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Mother knows best
Throughout his four-year high school career, Glen Daniels remembers that his mother was constantly encouraging him to get involved in real estate. She was familiar with a handful of successful real estate investors in the neighborhood and wanted her son to follow their lucrative paths.
Glen, however, had different plans. He was set on attending Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and earning a degree in marketing and finance. As he puts it, he had "bigger plans" for his future than real estate.
But like most college graduates, Glen was in for a rude awakening when the hard realities of making it in the white collar world began to emerge shortly after taking a job as a runner at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
"I was making $26 each day and it cost me $20 to park my car," said Glen. "That's not exactly bringing home the bacon. Of course, there were promises of advancement and greener pastures ahead; however, the major problem was that I was not in control of when and how it would all happen. And that just didn't sit right."
During a trip back to Florida during the holidays to visit his family, Glen bumped into a former high school classmate, Brad Geisen, who had spent his time since graduation learning the real estate ropes, making money hand over fist buying and selling foreclosure properties.
He was about to open his own real estate office and he pitched Glen on the idea of giving up his day job and coming on board.
"I could hear my mother's voice in the back of my head, telling me that real estate was the way to go," said Glen. "It just made sense at the time — I was working 80 hour weeks and was barely earning enough income to survive. So I quit and moved back to sunny Florida."
He's been off and running ever since.
In his first year as a licensed real estate agent — with the help of Brad and the experienced team at Investments Plus — Glen was the company's top salesman, selling more than 50 homes and generating millions in sales. And he did it at a time (late 80s to early 90s) when the housing market was an absolute disaster.
It's safe to say that Glen was a natural.
"Real estate just felt right," explained Glen. "It was and still is an exciting career that is incredibly rewarding personally and financially. No one day is ever the same ... and I can't remember the last time I sat in front of a computer for eight hours or had to answer to a boss. It's amazing to be quite honest."
His immediate success convinced Glen that he could go at it on his own without the support of Brad and Investments Plus. He had the basics mastered and he felt it was already time for him to move on to see what he could do with this newfound invaluable knowledge.
He and a partner created a new company, which focused on selling foreclosures, as well as purchasing and reselling them for profit. It was during this time — about a five-year span — that Glen perfected his "flipping" skills.
Unfortunately, it was also during this time that Glen learned perhaps his biggest life lesson: Don't bite off more than you can chew ... not in real estate, anyway.
With a booming business, money to spend and confidence at an all-time high, Glen and his partner decided it was time to crack the new home construction market. If you build it, the two assumed, buyers will come.
They didn't ... and Glen and his partner almost lost everything they worked so hard for during the past half-decade.
"It was a total train wreck," said Glen. "We had no idea what we were doing and we paid dearly for it. In fact, we took such a bath that I decided it was time for a break from real estate."
Once again, Glen tried his hand in corporate America, taking a position in the Real Estate Owned (REO) department of a major national lending institution. While there he quickly moved up the ranks from an asset manager to a regional supervisor, overseeing the management and marketing of a $243 million portfolio of REO properties along with the development and designing of the bank's REO software and workflow.
It was a great opportunity and he enjoyed the experience — it was invaluable for him to see how the "other" side of the foreclosure business operated. However, he would always catch himself thinking about the next big deal that he's missing.
And ultimately he made the decision to return to foreclosure investing and sales.
"Once real estate is in your blood it's hard to get it out," said Glen. "Every home or foreclosure represents opportunity and that's the best part about this business. There are so many deals to be had that, for me, it's impossible to not want to make profits on them."
His new business quickly generated annual commissions of more that $1 million. Glen was doing so well that he considered retirement (he was just 38-years-old) to spend more time with his wife, twin boys and other two children.
But fate in the form of Foreclosure.com Founder, President and CEO, Brad Geisen, intervened once again.
"We were all set to move the family to Georgia, but one thing led to another, and the deal fell through," said Glen. "It wasn't meant to be. And strangely enough, I bumped into Brad around this time, and we got to talking again — it was as if we had never lost touch."
Once again, just when Glen was set on leaving real estate behind, he was reeled right back in to the fold. He is currently the Director of REO at Foreclosure.com, managing our successful Foreclosure.com REO Agent Marketing Program (R.A.M.P.) and expanding the innovative services that we offer to national lenders and real estate brokers.
He's come full circle and is now in the position where he can get a daily dose of the white collar corporate lifestyle and simultaneously grow his own foreclosure investing business — it's the best of both worlds.
Something for which both he and his mother can be proud.
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