Category: Podcast Episodes

Michael Hall finished 2018 as Baird and Warner’s second highest producing broker in Chicago and also placed in the top 50 of brokers in Chicago (this is out of 40k brokers!). As a top agent for twenty-four years, Michael talks about how open houses started his career, how listing presentations are like dating, why he encourages brokers to spend 50% of their time searching for new clients, and why he knows that you can grow your business in any type of market with the right attitude.

Michael Hall can be reached at 773.398.4359 and michaelhall@michaelhallgroup.com.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris, I am your host, and guide through the show. And as always, we start out the show by saying thank you, to the listeners, we have, Gosh, 1000s of you now. And the only reason we have 1000s of listeners is because well, I’d like to think it’s because the content is so amazing. And I believe it is not because of me, but because of our guests, but also because you share this podcast with other realtors, so that we spend no money on marketing. So we’re really appreciative that you have sent this out and made this a popular thing. And I think we’re probably still the only podcast in Chicago that has these kinds of conversations. If you’re new to the show, what we do is talk to top 1% producers and ask them how they became successful. We believe success leaves clues and we’re 80 Plus episodes in now and we continue to keep going so we appreciate everyone’s listening and also passing this along you can download and listen and stream every single episode we have on our website keeping it real pod.com Obviously you can find us as well iTunes, Google Play and please subscribe to our Facebook page, keeping it real pod where we post links to every episode and also links to our guests information as well. On to our interview with Michael Hall.

Today on the show, we have Michael Hall from Baird and Warner Michaels client centered approach to real estate has led him to concert consistently outpaced the market in 2018. Michael finished in the top 50 of Agents Brokers in Chicago, she has a very big deal by the way on pausing his his bio from over there’s a 40,000 realtors in the Chicagoland area Michael finished in the top 50 last year, and he’s also second in the city at his firm Baird and Warner for sales volume and units. Originally a teacher, Michael’s philosophy is to provide each and every client with an unprecedented level of service, best resources in the industry and the benefit of expertise that results for 24 years as a top real estate consultant and broker, a true student of real estate Michael is constantly looking for innovative ways to improve his business and help his clients reap more. In 2014, he founded the Michael Hall group at Baird and Warner to better serve his buyers and sellers and foster synergy among fellow colleagues, the results have created raving fans and Business Growth far outpacing the market at large. And we could not be more excited to talk to Michael Hall. So welcome, Michael.

Michael Hall 3:03
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

D.J. Paris 3:05
Well, thank you for being on the show. And I say this a lot because we we only interviewed top producers, but we know you don’t have time to do this. And the fact that you’ve made time for us is really, really we couldn’t be more appreciative. So and on behalf of the listeners, thanks for being on the show.

Michael Hall 3:20
You’re welcome.

D.J. Paris 3:21
Well, you know, you boy have had a very impressive career here in Chicago. Everybody knows you. I would like to know about how you got into real estate, you know, 24 years ago? And can you do you mind telling us that story?

Michael Hall 3:33
Sure, absolutely. So I actually was working on a PhD in Spanish literature, and was on track to become a professor, when I decided to take a year off and reevaluate, if that was really the career that I wanted. And in that year off, I started a business venture, which did quite well. And I had, within a year’s time I had two locations working on a third. Wow. And I thought, well, you know, heavy money’s kind of good. And I’m pretty good at this business stuff. I don’t know, maybe I don’t want to be a teacher. So I came to Illinois to speak with my grandfather, who he’s now passed away, but he was the smartest person I knew. And he had been involved in commercial real estate large projects, and was just the smartest man I’ve ever known. And I said, you know, well, I don’t know, I guess I should finish up my PhD. And he said, No, don’t do that. And I said, why, you know, I’m thinking Why doesn’t he want his grandson to get a PhD? So because you have very expensive tastes young man, you’ll never be happy on a teacher’s salary. And then he added and let me tell you something about rich people. He said rich people own things. They own businesses, they own property, but they don’t work for someone else. My grandfather had never worked for anybody in his life. He was endure or so. He felt very strongly that I was would be a great sale. This person, he said, You need to get into real estate, you will be a great salesperson. He said, get into real estate start selling and start buying. And, you know, it was just like, wow, I never thought about that. I’d been so scholastically devoted my whole life that it was just came out of nowhere. And somehow, I took a leap of faith. And that’s what I did. I got my license a few months later. And by the third year, I was number one in my office and you know, just kind of catapulted to where I am today, after 24 years. Wow,

D.J. Paris 5:34
what do you think you did in your first year? I don’t mean production wise, or number of clients. But how did you? What did you do day one? I know it’s hard probably to remember. But what did you do in your first year? As far as how building your business?

Michael Hall 5:49
Well, the first thing that I did, I as a salesperson, I mean, I really, that’s really what I am, I, I decided right away that the best thing to do to have sales was to be in front of somebody to sell them something. If you’re not in front of somebody who might buy your product, well, you’re probably not going to sell very much of your product. So I devoted every single day to connecting to humans, who might be buying or selling real estate. And it was a little easier to do that when I first started because there was no internet. And I started Sure. So you know, people got the Saturday paper, little black and white photo, every picture looked the same. And they had to go to the Sunday open house to see it. So I open house like crazy. I had I didn’t have listings, because I was a brand new agent in my 20s. So I held open houses on other agents listings. And I just met people and connected and conversed and talked. And before long, you know, they had assisted me as their buyer’s agent to help them find properties.

D.J. Paris 6:57
Yeah, it’s funny that the doing open houses when you don’t have your own listings still seems to work today. And a lot of the people we’ve interviewed on the show even new mortgage brokers who have been more recently introduced to the business, that’s almost a universal experience. Unless, of course, you just happen to have you know, dozens of friends waiting to buy and sell condos, right when you get your license, which isn’t usually the case for most people. So the fact that you were doing open houses, it still seems to work. And so yeah, that’s very, very, very interesting. Tell us a little bit about how you how your business has grown over the last 24 years?

Michael Hall 7:38
Well, it’s, it’s been for the most part, organic, you know, hard work, you know, people always want to know, when you when you hear Realtors discussing other top agents, everybody’s like, what’s their secret, right, you know, what’s their secret? You know, what’s the ancient secret, and there really is no secret, you know, good business is one small idea after another that you implement. You don’t just come up with the idea, you actually execute it. And it’s one tiny little idea, one followed by another. So basically, you get one to 3% better every single year. So you’ve been in the business for 10 years, you’re 100% better at what you do. And your business. So part of it is just, you know, smart, organic growth. But I did have a phase where I catapulted and that was when I the time I think I was selling like around $12 million $13 million a year. Sure. And feeling kind of stressed out. And I had, you know, marketing prospecting programs that I had going, I was working, cancelled and expired. Sure I was when I would sell a property, I would send out a just sold to the neighborhood, saying, you know, I just sold your neighbor’s Sure, call me. And so but what happened is, I get slow, and I prospect, and then I would get busy again, and I wouldn’t prosper. Right. And so I realized that if I wanted to grow, I had to keep the prospecting going. And so I had to really dedicate a chunk of time in my day, when that took place. The next thing I knew, I was like, 9pm at the office, printing out flyers, stuffing envelopes, you know, getting to the office early, and then I decided to hire someone to help me because I realized, well, if this is profitable, why don’t I just double what I’m doing and then that will pay for this the salary of this person that does this and executes it for me. So that was a big leap of of for my business was to actually bring in somebody to make sure that the prospecting occurred every single day with regularity.

D.J. Paris 9:53
Yeah, that makes all the sense in the world and certainly easy for a broker once they get busy with having CLI As where they’re spending, you know, maybe seven of if you’re working an eight hour day, which I know you’ve probably worked much longer than that. But if you’re spending, you might be spending six to seven hours a day servicing existing clients and not, you know, then just the outbound marketing meeting, new people might fall by the wayside. So hiring somebody for you seems like that, that worked really well, to enable you to continually serve your clients and also keep the prospect up.

Michael Hall 10:28
It did, the only problem is that it worked too well. And within, within two years, I was on, you know, the verge of a nervous breakdown. Because, you know, we couldn’t keep up. So then I hired instead of, you know, I had my part time person that ran the prospecting, which for me, was primarily male, and some online stuff. And then I ended up hiring a licensed agent who came out and helped me do the showings. And ultimately, you know, I decided that, you know, I’m gonna, I think I could provide better service if I had other people doing the things that I’m really bad at. And that’s the I think that’s the key for all business owners, you have to look at what you’re good at and do that and what you’re bad at, have somebody else do. So on the nightmare with paperwork, I hired someone to do the paperwork, I wasn’t good at following up on the prospecting, I hired somebody for that the next. So you just sort of decide what you should parcel off and have other people do and as you do that, it creates more time for you to do what you’re really good at. And then if you focus all your energies on the things you’re really good at, you will grow your business, it will happen. And that’s what happened to me. So my team went from a person and a half, to two and a half to three and a half to now it’s four and a half people. Wow. Not including me. So I’m, I’m the extra person,

D.J. Paris 11:52
you’re the half of its, you know, and for a lot of our listeners to who think, Well, I’m not a top producer, I can’t afford to bring on someone else. I think I would challenge that because there are things thankfully due to our interconnectivity with the world, there are lots of people that you can hire who aren’t even necessarily local, maybe global. For example, I have a person I hire for $10 a week. And what she does is she calls me every morning at 730. In the morning, she’s from the Philippines. And she asks me did you do there’s some habits, I’m trying to cultivate healthy habits in my life. And she the about 10 questions, she asks me every morning did you do you know, she just goes down the list. It’s a 92nd phone call. And it has made a tremendous difference in my life, because it gets me to actually follow through on some of these things. But it only cost me $10 a week, and it’s the best $10 I spend. So if anyone’s listening, there are resources to find, you know, maybe it’s on a smaller scale, but you can find help, especially for you know, for very specific tasks.

Michael Hall 12:55
You can and the you, you’ll reap that reward. If you’re smart with the investment, you’ll reap that reward in the same year. So it’s, you know, it’s not like, you know, I think people feel like they can’t afford it. But I would argue you can’t not You can’t not afford it. Because for every dollar you put in, you’re going to make more than what you put in, if you do it wisely. So my recommendation is to look at what a look at what’s working for other agents and to mimic that. And that’s kind of what I did, I looked at well, who’s who’s big, who’s doing a lot, oh, that person is doing expireds and cancelled. So that person is, you know, doing video online, blogging, so you see what other people are doing. And then you start to do the same things and you find, you know, what’s a good match for you and your personality?

D.J. Paris 13:39
I agree. And I also think that brokers often forget that top producers are also at least the ones that that we’ve reached out to, for example, people like Michael, who so generously is here. They don’t really have time, but they make time because they tend to be willing to share, hey, here’s what I’ve done. As Michael said, there really aren’t any secrets, or if there are, no one has yet shared any real secrets with me on this podcast. But I don’t I don’t know that there aren’t secrets, like Michael said. But it’s funny every time we do a podcast every month with Carrie McCormick from App properties, and she comes on and says, Here’s what brokers need to know about what’s going on in the market. It’s very generous of her. And she says every single time she does an episode, she gets about four or five brokers who call her say, Hey, I heard you on the podcast. Do you have a few minutes to give me some advice? And she very generously does that. But I find that you know that people like like Michael are actually pretty approachable. Certainly we reached out and he was he was very agreeable to come up. But yeah, you can learn so much. I mean, the whole purpose of this podcast is to collect these great ideas so other brokers can learn. But yeah, I think that is really couldn’t be overstated. Like learn from people, they say stand on the shoulders of giants, find out what they did and and move forward and don’t try to reinvent the wheel. But let’s talk about the client experience because obviously, you it’s not just a matter of prospecting, obviously, your clients are really, really like your service. Can we talk a little bit more about why you think clients gravitate towards you, and why you think your business business has grown so much over the years?

