Interview with Rob Yoshimura - a Chicago Real Estate Broker with Compass

[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to coffees for closers. I've got a really cool interview for you today. I'm sitting with Robert Yoshimura, who is a top producer in Chicago and a fantastic human being. Welcome to the show, Robert. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Thank you very much for having me, Tim. [00:00:19] Speaker A: So I know you well, but for those who aren't acquated, I would love for you to introduce yourself. Tell us about you. Sure. [00:00:25] Speaker B: I'm Robert Yoshimura, South Loop resident, been down in the neighborhood for about 18 years now. I focus and specialize my business there. About 90% of it is done in the south Loop printers row area. Primarily sell condo, a little bit of townhouse, some single family home. But a function of the area is just, it's mostly condo. So born and raised in Chicago, grew up on the north side, old town, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, really just work up and down Lakeshore. I try not to extend myself too far, and it allows me to really hone in and be an expert in the areas that I do. [00:01:00] Speaker A: That's awesome. As I find, as I talk to more and more top producers that I love how strategic you are with this, you're very specific and you're not afraid to say that this is where I work and this is where I focus. Before we get into that, tell me your numbers. What have you done in real estate and how long have you been doing it? [00:01:19] Speaker B: So I am going on to my 7th year in August. I will have closed 100 million as of the end of July. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Wow. [00:01:28] Speaker B: So as of the end of. Probably around the time this airs. [00:01:34] Speaker A: I. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Got into this, my previous business was not doing well. I did some soul searching and really just thought about what my strengths are, what my weaknesses are. I love working with people. I also love being an educator that comes from years of teaching martial arts. So for me it was a great segue point because I had been through a number of real estate transactions, some of them easy, some of them difficult. On the personal side, I was familiar with the process, how it works. I'd run into lender issues, I'd run the gambit. Well, no, not with you specifically. Bridgeport bank. So, yeah, I mean, just in general, was familiar with the process. Obviously not an expert by any means. That's something that was honed and finally tuned. Over 50 plus transactions a year for the last six, almost seven years now. Yeah, no, I'm very fortunate. I'm very blessed. My clients are everything to me. Without them, I'm nothing. I have nothing. I go back to trying to figure out what I'm doing for a living without them. Right. So I treat them as such. [00:02:51] Speaker A: It's like every single time you close a deal, you find out you're unemployed again. Right. You got to go find that next transition. [00:02:56] Speaker B: Fortunately, now the pipeline is a little bit further built out, so I don't necessarily feel unemployed. I feel like the unemployment lines down the street a little bit, and I might start walking that way if I don't stay aggressive and I don't keep hustling. [00:03:10] Speaker A: What do you think? The key to your consistency is being a part of the martial arts side of things. I mean, that synergy there is amazing because the amount of discipline you need probably helps you in your real estate career. [00:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah. For me, it's also routine. Right. And that's part of discipline. Sure. Every day I get up at the same time. Every day I go to the gym. That's my hour for me. I'll give the other 23 hours a day to my clients, but that's my 1 hour for me. And so I prioritize that usually early in the morning. I work constantly. I come from a hardworking family. My dad was a Chicago police officer. My mom was an entrepreneur, small business owner. So I saw them working constantly. My dad didn't take a lot of days off. He worked holidays. Whenever he could do overtime, he would work overtime. My mom, being a small business owner, was in a position where, like, real estate agents, where you quote unquote, make your own schedule, but that just means you're working all of the time. Right. So I don't typically take days off, much to my wife's dismay. I will prioritize when I need to, but I prefer to spread out a larger amount of work over seven days rather than trying to cram it into five or six. It just doesn't work, and it causes me to be a lot more stressed out. And I don't ever want to feel like I'm in a job where I'm always stressed out or that was part of the reason I chose real estate to begin with. [00:04:36] Speaker A: I love that. I think it's a little different than most would say right now with stress levels because the market's a little different. But the discipline that you described probably helps you get through these transactions, because sometimes it means just taking a breath. Right, and problem solving. [00:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah. One of the things I heard early in my career on Facebook from Tommy Choi, of all people, was about focusing being in your business versus working on your business. Right. So when you're in your business, you're doing showings, you're doing transactions. You're on the phone with clients and agents and attorneys and lenders. When you take yourself out of that, which I tend to try and do. Q four, because it slows down a little bit between Christmas and Thanksgiving. That's when I'm business planning. That's when I'm thinking, hey, what did I do great this year? Where do I need to improve? What could I be doing better? And I think one of the things that you would see with most high producing, high level producing individuals in any field is that they have to do that. If you're not moving forward, you're going to sink and drown. Right. So for me, it's important to have at least some period of time during the year where I either take myself out of a transaction or I take myself out of my business, my day to day to focus on building that, keeping it consistent, doing things that are going to promote more business later, like the farmers markets and the south loop. I also serve on the board of directors for the PDNA, which is the Prairie District Neighborhood Association. I serve on HOA boards. So I do all of these other things because, number one, there are skill sets that are related to what I do. I'm a big believer in community. I know you just had Corey Tanzer on here talking a lot about community. As agents, we are representing our clients, but we're also representing our neighborhood. Right? At least if you're hyper local the way I am. So for know, the american dream, tv is a way to build positive media and really express the great things about the south Loop specifically. You know, it, it, like many areas in Chicago, 2020 had its issues. There's still this perceived notion of crime in not just the south Loop, but in and around downtown in general. Right. I think as agents, one of our responsibilities is promoting the area that we're in, telling people all the good stuff. When I talk to