You can receive the benefit of Lisa’s expertise and her devotion to your best interests any real estate transaction in any market, anywhere. (Yes, even if you are not buying or selling in one of Lisa’s primary markets in Florida or Colorado.) Think anywhere.
With her decades of experience and expertise, Lisa will roll up her sleeves and work to find the best agent for you anywhere—one who will meet your needs and make your real estate journey as successful and enjoyable as possible.
You get your best-fit agent, hand-picked, just for you. You hit the ground running, streamlining your process and accelerating your successful outcome.
Lisa knows what to look for. She knows what questions to ask, to be sure the agent is an excellent fit for you and perfectly up to the task. And she knows how to spot the red flags you’ll want to avoid. Her nearly 25 years as a full-time, award-winning, ethical agent will benefit you, for her many years working “in the trenches” of this profession have shown her the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Sadly, it’s out there.) She will help you avoid a mistake and align you with the best agent to serve you and help you succeed.
No other process in the real estate profession is as collaborative between agents nor as beneficial for clients as the referral process.
For seasoned full-time agents like Lisa, thoughtful referral work is a significant part of their profession, benefitting clients by creating a collaborative relationship between excellent agents who care to see you succeed and who join forces to help you do so.
Referral work is done all the time among full-time real estate professionals, because a skilled, full-time agent who can help their customers, clients, family, and friends in one market can bring significant value to all the same important people in any market, anywhere, by aligning those they care about with well-qualified, hand-picked agents in other markets.
The consummate professional receiving a referral treats referral business, the referring agent—and YOU—like gold. The referring agent has sent excellent business (your business) to the agent receiving the referral, and the receiving agent is grateful, indeed, to have received this business which they may never have had otherwise. So working with you is an honor and can even been seen as a gift. Importantly, the receiving agent knows that if they do a great job for you, the referring agent may send them more referrals. You should always expect to have nothing but the best experience with the agent who received the referral, and yes, you should expect to be treated like gold.
Agents who are REALTORS® are ethically obligated to work in your best interests—which means that the independent, up-front agreement between the agents regarding sharing compensation should have NO financial impact on the transaction from your point of view, including on any other compensatory agreements (like commission agreements) throughout the transaction. The referral process is meant only to benefit you, by having two agents caring to see you succeed, rather than only one.
For Lisa, referrals have been a passion for decades. She began referring regularly years ago in Palm Beach County, Florida, when her customers and clients would say, “Wow, we’ve loved working with you so much for our Florida real estate, we wish you could help us sell in Martha’s Vineyard.” Or… “We wish you could help us buy in New York… or New Mexico… or Hawaii.”
Lisa’s answer was as simple then as it is today: “I can help you with real estate anywhere by finding you the best agent anywhere you like and referring you.”
Think of it this way: an expert in their field who cares about your best outcome is likely the best person to help you choose another expert in the field with whom to work, even if it’s in another city or state. (Or even another country.) Lisa starts with a combination of your specific needs, your desired outcome, and your preferred pace & style; she then researches agents based on your requirements and her deep industry knowledge, finding you the best-fit, excellent agent to help you achieve your goals. Sometimes that best-fit agent is someone she already knows. Sometimes, it’s someone you’re curious about whom she interviews and vets, specifically with you and your goals in mind. And sometimes it’s someone she discovers, who is just the right agent for you.
In a nutshell, excellent referral business in real estate works like this: an expert agent who cares to see you succeed researches and handpicks another expert agent in another market who will take great care of you and help you succeed in that market.
Explore below to take a deep dive and fully understand how a real estate referral works and how it benefits you.
Referral is first and foremost a win for you:
-You have a proven expert in Lisa, looking out for you when making the referral.
-You save time—rather than wasting it with a bad-fit agent or an inexperienced agent.
-You avoid mistakes—sadly, there are many agents whose skill level or focus might be lacking, and this may not become obvious until it has harmed you and/or created a stressful problem in your transaction.
-You get to start your real estate process in the hands of a professional who has been personally selected to benefit you.
-You have Lisa’s expert insights on the best agent for any specific task; remember that the best agent to help you buy may not be the best agent to help you sell, and Lisa knows why.
