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No. 1 home seller finds being 'picky' pays; R. Kaiserman succeeds with quality listings

February 12, 1995 - No. 1 home seller finds being 'picky' pays; R. Kaiserman succeeds with quality listings
by Ernie Heltsley

Robin Sue Kaiserman has the luxury of demanding "quality, not quantity'' and still coming out as the No. 1 home seller in Tucson.

She says she's not a hard driving businesswoman, but she persuades a lot of people to make the investments of their lives with her.

Kaiserman grossed $14.5 million in house sales last year to claim the crown as the No. 1 seller of Tucson houses the third consecutive year.

It is an honor for which most of the 3,800 real estate sales people in Tucson would gladly trade their idle hours.

"One of the reasons I've been successful is my ability to turn business down. That way I'm able to make fewer people happy and keep them happy,'' she said in a recent interview.

The $14.5 million came on sales of just 60 homes last year for Coldwell Banker Success Realty's Foothills office. She had sales totaling $15 million in 1993.

Executives for the largest real estate companies in Tucson don't dispute her success.

"Robin is a very hard worker. She gets great respect in the industry,'' concedes Mike Deir, vice president and designated broker of a competing company, Realty Executives.

Kaiserman also ranks as Coldwell Banker Success' top seller five years in a row and she is among the top 20 of Coldwell Banker's 53,000 agents nationwide.

And for the past three years she's been invited to speak before the Coldwell Banker national convention because of her high production volume and professional approach to marketing properties, says Judy Lowe, managing broker of the Tucson office.

Kaiserman said she'll be the convention speaker with the fewest listings - she handles only 10 to 13 properties at any time.

Foothills homes only

She's admittedly "picky'' about the number and quality of properties, preferring houses in the $130,000 to $400,000 range.

She will accept them only in the Catalina Foothills area where she has had her own home for 18 years. That area is bounded by East River Road north to the Santa Catalinas, Shannon Road on the west and Sabino Canyon on the east.

Of the houses Kaiserman sold last year there was "not one piece'' of commercial property or one new house.

"I'm not interested in empty buildings. I look at houses as art works,'' she said.

"I don't push buyers, but I'm hard on sellers,'' she said, explaining that a listing not only has to be priced right, but well-maintained, repairable and have a functional floor plan.

But she likes ``quaint'' old homes too, and those sometimes don't have ideal floor plans.

"If it's not a house I like I'll just tell them I'm not the right person for them,'' she said.

She says 95 percent of her business comes from referrals.

Kaiserman attributes the recent upswing in the residential market as "a little false mini-boom, with Hughes moving here , coinciding with a time when we had the lowest interest rates in 25 years.''

Hughes Missile Systems Co. brought about 4,000 employees to Tucson from California to consolidate its operations.

But regardless of all her high sales numbers, Kaiserman doesn't ``want to come across as a hard business woman. I'm a mom. I'm a real person,'' she said.

Works seven days a week

Although she works seven days a week, she still has found time over the last 10 years in the business to help her husband, Michael, raise their son, Jeffrey, 14, and daughter, Melissa, 20.

"I work seven days a week, but I don't consider it work. I meet different types of people from all over the world,'' she said.

But because she works by appointment, she's able to find time for the personal things she needs to do at home.

"If there's a basketball game, I make sure I don't have an appointment,'' she said.

"I don't have a big social life because I don't have time. I become friends with my clients and help them make new friends,'' she said.

She believes that women are successful selling houses, to a large degree, because women usually make the buying decisions.

Kaiserman also thinks her own success comes from her small-town values, nurtured in her hometown of Minot, N.D., where her parents had a store.

She also worked for 10 years in her in-laws' store, Kaiserman's Men's and Boy's Wear on West Prince Road, before it closed in 1986.

Kaiserman, who specializes in foothills homes, grossed $14.5 million in 1994

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Copyright 1995, 1999 The Arizona Daily Star