Margaret Savoie, November 11, 2021

Title

interviewee

Margaret Savoie

interviewer

Amelia Deering

Date

2021-11-11

Subject

Bassett Hospital

Cooperstown Concert Series

Cooperstown, New York

Cooperstown Youth Soccer

COVID-19

Don Olin Realty

Family Life

Parsons, Tennessee

Public Health Service

Real Estate

Rotary Club of Cooperstown

Special Education

Description

Margaret Savoie is the broker and owner of Don Olin Realty in Cooperstown, New York. The interview took place in the Don Olin offices on Chestnut Street. The first section of the interview covers Margaret's experience working in the field of special education, as well as the early years of Margaret's marriage to Dennis Savoie. After many moves to accommodate Dennis' medical training, the couple and their two young children – Matthew, born while Dennis was in medical school in Vermont, and Benjamin, who was born in Cooperstown during Dennis' internship at Bassett Hospital – permanently relocated to Cooperstown in 1974, where their third son Jonathan was born a few months later.

Margaret was a stay-at-home mom during much of her boys' early childhood. In the interview she discusses the strong community of families which formed among Bassett employees and in Cooperstown generally. Margaret was an early member of the Cooperstown Concert Series, of which she is still a board member, and a founder of the Cooperstown Youth Soccer program. She also joined the Rotary Club of Cooperstown around this time, in which she remains active and of which she has served as both secretary and president.

The second half of the interview focuses on Margaret's real estate career, which began when she received her license in 1978. She discusses one of her early closings – with current Cooperstown mayor Ellen Tillapaugh – as well as how real estate has changed in the last four decades. Margaret also recounts her transition from realtor to broker/owner, as well as the effects of COVID-19 on Cooperstown real estate. The interview concludes with Margaret's hopes for the future of real estate in Cooperstown, which include a desire for more affordable housing as well as intergenerational living options.

The following transcription reproduces the interview with minimal editing. False starts and repetitions have been removed, as have some interstitial remarks (e.g. "you know") in cases where they did not add meaning. Vocalizations such as laughter have been indicated where they were deemed significant to understanding.

Transcription

MS = Margaret Savoie (née Bachand)
AD = Amelia Deering

[START OF TRACK 1, 0:00]

AD:
Alrighty so this is the interview of Margaret Savoie by Amelia Deering on November 11, 2021 in her office in Cooperstown, New York. So Margaret if you could maybe just introduce yourself briefly?

MS:
Yes, good morning, hello. This is Margaret Savoie, sitting here with Amelia, and we're going to discuss a variety of topics that she needs information on, and hopefully I can provide it.

AD:
Perfect. So we'll start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

MS:
I grew up in Hartford and West Hartford, Connecticut.

AD:
Ok. Can you tell me a little bit about your family?

MS:
My family consisted of my mother, my father, my brothers Richard and Edward, and a large, extended Italian family on my mother's side. My father's family was smaller, but I did grow up having aunts and uncles and cousins on both sides of the family. We lived in Connecticut for many, many, many years.

AD:
Were you close with your extended family, your cousins and everything?

MS:
Oh yes, I was the oldest and I helped with all of them as they grew up. And I still stay in contact with them now as they are adults as well, and they have children and grandchildren and great grandchildren.

AD:
Can you tell me about how you met your husband?

MS:
I met my husband Dennis in Waterford, Connecticut, and we were both working at that time in a facility for developmentally disabled young people and adults, the name of which is Seaside Regional Center. Dennis and I both worked there summers as recreational workers providing activities for the residents. Dennis was at Providence College at the time and I was at St. Joseph University.

AD:
How did you become involved with Seaside?

MS:
When I was in college I double majored in elementary and special education, and this was sort of like an internship during the summer to work at this residential facility.

AD:
Did you work in secondary or elementary education at all after college?

