Tag Archives: non-fiction

No Limits Virtual Book Tour

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No Limits cover

A True Story of Challenge and Courage Across Three Continents

 

Non-fiction, Business, Business Memoir

Date Published:

Launched: November 17, 2022

Released on Amazon:  November 11, 2022

Published: November 5, 2022

 

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Opening during the Nazi occupation of Greece, best-selling No Limits is a
true-life adventure story of Nick Haritatos. From his humble beginnings in
war-torn Greece to southern Africa, Haritatos began a remarkable journey to
success, buying his first business at sixteen and creating a portfolio of
successful companies in Rhodesia, South Africa, and the United States.

Buffeted by winds of sweeping political and cultural changes, Haritatos
pledged to make his own destiny, regardless of any obstacles. Haritatos
lived a life of adventure set amidst dirt roads in tribal lands in Africa,
harrowing days of the Rhodesian Bush War, numerous board rooms, and
one-of-a-kind ocean-view homes.

With a foreword by Jack Canfield, No Limits gives readers a glimpse into
the experiences and mindset of a man who faced numerous obstacles with
unwavering confidence and a unique ability to build relationships with
people from every walk of life. These relationships, coupled with the
determination, passion and focus that he cultivated, gave Haritatos
opportunities to build multi-million-dollar businesses, become a successful
pilot, walk the 1,200-mile California Coastal Trail from the US-Mexico
border north to the Oregon border, create a beautiful family and circle of
friends, and achieve almost every other goal he set for himself.

No Limits will both entertain and inspire you. It is full of heart-warming
relationships, drama, intrigue, and achievement, set against a background of
tumultuous change. Woven into the text and highlighted in the appendix, No
Limits
includes Haritatos’ pillars of business and personal success.

If you want to become the architect of your own destiny, regardless of your
circumstances, this book is for you.

No Limits tablets

EXCERPT

Foreword

 

My mission is to help people transform their lives to maximize their potential and live their dreams. As an international bestselling author, speaker, trainer, and America’s #1 success coach, I have worked with hundreds of thousands of people over the fifty plus years that I have been doing this work. And too often, I see people let fear, circumstances and what other people think limit them. They have let limits—self-imposed or imposed by others—rule their lives and stop them from achieving their big dreams and creating the life they truly want to live. 

 

Nick Haritatos is not one of those people. He totally embodies the title of his book No Limits. From an early age, he has seen problems as challenges—as opportunities to find solutions rather than obstacles or barriers. That attitude, combined with his passion and curiosity, meant that, when he bought his first business at the age of 16 and became an entrepreneur, he was unstoppable. A few years later, when he met Anne, his late wife, together they were an unstoppable team. Together, they made their dreams come true. They also faced and overcame all kinds of adversity, such as starting over from scratch more than once.

 

Nick’s life has truly been an adventure. I could not stop turning the pages of this book as I read about his life journey across 3 continents, 4 countries, 23 companies, being drafted to fight a war, raising a beautiful family, thousands of soccer games, tens of thousands of hours in the air and walking the 1200-mile California Coastal Trail. 

 

Nick knows what it’s like to be in the thick of trying circumstances. What struck me as I read this book is, no matter what life threw at him, even when the odds were heavily stacked against him, he went for it anyway. Even when others thought he was out of his mind, he went for it. Even when it seemed impossible, he went for it. Nick consistently and repeatedly defied the odds because of his trust in himself, his passion, his determination and his energy.

 

No Limits is the next chapter in the adventure of Nick’s life, and we all get to benefit from it. Not only is No Limits a captivating page-turner that you won’t be able to put down, but, in it, Nick also shares the wisdom he has collected and distilled from a lifetime full of adventures, challenges and successes—wisdom that is so needed in the world today. He has helped so many people throughout his life through his multiple businesses, and now he is helping many more with this book—with both the inspiration from his story plus his many “pillars of wisdom,” so that you, too, can live a life full of adventure and success with no limits. 

