How a 30 Under 30 Agent Built a Top 1% Real Estate Business Before 30

Transcript

[00:00:00] Sam Burke has just over 200 YouTube subscribers yet it's one of his best lead sources for

[00:00:06] his business.

[00:00:07] The size of your channel isn't the point.

[00:00:10] Stay tuned.

[00:00:11] This episode of Keeping It Real is brought to you by Real Geeks.

[00:00:14] How many homes are you going to sell this year?

[00:00:17] Do you have the right tools?

[00:00:18] Is your website turning soft leads in interested buyers?

[00:00:22] Are you spending money on leads that aren't converting?

[00:00:24] Well, Real Geeks is your solution.

[00:00:26] Find out why agents across the country choose Real Geeks as their technology partner.

[00:00:31] Real Geeks was created by an agent for agents.

[00:00:35] They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily

[00:00:39] generate more business.

[00:00:41] Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience

[00:00:47] for your visitors.

[00:00:48] Real Geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM.

[00:00:52] So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great

[00:00:57] follow-up conversations.

[00:00:59] Real Geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand

[00:01:04] awareness.

[00:01:04] Visit RealGeeks.com forward slash Keeping It Real Pod and find out why REALTORS come to

[00:01:10] Real Geeks to generate more business.

[00:01:12] Again, visit RealGeeks.com forward slash Keeping It Real Pod.

[00:01:17] And now onto our show.

[00:01:18] Today's episode is brought to you by Corded.io.

[00:01:22] Are you looking for agents to join your brokerage team?

[00:01:26] Now as a real estate recruiter, I can tell you the answer is always yes.

[00:01:30] But most agents aren't looking to move right now.

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[00:01:35] Well, what if I were to tell you there's a recruiting and retention tool powered by

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[00:01:50] to leave you?

[00:01:51] Now, I've been recruiting REALTORS for 15 years and I've hired over 2000 agents.

[00:01:56] I can tell you with no exaggeration, this is the tool I've been waiting for.

[00:02:00] Corded.io looks for trends across dozens of variables for each agent in your market and

[00:02:06] shows you which agents they believe are likely to move.

[00:02:09] Not only does it do that, but Corded.io went and visited my recruiting website and read

[00:02:14] everything I offer.

[00:02:15] So now when I'm recruiting, Corded's AI tells me exactly what to say based on that

[00:02:21] agent's needs and what my brokerage can offer.

[00:02:23] It even writes emails for me.

[00:02:25] I've never seen anything like it and I use it every single day.

[00:02:29] Now, if you are looking to grow your brokerage, Corded.io is the best tool out there.

[00:02:35] Visit Corded.io to schedule a demo again.

[00:02:38] That's Corded.io.

[00:02:40] And now onto the show.

[00:02:55] Hello and welcome to Keeping It Real.

[00:02:58] We are the largest podcast made by real estate agents and four real estate agents.

[00:03:03] My name is DJ Paris.

[00:03:04] I am your guide and host through the show.

[00:03:08] And today I have a very, very exciting interview with Sam Burke.

[00:03:13] I'm going to tell you more about Sam in a second because Sam's done some really incredible

[00:03:17] things and he's early into his career.

[00:03:20] And he did them not just early into his career, but at a very young age.

[00:03:24] And I'm always fascinated by people who do that because that is a much tougher experience

[00:03:30] than a lot of agents who are start even older.

[00:03:34] So we're going to talk about that and about how he's growing his business and what he's

[00:03:39] done to not only become successful in his area, but he's like one of the top agents.

[00:03:43] In his area.

[00:03:43] So we're going to talk about that.

[00:03:44] But let me give you his bio.

[00:03:45] So Sam Burke is a real estate broker with John L. Scott.

[00:03:50] So I snow homeish.

[00:03:53] So my point is for making that challenging, but Sam understands snow homeish, which by

[00:03:58] the way is just about 45 minutes north of Seattle.

[00:04:02] But Sam specializes in residential, of course, investment and new construction properties.

[00:04:06] He was recognized this year as a 2026 National Association of REALTORS 30 under 30 nominee.

[00:04:13] That is a very big deal.

[00:04:14] I was actually with their sea suite this morning, funny enough.

[00:04:18] And I know what a big deal it is to even get that sort of recognition.

[00:04:22] So congratulations to Sam is also in the top 1% of his area, which again, for somebody

[00:04:27] under 30, not common.

[00:04:29] I'm in Chicago and I bet less than 0.001% of the agents who are under 30 are in the top

[00:04:35] 1% here.

[00:04:37] So this is a big deal.

[00:04:37] But he brings a strong understanding of neighborhood dynamics, long term value and market trends to

[00:04:41] every transaction.

[00:04:43] He blends traditional proven marketing, but with also modern digital strategies.

[00:04:48] We're going to talk about that, including video social media.

[00:04:51] And he's known for clear communication, thoughtful guidance via an analytical approach.

[00:04:55] But he works closely with buyers, sellers and investors to deliver results.

[00:04:59] He's also an active.

[00:05:00] If that's not all that the cool stuff he does, he also invests himself.

[00:05:04] So we're going to talk a little bit about that and why he's investing for his future that

[00:05:10] way.

[00:05:11] He understands that that's the key to long-term wealth building perspective.

