Abbreviated biography
A Santa Fe resident since 1985, Dave Feldt brings to his real estate career many years of experience in the fields of general contracting, pastoral care, sales management, insurance and financial services. He’s been buying, remodeling, building and selling homes for over 30 years. It’s that experience, coupled with integrity and caring, that helped earn him Santa Fe Properties’ “Rookie of the Year” award for 2001, the company’s prestigious “Broker’s Choice” award for 2002, and “Top Producer” recognition in 2002, 2004 and 2005.
Dave has been married since 1973 to his wife Peggy, a Certified Public Accountant with her own successful practice. Sharing a deep commitment to community involvement, together they are active in numerous local charities and their church. He is a graduate of Ozark Christian College. A past director of the Santa Fe Community Foundation, Dave is currently a director of the Vietnam Project and a member of the Santa Fe Search and Rescue Group. Free time finds him playing golf, skiing, motorcycling, backpacking the Sangre de Cristos or the Grand Canyon, or enjoying a glass of red wine.
(Complete resumé available upon request.)
Article from Broker/Agent Magazine
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David Feldt’s real estate philosophy is simple but far-reaching. “It’s all about relationships,” is how he sums it up. A Realtor with Santa Fe Properties, he loves the creativity and challenges of the field, but most of all he loves the many personal connections he continues to build.
This approach has served him well. David received Santa Fe Properties’ “Rookie of the Year” award for 2001, and the following year received the “Top Producer” designation and the company’s prestigious “Broker’s Choice” award. David also received the Top Producer Award in 2004. These awards recognize him for his longstanding focus on trust, relationships, and service to others. Not only are these the values that guide his real estate career, but they are also evident in David’s strong commitment to volunteer work and community involvement.
The seeds of this life were planted long before he became a Realtor. When asked how he entered real estate, David laughs and says, “That’s a long story.” He grew up in small town in Western Kansas, the son of a contractor, and spent his youth helping out on his father’s construction sites and his uncles’ farms. After serving as class president his senior year of high school, he graduated and joined the Air Force in 1968. He served for four years, doing tours in the U.S., Germany, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Upon returning to States, he married his sweetheart, Peggy, in 1973. He entered the construction field, doing heavy commercial and high-rise work and traveling frequently throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Utah. It was good preparation for his later career, but the next step of his life was completely different.
David enrolled in Ozark Christian College in Missouri, where he not only earned a bachelor’s degree in theology, but also became an ordained minister. Upon his ordination, he accepted a position as pastor of First Christian Church in Madison, Wisconsin. “We had a really nice time in the ministry,” David says. Yet after four years the cold, grey Wisconsin winters got to him and Peggy and they needed a change.
“We missed the mountains too much, and one day we had to make a choice” he explains. He and Peggy decided they wanted to live in a small city in the Southwest with mountains nearby for skiing and backpacking. As a bonus, they thought “It would be nice if we could also have good Mexican food. We chose Santa Fe and the rest is history.”
Once they arrived in Santa Fe, David worked for Santa Fe Rentals, a construction equipment rental company, for a few years before starting work in the insurance industry. He eventually started his own company, and then joined the independent agency Northern New Mexico Insurance, where he worked until 1999.
In 2001, David got his license and began selling real estate. Why did he take this step? It was actually something he had been doing all along. Throughout his other careers, he had been involved with land development and buying and selling fixer-uppers on the side. Since childhood he had been involved with construction. “I can walk into any house and understand how it was constructed,” he explains. “I can see the problems, but also the potential in it.”
In addition, his insurance and sales work provide him with a strong financial background. Yet for David, building relationships is the most important part of real estate. In fact, it uses skills that he had been developing all the way back in his days as a minister. And it is this chance to work with people that makes real estate so rewarding for him.
“It’s one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done,” David says. He likes the challenge, since every transaction is slightly different and he always finds himself applying some part of his background knowledge and experience. It is also creative work. Finding property, buying and selling houses, remodeling, and building all give him a chance to solve problems in new ways. Most of all, he loves meeting and knowing people, talking and listening, and putting it all together in a project that will satisfy everyone.
“If you help people out and make a good deal that is fair to all sides, it’s amazing how well this business works out,” says David. “If you show care and concern for all parties (not just the ones you are representing), then if you just plug along you’ll make it work,” he continues.
David is trusting towards all parties, but he insists that that trust is justified. “Most of this stuff works, and works pretty well, as long as you make sure you have the right relationships,” he says.
In fact, for someone so committed to fairness, the biggest challenge in the real estate career is working with people who lack that trust. When one party has a preconceived idea that they will be taken advantage of, he finds it difficult to work together until he gains their confidence.
This is exactly the role he should be playing, David believes. He explains, “When I think about what it is that listing agents bring to the table, I think the answer is the ability to keep everything together as long as you are truly interested in completing the transaction.”
David’s marketing strategy is simple: he goes out and asks people for business. “If you kick bushes, the rabbits will come out,” he laughs. He knocks on doors and calls people up, constantly making one-on-one connections. As for referrals, he takes particular care to treat them well, “taking care of them to the utmost.”
Making connections is not onerous, but it is always necessary. “You have to look for business every single day,” David says. “If you don’t want to do that, you shouldn’t be in real estate.”
He enjoys doing it because he knows he really does offer something that can benefit the clients. “I like the relationships. We have lunch and sit down together and talk—that’s what works for me,” explains David. “That way, they know who I am.”
