Ed West Connects People and Property

by John Shivers

For long-time Rabun County Realtor Ed West, his love affair with land began as a small child growing up in Sautee-Nacoochee in White County. His father, O.B. West, Jr. was a farmer, and Ed’s upbringing was typical of a farm child’s life. His mother Merle was a Copeland before she married O.B. with ancestral roots in the Darnell family. These families were deeply planted in Betty’s Creek in northern Rabun County. Ed says it always felt like home, because of the kinfolks who lived there. “We were always visiting Betty’s Creek.”

Little did he dream that someday he would be one of the senior real estate professionals in the same county where his mother graduated from Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, and from the school’s junior college. She taught in a one-room school in the Germany Community, and after her marriage, was a teacher in Sautee. While teaching at the Sautee school Mrs. West taught all three of her sons.

Ed and his brothers were taught the value of a good education - older brother Benton graduating from Georgia Tech, younger brother John attending Emory University and Ed a graduate of the University of Georgia. The boys worked alongside their parents. Ed, however, with the exception of a couple of small detours, is the only one who never totally lost his connection with land. Benton went on to become an airline pilot and John was an orthodontist. Ed graduated from UGA in the 1966 and invested two years of his life in the U.S. Army. He served as a Infantry Army Officer in Southeast Asia. After mustering out, he went to work in sales for a business machine company in Albany, Georgia. That’s when his career path and his life-long love for the land converged. Even then, he couldn’t see the big picture. “I’ve always had an appreciation for the land,” he says. “Being raised on a farm probably had a lot to do with that.” During those years Ed had been systematically buying up small parcels of raw land. “It was dirt cheap back then, and you could usually get owner financing.” But buying land caused him to want to learn more about the many legal aspects of property acquisition. To scratch that itch, he enrolled in a real estate class. At that time, he was just seeking knowledge, which he thought would give him more expertise in buying property, and he would be able to feel more confident in his dealings. At the conclusion of that course, another career path began to emerge. The impetus was the insistence of his real estate instructor, that he should take the state board exam to become a licensed real estate agent. “He said even if I never used it professionally, the license would be a good thing to have.” It turned out to be one of several good pieces of advice Ed received down through the years, and one that he has never regretted heeding. His life was about to come full circle. The late Ed Poss, who pioneered licensed real estate sales in Rabun County, encouraged the newly-minted agent to come hang his license in Rabun County. “Being the good salesman he was,” Ed explains, “he convinced me to ‘just move on up here and help me sell real estate.’” Ed and his family, were sold. Ed Poss was working solo out of a one room rented office in Clayton. “When I started, if we needed privacy, one of us would go outside and write up a contract on the hood of a car.” He points out that contracts then were single page documents, compared to eight or nine or more pages today. And Ed wrote those contracts. In the 1970s Lake Burton cottages sold for under $10,000, and average homes fetched prices ranging from the mid to upper $20,000 range. Mountain property could be had for $200 to $300 an acre. “Even then,” Ed says, reflecting on his career, “one of the most rewarding aspects of being a realtor was meeting new and wonderful people, many of whom became long-lasting friends. Listening carefully to buyers, their concerns, and learning exactly what they were looking for,

left everyone with a rewarding experience.” In 1974, Ed West opened his own real estate company, Ed West Realty in Clayton. Today his company has offices in Clayton and in Sky Valley, Georgia. Other rewards have been his development of subdivisions, where young families could raise kids in good communities, close to schools. “Deerfield” on Seed Tick Road south of Clayton, with twoacre lots, underground utilities, wide paved roads, and affordable pricing is one of the projects he and Denise, who works in the business with him, have to their credit. The majority of those parcels were sold to local residents. They also developed spec homes in Sky Valley in the early 2000’s, where Denise’s background in home and interior design plugged into the Ed West Realty success story. Today Denise manages the firm’s Sky Valley office. “We’re fortunate to live in probably one of the best places in the U.S., and the major migration of people from larger cities to these northeast Georgia mountains is changing housing dynamics right before our eyes.” Ed credits this migration for a shortage in local housing inventory, where building isn’t keeping up with the demand.

The Wests have four children and ten grandchildren, most of whom live close enough to be convenient. They enjoy watching the grandchildren’s many activities, but confess that Covid-19 has curtailed much of that for the past year. They look forward to being with them more in the coming months, and Ed’s bucket list calls for him to get back on the golf course. That is, when he’s not matching other families with the home of their dreams in Rabun County.