By Brianna Patt
Benaisha Poole-Watson is making her mark in realty.
Benaisha Poole-Watson purchased her first property when she was nineteen years old, purchasing her first real estate license in 2015. She obtained her license while working in corporate America, where she felt she’d hit a wall.
“I felt like I hit a glass ceiling. I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t go up anymore. My movement kind of just stopped and I just started asking God to just, redirect. He spoke to me, he said, “Get a real estate license,” Watson said.
In a year’s time, Watson had already sold about 200 homes, something she later learned was unusual for realty, where the average person only sold about eight homes.
“I just started being a phenomenon and extraordinary in my space. Then people started gravitating towards me and it just started building and building and building and then I started my own and then from that point, it just really started growing,” Watson said.
The transition from her previous careers working in the military and law enforcement to real estate was fairly easy. Her time in service taught her the value of service, and putting others ahead of yourself.
“I think that the military actually helped me with of all things that I’ve always that I’ve done, it’s helped me with my transition, to just treat people the way that they want to be treated, you know, go above and beyond exemplify leadership and just stand tall in the things that you decide to do,” she said.
Watson also focuses on giving back to the community on a national scale with her Desoto Real Estate Scholarship, the BPW partnership which allows high school seniors to attend real estate school. She began the scholarship as a way to inspire students who have entered a transitional period in their lives where they aren’t sure they want to go to college. Watson wanted to avoid putting a scholarship in college because she didn’t want to compete with the myriad of college scholarships, while giving back to a demographic that tends to get left out.
Watson is also the owner of Prime One Home Loans, a federally chartered bank; a field she was able to expand into because of her success in the real estate industry. Watson was inspired after she observed the hurdles black people faced when it came to home ownership. Her motivation was cultural elevation.
“If I was able to get to the next phase, and become a bank owner, I could change the trajectory of how we do business in our community, as minorities, a safe space where we can operate and get funding because what we lack is access to capital,” she said.
She hopes to see her business become bigger and bigger as time goes on.
“I think that a lot of people need this, our culture needs this. Our community needs this. There have been so many different things. But it’s like something that really truly is for the community. And that really is for the people without anything attached without anything else attached to it. So I think that it’s going to grow. I see. See it being really big in the next 10 years. I think that it’ll definitely be a house in the next five years. I think even in the next two to five years, it’ll be a household name,” she said.
Watson believes that for young people looking to enter real estate, having a good mentor to guide you through the field is crucial.
“If you are looking to get into business, you cannot figure all this real estate stuff out by yourself. You’d have to have someone that’s pouring into you. Don’t try to follow everybody’s technique, create your own sauce, the things that you see people doing, the things that you see people that you don’t like, what they do, take all those things and create your own secret sauce. I promise you, you’ll stand out amongst the rest.”