When Ryan Gebauer became a C3-4 quadriplegic at 16, he thought he had no future. But after getting his real estate license, he’s found his niche as the rare broker who specializes in accessible housing.
Ryan to the Rescue
Whenever someone calls Ryan Gebauer’s Ryan Realty Group Brokerage in Coral Springs, Florida, looking to purchase or rent an accessible home, it’s usually in desperation — and it always presents a new challenge for Gebauer and his team.
This is especially true since a lot of his clients end up being people with new injuries, fresh from rehab. They often need an accessible rental while they search for a new accessible home to buy or wait for their inaccessible home to be renovated. Sometimes they don’t have the money for either, so the rental becomes their permanent home.
“The ADA doesn’t apply to private homes, so you can’t guarantee or anticipate a landlord is going to rip out an entire bathtub to make a roll-in shower,” says Gebauer. “There’s a lot of desire for one, but the availability is near zero. The only time that becomes available is if someone who had one dies or moves out of the area.”
Often, Gebauer works with his client and the landlord to figure out what will best fit each of their needs. He does this by facilitating inexpensive modifications that work for both parties.
“If you can’t find an accessible home to own and a landlord isn’t going to let you renovate, that’s when you start looking for a step-in shower where you can put a threshold ramp,” he says. “Or build out the shower itself, so you can get a roll-in shower chair into it.”
While they search for the right home, Gebauer’s clients may have to use the bathroom of a friend, sponge bath in bed or use a hose to take a shower, so his motivation is always high to get these projects done as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, if someone does have the money to purchase and renovate a home, Gebauer looks for what he calls “the right bones,” such as a property with a larger bathroom or wider door frames that are already conducive to accessibility.
Either way, accommodation takes strenuous negotiation with contractors or landlords, so having a real estate broker who has an SCI representing you is invaluable and rare. Gebauer takes pride in being one of the select few, but he almost didn’t become a real estate broker at all.
“Being injured at 16, I thought college and university were closed to me, and I didn’t have any idea what I would do with my life,” says Gebauer, who eventually earned an MBA in 2008. Following that, he decided he wanted to practice real estate and estate law and figured he’d take a real estate course while he waited to take the law school entrance exam.
“The teacher of the real estate course told us if we passed, we’d be eligible to take the real estate licensing exam and I thought, why not? Why pass up an opportunity? That’s how I was raised,” he says. “If you get an opportunity, see where it leads.”
Where it led was to him opening his own brokerage and being one of eight realtors he knows of with spinal cord injuries in Florida. That’s a far cry from how many wheelchair users were realtors when he started in the industry in 2009. Back then, when he asked the National Association of Realtors how many in their ranks had disabilities, he was told that wasn’t even a statistic they kept. “It still isn’t,” he says. “But now I know of eight in Florida and one in South Carolina, all who were inspired by what I was doing and went out to get their licenses.”
Masks and Mixed Messages
Gebauer discusses what it’s like living through the pandemic in Florida, where a lax government response and unclear health protocols have led to confusion and frustration.
Because of my disability, I’m not required to wear a mask, but I felt that to protect everyone else, including myself, I should. It’s a hardship for me due to my limited diaphragm capacity and because I need to cut a hole in the mask to drive my sip and puff wheelchair.
I can’t tell you how many weird looks I get at the grocery store because the tube for my chair is baby blue like the mask, so I look like I have this elaborate oxygen apparatus. Still, I don’t want someone to complain I’m making them uncomfortable. What’s worse, the media is scaring everyone, and I don’t know what to believe. It’s frustrating in the political arena when I hear, ‘Don’t worry about wearing a mask. It’s OK to go outside with crowds, but don’t go indoors with crowds. But also, if you don’t have to go to a hospital, don’t go to a hospital.’ Honestly, what do you want us to do?”
New Year’s Resolution:
I want to get back into video games and I want to play them competitively at an amateur level just to have some fun.
Advice for your pre-injury self?
Get into support groups, get into school. And — now that I know what I enjoy doing — just have everything focused on one career.
Can’t live without?
Spinal Cord Injury Support Group of South Florida brought me back from depression after I lost my mom and helped me recognize the need for accessible housing.
Why I joined United Spinal:
I’m a chapter president of Spinal Cord Injury Support Group of South Florida, and we were approved for a grant. I wanted to thank United Spinal for providing that opportunity. In September, we became the second United Spinal Chapter in Florida.
