CUMINS, MKB REALTY FIRMS JOIN FORCES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 20, 1993                   TAG: 9301200051
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
CUMINS, MKB REALTY FIRMS JOIN FORCES
Linda Cumins, president of Cumins & Co. Linda Cumins Ready for a new phase Realtors, said Tuesday she is closing the Roanoke County residential real estate company and returning to the firm where she began her career.
As of Feb. 1, Cumins & Co.'s 25 agents will join Mastin Kirkland Bolling Inc.
The two companies rank themselves among the Roanoke Valley's five-largest residential realty companies.
The Cumins staff and MKB's 50-some agents will share MKB offices on Electric Road Southwest in Roanoke County. The Cumins staff will move in at the end of next week.
Betty Kirkland, president of MKB, and Cumins held a joint meeting with their agents Tuesday to discuss the merger. Both said their companies were financially strong and 1992's business was better than the previous year.
Kirkland said Cumins will become an associate broker at MKB, but she will have no ownership interest in the company nor will the company's name change.
Cumins began her real estate career with MKB 17 years ago. She was with two other companies before opening her own in 1986. Her husband, Ken Cumins, an officer in Cumins & Co., also will join MKB.
The decision to close the company and merge with MKB was made quickly, Cumins said. She said she signed a contract for a Yellow Pages ad in the 1993 telephone directory only last month.
The action to close, she said, was promoted by expiration of the lease on her office in Promenade Park shopping center. Cumins said she had to make a decision to renew for three years or move.
She decided against either and, on Friday, initiated talks with Kirkland.
Cumins said she made the decision with no regrets.
"I had always wanted to do a company. I did it and it was successful. Now I am ready to do a new phase. I'm old enough now; I should be able to do what I want to do."
Kirkland said the timing for the merger was just right, since MKB already was doing some reorganizing in its offices.
One thing MKB did, she said, was to create an agents' room equipped with maps and state-of-the-art technology.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB