William E. Hollingsworth, Jr. – Bill to most folks – is a Blanchard and Calhoun legend. For 40 years, Bill managed our residential sales division, serving as executive vice president and helping our company with many of our residential developments. He encouraged, advised, mentored, and, at times, inspired two generations of agents. Bill founded Hollingsworth Appraisal Company and held the coveted MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute, a global association of real estate appraisers. Bill knew a lot of things – about fishing and finance, about golf and good investments, about hunting and houses. And, boy, did he know how to price property. Real estate valuation is a complex process involving square footage, number of rooms, condition of the home and its systems, amount of land, the location, the view, comparable sales, unsold inventory, and many other factors. But, it also requires intuition, the willingness to trust your gut. Getting the price right equals a quick transaction. Getting it wrong leaves a home languishing on the market, often resulting in a sale for far less than the home is actually worth. Bill had a gift, and he worked hard to share it with others. In the early days, before computers put every conceivable piece of data at our fingertips, Bill would rally the sales team and caravan to properties that Blanchard and Calhoun was preparing to list. They would walk the property, talk about the features, highlight the pros and strategize about the cons. And then he would ask each agent to jot a suggested listing price on a slip of paper. Bill would average their suggestions and that would be the price of the house. At least that’s what he said. Perhaps he had already settled on a price and his regular caravan was simply a way to subtly teach and guide his agents. We’ll never know. But we do know this: we sold a lot of houses on Bill’s watch. He knew the science of real estate, and he was brilliant at the art.