Military Family Secures Home During Housing Crisis with Strategic Remote Buying Tactics

It just made the process, like, very smooth and easy. Couldn't have asked for anything to have gone better. [gentle music] I am Taylor Vega. Um, we are now in Greenville, North Carolina. However, we were originally in Huber Heights, Ohio, and we bought and sold our home with Don and Cindy Schertz. We were military, and so we were moving, I think I was 36 weeks pregnant at the time, um, and it was in 2021 at the height of the, like, housing crisis. And we have four dogs, so we had to buy a house. And we needed to get someone who was knowledgeable. I don't really know how we got in contact with Don, but he kinda just, like, fell into our lap, and it ended up being amazing because he helped us. He knew tactics that I'd never seen anyone use before. And I think that Don was probably the most hands-on, when we bought the house, realtor that we had seen, especially when we were in San Antonio. Mm-hmm. Initially working remote with him sounds like a nightmare, but it w- actually couldn't have asked for to have gone better. He actually virtually let us see houses before we got there, and then he showed up in the snow for I don't even know how many times, because we put in offers and our offers weren't gettin g, um, accepted, and he would actually call us and say, "Here's a new strategy that we're gonna do to try and get you guys in that home." And he did get us in our home, and I did deliver the day after we moved into our house. [laughs] The biggest thing I can remember is the house that we put in an offer on and they had accepted, and Don used a really cool tactic, um, because the market was so competitive. Basically we put in an offer before there was any showings. We didn't even see our house. The house that he got us in, when we viewed it, he goes, "Do you like it?" And we're like, "Yeah." He goes, "Great, 'cause it's your home." And what he had done is he knew there was, uh, showings, they were doing an open house, and it was like it had been on the market for three hours, and he's like, "If this is what you want, we can do this. We will write up a contract and tell them that they have to accept it by this time for you to get in." And it gave the sellers kind of that, "Do we really wanna weigh it?" And so they accepted. Um, but the sellers also, whenever the inspection came, they kind of, um, the roof was not good and the roof needed a lot of repairs, and Don fought tooth and nail to get that roof fixed. Like, he even offered to pay out of his own pocket and s- like, split the cost with the other agent, and I think that that really showed me what a good realtor he was, because he was willing to spend his own money so that we could close on our home. And I don't think in the industry, especially today, you see that from realtors. They're in it for the money for themselves, and they're not gonna give much else. Where he was willing to split the cost with the realtor so that they could just close the deals. I had told Don I wished that as a realtor I could just have him come with us- Mm ... to sell and buy our houses, because I will say I haven't met a realtor like Don and Cindy. So it's hard to say, like, how he's changed my perspective. I will say he has taught me to look at things. You know, like, you get into a nice house, like a really nice house that you've seen online, and you kinda get like, "Oh, look at all the nice shiny things," and Don's like, "Look at that. That's a foundation crack. Like, let's actually look." He opens up the cabinets and drawers and looks inside it. Mm. He asks the questions that some people don't ask. We've worked with probably, like, six or seven realtors- Mm-hmm ... at this point, and Don has definitely set the bar high for, like, what our expectations are from realtors now. I mean, he was just so helpful, hands-on, personable. I would say that Don and Cindy seem to be the most genuine realtors that I've met. They're such a sweet couple. They are the kind of people that are super sweet, but they also will get the business, like, taken care of, you know? I used to joke with him, with Don, and I was like, "He's like the dad that you don't wanna hear, 'I'm disappointed in you.'" [laughs] But like, 'cause that's kinda the vibe he gives. Like, he is a really nice guy, but if he has to, he will stick up for his clients. He truly cares about his clients. We saw that because when we bought, he fought for us, and then when we sold, he also fought for us in the other [laughs] direction. He cares about his clients' interests, and that's really it. [gentle music]