“I’m a systems guy, not a real estate professional,” says John Murray, broker of Key Realty in Rockford, Ill. “I built the machine and started feeding it. The result is large volumes of transactions,” says Murray, who only lists properties and works with asset managers in the REO field. “Don’t get me wrong, I love turning houses back into homes, but I feel my greatest contribution is to further real estate through technology.” It’s easy to see why Murray would feel that way. After all, he left a career as an executive in the information technology sector to become the primary caretaker for his ailing parents (both have since passed). “It was both the hardest and most rewarding challenge I’ve ever faced,” he says. Due to his parents’ demanding schedules, Murray needed a flexible job. He found that in 2003 when he started in real estate. “I identified the emerging foreclosure market during the ephemeral boom,” he says. “Real estate caught my attention, but I knew that if I was to engage in it, I had to figure out where it made sense. I analyzed the market for over a year and identified this real estate bubble,” he says. Murray was able to see it so clearly because several years before he learned an expensive lesson during the dot.com bubble burst. “I saw my net worth spiral downward. I learned about bubbles and tried to figure out how to monetize the real estate one.” Once he got his license, he followed the same path he did in technology. “In tech, I knew I wanted to be an executive, so I worked in all the different areas. I worked every field long enough to understand what it was and figure out the strengths and weaknesses of that vertical,” he says. For real estate, he went from executive leadership in multiple private equity funds to asset management, to servicing, to loss
mitigation—concurrently whenever possible. “After that it was time to improve the industry with my passion—technology. That’s where Realty Pilot came into play.” About a year and a half ago, Murray joined Realty Pilot as the president, all while listing, doing bulk sales and serving as president of a hedge fund. Outside of real estate and technology, the 40-something Murray is passionate about being “the best father for my 5year old twins (Madison and James, named after James Madison, the fourth U.S. president and Murray’s favorite) and best husband for my wife, Tina.” Seeing his own parents pass away spurred Murray to think seriously about his health and start competing in triathlons. “In high school I earned my letters playing varsity chess,” he says. “Sports are new to me. It’s really about inner strength—mind over matter—so I find it enjoyable,” he says. “Business is all about inner determination.” And, he says, “I draw upon my parent’s faith in God and faith in inner strength constantly.” Murray also uses that faith to help others. “I do a lot of loss mitigation work pro bono,” he says. “I recently met this sweet 65-year old lady who had a 40-acre farm. She lived there her whole life, and her scale was tipped because they had to reassess the value of the land. She couldn’t meet her new tax obligation and went into arrears. She was working as a third shift security guard two hours away just so she could keep the property. After several years of trying to get the lender to modify and get her into a reverse mortgage, I finally jumped on a plane and met with the lender’s executive vice president,” says Murray, who refused to leave the office until the case was settled. “That’s the kind of stuff I like doing,” he says. Lives of Real Estate
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