Zaferatos to merge with Coldwell Banker Stuart and Watts

Zaferatos Real Estate, a Beckley-based and family-owned real estate firm, will be merging with Coldwell Banker Stuart and Watts Real Estate in Lewisburg, the owners of the local business announced Tuesday.

Jerry and Kathy Zaferatos, who have owned the independent Zaferatos Insurance on Prince Street since 2005, said that joining the Stuart and Watts team allows them to work with a trusted friend, Stuart and Watts Real Estate owner Tom Johnson. Johnson’s international business also offers tools, resources and opportunities for them to expand their market, Jerry Zaferatos said Thursday.

“We’re still going to be the same people we have been,” said Kathy. “We’re still going to offer the same conscientious, honest, trustworthy, loyal service.

“We’ll go above and beyond, because we’re going to have other people out there that’s going to be working with us and helping,” she added. “We always had the team and family concept — we work together.

“Our team has gotten bigger.”

She said the merger is also a nod to the digital age.

“Because Stuart and Watts is franchise, Tom’s connected to all the internet stuff, and Facebook and Twitter,” she explained. “I relied on the old-fashioned stuff.

“The more 21st century real estate is out there, and we’ll be able to utilize that.”

The couple has a long history in real estate in southern West Virginia. Both were educators in the local school system when they opened an ERA franchise in Beckley in 1992. 

They also knew many people. Jerry’s and Kathy’s families had owned and operated businesses in Beckley, and Jerry and Kathy were working in the local school system when they opened the franchise. According to Jerry, a former high school wrestling coach, talking to people was the single most effective tool in building their real estate business.

“I’ve went to confession and had a priest ask me about real estate before,” Jerry reported. 

Shortly after they’d opened the ERA business, Jerry recalled, one of his part-time agents, a barber, landed a major deal that led to a friendship with a well-known West Virginia family.

“I had a guy that cut hair, God rest his soul,” Jerry recalled. “He came in and he goes, ‘I’ve got a good friend that I cut his hair, and he wants to buy this property. This is his earnest money check.’”

Jerry said the late barber showed him a check for close to a million dollars.

“I said, ‘Xerox it, and we’ll see the deal happen. We’ll never see something like this again,’” recalled Jerry.

The client was current West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, he added.

“His wife and my wife were having their first child,” he said. “She subbed and helped us out at Hollywood Elementary School.

“We were just getting our door open at the time. That’s what I’ll always remember about loyalty, how they were great friends of ours and great friends of the barber that took care of us.”

When federal prisons were being built in the state, Jerry served as a broker for multiple relocation companies invested in the venture, and Kathy was a leader in the relocation services through ERA, according to Jerry.

They trained real estate agents at the Zaferatos Real Estate School, which was located in their Prince Street office.

Jerry and Kathy Zaferatos made news in 2009 when they bought and restored the legendary and then-defunct Calacino’s restaurant on Robert C. Byrd Drive, which had served Beckley under a different owner for years prior to its closure. The couple remodeled and re-opened the iconic pizzeria and built a thriving, loyal clientele around an offering of nostalgia, local sports memorabilia and a casual, comfortable atmosphere.

They also sold brick-oven pizzas.

By the time the Zaferatoses sold the restaurant in 2015, the new Calacino’s brand was well-established. Jerry, an accomplished harmonica player who has studied and performed with jazz greats in Nashville, had attracted nationally known jazz artists to play on the Calacino’s stage, and he had also booked talented local music acts, building Calacino’s reputation as a popular neighborhood bar.

They decided in November to join forces with another agency in an effort to continue serving their local clients and to avoid the stress of running the business side of an agency.

“I thought, ‘You know what, man? It’s time to let everybody else worry about the headaches and us just enjoy ourselves,’” reported Jerry, who told The Register-Herald in 2015 that his start on the harmonica was an aim to reduce stress levels. “Tom Johnson is an ex-state trooper and a good friend of mine and a client from real estate school.

“I just called him up... With us merging our services in with him and all the years of experience we have together, it was a win. 

“This will be fun,” Jerry said. “We don’t have any liabilities. We just get to go work now.”

Kathy said the merger will place another trusted business owner in the Beckley market.

“Tom Johnson’s successful, and he’s honest,” she said. “He’s an ex-state trooper, and he’s reputable. He’s very successful, and he runs it right.”

In addition to the Zaferatos reputation and connections in Raleigh County, the merger offers Stuart and Watts several advantages. Jerry has been a licensed appraiser since 1994 and has served as a commissioner on the West Virginia Real Estate Commission. Kathy currently serves on the commission. Jerry is a broker and Kathy is an associate broker — titles they’ll maintain once they’ve merged with Coldwell.

Johnson will head operations at his Lewisburg office. Stuart and Watts will also acquire the Zaferatos listings, which Kathy said will be transferred legally under state law to a Coldwell listing.

Johnson said he’s excited at a new opportunity in Beckley and looks forward to working with Jerry and Kathy and another agent, Judy Nystrom, who handles real estate out of McDowell County.

He also recently hired agent Stephanie Cook to work from the Stuart and Watts office in Lewisburg.

“We’re pleased to better serve southern West Virginia with Jerry and Kathy Zaferatos on the team now,” Johnson said Tuesday. “We’re just growing our business and looking forward to a very successful 2017 with the addition of the Zaferatoses and Stephanie Cook and Judy Nystrom.

“We’re looking forward to bigger and better business opportunities for all of us.”