Bove named Realtor of the year by Kent Washington board

Jennifer R. Bove was recently named the 2011 Realtor of the Year by the Kent Washington Association of Realtors. Bove is the broker-owner of Bove Realty LLC in Wickford and serves on the association’s board of directors. She has been working in real estate since 2001, and worked for Coldwell Banker Residential Mortgage and Prudential Gammons Realty before opening her own brokerage in 2010. Bove volunteers her time at the Ronald McDonald House in Providence and is helping to plan the associations’s first charity run.

PBN: What led you to a career in residential real estate?
BOVE: When I was 18, I worked at Fleet Bank in Providence as the assistant to the president of the commercial real estate department. The whole experience was very interesting to me. While working at Fleet I knew real estate was the direction I wanted to go in [and] that the 9-to-5 office work behind a computer was not for me. After a few more adventures I found myself taking real estate classes and haven’t looked back.

PBN: You opened your own brokerage in 2010. What were some of the factors behind your decision?
BOVE: Opening Bove Realty was a big decision given the economy’s state. I thought of many factors and I wrote a business plan; actually I wrote three business plans, a one-year, three-year and five-year plan. During the first year open it has been interesting and a learning experience. The support from my friends, family and associates has been amazing. I always look back at my business plans when things seem to get off track and I have to say that things are going as planned but I am cautious and know there will always be bumps and curves in the road.

PBN: What kinds of topics do you cover in your first-time homebuyer seminars?
BOVE: These days the lending is a lot different and more strict [than in] previous years and most buyers have a lot of questions about the different types of loans, the approval process and their credit standings. Our first-time homebuyer seminars cover the full process of home buying. When the potential buyer attends the seminar they are given a workbook […] along with other materials to take with them to help in purchasing. We also have a mortgage originator at the seminar to go over the financial part of the process, which is a very large part of the program. &#8226