Steven Sharpe was on the lookout for a extra versatile profession when he left his job in claims administration at Cigna Healthcare in 2007 to develop into an actual property agent as he and his spouse, Lindsey, began having a household.
“On the time, it was an incredible actual property market and it appealed to me to be my very own unbiased enterprise particular person,” Sharpe remembers. “My spouse and I had simply purchased a home in 2004 and I simply thought there have been a whole lot of methods to make that purchasing course of higher.”
Sharpe joined Keller Williams Realty (KW), the place he nonetheless works greater than 16 years later. Sharpe, who’s the 2023 president of the Higher Chattanooga Affiliation of Realtors, needed to shortly use his flexibility and self-confidence when the actual property market started to falter quickly after he received his license. The housing downturn within the 2008-09 recession lower residence gross sales and boosted foreclosures, producing the worst nationwide housing downturn in a long time.
Sharpe persevered by means of the housing stoop and has superior his profession at KW, serving to to develop one in all Chattanooga’s largest actual property franchises as each an actual property agent promoting houses himself and now as managing dealer. In a commission-driven occupation extremely influenced by native financial modifications, Sharpe has discovered to adapt to altering markets to purchase and promote houses and, in recent times, to recruit and mentor different actual property professionals.
“The explanation I received into actual property is to assist in giving folks the very best shopping for and promoting expertise attainable, to not simply do as many transactions as attainable,” Sharpe says. “Greater than the amount, I’ve tried to ensure persons are proud of the method and what I’ve been capable of do.”
Sharpe says that method is essential for many brokers who depend upon repeat purchasers, referrals and word-of-mouth promotions to achieve enterprise.
The KW workplaces in Chattanooga have almost 800 brokers, together with 350 on the workplace that Sharpe oversees. Since he grew to become the managing dealer of KW’s East Brainerd workplace, the variety of brokers has almost doubled.
Regardless that brokers are unbiased enterprise homeowners and, to some extent, compete towards each other for enterprise, Sharpe says he works at KW to maintain a sharing and instructing tradition amongst brokers.
“We have now masterminds courses right here each month the place high brokers will share what supplies they use and sit down and inform what works, and the way they succeed of their jobs,” Sharpe says.
Sharpe mentioned the actual property market has shifted previously yr as mortgage charges have elevated and the setting has toughened for many brokers. The variety of houses bought in Chattanooga declined by 10.8% final yr from the file excessive reached in 2021, however the median value of houses that bought final yr in Chattanooga was nonetheless as much as a file annual common excessive of $305,000, based on the Higher Chattanooga Realtors Affiliation.
Though gross sales and residential costs are moderating this yr, Sharpe says the downturn should not be anyplace as extreme because the housing collapse within the early 2000s.
“Nearly everyone might get a house mortgage in these days, usually for greater than what the home was price,” Sharpe remembers. “These forms of loans have gone away and the market will fare significantly better this yr than throughout these the 2008-2009 recession.”
He urges these desirous to get into the occupation to have a plan for getting and promoting houses and to have a way of earnings help by means of good occasions and unhealthy.
As a part of his personal plan, Sharpe joined GCAR’s board in 2018 and has labored on a lot of committees earlier than turning into the volunteer head of the two,700-member Realtor affiliation in Chattanooga this January. Such work helps not solely the occupation however the group, Sharpe says.
“I believe that is among the largest attracts for the affiliation,” he says. “We take off our firm hats and we work collectively, not competitively, to perform a typical objective.”
The Tennessee Realtors affiliation not too long ago offered its annual Good Neighbor Award, together with a $5,000 donation, to Sharpe for his work with bodily handicapped kids at Camp Horizon.
Sharpe met his spouse whereas working at Camp Lookout. She later grew to become a pediatric bodily therapist at Erlanger hospital, and shortly after, the couple began Camp Horizon, following their shared ardour for giving younger folks a tenting expertise.
“When she started instructing and dealing on the hospital, she shortly realized that a whole lot of her sufferers couldn’t attend a typical summer time camp expertise,” he says. “To assist present that tenting expertise, we put Camp Horizon collectively in 2005 and we have been doing it ever since.”
The weekend tenting expertise for these age 5 to 18 years previous started with 11 campers in its first yr and has grown to 45 campers latest years. College students from UTC’s occupational remedy and doctorate in bodily remedy packages work as counselors for the camp, which has been supported in recent times by Peyton Manning’s Peyback Basis.
“It is an incredible program and we have now a whole lot of enjoyable doing it,” Sharpe says.
About Sharpe
* Occupation: Managing dealer of Keller Williams in Chattanooga
* 2023 job: President of the Higher Chattanooga Affiliation of Realtors
* Profession: Sharpe, a enterprise faculty graduate from the College of Tennessee at Chattanooga, labored in claims administration for Cigna Healthcare in Chattanooga for almost 5 years earlier than turning into an actual property agent in 2007 on the Keller Williams workplace in downtown Chattanooga. Eight years later, he transferred to KW’s Hixson workplace the place he was managing dealer.
* Civic service: He and his spouse, Dr. Lindsey Sharpe, are co-founders of Camp Horizon which offers a weekend tenting expertise for kids with bodily disabilities.



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