  • Jack Canfield, Coauthor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series and The Success Principles™: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

About the Author

Nick Haritatos

Nick Haritatos is a successful entrepreneur, soccer player, pilot, and
devoted family man whose life experience has spanned four countries on three
continents. From his humble beginnings in war-torn Greece to southern
Africa, Haritatos began a remarkable journey to success, buying his first
business at sixteen and creating a portfolio of successful companies in
Rhodesia, South Africa, and the United States.

Buffeted by winds of sweeping changes, Nick pledged to make his own
destiny, regardless of any obstacles. He lived a life of adventure set
amidst mud huts and dirt roads in tribal lands in Africa, harrowing days of
the Rhodesian Bush War, numerous board rooms, international trips to over
forty countries, and one-of-a-kind ocean view homes.

His business career stretches across twenty-three companies and over fifty
years in manufacturing, retail, service, and commercial, retail and
residential real estate. With a knack for spotting untapped potential in
businesses and people, Nick treasures his vast network of friends as
intensely as his financial success. He loves to celebrate life with music
and dancing whenever possible.

Early on, Nick developed a unique and flexible lifestyle model that allowed
him to oversee multiple businesses simultaneously while devoting plenty of
time to his wife and children. With his decision to create his own destiny,
Nick maintains control over his life and his future even under challenging
circumstances, when most others followed tradition.  His motto is
“I make events. Events don’t make me.”

An avid athlete, Nick has played and coached soccer for most of his life.
Nick has team members who’ve played soccer with him for nearly twenty
five years in San Diego. As of the writing of this book, he’s played
in more than 2,500 matches, as well as completed several marathons. He plans
to be playing soccer when he is eighty years old and beyond.

Outside of his family, one of his proudest achievements was hiking the
1,200-mile California Coastal Trail.

Today Nick uses his considerable business and life experience to mentor and
inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders, when he
isn’t on the soccer field or planning his next walk.

Nick is available to speak to groups interested in business and personal
success. For more information on his speaking and mentoring work, visit his
website at www.nolimitsbynick.com

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52 Weeks of Writing Virtual Book Tour

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Author Journal and Planner, Vol. III

Non-Fiction / Self-Help Creativity

 

Date Published: 1 December 2021

Publisher: M.S. Wordsmith

A brilliant, supportive, challenging workbook, highly recommend.’ Jamie Sands

You, too, can become the writer you’ve always wanted to be!

The 52 Weeks of Writing Author Journal and Planner:

· makes you plan, track, reflect on, and improve your progress and goals for an entire year long;

· invites you to dig deep through thought-provoking prompts and exercises; and

· helps you unravel the truth about why you aren’t where you want to be.

Two years after publishing the first volume of 52 Weeks of Writing, writing coach and writer Mariëlle S. Smith brings you the updated third volume. Similar in style but reflecting the tweaks made to her coaching practice during the pandemic, 52 Weeks of Writing Vol. III is even better equipped to help you get out of your own way and on to the path towards success.

Ready to start living your writing dream? Order your copy now.

 

52 Weeks of Writing paperback

About the Author

Mariëlle S. Smith

Mariëlle S. Smith is a writer, writing coach, and editor. She lives in Cyprus, where she organises private writer’s retreats, is inspired 24/7, and feeds more stray cats than she can count.

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We Never Knew Just What It Was… Virtual Book Tour

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We Never Knew Just What It Was... cover

 

The Story of the Chad Mitchell Trio

 

Non-Fiction

 

Date to be Published: August 11th

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

Of all the groups to emerge during the folk era of the 1960’s, first the Chad Mitchell Trio and later The Mitchell Trio were unequivocally the best. Their complex harmonies, sense of comedic timing and stage presence were unique to the folk movement. They didn’t enjoy the commercial success of other groups because their material made political and social statements that radio and television refused to play. They were wildly popular, though, on college campuses throughout the country during this turbulent time and fostered political and social awareness among thousands of young men and women as they faced the challenging era ahead.

