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I have been an active investor in real estate for over 30 years. It all began when I went away to the University of Cincinnati to study International Business with a focus on Finance, Marketing, and German. My two brothers were studying engineering there at the time and since there were three of us and campus housing was expensive, we convinced my father that it would be a good idea if he bought a house near the campus. It was a three flat and I ended up managing the property for my dad while I was at college. It was then that I learned the ins and outs of managing a rental property and as I saw his later financial reward for making that investment I became convinced that real estate was a great way to build long term wealth. It has been confirmed in a number of studies that real estate and owning a business are two of the best ways to achieving wealth in the United States.
After I graduated from college, I moved to Toronto, Ontario where I worked for a major corporation selling aluminum, chemicals and eventually running an engineering company for them which made systems used largely for environmental purposes. Along the way, I earned an MBA at the University of Toronto where I further honed my financial skills. I also had a number of successful real estate investment experiences by buying homes and condos in Canada and I eventually ended up owning a 16 unit apartment complex in Calgary, Alberta for 12 years.
In 1992 I was given the opportunity to move to Munich, Germany where I worked with European car companies to build aluminum bodied cars. We started with the top of the line Audi and then I worked together with Ferrari to convert all of their steel cars to aluminum over a 12 year period. If you would like an interesting little side trip, follow this link to see the revolutionary Ferrari aluminum spaceframe which I helped to develop and also establish the factory in Italy to make. During this time I also worked with companies like BMW, Lamborghini, Mercedes Benz, GM, Porsche, Volvo and VW I continued to own my Canadian real estate during this time and managed it from Germany with good local property management support in Toronto and Calgary. After living a decade in Europe, it was time to return to North America and I landed in Detroit. I lived there a couple of years and then moved to Chicago where I went into business for myself. During this time, I bought some more real estate in the United States, Canada, and in the Caribbean.
I started my real estate sales practice in 2005 at REMAX. The reason I chose to join REMAX is that it gave me the opportunity to run my business the way I saw fit. I got to call my own shots and the corporation wass there to provide technical support, marketing, brand image and many other valuable business resources. The idea was that I am in business for myself, but not by myself. Even though most new agents do not start out with REMAX, I felt that my many years of real estate investing and buisness experience had prepared me to work in this environment. In the first year, I earned the prestigeous REMAX Rising Star Award. Since then I placed high in the ranks of REMAX Northern Illionois, earning the 100% Club and Executive Club awards. In the fall of 2010 I made the decision to move to Prospect Equities in Oakbrook Terrace. Prospect Equities is a full service residential and commercial real estate company which owns a number of other real estate and financial companies offering mortgage, construction and title services which allows me to offer my clients a better one stop shop than I could at REMAX.
Continuing to build upon my own experiences, I gained the Certified International Property Specialist (CIPS) designation which has given me additional tools to assist real estate investors wish to buy properties in other countries and foreign investors who wish to purchase here. The many years of overseas living coupled with real estate investments in three countries helps me to relate to these kinds of people. I am currently researching property acquisition in Panama, Belize, the Turks and Caicos and other exciting places.
While building my residential and commercial real estate practice in the Chicagoland area, I studied for and attained my Series 7 and Series 66 securities licenses as well as my Illinois insurance license. Having my securities licenses allows me to advise clients on and sell to them securitized real estate. I did this first this through INVERNESS Real Estate Investments and have assisted clients with institutional-grade real estate investments in such cities as St. Peterburg FL, Nashville TN, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham NC, Austin TX, Oklahoma City OK, and Salt Lake City UT. I can assist clients wishing to do a 1031 Exchange or Structured Sales as part of an overall tax deferral strategy for real estate. In addition, I currently act as an Investment Advisor to a select number of clients through Harvest Financial Planningin Oakbrook Terrace. This office is on the second floor of the same office building as my real estate office on the fifth floor with Prospect Equities. I am in the process of getting a course in Tax Deferred and Tax Free Real Estate investing approved at the state level for Contiuning Education as wel as wring a book on the subject. I also have a successful practice handling property tax appeals for clients through my company Realvest Financial Corporation.
You will learn that I am a strong believer that when buying real estate it is extremely important to have a clear strategy about your real estate investment goals and objectives. I have a very strong Internet platform and use a value proposition marketing approach and statistically oriented method for analyzing property values from both the buy and sell side.