Experience: 9 years
Specializations: New buyers who are relocating to the Virginia Beach area
Areas Served: Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth and surrounding areas.
Q: What made you become interested in real estate?
A: My family was in real estate both in resale and property management. I did my first FSBO as a non-licensed home Seller back in 2003, so that fueled my passion to advocate for others.
Q: What is the most interesting thing that happened during an open house you hosted?
A: I had a professional athlete, who I shall not name, come out to one of my open houses about 4 years ago. Sadly, I didn't recongize him so how I kept my cool worked in my favor. Then, once the open house slowed, I looked up his name and sure enough, he was in the National League!
Q: What was your favorite moment in your career so far?
A: My proudest moment was when I helped a person I had known for years get her and her husband's home ready for market. It was in a sought-after neighborhood, yet the home didn't meet the standard of the neighborhood because it was a rental for some years. Unfortunately for them is it was a rental because they didn't use me first - they used another friend who was an agent, and they couldn't get the home sold for the price they wanted. She and her husband worked side by side with me and the stager to pick out new carpet, paint, and carried out a few light renovations of the kitchen and bathrooms. Once staged, they netted $35K for an investment of less than $10K! In addition to that return on investment, the home sold in 6 days!
Q: What do you wish you had known when you first got your real estate license?
A: Getting your real estate license is a license to own your own business… in real estate. As a new business owner, you must have funds available to sustain you. Thankfully, I did have the support of my partner. However, I wished I had planned on the onset to invest $10K in my business startup as well as had an extra $10K to put into my business savings. By now, I would own my own Brokerage. This is one of those cases of 'you don't know what you don't know until you know it' situations and the Brokerages are not energized to highlight the roadblocks that you may be facing. So, with that lesson under my belt, I continue to network with other top producing Agents and we share success stories and struggles on the regular.
Q: In what ways have you seen the real estate industry change since you started?
A: When I started, we had all paper contracts that were in triplicate and you had to sign in pen by bearing down hard on the contracts so it would show up on the back copy. Now, most contracts are paperless. I love it!
Q: What’s the most challenging part of your job?
A: The most difficult part is conveying to my sellers and buyers how genuinely passionate I am about helping them meet their goals. There's so many 'scripted salespeople' it can be hard to battle the perception of what real estate is all about. It's about helping people with the biggest investment of their entire lives. It's scary. There's a lot of self-doubt on the part of sellers and buyers. Some other parts of our country don't understand how we, in this beach community called Hampton Roads (specifically Virginia Beach) care about others. We locals are genuine people. Another struggle is to not overwhelm my clients. You see, I am not a minimalist by any stretch of the imagination. The hashtags that follow me are #domore #bemore and #makeadifference.
Q: If you could sum up being a real estate agent in five words or less, what would you say?
A: #domore #bemore #makeadifference
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