[00:05:14] I want everybody to follow him.

[00:05:16] Remember he's a 30 under 30.

[00:05:17] These people under 30, they understand social media and Sam's no exception.

[00:05:22] Follow him on Instagram.

[00:05:23] Sam underscored Burke, that's Burke with an E at the end and the number 7.

[00:05:28] So Sam underscored Burke 7, linked to that in the show notes.

[00:05:31] Sam, welcome to the show.

[00:05:33] Thank you.

[00:05:34] Thank you.

[00:05:34] Excited to be here.

[00:05:35] I appreciate you having me on.

[00:05:36] I love talking to young agents who are crushing it because there's always something you guys are doing that the rest of us go,

[00:05:45] oh, never thought of that.

[00:05:47] So love that.

[00:05:48] But let's go all the way back.

[00:05:49] So I want to, I know you have a crazy story about how you got in the business.

[00:05:53] Tell us that story.

[00:05:55] Yeah, so I got into real estate, you know, really at a young age as far as how I was inspired to get into it.

[00:06:03] My dad was a builder.

[00:06:06] You know, he essentially left school when he was in or left high school got essentially kicked out of the house as a junior started as a carpenter worked his way up into construction started building houses.

[00:06:17] And you know, my mom was a local business owner.

[00:06:21] And so from a very, very young age, I was around a combination of construction and, you know, local business ownership.

[00:06:27] So at the dinner table, we talked.

[00:06:29] Yeah.

[00:06:30] Yeah, we talked about, you know, business and investing.

[00:06:33] And I remember being, you know, 12, 13 years old here and about cap rates and construction permits and all these things.

[00:06:41] So at a pretty young age, I knew one way or another, I wanted to get into the world of housing and construction.

[00:06:49] And when I was in college, I went to a small community college at high school and I took a class called small business essentials.

[00:06:58] And the whole concept of the class was there was a class competition.

[00:07:01] And essentially over the quarter, you created a mock business and then at the end, you presented your business and the winner got an Alaska Airlines gift card to go wherever they wanted.

[00:07:11] I think it was like 300 bucks.

[00:07:13] And so I created a land development company.

[00:07:16] I went and identified a piece of property.

[00:07:18] I went through feasibility.

[00:07:19] I reached out to all these local builders and developers and I won the class competition.

[00:07:23] And so I took that gift card.

[00:07:27] I ended up going on a spring break trip where I met a bunch of people from Washington State University.

[00:07:31] Some of my buddies were in a fraternity over there.

[00:07:34] And I ended up, you know, joining that fraternity for a period of time, you know, went over to WSU, started a studying construction management.

[00:07:41] And then through my college journey, my parents ended up going through a little bit of a challenging divorce and a lot of time or a lot of things in my life changed.

[00:07:50] And I decided, you know, I was still inspired, but I wanted to do something that I was in total control of.

[00:07:57] I wanted to run my own business.

[00:07:59] I knew I wasn't going to necessarily go be a developer out of college and run that by myself.

[00:08:05] But I decided getting a real estate license was a good way to, you know, at least get my foot in the door of that world.

[00:08:11] And so during the summer during college, I would, you know, bartend during night.

[00:08:17] I would study to get my real estate license during the day.

[00:08:20] And then my last year of college, COVID happened.

[00:08:24] And so everybody got sent home from college.

[00:08:26] There wasn't anybody hiring. There wasn't much going on, but I had a real estate license because I had obtained it a little bit earlier.

[00:08:33] And I remember I still had to finish my senior year of classes online.

[00:08:37] So I found a real estate office.

[00:08:39] I would literally cold call during the day.

[00:08:42] And then I'd go out and take like a midterm or a final study for my quizzes while I was trying to learn real estate.

[00:08:48] And so that's where it all began.

[00:08:49] And I found some really good mentors in the business early on that I just latched on to.

[00:08:54] And, you know, they helped me grow.

[00:08:56] And then that first year in the business, I, you know, really found a passion for this.

[00:09:00] And that's where it all started.

[00:09:01] And, you know, it's been just almost seven years since then and still going strong and love it as much as ever.

[00:09:07] What a great story.

[00:09:08] I want to sort of piece apart some of this because it's really, it's very impressive.

[00:09:13] And one thing we haven't said is that you were rookie of the year in your local association, your first full year, which is a very, very big deal.

[00:09:21] And so you were what, 22 or so at that, at that age, 23 maybe?

[00:09:26] Yeah, 22 when I started in the business.

[00:09:28] Amazing. And five years later, now you're national 30 under 30.

[00:09:32] So most agents plateau somewhere in there.

[00:09:36] But let's talk about what you were actually doing day to day in years 23 and four that your peers weren't doing.

[00:09:45] I mean, look, in the first year, even making cold calls, 99% of agents never do.

[00:09:50] But let's talk about years 23 and four.

[00:09:52] So you had a great first year and then, you know, obviously you kept going.

[00:09:57] What do you think that you were doing that other agents weren't?

[00:10:01] Yeah, I think, you know, from a high level, I treated it like a business.

[00:10:05] You know, I was, I was taught by an individual very early on the importance of having systems and structure and prioritizing my day, you know, based on the business that I wanted.

[00:10:17] You know, another thing that was really important early on was, you know, believing in myself, you know, before I had any of the sales to support it.

