Aug
24
My First Blog
Posted by rondareagan under For Buyers, For Realty Professionals, For Sellers, General Information
For my first blog, I simply want to introduce myself. I’m Ronda Anton Reagan, a licensed Broker in my native state, Texas. I started my real estate career officially in 1979, in Athens, Georgia, after taking an evening adult education real estate class at the University of Georgia. I had just finished earning a masters degree at UGA where I had worked in public relations as a writer, photographer, stand-up TV reporter and editor of various publications for what was then, UGA’s “public relations office” and the College of Agriculture. That was 30 years ago.
My first year in real estate, I sold houses when interest rates were at an all time high of 16.5% and discount points ran between 5 and 8. I started out with an ERA (Electronic Realty Associates) firm which had great basic training. Needless to say, it came in very handy. Those were tough times, but I tripled my former meager salary with the university system as an information specialist II and earned as much as my roommate who was an associate professor with a Ph.D. I loved being out from behind a desk and the greatest rewards were helping buyers find their perfect home and seeing sellers realize a nice net proceeds check.
So without getting off the track, in a nut shell, I moved to a Prudential franchise and then stepped up to being a RE/MAX associate broker. Then the lights went on and I realized it was time to break out on my own, so in 1992, I founded Ronda A. Reagan Properties, Inc. in Athens. I became a real estate instructor at the University of Georgia, teaching a series of three pre-licensing classes as well as the broker’s class. I created Athens Accommodation ’96, a property management rental pool for the 1996 Summer Olympics held predominantly in Atlanta, but three venues were in Athens, including women’s soccer. (I was there when the U.S. women won the Gold Medal in soccer!) Although successful, I was exhausted after the Olympics and wanted to get back to my home state and my family, so during the Christmas holidays of 1997, I started looking at homes in central Texas in anticipation of moving back home. Afterall, “everything is bigger and better in Texas!”
I was born in Lockhart, Texas (the official Barbeque Capital of Texas), grew up in San Antonio and graduated Texas State University in San Marcos. So that’s were I wanted to live….somewhere in between. I flew into Austin, rented a car and proceeded to put over 1100 miles on it in about 10 days looking at homes from Austin to San Antonio. I didn’t find anything I loved. Ironically and as a testimonial to REALTOR.com, after I returned home, I found five homes of interest to me on the website in the San Marcos area. I printed them and mailed them to my parents in Lockhart. They drove by all five and eliminated all but one. They called the listing agent, Mary Evans with Coldwell Banker, a lovely lady and great REALTOR. Mary graciously showed my parents the house. While there they took pictures. This was January ’98 and my parents had never used one-hour processing, much less sent anything by overnight delivery. But this was an exception! They knew I’d love this house, the yard, the location and my furniture would fit. I flew down on January 26th, looked at it and I was SOLD. I went back and put my house on the market in Athens, sold it immediately and was moved in my new San Marcos, Texas home by April 1st. (Every real estate professional should relocate to get the real life experience of what our clients go thru.)
Georgia and Texas do not have reciprocal license agreements, so I went back to school to get my Texas real estate broker’s license. In November 1998, the ribbon was cut at my new, home office. Today, Ronda A. Reagan Properties has two offices: one in San Marcos and one on the courthouse square in Lockhart. We are an independent company with only a few, select experienced associates on board.
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