{"id":3226,"date":"2017-03-09T10:43:09","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T15:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/?page_id=3226"},"modified":"2017-04-20T08:11:48","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T12:11:48","slug":"relationship-building","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2017\/relationship-building\/","title":{"rendered":"California\u2019s Real Estate Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s so much star power in Tami Hollman Pardee\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9, it practically glitters. Pardee (BSBA\u201993) is the Realtor of choice for Hollywood celebrities and business leaders looking for a new home in Los Angeles\u2019 trendiest neighborhoods. In 2016, she sold more than $630 million in residential properties, bringing her total career sales to $2.5 billion. She helped Anjelica Huston<\/a> sell her multimillion-dollar compound and sold a $2.1 million home to Snapchat cofounder Bobby Murphy<\/a>. Pardee tells Everett<\/em> how she ditched real estate convention to build her business model from scratch, how she maintains a client retention rate three times higher than the national average, why she’s given away close to $1 million, and what she learned from working for Sharon Stone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Floor-to-ceiling windows,<\/strong> a balcony with canal views, a 24-foot-long kitchen island. This nearly 4,000-square-foot single-family home in trendy Marina del Rey, California, could be yours for a shade under $5 million. Not your style? How about \u201ca sleek urban duplex steps from the sand\u201d in the same seaside community? A rooftop deck, four bedrooms, Russian Elm hardwood floors: $2.5 million.<\/p>\n

The properties for sale through Tami Hollman Pardee\u2019s real estate company are breathtaking and\u2014even with those hefty price tags\u2014much in demand. Halton Pardee + Partners<\/a>, which has offices in Venice, Santa Monica, Mar Vista, and Culver City, boasts that it\u2019s the number one ranked brokerage in West Los Angeles and has the second-place sales team in the country.<\/p>\n

CEO and Principal Broker Pardee (BSBA\u201993), who founded the company in 2005, says she owes much of her success to \u201cmaking connections and building trusting relationships.\u201d Although a house is \u201ca physical object,\u201d says Pardee, buying or selling a home is \u201can emotional transaction. So, we really nurture the relationship with that person. We take care of everything. We have a handyman on staff to fix things up. If they\u2019re sick, we take them chicken soup. If they have a baby, we send them a personalized baby blanket. People remember the personal touches.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result of this client relationship building is a stunning retention rate: 57 percent of clients who bought from Pardee go back to her when it comes time to sell their house\u2014the industry average is somewhere around 11 percent, according to the California Association of Realtors. Pardee has a dedicated staff member just to handle past clients.<\/p>\n

Realtor Tami Hollman Pardee sold more than $630 million in residential properties in 2016.<\/p><\/div>\n

Pardee says she has sold $2.5 billion in residential and commercial property to date, including more than $630 million in residential properties in 2016 alone. That success has earned Pardee and her firm a place on many \u201cbest of\u201d lists, including the Los Angeles Business Journal<\/em><\/a>\u2019s 500 Most Influential People and Top 100 Women-Owned Businesses, Good Housekeeping<\/em>\u2019s 2016 Awesome Women Awards<\/a>, and number two nationwide in sales transaction volume, according to Real Trends<\/em><\/a>, a real estate trade publication.<\/p>\n

Given the hot market in Venice Beach and Santa Monica\u2014in 2016, median house prices in Venice\u2019s zip code shot up by 9 percent (or $138,000) to an average of $1,372 per square foot\u2014business is unlikely to slow down anytime soon. Google set up shop in Venice in 2011, and with the arrival of so many tech workers and the city\u2019s further gentrification, Pardee says she\u2019s in demand now more than ever. Not that she\u2019s sitting back and relying on the fast-growing market to keep those properties changing hands. \u201cI\u2019m a worker and strategist by nature,\u201d says Pardee. In 2016, she closed 370 deals.<\/p>\n

She says that drive comes from her parents. Her father built homes, her mom designed and built them, and her stepfather ran a Caterpillar dealership. As a kid, Pardee was put to work, cleaning up on various construction sites and spending her summers picking strawberries at a family farm. She\u2019s passing that work ethic on to her four children, who range in age from 5 to 13. They often help her at open houses and festivals. \u201cA lot of kids now don\u2019t have to do anything,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely important to me to show my kids how and why work matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pardee\u2019s own horizons had been blown wide open at BU. \u201cComing from a town that was half the size of BU, the diversity was amazing to me.\u201d She describes Lake Oswego, Oregon, where she grew up as \u201cvery vanilla.\u201d After graduating, she thought, \u201cIt\u2019s a huge world out there and I can be a part of it.\u201d She moved to LA, taking a position in Paramount Pictures\u2019 publicity department. From there, a colleague helped her land a job as actress Sharon Stone\u2019s personal assistant. With Pardee\u2019s construction heritage, the role soon morphed into supervising the renovation of Stone\u2019s Beverly Hills home. Pardee says that Stone was a tough taskmaster, for example, demanding that her foyer be repainted overnight when she didn\u2019t like the color. \u201cBut I learned from her that anything can be done because \u2018no\u2019 was not an option.\u201d<\/p>\n

