Tell Me Your Real Estate Story: Stammens List $340K Pristine Plano Home in Search of Rural Bliss

Thad Stammen is a family man. Nothing supports that notion more than Stammen’s willingness to move his family from their pristine Highlands of Preston Ridge home in Plano to the more secluded and rural areas of Collin County. They love their home, and the schools (Hightower Elementary, Frankford Middle, Shepton, Plano West) and the location: It’s near the Park and Preston shopping center, and the neighborhood surrounding 4304 Kingsbury is easily traversed via its many bike paths.

Here, Thammen tells us his real estate story …

Who is your agent? Gillian Cunningham with the Prestique Realty Team

Why are you moving? To be closer to my daughter’s stables where she keeps her horse. We like the idea of small schools and being out near “country” living, but it will be hard to leave our awesome neighborhood, schools, and wonderful neighbors!

How long has your home been on the market? Seven days (as of Thursday). No offers yet but lots of showings already!

Putting a home on the market can be nervewracking! What did you do to make the process smoother? We de-cluttered and are storing a bunch of our stuff in a PODS. We also had our fence stained, cleaned our carpets, painted our master bedroom and bath a more neutral color, got some new windows, and did some other paint touch-ups. We spent about a month getting it ready to be on the market. Getting a pre-inspection helped us identify areas we needed to focus on prepping for the sale process. Plus, our agent, Gillian, was extremely helpful in identifying ways we could make our house more presentable. The feedback we’ve gotten from the showings has been very positive, and our de-cluttering paid off in positive impressions.

What are your best marketing tricks? Trying to use some social media tools lightly. Our real estate agent is marketing us across every possible platform she can find.

What shocked you about the sales process? How the Internet has been integrated into the process.  The last time we bought and sold a house was in 1999, and using the Internet to buy or sell a house was a foreign concept. Email, text messages, and automated showing services have changed the process immensely.  How in the world did real estate agents book a day of showings in the past?  The system makes things so straightforward.  Plus, sites like Realtor.com make it easier than ever for us to identify which properties we want to view.  We can eliminate properties (or add) simply by scrolling through pictures and reading the detailed overviews.  Instead of having to visit 20 houses, we filter online and then end up actually viewing 7 or 8.

What pleased you? Our real estate agent’s willingness to focus on the areas that we are interested in.  Our target location is extremely specific and, to her credit, Gillian isn’t wasting our time trying to show us houses that might tempt us to move outside of our area.  Because this is not a “need” move, we have the luxury of being very selective as to how we proceed.  She’s been great working within our framework.  We’ve heard horror stories of people whose realtors show them houses beyond their budgets or outside of their target locations.

Where are you moving? Lovejoy ISD area (Allen, Fairview, Lucas)

If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently? So far, nothing.  It’s been a great process.

Want to tell us your real estate story? Did you do a beautiful remodel to get your home on the market? Are you using unique marketing tactics? Tell us about it: email me at [email protected]!