by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
One of North Florida’s top producers, Susan Kennedy, has left Re/Max Real Estate Specialists to open her own office.
It’s known as Susan Kennedy Realty Group & The Kennedy Team, Vanguard/ GMAC Real Estate. The office is on San Jose Blvd. in Mandarin.
“I wanted to own my own office building and for the last couple of years I had been thinking about a move,” said Kennedy. “The time was right and after talking to my customers, I realized that they don’t care where I am. They know I will take care of them the same way I always have and it doesn’t matter whose umbrella we may be under.”
Pete Dalton is the broker/owner of the franchise and Kennedy owns the office building at 12510 San Jose Blvd., across from the new Ace Hardware.
Kennedy’s staff consists of Roxanne Pilkinton, office manager; Debbie Wirz, Yvonne Schwartz, Sheila Pridgett and Carol Terry as office staff, and 12 licensed assistants.
She brought her entire team with her and is in the process of adding several more people to her team.
The new office is also putting together a program to allow outside agents who would like to join the office as an independent agent.
“I think this has affected my business in a positive way,” said Kennedy. “We have great visibility now and my customers know I am still the one taking care of them along with my team. They really don’t care what the company is — they know I am the one they can count on. We have had many of our customers drop in during the construction stage to congratulate me on the new office. They tell me they are surprised I waited this long to move on.”
Kennedy said she hopes to continue to grow and service her customers as she would want to be taken care of.Her trademark vehicles, the Volkswagen Bug and PT Cruiser, are not gone. She said they have both been repainted to reflect her new office’s logo.