Today we’d like to introduce you to Kira Sikes.
Hi Kira, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Where do I begin? How about the beginning? I was born in Nuremberg, Germany in February of 1984. Yes, I was an Army Brat for a short 5 years. And no, I do not speak German. I always get asked that question. Then, in February, my mom and dad were outside enjoying the winter weather, when a snowball fight emerged between them. In the middle of the snowball fight, my mom went into labor. No wonder I love to goof off sometimes with my own children. Only a few short months after I was born, we moved away from Germany before I was even 4 months old.
After we left Germany, we lived in Maryland before moving to Jacksonville Florida. My parents were basically born and raised in Florida, so this was considered their home, which became my home. Growing up near the Maxville area of Jacksonville, on about 2 acres of land, I often found myself outdoors playing. We lived in an area surrounded by blackberry bushes, grapevines, dirt roads, and small farms.
Fun childhood memory for me was as a young child, I remember seeing the biggest pig I had ever seen next door every single day. He would roam around the property and walk along our fence line. Then one day, he was gone. I remember thinking to myself, ”he must have moved or something.” As I got older, I then understood that he probably didn’t move, but instead made many people happy at the breakfast table as bacon. I was a huge animal lover as a child. We had so many animals growing up, so many to the point, that as years went on, we developed a pet cemetery in our back yard, which I believe is frowned upon these days. I used to rescue animals and bring them home with me. My parents weren’t super fond of that hobby. But having animals out in the country is a totally different concept than it is in the city. Living in the country is honestly a different type of lifestyle altogether. I sometimes miss living that way. Less stress, less rushing, and more time to enjoy life. Because I grew up in this environment, in my opinion, I feel that living in the country was one of the main things that grounded me as a person.
I struggled socially a bit growing up until I grew into my extraverted shell. I was never a popular child in school. I was taught the concept of doing chores and earning an allowance. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, but they worked their butts off for everything we had. My dad went from the Army to working as a guard at the prison until he was able to become a police officer. He often worked night shifts and picked up a lot of overtime work to bring income into the home. My mom started as a bank teller, and her hours were also very demanding. Especially as she slowly climbed up the promotion ladder. I watched my parents work ALL the time, just to make ends meet, for a long time. But they never gave up, and they kept working their hardest to make sure they could provide for me and my brother. They always told us that they just wanted to give us the best they could. All the things that they never had when they were children. That being said, we were on very strict budgets for a long time, often eating mostly hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I didn’t mind that food honestly. I feel like these are the ONLY meals every child wants to eat these days. In fact, I don’t mind eating them today, because I am not too fond of cooking. But that is a different story. Anyway, so looking back and seeing how hard my parents worked every day to make us happy, and to provide for us gave me an understanding about the seasons of life. Sometimes you have downtimes, and sometimes you have up times. The point of these seasons is to remain faithful, keep moving forward, continue to work hard, and push through, and eventually, everything gets better. I believe this is the very groundwork instilled in me that has prevented me from becoming an entitled child or to expect anything for free in life. In fact, it is the MAIN thing I try to teach my children today. Our world has become overwhelmed with entitled children and even adults.
We must work hard for the things we want and need in this life. It taught me that anything worth having, or that you value in this life, usually comes with hard work and determination. Once you achieve it, you will appreciate it so much more than if it were given to you on a silver platter. For that, I am eternally grateful. I can’t imagine how much different I would be if my parents just gave us everything we wanted without teaching us about doing chores or working hard to earn something. It really did set the path for my life and all future relationships that would come soon after our move from the county to the city.
What was a pivotal moment in your life?
My pivotal moment in life would fast forward 7 years from the time we left the country to the city, to the year 2003/2004. In 2002, I graduated from high school, and I couldn’t be happier to start my adult life. I remember saying for the longest time, that all I wanted to do was start my own business and travel the world. I didn’t want to be tied down by any husband, or children. At least, not for a long time. I wanted to feel free and independent. I wanted to experience life and everything the world had to offer. My first plan was to move to California with my best friend, who happened to also be my cousin. We were going to move there and just figure life out when we got there. We were both ready for a change in scenery. Thinking about it now, just moving across the country without any sort of plan, is the opposite of how I am now. I laugh when I think about how courageous and naive, I was. But I was determined because I knew, all I had to do was work hard and it would all work out.
