As a lifelong Minnesota sports fan, being the Twin Cities Next Move Team Member has been a truly remarkable experience. Last summer I was, called upon to help one of the Minnesota Timberwolves find a great house after spending his first year in Minnesota in a small apartment. With a large family from the west coast- his goal was to find a home big enough to accommodate visiting family members. He wants to give his guests a place they could call home and not have to stay in a hotel. With COVID running wild across the country it became more important to find the perfect house quickly.
In working with professional athletes a majority of the communication is with their agency directly and specifically the Client Care Manager assigned to the athlete. Throughout the whole process, I would estimate only 5% of the communication was with the athlete. The great part about that is my role along with the agency is to ensure the experience is simple, seamless, and prompt with the athlete so he can focus on what he does best- and that’s play ball. If we can take care of everything else- they will be happy. What I learned through the experience was – provide exceptional communication, expectations, and service to the agency- and we will have a client for life and everyone wins.
The Client Care Manager gave us very specific criteria of the players’ needs and wants – which included 4-5 bedrooms, at least 3 bathrooms, $4,000 a month budget, within 20 minutes of the stadium, flexible terms if he should get traded or the season gets canceled and lastly furnished. You would think in a market of 3.4 million people, we could find many homes that would fit these criteria. When we began to look, I think there were only 4 listed in our Multiple Listing Service. We had to get creative and find other avenues. I began to network with every luxury agent I knew and scoured every rental website in the Twin Cities to find a match. One of the biggest challenges in our market is that it’s rare to find a single-family home for lease that’s furnished. In addition, because the rental market continues to be hot, we don’t find many landlords who are willing to be flexible with a termination clause in the lease.
© Next Move Member
© Next Move Member
Over the next few weeks, we looked at about a half dozen properties – until we finally found the “right” home for our client. As a fan, I found that spending time with a professional athlete was fun and exciting, yet as a professional what was great to learn is that he was just like everyone else; wanting to be taken care of, not worry about the process and have a trusting guide to find a great home!
After finding the right property, the real work began to negotiate the deal so the lease terms were a win-win for all. This process was different than a traditional real estate transaction whereas it’s back and forth with the Realtors involved. In this case, it was back and forth with the Client Care Manager, who went back and forth with myself and the agency’s legal team. Gratefully we were able to get it done where all parties were happy.
The spirit in which I work, which is a great partnership with Next Move is to earn the right to be your real estate resource for life. With that in mind, my role didn’t end once our client moved in; in fact, I was able to help coordinate other services including snow/lawn care, audio/video installation as well as cleaning services for our client. We ensure to go above and beyond for our clients and do whatever we can to make sure they can focus on the game they love while we focus on what we love; being the best Realtors across the country, which is what being a part of Next Move is all about.