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Mark Stroop: Beachfront Specialist Can Help You Make Yourself at Home
by Lynn Lamousin
Thirty-A, March 2008

When I interviewed Mark Stroop, he was watching a hawk fly over the lake situated behind his office.  He had wrapped up his work day and decided to step outside and enjoy the glowing sun as it set on the horizon.  Unfortunately, my surroundings weren’t as picturesque.  I had telephoned Mark from my landlocked residence, and the only glow came from my computer monitor.

Although I couldn’t be with him in person, Mark’s spirited descriptions of the beachfront areas he specialized in, and the homes he had listed for sale, painted vivid images in my mind.  Obviously his knack for descriptive dialogue is a huge plus when dealing long distance with the global clientele who are often looking to buy and sell real estate in the hot corridor of route 30A.

Mark took a roundabout path to a career in real estate, but his prior profession, and personal experiences buying and selling his own homes, formed the foundation for how he operates his real estate business today.

When Mark graduated from the University of Georgia in the 1980’s, he had two job offers: one with a real estate development company and the other with a privately owned software company.  Software was a burgeoning market and he selected that path, but real estate remained of interest to him throughout the years.

Mark worked at the same software firm for 20 years, but in 2004 he saw an opportunity to make a significant life change.  The company he worked for had been bought out the previous year, and although his executive-level position was secure, he saw the evolution in the company as a sign that the time was right to make a change in his profession.  Now he could pursue the career in real estate that he had bypassed out of college.

Selling their 100-acre farm in rural Tennessee, Mark and his family moved to the Emerald Coast.  Since 1992, he had owned a Gulf Coast vacation home, so relocating to the panhandle, where real estate is always in demand, seemed a natural choice to Mark.  However, his arrival in the area coincided with Hurricane Ivan, the strongest hurricane of the area’s 2004 hurricane season.
 
As Mark explains it, “The first year we lived here was a terrible hurricane season, and just a few weeks after we moved we had to run back to Tennessee to evacuate the storm.”  But the hurricane was an enlightening event for Mark because the after-storm issues he had to handle as president of his homeowners association opened his eyes about structure and property concerns of waterfront homes.

Soon after the hurricane, he started learning everything he could about building codes, elevation concerns, and the coastal construction control line.  Mark wanted to make sure he was aware of the intricacies surrounding beachfront real estate so he could properly advise clients looking to purchase or sell beachfront property.

Delving into his corporate background, Mark knew that success came from being proactive so he promptly established a database of national and international agents and various marketing avenues.  He taps into this personal system regularly to get exposure for his listings and to connect his properties with buyers. 

Although Mark is known as a specialist in individual beachfront property and beachfront communities, he doesn’t consider himself only a buyers agent or only a listing agent.  For Mark, it was natural to take on both tasks.  As he explains, “ A listing agent understands the market and helps the client properly price and showcase the product.  By learning how to list properties, you become a good buyers agent because you know when something is a good buy.”

At the time we spoke, Mark’s priciest listing was an estate priced at over $16 million.  In addition to the pricetag, another reason to take a second look at the home is its unique location.  The 8,000+ square foot house is situated between two amazing vistas, with 688 feet of land on a rare coastal dune lake and 487 feet on the Gulf.  

However, Mark doesn’t only deal with ritzy listings, to him the old adage “location, location, location” is what comes first, and for Mark the preferred location is beachfront property.  “If you think about it, Hwy 30-A in itself is a ‘beachfront community’ where there is easy access from almost anywhere on the stretch,” Mark muses.  “Akin to a mountain top, beachfront is the beginning and the end to both sides.  Its place has a timeless value that calls all ages.”

Mark Stroop hosts the radio show “Livin’ on 30A” every Wednesday from noon to 2pm on FM 107.1.  To view his current real estate listings, visit www.markstroop.com.

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