Car­ol Quash

A per­son’s home is their sanc­tu­ary – a con­cept that re­al es­tate agent and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of XIP­PI Prop­er­ties Ltd, Marisa Davis, un­der­stands all too well. In ad­di­tion to try­ing her best to find the right fit for her clients, Davis is part-own­er of a home for se­nior cit­i­zens, en­sur­ing that they, too, have a place where they fit in.

Just about a year ago, she and her moth­er, Heather Ri­ley, de­cid­ed to open the fa­cil­i­ty in Cunu­pia af­ter they re­alised there was an in­creas­ing need for live-in el­der­ly care in a clean and com­fort­able mod­ern fa­cil­i­ty.

“It’s a small es­tab­lish­ment. Right now, we have about five se­niors liv­ing there,” Davis told WE of Xpert Care El­der­ly Home and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre.

Her en­try in­to re­al es­tate, too, be­gan as a way to help oth­ers.

“I just love be­ing out on the road, just help­ing peo­ple find their dream prop­er­ty and see­ing that they achieve that life­long goal of own­ing their own home, be­com­ing a home­own­er.”

That, cou­pled with her love for sales and her de­sire to be her own boss, prompt­ed the leap. Over a decade ago, she left her cor­po­rate job to start XIP­PI, a busi­ness name that has no ac­tu­al mean­ing.

“I was just look­ing for some­thing that was unique, and just put some thoughts to­geth­er. It was in­spired by an MLS (mul­ti-list­ing ser­vice) plat­form that re­al es­tate agents use.”

She said when she start­ed XIP­PI, her in­ten­tion was to pro­vide an MLS ser­vice for re­al­tors. But her pen­chant for sales led her along a dif­fer­ent path.

“I went full-fledged as a re­al es­tate agent on my own af­ter re­sign­ing my full-time job in 2017.”

She did a pro­fes­sion­al cer­tifi­cate course in re­al es­tate at Roytec, and nev­er looked back.

Davis is not sur­prised that she end­ed up in re­al es­tate, hav­ing par­ents with in­sur­ance and a re­al es­tate back­ground.

“So for me, it was ei­ther to get in­to in­sur­ance or to do re­al es­tate. And when I left my full-time job, I want­ed to be my own boss. So it was just a mat­ter of mar­ry­ing my en­tre­pre­neur­ial skills and my love for sales.”

But it wasn’t long be­fore she learned that love doesn’t con­quer all, and that the bal­anc­ing act takes time to mas­ter. And some­times even time is not enough.

“What that meant for me was me be­ing chief cook-and-bot­tle-wash­er. I had to do my own ad­min, mar­ket­ing, and brand­ing, and try to get the name out there. Be com­pli­ance of­fi­cer, pho­tog­ra­ph­er, every­thing,” in ad­di­tion to man­ag­ing her per­son­al life.

But the most chal­leng­ing part then, David ad­mit­ted, was that pay­ment in the form of a com­mis­sion did not come un­til about three months af­ter mak­ing a sale – a re­al­i­ty that took some get­ting used to.

“So the time tak­en for the ac­tu­al mon­ey to ma­te­ri­alise is some­thing that I had to deal with, be­cause in my past jobs, you make a sale, you get your com­mis­sion by the end of the month…So I had to re­main self-mo­ti­vat­ed to con­tin­ue push­ing in an al­ready sat­u­rat­ed mar­ket.”

Then, as she tried to nav­i­gate com­pet­ing against the “big play­ers” in the re­al es­tate in­dus­try, she was dealt an even heav­ier blow: the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“Sales dropped, every­body was on lock­down, con­struc­tion stopped,” forc­ing her to make some dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions. As soon as busi­ness­es re­opened, Davis re­brand­ed the com­pa­ny and hired a team of agents. But even that in it­self was prob­lem­at­ic.

“Inas­much as I did have su­per­vi­so­ry ex­pe­ri­ence, as some­one new in the in­dus­try, I didn’t have the man­age­r­i­al ex­pe­ri­ence, and man­ag­ing peo­ple.”

Her de­ter­mi­na­tion stepped in, and she did self-de­vel­op­ment and lead­er­ship cours­es, adding much val­ue to the ex­pe­ri­ence she now has.

“I would say be­tween 2021 and now, a lot has changed. I’ve gained ex­pe­ri­ence over the years, so now it has be­come much eas­i­er un­der­stand­ing peo­ple and man­ag­ing my team,” which in­cludes ad­min, ac­count­ing and com­pli­ance staff.

“I just man­age the op­er­a­tions of the busi­ness now. But I still do sales; I still go out on the road and show prop­er­ties.”

The mar­ket, she said, was slow last year, but Davis is con­fi­dent things will pick up as 2026 pro­gress­es for every­one in the net­work.

“The banks ex­pe­ri­enced it, the val­u­a­tors ex­pe­ri­enced it, even the at­tor­neys, be­cause this is a whole net­work of one in­dus­try de­pend­ing on the next.”

The moth­er of two boys said her life prac­ti­cal­ly re­volves around her fam­i­ly and her busi­ness, with very few ex­cep­tions.

“I’m not a big parti­er, but you’ll find me in a cou­ple of Car­ni­val fetes…I go to the gym be­cause I’m try­ing to pay more at­ten­tion to my health.”

And she had big plans for the Cunu­pia-based XIP­PI – a di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion as well as a re­gion­al ex­pan­sion in the near fu­ture.