Andreal Haywood Gray opened Haywood Realty Group in the St. Louis area a few years ago after deciding to expand operations from Kansas City to her hometown. Haywood Realty has four agents on staff operating in Missouri and Illinois, and she is looking for more.
“We are looking to grow our operation to at least 20 agents by the close of the year,” Haywood Gray said.
Haywood Gray’s business includes residential and commercial real estate, investment services, property management and building credit for home purchases.
The real estate broker is particularly excited about monies now available for first-time home buyers.
She mentioned Missouri Housing Development money (grants of up to $15,000) for first-time homebuyers and funds from the stimulus package (up to an $8,000 loan paid back during the life of the loan).
She is equally excited about working with Kwame Building Group on a centrally located new home site – Kings Estates, located near Newstead Avenue and I-70 in North St. Louis.
She said it is a new-construction home development with a 10-year tax abatement on homes starting at $225,000 – “beautiful, new homes in the inner city, close to the highways in a secure community,” Haywood Gray said.
“There are four houses yet to be built, but once they complete it, it will be a gated, secure community.”
Haywood Gray developed her expertise in real estate on the western end of the state – first as an agent, then as a real estate broker, gaining several
certifications along the way. Her first company, Visions Consulting Realty, has been in operation for eight years with 15 agents that are licensed for business in Missouri and Kansas.
“We have been recognized as a candidate for Small Business of the Year twice,” she said.
Haywood Gray said although the housing market has been a little scary for the last couple of years, there are monies available to creditworthy first-time home buyers if they prepare.
Home ownership education classes are offered by her K.C. location in community centers and churches, a service she would like to bring to St. Louis as well.
“All too often people get too hung up on material things, outside the importance of owning a home first before you buy cars, before you buy clothes,” she said.
“So, if we can’t teach in our community about the proper preparation for purchasing a home and proper preparation for maintaining a good credit score, you’re going to be crippled now that all of the restrictions and changes have happened in the financial lending areas.”
Foreclosures and opportunities
Among those changes is an epidemic of home foreclosures.
In today’s market, she said, home foreclosures can be seen as deals or hardships for potential buyers.
“All of the foreclosed homes – a lot of them have been vandalized to a point where you can’t qualify the home for a bank loan,” she said.
“People who are dealing with those kinds of houses have to be dealing with cash sales.”
She said for the first time in a long while, HUD has available 203K program money for rehab loans.
For those first-time buyers who do well with their mortgages, Haywood Gray would like to see rewards.
“I’m talking to lenders about a program that once you have qualified and secured a person for a first-time homebuyer home loan, they would have a follow-up program prepared to reward our new homeowners as they pay their bills on time and maintain the mortgage in the proper way,” she said.
She suggested a drop in the interest rate over a 12 to 18 month period.
She said, “That is something real nice to see someone put together something – where ‘you have done well, you did maintain, so here is something to accommodate you.’”
Haywood Gray graduated from Normandy High School, the University of Missouri-Columbia and Webster University for graduate school with an emphasis in marketing. About two years ago, she moved back to the St. Louis area.
If the name “Haywood” sounds familiar, it should – whether it’s from the St. Louis County NAACP, education or politics.
Her father, Eddie Haywood and mother, state Rep. Esther Haywood, are retired educators from District 189 in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mom was a former longtime board member for Normandy schools and is a four-term state House member who may be eyeing a state Senate seat. Haywood Gray’s sister, Angela Haywood Gaskin, is a Spanish teacher in the Ladue School District.
For more information on Haywood Realty Group, call 1-888-282-4768 or email visionsrealty@yahoo.com.
