by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Sisters share a lot of things growing up. They share clothes, friends, parents and sometimes even a room. After all that, not many choose to share a profession, but Barbara and Linda Moore are different.
As Linda’s older sister, Barbara, had an idea: she was already in real estate, and she persuaded young Linda to try it out.
Well, twenty-something years later, Linda is a sales manager at Harmony Homes and a past chair of the Northeast Florida Builders Sales and Marketing Council and Barbara is also a past chair of SMC and now the Jacksonville division president for Beazer Homes.
“When Linda first got into the business, she used to tell me that people would always say, ‘Oh, you’re Barbara Moore’s sister’,” said Barbara. “And when I moved back, now it’s ‘Oh, you’re Linda Moore’s sister’. I think it is wonderful.”
They have another sister who has nothing to do with the real estate business.
“We all try to get together once every week or two for dinner or something,” said Moore. “It’s nice having Linda in the business. Obviously, there is a lot to talk about. Having common interests and friends is good. Plus, I think she is perfect for this business. I encouraged her to get into it many years ago because I knew she’d like it and she’d be good at it.”
Moore came back to Jacksonville in March to work for Beazer after many years away as division president for several builders.
She was set on returning to Jacksonville, so she called the regional president of Beazer. After three months of discussions, she got the job. She replaced Bill Mazar, now the company’s regional land manager.
“I came back for two reasons,” said Moore, who lives in Queen’s Harbour. “One was the opportunity to work for Beazer. I had worked with a lot of the people in the past and I knew it was an excellent company and it was growing fast. Also, I wanted to get back to Jacksonville. It was time to come back.”
Moore is in charge of all operations in the city including land search and development, building operations, construction, warranty and purchasing.
“From the division president’s standpoint, I am managing managers who are in charge of each of those functions,” she said.
In her new position, she will follow the flow of the company and work towards diversifying the company’s building role in the community.
“The goal would be to offer a wide range of products for a wide range of buyers from the entry-level through move-up through empty nester,” she said. “So, we are doing more diversification now than we have in the past. We obviously want to stick to our single-family roots but we are starting mid-rise condominiums and town homes. That diversification is the goal of the company and our goal locally.”
The company previously was focused on single-family move-up homes ranging from $200,000 and up.
Now they will have entry-level town homes, which will start in the $120,000’s and single-family homes ranging from $140,000 to over $900,000. Condominiums will start in the $200,000’s.
“Jacksonville is great,” said Moore. “It is growing rapidly. There are things that didn’t used to be here, like entertainment and restaurants. Once the retail places that have not been growing because of the economy start establishing new stores again, Jacksonville should be one of the places they should go. It’s time for the higher-end retail to come.”
Even though her career has moved her around quite a bit, she’s back home now and loving it.
“It is great because a lot of the people that I knew and worked with in the past are doing great things,” said Moore. “They are in development, they are in charge of companies. It’s been great to come back and know everyone. Every city that I’ve been in, I was the new person and had to meet everyone and learn who was doing what. Coming back here has been a lot easier because I know so many. These are people I have grown up in the business with so it’s easy to come back and associate with them again. I’ve found some people that I knew from other cities.”
Moore who was born and raised in Jacksonville and entered the real estate market right out of college - she has a bachelor’s degree in business management degree and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from Florida State University.
“I always intended on working for a large developer,” she said. “When I graduated it was during a time when there wasn’t a lot of large development being done, so I got into general real estate with Watson.”
Eventually, Moore became relocation director for Watson Realty Corp. and did that for several years.
“During that time, the building business here was evolving from individual custom builders to larger scale builders with model homes,” she said. “I saw that was what I intended to do from the beginning.”
So, she went to work for Chester Stokes of Stokes and Co., starting out in site sales and then becoming sales manager.
“I did that for several years and in fact Stokes Collins, the single-family branch of Stokes and Co., spun off. Stokes Collins sold that part of the company to Ryland Homes, which was one of the first national companies in Jacksonville. It opened up a whole new world of opportunities for me. Ryland transferred me to Atlanta.”
And the journey began.
Moore left Jacksonville in the mid-1990’s.
“As part of Ryland’s division president preparation program, I built homes as a superintendent,” said Moore. “The program required participants to spend time in each discipline. If you came from a sales background, you’d spend time building. If you came from a building background, then you’d spend time selling.”
She then moved to South Carolina as division president for Ryland.
Moore then took a job with Pulte Homes, which sent her to North Carolina and then back to South Carolina. She then took a job with Ashton Woods Homes in Texas.
Moore feels that experience is key to the real estate market.
“My goal is to have experience in all facets of real estate,” said Moore. “This business is constantly evolving. The key is to always prepare yourself as well as you possibly can for the job that you want. That’s what I tried to do by experiencing all levels of it.
“The part that was probably the most valuable was the year and few months that I spent building. Because you can see that part of it when you are in another part of the company, and you think you understand it, but you don’t. Until you do it, you don’t understand it. So, doing that part of it was very valuable to me.”