Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another SLG meetup, your host, Alvar and Union to bring you another successful and interesting guest. His name is Adam Rosenfeld and he's the founder and principal of the Grandman Rosenfeld Group. Within the agency, he's a very successful real estate broker with over $3 billion of sales in his career. He's based in Los Angeles and you probably have seen him at the famous TV show on Netflix called Buying Beverly Hills.
He has won multiple accolades and he's going to tell us all about how he has become such a successful icon in real estate and everything from the show, the trends and the insights on how you can also become a superstar within your industry. So exciting to have him here with us today. There he is. We are much, man.
Yeah, man. I know we didn't coordinate it today but it works out perfectly. I love it. That's amazing.
Good to see you. Nice to meet you. Everything is really good. Really good.
No complaints. All good stuff in our world. How are you doing? You look a little bit better the last time we searched Alvar and I was a little rough, man.
I think a lot of people think that a lot of these reality shows are super scripted and admittedly some parts are produced but that was a very real moment. The night before was a rough evening and when I saw you I was a little worse for work. That was over a year ago. It was crazy.
Just to put it on context for everybody. Last night that Adam and I saw each other, he was at a beautiful 20 million plus listening where we were shooting for the second season of Five Beverly Hills. Here in Miami. You were enjoying Miami.
Miami will do that. Miami native. I grew up there and lived in South Beach for many years. After spending 12 years here, I think I forgot what Miami Night Life can do to you.
My older age, I really settled down and I'm not one to visit local night life as much anymore. Miami always shows me a good time every time. Well, you're always welcome. This is home for you and we'll show you a good time every time you come.
In the meantime, you moved into Los Angeles and not only moved in there but you became a very successful real estate professional with over $3 billion from sales in your career. You found it with John and the Grandma and Ross and the group. I love you guys. You too are amazing and you've been killing it in the game.
Tell us a little bit on how the transition took place because not everybody knows about how you got started. Now they see your Netflix, this good looking guy, selling multi-million dollar homes and all the successes behind but what's the story behind? How do you actually got started in real estate? It was a long journey.
It was not a journey I ever thought I would go on. I'm being really candid. When I got into the business, it's not a business that I really respected a lot, the genuine of you guys. I came from a legal background so I went to Los Angeles back in Miami after college and didn't practice for a very long period of time.
I think anyone gets to know me, understands that my natural personality and my skillset is really meant to be more relating to people and being in the legal fields, at least from me, I was sitting behind a desk just typing away all day long and I didn't like it. I had some circumstances in life where I was trying to figure out what to do and honestly I felt like I was lost for a while. I was living in New York. I thought I was going to go to medical school.
I went back to undergrad and took a bunch of courses and took the M pad a bunch of times. That was a really trying process. In the process of applying, I came out to Los Angeles to visit my brother who moved here on a whim back in 2011. I remember we were sitting on a couch one day and I was trying to figure out if I was going to go back to school or if I wanted to transition to life.
We were actually watching $1 million listing. At that point, I thought maybe I would go into commercial real estate and my brother being the consummate, big brother, basically looked at me and said, this is what you should do. These guys can do this. You can do this.
A lot of people have the same kind of story. At least when you look at Los Angeles now, everybody moved out here to get into Hollywood or get into modeling and try to make it in that big world. Now, I think because of the popularity of these TV shows, you see more people coming to Los Angeles to try to create this real estate. It's like 30,000 agents out here.
I thought with my education and legal background, it would be a very easy transition. It seemed like a good idea. Because I had that degree, I didn't have to go through all the coursework. I was able to just take the exam and get licensed.
I think I was very naive in assuming that people would be learning to work with me. In the real estate, the requirements to become licensed are very low. I think that's why there has become such a crazy stigma in the business. There are so many licensed agents.
Everybody knows 10 people that are licensed. I learned very quickly that it was not going to be so easy. Being in a market that is not my home market, I just didn't have the connections or relationships here to get the ground running. I humbled myself pretty quickly and I went to work as an assistant for my first year in the business, working with a high-producing agent.
