September 10, 2025 • 42 mins
From rice fields to commercial real estate deals, Clinton Bennett's journey offers a masterclass in building a successful career through relationship development, specialized knowledge, and strategic patience. As a native Arkansan who initially returned home to farm after college, Clinton's entrepreneurial spirit eventually led him to pursue greater opportunities—a path that required both formal education and real-world experience.
The power of networking stands out as a central theme in Clinton's story. His connections from undergraduate years became instrumental as he transitioned into commercial real estate, highlighting how relationships cultivated years earlier can unexpectedly open doors. When introduced to David Dallas, who had experience with Walmart's real estate department, Clinton found himself leasing shopping center spaces for Walmart Supercenter outparcels across the country—learning valuable skills that would serve as building blocks for his future success.
What makes Clinton's perspective particularly valuable is his emphasis on creating substantial value for clients. In an industry where fees can be significant, he stresses the importance of ensuring clients feel they've received far more value than what they've paid. This commitment to excellence explains why he advocates for specialization rather than attempting to master every aspect of commercial real estate. "I do not want to disappoint my clients. I do not want to be surprised by information that I should have known," he explains, underscoring why deep expertise in specific niches ultimately serves clients better than surface-level knowledge across many areas.
Perhaps most instructive is Clinton's philosophy on delayed gratification and persistence. Commercial real estate doesn't deliver immediate results—the groundwork laid today might not bear fruit for 6-18 months. This long-term perspective has guided his career from working with national firms like Grubb & Ellis and CBRE to founding Bennett Commercial Real Estate and ultimately merging with Focus Commercial to create a powerhouse team with complementary strengths. As Clinton puts it: "You need to get a business strategy and stick with it and let it play out before you lose patience and shift gears."
Want to learn more about commercial real estate opportunities in Northwest Arkansas? Connect with Clinton and his team at Focus Commercial Real Estate to tap into their wealth of market knowledge and collaborative approach to business.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Northwest Arkansas Investing Podcast, your
go-to source for real estateinvesting in Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
With your seasoned investor just starting out.
We bring you expert insights,market trends and practical
strategies to help you buildwealth through real estate.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
From buying and selling to property management
and long-term investmentplanning.
We cover it all so you can makesmart, informed decisions in
this fast-growing market.
Let's dive in.
Welcome back to NorthwestArkansas Investing Podcast.
I've got Mr Brian Wagers,co-host, here, and I've got Mr
Clinton Bennett here with us.
Clinton, we're appreciativethat you spent your time with us
and we're super grateful forjust your knowledge and kind of
(00:44):
what we're going to get into.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Well, I'm honored that you guys would have me here
, appreciate you having me onand look forward to the visit.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Absolutely so.
Clinton's got a wealth ofknowledge in the commercial real
estate space.
I think he's just finished up amerger also that we'll get into
a little bit with FocusCommercial Real Estate.
And so, clinton, we'd love tojust kind of get a little bit
with Focus Commercial RealEstate.
And so, clinton, we'd love tojust kind of get a little bit
into in this episode, get alittle bit of your background
(01:10):
commercial real estate career,the merger that you guys did and
just get to know you a littlebit.
And then next episode, we'dlove to kind of get a little bit
more into the market, kind ofwhat you're seeing and all that
good stuff.
So for those who don't know younot in the market, not around
the area, uh, would love to justget a 30,000 foot view of of
you, how you got started, how'dyou land in commercial real
(01:31):
estate here?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
sure, yeah, happy to get into that.
And uh, you know, if you needany more detail or anything
pictures, just let me know andI'll elaborate.
But I'm an arkansas guy.
I grew up in northeast arkansas, a little town called
pocahontas, which is, for peopleunfamiliar, it's kind of over
near jonesboro.
Um lived there my entire life,graduated from high school and
went to college at theuniversity of arkansas and got
(01:53):
an ag business degree in theearly 90s and moved back to
northeast arkansas to farm.
I grew up in a rice farmingbusiness, rice farming family,
we grew rice and corn andsoybeans, and so I moved home to
farm and farmed for about sixyears and as I kind of was
settling into the farmingbusiness, I just was kind of
(02:15):
recognizing that that maybewasn't where I wanted to spend
the rest of my career.
There were some elements ofthat business that I loved and
miss to this day, but I think Ijust always had a little bit of
an entrepreneurial drive andwanted particularly at that age
in the 20s you just kind of wantto be where there's more action
going on.
So I moved home to farm, didthat for six years and when I
(02:40):
decided I was going to kind ofchange courses.
It's funny.
I've listened to you guys talka little bit and a lot of other
people are having this debateabout the value of college
versus, you know, not going tocollege.
I would be happy to supporteither side of that argument.
I think they both make sense.
But for me, I really I didn'tenjoy undergrad that much but I
(03:03):
really had a lot of respect forthe university and for a degree
and some of the professors thereand I felt like I was too
immature to be in college andundergrad.
But then when I was looking atgoing back into really doing a
major career shift because forall my life I thought I was
going to be a farmer and then itwas like, okay, wait, I'm not.
Like, how do I get prepared toenter a different path?
(03:25):
And I really didn't know whatthat path would be.
I thought it would likely besomething to do with commodity
trading, because from the ricebackground we had some
involvement in commodity trading, so I had some familiarity with
that and interest in that andyou know so the commodities are
a big part of the ag space, asis real estate and real estate,
(03:46):
and so as I was transitioning Iwas like man, I think I ought to
go to graduate school to kindof hone my skills before I go
out to try to figure out whereI'm going to chart my next
course.
So, the University of Arkansas.
That was early 2000s.
They had just kind of revamped.
The Waltons had donated a lotof money at that point in time,
as they have a number of times,I shouldn't sayamped the Waltons
had donated a lot of money atthat point in time, as they have
a number of times.
I shouldn't say just theWaltons, but they'd had a major
(04:07):
capital campaign.
Um, in the business school hadkind of gone through a
transition where, in an updatewhere they had the new Sam M
Walton School of Business and anew MBA program.
So I moved back in 2003,started in the MBA program uh,
really with without anycertainty about what I was going
to do, and that program was an18-month program.
(04:29):
So I was living in Fayetteville2003, 2004,.
Graduated in 2004.
As I was going through that path, just looking around and trying
to think about what the rightpath was going to be for me
post-graduation, you could sensethen that something really
unique was happening inNorthwest Arkansas.
(04:50):
I mean, that was 2004.
And you know, I really wantedto be focused on commercial real
estate.
Yeah, I don't know that therewas a big strategy behind that,
other than I just was like youknow, I think the deals are
going to be bigger.
Yeah, I think that the emotionswill be less of a factor in it,
(05:10):
and so it was like that kind ofcaught my interest.
But then so the commercialwasn't just booming, there was
certainly some growth, but thenman 0405, 0607, at those times
the residential was going crazy,but commercial a little less so
, but regardless there was a lotof uh, you know it's like that.
It's like the real estateindustry's kind of gone through
(05:32):
this evolution where I thinkprior to the early 2000s, and
maybe particularly up here, youknow, people didn't think about
real estate as a career path oran investment opportunity to the
extent they do now, and I thinkyou know it's wild, now A lot
of people think that way, but Ithink, you know, even though for
more and more people werethinking that way, so there was
(05:54):
just this energy and kind oflike sexiness to the industry
and kind of excitement aboutwhat was happening in Northwest
Arkansas, and so, as I was kindof finishing up, I was like man,
I think this is a good path forme.
How do I get into that business?
And you know one of the thingsit's funny on this, you know
college no, college debate.
You know one of the real valuesI think of college is the
(06:17):
network you build.
And I didn't realize, you know.
So, going into the 90s I met somany people in Northwest
Arkansas.
So then I was finishinggraduate school in the early
2000s.
You know I had a reallypowerful network of people that
I think had primarily come fromundergrad and people that stuck
around.
You know I was a pretty socialguy.
So you know, as I wasgraduating, I was seeing friends
(06:38):
and you know people that I knewhad been successful in the real
estate business and we juststarted asking them, people that
I knew had been successful inthe real estate business.
And we're just starting askingthem.
And uh, I can't recall theexact conversation, but you know
I had a friend who was havingsome success in the real estate
space and he's like man you needto, you need to talk to David
Dallas, like he's a reallyintelligent guy, he's really
(06:58):
good guy, nice guy and he's gota resume of experience that is,
it's kind of unique in northwestArkansas.
David was a.
He had worked at Walmart, sothe Walmart real estate
department.
He had an appraisal license andthere are layers to the or
degrees of commercial, ofappraisal licenses I don't know
(07:19):
what they all are, but he hadnot really the entry-level
appraisal license.
He was a commercial appraiser,had some good experience.
He'd worked at Walmart RealEstate Department, left Walmart,
moved to Dallas and worked fora stint with Gap, which you know
in the late 90s, early 2000s.
Gap was a big deal.
He worked for Banana Republicfor a while.
(07:41):
So he had a really kind of coolreal estate story and set of
experiences and he was growing acommercial residential firm
locally that you know back inthe early 2000s, mid-2000s, was
getting a lot of attention.
It was really active, the firmthat is.
It was called Dallas RealEstate and then he kind of
(08:04):
ancillary to that, that realestate brokerage business he was
and this was kind of unique.
It's funny, like you know,you're doing the GPLP investing.
