Today we’d like to introduce you to Colleen Lawler.
Hi Colleen, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am an accidental agent of over 35 years! I took a real estate license course because we were going to be selling our home and I wanted to understand more about the process. So, I took the course at the local junior college, passed the test, put my license at Gundaker Realtors, sold my house, and bought another one.
I was working in healthcare and I discovered that people that are buying and selling are a lot like my patients in the hospital…they are stressed and out of their comfort zone. Caring for a patient might include coordinating pre-op, post-op, x-ray, labs, PT, dealing with physicians and families. Caring for a buyer or seller includes coordinating inspectors and lenders and title companies, dealing with cooperating agents…and families! The skill set is pretty similar when you think about it.
“Managed health care” was in its infancy, and I didn’t like the changes in patient care I saw coming. I had a wonderful mentor/managing broker named Carole Mulina, and before I knew it, I was still caring for stressed people, but selling houses instead of changing a surgical dressing. I discovered my life outside of wearing a uniform…first in Catholic grade school, high school, nursing school, and hospital. I am still not good at decding what in the world to wear, but I am very good at helping people buy and sell real estate. I strongly believe that we live a life long enough to do more than one career well.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My first sale took about 9 months…I was still working part time in the hospital, had 2 young kids and a husband who se income was primarily commission based, like real estate. We were stretched pretty thin some months! Starting in real estate is not without costs for licensing, dues, the key we use to show homes… I may not have stuck with it, Ii was really considering giving it up and then I received a $1,000 inheritance from a dear aunt. And the rest is history!
I also used to say that nobody dies in real estate (as opposed to the hospital). Then the crash of 2008 hit real estate. Suddenly short sales and foreclosures were everywhere. People lost their entire life savings trying to keep their homes. Banks were overwhelmed and some were really heartless. No one really talks about it, but I had clients who died while they were waiting for a bank to approve a short sale, I had an agent who asked me to list his home commit suicide in his back yard. My team and I had nearly 100 listings and there simply were no buyers. Wonderful and talented agents left the business looking for a paycheck somewhere else.
I don’t know if I klnew how hard it was until things started to improve years later. I was so in the trenches every day, I never looked up.
Most people think of real estate as a flexible career. It is, until it is not. I have stepped away from family gatherings to work a contract on every imaginable holiday, including Christmas. Some people think it can be exciting and glamorous. It is, until you are sitting on a milk crate holding a flashlight so a contractor can correct a furnace issue at 10 pm the night before closing. And it can be very emotional. I remember a lady early on sitting in my office pointing her finger at me crying and screaming that I should have “made her take the first offer” The newsflash is that I can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do, and I still feel bad I couldn’t make her take that offer.
We’ve been impressed with Colleen and Team, Coldwell Banker Realty, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I have a team of 6 amazing humans, and it really does take a village to sell or buy a house. I was fortunate enought to join a team that Kathy Irvine had built in the early 2000’s . She was one of the first agents to put together a team of specialized agents to make sure every part of every transaction was done well. Most of our buying and selling takes place in West County, but I’ve sold a home at the Lake of the Ozarks for over 10 Million, a farm or two outside of Herman, multi-families in Soulard. My team is made up of experienced agents that are smarter than me. They have incredible brains, huge hearts and emotional intelligence that is off the charts. If we are smart, and we are experienced, and we CARE about our clients and our families and each other, we can accomplish everything.
I have been with this organization since the beginning of my career because they are very ethical and provide me and my clients support at every turn. Agents move around a lot looking for greener pasture somehwere. Give me a great organization, a phone and a for sale sign, and stay out of my way!
MY team and I probably need therapy because there is almost nothing we won’t do to help a buyer buy or a seller sell. One of my agents is changing a lock on a door for a seller as we speak! We are do-ers, we are problem solvers, and there probably isn’t an obstacle to a sale we haven’t tackled. We put the FULL in full service – I’ve even driven a little boy to the airport in a snow storm when his mom (moved here from Florida) panicked because she’d never driven in snow. That story is actually long, but that’s the gist of it. Our clients are real people and so are we. We are in it through the sale or the pruchase and beyond.
My marketing specialist brings life to everything we do on social media, and we spend our time promoting our listings, not ourselves.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Of course my family is my first happiness. They are everything. Mountains and horses, beaches and rivers and fishing. All my dear friends.
In my career, it’s not the money…although the money has allowed me to put 3 kids through college who graduated because of their efforts in school with no debt, which makes me (and them) happy. I’ve travelled a lot, which is important because it teaches you how much all of us are alike, in every corner of this earth.
A past client brought me flowers YEARS after I sold her house and said she just wanted me to know how much everything I did and said helped in a really tough time.
I helped a past client find temporary housing after a fire that they could move into in days instead of weeks of red tape. They had been through so much, and it made me so happy to make the connections that helped.
Agents from all over the area tell me what a great reputation my team has in the Metro area. That really really makes me happy. We work so hard every day to treat people right, and most of the real estate community in St Louis recognizes that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ColleenAndTeam.com
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/colleenandteam
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/colleen-lawler-coldwell-banker-realty-gundaker-chesterfield
