Real estate agents find their niche in a tough market

In today’s complex world, we are accustomed to consulting specialists.

If your skin is incessantly itching, you find a dermatologist, not a general practitioner. If you want your trees trimmed, you are wise to contract with a tree specialist, not the landscaper who mows your lawn each week. And if your child gets arrested, you seek out a criminal defense lawyer, not the real estate attorney who helped you close on your house.

So it isn’t too surprising many realty agents have recently chosen to specialize in order to ride out the tough times. They are finding a niche in the marketplace, getting specialized training and devoting much of their time to that specific segment of the business.

They know that once they gain a reputation for expertise in that niche, people will seek them out.

Thanks to her fluency in five languages, Branka Poplonski, a Realtor with Century 21 – Lullo in Addison (www.branka.com), has found her niche with immigrants and foreign investors, even those from countries where she doesn’t speak the language.

Poplonski is a native of the former Yugoslavia and is fluent in Slovenian, Serbo-Croation and German. She added Polish and English to her repertoire once she moved here and married an American with a Polish-born mother. She is also able to understand quite a bit of Russian.

Sixteen years ago when Poplonski first entered the real estate business, she worked mainly with foreign investors. But when the U.S. government stiffened the residency requirements and visa rules for foreign real estate investors, many of those buyers went elsewhere, Poplonski said. So now she primarily works with immigrants from Eastern Europe, Russia, India, the Philippines and the Far East.

“I am a Certified International Property Specialist, which means my name and contact information is distributed to embassies around the world, listing the languages I speak and the geographic area where I work. So if someone coming to the Chicago area from another country wants to consult with a real estate agent, there is a good chance they will contact me,” Poplonski said.

“And once you establish a rapport with a foreign person, they will stick with you because they feel a lot of loyalty.”

It takes much time and patience to work with new immigrants and foreign investors, Poplonski said, because most of them are accustomed to dealing exclusively in cash and they have difficulty understanding the idea of credit and the importance in this country of establishing a credit rating.

“They don’t trust the system yet so they are very nervous buyers,” Poplonski said. “Helping them takes lots of nurturing.”

Moving to the United States and finding a place to live can be overwhelming.

“I was an immigrant once, too, and I remember how important it was for me to have someone take the time to help me out. I want new immigrants to feel good about this country. Besides, I get sincere satisfaction from helping people and it has also provided me a good living over the years,” she said.

Younger buyers

Dale Taylor from REMAX All Properties in New Lenox (dtaylor.illinoisproperty.com) has made it his mission to get the information-age, Gen-Y, first-time buyers on the right road to responsible homeownership. And lots of times that means working with potential buyers for months or even years before an actual purchase is made because they need to get their credit in order and save enough money for a down payment.

“Many of them come in, fearing to check their credit rating,” Taylor said, “but I get them to understand that knowledge is power. If we need to put together a plan of action to get their credit rating into the acceptable range, then we can do that. And if they don’t have the minimum 3.5 percent to put down, then I tell them about the various grant programs available to help, like the Chicago bungalow program that gives money toward a down payment and closing costs if you buy a Chicago bungalow. Some communities, like Manhattan, for instance, even have municipal grant programs for prospective buyers.”

Taylor even partners with an area loan officer who is willing to counsel young buyers on how to become creditworthy and with a real estate tax attorney who counsels buyers on appealing real estate values that have not fallen with the market.

“Most of my buyers are purchasing homes at $200,000 or less and their average age is 30 or 31,” Taylor said. “They are the texting generation so I am willing to have them interact with me anyway they want to — through Facebook, Twitter, text, email or phone. And I try to give them information in a format that they are willing to receive it. For instance, emailing comparables when they show true interest in a particular house.”

“The challenge with these buyers is helping them understand you need to go beyond texting on a transaction like this,” he said. “You can’t interpret another person’s intentions through a text. You need to meet face-to-face or at least talk to them on the phone.”

Golf-course homes

At the other end of the spectrum are the buyers Lori Rowe, sales associate with Coldwell Banker’s Buffalo Grove office (www.lorirowe.com), is seeking. She specializes in golf-course communities and their usually luxurious homes.