[00:10:24] And what I mean by that is I remember waking up every day and right now, not a piece of paper, you know, where I wanted to be, you know, what I was grateful for, what I was willing to do, what I was unwilling to do.

[00:10:33] And, you know, essentially kind of visualizing, you know, the outcome.

[00:10:37] And that helped me tremendously, you know, as far as that actual.

[00:10:41] I want to, let's, I want to piece this apart because I'm now I'm super fascinated by this.

[00:10:44] So was you were doing this every morning, you were writing down, here's what I want, here's what I'm willing or was it just occasionally.

[00:10:52] I really want to figure out this process.

[00:10:54] Yeah, it's actually it's pretty funny because I just came across the paper that I used to look at every morning that came from a mentor.

[00:11:01] And it was, you know, I would literally speak out loud to myself of, you know, what I wanted to accomplish, how I wanted to treat people, how I wanted people to look at my business.

[00:11:09] And, you know, I don't know if it was every single morning, but definitely anywhere from three to four days a week and just, you know, speaking in into existence.

[00:11:16] There was a book I read early on called Thinking Grow Rich.

[00:11:20] Oh, sure.

[00:11:21] Yeah, one of the most famous books there ever was, yeah.

[00:11:25] Old school, I had a little piece of paper next to my bed and it was exactly what I wanted to accomplish.

[00:11:29] And I remember it, you know, just seemed completely unreasonable.

[00:11:33] And I'd look at it every morning and every night.

[00:11:35] And, you know, it's funny because at the end of the year that, that goal came true.

[00:11:39] And I think that's what really helped me start to understand the power of all that leaf.

[00:11:44] So, so much of that is, yes, the belief that I could become, I can become, I will become, I am becoming.

[00:11:54] And there's a huge competence piece that needs to go along.

[00:11:59] Otherwise, you're just saying things and you're not actually doing the work that gets to that feeling of, I really know I'm competent, right?

[00:12:08] So, I want to know what were you doing to get confident because you had all these, I, angles.

[00:12:15] I want my clients to think of me as this. I want my business to look like this.

[00:12:19] But at the same time, you have to, you know, it's like, yes, we all want, you know, certain, a certain look for our physical bodies.

[00:12:27] But how many pushups are we all willing to do, you know, it's like the end of the day, we have to do the pushups.

[00:12:32] So, tell me about what those pushups were to really become an expert in your market.

[00:12:38] Yeah, yeah. I recognize pretty early on that the work that was uncomfortable or the work that you wanted to avoid was often what helped you get closer to your goal.

[00:12:48] And early on, and yet to remember in COVID, in the beginning of COVID, there wasn't a lot of face to face interaction.

[00:12:55] People are still very cautious, you know, rightfully so.

[00:12:59] And I made cold calls. I called all the time. There's a couple of agents in this office that still are very, very successful brokers.

[00:13:07] And I remember, you know, we have this little closet, our office, and it's a cold calling room, and we pick up and we go to town.

[00:13:15] And it was hard, you know, a lot of rejection as a new broker.

[00:13:20] You know, you barely know what you're talking about, but it was those reps.

[00:13:23] And it was, you know, getting the courage and the comfort to have those conversations.

[00:13:28] And that's something that I give a lot of credit to.

[00:13:30] But also, I mean, we would do everything from handwritten cards to door knocking once that became a little bit more acceptable with COVID to, you know, I remember early on reaching out to every single person in my sphere via text.

[00:13:45] Like I probably sent out 600 text messages early on just because it was reps.

[00:13:49] And I was looking back, I read those texts and I laughed because I can't imagine if some 22 year old kid, you know, sent that to me because it was my, you know, people's parents and aunts and uncles just, you know, doing anything and everything it took because I just wanted to succeed.

[00:14:03] So I want to go to this because this is something anybody can do and we all want more business sending 600 texts to your sphere.

[00:14:13] Probably because some degree like, hey, if you ever, you know, miss miss is so and so need an agent.

[00:14:19] I'm happy to chat with you.

[00:14:21] And if you hear anyone else talking about moving, please let me know.

[00:14:24] I imagine I tell people all the time, especially new agents, you don't have to pitch your friends.

[00:14:29] Like you can and that's great if you want your comfortable doing a lot of people who are newer arcs and like, I have to screw it up.

[00:14:34] This is my friend. I don't want to do that.

[00:14:36] But I say don't even worry about that. Just ask them for their help when they hear about somebody like you got to meet my buddy Sam.

[00:14:43] He's awesome.

[00:14:43] You know, like everybody's willing to do that.

[00:14:45] But I'm curious out of those 600 texts, I know you got business from this.

[00:14:49] So tell me again, if you remember, like ultimately what were the results of even just that one action.

[00:14:56] Yeah, and it wasn't necessarily a text that, you know, maybe early on there are some of these, but it evolved in some of the mentorship I got was, you know, reach out and just go work on that relationship.

[00:15:09] And honestly, there's a lot of people.

[00:15:11] Yeah, let me pause you.

[00:15:12] So you didn't do a standard text to everybody.

[00:15:14] You actually were like, I need to deepen these relationships.

[00:15:17] How do I do that?

[00:15:19] I can I can do that via text.

[00:15:21] So these were all individualized to the people that you knew.

