Passing the baton

Hayley Hershberger takes the helm at Kalona Realty

By Molly Roberts
Posted 1/19/22

Tina Hershberger first bought Kalona Realty from Erma Ropp in 1992, and now has sold the business to her daughter-in-law, Hayley Hershberger, who has worked there since 2014.

“It was …

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Passing the baton

Hayley Hershberger takes the helm at Kalona Realty

Posted

Tina Hershberger first bought Kalona Realty from Erma Ropp in 1992, and now has sold the business to her daughter-in-law, Hayley Hershberger, who has worked there since 2014.

“It was important for me to make sure that the office stayed in the family,” Tina said. “I really appreciated that, when I bought the office, this was a business owned by a woman to originate with, then I bought it, and now Hayley is buying it. I just wanted it to continue being owned by a woman and a family member, that was really important to me.”

Tina started her career at Farmers Savings Bank, where she worked for 13 years before buying Kalona Realty from Ropp.

“I ended up in the loan department and was doing the loan processing. One day I sat in on a closing and I was with Erma Ropp who owned Kalona Realty in town at that time,” Tina said. “She asked me if I’d be interested in buying her business someday. I didn’t really think about it at first, but it kind of got the wheels turning and I thought that maybe it might be a good opportunity. So, it’s kind of like real estate found me.”

Tina was able to use her background in mortgage processing and appraisal work in her career as a real estate agent and licensed broker.

“What I liked about real estate was it felt like I was putting together a puzzle to find the right house for my clients,” Tina said. “I felt like any time I had a transaction where the buyers and sellers are both very happy, that’s a home run for me.”

Hayley graduated from the University of Iowa in 2014 with a degree in finance.

“When I was going to school, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do, then Tina talked to me and said, ‘You should consider real estate! I think you’d like it,’” Hayley said. “At first I wasn’t so sure, but I decided I’ll try it. I thought, ‘What would it hurt?’ and it turns out I love it.”

Hayley said she has learned valuable lessons from Tina, such as how to take care of your clients and give back to your community.

“Something that you learn at a small office that I wouldn’t learn if I went to a bigger company would be handling everything from start to finish,” Hayley said. “We don’t have secretaries here, we don’t have closing coordinators, so we’ve learned how to do everything from start to finish ourselves.”

Hayley said she plans to keep the business running mostly as it has run under Tina’s leadership.

“[Tina has] been my mentor. She’s been the one that taught me what I know… It’s a small company, so we learn from each other. When I first started, I helped Tina with her listings as an assistant just to learn, so I learned a lot from Tina and how she does things,” Hayley said. “Things have changed since I first started, but I think the way Tina has run things has worked and so I want to continue doing things the same way. We don’t plan to implement many changes.”