Realtor Spotlight: Rebecca Donatelli

Caroline:

Hi, Rebecca. Thank you so much for joining us today at the vipHome Podcast. We're going to talk about realty, a little bit of your entrepreneurial side, and just learn a little bit more about you and how you've been so successful in the industry. So thank you so much for joining us.

Rebecca:

Awesome. Thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here.

Caroline:

So I guess we should start with a little bit about you, how you got started in the industry and where you've seen the most success to date.

Rebecca:

Yeah, so I just celebrated my five year anniversary in real estate, which it doesn't feel like five years. It feels like maybe three.

Caroline:

That's so exciting though, what an accomplishment.

Rebecca:

Yeah, and I'm excited about it. It's been a crazy five years. I never had any intention of getting into real estate. I went to college to be a high school math teacher, and I love math to this day. I'm such a math nerd. I love calculus and the whole thing. And then I just realized that teaching math, high school math wasn't for me. So after I got out of college, I worked, I was a store manager for a while. And then I worked at an insurance company as an account manager for a couple of months. And that was not me at all. I took a couple months off and my mom actually suggested I get into real estate.

Rebecca:

I had lunch with her one day and she was like, I think you might want to consider it. And I'm like, the commission is kind of freaking me out a little bit. And, I had watched my fair share of HGTV, which is about the extent of my knowledge about real estate. But, I got in touch with my broker who I've been with since day one with McDowell homes, which is an independent company here in Cleveland. And I heard about her business and the real estate world. And I just took a leap of faith. I jumped right in and that was kind of it. So I don't have any really fun stories about how I got started. I don't have any family in the business. I didn't have any agent friends that I knew. I kind of just had to figure it out, but it's worked out. It's been really fun. I can't see myself doing anything else, so.

Caroline:

That's so cool. I started in finance as well. I was a finance major and went into analyst work and all of that. And here I am in partnerships. So I feel when you think something's right and then you're like, maybe it's not. So, that's wonderful. So here at vipHomeLink, we are really focusing... I mean, our app as a whole is about home management, making home ownership easier. But with that, we're also looking from, our consumers and our customers to make sure that they're always sort of the forefront of what we're working towards in our goals. Can you share a little bit about how your clients, I mean, obviously selling homes, you need clients, but what that relationship is like and how you kind of keep that relationship over the course of time?

Rebecca:

Yeah. With my team, it's really important that we essentially just treat our clients as our friends and, they become our friends to where we spend a lot of time with them. We chat with them. So keeping that relationship alive, and that's from day one. We might meet a client from day one and we treat them as a friend. And so, that relationship is really important with my team. It's five star service from start to finish, and chatting with them, and we continuously spend time with them. We do pop buys, social media is really huge in keeping in touch with them, once things are over.

Rebecca:

And providing some sort of value to them from day one, even after the transaction, whether it's real estate related value, whether it's just, anything. Anything that they need, we want to be a resource and we want to be a friend. And so I really make sure that I'm doing that and my agents are doing that too. And so that's why they feel comfortable referring us other business or doing a second or third transaction with us, because we're able to provide that value and we treat them more as friends. It's not just about real estate, especially with this whole pandemic, we've reached out and said, how can we help you? It's not about real estate needs. It's just about how can we help you, whatever it is. So we're really-

Caroline:

Yeah. I feel like when we just hopped on the phone a few weeks ago at this point, I was like, wow, she is so nice. I would want to work with you. So, I mean, I definitely see the friendly side to you and to your success. My fiance and I are actually looking to buy a house, we're trying to figure out what town to go in and anything like that. Do have any, I mean, I know Cleveland is different than New Jersey, but do you have like tips for first time home buyers or suggestions that you kind of share with them to make their home buying experience a little bit easier?

Rebecca:

Yeah. Obviously as a new home buyer, it's very intimidating. You're making a very large purchase, sometimes the biggest purchase you'll ever make, right? And so, it's really intimidating, you kind of sign away everything, all your very personal information you're giving and taking that leap of faith into home ownership.

