LOCAL

'Quiet neighbors' a selling point for this DeWitt home that'll make you smile

Lansing State Journal

Real estate agent Shane Broyles is using a little humor to sell a home in DeWitt that sits across the street from a cemetery. "Quiet neighbors" reads the top of the "for sale" sign on the property, with an arrow pointing in the cemetery's direction.

DEWITT - If you can have fun with something, why wouldn't you? So says East Lansing real estate agent Shane Broyles.

Just take a look at the "For Sale" sign in front of the house he's selling at 507 Bridge St. in DeWitt.

When fellow DeWitt High School alum Deborah Perrin approached Broyles about marketing it, her four-bedroom, Cape Cod style house had an obvious selling point, he said.

Quiet neighbors. The quietest, in fact. Just across the street from the one-story house sits DeWitt City Cemetery.

"Growing up, my grandparents knew a man who lived next to a cemetery, and the only joke in his act was 'Well, at least I’ve got quiet neighbors,'" Broyles said in an email to the State Journal Monday. "His voice was the first thing I heard in my head when I saw this property..."

Broyles couldn't resist. He went with it.

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Sitting atop his Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Tomie Raines REALTORS ® sign, placed in front of the house Sept. 8, is a small addition.

"Quiet Neighbors," it reads, above an arrow pointing directly at the cemetery across the street.

Broyles, an Okemos resident and real estate agent for the last two years, admits it's the first time he's used humor to market a house.

"Never done anything quite like this," he said.

Still, the tact suits his personality, he said.

"If you can’t have a bit of fun, there’s not much point to life," Broyles said. "I don't know whether it will actually have an effect on people who may be interested in buying it."

An upcoming open house Sunday may give him a better idea of its success. See the listing here.

Perrin, 49, has owned the Bridge Street house for nearly two decades. She and her husband Dave lived there for 13 years, before moving out of the area and continuing to rent out the house five years ago. They decided to sell this year when their long-time renter moved out.

Perrin turned to her former classmate Broyles, who warned her he planned to make the home's "quiet neighbors" part of his marketing technique.

Why not? Perrin thought.

"It's obvious that they're not going to build a subdivision over there," she said. "Yeah, quiet neighborhood. It's funny."

Next-door neighbor Holly Kloeckner, 58, said if nothing else, it's making people smile.

"I thought it was funny," she said. "Maybe it will get people laughing."

That would be good enough for Broyles.

"I figure if it brings a smile or two to someone who needs it, or it gets a few extra people talking about the house, it’s money (on the sign) well spent."

Perrin said she's already seen some passersby taking note of it.

"People who walk by the house look at it, stop, look and laugh," she said. "I think that was the point."

Contact Rachel Greco at (517) 528-2075 or rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ.