Should You Sleep in a House Before Buying It? A Realtor’s Honest Take

Jennifer Carlson (00:00)
whenever I have clients that are looking to buy like a Airbnb, I always tell them, try to come rent it for a few days and stay the night, which is something that I think that may be weird, but I think we should normalize this in the real estate industry people. When you’re buying a house during your inspection period, you should be allowed to stay the night there.

Quentin Edmonds (00:10)
Mmm.

Hmm.

Jennifer Carlson (00:27)
You should be allowed to stay their night there like any other inspection. So you can feel the energy that those walls hold

Quentin Edmonds (02:05)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited about my guest. There’s an instant synergy between me and my guest on just things that’s at a deep level that I feel like maybe we’re called to, different ways that we’re wired, kind of outside of this normal real estate thing, just with us connecting with people and connecting with stories. If you’ve watched me enough,

You know the premium that I put on stories and people sharing their stories. This is why I love doing what I do because I love to connect with people and get their perspective and get their narrative or stories about their life. And so this woman, she thrives on stories as well. But if she’s going to get into that, I’ll let her get into that. But just as far as the real estate side, she’s an owner operator. She owns a small, a I a boutique. I ain’t gonna call this mama say I own a boutique.

⁓ which she’s helping their clients and I just love her outlook, her perspective. And so I’m so excited to get to know more and introduce you all to Ms. Jennifer Carlson. Ms. Jennifer, how you doing today, ma’am?

Jennifer Carlson (03:13)
Hello, thank you for having me, Q.

Quentin Edmonds (03:16)
Absolutely. So glad you’re here and listen, this is what I want to do. I want to dive into what’s your main focus these days, right? So I want you to tell us what your main focus is these days. If you want to give us a little bit of an origin story of how you got into real estate, we love origin stories. And then if you don’t mind, tell us what part of the world you’re in, what operating markets are operating in. And so Ms. Jennifer, ma’am, you have the floor.

Jennifer Carlson (03:40)
Awesome. Thank you. So I own a boutique real estate firm in Pinehurst, North Carolina. And Pinehurst is a resort town. We were founded in the late 1800s ⁓ by a very popular soda businessman, Mr. Tufts. And this is where I sell real estate. We are the home of golf. We host US Opens. We have over 40 golf

courses in our county. And so I do dabble in selling of the real estate at the golf communities, but I do not play real estate yet. I do not play golf yet. my God. ⁓ Sorry. And audience, I’m super nervous. This is the first time I’ve been on a podcast. So if I get jittery, I apologize. ⁓ Yeah. So military family, four children,

All daughters, husband’s still active duty military. We’ve lived in the UK, ⁓ traveled quite extensively. And I just spend my days with taking my kids to sports and running a successful business. that’s where you’ll find me. ⁓ and PTA mom.

I’m also the vice president on our PTA at our school.

Quentin Edmonds (05:53)
⁓ wow. Thank you for sharing. Again, so many synergies. My wife too has been a PTA mom, been president, been vice president. So I’ve been intricately involved with events that she’s thrown, big ideas that she do for the community, being on a grill, fixing stuff up, fixing up little packages. So hats off to you, PTA mom.

hats off to you, four daughters, hats off to you, your husband being active duty. Right now, I just wanna give you your flowers. Thank you for all that you do for your community, for your family. Really appreciate you. And so thank you so much. Thank you for sharing about your journey and where you are now. I have a scene where I say destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning as we go through life,

every stage, every step, every destination that we hit, there are things that we pick up and make us who we are today. Right. And so I would love to know, as you have traveled on destiny, what are some things that you have picked up that kind of make you the person you are today? Have you learned, you know, resiliency, discipline? What are the things that you’ve picked up over your life that makes you the business woman and the woman you are today?

Jennifer Carlson (07:16)
Well, I’m sure I’m not the only person that’s ever been on your show that grew up in trauma. ⁓ But that is what led me to be the strong human I am now. ⁓ Adversity. So the whole sob story, abuse, single family, single mother, yada, yada, yada. Right. And ⁓ I took all of that and never wanted to be in that place.

I never wanted a bill collector to call me. I never wanted to have my lights shut off. I never wanted to worry about money. And I’ve worked hard my whole life. I started with a newspaper route when I was like 11 or 12 years old and built that up. That’s how I paid for my clothes and my extra activities. And then from there, I just never stopped working.

And I would say I have a outlook on life that is all of these bad things can happen to you. And if you’re out there listening, thing I always tell people is don’t let it define you. Don’t let that be your story. So I could have taken all of those disappointments and hurts and abuse.

