Community Corner

They're Not Just About Houses

Brokers Council assists real estate pros.

A group of local Realtors talked about the tepid response to 270 rental listings for the Quiksilver Pro New York surfing competition in September.

It was the main topic of a roundtable discussion the Long Beach-Island Park Brokers Council held at the Island Park Library on Tuesday.    

With area hotels already booked for the 12-day event, the Realtors generally expect the rentals will pick up by August. Some, like Mike Scully, owner of Century 21 Scully Realty in Island Park, believe many local homes may go unrented.

“This event might be a huge success for Long Beach, but from a real estate point it just may not be a cash cow,” Scully said.

Typically, the Brokers Council holds monthly meetings that feature a guest speaker. Some speakers are scheduled for the same month each year, including Nassau County Legislator Denise Ford (in April), and the Realtors also meet with groups, including Long Beach City Council members and local school administrators.

“These people that we meet with every year, they look to use for input, to know what’s going on in the industry,” said council Co-Chairman Neil Sterrer, owner of Sterrer Realty in the West End.

But Sterrer said the council’s main purpose has always been to provide a venue for local real estate agents to share information they might not otherwise get and that can make them better Realtors.

Scully, who has sold real estate in the area since 1985, attends the council’s meetings for informative purposes, as does Erik Kobley, a Long Beach resident and broker with Charles Rutenberg Realty in Oceanside.

“I like to meet the important people in my business,” Kobley said. “I think it’s imperative.”

Sterrer estimates he notifies hundreds of Realtors about meetings through e-mail and social media. On average, a dozen of them attend monthly meetings.

“I find it very informative and it also gives me a chance to meet other Realtors,” said Sherry Miranda, a broker with All Star Real Estate in Oceanside. “It’s a form of networking.”

Sterrer and co-chairman Joe Sinnona, owner of Joe Sinnona at Verdeschi Realty, founded the organization in 1996 as a breakfast club that met monthly at West End eateries. Within a year, members began holding monthly meetings with local officials.

Sterrer credits Joe Ponte, an original council member and a Realtor with Prudential Douglas Elliman in Long Beach, for recruiting more Nassau County and Town of Hempstead officials to speak.

“These meetings are to update the local officials about what we’re going through on the commercial or residential ends, and they also like to hear from us on market trends,” Ponte said.

Ponte finds that officials are more open to listening to and understanding Realtors when the council is a conduit for their concerns, and he said that their one-on-one access to officials helps to clear up many matters, from rental laws to zoning codes.

“You definitely get information that you need to know, in terms of new regulations and things like that,” said Katherine Coladner, owner of RKM Consulting in Long Beach.

When Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg dropped by Tuesday for his regular July talk with the brokers, he spoke about their importance and credited them with helping to turn Long Beach real estate around from the depressed 1970s.  

“We want you to be successful,” Weisenberg told them.

Through the years, Sterrer has found that the council has had a positive effect on community members’ opinions of real estate agents.

“When I first came to Long Beach, I wondered how the real estate community was viewed — I guess as greedy Realtors,” he explained. “But the respect has grown, and it’s happened through the Brokers Council and keeping this dialogue open with all the groups we meet with.”

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