Meet Ben Caballero | Real Estate Broker
We had the good fortune of connecting with Ben Caballero and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Ben, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
When I was building homes I noticed few builders listed their homes in MLS. I created a service to list homes for builders. I soon learned a manual system was unmanageable and decided to create an online platform. It was launched in 2007 as HomesuSA.com and has grown to 60 plus teas builders
What should our readers know about your business?
Please tell us more about your business: I once was a home builder and I created HomesUSA.com in 2007 because I found builders were not taking full advantage of the MLS or multiple listing service. Builders also were missing out by not working with many real estate agents. I created the HomesUSA online platform to help builders better manage the marketing of their homes to real estate agents by using the MLS to sell homes faster. Agents use their local MLS every day. If you think about it, the MLS is the most powerful, least expensive, most efficient marketing platform there is to sell homes. I knew if builders would manage and monitor their new home listings in the MLS, they would be more successful in reaching real estate agents, who sell 85% of all homes. And that’s what HomesUSA.com does for builders: we help them market to agents and fully manage and monitor every one of their listings in the MLS. We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about. I have been in real estate my entire professional life. I love what I do. I have been blessed to be recognized for many home sales records over the years and ranked as the number one agent by REAL Trends for many years. But being recognized by Guinness World Records — twice — and as the current title holder for “most annual home sale transactions through MLS by an individual sell side real estate agent,” is my most humbling accomplishment. I believe I am the first and only real estate agent in the world to be recognized by Guinness World Records for a home sales record. That’s really something. How did you get to where you are today business-wise. I have been asked this so many times I actually created a podcast called “Ben Caballero: Real Estate Lessons from the #1 Ranked Agent in the US” available for free on Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ben-caballero-real-estate-lessons-from-1-ranked-agent/id1444134076) and Google Play (https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Ib62hft6r3ddro6omwktm4y25ti). In the first episode, I go into great detail about how I got where I am today. The brief history is I started in real estate right out of the Air Force, moving to Dallas and getting my real estate license when I was 21 years old. I started and apartment rental service and then built apartment buildings and eventually homes, for many years. I got out of the home building business and started to focus on real estate sales when I started a guaranteed home buyout business for builder. When a new home buyer had a home to sell, I would guarantee to buy if it didn’t sell before their new home sale needed to be finalized. It was during that time I saw an unmet need in the market. Texas builders were not listing their homes on any organized basis. I first started helping builders put their listings in the MLS, tracking everything on an Excel spreadsheet but discovered pretty fast that was not manageable. So, I created HomesUSA.com just as the internet was starting to boom. I created an online platform at HomesUSA and continuously improved it and now serve over 60 builders in four Texas markets, including Dallas. Was it easy? Teddy Roosevelt said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.” Like every successful real estate professional, it takes hard work and discipline. I start my day at 5:00 am and my days, as you can imagine, stay very busy. Because what I offer is something new, and new ideas are not always readily accepted, my life has been a constant sales job. That’s been challenging since I am not a natural-born salesman! If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What enables me to overcome the challenges is my creative passion. Nothing is more gratifying than creating something that makes a difference in people’s lives…more
