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Burgan Real Estate celebrates 40 years of "painting the town brown"
By Kalea Hall
BOARDMAN
John Burgan started a real-estate business a month before Youngstown changed forever.
It was September 1977 and suddenly thousands of steelworkers were out of jobs, and John had a brand-new company that he wasn’t sure would make it.
Forty years later and Burgan and his business partner Leon Turek reflect on those times.
They now have made it to the point where they’ve passed on the business to their children: Patrick Burgan, John’s son; and Sue Filipovich, Leon’s daughter.
From inside a comfortable conference room at the Boardman Burgan offices, 5335 Market St., where BoBo the calm office dog sits under their feet, they remember how they made it: Honesty, they said, has given them integrity and integrity has given them a solid reputation.
“Things will come to you if people see that you are good and honest,” Turek said. “I think that’s what it’s all about.”
In its 40 years in business, Burgan Real Estate has sold thousands of homes throughout the Mahoning Valley.
The company’s Youngstown roots started to grow when John Burgan relocated here in the 1970s from upstate New York for work with another realty company called Del Realty. By 1977, Burgan got the idea to go into business for himself. Turek, who was also working at Del, decided to go with him.
“We were both good salespeople,” Turek said. “I thought if both of us teamed up together, we could make money.”
The very first Burgan Real Estate office was at 4800 Market St. Atty. Leo Waldman owned the building and he didn’t require a lease and gave John and Turek a reasonable rate for rent.
“He wanted to see us succeed,” John Burgan said. “He said, ‘Pass it on ... I will give you a helping hand, pass it on someday.’”
Making money wasn’t easy. The first home they put up for sale was John’s. John bought a smaller home and used the equity from the home for his business.
“It was rough,” John said. “We had the attitude that if everything is going to be for sale, then there’s got to be someone who sells it.”
After the shuttering of the steel mills came the energy crisis and high interest rates. With the energy crisis, gas suppliers shut the gas off, so people had to use other options that were more expensive.
“We did not have any new construction,” John said. “Until 1987, there was no development.”
The 1990s were much better for Burgan with construction of new developments in the area such as Rosewood in Boardman, The Reserve in Boardman and The Cloisters in Canfield. Burgan represented the builder for those developments.
The 2000s brought an event known as the housing bubble when the industry crashed. There was foreclosure after foreclosure and short sales. A short sale happens when a piece of real estate generates proceeds that are less than the amount owed on the property.
After 2007, the business and the industry really started to slide.
Patrick Burgan joined the company as a licensed Realtor in 2008.
“It was actually pretty bad,” he said. “The foreclosures were so bad.”
What saved Burgan was the fact that it had no debt.
“We weren’t spending money we didn’t have,” John said.
The industry started to look brighter in 2012.
By 2016, Burgan saw its best year ever and opened another office in Canfield to handle demand. The first quarter of 2017 was 20 percent above last year’s.
At Burgan, it’s not just about selling homes and helping buyers, it’s about being a part of the community.
John has been a long-time volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and is a past president. John raised more than $100,000 for the construction of Jonathan and Rebecca Giancola Tot’s Town in Boardman Park. John also has served on several community boards.
“It’s amazing if you work hard for your community, your community will work hard for you,” John said. “That’s how you build relationships.”
Turek and John Burgan are back to being agents while Filipovich and Patrick run the company and continue to “paint the town brown” with Burgan signs. Today, there are 45 Burgan Realtors in the Mahoning Valley helping to turn houses into homes.
“I think it’s having the right people in place,” Filipovich said. “It’s [having] agents with integrity. Buyers and sellers want to work with someone they can trust.”