Spouses who sell houses

This story first appeared in Prestige - May 2024, a biannual special section distributed in The Gazette dedicated to Iowans 55+.

It was over cocktails that Jim Efting decided to take his wife Liz’s advice to become a realtor.

“I had told Jim a few years back that I thought he would be wonderful in real estate. He knows half of Cedar Rapids and is a smart and approachable person that people are drawn to,” says his wife, who is a broker associate.

The couple has been together 31 years and raised four children (now in their 20s), so at 56, Liz knows her husband’s strengths.

“We are both wired the exact same way, that we work very hard and put 110 percent into everything we do,” she adds.

Liz and Jim Efting have been together for 31 years and are known professionally as The Efting Team. Both former educators, they now work together in real estate to help others find their dream home (Submitted photo)

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After teaching U.S. history at Regis Middle School in Cedar Rapids for 38 years, Jim, 65, was licensed in 2023 after he retired from education.

“Other than my parents, there is no person I respect more than Jim, and he has earned this respect from decades of students and parents over the years,” Liz proudly reflects.

Liz has been licensed since 2010 and has held management roles in real estate and property management. In 2020, Liz went out on her own and joined Skogman Realty. This was March 1, 2020, and “the world shut down just two weeks later” due to the pandemic.

Like Jim, Liz has worked very hard to build close and lasting friendships over the years, and their servant’s heart approach to living means “we both absolutely love to help others in any way that we can,” she says.

“Liz is the hardest working person I know and is beyond responsive to our clients and is the most loyal person I've ever met. She connects with people very quickly, and people want to be in her orbit," Jim says.

Liz credits “their amazing and selfless” broker, Joy Seyfer, with much of what she implements today in her own business.

Their creative catchphrase is “Spouses who sell houses!”

"Jim reads four newspapers — actual newspapers, not online every day, and a couple of them are from larger markets. Quite honestly, he picked the idea up from a larger market. When we got into business together, our oldest daughter said, ‘Mom, what if you guys break up over this,’ and I said to her, ‘Honey, if we haven't broken up yet, we're not going to break up over this.’ So far, so good!” Liz says.

“We have four adult children, and our family is everything to us. This is truly the basis of what makes us tick. We are empty nesters and miss our kids every day, and most of our free time is spent going to see them or with activities that enable us to all get together. We are very tight.”

Liz is the face of The Efting Team; Jim is admittedly a little more behind the scenes, but he also has owned a commercial cleaning business since 2008 and works very long hours. He also still subs at Regis because he misses interaction with the students and his colleagues.

Back in the 1980s, Jim read an ad in the monthly Grant Wood AEA newspaper about starting up a mock trial team. He had no idea what mock trial was, but he looked further into it and decided to round up a team. He asked a star student to be on the team and told him to recruit his friends. None of them knew what it involved.

“They had witnesses objecting when they weren't even attorneys,” recalls Jim.

But to suggest he figured it out is an understatement. Today, Jim is the most winning and recognized coach in the history of middle school mock trial in the state of Iowa, with 19 state championships since 1985 and several second-place titles as well.

He was inducted into the Iowa Mock Trial Hall of Fame in 2017, and of all the things he’s won over his years of coaching, this is his most coveted trophy. When Jim won another state middle school mock trial this past year, the teams he coached against in the final rounds all had coaches that were his former students.

Advice for other couples working together?

“Always give more to the relationship and to the work project than you feel like giving on any given day. We are blessed to have a very unified and tight marriage to begin with, and this helps so much. We would both drop anything for the other person and for our clients, and this is evident to anyone who has ever worked with us,” they share.

Liz works seven days a week in real estate, “so we are always coming and going nonstop. We wouldn't want it any other way. We relax at night by watching Seinfeld reruns and then get up the next day and do it all over again!”

“Regarding real estate, people want to work with realtors that they know, like and trust. Jim and I are very blessed to have a large network in the community and have worked hard to foster relationships with people for decades and now they are coming to us for help,” Liz adds.

Most of their clients are people they know, and they feel extremely grateful.

“Jim and I like to laugh and joke around so much, but we've had many people who we know who have gotten into the middle of buying or selling a house with us and have been very surprised at how serious we are when it comes to real estate. We are both very passionate about making things right for our clients,” Liz says.

Liz is a former fifth-grade teacher. She and Jim both hold education degrees from the University of Northern Iowa. “So, we want very much for our clients to understand what is going on during deals and never take it for granted that they even understand a concept as easy, as say, 'earnest money.' Educating our clients is huge,” Liz says.

“My dad always said that ‘patience is the greatest of all virtues,’ and there have been many times where this has come into play, on both of our ends, during our time working together. We are partners for life and partners in real estate for the next couple decades or so,” Jim shares.