Lifelong friends, Ed Schmelz and Jacob Stallmann, have created a new business, ELS Real Estate Group.
“Recently, I decided to get my (real estate) broker’s license to mainly get into third-party rental property management,” said Schmelz, who first met Stallmann in elementary school. They were college roommates at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Both graduated in 2003.
Schmelz has been a licensed real estate agent for two years. He said it is not uncommon for developers to have their own real estate license.
“We manage all of our own stuff that is owned by ELS Properties. You don’t have to have a broker’s license to manage your own properties, but you do for third-party management.
“So with the really great team of people we have here, I thought, why not offer our services to other property owners?” Schmelz said.
ELS Real Estate Group will be a subsidiary of ELS Properties, a company formed by Schmelz in 2004 that currently owns and leases more than 1,300 houses, duplexes and apartments in Washington, Union, Warrenton, New Haven and Linn Creek. The company also owns a number of guest houses in Hermann.
Stallmann, who has been a real estate agent for 15 years and previously worked for Coldwell Banker, said his partnership with Schmelz “just made sense.”
In this new endeavor, Stallmann will still be able to help individual clients buy and sell properties, but he also will be working to assist Schmelz in purchasing additional properties for further development, something he’s been doing for the past decade.
“Basically, we are continuing to expand on what we’ve already been doing,” said Stallmann, who for the past three years has averaged more than $12 million in real estate sales.
Initially, ELS Real Estate Group will be operating out of the ELS Properties office in Union, but within the next six months will open an office in downtown Washington, with additional offices planned for Hermann and Warrenton by the end of the year.
The offices will be staffed by licensed real estate agents. In Washington, there are two other real estate agents — Crystal Stallmann, who has been a licensed real estate agent since 2018 and is married to Jacob Stallmann, and John Behrens, who has worked in real estate since 2006 — joining the Jacob Stallmann Real Estate Group, a subsidiary of ELS Real Estate Group. An additional four real estate agents already are working for the ELS Real Estate Group’s office in Union.
Stallmann said he would like to see his real estate group grow to include several new agents.
While details about the Washington office will be announced later, locations have been finalized for the ELS Real Estate Group’s office in Hermann, at 800 Market St. The Warrenton office will be built on property adjacent to the Crider Health Center.
As ELS Properties grows into third-party property management and real estate, Schmelz said his company is always looking at property development opportunities. The company is nearing completion on Hummingbird Heights in Union and will begin construction this year on the Country Club Estates, a 200-plus housing unit development south of Washington that is being built for people 55-and-older.
“We are always in growth mode,” Schmelz said. “We are always looking for new projects, new markets.”