October 29, 2012 is a date no Rockaway resident will ever forget. That?s the day Hurricane Sandy descended on this 11-mile sliver of peninsula in Queens. One of the storm?s hardest hit communities, whether The Rockaways will ever be the same is open to much speculation by locals.
One of those working hard to ensure the community?s revival is Robin Shapiro, owner/broker of Robin Shapiro Realty. With many homes damaged beyond repair, selling real estate in this storm-ravaged community over the past six months has been challenging.
The summer before Sandy hit, a renaissance of sorts was occurring in The Rockaways. New businesses were sprouting up; people were coming from other areas to spend the day, and the community?s future was bright.
Six months post Sandy, this area is still working on rebuilding. ?Most of the people have rehabbed their houses, mucking out their basements and gutting their first floors,? Shapiro explained.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Shapiro?s first career was as a high school physical education teacher ? in the very high school from which she had graduated 10 years earlier. It was a brief career that ended when she met her husband Steve, a Wall Street investment banker, and became a stay-at-home mom.
Like many agents, the real estate business sort of came up and tapped her on the shoulder. Through the years she would refer friends to an agent who helped her purchase her Rockaway home. Eventually, that agent asked her to join her. When her youngest child turned 12 years old, Shapiro took her up on the offer. One thing led to another, and in 2003 Shapiro opened her own brokerage.
I asked her about the challenges she faced in starting her own real estate company. ?My husband says that I just walk through life with a halo over my head,? Shapiro laughed. ?I never felt that I had any challenges. I just was very lucky and I was very good at what I did,? she said.
?The biggest personal challenge was to be thrust into this business world and realize that some people aren?t as honorable as I am and as I would expect them to be,? she continued. ?Even to this day my biggest challenge is to learn to protect myself from other people, whether clients or other brokers. I don?t do a great job of that, but I don?t want it to change who I am,? Shapiro concludes.
Shapiro decided to branch out when her children started working with her. She opened Red Hook Realty in South Brooklyn, which her daughter Rachel ran before moving to Kenya, and Robin Shapiro Realty at Trump Village in Brighton Beach.
Confirmation of the halo over Shapiro?s head comes from the story of what prompted her to open the business at Trump Village.
?My husband grew up there. It?s a Mitchell Lama Development that was built by Frank Trump, Donald Trump?s father,? she explained. ?It was for low-to-middle-income families.
?We had always heard that it was going to be privatized when they paid off their loans,? Shapiro continues. ?So I took a chance and I started a business called Trump Village Realty hoping that all of these apartments ? and there were like thousands of them ? would be privatized and the older people and the people who inherited these apartments would want to sell them.?
The hunch paid off for Shapiro. ?I?ve sold over 100 apartments there, she explained. ?When it was first privatized there were so many apartments for sale my daughter Rachel would actually set up her appointments to ? meet five clients in the lobby,? and have a mass showing, she recalled.
Today, Shapiro?s real estate empire is run with the assistance of son David and her two daughters, Rachel ? who only lives in the area part time ? and Leah.
I asked Shapiro what she enjoys most about the business. ?I like to take the stress out of real estate. It makes me happy when other people are happy. That?s my goal.?
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