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Meet Gilda Zaragoza of Invalesco Real Estate in Denver

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Gilda Zaragoza.

Gilda, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’m the Owner and Managing Broker of Invalesco Real Estate. We are a real estate brokerage that specializes in working with not only buyers and sellers, but also developers and investors. I grew up in Denver and my family was in the hotel management business, so real estate’s been in my blood from a young age. I went to college in New York and worked in finance for a big firm after graduation, but after a couple of years of working on spreadsheets, I decided to move back to Denver and focus on a career in real estate.

After getting my Masters from DU in Real Estate and Construction Management, I was looking for a brokerage to work with and realized none of them offered the kind of support I was looking for. Any good brokerage should provide you with tips on how to market yourself or your homes better and help you with all the paperwork associated with buying or selling a home for your clients. I wanted to work somewhere where the agents and owners were doing their own developments. I wanted to learn best practices on land acquisition, the entitlement process, zoning and working with the city planning departments.

What I found was that there were no brokerages that did these things. I figured I wasn’t the only agent who also wanted to do more than just transactions, so that’s when I founded Invalesco.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s been a steady road… one thing leading to a logical next step and ideas surging organically as we go. It was a struggle when I first started doing a development project, as I really had no network or mentor. So, I had to cold-call many home building professionals to piece the first project together. I did a lot of listening, a lot of relying on others to learn the process. Since then, I have built an incredible network of professionals that I can rely on and that I can, hopefully, be a good resource for as well.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Invalesco Real Estate – what should we know?
At Invalesco, I’m most proud of the culture we’ve built. I really wanted to build a brokerage where people help each other out and we work on interesting projects in addition to helping our clients buying or selling a home. Our tagline is Stronger Together, and I believe that 100%. Our agents are always sharing their knowledge with each other and bringing creative ideas to our discussions.

One of the things we do at Invalesco, which I don’t see other brokerages doing, is hosting events where the wider real estate community is invited, usually for free. This is simply an extension of our Stronger Together mantra – to be a resource for people to meet, share ideas and hopefully work together on real estate projects.

Every couple of months we host our THINKtank events where we invite leaders in the industry to give us updates on what’s going on in their specific areas of focus and act as a resource for those in attendance. We cover everything from design trends to investing strategies to legislative updates that affect the real estate community.

We also recently launched a monthly, very casual event, called Morning Social where anyone who’d like to can stop in our new offices, grab coffee and a pastry and say hello to any of our staff and make connections with others who choose to stop in. At our first one, we had realtors, a mortgage lender, an architect and a structural engineer – all chatting about their weekend plans, hobbies, and of course, a little business. People really enjoy our events and find them helpful for networking. And we’re always coming up with new ideas, so check our Facebook events page for the next one and stop in to say hello!

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I have a great, supportive team that I rely on… Each of their strengths is really what makes Invalesco strong, and I am lucky to have them. On a personal level, my mother has been and is an incredible support system that allows me to achieve some level of balance in my life. She was a savvy businesswoman and is a great sounding board for me.

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Image Credit:
Photographers: Michael Smith, Trevor Huster

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