Date: Fri 24-Oct-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Pilchard-realtor-of-the-year

Full Text:

REVISED VERSION: MELISSA PILCHARD NAMED REALTOR OF THE YEAR

(with photo)

BY KAAREN VALENTA

Melissa Pilchard has been named the Realtor of the Year for 1997 by the

Newtown Board of Realtors.

A longtime member of the 110-member board and its current president, Mrs

Pilchard has been a realtor in Newtown for 20 years. During that time, she has

seen many changes but none as far-reaching as those which are currently taking

place in the industry.

Not only are housing starts and sales booming, but new state and federal laws

are having an enormous impact on real estate.

"The one-time $125,000 limit for capital gains is gone, so most people no

longer will have to pay any capital gains on the sale of their homes," she

said. "This makes it possible for senior citizens and people whose children

are grown to sell their homes and move into something smaller without facing a

tax burden. Along with this, the state inheritance tax also is being phased

out."

On June 1 a new agency law took effect in Connecticut which significantly

changes the way real estate sales are conducted in the state.

"This year as president I've scheduled a lot of classes because of the new

agency law," Mrs Pilchard said. "Connecticut now offers three types of

relationships between real estate brokers and the public: buyer, seller and

dual agency. Agents no longer represent only the seller, as they traditionally

did through subagency agreements."

The training classes, to acquaint brokers with the rules and regulations

within the new law, began months ago. The most recent was a six-hour class

last month to complete the 12 hours needed for license renewal.

"All of our meetings are very well attended," Mrs Pilchard said. "For a small

board, ours is very active. An enormous number of people in real estate have

been on the board for over 15 years."

Recently, 80 members of the board attended a meeting to discuss whether to

require that contracts, rather than offers to purchase, be written when a

potential buyer makes a bid on a house. "There was a lot of discussion and in

the end no vote was taken," Mrs Pilchard said. "It will be up to the

individual but most probably will stay with offer to purchase."

Community Involvement

Mrs Pilchard moved to Newtown from New Jersey in 1973 with her husband,

Charles, and their two young sons, Edward and Ben. She became a realtor

several years later. An honors graduate of the University of Maryland, she

majored in biochemistry and pre-law and also earned a secondary education

teaching certificate.

"I had been a school teacher before the children were born," she said. "When I

moved to Newtown and brought my second grader to Middle Gate School, I saw a

big bucket to catch ceiling drips blocking the middle of the doorway and small

windows that children couldn't get out of in case of fire. I got involved and

within the first year I was on five executive boards in town."

Her first major project was helping to get the Head O' Meadow School built. A

town meeting had just voted to give the land back when Mrs Pilchard moved to

town. But the town meeting vote was disqualified because of an error in legal

proceedings, and a Voters Action Committee (VAC) was formed to inform the

public of the need for the school.

Mrs Pilchard was a member of the steering committee for VAC. The committee's

efforts were so successful that another town meeting overwhelmingly voted the

funds for the school and no referendum was ever held.

"I joined the Welcome Wagon, became a part-time Welcome Wagon hostess and

heard horror stories about awful moves that people had undergone," she said.

"I got involved with the League of Women Voters on their first book about

Newtown, Newtown Past And Present . We needed $10,000 for printing and no bank

would loan us the money because we were women! Finally Anna Lord Strass, who

was not only a Newtown resident but also a former national League president,

loaned us enough to get the book printed."

The more active she became, the more she decided she wanted to be in a service

job like real estate.

"Buying a home is the biggest investment people ever make," she said. "It is

one of the events that can be the most traumatic for people [because] you are

changing a person's way of life. With a house you do get a whole new way of

life."

Years ago many people who were in real estate were referred to as kitchen

brokers because they worked part-time.

"Now you have to have too much education and be too involved to work

part-time," Mrs Pilchard said. "Showing a house and helping a client decide

what to buy is only about one-tenth of the work that you do. You have to help

get financing and see that everything is done legally. There are wells,

septic, termites and buried oil tanks to deal with. Very few sales are

straightforward or simple."

Last February new state regulations were enacted which would have hiked the

cost of mandatory water well testing during the purchase of homes from the

current $50-$60 range to $150-$200 and possibly as much as $1,000 if there was

any indication of pollution. The mandates were rolled back, however, after

realtor boards throughout the state complained that they were generally

unnecessary and would be a burden to homeowners.

"We lobbied so the regulations have become much less onerous," Mrs Pilchard

said.

Community Involvement

The realtor of the year award is based not only on a realtor's work in real

estate on the local, state and national level but also on contributions to the

town through volunteer work. Melissa Pilchard has served on every Legislative

Council in its 22-year history except for twice when she opted not to run. She

has served as vice chairman for the past four years.

During her first six years on the council, Mrs Pilchard was in charge of the

education subcommittee. "At that time, there weren't enough books in the

school and the buildings were a mess. That's really what got me started in

community affairs. The town has certainly come a long way since then," she

said.

Mrs Pilchard, who is associated with Newtown Country Realty, is a broker and a

licensed appraiser. For six years, she was also manager of the Realtech

office. She has been treasurer and vice president of the realtor board and for

13 years has been chairman of its grievance committee.

For the past half dozen years she has served in various positions on the

Connecticut Association of Realtors, mostly as an elected state director, and

this year as the local board president.

"There are a lot of outstanding people in our local board who are active on

the state level," Mrs Pilchard said. "Joanne Maurer, who was president last

year, will be regional vice president for 1998, and Merrilee Currier is the

current vice president of the CMLS [Connecticut Multiple Listing Service]. We

have a truly outstanding membership."

The past two years have been particularly busy for Mrs Pilchard as she is the

Legislative Council liaison for the Cyrenius H. Booth Library building project

and the Charter Revision Commission as well as a close, and admittedly often

critical, observer of the Water Pollution Control Authority's sewer project.

If events had gone as planned, Melissa Pilchard would have been in Hartford

last week to receive, for the second time, the award at the Connecticut

Association of Realtors Convention as Newtown's Realtor of the Year. She was

also given the honor in 1991.

Instead, she was under doctor's orders to be in bed to give her aching back a

few days' rest.

"I finally, reluctantly, had to give in," she admitted. "It's just that there

is so much to do."