Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Greever.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I moved to Texas in 2010 to be a Special Education teacher and go to graduate school. I loved teaching for a long time, but by my last year, I was ready to move on to something else. Both my husband Andy and I have grandparents who are Real Estate investors, and it is something we always wanted to do. When we purchased our home in 2013, it was an old, dated house that needed a lot of repairs and upgrades. We were determined to fix it up over the years and then it would be our first rental property. In the fall of 2015, we had the opportunity to update our kitchen. I had no idea what we were doing so I called a friend that had a design company to come help. I told her that we wanted the house to be a rental one day and she told me to read the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. I read the book, told my husband to read it, and immediately dove into research how in the world he is doing these real estate investments! I spent my lunch breaks watching Youtube videos, reading articles, anything I could get my hands on to learn more about investing. That spring, my husband and I ended up at a weekend investing class, and that summer when school got out, I hit the ground running. We formed our LLC and I started networking! I needed to find realtors, a real estate attorney, title companies, and local banks to build relationships with. Every day I would come home and tell my husband I wanted to quit my teaching job and do this full time. But every day, we were both scared of the plunge. We were used to our very safe salaries that came in every two weeks! About a month in Andy told me that if I wanted to quit, go for it, just not to tell him! He said he would figure it out when I did not go back to school. While we did not make decisions that way, it was freeing to me that this decision was my own, and he supported whatever I chose. 2 weeks later, I met with my principal and quit! Nevermind that I balled my eyes out the whole way to meet her. Since then, I have been going as hard as possible. Every time I walked a house, I asked a ton of questions so that I could learn what to look for, and how to determine what needed repair, etc. This really helped me grow and develop the skills I needed to be successful.
Has it been a smooth road?
I struggled from the get-go! It was really hard for me to talk with sellers about their personal issues because I felt like it wasn’t any of my business to know why they wanted to sell. I would cry my eyes out before calling a seller back when I knew I had to ask them more questions and get more details. But then one day I saw a quote that read “A person’s success in life is determined by the number of uncomfortable conversations she is willing to have”. And that has stayed with me ever since. I have to get uncomfortable to grow. We’ve had to adjust to unstable income and had scary months of uncertainty not knowing where my next deal was going to come from. One time I had a seller not honor a contract after I already paid to get their mortgage reinstated. We had extended official closing for a couple of weeks so they could move. Instead, they decided to stay and we never got that money back. We have lost money on deals, we have maxed out business credit cards, and I have wondered many days if I would need to go get a job working for someone else. But the one thing that we always did was to keep going. We made peace with the bad deal, we paid off debt and made sacrifices we did not predict. We know that our next deal is always moving towards us and will show up when it is time as long as we put faith in all we do and we always take action.
Tell us more about the business.
We work with homeowners who need to sell their house in as as-is condition. The people we work with may own a home that has become a burden for whatever reason – death, divorce, financial issues, or just an inherited property that no one has the ability to deal with. We strive to understand their individual and unique situation and demonstrate as much empathy, compassion, and patience as possible. Once we have had the opportunity to provide a little TLC to a property, our goal is to create a home for another family that makes them feel safe, secure, and happy. We are proud to make small improvements to our community through our company because we really do believe that the greater Houston area is one of the best places in the world to live, work, build a business, and grow a family!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Real estate can always be a good industry. People need places to live regardless of the economic climate. I think there will continue to be opportunities to invest and positive ways to impact our surroundings. We strive as a company to stay ahead of curves and be as proactive as possible – we are never complacent! One of the most important characteristics of our business is to constantly find creative ways to get a deal done and take care of our clients. If we can stay creative and take action, we can always find ways to grow in real estate.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.eversancooper.com
- Phone: 832-271-2753
- Email: elizabeth@eversancooper.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/eversancooper
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/eversancooper
- Other: www.linkedin.com/company/eversan-cooper
Image Credit:
Jamie & Heather Schneider, FOLK Portraits, The Woodlands, TX
Timothy Sison, Slate & Stone Photography, The Woodlands, TX
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