Introduction: You’re about to listen to Spouse Hunting, the podcast that dares to ask the question, “Can I use the rules of real estate to find the love of my life? And then has the audacity to answer “Yes. Yes you can.”

I’m your host, Brian Belefant, Licensed Oregon Real Estate Broker.

This is episode six.

Brian Belefant: Hi!

True Cross: Hi! It’s so nice to hear you!

Brian Belefant: I know! You sound exactly the same. It’s only been like 73 years.

True Cross: I know, and just to think, we started out in the humble television business.

Brian Belefant: Right. Isn’t that amazing? Do you miss it?

True Cross: Not at all.

Brian Belefant: I get pangs once in a while…

True Cross: You know, right after I started doing real estate and I gave up styling, and I would be in the Beverly Center, some shopping area, and I’d see stylist friends of mine running literally out of breath to try to make a producer’s showing with the clothes… And I’m like, Oh man, I miss that hustle bustle, but I don’t miss that part of it because I’ve put all of that now into my space… Home Space.

Brian Belefant: Yeah, I know. I have the same thing. I see people, some kind of shots that are going around around town, and it’s like 11 o’clock and the trucks are all pulled up and the lights are going, and people are like… You can tell they’re running on fumes. And on the one hand I’m envious, but on the other, I don’t need that.

True Cross: Yeah.

Brian Belefant: But I do see… My daughter’s 13 now and there’s a TV show she wanted me to watch last night, and so we watch it and I am tearing apart the production in my mind. The lighting is crap, the blocking is terrible, the camera work is shitty –– it’s like why are you justifying that? –– there’s continuity issues all over the place, and I’m like… It’s hard, I can’t enjoy anything. ‘Cause I’ve been so trained.

True Cross: Yes, I’m not there. I still have a lot of suspension of disbelief.

Brian Belefant: I don’t think I ever did. But what’s funny is when it comes to homes, I do. I can look at a place and yeah, I can see that it’s been painted like 74 times and is blistering and the floor is slanty and it creeks when you walk on it and nothing’s square. I can still fall into the charm of it…

True Cross: Well, that’s love, right? That’s what we do with people, we… We ignore the red flags.

Brian Belefant: Oh, do you wanna go there?

True Cross: Yeah, I do.

Brian Belefant: Let’s hear it.

True Cross: When we’re in love, to use your premise, and courting a house is like a relationship, and it is… And by the way, when I saw your book come out, I went, “Damn it, he stole my line!”  Because it’s so true. One of the things… I’m very curious about a lot of things, but I’m very curious about two things in particular, and that is, why does a person choose the person that they choose out of all the billions of people they could choose in this world, why do they choose that particular person? And also, why do they live where they live? Those are the two main things I ask a person.

Brian Belefant: And I think the answer to both is the same…

True Cross: They sometimes intersect. Yes. And I always ask, because your life in this house, even if it’s on the same street, will be very different than literally across the street, because it’s a different house, it’s a different biorhythm, it’s different architecture, possibly… There’s a different energy in the house, and so why did you pick this particular house versus all the other houses that you could have? So it’s the… I find all of that very interesting.

Brian Belefant: I do too, and sort of the conclusion I’ve come to is sort of going on the same path, is that there are a multitude of possibilities that can work out really, really well, both with houses and with people… And I think a lot of what has to be there is the hope and the intention that is going to. You have to really believe in it.

True Cross: And people, just like houses, are not perfect. Even if they buy a new build. Humans made that house and maybe they wer tired, maybe the contractor was tired that day and so he took a shortcut and missed a step.

Brian Belefant: Yeah, or maybe his A-team crew wasn’t available so he had to hire these new plumbers who don’t know how he likes to put in the plumbing or whatever.

True Cross: Yeah, yeah, and so even if you have a new build, humans did it, and humans make mistakes, and so there’s always that possibility of error. But we need to see –– our brains as humans out of survival –– we want and need to see kind of perfection in something, whether it’s a relationship or a home, and it’s really about how you make it perfect for you. And how is that place perfect for you in your life and your lifestyle and your family, etcetera.

Brian Belefant: You said that a lot better than I could have. That’s beautiful. You’re absolutely right, it’s funny because I have this relationship now and she’s perfect for me, and I’m perfect for her, she says, and it’s just… No, we’re not delusional. I think that’s really important.

True Cross: I’m laughing a little…

Brian Belefant: You know, I like to think of it as hopeful, optimistic.

True Cross: Okay, we’ll go with hopeful, we’ll go with hopeful.

