Meet Ben Caballero | Real Estate Broker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ben Caballero and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ben, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
When I was building homes I noticed few builders listed their homes in MLS. I created a service to list homes for builders. I soon learned a manual system was unmanageable and decided to create an online platform. It was launched in 2007 as HomesuSA.com and has grown to 60 plus teas builders

What should our readers know about your business?
Please tell us more about your business: I once was a home builder and I created HomesUSA.com in 2007 because I found builders were not taking full advantage of the MLS or multiple listing service. Builders also were missing out by not working with many real estate agents. I created the HomesUSA online platform to help builders better manage the marketing of their homes to real estate agents by using the MLS to sell homes faster. Agents use their local MLS every day. If you think about it, the MLS is the most powerful, least expensive, most efficient marketing platform there is to sell homes. I knew if builders would manage and monitor their new home listings in the MLS, they would be more successful in reaching real estate agents, who sell 85% of all homes. And that’s what HomesUSA.com does for builders: we help them market to agents and fully manage and monitor every one of their listings in the MLS. We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about. I have been in real estate my entire professional life. I love what I do. I have been blessed to be recognized for many home sales records over the years and ranked as the number one agent by REAL Trends for many years. But being recognized by Guinness World Records — twice — and as the current title holder for “most annual home sale transactions through MLS by an individual sell side real estate agent,” is my most humbling accomplishment. I believe I am the first and only real estate agent in the world to be recognized by Guinness World Records for a home sales record. That’s really something. How did you get to where you are today business-wise. I have been asked this so many times I actually created a podcast called “Ben Caballero: Real Estate Lessons from the #1 Ranked Agent in the US” available for free on Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ben-caballero-real-estate-lessons-from-1-ranked-agent/id1444134076) and Google Play (https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Ib62hft6r3ddro6omwktm4y25ti). In the first episode, I go into great detail about how I got where I am today. The brief history is I started in real estate right out of the Air Force, moving to Dallas and getting my real estate license when I was 21 years old. I started and apartment rental service and then built apartment buildings and eventually homes, for many years. I got out of the home building business and started to focus on real estate sales when I started a guaranteed home buyout business for builder. When a new home buyer had a home to sell, I would guarantee to buy if it didn’t sell before their new home sale needed to be finalized. It was during that time I saw an unmet need in the market. Texas builders were not listing their homes on any organized basis. I first started helping builders put their listings in the MLS, tracking everything on an Excel spreadsheet but discovered pretty fast that was not manageable. So, I created HomesUSA.com just as the internet was starting to boom. I created an online platform at HomesUSA and continuously improved it and now serve over 60 builders in four Texas markets, including Dallas. Was it easy? Teddy Roosevelt said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.” Like every successful real estate professional, it takes hard work and discipline. I start my day at 5:00 am and my days, as you can imagine, stay very busy. Because what I offer is something new, and new ideas are not always readily accepted, my life has been a constant sales job. That’s been challenging since I am not a natural-born salesman! If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What enables me to overcome the challenges is my creative passion. Nothing is more gratifying than creating something that makes a difference in people’s lives. This passion drives me through the pain of failure, and I often pursue my objectives beyond what some might call rational. While many builders still don’t get how important the MLS is, on the bright side for the builders who do, we have done well together. Between 2004 and 2019 I’ve sold nearly 37,000 homes totaling more than $13 billion. What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way? I learned early not to give up. I also learned to accept that failure is what you pay to gain the education you needed to succeed. What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story? I would like the real estate industry in general, and Production Home Builders specifically, to realize there is a solution that manages MLS data in a way that ensures speed, accuracy, transparency, and accountability. And HomesUSA.com provides that solution. Production Builders not only want but they need the best of class in everything and that’s what we do at HomesUSA.com. We are the best of class in managing MLS listings and we charge a very nominal fee. The return on capital is just phenomenal really — three or four times return on what a builder pays us. There is no one nowhere nobody they can do it any better, quicker, more efficiently than we do at HomesUSA.com.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
