Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another ESSALGIMIRA. I'm so happy to be here today to bring you another interesting guest. He's one of the top agents in the whole country ranked amongst the top 250 by Wall Street Journal in the last three years, has been selling some of the most incredible homes. The man, me, the legend, what's happening Eric?
How are you? How are you? How are you? How are you?
Getting to real estate reaches this point. I think for me, it wasn't a straight path to get into real estate, and especially intellectually real estate. I, it was kind of a windy road through, I had different businesses and careers, and it was kind of a culmination of all my history and what I did in the past. When I started to put my focus on real estate, I was able to use a lot of those connections I had from my previous life, and it just kind of, it all came together in an interesting way.
It unfolded, you know, some of the, I used to deal in art and furniture, and I used to help design beautiful homes for some of the people that became my clients later. And it all really started because to be honest, a lot of people are surprised. I haven't been in real estate for a super long time. I basically, one of my top clients, when I was doing art curation, I asked them, you know, I have a real estate license.
I had, I got it for myself because I was going to flip high in properties and do that kind of stuff. And I said, you know, I have all these great clients that I've built up, and would you ever let me show when your house is to them, if you want to sell it off market? And she was like, yeah, it's fine. You can show this house in this house.
And, and there are two amazing homes, and I had never shown a house before. I had never opened a car. I had never looked at a real estate contract other than when I took my real estate. But I knew how to sell and I knew houses.
So I basically just started calling everyone I knew. And it was during the time when I had to make a big shift in my career due to some unforeseen issues. And I called all these people, took them to the houses. And within two weeks, I sold one of the houses for $11 million.
And wow, all of a sudden I was in real estate. That's a good start though. That's a great start. Yeah.
Yeah. Let's go into 2022. You sold the $70 million property. Yeah.
I mean, how does somebody get to sell such type of property? I think we built our, our, my business model has been to really focus on high-em luxury properties. So with that, I think that the way we've chosen the market properties, focus on properties, know the market and have and build those relationships really brought us to an opportunity to work on that. I had the fortune of working with, with Mauricio on that sale.
And the funny thing is that the person who ended up buying that property is a person that gave me my first shot at real estate. So it was, it was a full circle moment. And it was, you know, I can't talk much about it, but it was the, it was the highest sale in, in South Santa Barbara County history. And it was, well, for one, it was a spectacular property and a unique property.
And I guess you can call it a unicorn. And those kind of properties just don't come up very often. So, you know, the person that purchased it buys the best of the best. And I think no matter what the market's doing, you still see these huge transactions taking place right now, like Jay Z even, Beyonce bought the place in Paradise Cove and, and Malibu, because when the best of the best comes up, there's always going to be a market, whether it's real estate, art, cars, watches, anything.
And it was just that situation. So it was the right person in the right property. When you get such a big sale, there's a lot of money coming in. Where do you invest most of that money?
I've always believed in investing heavily when you get an opportunity. If you get an opportunity to have a listening, I don't care if it's 500,000, I don't care if it's 100 million, whatever it is, like that's your chance to really show what you can do and leverage leverage that opportunity into marketing. I see a lot of agents and they'll they'll, you know, I've coalesced with agents, but that or worked with agents along the way that have been like, I know this guy, he's like 400 bucks, he'll take a photo and we'll throw him on the MLS. And for me, I'm always like, who's the best photographer?
Who's the best architectural photographer? I have a full-time guy on my team, Blake, who's been with me for the past four years. He went to NYU Film School. He does all our videos and it's proprietary to what we do.
So I really wanted to put a focus and put my money towards really presenting these properties in a way that not only showcases the property, but it also showcases what we can do. So I think it's, I just think it's so imperative and I think a lot of agents miss that opportunity to really showcase what they can bring to the table because they're so focused on that one transaction and just, you know, getting the photos up, getting the household moving on. But all these opportunities, like, are your clients, if you go above and beyond and spend money, they're going to refer you to their friends and other people are going to see what you're doing and they're going to go like, that's who I want to work with because if I'm paying another agent the same percentage and they're just taking some photos and mailing it in, then, you know, I want to, I would rather have a team where I feel like it's really focused on branding the properties, marketing the properties, showcasing the properties, doing videos, building content and branding around the property. And that's really where a lot of my money goes.
I mean, it's, it's, it's just always building. If you will have to stop the game, will you do anything differently? Well, I mean, I think I got super, I don't want to say I was fortunate because I would say that I was building up to my career in real estate for about 15 to 20 years before I got into real estate. So, look, I got an opportunity out of the gates that a lot of people maybe wouldn't get if I, but that being said, I did that sale and I didn't do another sale for almost a year.
