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Meet Daniel Adema of The Realty Guy in Aurora

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Adema.

Daniel, before we jump into specific questions about the the company, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in the construction industry. My father owned a flooring company and at 6 years old my first job was organizing carpet samples in our basement showroom. In high school, I began learning more about the trades and moved into apprenticeships for carpet and hard surface installations. During college as I was working towards a Bachelors’s degree in business marketing, I learned more about the flooring trades during summer breaks and gained more hands-on experience in as many trades as I could. After graduating, I started my own flooring company and began selling and contracting the labor for installing the flooring of all types and expanded into light trim and finish carpentry.

In 2000, I purchased my very first piece of real estate. It was a run-down townhouse that had blue carpet and pinks walls, but I bought it as a fix and flip after reading the book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was excited to be doing it. I was ignorance on fire.

After completely remodeling, I decided “this place looks better than where I live,” so I moved in and rented rooms to friends for a while. Then I took out $30k in equity through a home equity line of credit and took the worst advice of my life … used it to pay off debt.

But after seeing that $30k check in my hands I have been hooked on real estate ever since. That check for me represented much more than just greed and money. It represented the opportunity when I came from a childhood that had none. It represented success when everyone around me told me I was no good, wasn’t going to amount to much, and was a failure like my father and his father before him. It represented financial freedom and most importantly showed me a future where I could choose. To choose what to do with my time, money, and ultimately with my future itself.

Then in 2004, I took a class to get my real estate license. It was a semester-long weekend class, and my new wife didn’t see me on Saturdays or Sundays. But during that class, I befriended a student and we decided to start a fix-and-flip project together. While everyone was learning about real estate, we were already working on it. The project went well and by the time we got our real estate license. we had another project completed.

Since 2004 I have been helping a wide range of people buy and sell properties, from first time home buyers to seniors looking to downsize to seasoned investors.

Fast forward to 2019 and I am fortunate to be a multi-million dollar sales producer. I have many real estate certifications to include the Seniors Real Estate Specialist and Certified Residential Investor Specialist just to name a few. I am an active real estate investor and am building my dreams one house at a time.

But out of everything I do or have, my biggest claim to fame and what I want to be known for is helping others to succeed and create a stable home environment, which is the most basic human need. Coming from a divorced family as a child, my home environment was not stable. Moving from house to the house created a lot of stress and trauma. As a child, I vowed to create a stable home and to gently help others to do the same. That is why Realty Guy’s motto is “Guiding You Home”.

In my opinion, there are 2 types of agents: salespeople and teachers. I am the latter.

For me, I enjoy teaching and educating. Sharing my knowledge – both successes and more importantly the failures. I choose to work with at most 15-20 people per year for the simple fact that any more than that and people lose their value. They just become another transaction, a number, or worse … they are reduced to part of the “process” or sales goal and a line item on an income statement.

I know each and every one of my clients beyond the sale. I know what their struggles are, what their goals are and what the fears they face.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Absolutely not. Contrary to what all the guru’s tell you, it is not an easy road. It takes blood, sweat, and tears. That first townhouse I bought as a fix and flip I had to short sale because the market started to tank, I lost my job, and couldn’t afford the payments. I used the $30k equity check to pay off debts instead of buying another property to keep building a real estate empire. What they don’t tell you is if you close your credit card accounts to be a good steward and stop going into debt, the credit card companies automatically lower your credit limit to your current balance. This causes you to “max out” the credit cards on paper which plummets your credit score. Then because you are “maxed out” you can’t get a loan or any more credit cards due to poor credit, and all because you were just trying to get out of debt.

Once I rebounded from that I bought another condo in 2008 with an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARMs). Then when the real estate market crashed I got to learn first hand the horrors of ARMs. That house went into foreclosure due to loss of work and I learned how evil banks can be. I tried everything to save the house, and even came up with a viable plan to work everything out only to be told by the bank “it’s cheaper for us to foreclose on the house than to work with you.” This was before loan modification legislation was passed years later.

There are many more stories, but suffice it to say they are all added to my own life story, and in turn, I can use them to help people on their journey avoid the pitfalls I have seen.

Tell us about your company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
My company is a one-man show. I am an agent with Broker’s Guild-Cherry Creek but everyone calls me the Realty Guy so the name just stuck. I don’t have a team because while there are many positives with teams, there are also negatives. You lose the one-on-one touch. Sometimes decisions aren’t made quickly, and then there’s miscommunication. I heard a great quote years ago, “In every park in every city, never is there a statue of a committee”.

I’m known for working with first time home buyers. I love the challenges that come with them and the fact that they have no bad habits from purchasing many other homes. First time home buyers are teachable, and excited to learn, and challenge me to keep my skills sharp. I love the look on their faces when they realize they can paint their walls any color they want, not just the stark white they’ve been used to while renting.

What sets me apart from others is my ability to teach, listen, observe and solve problems. I tell my clients I will never force you to buy a specific house, instead, I walk behind and watch your reactions to houses I show. When we’re in the right one for you, we’ll both know it.

Another thing I am proud of is the ability to be patient without the pressure. Sometimes it takes my clients a year to get their financial house in order to be able to move forward. So no matter where they are in the process, I enjoy guiding them along. The most important thing to do is to make the decision to start and move forward.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
On the first fix and flip when I got the $30k check I would have ignored my parent’s advice to pay of debt and would have bought another property to begin building a real estate empire.

I would have done it sooner.

Pricing:

  • My buyers agent services are free
  • Listing agent services are 6% of the sale price of the home
  • Offer first time home buyers up to $1,000 in buyer rebates to help with closing costs and down payment

Contact Info:

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