← Estate of Mind — The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate
Estate of Mind — The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate
Luxury Real Estate: Key Differences and Strategies for Success
00:38:36
In this episode of Estate of Mind hosts Tami Simms and Jack Miller explore the nuances of luxury real estate, from tailored branding and marketing strategies to connecting with affluent homebuyers and nurturing personal client relationships. Tami and Jack discuss the importance of understanding the lifestyle and expectations of high-net-worth individuals, and share insights on providing exceptional real estate services. From finding the right properties to delivering a seamless and personalized experience, Tami and Jack reveal what it takes to excel in the competitive and exclusive world of luxury real estate.
Loading summary
Transcript46 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:06]
B
Welcome to A State of Mind, a podcast series all about motivating, inspiring and educating you in the art of selling luxury real estate. The podcast is brought to you by the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. I'm Tammy Sims, lead trainer for the Institute and a full time real estate professional in St. Petersburg, Florida for more than two decades. In this episode, we're going to explore the nuances of working with clientele in the upper tier in contrast to other price points. First, today's podcast is brought to you in part by Real Marketing, the only marketing firm recommended exclusively by the Institute. Real marketing utilizes over 25 years of experience and their products are built and customized for you to dominate any neighborhood, anywhere. Go to realmarketing4you.com that's realmarketing, the number4you.com. Also look for past A State of Mind episodes with CEO David Collins as our guest. I'm here today again with my co host Jack Miller, who is with Parks Real Estate in the Greater Nashville market in Middle Tennessee. Now part of Compass Real Estate, Jack has specialized in luxury homes and relocation services for more than 25 years. Jack, it's always a pleasure to be with you.
- [01:29]
A
Hi Tammy, Great to be here.
- [01:31]
B
Excellent. So we've got a fun topic today. We're going to talk about the nuances of working with a higher end clientele, what their expectations are and whether they're willing to pay for a higher level of service. So first I want to set some groundwork. I personally work in a variety of price ranges and I definitely see a difference in interacting with different clientele. Jack, let me ask, do you work exclusively in the upper tier or do you also service a variety of price points?
- [02:03]
A
It's a good question. It's a little bit of a tricky question from the standpoint of branding. So when you look at all of our marketing materials, anything you see on social media, our print materials, everything we do in branding is strictly, you know, upper tier luxury market. But in practicality we do work sometimes in other areas of the marketplace, but there's always a compelling reason. So I don't randomly just take any client that comes and calls about whatever because we get lots of calls like most agents do, we try to always find what we think is the best fit. So even if somebody calls me and they're not a good fit for our services, I don't leave them hanging. I always try to find the right fit and be a good steward and a good resource for people. I think that's important for all of us. But when it comes to our, our core business. Sometimes we do take on, for example, first time homebuyers, but there's always a compelling reason to do so. And usually that reason is something like this. One of my clients in a luxury space will say, hey, my son's going to college. Instead of paying for dorms, we want to buy a condo in this market and as an investment and let him use it and rent it to roommates, blah, blah, that's. And they'll say oftentimes, I know that's something you probably don't want to fool with, but can you introduce us to somebody? Well, in that situation, I do it personally. I do it because I want to be their guy for all things real estate for that family. Because typically, you know, the son or daughter going to college with a family of wealth, they're going to be buying that home five, ten years from now themselves. So we're planting the seeds. So yeah, we do work in different places in the marketplace, primarily in the, in the luxury space, but occasionally go outside of that. And that's usually the reason something like, sure, sure.
- [03:52]
B
And it's, it sounds very similar to, to the way that, that my family team does business. But of course we didn't just land in the luxury space. Right. We had to cut our teeth along the way. So even if we're working predominantly more will with upper tier clientele, we've got that experience that we can bring to this conversation. Now. It would be super easy to stereotype. Right. And in the training we talk a lot about getting rid of misperceptions about the wealthy. Right. But super easy to stereotype. But every individual is different. Of course, some folks are more direct and impatient. Right. Some are not. But I think that in general they all want to feel as though they're our only client. Right. And that we're giving them 150%. So that can be hard to manage. So I want to weave that into our conversation today as well. And so what kind of differences, Jack, do you feel there are working with more affluent consumers than other price points?
