Meet Maui REALTOR® Jim Wagner

PART I - ABOUT JIM

Aloha. My name is Jim Wagner and I would like to be your REALTOR® on Maui. My major qualification is that I’m a terrific friend and seasoned real estate professional who will work hard to make your purchase or sale of an investment property or home as easy as possible but I guess you may want to know a little more about me.

I moved to Maui in 1987 so I’ve watched a lot of change over the past 21 years. My background had been in publishing, advertising and the food and beverage industry but when I semi-retired to Maui I wanted to do something else. Real estate sales seemed to be a natural choice. With a few months I got my salesman license and so began a career that has brought many rewards, and not just financial ones. I’ve been able to help many young people buy their first homes, and I’ve helped retirees realize their dreams of living here. I work with local people of limited means and some who are worth billions. They all, regardless of their financial position, loved Maui and I loved being able to help them. In other instances, their life required they sell their Maui property and while that was the cause of sadness for some, I was happy to be of assistance.

I hadn’t sold real estate prior to 1987 other than my own property but when people have asked how I was so successful so early without having had a background in real estate, I replied that I had a background in business and understood what it took to make a business successful. Since my business was selling property, I did things to make it happen for my sellers and buyers.

Within a short period of time, I was selling more real estate than 90% of the REALTOR®s on Maui. I think it was because I understood what it took to do business. I wasn’t afraid to invest in myself or my clients. I’ve had the back cover of Homes and Land since the year it was founded because I was willing to commit to the space when most agents were still asking the owner/broker to advertise their properties.

I began my career with other franchise operations and opened my own firm prior to joining the new Wailea office of Coldwell Banker Island Properties in 1999. In 2001, I transferred to the newest office at the Shops at Wailea and in 2003 became the Broker in Charge for what would be the Number 1 Franchise Office in the World (offices with fewer than 35 agents). We regained that title in 2005 and 2006 and have remained the Number 1 Office in Hawaii and the Western Region for every year of our existence.

Though I am the BIC (Broker in Charge) of this award winning office, I still love representing buyers and sellers of Maui property. I don’t take every listing as I might have done once, reserving the right to choose the most interesting properties or the most interesting people and anyone for whom I’ve worked in the past. However, if I think your needs would best be met with another agent, I would help you select just the right person in my office for your job.

Over the past few years, I’ve been involved with some historic sales. I represented the buyers of the most expensive house lot package ever put together in this county. The land was unlisted but owned by a developer who built this $22,000,000 home to suit. That same year, I also helped a retired military couple buy a condo in Kihei for $68,500. I also sold what was the most expensive home on Maui at that time, at Maluhia at Wailea for $15.5 million. I still found time to help folks sell their $225,000 condo and buy their $600,000 house.

Over the past 21 years, with hundreds of clients and hundreds of millions in sales, I’ve served in various committees at the REALTOR®s Association of Maui as well as being a director and, in 1995, President. I’ve been REALTOR® of the year and am the current Secretary of that organization. I’ve been a vice-President and a Director of the Hawaii Association of REALTOR®s and have served on the board of directors of both the Maui Chamber of Commerce and the Montessori Hale o Keiki.

I’m committed so serving your needs with enthusiasm, competence and professionalism. Please call me for any of your real estate needs.

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PART II - YOU WANTED TO KNOW MORE

Personally, I think this part is boring but everyone else does a general bio telling people the how and why of moving to Maui so I guess I’ll show you the same courtesy and do this. You can skip all the reading if you just read this part, Leon, my partner of 31 years and I moved here 21 years ago and have never regretted it for a minute. There is no more wonderful place to live. Period.

I was born an only son to the nicest people you would ever want to meet, Bud and Peggy Wagner, in Philadelphia where I was (somewhat) educated. During my formative years, I got to visit family with homes in Cuba, Miami and the Florida Keys. Totally enthralled with sandy beaches fringed with palm trees and running into water that was almost body temperature left me with a lifetime longing to live on a tropical island.

After what seemed like the coldest holiday season in anyone’s memory, I flew with friends to Puerto Rico on a break from school and never went back. I thought I could take more college courses at the University there while I sailed and had a great time. I helped out on a small sail boat belonging to friends and met up with James Hilton, the author of Lost Horizons who had an interest in a magazine there called the Caribbean Beachcomber. For the next few years, I traveled the Caribbean selling advertising space which is how I met the upper management of Young & Rubicam International. While sailing around the US Virgin Islands, the Director of International asked if I would consider going to work in Amsterdam as there was an entry level account executive position there and he wanted one of “his” people in the position – besides, the local manager was a sailor and could always use crew. Ah, adventure, yes. Despite the lack of palm trees, it sounded like fun so I departed from San Juan within 10 days.

