UPCLOSE & PERSONAL
COMPANY PROFILE
Why You Need to Become a Real Estate Agent IT COULD OPEN MORE DOORS FOR YOUR INVESTING BUSINESS. JUST ASK ANGIE AND DAN FRANCIS OF STEPSTONE REALTY.
by James Hart
F
She originally got involved in the business at Dan’s encouragement. He loved being self-employed, and he knew there were opportunities for a broker who knew how to put together inves- tor-style deals. After she was laid off from her job in a medical office, Angie decided to take the leap. “That was probably the best thing that happened to me,” she said. Unlike a broker who starts in the world of retail real estate, Angie isn’t uncomfortable with creative deals. Her very first, in fact, was a short sale. Though they’ve been in business as StepStone several years, the Francises only started actively recruiting agent-in- vestors under the virtual brokerage model about a year and a half ago. Back then, StepStone had four agents. Today, there are more than 80 in six Tex- as markets: Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi and Abilene. The brokerage is now among the top 1 percent of the largest Texas brokerages, by head count. StepStone Realty serves as a spon- soring broker and provides a suite of services, including MojoVest, a propri- etary customer relationship management (CRM) software solution, and organiz- es pooled marketing efforts to reach distressed homeowners in cities like San Antonio and Austin. The brokerage receives 30 percent of an agent’s commission until the agent has
or many residential real estate investors, it’s still not the typical
as a traditional listing. “We can provide any option that a seller wants,” Angie Francis said. “We’re not trying to put them in a certain box to fit our needs.” A HOME FOR INVESTORS WITH LICENSES Too many investors are focused on screening out sellers who don’t clearly fit their model. They don’t sit down with those folks—and miss opportuni-
way of doing business. But if you want to power up your operations, you need to seriously consider becoming a licensed real estate agent, according to Angie and Dan Francis, the owners of Texas-based StepStone Realty. Being both an investor and an agent simply opens up a wider range of ways to make money, said the Francises, who operate StepStone as an investor-friend- ly “virtual” brokerage in six cities. They
WHAT I TELL EVERY INVESTOR IS TALK TO ME BEFORE YOU DECIDE NOT TO GET YOUR LICENSE. BECAUSE I WILL ALWAYS WIN THAT ARGUMENT.
ties to help the sellers and make a profit in the process. “We just focus on getting a meeting and talking face to face with the seller,” said Dan Francis. “Then we can tell what kind of deal can be done.” Dan has been an investor about 12 years. Angie pursued her agent’s license about 10 years ago and, two years later, became a broker.
actively recruit real estate investors to become agents. As an agent-investor, if you find a dis- tressed seller who needs to make a deal soon, you can explore short sales and other creative strategies that might be foreign territory for a typical agent who only does retail sales. Or if the seller has plenty of equity and no real hurry, you can treat the property
76 | think realty magazine july :: august 2016
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