or ok is the broker manager of the flemington weicker offices or one of the largest real estate organizations in the state it is in the country the largest privately owned oh ok i knew it was privately owned i yeah yeah that's so fantastic i mean i work for them years ago i have no time for more but that's no so today we're going to continue our series women in leadership in business focusing on the real estate industry today  background is really so encouraging because it says a business owner and then managing you know one of these lead offices in the state new jersey so let's kind of get into your background and let's talk about how you got into this industry so got into the industry i was one of those fortunate people growing up i always knew what i wanted to do sort of i always knew i wanted to be an entrepreneur knew that that was my that was me just knew it in your heart here yeah i guess yeah so so i always knew that i just didn't really have a plan and didn't know exactly what i was going to do and my brother is a or was a builder in long island so i was always fascinated by real estate he was an investor he started out as an investor he was a builder all of that so had a fascination with the had an opportunity to work for a developer in florida in my time and i took that opportunity worked in their new construction office in new read sales new sales or new construction and while we were doing that it was huge success while we were doing that there was an opportunity to open a resale office on site because if you  intercoastal shore development on an island right picture six buildings towers you have lots of people and lots of foreign buyers so a lot of turnover a lot of resale store leases resales all of that so there's a huge opportunity there so the person that they hired as the broker to do that came up to me and said do you want to come over with me for that and i'm like yeah i'm in let's do it let's do it just see the opportunity take it sees it sees that i always say you know there's opportunities placed in front of us all the time it's just a matter of whether we're open to it or not you know somebody else might have said no i don't know yet so from there it just kind of grew grew grew the office crew i grew with it and then at a certain point i decided ok my time here is up i want to go do something bigger right so that's when i decided to get my broker's license and i went out and just opened up my own office understanding a better knowledge of the mortgage industry so i went and got my mortgage brokers license as well while i was doing that just so that i had a full comprehension of things that i didn't feel i had the best knowledge of right so just a better education and so then fast forward and i did investing i owned rental properties i flipped houses while i was doing that as well so it was a cart of many many hats right yet a lot of hats and fun it was a lot of fun busy busy busy but lots and lots fun very successful very very well i am from jersey however i'm not a florida girl and so when the opportunity presented itself i was like i'm back to jersey that's why i wanted to be a thought family here and that sort of thing so i always wanted to come back in just that and given wasn't able to so once i had the opportunity by say yeah yeah so back to jersey and i founded a nonprofit when i was in new jersey when i first came back to jersey because my plan was is that i was lot of especially women entrepreneurs that i work with made so much of the time especially you know you your heart trayvon your passion drive and and sometimes we don't realize that we're the secret sauce  you know and i have was had a mentor there that sat down with me a couple years after i started ally and i was still struggling sometimes with like so were we really going like what's your definition what's our real secret sauce w of course these are all the reasons that cyrus exactly was the bigger thing that when he sat was the peace and so it was you know in my and i didn't plan it out well enough you know so i wasn't going to become the next jim white curtain florida it wasn't planned out properly and that's ok it's fine because i believe that everything happens for a reason and i believe that you know you reinvent yourself and you recreate something and you just you're there where you need to be as far a time  i i don't second guess things like that i just don't i find that detrimental so so anyway so i decided to open a nonprofit here in new jersey did that for a few years and but missed all of over right so that's what we did so i stepped out of that stage in the background capacity and got back into real estate yeah and was happy to be back in real estate it was just like ok here we go right back on yeah yeah you quickly just went right up and so but it's funny because people say oh but you have all this experience it wasn't like you just started but it was because it was i was starting in the area where i didn't know every many people i was starting in a different it's and told different training hundred in county new jersey as opposed to fort lauderdale florida different price points for different construction and different so i didn't know what a septic was when i moved here it's the house i own is the first house i've ever lived in that had well and you were telling me even you model your model for how you hire brokers i mean how you hire indigent and you know as a broker as a controller as a manager the things that are important to you about these professionals coming in so you know let's talk about that a little bit because like you said you had to go through this even just even with your years and background right so it's hard work it's being able to engage with nged in the sense that when i started in the industry it was residential real estate was dominated by predominately women yeah right and it was kind of that still had that kind of clich a hope you know as a sales person here in new jersey and then white girl came knocking on my door and said we'd like for you to manage an office we talked about that we came to an agreement and there i went so that's how that happened so as a manager very different than being the sales person yeah right so as a sales as a manager as i call myself a sales leader right because i'm not really a manager i'm not your boss i'm not your manager because there are ten  contractors yeah and they're really in there entrepreneurs they're people with a in business they are now in the loop one hundred percent right and so my goal really is to kind of change that mindset when i hire people i asked them questions of what are they looking to do to invest in their business because i think it's a little too easy to get your