WLI Fall Social, November 4, 2015.  Billie Redmond, Founder and Chair of TradeMark Properties, joined more than forty real estate professional women to share her experiences about a career in real estate and projections for the local market. 

Interviewed by ULI Member Jamie Schwedler, Billie talked about her start in real estate, managing the office and real estate holdings for a doctor’s practice. Over the years, Billie parlayed that experience into commercial brokerage with Howard Perry and Walston Commercial Services, acquiring majority ownership in 1994 and changing the name to TradeMark Properties. Billie displayed a serious “can do” attitude, describing how she literally had a crib in her office for her two young children. Billie also spoke passionately about giving back to the community for both personal and professional reasons by getting involved and accepting leadership positions in organizations.

Reflecting on real estate, Billie stated that the local market was very strong with good fundamentals; however, she cautioned that real estate is a cyclical business and projected that the Triangle had about 1.5-2 more years of strong growth in development before softening. She mentioned that as a Board of Directors member for Paragon Commercial Bank, she’s been concerned recently to hear about the escalating loan to value formulas, some at 90%. However, she stressed that with good planning, real estate can weather downturns, mentioning that during the recession TradeMark’s rapid shift to brokering distressing properties resulted in the firm’s most profitable period.