[00:15:25] Yeah, yeah, I mean, very early on, you didn't know any better.

[00:15:29] So there's definitely some direct, hey, I just got into real estate.

[00:15:32] But then it quickly evolved to, you know, I would love to go catch up.

[00:15:36] You know, I want to learn about your family.

[00:15:38] I want to, you know, let's go on a hike and be an intentional.

[00:15:40] We didn't really, you know, maybe real estate's in the back.

[00:15:44] You remind a little bit, but you quickly realize how important it is just to go, you know, prioritize those people that you grew up with and that supported you growing up in every fast of life.

[00:15:53] And then naturally real estate comes up.

[00:15:55] And you know, that's a big thing that I do today in my business.

[00:15:58] It's not necessarily intentional about going and, you know, helping somebody just buy and sell a house and onto the next transaction.

[00:16:04] It's just, I care a lot about people.

[00:16:07] I always have, I enjoy people.

[00:16:09] I enjoy building relationships and understanding what's going on in people's lives.

[00:16:13] And so at a young age, it was, you know, how can I get in contact with more people?

[00:16:18] How can I get more involved in their life?

[00:16:20] And honestly, if there is a way that I could provide value to them, you know, now that may look a little bit different as I have more, you know, knowledge and understanding of what's going on in the real estate world.

[00:16:29] But that is a young age. I remember, you know, hey, can I put together a market analysis on your house?

[00:16:34] You know, I love to show you what's going on in the market and I love the practice.

[00:16:37] And that exact conversation got me my first listing.

[00:16:41] I love that. I tell everybody this as well when they're new agent. I say, go to your friends.

[00:16:47] And even the friends parents, like anyone say, like, even again, everyone already knows a REALTOR.

[00:16:52] So you don't need to pitch. I'm a REALTOR, right? But what I say is, you know, go, hey, I'm practicing my home valuations.

[00:16:59] I would love to send you over my best, you know, analysis of where I think your home is worth it.

[00:17:04] People always want to know what their home is worth.

[00:17:06] So that's a thing where you're never going to get a no.

[00:17:09] And people are their own agent isn't sending this to them as well, right?

[00:17:13] So I love that brilliant, brilliant idea.

[00:17:17] And I also want to just honor you for something that you've said.

[00:17:22] And it was sort of in a subtle way, but I picked up on it, which was you were asking very specific questions

[00:17:29] based on these long-term goals of yours about how to achieve that.

[00:17:33] For example, you said, basically, how do I deepen these relationships?

[00:17:37] How do I get more connected to my sphere?

[00:17:42] You know, how do I show them that I care about their life?

[00:17:46] And, you know, maybe business comes up, maybe it doesn't.

[00:17:49] But how do I actually just demonstrate in your mentors? I'm sure told you to do this.

[00:17:53] You know, how do I talk about going on hikes with people just hanging out, getting coffee, whatever.

[00:17:57] That is absolutely the right move.

[00:18:01] So congrats on you with that.

[00:18:03] But I love that you were asking the questions.

[00:18:05] How do I deepen these relationships?

[00:18:07] How do I get more involved in people's lives?

[00:18:10] Those are the questions to ask every single day as an agent.

[00:18:14] So really glad that you mentioned that.

[00:18:18] But I want to go to some advice you had received that wasn't good.

[00:18:22] So you told me sort of behind the scenes that you got some bad information.

[00:18:27] And you got some bad advice which was quality doesn't apply to every deal.

[00:18:30] So and that you should scale your services to the price of the home.

[00:18:34] In other words, the higher the price point, the better the service, you do the opposite.

[00:18:38] But be honest with me about this because the commission on a $300,000 house is a fraction of a $3 million waterfront listing.

[00:18:47] So why pour the same effort into each of those transactions?

[00:18:52] Yeah, a really good question.

[00:18:54] I think into back up a little bit.

[00:18:57] In the area that I live, so it's the county above King County.

[00:19:01] So as you mentioned, we're about 45 minutes away from Seattle and Bellevue.

[00:19:04] And down south in those expensive areas, the quality of marketing is incredible.

[00:19:11] And I remember coming into the business and seeing these photos and these videos and the presentation.

[00:19:16] It was just so impressive.

[00:19:17] And I wondered why people didn't do that up here.

[00:19:21] And as you mentioned, you quickly realized that on a $300,000 house, it's a different commission.

[00:19:26] And you know, it still is a business.

[00:19:27] You have to be profitable.

[00:19:29] But even on houses that were $7,800,000, you know, our median price point in San homes County is, you know, just over $700,000.

[00:19:36] The last time I looked and, you know, I looked at it as, you know, maybe I'll, I might not take home as much commission.

[00:19:43] But the brand that I'm building has so much more, more value.

[00:19:47] And the way I looked at it was, you know, 20 years down the road.

[00:19:50] If I get an opportunity to go on a, you know, a Lake Washington waterfront listing.

[00:19:55] And it's a $25 million house.

[00:19:57] I want that seller to be able to look back at every single house that I've listed since I was 22 years old.

[00:20:03] And know that I treated every single seller with the same attention to detail and use the best photographers and the best videographers.

[00:20:08] And if I had the ability to stage it and, you know, I've cleaned every single listing I've ever listed out of pocket.