Michael Hall 15:21
Well, I think, you know, I say this all the time to buy, you know, when I’m training other agents and helping them I say, you know, look, it’s like a date, the first time you meet a buyer, it’s a date, the first time you do meet someone to do a listing presentation on their home, it’s a day, it is mostly really about chemistry between personality types. And so I think that when I’m in front of a buyer in front of a seller, I try to treat them like they’re my best friend from college, I’m thinking, What would this and I say, What do you want to talk about? What what are you looking for? I mean, ask a lot of questions. And I think that if you listen more than you speak, you’ll be able to connect with somebody. And it’s really all about the connection. And sometimes you don’t have chemistry, and they end up with another realtor. And that’s okay. There’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of realtors, and we’re not all matches. But I think beyond that there are people do also focus on the differences between realtors that they are considering working with Sure. And you know, for me those differentiators, I think, are well, first we’re very down to earth, very approachable. And we, you know, we really try to, you know, make it a pleasant serene experience for them. But beyond that 24 years of experience, I know, I always ask people, How did you pick me? And they a lot of times will say, Well, you’ve got a lot of experience? Or they’ll say, Oh, your reviews online, right. So I think for me, it’s mainly because I’m getting old 24 years and having lots of sales in the neighborhood. That’s one reason I also keep my stats, I think every agent should be keeping track of their days on the market, their listing sale price ratio, see how it compares to the neighborhood at large. That is part of my listing presentation. And a lot of people have said, we picked you because you talked about things that other realtors did not. And if you and then of course, as you do this when you do it well, a majority of my business comes from repeat clients from referrals. And as a result, we have a lot of great reviews which we would not have if I did not have such an amazing team behind me.

D.J. Paris 17:23
Do you just just for my own curiosity? As far as from a review perspective? Are you asking clients after a transaction? Or maybe even before the end of the transaction? Are you proactively saying, hey, we’d really appreciate it if you would write a review of your experience, or do you just let that happen on its own?

Michael Hall 17:42
absolutely, positively 100%? We asked. Yeah, I assume you that. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, for us. I mean, sometimes we asked why Sure. Well, because sometimes we’ll ask and we know that we did a great job. We know they loved us, and we think they’re probably Yeah, so we sometimes we don’t get the review the first time. But we’ll ask one more time. We don’t usually ask for more than more than two times. But yes, you should be asking every client for review, unless you don’t pick it up.

D.J. Paris 18:14
I had this experience recently, where I went into two unrelated real estate just walked in for I was getting a storage unit and I for like 35 bucks a month. It was very, it wasn’t even one of their more expensive units at a small thing, but I just needed for half a year. And you would have thought that I made their entire sales quota the way they treated me like that I was a big deal. And I know I wasn’t. And it was it was so over the top in a good way and really went on to make me feel like I was this special client of theirs. And and then at the end of it, they after I was paying and signing everything they said would you it look, please if you would write us a review, that would be the nicest, thank you. Because I was saying, Well, you guys really treated me well. He said, Well, gosh, you should really write us view. And then I got back to my desk and I forgot about it because I you know, like you were saying people get busy. They sent me an email the next day and said, Hey, I don’t mean to bug you. But boy, we would love it if you could share your experience. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I forgot. And I went on and and then I wrote it on Facebook, Yahoo or sorry, Facebook, Google, I think even in Yelp. So I did three different reviews for literally a $30 a month service because I went I’ve never been treated so well. So I think you’re asking for it is is a very good idea. Because yeah, people are busy.

Michael Hall 19:33
People just get busy. Absolutely. They’re usually happy to do it. They just get busy. So yep.

D.J. Paris 19:38
And you know, we have 1000s of listeners now which I’m very grateful for as well because it’s a lot of fun to do these when people listen. One of the biggest questions we get from from our listeners is, hey, I would like to be a top producer. And again, I know there are no secrets or no magic formulas, and hard work is always the real answer. Are there any specific techniques or strategies that you would recommend maybe somebody who’s brand new, or somebody who’s just looking to grow anything that you think would be helpful for the listeners?

Michael Hall 20:10
Absolutely. I mean, look, when you first start, you don’t have any clients, right? So 100% of every working hour should be promising. And, really, I tell this to all of the agents that I train, I want you to spend at least 50% of your day, prospecting for new clients getting out in front of people, your marketing systems now are fairly automatic, right, it leaves a lot of time for you to grow your business. And even if you’re out with buyers, you know, you’re not showing eight hours a day with buyers. So you’ve got a lot of time, and you need to spend, I find that newer agents are most of the time not spending a lot of time prospecting. And so every day that you do not get in front of potential new clients, whether that’s face to face, online social media, or you get in front of them by sending a piece of mail is another day that you will not get a paycheck. And I know there’s a lot of agents out there who today maybe didn’t do any prospecting. And so it’s you have to, you really have to spend at least 50% of your time on prospecting. And once you say, and if you say to me, I’m too busy to spend 50% of my time on prospecting, then my answer is, you’re making enough money to pay somebody else to spend 50% of your time on prospecting, if you really want to have growth. And I think that the the last thing that I would say, is, don’t give up. So many of the new agents, they do something for two months or three months, you know, maybe they try open houses, and they do it for three months, and they don’t get a sale. And they say, Oh, I’m just not good at Open House. And and they give up my I’m telling you, it takes time. These are seeds that you plant, and they take time. And the last thing that I that last bit of advice I would give and this is good for everybody. And honestly, if I had applied this to my own business, I would be retired and filthy rich now, instead of here talking with you, although I’m happy, I’m here talking with you. And that is do not let perfect get in the way of progress. And I tell my clients this all the time, because are my team this all the time, because I did for years, I was such a, you know, type a I’m a very type a detail oriented person. And so I wanted to maintain control of every aspect of my business. So even though I really needed help, I thought no, I can give better business. By doing everything myself. And I when I had new ideas, I didn’t really execute them because I worked on them for months, right? And never felt they were perfect. And now we launch we take a reasonable amount of time when we have an idea, but then we launch it and you tweak it as you go. And I find a lot of new agents. I see them in the office, they’re sitting at a desk all the time. And I see they’re working on their listing presentation, but they work on it for like weeks. So just don’t let perfect get in the way of progress. It’s about reaching out. It’s about connecting. It’s about you know, being a human helping another human with something they need. In the end. That’s really all real estate is it’s really all sales is is its people, people who need things, people who give them things. So it’s really about people. Don’t worry too much about your forms. Don’t worry too much about your listing presentation. I remember when I felt about four years ago, I felt like my listing presentation wasn’t that great. And I was wasn’t sure what I was going to do. And I met with Milly Rosenbloom, who everybody knows. She’s the number one agent at Warner. And I went out to lunch with Millie and Milly, Milly took my listing presentation. I wanted her to look at it. And she said it on the side and she said, listing presentation she said they just want to talk to you. She said sometimes I don’t even open it. She said just ask them what they want. Tell them what you do have a conversation, make a connection. And it was awesome. Because all of a sudden, I let go of the anxiety of my listing presentation not being perfect. And I realized it was about connecting with the people. So you know, you should have a good listing presentation, you should tweak it. But I have definitely beat out other realtors who I’m sure had better listing presentations. You know, but that’s because I didn’t let that perfecting get in the way of connecting with the people. So just don’t let perfection get in the way of progress. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 24:27
and I think that can manifest in particular for newer brokers. The biggest fear I hear from brand newly licensed brokers is, you know, with respect to going out and connecting face to face meeting people every day, as you as you recommend it. The big question or the fear, I believe is what if they asked me something and I don’t know the answer, and I go, Well, of course you’re not going to know the answer. You’re brand new and it’s okay. All you have to say is that is an amazing question. Let me double check with my team so I can get you the best possible answer. I’ll get right back to you. Right and 99 1% of the time that is a good enough, at least immediate response, and then go back and get the answer. And like, don’t worry about knowing everything because you won’t. But don’t let that stop you from going out and meeting people. I mean, if I say, I don’t know, and I’m not a Producing Realtor, but in my own business, I say, I don’t know all the time. And I’ve been doing this quite a while. So I think this idea of, of knowing everything, or having everything perfected is really just going to get to stop you in your tracks, like, like Michael, Michael said. But yeah, I hear that a lot from from new brokers who are just worried that there’s someone’s going to ask a question that they don’t know. It’s like, that’s okay.

Michael Hall 25:39
Yeah. People don’t care if you know everything. They care if you’re honest. And you can get them the answers they seek.

D.J. Paris 25:47
Right? And yeah, and yeah, and hopefully, everyone listening works at a firm where they can get of course, those answers. And if you don’t, you deserve to work at a firm that does provide good support, because for new brokers, obviously, that’s the biggest thing they need is answers to questions from their clients. Obviously, a firm like Baird, and Warner is going to be able to provide that. What one other thing I want to Oh, I wanted to ask this because I normally never get to this question. We always ask every guest ahead of time, tell us this, the answer this question. I never get to it. But I thought this one was interesting. And I would like to get to it about you had a a you. I know you’re not going to reveal the name. But you had worked with a celebrity at one point. And you had a funny story about finding them a place if you don’t mind telling that.

Michael Hall 26:36
Oh, yeah. So I, I was fortunate enough to have a client who worked at Harpo studios with Oprah Winfrey. So every once in a while the celebrities that would come in would want to, they would be interested in seeing real estate here in Chicago. And so I had the fortune of being able to take a few of these celebrities out and I had one in particular who wanted to view but she wanted to be able to jump out a window and be caught on that thing that that you see in the movies, the circle thing that the firemen Oh, sure. You know, because she said I’m terrified to fire. So she it was it was very, it was, of course a challenge to find something and she wanted to be downtown. So imagine trying to be downtown and having a view. But I want to be able to jump out a window if there’s a fire.

D.J. Paris 27:30
Did you were you able to actually find something for that person or

Michael Hall 27:35
we found something that she liked. And in the end, she did not purchase anything in Chicago? I think that you know, it was an idea that she toyed with and quite frankly, I think she was really surprised by our prices here. She thought they would be more inexpensive than they really are. And so, yeah, you know, which is a common common thing. Of course,

D.J. Paris 27:59
why that? Yeah, boy, that is funny. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to answer a question like that when somebody says, Well, you know, I need to be able to, I guess that just means keep them low to the ground.

Michael Hall 28:11
Yeah, well, you know what I’m going to this is the new thing here that we we are calling ourselves matchmaker like it. So yeah, that’s our big thing. We’re releasing a new website in a couple of weeks. And we’re going with a noose new advertising marketing blitz. And we feel like we’re matchmakers. So I don’t care if you want a place that, you know, your dog has his own balcony like we’ll try to fit for you. That’s, that’s the thing, you know, because that’s if you know, once again, it’s people want things we give them. So when somebody says, I want to have a view, but I want to be able to jump out a window and live, you know what I dug in, I scratch and I found something. So it’s a big city, you can find almost everything here if you’re if you don’t give up well, and

D.J. Paris 28:57
I think to that point, you know, the client says, This is what’s important to me. And the broker says, Great, let me work on that and get back to you. Right, you didn’t have the answer right away. You went and found it. And yeah, and I think this idea of caring, which obviously you do, as evidenced by, I don’t think success is by accident. And I think that, you know, really caring and being able to say let me see what I can do is is often probably a bit understated in this industry. I think there’s a lot of brokers who don’t realize how important you know, going that extra step, the hard work portion really goes to demonstrate care. You know, it’s I care enough about you to find that dog balcony for you. And I’m going to do my best to do it. And I think a lot of brokers probably wouldn’t go that extra step.

Michael Hall 29:45
Yeah, for sure. I find a lot of brokers are sort of they have a formula. And when somebody falls outside of the formula, they’re not sure they’re interested but I would say this if you go out of your formula, and you find somebody what they want, you will have a fan for The rest of your life?

D.J. Paris 30:01
Oh, gosh, no, yeah, no question about that. And, and that, of course, you know, it’s how almost all of us find our broker through somebody we know or, or a referral from somebody we know. And we just forget just how important it is that every client is, or at least as many clients as as possible are raving fans, which means you do have to go above and beyond and obviously, Michael does that. Well, I have we I think we are getting to the end here. We’ve gone through so much, so much stuff. I did want to ask you one more question. I apologize. One last question. About About you wrote a funny experience to us about getting locked, locked into a rooftop deck. Which Imagine you are not the first person to have done that. Not first realtor for sure. Could you tell us that story?

