“I just couldn't believe how easy they made it look.”
Garrett and Maggie Malcom are longtime friends of The Zachos Team who trusted us with their first home purchase. We sat down with them to find out more about the process and how it felt to reach a longtime goal.
“Maggie and I actually moved in with her parents,” Garrett explained. “When we moved out, I already knew that there was no chance I wanted to rent anymore. I wanted a place of my own, something to start building because it takes so long to pay that stuff off. I wanted to go ahead and get into a house that's mine that I can do with as I please, as soon as possible. And especially with the prices of rent and all that, I knew mortgages are so much more affordable compared to rent prices. So that was another really big factor for us.”
“Yeah, we were just in a different stage of life and we were ready to do something on our own,” Maggie adds. “We started looking at houses two or three weeks after we got engaged. So as life was moving forward, we figured it was the right time to start looking for something.”
The two cite their longtime knowledge of The Zachos Team as a big reason why they decided to take the leap.
“We really enjoyed getting to see Paul and Dee Dee a lot,” Garrett said. “Paul is so funny and Dee Dee is so upbeat and positive that it was always a joy to see them. And since Maggie's family knows them, there was already that kind of rapport there that made it very disarming compared to if we had some random new Realtors that we were dealing with.”
“How personable and knowledgeable they are was definitely a favorite for me,” Maggie said. “My mom has been friends with them for so long and I'd always known that they were Realtors. So as soon as we were starting to look for a house, it was just an easy choice that we would choose to work with them. And yeah, they were just great.”
“What I liked most about working with them is that they gave it to us straight, they gave us the honest opinion. If the roof looked a little off, if the floor looked a little off, they would just be totally up front and say, ‘hey, I'm going to be totally honest with you, these are my thoughts. If I was the one looking at this house to buy it, this is what I would think.’”
While The Zachos Team might be fun to work with, that doesn’t mean we can’t get down to business when it comes to getting things done.
“They made everything so much easier,” Garrett said. “I know there was so much complicated stuff going on behind the scenes, but they made it so where I really didn't have to do much other than find a house, point towards it, and say ‘that's where I want to go check out.’ And they would set it up. And then whenever I finally picked a house, I just said this is what I want to offer and they made it happen.”
When dealing with conflicting feelings, the two agreed that preparation and dialing in on what you really want in a house goes a long way.
“One thing that we probably made a big mistake on is that we both had very opposite things that we wanted,” Garrett explained. “If I wanted something one way, she wanted something the other. And we did get into kind of a habit at first of going to see several different houses that were all very different. So if you’re by yourself, then go nuts with it. But if you have a spouse, really sit down beforehand and work out exactly what you're looking for, so that you're not running around looking at 30, 40 different houses.”
“Something that Paul was telling us as we were going to look at houses that I totally agree with is to have things you look for that you absolutely have to have in a house, things where you can kind of have a little bit of wiggle room, and things that you just like. And it's easier to narrow down houses where if it has things that you absolutely love, that's what you would gravitate more towards instead of just not liking something because of the color of a room, you know, things that are easily changeable,” Maggie said.
But at the end of the day, our reputation and willingness to make the right moves to satisfy our clients goes a long way.
“As long as I've known about them, I've known that they've been Realtors. It's just so much easier to work with people that your family really admire and have nothing but good things to say about,” Maggie said.
“So they were our first choice. They were the only people that we worked with. They were the first people we called. They're definitely the only people we would use moving forward, too. They just made everything so fun and easy. And we figured it would be taxing and boring trying to go and look at houses, but they made it such a good time. And it just felt like we were with our own family going to look at houses.”
Written by Paul Zachos III