About Virtual Properties Realty and the Broker Owners

Virtual Properties has won one of the Gwinnett Chamber's most prestigious awards, the Pinnacle Award, which recognizes both emerging companies as well as companies that have exhibited a substantial history as an established business.  In April 2007 the Gwinnett Chamber named Virtual Properties Realty as one of the county's top 25 small businesses, and #1 in their category, based on:

• Staying power - a substantial history as an established business
• Growth in number of employees
• Increase in sales dollar and/or unit volume
• Original entrepreneurship
• Innovativeness of product or services offered
• Response to adversity
• Community service commitment

The top 10 Gwinnett small businesses with highest scores are named the year's finalists. From those 10, the top scoring business in each category (1-10; 11-149; and 150+ employees) is awarded the Small Business Person of the Year for their respective category. The three finalists' names are handed over to a second committee - a group of five judges that always includes a staff member of the SBDC, and four other volunteers.  The panel interviews each of the finalists and takes a tour of their companies. Judges are free to ask about anything they wish as they have the duty of determining the final winner.  After all the interviews are complete, the judges meet to discuss what they learned and to score each of the finalists. (The judges never see the score given the nominees by the chamber's first committee.)

One of the many reasons why Virtual Properties is one of the fastest growing Real Estate companies in Georgia is its forward-looking implementation of cutting edge technology along with a daily pursuit of integrity and superior service to everyone involved with Virtual Properties. The Broker Owners at Virtual Properties truly value and appreciate their agents and clients and are continually trying to improve the quality of services provided. The managing broker Angie Mezza is a Paralegal with over 10 years of Real Estate experience.  Angie teaches over 100 classes a year on contracts, real estate law and marketing.  Because of Angie’s caring, mentoring and extremely informative classes very few agents (less then1%) ever leave Virtual Properties.

Also in April 2007, Virtual Properties Realty was named a "Pacesetter" – #19 in Atlanta's 50 Fastest-Growing Private Companies in 2007 -- by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

We are truly elated to be included among these flourishing businesses.  A tribute like this, by the Atlanta area's premier business weekly publication, is an acknowledgment of our entire team's dedication to exceptional business integrity, superior client representation and consultation and cutting-edge innovation.

Qualifying companies for the 2007 Atlanta Business Chronicle's Pacesetter list were required to:

The publication then ranks qualifying companies by a mathematical growth index formula.   Virtual Properties Realty, in its first endeavor in the competition, was ranked as the 19th fastest-growing private company in 2007.

Virtual Properties also ranked second highest in “closed listings” recorded in a GAMLS office last year. Our mission is to execute brokerage services in a manner that clearly identifies us as the recognized leader in our market and differentiates us as the benchmark for excellence in our profession.

	View Lauren & Hayley doing a fun video interview with Karen Burks (Nana)
	Broker owners Karen Burks & Steve Wagner began their full time Real Estate careers as a mother son team in the Summer of 1989. They began with a small real estate company called the Buyer’s Connection which specialized in buyer agency.

Karen’s many years of experience as an accredited buyer’s agent and qualifying broker, was also very helpful in her role today as a mentor to agents and a Broker/Owner of a large Real Estate Company.  Steve also contributes a lot of broker mentoring experience to his agents. In addition to belonging to several Realtor boards around metro Atlanta, Steve is also an active member of RLI- (Realtors Land institute), ULI-(Urban land institute), NAB- (National Home Builders Assn.), AHBA- (National Home Builders Assn.)  GRI Designation- (Graduate of the Realtors Institute), ABR Designation (Accredited Buyers Agent), C-REP Designation (Certified commercial Real Estate Professional) And  CSP Designation- (New Home Sales Professional.

Steve will soon complete his ALC Designation- (Accredited LAND Consultant),

ULI Designation-(Urban LAND Institute) & CRS Designation-(Certified Residential Specialist)

Steve has also completed The Tom Harrison’s Builder’s Course as well as the

Floyd Wickman’s Real Estate Selling/Negotiating Course.

In spite of the Steve’s vast company obligations he still manages to teach over 26 Core

real estate classes a year & has personally secured over 12 million in real estate sales

since the company inception in 1998. 

Another reason why Virtual Properties has more then doubled in sales every year is because of the traffic to the VP web site and the number of domain names and links pointing to www.virtualpropertiesrealty.com web site. Virtual Properties receives thousands of visitors daily because of the following links:

Domain names & links owned by Virtual Properties: