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Posted on Mon, Dec. 12, 2005
By DANIEL C. BARTEL
SPECIAL TO THE STAR-TELEGRAM
When it comes to money, Adam Blake, 20, isn't like most college students.
He manages a $3 million investment portfolio through his real estate
companies, B&B Acquisitions and Blake Venture Corp., which rents
homes to college students.
He's also into the commercial side of real estate, mainly retail. Blake
and his partners are negotiating to buy a shopping center in South Fort
Worth. The terms and property location are still undisclosed.
As the property manager, Blake acts as landlord for all homes under B&B
Acquisitions. He deals with electrical and plumbing problems, and whatever
else comes up. It's really not his thing, he said. Looking to the future,
Blake said he's interested more in the acquisition and development side
of real estate.
"I'm interested in the bigger deals, the unknown territory," Blake
said.
His horizons got a lot bigger this fall.
In October, Blake, who's in the entrepreneur program at Texas Christian
University, was honored at the 2005 Global Student Entrepreneur Awards
in Orlando, Fla., where he won first place and a check for $10,000.
Hundreds of college entrepreneurs from U.S. schools and international
regions compete for the award each year.
More than the money and prestige, the award proved a doorway to something
possibly bigger. Blake met another young entrepreneur during the awards
weekend named Adam Farrell, a student at Cornell University in New York,
and creative sparks flew.
Together, the Adamses are planning to manufacture a solar device that
will save home heating and energy costs. The two have even formed a company,
Silicon Solar Housing Solutions, to produce and manufacture the device,
Blake said.
Solar energy technology for homes has been available for a number of
years, but has thus far attracted only a niche market.
Blake and Farrell hope to bring it mainstream. They plan to roll out
a prototype by Jan. 1.
All this even as Blake attended school full time. This semester he's
taking classes in entrepreneurship, investments, accounting and operations
management. His cumulative grade-point average is 3.7. He even makes
time to participate in his fraternity.
"I'd say my time is pretty much split 75 percent real estate and
25 percent school work," Blake said.
Limitless energy and creative drive are indicative of many TCU entrepreneur
students, said David Minor, director of the Neeley Entrepreneur Program.
When entrepreneurs get together, it's not uncommon for them to create
synergy. Synergy occurs when differing thoughts come together to form
something greater than the sum of the individual parts.
Entrepreneurs tend to be original thinkers whose ideas and personalities
blossom when surrounded by others of their calling, Minor said.
"That's not uncommon for kindred spirits," he said.
Even if Silicon Solar Housing Solutions goes on to do great things, it
will be difficult to eclipse the academic kudos and success Blake has
had in real estate, Minor said. Blake has established in three years
what real estate professionals, many years his senior, take decades to
accomplish.
A San Francisco native, Blake lived in several U.S. cities before entering
TCU on an academic scholarship.
Immediately, he noticed that rent for student housing was fairly high,
compared with the relatively inexpensive housing elsewhere in south Fort
Worth.
At the end of his freshman year, he had raised enough cash to purchase
his first single-family home to place on the market for rent.
He added more homes in south Fort Worth to the list, and the business
took off. In the past three years, he's even added strip malls for mom-and-pop
tenants.
Overall, the TCU market is a good one for residential real estate, Blake
said.
"We've never had any vacancy problems. We've only had maybe one
or two problems collecting rent, but that's it," he said.
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