Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 17, 2009
Best Realty GMAC owner makes bold moves to succeed
David Laprad
Teresa Young’s office at Best Realty GMAC has more empty space than furniture. Her work area is large, and her things barely make a dent in the vast expanse of carpet and dry wall. It’s a cozy nook compared to her reception area, though, which could host a town meeting.
As owner and broker, Young is paying for every square inch of the place, which faces Highway 153 from the edge of a business mall on Shallowford Road. But she doesn’t consider the extra real estate to be a liability; rather, it’s there to give Best Realty room to grow.
“I bought the Best Realty GMAC office in Dayton six years ago,” she says. “We became number one in Rhea County in three years. That led me to Chattanooga to take advantage of the growth opportunities here. Within the next two years, I want us to be as well know as Coldwell Banker and Remax.”
To listen to Young is to believe she can do it, partly because she gives off a confident vibe, but also because of her history in the business world, which could provide material for a master’s thesis on bold moves.
For starters, Young entered the real estate business without a license. With 12 years of work as a comptroller for a yarn manufacturer in her pocket, she secured a loan to purchase the GMAC office in Dayton, hired a broker and then went to school to earn her credentials. “I went into this backwards,” she says. “It was a matter of survival, though, so I was pushed to work hard.”
Then there was Young’s launch last October of her Chattanooga office. While every new business endeavor is a gamble, opening a real estate office in the midst of a housing crisis might seem to exceed normal risk factors. But Young says it was the perfect time to enter the Chattanooga market.
“The down market gave me an opportunity to work hard get my name out there,” she says. “When the market goes back up, people will know our name.”
And Young has great expectations for the Chattanooga market. A lot of people will be moving to the city to cash in on the new industries springing up around Volkswagen, says Young. Plus, she says Chattanooga is one of the top choices in the nation for people looking to relocate. “Anything you could want to do is here,” she says. “We have the best dining and entertainment.”
These factors plus the hope of an economic recovery fuel her optimism. “I see it picking up. The phone has been ringing more the last few weeks. It’ll be next year before we get back to where we should be, though,” says Young.
In the meantime, Young is getting her agents ready for busier days and ramping up her promotion of her Chattanooga branch. She currently has 30 Realtors calling her office home, although she’s looking to add 20 more (and she has the room for them). Best Realty GMAC supplies its agents with free training as well as the usual assortment of tools, including signs and business cards. What the company doesn’t do, however, is charge a desk fee. “The only thing the agent pays for is his own ads. And we’re very competitive when it comes to commissions. That’s one of the things that made us number one in Rhea County,” she says.
Prospective homebuyers and sellers can also expect to hear radio spots advertising Best Realty GMAC in the coming weeks. “We didn’t want to start that until we had everyone trained. Now we’re going to start aggressively promoting ourselves,” she says.
Young has something to shout about, too. Called the Income Loss Protection Plan, it will make your house payments for up to six months if you lose your job. Similar to what many car manufacturers are doing, it’s an attempt to alleviate the fears homebuyers might have about making a purchasing in the midst of a recession.
Although the seller must agree to take part in the plan and put the funds in escrow for the buyer, around half of Best Realty’s 450 listings in Rhea County are on board. “It’s a great selling tool because if you get a full price offer, you can turn around and escrow the payments, which alleviates any concerns the buyer has about being out of work,” says Young.
She hopes the plan will get people talking about Best Realty GMAC, as she says Chattanooga is not an easy place in which to succeed. “It’s tough. There are some great agents out there. People know their names,” she says.
Young isn’t afraid of being the new kid on the block, though; similar to when she launched her Dayton office, her survival instincts motivate her to work harder than would seem possible. She starts most days at 3 a.m. and keeps going until 11 p.m., and days off are rare. “I’m stubborn,” she says. “We’re here to stay.”
It’s no surprise, then, when Young says one of her goals is to get Best Realty GMAC to the point where she can take off one day a week to play golf. She also has two granddaughters, courtesy of her daughter, with whom she’d like to spend more time. Young also wants to do more civic work (until recently, she was on the board of Chattanooga’s Room in the Inn) and become active in the Chattanooga Association of Realtors.
For now, though, it would be wise for Young to simply hold on to the things that make her a good fit for what she does. She loves helping people, she says, and enjoys how the real estate business teaches her something new every day. While long hours and hard work could slowly strip away her passion if she isn’t careful, she doesn’t appear to be concerned. In fact, if anyone should be worried about what’s going on within her vast expanse of carpet and dry wall, it’s the competition.
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