people, a lot of my family is in Michigan, where my wife is from, and they find out we live in the south loop and it's, oh, are you guys driving around in bulletproof vests down know, and that's a perception from the right. [00:07:28] Speaker A: It's so frustrating because the media paints this picture about Chicago that I'm not from Chicago. I came here from Tucson, Arizona. And so my experience is all fresh, right? It's just walking the door and seeing what I see. The media paints this picture like we're all dodging bullets as we're walking to work. And sure, we're a big city, we have crime. But I love what you just said, because it's the truth. There's hardworking, really good people, and there's people who care about their community. There's people who spend a lot of their time giving back and doing special things, but also being entrepreneurs, going for it. And I'd love to unpack what you just said. So you mentioned the farmers market. So you're involved with farmers markets in your area? [00:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So I sponsor the South Loop Farmers market. I'm there twice a week. Yeah, it's a lot. So Thursday from four to 08:00 p.m. It's right across from Grand park at Roosevelt, Michigan. And then Saturday mornings from 09:00 a.m. To 01:00 p.m. It's in printers row right there in the middle of Printer Square. [00:08:30] Speaker A: So you're there twice a week? [00:08:32] Speaker B: Twice a week, every week for 20 weeks. [00:08:34] Speaker A: Do you have a booth? [00:08:35] Speaker B: I do. I have a tent set up. I'm not there selling anything. It's kind of an abstract concept for a lot of people that are like, oh, you're at the farmers market. What are you selling? [00:08:44] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:08:45] Speaker B: I'm not selling anything. I'm there to have conversations. I'm there to be myself. I'm there to remind people that I'm in the neighborhood. I love it. I see past clients that I haven't seen in a while. It's a great place to reconnect with them. It's a great place to meet new people. I typically have a lender with me to answer questions about interest rates and loan process and what they can and can't do, and then I'm there to help them with if they have questions about, hey, what's the market doing? Or, hey, what's my home worth? Right. I can answer those questions for them right there on the spot. [00:09:16] Speaker A: And when you talk about crime and the media and the way that they're putting things together, but yet here you are two days a week at a farmers market in the south loop, and the community behind a farmer's market is huge. I mean, those are good people. They're families. That's a really good thing for the community. You typically find people who are neighborhood centric. Right. They're there because this is their neighborhood, and good food and groceries with other businesses. [00:09:48] Speaker B: One of the things I see more at the Grant park farmers market is that because of its location being central to the Roosevelt l station, Lakeshore Drive, we do actually have a lot of people that come from other neighborhoods, too. [00:10:01] Speaker A: Wow. [00:10:01] Speaker B: And people that are just in town visiting, maybe doing something down in museum campus will stop by the Southwood farmers market because they see all the tents wander. You know, it's great to have conversations with people from outside of your city or outside of your state as well. It helps you get a more dynamic opinion of Chicago and their experience there. You not being from Chicago, that's an advantage in some regards, too. You don't have the years and years and years of the daily regime and then the Rom regime to kind of bias you in some ways that people who are from the city remember when things were a certain way or whatever. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Sure. [00:10:44] Speaker B: But really, I think having grown up here and having a father who was in law enforcement, crime was always present, at least in my life, or at least in the filter with which I see my childhood and my teenage years and my young adulthood through. I think what's really changed is access to information. You have apps like citizen. You've got Chicago crime spotter on YouTube or Twitter. People are hearing and seeing things at a much more personal level and much faster, and a lot of times without any due diligence. Right. So sometimes we'll be laying in bed and my wife's phone will go crazy at 1130 at night, and I'm like, what's going on? And she's, oh, I'm on the citizen app. Reported shooting at so and so location. And then we find out the next day, somebody shooting off fireworks at Grand park or something illegally. Right, right. Not gunshots. So there's this perception. If we hadn't followed up and found that out, though, the perception would have been it was gunshots. [00:11:48] Speaker A: What I love about it is, what I hate about it is that they love telling you that it was gunshots, but they don't come back to you and tell you, oh, we figured out it was fireworks. [00:11:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:57] Speaker A: It's just there was gunshots, and that's the headline of everything. There's plenty of neighborhoods, too, where somebody's screwing around in the backyard. There's something going on, and it's not as big of a deal as it needs to be. The latest being as we get closer to 4 July, I could see this happening over and over and over. Yes, you have certain pockets of neighborhoods where some things are happening that need to be addressed, but it's not all of Chicago. Right? [00:12:23] Speaker B: I don't think anybody feels that it's all of Chicago. I think the perception, specifically from outside of the state or outside of the city, is that it's all downtown. [00:12:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:34] Speaker B: And I don't like to point fingers but a certain mayor whose name will remain out of this conversation really did a. [00:12:43] Speaker A: There's a tax for that. [00:12:44] Speaker B: Just so you know. There is a tax for it, too. It's right behind water bottle tax. They proposed gymshoe tax at one point. But, yeah, I mean, I really think there was a failure to protect, a failure to protect the businesses specifically along the Mag mile, and there was a failure to protect the neighborhoods that directly surrounded that area. So the result of which is this perception that downtown and the surrounding areas are unsafe, that made the market really tricky in 2020. Right. We saw a year and a half's worth of inventory at the high point because anybody who had a second home here or an in town or Pietara, whatever you want to call it, anybody who was kind of on the fence, maybe struggling with some health concerns, too, surrounding coronavirus and the pandemic, we saw them all flood the market with their inventory all at once. And simultaneously, buyer demand, consumer confidence and buyer demand dropped through the floor. So all of a sudden it went from this really decent seller's market to a buyer's market almost overnight. When the civil unrest started occurring in 2020, I think it's been a slow recovery. Condos have had their. It's been a roller coaster. A lot of that tides simply to interest rates. Right. You had two