5 Real Estate Pros Who Also Own Ranches
Summer is the perfect time to head out of town for BBQs and weekend getaways. For some lucky real estate pros, that means heading down to the ranch. (Branding is literal for these real estate pros.)
1. Stanton Pinckard's Sassy Stanton and Bill Pinckard
Stanton Pinckard owners (and spouses) Sassy Stanton and Bill Pinckard have two ranches, a working one with a cow/calf operation and one with timber production. The pair maintain over 1,000 pecan trees (they’re very labor intensive, Sassy tells us—you have to fertilize, spray for fungus, trim, prepare for harvest, harvest…) and work their cattle about four times a year (including providing calves for a stocker program). Sassy says she feels truly alive in the country and loves that there’s no time to sit and wonder what to do next. The duo also sells farm and ranch land, which Sassy tells us is a great investment—Texas rural land value has consistently grown between 4% and 13% each year since 2000, well above the 2% returns you’re getting on 10-year Treasury notes.
2. Weingarten Realty's Jan Odom
Weingarten Realty associate general counsel Jan Odom heads up to the working family ranch about once a month and says they do “wonderfully mindless things like mend fences, chop wood from downed trees, and sit on the porch and read.” The ranch is in East Texas near Apple Springs and has been in her husband’s family for generations. Jan particularly loves riding horses and a few years ago got to ride in the grand entry for the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, a childhood dream of hers (pictured).
3. Wolff Cos' David Hightower
Wolff Cos EVP David Hightower and his wife, Julie, are at their ranch—112 acres in Austin County—almost every weekend, but they’re rarely alone; David says it’s the perfect place to have dinner parties or host Thanksgiving. Julie grew up in a small farm town in Southern Illinois, and David spent the summers with his grandparents in East Texas. Their house is on a hill overlooking a creek valley and is such a pleasant experience that the Wolff Cos decided to help provide it to others. In ’06, they started selling Gates Ranch, a 1,500-acre master-planned community of ranches in east Washington County.
Here are David and Wolff Co chairman/president David Wolff (who has his own ranch in Washington County) on one of the home sites on the new phase of Gates Ranch. The first two phases are 87% sold out, and the third and final (627 acres) is coming to market now. The tracts range from 33 to 133 acres, but David tells us many people have been buying multiple parcels to have even larger properties. Gates Ranch is deed restricted and David says some residents have livestock, some have mini farms, and some just have homes surrounded by lots of land, but all are enjoying the benefits of getting out of the city bustle. (A lot of residents are coming from Houston.)
4. Berkadia's Bob Heard
Berkadia senior associate Bob Heard has been going to his family’s ranch his whole life. In the spring and summer, they lease to their neighbor to run cattle, but Bob mostly uses it for hunting. He’s an avid traditional bow hunter and hunts with a recurve bow with no sights or mechanical assistance. Over the Christmas break, he bagged this Aoudad sheep and a boar back in the thickest/most remote part of the ranch, his favorite area.
5. Boyd Commercial/CORFAC International’s Mike Boyd
Boyd Commercial/CORFAC International’s Mike Boyd (standing in the white hat) just hosted quite the get together at his ranch in Schulenberg: all CORFAC firms in Texas and Mexico gathered there last week. It was an opportunity to bring new CORFAC affiliates into the fold—Boyd Commercial (Houston), Providence Commercial (DFW) and Bradford CRE Services (DFW) interact regularly, but Centric Commercial (Austin) and Citius Capital (Mexico) weren’t as in sync yet. 29 representatives of the five firms met for BBQ, networking and business talks.
