Kurt Parkinson

My path to a Real Estate in the Sacramento area has been anything but direct. I was born and raised in Upstate New York. I grew up in the Albany area, but we moved to Pittsford, a suburb of Rochester, when I was 14. After high school, I attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the Aeronautical Engineering Physics program with the hopes of becoming a military pilot, but quickly realized it wasn’t for me, and I moved home and started working in the kitchen at a local restaurant. At first moving home seemed like a step back in life, but I ended up finding my first career and my first love; restaurants.
I was so enthralled with my new occupation that I enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America - Hyde Park in New York City, one of the top institutions in the country, to learn and perfect my craft. I graduated and earned my first Chef’s Residency at The Russian Tea Room, a famous establishment in Midtown Manhattan, next to Carnegie Hall.
While I was attending the Culinary Institute, my parents moved to Sacramento as my Dad was offered a new role with Intel. A few years later I followed them to Sacramento where I switched gears and focused on the business side of the restaurants, instead of the kitchen. I went to work for a local restaurant group, and managed the Paragary’s Bar & Grill in Gold River, near my parents’ home. I eventually transitioned in to operations management, developing management and financial controls and assisting in the planning for, and opening of many new restaurants. While working for Paragary’s I met a girl named Janay.
Janay and I were immediately inseparable, we moved in together within 6 months (much to the chagrin of my mother) and were soon talking about marriage. Shortly after that I left Paragary’s to start my own restaurant consulting business. I assisted future and current restaurateurs with every phase of the process, from concept, to design, to menu, to accounting, and everything in between. It was during that time that I got my first taste of real estate while working with commercial agents to sign leases for new restaurant locations. During this time, I started learning the ins and outs regarding the documentation and legal requirements of property transactions.
In 2004, we decided to purchase our first home. While this should have been a highlight of our lives, dealing with our realtors turned it into an extremely negative and stressful experience. Because of that experience, I decided that I could do a better job, and decided to pursue a career in real estate.
I started selling homes in 2006, and had some great initial success, but the housing crash of the late 2000’s devastated the industry. New and experienced agents fled in droves, but I stayed the course and weathered the storm. As a new agent, persevering through that time was extremely difficult, but it made me better at what I do. Dealing with the added uncertainty, increased bureaucracy, and heightened stress taught me to develop the diligent, focused, and thorough approach that I still apply in the field to this day, long after the recession had ceded.
The challenges of the 2007 economic downturn, in addition to my other life experiences, imparted in me some very tangible characteristics that have contributed to my successes as a realtor. The lessons I learned through different roles in the restaurant industry, building my own consulting business, and enduring the economic downturn in Real Estate, taught me volumes about resilience, professionalism, and service, and these are still the fundamental principles I use to guide my business today.