Brenda Demers

Choose the most important values to you in a home. Whether it be location, square footage, style, yard/land, price? You may not find everything you want in a home. Even new construction may not have the correct topography. If you can find almost everything in a home, put a little of yourself into it, stay for a few years, gain some equity and sell for something that has more of what you want and can afford.

Clean everything you are not using or need. Let your home be a clean palate for buyers to envision their own items in your home. Your items will need to be packed regardless. This will help you in the long run and when it comes time to move you will be more than 1/2 way there.

I have worked with reloacating families for work...either they have come from New York and we looked at homes on the weekends or they sold and moved out of state. I have also worked with elderly or older couples downsizing, young families that need larger homes because they are expanding, many first time home buyers looking for their first home. I have worked with families that have a home they've lived in for years and don't know the process of selling or that the process has changed as it's been years. It's my job to know the laws and to guide them through so they don't find themselves overloaded or in court.

I can name several, working with buyers or sellers for months if they are looking for just the right home and in this market it can take even longer as we have no inventory or they are up against a lot of other offers. Sellers, I work with them to prepare their home from start to actual purchase can also be a couple months. My clients will tell you there becomes a bond we form and many stay friends after the trasaction is over. For example;Wayne and Sevi in Spencer. They had Solar on their home. Unfortunately, solar does not have a value in the end. An appraiser will give it zero for a value. Wayne and Sevi paid $26k for theirs but had a note on it. That note would need to be paid with the proceeds of the sale. We tried everything to recoup some of that money. They were patient in their sale as we tried to leverage the market. In the end, they really needed the space with new twin girls a total of 4 girls and we took a fabulous offer but it did not cover their solar. Today we are still very close and the girls are walking! I also just recently had a first time buyer in Hopkinton that had a hard time saying good-bye after working together for a couple months. It was a crazy market this summer! They weren't expecting to get their dream home in Hopkinton but after going up against many other offers they did and everything they wanted. Jun and Eun are now residents of Hopkinton.

Ever since I was 17 I would read Banker & Tradesman, the newspaper on Sundays and anything else I could that had to do with real estate. I knew who moved where, when, how much they paid, owed etc...I couldn't live without it. It just grew from there. Then we purchased our first home in 1989.

I have taken many courses and classes for ex: SRS (Seller's Representative Specialist), ABR (Accredited Buyer's Represintative), RENE (Real Estate Negotiation Expert), Residential Rentals (1), Realtor Code of Ethics, General R.E. Laws, Regs. & Practices, Offers, Disclosures, 1031 Tax Exchange,