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A ‘Fix’ For Homeowners

Jamie Galloway offers a solution to a common Hamptons problem. His business, Hamptons Fixer, is a concierge service that renovates, maintains and brokers residential properties in the $2.5 million and under market. Many homeowners are busy with their jobs in the city and want a house on Long Island to escape to, but don’t have time for the work that goes into it, Galloway said. He added that while there are plenty of services for luxury mansions, the area’s cottages and cabins need love too.

With no formal background in architecture and design, having instead gone to law school and starting his career in finance, Galloway, now 38, began buying and flipping flats in Glasgow, Scotland when he was 21.

He moved to the United States in 2002 and eventually found himself living in Chelsea, working as an executive coach and desiring a vacation home. To satisfy their craving, Galloway and his partner bought a house in Sag Harbor in 2016, their first in the Hamptons. The experience was difficult from the get-go, he said.

“I had a horrible time finding a good [real estate] broker who was very engaged and could give us good information. We had agents taking us to see houses that were nothing like what we described,” recalled Galloway, who eventually found his house through his own research.

But while many find it daunting to talk to and schedule times with brokers, contractors, landscapers, property managers, swimming pool maintenance, and the endless list of other professionals needed to run a house, Galloway thinks it’s fun.

The process of buying his home, and getting it renovated and running to his satisfaction, “was so satisfying that I wanted to do another one,” he said. His wish was granted when his friends saw his talents and sought his counsel for their projects, too.

Before long, Galloway was living in Sag Harbor full-time. He obtained his real estate license and in August 2017 joined the Corcoran Group sales team and officially launched his company, Hamptons Fixer.

Business is booming, as he’s already had eight clients, without spending a dollar on advertising. He’s simply a popular guy, among homeowners and contractors.

Galloway has close connections with local pros who charge him fair prices, arrive on-time for jobs and are altogether reliable — feats often unheard-of for homeowners.

For example, a recent client was quoted $15,000 to fix a boiler, but Galloway found someone to do the repair for $8,000, he said.

And when things go awry and unexpected problems come up, as they always do, Galloway absorbs the stress. “There’s not a project that I’ve done where something hasn’t gone wrong, but one of the things that I’m able to do is insulate the client,” he said. “They don’t have to know some of the drama behind what goes on. I’m a sponge for that,” he added. “There’s things that happen, that get messed up, that they never know about because I just fix it.”

Another client had their house for two years when Galloway met them, “and they were just exhausted,” he remembered. They told him, “‘we bought this house to enjoy the Hamptons and enjoy the weekends with family, and we just have this huge list of things that need to get done.’” Within a few months, Galloway renovated their entire house, giving it a new deck, bathrooms, floors and other updates. “So, they’re super happy,” he said.

In addition to his multi-tasking abilities and charm, Galloway’s company is also gaining traction for its prices.

His fee is roughly 20% of the total cost of a job, with a $5,000 to $10,000 deposit, though, “pricing is customized to the project and to the client,” he noted. The discounts he gets from professionals he has relationships with, and his attention to efficiency, saves his clients’ money in the end, he said. When hiring Hamptons Fixer, Galloway said his customers say to themselves: “‘We’re going to save time. He’s going to save us money, he gets discounts. We just show up and the house is ready to go.’”

 

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