Pat Kennedy - Your Washington, DC Real Estate Connection

One of the great things about blogging on Active Rain is that we are exposed to Realtors® all across the United States and Canada who work in every imaginable sort of real estate office.  And every once in a while, I notice maybe a wee bit of proselytizing in a post or a comment - my company and business model is the best and you are a big fat dummie if you don't give it a try.  Then there will follow a chain of comments that feel like the writers are holding up a cross to ward off evil demons!

But you know what?  The best business model, company and office is the one that works for you! 

My company is a small boutique firm that a lot of you might find a little too retro.  While we're pretty tech savvy, we are the old fashioned high priced spread, offering a high quality of servcie to our clients.  And we do it well.  We've made some adjustments as the market has changed, but this basic business model is working very well for me and my company in our market area.

And it's not everybody's cup of tea. 

Whether you work at a boutique like Evers & Company, a large firm like Long and Foster, ReMax, Keller Williams or Coldwell Banker, or one of the new online or limited service companies, you have to ask yourself,  "Am I happy and prosperous?  Is this office working for me?"

So I guess what I'm saying is there is no one best business model - this is not a One Size Fits All marketplace, either for the companies that compete for agents to populate their offices, or for the clients whose business we work so hard to earn. 

We all have choices.  Lots of them!  In the real estate marketplace, choice is a good thing both for agents and consumers.

My two loves are chamber music and real estate  (well, there's also a guy, but that doesn't play into this post).  And music and real estate work a lot the same way.

A chamber group has a conductor.  In real estate, my conductor is my broker, and I'm lucky to have a really great one who knows the score.  

A chamber group has a bunch of people playing different instruments - violins, violas, celli, and winds.  In a real estate transaction, you have a bunch of people with different parts to play - , buyers, sellers, agents, home inspector, loan officer, appraiser, and title attorney.  

In a chamber group, if one player is out of tune or hits a sour note, we all sound awful.  In a real estate transaction, if one of the players throws a bad punch, it can hit a sour note for the entire transaction.

So, when my parents had doubts about my wanting to major in flute and piccolo in college, it was actually a discipline that prepared me for my career in real estate!  Actually, it prepares you for any career that involves close team work!

Once I was at a wedding reception and overheard a woman bragging to my ex-husband that her daughter just got her PhD in Italian Baroque Art History. 

"So," he replied, "She's going into real estate!" 

The proud mother was not amused. 

Still, it would not surprise me to find an agent in my office with such an educational background.  I don't know too many Realtors® who, while in high school or college, studied and set goals to be really great listing agents.  When I was planning my own life, a career in real estate never occurred to me.

For me, real estate turned out to be the perfect answer to an early mid-life career crisis.  My resume included a stint as an airline ticket agent, a job harassing the aviation industry and its regulators for Ralph Nader, then a consumer advocate position during the Carter administration that was, unfortunately, dependent upon his getting re-elected.  He didn't, and I was soon unemployed.

Then real estate came up and bit me!  It's turned out to be the most fun and rewarding work I've ever done, but who knew? 

It's more lucrative than either being a government consumer type or a flute player - even a really good flute player.

I'm constantly amazed at the past lives of my colleagues.  Many were artists and musicians.  There are a bunch of retired Foreign Service officers - of course, they get to retire somewhere in their late 40's or early 50's!  There are college professors, moms, and a lot of nurses. 

I do know one guy who has a Masters Degree in real estate, and we all teased him about it.  Maybe he'll have a next life as a sculptor!

What a couple of weeks!  As United Airline's Flight 915 veered south over Newfoundland, I felt glad to be heading home, and I felt so blessed to have been able to share this time and this birthday with family and friends.  What a cast of characters!

The highligt of the trip was a birthday dinner at Le Tastevin, a tiny, utterly charming, restaurant on Ile St. Luis,  Everything about it just lovely, from the traditional French cuisine, the wine, and the amazing glace, served with a birthday candle for me to blow out!

First, there was my mom, who was scooting all over town with her new knee and cane.   I took this photo at the square where we ran into the young musicians playing Pachelbel and Ravel!  She and my father visited Paris several times, and she wanted to revisit some of their favorite haunts.  She was tireless and full of adventure every day of the trip.

Then we have my sister, Bairbre.  She let me be the bossy big sister (sorry, Bair!  Hope I wasn't too insufferable!) while she kept us in croissants, wonderful coffee au lait, and helped me get lost a few extra times!  He Dog Whisperer boyfriend stayed behind to provide a couple of weeks of boot camp for M. Willie the Labradoodle.

