People in Real Estate

Profiles by Mary Umberger

'Gentleman cowboy' a master schmoozer

By Mary Umberger, Monday, February 22, 2010.

Gloria and Jim Austin -- <a href="http://www.apha.com/pressroom/08_NCoCfeaturedincalendar.html" target=blank>courtesy APHA</a>

Jim Austin is a cowboys fan.

That's cowboys with a little C.

Austin is a commercial real estate broker and Texas transplant who a few years ago stumbled across an apparent fact of African-American history -- that among those who settled the West were significant numbers of blacks. And that few people today are aware of it.

"It touched my heart that nobody had taught me about that in school books," said Austin, who says one-third of the people we think of today as the cowboys and cowgirls of the 19th century were minorities. more...

Alain Pinel reinvents himself, again

By Mary Umberger, Monday, February 15, 2010.

Dust doesn't settle on the resume of Alain Pinel. It doesn't get the chance.

Now a Massachusetts real estate executive, his long and varied tri-coastal career began in journalism and has hop-scotched across two continents. He has retired and un-retired -- a couple of times. Change, he says, is a tonic.

"To be honest with you, I'm kind of a funny animal because I like to move," said Pinel, now an executive with William Raveis Real Estate in Massachusetts. "If there's one thing I cannot accept, it is getting bored at doing anything." more...

Crisis at early age motivated NAR leader

By Mary Umberger, Monday, February 8, 2010.

Vicki Cox Golder went into real estate, she says, for the same reason that many others cite: It seemed like a good place to make a lot of money.

But she had a lot more motivation than many other aspiring real estate agents. By the time she was 20, both of her parents had died and she faced the prospect of raising her three sisters, ages 9, 11, and 13, herself.

Today, she regards her unusual and occasionally rocky road through the parenting of her sisters and two now-grown sons as a success.

"Basically being a teenager myself, it was a challenge, but a challenge I would do all over again," says Golder. more...

Real estate artistry and charity

By Mary Umberger, Monday, February 1, 2010.

Ah, where to begin with Frank McKinney?

Is it his claim of being, not a custom homebuilder, but a "real estate artist"?

Is it his Fabio hair and tight-jeans, rock-star persona -- the get-rich-with-real-estate author who travels around the country promoting his books in a Greyhound-sized bus adorned with blowups of his face?

Is it his apparent ability to please the ultrawealthy, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars for his spec homes? more...

Making fun of real estate listings

By Mary Umberger, Tuesday, January 19, 2010.

If you're a real estate agent, you really, really, really don't want your listings to end up on Sara Lorimer's blog.

That is, of course, unless you want people to laugh at them. Lorimer is the creator and overseer of LovelyListing.com, a two-year-old daily compendium of strange or aggressively ugly homes for sale, culled from multiple listing services by real estate agents around the world.

And each photo usually is accompanied by a deadpan remark, usually from Lorimer, who says she's been smarting off all her life. more...

Real estate pro sings on the side

By Mary Umberger, Monday, January 11, 2010.

One day in 2004, Allison Gambone was idling in traffic when she was startled to hear her own voice wafting from the radio of the car next to hers. She burst into tears and called her mother.

The New York real estate agent probably shouldn't have been so surprised -- after all, she was a fledgling singer who had written and recorded a song, "Can't Go On," that was getting some attention.

Still, the reality that a radio station actually would play it hadn't set in until that moment. more...

Real estate's 'lion' king

By Mary Umberger, Monday, January 4, 2010.

Bill Chee's career began inauspiciously. He cheerfully admits that he was thoroughly disenchanted by a youthful spin through the banking business.

Then, with career choice No. 1 out of the way, he turned his attention back to real estate, which he had tried briefly in college -- though that option didn't bode particularly well, either.

"I struggled along with it," he recalls. "I don't take well to sales." more...

Trading in retirement for real estate

By Mary Umberger, Monday, December 21, 2009.

The ink is barely dry on Jon Spisiak's real estate license and he's raring to go.

"I can't slow the guy down," says his soon-to-be boss, Mark Hodges, who has hired Spisiak to sell homes at K. Hovnanian's Four Seasons at Delray Beach, an active-adult community in Florida. His first day on the job will be Jan. 4.

But Spisiak isn't your average newbie sales associate. He's 72 and long retired from a highly successful career in the financial services industry -- though earlier in life he flirted with the real estate business. more...

Agent gives his business a makeover

By Mary Umberger, Monday, December 14, 2009.

In the beginning, it seemed so simple: Real estate agent working with local homebuilder decides to tackle an "Extreme Makeover"-type home-renovation project for a deserving local family -- an elderly woman living with two children whose home was in terrible shape.

"I wanted to do something that would get the builder some attention," said the agent, Greg Adamson of Lehi, Utah. "It was a little self-serving."

Two intense weeks later, with volunteers fueled by $80,000 in donated labor and materials, the family was living in a fully renovated home. more...

Realtor to a tee gets celebrity boost

By Mary Umberger, Thursday, December 10, 2009.

It might not qualify as the most famous T-shirt in the world, but it brought Rogers Healy his 15 minutes of fame, and then some. more...

Building a bicultural brokerage

By Mary Umberger, Thursday, December 3, 2009.

Robb Heering is not Hispanic ... well, maybe a little. A great-great grandmother was born in Argentina.

"I do have Hispanic blood, but you have to look deep," he says, laughing.

Why this matters is that Heering is the founder of Casa Latino, a fast-growing real estate franchise that's focusing on what it believes to be an insufficiently served market: the 47 million people in America who identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino. more...

Life lessons equip real estate coach

By Mary Umberger, Monday, November 16, 2009.

It's fair to presume that when Tom Ferry was a teenager, he might have benefited from a little coaching -- not that he would have tolerated anyone offering it.

"I was the worst possible kid," says Ferry. "I was stupid, obnoxious, angry. I was kicked out of four high schools. My parents were separated, and they each kicked me out of their house at 15.

"I lived on the streets -- literally -- for three months." more...

Real estate tycoon at 24

By Mary Umberger, Monday, November 9, 2009.

When Adam Blake says his business "has grown a bit in scope" since he went into real estate, he's not kidding.

Starting out as a residential property manager, he turned to buying and renting out such places himself. Then he expanded into high-volume flipping of single-family homes.

Recently, he's been buying land and selling the rights to drill for oil and gas. more...

A tale of 2 real estate 'tweeters'

By Mary Umberger, Monday, November 2, 2009.

This is a tale of two Tweeters. They're tackling the microblogging phenomenon in ways that are polar opposites -- and are equally convinced that it's a great way to build their real estate businesses.

Kelly Mitchell is a Honolulu agent who uses Twitter.com to send out brief dispatches that spotlight news in the real estate market, and also focus on her daily life and her feelings -- about being stuck in traffic, about an inspirational quote, and talking to college students about social media, for example. more...

Longtime innovator gives voice to vendors

By Mary Umberger, Monday, October 26, 2009.

A friend recently ribbed Greg Robertson that his Vendor Alley blog was "the TMZ of real estate."

Likening Robertson's frequent postings at VendorAlley.com to the wildly popular but often-notorious celebrity news site is a stretch, he says.

Nonetheless, he does get attention in the industry -- like the time just a few weeks ago, when he adapted the subtitles in a clip from "Downfall," the German-language film about the last days in Adolf Hitler's bunker, to poke fun at efforts by the calREDD ... more...

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