You know maybe it was just myperception, but you know 2004,
2005, there weren't a lot ofpeople using I didn't see a lot
of people using other people'scapital to go do large
(08:27):
commercial real estatedevelopment deals and David had
the intelligence of theforesight or whatever, or the
relationships.
I guess all that stuff he hadaligned with I don't know the
technical terms their partners,or he had aligned with a group
that had access to quite a bitof capital, quite a bit of real
(08:47):
estate development know-how, andthey collectively went out and
bought I think it was 21 Walmartout parcels, because if you
think of the early 2000s,walmart super centers were
really expanding all over thecountry.
So there were a lot of new bigWalmart super centers.
Those super centers, thosesuper centers usually have these
out parcels in front of them.
(09:07):
You know now you drive by them,they all have a retail center
that's, you know, 10 or 12 and15 000 feet.
They've all got.
You know at the time it wasrent-a-center.
You know great clips, sportclips.
Um, the check cashing businesswas more prevalent in the early
2000s so there was always acheck casher.
Gamestop was really active backin those days, the cell phone
(09:34):
users, the AT&Ts and Verizons.
So my first job out of graduateschool was with David.
He hired me and I had my realestate license.
I was trying of build a localcommercial real estate brokerage
business, helping him, but thatwas really my primary role was
to try to lease these shoppingcenters.
So they were developing andthis was across the country,
(09:54):
across the country.
Yeah yeah, there was one inCalifornia, one in South Dakota,
one in Colorado.
I mean they were kind of spreadall over.
I mean they were kind of spreadall over.
But you know you can take anaerial of a Walmart supercenter
and the outparsals.
I mean they don't all look thesame but they all look pretty
close to the same.
So you know, I had some ofthose centers that I helped with
(10:16):
leasing that I never saw, likeI know you needed to see the
site plan, you needed to see thedemographics around it, and
then you needed to have thecontact and you know at&t or
rena center or wherever, and belike, hey, you know john doe at
rena center, yeah, I've got aspot for you in california that
I think would be a great fit andhe's like well, send it to me.
I don't have a location.
So I don't want to make itsound easy, because there was a
(10:38):
lot of relationship building andthere was a lot of work that
went into it.
But you know, if you had goodrelationships and you were
delivering good opportunities topeople like they would pick up
the phone on your next call.
Yeah, they'd be like oh yeah,no, we'll do a deal in south
dakota.
Yeah, so that was really me foryears, my.
So that was early in my career.
Initially in my career that waswhere I spent a lot of time was
(11:00):
leasing those shopping centers,and then I was doing some local
commercial real estate brokers,but more shopping center
leasing, and then over the yearsthat kind of flipped off to
where you know.
We kind of leased up theshopping centers and I was more
engaged with local commercialreal estate brokers.
Gotcha.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
So it sounds like your first real glimpse into
real estate was your friendintroducing you to David Dallas.
Is that his name?
You said that's right so, andthen that rolled you kind of
into the opportunity because youweren't necessarily thinking
about it through undergrad orgrad school.
Maybe you saw some success.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
No, that you're right .
Yeah, no, I didn't.
I, I wasn't really.
I was thinking about a littlebit that there wasn't a lot of
formal training.
Um, there was.
There's kind of a I know youguys have had to wit on the show
um, there's a story that a lotof us you know my age kind of
laugh about.
You know the wit, for I thinktwo semesters maybe, maybe more,
(11:52):
taught a commercial real estateuh, modeling class, and it was
a big deal because at the timethe?
U of a didn't have they had areal estate class, but it wasn't
a very heavy duty class and itwas kind of more entry-level
class.
Well, the wood is, he's supersharp and that has a lot, a lot
(12:13):
of experience, and someoneconvinced him to teach a class
at the university and so theylet the graduate students that
were interested and they let thelike top performing um
undergrad finance real estatestudents attend that class, and
so I was in it with and I couldname 15 people now who are all
(12:33):
like really active.
A lot of us didn't know eachother like we kind of ended up
in this class together.
It's like, oh yeah, I know you.
We kind of figured out who weall knew became friends and we
took this class with dewitt andum.
It's funny, how many people areyou know now spread around
Arkansas that a lot of them havehad quite a bit of success that
were in that class?
That's awesome.
(12:54):
Shout out to DeWitt yeah, itwas awesome.
It was awesome and he's anawesome guy.
He's like a Yoda on us.
He's like a Yoda Commercialreal estate yoda.
And then that class.
I mean I literally I could name10 people and everybody just
grins like me.
Well, it was crazy to see whowe met then and how it's kind of
played out now over 20 years.
That's awesome.
So that was as close as I gotto really formal training.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I didn't yeah, I didn't have any real formal
training yep, and I think Ithink, just listening to another
podcast you were recently on,you mentioned at that time too
commercial real estate in NorthDakota, Arkansas even was maybe
kind of at its infancy, right, Imean comparatively to the
residential market.
Yeah, relatively speaking, yeah, and maybe the rest of the
(13:36):
country even as well.
Yeah, it was certainly unique.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
I will say, though, we're talking about training and
being prepared to get into thebusiness after grad school.
I mean, at that point I was 29or 30.
You know.
I think that 10 years of and Ihadn't been messing around, like
I was really working, like thefarm was pretty intense, I was
doing some pretty stressfulsmall business stuff I think
(14:02):
that 10 years of maturationreally helped me when I got out
of the business I mean nothingagainst the young guys or gals
just getting out of college Likeyou got to kind of earn your
stripes but I do think thathaving you know some real work
experience under my belt helpedme kind of just wait with that.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, agreed, then I think I mean just talking about
my.
I had some similar experiencejust going from walmart
corporate even in a light sense,of three years of walmart
corporate and seeing thestructure and seeing different
uh you know process and and theway that they do things and then
taking that into a real estatebusiness.
Now I think there's so manyvaluable things you can learn.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
It's such an important whatever your process
is and wherever your path is, aslong as you're doing things
that are, I'm of the belief that, as long as you're doing things
that are productive, you gotpeople that are coaching you.
I mean they may be hard on you,but as long as they're
constructive in it, you know, aslong as you've got people that
will help you learn and you'regetting that work experience, I
mean it's so valuable.
And one of the things aboutthis business my view on this
(15:04):
business, the commercial realestate brokerage business is it
takes a lot of patience and alot of persistence and I'm
sympathetic to.
You know people early in theircareer getting into it and I
tell them I'm pretty direct, I'mlike, hey, this is a hard path.
I have no doubt you can besuccessful, but these building
(15:26):
blocks of experience that you'vegot, you've got to earn those
you can't just read them in abook and it doesn't happen fast,
doesn't happen fast and so, um,in some ways I'm sympathetic to
the, to the folks getting in,because it's you know, it's a,
it's a, it's not a.
It's a challenging path to getto the point where you've really
got some momentum andconfidence moving you no,
absolutely.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
I think you got to get used to the no brian.
You can probably resonate withthat a little bit with your
start in the buying apartmentcomplexes when you're first
starting.
But I think you got to get usedto the know and the busy, a lot
of delayed gratification forsure.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Like you make a hundred phone calls today
doesn't mean tomorrow that oneof those guys see you and I call
you back.
It's a lot of planting seeds.
It's uh, you were, you shookthe guy's hands and do its class
, or you had this connectionthat came to fruition maybe a
year later.
Six months late, I feel like,feel like there's a almost like
a six month lag.
For me.
It's like when I, if I'm I'mworking really hard, I try to
(16:20):
work hard, you know consistently.
But you know that those resultsfrom analyzing so many deals or
making so many offers.
Usually you kind of see that insix months it's not, it's
almost like working, or 12 or 12.
It's almost like working out,or 12.
Or 12.
It's almost like working out,like I'm going to do 100 sit-ups
today but that doesn't mean I'mgoing to have a six-pack
tomorrow.
Now, if I do that consistentlyfor six months, my abs might
(16:41):
start to look better.
12 months, then it startspopping out.
So yeah, there is that delayedgratification.
I love the story of you knowleasing.
You were a leasing, you werepretty, you were a leasing
broker for them.
That's right, and but you also.
I think it is important to beas close to ownership as you can
, because you you saw how theywere putting you.
(17:02):
You didn't have any equity, youwere just leasing and getting
commission there, but you alsowere.
You were getting not not sweatequity, but you know, almost
knowledge equity, like howthey're putting together, like
they had this awesome foresightto see these parcels by one,
like and it's almost laughablenow to look at, like how smart
that was, like putting thosetogether.
So I think that's a great story.
(17:22):
What I wanted to transition tonext was well, okay, so that's
great.
What was the next step for you?
After how long did you do thisleasing and what was the next
step in your so I think the nextstep really happened around
2007,.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
and what was the next step in your?
So I think the next step reallyhappened around 2007, you know.
So I started working with davidin 2004 great three-year run.
Um, there were no real problemsthere, it was just you know his
that that that shopping centerinitiative was kind of winding
down.
You know he had multiple thingsgoing on in his life and so it
was kind of like I started tohave a desire to be with more
(17:58):
with like a solely commercialbrokerage, and I'd started to
recognize, you know, as a guybecause a competitive guy that's
a broker like trying to grow abrokerage business in northwest
Arkansas.
You would see how I mean we'resitting in Pinnacle Hills and so
there are buildings full ofthese suppliers.
Or you would see these nationaltenants, whether they're
(18:20):
Walmart suppliers or whetherthey were retailers or whether
they're some of these industrialusers.
Because at that stage you kindof had to do everything.
