Why Me?

I remember a big turning point in my life and it happened around 1984. I was a mechanic. I’d go home tired, sweaty and dirty. My hands were rough already and my back was sore… at 20.

I made a few wooden tulips with a cheap band-saw. I painted them different colors and started selling them to people for décor. It was such a simple, little project and yet, I was getting 3 bucks apiece. I went into a little restaurant in Powder Springs. I was having lunch with Gary Lowe. I managed to sell several of those tulips while at lunch and lunch was, therefore, on me and basically free.

“You are such a natural salesman.” Gary said as we walked out.

Of course.

I would sell. I was never going to make a fortune with wooden tulips. I was killing myself in a garage. Why not sell?

So, for the past 34 years, I have been selling. I’ve gone from cars to houses, back to cars and back to houses, but I’m still selling.

Selling is a good career if you love what you sell; it’s miserable if you don’t. The most difficult part is getting whatever you are selling in front of people; especially in 2018.

If someone is selling something, they have to interrupt people or they have to be right where potential clients can see the product when the client actually wants or needs it. With real estate, it’s easy to be available. It’s not like the clients are going to department stores to find houses. Listings are typically uploaded to a multiple listing service (MLS) and when the potential buyer is looking in the area for a home in the price range of the one you have listed, the connection is made and an offer comes in.

If you don’t have a listing, you need a buyer/client. If you don’t have a listing or a buyer, you are what my instructor called a “Secret Agent”. People have to find you and they have to want to do business with you. Having a license doesn’t mean that you are the right fit for a particular client. Believe me, a lot of people have a real estate license. Why would people want to do business with me?

I was trained to read real estate contracts and I’ve studied the industry for the last 30+ years, but that’s not all that unique. I’ve fixed and sold houses of my own (flips) and a lot of other agents have done that too. I’ve managed my own rental properties and that is not really rocket science. I have worked with big banks, selling their REO properties during The Great Recession and that experience prepares me for working with big banks in a slow market, but that’s not where we are today. I’ve worked with builders and vendors on new homes and I’ve marketed developments and sold a lot of new houses and that’s good experience, but it still doesn’t set me apart. I’ve begun to develop a knack for advertising a communicating with social media, but that’s a great place to get lost too. So how do I answer the question? Why work with me?

This is the hard part. This is where I have to be shameless and tell you how great I am. The truth is: I’m not.

When I think about the agents I’ve met through the years, I cannot tell you that I am the better agent. I’ve met some really wonderful people in this industry. Many of the agents, brokers, lenders, inspectors and appraisers have taught me what I know about real estate, and I still have a lot to learn. I’ve marveled at how some agents are so quick to think and how they can turn a situation around. I’ve been at closings where the deal was literally falling apart at the closing table and I’ve watched a closing attorney find the solution in a haystack of unacceptable outcomes.

I’ve made some mistakes. In the real estate industry, you won’t forget your mistakes. I’ve had to turn to my broker and we’ve found solutions in every case. And speaking of cases, I haven’t made mine here.

Of course, if you have a property to sell, I want to help you sell it. I’d like to see you get what you want, but I won’t lie to you and promise you that I can do it. I won’t insult your intelligence and suggest that I have the ability to buy all of the houses I list if they don’t sell. I’m sure you know that if I did buy your house, I probably wouldn’t give you what you wanted for it; that’s how that works.

And if you are a buyer, I want to try to find you what you are looking for. I will tell you that it won’t happen the way it does on television. I won’t show you three houses in thirty minutes and then meet you at a restaurant with outdoor dining so you can tell me if it is house 1, 2 or 3. In fact, it is quite a process and it may take weeks or even more. I can’t possibly show you every house you find on the millions of websites that list houses for sale. Many of those houses aren’t even for sale. In some cases, the house has been off the market for a year and it still appears to be for sale on a website.

Okay, here goes: my tagline has always been, “Real Experience in Real Estate.”

I always wanted the focus to be on the word “Real”. A lot of people have experience but when you get to know them, you find out they aren’t “real”. They don’t stop to consider your personal goals and dreams. They want to get the job done without empathy. 

HOWEVER

Recent studies reveal that empathy gets the job done. What is empathy? It is the ability to feel what someone else feels. You become more flexible and you listen more carefully. Sure, you can write a blog like this one, but you can meet someone face to face and have a conversation too. You can find the phone feature on your smartphone and make a personal call to someone. You can post a status update on social media and you can be sociable too.

Scanning an offer and sending it via email is good experience. Knowing where to place a sign in a yard is not a bad thing to know. Spelling most of your words correctly in your ads would be great, but about 20 years ago, I was standing with a client as the sun began to set and it painted the sky in a stunning orange glow. “Mr. D____,” I said, “Would you look at that sunset?”

He and I stood there for a minute and we both agreed that it really was a gorgeous sunset. After the closing, he told me that my reaction to that sunset was what made his mind up. I had no idea. I guess that’s what I mean when I say, “Real”.

We Were Shabby Chic when Shabby Chic Wasn't Cool

My daddy’s go-to phrase was always, “I’m amazed.”

He was. My dad was fascinated with life. It was the routine he loved and not the mountain tops. He loved to idle along and he’d take time to observe anything; even if it was rusty, old, worn out or broken. In fact, he’d find abandoned furniture and bring it home. There would be pieces everywhere. Decades later, you can still go into one of his shops and find pieces he would have used by now had he lived longer.

Today, I find myself looking carefully at old things. I sometimes bring them into my shop and brush off some of the rust to see if there is any hope. I’ve made lamps, chairs, tables and all kinds of smaller projects. I’ve got stacks of old tin and some old barn wood. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, “What are you gonna do with that?”

Sometimes I don’t have an answer. Sometimes I make up an answer on the spot. Antique venders love to see me coming; I’m the guy who will buy the broken shelf or the instrument cluster from a 1955 Ford dump truck. You can see it on their faces, “Wow,” they seem to say, “I was just about to throw that out.”

There must be something in my DNA. My grandfather, Charlie Coker, couldn’t afford a truck so he made one. He took an old, Model T school bus and cut the top off, leaving only a roof over the driver and one passenger. He took some barn wood and built rails on the side and closed up the “cab” area. He drove that thing for years and in 1941, he loaded it up like Jed Clampett and drove to Powder Springs.

My dad certainly inherited that quality. When he was building his home in the 60’s, he’d find abandoned barns, houses, churches and even warehouses, track down the owner and offer to take down the old structures. He’d bring loads of ancient lumber home and I’d get the job of pulling nails. Of course we saved the nails too. I’d straiten them out on an anvil that still sits in his old shop. Tetanus Shots be damned, I built up my resistance, one rusty nail at a time.

The house dad built is full of furniture that he pulled out of abandoned buildings or even landfills. There is one huge beam running from one end of the lower level to the other; it came from a church somewhere in Cobb. Two of the big, picture windows spent years in a hangar at Dobbins; they finally took the old one down in the early 70’s and dad took two of those windows straight out to his truck. I think he built the house around them.

I live back behind the old home-place and every day, I drive by his shops and that old house. To me, they look like a postcard. The buildings are old, but the material he used to build them is even older. I see him everywhere around here. My siblings and I go rummaging through his old shops sometimes and we find an old scrap of something and we bring it back to life when possible.

I know what my dad meant. I’m amazed too.