and a half, three and a half percent, 2021 going into 2022. Everybody capitalized on that. That could. You had multiple offers. Obviously, in many areas, people got frustrated with that, ended up resigning leases or renting elsewhere, finding areas where maybe the market wasn't so hot. [00:14:33] Speaker A: So let's unpack that for a second. Right. So with our audience trying to figure out that the whole point of this show is to give value back to real estate agents and really get an opinion from the people who are closing deals. A common objection we run into right now is I'm fielding calls from consumers and realtors of what is your opinion on interest rate impact and is a crash coming. Right. And those two things are really interesting to unpack in regards to what happens when rates come down and when is inventory coming back. Right. What is your opinion on what's coming next? [00:15:09] Speaker B: So I think the perception with interest rates has sort of normalized to some regard. [00:15:15] Speaker A: I'd agree. [00:15:16] Speaker B: People understand, hey, two and a half, three and a half, probably never going to happen again. [00:15:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:22] Speaker B: It would be great if it does for most people, I would say certain areas of the market may not benefit from that, though, particularly if you're selling and then trying to buy, you're going to run into that increased demand. But the attitude to unpack that. [00:15:42] Speaker A: Right. You've got a seller that is unwilling to sell their house because they're at two and a half percent. Right. They bring it to market because rates came down and they're like, oh, okay, now I'm willing to buy because I can give up my two and a half and get a five or a four or whatever it is. Right. Well, that seller then turns into a buyer. So you got inventory, but you also got another buyer. [00:16:02] Speaker B: It becomes tricky, I think, depending on the age of the buyer, too. Right. A lot of times that seller who refinanced into that two and a half, three and a half is at that age, empty nest might be going. [00:16:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:16] Speaker B: Which might not be as competitive depending on where interest rates are or they're going to Florida or Arizona or Vegas. They're taking that next step in their retirement where they just want to be left alone, so to speak. [00:16:28] Speaker A: Sure. [00:16:29] Speaker B: But I do think we're at the tip of the spear when it comes to inventory shortage. We're seeing it in the suburbs. Single family home. Demand is outpacing supply. New construction is not able to keep up. I think that's a byproduct of increase in materials during the pandemic. I think it's a function of supply chain shortages would be the next one. I also think that because you couldn't have big crews working during the pandemic, the state limited the number of people that could gather in one place that included certain workers. Right. So they weren't able to actually put new construction up as quickly. You had a lot of skilled labor retiring from their trades. I saw that personally a number of times. Call my plumber, hey, guess what? I'm retired now. They just didn't want to deal with it. It wasn't worth the health risk and it wasn't worth all of the other things that were going on at the time. [00:17:31] Speaker A: The good news is the reports are starting to come out on new permits pulled. Right. So we're starting to see that they're trying to get these built and provide because it's not a question, at least for the people with boots on the ground. Right. It's what I'm hearing from you as well. Demand is far out, surpassed the inventory. We have more people that want to buy. It's just there's nothing to buy what they're looking for. [00:17:55] Speaker B: Correct. [00:17:56] Speaker A: Right. So as we start to create that inventory, those people will come to market or go to contract. But also, too, you have some of these older homes that some of them need to be. They've been built quite a bit long time ago. They need to be updated. Right. So you'll start to see some of those jobs open up as those units need to be rehabbed or those homes need to be rehabbed. So there's going to be plenty of work available. So hopefully that points towards some more stability in the economy and more jobs available. The challenge is, obviously, is the trades. We've been seeing this lately is that there's not a lot of people jumping into the trades because everybody wants to invest in bitcoin or whatever. It's all this push button type of work. [00:18:38] Speaker B: My wife and I are at that age where we're talking about children and there's always that debate. College, obviously. I think college is a great thing. I think in the future, skilled trade labor is actually going to be more valuable. Yeah, I agree. So you have a son. Instead of sending them to college, get them a journeymanship. [00:19:04] Speaker A: I've heard HVAC is crazy, right? [00:19:06] Speaker B: Teach them how to work with their hands. There were painters I know, during the pandemic, making well over six figures a year, painting houses, painting the inside of condos. [00:19:16] Speaker A: Because nobody wanted to do it. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Because nobody wanted to do it. Nobody knew how to do it. Well, if you don't know how to do it, you don't know how to do it. Well, you always pay somebody else to do it. Right. And there was such a premium to be charged because they were so busy. So that's one of those things my generation, when we were younger, was taught. Oh, you go to high school, then you go to college, then you get the office job, and then you come out of college making six figures and everything's going to be great. What we found when we got out of college was that those jobs, those don't exist. Right, right. And I think a function of that is just corporations are monsters. They'll lay off people and they'll merge those positions with somebody who is at that salary base. Right. Rather than hiring somebody new in that. [00:20:07] Speaker A: Same role, pivoting to future outlook and market. Right. A lot of people are going to be watching this wondering, okay, well, let me get this straight. This guy goes to a farmer's market, he just stands there, right, and he gets all this business. He's done $100 million in seven years. Is that what I need to do? Right. Having conversations with you. Talk to me about doorman. I think we had a conversation. It was the most genius thing I've heard, and I'd love to share, if you don't mind. [00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So, I mean, there's a number of things. Let me start. I'm not just one dimensional standing at a farmer's market. Hey, come buy real estate for me in the south loop. One of the things that helped me very early in this career was developing a rapport with the buildings that I work in. There aren't a ton in the south loop, so being an expert and learning them was fairly simple and straightforward. Getting to know the doorstaff is a great resource for new agents that are looking to gain business, because they're the gatekeepers, right. They know who's moving in, they know who's moving out, particularly tenants. So that's a great way to network