You were kind of a generalist,like I only did commercial real
estate, but you had to kind ofbe somewhat versed in everything
because you just never knewwhat opportunities would come up
and the market was small enoughthat you could kind of do a
pretty good job with all of them, like you could stay up to
(18:42):
speed on where the market tradeswere.
I don't think you can really dothat now.
I think each property segmentis so robust that it's like you
better pick one, maybe two, andfocus on that, at least this
time for sure.
Yeah, yeah, it's there's justso much information and there's
so many deals and there's it'sit's hard to you.
(19:02):
You better have your focus, uh,somewhere direct.
I didn't say that very well,but yeah, yeah pick a niche,
yeah, pick a niche.
Um, so I I kind of was seeingthat like to get I wanted to be
more involved with thesenational tenants.
You know, if you try to callone of them, they're like you're
(19:22):
who for where?
Like they didn't recognizelocal firms and so it just kind
of dawned on me it's like, hey,we need some more.
Like I would like to beaffiliated with a true national
commercial real estate brokerageparent and at the time, uh,
paul esther is kind ofcoincidental, like I don't I
can't remember exactly how theconversation came together, but
(19:45):
paul esther, bo barrett uh gothim ready lawson and bo's wife,
courtney, uh, they had the ideaI want to get fletcher hansen
out of north over ikea, paul,we're partners.
They had the idea.
Same I want to get FletcherHanson out of North Little Rock.
He and Paul were partners.
They had the idea.
Same idea.
It's like we need a commercialbrand for our brokerage company.
And so they had gone out andsecured the rights to open a
(20:06):
Grub and Ellis franchise and atthe time Grub and Ellis was, you
know, one of the top fivecommercial real estate companies
in the really, I guess, theworld.
It's now called newmark andwent through evolution in the uh
, great recession.
But so they had the rise tothis, to this flag, for this new
commercial brokerage company,and paul uh called and he was
(20:27):
like hey, you know we're we'regonna open this thing and you
know if you'd like to partner.
I got a lot of respect for thebrokerage you know work that you
Like.
I think it'd be a good fit.
I've got some funny storiesaround that too, but so we met,
talked about the idea,ultimately said yeah, let's do
it.
So I partnered with those guysin 2007 and transitioned from
(20:49):
Dallas Real Estate to Grubbin'Alice and that was great.
Pretty quickly after that wepicked up the leasing and
management of Bentonville Plaza.
Our office was a downtownBentonville.
I don't feel like an idiotbecause I didn't wasn't buying
property in downtown Bentonville, but it was great for me
(21:10):
because I lived in Fayetteville.
I would drive to downtownBentonville, which I didn't mind
.
My wife commuted for a while.
She didn't love the commute.
I didn't mind it.
I like listening to the radioor talking to the phone or
whatever.
It's kind of a unwind and Ireally liked being connected in.
Like I understood what washappening in downtown
Bentonville and understood whatwas happening in Fayetteville,
and pretty good in between aswell.
(21:31):
But I feel like and I've saidthis to other brokers I feel
like if you live south andcommute north, or if you live
north and commute south, it'spretty powerful for your market
knowledge to stay connected withwhat's happening in the
communities.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I think we still have a market that is and this is
something I've admired from youfor a long time is, I think
there's importance in beingniche in the, the type of real
estate and anything kind of whatyou've pioneered there, I think
in Northwest Arkansas.
But, like you said, I think ourarea is still small enough to
where you can do the whole area,the whole region, um, and do it
(22:09):
at a really high level, um.
But but again, I think thatthat niche that you're talking
about and that's I've talked toplenty of other commercial
brokers that are like oh yeah,we can sell retail, we can sell
warehouse or we can do it alland be an expert.
I don't know if that's the case.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
I don't think either of us are totally right or
totally wrong.
There's certainly a way to doit.
I think some of my view comesfrom maybe just like insecurity.
I do not want to disappoint myclients.
I do not want to be surprisedby information that I should
have known, that I didn't know.
And I'm just thinking about youwith your apartment business.
If you're in the apartmentsevery day, you know Class B,
(22:55):
whatever you're like.
I don't know how you describeexactly what you do, but if
you're looking at you knowmarkets the size of you know
Kansas City and Tulsa andOklahoma City, like I think you
are, you're looking at Class Bapartments that are 200 units.
Like you know the metrics, likeyou don't have to go check your
notes.
Like you know what they shouldbe.
If you spot something thatisn't right, it catches your eye
(23:18):
pretty quickly and you're like,oh, we need to dig a little
deeper on this.
Like you're not I'm repeatingmyself you're not checking your
notes.
Like you know what you're doing.
And that's where I think my, mydrive to be specialized comes
from.
It's like I don't, I want toknow this well enough that, like
I'm not reading this stuff inthe newspaper.
Like we're telling thenewspaper why this deal went
down at the price that it wentdown.
(23:39):
Yeah, um and and I do thinkthat comes from like an
insecurity.
You know, the fees in commercialreal estate are big and I think
when I got into it, there was apart of me that's kind of
self-conscious being at theclosing table and somebody just
spent a bunch of money andyou're walking out with a check
that's got six figures on it.
I wanted to make damn sure thatI created enough value in that
(24:01):
transaction where I could lookat them and be like, hell, yeah,
I earned that.
Because people will do it Somepoke and fall out and some not
that are like, damn, that's alot of money, clinton.
It's like, well, yeah, it is,but I want you to view me then
that I've saved you.
You know, engaging me to makeyou way more than what I made.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
No, absolutely.
I think that's great, a lot ofvalue to be had there.
I mean, I think, moreimportantly, promptness and
convictions about you know yourknowledge of certain products
and things like that just givesthat confidence right to the
client and again helps them makemore money, helps them not have
any liability on the back end.
I mean there's a number ofthings, I think, where that
(24:42):
value comes into play.
That again you're just with theconvictions of knowing the
product.
I mean, brian, we couldprobably name an area in
Northwest Arkansas and in aclass of apartments and you can
tell us what the average rentsare and I could look at a
certain area of residential andsay, yeah, we could probably get
this there and just haveconvictions about those things.
(25:03):
I think that's super important.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
It's so much fun being in meetings.
Well, you've been in a millionof them.
I was in one last week withfive people in there.
Everybody knew what they weretalking about and you started
looking at a project or talkingabout a project and saying, yeah
, I think we can tweak this alittle bit here.
Like when you see people thatknow what they're talking about
oh, I guess impression snappingfrom the microphone.
When you see people that reallyknow what they're talking about
(25:28):
in a group of them, you walkout of that meeting going.
If we landed on an idea thatthis project's worth six million
dollars or whatever, like I got, a lot of confidence, it's
worth six million dollars.
Yeah, like it's fun watchingthat come together when you're
dealing with people that arereally knowledgeable.
Yep, agreed, and I'd like tothink we add that to to the
meetings we get involved in.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
But yep, um you gotta have the backup.
It's.
It's like okay, we're gettingto these numbers, but what are
your assumptions to get to thatnumbers?
And I think that's importantwith any commercial real estate
is the assumptions that you'regoing to add Every project.
You're adding value, but whatare you assuming that value is
coming from?
Where are you getting to that?
So to your point of knowingwell, I can point to apartment A
(26:11):
, b and C that I know the rent'sthere.
Well, they might be marketedthis, but I know the leasing.
They have this amount ofconcessions.
It may look like that.
Or, yeah, the newspaper said itsold for this, but I saw how
many offers were made on thisbefore I got to the paper.
The word on the street isfaster.
If you're transacting andyou're making offers and you're
leasing and you're actually inthe game, you can get a lot more
(26:31):
data that way and it helps whenyou're making offers and you're
leasing and you're you'reactually in the game.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
You can get a lot more data that way and it helps
when you're in that yeah, youmight see the paper, but there
might have been a half milliondollar credit or something yeah,
that too yeah, it's, but it'sfun when you are.
You mean you have to earn thatexperience and you have, and
it's like it's fun when you kindof can look at those deals and
go and your assumptions you'retalking about, you've got
(26:57):
confidence in them and you've.
It's an art and a science likethe data is great, but it's also
this layer of experience thatcomes into play, where you're
like you know we've got the dataand we've got the gut feel of
how this is probably going toplay out.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah, absolutely, just as we wrap up this first
episode, I'd love to kind offinish off hearing more about
you know how, how you got toClint, starting Clinton
commercial or Bennett excuse me,uh, Bennett commercial real
estate.
And then now, obviously,there's a merger.
Uh, listeners, If you're, ifyou're listening to this, you
could probably look it up.
But uh, the merger recently,with focus to, I guess, tell us
(27:32):
what, what led you to get intodoing your own thing?
Sure, and now obviously thatbrand.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Yeah, so I worked with the group I talked about
earlier that Grub Ellis wastransitioning to Newmark.
What I recognized in that timeof being affiliated kind of with
a national brand is, you know,at the time Grub Ellis was like
number four in the country.
Cbre was the biggest one Likethey're number one by a long
shot Then, as far asinternational, as far as kind of
(27:58):
corporate accounts and Fortune500 companies they service.
So there are a lot of tenantsin this market that had
corporate services agree withCBRE.
I'd kind of figured that outand so I ended up forming a
relationship with the guys thathad the rights to open CBRE in
this market, aligned with them,opened the CBRE office.
(28:20):
That was 2012.
My friend, david Erstown Daveand I are still good buddies and
good friends and have a goodrespect for each other from a
work standpoint he came overjust almost immediately after we
opened the office.
