Bruce Waters, CCIM is currently managing director and senior broker for McLaughry Commercial, a leading commercial brokerage firm in Northern New England, specializing in sales, leases and investor consulting, located in the Dartmouth/Lake Sunapee Region.
Born in Winchester, Mass., he graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1972 with a major in Political Science and a minor in Business, and now lives in Hanover, N.H. with his wife Marion.
When interviewed, Waters suggests that his love of real estate has come from a valued mentor...his mother, a long time licensed New Hampshire Real Estate Broker.
When growing up in the seacoast of New Hampshire, his mother was a senior executive with the Dunfey Family Group of Realtors. He said, "My mother taught me the value of "customer relationships"...even before it was a buzz word, I would often see her sitting at our kitchen table, writing thank you letters to each customer and client, with constant follow-up." That memory and vision has enabled him to carry through that philosophy to this day in his own commercial real estate activities.
After college, Waters and Marion purchased their first business on the coast of Maine, located in Port Clyde. The business, The Port Clyde General Store and Marina, along with a small restaurant, the Dip Net, continues to operate to this day. Their love of the Maine coast continues, where they maintain a summer residence and is often referred to as the "Waters Flower Farm," after Waters's passion for growing perennial flowers.
After selling the store and restaurant in 1978, Waters started purchasing older historic buildings, with other partners, in Maine and New Hampshire and converted them into elderly housing and other commercial uses.
From his experience, Waters and his partners located opportunities in Florida. Before re-establishing himself back in the New England area, Waters, along with several partners, purchased North Captive Island on the west coast of Florida, and created an exclusive PURD known as The Safety Harbor Club, which included single-family homes, townhouses, commercial uses, private wharfs and even an airstrip. Waters said, "That project required 156 permits and taught me more about development then I probably would have learned in 10 years of being in New England. It was an exciting project and lead to several other ventures in the south."
But in 1985, the lure of New England was too great and Waters, along with his young family moved back to New England, where Waters developed condominiums in the Hanover, N.H. area and understanding the quality of life opportunity that the Upper Valley offered, decided to stay and establish his commercial real estate business.
He was an original founder of the now, highly successful, New Hampshire Commercial Industrial Board of Realtors and has held board positions with NHCIBOR and NHCPE. He also sits on many non-profit and private boards and was formerly an 8 year member of the Hanover New Hampshire Planning Board.
Bruce enjoys sharing his commercial real estate knowledge with many clients, customers and the general public and has authored many articles and papers for several trade organizations, including the New England Real Estate Journal.
Besides real estate, Bruce enjoys the love of his family, growing flowers, waterfowling along the entire New England coast and winter backpacking, most of which is done with his son Morgan, who is an accomplished outdoorsman, along with brother-in-laws. He is an avid tennis player, but a marginal golfer, by his own admission.
One of his greatest professional accomplishments was receiving his CCIM designation in New Orleans, many years ago. He said, "The CCIM designation has allowed me the skills to offer the highest level of service to my customer and client base and has allowed me to meet other highly motivated and professional commercial real estate brokers throughout the country. " It is a small fraternity, but a tremendous benefit to his business and to him personally.
Last summer, he did take a little extra time off, which is highly unusual for this high energy guy, to plan, along with his wife Marion, the wedding of their daughter Britta and new son-in-law Russell Pemberton, on their Maine property. He placed a little extra pressure on himself, by growing most of the flowers for the ceremony, bride's bouquet and the reception, specializing in Dahlias for the event.
He is very optimistic about the long term strengths of the New England commercial real estate market based on the highly skilled work force New England offers, along with the entrepreneur spirit of many.