A real estate investor who purchased a residential complex on Camp Street in April may set a record for breaking stereotypes.
Sandusky High School graduate Mercedez Pickens spent $1.65 million on the five multi-unit buildings. She’s just 36, is a black woman and was a teen mother. And like Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg and Tiger Woods, she’s also a college drop-out.
“I’m a serial entrepreneur with multiple businesses,” she says. “I’m planning on branching out into Sandusky to help out with different crises, to actually bring jobs and housing and education.”
According to Pickens, short-term housing rentals, which serve the tourism market, are putting the squeeze on an already tight pool of rental units. And while she admits she could make more money investing in properties to serve Airbnb and VRBO customers, she doesn’t plan on traveling that route.
“It’s not about the money,” she says. “If that was the case I could tear them down and build high-end homes. It’s about making sure people have housing – especially those who have children. The homeless population is going through the roof everywhere and people can’t afford these houses anymore. So why do that when there’s a need to help people out?”
According to Marcus Harris, the City of Sandusky's diversity and economic opportunity manager, Pickens’ move is one of the city’s largest residential developments by a minority operator. And it couldn’t come at a better time for area residents who rent.
“The market is out of control,” he says. “We have a neighborhood plan for that area, the Southside neighborhood. She’s still connected to home and wants to invest and build at home. The excitement is to be able to work with this entrepreneur as part of this neighborhood revitalization.”
While many owners are absent from their properties, Pickens says that’s not her style. Although she lives in the Columbus area with her husband DeRon, who left a full-time career with a utility company to join the enterprise, she makes frequent commutes to Sandusky. And it’s here where she has no problem visiting with tenants and getting her hands dirty.
“I like to make things look nice and you can make things look very good and not be expensive,” I feel like if you want someone to take care of things you got to show them, you can’t just write people off, you have to be present,” she explains. “So I come back to town and I have my property manager there every day so I’m sure there’s a face for the company, someone always there.”
So when needed, she gets right into things.
“I can do anything. I can show you work where I put up light fixtures, fix things. I love handy work and at home, oh trust me, I’m remodeling my basement right now.”
Pickens says when she takes over a property, people are often surprised.
“They say, ‘First of all you’re young, this is an old white man’s playing field’ and I say ‘Huh?’” she explains, laughing. “‘And you’re a woman!’ And I say yes I was born this way and I know what color I am and everything like that.’”
And while the reaction is surprising, Pickens says it works out because she’s found people very receptive to the idea of a disrupter in the market. Especially one that works to clean up properties, make improvements, and establish a presence.
“I see that often because people tell me how they used to be late on rent all the time, but that now with us, when they call, and we have it where they can fill a maintenance request online, our maintenance guy will be out there and get things done in a timely manner,” she says, going on to explain that people say they can now actually be on-time.
After taking nursing pre-requisites, she dropped out of school and entered corporate human resources in the medical field. After a number of years there, she jumped ship to establish her own
medical staffing agency. And because she’s driven, she then established a
medical career school in Columbus.
“We actually help people get certificates, for instance medication aide, phlebotomy, EKG, PCT and we’re actually working on an LPN program,” she says. “I also have a private-pay home health care service that one day we hope to serve Medicaid and Medicare.”
She says that evolved from high school, when she tried to enroll in just such a program.
“I wanted to go through the STNA program but they wouldn’t allow me because I was a teen parent and my grades weren’t the best,” she says. “So I actually opened it up to people that were like me; they aren’t ‘A’ students but they’re students that really do want to make themselves better.”
At 16, Pickens helped care for a great grandmother dying from cancer, which is when she fell in love with the medical field. And while she never became a nurse and didn’t finish college, she’s definitely at the top of her class and helping others. At one point soon, Pickens aims to open a medical career school in Sandusky like the one in Columbus.
“I have young ladies that come in and see me at the school and they’re like ‘What, you’re the owner? You dress like us, you have a nappy pony-tail!’ Because I come in comfortable, that’s me.”
The busy mother of three says she’s constantly on the go, but will always make time for Sandusky – and her tenants.