Barbara Pronin

Cheryl Bare, third from left, with her Home Pros team.  Cheryl Bare held two careers for four years, teaching school by day and selling real estate evenings and weekends under the auspices of her father-in-law’s small Maryland brokerage. “It was the craziest time in my life, working 24/7” said Bare, who spent 15 years as…

Above, Kori Sassower, fourth from left with The Kori Sassower Team. Kori Sassower had no idea when she graduated from Syracuse University how well- suited her degree in consumer studies would be to the real estate industry. Her career path began in advertising sales, where she rose to become head of operations, pricing 30-second commercials…

Above, seated, Kim Ogilvie and Lynn Morris It takes experience and a certain sensitivity to the world of the wealthy to be successful selling high-end properties. So notes Kim Ogilvie, who with partner Lynn Morris operates the Kim Ogilvie Group in Sarasota, Florida, which last year posted $350 million in volume. That is impressive in…

Above, Nicole McCullar Nicole McCullar is part of an exclusive cadre of agents who work the top 1.2% of the market nationally. A graduate of the University of Saint Thomas in Minnesota with a focus on marketing and art history, she left a 25-year career in luxury retail management to join her husband, Shane McCullar,…

Above, from left, Lisa O’Brien and Carrie Mellon Arizona real estate agents Lisa O’Brien and Carrie Mellon had never met before that fateful time in 2019, when O’Brien had a seller, Mellon had a cash buyer, and they closed the deal in a record six days. “It was amazing from the beginning how much we…

Above, Gretchen Coley Gretchen Coley grew up poor, waiting tables and doing menial chores to pay her way through the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She took her degree in finance to Wall Street, where she interned long enough to realize that neither trading nor the New York vibe suited her taste for gracious…

Above, Cathleen Pritchard, left and her daughter Melanie Pritchard Living in a four-seasons destination area, with a real estate agent aunt who set an example, it was no surprise that Cathleen Pritchard chose real estate as her career. Licensed in 1981, she went to work for a small Century 21 company in Ellicottville, New York,…

Above from left, Nicole Platt, Cameron Platt and Eric Moreno Cameron Platt has been selling real estate for more than 20 years. But he still calls himself a ‘recovering attorney.’ “I got my Juris Doctorate in Oakland, California in 2001,” he said, “and I went to work as a litigator. Negotiation was always my strong…

A native of Tucson, Arizona, Lisa Bayless earned a degree in social work from Boston University, convinced she’d found her calling in counseling. But a blind date who became her steady was a real estate developer in Back Bay, and she was quite surprised to see an overlap in what they did. “We both worked…

Jessica Cohen was 21 in 1999 when she bought her first tiny studio apartment in New York’s upper west side for $93,000. A pre-med student tired of sharing a small walk-up rental with roommates, she scraped together the down payment to purchase the property that would launch both her investment journey and a laudable career…