* Michael Horne

PROFILE

If you ask Michael Horne what it’s like to work alongside his father, Bob, as real estate partners, he claims there’s never been an ill word between them. “We’re legitimately a team, a partnership,” he says. And they appear to be perfectly in sync: The two had 150 transactions last year and have been the top agents in the gated retirement community Sun City Palm Desert since 2002.

Michael left his corporate job with Monster.com about 20 years ago and joined his father, who was already in real estate, so he could get back to the “people.” Ultimately, it’s the clients they work with who make their specialization different from other markets.

“I think, especially with the 55-and-older communities, there is a level of excitement and achievement for when they’re buying,” Michael says, “meaning you’ve worked your whole life to get to this stage. And that’s a fun thing to be a part of.”

Like his father, Michael focuses heavily on customer service. (Bob brings more than 30 years of retail management experience to the industry.) He enjoys “problem solving,” whether it’s educating a client about what makes one location better than another or getting a house ready to show and figuring out the pricing, photography, staging, etc. “I don’t really consider [real estate] a sales job,” he says. “One of the results of the process is a sale, but I never feel that way.”