That was even hard to do just because nobody would really give me the time of day without any experience regardless of what my educational background was. One guy gave me a shot and I learned a lot in that year, a lot in terms of how I would do business and a lot in terms of things I would never want to do. Everyone has a different style. I realized pretty quickly that to enter the general populace as a listing agent or even a buyer's representative was going to be tough giving the amount of competition out there and again just my lack of relationships.
I needed to create a business model and a niche that I thought would work well for me. There's this unwritten rule that if you find them a property at the very least you're going to get a piece at the back end and that will only help you for the grow and cultivate business. I started with my very shy personality walking onto construction sites and I would try to find the owners of the contractors. I'm not trying to get your listing.
I respect the fact that you already have a relationship specifically on this property and I know it means a lot of stuff on toes but if you're doing this one I'm guessing you're likely going to want to do more. I would love to be able to hustle some off market opportunities for you and see what I can come up with. That's what I did. I started just building relationships with other agents in the business which I think is so often overlooked.
People oftentimes think this is an adversarial business and certain personalities can be but when it's really done right it shouldn't be that way. People typically in our business are working mutually together regardless of what's not your own to close the deal because that's obviously how we all get hit. I started gathering information and kind of acting as a private investigator and I would come up with these deals and bring them to developers and at the first it was tough because I would bring them anything I came across a hard hit and some of them would get really annoyed at me like why are you sending me this junk. There's no money in it.
So I really had to learn what the cost of land was, what the cost of construction was, what was it going to cost the finance and then reverse engineer all of that to understand how much profit was left in the deal after you removed closing cost commissions etc. And I started to be able to really hone in on what made sense. And in my second year is when I did my first transaction and then I started to snowball from there. I just started doing transaction after transaction and it ultimately grew into a great business because as you start getting those deals again they become listings and then when you get those those things you can mark yourself around those things and very fortunately for me my trajectory just kind of catapulted very quickly.
And sometimes I think it's better to be looking good and there was a lot of luck in terms of the preliminary years of my success. Yeah, you end up like by working relentlessly on something that you believed in because it's a hell of a story and a lot of people can really resonate with it because we have often come across a situation where we are not satisfied with our current career and because of the fear of leaving that comfort zone we keep on doing the same thing and you decided to dive in to a completely different industry you saw that TV show with your brother you followed that advice and then you just focus on that niche market and religiously kept on going the leaving that eventually will work and look at you the compound effect right it started to keep on compounding and here you are now selling some of the most incredible homes. Now my question is did you ever imagine when you were watching Million Dollar Listing that you will end up also being on a show? No, not in a million years.
It was kind of a surreal moment and I talked about it now laughing. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, what's going on? It was kind of surreal looking back after doing it and thinking back to that moment, you know, I guess it was 12, 13 years ago and how things come full circle and all candidates I'm not the most spiritual guy, but moments like that it just kind of feels like serendipity and it's a Pinterest of moment and you know, to some degree I guess everything does have to be a reason but it's been pretty cool and it was a longer together. The first season was announced I think it was maybe three or four months after I partnered with John and came to the agency.
I think I wanted to know part of it. I was I was afraid that it was going to be another one of these, you know, reality real estate shows that was really just kind of foundationalized and drama and petty bickering and fighting and you know, no, there's just nothing something sense because I love Jason and I've watched that show in the past, but if that's what the show was going to be, I really had no interest in doing it. I tended to be more under the radar and low key and that's kind of how I like live my life. So I did a couple scenes with John in that first season just kind of as a background character and after watching it, it really felt like it was more benign and a pretty decent show.
So when season two came around and they asked again, you know, I spoke to John about it and after some lobbying from him decided to just give it go and honestly no regrets. I had so much fun doing it. The cast is great. We all actually get along really well and you know, I think we created what was an entertaining program for people to watch and the feedback on it has been nothing short of great.
