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Rita Coffey
Rita Coffey
Title: 2018 president, Massachusetts Association of Realtors, and general manager, Century 21
Age: 65
Experience: 36 years
Rita Coffey has been working in the same Weymouth office with some of the same co-workers for more than three decades. Her passion for housing has taken her from a part-time sales agent up through the ranks to general manager of the office. Similarly, she rose up the ranks of her local Realtor association to become its president in 2009 and has done the same at the state level. With retirement on the horizon, she said she is not considering running for president of NAR, opting instead to do some traveling and spending more time with her two toddler grandbabies.
Q: How did you begin your real estate career?
A: I started out in the business as a sales agent for this company. I was a young mom with two children. I decided to get into the business because my husband and I purchased a home a little before the kids came and the agent just didn’t meet my expectations and I thought, “Gosh, I could do this job better than him.” Rates were just coming down from the high teens. It was a roller coaster ride for many years. Mass. Home Financing was just starting to come out with its program for 13.7 percent loans, if I’m not mistaken, and everyone clamored to get that rate. Rates dropped so much, so quickly that when they got that program out, interest rates dropped to 12 percent. Back then, a $60,000 home was a move-up home. Today we’d call it an elite home and it would sell for $350,000 to $500,000 in this area.
When I started I was more part-time and I partnered with a full-time agent. Since I had young children, I took on a lot of things I could do from home. She was my partner for 15 years. That’s really how this company began. Jack Tullish and Joe Clancy founded the company and they were partners. That was their model and it became a model that a lot of us in the office followed. I loved it because if I was away on vacation, I knew Gail could handle things, and vice versa. Clients always had someone to help them if they were working with us. That was our trademark. Now the team concepts have taken off.
Q: Do you still sell homes?
A: I sold for about 15 years and then became a manager. Since I became manager, I don’t compete with my agents. I feel strongly that my ability to train, teach, coach and mentor is the most important thing, so I am paid a salary to do that job. When you are a non-competing manager, agents don’t feel threatened when they come to you with a question. If I was competing, they could come to me with a question that might give me information to help my own clients, so I never felt that was the right way to do it.
Q: How did you get involved with MAR?
A: We are the only trade association that advocates for homeowners and their property rights. It started from there. I became the 2009 president of our local association (South Shore Realtors), then I moved up to MAR and now I’m doing NAR work as well. But I have no desire to be the NAR president. I love what I do on the national level. You get great basics at your local. You get bigger and better stuff at the state level. And when you are working at the national level, you know you’re making a difference. There’s community service at all levels too.
Q: Do you have any concerns about the impact it would have on Weymouth if Amazon accepted the town’s bid to move here?
A: I think the traffic is always the issue. You can see it in many areas with new developments. Route 18 can be absolutely nuts starting at 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. Sometimes I’m in the office until 7 p.m. and I go to leave and I can hardly get out of the parking lot. A lot of that traffic is from apartment and condo buildings and the new development where the old Air Base was. I don’t know how Weymouth would withstand that much more traffic. If it brings jobs to the community to help grow it, that’s a good thing. I think the impact is up for debate at this point.
Q: What do you like to do when you’re not working?
A: Spending time with the loves of my life, my grandbabies. They call me Gigi. We also have a fifth wheel motorhome. We’ve been motor-homing since 1998 with five other couples. Each year, we pick a vacation spot for a week. I’ve been to South Carolina several times, which I love. So, when I retire, that fifth wheel that we just purchased will be what we’re going to live in. We’re going to hit the road for five years and go see the United States of America, probably starting in 2020. It’ll be the first time we ever go away for the whole winter. We’re going to head for Florida for four months and see how we like it.
