Business Beat: Working from the other side

 MOUNT AIRY. Candis Pressley made a lot of money in 2007 when she sold 50 houses at the tail end of the housing boom, becoming one of the city’s most successful young realtors.

But last year, just as a national publication included her in the “Top 30 Under 30” to watch, Pressley and her colleagues at the realty company she owns decided to spend more time on mortgage counseling and foreclosure prevention services in the wake of a new housing crisis.

“It’s like back to the basics now. We have to get out there and get people engaged and informed on this,” Pressley said of the four-week pre-purchase class she has taught since last year.

More than 40 new home buyers have graduated from the free class — funded through a $10,000 federal grant — and are likely to keep their homes at a much higher rate than homeowners without the knowledge, Pressley said.

Now 30, Pressley became a Realtor at a very young age. As a teenager, she helped rent apartments near her house in Powelton Village to students attending the nearby universities.
By the time she was 19, she was a licensed Realtor.

The housing boom was good to Pressley — and virtually every Realtor for a decade — but as she and another Realtor, Derrick Jackson said yesterday: When the bubble burst, counseling the people you sell homes to became a priority.

A new buyers’ market that’s building on all-time low interest rates is once again generating new business, Pressley said.

“Things are starting to turn around again, much through the stimulus,” she said. “The stimulus, I think, is sparking interest and people are starting to get off the fence now.”