When Luis Pina was growing up in Mexico, what would become his future career began to take shape on a subconscious level.
On the other side of the fence was property owned by his friend's dad that included multiple houses. Pina was drawn to "be like that guy" rather than follow in his teacher father's footsteps. It took decades, learning a new language and a move to the United States before Pina made his dream happen as founder and CEO of Accent Commercial Real Estate and the owner of several North Texas investment properties.
Through his journey, he learned to never give up, no matter the hurdles, and that everyone — even niche brands — needs commercial real estate representation. And he also discovered the benefit of being open to an unexpected career twist.
The lessons began when Pina arrived in the United States at 19, following in the footsteps of his sister, and started mowing lawns to make money as he juggled learning English at a local Dallas community college. He biked to his English classes, picking up the language and getting more steady employment in the restaurant industry, including at Fogo de Chao Brazilian Steakhouse.
His real estate career started in earnest when he turned 30, going back to school to get his real estate license. The education was the easy part, he said, with him taking the advice of a teacher to look at the residential side rather than commercial as a way to ease into real estate. It proved to be harder to find a job in real estate rather than the mowing gigs and restaurant work from his past, he said.
Hiring managers "didn't know where to put me," Pina told CoStar News, adding that being a bilingual professional seeking to get into residential real estate was a challenge in the late 1990s.
Unexpected entry into commercial property
After several job leads that went nowhere, Pina interviewed at Henry S. Miller Brokerage in Dallas for a position that he thought was for a residential role. In the waiting room, he encountered the unexpected when he discovered the real estate services firm had sold its residential arm and was focused entirely on commercial real estate — a business Pina had already decided not to pursue.
"I thought, 'it's just an interview,' and decided to just do it and I interviewed with Robert Grunnah," Pina said, who hit it off with the senior executive. Grunnah hired Pina as a newbie broker working with companies catering to the growing Hispanic market — an overlooked sector that had yet to be tapped by someone at the firm.
Grunnah "saw that there was a big need for Hispanics in commercial real estate and nobody was representing them," Pina added.
Pina found out later that Grunnah, who he still thinks of fondly as someone who took a chance on him, had once trained NFL Hall of Famer Roger Staubach when the former Dallas Cowboys star started his own real estate career at Henry S. Miller Brokerage. Pina had admired Staubach since childhood, making Pina's new career path even more of a Cinderella story for him.
Pina began his commercial real estate career in 1999, with Henry S. Miller Brokerage giving him a hard copy of the Yellow Pages and a phone to make cold calls, as the internet was just getting its footing, he said. At first, not all of his colleagues would exchange pleasantries with him in the office, he said, and Pina didn't have any existing client relationships to bring to the table.
But cold call after cold call, that changed. He began forming relationships with clients seeking a broker fluent in Spanish and English with deep knowledge of Hispanic culture and the brands targeting that market. Pina built a successful career in helping clients such as La Michoacana Meat Market, Jamie Barron Immigration Law and Fred Loya Insurance — companies specifically targeting Hispanic neighborhoods — find the real estate they needed to locate their businesses.
Pina went out on his own and founded Dallas-based Accent Commercial Real Estate in 2007. He met his wife Cynthia through real estate, and she now works at Accent Commercial Real Estate, named for the varying accents of the company's clients. The firm, with about 10 employees, specializes in retail site selection, land acquisition, property sales and leasing.
It was by pure chance in 2020 that Pina and his wife found themselves taking a hard look at some real estate in the small North Texas city of Terrell, Texas, about 30 miles east of downtown Dallas. They saw the potential in the historic brick facades of what was then aging and vacant buildings in the city center of the town with roughly 23,000 residents.
Now, the couple touts their historic renovation work in Terrell, the birthplace of actor Jamie Foxx, after investing millions of dollars into real estate in the small city's downtown area. From the revival of The Lyric Building into an event center to transforming a vacant two-story building into a French bistro with loft-style residences on the second floor, the duo is chipping away at renovations brick by brick.
To date, the Pina family owns six buildings or projects in Terrell with hopes of passing the real estate holdings to future generations.
"This is a long-term investment for us," Pina said. "We want to keep them for us, for our family and our kids."