Annie Guthrie

You might think that my thoughts are turning to pulling a good book out ...grabbing a cup of coffee and settling in for a wonderful afternoon of being lost in words. On the contrary I have been calling expired listing and it feels more like I am a therapist than REALTOR !

The situation so many of these sellers are in tugs at your heart. It takes a lot of detachment and guts to talk with someone who purchased a home at the height of the bubble and not tell them exactly what they want to hear. And believe me what they want to hear is the market is going to come back with a bang... and prices will be back like they were two years ago. WRONG !

The kindest thing we can do for people in these sad situations is tell the TRUTH ! And the truth is we feel like we are near the bottom but the only way we will know that for sure is after the fact. Monitoring the MLS statistics and Metro Market Trends give us insight in to what is happening in the past month. But that by no means is a crystal ball.... it takes interpreting those stats and just being out there working with buyers and sellers to really know the market.

At a Realtor Meeting almost a year ago we were asked if we were counting distressed sales in our Comparative Market Analysis. No one raised a hand to indicate that they were doing that. Yesterday the same group of Realtors was asked the identical question. Every Realtor in the group raised their hands.

Amazing what a year can do. In a neighborhood where I have an adorable listing, of the seven actives one is a Short Sale and two others are Bank Owned. Say it isn't so !But yes we just did a price adjustment. No Listing Agent likes this situation but the point is not to just list the home!

The point is to sell it !

Sellers are getting their prices in alignment and have fingers crossed hoping we are near the bottom. The main point to remember is even when the market comes back it will be that Pre - Ivan slow dependable rate that has always made owning a home a good long term investment.

NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME TO BUY!

Does anyone know how hard we work ? It is easy in this market to become negative about this business ! And then you have one good week and life is wonderful again. Sometimes those wonderful times seem far and few between .....

But this week has been particularly affirming. A couple whose home we sold invited us to dinner to show their appreciation of a job well done. A buyer was concerned about the amount of time we were spending to find her family's new home, many that were bank owned properties. She asked "if you show us foreclosures and short sales are you going to get paid?" ( And you thought no one cared!)Then yesterday, after a particularly grueling day, a client called that I had begun to believe was never going to be ready to buy.He wanted to tell me he had not forgotten us and was ready to start looking for homes again!

This has been a tough year but the bright spot are those great clients we have connected with.We ask our clients to join our team when we start working with them. But more often than not our clients become FRIENDS. Real Estate is definitely all about RELATIONSHIPS!

There is something infinitely reassuring when someone has known you all your life, knows your deepest, darkest secrets, and still likes you. Now I am not talking love you ....like you. There is a serious difference between the two things. One is a choice and the other pretty much an obligation if you're a Southern girl. Southern Girls Love their families!

So here's to my sister who is always always there for me! We have not always been friends and still are miles away from each other politically but our hearts, well they are really close. And as we grow more comfortable in this adult relationship we find there is more we agree on than disagree and are more a like than not a like. Her version of our parents sounds to me like the folks that lived down the street from us. But at the same time she swears she never knew the folks I describe as our parents. Gone are the days we cannot see any family resemblance. Don't we all age into our parents?

I will never forget sitting in the swing on the front porch playing the Montgomery Wards Catalog Game where we divided up the pages and picked our favorite items. I will never forget the pure pleasure she shared about putting salted peanuts in an RC Cola or M&M's in your popcorn at the movies. It was nothing less than momentous when she passed the family Christmas job of working at Uncle Richard's Luggage Shop in Tallahassee down to me. That alone endowed semi adulthood upon me. Probably, the best leap of trust was when she started college and got her very own VW Beetle. I can not tell you how many times she would loan it to me....she was way too trusting and still is. But I guess that is part of that sister thing.... Thanks for being such a great sister Sandra Kay!

Why do my clients affectionately call me THE STAGING NAZI ?......Because I am ruthless ! My sellers are not going to leave a penny more than necessary on the closing table. STAGING DOES NOT HAVE TO COST TONS OF MONEY ! Easy inexpensive fixes are fresh neutral coats of paint.....

But more than that is DE-CLUTTERING ...Probably the single most effective way to showing your home is to: SUBTRACT ! SUBTRACT ! SUBTRACT ! Move out those ugly recliners, pick up that pile of newspapers, box up your collection of light houses......take off all the family photos from the frig !

Place furniture so it highlights the rooms strong points. Do you have windows with furniture obstructing the view ? Show off that fire place by placing your furniture so it is your rooms focal point. When working with buyers I ask them to use vision, just ignore those hot pink little girls room! TRUST me that is so hard for most people. Not only must your home be the winner in this FEROCIOUS BEAUTY CONTEST you need to make people WANT TO LIVE THERE !