I loved Amsterdam. The city was terrific as were the people. Provincial by the standards of other world capitals, it was wildly worldly to a young man from Philadelphia. Luckily the work was interesting as sailing in the North Sea was a chilling experience and not much to my liking. I worked on Proctor and Gamble accounts in the Benelux and after a few years, got transferred to London which by anyone’s admission is pretty sophisticated. This was during the late 60s and early 70s and British style and music were hot throughout the world. I had a flat in London, a house in the Cotswolds and friends who had places in Spain and Greece. I had a ball and work was fun. In addition to P&G, I handled the Rank Xerox advertising for the world outside of the US. Lots of travel which was fun as was my one other account, Gulf Oil PR which meant I did PR placement and ads for Golf Oil’s Formula One Race Team. Getting a promotion to the Brussels office was a bit of a letdown after London but the reason I left Y&R was because during my mother’s open heart surgery, my father collapsed with a heart attack and they were both in intensive care. I thought my time would be better spend at home for a while than in Europe. Sadly, my dad never quite recovered and died soon after I returned.

My experience in international advertising was not as useful to me in the Philadelphia area as I had hoped. American firms in European nations were finally waking up to the realization they did not need overpaid Americans doing jobs that could be better performed by local people. The mid-70s saw many other ad execs from Europe returning to the U.S. and looking for work. I thought the restaurant business would be fun and went to work managing a restaurant for friends. Other friends from Europe were in Houston and asked if I would be interested in a partnership is a high end restaurant there. I sold my interest in a Wine Bar and moved to Houston with my partner, Leon.

Oil was king in Houston at that time, déjà vu, huh? One high end restaurant used to do a lunch special at the same price as a barrel of oil, around $12 to 14 dollars! Our restaurant was a five diamond award winner and one of top in the state. Sadly, costs were going up and revenues down as the poor economy in Houston started picking off the wealthy who patronized us. The majority partner in the business was in LA and went to Sonny’s new restaurant, Bono. Shortly thereafter, we became the hottest new restaurant in Houston at that time, Bono.

Houston was warmer than Philadelphia but not what I was looking for. In addition, my allergies were so bad, I was living on prednisone as that was the only thing that kept my breathing normal. Not having been sufficiently warned about the risks of oral steroids, I ignored hip pain that started months before my hip and I collapsed in agony. I was diagnosed with severe avascular necrosis which is a term used when the blood stops flowing to bone and the bone dies. Affected most was my left hip though the right was in bad shape also. It was bad enough that I was not a good candidate for hip replacement surgery and the Houston doctors recommended fusion, a technique which would not allow me to ever sit normally again as I would only be able to bend my spine, not my hips. Another doctor recommended I try the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans where they were doing experimental work in the area of bone regeneration. End result is that I ended up in electro-magnetic therapy. For the next 18 months, I put on blue spandex tights with large side pockets which held large copper plats and for 12 hours a day these plantes sent electric current to the bone in an attempt to generate growth. It worked!

At the end of that period, a good friend had moved to Boston and was loving it. I mentioned that thought to my doctor who said I’d be foolish to think of it because I’d be another year or so on crutches and with my arthritis I’d be better off somewhere warm. Hmm, that sounds like sand and palm trees and warm ocean water! I researched most of the world to find a place that worked. Deciding against places where I had already lived, I looked to the Pacific for a change. Aloha sounded great.

I had never been to Hawaii but I knew some people in Honolulu that promised me employment so there was some security should I want to do that. My doctor said he would not clear me to go back to any kind of work for another six months so I decided that I would go to Maui. I was tired of big cities but I wanted a bit of life so Maui was a good balance between big city Honolulu and someplace like Hilo on the Big Island. We arrived in Maui in August of 1987 during what the locals were calling a heat wave. I thought that was very cute considering it had been over 100 degrees for 31 straight days in Houston and their hottest day during this heat wave was 94.

We rented an oceanfront condo in Kihei for the first month while we looked around. Never having been to Hawaii, we were unsure of where we wanted to live or what we were going to do but we knew after a few hours that it was going to be here on Maui. It was beautiful and the people were wonderful. I called my friends in Honolulu and told them I’d come over for lunch but not to live!

As the first month was drawing to a close, we found a cottage in Maui Meadows. Though we have moved from one house to another, we’ve lived in Maui Meadows for the past 21 years. It was a perfect place in that it was above the Wailea resort, close to beaches and the half acre properties allowed for guest houses (ohana) where my mother, in failing health, could live out her days.

After 21 years on Maui, I can truly say with all my heart, Maui no ka oi which in Hawaiian simply states the obvious, Maui is the best.

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