Even though June is National Homeownership Month, experience has taught Dixon-area REALTOR® Vicky Turner that helping consumers buy or sell their homes is a year-round labor of love. Perhaps that’s why she’s devoted more than 30 years to the real estate profession.

So, when the National Association of REALTORS® asked members to share their thoughts about the value of REALTORS®, the Crawford Realty broker was happy to submit her own essay. She believes that homeownership builds strong communities and that REALTORS® are the key to homeownership.

“We are a lifetime resource for our clients, from the moment we first counsel our buyers or sellers,” Turner says. “We need to share our value in every conversation we have, every question we answer, every concern they share.

“REALTORS® know how to prepare homes for the market, how to price homes appropriately and how to adapt to unexpected developments in a complex process,” she says. “REALTORS® understand the value of private property rights, advocate to preserve those rights and stay up to date on the latest industry developments, local government procedures, financing options and more. As REALTORS® we should not underestimate what we bring to the table and neither should our clients.”

Here is Turner’s essay:

June is a great time to share who we R®!

So where to begin, I, like many and most of my fellow REALTORS® work diligently day to day to assist buyers, sellers and investors in our dedicated field of real estate, but that is just part of who we R®.

Our daily lives include educating our clients on the process.  I tell my clients from our initial consultation, that my job is to assist them in being the best consumer possible. That every step of the way, and they may not realize it, but our conversations, each showing is a learning opportunity, the market conditions, lending terms, home inspection expectations, and so much more- it all work towards them feeling confident about the biggest purchase of their lives as well as the knowledge they gather from this journey. These discussions start early, and in many cases never end. REALTORS® are a lifetime resource for our clients for contractors, market updates, loan/banking changes, as well as a community ambassador/resource.

Right now, I am working on selling a home that a veteran owns to a fellow veteran. All of you are well aware of the complexities of the current market, nationwide, and add to the mix, getting a VA offer accepted in this very competitive and often “cash is king” market. This veteran was willing to do his very best to assist another veteran in getting into a new home. I am so proud of our advocacy work and hope to continue to work in a public campaign promoting and assisting getting VA offers accepted. We support our veterans, and this is a way, we can do even more! And maybe the biggest way we can support our veterans!

From first time home buyers to seasoned investors, we wear many hats.

One of the hats I wear most proudly, is my involvement in my community. I strongly believe that home ownership builds strong communities and how best to serve our communities is by giving back- and I know we do.

I believe from A to Z our members have involvement, dedication, time, knowledge, energy and financial support with every organization, every cause, every local, state or national boards – we are involved, and REALTORS® give back. I believe you would be hard pressed to find one entity that we don’t touch is some way. In Illinois, we celebrated a bicentennial and worked on historic projects in each of our association’s communities- with a phrase of “REALTORS® working with heart in every Community” – we wanted each of our local associations to find projects in their communities, no one knows a community better than our local REALTORS® and find they did. They knew what projects would make a difference. And let me say, they ran with these projects, making a big impact throughout the entire state of Illinois.

REALTORS® are Girl Scout leaders, Chamber members, Food Pantry workers and the list goes on and on, again, what don’t we do, we give of our hearts, time and energy daily! Just look at our Good Neighbor Program, I am blown away by those stories each and every year!

I commend all of you for making a difference in every community and with each client you assist!

Thank you, and that’s who we R®!

Vicky Turner

GRI, CRS, SRS, C2Excellence, EPro