But as Mike, Chad and Joe Frazier raced along a frantic treadmill of rehearsals, recording sessions, nightclubs and concerts, Mike and Chad began to realize the demand for musical perfection was the only thing they had in common. Their personalities were and remain polar opposites. When Chad left in 1965, neither mourned the parting. John Denver replaced Chad. Two years later, Joe’s demons caught up to him forcing Mike and John to fire Joe.

When folk reunions became popular, fans and folk historians agreed that The Trio was the one group that would never take the stage again. Their schism was just too great.

Mike and Chad and Joe hadn’t spoken in twenty years. Then came a call. I will if he will. Their mentor and music director Milt Okun worried they were making a mistake. They couldn’t possibly be as good as their fans remembered.

They were. Mike and Chad kept their day jobs, and their distance. But once again, they shared the music.

We Never Knew Just What It Was... tablet

EXCERPT

— CHAPTER ONE —

A trio is the worst combination you can have.
When there’s three of you,
it always ends up being two against one.

—Chad Mitchell

OCTOBER 2007

Spokane, Washington

T

he last time The Chad Mitchell Trio performed before their hometown crowd—summer of 1964—a reviewer for a local newspaper called them “depressing.” While allowing they were “fine sounding and fine-looking young men,” Ed Costello bemoaned their choice of material. Making fun of Nazis and the John Birch Society, he said, were examples of something new being called a “social and political conscience,” which, he intimated, had no place in popular entertainment.

Forty-three years later, Chad stood in the dark, off-stage wings at Spokane’s Opera House and smiled at Tom Paxton’s lyrics. Tom, who had written so much of their material, served as opening act this evening for The Trio’s long-belated return to Spokane.

As Tom took his bows, a towering screen at center stage came to life with clips of a Chad Mitchell Trio appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1963. While the Opera House sound system detailed every nuance of exquisite harmony from those twenty-year-old voices, Mike Kobluk stepped to Chad’s side, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Damn, we were good,” Chad said, gesturing to the screen. “Can we still do this? Are we making a mistake?”

Mike laughed. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Chad glanced to Mike and could only imagine what emotions were shuttered behind his calm stoicism—what this performance must mean. When Mike turned The Mitchell Trio over to John Denver in 1968, he found his way back to Spokane and became entertainment director for Expo ’74, the city’s version of a World’s Fair. He parlayed that gig into a three-decade run as Spokane’s manager of entertainment facilities.

Now, finally, Mike would perform here.

Mike seldom shared his feelings, but Chad wanted to know.

“This crowd is mostly here for you, Mike,” he said. “You ran this building. They all remember that.”

“They’re here for The Trio,” Mike said.

“You’re the one who came back. You’re this town’s real anchor to who we were. Come on. Haven’t you thought about performing here?”

Granted, this wasn’t Carnegie Hall, where they’d sung on four different occasions. Still . . .

Chad and Mike exchanged a long glance—even after all these years, in many ways they remained strangers.

Of course, Mike had thought of performing here. A few days ago, Mike—who retired in 2000 after twenty years of managing this building—told Chad that the people he worked with here knew few details of what he’d done before he’d finished his degree at Gonzaga and gone to work for the city.

“A few weeks ago,” Mike said, “I visited the Opera House to see the promotional posters for our concert being installed and a janitor, who I’d known for years, approached me.”

“That’s you in that picture,” the janitor said, pointing to a poster.

“Yes, it is.”

“But why? What are you doing in a concert advertisement?”

“Those other guys are Chad Mitchell and Joe Frazier. We used to sing together. We’re doing a concert.”

The janitor regarded Mike quizzically for a few moments. “Yeah. But really. Why are you in that picture?”

Chad smiled as he glimpsed row after row filling with people, the crowd extending into the balcony. Among them were other curious people who came to see why their old boss or friend or neighbor was in this picture.

