by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Bob Gedeon, owner of Oceanfront Properties in Amelia Island, likes to do things differently.
He was once told that he couldn’t be different because he puts his pants on one leg at a time like everyone else.
“I figured out a way to put my pants on two legs at a time and I still do it to this day,” said Gedeon.
He proved he could be different and brought that concept into his real estate practices.
“I offer full-service with a reduced fee 4 percent commission,” said Gedeon. “I think of myself as the Charles Schwab of real estate. He started a full-service, reduced commission stock brokerage company. It saves the buyer and the seller a lot of money. Most of the properties I deal with are $1-5 million, so every one percent of a $1 million is $10,000. If their property is $2 million or higher, they care about that $20,000, $30,000 or $40,000.”
He says that most of his clients are wealthy and have second homes on Amelia Island.
“Most of my market is high-end condominiums at Amelia Island Plantation and Summer Beach,” he said.
He not only charges the lower commission, but he gives half of the 4 percent to the cooperating agent.
“They get the lion’s share of the commission that I charge if they sell my property,” he said. “If I sell my own property, then I throttle it back to 3 percent.”
To open your own company and then charge a reduced commission could be kind of risky, but Gedeon says that’s what he is all about.
“I’ve always been a risk taker,” said Gedeon. “I don’t sell real estate to please other Realtors. I sell it to please buyers and sellers. They are very happy with the reduced commission.”
He opened his own company five years ago after having been with the Amelia Island Plantation Real Estate Sales for close to 20 years.
When he opened his company, he decided to specialize only on oceanfront properties.
“I saw an opportunity to do well by specializing in oceanfront,” said Gedeon. “If you are going to be in this business, you should specialize. I think you have to pick a target market, whether it be an area, condominiums or oceanfront and specialize in it.”
Average prices for oceanfront properties start from $900,000 for a junky knockdown home to $5 million for a newer home. Condominiums start from $400,000 and go up to $2 million and homesites go from $750,000 to $2.5 million.
The face of oceanfront property is changing constantly on Amelia Island. There is a large percentage of people coming in and buying rundown property, knocking it down and starting new.
“People are always looking for a bargain,” he said. “They don’t care what the house looks like because they will use the footprint of the house to build a new one.”
Things have changed recently at his company. When Gedeon would receive a request for other than oceanfront properties, he used to refer them out to other Realtors on the island. But recently, he decided to hire another Realtor, Jim Ewing, and open a new company called Amelia’s Choice Realty to handle those requests rather than refer them out.
“That’s us, doing the same thing, full-service, reduced commission for other than oceanfront,” said Gedeon.
Currently, his office is located within his wife’s furniture consignment shop, Amelia’s Attic. They are building an 8,000 square foot new building located at 2160 Sadler Rd. that will house Oceanfront Realty and Amelia’s Attic. They should be moving in the new location in a few months.
Gedeon found his way to real estate in Amelia Island through his love of golf.
He left Cleveland in 1962 and was heading to Miami to become a professional golfer.
“I was heading to Miami, but my car broke down on A1A,” said Gedeon. “So, I fell in love with Fernandina. When I got here, I didn’t have any money. I was looking for a job and I met my future wife’s father at the Hardy Brothers Hardware store and he introduced us. I was here for about two years and then I got a golf scholarship at Florida State University, so I moved to Tampa to go to school.”
He and his future wife traveled to Tampa to go to school and he earned a degree in finance from Florida State University. They got married after he graduated from college.
“I married the prettiest girl on the island,” he said.
After college, he got his license in 1971 and became a broker in 1972 and went to work in Tampa for James Burt Inc. for two years. He then opened a company called Royal Realty in Tampa.
“There were five of us and it was like a Re/Max operation before there was a Re/Max,” said Gedeon. “We just split the cost of the secretary and an office complex.”
He owned that for five years until he broke away and opened another company called Temple Terrace Realty in Tampa, which he had for six years.
In 1981, he moved back to Amelia Island and went to work with Amelia Island Plantation.
He still plays golf and he has one major connection to the game: he’s the uncle of PGA Tour player David Duval.