This interview with myself was published in The Daily New Canaan today
New Canaan Agent Loves Coming Home
by Fenella PearsonToday
Photo credit: Fenella Pearson, ASID
Denise Gannalo is one of New Canaan’s biggest fans. She loves the town’s beauty, and the community involvement of the people. “Even though I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. and love the city, New Canaan has been my home for 32 years,” she says. “I always enjoy coming home when I’ve been away on a trip.”
Denise knows every nook and cranny of her town, which is hardly surprising since she’s sold homes to many of New Canaan’s residents. In her 29 years as a real estate agent, she’s handled more than half a billion dollars' worth of real estate transactions, which, she points out, “is a lot of homes.” For the past 15 years she’s been the top producer at the William Raveis office in town. She’s also the fourth top Raveis salesperson in Connecticut.
What Denise loves most about her job is the variety. “I design my day each and every morning,” she says. These days her planning is done entirely with new technology. She was one of the first to blog about real estate in New Canaan and she floods the Internet with her property listings. She uses Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to grow her business and stay ahead of the curve. "I'm self-taught," she says.
But the thing that has made the biggest difference to the way she runs her business is her phone. “My iPhone has changed my life dramatically,” she says. “I can use it to do anything.” Mobile technology enables her to take videos of new properties and instantly email them to clients. “They can see a new house listing at the same time as I see it,” she says. She can also give buyers and sellers instant updates on new listings and price changes, and it helps her keep an eye on the competition. The best part, she says, is that having all the information she needs in her phone means she can spend more time with clients instead of sitting at her desk in the office.
Denise is quick to point out that new technology can never take the place of real estate agents. “Nobody will buy a house from a picture on a phone or on a computer,” she says. That’s where her thorough knowledge of everything New Canaan has to offer comes into play. “New Canaan is a sophisticated town. People come here for the quality of life, for the town center, for the community and the schools,” she says. “It’s nice to go into town, to the shops, and bump into your neighbors.”
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