In September 2010, Amy Mizner left one of Coldwell Banker’s top-selling Weston teams to open her own real estate company with fellow agents Debi Benoit and Sheryl Simon. Less than two years later, Benoit Mizner Simon & Co. (BMS) employs 45 brokers.
BMS, with offices in Wellesley and Weston, has made a name for itself in the affluent markets it serves, and hit $140 million in combined sales in its first year of operation.
Weston resident Marc Tremblay worked with Mizner on two transactions (the sale of his house and purchase of a new one), and described Mizner as “a consummate professional.”
“She works at all hours and is super responsive,” he said. “She helped us sell our house recently in 10 days. She did a great job staging it and marketing the property. We couldn’t have asked for better support.”
Dr. Lucienne Sanchez, director of newborn services at Mt. Auburn Hospital and a client, also has high praise for Mizner, calling her “the best real estate agent I have ever worked with. She is smart, energetic, creative and tenacious. She is also creative and a visionary.”
Mizner grew up in the borough of Queens in New York City. She moved to Boston after graduating from Ithaca College, and began her career in advertising, producing television commercials for national corporations. In 1994, she decided it was time for a change, and earned her real estate license that year.
The switch from selling a product to selling a house was “a real change, but a natural transition, because of my training in producing, in multi-tasking and negotiating deals,” Mizner said. “Marketing is in my blood, and having an understanding of how to position and brand a product in the marketplace really helps.”
Time For A Change
A few years ago, she said, she and Sheryl Simon, her partner in the Weston office of Coldwell Banker, and Debi Benoit, their counterpart in the Wellesley office, felt the time was right to create a new real estate company.
“There was a need for it in our marketplace,” Mizner said, “for a niche company specializing in the Weston/Wellesley market, one without layers of bureaucracy. We felt we could serve our clients better.”
So, in a down market, the three joined forces and left Coldwell Banker.
“The timing allowed us to really focus, to do it well and do it better than everyone else,” Mizner said. “And now that the market has turned around, it’s getting better and better.”
Since Jan. 1, Mizner and Simon – who still work as a team – have totaled $51.2 million in closed and pending sales. The pair is currently ranked seventh in single-family home sales in Massachusetts.
Mizner, who lives in Weston, does a great deal of charitable work through the firm, including supporting the Lauren Dunn Astley Memorial Fund (Astley was a local victim of domestic violence), Lovelane Special Needs Horseback Riding Program, Weston Community Children’s Association, Weston Baseball, Weston Drama Program and the Zoltan Mesko Foundation.
On her own, she volunteers for Horizons for Homeless, the Hundreds Club of Boston (for firefighters and policemen injured in the line of duty), Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Wellesley and Weston Chapter of Hadassah, Planned Parenthood, and the Breast Cancer Hot Pink Event for Cancer Research.
Mizner said BMS will “continue to do what we have been doing – turning heads with innovative, fresh marketing, serving our customers in new and creative ways, and having a very strong sales force that leads the market.”
