Buying your first home is a huge step for any family. For my wife and I, it was a long road with quite a few failed starts before we found what we were really wanting. As a small bit of background, we’re a military family, stationed in the area and ready to finally move off-base. We chose Pink Realty after having a less than desirable experience with another reputable, but overly sales-focused independent realtor our first time around, probably a little over a year prior at this point. We were overly cautious, but with a lot of favorable reviews, specifically for military families, we decided to take the plunge one more time.
The market had changed a lot since our first big venture and Pink was not hesitant to explain that to us. However, they backed that up with their reputation and extensive team of resources and experience. We saw countless homes on the market over the course of many weeks, even put a few offers in, but it seemed all for not. With their team of realtors working together, we ended up meeting a handful of different agents until finally being introduced to Cregg Terasa, who ended up being our final realtor.
Cregg was one of the easiest people to get along with; very personable, very approachable and very communicative. And while he was very new to being a realtor by the time we met, he brought a lot of knowledge and experience to the table with a background in construction, flipping, and best of all, being military himself. He knew exactly what we were dealing with and how to talk to us at our level, really driving home that he was working for us, not the ultimate sale.
There was no point when working with him that we didn’t feel like he wouldn’t go out of his way for us, be it answering a strange question about a house we were looking at in an older neighborhood or even telling us a hard truth we really didn’t want to hear about the state of the market (and at the time we were house hunting, it was quite ridiculously a “seller’s market”). He never gave up on us, even when we started to really feel the drag that it just wasn’t going to happen. Cregg would always keep in touch with us if we went a few days without talking and see about that next house. He even showed us a few homes that weren’t quite on the open market yet, just to give us that first chance at it. Eventually, after burn-out started to set in, he was the one that suggested a completed radical idea to us: new builds.
We thought it crazy at first, not to mention far more expensive than we could handle, but the truth was quite the opposite. Instead of looking for the right house at our budget in the right neighborhood, we could instead build a house we liked, at our budget, in a neighborhood of choosing. And not too long after touring some model homes in the Springs’ upcoming neighborhoods, we found a place we really liked and signed a contract that guaranteed us the home we wanted, where we wanted it.
Now, the process of building a home is far longer and far scarier than simply buying a home, let alone your first. We were very much under the idea that it would just be a waiting game and we’d see Cregg again on the other side of it. With Cregg, that was never even a consideration. He worked overtime with us on the project, helping us through countless delays, builder communication issues, even neighborhood theft concerns! What had to be a daily effort when things were at their worst, Cregg was a total professional through all of it, keeping us in the loop as much as possible and even being there with us for meetings with the builder’s sales office and design center. Once construction was finally moving along, we made regular appointments to go see the progress and Cregg was always there, answering our questions and even asking a few we would never have thought to bring up. He even stopped by and sent us pictures when we couldn’t quite make it that way.
By the time the house was finally built and we had keys in-hand, it was a victory we never thought possible without Cregg’s help. Professional, funny and with a people-first attitude, he was exactly the kind of realtor we were wanting that worked hard for our business every day. I tell everybody I know looking to make that next step to contact him first, no questions asked, because the day comes that we find ourselves in a similar situation again, he would absolutely be our first call, every time. In the six months following closing on our house, we’ve settled in happily and found that we’re really glad Cregg talked us into building. While oftentimes a harder process than it really should have been, the end result was worth it and we could not be happier with what is now our first home. If anybody was ever on the fence about making the leap to a new home, Pink does well by its people, walking them through every step of the process start to finish, and Cregg will absolutely do his best by you. Our home is the proof.

Brian McLean