Chad thought of all the artists Mike had ushered to this stage. From Van Cliburn to Isaac Stern to Ella Fitzgerald. Harry Belafonte. Peter, Paul and Mary. Folk to rock to classical to opera. Hal Holbrook doing Mark Twain Tonight. Broadway shows. Every significant performer in America for the past thirty years.

Chad prodded him again. “Really, how can this be just another show for you?”

Mike shook his head and took a breath. “Back when I was booking this building for Expo ’74, when the Opera House was brand new, Bing Crosby came to see what the Expo development was doing to his hometown. He wasn’t performing, but he wanted a tour. So, I showed him around. We walked to the stage in this empty building and he stood right over there.” Mike pointed to place just beyond the curtain.

“And he crooned this too-raloo-raloora thing in that Crosby voice that rang through the auditorium, then turned to me and said, ‘Boy, the acoustics in this place are great. Is this where Hope will perform?’

“I told him no. I said Bob Hope was scheduled to play the Coliseum, because we had more seating available there. Bing said, ‘Good. This place is way too classy for Hope.’”

Chad smiled at the story.

“So, yes,” Mike said. “I’ve thought about singing with The Trio on this stage more than once.”

On a huge screen above the stage, Mike, who was raised in a rock-solid immigrant family in Trail, British Columbia, stood tallest of the three. Mike and Joe, both handsome and solidly built, had dark hair. While Mike had chiseled facial features, Joe radiated a more subtle hardness, drawn by childhood in a Pennsylvania coal town.

A year older than his compatriots, born in 1936, a young Chad Mitchell seen on the big screen still had to produce ID at liquor counters. Smaller and slight of build, with blondest of blond hair and an almost cherubic visage, he would have fit seamlessly on the set of Leave It to Beaver.

Back in 1960, he offered reassurance to mothers across America who might be otherwise concerned about their daughters getting mixed up with all this coffee house, beatnik, folk music stuff. The product of a single-parent home, raised by his mother in a blue-collar Spokane neighborhood, he might have looked like a choir boy. His childhood, though, was much more complex than that.

Then, as always, audience eyes and ears found Chad first.

All three were gifted choral singers. Joe offered a classically trained baritone voice with both range and power to slip down to bass or sneak up toward tenor. Milt Okun, The Trio’s musical director, mentor and guardian, found Mike’s voice most difficult to pin down. While as harmonically adept as his partners, Mike added a unique, lower-register smoky tone to their vocal blends. Milt described it as “this lovely low, rich, informal, untrained sound.”

Just as his appearance stood in contrast to Mike and Joe, so did Chad’s vocal instrument. He could rein in a powerful tenor to meld seamlessly with the others—always on perfect pitch—but Milt’s direction frequently sent it soaring above Mike and Joe’s harmonies during a song’s final stanza with a commanding, almost operatic, descant melody that no other folkies could begin to approach.

The Trio’s genuine vocal distinctiveness, though, was their ability to blend. While Milt spent hours using studio tricks to achieve the right vocal mix for Peter, Paul and Mary, that was never the case with Joe, Mike and Chad.

“They were so good, their harmonies so intricate. And they measured their own voices against each other,” Milt recalled wistfully during an interview related to an earlier reunion performance. “They almost mixed themselves.” When a recording session occasionally failed to produce a good separation of the three individual tracks, Milt said, “I could take the initial mono track, and it would be as good as if I’d mixed it.”

About The Author

Mike Murphey

Mike Murphey is a native of New Mexico and spent almost thirty years as an award-winning newspaper journalist in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. Following his retirement, he enjoyed a seventeen-year partnership with the late Dave Henderson, all-star Major League outfielder. Their company produced the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners adult baseball Fantasy Camps. He is author of the award-winning novels Section Roads and The Conman… a Baseball Odyssey along with his Physics, Lust and Greed time travel series. We Never Knew Just What it Was is his first effort at non-fiction. Mike loves books, cats, baseball and sailing. He splits his time between Spokane, Washington, and Phoenix, Arizona where he enjoys life as a writer and old-man baseball player.

