Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristi Ventress.
Kristi, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MARRIAGE, THEN COMES REAL ESTATE AND A BABY IN A BABY CARRIAGE… At the age of 20 years old I found the love of Real Estate and the love of my first born child. It all started when my husband and I purchased our first home together, I remember that feeling when the real estate agent opened the door as we approached the front porch and said “ Welcome Home.” As we were guided around the house, the agent informed us of the specs of the property and then allowed my husband and I time to talk about seeing if we could visualize this place as our home, where we would raise our family. On that dark and crisp fall evening I didn’t just fall in love with that home, but REAL ESTATE too. I didn’t know at the time, that my career would end up being in real estate and property management, as we owned a local drive-thru coffee house I started from the ground up at the age of 18. My passion was coffee and still is ha ha, as I worked at a local coffee shop all through high school. One day I woke up and everything seemed different, coffee didn’t smell good, that’s a first!, I was so tired napping in between customers at the coffee house, I was emotional and remember crying over a pair of shoes, seriously a pair of shoes! My husband and I would always make time on the weekends to go on date night. He took me to one of my favorite restaurants and I ordered the same thing that I always order, Pad Thai with two stars and Thai iced tea, so delicious yum yum yum, so I thought in my head. The food showed up and I ran to the bathroom as the smell was too much for me to handle. Let’s just say we asked the server to bag our food, so we could take it to go and ended date night at Walgreens instead. 9 months later our precious baby boy was born and a first time mommy was now at home full-time not knowing what to do with herself. I always worked, now I don’t & had a lot of quiet time while our baby slept every couple of hours in a bassinet next our bed; he was not much of a cuddler, super independent baby. My husband came home from work one day and I remember feeling so excited for him to walk through the door as I had an idea! I wanted to get my real estate license, it would be perfect as I could work my schedule around being a mommy and be able to stay home with our son or take him with me. My husband said, “are you sure? I don’t want you taking on too much at one time”, but he knows I’m a go getter and when I have my mind set on something I’m going to do it! A week later, my real estate books showed up in the mail, 4 weeks later I went down to Seattle to take my real estate exam & from there I became a licensed real estate agent. At the time I didn’t know, but it was all in God’s plan for me to switch careers from coffee to real estate. A couple of years after getting my real estate license, my husband was having health issues, so I ended up taking a more stable job with a property management company. I never had the vision for myself being a property manager, but I felt blessed for the opportunity as It was a stable job in the same field. A few years later, my husband ended up passing away from cancer at the age of 35 years old. I decided to move back home to Oregon to be closer to my parents. I called on a house that was for rent, but no answered, so I waited for a callback. A couple days later a lady called me back who had the sweetest Disneyland voice, who was returning my call about the house. I love my parents and I’m so thankful & grateful for all their love and support, but I needed my own home & crossed my fingers this lady was calling to let me know this house was still available. We ended up talking for a couple of hours as we hit it off, and yes, she rented the house to me. She lived out of the area and needed help with the rental properties she managed and knew I had a background in real estate and property management, so she asked if I could help her with the properties. At first, I declined as I wasn’t ready to go back to work and needed some more time, but as time went on she kept asking and I finally agreed. I started out doing a little bit of work and then I ended up running and overseeing the entire rental division of the company. I don’t think she or I knew it at the time, but she was a gift from God who helped pull me out of a very dark time. I worked for this company for a little over 6 years before I decided to branch out on my own and start the property management company I have today. I did a lot of praying and put all my faith in God, as leaving a stable job that kept a roof over my children’s heads, was so risky and seemed so irresponsible. I took the leap, choosing my faith over fear and knowing God has never let me fall, so why would he now. I have had so much support from my family, owners, vendors, tenants and the community this past year that has truly made Magnolia possible. This is why I decided to say to each person who is apart of Magnolia “ Welcome to the Magnolia Family “ because they are the foundation of this company; Magnolia Property Management LLC would not be possible without all of their love and support.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has definitely been a bumpy ride, with a lot of late nights, tons of tissue boxes for all the tears and pounds of chocolate to comfort me through it all. Challenging yes, but I knew it would be as I was entering uncharted territory with building a website, learning the property management software, accounting software & balancing the day to day operations. I’ve had the support of my therapist aka my mom along the way always reminding me I can do this; she says “put your safety harness on, check it twice and remember this is a choice, so embrace the learning curves.”
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m Kristi, the owner and executive property manager of Magnolia Property Management LLC. We are a locally owned Property Management company who specializes in professionalism, respect, integrity and kindness. Our team wants to make sure you feel valued & welcomed every step of the way. We strive to have our owners feel they can trust us with their properties and know everything will be handled with the same amount of respect as if they were managing the property themselves. Our team has over 20 years of experience in managing properties and are all natives to Oregon. We manage properties all over this State from the coast to the mountains and are based out of Lake Oswego. There is nothing we can’t manage, as we oversee residential single dwellings, duplexes, condos, apartment complexes, commercial, retail, vacation rentals, ADU’s, clusters, storage facilities, bedroom rentals and more. We will do our best to protect your investment, keep happy long term tenants, make the process as stress free as possible for you and to always be transparent as we work together; hands off for you and completely hands on for us.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Don’t listen to the negative noise of the world. There will always be people who will try and put you down or try to belittle you into thinking you can’t do something on your own or you aren’t good enough. No one has ever made themselves great by showing how small someone else is.
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