Rachel: Going above and beyond
Lets hear from Rachel about going above and beyond in her business. At RedRoots it is so important that each of our clients have a positive experience on their moving journey. Here is just one example from Rachel about how she is involved at every stage of the process to make it as smooth as possible!
Alison and Malcolm are 72 years old and hadn’t moved for 27 years. They bought their house off plan in 1999 and brought their son up there.
As you can imagine they accumulated quite a lot of stuff over those 27 years and also formed lots of amazing friendships with their neighbours.
Alison first contacted me because I know one of said neighbours and she’d mentioned me to Alison when she told her they were wanting to move. Alison said she’d pretty much made up her mind to go with another independent agent but I convinced her to listen to what I had to say because we’ve all got something different to offer.
I went round to the house and we talked about their future plans. They gave me a tour of the house and I soon saw that two of the rooms had become storage rooms as they no longer really needed them for the purpose they were designed for.
I helped them to see that the way to get the maximum ROI was to return these rooms to what they were supposed to be.
After a long chat, Alison and Malcolm decided that I was the agent for them.
I advised that they start the decluttering process as soon as possible as they were not only downsizing but moving countries so wouldn’t be able to take all their stuff with them.
They did start moving stuff on, but most of it went into the garage…
I staged the house; we took the photos and put a sign up at the end of the road. The first day the sign was up I got a phone call from someone who’d seen it. It turns out they weren’t even intending to move, but Luke took a different route to work that day and saw the sign.
Luke and Jodie came to see it on the Monday, fell in love with it and asked me to sell their house. I went to value it on the Wednesday (on my way there I saw a double rainbow ), took the photos on Thursday, and listed it on Thursday evening. After several viewings at Alison and Malcolm’s and one at Jode and Luke’s, by Saturday evening I was negotiating offers on both properties, whilst at a friend’s 50th birthday party.
What followed was 6 months of ups and downs, the buyer at the bottom of the chain pulling out, goalposts being moved, and several visits up the road to Alison and Malcolm’s and to Luke and Jodie’s to have a cup of tea and a chat when things weren’t going as they expected. There were tears, there was laughter, there was swearing, but mostly there was lots of talking and managing expectations.
As completion day drew closer I asked Alison and Malcolm what their moving plans were. They’d got rid of a lot of the furniture they didn’t need and they were going to stay with a neighbour temporarily so most of their stuff was going into storage. They’d organised a removal van the day before for the big stuff, so they would just be finishing off on the morning of completion day.
Or so I thought.
They’d advised they’d be out by lunchtime which was great because Luke and Jodie had packed a van the night before and were raring to go, and they’d estimated it would take another 4 or 5 van loads. They were only moving just up the road so had roped in family to help.
The first lot of money dropped at 9.30 then the rest followed at half hour intervals. At 11am Luke rang and asked when they could bring the first van load up. I decided to pay a visit to Alison and Malcolm’s and thank goodness I did. I got there to find an army of people upstairs still packing, in the garage still emptying, and a load of stuff on the drive! What a nightmare.
So I offered an extra pair of hands and started directing traffic so that we could finish emptying the garage and moving all their stuff to one side of the drive so that Luke and Jodie could bring the first vanload and start unloading it into the garage whilst we emptied the rest of the house.
I then spent the next 5 HOURS (!) rallying the troops and taking stuff out of the house and down the road to the neighbour’s garage, whilst also helping Luke and Jodie take stuff into the house. I also organised for a rubbish collector I use to come and get the stuff that was destined for the tip, as yet another tip run was not the best use of anyone’s time.
The situation very quickly went past the awkward stage as both parties realised that they’d have to all be in the house until it was sorted.
I can honestly say that without my intervention Alison and Malcolm would have still been moving stuff out on the Sunday.
Would I do it again? Absolutely. Alison and Malcolm welcomed me into their lives, invited me to an afternoon tea in aid of Wakefield Hospice that was held on the street, and introduced me to all the neighbours. I am now selling two more houses on the street and I know of at least 3 other people that are thinking of moving.
Did I learn from it? Absolutely. In the case of downsizers, particularly of the older generation, I will be making sure they are actually ‘DOING’ much earlier in the process, and keep a closer eye on them in the weeks before completion day. I had offered my decluttering help to them throughout the process but next time I will insist a bit more.
