4404 Sunnybrook Dr

As some houses are aging on the market, many homeowners are opting to withdraw them and await better times, change real estate brokers or retool their marketing plan with their current agents.

The onslaught of calls by those seeking listings is more than many homeowners could have imagined. One reason for this is that there are hundreds of companies calling Realtors each day offering to provide the Realtors with listing appointments. These services charge $199-$2,000 per month, and they arrange for these listing appointments by calling the owners of properties that have recently left the market.

Those they represent are often reliable, capable agents who are trying to bolster their listing stable or newer agents who are unable to gain listings through traditional channels, i.e., hard work.

When withdrawing a property, sellers should prepare for the calls, and they are telephone calls. It is a great opportunity to meet a couple of hundred or so real estate brokers.

Sale of the Week

Last week, the house at 4404 Sunnybrook Drive sold for $3.735 million. It was the personal home of Jed and Beth Dodd, who have lived there since 2015 and led a monster renovation project. Beth is the managing partner in Dodd Development Group.

Dodd – at that time Beth Graves – graduated from Vanderbilt University, where she could be seen on the sidelines cheering the Commodores on from 1984 to 1988 when she was a cheerleader. While toiling through the Watson Brown years – including one win during the 1986 season, his first – in football, she was there when C.M. Newton led the Commodores basketball team to 20 wins with such players as Will Perdue, who went on to play with Michael Jordan and win four NBA Championship rings, three with the Bulls and one with the San Antonio Spurs.

Other notables on the team were the two Barrys – Goheen and Booker – as well as Frank Kornet, an All-SEC player who was drafted in the NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks as the 30th pick overall and whose wife Tracy is a television personality for WSMV and winner of seven Emmys.

Their son, Luke, was a record-setting roundballer at Vandy, setting the school record for blocked shots and the NCAA record for most three pointers by a seven-foot player. Luke played with the Boston Celtics this year as they made their run deep into the NBA playoffs.

During the Graves/Dodd era, the Vanderbilt basketball team had another player that failed to reach stardom or even much mention. His name was Adolph Frederick Rupp III, better known as Chip. He was the grandson of the winningest college basketball coach of all time at that point in basketball history.

He decided to attend Vanderbilt rather than play at Rupp Arena in Lexington as Joe B. Hall, his grandfather’s successor, had decided to step down and no replacement had been named. Vanderbilt coach C.M. Newton was a Kentucky alum and brought the young Rupp to Vanderbilt.

Dodd also saw Roy Mewbourne lead the baseball team to the most wins of any Vanderbilt coach until 2018 when Tim Corbin surpassed Mewbourne. Corbin has won a game or two – or 203 to be exact – since 2018 and shows no signs of slowing.

After graduating from Vanderbilt, young Graves attended the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt and earned her master’s degree. She later became director of marketing at Vanderbilt University before establishing Dodd Development in 2011.

Four years later, she and husband Jed purchased the home at 4404 Sunnybrook Drive, where they raised their four children.

During their stay at Sunnybrook, Dodd describes their residence as a “warm and inviting Tudor family home that boasts a perfect blend of contemporary design and traditional charm.” The house includes five bedrooms, four full baths and two half baths in the main house and a detached garage with a full office, full bathroom and sink with an undercounter refrigerator. Including everything, the house has 7,287 square feet on a lot that is slightly more than an acre.

Originally listed for $4 million, the price was dropped to $3.8 after three weeks on the market and sold two days following the drop, proving once more that pricing is important. Buyers tend not to submit low offers on fine houses.

The alert buyer’s agent for the sale was another person – Julia Spickard, aka Julia Corker Spickard – who also has an interesting story. Julia is the daughter of Bob Corker, the former mayor of Chattanooga who turned that city into a showplace and kept finances for the state of Tennessee in order while serving as the Finance and Administration Commissioner under Gov. Don Sundquist.

He later served in the United States Senate, where he was one of a dying, perhaps now-dead breed who voted for what he felt was best for the country rather than what he was told to do by others.

His daughter has the gumption and integrity of her father and has incorporated those traits into her real estate practice.

Richard Courtney is a licensed real estate broker with Fridrich and Clark Realty and can be reached at [email protected].