Melanie Giglio-Vakos of Team MVP at Compass is not only a top 1% agent – she’s currently the 12th highest producing real estate broker in Chicago (out of 45k brokers). Melanie talks about how a bad buying experience motivated her to get her license and how hard work is her secret weapon. She also discusses how she continually evolves her business to reflect the ever-changing market.

Melanie Giglio-Vakos can be reached at [email protected] and 312.953.4998.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Quicken Loans real estate professionals. When you work with Quicken Loans, you have an agent relationship manager available to you and your team. These dedicated experts are part of the agent relations team. They serve as your single point of coordination so you can count on them to keep you in the loop throughout your client’s entire home buying process, call 888-980-2891 or go to real estate dot Quicken loans.com Today, call for cost information and conditions equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states NMLS consumer access.org Number 3030 And now under the show Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made for real estate brokers for buy real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris. I am your host and guide through the show. And coming up in just a moment. We have an amazing interview with top producer Melanie Giglio. Before we do, I’m going to ask you for a huge favor. Everyone who is listening, of course you’re listening. If you’re hearing this voice, I want you to close your eyes. If unless you’re driving, I want you to think about one broker that you know could benefit from hearing interviews like the one coming up here with Melanie top producers sharing their secrets, think of one broker in your office or maybe at a different office that could really benefit and as soon as we’re done, I want you to send this episode over to them. And we would appreciate it. And if every one of our listeners did that, we would of course double our listenership and be able to help even more of you and produce even more of these episodes. So by doing that you’re really helping us grow. And so we can continue to provide this content for free for you to help you grow, as well. So thank you in advance. Also, please follow us on Facebook every single day, we post an article that we think we’ll help you grow your business. And then we also do weekly video on there, too. That’s only 60 seconds long. And it’s a summarizes what we’ve been talking about on these podcast episodes. So also, if you want to follow us, in addition to Facebook, you can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from our website, keeping it real pod.com. And if you’re using a podcast app, just search for keeping it real podcast, and you should be able to find us. We’re on iTunes, we’re on Google Play. We are also in Stitcher, Spotify, any podcast director you should be able to find us. And lastly, just thank you so much for continuing to listen support our partners, and it’s telling a friend so let’s get to our interview with Melanie ganglia.

Today on the show, we have Melanie Giglio Makos, who runs the MVP team at Compass before I get into ...

Welcome to the October episode of Investor Insights With Brie Schmidt!

Brie Schmidt is one of the most well-respected buy-and-hold investors in Chicago. Each month we discuss an investment topic brokers should master.

In this episode Brie talks about one of the biggest challenges when starting to work with investors – making sure you have boundaries around the amount of time you’re willing to devote. Without a clear set of expectations in place you may find that you’ll put in more hours than is reasonable. Brie shares best practices on how to make sure the relationship is worthwhile to you, the broker!

Please visit Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit as mentioned on the show.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Quicken Loans real estate professionals. When you work with Quicken Loans, you have an agent relationship manager available to you and your team. These dedicated experts are part of the agent relations team. They serve as your single point of coordination so you can count on them to keep you in the loop throughout your client’s entire home buying process, call 888-980-2891 or go to real estate dot Quicken loans.com Today, call for cost information and conditions equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states NMLS consumer access.org Number 3030 And now onto the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for real estate brokers by real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris. I am your host and guide through the show and today we have our investor insight monthly episode with Bree Schmidt. Now if you’re not familiar with Bri, let me tell you a little bit about her. Bree Schmidt acquired her first investment property in 2011 and left the corporate world in 2014 when she became a full time real estate investor. She’s the managing broker of Second City Real Estate a full service brokerage working with new investors and seasoned investors looking to expand their knowledge of the industry and their portfolio for utilizes her extensive knowledge of building and managing a portfolio to teach clients all about all aspects of buy and hold investing. Bri teaches how to analyze potential properties, calculating your ROI best practices within marketing and leasing, and also how to be a landlord and build a portfolio. Her job does not end when you close on a property she is always available to help you throughout the process and scale your business. She is the co founder of the Midwest real estate networking summit, which is a nonprofit educational summit for real estate investors. It’s a three day annual event provides new to experienced investors with the tools and connections necessary to build a real estate business. And they just announced their 2020. Next dates. And so if you’re interested in you should if you’re at all interested in real estate investing or working with investors go and attend the Midwest real estate summit to get more information, visit Midwest ar e summit.com. Welcome Bri to welcome back to the show.

Brie Schmidt 2:41Yeah, thank you very much.

D.J. Paris 2:42It’s been a few months we should actually you just had a major life event.

Welcome to the October edition of Coaching Moments with Ryan D’Aprile!

