They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, what's a video worth? I don't know, 10,000, 100,000, a million. Not 100% sure. But the one thing I wanted to do today is share a home buyer story with you. I know usually everybody takes a picture and says, "My clients this, that, and a third," but I figured I'd jump on here and give you the rundown of my recent buyers and what their sale story is.

Katie and Patrick are a young couple that were looking to buy a house in Germantown, Maryland. And the big challenge was they've been in Germany for the last six years. As they reached out to me, they were still living in Germany. They have two kids that are right around two years old. And they need a place to live. And they've been looking around, searching for areas that they like. They wanted to be a little bit close to home, but a little bit further away, and right in the heart of things when it comes to being in close proximity to work and all that stuff. So they landed on Germantown. They have done their homework. And they've done all their research, and Germantown was what really did it for them.

So the next thing was is trying to help them buy a house remotely, from six hours away, in terms of time difference. I don't know how long that flight is, but it was a six-hour difference. So was, I don't want to say challenging, but it had its complexities. So there were times where it's four o'clock in the afternoon and I'm hearing things and I want to relay messages, but guess what? It's 10 o'clock at night. And two parents with two toddlers at home, I'm going to go on a limb and say, you're probably worn out by 10:00 PM. So there was some complexities there. I don't want to say challenges because I was surprised. At times, I would send stuff at 10:30 just so that they could wake up to it, have it via text or email in the morning, and Katie and Patrick would get back to me at 11:00 PM their time.

So we went through that. And the whole process, really, encompassed me going around and viewing properties, shooting videos, sending these videos to them, and sending YouTube videos to them saying, "Hey, this is this property," and doing a video walkthrough. Is it the same as being there and getting to see it, touch it, feel it, smell it? No, it's not. But it's the best that they could do from where they were at with what they had.

So, we went round and round, saw a few places, even had their mom and dad come out and check out another place that they were thinking about putting an offer on. They landed on a house that they really liked and they pulled the trigger. They just said, "You know what? We liked the video. We like everything that we see and we keep reading about in the listing. Let's just do it." So they put an offer in. Did not get the house. The seller went with someone else. So we started back on the journey, continue to look, and look, and look. And then, all of a sudden, about a week later, the house that they put an offer in that was rejected, went back on the market.

So they said, "Ooh, we still want that house. Can we see if we can get it this time?" So I called the listing agent and we had a conversation, and then I had a conversation with them and saying, "Hey, look, this is what they're looking for." They had a situation where they were under contract, but the potential buyers at that point in time had a home sale contingency. Yes, home sale contingencies are back. So they had a home sale contingency, and they had, I believe it was a one week timeframe. And I don't know all the ins and outs, but it seems like they did not perform on that home sale contingency. So the house went back active on the market and they said, "Let's shoot our shot again." This time they came back with an offer that I thought was ultra competitive, and we just kept the conversation going with the listing agent. And the thing that really played a huge part in this whole transaction was the lender.

The loan officer had done deals with the listing agent before. So he called up and they had a good talk and they started reminiscing this, that, and a third, and talked about how qualified the buyers were, and all the things that they had gone for them, and all the positive things. And next thing I know, we're in negotiations and trying to get this thing under contract.

Was it easy? It wasn't easy. There were plenty of things that the buyer wanted that the seller didn't want to budge on. And there were some things that the sellers wanted, but the buyers, they were saying, "That doesn't fit what we're looking to do." So we went and did the dance, went back and forth. Ultimately, we got it under contract. We went through all the contingency periods, the home inspection, the appraisal, and financing, and all that stuff. And at the end of the day, we were able to get this thing all the way through the process and got the deal to close.

Now, Katie and Patrick are as happy as can be. They have their beautiful home in the neighborhood that they really, really, really like, right where they want to be in Germantown. And that is their buyer story. Let me know what you think. If you got questions, what it takes, how to win a deal, all that other stuff, drop in the comments.