Topic: Data, Trends - How to leverage the data

Second Speaker: Amy Johnson
Topic: "How I went from mountains of student debt to high rises"



Speaker Bio's

Dejan Eskic is a senior research fellow at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

Eskic is involved in housing, construction and real estate research, fiscal impact studies and economic and demographic analysis. His professional career has focused on providing the best information to key decision makers, whether they’d be local or state officials, executives of national retailers or publicly listed REIT’s. Prior to joining the Gardner Policy Institute, Eskic worked in the retail research industry where he evaluated current and future sales performance for retail sites through statistical gravity modeling reflecting market demographics throughout the Country. Additionally, he has worked on a number of public-private-partnerships relating to Tax Increment Financing, along with numerous real estate market studies and economic development plans.

Before earning a Master’s in Real Estate Development, Eskic earned a B.S. in Urban Planning, both from the University of Utah. He also serves as an adjunct professor of Real Estate Market Analysis at the University of Utah.

Amy Johnson has been married to Jared Johnson for over 18 years. She is the mother of 5 children and a large german shepherd. Amy has a crazy bunch of hobbies that consist of hiking, any activity involving water, and traveling adventures. 

 

Amy graduated from Utah State University in Family Consumer Science Education with an emphasis in Finance and started her career as a teacher at West High School. In 2008, she started investing in real estate and by 2011, she followed her passion and became a realtor. Her focus was to help families understand the value in investing in real estate. She always brainstorms alternative solutions to help her developing career and as her business grew, she saw a need to expand.

Together with her husband, they created Infinite Real Estate Group. It has been a top producing team in Utah for the past three years and has allowed her to transition from residential real estate by taking her investors from single family homes to larger asset classes.

 

This transition made is necessary to form her new company, Salt Development Enterprise. Currently, she is working on developments in Washington, Idaho, Texas, and Utah. She owns over 150 acres in property with different residential communities near Boise, Idaho.  Many developments are currently under contract with large national builders.  One of the projects she has put together is a 28 acre development that will soley be a for rent community.  Amy is currently assisting in developing over 500 rental units in Texas and Washington as a HUD approved co-sponsor, as well as a luxury condo high rise on the coast of Washington. She is also masterplanning a community of over 3000 acres in Utah and Idaho. Her experince includes developing over 400,000 sq feet of self storage, assisting in coordinating funding, raising capital, and completing city entitlements.

 

Amy’s passion is being a connector. She thrives on brainstorming the highest and best use for a parcel of land with the owners then helping them achieve that goal. One of her strengths is connecting capital to fully utilize its potential and connecting individuals that want to do larger deals fully maximize their opportunities. She is a huge advocate for the underdog.