Michael Hall 30:51
Yeah, absolutely. So it was in Ukrainian village. It was a long time ago, probably nine or 10 years ago, at least. But it was in Ukrainian village. We it was really actually a small building, like a four storey building. And I was showing the penthouse. And we went out. And I did not have the keys, they were on the kitchen counter, of course, the door swing shot, and the door handle was locked. And it was like one o’clock PM. So nobody was home. We were sort of pounding and yelling, and, and so we and of course my buyer, everybody, like the whole party was out on the deck. So it could have been a disaster. But I thought, you know, I never panic. You just can’t panic. Life’s too short to panic, unless you’re a heart surgeon. I mean, that’s the beauty of being a real estate agent, you’re not likely to have one of your clients die on you. So, you know, I just took a deep breath. And I thought, well, well, this will give us a good time to talk about what they want. Before you know. And but it was in the end, it ended up being really funny. To them. They were very nice about it. And we did talk and we really did connect in a way that we might not have otherwise, although I don’t recommend this as a technique. And you know, so eventually, we really were up there probably for almost oh my gosh, yeah, it was a long time because people were going by in the street, and we were waving and yelling, but they were either not hearing us or they were just like not sure what to do with. Yeah, yeah. And so finally somebody like it was almost 3pm. And somebody who lived in the building was walking up. And I was able to say, hey, we’re in the penthouse. It’s unlocked. If you can come let us in. And so a neighbor went into the penthouse unit and opened it up for oh,

D.J. Paris 32:31
my gosh, that’s an amazing two hours. That is a long time. Wow. Well, that what how funny and again, could happen, and probably has happened to a lot of brokers. But yeah, you’re right. What a great opportunity to get to know somebody better. And assuming assuming they’re not blaming you, which of course, I’m sure they didn’t. Yeah, you have a much more intimate relationship at that point. So

Michael Hall 32:58
absolutely. And I’ve been thinking about getting a Michael Hall group drone. So if this ever happens, again, I can call my team and they can drone over, you know, some drinks. Turn it into it.

D.J. Paris 33:11
That’s great. Well, Michael, I think that is a great place to to end and our episode here. And we really appreciate your time. There’s so much great advice, and really appreciate you telling your story with us and our listeners. And if by the way, if there are buyers, sellers, investors, renters, anyone that is in need of a realtor, or maybe they’re not happy with their current broker, you should definitely take a look at Michael Michaels, Michael and his group, you can visit Michael at Michael Hall group.com. He has a new website coming out which may or may not be done by the time this podcast was released. However, his current website looks pretty good as is I know Michael doesn’t like it because he’s a perfectionist. I think it looks pretty great. So even if this gets out before then, you know, definitely go there. You can also visit him on Facebook, Instagram, all the social networks, Michael Hall, just search for Michael Hall group, you’ll find him and you can, you know, obviously reach out to him. Oh, Michael, if there are any clients, customers out there that may be looking to work with with you or someone on your team, what’s the best way they should reach out to you?

Michael Hall 34:17
I think that if they go to our website or our social media and just send us a message there all of the formats we have out there have our phone number and a way to email us or message us. So really, it’s whatever, whatever is better for the client. Perfect.

D.J. Paris 34:35
Perfect Well, and, again, on behalf of Michael and myself that we thank everyone for listening again, if there’s other brokers in in the listeners, offices that are wanting to learn from people like Michael and want to continue to support the show that we do as a way to give back to the real estate industry that’s been very generous to me personally. Please let them know About this this podcast this episode, and follow us on Facebook you can find us at keeping it real pod, also our website keeping it real pod.com You can download and stream all of our episodes and, and all of the of course, it’s on iTunes, Google Play, etc. So anyway, Michael, thank you so much for your time again, really couldn’t have This couldn’t have gone better. We’re so, so thankful that you took time out of your very, very busy day to do this. So on behalf of Michael myself, we say thank you and we will see everyone on the next episode. So Thanks, Michael.

Michael Hall 35:30
Thank you. It was a pleasure.

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Prior to becoming a top Chicago real estate broker with Compass, Josh Lipton had careers in private equity and as an attorney. When he made the switch to real estate, he earned CAR’s coveted Rookie Of The Year award, naming him the highest producing first-year broker in Chicago. Two years later he became (and remains) in the top 1% of ALL brokers in Chicago. In this episode Josh talks about why he visited college campus in his first year which resulted in 70+ rentals, how he uses Facebook lists to stay connected to clients, why he orders a pre-inspection for his sellers, and a dozen other strategies that brokers can implement today to increase production!

Josh Lipton can be reached at jl@compass.com and 312.504.5409

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made for Chicago real estate brokers by Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host do the show. And this is our first interview of 2019. So Happy New Year, everyone. And we have Josh Lipton, who we’re going to be bringing on in just a few moments. Before we get to Josh, couple of quick points. We were recently listed in in a a website’s list of very best real estate podcasts. So we’re really honored and grateful to be have been included. And thank you if someone’s submitted us, and we appreciate that or however they found us. It’s great. And we do get a lot of fan emails and support from all over the country. So if you’re not in the Chicagoland area. Please keep listening because the lessons and strategies that you’re hearing from Chicago brokers can apply anywhere else that you’re practicing real estate. Also, please remember, you can always find us in every episode we’ve ever done on our website, keeping it real pod.com. Also, please like us on Facebook, we post links to every episode, as well as links to some of the items we discussed in each episode on our Facebook page. So do a search for keeping it real pod that is us as well. And remember to tell a friend, we have grown this audience spending no money on marketing only through the ears of our listeners who then are nice enough to tell other people about the show. So please continue to do that. We really greatly appreciate it. And our show continues to increase in popularity. So thank you to everyone who listens and shares and now on to our interview with Josh Lipton.

Today on the show we have compass Realtor Josh Lipton. Since entering the real estate business in 2014. Josh has quickly transcended from being named Rookie of the Year by Chicago Association of Realtors in the city of Chicago to a top 1% producer by his third year in the business. Now with almost five years experience in the industry lifted as close to 140 real estate transactions, representing more than 80 million in sales placing him in the top 1% of all agents in Chicago by Chicago Association of Realtors, and in 2018 was selected by crane cranes as one of the most influential real estate brokers in Chicago 2018 Lipton closed 40 transactions totaling nearly 27 million in sales, and finished as the number 16th top producing agent within compass and it’s 550 agents in Chicago as a licensed attorney with experience in real estate, capital markets and private equity. Josh is armed with a unique skill set has built a reputation as a resourceful agent with a vast network and ability to identify off market listings and development opportunities for his residential and commercial clients. Who are looking at both established and emerging neighborhoods throughout Chicago. Josh and his wife Jordan reside in Roscoe village where proud parents to their five month old daughter Lenny. So welcome, Josh.

Josh Lipton 3:34
Hey, thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

D.J. Paris 3:36
We should also tell listeners how we met because this is kind of a funny, a funny story. We were I might my mother was in town for business. And we met at an Italian restaurant, and I was late. And you are also not there. But my mom started chatting up your mother and your father who just happened to be sitting in the bar waiting for their table. And then I started talking to your parents. And your dad asked me what I did. And then he said, Oh, my son’s in real estate. And then you walked in a few minutes later. And then coincidentally, Josh goes, Oh, yeah, I think you guys had reached out to me to be on the podcast. And so here we are. I mean, it was just that was a really wild coincidence.

Josh Lipton 4:18
Yeah, I like I like to refer to that as a collisions of life. And coincidentally, that’s similar to how I’ve actually met some of my best clients in the stage. When you’re least expecting it just randomly. start chatting somebody up in the bar, but I guess I could tell you now DJ, yes, you were late and I was later than you. But that was actually all staged. I intentionally had my parents start talking to you. And I knew exactly who you were. They knew you. Yes. Mission accomplished. Because here we are a week later. I’m on your show. That was all set up. I’m glad you’d like to think it was coincidence, but it worked out perfectly.

D.J. Paris 4:57
So well. I will say on you and your siblings behalf because I met your brother and your sister as well. And and your brother I think flew in from California. And the reason everyone was was there was it was your mom’s birthday. Yeah. So or Yes. And it was very, it was actually very sweet. And I will tell you before you got there, she was so excited that you guys were coming to celebrate. And anyway, it was it was it was a it was actually really kind of fun to watch. And then you walked in, and then we were just talking before it and your sister and I looked at each other. And we feel like we had even met before, although we haven’t figured out how that how we had. But anyway, um, let’s talk about you. Obviously, this is really excited to have you on the show. And we had reached out even before and tell us how did you get involved in real estate? what’s your what’s your background there?

Josh Lipton 5:42
Yeah, sure. What’s coming out of college, I’ll give you the cliff notes here. Sure. I graduate from business school, downtown Bloomington, Indiana. So naturally, I followed the finance path and found myself working in banking in Chicago, for JPMorgan Chase. And then I took an opportunity in Manhattan where I was working for a company called Madison Realty capital. It’s a real estate private equity fund. That was in 2008. Things were great until come 2009. I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but the market kind of took a dip. And I have found myself out of work. And there weren’t many jobs we had at that time. So I decided to go back to law school, which was always in the cards, but I didn’t really want to do it straight out of college, I wanted to get a life experience, work experience and kind of understand why I want to do it, not just do it to prolong working. Although at the time, it seemed like a great idea. So I did just that and actually went back to Bloomington and got my law degree graduate and top of my class thinking that, you know, here I was with, with great work experience prior to law school, now I’m a lawyer, I’m gonna move back to Chicago, everybody’s gonna want to hire me to write my own ticket, start 2012 graduate law school in arguably one of the worst legal economies in the history of the profession, and couldn’t find a job in the traditional law firms. So I started calling my contacts from my previous days and banking, private equity and ended up working in a dual capacity role at Cantor Fitzgerald in Chicago in their CMBS group, where, you know, here I was half the old guy, also a lawyer, so I could I could handle third party legal diligence. So that translates into about 120 hours of work a week sitting at a desk all day, sure, man, and all the corporate nonsense that comes with it. Really having no quality of life, and dreading getting up in the morning every day. Let’s go to the office. So one day, I just got burned out sitting, sitting at my desk and one of my colleagues, it’s like, man, you’d be really good at selling residential real estate, I kind of laughed it off, because I never really thought of that. Sure. Though, I had a lot of friends in the industry. Who did and I constantly be sending them referrals like Oh, call him call her right, and not realizing how much money I’ve just given away. So my buddy at work, told me, which I didn’t know he’s like, Oh, you’re a licensed attorney. So you’re exempt from all the classes like you just go straight to take the test. You just take the exam and do it. I’m like, Oh, that’s cool. So you know from my desk, it was on a Wednesday, I remember vividly, I Googled Chicago real estate exam sign up to take it on Friday thinking, No, I won’t pass it. But at least I’ll know how to prepare if I actually want to do so I take it on Friday. Somehow I passed and quit my job in one day. Wow, jump jump right in, joined a top producing team and really haven’t looked back since it’s definitely proven to be one of the best decisions I’ve made. And it was it was definitely a leap of faith at the time and kind of just went on a whim and a life epiphany but couldn’t be happier that I did it. Well, we really

D.J. Paris 9:09
should go back to the car Rookie of the Year award because that is such a big deal. You know, for those who are listening, who maybe are members of a different organization, if you’re a Realtor you might be with Main Street or or short Barrington car is is the biggest one here in the city and 1000s of brokers join it every year who are rookies and for you to to achieve that award is a huge, huge, huge deal. I can’t I can’t overstate that to our listeners. So everything Josh says going forward listen and do because he was able to knock it out of the park in his very first year and of course every year since as well. But to be even a top one percenter by your three is incredible. And out of all the people we’ve interviewed on the show, all of them who are top one percenters, very few of them made it within their first you know, three years. So huge congratulations to you. Which obviously, you already know how big a deal that is, but just want to make sure the listeners can really appreciate that. But let’s talk about, you know, your early days when when you first started, how did you go about finding clients? I mean, you don’t have the traditional real estate background, you didn’t grow up wanting to do this necessarily. So what how did you build your business?

Josh Lipton 10:26
So one of the first things I did when I when I first jumped in and you know, here I was, I didn’t know how to get get clients. Sure. I had a big network, and I ran in many different circles. But you know, generating business people buying selling renting homes was was challenging. So I actually had this idea at the time where I would go back to where I went to college, and Bloomington and other big 10 universities. And I would go speak at fraternities and sororities, I started at nine, then I went next door, and I worked my way down,

D.J. Paris 11:07
just went down Jordan Avenue with all the all the fraternity.

