Denise Smith was one of the featured brokers profiled
in the California Association of Realtors' California
Real Estate Magazine.
Minority households accounted for about 19 percent of
the nation’s first-time buyers in 1993. By 2001, that number topped
32 percent and could reach 50 percent by 2010, according to Harvard
University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
It’s not surprising that minority-owned firms are finding
success in this increasingly multicultural housing marketplace. While
these owners say they face the same challenges and triumphs as other
business owners, they often find themselves providing a dual role: a
support system for other minority REALTORS® and a comfort zone for the
clients they serve, many of whom are intimidated at the thought of purchasing
or selling a home in English.
Denise E. Smith Royal Realtors & Loan Services, Oakland
Denise E. Smith has never been one to back down from a challenge, especially
the challenge of helping low-income families enter the housing market.
Raised in San Francisco by a great-grandmother who championed the concept
that anything is possible, Smith, owner of Royal Realtors & Loan Services
in Oakland, tells her clients to dream big. “Many of my clients have
been denied two or three times, but they come to me, and I get them
approved to buy a home,” she says.
Smith’s career started modestly–but early. At age 14,
she began a summer internship with a finance company, parlayed the internship
into a full-time position and began a career in banking while still
in high school. Smith later secured her real estate license in 1990
and earned her broker’s license in 1993. She opened Royal the following
year. Like Smith, about 85 percent of her clients are African American.
Despite the challenges of a tight market, her three-member
team closes about 100 transactions annually. “I take great joy in helping
my clients become homeowners and watching them grow,” she says.
Raising homeownership levels within minority communities
is a noble goal. But Smith is not without a savvy marketing sense. “As
my clients’ financial futures have grown, so has their buying power,”
Smith notes. “And because I believed in them when they were buying $100,000
houses, they believe in me when they are buying $700,000 houses.”
Oakland resident Maudry Davis and her seven daughters
believe. Davis and four of her daughters have bought and sold numerous
homes with Smith since 1996. “She is a very special person to my family,”
Davis says. “Once I told Denise what I wanted, she just went out and
got it. She works for her clients, and I trust her.”
While the majority of Smith’s business is referral-driven,
she advertises in mainstream and minority newspapers, is a regular speaker
at regional homebuying seminars and career days, serves as a district
vice president for the Women’s Council of REALTORS® and is the 2006
vice president for the Oakland Association of REALTORS®.
“It’s important that students from low-income homes see
that there’s another person who is a minority and succeeding,” she says.
Smith advises new agents, minority or otherwise, to believe
you can attain anything. “You may be striving to be at a different level
than you are right now,” she notes, “but you have to start with that
one deal. There are going to be a lot of ‘nos.’ But with every struggle,
there is a gift. So be patient and faithful to your craft.”
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