Rebecca:

And so we really try to navigate each step of the transaction from the preapproval process to the home searching process. We hold your hand every step of the way, as far as all of our clients, whether they're a first time buyer or maybe they've been around the block when purchasing homes, or maybe they haven't purchased a house in 10 years and they aren't familiar with the process right now. We navigate everything from start to finish with them so that they don't feel like they are left in the dark.

Rebecca:

Any questions, we're always available. We have our phone all the time. And I think that's really important because if you don't have that open communication, your client is going to feel alone. And it's very scary at times, and so, really navigating every step of the transaction, even just if they're panicked a little bit and just talking to them as a friend, like I said, even just, it's going to be okay, let's talk about it, let's go grab a coffee and, whatever. Just to kind of ease their mind a little bit is... And, I didn't realize what it was like until I bought my first house. And I was like, oh my gosh. And so it's really helpful to kind of go through that personally, just to be able to understand what they're going through and really be able to hold their hand.

Caroline:

Yeah. I think that's so helpful. We put two offers in on a house, or two separate houses and they both went into bidding wars, and we ended up not getting either of them, which is fine. I mean, whatever, a little sad, but our realtor was such a support during that, because they were like, you don't have kids, you're not trying to get your kids into a school system before September. And I have to say, it was such a confidence booster for me, knowing that it wasn't me who lost the house. It was just the nature of the industry. So I give you guys so much credit because, I mean, I'm personable, but I don't think I could be as supportive as somebody whose like, oh, you lost this house, but, we will find you a new one.

Caroline:

I think that would be, so it's definitely a talent that you have. So, I found you on social media and we sort of got to talking that way. Can you share a little bit about how social has encouraged your business and kind of made you stand out a little bit? I'm sure in Cleveland, if people search you, you have a huge Instagram following, and can you share a little bit about how, A, that has changed, I guess five years, maybe it hasn't changed that much, but how you see that maybe growing in the future?

Rebecca:

Yeah, absolutely. So, basically how I got started, my first year in the business, I had a pretty solid first year. I was rookie of the year at my company. I had a decent amount of sales, but I was still obviously trying to navigate, figure it out. I was going to listing appointments, buyer consultations up against agents that have been around for 15 plus years. They were a lot older than I was. I got my license at 24, I'm 29 now. And I really realized pretty quickly that, even though I was connecting with the clients and, getting the sales, I still needed to figure out something longterm that was going to work for me, that was going to make me stand out.

Rebecca:

And so when I started the Instagram, it was a hobby. I had really no intention of making it what it's become today. I love real estate obviously, and I love photography on the side. So it was kind of the perfect place for me to share my love for both of those. And so while I didn't have any intention of making it any real sort of impact for my business, I realized as I was growing the Instagram and spending time on it, that that was the Avenue I was kind of looking for, right? To stand out amongst these agents that were going up, they had big book of business behind them, and I really didn't. So as I realized, that was the platform I was looking for. I know social media, I was able to share things, and things about my business, things about my personal life.

Rebecca:

I started utilizing that more and more. And so now majority, almost all of my business comes from there. A lot of the speaking activities and things like that, I own a speaking consulting business that I launched last year. So, a lot of that stuff comes from the Instagram to referral business from other agents, not agents on my team. I met them from Instagram, builders, developers, I have relationships with are from Instagram too. So, I do spend more time on that because it really is a majority of my business.

Caroline:

That's really cool. Can you tell us a little bit about, you said you had a speaking engagement service. I think I got it wrong, but can you share a little bit about that too, and how that kind of, it keeps you on top of your game for a realtor and, maybe it's a passion, but can you share a little bit more about that?

