I'm Jerry.

My name is Jerry Banks, and I’m a storyteller. If I could identify one villain in my narrative, it would be overconfidence in myself. Life has thrown some big curveballs at me, and as much as I’ve stumbled along the way, I’ve not only survived; I’ve thrived. Whenever I’ve made mistakes, I can see how I was overconfident in my dreams or in myself and didn’t do enough research or study. As a young person, I thought I could jump off cliffs and build my wings on the way down. After getting burned several times, I learned balance in my decision-making.

I’m a business guy to my core and have spent my career in real estate investing, crunching numbers and making deals. Over time I’ve managed over $2 billion in transactions and over three million square feet of property. I’ve also always had an entrepreneurial spirit. At age fourteen, I taught myself how to draw home plans and started getting paid for my work. At age fifteen, I bought, remodeled, and sold a home. I did the same thing with some land at age eighteen, then became the youngest person in Iowa to get a real estate license. I was twenty-four when I started my first company, Century 21 Banks Realty. In my thirties, I owned thirteen pizza franchises.