Michael Cornelius
REALTOR®
Michael grew up in the sleepy little, deep south Texas town of Zapata, where his dad worked in the oil & gas industry. After high school he studied Pre-Veterinary medicine and played football at Sul Ross University in Alpine for a few years, before transferring to TAMU Kingsville, meeting his beautiful future wife Beatriz, and graduating with a degree in Psychology and a minor in Agribusiness Administration. While waiting for Betty to finish school, he worked as a bank officer, and then for a company building offshore oil rigs at Ingleside; they then married and moved to San Antonio where Michael taught 9th grade World Geography at Judson High School, and had his first son Logan. He distinctly remembers the housing crash of 2008 where too many people, including friends and coworkers lost their homes to unscrupulous lending practices.
Warm ocean breezes called them back to the coast, where they bought what they believed would be their dream house (the coastal bend’s shifting soil had other ideas) in the country and lived for almost ten years, while Michael worked on a Masters Degree from TAMU Corpus Christi in Geospatial Engineering, taught high school at Collegiate High School, evening GIS classes at Del Mar College, and became a dad three more times to Benjamin, Mark, and Isabella.
Wanting to be located in a more central part of Texas and nearer to family, they moved back to San Antonio in 2015; Michael enjoyed being a stay at home dad for several years, and even homeschooled the kids. One of his proudest accomplishments was teaching all four of his kids to read at home. Through his study of GIS and surveying, and his own relocations, Michael became interested in the “why” of where people lived, and the “how” of land purchase and relocation. He had his own good and bad home buying experiences, and heard similar stories from many other folks. Spurred on by his dad’s foray into real estate investment through the purchase of ranchland south of Bexar County, and the unprecedented growth of cities like San Antonio, Michael decided to get his real estate license. His goals were to be a part of shaping the development of the state he loved, to make sure that anyone involved in a real estate purchase was well informed, and to protect people during one of the biggest and most emotional decisions of their lives.
As he began meeting with brokers and learning about the real estate industry, a friend introduced him to Missy Stagers; who absolutely blew him away with her knowledge, business sense, accomplished resume, and most of all her values of always putting people first, and treating everyone the way you would want them to treat you. This made it an easy decision to partner with M. Stagers Realty.
Michael has held many titles along the way; teacher, coach, mentor, dad, and now Realtor. It is a privilege to be able to help people of all ages, and all walks of life, and play a small role in helping make the world just a little bit better for everyone.