HISTORY OF SOL NEEDLES REAL ESTATE

Sol Needles Real Estate was established in 1901 by Sol Needles. The office was located two doors down from where we are now on what was then Washington Street. For many years it was a one man operation until Sol’s daughter, Catherine became a member of the firm and eventually took over the business in 1922.

Catherine (Kate) ran the business with some week-end part time help for over 40 years until her son, Wister (Barney) Dougherty joined her in the late 1950's. He eventually took over the business in 1963. The business began to expand at this time with several salespeople joining the office.

In 1976 Bill Bezaire, a recent graduate of Georgia Tech, joined the company and eventually became one of the co-managers. Lynn Dougherty-Gleeson (Barney’s daughter) also joined the company part time in 1976 and became involved on a full time basis in 1983. Lynn eventually became co-manager with Bill after Barney’s decision to semi-retire. Bill and Lynn purchased the business in 2000.

During this time the business was continually expanding with more salespersons being added and in 1987 Sol Needles Real Estate made the decision to become affiliated with Coldwell Banker. This move greatly enhanced the business by giving us National exposure, National advertising, extensive training tools and courses and an extensive referral network.

From being the first and only office in Cape May in 1901, to being one of 15 offices in Cape May today, Coldwell Banker Sol Needles Real Estate continues to be the leader in real estate in Cape May. We continually maintain a healthy market share in the city of Cape May and many of our salespersons are perennial recipients of the million dollar and multi-million dollar sales award.

Coldwell Banker Sol Needles today benefits from being associated with one of the leading real estate companies in the country while still maintaining the personal feeling of a smaller, family run business now in its fourth generation. A tribute to that standard of excellence is the receipt of an award in 2003 and 2004 recognizing the office as the Number One office in per-salesperson sales in the Northeast Region (12 states) within the Coldwell Banker family.