Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Mark.
Jonathan grew up in Duxbury and graduated Duxbury High School in 2000. He worked at Bayside Marine in Duxbury and in construction prior to going off to college. After attending Massachusetts Maritime Academy for a couple of years he decided it was best to transfer to South Florida to seek a new opportunity. While working a few different jobs at various marinas in S. Florida and seeking a job in boat sales but never given the chance he was about ready to move back north. Then he met an influential man named Jack that saw his sales potential and got him a job at a large 4 franchise auto dealership in Naples. Jonathan started as a salesman and quickly rose to the top producer of the store.
Now it’s 2004, the real estate market in. S Florida is booming and Jonathan wanted to get in on the action in the real estate market. The owners of the store heard this and quickly promoted him to finance manager, then director, and then sales manager of the whole store. Jonathan was the youngest sales manager of a car dealership in the SE territory at the age of 24. He worked there through the good times of the economy and through the crash of 2007. The car business was hit hard just like real estate, especially when the bulk of what he sold was Chrysler product. It was then, in the midst of the worst economic time in recent history and in real estate especially in SW Florida that Jonathan decided to jump into real estate.
Meanwhile, ½ of all licensed real estate agents in the Naples area left the business, everyone thought he was crazy. He started in 2008 working as an agent with Waterfront Realty Group of Naples. As remaining agents complained and bellyached about how bad the market was at the time, Jonathan took a positive and proactive approach and quickly climbed to being a top agent in the area. Coming up to 2 years in real estate in FL, Jonathan, being recently married to Laura who was working as an architect and later as a real estate agent and later an RN decided together that they wanted to move back north to start a family.
So, in the middle of the winter of 2010, Jonathan bought an old used Uhaul truck, packed all of their belongings and drove North. He leased out his Naples house as the market as far as values were so low at the time. Everyone thought he was crazy to leave his lucrative and growing real estate business in Naples behind and start all over again in MA. Upon arriving in MA, Jonathan and Laura lived for a short time with Jonathan’s parents, then found a small rental house in Kingston MA. Jonathan interviewed at several local real estate firms before settling in with a local independent. He spent that winter cold calling 100’s of people to get his business up and running and soon became a top agent with that firm and in the town.
Meanwhile, Jonathan and Laura bought a fixer up house in Duxbury, put a lot of sweat equity in and gave birth to their first child George. After 2 years or so with the firm in Duxbury, Jonathan broke off on his own to start his own firm in town, Waterfront Realty Group. It started with just him, and later after 5 years in business grew the brand to 21 agents, 2 offices, and became the top independent non-franchise firm in the area. While the Waterfront Realty brand was growing Jonathan saw opportunity in remodeling, building, and investing and began Watermark LLC/Watermark Development which bought investment rental properties, renovated, and flipped properties as well as speculative building and custom home building for clients of Waterfront Realty Group.
Future plans for Waterfront Realty Group include opening more offices north and south while recruiting the sharpest new and existing agents around to create a powerhouse of the best and brightest agent around. Waterfront focuses on offering more to clients than other firms including, accredited staging consults, pre-home inspections, professional and aerial photography, and a fleet of 3 complimentary moving trucks for their clients to name a few.
What were you like growing up?
While other friends played video games and sports, Jonathan built forts out of scrap wood, built his own boat, cut grass to make money and well as other small jobs. Jonathan was always very driven, had a knack for sales, and was an entrepreneur that could be seen from a very young age.
Contact Info:
- Address: 272 Saint George St Duxbury and 439 Plain St Marshfield
- Website: www.waterfrontrealtyma.com
- Phone: 833-WR-GROUP
- Email: jonathan@waterfrontrealtyma.com
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