The office recently relocated from Solano Road to its new location at 830-04 A1A North in Tournament Plaza in Ponte Vedra Beach.
THE BROKER
Sue Ann Ogden.
WHAT DOES SHE DO?
“A little bit of everything.” She is involved in the rental business as well
as listing and selling
property.
WHY THE NEW LOCATION?
“It was a wonderful location, but we had no visibility and nobody could find us. Now we are visible and people are walking in our door. Yesterday, there were people driving here from Destin to get away from the hurricanes who came into Ponte Vedra Beach and saw our sign and showed up at our door to find a place to stay to wait out the storm.”
WHAT DOES THE OFFICE DO?
“Our company handles upper-end long and short term rentals, furnished and unfurnished. We are a little backwards from most real estate offices. Most real estate offices list and sell properties primarily, but we are upside down and backwards from that. We specialize in rentals, but we also list and sell.”
WHAT DO THEY
RENT AND SELL?
“We currently have a portfolio of over 100 properties including condominiums and single family homes. Most of them are located in Sawgrass Country Club, TPC and oceanfront communities. We also handle some oceanfront homes most of them located between Ponte Vedra and St. Augustine that rent on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.”
HOW LONG HAS THE OFFICE BEEN OPEN?
Two years. Ogden purchased an existing business, Langston & Weeks, in 2000. “They had been doing this for about six or seven years and had built up a very good following and reputation. They didn’t want to sell their business to a company that would absorb their portfolio into an even larger portfolio. They wanted somebody who would keep the same level of customer service and boutique type of atmosphere.”
WHO IS IN THE OFFICE?
Odgen is the broker, Frank Sausedo is the general manager, Shirley Zummo is the receptionist, Barbara Ray is an agent specializing in rentals and sales, Darlene Forrest is the bookkeeper, Bob Jackson handles the maintenance and Joanne Sausedo is support staff.
HOW IS THE MARKET FOR RENTALS
AT THE BEACH?
“The beauty of our business is the fact that we do both renting and selling. Even in a market where people aren’t buying, they still need housing, so they are still going to rent. What happened with our business is that after Sept. 11, we picked up a number of homes and condominiums that had been listed for sale, but had not sold. The owner needed something to happen with the property, so they looked at the possibility of renting. We added a number of properties to our portfolios at that time and succeeded in renting them.”
WHAT AREA
DO YOU WORK IN?
Ponte Vedra, Jacksonville, Neptune and Atlantic beaches and south almost to Vilano Beach.
DO YOU HAVE TROUBLE RENTING UPPER END PROPERTIES?
“No. Granted, when you are in the upper end, $3,500 and up on long term rental and $2,500 and up on short term rentals, your market share narrows. The fact of the matter is that those people are out there. We do a lot of marketing to attract those people. We have our own website and we are linked to a number of other websites throughout the country so people are finding us more and more through the Internet. We also network with corporations who are bringing people into the area. There’s also a lot of word of mouth business that comes from networking with other real estate agents. I have to thank many of the real estate agents for sending business our way.”
WHAT CHALLENGES
DO YOU FACE?
“On its surface, property management is a simple business, but if you are doing it day to day you realize that it really is a business of details. We need to be on top of our properties, we can’t be a long way away from our properties. They become like our children, we have to take care of them. One of the biggest challenges that we face constantly is a balance between what the tenant is looking for and what the owner is looking for. Our fiduciary responsibility is to the owner and the tenant is looking for what the tenant is looking for. And believe me, people will negotiate leases as hard as if not harder than they negotiate to purchase a property.”
HOW HAS THE AREA CHANGED OVER TIME?
She said the area has experienced tremendous growth which is indicated in the rising home and condominium values. “I’m amazed at the new properties going up all around us and the prices and I think everyone is amazed. I do still see future appreciation on the horizon.”
BUSIEST TIME OF YEAR?
During The Players Championship. “This year, the TPC decided that they only wanted to work with one real estate office. They interviewed the other offices and selected Suncastle Properties, Inc. We will be the exclusive TPC Housing Bureau and have the exclusive TPC Housing website. We rent properties to many of the people coming to see the tournament, players, VIPs and corporate people. We seek out additional properties just for that week.”
HOW WILL
THEY DO THAT?
They will be sending out letters to home owners in selected neighborhoods to bring more houses into our portfolio. The website will feature pictures of the houses.
HOW IS IT TO WORK WITH THE PLAYERS?
“We don’t usually take the players out and show them houses, we show them pictures. We go the extra mile for them. We stock the kitchen with items that they might like, not necessarily to feed them for the week, but with breakfast items, coffee and tea. If they are bringing children, we will buy animal crackers or something children might like. Some of the players actually send ahead their grocery list and we will go grocery shopping for them. We do not charge them any extra, we make it a part of our service and we think that is why they keep coming back to us.”
HOW DOES BEING SMALL OFFICE AFFECT THE WAY YOU WORK?
“It can work either way. I think it is an advantage to be small. As far as marketing ourselves to our customers and clients, some people look for a larger company, because they think it will give them more exposure. We sell the opposite. Because we are small, they’re business is that much important to us and we will work that much harder for them. They are not going to get lost in the shuffle or fall through the cracks. They are going to be very special. People see that we give them results and that’s what it’s all about.”
MOTTO
“We make it happen, you make it home.”
WILL SHE
GROW THE OFFICE?
Yes, she is looking to grow the office over the next six months to a year. “It takes a special person to do property management. Not everyone is cut out for property management. You have to be good at juggling a lot of balls at the same time. My ideal scenario would be to have an agent who does exclusively rentals, another agent who does more sales, but backs up the rental agent and then another rental agent overseeing all the activity on the rental side.”
FAMOUS CLIENTS
In the past, the office has worked with Jacksonville Jaguars Pete Mitchell and Mark Brunell, ex-Jaguar Jeff Novak and golfers Greg Norman, Jesper Parnevik and Jerry Kelly, to name a few.
PROFESSIONAL GROUPS
Ponte Vedra Chamber of Commerce and the Jacksonville & the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau.
WEBSITE
www.suncastleproperties.com
-by Michele Newbern Gillis