And let that be the reason that I didn’t accomplish anything in my life. But instead I said, I don’t want to be that. And I’m going to write my own damn story. And I have a successful marriage and pretty good kids. mean, they do, they do some messed up stuff sometimes, you know, but all it’s curiosity all children do. And so I just, you know, I think that the life I’m building is where I’m supposed to be.

Quentin Edmonds (09:13)
Mmm.

Jennifer Carlson (09:14)
But I will tell you something. ⁓ Today I was reading questions that people ask on podcasts, right? And this is my first podcast. So I’ve been just reading and listening and on YouTube and trying to prepare myself so I didn’t get so nervous and freak out. ⁓ And it was saying that like top questions they ask on podcasts are about failures. And I started thinking about failures and how anything that I really

Quentin Edmonds (09:16)
Please do.

Jennifer Carlson (09:44)
missed. I didn’t consider a failure. I just considered it as like education, right? And then I looked and I’m like, I don’t think I’ve had any huge ones. ⁓ And so maybe I need to change that this year, maybe I need to try more things. So I get some more failures under my belt. ⁓ So that just, I don’t know why that came up, but if anybody’s out there and there’s something that you’re looking forward to doing, and you’re maybe a little fearful,

You might fail, but it’s not bad because failure is how you get to where you’re trying to go.

Quentin Edmonds (10:58)
Ms. Jennifer, thank you so much for sharing. ⁓ I actually have a phrase that I say that I actually thought of just interviewing people like yourself, successful people. A phrase came to me and I’ve been saying it quite often now is that failure is fertilizer. Failure is fertilizer. And when you think about fertilizer, of course things grow in fertilizer, but also

Most fertilizers, some fertilizers are literally dumb. It’s mess, it’s poop, right? And so it’s messy. It’s dirty. It’s smelly. So sometimes we go through life and go through our trials, traumas, ups and downs. Some of these things are messy, but it’s the fertilizer to where things grow out of. And so…

I applaud you for being more curious, wanting to maybe take more risks. But I will humbly submit that if I would examine your life, you probably had enough failure because I am looking at somebody who has grown to where you are now. I am looking at somebody who’s came to a certain amount of mess, dung, excuse my language, I’ve never said this before in my podcast, but I’m gonna say it now, shit.

And I want to humbly submit to you that I think you probably had had enough failure and I think this is why you have a successful marriage. This is why you have four beautiful curious kids who are doing kid things, right? Who are actively doing kid things. And this is also why you have a boutique that’s being successful. And so I would say you had enough failure, but I do understand your mindset of wanting to be more curious, you know, taking more risks.

In a sense because when I say this I’m gonna I’m gonna frame it right failure is not an option and when I say that I don’t mean in a sense where you got a Show more grit when I say failure is not an option meaning because of our mindset We will not fail all it’s gonna do is fertilize this. That’s all it’s gonna do It’s not gonna fail us. It’s not gonna cause us to give up. It’s just gonna cause me to grow more That’s all it’s gonna do. So when I say failure is not an option. That’s what I mean

It’s not an option because it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s growing me. That’s what it does. It’s giving me your nutrients that I need. And so I hear you in, and I think you have failed enough, but I think there is more failure to come, which is a great thing in the way that I framed it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. And so I’m excited about what you’re doing and I want to learn more about what you’re doing. I want to know what are your next goals? Like when it comes to your business.

Or when it comes to you, when it comes to life, when it comes to new adventures, I don’t know. But what are your next goals in life? What are you looking to solve or scale next?

Jennifer Carlson (13:59)
So I started a passion project. this year I joined a mastermind with 30 brilliant top performers from all over the world. And they encouraged me to go ahead and jump in and do my passion project. before I reveal that, how I got here was

Basically through ⁓ all the years in real estate, I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing people. And what I’ve noticed recently is more people are focused on energy that a house brings. They ask more questions about ⁓ if somebody passed away in it, you know, are the sellers getting divorced? Like what type of energy a home holds? And especially for my out of town buyers.

And

whenever I have clients that are looking to buy like a Airbnb, I always tell them, try to come rent it for a few days and stay the night, which is something that I think that may be weird, but I think we should normalize this in the real estate industry people. When you’re buying a house during your inspection period, you should be allowed to stay the night there.

Quentin Edmonds (15:08)
Mmm.

Hmm.

Jennifer Carlson (16:05)
You should be allowed to stay their night there like any other inspection. So you can feel the energy that those walls hold

because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had clients move into a home and the energy is just off. my excitement is my new passion project, the haunted realtor podcast. And I’m going to take all of my years of real estate.