MS:
After college yes, I did. I have worked in a variety of fields in special education. I did go back actually and teach at Seaside as a residential teacher there in a mixed class of students. This was in the period of time when special education was coming into public schools. Students were now being mainstreamed into the schools. They still went into their own classrooms. The large residential facilities at that time were being broken down into regional centers so students could live closer in residence to their families, and they had a more individualized [approach] and smaller groups rather than large institutions that were in Connecticut at the time. So this was at the foreground and forefront of that time, and I taught the students on campus who were unable to attend classes outside. And then I subsequently taught blind, deaf, and developmentally disabled children and adults and I also taught in Burlington, Vermont after I was married in an ungraded primary. So I've done both of those things.

AD:
I know you and Dennis moved around a lot, can you tell me about how that affected you in your career?

MS:
Well, I was teaching in Burlington when we had our first son Matthew and I was fortunate enough, I don't know if fortune had anything to do with it, but at that time it wasn't as prevalent for women to stay in their jobs while they had children. They tended to abandon their careers to stay home with their kids. And that's what we did. Now that was somewhat difficult because my husband was a medical student at the time so financially it was a very interesting time. When he graduated from the University of Vermont College of Medicine we came here to Cooperstown, where he started his internship. This was during the period of time that our country was involved in the Vietnam War. Dennis did not feel comfortable registering as a conscientious objector, yet he did not at the time support our efforts in Vietnam. So he decided he would use his medical training for the good of this country and signed up for a program to bring medical care to underserved areas in the United States. It was a fledgling program and it was called the Public Health Service. He worked for them and actually it was kind of comical; he was a lieutenant so he had an actual status, so on Veterans' Day we can celebrate him. And we then were part of that program through medical school actually, and then when he graduated from his internship he had to give him back time, so we served two years then in a very, very small town in Tennessee called Parsons, midway between Nashville and Memphis. And it was an interesting cultural experience, I must say. And we also had our second son Benjamin seven days before we left Cooperstown and went to Tennessee so he spent his first two weeks of life on the road.

AD:
Can you tell me a little bit more about your impressions of Parsons and your time there?

MS:
Yeah, it was an interesting, interesting experience. Small towns are not the same wherever you go. Parsons was a very friendly place, but remember this was in 1972, times were different, '72. It was culturally much different than what I had experienced growing up in New England. It was very Southern. It had every piece of the pig in the grocery store down to the tail. And it was dry, there was no alcohol in this community, which came to us as somewhat of a shock. There were still churches there that did odd things; they spoke in tongues and passed snakes around, which I could never understand. The movie theater still had a door that said "Colored," as did the water faucet outside. Those things were changing during that time in '72 and it took a long time I'm sure for it to reach this small southern town. I'll interject a very funny story – we took our kids to a playground in a park nearby and the name of it was Nathan Bedford Forrest. If you don't know, Nathan Bedford Forrest. I thought it was named for a forest – Nathan Bedford Forrest is the founder of the KKK [Ku Klux Klan]. And we had a park there. Also, there was a lot of moonshine. We had asked in our placement to be put in a natural resource so they put us on the Tennessee River, which was an interesting thing. We stayed there for two years and left Parsons. I flew home with the two boys, seven months pregnant with our third child. Dennis drove home with an assortment of pets: turtles, dogs, hamsters, and so on. We came back, spent some time in Connecticut with my family, and then came to Cooperstown where Dennis, while he was serving this time, had been recruited to come back. We were scheduled to go to Dartmouth. And Joe Lunn, who was chairman of the department of medicine at the time, called Dennis and said "Hey, we have an opening in residency would you please come back and fill it" and Dennis said "Sure, I'd love that," and he came home and told me we weren't going to Hanover, we were going to Cooperstown. Which was fine because I was going to deliver this baby shortly after getting there and it was at least a familiar environment. We were among the first people, actually we may have been the first couple, to live in the student housing that is still used for medical staff housing over the bridge in Cooperstown. And it was not complete when we moved back, we had to find a rental, and then we moved in and it was quite an experience. It was an interesting place to be.

AD:
I know that was now your second time going back to Cooperstown, can you tell me a little bit about your first impressions of Cooperstown?