Rebecca:

Yeah, absolutely. So I launched my own speaking consulting business last year at the beginning of the year, it's [inaudible 00:09:46] Seminars and Consulting. So, I really never, ever thought I would have a... Own a business where I am publicly speaking in front of large crowds. I took a public speaking course in college as a core class. I don't even know how I passed it, because I got in front of those people and just was freaking out. I didn't know what to say. So it was really unintentional. I started getting asked to speak at conferences and things about Instagram for your real estate business. The first one I ever, I traveled to New York and I got, it was a paid speaking engagement. I did two Instagram classes while was there, and I felt like I had to take this opportunity. They were paying for me to go, they were paying for my travel.

Rebecca:

They were giving me a fee too, and it was a great opportunity to get in front of a ton of agents, and kind of share my knowledge about Instagram and building a business through social media. So I had a really successful first trip, and then when I shared that online, I got asked to go to another trip and then another trip. And it was more and more to where it just made sense for me to launch a business. And so now I travel, I mean, not right now, obviously with everything kind of going on, but last year I did a lot of traveling. I went to LA to speak, Key West Florida, I was in Oklahoma. I mean, I was in a lot of different places to speak about utilizing social media for your real estate business. And some other things mixed in there too.

Rebecca:

That's not the only thing that I speak about. And then this year, I had a lot of trips planned, I've done all of them virtually thus far, but I love that side of it. It's fun. I love teaching agents. This is just, it's a tough business. There's an 80% failure rate for first year agents. And it is, yeah, it is a hard business to get into. And if you don't bust your butt and hustle, it's really hard. And so I love being able to teach other people how they can take their businesses to the next level. And then the consulting side of it is just a one on one with a client. If a realtor comes to me and they say, I want one on one help from you, to help build my social profile or whatnot, then I work with them one on one to help their businesses grow.

Caroline:

You are a woman of many talents, that is so impressive. How do you think... Sorry, how do you think social media and the pictures that you post kind of influences people to engage with you? I mean, there's so many accounts out there nowadays and people, and not every house is so Instagram ready, but you can't necessarily just post your good listings versus you're not as good listings. So how do you think the power of a photo really changes from photo to photo?

Rebecca:

Yeah, that's a great question. So this was something I realized kind of earlier... Well, I guess it took me a little bit to realize this, but when I first started the account, I was just posting house, house, listing, sale, inspection, just straight up houses, basically what you kind of expect from a realtor. And then when I started sprinkling in a little more personal, or not necessarily personal, but other things in there, I started realizing that my engagement levels were higher on those types of posts. People know that I'm a realtor, they expect me to be selling houses, but they want to know the other aspects of my life and my business. And especially through social media, that is a place for you to show who you really are and connect with people personally, because my goal on there is for people to get to know me and my personality so that they trust me enough to reach out to me, to want help with real estate.

Rebecca:

And so now I share, I really never share my sales. I might share a couple of them on my Instagram story per se. I'll sprinkle my listings in here or there, but it's not about that. I now share stuff that's more personal to me. My followers, I know love my travels and that's something that's really important to me and I love doing, so I share a lot of that. I share a lot of behind the scenes stuff for people to get to know me, anyone that knows me knows that I am a big coffee drinker. I love my coffee. And people know that from following me on social media. In fact, one of the conferences I went to at the end of last year, I was back in New York speaking. And I had two sessions, and in between the sessions, three different realtors, who'd been falling in Instagram, brought me coffee.

Rebecca:

And I had one really dark one, here's one with a lot of creamer in it, because they knew without even getting to talk to me in person, they knew from my social that I love coffee. And so it's a really great place for you to share more about you personally. I think some agents kind of drop the ball with that when they're just sharing houses or they're just sharing home inspiration or things like that, because you don't really get to show your true personality and who you are. But it is important to share a mix of different things on there, so you can connect with different types of people.

Caroline:

Yeah, definitely. I feel like I've done a similar reach out that we, how we got connected, similarly with other agents and a lot of them are so focused, which is great. I mean, it's their job on selling homes and making sure that what they're selling is out there, but you definitely see sort of a staleness in that sort of relationship with them because that's their only focus. And I feel like it's such a common question in a job interview, be like, what do you do outside of work? I think that sort of carries over to when you're posting on Instagram as well. So I mean, nowadays with COVID and sort of this pandemic, things are more virtual. Can you share a little bit about how that's affected your business and how you've kind of transitioned into that sort of house selling mode?

