ABOUT COMMERCIAL AGENT Robert Hemphill

My real estate career started at the Swearingen Management Company in Dallas, Texas. The year was 1984 and the Swearingen company was one of the city's top Real Estate firms. I remember calling on the company for an interview. They told me that the Swearingen Company only hired experienced agents. Through persistence and some creative selling skills, I was soon having coffee with the company's vice president. It was an entry level property management position, but it didn't matter, I was in the commercial Real Estate business.

In 1986 I had just returned from a weekend running the capital 10K in downtown Austin. A short time later a broker told me about a company called Smith Allen. They were looking for a leasing agent to help them open an office in Austin. It sounded perfect. But when I called the developer for an interview, he told me that he was very busy. Tomorrow he was leaving town for two weeks. I asked him if I could come right now. He thought a minute and said yes. I arrived in Austin two months later and started leasing and managing industrial space.

In 1986 I had just returned from a weekend running the capital 10K in downtown Austin. A short time later a broker told me about a company called Smith Allen. They were looking for a leasing agent to help them open an office in Austin. It sounded perfect. But when I called the developer for an interview, he told me that he was very busy. Tomorrow he was leaving town for two weeks. I asked him if I could come right now. He thought a minute and said yes. I arrived in Austin two months later and started leasing and managing industrial space.

In 1993 my friend Doug and a partner in the Real estate brokerage firm of Republic Commercial Properties approached me about working together on a bid for a large FDIC portfolio. The bid specifications required that you had to have a CPM designation. Amazingly I had just completed my CPM. We won the bid and I was now self-employed as a broker at Republic Commercial Properties.