From Deseret News archives:
Blind real estate agent offers keen insights
"In a lot of ways, my blindness can help me, because I don't pass judgment based on having vision," says Lifsey, who lives in Roy. "I tell everyone, 'You need to come with me to visit the house, smell the house, get a feel for the house in general."'
Lifsey says working to gain a client's confidence is an important part of her business.
"One of the ways that I earn trust as a blind person is to use the power of touch, starting with the first meeting," she says. "Once you shake somebody's hand, you establish some sort of a bond real quick."
Lifsey says she works to strengthen that bond by having her clients lead her around a prospective home, allowing her to maintain that touch connection and helping her to "feel" their response to questions. And she does her homework: She memorizes specifics about a house and its individual rooms in advance, so that she can answer a client's questions as they make their tour of a home.
She says that she usually tells prospective clients before she meets them that she is blind, in order to avoid surprises, and she often uses humor to "break the ice."
In the three years she has been a real estate agent, no one has declined her services due to her impairment, she says.
Lifsey, who grew up in Ogden, says she lost her sight due to complications from being born three months premature.
"I was kept in an incubator for six months and was exposed to too much oxygen, which destroyed the optic nerve and retina," she says.
But she says her blindness has never really kept her from achieving any of her goals. Besides being a married mother of two children and a real estate agent, she is also a licensed massage therapist.
Her work as a massage therapist has helped her develop the ability to gain people's confidence, she says, "because if you're going to have someone feel good, in massage you have to earn their trust really quickly."
That same principle applies to real estate, she says. "If you're going to have someone feel good about having you as an agent, you have to earn their trust very quickly."
On Friday, Lifsey put that notion to the test when she showed client Corrie Done of North Ogden two homes, one in North Ogden and the other in Willard. Done and Lifsey say the tours were their first experience with one another.
Done says that working with Lifsey was much like being with a sighted agent.
Recent comments
Hey Linda,
Good going, I just put blind real estate agent in to...
Stan. Stafford | March 24, 2009 at 8:08 p.m.
How Inspiring Linda was to myself & my new agents
I brought to our...
Linda Armani | Oct. 30, 2008 at 7:04 a.m.
I just wanted to thank Linda for the great speech she gave to all of...
RJohnston | Oct. 22, 2008 at 1:20 p.m.
- Text from LDS church on S.L. policy 7:09 p.m.
- Gays get Mormon support in SLC 7:09 p.m.
- BYU prof chosen for state board 6:55 p.m.
- Developer looking to buy RSL share 6:36 p.m.
- FLDS man sentenced to 10 years 6:20 p.m.
- Charter helps kids discover talents 6:17 p.m.
- Herbert talks land issues in D.C. 6:15 p.m.
- Good Samaritans help make arrest 6:05 p.m.
- Get a little culture: Probiotics 5:45 p.m.
- What exactly are probiotics? 5:45 p.m.
- Utah group finds homes for orphans
- Pratt pleads not guilty to sex charges
- Y. tight ends talented tandem
- Jazz blow big lead, hang on
- Utes get extra motivation
- Senators want food tax restored
- Hair-pulling raises more questions
- BYU soccer incident still popular
- Lobo land like home for BYU lineman
- U. hopes to keep clicking
- House passes health care bill
259 - TCU showdown has big implications
187 - Lobo suspended
184 - Cougars crush hapless Cowboys
155 - Senators want food tax restored
146 - Utah Jazz fall apart against Kings
131 - TCU 4th in AP poll; U. 16th, Y. 22nd
119 - No 'backlash' for pioneers, gays analogy
104 - RSL rallies to advance
103 - S.L. vote pending on gay protections
97
Maybe someone out there can help me understand how raising the state...
Richard Wilson and Austin Holt are both nationally ranked TE's out of HS. I...
I know one thing for sure and that is a UTE in not a chicken (SWOOP). UTAH...
Thanks fellas - You might have literally saved that officer. Being retired LE...
Having TCU go win a BCS game will mean far more for the conference as a...
The ordinances would make it illegal to fire or evict someone BECAUSE OF...
Thank you so very much for having the initiative to correct the illiteracy I...
The action was also based on POST discipline and a history that is...
There have been laws on the books since the mid-1960s establishing rules for...
To the 10:48 commentator, Forced conversions have been much more common...
Weak and Whinny!!!


