Editorial
Front Page - Friday, October 29, 2010
Learn how to coast on the roller coaster of real estate
By Erica Tuggle
Barbara Hawkins is the owner, broker and a Realtor of TAG Realty, founded in 1980. She compares maintaining longevity in the real estate business to a roller coaster ride. She says when you are not rolling you have to know how to coast.
- Erica Tuggle
Longevity in the real estate business is like a roller coaster ride, says owner, broker and agent of TAG Realty, Barbara Hawkins. When you are not rolling, you have to learn how to coast.
With TAG Realty established in 1980 by Hawkins’ late husband, James Brumit, and still going strong today, she has first hand experience in diversifying business so that it is able to coast through the dips in the real estate market ride. Even within the name itself diversity lies, as TAG Realty is short for the states in which she sells property – Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.
Hawkins was originally in the mortgage business for 15 years working with Ron Oslin who owned the TREES real estate school. With this influence, she naturally decided to add a real estate license to her skills and got into it part-time in 1997. She continued in mortgage work until 2005, when she switched over full-time to real estate with the intent to do property management based on her experience in the properties she already owned.
When Brumit passed away in 2005, Hawkins made the choice between mortgage and real estate, deciding that she would keep her husband’s business going at TAG Realty.
Hawkins uses her mortgage background and financing knowledge to help her clients as well as providing her personal touch and the ability to be more involved with clients since TAG Realty is a small company.
“First time homebuyers need guidance, and I have the experience to guide them. I will actually go out of my way to do extra steps. I actually interview the banks before I send [clients] to them because of the way people get rejected so much and how tough it is out there in lending,” she says.
She feels that even though her company is not large, clients don’t get a whole company when they choose a real estate agent anyway. They get the individual agent, like her, who they list with and that helps them find what they need, she says.
The other agent with TAG Realty is an inspiration to everyone, Hawkins says. Part-time agent Charles Steele is a retiree that will be 90 on his next birthday. Steele didn’t even start into real estate until three or four years ago, she says, but it is amazing to see someone start into something new, like real estate, at his age.
Hawkins says that running TAG Realty keeps her very occupied, but in a way she is more free, because she doesn’t have to be in the office and is always out and going all the time.
“You meet a lot of different people, and I like helping people find the homes, and I like the people so it’s a very interesting job and changes all the time,” she says.
Another way she considers her work is as part of her ministry, she says.
“I feel like we can work and serve others and have our ministry in the work we do. It’s not all about just being in a church when you minister. I think you can minister to people everyday in life and in serving them,” she says.
Hawkins says there is a lot of prayer in the business, especially with first time homebuyers that sometimes have their whole church praying for them to find the right home.
TAG Realty specializes in all types of properties, large and small, and can help with foreclosures in ways other agents may miss, Hawkins says. Because of her financing background, she knows all about HUD foreclosures and that the contracts are not like a normal contract.
She says, “They are a whole new contract. If you do not structure them right you can cause your purchaser to lose money or not even get the offer.”
On the HUD foreclosures, she says, if an agent has never done one and they bid on it over the price and the buyer is doing an FHA loan, whatever the price is they consider their appraisal. This means if the price they had offered was $75,000, and the agent had the client bid $85,000 with an FHA loan, the client will have to pay the $10,000 difference.
With the multiple hats that Hawkins wears at TAG Realty, she says she is responsible for her agent, herself and making sure all the licensing is kept up along with the bookkeeping, paying the bills and the managing aspect she has to do as the owner of TAG Realty and of the whole building it is attached to.
Add all this to maintaining sales, and Hawkins seems like a superhero in keeping the wheels turning.
It is lucky that Hawkins finds her line of work so enjoyable. She says in addition to the enjoyment she gets from meeting new people, she also gets to watch people’s lives come together in different ways in her work.
“I feel like in this business you are actually dealing with people’s lives because this is an important step when someone is purchasing and an important step in their life when they are selling,” she says.
For the future of TAG Realty, Hawkins plans to continue enjoying her business at the size it is, and to move into real estate development more in building and selling her own properties.
She says she enjoys the designing and creative part of going in and working with a house, and then watching the perfect buyer come in and have the feeling that the property was designed exclusively for them.
“Everything’s perfect for them so they don’t feel like they have to change anything,” she says. “I also have clients ask for help with colors and decorating as well to make their property custom to them.”
When Hawkins isn’t busy riding the roller coaster of the world of real estate she enjoys nature, the mountains and lakes and rivers where she also goes bass fishing.
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