Rebecca:

Yeah. To be honest, when we all were needed to be quarantined at home and things really kind of started to changing, my business and my team's business didn't really shift where it was necessarily coming from, because the majority of that was already coming from social media anyways. In fact, when things shifted, our business that actually got busier because more people are online, right? They're sitting at home, they might not be working, they're scrolling their phone, they're scrolling Instagram, they're scrolling Facebook. And so there were more people. And so we shifted obviously how we were doing things, virtual presentations, all electronic signing versus maybe before it was, some electronic signing.

Rebecca:

So, the way that we interacted with the client was obviously shifted, but where the business actually came from did not shift for me and my team just because that's where it was kind of already coming from. So that was really nice for us, that we didn't feel like, okay, now we have to panic and figure out where our business is going to come from, because a lot of it was already through social. It was more so just adjusting how we were doing buyer presentations, listing presentations, phone calls, electronic signing, like I said, all of the mechanics per se, is really, more so, what changed for us.

Caroline:

Got it. Well, that's good for business. So I mean, that you're all of a sudden not changing, but with that, virtual, you said e-signing and stuff like that, how are home inspections done and the different sort of, before you say yes, I want this house to put an offer in. And then to them actually signing on the dotted line, did that process change at all? Or were inspectors allowed in the houses, or how did that sort of work?

Rebecca:

Yeah. So in the state of Ohio, real estate was deemed essential pretty early on. So that being said, we were able to do showings. We obviously had to follow CDC guidelines, wear the masks, sanitize, a lot of the sellers were leaving the lights on and doors open before we got there. So limited, the touching and things like that.

Rebecca:

Inspectors were allowed in the home, photographers were allowed in the home. We just have to make sure that we're obviously social distanced if they're there. We had some sellers who asked that only the inspector come to the inspection and not me and not the client. As long as we had that in writing from the seller, we were able to do that and just send an inspector there. But otherwise, we were deemed essential. So we were still allowed to show. Now, I did have quite a few clients that really didn't want to meet in person. So, there were a lot of FaceTimes, there were a lot of virtual showings, a lot of virtual open houses. I still haven't done an in person open house, and so a lot of that is virtual. But we were really able to navigate to where it worked out for everyone while we were still being safe.

Rebecca:

And luckily for us in the state of Ohio, we did fight for it to be deemed essential, which included the inspectors. Some of the appraisers were not wanting to go in the houses. So they were either doing, you could send them photos or they might even do a drive by. So, that changed a little bit, but luckily for us here, we were still able to keep the businesses going, title companies as well, to where the transactions and the showings didn't have to necessarily stop.

Caroline:

That's so lucky. I feel like here we're, I think most of the real estate that I've looked at is all virtual and then anything sort of beyond that is as well. Whether it's you going in and FaceTiming, but so that's great. Kind of while we're on the topic, can you share a little bit about Cleveland real estate and how you sort of see that differ across the country? I mean, you do a lot of engagements in different parts of the country with different realtors. So can you just, do think there's a difference, or can you share a little bit about how you may be when you're speaking to somebody in New York versus Oklahoma, you would maybe change your engagement pitch?

Rebecca:

Yeah. Great question. So anytime that I've done a virtual presentation right now with kind of with everything going on, I really try to just keep it very general to how you can keep your business alive through social media. So that if one state's essential and one's not, I'm making sure that it's... You can do it for anyone, basically. Because a lot of the presentations I do, sometimes they open them up to realtors anywhere, and obviously every state's different, everyone's doing things differently and some realtors weren't comfortable, even if they were deemed essential, they weren't necessarily comfortable going into those houses, which is okay. You have to make that decision for yourself and everyone has to do it the way that they're most comfortable with.

