Sunday Conversation: Selling Lafayette Luxury Homes with Ann Newton Cane

Ann Newton Cane has real estate in her blood; she was raised on a large cattle ranch near the Oregon-California border, where her parents and siblings still live.

So far in 2021, Ann has represented buyers and sellers in more than $50 million in transactions, surpassing her record sales total for 2020. One of her 2021 transactions, representing the seller of a Happy Valley property in Lafayette, produced the highest price of any Lafayette sale ever reported on the Multiple Listing Service. Ann has become the largest sales producer in the Golden Gate Sotheby’s Lafayette Office.

Ann’s professional career before real estate amply prepared her for sophisticated transactions like these. After graduating from the University of California at Davis in 1986, Ann joined the then-upstart MCI, selling telecommunications services. She raced through the sales ranks, earning every MCI honor possible for taking business away from the behemoth AT&T. She remained at MCI following its later merger, managing the company’s relationships with key global accounts such as Times Mirror, Nissan, First Interstate Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Amgen, and Wells Fargo Bank. Dick Notebaert, CEO of Qwest Communications (now CenturyLink) then persuaded Ann to join him as Qwest’s Director of the California region, responsible for West Coast global accounts. Ann negotiated complex transactions with these sophisticated businesses and others.

Episode Highlights Here:

Ann:

Basically, knowing your client and what they’re looking for and not trying to sell them something.

Brett:

What’s been your number one secret to selling luxury real estate in the Bay Area?

Ann:

Knowing your client and what they’re looking for, and not trying to sell them something, but finding out exactly what they want and need. And maybe it’s not always what you need. But what you can have a huge difference there.

Brett:

So talk about that nuance there. And what are the one or two questions that helped you to pull that out so that the client can understand that?

Ann:

Well, I sold a client more than $8.8 million house last week. And he looked at me and said, right before he bought the house, my wife and I, only two of us, our kids are all gone. We don’t need this. And I looked him straight in the eye. And I said You know what need is not the answer here. You’ve worked hard, and you can have it.

Brett:

That’s beautiful. So knowing the nuance and helping people is like a psychologist sometimes. Right? And giving them permission to be rewarded for what they were taught. Is that a fair summary

Ann:

so far? Exactly what I was trying to tell him.

Brett:

So when you first meet with the client for the first time, what are the top questions you found to ask to get to know them and understand what their needs and wants are,

Ann:

I always start by Telling me a little bit about yourself. Tell me this is a key one, which you started with, where were you raised because then you know exactly what they’re going to look for. And people buy luxury homes off on where they were raised, which is wild. I know that sounds crazy. But I just sold a $6 million absolutely beautiful home to this young couple with a baby. And the woman walked in, and she said, Oh my God, this looks just like, where I was raised. The house looks the same. It has a beautiful yard in front, I knew she was gonna buy that house, her husband didn’t know he was gonna buy that house, but I knew they were.

Brett:

That’s fantastic. So connecting, the dots are connecting the past to the future or the present. And helping them to see that that’s, that’s where they were raised. That’s fascinating. So, if you’ve raised, like maybe on a more of a farm or rural area versus the city versus, you know, different parts of the US, what are some of those nuances that you’re always trying to pull out?

Ann:

That’s exactly I’m trying to figure out what they enjoyed about their lifestyle as a child. And usually, they’re gonna go back to that, whether it is a ranch, or rather than an apartment building in New York City, they’re going to end up going back to that same type of lifestyle since they can afford it.

Brett:

So maybe that’s the question, What did you most enjoy about where you grew up? And the environment that you grew up in? And maybe connecting that nuance to this house that you’re selling? Is that a fair thought or summary on that?

Ann:

Yeah, you picked up on it right off the bat. Okay, excellent

Brett:

So that’s kind of the first secret. Okay, so now talking about the execution of this. So now you got to go to bat for your clients. And you’ve got to be able to negotiate and either on the buy side or the sell side. So what are some of the top ways you’ve learned to negotiate for your clients? Well,

Ann:

I’m a listing agent more so than I’m buying agent. And I don’t know how that happened, but it just did. And so I’m always trying to negotiate and figure out what when someone walks in the house to look at my listing, what they’re looking for, and trying to figure out how I’m going to be able to satisfy their needs, what they want, with my listing

Brett:

Absolutely. Now talking about that. So when there’s, you know, 10 amazing things about the listing? Are you picking the one or two most applicable to that buyer? Are you giving them all your time?

Ann:

trying to give them all 10? And then focus in on what’s important to that I want to show them all of them because you never know what they’re going to pick up on can usually figure that out pretty quickly.

Brett:

How do you know when you’ve picked up on the one that connects me? You mentioned that one with the gal who said, Oh, I mean, she laid it out for this is like my house I grew up I mean, you’re looking for that emotional connection? Or what is it that you’re looking forward to? To figure that out,

Ann:

the person will usually ask many questions about something they’re interested in. If they don’t ask a question, you know, that’s probably not hitting their buttons. But once they start asking a question, then you know, okay, they’re interested. The more questions you get, the hotter the topic.

Brett:

What’s the one thing that you’ve learned along the years to make sure that you don’t either make that mistake or you prepare your client for to, to manage and help to set expectations because you’re selling, you know, 510 $15 million houses, these are big deals, big opportunities, and, you know, high stakes environments. So what are the things that you’re helping to prepare and then help manage those expectations?

Ann:

This might sound crazy, but I always try to bring the negative up and make sure that the person on the other side understands all of the negatives about To home, and then talk about the positives. Because if you tell them something negative, they’re usually okay with it before you sell the house, but they’re really upset after you sell the house. So I want to get that all out on the table, make sure they completely know everything about it. And then it usually turns into a pretty positive solution.

Brett:

I think there’s so much wisdom there, right? Where if you can also help you to qualify the buyer, right? And that, you know, this is not for you if it’s 123 These are the worst things. And if they could say, Okay, well, I’m okay with that. Those aren’t that negative to me. Okay, and let’s go move forward. Because I imagine you have a lot of people trying to either talk to you or make offers or go through you know, and you’ve got to focus on growing the business and looking at the highest and best opportunity for your client.

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About Ann Newton Cane

Ann Newton Cane has real estate in her blood; she was raised on a large cattle ranch near the Oregon-California border, where her parents and siblings still live.