Last month, 30 years ago, Marty and I started our careers in real estate. Our initial idea was to sell real estate part-time and be able to take more time off as our previous business did not allow us much free time. Little did we know what we signed up for! While our dreams of more time off were not realized, we had a thriving business in the making. Our days were filled with helping our clients buy and sell homes and our nights were filled with stuffing envelopes and licking stamps for our marketing materials. There were no services for mailings back then. We just did it ourselves. It became a family affair around the TV, my mother and our kids joining in. We also walked our neighborhood, which was in Del Ray at that time, to get our name in the community and delivered pumpkins at Halloween, candy canes in December and calendars at the start of the new year.

Thirty years ago, there were no online listings! New listings were printed out on a dot matrix printer. No pictures, just an address, and a bare-bones description. Our job was to preview listings for our buyers and then show them our suggestions about how to make it their home. Signatures via fax machines were just deemed acceptable when we started but we often still used a telegram-type service to relay terms. Offers were presented in person to the seller and the listing agent often at the seller’s home. If there were multiple offers agents would be on a landline to their buyers to tell them how many agents were there and if they wanted to make changes.

So much has changed since 1992, including our daughter Allison officially joining the business in 2008 and becoming our partner in 2012. But since our humble beginnings, one thing has not changed. Our commitment to the clients of the Goodhart Group. Our goal has always been to deliver excellent service. They have returned the favor by referring friends and family, buying and selling multiple properties with us, and their now grown-up children buying and selling with us.

We can’t thank you enough for your loyalty, your kindness, and your friendship. Here’s to another thirty years; and while we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, Marty and I will let Allison take the helm for most of it!

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