Rebecca:

So, when I share how to kind of keep their businesses going during this pandemic, it's really stuff anybody anywhere can do. It's all on social media, it's video and different things like that. And there are also things that you can do after things kind of go back to more of a somewhat normal. There are things you can do for your business forever, moving forward. So, that's kind of what I did, and then I would chat with agents per state. I recently did one for Colorado and they just recently kind of started opening back more. Whereas in Ohio we've been essential for a while and things like that. So I really just try to keep it general for everybody so that everybody can use what I'm saying, no matter where they're at.

Caroline:

That's so helpful. I feel like I would love to, not that I'm a realtor, but I feel like you could just really captivate the room. So one of our segments in our podcast is homeowner horror stories. So maybe you can share a few or one that may be from the realtor side that you're like, oh my God, this is crazy. So do you have a few stories or a story that you could share, sort of that was horrific?

Rebecca:

Yeah. So my first year in the business, I was showing a couple a house and it had an alarm and I did not get to the alarm in time. I'm scrambling to get the alarm code, and I just didn't turn up, which happens. You might not know where it is or you might be trying to pull it up on your phone. Your wifi is not going as fast as you need, you didn't write it down. So the cops showed up at the house, because the alarm went off, right? So, I'm like, great, I gave them my ID. I gave them my business card, fine. Well, it turns out that there was a warrant out for my buyers.

Rebecca:

So, that was one of the crazier ones that I have ever had happen to me. So ever since then, if there's an alarm in the house, it is written down, I confirm where the alarm system is so that I can get right in there to turn it off. But yeah, that's probably the craziest thing that's ever happened to me. I have a lot of crazy stories and weird finds that I've seen in houses, but that one definitely takes the cake.

Caroline:

Did they arrest the buyer?

Rebecca:

They did take the buyers, so I did not get the sale. That was not a sale I got. Yeah.

Caroline:

I was going to be like, oh, there was a squirrel in the house or something. Oh my God, that's so crazy.

Rebecca:

It was crazy. So I haven't had anything quite as crazy happen since then, but yeah, that's up there.

Caroline:

That's crazy for a long time, in my opinion. That would... Wow. Okay. Okay. So, kind of pivoting from horror stories, do you have some wisdom and advice for homeowners? I know we started touched on this in the beginning, but just some quick tidbits that you would be like, this is what you need to know, and this is what somebody did. And I have suggested a temporary one moving forward, I think. We've spoken to realtors, but everyone has different thoughts and opinions. So, if you just had a few quick pieces of advice and some wisdom, that would be great.

Rebecca:

Yeah. Especially if you're buying for the first time, there are certain things that you might not realize with home ownership. And we kind of talked about this before, which is why this app is so awesome to me, but making sure that you know with your mechanicals, how often they should be checked. We see a lot of times when we go to the list, that maybe they had a furnace or AC that might've been a little bit older, but they never bothered to get it serviced. And so now it might have some issues, or might need replaced. And so we kind of put them in contact with the right people that they can call to get it serviced, different things like that. A lot of them like to be updated on their market just to see what things are going for in their neighborhood and stuff.

Rebecca:

And they'll call us about that. So we'll keep them updated on that. We provide basically any type of contact anyone would need. A roofer, a contractor, it's always really nice to have a list of people that you can give a call, because you never know what could happen. I mean, you can move into a brand new construction house and a couple of months later, something could bust, and it happens. So we want to really be a resource for that and just keeping those things in mind.

Rebecca:

And then also during, this is more so during the buying process, not necessarily after they've already bought, but it's important to realize that you don't necessarily need to spend what you necessarily have been pre approved for. Especially if you're a first time buyer. Sometimes you see you're pre approved for 300,000 and then, oh, well, this looks great, and look at this house. And, it's important to realize, you do want to make sure that you're prepared if something were to break or, for saving purposes. And so we, we try to make sure that our clients are comfortable with what they're spending and know that, we might be able to find them just as nice of a house that they're looking for, not at the absolute max of their budget, so.

