THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994 TAG: 9406230025
SECTION: HAMPTON ROADS WOMAN PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940626 LENGTH: Long
Good idea. But just make sure you're ready to work seven days a week, sometimes 16 hours at a time. Make sure you can handle being on call 24 hours a day and never having a moment you can truly call your own unless you're out of town. And explain to your family that you'll be gone or on the phone nearly every evening and weekend.
{REST} ``The fallacy is that you can work these flexible hours, whenever you want,'' says Linda Fox-Jarvis, a 12-year veteran Realtor who works for Remax Central Realty in Virginia Beach. ``You don't have that flexibility; you have to work around other people's schedules.''
Fox-Jarvis, 38, entered the field from a background in retail sales. She and her military husband had just moved to the area and they had no children. She called the agent who sold her their house and told her she was interested in selling real estate.
Come work with me, the woman told her.
It was the job's variety and the flexibility of the working environment that attracted Fox-Jarvis. Soon, as the number of houses she sold grew each year, she was hooked by the income.
``There just weren't the rewards in retail I could gain here in real estate,'' she says.
Twelve years later, the Virginia Beach agent has two children, ages 7 and 9, her husband has retired from the Navy and works for a private firm and she is so busy selling 75 to 80 houses a year that she employs a full-time and two part-time assistants to help with routine errands and paperwork.
``But not with the clients,'' she says firmly. ``Only I deal with the clients. Service is everything.''
It certainly is, agrees Virginia Kitchin, 56, of Nancy Chandler Associates in Norfolk. Kitchin, a 10-year veteran, is fanatical about the service she provides. She's been known to help clients move furniture to prepare a house for sale; bring them empty boxes from her basement to pack up clutter; deliver contracts at 11 p.m.; and even water parched azalea plants in front of a vacant house her clients bought so they wouldn't die before closing.
Kitchin, who has four sons, ages 21 to 31, entered the field as a way to pay four college tuitions. With only a high school degree, real estate offered her the greatest earning potential.
``It's something I always wanted to do,'' she says in between phone calls. ``I liked the idea of constantly being on the go, and I thought it was something that would be creative.''
Despite her hectic schedule, she cooks dinner every evening for her husband - even if the couple ends up eating at 9 p.m.
``It gives some sense of civility to life,'' she says.
In the Fox-Jarvis household, it's husband David who does the cooking, a housekeeper who maintains order in the house and a live-in au pair who keeps up with the kids.
``My kids are important, and I will not miss a school play or school graduation even if I have to turn over a sale to someone else,'' Fox-Jarvis says. ``But there are weekends when I walk out the door and they say, `Why do you have to go to work?' and I say I have to; there are nights when they want to talk about something and I'm showing houses.''
She copes by trying to limit her evenings out to two nights a week, not only for her kids, but for herself, as well.
``I need a break for me, for my body to rest,'' she says. Once every three months she and her family take a vacation out of town. It's the only time she turns off her beeper and escapes the incessant phone calls.
Both Kitchin and Fox-Jarvis radiate energy. They are never still, constantly moving from the phone, to their calendar, to check a listing, to fill out a form. They're both reed thin - a testament to the endless stairs they climb each day and the calories they burn with the adrenalin rush they get each time the phone rings.
They talk fast. They're also used to doing six things at once - a prerequisite for the successful agent, says Fox-Jarvis.
``Maybe that's one reason women are so good in this business,'' she says with a smile.
Organized. High energy. Personable. Detail-oriented. All traits real estate agents need to be successful, Fox-Jarvis and Kitchin say.
You also need patience: the patience to show 30 houses to a client - only to have her dismiss them all and ask to see 30 others; the patience to hold a buyer's hand and walk him through the closing when he's ready to back out at the last minute; the patience to wait three months or more before you can finally close the sale and pick up your check.
``I may not always be patient at home and in the office,'' admits Fox-Jarvis as her assistant nods in agreement, ``but I'm patient with my clients. This is a major decision they're making, and you have to go through the process slowly, going over the pros and cons.''
``You have to be crazy,'' says Kitchin simply, describing the perfect personality for real estate. Then she amends her comment. ``No, really, you should be a self-starter, you can't rely on anyone else but yourself to motivate you.''
Then the phone rings, and she reaches to pick it up.
``I'd love to meet with you to list your house. I'll look forward to it. When do you want to meet? Anytime is fine. How about midnight?'' by CNB