Today we’d like to introduce you to Carson Trujillo.
Hi Carson, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a Kentucky native and now a commercial real estate broker in San Diego. I didn’t know it then but my career in real estate would start during the great recession in 2009. I was attending the University of Kentucky as a college freshman. My father had started his own business at a condo developer in Lexington, Kentucky. When the recession hit my family lost everything as the condo business plummeted. This forced me to help my family and my father by doing whatever it took to make ends meet, we strapped on our tool belts and were building patios, doing home renovations, and whatever other jobs we could find to make a buck. All while in college I did manual labor which then turned into me starting a small property management company while I was a full-time student.
Growing up, I always dreamed of one day living in California. I wanted to be in a big city but be away from the cold climates. Even though I had never been, something about the California life and good vibes that you would hear about on TV and listen to in music really drew me in. In the winter of 2013 when I graduated college, I made the decision to journey out and move to California to start my life after college. I was able to convince two of my college fraternity brothers to join on this adventure with me. We sold everything we had, packed up into my friend’s 1999 Honda accord with only a few thousand dollars, one suit each, and a printer for résumés. Without jobs and not knowing a soul in San Diego, we knew if would not be easy.
After a two-week cross-county road trip, we had arrived in San Diego. All three of us slept in the car of the Wal Mart parking lot for some time while we found a landlord that was willing to rent us an apartment in Pacific Beach with no income. I was able to land a job at a recruiting company before I quickly realized it wasn’t for me. After some serious soul searching and research, I decided that a career in real estate sales was the path I wanted to pursue. During this time of no employment, I was on food stamps and doing any side jobs I could to survive. One of the more lucrative side hustles I found was picking up free mattresses and pianos off craigslist then cleaning them up only to resell them at a small profit. It wasn’t much but it was enough to buy ramen noodles that would keep me alive.
I finally got hired as a food and beverage manager at the Catamaran Resort in Mission Beach while I started my real estate studies in my spare time. Always networking and meeting new people that would come into the resort, I met a commercial real estate broker who then connected me with a few names at Marcus & Millichap where I am now. After applying at Marcus & Millichap and management turning me down several times, they finally gave me a shot because I wouldn’t stop showing up in their office. Starting here was a whole new challenge on a commission only based position as an independent contractor. I worked the new real estate position during the week and then at the resort restaurant on nights and weekends. After six months of little sleep and 70 hour weeks, I made my first commission check. With a lot of late nights and dedication, I now run my own commercial real estate team brokering around 100 million in transactions per year and growing. With a focus on multifamily sales across San Diego County, my team and I have an unwavering commitment to become the #1 multifamily commercial real estate group in the city. I am also now married to the woman of my dreams, Sarah Capra, and we are proud to call San Diego our home.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It was never a smooth road since I was in high school but I learned a lot of very valuable lessons growing up in the South doing manual labor on horse farms. You don’t stop when your tired, you stop when the job is done and that is the same attitude I carry with me to this day. When starting in my business, my girlfriend (now wife) lived in Orange County and we would go months at a time without seeing each other because I was working so much. Moving to a new city completely broke, not knowing a soul, and building a new career I had to constantly be putting myself outside my comfort zone. I barely slept I was working so much and even fell asleep using the bathroom a couple of times I was so tired by the end of the week. There were a lot of people that doubted me when I left Kentucky and moved to California. They told me I would never make it. I’ll never forget those people as I use it as motivation to fuel me and my journey to become successful.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Trujillo Group of Marcus and Millichap?
My team of commercial real estate professionals specialize in the disposition of 5+ unit apartment buildings in San Diego County for our clients. I partner with and hang my license under the firm Marcus and Millichap. Marcus and Millichap is the largest commercial real estate investment sales company in North America. This partnership allows my team to best serve our clients with a national reach and help them reinvest in commercial real estate all over the country. We are the best one-stop shop for all commercial real estate investments with a mission to help create and preserve wealth for our clients. In addition to the results we deliver for our clients, I pride myself in helping further develop America’s Finest City into an even more amazing place than it already is.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
A zero option mentality that you will never quit and the only option is to succeed. This and working with a high level of integrity, putting other’s best interests ahead of your own.
Contact Info:
- Email: carson.trujillo@marcusmillichap.com
- Website: https://www.thetrujillogroupsandiego.com/
- Instagram: @thetrujillogroup
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvdnODpG133_RkD4plmNsuQ
