All Forum Posts by: Catherine Emert

RESEARCH everything! being a landlord is serious business. Read every law there is in your area and make sure you fully understand them. Then research your area, research market rents, market sales prices, etc. Find a realtor your trust, a lender, a handyman, etc. have everything lined up BEFORE you buy.

https://www.epa.gov/lead/real-...

This has the pamphlet and the PDF disclosure from the EPA

Downsides for some would be the cost associated with it and the time for continuing education. If you aren't doing real estate deals every day the commission you will receive on your own investments might not be worth it. There's more to real estate than just collecting a commission at the end of the deal. If you are willing to put in the money to maintain your license, the fees associated to have your license with an office, etc then I would say go for it. 

Most of Zillows information is actually fed directly through the MLS so there is not very many ways that information can be skewed.

You would want to maybe check with an attorney but I think that the deposit get refunded to the person who signed the lease. We don't accept payment from anyone other than the tenant for this reason. 

Our home was painted Amazing Grey - it's got some brown tones and grey tones in it - I personally love it because it matches so much - if you put grey next to it it looks grey - if you have more brown tones in your furniture it looks more nude. It doesn't feel dark at all and it really does make the space feel more homey - white walls feel so blah.

@Jason Malabute be satisfied. Being pleased with what you have done and being ok with it never getting better are two very different things. I am satisfied, but I still want to grow. I am pleased with everything I have done in my 36 years on earth. I have lost, I have failed, but I have grown with each and every failure and for that I am so content in myself. I know that I won't always reach every one of my goals but at the end of the day I try, I focus on the things I did accomplish and improve on my approach on the things I didn't. Find a way to be positive and you will find that you are more successful in what you do. 

I agree with everyone that responded to you - measuring everything by a dollar amount on a deal is not success. It does not define you. Find peace and happiness today and everyday and find a way to make sure you celebrate every single day - especially your birthday. 

Brokers are allowed to represent both a Buyer and a Seller in a transaction - in Oregon we call it Dual Agency - we have a fiduciary to both clients where we are not permitted to disclose confidential information about either side. We do it often in our brokerage and have never encountered a situation where we have felt we had a conflict of interest and all parties have always been happy. In fact we just did one that closed in 5 days and everyone is beyond thrilled with the service they received.

I have seen this asked a lot and I have seen answers I definitely don't agree with but that is just based on how I personally run our company. How hard should a broker/agent/realtor work for you??? 

The answer is pretty simple - a good realtor is always working. My day starts most days at 5am and finishes when I go to bed at night. I am working all day everyday, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, always on stage as we put it. If you interview a realtor and ask them how they do things, and make it clear from the beginning what you expect you should never be on this forum asking this question. 

I know that my job is to present myself and my company as the best there is on these forums but honestly, I feel a lot of times people are afraid to have a conversation without feeling validated ahead of time. I feel a lot of times people are unaware that there is an issue and if as humans we communicate what we need we will be pleasantly surprised by the outcome. I have thought I was communicating well with clients and had them upset, once they finally came to me and they were clear about their expectations things were fine. Some clients want daily checkins, some want weekly and some only want to hear from me when I have something for them. An average realtor isn't just working with one client. Currently my partner and I are juggling 11 escrows, a couple dozen buyers, and 4 listing prospects as well as broker price opinions on probably a dozen divorce cases. Realtors are human too. A good realtor is not going to communicate less because a deal doesn't pay as much as another one they have going. We teach our brokers from the beginning that it is better to have 10 clients that are happy at a lower price range than it is to have just one client happy at a higher price range. We are in the business of making sure we deliver consistent service and communication to each and every one of our clients. I hope this helps those that are looking for this answer. 

Happy Birthday - I think that you should try to change your outlook slightly - there is always something to celebrate - We didn't reach all of our goals for 2020 but at the end of the day the things we accomplish and the way we approach life is what is important. If we constantly measure our happiness by what we didn't achieve we will never be happy. It was a tough year all around, a lot lot of unknown, a lot of loss, grief and stress but at the end you have to decide to be happy and move forward, tweak your approach, your goals and what you are doing so that you can better achieve things. Instead of focusing on the numbers, focus on the tasks - you will never truly be happy if you focus on the numbers. Set achievable daily, weekly, monthly and yearly task goals and make it happen.