So he and I really ran theoffice for almost a decade and
then I just excuse me, it wasthe part that had been super
(28:47):
appealing to me in 2007 and 2010and really even 2012 or 15 was
the corporate services side ofthe business and after 10 or 12
or 15 years of doing that.
It wasn't as compelling to me.
And CBRE is a great company butit's a giant company and you
(29:07):
kind of need to do things and Irespect this.
Like when you run a giantcompany, you kind of have to
have some pretty set processes,and so there were kind of that
platform just felt a littleconstraining to me and felt a
little big and I was to thepoint where I had really enough
local business of my own that Ididn't feel like I needed the
corporate services account.
(29:28):
So in 2020, I, for noparticular reason, I just kind
of was ready to make a changeand try to chart my own course.
A little bit open been acommercial real estate, that
without a real grand strategyfor how to grow that.
But you know, as you weretalking about the benefit, you
do the work today and you seethe benefit six months later.
(29:50):
You know I would argue that ina lot of my brokerage stuff it's
Six months, it's 12 months,it's 18 months later.
So when I left it wastransitioning from CBRE to bid
at commercial real estate therewas this just kind of flywheel
of leads and activity that youknow just kept showing up from
three months later six months.
So the deals just kind of keptcoming in and clients were like
(30:13):
hey, clinton, you know we don'tcare what company you're with,
like we'll use you.
So the business just kind oforganically grew and so we did
that.
Over the last five years it'sbeen great.
Uh, I mean the company isgrowing.
Uh, the rose-colored glassesviews, everything's great.
Um, for me, you know, I'm 51with a couple teenagers and uh,
(30:36):
you know, I just to, to be agreat commercial real estate
broker, you have to run at apace that is pretty non-stop.
Um, and so to combine being areally great broker and being
trying to be a really greatbusiness owner, um, it's like,
man, this is a lot and I enjoyit and it's going well, but like
(30:57):
I don't really want to workthis hard.
Yeah, like I don't mind working,but like I'm trying to be
strategic about how I spend mytime and not feel bad if I'm,
you know, my son's a golfer, Ilike trying to take him to golf
tournaments, my daughter's intovolleyball, like I, like I
didn't want to feel like Ineeded to be responsive to
people all the time.
So the idea of the merger thereand there are a lot of layers
(31:21):
to this.
But the idea of the merger is Ireally like the guys I
partnered with.
There was not a lot of overlapin our companies, like every
everybody.
As we bolted together everybodywas kind of complimentary
instead of trying to play in thesame lanes and uh, it just it
got us some scale uh, a littlemore quickly than I was going to
be able to grow it on my own.
They have a property managementdivision that I really didn't
(31:41):
want to go build, so it justfelt like all benefits.
I gave up a little bit ofcontrol, which I was kind of
wanted to give up.
So that's really what's led usto where we are now and it's
great.
We've got a good team ofbrokers, we've got my partners
and we've got, you know, the themy partners and we got some of
(32:01):
the young brokers that arepartners.
But the old guys that arepartners or we've worked
together for a long time gotgreat relationships, a lot of
respect for each other.
Um, and I just it's acompetitive business, but I mean
, I'm pretty abundance theoryminded.
I just think the opportunity innorthwest arkansas like we
don't have to go beat any of ourcompetition to be successful.
(32:22):
There's enough opportunity outhere for everybody and I think
this market is just going tokeep growing and what we're
trying to do is get positionedto where we've got a really a
team that operates with someurgency, that's like really
focused on creating value forclients, that really knows the
market, where you know ifsomebody comes in from out of
town and says, tell me aboutNorthwest Arkansas, if they want
(32:44):
to buy an office or a retailbuilding or an industrial
building or whatever, I want tobe able to sit somebody at the
table and say we can tell youeverything you need to know
about that part of the market.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's super strong.
It sounds like the company thatyou all merged with had similar
values.
I assume yes.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
We need to have Ramsey Ball on the podcast
series.
Got some experience.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Ramsey's fantastic.
I mean going back to my 2004,2005 years, one of the first,
really the first big commercialreal estate deal brokerage deal
I did.
I was doing the shopping centerleasing but I had the
opportunity to sell cottonwoodsubdivision and you know for
those of you that may not knowwhere cottonwood is in
bentonville, um, you know,bentonville high school is on uh
(33:30):
j street, on the east side ofthe road.
Cottonwood village is on thewest side of the road.
There's some walmart.
They built some industrial.
It's built out now, uh, butthere's some industrial
buildings that walmart occupiesand it was a big transaction for
me.
I think it's like six or sevenmillion dollars in 2005, which
to me was all the money in theworld.
(33:51):
Commission, wise and ramsey.
I represented the peopleselling it, ramsey represented
the people buying it and, uh, wewere with he was with colliers
that I don't even think theywere called cars, that they were
, but he was with colliers atthe time and so we were doing
this deal.
I was really green andinexperienced but I mean I was
decent but still prettyinexperienced.
(34:13):
As we were going through it, hewas kind of coaching me on some
things and I was like I mean,that's really nice of you, like,
because we're technicallycompetitors and you could have
made me look a little silly on acouple of these things and like
but but you, you know, youdidn't, you, you're like you
were, you've been really beenhelpful to me and he's like look
, man, uh, other brokers will beyour best clients in the years.
(34:36):
He's like you know, besides justbeing a good person like, just
be friendly, try to help peopleout, like build great rapport
with other brokers and he goes,that'll pay off through your
career and man, it has.
And yeah, that's a snapshot.
That's kind of all these guysI've partnered with.
They approach life and businessthat way.
It's like we don't have to gobeat somebody to to have a happy
(34:58):
career and a good job.
Ramsey also he has this sayingabout being the white hat the
old Westerns back in the day,the good guys wore the white
cowboy hats and the bad guyswore the black cowboy hats.
He was like so we want to bethe white hat cowboys when we
come to town.
I love it.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
It seems like that's great advice, not only for an
aspiring broker or somebodythat's in it, but also a buyer
or an investor that's lookingeither in the area already or
looking to be in the area thoserelationships with brokers
specifically across the board.
It's hard to say that manythings can go above that,
(35:36):
because they've got the eyes andears in the market and are
daily chasing after thoseopportunities, and so I think
that's really wise.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
It's funny too.
We'll have clients that willcome in and try to play us
against each other and they'llbe like we're about to list this
property with Alan Cole orwe're about to list this
property with David Erson, likeman, they are really good
brokers.
Those guys are good at whatthey do, and it'll catch them
off guard because they're likewe would have thought you would
have been upset by that.
I'm like no man.
Those guys are great at whatthey do.
(36:06):
We'd like to think we're, youknow, maybe going to beat them
on any given day here.
We're very fortunate.
I think in Northwest Arkansasthat that kind of attitude is
prevailing through a lot ofindustries, but particularly in
commercial real estate brokerage.
I mean, I think I haven'tworked in Dallas or you know
Atlanta or wherever, but I thinkyou go to those markets.
(36:27):
It's cutthroat and up here wewant to win, but I don't have
any problem rooting for you knowmy friends at Kelly Commercial
or you know the guys at Sage, oryou know I've got a lot of
respect for all those companiesand we don't mind seeing them do
well.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yep, absolutely.
I think it's a great mindset tohave and I think that's kind of
the spirit too of a lot of thefolks around Northwest Arkansas
in the business world, which Ithink is great.
I think I want to wrap up withone question for our first
episode, just for you and yourcouple decades of doing
commercial real estate in NorthWest Arkansas, what's been the
(37:05):
one big lesson that you canrecall that has kind of helped
you along the way?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
I don't know that.
There's one big lesson I thinkit's the mindset that Brian kind
of hit on that we've talkedabout here is that it is not a
quick path.
I think a lot of people getattracted to this business
because they see bigtransactions, you know.
They see charity, golftournaments.
There's a lot of stuff aboutthis business that looks fun and
(37:34):
it is fun, but at the end ofthe day there's a lot of just
blocking and tackling andpersistence and a lot of
rejection and a lot of thingsnot going the way you want it to
go and just laying groundworkto be successful later.
So I don't know if that'sreally responding to your
(38:00):
question the right way, but Ithink it's like a persistence,
delayed gratification.
You know, confidence.
There's no way to know whatyou're doing is perfect, but you
need to get a business strategyand stick with it and let it
play out before you losepatience and shift gears.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Love that.
Yeah, I think, just wrapping upepisode one, I mean we really
just wanted to get to know youmore, get to know kind of your
business and some things thatyou value and kind of how you
all stand out with kind of theniche avenues that you take to
the business as a whole.
And so, listeners, I would nothesitate to reach out to Clinton
and his team and his company.
(38:30):
Nothing but good things to say.
So again, appreciate your timeand we're going to hop into the
next episode and talk a littlebit more about market data
specifics and that Clinton kindof can help us get into.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
So, yeah, yeah, thank you.
Thanks, guys.
Again, thank you guys fortuning in.
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Welcome to Northwest Arkansas Investing Podcast, your
go-to source for real estateinvesting in Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
With your seasoned investor just starting out.
We bring you expert insights,market trends and practical
strategies to help you buildwealth through real estate.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
From buying and selling to property management
and long-term investmentplanning.
We cover it all so you can makesmart, informed decisions in
this fast-growing market.
Let's dive in.
Welcome back to NorthwestArkansas Investing Podcast.
