Home Ownership Not Required!
“The fellow (or gal) who owns their own home is always just conducting a Yelp search for a reliable tradesperson.”
Writing and Reading "Real Estate Therapy"
I’m deeply touched that people read Real Estate Therapy and that it has made /can make a difference in others’ lives. I’m grateful, grateful, grateful!
Suspend Your Shoes-Off Rule When Showing Your House
Asking people to take their shoes off is off-putting, inconvenient, truly unnecessary and unsightly. (Nothing says “welcome” like a big pile of stinky shoes scattered around the foyer.) And you want you buyers to feel at ease, not vulnerable!
For Agents Only: Don't Count Your Chickens
It’s a pathway to disappointment if things don’t work out the way you hope they will.
We're On Your Side
Your agent is your ally. Your friend. Your advocate. She’s on YOUR SIDE and committed to your progression and happiness.
For Agents Only: Attend with Feeling
When we listen – intently and with care – we are better agents and better people. I preach this, though I don’t always practice it.
Who’s Writing This Stuff?
Features exuding luxury and charm. Amenities acting like royalty. Rooms doing all sorts of boasting. European feelings everywhere. Public landmarks gazing over this or that. Closets, garages and master bedrooms being generous.
Make Your Agent Your BFF
When buyers and sellers are less than forthcoming, the results can be less than ideal.
For Agents Only: Talk Your Buyers OUT of Writing an Offer
Whenever there’s a strong emotional response from a buyer, encourage them to slow down and let the initial attraction cool. Then consider carefully.
Goose Bumps and Full Service Real Estate
And while my job as a Realtor can be quite lovely and even glamorous, there are always times when I have to improvise and do the job nobody else wants to do: Use a paper clip to unlock the bedroom door where an open-house visitor has inadvertently trapped the tenants’ cats. Clean up raccoon poop from the tradesway.
Someone Asked Me What Home Was
Someone asked me what home was, and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside of your rib cage
A KitchenAid Pro Mixer Lament
Just the sight of the KitchenAid pro mixer stirs the slurry of regret that lingers at the bottom of my heart.
Seven Secrets to Seller Success and Satisfaction
Your agent loves you like nobody else. I am your biggest fan and I am likely the only professional – during your entire lifetime – who will love you as unconditionally as an ideal mother.
For Agents Only: Stop Selling
The intimacy of my work is breathtaking, and it continually shoves me up against my own humanity.
This is Not My Beautiful House
Over my years of working with couples – in an up-close -and-personal manner that is not unlike that of a marriage counselor – I’ve learned that nobody has a perfect partnership.
Staging IS Rather Silly, Isn’t It?
Why can’t we do something more sustainable and real and commonsensical?
Working Girls (or Two or More is Like None)
Hooking up with two agents in San Francisco is like dating two people in a small town.
Wharton, Hemingway and Strange Houses
“Everything in the great empty house smelled of dampness: the stuffing of the chairs, the threadbare folds of the faded curtains, the splendid tapestries, that were fading too…”