When I interviewed with the sellers to sell their Hamptons Village home, they had already talked with a bunch of other Natomas Realtors. I don’t know how I got into this on the tail end of the situation, but I knew when I walked out I had the listing. Other agents generally do not sell real estate the way I do it. Further, they don’t have my four decades of experience. As one guy put it to me yesterday, he wasn’t even born when I started to sell real estate, and he’s 44.

Unless a seller is hellbent on a cheap commission, I generally win my listing appointments. I have so much information to share, I often bowl over sellers. The first thing I explained to these first-time home sellers was I would always have their back. I would do everything in my power to make sure we chose the right buyers because the last thing they needed was to have the truck packed to move out of state and whammo, the buyer can’t or won’t close escrow.

My practice is built on my experience. Every time I close an escrow, I utilize the past thousands of sales I’ve closed. I try to anticipate what can go wrong. And I sell for top of market. I first checked the value in Zillow. Not because it’s right but because many sellers do. Zillow showed a value of $341. I then ran the comps in Realist, which showed $316K. I prepared my own CMA and it came up with a value of $310K. However, after I met with the sellers and saw their home, I knew the values needed to be tweaked.

I compared their home to all of the sold comps and adjusted for their stunning updates. It’s amazing what you can get from Ikea these days. Even the drawers feature interior lights. Then I suggested they make a couple of small improvements and helped them to work with the furniture they had to stage the place. It did not require professional home staging. Some homes, believe it or not, do not need it.

My suggested sales price for this home in Hamptons Village was $359K. Other agents misinterpreted the pricing for this home. I also prepared the sellers for multiple offers. Fabulous open house, but only two offers were the result. One offer was less than list price at $350K. What are buyers thinking? Don’t their agents educate them about the seller’s market? The other offer was $360K. The seller was very happy.

But here is the kicker. I suggested to the sellers they counter the offer to $365K. My intuition said they could get it. When I assess a situation, I feel it is my job to tell the seller if — based on my extensive experience and negotiation skills — I think they can get more. I explained all of the reasons why, and the sellers went for it. Sure enough, the buyers accepted the sellers’ counter to pay an additional $5,000.

Hey, I earn my standard real estate commission the old fashioned way. I work for it. Clients pay me for my expertise and advice. Not only that, but we closed escrow on this Hamptons Village home without any repairs or credits. Well, there was the part when I called the seller and they started to describe all the repairs they were planning to do. Huh? What? Why? Turns out they read the home inspection and thought they were required to fix the stuff that was mentioned. No, no, no.

They were even happier when I told them to cancel the shipment of light fixtures and to undo the appointments for workers to install and repair things. AS IS means no repairs. No credits. No renegotiations. It was the smoothest escrow in a long time. Great agent on the other side. I didn’t have to beg for the contingency releases. We closed right on schedule on January 4th.

The sellers felt confident they did not leave any money on the table. I imagine I’ll get a 5-star review.