Spotlight: Mary Jane Ogle- Real Estate Agent

Wallace Smith:
Hey MJ, how are you?

MJ:
I’m doing well. Thank you.

Wallace Smith:
And what’s the company that you’re with now?

MJ:
I’ve been with Remax Alliance for 19 years, and have really enjoyed that.

Wallace Smith:
It’s been a great company.

MJ:
It is a great company and it has really treated me well. I am going to make a move to EXP Realty, and that will be effective this week.

Wallace Smith:
Oh wow. This is a timely interview then. That’s great.

MJ:
Yes, very timely. And I’m very excited about that. And excited about the growth potential, and also the opportunities to do things that I couldn’t do at Remax.

Wallace Smith:
Well, the Remax reputation and what they’ve been able to do, the founder there, I mean, local company, has just been incredible. So he’s legendary kind of in the real estate industry. So how has that been set up? So you pay a desk fee?

MJ:
Well, with Remax, we pay a desk fee or we can do where they get a split and then you have a cap. It’s set up that way.

Wallace Smith:
Okay. So they offer some flexibility, would you say it’s really good for new people getting in?

MJ:
I think Remax is a great company for anyone. In the past, you had to be in the business like seven years and then they would accept you. But they do some training, and I’ve had a couple of people come on with Remax and they’ve been really happy with it.

Wallace Smith:
Now, as far as background, you’ve been a real estate investor for a long time.

MJ:
Yes. For over 30 years. We’ve been in the area almost 40 years. And we bought our first rental in 1989. First rental in the area. We did have rentals in the last place we lived. But in ’89, we bought our first rental. And then my husband handles all the rentals. And we currently have, I believe six or seven rentals, because he does all of that.

Wallace Smith:
And then what drove you to get your real estate license? I think you said 2003.

MJ:
2003, we had a rental and we kept getting low offers on it. And we thought we need to get in there because there’s got to be something wrong. And indeed, there was something wrong. We had to go in there and just renovate the whole thing. Our agent was in Germany for a month. So I thought, okay, this is a good time. We’ll renovate it. So we did that, my husband and I. We had four kids. It was really a busy time. But we left the sign up thinking we want people to know we’re still going to sell. But we ended up selling it to a young couple. And we negotiated price and terms.

But we weren’t there one day and they called the sign. So that brought in another agent. So we had the listing agent who was not in town, and then the agent who was local. So we had to pay both of them. And we had worked so hard on this renovation. And they made more than we did. And I was really upset about it. And my husband said, “Do something about it.”

Wallace Smith:
Time to get it.

MJ:
And so the next week I signed up for real estate school.

Wallace Smith:
And as they say, the rest is history, right?

MJ:
The rest is history.

Wallace Smith:
Well, and at least one of your kids is a realtor?

MJ:
Yes, Michelle. She’s a realtor and she’s independent. She’s been in the business for 16 years. And I’ve been in for just over 19 years. So we work together, but we’re also separate agents.

Wallace Smith:
So now the company you’re going to then, would you say that’s reflective of just the trends, information technology, the virtual office? And what would you say is driving that trend?

MJ:
I think the virtual office. Also the ability to grow a team and not have it cost me extra money to grow a team. Also, be able to work with rentals. But the biggest thing is to have that opportunity to grow a team. And then also to, as they grow, I actually gain from that. They call it revenue share, rev share.

Wallace Smith:
Oh, sure. Sure. Well, and like you said, even in your first sale or that first one that motivated you to get into the practice, somebody came in, they got a referral commission,