There aren’t many regions in the northeast of the United States more associated with serene vacationing opportunities than the Poconos. And this mountainous paradise is where mother and son team Kim and Maxwell Stevens offer a range of real estate services as Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Pocono Real Estate.

The Stevens family has a long history within the real estate and adjacent industries, which prompted Kim to set up shop back in 1995. “My dad was doing residential construction, my mom was in the mortgage business, and I had family who were in the real estate business,” she explained. “We decided we wanted to open a real estate company in this commercial building that we had, so that's what we did.”

A young child back when the family business started, Maxwell has been exposed to the industry his whole life. “When I was a kid, my parents would take us on caravan [a series of consecutive open houses],” Maxwell recalled. “My brother and I would play ‘Customer’ with my mom. And then finally after, you know, the fifth or sixth house, we would say, ‘Mom, Dad, please not another house!’”

As Maxwell grew older, his interest in Mom’s occupation grew too—but not before flirting with other career possibilities. “Around 10 years ago I moved out to Montana to ski and have fun. I wanted to ski and open up restaurants,” Maxwell said. “But I moved back and got my license in 2018.”

And the timing couldn’t have been better. “Around the time we were affiliating with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Maxwell joined our team,” Kim explained. “He’s got a background in marketing and photography, so our relaunch and rebrand was pretty extraordinary due to his coming on board.”

“The stars just aligned,” Maxwell continued. “Mom said, ‘Hey, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices wants us to become a franchisee—you want this?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, let's do it.’ So we teamed up—and it's the best mother/son team in the world.

An Ideal Location for Northeast Getaways

The duo expresses a lot of gratitude for being able to operate their business in such a desirable part of the world. “This area is just dear to my heart,” Kim said. “The main attraction here in our little neck of the woods is Lake Wallenpaupack. And my grandmother camped in the valley before the lake was made in the early 1920s. So we have a generational history here. The people here are phenomenal and it's just a lifestyle that’s hard to beat. We've got lakes and mountains, spas and great restaurants, and it's just a great place to live. I love living here—let's put it that way.”

As a bedroom community to the likes of New York and major cities in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Connecticut, Maxwell says that the Poconos has the best of both worlds. “We're kind of in a little bubble here, right?” he said. “We're in the woods a little bit—there's still infrastructure here, but it's small little towns.

“But at the same time, I've had the opportunity to make a quick trip into the city for an evening of comedy, for example. You can experience that city culture really quickly, and then you can leave the city and be in your peaceful country house.”

Kim explained that, during the height of the pandemic, the area’s proximity to various bustling business centers had the opposite, positive effect. “With the pandemic, we found that a lot of people who didn't need to, weren't going to work [in the office] anymore,” she recalled. “People realized that you could come to the Poconos to live and look over a lake while doing your work.

“We had a big influx of people during the pandemic—those who were looking for a complete lifestyle change.”

“These people also said that the distance from the likes of New York and Philadelphia—which is about two to two and a half hours away—is the perfect distance for the area to feel like a getaway,” Maxwell added. “It's not too far away, where you have to spend a week or a few days [to justify the travel time] and it's not too close to where you don't feel like you got out. This area is a sweet spot for the surrounding metropolitan areas because people want to get out of the cities. I mean, the cities are great, but you need a break.”

Connecting With Clients and Community

At Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Pocono Real Estate, giving back to the community is one of their key objectives. To continuously meet this goal, the team set up an innovative program called Commissions for a Cause.

It’s a simple premise: the company donates 1% of its gross commissions to a charity of the clients’ choosing. Kim explained in more detail: “When we close a transaction, the client fills out a form and we ask them what charity they would like their donation made to, and we make it in their honor. Then we ask them ‘why?’—that's an important piece of information for us because we really value relationships over transactions, the ‘why’ really helps us to get to know people better—when they tell you what charity they are choosing, the thing that's close to their heart.

“Then we write the check and send a letter to the charity telling them about our program, telling them that it's in honor of these clients of ours. Then we send an email to our clients letting them know that that donation was made.”

But why go down this specific route? There are certainly simpler ways to donate to charity. “We wanted it to mean more,” Maxwell explained. “And we could do this by integrating the community—business is about community. It's not just what we believe in, where we're choosing to donate, it's what our clients believe in. That's the coolest part of it—and what makes it unique. I don't think many other companies are asking their clients, ‘what do you believe in?’”

While the choice of charity is left up to the clients, there are a few local organizations that always raise a smile on Kim and Maxwell’s faces when they are chosen as donation recipients. “Our local animal shelter is a big one,” Kim said. “Lots of people choose to donate there. We also have VIP—the Victims’ Intervention Program—for women and children who are in battered relationships; that's another favorite. What we're finding too is people donating to the local fire department. We don’t have a paid fire department—only volunteer fire departments.”

