Dawn Barry-Griffin

Description of Work: House Sale

Description of Work: EXCEPTIONAL REALTOR WHO HELP US BUY 3 HOMES AND SELL ONE

Description of Work: Dawn was my realtor and helped my navigate through the home buying process.

Description of Work: In a tip of the hat to departed Letterman, and whether you're looking for a comfy dumpster or sprawling mcmansion, here are the Top Ten Reasons You Will Want to Get on the Dawn Barry-Griffin Realtor Train: | |10. She didn't write the other reviews or this one. Which is one of many ways to discover that she's ethical and honest. | |9. If your car has owies or you can't drive (I had thumb surgery, which meant I became Robin in her Batwomanmobile), she'll drive you to the houses. | |8. As friendly extrovert, she's constantly evolving her empire of other real estate agents and mortgage bankers. It was her all-night texting to the other realtor representing the sellers that helped me get a house. She has a full list of contractor elves (always get a detailed quote for all sub-contractors, no matter who your realtor is), and she'll order the house inspection before you've even put in your bid. In an environment where houses sell within hours, this is crucial. Even better, her husband, Dominic, has a moving company: they moved me into my new house, and went into the no-parking battle zone downtown to move me out of my gerbil-cage apartment in a building full of lost Goths, then unloaded that at the new house (all in one day!). | |7. In a volatile real estate market, Dawn doesn't offer platitudes like, "Oh well, these prices will have to come down some day," or "The market is what it is." No, she gets perplexed and scared of rising prices right along with you, trying to figure out the best way through the ridiculous and sky-rocketing prices for real estate in Portlandia. In the words of Bill Clinton (except she means it), she is saying, "I feel your pain!" She has a nearly foolproof sense of the evolving definition of "over-priced," and will tell stop you when you're about to sell your beloved guitar to make too high a bid over list price. This is hard-won experience, as she and her husband are buying and restoring some homes, so she is constantly reminded of what it's like to be a buyer or seller. | |6. Dawn is smart. Read that sentence again, as it reverberates with all the other comments. We're all ignorant (to greater or lesser degree: see below), and most of us aren't stupid. Even though there is no official and indisputable intelligence test (looking at you, Stanford Binet), some people are better than others at remembering knowledge, doing quick analysis and steadily applying both: voila, Dawn! One example of something that finally worked: she insisted I write a personal letter to the sellers on each bid. | |5. Dawn is an experienced and speedy researcher, with lots of practice with the whole process (see above), from dreaming of a place to looking at comparator homes, making a bid, getting inspections and signing final documents. While she's cruising in the Batmobile, her Ipad and phone are sizzling with Google Maps, neighborhood stats and even the videos she'll take and send you of houses you don't have time to get to. More importantly, she'll insist on getting a full inspection (including those for radon, sewer and buried fuel tank), which cost a little more than you might want to spend, but which can save you even more money if there are problems. She's got your back against being hood-winked, yabol? | |4. Inexplicably, Dawn lives in the gridlock of Portlandia traffic, the stress of short-supply real estate and knowing her clients might be one paycheck away from disaster and still maintains a healthy sense of humor. Some of our best laughter came after visiting houses that were former meth labs decorated by Papa Smurf or hoarder houses with bizarre children's toys. | |3. Some realtors want to project their own aesthetic upon you, rather than interview you and determine what you want. If you want to live in a container pod in China Town, or a tree house in Sellwood, Dawn will help you discover whether it's possible. Even after a year, one previous realtor didn't really have a sense of what I was looking for, but Dawn got it by our third outing or so. In fact, we got faster and faster in analyzing a house. Often, before I could say it, she would beat me to the punch and say: "No fireplace or owl tree: we're outta here!" It was comforting to understand that she knew what I was looking for, and it felt like she was looking for the same thing. | |2. The great nature writer, Loren Eiseley, once paraphrased ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus when he said: "Expect the unexpected, for it's difficult and hard to find." I was certainly one of Dawn's most difficult clients, as I had a partly romanticized notion of what I wanted (a two-bedroom bungalow with hard wood floors, garage and yard, all within 80 blocks of downtown, so I could walk and ride my bike everywhere) and what I didn't want (a ranch house near a busy street in the western hills with a home-owner's association). Over time, Dawn indulged me in the endless, year-long search for the former, being patient. However, she continued to edge me further afield as prices kept going up and my frustration with being endlessly outbid over three years rose. Often this was spontaneous, and I was looking at something I hadn't planned to like on the spur of the moment. In the end, Dawn got me to bite on a ranch house in the burbs that's close to the Max and noisy Hwy 26, and has a home-owner's association. This turned out not to be a failure, but a compromise I can live with, and perhaps make thrive. She showed me the Max line station, the best things in the neighborhood, and even helped me look around for a back way into town (I finally found it) for biking. If you're willing to bring your imagination, Dawn will use hers to help you either find or transform whatever image of your next abode is stuck in your puckered forebrain. I suggest wearing a too-small Red Sox hat to stimulate both brain hemispheres. | |1. And the number one reason (numbers will get scrambled when this is posted) to choose Dawn as your realtor (drum roll...) is: She's a Force-O-Nature. She has been carefully trained by her border collie/ shepherd, Bleu, to herd day and night, but she does this without the neuroses of collies everywhere. I kept offering Dawn the chance to step down from wearing herself out showing me houses, but it only seemed to make her more determined. I always looked forward to seeing Dawn, and now feel she and Dominic are friends. While all scientific research seems to show that none of us are good at multi-tasking, Dawn would win gold for Multitasking at the Realtor Olympics. If she holds up her hand when you start to talk, it's not a rude Austin Powers "shush" by Doctor Evil; rather, it means she's got two simultaneous calls coming in on the Borg earpiece of her Command Center, and she will return to giving you full attention the minute she finishes the calls and swerves past a semi truck driven by a chimpanzee. In fact, the six calls she gets while working the phone, GPS mapping system in the car and her Ipad are probably all on your behalf, involving other real estate agents, tenants in the house you're about to review or the inspection you need to set up for your bid. Best of all, Dawn will educate you by endlessly explaining things about structural problems, electricity, radon, why the Hubble Telescope may have made the galaxy look bigger than it is, or even why Elizabeth Warren appears larger than life in the side mirror. If she doesn't have an answer, she'll try to get one (except about the telescope, perhaps). All this means you need to at least be Robin, and just let Batwoman work sometimes. Bring some emergency Cliff Bars, and insist on buying her some Starbucks coffee or a sushi roll every so often. Get the Redfin ap, and help her work Trulia and Zillow. Perhaps pack a tape measure or marble (for testing whether floors are level), in case she forgets hers. Make sure she has plenty of her real estate cards when leaving the office, and then buckle up for the hunt! | |Mark Shadle |

Description of Work: Dawn served as my buyer's agent to help with the house purchase process

Description of Work: Real Estate agent during purchase of our first home!

Description of Work: Among different real estate transactions over the past 5 years, Dawn represented us in the sale of our personal residence in 2013.

Description of Work: Helped us buy a home.