KINGWOOD — Jessica Lipscomb and Susan Miller have made real estate a family affair, but they work to improve the community as well as sell it.
Their firm, Houses & More Real Estate, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and it’s Lipscomb’s 10th year as a Realtor.
Real estate wasn’t Miller’s first career. She was retired when Mary Burge approached her.
“I wasn’t ready to retire, and I’d always been interested in real estate,” Miller said.
Burge started the company with Willis Robertson. When Burge purchased it 20 years ago, she changed the name to Houses & More.
In 2004, Miller got her license. In 2007, Burge stepped away from the company and told Miller she should buy it. With her family’s support, she did just that.
“And I have never looked back. It was the greatest decision,” Miller recalled. “Never dreamed I would get to work with my daughter.”
After graduating from Preston High, Lipscomb wanted the big city life. While at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, she had signed with a talent agent and done some commercials.
After graduating in communications and public relations, she moved to Los Angeles. For several years she lived in Santa Monica. Her parents visited to see her perform lead roles in plays.
But in daily conversations with her mom, Lipscomb began to consider returning home. Miller asked her to help in the office, and after two weeks, she was hooked.
“It’s a career that, if you are meant to do this, it just really grabs a hold of you,” Lipscomb said. “I thought I wanted that big city life, but once I had that, all I wanted was to come back here.”
It was a tough market at the time, Lipscomb said, which forced her to work harder. It was good training, she said.
She credits her mother with setting her up to succeed. Miller is patient, intelligent, with the eye of an artist, her daughter said. Miller also encouraged Lipscomb to get involved in real estate organizations.
“It is the perfect way to learn your industry,” Miller said.
Lipscomb has served as president of the Morgantown Board of Realtors and in other positions with the board, including as a state director. She is in her second term as secretary to the West Virginia Association of Realtors.
That enabled her to attend meetings with the governor and state auditor.
“They both were telling us the exact same thing: We need more young professional families to move to West Virginia to make the state work, fix our problems.”
And, the officials said, Realtors are on the front line of that fight.
This is why Lipscomb and her husband, Mike, got involved in community development.
“We could see that we need more young families to move here. That’s from a state level. But our laser focus is on Preston County,” Lipscomb said.
Mike serves on Kingwood Council, both are on the committee spearheading reopening and improving the Kingwood Pool, and Jessica is concluding a six-year term on the Preston Chamber of Commerce. She also chairs the “bad buildings” committee.
“Every home sale is special, but there is nothing better than selling to a first-time home buyer,” Lipscomb said. “And I really think that it takes a lot of behind the scenes work. It takes a lot of hard work from a lot of different people in the community to where we can see more and more of those first-time buyers come with their spending power here to Preston County. But, when they’re ready to come here, we’re going to be ready to help them.”
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