I've been really fortunate to really blessed to have been part of it and hopefully keep going. We don't know yet, but we'll see where it goes. That's an interesting statement because you come from this background of being shy under the radar, not wanting to put yourself out there and Jesus became a really charismatic character on TV. People really love who you represent and who you are as a real estate professional, but also as a human.
So it's one of those things that he helps you to even put out there more who you are and becomes like a machinist for opportunities because I'm sure that being in that show and putting yourself more out there, more opportunities have come your way. That was the pop behind it. You know, it was obviously there's very single in this business and many times you're going to be on a TV show. You have to kind of put your most charismatic stuff forward and I was really happy with the way at least I was portrayed.
There were some pretty situations I was put into. I was not aware of when it was all happening, but the overall result I think was good. And obviously I am not a featured featured member of the cast because it revolves mostly around the Ricio and his family. I'm really happy with my role there.
I was one of the kind of the constant professional room and whatever little person of segments they get into. I try to keep as much of that filtered as possible, but overall I just want to come across as somebody who really appreciates what he does, loves his work, hopefully has a sentiment of sincerity and and crumbleness and modesty because those are the things I value in life. And as you're growing up and you're cultivating your personality, there's the natural person who you are and then the rest of it is modeled after people that you truly admire and the people that always admire in life. You know, it's a single real big stick, but they speak really quietly.
And I'm never someone who really gets rattled. I never lose my cool. I always kind of seem to be pretty even. And I'm always just kind of focused on the big picture.
And I tell this to John all the time. I'm very op-hum independent. I do my job to the best of my ability and whatever happens happens, you know, but I don't get dug in or lost in any one deal. And when it comes to filming the show, you know, I hope it came across with me being my kind about the itself and I feel like I did.
Oh, no, 100%. And when you said it right there, sometimes in the show they do the edits, so it kind of changes a little bit on who you actually are, but it comes across as reliable, passionate, knowledgeable, which are some of the characteristics that really represent who you are and your personal brand. So this is one of the things that I also want to talk about because for a lot of people that don't have access to be on a TV show or that have that similar personality of being a little bit more shy and have that struggle of being in front of a camera because anybody can be on a camera, right? So when it comes to building your brand and landing more leads, because it didn't take you one night while the salad is selling this multi-million dollar house, it was that compound effect going into those construction sites, trying to build those partnerships, work with other agents.
But what would you say has been kind of your go-to to lead or to get those top leads? It's always been my fear, you know, just the people in my world. There's a lot of strategies that work in real estate. Some are tried to intrude in very old school, like cold calling and doorking.
That was never something I was really comfortable with. You know, maybe I would have been successful doing it, but I always kind of relied on my personality, you know, my dogmatic approach to be successful and kind of never getting up and always trying to figure out what the next solution for me was. But ultimately, I think what worked for me was figuring out again my niche and it started with developers and then it's spanned into working with other professionals. And the core of our business now is really working with business managers, attorneys, anyone who essentially has a book of business that really needs a resource like us to essentially help cater their book and someone that they can go to that they really can trust and rely on to know the job is going to get done and ultimately make them look like heroes.
So, you know, I think that's been something that's been wonderful for us. And now that we're out prospecting, we're not necessarily looking to pick up on client here there. Every business manager or attorney we pick up as kind of a trusted asset and resource, you're picking up 30 clients, 40 clients, depending on what their book of business is. And for me, it's always been about working smarter in addition to working harder and that's going to core of our lead generation at this point.
I love it. If you had to look back to 2011 when you made that decision, when you were watching that show and you were starting all over again, will you do something differently? No, I don't think so. I'm ecstatic and thrilled with kind of the way my life path has turned out in the trajectory I've been on.
Ultimately, I love what I do over it. You know, like every day I wake up and I get excited to go to work. I'm excited to be around people. I'm blessed and fortunate that I get to walk and represent some of the most incredible properties that people have ever seen or built.
