February 2021 Newsletter - Meet Katie

Katie Prendergast: Firefly's Fearless Leader

Real Estate was not Katie’s first career – in fact, she got interested in real estate when she and her husband moved to Asheville in 2012 and started their own home buying journey. She started taking real estate classes so that she could be more informed about her own home purchase, and she realized that she could be successful and maybe even build her own business in real estate. Katie earned bachelors' degrees in psychology and dance from the University at Buffalo, and then went on to earn a Master's degree in professional counseling. She was pursuing a counseling career in Wake Forest, N.C., prior to making her move to the WNC mountains and transitioning into real estate sales. The switch in career was not a huge leap – after all, much of real estate is about relationships, and it helps that Katie truly cares about people and wants them to find happiness and achieve their goals.

After four years of hustling as an individual agent with Keller Williams, Katie decided to start her own team. Her business as an individual agent had grown to capacity, and she was ready to do more! Katie began in 2015 by hiring a business coach and her first assistant. Five years later, Firefly Realty has grown to four buyers agents and two full-time operations team members, with a clear path for short-term and long-term growth and success thanks to Katie’s vision, ambition, and dedication. Her passion for learning and growing personally is fulfilled through receiving business coaching and taking leadership classes, and she shares her knowledge and success strategies through teaching classes of her own throughout the Carolinas.

The balance that she maintains between running her business, continuing to be Firefly’s listing agent, and spending time with her husband and three young children is something to be admired. However, her food choices are often baffling to her team members – she can often be seen eating spaghetti for breakfast during the morning check-in virtual meeting, or taking bites from a whole head of lettuce dipped in ranch dressing.  (Send Katie a text to say hello, and she might just share the lettuce video with you ...)

Questionable eating habits aside, Katie strongly believes that the purpose of her business extends beyond buying and selling residential real estate – it is also about guiding individuals and families as they make some of life’s biggest decisions and transitions.