Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Shilalis.
Jonathan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
It all started when I moved closer to Boston for college at Lasell and started working at a Landscape / Property Management company. Over the years of working on and around homes, I came to expand my knowledge of the specific neighborhoods and grew an appreciation for property management and real estate.
I obtained my real estate license while attending Business School at Lasell College and began working for a Newton Rental Agency. I was quickly promoted to management and put in charge of opening a second location for the growing company. I successfully opened a Watertown branch, hiring numerous agents and quickly making a name in the Watertown Market. I quickly became an expert in the Watertown area and managing an office with a large team of agents seemed like second nature to me. I graduated college in 2009 and started to interview at other real estate offices but never found a company that provided enough flexibility and support that I was looking for. After some soul searching and encouragement from my Associates, I opened Shilalis Real Estate in 2010 with the desire to make real estate more personal and efficient for the agents and clients.
Shilalis Real Estate started in 2010 with three agents that focused mostly on rentals. Now we have about 20 diverse agents at Shilalis Real Estate with a passion for the business. We are all so diverse in our skills, culture, and passions from part time to full time, rental agents, sales focus and commercial focused agents. Some like myself focus on all aspect of real estate.
Over the years, Shilalis Real Estate has grown so quickly and retained so many successful agents because of a business model focused on building strong personal relationships in the community. Most of the advertising is done by the clients we serve. We started almost 8 years ago focusing on rentals and have now expanded to every area of real estate. The business has grown organically from day 1 and has continued to grow at an increased speed each year. I am so proud of the level of quality we deliver in every area of Shilalis Real Estate and the most rewarding part is seeing that same drive and passion from everyone on our growing team.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I think overall, the biggest obstacle has been fine-tuning skills and successfully aligning those skills with the areas we have the most passion for. I personally spent some time doing work in property management and I found that the years I spent focusing on that, I had issue after issue come up. I was constantly stressed out and never felt like my work was turning into anything of value. After a while, I allowed myself to reflect on what I was doing and I came to the conclusion that I really just don’t enjoy property management. I was trying to force myself into that role in order to give myself more credibility in that specific market. However, I found out that if I didn’t enjoy the work, then the end product wasn’t rewarding to me. I could say I wasted a lot of time trying to make that work, but honestly that time just taught me a lot. I now focus on making sure all of my agents take time to discover their real passion in this industry. Some of my agents love working specifically with rentals, others feel more satisfied working only with sellers or buyers, and I have a couple of agents that truly enjoy their property management roles. No matter what aspect of real estate it is, I just want to make sure my business is, above all else, passionate about the roles we take on and sometimes it’s a difficult and grueling journey to discover where our passions truly lie. It’s also difficult finding people that are just as committed and dedicated to the business as I am. I spend a lot of time making sure this company has agents that are the best of the best and that takes time to find. It is important to surround yourself with like-minded people that are able and willing to accompany you on the journey to success and I am more than happy with the obstacles and challenges I have had to endure in order to have the people I now have beside me.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Shilalis Real Estate story. Tell us more about the business.
I am very proud of the name we have made for ourselves in the Greater Boston area. Shilalis is one of the biggest names in the Watertown real estate market and it has taken a lot of work to become one of the top rental agencies in the area. Back when I first started the company, we truly focused on building strong relationships with everyone we came in contact with. We made sure to build trust with every landlord and tenant and always had their best interests in mind. This resounding emphasis on relationship building has accompanied this business over the years and because of that, we have a sphere of influence that is unlike any other in the area. We are proud to say that even though we started with a focus on rentals, the satisfaction from our clients has allowed us to expand our services over the years and we now work with sellers, buyers, commercial real estate and property management along with our ever-growing rental business. We deliver the best possible results in the quickest amount of time. We also value knowing the area we work in so that we are the most knowledgeable resources for our clients. We provide full, high-quality services that people are not used to and because of this, “Shilalis” is the first name hundreds of clients think of when they have any real estate questions and they continue to come back to use our services year after year for all of their real estate needs. At Shilalis Real Estate we pride ourselves on referrals, knowing we have a business centered on our clients’ happiness with our services. Our awesome clients truly make this business the success that it is and they are the only reason we have the name we do.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I don’t believe in luck here. We do, however, believe in honesty, perseverance and hard work, three things that will always take us much further than luck alone. There will, of course, always be setbacks that seem to come up out of nowhere and times when we feel we are working our hardest and we’re not seeing any rewards for that hard work. We know we’ll continue to have times when we don’t understand why we have to endure those trials. However, at the end of the day, I will always take those things and reflect on them, figure out a way to work through them together and, in the end, will come out much stronger than when we started. The reason we’ve seen so much success over the years is that we don’t allow ourselves to dwell on the hardships we go through nor do we rely on luck to try to get us ahead, but we always pull ourselves back up, work hard and get the job done to the highest quality possible.
Pricing:
Contact Info:
- Address: Shilalis Real Estate
443 Mount Auburn Street
Watertown MA 02472 - Website: www.Shilalis.com
- Phone: 617-393-3458 / 508-801-9530
- Email: Jon@Shilalis.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShilalisRealEstate/
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/Shilalis
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Mike Vuytowecz
July 3, 2017 at 9:54 pm
Way to go Jonathan!