- [05:04]
A
I think, I think, you know, we've talked in prior episodes about the experience. I think it's very much about the experience. They, they do want to feel like you're their only client. They do want to feel like when they're working with you that they've got an in into the luxury space that they wouldn't have with just any real estate agent in the marketplace that, you know, that you have personal relationships with all the other players in the luxury home. Market. They want to see that and feel that and they want to know that they have, by virtue of, by working with me, that they've got a direct end to all the agents, not just with our firm, but with all the other firms who, you know, list and manage and market luxury properties. So that's really, I think it's about the experience that we provide. And also I think they want to, you know, I've never tried to market myself as, hey, I'm your agent 24 7. Call me anytime of day or night, I'll answer your call. You know, we don't do that. But at the same time, when we first talk with our clients, we talk a lot about communication. But they know if there's something really important, really pressing, they don't need to wait till the next day. And I think that's probably the same experience they expect with their wealth managers or, you know, their, their when it comes to private banking, that sort of thing. They probably had an expectation of all the folks who work with them and they, and we certainly want to meet that expectation when they're working with us.
- [06:26]
B
Oh, completely understood, completely understood. And I think among the groundwork that we, that we can cover is making sure that we are mentally aligning ourselves as the kind of professionals that they're used to interacting with, their wealth advisor, their attorney, that sort of thing. Now, most of my high end clients, for whatever reason have been totally down to earth and really quite reasonable. I can give tons of examples of fantastic experiences that I've had, but there have also been some real doozies. And so I want to, you know, for the, maybe the fun factor, let's talk about some of the more extreme examples that, that we've experienced. And I'm going to start on this one. I was interviewing with a prospective seller of a very expensive second home and he was going to expect me to drive an hour each way to the property twice a week to change the fresh flowers because they, they weren't going to be there. And even if we had showings, didn't have showings that needed to be ready. They also wanted me to take over paying the landscaper and the pool maintenance folks. Right. They thought it would motivate them to not slack off when, when they were out of town. And I came to the realization that this would just be the tip of the iceberg and that taking that listing would probably be insufferable. So I turned it down and I'm pretty sure that I dodged a bullet on that one. And it also makes Me think like would you ever ask your attorney or your physician to mow your lawn? Right, right. Or something like that. Like, how do we get to these points where people don't have a respect for the professionalism. Right. And so that's about setting expect you started talking about that, Jack. And so I want you to tell us a little bit about how you manage those expectations. Right. You've said that anything that's super important they know. But how do you communicate those expectations up front?
- [08:43]
A
I think it's interesting because you made the comment on the onset of this discussion talking about most of your clients are down to earth. It's because you're down to earth. I think that like attracts like when it comes to the clientele that we primarily deal with. And just like in, in every aspect of the real estate market, when you're talking about those consumers you know of that have wealth, it's like everything else. There's a lot of folks who are wonderful people. There's wonderful people have deep pockets, they've done really well financially. And there's some that are, have deep pockets and they're just crazy to deal with. And so you have to kind of sort through that. Most of my clients, like yours, most of them are super down to earth, very easy to deal with. It's very interesting. I find that, you know, when I've worked in other areas of the marketplace, by and large, my wealthiest clients are by far the most respectful of our family time. The ones who are oftentimes the easiest to deal with. Yes, they have really high expectations, but they, they treat you as an equal, but they know they're going to get every bit of service they need when they want it. So just like you said a minute ago, I've had some clients where I've had that initial consultation or maybe we even started into a listing agreement and I realized very quickly this is not going to work. You know, I did have some that were, you know, they needed, they needed therapy. And I realized I'm not the therapist. And so I realized this is not going to be a good fit. Sometimes you have to do that. If you say it's a draw a boundary and say this is probably not the best fit, you know.
- [10:14]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that.
- [10:16]
A
But at the same time, you know, I've also had some that I've got one client particular, absolutely love her. She's. She feels like family. I just love her. And she's retired and she's likes to buy investment properties. These are upscale investment properties or single family homes. And Upscale communities. And she's bought quite a few of them with me. But I'm her one stop for everything. You know, if she didn't get a remote and she needs a remote for something has nothing to do with the contract said, but she wants a remote, she calls me, I get the remote. You know, she is, if she has issue with a property management company, there's, I have no, I don't have a dog in that hunt. But she calls me to sort through it and to get the problem resolved for her because she knows if she calls me and I make the phone call, I fix it. I'm her fixer. And I do that because she's a terrific client, absolutely adore her and she buys a lot of higher end properties and she will continue to buy and sell higher end properties and I want to be the one stop shop for her. Now I don't do that for all my clients because most clients don't expect that. But for her, you know, I value her as a client, happy to do it. So you know, there's, we do what we need to do, but that also.
- [11:24]
B
Right therein lies the rub, right? When we, when we deliver extraordinary service and go above and beyond, those are the things that make it special but also harder for us to kind of draw the line on, on what we do. It makes me think of, I have clients that I have helped several times and they have been on vacation in Italy and oddly while, while they were there, there was a FedEx package that was delivered to the property that I helped to sell for them in the fall. Right. So this is a little bit longer. And so the other agent called me and so I texted them in Italy and I said would you like me to go pick up the FedEx and drop it? You know, either, you know, where, where would you like me to take it? And he happens to, the Mr. Happens to, to be co owner of a, a bar called the Par Bar. Right. It's a miniature golf course and, and with, in conjunction with a bar. And so I dropped that off there and the, the, the bartender really was befuddled by the fact that I'm their realtor and here I am bringing this FedEx package while they're off in Italy. But the, the fact that our clients, right and I think it's our, our A list clients that we'll do that for that that they'll think to call us when they need something unique or special. I mean that, that, that makes me feel really good that, that they know that we'll go above and beyond.
- [13:06]
A
Well, I'll tell you something interesting. You know, I don't know if I've ever shared this with you before. I may have, but in my first couple of years of real estate, I quickly realized I wanted to work in the luxury space. And yet that's, you know, I didn't come from a family of wealth, but I love architecture, I love gardens and landscapes and all those things that are so beautiful in the. And you look at the luxury home market, I wanted to be a part of that. And the first opportunity I had to work with somebody and I think my second year of real estate, and this is back in 99, I think it was buying a million dollar plus home, which was a huge benchmark that time in this market, that many years ago, they, they lived in Atlanta and I was courting them. I wanted that business and I was dealing with the husband and Atlanta is about four hours from here. And it seemed like he was suddenly changing direction and he pivoted like, I've met this agent with another company and she's going to help me with this, but if it doesn't work out, I'll circle back or whatever. I didn't want to lose the opportunity. I was really upset because I thought this is my first opportunity and the door is closing. And my business partner at the time, he and I just started working together six months into the business and we're still business partners this many years later. He said, you got to do something dramatic, something big. And he said, over the top service. And he said, I think you should drive to Atlanta and deliver a gift box to their front door, a welcome box in Asheville to him and his wife. And I said, robert, you be driving four hours to drive to hand deliver. Yeah. Each way to drop off a gift box. And I said, and he said, well, what kind of, what kind of commission we make on that sale if we close the deal? And quickly doing the math, like, okay, it's worth driving four hours each way for my first opportunity. And I did, I drove, I drove to Atlanta. I knocked on their door and when I, when he answered the door, he's like, what are you doing here? Like, I brought you a welcome to Nashville package. And I hadn't met his wife yet. And his wife sees me at door and she said, I'm so glad to meet you. Come and have, have a drink with, let's talk. And so suddenly I'm in their home, in their living room, we're talking. I gave him a book about Nashville, a bottle of wine Blah, blah, blah. And the relationship started. And, and so that was that over the top experience. And that's what people want at that level. They want somebody who's not just like everybody else. They want that, that personal experience, that handholding. I'm your guy. And so not only did I win them over, they referred a lot of business to us. In fact, they referred several pieces of business. They became multiple buys and sells, all in the multimillion dollar market in the years after that. It was the best thing I ever did. It was the craziest thing I ever did, probably, but it worked.
- [15:49]
B
I think that's a, that's a great example of the differences between working in what I, what I call kind of a bread and butter price point. Right. Those clients are looking to realtors to open doors, write contracts, and that's it. Right. And they're not accustomed to having those kinds of over the top experiences. And I think that's one thing that totally sets it apart. So then that leads to the next question. When there's those expectations of those, the over the top service levels, do you think that in general a wealthier clientele are willing to pay for that level of service?
- [16:33]
A
Yeah, I do, absolutely do. Because this topic's come up a lot lately. You know, when we discuss the NAR settlement is definitely a hot topic, but I think they absolutely do. You know, these are people, if you think about it and think about brand awareness. We've talked about brand awareness in prior podcasts. You know, when you drive a car or you buy a condo, you know what that car looks like and what that car experience is. There's a broad range. And the folks who are buying $200,000 cars, could they buy a car that did all the same stuff basically for 50 to 60 thousand dollars? Basically, they want the experience, they want the brand, and they're willing to pay for it. They want that experience. And that's the same thing. When as a real estate broker, I found early on that's one of the first, I think, aha moments I had in the luxury space when I was talking to potential clients who had homes in some of our finer neighborhoods. If they had a broker that they were very loyal to, they were quick to come to the table with that and say, so and so's our family's broker, and they've been our broker for the last 25 years, they say like a badge of honor. And so they, you know, and they, even though that there are discount brokerages available, they didn't have any interest in that it wasn't about the discount or paying less, you know. Now, here's the thing. There's always people in every level of the marketplace. They're all about the deal. Of course there are. But by and large, in the. In the luxury space, people want the best of the best, and they're willing to pay for it. It doesn't matter to them that they're paying more for our services. They just want the level of service and they want the confidentiality, and they want to know that they. That they're getting what they paid for. I had a client, I talked about him one time before that was looking here in Nashville, up to 10 million. And before long, he was starting to expand his search, and he was bringing up houses in the state of Tennessee that were our hour and a half, two hours, two and a half hours away. But he was looking up to 10 million, and I didn't want to lose that opportunity. And so I said, sure. So I would drive with him to these different homes and look at him. And just when I thought he's about to make an offer, one of these homes. His wife, who was still based in California, said, I came to Tennessee. It rained the whole time. It was cold. It was in January. And she said, yeah, I know. She said, no, I don't want to come to Tennessee. I've decided to come to Florida. And sadly, Tammy, you and I hadn't met yet, So I was really discouraged by that. But he. He asked me, said, do you have broker contacts in Florida? I said, sure. So I introduced him. You heard this story. I introduced him to one of the brokers in our network in Florida on the coast, and he wanted to have private boat tours of waterfront communities and waterfront homes. So I talked to some agents down there, found one that lived in the water, had a boat, and that's. That is exactly the experience that we arranged. He gave a. Or, excuse me, the agent gave a boat tour to the husband, and then she came in town a week later. He. She gave boat tours to her. She wined and dined him. They bought an almost $20 million home in Florida. And. And it was, you know, once again, it was a wonderful opportunity, but that's what they expected. I could have just said, oh, I'm so disappointed. They just could have gone off in the wild blue yonder. But we made that personal introduction. Once again, we brought that value to the table. And the best part of the deal for me was, and I don't recall if I shared this with you personally, when he was signing the Contract. He stopped and made a phone call. He called me privately. He said, before I signed this contract, I want to make sure that you are being compensated by this introduction, because it made all the difference in the world. I said, don't worry. I said, they're taking care of me, and I'm so happy for you guys. And, yeah, it was terrific, terrific experience.
- [20:21]
B
And that's exactly what was going through my mind when you were talking about that. Right. So it'd be super easy to just be disappointed and let that one walk away. But I'm thinking about the referral fee on a $20 million property.
- [20:35]
A
Right, right.
- [20:37]
B
That is not.
- [20:39]
A
Yeah, that was the biggest referral that was made within our international network that year, and one of the biggest referrals they've ever had through the network. But. But, yeah, that's. That's really what it's about is. And because we had, by virtue of riding with him, an hour here, an hour there, two hours here, two hours back.
- [20:56]
B
You got to know each other.
- [20:57]
A
We got to know each other, and he trusted my judgment to make that personal handoff. And. And of course, I want to make sure they had the same experience there that they had here. And so I made sure that I got a broker that wasn't just the random. Here's somebody who's our next up in Reload. It was somebody who truly could meet their needs. And that's what they're looking for.
- [21:19]
B
Absolutely.
