Realtor^® Patti Ketcham’s Playbook for a Long Career

Ketcham, broker-owner of Ketcham Realty Group, Inc., in Tallahassee, first earned her license in 1979 – two weeks before welcoming her third child. With three kids under five, she worked nights and weekends while her husband covered childcare. “I’ll always remember who extended me grace,” she says. “And I’ll remember who didn’t.” That early lesson fuels her insistence on kindness to newcomers.

After several successful years of selling, Ketcham shifted into mortgage banking for about 15 years. Busy enough to miss her real estate continuing education, she restarted her licensure in 1999 and, at the turn of the century, launched Ketcham Realty Group. Today, she leads about 30 agents and still sells – all by design. “The buck stops here,” she says. Independence is the perk she won’t give up: She knows where her train is going, and the schedule hasn’t changed, she says.

Cycles don’t rattle her. She’s watched buyers close loans at 14% fixed rates. Her husband Clay (who is also a Realtor) likes to say – “People like to eat and sleep indoors” – a line that is both a joke and truth. Markets shift; human needs don’t. That’s why Ketcham rejects the industry’s quick-fix obsessions. “If you don’t like people, don’t do residential,” she says. “You can make a gazillion dollars and burn out. For a sustaining career, build relationships, know the contract, and care.”

Because of a severely disabled grandson, the Ketcham family has close ties to a local school for children with disabilities. Each Christmas, they adopt a family. “My mother raised me not to be braggadocious,” she says. The giving is the point.

Her industry involvement wasn’t instant. For years, she “didn’t darken the door” of the association. In 2006, colleagues nudged her in, and she realized she’d been ignoring a gift. Teaching for Florida Realtors® soon followed, which pushed her to delve deeper into the contract, the Code of Ethics, Chapters 475 and 61J2. That discipline elevates her service to buyers and sellers – and informs her six years of service on the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC). On Tuesdays, the commission reviews a “summary of applicants” and often extends second chances. “We extend grace on Tuesday,” she says. “But come Wednesday – if you’re licensed and harming consumers – I don’t play.”

Value, to Ketcham, isn’t a speech. It’s competence. She uses simple leave-behinds with her customers: contract samples, deadlines, and roles. She’s direct about compensation (“If I’m not a fit, set me free”) and pragmatic about buyer-broker agreements – clarity and fit come first.

Why pursue the Florida Realtors Board Certified Professional endorsement? She helped shape the program early on and pushed for a behavior component after seeing a viral video of a Realtor lacing expletives into a client rant. “It can’t just be boxes checked and letters after your name,” she says. She didn’t do it for the pin. She did it to honor the standard.

Two of her three children work in real estate – her husband Clay is a Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) and a Member, Appraisal Institute (MAI) – and she loves that the profession lets you step out when life calls, then catch right back up. Forty-plus years in, Patti Ketcham’s “creative genius” looks a lot like wisdom: people first, contracts tight, grace where it’s due – and no need to post about it.