Caroline:

That's super helpful. I feel like going through it myself currently, where we are, because we're outside of Manhattan, the prices are just insane. Especially for a first time price. I look at them and I'm like... And my parents always are like, put 20% down, blah, blah, blah, such a parent thing to say. And that's kind of what we're looking for, but anything that is in our price range is either top of the price range, but it needs no works on the outside or is lower on the price range, but needs a lot of updates. So we're currently in the struggle of, do you pay a little bit more to do a little bit less or vice versa?

Rebecca:

Right.

Caroline:

So I think that's great advice because, for me, I would not want to do that much work, but it also, I don't need to spend every dime just to get, that picture perfect house either, so.

Rebecca:

Right.

Caroline:

I guess we'll see what happens, but, can we touch a little bit about the preapproval process? I know it's a pretty easy process, but can you just share a little bit of insight on that and sort of how that helps moving forward, before they actually put an offer onto a house?

Rebecca:

Yeah, absolutely. So we really make sure that our clients, before we even start the home search process, that they get a preapproval. Number one, we want to make sure that they are able to buy obviously, and they want to know, we don't want to waste their time and the seller's time leaving the house and everything. So, we get them in touch with a lender, we see what finance programs are best for them and what their price might look like. And that might differ per area that they're looking at.

Rebecca:

We have some areas here that have really high taxes and so, their price point might fluctuate. So we put them in touch with a lender that we have, that can get them pre approved fairly quickly. And we aren't able to submit offers without that preapproval in hand, and especially right now, things are moving fast. There's all kinds of multiple offers situations, I'm sure you've seen that as a buyer yourself. Things are moving very quickly, a lot of multiple offer situations, and they won't even consider, even if you're not in a multiple offer situation, sellers usually won't consider an offer without a preapproval because they don't want to take their home off of the market for someone that they don't know is qualified to buy a home.

Rebecca:

The other thing that's really important is making sure they know what they're pre approved for, because what we don't want to happen is they think they might be pre approved at a certain price point, we show them that price point, and then maybe they're only pre-approved a little bit less than that. And now their expectations are too high and it's harder to get them to know what it is that they can buy. So it's really important that we make sure of that, and some people get a little bit freaked out with the preapproval process. It's scary, you're giving a lot of personal information to somebody that you don't know, right? You're giving your credit score, you're giving your taxes and your earnings and everything to a complete stranger over the phone, and it's very scary. And so we really try to hold their hand and let them know the importance of it. And, let them know that they're not going to be able to buy a home unless they're able to get pre approved, and willing to do that.

Rebecca:

And we make sure we put them in touch with a trusted lender, someone that we've had good experience with before, we have in house lenders that are fantastic. So it's really, really important if you are a buyer, that you take that first step and get pre approved before you've even stepped foot in a house.

Caroline:

Yeah. When we were just looking and we had a person to do the preapproval, we just weren't a hundred percent sure. And then all of a sudden, we were like, okay, we're going to do a preapproval, then we'll put an offer in on the house, then we were so excited. And, before we blinked the house was already gone and I was like, oh, so do it in reverse order next time.

Rebecca:

Yeah.

Caroline:

How long does a preapproval last? Are you doing it for every house that you're putting on offer on, or are you doing it for a period of time, or does that differ by state as well?

Rebecca:

Yeah, we don't do one per house. Now, we will have the amount changed on the preapproval per what it is that they're offering, but usually they last 90 days. And then, if you haven't found a house by then, you'll want to get back in touch with a lender. They'll just run everything again really quickly. You don't need a fresh one per house that you put an offer in on. If the first house happens to not work out, you just want to make sure if there's a difference in price that the buyer is still able to buy depending on the different price point. But yeah, I mean, once you get the preapproval, my lender usually gets it done pretty quickly on the phone. He emails me the copy of the preapproval, it has the type of financing. If they need it to sell their home, it has the home sale contingency on it, has the amount on it. And that way, everything's ready to go when they're ready to put an offer in.