- [21:20]
A
They're willing to pay for it. That's, you know, it's one of the things I always tell other agents when they're, again, trying to enter the luxury home market. No one ever says to me. They might find out inadvertently through conversation where I live, and we live in a nice community and upscale neighborhood, blah, blah, blah. But no one ever tries to interview me, to scream me by virtue of, am I wealthy enough to meet their needs? That's never a criteria for them. They don't even know that I belong to a country club where they want to belong. That's never the criteria. They don't need to know what kind of car I drive. They don't need to know what house I live in. This is. These are never the criteria that they're looking for. What they're looking for is someone who has the knowledge base and someone they can trust and. And someone they like.
- [22:07]
B
Absolutely.
- [22:08]
A
Likability and trust are huge factors. And then knowledge base. They don't necessarily need to know that you live, quote, the. The luxury lifestyle. The reality is, I don't have a golf Membership. I don't play golf, Tammy. I'm probably like one of the very few real estate brokers doesn't. I don't play golf.
- [22:25]
B
I drive a mean golf cart.
- [22:27]
A
Yeah, right, then, well, I'll drink a mean beer. But the, you know, I decided a long time ago I didn't need anything else in my life that cost more money, takes up more time or aggravates the beat of death, and golf kind of does all those things. So I never was really much into, into golf, but when I have clients who are all about golf in the country club, I make sure I make a personal introduction to one of my other clients that they can make a personal phone call that can share with them what the experience is like and with what the golf pro is like and what the, you know, the course is like so that once again, they know I'm their one stop. I'm the guy that can introduce them to anybody. They need to know in our marketplace whether it's a subcontractor who does specialty painting or whether it's somebody belongs to the club of their choice, that I'm the guy who can bring that to the table, make it happen with one phone call. That's experience.
- [23:16]
B
I think you're hitting the nail on the head. You said it early on that it's about knowing everything about the market. It's about having relationships with all of the other real estate professionals in the market. You've just taken it to the next step on, on having the, the connections not only outside of your market area, but specializations within. And I think that's a really great description of the type of service levels that they're looking for. And before we leave the topic of compensation. Right. Or of the value being willing to pay for the worth, I get a lot of questions from agents who are, who are working towards aspiring to do more work in a higher price point. And a lot of the questions are really valid in that. Is it the same, like, is it based on the same percentages? You know, we're not going to talk about, about what that might be because we know commission is always negotiable and it always has been.
- [24:23]
A
It's always, it always has been. Thank you, Tammy.
- [24:26]
B
But, but, but tactically I have seen differences and I've seen flat fees. I've seen agents that take retainers both on the listing side and the buyer side to manage the, the costs that match the, the marketing expectations or really demonstrate the value of one's time on the buyer side. And so, so it can Be different. Have you experienced any scenarios like that?
- [24:57]
A
Well, yeah, definitely. It's interesting. We've talked about this a lot recently in our marketplace. You know, as you leave Nashville proper, which some of the most expensive properties are in our market are in West Nashville and then Brentwood, Franklin suburbs. But when you leave our market core of Nashville and you go out in the surrounding areas, the further from Nashville you get and the lower in price point you get. It's interesting because oftentimes that's where you'll see some of the lowest compensation offered to brokers, buyer brokers. This where it seems to be most competitive. And the commission offered is oftentimes the lowest. When you're in the luxury space, regardless of which firm you're working with, when you're in the luxury space, we rarely see people hammering on the commission side of things because again, sellers want the best brokers to know their properties. They want the best brokers to come to that broker open. They want the best brokers who has the reach to the buyers, the vetted buyers, to bring them to that property. And they're willing to pay for it. The sellers are willing to compensate the buyer brokers or offer compensation, you know, that a buyer can pay a buyer broker to bring those buyers to that property. And so conversely, as a listing broker, when I go listing appointments, we, we don't offer a different compensation structure for our wealthiest clients. Anything any different than if I were to go out there and sell the condo that I described earlier for the college kid. They've graduated college. They want to sell that investment property. We don't do a different commission structure for that, you know, $500,000 condo than we do for the $5 million property. Now, one thing I do differently, this is my one tip. I'll share with those who are entering this market, the luxury home market. As far as the agents go, one thing I do is oftentimes I will offer paying the entire staging fee for a luxury home that we do up to a certain amount. You get to put a ceiling on it. Yeah, I'll pay the entire fee. And what I tell my sellers is when we write the listing agreement up is this is our fee that we charge, and here's who we recommend. As a stager, I'm going to bring in a couple different stages, let you make the choice. They're. They do have a wonderful portfolio. You make the choice, you pay the stager, but we'll credit you that full amount at closing. So that'll come out of our compensation. We'll pay the staging and we'll. The initial install as well as the monthly, you know, rental, if you will, for X amount of months or up to a certain amount, whatever, as part of our package. Now we do that not only to be a little more competitive from a compensation standpoint, but also. Now you've got that hook.