Josh Lipton 11:12
Jordan, yeah, it was the easiest pitch ever. Because if you think about it, the big 10 specifically Indiana, of course, Michigan, Wisconsin, Notre Dame, all the schools, you know what percent of graduating seniors already know that they’re moving to Chicago, they would accept that job. And they’ll be there are they are three, four hours a week, just far enough away, where they’re not going to come in on the weekend to look at apartments, they don’t know where they’re going to live. And I would go speak on Sunday, I I’d order some pizzas, I bring in some beer, and only allow the ones who are available. And asked for five minutes, you get up in front of everybody, and just say, hey, here I am, you know, my name is Josh Lipton. I’m a real estate agent, you’re here, you’re moving to Chicago, you need to find a place now, because they don’t know how it works. Of course, you know, let me be your eyes and ears, you don’t even have to come into the city, I could send your listings, you know, tell me what you’re looking for where you want to be what you want to pay, do you have a roommate, yada, yada, I get all the criteria, and then they would come in for a weekend I line everything up, and we land a great apartment. Because otherwise, if they wait till they graduate in June or July, everything’s already picked over. You know, they’re gonna they’re gonna end up overpaying for something that doesn’t check all the boxes and neighborhoods that don’t want to be in. And the best part about it is, hey, you know, this is free. You don’t pay me anything, I’m getting paid for the paper, the landlord, the owner, let me do everything for you. Let me find you the best place the best deal. And you sit here and enjoy your last semester of college and know that you have an awesome place to live and come back. So I did that. And it was a huge success. And, you know, getting up and speaking in front of 100 girls or sorority

D.J. Paris 12:56
was that’s yeah, that’s I yeah, that’s something that

Josh Lipton 13:00
around the sign in sheet, get everybody’s name, number and follow up. And the first six months in the business, I knocked out 76 rent on. And you know what people don’t realize people kind of, you know, scoff at it rentals. But, you know, renters turn into buyers, buyers turn into sellers. Yeah, and that’s how you, you know, that’s how you grow your business. And even to this day, you know, I don’t, you know, I’ll take a rental every day if I can, but you know, I don’t do any rentals anymore. But you know, you gotta remember, it’s a relationship business. And people remember, you know, the service you provided on the rental side, and when they’re ready to buy their first home. But do you think they’re calm? And then when they’re ready for a step up home and ready to sell the other one? You’re You’re top of mind and things just kind of took off from there and evolved from there. And it was such a simple, no brainer concept. And it was fun, too.

D.J. Paris 13:49
Yeah, that’s, that’s such a great strategy. Well, that’s really, really smart. And we are, I think it’s easy for people listening or brokers to forget how lucky and fortunate we are that we live in a city that number one, number one has the ability to do rentals and make a living, but also and you’ve been in New York, it does not work that way. In New York, you you know, if you’re working with it with a broker, you’re paying the renter is paying that commission, whereas we’re lucky here where it’s the property management company or the owner that’s paying the Commission, the renter doesn’t pay. So that’s a really important point. It’s, you know, it’s an easy,

Josh Lipton 14:23
not a very difficult sale.

D.J. Paris 14:24
No, it shouldn’t be, but very smart. And, boy, I wish I you know, every almost every single person we’ve interviewed on the show started out doing rentals in some capacity, because of course, they didn’t have a ton of friends that were buying and selling right away. So and then, you know, obviously those people, like you said, turned into buyers and then buyers turn into sellers. So really, but you know, but prior to being a broker, you know, you talked about being in banking, in private equity. Obviously, going then on to becoming an attorney. How was your experience in the legal education you had help? You know how helps you in your career as a realtor. Has there been any, any connections you you’ve made there?

Josh Lipton 15:05
Yeah, sure. Well, you know, I think any education, whether that’s an MBA or a JD or other designations, or certifications, you know, I think they’ll help, I think they will add value anything to do to set yourself apart and put something behind your name and the credential. Certainly, you know, if anything, it gives you credibility and makes you stand out amongst other realtors and life experience to you know, that there’s nothing more valuable than that. And, you know, previously, you know, when I was working more on the banking side of private equity I was working on much larger 1020 30 $40 million commercial transactions, multifamily office retail. So that, you know, having that skill set to, you know, allows me to kind of look at deals and analyze deals through a different lens, when I’m working with a developer or builder who’s looking for a particular piece of land, being able to look at it and see its true potential and what you could build, or a value add opportunity, where maybe changing the zoning, and, and adding few floors or, or yada yada, it just offers a different perspective that, you know, affords me the opportunity to kind of work with a with a wider clientele, not just buyers and sellers, but also investors, builders, developers, and and then the legal component, too. I think, certainly, if anything that, you know, teaches you how to think trains you how to think objectively, and others, there’s many, many synergies between, you know, being in real estate and law, especially with agency and contracts. And no, it definitely has benefited me greatly.

D.J. Paris 16:53
I was curious to to know, is it I don’t know, how much, you know, depends on the type of law that that one would practice. But how would any of the negotiation skills used when you were practicing law? You know, as a full time career, it hasn’t had any of those translated over?

Josh Lipton 17:11
Yes, I think so. Just Well, you know, of course, I can’t give away all my secrets, you know, I think, again, just, you know, being able to think objectively and strategically, you know, while maintaining, obviously, obviously, ethics and morals, you know, certainly benefited me in dual agency roles, where I’m representing the buyer and the seller. Sure, in terms of putting up the, the Chinese wall there. And I think, you know, sometimes buyer’s or seller’s are uncomfortable with a dual representation, but sure, then, you know, then knowing that I’m a lawyer as well. Right. And it held you to that level of professionalism as well, if anybody could do it, they know that I know, the boundaries on that. And, and, you know, how to represent both both interests? Equally. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 18:08
And I think, you know, talking about your clients, your business, which and you and I talked about this actually at the restaurant was, briefly, we talked about, you know, how you’ve built your business, and I know that it’s, you know, it’s largely driven by referrals and repeat clients and you spend, essentially no money, very little money on traditional marketing efforts. For example, a lot of brokers, you know, purchases, you know, Zillow, Trulia leads, realtor.com leads, etc, you really don’t do that, how have you been able to continue that upward trajectory, as opposed to other you know, brokers, who, that’s where they focus their, you know, their, their marketing dollars? How have you been able to do it without that? Yeah. So,

Josh Lipton 18:48
you know, at the end of the day, everybody has their own style, and what works for me might not work for somebody else, and vice versa. And early on in my career, I did dabble a little bit in buying Zillow leads for short time. And, and actually, from an ROI standpoint, I did very well in converting them just I didn’t really enjoy the practice and having to wait for that call and then trying to establish rapport and, and look up the property real quick and try to convert it to a warm lead. You know, I just I prefer growing my business organically through my own sphere of influence and, and past clients, and really just double down on those relationships. And, you know, call people that already know me, like me, trust me, rather than spending 1000s of dollars a month buying internet leads, which can be very, you know, very, you can make a lot of money doing it. I know a lot of people that do and you know, good for them, they’ve mastered the craft and like I said, you know what’s works for them, and doesn’t necessarily work for me, but I’d rather rather than spending that money every month, and I’d rather take a bunch of clients out there. Under call it all client just to catch up not even look at your business go by mistake of taking a ballgame, send them really thoughtful personalized gifts, because the little things are what clients remember. And you know also to, aside from, you know, always staying front and center during the transaction after the transaction is most important. Absolutely, I’ll just staying in their lives and being a part of their lives. And it’s funny to this day, a few of my best friends actually started off as clients who either referrals are actually one I met in the lobby of my building at a time where I was where I was renting several years ago. And we struck it off, he actually was with another agent at the time and wasn’t had the best experience. So he asked me for my card and called me later and fast forward about two years he stood up my wedding. Oh, my gosh.

D.J. Paris 20:57
That’s yeah, that’s, that’s, that is amazing. I think too, it’s, it’s, I’ll give a quick tip. And this is actually courtesy of Ryan de April, who does a monthly coaching episode with us. He’s gives such a great suggestion if, if brokers who are listening are wondering, Well, gosh, you know, staying in touch with someone after the sale, in theory is really great. But what do I say when I call and Ryan had a great suggestion that it’s probably, I don’t know why I would have never occurred to me. But he said, If you don’t, you know, have a reason to call somebody he goes, if you’re connected with them on social media, whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, you know, go through, see what they’ve been up to, in particular, like LinkedIn is a good one. Because if there’s a new career change, usually that’s highlighted, but just see what they’ve been doing in their lives and then call them. And for example, I just saw that the owner of our company, his wife just had an emergency appendix removal a couple days ago, and he didn’t even say anything to us at the time. But I saw that that she did. And so I immediately reached out because we’re friends as well. But I said, Oh my gosh, Natalie is in the hospital. And again, meet her you probably want to call with with more for other reasons that are more positive. But that’s a great a great technique. If you’re not sure, oh, gosh, I sold this person a home three years ago, I don’t really know what’s going on in their life. Go online and see if you can find some events, and then call them and say, Hey, I just saw you did X, Y, and Z and just wanted to reach out and say, you know, how you doing? And

Josh Lipton 22:22
that is great. I did I actually remember listening to Ryan’s episode on that and piggybacking his idea, let me take it a step further. And then dude, right. Yeah, episode. So, actually, through Facebook is because as you know, you have 1000s of Facebook friends, though, you probably only know about 20% of them, right? So I’m just sorting through looking at everybody’s updates and posts. And you’re like, how do we know that person or you don’t even know. So you have the ability on Facebook to create lists. So you can create lists only of people that you want to see. So you could put all your clients and business partners for anybody that you either do business with want to do business with, or think you might do business one day, and make it so you only see their feeds, so then you really know what’s going on in their lives and you don’t miss it when you’re sorting through the hundreds of other feeds that you know people that you don’t really care what’s going on their life because you don’t have a relationship.

D.J. Paris 23:18
Oh, that’s such a great idea. That is that that really takes that suggestion to the next level. So thank you for that. And I will be referencing you on future future episodes. Because that’s awesome. Aside from from what we’ve already talked about, what is something about you This is putting a little bit on the spot, but what’s something that most people don’t know about you or would be surprised to learn about your business?

Josh Lipton 23:40
I think most people are surprised by really how much this is buyers and sellers, you know, how much I enjoy and get into and and get, you know, hands on approach with the whole design build element. Oh, and you know, being able to really walk into a listing and and see its true potential. And, you know, whether that means you know, light upgrades or full gut on full gut renovations you know, I offered that insight this might have something to do with you know, growing up the son of an interior designer kind of grew up around it right.

D.J. Paris 24:16
That’s that’s your mom.

Josh Lipton 24:19
Yeah, there’s certainly there’s certainly buyers out there who you know, want to buy something turnkey or brand new where they don’t have to lift the finger or do any work. You know, but for the buyers who are willing to get their hands dirty, you know, I tell them you can either buy someone else’s value their dad or you could add it yourself and make it your own you know, in the process of doing so. So you know, whether that’s for a buyer after a purchase or you know when I’m when I’m prepping a listing to sell you and I walk through you know I’m in the trenches every day so I know what buyers like and what they don’t like and you know where they’re going to push back and kind of naturalistic down and, you know, I like to, you know, go go in there and suggest anything from No, like renovations to countertops or floors, or, you know, just making the listing as showroom ready as possible. And then, you know, in doing so you’re maximizing the value. So, you know, if the, of course, every seller out there, you know, one of the struggles is, you know, every seller thinks that their home is worth more than it actually is, of course. But, you know, sometimes you have to spend money to make money. And, you know, after we do it, you know, sellers, I was like, Man, I wish I would have done this sooner, so I could actually enjoyed it. You know, if another adage, I like to say is, you know, if it makes dollars makes sense. And I think this past year, I had at least, at least five or six, pretty much full on gut renovations were sort of situations where I was like, alright, well, if we list today, you can sell it for x, though, if you spend, you know, however much comes to you can sell for y and sing it on paper, it really, it’s kind of one of those like aha moments, and, you know, sellers totally placed their trust and confidence in me in my ability to really maximize the value and see its true potential and, you know, then you can really tell the story of the value added when you’re going to sell it, you know, always make sure to take a lot of pictures before the before and after. So you can justify why you’re selling for X amount more. Because otherwise buyers gonna walk in and be like, alright, so I see what it looked like when you bought it, it looks the exact same, you didn’t do anything aside for maybe a little market appreciation, what justifies you looking for this number. So the reality is dudes not only going to sell for more money, but you’re going to sell quicker, so less carrying costs, and in and out a deal a lot faster. And,

D.J. Paris 26:46
you know, if you’re a realtor out there listening to this episode, and you’re hearing what Josh is, is talking about, and again, Josh has only been a Producing Realtor for five years. So he’s accumulated. And again, you you had some little some of this information from, from previous careers. But really, you know, you learn this very quickly and very successfully. And if you’re a realtor listening, and you don’t have this information, you know, just imagine going up against Josh and a listing presentation, he’s gonna win, because he knows he knows some of that. So I would encourage everyone listening to really develop that skill set of knowing how to walk into a home and saying, okay, here are the five things that absolutely need to be done to being able to justify whether it’s a full gut rehab, or just you know, replacing, you know, a door or window or some floor

Josh Lipton 27:30
and take it, you know, just going on that to you, and we’re having those conversations and try and decide, should we do this, or should we not do this, right? I like to live kind of 8020 rule. I didn’t invent this, obviously, you know, I like to ask the seller or tell the seller, well, you know, it’s if 100 People walk through that door, as long as 80 people are going to walk into like, oh, wow, you know, I like that paint color. I like those new counters that light fixtures Great, then do it. If it’s questionable, you’re not sure then. Don’t do it.