your way into, hey, I got a rental listing. Hey, I've got this seller that wants to sell. It happened to me literally not even a month ago. I had a seller call me, said, hey, so and so gave me your card. She had nothing but great things to say about you. I'd love to meet with you. I'm meeting with a couple of other agents as well, but I'd love to meet with you, see what you're all about. The door staff are the gatekeepers, right? The property managers are the gatekeepers. They know what's going on. So why wouldn't you want to talk to them if you can? [00:21:46] Speaker A: This is genius. Because I live downtown, and when my wife and I lived downtown at 420 East Ohio, right. We were renting, trying to figure out where we wanted to live in the city. I figured out real quickly that the doorman was the gatekeeper. Like, he knew everything. He knew everybody's business. He knew the mail. He knew if you had guests, he knew who you were dating. He knew everything. Right? And so his job was to build a relationship with you so that at the end of the year, when they did the voting thing of who their favorite doorman was, I don't know if they got a bonus for it or something. He wanted you to vote for them. [00:22:21] Speaker B: It was great. And that's the other thing, right? I sit on four HOA boards and the building we live in as well as our investment properties. So being on the board gives me that sort of that unique point of view as to what the door staff deal with on a daily basis, too. When I go, my building has 24 hours door staff. I'm on first name basis with all of them, obviously. And they're telling me everybody's business. And a lot of times it's just like, guys, I don't want to hear it? I don't need to know. That's so funny. But yeah, I mean, doorstaff is a great way to do that. That's one area where I think if you're an agent, you're sitting around right now, you're saying, hey, I don't know where my next deal is coming from. You live in a certain area, you probably already have at least some familiarity with the door staff. Why not bring them coffee, drop by, say hi, give them business cards, let them know you work in that area, remind them that you're there. I think one of the big difficulties that agents face is there are so many, and if you're not staying top of mind, you're not getting the business right. So that's where the farmers market comes in. It helps me stay top of mind. I've got my name and my logo on the tent. I'm there week in and week out. People see how committed I am. Two weeks ago, it was 40 degrees. I'm sitting there in my north face bubble jacket, shivering, trying to talk to people, giving out like cupcakes and cookies and stuff to kids that actually came. The wind is whipping through at 25 miles an hour. I had to makeshift, basically like a chain out of zip ties to my tent, to my chair, to keep my weight, to keep my tent from blowing. [00:24:11] Speaker A: Windy city. [00:24:12] Speaker B: Yeah, right. But when people see week in, week out, there's a level of familiarity there, but it also reestablishes the fact that, hey, I'm the number one agent in that area. Right. As of last week, I double checked the numbers with Mr. Tanzer. He said I'm still number one in one. [00:24:29] Speaker A: Six. [00:24:29] Speaker B: He said I moved up to like top three in five. So in the south loop, I'm at the top of the list right now. [00:24:35] Speaker A: Congratulations. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Well, I hope I stay it. I hope I stay there, but thank you. [00:24:39] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's really awesome. Farmers market, we started on dormant. Any other ideas or what do you do? Do you do any, do you analyze your own business? And maybe how do you improve? What do you look at what you're doing and how do you figure out how to improve on what you're doing? [00:25:01] Speaker B: So whenever you're in any business, I think, as I consider myself a business owner, even though I'm a real estate agent and I have a brokerage that I'm under, you have to constantly evaluate your own performance. The best way to do that is by talking to your clients or maybe the people who didn't use you. Right. So when I get a listing. I always ask them, hey, what was it about me specifically that you guys gravitated towards or that you liked? Or if I don't get the listing and I have the opportunity to have that conversation, it's, hey, what could I have done better? What was it about me specifically? Was there anything specific, or was it just somebody gave you a better deal or they're discounting their commission or whatnot? Just so I understand, adapt to survive is one of my, it really hits home for me. It's one of the things I focus in my business. If you're not adapting, you're not surviving. If I don't constantly get better, if I don't constantly change, then the market's going to change without me, and I'm going to be that meme where it's like, hey, Becky, can you fax me that contract? And it's like, no, I can't, Becky. It's not 1984, right. [00:26:22] Speaker A: Or the glamour shop book business cards. Yeah, exactly. [00:26:27] Speaker B: Not to make jest out of older agents or anything like that. Certainly. I think most of them that are in the market now have really adapted to technology, but that's one of those areas where it's constantly evolving. Right. So if you're not using it and you're not learning it, then you're falling behind. And if you're falling behind, eventually somebody who is using all of that will overtake you or will start taking your market share. [00:26:52] Speaker A: But I want to unpack. What you just said, right. Is that you're adapting, you're using the technology, because it does make your business easier. I think this is where a lot of loan officers and realtors are missing a piece of that. They're reliant on these tools to make their job easier, but they're forgetting that they need to go back and maybe pick up the phone, maybe have the courage to call again. Right. Follow up with that client. Larissey was talking about it in one of his interviews. Agents, I pick up clients all the time because I'm the only one that followed up. They weren't even going to go with me. And it's because of the fact that I continue to follow up. If you don't have the courage to ask them, why didn't you go with me so that you can be better for the next one? I love that. [00:27:34] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think there's two things there. The first is if you're in any conventional sort of job interview, you go in, you interview. If you don't follow up with the company, you're not getting the job. [00:27:44] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Why would it be any different for real estate? So that's kind of the first thing. If you're not doing that, why? That's crazy to me. I want to be top of mind. It's what I was hitting on before. If I don't follow up, I'm not top of mind. [00:27:59] Speaker A: If you're not aggressive in the follow up, then what are you going to do in the deal? [00:28:01] Speaker B: So they just might go with the person who bothers to reach out. Right. I mean, I think the other thing it says is like, hey, it wasn't important enough to follow up, which, how's the seller supposed to feel about that? Or how's a buyer supposed