[00:20:15] I have a window washer that I do out of pocket.

[00:20:17] Because the presentation of me is so important.

[00:20:19] And it's a reflection of myself as the listing agent.

[00:20:22] And so early, early on, I probably sometimes poured more than I should into a listing out of my out of my own pocket.

[00:20:30] But it's something that I will never regret because today I've gone on list appointments and they look back.

[00:20:36] And, you know, that's a big reason that they originally have me over to their home.

[00:20:41] I absolutely love that you have standards and your standards do not change based on the client.

[00:20:49] You know, the client's actual purchase or sale it just you just want everybody to have that white glove top shelf experience.

[00:20:56] Even if they're not at that same price point as these, you know, ultra high net worth listings.

[00:21:02] So I love that. And I imagine that was probably lacking in your market.

[00:21:08] I imagine is for the lower priced listings. Again, the average home being 700,000 is certainly not, you know, considered technically, you know, or more modest price according, you know, when we

[00:21:20] are in relation to other parts of the country. But those people aren't getting the ultra high net worth luxury experience from real toers.

[00:21:27] You were giving that to everybody. I imagine that was unique in your market.

[00:21:34] Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of great agents in our market that that, you know, have a high level of service.

[00:21:41] But I would definitely say it wasn't the norm. You know, and it was something that I noticed at a young age that, you know, and it took time.

[00:21:47] You know, you learn who good photographers are. You learn who good videographers are.

[00:21:53] But that was just something that I really prioritized. And so, you know, I think that it's definitely a separator in our market.

[00:22:00] And, you know, so to answer your question, no, not everybody does it. And I think there's a pretty small percentage of people that are trying to market and advertise and essentially represent sellers at that level.

[00:22:09] I imagine too that when you do have this high level of of standard for the care that you put into a relationship, I imagine that when when you do have that kind of standard, then your clients tell that story because they probably worked with an agent before, right.

[00:22:29] You're old two things. They worked with an agent before. So they didn't probably have that same experience because most agents aren't going to do that.

[00:22:37] So that in and of itself is going to garner you a lot of attention when they tell their friends, you know, like check out my my video of my house, right.

[00:22:46] Like even, you know, something like that is is very, very impressive. But also it probably solved for your age as well.

[00:22:55] Like you can't solve for your age. You were a young guy and that's that's a hurdle for sure. But being so professional probably helped hurdle, you know, get over that.

[00:23:06] That hurdle and it probably made your age not that relevant at all. I'm guessing.

[00:23:11] Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, when you're a young broker, really the only thing that can help you overcome, you know, your age is, you know, experience.

[00:23:22] And if you don't necessarily have a ton of transactions, you want to come across as experienced as possible by being very, very prepared.

[00:23:28] And, you know, being able to come into a listing presentation with, you know, every bit of data on that home and be just solid on your pricing.

[00:23:36] But then also have a marketing plan that you can, you can show what you're able to do with the power of social media, with the power of advertising, with the power of, you know, getting out in front of people.

[00:23:46] And so I absolutely agree, you know, I think the presentation and how we represented homes from day one really, really helped overcome that age barrier.

[00:23:57] And even to this day, you know, being 28 years old, you know, just yesterday I was at no point in somebody made a comment about my age.

[00:24:05] But then when we show them the quality of what we do and the amount of people that we've been able to help, it really overcomes that objection quickly.

[00:24:12] Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And let's, you know, one thing that I'm very impressed with you about is not only you've built this very impressive real estate broker or REALTOR business.

[00:24:25] But then you're also an investor yourself. So let's talk about that as an investor. So I want to, I want to know about your first investment property.

[00:24:33] So you were young, probably not rolling in cash at the time. So how did you actually pull the first one off? Like how did you fund it?

[00:24:40] How did you buy while you're also grinding out, you know, your REALTOR business?

[00:24:45] Yeah, 1700 coal calls. The very first investment property I bought, it's actually a project that we're working on right now. But the concept of it was there's a state ordinance here in Washington that's allowing you to build two detached accessory dwelling units, you know, on the backside of the property.

[00:25:03] As long as you, you know, buy by setbacks and have access, you're able to build additional units. And so I was aware of this and, you know, heard a lot about it and just wanted to get involved.

[00:25:14] And so the first project that I ever took on, I found this off market seller and I went and I sat down with them and, you know, they had gotten contacted by probably 30 people before that.

[00:25:24] And I just sat down and had a conversation for a couple hours and essentially provided a solution to their problem by, you know, creative offer and given them enough time. And so we bought that property.

[00:25:36] Essentially, I renovated the main house. I went through the permit process of getting the construction permits for the DA to use in the back condo the lot and then sold off that main house. And essentially with the sale of that main house.

[00:25:49] I got the lots in the back, essentially, own free and clear. And right now we're, you know, I think we just put the roof on them today. So those should be in the market around September.

[00:25:57] And so that was the first investment project. And then the second one was, you know, a little bit different and agent introduction, but, you know, a similar situation. It was a duplex and like Stevens came in understood that the sellers had a very unique situation and packaged an offer and packaged something that worked really well for them.

[00:26:13] Secured it on owner financing at a solid rate with a low down came in and took a project that needed a lot of work off their ends and then ended up getting that rented cash flow.

