Category: Podcast Episodes

Andrew Holmes understands real estate investing. After 13 years as a traditional broker he switched to investments and has focused there ever since. In his career he has personally flipped 600 homes and currently has a buy-and-hold portfolio of 180 properties. Three years ago he found ChicagoREIA which is now the largest real estate investment association in the country with over 5000 members. ChicagoREIA brings together the industry’s leading investment experts and teaches members strategies of top investors like Andrew.

Keeping it Real Podcast listeners will receive $10 off ChicagoREIA’s upcoming three day summit in Skokie. Click here for more details!

Andrew Holmes can be reached at 630-635-5996 and info@chicagoreia.org.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcasts made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host through the show. And first of all, I wanted to say continued Thank you, which we do the beginning of most of our shows, but we wouldn’t be here for if it wasn’t for you listening. So our numbers keep going up. And we appreciate that, which means you’re most likely telling a friend because we’re not doing any marketing. So we appreciate that. And if you have anyone else other brokers that you think might find these kinds of conversations interesting and helpful, please pass this along. We really appreciate it helps keep us going. And today we have a really great conversation interview with Andrew Holmes of Chicago Real Estate Investors Association, which you can find at Chicago, ria.org, Chicago are eia.org. And he has a three day seminar seminar coming up, which is called cash flow to freedom, he’ll be talking about it in the upcoming interview in just a few moments. But as a keeping it real podcast listener, you get $10 off the admission price, it’s already very low, but you get an extra $10 off. So you can learn more about this and sign up at Chicago ria.org. I’ll put the link as well in the notes. So thanks again for continuing to listen to and continuing to support our show, tell a friend, tell every broker you know about us, and let us know who else we should be talking to on this podcast we have in the next week or so we have new podcasts with Kerry McCormick, Eric Workman, and a few others as well. So thank you again and onto our interview.

Today on the show, we have Andrew Holmes from Chicago Real Estate Investors Association. Andrew got into real estate at the age of 20 when he was in college, and he ended up selling real estate until the age of 33. And he was solely focused on working with sellers. So he’s basically a listing agent, and he still had his license but in 2008 made the decision to start investing full time. And as of today, he and his business partner have a investment portfolio of 180 single family homes and, and two to four flats. Over the past 10 years. He and his partner have done over 600 flips. And he started three companies along the way, one of which is Chicago real estate investment investor association with over 5000 members in three years, by the way, which is an impressive, impressive growth there. It’s the largest real estate investors association in the country. So congrats to him there. Also, he has two other companies Chicago flipping which is about of course flipping homes, and Chicago cashflow, which is his rental division for his properties. His message to all agents is that, hey, we are in the business of helping others buy a home and invest in their futures. And we as brokers should be doing that for ourselves. He has some we’re gonna be talking about some of his philosophies and practices. And about five years ago, he also started a radio show on real radio, not these dumb podcasts like mine. But he’s I’m 560 am called the answer. And he’s all about empowering investors and agents about how to build their wealth through real estate. So we are so grateful to have Andrew Holmes. So welcome, Andrew.

Andrew Holmes 3:41
Thank you, DJ. Glad to be here.

D.J. Paris 3:43
Well, thanks. Thanks for taking time out of your day. And tell us a little bit about and I mentioned a bit of your journey there. And that’s quite a journey. Very impressive. Tell us a little bit about how you got started.

Andrew Holmes 3:57
So in college, you know, I was always the kid that all my friends went out and got drunk, and I went out with them. And I was counting the number of people in the bar trying to figure out how much the bar was making. It was I was always kind of since I was a kid. That’s just how my brain work. My college days, I was trying to figure out, how do I become rich? I mean, really, they asked me to pick a career. I’m like, well, whatever makes the most money, that’s what I’m going to do. And that was kind of a tough one for the counselor to he’s like, but what are you passionate about? Well, making money because I’m really broke. So I don’t want to be here. So that was kind of the you know, I didn’t know what exactly entrepreneur at the time meant, but sure, apparently that somewhere came in built.

D.J. Paris 4:44
And and so you really started in at the age of 20. What was that like getting your license that early?

Andrew Holmes 4:50
And I was like I went to this really small school and there were a couple of people who drove really nice cars. And when you’re 1920 years old, a nice car seems Like someone who is well off, and some are who were through the grapevine I heard that they owned a lot of Earth’s real estate. And I used to check out a lot of books, blah, blah, blah. So I’m like, well, that must be the common thread. And really, I thought I was going to get a real estate license, I was going to be a successful investor. And that would be a great summer job and supposedly make so much money that I would be set for the rest of the year. You know how that story starts. So that was I mean, I was so naive that, as you can imagine, the first two three years were rough to say the least, you know, so?

D.J. Paris 5:35
Oh, sure. Yeah. How, you know, as as a young agent, how did you? How did you drum up business I imagined, it’s, you know, none of your friends are buying, buying and selling at that age, I imagine.

Andrew Holmes 5:45
At the time, I was in a really small town about the population, I think was about 30,000 people. And I mean, somewhere I got hold of some, like old cassette tapes. And they said, you should just cold call people. Sure. And I mean, I used to be so nervous calling for sale by owners expired listings, is to forget my own name. So I used to kind of sweat bullets. I had no idea. And I mean, I remember how painful it was, but I didn’t want to. So my parents happened to live in India. And when I left there, I had told them that, you know, one day, guys, I’m gonna be a multimillionaire, and they happen to be both the surgeons, and so I told them, I’m going to show you guys and, you know, I did not one thing I never wanted to do was go back to my parents, and say, I failed. And so it didn’t matter what happened. I had to make it. And so for 234 years, I really didn’t communicate with them much. Because I didn’t know what to tell them that I quit college, and I’m trying this whole real estate thing. And I mean, literally, I built my whole business on literally calling for sale by owners expired listings, and canceled listings.

D.J. Paris 6:55
And we should we should like not move on quite yet from from that statement, because that is it’s probably the hardest cold call there is in real estate, I imagine. And certainly not for the faint of heart. You’re calling people who either have have had bad experiences with realtors, or are just I don’t want to pay those Commission’s and basically trying to turn those into clients. And those are Boy, that is a real trial by fire. But I suspect if you could make those calls. After that

Andrew Holmes 7:24
just interesting. It’s what happened was literally I mean, what happens is initially when you call people do obviously hang up on you because you don’t know what you’re saying. And literally you come to a point where once they know you’re truly there to help them. Yeah, and serve their needs. I used to call people 1015 times, and literally and they’re like Andrew, you realize you called us a week ago. And like guys, I’m not calling to ask for your listing. But if you do think of an agent, I want to make sure that if I’m willing to work this hard now, how hard do you think I’m going to work when you actually do put me to work. And literally they used to call me and go you know something you’ve been so damn persistent, that my sister in law is an agent, but she will never work as hard as you do. And, and it was literally that was my secret was that I was like, just not a bad dream, but a good dream that just would not go away. And I was persistent. If they couldn’t sell it out, literally go tell them what to do to get their home sold. And what I figured out was after a while people figure out that you’re genuine about what you’re trying to do. And that catches on and it was first people would look at you like strange. They’re like, What is wrong with you? Why would you help us? I’m like, Guys, it’s simple. If you sell it yourself, fantastic. We should have asked if you don’t just please remember that I’m here. And a lot of times people would this is, you know, in the 90s and the 2000 or two up to 2000 678. So obviously a lot of people did succeed, kind of selling it themselves or do whatever they did. But I mean, I was I moved to Chicago literally in 2002. And starting in 2002. At a time, I used to always carry 40 to 50 listings at a time. And that’s all I did. I think I had maybe 10 or 12 buyer controlled transactions. And that was it. And every single thing was pure logistics.

D.J. Paris 9:14
Wow. That is and there are so many brokers and I was mentioned to you offline, we have 1000s of listeners, you know, all of which I assume are brokers and they would kill to have that number of listings. But they what they probably wouldn’t do is make those kinds of calls. And so I really applaud you for oftentimes when we talk to top producers on the show, and we say what you know, what did you What do you do so differently? They always say generally, it’s almost always it’s not really anything different. It’s just they’re willing to make those types of phone calls and or whatever that particular activity was. It’s it’s always kind of like I call it like those those types of things like cold calling expireds and for sale by owners. They’re really I kind of call them like the push ups of real estate. They’re like it’s a really simple exercise, it’s not easy, but it’s a really good idea. But it’s one that we all go, Yeah, I should do more push ups, and nobody very few of us ever do them. So I applaud you for doing that. And as a result, Boy, that’s a pretty impressive, you know, start with, you know, that many number of listings. So then what made the shift from that into investment?

Andrew Holmes 10:21
You know, so what happened was this, I had seen my parents, like I think mentioned, when we got started, both of my parents fortunately, did very well for themselves started with kind of nothing but got a very good education. My dad happens to be able to pick surgery, my mom was OB GYN, gynecologist, and it’s the old school in a way of thinking you have to study hard work hard to make something of yourself. And it did. I mean, they have a lot of recognition, they’re very well, you know, all the things that kind of come with being a very successful surgeons, for me, what I always bothered me was this, that I had friends whose parents had way more than we did. And yet, they didn’t have the level of education. They didn’t write as many hours. But the difference between them and my parents was my parents were always running on a treadmill. Now, it was a very fancy treadmill, mind you. Or if you’re a gynecologist, OB GYN, you’re it’s a very fancy treadmill, Georgia problem still is that they have to show up to get paid. Yeah, they’re, they’re trading hours for dollars, for sure. Right. And what I realized was at real estate, I mean, we’re like purebred athletes, if you’re, if you want to perform at a high level in real estate sales, you have to grind it out. I mean, I wish, at least I don’t know. I mean, I’ve always looked at a lot of top producers, they don’t overthink things, but they have something they have very good at due diligence in terms of follow ups, as they keep, in fact, I mean, they go from I mean, in my business change, going from 100%, cold calling to, you know, to 80% to 60% to 40%. Because you start calling the people, you know, after a while, you don’t have to do as many cold calls to produce way more results. But still, January 1, or December 31. Christmas time was a very painful time for me, because even though I had done well for the year, and I was one of those people who wouldn’t spend money, and put as much money in stock, stock and away as much as possible, but still, I was not sure if I could repeat that performance the year over, right, you know, the next year, the next year, because the calendar gets reset. And, and that’s the reason I was I always had this thing in my mind that one day, when the market is right, I’m gonna jump in. And that day came January 14 2008. I mean, that was literally the date. So Wow.

D.J. Paris 12:46
And and what, how did you start to learn about investing? Was it just information you picked up along the way? Did you read books? Did you tend

Andrew Holmes 12:54
to read books, I went to a lot of different kinds of meetings. And a lot of clients, I lost a lot of clients, because I tried to tell them what I believed, which was don’t buy stuff without cash flow. Sure, and buy things and hope to go up. You know, I mean, I pray all the time to get taller, it doesn’t seem to happen. It’s I’m still short, I mean, you know, appreciation obviously happens over a period of time. But you can’t predict build a predictable business on it. And what I saw people doing from 2000, in 9899, and 2001, all the way through six was they were buying buildings where they were losing money. And the idea was, well, we can lose money for two, three years, but it’ll be worth two or three times as much. And we can get rich, and they got caught with it. And I saw that. And I saw it as I mean, I had the front row seat, because sure some of those were my clients and I sold them the property. And I sold the property again, when it went into short sale. I mean, it’s sad, but it’s and for the first time I realized, you know, that there’s something happening, and it’s right in front of me. And if I don’t get on the field, I’m going to miss this game. And so that was kind of my thing. And it was scary. I mean, it was very scary in 2008 to be jumping into real estate sales when everybody was losing their shirt.

D.J. Paris 14:18
Yeah, yeah, I imagine it was it was scary. It’s funny I’ve heard by more than one person more than a few who have said never think of your primary residence as even an asset much less than investment unless there’s there is cashflow which probably there isn’t if it’s just a primary residence, but like they said don’t even put it on your asset column because it really it costs you money. It’s an asset on the day you sell it. But also you have to live somewhere to so likely and certainly don’t don’t think of it as an investment and you know, it’s anything it’s going to suck money out of you year, you know, month a month over month. But that is a really, really, really intelligent thought. ought to, to only want to have, you know, assets that that make money for you on a, you know, residual income basis, which is obviously what you get into so as as you bought your first property in 2008, then sort of how did you?

Andrew Holmes 15:12
How did you know what to happen was, it’s like, again, sometimes, you know, will you shoot for something, and you kind of miss the target yet it’s taking you somewhere. So what I did was, I had a great treadmill, which was selling real estate, and it was, I mean, I was very blessed, that after a lot of struggle, I did figure out my niche. And it’s very, very rewarding. I mean, I don’t know, any other profession where you don’t have to have a college degree, you have to kind of put your head down and go to work. And you can make, you know, 5060 100 200 400 500,000 bucks, a million bucks, literally. And it’s, it’s so I always feel very blessed that I didn’t pick real estate, real estate picked me, that’s how I feel about it. But what happened was, you know, I got off one treadmill, which was sales, and I got on a more stressful treadmill, which was doing flips, so 1008, through 2009, and 10, all I did was just pure flips. So I buy a house rehab, get it rehabbed and resell the property. And when I was a listing agent, I only listed properties less than 450. Because I was in the Schomburg market, surrounding areas. So I always wanted bread and butter properties and never wanted a big house to list because the turnover was an issue. So that’s what I did in terms of flips, that I dropped down the price and the median price range. So I was buying properties at, you know, 100,000 or 50,000, flipping them at 250 300. And I just did a heck of a lot of it. And then I finally realized that I had gotten out of one treadmill, and gotten on another treadmill. Now, if it rains four inches outside, now I don’t have to worry about my customers or clients house, I have to worry about my profit. It’s very true. And so it creates a different level of stress. And finally, I had a friend of mine or somebody who I have respected immensely for a long period of time. And what he said is because I was asking him kind of the lifestyle, I looked at, well how he lived. And I’m like, How is this possible? He’s like, Well, back in the SNL crisis days in the 80s, he had bought quite a few houses in California, about 80 or so houses, and he had paid all of them off. And he’s like, you realize, every single day, the tenants go to work, and they read on a treadmill, they run on a treadmill, so I don’t have to write. And that’s the first time when it struck me. I’m like, instead of selling some of these properties, how about if I flip two properties, and keep one, flip two and keep one and so I started that process, which was I would flip to which was kind of money to live on and invest some of it in a rental property. And then as the kind of stage started growing over time, I could keep three rentals only flip one then keep for rentals, only flip one. And that just equation over the years has obviously kind of grown so.

D.J. Paris 18:12
And with your buy and hold properties. Do you focus in one particular geographic area? Are you sort of looking all over? Or do you kind of keep it localized?

Andrew Holmes 18:22
So I started buying basically, for people who are familiar with Schumacher, from Chicago area sure around Chombo. Market Schomburg I consider as a a market economically. So because the houses are expensive, so the market right next to it, which is going to be a more bread and butter market economically, you get relatively good rents, stable long term tenants, we don’t rent to anybody less than two years. So minimum two year rentals, if not three, and four. So it’s impressive. Yeah. So I mean, that’s just that’s kind of the philosophy is that if you live in our property for five or six years, we’ll send you on a vacation for your entire family anywhere in the world. As long as you live there six years. Wow. Because they’ve paid down my property. What’s your results? That’s wonderful. You know, so if we can give them a reward of for $5,000. And okay. So, right. Philosophy has been is buy the property, rehab the property, rent the property, refinance, the amount of money that you invested in the property, and every month, you have four to $500 net cash flow, after all expenses.

D.J. Paris 19:29
Yeah, my boss has a very similar philosophy. He, he owns, I don’t know 2025 properties, and has that same philosophy. He just He goes, I want I he wants to net 1000 every month and so that’s his goal. But if it’s 500 He’ll he’ll do it. But yeah, he he always, you know, is able to figure it out. I think that that makes a ton of sense it also to when you’re working with these tenants who are signing multi year leases, you probably probably I mean maybe maybe this isn’t true, but I would assume they probably treat the property Be a bit better, since they know they’re gonna be there for a period.

Andrew Holmes 20:02
And we were very, I mean, we’re fair to people. But we’re equally tough with everybody in terms of that we don’t want. We want good tenants, we want people who will take pride, because we provide a nice clean home for them. And we are prompt in terms of repairs. And so but we’re rigorous in terms of how we do all the checks in terms. So most people who basically, you know, don’t meet our standards, we’re not going to we run it like a business. I mean, that’s the difference with how we run that business is that this is a business and we pay attention to that business. So and the philosophy kind of what started was that we were talking about 257. So my goal initially, was in two years, I wanted to own five houses. And I wanted to get them paid off as quickly as possible. Because I, we take that, but I don’t like long term debt, because to me, it’s just a noose around your neck. So what my philosophy is that in two years, any person normal person can buy can learn how to buy five houses. And if they buy it with the right numbers, about four of them will get paid off completely in seven years, maybe not the fifth, depends on how aggressive you are with your payments, but you use all the cash flow to pay the property off, because there’s a basic philosophy in real estate that I believe and that is that if you take care of real estate for the first five years, real estate will take care of you for the rest of your life. Right. But the first five years are critical.

D.J. Paris 21:36
Yeah, wow. I absolutely, absolutely agree. And, you know, that brings us into your your association, which is the Chicago Real Estate Investors Association. And this is really important because it because I know you started about three years ago, and it’s funny that that we’re talking about this, because I noticed that there really there was one other group that I was familiar with. And I think this is even before your group founded. And they were way out in the western suburbs, and I don’t, you know, they had a pretty sizable group. But But there really was, was a wasn’t any other cohesive group. And I said, somebody’s gonna come along and build a really impressive investor Association. And you’ve done that. Can you talk a little bit about about year this? Chicago, Rei?

Andrew Holmes 22:23
Yeah, so So basically, kind of how that started was that I went to other groups, I attended the meetings, and it’s like, you know, hiring a coach or hiring a trainer at the gym, that doesn’t kind of follow what he preaches. And that’s what I saw with a lot of these groups that they people talked a great game, they would never share any information. And but they didn’t have the results to kind of prove what they said that they were doing. And I was kind of trained by somebody in real estate, who basically, basically, it was very against Bs, and I just absolutely couldn’t stand it. So really, that was kind of the thing that I lacked a connection with people, where I wanted to get a group of people together with similar mindset with similar thinking people who are not afraid of sharing ideas, thoughts, and openly creating a forum where we can as a group can grow. And I’m of the school of thought that, you know, the five people you hang around your net worth is basically your net worth is equals your net worth. And so that’s, that was basically the basic philosophy. And that’s really how we started was a group of people who I knew, and I was like, Hey, guys, let’s get a lot of experts in the area. And let’s provide great information and try to get people to take action.

D.J. Paris 23:51
Yeah, I mean, before Andrews group, it was a lot of meetups at a local bar, a handful of people would show up, and somebody really needed to come and create something with structure. And so they did that. And we should talk about your upcoming summit, your upcoming conference, which is in Skokie. It’s February 16. Through the 18th says the three day event. You can learn more about it at Andrews website, which is Chicago are eia.org. What else would you like to talk tell the listeners about the about what the Learn at the summit?

Andrew Holmes 24:21
You know, so the three days of kind of divided into day one is all about acquisition? Where do you find transactions and more so rather than retail transactions, where do you find those transactions that have 2025 30 35% 40% equity in terms of when you buy a property because because really, anybody can buy a property at retail price that doesn’t require skill. What an investor is looking for a is a good deal and good deal by our standards is somewhere where there is 30 35% 40% equity, and those today are that’s the art of investing which is if you can find I find a great deal, you can literally not do any work and sell it for a profit to somebody as a retail sale, you can obviously do a fix and flip, which is rehab it, or you can keep it for rental forever. So that’s kind of the focus they want. So we’ll talk a lot about pre foreclosures, still bank owned inventory, still a lot of off market, landlords deals

D.J. Paris 25:23
and, and to not just interject before you get to the second day of your summit, but it’s important to note that, you know, brokers who are who are most likely listening, you know, often don’t know what’s beyond the MLS, not that these properties, they may be on the MLS, but likely, there’s possibility they won’t be. And so I imagine you’ll learn alternative strategies for finding these these types of properties.

Andrew Holmes 25:45
Exactly. DJ, you know, it’s interesting, because I was trained in that mindset, right, that picks up on MLS, I didn’t know anything. That was really and it was great till two, till about two or three years ago, I didn’t have to look any other place, I could find phenomenal deals on the MLS all day long, because I was used to working the MLS all the time, yet the market has changed. So that’s kind of day one. And then that day will, what everything that we talk about, we want to bring examples of people that anybody that says, Well, I can’t do it, because I can show you an example that has beat the odds and still succeeded. And so we’ll start with somebody last year, who bought five properties to 15, to 20, to 25. To 30, by the end of the day, what we want people to say is okay, there is no excuse, the excuse is the one I make. Day two, we want to step it up, which is we put people on, we hire about five school buses, and we put people and we send them to properties. These are not for sale, we’re not selling those when I’m trying to get rid of the properties. The intent of that is we want people to look at properties that are right in their neighborhood, they may live in those neighborhoods. And there are properties that we own. I mean, it’s kind of interesting that just out of a group of about 300 people at Chicago Ria, right, there’s over 3000 properties that are owned by just a small group of investors. And it’s phenomenal how many great properties come up all the time. And so the reason for that bus tour is to kind of show the reality of what goes on what type of rental properties you should be looking at, and what type of flips you should be looking at. And then in the afternoon, all we talk about is numbers, numbers and numbers. Because really, that’s what kind of makes this business run, which is purely numbers. So day two, is purely based on flips. And we’ll have people who do small 30 $40,000 profit flips. And then we’ll have people who do complete rebuilds remodels, new construction, you know, 100 $150,000 markets, and we’ll kind of show the difference why a certain strategy works better than another, and how many transactions that really are in our area right here in Chicago. And then the day three is really kind of the big boy network, which is that is all about 257. What our goal is this that if your need is, let’s say somebody says, well, I need to make $10,000 a month, that’s my, you know, my outlay every month is 1000. So we’ll say Okay, raise it up by 20%. So that’s going to be 10,000. So you need about 13 houses to make sure that for the rest of your life, you have $10,000 that comes in doesn’t matter if a renter pays doesn’t pay, you still have enough income. And that’s what we want to build to on that date. So from the morning, we start with regular lenders that will come in, then we’ll have private money lenders come in, then we’ll have commercial lenders come in and we start building that up. And in the afternoon, we have attorneys come in talking about asset protection. So it’s about building a business, what the three days are about is that how do you build a sizable business? And how do you do it quickly, safely and with experts that are local? I mean, the great part about living in Chicago is there is real estate literally still from $30,000 all the way to 234 million. The question is what are you going to do with it?

D.J. Paris 29:02
Yeah, and I think this is such a such a great conference you’re putting together because even if the listener out there as a broker who he or she does, maybe does not want to invest themselves which which Andrew would tell you to do too, you should learn to invest yourself but even if as a broker you want to work with investors, you are now going to have the skill set of exactly what that investor is looking for. And there are so many brokers out there who whether they want to invest themselves really do want to work with investors that you know, and and that this this will give you that exact skill set to to do it yourself and also to find other investors and also be their broker.

Andrew Holmes 29:41
Nikko is going to mention that because so many, I mean some of the big names in lb that have huge businesses built on investors. I happen to be some of the speakers at the three day conference. You know some of the big REO brokers from Ryan Smith with classman office A bunch of people, Frank Montero a bunch of people that are brokers that have specialized in that but you know, our most successful people at the Ria, almost every one of them has a real estate license. Right? They like a lot of times agents will come, they’ll look at it, they start selling properties to investors, and they’re like, Oh, my God, right? I don’t I keep few of these for myself. And that light bulb goes on. And it’s awesome to see that happen. Because now not only are you serving the public, which is helping them find a home, you know, home of their dreams or building a portfolio for themselves. But now you’re, you’re basically practicing your own message, which is you’re doing it for yourself, which is the best service you can do for you and your family.

