Heights Native On '40 Under 40' List For Real Estate Success

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, IL — A Chicago Heights native who has found success in the real estate world has been named to this year's "40 under 40" list by the Fort Worth Business Press in Texas. Danielle Pierce said the turning point in her career in the industry came around seven years ago when she switched from being a traditional realtor, one showing properties for large companies, to the world of property preservation.

First in Chicago and for the past two years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area Pierce has acquired bank-foreclosed properties and managed the maintenance of them "so they are not so much of an eyesore" and become ready to hit the market.

She started her current company, called Platinum Fieldworks, last year. It's similar to the business she owned in the Chicago area called Platinum Realty and now has about 2,000 students learning from her expertise across the country.

It's a six-figure business according to BrEpic Communications founder Justin Breen, who nominated her for the recognition in Texas.

Financial success aside, moving from traditional work as a realtor to the property preservation game has been "an ideal move," Pierce said.

"When I started having kids I didn't want to be out showing properties," Pierce, the mother of kids ages 9, 8 and 6, said.

Pierce, who grew up in the Heights' Beacon Hill neighborhood and attended Rich Central High School before graduating when her family moved to Atlanta, earned an accounting degree at the University of Illinois after being named a Chick Evans scholar through her work during high school as a caddie at the Idlewild Country Club in Flossmoor.

She said it was her time at Idlewild that was the first experience she had knowing that "not everyone was broke" and that there's "a different lifestyle" that could be reached.