-You have the agent who received the referral wanting to work extra hard to please both you and Lisa, who referred you to them with the goal of your achieving your greatest success.
-You have Lisa, the original referring agent, in the background throughout the process, checking in to help ensure your ultimate success and happiness, which she genuinely wants for you. If by chance the original chosen agent isn’t pleasing you, tell Lisa, and she will help guide you to a better-fit agent right away.
It’s important to note that Lisa might recommend a different agent to help you buy than she might recommend to help you sell, so always ask her before returning to an agent she recommended at a different time for a different purpose. This may surprise you; ask Lisa to explain why. If you keep Lisa in the loop up front when you are pondering a real estate transaction anywhere, she can advise and shed light on realities that could impact your next transaction—things that might not cross your mind, especially if your focus is on other important matters in your life, not on being a full-time real estate professional yourself.
Think about how often people choose to work with a real estate professional without knowing much if anything about that agent’s most vital professional skills.
Think for a moment about major surgery. If you moved to an unfamiliar place, knew no one there well, and suddenly needed an excellent surgeon for a high-stakes surgery, would you pick the first friendly one you meet? Would you be quick to put the scalpel in the hands of your new colleague’s cousin or golf buddy? Would you immediately go under the knife with the local surgeon who had the biggest or flashiest presence on Instagram?
Isn’t it funny that this is how many people choose a real estate professional?
Now back to that high-stakes surgery. If you could, might you ask a reputable, proven, full-time medical expert for their thoughtful recommendation? Even if that expert were in a different location and had to do some research— backed by their medical expertise— to find the best surgeon for you in your new location? Wouldn’t their decades of expertise in medicine possibly be more valuable to you in evaluating options than some flashy Instagram posts? And might their thoughtfully chosen, recommended surgeon likely be even better qualified to perform this important surgery than your new colleague’s cousin?
Of course, real estate is not surgery, but it does involve significant assets, and it is often your most important purchase or sale, for both personal and financial reasons. Why knowingly risk any aspect of such an important transaction to chance, to the suggestions of a well-meaning friend who is not an experienced real estate professional themselves, to your new colleague’s cousin, or to impressive-looking Instagram posts? Basically, to counting on luck?
Expertise beats luck all day long.
Let Lisa roll up her sleeves and do the work. With the benefit of her nearly 25 years of experience and success, allow her to vet and interview agents for you in any market. She’ll happily add to her list anyone you may have heard of and are wondering about. She’ll add your friend’s friend, your new colleague’s cousin or golf buddy, the agent with the awesome Instagram posts, and that nice agent you met at an open house. And she’ll handpick others (some of whom she may already know), interviewing all of them, shortening the list to the best fit for you and your specific goals, and making final recommendations. Should you wish to interview from the long list or the short list, absolutely. Should you prefer that Lisa finalize the pick, she can. In the end, she’ll be the one in the hot seat, saving you any difficult conversations with your new colleague etc., once you settle on the agent with whom you want to work. Everyone being interviewed will know she is your Expert Advisor in the referral process, and as your Expert Advisor, Lisa takes the heat of a touchy decision, should there be one. (Many clients find it invaluable to be taken out of the hot seat. Read on.)
Many people know multiple real estate agents, and they worry about offending whomever they do not pick. Allow Lisa to take on the role of your Expert Advisor in such a situation. She’ll include everyone you want, as well as others she identifies, in her vetting and interviewing process. She’ll inform everyone of her role of Expert Advisor in the referral process, and she’ll deliver the news of who is chosen to receive the referral. Lisa has done this for clients throughout the years, for example helping Florida clients find the best listing agent for their home in New Hampshire, where they summered for years, with many Realtor® acquaintances, neighbors, and even friends. Lisa’s neutral Expert Advisor role in such situations has spared many relationships.
This process is important enough that avoiding pressure to work with a well-meaning (but non-expert) friend or colleague’s recommendation is vital. Having Lisa’s expert guidance is invaluable, considering how much is at stake when you purchase or sell a home.
You receive all the advantages of the referral as detailed here, but you pay nothing extra for these benefits. Read on.
The agent receiving the referral agrees up front, with the referring agent, as to how they will share in any compensation they receive should you sell or purchase a property with the receiving agent. This is a contractual agreement strictly between the agents (and their brokerages) to which you are not a party, and it does not affect you or cost you anything.
