Edite Calabrese
Edite Calabrese
Title: Broker-Owner, ICON Realty
Age: 53
Experience: 29 years
Edite Calabrese was coaxed out of interior design school by a career in real estate, first at a conventional, international company before becoming a broker and franchise owner and eventually broker-owner of her own, independent shop. A few years ago she returned to interior design school and received her certification. Plans to start an interior design business were sidelined last year when she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, but she’s now done with treatment, cancer-free, and back on track to launch that business soon.
Q: How’d you get started in real estate?
A: I actually started interior design school and ended up taking a real estate course because it interested me. I wound up leaving my interior design studies and pursue real estate. Interior design has always been my passion and it’s something I’ve been able to do for clients, family and friends, so I went back to school and got certified home stager and designer almost two years ago.
I got it to use it as a branch-off. I do work for a large developer in Litchfield as director of sales and design consultant. I have a very strong interest in the field and plan to launch another business doing just that. Last year I got diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer and put it on the back burner.
Q: What was that like?
A: I had three surgeries resulting in a mastectomy followed by six months of chemotherapy. I was sick and I lost my hair and I worked through the whole thing. I needed to continue to work because it was the only thing that provided normalcy in my life. I didn’t hide it. I shared my story on YouTube and Facebook because there were things I wanted to share with people. Before I was diagnosed, I didn’t know how many people were affected by breast cancer. I had no family history. It was an eye-opener. Combined with dense breast tissue, mammograms don’t necessarily catch that right away. I thought more people should know about it, so I told my story from the beginning, and told people what treatments were like.
The ironic thing was my sister-in-law had put off her mammogram for about 10 years. When she heard my story, she got a mammogram and was diagnosed with breast cancer. She said she probably would have put it off another five years or so if she hadn’t heard my story. So there was good news and bad news that came out of it. Now I feel great. I stopped chemo in June and have had follow-ups and everything looks good. I am considered cancer-free. With the triple neg they watch you closely because if it’s going to come back it usually happens in the first couple of years.
Q: How much difference does staging make on a listing?
A: It’s a pretty big deal; the majority of consumers shops online first. You need to have great photos that reflect what the room is being used for. A lot of Realtors take photos as-is. They don’t coach their sellers about the way the home is a product that has to be put into its best light. It improves days on the market and sales price – if the house is shown well, it has a higher value.
I don’t charge clients for my design services if I list their house. I’m doing one tomorrow that was dated. I give them a list of things to do, like declutter and depersonalize it. This couple took the weekend to get things done. Most of the time they do everything on the list. We need to appeal to a broader buyer pool. To do that you have to showcase a more blank canvas, with some personality, but not so much that people can’t envision their things in it. I gave them a $10,000 range. If they did nothing, I recommend listing the house on the lower end of that range. If they do everything, I would want to list it for $10,000 more. We’ll see where it sells. Staging a house usually nets an owner $5,000 or more. It can be as simple as just moving furniture around.
Q: Can you walk me through your career?
A: I started with Coldwell Banker, which is a conventional real estate company. You work for the broker and they give you tools to use and you split your commission usually 50/50 between your broker and yourself. As you gain momentum, the split favors the agent more. I did really well there. They had a great training program.
Then I plateaued on my commission and RE/Max and Realty Executives started moving into the area. Their concept was that you treated your business like a company. The broker got paid through desk fees. Around that time I got my broker’s license and opened my own small, independent company and bought the Realty Executives franchise.
Then the market crashed and some agents couldn’t afford the desk fees and went back to the conventional models, and I understood that. I was slowing down and gave up the franchise and went back to being an independent. Now I have six agents. I’m picky about the people I want to come on board. They have to be self-starters and people I’ve known for years.
I like to primarily list properties for sale. I like the marketing end of the business. I focus on getting the home listed. I focus on targeting the right buyer for the property. I love new construction and helping builders design new projects and then sell them.
Calabrese’s Five Least Favorite Attitudes:
- Negativity
- Excuses
- Laziness
- Selfishness
- Entitlement
This article has been updated since it was originally published to correct the number of months Edite Calabrese underwent chemotherapy for triple-negative breast cancer; it was six months of treatment, not three.