I love the artistry of it. I've been fortunate enough to do some of my own developments. And that's one of the best things about real estate. In addition to working as a broker every day, real estate is like legal insider trading in a sense because I see the opportunities before the market's opportunities and I see the best opportunities before the market's opportunities and there are certain deals that are so good.
It's like why sell them off to somebody else if I could take it down myself and ultimately create a vision that I know is going to make this the highest best use for this project. And we've done a few hours at this point and because I've worked with so many developers in my time, I really understand that segment and facet of the business and I'm starting to kind of not necessarily transition because I want to do this forever. I genuinely love what I do and I think I've got to a point where I'm fortunate that I can kind of pick and choose my clients and I want to do that forever but I want to have other kind of facets of creativity and things I can do to continue to grow and further myself in this field and development is one of those things that I'm really passionate about and I want to keep doing. Is that what you see yourself doing more long term, starting to become more of a developer and investor?
I do without a question. It starts with modest roots and you kind of start with smaller projects and little quick remodels and some paint and some change of stone on islands and cabinets and then eventually you move on to full on remodels and then it becomes ground up construction and sometimes I have this kind of concept or idea of moving at the different segments and aspects of the world. Ultimately I'd love to be in hospitality and I think true long term vision would be kind of more of a bike or I'm spending half my time in Miami and potentially half my time here in Los Angeles. The two cities that absolutely have my heart and the two places I'd really like to live on term.
Well that's amazing. I see you doing that. It fits perfectly that whole storyline that you've been building and I see you doing that. You're already doing it so whatever we can do to support you in this side of the country for sure can't as in and just to kind of get your brain a little bit on what's going on right now with the real estate marketing in Los Angeles.
How do you see it? Is it something that is currently stable and stable growing from what your thoughts on it? We have some unique challenges here but I think are different than probably other markets in the country. You know, sure we are subject to the same issues that the rest of the country deals with in terms of the higher interest rate environment that we currently have right now which hopefully will be changing soon.
So over the last couple of years since there's been quantitative tightening our market has slowed down quite a bit. COVID was an interesting thing for us with a great reshuffling and people moving all over the country and obviously California has stayed in contact so there have been a lot of people that have been wanting to leave the state to go to places like Florida or Texas etc. But at the same time there have been a lot of people coming to the state. When you live in a place like New York which is obviously a wonderful city but you can really drag on you when something like COVID happens and you no longer have to be in the city you work.
Essentially you can work on a computer anywhere. Los Angeles is a great option for people and if you're okay paying the letter tax as we call it, the quality of life here is really nice. But in addition to those issues we have some other issues. So there's this measured ULA which is a very specific issue to Los Angeles which people have classified as a mansion tax.
It's actually not a mansion tax because it covers every sector of real estate. And just to make concise essentially what it is is roughly a 5% cross tax on the sale of any property north of 5 million dollars. And again that can be residential, commercial, industrial, hospitality doesn't matter. And that's been a real drag in terms of the local economy because a lot of owners are very disincentivized to sell property.
So as an example if you bought a property for $12 million and now you need to go and sell it and you want to sell it, you have to sell it for 10 because of market conditions. But okay you've lost $2 million but now you're paying essentially $500,000 right off the top which brings you down to 9.5. So it's really kind of created the dent in terms of the local infrastructure in terms of how we operate and where we're going. And there's been a lot of pushback on that but ultimately no result.
And not to say that it's all bad. There's a lot of good that potentially comes out of a program like ULA as long as the city is used in money as they say they are. But there's very little checks and balances here. And it's a city run by city council more so than the mayor.
And we keep running into these issues. There's an ordinance they're trying to pass right now called the wildlife ordinance which is essentially an anti-mansionization ordinance which greatly diminishes the amount of square footage you can build. Or in what's deemed the hills or essentially north of sunset. So again just as another example if you have a two acre flat compounds in homebie hills of a layer it used to be that you could build roughly 30,000 plus square feet.