D.J. Paris 30:47
I don’t think it could be it could have been said any better. Well, let’s, let’s plug the website one more time. So in order to get more information about the conference coming up, and also the regular meetings for the Chicago Real Estate Investors Association, visit Chicago, R E, I a.org. There’s a good looking website with a lot of great information about upcoming events and how to get more involved and more educated about investments. Andrew, if there’s anyone out there who would like to reach out to you directly to get more information, or to even maybe work with you what’s the best way they should reach out?

Andrew Holmes 31:24
I mean, a couple of things. Number one, the number is 847-303-5011, or Chicago, ria.org. And anybody that calls from your show that listens to the show, and comes to the conference, just all they have to do is just mentioned that or just email, Chicago Ria. And we’ll give them it’s only 39 bucks, but we’ll give them another $10 off just as especially, I have a special kind of, you know, soft corner for people who are real estate agents, because I’ve been in those shoes. And it’s a wonderful opportunity that we have at our fingertips. The question is, what do we do with it. So it’s something that if you’re not going to take advantage of it, learn how to work with investors, the last year 25%, of Chicago market was investors. And there’s a shortage of people who are good at working with investors, and you can get 5678 transactions from one investor. So if you pick the investors properly, it can be a wonderful means not only for building wealth for yourself, but for multiplying the amount of transactions with less effort.

D.J. Paris 32:35
Absolutely. And I was just thinking back to when you said, most of the people, almost all the attendees have their license? Of course they do, because you’ve told them go get your license, save the commission. So this is

Andrew Holmes 32:46
we actually don’t you know, we discourage people, what we have always believed is this that, in fact, if anything, I always say, if whoever the listing agent is work with them, let them earn the commission, you know, and what I’ve always said is that once you find a good broker, a good broker is worth their weight in gold. I mean, this is something I’ve always had this philosophy, because this is, especially great deals, great deals come by and when they come by, if you want to be the first person, you cannot be chasing commissions, you have to chase the deal. And let the agent who has listed or whoever you’re working with be fair to them. They’re putting in time they’re putting in effort, right, let them make money. Yes, focus on the deal. The reason for having a license, as far as I’m concerned, is only one reason access, that’s it.

D.J. Paris 33:34
Sure. Sure. So yeah, you get access to the MLS and right and other properties. That’s a that’s a very good point. And so is there an email address that people can can reach you out?

Andrew Holmes 33:46
Absolutely. It’s info at Chicago RIA R E. ia.org. That’s info at Chicago ria.org.

D.J. Paris 33:56
And let’s also mention your radio show which is on 560 am the answer how often and when can people hear you on on five? On 560?

Andrew Holmes 34:05
Every Sunday at 12 o’clock noon to 1pm on AM 560 WMD

D.J. Paris 34:12
Awesome. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for your time. This has been a really fun conversation and I hope everyone listens. Gosh, for 39 Or I guess $29 to go attend this three day summit in Skokie is is kind of it seems like a no brainer. So everyone should go sign up for it. And thank you so much for being on the show. Love being

Andrew Holmes 34:33
on it. It’s a great it’s one of the best podcasts I kind of was privy to listening to it through Rosario, who you had on slick invest. And Ryan from renewable. Yes. And, and so I mean, you guys are doing a great job. So I think we might ship needed some. Well, everyone

D.J. Paris 34:53
go and register at Chicago rei a.org. Go to the summit in February or sign up for their you know, regular meetings. Obviously, Andrew is a wealth of knowledge and he surrounds himself with experts who come and are part of that organization to help clue you in on what you need to know. So thank you so much.

Andrew Holmes 35:12
Great. Thank you so much. Did you have a great day

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Odds are if you are a real estate investor or have clients that invest, you’ve heard of Brie Schmidt. In addition to running her own firm, Second City Real Estate, Brie is a featured speaker at many real estate conferences. On BiggerPockets (the largest real estate forum in the country) she is recognized as one of the most prominent experts in the buy-and-hold space. She manages over 90 units of her own and teaches others how to do the same. This May she will be hosting the Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit in Chicago with 20+ speakers and 300+ attendees!

Brie Schmidt can be reached at brie.schmidt@gmail.com and 847.312.6043

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate agents for Chicago real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host, and just wanted to say thank you for continuing to listen and support this podcast. If this is your first episode, we interviewed top producing brokers in the Chicagoland area to ask them how they became successful have them tell their story in hopes that other brokers who are interested in increasing their production, getting to those high levels can maybe learn a few things. So we appreciate you paying attention to these episodes and listening. Also, we’re always open to suggestions. So if you have any ideas of how we can make the show better, or other brokers maybe we haven’t yet reached out to, you can definitely send us a note. And you can find us on our website, which also has every episode we’ve ever published streaming live there, which is keeping it real pod.com. So definitely visit there. You can sign up, you can get emailed every time we publish a new episode. Please also subscribe on your phone on your podcast app, whether it’s iTunes or Google Play or any other podcast app, you should be able to find us. And also we do send out information on our Facebook page, which is keeping it real pod. So look us up there. We have an interview coming up in just a few moments with Brie Schmidt. So thank you again for listening and onto our interview.

Okay, today on the show, we have Bree Schmidt and I actually have known of Bree and I believe I have spoken to breathe and once prior she’s she’s was at the very top of our list when we first started this podcast about people that we wanted to have on the show cuz she’s so interesting and super fun, but let me tell you a little bit more about Bri. Bri started purchasing investment properties in 2011 when she founded the BBS apartments, and she currently owns and manages over 90 rental units in Chicago and Milwaukee. She is the managing broker of Second City Real Estate, a boutique brokerage, working with real estate investors who want to start or add to their buy and hold portfolio. Second City Real Estate is a brokerage comprised of buy and hold investors that specialize in assisting buyers to acquire two to four unit residential properties in Chicagoland. They leverage their experience educate clients about all aspects of the investment process. They teach how to analyze potential properties, calculate return on investment, advice on best landlording practices, how to effectively market and lease rental properties. They work closely with clients to understand support and help execute real estate investing goals. Bree is also a top producer. If you are a broker and you are involved in bigger pockets, Bree is all over bigger pockets. She has been a guest on a tons of different podcasts. And she speaks she does everything. So we’re so excited to have her Welcome to the show.

Brie Schmidt 3:11
Thank you for having me.

D.J. Paris 3:12
Well, thank you because you are incredibly busy. And you are right now you are in the process of planning a real estate Summit. Like was it a three day summit or might might even be longer, right?

Brie Schmidt 3:22
It’s a three day Summit coming up in May. That’s going to be in the Chicago market. We’re locking down contracts on dates and venues currently up and it’s gonna have 300 over 300 attendees. And it’s going to be an educational summit for different types of investors, either you know, newbies looking to get started to experience investors on how to navigate investments in the Chicagoland area.

D.J. Paris 3:47
And if you’re interested in getting up to date information about the the summit go to Midwest ar e summit.com. So Midwest RV summit.com. But brief, I want to go all the way back to the beginning of your real estate career. And tell us a little bit how you got started.

Brie Schmidt 4:05
So my story is a bit untraditional. I started the idea of real estate started when I in 2000. When I was 17 years old, my parents were selling their house and the I remember coming home from school and the agent was over. And she was at our you know, kitchen table signing the contract with my parents. We just got to talking and she was a very successful agent in the suburbs. Very like the mom on American Beauty type, you know what I mean? And was like you are destined to be in real estate. I was like really? And she was like huge. Like, I’ve been doing this for 40 years, like you are going to be the best real estate agent ever. And I was like, sure that sounds like a good idea. You know, and I hadn’t had any plans for college. I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life. So at the time I said I was 17 the state laws that I couldn’t be licensed till I was 21. So we actually tried to get me an exemption as soon as I turned 18 To let me be lice. Since when I was 18, but didn’t go through. So I worked for her as an unlicensed assistant, a few days a week for a few years, and didn’t go to college. Because you know, as soon as I turned 21, I was going to be this top real estate agent, and it was going to be awesome. And, you know, I took my classes when I was 20, I took my licensing exam, like the day I turned 21, I quit my job to be a full time realtor, and I hated it. I absolutely hated it. I think I had maybe two or three closings and I was out within nine months, I found it really, really hard to be 21 years old, and to communicate to people effectively as a, as a position of someone who is experienced and trusted. Because I was so young, A, B, I also didn’t realize at the time, I didn’t realize I was older, that I just don’t communicate on an emotional level. So it was really hard for me too, to see eye to eye with people when I remember, you know, showing them three houses. And I was breaking it down based on like, here’s the cost per square footage. And here’s what makes the best sense from an appreciation standpoint. And they were just coming to me and saying it doesn’t feel like home. And I couldn’t I couldn’t really relate, I was also gotten to emotionally immature at that point to really understand how to communicate effectively and get my point across. So by the time I was 22, I was already out of real estate. And I went into advertising sales where I stayed for about almost 10 years and built a very long term great career doing that. During that 10 years, though I always held my license at a holding company, I always said you know, my job was always you can get fired from sales at any given point. So I was like, Well, if I ever get fired, I could always go to residential real estate or do leasing, my license is still active, that was always going to be my my backup plan. It wasn’t until 2011 When I started looking for properties with my then fiance. And, you know, we started planning out our life and you know, where we wanted to live in the city, what we could afford, and investment properties came up as an option. You know, so at that point, it was just the two of us, we didn’t have any kids, we didn’t need a single family house. But we also didn’t really want to buy a condo, and the two to four unit came into play. So we bought a three unit and Albany Park with the intentions of you know, we’re gonna live on the top floor. And then the way that the layout is, it can be quite easy to eventually D convert it to one single family house just moving a couple of walls, but the staircases would be existing. So we’re like, Okay, well, when we’ve got a couple of kids will, will duplex down and then we’re gonna need more space, we’ll we’ll do Plex down to the basement. So it was never an intention of being an investor or buying more properties. The original intention was like, Oh, we just will buy a house that we could eventually grow into.

So that’s how it kind of got started. And I was like, I was still working full time in corporate and really didn’t think much about it. It wasn’t until about a year after we bought our first property that we had a death in the family. And we had a my father passed away, literally one day before he was supposed to retire after 25 years of working in the post office. And, you know, he always talked about when I retire, I’m gonna go do this. And when I retire, I’m gonna go travel here. And it really hit us hard that, you know, we might not we always talk about retiring when we’re in our 60s. But what happens if you don’t get there? You know, and what kind of life are we living now, where, you know, God forbid, we take our whole two week vacation at the same time. That’s how corporate works. So that’s not the lifestyle that we want for ourselves. So it really impacted everything to be honest, and kind of changed the path of our thought process of, you know, what do what’s our ultimate end goal, like? What do we want to accomplish out of our lives? Do we want to, you know, not have to put our kids in daycare when they’re three months old? Do we want to be able to travel and not have to worry about how much vacation time we have, you know, what happens if one of us loses our jobs? Right? How are we going to be able to financially sustain that and sat down and really thought about like the next 510 1520 25 years of our lives? And the answer was real estate for us. You know, we we looked at a couple of different things. But once we decided that real estate was what we were going to do, we kind of created a plan of how to accomplish that. So it’s kind of crazy. And I always talk about you know my six year this was six years ago so this was August in 2011. When we bought the property it was July in 2012 when the the passing happened my my father I have six year old self would be in awe of where things have gotten today. And none of this was really intentional. Like, it all just kind of snowballed to where it’s at. So, now I own 31 properties, I have over 90 units, I quit my job in 2014 to run the business full time, my husband retired in 2015. So it just kind of snowballed to the point where it’s at today.

D.J. Paris 10:26
And how did you transition from buying, you know, the first property the three flat to then your second, you know, because again, the first one wasn’t necessarily an investment, the intention and intentional investment. And then when you guys made your plan, how did you? How did you figure out exactly what types of investments you were going to focus it on?

Brie Schmidt 10:46
Um, that’s a really good question. I had no formal training, I had never read, I never talked with another investor, I had never read a book about investing. It was all just what made sense in my head. So luckily, I made smart decisions. It could have completely like now that I know what I know now. And now having done this so many times and work with so many clients to do this, like, I was playing with fire back then, I could have really made some really stupid bad decisions. And, you know, in this adult game of Monopoly, like I call it, we’re talking about 10s of hundreds of 1000s of dollars here, it’s not like, Oh, I lost, you know, 20 bucks, it’s like a screw up can lose you $100,000 No problem. So the second one is the, the passing in my family, it happened in July of 2012. By October, we started looking for our second property. And we we closed on that property in December of 2012. So we moved quite quickly, and is that it was all just based on numbers. i It’s actually a kind of a funny story, I was under contract for three unit in Bucktown. And at the end of the day, like I made the verbal offer, I was ready to make the the official offer, I started to have doubts. And I was like, You know what, like, I think this property is actually really high priced. And I’m not sure it’s going to appraise and you know, it’s gonna cash flow, but only if, like, you know, the property was pretty new. Right? But it’s only going to cash flow if we actually don’t have any repairs. And so it really kept me up at night, worrying about am I making the right decision? So I ended up calling the guy I was like, Listen, you know, I’m having doubts. I don’t like doing things when I’m not 100%. Sure. So I know I gave you a verbal, but I’m not going to submit an offer. And he responded back and said, That’s fine. Like we’ve got 10 properties in the market, if you want to consider these other ones. And so he had sent me the spreadsheet. And I just looked at the numbers and there was two in mind, they were actually in Portage Park that had the highest profit, right based on what the current rents are, what my mortgage would be. Right? And I wasn’t really properly at least figuring in repairs, capex vacancy, all the things that a proper analysis should, and I ended up going on a contract for both properties. So I was gonna buy two at the same time. One didn’t appraise out, it was really difficult trying to do two properties at the same time, because they were both contingent on each other. So we agreed to drop the one close on the other one. And then as soon as that one closed, we were going to go under contract again, with a different lender, and they ended up selling it. In the meantime, which was fine. But I bought in Portage Park before I bought a legal three unit in Portage Park, before the new development was announced. So that property, I just appraised for almost double my money. And I haven’t done anything to it, besides just letting it sit there and do very minor repairs as they’ve come up.

D.J. Paris 13:40
It’s amazing. And so over time, you just started developing a better sense of what kind of investments you think made the most sense, or was it always strictly numbers? Or did you look at certain neighborhoods more favorably?

Brie Schmidt 13:55
So it’s a little bit of both right. And one of the things that I do when I consult with clients when they’re looking to buy is I try to explain to them like it’s a piece of pie, right? And there’s only so much pie to be had. And you can choose which piece of that pie is going to be bigger, right? That’s your choice as the client, and the four pieces are location, price, cash flow and condition. Right? So if you told me like, hey, I want a cash flowing property in Bucktown, and my budget $600, my response is going to be that’s awesome. Find another agent? Sure. I can’t do that for you. Right. So it just it’s a matter of figuring out right? What is best for you. You know, if cash flow is your number one issue, you have to be open about location. Right? If location is going to be your number one issue, you’re going to sacrifice on cash flow. It’s as simple as that. And so it’s about teaching and understanding that there is no there’s no one way about doing this right. Everyone’s got different, different goals right different priorities and Figuring out what works best for that person. So for me, it was cash flow. I knew nothing about Portage Park. I had never even been to Portage Park. I’ve gotten that was luck, right me buying in that area before it started to appreciate. My first property was an Albany Park. That one wasn’t necessarily luck. That’s also an area that’s appreciated drastically since 2011. But that was something that as I started looking at properties and areas, I noticed that there was, you know, by the Kedzie, brown line stop. This was again back in 2011. That new condo conversion building, I believe it was a Conlon building had had been in the middle of being done. So I noticed that there was there was signs of revitalization before the market crashed. And it’s next to two train stops. It’s got North Park University. It’s got Northeastern Illinois University, it’s got River Park. So my thoughts were, hey, when the market bounces back, this area is primed for development, right? It’s got so many local amenities, how could it not be a great market? And that’s what I bought based off of?

D.J. Paris 16:02
That’s amazing. And what point because you’re very prominent in the online community, bigger pockets, and probably other investment communities as well. But when did you when did you start, you know, getting involved in bigger pockets, or at least posting and learning from them.

Brie Schmidt 16:18
It’s a super, it’s a funny story to me, because it’s the I described my life as pre BiggerPockets. And post. Because it was such an integral piece in my my development and where I’ve come. So at that point is that we bought a property in 2011, we bought another one, I think it was like January 3 2012, or December, end of December, then we bought another one in 2013. And that was a property for us to live in. It was an old two flat that was partially converted to a single family. So we completed a D conversion, we did about $150,000 renovation on it. And I was looking to do a cash out refinance. But the property has got quirky zoning. So I was Googling just a very general zoning question. And this website popped up was someone that had asked that same question. And I was like, oh my god, this is a form of investors. And that started the downward spiral into this bubble or world of investing. Because if anyone doesn’t know what BiggerPockets is, it is a social platform for real estate investors. But it’s built on the premise of paying it forward. So it is a community of I think, almost 600,000 investors across the world, who don’t charge for their advice, and whose primary goal is to help out other people and answer their questions for free. Right. So I posted on the site, and I remember like, within the first day, I had 10 experienced investors giving me their opinions about how they would handle it or what their experience was. I was like, Holy crap, like, this is awesome. And I just started getting involved with the community. And you know, people would ask a question, and I knew the answer to that question. So I started responding. And then you know, next thing, you know, was like, I think a month later, I get an email from them. Like, you’ve gotten an award, I’m like, sweet, what’s an award, like, you’ve got the attic award, that means you’ve been logged into the site every single day for 30 days. I’m like, that’s a problem. And, you know, like, it just it just completely consumed my life. Because I had this whole world of people that liked to talk about things that I like to talk about. And it was a whole level of knowledge base way above and beyond with at that time I knew. And I just went when dove right in so said within, within six months, I think I found bigger pockets. It was Thanksgiving weekend. And by Fourth of July that year, I’d quit my corporate job, my six figure salary. And I bought 10 new properties and decided to do this full time. So it was really the learning them helping me the learning curve A be the support system, knowing that if I ever get in a situation where I don’t know the answer, I’ve got hundreds of 1000s of people that will help me out. And that’s kind of how I jumped in and learned.

D.J. Paris 19:06
Yeah, I mean, Bree is so prominent on bigger pockets, at least here in the local Chicago area, because there is ways to sort of narrow even posts down by geographic, like zip codes. And it’s really, it’s got a really nice social component, in addition to just being this amazing form of of information to Bri is very prominent. And I imagine I’m just curious, I don’t I don’t know that this would be the case. But just because over time you’ve established yourself as such a knowledge source. I’m wondering if that’s attracted a lot of investors to reach out to you directly to you know, to do do buys or do purchases or sales.

Brie Schmidt 19:43
That’s that leads into how the brokerage business, right like I’m an investor first, and that’s that was that was an is my primary focus. But that’s exactly how the brokerage business started. Remember this time I was still working corporate. My license had been in With a holding company for about 10 years, so I hadn’t taken on a client in 10 years, I didn’t like clients. Because they were just talking about emotional or, you know, I’m like, not gonna do that again. And so part of how this all came into fruition was you know, I did a podcast with bigger pockets. I started doing podcasts nationally, I started getting invited to, to speak at national conferences. I speak at about eight to 10 events a year, locally and nationally. And I also host on a networking event in the Chicagoland area, I started hosting that in 20 would have been 2014. And I remember being at one of the events, and one of the guys came up to me, it was like, listen, like, you know, you’re an agent, right? I’m like, well, technically, yeah, but I don’t take on clients. I’m just an agent to do my own deals. And he’s like, I cannot find an agent to teach me about investing. Like, they’re all They’re just retail. They know, condos. They know single family houses. But they don’t know, like, what capex is. They don’t know what proper vacancy is, you know, can you help me? And time I was like, Yeah, I’m kind of bored. Like, I guess I could, you know, like, I have nothing really going on. And I’m like, Yeah, I’m sure I could, I didn’t have a car. Right. Like, I couldn’t go do showings. So like, he had to pick me up. And I actually found out I really, really liked it. So it’s been, that was August of 2014, is when I took on my first client. And then just other people started asking me like, Hey, I heard you were working with so and so can you help me too. So at that time, I was still quite involved with my Milwaukee side of the business. So I was only looking at taking on three clients at a time, I was very aware of my time commitment to things as I am today. You know, if you go back to the beginning of all this, I don’t work to work, I work to create a lifestyle for myself, and to travel when I want and to to enjoy my life. That’s my end goal. That is what everything every decision I ever made, or do make is built around. How does that affect my ability to live my life like I want it? So the time for the first two years, I only took on three clients at a time because I did not want to create a workload for myself that I that would, you know, go into my own personal time would handicap you. Sure. Yeah. So it wasn’t until my my investment business got to a point that I could run it without having to physically go to Milwaukee every week, run it to the point where, you know, I’m just I’m, I’m down to maybe 20 hours a month running that business. Once I freed up more time taking away from that business and got that up and running, I was able to free up time to allow for the brokerage business. And that’s when things started to get maybe out of control if some people might consider it. But the from the time I went from what I would consider a part time agent to my first full year, my business almost quadrupled. Year over a year and it got it now is my full time focus is working with clients.

D.J. Paris 23:05
And I imagine all of those clients find you or at least almost all those clients, I’m sure find you instead of you going out and sourcing them is that fair to say?

Brie Schmidt 23:15
I’ve never done any sort of outbound marketing or advertising. So I’ve never done direct mail I’ve never done done Google AdWords or my website isn’t even really a website, it’s more of a blog. And so I’ve never done like SEO or AdWords or any of that stuff. My clients all come from referrals, mainly and do not working. And it’s through, you know, conferences I speak at, or podcast. Also through again, in bigger pockets. For years I’ve been, you know, I’ve been always been in a position of paying it forward. So even just between Friday and this morning, I had six phone calls, with potential new clients who’ve reached out to me again, sometimes they’re they’re not really looking to buy, right sometimes it’s just me giving them information about the market, or helping them walk through what their goals are, and seeing if this market will deliver this sort of the sort of product or investment properties per se, um, to reach their goals and at the end of the day, that might not be what they’re looking for. But I will always take the phone call and do as we call it, onboarding, an onboarding consultation, like hey, you know, this is what this market will will give you this is what you know, it will dictate and so if this isn’t the market for you, that’s okay. I can refer you to another agent or give you advice on other markets that I do know of that will help you reach your goals but it all comes down to what the investors goals are.

D.J. Paris 24:41
And are you as as either an investor yourself or the investors you work with? Are you exclusively at this point looking just in Chicago? Are you also looking back at Milwaukee or even other markets?

Brie Schmidt 24:54
For for me as an investor I stopped purchasing properties in 2015 for myself personal So, I, so I have my I have my license as a managing broker in Illinois, I also have my brokers, which is the equivalent, they do brokers and sales persons in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, I do not take on clients in Wisconsin and is not worth a three hour round trip drive for, you know, $100,000 properties for me to do it, and it’s much more labor intensive. So I stopped purchasing properties in 2015, when I hit my personal goal, which was $35,000 a month gross rental income. Right? That was the number that well, a my friends husband made me agree to, because it’s, at some point, he’s like, Listen, this is getting out of control, right? When’s Enough Enough, like you have to put a number or attach a number to this. Because if you don’t like I was just I was all in. And he’s like, You got to put a number to it and and hit a point where Enough is enough. And for us, that was $35,000 a month gross rental income that would allow both of us to quit our jobs, right and not have to work unless we wanted to work. Sure. So we hit that goal in May of 2015. And that’s when I also started working with partners. So I have purchased properties since 2015. They are just with strategic partnerships that I have. So I’ve got three partners that buy property with me. I never wanted to be in a position where I was competing with them. So I never wanted them to feel like oh man Brees taking the good stuff and giving us the leftovers. So that was part of the deal was once I was ready, they all two of them waited a year, almost a year and a half to work with me. And I explained why. So that they could be my priority, right? They always I always want them to be my number one priority. So we’ve acquired more properties. Since then, under my joint LLC is my next purchase is probably going to be in Chicago again. I like the balance of the two markets. And one thing that’s why go back to the goals. Right? Chicago, Northside is what I would describe as an A B market. It’s a very balanced market of cash flow and appreciation. Right? It’s going to take you a lot of money, though to invest in Chicago to replace your monthly insure. It’s as simple as that Milwaukee or like Southside Chicago or Northwest Indiana, or what we call cashflow markets. So those markets are very little appreciation potential, but much more on the monthly cash flow potential. So I like the balance of the two, each one provides different goals for me. So Chicago is my my long term wealth building portfolio. Right? I’m not going to get rich on my monthly rental income or my monthly cash flow. But the appreciation that I’ve received in Chicago over the years, I’ve been able to pull out and redeploy that capital into investments, right? So it’s increased my long term wealth. Milwaukee, on the other hand, pays my monthly bills. So that’s what generates the cash flow that is monthly, but when I sell it, right, I’m not going to be profiting very much. But now our portfolio, we’re just just at $59,000 a month gross rental income across all my all my properties.