Unknown Speaker 27:59
Yeah. A great.

Josh Lipton 28:02
Gotta keep in mind, this is actually kind of funny, when we’re doing this sometimes like, oh, I don’t really like that. You know, I don’t like that pink color. Yeah, I don’t like that. That’s not my style. And I kind of just last because it’s like, I don’t care if you like it or not, we need to appeal to the masses. Right about whether you like you’re selling this, you want other people to like it. So yeah, you got to deal with it for a little bit. You know, just just trust me and you’ll be gone. In no time.

D.J. Paris 28:25
Yeah, I just read a funny idea. And I don’t know if I don’t actually know if this would translate into into sales or not. But I was reading a real estate marketing idea list yesterday and somebody broker from somewhere had a great or interesting idea where she said, You should put one interesting removable object in every home and what she does is she puts a Giant Buddha statue that’s kind of silly looking. And she places it, you know, somewhere in like the living room and she just brings it from let’s do the listing. And, and she goes the reason I do it is people remember, this is silly Buddha thing. And it doesn’t get in the way of somebody not wanting to buy the home. But she’s she said, Oh, it’s just something that you know, maybe if they seen five homes that day, they remember the big silly Buddha statue and they, you know, so I don’t know if that’s a that actually.

Josh Lipton 29:14
Anything to make your listing memorable. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 29:18
Speaking of buyers and sellers, you know, what advice do you would you give because we don’t just have Realtors listening, we do have buyers and sellers. And the reason I know this is because oftentimes people that we’ve had interviewed on the show, come back to me like a month later and go, Oh my god, I got a few sales people, somebody listened and then they contacted me. So for those that are listening, who aren’t real estate professionals, but maybe have have some questions, you know, what advice would you give to them? You know, right now, if they don’t have a realtor that they’re working with,

Josh Lipton 29:51
you of course will on the buy side, you know when when you’re looking for a realtor to represent you and purchasing a property. I would say the most important thing hands down is really get to know each other on a, on a personal level, make sure you like each other personally, because you’re going to be working really closely together professionally. And if you don’t get along personally, yeah, you’re not gonna get along professionally, and it’s not going to get an easier because a lot of time together, you’re going to be having a lot of, you know, personal conversations, and you’re gonna make difficult situations, and it’s emotional. And it’s, it’s, you know, it’s a grind. So make sure you really connect on a personal level. And, you know, your your interests are aligned with your agents, business practices, and, you know, ask as physical, asking difficult questions, you know, before you, you decide you’re gonna work with somebody, you know, vet them to make sure you fully understand what they’re going to do for you. And set expectations from beginning. You know, do you want an agent who’s only going to? Have you ever had a 10 minute conversation, ask you a few questions and set up an MLS search and then just sit back on their heels waiting for you to flick interested or not interested or telling you to go look at something? No, I mean, me personally, I don’t really believe in MLS searches. I think that’s kind of, you know, a lazy way to go about finding properties for your agents, sure, I have to sign up for particular clients, and they go to me, and I sift through all the garbage, because I don’t want to just bombard my clients with a daily email where you know, 90% of properties, they’re like, why is he sending me these properties? And all it is wire? Why are people getting them? That’s because their agent is lazy search the time. So I told my clients, when I send them something, know that it’s, you know, hand selected, and I thought it would, it would actually be a good fit for you. And, you know, also you want to make sure that whoever you’re working with, say you’re looking in the West overvolt market, make sure that they know the area, right, make sure they’ve done business they’ve they’ve sold, they represented buyers and sellers in the area, they have their pulse on the market. And aside from MLS, you want someone who’s connected with other brokers amongst the industry has a good reputation that shares off market opportunities, packet listings, before they hit the market. So you know, your agent can get you in the door, before you have any competitions, avoid any multiple offers. And, you know, really, at the end of the day, you want to know what they’re gonna do to make it happen. You know, are they sometimes there’s buyers who want a really particular listing that doesn’t come up often or in a particular building that doesn’t see many resales. And you know, your agent could either sit there and look at the MLS every day or you know, sometimes you got to take the initiative and go, you know, scrolling scrubbing the castle, that expired listing, see who’s tried to sell in the last couple of years, but maybe they didn’t forever reason, attract on the phone number call the sellers directly, see if they’re still in the market. Because, you know, at the end of the day, everybody’s a seller, everything in this world is for sale for the right price. Sure. And you know, that seller, maybe they’re not interested, maybe they change your mind, but they’re gonna remember that you took the initiative for that buyer. And when the time comes, that they are ready to sell, what do you think we’re gonna call it right? So you know, and then

on the list side, too, you know, other than, you know, the same thing, just simply listing on MLS, you know, I sellers, listing presentations, you know, you’re not just hiring somebody to list your property, you’re hiring somebody to sell it and actually be there and strategically market it and keep it front and center. And you’re not just sitting back waiting for the phone ring or someone to schedule a showing and put the home on lockbox, which also is one thing that I don’t believe in, you know, if somebody’s hiring me to sell their home, you’re getting me if it’s not me, someone on my team is gonna be there and actually sell the home. And, you know, one thing too, that people overlook is you’re not only selling the home, you’re you’re selling a lifestyle, a quality of life, you’re selling the neighborhood. So you need to know, everything that’s going on in the area, you know, you need to know what’s in walking distance things to do places to eat, you know, is there new construction going on how far from public transportation grocery stores, you know, all attributes of the home because they’re not just buying the, the bricks and you know, the the actual unit they need, you need to sell it on the location, what life would be like, living in that area. And one other thing too, you know, when you’re, you know, that I think it’s smart that all sellers should do. I think it’s always smart for a seller to do a pre MLS home inspection. Have your own inspection conducted before and you know, be proactive and identify any potential issues that a buyer is going to because the reality is, if you do that, sure, you’ll spend a few $100 on a home inspection and then you could make the fixes that others are going to find. You know, then you eliminate your buyers coming in. because reality is, they always think it’s more expensive to fix something that might only, you know, be a $20 fix or an extra 200. Right. So you’re always gonna see a return on that. And you’d have the peace of mind that you already know the inspection. Yeah, there’s no surprises. Yeah, yeah. And then lastly, just, you know, I can’t stress enough about you know, pricing. And, you know, pricing it appropriately, the first time out of the gate, right, and just overpricing a listing is going to backfire. 10 out of 10 times, exactly. It’s just gonna rack up market time, you’re gonna end up doing price reductions, or you’re gonna cancel it and relisted, though that doesn’t really fool anybody, because you can see the listing history for him. So, you know, you don’t want to over promise and under deliver, because statistically, sellers are going to get their best offer than the first two or three weeks on the market.

D.J. Paris 35:52
Yeah, no, you’re you’re so right. And, again, the the other reason why it backfires, too, is then the realtor looks like they didn’t do a good job for the seller, by allowing that over price, you know, to go live, so,

Josh Lipton 36:06
yeah, totally. And of course, you can’t you can’t avoid the the sellers who, you know, are, you know, they want to try, sometimes we’re not off by much, and they want to push it a little. And sometimes, course, depending on the inventory in the market, you know, I’ll agree to do it. You know, if it’s within reason, if it’s an egregious, you know, stretch where I know, it’s completely unrealistic, you know, I’ll just pass on that listing, because there’s a lot of realtors out there, discount brokers who will take that listing Sure, and, you know, knowing that it’s overpriced, but they think they’ll be able to get price reductions, price reductions. But that’s not really a practice, I like to I like to go in there. Well,

D.J. Paris 36:47
it’s just, it’s a huge waste of your time, possibly. And then also, it you know, the, the owner is more likely to blame the realtor

Josh Lipton 36:55
when it doesn’t sell. So, you know, but it’s an extra $10,000. And I say we do it, you know, I’ll do it. But you know, we got to set the expectation at that moment, and let the seller know, all right, we’re gonna do this, but you set a timeframe. If we don’t have any serious interests, or offers and call it two or three weeks, we’re gonna scale back a little bit and remind them that we’re having, we’re having this conversation now. So when in three weeks, I tell you, we need to reduce the price, you know, don’t think it’s because I can’t sell it, or that was my fault. Right? Yeah, you’ve made it to get that in writing.

D.J. Paris 37:27
Yeah, that’s, that’s true. What do you think distinguishes you and in your, your business, your practice, from the gosh, almost 40,000 other realtors in the Chicagoland area? What? How would you answer that?

Josh Lipton 37:40
I think, you know, people are so focused on and the actual real estate, they overlook the human element in the people. And you got to remember, this is a relationship business. And I think clients really appreciate my, my brutal honesty, authenticity, patience, and, you know, tenacity and my follow through. And, you know, really, I just, you know, whether looking to the buyer or seller, you know, I, I make it a point, and I don’t tell my clients necessarily what they want to hear, but I tell them what they need to hear, you know, I’m not just going to try to sell them on a property to make a quick sale. You know, although we are in the sales, business, buyers and sellers, they don’t necessarily want to be sold, when making such a huge, life changing decision in their life, you know, they want to know that their agent is genuinely looking out for the best interest and not just looking to make a quick sale and move on to the next deal. And, you know, it’s unfortunate, so many realtors in our industry, we have a stigma for being pushy and salesy, and I think my clients really just find it refreshing to learn that that’s, that’s not how I conduct my business. And, you know, I’m not in their face all the time. And I’m not just trying to make a commission. But at the same time, you know, I’m ready to move as, as quickly as they are, when when the time is right, or when the property is right. You know, I’m not afraid to tell them, you know, no, I don’t care if you’re busy, we need to go through this. Now, this is exactly what you want. You know, if you don’t see it, you’re gonna miss out on it. So I think you just, you know, being being totally candid and honest and genuine. And lastly, you know, when working with buyers, too, you got to be respectful of their time, I’m not just going to take a buyer out and show him 10 properties when, when I know they’re genuinely only going to like two or three or maybe only only a few of them are going to check most of the boxes that they want to see. I’m going to take a buyer out and there’s only a few we’re going to see, we’re only going to see you know, there are only a few that really worked for this particular client and I think have legitimate interest in being the one we’re only going to see those I’m not going to waste my time and wasting my clients time showing them you know, 10 property Just to appease them and say, Oh, well, we sell 10 properties. So, you know, I think you really need to be respectful of people’s time. Because, you know, as busy as I am I, my buyers are busy too. And you only want to put properties in front of them that really have the potential to be the one.

D.J. Paris 40:17
Yeah, and I’ll also give you an additional complement to where I suspect this translates to your clients as well, is in prepping for this podcast, I will tell you that in we’ve Gosh, we’ve interviewed about 80 Top 1% producers and I can say in my memory is not great. But Josh is almost certainly the came the most prepared of anyone that that we’ve ever had on the show and just the amount of information he provided us helped make my job a lot easier than sometimes you know, other realtors make it. And so I will tell you that if he puts this amount of care in I know he does into his clients. That’s Boy, that’s really impressive. I was saying right before we got on, I said, Oh my gosh, I was heaping praise on him for all the all the work he did for us. So again, yeah, I’d hire you.

Josh Lipton 41:14
Let’s talk off here. Now. It’s a really, it’s all about the details. So it’s, so what I do, it’s, well, I love this job. And you know, just as no two clients are the same, no two properties are the same. And no two listing strategies are the same. And I present properties differently. And, you know, each each day is a new challenge and new adventure and, and a new fire drill. Time. So, you know, but it keeps it exciting. And, you know, I wouldn’t trade for anything.