MS:
When you do a match in the medical training program, you have to go places and view, and then you rate them and they rate you, so what you do is the matching, I guess. I'm not sure that this is still done this way, this is how it was done back in the dark ages. You would put your list down, and you would put one two three four five, and then they would match and on match day you went and accepted your match or searched for a match if you didn't get one. So my husband, who is a very brave man, put one match down. He came to Cooperstown, he put Cooperstown, he wanted to come to Bassett, it was his one match. And if he didn't get that match, we had none. I was, to say the least, full of trepidation for the whole day. I sent him with a roll of quarters so he could call people – it was back before cell phones as well, you had to do all this communication to the schools and try to find someplace. But as it worked out, his first match, Cooperstown, matched one for him, so we came here. My first impression of Cooperstown was the day that we drove here because I didn't see it prior to that; he had. We came down the Lake Road, past the Fenimore Art Museum, past the golf course, and who could not fall in love with Cooperstown coming down that road. And, at that time, the house staff at Bassett was much smaller than it is now. It was very small. You had rotating interns in internal medicine, surgery, and those that were undecided. We lived within the community in apartments. The apartments had not been done when we first came; they were done when we came back. So we lived in a beautiful apartment on Lake Street overlooking the golf course and the lake, and that was our first residence here in Cooperstown. And it was lovely and we still have fond memories with those that we served with at that time as interns and residents.

AD:
And I know your kids were still really young by the time you came back.

MS:
Oh yes, oh yes, well my son Matthew was born in Burlington, Vermont; Benjamin and Jonathan were born here in Cooperstown. So I had three children under the age of four at that time.

AD:
Can you talk a little bit more about being a young family in Cooperstown?

MS:
Oh yeah, it was wonderful, I mean it was great. Because none of us really had immediate family, very rarely, we all sort of served as each other's families. And one of the most interesting parts always of living in Cooperstown that I have found is the intergenerational effect. You have your children and they have friends who have [relatives] who are older and they sort of become their grandmother figures and aunts and your friends have extended their homes to everyone, and the children were just intermingled everywhere. It was a very small place at the time, it was smaller then than it is now, it wasn't as global. It was quiet, it was peaceful, kids went up and down the streets, played out on their bicycles, and it was very idyllic for our children growing up. And I think that's why so many of them have come back. I have two children living here now.

AD:
And can you talk about what you were doing during this time as your children were growing up?

MS:
Ah yes, well, again I was blessed and fortunate, and I've been full of gratitude that I was able to stay home with them as a young mom. It was not without sacrifice, but my husband and I decided that's what we wanted and that's what we did. So I spent their formative years at home working with them and helping in the community. And that's what I did until my son Jonathan was maybe four and a half, and then I went back to work. And I was the head teacher for Project Head Start here in Cooperstown, which has been an incredible program for children and families, and I loved that job but I gave it up after a year because it was intense and my children had needs that I wasn't meeting doing it. Again, my husband and I talked, and he said "well why don't you stay home and deal with the boys." So I did. And I loved it.

AD:
What made you want to go back to work to Head Start?

MS:
At Head Start? Oh it was a wonderful program. Head Start, it's a cycle breaker for families. It helps young children get on an even footing no matter what their background is. It helps families, it helps them in many ways, and the children. It was a wonderful, wonderful program; it still is, as established that long ago.

AD:
Can you talk a little bit more about your other community engagement during that time?

