Lori Lamb Stephens has been a Realtor with Watson Realty’s Atlantic Boulevard office for nine months. Before that, she owned her own small boutique brokerage, Lori Stephens & Associates, for a year and a half, but found she really didn’t like it.
“I really enjoyed listing and selling. I did not like all the other things that go along with owning a business. It was no fun anymore because I was so worried about thinking strategically. I just really enjoy having the support that I do here.” Stephens has been in real estate for 14 years working
for such companies as Watson (once before), Prudential, Mercedes Homes, Re/Max Coastal, Re/Max Alpha and Magnolia Properties.
WHAT MADE HER GO INTO REAL ESTATE?
Her first husband was a developer and her mother was a real estate broker for Re/Max Alpha, so she was around real estate most of her early life.
“I was around it a lot and my mother kept saying that I would be good at it.”
MOVING AROUND?
“It took me working for all of the different companies in real estate to finally get it. It taught me the worst and the best. Each step was part of the process and a learning experience to understand how to run a business. I honestly wish I had stayed in one place for a long time. I see the value in that now. When we get our license, we don’t learn that you are in a business and you need to set it up as a business. I think more people know that now, but I don’t think I got it then. It took me every single bit of that to get to a place where I really can confidently feel good about where I am.”
AREA SHE COVERS?
Intracoastal West and the beaches.
WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE JACKSONVILLE?
Stephens said she tells people every day that the market has just simply self-corrected. “I believe the prices were unrealistically inflated because we had such speculation in the marketplace driving the pricing. When the speculators pulled out, the pricing leveled out. I feel like the buyers that we get are much stronger because they are being a little bit pickier. We see less of them, but I think it is such a great market because you have the opportunity to build relationships and that is what sustains you in real estate.”
WHAT ARE YOU DOING DIFFERENT IN THIS BUYER’S MARKET TO GET BUSINESS?
She is being more choosey with her advertising dollars. “I’m really focusing on personal referrals. So, what I do differently now is to work my database much more than I did before because before I didn’t have time.”
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT REAL ESTATE?
“I love everything about it. I did not love it until about 2002. I did it as a job or just something to pay the bills and then something happened where I finally understood this is me and this is where I should be. It is very suited to me to help people and to help them see a vision that they can obtain something that they really desire. I just fell in love with it.”
ADVICE FOR A NEW AGENT?
Stephens said to understand early in the process that your job is to run a business.
PET PEEVES?
“When we are in a transaction together, we are on the same team. Sometimes Realtors will come into it with an adversarial position of ‘That’s not my job’ instead of ‘Hey, we are in this together. We have a job to do so let’s work together to get it done.’ I feel that it doesn’t matter who does what, let’s just make it happen.”
LESSONS LEARNED?
“Never burn a bridge that you might have to cross again.”
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS?
Northeast Florida Association of Realtors and the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce.
-by Michele Newbern Gillis