Ben Caballero: Specializing in Success
“The key, to me, is to always have focus. Specializing is key to real estate success.”
You might think setting a Guinness World Record for being the most productive real estate agent in the world would be the peak of any real estate professional’s career, but when Ben Caballero, CEO and president of HomesUSA.com, earned the title, he was just getting started.
In fact, after qualifying for the 2017 recognition by submitting his sales volumes and totals (3,556 home sales for $1.444 billion) for 2016 to Guinness, Caballero followed that up by selling 4,799 homes for $1.9 billion in 2017.
“I think you can only submit every two years, so we will evaluate and make our decision about resubmitting after the close of 2018,” he said mildly. “Really, the point is more to enjoy real estate and keep moving forward. I don’t like backward.”
Caballero certainly has very little familiarity with moving backward. Before becoming the certified “most productive real estate agent in the world,” he was a real estate broker by 21 and a home builder for 18 years. Furthermore, that $1 billion benchmark he hit for the 2017 world record was not his first billion-dollar milestone. He exceeded $1 billion in 2015 for the first time and has repeated the achievement every year since. However, he is quite adamant that “the point,” as he refers to it, is not the numbers but the overall growth for his clients and his real estate business.
“I’ve always changed as the market changed and grown in my real estate business as the market has grown. To me the key is to always have focus. Specializing is key to real estate success,” Caballero said. “I’ve never said, ‘I’m a real estate broker and I’ll do whatever you need,’ to my clients. The most important thing is to focus and be willing to refine what you do to meet your clients’ needs and your business’ needs.”
Caballero’s intense focus created his incredibly wide present-day reach. In 2003, Caballero already had plenty of experience with the unique needs of home builders, but he realized something more was needed to facilitate the sales process between builder and the owner-occupant buyer. That realization led to the multiyear development process that ultimately yielded the HomesUSA.com platform, which serves as an interface between realtors and builders and streamlines the listing process for both…more