Our move across country plan wasn’t going to begin until the end of 2003. We wanted to spend a year saving our money and just having fun. So, I got a job where pantyhose, orange shorts, and white tank tops were the daily attire. Serving wings and beer, though you might think underrated, was probably the most fun job I ever had. At least for that season in my life. I was meeting all kinds of new people, making lots of new friends, and yes even a new boyfriend came into the picture. Without going into too many details or explaining my entire life story, (you would have to dedicate an entire book to that story), we began dating, and soon I was with child at the young age of 18.
I know what you’re thinking. 18 years old is an adult, and since you can legally go fight in a war at that age, what difference does it make having a child at that age? Well, in my case, the one who did not want to be tied down, the one who wanted to travel the world and experience life, it was a HUGE pivotal moment that ultimately changed the entire direction my life was going. And for the record, just because you are legally considered an adult at the age of 18, the mindset of an 18-year-old has MUCH growing up to do. Especially when your mindset must entirely shift from yourself, your goals, and dreams and turn it to this little, tiny human being and how you will provide for them. It was very hard to prepare for something that was not part of the plan.
But thankfully, my upbringing taught me that we move forward and push through. We just make things happen, no matter what is thrown our way, even if the things were a result of decisions that we made ourselves. So, in July of 2004, due to tripping over my cat, my first son was born 3 weeks early, and I became a young mother of this tiny little person that we called Gavin, and I loved him so very much. Was it hard? Absolutely. Being a young mom while trying to figure out who I was as a person in this newly found adult world, was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Mistakes were made, obstacles were overcome, but eventually, I found my place. I figured out how I can provide for my son, and how to give him the best life.
It took years of struggles, depending on my friends and family, it took different jobs, different homes, and different identity paths. But ultimately, it led me to my now-husband and the world of real estate. I just hope and pray that every path I went down and pushed through showed him and instilled in him the same things I learned from my parents as a child.
Before I got into real estate in 2014, there were several different things I was doing. For many years I provided cosmetology services such as hair cutting and coloring services. I worked in a salon as an independent stylist for many years. In 2010/2011, the salon I worked for decided to close the shop and I took that opportunity to go back to college to get my two-year degree and decided to continue providing my services for friends and family only while in college. I also took on two other part-time jobs. One was working at a restaurant and the other was handling the bookkeeping and necessary customer service tasks at my boyfriend’s business.
During my second year of college, I found out I was with child again, and things in my life went into overdrive. I got married in May of 2012 and I finally finished my two-year degree the same month my second son was born in October of 2012. After Noah was born, my husband and I developed a partnership with a mutual friend, and we ran a very successful roofing company for many years. When Noah was only 8 months old, we had the opportunity to relocate to beautiful Hawaii to develop two successful roofing branches there. One branch on Oahu, and one on Kauai.
While we loved living in Hawaii, there is just no place like home. Especially when you are so far away from all your friends and family. The grandparents didn’t really like being so far away from their grandbabies. That being said, we decided to head back to our hometown in Jacksonville, Florida to revamp our Jacksonville Roofing branch and to plant some roots. So, we bought a house online while living in Hawaii. Yes, we bought a house without physically walking in it or seeing it with our own eyes.
Nowadays, that is a common thing, but 7 years ago, that was NOT a thing people usually did. Upon moving back to Jacksonville, there were a lot of goals and aspirations I and my husband had. ONE being, we wanted to begin investing in real estate through buying homes to rehab and resale. It was something we always wanted to do, which is the main and only reason at the time I got my real estate license.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
When I passed my real estate state exam, I originally had ZERO intentions of providing services to the outside community. Again, our goal was to buy and flip, and even start a rental portfolio as a long-term retirement investment.
Well, our business partner we had in the roofing industry asked me to list one of his rental properties for him. I thought to myself, it would be a great opportunity to get my feet wet regarding how the whole process works. Couldn’t hurt to do a few deals for other people that I know, to truly understand what I am doing when we begin to buy and sell our own properties. What I would discover upon helping my friends and family is that I absolutely LOVED serving others and helping them earn money in their investments as well as seeing the joy of families when I found them their first or forever home. And the rest is history in the making really.
My current obstacles and challenges are trying to grow a company during a time when tons of changes are happening in the real estate world. Technology and the iBuyer are on the rise, and agents are feeling discouraged and not wanting to truly work and provide the best of the best for the people. Trying to recruit superb agents, though it has been possible, has been a very difficult challenge. However, I will not give up and will continue to search for people who have the same passion as I do. I am also in the process of opening our Property Management Division. I feel this is an added service that will allow me to help my clients in more ways than just purchasing homes. This has been a tedious task, but I will be so happy when it is officially up and running smoothly.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Sandbar Realty?