As we drive from the Dallas/Fort Worth International airport, my friend begins to appreciate why I love Texas. The energy and “can do” Texas attitude are on full display. We continue our drive down new wide freeways that take us by miles of beautiful home communities, apartment buildings, shopping centers, hotels, office buildings, and large automobile dealerships, many of which have been built the last 5 to 20 years. We agree to dine at Javier’s, a true Dallas asset that features Mexico City cuisine. Since Javier’s borders the beautiful and prestigious Highland Park neighborhood, we take a detour to see some of its many gorgeous homes on Beverly Drive, Saint Johns Drive and Armstrong Avenue. Picturesque Turtle Creek that meanders through it provides the focus of the many well-maintained mini parks that make Highland Park special. When we arrive, Javier greets me by name and welcomes my guests. For more than 40 years Javier is always at the hostess stand and greets frequent diners by name, even if it has been many months since you were there. After dinner, since we are close to downtown, we decide to visit what every Dallas visitor wants to see: the grassy knoll where President Kennedy was assassinated and the adjacent Texas School Book Depository’s 6th-floor window that Lee Harvey Oswald used to shoot President Kennedy. When we finish checking everything out, I suggest we take a short walk to the nearby Reunion Tower, for some dessert at its restaurant, 560 feet above Dallas. The entire restaurant rotates to give a great view of downtown Dallas and its surroundings, a feature enjoyed by everyone from tourists to longtime residents, particularly children. Day 2 – Cowtown There is lot to do in Fort Worth (aka “Cowtown” and “Where the West Begins.”) so we leave early. It’s called Cowtown because the old stockyards were just north of town. For decades, the inescapable odor was a constant reminder of the livestock waiting for a train north. After a day of touring HomesUSA.com builder client’s housing developments, we are ready to recharge. We begin with diner at Eddie V’s Prime Seafood. It’s a relaxed, elegant atmosphere with bold, colorful artwork on display and live music. As usual the food and service are excellent. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to do more than a drive by of the famous Kimball Art Museum and beautiful Fort Worth Botanical Garden. Both are so different from our next stop: Billy Bob’s Texas, the famous country & western nightclub close to where the stockyards used to be. It’s known as “The World’s Largest Honky Tonk,” with a hard-to-believe 100,000 square feet of air-conditioned interior and a 20-acre parking lot! Big-name entertainment is always headlining, and we lucked out as the Charlie Daniels Band is performing. My friend was properly impressed: mission accomplished. Just a block away is Exchange Avenue, lined with saloons, music, and noise. It has an old west feel. As we casually strolled down Exchange, we pass a bar’s swinging doors, and at that exact moment a real live cowboy was thrown out and brushed my friend’s shoulder before he landed. The cowboy then stood in the middle of the street cursing his girlfriend and the guy that threw him out. All that was missing was a gun fight. The timing was perfect, I could not have planned it any better. A perfect end to our great Cowtown evening. Day 3 – Frisco After last night’s excitement, we decide to stay closer to home and visit the Dallas Cowboys’ new 91-acre campus. It’s the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters that locals call the “Star Complex.” It is conveniently in Frisco, just a couple of miles from my home. With 22 restaurants and 12 sports bars, indoor and outdoor practice facilities, a hotel, shopping, fitness center, healthcare facility, and office building. A 17-story luxury residential tower is coming soon. We arrive in time to drive around the Star’s uniquely named streets, including Winning Drive, Avenue of Champions, Hall of Fame Lane, and Cowboys Way. It’s been three days and my friend is beginning to question me about Texas steaks, so to quiet him down I take him to Dee Lincoln Prime on Winning Drive. Dee is a long time Dallas restaurateur who began her career in New Orleans with Del Frisco’s Steak House. As always, she is a charming host as she floats through her newest creation, graciously greeting guests and making them feel important. During dinner, my friend asks how Frisco got its name. It was not the first time I have been asked, and I was prepared with answers. It seems that in 1904, the residents chose the name Frisco City in honor of the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway and later shortened it to its name to Frisco. It remained an agricultural center for decades, boasting five cotton gins at one time. In the last 15 years its growth has been absolutely staggering. Day four – night life It is Thursday night, my friend is single, and I’m divorced. He has been observing all the beautiful Texas ladies and wanted to meet a few. Neither of us could be considered “ladies’ men”. I believed I could we hold my own in a conversation with the opposite sex. That was until I saw him in action. Our first stop is Arthur’s Steakhouse. I know the current owner and once helped him sell his home. He has graciously assigned a special table to me. Arthurs is a restaurant that has morphed through several locations and iterations. I first visited it when I moved to Dallas many years ago. It was a restaurant near downtown, then a restaurant in an office complex several miles north and then further north to Addison, a small town adjacent to Dallas, and reclaimed its Steakhouse heritage. However, this time with a popular nightclub attached. After dinner, my friend and I moved to the nightclub section. My friend lives in Manhattan and for many years lived in Europe and worked as a conductor for orchestras in Berlin and Paris. In conversations he struck up with the ladies he told of his European experiences in his slight French accent. The ladies ate it up, and soon I found I was little more than a boring bystander. He was such a hit we never made it to our next destination. I never knew he was so interesting. Day Five As a Texan, I could not let my friend go home without treating him to some good ole Texas Barbeque. I also wanted him to see the 35-square-block Sundance Square in the heart of downtown Fort Worth. Sundance offers shopping, entertainment, and it is a cultural district where beautifully restored buildings stand alongside glittering skyscrapers. The acoustically perfect Bass Performance Hall is renowned for its towering angels carved in limestone. And the Fort Worth Water Gardens are the perfect contrast to our ultimate destination, Bailey’s Barbeque. Bailey’s is a small hole in the wall barbeque restaurant established in 1931 by a Navy cook named J.T. Bailey. Today Bailey’s stands virtually alone as a reminder of a time much different from 1931 when Bailey decided to set up shop on Taylor Street. His nephew, Willard “Buddy” Pratt, helped around the smoker and meat cutting board. This modest beginning is now a Texas landmark. Our barbeque meal totally lived up to our expectations, and we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Sundance, taking in the sights and stopping occasionally for a beer. As we drove home, my friend assured me, he understood why I loved Texas.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Everyone I work with at HomesUSA.com, without them couldn’t do very much.

Website: www.homesusa.com