How important is attitude? Ryan maintains it’s your single most valuable internal resource. Your attitude will provide you with the energy necessary to continue to scale a mountain while the rain is pouring down. It’s perhaps the only area of life where we have complete control. Ryan discusses how you should choose your attitude carefully and have it work for you, resulting in achieving more of what you want in life.

Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.492.7900 and [email protected].

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00On this episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Quicken Loans real estate professionals. When you work with Quicken Loans, you have an agent relationship manager available to you and your team. These dedicated experts are part of the agent relations team. They serve as your single point of coordination so you can count on them to keep you in the loop throughout your client’s entire home buying process, call 888-980-2891 or go to real estate dot Quicken loans.com Today, call for cost information and conditions equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states NMLS consumer access.org Number 3030 And now onto the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for real estate brokers by real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host and once again this is our monthly session called coaching moments with Ryan de April. If you’re not familiar with Ryan Ryan de April is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff. His strengths are his motivational skills, coaching style and his dedication to training. Ryan has partnered with Lindsay Miller, who’s the CEO of depot properties to build a dynamic organization based on a foundation of culture, character and community a depot properties has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland and is also in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan, you can learn more, or to join depot properties, visit them online at D APR properties.com. Ryan, thanks again for being on the show.

Ryan D’Aprile 1:49Thanks, TJ. Thanks for having me, I enjoy enjoy meeting with you on a monthly basis.

D.J. Paris 1:54Yeah, this is a lot of fun. And our audience loves it because they send us all emails almost every day, going back through your all the episodes we’ve done. So it is very much appreciated. So on behalf of the listeners, thank you, what would you like to talk about today? So we went

Ryan D’Aprile 2:10over a lot of skill set training I feel in the past few months. And so what I thought today might be a good topic would be talking about mindset, and a good attitude and an attitude of, you know, an attitude of gratitude and how you can really become more and more successful in life based upon your internal belief system. And how you look at life in general, your business, your home life, your personal life, and all these things I think they are. I wish we could silo our business and keep it separate. But it really does. It really does intertwine with our entire life. So I think something that’s very important in our industry, where it’s a very high EQ, emotional intelligence type business is how do you get back and kind...

New video feature! In addition to continuing to produce the long-form audio interviews with top 1% producers, we’re also going to serve you up some bite-sized video goodness!

Keeping It Real Podcast producer Liz Lape is here to guide you on an actionable strategy to help your business. It’s short, helpful, and also on video!

In today’s Liz Lesson she discusses how to market and retain Gen Z real estate clients through authenticity.

Transcript

Liz Lape 0:04Hey guys, I’m Liz leg and this is your weekly list lesson. Attracting Gen Z buyers can be confusing. They’re new to the buying game and have different values from the generation before them. Take it from a fellow Gen Z or this generation values authenticity and personal connection with content, and they lose interest fast, especially online. This may come as a surprise but polished online advertising won’t cut it. Gen Z buyers tend to ignore online advertisements I reject the idea of being sold. Instead, create the personal bond Gen Z craves by sharing short videos stating your values as if you are having a conversation. This will increase trust and personal connection between you and the buyer. Another strategy is to try providing Gen Z buyers with online platforms like having your own Facebook business page, where clients can voice their opinions provided an opportunity to feel more engaged in the process. Thanks for watching those lessons and I’ll see you next time.

Welcome to the October edition of Monday Market Minute with Carrie McCormick from At Properties!

Fresh from her speaking engagement as a panelist at Inman Luxury Connect in Beverly Hills, Carrie McCormick tells our listeners some of the insights she observed. For example, the rise of the importance of staging – buyers expect homes to be move-in ready and staged. Also, how you can use video to tell a story better than pictures. I provide a marketing tip on how to personalize your holiday cards for clients!

Carrie can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 312.961.4612.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00On this episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Quicken Loans real estate professionals. When you work with Quicken Loans, you have an agent relationship manager available to you and your team. These dedicated experts are part of the agent relations team. They serve as your single point of coordination so you can count on them to keep you in the loop throughout your client’s entire home buying process, call 888-980-2891 or go to real estate dot Quicken loans.com Today, call for cost information and conditions equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states NMLS consumer access.org Number 3030. And now onto the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made for real estate brokers by real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris, I’m your host and guide through the show, as always, today, we have the Monday market minute, which we do every month with the great Carrie McCormick. If you are a new listener and you haven’t yet got it listen to any of our Carrie money market minute episodes. Carrie is one of the top producing brokers in Chicago and this is a huge deal because there’s 45,000 brokers Carrie is always in the top 1% of 1%. She is literally one of the very highest producing brokers. She’s been a high producing broker for 20 years with App properties. And she just came back from Inman luxury connect where she was a featured panelist and speaker in Beverly Hills. So we are so excited to talk to you. So Carrie, welcome back to Chicago.

