COVER STORY
Anthony loves, loves, loves his children Da’Veon & Kayla. They are seen here at Houston’s “Water Wall”
enjoying a little picnic in front of the Williams Tower where Anthony has his office. Da’Veon and Kayla are his
heartbeat and his sole motivation for his success. Photo courtesy of Anthony Ford.
After high school, Anthony attended
the University Of Houston and was majoring in Business Administration. When
his father decided to pursue a full time
position with Greenwood King Properties, Anthony took over his father’s landscaping business in order to help provide
support for his parents and siblings. At
this point, getting a bachelor’s degree had
to be put on the back burner. In addition
to the landscaping business, Anthony
worked for a research company and then
later as a door-to-door salesman for Time
Warner Cable. This experience helped
Anthony develop his problem solving
skills. “I dealt with potential problems
and figured out how to overcome them
before they arose,” remarked Mr. Ford.
During this time, Anthony had been
saving his money instead of spending
it on frivolous things. Anthony painstakingly learned all that he could about
investing from his banker and his father.
He applied what he was taught and then
stretched his money by putting some in
the stock market and the rest into a CD
and then, eventually, his first house. Until this first transaction, his love for real
estate lay dormant. He knew nothing
about buying a home; but, after dealing with the Realtor® and the mortgage
professional, his passion for real estate
awakened and he fell head over heels enamored with the whole process!
At the age of 20, Anthony reconnected
with a high school acquaintance while in
church and they began to date. Eventually they married and had a son whom
they named Da’Veon. Not wanting his
son to be brought up in an apartment
was the major impetus for Anthony to
push his goal of home ownership from
age 24 to 21. Three years and one day
later after Da’Veon was born, daughter
Kayla Symone followed. This motivated
Anthony even more in assuring that his
children grow up with more comforts
than he had as a child. Of course, he
would also make sure they grew up with
the same values he learned as a child!
After Anthony purchased his first home,
the light bulb came on. He reflected, “The
process of buying a home was so enlightening to me that I knew I wanted to do it
for a living.” A year later, Anthony bought
his first investment property, a single family home. He had the brilliant idea to turn
it into a duplex. This increased the rent
probability by two! He rented both units
and then sold them as a performing asset
and made a profit of $40,000. This validated his passion for investing in real estate as
it paid off in a big way. He thought to himself, “Real estate investing is in my blood. I
can do this over and over again!”
At the time, he was he was 23 years old
and making $53,000 a year at Time War-
8 SMALL BUSINESS TODAY MAGAZINE [ MAY 2015 ]
ner Cable but in one transaction, Anthony had just received a check for $60,000.
After paying the Realtor® fee, title fee, and
other expenses plus $5,000 to a friend
who was instrumental in the deal, Anthony netted $40,000! It was then that he
realized he could make an additional 80
percent of what he was earning at Time
Warner Cable by flipping properties and
began flipping properties.
In 2002, Anthony attended classes
at Champions School of Real Estate to
become a loan officer and then in 2004,
he studied there to get a real estate license. “I learned from the best there. I
love the whole staff; Dorothy Barringer
is a sweetheart.” Anthony recalled, “I got
my real estate license for two reasons.
Number one, I got it because I feel that
there are a lot of people out there who
need some good representation. They
need people who understand and will
give them guidance. Believe it or not,
there are a lot of Realtors® out there who
have never owned a property. They just
want to do it from a servicing standpoint. I was buying houses as a professional and have the insight. The second
reason is because I wanted to fuel my
own real estate investment career. That
was a good way for me to get what we
call pocket listings. I got my license to
give the definitive edge and use my skills
as a problem solver.”