Realtor Keith Johnson has been known for his “can-do” attitude and big smile — even in a depressed market. Throughout his real estate career, he has prided himself in his organizational abilities, thoroughness, and patience to the point where he advertises that “I’m never too busy to listen to my clients to understand their needs.”

Those traits paid off recently at a Realty Executives production awards ceremony where he was recognized as being among the top 10 percent of Realtors — No. 82 out of more than 5,000 agents. He also won his firm’s “most valuable player” award, recognized for contributions to the community in the form of food and funds for the Community Food Bank.

“We’ve donated in excess of $5,000 worth of food and almost $55,000 in buying power to date,” he says.

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Johnson was still at University of Arizona when he enrolled in real estate school 17 years.

“I did day and night licensing classes at the same time I was finishing my degree program,” he says.

He said he got hired as a real estate agent, initially because “I had a pulse and my dad already worked for the company.”

Father and son began a cooperative tag-team approach of selling out of two different offices and taking advantage of national branding and marketing done by Johnson & Johnson Band-Aids by promoting the Johnson duo as “the Band-Aid for your real estate needs.” He still uses a variation of the theme by telling clients, “You won’t need one of these (Band-Aids) if you buy or sell a house with us.”

Johnson has seen both hectic and slack periods in the residential market; sometimes not having enough hours in the day to accomplish everything that needed to be done and other times wondering when the phone would ring.

“It has been trying so far this year,” he says. “There’s a lot of potential buyers, but they’re very picky waiting for interest rates to go down even further while investors are still looking for those blood-in-the-water deals from bank-owned properties.

“The National Association of Realtors is saying that by mid-June we should really be in a much better market and statistics are beginning to reflect that with initial signs of a market turn,” he says. “Federal officials are talking about the possibility the recession will be over by the end of the year, perhaps even as early as June or July, and I’m looking for some of that to be reflected locally, perhaps within the next few weeks.”

Calling Tucson “a healthy, but shrinking market” for residential structures, Johnson says that a lot of speculating investors are concentrating on the Phoenix market because of home affordability.

“Based on their size compared to ours, Phoenix should have 35,000 listings, but they have closer to 75,000 with a median price of $135,000. Tucson’s current median price is $160,000, prompting investors to look more closely elsewhere,” he said.

The Keith Johnson success model is built on staying in touch with real estate trends and cultivating successful client relationships, not only “high tech” but “high touch,” combining cutting-edge marketing and technology with old-fashioned high integrity customer service.

 “The psychology of residential real estate is important, and tricky,” he says. “These are homes where kids grew up and memories were built, so I help sellers determine the true worth of their property.  I give the husband, the wife, and myself a piece of paper and each of us writes down what we think the property is worth. Then we negotiate a price acceptable to all. You’ve got to take some of the emotion out of the equation and quite frankly, that’s why real estate agents have a job.  We ensure legalities are covered while minimizing emotions and maximizing prospects for a successful transaction.”

Keith Johnson

Realty Executives Southern Arizona

6872 E. Sunrise Drive, Suite 150

www.goTucson.com/Johnsonteam

e-mail: Kjohnson@goTucson.com

(520) 906-2610 or 1-800-800-9531

Lee Allen is a Tucson-based freelance writer.