MS:
During that time, oh, what did I [do]? I became a member of the Cooperstown Concert Series then when I was home and had more time. And that's pretty much [all], at that time. I think what you're referring to actually is the soccer program, that's what you're going towards. Well, Amelia, my son Matthew was seven, and he wanted to play soccer. And I thought that would be a great sport for him; some of his other buddies wanted to as well. There was a program in Oneonta at the time, it was called the JCU Soccer Program. The games were every Saturday, and we had to drive the kids to Oneonta to play or be on a team. And a group of us thought well that's crazy, why don't we just start our own [team] and be part of them? And John Biggs ran the program at the time and he and I worked together in establishing the Cooperstown Youth Soccer Program at the time. We really did travel to Oneonta a lot; we traveled to Cherry Valley, Edmeston, all over the place, because there were other teams in other places. But that was the seed of what is now still going on, and we had, oh, gosh, I can't even begin to tell you how many kids joined. And remember, that many years ago, this was still in the late [19]70s, that soccer was not much of a sport here in the United States. It was virtually unknown, and the parents really didn't know how to play soccer. I had played as a student in Connecticut, but there wasn't much going on here with it. So we started this league and we had all parent involvement; we had parent coaches, we had team parents who organized schedules for driving, we had sponsor parents. We had a great involvement with many, many people, and it was a great time for the kids. The kids really just loved playing. As a result, my husband coached and all three of my boys played and actually played all through high school. My oldest son continued his love of soccer, played as an adult and actually coached as a high school coach in Connecticut. So our involvement with soccer stayed. After many years of doing it the people volunteering to help became fewer and fewer, and I said "listen, y'all you'd better get some help on this or I'm leaving all this information at the village sign at the beginning of the town." And people did step up then and it has continued and become a very strong, still a strong program for many kids with all new families involved. But that was the fledgling part of it.

AD:
Well, that's awesome. I know you said you joined the Concert Series around this time as well. Can you talk about what you've done with that over the years?

MS:
Oh, the concert series is wonderful. It's funny because we just did a program for Rotary on Tuesday and I had the part about the history of it. The Concert Series was started in 1970 with a challenge from Louis C. Jones, could we bring live music to Cooperstown? It was under the auspices of the Women's Club, and then it eventually became an independent 501(c)3 corporation. We had a large group and it was mostly women until Peter Johngren and Richard Brown broke the glass ceiling, the reverse of the glass ceiling, and they joined us in the Concert Series. I personally am still a member, I think I'm the last old, so to speak, member. We had chairmen, I served as chairman several times, the search committee, I've served as secretary; I was in many capacities with the Concert Series and still maintain my interest in it today. It brings live entertainment of different styles to Cooperstown during the winter months when we all need to be out getting some live entertainment.

AD:
Yeah, and you just briefly mentioned Rotary, I know you've been a really big part of the Rotary in Cooperstown, can you talk about that?

MS:
I have, sure. For many years people said "Oh, why don't you join us in Rotary?" and I realized Rotary was quite a commitment, and it is a commitment in time and energy, and I had too many other things with the kids, and I was starting in real estate at that time, I really didn't have time. So then I did join, my friend Joan Badgley sponsored me, and my interests were the eradication of polio internationally and the foreign exchange program, which are the cores of Rotary no matter where you live. And I joined, I don't know how many years ago, and have since been an active member with a wonderful Rotary club doing service above self throughout the community and the world. I've served as president and I've been secretary since I wasn't president, for many, many years. And I enjoy my Rotarian friends, and the meetings, and all the things we learn there.

AD:
Can you tell me about maybe a project or experience with Rotary that particularly sticks out to you over the past many years?

MS:
Oh, our projects with Rotary, there have been so many. I think probably our fundraising activities like Spring Fling, which turned into Fall Fling. The sponsorships that we've had this last year, the funds that we've raised. When we do fundraisers all the funds go back into the community, we do not use them for club activities, so we sponsored air purifiers at the senior center, allowing them to continue to meet during COVID, so they didn't have to be as isolated. We donated to the SPCA this last year so they have a dental cleaning unit. We've done district conferences and I've helped support those held here and in other places. I can't even begin to tell you how many wonderful things. And really contributing towards the eradication of polio. There are only three places now, and there are very few cases left, but as long as there's one there could always be more.

