To be a good real estate agent, a person must possess several important attributes, according to Amanda Dabbs, a Realtor with The Fred Smith Group, the RealtySouth office in Crestline.
For example, real estate agents should have “a lot of integrity” and be “very honest, accountable and transparent,” Dabbs said.
They should also care deeply about their clients and respond quickly to their needs and wants, she said.
For example, if a client is calling, Dabbs answers her phone every time. “I am very responsive to my clients,” she said.
She also loves her job, which she believes comes through in her work.
“I just really like what I’m doing, and I absolutely love the process of real estate, so I enjoy it a lot, and I guess my clients can see that,” Dabbs said. “I always try to make it a really pleasant experience so that we can establish lifelong relationships.”
Dabbs finds it gratifying “being able to educate my clients on the best route to go, whether buying or selling or investing,” she said. “Being their source of knowledge and guidance is really special.”
“I try to make it a red-carpet experience so they can feel comfortable, confident and secure in the process,” she said.
A Mississippi native, Dabbs earned a degree in marketing from The University of Southern Mississippi. She began her real estate career in Mississippi after watching her husband, Joseph, work as a real estate agent for two years. “He started selling real estate, and I loved it,” she said. The couple moved to Birmingham in 2010.
Dabbs and her husband live in Homewood with their three children, all of whom attend Homewood High School. Carter is a senior, Caroline is in 10th grade and Charlie is in ninth grade.
Since 2015, Dabbs has been part of a team of 10 agents at The Fred Smith Group and she really likes working there.
“I love the team experience there, she said. “It's my family — my work family — and the support, the encouragement, the camaraderie and just love that we have is really special.”
The team has a “family atmosphere,” she said. “That’s how we treat each other, and when we have clients that’s how we treat them.”
The Fred Smith Group also tries its best to make the entire process of buying or selling a home “as smooth and seamless as possible,” Dabbs said.
“We lay out a roadmap for them of what’s going to happen in the whole process so they know what to expect and when to expect it,” she said.
Buying or selling a home can be very stressful, so Dabbs and her colleagues try to reduce that stress.
“I find that the more information we provide for them — and having a plan in place for them — really reduces their anxiety, because they know what’s going on," Dabbs said.
Dabbs and her team strive to provide their clients with great marketing, too.
“We know and realize when you are selling a home it is a lot more to it than just taking some pictures, putting it on MLS and plopping a sign in the yard and waiting for something to happen,” she said. “Anybody can do that.”
When they sell a home, they have “a strategic marketing plan,” Dabbs said. “We also adjust that plan according to how the market is changing, so when the market moves, we move, and we try to remain very educated on all the marketing availability out there, including online and social media.”
The red-hot real estate market recently “has settled down, which it needed to,” Dabbs said.
Interest rates have gone up. However, “really they have just evened out,” she said. “They'll end up at about 5 points or so, which is what they were before they went down.”
The seller's market the last couple of years was “very tough on buyers,” she said. “If you didn't have the cash and were not willing to forgo inspections and be willing to give up your first-born child, you were not getting a house.”
Over the last two years, Dabbs — in addition to working with buyers and sellers in the general market — has also developed a new line of business that she is excited about.
“I also have an expertise in real estate investment,” said Dabbs, who helps investors from all over the world find homes in the city of Birmingham to buy and hold for use as rental properties, many of which are rented to low-income residents as part of the federal Section 8 program.
In 2022, Dabbs opened her own company, Complete Property Management, to manage the rental properties for all of her investors.
“I would just say I have a strong faith life, and I just kind of go where the Lord guides me, and so he kind of gravitated me toward the investor market," she said.
“It’s not just money focused,” she said.
Dabbs discovered that there are many houses in the “less fortunate areas” of Birmingham that “need to be fixed up” and that “there are a lot of slumlords out there,” she said.
“That's why I got into the management side, because I wanted to help wherever I can to fix up the houses in those areas and make sure the tenants are being taken care of and they’re not just being ignored,” Dabbs said.
“This really allows me to help build up and refurbish those communities,” she said.
Women in business definitely bring some positive qualities to the table, Dabbs said.
Many women are “a lot more heartfelt and empathetic,” she said. “Not every man is like this, but with a lot of men it’s pride, being driven and trying to get to the top. And it’s like that for women, I’m sure. But I think a lot of women have a natural mothering instinct, an empathetic instinct.”
There are now more opportunities for women in business. and some of the old sexism seems to be fading, Dabbs believes.
“Most of my investor clients are men, and me being a woman does not make them shy away from me at all, because I get it done,” she said. “I provide great service, or I try to.”
There are also some women “starting to trickle into” that investor market, “which I really like to see,” Dabbs said. “They probably enjoy working with another woman. Being a woman definitely hasn’t been a hindrance. I think it’s just about the service that you give.”
