Vacating a Vacation After Leaving My Chicago Home
Holidays are a perfect time for real estate professionals to head out of town. Typically the market sags, offering a perfect chance to spy the Chicago city limits in your rear view mirror (or Chicago’s majestic skyline as you lift off from O’Hare).
But no matter how far I travel, connectivity by email, text, phone and skype keeps me in immediate contact with my clients, members of my team, consumers and other Chicago area real estate professionals. And such was the case a week ago today as I and my family walked through the St. Louis Zoo and the boys respectively became a tiger and a dragon.
And with the tiger crouching and the dragon roaring I fielded the first of several phone calls from an agent regarding a condo rental listing on Lake Shore Drive in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. With the current renters mostly moved out, this property allowed me to rely on a lockbox to facilitate showings for clients represented by realtors. Not the most complicated scenario, but on this day with this agent, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s was a bit of a challenge.
No worries, as I walked her through the process of finding the box, opening it, getting into the building and then getting out and putting the keys back in the box. That’s when she said her client likely would submit an application.
At the end of the day an application has a value akin to the paper on which it is written. Or the computer image it makes in a scanned document. To shorten this story significantly suffice to say that the application came much later than the agent said it would and lacked the basic elements whereby my clients could make an informed and reasonable decision in their home abroad.
And despite repeated attempts on my part to compile all needed bits of the application, my clients and I had no recourse but go with another application that was submitted where each t was crossed and every i was dotted.
The moral of the story? To say a Chicago real estate professional like myself is on vacation is slightly inaccurate. Plus the role of a true real estate professional is to see that your clients’ well-being is held sacrosanct. The truth of this is even more poignant with clients who are abroad (as is the case with several of my clients now and whose properties I have rented to reasonable and responsible people). I essentially serve as the point person ensuring that one of their most sizable investments is in good and capable hands.
On the flip side? The moral is that in each instance it is absolutely vital that you as a consumer when you are ready to buy or sell or rent a Chicago home have in your corner somebody who can answer AND ANTICIPATE your questions and fully and competently protect your interests during your real estate transaction.
By the way, last week’s vacation resulted in a new extra wide two bedroom condo listing in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, a new recently built single family home listing in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago and an ongoing conversation with a savvy buying client toward a negotiation to purchase a Bucktown home that was consummated today.
Sounds like more vacations are in order, wouldn’t you agree?
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment