Dan Lopez, CRS (center), attributes his success to serving and educating his communities
In the late 90’s, Dan Lopez, CRS, was working in the healthcare field as a medical lab technologist. While he enjoyed his career, he grew tired of interacting with the same, small group of people every single day. “Anytime I would go outside of my lab team, it was for patient care doing phlebotomy work,” Lopez says. “So, I was dealing with people either at their worst or going through testing. People weren’t necessarily happy to see me.” As someone who is very much a people person, he found himself feeling unfulfilled in that industry. While looking for a change, his wife and business partner, Tina, received her real estate license in 1999. This inspired him to do the same the following year. He quickly fell in love with real estate and made the leap from the medical field to full time REALTOR® that same year.
Lopez currently serves the Central Florida area, which he describes as very transient. The region has a much lower average time for families staying in a home than other regions of the country. The area also makes for a unique melting pot, as it attracts people of all ages and stages of life from across the globe. “There’s a joke that driving around the Central Florida area can be a little intimidating when you first move here because you’ve got all these different driving styles meeting each other on the road,” he says. Being a middle ground between a suburban and city lifestyle, proximity to many beaches and great weather year-round make it a hot spot.
Pursuit of credibility
He was 30 years old when he began his real estate career, but Lopez says he looked even younger at the time. This caused him to have some difficulty getting clients to take him seriously. “I looked at education as a way to overcome that obstacle,” he recalls. He went on to receive his GRI certification and his broker’s license. As he learned more and made more connections, he says that he “quickly learned that the CRS Designation was the Tesla of residential real estate designations.” He desired to be a part of the best of the best, and the CRS Designation was necessary to reach that status. He finally achieved his designation in 2011, and it’s proved to be one of the best decisions he’s made for his career.
More than a 9-5
“One of the best quotes I ever heard was from one of my first real estate instructors years ago,” Lopez says. “They made the comment that real estate isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle.” He says that the sooner REALTORS® embrace that idea, the happier and more successful they’ll be in the field. He says that he’s worked more hours in a given week in real estate than he has in any previous industry, but it’s gotten to a point where it doesn’t feel like work. “I’ve been able to incorporate it in all areas, from friendships to my at home life to how I give back,” he reflects. “It’s really become who I am.”
This year, to his surprise, Lopez won the Florida Realtors’ Realtor Achievement Award. “That was absolutely incredible,” he says. “Such an honor. I was shocked.” This award is given to broker owners, officers or managers who give back to both the REALTOR® profession at a local, state and national level, and give back to their community. And the recognition was well deserved. Lopez sits on the City of Lake Mary’s Code Enforcement Board and is a commissioner for the Seminole County Planning and Zoning Commission. For nearly a decade, he has sat as a director for Florida Realtors. Previously, he served 6 years on the Board of Directors for the Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association. He also teaches GRI and CE courses and serves as faculty for the Florida Realtors. For the past year, he’s also been working as a director for NAR and has participated in a many of its other committees.
He says that community involvement is so important for REALTORS® because “it’s how you get you name out there. It’s showcasing yourself as more than just somebody that grows their business, but as somebody that actually cares about the community that we work and live in.”
Invaluable knowledge
“The experience and the knowledge that it takes in order to receive the designation,” is a large part of what makes it so invaluable, Lopez says. Just in seeking out the CRS Designation, he says REALTORS® see benefits and elevation in their careers. Once your peers know that you have a reached this higher level in the profession, your real estate transactions will go much smoother. “The referrals that you get out of it are amazing,” he explains. “People will be confident that if they have a customer from another area, they know that they will be handing this over to somebody that will handle their referral in a very professional manner.”
CRS designees never stop their pursuit of education. “[The Council] gives so many opportunities for further educating yourself and those around you,” Lopez says. The close-knit network feels like a family, and they’re all looking for new ways to improve not only their own businesses but the profession as a whole. “It’s really become a community to be proud of,” he says.
