the web. That’s why you trust her with your body and well; your life.

Then it hits you that, like your doctor, your professionalism and experience are the ‘value add’, the intangible asset, the lens through which your clients view you, and the reason they call on you for real help in your area of expertise. WebMD, like WebLawyer, WebAccountant or all those WebREALTOR sites are simply places for us all to go in the evening or on the weekend when we decide we just have to move forward on that nagging, back burner issue. Isn’t that what all this technology is for? No one has to wait anymore to ask a burning question.

The common denominator on all of these sites is that once you’ve reached the “conclusion” of your search, there is always a disclaimer, a recommendation to ‘seek the advise of a professional’, a reminder that the information provided is general and informational in nature and not intended for you to base important decisions on.

The lesson learned is that just because I can read for hours online about how others have handled their particular situation and what they suggest I consider doing in mine, doesn’t mean that the best answer for them is the best answer for me. I have a doctor whom I chose because she is experienced, skilled and thankfully, tactful. I trust her to work in my best interest regardless of how much website “help” I offer her.

I sold my doctor’s home for her and helped her when she bought her new one. Funny, she never once mentioned that she could have done it on her own if only she had had more time to surf the web. No, she simply trusted my professionalism and experience. I think I’ll stop diagnosing myself on WebMD. After all, I have an experienced professional M.D. who knows more about me and my health than I can possibly learn on the web.

For experienced and skillful assistance when buying or selling a home in Chapel Hill / Carrboro and Durham I offer you my professional services. I promise to tactfully and graciously answer all of your questions and look out only for your best interest.

“Cherished Family Memories Reluctantly For Sale To Highest Bidder…
and we do mean high so don’t offend us with a lowball offer.”

I see this ad all the time; in community newspapers and magazines, print, online and in my email. I see it every time I pull up the day’s New Listings in MLS.

You’re kidding…no one would ever run such an ad, would they? Guess again; this is exactly what a seller is saying when s/he decides to ask their real estate agent to “just try it” and put an overpriced home on the market to see if anyone is willing to pay. (Never mind whether or not a lender is willing to lend money to a buyer to overpay for your home but that’s another discussion…)

We all think we are capable of being perfectly objective when it comes to selling our homes. “I know it’s just a house,’ we tell ourselves, “an investment, bricks and mortar, ‘a house’ not a home.” But the problem is that, for you, it is a home.

When you start to ‘de-clutter’ as your agent suggested, you find memories; in the closets, in the attic and under the beds. Memories in your families cherished collections, your children’s school art and your kitchen junk drawer. The pantry holds the ingredients for your loved ones favorite recipes and the walls hold family portraits and local artwork purchased on family vacations and outings.

You start to think about all the good times you’ve had in the kitchen during holidays, family evenings spent in the living room, putting the kids to bed in the bedrooms decorated to reflect their favorite things, the backyard parties with neighbors and friends and the satisfaction of completing a do it yourself project in the garage. You know how much a new family is going to enjoy doing those same things in your beloved home. Someone will appreciate how valuable it is, right? Then there’s the new flooring, the updated bathrooms, the new HVAC system and isn’t your lawn beautiful and well cared for? Surely the next owners will want to keep the custom made draperies that match the Pottery Barn paint in the Dining Room. You’ll leave them; for a price. The washer and dryer are only two years old; a great deal and you’ll throw those in; with the right offer.

Folks, you have long since passed the point of even being capable of objectivity. Loss of objectivity is the first step down the short road to unreasonable pricing. But can’t we just try it? Surely you, my faithful and capable real estate agent, can make them see how valuable all this stuff is? That is your job isn’t it?

My job, dear seller, is to help you understand the realities of the market and to offer up my years of experience to help you prepare your home to appeal to the largest segment of qualified buyers out there and this includes proper pricing. Then I will market it in such a way as to get those buyers through the door so they can see for themselves what a great home you are selling; maybe even get them to imagine all the great memories they can create there so that we can begin to strategically negotiate the selling price. Don’t think for one minute that your offering price is not part of the strategy or the appeal.

Your best buyer may not even get a chance to see your home if their agent tells them it is overpriced. Nobody has the time to be the guinea pig who teachs a seller that their pricing strategy is in need of some serious review. “Make us an offer”, you say, “we’ll be reasonable.” But the buyer has moved on. They are busy preparing an offer on your neighbors’ home. You see your neighbors finally decided that they really want to get on with it, no more trying; they’ve opted for doing. They just dropped their asking price by $20,000 and the buyers can’t wait to get started negotiating for their new home. They’ll be moved in before Christmas and already creating their own memories just about the time you call your agent to say “Let’s price it where you originally suggested…it’s time for us to move on.”

It’s the newest marketing advice in real estate! And probably car sales and insurance sales and any other sales you can think of…’become their trusted advisor.’

Don’t get me wrong. It’s great advice and those who are giving it are correct. But some folks seem to skip over the first word in that advice…BECOME. I am not your ‘trusted advisor’ because I use that term to describe myself on my webpage. I am not your ‘trusted advisor’ because you typed that keyword into a search engine and I came up. I am not even your trusted advisor because I am trusted by others. Not yet...

Trusted advisors are parents, teachers, mentors and friends. People who really know us; who really care about our happiness and want us to succeed and make good decisions. Until such time as I should fall into one of the above categories, I am a salesperson; plain and simple. You are not confused.

How people choose or learn to trust others is as individual as we are. Some folks naturally trust others unless that trust is betrayed. Others naturally distrust everyone until they prove otherwise. Some simply withhold judgment and wait to decide based on a gut level feeling or a telling moment when they know they have a reason to believe. Some never trust anyone and there is nothing I can say or do to change that.

So why should you allow me to advise you? Why should you accept that I am working in your best interest? Why should you even consider that I could be worthy of your trust at any point? I have no idea. Seriously. That’s between you and your gut and you have to live with your decisions just like I live with mine.

What I can tell you is that you are welcome to bring someone you trust with you when we get together to decide if we should work together. They are always welcome to tag along and see the home that you can’t seem to get out of your mind so you can benefit from their trusted opinion. You are welcome to talk to my clients and ask them how they liked working with me. You are welcome to ask me how I would handle a hypothetical situation so you can determine if my knowledge and experience are something you would like to leverage in your own interest. In short you are welcome to do whatever it takes for you to reach whatever level of trust you determine is necessary in order to decide if you want to hire me to help you accomplish your goals. It’s really that simple.

My goal is simple as well. It is to advise you skillfully and knowledgably and offer you my hard earned wisdom so that when you have achieved your real estate goal and are basking in the happy glow of a mission accomplished, you will say, “Thanks, SarahGray, I appreciate everything you did for me and I will be happy to tell anyone considering hiring you that you have earned my trust!”

Sweeter words a salesperson never heard!