Agent Bios

AGENT BIOS

Heidi W. Kasama

Heidi Kasama started her professional career as a Certified Public Accountant and later expanded it as a Licensed Real Estate agent in Washington State. Heidi has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Central Washington University. Her accounting career began working for insurance and energy companies. She went into public accounting and ran the audit department for Kasama & Company. Heidi was involved with auditing major educational institutions as well as many non-profit organizations in the Seattle area.

She obtained her real estate license in 1990, was an active real estate agent, and also kept up with the demanding workloads of running audit engagements. After the sale of Kasama & Company in 2001 Heidi successfully worked her real estate career full time.

In 2002, her family moved to Las Vegas. Heidi obtained her Nevada real estate license and in January 2004 opened her own real estate brokerage which grew to approximately 80 agents. Heidi merged her company with Prudential, which has now become Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices-Nevada Properties and is now the managing broker of the office and is responsible for approximately 150 agents. She has her broker’s license, business broker and property management permits. Heidi also owns and manages Kasco Property Management, specializing in residential and commercial property management. Heidi enjoys the “Art” of real estate and the negotiations in our business.

Heidi served as President of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors (GLVAR) for 2014. She has also served on the Finance Committee, Forms Committee, Grievance Committee, Professional Standards, and MLS Quality Control sub-committee. She currently also serves on the Nevada Association of Realtors (NVAR) Board of Directors and is also a national director for the National Association of Realtors (NAR). She was also honored to receive the “Realtor of the Year” for 2015 by GLVAR. Heidi also serves on her local church board as well.

Work seems to be her hobby but when there is some time left over Heidi also enjoys time with her family, golf, reading, traveling and community volunteer work.

H. Peter Kasama

E: peter@kasamagroup.com

P: (702) 956-6436

Mr. H. Peter Kasama is a native of Tokyo, Japan, and attended Sophia University in Tokyo from 1966 to 1968. He subsequently completed his formal education in the U.S., receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Accounting from Seattle University. Consequently, he speaks, reads and writes both Japanese and English fluently at technical levels.

Mr. Kasama started his career as a management trainee for Rainier Bank in Seattle, Washington, developing his expertise in the banking field. One of his important assignments during the management training program was to review Bank’s problem loans as member of the Internal Audit Department. It provided Mr. Kasama an excellent chance to identify, measure and control the loan risks from the bankers’ standpoint.

Subsequently, he was recruited by the firm of Ernst & Ernst (today, it is called Ernst & Young), one of the “Big Eight” international accounting firms at that time. During his association with the firm, he devoted a considerable amount of his time in rendering audit services to various private and public organizations. Some of these clients included banks, energy concerns, Alaska native corporations and manufacturing companies. As a member of the International Committee in the firm’s West Coast District, he devoted a considerable amount of his time in the firm’s efforts to develop auditing, tax and management consulting services to Japanese companies doing business in the United States.

Mr. Kasama also brings hands-on experience derived from being a CEO of a construction firm with operations in Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii. He owned and operated this business for over ten years. This provided Mr. Kasama with the perspective of a business advisor combined with the understanding of a business owner/operator that is found so beneficial by many of his clients.

Mr. Kasama founded his public accounting practice in 1980 and has successfully developed it to a full service CPA firm. Although his firm provided various types of traditional accounting and tax services, he personally rendered to a selected group of his clients diverse array of real estate and financial investment services. The majority of his time was devoted to scouting deals, evaluating investment opportunities, valuing businesses, performing due diligence exams and managing real properties on the behalf of his clients. In 1985, Mr. Kasama obtained a real estate license in Washington and joined Colliers International in order to accommodate his clients’ strong need for real estate investments. For the next several years, he spent the majority of his time putting real estate deals together and getting involved in significant transactions such as:

Marketing the Bank of California building in downtown Seattle, working with Colliers Vancouver office.
Sale of a 5-story building development project in the University District.
Acquisition of a chain of hotels based in Portland, Oregon
Procurement of $27 million construction loan for construction of Residence Inn on Lake Union by Mitsubishi Bank
Sale of an amusement park called “Enchanted Village”
Marketing a high-end condo development project on Lake Washington by Northstream Development Company
Acquisition of several multi-family properties, working with the Paragon Group

In addition to the above projects, numerous other projects were presented to Mr. Kasama and his team at Colliers during that time. Since the financial bubble of easy money and strong Japanese yen burst in Japan in early 90’s, as well publicized, his principal focus has been shifted to be involved in more conservative and manageable projects to develop multi-family properties and office/industrial parks.

After twenty years of practice, he sold the traditional part of his practice to a Montana CPA firm of Anderson ZurMuhlen & Co. in 2000. In December of 2002, Mr. Kasama and his family moved to Las Vegas to step into the next chapter. After a year-long business preparation, in January of 2004, he and his wife launched a new business of real estate brokerage operation along with another couple who has a long proven track record of being successful realtors in Vegas. He is also engaged in practice of international business and investment consulting, with primary emphasis on advising U.S. businesses expanding their operation into Japanese marketplace and assisting Japanese investors identify real estate and business investment opportunities in the U.S.