The bench

Four brokers.
One firm.

No team rosters, no junior associates ghost-shadowing. When you sign with Your Business you work directly with the broker whose name is on the listing. Below: who we are, where we live, and what we know how to do that the next firm doesn't.

Founding broker

Eleanor Whitfield.

— MA · GRI · CRB · Founding partner since 2008

Eleanor opened Your Business in the basement of her 1789 saltbox three months after Lehman fell, on the theory that the houses she loved most would never sell well in the kind of high-volume firm she'd just left. Eighteen years and roughly four hundred captains' homes later, the theory has held.

She specializes in pre-1900 historic houses — which on the North Shore means Federal harbor town, Italianate Salem, and the occasional Greek Revival. She is the firm's archivist, keeping a research file on every house we've sold, including the eight she's sold twice.

"I tell new buyers: the house is going to outlast you. Choose one whose previous occupants you'd want to share a dinner table with."

22 yrsOn the North Shore

$1.4BCareer closed volume

3 minFrom Front Street

Senior broker

James Holcombe.

— MA · ABR · CIPS · Joined 2014

James spent eight years at a Boston commercial firm before realizing he'd rather sell one good house a month than ten warehouses a quarter. Now he runs Your Business's Greater Boston buyer pipeline — the founders, the partners, the ones who've decided they want a coastline within forty minutes of South Station.

He's also responsible for the firm's off-market network across Manchester and Beverly Cove. Roughly half of his sales each year are houses that were never listed publicly, transacted between principals James knows by first name.

"The MLS is for people who don't have time to wait. The off-market list is for people who have time to be right."

$84MClosed in 2024

43%Off-market share

11 yrsAt Your Business

Senior broker

Rosa Della Rocco.

— MA · SRES · GRI · Joined 2017

Rosa was an urban planner at the Tufts Department of Urban and Environmental Policy before she sold her first house. She still thinks like one — about how a town's zoning rolls out across thirty years, about which neighborhoods will look different by the time you've raised a child in them.

She's quietly responsible for two of the firm's three highest-ever sales, both in Salem's McIntire district. She knows the conservation easements on every block of Chestnut Street by heart, and she's argued (gently) with three town historic commissions on her clients' behalf.

"A house is a forty-year decision in a market that prices on three-month moves. My job is to push your eye out."

$72MClosed in 2024

9 yrsAt Your Business

SalemBorn and raised

Buyer's broker

Theo Kemp.

— MA · ABR · MRP · Joined 2019

Theo doesn't list. He works exclusively with buyers — first-time, relocating, luxury, and the rare sub-$700K start home that Your Business still takes on as a favor. He'll walk a hundred houses before he calls one a fit, and he's known to talk a client out of a property if the bones won't hold.

He's a former Marine combat engineer with a degree in structural engineering, which is the part of his bio he won't bring up but probably should. If a roof is six months past replacement, Theo will tell you in week one.

"I'd rather lose your commission than place you in a house that costs you the next decade."

104Closed buyer-side

50%Of firm referrals

USMC2009–2014

House philosophy

"We'd rather lose a fit
than place you
in a house that won't hold."

It's the line at the bottom of every offer letter we write. It is also the operating principle of the firm — written in 2008, retyped on the back of every business card, and the answer Eleanor gives when a junior at another firm asks how we keep our list-to-close ratio at 97%. We turn down twice as many listings as we take. We refer twice as many buyers as we represent. We sleep well at night.