Sarah Minardi may have entered the real estate business just as everything was hitting rock bottom in October 2007, but all she envisioned was going up, up, up. A native of East Hampton whose roots run back to the founding settlers, Sarah excelled through the local school system. She earned a BA in English Literature from Middlebury College before attending the prestigious Columbia Publishing Course and joining the Publicity Department at St. Martin's Press in NYC. Returning home in 2004, Sarah switched career gears and oversaw the catering and events division at Claws On Wheels, a well respected seafood shop in East Hampton, growing the business by over 300% during her tenure. Upon her departure in 2007, Sarah obtained her Real Estate Salesperson's License and was invited to become a member of Diane Saatchi's elite Saatchi Team at The Corcoran Group in East Hampton. Mentored closely by teammate Dick Baker, Sarah hit the ground running, excelling in house sales (for both sellers and buyers) and the rental market, involving herself in some of the most high-valued transactions during a time when business was at an all-time low. Sarah moved along with the Saatchi Team to the up-and-coming boutique real estate agency Saunders & Associates in November 2009 and she has never looked back. With multiple sales over the $8M mark and summer rentals in the six figures, Sarah's business was able to grow so quickly that she was elevated to Associate Broker status in the Spring of 2011. Married to Chris Minardi, a leading broker at GuardHill Mortgage, mother to son Cam and daughter Vera, and resident of the village of East Hampton, Sarah has made it her mission to connect closely with buyers and sellers, landlords and tenants, through constant communication and personal touches. Understanding that the real estate industry has nuances and complexities to it that many people are unaware of, Sarah is always striving to educate her clients and customers right off the bat about the Hamptons market. Through this mindset and her ability to listen, Sarah has forged lifelong bonds with her clients and customers that have kept them coming back year after year, referring their family, friends and colleagues to her in their own Hamptons home search. There is something to be said for having a familiar bond beyond our digital smartphone world. Focusing on the fun in her business, Sarah's famous marketing staples include her quarterly e-newsletter Minardi's Mentions, her creative Vanity Fair-esque photo spreads that have conspicuously revolutionized the way real estate agents advertise and market themselves in the Hamptons, and her conscious effort to treat every opportunity the same, whether it be a two-week rental in the woods or a multimillion dollar sale South of the Highway. Connecting with people on a personal level is where trust is made, and Sarah Minardi has become the platinum standard in Hamptons real estate for that important and priceless practice.