Scotty Mitchell is a bundle of energy. He recently joined EO Dallas and is bringing that energy to the chapter in search of knowledge, experience shares, adventure and peers. He is founder and CEO of American Real PM, a real estate / property management company that was born out of New York connections and is thriving in Dallas.
Scotty’s story starts in McKinney, back when it wasn’t a northern suburb of Dallas. His family roots go way back, to the point that a city park is named after his grandfather. The son and grandson of doctors, Scotty was set on the same trajectory. He moved a lot as a youth, back and forth between his divorced parents. “I went to four different high schools,” he recalled. “I got used to adapting.” At 16, Scotty saw how the medical field was changing and increasingly was interested in real estate.
As a young adult, Scotty told his dad he just wanted to play tennis and get paid for it. So, his father sent him information on a summer camp that needed a tennis instructor. It worked out great, since Scotty got the job and met an American-English girl there who was working in theater arts. He and Mia hit it off and spent a lot of time together, with her coming from England to visit him in Texas many times after the summer was over.
The intrepid young couple wed and moved to New York, where Broadway beckoned Mia and Scotty was sure he could find work. “We just moved,” said Scotty. “We dropped a lot of money (for us at the time) on an apartment. I didn’t finish college and decided to learn on the job. I was just going to get odd jobs, but it was more difficult than I expected. So, I decided to find my career. I got a real estate license, found a small group that had broken off from a major brokerage. I could see from the ground up as it was being built, and I became associate broker.”
A few years later Scotty and Mia had children, Will (now 11) and Drew (now 8). “It’s not as fun in New York when you have a family,” Scotty said, laughing. They moved back to Texas to be closer to extended family. Scotty knew he could do brokerage services anywhere, and decided to look into property management and investment. “I knew the other pieces to real estate in terms of financing, buying and selling. So I found a company that had 7,000 roofs under their belts. I joined them to learn the management side of things.”
After four years at the firm, the opportunity came up. It was a client that Scotty had worked with, and they wanted to take their management in-house. It was a turnkey investment company that bought distressed properties, fixed them, rented them out, and sold them. Scotty truly learned on the job, starting with a portfolio of 18 houses to manage and building up to 450.
A business partner in New York, who had stayed there, was also ready to make a change. When Scotty saw the opportunity to buy out his employer, he called his former partner. “I asked him to move to Texas to help me build,” explained Scotty. “He moved here and we’ve been doing it for 5 ½ years.”
Today, American Real PM is run by Scotty and partner, Kyle Karker. Their core business is property management of single family homes. They have investments in Dallas, St Louis, Kansas City (Both Kansas and Missouri), and Detroit. They have two umbrella businesses, one that does the property investment business with flips, hard money loans and the like; and another that handles the utility management business to help the property management company with utility connections, disconnections, and bill pay.
Scotty predicts changes in his industry. “The government is finally stopping kicking the can down the road with rates and foreclosures and eviction moratoriums. I think first we’ll see the bubble of real estate is leveling off. Then there’s a big chance if they mess things up, we’ll see a sharp decline very quickly especially in tertiary markets where industry is less mixed.”
The current hot real estate market has American Real PM in growth mode. They’re focused on revenue growth, optimizing the team, and working in Detroit more. Scotty and his partner over-hired in 2020-21, lost revenue because owners sold homes, and were all the while preparing to ramp up when the business came back. It has.
Scotty joined EO Dallas in January of 2022. He attended the all-chapter retreat in Cancun, getting to know more people and seeing EO up close. “. I didn’t take business administration in school, and I find solutions as the problems come up. I hope it will help me grow my company better. I believe in aggressively choosing your peer group. It’s going to help me grow and improve my mind. You want to have skin in the game.”
