by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Jeannette Moore of JM Properties has found her own niche in real estate — selling bed and breakfasts.
“About five years ago, I saw an advertisement from a company out of North Carolina that was looking for real estate agents to represent them in the Florida area,” said Moore. “I signed up as one of two exclusive representatives in Florida to sell bed and breakfasts.”
Moore said the company, The B & B and Country Inn Market Place, has the largest website in the country for marketing bed and breakfasts. The address is
www.innmarketing.com.
“The website gets over 16,000 hits a day,” she said.
She chose to list and sell bed and breakfasts because she wanted to do something different.
“You have to stay on the leading edge of something in order to succeed in this business,” said Moore. “There are so many people that are licensed in real estate, there isn’t anything special about having a real estate license unless you distinguish yourself by having a niche whether it is selling oceanfront or condominiums.
“So many of the niches were already done here in town and I wanted something very different. That is why I started doing bed and breakfasts because nobody else was.”
Moore also has her own website, www.bnbs4sale.com, where she markets bed and breakfasts locally and all over Florida. Her website provides details on construction, lot size and features pictures of owners’ quarters, kitchens and other areas not normally seen without a personal visit.
“I get easily 50 inquiries a week from potential bed and breakfast buyers,” she said. “They may want a small motel, they may want a building that can be a bed and breakfast or most people want a turnkey operation,” she said. “They want to go in with a proven record and be able to run a bed and breakfast.”
Moore said selling bed and breakfasts is very multifaceted.
“It’s more related to commercial real estate,” Moore. “It deals with a lot more than residences because it deals with the entire business including the inventory. It deals with the real property plus the business transaction so there is a lot more knowledge required. I take courses all the time to keep updated.”
There are many requirements that a building would have to meet to be able to be a bed and breakfast.
“If you are going to serve a full breakfast, you will need to have a commercial kitchen,” said Moore. “The house would have to have fire sprinkler system and most bed and breakfasts have a private bath for every room. So, it would require a large house with a lot of bathrooms or the capability of putting in bathrooms for each room.”
She said some people buy a home and remodel it to be a bed and breakfast, but sometimes that is not always done successfully.
“There are several in St. Augustine that have made the closets into bathrooms,” said Moore. “They are very small bathrooms and they aren’t quite as popular as inns that have been totally renovated with bathrooms as part of the room.”
Other things buyers need to take into consideration when buying a bed and breakfast are what they are going to use the facility for.
“Some may want to do more weddings and catering to wedding parties, some don’t want to do any kind of cooking and others like the idea of having outside entrances to the rooms,” said Moore. “Everybody is different. That neat part of the business is matching the bed and breakfast or inn to the buyer. You need to get into their heads and figure out what type of lifestyle they are looking for.”
By knowing the different inns all over Florida, she can try to find the perfect match for them. For example, if a buyer has children they will need a larger owner’s quarters and so on.
“It all depends on what their objectives are, how they are used to living, how they want to live and how involved they want to be in the business itself,” said Moore.
Moore doesn’t only sell bed and breakfasts. She also sells residential by referral.
“I usually work with repeat customers and others I have worked with in the past,” she said.
Moore has had her real estate license since 1985. She was a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch from 1980-86.
From 1986-90, she flew hot air balloons and organized hot air balloon races around the country.
In 1990, she went into residential real estate sales full time and always wanted to do commercial.
“I was advised to do residential for a number of years prior to doing commercial,” said Moore. “I’ve worked for two of the large firms here in Jacksonville. I started with Prudential Network Realty in 1990 and then went to RE/MAX Coastal Real Estate in 1994.”
She has been selling bed and breakfasts since 1997 and started her own company, JM Properties, in December 2000.
Moore works out of her house, which she designed and built in Ponte Vedra in 1995, because most of her business is Internet based. She sells about three bed and breakfasts a year all over Florida.
Bed and breakfasts usually sell for between $500,000 to $4.25 million.
“They are commercial properties and the average time a bed and breakfast stays on the market is approximately 18 months,” she said. “There is a market for bed and breakfasts in Jacksonville, but not many have gone on the market up for sale.”
Different than residential, which are usually purchased based on emotion, Moore said that bed and breakfasts are usually purchased as an investment.
She said there are about 14 bed and breakfasts in Jacksonville. Ten are scattered throughout Riverside and Avondale areas and four are located at the beach. There are about 29 in St. Augustine.
Moore was born in Boston and moved to Jacksonville in 1970. She lives in her house in Ponte Vedra with her Shih Tzu, Miso. She has a bachelor’s degree in speech pathology and audiology. When she is not working, she enjoys decorative painting, sewing, bicycling, buying and renovating houses, gardening and cooking.