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Congratulations are in order to our new VP, Erin Hickman, for a couple of challenging transactions. Nothing was given to her, she went out and made both of these sales from nothing.
We’d actually sold 1540 Holyoak several years ago and had some real challenges with it back then. Not with the home itself. As you can see by the pictures below, it’s beautifully finished out, sits on a big 2.5 acre lot and is located in Lovejoy ISD.
The challenges were two fold. First, it’s right on FM 3286, also called Lucas Branch Road which leads to the bridge across Lake Lavon connecting Lucas to both Branch and Princeton. That’s a pretty busy road and there’s no screening from the street. It also didn’t have a pool and there are many sellers who won’t even look at a home without a pool.
The home had been listed with another agent before us without success and after it expired on the MLS, Erin contacted the sellers and we set up an appointment. We had an open and very frank discussion with them and they liked what we had to say.
We listed the home on June 8th and it sold on August 21st. The home was priced at $729K.
After the sale, a very minimal problem cropped up and although neither Erin nor the seller had any obligation to address it, they didn’t just walk away and now the buyer is happy. Now, Erin had to find a home for them and that ended up being tougher than this sale.
Our sellers had now turned into buyers and the real estate market was really starting to move in June. There weren’t many homes available in Lovejoy with their criteria. The sellers were in a bit of a panic mode so we had to find a home that worked for them, and fast.
These sellers wanted to be in a home in Lovejoy ISD with a pool with an upper price ceiling of around $800K. After they looked at all the possibilities, they just weren’t satisfied with what they saw, so Erin went to plan B.
Erin posted on our Keller Williams Allen Facebook page we had a buyer with a particular need and one of our other great KW agents, Missy Hobgood, responded. She said she had a home in mind that might work. It wasn’t listed nor even being marketed for sale but she thought the sellers might be interested at the right price.
Long story short, we just closed on the home today. It won’t appear on the MLS but I imagine it would probably have been listed somewhere in the $800K range.
Although the transaction between the buyer and seller went smoothly, our buyer ran into some lending issues. Mr. Buyers is a self employed business owner and although very solid financially with multiple revenue streams, lenders have started to tighten up especially since the Covid scare. I think we’re going to see more of this in the coming year too.
This is where another Keller Williams contact really came to our rescue in the way of a mortgage broker. Erin also wanted to give a shout out to Greg Park who secured the financing for our client. We think a lot of Greg and although he’s not officially part of Keller Williams, he offices in our building right next to us, so we know him well.
Greg showed his usual determination, creativity, and patience in making this deal happen. If you’re interested in contacting Greg about a loan or just have any questions, he’s always available and very friendly. His contact information is … 972-897-6348 and his email is greg@amortgagecompany.com
Erin summed up this second transaction by saying …
“My biggest takeaway from this is to do a better job communicating on the front end about expectations because so many things are out of my control. Make sure everyone knows what a realistic closing timeline is and don’t be surprised if everything doesn’t fall into place exactly as planned”.
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