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Hi, I'm Jim.
I'd rather you
understand it.
A solo REALTOR® with LPT Realty. I help people buy and sell homes, farms, cottages and businesses throughout Ottawa and the surrounding region, and I work as a coach and mentor to other agents.
Thirty years of sitting across from people at the moment an expensive decision was about to be made. That is what I bring to a purchase or a listing. The rest of this page is how I got here.
The Story
I grew up on a dairy farm in Portland, Ontario, about an hour from Ottawa. Cows don't care how your day is going. The work gets done because it has to, nobody claps for you, and you learn early that your word is the whole of your reputation in a small town.
That’s most of what you need to know about how I work. The rest is just the route: the farm, then nearly a decade in professional sports, then years advising small businesses across Eastern Ontario, and for the last decade, real estate.
Professional sports is an environment where results are public, the standard is set by somebody else’s performance, and nobody is interested in your explanation. It rewires how you think about preparation.
Advising small businesses put me at the table at the exact moment a decision was about to cost an owner real money, sorting out what they actually wanted from what they’d been told to want, and building a plan they could follow on a Tuesday rather than nod along to in a meeting. It turns out to be nearly the same job I do now, with a house in place of a business.
In real estate I built and led a team, then closed it down. Not because it failed, but because running it was pulling me away from the part of the job that matters to me: sitting across from a client and doing the work myself. The other half of that decision was coaching: I now spend part of my time mentoring other agents on the thing this industry trains worst, which is how to build a real relationship with a client instead of a transaction. It keeps me honest, and it makes me better on my own files.
I work across Ottawa and the surrounding region: the city, the suburbs, and the small towns and farm country on the edges where the market behaves completely differently and plenty of agents haven’t noticed. Homes, farms, cottages, businesses. Being from out there, and having advised businesses out there, isn’t a marketing line. It’s why I can price those properties properly.
All of that taught me the thing I lean on hardest, and it isn’t a marketing package. It’s working out what actually motivates someone and then speaking to them in a way that reaches them. That’s what moves a negotiation. Not volume, not charm. Understanding what the other side needs, and building something that gets you what you need without stepping on it.
Which is why I’m pragmatic about this business in a way some agents aren’t. The best transaction is the one where everybody walks away feeling like they got what they came for. Those are the deals that close cleanly, stay closed, and don’t come back to haunt anyone two years later.
So my approach is education-first. I’d rather you understand every step than rush a decision you’ll regret. You get the comparable sales, a written plan with dates on it, the risks spelled out, and a straight answer to every question, including the ones where the honest answer costs me the deal. You hire me to guide your decision. Not to sell myself.
The feedback I hear most often is that I made the whole thing less stressful, and I think that’s because my clients never had to wonder whose side I was on. I treat people the way I’d treat my family, which mostly means telling them the truth earlier than is comfortable. It’s built a network of repeat clients and referrals I’d take over any award.
One last thing, and it’s the part I’d want you to hold me to. The person you meet on the first call is the person you get at the offer table, on the hard phone call, and five years after closing when you need the name of a good roofer. I don’t have a sales version of myself. When I’m not working (and it still feels strange to call it work), I’m on a softball diamond or watching one of our local teams do something to my blood pressure. That’s the whole of me. There’s no other one.
“I come prepared with data and a plan. Glitz is optional. Results aren't.”
The rules I run on
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Solo on purpose.
Not solo on resources.
You deal with me: start to finish, one number, one email, no handoff to a junior showing assistant you've never met. I closed my team down specifically so that would always be true.
What sits behind me is one of Canada's fastest-growing brokerages, LPT Realty, plus my own professional photography and video, listing production, transaction administration, and a referral network across the country. Your listing gets the production quality of any mega real estate team and the accountability of one person whose name is on it.
LPT Realty: Brokerage for Life.™ A national brokerage platform with local Ottawa expertise on the ground.
Decide if I'm
the right fit
Twenty minutes on the phone tells us both. If I'm not the right agent for what you're trying to do, I'll tell you that and point you somewhere better.
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