Published: December, 2001
Proprietress, Peg Copple & Associates
Peg Copple & Associates is a boutique real estate company located in Sausalito. We have one office with five licensed agents plus five full time support staff and me.
My father was a real estate developer, mostly commercial, and had a real estate sales and insurance business, all under one roof. As a little girl, I loved going with him to the houses that he was building. I bought my first house at age 20 in San Jose for $18,000. It was an Eichler home.
In 1970, I graduated with a degree in math and two little kids, three and six at the time. We were totally broke so I worked, teaching part-time so I could still be home with them. But then I got divorced, and had to work full time. In the divorce, I ended up having to sell my home because no one had explained to me about refinancing or getting a second loan. I sold it for $34,000 in 1974 and the people I sold it to sold it a year later it for $84,000. I wish I had known more.
I moved to Lake Tahoe’s South Shore with my boys, even though I didn’t know anybody there. I earned a living teaching early Childhood Education at the Junior College and as a bookkeeper working for a CPA. With both those careers, no matter how hard I worked or how good I was at my job, someone else always got the credit and the money. I wanted to both earn more money and be more creative. So I went into the business for myself as a financial advisor and got my real estate license in 1976.
Before long, I was the general manager of thirteen different limited general partnerships, each one owning a different piece of property, from one to seven units. But in 1981, interest rates hit 20% and boy, was that horrible. So suddenly I was busy trying to bail out of all thirteen properties. It was a crushing financial situation, very similar to my experience getting divorced. Talk about being creative. I did everything, even swapping a property for rubies.
I moved back to the Bay Area with my boys to straighten things out. I moved first to Saratoga, as a financial advisor for a couple clients. I then started in real estate sales again. Four years later, my youngest had graduated from high school but my boys were still living with me and they were driving me crazy. So, I moved to Walnut Creek, knowing they wouldn’t want to move there. The nest left the birds so to speak.
Not long after, I found myself in Sausalito sitting on the Alta Mira deck drinking champagne with my pals with the full moon coming up over Angel Island and San Francisco sparkling in the distance. I decided to move here in 1987. I moved in with one of my girlfriends. I traded her a computer for rent.
In 1997, it was a big deal for me when I put out the shingle that said Peg Copple & Associates. I had been working as if I were independent for a larger brokerage. I had developed my own clientele. (Investment property, single-family buyers and sellers and financial planning clients) They were very loyal. I was worried that if I went out on my own, they would not follow me without a big company behind me. I told them what I was thinking about doing, and asked what they thought. They all said, "Go ahead, we are behind you!"; So I decided, and Peg Copple & Associates was born. At that time, it was just a secretary and me.
Home buying and selling can be very emotional. It took me a while to figure out how to remain calm and focused on my clients needs. I’ve figured out how to not be driven nuts. That took some major doing. I’ve been through buying and selling problems myself and that’s helpful in terms of dealing with my clients and understanding their anxieties about real estate.
I’m known for being exacting, but there’s more to my life than real estate. I’m extremely involved in the community here. I live in Sausalito and own a home three blocks from my office. I am a member or the Sausalito Woman’s Club, the Sausalito Rotary Club and I’m the President of the Chamber of Commerce. I’m on the Board of Directors of Rotary Housing Corporation, we are now building 22 new senior housing units in Sausalito, and I keep close tabs on things that happen with the City Council and the Planning Commission. I’m a member of the Sausalito Yacht Club and I’m a wannabe sailor. I used to own a boat. I don’t now. I don’t have time.
I love Sausalito and my Company.
