Laney Hull

Class of 2021

Major: Real Estate, Spanish

"I chose to major in real estate because I understood that there is a gold-mine of opportunity in this field. Real Estate is an interdisciplinary major that has helped me connect the dots of my future. Our program is housed under 5 of the 7 colleges at Virginia Tech. Obviously, real estate is the extremely engaging field. My path allows me to serve my community in multiple ways; real estate is community-based, no matter if it's residential, commercial or industrial, property management, development, or financing. 

Since last year, my freshman year, I have found that my major holds power, especially in networking. Our Industry Board meetings have introduced me to the best alumni professionals. Virginia Tech has the resources to transform me into a professional myself.

I know that I have much more to experience in our Real Estate program and I'm looking forward to life-long learning.

I was so incredibly lucky to get an internship with Dodson Property Management. Dodson is just about ten years old and growing exponentially. In the past year, they have bought around 5 other property management firms in the area, swooping up their contracts. Dodson’s office is divided into two physical sections, the single-family and the multifamily departments. I was designated a multifamily intern because I had not only expressed interest, but the position was waiting for its fall intern. I physically sat across from my supervisors with the accounts on side of the office and the executives on the other. My desk was right next to Duke Dodson’s office. My position was best of all because I could often cross-train with experienced and very hands-on personnel. My work mostly consisted of the tedious tasks, but all of those assignments had meaning and value. From those tasks, I have most definitely reached above my learning objectives. Mostly, I worked with the multifamily supervisors. I did many jobs for them as repetitive as calculating google reviews by hand for certain months for over 20 buildings. In doing those seemingly foolish assignments, I’ve realized how much effort and care is put into property management. Most of my work was to compile and organize data from different contracts and to create key performance indicators for all employees in our department. Most of the information I had to process was derived from the rent rolls and physical aspects of the buildings. The highlight of my term was that I had gotten the chance to follow the preparation of a newly developed, multifamily contract from the first signing. I got to see all the steps of processing the building and adding it to our different software (Resman, Iloveleasing, Bluemoon, etc.) while maintaining a strong relationship with the owner’s team. Working with the multifamily team was not only the largest part of my job description but also my favorite part of the internship. It was actually fun and engaging to be working with the properties on a large-scale level, rather than working in smaller groups in the single-family office. Interacting with the executive team was rare because they were always busy, but it was always rewarding to talk with them about their daily schedules, working on efficient systems and generating new ideas for the firm. I gathered that Duke was a system’s genius and that he held the key to a successful business. It was also evident that they lived to see their employees happy with their experience at Dodson. They epitomized property management in following the rules of taking care of not only the owners of your contracts, but the tenants, and your own employees."