My pretty neice, Brighid, probably had the least bad French of all of us!  She had a blast in the consignment shops because she was the size of the French women!  She makes beautiful jewelry and got some great ideas to inspire her creations while she was there, enjoying the Left Bank bead shops.  She made me a lovely pair of earrings!

My brother, Jack, Brighid's dad, joined us for part of the trip and arranged my birthday dinner at Le Tastevin (it actually has five stars!) and made some excellent wime choices from the sometimes daunting selections on the shelves of the local markets.  He is already planning a return trip with my favorite sister-in-law, Mary Ann!

Then, old friend Annie Groer was there working on a book she is writing, and she introduced me to the flea market and other parts of Paris that I might have missed.  She was staying across the river in a small hotel that provided a room with a little terrace that was utterly charming.  We enjoyed a wonderful lunch there on one of the very sunny days.

And to round things out, there was friend and former client, Jan DelMonte.  A couple of years ago (perfect timing!) she sold her condo in Adams Morgan to move to Paris and live her dream - she's living my dream, too!  She is in fabulous shape from moving into a 5th floor walk-up!  She recently completed an internship at Christie's and is working as a consultant to people who are looking for home decor in Paris.  She also really knows how to shop, for just about anything, and I would recommend her highly as a guide, whether you are shopping at the Chanel mother store or in Left Bank consignment shops.  Oh, and she knows the bar where Gerard Depardieu hangs out!

So I'm back now, with some wonderful memories and a lot of great photos. 

And tomorrow, I'm doing an Open House in Georgetown!  I'm ready to sell that sucker!

There's no place like home!

It's after midnight, and my body thinks it is 6:30 in the morning.  I'm wide awake!  And I'm starving, with no edible food in the house.

And tomorrow, there is an Open House I'm doing in Georgetown - what on earth was I thinking?  By the time I get there, I'll think it's time for dinner and sleep.  I'll figure it out. 

Paris was beautiful, and so is Washington.  I came home to dogwoods and azaleas.  My house is plain yellow brick, and there are no pretty appliques on the outside.  But once inside, my computer works, and so does my I-Phone. It takes just a few minutes to upload photos and post to my blog!

I had a wonderful vacation with family and friends, and now I'm ready to jump back into the business of listing and selling houses!

Paris is a magically beautiful city, and after the last couple of weeks, I've begun to really get it.

It's not just that most of the buildings are a few hundred years old, but about the beautiful details throughout the city, and the work done to preserve the old.

Both with the public buildings and residential properties, you find amazing stuff.  It's almost like some of the buildings have an applique of some sort of durable plaster design. 

Even the mundane, like the lamp posts along the Champs Elysee, are remarkable in the design details.

The French have a culture of having beautiful things and really taking care of them.  It's like the French women who look amazing in their old classic (and basic) clothing and accessories that they make last forever.  The same care is given to preserving and enjoying the lovely old buildings.

Here in Washington, we went through a period of tearing down lovely historical buildings to put up really hideous office buildings, devoid of any charm or character whatsoever.  There has been far less of that in Paris, where historic preservation is just a way of life. 

Yes, Paris has changed over the decades since I've been there.  My mother wanted to revisit the Champs Elysee to see the lovely shops, which (while the buildings themselves had not been significantly altered) was line with motorcycle dealerships.  Neighborhoods that were once shabby are now quite chic.

But the essence of the city is the same as when I left it way back in the 70's.  And for that I was thankful!

One of the biggest challenges of this trip will be getting my favorite photos organized.  Each one is a reminder of some fun thing that happened during my stay.

This, for example, was taken on an chilly, cloudy day on a visit to Notre Dame Cathedral.

I call this one Wystera Lane.  I took it of a little cafe on a side street on Ile de la Cite near Notre Dame.

I took this from the top floor of the D'Orsay, through a glass door (that wouldn't open).  You can see Sacre Coure off in the distance.

Here is the famous Arc de Triomphe, where we witnessed some amazingly scrary driving!

This trip, I did the quintessential tourist thing - the Eiffel Tower.  They closed the top level because of high winds, and I took this from the second level with the camera on my I-Phone, and it's a little hazy.

And I tripped over this lovely place during one of my Lost in Paris episodes.

And TLW, this one's for you!