D.J. Paris 41:44
And I have one final question for you. Because you you’re you’re at Compass we’ve we’ve owned because compass is still relatively new to the Chicago market. And they they’re killing it here and pretty much anywhere they’ve opened up shop, but we’ve only had a couple of Compass people. So we’re I’m always excited to hear from somebody who’s who’s moved to compass. Can you talk a little bit about why you why you decided on compass and what your experience has been so far.

Josh Lipton 42:10
Yeah, absolutely. So I moved over to compass last April. Crazy. It’s almost coming up on a year here. Yeah. You know, at the time, I wasn’t, I wasn’t looking to be to be frank. But, you know, I, of course, took the meeting had some conversations and kind of learn what it’s all about. And it turns out that, you know, my my business practices and the way I conduct my business, and, you know, where I see my business going is just totally aligned with Compass and what they’re doing, obviously, now we have almost 600 agents in Chicago. And, you know, we’re in dozens of markets. And, you know, what I love about them too, aside from their, you know, our platform, and our technology, just, you know, basically a one stop shop, platform to conduct business. And, you know, not only do they make it more efficient, and free up my time, you know, to focus on what I do best. And that’s, you know, selling and developing business and networking. But they’re just so forward thinking, and no idea is too big. And, obviously, we’re moving very fast, and our values are totally aligned, and there’s just, you’ll come to the office, it’s fun, there’s tons of energy, and people really enjoyed being here. And everyone’s thinking big and outside the box. And everyone’s collaborating. And, you know, we’re kind of all on this, this mission together. And it’s exciting and you know, Nothing surprises me this company and I wouldn’t I wouldn’t be surprised if not tomorrow I wake up and find out that, you know, X Y or Z Realtors come over or, you know, Amazon bought us who who knows, like, you know, nothing’s off limits and you know, you got you got to think big and and they totally embrace it. And it’s, it’s been exciting. And I’m having fun.

D.J. Paris 44:02
Yeah, just to give you a benchmark so the company I work at so what I do full time is I recruit Realtors not obviously not for compass for different from but it took me doing this literally full time five years to grow from basically from zero to 600. brokers and for companies to come in and do it in like one year is or two years maybe is absolutely incredible. And that’s why I’m so interested to hear you know about your switch over there because obviously, they must have a lot of really compelling cool stuff. So if brokers are listening, you know, you can

Josh Lipton 44:34
always reach out to Josh to get more. Absolutely. I’m happy to share my experience and not trying to poach any agents here. Let me be clear, because again, you know, it’s great for me, it might not be for everybody. But I’m happy to their experience and how it’s helped me. Yeah. Oh, they’re

D.J. Paris 44:51
doing some cool. Yeah. Yeah, but at the same

Josh Lipton 44:54
time, like I said, I came from from Jameson, so I’m sure I have nothing but respect for Those calls over there. It’s a great company, it’s a great brokerage, run from the top down with Chris and Mike and Jen. And, you know, it was a business decision was nothing personal. And you know, we’re still friends to this day, and they respect my decision, and I wish them nothing but the best.

D.J. Paris 45:14
And for anyone listening, whether you’re a realtor who is interested in learning more about Josh’s team, which by the way, we should mention is called Lipton, luxury living, or if you’re interested in learning more about compass, or if you’re a buyer and seller or seller or an investor or renter, or anyone who is like, Gosh, I really don’t have a great real estate professional that and I need one, or I want to develop a relationship so that when I do need when I have somebody, Josh, what’s the best way someone can reach out to you?

Josh Lipton 45:46
My, my cell phone, call text anytime that number is 312-504-5409. And my email is jl@compass.com. So yeah, so on that note, with my team, I actually, you know, we talked briefly about this DJ, um, you know, I am looking to hire and bring on a couple showing agents to join my team and, you know, collaborate together and work together and mentor and support me, but also support them and be a resource in any way possible. So any any newer agents out there looking to be busier, take on more and get some more experience? Give me a call.

D.J. Paris 46:29
And by the way, you know, who wouldn’t want to learn from one of Crain’s Chicago’s most influential residential real estate brokers, I mean, I don’t, I don’t even mean that it being you know, sort of flipper or being silly. Like that is a legitimately amazing credential. So if you’re out there, and you are thinking about, you know, wanting to team up or learn from someone, boy, Josh has a lot of a lot of really impressive accolades in his short five years, in the business, and, and, you know, not the least of which the amazing amount of production he’s done, but just some of the other, some of the other, you know, sort of acknowledgments he’s received in the industry is very, very impressive. And I was, I was super grateful to just have run into you, accidentally, and because typically, you know, look, 99% of the time, if I ran into a realtor, I probably wouldn’t have them on the show, because they’re not in the top 1%. And it just so happened that, that you of course, are and so we’re so grateful that and also, by the way, Josh is too busy to even do these kinds of shows. And yet he found talent time for us, so says a lot about him as a person and his character. And also we’re just very grateful. So if you’re, whether you’re a realtor, or you’re looking to maybe, you know, make a switch, talk to Josh or if you’re a buyer seller, investor, renter, obviously, he would be honored to talk to you as well and tell you more about what he offers, you should also follow on Instagram, you can just do a search for Lipton luxury living but it the actual URL is Lipton underscore luxury underscore living, I’d add Instagram, but just search for it, you’ll find it. Also Josh’s website is Lipton luxury living.com. So you can you can find in there, we’ll post a link post all these links in in the notes. So Josh, I wanted to thank you, I want to thank you for being on the show. This is a real honor for us. And just so everyone knows, Josh was on our invite list from day one. And we just hadn’t gotten to him yet. So this is like really, really perfect timing.

Josh Lipton 48:25
A little hard to get I told you the job. It was planned out perfectly to perfection. You know, it was it was meant the

D.J. Paris 48:33
well it works out great. And I there was so much value in this episode and I’m gonna go back and and highlight some of the the techniques and strategies you outlined to make sure I highlight them in the notes so that people can can take action on those immediately. But anyway, on behalf of Josh and myself, thank you so much for listening. If you are a new listener, please pass this podcast over to other brokers that you know, if you’re an existing longtime listener, we appreciate it and send in your questions. You know, continue to support us find us on Facebook, our website, you know, iTunes, Google Play all those places. So anyway, on behalf of Josh and myself, thank you for listening and we will see you on the next show and Josh thanks again.

Josh Lipton 49:16
Thanks so much for having me, DJ anytime.

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Before becoming a top 1% real estate broker, J. Maggio was a successful futures trader honing his analytical skills that he uses today in his real estate practice. This year, 100% of his business came directly from referrals. In our conversation, J. discusses how and why his listings go under contract 90 days sooner and for 5% more than the market average in Chicago. His uncanny ability to evaluate home values and marketability results in ecstatic clientele who purchase and sell homes fast. Learn how he does it!

J. Maggio can be reached at 312.450.0012 and j.maggio@compass.com.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris. I am your host and guide through the show. Today in just a moment or two, we’ll be interviewing Jay maggio from Columbus, it was a great conversation, you’re really going to love it before we get to J. A couple of quick things. If every listener out there would think of just one other realtor if you’re a realtor, and that you think could benefit from hearing from top 1% producers like Jay and the 75 or so other top producers that we’ve interviewed. Please feel free if you can think of just one of those people to pass this podcast along that would essentially double our listenership, which is already growing and has grown since the very first episode, but we would appreciate it that would open up more opportunities for us. So thank you in advance for sharing it with a friend. Also, please subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. You can find links directly to those on our website, keeping it real pod.com. And lastly, follow us on Facebook also find us by keeping it real pod and we post out links to all of our episodes, as well as other information about the show and about our guests. So again, thank you we are coming into the holiday season. So we’ll continue to make these episodes we appreciate you continuing to listen and onto our interview with Jay Maggio.

Jay maggio is a former futures trader at Chicago’s Mercantile Exchange and the Board of Trade. Jay credits his trading acumen where he honed his analytical skills to his success as an agent. Over the past two years, the majority of Jays listings have sold in their first week on the market for their asking price or more. Jay enjoys being a real estate counselor for his clients helping them to understand everything there is to know about buying and selling he has ranked consistently among cars, top producers and has been honored as an app properties road Rolex recipient, his business is built almost entirely on referrals. And he’s at Compass currently, he began his real estate career in 2010, with a focus on Chicago’s downtown neighborhoods. As his clients families grew and started to leave to go to the suburbs he expanded his focus to include western suburbs where he also specializes. He lives in the western suburbs with his beautiful supportive wife and their four amazing children. He believes in treating everyone like family as he does and giving back to others to involvement with charitable causes like one tale at a time and Charles Tillman’s Cornerstone Foundation. Welcome, Jay Maggio. We really appreciate your your time.

J. Maggio 3:05
Well, thanks for having me.

D.J. Paris 3:07
Yeah, no, thank you. And a couple of things. I definitely I definitely want to get to how quickly you sell homes, because that is unbelievably impressive. But before we get there, I want to hear the sort of origin story or at least I know, our listeners would like to hear how you went from sort of trader to real estate broker? Can you mind sharing that story with us?

J. Maggio 3:25
Sure. Why am I doing this? So when I started traded right out of college, it was like this opportunity. I was like, Alright, I’m going to do it lasted six years, and I just, I guess I got burnt out staring at a computer screen clicking a mouse and, you know, frying my brain every day. So I spent the next nine months in a sales job got married, found out that we were expecting our first and then was approached by actually the real estate agent that helped me buy my first condo in the city and he was more or less interested in to see if I wanted to get into the business kind of work with him, he was going to be moving out of out of the out of state and then wanted to kind of have some sort of way to sort of transition his business to somebody that he knew insurance. And, you know, I always respected how he got business by referral. I had sent him a bunch of referrals. So I you know, I, the timing of it was look, I didn’t like my job, I wanted something that I kind of could create and had unlimited upside with relatively, you know, reasonable risk, if you will. And, you know, I kind of jumped on it. But you know, the funny thing is it was 2000 I got my license December of 2000 No amazing dozen times a year and I and I did it full time with you know, no other income and my first kid and that was you know, an adventure in itself. So I I like to say I learned at probably the hardest time to sell real estate which I credit. You know, some of the successes that I’ve had would you know, in the last five or six years as the more gets recovered fully. And, you know, transition. It’s, I think you build good habits when things are tough. And you know, and you and you learn how to, you know, have tough conversations with people. I mean, this is a highly emotional experience. And I think that’s part of the reason why, although it might sound crazy why I enjoyed doing this, because you know, people need an advocate, I mean, people need to sort of understand, you know, what’s involved in the buying and selling of their primary residence. And that kind of break it down to, you know, something that you know, where you cut the emotion out of, it’s like, okay, is this, this makes sense for us? Yes. Or no, like, whatever, you know, what are we trying to get? You know, Jack, you know, get to what’s your objective?

D.J. Paris 5:40
Yeah, I think that’s true. And obviously, it’s true, because of it’s worked, obviously, for you. Tell us a little bit about the trading background? And how that transition? Like, how did that skill set move over into working directly with buyers and sellers?

J. Maggio 5:57
Well, I think, you know, there’s the analytical, yes. Right, like studying markets having to like, you know, anticipate things, and then there’s just the, you know, it’s, I mean, let’s face it, real estate is a commodity, it’s a different kind of commodity. Because, you know, going back to the emotional component, I always joke around, you know, it’s not like a business where somebody looks at and says, Hey, look, I love this ice cream shop, that’s losing 20 grand a month, but I just wanted to have an ice cream shop in my portfolio of businesses, I’m gonna buy, right. So, you know, it’s one of those things where, like, there’s always something that somebody is sacrificing or making a trade off, no matter what their budget, and, but it’s just highly, you know, you might have one or two people involved, you might have three or four, depending on, you know, somebody’s family dynamics, where, you know, they’re making these decisions. So, piecing it all together, you kind of have to react, you know, you have to kind of analyze things like I would, you know, when I was trading and studying different markets, but then there’s that, you know, you at the end of the day, you say, look, I mean, there’s potentially, you know, one or more buyers, and potentially one or more sellers, for any given transaction, you know, that somebody’s in and, and just how to, like, read the situation, and it’s helped him, really, it helps him negotiate sure, you know, just kind of knowing, you know, you just you do enough of these deals and work with enough people, you know, what the other side feels like, like, no, like, anytime you’re gonna deal, it feels like the other side has the upper hand, if you go back, and you’re kind of remember, like, oh, wait a second, I remember when those sellers were super emotional and freaking out that we hadn’t responded in two hours. So you just, you’re able to leverage both sides of it. And I, you know, I just think there’s a lot of, you know, parallels with, you know, any, any, you know, futures stock, whatever kind of market where, you know, you have to know who’s you know, who the players are, who’s involved, and what the tendencies are of, whatever that commodity is.