[TRACK 1, 22:21]

AD:
And then let's pivot back to your career. I know you were in Head Start briefly when your kids were really young

MS:
So you want to know how this happened, that I ended up sitting behind this desk being a real estate broker. It's a rather long story – well, actually, it isn't. I had a friend who was selling real estate and she said to me "you know, you might like this, it's really a flexible schedule, you can do it while the kids are at school" and so on and so forth. That was in 1978, I started my career in 1978. I went to Herkimer Community College and took a semester class and got my real estate license. It was done differently then than it is now. It was a whole semester, now you can do it in different ways. And I passed my exam and was licensed, and I went to work and realized shortly thereafter that when people want to look at houses is when they're not working, and that means you're working when they're not, so it was a lot of weekends, a lot of odd hours. I worked as a real estate agent with the woman who introduced me, and then I switched and worked with Don Olin for most of my career. And that's why I'm still holding the name Don Olin Realty. So I worked with Don and a changing staff, some of whom are still in the business, some who are not. We had various locations in town. And after many, many years Don decided he wanted to retire. He went on vacation for a month, and said since you can't really run a business while you're away, why don't you buy the business. And I said what? I really had never thought about owning a business, nor was I sure I wanted that kind of a responsibility. Back to Dennis again, he said "well what have you got to lose? If you buy it and you hate it, you can always sell it." Well, that was exactly, now almost to this day twenty years ago, twenty-one years ago I think that I bought the business. We were on Pioneer Street at the time. And I had a wonderful staff, wonderful friends, wonderful people, we sold many houses. And now I'm selling houses to the children of people I sold houses to, and I realized how many years have gone by. We were on Pioneer Street; we had a small office there, and one summer I had $300 worth of parking tickets for myself and clients, because I couldn't actually have someone looking at a house and paying for a parking ticket. So I said this is crazy, I need to get another space. So that's when I bought the building here at 37 Chestnut, from a lovely person Barbara Lasher who had a business called Global Traders with Susie Lasher Knight, and they ran an international importing business called Global Traders. Barbara wanted to retire and so I bought this building, and we moved Don Olin Realty here twenty years ago. And people always ask "Why did you keep the name?" Well, at the time it was branding, you know, Don Olin Realty was a branded name in the area. So I kept it, Don was still alive then, and I thought it's his tradition, I don't want to change it. And then after many years it was too late to change it without losing that identity. I've been recruited by many national real estate firms to give up my independent brokerage and join them, and so far we've maintained our independence, and probably I will until I retire, which I have no plans to do yet, no matter how many people ask me "isn't it time?" [laughs].

AD:
Can we maybe go back to your early days as a real estate agent, do you have any of your first properties that you remember in Cooperstown?

MS:
Yes, of course, I have one outstanding one, first one I ever sold. I had a young couple, Ellen Tillapaugh and Gary Kuch. Do you know, Ellen is now the mayor of Cooperstown and Gary was in education and he now is working for the Scriven Foundation in the scholarship office. He and Ellen wanted to buy a house but it got bought by someone else, so I was just starting in my career and they did not get the house. Well, then that deal fell through and they got the house on Beaver Street, where they still live, and we closed on the house a week before Christmas. That was my first sale. I took my commission money and bought my husband his very first bike, which, as everyone knows, started a career in cycling. And he still to this day has that bike. That was my first sale. I've gone on to sell commercial real estate, residential real estate, liened, in mostly Cooperstown and the surrounding areas. I haven't ventured into too many other places because I believe that when you're selling a house you need to sell the community it's in.

AD:
Can you talk a little bit more about how you sell Cooperstown as a community, maybe to people who are moving from afar?

MS:
Well, Cooperstown really sells itself, you know visually and so on. I know we don't have a good match when the wife asks where the closest shopping mall is, because if they are big shoppers, they're not going to find it here. Again, remember, the years that I've been doing this was way before Amazon and online shopping and so on and so forth. Cooperstown appeals to a variety of people, but if you're looking for certain things you won't find it. If you're looking for quality of life, you will. If you're looking for a warm atmosphere, you'll find it. If you're looking for involvement, you'll find it. And like my thing with soccer, if it doesn't exist people have been known to create it. Look at the film series, I mean people created these things because there wasn't anything here. And it's a place to get involved. But you need to reach out to do that yourself, you need to be an involved person. You know Bassett Hospital, a keynote of being here in Cooperstown, your program, the Cooperstown Graduate Program, has brought so many young people, viable young people, who have also stayed in this area, contributing. So it has a magic and a charm all its own, and not everyone can live here who wants

