Melissa is a tech-savvy, serial entrepreneur with over twenty years of expertise in both commercial and investment residential real estate. She closed and funded over $100,000,000 in small-balance commercial real estate loans as an originator with a national lender, Stronghill Capital, over the past three years.
Melissa is a NC licensed real estate broker, with broker-in-charge status. In 2005, she founded Investments by the Sea, a boutique real estate firm specializing in investment real estate, land acquisition and development, 1031 tax exchanges and luxury properties.
Additionally, Melissa was the broker-in-charge for McAdams Homes and Collegiate Property Management, wholly owned subsidiaries of MFH Construction LLC. In this role, Melissa brokered land acquisitions for the partners for multifamily and subdivision development. She launched, marketed, and managed luxury off-campus student multifamily communities, with a total of 384 units, as well as residential subdivisions.
In her early years, Melissa had the opportunity to live and work in Tokyo, Japan, where she developed a passion for Asian culture. Upon her return to the states, Melissa resumed her studies at Columbia University, majoring in East Asian Studies with a concentration in Japanese. She put her language skills to use by translating Japanese patents that were in dispute with American patents for New York city-based US Patent Attorneys. While residing in the city, Melissa worked with the private-equity division of Sands Brothers, an investment banking and asset management company. The division focused on private placements for pre-IPO companies.
Melissa has a flare for marketing and writing and continued her studies with certification programs at NYU in graphic and multimedia design, and at Harvard in creative writing. She is a published writer and has provided and edited content for magazines, websites, and blogs.