The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
New Connecticut Realtor Association president prepares to begin her term
When Tammy Felenstein bought her second house in 1995, she found the emotional toll overwhelming. She didn’t understand how anyone could navigate the process for a living and even said as much to her real estate agent.
“When you’re the client, it’s all emotion,” Felenstein said. “I mean, you find a house that you want, you really want it, you put an offer in. Maybe they don’t respond very quickly or you’re countering and you’re negotiating, and it’s stressful. It’s a tough process.”
Just a couple of years later, Felenstein found herself on the other side of the equation.
Now, she’s managing the flagship office in Southport for William Raveis Real Estate, one of the larger firms in Connecticut. And she’s only weeks away from the Jan. 1 start of her term as president of the Connecticut Association of Realtors.
“It’s different on the other end because it’s a business,” she said. “It’s negotiating. It’s brokering the deal.
“I think it makes it all the
more important. I mean, this isn’t just buying and selling stocks. It’s something that’s going to actually affect their life and their family, and it’s important.”
She’ll take the helm, oversee the association’s endorsement of a gubernatorial candidate and work to determine when or if it’s safe to have member events in person again. She’s also anticipating
another year of pushing against legislation such as a buyers’ conveyance tax.
In Connecticut, the seller typically pays a tax in a real estate transfer, and legislators have pushed in years past for a similar tax for the buyer.
“I think we're going to have a very tough year legislatively,” Felenstein said.
Felenstein has experience working with the legislature. Her predecessor Carol Christiansen said Felenstein spoke at committee meetings often and stood in for her occasionally at press conferences in Fairfield County over the past year.
“She’ll be awesome,” Christiansen said. “She has great speaking skills with people. She’s very warm and genuine, very personable.”
COVID-19 will likely present a major challenge to the Realtors Association again next year, Christiansen said. Many members are suffering from Zoom fatigue, but variants could mean it’s still not safe to regularly meet in person.
Still, Felenstein hopes to find safe ways for people to meet in person, she said.
Felenstein has served on the trade association’s risk reduction, legislative, finance and Realtors political action committees. She’s been the first vice president, the treasurer and a director for the state board.
She was also a leader at her local board in Stamford and served a term as president beginning in 2011. In 2012, she was named the
Stamford Realtor of the Year.
She met Mike Feldman, another former association president, through her work at the association and just being in the same real estate circle.
Feldman encouraged her to run for president, she said.
He said he thinks she’ll make a good president in part because she’s cool under pressure. He recounted the market crash of 2008, when the board of directors was debating whether to cut losses and sell investments.
“Tammy just sits there and says we should do nothing,” Feldman said. “She said ‘Markets go up, markets down. If you sell, it locks in a loss.’
“And she was right.” William Raveis reached out to her and she started work there about six months ago. She was previously the executive director of sales at Halstead Real Estate. She’s gone from overseeing about 30 people to nearly 200, she said.
“What I saw there is someone who is reaching the apex of their career,” said Edward Mitchell, senior vice president of operations at William Raveis. “And I was very impressed with that. She’s someone who is so engaged in the industry but also the issues we face.”
Much of strength as a manager comes from her accessibility to employees — she answers emails, calls and texts at all hours. She also has a business-savvy that helps her advise agents effectively, Mitchell said.
Felenstein attributes her knowledge of the industry and its issues to her participation with the trade association. She got her undergraduate degree and started her career in fashion.
She’s from Peoria, Ill., and got her degree in fashion merchandising from the University of Indiana. She moved to Stamford because her job had her traveling to New York City on buying trips frequently and she “fell in love with the East Coast.”
Stamford was close to the same size as Peoria and both had good food scenes. Stamford’s mall and the easy commute to Manhattan were also a draw at the time, she added.
She made the move to real estate when her son was a toddler and she was pregnant with her daughter. The hours were more flexible and she craved the independence that comes with the job, she said.
“My success or failure would be dependent on what I did,” she said.
She got her start at Juner Properties, a boutique firm that specialized in luxury real estate.
“She taught me that you can't just do this for the money,” Felenstein said of the owner. “You have to really genuinely care about helping them, that it's not about chasing the dollar, that what we do is really important. And I firmly believe that.”
The most recent time Felenstein purchased a house, she was looking for a small ranch-style home, hopefully somewhere with a pool. She’s come a long way from the 1995 purchase that left her wondering how anyone could go into real estate professionally.
This time, and for the house she bought before it, she was her own agent. She laughed as she described what she wound up buying — a colonial on two acres, with no pool. But it does have a terrace with a waterfall and a fire pit, where she likes to sit with friends to unwind from a long day.