Audrey's Adventures in Real Estate

Hi, I was just tagged by Kathy McGraw for this Meme, who was tagged by Jason Sardi.  Never been Memed before, this ought to be good . . . 

I didn't know what this meant at first, but like all things I am willing to get involved!  This Meme was started by Mary McKnight of RSSpieces so here goes;

1. Who is your favorite musical artist?  Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton - can you say Yardbirds?

2. Who is your favorite artist?  Tarkay, Rothko, plain and simple, bright colors - love that!!

3. Who is your favorite blogger?  I don't have one, don't think I have been around long enough to decided. . .

4. If you could meet anyone (alive or dead), who would it be and what is the most interesting thing about them?  Two of my top choices would be Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell so they could see how their inventions changed our world.  The fact that we took their ideas and ran like hell with them.

5. What did you want to be when you grew up?   A back up singer in a rock band.

6. What is the most interesting piece of trivia you know?  "Rule of Thumb"  The law in the colonial days was that you could not beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb?  Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the exact same day, the 4th of July - cant remember what the year was? Insert google here.

7. If you could live in any point in history what would it be and why?    During the Jane Austen era, love the formality and manners between people.

 8. What is the most interesting job you have ever held?   I was a bartender during and right after college, best education about people ever.  Funny, the more they drink the better looking they think they get!!  That is not exclusive to anyone.

I am tagging;

1.  Bob Cumiskey

2.  Lindsay Pendleton

3.  Debbie Summers

4.  Teri Ellis

5.  Christine Bohn

6.  Jesse Clifton

7.  Patricia Kennedy

8.  Yvette Smith

That was fun!!  Have a great day everyone!!

I have always joked that if my Husband, Mike, left me I would be devastated, but if my assistant Maria left me I would be a mess.  Mike is staying and Maria is leaving me.  I am heart broken.  She is my right hand in everything that I do.  She makes my office and business run like a well oiled machine.  My Maria, that is what I call her.  I not only enjoy working with her, I just love her as a person as well.

On top of being dependable, smart and the cutest thing you have ever known she is in love.  She is going to move to Florida with her boyfriend at the end of July.  I just have to accept and understand these things.  We will start to look for her replacement soon and Maria will help train her replacement.

I just don't know if you can train someone to have heart?  Maria has a huge heart and that is part of why it will be so difficult for me to let her go.  I understand she needs to grow and explore new things, but I think they should be right here in Montgomery County Maryland, not Daytona Beach Florida.

I can truely say that Maria's help and support has helped me keep my business steady and on an even keel even during this market.  She does all of my marketing, keeping my name out in front of the masses so I may dedicate my time to caring for my clients. 

She is so wonderful, whenever I am on my way out the door, she has all the forms and information I need right on my desk ready for me to grab and go.  She is the best.

If you have never had an assistant, I will take this time to tell you they will make you more productive and usually more than pay for themselves.  You should explore the possibilities of hiring someone.

The next thing I will say is if you are an agent in the Daytona/ Ormond Beach area of Florida and are considering an assistant , or know someone who needs an assistnat, I have one to hand over on a Golden Platter, Maria Carpenter.  I am really sad to see her go. 

Please make sure your pets are properly secured when having workers out to your home.

This morning after my husband, Mike, left for work the phone rang.  It was him and he says, Guess what I have in the backseat of the truck? He sounded just like a little kid that found a great treasure, you know the voice? 

I am thinking, oh, boy this ought to be good?  He says a soaking wet,- I immediately think raccoon, fox, deer, some wild animal- Golden Retriever!  He said he found her wandering down the middle of RT 118, a fairly large, heavily traveled road in Germantown, Maryland.  I asked if she had tags and he didn't see them, but that she had a collar.  He said she hopped right up in his truck and he brought her home.  Once she got here, she was not so sure about where she was but we coaxed her out of the truck and she came out.

She was soaked to the bone.  I dried her off as much as possible, my dog, Hutch, was helping an supervising the entire time.  After we dried her off, we checked her over and then I looked on her collar, where her name and phone number were sewn into the collar.  Her name was Rudy and we called her owners so they could come and get her.

We figured she had been out all night so we gave her some breakfast, which she gobbled right up and then she and Hutch both sat for a treat.

The owner came right over to get her and thanked us profusely for our kindness.  That sort of puzzled me because I think anyone would do the same, but that is not the case.  Mike said that cars were swerving around her and honking the horn at her?  Poor baby.  I guess for the folks that don't have pets, they don't understand that the Rudys of the world are like our children.

When the owner came over, he told us that they had construction workers at their house and they left the gate open and the dogs got out.  Rudy was excited to see her owner and go home.

Rudy just reminded me that when having anyone to our homes to do work we need to make sure our pets are secure because they are not used to them and what their boundaries maybe?  If they have never had a pet, they may not even notice them?  Luckily we had a happy ending.

Real Estate is my passion.  I am one of the lucky ones, I love my job.  It is important to me to help, educate and guide my clients to buy their first home or buy their dream home.  I work this passion daily and it means  a lot to me, but more importantly it must mean a lot to you, the consumer.