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OPEN HOUSE! Virtual Book Tour

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OPEN HOUSE! cover

An Insider’s Tour of the Secret World of Residential Real Estate For
Agents, Sellers, and Buyers

Non-fiction

Date Published:  May 2021

Publisher:  Canterbury Books

 

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OPEN HOUSE! New Book By Veteran Realtor Joey Sheehan

Takes Readers Behind the Scenes Of An Often Opaque Industry

 

Approximately two-thirds of Americans are involved in real estate
transactions. Yet there are few (if any) books that help people understand
this complex activity from the perspectives of all three types of parties
involved – agent, seller, and buyer. Stepping into the breach,
seasoned Realtor Joey Sheehan has written a unique work — OPEN HOUSE!
— filled with entertaining anecdotes and practical advice to ensure
that her readers’ next real estate transaction proceeds as smoothly as
possible.

“Residential real estate is a business like no other,” she
writes. “It’s not rational like other businesses because the
commodity being bought or sold is a home rather than a car or a
refrigerator, and everybody knows that a man’s home is his castle.
People get touchy about their castles — you can trust me on this
— in a way they don’t about anything else.” Sellers often
believe their homes are worth more than the market will bear. Buyers can
make unreasonable demands. The agents for both need to ably guide their
clients through a potentially volatile process with integrity and
professionalism. Sheehan’s insights and counsel help everyone work
together to benefit all.

 

The backbone of OPEN HOUSE! is Sheehan’s Twelve Laws of Real
Estate:

 

1: Selling and buying real property is a very touchy business.

2: Academics publish or perish; Realtors sell or perish.

3: The seller may propose, but it is the buyer who disposes.

4: At the beginning, in the middle, and at the end, it’s always about
price.

5: To get paid what you’re worth, insist on getting paid what
you’re worth.

6: To stay out of legal trouble, learn the facts, and disclose them.

7: The first offer is the best offer.

8: It’s not over until it’s over.

9: Time is of the essence.

10: If a party to a transaction doesn’t understand the sales contract
and something bad happens, watch out—especially if you’re the
agent working with the party that does understand it.

11: Never commoditize Realtors: there are the great, the good, the
middling, the incompetent, and the disastrous.

12: Engage a Realtor with superior skills, because up to and including the
settlement at which a property’s legal transfer of ownership occurs,
bizarre problems can surface.

 

Carefully considering the ramifications of each of the Twelve Laws, Sheehan
helps agents understand how they can provide the best service possible, grow
their businesses, and avoid unpleasant repercussions, ranging from frivolous
client complaints to serious lawsuits. For sellers, she explains how to
maximize the value of their homes and avoid the most common mistakes, such
as not decluttering and staging their homes in a way calculated to appeal to
prospects. For buyers, she provides extensive advice on how to find and
purchase their dream home, even in a competitive bidding war. And most
importantly, she helps everyone understand the terms of a real estate
contract, a document which is legally binding on all parties to a
transaction.

With her engaging writing style and flair for storytelling, Sheehan has
created the ultimate guide to residential real estate sales. As Robert M.
DeMarinis, a former vice president at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, observes,
“OPEN HOUSE! delivers because it combines a smart
businesswoman’s memoir with an impish ride through her professional
world—not from the outside looking in but from the inside looking
out!”  Anyone who is thinking about selling or buying a home or
who works in the residential real estate industry will profit from reading
this witty and informative book.

 

OPEN HOUSE! tablet

 

EXCERPT

For years it was a mystery to me why sellers so often cannot accept the value that live buyers in the marketplace put on their home, as evidenced by offers they perceive as “too low” or the lack of any offers at all over a protracted period. Listing Realtors know that some sellers can never be persuaded to take a first offer seriously if they deem it “too low.” A second offer around the same proposed sales price, though, is highly suggestive (to the agent if not to her clients), and a third conclusively establishes that the sellers, not the bidding buyers, are living in la-la land. How did they wind up in la-la land? I think I finally understand. 

