My Hawaii Life – A Big Island Adventure!

From dry cleaning to real estate award nominee, life is an adventure in Hawaii!

Ready for an oceanfront adventure? How about this condo (MLS# 236350) view?

I got into selling homes because someone asked for my help. Ensuring a buyer client buys the right property, and my sellers sell at the right price is still my motivator. Up until a year ago, I had one cancellation in nine years. It’s been a circuitous journey.

Circa: 1999. Location: San Diego. At that time, I owned a dry cleaning shop with my father, and sold new homes for an Orange County developer. One day an older couple, customers, came in and asked me to sell their house. I explained that I couldn’t because I represented a developer. But I thought it over, and the next day signed out of new homes and joined an agency. The shop turned out to be the perfect place to network between buyers and sellers – we had fliers on the counter, and customers learned to come to me for real estate sales. By July 1999, I was nominated for Rookie of the Year.

Then, in 2004, I bought a house in Kona as investment. When the tenants moved out early, I moved in, earned my Hawaii Realtor Salesperson license, and started selling Big Island property. Growing my Hawaii business while continuing real estate sales in San Diego has worked out pretty naturally for me.

A significant career change came when Hawaii Life approached me this spring. Change is hard for me, so I put them off for a while. I’m so glad I finally sat down for a cup of coffee with Matt and Katie. Half an hour turned into four hours! We really hit it off. I’ve owned companies and been an entrepreneur all my life. Matt’s enthusiasm and entrepreneurship impressed me as visionary, and Hawaii Life’s business model was remarkable. I listened to my instinct and joined up.

It’s all been wonderful! There have been frustrating times because the company is so technologically savvy, but I’m a different person — even with social media — since I joined. And business is great!

The way I market has been revolutionized by the Hawaii Life model. People love the clean marketing and the website — crisp — not a whole bunch of buttons. It’s very user friendly. And that gets back to how I handle clients. It’s not about numbers, it’s about matching services to what my client needs. And I know that approach works because: 1—this year all my clients are referrals! And 2—I’ve just been nominated for ‘Realtor Salesperson of the Year’ by the Kona Board of Realtors!