On Sunday, I decided to document my day on Facebook. It started innocently with this selfie I took in the car wash before I met with buyers to show them houses.
But within an hour I wrote the following post:
You know what I am going to do today? If my clients are okay with it, I’ll take you all along on a “A Day in the Life of a Real Estate Agent” series of posts. You already saw my car getting washed. Now, I’m at the office, setting up appointments. My clients wanted to start looking at 11 this morning, which means my job begins a couple hours earlier, making appointments and scheduling our tour. Today we’ll be looking at 10 houses, 1 in Kennewick near where they currently live, 8 in Richland and 1 in West Richland (shout out to my town!). Ten houses in one day isn’t generally recommended, because after about the 6th or 7th house, they all start to blend together. That’s why I give my clients a booklet of all the houses they want to see, so they can see the pictures and take notes along the way.
My clients gave their blessing, and I took a picture of the front porch at the first house, then an interesting decor item at the next house and posted those to Facebook.
Just as we were entering the first house, my client, Ed, told me the following story which totally made my day! His friend, Mark, had asked him if he and his family were going to church that morning and Ed had replied they would be looking at houses, instead. Mark said, “Do you have a Realtor yet? You HAVE to use the best – Cari McGee!” Turns out that Mark had been a client of mine as well. I sold his house in just four days back in the Autumn of 2013. What a great, ringing endorsement from one client to another!
We saw a total of five houses in the morning, then we took a break for lunch. I know some agents eat meals with their clients, but I always feel so awkward doing that. I ate at home, instead, because the next house to look at was in West Richland, just a couple miles from my house. Plus I got a chance to see my family, which is always a welcome break in the work day!
We spent about thirty minutes in the West Richland house. It had a great backyard, and a huge basement. Our next stop was Horn Rapids, and I wrote the following on Facebook:
Now in Horn Rapids – people either love it or hate it here. I think these clients are fans!!
Later, an out-of-towner friend commented, asking why the disparity. I told her it’s because it’s pretty far removed from schools and shops and churches, from the “center” of Richland, and some people don’t like that at all. Others really respond to how close it is to work, if they work out at the Hanford site, or they just like that feeling of being removed from the bustle of the ‘burbs.
We finished up the showings there, a total of three. The family has two little girls, one is 4 and one is 2-months-old. We took a break to feed the baby, and the 4-year-old and I pretended to make cupcakes, brownies, cake AND cookies. 🙂
Finally, I wrote this post around 5:15 that night:
So, I show them the last house and I head home and the clients are heading in the same direction. I figure they want to take a drive by the West Richland house because I know they liked it a lot. I get a text from the listing agent for that house letting me know there’s an offer in on that West Richland house and asking if my clients want to make an offer! I call my clients and they spent a frantic hour on the phone with their lender and talking amongst themselves. They ultimately decided to NOT buy it, but I stayed in my work clothes, just in case they wanted to write an offer. Now I’m in my comfy sweats, drinking Prosecco that I had bought for the Seahawks Super Bowl win but didn’t have the heart to open up last week when we lost. That’s a Day In The Life of a Real Estate Agent! Have a good Sunday night, everyone!!
And now all of YOU are up-to-date, too! Have a great week!