I want you to have the same passion about finding your home as I do.  I am a very hands on personal REALTOR(R) .  I am all about the experience you will go through when you work with me as your agent.  I am a firm believer in doing a steady business of high quality real estate transactions rather than a high quantity of mediocre transactions.  Most of my clients are friends, or become my friends after the transaction.

Your experience is very important to me.  I want you to be very clear and happy with the entire process.  I will provide you with as much consumer information as possible so you can make educated decisions.  Customer service is paramount to me and your satisfaction is my main goal.  I am not a robot type agent. The transaction is personal and all about you.

For some folks, their REALTOR(R) is not someone they research, just someone to facilitate the transaction. And that is okay, but that is not me.  So, if you are a person who doesn't really care about how your real estate transaction goes, or doesn't really need a high quality transaction, maybe I am not for you?

For a High Quality transaction go to www.Audreyjune.com

My neighbors across the street from my house have always commented to me that they would like to sell their family home and down size into something smaller now that they are empty nesters.  Nothing serious has ever come of it, and that has been just fine with me. 

 You see, Ed and Ginny are some of my favorite neighbors.  You could always count on Ginny sending over food if you had been in the hospital or out of commission.   Ed faithfully was out walking Peanut and Buster, their Beagles through snow, sleet and rain at the same time we would be walking our dog, Hutch.  Usually, we would walk together and commiserate about the weather, the neighborhood and general status of the world.

 Sadly, we lost Ed last night.  He passed away last night after complications from open heart surgery.   He was a great guy and a great American.  Ed was a graduate of the US Naval Academy and a career Captain in the Navy.  He was pragmatic and faithful.  Ed was a treasure to know, we will sadly miss him and our evening talks walking the dogs.

My husband, Mike, and I feel very fortunate to live in such a close knit community.  Everyone has kept everyone abreast of the situation and now we are all pitching in cooking supper for the family and general support.  I just find that very reassuring that I live in a community that pulls together in trying times instead of some impersonal vacuum that some neighborhoods seem to have developed into.

Now, Ginny wants to sell the family home.  Unfortunately  she cannot keep it up on her own.  She knows I will take the best care of her and deal with all aspects of the transaction, but it is a listing I am sad to be getting at this time and date.  Too bad some of our dealings are not always joyous ones!!

We will surely miss Ed!!

One of the agents in my office signed me up here on Activerain just this past January.  I didn't have the first clue.  Not one Iota of what I was getting myself into or how to do it?  I would log on read and learn stuff, check out different ways to do things here and there.  Bookmark some of the posts for their good content.  I even made a couple of comments, whoa go figure.  Then the thought of actually POSTING something made me some kind of nervous.                                                                                                   

So one day my cell phone rings and this voice on the other line says,  Hi, This is Kathy McGraw calling you about Activerain.  I thought huh?  Okay, what did I do wrong now?  She said that she had seen me Lurking in the comment section and wanted to help me with my first post.  So, she did.  She sat on the phone with me and walked me through the process for about 30 minutes, I am slow you know and she has the patience of Jobe.  When I got off of the phone with her, I just thought, wow - that was really great?  What a nice person to take the time out to help me get me started.  If this is the kind of place Activerain is, I want to be a part of this community! 

The other part about Kathy is that when she writes a post, comments on your post or answers back to you, she is really talking to YOU.  She knows you.  That makes her a true gem in my book.

The other gift of appreciation for me is Jennifer Bukaty and her post Is Anyone Home?  If you didn't read it, please do it now.  It is about the fact that there is more to the foreclosure crisis than just the troubles the banks are having. 

The thing about this post was shortly after, I was showing REOs to my investor and we came upon a similar property.  I could tell someone must have been there recently.  Two pillows on the floor and a blanket.  Gallon jugs of distilled water in the bathroom and kitchen.  It made me email Jennifer to say, I thought about your post today because something similar happend to me.  I wonder if I would have paid as much attention to this situation had I not read Jennifer's post?  Jennifer called me that night and we talked for a long time and we talked about trying to help some of the people in trouble?  I mean what happens to some of them, there are little kids involved, homeless?                                                       

This got some of us talking in the office and we are trying to come up with different ideas of how we could maybe help some of the folks hit so hard by foreclosure. We have talked about having a food drive of some sort.  We have listings in our offices that are pending foreclosure, all we have to do is ask, maybe some kindness will do us all good. I appreciate Jennifer for reminding me that we all can do more to help.

I have been reading post after post about getting business from AR. My friend, who I got to sign up and has NEVER done anything with her blog, says to me "someone found me on AR today."  I thought, wow, you don't even participate in the community or anything?  I was getting worried, thinking I am never gonna get one!!

 Finally, I got a call today.  It was kind of funny because I was sitting at my desk answered my phone and this voice was very friendly and said, Hi, we want to come and meet with you right away.  I just so happenend to have some time in the afternoon for them to come and get qualified and have our Buyer Listing appointment!!

I thought it was interesting that they knew how long I had been at my office and other information.  I thoought, they must have read my main profile page?  I asked them how they found me, they said ActiveRain.

They are a very nice couple and relocating to the Montgomery county area from Texas. 

It was my first, it was really fun.

Thanks, AR!!