After working for Stone, Pardee seemed on the path to a construction career. She briefly left LA to join her stepfather as the contractor for a Caterpillar dealership construction project; she even flipped houses while earning her MBA at Loyola Marymount University<\/a> in LA in the late 1990s. But it was becoming a mom that turned her on to a career in selling rather than building homes. After having her first child in 2003, she wanted to get out of the house, so she got a Realtor\u2019s license and found she had a knack for it: she sold more than $30 million in property in her first year working for Re\/Max, and was named Rookie of the Year. \u201cAt first, it was a way for me to have work and still be a mom,\u201d she told the Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThen I realized, hey, I\u2019m really good at this.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she opened her own business, \u201cI took it one day at a time and went with my gut and my intuition\u2014I have a very strong intuition.\u201d Two years later, when the housing market crashed, she says business tripled. \u201cPeople were still buying and selling houses,\u201d and Pardee\u2019s firm had built a \u201cthere\u2019s nothing we haven\u2019t seen and there\u2019s nothing we can\u2019t handle\u201d reputation.<\/p>\n

The company, which Pardee founded out of her home and now employs more than 70 people, isn\u2019t built like most real estate firms. Early on, Pardee decided to throw out the typical real estate model, in which independent contractors do just about everything involved in a deal\u2014from sticking signs in lawns to paying for marketing\u2014and then, after clinching the sale, hand over around 15 percent of their commission to the agency they\u2019re contracted to. \u201cThe traditional model is broken,\u201d Pardee says. As she told industry magazine The Real Deal<\/em><\/a>, \u201cthere are too many independent contractors and there is no quality control.\u201d More important, with so many different agents using their own approach to marketing, \u201cthere is no way to regulate and monitor the client experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halton Pardee + Partners looks more like a conventional business, with experts assigned to specialized departments: a listing agent team, a buyer\u2019s agent team, a leasing team, a transactions team, a marketing team, and an operations team. Pardee spends $150,000 a month on marketing and social media, an expense she says is essential because \u201cexposure is so important.\u201d According to Pardee, 99 percent of people begin their search online. \u201cBuyers are online all the time, looking for houses,\u201d she told the Los Angeles Times<\/em> as part of a \u201cHow I Made It\u201d feature<\/a>, \u201cso we have to make sure that our homes are seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Equally important is her personal style, which she says is a departure from the typical LA broker. \u201cI run my business as a woman, not as a man,\u201d she says. \u201cThe feminine aspect is important to embrace when running a business. I don\u2019t hide my emotions. I let people really see me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Buying a home is \u201can emotional transaction. So, we really nurture the relationship with that person….<\/span> If they\u2019re sick, we take them chicken soup. If they have a baby, we send them a personalized baby blanket. People remember the personal touches.\u201d<\/h3>\n

Tami Hollman Pardee (BSBA\u201993)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

She didn\u2019t always let her softer side show. \u201cI used to be hardcore,\u201d she says. \u201cI was a ballbuster. I didn\u2019t love people up. I used to be a bit of a jerk. Then a dog bit me and I almost lost my eyesight. I had to wake up to the world. I realized I had to change because nobody wanted me like this. I became more nurturing, kind, and loving.\u201d Another event also played a part in the evolution of her approach. In 2001, Pardee was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She says the illness was an adjustment\u2014she fights the fatigue by prioritizing sleep time, doing yoga, and staying active with her kids\u2014but it also made her a more compassionate, more feeling person. \u201cI have my own problems. I\u2019ve been through difficult times,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

And being a nurturer versus a taskmaster, she says, \u201cyou get the same results.\u201d Whether it\u2019s her colleagues or her clients, \u201cin the end, being seen is all people want.\u201d<\/p>\n

To bond with her customers now, \u201cI listen, I do a lot of mirroring,\u201d she says. It works. \u201cAt least three times a week, I have someone cry on me. It\u2019s emotional, selling a house; happy or sad, I\u2019m there for them.\u201d Pardee also donates a slice of every sale to local charities. The company says its Life-Changer Program<\/a>, through which it has joined with organizations such as Harvest Home and Boys & Girls Club of Venice, has given away more than $908,000.<\/p>\n

Expanding from a solo operation to one with a big, specialized staff is a tricky proposition\u2014many entrepreneurs don\u2019t make it or don\u2019t turn out to be good CEOs, since they can\u2019t let go of some tasks. \u201cYou have to be steadfast and you have to strategize, but there\u2019s nothing to be afraid of,\u201d Pardee says. Starting out in the business, she says, \u201ceveryone focuses on the commission and how much they\u2019re going to make. I focus on people.\u201d<\/p>\n

And she gets to focus on some glamorous people. Pardee has worked with Anjelica Huston, Robert Downey Jr.<\/a>, and Matthew Modine<\/a>, among many others; in the words of the Hollywood Reporter<\/em><\/a>, she\u2019s the \u201cwoman who rules Venice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s so much star power in Tami Hollman Pardee\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9, it practically glitters. Pardee (BSBA\u201993) is the Realtor of choice for Hollywood celebrities and business leaders looking for a new home in Los Angeles\u2019 trendiest neighborhoods. In 2016, she sold more than $630 million in residential properties, bringing her total career sales to $2.5 billion. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10779,"featured_media":0,"parent":3172,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"story.php","meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nCalifornia\u2019s Real Estate Star - Questrom Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2017\/relationship-building\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"California\u2019s Real Estate Star - Questrom Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There\u2019s so much star power in Tami Hollman Pardee\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9, it practically glitters. Pardee (BSBA\u201993) is the Realtor of choice for Hollywood celebrities and business leaders looking for a new home in Los Angeles\u2019 trendiest neighborhoods. In 2016, she sold more than $630 million in residential properties, bringing her total career sales to $2.5 billion. 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Pardee (BSBA\u201993) is the Realtor of choice for Hollywood celebrities and business leaders looking for a new home in Los Angeles\u2019 trendiest neighborhoods. In 2016, she sold more than $630 million in residential properties, bringing her total career sales to $2.5 billion. 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