I've got Mr Brian Wagers,co-host, here, and I've got Mr
Clinton Bennett here with us.
Clinton, we're appreciativethat you spent your time with us
and we're super grateful forjust your knowledge and kind of
(00:44):
what we're going to get into.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Well, I'm honored that you guys would have me here
, appreciate you having me onand look forward to the visit.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Absolutely so.
Clinton's got a wealth ofknowledge in the commercial real
estate space.
I think he's just finished up amerger also that we'll get into
a little bit with FocusCommercial Real Estate.
And so, clinton, we'd love tojust kind of get a little bit
with Focus Commercial RealEstate.
And so, clinton, we'd love tojust kind of get a little bit
into in this episode, get alittle bit of your background
(01:10):
commercial real estate career,the merger that you guys did and
just get to know you a littlebit.
And then next episode, we'dlove to kind of get a little bit
more into the market, kind ofwhat you're seeing and all that
good stuff.
So for those who don't know younot in the market, not around
the area, uh, would love to justget a 30,000 foot view of of
you, how you got started, how'dyou land in commercial real
(01:31):
estate here?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
sure, yeah, happy to get into that.
And uh, you know, if you needany more detail or anything
pictures, just let me know andI'll elaborate.
But I'm an arkansas guy.
I grew up in northeast arkansas, a little town called
pocahontas, which is, for peopleunfamiliar, it's kind of over
near jonesboro.
Um lived there my entire life,graduated from high school and
went to college at theuniversity of arkansas and got
(01:53):
an ag business degree in theearly 90s and moved back to
northeast arkansas to farm.
I grew up in a rice farmingbusiness, rice farming family,
we grew rice and corn andsoybeans, and so I moved home to
farm and farmed for about sixyears and as I kind of was
settling into the farmingbusiness, I just was kind of
(02:15):
recognizing that that maybewasn't where I wanted to spend
the rest of my career.
There were some elements ofthat business that I loved and
miss to this day, but I think Ijust always had a little bit of
an entrepreneurial drive andwanted particularly at that age
in the 20s you just kind of wantto be where there's more action
going on.
So I moved home to farm, didthat for six years and when I
(02:40):
decided I was going to kind ofchange courses.
It's funny.
I've listened to you guys talka little bit and a lot of other
people are having this debateabout the value of college
versus, you know, not going tocollege.
I would be happy to supporteither side of that argument.
I think they both make sense.
But for me, I really I didn'tenjoy undergrad that much but I
(03:03):
really had a lot of respect forthe university and for a degree
and some of the professors thereand I felt like I was too
immature to be in college andundergrad.
But then when I was looking atgoing back into really doing a
major career shift because forall my life I thought I was
going to be a farmer and then itwas like, okay, wait, I'm not.
Like, how do I get prepared toenter a different path?
(03:25):
And I really didn't know whatthat path would be.
I thought it would likely besomething to do with commodity
trading, because from the ricebackground we had some
involvement in commodity trading, so I had some familiarity with
that and interest in that andyou know so the commodities are
a big part of the ag space, asis real estate and real estate,
(03:46):
and so as I was transitioning Iwas like man, I think I ought to
go to graduate school to kindof hone my skills before I go
out to try to figure out whereI'm going to chart my next
course.
So, the University of Arkansas.
That was early 2000s.
They had just kind of revamped.
The Waltons had donated a lotof money at that point in time,
as they have a number of times,I shouldn't sayamped the Waltons
had donated a lot of money atthat point in time, as they have
a number of times.
I shouldn't say just theWaltons, but they'd had a major
(04:07):
capital campaign.
Um, in the business school hadkind of gone through a
transition where, in an updatewhere they had the new Sam M
Walton School of Business and anew MBA program.
So I moved back in 2003,started in the MBA program uh,
really with without anycertainty about what I was going
to do, and that program was an18-month program.
(04:29):
So I was living in Fayetteville2003, 2004,.
Graduated in 2004.
As I was going through that path, just looking around and trying
to think about what the rightpath was going to be for me
post-graduation, you could sensethen that something really
unique was happening inNorthwest Arkansas.
(04:50):
I mean, that was 2004.
And you know, I really wantedto be focused on commercial real
estate.
Yeah, I don't know that therewas a big strategy behind that,
other than I just was like youknow, I think the deals are
going to be bigger.
Yeah, I think that the emotionswill be less of a factor in it,
(05:10):
and so it was like that kind ofcaught my interest.
But then so the commercialwasn't just booming, there was
certainly some growth, but thenman 0405, 0607, at those times
the residential was going crazy,but commercial a little less so
, but regardless there was a lotof uh, you know it's like that.
It's like the real estateindustry's kind of gone through
(05:32):
this evolution where I thinkprior to the early 2000s, and
maybe particularly up here, youknow, people didn't think about
real estate as a career path oran investment opportunity to the
extent they do now, and I thinkyou know it's wild, now A lot
of people think that way, but Ithink, you know, even though for
more and more people werethinking that way, so there was
(05:54):
just this energy and kind oflike sexiness to the industry
and kind of excitement aboutwhat was happening in Northwest
Arkansas, and so, as I was kindof finishing up, I was like man,
I think this is a good path forme.
How do I get into that business?
And you know one of the thingsit's funny on this, you know
college no, college debate.
You know one of the real valuesI think of college is the
(06:17):
network you build.
And I didn't realize, you know.
So, going into the 90s I met somany people in Northwest
Arkansas.
So then I was finishinggraduate school in the early
2000s.
You know I had a reallypowerful network of people that
I think had primarily come fromundergrad and people that stuck
around.
You know I was a pretty socialguy.
So you know, as I wasgraduating, I was seeing friends
(06:38):
and you know people that I knewhad been successful in the real
estate business and we juststarted asking them, people that
I knew had been successful inthe real estate business.
And we're just starting askingthem.
And uh, I can't recall theexact conversation, but you know
I had a friend who was havingsome success in the real estate
space and he's like man you needto, you need to talk to David
Dallas, like he's a reallyintelligent guy, he's really
(06:58):
good guy, nice guy and he's gota resume of experience that is,
it's kind of unique in northwestArkansas.
David was a.
He had worked at Walmart, sothe Walmart real estate
department.
He had an appraisal license andthere are layers to the or
degrees of commercial, ofappraisal licenses I don't know
(07:19):
what they all are, but he hadnot really the entry-level
appraisal license.
He was a commercial appraiser,had some good experience.
He'd worked at Walmart RealEstate Department, left Walmart,
moved to Dallas and worked fora stint with Gap, which you know
in the late 90s, early 2000s.
Gap was a big deal.
He worked for Banana Republicfor a while.
(07:41):
So he had a really kind of coolreal estate story and set of
experiences and he was growing acommercial residential firm
locally that you know back inthe early 2000s, mid-2000s, was
getting a lot of attention.
It was really active, the firmthat is.
It was called Dallas RealEstate and then he kind of
(08:04):
ancillary to that, that realestate brokerage business he was
and this was kind of unique.
It's funny, like you know,you're doing the GPLP investing.
You know maybe it was just myperception, but you know 2004,
2005, there weren't a lot ofpeople using I didn't see a lot
of people using other people'scapital to go do large
(08:27):
commercial real estatedevelopment deals and David had
the intelligence of theforesight or whatever, or the
relationships.
I guess all that stuff he hadaligned with I don't know the
technical terms their partners,or he had aligned with a group
that had access to quite a bitof capital, quite a bit of real
(08:47):
estate development know-how, andthey collectively went out and
bought I think it was 21 Walmartout parcels, because if you
think of the early 2000s,walmart super centers were
really expanding all over thecountry.
So there were a lot of new bigWalmart super centers.
Those super centers, thosesuper centers usually have these
out parcels in front of them.
(09:07):
You know now you drive by them,they all have a retail center
that's, you know, 10 or 12 and15 000 feet.
They've all got.
You know at the time it wasrent-a-center.
You know great clips, sportclips.
Um, the check cashing businesswas more prevalent in the early
2000s so there was always acheck casher.
Gamestop was really active backin those days, the cell phone
(09:34):
users, the AT&Ts and Verizons.
So my first job out of graduateschool was with David.
He hired me and I had my realestate license.
I was trying of build a localcommercial real estate brokerage
business, helping him, but thatwas really my primary role was
to try to lease these shoppingcenters.
So they were developing andthis was across the country,
(09:54):
across the country.
Yeah yeah, there was one inCalifornia, one in South Dakota,
one in Colorado.
I mean they were kind of spreadall over.
I mean they were kind of spreadall over.
But you know you can take anaerial of a Walmart supercenter
and the outparsals.
I mean they don't all look thesame but they all look pretty
close to the same.
So you know, I had some ofthose centers that I helped with
(10:16):
leasing that I never saw, likeI know you needed to see the
site plan, you needed to see thedemographics around it, and
then you needed to have thecontact and you know at&t or
rena center or wherever, and belike, hey, you know john doe at
rena center, yeah, I've got aspot for you in california that
I think would be a great fit andhe's like well, send it to me.
I don't have a location.
So I don't want to make itsound easy, because there was a
(10:38):
lot of relationship building andthere was a lot of work that
went into it.
But you know, if you had goodrelationships and you were
delivering good opportunities topeople like they would pick up
the phone on your next call.
Yeah, they'd be like oh yeah,no, we'll do a deal in south
dakota.
Yeah, so that was really me foryears, my.
So that was early in my career.
