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Throughout March, Inman contributor Annette DeCicco highlights women in real estate from vastly different parts of the U.S. – New Jersey’s NY-Metropolitan Hub, Maryland’s Upper and Lower Cities of Baltimore, South Florida’s Miami suburb city of Homestead, Oklahoma’s Ozarks running through Tulsa — and from vastly diverse markets — urban, suburban, exurban and rural.
Evelyn Jay knew exactly what she wanted to do with a graduate degree in counseling and guidance: be of service. What she couldn’t know then was that her gifts, strengths and advocacy would land her in people’s homes in two seemingly disparate careers, her services benefitting all whom she touched:
- 30 years as a licensed social worker in home study in the City of Baltimore and neighboring suburbs, assessing potential foster or adoptive families
- 20 years as a licensed real estate agent in inner-city Baltimore, its rural outskirts and throughout its many suburban communities, later blossoming into specialized partnerships.
Always serving the people who matter
True to this year’s Women’s History theme, Jay has historically used critical skills in her dedication to serve families and clients by “sizing up prospects for a good fit.” For Jay, it’s always all about others. In her first career, beginning in 1974, in social services, Jay developed intuitive people skills that would later advance her second career in the real estate industry, beginning in 2004.
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Home study services specialist
As a social worker, Jay was keenly attuned with prospective foster and adoptive families, a delicate balance between child welfare and would-be parents. Reading between the lines was a necessary skill that either awarded or denied placement of a child.
Hard decisions while letting people down compassionately is a profile of strength, possibly emanating from Jay as a working mother of three. All in all, the career took a lot of communicating, screening, listening and empathizing during her tenure from 1974 – 2005.
Enter real estate
Enter the Great Boom — the 2004-2005 real estate market — a time of rapid growth, rising home prices and increased sales, fueled by low mortgage interest rates, relaxed loan qualifications and increased consumer demand.
It would prove to be a testing ground for real estate agents to soar, survive and succeed in the looming years ahead — the 2007-2009 Great Recession — triggered by a housing market bubble.
Licensed in 2004, Jay, along with an influx of people, entered real estate. Retirement from social work came at an opportune time. However, the speculative fever of the boom that led to a record number of 2 million real estate agents in 2005 became the dreaded bubble in 2006, with foreclosures and defaults hitting the supply chain and prices pushed to unsustainable levels.
A latent talent emerges
Having profited during the boom from an opportunity to be a part of the building of five homes, Jay immersed herself in the decorating side of the business at a time when home staging was not common practice. Her decorating talent was her new commodity.
Once the recession settled in, it was Jay’s talent in building and decorating homes, plus the communications skills developed decades earlier, that were key to her lasting success. With thousands of real estate agents exiting the industry, Jay knew she had to lean in and leverage all of her skills, including her artistic talent, if her real estate career was to flourish.
Discovering her niche
It was the change from a seller’s to a buyer’s market that sprouted a seedling partnership of talent, experience and savvy into The Chesapeake Staging Company, where Jay and partner earned their clients staggering premiums, turning a $40,000 home staging investment into a $100,000 gain.
Recently, Jay parlayed what she learned from the boom years of building a few homes into a new business — purchasing undeveloped land and subdividing lots with the prospect of building three new homes. Where will this new endeavor take her? No one exactly knows. What is evident is that Jay’s energy, depth of knowledge and courage to take on something new knows no bounds.
Evelyn Jay’s story is one of resilience
Rarely do we meet someone with a humble devotion to years in social services who has the motivation to reinvent herself in business, face unknown obstacles, with the heart to find her way.
Evelyn Jay is a real estate agent, investor, professional home stager and builder in Baltimore City/County, Anne Arundel, Howard, Harford and Prince Georges Counties, Maryland, at Long and Foster Real Estate.
Annette DeCicco is a real estate broker, coach and director of growth and development at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Jordan Baris Realty in Northern New Jersey.
