Palos Verdes Real Estate

What do a roof, Cleveland, satellite dish, kitchen tile, and a stewardess have in common?

Answer:  Me.  My clients are constantly amazed at the things I do to help with their transaction, and the above are just a few examples:

In 1989 I had a listing in Montemalaga which had the original wood shingle roof — about 30 years old, shot, and leaking.  The seller (for reasons I’d just as soon not get into here) refused to make any repairs on the house, despite the fact that she was getting a fair price for it from a solid, well-qualified buyer.  Rather than have the deal go south over this, I bought a few bundles of shingles, lugged them up onto the roof, and fixed it.  This little episode is referred to in one of the letters under Testimonials, and resulted in the neighbor across the street listing their house with me 2 years later.

In the mid 1990’s I had a single mother of 3 seller who was undergoing a career change which entailed moving to Cleveland (insert all Cleveland jokes here).  The escrow was very short, which was good except that she had already moved to Shaker Heights before it closed and we needed a few minor things signed (Grant Deed notarized, for example, without which we were not closing escrow).  This was before emailing documents was common practice and, with no time for mistakes due to different practices in Ohio, I hopped on a plane for Cleveland, we went to a notary public that she had arranged, she signed everything, I brought it all back, and we closed a week later. 

Around 2001 I had a charming 88 year old couple selling their house in Valmonte.  They were pretty spry, but taking the satellite dish off the roof about 20 feet up was not going to happen.  I borrowed a very big extension ladder from the fireman who lived next door, and took that thing down, along with generally helping them get rid of old, heavy file cabinets and the like.

Mid-1990’s I was selling the childhood home of an old flame in Lunada Bay (name withheld by request, which seems to be common with my old flames).  They had owned the house since the 1950’s.  Her father outlived her mother by quite a few years and, as he became older, house maintenance slipped down the priority list.  The original kitchen was in amazing shape except that the tile grout was very dirty.  No problem [blare of trumpets]:  I went over in my old clothes with my Secret Sauce for cleaning grout and, by the time we went on the market, had that kitchen practically ready for the cover of Sunset Magazine.

1986 and I have a house in escrow down by the old Parasol Restaurant.  The seller is a recently-divorced stewardess and mother of 2 kids around 4 and 6.  About 2 weeks before escrow is due to close, my buyers discover that they are unable to perform.  The reasons were and are murky, but this put the seller (who was not my client) in a serious fix as she had committed to a rental and was near panic.  Long story short, I told her to give me 3 weeks and I would buy the house for what my buyers were going to pay, including the other agent’s commission.  And that is what happened.  I owned that house for 10 years.

The number of screens, screen doors, plumbing fixtures, smoke detectors, termite repairs, sticky windows, electrical fixtures, etc, I’ve repaired, installed, and painted over the years is beyond counting.  I’m not applying for sainthood or anything; I just mention this as an indication of my approach to the business.  I’m not trying to just do the minimum to get paid and “go on to the next deal”.  When I say I treat every sale as if it were my own, my really mean it.

Other agents tell me I’m crazy to do this sort of stuff, but I got into this business on principle, to be the kind of agent I wish I’d found, and doing this sort of stuff when necessary just seemed like something an agent ought to be willing and able to do, without you having to hire someone to do it at a confiscatory fee.

So give me a call at 310 613-1076 and find out what I can do for you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012 at 7:10 am and is filed under Buyers, Everything I've Written, Sellers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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