At the very beginning of the referral process, the agents discuss the referral in detail, negotiate and agree to the fee (effectively co-authoring the agreement), and together the agents and their brokerages memorialize the details of whatever the referral percentage is that will be shared. If for any reason an agent does not want to do the referral work offered and discussed, they simply take a pass.
The referral agreement must be approved, with signature, by their respective brokerages. The fee is percentage-based. As an example, the agent sending the referral might receive around 25% of whatever commission is ultimately paid to the agent receiving the referral, but this percentage can be considerably lower or higher, depending on many factors including unique relationships or unique circumstances.
Again, all terms are discussed and agreed upon up front between the agents/brokerages, and it is an agreement only between them; it does not involve you. The intent is that this agreement between the agents does not affect you financially but only serves to benefit you with the service you receive. This is the philosophical basis of referral, and it is the standard, common practice in the real estate profession.
The referral business is business the receiving agent likely never would have had without the referring agent, so they are grateful. They see your business as excellent business they were given. They understand the good fortune and value, and they enjoy the financial benefit of the referral as they work in service to you.
As a result, no agent receiving a referral should ever even consider changing their commission fee to a client or customer because of the referral fee the receiving agent has already agreed to pay to the agent who referred them the business. (In fact, it would be considered poor form for the receiving agent ever to mention to you, the client, any referral fee negotiated between the agents when discussing their compensation/commission with you.)
You can relax and know that the receiving agent is focused on doing their best work for you, and their agreement with the referring agent is of no consequence or concern for you. You can expect to receive the agent's best service and attention, period.
Fundamentally, the agents are making the following agreement up front: “Whatever commission is paid to the receiving agent in the transaction(s) shall be shared in the manner the agents agreed upon when the agents formalized their referral agreement and the client's excellent business was given to the receiving agent. The client does not pay extra; the client benefits, period.”
This is understood as the ethical and philosophical foundation of any referral agreement.
You should expect nothing but the best from the agent who receives your referral business from the referring agent.
After all, the consummate professional agent who receives a referral is thrilled to receive this business, as they know it is business they may never have had otherwise. With gratitude, they have discussed upfront and agreed upfront to the terms of the referral, and they relish the fact that they are fortunate enough to work with you and for you.
For an agent to accept referral business is not unlike an agent accepting relocation business from a relocation company: this is excellent business with a serious, ready client, and there is of course a percentage of compensation that always goes back to the relocation company for sending the business, and the receiving agent knows this and readily agrees, grateful to receive the excellent business they would not have had otherwise. Agents should not accept referral business or relocation business without having the genuine, collaborative, client-benefiting spirit of this type of business.
The consummate professional treats referral business, the referring agent—and YOU—like gold.
Agents who are REALTORS® are ethically obligated to work in your best interests—which means that the independent, up-front agreement between the agents regarding sharing compensation should have NO financial impact on the transaction from your point of view, including on any other compensatory agreements (like commission agreements) throughout the transaction. The referral process is meant only to benefit you, by having two agents caring to see you succeed, rather than only one.
Years of Experience
Licensed States
Expired or Canceled Listings
Happy Clients
Successful Grown Daughters
Oenophile/Skier Husband
Of Miles of Trails Hiked, Run, Skied, Snowshoed
When I think of The Best, I think of Lisa. Lisa is the kind of REALTOR® who makes things happen. She gets results. She has amazing passion and drive. She is a class act who has a genuine commitment to each client and always acts in their best interests—always. This is an all-too-rare combination, and yet it’s who she is, to the core. It’s also why she has such impressive sales results and a track record of consistent success. Of the hundreds of real estate sales professionals with whom I have worked in my career, Lisa is an absolute star. Work with her, and you’ll be fortunate—and happy.
— Lou Paratore, Director of Sales, Old Palm Golf Club
Ready to get what matters most to you in real estate? Helping you do so is Lisa’s true passion. With her expertise, tenacity, and devotion to your goals and dreams, you can experience the success you deserve. Reach out. Talk with Lisa. If it’s a good fit, you can be on your way to getting what matters most to you.