Brian Belefant: Yeah, it’s also a fairly new relationship, so we’re still in sort of the honeymoon phase. We’ve only been together about six months. But we’re old enough that we recognize that. We’ve been there.

So let’s get started. I mean, yeah, we already did. Some of that stuff is wonderful, and I’m going to try and put it in if you don’t mind, which I hope you don’t.

True Cross: Please do.

Brian Belefant: So…

True Cross: I’m a realtor here in Los Angeles with PLG, True LA Homes. And I also have a side real estate support business called True Home Curation, which is a home concierge business. And what that is, is we to go into homes and kind of zhuzh them and give them love and get them either ready for sale for our own listings or another agent or we just help you live better in your home, by just kind of zhuzhing and tweaking and making it more comfortable and pretty for yourself.

Brian Belefant: I love that. First of all, the question I have to ask is, how do you spell zhuzh?

True Cross: You know, I’ve literally been trying to find the spelling of zhuzh for a couple of months, and I can’t find it.

Brian Belefant: Okay, so if any of you listeners out there know how to spell zhuzh, please send it to me and I’ll pass it along to True.

True Cross: Please send me the spelling for zhuzh!

Brian Belefant: I really… Because I know you from your previous career, the home concierge business makes perfect, perfect sense. You have an amazing eye and an attention to detail and an ability to understand that it’s not just about how things look at the how things work.

True Cross: Everyone thinks design is this glamorous thing, but design is actually a very practical idea and application. Design solves problems. And so if you have good design in something, you live better.

Brian Belefant: Wow. That is really beautiful. How long have you been doing the concierge business?

True Cross: I started… Well, you know, I’ve always done it for my listing clients. It’s just a service I provide, just to kind of take the house to the next level…

I was doing it for my own listings when I’m lucky enough to get a listing. I was doing it for them, and then I started getting a house ready for a senior, and I was really hands-on with this particular senior and several friends noticed how much time I was putting into just getting the house ready with this particular person, and they said, “You should really offer that service, just that service alone, aside from getting the house ready for sale.”

It’s really my favorite part of the process. I don’t get too many houses that need a lot of work before I get to put them on the market, but when I do, I feel so lucky because I get to put my own stamp on it, and therefore I know the house better and I can sell it better as a result. And I have ownership of that property a lot more. That really does help me sell the house better because I know the house better.

Brian Belefant: That makes sense.

True Cross: So I know the difference, but for the sake of the people who are listening, sort of go into the difference between a concierge service and staging.

Staging is just one small piece of the pie. It’s certainly a very important one. But it’s just one single part of the pie. The big pie includes assessing what needs to happen and providing a blueprint, if you will, for that, and… Does the house need cleaning? Does it need a deep cleaning? Does there need to be editing out and deciding where those items will go? Will you sell them? Will you donate them? Or just throw them away? And then organizing… Now that you’ve edited out, organizing all of those things now in a beautiful way. We live in a very HGTV world now, and even the casual of buyers can discern what’s done and what’s not done in a home, and it’s really kind of expected… Even if you have a very modest home now, there’s no more using your grand mama’s quilt on the bed and just kinda snap in some shots, there really has to be quite a bit of thought given into how you present the space to the public.

Brian Belefant: I couldn’t agree more.

True Cross: And that’s where we come in and we come in and a lot of times, realtors either they don’t know how to do this, they’re really good at selling a home and facilitating the deal. They don’t necessarily know how to… zhuzh the house. Or if they do, maybe they’re so busy and successful, God love them, I’m so happy for them. They’re so busy doing what they do really well, they don’t have time to come in and do what we do. And so we work with other realtors aside from our own listings, we come in and help other realtors.

So staging is when you come in and bring just pieces of furniture or bring in a look for the whole house… We don’t do full staging. We do a piece here, a piece there, or a room. If we do need to stage a home for ourselves or for a realtor, we’ll call in the big guns, and we’ll have the pros come in if we need to stage a whole house and we have those relationships.

Brian Belefant: Right. Because they have the warehouses full of stuff and relationships and access to the stuff…

True Cross: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian Belefant: Do you ever work for people who just… They’re not interested in selling the home, they just want to make it work better?

True Cross: Oh, absolutely, and I’ve started to do that with seniors. The family has called me on their senior relative, a lot of times it’s the children of their senior parent… is either getting ready to come live with them, or they’re gonna move in with their parent and now take care of the parent. Or their senior parent is now going into a senior community and they need help organizing the family home, and then taking, distilling down essential pieces and moving into that senior home, and I’ve done several of those where I’ve done the family home, and then I bring pieces to the senior community and set their new home up there for them. And I love doing that.