D.J. Paris 28:07
It’s amazing. And just to recap, you’ve only really been investing in this way for like five years. That’s a pretty incredible achievement.

Brie Schmidt 28:17
It was a really crazy year. So I’m one of those people that when I decide to do something, I just go and do it no matter what the consequences are, that can work out good or bad for me, depending on the situation. I mean, but I went and bought 18 properties in less than 12 months. You know, like it was I think I bought 51 units in less than 12 months. And if I were to do it over again, right, I probably would have done it a little bit slower. It definitely caused it cost me a lot of money in the long run. Because we were going like as soon as we got you know, one set of properties, you know, righted we righted the ship, right, we dealt with tenants moving out was before we even met them, we dealt with unknown problems that we didn’t know we had, you know, once we we got that part of the buildings stabilized. I was buying another one. And then so we went through like a year and a half, almost two years straight of as soon as we would get it like to a good point, we didn’t relax, we just went right into it and did it again. And I didn’t stop to really think about the systems and the processes necessary. Right. I was lucky that I understood the basic foundations of investing from doing this myself in 2011 through 2013. That really, really helped me but I probably I might my guess is I probably have lost $100,000 Over the last six years by by doing it too fast. Is that a learning lesson? I learned of course what I would have done differently, maybe maybe not. But I definitely learned quick so that

D.J. Paris 29:51
and I want to go back and I’m sorry to change topics but I wanted to go back to something you said and you talked about this idea of paying it forward, in particular with information Going around investing and, and bigger pockets is a great community where you can learn from from people who are willing to be generous enough to talk about the things they know. And bigger pockets. It’s like $100 a year, it’s incredibly inexpensive, but I wanted to pay you a compliment. It’s just I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this till, as you were speaking and mentioned that paying it forward thing you actually did that to me once, not about not with respect to investment information or bigger pockets, but I believe a broker had contacted you about maybe joining your team or I’m not exactly even sure what the context was, but you reached out to us or me or my my boss, Nick, and said, Hey, I have a broker that might be that might be a good fit for your firm. And by the way, I’ve been recruiting Realtors for seven years, we have about 600 brokers here. So I have a lot of experience going out and finding brokers on my own, I can count maybe that has happened one other time in seven years where another managing broker reached out to me and said, I have somebody that would be a good fit. Managing brokers don’t typically do that. Because you know, they would probably want that person to work at their firm. And I don’t even remember who this person was at this point. But I wanted to say like, that is a perfect example of just how generous and thoughtful you are we you and I weren’t friends. So you know, so to speak, that the fact that you even thought to do that was was very kind and generous. So I just wanted to say like, that really speaks to who you are. And you probably don’t you probably remember doing that. But I remember I do. I just

Brie Schmidt 31:27
did it again two weeks ago, I just talked to him on Friday about it, he was about to give notice to his current brokerage and go work. So, I mean, it’s right, this is this is my whole philosophy on life, and what my philosophy on life is, goes through every, every decision that I make, every everything that I do goes towards what I want out of my life. So a I don’t need the money to make someone needs to make their own decisions, right? I can’t make decisions for you. So in that particular case, and the case from the guy from two weeks ago, you know, he called me and said, Listen, like I’m with my brokerage, I’m not sure I’m getting what I think I should be getting. And I suggest that you guys, because he’s a professional flipper, he does new construction development. You know, he’s not an agent that works with retail clients. That’s not what he wants to do. But he’s looking for a place to sell his own deals and work with a very small network of referrals. I think kale is a perfect fit for you, you know, the way that they’re structured, right? It will give you optimal, your optimal commission back to you. And they have enough support system to fulfill exactly what you do. I don’t necessarily need to make money off of you. But it needs to be a decision that works best on your goals. So I said even with people that call me about investing, right, I’ll give anyone an hour on the phone, that’s my rule. And I got, it might not even lead to a monetary benefit for me. But at least I can help you determine what your goals are, and what’s going to be the best fit for you. And then again, it all goes back to what my lifestyle is. I do not want a team of agents. Like I’ve actually had lunch with Nick, I got approached about a year ago from a friend from Ohio, who was looking to start a brokerage company in Chicago and wanted me to work with him on my losing my license. And I actually asked Nick out to lunch and was like, Can you walk me through this? And I left that meeting be like No, no, not gonna happen. Like I, I do not want to I do not want to manage a bunch of agents, right? I do not want to do that. Right? I want to do what I love to do, which is I get to talk to investors all day long. And I get to analyze properties all day long. And I get to help them make decisions that are going to impact the rest of their life and their kids lives. Right. And it’s about the strategy and the goal setting and how are we going to get there? And you know, all that is super fun to me. Managing other agents and being a mommy and having to, you know, deal with, that’s not fun, for sure. So, I like to do what I have fun doing.

D.J. Paris 34:03
Absolutely. I mean, I think you’re you are so incredibly clear about what you want out of this business and also just in life in general, I think you’ve gotten really crystal clear. And then you just like you’ve said your own words you’ve you’re all in. And and I think the giving part of it is so obviously it was so obvious, but to the listeners but also probably a key component of your success. Aside from being very savvy and knowing exactly what you’re doing. I think this idea of giving back I mean, you are synonymous in the Chicago land investment world with information and just knowing more than I think maybe other people you’ve really established yourself without the self promotion. Just literally being a knowledge source has made you an expert without having for you to even say you’re an expert. I mean, you know that you are known and I think that’s really impressive. Because I think a lot of people Fake it until they make it I don’t think you’ve done that at all. I think you made it and then said, oh, you know, when people followed along, I think that’s really impressive.

Brie Schmidt 35:04
It was definitely opposite. I said, That’s why my six year old self, if my, if you asked me six years ago, if I would have my own brokerage company with four agents, you know, and dealing with investors, I would have laughed because back then I like there’s no way to ever be an agent, I don’t like clients. Um, you know, so I was just lucky enough to find a niche, right, which I enjoy. And I get to talk with people and educate them on topics that I enjoy. And I’m obviously very passionate about, regardless if they’re my client or not, or they decide to work with me or not, I’m really big about people making their own decisions. And one of the things that we do these onboarding calls, which are mainly around expectations, right, what are your goals? What do you want to accomplish, and is what we have available to you going to fit into those goals and accomplishments. And one of the things that we talk about a lot is how we sleep at night, you know, and I always tell clients, like, Listen, my job at the end of the day, is not to talk you into buying a property, my job at the end of the day is to teach you enough and educate you enough. So that when a property comes up that you like you are 100% confident in making that decision. Because the worst thing in the world any of us can do, especially with with investment properties is worry or set or self doubt ourselves, right? This is not, this is not 20 bucks, that you’re losing here, this is potentially hundreds of 1000s of dollars. You know, this needs to be something that you go to bed at night, and you sleep like a baby, I sleep like a baby, I do every single night, sometimes with a bottle of wine helps, too. But you because I’m solid and all my choices, you know, of every investment property that I bought, I don’t buy anything that I’m not 100% Sure on. So it’s my job to teach you to get to that level where you feel comfortable making that decision. Right. I don’t want you up worrying at night. Did I overspend? You know, or how are we going to pay for this? Or our type? Our cash flow is super tight? Like what if? What if a refrigerator goes out? Right? How are we going to pay for that? Never want to be in that position as an investor. It’s very scary. And I’ve seen over the years and talk to you plenty of investors who have fallen right and gone from you know, they just they didn’t didn’t focus on the foundations. Right. And they didn’t, they weren’t well capitalized, and they weren’t conservative enough. And then something happens and boom, you can lose it like that. You know, last week I had last week was a really fun week for me. Last week, I had a client lose his job. Six days before closing that was super fun. My turnkey reviews website, which is another website that I run, got a virus. So that’s been down for the last week. And then I had to tenants just up and leave. Like January 1 hit, we got a call from energy company like hey, they turned off gas service because they moved out on my That’s a surprise. You know, so it was a really crazy week for me. But if I’m not well capitalized and prepared, you know that that was two tenants that just vacated they didn’t pay rent, right? They didn’t clean? Um, you know, if I don’t have the money to cover my mortgage that month, what’s going to happen? And that’s one of the preparations you need to make for for being an investor.

D.J. Paris 38:14
Yes. And yeah, I you know, so it’s, it’s funny, do you do all of your own property management? Or do you outsource that?

Brie Schmidt 38:25
I used to, I used to do it all. And that said, when 24 Up until 2014 2015, I did it all myself. I had a I had a manager that had assisted me, but I ran the business, all the accounting, all the decisions. And then he did like the day to day like he handled only the maintenance calls or the lease ups. It wasn’t until it was until 2015 that I decided I had to hire out professional management. And again, it went back to my time commitment. Right, where’s my time best spent? I was going up to Milwaukee, you know, every week. Of course, you know, when anything happened in Chicago with my brokerage. It always happened on days I was in Milwaukee Sure. Of course. Oh, of course. So like, I would end up on the side of the road with my hotspot trying to DocuSign contracts to people, you know, and it was just like, this is out of control. I can’t do both. And I had to decide, you know, where where I wanted to spend my time. And i i The picking up of the investment properties, the analog, the analyzing, right, that’s all fun for me, but the day to day is not fun for me. So I hired that out. So I’ve got two full time managers that manage my Milwaukee portfolio. I’ve got a manager that manages my Airbnb property here in Chicago. And then I self manage my rentals here in Chicago because they’re super easy. And then I just manage all of the managers that got me down to about you know, 510 hours a week tops, and that gave me 20 hours a week to do broke. Sure. So that’s when I made the switch and focused my my What I was doing with my day to day, well, let’s talk

D.J. Paris 40:02
you know, if there are investors that are listening, and we do have investors who listen to the show and they’re interested in, in working with you directly what’s the best way they should reach out to you?

Brie Schmidt 40:13
So my new website, which is hopefully coming up soon, would be second city dash rt.com. That should be up by the end of January. If not, you can always email me at Chicago Bri. Obviously, Chicago and the word Bri b r i e@gmail.com. Or you can find me on bigger pockets or LinkedIn. That’s generally where I spend a lot of my time.

D.J. Paris 40:36
Wonderful. Well, Bree, you I think you’ve said it all. And we’re so I’m so excited to have you on the show. So thank you very much. Is there anything else we need to oh, well, let’s plug in the real estate networking summit one more time to get more information about this three day summit that Bree is putting together herself 300 attendees, many, many speakers, it’s Midwest, ar e summit.com. And, and if you’re not, and if you’re a broker, and you’re not that familiar with investments, get on bigger pockets, start learning, because you you know, you may find that once you develop the skill set of being able to work with investors, you might find like Brita that she that you prefer to do that and just you know, throwing deals their way. Again, you might find you like that better than traditional, you know, retail clients. But Bree, thank you so much for being on the show. We really appreciate it.

Brie Schmidt 41:28
Thanks for having me.

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In this episode we speak to top producer Niko Apostal of The Apostal Group. Although Niko’s family has been involved in real estate for over 40 years, he has blazed his own trail and become one the most successful brokers in Chicago. In this episode we talk about the importance of giving back to the real estate community through serving on boards and also tips that newer brokers can use to build their business. Niko shares one strategy that he estimates less than 1% of brokers use that skyrocketed his open house success rate! Lastly he talked about recently moving firms, and why he’s never been more excited than right now!

Niko Apostal can be reached at niko@theapostalgroup.com and 312.216.2424.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello and welcome to keeping it real the only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host through the show. And coming up in just a few moments, we have an interview with top producer, and all are all around great guy, Nico apostle. But before we get to that, a couple of quick announcements first of all, thank you for listening and supporting our show. This is the first time ever hearing us and every episode we get new listeners. So what we do here is we interview the top brokers in Chicago and ask them what they did to grow their business and have them tell their story in the hopes that other brokers who are interested in increasing their production can learn from the very best. So one way that you can support the show, aside from listening, which we really appreciate, is to tell a friend, if you have other brokers in your office that are wondering what the top people are doing, tell them about our show, they can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Stitcher, really anywhere podcasts are served just search for keeping it real. And there’s a few podcasts actually named keeping it real. So look for the one with DJs you know as my name and look for that, and that’ll tell you which one it is. But you can also listen to every single episode we have on our website which is keeping it real pod.com So all of our episodes can be streamed there. Also you can contact us so if you’re somebody who wants to recommend a broker that we should be talking to that maybe we haven’t reached out to and invited on the show, you can do that also, if you are a vendor and you want to advertise on our show, you can do that there as well. And then lastly, follow us on Facebook we post a lot of good content there and we interact with the listeners and that’s keeping it real pod on Facebook so check us out all right on to our interview with Nico apostle

Okay, today on the show we have Nico apostle by the way, Nico is one of the first people I ever met in real estate when I first got involved at my firm and this was like maybe seven years ago or so. So I’m really excited to have him on the show. But Nico, let me tell you a little bit about about Nico. He entered the real estate business in 2001. And he has established himself as one of the top residential realtors in Chicago and a leader in the Residential Brokerage community. His primary focus is his sales practice where he runs a high level brokerage team. He is part owner of the brand new Keller Williams Chicago Linkin Park office, which he helped launch last year. He is also co owner of our management offering leasing and rental property management for his clients. Currently, he serves on the board of directors of the Illinois realtor Association, and has recently served on the Board of Directors of the Chicago Association realtors, where he has chaired multiple committees and co founded the local chapter of the YPN which is the Young Professionals Network. In February of 2016. Nico was a featured broker on HGTV House Hunters renovation. He’s a lifelong resident of Chicago’s north side, and Nico comes from a family that has been active in real estate investment management, development and sales for more than 40 years. He has extensive leadership training, which he previously used to teach agents in Coldwell bankers new agent development program, and presently as a member of his local Keller Williams agent Leadership Council. Over the past decade, Nikko and the apostle group has earned a reputation for excellence and expertise as well as caring and personal attention earning recognition among the top 1% of Realtors in Chicago. So, no, he’s just a super nice guy. So welcome Miko to the show.

Niko Apostal 3:58
Thank you. Nice to be here happy to happy to support and look forward to this conversation.

D.J. Paris 4:04
Yeah, so our first question I almost always ask when I when it gets somebody like yourself is tell us how you got into real estate and I know you have the history because your mom is such a prominent figure in the real estate community too. But tell us that that story if you don’t,

Niko Apostal 4:19
well, real estate was always in our conversation. When I was growing up. My father was a biology teacher. My mom was a history teacher. When I was a kid and they would do real estate on the side. My brother, my father would buy buildings, fix them up and sell them or rent them or, or things like that. And then he’d rent a few things when you know, rent apartments and sell properties occasionally over the summers when he was not in school. And then mom when she became a full time mom, and did volunteer work for the local Lincoln Elementary School in some of the local community groups. She did real estate on the side sort of selling things and renting the things that my father would get involved with And then she, you know, when I got into high school, she went full time into real estate at a group called century 21. Stan Meyer, which is long gone. But was, was a really great move for her. So it was always part of the dinner table conversation. And when I graduated college, I lived in New York City for the first three and a half years and worked for a nonprofit organization. And then I moved back to Chicago in 2001, and end of August. And then I had all these job interviews lined up for marketing and sales type jobs. And then I was determined to sort of make my own way. But then September 11, happened, and nobody was hiring, no one was even calling me back. And I had, you know, student loans to pay, I had things to the head of rent to pay. So mom said, why don’t you come be my assistant while you look for a real job. So I did in started October 1, basically, of 2001. And I learned a ton from her and her colleagues in that couple banker office, it was a magical time for that office. David Hall was our managing broker and was one of the most inspirational mentors I’ve ever had. And he was it was a heady time, this was, you know, the market was really, really easy to sell things. And it was just, it was extremely fast paced, and feverish. And David was bringing in people from all these different industries, and they were bringing their knowledge and expertise, and we were collaborating to create, you know, new ways of doing real estate. And it was really fun. So I went off on my own end of Oh, two. And mom’s phone always just used to ring and I always thought it was pretty easy. You just sit there, the phone rings, and you help the clients out. And, you know, she would have lots of lunches and lots of breakfasts, and meet people here and there. And I always thought that was kind of silly. I also thought I was way more technically savvy than she. So I should probably be able to do this really easily right away. So first month, I had one of my friends by and I got a client off an open house. And six months later, I finally got my second client, my third, right. And I realized that all those silly, ridiculous things that she did, were things that generated those phone calls, and I was not doing any of those. And that’s when the big aha came and I said, the important thing is to, to stay involved in your, in your friends and clients lives. And that’s how you do it. So I pivoted, and I started helping every realtor out that I could find and did a ton of open houses, open houses, my stock and trade, I could not do floor time, I was terrible on the phones. The internet was not at a time when it was generating leads yet. But open houses was my was my game, it was the best thing to do, I would do three or four per weekend, and just load them up. And then the trick to making open house work is follow up relentless follow up. And I just had, you know, don’t, you know, didn’t care. And I had no fear and I had nothing to lose. And so I just went at it full force. And so by the end of that year, I think I had sold over 5 million my first year. And then the following year, I think I did 11. So

D.J. Paris 8:17
that’s those are amazing. First two years. I know. I wanted to go back to the open house for a moment. So I want to say specifically for people that are curious at how you got these open houses. I’m assuming you just went to brokers and said I will do open houses for you?

Niko Apostal 8:32
Well, yes, absolutely. And one thing I learned was, there’s a lot of brokers who will offer up open houses, hey, can someone set my open house this this Sunday, you know, from from 10 to 12. And I would the first few times I did that on my own, I realized those were crappy open houses wanted to sit no one wanted to sit them. So instead what I would do is when a listing came through the office, I would see the we published a hot sheet at the time the office did and I would just read it every week, every day when I came through and I would I would see what new properties came up and areas that I wanted to work in. And I would pick the open houses I wanted to do. And then as I got more proficient at this, I realized that the best way for me to establish myself as an agent was to show that I had that I was active in the industry. So while my friends knew me as a nice guy, but they didn’t know that I was any good as a real estate broker. Sure. So the way I countered that was by letting them know that I was not only a good person but really active so every time I said an open house I would plan it for not the this coming weekend but the following weekend to give me time to be able to invite my sphere to the Open House say Hey, I just listed this this property is just been listed. I’m sitting open house here this weekend. I’d love to have you join me. And I would try and just go through in my contact Next each week on that, on that morning before the open house, and I would text, you know, a dozen or so of my peep people I hadn’t seen or heard from in a while, and and say, Hey, I’m sitting here and I’m all alone, why don’t you come join me pop in for a minute come see this place. And so I built up a group of brokers in the office who loved to have me do their open houses, because I would always get double or triple the traffic. And it didn’t really matter of obviously, if, if any of those people were interested in the house, all it mattered was that they could report back to their client that they didn’t open us and they had 18 people come through and nobody liked the place, they better drop the price.

D.J. Paris 10:38
Well, and add it to your sphere of influence, it makes you look incredibly busy. Which of course, I do once a month we do I do an episode with Carrie McCormick, I don’t know. Absolutely. And Carrie might be about the best if what she her, her sweet spot is Instagram. And so Carrie constantly and she ever all of her posts look amazing, her pictures, but they’re constantly reminding you just how busy she is and just how successful she is. And it’s not even so much in a self promotion way. It’s its branding, and she’s able to say, I’ve got this going on, I’ve got this going on, come check this out. And you can’t help but think like, oh, and she is one of the most successful realtors in Chicago. But you would also without knowing that you would think that just by you know, and you were doing the same thing, essentially,

Niko Apostal 11:24
exactly. And I think that, especially if you’re new to this business, it’s really hard to get someone to trust you with the, you know, a very personal experience they have with with the largest financial assets they have, with a place where they’ve had raised their kids and had experiences and showed off their stuff and had parties and where they sleep at night. It’s very difficult for someone to trust you if you’re if you’re new. And the way to get around that is just to basically be in their face all the time and show that you’re a dynamo. And I had a lot of trouble at first, cuz I had an age problem, I looked way too young to be handling a property and Linkin Park or lake view or the Gold Coast. But what I made up for it with was I basically embrace it. And at first I started trying to be this guy that I wasn’t and I realized that no one was going to work with me. But instead what I did was I would always treat an open house like an interview for a listing, my goal has always been get listings, because if you have listings, you have something to advertise some way to get other clients. So I approach it that way. Each open houses interview for a listing, if I had if I could get to the open house an hour or two early, then I could door knock and invite the neighbors to the open house and say, Hey, I’m doing open house over here at this listing, why don’t you come out and see me I’d always dress nicely and always bring a listing presentation book, you know, no, CMA and inside, but just the presentation materials. And I would always say oh, yeah, I’m heading to a listing presentation after this. So I have this with me, why don’t you take a look at it. And just quite simply, you know, I would use the line, I would say who are you going to list your property with with Carrie McCormack, you know, she’s got 22 listings right now, which means you’re gonna get 1/22 of her time, I have no listings right now, you’ll get 100% of my time. And if I don’t sell your place, I don’t eat so right, you don’t have working for you. So basically, I embraced my nervousness as a as an asset instead of as a detriment. And I think that that really helped me to get some of those first listings. And over time, I obviously can’t say that anymore. But but you know, it was a great way when I was getting going to establish myself and to give myself credibility.

D.J. Paris 13:38
It’s so it’s such a brilliant move. And and I do want to like you went through this very, very quickly. But I want to back up just a step and say, I wonder or ask the question. And it’s more just a hypothetical. But I wonder what percentage of brokers who are doing an open house will ever knock on the next door neighbor’s door to let them know, I bet you it’s less than 5%.

Niko Apostal 13:58
So and it’s even less than that. Yeah, you’re right.

D.J. Paris 14:01
And so just the thought so so what did need to do, let’s go back, he first went around to the brokers in the office who had listings and said, I’m going to make you look great in front of your seller, I’ll do an open house for you, you know, for a property that, you know, he sort of wanted to be known as, as being active in that particular area. So Lincoln Park Lake View in particular, and then, you know, and that’s, that’s a win win for that broker with that listing. And then he went around to the neighbors and said, Oh, by the way, I have this and also promoted it in it with his own sphere of influence. And so all of a sudden, you’re like, Man, this guy, Miko is doing a lot of a lot of stuff. And, and it’s, that’s a really brilliant branding strategy. And so,

Niko Apostal 14:41
absolutely, and when you start off, you know, you spend a lot of money, relatively a lot of money to get into this business and the flow of revenue that comes is really intermittent. And sometimes, like in my case, I had six months of no money coming in. So you You learn you, it’s a difficult business to get traction in. But what you have at your disposal most when you’re getting going is time. And so if you use that time, if you really devote a lot of time, spend that free time that you have doing activities that will generate business that’ll get you in front of more people. That’s how I think a new broker can get going much faster and shorten that learning curve and shorten that, that you know that and flatten out that revenue curve, so that you can get going at this point. Now what I crave more than anything is time. Sure. And you know, it’s the one thing that you can’t create more of. So that’s where leverage comes in. That’s when you start hiring people and you realize, what’s my time worth? And could I pay someone else to do some of these things that gobble up my time so that my attention is best focused on those activities that will generate new, more business?