Of course, I have more wonderful pictures of this trip, but I'm beginning to turn into one of those annoying people who have to show everyone who comes to dinner all of the family videos!  I will spare you, although I've got to do a post on some of the architecture I saw - when I'm home.

Anything Chanel just enchants me.  Whether it's Chanel No. 5, which I've worn for many decades now, Chanel handbags, scarves or earrings, I just adore them.  Most of what I own, I've purchased at estate sales and consignment shops, and from a few reputable Chanel dealers on EBay, and they are all (except for the perfume) vintage.

So what better place than Paris to add to my collection?  Hmmmm.

I began with a consignment shop off St. Germain that had some so so stuff at prices that would make Needless Markup blush.  Beautiful, authentic, but I'm in a consignment shop because I am looking for a bargain!  So adieu!

Then, with my friend, Annie, I found vintage Chanel heaven in the flea market.  The owner was a serious collector, and she didn't seem to want to part with any of her lovely merchandise!  And while some of it was vintage, a lot of it appeared to be quite new, and again at prices found at the Chanel mother store on Avenue Montaigne! 

Then, my friend and former client, Jan del Monte, took me to a group of consignment shops where she lives on Rue de Cherche Midi, called Chercheminippes.  There are six shops all owned by the same people, and I scored, not with Chanel, but with two gorgeous Hermes scarves and a Christian Lacroix that will be a wonderful addition to my wardrobe. 

Consignment shop shopping here is not as much fun as it is in New York or Washington, where you can find things that were used once or twice, and then sent off.  In Paris, the women have fewer items of clothing than most American women, but everything is equisite.  And they tend to buy and wear classics that they hold onto for years, so by the time they are finished with it, it's a little too far gone to recycle.

So like real estate in the United States, the demand for vintage Chanel is also price dirven, at least in my personal market place!

Part of this visit to Paris was a trip down Memory Lane.  I wanted to make a pilgrimage to Avenue Mozart, which was home to the late Jean-Pierre Rampal.  I wanted especially to drop into my favorite Paris patisserie on the block where he lived, called (in his honor as well as Mozart's ) “A la Flute Enchantee” – at least it was my favorite patisserie in 1972, the last time I ate one of their divine almond cookies.

Um, that was 1972.  This is 2009.  He doesn’t live their any more.  In fact, il est mort.  When I arrived at the corner of Rue du Ranelagh and Avenue Mozart, I wasn’t sure whether to turn right or left.  So I went left.  Didn’t see the place.  Could it have turned into a dry cleaners or a real estate office?  I walked to the end of the street and then backtracked.   Then I kept walking and still nothing. 

Well, that’s not quite true.  I passed the most amazing seafood stall I’ve ever seen in my life, and they allowed me to photograph the place.  I mean check these guys out!

Then I walked another few blocks, and as the numbers got smaller and smaller, I was afraid that time and progress had closed the little bakery down.  Oh well. 

And then I saw it! 

I went in, bought a huge almond cookie and a loaf of fruit bread, they let me take some photos, and I left happy. 

Now, I know that some of you will think I’m nuts spending a sunny spring afternoon in Paris stalking almond cookies and my favorite flute teacher’s ghost. 

But hey!  What a relief to know that some things haven’t changed!

What a week!  I'm seeing so many new fun things!

We didn't start every day like this, but on morning we sent my brother, Jack, on a hunting and gathering errand, and this is what he came back with.

This is about the greenest building I have ever seen!  It is another one of those surprises I found while I was lost!  I think it's part of some educational organization.  The entire exterior was covered with plants and they cascaded down from the roof.

I went with my friend, Annie, to check out the Marais, and she found the building where her parents lived back in the 1930's.  She has a chicken thing like I have a cow thing, and this lovely old door to the building court yard might offer some explanation!

The ornate finishes on this lovely old place caught my attention on my way home from the Marais.

Here is Paris' version of affordable housing!  Many people live on boats, which are parked two or three deep along the Seine.

This is a beatuiful sculpture that is perched on the roof of L"Opera.  And I took it on a day that was no longer overcast!

This is the Chat Noir that you find on all of those Montmartre posters!  This little guy actually sat and posed for me!

This is the church of St. Roch.  It's old and beautiful and on the corner of the street where I used to stay when I visited Paris in the 60's and 70's.

This is Saint Joan of Arc, looking awfully young!

More later.  There is a line of family members waiting to check their email, then it's off to more fun!