Founded 40 years ago this week, on May 18, 1974, Norris & Company has grown into one of the island’s top luxury real estate company’s under the leadership of Gena Grove and Jane Schwiering.
“They have done a great job. My hat is off to them,” says company founder Cliff Norris who sold his residential real estate operation to Grove, Schwiering and two others in 1989. “They have attracted some very high-quality, capable people to work for them, which is the hallmark of a successful business.”
Norris, who owns Pelican Plaza and remains active in property management, says he had 13 residential agents when he sold the business. Today, the company employs 49 agents, many of them brokers, along with a dozen or so office and support staff.
Grove and Schwiering are now the co-owners of the company, which is organized as a corporation. They say they have grown the firm by treating their agents the way they would want to be treated.
“We have tried to keep it very much like a family atmosphere here. We continually work toward that, remembering the ideal of the Golden Rule,” says Grove. “We treat each other with respect and honor what each person is doing and take care of each other. Over the years that has proven to be a very stable and strong basis for our company.”
“We all seem to want to work together and help each other out,” says Realtor Sherry Brown, who joined Norris & Company seven years ago. “It really is a big extended family. [Gena and Jane] are always there if you need them.”
Grove says the Golden Rule ideal extends outside the tight-knit company to its many clients, with an emphasis on service and professionalism.
“Service includes making sure somebody is picked up at the airport and ensuring utilities are turned on and the refrigerator is stocked with food,” says Grove.
“It doesn’t end when the deal is done,” says Schwiering. “We are our client’s source for all kinds of things. We help them find people to take care of their house or whatever they need.”
That level of service has built up a strong book of repeat business. “People come back to us over and over, and they bring their family and friends,” Grove says.
Besides having loyal clients who buy and sell multiple properties over the years as they go from part-time to full-time residents or from large family homes to smaller retirement houses or condominiums, Norris & Company benefits from abundant walk-in traffic.
Located in a handsome, recently remodeled building on Ocean Drive, half a block from busy Sexton Plaza, the company is adjacent to the Holiday Inn, the Reef Ocean Resort and Vero Beach Hotel and Spa. Visitors who stay in the hotels are prime prospects to fall in love with Vero and enter the market for a vacation or retirement home here, and many of them walk across the street to Norris’s office to make their first inquiries. Likewise with visitors who drive in and pack the boutiques and restaurants along the beachfront during the winter season.
“We are right in the heart of the action,” says Brown.
Norris agents also benefit from the company’s professional marketing affiliations with Christie’s International Real Estate, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World and Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate, among others.
Grove and Schwiering recently attended a meeting of the Board of Regents, an elite group within the Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate organization, to talk with other top brokers about real estate ideas, trends and strategies, to gather information that will empower their agents.
“Brokers selected to serve on the Board of Regents, the governing body of the Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate network, provide leadership in their communities and the highest level of personal service and commitment to their clientele,” according to CEO John Brian Losh. “These individuals are the best of the best.”
The Regents meeting took place at the Ritz Carlton in Fort Lauderdale. As soon as Grove and Schwiering returned to Vero they had to repack and head to the airport to fly to Dallas for another high-powered conference of real estate company owners from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico where they networked with their peers and were entertained by former President George W. Bush who spoke to the group for an hour.
“He was very amusing and had some interesting anecdotes about his presidency,” Grove says.
The partners say that international affiliate groups provide leads – connecting them with buyers in other states and countries who are interested in Florida real estate – and access to the smartest minds and latest trends in their profession.
“Our company is 40 years old, but it is important to stay on the cutting edge,” says Schwiering. “We are always on the lookout for the latest technologies that will help our agents work more efficiently and for ways to present the company more effectively around the globe and so create more opportunities for our agents.”
Schwiering and Grove both have deep roots in Vero and raised their children here. “All of them went to St. Ed’s,” says Grove of her son and daughter and Schwiering’s two sons.
Grove, who lives in Little Harbor, moved to Vero in 1971 and joined Norris in 1978. Her daughter now lives in Summit, NJ, returning often for vacations. Her son Andrew sold real estate in Coral Gables before coming back to Vero and joining Norris & Company, where he is a broker associate.
Schwiering, who lives in Riomar Bay, is a native Floridian who grew up in Lakeland. She arrived in Vero in 1972, moving here with her husband Jeff, who later bought Vero Insurance. Her son Jonathan is now president of Vero Insurance. Her other son, Jordan, is an architect. She has been at Norris since 1976.
“This is the only real estate company I have ever worked for,” Schwiering says.
The partners say their time is split about 50-50 between selling real estate and managing their growing company. They don’t have any formal division of duties. Instead they simply pitch in and do whatever needs to be done, ably assisted by their general manager Carol Prezioso.
“We are both very active in sales and management,” says Grove. “Everything is done by joint decision.”
They seem to making the right decisions, based on sales trends at the company. Grove says 2013 sales were up 50 percent over 2012 and the first quarter of 2014 was up another 26 percent over the same quarter in 2013.
“We are not complaining,” says Grove says with a smile.