? by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
When George “Buddy” Haynes was asked to chair the Realtor Political Action Committee for the St. Augustine/St. Johns County Board of Realtors, he said he didn’t understand politics, didn’t like politics and really hated politicians.
“But they didn’t seem to think that was a deterrent,” laughed Buddy, a sales manager with Crown Commercial Properties. “Bobbie Ray, the president at that time, asked me to come in and help them to put together an RPAC group that would be successful at raising funds that we needed for the year.”
Haynes has an infectious smile and bolstering personality. When he enters a room, everyone knows it. He has managed to rally the entire Board of Realtors in his efforts to raise funds for local candidates who share the same views.
“It depends on how you look at a particular task,” said Haynes “I have no problem getting in front of a bunch of people. I’m pretty comfortable in front of people and being able to take on certain responsibilities.”
He was new to the real estate industry and felt that getting involved with the BOR gave him a better insight, quicker learning experience and a way to get involved with the BOR at a much faster pace, then sitting on the sidelines and watching.
He is now in his second year as the chairman.
“We were very successful last year,” said Haynes. “We made over 170 percent of our goal. I enjoy being able to be a participant in political events that we have during the year. Last year, we held a political candidate screening that was very informative to me since it was the first time I had been a part of something like that.”
They had a slate of questions for the candidates and interviewed all of the county, city and beach city commissioners and the school board. They had a panel of six people who did the interviews and then put together their selection of people that we wanted to support who support the views of Realtors and property owners.
“Our part is to determine who is going to be the best person who is going to support the Realtor point of view and then try to get them some funding so they can win the election,” said Haynes.
As the RPAC chairman, Haynes establishes a plan for achieving the goal.
Fundraising is based on an average number of members for the BOR.
“We analyze the amount of members we have and an approximate amount each would contribute,” he said. “Our goal this year is a little over $6,000. Last year it was about $4,400. We establish how we are going to raise it and we have a variety of ways to do that. Part of it stays right here in town and we support local candidates. The rest goes to the state RPAC fund. It takes quite a bit of money to run any kind of campaign just because of your mailings, printing and signage.”
“I’ve known Buddy for many years now. He was my oldest son’s Cub Scout leader and eventually got me back into scouting as a leader,” said John Chapman of Century 21 A1A Realty and president of the St. Augustine/St. Johns County Board of Realtors.
“We also attended church together. Because of these things, I knew Buddy was an honorable man and would follow through on any promise he made. An RPAC chair has to have the initiative to see what has to be done as well as the integrity to follow through on commitments. Buddy was the perfect man for the job.”
Issues that Haynes said Realtors are facing right now include the elimination of the Sadowsky Act, a documentary stamp tax that went to affordable housing projects.
“The tax supported programs such as the State Housing Initiative Program, Habitat for Humanity and other affordable housing programs,” he said. “What they are talking about doing is taking that funding and instead of it going directly into the programs, they want it to go to the state budget and then the state will decide how much they will put into the affordable housing program. What happens with that is every year you have to go fight for your money. Realtors have to fight for it every year to protect that part of their market and to help the people who can’t afford homes.”
Haynes feels it is important for Realtors to get involved in politics. He cited an instance last year where, due to their involvement, Amendment 5, the tax on services, was completely taken off the ballot because they supported the state RPAC group which got a court order to remove the amendment from the ballot.
“What would have happened if we left it on there?” said Haynes. “Every one of the other amendments passed. It was written in a way that it just seemed fair. If it would have passed, every single home buyer in the state would be paying more money for their homes because we would have had to add tax on top of our commissions.”
Also, he talked about property rights of home owners being removed.
“Certain interest groups will slowly take away your rights to do what you want to with your property piece by piece,” said Haynes. “They will completely dismantle your ability to use your own property.”
Normally, commercial Realtors are not actively involved in real estate associations, but Haynes sees it as an advantage.
When Crown opened three years ago, there was only one other commercial real estate company in St. Johns County and they were not members of the BOR.
“We looked at being a part of the board as having a benefit to our customers,” said Haynes. “We could reach not only the few commercial people that we found, but we could also reach another 600 agents who dealt with certain commercial aspects of real estate. So, we saw that a lot of the residential agents were doing pieces and parts of commercial real estate, but they didn’t specialize in commercial.”
He said since he started with Crown, he has only seen one other commercial company come into St. Johns County. Most of the time, residential companies will handle both residential and some commercial.
After he joined the board, he discussed with them that commercial should be separate. At the end of May, a commercial division of the board was started.
“We are going to have a lot of people who deal with land, property managers and residential companies who want to do commercial, too,” said Haynes.
Haynes said there is a lot of commercial activity in St. Johns County.
“Lately there has been a lot of interest in looking at development land,” he said. “Development land in this area is hard to find. We have a variety of people looking for 40 to 100 acres to develop. It’s hard to get it developed once you find it.”
Haynes said in the past they have had some difficulty with commercial growth because of the previous Board of County Commissioners’ reaction to some of the issues with commercial.
“But now we are seeing some indication that the board in encouraging the commercial growth,” he said. “We really need some more development land. The county has not kept up with the growth, so now they are playing catch-up to the growth. When they put out the 2015 future land use map and we said we wanted growth to occur in certain areas. So we went out and did those areas and they are all done and we have run out areas to go do more growth.
“We still have the SR 207 corridor. We are seeing extra long permitting stages and zoning stages that can take six months to a year for a major or minor variance or a change in zoning. These are affecting the overall buildability of a particular parcel of property.”
Haynes’ company does a lot of vacant land and development land deals, leasing as well as listing and selling of commercial property.
Since he has been involved with RPAC, his views of politicians have changed a bit.
“I think they are a necessary evil,” said Haynes. “We certainly need politicians. We need politicians as much as we need garbage men. They both have purposes and functions. Each one has to do his job correctly or we have a problem. There are good garbage men and bad garbage men. There are some that just wreck my garbage can and others who have a little more responsibility to them who even turn my garbage cans over so if there is drainage stuff in them, they will dry out.
“I see politicians in the same light. We have good ones and not-so-good ones. We have some who will take advantage of the system and others who really don’t care how much good they do. It’s not always the right thing to do, it’s what is the lesser of the two evils of the things that I have to do that will make a difference as to whether I get re-elected again.”
Before Haynes moved to St. Augustine, he worked in Jacksonville as a manager for Atlantic Marine for 18 years.
Haynes has had his real estate license for 10 years, and saw an opportunity in St. Johns County for commercial real estate, so moved there to work at Crown Commercial Properties two years ago.
He lived in St. Augustine and was getting tired of the commute to Jacksonville.
“I had an interest in real estate and I wanted to get into an area that I could come back to St. Augustine, where I had lived since I was a teenager,” said Haynes. “Two years later, it is still going well. We have made a big impact into this market and the company has great name recognition in the market. We are still are making more of an impact in the market and I am seeing some of the effects of things that we set out to do. We are seeing some changes and know that we are making an impact.”
Haynes has been married to Cynthia for two years. Together they have five children: Guy, Greg, Dennis, Daniel and Chloe.
When he is not working he enjoys boating. He has several including a sailboat, off-shore fishing boat, jet boat and a canoe. He also enjoys walking or running on the beach.