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Selling peaceful places
After 44 years in the business, Fredericksburg Realtor Sarah Wood specializes in unusual properties
Date published: 3/2/2007
By CATHY DYSON
The only thing Sarah Wood likes more than spending time in cemeteries is selling them.
The Long & Foster agent has sold two over the years and would be thrilled to get her hands on another.
"I'd love to have a 50-acre cemetery to work on," she said.
The Fredericksburg woman doesn't lean toward the macabre. She likes the allure of special properties, whether they're graveyards or grocery stores, churches or restaurants.
"I have to have a challenge," the 63-year-old said. "After all these years I'm past showing someone 10 or 12 homes. I did a lot of that in my younger days, and that's not my cup of tea anymore."
Wood recently celebrated her 44th year in real estate. She's sold property in every locality in the region.
"Sarah has cornered the market on churches and cemeteries," said Priscilla Sheeley, assistant manager of Long & Foster's Fredericksburg office.
Wood started as a secretary in the office of her father, Realtor John D. Wood Jr. That was before she graduated from James Monroe High School in 1962.
Her father encouraged her to learn different skills in college, but Wood wanted to be like him.
He and his wife, Pat, moved to Fredericksburg in 1955 to sell Normandy Village, one of the city's first subdivisions.
"We thought we had died and gone to heaven," Sarah Wood recalled. "There were 60-foot wide streets and the river nearby where we could go swimming. You'd go out on the No. 1 highway [U.S. 1], and there would hardly be any cars."
In those days, a three-bedroom home in Normandy went for $10,500.
She's sold some of those same homes in Normandy four times, and the current asking price is $350,000.
"I can't get used to these prices," she said.
After her father died in 1964, her mother wasn't interested in real estate anymore. Sarah Wood went to work for Pates Realty, then other agencies as decades passed. She joined Long & Foster in 1995.
Her fascination with cemeteries came about in 1983, when Sunset Memorial Gardens in Spotsylvania County was for sale.
Wood had a "personal interest" because her father was buried there. (Her mother also was buried there years later, and Sarah Wood has a plot reserved for herself.)
She told the owner she'd look into the sale and see what she could do.
A single woman: The 63-year-old dated for a while, but real-estate showings kept her busy most weekends. She still lives in the same home in Normandy Village her parents bought in 1955.
A traveler: She's been to all 50 states and several foreign countries. Likes to tell people she rode a camel in Egypt.
A collector: Likes antique glassware and china.
An award winner: Wood won the National Association of Realtors Make America Better Award for bringing Bradford pear trees to downtown Fredericksburg. "So you can blame Sarah for all those nasty trees," said Priscilla Sheeley, assistant manager at Long & Foster's Fredericksburg office.
A dumb question: So many people asked Wood what she planned to do with the bodies after she sold a cemetery, she once answered: "Recycle and start over." Truth is, the perpetual upkeep of those buried is part of a cemetery sale.
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Date published: 3/2/2007
Most recent reader comments:
Question
(posted by
oldschool32
, Sep. 25, 2007 2:41 pm)
Are there no interesting topics out there anymore? Sarah Wood's history in the real estate business is a long one but not as distinguished as you wrote about but the important information of note is the overall story was boring/morbid. The quality of writing is there because you are a good writer having read previous articles written by you. I feel bad you had to write about this topic/person.
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