I smiled when I read the REM article, Leave it to the local sales reps, urges broker Marion de Wever.
I have 30 years of experience in the business. I visited Marion’s office a few weeks back and sat on one of her nice couches. Stratford (population 32,000) is 60 km away from my office, and I have a residential listing there.
In the last little while I have also had listings in Bayfield, 83 km away (a vacant building lot); Port Stanley, 40 km away (a house and some land); Arkona, 56 km away (builder’s new houses and lots); and a little while back a farm in Port Glasow, 74 km away.
I also unsuccessfully tried to sell a wrecking yard in Lucan 27 km away and a hot dog shack on the beach in Port Bruce, 60 km away. I like working with all types of people and I drive a Jetta that is good on gas. It has a CD player and cup holders.
When I do Sunday afternoon open houses on my listing in Stratford, people often thank me for doing Sunday open houses. I get good traffic and that time seems to work well for all the people who are out looking.
Let me tell you the types of people that I often talk to at these open houses:
- Retiring farmers from the surrounding areas.
- Techies from the Waterloo area.
- Professors from Western University in London.
- Film directors in Land Rovers.
- School teachers from St. Marys who work in Kitchener and want to be closer to work.
- GTA people who are thinking of buying condos here as second homes.
- People from Windsor and Chatham who have come to enjoy the plays here in the summer.
- People moving back from out west who like old houses and who have grandchildren living in Toronto.
The list goes on and on.
Am I doing my seller a disservice by not necessarily knowing all of the distances to all of the schools or when garbage day is? Not really and I would like to go on record and say that I do know many of the comparable sales because I had a big one sell here on the MLS down the street two summers ago.
I also smiled when the article referenced the notion that some websites about real estate put out information that is not quite true. Watch for the spring launch of my condo website for Stratford that I think will show lots of great information.
I am happy that my business gets me out the door and away from sitting behind a desk.
Peter Daoust
Broker
Re/Max Advantage Realty
London, Ont.
