Long Days Put Agent on Top

When a divorcing couple couldn’t agree on a real estate agent to list their house, the presiding judge ordered the litigants to list it with Marty Rodriguez of Century 21 Alosta in Glendora.

“I sold it less than a week later,” said Rodriguez, 41, still flattered by the judge’s referral. “I handle a lot of divorces.”

And a lot of other business too.

In the recession-plagued market of 1991, Rodriguez sold $37-million worth of real estate and earned $894,804 in gross closed commissions, making her the No. 1 agent in Century 21’s 92,000-member network, the world’s largest. This year, she figures she’s on track to sell $43 million in real estate.

At other realty companies, the top producers handling high-end properties may have earned more commissions for their offices in 1991--Joyce Rey of the Rodeo Realty Division of Prudential of California sold $55-million worth of real estate on 12 units, one alone listing for $30 million, and Larry Arman of Remax of Rolling Hills Estates sold about $50 million on 30 units--but none could match Rodriguez’s volume of 120 transactions.

Rodriguez’s sales production is even more amazing in light of statistics from the California Assn. of Realtors (CAR) that show that the median income for agents in California was $30,000 in 1990, with only 6% earning more than $100,000.

Says Dale Long, co-owner of the Alosta office: “She doesn’t really do anything different from what any other top producer does, she just does more of it.”

That may be an understatement.

Tethered to one of her four cellular phones, Rodriguez chats up real estate deals 14 hours a day, from judges’ chambers, to cosmetic counters, to supermarket checkout lines.

Her cellular phone bills run more than $1,100 a month. On her busiest days, she and her staff answer more than 200 phone calls, tying up as many as 10 of the Alosta office’s 14 incoming lines.

In 1991, she spent more than $110,000 in advertising, which helped her earn 10% market share of all listings sold in Glendora and 11% of the market in La Verne, both middle-class neighborhoods. Although she turns down about 40% of the sellers who ask her to represent them, she still carries between 90 and 110 from month to month.

To critics who complain that she can’t possibly serve that many clients, she replies, “If you want something done, call a busy person.”

How does Rodriguez maintain her competitive edge? For the answer, you have to look at her relentless marketing, her go-go personality and a family dedicated to keeping her on top.

Evidence of “Marty’s marketing magic” is as close as the driveway of her Glendora home, where her two Mercedes are professionally cleaned each morning before she leaves for the office.

“They don’t have to be new,” she said, “but they better be clean.”

At work, however, she maintains more of a Volkswagen work ethic, greeting her customers from behind a gray metal desk that features a pink plastic tray for incoming and outgoing papers and a button of the Earth that reads “Represented by Marty.”

Operating within earshot of Rodriguez are her full-time assistant, Colleen Yost, and four part-timers, which include her 16-year-old daughter, Shelly, and 18-year-old niece, Kristy. Her son Sean, 19, also helps out attaching lockboxes, staking “For Sale” signs and picking up house keys.

“If we’re not all locked up in a room, we’re literally wasting time,” said Rodriguez, cupping two phones to her ears while negotiating a counteroffer between a buyer and a seller.

Her in-your-face, in-your-ear office arrangement is designed to get results.

“By the time I get off the phone,” Rodriguez said, “Colleen has already heard everything I’ve said, and if it’s something that needs to be done, she’s already doing it.”

Her fast response time to client problems is also the key to her prolific sales production.

“If a customer asks for something, and doesn’t get it, that’s their hot button,” Rodriguez added. “I make sure they get what they want.”

John Lopez, a meat supplier for McDonalds for whom Rodriguez has sold five houses in eight years, including his most recent move to Oklahoma City, attests to her total service commitment.

“I don’t care if you need a housekeeper, a drain cleaner or a house painter, she’ll find one,” Lopez said. “With her, it’s always full coverage.”

Rodriguez, who rarely holds open houses, persuades her buyers to price their houses to sell and to present them in peak condition. “If your house needs work, you better have it done, because buyers don’t have to fix them up any more,” she said. “They can get a better deal somewhere else.”

Rodriguez recently sold Glendora resident Dick Niccum’s house. “I was always told to go with the top realtor in the area, although I was unsure if I’d get enough personal attention,” Niccum said. “But with Marty, real estate is a business, not a hobby.”

“You have agents who claim they’re working eight hours a day, but they’re not,” Rodriguez said. “When I say I’m working 14 hours a day, that’s all I do. I don’t clean, I don’t wash, I don’t shop, I don’t go to the bank.” Even her personal mail comes directly to the office.

Rodriguez’s work ethic was instilled at an early age. One of 11 children growing up in a two-bedroom house on Granada Street in El Monte, Rodriguez always seemed to sell more Girl Scout cookies, candy bars or church raffle tickets than her peers.

“Life is so basic,” Rodriguez said, paraphrasing her father, Felix, now 81. “You just have to get out there and work.

“My dad would fume when he would hear about Chicano power and all that stuff. His attitude was show people how good you are, make it on your own merits, and that’s what we all did.”

Her mother, Rosalina, also exerted a positive influence. “My mom taught us that as long as you’re clean, your shoes are white and your blouse is starched, people will judge you by what you can do, not where you came from.”

After graduating from Bishop Amat High School in 1969 and taking business courses at Rio Hondo college, Rodriguez met and married her husband, Ed.

Life wasn’t any easier for the newlyweds. Both of them worked two or more jobs, Ed as a backhoe operator and restaurant manager, with Marty either waitressing, selling insurance, assembling costume jewelry or helping Ed sweep up after construction jobs. The money they saved helped build their first house in El Monte.

In 1978, Rodriguez began her real estate career, working with a partner, Anna Mills, at The Whiting Co. Century 21 office in San Dimas. Ed and the kids would sit in the car during many of Rodriguez’s listing appointments. More often, they would help her “farm” a neighborhood, passing out flyers.

“They hated that as much as I did, but we had to do it,” Rodriguez said.

Last year Rodriguez moved down the street to the Century 21 Alosta office in Glendora, where at first she was seen as a threat to the 40-person office.

“I had a whole office full of intimidated people,” said co-broker Dale Rasmussen, “but once they got to know her system, the whole pace of the office picked up.”

To keep Rodriguez focused on selling real estate, her family has had to learn to do for itself.

“There’s an unwritten rule of the house,” Ed said. “Stay off your mom’s back, if you can handle a problem yourself.”

It took 13 years before the Rodriguez family ordered a dining room set for their Glendora home, because they rarely eat at home. Shelly once arranged a dinner party for her mom, but that was a disaster because Rodriguez spent the whole time on the phone.

Both children have been making their own doctor appointments as long as they can remember, and Sean will help out in the kitchen in a pinch.

“There was this time when all the moms were supposed to bake something for a sale,” Sean recalled, “and I said, ‘Not my mom.’ ”