Sandy Tams 2000’s – The Decision that Saved My Career

By the start of the 2000s, there had been numerous technological advances that changed the landscape of real estate as we knew it. In hearing some of the stories of our #relentless throughout the decades, we’ve seen how from the start of the 70s, through the year 1999, real estate transactions had gone from a handshake to wearing gold blazers as a form of marketing, to CENTURY 21 Real Estate becoming the official sponsor of Major League Baseball. We had many firsts in the real state game all while continuing to push the bar and not settling for just being your average real estate company.

Sandy Tams of CENTURY 21 Begins Enterprises was no rookie to the industry in the 2000s. She had been in real estate for 30 years, specializing in new home sales. It was the year 2006 when Sandy began being approached by agents and managers from other real estate companies, who encouraged her to join them. Sandy considered but she was looking for a certain level of professionalism and didn’t find it with the companies who initially reached out to her. Then, a CENTURY 21 Real Estate agent encouraged her to give their office a try, and Sandy was introduced to the manager. Sandy said that as soon as she walked through the doors of CENTURY 21 Begins, she was taken aback by the level of professionalism she experienced. It was then, that Sandy left new home sales and became a real estate agent.

It may be safe to say that most agents can recall the housing crash of 2008. Just after Sandy left new home sales and started her new career as a real estate agent, she says the market crash impacted just about every agent she knew.

“It was a tough time. People were still wanting to buy and sell, and agents didn’t know how much the homes would be from the first time we took clients to view them, until the time they closed.

The struggles we all went through to survive. Commissions were cut, because the value of the property was reduced, and we had to be out there every day, finding a new client or customer. It was because I was a CENTURY 21 [real estate] agent, that I got through it. It was the strength of the brand and the name recognition that definitely helped.”