Name: Jeffrey Phillips
Title: Real Estate Agent, William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty
Age: 47
Experience: 4 Years
Jeffrey Phillips and his partner, Mark Madonna, started out working in finance together in New York City. Later, they worked in the hospitality business together, and now they sell real estate together in the Litchfield area as the Madonna and Phillips Group with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Real Estate. Phillips said if he wasn’t a real estate agent, he’d be a private eye because he loves researching and hunting for something and finding it. He said sitting on his terrace in the summer with some grilled garlic shrimp and a bottle of Picpoul de Pinet is his idea of nirvana.
Q: You started your professional life in investment banking. Did you enjoy it?
A: I loved it. Mark and I used to work together part of the learning and development group at an investment banking. It was a wonderful time. It was a dream job. It was cool. We were doing learning and development for new analysts and recent college graduates coming on board. We dealt with new MBAs and young graduates aspiring to do great things in their career.
Our group got closed down after September 11th, but I had invested in a restaurant group in NYC before we were disbanded. It was a perfect time to do it. I was in my early 30s and seemingly life was great. It was a very social time and I made a lot of friends. I was there overseeing things and hosting and making sure everything was working. They were long days.
I learned to remember people and how important it was to connect with staff, vendors and customers and focusing on remembering their names and finding a way to relate to them in a few seconds before and after their dinner. I tried to leave an impression enough to come back. You have to be able to read people [in the restaurant business] – and you have to do the same things in real estate.
Q: How did you decide to leave the bustling hospitality business in NYC for the quiet life selling real estate in western Connecticut?
A: We were looking for a business we could do together. When I was in the restaurant business and Mark was still in finance, we missed a lot of time together. He was gone early in the morning and I was gone at night. We moved to northwestern Connecticut to figure out what we could do together.
This was a business that would use our individual strengths – which are very different – to our clients’ benefit, as well as spend time together. It’s kind of a yin and yang situation. We love to take a drive to explore new areas and see what’s going on in other towns. I am more client-facing, Mark is more background, and that translated well into real estate. It’s been surprisingly enjoyable and it’s unique for couples. The struggle is when we do want to click off real estate and talk about something else for a while. It always seems to sneak back into the conversation.
Q: You have some substantial sales and listings. Did you start out at the high end of the market?
A: Our strategy has always been to find and approach homeowners who have the very best of the category they’re in. We just sold a home on Wickham Road, which was an incredible historic home from a historic family and we just knew it was going to sell. She called us one day and we listed it for $795,000. It took about a week.
We certainly prefer to work with incredible properties. We focus on $700,000 and up. Our main group of buyers is weekenders from New York City. Our local buyers are more in the $300,000 to $500,000 range. We’ve been known to turn down houses that are too cookie-cutter. We’re always trying to find that little gem in a particular niche. Our office is out of Washington Depot, which is 75 percent to 80 percent weekenders. We rarely sell to a full-time resident. People say they can’t believe it can take 200 days to sell a house, but our clients are working in the city all week. We only have two days a week to sell them a house.
Funny enough, more and more of our clients are 30 to 35 years old with a child who are able to work from home at least part of the time. They extend their weekends and live here four to five days a week. It’s been great for business. They can drive to the Harlem Valley-Windale line of Metro North in about 25 minutes. The commute into the city is about two hours.
Q: Has country life been a big adjustment for you?
A: For me, my mom had recently turned 70, Mark has a big birthday coming up, and my brother was getting married. All those things conspired to make it the perfect time to move. There just wasn’t enough time to have a life and enjoy either business.
A friend of ours introduced us to a little house in Kent and I thought “I can’t believe I can come here and listen to the birds and the insects and fall asleep at 9 p.m.” It was magical.
You have to believe in your area and we’ve been tempted to go back to the city, but Mark and I actually believe in this area. The Berkshires and Hudson Valley can’t compete. It’s beautiful and unspoiled and comparatively an incredible value. For us, when you’re trying to sell someone on the area, it’s just two hours from New York City.
Steep Rock and the Kent Land Trust are working really hard to preserve the rural nature of the land here. Washington is 25 percent owned by the Steep Rock Association. Weekenders from the city love that the neither their land, nor their view, will ever change.
Phillips’ Top Five Favorite Vacation Spots:
- Cabo San Lucas
- Puerto Vallarta’s northern coast
- Newport
- Watch Hill, Fire Island
- Cape Cod