David works with a wide range of clients, from mobile homes that sell for $100,000 to mansions listing for $4.5 million. “The $100,000 client is worth just as much to me as the multi-million dollar client,” he insists. He advises agents not to be concerned with money. “The money comes, there’s enough out there to make a living with it,” he says. Yet it should never be the focus.
The true reward is being able to help people realize a dream, whether they are a young couple looking for a house to start a family in or retirees facing a new phase in their lives.
David recently spent a very happy weekend working with a couple who had wanted to live in Santa Fe for 20 years. They came down for the weekend “just to look around,” but by Monday they had made an offer on their dream house, which they went on to purchase. “It just all came together—it was really great,” he reminisces.
About 25 to 30 percent of David’s business is commercial, a process he finds more rational and academic than residential real estate. It, too, is rewarding, but in a different way. “The numbers have to work,” he says, and he enjoys the mental challenges. He adds that Santa Fe’s commercial market is unique because of how much depends on word of mouth. “You have to scramble, look for deals, put stuff together. It’s kind of fun,” he says, in his understated but sincere way.
David’s next goal is to tackle more development projects, since he likes the feeling of being in control of the product he is selling. Soon he hopes to begin building speculation homes for sale.
His final take on the business side of real estate is to relate a story about his first boss in the insurance industry: “He told me, it’s a simple business. You just work half days. After six months he sat me down and explained what he meant. If you work from six in the morning to six at night, you are putting in half the day, and that’s what it takes.” David chuckles, “And it’s exactly the same for real estate.”
Although his career takes up much of his time, it is only the beginning of David’s life. He has a strong commitment to Santa Fe and is involved with a number of charity organizations. David believes, “You have to give back to the community if you want there to be a community. You can’t just take out what you want from it. I think that’s important.”
Over the years, David and wife Peggy have been very active in their local church, United Church of Santa Fe. He served as moderator of the congregation and was on the committee that called the pastor who has been serving for the past 15 years. Now, David explains, “there are so many good people who do good things” that they do not have to be as active as they once were. “Right now, we’re just members!” he is pleased to report.
David is now applying his energy towards a new group, the Vietnam Project. He lights up when he describes it. The Project is a grassroots organization that raises money in the United States for small-scale development projects in Vietnam. The group operates by giving micro grants to the poor, disadvantaged, and disabled. As David says, “It’s a sweet deal.” Because a relatively modest sum of money will go so much farther there, they can literally transform lives.
The project recently arranged and paid for heart surgery for three children. Each surgery was only $3,000 in US money, but saved these children’s lives. For only $450, they can build a family a new home. The simple purchase of textbooks and exercise books for children who cannot afford them has kept hundreds of children in school. The project also helps young Vietnamese get vocational educations and grants of a few hundred dollars each allowed dozens of people start new businesses that range from soup carts to livestock. As David says, “It’s really, really neat to understand” what the Project has accomplished.
David was drawn to the Project largely because of his own personal experiences in Vietnam, and is in fact one of three veterans on the Board of Directions. It was through his connection with another veteran, founder Marv Freedman, that David learned about the project. “We share a common interest in making a grassroots change,” he says.
Twice each year, Marv and his Vietnamese-born wife, Kim Phoung Nguyen, return to Vietnam to distribute the funds, some of it to Kim’s own home village. David has never returned to Vietnam since his days in the Air Force, but he and Peggy hope to go next year.
David is particularly proud that all of the money goes straight to those in need. In 2004, they raised and distributed $18,000. Their administrative overhead? A mere $10, the state’s nonprofit filing fee, which was actually covered by the interest earned on the account. David and Peggy pay for the website; other board members cover other expenses. The Project is inspiring, and David pursues it with a genuine passion. He even includes the group’s URL in the signature line of all of his business emails.
Closer to home, David has also made his mark. For five years, David served as director of the Santa Fe Community Foundation, which manages a permanent endowment that distributes money to local charities and nonprofits. David was particularly involved with recruiting new members and running the annual Pinon Classic golf tournament.
David loves golf, hiking, yoga and the outdoors, so for the past five years he has been a member of the Santa Fe Search and Rescue. “It’s a great group and a chance to help people out,” he says. Currently, he serves as Secretary of the group. As an added benefit, “It keeps me in reasonable physical condition and gets me into the backcountry in the winter,” he adds.
On their own, David and Peggy take two to three backpacking trips around New Mexico each year. David also hikes the Grand Canyon once or twice a year. This year was a milestone: for the first time he did the Grand Canyon North Rim to South Rim hike in one day, covering it in 13 hours and 15 minutes.
David and Peggy have two adult daughters, Jennifer and Sarah. Jennifer is a physical therapist living in Scottsdale, Arizona and Sarah is a social worker in Albuquerque. Both are well educated and have earned graduate degrees in their professions. “We are really proud of the girls,” says David. “They work hard, and are doing good for the community and for themselves.” Looking at their parents, it is clear how Jennifer and Sarah got their work ethic and commitment to helping others.
As for wife Peggy, she has been a Certified Public Accountant “forever.” She owns her own practice in Santa Fe, and, like David, she has a strong commitment to her business and clients. David claims, “My business goal is to be like Peggy. She has all the work she wants so she can pick and choose which she wants to take.”
David laughs, “If I really had my way, I’d ride my motorcycle all the time, ski all the time, snowshoe all the time, backpack all the time and play golf all of the time.” But on a serious note he continues, “No, if I had all the money in the world, I think I’d still continue to work. I like meeting people and making deals happen. It’s funny. And Peggy feels the same way.”