There is an alternate universe out there that contains the planets known as Personality, Passion, Prose and Performance. This universe lost its sun last week when Jodie Barringer died.

A leader, Realtor, writer and raconteur, Barringer was the Virginia Woolf of real estate, and her very name is in iambic pentameter, she once told me. Yes, Josephine Davenport Barringer Smith, her name in marriage, meets the criteria for that meter form. Her prose was incomparable, and her style that of her own.

Born in Memphis with creativity swirling about her, she then attended the University of Mississippi, a school known for its literary legacy. Barringer moved to Nashville and started a family, giving birth to two girls. Jodie always found a way to work them into her conversations and her writings, and their lives were shared with her universe.

Barringer

When she entered into the world of single momness, she began to demonstrate her prescient business abilities when she founded a company for staging houses when the term was not in vogue or in the real estate lexicon. With her daughters’ penchant for “playing house” as the foundation, Barringer opened “Let’s Play House,” a company that worked with Realtors and homeowners in redesigning the interiors of homes so that they would be more presentable when they were listed for sale.

Her larger-than-life personality catapulted her into a go-to person for all things realty. That same personality is proving to be larger-than-death.

It was while working with real estate agents and their clients that Fridrich and Clark Realty discovered her talents and encouraged her to get her real estate license. She heeded that advice and burst into the business with aplomb and a personality that shook the real estate world while soothing anxious buyers and sellers. Her former business and laid the groundwork.

Her performance in the field resulted in countless awards from the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, the real estate trade organization. She achieved 13 Awards of Excellence, including the prestigious Platinum Lifetime Award of Excellence, recognition that few achieve.

In 2020, she was listed in the Nashville Business Journal as one of the Top 25 real estate agents in Nashville.

Several years after her transition from interior designer/ home stager, and following several hundred closings, she began to share her real estate experiences and her life with her real estate writings known as “News from the Home Front.” Exhibiting her passion for her work, her family and all of humanity, she wrote with a stream of consciousness style that would have made Virginia Woolf proud and a Gonzo bite that would make Hunter S. Thompson blush.

Her readers found the writing to be endearing, informative and, at times, shocking. She was transparent, honest, bold, witty and at all times charming, embracing her Southern roots and upbringing throughout her writings and her life. With those guidelines in place, her readership soared.

She ended each story with the following call to action:

“Kiss your babies, tell your parents you love them, and take a walk in the park with a friend.”

Good advice. Godspeed Josephine Davenport Barringer.

Sale of the Week

3916-B Caylor Drive

Last week, the home at 3916 Caylor Drive sold for $2.43 million or $488 per square foot. The Green Hills home includes 5,125 square feet and a half-acre lot. Katie Morrell listed the home for $2.749 million and sold it in 59 days.

That sale is the norm for the Nashville residential real estate market, as few houses sell for list price and most linger longer than the 59 days.

A new home, most of which outsell older homes, the 2024 build includes five bedrooms and five full bathrooms with the primary bedroom suite on the first floor, a prerequisite for selling in most cases. There are 869 square feet in the basement, a number that most likely drove the price per square foot down for basement footage is usually 50-75% lower than the above-ground living space.

The house has a room with a sink and toilet downstairs along with a chef’s kitchen. There is a fireplace outside for those who might not have achieved chef status and need to cook over a flame.

Elizabeth Taylor of Reliant Realty ERA Powered represented the buyer. That’s her name. Perhaps she used the radon company owned by Dustin Hoffman (not that Dustin Hoffman). It’s a shame home inspector Don Knotts retired. It was always fun to recommend him.

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