Initially in my career that waswhere I spent a lot of time was
(11:00):
leasing those shopping centers,and then I was doing some local
commercial real estate brokers,but more shopping center
leasing, and then over the yearsthat kind of flipped off to
where you know.
We kind of leased up theshopping centers and I was more
engaged with local commercialreal estate brokers.
Gotcha.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
So it sounds like your first real glimpse into
real estate was your friendintroducing you to David Dallas.
Is that his name?
You said that's right so, andthen that rolled you kind of
into the opportunity because youweren't necessarily thinking
about it through undergrad orgrad school.
Maybe you saw some success.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
No, that you're right .
Yeah, no, I didn't.
I, I wasn't really.
I was thinking about a littlebit that there wasn't a lot of
formal training.
Um, there was.
There's kind of a I know youguys have had to wit on the show
um, there's a story that a lotof us you know my age kind of
laugh about.
You know the wit, for I thinktwo semesters maybe, maybe more,
(11:52):
taught a commercial real estateuh, modeling class, and it was
a big deal because at the timethe?
U of a didn't have they had areal estate class, but it wasn't
a very heavy duty class and itwas kind of more entry-level
class.
Well, the wood is, he's supersharp and that has a lot, a lot
(12:13):
of experience, and someoneconvinced him to teach a class
at the university and so theylet the graduate students that
were interested and they let thelike top performing um
undergrad finance real estatestudents attend that class, and
so I was in it with and I couldname 15 people now who are all
(12:33):
like really active.
A lot of us didn't know eachother like we kind of ended up
in this class together.
It's like, oh yeah, I know you.
We kind of figured out who weall knew became friends and we
took this class with dewitt andum.
It's funny, how many people areyou know now spread around
Arkansas that a lot of them havehad quite a bit of success that
were in that class?
That's awesome.
(12:54):
Shout out to DeWitt yeah, itwas awesome.
It was awesome and he's anawesome guy.
He's like a Yoda on us.
He's like a Yoda Commercialreal estate yoda.
And then that class.
I mean I literally I could name10 people and everybody just
grins like me.
Well, it was crazy to see whowe met then and how it's kind of
played out now over 20 years.
That's awesome.
So that was as close as I gotto really formal training.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I didn't yeah, I didn't have any real formal
training yep, and I think Ithink, just listening to another
podcast you were recently on,you mentioned at that time too
commercial real estate in NorthDakota, Arkansas even was maybe
kind of at its infancy, right, Imean comparatively to the
residential market.
Yeah, relatively speaking, yeah, and maybe the rest of the
(13:36):
country even as well.
Yeah, it was certainly unique.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
I will say, though, we're talking about training and
being prepared to get into thebusiness after grad school.
I mean, at that point I was 29or 30.
You know.
I think that 10 years of and Ihadn't been messing around, like
I was really working, like thefarm was pretty intense, I was
doing some pretty stressfulsmall business stuff I think
(14:02):
that 10 years of maturationreally helped me when I got out
of the business I mean nothingagainst the young guys or gals
just getting out of college Likeyou got to kind of earn your
stripes but I do think thathaving you know some real work
experience under my belt helpedme kind of just wait with that.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, agreed, then I think I mean just talking about
my.
I had some similar experiencejust going from walmart
corporate even in a light sense,of three years of walmart
corporate and seeing thestructure and seeing different
uh you know process and and theway that they do things and then
taking that into a real estatebusiness.
Now I think there's so manyvaluable things you can learn.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
It's such an important whatever your process
is and wherever your path is, aslong as you're doing things
that are, I'm of the belief that, as long as you're doing things
that are productive, you gotpeople that are coaching you.
I mean they may be hard on you,but as long as they're
constructive in it, you know, aslong as you've got people that
will help you learn and you'regetting that work experience, I
mean it's so valuable.
And one of the things aboutthis business my view on this
(15:04):
business, the commercial realestate brokerage business is it
takes a lot of patience and alot of persistence and I'm
sympathetic to.
You know people early in theircareer getting into it and I
tell them I'm pretty direct, I'mlike, hey, this is a hard path.
I have no doubt you can besuccessful, but these building
(15:26):
blocks of experience that you'vegot, you've got to earn those
you can't just read them in abook and it doesn't happen fast,
doesn't happen fast and so, um,in some ways I'm sympathetic to
the, to the folks getting in,because it's you know, it's a,
it's a, it's not a.
It's a challenging path to getto the point where you've really
got some momentum andconfidence moving you no,
absolutely.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
I think you got to get used to the no brian.
You can probably resonate withthat a little bit with your
start in the buying apartmentcomplexes when you're first
starting.
But I think you got to get usedto the know and the busy, a lot
of delayed gratification forsure.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Like you make a hundred phone calls today
doesn't mean tomorrow that oneof those guys see you and I call
you back.
It's a lot of planting seeds.
It's uh, you were, you shookthe guy's hands and do its class
, or you had this connectionthat came to fruition maybe a
year later.
Six months late, I feel like,feel like there's a almost like
a six month lag.
For me.
It's like when I, if I'm I'mworking really hard, I try to
(16:20):
work hard, you know consistently.
But you know that those resultsfrom analyzing so many deals or
making so many offers.
Usually you kind of see that insix months it's not, it's
almost like working, or 12 or 12.
It's almost like working out,or 12.
Or 12.
It's almost like working out,like I'm going to do 100 sit-ups
today but that doesn't mean I'mgoing to have a six-pack
tomorrow.
Now, if I do that consistentlyfor six months, my abs might
(16:41):
start to look better.
12 months, then it startspopping out.
So yeah, there is that delayedgratification.
I love the story of you knowleasing.
You were a leasing, you werepretty, you were a leasing
broker for them.
That's right, and but you also.
I think it is important to beas close to ownership as you can
, because you you saw how theywere putting you.
(17:02):
You didn't have any equity, youwere just leasing and getting
commission there, but you alsowere.
You were getting not not sweatequity, but you know, almost
knowledge equity, like howthey're putting together, like
they had this awesome foresightto see these parcels by one,
like and it's almost laughablenow to look at, like how smart
that was, like putting thosetogether.
So I think that's a great story.
(17:22):
What I wanted to transition tonext was well, okay, so that's
great.
What was the next step for you?
After how long did you do thisleasing and what was the next
step in your so I think the nextstep really happened around
2007,.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
and what was the next step in your?
So I think the next step reallyhappened around 2007, you know.
So I started working with davidin 2004 great three-year run.
Um, there were no real problemsthere, it was just you know his
that that that shopping centerinitiative was kind of winding
down.
You know he had multiple thingsgoing on in his life and so it
was kind of like I started tohave a desire to be with more
(17:58):
with like a solely commercialbrokerage, and I'd started to
recognize, you know, as a guybecause a competitive guy that's
a broker like trying to grow abrokerage business in northwest
Arkansas.
You would see how I mean we'resitting in Pinnacle Hills and so
there are buildings full ofthese suppliers.
Or you would see these nationaltenants, whether they're
(18:20):
Walmart suppliers or whetherthey were retailers or whether
they're some of these industrialusers.
Because at that stage you kindof had to do everything.
You were kind of a generalist,like I only did commercial real
estate, but you had to kind ofbe somewhat versed in everything
because you just never knewwhat opportunities would come up
and the market was small enoughthat you could kind of do a
pretty good job with all of them, like you could stay up to
(18:42):
speed on where the market tradeswere.
I don't think you can really dothat now.
I think each property segmentis so robust that it's like you
better pick one, maybe two, andfocus on that, at least this
time for sure.
Yeah, yeah, it's there's justso much information and there's
so many deals and there's it'sit's hard to you.
(19:02):
You better have your focus, uh,somewhere direct.
I didn't say that very well,but yeah, yeah pick a niche,
yeah, pick a niche.
Um, so I I kind of was seeingthat like to get I wanted to be
more involved with thesenational tenants.
You know, if you try to callone of them, they're like you're
(19:22):
who for where?
Like they didn't recognizelocal firms and so it just kind
of dawned on me it's like, hey,we need some more.
Like I would like to beaffiliated with a true national
commercial real estate brokerageparent and at the time, uh,
paul esther is kind ofcoincidental, like I don't I
can't remember exactly how theconversation came together, but
(19:45):
paul esther, bo barrett uh gothim ready lawson and bo's wife,
courtney, uh, they had the ideaI want to get fletcher hansen
out of north over ikea, paul,we're partners.
They had the idea.
Same I want to get FletcherHanson out of North Little Rock.
He and Paul were partners.
They had the idea.
Same idea.
It's like we need a commercialbrand for our brokerage company.
And so they had gone out andsecured the rights to open a
(20:06):
Grub and Ellis franchise and atthe time Grub and Ellis was, you
know, one of the top fivecommercial real estate companies
in the really, I guess, theworld.
It's now called newmark andwent through evolution in the uh
, great recession.
But so they had the rise tothis, to this flag, for this new
commercial brokerage company,and paul uh called and he was
(20:27):
like hey, you know we're we'regonna open this thing and you
know if you'd like to partner.
I got a lot of respect for thebrokerage you know work that you
Like.
I think it'd be a good fit.
I've got some funny storiesaround that too, but so we met,
talked about the idea,ultimately said yeah, let's do
it.
So I partnered with those guysin 2007 and transitioned from
(20:49):
Dallas Real Estate to Grubbin'Alice and that was great.
Pretty quickly after that wepicked up the leasing and
management of Bentonville Plaza.
Our office was a downtownBentonville.
