Winter 2017

PROFILE
Justin Cop, owner of Fredericksburg Realty,
risked his wife’s wrath to answer the long, loud call of the Texas Hill Country and
establish himself as a ranch broker.
“For two years, Amy was pretty upset at me for uprooting our family, but now you
couldn’t pay her enough to leave,” Justin said laughing.
To put this in perspective, both Justin and Amy are natives of Zachary, Louisiana, a
small town that has grown into a suburb of Baton Rouge.
“Her family, both immediate and extended, has been in Zachary forever,” he said.
And, to further complicate the 2010 move, the young couple’s children were fiveyears-old,
three-years-old and two-weeks-old. (They have since added a fourth child
to their family.)
Plus, Justin changed careers. After earning a business degree from Ole Miss, he
founded an equipment repair business that specialized in the chemical, nuclear and
paper industries. He sold the industrial business, planning to move to the Texas Hill
Country, a region he had grown to love when his parents, who are still his primary
mentors, moved to the region some 25 years earlier. Throughout his college years
and early adulthood, Justin spent as much time as possible in Texas, which quickly
became his second home.
“Back in the early 90s, I couldn’t wait to go hunt on our South Texas ranch,” he said.
“I was amazed by the size of the deer and how they just seemed to appear from out
behind a bush.”
One of his favorite memories of hunting South Texas occurred when he dug a
three-foot hole underneath a Guajillo bush to get “up close and personal” with the
surroundings and wildlife while he was bowhunting.
“I also loved the South Texas sunsets because they just seemed bigger—and right in
your face,” Justin said.
Then, the sportsmen would return to his parents’ Hill Country home, where he
would revel in the drier climate and the scenery that were vastly different from South
Louisiana.
“I’d always say tell my dad, ‘Don’t ever sell this place,’ and inevitably the next year,
he would have another,” Justin said. “I just knew that one day I would come back
here to live.”
Eventually his father, who had dabbled in real estate throughout the Hill Country,
introduced Justin to Trip duPerier.
“I wanted to learn the ranch real estate business from the bottom up, so I worked for
Trip for two years before obtaining my license and earning a spot on the team,” Justin,
whose largest real estate transaction to date has been the $30 million sale of 11,500
acres in McCullough County, said. “The early, lean years in the business were worth
it because I had the chance to work all over the state and learn things like pricing in
different regions. Plus, working under Trip was kind of like sticking my mouth to a fire
hydrant of real estate knowledge.”
In addition, the move allowed the young couple to raise their children outside the
hustle and bustle of a growing suburb near Baton Rouge.
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