JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The CEO of a Jacksonville-based home building company is leading the charge to purchase the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team for nearly $2 billion from the current principal owner, Stu Sternberg.
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According to a report from Sportico, Patrick Zalupski, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dream Finders Homes, has signed a letter of intent to purchase the team, which, according to Forbes, is valued at $1.25 billion.
The purchasing group also includes Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp owner Ken Babby.
As the sale of the Tampa Bay Rays unfolds, get to know the Jacksonville-area billionaire who could be a part of turning around a franchise that lost its stadium to Hurricane Milton in 2024 and is consistently ranked at the bottom of any MLB attendance list.
Intro to Real Estate
Zalupski, 44, was born in a Detroit suburb, but moved around quite a bit in his childhood, even spending some time during high school in Belgium as his father completed business throughout Europe and the Middle East.
He would go on to study finance at Stetson University before accepting a job at FedEx.
According to Forbes, Zalupski found the job incredibly unmotivating, and the $52,000 annual salary just wasn’t enough, and he left shortly after beginning the role.
Following his parents’ divorce, he then decided to live with his mother in Jacksonville, who was working as a realtor at the time, and, according to Zalupski, she was “making good money.”
After deciding to help his mom operate her business during the day, Zalupski would work on his own projects at night, and soon after joining the team, he would flip his first property for $150,000.
“I learned how to do tile and drywall and countertops and cabinets, pretty much anything nonstructural,” Zalupski said to Forbes.
From Success to Failure to Success Again
Now that he had experienced his first taste of success in the real estate game, Zalupski was hungry for more; however, the market had other plans.
After accumulating a few more homes using the profits from the successful flip, he purchased a nine-unit condo project in 2006, just before the Great Recession.
“I went through the financial crisis personally, and decided that I’d made some mistakes…I should have been focused on single-family detached homes,” he said.
However, taking those financial losses led to one of Zalupski’s biggest wins, the creation of Dream Finders Homes, which was officially founded in 2008 by him and construction partner Mark McGuigan and his wife, Tobi, and financed by a $200,000 loan from the Clay County Housing Finance Authority.
In its first full year of operation in 2009, which was also the final year of the Great Recession, Dream Finders built 27 homes.
In 2010, that number jumped to 85, and in 2011, 150.
By 2013, the company had sold over 1,000 homes in its entirety, which led to Zalupski buying out his construction partners and turning his eye toward expansion.
What the Future Holds
According to Zalupski, Dream Finders Homes has been profitable in every year of its existence, which is confirmed based on the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Additionally, the company continues to experience success after expanding beyond Florida into Georgia, Colorado, and Texas.
In 2021, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange and is currently trading at $22 a share.
And in its most recent year, Dream Finders closed on 38,000 homes and earned $335 million in net income on revenue of $4.4 billion, Forbes states, which led to Zalupski being named 2025’s Builder of the Year by Builder Magazine.
The real estate magnate owns about half of Dream Finders Homes’ shares and currently owns 84% of the company’s voting rights, but that could change as he puts together the necessary capital to move forward with the purchase of the Rays, a team in dire need of direction and revitalization.
During hurricane season last October, the team’s stadium, Tropicana Field, was ripped apart by Hurricane Milton’s devastating force, forcing the team to play its home games at Steinbrenner Field, the spring training facility of the New York Yankees.
Coupling that with a consistently low attendance rate, it remains to be seen what Zalupski and Co.’s potential ownership could mean for the future of the Tampa Bay Rays.
Zalupski, who is married with three children, also recently put his home in Ponte Vedra Beach up for sale, according to listings on Ponte Vedra Club Realty.
The 9,469 sq. ft home was purchased for over $1 million in 2016, but after renovating the property, it is being listed for $9.9 million.
He is also a member of the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees.