to feel about that? My property or me, my family didn't warrant a phone call. [00:28:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:28:21] Speaker B: And I don't know that anybody takes it that personally. But at the same time, why gamble on it? Why gamble on it when it's a phone call? [00:28:28] Speaker A: Sometimes what happens is that life happens. Right? Like me, my schedule is completely. I do business with people who follow up with me, not necessarily because it's the best price, because they find me important enough to follow up, and I respect it. Right. The same thing with real estate is if you're not following up with them and they're trying to figure out a move, they're trying to figure out all this stuff, they got a new job. Whatever. The reason that they're buying a place or moving is, they'd appreciate the fact that you're being a support level. Right. Hey, listen, I know you're busy. Let me help you. Maybe it does take two phone calls because of whatever's going on in their own life. [00:29:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the best compliments I get fairly regularly is that my clients know that I'm busy. But when they take the time to express the gratitude after the deal or whatever, and then they also add something to the effect of, you made us feel like we were your only clients, even though you may have been working with so many. So I really take that that's the experience, though, that was lacking. When I was younger and working with agents personally, I saw that there was this everybody's busy. The agents that I had dealt with previously, when I was buying and selling for myself, the good ones, were the ones that made me feel like I was important. Whether I was or not, I don't know, but they made me feel like I was right. Part of our job, beyond protecting our clients and beyond being an advocate for them, is also we wear a lot of hats. And so one of those might be counselor, it might be therapist. Therapist. But to make them, this is a huge financial decision for them, so it's important to them. It should be important to us too. So taking that time and maybe spending a few extra minutes on the phone, I have a client right now whose wife is pregnant. She just got through her first trimester. I was calling them weekly just to check up on her, make sure she's okay. She was having a real rough first trimester, a lot of morning sickness, things of that nature. And not because it had the potential to jeopardize a deal, because they're my. [00:30:44] Speaker A: Neighbors, because they're a human being and. [00:30:47] Speaker B: They live in my neighborhood, and I don't want them necessarily to add more stress to their lives with maybe a real estate purchase, when health is obviously the biggest thing, family and health, it's the airplane thing, right? Put your own mask on before you put somebody else's on. Sometimes putting your own mask on is telling that person like, hey, maybe a real estate transaction is not the best idea. And I did ask them that too. I said, hey, with the stress of this pregnancy, is this something you guys feel is still the right time to do? Because if it's not, I can find you another condo later down the road. I need to make sure that you guys are okay first. So putting your clients before you, I think, is the underlying point there. And I think that we should always be doing that in any way we can. In this case, it was something health related. But, I mean, there are certainly other situations where we should be doing that. [00:31:45] Speaker A: So you're community centric, right? You're in the farmers markets, you're the Doorman, you're doing all these things. It's very obvious that you're very laser focused on these areas. You're also extremely sincere with your clients. You obviously care about them. And you go above and beyond even saying, is this the right time to do a deal? Once we get all that done, what does an agent do like yourself? What do you do when you're submitting offers and it's a multiple offer situation? Just having a client in this market, unfortunately isn't enough, right? You're dealing with other sellers, you're dealing with other agents, you're dealing with multiple offer situations where there's 17 offers on the deal. How do you win? [00:32:23] Speaker B: So I think being on both sides gives you some of that information right off the bat. When I have a listing and there's multiple offers on it, the buyer who has the best chance to win is the agent who bothers to pick up the phone and call me. Hey, what's your seller looking for here? Obviously, we have confidentiality. I can only tell them so much. [00:32:48] Speaker A: Right. [00:32:48] Speaker B: But I can kind of point them in the right direction, you know, and. [00:32:52] Speaker A: So when feed is important or whatever. Right. [00:32:55] Speaker B: But here's the thing. Maybe it's not one of the things I like to put in my offer. Let the seller choose a closing date. We're flexible. They want two months. Give them two months. They want a month. Give them a month. They want to close in two and a half weeks. We'll figure it out. Right. We'll do four months, then I'll get it done. Exactly. I think, people, when you're buying, you're really focused on yourself. When you're in a multiple offer situation that changes, you now need to focus on the seller's needs, sometimes more than your own. Now, that's not to say that you need to go and put yourself in harm's way. I heard a lot about waiving inspections and stuff like that. I would never allow a client, I've never had a client waive an inspection. I would never allow them to waive an inspection. To me, that is the biggest point of protection, even more so than an appraisal, because that's your chance to educate yourself as to the condition of that home and make that decision. Hey, we gave the seller as is condition. We're not waiving the inspection, though, because we at least need to know that the property is in decent condition, at least per our expectation. Right. So terms like as is are great. Finding out what the seller's closing date preferred closing date is. How important is earnest money? Some sellers put a lot of importance on that as more of a show of financial strength than anything. But that's certainly something that could be a negotiable. Right? [00:34:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:25] Speaker B: Seller wants to see 5% earnest money. Okay, I'll give them 5% earnest money. The bottom line is the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago is extremely protective of the buyer. There are very few instances where the seller would actually get to keep that. [00:34:39] Speaker A: That's a great point, because I don't think a lot of people put much strength behind earnest money because of that fact. It's that it is a good faith, but there's lots of protections behind the buyer. So maybe buyer's agents out there aren't giving it as much weight and that's why they lost the deal. [00:34:53] Speaker B: Well, but that's the thing, too. It's not about you. It's about the seller. If the seller is of a certain, we'll say age or a certain generation, earnest money meant a lot more. Right? [00:35:04] Speaker A: It's true. [00:35:04] Speaker B: So that might be something that's important to them. But the bottom