PEABODY — For Realtor Cindy Moore, her values are at the forefront of everything she does.
Those values of honesty, integrity, commitment, and family have integrated themselves into her work life and proven paramount to how she conducts business and interacts with the community she loves so dearly.
Moore began her career in real estate approximately 14 years ago, when she started at Coldwell Banker’s Beverly office. From there, she moved to Barry Realty Group, a smaller brokerage out of Peabody. She mentioned how her background as an insurance agent led her naturally to consider real estate.
“I’ve been in insurance sales for a long, long time… If you sell an insurance policy, you don’t get the same thing as if you sell a house, right? People hate insurance. It’s like a necessary evil,” Moore said. “Whereas a home purchase is so exciting — not that every home seller is happy because some of them have to sell for reasons that don’t make them happy. But I really just enjoyed the whole sales process, and… when I was trying to decide what else I want to do besides insurance in my life, I was just drawn toward real estate and went and got the licensing. I wish I had done it 10 years earlier, but everything happens when it’s supposed to happen.”
Her time at Barry Realty Group gave her the nudge she needed to pursue her own company, Moore Real Estate, which opened in November 2023. She chose the name as a nod to her dad’s car dealership, Moore GMC, which opened in 1969 and closed a few years ago.
Having grown up on Peabody Road, the now Danvers resident reflected on her connection to Peabody. Moore recently stepped down as president of the Peabody Rotary Club, which she is still an active member of, and she has been on the Peabody Area Chamber of Commerce executive board for the last three years. She is known as “Miss Peabody” and explained why.
“We have a coffee talk once a month from the Peabody Area Chamber of Commerce, and… I referred to myself as ‘Miss Peabody’ because I know Peabody so well. And it’s not like I don’t want to do real estate in Peabody, but I love it because it’s where I grew up. And I just know the city very well. That’s kind of how ‘Miss Peabody’ was born,” Moore said.
While Moore does both residential and commercial work, most of her experience is in residential because that’s where her heart leans.
“I really love working with first-time homebuyers,” Moore said. “They’re really fun. I worked with one this winter, and it was just such a great experience. And I also love to work with people that are going into assisted living or something like that. I just was at an assisted living today, helping my friend whose mother just moved into it, and now we’re going to have to sell her house on Peabody Road, in Peabody where I grew up.”
Moore emphasized just how much she values integrity — especially regarding her real estate work. Moore said she takes people’s ethics into account when they apply to join her company.
“I’ve had a pretty few people that have wanted to join my brokerage, and I have to make sure they have the same values as me because I do not want anyone putting a bad word on my family name… My dad had a great reputation, and I don’t want to hurt that. I want to continue to keep that reputation with my family,” she said.
Her real estate company will be bringing on a new hire, Irma Chez, who is bilingual and has worked in property management for 25 years, by the end of April.
“She’s kind of big in Lynn and knows the area really well, so I think she’s going to be a great addition both being bilingual and having the ethics that I have,” Moore said.
She mentioned how she had taken her dad to get his hair cut recently, and the woman who was cutting his hair was complaining about her recent experience buying a home.
“She said, ‘I spent every dime I had to get into this house.’ But the seller was only offering 2% (commission), and they’re under contract for 2.5%. And so the buyer agent made the buyer have an IOU for $7,000,” Moore said. “The first thing I said to her was, ‘Will you ever use that agent again?’ And she said, ‘No, nor would I refer them.’ I was talking to another agent about it today, and they’re like, ‘Yeah well she signed a contract, and they have to pay it.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but I would rather get 2% and keep the client and make them happy. Do you know how many people they would tell?’”
Moore continued, “I just think that when you do the right thing by the client, even if it isn’t the right thing for me personally, it always comes back somewhere, somehow. I would have never done that to somebody who had no money. If they had plenty of money, maybe that’d be a different story, but first-time homebuyers have such a hard time getting into properties. To have them pay another $7,000 that they don’t have — I think she said she put it on a credit card — I would never want somebody to do that. I just think that if you do the right thing, and you treat people the way you would want to be treated, then that’s what makes you have a good company: your values.”
Moore added, “I always say to my parents: ‘Thank you for bringing me up with the ethics that you did because not everyone in this world has them.’”