D.J. Paris 7:48
Yeah, you know, and I also want to make sure the audience knows that, and you have a number of different designations, but one of those is certified negotiation expert, I’ve always thought I’m not a producing broker myself, but, but I’ve worked with a lot of here at our firm, and obviously, Compass has, has a lot of brokers too. And but I’ve always surprised, I would think that would be if I were producing like one of the better, more useful skills to have I know, if I was out there interviewing realtor to sell my place, or buy a home, I would say, I’d rather have the person that has that, that, you know, those initials, the See, how have you found that to be helpful in your negotiations?

J. Maggio 8:29
Oh, sure. I mean, you know, listen, any specialization or extra designation, you could get, I think, is always, you know, is attractive from, you know, the consumer standpoint. And I, you know, I just always believe in sharpening the sword, like every transaction, you know, I tell, I tell newer agents, like, you know, agents on my team, like, look, you know, you just have to do it, right, like, everyone gets so worried about, like, what do you say to this person? And how do you fill out a contract and all these little things that I suppose nine years into it? I’ve taken for sure. You know, I really think it’s like, every deal, you know, you just learn something, right. And, you know, it goes back to those like, you know, there’s an there’s all these parties involved and you in, they all have different objectives, different personalities, different emotional makeups. And you just, you get info you’d like you’re constantly, you know, getting access to people and knowing how people react and that just helps you for the next one, and then the next one, and then the next one. And, and quite frankly, like as agents, you know, a lot of agents talk too much. Like, they want to tell us all the shots, which is so real, like, I tell my clients, like look, I don’t want to get on the phone and talk to another agent and and give away that you need to keep it like an email or text or whatever. It makes it better for us because then they’re not like asking me like, oh, what’s your, you know, like, you know, your clients going through a divorce or some other weird life situation that could give them any sort of leverage. And I’m just amazed how many agents are just willing to share things that I mean, quite frankly, by the license of our law, you know, or excuse me, the law of our license is, you know, confidential.

D.J. Paris 9:59
Yeah. I am sure Well, you know, realtors love to talk and, and just it’s part of part of the sales, the nature of, you know, being in this business, and for sure they’re giving away information. So I, I’m really, you know, I think, Gosh, we’ve done well, this is I think this will be our 78th episode. So we’ve interviewed a lot of top producers, I don’t think anyone has ever talked about this, the idea of hate counseling their clients on how to, you know, keep, keep the cards close to the vest, which is what you what it really is what your job is to do anyway. But I love that you actually think about that consciously, instead of just, you know, getting the deal closed is like, how do you actually do the very best job for your clients, which include making sure that you’re not, you know, giving things away, by having extraneous conversations with the other the opposing party, or the cooperative opposing party, we’ll call it?

J. Maggio 10:52
Well, there’s like a junior grayer, right, and it’s like, some pizza, like, there’s just things that no one needs to know. And it doesn’t hurt them from not knowing. And I think that’s really important. In a negotiation where, you know, you’re trying to get either the most money for a seller or, you know, the, you know, get the best price for a buyer or a set of terms. And if there’s anything in the slightest way, the compromises. Sure, right. I mean, it’s just not, I’m not sharing and, you know, like, if I get anything in return, you know, that helps us frame a much better negotiation and getting things and there’s, and everyone always thinks is just price, and it’s probably 85% of it. But there’s other little things like maybe a more stress free move out time, right? Sure, you know, just other little things that somebody else may value that you don’t like, but you know, it’s you just have to know what those things are, and hit on them. And, you know, find the right, you know, pain points for the other side. And we’ll go from that.

D.J. Paris 11:50
Yeah, and I want to give, I want to make sure the audience is aware of this as well, because this is really, really super impressive. Aside from Jay, being a top 1% producer, and you can look at his listings he has a lot of homes he is currently selling that are very impressive, in his business, obviously, is very impressive. But in addition to all of that, there’s a couple of stats that are really super impressive. And so everyone needs should perk up right now, because I want to hear more about any sort of ideas you have on why why how you’re able to achieve this. But on average, your average contract is 90 days faster than the market average, which is absolutely incredible. So that’s so super impressive. But then also your closing prices are an average $16,000 More than the market average. So again, I don’t know how much of this you, you, you know, you would say is because of your negotiation expertise, or your animal analyzing the deal. But can you talk a little bit more about why you think you’re able to achieve that?

J. Maggio 12:56
Sure, I mean, I think, you know, I, you know, I love statistics. And I, you know, I dig a lot when I’m, like, you know, putting together a market analysis for a seller, but I honestly like, I mean, there’s a couple things. One is, you know, price price, the prices have been right from the start more often than not, and I believe that as agents, most of them, I mean, like, if we’re doing it right, the most, most of our work is done before we even like put in listing on the market, right? Like, we’re telling our sellers, like, Hey, this is what you need to price it at this is you know, how we need to position it, you know, this is how it needs to, you know, look when it, you know, appears on somebody’s computer or on their phone or wherever they’re looking for properties. And so all of this legwork upfront, right to get you in the best position to sell it. And then if that’s done, more often than not, you’re gonna have better results, which typically means selling it quicker for more money. I mean, you can statistically prove that and I and I talk to clients all the time I go look, every realtor is going to tell you like, the faster you sell, like the, the you know, the more you’re gonna get in, you know, okay, that’s great. I mean, but I want to know, is it provable? And I’ve been, you know, for five years, every single listing I’ve taken as we’ve gone through this exercise, like homes that have sold without dropping their price once always get more money. If you know, as a percent of the you know, the shortlist price than one have to do one or more price drops. So I think that’s part of it, you know, obviously, you know, pricing it right from the start and the other part of it too and, and this is kind of crazy to say but I’ll tell anyone you know, any other agent, any new agent is like, I don’t have to, like work with every single seller that I you know, that wants to work for me. Like I can say no. And quite frankly, I will say no if we’re not aligned on price, let alone other things, right. Like if I don’t like I always say look, I mean, any client gets sort of like, you know, a very high level of access to me for the period of you know that we’re working together, right? Like you can call me text me you know, you’ve got like a pretty straight, you’re not talking to an assistant or somebody on my team and then you’re getting me you get my dream decline, if you will. And in so in exchange for that, like, I expect, you know, you know, like, we have to be on the same page, right, like, I’m not going to just let anybody have that sort of, you know, invasiveness, you know, in a good way. But, you know, so, you know, and that’s, and I think that’s part of it is like being able to say, look, look, if we’re not on the same page about how you need to get your place ready, and how you need to price it. And, you know, I don’t think there’s a point of working together, because I don’t really want to have to call you every week to tell you like, hey, we didn’t have any showings this week, it’s still overpriced. Or, hey, no one likes the fact that the hardwood floors are completely destroyed by your dog or that it smells funny, whatever the thing is, right, the things that we can control, we only have a couple of levers in, in the control process that we can pull on price is usually the biggest one. And sometimes it’s the one you have to pull to overcome certain obstacles. But you know, if we’re, if we get off on the wrong foot, it’s not going to be a good experience for either one. And I don’t want that I’ve taken listings like, that I shouldn’t have taken and they’re too expensive, or they’re just not, they’re not what they should, right. And I don’t have any business trying to sell something like that. And so I think being selective, you know, on who I work with, in from a, you know, like, if we’re not on the same page, I think that’s a big part of it. And it’s not like it’s cherry picking, it’s just like, look, you know, you have a you have a goal, I want to help you achieve that goal. And this is how we do it. And if we’re on the same page, that we’re both going to be happy, right? I want to sell it for more money I get, you know, we all get paid more. Sure. Sure. So

D.J. Paris 16:30
how often do you have to have those conversations where the owner of this is on a list the listing side, of course, the owner might say, well, let’s try it at $75,000 More, whatever that number is to them that would sort of their pie in the sky. Hey, who knows what will happen? And then, you know, you say you don’t, you’d prefer not to drop prices. And you’d rather start out with something, you know, can sell. How often do you have to have those conversations that are those difficult? Or I you said, you know, you’re obviously willing to walk away from a client where you’re not on the same page. But is that is that a common thing? Because obviously, sellers are emotional about the value of their home?

J. Maggio 17:06
Oh, yeah. I mean, I mean, it happens. I mean, it almost happens every right. Sure. Of course, you know, and I think, you know, and I think it’s okay. And I think when I was new, and you know, very green, I would have had, like, you know, like, okay, sure, well, you know, like we have a desire to please but I think, you know, it’s easier to have these conversations now. Because they’re gonna go like, look, I can give you like, five examples of every time I like acquiesced to this, and it didn’t work. And then everyone’s mad. And there are situations, though, that you can get away with being I say, like, you can get away with being sloppy on pricing, right? Like, if you’re in a super constrained market, from an inventory standpoint, you know, the, you know, there’s just times where, like, look, you can, you can have, like, you know, a crummy looking place, but it’s in such a desirable area, and it’s, you know, priced appropriately, like, you’re still gonna get a bunch of interest. So, you know, there’s times where you can get away with it. And I also believe in you know, there’s like pricing tiers, too, and I can’t take credit for this. I you know, Mario Greco. Yeah, pretty sure was in Chicago, and, and I watched, you know, like, it could have been like a video podcast of him talking about, there’s these price tiers, and I fully believe in it, and it’s like, you know, if you’re shopping under 500,000, New Year in kind of every $25,000 increments, right, like, no one’s sitting on their, you know, computer in their underwear in the middle of night, looking at homes on Zillow, you know, up to 487, right? Like, no one stops there, either at 475 or 500. And so I always tell people, like, Look, if you’re priced at for, you know, 47 or 49, you’re missing everyone who’s priced that who’s like, you know, search stops at 475. Like, I just believe you have to be at the sort of like bookends, if, and if you’re not missing people like to me, like, flick 479 is like the dumbest price. And it makes zero sense. Like you, everyone knows that you will give up $4,000 For the right, right, exactly. And so you’re just gonna sit there for $4,000 blind, if you will. So, I just so like, those conversations are easier to have, as you know, you have more experience, you have more knowledge, you just, you know, just it’s all about confidence and how to sell homes. It’s not, it’s not rocket science, it’s more of it’s just being able to tell people like look, I you know, like, this isn’t gonna work. And I and I, if you want to go another direction on price at high, that’s okay. And I’ve seen it you know, where you don’t get the listing because they you know, want to go with someone who thinks it’s worth more than it does right now. And it is what it is.

D.J. Paris 19:38
Yeah. And you’re right. And that’s why it’s so interesting. So being that we do have listeners I believe, who are newer to the business from what the Fed the emails that come in, and you are somebody who did it full time out of the gate. New Family is starting at the same time, which is not easy to do any of those things. How often It’s so sad. And by the way, in one of the worst times of the market, so like all of that together is a perfect combination for failure in most cases. In your case, it obviously didn’t work the other way. So can you tell just a little bit about, you know, you talked about building great disciplines during that initial time? What did you do in your first year? Not production wise, but what did you do to stay? You know, moving forward? Like, what were your activities? Do you remember from nine years ago?

