Linda McCormick, MBA

What’s My WHY?

With no money, divorced, 2 kids, a dog, and a leaky boat; my only asset was a home to sell in California. Twenty years ago, the beginning of a long journey into residential design and real estate sales began.

Always having a passion for art and design, and a few classes at Art Center College of Design under my belt, I decided to give my home a new face-lift and sell it. I then bought two homes in Northern California, one to live in and the other to remodel and sell. I was hooked on flipping homes!

As owner of my own company, IDI by Design, I sold residential investment properties in California. Here are some of the skills I either honed or acquired along the process of running these projects:

• Negotiation of the sale and financing of each new housing purchase I made
• Design, design, design of tired looking homes, creating new beauties
• Facilitation of subcontractor crews and inspections
• City and County permitting knowledge and
• Staging, listing, marketing, and selling a home on my own.

Okay, I realize that the last one, a FISBO (For Sale By Owner) might be an anathema to real estate agents. However, through this experience I realized that I wanted to become a licensed agent so that I could take my learned expertise to my clients.

After many different twists and turns of a quite different life than I had planned as a young woman, I began my real estate career. I have had the pleasure of representing clients with luxury properties as well as long-term vacation rentals on the amazing island of Maui.

Maui’s Aloha Brings Me Home

Strangely enough aloha can mean several things. It can mean hello or goodbye but also love. It was the Aloha that-means-love that brought me to Maui almost ten years ago along with my passions for design, teaching, and exploring new cultures.

To fill my quest for new cultures my senior year of college I attended the Department of Education at Oxford University in England. As a new graduate in Education from ASU (Arizona State University) I became a Flight Attendant for Pan American Airlines.

With Pan Am I worked on Route #1 which was the around the world flight at that time. Through this rare opportunity I flew over the peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, attended a bazaar in Tehran, Iran and bought breakfast from the Damnoen Saduak Floating Markets of Bangkok.

As an empty nester I decided it was time to really learn about a country, its people, and language by living there for an extended period. I moved to Spain hoping that my newly earned degrees in Psychology and Environmental Design from the University of California at Davis, and an MBA from Phoenix University could be put to good use.

Collecting lessons learned from my design and business experiences, I taught a series of classes in Business and Design Marketing at the Instituto Europeo di Design, Pompeu Fabra, and La Salle in Barcelona, Spain. Although I loved my 8 years there, “Aloha” brought me back to Maui.

The more I traveled the more I realized that we are all connected by a universal desire to live a happy healthy life! It really is an extremely small world. The Spanish even say: “El mundo es un pañuelo,” The world is a handkerchief.

So today my friend, I believe that you have found a spot on my handkerchief; how can I help you with your real estate needs?