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| Aroostook Republican photo/Theron Larkins Fred Dobbs stands in front of Dobbs Realty, on Bennett Drive, where his business has now been located for 10 years. |
By Theron Larkins
Staff Writer
CARIBOU – Dobbs Realty in Caribou has reached a 10-year milestone, as Fred Dobbs and his employees have now been helping people to buy, sell and rent houses all over Aroostook County for over a decade.
Dobbs, who is originally from Kentucky, has been living in Caribou for 27 years and feels more at home than ever. He also has a story to tell when it comes to how he found himself settling in Caribou and how he ultimately settled into buying and selling.
“When I got started I was doing auctions. People would always want to know about selling houses, so I started checking into it, then not long after that I got my license. I worked underneath someone else at first, then after a while I figured I might as well work for myself,” said Dobbs. “It wasn’t my original plan, but when someone gives you the opportunity to sell 15 houses for them, right off the bat, you kind of feel like someone’s looking out for you.”
There was another reason Dobbs found himself staying in Caribou after his original visit, which he tells with a smile.
“After I moved up here I met a ‘county girl’ and there’s been no looking back ever since.”
Dobbs served in the military before moving to Maine, which meant he bounced around quite a few different assignments. Dobbs claims that even having deep roots in Kentucky, especially when it comes to his Wildcats college basketball team, he still felt Caribou was just as much his home as anywhere else he’s resided.
“I’ve moved all over the place, from Tampa Bay to Maine, but we’re settled here now and we like it here,” said Dobbs. “Of course, everyone has to do something to make a living, but we really wanted to do something that would invest in Caribou, since that’s where we live and we want to help build the area back up.”
Dobbs may have broken into the real estate business with a modest number of houses and properties, but in the last decade Dobbs Realty has excelled at expanding their business in both areas.
“When we started off, if we had 25 or 30 listings I thought we were doing pretty good. Today, we keep many more than that,” said Dobbs. “We get a lot of repeat business, a lot of word-of-mouth referrals and we have a lot of satisfied clients, who help to grow our business.”
Despite Dobbs’ admittance that being a real estate agent was not his first career choice there is no doubt as to why he chooses to go to work every day and it’s not simply due to his success.
“This is a business that you really and truly have to enjoy because you’re basically working seven days a week,” said Dobbs. “When you’re off and someone wants to see a house on a weekend or evening, guess where I’ve got to be?”
Dobbs Realty isn’t just helping to put people into homes in the Caribou area, but pointed out they are working all over Aroostook County to match people with the best possible home, based on their own personal needs.
“It’s basically going out and selling for other people, or helping people find the home that they’re looking for. That’s the real satisfying part of it, just helping people find the right house,” said Dobbs. “Take young people, for instance, they’re starting off looking for a first-time home and it’s nice to put them in a home that’s going to be the right fit for them and isn’t going to get them stuck in a money pit.”
When asked about the challenges facing a business person within our struggling economy, Dobbs responded with optimism, as he looks ahead to the future.
“Again, it’s not the best of times, as far as what the market used to be 10 years ago, but I believe it’s getting better, slowly. In the last year things have gotten better,” said Dobbs. “Hopefully, that will continue and we continue to bring more jobs into the area. Right now, there are hundreds of listings out there, but not enough people around to buy them.”
Dobbs reiterated that the real estate market was slowly starting to climb back up in the last year to a year and half, and he credited a lot of that to the fact that many people are looking to upgrade their housing situation. He mentioned that a growing number of homeowners are looking to move from smaller-sized homes into a larger-style house. This theory works the same for someone renting an apartment, who then decides to move into a small starter-home. It’s this type of homeowner evolution, he said, that will help to get the real estate market back to its former height.
When asked where he hopes to be in 10 more years, Dobbs confidently announced that he would not be going anywhere.
“I will still be right here,” said Dobbs. “I think we’ve pretty well established ourselves with the repeat clientele that comes from a good reputation, so I foresee us being around for a while.”
