Rebecca M El Couhen

About

My dad was one of the original “real estate flippers.” While HGTV has made this glamorous, I can assure you, it was borderline craziness when my father did it in the 1960’s and 1970’s. My father bought and sold houses as we made our way across the United States, from Colorado to California to Washington State to Florida. He showed me what to look for and where easy changes could be made to improve the flow and utility of a home. As an adult, I married very young and had two beautiful children, first a girl and then a boy. When my children started their formal schooling, I started to attend college and loved learning. My education created upward mobility for my career at SunTrust and I began to work with private banking customers. I helped these high net worth individuals with their lending and mortgage needs, as well as with any other banking assistance they required. I learned to look at the requested transaction in light of the customer’s overall situation and relationship, both financial and emotional. After I completed my degree, 10 years after that first class, and my children were heading to college, I moved to South Florida from the Orlando area and began working for a residential real estate attorney. I learned about many of the legal issues related to real estate transactions, as well as the title side of the business. In 2002, I moved to St. Petersburg to begin my new career in real estate. When I drove across the Howard Frankland Bridge for the first time, I had that beautiful moment of clarity when I got “that feeling” – the feeling that I was home! St. Petersburg has been my home for almost 20 years and I have functioned at the multi-million dollar producer level since shortly after I began my career. Although my business has grown, I am dedicated