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Meet Jonathan Rothchild of Purple Housing in Fort Worth

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Rothchild.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jonathan. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I grew up in Katy, TX. Ever since I can remember, my dad has been running one of the top producing residential real estate teams in Houston for several consecutive years with the help of my mom and my uncle. I used to go to listing appointments with my dad between basketball games he would take me to but I didn’t have any real interest in following in his footsteps, I thought I was destined for the NBA. I quickly realized that was not going to the case and by the time I got to high school had pretty much given up on my hoop dreams so I decided after I graduated that I was going to get a finance degree from Texas Christian University. My freshman year, I joined a fraternity and we were on probation my freshman year from some things that went down the year before. One of the requirements of the probation was that each member of the fraternity be a member of one other on campus organization. I joined the Collegiate Entrepreneur’s Organization (CEO) because they only required that you attend one speaker event each semester to be a member.

My freshman year, the CEO club had Rogers Healy, a real estate broker operating out of the Dallas area, come and tell us his story. He told us about how he sold his first million dollar listing while he was in college at SMU and he had a company he had just started called LiveByTCU that was going to focus on the off campus housing needs of students and he was looking for agents to help get the company up and running. I was already in the process of getting my real estate license so I messaged him off Facebook the next day and he told me he would sponsor me as soon as I got my real estate license. I got my real estate license by the summer of my freshman year but I didn’t know where to start. I met with RD, another one of Roger’s agents, who was a senior at TCU and actively leasing properties throughout his spring semester to ask him for advice. He referred me to a landlord he had been working with who still had a property that needed to be leased. I listed it for rent for him on MLS and it went so horribly wrong that it led to Rogers releasing my license from his brokerage leaving me in need of a new sponsor for my license.

I went to a professor who was the head of the real estate club at TCU and told her what I was trying to do and she referred me to a guy who was a recent TCU grad who had just become a real estate broker and left the company he was working for to venture out on his own. He was already working with a lot of the local landlords who had off campus rental properties that primarily rented to TCU students so it was seemingly a great fit. I started working for him in February of 2013 and was able to close 20 leases before the end of my spring semester my sophomore year. Heading into Junior year at TCU, I was able to double our leasing inventory over the summer by reaching out other landlords who owned rental properties surrounding the campus to see if they were interested in using our services.

After about a year working with Austin, I left to venture out on my own and start Purple Housing. I was able to retain a lot of my clients from my previous brokerage and created a website that featured their listings with up to date information on my properties that available for the following school year. During my junior year at TCU, I closed approximately 70 leases during those two semesters and realized I had a legitimate business that I could continue to operate post-graduation. With the money I was making in commissions, I was able to buy my first property that same year. I turned a property that was 3 BR 2 BR with a one car garage into a 5 BR 3 BA by converting the oversized master into two bedrooms and converting the garage into another bedroom. I rented it to some TCU students, sold it, and to this day manage the property for the buyer that I sold it to. I have continued to add to my portfolio of rental properties by purchasing 1 to 2 homes every year since that year and I still work with a lot of the landlords that I have been working with since my time attending TCU.

Has it been a smooth road?
I was fired by both brokers I worked for so no it was not an easy road starting out but I learned you have to fail in order to succeed in the process. There was definitely a learning adjustment. The first year I was licensed, the only deal I closed I didn’t get paid for. I had to seek out advice from others who had successfully done what I was trying to do and find the right opportunity before I was able to start succeeding.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Purple Housing story. Tell us more about the business.
We specialize in off campus housing around Texas Christian University’s campus. What sets my company apart is how specific the focus is. I don’t have many competitors because the general consensus from other realtors is that there isn’t enough money in leasing properties unless you have a big property management operation so they choose to focus on residential sales and that may be true for them but with the amount of inventory I have that is constantly turning over, that is not the case. My company’s website and marketing also set it apart. I started an Instagram page in 2015 because that’s where my target audience, being primarily college students, spends a lot of time on and that has worked out pretty well with posting properties as they come available.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The TCU student housing market is in the process of shifting away from the further from campus single family properties with yards and is shifting towards new construction duplexes and higher density developments like townhomes and apartments that are within walking distance to campus which I think is a probably a good thing because the neighbors of the single-family properties are not too fond of students living next to them but there will always be a demand for a house for a backyard for “entertaining” purposes.

Pricing:

  • Listing fee is 50% of first months rent for procuring a renter due upon execution of the lease.
  • Management fee is 10% of the monthly rent (quotes vary based on rental rates)
  • Renewal fee is 25% of the monthly rent amount

Contact Info:

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