And I, I definitely like, you know, the thought entered my mind of like, maybe I'm just a one-hit wonder. Maybe, you know, maybe like, I did the sale and I thought I was going to just, just going to turn into a bunch more business and it's not. So I think for, for anyone that's just coming, coming into this business, I think it's super important to line yourself with a mentor or an agent you really look up to and you want to get into the, the, the section of, if, if you want to work in high-end, work with a high-end agent and you're going to, I mean, my team, they're at, you know, $25 million houses. They're meeting the clientele, they're communicating and learning how to communicate in a way that feels more boutique and concierge.
And we have a real infant system. We've really built out our team recently to, to be super accommodating, be super on it. So I tell us a little bit about the market. The market has less urgency in it right now.
So what I'm seeing is, is great houses that are priced correctly. What we have to do is, is recalibrate. And I think a lot of people, especially, I would say in the high-end market, they, they saw their friends cashing in during this frenzy and it's not like that. So a lot of the conversations I'm having with people, and this is not only in sales, this is in leases during COVID.
I mean, you could slap a, any property up on online and you'd have 50 calls that day to log that in, especially along the coast, because people like, I can't drop the europe, I can't, you know, go anywhere. I'm in this big city, I can't go to a restaurant. My kids are driving me crazy. So they're just desperate to rent something, so they'll pay whatever.
But I think if you're willing, as an agent, to have those hard conversations and say, look, maybe last year we could have been aspirational in the pricing of your home. This year, let's, let's get to that tipping point of where it will create excitement. It has to be priced correctly. So I think, I think it's, it's not, it's not as easy as a market, but I think if you just kind of take it as a challenge and think of what you can do better as an agent and, and, and, and I mean, like, I go on listing appointments, I had one a couple of days ago and it was, I was, it was myself and two other really good agents.
And I was very like honest on pricing and the seller was pushing, giving me a lot of pushback. And I was just like, look, these other people are going to tell you the price you want to hear. I'm going to, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm the one who's the most at risk of losing this.
Like, I'd rather tell you the truth and potentially take this overpise listing and send all this money. You're going to be upset with me. You're going to be upset with, you know, it's, it's just not worth it. So I think it's just agents have to have hard conversations with people and then show how they are value.
100% mean from any shape or form. What is really luxury to you? I think that, I think that luxury is, this is an interesting question that I asked myself is, is when I, when I go somewhere, like if I stayed in an isotel or something, what, what is the, my experience that feels like luxury? And I think it's, I think it's that you feel taken care of.
I think it's that things are done without you asking. I think things are done in a refined thoughtful way. And I, luxury to me, isn't just about like things that are fancy and glamorous. It's about an experience and it's about an elevated, it's an elevated experience when it comes to what we do.
So like, we try and treat our business like a super five star hotel in how we treat our clients. And I think we can give them that luxury experience where they feel taken care of. That's, that's, that would be my definition of luxury. If you have one piece of advice that people can take with them today, put yourself out there in every single way, whether that's social media, whether that's meeting people, interacting, you never know where relationships go.
And I know for me, like, we're building a bunch of social media content right now. And it's so uncomfortable. And I decided to women to my team and she's like, I haven't been doing it, but I want to get into it. And I'm like, it's like, if someone told you to, if you took this like disgusting medicine every single day and it tasted horrible and you hated taking it, but you knew that it was going to, it was going to be really good for you.
Like at first, like, when it comes to social media and putting it out there, it's like so uncomfortable. And you don't want to do it in it. And then once you do it, you get more comfortable with it. And it's, you're seeing results and it's you, and it's, it's, I, you just have to put yourself out there.
Whatever that is. I mean, social media building relationships, it's just you constantly have happy constantly have to be in front of people. And I luckily have a couple young people that work with me and who are always like, let's film this, let's do this. And I'm like, oh, God, there's so many conversations.
But in the day, I'm happy we did it. So it's just, it's like going to the gym or whatever. It's like some days, you don't want to do it, but you just do it. And so it's just stay consistent, keep building, leverage up.
I don't care if it's you're walking around the brokers open and you're going into beautiful homes. I've done that at the beginning of my career, I would go to brokers open and I put on my story and people like, Oh my God, man, you're killing it, you're going in great houses. The perception is that it is. So that perception is really important today.
So just put yourself out there. Thank you so much. And thanks again for everybody tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it.
And remember, embrace its beautiful success in life. My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time.