Veteran realtor Margaret Young considers herself a real estate matchmaker. Sometimes she knows the perfect buyer for a new listing, before that person even knows they want to move.

“Once I called a woman I knew and said I’ve just been in this house and it is perfect for you,” the 78-year-old recalled. “I said, ‘I know you’re not looking to buy right now, but you have to see it’.”

The person fell in love with the space as soon as they walked in.

“Today, she never lets me forget it,” Ms Young laughed. “I get a feel for what people would like to have in their lives. That is satisfying. What I love about real estate is getting into people’s hearts.”

In the business for 44 years, she has sold some properties as many as four or five times.

“I sold one condo three times, each time to a family with twins,” she said. “Business is so funny.”

She was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In her twenties she longed to see the world.

“I was working as a secretary at Queen’s University in Belfast,” she said. “One night I drove home in my little car and it was so dreary and dark at 4pm. I thought, ‘I have to get out of here!’.”

She and five friends decided they would spend the next five years working in different countries.

They began as landed immigrants in Toronto, Canada, staying at the Young Women’s Christian Association, a global organisation that provides low cost accommodation.

They eventually sublet an apartment, but when winter came, decided to go somewhere warmer.

In 1965, Ms Young found a job working as a cashier at the Hamilton Princess in Bermuda.

“I chose that job, because I wanted to go to the beach during the day,” she laughed. “That’s how serious I was about life.”

She ended up staying in Bermuda, marrying and divorcing twice. She has one daughter, actress Lana Young.

When not working, she loved athletics, joining women’s hockey, Orioles, in her thirties. “I played on the forward line,” she said.

To improve her fitness she started running marathons in the early 1980s, with her second husband, who was a runner.

“I represented Bermuda at the World Marathon Cup in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1985,” she said. “Then, when I retired from running in the 1990s, I played golf for quite a few years.”

Ms Young is proud that she shot a hole-in-one twice at the former St George’s Golf Club.

She stopped running in 2010 after experiencing some health challenges.

“I haven’t been able to run since then and I miss it,” she said.

Instead, she walks for 30 minutes a day, depending on the weather, and also does Pilates twice a week.

She got into real estate by selling Mizzentop condos in Southampton for developer Geoffrey Bird in 1979.

“I felt very fortunate because those were the smart, new condos,” she said. “Buyers were mostly non-Bermudian.”

Back then, condos were a new concept on the island, and controversial. “Some people really did not like them at all,” she said.

Nevertheless, Mizzentop paved the way for many other developments.

“Through that I got to know a lot of people,” she said. “That was important, because we did not have all the marketing stuff we have today like databases.”

Communication was a lot slower, people were still using manual typewriters. “Things were quite busy though,” she said.

She loves learning new things and happily embraced fax machines, Palm Pilots and then Apple computers. Now she uses artificial intelligence apps like Chat GPT.

“It gives me all the answers I need,” she said. “I never Google anything any more. For example, when George Clooney’s wife, Amal Clooney, was on the television talking about Kosovo, I couldn’t quite remember what the problem was in Kosovo, so I asked Chat GPT.”

One of the worst years for real estate she has seen was 2008, after the real estate market crashed in the United States.

“The market will always have its ups and downs, but people will always need somewhere to live,” she said. “If you keep your eye on the ball and know your people, you can pretty much help somebody, no matter what the market.”

Currently, she sees a shortage of executive rentals. She also thinks her generation were a little short-sighted back in the 1970s and 1980s when the majority of today’s condo developments were built.

“We never thought any of us were going to get old, right?” she said. “A lot of people my age now want to downsize and move to a condo with no steps. Those are hard to find in Bermuda.”

She was one of the founding partners of real estate agency The Property Group.

During her years with them, Buddy Rego, president of Rego Sotheby’s International, often asked her to join him.

In 2000, she accepted his offer.

In December, the firm, honoured her for her long service. They have called her one of the most seasoned real estate agents on the island.

“I don’t do what I do to get awards, but it is nice to be appreciated,” she said. Ms Young has no thoughts of retirement.

“I want to keep working for as long as I am healthy enough to do it,” she said. “Our team is lovely. I am happy to defer some of the business that comes my way to my younger colleagues.

“That means that I don’t feel as though I am letting any of my buyers or sellers down when I am off travelling.”

• Lifestyle profiles the island’s senior citizens every week. Contact Jessie Moniz Hardy on 278-0150 or jmhardy@royalgazette.com, with the full name and contact details and the reason you are suggesting them