sam sawyer finds houses.
Issue 68 - January 21st, 2022
early days of my career
The summer after freshman year at SMU, I stuck around Dallas to take a few Summer school classes. I decided to get my real estate license that summer as well. I never had any idea that I would still be in the real estate industry today, but I am happy I went down this path! Once school came back in session that Fall, I started marketing my apartment locating services around campus since I started off just helping people find rentals around the SMU campus.
My first guerrilla marketing campaign can be seen below — I handed out these hats and some cups with the same slogan on them to anyone and everyone that would take them. Over the next 2 years I slowly built a name for myself with the campus leasing market and then during my senior at SMU, I made my first sale.
Once I graduated from SMU in 2009, I stayed in Dallas and started working for Robbie Briggs at Briggs Freeman. While I was there, we joined as a Sotheby’s partner, and the firm name changed to Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty.
Leave Briggs Freeman to launch The Collective
After spending about 5 and a half years at Briggs Freeman, I left the firm to start The Collective with Jonathan Rosen and Christy Berry. The Collective was what we believed Dallas needed at the time as we focused on building a boutique, luxury brokerage firm with high-producing agents focusing on the Park Cities, Preston Hollow, and surrounding areas in Dallas.
We saw some super quick growth with this new firm and recruited some great agents to the company, and after just 11 months of being a firm we were acquired by Compass out of New York City.
Compass Acquisition
Compass is one of the most well funded venture-backed real estate technology companies of all time. When they acquired our firm, we were their first agents and presence in the entire state of Texas. We became Founding Members for the Compass team in Texas, and we moved from our small office on Oak Lawn near Al Biernat’s to a fancy 25,000 square foot space in Preston Center. Over the course of the next year, Compass recruited some of the best agents in Dallas and Fort Worth and they continue to be an industry leader in Dallas-Fort Worth today. After their successful foray into Dallas, Compass expanded into cities all over the rest of the state. They are now a publicly traded company with agents all over the USA and soon to be international markets.
Silicon Valley Bound
After spending about 15 months at Compass following the acquisition, I got an opportunity in the Bay Area to help launch a company called ZeroDown which was being founded by the former Zenefits team. ZeroDown, as the name suggests, couples technology and a debt-fueled real estate fund to allow home-buyers to forgo the traditional down payment process required to purchase a home. The company, which charges a $10,000 fee per home, is a graduate of the Y Combinator startup accelerator’s winter cohort. Today, it’s announcing a $30 million round of capital from former YC president Sam Altman and consumer technology venture capital fund Goodwater Capital.
My role at ZeroDown was VP of Real Estate Operations, and I oversaw our asset purchases of homes we made all around the Bay Area. I loved this experience and learned a ton during my time with Abhijeet, Laks, Hari, Scott, Jason, and the rest of the early team ZeroDown.
“ZeroDown is constructing a new path to home ownership” - TechCrunch
“ZeroDown valued at $150 million plans to take on Zillow” - TechCrunch
Back To Texas To Build A New Company
I left ZeroDown in early 2020, and I wrote about this experience in my post from last! week! You can read the entire post here: “zero to one”
Timeline of events for this present day company:
Early 2020: Sam leaves ZeroDown to launch new company and originally was called DataTape to build software for brokerage firms and agents
June 2020: we decide to pivot the company into a full-blown brokerage business model and start working on Archetape
August 2020: we launched Archetape in Louisiana with Randolph Smith joining our team to lead this market and serve as our Broker in Louisiana
Fall 2020: we launched Archetape in Texas
Summer 2021: we acquire another Texas-based brokerage firm called Pinnacle Realty Advisors and Broker Breakup and Brent Porter joins our team to serve as Chief Broker Officer - read more about this acquisition HERE on Yahoo! Finance
January 2022: we rebrand the entire firm to Pinnacle Realty Advisors to continue building our platform in Texas, Louisiana, and more states coming soon
Stats: we now have over 375 agents at the company, we are live in 2 states with Texas and Louisiana, and our company operates entirely in the cloud with employees in San Francisco, Austin, Dallas, and Shreveport.
If you have read this far, then I really appreciate it! I love what I do, and I truly feel like I am just getting started even though the journey in this real estate world has been great so far. The future is incredibly bright for this industry, and I am excited to play a major role in building a company that takes the brokerage business model into the new world. We believe there is a better way of building a brokerage that truly serves our agents, and we continue to build that with Pinnacle Realty Advisors.
Honors / Awards /Stats
Real estate license at 19 years old in 2006
2016: National Association Of Realtors Top 30 Agents Under 30 In America Honor
2012-2019: D Magazine Best Real Agents in Dallas and Top Producer in Dallas
“a new chapter”
Check out my most widely read Substack post yet from two weeks ago: at our brokerage firm we made a HUGE announcement 2 weeks ago announcing our rebrand from Archetape to Pinnacle Realty Advisors. We are PUMPED for the year ahead!
Newsworthy Links To Share
Blackstone Property Fund Targeting Small Investors Passes $50 Billion: The largest fund administered by Blackstone Group Inc., the giant investment firm known for raising capital from institutions such as pension funds and endowments, is now one that mostly targets individual investors. Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, a fund sold in increments as little as $2,500, has raised more than $50 billion since it started five years ago. The firm has used the fund, known as BREIT, to buy rental-apartment buildings, warehouses, office buildings, casinos and other property types. (Learn more about BREIT here)
Cincinnati Agency Buys Nearly 200 Rental Homes, Thwarting Private Investors: A Cincinnati government entity outbid more than a dozen investment firms to buy 194 homes in and around the city, a move meant to keep tenants in their homes and private investors out of their neighborhoods. While continuing to operate them as rentals, the agency said it intends to upgrade and eventually sell the homes to their primarily low-to-middle-income tenants. (WSJ)
40% of Americans are considering a move into a new home in 2022. This will make some housing markets even more insane and crazier than 2021 if you can believe it. (National Mortgage Professional)
Desktop appraisals will become an option for some agency-backed loans submitted after March 19. To be eligible for a desktop appraisal, according to Fannie Mae, the loan must be a purchase transaction, secured by a one-unit principal residence and have a loan-to-value ratio of no more than 90%. The option is not available for second homes, investment properties, cash-out refinances, construction loans, multi-unit properties, renovation loans, condos, co-ops or manufactured homes. (HousingWire)
PROPERTY HIGHLIGHT: Experience an authentic and luxurious Aspen retreat at the ''Ridge Cabin'' situated on 36+ acres in Colorado's backcountry. The cabin is located less than one mile from the top of Aspen Mountain's Sundeck restaurant with drop dead gorgeous views of the Elk Mountains. Asking price is $7.7 million. View more photos here——> (Zillow)