[END TRACK 1, 29:59]

[START TRACK 2, 0:00]

to for many reasons. Over the last two years we've seen a huge influx under the COVID people, wanting to move, and many have come and are working from home. We've watched the growth of broadband which facilitates people living not just in the village but out of the village. It allows people to have more flexibility in their choices. Cooperstown is a wonderful place to raise a family and I think people realize that. Public schools are decent and contribute to any number of good things for kids. There's a safety here that exists, and if there's a tragedy or something happens, people will always say "well that's why I like living here, because of the support you receive on a daily basis."

[TRACK 2, 1:03]

AD:
Can you talk a little bit more about how the market's changed?

MS:
The market has changed considerably. Obviously the first issue is pricing. You know when I first started in the business you could buy a house for twenty thousand dollars to fifty, and now you can't buy a closet for twenty thousand to fifty thousand. Property on the lake was so inexpensive that a fellow realtor and I, Patti Ashley, recently said "Why didn't we buy everything that was available?" The reason we didn't was because we didn't have the money to at the time but now property on the lake is as scarce as hen's teeth and is very, very valuable. Property prices have escalated, as has demand in the most recent years. For a long time everyone wanted to live in the country, be out of town. Now I find that with two parents working they like the ease of their children walking to school, walking home, not having to have a second car, so on and so forth. So the village became very popular again. These things tend to go in cycles. I think basically the biggest change, and the biggest influence I would say on real estate is marketing right now. We used to have a great interpersonal relationship with our clients, and those that were looking to buy and move to Cooperstown. You knew their children, you knew their birthdates, you knew their interests, you knew their families. You sometimes knew their favorite foods. Now with the arrival of the internet, and the marketing of property on various and many different websites, people don't feel the need to have interpersonal relationships. They will email or text you about a house that they've seen, they'll have done a virtual tour of the house, they'll have seen photographs of every room in the house, and they will send a very succinct or detailed email message about it, you answer their question and you may never hear from them again. It's more of an anonymous buyer. An anonymous buyer has brought some safety concerns to the industry. Before, when you met your clients, you knew mom and dad and whoever else was coming. You would meet them and they would follow you. I never drove children in my car, because of car seats and all that, but you would have a mom and a dad with you in the car and you'd be chatting and doing all of that on your way. That has changed with COVID, we no longer drive people. But the safety factors for realtors have increased over the years. You get into a house with a total stranger and there have been some casualties from it. So we all have different things now. So now, with the use of computers I can remember typing purchase offers on a manual typewriter, an electric typewriter. There's much more documentation now that needs to be done with every transaction, with every listing. There are many more forms which need to be filed, you have in a folder. I once wrote a purchase offer for a building on Main Street on the back of a brown paper bag. No longer would that happen. And again, I do believe that the information age we live in has impacted real estate very much, as well as all of our shopping etc. I think we're all used to doing things quickly, we're used to doing them online. People have actually, I do not have anyone here who has done it, but I think there are some brokers in the area who have. People have bought houses without ever seeing them. Based on the information and the videos etc. that they've viewed. I have not had anyone do that and I'm glad because it makes me very anxious.

AD:
Have you ever had a negative experience with a client that you would be comfortable talking about?

MS:
Oh, you mean like a frightening one?

AD:
Either frightening or–

MS:
Yeah, I did I had one once. Many, many years ago I had a person call, wanted to set up a viewing of a piece of property. It was rural, there were no cell phones then, and it was a dirt road and there was a short driveway. And when I got there five men were standing on the front porch. And you know you get that feeling that this might not be a good idea. I had that feeling "this might not be a good idea." And when I felt my personal safety might be compromised, I did not go in, I did not go towards the house because it was a walk, I can still see it in my head, it was a walk down a long drive. And I went back to the office and oddly enough I never heard from them asking me what happened, why didn't I show up. And I tell my agents here now, that if you have a funny feeling – and many times I say "look, why don't you go with someone" if it's a very rural piece – it can happen in the village, I mean it can happen anywhere. There are strange circumstances that have gone on.

