During Thanksgiving dinner at the Hjelm house, the family is not allowed to talk about money, politics, religion – or real estate.
That’s because Eric, his son Justin, and daughter Carlee Hjelm all share an office at Greene Realty Group in west Olympia. “Our mom said it’s off limits,” says Justin. “That doesn’t leave a whole lot to talk about except sports.”
Eric got his start in the industry 32 years ago while managing an auto parts store. “I was always interested in real estate,” he says. “I started doing it part-time on weekends, working seven days a week. A year or so into it, I was making as much as the full-time agents, so I decided to go full-time myself.”
He is one of only 5% of all agents to have a Certified Residential Specialist (CRS) designation. “It requires education, and you’ve got to produce so much every year,” he says. “It’s not a designation you can go out and buy. You’ve got to earn it. It takes years of experience.”
Justin didn’t necessarily intend to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he may not have had much choice. “It all started with putting signs together in the garage when I was eight years old,” he says. “You could say we were molded for the role. We spent a lot of time (at the office), sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily.” (His father reminds him that he was paid a nickel per sign – not exactly minimum wage, but something.)
The Hjelms clearly enjoy each other and say they attempt to bring that light-heartedness to their clients. “I hope people like working with us,” says Justin. “We make it fun. It’s amazing what a joke can do to lighten a situation and relieve stress. We like to incorporate some comedy when we can.”
According to Eric, people may start out as clients but often become closer. “We end up with a lot of friends when we’re done. We like to have a good rapport with our buyers and sellers.”
Being trustworthy and upfront with clients is important, he says. “I think sometimes it should be called ‘reality’ instead of realty. We’re very proactive. We know when we’re selling a listing, we can always see the red flags by doing our research.”
Over the years, they have seen the industry change, mainly in the area of technology. “We used to want to give clients a lot of information, steer them to the right places,” says Eric. “Now a lot of the buyers come to us and they have the information and our job is to verify if it’s correct or not.”
Communication has also changed, says Justin. “As everybody adapts to the technology, 90% of our communication is through text and email. With my generation, there’s that need for instant gratification. It makes things easier and more complicated at the same time.”
The Hjelms have plenty of stories from their experiences along the way. If two of the more memorable were movies, they might be called What About Bob? and My Cousin Vinny.
In the first case, says Eric, he’d sold a one-acre house in the country to a couple. “They were planting some trees in the yard, and when they started to dig into this one area, their neighbor came over and told them, ‘You might want to be careful, because you’re going to find Bob.’”
In some consternation, the couple asked who Bob was and what he was doing in their yard. As it turned out, he was the husband of the previous owner who had recently passed away, and she’d buried his urn on the property. Somehow that hadn’t been disclosed in the sale agreement.
“The couple called me up and I asked them if this was freaking them out,” says Eric. “But they said the more they got to know the neighbor and heard about Bob, they were okay with it. They decided to let him stay.”
In another case, Eric was looking to sell a 57-acre piece of his own property on Steamboat Island when something about the potential buyer got his attention. “I said, ‘I’m looking at your offer and I notice your buyer’s name is Vincent Schwendt. That’s my mother’s maiden name.’ She said, ‘Really? Well Vincent is my husband. He’s from Missouri.’ I told her, ‘So was my mother.’” Digging a little deeper, they established that both were from the same small town south of St. Louis.
The agent began to get excited and got her husband on the phone. Vincent and Eric began trading information about Thomas Schwendt, Eric’s grandfather, who might also be Vincent’s Uncle Tom.
“What do you remember about him?” asked Eric.
“All I remember is that he had four daughters and he named one of them Thomasina, because he wanted a boy,” said Vincent.
“That’s my aunt Tommy up in Port Angeles,” Eric told him.
The next day Vincent arrived in the office with all of the family genealogy. “We were having a family reunion with a bunch of the family from St. Louis coming out, so we were able to invite him,” says Eric. “It was just really fun. And he bought the place. I tell people, ‘I located My Cousin Vinny.’”
Although that buyer turned out to be an actual relative, Eric says the real estate business is all about relationships. “People trust us to use our connections to make their transactions smooth and done right. It’s about knowing that if you need a vendor, there’s a buddy you trust who is going to take care of your clients because we’ve created those long term friendships and relationships. It’s great.”
For any real estate needs, contact Eric Hjelm or Justin Hjelm at Greene Realty at 360-528-4160.
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