Labrescia Dawson, President Founder and CEO of Dawson’s

Labrescia Dawson

President, Founder and CEO of Dawson’s Management

Ms. Labrescia Dawson is the president, founder and CEO of Dawson’s Management, a certified 8(a), HUBZone and Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB) currently headquarters in Atlanta, GA. The company operates its subsidiary, Dawson’s Realty & Mortgages (which Ms. Dawson opened in 2006), and this real estate vertical oversees real estate, asset management, and property preservation. Ms. Dawson’s original work as a real estate broker in Dawson’s Realty & Mortgages led to the creation of Dawson’s Management.

Ms. Dawson realized that the asset management services her company provided for entities such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), hedge funds, and banks were being subcontracted to manage government-owned properties. This realization led Ms. Dawson to pursue certifications such as the 8(a), HUBZone, EDWOSB, and others which would position her to receive state, commercial, and federal contracts as a prime contractor.

But one would ask, how did she get started in all this?

Well, a thousand’s step journey starts with just one step and the determination to get to your destination. And while Labrescia doesn’t come from a real estate background, she did possess sales skills that elevated her business to what it is today. Ms. Dawson started out her career in customer service at Gwinnett Place Ford before later transitioning to the car sales department, where she became extremely good at selling cars.

One day, this guy walks in, and he was like what are you doing working here “ you’re going to be just like them, and that bothered me when he said that

I’m like what do you mean ‘just like them, so a seed was planted…I didn’t know that people associated with car salesmen were being sleazy, so that thought stayed with me. Another guy walks in and says hey you should try real estate. That thought also stuck with me. It wasn’t a year later I went to real estate school.

As soon as she became a broker, Ms. Dawson opened up her own company and luckily, her brother knew about the REO, which he taught her. Seeing some big-time brokers in her state of Georgia selling close to and sometimes even more than 500 homes motivated her a lot.

“I taught myself how to do BPOs and we were also doing the preservation, and every time i would get to the places someone’s sign was already in the yard, i said I want my sign in that yard, so I joined all of these organizations, learned about REO. It’s just been a learning curve for about 15 or 20 years, but I’ve enjoyed it, and here we are today as an asset Management company.”

GETTING STARTED AS A REO BROKER

An REO (real estate owned) listing agent sells homes on behalf of the bank or an asset manager after the property has been foreclosed. Foreclosures on the other hand happens in case a homeowner defaults on his/her payments on the property in which case the bank repossess the property. As such, after the repossession, the bank owns that home or that lot and enlists the help of an REO listing agent to sell it to a new owner on behalf of the bank. The REO listing agent will work closely with the buyer’s agent to complete transactions and close on the property. This is what Ms. Dawson started with early on in her career. Getting into this line of work is particularly challenging for new agents, but Labrescia notes that attending conferences and becoming a part of the different organizations and trade associations helped her a lot get a footing in this new arena. The experience of getting the first REO Account was thrilling and a learning opportunity for Labrescia, who was always looking for various ways to learn and familiarize herself with the different concepts in the real estate industry.

While doing preservation, she noted all the signs in the yards and got really interested. She reached out to some companies and not long after that; she got her first assignment. Soon after that, she got contracts with Fannie Mae opening a whole different chapter in her career. While at one of the Attending the conferences NAREB, NRBA, hanging out with the best of the “ conferences, people kept asking Labrescia whether her company was a Woman-owned best getting the certifications, learning. small business certified,

I have not partnered with anyone; I just which intrigued her.

I love to learn and I sat there and taught myself how to do that BPO; if you get a listing, you have to know what to do, so I’m like, what is a BPO what are they talking about when I got that listing. I “You can’t just ask me something and i just rest on that there’s a reason someone wants bet you I figured it out, so I just kind of to know if you’re woman figured it out on the go. on certified so me being a real broker when i got back home i figured out that HUD gives contracts to asset managers. We’re what you consider local listing brokers so in essence you are a subcontractor on a prime contract, but we don’t associate the two. Most real estate agents don’t even understand that they are subcontractors on a federal contract once. I was able to connect those dots, then went to get my certifications and it would take me 14-15 years to figure it out, but here we are today; we finally figured it out.”

Labrescia credits her success to the different organizations that helped her scale up her business. She notes that these organizations are a pool of resources many people take for granted. She says, “…don’t just join the organization see what they’re saying in the blog some of us just want to brag about who we belong to, but what about the information they’re sharing nuggets in just the blogs, but some of us won’t read the blogs, we don’t want to pay to go to conferences, and it’s our own fault. The information is where all of this lies. You have to execute on what you learn; that’s the only thing i can see persistence and execution to me is a game changer, and it made a big difference in my life meeting all those wonderful people that have accounts that you don’t even know these companies exist, going to conferences; NRBA conferences and NAREB conferences, i didn’t even know anything about all these different REO banks and clients and hedge funds. You will not know. You don’t know what you don’t know until you rub shoulders with those that do.”

The future of Dawson Management looks strong. Ms. Dawson noted that in the next six years, her company will graduate from the SBA 8(a) program and pursue even greater contracts. Recently she noted that they were able to secure contracts with government entities such as the National Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the CDC.