Today we’d like to introduce you to Philip DeFrancesco.
Philip, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Just after a few months of graduating high school in 1999, I really had no idea what I wanted to do as a career or even what field I wanted to get involved with. That summer I graduated, I enrolled in the Electronic Engineering program over at DeVry, however, had no real passion for it. Really, the only reason I signed up there was, my parents didn’t want me going away to school and DeVry was the nearest school to our house. So one day after work, we went there and they told me to pick a major.
Electronic Engineering sounded like a high paying profession and so Electronic Engineering it was. At that same time, I saw the fortunes many people were making in the real estate market and decided to start investing myself. While just starting over at DeVry, one evening I went to the city to look into a brand new, condo conversion project called “The Sterling” located in River North. While visiting the project, the sales manager at the time, pulled me to the side and spoke with me for a while about how wonderful the real estate market is and how much money there was to be made. That night, he convinced me I was pursuing the wrong profession and told me to immediately get my real estate license.
Later that same year, while attending DeVry as a full-time engineering student, not only did I end up purchasing my first property (condo), I also signed up and attended real estate school. By the end of the year, I was a licensed real estate agent, purchased my first investment condo in River North, became an inexperienced landlord without a lick of knowledge really of the real estate industry and started working as a sales agent for American Invesco as a sales consultant, working on selling three of the companies newest condo conversion projects in River North.
And from there, the real estate industry sucked me in. I still graduated from DeVry, however was full blown Real Estate. From working the condo conversion projects and unfortunately being mislead and misguided, having to find my own way for several years, I endeavored through selling a few condo conversion projects, the last of which, I had moved to Orlando for about a year, to manage a team of sales consultants of our newest condo conversion project we acquired.
That same year, as the project was coming to an end, I realized potential still in the real estate filed. However on the commercial side and grow as a commercial real estate investment broker specializing in retail assets. Anywhere from grocery-anchored shopping centers to single tenant, net leased investments (i.e. chase banks, Wendy’s, taco bell, etc.). During my tenure as an investment broker and throughout my previous years in the real estate business, I slowly ended up growing my real estate portfolio to about 6 properties. Not much of a real estate portfolio, but enough to do serious good or serious bad.
Well, needless to say, after working so hard to acquire and maintain all the properties throughout the years, in 2007, since the real estate industry values where hit pretty hard, accompanied by a few other unfortunate personal circumstances, burning through all my savings and income to support and maintain these properties, I had lost everything and had to pursue a short sale on them all. In going through these tougher times, I not only saw a lucrative business opportunity but that I could also help many homeowners escape foreclosure as I did. So, decided to leave the commercial industry, jumped back into residential, and over about a 3-year span, ended up helping over 500 homeowners escape foreclosure.
After the short sale era started to drastically slow down, I was later hired as the sales manager for Weichert Realtors in Rolling Meadows, where I managed an office of about 30 agents and still continued to practice real estate as a broker/ realtor. From there, with a vision of giving back to my sellers and buyers, the only way I was able to pursue the strategies I had in mind, was to branch out and start my own company. And around mid of 2014, Dapper Crown Real Estate was born.
Since the inception of Dapper Crown, we’ve transacted about 150 deals annually, and have been named in the top 1% of real estate brokers in the Chicagoland area, in 2015, 2016, and 2017 from the Chicago Association of Realtors. Also, last year, Dapper Crown was named Redfin’s #1 partner agent nationwide and this year, out of approx 3,000 Redfin partner agents nationwide, we placed in the top 1%.
Has it been a smooth road?
Definitely not. The first 3 years in the business I made, accumulated, approx. $4,000. I was misguided for many years eventually realizing I had to go out and figure it out on my own. It was extremely tough, picked up 2 part-time jobs on the side, just so I can support my growing portfolio of properties, and just enough to stick around another day in the real estate industry. It’s what I wanted and struggled for so long, but knew one day it would start to happen for me and that one day I would become a success.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Dapper Crown Real Estate was purposely created to help give back to home buyers and home sellers. One of the most attractive services we offer is our industry low, list side commission starting at only 1%. For our home buyers, we offer closing treats and/or buyer rebate checks. We have an educational, non-salesperson, approach where we provide as much info to your clients as possible, at every step of the transaction, in which many first time home buyers find to be extremely beneficial.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Absolutely! But then again, anywhere property exists, at the right price, it’ll sell.
Pricing:
- As low as 1% list-side commissions
- Earn up to $200 cash back, for every $100k you spend on the sale price of your home
Contact Info:
- Address: 120 N Bloomingdale Rd
Bloomingdale, IL 60108 - Website: www.dappercrown.com
- Phone: 630-635-3335
- Email: info@dappercrown.com
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