[00:26:24] And, you know, we're excited for the next one. So it's been, it's been fun, you know, slowly taking down some of these investment projects.

[00:26:31] Yeah, and let's put this in 2026 because rates have changed prices affordability. So our young listeners, young agent listeners right now are probably thinking what was easier for him to start buying at that time is it's still realistic for a 25 year old agent today to start to build an investment portfolio in a market like yours.

[00:26:52] And if so, what would you tell them to do?

[00:26:55] Yeah, I think, you know, the advice that I got early on from another mentor is have a very specific buy box. You know, when I was looking to buy my project to the DA, D you project, I knew exactly what the property needed to look like I knew exactly, you know, the size where the house had to be located where the sewer needed to be.

[00:27:13] You know, it was so specific, I could only focus on those properties through targeted outreach and for that one, it was cold calls. And then I knew as soon as I found that what the price now to look like what the cost were going to be and it allowed me to execute and move quickly where I've definitely seen some people not necessarily have challenges, but slow to make a decision is when they're just looking for anything and everything, you know, multi family commercial, they're looking for a flip and it's overwhelming because there's a lot of options out there.

[00:27:42] And so getting specific helps me a ton.

[00:27:46] Tell me about the cold calling. So you were cold calling just people who own property who you somehow found were had the sort of dimensions and attributes that you wanted for your particular vision.

[00:28:00] Yeah, yeah, so early on, I would go to title and I would get a list from a city that essentially, you know, for this one, it was houses in the city of Everett that had over a 6,000 square foot lot that was located, you know, in a certain parameter on an alleyway.

[00:28:14] And so I took that list and I essentially sent it over to a virtual assistant that I trained overseas and this was before AI and all this stuff which we could do it all way easier now.

[00:28:24] But I got all the phone numbers in a way that I trained this VA and then I essentially just started going through them and it wasn't aggressive. It was just simply, you know, hey, I'm a, I'm a 25 year old in the area I grew up in an Everett, Washington, you know, I'm looking to buy my first investment project.

[00:28:39] This is what I'm hoping to do and there is a lot of nose, but there are some people that, you know, wanted to start that conversation, wanted to learn more about it and what was fun about it was, you know, I found a project, but also I helped a lot of people understand more value about their property.

[00:28:55] You know, I helped people that maybe they didn't want to sell, but they were curious about TADUs and as a REALTOR, you know, my job isn't to go, you know, just fine investment properties, my job is to educate and help people.

[00:29:05] And so I wanted to make sure that if somebody was curious about what I was doing, they could learn about it. If they wanted to take on that project, I would put them in contact with the right people.

[00:29:14] I would help them execute that and so that was a really rewarding part of that as well.

[00:29:20] And, you know, that whole process, you know, something we still do today, you know, people reach out and just want to learn about what, you know, what is the highest invest use of their property, you know, even if they're not looking to sell. We can absolutely point them in the right direction.

[00:29:32] I wonder how many times you also got additional business from those people that maybe, you know, they didn't sell you a property, but did any of those cold calls become clients?

[00:29:44] Yeah, yeah. There was, you know, the heaviest part of my cold calling career, I'll say, was kind of in the middle of, you know, the last couple years, probably from years, you know, two to four.

[00:29:56] And yeah, tons of people, you know, turn into a conversation and then their family would be interested in buying or selling or, you know, maybe the property that we called on wasn't the right fit for us, what we wanted to do, but, you know, it turned into them wanting to sell a different property.

[00:30:10] So, you know, those relationships and just coming in from a really, really value focused approach turned into, you know, a significant, I think, cold calling, when I look at the numbers is the number two or number three lead source out of all of my business.

[00:30:25] And most of it was from that period.

[00:30:28] Tell me what you're doing on social because people are always fascinated by younger people on social. Tell me what's your overall strategy? Are you a video guy? Do you do images?

[00:30:38] A combination? What is the content like? Give us a behind the scenes of how you think about social.

[00:30:44] Yeah, yeah. So different platforms are focused on a little bit different things. So I would say Instagram and Facebook is going to be a combination of my personal brand. So, you know, what I enjoy doing, I love to snowsky, you know, I'm getting engaged to my fiance, Kira here in September. So you'll see, you know, a lot of us and what we're up to and, you know, just the fun that we have with our friends.

[00:31:06] And then you're going to see, you know, our listings, the things that we're getting into in real estate, you know, updates on construction projects, you know, trying to share what's going on in the market there.

[00:31:17] And then on YouTube, you know, early on when I started doing YouTube videos, it was going to be, you know, top five restaurants in an area or neighborhoods I'd recommend.

[00:31:26] And that's transitioned a lot into neighborhood and home tours. So we'll focus on a listing, but instead of just talking about the house quickly, you know, I'll be anywhere from a four to five minute video where I talk about, you know, the pros and cons of this location and this city, you know, the things that's going to impact it like traffic and what's your proximity to Costco and, you know, because of, you know, the time and day, you have to lead to go commute. How is this location, you know, going to change your lifestyle.

[00:31:52] And so those, those are the videos that we've started making a lot of them. We've started getting quite a few inbound leads from and I don't have a massive YouTube channel. I think I have maybe just over 200 subscribers.