It is the most rewarding feeling to serve others regarding the biggest investment they will ever make in their life. Whether it is a first-time buyer and their family, someone who is looking to upgrade because their family has grown, a family who has empty nest syndrome, or an investor looking to build a portfolio because they have their retirement plan in mind. Every single life event usually contributes to the place they call home.
I, as their realtor and their friend get the pleasure of helping them make this HUGE life decision. They trust and depend on me in so many ways to assist them, and it is so important to make sure that each transaction is completed in the most effective and smoothest way. Because each of us have several life events that cause these types of life choices. For me, I want to be their lifelong realtor. Their multi-generational realtor for them and their entire family! And not because of the continuous paycheck, of course, we all must eat and feed our families, but because after working with a family, year after year, I genuinely know them and their family. I know their wants, their needs, what they like and what they dislike.
By developing this long-term relationship with them, I feel I can do my job for them in the absolute best and most pleasing way. Truthfully, these relationships developed, are some of the best relationships I have, and some of the best people I know. Without them, my job, or my love for serving others, wouldn’t be as fulfilling. I never want anyone to feel like just a number in my real estate transaction belt. I never want anyone to feel like I am NOT taking care of them, or that I don’t know what they want. I love to have fun with all my people, but I also take what I do very seriously and am always striving to make others’ lives better and easier for them. Ironically, the MAIN reason I got my real estate license, to buy and flip properties, has YET to happen. God had a different plan for me when I got my license, and I am so thankful He showed me what that is.
What makes my business different from others?
You know, this question isn’t always an easy one to answer. I feel that each person that I help has different things to say about the different services I provide. But the biggest compliment I seem to get or see across the board is the way that I handle each person individually. Each person is different, with different needs and wants. Though the end goal seems to be similar, how to get to that goal is totally different for each person. A lot of professionals in this business focus on the here and now. My approach is a little different in that aspect. I like to call it the “Outside the Sandbar Box” approach. I focus on the long-term or the bigger picture.
I try to instill in all my past, current, and even future clients (yes, I always assume they will allow me to serve them in the future), how important it is to have a developed path or goal map outlining their real estate needs. I can’t tell you how many clients I have helped because they simply couldn’t find any other real estate professional to set them on the right path. They were turned away simply because their credit wasn’t great, and the real estate professional couldn’t help them because they, the buyer, didn’t have the credit to buy RIGHT NOW. My thoughts to this are, this is exactly why we as real estate professionals have a bad name and why so many people think we make too much money for what we do. This career is probably one of the hardest, most demanding jobs I have ever had. But it is the most rewarding. And not because of money, but because of the people.
Though it may be true for SOME, there are professionals out there, who will only work with qualified buyers, or those who will simply put a for sale sign in the yard of a seller and that’s it. And the truth around those people is, they don’t treat this as a truly defined client-serving business. It’s all about figuring out what each person needs and wants, then finding a way to make that happen for them. Finding a way to get “Outside the Sandbar Box” to figure out the fastest, and best way to make their dreams and goals come to life. To get them off the “Sandbar” they are stranded on amidst the crashing waves and help them to their “new shore” they want to venture on.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I love that Jacksonville provides the opportunity to experience different aspects of a lifestyle. Do you want to enjoy the sand between your toes? We have some of the best beaches. Do you like to walk everywhere, and enjoy a city/urban feel? Check out Riverside which is full of mural-painted buildings.
Prefer living on acreage and riding horses? A short distance away you can feel like you’re a million miles away, but still so close to everything. Jacksonville provides something for everyone! Our community also features and promotes many fun group activities, festivals, and more. We are always trying to bring people together one way or another.
I also LOVE how supportive and encouraging the people are in our community. We love to support our local businesses! Without these people who really have a heart for our local businesses, the small brokerages, like me would not thrive. It is because of them that I have been able to grow a successful business I love and am able to feed my family.
There isn’t really anything that I dislike about Jacksonville. It provides everyone the opportunity to live where they want and enjoy all the amazing entertainment venues and options available.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.sandbarrealtyjax.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sandbarrealty/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandbarrealty
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SandbarRealty
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIn17iaufnK2_OdtvgGYg5g
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/SandbarRealtyJax/_created/
Image Credits
Taylor Cusack
