Mark Nejmeh
Roofer since 1978
Companies
Ocean & Monmouth County, New Jersey
Most roofs start leaking inside five years. Not because the work was bad — because it was done right enough not to leak for exactly that long. I have trained roofers. I know how they move across a roof, where the day catches up with them, and which corner gets cut when the light is going. So I work backwards from that.
I respect any and every man on the roof. I am here to protect their efforts. No roof deserves an early death — not after the effort that has been put into it.
What I work on
A roof is a record of one man's day. The open field goes down early, fresh, and it holds. The cut-in work — valleys, chimneys, pipes, anywhere two things meet and something has to be shaped by hand — gets left for the end, when he is tired and the light is going. That work gets done right enough. Right enough lasts about five years.
I trained roofers. I know how they move, what they leave for last, and what a man tells himself is good enough at four in the afternoon. That is not an accusation — I have been that man on that roof. It is how I know where to look. So I do not start at the stain and work outward. I start with how the roof was built, and I go straight there.
Ninety-five percent of that roof is somebody’s good work. My job is to fix the part that failed and leave the rest of his effort standing.
Then I show you what I found before I quote anything. Sometimes it is an afternoon and the right material. Sometimes the roof is genuinely finished, and you will hear that too — but after I have been up there, not before.
The truck. If it is parked outside, I am on the roof.
1978
First roof · Still at it
I started in the roofing trade in 1978 and have worked every part of it since — residential, commercial, union, my own company. Some of the roofs I put on in the eighties are still dry. That is not luck. It is what happens when the flashings and the penetrations are done properly the first time.
I stand behind work I did forty years ago. That is a harder thing to say than it sounds, because most of the outfits that did those roofs are not around to be asked.
First roofing job, in Illinois, at six dollars an hour.
Conti Roofing in Saddle Brook, then the union side at JP Patti. Learned the trade properly and learned who does it badly.
Strober Brothers, the Brooklyn building supply house. First job in a suit, at twenty-two. The man who hired me is the reason for most of what came after.
Continental Roof Systems, my own commercial roofing company. Schools, federal buildings, flat roofs across New Jersey and New York.
National sales leadership in the finance industry. A roofer in a boardroom, which turned out to be useful.
Founded the Foundation for Job Creation, a 501(c)(3), self-funded from day one.
Drove to thirty-nine cities holding rallies about American jobs. Slept in the van. Nobody covered it.
Back on roofs, in Ocean and Monmouth County, doing the part of the work I was always best at.
Three things from here, and I would rather say them plainly than have you guess. I am writing a book about this trade and the life it paid for — it is called Real Roofer. I am doing roof repairs, the diagnostic kind, one man and no crew. And I am working on training roofers — teaching the trade to people who need a way to earn, which is what the Foundation has been about since 2009.
None of that changes the first thing. If you have a leak and you call me, I will come look at it and I will fix it. That has not changed since 1978 and it is not going to.
Text me. It is the easiest way to reach me and I read every one.
Say where you are, what is happening, and send a picture if you have one.
A picture of where the water is coming in is genuinely useful to me.
Gutter cleaning, a leak, or a flat roof you are not sure about — all the same, just tell me which.
If I have worked on your roof — last month or thirty years ago — write it here yourself. It goes straight onto the page. Good or bad, I put them all up.
The name is for sale
RealRoofers.com
$355,000
I have held this name for years and worked under it. It is not a name I made up in a hurry — it is what people in this trade call the ones who actually know what they are doing. Two plain words, the exact thing a person types, and the .com.
The work done under it has been solid. Real buildings, real repairs, customers who still call me years later. That is not something a new brand can buy anywhere else.
What I would most like is for a supplier or a manufacturer to take it. Somebody with a national reach who can put the name in front of the whole trade instead of one county in New Jersey. It deserves that.
If you want it, tell me what you would do with it. That part matters to me, and serious offers get a serious answer.
Make an offer
Sold through Escrow.com, buyer and seller protected, no exceptions.
What transfers is the domain. Not the repair business, and not my phone number. RealRoofer.com is a separate name and a separate sale.
However this name ends up, my customers can always find me at MarkNejmeh.com — current phone number and address, permanently.
Ocean and Monmouth County, New Jersey. If it is raining right now, put a bucket under it and take a picture of where the water is coming in — that picture is genuinely useful to me.
And to be clear about the two things on this page: the name is for sale, the work is not. Whoever ends up owning RealRoofers.com, I am still the one who shows up when your ceiling is dripping — and you will always find my current number at MarkNejmeh.com.
