New Barbara Ackerman Group closes $55 million in 2013

Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate sales agent Barbara Ackerman formed the Barbara Ackerman Group late last year with her husband, Gary, and fellow Longboat Key Coldwell agent Louis Wery.

The group closed more than $55 million in 2013, making it the top-ranked team on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for Sarasota and Manatee counties last year.

Ackerman decided to form the group because of recent trends she has seen.

“I’m starting to see more and more of an international crowd coming into my business, and what I wanted to do was be able to communicate with them because selling is about communication,” she said.

Wery is fluent in five languages — English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish — which Ackerman believes gives the group a competitive advantage. She would like to add to her team — particularly if she finds a member who speaks Chinese.

Both Ackermans have extensive resumes in Sarasota area real estate.

Barbara Ackerman began her career in Sarasota real estate more than 25 years ago, when she opened Royal Palm Real Estate on St. Armands Circle. She sold her business in the mid-1990s to Waterside but stayed with the business, which Coldwell Banker acquired in 1998. She was the top-ranked sales agent in the two-county area in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2009.

Gary Ackerman has developed local properties including Pelican Harbour & Beach Club on Longboat Key and White Sands Village on Siesta Key.

“My business has grown to the extent that I want each listing and each buyer to be handled by someone who, if it can’t be me, it’s someone who is just as good,” Barbara Ackerman said.

“Barbara is truly an intriguing professional real estate person. I have had the pleasure of watching her work over the past seven years, and I am always amazed at how focused she is on the things that are important to her,” said Bob Stanley, branch manager of Coldwell’s Longboat Key office, in a news release. “She balances her commitment to her family, her community and her business clients better than most I have seen. It amazes me how each of these three compartments of her world all feel that there is absolutely nothing else going on in her day except them.”

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected]