Maria Hopkins, SRA, RA

Maria Hopkins is the owner of the largest real estate appraisal firm in central Massachusetts, located in Spencer, MA. She celebrates her 38th year in business this year.

She is past president of the Massachusetts Board of Real Estate Appraisers which has 650 members where she holds the RA designation. She also holds the SRA designation and is an MAI candidate with the Appraisal Institute. She holds the highest form of appraisal license, the Certified General in both Massachusetts and Connecticut.  She appraises all types of commercial and residential real estate. Her clients include many banks and mortgage companies as well as government agencies.

She specializes in court testimony and is an expert witness in many courts.  She is regularly published in the New England Real Estate Journal and teaches courses and seminars for various organizations. She is a member of the Worcester Economics Club. She is both a realtor since 1987 and a real estate broker and has been a member of the Worcester Regional Board of Realtors for many years. She doesn’t presently engage actively in sales unless she is helping a friend or relative due to her other responsibilities. She began selling real estate while attending Assumption College where she majored in economics and business.

She has built houses and renovated houses and multi-families and developed land.

Maria is a past Woman of the Year for the state of Massachusetts, named by the National Business and Professional Women in 1999. She was also awarded a certificate of recognition by the Holden Board of Selectmen for this achievement. She became the Northeast District Director for the National Business and Professional Women where she helped women at Friendly House and The Francis Perkins House. She organized professional clothing donations for women going back to work and mentored women with practice interviews and job placement.

As president of the Worcester Business and Professional Women’s group, she volunteered in many capacities including career mentoring and visiting some of the poorer nursing homes in Worcester during the holidays. She sat on the Golf for Women committee to fund-raise for YWCA programs that help women detect ovarian and breast cancer and then help them through their recovery.

When Maria became an appraiser there were very few women. She made it a point to hire and train many competent women over the last 38 years and talked many of the appraisal firms into doing the same.

She is past president of the Wachusett Rotary where she is in charge of one of her favorite programs, which she helped found, known as the Coats for Kids Program. This program in done in conjunction with the Wachusett Food Pantry. Although she has had to slow down her life a little, Rotary and this program remains one of her biggest passions.