The office
A corner office that takes one instruction at a time
No. 01
Cornice & Slate Real Estate works from Marchbank Street in Savannah, Georgia. Six services, four agents, and a price list that says what the invoice will say.
From the first walk-through
How the office approaches a house
Every instruction here starts with a walk rather than a figure. An agent goes through the whole house first — roof space, cellar, the back of the boiler cupboard and the outside of every window, which are the four places a problem shows before it shows anywhere else — and asks what the house is like through the year rather than what it looked like on the morning the owner decided to sell.
The office takes one instruction at a time for exactly that reason. A house is given the length of attention the work needs rather than the length the diary would prefer, and the agent who walks a house is the agent who shows it. Nothing is bundled, nothing is added at completion, and a house that would be better let for a year than sold into a quiet month is said so before it is listed rather than after.
A first appointment can expect an hour of walking and looking before a figure is written, a fee that was already printed on the services page, and a valuation set out with the comparable sales underneath it so what leaves this office can be checked. It should not expect a structural survey, conveyancing or mortgage advice; those are listed further down, and they are listed because the answer is always the same one.
Signed at the deskMargaret Ellis, owner and lead agent
No. 02 · Marchbank Street
Standing rules
Three operating principles
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01
The written fee is the invoiced fee
Every service on the list carries the figure the invoice will carry. Nothing is a percentage of a sale price, so the fee is the same whether the house goes for more than expected or less.
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02
The wrong service is refused, not sold
If the chosen service will not do what was asked for, the agent says which one will. That happens in the reply to a message as readily as it happens in the hallway.
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03
One instruction, one agent
The agent who walks a house is the agent who shows it. Nobody is handed between desks to keep a diary moving, and no owner is asked to explain their own house twice.
Where those rules came fromThey are the three things the office was asked about most often in its first year, written down so that the answer does not change with whoever happens to answer the telephone.
No. 04
Start to finish
What happens between the first message and completion
A message arrives
An agent replies
A time is agreed
The work happens
The limits
What the office does not do
Cornice & Slate Real Estate values, lists, lets and sells only. There is no structural surveying, no conveyancing, no mortgage advice and no property management after a tenancy begins, and nothing is carried out that belongs with a chartered surveyor or a licensed attorney. The office has four desks and no display window, so an agreed time is the only way to be sure of one.
Talk to the office
Ask before making the trip
A message describing the house gets a straight answer about which service fits, what it costs and how long it takes.
The column
A short note when the office changes something
Holiday hours, an agent joining or leaving, a price that moves. Two or three notes a year and nothing else.