A Unique Type of Artwork 

Like artists, sellers of real property believe they have created something of uncommon value. They expect their new listing to generate instant interest among discerning buyers in the same way an artist throwing pots in his studio anticipates a warm reception once his meritorious offerings arrive in a gallery. A beautifully maintained residence with quality interior finishes and well-manicured grounds (perhaps boasting a pool or other sort of water feature) is, from this perspective, a one- of-a-kind metaphorical work of art. 

It is this proprietary feeling about their “incomparable” property that causes home sellers so often to run amok during the publicized effort to identify a ready, willing, and able buyer for it. They resemble artists that become averse to criticism once their work leaves the studio for a gallery. However, in both cases, the creators’ “art” is now in the public domain and, as such, is subject to public scrutiny. The sellers’ castles are open to judgment, in other words—multiple judgments. Not all homeowners take the feedback well. 

A Dangerous Misapprehension 

The typical seller imagines he can determine or at least significantly impact his house’s eventual sales price by setting its asking price. It is true that the seller starts the ball rolling by offering his property for sale. However, it is the buyer who stops the ball rolling by purchasing it. This is the harshest truth of residential sales for homeowners, and rare are those willing to look this truth straight in the eye. Instead, many will insist until the cows come home that their castle is worth what they say it is worth. Prospective home buyers, however, like prospective art buyers, are free to reject the creator-sellers’ view of reality. If all prospective home buyers reject it, the listing will gradually grow stale and sit on the market, spinning its wheels. Then it will sit some more with no takers. 

An Odd Artisanal Retreat 

One year I met with a senior executive of one of the area’s major financial institutions. The gentleman, who had been referred to me, was seeking my “creative thinking” about a property he and his wife had been trying unsuccessfully to sell for the past four years. Shortly after listing it, the couple had purchased and moved into a new residence, I learned. As a result, the executive and his spouse had been carrying an empty house at a cost of over $100,000 a year all this time, which was “debilitating.” By degrees, they had lowered the listing’s asking price from $1,799,000 to $1,200,000 but offers still eluded them. Their Realtor kept suggesting they “reduce the price,” but they did not feel price was an issue. What, the gentleman wanted to know, was my analysis of the situation? What would I recommend they do? 

This listing’s problem was not hard to ascertain. Four years into its marketing campaign, it was still substantially overpriced relative to its merits and demerits, and the only people around who had not figured that out were its owners. Because they had had the one-of-a- kind artisanal retreat specially designed and built for their family, its singular peculiarities and eccentric features were completely lost on them. Clearly, the gentleman and his wife considered themselves artists who had crafted an exquisite artwork, one which should command a strong number in the marketplace. 

I recommended a price adjustment to $999,000. Once this occurred, the property immediately found a buyer. 

A Historic Fixer-Upper 

Another curious case of wild overpricing that touched my life involved a house whose historical core dated back several centuries. The shabby residence, which was at the extreme of what Realtors euphemistically call “tired,” fronted on a street that over three hundred years had evolved from a horse path into one of the area’s busiest thorough- fares. Despite these drawbacks, the prospective seller was convinced the pedigreed property was worth $1,000,000. All but one of my five competitors for the listing dutifully submitted a Competitive Market Analysis suggesting an asking price in that neighborhood. The two of us dissenters, appreciating the home’s functional obsolescence and unfortunate location, recommended pricing the property in the $600,000s. The Realtor who landed the account later told me her client wanted to list at $1,000,000 but that she had managed at the last minute to get the woman to agree to $950,000. This beat-up place sold in the low $600,000s, exactly where I predicted it would, two years and multiple price adjustments later. 