I don't feel like an idiotbecause I didn't wasn't buying
property in downtown Bentonville, but it was great for me
(21:10):
because I lived in Fayetteville.
I would drive to downtownBentonville, which I didn't mind
.
My wife commuted for a while.
She didn't love the commute.
I didn't mind it.
I like listening to the radioor talking to the phone or
whatever.
It's kind of a unwind and Ireally liked being connected in.
Like I understood what washappening in downtown
Bentonville and understood whatwas happening in Fayetteville,
and pretty good in between aswell.
(21:31):
But I feel like and I've saidthis to other brokers I feel
like if you live south andcommute north, or if you live
north and commute south, it'spretty powerful for your market
knowledge to stay connected withwhat's happening in the
communities.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I think we still have a market that is and this is
something I've admired from youfor a long time is, I think
there's importance in beingniche in the, the type of real
estate and anything kind of whatyou've pioneered there, I think
in Northwest Arkansas.
But, like you said, I think ourarea is still small enough to
where you can do the whole area,the whole region, um, and do it
(22:09):
at a really high level, um.
But but again, I think thatthat niche that you're talking
about and that's I've talked toplenty of other commercial
brokers that are like oh yeah,we can sell retail, we can sell
warehouse or we can do it alland be an expert.
I don't know if that's the case.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
I don't think either of us are totally right or
totally wrong.
There's certainly a way to doit.
I think some of my view comesfrom maybe just like insecurity.
I do not want to disappoint myclients.
I do not want to be surprisedby information that I should
have known, that I didn't know.
And I'm just thinking about youwith your apartment business.
If you're in the apartmentsevery day, you know Class B,
(22:55):
whatever you're like.
I don't know how you describeexactly what you do, but if
you're looking at you knowmarkets the size of you know
Kansas City and Tulsa andOklahoma City, like I think you
are, you're looking at Class Bapartments that are 200 units.
Like you know the metrics, likeyou don't have to go check your
notes.
Like you know what they shouldbe.
If you spot something thatisn't right, it catches your eye
(23:18):
pretty quickly and you're like,oh, we need to dig a little
deeper on this.
Like you're not I'm repeatingmyself you're not checking your
notes.
Like you know what you're doing.
And that's where I think my, mydrive to be specialized comes
from.
It's like I don't, I want toknow this well enough that, like
I'm not reading this stuff inthe newspaper.
Like we're telling thenewspaper why this deal went
down at the price that it wentdown.
(23:39):
Yeah, um and and I do thinkthat comes from like an
insecurity.
You know, the fees in commercialreal estate are big and I think
when I got into it, there was apart of me that's kind of
self-conscious being at theclosing table and somebody just
spent a bunch of money andyou're walking out with a check
that's got six figures on it.
I wanted to make damn sure thatI created enough value in that
(24:01):
transaction where I could lookat them and be like, hell, yeah,
I earned that.
Because people will do it Somepoke and fall out and some not
that are like, damn, that's alot of money, clinton.
It's like, well, yeah, it is,but I want you to view me then
that I've saved you.
You know, engaging me to makeyou way more than what I made.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
No, absolutely.
I think that's great, a lot ofvalue to be had there.
I mean, I think, moreimportantly, promptness and
convictions about you know yourknowledge of certain products
and things like that just givesthat confidence right to the
client and again helps them makemore money, helps them not have
any liability on the back end.
I mean there's a number ofthings, I think, where that
(24:42):
value comes into play.
That again you're just with theconvictions of knowing the
product.
I mean, brian, we couldprobably name an area in
Northwest Arkansas and in aclass of apartments and you can
tell us what the average rentsare and I could look at a
certain area of residential andsay, yeah, we could probably get
this there and just haveconvictions about those things.
(25:03):
I think that's super important.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
It's so much fun being in meetings.
Well, you've been in a millionof them.
I was in one last week withfive people in there.
Everybody knew what they weretalking about and you started
looking at a project or talkingabout a project and saying, yeah
, I think we can tweak this alittle bit here.
Like when you see people thatknow what they're talking about
oh, I guess impression snappingfrom the microphone.
When you see people that reallyknow what they're talking about
(25:28):
in a group of them, you walkout of that meeting going.
If we landed on an idea thatthis project's worth six million
dollars or whatever, like I got, a lot of confidence, it's
worth six million dollars.
Yeah, like it's fun watchingthat come together when you're
dealing with people that arereally knowledgeable.
Yep, agreed, and I'd like tothink we add that to to the
meetings we get involved in.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
But yep, um you gotta have the backup.
It's.
It's like okay, we're gettingto these numbers, but what are
your assumptions to get to thatnumbers?
And I think that's importantwith any commercial real estate
is the assumptions that you'regoing to add Every project.
You're adding value, but whatare you assuming that value is
coming from?
Where are you getting to that?
So to your point of knowingwell, I can point to apartment A
(26:11):
, b and C that I know the rent'sthere.
Well, they might be marketedthis, but I know the leasing.
They have this amount ofconcessions.
It may look like that.
Or, yeah, the newspaper said itsold for this, but I saw how
many offers were made on thisbefore I got to the paper.
The word on the street isfaster.
If you're transacting andyou're making offers and you're
leasing and you're actually inthe game, you can get a lot more
(26:31):
data that way and it helps whenyou're making offers and you're
leasing and you're you'reactually in the game.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
You can get a lot more data that way and it helps
when you're in that yeah, youmight see the paper, but there
might have been a half milliondollar credit or something yeah,
that too yeah, it's, but it'sfun when you are.
You mean you have to earn thatexperience and you have, and
it's like it's fun when you kindof can look at those deals and
go and your assumptions you'retalking about, you've got
(26:57):
confidence in them and you've.
It's an art and a science likethe data is great, but it's also
this layer of experience thatcomes into play, where you're
like you know we've got the dataand we've got the gut feel of
how this is probably going toplay out.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah, absolutely, just as we wrap up this first
episode, I'd love to kind offinish off hearing more about
you know how, how you got toClint, starting Clinton
commercial or Bennett excuse me,uh, Bennett commercial real
estate.
And then now, obviously,there's a merger.
Uh, listeners, If you're, ifyou're listening to this, you
could probably look it up.
But uh, the merger recently,with focus to, I guess, tell us
(27:32):
what, what led you to get intodoing your own thing?
Sure, and now obviously thatbrand.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Yeah, so I worked with the group I talked about
earlier that Grub Ellis wastransitioning to Newmark.
What I recognized in that timeof being affiliated kind of with
a national brand is, you know,at the time Grub Ellis was like
number four in the country.
Cbre was the biggest one Likethey're number one by a long
shot Then, as far asinternational, as far as kind of
(27:58):
corporate accounts and Fortune500 companies they service.
So there are a lot of tenantsin this market that had
corporate services agree withCBRE.
I'd kind of figured that outand so I ended up forming a
relationship with the guys thathad the rights to open CBRE in
this market, aligned with them,opened the CBRE office.
(28:20):
That was 2012.
My friend, david Erstown Daveand I are still good buddies and
good friends and have a goodrespect for each other from a
work standpoint he came overjust almost immediately after we
opened the office.
So he and I really ran theoffice for almost a decade and
then I just excuse me, it wasthe part that had been super
(28:47):
appealing to me in 2007 and 2010and really even 2012 or 15 was
the corporate services side ofthe business and after 10 or 12
or 15 years of doing that.
It wasn't as compelling to me.
And CBRE is a great company butit's a giant company and you
(29:07):
kind of need to do things and Irespect this.
Like when you run a giantcompany, you kind of have to
have some pretty set processes,and so there were kind of that
platform just felt a littleconstraining to me and felt a
little big and I was to thepoint where I had really enough
local business of my own that Ididn't feel like I needed the
corporate services account.
(29:28):
So in 2020, I, for noparticular reason, I just kind
of was ready to make a changeand try to chart my own course.
A little bit open been acommercial real estate, that
without a real grand strategyfor how to grow that.
But you know, as you weretalking about the benefit, you
do the work today and you seethe benefit six months later.
(29:50):
You know I would argue that ina lot of my brokerage stuff it's
Six months, it's 12 months,it's 18 months later.
So when I left it wastransitioning from CBRE to bid
at commercial real estate therewas this just kind of flywheel
of leads and activity that youknow just kept showing up from
three months later six months.
So the deals just kind of keptcoming in and clients were like
(30:13):
hey, clinton, you know we don'tcare what company you're with,
like we'll use you.
So the business just kind oforganically grew and so we did
that.
Over the last five years it'sbeen great.
Uh, I mean the company isgrowing.
Uh, the rose-colored glassesviews, everything's great.
Um, for me, you know, I'm 51with a couple teenagers and uh,
(30:36):
you know, I just to, to be agreat commercial real estate
broker, you have to run at apace that is pretty non-stop.
Um, and so to combine being areally great broker and being
trying to be a really greatbusiness owner, um, it's like,
man, this is a lot and I enjoyit and it's going well, but like
(30:57):
I don't really want to workthis hard.
Yeah, like I don't mind working,but like I'm trying to be
strategic about how I spend mytime and not feel bad if I'm,
you know, my son's a golfer, Ilike trying to take him to golf
tournaments, my daughter's intovolleyball, like I, like I
didn't want to feel like Ineeded to be responsive to
people all the time.
So the idea of the merger thereand there are a lot of layers
(31:21):
to this.
But the idea of the merger is Ireally like the guys I
partnered with.
