Weichert Realtors 1st Coast has been open since February 2006. They moved into their current space located in Mandarin, in the shopping center in front of Bartram Park on St. Augustine Road, in April 2006 and opened a second location in Fleming Island in September 2006.
THE BROKER/OWNER
Joe Marshall is the broker/owner of the office in partnership with Paula Miller, the broker of the Fleming Island office. They were a team at Re/Max Specialists before opening their own company.
WEICHERT REALTORS?
Weichert Realtors is a franchise that was started in 1969 in New Jersey.
WHAT DOES HE DO?
“We have no agents with over a year experience, so I try to support my agents. I come up with ways to provide leads for them, help them get through contracts, get contracts and get to closing. We are set up so we have no fees for the agents, so the only way I make money is if they close. So, I spend all my time trying to help them sell homes, whether it is one-on-one training with me, from a sales manager or from a mentor. I’m also trying to grow the company and help the agents grow their business.” The agents are more able to focus on selling homes because they have office support for marketing and closings after they get a
listing.
TEAM MEETINGS?
The office meets once a week for a team meeting on Wednesday morning at their office.
ALL NEW AGENTS?
All of their agents started in real estate less than a year ago. “We have certain ways we want our agents to do things that benefit the home buyer and seller. We don’t want the negative attitude and baggage that can come with experienced agents. We will work with them (experienced agents) if they agree to do our system. The main thing is the attitude and you have to have an ‘I’ll do anything to sell or to take care of a buyer attitude.” They have 25 agents in the Mandarin office and 15 in the Fleming Island office.
TRAINING?
Weichert Realtors corporate has a fast track training every few months where the agent goes away for four days of intensive training. “Then we have in-house training three times a week for an hour. It is an activity-based training. We don’t want the agents to sit in a class for three or four weeks. We say here’s our training. Come in for an hour watch a video, we’ll tell you how to do something, ask questions and then we’ll give you a task to do. The tasks could include things like contacting five For-Sale-by-Owners or five expired listings. It’s an eight week training session on a continuous cycle. By the end of the eight weeks, they should have real good habits built. That’s what the activity part is for, to create good habits to build your business. What makes agents successful are good habits.”
WHO IS IN THE OFFICE?
Richard Bellett, Jerilyn Carey, Laurie Chambless, Jennifer Crawford, Maureen Dunn, Donna Geddings, Theresa Graham, Sarah Heath, Mary Henley, Dennis Miller, Maria-Angeles Rogles, Romina Rivera, JoAnn Sample, Patty Sikorski, Jayne Silven, Justin Taylor, Chris Tolusic, Patrick Brown, J.R. Dunn, Robin Haoujar, Mariann Howard, Renae Lane, David Martinez, Nelly Martinez, Virgine Nicodeme, Rick Sikorski, Dora Walton and Collin Yurewitch are agents. Belisa Ucciardo and Brittany Herbert are listing and marketing coordinators and Linda Duell is the closing coordinator.
THE MARKET?
“The market is helping us right now because sellers are looking for value now where a year and a half ago all they wanted was discounts. Now, we go in and show the sellers that we do more to sell a home than just about anybody else. It has allowed us to grow our listings rapidly.”
HOW DO YOU COMPETE IN THIS MARKET?
“We have several different ways to get leads for the buyers. I usually give an average of 13 buyer leads per month to each agent. We come up with more ways to contact buyers by the Internet, coming up with new ways to track our hotline numbers and phone calls that come into the office to capture every lead that comes into the office. There are 500 Weichert offices all over the country, so we get broker to broker leads from them as well. With the way the market is, you can’t afford to miss a single lead.”
WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT YOUR COMPANY?
Their slogan is “Weichert Works.” “We chose that because we put the work back into being a Realtor. Realtors have gotten lazy. They’ve sat in their chairs and have had business come to them. We sell more because we do more. We do the open houses every weekend, we do cold calling, following up with every lead and we are always doing things for the sellers. When we do open houses, we make sure we have eight signs and two balloons on every sign pointing to our open houses and our yellow signs are very eye catching and very colorful. You can’t miss them. We try to make each open house an event.”
WHAT TYPE OF QUALITIES DO YOU LOOK FOR IN AGENTS?
“Personable, organized and customer service attitude and mindset.”
HOW BIG ARE YOU PLANNING TO GET?
Marshall said his goal is to have 50 agents in each office by the end of June.
AREA THE OFFICE FOCUSES ON?
Mandarin and St. Johns County.
HOW ARE THINGS IN THOSE AREAS?
“December was our best month ever and January is looking pretty good too. People are putting their houses up for sale and we’ve had several contracts on our listings, so people are starting to buy again.”
ENCOURAGE PROFESSIONAL INVOLVEMENT?
“Yes, we’ve gone as a group to the last few Northeast Florida Association of Realtors meetings. We are trying to grow the company and are still so new, we do try to go and get our name out there.”
WEBSITE
www.weichert1stcoast.com
- by Michele Newbern Gillis