A Portage-area real estate agent who sold the most commercial properties for his company in Wisconsin last year said its not the amount of sales that keeps him going — its the connections he makes with the people he works with.
“It’s all about how you treat people that is going to be the difference,” said Scott Schroeder, who has 20 years in the business.
“People know when you are being genuine or not. I’m a straight shooter, and people know what they are going to get with me,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a $20,000 vacant lot, $120,000 three-bedroom, one-bathroom ranch home, or an upper-echelon (commercial) property. They all need help and have a purpose, and that’s the way I always look at it.”
Schroeder, who covers about every county across southern Wisconsin, sold more than $9 million in commercial properties last year to become the number one RE/MAX agent for commissions paid in individual commercial sales in the state for 2023.
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According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, commercial property values in the state achieved near-record growth in 2023, increasing by about 11% from 2022. In the southeastern part of the state, commercial property values grew 9.8%, which was a bit down from 12.9% growth in 2022.
The forum also reported a 13.1% increase in total equalized property values in 2023, the second-largest percentage increase since at least 1985, topped only slightly by the growth in 2022.
RE/MAX Preferred is a locally owned and operated real estate company with 16 offices and 130 real estate agents specializing in residential and commercial real estate.
While Schroeder reached a top honor in commercial sales, he said he also has success in residential, multifamily and vacant land sales.
He has sold just about everything, from plots of land with just a couple blades of grass for a few thousand dollars to gas stations, golf courses, wedding venues, restaurants and extravagant multimillion-dollar lakefront properties, Schroeder said.
Some of his favorite properties include vacant land he recently listed next door to Joe DiMaggio’s son’s house, his sale of The Pyramid Supper Club near Beaver Dam last year, and, a few years ago, the sales of a pair of fully furnished log homes that sat next door to each other on the Mississippi River and were 6,000 and 8,000 square feet.
Schroeder prefers to work with buyers and sellers, and often represents both parties during a transaction, he said.
“I know I am going to take care of both sides,” said Schroeder. “Because that buyer someday is going to call me to relist that home. So I want both parties to be extremely thankful.”
Finding success
Schroeder said his selling style and listing strategies teeter more on the aggressive side because he’s found being proactive gets his clients the best results.
“I try to be a little more aggressive in my approach to all things,” said Schroeder. “Sensitive and passionate, but always on top of it, trying to figure out how we are going to reach the next buyer.”
“There is nothing more thrilling than my phone call to the seller, telling them they have an offer on their property,” Schroeder said as he pointed to goosebumps on his arm. “Sometimes it’s a gasp and sometimes it’s a scream, but it’s just so cool to hear their response.”
Schroeder said he is who he is today because of the work ethic his parents instilled in him, and also because of the coworkers he started with 20 years ago who helped teach him the ropes.
“(They taught me) you have to work hard and you have to be willing to put the time in,” said Schroeder. “Are you going to pick up the phone, answer the email, answer the text message, or not?”
Schroeder said there are “a ton” of residential real estate agents across the state, but there aren’t as many commercial agents, which makes securing listings a bit easier for him. He partly attributes the lack of commercial agents to the fact that there is just so much more involved in selling commercial properties, such as more paperwork, extra contingencies, increasingly complex appraisals and inspections, and sometimes environmental studies that need to take place beforehand.
Commercial sales can also be less attractive to some agents because they can lag a bit, as the pool of buyers is much smaller and there aren’t a lot of people who can afford a 40,000-square-foot property for more than $1 million, much less have a need for it, he said.
RE/MAX’s referral network along with positive word of mouth and feedback from past clients is what Schroeder believes has kept him in the game for so long, and is also a way he gauges his success, he said.
“I like hearing that people are happy they chose me to sell their property or that they are happy that they were referred to me,” said Schroeder, “because their feedback is confirmation that I did good and was successful.”
Although a lot of work goes into creating a listing, such as taking drone photos, which is a new client standard, ensuring property remarks are correct in the listing, and making sure the photos he takes on site paint the full picture of the property, he said it is a blast.
The biggest and most important lessons he’s learned came from surviving the housing market crash between 2008-2012. When 2016 came and the market started to boom again, he was able to put all those lessons to the test, and his career took off, he said.
“Time teaches, but going through the crash and watching agents put in extra effort helped me see that I can’t just sit back,” said Schroeder. “And I’ve just been going gangbuster since 2016. It’s been an amazing run for all these years.”
Schroeder said he and his wife went on a three-week trip last year to Banff National Park in Canada, which was one of the first trips they had gone on in a number of years, but he still worked, as he said he just couldn’t leave his work and clients behind.
“It was a great time, and we are glad we did it,” said Schroeder. “But you still have to close deals when you’re on vacation.”
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