Quentin Edmonds (16:12)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Carlson (16:34)
and how I grew up in a haunted house. And I’m going to invite people to tell their lived experiences, explore historic homes. ⁓ I’m looking to have, you know, psychologist on, like I want to have a psychologist on the nurse psychiatrist on that comes on and tells me this is how you know your house is haunted or this is how you know you’re best shit crazy. Right? Like, ⁓

I’d like to have mediums on and healers on and energy gurus on because now it used to be kind of hush-hush, but now it’s, think people are more eccentric, right? And they understand that there’s all this energy that flows through everything. So if you’re spending the most money you’ve ever spent on a home, don’t you want to know what that energy is? Don’t you want to know what those stories are?

you know, North Carolina, it’s not mandatory to tell somebody if, if somebody died in the house, right? You don’t have to disclose it, but if you’re going to put yourself in a home, wouldn’t you want to know what that, that energy feels like to make sure that your, your space is protected, ⁓ that you mesh well, that everything flows, that you feel the best you can feel in that space. Right. So.

Quentin Edmonds (18:01)
Hmm.

Jennifer Carlson (18:03)
That is my new goal for this year is to stop talking about it and actually do it. It’s been on my mind since 2019 and I let fear hold me back.

Quentin Edmonds (18:16)
⁓ thank you for sharing. I’m so excited for you. Of course we heard this term if these balls could talk, right? Like if these balls could talk, right? And I love it. You always say if you talk about date the rape, well, how about we date the house, right? Like I love the idea of us being able to sleep over in the house to feel the energy because I don’t, know, everybody’s not like you and I, right? Everybody may not believe in

energy and all these different things.

Karma, however, I think we all have experienced times, unexplainably, where like the hairs on our arms just start to stand up, right? And I mean, we can talk to neuroscientists, we can talk to different people. There are reasons why these things happen, right? And one of the reasons could be because there’s an energy around you that you can sense.

finger on it, you can’t name it, but you can sense it. But there are people like you and I that know and can sense energy and feel different things that’s going on. And so I’ll just stop there because of course, everybody’s not gonna believe what we’re saying. But for the sake of those that do, I love the idea of ⁓ the haunted realtor. I love the idea of letting people tell their own narrative.

their own story their own lived experience You cannot deny somebody a fair lived experience. You don’t have to agree cool Maybe you won’t want to be part of that conversation But for those that do want to be part of that conversation But those that have the live experience where what they saying add up. I think it’s a phenomenal idea I think it’s much needed I think it’s needed and within this space because you’re talking about living in a place for 30 years for a lifetime Why in the world not have the chance?

to give me an overnight experience if I’m going to be living here, my kids here, like, come on, like, let’s see if this thing feels right. And so I love it. And hats off to the woman mastermind that you joined. Of course, we know that the playing field is different for women in real estate. We know it, you know, we may not want to talk about it, but I have enough women talking about it that know that is real. I’m listening to their lived experience. And so

And I’m grateful that you found your common unity to kind of push you past your fears. And that’s what I want to talk about a little bit is relationships. I want to talk about how has relationships impacted you? Do you have a premium on building healthy relationships in business? And if so, what is like your relationship style? How do you go about building these relationships?

Jennifer Carlson (21:10)
So I try to make clients for life and it’s hard. people don’t talk about it enough, but they’re like, real estate engine still has opened the door, but they don’t understand like the late nights of research. before I go into any house, spend tons of time researching everything from the roof to how many owners it’s had. And, ⁓ and so, you know, we, it’s just like, realtor’s just open the door, but.

You have to understand when you’re one-on-one with the client and you’re building that relationship, you spend time with them like they’re your best friend. ⁓ At least I do. Right. I, I have built my business that way of trying to make my clients, even though they know I’m busy trying to make them feel like they’re my only client. And that is a very hard struggle because for real estate, you’re currently in deals, right?

You’re out showing and working on finding properties, but then you have the other deals that are under contract. So you’re attending, I attend all my inspections and, ⁓ you know, help with designing and all of these other things. And then I’m also trying to get my pipeline full so that I have real estate transactions after that. So the amount of communication.

you know, that goes into building the relationship starts to look different when you close. And I always tell my clients like, I want to be your agent for life. So I want to treat you like nobody else has treated you and be in depth. And I want you to refer me to friends and family and feel good that I’m going to take care of them. But you have to understand once the deal closes, it’s not that I disappear. It’s that

the next person I’m trying to make them feel like they are the only one for me. Right. And so it becomes this con that’s where I struggle because ⁓ I build very good relationships when we’re going through the process of buying or selling a home, but constantly having to generate new business. You have to, you can only put your energy in so many things and being and staying sane. Right. Like

being the mom and the wife and you have a lot of plates and it’s not always going to be a 50 50, right? Like something’s always going to give there’s never a perfect balance. ⁓ so moms don’t beat yourself up. Dads don’t beat yourself up. There’s never a perfect balance. There’s always going to be a give and a take. And I’ve learned that it’s just juggling. So with clients, like I spend a lot of time building relationships. And even after it closes, if they get a weird bill,

