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 Bill Fanning spends career marketing waterfront, now joins forces with John Beutler.
For more than 30 years, real estate broker Bill Fanning has played the part of waterfront matchmaker. Give him an outline of any water-adjacent domicile desires, and the Inland Northwest native will be able to match those with a memorized map of the 75 lakes within 100 miles of the Lilac City.
Now that brokering ability is being bolstered. Recently, the three-person Tomlinson Black Waterfront team, which includes Fanning and fellow waterfront specialists Kurt Miller and Dick Bockemuehl, joined forces with Century 21 Beutler & Associates, creating a business blend that formed the Inland Northwest’s largest waterside-property brokerage, Century 21 Beutler-Waterfront. “We’re a one-stop shop,” Fanning says, adding that he and Century 21 broker John Beutler, a waterfront expert in his own right, are friends who have shared a good-natured rivalry for 30 years. The new venture was able to occur following the Tomlinson Black company’s separation into residential and commercial real estate divisions, which put the waterfront division in limbo, Fanning says. To get where he is today, with a considerable slice of the Inland Northwest’s overall waterfront sales, Fanning has followed a road that’s taken him across the Inland Northwest, around the varied lakes dotting the landscape and through other real estate disciplines. A Spokane native and Ferris High School graduate, Fanning has at least one thing in common with his waterfront-seeking clients: a love for the Northwest’s pristine lakes and easy-flowing rivers. He attributes that affinity to childhood excursions to North Idaho’s Hayden Lake. On the business side, his family has long been a staple in the local market. His mother, Margaret Fanning, was one of the top-selling agents in Spokane for 20 years while working for James S. Black & Co. Still, when it came time to focus on his future and, as Fanning recalls, “in the spirit of not wanting to follow in my mom’s footsteps,” the then-youngster decided to attend Washington State University. He graduated in 1979 with degrees in real estate and advertising. Even before graduation, though, there were signs he might be following more closely in his mother’s footsteps than anticipated. At 18, he had an offer to run a North Idaho real estate branch from family friend James S. Black, the late founder of James S. Black & Co., a Spokane institution that grew through the years and eventually became part of Tomlinson Black Group of Cos. “That was a lot of data at age 18,” Fanning says, while sitting in his new downtown office in the ground floor of the AmericanWest Bank building. “We decided it would be best to go to Coeur d’Alene to start my career.”
Once in the Lake City, one property feature attracted Fanning just like it had in his youth. “Within six months of being in the real estate business, I gravitated to waterfront. … I think my background as a kid was instrumental in my gravitating toward waterfront property,” he says, referring to the year he spent working in Coeur d’Alene before heading back to Spokane. “I’m selling fun. I’m selling a lifestyle. That’s really rewarding, and I feel fortunate to be able to help people’s long-standing dreams come true.” By building a business based on a few client courtesies he scribbled onto a napkin years ago, including placing personal calls, maintaining relationships beyond the point of sale and not deviating from water’s-edge realty, Fanning has become a major player in the specialty sector that spans five counties in two states with the help of his partners Miller and Bockemuehl. In addition, Fanning says a noteworthy tip in running a successful business is establishing ongoing friendships, some of which have lasted for decades. In one case, Fanning was written into a client’s will as a home’s listing agent. “I enjoy that part of the business,” he says. “It’s something that is lacking in our industry.” For those with Century 21 Beutler, the newly forged relationship provides even more opportunities to match a client’s dream dwelling with real property. “For Bill, this is second nature. He’s a lake person, and what better person would be qualified to sell you something like what we’re talking about?” says John Robideaux, a marketing consultant for Century 21. “When you deal with fulfilling people’s dreams, that’s a great business to be in. It really is.” Not only do Fanning and the duo of waterfront specialists bring on board an established reputation—they now allow the hundreds of other Century 21 realtors in the area to refer their clients in a free-flowing arrangement, according to John Beutler, owner and broker of the real estate company. Between the two of them, Fanning and Beutler were involved in about 50 percent of the region’s total waterfront sales last year. “I’ve always had a lot of respect for Bill,” Beutler says about their long-running business association. “It was really natural for us to get together. … Between Bill and myself, (we) know every nook and cranny out there in waterfront. It’s going to be fun.” For more information:
www.century21beutler.com/waterfront.aspx
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