license and people aren't properly prepared on what's involved once you get your life so that's how easy part is getting your license the hard part is building your business that's a whole different animal a whole different animal and you've got to you really should have money put aside to invest in you know and you should be thinking about how you're going to make contacts and how you're going to build your business and expand your platform  right now do you coach i do and i do right so going back to when i got into the business and with women now today it's probably more balanced it's men and women women still probably dominate a little bit and they have a lot of success in the business still but the younger people that are coming into the industry there's a lot of young men and might be even more i probably hire more young men than young women and they're seeing it as a business and it's a business and so what i say to them is so you know wipe out anything you think you see on t v about real estate and let me let me just explain this is a profession right you better have your game on it's not what it was when you know the cliches of what people think it is it's a profession you better have you or you or your knowledge your expertise your presentation your attire the way you dress everything i don't like jeans in my office no flip flops in my office you know because it just it is you want to set a professional environment it's too easy because it's and lucy goosey absolutely and i can't control what they do i can only monitor yeah and try to coach them going something and that's what i do and then r right right so my biggest role is probably finding talent helping develop that talent and helping them thrive and keeping them happy bright and successful that's a lot of hands on i always say when managers work harder cultivating and developing the talent than any other company and the other management office out there and the other office that i've come in contact with you know the others are kind of more like ok i'm just going to your thing and if you do well great and if not oh well by right you know i mean you know as we started this conversation talking about not only the size of waker but its history and the fact that it is still privately owned i mean it's an investment in the brand correct right so people when they reach out to wake or whether it's on the commercial or residential side they know what they're getting right and so this is really what we're talking about events it's that depth right but as a consumer you have that to have the name brand recognition right but then when you sit down with an agent let's say you're thinking of selling your home or you're thinking of buying a home you sit down with an agent right generally you probably  you research them a little bit that's right and maybe that's how you found the agent or you got them as a referral from a friend or a neighbor of your work or way right then you sit down with that person if you don't feel a connection with that  speak as much as a spouse as the end that on a daily basis you're going through that whole process because it's it's intense and well what's interesting to me and i've i've seen other friends kind of fall into this trap is maybe ten or fifteen years ago having either like you said a friend a neighbor a friendly face who says you know blah blah blah hey i'm in real estate now you know if you want to list your house you know  contact me and i think it's more to levels it is my is my gut feeling on it that there's one part of it hey i have a great connection but if you maybe perhaps just got into the the real state industry or or don't have the type of coaching and guidance on this of exactly what i was going to say or don't you know don't understand your current market and by the way i want to sell my home in this market maybe i want to buy in this  like you mentioned before it's very competitive now right so it's not just as much a friends and family kind of feel good thing anymore it's it's a business is do you understand the dynamics to help me actually so my house can r repair talk about the preparing part rate because so many people they go with that i'm not going to invest anything more in my house i'm going to go with the as it is and the realtor say well you don't have to invest that much but the things you have to do right from the show perspective i mean those types of things i think are the business so yes so so a lot of what you're saying is to avoid the pitfalls as a new agent of what not to do or t maybe have somebody who has a little more credibility behind them right team you up with somebody like that in the office or pulling me in just to kind of help push it forward right right so for example there's a it's in my office who pulled me in on something on a listing right and we went to the house and i said well if you would really be doing yourself a favor not that your house is a mess or anything but there's just a lot of toys and things like that you know you 're you live here walk in my house somebody's going to tell me the same thing today miles of the mess this morning when i left so you know right right so went in there and said what's the best thing you could really do it's and there's nothing that needs to be done except taking stuff out and since you plan on moving anyway start packing yeah get a storage bin get a storage facility or a parent's house throw it in their basement whatever works for you whatever's convenient for you and easiest for you and start packing away and we went through the house for room by room and said ok let's get rid of this let's get rid of this this is going in that pile and it's you know so the realtor sometimes is involved in that component he ended up not just put the sign up with a lot of money not to show the house that there's more to it and i always say we kind of i don't believe you make anybody buy or sell a house you walk them through the process and you guide them through the process and you and you you know  you patiently listen to them because it's a stressful time and it's a emotional time for a lot of people because it's not always happy sometimes there's a third of worsening or financial problems you know so you're part of that with them you know there's a lot of emotional aspects to our job that has to be part of your your your process it's got to be there otherwise it's not probably going to element as well you have got to have all you have to of all i know i'm not very analytical when it goes like up a listing appointment or something if you want stats and all that kind of stuff i can do them but it's just not my style you know you can write the data right and i can get it right but i'm not going to