or a weird call, or they have a question, anything that has to do with their home, they always know that I am available to them. And I have had a few that I’ve turned into absolutely best friends. They’re like family. I had a huge Christmas party. I had Santa here, and I had a magician the first time ever. It was really cool. And we had a photographer, and they got

their kids pictures with Santa and at my house, my haunted house, by the way. And, you know, they all came. And so I tell them, we’re not going to see each other all the time now, but we’re not broke up, you know, like, I’m still going to invite you to events. So relationship building for me has been, it’s been a struggle because I’m also, ⁓ I’m sure you can tell like I have a lot of energy, but after I integrate,

I’m very tired.

Quentin Edmonds (25:03)
Yes. ⁓ When I tell you I understand you people, it’s a little transparent moment. People think I am a people person and I love connecting with people, but people drain me because I am a classic introvert. And so I recharge by myself. So I understand like I love building relationships. I always say that my purpose is to unite and my passion is to storytelling. So my purpose is to connect and unite with people. That’s my purpose. That’s what I do.

And I use storytelling to do it. But like you said afterwards, I am drained. And so I love the way that you put boundaries around building relationships. There’s a study that says multi-task, multi- can’t get the word out. when you do more than one thing at a time. I don’t know why I can’t get this word out. Multi-tasking. I don’t know why I can’t get that out. Yeah. I don’t know why I can’t get it out. But multi-tasking is a myth.

multitasking, is a study that says almost like driving inebriated because when you try to do more than one thing, you are not given the one thing your focus. And so my wife and I have a saying that says your presence is a present. So I love your approach to relationships because you’re given that relationship at that time. You’re a singular focus. I’m relating here. I’m building with you. You’re to feel like I’m your best friend.

But when it’s time to move on to the next relationship, I’m not casting you aside. It’s just that that person is now owed my total presence. They’re owed my focus on them. Just like with your kids, with your husband. When it’s daddy time, kids, I love y’all. But it’s daddy time. When it’s kids time, y’all. it’s what? Listen, I can’t, listen, y’all, I’m dealing with this right here. So I love your approach to relationship. I love you putting boundaries around relationships. And I know.

You’re being effective because people feel like you are that best friend when they’re in front of you. So that lets me know that you’re zeroly focused on them. And so keep up, keep what you, know, keep doing what you’re doing. I know, I know it’s not particularly easy. If you’re anything like me, sometimes because you care about people, sometimes you can second guess and try to do too much and be there for everybody, but keep doing what you’re Keep being there for yourself. So glad you’re going after your passion project.

Because this is going to fulfill you and honestly, this won’t fulfill people who never even had anything like what you’re doing exists. Like I don’t know if anything that you’re doing exists and I’m a researcher. And so it may be somewhere, you know, out there, but I’ve never heard of you for it. So I know what’s much needed. And so I just want to thank you for being here. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can I get in contact with you?

Jennifer Carlson (27:58)
Jennifer Carlson, Pinehurst, North Carolina. I’ll show up. Instagram, my personal handle is local Jenn with two Ns, J-E-N-N, local Jenn. It’s a little racy. I do swear a lot, military brat. And if you are interested in the new show, we will be launching in approximately a week and a half the Haunted Realtor podcast.

on Instagram, Haunted Realtor Podcast. And that’s how you can find me.

Quentin Edmonds (28:28)
Well, listen, Miss Jennifer, three things. One, definitely thank you for your time because time is a precious commodity. You can be using this time to make money, to be with your kids, to be with your husband. So definitely thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Two, definitely thank you for your story. You heard me say I put a premium on people’s stories. So thank you for the gift of your transparency, the gift of your vulnerability, your gift of your authenticity. I appreciate that. Thank you for your story.

And also thank you for your perspective. Thank you for your mindset, the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you being here today.

Jennifer Carlson (29:07)
Thank you. Thanks for my first host. And you eased me right into it. I didn’t panic.

Quentin Edmonds (29:16)
Not at all. You did a great job. You was a phenomenal guest. No doubt you’re going to be a phenomenal host. So again, thank you for being here today. Thank you. Absolutely. Y’all can’t tell me this was not a valuable conversation. You did not tell me it wasn’t fresh, new, authentic, something you haven’t heard before. And you can’t tell me you didn’t get nuggets from it. So definitely check out Miss Jennifer for sure. Look in the show notes, get in contact with her. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you.

We’re gonna continue to bring up amazing people just like Ms. Jennifer. So I thank you again, ma’am and to everyone else. Y’all have a phenomenal day.