Jimmy Burgess is a native of Walton County, Florida, graduating from Walton Senior High School in DeFuniak Springs, Florida in 1988. He grew up in DeFuniak Springs and much of his summers growing up were spent in a beach house in Blue Mountain Beach. That was when a beach house was a two-bedroom block house. In those days, South Walton County was unknown, and Jimmy can remember many mornings spent fishing on the beach when not a single person could be seen, as far as you could see, until 11 or 12 o’clock.
After graduating from high school, Jimmy accepted a golf scholarship to attend Mobile College in Mobile, Alabama. After graduating with a degree in Business Management and Finance, he accepted a position as a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch where, at the time, he was one of, if not the youngest, stockbroker in the state of Florida. The training at Merrill Lynch gave Jimmy a unique perspective on investment, the time value of money and leverage. After two years at Merrill Lynch, Jimmy’s brother, Jason, was graduating from Florida State University, and the family owned ERA Great South Realty Company in Walton County was the perfect fit for the brothers to assist in the growth of the family business. The brothers assisted in the operation of ERA Great South Realty from 1995 until 2001. During that time, Jimmy was recognized for his top sales performance by being on the cover of Florida Realtor Magazine in the April 12, 1998 issue with the feature article discussing the success of “The New Breed of Realtor”. Along with Jason, he was asked to speak at the ERA National Convention in San Diego, California on a panel of top producers from around the country. Jimmy has also spoken at many regional conferences, sales rallies and top producer forums.
After personally assisting over 400 families to buy and sell Real Estate in Walton County, Jimmy accepted a position as a commercial lending officer with First National Bank and Trust in South Walton County. In 2003, his personal loan portfolio growth accounted for 62% of the 12 branches, $250 million asset bank. During his tenure at the bank, Jimmy learned the intricacies of financing Real Estate, underwriting, and what makes a loan go through smoothly. Even with the success at the bank, Jimmy’s passion was and will always be, Real Estate. So in February 2004, Jimmy put together, along with his partners, two development projects in the Blue Mountain Beach area of South Walton County. The Sanctuary by the Sea is an 82-unit condominium project located on approximately 22 gulf front acres on the west side of Redfish Lake. The average sales price for these units was approximately $2.5 million. The Sanctuary at Redfish is a 64-unit condominium development located on Big Redfish Lake. These units had an averages sales price of approximately $1 million and they were released and sold out in house in less than a week.
Although the developments have been extremely educational and obviously profitable, Jimmy loves and focuses on selling Real Estate. Since 2004, Jimmy, along with his team, have closed over $50 million in real estate transactions.
Jimmy lives by the Zig Ziglar philosophy that, “if you help enough other people get what they want, you will get what you want”. His focus, drive and motivation are to create clients for life. This can only be accomplished by assisting sellers in a transaction that sells their property at the highest possible price, with the least amount of issues in the least amount of time. To discuss Jimmy’s philosophy on Real Estate sales, he can be reached any time.
- NUMBER1EXPERTS™ 
