Steve D Valentine spent 30 years in real estate, starting with a suspended license in 2000, then surviving a $1.5 million family debt after a market collapse. He completed thousands of bank transactions, flipped 1,000 homes, and built a $50 million portfolio, but also endured a failed marriage and rehab. He asks whether his failures actually make him more trustworthy.
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I might be the most interesting real estate agent you've ever met, and if you know somebody more interesting after this video, please introduce me to them because I'd like to know. So let me give you a 90-second rundown of my resume in real estate. I've been doing this for almost 30 years, and I got my license in '99, and I've lived a life. And I was born into real estate because my parents were both realtors, um, in the '70s. So I was born with a realtor lapel. So in '99, I got my license. In 2000, I lost it. I got it suspended because of a felony I had when I was 18. That's another story. Then I went on to be part of the biggest team in Realty Executives International for many years with my parents until the market, ourselves, and the stupid shit that we did imploded not only the business but our family partnership. My wife and I had to walk away with our 2 little boys and start over with not a pot to piss in and $1.5 million worth of debt. But we had great relationships, which led us into the REOs working for the banks. That was amazing. We did, I don't know, 3,000, 4,000 transactions for the banks. We were able to pay all of our debt off without filing bankruptcy. And then a couple years after that, my father passed. Well, he left me with not a lot of money, but a whole lot of knowledge. And I chose to take that knowledge and turn it into $50 million worth of single-family homes that we own or owned and have moved those chess pieces around over the last couple of years. I also managed to implode my marriage after 22 years and then take myself to rehab and rebirth myself in the process. So what's amazing through all this is that, yes, I have had some crazy experiential life in the real estate space, and we managed to flip 1,000 homes. We've served thousands of clients, and I've been a great person and made a mess out of my life, but I've also fixed it and rebuilt it multiple times. And so my question is, would you do business with somebody like me and why or why not?
