Mechanical Engineer Turned Broker: Alex Mysinek Talks Minnesota Real Estate and Investing With Fritz Soberay

The Career That Started With a Mechanical Engineering Degree and Ended Up With a Brokerage

Alex Mysinek sat down with Fritz Soberay, broker and owner of Hale Properties, for a wide-ranging conversation about two decades of residential, investment, and commercial real estate experience in Minnesota and what that breadth of perspective does for the clients lucky enough to work with someone who thinks about every property through all three lenses simultaneously.

Fritz graduated in 2002 with a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Minnesota into a post-9/11 job market that was not particularly welcoming to new engineers. He drifted toward real estate in 2004 when he wanted to buy an investment property in Richfield. The agent who handled that transaction was fine but not impressive. Fritz felt like there was significant opportunity for someone willing to do the work more thoroughly and he was right. He got his license, started representing friends who wanted to buy homes, and a career that began by accident became a brokerage he has been building intentionally for more than twenty years.

Why He Started His Own Brokerage Instead of Joining a National Brand

In Minnesota an agent must be licensed for two years before they can open their own brokerage. Fritz used that time working with a mentor he still talks to regularly and then went independent. Not because the big national firms are not good but because independence was always the plan. His mother ran her own dental practice and the model of owning the operation rather than working within someone else's was simply the frame of reference he grew up with.

Hale Properties is a small boutique firm. Fritz is a producing broker which means he is not sitting behind a desk managing agents. He is actively listing properties and helping buyers while also coaching the agents who work with him. He described his morning on the day of the podcast as being on a Loom call recording detailed video responses to a thorough email from one of his agents covering multiple client situations. That is the coaching model he has built and he finds it genuinely enjoyable.

How Two Decades of Experience Changed How He Thinks About Every Property

The most valuable shift Fritz has made over his career is moving away from the purely transactional and toward the genuinely consultative. He coaches first-time buyers to think beyond what makes them happy today and toward what makes the property a smart long-term asset.

A starter home in Richfield at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars might be a primary residence for five years. It might also be the first rental property in a portfolio that eventually supports a family's long-term wealth. Most agents never mention the second possibility. Fritz raises it as a matter of course because the question of whether a property can be converted to a rental someday is just as important as whether the tile in the shower is what the buyer had in mind.

He also watches the mortgage lock-in effect closely. Many of his clients are sitting in homes with rates in the two and a half to four and a half percent range and they are not moving because doubling their rate to upsize does not make financial sense right now. His conversation with those clients has evolved. Rather than pushing for a transaction he asks whether they have considered holding the low-rate property as a rental, accessing equity to buy the next place, and turning a primary residence into a diversifying investment asset rather than simply a home they eventually sell.

That is a slower conversation. It is less transactional. It produces clients who are genuinely better off and who refer everyone they know.

The Commercial Real Estate Conversation Most Business Owners Never Have

One of the more distinctive areas of Fritz's practice is the conversation he has with small business owners about owner-occupied commercial real estate. Most business owners spend years paying rent to a landlord for the space their profitable business occupies. Fritz asks them why they are not owning that real estate instead.

For a law practice, a dental clinic, a warehouse operation, or any business with stable long-term space needs the question of when to stop renting and start owning should be evaluated from day one rather than after years of payments have gone to someone else's balance sheet. The financial projections, the SBA 504 program options, the conversations with commercial bankers and lenders should start early so that when the right opportunity appears the business owner is ready to move rather than starting the education process from scratch.

He is careful to note that this is not a universal recommendation. A high-growth business that anticipates rapid space changes may be better served renting for flexibility. A solo entrepreneur with minimal space needs may have better uses for capital than buying an office to look impressive. But for profitable businesses with genuine and stable physical space requirements the long-term math of ownership almost always compares favorably to continued rental.

What He Is Seeing in the Minnesota Market Heading Into Fall and Winter

Fritz's read on the current Minnesota market is grounded in what he is actually seeing on the ground rather than data projections. Move-in-ready properties listed at fair prices are still selling quickly and in some cases generating multiple offers above asking. Properties with significant deferred maintenance or functional obsolescence are sitting and require more patience and more creative strategy to move.

