Wilson Lee Flores - Business Career

Business Career

He is a self-made real estate businessman, with his Red Apple Properties & Management, Inc. focusing mainly in real estate investments and brokerage. He is also in the business of private moneylending. He has built and sold various middle-class to high-end residential houses in different cities of Metro Manila, mostly inside residential subdivisions in Quezon City and Paranaque. One of his preferences is to buy old houses for renovations and resale. Although not an architect or interior designer, his extensive experience as real estate broker and his love of architecture make him enjoy dealing with realty properties, sometimes through flip transactions. He considers creation of homes not just a business, but a form of art like composing a beautiful poem or writing an essay.

He started out as an employee in the purchasing department of the Marina Properties Corporation, but observed that agents in the marketing department do not have high or fixed salaries but the hardworking agents can earn possibly unlimited incomes. In 1995, he decided to go into real estate sales as a broker, focusing on selling townhouses in the San Juan and Quezon City areas, selling over half of all units in a townhouse community in Mariposa Street called Marilena Gardens. Then also in 1995, he sold a lot of pre-selling residential condominium units in the booming Ortigas Center, Pasig City. In 1995 and 1996, he achieved real estate sales records pre-selling high-end residential and office condominium units in Ortigas Center in Pasig City, Makati City and other prime areas. Later on, he also tried selling life insurance, and achieved the international feat of the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) on his first year and attended the MDRT international conference in Anaheim City, California. He is no longer active in life insurance sales, but still owns a non-life insurance agency called Red Apple Insurance Agency, Inc.

Not known to many people, he had his share of near-fatal business mistakes, such as when he in 2001 decided to franchise Padi's Point Bar & Restaurant due to its having the cheapest franchise fee. He did not know that not all franchise systems are good or trustworthy. It was a time of Philippine real estate industry slump and nonstop political instabilities. Upon the advise and specific recommendations of the franchiser, he leased a commercial lot in Quezon City to build a three-storey building for a resto bar. Despite his aggressive marketing efforts and hard work generating huge sales, the venture eventually failed and cost him a huge loss. A few months after he decided to cut his losses and closed the huge resto-bar, the McDonald's fast-food right across the street from him also decided to close, and a few more months later, the 24-hour Tropical Hut fast-food restaurant in Q Plaza building also almost across the street also closed, although it was only leasing space from a building owned by the same owners of Tropical Hut. About two dozen other Padi's Point franchise outlets closed at around the same period or after he closed his resto-bar. He said he is grateful for that mistake, because it gave him "so many priceless lessons that could never be learned in success" and that it happened in his youth, therefore allowing him to again recover financially by refocusing on his forte and passion of real estate business.

He believes entrepreneurship is a great and exciting challenge, because it requires strategic thinking, character, discipline, faith, creativity, positive thinking, guts and people skills. He believes his love of writing, books and his interest in many aspects of life help make him a better entrepreneur.