Brian Belefant: It sounds like that would be so rewarding.

True Cross: It is incredibly rewarding and talk about getting an education because you work very closely with someone, like I do with Home Concierge, you get to know them, and they give you little life lessons and it’s just… I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I love that time that I spend with my senior clients…

Brian Belefant: That’s fantastic. I would love to see your home, ’cause I bet it’s an amazing!

True Cross: I’ve had the great privilege of owning four homes, and I’ve done all of them in kind of different styles. And I’m actually getting ready to go into another house, here in Loz Feliz, the area Los Angeles near the Observatory. And this one has a great view and there’s many windows, and because of the windows, I’m changing out the furniture that I had in my Mediterranean because there weren’t as many windows. And so the colors will change because of that. Because lighting plays a big part in design. As you know, from being a past director, how lighting can affect a mood and all the objects within a space…

Brian Belefant: Yeah, that’s actually a really good point. There are so many people, they buy a piece of furniture and they love that piece of furniture, and they take it with them from house to house, and even though it may be perfect for the house they bought it for first, because of the size, the shape, the light, the windows, the configuration, it just doesn’t work. And then they find themselves sort of… They’re holding on to this thing that doesn’t fit anymore.

True Cross: It’s so true. You’re absolutely right, I’ve seen that so many times with my own clients and they… For example, I’ll just use my own situation, they’ll have a Mediterranean and they move into a post-modern or post-and-beam, and they expect those perhaps very chunky dark pieces that were once in the Mediterranean to now work in this light-filled airy space. And it doesn’t work. And that’s when I kind of try to gently nudge them to say, “Hey listen, this doesn’t happen by expensive. Let me help you sell this, and then we can go and get used furniture and reupholster it. It doesn’t have to break the bank to kind of have your furniture in harmony with the architecture.” There’s so many ways to get to that place without breaking the bank.

Brian Belefant: Yeah, and it’s interesting, you sort of implicitly bring up an important point, which is that the same person who lives in a post-modern house could feel perfectly at home in a Mediterranean. It’s like we were talking about earlier with relationships. It’s what you fall in love with and yeah, you modify some of the superficial stuff to fit and modify the lifestyle fit to make it function, but you can operate in both worlds very, very happily.

True Cross: Very heavily. And by the way, Brian, sometimes those pieces can bridge the two worlds of design. They can bridge… If you buy a piece that’s not so style specific, it can bridge, it can make the leap over into another style of home, I’ve seen that, for example, great leather club chairs can work both in a more ornate style and a more modern style. Or a glass table, it can very quickly update a heavier style of architecture, but also fit right at home with more of a current modern room. So there are pieces that can make the leap.

Brian Belefant: I think that’s another really, really important point, which is that just because you’re changing an environment, it doesn’t mean you have to throw everything away. Because your things do reflect you. And that doesn’t… just because you’re changing the setting doesn’t mean that they no longer reflect you. Some of them will continue to reflect you and fit your new lifestyle.

True Cross: That’s right, that’s right. But sometimes, you know, as a fellow writer, you know this. Every writer needs an editor and… What do we say to the writers? Kill your darlings?

Sometimes those things that work will make the leap as we just mentioned, but you do have to be an editor of sorts. You do have to have that discerning like, “Okay, does it really work?” And just be really honest. And you know what? It may not work, but you still love it, and then just… Who cares? It’s just not gonna work, but it’s… But you love it, and it makes you happy to have that piece that doesn’t work in your house, but it makes you happy, it’s just like Fraser’s Dad’s chair on the show ‘Fraser’. It was such a thorn in Fraser’s side to have his father’s Lazy Boy in the very chic apartment, but the dad loved it, and so… You know, you’re going to have those Lazy Boy moments sometimes.

Brian Belefant: Well, those are the things that make you you. Otherwise you’re just a catalog. A perfectly designed sample.

True Cross: And that’s not real. That’s not real. So sometimes… And by the way, it’s those odd little things that actually make a house to me. A lot of things can make the leap and some things won’t. And you just have to decide like, “Do I wanna live with this?”

It is just like a person. You could love them. And you’re like, “God, they’re so great! They’re sexy, they’re smart, they’re funny! But they just really don’t have any taste in shoes,” and that’s just the… there it is.

Brian Belefant: There it is.

True Cross: Yeah. Exactly.

Brian Belefant: So you answered the question about whether you have a home. When are you making the move?

True Cross: I’m making the move in about two weeks.

Brian Belefant: Fantastic!

True Cross: Yeah, and it’s a home that was built in the 50s, but it’s a traditional home, built in the 50s, but because it was built in the 50s when all the ranches were very popular, it has a lot of those influences. And even though it’s a two-story traditional, like the windows, etcetera, huge, floor-to-ceiling windows, all throughout the house which… And it’s a very sexy house, and so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and put my little spin on it, I’ll send you pictures.

Brian Belefant: I can’t wait to see. Fantastic.

So next question, do you have a partner?

True Cross: What about the husband?

Brian Belefant: Find a great one?

True Cross: He’s the best.

Brian Belefant: I love hearing that. That’s so great.

True Cross: Yeah, he’s good.

Brian Belefant: How long’s it been now?

True Cross: Gosh, it’s been 25 years in the…

Brian Belefant: Oh my god!

True Cross: Yeah.

Brian Belefant: That’s… Wow.

True Cross: Yeah.

Brian Belefant: I’m so happy for you. That’s wonderful.

True Cross: Yeah. He’s one of those that transfers over to the next style. He makes the leap.

Brian Belefant: That’s fantastic. Good for you.

True Cross: Thank you.

Brian Belefant: So tell me, how did you get started in real estate? What drew you to it?

True Cross: Well, as you know, I was a costume designer for film and television and a fashion stylist here in Los Angeles, and you were my director for many, many, many years. And I had just bought a home with my husband, and it was one of those 1926 Mediterranean Hollywood Land homes that had fallen on hard times, that had seen better days. And we came in and completely redid it and put a lot of love in it, and I designed the whole thing myself and loved that process. And I realized that a lot of the things I was doing on my day job, going to the film set, I was actually doing a movie at the same time I was redoing this house, but I was literally just transferring all those design skills from clothing into space, and I realized very quickly that I preferred doing space, designing space, over clothing. For a lot of reasons, but one of them was that I realized that designing space has a bigger impact or had a bigger impact in my life because it was something that I would encounter daily. With clothes, you do them and they’re kind of ethereal, they kind of wear away, but space, for example a living room or a kitchen, you interact with that daily and so those choices impact your daily life. And whereas clothing, maybe you wear this once a month, maybe you don’t…

Brian Belefant: Or you spill on it the first time and you can’t wear it again.

True Cross: That’s right.

And so the clothing would go away, whereas the space remained. And I really appreciated that part of design, so I kind of started looking at that, and that’s generally how I got into it. We had just put our home and we had redone it, and I was very pleased with results and… Well, you were there, you came to my house, you came to my wedding party.

Brian Belefant: Oh heck yeah!

True Cross: You were there. And it wasn’t even done at that point, but it was 60% done and it’s been layered, it’s… Houses have a story to them, it’s the patina of the time that you’ve been there. And so… It was great when we left… It was finally great when we left.

Brian Belefant: Yeah.

Is there a way… Do you have a method that you approach your work with, or is it just sort of intuitive?

True Cross: It’s primarily intuitive, but then once I kind of get a gut flash of where I wanna go with a property, once that vision’s in my head, then I definitely have a process.

Yeah, so it’s a combination of both.

Brian Belefant: Okay, and I know nothing that you’re saying isn’t something that a person can’t mostly do for themselves, but if you were to look at the way most people approach this, ’cause we all do… What’s the one thing that most people get wrong?

True Cross: About designing a space?

Brian Belefant: Yeah.

True Cross: I think… Well, there’s different mistakes, but I think the one that I see most common is filling up the space so much. “Oh, there’s a flat surface, let’s fill it up!”

“Oh, there’s wall space, let’s fill that up with more pictures or paintings!” And I like to have a lot of negative space in my design. I think it’s very important. Some people call it feng shui or just a sense of calm.

There is that, but I believe it was Gauguin: “Accent the essential and let everything else fade away into a blur.” And I really believe that because, point out the most essential things in a space and then let the space itself be the thing. And I really find that most people want to fill it up with a lot of niknaks and a lot of just things that… just take up space. Or just take up space. They haven’t necessarily traveled the world and found that piece from the place they travel. Now you’ve got all those things? You’re telling a story with those pieces, but you’re just getting stuff to kind of decorate? I don’t know, I find a lot of times people do too much of that. And so I try to come in and edit out those and take out a lot of that. So if there’s one common mistake, I think it’s just filling in too much. Have some space to breathe.