D.J. Paris 15:58
Yeah, let’s talk about the recent move to to Keller Williams, because you and your your group was at a Coldwell Banker forever. And I know you know, you have very fun things to say about Coldwell Banker, but talk about the transition and how that’s worked out for you. And well, I know you’re really excited about it. So

Niko Apostal 16:15
yeah, you know, I, I, I had such a great formative experience at CB and their training and their their environment is such a great place to get going and real estate and, and I really did like it there. I think what what the opportunity came out of the blue, sort of late summer of 2016. And for me, it was an opportunity to see if I could recreate that office that we had from the beginning where it was a collaborative environment where new people were coming in and got to work side by side with experienced agents. And we it was a culture of training and, and collaboration. And it was kind of I’ve always been a little bit entrepreneurial, I had started our management. It’s now it’s six years old. So I learned a lot from that experience. And then when Tommy and Josh, Tommy Choi, Josh Weinberg, Joe Zimmerman, Ameri hate approached me and said, you know, we’re thinking of opening this Keller Williams office, do you know much about the company, I didn’t actually know anything about them. But I knew that these were very smart guys that I’ve collaborated with in the past. And when the more I learned, the more I realized there was a ton of training and systems that the company offers, that are just on the next level that would take me from the business that I was doing to what do I do next, you kind of reach a plateau several times as you grow in this business. And I think I had reached a plateau at CB and, and this is not the right brokerage for everybody. You know, I think if someone wants to just do a few real estate sales on the side is like a side business, you’re probably better off at a more traditional brokerage, where they take care of a lot of things for you. But here, what you get is a community of brokers who were building this nurturing this community of brokers who, who want to work with one another who want to make this a full time career who want to build a legacy in the business that they can then hand down to the next generation that they can build, treat this business like a business and create, you know, sort of the next generation of top producers in the industry. And so I’m really excited about what we’ve been able to do our growth is staggering. We’ve been open since March. And we’re already up to I think it’s nearly 140 brokers in this office. We had lease additional office space. We’re bringing in trainers from all over the country and the Keller Williams network of agents across the country is tremendous. They’re extremely tight. And everyone is so generous with their time and knowledge.

D.J. Paris 18:57
Yeah, I mean, they you know, I’m a huge fan of, of the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, which is about you know, Gary Keller’s book, which I know has been recently updated. And that alone is probably about the best book on how to be a successful realtor that I’ve ever seen. So I suspect the the other voices that are traders of Keller Williams are amazing. The I did want to bring back to you mentioned Josh Weinberg, we’ve had him on the show. And he said, he said something that that was Tommy was not on the show at the time, but he mentioned something about Tommy which I thought was really interesting. sort of goes back to something you had mentioned very briefly earlier was that you were talking about you know, in particular for new brokers but I suspect you feel this way even today was that getting in front of more people obviously drives the business and and helps smooth out that curve of you know, when when the income comes in, but meeting new people is maybe that most important activity and when I was talking to Josh, I asked him I said What are your his own personal hit him and Tommy’s personal goals? For I guess it was sometime last year we asked him They go, Yeah, we don’t really think in terms of production. He said, We have really one goal, which was, Tommy needs to meet 365 new people over the next year, basically one new person a day, if he does, that, all of our goals will be met. You know, and I just love that because these guys are, you know, they’re already top 1% producers, they’re probably working almost exclusively by referral, they’re clearly you know, doing great. And yet, they’re still going back to that fundamental, get more meet more people talk to more people.

Niko Apostal 20:28
Absolutely. You know, and it is sort of, I mean, as I’ve learned, especially over this year, working side by side with them, as well as some of these new agents that I’ve met across the country, it really is, it’s a, it’s about doubling down on the basics. When you have something that works well, you just have to think, How can I make it more efficient, to be able to do more of that. And you know, when you boil down the numbers in your day to day activities, and down to the time to the minute, you realize, you know, everyone has their their source of business, their nugget, that thing that makes them special. And you should be building your business around facilitating more of that. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, and Tommy is probably one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met, you know, yeah, for sure. Yes. He just knows a million people. He does things from his heart. And you know, any any doesn’t, doesn’t does the results don’t matter. He just does it out of the kindness of his heart. And his motivation, I think is to, to see if he can improve the lives of everyone around him. And I was very much aligned with that philosophy, which is why I think we have such a great working relationship. And I think Joe and Mary are exactly the same way to their MKT team is amazing. And they’re definitely the office leaders. They are forging ahead, they are building a seventh level real estate team right now. That is incredible. I mean, I’m so excited to see what they’re going to do this year, and how that then I’m learning from their mistakes and their, you know, their accomplishments. As I build my team to reach new levels.

D.J. Paris 22:06
You will I do want to transition and talk about your involvement in the industry in the community, because you’ve been so involved. But before I do that, real quickly, I had a just a memory of something that you you had said and this is many years ago, we I was at a YPN event. And you were on a I believe you were on a panel. And the panel was interesting, because I believe it was a technology panel. And then I know you’re you’re always looking at systems and always looking for technology. And at one point, there was a conversation about what’s the best CRM to use. And so different people on the panel had different opinions about their preferred CRM. And, and you it was really funny, you sort of stood up and said, You know, I’ve tried pretty much all the CRMs and they’re all fine in ego. But you know, and maybe you don’t do this now. But at the time, it was really great. You said I kind of just went back to using Excel, or maybe it was Google Google Sheets, you’re like, yeah, yeah. And I thought that was great. You’re like, I just decided I didn’t really need those. And I it was more effective for me just to sort of, you know, go back to the basic tools.

Niko Apostal 23:05
Absolutely. You know, the, the tool is only as useful as your ability to use it. And so and your desire to use it. And I have, honestly, and I’ve tried to add another dozen since then. Sure. Try. I’m trying a new one this year again this year, but this one’s now done by a Keller Williams agent who’s running a team exactly like mine. So I’m hopefully this one will work but but I think what it comes down to is you has to be a tool that you understand that you’re going to love using because you’re going to use it every single day, it’s the single most important tool in this business is you know, like you were saying, with Tom he does best is getting in front of people and then following up with them. And that only works when you know who to follow up with and you keep their accurate information. So whatever you’re going to use, whether it’s a three by five, no card file, that’s alphabetize if that’s what you love, and you’re going to use it and it’s good working for you use it, but if you choose some fancy, you know, really expensive software and you hate it and you’re never going to use it, then it’s useless to you. So you know, it’s it comes down to building your business around the way that you work. Yeah, and that Yeah, and that’s true for hiring too. You know, don’t hire if you’re really great taking buyers out. Don’t hire a buyer’s agent when you need as an admin, you need someone to do the paperwork in the office because you’re really great taking buyers out of the office. You know, it’s a huge mistake that agents make is the first hire they do is another agent to do the same work that they’re doing. That’s a huge mistake. The bigger thing you need most agents need the best and most successful ones is someone to do the other stuff, because it’s a whole different skill set managing details than it is finessing people and it’s an entirely different motivation level entire different skill set. So when I hired my first assistant, that’s what I did. It was They said, Okay, this is all the stuff I hate doing. This is the job description. I’m, I’m right, I’m hiring for right. And so. So and then from there, the systems and the software follow. So, you know, you build it around the people, and the first primary person is who are you? And what are you the best at? So start with that? Where is your business coming from? What is it about you that brings a business in, and then from there build around that get someone to do the other stuff that doesn’t that takes you away from that, you know, do that 80% of the stuff that you have to do, but only 20% of your that stuff that you you know, that other 20% is the stuff that makes you the most than more money or that gets to the next level, if you can hire someone to do that 80% and focus on the 20%, or get a software tool that can do that. 80% so that you can focus on the 20% you should be doing. That’s how you you get successful. And that’s how you reach that next level.

D.J. Paris 25:58
Absolutely. Yeah, let’s, let’s transition I and by the way, very well said and I had interviewed somebody recently who said, you know, a lot of times when people build teams, they don’t realize they’re likely to take a pay cut additionally, meaning, you know, the overall revenue for that broker who is hiring, you know, but then over time, you know, if they’re doing the things you just don’t want to do, or they just take up too much of your time. You know, eventually, of course, that that should should grow the business. But

Niko Apostal 26:25
I tell people, if you have 15, to 20,000, to put into a checking account, set up, set up and, you know, incorporate and set up a checking account business checking account, if you put in $15,000. In that account, you have six months salary for that person. And then after that, if you don’t have it, and then if it’s not working after six months, guess what, you should probably let the person go anyway. So if you haven’t made more money than you did over the previous six months, because of that, then then you know, maybe you shouldn’t hire the person. Yeah. itself, right.

D.J. Paris 27:01
Let’s talk about getting involved in the in the community and and also in the, you know, giving back to the to the industry and getting because I know that’s a passion of yours. You’ve been very involved. You’ve been on YPN, you, you’ve founded one of the chairs of YPN, you’ve been Where you’ve done some work with car IAR. Can you talk a little bit about why you’re why you’re involved, what you do, and maybe what you’d like other people to know about that?

Niko Apostal 27:24
Sure, absolutely. I think that part of the reason I’ve been so successful is I just like collaborating with others. And it’s not just trying to get involved with members, you know, organizations within the community, like your local chamber of commerce or your local neighborhood association, or condo association. I think those are important too. And those definitely give you insight and knowledge. But it’s equally as important for a broker to get involved with your local real estate Association, and then maybe your state and national Real Estate Association. And there’s several benefits of doing this. Number one is you get an insight into how other people are doing the practicing the business and what they’re doing and how they’re doing, how they work. A lot of these people who come to these associations work in very different marketplaces, even if you’re, you know, the Chicago Association of Realtors, is 14,000 brokers and think about every neighborhood in the city and how different they are from one another. And there’s different needs and different approaches and different types of housing and each of those areas. So to sit there and hear what’s working for one broker in one area, which isn’t being tried in your area, it’s just a great way to collaborate and share knowledge. Likewise, I think also, I don’t know, do you remember that movie? It was a beautiful mind was Russell Crowe? And it was about that mathematician who said that Adam Smith was right. Right. And his so I’ve good friend of mine is a real estate developer. And he’s got an MBA in finance, real estate finance from Kellogg, and he took a lot of classes about that the, you know, the the guy who was in that. And he said, it’s really it’s not well understood, but the basic premise holds true, which is, I think that a trade organization, when run well, like a union or a guild of some kind, when Runwell can actually produce a higher level of quality service or product to the consumer, as well as a better quality working environment for the employee. As long as it’s not abused in one way or the other. So, meaning when we’re involved, we work together, we’re facing common issues. We can also set higher standards of practice, which you can invite other brokers to live up to. And by being a member of this community, you’re settling disputes between one another, you’re creating an efficiency of resources by by, you know, you know, going together with, to purchasing power and to get perks and benefits that you can do in bulk, which you couldn’t do as an individual. And then also you you are setting a level of, you know, an openness of communication among the industry, which helps business to be transacted a lot more efficiently. So, you know, I would very much encourage every broker, especially new ones who are in this industry for the first time and wondering, What should I do next? Or how do I get to the next level, to get involved in your local real estate Association, I don’t just mean show up to the to the parties to the drinking events. I mean, get yourself on a committee, there are so many committees in different areas. The managing broker of our office is a guy named Dave Nassau. And he’s phenomenal. He chaired the forms and contracts committee at the Chicago Association Realtors for several years, and literally rewrote our real estate, the association real estate contract to adhere to the trade regulations. And in that process is causes a whole series of communication that allows that makes our contracts better, that protect the buyers better and make more clarity for sellers. So the consumer benefits and then we as agents benefit by using a more concise form, that creates fewer problems between the contract and closing. So it’s things like that, you know, no

D.J. Paris 31:17
question. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, I was gonna say if you whatever board you’re with whether you’re with Chicago Association of Realtors, Main Street NAS bar, Three Rivers down in Joliet, the easiest way to learn about getting involved in these ways is literally call them or go to their websites, and you will see a list of all the committees, there’s almost they are they are starving in a good way for your involvement. They want you to be on these boards, they need you to be on these boards. And there’s usually a pretty simple process to get to get involved and active. So contact your board. Do that. And I also know that you’re passionate about our PAC, I believe, as well. Is that correct?

Niko Apostal 31:56
Sure. Yes, the real estate political action committee is it’s an advocacy organization that is part of the National Association of Realtors, and is administered mostly on the state level through each state association. And then obviously, each municipal or City Association, then feeds into it as well. But a lot of people wonder why, you know, when you pay your dues for the association dues for MLS access, and things like that, they also try to tack on voluntary, you know, 30 or $40 contribution to our pack, and is really important. Those dollars have tremendous influence on our industry, you can see them at work, even in this tax plan that just came through. Well, you know, it is definitely not beneficial in the way it was written. For both for homeowners and for real estate brokers, there’s a lot of things that are not as great in there as the way we used to have it. It was a horrible, horrible Bill was much much worse when it first started out. And it was through the lobbying efforts of on both state level and on on a national level, to get in front of politicians and have the wording and language change and have certain provisions rolled back and things like that, that allowed that bill to be much less onerous than it was. And you know, it’s just a great, it’s also a great way to get in touch with the leaders in the industry. Because I what I find is some of most of the top producers in this industry, they understand the value of, of contributing to, you know, a political action committee, and they realize that it is it’s super important for maintaining their livelihood and for protecting their clients being able to protect their clients. So they get heavily involved. And it’s a great way for somebody who is new to get in front of and to get an introduction to some of these top producers. So there’s just tons of benefits for getting involved in it. And the way I like to think of it just from a from a basic standpoint is, you know, if it’s like paying your insurance, it’s like it’s like employment insurance, it’s protects our industry from outside influence. And would you know, would you contribute 1% of what you earn in order to protect the other 99?

D.J. Paris 34:27
Absolutely. I have for sure what not, it’s even way less than 1% Right? It’s literally like $30

Niko Apostal 34:34
Yes, your fair share contribution is something small, it’s like 30 or 40 bucks, depending on where you are. And

I mean, I contributed I think this past year I did $5,000 toward our pack because it was such a big year and those dollars go such a long way. There’s something there was some New York New York Times article that said that you get a something like on average at 26,000% return on your investment when you Do political action investment versus non thing, I mean, it’s a multiplying effect. And we have one of the most, you know, the most active and influential trade organizations in the entire country with with one of the largest memberships of any organization, that country and its fingers go into right down to the local politic political level, all the way up to the national level. And, you know, politicians love Realtors for their ability to network across an entire community.

D.J. Paris 35:32
Yeah, no question. And I was talking to you offline about I bought Beth Wallace, who I we interviewed. So if you’re interested in learning more about what these these lobbyists do on brokers behalf, and also not just brokers behalf, but also consumers go all the way back, I think it’s episode two or three, where we interview Beth, who is a lobbyist for our back, and she gets a lot more specific about exactly how to get involved and what they do and all the resources that brokers have at their disposal, like through Illinois Association of Realtors, that they don’t even know they have, and so that it’s a great episode to listen to, to really get more in depth and, and how that all works and why it’s important, but well, well. Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time. And this has been really, really great. What’s neat, if we do have any buyers and sellers, or renters out there that are interested in working with your group, what’s the best way or even maybe brokers that are interested in learning more about what your your, your your firm has to offer? What’s the best way that anyone should reach out to you?

Niko Apostal 36:33
Well, yes, I mean, obviously, I’m always looking for clients, but I’m also always looking for talent and people who have enthusiasm and drive and are looking for to make a successful career in real estate. There’s we’re hiring both at our management and here in Keller Williams, and even my team, I’m always looking for someone great, but best way to reach it to reach me is probably by email. It’s an ICAO at the Apostel group.com. That’s an ICAO at th e apostalgroup.com. And I check that email all day every day. So I would love to hear from anyone if you have questions. I’m always happy to help and we you know, if you want to see some of these teams and people doing high level practice in action, you’re always welcome to pop on our office. We’re an office of sharing and giving and just kind of the environment where where we want to support one another

D.J. Paris 37:26
wonderful and also visit Nico’s website tube. It’s a great example of a really effective and aesthetically pleasing broker website. And I find I am not usually saying that about people’s website. So I feel like you guys have done a great job, you know, explaining what your team does also in in just a way that I think looks really cool. So thank you so much for being on the show. Really appreciate your time. And it’s my pleasure anytime. Thank you so much. All right. Take care.

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In 2013 Rosario Terracciano closed 643 transactions, earning him the #1 position in the Chicago Association of REALTORS® and #4 in the United States (as reported by Wall Street Journal). More recently he has developed a tool, ClickInvest, to help investors locate the best single family home opportunities in Chicago. In our interview Rosario discussing the challenges he faced in building his business, why he believes most brokers don’t need teams, and why he’s happier today doing fewer transactions.

Rosario Terracciano can be reached at rosario@clickinvest.com and 708-369-3151.

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 Paris. I am your host through the show, and we are excited to continue in 2018 and provide these conversations with top producers for you to help you grow your business to learn from some of the best and brightest producers out there and they’re nice enough to talk to us. So always grateful for top producers who are willing to share their secrets on our show today is no exception. We have Rosario Tara Ciano in particular how he pivoted from a traditional brokerage to investment and I think you guys will find this really interesting because his story is so unusual and amazing, and also how you can continue to support our show a couple of ways. Number one, let us know if you have any brokers or know any brokers that you think would be a good fit. We typically interview top one percenters, but we’re also open to you know anyone else that’s doing some maybe up and coming rising stars or just somebody that’s doing something particularly interesting and unusual, that’s working, you know, definitely reach out, let us know who those brokers are, and we can reach out to them. Also, subscribe via iTunes or Google Play, or anywhere else podcasts are served up, just search for keeping it real. And listen to all of our episodes. You can also get emailed every time we have a new episode by visiting our website keeping it real pod.com and drop us a line let us know what you like what you don’t like and what you want to see more or less of in the future. And we also have a Facebook page where we are always posting our episodes and who we’re talking to and interviewing, which is also keeping it real pod. And lastly, tell a friend if you have any other brokers that you think could benefit from this information, please pass this podcast along. We greatly appreciate it. And one more thing if you are a vendor, somebody who works with real estate brokers and wants to wants to advertise on the show, drop us a line and we’ll let you know how that works. Okay, you’ve listened to enough of my rambling so onto our episode with Rosario Tariceanu.

This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Loftus law. I’m sorry the attorney is busy with something more important is something you will never hear when you call Patrick Loftus of Loftus law. Loftus law is a firm focused on serving real estate professionals and their clients you want your deals to close on time without headaches and Loftus law is the solution. For more information on what Loftis law can do for you and your clients and special pricing of 299 per closing call 773-632-8330 or email Patrick at Loftus hyphen law.com.

Today on the show we have Rosario Tara Ciano, who is the co founder and CEO of click invest.com. Rosario began his real estate career in 2003, when he left the finance industry and partnered with a local real estate broker specializing in distressed real estate. Now in his 15th year working exclusively in investment real estate Rosario is excited to share the click invest system he pioneered, Rosario has represented investors rehabbers, builders, banks and institutions in more than 2500 transactions valued at more than 300 million. This is really important and one I want to make sure I talk I stress is Rosario was the number one broker in Chicago for 2013 and ranked fourth nationally by The Wall Street Journal. He has built a career working with investors to stabilize distressed properties, and now brings that experience and expertise to his venture. So thank you for Sario for being on the show.

Rosario Terracciano 4:24
Thank you very much, man. I appreciate it.

D.J. Paris 4:27
We do too. So tell us about how you got started back in 2003. How did you get into real estate?

Rosario Terracciano 4:34
So in 2003, I was trading s&p futures and Nasdaq futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I wasn’t making any money, so I was clerking during the day to make ends meet was in a pretty dark place in my life at that at that point of time, and I actually came across a book called The Power of Positive Thinking. And

D.J. Paris 4:58
is that Norman Vincent? appeal. Norman Vincent Peale? Yeah, I have read that as well. Yeah, that,

Rosario Terracciano 5:05
that That book changed my life that led me led me to another book, what I call the the greatest book, the Bible. And I got out of a lot of a lot of my bad habits got my my mind clear, and decided to get out of the financial markets and jumped headfirst into real estate.

D.J. Paris 5:26
Awesome, well talk about that. What was it like when in 2003? When you got in? How did you get started?

Rosario Terracciano 5:32
So for the first time, in many, many years, I could think straight. And I read a book called another book, right? The Millionaire mentor, not sure if you’ve ever heard that. Russ Whitney was the name of the gentleman who wrote that book. And in that book, it said, you know, you’ve got a network, if you want to succeed in real estate, you’ve got to talk to the right people. Fortunately, enough for me, my cousin’s brother in law, was an REO broker. So I said, Hey, can you connect me to this guy? And he said, Look, he’s got no time for anybody. You know, you can try reaching out to him, but he’s not going to have time for you. And I blew that guy up for three weeks. Well, and let’s, let’s pause for a second. That guy is also getting called by probably every broker around who also wants that business. Right, everybody? Yep. Yeah. So I remember the first time I called him, he said, you know, yeah, that’s great. You know, your cousin’s my brother in law, but doesn’t mean anything. I don’t have time for you. And I said, Hey, can I come sit in your office, and he said, Sure, but I’m still not going to have any time for you. And I literally went there every day for three weeks. And then three weeks in, he had a drive out to a property in Naperville. And his office was down in Gold Coast, in the Gold Coast. And he said, once you hop in a car with me, we’ll drive out there. And then we’ll talk and we talked and hit it off at that point. So

D.J. Paris 6:56
Wow. And so so so what happened

Rosario Terracciano 7:00
after that, so I left the merch when I got my first deal under contract. So I was more of a bird dog or wholesaler at that point, I wasn’t, wasn’t a broker. But he taught me the investment side of real estate and said, Hey, there’s this whole market that existed that few know about, and I started going after fast track, I’m sorry, properties that were in Fast Track demo with the city of Chicago. So these are buildings that we’re gonna get torn down. So he taught me how to track down the the taxpayers who are who own those properties, and then contacted one of them, got it under contract wholesaled it out. And after that first deal, I left a mark and, and just dove in headfirst.

D.J. Paris 7:46
Yeah, and you built up in impressive business. I mean, you’re very humble person. But you did I think I read an article about you, then this goes back to I think 2014. But I think it’s referencing 2012 where you did almost 650 transactions that year. Yeah. 2013 2013. Wow. Was it just you did you have a team? Where was that all you?

Rosario Terracciano 8:12
I had a team a rather large team. So and if if the listeners get anything out of this, I think the biggest thing aside from you know, pushing on every day and having faith and even even those days where you feel like you’re getting kicked in the face and you’re not making any progress. It’s understanding margin. And how to make money. I mean, the the purpose of everything we’re doing, isn’t it just go out and buy nice stuff. Okay, like, yeah, that’s fun. But you want to build net worth, you want to you want to, you want to buy assets or build assets, and you want to look good on financial statement, you know, so I wasn’t mindful of those things. I was I just wanted to be number one. That was, that was my goal. back then. I want to be the top broker in the city and Florida and staffed up like crazy. And my margins at the end of the day were were nothing impressive.

D.J. Paris 9:11
Oh, gotcha. Sure, sure. So you weren’t you weren’t really running it so much as a business or at least your margins weren’t, weren’t as impressive as maybe the ultimate numbers to the average broker looking at what you were doing. Were

Rosario Terracciano 9:27
Correct. You know, I had guys when I got handed the award guys are like, Oh my gosh, you crushed it. And yeah, yeah, like sell 640 homes in a year. Impressive. Sure, but I rather sell 50 homes and operated at a super high margin, then sell 640 at a super low, more, super low margin. You know, because at the end of the day, I think that’s the facade of real estate or real estate brokerages. Build a team build a team build a team. Well, yes and no, you know, If you’re building a team, but your margin continually continually decreases every year, is the team worth it? You know, unless you’re really just turnkey, and you’re not working at all. But I know a few brokers that get to that point where it’s just on cruise control, you know, right.