AD:
To come back to Cooperstown a little bit, can you talk maybe about how the tourism industry has affected the real estate market over the years?

MS:
You know everyone thinks that people who come through [the Cooperstown] Dreams Park are going to buy a ton of properties. They might think of that while they're here and they'll say "oh we should buy a house here, and then we can do this and we can do that." The average person coming to the Dreams Park does not buy a house. But how it impacted the market was many people bought property to provide rentals to the Dreams Park. That worked in a positive and a negative way. It worked positively for their income in many ways, negatively for the housing population, especially for young people wanting to buy homes. The multiple family houses don't exist here as much as in other places. In the last few years that market has been severely impacted by COVID and the fact that many of the homes were not able to be rented. Some of the houses have been converted to AirBnBs so the people are able to make some of their maintenance costs because they still have maintenance and mortgages, etc. There has not been a huge rush of putting those houses on the market, although a few have, and I think most of the owners are wishing that the Dreams Park would open or that they'd get into a more lucrative market for the upcoming season. There always was a rental market here for tourism. Before the Dreams Park it was a destination for the lake, and people would come stay at the hotel and various motels. So that was more of what our tourism industry was then. Then you had the coming of the Glimmerglass Festival, that created a huge market for BnBs, BnBs were really the place where most people stayed.

AD:
And can you talk about maybe how your professional life has changed since you became the owner of Don Olin versus when you were just a real estate agent?

MS:
Yeah, it has changed, because not only are you the broker but you're the broker/owner. You have a responsibility to all of the listings and everything that happens in the office. The agents do not have a relationship with the people, it's only through you. Their licenses are held by the broker in each office. This is a regulation by the State of New York real property laws. And you are responsible for everything that is done in your office by all of your agents. So actually, you have a great responsibility to each listing and each sale in supervisory terms. So you become a management agent. And then you have your own record keeping. You have escrow that you have to have available and working on, I myself own a building so I have building maintenance, and the buck stops here, so to speak. I am the one who is mostly responsible. If the doors don't open by the agents, they still open by me. They're all independent contractors so they come and go at their will. I come and I don't go [laughs].

AD:
We are coming towards the end of the interview, is there anything else you can say maybe about how COVID has affected the real estate market in Cooperstown?

MS:
Yeah, it really ramped it up for a while last year, in the last two years. People really made scurrying efforts to leave highly populated places. Some of them did not think it through clearly. One couple bought a house rurally because that just seemed like heaven, you know, you were in the city, you couldn't go out, you couldn't do anything. And they moved up, they were all happy in the country and then they realized that there were no streetlights, and it was very dark. During COVID, our whole way of doing business changed. Nobody was allowed to really be in the office, except the governor at the time deemed real estate a necessary service, because he said, you know, selling real estate, it's the backbone of the economy of the State of New York. So all my agents were in working, some worked remotely, you know there was a lot of it remote. I was in the office every day during COVID because we had to maintain certain protocols. We had signage and so on, and changed how we did business. We kept lists of people who came in, people who went out, there were gloves and booties. And to show a house was really an interesting task. The house could not be occupied. We would go in ahead of time with gloves and turn on lights. The people who came to the house, there could only be a certain number and no children could go, and you had to sign COVID documents saying that you were aware of COVID and so on. And you could not discriminate in any way, new anti-discrimination laws also came out during COVID that needed to be signed by buyers and sellers so that people were not discriminated against in any way. Property did sell even though COVID was in place. We were not allowed to have broker open houses because of the rules and regulations. Everywhere we went there was spray and hand wash and booties on your shoes, and then when the people left you'd have to go through and wipe the whole house down before the people came back. And of course, masks, everything was masked, and we still wear them a lot to this day when we go places, and I still carry my hand sanitizer in my pocket, and sprays. So we're all very careful still, it taught us a great deal, and as I said before I do not drive people in my vehicle. It's too close.

