The orange, shag carpet was worn and matted down. The cabinets were outdated. But this home, in the heart of its 90-year-old owner, was perfection. It was worth everything to him.
He was one of the first homeowners to settle on Geist Reservoir, building this house on the water more than 40 years ago.
It was the place where so many great family memories had been made. Laughter in the evenings at the dining room table. Sunny days on the deck just enjoying life.
But now, he lived inside this home alone. It was time to say goodbye and he knew it.
He turned to Laura Musall to guide him through one of the hardest journeys he would take – selling his beloved home.
“He adored this house,” says Musall, who has been a real estate agent for 11 years. “And you just knew when you walked into that house that this was the premier, stylish house when it was built. And it was so hard for him to let it go.”
For Musall, real estate isn’t a sales job. Not even close. It is a people job. It’s an emotional job. It’s a job where she becomes intensely close with clients.
“Working with Laura is like working with a knowledgeable friend,” says Carrie Ritchie, who enlisted Musall two years ago when she purchased a house in Hamilton County. “She genuinely cares about finding the perfect home for you.”
Musall does it all with a no-nonsense, straightforward style. Sometimes, things aren’t easy for clients to hear, but Musall has a gentle way of telling it like it is.
An agent with F.C. Tucker, Musall ranks among the top 20 percent of Realtors in central Indiana. She works mostly in Hamilton County and on the northside of Indianapolis.
She’s the Realtor who believes buying a house isn’t about numbers — not about square footage or the acres of a lawn. It’s not about the number of bedrooms or size of the garage.
It’s about living. It’s about how her clients spend their days. It’s about what they like to do in their free time at night.
It’s about asking a lot of questions o find out what type of house her clients really want.
And Musall has the perfect background for doing just that.
She grew up in rural Indiana, surrounded by cornfields and farmhouses. As a young girl in the summers — as she loaded rocks from the bean fields into the tractor, chopped down weeds and de-tasseled corn — she dreamed.
She dreamed of a newsroom, a bustling place with deadlines and investigations and sports desks and police scanners. Musall wanted to be a newspaper reporter.
Her high school was tiny – just 62 people in her graduating class. Musall did a little bit of everything. Basketball, class president, honor society, yearbook. And newspaper, of course.
She followed her career dream, graduating from Indiana University with a degree in journalism.
She went on to spend the next 10 years as a reporter, covering sports, the police beat and writing features. She ended her journalism career as managing editor of a Noblesville newspaper in the late 1990s.
But then, something else grabbed her passion. Real estate.
After leaving the newspaper, Musall dove into a career in public relations. But she wanted to keep her hands in journalism, so she took a freelance job with “Indianapolis Monthly,” writing a feature called Realty Check.
“I would find a house, go to the house, see the house and write about the house,” she says. “I loved it.”
Much of her PR work the next 10 years involved development projects, builders and architects. And she loved design.
An idea started percolating. Maybe real estate would be a good career move for her.
Musall earned her real estate license in 2007 and has never looked back. She loves the satisfaction that comes with finding someone the perfect house. She loves helping clients move on to a new adventure.
“Laura knows the market better than anyone,” Ritchie says. “She also offers great advice to help you prioritize your needs and wants.
Even after you buy your home, she will continue to help you.”
It was nearly 10 years ago when Jon and Angie Vogel were searching for that perfect first house. Angie Vogel remembers Musall’s relentless patience with them.
“We had no idea what we were doing,” she says.
Musall went with them to see house after house after house, never acting as if it was a burden. She helped the Vogels find the perfect home – and they still live there, now with their two daughters.
“The process couldn’t have gone better,” Vogel says. “We are still thankful every day for where Laura led us.”
More with Musall
Personal:
She is marred to Mike, an engineer whom she met more than 30 years ago at a Fourth of July festival playing volleyball. They live in Fishers, have two grown children, Jordan (married to Jesika) and Shelby, and one granddaughter, Quinn.
Extra credit:
She received her accreditation in staging houses and Musall loves design. She also loves to remodel her own home. Her most recent project is transforming her living room into a home office.
Never too many homes:
“I honestly do not get tired of seeing houses. I just love seeing all the different styles. I might see 350 or 400 houses a year and it never gets old. I even still go to home shows.”