D.J. Paris 10:19
Yeah, I think you’re right. I, you know, to speak to the margin. The margin concern that I talked to the many, many years ago, a person from a broker from Texas who was moving to Illinois, called in and he had been a broker in Texas for like, 15 years and, and he was interested in moving to Chicago, and he was getting his license here. And he was asking me about potentially joining our firm. But I said, just out of curiosity, what’s what’s like the number one lesson you learned in 15 years of doing real estate down in Texas and, and because he was a really fun person to talk to, and he’s like, the best lesson I learned. He’s like, it took me about 12 years to learn it. But he said selling a million dollar home is just as much work as selling $100,000. Home. Yes. I went oh, yeah, that speaks to margin right there. So yeah,

Rosario Terracciano 11:04
absolutely. And, and efficiency and systems. Sure. Hands down. I mean, we’re. So we’ve got a team of six people now. I mean, back in the day, it might peak. And mind you, I was so I was doing REO disposition. So I was selling Oreos for the banks. Sure. And I was also representing hedge funds on the acquisition side. So it was a perfect storm. Right, right. Institutional client on the sell side, institutional client on the buy side, high volume,

D.J. Paris 11:33
non emotional decisions, just make the numbers work.

Rosario Terracciano 11:35
Yeah, cold and calculated, you know, there was no repeat business. But we had an operation of almost 60 people. Wow, peak, between brokers, external staff field ops, we have virtual assistants, property management, transaction coordinators, closers, offer negotiators? Yeah, I mean, it was this massive operation. We, we had two people full time just submitting offers every day. Sure, of course, it was their job. Just write draft contracts and send them you know, so

D.J. Paris 12:11
I can’t imagine how many offers you must have submitted. To get to 642. It had to be

Rosario Terracciano 12:18
a lot. Yeah. So it was 150, depending on the week, 150 to 200 a week. Wow. Yeah. So well, north of 13 14,000. Authors.

D.J. Paris 12:31
It’s, you know, it’s funny, once in a while you I don’t hear it as much from brokers who are interested, maybe coming to work our firm, because that’s my day job is I talk to brokers and, and about our firm. But once in a while, you’ll hear a new broker, these more new brokers, people who just get their license, and they, they’re, you know, they’re like, how do you get involved in the reo business? I don’t know. A lot about it personally. Do you have any opinions about getting involved as a broker in Arios? This in 2017, or just 2018? Now? Is it a viable market? Is it a tough market? Do you have any particular opinions about that? I think

Rosario Terracciano 13:08
REO today is is probably the hardest market to break into. Sure. Real estate side. When I started in REO disposition, it was 2009. So I learned the game from 2003 to 2005. I then went off started buying rentals and investing in real estate from Oh 5208. And when the market turned, I got wiped out. So I launched resurrecting real estate in 2009. And the timing was right on for that because REO inventory went through the roof, right? Sure, sure. So back then there was a huge need for brokers to get an REO business because there was so much volume. And the banks were looking for guys that understood systems. And I was a systems guy. So sure, it was perfect. But right now, the inventory is at its lowest level in years and a decade. Right. So to break in now is very, very hard. And I would honestly, where to even start today. I mean, you’d have to go to conferences. And what’s crazy is I didn’t even go to any conferences for the first few years. But you there have to know somebody, you know, go work for an REO broker. There’s a lot of REO brokers out there now that are tired. So maybe go talk with an REO broker and say, Hey, teach me the business and I’ll take it over for a year or something, you know, go work for somebody. Because when, when there’s when the volume is so low, the asset managers games are really on point because there’s not a ton of assets for them to scrutinize. Yeah. And you might bust your butt to get in with with an asset manager and then after the first few deals or, like now you’re not that good, and then you’re fired. So it’s a tunnel. Work tunnel work to get in. And you better have liquidity and capital because takes a lot to do it.

D.J. Paris 15:07
Yeah, I imagine. Yeah, it might be that the salad days or the halcyon days or maybe maybe if past at least for for getting into REO as a broker, at least, you know, for the foreseeable future. But we were talking but prior to us going live here about, you know, treat you had mentioned that treating, you know, the the brokers business like an actual business you think is just so important. Can you talk a little bit about that, and how you how you did that maybe advice you have for brokers?

Rosario Terracciano 15:40
Yeah. So I, I made the mistake, and, and I have a feeling that a lot of the listeners make the same mistake that you get into real estate for freedom, because you don’t want to work for anybody else. You want to work for yourself. So we’re all very driven people, right? Sure. And most of us don’t like paperwork. And don’t like the plan. We just sort of just winging everything, right. But what happens is, so like what happened with me, I launched resurrecting real estate in February 2009. In our first year, we sold 150 homes. I, I never did REO brokerage. So we turned the lights on, made the right connections and then took off. I went from one employee to 12 employees within a few months, and then at our peak 60 employees. I was never, I’d never ran a team. Sure. You know, I didn’t understand personalities. And I didn’t do any disk, you know, assessments or disc profiles. And literally, you’d walk in and I’d find a way to connect, because that’s what I do I connect something where do you grow up? Where do you go to school? All the wrong questions. So where do you go to school? Who do you know? Oh, yeah, yeah, I know this person. Great. You’re hired. You know, it’s like, so stupid. So you win. There’s a great book out there called Good to Great by Jim Carr. Oh, sure. Yeah, classic, write people on the bus wrong people off the bus. But it’s not just about getting the right people on the bus, it’s getting the right people in the right seats. And I didn’t do that I just kept staffing up throwing people at problems, right. Where I should have invested in what I found out, you know, five years later, I should have been investing in technology and in my systems, rather than in personnel. And it may sound insensitive, but I was running a ship with 60 people on it that probably could have ran with 10. Wow. And the right systems in place. So you know, I think number one is, is getting help. I after all this happen? I’ll fast forward so you guys can understand the pain. So if that’s fine, if I can dive until Okay, so 2009 launched resurrecting real estate 150 homes, 2010 250 homes 2011 350 2012, broke 500 was like 501 and in 2013 640. So it just straight up, right? Like a rocket. And every it seemed like every other month, we’re hiring more and more and more people. Well, no business plan, no marketing plan. It was just sheer just grit. And let’s just bust our button. Let’s make this happen. And then just keep throwing people at it. Right? Well, 2014 comes around our biggest client on the acquisition side, their orders filled, they were an institutional client. They said Okay, we’re good. Thanks. No warning, just like, Thanks. We’re good. We bought everything we wanted. We’re done. Wow, my payroll was 130,000 a month. Okay. Just payroll. And then I had the disposition and the reo side. Well, at that point, I took my eye off of the reo because the acquisition side was so much easier. Sure. And so now I’m like, Oh, my gosh, I already started to creep out of reo. So now that volume is down and the revenue on that side is down. And now I can’t weather the storm. So when you’re dishing out 120 130k a month, if the revenue is not meeting it? Well, who’s got to ante up to me? So I’ve got to float this company and pray that we get another big client, you know, so I went through that whole transition laid off nearly Gosh, I don’t know. It was like 80% of the people over the next six months. It was a bloodbath. Sure, and very, very, very depressing time. And I sought counsel. So I went through a program at Goldman Sachs called 10,000 small businesses, and great program and if you’re, if you’re a business owner and you’re struggling, I will plug them all day long.

It’s a scholarship so I applied for it. You open everything up, you open your books up to them. And, and you go through this six month course at nights and weekends. And they helped me understand what it means to run a business. And what’s the end goal? You know, we always start, we just the typical broker, you go out, you start selling real estate. And then guess what, you start buying a house, you start buying cars, and then your your lifestyle continues to increase, right. But what happens the second, you have a rough year, or a rough few months, well, your lifestyle is not going to adjust your lifestyle is now you know, a 200k lifestyle or 300k lifestyle? Well, if you don’t sell as much that year now, what do you do? Right? Or now you want to bring on a team, but now you have to cover the cost of the team. So you just took a pay cut? Right? Right? So really sit down and build a business plan and understand what do you want? Do you want? What’s the end goal? Is it to build a book of business and sell it? Is it to build a team? And then sell it? Or is it to stay in real estate for the rest of your life, which is totally fine. But then at that point, get a couple really good assistants that just want to be assistance, right? And that’s okay, and build a good book of business. and off you go. But don’t just defer to building a team thinking that’s the solution, because it may not be, you know, right

D.J. Paris 21:30
now, and so yeah. And so talk about how you, you’ve pivoted into click invest and what click invest is and so how that business got built.

Rosario Terracciano 21:39
So when we were working for the institutional client, I mean, literally, we had analyst, like I mentioned earlier, transaction coordinators offer negotiators. So our analysts would have to identify these these single family rental deals that would fit the client’s parameters, right, and their net yields and everything we’d have their assumptions, we’d plug in addresses, we’d plug in rental amounts, ARV is everything. And we’d have to underwrite hundreds of properties a day to submit 30 to 40 offers a day. Sure, right. So I had this massive operation to do that, well, when the when the client stopped buying or their order was filled. And I’m like, Oh, my gosh, we learned so much. I mean, we’ve underwritten 10s of 1000s of properties. We’ve bought, you know, hundreds of properties for them. What am I going to do with all this knowledge now, and I at that point, this was early 2014. I said, Let’s build this system out, that can do what I had, you know, 2030 people doing on a daily basis. And let’s figure out how to do this with a handful of people. So click invest was born through that, through that trial, through that tribulation through that pain. And essentially what it is, what click invest does on a daily basis is takes every deal in the MLS and underwrites it within our system based on algorithms that we’ve created. So taking what I learned in the trading space, you know, 1213 years prior, we built a system out that acts as a giant filter. So whether a client’s looking for a buy and flip, or a buy and hold all in the single family room, our system will identify those opportunities amongst the 10s of 1000s of properties out there, and then drop them into a queue for our analysts to do a final underwriting and then send it to the client with all the comps all the analysis put together. So they can review they can review it in under a minute, click a button to submit the offer and get their off their offer accepted within minutes.

D.J. Paris 23:51
Gotcha. So you guys, you guys have basically just created models and you dial into the MLS and look for deals essentially. That’s, that’s awesome. So So is it a is it a subscription service? How does how does someone get get access to that information?

Rosario Terracciano 24:11
Yep, so our clients pay a monthly so all of our clients or investors they they pay a monthly fee of 295 a month and then we are their broker on all their purchases through the platform. So if they have outside sources or outside brokers are working with we’re not exclusive so they’re free to work with any broker outside of click invest sure for their own deals or for any deals that are brought to them outside of click invest but if it’s a deal that they click Submit offer on within our system, we’re representing them

D.J. Paris 24:43
make sense? That’s That’s great. And then and you guys set up the you deal on the financing side as well or or No,

Rosario Terracciano 24:49
we’ve got we’ve got referral partners but I wouldn’t even say referral partners it’s more strategic because we don’t we don’t make any money on the referrals. But yeah, we’ve got lender as contractors, attorneys, insurance agents, so we’re really the hub. So a client will come to us, for example, one of our clients did 25 flips last year, this year over 50 flips. So we’ve helped him double his business, right? So what we do is a client will come to us and say, hey, I want to grow my business. Here’s where I’m lacking. You know, I need more contractors, or I need cheaper money, or I need this or I need that. And that’s where we come into play.

D.J. Paris 25:28
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So essentially, what you what used to take dozens of people to do by hand you guys have systematized which is which is really smart. I know. Do you is it all residential? Is there commercial as well or

Rosario Terracciano 25:43
only single family? So residential, single family, that’s, that’s our bread and butter. That’s all we focus on.

D.J. Paris 25:50
And how long has click investment in been been out live?

Rosario Terracciano 25:54
So live ads, click invest May of this year. And then in October of this year, we rolled resurrecting underneath or we merged, resurrecting with click invest. So now it’s it’s one. It’s one operation under one banner.

D.J. Paris 26:15
Gotcha, gotcha. So so if a broker, do you have any broker subscribers, or is it mostly just investors who are who are clicking best customers?

Rosario Terracciano 26:24
It’s all it currently in its current version. It’s all investors. We’ve toyed with because we’ve had brokers approached us and say, hey, well, can I license this and use it? Yeah. Yeah. We’ve toyed with that idea. It’s going to take significant amount of development to build to build a brokerage fees externally. But it’s definitely something that I think could happen in time. Not sure. Sure. And is making predictions. Is there?

D.J. Paris 26:56
Are there? Is there a lot of competitors in this space? I mean, obviously, more on the commercial side, you have. You have, oh, gosh, I’m blanking on costar loot net, who have this this data, they’re not really packaging it, then they’re more on the commercial side. But they’re not packaging it in any way, the same way you are. They have the they have data as well. But I’ve taught what to what I’ve heard, I’m not familiar with any other systems like this. It’s very impressive.

Rosario Terracciano 27:24
There. Yeah, thank you. So my partner used to work across the table from me. So he worked for our institutional client on the buy side. So Jeffrey Kirschner, he’s a financial modeling wizard. And this guy, I mean, I’d put them up against anybody. So when he came on board, so he left the institutional client last May, we connected, he got a peek at the system and said, Oh, my gosh, like, I need to be a part of this. So we partnered last August, and he’s really helped push it to the next level. So the goal is to get into multiple markets and really be the hub for investors to come to. But yeah, there’s nothing out there like it, you know, there, there’s software out there, but the brokerage piece where it’s a one stop shop, where you’re leveraging our track record our experience and, and have the ability to work with our brokers in house that have been trained and in are proven. Doesn’t exist to my knowledge.

D.J. Paris 28:22
Yeah, that’s a really good point. Because you know, the financial model, the algorithms per se, are, is are there. But you also have an impressive history of getting deals closed.

Rosario Terracciano 28:35
Yeah, executions, everything I can, I can send you the, you know, the fanciest tool in the world. But if you never, if you’re never able to get a deal through it, you’re like, great, it’s just a fancy tool, you know.

D.J. Paris 28:48
And I imagine even for your own, you know, for as a brokerage, this just saves you guys so much time when you’re doing deals yourself in just, you know, I imagine that used to just be a grind. And now you’ve you’ve automated it by getting access to MLS data. And so for now, it’s just the Chicagoland area.

Rosario Terracciano 29:07
Correct? Yep. And then our goal God willing is to be in Florida by February. That’s the next jump.

D.J. Paris 29:15
Now that’s that’s fantastic. Well, if if there are investors who are listening who are interested in getting more familiar with click invest, what’s the best way they should, they should do that?

Rosario Terracciano 29:27
They can email me, Rosario, R O S, A R I O, at click invest.com. Or you can go straight to click invest.com and just request the demo. So I’m always doing demos love doing demos. So we we dive in and show the power of the system. And for brokers, so if you have if you’re a listing broker and you’ve got properties, your listing on the market, we’re a great source because we’ve got at any given point So as of today, we’ve got 82 vetted investors that are starving for deals. So if you’ve got any deals that are coming up, you get dual agency if you bring it to us, so you don’t have to, you don’t have to co op the commission at all. Oh, wow. Yeah. So we’re here to make money for everybody. It’s not just about us, it’s how do we add value to, to our colleagues? And how do we add value to the investor community as well?

D.J. Paris 30:25
So and if there are brokers out there who want to learn just more about getting involved in investments, do you have any resources, you recommend that that you think is a good, a good place to get started?

Rosario Terracciano 30:40
I know Eric workman brought this up. I heard him on the show, and it was great. Andrew Holmes, Chicago Ria, is a great source. I’ve, I’ve talked to a lot of different sources out there. And I’ve, I’ve been very skeptical of everyone. Sure, right, just going through it and losing money and being on that side of it. But I’ve had the privilege, the privilege to work with Andrew homes and enroll in their team over there for several months. And they’re, they’re legit. I mean, these are guys that own properties or flipping own rentals. They’re there in a day, every day. And, and, and they’re the proof is in the pudding.

D.J. Paris 31:19
Sure. Yeah, I’d also recommend to the listeners, if you’re not, you know, it’s this kind of a no brainer. But if anyone’s not familiar with bigger pockets, that’s a great place to bigger pockets as well to get, you know, to get acclimated to the community of investors. And there’s a lot of good learning that goes on at bigger pockets.

Rosario Terracciano 31:37
And, and I would say this one other piece, you know, question everybody and question everything. Because nowadays, there’s a lot of snake oil getting whipped around. Sure. And people are spending a ton of dough on all sorts of things. So just, you know, when you go into something, question everybody question everything. And the best experiences hands on experience, for sure. So learn for yourself.

D.J. Paris 32:03
I couldn’t agree more. Well, if if anyone’s interested in learning more about what Rosario does click invest. Obviously, you can reach out to him and visit click invest.com Request a demo and, or as he mentioned his email Rosario at click invest.com. And well, thank you so much for being on the show. We’re sorry, I know you’re incredibly busy. So this was a real thrill for us.

Rosario Terracciano 32:29
Well, thank you for having me. I’m I’m very grateful for the opportunity

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Hasani Steele dropped by to discuss how he morphed from traditional real estate broker into niche renovator and investor with his company Steele Consulting Group. Hasani attributes part of his success to the disciplined he installed by playing college football for Northwestern University. The Chicago Association of REALTORS® has recently named Hasani “Renovator of the Year” and you’ll learn why he absolutely deserves this title by listening to this incredible interview!

Hasani Steele can be reached at 877.724.0070 or via his website.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello and Happy Holidays Welcome to keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your host through the show. And this is our final episode before the holidays are upon us. And we also anticipate getting at least one more episode before the end of the year. So thanks for listening during your most likely well needed break. So thank you for being listener. Whether you’re brand new to the show, or you’ve been listening from the very beginning, we really appreciate it. And the best way of course, you can always support our show is simply by telling a friend let anyone know who potentially is a might be interested in this information, wants to hear from top producers, any brokers, you know, maybe even in your own office that might benefit from this shoot this, this podcast over to them that really helps us a lot. And also, if you are a vendor for real estate brokers, right, maybe you’re a lender or a real estate attorney, or title company or anyone, photo company, for example, and you want to get in front of about 5000 Chicago brokers, you can sponsor an episode. So reach out to us, you can always do that to our website, keeping it real pod.com. Also download and stream all of our episodes right from there. If you haven’t already subscribed via iTunes or Google Play, you can do that right from our website, too. And drop us a line as well let us know who we should be talking to you have anyone that you think has a great story, or is doing things in a really particularly interesting way that would would make for a great interview. Reach out to us we’re always open to talking to new brokers. And thanks again have a great holiday season and onto our interview with renovator OF THE YEAR Hassani steel.

This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Loftus law. I’m sorry the attorney is busy with something more important is something you will never hear when you call Patrick Loftus of Loftus law. Loftus law is a firm focused on serving real estate professionals and their clients you want your deals to close on time without headaches and Loftus law is the solution. For more information on what Loftis law can do for you and your clients and special pricing of 299 per closing call 773-632-8330 or email Patrick at Loftus hyphen law.com

Okay today on the show we have a sunny steel with over 16 years and 40 million in sales combined with a proven record of results including 45 day average market time and a 97% list to sales price ratio steel consulting group is led by Hasani steel our guest today who offers real estate consulting, sales and marketing from conception design construction pre sales through delivery. Some call him the market maker. Most are more notable accolades for assignee include 2016 renovator of the Year from car Chicago Association, realtors, and the number one Northern Illinois REMAX agent 2003 for residential sales. He received his bachelor’s from Northwestern and was a member of the 95 to 99 Northwestern University football team, where he where they were consecutive big 10 champions, and he has been to the Rose Bowl in 96. In the citrus bowl in 97. The sun he enjoys spending his time with his wife and their three daughters as well. And I find this most interesting building and flying radio control airplanes. So Sunny, thanks for being on the show. Welcome.

Hasani Steele 3:59
Wow. Thank you for having me. And that was quite an intro. Well, you

D.J. Paris 4:04
have accomplished it. So I was I was honored to read it. Thanks. Thanks for spending time with us. Tell us a little bit about how you got started in real estate. So I know you’ve been doing it for gosh, 16 years now.

Hasani Steele 4:16
Yeah, you touched on my interest and the radio control airplanes. I love airplanes. I thought I was actually going to be a pilot but from a very young age, you know, I was basically looking for opportunities to make money. So I had you know, a lady that worked with my dad that eventually kind of became my, my, my godmother, but she would rehab properties and she paid me you know district wallpaper. You know, just paint I would be glamorous work. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And at the time, I kind of felt like a karate kid was like you know, you’re just trying to get through this stuff. But then over time you start to realize that, you know, you start to you know, I have a vision because you see all these old places and like you’re going through doing all this work, you know, like, what is going on here, you know, but eventually, you know, they were, you know, refurbished and either leased or sold. And, you know, that was just, you know, one of the experiences that now, um, I realized later, you know, that kind of played a role in establishing my vision, you know, in real estate, but I did it at a very young age. And then, you know, after middle when I started high school, I got into football, and I started to do more in sports. But when I went to Northwestern, I majored in computer engineering. So after football, I had graduated and started working for tel labs, and then 911 happened, and then like, you know, a few years into engineering, you know, I was laid off, so I started, you know, just, I’d already started buying, you know, properties and redoing them. But that’s when real estate, you know, I basically had a another round, and, and then I started working part time. And, and then, you know, one thing led to the next and, you know, I eventually started growing my business and, and, you know, helping basically people do exactly what I learned to do. And it’s just led and just constantly grown from year to year, and it, you know, kind of leads us to where we are now.

D.J. Paris 6:28
Yeah, that’s, that’s a really interesting story. Can you tell us a little, you know, I’m always so fascinated by people who played sports in college, because most of us who played sports, you know, petered out in high school. And, and obviously, you kept going, and I always think, discipline, of course, is so critical to anyone who’s who’s playing at the collegiate level, have you found that that discipline that you obviously had back then is that really helped build your real estate practice as well?

Hasani Steele 6:56
Absolutely, I use it every day, sometimes when, you know, work gets really stressful, I’ll have like dreams about football, and I’ll know, you know that, okay, you know, things are getting pretty tough. And, you know, during that time, when I played football, I was studying at the same time, I would do three a day practices, you know, on level, you’re not getting paid. And this is something you know, that you’re pretty passionate about, but you’re putting in, you know, I’ll ton of time, but one of the key, the key lessons that I took from even playing at Northwestern was being fortunate enough to watch the program, you know, the turnaround on the program, because when I was the last recruiting class for Coach Barnett, and I use so many of those same just techniques and discipline, you know, culture building type of skills, you know, in my business today, because we work in a lot of emerging markets. So, you know, we don’t really necessarily get the benefit of the doubt, you know, as we’re taking an area and we’re revitalizing it, we’re having to come in and in, you know, basically deliver something, you know, that’s greater than, than where we started. But I watched that happen to Northwestern, and it just, you know, the attitude, you know, the, the, the goal setting that you have to do, and just the the positive, you know, attitudes and just relentlessness that you need in order to be good, and especially after you win the big 10 one year and then to come back and do it again. And, you know, when when people are really, you know, preparing even more for you, those same types of disciplines and lessons, you know, I use today, you know, because this real estate industry is ever changing, you know, so absolutely, I that is probably one of the that along with my experience that I learned on the construction side early on, is definitely you know, made me you know who I am today.

D.J. Paris 9:06
Yeah, let’s talk about it because you’d have won recently this award with cars as the as the renovator of the year. Can you talk a little bit about that talk about how that relates to your business?

Hasani Steele 9:19
Yeah, so um, the Chicago Association of Realtors, the board, I think every year, gives that award and it’s based on you know, just the number of projects that you’ve worked on and the impact that you’ve had, you know, in the industry and your consistency. So that is one of the things that I’ve really tried to work on and that and that continued effort is as we grow, making sure that the product that we deliver, you know, is just as good or better than the last one because you don’t you’re only as good as you know, the last thing that you do, you know, so the Chicago Association of Realtors, you know, based off of The developments, you know, that we do the number of them, also, what those developments do to impact the market, you know, the surrounding market and the neighborhood, and how it, you know, helps the industry as a whole also is taken into consideration. So, you know, we were given the renovate OF THE YEAR very honored to receive it, you know, and, yeah, that basically summarize it,

D.J. Paris 10:26
can you tell us a little bit about those projects, and because it’s clearly something your team is passionate about?

