About

About Me

When it comes to a real estate expert with a solid amount of experience through thick and thin, up markets, and some of the worst dips, Donald Mihalik would have a membership card in that club. He’s been in real estate for so long Mihalik can easily claim a presence in at least three primary economic cycles. Most agents barely go through one and then get washed out when things get hard, and the market tightens considerably in terms of opportunity. Instead, his resilience has given him the enviable opportunity to see far beyond as he compares current conditions with experience and has a more profound idea about what to expect with changes.

Currently, he is a Realtor selling agent for the Lakewood Ranch Communities area, meeting and guiding potential new homebuyers through various options and homes for sale in the area and finding the best-matching choices for their needs based on what the local market currently offers. However, that wasn’t Donald Mihalik’s first foray into real estate. His experience goes much farther back, even into the depths of the recession years when most folks were trying to unload real estate before it was foreclosed.

Like many in his generation, he utilized community college to start his career training, attending Brookdale Community College and gaining an associate degree in 1992. From there, he transferred to Rowan University and earned a bachelor's in science to complete his four-year college curriculum. Donald Mihalik would return to school and further training later, but he was ready to dive into the real world by this point with a bona fide career start.

During the early 1990s, Mihalik saw far more activity on the financing and lending than in real estate. Working for both AVP Associates Financial, he was directly involved in ongoing finance account management, sometimes totaling over $70 million a year. Then, in the spring of 1998, he moved on after four years and became American Dream Financial’s President. As a critical leadership player, Donald Mihalik found himself steering the ship on at least $1.1 billion in consumer sales activity, proactively working with operations and sales for improved performance and growth, and adjusting to monthly trend watches with regards to what was going on with mortgage lending behavior shifts.

By the end of 2013, however, Donald Mihalik found himself moving toward real estate sales versus just corporate or consumer finance. While he still favored the finance side of the picture, he was leaning towards the field, in the selling side of things, versus just managing borrowing accounts. He picked up a stint with Movement Mortgage, learning all the critical ropes of real estate financing. In doing so, Mihalik became the primary responder for his company in webinars and seminars and leveraged market share growth through consumer education campaigns.

Continuing to move deeper into real estate versus just the financial side of the house, Donald Mihalik decided the time was right for some self-improvement. He applied and was accepted to complete a Master's in Business Administration at the University of Phoenix. The shift worked in his favor. He was engaging with the real estate field just at the time when it was beginning to take off again around the country, booming in markets that for a few years now had been struggling with underwater mortgages and foreclosures.

Mihalik leveraged his training into a representative role for Lakewood Ranch Communities, which lasted several years after he had completed graduate studies and returned full-time to the real estate market and industry. However, in September 2019, he decided it was time for a change again, and he moved on to NHC, Kolter Homes, LLC. In that current role, Donald Mihalik had a front-row seat with customers, helping them with information gathering, decision support, and, ultimately, a new home sale. He has been so successful in the role, he won the NCH of the Year award both in 2020 and 2021, as well as earning the NHC of the Year Customer Satisfaction award for the 2020 season.

As the real estate market continues to roll back currently, especially as investors look for novel ways to offset the systematic erosion of inflation across the U.S., Mihalik is actively engaged with the Florida real estate market. That has given him a front-row seat to how real estate remains a significant hedge for uncertain times and why Donald Mihalik believes his future is intertwined with the real estate industry and environment, especially in Florida.