Caroline:

Wonderful. That's cool. I mean, yeah, I'm going through it now. So it's always nice to just hear a difference in the, not even opinion, just from somebody else. We don't have one realtor, we've been pretty steady with one, but we've been looking into different areas of New Jersey. So the realtors are sort of staying, I guess, in their location. So we're getting sort of dual advice from two different people. So it's been a time, that's for sure. So, I'm kind of just about at the end of my questions, but I know we really like to ask our guests who have used our app, vipHomeLink, kind of what they like about it and what they would sort of recommend to their clientele. We think it's super helpful, it keeps everything on track, whether you're just putting in some information or you're really using it to track your maintenance and management updates. But can you share a little bit about, if you've used it and what you liked about it and why you would recommend it?

Rebecca:

Yeah, absolutely. So, as I told you when we first chatted, I was super fascinated about this, because we see so many buyers who purchase a home and then these certain things they forget about, and it really, it's more money out of their pocket at the end of the day, if they forget to get a furnace service, just because they feel like it's in good working condition, or maybe it's newer. And then, if they're not getting it serviced regularly, they might have to replace it a lot sooner than they thought or it might buy, so I think it's really great. And everybody has a smartphone these days. So, why wouldn't you have the app?

Rebecca:

It's just such a great place to put everything, reminders. If you have a great paint color and you want to keep track of the paint color, and then, you get new furniture two years later and it nicks your wall, and you're like, oh my gosh, what paint color? It's all right in there for you. So you don't have to... Because otherwise, what I would have done is chipped the paint off my wall, take it to the Lowe's, have them match the paint. And now I have a big nick in my wall. And so this way it's really nice, it's really super great. And it's great for realtors too, because it's really a cool gift that you can offer to your clients. So if you do closing gifts, we do closing gifts for all of our clients, just giving them the app for a year or something is a really great gift idea and it will take so much off of their plates.

Rebecca:

And then as far as the homeowners that are watching this, I think everyone should have one. And I actually had a conversation with my mom the other day, I sold my brother and his wife a condo, maybe two years ago. And my mom was having a conversation with them and asked him if he'd ever had the furnace serviced since he bought it. And he was like, no, it works fine. And I was like, listen, he needs to get this app because he's going to pay for that. And he's going to be mad that he didn't go ahead and do something. So, it's really a great thing to have. I think everyone needs to have it, and for the realtors that are watching, it's a really great gift that you can offer your clients.

Caroline:

Ah, thank you so much. We really do appreciate that and we agree, everyone should have it. So, yay. But that's kind of wraps up a lot of my questions. Did I miss anything? Did you want to add anything? I want to make sure that we got it all.

Rebecca:

Yeah, no. I mean, hopefully this was helpful for the buyers that are watching out there. I know a lot of the markets right now are crazy. It's not just Cleveland, it's everywhere. So, make sure that you are chatting with your realtor upfront, just to kind of know what you have to look forward to, the transaction, everything. And for the realtors that are following, make sure you're having those conversations with the clients, because I think sometimes they're thrown if they put an offer in and miss out and, we're seeing a lot of that. So, but hopefully this was helpful for everybody.

Caroline:

Yeah. It was wonderful. Do you mind just sharing where people can find you on Instagram and a little bit more about you and then we could wrap up?

Rebecca:

Yeah. So, I'm mainly on Instagram, as we've kind of talked about, my Instagram handle is Rebecca.Itali.realtor. So you can go ahead and just follow me on there, and then my contact information is on my profile. So if you just click contact, it'll email me directly. It'll call, if you want to text me or anything directly, I'm not quite as active on Facebook. So, I'll just give my Instagram stuff, because that's usually where you can find me, so.

Caroline:

Perfect. Thank you so much. Well, Rebecca, this has been wonderful. We'll chat soon, and thank you again for your time.

Rebecca:

All right. Thanks for having me, take care.