Realtor profile: Mary Schroeder
7/5/2009
This interview series focuses on Realtors in the Santa Fe area. Mary Schroeder is a broker with Prudential Santa Fe Real Estate and is president of the Santa Fe Association of Realtors.
How long have you been selling real estate?
Since 1997. I was licensed in New Orleans and I started with Latter & Blum, which had 22 offices and over 800 brokers in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Are you from New Orleans?
No. I grew up in Litchfield, Connecticut, the youngest of five. My parents met at Pearl Harbor. My mom was the last surviving Pearl Harbor nurse when she died in 2007. My dad passed away when I was 10. He owned the paper company that his father started. They did specialty things, like those doilies you used to have under your coffee cups at Howard Johnsons.
What did you want to be when you were a teenager?
A teacher. My mother was always amazed that all the kids would come to our house after school and I would sit there with the blackboard and play school and I would teach.
My background is in sporting goods manufacturing. I moved to Vermont and worked for a large sporting goods company. I first led bicycle tours in the summer and I taught cross-country skiing in the winter. I worked for Karhu Skis and I sourced the first lightweight Merrill hikers in Hong Kong. I also ran ski factories up in Montreal.
Wow. Then what?
I left there and went to Jog Bra, which was owned by two women who sewed a couple jockstraps together to make a bra for women runners. I tested compression bras and also bought the raw materials and shipped them to six factories and told them what to produce. Jog Bra was bought out by Playtex and that was bought out by Sara Lee.
I just met your husband, Ed. When were you married?
I was married before for nine years in Vermont, then my ex decided he didn't want to be married anymore so after adopting two boys from single mothers, I became the single mother of two. I met Ed over a toll-free number. He was a major in the Marines, involved in arctic warfare, and he was going to be testing the world's first GPS system. One of his men called Merrill because they made the best cold-weather boots on the market.
We were married in 1991. Ed was asked to take a job in the Marines' public affairs department in New Orleans and we moved there from Vermont in 1995. When I was in college, I wrote a thesis on how I'd make all this money investing in real estate and there were Latter & Blum signs everywhere in New Orleans, so there I went. The company put you through school for a month before they'd even get you out on the streets. Then the premier real-estate trainer, Floyd Wickman, happened to be in New Orleans, and I did his 12-week program, then I was invited to the sales academy. So my first six months was all education.
For the remainer of that year, I closed 23 transactions and it was equivalent to about $2.3 million. I ended up being their rookie of the year. I was considered the military relocation specialist. I also worked my way into being president of the Officers' Wives Club. That is one wild group of women, I'll tell you. And I ran one of the largest Toys for Tots programs in the country.
What brought you to Santa Fe?
We were looking to move out west and we researched various places. Someone suggested Santa Fe and I had no clue on earth where that was. We came here in 1999. We brought skis and it was one of the years where there was no snow, so we looked at real estate and we ended up buying a house in Lamy.
Who did you work with here?
I was with Coldwell Banker starting in 2000. I was their top producer in 2005 and 2006. When my husband got licensed in 2007, we were going to team up, then Prudential offered me a job being qualifying broker, so I moved to Prudential in October 2007.
Over the holidays, I had been having a lot of back challenges and by early January I was literally paralyzed and right then I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was in my bones. Right now, I am a walking miracle. I dropped out of sight the first quarter of this year and was on the mend. I came back and gave a speech to the Santa Fe Association of Realtors and took back over my responsibilities as president on April 1. I'm working my way back into it. That's the very, very short version of what happened.
Tell me about being the SFAR president.
There are appearances, interviews, radio, and sometimes television opportunities, and issues with the City Council. The president appoints the chairs and members of the committees and helps with direction in regards to the strategic plan. I'm head of the Executive Committee and I'm responsible for the association's budget. I'm also on the board of the Realtors Association of New Mexico and I serve on three committees for RANM.
What's the outlook for the market?
I think it's good. I do believe we have hit the bottom and that we will see recovery in 2010. Prices are showing a little gain. The numbers have looked stronger beginning in March.
I saw Suze Ormond at a retreat for Coldwell Banker and she basically said that if you don't have to, just don't sell. Remember that you buy real estate for your enjoyment, so stay and love it and the market will turn around.
What do you like doing in your spare time?
I love hiking and cross-country skiing, and I love reading and spending time with my pets.
What can I tell you that's fun? This all sounds so boring. When I was 18 I worked at Bath Iron Works in Maine. I was working as a waitress in a lobster house and I overheard some guys complaining about a change in the rules that would allow women there. So I did that. I was an iron welder on the night shift with 3,000 men.
I was a member of the Shipbuilders Union. At the time, we were building ro-ros — roll-on/roll-off ships — for the Navy. They could feed me through small openings to fix welds. That was my advantage, as a woman.