As it happens, this home was purchased by buyers who fully appreciated its need for a comprehensive revisualization and total renovation. Through the grapevine I learned that they admirably accomplished these ambitious (and no doubt expensive) goals. If ever they decide to sell, there will still be the matter of the heavily trafficked road abutting the property’s front lawn to discount for in their asking price. 

About the Author

Joey Sheehan

Joey Sheehan, author of OPEN HOUSE!, is an award-winning real estate agent
with over thirty years of experience. She is affiliated with Berkshire
Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach, Realtors. After graduating with a BA
from the University of California at Berkeley, she obtained an MA from Johns
Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a
PhD from Harvard University in Chinese intellectual history. Her first book,
which was about the prominent Chinese scholar Wang Guowei (1877-1927), was
published by Harvard University Press. She has written widely about both
China and residential real estate in a variety of journals, newsletters,
magazines, and newspapers. Learn more at www.joeysheehan.com.

 

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OPEN HOUSE! Virtual Book Tour

OPEN HOUSE banner

 

OPEN HOUSE cover

An Insider’s Tour of the Secret World of Residential Real Estate For
Agents, Sellers, and Buyers

Non-fiction

Date Published:  May 2021

Publisher:  Canterbury Books

 

photo add-to-goodreads-button_zpsc7b3c634.png

 

 

OPEN HOUSE! New Book By Veteran Realtor Joey Sheehan

Takes Readers Behind the Scenes Of An Often Opaque Industry

 

Approximately two-thirds of Americans are involved in real estate
transactions. Yet there are few (if any) books that help people understand
this complex activity from the perspectives of all three types of parties
involved – agent, seller, and buyer. Stepping into the breach,
seasoned Realtor Joey Sheehan has written a unique work — OPEN HOUSE!
— filled with entertaining anecdotes and practical advice to ensure
that her readers’ next real estate transaction proceeds as smoothly as
possible.

“Residential real estate is a business like no other,” she
writes. “It’s not rational like other businesses because the
commodity being bought or sold is a home rather than a car or a
refrigerator, and everybody knows that a man’s home is his castle.
People get touchy about their castles — you can trust me on this
— in a way they don’t about anything else.” Sellers often
believe their homes are worth more than the market will bear. Buyers can
make unreasonable demands. The agents for both need to ably guide their
clients through a potentially volatile process with integrity and
professionalism. Sheehan’s insights and counsel help everyone work
together to benefit all.

 

The backbone of OPEN HOUSE! is Sheehan’s Twelve Laws of Real
Estate:

 

1: Selling and buying real property is a very touchy business.

2: Academics publish or perish; Realtors sell or perish.

3: The seller may propose, but it is the buyer who disposes.

4: At the beginning, in the middle, and at the end, it’s always about
price.

5: To get paid what you’re worth, insist on getting paid what
you’re worth.

6: To stay out of legal trouble, learn the facts, and disclose them.

7: The first offer is the best offer.

8: It’s not over until it’s over.

9: Time is of the essence.

10: If a party to a transaction doesn’t understand the sales contract
and something bad happens, watch out—especially if you’re the
agent working with the party that does understand it.

11: Never commoditize Realtors: there are the great, the good, the
middling, the incompetent, and the disastrous.

12: Engage a Realtor with superior skills, because up to and including the
settlement at which a property’s legal transfer of ownership occurs,
bizarre problems can surface.

 

Carefully considering the ramifications of each of the Twelve Laws, Sheehan
helps agents understand how they can provide the best service possible, grow
their businesses, and avoid unpleasant repercussions, ranging from frivolous
client complaints to serious lawsuits. For sellers, she explains how to
maximize the value of their homes and avoid the most common mistakes, such
as not decluttering and staging their homes in a way calculated to appeal to
prospects. For buyers, she provides extensive advice on how to find and
purchase their dream home, even in a competitive bidding war. And most
importantly, she helps everyone understand the terms of a real estate
contract, a document which is legally binding on all parties to a
transaction.

