Posts made by author 'Badger Peabody & Smith Realty'

Life, relationships and yes, real estate, are all riddled with compromise. These include some of those more important life decisions like whether to finish binge-watching "Scrubs" or start "Brooklyn Nine Nine". You know - the important stuff. If you have been partnered up for any length of time, you are keenly aware of the importance of compromise and negotiations. As The Rolling Stones taught us: You can't always get what you want.

One of the more important "rules" for these discussions is simply to keep it professional and courteous. Regardless of the state of the current, local market, low-ball offers are always going to be a "thing". We can't fault the buyers for wanting the best price, but as sellers (and agents) it is important to not take the offer personally. It is even more important not t...

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If I'm being honest, it is really not a conundrum at all. Communication, regardless of whom you are speaking to, is a vital part of our everyday lives. Starting out in sales as a cold-calling robot, I learned quickly that small talk and asking strangers for their business was not a strong suit of mine. Breaking the ice with a decision maker is a challenging process riddled with countless nuances and split-second decisions. Now imagine trying to do that via text messages. Yikes!

Being able to read people's faces or at least their tone of voice is paramount to understanding the full context of the message being delivered. I am pretty good at reading people. I tend to lean towards the sarcastic side of things, so being able to quickly determine if my joke has "sunk in" or (unintentiona...

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Growing up, my brother and I rarely "gathered any moss" as the saying goes. Between soccer, after-school jobs, marching band, jazz band and, of course, skateboarding till the cows came home, we were very busy and always on the go. From my parents' perspective it was simply a matter of throwing some food our way between trips out the door and trying to maintain their sanity. It wasn't always that hectic, but convenience was certainly at the top of the priority list when it came to feeding time. Enter the eat-in kitchen.

We had a simple Cape Cod style home in a friendly neighborhood in southern Maine. As you walked off the porch and through the side-door (our main entrance) you landed right in the kitchen and at the 4-person bar where we ate nearly every meal. Like many homes today, the "formal" dining roo...

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In general the tone of these articles is about buying and selling real estate. We touch on remodeling, staging, updates and most anything else loosely related to real estate transactions. One of the most amazing feelings I have ever experienced was spending that first night in my newly built home over in Lincoln. For a brief moment (because I knew I was destined to sell the place) I felt like the master of my domain. The room sizes, floor layout, wall color, basement size and even the direction the home faced (towards Franconia Ridge) were all decisions I had made. There really is no greater feeling for a first-time homeowner.

So, this week I want to explore that feeling a bit more. We are going to run under the assumption that your home is yours and there is no intention of selling. We're not worried...

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I just read an article about the Texas real estate agent who sold (Are you sitting down?) 4,700 homes worth over 1.9 billion dollars in 2017. I think we all understand he didn't do that all by himself, but the point is the guy knows how to sell homes. As real estate professionals (I was one in a former life) we gain a decent amount of knowledge over the years. With clients coming from every walk of life, we see homes in widely (wildly!) varying conditions and states of (dis)array. From a seller's agent perspective, this tends to be one of the more challenging parts of the job.

It is no secret that everyone wants the highest price for their home and buyers are itching to get the best deal they can. I was taught at an early age that the value of something is directly related to how much YOU are willing to...

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