Joe Watkins is a full-time real estate investor and co-owner of Southcrest Properties. He is fulfilling a life-long dream to be in the real estate business where he can help others secure their long-term financial needs. He owns dozens of properties and has been involved with over 100 deals in the past three years. His real estate experience began in 2002 when he flipped a couple of houses and bought his first rental home. He earned his full-time income with Chick-fil-A as an Owner/Operator at that time.

He learned the most important aspects of running a business during his fifteen years with Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta-based restaurant chain known for being closed on Sundays. He says he "will always build his business around biblical principles as Chick-fil-A has done. When you treat people with 'honor, dignity, and respect,' good things will happen."

Joe has a wife of nine years and two kids of elementary age. His move to full-time real estate was based largely on spending more time with his family. He also wanted to grow his rental portfolio to pay for his kids' college educations, build his dream home, and fund his family's retirement. "My family makes what I do worth while," he says often. In his free time, Joe enjoys playing the guitar in his church's praise band and competing in sports, especially golf.

His B.B.A. in Business Management is from Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. His entreprenual spirit emerged in full form in college, when he started a small cleaning company and continued to run it for six years.

Joe and his family have lived in South Atlanta their entire lives. His extensive knowledge of this market gives Southcrest Properties a great advantage in understanding its future potential.

Torey McCormick is co-owner of Southcrest Properties and very passionate about his business. Whether he's scouting a hot deal or developing a new relationship, he can't wait to start the next day. However, his focus hasn't always been around business.

After attending high school in metro Atlanta, Torey received a full athletic scholarship to play basketball for the University of Miami (FL). He attended UM for four years and upon graduating, he received his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration.

Combining his passions for basketball and his faith, he spent the next four years playing basketball for Athletes in Action throughout the United States, as well as in seventeen foreign countries.

Following AIA, Torey worked for four years as an owner/operator for Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A gave Torey something he had dreamed about- having his own business. It was during that time, he learned how to run a business and met future business partner, Joe Watkins. Soon, Southcrest Properties was born.

Currently, he lives in metro Atlanta with his wife and three children. In his spare time he enjoys watching college football, running, and wrestling with his boys.

Kristine Ortiz is our Business Manager. Sharp, organized, and detail-oriented, she is the glue that holds the management team together.

After graduating from high school in Jonesboro, Georgia, Kristine attended Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia, where she received her Bachelor of Business Administration in General Business.

After graduating from college, Kristine worked with Joe at Chick-fil-A for three years before pursuing a career in property management at the Mall at Stonecrest in Lithonia, Georgia.

Four years later, after Joe and Torey made the leap from franchisee to real estate investor, Kristine decided to leave corporate America behind to join the team at Southcrest Properties to help grow the business into what it is today.

Reed Rawlings is a new addition to our full time team but has been a private capital investor to Southcrest Properties since 2006. Since his graduation from Samford University in 2000, he has played professional basketball in Europe for 8 years, playing on almost every continent in the world. He has traveled on over 20 short-term mission trips with the group Athletes in Action, promoting goodwill from the USA and sharing his message of personal hope and faith message through the game of basketball. An injury forced him to return home in January 2009, when he decided to work full time with Southcrest as a private capital manager and on the sales team. His business degree from Samford University has proved worthwhile and made an easy transition from the sports world to the business world. Because of his personal investment in the business, his effort
to get others invested in the proven system has been successful even during these tough economic times. He has proven in a short period of time that he can sell houses as well.