If you know real estate agent and broker Maria Devins, you probably know the story about how she got her first client.

The year was 2008 and the real estate market was in crash mode. The Park Ridge native was taking the train home from the Baird & Warner Institute of Training when she saw a woman crying because she and her husband were buried under two mortgages they couldn’t afford. When Devins handed the woman a tissue, she noticed her name badge from Baird & Warner. They talked, the couple hired Devins, and two weeks later the home was sold.

That was almost 15 years ago. Late last year, the same woman contacted Devins again—this time to list her childhood home.

“Her father had just died. This is the house she grew up in so it’s also an emotional process,” says Devins, a Certified Real Estate Negotiator; national and international relocations specialist; listing and buyer’s broker based in the Northwest Suburbs and the entire Chicagoland area. “No Google app is going to bring the emotional stability that somebody needs. No app can ever bring the sentiment, the thoughtfulness, or the compassion that a good agent will bring.”

The client had friends who were realtors. But when it came time to enlist the right person for this very important transaction, she turned to the real estate professional she knew she could trust to get the job done.

“Even going through everything, she says ‘I’m worried … it’s in raw form … has the original 1964 Harvest Gold appliances’,” explains Devins. “She asks ‘How are we going to sell it?’”

Devins calmed her with the sage wisdom accumulated over nearly 15 years: “Every house has a buyer.”

Sure enough, the house was marketed appropriately (focusing on the double lot and mechanical upgrades), pre-listed on the Private Listing Network, and had multiple buyers within 48 hours.

“Over 20 neighbors called me about that house,” she explains. “One of the neighbors wanted their daughter down the block from them, and that’s who bought it. That’s the whole idea and the essence of a home. That’s the beauty of a house.”

It’s also another happy ending for Devins and the client, one that exemplifies her philosophy that personal relationships can never be replaced by algorithms or the internet.

“It gave her closure,” Devins explains. “Every step in a case where there is a death is a hurdle. I need to either remove the hurdle or lift the client up so they can get over that hurdle … that’s what I do. That’s what I’m here for, and no Google app is ever going to do that.”

With last year’s seller’s market projected to continue through early 2022, Devins is uniquely qualified to help both buyers and sellers navigate the challenges.

“I am hoping there will be more balance in the market,” she says. “More inventory will create more balance.”

Another obstacle that Devins is constantly trying to help sellers overcome in this red-hot market is finding the right place to go once their property has sold.

“That fear of ‘no place to go’ has lessened quite a bit but again, who could have predicted the craziness of what happened last year?” Devins adds. “Even the economists … I don’t think they saw it coming again.”

While the recent housing boom has been beneficial to buyer’s and seller’s agents alike, Devins says it has also cultivated a new generation of “pseudo agents” who think they can read the market based on what they find online.

Her response?

“In a world of electronics and computers, we think everything can be robotic but there’s something to be said for that agent who really leaves no stone unturned,” she explains. “The value that a good agent brings is not just looking up current numbers but looking back at the series of numbers and records that we as agents are only privy to, or a private listing that we as agents are only privy to.”

With more homes being sold on the Private Listing Network before they even hit the MLS, Devins says having the right buyer’s agent is critical to finding your next dream home.

On the other side of the equation, she equally fights for sellers to make sure they don’t fall prey to nefarious tactics being used in today’s market to “hold” a property, only to back out.

“There are buyers out there that will go to six different agents, put offers on six different houses at only $1,000 earnest money and hold those homes and wait until the end,” she says. “They cancel the deal and five out of the six homes were held hostage.”

Devins protects her clients from that game by insisting on a contract from the very beginning—one that protects her clients until the close of sale. “If you’re serious about the house, you’ve got the down payment so show us,” says Devins. “That is the difference I make for my clients. I’m with them to the end and beyond. I hope to always be present in their lives and be of service to them.”

While Devins has garnered professional accolades and grown her portfolio of properties into a global enterprise, the personal connections she’s made along the way are what continue to fuel her success.

“They’re saying that the wave of the future is that someday there won’t be any agents. And yet here we are, 15 years later, and my client calls after her father’s death,” she says, adding: “In 15 years, we’ve seen each other a couple times and she came to me and said ‘Many of my best friends are agents but it was you, Maria. I knew it had to be you.’”

Maria Devins is a Broker Associate at Baird & Warner’s Palatine office. For more information, call 847-840-2520 or visit mariadevins.bairdwarner.com.