- [27:47]
B
Yeah.
- [27:47]
A
So when you, when you. That's right. When the market softens up, or maybe they're in an outlying area where it takes a little bit longer to sell a property, they tend to get less antsy when they know that, wait a minute, we're going to get, you know, a $5,000 or $10,000 credit or whatever that is on staging, on the back end at closing with Jack, let's hang in there a little bit longer. Or if I'm asking for an extension on a listing agreement, they may be more likely to extend when once again, they know they're getting that credit on the back end. So it's a nice way to do some negotiating, I feel, off our traditional structure and yet at the same time, kind of tie the deal together better for us.
- [28:23]
B
Yeah, we take a similar approach. Absolutely. And it's interesting to think about the concept that as these numbers get higher, you might think that there would be more pressure on the level of compensation proportionately. But the outlay, right, that, that, that we're incurring both servicing sellers and buyers. Right. You're, you're driving all over the place getting to know these folks. Right. And, and also it's a, it's a level of compensation, I think, for the, the, the, the time and the effort that we put into being good at what we do and always striving to learn more and to know more and to have those resources. And, and that takes me to the last thing that I wanted to talk about in this, in this particular episode. And conversation steps away from the individuals, the buyers and the sellers, but drills a little further on our colleagues, the other real estate professionals that we interact with, in, in a higher price point. This, this really came home to me recently. I took a, I took a recent listing as a favor. Right. And, and it was in a much lower price point than I usually do. It was all the way across town. I had to be there for showings. And so I was interacting with all of the, the agents that were bringing buyers through, and the majority of them were inexperienced, newer, and interacting with those agents compared to the level of sophistication, I guess, of interacting with agents who I've come to know that work in the upper Tier really was palpable to me. And I think that that is an advantage, I think of operating in that upper tier. What do you think about that?
- [30:39]
A
I had an experience this past week actually so funny because in the last week I worked with an entry level buyer, Washington state entry level buyer. A buyer who has other homes. And so she's buying another home here that will, she'll give to her son. But it, but essentially it's entry level. It's like a 4 to $500,000 price point. I rarely work in that price point. But she's an employee of one of my other CL sense compelling reason to work with. I want her to go back and give rave reviews but us that we took care of her. So the same week I was working with her in the four to five hundred thousand dollar price range, I was also, also working with another one of my clients in the four to six million dollar price range. And it was first of all I didn't realize I had my four to six million dollar listings printed out. They one of them ended up on the same clipboard with her, with her thing and she's flipping through and she stopped and she said I've did some research on you. She said, you don't normally work in this price range, do you? I said no, no. But I said I'm glad to do it. And I was glad. We had a great time, really good time. But you're, it's interesting what you're talking about because there was a vast degree of difference between the agents that I typically deal with in luxury space and the agents I was dealing with this past week. But what it was also interesting is there were some real standouts in the entry level price points, spectacular agents. And they were fairly new agents and they were go getters. They were calling for feedback. They were had great market materials. They were, they were communicating. They, they were available on the phone, not just a text. You could actually get them to answer the phone and have no conversation, which is a big deal. I can't stress how important that is. And you know again in the luxury space, when I call another agent or broker who works with luxury homes, we all know each other, they answer my phone call. I answered their phone calls. If I'm on a meet like right now, my phone's turned off, of course. But when I come out of speed, first thing is I open my phone back up and the first ones get called are those people whose names are my phones. I know who they are and I have a good idea what they want and they get called back. One of the biggest challenges I had working with this other client was in the lower price point. A lot of these agents would not pick up their phone. I texted and asked for phone calls. Still couldn't get them to call back. And then the funny thing was, I was talking to my business partner, Robert. The. The showing instructions were cracking me up. So one of the showing instructions, one of the condos that you want to look at, the showing instructions says, please tell your clients to be careful on the deck because the handrails are loose and the deck is really high. I'm like, fix the handrail. Don't put it in the instructions. Another one said, this is even better. Another one said they had a combo lock. Not a sentry lock or secure locking, no agent present, of course, but they had a lock box. I mean, a combo lock like you buy at Home Depot or Lowe's. And it said, showing instructions. The combo lock is 0416 or 0461. They couldn't remember. They couldn't remember the code.
