Derrik and Holly Carlson | REALTORS®

How I became a Park City Realtor

I was raised in windy Wyoming about two hours away from Park City, every few weekends we would make the trip to ski Park City. I always played sports which I believe adds to my competitive nature and the tenacity it takes to push through a challenging real estate transaction to make a deal happen. In 2002, I started attending Westminster College and graduated in four years with degrees in business management as well as finance. In 2004, I began financing homes for a mortgage bank and helped homeowners from Florida to Alaska. The goal was to work and go to college full time, get high marks, and get a great paying job right out of college, well at least that's what I was told would happen. After graduating from college I purchased my first investment property and soon had a job offer to move to Roatan Honduras to manage an 85-unit condo development. Honduras was an experience of a lifetime but soon thereafter the economy started to crumble and my flight back to Utah was booked. I had already done some private loans short term loans while I was in college, the first hard money loan I ever did was on new construction in Heber, so I started lending money again based on the collateral. What I didn't know at that time was how to read people - and how to spot the signs of someone ... let's just say not telling the truth (I will forever remember the name of every crook that took my money). I had the best legal contracts but when people didn't repay there wasn't much to go after in those days since the collateral had depreciated. All those business law classes in college didn't hold up in the real world. The economy was in the tank, banks were failing, and I was out a few hundred thousand dollars. I needed an opportunity so I began researching, not only how to build a business but how to stay alive in the second great recession. I was the kind of kid that would be reading "Rich Dad Poor Dad" on a family vacation to Cancun instead of asking if I could go out to the club. Anyhow, I would find my way out of this mess. I still had my one investment property that generated enough money to pay my bills and I knew this had to be an opportunity to buy real estate. I sat down with the father of a friend from college that was from Park City and was able to pass an interrogation to raise enough money to buy one property but that never really took off because the real estate market in Utah is always hungry for investment properties. Researching markets, I soon figured out that Wyoming would be where I would buy more investment properties. The oil boom was still going on and there weren't many real estate investors bidding up the prices. 2009 & 2010 were the two years of buying homes like they were candy. I started buying homes for 10% of their previous value & soon figured out if I did the work myself I could do a remodel for $10,000 per floor - I remember buying a home for $20,000 wondering if I was paying too much but I knew the home was cheaper than a car and the rent was $1,300 per month, so I purchased the property to eventually own nine units. In 2009, I also started dating the girl of my dreams that would eventually become my wife. Holly said that she would like to live on the Wasatch Back so we found a place in Pinebrook but eventually settled on Midway.

The bottom of the real estate market was gone and it was time to find the more permanent profession that I could use to support a family. I had supreme confidence and knew everything about real estate because I was a real estate investor getting unheard of returns. Looking back I knew just enough to get my big toe wet - I took the real estate classes and passed the exam as quickly as allowed. I was hungry and ready to take over the Park City real estate market. What I didn't understand was how complex the Park City market really is when representing buyers and sellers with real estate. I studied my butt off on how to build a real estate business, every week I attended as many open houses as possible with seasoned agents to get the backstories that aren't written anywhere (there are some on this website), and dedicated myself to become the best agent for a buyer or seller to hire.

It took a few years but I eventually became a Top 5 agent for Keller Williams in the State of Utah. I used that to springboard over to one of the top luxury real estate teams in the nation to advance my career - unfortunately, the team thing didn't work out as planned and I returned to Keller Williams Park City. Within a few months, I was back to a top producing agent by selling homes and condos in Park City, Deer Valley, Midway, and Heber, Utah.  Since returning to Keller Williams I've closed some big purchases, I've had appraisal came in $345k higher when representing the buyer, and I've helped represented others that have purchased below market value. I've successfully contested appraisals for my sellers to make sure they earn top dollar and implemented technology that I truly believe makes a huge difference and help my seller's properties sell for more money. 

I've averaged a $1.5m sales price when representing clients when I include $200,000 condos and $4,000,000+ properties. A few years back I had a seller ask me why I would work with non-luxury clients if I could just be representing her on the sale of her million dollar home. My response was this: "Mam, what got me to this table was a $120,000 land sale that no one else wanted. That one transaction turned into multiple referrals and working with the sellers on multiple transactions. That one small lot sale lead into over $6,000,000 of real estate sold. I also think it's a good idea to do as many transactions as possible to get as much experience in challenging transactions as possible." Ultimately, I'm doing what I set out to do! 

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