Hasani Steele 10:31
Yeah, so we, when we’re building a market, going into an area, some of the first properties that are rehabbed are going to be single family, you know, when, you know, it’s just, it’s one property to do, when you’re looking to work with investors, you know, especially when you don’t have the national banks involved. You know, you start with, you know, single family home or, you know, lower density type of property. And those properties in those neighborhoods, you know, the scope of work, is more than just paint. And like surface level finishes, like, you have to get these properties out, like, well, if you go to our website, you’ll see, you know, the properties that we do, they’re basically completely brand new, except for the shell, the shells, like the exterior brick, and many times, even then, you know, we have to, you know, re face the property or things like that. So the properties that we do, when we say gut or rehab, our definition includes, like everything, it’s not like, you know, more surface level, so all of our properties that we do, you know, are completely gutted out. So on the single family home side, we have like a number of properties, without going through specific addresses, but basically 3500 square foot, single family homes, the finish and decor is going to resemble, you know, like a brand or discipline similar to what you might see in an Architectural Digest. So we’re going to pay attention to every detail, the cabinetry, the tile work, you know, we’re creating a spec sheet software right now that, you know, that’s going to allow us to, you know, count every screw in a house, basically, but just the detail and the paint and how you do everything the finished carpentry is really why what our buyers are looking for, you know, our purchasers are purchasing our property for the house, they’re not necessarily looking, or like, they’re not, they’re not purchasing for the surrounding neighborhood, they’re, they want the accuracy in the home, you know, so if I were to describe, you know, kind of the properties, you know, that that one, you know, they would be maybe greystones, or, you know, properties that, you know, from that that’s very accurate, and that match how they were built originally, especially on the exterior, we do a lot of historical places that that many others might shy away from, they take a little bit longer to do, but you know, they’re very accurate. And then we’ll do the finishes with you. There may be gray cabinets, you know, a mixture of that, you know, updated, still stone marble tile that might have some timeless install patterns, you know, but through and through completely gutted, you know, restored the exterior, just like artistic, amazing work.

D.J. Paris 13:36
And if you want to you really should go to Kota Saudis website, which is what a steel with an E, as last name, what is steel.com? And you can see the pictures of many of their developments. And it’s, it’s truly remarkable.

Hasani Steele 13:52
Yeah, you can, you can basically see the process from start to finish, from when the property is originally secured, all the way through demolition, and the complete restoration process to, you know, the final photos and what we started to incorporate now is a new technology that allow you, you can get those Samsung goggles. And you can virtually walk through these properties even at the demo stage and kind of experience, you know, being able to walk through a house that’s in the middle of construction.

D.J. Paris 14:27
It’s truly remarkable what you guys have done. And let me ask you so if we get to the very beginning of the development process when you’re finding these places to rehab, how are you finding them what what is I’m sure through probably lots of methods, but are they are these properties that go on the MLS? Are they typically off market?

Hasani Steele 14:49
That’s a good question. So there it’s a mixture of both the many times it’s like just driving them and doing research in the tax records to work backwards. and see who owns these properties. Sometimes properties can kind of like fall by the wayside, so to speak, if a particular bank or you know, you know owns it, or it might be in a state or something like that, when you’re reaching out to them, you might be reaching out to an attorney, because that person may have passed away, or, you know, you might be reaching out to a family member, and they just had the property for a while it might be paid off. And it’s just, you know, sitting there, so we come across those others might, we will get people that will call in, and they’ll say, Hey, I know, you know, I live in the community, you know, I know the kind of work that you guys do. You know, a friend of mine has his property, you know, you know, and it might just fall in our lap that way. And then we also work through tax buyers, and people who watched the auctions. And many times when those properties aren’t bid on, or anything like that, you know, we’re will actually take them, you know, so we don’t really cherry pick, when you’re making a market, you pretty much know, okay, I’ve got this area, this region that we’re going to be working in, and it’s, it’s quite, you know, it’s more vast than then, than others. And then when the properties pop up, you know, then you just kind of have to figure out, you know, how you’re going to, you know, raise capital or find investor or somebody that wants to come and take part, you know, and work on it. So, there’s a number of ways we get on but, you know, more, more times than not like, we’ll get people that reach out to us. And they’ll just, they’ll see us as being a buyer, and they’ll bring up

D.J. Paris 16:42
Yeah, it’s, it’s truly remarkable. I mean, you’ve done, gosh, you’ve had to have done over 100 of these, or at least right around that number of if, if that’s it, and they’re all just gorgeous, of the interiors of these properties are truly remarkable.

Hasani Steele 16:58
Yeah, we’re, we’re getting excited, because for when we first started, our average price point was probably around 200, to 250. And it’s just like that, sometimes when you’re, when you’re, you know, just trying to work with the amount of capital that you have, and the investor pool that you have now that we’re growing, you know, we are able to take on more, you know, so we’re doing properties, you know, anywhere up to, you know, a million and a half 2 million, even. But what’s nice about that is it’s like when you look on our website, we tell clients that you cannot tell the difference.

D.J. Paris 17:38
You know, that’s, that’s very, that’s I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. But that is absolutely true. Because I went down to one of the earlier properties that seemed to be listed in the low to hundreds, and it looked like a million dollar interior. I was about to say, Boy, that is an impressive interior for that price point. I mean, it’s beyond impressive. It’s amazing. The level of detail. Now, are you involved with a lot of the interior design of the interior architecture? Or do you leave that up to other team members?

Hasani Steele 18:08
Yeah, I, um, started as we’re growing, I’m starting to delegate that. But But yeah, for the most part, you know, it started because when you go into property, you’ve got to order trim, right? So it’s like, okay, what trim do we order, and you and you want to try to avoid having the contractors pick it, there’s nothing wrong with that, but when it’s not in the scope, to have a cohesive type of design, but what ends up happening is you end up picking it. So it’s like, I kind of fell into that role. Because I would, I’m trying to guide my clients, like if I have a developer that I’m working with, you know, I know what buyers want, because, you know, we do brokerage, you know, so, you know, I would start by, okay, well, we got to do this trim, or I would find you know, you know, an article or something, or a photo or a compilation of pictures, and I would pick, you know, the trim the doors, the door hardware, the lighting, you know, and I just turned into, you know, a designer in the sense. And then when we started doing the consulting services, you have to know construction, like you have to know how to build a place to be able to present a project to a developer or an investor, you know, and say, Hey, this is what it’s probably going to cost and this is the, you know, the look that you do, and this is your target buyer, you know, so yeah, we, I basically, you know, do a lot of the design and finish. Now we’re starting to incorporate other team members. And that process as well. And we’re starting you know, as our brand is now you know, pretty established. And so now we’ve got others taking part in participating

D.J. Paris 19:53
how many development projects do you have going on at any one given time?

Hasani Steele 20:00
I’d say involvement can range anywhere from, you know, marketing a property only. And I’d say those are very few are pretty hands on, on on many of them all the way so full, like, you know, management of a project, I say maybe about 15 to 20. And it kind of depends, because when you’re doing consulting, you don’t have to do every aspect of every different job, you kind of fill in and you offer services, in whatever category, that particular client, you know, knees, so we work with people that are just armchair investors, all the way through, you know, established developers, it’s been developing for 30 years, you know, so, you know, depending on the product that we have our involvement, you know, kind of varies in terms of the time, but yeah, I’d say about 15 to 20, at any given time, and it works out well, when you’re, you know, making markets and establishing markets, because you need a constant flow of sales comparables, you know, the buyers that buy from you, they want to know what’s coming next, they want to know, okay, well, what else you doing? Well, what’s going on with this other one across the street, or what’s, so you have to have a pipeline, you know, and it helps, and it works. And that way, by doing the volume in that regard, you don’t have to have projects that like are making like, you know, for lack of a better term hand over fist money, like, the margins are, are, are fair, I should say, you know, and, you know, if I’m talking to an end buyer, if I’m talking to a developer, you know, they’re happy, and they think it’s reasonable, it’s not like, you know, some of these crazy ratio margins that some people are making on these flips, where they’re not putting any money in the house, but they’re taking all the equity, right, you know, so by doing higher volume, and keeping that going, it works out for the buyers, and it works out for the developers and investors, because it helps with our appraisal values. And, and keeps, you know, encourages other competing developers and people in the market to showing them, you know, and providing sales, comparables and sales for them so that they can, you know, do their projects.

D.J. Paris 22:24
Yeah, we have a lot of investors or brokers who are investors who work with investors at our firm as well. And they they’ve always said almost universally, that one of the biggest misconceptions that brokers have about working with investors is finding the investors actually the easy part, it’s finding the deal, that’s the hard part, it’s, it’s getting the numbers to work. And once you get the numbers to work, the money seems to show up. And you in particular, you’ve have such an amazing product that I imagine, you know, that the investors are probably lined up ready to work with you.

Hasani Steele 22:54
The investors are lined up, you’re exactly right, getting the numbers to work. We have we, I basically started by just offering consulting services a while back, just because I would hear certain investors, you know, I’d say, hey, well, you know, we have to use this, this tile, you know, this certain tile on this project, whatever. And, you know, how are we gonna make that work for the budget, you know, and we had to go and, and create accounts, you know, with vendors, and pool a lot of our purchases for all of our investors so that we could even it, you know, save 10% or 15%, you know, and so we actively took on that role, because, you know, we don’t have products to sell, you know, we don’t either, you know, so we, you know, have preferred accounts, with every single item that you find in a house, we’re able to get for the best price, the best value, the best service. So, you know, and that, I think, is a large part in how we’re able to get these buildings built with this amount of detail and have the numbers make sense when you’re developing a market. And, and, you know, maybe there’s enough room, because you might be selling at a substantially higher price point or what have you, you may not necessarily be forced to have to shop or really try to, you know, make those day to day savings on that material. Well, the nice thing about it is when we go to like Linkin Park, but not only are we able to build for less, we can we already have we already are using, you know, top line finishes, we actually ended up coming in and we’re able to, you know, construct a property or put a project together, where, you know, many of our competitors that, you know, don’t really have a business that’s, you know, surrounded around, you know, we’re finding, you know, merchandise, purchases, things like that we’re able to compete against them. and deliver a better product. You know, so the key is making sure that you’re you’re efficiently purchasing all of your material, you can’t just always run to the local, you know, store, you know, and and just get, you know, one of these and one of these, you have to plan ahead. That’s the only way

D.J. Paris 25:19
that it works. Well, I know you, I think you’ve basically said it all. And I know you have a commitment. So we we probably should, should finish up. But I want to make sure that everyone who’s listening can see some of your work which so if you haven’t yet gone while you’re listening to me, you’re not driving go to what a steel.com, which is steel with an E, it’s Saudis last name, and take a look at some of the work they’ve done it is it is truly impressive. What is also the best way if they’re already investors, or potential buyers, or sellers who want to work with you and your group, what’s the best way they should reach out to you

Hasani Steele 25:58
just go on the About Us section on our website and click and just do a submission and just say what it is you’re looking for, if you have any particular passion or goals, and yeah, reach out to us, and then I’ll come to either myself or our manager, mark or Christian. And we’ll reach out to you and set up a call. And that’s basically how it starts. People will call us that already have properties or they might be, you know, attorneys that may want to invest and do something that might be you know, so many of them sometimes our past clients that you know, you know, may want to invest as well or established developers just go to our website, click on there. If you’ve been looking through and you’re clicking on through the site. You know, any page you go on, you can reach out to us and we’ll be in touch. All right, Sandy, well,

D.J. Paris 26:51
thank you so much for your time, and I just absolutely cannot get over how beautiful the interior and exteriors of the property is. But in particular, the interiors are just absolutely stunning. So keep up, keep up the wonderful work. And thank you for being on the show.

Hasani Steele 27:09
And thank you for having me, DJ, we appreciate it.

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Luminita Ispas is originally from Romania and her initial real estate goal was to construct the tallest building in Europe. While that’s still a future goal, for now she’s become one of Chicago’s most successful brokers! She believes educating her clients in achieving financial freedom through real estate investing. She has been teaching these seminars for 15 years and still does to this day! Lumi is also finishing up a book about this very topic coming out next year!

Luminita Ispas can be reached at 773.392.2906 and luminita.ispas@century21.com

To attend one of Lumi’s seminars…

Date: Last Saturday of every month
Location: 1161 W Madison, Chicago, IL 60607

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the only podcast made by real estate brokers in Chicago for real estate brokers in Chicago. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host through the show. What we do here is interview the top brokers real estate producers in the Chicagoland area and ask them to reveal what they do and how they built their business and how they have treated, how they treat their clients what they offer, and maybe what separates them from the rest of the pack. And today is no exception. We have Luminita Espace coming up in just a couple of minutes. And she is a wonderful, and I think you’ll really enjoy this because the way she built her business, I think, is is very different from how a lot of brokers have. And we’re nearing the end of 2017. We’re 30 some episodes in and we’re very grateful for everyone that has continued to support our show by telling another broker in their office that they should listen. In particular, I find that new brokers seem to really appreciate these interviews to learn from what the top heavy hitters are doing. Also, we have sponsors now. So if you’re someone that would like to sponsor the podcast, you can sponsor an episode, you just reach out to us, let us know. And of course, if you’re not already a subscriber to this podcast, you can do that on iTunes or on Google Play, or stream episodes live at keeping it real pod.com. Also, drop us a line, let us know if there’s anyone that you think we should be interviewing for the podcast in a future episode, or just to let us know what you like and maybe what you don’t like. Now, one thing I did want to make sure before we start this great interview with Lumi is one thing that we forgot to do is plug her she does these investor seminars every month, you’ll hear about how she did that to actually grow her business from the very beginning. She does it to this day. And we just simply forgot to explain and brokers are invited to come and learn as well not just buyers and sellers. So she wanted to make sure that that we gave information to the listeners about how they can learn about these and maybe even attend one, the name of the seminar that she does is how to become financially free in five years or less with little down by the way, she is writing a book too, that talks about this very subject but the seminars are they are available last Saturday of every month, and they are located at 1161 West Madison, Chicago, Illinois 60607 And they are from 10 to 12 o’clock, so last Saturday of every month 1161 West Madison or just reach out to Lumi and her team and they’ll give you that information. So thanks again we’re finishing up the year here with just a few final interviews. We’re going to go strong in 2018 with Carrie McCormack, which we do a monthly episode with and now we’re adding in ERIC workman to do a monthly episode around investments. So we’re really going to do some big things here and thanks again for supporting the show.

This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Loftus law. I’m sorry the attorney is busy with something more important is something you will never hear when you call Patrick Loftus of Loftus law. Loftus law is a firm focused on serving real estate professionals and their clients you want your deals to close on time without headaches and Loftus law is the solution. For more information on what Loftus law can do for you and your clients and special pricing of 299 for closing call 773-632-8330 or email Patrick at Loftus hyphen law.com

Okay today on this show, we’re really excited because we have Luminita, otherwise known as Lumi. Looney is spus from Century 21 SG R. And normally we read this big long bio bio of our guests and Lumi certainly has one of those BIOS because she’s accomplished so much, but just a couple of the key highlights she is a top 1% producer. She’s also a top century one producer with a Gosh, dozens of awards. She’s won over the last 15 years. She’s been in the business including the Centurion award last year, which I’m assuming is about the highest award she can get as of century 21 broker. She’s also a mentor. She’s an investor, she works with investors, she teaches classes on investments and she’s also an author or almost author about to be an author. So We are so excited to have you on the show. So welcome looming.

Luminita Ispas 5:03
Thank you, TJ. Excited to be here. Well,

D.J. Paris 5:07
thank you. So you know, you do have this storied and impressive history and a series of experiences over the last 15 years. Can you tell us how you had to get involved in real estate?

Luminita Ispas 5:18
That’s a great question. I’ve always dreamed to become a realtor. Yeah, right. So, my life, I always wanted to be actually a developer to build. I wanted to build the tallest building in Europe. And when I came United States, in March 2000, I came actually with about 200 bucks in my pocket. So you’ll probably notice that not was not getting me closer to build but the tallest building in Europe. Right?

D.J. Paris 5:44
And where did you where and where were you living prior to moving to United States,

Luminita Ispas 5:48
Romania. So I was living human. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 5:51
And that’s where you were born and raised? Correct. Right,

Luminita Ispas 5:53
Eastern Europe. And I was looking, you know, for capital, their time trying to see how I can learn more about building and to build a capital and get find by partners. And of course, talking to a lot of investors, I discovered that most of the people became wealthy through real estate investing. So it was interesting how, you know, wanting to build, I realized that investing in SEO to get me there. And at that time, late night, there are these advertising for no money down real estate, creative real estate. So I started buying those type. And I became very well versed in how to finance creatively, or we cash on developments and buying properties. And I starting helping all my friends to buy real estate, as a friend, right?

D.J. Paris 6:42
So this was like, this was early 2000s, I’m guessing 2002 1002.

Luminita Ispas 6:45
And at one point in 2000, some of my friends asked me why I’m not getting paid for this, you know, why am I doing all this work and not getting paid for it? And, you know, it was a big opening, I said, Well, real estate selling real estate. That’s interesting. I don’t know if I can do that. And my friends were like, well, you’re already doing it, you are going with us at approaching properties. You are telling us how to finance them. A lot of times you know more about LLC is that our attorneys, so why don’t you start selling, and it was so interesting, because as soon as I started selling, I discovered it, it was kind of like my life calling right, you find something that you fell into it and you discover that’s exactly what you should be. Because I love people, I love real estate, I realized that as an investor on that side. I mean, as a real estate broker, you should have a book of business, you should know people, just knowing the business, it doesn’t make you successful, right, you have to have buyers and sellers. So yeah, so as soon as I got my license and start working with clients, and real, I realized that this was my dream business, actually, helping people change their life was was a big deal, especially as the beginning I was working mostly with, with immigrants, because I felt a connection with them being an immigrant, of course, and or, and, you know, they didn’t know didn’t understand credit, they didn’t understand on payments, or how buying a home will help them and being almost a little bit a mentor for them and working with some of them a half a year or more to build their credit, file tax returns and being able to buy credit A B connection. So when at the beginning, it took me a lot of open houses and networking events and talking to a lot of people to find clients. After a while my business has become mostly referrals and repeat clients. Because those people realize that I spend a lot more time with them than that other agents. And you know, I was there for them. I was not dropping them if they were not ready to buy or sell at that at the moment I met them.

D.J. Paris 8:54
Yeah, I think that’s really interesting and puts you in a very special niche where there’s a lot of brokers who maybe wouldn’t work with somebody unless they were ready to purchase, right, unless they were already pre approved. And you sort of took a different approach where you work with people that maybe didn’t even know that they could be buying or didn’t know the path to ownership. And you became their educator, their teacher, their mentor, and then not only helping them purchase, but also explaining investment opportunities as well. Would you say that that was that’s accurate as far as how you found a lot of your business?

Luminita Ispas 9:30
Oh, yes. And I have a lot of stories of people that completely change their life because of their first property or, you know, the investing couple properties.

D.J. Paris 9:40
Yeah, so so for those brokers who are thinking, Oh, you don’t work with somebody until they’re pre approved till they’re ready to buy. That’s, you would probably disagree with that. I imagine.

Luminita Ispas 9:50
Exactly. I mean, I will not take someone out to look at property if they are not ready. Right? By working with them. You know, I put him in touch with somebody who We’ll help them build credit with the lender to share with them, you know, what they have to do? If they are 1099, you know, self employed, you know, they have to explain them a little bit more about how to file taxes. Sure, accountant and, you know, it’s a lot of people that they that they need to be put in touch with. And you know, some of them, they had to learn how to save money. You know, it’s interesting, it’s one of the books that I give away the most, it’s the richest man in Babylon, because it shows you the 10%, right? Pay yourself first. And yes, it’s so it starts with small things like that, you know, teaching them to save 10%, helping them with gifts and putting them in touch with nonprofits, if that’s not an option, if they’re already otherwise. So it’s a lot of little things that people need advice on. And in time, I realized that it was not just the immigrants that didn’t know, you know, how to set the financials. But a lot of the people born in the States, they don’t understand the system. And,

D.J. Paris 11:02
you know, I apologize, I don’t mean to interrupt you. But I was I was one of those people where I did not know, really, I was, I didn’t understand what it would take to purchase a property. And this goes back about about 12 years, and I was 29 years old. And all pretty much all of my friends had already bought a place by then. But I, I was I really just didn’t understand how it worked. And quite frankly, the only reason I know is I had a friend who was a realtor who said, You shouldn’t be renting anymore, you can afford to buy a place. And I said, Oh, really, I was too embarrassed to have asked on my own. So he was nice enough to explain it to me. And quite honestly, I probably would have rented another few years before figuring it out myself. So you are so right, when you say you know that in I was somebody who you know, I was I was actually in a position at a different firm, totally unrelated to real estate, but had to do with finance, and I still didn’t understand it myself. And I was too embarrassed to reach out to people. So I think your your sort of strategy of being that educators, it would have helped somebody like me even maybe a few years before I ever did purchase. So right? I’m a perfect example. Well, congratulations

Luminita Ispas 12:10
on buying your home. It did help you right move in life. Absolutely. I mean, one thing that I mentioned to people that do not think that they can buy or they don’t see the value of buying, I share with them that at this point, the net worth between the tenant and the homeowner, it’s about 45 times larger. So you can imagine if you buy real estate, if you buy a property, your network can be for every 1000 that that a tenant has saved. A homeowner has 45,000 and net worth and equity. Yes, which is an unbelievable number. And 2013, the network was 36 times over, the net worth of a homeowner was 36 times larger. And by 2016. Hence, the number increased to 45 times based on real estate going up in value. So when you look at those number, even if you don’t understand financing, you know which side you want to be on, right? Which side of the fence sure want to be a tenant or do you want to be an owner? And if it takes you a year or two to get there? I mean, isn’t that worth it? You know, a year from now, you’ll be there no matter what, right? But what if you save some money, if you fix a little bit your credit, you pay off your debt, and you’re able to buy I mean, how far forward in your life you’ll be and how your life will change in the future. Right? If you purchase? Absolutely.

D.J. Paris 13:32
Yeah. And I think what you’re talking about to is so important, because, again, going back to me as an example, I was an educated smart person who didn’t understand homeownership, and was too embarrassed to ask anyone. And so as a result, I just I stayed a renter for probably a few years longer than I should have. And when I when I finally went when my friend finally explained to me how lending works, and all the other like the tax benefits, for example, in the interest of deduction for taxes, and everything else. I was like it was life changing for me. And quite quite frankly, there has to be a ton of people just like me, who are probably being ignored by a lot by real by a lot of realtors who just don’t think well he’s renting now. He’s when he was ready to buy he’ll call me. It’s like no, I didn’t know I was ready to buy. Well, someone told me Yeah, so I think that is it. I mean, it is life changing exactly what you said it was. It was a life changing experience. And as a result, of course, I used my friend he was the one that gave me all the information and he became my realtor.

Luminita Ispas 14:38
Exactly. And another time it taketh I wanted to share with you was after I bought my first building, I started seeing other benefits. I start seeing the extra tax deductions I was getting right the depreciation into cash flow and things that you know, when I had a single family home I wouldn’t have right plus US property was getting paid off faster, because now you know, the property was larger, right? Price wise and I was paying a bigger portion of principal every every month, plus the three, four flat buildings tend to go up in value much quicker than single families and condos. And again, this is at least in the last 10 years, that’s what has been happening, but we’ll see from that one. And when you buy a building again, you get a lot more benefits. So learning that and sharing that information with my clients, has also changed my business a lot. And the most of the buyers understood how their life will change how their family life will change. And I’ll give you a very quick example. About 10 years ago, this, this gentleman came to me and he had $100,000. I mean, 10 years ago, you know, choice actually happened? Sure, it actually was in 2010. So I’m sorry, about seven, eight years ago, because the market was down. And you know, people didn’t have a lot of money or didn’t want to spend it right if they had the money.

