Real estate agent is a tour de force
By JAMIE REID
June, 5, 2006
Superstar real estate agent Taryn Hebert's face is plastered on a Calder Avenue billboard and in 46 Southeast Texas front lawns, mostly in Beaumont and Lumberton.
The thin, sparkly-shoed agent jokes that she ducks would-be recognizers by changing her hairstyle often. But the RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement Award winner - who sells about $18 million of property each year - is busier now than she ever has been.
This year, Hebert, 51, of Beaumont, plans to expand her business into Mid-County, while also marketing and selling the new Metropolitan Park, a 20-acre complex on Dowlen Road that will house condominiums, homes, restaurants and office and retail space.
Hebert credits her success to hard work, which means routinely working 12- to 14-hour days. She points to a word sculpture that hangs in her office and serves as her motto: "Never, Never, Never Give Up."
"I am the opposite of a procrastinator," she said, talking in her Dowlen Road office decorated with accents of animal print.
Yet when she's away on vacation - the Bellagio in Las Vegas is a favorite spot - she misses work. And Hebert doesn't read many novels because she can't get her mind off real estate.
She always answers phone calls promptly, even cell phone calls late at night.
Pam Burchfield, 31, of Beaumont, called Hebert up to 10 times a day, sometimes as late as 11 p.m., when she was buying her $125,000 home in the West End, on which she closed on April 17.
"You have access 24/7. She returns every call," said Burchfield, secretary at the Jefferson County Veteran's Office. "She made me feel like my dream is her dream. Like she really cared."
Already, Burchfield has recommended her much-loved agent to three friends.
Carrie Cunningham, 40, of Beaumont, recently cried when walking through a perfect four-bedroom, 2½-bath home with Hebert.
Cunningham had looked six months, with no luck, for a house with a big yard, big pool and open spaces for her two sons, ages 8 and 10.
Then Hebert called to say, "You have to look at a house today. It's perfect."
They walked through the house, where Cunningham got goose bumps and then teared up when she saw the pool. She plans to close on June 15.
Hebert said she enjoys her job because it is different every day, challenging and rewarding - financially and emotionally. Her dedication takes time away from her husband of 19 years, financial consultant Henry Hebert, but he understands her schedule.
So does her 80-year-old mother, said Hebert, who does not have children.
But Hebert does draw the line at family holidays, like Mother's Day.
"I do have my limits on that," she said, vowing not to work Christmas or Thanksgiving, like she did in her early years.
Hebert grew up in Beaumont, but moved to Orlando and then Houston after graduating from Forest Park High School.
She logged time as a waitress, learning how to work with people, and also as manager of her family's jewelry business, a gig that taught her to help people with big purchases.
When the jewelry store closed in 1990, Hebert found herself at a crossroads. She remembered her mother talking about showing new Beaumont homes decades earlier for a spell. Mother told daughter, "I really wish I had pursued real estate. Maybe you can."
Hebert took her mother's advice and became a real estate agent on Jan. 2, 1991, spending as much money as she made her first year on conferences and advertising.
The investment, which promoted an audit by the IRS, introduced her to new ideas in the business.
During her first year, she was one of the first agents in Southeast Texas to use a computer on the job, she said. Hebert also was one of the first to put brochure boxes in front yards, advertise on television, hire an assistant, then a licensed assistant who can show homes.
Now, she has two licensed assistants.
On most trends, she said, "We've been able to get in on the ground floor."
After a few successful years in the business, she was invited to join RE/MAX, where agents pay rent but don't share commissions with the parent business.
"We attract the producers, the premiere agents in Beaumont" said RE/MAX agent/owner Hester Bell, who described Hebert as "professional, enthusiastic, positive and energetic."
Hebert has walls full of awards in her office, but her most prized is that RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement Award hanging in a corner. That award, which she earned in less than 10 years with RE/MAX in 1993, means she has collected more than $3 million in commissions, said Jack Farrar, RE/MAX public relations manager in Denver.
About 1,500 out of 115,000 RE/MAX agents - about 1.3 percent - have earned the award, Farrar said. In Beaumont, four RE/MAX agents - Hebert, Bell, Mary Jane Mouton and Sally Bundy - have earned the award.
No local agent has yet won the Circle of Legends award, which 53 agents nationally have taken home, Farrar said. That award is given to agents who collect $10 million in commissions.
Hebert, with no plans to retire or slow down, no doubt has her eye on it.
jreid@beaumontenterprise.com
(409) 880-0734 |
