When the market crashed in 2008, my business didn't shrink. It grew. In a good year I'd done about 30 transactions.
Then 80. Then 150.
That kind of volume taught me what this business really takes: systems, controls, and good people around you to do what you can't. It's how Realty Exchange runs today.
Thirty years and more than 2,000 homes later, I still start every deal the same way: with the person. It's not transactional. It's relational.
How I got here: thirty years ago I had a young son and a growing family, and I had capped out on what I could earn in the travel industry. I renovated the house I was living in, and my Realtor came by and told me I'd made $30,000 in a week or two. At the time, that was what I made in a whole year. I signed up right away, got my real estate license, and started taking carpentry and HVAC classes, thinking I was going to be a rehabber. I ended up finding out real estate sales was for me.
After ten very successful years in Illinois, my dad bought land in a place I'd never heard of. "Palm Coast? Are you sure you're not buying swamp land?" I came down to visit, and within two years Deb and I had moved the whole family here. We restarted our career in Flagler County because we loved it so much: the beaches, the weather, bike riding, golf, boating, fishing. We love the beach.
"What I want people to say after they work with me is that they enjoyed the experience, they felt valued, and I added value to their life. That is one of the most important things to me. It's too bold to say that they saw God through me. Not that at all, but that they knew I had motives and values beyond my own, something only God could give."