[TRACK 2, 13:41]

AD:
Can you tell me about your expectations and maybe some hopes for how Cooperstown real estate will develop in the coming years?

MS:
You know I think that it's an interesting thing, we're not going to have more property in the village, that's for sure. I think the new apartments are going to be interesting to draw some people downtown in hopefully what will be affordable housing for them. I think there is a huge need in this area for better apartments [rather] than standalone housing. We have an aging population in the village, and all these people really don't want to leave the home they know and love and yet they can't maintain these big houses anymore. And not always are there children who want them. It would be a wonderful thing to see intergenerational housing built where there were one-story homes, or an apartment on one floor, with townhouses, a condo kind of idea even. That, I think, would be a wonderful thing. I would hope that those who are coming here will help support Cooperstown as a village and shop locally as well as in other places. You know we're having a surge of some young folks who are really trying very hard to open new businesses and as I've said on my soapbox the only way they'll be successful is if people support them. You can't have a business for when you can't get something quickly online and when you can't get a way to buy it. You have to support the businesses that are here on a daily basis or they won't be here anymore. And real estate, that is partially, and people don't think that that's an important part, but it is. When you drive down a Main Street that has not got a strong presence, let's say, and it looks empty, it affects people's impression of the town. It seems more like a dying community than a vibrant one, and nobody wants to move to a dying community. You want to attract young families so your schools stay strong. You want to attract folks who can contribute in all phases of living here. And, you know, you want a vibrant, vibrant community of people who are giving back and committed. And I don't see that happening if we don't have a viable downtown. That's my impression. I also would like to be able to see some young people be able to get their first home. It's the most satisfying of all the people you sell to when you sell to a young family, because they are excited and happy. People who are buying their fifth and sixth home, they're not as excited as the young family with two little ones who are buying their very first home. And they're a delight to work with, and it's a wonderful thing to be able to help them. You know, real estate is a service industry. It's a way of life. You see all kinds of people, I think we know almost all the new people, more than anyone else. And I think that people [who] have a good experience have a good beginning. You know you're not just selling a house, you're selling a lifestyle, you're selling a place to live. And Cooperstown luckily provides a great backdrop for that. In all seasons, it's an interesting thing. Maybe not so much in the winter. That's a common question: "do you get much snow here?" No, we don't get much snow [laughs]. But it is, it's a wonderful place to be, it's a great place to raise a family, and being a realtor has provided me with financial ability to enjoy things. I love my building, I love being here in town, and I love the people I've helped find homes. And I still have many relationships with all of them. I actually told someone one time, as my advice, when I did one of these talks, I said my goal is never to have to hide from someone in the grocery store because they hated their house or they hated me for buying it. And so far I've been fortunate, I have wonderful relationships with many of my buyers and sellers, even if they move away.

AD:
That's awesome Margaret, thank you so much. Was there anything else you wanted to cover today that we didn't get to?

MS:
No, I'm delighted to have done it. I hope it gave you information that you wanted.

AD:
It did, for sure. Thank you

[END TRACK 2, 18:33]

Coverage

Upstate New York

Cooperstown, NY

1944-2021

Creator

Amelia Deering

Publisher

Cooperstown Graduate Program, State University of New York-College at Oneonta

Rights

Cooperstown Graduate Association, Cooperstown, NY

Format

audio/mp3
28.8mB

audio/mp3
26.5mB

image/jpg
3024 x 4032 pixel

Language

en-US

Type

Sound

Image

Identifier

21-004

Abstract

Track 1, 01:25 - Special Education

Track 1, 22:21 - Real Estate Career

Track 2, 01:03 - Real Estate Market, Cooperstown

Track 2, 13:41 - Future of Real Estate

Item

Margaret Savoie, November 11, 2021