Successful real estate agents need to cultivate a variety of personal and professional qualities, from negotiating skills to attention to detail to networking ability. Two sometimes overlooked but equally important traits are patience and understanding—particularly when a client is hesitant, unfamiliar with the market, or particularly cautious.
Julie Daniels, who recently moved from a condo at Yonge and St. Clair to a semi-detached house at Gerrard and Coxswell, would place herself in the latter camp. She decided to work with Davelle Morrison after friends recommended her.
Daniels embarked on the move to a semi-detached home after seeing a family member endure a serious illness. “You realize that life is short,” she said. “I decided this was just something I needed to do for myself.”
As a condo owner, it was not the first time she had purchased a property, but it was her first time testing the market for homes as opposed to condos. She hoped eventually to renovate and rent out part of her new place, so she was also exploring the idea of investment property. As well, she was buying the house on her own, which often meant competing for properties with dual-income couples.
Given all that, “let’s just say it took a while” for me to find the perfect place, says Daniels. “But Davelle understood me and never tried to rush the process.”
Initially, she was working with the same agent she had used to buy her condo. Meanwhile, friends had enthusiastically endorsed Davelle—and after meeting her, Daniels decided to let the other agent go.
“I felt badly about that at first,” she says. “But I needed someone who really knew the housing market, and by housing, I mean homes, not condos. I researched Davelle thoroughly and attended some of her seminars before I decided to start working with her, and I came away really reassured that she knew what she was doing.”
The fit was a good one from the start, says Daniels: Davelle understood her intuitively. “I’m a bit more cautious, and Davelle is more comfortable with risk, but I needed that balance. The buying process took a long time, but I needed to go through it all in my own time. I had to start by viewing places that were maybe not the best match, at first, in order to figure out what I could settle for and what I should hold out for in my price range.”
Through it all, says Daniels, Davelle “hung in there—and that was important in the transition process for me.”