- [33:33]
B
I've experienced that.
- [33:34]
A
Right.
- [33:35]
B
Try this one or try that one.
- [33:36]
A
Out and put it in there. It's this or that. One of these will probably open the house, you know.
- [33:41]
B
Yeah.
- [33:41]
A
So just what. And then going from house to house, looking at the condition and the preparedness and things, is like. It is a different world. And so I say, I'm not disparaging our colleagues who work in all. What I'm saying is, if you're in the entry level price point, you're listening to our podcast, Stand Out. Stand out because you can do the same things on a $300,000 condo that you can do on a $3 million condo. You can stand out. And the quality of the work and the quality of services you provide, that's your training ground to make that leap into the luxury home space. You do this. Provide the exact same level of service at the price point where you are, and build yourself. Make yourself ready for the luxury client when that opportunity happens. Because if you're the guy talking about, hey, don't push on the handrail and the guy that can't remember the combo code, because you wouldn't. You're too busy, apparently. Go over there and actually check it. You're not ready for the luxury client when you meet them presents itself, that door is going to close on you. Yeah.
- [34:38]
B
And. And I'm glad. I'm glad that you took us down, down, down this route, because I. I want to encourage all of the real estate professionals in our audience Particularly those of you that are, that are looking to, looking to be successful, make this a meaningful career. Take every class. You can learn everything, visit every broker's open that you can learn the market, learn who the other players are, do a great job, just like Jack said. And that's going to position you for when that person who you're helping to buy a 2, 3, $400,000 house, when they're successful and they move up, they will remember you and that will be your pipeline to the future in order to, to to build your career. So hopefully we have given some insight to, to our audience today. This has been fun and interesting to see what path. So do you have any last thoughts to leave our audience with Jack?
- [35:41]
A
Yeah, I'll do one last thought. When you were talking about knowing the colleagues, I can't emphasize enough how important that is. I remember doing that many years ago, not by accident, but purposefully reaching out and learning who the players were in the luxury home market attending broker opens, going to everywhere I could go to learn about the marketplace and to meet the people, meet the agents, meeting the builders, going into the luxury new construction. Because one of the things I found early on is that some of these agents who are, who are in their careers, Tammy, where you and I are right now, there are our ages. There have been the business as many years as we have been and oftentimes we'll get that great listing opportunity. I had one yesterday, a great listing opportunity. It was a million plus listing, a nice listing. It was just further out than I really wanted to drive. It was doable, but it's not really what I just didn't feel compelled to do it and I referred it. And if you're that guy who's constantly meeting these luxury brokers, there's going to be a luxury opportunity that's maybe an hour from town that maybe the other brokers don't want to go in an hour from town to handle. But it's a great opportunity. This is a great way to grease the skids to be the listing agent on that property and that property, although maybe a pain in the butt to drive that hour to that property back and forth as you maintain the, you know, the listing, that property may be the property that if you market it properly, will be opening the doors for the next one is two miles down the street.
- [37:15]
B
Yep.
- [37:15]
A
And then you start making your name for yourself locally. So all those opportunities create bigger opportunities. You're planting the seeds and knowing your other colleagues in that space is so important.
- [37:25]
B
And I love that we have that we have alluded so much to opportunity here, right. So often a typical agent is looking just with blinders on at the black and white scenario and I think there's a nuance to it in looking for opportunity, knowing when to avoid dodge a bullet, right. But also being able to identify opportunity that pays off in the long run. I think that that's certainly a factor. So I want to thank all of you so much for joining us on this episode of A State of Mind, the Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate. If you're interested in learning more about the institute, you can find out more@luxuryhomemarketing.com if you like what you just heard, please share it with a friend. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review this podcast. And if you've got a hot topic that you'd like us to discuss in a future podcast, feel free to let us know. Send an email to infoluxuryhomemarketing.com thanks so much for listening.