[00:32:04] But what I have found is the people that are watching those videos are actively searching on YouTube for the area that we that we work and operate out of. So they reach out and they want to learn or they want to go tour those houses and it's been a great source of our business.

[00:32:18] And when you, so I have a couple questions about this, when you make these home tour, you know, and again, you go beyond the home tour. It's not just what's inside, but what lifestyle looks like if somebody purchases it.

[00:32:30] Are sometimes these not your listings. These could be other agents listings that you just want to, you know, showcase or is it always your listing.

[00:32:38] Primarily, it's going to be my listing. I think there's one on my YouTube channel that we did for another agent. It's funny because we shot years ago. I think we shot a real at one of her listings because we were just trying to make quick content.

[00:32:51] And she saw it and she asked us to come shoot another one of their projects because she, she's married to a builder and they build incredible homes in the area. And so I went out and now she reaches out pretty often.

[00:33:03] And she's like, hey, we come shoot this listing. Hey, we come help us. And we don't have a ton of time necessarily to go out to everything. But the majority of the stuff on our YouTube, I would say 95% of what's on my YouTube is all my listings.

[00:33:17] And we're focused primarily on my listings. But occasionally if somebody has something really cool that they want to highlight, we'll get out there and help them.

[00:33:23] Yeah, and that was my point to our listeners is if you don't have listings, you can still ask listing agents, you know, you're helping promote their property. They they would be most cases honored to have you do that.

[00:33:36] I wanted to so let's talk about the YouTube strategy because people neglect YouTube more than REALTORS neglect YouTube more than any other social channel. And YouTube isn't really a social channel where it gets lumped in.

[00:33:48] YouTube is a search engine. And yes, you said something that was really, really sort of brilliant in a way because Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, those are more disposed, that's more disposable content. It's, it's those aren't search engines. Those are just people scroll.

[00:34:06] And whatever hits their scroll, you know, you know, hits it and you have little control over what the algorithm is showing. Maybe if you did every sort of restaurant in so homeish over time, maybe the algorithm would figure out that send your stuff to, you know, people in that county.

[00:34:24] But it's a lot of work. It's a lot of stuff. You went the other way and realized these are questions, especially lifestyle questions, people ask on YouTube. And so you could basically just put anything like, hey, where's the closest grocery store? What, you know, you could talk about what is what is it like if you're commuting from Seattle or you really could have these lifestyle convert or videos that people absolutely are searching for on YouTube.

[00:34:53] Yes, yeah. So we couple, you know, we try to make all the, you know, the language or the SEO essentially come together. So, you know, a YouTube video that's talking about a certain area that has a title that might be something that someone's searching combines with a description with keywords. And then we're going to have a blog post that's going to have similar keywords and fits that, you know, combined, hopefully with a Google review from a home sale in that area. And if we can kind of hit that that, you know, the big three, we said to speak, whoa, that's a lot of work.

[00:35:23] So, almost every single time get an end down lead from somebody who finds us through either chat, chvt, cloud, or a Google search. And so really to your, to your point, utilizing all of those really to optimize the search engine results.

[00:35:36] Well, and now you're optimizing for AI. So you're looking for the quantity of signals that you are the right agent for the job. And AI is going to look at YouTube. It's going to look at Google business. It might look at Zillow reviews to it probably does. And it looks for other mentions looks for blog posts. So you are, you, I imagine you're optimizing for AI now more than anything.

[00:36:02] Yeah, yeah, I have an amazing real estate coach through the Tom Ferry network her name is Christie Janks. And she is an AI wizard. And I don't know how she does it, how she keeps up with it. You know, she has several children. She's an active real estate agent. She speaks on stage. And, you know, she, her whole thing is systems and processes. And so when AI came out, she jumped on it quick and really started adapting it. And so she started teaching us a lot about it. And I

[00:36:31] I am I'm not utilizing it nearly to the level that she is, but every single week or every two weeks we jump on and learn, okay, how can we optimize this? How can we make sure that with all the work that we're putting in, we are making sure that, you know, we are showing up on these platforms and we know how they are pulling information.

[00:36:49] Just to give us the biggest opportunity to succeed versus our competition.

[00:36:53] Yeah, that's great. Are you, so are you doing mostly longer form content? I mean, get longer form, meaning four to five minutes on YouTube. Are you doing more of that?

[00:37:02] And then on the for YouTube and then for your lifestyle, your own personal, you know, personal life, your and also, you know, hey, here are the properties we're working on and maybe videos on different investment, you know, stages of construction or whatever.

[00:37:20] That stuff's going more on the disposable Facebook Instagram TikTok to sort of feed the algorithm, the longer form contents going on YouTube and then, you know, you're obviously trying to get, you know, other stuff elsewhere, but is that pretty accurate?

[00:37:36] Yeah, yeah, definitely, you know, Facebook and Instagram are, you know, there's definitely some keyword stuff, but, you know, I would say YouTube is the biggest one that we've noticed, you know, actual leads coming from.

[00:37:48] Yeah, it isn't, isn't it amazing and 99% of agents do not do anything on YouTube. They all do stuff on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. They don't do things on YouTube and they don't think of YouTube as a search engine.

[00:38:01] So it's a, and what's amazing is there's an unlimited number of questions that people ask before they move to snow home, right?

[00:38:08] There's all sorts of questions. Each one of those could be a video or a group of them can. And I love that you're doing that.

