From newcomer to neighborhood expert
Visibility, community involvement and a personal cause can make your name the one people remember.
When DJ Soucy moved to Florida, he didn’t know many people and had to build his sphere from scratch. A business coach challenged him to hold two open houses every week for a year, and he rose to the challenge. “I understood that real estate is hyperlocal, so I wanted to be intentional,” says the leader of DJ Soucy Group at Compass in St. Petersburg. “I decided to focus my open houses in the farm area I was trying to build: Historic Kenwood.”
If he couldn’t find an open house to host there, he stayed in the same ZIP Code. Before he had listings or for-sale signs around town, residents got used to seeing Soucy’s open house signs. Every weekend, he put his signs out .
Here are his tips:
1. Be part of the rhythm.
Soucy became a familiar face by joining his neighborhood association, volunteering to deliver newsletters, attending monthly porch parties and walking his dog around the community. “People were seeing me on a daily basis.” After Soucy took a short break from open houses, people noticed. “Two people reached out through social media to ask, ‘Are you still in real estate?’” he says. “You never know how many people might be watching.”
2. Let the community talk.
Visitors to Soucy’s open houses often asked about nearby homes, local businesses and what made the area special. Rather than answer himself, he launched his “DJ on the Street” video series to let neighbors and business owners speak for the community. The name was loosely inspired by the New York-based show “Billy on the Street,” but Soucy’s version is less flashy and more local storytelling. For his first video, he hosted a happy hour at his house featuring a taco truck and a bartender, during which he asked residents what they loved about Historic Kenwood. “Don’t take it from me,” he says. “Let’s go ask people.”
3. Connect through a cause.
During the pandemic, Soucy started his “Free Dog With Every Home Sold!” program to support Pet Pal Animal Shelter. The idea came after he saw a photo of his dog looking out the window and later passed a sign offering “free pizza with every home.” If a house could come with pizza, he thought, why not help dogs find homes, too? At closing, he asks clients if they’d like to adopt a dog or cat. If they don’t, he donates $200 to the shelter in their name. Since 2020, he says, the program has donated more than $50,000.
4. Lead with the relationship.
Soucy says his brand comes down to relationships. He doesn’t even bring a contract to an initial listing appointment. “The first appointment isn’t about me,” he says. “It’s about the client.” His goal is to understand what matters to them. “It should be about what I can bring to the table, not what I’m going to get from you,” he says.
Soucy attributes his success to being authentically himself. “If you’re not yourself, your people won’t find you,”
he says.
Leslie C. Stone is a Vero Beach-based freelance writer.