By Jim Troy
You could say that Jim Troy, a realtor on the Jim Troy Team at Buyers Capital in Stamford, eats, sleeps and breathes real estate. It might be a cliché, but real estate has been his passion for many years.
Jim started as a wet-behind-the-ears kid looking to invest in real estate. He literally got his feet wet on his first investment: a 32-foot houseboat. With a group of friends, Jim repaired, renovated and launched his first investment home. From there he moved to more grounded projects, investing in handyman specials, which he gutted, renovated and sold for sizable profits. In the process, Jim learned his way through the local zoning books and town hall. By then he knew he was hooked: the real estate bug had got him! It was time, he knew, to turn his hobby into a career.
He took real estate classes, passed the Connecticut state licensing exam, joined a respected national agency and started the Jim Troy Team, a multilingual group of industrious agents who soon made their mark on the local real estate market.
One Saturday morning almost five years ago, Jim was working on a property and listening to a local radio station that featured a six-hour block of home-related programming, including a show with a local home inspector and one with a nursery owner as well as nationally syndicated shows such as “On the House with the Carey Brothers” and “At Home with Gary Sullivan.” Noticing they had no realtor representation, Jim contacted the radio station to pitch a new radio concept called “Real Estate Review,” an hour-long live program covering real estate in Fairfield County, CT.
The station executives loved the idea and agreed to give it a shot. Jim realized he had a great opportunity ahead of him but, with no radio experience, it was time to quickly come up with a game plan. He decided to share the limelight and responsibility with knowledgeable team members who were never short for words. Together they researched and practiced their on-air roles and launched the show without a hitch.
Jim says he was never concerned about their knowledge of the local real estate market and his specialized knowledge of homes; he felt confident that he and his teammates know the market and the product as well as or better than anyone. His only concerns were: How will we sound live? Will people listen? Will people call in with questions? Will people e-mail us questions?
Now going into their fifth year of the “Real Estate Review” on WSTC-1400 and WNLK-1350 AM Radio, the show’s ratings have more than tripled. Jim is joined regularly on Saturday mornings by teammates who bring depth and dimension to the program with their ability to connect with audience members who hail from around the globe. Jim says that he is told often by business people, restaurant owners, builders, fellow realtors and others that they listen to the show. He says he has even fielded questions off the air from fellow real estate agents who turn to him for professional advice--something he never dreamed would happen. He and his teammates are being recruited by other radio stations and real estate companies, but Jim says they are happy where they are.
Now that he is a local radio personality, has Jim been bitten by the radio bug? No, he insists, he is just happy to have the opportunity to help so many buyers and sellers of real estate get good, sound advice.
Jim Troy and the multilingual Jim Troy Team are affiliated with Buyers Capital and can be reached at 203-249-1660 or jimtroy@realtor.com.
Jim started as a wet-behind-the-ears kid looking to invest in real estate. He literally got his feet wet on his first investment: a 32-foot houseboat. With a group of friends, Jim repaired, renovated and launched his first investment home. From there he moved to more grounded projects, investing in handyman specials, which he gutted, renovated and sold for sizable profits. In the process, Jim learned his way through the local zoning books and town hall. By then he knew he was hooked: the real estate bug had got him! It was time, he knew, to turn his hobby into a career.
He took real estate classes, passed the Connecticut state licensing exam, joined a respected national agency and started the Jim Troy Team, a multilingual group of industrious agents who soon made their mark on the local real estate market.
One Saturday morning almost five years ago, Jim was working on a property and listening to a local radio station that featured a six-hour block of home-related programming, including a show with a local home inspector and one with a nursery owner as well as nationally syndicated shows such as “On the House with the Carey Brothers” and “At Home with Gary Sullivan.” Noticing they had no realtor representation, Jim contacted the radio station to pitch a new radio concept called “Real Estate Review,” an hour-long live program covering real estate in Fairfield County, CT.