[00:38:15] We have a person who comes on our show every month. She, I give her own episode. She created a channel called moving to Georgia.

[00:38:22] Originally it was moving to Atlanta. She was in the Atlanta area and all she did was content about if you're moving to Atlanta, here's what you need to know.

[00:38:29] Right. It was just brilliant. And she last you did 50 sales all from YouTube. 75 million in transactions literally never left.

[00:38:38] I mean, she'd work with her clients, but she wasn't out there networking. She wasn't doing anything other than YouTube content and just incredible.

[00:38:45] So yeah, I'm glad you're doing YouTube. A lot of, especially a lot of younger agents neglect YouTube as well. Okay. So I'm going to give you this, we call the reset question.

[00:38:54] So let's assume you woke up tomorrow or let's assume that you when you wake up tomorrow, you you have the same skills, but you don't have any contacts zero listings starting from scratch.

[00:39:06] What do you do in your first 90 days?

[00:39:10] Yeah, that's a loaded. That's a good question. So I think one of the biggest things is I would make sure that every single day I come into it with a clear plan.

[00:39:18] You know, right now every single night before I go to bed, I create tomorrow's list. You know, what's going on? Where do I need to be? What are my priorities?

[00:39:26] So I'd make sure that, you know, I have a plan going into each day, making sure that I'm getting something posted on social, making sure that I am, you know, touching base with, you know, probably at least 10 people from my database talking to 10 new faces, whether that's from, you know, cold calling, door knocking, even there's going out on the street introducing yourself and having those conversations every single day.

[00:39:46] And then, you know, I think from there, the something that I would contribute a lot of my business to is being curious and getting in rooms that maybe you don't belong to be in, so to speak, just by reaching out to people directly, you know, reaching out to, you know, builders and developers and, you know, some of the most successful people in your area.

[00:40:10] And they might tell you no, there's a good chance they don't have the time to sit down with you, but at least reaching out to those people and, you know, asking for their advice, asking for their guidance, how can you provide value to them? That's something that I do to this day that's helped my business tremendously.

[00:40:27] So I think, you know, if I were to do it and just wake up tomorrow, it would just be structured conversations with people that I think could lead me towards business and then just making sure that I'm in front of, you know, my sphere, you know, whether it's a post of, of you at, you know, your kids baseball game or it's something that you did in real estate or it's something that you learned that day or maybe something that went wrong and you just want to share it.

[00:40:50] I think the, you know, the power of social media just reminds everybody, oh yeah, Sam is in real estate. This is what he does.

[00:40:56] And so I don't think you need to over complicate it. I don't think you have to create some, you know, crazy AI system, you know, day one to succeed. I think it just comes down to the basics of, you know, getting front of people, provide value.

[00:41:09] I agree. It's always the fundamentals and the fundamentals in this business are, you know, connecting with people at a human level and demonstrating that you care enough about them to, you know, be there and be supportive of them and give them value and then ultimately the business just comes.

[00:41:29] So I couldn't agree with you more. All right. I have a quick homework assignment for everybody who is listening. So before our next episode tonight on paper, we're going to do what Sam does.

[00:41:38] Not on your phone, by the way, we're going to do this on paper. There's a difference. You're going to write one short paragraph on where you want to be five years from now.

[00:41:47] So short paragraph of where you want to be in five years. Then I want you to write three goals for tomorrow that move you at least an inch toward it like Sam said, have a plan for the next day.

[00:42:01] And I want you to do this every single day until our next episode, which by the way, we released episodes every few days. So, you know, do this forever. But I want you to do this because I think it's going to create clarity.

[00:42:10] It Sam said as much for him, create the standards you want for your business. Sam said something very important at the beginning about what's the experience he wants his clients to have when it's over.

[00:42:21] What is what is he what how does he want to be thought of by his agents are sorry by his clients and that will help guide your behavior. And then what do I need to do tomorrow to move closer.

[00:42:34] So if you say, Hey, I want my clients to refer me more business. If that's a goal of yours, then you would think, OK, well, what do I need to do to, you know, make it so that they want to give me more business. What can I do and do that tomorrow right a paragraph about where you want to be in five years right three goals that will get you at least a little bit of the way there and do that every day until you hear our next episode and then let me know what you what what ends up happening for you in your life.

[00:43:02] So again, we can find Sam really everywhere online, but I really want you to check about on Instagram Sam underscore Burke, Burke with an E and seven. So Sam underscore Burke seven level link to that in the show notes.

[00:43:15] Sam, we really appreciate on behalf of the audience you coming on our show sharing your success secrets and also strategies and just giving us the honest scoop on how you built your business on behalf of Sam and myself.

[00:43:29] We also want to thank the audience for making it all the way to the end of the episode. We appreciate you the best way that you can help our podcast is by telling a friend.

[00:43:36] Think of one other agent that needs to hear this interview and I can think of a lot of them that need to hear this. So please pass it over to somebody.

[00:43:43] Let him know to listen and we appreciate you for that. And also if you're listening to us on a certain platform, maybe Spotify Apple podcast, wherever. Well, leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show that helps us out a lot to get better and learn what you need.

[00:43:57] Also, thank you to all of our sponsors and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Sam.

[00:44:05] Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

[00:44:32] You

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