Talking real sales
Paul Clinton
Valerie Torelli goes the extra distance when she lists a house for
sale.
Torelli, who is arguably Costa Mesa’s No. 1 real estate agent,
doesn’t shy from packing up clutter to open up a kitchen or living
room, buying flowers and aromatic candles to spruce up an entryway or
even purchasing furniture to upgrade a threadbare living room.
It’s all about the presentation, Torelli says.
And it’s important enough to add a few thousand dollars to the
sale price of a home.
It usually starts when Torelli sits down with the seller for basic
tidying-up activities.
“We just sit together and pick up the house,” Torelli said. “It’s
a bonding process. I get to know the client better.”
Torelli has been selling homes in Costa Mesa since 1984 and can
recite chapter and verse about which owners bought specific homes
around the city.
Last week, Torelli closed escrow on a home in the 2900 block of
Mindanao Drive in Mesa Verde for $673,000. She tore out a row of
overgrown hedges lining the front of the house and planted flowers.
She also helped owner Windell Stout, 33, clean up a considerable mess
inside.
“You start living in a house and you don’t see the mess,” Stout
said. “The first people that walked in bought the house.”
Cleaning up the mess, Torelli said, can add more than 10% to a
home’s sales price. A neat house makes a much better impression.
“You have five seconds to sell the house,” Torelli said. “I need
the ‘Oh yeah’ or the ‘Oh wow.’”
Torelli, who has run Mesa Verde-based Torelli Realty since 1986,
is coming off an impressive run of sales. In May, she sold 16 homes.
Between Oct. 1, 2001 and Sept. 30, 2002, Torelli sold 47 homes,
Real Data Strategies Inc. has reported. She sold $21 million worth of
homes in the same period. Those were both at least 80% more than her
nearest competitor, the group reported.
Torelli, 49, began her career working in a property management
company. To break in to the real estate industry, she produced
black-and-white fliers with professionally photographed homes.
Torelli advised her clients to dismiss her if she didn’t show results
within one week.
Few did.
In 1984, she won a job at Select Properties, a now extant local
company. Two years later, Torelli went out on her own, where she has
operated ever since.
* Got an interesting tidbit or story idea about a local business?
E-mail it to Daily Pilot business reporter Paul Clinton at
paul.clinton@latimes.com.
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