Realtor says she's seen little impact on Sherman Park listings

When the now-infamous BP gas station at the hub intersection of Sherman and Burleigh in Sherman Park burned, it could have sent shock waves through the local real estate market.

 

Shar Borg, a local real estate agent who has handled many Sherman Park listings, has seen little short term impact on the Sherman Park real estate market. 

 

“I’ve moved a lot of families in from surrounding suburbs,” she said cheerfully as she stood in front of her own Sherman Park bungalow. “From Germantown, Menomonee Falls, Mequon into Sherman Park."

 

Borg allows that the incidents that unfolded in her neighborhood on August 13 were scary, but is unabashed in her belief that Sherman Park is surging. She bases that on what recent Sherman Park buyers tell her. 

 

“They all say the same thing,” she said emphatically. “They have met more people in the first week in Sherman Park than they met in twenty years in Mequon, for example.” 

 

Charonne Ganiere could well be such an example. She and her family, including five kids, moved into Sherman Park from Germantown one day before the violence. The moving truck had been gone less than 24

hours before the heart of Sherman Park seemingly erupted. 

 

We asked her what ran through her mind when she realized what was happening just blocks away from her new home. 

 

“A little bit of knowing that we’re signing up for a different lifestyle here than we had in the suburbs,” she said with a smile as she sat on her front steps with two of her youngest children. “Not quite expecting that level of intensity and most certainly some concern.” 

 

This young mother of a family as diverse as the neighborhood in which she’s chosen to live, though, is very clear about the fact that she and her husband have no regrets. 

 

“In the days that followed, we saw so much love from the community, so much love from our neighbors, so much involvement at the park,” she said with a wide smile. “It actually ended up leaving us more encouraged than we were when we first got here!” 

 

If there are any lingering doubts about the life-changing decision she and her family made, they fade when she reflects on her first visit to Sherman Park and what she felt. 

 

“People from all different walks of life,” she said. “Nobody was concerned about your social economic status, the color of your skin, it was just this beautiful community of people doing life together and we wanted to be a part of that.” 

 

To visit the block shared by Ganiere and Borg is to hear that phrase “doing life together” repeatedly. Both Borg and and Ganiere say their families are intentional about doing life together in Sherman Park.