“Yeah, that was the cool thing about this recent client,” Maxwell added. “He was a firefighter [in the area] where he's from so, for his second home, he wanted to donate to the volunteer fire department, and eventually join as a volunteer too. That was a really cool one.”

Charities and clients alike have responded incredibly positively to the program. “The charities just love it,” Kim said. “And we get so much mail from them—'thank you, we love this program.’ And that just feels so great.

“As far as the clients go, they've never heard of such a thing—donating a percentage of your commission—and their responses can be very touching to be honest with you. I was at a closing for one of my agents recently and I brought the Commissions for a Cause form with me and told the clients about it. They were just thrilled—the gentleman was going through cancer treatment at the time, so they chose to make the donation to the Cancer Society.

“The couple on the other side of the transaction were very impressed with the program, as they had had a similar situation in their family with cancer. It's a beautiful thing to be able to do and people have felt really good about it.”

“We're Forever Agents, right?” Maxwell added. “We are part of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Forever Agent movement. That's what we do. We're really focused on relationships over transactions. Integrating our clients into this decision shows that it's not just a transaction to us and it's not just a transaction to them—we're here for the longevity of their real estate and lifestyle goals. I think it's kind of changing the narrative of real estate professionals. We're here for you forever. And we care about what you care about.”

Luxury in the Poconos: Where Rustic Meets High Society

The Poconos luxury market is unlike most others. That’s because high-end buyers often come to the area looking to get back to nature and away from fast city living, so there is less desire for deluxe mansions or ultra-modern amenities—although that’s not to say you can’t find such properties.

“We do have million-dollar properties and a couple of multi-million-dollar properties, but luxury is probably in the $800,000 to $1.2-1.5 million range,” Kim explained.

“Our market’s really unique,” Maxwell continued. “It's anywhere from a $25,000 double wide in a campground to a $6 million 10-acre lakefront. There's such a broad range. People looking for a lakefront property are going to be looking in the luxury category, but sometimes it can be a cabin on the lake.”

“I think of it kind of like a Yellowstone luxury,” Kim added. “Sometimes luxury is not all marble and glass and all of that. It's like rustic luxury—we've got the other kind too, but often it’s rustic luxury.”

Kim explained that, frequently, their higher-end clients aren’t necessarily looking for the most high-end properties in the area, because owning a property in the Poconos is often in addition to a home in Florida and one in New York, for example.

“They're looking in the $400,000-500,000 range,” Maxwell continued. “The luxury clients are often still looking at semi-average sale prices. When it comes to a multiple-property owner, they are not necessarily looking for a luxury house, despite being ‘luxury’ clientele.”

And you only have to turn to popular culture to see that this trend is universal. Kim explained, “I was just watching a movie the other night and I realized, when there’s that high-society character and they want to get away, it's always to a log cabin in the woods or on a lake. That's always what it is—and that’s often what we get to sell.”

The Poconos in particular are often considered the place to escape from it all for writers of shows and movies set in the northeast of the U.S. Both The Office and Brooklyn 99, for example, include storylines where characters head to the region for idyllic long weekends.

“I’m actually considering making a video of all the mentions of the Poconos in pop culture,” Maxwell said. “I’ve heard many one-liners in movies, that others might not pick up on if you’re not from here, saying things like ‘I’m going to the Poconos this weekend’—and the great thing is we get to live here.”

Weathering Market Shifts: Optimism and Opportunities in 2023

As alluded to earlier, this distinction of a being beautiful, tranquil place to retreat to very much worked to Kim and Maxwell’s advantage during the pandemic, but 2023 has provided a bit more of a steady pace of transactions.

“Our inventory is still very low right now—almost as low as the lowest in the pandemic,” Kim said.

“I think we're at 500 listings right now, and during the pandemic we were at 300 to 320—we’re used to around 1,100 to 1,500 homes in our inventory,” Maxwell added. “But we're optimists. And we think that this market provides opportunities for buyers, sellers, and investors. That's just how we look at things and, whatever is happening, whatever market shift is taking place, we try not to go with the headlines, and instead we focus on helping people. We treat each circumstance or each situation uniquely.”

While there might be a sense of pessimism among some real estate professionals in 2023, you won’t find any with Kim or Maxwell.

“We don't feel the impact of things as much here so yes, while the numbers are down, it's not drastic by any means,” Kim said. 

“And there's opportunity in doom and gloom too,” Maxwell added. “That's what we're here to do—help people through all of it.”

You can tell with the Stevens family that they’re not just expressing what they think people want to hear—they genuinely believe in what they are saying.

“This is really important to us,” Kim concluded. “I feel really proud of what we've created here, including incorporating Commissions for a Cause into the way we do things. It is just the way we are—we always say the best business decisions are made with the heart and this is just an example of the way we roll.”

For more information on Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Pocono Real Estate, click here.