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.