Marmie's Path to Real Estate

My path to real estate started young! My parents have always been “project” people and when I was in middle school they bought a cabin in North Carolina that needed a lot of work. My siblings and I used to spend the summers in North Carolina at camp - Greystone and Mondamin. Our family fell in love with the area of Hendersonville, right outside of Asheville, and found a little cabin to fix up.

The cabin in North Carolina

At the time, I probably complained (a lot) but looking back, it was really fun fixing that place up. Of course we left most of the major renovations to the professionals. But we did a lot of DIY stuff too. I remember my parents gave each us of a budget of $100 to decorate and paint our rooms. I know you’re probably thinking, what can you even buy for $100 but remember this was 20 years ago and it was fun a challenge. Like, what could we find and make nice?! North Carolina is where all the nice wood furniture is made so we had some amazing options at the thrift stores.

I think the experience of working on that home in North Carolina really sparked an interest in real estate for me. My family went on to work on some other projects in Kentucky and Florida. And I learned the value of what a little sweat equity could do.

When I was in college I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I studied advertising because I liked creative things, but when I didn’t get into the “creative advertising” program I was really lost in my path. That was my plan and someone told me I couldn’t do it or wasn’t good enough to be in the creative program. I really hated that feeling! I was so upset with the situation and trying to figure out what I could do better than the creative program which I now called “stupid”. I thought my class in Trademark was interesting so I started thinking about law school. I was graduating in 2010, the job market was terrible, and I didn’t get in to the program I initially wanted. That, my friends, was the “why law school” for about 75% of the people who went to law school around that time. We didn’t know what else to do!

Law school was challenging to say the least! And I soon realized that there wasn’t a huge job market for Attorneys in advertising and trademark. Patents and Copyrights were more common and you needed to take the Patent Bar, a federal bar exam in addition to your state bar exam, as well as have a degree in some sort of science or engineering. So I definitely was not wanting to get get another degree and so the patent bar was off the table, plus reading patents is sooo boring.

I had just gotten married and my husband and I were thinking about buying our first house. On a whim I decided to enroll in a real estate law class to see what I might learn. At that point I knew I wanted to be in real estate and did not turn back.

After law school, I worked in a law firm that was a fee attorney for a Title Company. It was a fast paced, fires to put out everyday, and a big learning curve. I learned a lot but somehow couldn’t shake the feeling that I wanted to do something different. I did want to just be in the field of real estate but I wanted to BE in real estate, in a multi faceted way.

I left my job as an Attorney and decided to take the plunge to get my real estate license! Not being from Dallas originally, I wasn’t sure how I would find a client base. But I just used the network I had and the rest was history.

Our Flip Before

Our Flip After

My goal is to be diversified in real estate, not just a Realtor but an investor as well. So far my husband and I have owned 5 different houses - 3 personal residences, 1 flip that we bought and sold, and we just bought our first short term rental property that we are furnishing!

Some of the things I love most about real estate! (1) The opportunities are endless. You can literally make money while also satisfying a base human need - shelter. You have to pay to live somewhere, might as well be making money on that. What other product is a basic human need that is also an investment? (2) I love helping people accomplish their goals! I get to be a part of a little snip-it of people’s lives and advise them on their investment. I just love helping people make money. (3) You can be creative! As a realtor I get to use creativity all the time, staging a property, coming up with a marketing plan, furnishing my short term rental.