Marina Marchesani: Air, Land, & Sea

Meet Marina Marchesani, a retired flight attendant, turned Realtor, from Virginia Beach.

After nearly 20 years as an international flight attendant, Marina Marchesani found herself at a crossroads. Equipped with a real estate license already as well as a degree in business from Old Dominion University, the Hampton Roads native decided in 2006 that it was time to step away from the post-9/11 stresses of the airline industry and devote herself full-time to real estate.

“I had middle school-aged kids, and they needed me more at home,” Marchesani said in a recent interview. “I always wanted to get back into some kind of business. As a flight attendant, I have quite a few friends who got into real estate … I took the real estate class and thought “you know, this might be a good time to get into the market, so I did.”

She joined Ross Real Estate in 2018 after many years as a Realtor for other, larger brokerages. “I wanted to be with a smaller brokerage, and Tyler and I had done a fabulous transaction together - it was actually one of his first transactions. One afternoon I felt like I really just needed a change from where I was at, so I went and asked Tyler if he was interested in taking on another agent. And he said at the time he wasn’t, but he would give it some thought. 10 minutes later he called me and told me to change my voicemail.”

Since then, and indeed since the beginning of her career, Marchesani has gotten to know the inner workings of Fauquier County and the entire surrounding area as an active member of her childrens’ parent-teacher organizations, keeping apprised of developments at the county level of government, and networking elsewhere within the industry.

“I’m a come-here, not a from-here. We have fabulous schools in Fauquier County. Every parent does need to be involved in the school,” she said. “Getting to know the different teachers and people that are on the Board of Supervisors, that has really helped me. Our teachers need to be able to live in the county that they teach in, and this is a very expensive county. So [I’m] fighting hard to try to get the income that the teachers need so we can allow them to live in the county they teach in.”

With Marchesani being just one of the 13 licensed agents at Ross Real Estate who were drawn to the brokerage’s small-town appeal, she prides herself on a one-of-a-kind track record that includes consistent sales dating back nearly two decades. “We are all involved in the community in some aspect … we have a real knowledge of not only real estate, but what’s going on within our community. So we also know about things that are coming on [the] market prior to them coming on the market. I think the fact that Tyler is from here, that gives him a vast knowledge of - he’s lived here for so long, he knows so many people.

“We are community-minded and we’re very invested in the community.”