line is if you're not figuring out what's important to them other than purchase price, because obviously that tends to be number one, then you're doing a disservice. [00:35:17] Speaker A: Don't just send the offer an email and wait for a response. Right. [00:35:20] Speaker B: Well, we talked a little bit about city agents versus suburban agents. I don't do a ton of business in the suburbs, but I've noticed a pretty stark difference in terms of the level of communication suburban agents tend to be, at least in my experience thus far, much more communicative. City agents will send an offer, shoot a quick text if you're lucky. Well, hey, offer in your inbox. Right? And that's kind of all you hear about or when's best and final Dubai. Right. It's very brief and it's very cold and callous, which is fine, but as long as you're not putting your clients in harm's way in the process. Right. So what I appreciate about the suburban agent is they're calling to double check things. Speaking to the lender, that's something that I was taught to do, and I still do. I want to make sure. Hey, I've got a pre approval here. Did you run credit? And the real good lenders like you will actually pick up the phone and call me. I don't even have to make that phone call, which makes my life a little bit easier. [00:36:31] Speaker A: If you're a lender and you're watching this, look, if you're not making the phone call to the sell, it's the biggest disservice you're doing to your agent. You have to make that phone call. The deal could die. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Well, multiple offer situations, too. You're trying to distinguish yourself from every other offer. You're trying to put personality behind the buyer. So one of the things, when I have the ability to, and they are using the professionals that I give them options and they choose, if they choose the professionals that I work with, one of the things I put in my offer is, hey, just a quick heads up. Buyer is using my recommended team, lender, inspector, attorney. As such, I can pretty much guarantee you this is going to be a smooth, easy going transaction. Now, of course, there are unforeseen variables there, but everything we can control, we will and we'll do it well. Because we're very high functioning professionals and everybody I work with is an adult and does their job, I think that's another thing we run into in this industry, is pointing the finger at so and so. Always title's fault. This is so and so's attorney's fault. [00:37:42] Speaker A: Bad news doesn't get better with age, right? And it's just communication. It's that when you have a team that's all aligned, look, there could be a problem. But sometimes that problem is very easily solved if you're just upfront about it and we just put our heads together and with a high level team of everybody rowing in the same direction, if the buyer's agent and the seller's agent are on the same understanding of we're all just trying to get a deal done for our clients best interest, but sometimes that communication is everything. Otherwise it's a last minute or they're hiding things and then they feel taken advantage of and it's just a whole other thing. [00:38:14] Speaker B: I'm the first person to say I could not do the volume or function as efficiently or at the capacity that I do. If the people that I rely on, attorney lender inspectors, weren't high level functioning professionals. If they didn't do their jobs to the quality that I expect them to do, that wouldn't put more work on me. And that's the conversation I have with my clients, too, is like, hey, you're welcome to use whoever you want. I'm happy to get you as many recommendations as you want to go through. You're welcome to check Yelp or however you want to find who you want to work with is totally okay with me. Just know that you may be creating more work for yourself. And when you're already jumping through hoops for lender and doing all this other stuff, that might not be the best thing for you. [00:39:04] Speaker A: You mean your cousin that's an injury attorney is not the guy we should use for a real estate attorney. I mean, what are we talking about? [00:39:13] Speaker B: I'm a very big advocate of staying in my lane, but also that the professionals I work with stay in their lanes, but also that they do their jobs. And I think when everybody does their job, the end result is a happy client. And that's the most important thing. It doesn't matter if I'm dealing with nonsense. It doesn't matter if they're dealing with nonsense and we're fighting behind the scenes and to get stuff done. Title is not cooperating or the other side's attorney is not cooperating. As long as we're cohesive for the buyer, I think that's a big deal. And I think in a multiple offer situation, that should be a big deal. When I get an offer, I'm looking at who is the lender, what's their down payment, what's their interest rate. That could be indicative of credit issues, too. Right? [00:39:59] Speaker A: I'm running into this regularly. Right. I'll talk to an agent. And this is not a knock to anybody. Right. It's hard right now. This is the hardest market I've ever seen in my entire career. But there's still plenty of transactions getting done. And the reason I say it's hard is because it takes that extra step. Everything that you're describing, you have to do it. It's not a question, it's not an option. When I run into an agent who says I've got all these buyers but I can't get a contract done, my first thing I ask is, all right, well, who are you using? What is your process? And the standard reply, because it's not from a lack of effort. They're trying. Well, I do that and I do this and I do that. But if you unpack it and you peel back some of these things, the stuff that you're talking about today is so important. It's the little details, it's the little extra steps. What advice would you have for an agent who's listening to you? Inspired but struggling. What would you say to them? [00:40:54] Speaker B: Focus on what you're good at. Honestly, I don't cold call. I don't call expireds. I don't call fizbos. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Wow. [00:41:03] Speaker B: That's not who I am. I don't like that position of calling a total stranger and trying to figure out a way to do business with them. I only want to work with people that want to work with me. I have my processes in place to ensure that that's the case. And when I interview for listings, that's very much so. My mentality. However, if you're an agent that's great on the phone and great at cold calling. Get on the phone, start cold calling. If you're great at calling expired, then great at calling fizbos, call them. If you've got a relationship with doorstaff, go talk to them. The bottom line is, sitting there isn't going to get you anywhere. Right. If you're just idly treading water and you're not moving in any direction, eventually you're going to drown. [00:41:53] Speaker A: But also, what I've heard during this conversation is that be laser focused right. You're picking lanes, you're not dabbling in every little thing. You're picking where you want to be. And if a deal is not in your area, it sounds like, what do you do with it for your client? [00:42:09] Speaker B: I want to find the person who is me in that