Nationally Renowned Seniors Real Estate Advocate, Author and Educator, Returns to Oklahoma City Roots

Oklahoma City, OK, April 28, 2015 --(PR.com)-- It was close to two decades ago when Nikki and Chris Buckelew joined forces to begin building an Oklahoma City-based real estate team devoted to seniors. Their combined talents and expertise powered extraordinary success and national attention, which pulled them away from Oklahoma City and into training and coaching positions with international real estate companies. Three years ago, they founded the Seniors Real Estate Institute (SREI), which quickly grew into a multifaceted education and advocacy organization that offers targeted training and support for REALTORS® who recognize the tsunamic demographic shifts toward an aging population and have a passion for serving seniors.

During the second half of 2014, life events brought into focus for them the kind of realities that the agents they train help clients to navigate every day: an aging parent who needs to move out of a family home of many years and into a living situation that better suits his current needs.

With aging family members of their own in need of support, the time seemed right to move back to Oklahoma City and to integrate a real estate brokerage focused on seniors into their ongoing education and advocacy initiatives.

“This recent relocation represents a profound asset to Oklahoma City-area seniors and their families,” said Gene Lowell, retired real estate broker and mentor to the Buckelews. Nikki and Chris Buckelew have been at the forefront of serving seniors in transition with a thorough understanding that the aging population represents a distinct niche which deserves a high degree of focus, expertise and connectedness,” Lowell said.

Real estate brokers and managers around the country have been turning to the Buckelews and SREI over the last decade to educate and coach their agents in serving seniors at a high level. “Dozens of real estate agents at our Kansas City brokerage have participated in SREI training and have gone on to achieve their Certified Senior Housing Professional® designations. Having witnessed first-hand the impact of SREI training and support in our area, it’s exciting to imagine the caliber of the real estate team that Nikki and Chris Buckelew have established in Oklahoma City,” remarked Mark Wilkinson, Team Leader for Keller Williams Realty. “They are not your typical real estate agents – they have both the competency and the compassion necessary to work effectively with those going through late-life moves and selling a long-time family home.”

Citing demographic trends, Buckelew emphasized that the seniors and their families are more in need of specialized support than ever before:

- One in four home sellers is over the age of 65, according to research from the National Association of REALTORS®.

- A projected 11.3 million seniors will sell their homes in the current decade, and that figure is expected to reach 15 million between 2020 and 2030.

- The 90-and-older segment of the population nearly tripled over the past three decades and is expected to quadruple over the next 40 years, according to a 2010 U.S. Census Bureau Report.

Seniors and their families face a complex set of expectations and emotions wrapped up in the transition from the long-time family home,” Nikki Buckelew pointed out. “Challenging family dynamics, a multitude of uncertainties, as well as financial complexities often come into play.”

Having developed and facilitated coaching programs preparing real estate agents to establish trusted, communitywide networks of professionals including elder law attorneys, financial planners, estate liquidators, antique appraisers, home inspectors, senior move specialists, home stagers, handymen and the standard slate of professionals associated with preparing a home for sale, it is their intention re-create a similar specialized network in the Oklahoma City and surrounding markets.

“Returning to Oklahoma City has always been part of our long-term goal,” emphasized Buckelew. “We have learned so much over the past decade, and are excited about rebuilding an organization here in Oklahoma City that is distinctly dedicated to serving senior homeowners and their families. Our last real estate team was focused only on selling homes, but this time around we are looking forward to also helping people successfully age in place.”

Nikki Buckelew is 20-year veteran of the real estate industry with an undergraduate degree in Gerontology and a Master’s degree Counseling Psychology. Along with her husband, Chris, she founded Mature Moves Oklahoma City, a real estate group with a previous track record of selling more than 100 properties annually within the seniors segment.