Best of 2020: Changing Roots Aims to Attract Millennials With New Ideas

[Editor’s Note: This year has been a decade, right? So many things happened, lots of things were postponed, and houses continued to sell despite it all. While the CandysDirt.com team takes a hot minute this holiday season to recharge the ol’ Energizers, we’re serving up our very favorite stories from 2020. Enjoy!]

Josh: I always enjoy meeting good people who have interesting stories. When Hannah and Ajee met they were both dealing with hard times. Together they helped each other find better days. Eventually, they formed their own company and have been working hard ever since to carve out their unique niche. The past year has hit them hard but Ajee says, when you are down, “if you can look up, you can get up.”  Hannah adds that they have learned a lot that will help them better navigate next year.  They are also working on some new projects in West Dallas that they are very excited about.  Here’s to the new year!

The story of Changing Roots actually began a few years ago at Southern Methodist University.  Hannah Poindexter was a student from Tulsa struggling not only with the college grind but also the loss of her mother. Poindexter had a dream of building and renovating homes but wasn’t sure how she was going to do it.

“I didn’t really know if I could do that all alone,” she said.

Around the same time, Ajee Montes was dealing with his own crisis. The Los Angeles native had come to SMU on a football scholarship. He assumed his next step would be the NFL. Then came a serious concussion during his junior year. Doctors told him he would never play football again.

“I was just lost and really depressed and started binge-watching HGTV,” he recalled.

As fate would have it, Poindexter and Montes met in 2015 and immediately hit it off. Soon they were hatching a plan to pool their talents together and pursue a now shared vision in real estate. They started by renovating homes in Los Angeles and Dallas as well as buying land in Dallas.

Before long they realized that the opportunities in Dallas could not be beaten.  They moved back full time and dove in headfirst. They were motivated by a belief that Millennials were not being adequately served.  It was something they looked to change.

“We took a different approach to it,” Montes said. “We said, ‘We’re Millennials. We know what Millennials want. Let’s build something from our hearts as if we are going to move into it ourselves.’”

Poindexter is the primary creative force behind the duo. Her eye for architecture and design has been the impetus for most of their projects.  Montes is more active on the sales and marketing side. He’s a true people person who loves building new connections and learning from those of have been doing this much longer than him.

Among Changing Roots’ biggest current projects are the Dalys Beach Townhomes on Folsom Street in West Dallas. Billed as “boutique townhomes with hilltop downtown views,” the development’s name and Cape Dutch architecture were inspired by Alys Beach Florida. The style is not seen much locally.  In fact, more than one agent advised them to avoid it and stick with current trends. Montes and Poindexter disagreed and believed they had something people would want.

“The response has been overwhelmingly popular,” Poindexter said. “People love how different it is.”

The company name was inspired by the Zach Brown Band song “Roots.” They were listing to the song’s lyrics and got to thinking about what moving into a new home means to a family.  Montes says he considers Changing Roots to be a faith-based business because of the role spirituality plays in their decision-making process. They now consider their own roots to be firmly established in Dallas, and are looking forward to growing the business, learning all he can about real estates and shooting for the moon.

“We operate with the mindset of putting people over profit,” Poindexter said. “You will see that corners haven’t been cut and we pour everything we have into it.”