In situations where others see impassable barriers, Aleksandra Scepanovic, founder of Ideal Properties Group, sees an opportunity to tackle obstacles and welcome challenges. Over the course of her career, Scepanovic has developed a unique ability to approach any situation, good or bad, and create a learning experience from it. Maintaining confidence in face of hardships, Scepanovic has built a successful company that incorporates her two greatest passions: real estate and interior design.
Today, Scepanovic runs Ideal Properties Group, a thriving real estate firm with four locations and more than 150 brokers. Under Scepanovic's leadership, Ideal Properties Group sells and leases an extraordinary inventory of commercial and residential properties throughout Brownstone Brooklyn. To showcase the enormous potential of Brownstone Brooklyn, Scepanovic has also implemented a full service, in-house design and staging division, as well as a range of marketing and social marketing platforms. The firm has become a trusted source for buyers, sellers, tenants, landlords, and the borough's communities.
Born in former Yugoslavia, Scepanovic joined an independent radio station in her hometown of Belgrade in her early 20's, taking on reporting assignments in war-torn Bosnia. One of her ongoing assignments for this, and other local and international media, was to cover the war in Sarajevo, mostly on the Muslim side of the conflict, which would prove demanding due to her thick Serbian accent. The scene was dangerous and intimidating, but Scepanovic accepted the challenge as an advantageous opportunity to understand the world around her and eventually propel her career in journalism. On days when the war would allow for her to take in her surroundings, strolling through the ravaged downtown Sarajevo, Scepanovic was painfully aware of all the buildings, damaged from shelling to the point of transparency. Amidst the devastation, one building in particular struck a visual and emotional cord that will later on link Scepanovic to her future professional calling. The building was almost neatly cut in two, its insides visible in elevation, and it had a bathroom, its walls painted pink, and a bathtub dangling out into the open air. It was at that moment she became aware of her deep-seated need to create beautiful spaces as a way of trying to reverse what the war had destroyed.
In 1999, during the NATO bombing of her native Serbia, Scepanovic moved to New York City, taking a job at a news clipping service and soon thereafter enrolling in the interior design program at the Fashion Institute of Technology. At the same time, Scepanovic worked on receiving her license in real estate, an industry she immediately loved and connected to. Combining the compelling elements of interior design, real estate and journalism, Scepanovic and her partner Erik Serras launched the innovative real estate firm Ideal Properties Group in 2007, with their first office located in the neighborhood of Gowanus.
Over the years of working in the real estate field, Scepanovic has come to understand that people have a certain expectation of the properties they are going to see. She knows a good real estate broker should not just want to sell a space, or connect to a client, but also know how to create a space that would be capable of telling a story of what could happen there, or what the space could be.
The staging team at Ideal Properties Group incorporates passion and specific tactics into every space they design. They consult with property owners, and individual brokers for each space and analyze demographic and sales trends in the surrounding areas to formulate a concept that ultimately attracts the largest buyer base. Since the introduction of their in-house staging team, the firm has seen a tremendous acceleration in sales.
Scepanovic has big plans for her firm - she's looking to continue expanding her brokers' footprint in the ever-popular Brooklyn, while her resolve and persistence will be sure to turn this Brooklyn business into a household name. Tags: