Calypso Realty

Calypso Realty, "a boutique full service real estate Company" was formed on March 1, 1996 with Sharon E. A. Hupprich as the principal broker. Sharon was a sales agent with Byrne-Brown Realty beginning in 1985 and the sales manager from 1987 until February 1996 when the owner left island and closed the business in the aftermath of hurricane Marilyn. During her tenure at Byrne-Brown Sharon managed several sales associates and became a National Association of Realtors® Million Dollar Club member. Her specialty was and still is the high-end market; both sales and listings. In 1981 Sharon left a Boston hospital administrator's position to move to St. Thomas when Xerox Corporation transferred her husband Fred. Sharon and Fred have been full time residents and homeowners on St. Thomas since 1981. Fred (everyone calls him "Coach") eventually left Xerox and in 1985 joined the faculty of the prestigious Antilles School http://www.antilles.vi where he is now the Director of the Department of Physical Education. Calypso Realty handles the full spectrum of real estate transactions from sales of residential homes, home sites, condos and businesses to commercial sales and leaseholds, and the leasing of properties long term and short-term vacation homes. Calypso currently has over 25 units in the long-term property & rental management division and 7 unique properties in the vacation property & rental management division. We enjoy an excellent reputation with our owners, tenants, guests, sub-contractors. We maintain properties for off-island owners in a cost-effective and competent manner with excellent attention to detail. We have handled everything from minor maintenance and repairs to large-scale construction and re-construction of properties. We replenish and re-supply inventory as needed and in concert with our owners and tenants. We do not accept properties in poor condition. We will work with and assist owners in bringing their property up to a very good standard to optimize the rental potential and to obtain a quality tenant in our competitive rental market. Completing the full spectrum of real estate, Sharon has listed and sold many businesses from boutiques to restaurants and bars and leasehold build-outs and improvements. From American Yacht Harbor and Secret Harbour in the east to high end downtown Charlotte Amalie and two restaurant leaseholds in Frenchtown, Sharon has participated in many successful leasehold transactions. The vacation rental business has grown from a few simple condos to seven varied properties from beach side condos to the luxurious 6 bedroom pool villa; Peace of Mind overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, Thatch Cay and down island. This part of the business has provided many potential purchasers with their "first look" at living on a tropical island. Our advertising tag line is ...living ...many people take it literally and purchase a primary residence or second home through Calypso Realty. Calypso Realty maintains aggressive advertising all year, recognizing that St. Thomas really doesn't have a "season" anymore. Tourists visit all year and many serious purchasers make the summer and fall their "hunting trip" while things are a bit more leisurely paced allowing more time to look around while taking advantage of the value season accommodation rates that are sometimes 30% less than winter rates. We advertise annually in Virgin Islands Playground (a 4-color ad), monthly in St. Thomas This Week (the "yellow book"), monthly in Houses magazine, annually in the Caribbean Vacation Planner (4-color), Innovative's Yellow Pages, and throughout the year in Islands, Conde' Nast Traveler, Bon Appetit', Caribbean Travel & Life, Travel & Leisure and other high-end and highly visible international publications. We are listed in all the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism publications since we supply important monthly demographic data via the occupancy reports. Tourism maintains a web site and aggressively markets the destination along with all of their partners; hotels and villa companies. Our most important advertising tool is our extensive web site www.CalypsoRealty.com/ Started in mid-1996; our web site was and is a "cutting edge" web presence for St. Thomas real estate. We have refined and adjusted many times since the beginning, but kept it simple since our visitors tell us how easy the site is to navigate. We also enjoy links with many publications such as the print media listed above and others. We have sophisticated technology to track the origin of our hits on our web site garnering over 250,000 hits to the main page since we began tracking a few years ago. We have the software (Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe PhotoShop and others) to edit the site, and produce high quality imagery with our own digital cameras and photography by other professionals allowing for a constantly evolving and updated web site. People have called regarding certain listings and made the trip to St. Thomas and made a purchase based upon the web site alone. So, it works! Our web site is on state of the art servers in Green Bay (yes, Wisconsin!). We are proud to say we have had maybe one hour of 'down time' in the past year. So, Calypso Realty is 'always on'! We are complemented almost daily on our logo and name. People are cheered by it and it immediately says "this is island-style real estate". The logo is recognizable everywhere so that people don't even have to see the name to know it's "Calypso". Our advertising signs on a property generate calls and visits to our web site. Sharon's membership in the following organizations brings credibility and professionalism to the business: St. Thomas Board of Realtors, Virgin Islands Territorial Association of Realtors, National Association of Realtors, St. Thomas-St. John Hotel & Tourism Association, Caribbean Hotel Association and the St. Thomas-St.