I would rather talk to you than market at you.

The part most agent bios leave out

I am a talker. Always have been. I speak at my church, I have spoken to community groups and organisations around Portland, and the longest single thing I have ever performed was a forty five minute one man play. I say that not because it sells houses but because it explains how I work. I am at my best in a room with a person, working out what is really going on. I am at my worst sending you an automated postcard every month for thirty years and calling it a relationship.

There are agents in my office who have been mailing the same clients since the nineties. That is a legitimate way to do this business and some of them are very good at it. It is not me. If you hear from me, it is because I actually have something to tell you.

What I am good at

Telling you what the money actually buys. A man called me last spring looking for a three bedroom single level in the Milwaukie and Oak Grove area at $400,000. I told him on that first call that those start around $580,000 and that his realistic options were a two bedroom or a bigger budget. He did not love hearing it. He also did not waste four months finding it out slowly.

Getting a stalled listing moving. When a house sits, the problem is usually the photographs and the presentation, not the price. I have taken a listing that had gone quiet, put professional photography and virtual staging on it, and watched the views on Zillow double to around seven hundred with showings following. That is now standard on everything I list.

The strange ones. Manufactured homes up the Mount Hood corridor in Welches and Rhododendron. Floating homes on the river. Small acreage. A sixty acre, nine hole golf course with six wells and five ponds, which is not something they teach you. If your property is unusual and three agents have looked blank at you, call me.

Not panicking. Deals go sideways. A recent closing had a seller who needed six truckloads moved in twenty four hours because insurance would not allow occupancy before closing, plus three other problems running at the same time. It closed. It closed because everybody involved stayed reasonable and nobody made it personal. Keeping a transaction from becoming a fight is most of the job.

Who I am right for

My sales run from about $250,000 to $1.3 million, and the middle of that range is where I do my best work. One broker, start to finish, so the person you meet is the person at your showings and at your closing. If you want a seven figure specialist or a twenty person team with four people assigned to your file, I will happily point you at someone good. And if the market is wrong for the move you are planning, you will hear that from me early.