D.J. Paris 16:07
Or it was it was hard to get financing. So

Luminita Ispas 16:09
he said a team and his brother wanted to buy two flat two each for each to live in one unit, and rent the third, the basement, maybe and get some cash flow. So I sit down with him and ask him I said, Well, what’s your goal? So what’s your financial situation home? And what’s your goal? And he says, Well, I have my home, my wife that works as a cleaning lady. And, you know, we have a nanny that takes care of our two kids. So you know, after my wife’s income covering the nanny, you know, where she’s left with four bucks an hour, right? And no insurance? Well, I’m self employed to self employed, we have no insurance would really, really like and a little bit of extra income. And ask him what he does. And he working constructions, both him and actually and his brother worked in construction. So I said, Why don’t we take a little bit of a different approach. And we bought investment properties, we bought multiple, they fix them up? Well, long story short today, which is, let’s say eight years later, they own about 12 homes, so probably about 20, a little bit over 20 units, he the wife went back to school quit because you know, the cash flow was allowing her to do that went back to school, she became a registered nurse making over 60,000 a year with insurance and everything else, right. And then they have about, I don’t know, 25,000 a month in cash flow, because a lot of the properties that keep buying, refinancing them after they fix them up or rent them, and they pull up the cash and bought more. So they not just change their life, they change, they have a completely different lifestyle. And they were talking about the fact that they won’t need to give their money to their kids. Because now they learn how to teach their own kids do the same thing that they did. So the way I saw this thing was when you teach someone how to reach financial freedom, and how to build wealth, you teach a generation of people, because the kids will see and the kids will do the same thing. And again, you change the life of a person because they can live the life of their dreams. Like this lady that had to was able to quit being a cleaning lady staying home with the kids for a few years and just going to school. And now, you know, having a third kid and again working in the nursing industry.

D.J. Paris 18:20
That’s an incredible story. And I you know, you’re right, you’re teaching that family who teach who sees in the children to see the residual income month after month, indefinitely, you know, and wow. Yeah, that that is truly truly amazing. And I imagine they must think very highly of you for having been the educator and helping them get on that path. So let’s talk a little bit about that. Because you do teach this talk about sort of how you teach it, where you teach it, that sort of thing.

Luminita Ispas 18:51
Sure. So I teach monthly investment seminars, sometimes do the restaurant together with with a mortgage lender that’s helping financing the restaurant, sometimes in my office in the west loop. It usually does last Saturday of the month. However, I’ve been also invited to speak in front of investment groups nonprofits. So different groups now are starting inviting me more and more out to teach what I actually personally do and you know what my other clients have done, they see this financial freedom through my method. And it’s a great way to also meet more people because if you but the thing that I always tell them bring, you know, few friends that are interested in this business, bring your brothers, your sisters, and I’m starting having kids that are 14 year old in the seminars, and you know, their eyes get get so bright. You know, by the end of the seminar, they’re like, Okay, this is it. As soon as I get my first job, this what I’m doing. I mean, my 16 year old daughter that’s been sitting in the seminars to help me as strong. She’s been telling me that too as soon as she goes to college, you will buy a single family home with multiple bedrooms. Oh my god roommates Perfect, that’s right. And, you know, these kids are so bright and so quick to learn it, you know, they see therefore the parents and they learn for themselves. So it’s amazing. I mean, I get a lot of people from, you know, different backgrounds, I recently had a client that told me that he grew up, you know, in the project in the section or section eight housing, and he bought at three flat where he’s going to live for free and make 500 bucks a month in cash flow, that is a

D.J. Paris 20:26
huge victory, a huge victory to to live for free and earn income. On a property in particular, coming from a disadvantaged background is a amazing, and you know, it’s it’s so funny, because we have, there’s so often brokers and we have a GZ. But at our firm, we’ve got almost 600 brokers. And so few of them do these kinds of seminars, and I always tell them, it’s really, I mean, obviously, you have to learn enough information to be able to present this to to the public. But there, you can partner up with attorneys, with lenders with title companies, who will also share the cost of hosting these and talk about their portion of real estate transaction. So you can have these partners who will gladly help put these sorts of seminars together. And I think it’s a such a missed opportunity for so many people, so many brokers in particular. So I’m glad you’re talking about it. You’re also almost finished with your with, is it your first book? Can you talk about it, you might

Luminita Ispas 21:30
be sure. So my life dream was again to make a difference, right? One was through building Romania, the tallest building in Europe as this way attract, you know, tourism and bringing attention to my country, which I think is one of the most beautiful in the world, by the way. And that one thing that again, I’ve learned, especially when I got here was education, it’s actually the way that we can change the world. I think in capital generation, you know, if we change the way we think, and if we learn new things that will change our life and change others, you know, we can change the world. So one thing I learned was, you know, I don’t have to be someone talking to the whole globe, right, I don’t have to be a president or I have been, I have to do is change the life of one person at a time. So financial freedom, I discovered it is the first step, it’s hard to follow your dream, you know, let’s say if you’re an artist, and you can make money, it’s hard to follow that unless you put food on the table, right, and you have a roof above, above your head. So I thought if I can teach people how to become financially free by buying properties, and, and you know, they can buy from, even if they make 10 bucks an hour, right, they will be qualified for something for a little bit of a loan, and they build from there. So if I can start people, I’m sorry, if I can teach people to how to become financially free, then they will help others and they will help their own families to repeat what they did. And then go and and do what they were meant to do in life, be able to quit the job that they are not happy with, and follow the dreams, right? So in my book, I’m teaching financial freedom with using leverage using low down payments, and how to also become a millionaire. So by the time you retire, you don’t need to rely on Social Security, you don’t need to rely on anybody to help you. Right, you can support yourself from your investment properties from the cash flow. And especially if by that time the properties are paid off, you know, you’re going to be a multimillionaire and have maybe 10s of 1000s of dollars in cash flow.

D.J. Paris 23:40
Absolutely. It talk about if you don’t mind, tell us a little bit about how you go about finding investment properties for your clients is there are are most of them on the MLS, are they off market properties?

Luminita Ispas 23:55
That’s a great question. Because that’s one of my biggest challenges right now. So when we say MLS, especially in the last several years have been was easier than today. With the pricing going up, of course is getting a little bit more, a little bit harder. But in general, I do maybe three quarters MLS and core off market. So I knock on doors, if I need to, I would if I see a property I think it will match one of my clients interest. I also developed a relationship with a lot of brokers through the years so because I sell a lot of three four unit buildings, you know, when I when I’m the I’m on the buyer side of the transaction, I always tell that listing agent if you get any other three four flat please make sure you call me first because I have ready willing buyer that will pay top dollar for this property and the transaction will be seamless. And you know I’m closing on every transaction because my clients are serious and, you know, we’re not atypical. We want to close we want these homes. So you know I got the report Usually they close on my deals. So even multiple offers, sometimes I get the property, because I’m known to to be involved in the deal, you know, I have an assistant and we make it easy for the listing side, and we close. And so between that and MLS and like I said other other people that are contacting me, that’s how I get my properties. Oh, and to mention that, again, I’m an investor myself, I buy property myself, so I’m on investor list also. So I receive emails from sellers, big investors that are selling their portfolios there other properties that they might have. So this way, I get to access to properties that only investors get.

D.J. Paris 25:45
What advice would you have to a broker? Who says, you know, I really don’t do this part of the business where I’m working with, with educating the public about investing, and I need to get educated myself, you know, as a broker, what would what resources would you recommend, where they could start to learn how to, you know, be able to share this knowledge with with with their clients?

Luminita Ispas 26:08
That again, that’s another great question. Well, number one, they can always come to my seminars. That’s true. That’s open to them. And actually, side note, I do help a lot of realtors buy their own properties, just,

D.J. Paris 26:20
I bet you do. Yeah. But

Luminita Ispas 26:23
I always tell even all the new agents in my office, buy a property yourself by yourself, you cannot teach what you don’t know, you know, paper knowledge is not the same at hands on knowledge. So no matter how much I share with you how to choose a tenant, how to run the numbers for a building, they’re not going to make sense until you own your own building, and you see around, you know, rents coming in and expenses, and you have to actually pay the gas bill every month and the water bill every month. You won’t understand that until you own it. So to the brokers that want to be to work with investors, I always tell them, you have to buy first. Plus, a lot of investors actually ask you, how many properties do you have? Imagine if you have nothing to say, well, sorry, I would mean how many I have none, right? It’s just as a work. Because those brokers are going to I mean, I’m sorry, those buyers are going to lose trust in you. And the Love Actually, of the buyers I’m working with and the investment side, they have worked with multiple brokers before me. Oh, I’m sure I’m sure. And you know, we meet who knows where we start talking about real estate, not even trying to convert anyone to work with me and see my knowledge, seeing what I do, you know, I’m ready to build right now a building and I just remodeled a couple of properties this year. So it’s kind of like when they see the amount of knowledge they they just said, Hey, by the way, I was looking to buy two, can you help me? And as we start working, I always cuz I always ask, I say what do you have a broker to work with? Because if you do, you know, you should work with that person. I mean, they put the time in. And they will say, you know, I’m sorry, but I can work with them. I mean, talking to you and talking to them, it’s a big deal. They don’t understand what to send me when they send me to fly, they send them to me, because they’re beautiful. They don’t get the numbers, or they say, oh, disagree theory of it, if the half a million dollar property $2,000 Rent a month, it just doesn’t work. So, so again, my advice is guys, put your money where your mouth is buy investment property, you know, fix it up a little bit, find tenants, and then when you know, all those sides of the business, you know how numbers work, how to fix a property and where to find contractors How to Choose tenants, you know, the tenant process gets in Chicago, it’s not easy, you know, to be a landlord. I mean, there are a lot of rules. So you have to understand all the paperwork and be able to and willing to give it to your tenant to your tenant and advise them on that. You know how to set up an LLC is right if they are investors, have the attorneys at ready to send them to mortgage broker, again, you when you work with a mortgage broker that owns property, it’s easier to invest to send to an investor. Because, you know, these investors, some of them have a lot of properties. So they want a mortgage broker that understands, you know, what they’re standing and how to find finesse, right, the financials to work to make them work and to advise them. So, again, this is the biggest investment, I mean, advice, read books, go to seminars, investment seminars, everybody that comes in town, and then buy yourself properties.

D.J. Paris 29:22
Well, you I think you said it all. And I think that was so well said and succinct. If there’s any, you know, clients out there that are interested in working with you and your team directly what’s the best way they can reach out to you?

Luminita Ispas 29:38
Thank you. Oh, number my cell phone it’s 773-392-2906 My email it’s my first name dot last name@gmail.com So Luminita that especially gmail.com and I’m at Century 21 is gr

D.J. Paris 29:57
well illuminate at Lumi this was Such a pleasure. And you said it all. And you said it? Well, you know, again, just this idea of investing and learning about investing to be a better broker to your clients. And again, you know, somebody had the conversation with me initially about buying, but they didn’t take it to the next level and say, actually, instead of buying a condo, you should probably buy a three flat, right? So as a result of that I didn’t buy a three flat because I didn’t know. So had I had, you know, had somebody who was able to have that conversation with me at that time. It may have changed everything as far as how I purchased the property going forward. So I think your advice is awesome. And thank you so much for your time.

Luminita Ispas 30:42
Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.

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Karen Ranquist has been not only a top producer for the past twenty years, but an involved top producer! In addition to earning a spot in the Berkshire Hathaway Hall of Fame, she’s also served on many boards and helped shape the Chicago broker market. We’re honored she took an hour out of her schedule to talk about how she got into the business, what advice she has for brokers looking to increase production, and the importance of giving back to the community.

Karen Ranquist can be reached at 312.475.4542 and kranquist@KoenigRubloff.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 agents for Chicago real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I am your host through the show. And I forgot to mention at the beginning of last episode that we have officially crossed over the 30 episode mark. And we’re so grateful and excited that people are interested to keep listening to the show, our audience keeps growing, we keep getting more people to interview. And we’re also grateful, of course, to those top producers who graciously give their time to share with you their story of how they started in real estate and have grown their business to today and in hopes that you can take something away from that and help your own real estate practice. A couple of things to mention for 2018, we see very big things for us and a couple of changes or additions rather, we’re going to continue Of course with Carrie McCormick, we do a monthly episode called the Monday market minute. It’s the first Monday of every month where Carrie talks about here’s what brokers need to know about the market. And she answers your questions if you’re ever curious, what you’d love to be able to ask questions of a top producer Kerry’s 18 years and veteran top producer. And she she does that. And then also we’re going to be doing another regular episode once a month buy from Eric workman and this is what brokers need to know about investing. And Eric is a top producer as well, exclusively really working with investors and doing his own investments. So he is going to be doing a regular episode, we’re gonna recording our first first one next week. So we’re really, really excited to bring Eric into the studio as well for that. And also, please continue to share this podcast with other brokers that you think could be interested in learning what top producers do tell a friend and also send us your questions. Right. So we’ve gotten a lot of great suggestions from our brokers, which helps when I interview brokers I ask those questions and or ask them to carry and so please continue to send those to us. You can find us on Facebook at keeping it real pod and also our website which is keeping it real pod.com We’ve got a few more episodes to go up before the end of the year. Today is a fantastic interview that we did with top producer, great person Karen Rehnquist. I’m really excited to share this with you here in just a moment. And then lastly, we’re doing we now have a sponsorship opportunity. So you’ll hear an episode or rather an advertisement here in just a moment for a one of our sponsors. And if you’d like to sponsor an episode, just let us know and we’ll tell you how that works. So thanks so much and onto our interview with Karen.

This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Loftus law. I’m sorry the attorney is busy with something more important is something you will never hear when you call Patrick Loftus of Loftus law. Loftus law is a firm focused on serving real estate professionals and their clients you want your deals to close on time without headaches and Loftus law is the solution. For more information on what Loftis law can do for you and your clients and special pricing of 299 per closing call 773-632-8330 or email Patrick at Loftus hyphen law.com

Okay, today on the show we have Karen Rehnquist. Now Karen started her real estate career in 1997. Prior to that, she worked for five years as a licensed social worker and Chicago Public Schools. She became a full service agent in 1999 and was instantly recognized as Rookie of the Year at her initial company. In addition to being a broker with now she is with Berkshire Hathaway, a coding we should say BHHS coding ruble off Realty Group. Karen is also the primary real estate broker for a highly regarded builder of custom properties in Chicago. Karen’s expertise lies in working with contemporary single family homes, condos, row homes and new construction projects throughout the city. Karen has been an annual Top Producer over her 20 year career she is in the top 1% of producers in Chicago Association of Realtors, and her current individual production has ranked her number 73 As of September 2017. And this was pulled from the MLS and also published by Chicago real producers magazine which I happen to have a monthly column in that magazine as well. So shout out to Chicago producers magazine. She was also just recently inducted into Berkshire Hathaway’s Hall of Fame, which is a very big deal because they are I don’t know if they’re the largest real estate company in in the country, but certainly one of the top two or three care Aaron has also been featured in Crain’s Chicago, social ces interiors, curved and Chicago magazine for her real estate opinion, she has remained active in the community, including serving for over five years on cars Grievance Committee. And also she was a former vice president of the Women’s Council of realtors. So Karen, thank you so much for your time.

Karen Ranquist 5:22
Oh, TJ, thank you so much. I’m so glad to be here. And thank you for that great introduction. I really love what you guys are doing with this podcast. And I feel like it just fills a void for a place that realtors can share tips and ideas and things like that you don’t you you don’t have the opportunity to really hear from other realtors in this in this light and about their practice. Well,

D.J. Paris 5:47
that’s the intention. And it’s so funny, because just yesterday I got a, a message. I think it might have been through Facebook, but it may have been an email from a Berkshire Hathaway agent. And they, you know, just out of the blue and unsolicited message saying how much they love the show. And here we are. And I think you’re the first Berkshire broker we’ve had on the show, and I’m sure we’ll have many more, but we are so happy to have you on the show. So tell us about how you got started in real estate.

Karen Ranquist 6:15
Gosh, it was so long ago. But I would say while I was a social worker was obviously a very demanding job. But in the mean, in the summers and some evenings I was working on rink was had some projects out in the suburbs, and I started doing just some stuff out on the weekends and kind of morphed into doing some of the closings. And I really had this like natural affinity, this this, I really enjoyed doing sales and being with people helping people. And, you know, one thing led to another and the timing was just right, we had started a project in the city and I was wanting to become a full time agent, I got my license, I moved over to a large company that provided me with some great initial training, some great mentorship. And we took our you know, our first project, it was a building on in, in East Village and at 839 Hermitage, our first kind of city project, kind of the rest is history as far as building a niche for that type of property. And and, you know, growing over the years in in new construction, and the sales aspect of it was just so it was just so fun for me.

D.J. Paris 7:33
Yeah, it tell us a little bit about how, you know how you’ve changed your business over the 20 years? What have you seen change?

Karen Ranquist 7:42
And yeah, I bet. You know, I feel like, oh, go ahead.

D.J. Paris 7:48
No, tell us what you’ve seen change. And it’d be you know, well, let me give it a bigger context. So I know coaching and mentoring is really important to you. I know you mentioned you have a coach, which I love that somebody with as much experience and successes as you has a coach and what I find is almost everyone I interview who are they’re all top one percenters for the podcast, they all have coaches too. But But talk a little bit about, you know, what advice, what you’ve seen change and what you coach and mentor brokers who may be newer to the business, you know, throughout your experience that you’ve seen, you know, is more meeting more relevant today than ever.

Karen Ranquist 8:25
But definitely, I mean, all those things. I mean, I think when I started it was, you know, it was kind of before the big building, boom, and we were able to kind of get our feet wet start with some smaller buildings, really did some resale at the time had, like I said, I had some about three very strong agents that helped me guided me in the very beginning, I came in with a girlfriend who was her and her husband were buying and selling a place and she trusted me to to kind of hit the ground running. And I quickly paired up with an agent that had actually sold our first house that we had built in the city. And you know, under her kind of guidance and mentorship, I was able to really service my my first two deals very well which being at that open house led to meeting a client and so on and so on and so on. So, you know, I think initially it was just gathering information and then building that new construction arena was was so strong for me, I mean, it it’s very different than than a resale transaction because with the resale transaction you can see feel and touch and you know, you can really go in and tell people what they need to do. And you know, well, staging wasn’t as big as it is now but you know, kind of learning from the very beginning truly from the ground up and you know, a new construction project can be two, two and a half years from from start to finish. So, you know, it really is a fun full time job in itself, but also being able to fill in, you know, fill in some of that with, with the, with the resale business with the buying and selling. I think if you’re asking more like what are what is kind of happened over the years, you know, so many different things from from then and, you know, as the market continued to grow and everything was just so great. And then all of a sudden it wasn’t. So I think one of the things that really kept all of us that that are, you know, that are still around, was sticking to the basics, you know, going back to two hard knocks, sales tactics, and I think I’ve heard you on some of the podcasts talking about writing letters and working your sphere and your contacts and stuff like that. And, you know, I think you you just always have to you always have to, to, to go back to that and go back to cash, I’m kind of losing my train of thought about it. But you know, it’s hard to go from, like, the very beginning to to now but I think, yeah, I think to get through the harder times and, you know, continue to be successful in the business. It’s, it’s taking the things that you learned and, and being able to really guide your client to making the right decision. You know, it’s it’s a huge decision. And it is such an emotional transit transaction. It’s the biggest thing that most your clients will do in their lifetime. And they’re entrusting you to such a such an important thing that, you know, I find it so important and valuable to be the best resource that I can for them.

D.J. Paris 11:46
Yeah, and what advice do you have for newer brokers aside? Obviously, you know, we talked about fundamentals and always coming back to the basics of you know, okay, working your sphere of influence, meeting new people staying in touch? What advice do you have for brokers who are newer, who really want to specialize? Because I know you specialize? Let’s talk a little bit about your special because we talked about it a little bit where you do both resale and and new construction or in development? Can you talk a little bit about what the breakdown is in your business? What percentage of the time? Are you working with developers or, or the public? Can you talk a little bit more about?

Karen Ranquist 12:24
Sure, sure. So you know, in the beginning, I was as we were growing the development business, it was probably close to 5050, as which gave me a great basis and starting ground for how the real real estate, you know, a seller or buyer transaction is going to work and how to really learn the ins and outs of that aspect of the business. But at the same time, as we were growing the new construction business, it kind of naturally progressed into kind of moving from the large company, I went to a company that only worked on new construction, I kind of brought our construction there, gathered as much information from my as I could from from that broker, he was so gracious and wonderful. And then it really kind of again, naturally progressed into just working on my own with our, you know, with our rank was prior to product, I would say that for a very long period of time, though, I think I was on my own for what, nine years almost. And I did almost all of our new construction business with my resale really starting mostly to be our past clients, and then some other small developers as well. So really a long period of time of 75 to almost 90% of new construction, and always trying to get in, you know, some some resale there. But the 2008 happened 2009 happened, everything slowed down. I was able to really draw upon the relationships and people that I had been working with and keeping in contact with and having a little more resale of business at that time to kind of sustain things and was also a time where I thought I could really use some more support and that was when I moved over to Berkshire Hathaway, which was about seven years ago. So kind of last year, your main question being the advice to a new broker and all those things you know, sticking to the basics I again I’ve heard you talk a lot about that the art of even writing a letter and being in touch with people and you know, making it your own you know, everybody can can be on social media and send out eblasts and mailers but I tried to really make it personal like I will scour the internet and gosh, you know, for instance, I had these great clients, they were such such great people and I sold two houses for them and they had this incredible home one of my favorite homes in Wicker Park and they had this like, you know, kind of like in the 70s where you had like a pit in a lower pit, but it was just it was so amazing I have a couple of it on my you know, pictures of it on my, my Instagram, but I, you know I’ll find on on like dwell or something on another site, I’ll see something else I’ll see something similar and just thinking of them and just sending them a text, you know, be it like midnight going, Gosh, I can’t help myself, this just makes me think of, you know, of your place and how much I liked your place or, you know, I have somebody that lived in a building that was 100 years ago, it was a bar and I found a picture of their house as a bar and I’m like, Oh my gosh, I have to send you this so so you know, constantly touching out to those clients that do you have, it’s such a intense relationship for such a period of time with these people. I mean, you you know, you really like miss them after the transaction is over. Because you really go through so much with with these people that you you know, you they become your friends, they become people that you think about and, you know, everything like like keeping up with the year that a year that goes by and then the next year that goes by and kind of you know, birthdays, birthdays, just everything you can do on a on a general level. But I really feel like if you can find those special things about those special clients and and and think, you know, you’re really I’m thinking of them if I see something on social media, I’m like, I’ve got to send this to them or just a random article, I’ll screenshot it and I you know, I hope they appreciate it and kind of get a kick out of it. And we can have a little laugh about a you know, funny story that happened in the transaction or something like you know, like, the place that used to be a bar or something really unique like that make it make it really personal to me is something that that is more my style. Kind of transitioning to the other part of your question about advice for a new agent, there’s so much technology and I I am I’m on board it is amazing it is what we can do and find and see for our clients and and how the the market is moving. It’s just just amazing. To start back literally when there were books they used to um that old where you’d like flip through them for the for you know, I mean it was it to what we have now and it is just truly just just incredible and

D.J. Paris 17:21
now it’s moved so much from you know in what Karen’s referencing is the MLS used to not of course be online and there were books and you would have to go typically you’d go to a real estate office and look through all the homes for sale and and that’s transitioned of course to the MLS being online but now it’s even sort of beyond just being because it’s crazy don’t even need you tend to see the MLS right like clients do not need brokers to get access to the MLS but

