EDITOR’S NOTE: Lisa Bair, owner of Lisa Bair Rentals, is one of nearly 100 local businesswomen who will be recognized Sept. 23 during Main Street Manning’s annual meeting. The Manning Times will be featuring a few of these women each week throughout September in The Manning Times, and posting stories daily on manninglive.com.
Elloree native Lisa Bair now lives in Camden, but it’s the Clarendon County area where she spends most of her time. The owner of Lisa Bair Rentals got her start in the real estate business as the receptionist for Pat Williams Realty in Santee.
“After being a stay-at-home mom with my two sons, Russ and Jamie, I decided it was time to rejoin the workforce,” she said of taking the receptionist job. “I learned so much about real estate and publishing under Mr. Pat. Dee Hayes was his property manager, and she became somewhat of a mentor for me.”
Bair was given the opportunity to prove herself, she says, when she was named property manager for The AgentOwned Realty in Manning. “It was a huge step in my career,” she said. “I built the rentals for them for several years until they decided to no longer do property management in Manning. I was allowed to buy them out and opened Lisa Bair Rentals in January 2005.”
Bair said she was “scared to death.”
“But almost 10 years later, we are still here,” she said. “I have had a lot of highs and lows over the years, but so much help and encouragement from my friends and family. Ultimately, though, I owe everything to God. I couldn’t do any of it without Him by my side the entire time.”
