Finding Home in the Twilight Years

“They followed through on everything that needed to be done. If I had any questions, they would give me an answer or find out and let me know. Everything went smoothly and quickly. They were always there for me. I would recommend Toril’s team if you need a real estate broker.” – Judy Stipes

Sometimes, a little less space is all you need. This is the situation Judy found herself in just recently. When the longtime Lake Tapps resident started looking for a smaller space in Sumner not long after her husband, Ed, passed away, she called Toril Sells Houses Team to make her new dream a reality.

Ed and Judy had owned the home for nearly fifty years. You could say she married into it. Her future husband purchased the property on the lake in 1962 for $4,000. This might not seem like much to us today, but for a guy only making $2 an hour at Boeing, it was no small feat. Plus, the flak he got from his friends, who asked him why he would buy “property in the boonies,” didn’t help either.

But he pressed forward, and in 1968, the house on what is now Inter-lake Island was complete. A year later, he met Judy. The couple married that same year, in 1969, and they made Lake Tapps their permanent home.

Fast forward to 2016. Ed has passed away, and Judy is left with a beautiful home, property, and too much up keep – a challenge even while Ed was still alive. She remained in the home shortly after her husband passed, but knew this couldn’t be her permanent situation. After talking it over with her family, Judy was ready to take that next step in her life, and relocate to a smaller place in nearby Sumner.

Starting over in life can be a tough thing to do. Thankfully, Judy not only had the full support of her family – many of which knew and loved the Inter-lake Island home over the past fifty years – but she also knew she had a friend in Toril and her sales team. Judy and Ed had worked with Toril before, nearly twenty years earlier in 1998, to help them sell a vacant waterfront lot next to their home. The sale was a success, and a beautiful home was built there not long after. So it was natural for Judy to think of Toril when looking, not only to purchase a new home in Sumner, but also when it came to selling her Lake Tapps home.

Finding a new home in Sumner with the exact specifications Judy was looking for, proved to be a challenge. The inventory the area Judy was looking, and the house she was looking for, was low. But thanks to the efforts of Mark, the buyer specialist for the Toril Sells Houses Team, she found a beautiful home that worked for her, not far from Toril’s office, which is also in Sumner.

Judy would come to the office so that we could go over her offers with her and help clarify things escrow needed to get her property closed, knowing she could stop in just about any time and get answers to any question she had in mind. She loved the personal touch, and the fact that the team would drop all other projects to help her out with her questions or concerns.

Selling a home, while purchasing another, isn’t for the faint at heart. Judy didn’t want to end up owning two homes, or end up homeless between two closings. Fortunately, Toril and her team knew exactly what they were doing. Familiar with the Lake Tapps area, Toril hosted a Mega Open House. They invited all the neighbors, notified thousands of buyers, invited all the brokers. She came out of that event with multiple offers on the home, over that weekend alone, and Judy got the full price. One that turned out to be the highest price per square foot on the lake. Turns out, Ed knew what he was doing after all.

As for Judy, she couldn’t be happier with Toril and her sales team. “Toril’s team was awesome,” she said.“They followed through on everything that needed to be done. If I had any questions, they would give me an answer or find out and let me know. Everything went smoothly and quickly. They were always there for me. I would recommend Toril’s team if you need a real estate broker.”