Rivals – Real Estate – Quita Cutrer VS. Jerry del Rio

When the well-heeled in Baton Rouge want to buy or sell a home, odds are they call one of two people: Quita Cutrer or Jerry del Rio. The veteran real estate agents are consistently the top two residential producers in the local market, with a specialty in listing million-dollar mansions with ritzy addresses.

It’s a high-stakes business, and Cutrer and Del Rio are the best around. Each has decades of experience. Each knows how to seal the deal.

But these two real estate superstars are not merely super-competent. They’re highly competitive, both with themselves and against each other. It’s a friendly rivalry, they say, that doesn’t even enter their minds most days.

“Quita and I have been friends for years,” says del Rio. “We don’t always tell each other what we know, but if she gets a listing, she’ll call me about it, and I’ll do the same for her. We have a mutual respect.”

Cutrer echoes those sentiments. But don’t let that fool you. Residential real estate is a cutthroat business, and these agents didn’t get to the top by being wallflowers. They’ve hustled over the years, each knowing that if she didn’t get the job done, the other would.

“Jerry is competitive, but she is competitive by nature,” Cutrer says. “To be in this business, you have to be somewhat competitive—but I do what I do, and I don’t really worry about what everybody else is doing.”

While Cutrer and del Rio are at the top of their game, there are differences between them. Cutrer is an agent who works for a broker, Burns and Co. She does more high-end homes than del Rio, and all the homes she gets credit for selling are deals she has done herself, without the help of other agents.

On the other hand, del Rio is a broker who owns her own firm. That means her sales include those of the other agents who work for her. She says she sells more mid-range properties than does Cutrer, and she is trying to get away from the perception that she only works in Country Club of Louisiana, the gated community in which she specializes.

But the two have much in common. Both have been in the business more than 30 years. They’re both intense, with a passion for what they do. Perhaps more significantly, they share an ethos of how to do business. It’s a more respectful and genteel way of doing things—like the business world used to be, perhaps, before that cutthroat style of competition became the norm.

“Quita and I talk,” says del Rio. “The younger agents won’t return your phone calls.”

Adds Cutrer, “The younger ones don’t want to work out deals. They just text and email.”

Does this healthier form of rivalry make them better at what they do? Cutrer believes competition makes her work harder. Still, both would rather compete against each other than some of the others in the business.

“There are some agents I just cringe when they get a listing,” says del Rio. “With Quita, I know it’s someone I can trust. She’s a person of her word.”