Labor Day is a day ostensibly set aside in our nation’s calendar to celebrate America’s workers by… taking off work. This has never made sense to me. Fortunately, Greg is of like mind, and so we celebrate Labor Day by working! We truly love our work, and this year, this week I am blessed with so many reasons to rejoice in the work we do.
I met Jurij and Tatiania in June 2005, as the madly escalating Phoenix housing market was racing through its two-year crescendo. I was representing buyers who were relocating to Phoenix, previewing houses for them, and Jurij and Tatiania were selling a house that had been, at the time, listed for about two months in a market where houses were looking long in the tooth after only two weeks. I was really green in this business last summer, so I couldn’t figure out why their charming house wasn’t moving… and it had already been through two price reductions, when everyone else’s houses were selling for more than asking price.
I ended up finding my clients a house that was much better suited for them, a beautiful old Craftsman bungalow that they are still thrilled about and which should eventually be very profitable for them when the time comes for them to move on. But before we found that one, my clients had me returning to Jurij’s and Tatiania’s house again and again to explore that possibility. 
Jurij was usually at home when I got there, and during my several visits to photograph and measure his house and yard, we formed a bond over our love of dogs. He has a wonderful, playful old Yellow Lab, Jake, who became my fast friend, and Jurij loved my business card, on which a photograph of our Bloodhound, Odysseus, is prominent where other Realtors typically have glamour shots of themselves.
Jurij and Tatiania’s home languished during last summer’s sizzling market, and then went through another, different, unsuccessful listing… both times, I now understand, without ever having been conscientiously represented, without ever having been actually marketed. At the expiration of their second unsuccessful listing they remembered me. Or rather, they remembered my dog. They couldn’t find any of the cards I had left when I visited to preview their home, and they couldn’t remember my name. So they Googled on bloodhound +”real estate” +phoenix and found Greg’s contact information.
I was at Petco when Greg called me to see if I remembered Jurij and Tatiania. I didn’t. He asked whether I remembered the house at 922 West Culver Street. By that time I had been in the business for more than a year, and had seen lots of houses, so I couldn’t place this particular one. So Greg asked me if I remembered Jake. Oh, of course! I remembered Jake well! I picked out what I thought would be a perfect gift for Jake, who had played catch with me a summer earlier, chasing grapefruits that I threw him while I measured his back yard. I bought him a tough, grapefruit-yellow rubber ball with legs that let you get the ball back from him without getting too much slobber on your hands, and I rushed off to meet Greg at 922 West Culver Street. We got the listing, it went under contract in less than two months, and now I’m helping Jurij and Tatiania and Jake find their new home. Early this week, Jurij mentioned that the toy I had brought to our listing presentation remains the favorite toy ever in old Jake’s long life, and laughed that it was my friendship with Jake and love of our Bloodhound that eventually led to us representing them and finally selling their house.
In another instance of you-never-know-what-a-shared-love-of-animals-might-lead-to, yesterday morning at 10:00, at about the time Baby’s father, Brian, was crossing the Arizona border, heading East to meet up with his wife and son, I got a call from the escrow officer that the sale of their Phoenix house had recorded. I called Baby’s mother, Rebecca, at her new job in New York, just north of the Pennsylvania town where they’ll close on their new luxury home next Tuesday, to let her know the funds to buy that new home had been wired and would be in her bank account before this weekend began…
Baby was a beautiful, intelligent Manx cat who lived with Greg and me six years ago. Rebecca and I were working for the same company then. She and Brian had just sold their house, and were staying in a double-queen hotel room for a month (it turned out to be two) with their two teenaged boys, dog and cat. Rebecca was afraid the cat would escape from the hotel room during the day when the hotel maids came in to clean while the family was away at work and school, so I offered to care for Baby while their new house at 6509 West Misty Willow Lane was being built.
After Baby and her family moved into their new house, Rebecca moved on to a different job, and then so did I. We continued to send her newsletters and cards to let her know about Greg’s real estate business. Early this summer, Rebecca got a great job opportunity, but they would have to sell their Misty Willow house and relocate to New York/Pennsylvania, where she and Brian had grown up and where their families still live. Though the opportunity was a great one, the timing wasn’t so much… it was just as Phoenix’s housing market had skidded to a slow, over-saturated state. The average time on market for houses like theirs was 63 days, and Rebecca and Brian wanted to sell at least that fast. When they thought about who to entrust with selling their home, they remembered the marketing materials they had received from Greg — they hadn’t noticed that I was a Realtor now, too. So, they didn’t think to search on my name, and they couldn’t remember Greg’s. Once more, it was the Bloodhound who led them back to us!
As Rebecca reminded me in her testimonial, we went under contract on Day 42, a handsome, all-cash offer. And because it was all cash, it gave us the flexibility to close at the most convenient time for Brian, who is retiring from the Air Force and needed to remain in Phoenix through the end of August. But, to get acceptance of their offer on their dream home in Pennsylvania, they would need to close there on September 6. Essentially, everything needed to fall into place around the Labor Day weekend, and it did so perfectly. Thursday Brian and I enjoyed a cordial final walkthrough with the buyers, during which Brian proudly taught the new owners everything anyone would ever need to know about maintaining the house; yesterday morning Brian said his final goodbye to his old neighbors; and next Tuesday Brian and Rebecca will move into their new home. I earned a nice compensation for this transaction, but just as important, I once again earned professional respect from Rebecca, this time in my chosen field of real estate agency. I was very proud of the testimonial she sent me yesterday, and am honored to include it among the testimonials we run on our website. This is something that will come back to reward me many times over.
And speaking of helping our veterans of foreign wars with their real estate wants and needs, Greg and I accepted a dinner invitation from Andy, the young veteran of the war in Iraq, who Greg helped to buy his first house earlier this summer. He’ll be our proud host in his new home tomorrow evening… and he asked us to bring along Odysseus to play with his German Shepherd puppy, Tritium.
I believe that the Labor Day holiday is really the weekend put aside for wrapping up the summer, for reaping the rewards of the seeds sown over the season and moving on to the next phase, the next school year, the next job, the next home. This has been such a satisfying week, knowing that through our labor Greg and I have effected the achievement of the American dream of home ownership for people who I admire so much… and their pets.
I wish all of you a very happy and safe Labor Day holiday weekend.
(PS, and Happy 85th Birthday to you, Mom, with love and appreciation.)
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