With the retiring of one of TCAR’s most well-known REALTORS®, Divine Realty closed its doors in December 2020.
When you think of Divine Realty, you think of Willie Stewart. Maybe you think of Willie’s tenacity. Maybe you remember Willie’s charming “right-right-rights” and begin to smile.
To many TCAR members, Willie Stewart was the HUD-awarded designated broker who handled our area’s REOs. But anyone who knows Willie personally knows that her professional insight is just a small facet of the wisdom she has to offer.
We sat down with Willie and asked her to reflect on her 35 years in the business. Here’s what she had to say:
What was one of your most memorable moments in real estate?
Willie remembers fellow TCAR REALTOR® Louise Olsen having a house in West Richland that was listed in the MLS being sold as land-only. “It was just a dump,” she laughs.
“I had a buyer who couldn’t afford anything,” she says. “And all he wanted was a place to park his Hudson and a yard for his dog.”
Willie remembers him coming into the RE/MAX office –where she was an agent at the time– sopping wet from the rain. He had been searching around town, trying to collect cans for cash to put toward the house.
Determined to help this client, Louise and Willie scrubbed down all the nicotine-soaked walls, put in doors where there had previously been none, and installed carpet. They gave up their commissions to fix up the place so they could give this man a home.
“We walked away with $85 and one very happy buyer,” she says. “It was one of those moments where you realize that selling houses is more than a job. When you can help a guy who no one else wants to take on and make his seemingly small dream come true, that’s when you realize your role as a REALTOR®.”
“I always look for agents who want to help other people, and those are the agents I refer,” she adds.
Did you hold any designations?
She held multiple designations, including: GRI (Graduate, REALTOR® Institute), CRS (Certified Residential Specialist) and CDPE (Certified Distressed Property Expert®)
“CRS is definitely the most valuable,” she says. “I became a better REALTOR® after I became CRS designated.”
She credits her CRS designation in helping to connect her with other REALTORS® at conferences who had experience with REOs. “I met a lot of the main players,” she says. “The HUD contract application was 150 pages long, and I was fortunate enough to have met a HUD-designated REALTOR® on the East Coast who could help me make sense of it.”
What do you attribute your success in real estate to?
“Goal setting!” she says.
Willie remembers going to a RE/MAX convention where Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, was talking about his latest book The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.
“I remember learning how to set goals and how to prioritize them,” she says. “His goals were really, really intense. But once you start setting goals, you start meeting only with things that will help you meet your goal and walking away from things that won’t get you there.”
She recalls being solicited to sell phone cards for an MLM, but she knew it wasn’t going to help her fulfill her goal as a REALTOR® so she walked away. “If I had spent my time selling those phone cards, I would have been taking time away from achieving my actual goal.”
“One of my goals was to give 10 business cards a day, face-to-face,” she says. “I would work up the courage to talk to someone and give them my card, and it would turn into ‘Actually, I know someone who is thinking about selling. Could I have two?’”
“It would open up more and more opportunities, and that was amazing.”
Later in her career, she decided to shift her focus.
“REALTORS® have a tendency to work with anyone who approaches them,” she says. “I made it a goal to stop working with buyers and work only with sellers. It narrowed down my opportunities, but actually opened a lot of doors.”
What are some challenges you’ve experienced in this industry?
“I got into MLS when it was just little slips of paper, so marketing was a huge challenge,” she laughs.
“I also had to learn how to speak to people in a nice way,” she says. “It’s hard for me not to show any impatience, and I have a tendency to be blunt with people. I needed to learn how to be kind and compassionate while people grapple with making a massive decision in their life.”
How did the Association help you or your business?
“I think knowing that the Association will support you when you need something – knowing that they’re a support system, that they are the guardians of what is right and are making sure that REALTORS® are doing what is right – is reassuring,” she says.
Willie was also the forerunner of first-time homebuyer classes. “I would schedule these free classes for first-time homebuyers, and I would hold them right here at the Association,” she says.
“People in the community would recognize me from the seminars that I did. I loved helping people who wanted to be helped.”
Any career advice you would give your younger self?
“If I had any advice to give myself, it would probably be to not open my own business,” she says.
Willie opened Divine Realty in 2009, after spending several years working at other brokerages, including Century 21 and RE/MAX.
“My favorite part of real estate was transactions,” she continues. “Opening my own business, I was thrown into a managerial position and that was not the position for me.”
“There were some great advantages to owning my own business – specifically buying my office as a foreclosure and selling it to pay off my house,” she says. “But it’s very hard to keep agents happy, and it’s stressful.
“The smart people start their own teams under a brokerage,” she adds. “I wish I would have just created a team and let the brokerage deal with complaints.”
What are you up to now?
Willie says she’s spending a good chunk of her days tending to her garden. She’s also volunteering at the Humane Society several days a week – in addition to her daily 2-mile walks with her own 100+pound Rottweilers, Baron and Major.
“I wake up and I think ‘What do I want to do today that is fun?’” she says. “Maybe I want to build a raised garden in my shop, maybe I want to go camping in my little motorhome. I don’t have to worry about going into the office anymore and that’s great.”