Now with this wildlife ordinance you would be capped at 6,000 square feet. So it's a great differential and that also greatly affects property values. The one irony of it is you have one side of the city clamoring to get this money from ULA which is based on purchase prices and taxes. And then you have the other side that's essentially reducing the amount of square footage that can be built which collapses property values and pulls money out of the coffers of ULA.
Because if I can only build 6,000 square feet and I'm going to sell this property. So instead of selling it for 70 or 80 million what I'm selling it for. It's really reduced and then that means there's less money coming from the sale to go back to the city for ULA. So there's a lot of frustration here right now and it's really kind of bottleneck and slow down the market and ultimately we'll see where it all ends up.
But ULA is still again a contentious topic. Recently it was supposed to go in front of the court for something called TPA to be passed which was the Taxpayer Protection Act. And Governor Newsom filed an immediate lawsuit to try to essentially call that. And the local court agreed with Governor Newsom so now it's going to go into court of appeals and potentially all the way to the Supreme Court but we really don't know where that will ultimately end up.
Well, I mean the most important thing is to have somebody that you can translate is knowledgeable to know exactly what is going on and that's why I think that right now your role becomes more important than ever just so that owners and buyers understand the situation and that you can guide them directly through to the best it's possible. And hopefully when it comes to the loss it will all kind of like stabilize a little bit and make more sense so that it will benefit also the owners at that level. But yeah, it seems to be an interesting concept. I would say I'll give you one piece of advice to people in this industry or people who are aspiring to be in this industry.
It's such a saturated industry and there's so much competition. So you really have to find ways to stand out. And the real true way to stand out is by providing value, really understanding the market, really understanding what's happening locally in government and in politics and what the potential pitfalls are for every buyer and seller. And it used to be that agents were the gatekeepers of information in terms of the properties that were available.
But now with the advent of Zillow and the records of the world, any consumer can go online and find property. So you just sending somebody a Zillow link or record link saying this looks like a great house and you're touring the property and saying look at the kitchen, look at the bathroom. There's no value in that. Right?
Like a chimpanzee can do that. So what else can you do to add value? How can you really provide for a client long term and not be some myopic that you're just thinking about one deal and counting the condition before the deal closes? You got to think real long term in the business.
And if you want to be a true fiduciary and a constant professional, you have to treat the business like that because there's a lot of fly by night agents that say they do it full time but they're really doing it part time and maybe they sell one deal and then they take off for a little while and come back and sell another one to react to bank account. That's not really a try to do this. It's not just a one person job. And I would really dig in and try to understand the back end and the infrastructure of how this business works and make sure you're applying that on a daily basis because if not, people like John and I are going to eat your line.
And it's imperative to know that there's really good, confident and sophisticated people that you're going to be able to do that. And if you're not going to be one of them, the cream always rises in the top. So your best foot forward. Great advice.
I mean, great advice and definitely applies to anything. I think that adding value is foremost one of the most important things to do in any industry, especially when it comes to real estate because it's a very saturated market. And how you stand out from everyone else, it comes down to the specific formula. How can I add value?
So great, great words of advice. I really appreciate you, Adam. I know that you have also a busy day ahead in Los Angeles, keeping with everything that is going on. Whenever you come down here to Miami, we'll definitely see how we can do more exciting things together.
And for people that want to connect with you or want to learn more about what you're doing, what can they find you? So right here on Instagram, I'm really engaged with people that reach out, you know, a post show. Obviously a ton of messages came in, but for those that kind of follow or reach out, somebody takes the time to write something thoughtful and respectful. I always try to respond.
So I'm happy to engage there. Otherwise, groundinrosanfall.com is just a website or just the agency RE.com, easy ways to find me. And just want to say, Alvaro, thank you so much for taking the time to sit and have this conversation with me today. I think you know how much respect and admiration I have for you.
I love what you do. And really looking forward to seeing and hanging with you again. Thank you. Take care.
Bye. Bye guys. And thanks again for everybody tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it.
I remember. Embrace its beautiful, success in life. My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time.