No. 1 Individual Salesperson in Both Transaction Sides and Volume answering phones and greeting visitors. He received his Texas real estate broker’s license at age 21. After working with a custom apartment Once Ben Caballero, CMP, MIRM, builder for a few years, president of HomesUSA.com in Caballero started his Dallas, sees a problem, he fixes it. own home-building When, at age 21, he used a rental business, which he service to find a home and was operated until, he unhappy with its handling of the says, “Interest rates transaction, he started his own rental service. “I ran that for a few years, got were up to 17.4 percent. I figured the to know people in the apartment market was volatile, so business and then partnered with a custom builder who built apartments,” I took some time off.” says Caballero, who was ranked No. 1 Caballero found his next opportunity in individual salesperson in both creating a niche business for transaction sides and volume for the homebuilders—problem No. 3 2013 REAL Trends/The Wall Street (Builders needed to get buyers out of Journal The Thousand, an their old homes and into the new ones accomplishment not achieved since quickly) solved. The program REAL Trends has kept a record of Caballero started was a “guaranteed those accomplishments. It was his experience working with builders that buy-out” for families buying a new home, Caballero says. “Builders paid eventually spurred Caballero to build me a fee to insure the sale. It was very the automated system that’s so structured. I would do an analysis of successful today. Another problem the value and get a percentage less solved. commission and closing costs. Owners were free to list with an agent of their Getting Started choice, subject to my approval, and if It’s no surprise that Caballero it didn’t sell, I would buy it.” Soon decided to pursue a career in real after, Caballero developed a flat-fee estate. Both of his parents were real listing system. “Builders save money estate brokers. In high school, by reducing the listing-side Caballero worked in their office Ben Caballero: Finding the Shiny Penny By automating a cumbersome system, this broker was able to see sales skyrocket.
Ben Caballero is the only individual agent to be ranked No. 1 in two categories on the REAL Trends/The Wall Street Journal The Thousand.
Lives of Real Estate
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