By Lauren Saslow
Each year, many people in the New Tampa area move out of their homes at the end of the school year and have to go about finding a new place to live. With all of the real estate brokerage houses and agents in the New Tampa and greater Tampa Bay area, how do you find the agent best suited for your personal needs rather than the personal agenda of a pushy agent?
Independent real estate agent Lessie Reyes, of the Engel & Völkers (E&V) Tampa brokerage, can offer you international cash buyers and a concierge-style approach to sellers as part of an international circuit of brokerage firms. Although her office location is in South Tampa on S. MacDill Ave., Reyes caters to clients in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties. As a resident of Cory Lake Isles, Reyes also works more specifically with many clients in both New Tampa and Wesley Chapel.
Since earning her real estate license in 2006, Reyes says she has received much of her new business through referrals from satisfied former clients, which she considers, “a great compliment.” This includes her first listing with E&V clients Bob and Donna Angelo of Tennessee, formerly of Westwood Estates, an equestrian subdivision in the Wesley Chapel area.
“Lessie sold our house in 15 days to buyers from Belgium,” Bob says. “The buyers were very impressed by her professionalism and loved the home.”
Ray Alexander —a Westchase resident who owns three E&V franchises, including the South Tampa office where Reyes works alongside more than 20 other agents — explains the appeal of listing through E&V.
“We train all of our agents with a concierge approach to business,” Alexander says, noting that these concierge services are lifestyle-oriented and include catering to international clients’ conveniences. This means that Reyes sometimes even will pick up clients from the airport or hotel and drive them all the way to New Tampa and Wesley Chapel property listing sites in her own vehicle. She also will research information about the area’s 24 elementary, middle and high schools for clients with children to help them find the best fit. As a New Tampa resident, Reyes can attest to the quality of the area’s schools and has the knowledge of the surrounding communities to accommodate almost any client.
“Even our offices are not stereotypical,” Alexander continues. “They are preeminent luxury-style boutiques with a contemporary and open feel, which we refer to as ‘property shops.’”
While E&V, named after founder Dirk C. Engel and CEO Christian Völkers, has only been in the U.S. for the last six years, the company originated in Hamburg, Germany, in 1977, and has grown to include 600 offices that span 38 countries on five continents. Alexander even hinted at Wesley Chapel as a target area for a future property shop, although there was no definite plan at our press time.
E&V’s international advertising allows agents like Reyes to bring in foreign buyers, who often pay cash for the properties, which can, in turn, expedite the closing process.
“Cash buyers are king,” says Reyes emphatically, in contrast to the sometimes-lengthy process involved with buyers who require financing.
Reyes has not always worked in real estate. She earned her B.S. in Mathematics degree with a major in Computer Sciences from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, The Philippines. She also spent nearly a decade overseeing Information Technology (IT) in consulting work for large companies such as Consolidated Analysis Centers International (CACI) Inc. from 1998-2000 and Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) between 2000-06, before obtaining her real estate license in 2006.
“I didn’t want to talk to computers anymore,” Reyes explains. “I wanted to talk to people!”
To that end, Reyes says that she has always placed a tremendous emphasis on building strong and trustworthy relationships with clients in order to make them feel comfortable about the process and with their purchases.
“I never push people for any type of sale,” Reyes explains. “I provide the information so they can make a decision. Information is key.”
Reyes adds that her advanced computer skills with both Windows- and Macintosh-based computer systems have aided in her real estate business, by allowing her to handle and facilitate real estate transactions quickly and efficiently. Before that happens, however, Reyes says that she uses her analytical skills to provide buyers and sellers with accurate comparative market analyses and sales figures to ensure clients aren’t paying more or selling for less than they should.
“I love to research and do marketing analyses,” Reyes says. In fact, she notes that 90 percent of marketing for real estate today is completed on the Internet. But, she says her relationships with her clients are what wins them over. She says her goal is always, “to provide superior service through passion for hard work, integrity, diligence, extensive real estate knowledge, a positive attitude, attention to detail and great organizational and analytical skills.”
Initially, Reyes began working in real estate part-time, while continuing to work for ESRI from home. She says her friends thought she was making a mistake relinquishing her lucrative IT consulting work in order to focus solely on residential real estate during a time when the housing bubble burst. Her response to them?
“I told them if I could survive in that market, I could learn so much,” she explains. “It also allowed more flexibility to work around my son’s high school schedule.”
Reyes has been a Top Producer among Tampa Bay residential real estate agents every year since 2007, when she began to work in real estate full-time until 2013 with her former broker, Keller-Williams at Michael Green & Associates South Tampa office. During that time, Reyes says she had a volume of, “close to $4 million in transactions each year.” She joined E&V in November 2013 and plans to become a Top Producer within her new brokerage, too. She adds that she treats all clients with the same respect and attention, regardless of the dollar value of their listing.
Lessie Reyes’ office at Engel & Völkers is located at 2605 S. MacDill Ave., Suite B, in Tampa. To schedule an appointment call the office at 258-9000 or you can call her cell at 298-5541. Reyes also can be reached by email at Lessie.Reyes@evusa.com. For information about her current listings, visit LessieReyes.evusa.com or ‘Like’ her Facebook.com page.
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