Karen Ranquist 17:48
they’re not you know they need to get access to the right information and ended up kind of you know us the the real estate agents I think you know, there’s there’s no secret to this business, any real estate agent that’s successful works nonstop anybody that there really is no secret we all have a different style we all have a different you know strength or a reason why we hook up with the people that we hook up with but but but but but there is no secret I mean it really it is all about hard work and you know it you know a client can find something on a site but is that the most current information is it is it you know, I have an amazing client that I’ve done a bunch of transactions with that I just I like her you know, she’s just so much fun and such a great person and I you know, really enjoyed meeting her as a client and just maintaining a friendship with her. She you know, she’s like and she has a lot of she’s in a big business and very well known and you know, has a lot of contacts and when she thought of this dear friend of hers, she’s like Karen you know everything there is to know about schools you have two kids you’ve been in the city forever you have to work with this friend of mine and I just was so touched that she you know in in having so many contacts and and people that she knows that she’s like you know not only knows that I would really really really take care of her friends so well but that I can offer this insight to being a mom in the city with two kids and how to navigate and being a working professional with the ins and outs of what it’s like to you know start with your kid and 18 months out you know I’ve been in the city my kids been in the city their entire life so so something like that to me it’s just you know, the referral basis is where the majority of my businesses and to have that past client refer me to this client it just it means so much to me as an agent and just reminds us that we you know we all have our strengths and things that we can bring to the to the transaction and to our clients and I think it’s really important just to focus on what what you know the best so you can be that best that best partner for your client and and you can’t find that online and and I don’t think you’ll ever be able no matter where the internet and social media goes there’s, there’s things we know about each city block and each park and each, you know, where you can have dogs and where you can’t and where you know how many steps it is. Anyone can tell you how many steps it is to the train, but we can tell you what I can tell you what restaurants and, and how far away the Starbucks is, or the stands doughnuts. And it’s just a service that I think makes makes us kind of kind of internet proof. And in that sense,

D.J. Paris 20:25
agreed. And I think it’s nice to know that clients can access a listings without a broker, because then it’s like, Okay, now what do they do with that information? And that’s where the broker gets to come in and really shine to say, okay, true. These are, you know, it’s not under lock and key anymore to see the the database of available listings. But here’s what to do with that information. I’m here to guide you through every step of it. And I think that’s, that’s particularly useful, I’ll share this just happened in over the Thanksgiving holiday last week. So my parents are they have a home in North Myrtle Beach and they’re trying to it’s a condo, they’re trying to sell it and they’ve been trying to sell it forever. And it’s, it’s, they’ve gone through a number of Realtors, my parents are very easy clients. But for whatever reason, it’s just the markets, not very strong out there and whatever. But my dad was saying, because I was curious. And I said, Oh, who’s your realtor now? Because they’ve gone through several of them over the over the years. And, and, and he said, Oh, it’s so and so. And I don’t remember the name. But he’s I said, Oh, do you like him? Is he doing a good job. And he’s, he said, he goes, I’ll tell you the one thing. And over the years out there, my parents have used like five different realtors. And he said, The reason I like this guy, everyone is basically telling him, Okay, here’s the right price. And that’s all pretty universal with the brokers he’s worked with out there. But he said, what this guy does is whenever there’s a showing, because my parents aren’t, aren’t there, they don’t live there. So it’s this remote sort of situation. He he, the broker, the listing agent, this, this gentleman will make a really big deal to contact and continually hound, the broker representing the buyer after the showing just to get feedback. And we all know that m read, the system sort of sends that automatically a lot of times brokers don’t fill it out. And you know, it’s that information is kind of oftentimes by the wayside. But this broker makes it a point to really like keep calling and saying what’s your client think we want feedback to, to make improvements and changes. And then he relays all of that information to my dad. And I mean, it’s a simple thing that more brokers probably ought to do, but my dad thinks it’s the coolest thing ever. Because he goes, nobody ever did that. Nobody ever told me, here’s the feedback we got, we’re getting. And it’s always little cosmetic things like oh, we, you know, we noticed the paint was a little chipped in this one room. And my dad’s like, this is great, because I didn’t have this information, you notice,

Karen Ranquist 22:49
and I’ll try to be very honest with this with with show, you know, when I’m representing the buyer, because I would want you know, I appreciate that as well when I can get, you know, if I have three realtors say, you know, Karen, we, my client loves the house, but it just, it’s just priced too aggressively or, you know, it’s too open or it’s too this or it’s too, you know, it’s it’s very, it’s very important to me, I think to get we you know, we don’t have a crystal ball we can we can go through CMAs and work on past sales. And, you know, the market is, especially in today’s market, it’s so ever changing, it’s so it’s so unpredictable on some, in some senses that to get feedback, actual feedback from your, you know, your colleagues is so important. And you know, it kind of leads to the relationship we have with our colleagues and how how vital it is to me. And again, I’m also thinking of like, what advice to give to a new agent, you know, this relationship of kind of aligning yourself with other successful brokers, and what do they do in their practice that makes them successful? And, you know, what can what can we learn from from them that we’re not doing and what can we offer them as as as advice because we don’t, you know, we all don’t know everything, and each person can offer some insight that that maybe we didn’t think about or we might have overlooked or whatnot. So, you know, I feel like I have, you know, just for instance, like I so respect and admire to women, you know, they’re just your friends and for many, many years, you know, Ivana accouterment COVID and Sophia Copus. And I, you know, if I’m having a really hard time with something just to have the ability to say, you know, what, do you guys think of this price? Or what do you think of that and, and hopefully being able to reciprocate a little bit to them, and really just say, Hey, how is this working for you? I’m trying this new thing on a website and have you had success with that or, or whatnot. And I think too, you know, even with this podcast, I think it’s so great because we don’t know I mean, there’s there’s some things work better for others and some things just aren’t as successful and to hear what other you know, agents that that you respect and admire their business to be able to have them share that with you, it’s just so important and means so much to me to be able to have, you know, the relationship with with our colleagues. I mean, because that nobody in real estate knows how, how many hats we wear, and how crazy this business gets and how many different things we have to do for our clients except other realtors. So to approach a transaction, you know, not adversarially but but but but with it. Of course, it’s such a weird relationship because we represent the sellers and buyers, we’re on opposite ends, we may be at opposite even if we’re in the same company, it’s it’s, it’s such a weird variety of relationships and different, you know, lawyer personality and inspectors and no situation is the same. But, you know, if you can kind of go in with, you know, a feeling, you know, I know this agent and I know how they are going to do the best they can and, and work, you know, have that camaraderie and assurance that the agent’s going to be a professional as well. It just makes everything else so much more pleasant, because we know, in any transaction, something crazy is going to happen. And, you know, to try to remain calm and supportive. And, and and, you know, just to get along is is crucial, I think to these transactions that are never easy. They’re never easy. Well, let’s

D.J. Paris 26:20
Yeah, let’s talk about some ways people can get involved with the community because obviously, not everyone works at a large firm. And not everyone works at a firm where there’s a lot of collaboration or over

Karen Ranquist 26:33
the course, of course, I worked on my own for nine years. And I struggled I needed that, that that camaraderie I needed that and I think you’re, I have a feeling you’re gonna lead into something like WC er, or one of these other great networking organizations that that can provide that.

D.J. Paris 26:50
Yeah, to talk about some of the organizations that you’ve been a member of, and in the benefits you’ve received, like, for example, Women’s Council of Realtors, yeah, you

Karen Ranquist 26:57
know, especially when I worked on my own it was it’s, it’s a hard it’s a hard it’s hard to not have, you know, I just I love being at Berkshire and you don’t let me check with my managing broker. It’s just such a, it’s such a wonderful thing to, to have that I didn’t for all that time. And, you know, I really craved being with other agents and getting their knowledge and support and the networking. So I did two things I did join W CR I gosh, I can’t even remember what led me there. It was years ago, because I started as a member for a little while and then I went into a different position. I think it was with membership because we were really starting to try to you know, turn things around and get get more members this is this is a while ago, and then I kind of moved that into to Vice President and just found that the networking the relationship with the other members and and of course the programming the programming was great the people that would come in and talk about what they did with their business and bring in a lender and current trends and staging and a million different topics but and and that they were hosted in different like, you know, development offices or different offices in different places throughout the city that was like, you’re getting so much in an hour and a half or something like that, you’re getting the networking and a training, and you’re and you’re getting to view a cell center. So it was it was a great experience to be a part of it. And it’s such an important counsel to have an outlet look for us as agents to be able to, you know, to talk to one another.

D.J. Paris 28:35
Yeah, there’s there’s a lot you know, there’s a number of these types of organizations Women’s Council of Realtors, which by the way, is like $100 a year, it’s the best $100 you’ll you’ll ever spend. I agree something like that. I don’t think it’s much more than that. And then you know, there’s the there’s the YPN, which is if you’re a car member are actually they have the YPN and all the different boards, whether your main street or car, Northshore, Barrington era, they all have the Young Professionals Network, and those are amazing as well. And you don’t have to be young, I’m certainly not young. I’m part of it. And but all of these places are was so funny, as before we started recording this, Karen and we were talking about some Karen was nice enough to have listened to some of the other episodes. And probably she listened to get it to get a sense of the show. But also she’s like those are some of her friends. And I suspect it’s not just because top producers all hang out together. I suspect there’s a little of that. But Karen’s just really, you’re really, really involved. And I think just as a nature, I bet you probably know 75% of the people we’ve interviewed for this show, and it’s not because there’s a special secret club of 1% producers, where you all hang out on the weekends. But you’re just you’ve been around for for several decades and you’re really involved in the community. You’ve also been on cars. You’ve been on boards at Chicago Association of Realtors,

Karen Ranquist 29:50
yeah, I worked with the Grievance Committee for a number of years and that was just such a great board and such dedicated people and it was a tough board. You know, I got it. I learned a lot lot on that, but it it, it was really a great learning experience and the people that were involved were, were really wonderful and people that I see out you know, he Do you have a special relationship with them, I’ll see them at a showing or at an event or somewhere and you’re, you know, you kind of have a special fondness for, for the time that you spent or serve together at on a board it is a it is a really, you know, it’s an important thing to do. And I think you get a lot out of it, as well as putting, you know the little what you put in, I think you certainly get get more out of it. And, you know, certainly a great place for new agents to start and, and meet other agents, it’s so it’s so nice and in your buyers, you know, like when I when I go to showings or when when Realtors come to a showing of mine and we have a relationship or a camaraderie and a general comfort with one another when we’re doing the showing it just the buyer feels feels feel sad and can say like, if some you know, the biggest compliment is if I come with a with a buyer to a showing, and the agent says you are in great hands with Karen. I mean, it just that means so much to me that that, uh, you know, another real estate professional can can say with with, you know, hopefully sincerity in front of my client that, you know, she’s gonna take care of you and and, and I, you know, I feel the same when when I have people come to my listings, and it’s just that I’ve had a positive relationship or transaction or interaction with that agent. And, you know, it really is all about the relationship. And that’s what this business is, I mean, you know, you can have people that are in jobs, where they’re negotiating all sorts of money and all sorts of different deals and, and so many different things. And, and, and it it’s a different, it’s a different transaction, I mean, what you do in in, in other negotiations just isn’t going to kind of be the same as what you’re going to do when you’re buying and selling your own piece of property. There is absolutely an emotional component to it.

D.J. Paris 32:04
Yeah, and the other thing, too, is, and I always like to make this point about, you know, fine getting involved with the community and and really learning from realtors, obviously the show is is about talking to two top producers and asking them what they do. But I just want to make the point to the audience that I mean, aside from character who I met, I think I met you prior to this podcast even happening, I don’t think the podcast was even existed, which was you know, it’s only been around several months now. But but but when I met you is just very, very briefly, but aside from that, I think maybe only one of the other people we have about 30 episodes, one of the other people I knew the rest we just reached out to and said, Hey, would you like to be on the show? And would you be kind enough to share some time to talk about how you became successful. So if you you know, if you’re a broker out there who isn’t connected as deeply into the community, and you maybe you don’t have as supportive of an environment where your office or it’s not a big network? You know, the reason why I’m able to talk to someone like Karen, is we reached out to Karen and said, Would you be happy to? Would you be grateful enough to or we’re very grateful. But would you be generous enough to devote a few minutes to talking to the public and she cared? Obviously, it’s extraordinarily kind to do. So but so is everyone else that we’ve interviewed. And these are just people we reached out of the blue. So I just want to make a point that if you’re a broker out there, you’re like, Well, I don’t know anybody in the industry, get involved go to the Women’s Council of Realtors, even if you’re a man go to the Women’s Council. Yeah,

Karen Ranquist 33:28
it’s definitely yes, definitely, that’s a good place to

D.J. Paris 33:32
go to the YPN events reach out to these top producers. And not all of them will have time for you. But some of them will. And you’ll be absolutely surprised and shocked at how few how few times do these top producers even get asked for advice or help it is they’re they’re very busy with their own business, but they don’t get as many requests. I don’t know if Karen, you may be the exception to that. But I don’t know how often people come up and say I’m brand new, you know, would you get to give me a few minutes of advice. I’m obviously you’re doing that here on the show, but it’s um, it’s surprisingly easy. People are very kind.

Karen Ranquist 34:08
Yeah, and they are I mean, people people are I mean, there are I think that, you know, you go through so much as an agent and you you know, you go through so much as an agent and you you just if certain parts of transactions, you can just kind of go oh, well at least, you know, I know that aid, you know, this agents going to do the best that they can and that’s really all you know, it’s really all you can do. But just to have that that relationship really makes the you know, it really makes the transaction much more much much smoother, much more enjoyable and honestly at times more tolerable because sometimes things can get pretty tricky when we when we do this this business this business is is it’s tough business and it’s it’s good to have to have allies and you know, kind of going back to having, you know, colleagues that you can, can can lean on and count on for support and, and, you know, kind of going outside of your comfort zone and reaching out to other agents, like you said with these newer agents to, to, you know, approach a more experienced agent I did, when I started, I’ll never forget the people that helped me. I mean, even when I was navigating, you know, the most basic things and, and now, I mean, I, you know, I’m not the greatest on technology, and I gotta ask, you know, I have to ask people all the time for help, and it is really, it is important to, you know, to help each other out. And, you know, I think one other thing, too, you know, on the, on that new agent thing that, and we’ve talked a lot about, like, you know, how amazing the internet and technology and how much it’s changed from the very, very beginning. But, um, you know, it don’t forget, you know, not just going back to basics, but so much like, is on a text message or on a this or that, or, you know, we have to if we’re not going to meet face to face everyday, but there’s so much to be said, for just picking up the phone and talking to somebody because we all know that emails can be misconstrued. And God knows a text message is even less personal than that. And that we’re also busy, but just, you know, if we’re negotiating or finding out information, you know, just pick up the phone, let’s just talk about it. Because there’s so many more things that we can, you know, we can figure out together on the phone or in person than just a quick text back and forth. So it’s, it’s very, you know, it’s great to embrace technology, but we also can’t forget about what, you know, what, what, what really connects us. So, you know, that would kind of be my, my last piece of advice if we were talking about a new agent, and what you know, and what to do.

D.J. Paris 36:42
Yeah, I think I think you’re so right about that. And you talked at the beginning of when we were at the beginning of this conversation about really looking for those personalized connections, where are pits of information, where it’s like, oh, they had that they had that in ground tub, you know, that 70 style, sort of walk down into a bathtub. And I saw another picture of one so I’m going to send it out to my client or I know my clients, you know, their, their daughter is starting first grade and that’s probably a really stressful and hard time for you them to you know, see their daughter off to school or whatever, it might be anything personalized, where you can have that reason i i Always I’m going to I’m eventually going to have a podcast episode called nobody wants to read your newsletter. And it’s more than just a tongue in cheek but nobody wants to read your newsletter but what they do want not that you shouldn’t have one and that’s fine if you do but in addition to having a newsletter it’s like pick up the phone and call them and see how they’re doing and ask them about their lives and remember their birth

Karen Ranquist 37:48
year I mean there’s you can’t do that with with every client but there’s you know, there’s there’s clients that you will be in contact and then there’s there’s there’s different you know, different kinds of ways you can reach out to people on a broad sense to you know, tell people in a certain area that you have a new listing or to give statistics on a certain area that somebody would be interested in but but these people that have bought and sold with you and people that have referred you and people that you know that that are you know a source of business for you you you want to you know it’s fun, I mean you love it it’s a great way to connect with people and and you know, kind of think of a funny story that happened with you guys or you know, if you like to you know to work out and I’ve heard another one of your agents talk or one of the agents at talk talked about that and you know, it’s funny I going back when you and I were talking earlier I’m going to jump really far ahead and hopefully we can kind of go back a little bit more to kind of the nitty gritty with like the the marketing and other things that I just love and kind of fill in that like what might make me different as an agent but but um you know, one of the things as far as like, ways to touch out with those people that are important to you or source of referral or business or whatever I have after all these years I have been an independent realtor, I’ve had assistants I’ve worked with other agents as as as partners. But but as far as a team, I’ve really never established that and, and and boy after 20 years of you really just can’t do it all. I mean, you really can’t and to you know balance my kids and some sort of a social life and whatnot, it is you know, there is something to be said for for for bringing somebody on and you and I have a mutual friend in in in Sook who has joined my team with me. And you know, just last night we had an event for her, where she invited her her some of her closest people to kind of say, Hey, I’m in real estate now. And let’s make this fun. We had it at a gallery in the in the west loop, this amazing woman and I could give her information as well, that does jewelry design, and she was kind enough to open up her studio to us. And then we had another dear friend of souks, who is a makeup artist and hairstylist that did a presentation a small presentation for all of us on like, literally how to use the makeup that’s already in your bag. And it was just such a great fun night and such a great way to you know, get people together kind of say, hey, you know, Sook is taking this transition, she’s working with Karen, you know, I have this long history in the business, and couple it with some wine and some some food. And, and this, this just like, I learned so much about how to actually put on makeup, it was really, it was just a great night.

D.J. Paris 40:59
Yeah, those events are so wonderful. And I think, you know, are a lot of brokers, you don’t have to spend a fortune doing them either. times, a lot of times, you can, you know, you can reach out to partners like lenders or attorneys, or, you know, title companies who will actually help subsidize some of these events too. And so if you’re a new broker, and you maybe don’t have a huge budget to do client appreciation events, or you don’t know exactly how to set these up, like you have resources,

Karen Ranquist 41:30
really like use your friends. I mean, it was great for for her friend to be able to, you know, she wasn’t there to sell anything by any means, but the product was worse so and they kind of sold themselves. So same thing with the jewelry. I mean, one of the you know, women somebody bought this beautiful ring from the gallery and, and then, you know, I definitely bought some makeup last night. You know, I was definitely not her Stacy’s intention, she was really there just to kind of teach us a few tricks and how to make the stuff we already had in our purses, and in our bags, work more and it’s just, I mean, we were there were lots of questions and it was just a you know, a really small but but I’m just a great little way to kind of kick off the holidays and introduced, you know, Sook into A into this new, you know, endeavor for her with me. I

D.J. Paris 42:19
love it. Let’s talk a little bit about your team and some you know, and we’ll finish up with you know, tell us about how you’ve now you know, it’s not just you anymore, you now have you know, you now have a team I’m talking a little bit you talk a little bit about that and sort of, you know, what

Karen Ranquist 42:35
we’ve known each other you know, for for a second I’ve known each other for over you know, over 20 years and it really was through the business when I was at the small development company, she was there as well. And you know, we’ve just kept in touch and been friendly for years, but she brings years of styling and fashion and graphics to to to the table and a whole different database of people that we can hopefully you know, guide and help in their real estate transactions. So it’s really exciting for me like I have, you know, been doing so many things independently that have probably and I’m sure most likely limited. My ability to even grow further and faster. And you know, it’s so exciting that even in just such a short period of time, and getting all of our systems together and systems that I’ve kind of always had in place but never really really really organized and took advantage of to the to the full extent and you know taking all this information that I have and all these amazing you know architectural photographs of past projects and taking her creativity and graphic background to you know, really show people what we can do. I mean I’ve always been about real estate to me you know, it is a passion, the architecture and the design and I can appreciate all different kinds of styles and price points and whatnot but I I just want people to really like where they’re at you know, I want them to be really excited and you know, it’s always been like it’s not I’ve never really looked at at it as how do you say it like I don’t really look at it as just a home you know, it’s just like it’s like an extension of who the person is. And even if it’s somebody that doesn’t even realize it to you know kind of be able to get in there and and be out there with this this client and see them responding to a property and helping guide them to to what what ultimately ends up being their home and having that ability to kind of read between the lines and and help them get there is so you know is so important to me and you know on the app and on the sales and I do a lot of representation of sellers a lot of our past I mentioned our past buyers and I just love that I love getting into someone’s home and now having soup you know really helping me style a home you even you know even better than before and getting it ready for the, you know, for photos and kind of stealing a word from from Ivana, I kind of like having all these tools in my toolbox, and, you know, adding a new resource to to help us, you know, get our buyers and sellers in the best position they can be in is it’s really exciting. I mean, we’ve just, we’ve worked so hard these last few months, and I just can’t wait to see, you know, to see where we go from here. Yeah, I

D.J. Paris 45:28
think that one thing that comes through and really everything you’ve said, and this is a testament to you is that you care so deeply for your clients. And I think that it as a realtor, as a broker as our listeners who are mostly realtors, that your client should feel that way about you that they should feel that wow, my realtor cares about me and is connected and gets it and understands what I need, and takes really good care of me. And I think that really has come through and probably ever, I suspect your clients would all say that.

Karen Ranquist 46:04
Oh, I hope so. Because I really do, you know, I love that I am not good at paperwork, but I love being out in the field. And I love like, you know, helping people just find that place. It’s like fitting in the puzzle pieces and, and and, and then helping them come up with strategies and ideas for marketing their home. I mean, I you know, one of the things I love about where I’m at at Berkshire is I was afraid that after all the years of being on my own, and our marketing when I worked with the rate all of our rank was projects, our marketing and the style and the beautiful way we could present our product was so so very important to me. And I wanted to really be able to keep kind of a part of me, but get the support and encouragement from a full service brokerage, which I wish I certainly have. And, you know, I feel like just even our marketing team really gets, you know, gets me and can take these these great photos and, and things that we can bring from my resale business and my my new construction business and the marketing is, it’s so important to me to just make this person’s home as as as interested, you know, as cool and the marketing material that we put out just to really make it so unique and so specific to them, that you know, I’m just so happy that, that I have the tools that I can continue to do that, you know, to do that for my clients and really think outside the box, you know, I mean, just who are we marketing to and just just all sorts of ideas, just you know, like, who do you know, mailers and creative ideas to have a party at somebody’s house with with just this thing with Stacey with the makeup like, you know, I have a new construction house coming up and we’re gonna, you know, bring in a local restaurant, we’re gonna do a post drywall party and bring in like, have it be like a daytime thing and bring in all sorts of different you know, fun things that uh, you know, people can come by and walk through the house but, but just you know, have some pizza from the neighborhood pizza place and put in just just just do like, you know, tying in all these different things where it’s so much more than just having your listing on the MLS, it’s just having the creativity and the ability to always think about ways to get your, your clients home marketed and seen by by other eyes, I mean, having a database of tons and tons of realtors to send an E blast to in case they missed it on the MLS and, you know, using social media and using just all these, you know, creative outlets to get your client’s property seen by eyes that they may not, that may not have seen it otherwise, that that’s a really, really important part of, of what I hope I can do for my sellers. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 49:00
well, let’s talk about if there are any, any buyers, sellers, renters, or even developers who are interested in working with you and your team, what’s the best way they should reach out to you?

Karen Ranquist 49:12
Oh, they can call me on my cell phone at 77344763607734476360. Or they can touch out to me through you know, Karen rank was Realty Group on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, any way that’s easiest for them.

D.J. Paris 49:32
Well, Karen, thank you so much for your time. I think again, I hope that it’s I’m sure it’s obvious to everyone who listens, but your passion and the fact that you care so deeply for your clients. Which by the way, if you’ve been listening to this podcast, speaking to the listeners, you you’ll hear a lot of that almost everyone is so passionate and cares so deeply. And I suspect that’s not by accident. It probably makes for extraordinarily happy clients and Karen’s perfect example. She works almost exclusively by referral has built this really outstanding business over 20 years and is very well respected and liked. maybe more importantly, she’s well liked to the community. And she’s also really involved. So I think that’s really the recipe right there. It’s, if there is a recipe that might be that might be it. So thank you for sharing all of that with the listen.

Karen Ranquist 50:22
Oh, gosh, thank you so much for having me on. I really, really appreciate you guys thinking of me. Well,

D.J. Paris 50:28
you’re very welcome. And all right. Well, we’ll see you on the next episode. So thank you, Karen.

Karen Ranquist 50:33
Oh, great. Thanks again. Have a great weekend.

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