lay it out for you the way someone who maybe was an engineer in their previous career and now is in real estate right exactly so you know there's a different lid for every pot  are we're stronger as a team yeah right and so your success is my success my success is your success and a lot of times let's say you both go on the same listing appointment two people from my office get called in to the same house for an appointment at different times and they don't know it and then it comes up a lot of times when that happens they'll just split it they'll work together instead of a battle yeah th best way to do that's right that's way think about that the benefit for the for the customer right and for the and for you as a human being right as a business owner you're building bridges you're not barry and it's all about i would say you got to be able to play nice in the sandbox so true so true so let's say it's a quick way quickly into the current marketplace it's also a little bit about right because i mean i know there are people watching and we were having this conversation earlier that might have purchased their home in a high market and now yeah they're they're going to do stock and they're trying to improve and put more money into it but now it's like oh i'm not ever going to get any of that back right what's what's your advice for you see out there right now so obviously timing is everything right so if you sell high you buy high you sell low yeah i think you just it's just the way it  is there's no magic sauce for that that's right it just is what it is right so it's timing and it's what your of life allows you right right so we were talking you were both in that situation where we both and i'm in the industry i know shock i overpaid for my house right and i willingly overpaid for my house when i bought it and i knew and my husband's and real estate in the commercial division development right and we both knew we were overpaying but we wanted that how we liked the location it had all the checks except for the price was a little high and you did the same thing all right and right we were talking about this right so it just is what it is it is what it is so so if i had to move today  i'm going to lose money based on what i paid for the house i'm going to lose money and it is not a good feeling it probably depends on what the move is for right if the move is a positive move and i'm moving somewhere where i'm happy to be going in i'm moving for happy reasons it's a when right you're not really thinking about that part of it yeah because there's something else that's keeping you sure moving forward if you're moving if you have to move for adverse reasons  the experience is going to be completely different writing right there's nothing that a realtor can really do to change that and then you know he didn't what it is right move right so if so so i guess just taking a look at the market right i mean if you didn't have to move right now and you can you know you're in that position and sit tight right and you could you could i mean are but but but it's also a good opportunity if you were thinking of moving in the near future now is not a bad time because interest rates are still at record low interest rates are still four to four to quarter but on their right has went up a quarter of a percent a few weeks ago yes and that changes people's buying power right now so the higher the interest rates go up maybe perhaps the less your house becomes are you ok what i'm saying so you just don't know nobody has that question the ball it's not there's no way of really truly saying this is guaranteed there are no guarantees and i would never make guaranteed promise on anything like that but if the interest rates stay low and buyer interest stays as strong as it is which is predicted to continue to keep going the way it is right now i was just talking to one of my agents in the office last night and i said it's like a sharks like a feeding in the right he's like oh my god you go to the house right and you're like buy you see you know you're passing the same realtors the lion because everyone's fighting over that same price point there's only so out so so inventory nationwide right now is that a very low point ok which is not a good thing yeah right we need more houses for sale sure sure to kind of balance out the playing field right now that we have more buyers than you have sellers ok that everything drops so low you don't want it to bounce back up overnight that's not healthy no no no we know not healthy right so that's what got us in that trouble to begin with so so you want it to just kind of balance out some extra money except that's not going to happen right so yes your house would probably sell for more this year than it did last year or the year before anough to make up your whole we don't know hopefully indications show it's go and i were talking about right so i've done a lot of investing in a lot of rental properties of owned a lot over my course and i was telling you i always business wise looked at homes that i was going to either rent or sell and said ok i'm buying this if i can buy this for the right price i'm never going to lose money on this doesn't matter if i can't sell it at the right time then i'll rent it matter what i have an exit strategy my personal home i've never done that with because i never wanted it to become that for my home right it's my home i didn't want to look at it with an investor i wanted to look at it with a buyer's heart that's right you know i mean so i try not to get caught up on that number that i you know exactly yeah yeah we're doing good that we're doing good we're definitely on the upswing in a nice healthy way yes right and that being said so people say oh so my house is worth blah blah blah  if you haven't taken care of it if it's outdated if you know the roof is forty years old with two layers on it the furnace is thirty years old the carpets from the one nine hundred seventy five kitchens everything's right now there's so much it's you know that's that's the thing that comes back to you i feel like the root of our conversation which is this is a business it's an industry and for those of you were watching this program if you're going to hire somebody hire a professional yes to hire her when even if it's a new agent if they have someone there working in conjunction with them if they have a manager who has a hands on approach someone who's walking them through the process because i took a phone call just before we came in here and it was one of my newer agents asking me a question asking i'm throwing them through it talking so how do they get fined if they get ahold of you you can call me ok my office numbers and i know wait seven