Compass' Cherie Berger on Making Real Estate Business a Family Affair
Celia KonstantellouCelia Konstantellou|September 15, 2020|Home & Real Estate,
As one of Compass’ top real estate professionals, Cherie Berger opens up about her passion to satisfy each customer’s needs while working alongside her husband, Steve, and daughter, Ashley.
How did you get started at Compass?
At some point last summer, I passed the Compass office in the Hamptons. I had been familiar with them, and I noticed they had a saying on their door, which was ‘Our mission is to help everyone find their place in the world.’ And it kind of stuck with me. So when I heard Compass was coming to New Jersey, I kept my eyes open. When I got the opportunity to interview with them, I was very excited. I was like, ‘Where do I sign?’
How is it working with your family on The Cherie Berger Team?
[My husband] has worked out to be a great asset. We both have a great work ethic, and that makes a really big difference because we can cover for each other and we can complement each other. As hard as it is to work with a family member, this seems to flow perfectly. Last year, our daughter decided she wanted to join us. And again, she works just as hard as we do, and we have built a great team like that.
Does this make it hard to balance work and personal lives?
To be successful in real estate, you need to be involved in other people’s personal lives and in every corner of their being: their emotions, their finances, their family. So in order to really accommodate your clients, you need to be available more than you would with another profession. Thus, we tend to put our clients first, sometimes over our personal life, and that’s the hard part with real estate. But I feel it’s sort of necessary to do that to a certain degree because I need to make sure that my clients are happy and that they are taken care of. We have to be there for them. And it’s always great to have a team because if I can’t accommodate a client, my husband can or my daughter can. I don’t see how a single agent can actually do this business alone anymore because there’s just too much involved with accommodating people, marketing, sales, as well as technology