market. That's my job at that point. Sometimes the best thing you can do as an agent is refer somebody that you can't give 100% to or that you're not the best person for the job. You should give it to the person that is right. I think there's enough business in this industry where if we're all cooperating and we're all thinking about, hey, maybe this isn't the best one for me, who is? But a lot of people don't even take the time to do that. They just say, oh, I'll figure it out while I'm doing it. Right. To me, that's crazy. I want every deal I do to be the best deal I've done and always to be moving forward in that fashion for my clients. So if I am faced with a buyer or a seller that's not in an area I'm familiar with or isn't something I would normally do, I want to recommend the person to them that is going to leave a smile on their face. Smart, because if they have a smile on their face, they're not going to forget that I was the one that recommended that person to them. And then down the road they may have somebody that is in my lane that they end up referring to me or that other agent says, hey, I've got this buyer down in the south loop. I've been working with them. We've been unsuccessful. Maybe it's because of lack of knowledge, not knowing the area, not knowing the differences in sort of the pockets of the south loop or maybe what they're looking for, and then they refer that to, you know, cooperation over competition. Right. We can be, we can be competitive in terms of wanting to push ourselves and drive for success. But at the end of the day, we're still in a cooperative profession and we're in a relationship driven industry. [00:43:52] Speaker A: Shout out to Corey Tanzer, I love your guys'relationship, because you guys are competitive, but you're pushing each other. Right. He's given you a hard time in. [00:44:02] Speaker B: A good way, but you're giving each. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Other hard times, but he's still giving you your flowers, if you will, right? Yeah. [00:44:09] Speaker B: Here's the thing. Just on Facebook last week on one of the local real estate pages, on anonymous, anonymously posts, hey, looking for an agent in the south loop, right? So here come the wolves descending in. I had three agents, not just my clients that I've worked with. I had three agents, including Corey. Go on Facebook and vouch for me. [00:44:38] Speaker A: What a compliment. [00:44:39] Speaker B: And say crazy compliment. If you're looking in the south loop, you're looking to sell, nobody's going to do a better job for you than rob. [00:44:44] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:44:45] Speaker B: Right? And to me, that's as big as a client. It holds a little bit more respect. It's respect. And I have mutual respect for Corey. And there's a number of other agents that I hold in a very high level of regard, not just because they refer business in the south loop to me or anything like that, but because I know that they're really good professionals. We talked about Matt Larissey's attention to detail. Right. When he takes a listing, you go under additional information. If it's a condo listing, I guarantee you'll find a property info sheet. To me, that's attention to detail. That's doing the job that we've been hired by our sellers to do. Get that information from the homeowners association. Right. I can't tell you the overwhelming majority clone the previous listing. It has the wrong year. It was built. It has the wrong number of units. The assessments off, what the assessment includes is off. It's crazy. And I know we carry errors in omissions, insurance, but I've had buyers get upset because you told us the assessment was this and it's not. Or you told us the building had this and it doesn't. Not upset with me, but upset with the list agent. And sometimes they monetize that against them. Right. If you take a listing in November and it's slow and that property carries over into January, January 3 4th, pretty much as soon as the property manager is back in, the first call you should be making is what's the new assessment? [00:46:22] Speaker A: But this is the reason why this shows about top producers, right? These are people about extremely professional who get tagged on Facebook when something comes up. The respect is there. There's a reason. This is how it's earned for anybody listening to this. This is how it's earned. If you're going to take a listing, the fact that you're not looking at the details, this is not just a common thread. It's a requirement. You have to be a professional. What is it that you do for a living? Right. Your job is to know the details. Your job is to represent that property correctly. [00:46:52] Speaker B: One to the best of your ability? [00:46:54] Speaker A: Correct. [00:46:54] Speaker B: If you just clone the previous listing, is that really the best of your ability? [00:46:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:57] Speaker B: If it is, start looking for another job. [00:46:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:47:03] Speaker B: Again, going back to the doorsaf thing, the property managers are also the gatekeeper. If you're lucky enough to get a listing, you should want to meet with the property manager. You should want to put a face with the name. You should want to learn about them and their experience managing that building. Maybe that gives you a little more insight into the building. I was just in one of my listings today. I've known the property manager for years. I popped in after a showing and I asked her what was going on. One of the big topics that we're dealing with right now is EV charging in big high rise buildings. And so I just wanted to find out, hey, I know last year when I sold the last place, this is where things were at. Can you update me? And it was a 180 degree turn. Last year they weren't even thinking about it. This year they're getting it done. So now I have this amazing thing that I can tell people about that I couldn't last year and that if I'm just cloning listings, I'm not even going to know about. And now I have that in my quiver of arrows, if you will, to help me sell that property and help me find the right buyer for it. [00:48:06] Speaker A: And you won't talk yourself out of a building or any of that because you're going to tell a buyer without doing any of the research. Oh, no, this isn't going to work, or they're not supporting that. Whereas it's changed. This is ever evolving business, and you got to stay and adapt and learn what's going on. I want to switch to you. Something I've asked some of my interview is what motivates you. Yeah, I know what motivates you. You're so even keeled. You seem like you've got a good handle on stress. How? What is it that you listen to? Who do you listen to? What motivates you to keep going? [00:48:41] Speaker B: So my clients are my number one motivation. My wife is my number one motivation. She understands that I'm only human at around 830. At night, out of nowhere, my phone will just get smacked out of my hand and she'll say, hey, I'm here. That's enough. Yeah. And that reminds me what's important. And to me, we do what we do for our clients, but we also do what we do for ourselves and our family. And so for me, that's what motivates me. It's very easy to be lazy