Editorial
Front Page - Friday, September 17, 2010
A short time in real estate can produce valuable lessons
Erica Tuggle
Janet Hudgins has lived in several different states and a different country as well, but says she loves that her family has settled in Chattanooga because of its beauty that is different from anywhere else. Not only is Hudgins an avid do-it-yourselfer, but she offers staging services to her clients, too.
- photo provided
Janet Hudgins says she thought she had to live in a place a long time in order to go into real estate.
Originally from Hawaii, and with a father in the Navy, she moved around from Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and others with no “firm roots” to plant a real estate career until moving to Chattanooga. Yet, Hudgins says she fell in love with Chattanooga’s beauty, and decided putting off getting her license was no longer an option.
Three years later, she still works with Remax on Cherokee Boulevard, lives in a North Shore neighborhood she adores and has learned many things along the way.
“I do love it but it is a hard job,” she says. “I don’t think people realize, one, how expensive it is to get started, and then you don’t really get paid unless you actually sell something. I never knew that.”
Hudgins says it was not the first year of real estate that was the hardest for her, but rather the second year.
“I’m finding that just because someone knows you and respects you doesn’t mean they want you to be their real estate agent,” she says. “If someone has got to sell their house this summer, they are going to look for someone with more of a track record than a brand new agent.”
She says the first year wasn’t a real stress because she wasn’t expecting much, but the second year was tough, and only through working at it full time has she been able to reach her third year with enough business to keep her constantly busy.
“That doesn’t mean I’m not constantly looking for new clients for when these deals are settled, but finding your balance of how much business is the right amount of business to have at one time is important,” she says.
Although some agents hire assistants or work in teams to manage the workload, she says her entire office at Remax functions as an unofficial team, helping out each other in need so that the agent does not lose a sale.
Brokers Steve Champion, Tony St. Charles and Jason Farmer at her office are all completely different people and experts in certain fields, she says. More importantly though is that they all have time for their Realtors.
“That’s something I have learned. You have got to have your go-to people to answer your questions; especially if you haven’t been in the business 10 to 20 years,” she says. “Even then, every deal is different and has something come up that you have never come across. Making sure you get the right answer on how to deal with it helps with great brokers.”
Hudgins says she enjoys selling the North Chattanooga properties, those along Frasier Avenue, at One North Shore and all the condos of the area. The appeal of these properties is not only because she lives in the area herself, but also because she knows firsthand how much of a blessing or a curse these properties can be.
Young couples and first-time homebuyers are attracted to the North Shore area, she says, but they may not be aware of what questions to ask and are not experienced in all the things that can go wrong. Hudgins herself bought an old house that had been flipped, and even though she knew that North Shore properties are known for their ability to be flipped, she had no idea that she should suspect something amiss with her home that was redone by a contractor.
She says, “This house had been completely redone by a guy who had never lived there and never pulled permits and did not do a very good job on certain things. In the master bath, he didn’t put a pan under the shower, and water was going everywhere behind the walls.
Hudgins says in this neighborhood, you have to know what to ask and what to look for, and just because a contractor fixes a property doesn’t mean that the permits have been pulled.
For her clients, Hudgins offers this edge on knowing the questions to ask about these properties. Although she isn’t aggressive about going out to get a listing or a client, once a client is hers, she is very aggressive to make sure they are protected and everything is done correctly so they are not paying for more than they ought to, she says.
Hudgins’ work on her own home has become a hobby of hers as is using power tools. She built her own fence, and is now stripping the stairs in her home. She also attended design school in the past, and uses these basics to stage her client’s homes for no charge. She says she will charge one day though, because the work is so time consuming.
She uses her other spare time to visit her daughter who has just started at the University of Tennessee or spend time with her husband, the assistant headmaster of Girls Preparatory School, and her daughter who is a junior at GPS.
Although Hudgins has advertised in menus from Soup’s On! and the Pickle Barrel, she says the only call she has ever received from there was a prank call on St. Patrick’s Day. The other advertising she does in real estate magazines and on MLS helps out, although she says, hands down, the best advertising is her referrals.
“If you only advertise yourself that way, as long as they are good comments, you would be successful,” she says. “I do print advertising mostly for the seller in advertising their house, but nine times out of 10, the call that comes in is from the Internet. I think people mostly say they use someone they know or ask friends if they have any real estate agents, and once you have enough sales under your belt in all kinds of areas, the referrals are going to start coming in.”
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