Market Trappings

Market Trappings

By Mark Gordon

A risk-taking, adventure-starved Realtor finds out a slumping market isn't all bad: It has given him time to chase, and catch, alligators.

Ken Cowles, owner of a Sarasota-based realty firm with 15 agents, says nothing makes him crazier than having nothing to do. And that's a potentially dangerous situation, considering the current residential real estate slump has left hundreds of previously busy Realtors with more free time than they know how to handle.

Cowles' response, both to the lack of excitement and cash coming through the doors, was to start a new business: Alligator trapping and processing.

Although the venture has yet to turn a profit, it's quite an escape from the doldrums of trying to find homebuyers. "I have never done anything in my life I don't like," Cowles tells Coffee Talk. "I don't like real estate now in terms of the market, but I still enjoy the profession."

Lately, Cowles enjoys wrestling, poking, cajoling and otherwise catching alligators even more. With his father, Ken Cowles has invested almost $300,000 in Gators "R" Us, an alligator processing business and shed in Dade City.

Costs include the construction of the shed on 10 acres, two boats, a walk-in freezer and cooler, a diesel generator, state licensing fees and stainless steel tables and counters for processing the skins and meat. The shed can store up to 5,000 pounds of meat at a time.

Says Cowles: "It's like a butcher shop that focuses on alligators."

Cowles grew up in the snow country, of Buffalo, N.Y., not the gator country of the Gulf Coast. He developed an interest in real estate at an early age, observing his parents and other relatives, all of whom were Realtors. Long before the Internet, Cowles remembers organizing and studying MLS cards as if they had baseball stats on the back, not housing data.

In the early 1980s, after college, Cowles moved to Sarasota with his family, all of whom were continuing their real estate careers in the Sunshine State. The family ultimately opened Realty Services, Inc., which created a niche for properties in the Meadows, a large development of homes and condos bordering Lockwood Ridge Road and Honore Avenue in Sarasota. Cowles now owns that firm.

Besides real estate, Cowles quickly adapted to the Florida lifestyle, becoming interested in barefoot water skiing. It was while partaking in that hobby where Cowles met an alligator trapper removing a gator. From that meeting, Cowles was instantly hooked on another sport, albeit one more dangerous.

In 2004, Cowles and his dad, Bob Cowles, began taking classes to become licensed in hunting and trapping gators. And about two years ago, the duo opened their processing shed, choosing Dade City in Pasco County for the location, Ken Cowles says, because it's near Interstate 75 but comes without some of the onerous rules and regulations they found in Sarasota County.

Ken Cowles, who says real estate is still his top business and income source, has learned to appreciate alligators in a similar way to approaching a real estate deal: Be prepared for surprises and nothing is complete until the contract is signed or the gator is caged.