About Us

The Mike Dunfee Group is a full-service business that specializes in sales, leasing, and property management. We are different from most brokerages in that we see our property sales and management business as compliments to each other working closely together and not in totally separate silos. Both sales and property management benefit from the synergy of market knowledge, relationships, data, and time-tested vendor network as well as our in-house maintenance team.

We are also different in that we do not have “independent agents”. Our licensed associates are true team members receiving most of their compensation through a salary which is supplemented with performance and workload incentives. We find that with this compensation plan we attract better people achieving superior results serving our clients by working towards the same mission.

Our mission: building and preserving wealth, communities, and quality of life through real estate. Our property management business provides our clients with the added benefits of an extensive network of vendors and in-house maintenance team. The Mike Dunfee Group is passionate about our mission; we utilize our luxury real estate sales and property management expertise to deliver the best client experience possible.



History of the Mike Dunfee Group

The Mike Dunfee Group has been named a member of the 2020 Forbes Magazine Inner City 100 fastest-growing inner city businesses in America, ranking number 61.  True to his commitment to continual improvement, Mike is a 2019 graduate of Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business program where he increased his knowledge of running a business.  Mike is currently serving as the 2022 President of the Long Beach Orange County Chapter of the National Association of Residential Property Managers, NARPM. He also continues to be involved of several HOA and local community.

Mike Dunfee has been practicing real estate ever since he obtained his real estate license back in 1996. His journey began at Clark Realtors, a local boutique real estate firm which was located on 7th Street near Wilson High School.

At the time, Mike did not possess abundant financial resources or a reliable car; fortunately, what he did have was his Finance Degree from California State University, Long Beach and an unparalleled desire to succeed. Even back then, Mike refused to let any obstacle deter him from his goals. At one point, Mike was able to negotiate a deal where he would clean the office parking lot and take out the trash in exchange for his business cards and desk fees.

Even though the Long Beach real estate market was tight during the late ’90s, Mike’s tenacity paid off as he quickly became one of the top producing agents in the office and remained so until the firm relocated towards the end of 1999. As a testament to his commitment for higher education and professionalism, Mike obtained both the GRI and CRS designations from the National Association of Realtors - an impressive accomplishment for having been in the business for just three years.

At the beginning of 2000, Mike joined Century 21 Coastline which was located at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Second Street. Mike quickly grew his business and again became one of the highest ranked agents in the company. The firm was eventually purchased by the Beachside Corporation, which owned many Century 21 and Coldwell Banker offices throughout Southern California. It was within this much larger firm that Mike learned to work in a more "corporate" environment. He participated in a corporate relocation program which assisted executives in moving to and from the Long Beach area. During this time, Mike began developing a name for himself in submarkets such as Downtown Long Beach condominiums and small two to four-unit apartment buildings throughout the city of Long Beach.

Mike achieved great success at the Beachside Corporation. He put up record numbers year-after-year and consistently ranked in the top 10 of over 1,100 agents. He was also ranked second (only behind new home sales) in listings taken.

In 2007, Mike took his assistant and moved to a smaller, more specialized company named Doma Properties, a boutique firm located at 401 Pine Avenue on the bottom floor of the historic Walker Building. It was within his primary market area and focused on new condo sales. Mike figured he could learn that end of the business and continue with his primary resale business.

Mike started his journey with this new brokerage by working on a few small condo development projects. Unfortunately, the demand for these new projects quickly dried up as the great recession took Southern California and the rest of the country by storm. Undaunted by this challenging time, Mike and his long-time assistant, Alex Beltran, took what they had learned from their years of relocation sales and re-applied those skills to selling bank-owned properties (REOs). Their client list included Countrywide, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Indi Mac, First American, and USRES among others. They soon had to hire more help as their sales volume grew from around 40 sales per year to over 100.

The Mike Dunfee Group began to take shape as a leader in REO transactions. Even though the workload was heavy for these types of sales while prices and margins were lower, the Mike Dunfee Group had the volume and teamwork skills required to become a success. The team handled tasks such as initial assessments, valuations, rehab estimates, repairs, negotiations of "cash for keys,” evictions, and maintaining/monitoring market values in order to negotiate sales contracts for properties. They stayed busy and learned a lot.  As the regulations and bank REO environment changed from 2009 to 2012, Mike and his team started working short sales and helping the consumers who were in "underwater" deals with the banks. During that time, Mike also obtained his California Broker's license.

Soon, a second phenomenon started to take shape in the market. The Mike Dunfee Group was frequently approached by clients who wanted to sell their properties but did not have the equity to do so. They were either not ready to do a short sale or had too many assets to qualify. As a result, Mike and his team began helping these clients lease out their properties; this started as a helpful service to the clients rather than a revenue stream.

Although it may have started out of reluctance, the property management division, like the rest of Mike's business, began to grow and in 2010 he established an independent brokerage operating the property management business. Mike and his team already knew the importance of quality systems and procedures; this awareness helped the Mike Dunfee Group run their property management business more effectively over time.

In 2017, Doma Properties merged with the premium global real estate brand Engel & Völkers. With over 11,000 advisors working out of 800 offices across 30 countries, this merger brought a high-end luxury image to the Mike Dunfee Group. Mike was a broker associate for real estate sales for 2 years and held the title of “Top Producing Agent” among both Long Beach shops during this time while separately running his property management business. 

Mike and his team do business as the Mike Dunfee Group and incorporated as Dunfee Real Estate Services, Inc. in 2018. The Mike Dunfee Group also operates property management services as MD Property Management and offers in house maintenance services.

In January 2020, the Mike Dunfee Group said goodbye to 401 Pine Avenue and relocated to a new office on the Ocean Corridor where they are better able to service their large Ocean Corridor client base yet still be easily assessable to the rest of the market they serve in Long Beach, Orange County and the South Bay.

Since moving to the HarborPlace Tower and separating from all other affiliated brokerages the Mike Dunfee Group has thrived.  After surviving the initial challenges faced with COVID the Mike Dunfee Group has had record years in both sales and property management.  We expecting to continue to grow reinvesting in the latest technology including process automation, video and other leading innovations in the real estate industry.



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