Brian Belefant: That makes perfect sense. And you’ve answered my next question already, so I’m not gonna make you answer again unless you want to.

True Cross: What is it?

Brian Belefant: Well, it’s sort of the inverse of that question, which is one simple thing that almost anybody could do to improve their chances of success.

True Cross: One thousand percent. And by the way, I would love to say that all my jobs are very sexy with the home concierge thing. No, a big part of what I do is simply utilitarian in nature, and that is simply just editing out and organizing what they already have. Not bringing in one more thing from the outside world. Simply taking away from and editing out so they can see the space theirselves, whether they’re living there, and especially if they’re getting ready to list their house, to go to market. It’s so essential. You’re not selling your stuff, you’re selling the home. And so in order for a potential buyer see that space, they really have to be able to look past all your stuff. And a lot of times, most people cannot. And that was the genesis of the staging world. Most people cannot see past all this stuff, they can’t see your room and see how their lives would look there with furniture, and therefore the whole staging industry was born.

Brian Belefant: You just made two fantastic points. Thank you.

Okay, small question and big question. Presuming that when you die, you want to have a tombstone, what would it say? What’s your epitaph?

True Cross: She was funny as hell.

Brian Belefant: That is so true.

I love that you were ready for that, ’cause I didn’t tell you that was gonna come, did I?

True Cross: She loved to laugh. And so she did.

Brian Belefant: Nice.

Okay, big question. What’s your definition of love?

True Cross: Being seen.

Brian Belefant: Fantastic!

I love that question because I had so many different answers…

True Cross: Being seen and seeing. And not interpreting.

There was a book called ‘Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain’ and the first lesson in that book to beginning students of the art and drawing, is that… See what’s actually there. Draw what is actually there.

A lot of times people can’t draw because they make up something in their head. But if you take the time to actually draw what is actually there… No, that line doesn’t go a little to the left, it literally go straight up, and then you take a right… When you’re drawing something, if you can literally see what’s there, you can draw. And that’s the same with humans, if we can see them… What’s really there? That’s love.

Brian Belefant: Wow! That’s fantastic!

Geez, that’s true. That’s fantastic.

True Cross: I’m trying.

Brian Belefant: Well, those are all the questions that I have, however… Do you have anything that you want to add?

True Cross: Just that I… I’ve been fortunate enough to have had two careers that I’ve loved. One was dressing people, and one is now dressing space and then selling it, and I just have a moment of gratitude of just getting to be able to go to work. Every day I go to work, I’m like, “I get to go to work today!” And it’s no small thing, and I just am so happy that I get to do that and get to be around all the wonderful people that I do.

Brian Belefant: Yeah. You are truly fortunate.

True Cross: Yeah.

Brian Belefant: Well, I’m gonna ask you for a favor. If you could think of anybody who would be good for this podcast, please send their names to me.

True Cross: Okay.

Brian Belefant: Because I really enjoy these conversations. It’s helping me get my head around a lot of stuff, and I think it’s helping a lot of other people understand things.

True Cross: I love it! It’s fantastic! Really nice to talk to you.

Brian Belefant: I know! And thank you so much for agreeing to do this.

True Cross: Oh my God, are you kidding? I can’t wait to share it. This is wonderful. And promote your podcast.

Brian Belefant: Thank you.

True Cross: How will I hear this? Can I give a link out on the world or how will I be able to do that? 

Brian Belefant: Well, it take me a couple of weeks to put it together.

True Cross: Okay, I have this tendency… I used to blog and I got kind of ahead of myself and I would sometimes to go three blog posts a week, and that’s a pace that I couldn’t keep up and I burned out. So I’m trying very hard not to do that. I’m excited to do this and I love these conversations, but I can’t… This isn’t my job.

That’s right. Your job is doing what I do.

Brian Belefant: Yeah, I’ve got two kids, a puppy, and the house to keep going, so I have to make a living…

True Cross: Well, I can’t wait to see you. I love where you live. Portland.

Brian Belefant: Well, I have the most beautiful guest room, so whenever you come up…

True Cross: Okay, I’m gonna take you up on that.

Brian Belefant: I’d love to have you.

True Cross: Well, look me up when you come back down to LA.

Brian Belefant: I definitely will. I miss you. It’s been so long. Thank you!

True Cross: Well, it’s splendid to talk to you. Let’s stay in touch and I’m excited to see this!

Thank you. Big kiss!

Brian Belefant: Big kiss back!