Thanks for your interest in getting to know me a little better! The first thing you should know about me is that I am focused on being responsive to my clients, and working tirelessly to put their needs and interests first. I really love what I do, I am very appreciative of the trust my clients put in me, and thus I am very loyal to them.
I often joke that I’ve tried other things, but that I never really had a choice but to go into real estate. My dad was a custom home builder back home in Maine, and my mom was a real estate agent for a little bit too. I was on the job site with my dad in the summers starting around age 12, and up through high school. After meeting my wife at Swarthmore College, we lived and worked in Philly for 3 years, then came to Durham in 2003 to go to business school at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.
After getting my MBA, I worked in sustainable real estate development. I helped a number of clients across the country (mostly colleges & universities) plan and develop compact, walkable, mixed use neighborhoods. They were patterned on the pre-WWII, mostly pre-automobile neighborhoods around the country, like those here in Durham & Chapel Hill. I got to work with leaders in the field of architecture and urban design as well as the boards of directors and senior staffs at the universities. It was fascinating work. My longest and broadest scope engagement was with Hendrix College, helping them plan and launch a 100-acre mixed use neighborhood called The Village at Hendrix. Along having significant impact on the street plan and architecture of the shops, restaurants, apartments, townhouse & single family homes, my proudest contribution there was initiating the effort to transform a scoured and pretty lifeless drainage channel into a constructed wetland. The resulting series of pools and channels improves water quality, provides habitat, and contributes aesthetic beauty to the neighborhood. Furthermore it has great educational value to the students of Hendrix College and particularly for the children who live in the area.
In 2006/7 we bought and renovated a 1928 Crafstman-style duplex in Trinity Park, doing much of the work ourselves, while both working full time, with assistance from my dad. in 2009, my son was born, and I knew I didn’t want to keep traveling as much. Also the real estate development market was in significant retrenchment, with a downturn expected to last at least 5-7 years. I knew I wanted the recovery would start with people buying and selling homes again. So I got my license and went into brokerage full time. My daughter was born in 2011, so I’m really glad for the flexibility the job affords, and gladly realize that sometimes a vacation or trip to the park has to go on hold if a client has a time-senstive need.
I’ve found that my analytical and problem-solving abilities (honed by my MBA training), as well as hands-on construction knowledge, and a mixed-use developers sense of what creates and sustains value in a neighborhood, all give me a pretty unique skill set that enables me to really do a great job for my clients. I’ve pretty much doubled my business each year, and in 2012, I helped my clients buy or sell about $10million worth of real estate which puts me in the top 5-10% of agents in the area. Last year I helped more people buy or sell more homes in the historic, walkable neighborhoods of Durham than any other agent.
So enough about me, tell me a little more about you…please contact me today by clicking here. Talk to you soon!
If you like, you can read what my clients have to say about me in their own words.