The seasonal dynamic is familiar but worth understanding correctly. As the market quiets heading into November and December the total volume of transactions drops. But the quality of the buyers who are active in that window tends to be higher. A buyer touring homes on the week of Thanksgiving has specific and immediate needs rather than casual curiosity. Those transactions tend to move efficiently and close cleanly because everyone involved is serious.

Alex reinforced this from the lending side. Pre-approvals in November and December come from buyers who have made a genuine decision. The file tends to be cleaner and the process tends to run more smoothly because the buyer's commitment level is real rather than exploratory.

What Separates Great Lenders From Average Ones

Fritz has worked with enough lenders across enough transaction types over twenty years to have a clear and specific answer to this question.

They pick up the phone. That sounds simple and it is. But in an industry that has increasingly defaulted to text messages and portal communications the lender who dedicates real time to a genuine conversation about a buyer's complete financial picture stands out immediately. The text-heavy approach gets sloppy quickly and loses the nuance that a thoughtful lending conversation produces.

Locality matters too. Fritz described the collective cringe that happens in a listing agent's office when a buyer comes in with a lender from Ohio or a remote operation out of Texas. The inability to reach someone locally who understands the market and can be held accountable to a specific timeline is a real liability in a transaction. A local lender who answers the phone and understands the specific dynamics of the Twin Cities market carries real value that a remote operation simply cannot replicate.

Fritz also raised something worth hearing. He believes the best lenders are probably underpaid relative to the time they invest. The lender who sits with a buyer for a thorough initial consultation, explores multiple product options, considers whether the conventional low-down-payment product might outperform the FHA, and thinks through how seller credits could be deployed most effectively is doing something that adds genuine value across the life of the loan and the relationship. That work takes time and it shows up in outcomes that pure transaction-focused lending does not produce.

The Conversation About Mechanical Expenses That Agents and Lenders Need to Have Together

One of the more interesting exchanges in this conversation was about what gets communicated between agents and lenders and what does not. Fritz raised the point that first-time buyers looking at properties in the three to four hundred thousand dollar range need to understand that deferred maintenance on the major mechanicals, furnace, water heater, and HVAC, is a real cost that needs to be planned for before the purchase rather than discovered after.

Lenders do not typically see the inside of the properties their buyers are financing. Agents manage the inspection process carefully for disclosure reasons. The result is a gap where a buyer can be qualified for a home on paper and not be prepared for the reality of what owning that specific home is going to cost in the first few years.

Fritz's suggestion is simply that agents and lenders have more proactive conversations with buyers about what the properties they are considering are likely to require in terms of capital expenditure. Not to discourage the purchase but to make sure the buyer arrives at closing with eyes open and reserves in place rather than being surprised six months in by a five to ten thousand dollar mechanical replacement.

Building a Business From Scratch Without a Database

Fritz's agent Austin is door knocking. Fritz is unambiguous about this and unashamed of how old school it sounds. Cold contact with potential clients, whether through door knocking, circle prospecting around listings, or cold calling business owners on the commercial side, is what works for a new agent who has not yet built a past client database to draw from.

He also sees genuine opportunity in open houses right now that did not exist during the peak market years. Buyer agency agreement requirements have created a class of buyers who are comfortable shopping casually and open houses are one of the places they show up. But an open house only produces results when it is properly marketed in advance. Postcards, email blasts, door knocking the surrounding neighborhood to invite the neighbors who want to choose who lives near them. The event is the culmination of the prospecting, not a replacement for it.

Alex added his own perspective which Fritz appreciated enough to call it genius on the spot. The podcast itself is a form of outbound contact that creates content, educates potential clients, and builds relationships with agents who can become referral partners. The mechanism is modern. The underlying principle, reach out to people who might provide value or need value, is as old school as anything Fritz described.

How to Reach Fritz Soberay

Call or text 952-215-8951. Visit HaleProperties.com. Hale Properties serves residential buyers and sellers, investment property clients, and commercial real estate needs across the Twin Cities and surrounding markets.

Alex Mysinek works with buyers across Minnesota on conventional financing, investment property loans, DSCR products, and creative solutions for borrowers with complex situations. Reach out to Alex Mysinek to connect on the lending side of any transaction.

Sources

MinneapolisAssociationofRealtors.com
NAR.realtor
MortgageNewsDaily.com
SBAGov
Investopedia.com