Orange County Real Estate Success

Smooth Sailing – Easy Closings – Simple Real Estate

Posted on August 30, 2007. Filed under: First Time Buyer help, Home Seller Tips, Informed Investor Alliance, Making Life Easier, Orange County Real Estate |

I had to take a moment to blog about our best deal ever.  I’m talking best buyers, best sellers, best team, best all around EXPERIENCE.   Working in the Orange County Real Estate field for over 4 years now, Mike & I have some big time horror stories.  Real Estate is NOT easy, there are lots of personalities, paperwork, and pitfalls to deal with.  This deal was cake though – yay!!!

 It started out with great, level-headed buyers who knew exactly what they wanted.  They were educated on comps, the current market, and had an excellent understanding of important buying strategies. 

Then, it snowballed with a perfect property, and great sellers.  The sellers openly disclosed and discussed any problems with the property.  They were awesome with letting our inspectors in, honoring reasonable repair requests, and just open communication in general.

I want to give credit to all the people who ROCKED THE HOUSE with this smooth deal 🙂  I met one of the nicest Orange County real estate agents I have ever worked with, Susan McDonnell.  A fellow midwesterner, Susan totally was out for her clients’ best interests, and represented them flawlessly.  She worked hard, and was always available by phone and email.  She expedited her responsibilities promptly, even ahead of time.  She was trained on her technology AND knew the paperwork well, which is honestly a rarity around here (I am not sure why)!  I only wish I worked in a world of Susan McDonnells.  It was a pleasure doing a deal with her 🙂

ALSO, I have to give props to Barbara Johnson with Legacy Home Loans.  Lenders are dropping like flies right now, and this was one I had never met (buyers knew her previously).  Barbara exceeded all expectations – she PROACTIVELY handled situations – like scheduling the appraiser to walk in while I was on the inspection (thanks for saving me the extra trip, and the sellers the extra privacy invasion).  She called ME to let me know docs are already in escrow a week EARLY.  (wow, I am usually babysitting lenders about this!)  Barbara called me back same day, always, and offered me her cell for weekends.  I didn’t need to use it, though, because the woman is on the ball 🙂

Then we had Janice A, our lovely transaction coordinator.  We never have to worry about paperwork, Janice handles all of it.  She had the entire completed file in to our corporate Newport Beach office a day early, and we so THANKFUL for her looking over all the paperwork.  We would really rather make eye contact and engage in full conversation with our clients, and when we’re doing that sometimes an initial or checkbox gets missed.  Janice always gets the sigs where we need them, when we need them.  If any of you Realtors out there need an awesome Transaction Coordinator, Janice A is your girl.  She gets a perfect file, every time. 

There’s still more – we want to thank Mike Cantor of 20-20 Home Inspections for doing a very thorough inspection.  Mike ALWAYS takes time to tell our buyers details about the home they are buying, and make them aware of any potential safety or upkeep issues with the property.  He’s so thorough, that he guarantees his inspection for a whole year.  Mike takes twice as long as other inspectors, because he leaves no stone unturned.  This Foothill Ranch property actually returned his BEST  inspection report yet…this is a SOLID property for our buyers…woohooo!

Finally I would just like to say thank you to Kandy over at Hartford Escrow, Danny Atkins for fixing the roof tiles, and anyone else I forgot to mention.  Brad Coleman (Metro’s VP)gets the last shout out for his forever solid real estate advise.  Brad helped me with a great new way to counter for services.  After going back and forth about the buyers and sellers choice of escrow and title services, Brad suggested that we counter back “Escrow & Title to be buyer’s OR seller’s choice, whichever company offers the best price.”  Well, how can ya argue over that?  Nobody did, and the deal came together easily.  Brad’s always coming up with creative ways to help me best serve our buyers and sellers – gotta love it!!   

Thanks again to everyone involved – there are so many complaints about businesses and people on the internet…especially blogs… I just wanted to remind everyone to be thankful for your positive experiences and blog about those too 🙂

Have a SAFE and FUN Labor Day everyone!!!!

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