“My husband is an avid golfer and we live in a golf-course community, so it was natural for me to specialize in golf-course communities,” Rowe said. “I understand these areas and what is important to the people who want to live in them. If you live and breathe something, people regard you as an expert and come to you when they want to buy or sell.”

“When you buy in a golf-course community, you are buying a lifestyle and you have to decide how much you are willing to pay for the resort feel, security, social events and scenic quality that are part of the package,” Rowe said.

The recent downturn has hit Rowe’s niche particularly hard. Several years ago houses were selling for as much as $3.9 million in one of the communities in which she works.

“But now we don’t see those kinds of sales. The highest sale price I have seen in the last three years was $1.3 million,” Rowe said. In one extreme example, a house that originally listed for $3.3 million is now in foreclosure and listing for $1.35 million.

“Lately we are finally seeing a few more sales. People are nibbling at the edges and if they perceive it to be a good enough deal, they will make a run at it with an offer. But prices aren’t going up,” she said.

‘Green’ focus

Laura Reedy Stukel, an agent with L.W. Reedy Real Estate in Elmhurst (www.notYETgreen.com), has been selling real estate for 10 years but she pursued her niche in 2008. Stukel specializes in green homes and energy-efficient retrofits. In fact, she is a certified EcoBroker, one of only about 6,000 in the nation.

“In 2008 my husband and I bought a house that was built in 1967 and since energy efficiency is important to us, we rehabbed the house and I acted as our green general contractor, evaluating the energy efficiency of the changes we were making,” Stukel said.

“This was important for our marriage since I hate humidity and he hates to turn on the air conditioning,” she laughed.

Soon after the rehab project, a green architect Stukel knows tipped her off to the new EcoBroker designation and she took the training, which covered mold, lead, energy efficiency and much more.

“I have really had to tweak this niche to serve my market, however,” she said. “I have had to approach it from the standpoint of increased affordability because more people are still interested in lowering their costs than in the green movement. So I am teaching clients about making smart buying decisions, like buying a house where they only need one car instead of two, or homes where small changes can save lots of utility money.”

Stukel gives all of her buyers and sellers a free energy audit. In fact, those listing with her can use it to help sell their home or can make it a gift to their eventual buyer.

“I do lots of educating through social media and community events, so people in the area recognize that I bring something different to the table,” Stukel said. She even teamed up with another realty agent through the Elmhurst Cool Cities Coalition to start “Project Green,” which offers people resources like listings of green contractors in the area and tips on green retrofits of existing homes.

Distressed properties

Particularly appropriate to today’s real estate market is the specialty of Kelly Molinari of the Trademark Realty Group in Wheaton (www.locateILhomes.com). Her niche is the sale of distressed properties by overleveraged sellers — in other words, short sales and foreclosures — and she has handled more than 500 of them since 2006.

“My clients are people from all walks of life who have run into bad luck or made bad choices,” Molinari said. “I have sold homes listing from $50,000 to $3 million.”

How far “underwater” a homeowner is generally depends on when they purchased the home, the type of loan they obtained and the area they live in, Molinari said. For instance, Wheaton has not seen as much devastation as Bolingbrook has because the housing stock in Wheaton is older and the residents more established while Bolingbrook saw a big construction boom in the past ten years.

“But I have also had clients who are older who had great jobs at one point and they are in trouble because they chose to refinance their home to retire early or put their kids through college,” she said.

“If only we all know then what we know now!” Molinari said.

Unfortunately, she is not yet seeing the backlog of these distressed properties clearing, nor is she seeing the time frame for a response from the banks decreasing much. And she is still seeing a steady stream of newly distressed homes coming onto the market.

Molinari requires all of her clients to meet with an attorney to help them determine the proper course of action for them, whether it be bankruptcy, short sale or loan modification. She also encourages them to talk to their bank and to investigate the government programs available.

Once listed, the time on market for a house depends on the town it is in, price range and condition of the house.

Molinari actually got her real estate license a decade ago just so that she could help with these kinds of transactions. She and her husband had a personal brush with financial difficulties years ago and after successfully navigating them, she wanted to help others in the same situation.

“Sometimes I feel like I should have a counseling license,” Molinari said. “This is very emotionally devastating for people and a heavy depression can set in. I emphasize to my clients that while this is certainly a serious situation, we will get through it.”