J. Maggio 20:25
Well, I mean, I think, you know, as guilty as any new agent is, you know, you do a lot of things that you learn, don’t necessarily produce the results you want, right, you meet random people and properties, like in the middle of the night, in neighborhoods, you’re not even familiar with, you know, you, you do a bunch of a, you know, you meet a bunch of people like that want to look at rentals that are also looking at drugs listed doing all these other things, and you kind of run around a little bit, you know, like a chicken with its head cut off. But you, you just kind of learn. I mean, it’s all people, right? It’s all relationships. I mean, the one thing that I’ve done consistently over almost a decade now is just try to stay top of mind with the people that know me, and then, you know, build, build a confidence in them, like, look, this is our go to real estate expert, right? Like it just no matter what, this is off the keys the person, like if we ever have real estate questions we ever need anything we call and so it takes discipline of, you know, you know, marketing and staying top of mind and sending out emails and postcards. And, you know, cubs Sox magnets, right, we all do it. But I like, to me, it’s like, if I don’t do those little things, right, like quarterly check ins, and you know, just little things like, you know, anniversaries and birthdays and stuff like that, you know, just stuff that normal people that have a genuine care for people do, you know, it’s easy to, you know, you you get sidetracked and it might not be the sexiest thing in the world to like, write 400 handwritten notes, like in the third quarter, you know, when you’d rather go play golf, or whatever you want to do, but you just do it. And, and that’s the thing, like I told my agents all the time, like, you just have to, like, you know, start small, right? Like there’s, you have a bunch of friends, you’ve got family, you’ve got people that you’ve worked with it to some capacity. And you’ve got, you know, people that know you Right, right, stay top of mind to that, tell them that you’re in real estate, tell them why you’re doing and tell them what you’re focusing on and like, just be there for them. Right? And then you just check in. And it’s not, it’s not painstakingly hard. And so I just have maintained a discipline to doing that. And it’s just the stories that I can tell you just how it works out. I mean, like, I just got an email yesterday from some agent that said, Hey, your clients came by my open house, they seem to really like it. And you know, just kind of curious, you know, can you give me some feedback? I was like, I don’t, I don’t know who was looking at neighborhood at that price point. I know, some past clients around that own a house in Old Town and are maybe thinking about moving. But like they just gave him my name because they didn’t want to be bothered by him. And they knew like if and when they do you know what I mean? Like, it’s just, it just happens, like and I and that’s fine. I don’t need you to call me and tell me you’re going to open houses I you know, I always say like, look, I don’t care where you’re looking at properties. If you’re using like Redfin, or Zillow, or anything like, people make such a big deal. I just care that you call me when you’re making a real estate does.

D.J. Paris 23:16
That’s it? Yeah. And it Yeah, it was funny. I just know, I think I think you’re right, I’ll give you I have two quick stories I thought you’d appreciate. So this just happened to me. So I think about it. Now I have to be careful how I make sure I yeah, I can say so. I was like it’s not anything negative. I just want to make sure it wasn’t gonna hurt anybody’s feelings. But I just got a call from Joel who does our podcast, he’s a guaranteed Rachael shop. Anyway, super nice guy. And in anyway, he’s nice enough to come on once a month talks about rates and whatever. And Joel is just the nicest guy ever. And he called me up a couple of weeks ago. And we’ve just sort of started building a friendship in the last, you know, three or four months really. And Joel, I liked it a lot. And he called me up just recently, and he’s like, Hey, and I was like, Oh, hey, you know, I was thinking, maybe we need to schedule another podcast episode with you. He’s like, no, no, I was just calling to see how you were doing. And he’s like, What do you do for the holidays? What are you doing for you know, for Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc? And so I told him, and he goes, Yeah, I was just checking in, you know, and that was it. Just wanted to see all right, I’ll talk to you later. And we had not really had that kind of, you know, conversation before, it was always more about the podcast or whatever. And I realized I’ve had mortgages before and my mortgage, I’ve had several mortgage people over the last 15 years. Nobody has ever called me Joe’s not even my mortgage guy, but he’s, nobody’s ever called me just to check it. You know, and I think it’s somebody like you were saying, Well, you you know birthday cards and you you know, write personal notes and you give people call it I don’t know that most brokers do that. I don’t think most mortgage brokers do it real estate brokers, insurance, whoever, financial advisors and I think like it’s always the little things and obviously you’re doing a lot of Big things too. But I think it’s really important to like for the listeners to hear these little things are really, really important. You know, staying staying in touch.

J. Maggio 25:09
Yeah, I mean, it goes back to the fact that this is highly emotional. So like, not only do you want somebody who’s competent and successful and knows the market and knows the area and the type of property, right, like, It specializes in that. But you also want somebody that, like, I think genuinely assures, and you know, like, appreciate, you know, like, what it’s going to be like, being in their shoes. I mean, I’ve sold two of our homes now, in the last five years, six years, and we you know, like, each time we either had, you know, we had two kids the first time we sold our house, and then the next house, we had four kids, right? And it’s a pain. Now these are houses, like a two bedroom condo. And so like you’ve got a you know, get the house ready and clean for a showing, and then you gotta get out for an hour. And like, you know, and like even my wife who like, obviously knows what I’m doing. She’s like, I don’t understand these people. And like, listen, and happens all the time. It’s statistical, right? Like, if we just say, hey, it’s five o’clock, and our kids gotta take a nap. We’re not gonna show you it. I mean, what if that’s the one, right? I mean, like, you gotta like, put yourself in the best odds. So, you know, I completely appreciate it. And so like, when I, you know, talk to sellers, I was talking to somebody yesterday, I was like, look, I mean, you’re gonna have to get a storage unit, put a right choice there, and it’s gonna be uncomfortable. But I’ve, I know how to do it, like, I can coach you. And like I say, it’s like, the, it’s like, it’s the real estate diet, right? You’re gonna have to, like literally, and, you know, in terms of your stuff, and your, you know, your kids stuff, and whatever. And there’s tricks to doing it that make it easy. And I, you know, like, and I’ll give you everything, right, like, I know how to do it. And I’ve done it personally. So I, you know, I can tell you like, it actually pays, you know, to do it. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 26:45
And I think you know what, I actually have a question for you. So what advice would you have, for somebody new to the business, who already knows, you know, you had mentioned, obviously, building your business through your existing sphere of influence, and making sure people didn’t forget that you’re now a realtor, and making sure they knew how to help you. But in addition to that, you know, your and your analyzation skills are obviously very impressive. And learning the markets you mentioned earlier, as well, like, you have to know your market. What advice would you have as far as how people could develop those skills, like learning the market, and, you know, just getting better at analyzing deals?

J. Maggio 27:26
Um, I mean, just, I mean, the numbers are there, right? Like, we have access to all this data. And I think like, if you’re, I mean, like, I truly believe, like, you need some kind of mentor, or coach or somebody that’s done it before, to kind of help you because there’s so much noise, right? Like, hey, you should sign up for this and get these leads and all this stuff. And this is so great. Here’s a cool Facebook page. I mean, like, you can literally go to my Facebook business page, and I don’t know if I’ve posted on it, right, like, and I don’t care like no one’s gonna work with, right, because like, oh, he doesn’t post enough to his Facebook business page. Like he didn’t take enough pictures with his past clients at the closing table, holding keys, you must not be doing you no good at a job. Find these things. I mean, like, endless. There’s plenty of cool agents that I know that do it. And that’s fine. But like, I’m not gonna be like, held accountable, like my website, like, great. So I don’t have like this really great, engaging, search engine optimized website like that also does not change how somebody will tell you that just like,

D.J. Paris 28:22
you know, are you really going to beat out Redfin and Zillow for any you know, real search? No, I don’t. Right, right. Exactly. Yeah.

J. Maggio 28:30
I don’t have the time. But that’s the other thing, you also have to decide how much business is enough. Right? Right. Like, you know, like, we only there’s only one of me, and I could, I suppose build this grand team and pass out leads, but I kind of like being able to work one on one with the people that hired me. So, you know, and that there’s a bandwidth or, you know, thing that that goes there and I’m happy to like, you know, know, my, my limits and, you know, not take, you know, bite off more than I can chew. But I think like, you know, just terms of like, getting to the market is like, you know, kind of focus on some areas like, key, you know, go look at houses, open houses, most open houses, or other brokers, you know, like, there’s plenty of opportunity without doing business to, you know, to stay active and keep your mind sharp. And, and I think like, again, it comes back to like, you want people to know what you do. And they’re inevitably gonna go like, Oh, hey, how’s the real estate market? And

D.J. Paris 29:22
have a couple have something to say to them? Yes.

J. Maggio 29:26
You know, like, there’s a ton of fake it till you make it that, you know, I’m sure it’s, I’m not this is not the only profession or that can be true, but I just know, like, you know, just know enough to have a robust conversation about it. If somebody like asked you while you guys were standing around watching a football game or whatever.

D.J. Paris 29:43
Yeah, it was. It was funny. I was thinking about this. This earlier that I was I was lucky, fortunate enough. Zillow invited me to come check out their offices in New York recently, and I got to go see them. And it was really funny because I was in a room and there was a few few other brokers in the room from other parts of the country. And, and the brokers were complaining about these incident the Zestimate and the, the our Zillow contact there said, You should be grateful that our that our estimate is way off because it makes you guys look like heroes when you actually give the you know, the better data. Because if if our estimate was 100% on the money, you know, would that be good for you? And everyone sort of laughed and realized, oh, you know, yeah, we are really valuable to being able to correct information and being really that guide throughout the entire process. But I just thought that was kind of funny. I was like, yeah, it’s actually better that that’s not super accurate, or it’s maybe not as accurate as it could be.

J. Maggio 30:41
Oh, yeah. I mean, I don’t there’s so many things that we get all worked up. And like Zillow, and Redfin, Archer of them, and I just, at the end of the day, like, you know, that’s the best part about working by referral, right? Like you, most of the people that I work with, know me, to some degree from somebody else, right? Or I’ve worked with them before. So it’s not like, you know, and, and listen, the more the merrier, like, the more people that want to get licensed and do this, you know, like, that’s great. I don’t, you know, it’s capitalism, right? Like, everyone wants an opportunity. You know how to do it, but like, it’s funny, like, people go like, Oh, what do you do? And I tell them how I do it. They’re like, Oh, okay. And I want to do that too. And like, nothing’s Right. Like maybe five other people you tell it not even 1% will actually like be willing to, you know, spend the time to like, organize their business. And then, you know, stay on top of SAPA top of mind, because it’s not, you know, it’s not the fun thing. It’s just sexy. It’s not like, Oh, my God, I met this guy who’s open house, and now we’re gonna write a contract, like, Okay, that’s great. But like, the few and far between times that ever happens, like, you’re not developing any rapport with that person, you don’t have a relationship with them. So then, in a year from now, when they’ve been in their home, and somebody goes, Hey, who’d you use? This person? There’s opens both. Yeah, but now so like, Okay, would you use them again, like Lyrica? You know, like, they don’t know anything about you, like, my clients get to know a lot about me, I get to know a lot about my clients. And, you know, it’s, it’s helped build those relationships, I was just kind of doing a business recap. And like, every single deal this year, which is pushing 50 is, you know, somebody that I’ve worked with before, or referral from somebody that I’ve worked

D.J. Paris 32:17
with, and that is, well, and it’s something you’ve earned, obviously. And it’s, it’s really, really impressive, because even the vast majority of the top one percenters that that I talked to, of course, on the show, I’m not sure that most of them, most of them work mostly by referral, but to work, essentially, exclusively by referral is obviously a testament to your abilities. And the impression of course, you left with that previous client. In fact, that’s a really good segue to wrapping up, because if there are any buyers or sellers or renters who don’t know you yet, what’s the best way if they want to work with you? What’s the best way they should reach out?

J. Maggio 32:58
I mean, listen, there’s a I always joke around people like, Oh, is that your cell phone number out there? Is it kind of weird, like, No, I mean, listen, I have like five calls that I don’t recognize the number since. Like, I don’t pick up but like, you know, you know, look, you can look me on my cell phones, 312-450-0012 my emails, Jay at Jay maggio.com, it’s pretty easy to find me if you Google J module real estate, you’ll get you know, a bunch of like, outdated headshots, and other funny things about me. You know, it’s like, it’s not, you know, reach out one way or the other. And, you know,

D.J. Paris 33:31
and by the way, everyone should go to gmail.com. And what that does is it will show you his compass page, but what’s really impressive, aside from all of your accolades is just look at the sheer number of testimonials you have accumulated is, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen more for a single person, honestly, this is it is really impressive. And if you want to know what how somebody is able to work exclusively by referral, read some of these, these these quotes from previous clients. I mean, just kind of be like 100 here, it’s an unreal. So well, you Yeah, well, again, it’s a You’ve obviously done all the work to earn this but it is it’s really something. So anyway, I think with that if you’re if you are a buyer, seller, renter investor, whoever who’s looking for representation, in a real estate transaction, obviously give Jay a call or email, you’ll be the first person he works with, that’s not a referral. So wait, maybe we shouldn’t do that, because that’ll ruin your non teasing of course. Yeah. But anyway, on on behalf of Jane, by the way that this was such a great conversation, and I appreciate your time. I know you are too busy. And by the way, we should mention Jason that this is literally our second attempt, because we had a snafu with with microphones last Friday, so I preach he’s really wasted two hours with me. So I can’t I can’t appreciate it enough. But on behalf of Jay and myself, um We will see you in another week with another episode. If you are new to the podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google Play Anywhere podcasts are served. And please share this with other brokers in your office as well. Jay, thank you so much for being on the show.

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