and to slack off a little and prioritize vacations and things like that when it's just you that you're taking care of. But when you're somewhat responsible and accountable to another individual or many individuals, if you consider your clients, which I do, fiduciaries like that, then you're responsible treated as such. So that's one of the big motivational factors. My parents just seeing them hustling day in, day out. My dad is still working. My mom is still working. They're semi retired, but they're the type of people that always need to feel useful, and so they will never, much to their own chagrin, I'm trying to slow them down. It's weird that relationship changes as you and your parents get older. You become the parent, they become the child. [00:50:11] Speaker A: Right. [00:50:11] Speaker B: Hey, mom, maybe grouting that bathroom is not such a great idea for you. I love it. Because then you got to listen to them for two weeks after complain about how bad their back is, right? [00:50:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:50:22] Speaker B: So maybe some of it's a little bit selfish, but seeing that relationship change, my dad is extremely stubborn, full japanese, just like the most hard headed person in the world. It took me and my siblings telling him to do things like, we have to have a family vote to make him realize that, hey, you need to do his. He crashed his police bike. It was like a month before I was born. And tore his rotator cuff. [00:50:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:50:51] Speaker B: Never had surgery for it. [00:50:53] Speaker A: He worked. [00:50:55] Speaker B: And, I mean, he was SWAT. He was HBT. He was on the SEAL team here. He was a range instructor. He worked his entire career and never fixed his shoulder. And so before he retired, he had the six month period where he wasn't really working. He was working. He had insurance, but basically, he was being paid for time due. And we said, hey, maybe this is that time to get that shoulder fixed, right? Because you can barely drive a car with your bad shoulder now. So he fought us on it tooth and nail, and finally it took, like, almost an intervention of my siblings and I sitting him down and saying, hey, now's the time to fix that. [00:51:37] Speaker A: Know, your dad sounds amazing. Both your parents sound amazing. You got an entrepreneurial, know, an old school. What? You know, I come from Tucson, right? Where that's the same thing. You got three ways to solve it. Either walk it off, drink water. Robotuss. Right? Absolutely. To have him go through his whole career with a hurt shoulder is not because he's a maskist. It's because he doesn't have time for it. That's what it sounds like. [00:52:03] Speaker B: Well, and taking care of his family was always the first priority. Right? So I don't have time for this to hurt. That would be the mentality. My mom was absolutely amazing, going from being a stay at home mom to saying, I'm going to try a bunch of different stuff. It wasn't like she just hit gold on the first thing or anything like that. It was, I'm going to try and fail over and over and over again. And I think in life and I think in our professions, that's what we have to do. You try, you fail. You try something else, you fail. When I'm talking about making my business better, a lot of that is trying new things. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. If it works, I keep it. If it doesn't work, hey, let me figure something else out. Right? [00:52:48] Speaker A: What comes next for you? What do you see the outlook for this next year? Towards the end of the year, and then the following. What do you think is coming next? [00:52:56] Speaker B: I think that this year is trending a lot like last year in a lot of regards, at least with the condo market here in Chicago. Q one was crazy busy. Starts to taper off in the summer. By fall it starts to decline, and then by winter it's obviously slow. What I think we're going to see, though, is interest rates respond to that. I think we're going to see them dip probably around the end of the year. And then Q one next year it's going to take off again. So a lot of the listings that I have coming up, that would normally be maybe Q four listings, I'm already telling them, hey, let's hold off till Q one. The market, I think is going to be substantially better in Q one. That gives us. But let's get photos done now. Obviously not right now, because it's like Canada is having its way with our views and our long. That's not a smoke filter. Yeah, no, sorry. Well, I mean, I just dealt with that, too. Right. One of my photographers forgot to get drone shots on a listing. I had them come back, but there was the canadian haze is what I'm going to call it, ruining my view for my listing. So now I've got to have them come back and reshoot it again. Right? I mean, those are things that we try and anticipate the best we can. We do our best to work around them, but there's always going to be those things. But I am telling my sellers at this point, if you don't need to. Let's. Let's get photos done while the weather's still nice and there's still leaves on the trees and it doesn't look like Chicago looks in the winter. The lake looks good. Let's get the work done right. Needs to be painted or it needs this or it needs that. Let's start figuring that out in process. So that way early next year, we're ready to go. Listings built out, photos are there. I got to update some information with the Hoa. But other than that, it's a flip of a switch. [00:54:50] Speaker A: It's crazy because you don't sound desperate. Right. And I shouldn't say it's crazy, but that's what I'm hearing, is that you're doing the right thing by your client. Always. And if that means waiting a little bit, you're waiting a little bit. It's not just, oh, I got a listing, let's get this thing on the market. It's whatever makes sense for the client. Right. [00:55:04] Speaker B: It's always whenever I'm in a listing appointment, it's not about me, it's about you. [00:55:10] Speaker A: I love it. [00:55:10] Speaker B: Let's have a conversation. What are you looking for? I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to be a guide and I'm here to make recommendations. But I'm not the type of agent to go in and start barking orders or saying, if you want this, then you need to do that. We can get the work quoted based on the recommendations I'm making. I'm only making these recommendations because I know they're going to be issues for you later. I know that that bathroom needs caulk. I know that that toilet is leaking. There's a number of things we just see. I call them the frequent flyers. Right. Oh, there's no GFCI in the kitchen. And those are things that some agents would just leave for the home inspection. Why gamble on it? Yeah, if you're aware of it, let's just take care of it. [00:55:58] Speaker A: Robert, you're a fantastic professional and I guarantee you the people listening to this have learned quite a bit and you've provided value to the industry. You seem like an incredibly humble and respectable real estate agent. I really appreciate you coming on today and thank you for your time. [00:56:11] Speaker B: No, I appreciate you having me. Thank you very much, Tim. [00:56:13] Speaker A: Great seeing you. Thanks, Samuel.