Late one night several years ago, Blair Nell was looking over the shoulder of her husband, Clayton, at a real estate listing that wasn’t quite working. He wanted her advice, so she offered some thoughts about language and how the home might have been staged better. And that’s the moment she realized that she could do this, too, that she could sell homes and welcome and connect people to the community she already loved…
Drawn to Chapel Hill after the start of the millennium by the lure of its fabled music scene, Clayton Nell entered the real estate business by asking a series of questions. In 2004, for instance, he learned that a friend was a property appraiser—he wanted to know what it meant, how it worked. Within a matter of months, he was trekking around the state, appraising property and learning the ins and outs of real value. By 2008, he was a young agent at the firm; by 2015, he was a full partner. And now, in 2019, he is the cofounder of Boro Realty….
Bill Mullen began learning about Chapel Hill real estate before he began learning to drive a car. Bill moved to the middle of North Carolina at the age of four, his family following his father’s career as a journalism professor. His mother soon began entertaining the children by shuttling them among construction sites and open houses on Sunday afternoons, making games out of understanding floor plans or appreciating the differences in construction materials and methods. A quarter-century later, few know the literal lay of this land so well—or are so enthused about sharing that knowledge…
Amy Pulliam has made the Triangle home for more than 20 years. A native Texan, she lived in Massachusetts during her impressionable middle school years, and returned to earn her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College in English and Economics. After, she turned her attention to her true passion: homes, design, and construction, first as an Americorps Volunteer at the Durham Habitat for Humanity, then renovating a mill house, and later as designer…
The unlikely route of Jen Johnston into real estate begins with, of all things, an ice cream shop. More than a decade ago, while taking a break from the demands of a career in nursing in the suburbs of New York City, Jen opened her own small business, selling sweets to the residents of Westchester County. After relocating to Chapel Hill for a slower Southern lifestyle and lower cost of living, and returning to the nursing field, she began to long for the management of small business, for the details it took to propel any successful operation. That’s when she spotted an advertisement for an administrative position at the same small real estate firm…