Remember that line in The Godfather wherein Michael Corleone explains how his father taught him to “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
Susan Herrmann, an agent with William Raveis Real Estate, in Westport, Connecticut, has her own version. It’s “Keep your clients close and your ex-clients closer.”
With 13 years of experience in both hot and cold markets, Herrmann has found that one of the best ways to gain new clients is through referrals from old ones. As such, she makes sure to stay in touch with those she has helped buy, sell or rent houses.
“Every Christmas I bake cookies and drop them off to all my past clients,” she explains. “That’s how I maintain connections. Two years ago I helped find a couple from New York a house rental in Connecticut. It was for a year, then they stayed there another year because of Covid. Each Christmas I brought them cookies and we talked about what their plans were. After two years they called and asked if I’d show them some houses, so we started looking.”
A few months later they bought a home for $925,000, with Herrmann as their agent. So you might say that cookie dough led directly to commission dough.
Even with mortgage rates still rising, the market is starting to normalize nationwide, with inventory ticking up in some markets. And with that, Herrmann is able to exhale. For now at least the days of bidding wars for almost every home that hits the MLS in her market are over, she says. While lightning-quick transactions and closings do of course line REALTORⓡ pockets, there are also stressful times for agents and clients who lose out.
“That’s a hard place to be because you want to get a sale done for people, and you want them to think that you’re getting it done for them,” she says. “For months earlier this year people were looking at houses for less than 15 minutes and spending well over a million dollars. And you couldn’t get a minute more. When you opened the door to leave, the next group was standing there waiting to go in. It was absurd.
“Now it’s kind of nice, because I feel like I have breathing room. Before I was checking MLS three times a day so I didn’t miss anything and could get my appointments made.”
The frenzy of the recent past, in which buyers and sellers were constantly on edge, is something Herrmann hadn’t experienced before.
“I had sellers with accepted offers telling me they were hearing stories from their friends saying they had people on their street knocking on their door offering a lot more,” she says. “There was a lot of that going on, the real and unreal. Then when the market started to deflate it happened quickly.”
Luckily, Herrmann didn’t hear too much buyer’s remorse from those who might have thought they overpaid.
“A lot of people were just grateful to get something,” she notes. “It’s water under the bridge. I tell them to enjoy their house. I say you told me you had to get it done, and that’s what it cost to get it done.
“I had a couple of past clients asking why hadn’t I called them to sell their house when it was hot? I said’ ‘Where are you gonna go? You have kids in the school system. Why would I call you to move? I couldn’t put you anywhere.’ They laughed and agreed.”
A more normal market is best for everyone, Herrmann feels.
“It’s stabilizing now,” she says. “In February you could get a mortgage for 3 to 3.5%. Now it’s 5 to 5.5%. That’s material; that’s a material change. There are people who luckily don’t have to be worried about that, but there are people who do.
“Also there is much less buyer fatigue. People were tired of being pushed around, of running to see a house at a moment’s notice and then not get it. A lot of them said they’re done, they’re gonna wait until things change. Well, now it’s their turn.”
