It's almost as if Confucius had Beth Klipfel of Hunt Real Estate in mind when he advised contemporaries to “choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” And while the laws of physics, time and space make that an impossibility, there's no denying her love of what she does and the professionalism with which she does it. 

“I absolutely love what I do,” she says. “I wake up every day excited for the next challenge.”

Her professional designations include being an Associate Broker, a Certified Relocation Agent, Certified New Homes Specialist, Certified Investment Properties Specialist, Certified Real Estate Brokerage Manager and a Graduate of the Realtor Institute. She also has a Master’s Degree in Real Estate Development from the University of Virginia. 

With more than 10,000 homes sold, Beth can trace the roots of her successful career to a young ballerina seeking career guidance at a community college.

Working as a ballerina and attending UVA, she was taking summer break at her parent's home in Alexandria, VA, just outside Washington. A search for something to do during those summer months led her to the career counseling office at the local community college, where testing indicated she’d be good in sales. 

When she asked what kind of sales, real estate was one of the suggestions. She tried it, loved it and got her license at age 20 and her broker's license two years later.

Joining Hunt in 2005, she’s a consistent top producer with annual sales between $10 and $20 million and attributes much of her success to the diverse hands-on training she received early in her career in northern Virginia.

She worked with major developers planning projects, handled complicated land acquisitions and residential and commercial sales. “That was a huge learning experience for me,” she says. “I formed my discipline as a professional early on for which I am very grateful.”

These days her primary focus is on new and existing home sales and some land and smaller investment property transactions.

"The biggest advantage of working with me is that I'm really high energy. I’m available to my clients 24/7,” she says. “And I take incredibly good care of my clients.” 

A big believer in continuing education, she says agents’ experience and knowledge are critical to clients’ satisfaction. “I know what to anticipate, I know how to get a deal through, I know how to stage and market,” she says, adding she “throws a lot of money at my listings” to get her clients the highest return in the shortest amount of time. 

Her affiliation with Hunt, she says, means she has “the highest quality of resources available.” Among those is Hunt’s “amazing relocation department,” a resource that allows her to offer clients moving to the Buffalo area exceptional “soup to nuts” service. That might include short-term housing, healthcare and “where to shop for everything.” Being a “relo” herself, she also has a more personal insight into such clients' needs.

“I think that follow up with clients is really important and want to make sure that I am a constant source of good referrals for them and to answer any questions they might have. I always want to be a great source of resources for all of my clients before and after the transactions have closed.”

“Ours is a referral-based business,” she says. “Your best clients are referring their families to you and they're trusting you with their largest investments,” adding that having clients like her and trust her so much that they refer friends and family is “awesome.” 

Personal communication with those clients is essential, she says, and while she has a team of assistants to help her with an average of six closings a month, her clients talk to her and not her assistants.

Hunt Real Estate was founded as Hunt Business Agency by Charles Stanley Hunt in 1911. Originally based out of the Palace Arcade in downtown Buffalo,  it specialized in commercial real estate – particularly the sale of movie theaters. 

Since then the firm has grown into the preeminent agency for all types of real estate transactions in the Buffalo and Niagara areas with 16 branches and 657 agents. It also has offices in Boston and Phoenix.

With her background in dance, you might think that outside the office you’d find Beth and her husband on the dance floor. But while she’s a dancer, he’s not. Both are golfers, however, and try to play a round together at least once a week.  In between, each plays in separate leagues. The couple is very athletic, she says, and supplements golf with bike riding and other activities. 

They also enjoy a nice social life and love to travel, she says. They met at a party in D.C., where he was studying accounting at American University.  “He was a Buffalo boy so that’s the way I ended up in Buffalo.”

And while her husband is her first love, real estate sales is a close second.

“I'm really good at what I do,” Beth says. “When you're running a business well and you're enjoying it, when you have a good reputation and you're really able to help and serve your community well, there's a lot of satisfaction.”