Real Estate Agent at Re/Max of Hot Springs Village
Jane Hollansworth graduated in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She got her first taste of real estate sales with York Properties in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the mid-1980s.
Hollansworth worked for 17 years with Cooper Homes, from 1989 to 2006. She bought the Re/Max franchise in Hot Springs Village with her son, Jeff, in 2006, selling the business to Clara Nicolosi in 2015.
Hollansworth grew up in White County and moved around the country as a “corporate orphan” with her husband and family.
Hot Springs Village is known as a retirement community. What are the top features retirees seek in a home?
Low maintenance-yard and house. After that, upgraded amenities like hardwood floors, granite or quartz countertops, no wallpaper, no acoustic ceilings, new appliances and well-maintained yards.
Our buyers seem to gravitate to smaller and newer instead of big, older homes that need work. They had rather travel, golf, fish, walk trails or read a book than work on a house.
Who has the advantage these days? Buyer or seller?
It’s really a seller’s market. Our inventory is half of what it was two and a half or three years ago. It is not uncommon to sell a house at full price or over right now. We are enjoying a very good market.
Who is the target market for HSV these days? Still retirees?
Yes, still retirees, but we are also enjoying the benefit of a younger generation who can work from home. They may be manufacturers’ representatives or in some type of business that does not have them reporting to an office every day. The proximity to an airport is often much better in HSV than the city from where they moved, and many now can do their work via internet.
What set you on your career course in residential sales?
I guess it was our many transfers that first attracted me to real estate. I would be the one to sell the home and go find a new nest. Then I would get the house and yard done and go get my real estate license. I would always put it on inactive because my husband was traveling and our boys were young. When our boys went to college, it was time to make it active. My degree is in education, but I like being self-employed where my energy, time and abilities are rewarded accordingly.
What’s the best advice you ever received?
I was instructed by my first broker not to judge a client but to listen and give them all the attention necessary. That lesson was brought home very quickly when I was doing duty in a $300,000-plus house and a customer wearing overalls drove up in a rather used pickup truck with his dog in back. I not only was able to sell him a very nice house but also a lot of commercial property.
In this business, one never knows how financially qualified a customer may be or who they might refer to you. Don’t judge.
Who made a difference in your life?
My father was my first mentor. He could not help me financially but built into me the self-confidence that there was nothing in the world that I could not accomplish. My husband furthered that confidence. He is my biggest supporter and has encouraged me every step of the way.
My first broker, Ed Willer, in Raleigh, North Carolina, was a great trainer and teacher. I’d like to think I was his best student. At least, I was his top agent while there.
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