New Age Realty Celebrates 35 Years in West Philadelphia

In 2021, New Age Realty is celebrating their 35th year of serving the West Philadelphia and University City communities. We sat down for an interview with founder and president Diane Caprario, her daughter Nicole who serves as New Age’s leasing manager, and Broker of Record Christos Tzimoulis to discuss the company’s history, how they’ve had to adapt over the years and specifically due to COVID, and about what’s next for the company.

Diane Caprario first came to West Philadelphia in 1986. She and her late husband Bart were both working at a management company in South Jersey, but she was asked to manage a 64-unit property on the 3200 block of Powelton by a partner. At the same time, Diane and Bart had begun dreaming of starting their own company and settled on starting a new business called New Age Realty, inspired by trends of the era.

“We were involved in EST,” Diane remembers, referencing the Erhard Seminars Training movement (or EST), a program started in the 70s that grew in popularity into the 1980s. “It was really about finding yourself. You really had to get into yourself and get all the stress out of your body.” EST fell under the bigger umbrella of “new age,” like the music genre intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. Diane believes the teaching initially helped her in running the business and dealing with stress.

Shortly after forming New Age, Bart joined Diane to help oversee the operations as the company’s Broker of Record. New Age Realty Group started off as primarily a property management and leasing company handling a small portfolio while Diane and Bart each had other jobs. In 1991, Diane was approached by another property management company to help rent apartments and oversee the maintenance on the 3300 block of Powelton. The one condition they had was that Diane would need to maintain an office on the premises, which is how she came to work in West Philadelphia full-time.

Diane continued slowly building New Age’s portfolio until Bart was laid off in 1995 and decided to return to the company and help build it up. Although the company changed offices a few times, the main location has always been in the Powelton Village neighborhood.

“I liked the environment,” Diane says about Powelton Village. “It was exciting because Drexel back in the 80s didn’t have as many large bodies of students. I think it was exciting that we bought a new property on Spring Garden Street and then [had] to figure out how to get students there, because they didn’t want to walk further from campus. I enjoyed being on campus. I got to know a lot of the neighbors who lived here.”

As the company and the staff grew over the years, they also had to adjust to new trends and expectations from renters. “Back in the 80s tenants had to bring their own refrigerator,” Diane recalls. She says renters used to be satisfied if they had access to laundry on their block, before expecting it first in a building’s basement and eventually in each unit. As New Age kept up with trends and added more rentals to their portfolio, their staff grew, too.

“We were on top of each other at our location on 3301 Powelton,” says Chris Tzimoulis, who has been with New Age for 20 years and now works as their Broker of Record. They elected to lease a satellite office at 4627 Baltimore Avenue.

“I miss being that office,” Diane says of their former location on Baltimore. “There were so many great restaurants within walking distance.

While working out of the office, leasing manager Nicole helped highlight those local restaurants while representing New Age on the Baltimore Avenue Business Association and worked with UCD to help plan and execute the Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll. 

“We liked that part of University City,” Chris says. “We didn’t have that much exposure to it yet. We did a three-year lease and then did another three-year lease before we finally opened this office up."

“We never thought there would be an office here,” Diane says about their current home at 3070 Spring Garden Street, on a lot she and Bart purchased in 2006. “We were going to build condos, or sell it, but thankfully we held onto it.” Their stylish office now serves as a gateway between Center City and West Philadelphia as people come into Powelton Village.

Like so many other businesses, New Age had to adjust when the pandemic struck in 2020. “I thought we were done in March (of 2020),” Chris confesses. “I thought we’d have a million vacancies come fall and we’d be done.”

New Age quickly adjusted to the COVID era with the help of coordination and technology. “We had to learn how to show rentals on video,” Diane says. “Who would have thought someone would rent an apartment just by looking at it on video? That was unexpected.”

“Our policy pre-COVID was we wouldn’t rent to somebody if they hadn’t physically gone through the space,” Chris explains. “We didn’t want move-in day buyer’s remorse, you know? But COVID changed that. It changed a million different things. People renting sight-unseen was a big thing last year.”

Nicole explains that they’d taken a few videos before COVID, but had to become experts quickly, and even worked with current tenants on videos to show future renters. They also learned to work with the City of Philadelphia on how to offer rental assistance to tenants, plus many other hurdles.

“Somehow we leased our properties through the spring and summer,” Chris says with a shake of his head. “People moved in. It’s been a wild time, not just in our industry.”

New Age continues to manage properties more in step with current trends. Gone are the days when college students share a huge communal home—now they want anything from a studio to a three bedroom, with amenities like in-unit laundry and a bathroom for each bedroom. According to their team, what sets New Age apart from other management companies is the team atmosphere, the years of experience, and their commitment to honesty.

“We look at managing properties like they’re our own,” Diane says. “We care about them. Landlords and tenants call and we try to help them out as much as we can.”

“We’re a family-oriented team,” Chris adds. “A lot of us have been here for a long time. We’re not a big corporation. We’re a small business. People get that personal touch and personal attention. All the years of knowledge, the collective experience goes a long way.”

Want to learn more about New Age Realty Group? Visit them online at https://www.newagerealtygroup.com/.