First-timers’ resource
A specialty clientele helps Amigas Realty compete
by Mark Connor
IN 2001, as competitive as real estate slows, the advantage among newcomers goes to the agency with specialized clientele, according to Christine Tuhy and Fatima Cocci, co-founders of Amigas Realty in Minneapolis. They credit unbroken focus, collaborative creativity and cultural awareness for a prosperous course so far at their residential real estate brokerage.
Friends since the 1990s and fluent in Spanish, they have a large Latino immigrant clientele. Also, Cocci?s Muslim background enables her to connect with the growing number of home buyers seeking alternative financing in compliance with Muslim tradition, known as sharia law.
After earning a Spanish degree in 1999 from the University of Minnesota and traveling Central America, Tuhy returned to Minneapolis in search of direction.
?While a waitress at a local restaurant,? she says, ?some customers who were with Remax Realty overheard me speaking Spanish and recruited me as a secretary. Once I started to look into what it took to become an agent and the way the industry works, I became an agent right away.?
She also found Edna Realty, a small, family-run agency catering to the Latino community, founded at 102 E. Lake St. in 1998 by a 10-year veteran of Edina Realty, Edna Herlitz. ?I felt Edna suited my needs better, so I went with them,? Tuhy says.
Cocci followed in 2003 after Tuhy persuaded her to forego a fourth year of pre-dentistry at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, spend some time gaining Spanish fluency in Costa Rica, and become an agent. Tuhy was already preparing to get her broker?s license to start her own agency.
After two years of working together almost exclusively with Spanish-speaking customers at Edna, they launched Amigas in 2005. Except for the name, which is the feminine plural of ?friends? in Spanish, they?re aiming to reach a broader audience. They also recognize that long-term success requires intense concentration with collaborative effort.
?For me, it?s essentially about staying focused,? says Tuhy. ?Real estate requires constant attention to make sure you?re in front of people when their needs come up.? That requires excellent organization and open availability. ?I have to have very good records, keeping track in my calendar of who I?m calling when, and staying focused on prospecting.?
That organization and systemization, along with maintaining the logistical needs of the business, is Tuhy?s strong point, while Cocci?s networking skills, amicable manner, energy and mobility are her hallmarks.
?Fatima has made some very valuable contacts for us,? Tuhy says.
?Partnering with Christine was my main motivation for entering real estate,? Cocci says, ?so even before starting at Edna I foresaw our current scenario.?
Tuhy taught her in a kind of apprenticeship at Edna, but they learned to divide up responsibilities and work separately in their own operation.
?The conflicts we were having were defeating the purpose,? Cocci says, ?until we learned it?s more effective to do things separately and then come together when there needs to be creative energy.?
That creative energy, both say, keeps them going and even thriving off of each other.
?It?s hard to brainstorm individually for me,? says Tuhy. ?Two perspectives will come up with two different solutions. Maybe the problem can be helping someone get financed; or maybe the problem can be finding more leads or handling a difficult personality.?
Nontraditional loans
Finding more leads and helping customers get financed are strong suits for Cocci, who combines her extra knowledge of nontraditional financing with her sociable nature to pull in customers from many directions. She uses one company in particular, Guidance, which provides financing compatible with sharia law, making it easier to sell homes to the significant number of people who follow Islam now living in the Twin Cities.
?Somali immigrants are the largest number of Muslim clients interested in the sharia law,? she says, ?although Muslims in Minnesota are from a variety of backgrounds.? Under the sharia law, charging interest on loans is forbidden. Lenders following the tradition have a unique way of structuring the loan so it complies with sharia law while still being profitable. They set up an LLC, or limited liability corporation, with each party recognizing mutual ownership while shares exchange through the payment cycles.
For a loan to be sharia-compliant, the percentage of ownership is transferring with each payment to the buyer, in lieu of interest vs. principal. Some customers have used these instruments and felt them no better than regular bank loans, Cocci says, or they may opt to use first-time homebuyer programs only available through the banks. ?But there are other clients who have used the product to buy two, three, four homes because they are comfortable with it and they?re convinced it?s something they want to stick with,? she says. Payments under this system don?t end up being cheaper, but Cocci points out that there are features tending to result in more security and success.
?Their guidelines for approval are usually stricter than you find at a conventional bank,? Cocci says, ?and I think the population choosing this type of program tends to be responsible. When I visited Guidance headquarters in Virginia a couple of years ago they?d been in business for close to 10 years and never had a foreclosure. And they never sell the loans; they service the loan for the life of the loan.?
Cocci has built a strong relationship with Guidance, who named her their Minnesota Real Estate Agent of the Year in 2004.
Somali immigrant Rashid Omar, a broker with Medina Realty, has also utilized Guidance since 2004 to facilitate sharia-compliant financing in Minnesota.
?This is something that we have introduced to the community and it was something new here,? Omar says. ?So it took us a couple of years before people were really comfortable with it.? He adds that this type of financing is growing in popularity, not just in Minnesota but throughout the country.
Being able to connect with these two groups has been crucial to Amigas Realty, as have other features of their arrangement. They live and work out of a duplex in south Minneapolis, with the office in the front on the first floor, Tuhy occupying the back of the first floor with her 4-year-old son, and Cocci sharing the top floor with roommates.
The arrangement cuts down on one of the biggest expenses, because they don?t pay rent on office space and of course there is value in the property.
With location covered, Cocci says, marketing has been a significant expense, particularly at startup time. They can?t afford to plaster their name around town on bus benches and billboards like the large companies do, so investment in a professionally developed Web site was very important, along with the logo, normal signage and brochures, and the hours and miles logged in networking.
?Luckily with real estate there isn?t so much overhead,? Cocci says, ?because you don?t need an inventory.?
The tenacity of both women is fueled by an energy Herlitz says she recognized immediately, noting that behind their disarming smiles and pleasant manner is the toughness to survive.
?Real estate is the hardest thing, because you start with nothing and you have to generate business,? says Herlitz, who after 10 years shut down her agency this spring, returning to Edina Realty where she started in the 1980s. ?They teach you a lot of regulation, but they never teach you how to sell. For that you?re on your own.?
contact Fatima Cocci and Christine Tuhy, Amigas Realty: 612.872.0777; www.amigasrealty.com; tuhy@bigfoot.com; fatimacocci@bigfoot.com. Edna Herlitz, Edina Realty: 612.925.7763. Rashid Omar, Medina Realty: 612.825.4177; omar@medinarealty.net; www.medinarealty.net