With her engaging writing style and flair for storytelling, Sheehan has
created the ultimate guide to residential real estate sales. As Robert M.
DeMarinis, a former vice president at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, observes,
“OPEN HOUSE! delivers because it combines a smart
businesswoman’s memoir with an impish ride through her professional
world—not from the outside looking in but from the inside looking
out!”  Anyone who is thinking about selling or buying a home or
who works in the residential real estate industry will profit from reading
this witty and informative book.

 

OPEN HOUSE tablet

 

EXCERPT

As someone who grew up in an academic environment and enjoyed a first career as a scholar herself, I naturally am intimately acquainted with the ivory tower imperative to publish or perish. It did not take me long to discover that residential Realtors have their equivalent imperative. At first blush, the business seems easy. It’s easy to sign up for real estate courses, which are intrinsically interesting and well worth taking even if you’ve no intention of ever selling any properties. It’s easy to pass the state licensing exam. It’s easy to find a brokerage company willing to take you on. The hard part comes next and lasts the entire length of your career: finding business. If you cannot find business and use that business to build a business, you are toast. The five-year attrition rate for new real estate agents, which according to the National Association of Realtors is up to 87 percent, is sky-high for this very reason. 

When viewed from the bottom-line perspective of sales productivity, a Realtor’s career is under perpetual assault by her numbers. If they are high enough, she is respected and well-compensated. If they’re not, her commission split with her brokerage company may be adjusted downward, which is nothing if not downright disheartening to a hardworking practitioner. It is no wonder, then, that such a gigantic proportion of real estate books is devoted to sales productivity and the particular kind of mindset that stimulates it. 

Sunday Open Houses 

Without an established technique yet for reeling in business, the novice Realtor will follow tried-and-true traditional methods. For decades one such method has been to host Sunday open houses for established agents with too many listings to service without help. That the public instinctually feels home selling is a trickier business than home buying would seem to be corroborated by my discovery, early on, that new agents can find it challenging to entice homeowners to list with them right off the bat. Buyers, by contrast, blessedly have no reservations about working with Realtors possessing minimal experience. My first several sales were made to total strangers, people I had met while hosting Sunday open houses at colleagues’ listings. It never occurred to these buyers to inquire how long I had been in the business, which may have been irresponsible of them but was most welcome to me at the time. We all have to start somewhere. 

Hosting public open houses proved a fabulous initial way for me to solicit clients. Personally, I was never a fan of taking office phone duty, and today the internet ensures that the public will call far less than it will email anyway. Meeting people in the field, in an actual house, gives an agent a chance to size them up, chat them up, get their contact information, and follow up. With perseverance and a little luck, an agent will succeed in converting at least some of these leads into promising clients. 

One of my very first $1,000,000 sales, back when $1,000,000 still bought a luxury property at a coveted address, was to a couple I had met in an unprepossessing home. I was hosting a Sunday open house for another Realtor, and Bob and Alice walked in the front door, lost and needing directions. I proceeded to give them—but not before securing the pair’s full names and out-of-state home phone number. It was a good while before I managed to sell those two a house because they were initially constrained to work with an agent assigned by the relocation company managing their move. However, the agent proved not to be up to the job, and eventually (after much low-key, persistent lobbying on my part) I was invited to work with the new general counsel of a top Fortune 500 company and his wife. 

The lesson is that academics publish or perish; Realtors sell or perish.

About the Author

Joey Sheehan

Joey Sheehan, author of OPEN HOUSE!, is an award-winning real estate agent
with over thirty years of experience. She is affiliated with Berkshire
Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach, Realtors. After graduating with a BA
from the University of California at Berkeley, she obtained an MA from Johns
Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a
PhD from Harvard University in Chinese intellectual history. Her first book,
which was about the prominent Chinese scholar Wang Guowei (1877-1927), was
published by Harvard University Press. She has written widely about both
China and residential real estate in a variety of journals, newsletters,
magazines, and newspapers. Learn more at www.joeysheehan.com.

 

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