Articles by Paulette Costa

I am very fortunate to have enjoyed being part of the real estate industry for more than 20 years.  During the mid 1990’s, in a market similar to the one we are currently experiencing, I faced a life change that required selling my home. Of course, my decision was to act as my own agent. After all, I was the manager of the No. 1 office in town. I knew the market and had the best team of agents working on my side to get it sold. What I didn’t know was that I would experience a transformation that would take me from the being the logical, emotionally removed third party in a transaction to a highly emotionally charged seller. I heard myself say things like, “the market hasn’t gone down that much,” and the dreaded, “I’m not going to give my house away.” Nearly two years later, it finally sold at an $80,000 loss.

I learned some hard lessons from that experience: Read the rest of this entry »

In true real estate fashion, the room began to fill with agents just minutes before the announcement was to be made.  Truly, the team of Wilkins & Associates Real Estate entered the breakfast meeting with anticipation and, judging by their faces, some anxiety.  They hung on every word of their leader, Tom Wilkins, and only exhaled after Sherry Chris our President and CEO, and Wendy Forsythe, our Vice President of Broker Services, presented our company to them for the first time. 

Amid the flurry of post-announcement questions, all seemed calm … which made me just a little leery.  You see, I alone was to remain in the Poconos for the next several days to personally deliver the tools and systems of the Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate brand to the agents 120+ agents and management team.  I was scheduled to run through seven presentations in three days.  Why, you ask, would I have concerns when everything appeared fine on the surface?  Because we all know how people usually accept and adapt to change. 

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Have you noticed lately that weekday traffic is practically nonexistent and cars move at a snail’s pace on the weekend?   Vacation season is here and commuters-turned-beachcombers are headed to the sandy shores or mountain-lake resorts for some R&R. 

For many of us, planning for our summer vacation began in January.  We searched Google and Yahoo for the perfect place to unwind some six months down the road.  We had checklists for everything - what to do, where to eat, and what to bring. We even had a contingency plan just in case Mother Nature didn’t cooperate. 

I’m curious.  Why is it so easy to plan vacations yet so hard to plan our business?  Somehow business planning just doesn’t seem to fit anywhere into the entrepreneurial real estate agent’s DNA.  Oh yes, we set financial goals and even convert the dollar goal into units.  Then we go about our merry listing and selling way, hardly thinking through the process of how we’ll get from point A to point B.  Sometimes we hit the number and sometimes not.  But would we hit the number more often if we planned?  I believe we would. 

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Remember the days of beeps and buzzes, answering machines and pagers?  These not-so-old communication and contact methods today rank somewhere among pink princess phones and pulse dialing.  And where we used to wait until we returned home to check our messages, today a missed cell phone call is a rarity.  24/7 accessibility has become literal for many, and I’m tempted to break into dance when a funky ringtone interrupts my grocery shopping.  And while I may be old enough to remember telephone party lines, I have evolved with the instant-communication times.  

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