There was not a lot of overlapin our companies, like every
everybody.
As we bolted together everybodywas kind of complimentary
instead of trying to play in thesame lanes and uh, it just it
got us some scale uh, a littlemore quickly than I was going to
be able to grow it on my own.
They have a property managementdivision that I really didn't
(31:41):
want to go build, so it justfelt like all benefits.
I gave up a little bit ofcontrol, which I was kind of
wanted to give up.
So that's really what's led usto where we are now and it's
great.
We've got a good team ofbrokers, we've got my partners
and we've got, you know, the themy partners and we got some of
(32:01):
the young brokers that arepartners.
But the old guys that arepartners or we've worked
together for a long time gotgreat relationships, a lot of
respect for each other.
Um, and I just it's acompetitive business, but I mean
, I'm pretty abundance theoryminded.
I just think the opportunity innorthwest arkansas like we
don't have to go beat any of ourcompetition to be successful.
(32:22):
There's enough opportunity outhere for everybody and I think
this market is just going tokeep growing and what we're
trying to do is get positionedto where we've got a really a
team that operates with someurgency, that's like really
focused on creating value forclients, that really knows the
market, where you know ifsomebody comes in from out of
town and says, tell me aboutNorthwest Arkansas, if they want
(32:44):
to buy an office or a retailbuilding or an industrial
building or whatever, I want tobe able to sit somebody at the
table and say we can tell youeverything you need to know
about that part of the market.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's super strong.
It sounds like the company thatyou all merged with had similar
values.
I assume yes.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
We need to have Ramsey Ball on the podcast
series.
Got some experience.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Ramsey's fantastic.
I mean going back to my 2004,2005 years, one of the first,
really the first big commercialreal estate deal brokerage deal
I did.
I was doing the shopping centerleasing but I had the
opportunity to sell cottonwoodsubdivision and you know for
those of you that may not knowwhere cottonwood is in
bentonville, um, you know,bentonville high school is on uh
(33:30):
j street, on the east side ofthe road.
Cottonwood village is on thewest side of the road.
There's some walmart.
They built some industrial.
It's built out now, uh, butthere's some industrial
buildings that walmart occupiesand it was a big transaction for
me.
I think it's like six or sevenmillion dollars in 2005, which
to me was all the money in theworld.
(33:51):
Commission, wise and ramsey.
I represented the peopleselling it, ramsey represented
the people buying it and, uh, wewere with he was with colliers
that I don't even think theywere called cars, that they were
, but he was with colliers atthe time and so we were doing
this deal.
I was really green andinexperienced but I mean I was
decent but still prettyinexperienced.
(34:13):
As we were going through it, hewas kind of coaching me on some
things and I was like I mean,that's really nice of you, like,
because we're technicallycompetitors and you could have
made me look a little silly on acouple of these things and like
but but you, you know, youdidn't, you, you're like you
were, you've been really beenhelpful to me and he's like look
, man, uh, other brokers will beyour best clients in the years.
(34:36):
He's like you know, besides justbeing a good person like, just
be friendly, try to help peopleout, like build great rapport
with other brokers and he goes,that'll pay off through your
career and man, it has.
And yeah, that's a snapshot.
That's kind of all these guysI've partnered with.
They approach life and businessthat way.
It's like we don't have to gobeat somebody to to have a happy
(34:58):
career and a good job.
Ramsey also he has this sayingabout being the white hat the
old Westerns back in the day,the good guys wore the white
cowboy hats and the bad guyswore the black cowboy hats.
He was like so we want to bethe white hat cowboys when we
come to town.
I love it.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
It seems like that's great advice, not only for an
aspiring broker or somebodythat's in it, but also a buyer
or an investor that's lookingeither in the area already or
looking to be in the area thoserelationships with brokers
specifically across the board.
It's hard to say that manythings can go above that,
(35:36):
because they've got the eyes andears in the market and are
daily chasing after thoseopportunities, and so I think
that's really wise.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
It's funny too.
We'll have clients that willcome in and try to play us
against each other and they'llbe like we're about to list this
property with Alan Cole orwe're about to list this
property with David Erson, likeman, they are really good
brokers.
Those guys are good at whatthey do, and it'll catch them
off guard because they're likewe would have thought you would
have been upset by that.
I'm like no man.
Those guys are great at whatthey do.
(36:06):
We'd like to think we're, youknow, maybe going to beat them
on any given day here.
We're very fortunate.
I think in Northwest Arkansasthat that kind of attitude is
prevailing through a lot ofindustries, but particularly in
commercial real estate brokerage.
I mean, I think I haven'tworked in Dallas or you know
Atlanta or wherever, but I thinkyou go to those markets.
(36:27):
It's cutthroat and up here wewant to win, but I don't have
any problem rooting for you knowmy friends at Kelly Commercial
or you know the guys at Sage, oryou know I've got a lot of
respect for all those companiesand we don't mind seeing them do
well.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yep, absolutely.
I think it's a great mindset tohave and I think that's kind of
the spirit too of a lot of thefolks around Northwest Arkansas
in the business world, which Ithink is great.
I think I want to wrap up withone question for our first
episode, just for you and yourcouple decades of doing
commercial real estate in NorthWest Arkansas, what's been the
(37:05):
one big lesson that you canrecall that has kind of helped
you along the way?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
I don't know that.
There's one big lesson I thinkit's the mindset that Brian kind
of hit on that we've talkedabout here is that it is not a
quick path.
I think a lot of people getattracted to this business
because they see bigtransactions, you know.
They see charity, golftournaments.
There's a lot of stuff aboutthis business that looks fun and
(37:34):
it is fun, but at the end ofthe day there's a lot of just
blocking and tackling andpersistence and a lot of
rejection and a lot of thingsnot going the way you want it to
go and just laying groundworkto be successful later.
So I don't know if that'sreally responding to your
(38:00):
question the right way, but Ithink it's like a persistence,
delayed gratification.
You know, confidence.
There's no way to know whatyou're doing is perfect, but you
need to get a business strategyand stick with it and let it
play out before you losepatience and shift gears.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Love that.
Yeah, I think, just wrapping upepisode one, I mean we really
just wanted to get to know youmore, get to know kind of your
business and some things thatyou value and kind of how you
all stand out with kind of theniche avenues that you take to
the business as a whole.
And so, listeners, I would nothesitate to reach out to Clinton
and his team and his company.
(38:30):
Nothing but good things to say.
So again, appreciate your timeand we're going to hop into the
next episode and talk a littlebit more about market data
specifics and that Clinton kindof can help us get into.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
So, yeah, yeah, thank you.
Thanks, guys.
Again, thank you guys fortuning in.
I'm going to go ahead and listsome sponsors off here.
We're going to start withWinstone Private Lending.
This episode is brought to youby Winstone Private Lending, one
of the top private and hardmoney lenders now serving
Northwest Arkansas.
Whether you need short-termcapital for a flip, a bridge
(39:04):
loan or creative financing,they've got you covered with
very flexible products to fitnearly any deal, including 100%
financing.
What sets them apart is theirdeep expertise, fast response
times and ability to thinkoutside of the box to help
investors like us close quicklyand efficiently.
If you're looking for a reallending partner, check out
(39:25):
Winstone Private Lending.
Link is in the show notes.
Our next sponsor is AdvantageTitle and Escrow.
They're a local company.
They do great work,specifically Kayla Phillips.
I can speak personally on thissponsor because I use Kayla for
all of my transactions.
It's been two, three, fouryears now and Kayla and I have
(39:46):
done a ton of deals.
We probably do between 65 to 80deals a year together and they
do a great job.
The SOPs, so systems andprocessing that they have over
at Vantage Title is justincredible.
Clients love it.
They do a great job from startto end communicating.
When I give a deal to AdvantageTitle and escrow, I know that
(40:07):
it's going to be taken care of.
There's no second guessing.
I almost am able to treat themlike a second transaction
coordinator to my transactioncoordinator that I already have.
I know that they're going tohandle the systems and processes
correctly.
As an agent, as a homeowner, asa buyer or seller.
They do an incredible job ofhandling a transaction and
communicating throughout theprocess.
(40:28):
They do a great job withcommunication, especially Kayla
Phillips over there.
I would highly encourage you ifyou're looking to close on a
home, buy a home, if you're anagent listening, to use
Advantage Title and escrow,specifically Kayla Phillips.
So you're going to reach Kaylabest at 501-358-1601, or you can
(40:51):
email her Kayla C-A-Y-L-A atGoAdvantageTitlecom.
Advantage is A-D-V-A-N-T-A-G-E.
Titlecom Banks are aboutcommunity, and Century Bank of
the Ozarks has been yourcommunity bank for 131 years
(41:13):
that's over a century since 1894.
They've been helping neighborsbuild homes, grow businesses and
plan futures.
Because they're locally owned,your loan approval happens here,
not miles away.
Visit their locations inFayetteville and Mountain Home,
arkansas, as well as Gainesville, theodosia, bakersfield and Ava
(41:35):
, missouri.
Century Bank of the Ozarkslocal bankers make local
decisions since 1894.
Member FDIC and Equal HousingLender.
If you enjoyed the show, makesure to give us a follow on your
favorite podcast platform soyou never miss an update, don't
forget to connect with us onInstagram, facebook and LinkedIn
for more real estate insightsand behind the scenes content.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
Have a question you want us to cover, send it our
way and if you're interested insponsoring the show, visit
nwainvestingcom to.
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