Our Founder and CEO, Mark Thompson, started his real estate career with a national wholesale acquisition company focused on finding below-market deals around Cincinnati, OH for a local investor network.

Within a year, Mark became GM and Broker of the Cincinnati office and expanded the operations (wholesaling/acquisitions, realty, hard money lending, and title services) from Cincinnati into Dayton, Columbus and Northern Kentucky. From ’04-’08 the company sold over 1,000 deals, funded over $50mm in hard money loans, and had up to 25 associates located throughout Ohio.

The nation was dealing with the real estate bubble, credit default swaps, etc.  Although business was going well in Cincinnati, the national company Mark’s brokerage was affiliated with was struggling with changes in other markets (mostly due to having multiple offices in Florida where values were plummeting).  At the same time, Mark was looking for a more residual relationship with his investor clients.  So, in 2008 Mark started EquityTeam as a niche, full-service provider of real estate investing services.

For years, EquityTeam tried to avoid getting involved in property management. We would refer clients to other local property managers  (at least 5 different ones) and even helped one management company get started just so we didn’t have to deal with it. However, it soon became clear that these property managers weren’t performing to even minimally acceptable standards. We knew good management was critical to long-term real estate investing success.  We decided “if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself” and focused on creating the owner-aligned property management company we wanted, and we felt the Cincinnati market needed.

By 2015, EquityTeam became the highest-rated residential property management company in Cincinnati, and has maintained that reputation since.

After years of managing a few properties in Dayton, we were fortunate to come across an opportunity to grow our portfolio, creating a foundation to build up our presence in Dayton.