Real Estate Broker Moves Families from One Home Sweet Home to Another

Joan Wayman learned some difficult life lessons at a young age. They spurred her to a career in engineering — and now to her own in Darien.

When she was a child, Wayman’s parents moved with their five children from Chicago to Tennessee. Her dad was a CFO. Life was comfortable. Until 1987.

“When I was 16, my dad lost his job in Tennessee,” she said. “We moved from a five-bedroom house to a two-bedroom apartment.”

Wayman’s family gradually recovered but not to where they once had been. The memory stayed with her. “I decided that I will never put my children in that position, ever,” she said.

Wayman earned her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After college, MCI hired her as in international route manager. Her work frequently took her to Europe.

Life was good. And in 1995, Wayman bought a house for herself in Dallas.

“Then my dad got sick, so I moved back to Chicago,” she said. “I had a realtor rent (my house) out for me.”

Six weeks later, her dad passed away. Two months later, she met her husband. “So I never went back,” she said. “(But) I kept that house.”

While working for MCI in Chicago, Wayman enrolled in DePaul University’s MBA program.

“They have a concentration in Real Estate Finance and a Real Estate Center,” she explained. “The whole concentration is really Chicago development and entrepreneurial development, and I thought it was kind of cool.”

She also got her Illinois Real Estate license in 1998. “I thought, I have this rental property,” she said. “I’d better learn how to manage it.”

Wayman left MCI and went to work at Tellabs. She once again found herself travelling back and forth to Europe.

And life changed again.

When Wayman’s first child was born, she had some flexibility at work. But her second child was born 11-and-a-half months later, just as the telecommunications industry was imploding. Her job flexibility disappeared, and she left Tellabs.

Wayman contemplated her options and went to work at Coldwell Banker. A friend presented her with a real-estate challenge. His father was about to buy a property in Joliet. He needed help to convince his father that it would bankrupt his company.

“So I laid out the spreadsheet and I found three other properties for him to review,” Wayman said.

The father took her advice and chose another property. “He put in $267,000 and he got almost half of that, per year, back,” she said.

That deal encouraged Wayman. She sold the house in Dallas and bought three properties in Minooka.

Wayman was ready to go out on her own. She did not yet have a real estate broker license, so she used a virtual real estate office called ‘Major Enterprises’ that did.

That friend’s father whom she’d helped returned the favor. He hired her as a business consultant. The fees paid for her broker’s license.

Wayman opened her real estate firm in November 2007. She brought two experienced colleagues with her – June Woodward and Mike Devlin.

“The three of us are all personal investors,” she said. “And we all have significant real estate sales and marketing experience.”

Technology has impacted everything, including real estate. Wayman cites her company’s use of technology as one of their strengths.

“If you go on Zillow or Realtor.com or whatever, you’re seeing less than 100 percent of the listings out there,” she said. “But (with us) they get Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo Real Estate. They get the MLS. They get a fabulous presentation of their product on the market.”

Wayman passes savings to her clients. “Because I’m the broker, I can list and sell a home (with) the net cost to a seller of 3.75 percent versus 5 percent,” she said. “So even though I present all these things to the customer, I still charge less than everybody.”

Wayman works with several stagers to help prepare a home for sale.

“Most of staging has to do with taking it all out, picking one theme or color scheme, and putting it back piece by piece with someone who knows how to do that,” Wayman explained. “People pay dollar per square foot, so they want to see that. That includes clear surfaces on the counters. Floors have to be clear. Windows have to be clean. Lights have to be on. You have to have about five to seven light sources per room.”

Curb appeal is also important. “Walking from the car to opening the front door, they’ve made their decision whether or not they want to look further,” she said. “If people fall in love with the house, they’ll buy it for 10-15 percent more than they were willing to spend.”

Wayman covers an area from Brookfield to Minooka. Her primary focus, however, is the area covered by School Districts 86, 99 and 204.

Wayman understands her clients’ concerns, especially in these difficult economic times.

“This is one of the biggest purchases or sales they will ever do in their lives,” she said. “They’d better have somebody out there who is not going to leave money on the table, and that’s me, June and Mike.

“We’re not your mama’s or your grandma’s realtors,” she said. “We’re not just going to put a sign in your yard. It’s the package.”

For more information, contact Joan Wayman at 630-747-5250 or joan@joanwayman.com, or go to www.joanwayman.com.