Pellham Commercial spins off new company

Pellham Residential is headed up by Melanie Pellham.

A new direction

Despite a determination not to enter into residential real estate, Pellham Commercial founder Galen Pellham and his daughter, Melanie, saw many residential opportunities opening up to them in the last year.

“When we started Pellham Commercial on January 1 of 2006, what we were not going to do is get into residential real estate,” Galen Pellham said.

The first tug toward residential started with a home builder who was working with Melanie Pellham. The home builder, who declined to be named for this story, wanted to buy property for development in southwest Missouri. Afterward, he wanted Melanie Pellham to follow through and sell the homes.

“Next, we hired Holly Hicks McGee,” Galen Pellham said. “She joined our company wanting to specialize in residential. We told her we didn’t do residential, but she joined us anyway.”

Pellham said Michelle Clifton was really the final catalyst.

“Her husband is Sam Clifton, the homebuilder,” Pellham said. “He has a very good reputation. Michelle got her license and could have gone anywhere, but she liked our business philosophy.”

Clifton had access to a supply of homes to sell, and McGee had many contacts looking for homes. Along with Melanie Pellham’s residential connections, the direction became obvious.

Pellham added the expertise of his office manager, Susan Christy, who trained residential agents at Carol Jones, Realtors, for a couple of years and has a solid business background.

And though his focus will continue to be on commercial properties, Pellham also passed along a piece of advice to his residential counterparts.

“ … He said if we were going to do this, then we needed to be the very best,” Clifton said. “Everything you do has to be above and beyond what everyone else offers.”

Though Pellham Residential is a separate business entity, Melanie Pellham sees it as an extension of the service offered by Pellham Commercial.

“One of the main reasons I think we got into residential was that we were not able to fully service our clients,” she said. “We worked with out-of-town people moving and relocating to the area. We’d take them around town and build a rapport looking at commercial properties. Then they would say, ‘Well, can you find me a house or can you sell my house?’ To tell your client that you can’t do something is extremely disheartening. We can do it all now.”

Convenience was key for Bill Cox, president of Scrambler’s, a Pellham Commercial client who wanted Melanie Pellham to sell his home.

“There is no doubt about it,” Cox said. “It was an extreme convenience. I wanted to give them a look at my house and a chance to market it. That’s when they had Melanie involved and decided to get a residential side going. Galen blamed it on me, I think, but their organization is strong enough to grow both sides of the team.”

Making connections

Pellham Residential’s staff members weren’t strangers to the Pellhams. Michelle Clifton has known Melanie Pellham for five years and Holly Hicks McGee has been a friend of the Pellhams for 15 years. Both of them bring their own skills and contacts to the residential real estate venture.

A lot of Clifton’s skills come from her design background and her experiences as a builder’s wife.

“I’m more familiar with neighborhoods and construction types and styles and the energy efficiency of the house,” Clifton said. “I know a lot about construction and that helps me with the client base.”

McGee brings a small-business background and a lifetime around interior design to the table.

“My mom actually owned The Cottage, and she’s an interior decorator,” McGee said. “My entire life, I’ve grown up around that store, being a part of her business.”

McGee and her husband, Clay, own the local 1-800-GOT-JUNK franchise, and they bought their first investment property last year.

“We both like homes. I like to bring them to their full potential,” she said.

Clifton said that the advantage of three viewpoints becomes apparent when it is time to stage the home – effectively, to make it as attractive as possible to buyers so that it will fetch the best price possible.

Each team member will notice strengths the others might miss, so Melanie Pellham sees the group as a marketing team.

“Once you make the decision to sell it, this is not your home,” Melanie Pellham said. “This is a product to be sold on the market, and it is our job to come in and help you through that process.”

Galen Pellham said staging, for which Pellham Residential does not charge extra, is an excellent added service.

“If you take two houses identical side-by-side, by staging (one), it is going to look more marketable than the other house,” Pellham said, noting that staged homes have a tendency to sell quickly and for more money.[[In-content Ad]]