Oftentimes in real estate we hear the word location, location, location, and although in Real Estate location is extremely important. The Giambra Team challenges the status quo that location is the most important thing to consider when thinking about real estate, and rather our focus should actually be on the the word relationship, relationship, relationship. Now every Realtor has a story so here’s a short story about how our team recently helped one of our newest client relationships.

Before we talk about the relationship with the client, I need to talk about the relationship that we have with the client's friend. It’s commonplace in real estate that a lot of the deals that come across any Realtor's desk are some sort of referring source. Now that could be a lender, it could be a home Inspector, or it could be a lawyer who you often refer to your clients who are transacting too. It could also be somebody at church, or the gym, or school, but more times than not it’s your friends and your family that are the most valuable referral sources. And this makes sense because as a Realtor, our families know more than anyone else how hard (and often) we actually work and they are happy to refer us to people within their networks to provide the level of surface consumers deserve. So fast forward. 

I know this guy from being in real estate the last 11 years and for the sake of the story will call him William. And William is an absolute real estate legend. He’s a local investor who probably has more equity in his 150 unit real estate portfolio than most private equity firms have in their portfolios. Although William is one of those guys who doesn’t believe in “selling” we have worked with him in the past and built a really solid relationship as a trusted Realtor partner, and he CONSTANTLY refers deals our way. Fast forward again, William is very good friends with this woman and for the sake of the story, we’ll call her Sharon. Williams and I both work out at the same time of the day at the same gym and although William has 30+ years on my he is way more consistent about his regiment than most. And since Sharon and Williams have been working out together for over 20+ years naturally we have become friendly with Sharon. 

Sharon is an older person, well educated, and her background is an academic role at a local University. Sharon is also a widow, she doesn’t have any children, lost one of her brothers years ago after a freak accident, and is her fathers’ (90+ years old) primary caregiver which means, she takes him to the dentist, the doctors, makes sure he has clean clothes, and food, and takes his medicine, and to put it more simply, so that he enjoys the rest of his life as best as possible. In addition, her father was also a Real Estate Investor. Towards the end of Sharon’s father's professional career, he acquired and accumulated a bunch of real estate, some homes, and some vacant land. 

At this point, as her father is still alive, the properties are in a “life estate” and Sharon and her last living brother were the executors of that estate, until she unexpectedly lost her brother and Sharon became solely responsible for the properties. Without direct real estate experience and no background as a property management this is an insurmountable task for Sharon. Think about it, all the snow removal, lawn maintenance, non paying tenants, utility management, tax bill payments, user fee payments, mechanicals of the property, cosmetic condition, tenants who’ve destroyed the properties and everything else that it takes for a landlord to be successful. This is a ton of responsibility and emotional stress for someone who is their fathers primary caretaker, who's grieving the loss of her late brother, with an insane amount of financial pressure of not letting the real estate properties crumble or lose them in foreclosure. And now Sharon is left with the task of solving the real estate problems she has no experience working on. And we give Sharon so much credit, most people in this circumstance would throw their hands in the air, sell the properties for pennies on the dollar, and try to solve the problems as quickly as possible, but not Sharon. Thankfully Sharon asked the right person for help, and it started with the relationship we had outside of her real estate needs. Sharon asks for our help. The obvious answer is yes, and not just because she has eight homes, not just because she’s motivated to sell, not just because we see her at the gym, but because she’s our friend and how we work is the difference between us and everybody else.

Most Realtors can’t sell eight properties at once, and one at a time to make sure you are helping realize every penny that exists for someone's home. Most Realtors don’t have enough time and energy in the day, or an operations staff to successfully pull off the task of maximizing the Seller's position on each deal. Getting through 8 properties, coming up with a custom plan for each one, deciding which ones to start with first, and more importantly why. Some of the properties are multi-family homes, some of them are singles, some of them are vacant land. Some of them were lived in by family members, some of them were pure investment properties, some of them are in good shape, and some of them are destroyed. Now some of these homes also make sense to renovate or prep before listing as Sharon increases her position on some of these deals by 30-40%.

With this in mind, who's going to do the work to help her realize these higher prices? What color should we paint the walls? What color carpet should get installed? Does it make sense to do a laminate or hardwood floor instead? What about Plumbing fixtures? Light fixtures? Door hardware? And figuring out if it makes sense based on existing condition and future valuation to renovate kitchens/baths/or install new roofs, etc… If the renovations make sense and the Seller is agreeable to make the improvements whose paying for it? Does the estate have money to make these investments? If not, are we able to invest the money for Sharon to honor her father, her late brother, and her entire family? Well of course we are, because we like Sharon, and truly want what's best for her and her family. Fast forward again but this time we need a couple weeks to do the discovery, start the prep work, and solidify the plan of maximizing the real estate sales.

Without Leah, there are no transactions. Without Joe, there is no pending deal in Hamburg. Without Ayat, there aren’t 3 pieces of vacant land up for sale in Lakeview. Without Dylan, there’s not two homes in Lakeview being renovated right now. Without the team leader there's not $60k in liquid cash to loan Sharon for the improvements. And without the Giambra Team, there is currently no light at the end of Leah’s very dark & very scary tunnel. When I walked into my office the other day and saw Joe meeting with Sharon in our office I saw those tears pouring down Leah‘s face. Upon entering, I asked Sharon if those tears of joy or tears of happiness? Sharon quickly let us know they are tears of happiness. Without the relationship we have with each other, neither of us are able to accomplish our goals with real estate. I closing, I challenge you to help me break the status quo of location, location, location, and although that is important, we should really be letting the word relationship, relationship, relationship guide us.

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