The station executives loved the idea and agreed to give it a shot. Jim realized he had a great opportunity ahead of him but, with no radio experience, it was time to quickly come up with a game plan. He decided to share the limelight and responsibility with knowledgeable team members who were never short for words. Together they researched and practiced their on-air roles and launched the show without a hitch.
Jim says he was never concerned about their knowledge of the local real estate market and his specialized knowledge of homes; he felt confident that he and his teammates know the market and the product as well as or better than anyone. His only concerns were: How will we sound live? Will people listen? Will people call in with questions? Will people e-mail us questions?
Now going into their fifth year of the “Real Estate Review” on WSTC-1400 and WNLK-1350 AM Radio, the show’s ratings have more than tripled. Jim is joined regularly on Saturday mornings by teammates who bring depth and dimension to the program with their ability to connect with audience members who hail from around the globe. Jim says that he is told often by business people, restaurant owners, builders, fellow realtors and others that they listen to the show. He says he has even fielded questions off the air from fellow real estate agents who turn to him for professional advice--something he never dreamed would happen. He and his teammates are being recruited by other radio stations and real estate companies, but Jim says they are happy where they are.
Now that he is a local radio personality, has Jim been bitten by the radio bug? No, he insists, he is just happy to have the opportunity to help so many buyers and sellers of real estate get good, sound advice.
Jim Troy and the multilingual Jim Troy Team are affiliated with Buyers Capital and can be reached at 203-249-1660 or jimtroy@realtor.com.
1 comments:
We at Connecticut Real Estate and Construction have not the time to waste while the G8 deliberate picayune details about what sorts and how much of greenhouse gasses are allowable, and who was going to conform or not.
One might ask, what is the hurry? The hurry is: we humans are in the process of destroying our planet. Global warming is the single most significant environmental crisis the world community has ever seen. The 2007 G8 Summit in Germany will focus on the reversal of global warming. President Bush, of course opposes this proposal. Like his strategy in the Middle East, he has a better idea, and he wants to convince the world of something they already know is untrue. This time it’s not that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but that global warming is not that dire an issue.
Our Nero-like President fiddles, but we cannot allow our Rome to go up in flames. This isn’t a city’s destruction we speak of. It is the end of all of us, of history, of every thought and feeling humankind ever produced. Our present federal government is not going to do anything about this crisis.
Connecticut Real Estate and Construction will do something about it, because Connecticut needs GREEN workforce housing in significant number for very important reasons. Suburban sprawl is killing the environment. When we continually clear off two acres per household to put up large houses, we cut down trees which produce oxygen, we deplete the filtering system for our water, and we make houses which leave a carbon footprint which further opens a hole in the ozone. If we instead build multiple units together and build them with solar photovoltaic cell panels and with geothermal heating and cooling, we leave virtually no carbon footprint, we leave sufficient greenery to filter water run-off, and we provide our workforce with housing that allows them to stay in the state and not flee to the South and Southwest as has been the recent trend. As a result, those businesses (and their tax revenues) which require those workers need not flee with the workforce, a trend we have seen throughout the Northeast region of the country.
Additionally, we will build elderly housing. The Boomer Generation is aging. They are retiring at record rates and require specific housing that does not exist in sufficient number. We will build it. We will build commercial buildings and office space to go along with the elderly and workforce housing. We need cooperation from local governments to achieve our goals, and we need that cooperation quickly. As we move forward, we will build with town tax rolls in mind. We are aware that the workforce housing will require significant services and expenses, most notably educational expenses. This is why mixing the elderly housing with the workforce balances the ledger, for the elderly pay taxes without sending children to schools. Further, the commercial and office buildings will bring in significant tax revenues without pulling out revenues from the local municipality. This formula is referred to as “Smart Growth” and is to be part of our plans
While proposing “caution” and “care” is rarely foolhardy advice, studies on these issues have already been done and “smart growth” is necessary throughout the state and the country. We cannot wait. The cost is too dear for all of us to sit idly by and fiddle away time as the planet goes up in flames.
Sincerely,
Miles J. Shapiro, Partner
Connecticut Real Estate and Construction
VP Marketing and Commercial Real Estate
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