Through a series of college jobs in real estate offices, Alison Bernstein, founding owner of The Suburban Jungle Realty Group, was introduced to that industry more than 15 years ago. Aside from a brief stint in finance and investment banking, Bernstein has followed that calling.
Returning to studies at Columbia Business School, “I knew I wanted to pursue the passion and I wanted to do residential real estate,” Bernstein said, “but I thought that there was a better way to do it and the question was, ”˜How do you better execute the model?”
Bernstein launched her solution, The Suburban Jungle Realty Group, in 2008. The Manhattan-based company exclusively targets home buyers moving out of the city into Westchester County, Connecticut, Long Island and New Jersey. It provides free consulting on towns eyed by house hunters. Bernstein estimated that the group covers 500 towns.
“I didn”™t want to grow it aggressively,” she said. “I wanted to make sure every client was happy. We have a 100 percent closing rate, which is unbelievable in this industry.”
This year the company has more than doubled its staff, hiring 30 workers. Many are town consultants ”“ they guide potential buyers through the towns in which they live.
“A lot of our business is trying to find the right town for each individual, and as you know, each town is very different in terms of personality,” Bernstein said. She incorporated that lesson into her business model after her own struggles in relocating from Manhattan, first to Fairfield County and then to Westchester.
“There was a void in the marketplace,” she said. House-hunting New Yorkers had no service that helped them understand the differences in communities, schools, public spaces, transportation and other elements of suburban enclaves such as Armonk, where Bernstein lives, and Westport, Conn., her former home.
“The key to our success has really been having locals on the ground letting us know what”™s going on, not from a real estate perspective but from a community-feeling perspective,” said Bernstein.
Many of the consultants are stay-at-home moms. They also include part-time business owners, freelancers, and laid-off workers.
Marisa Marlin is a stay-at-home mother to two girls in Chappaqua, to which she moved eight years ago from New York City. Marlin said her local experience “allows me to inform clients on everything from grocery stores to which synagogues, churches, camps and pool clubs to join. Town experience is cyclical and since I am experiencing it right now, I can comment on it now and give fresh perspective.”
For instance, she said, Chappaqua may not be the right town for a mother who works in the city, as school PTAs tend to hold morning meetings. Marlin also prepares Manhattanites for the competitive nature of the town”™s school system. “Children are reading before kindergarten and it is not uncommon for kids to be tutored at this young age, something to consider,” she said.
A native Manhattanite, Joele Levenson has lived in Scarsdale for two years. As a Suburban Jungle consultant, her job is “providing honest information about my experience in Scarsdale to aid clients during their discovery process,” she said. “Scarsdale is also unique because it has five distinct areas and many people are interested to gain some insight on the differences.”
Levenson said most clients initially consider from five to 10 towns in their house search and then focus on two to three for their purchase.
In her own house hunting, Bernstein said, “I made mistakes along the way.” They included an initial move to Westport, “which is beautiful and on paper it was like the perfect town,” but did not match her expectations.
“I just wished I knew certain things that I didn”™t know during the process,” she said.
“I saw that there was a huge need, and I also look at real estate and this really is where I think the industry is going. I think that you need to be laser-focused on a particular market segment.”
For Suburban Jungle, that market segment is the leaving-the-city crowd. “Our sweet spot is early to mid-30s, some late 20s, and that”™s the life cycle that we built the business upon, and it”™s truly recession-proof because even though the real estate market has ups and downs, people are still getting married, people are still having kids, and they”™re still going to need to move out of the city,” said Bernstein. “Not everybody does, but the segment that will, will still do it.”
“Now, are they going to spend $2 million anymore,” on their first suburban home? “Probably not,” she said.
Comments 1