Wood Works

As the Southwest Florida real estate market slogged through 2006, homes sold in months instead of weeks, builders streamlined their workforces and residential developers began to report dwindling profits. Concern among speculators spiked as some analysts, noting the high inventory of available homes, predicted a similarly ragged 2007.

For Phil Wood, president of Naples-based John R. Wood Realtors, the gloomy period is more of a bump in the road than a reason for panic. The company's sales numbers dipped 50 percent in 2006, but Wood has seen it all before.

"Having been here 50 years, we know the typical pattern in this market, and 2006 fits," says Wood, the son of company founder John R. Wood. "This is just part of the cycle and, yes, I have a great amount of faith in this market."

n the past five decades, the golden signs with simple but elegant "John R. Wood" script have become more than familiar in Naples; they're staples in such upscale neighborhoods as Port Royal and the historic areas surrounding downtown Naples.

So rather than circle the wagons and cut expenses, Wood, a youthful 51, extended his company's reach by opening a new office in Fort Myers in January 2006. This past February, the company broke ground on its new corporate headquarters in north Naples. It added another office in Sanibel earlier this summer.

"Many realtors are not only not expanding, they're contracting at this point," says Dorothy Babcock, chief operating officer of John R. Wood. "The new offices and the building will position us very well when the current cycle is completed, when we're back to the normal pace."

Named the John R. Wood Polaris Center, the new headquarters should be ready for occupancy in early 2008, offering 56,000 square feet of space on three floors. The company will initially use 17,000 square feet and lease other portions of the building, but it already needs much of the space. In addition to 300 sales associates plus 100 managers and staff members scattered among seven offices, the comprehensive brokerage includes affiliates Wood Mortgage Co. and First Boston Title.

The new building will be a touchstone in a career into which Wood was born. His father helped pioneer the real estate industry in Naples when he founded the company in 1958. As a boy, Phil worked in the office, cleaning and performing odd jobs. Occasionally, he accompanied his father to view tracts of land on the edge of town-vast stretches of scrub and marsh that investors were just starting to notice.

After attending a private high school in St. Petersburg, Wood enrolled at Emory University in Atlanta. He returned to Naples during summer breaks to work as an appraiser. Discovering he had a knack for assessing real estate and undeveloped land, Wood earned his real estate license during the summer before his senior year, at age 21.

"I decided on real estate as a full-time career near my senior year [in college]," says Wood. "I saw some of the jobs my friends were getting, with limited or fixed salaries. I knew I could come live in a place like Naples with an unlimited income that depended only on how well I did my job. It became obvious that this is where I should be."

After graduating in 1977, Wood worked full-time as a commissioned salesperson and within a year, at age 22, became one the youngest real estate agents in the country with a broker's license. At the time, John R. Wood Realtors included his father, a sales manager and about 10 salespeople who operated somewhat independently. Each agent took whatever work he could get-land, homes or commercial property. Wood, who had studied marketing at Emory, saw that changes could be made.

"When I came back and really got into the business, Naples was still [a] mom-and-pop real estate market," says Wood. "I thought it was time to ramp up. We printed up business cards and started building the brand. I thought we really needed to emphasize marketing. I didn't do anything brilliant, but there had been a scattered approach."

Wood asked the company's sales manager to let him handle marketing. Still working full-time in sales, Wood put in extra time to create a singular look for all of the company's advertisements, brochures, signage and letterhead. He also helped persuade local newspapers to organize real estate ads by geography, category and price.

"He's grown up in the business, surrounded by real estate talk, real estate agents and other professionals," says Babcock. "That gives him a great depth of knowledge in all aspects of real estate. But Phil's always taken an especially keen interest in marketing the company, and he's definitely been the driving force for some pretty innovative marketing that this company has done."

That emphasis was so successful that the company hired a full-time marketer in 1982. Around the same time, Phil Wood helped reposition the company to target almost exclusively the expensive Naples neighborhoods west of U.S. 41.

"We decided to focus on the upscale market starting in 1983, and that's been our focus ever since," he says. "At the time, everyone in this business worked everywhere, handling any kind of property. We wanted to specialize in a specific geographic area and in [the] luxury residential [market]. We still do commercial and other areas, but our main client remains the luxury home owner who lives in this area either full-time or part-time."

It is a specialization that might have helped John R. Wood Realtors as it navigates the recent market slide more smoothly than many other companies. Although sales declined from approximately $2.7 billion in 2005 to $1.3 billion in 2006, Wood says sales of homes valued at more than $1 million stayed fairly strong through the year. This year, he expects the company to have its third-best sales year on record, somewhere between the 2006 figure and the $1.8 billion earned in 2004.

A geographically diverse pool of buyers in the upscale market is one reason for optimism. Between 5 percent and 10 percent of buyers in that market come from foreign countries, and another 40 percent to 50 percent are from out of state. Once people own in Southwest Florida, they tend to buy again.

"We have an advantage because there are so many unique lifestyles in this region," says Wood. "People come here because they want a particular lifestyle, whether it's the beach or golf or something else. Then they decide they want to try another lifestyle."

That dynamic is one reason Wood decided to continue his growth plan in the face of slowing sales. Luxury home buyers who look at Naples properties, or who live in Naples already, are becoming more aware of such areas as Sanibel, Fort Myers and Punta Gorda.

"There are also economies of scale as far as marketing," says Wood. "Magazines have a certain reach and cable television covers the whole region, so you want to take advantage of that."

One way the company nurtures a strong brand name is through professionalism and community work. John Wood, who still goes to the office about one day each week, set the tone early by serving as president of the National Association of Realtors and the Florida Association of Realtors as well as the chairman of the Florida Real Estate Commission. His local charitable work earned him honors such as Junior Achievement Business Leadership Hall of Fame laureate and Naples Daily News' 2007 Outstanding Citizen of the Year award.

In addition to extensive involvement with professional service groups, Phil Wood serves as a director of the Naples Area Chamber of Commerce and on numerous committees for the Economic Development Council of Collier County. He is also deeply involved in several service organizations such as America's Food Partnership, Junior Achievement of Southwest Florida, the Salvation Army and Boy Scouts of America.

Somewhat more subdued than his exuberant father, Phil has a warm and friendly manner that bolsters the air of calm confidence he exudes.

"Some people might not know this, because his dad is Mr. Personality and Phil is more reserved as a person, but Phil has a huge heart and he deeply cares about everything he does," says Cindy Kruesi, sales manager of the new Fort Myers office, who joined in 1994 as a sales associate.

Building the same strong brand name and reputation for community work in other areas of Southwest Florida is a high priority. In Naples, the firm's gold logo is synonymous with luxury homes, but other companies have already closed in on the high-end market in Fort Myers and Sanibel.

"The timing was difficult as far as opening the new office, but we opened with three agents and now we have 32," says Kruesi. "We've got plenty of listings, and we're adding two agents a month. We've found some great people, and John R. Wood will be known in Fort Myers, I can assure you of that."

Recruiting the right sales force is key, says Jeri Cobb, a John R. Wood broker and the company's director of career development. She helps screen applicants with a computer simulator that measures their responses against the habits of successful agents. Once someone is hired, she also makes sure new agents are well prepared for the work. Instilling the Wood corporate culture is just as important as teaching agents about contracts and sales, she says.