Back in the 1970s when Joe Durham was farming 800 acres in Georgia’s Terrell County, growing peanuts, cotton, soybeans, and corn, he decided to venture into the real estate business as a sideline.

“I knew farming. I knew the land. I knew the equipment. But, I wasn’t a very good farmer,” he admits. Divine intervention led him to quit farming and enter the real estate field as his life’s work. In 1977, Joe started J. Durham & Associates as a real estate brokerage firm. After some experience with another auction company, in 1980 he decided to take J. Durham & Associates into the auction business, which at that time he says “was just gaining popularity in the Southeast.”

To gain greater knowledge and skills for running his new business, Joe entered an intense three-year auctioneering training program offered by the University of Indiana. In 1985, Joe earned the prestigious CAI (Certified Auctioneers Institute) designation – the auction industry’s highest designation. Today, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and other governmental, legal and judicial branches, as well as many lending institutions, recognize Joe as a leading expert in the valuation and auction marketing of property. He is a member of the national and state auctioneer and realtor associations, as well as the American Society of Farm Equipment Appraisers.

With a formal education from Georgia Southwestern College, his personal experience in agriculture and farming, and his keen instinct and sharp vision for the real estate business, Joe has expanded Albany-based J. Durham & Associate’s scope of operations. The firm holds auctions throughout the Southeast, is spreading west with business in Oklahoma, Nevada, and Utah, and also has marketing centers in Atlanta, Georgia, and Tallahassee, Florida.

Every year, Joe and his team of seasoned auction coordinators serve individuals, banks, realtors, corporations, trustees, and state and federal agencies. They are experts at marketing and selling homes, plantations, ranches, commercial and resort properties, estates, farmland, and farm, industrial and construction equipment. Joe attributes the growth and success of J. Durham & Associates over the past 31 years to “teamwork and having intelligent and competent people around you.”

Joe and his staff also are active in community affairs, including volunteering their services to conduct annual fundraisers for the Humane Society of Terrell County, the Flint RiverQuarium, and the Albany Advocacy Resource Center.

Still living in his hometown of Dawson, Georgia, Joe and his wife, Penny, are the proud grandparents of identical triplets. The boys, Joseph III, Dalton, and Camden, are the children of their son, Joe, Jr., who practices law in Albany.