My Real Estate Story
Precursor – Getting Started
I bought my first home in July of 2003. It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath brick ranch in an older community. I paid cash for the property and it was a steal at only $77,000 but it needed a substantial amount of updating and remodeling but we loved the location and the size. After spending between $15,000 and $20,000 doing the remodel (we did almost everything ourselves except for the floors), we had a great home with a nice amount of equity. Seeing how I worked the numbers on this, my real estate agent, who also happened to be a friend, suggested I start investing in real estate. Me, a real estate investor? Sounds interesting…
I thought about what he said and after some long consideration I thought that it did make sense and if I could make at least $75,000 a year doing it, then I could shut down my computer consulting business and do that full time. After all, I enjoyed the process and actually found the repair work to be enjoyable – difficult, but enjoyable for the most part. Since I am the type of person who does a lot of research and has to really have a great grasp on whatever I do, I decided to take the real estate courses to get me a better understanding of the trade before jumping in feet first. Somewhere between starting the courses and finishing them, I decided to go ahead and get my license.
Time for Recruiting
Several brokerages tried to recruit me coming into the business, most of which because they knew me as the computer guy or “Internet Geek” – a term used affectionately by some of my real estate agent customers. Most wanted me to come work with them because they had grandiose visions of me turning their websites into massive lead machines. Being that my ultimate goal was to learn more about real estate investing and because my friend was the one who got me turned on to real estate – I went to work with them at their REO (Real Estate Owned, aka foreclosure) listing firm. This would allow me to get a better understanding of foreclosure listings from the beginning to end.
Moving on Up
After about a year and a half with this company, I decided it was time for me to get my broker’s license and move on to do my own thing. In August of 2005, 4 days before Hurricane Katrina hit, I got my real estate broker’s license and opened up my own firm – Viking Realty. I started moving towards a more web-based business model, providing information (overload in some cases) to potential buyers and sellers. While looking at feature-rich add-ons that I could implement to help the user experience, I cam across an up and coming real estate technology franchise – SimplySOLD. I franchised with them later in 2006. Many of the “advancements” they had in the pipeline never came to fruition and early 2007 they went out of business due to lack of funding. My fellow franchisees and I took over the Intellectual Property (which was complete in August of 2009) but the experience did give me some great ideas and a new outlook on traditional real estate. Shortly after SimplySOLD shut down, one of my agents and I decided to team up. There were certain things that he was good at and others that I was. I shut down my office and we went to work for another real estate firm for about 6 months while we worked out the kinks in the way we do business and I built up our web presence. In March of 2009, Tech Realty was born.
The Next Chapter
Tech Realty was a dream of mine since I started the business and I actually obtained the trademark and domain name back in 2005 knowing that one day I would build it. The long term goal is to bring a more efficient buying and selling process to agents and clients alike through the use of advanced technology platforms that will allow the agents to be more “on their game” and more seamlessly integrate the user experience throughout the process. For now, it is me and my business partner, just providing the best information as possible and using the tools available to us to make the same come true.
At the End of the Day
I have, at the time of this writing, roughly 6 years experience in the real estate business and have amassed more knowledge about the industry than most “seasoned” agents/brokers. I have always prided myself on my drive for knowledge and my desire to help others. If you are ever in the market for real estate on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I urge you to check out my website and give me a call – Mississippi Coast Real Estate.