Carrie McCormick 1:50Well, thank you, it was such a fun panel to be part of it was a privilege. I was seated next to Kevin Thompson, who I’ve never met in person. I’ve always seen him on panels or in, you know, different write ups. But he’s the Chief Marketing Officer of Sotheby’s International based in New York. So I got the privilege of talking to him backstage personally for a little while. And then of course, you know, seated on the panel with him. And then another gentleman that I was with is dusty Baker. He is a top producer from Southern California, also with Sotheby’s and, you know, talking to these two gentlemen that, you know, one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast selling millions and millions of dollars of real estate it was it was such a privilege, and especially to be in Beverly Hills. I don’t know, you know, how many people been out there? I’ve been out there once before, but it’s, it’s kind of lala land. It’s really it’s really interesting place to be and, you know, millions of dollars of real estate are traded in that town. It’s unbelievable.

D.J. Paris 2:57Yeah, so tell us a little bit about what you you know what you spoke about what you learned, let’s, let’s Yeah, the listeners.

New video feature! In addition to continuing to produce the long-form audio interviews with top 1% producers, we’re also going to serve you up some bite-sized video goodness!

Keeping It Real Podcast producer Liz Lape is here to guide you on an actionable strategy to help your business. It’s short, helpful, and also on video!

In today’s Liz Lesson she discusses why real estate brokers should price their seller’s properties ONLY in multiples of 10k.

Transcript

Liz Lape 0:04Hey, I was late producer for keeping it real podcast and this is a list lesson. Did you know that you should be pricing your listings in multiples of 10,000 for example, 300,000 or 310,000. The reason for this might not be so obvious. Let’s say someone is looking to spend 300,000 on home, and you’re selling a 300,000 home but President 299,000 to be competitive. The problem with this has to do with the way people search online. If a buyer is looking for a home on Zillow for 300,000, they might make 300,000 Their minimum and your listing will never be saved. In fact, studies show that by pricing and multiples of 10,000 these listings get 50% More views. So list all your homes for sale in multiples of 10,000 Thanks. See you next time.

Danielle Dowell is one of the most successful Chicago brokers, but perhaps the most incredible part of her story is that she moved to Chicago knowing only ONE person. After a year in real estate she became a top broker and has remained one for the past twelve years. As her business grew, she realized it was time to add more staff. Danielle founded The Dowell Group in 2015 which now has ten members. She’s routinely asked to speak at conferences, television, and now, on our podcast. In this episode she explains how she found success and how you can, too!

Danielle Dowell can be reached at 312-391-5655 and [email protected].

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Quicken Loans real estate professionals. When you work with Quicken Loans, you have an agent relationship manager available to you and your team. These dedicated experts are part of the agent relations team. They serve as your single point of coordination so you can count on them to keep you in the loop throughout your client’s entire home buying process, call 888-980-2891 or go to real estate dot Quicken loans.com Today, call for cost information and conditions equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states NMLS consumer access.org Number 3030. And now onto the show.

Hello, and welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for brokers by brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we have an interview with the great Danielle doll. Before we get to Danielle, a couple of quick items. Everyone who is listening, you need to follow us on Facebook. So go to facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod why? Well, we wanted to make give you an actual reason to follow us on Facebook, we post daily content, we find articles all over the web that will help you build your real estate business, we post one of those a day plus, our producer, the great Liz Lape does a video once a week called Liz lessons where she for about a minute or two talks about something that you can take action on immediately to grow your business. So again, go to facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And also if you want to stream all of our old episodes, which you can also find on Facebook, go to our website, right, which is keeping it real pod.com every single episode we’ve done, we’ve done well over 105 or six of them at this point, you can go back and listen to every single interview we’ve done and learn how to grow your business like the top 1% producers do. And then lastly, don’t forget to tell a friend the way that we have grown this business by spending literally $0 Since we started is by word of mouth. So if this content is valuable to you, and I suspect it hopefully would be if you’re listening, make sure to tell every other real estate professional, you know this exists. And also if you have ideas of people we should be interviewing and talking to on the show, send us that information as well. Again, we always say thank you to our listeners and also to our wonderful guests who take time out of their busy day. And they don’t have time to do this right. The people we interview are way too busy to talk to a dummy like me, but they do it anyway. And we’re super grateful so and we also of course are grateful to all of you who listened. So thank you guys so much. And now on to our interview with Danielle doll.

Today on the show,

Before real estate Danny Lewis was a public relations and advertising executive. He offered to sell his grandfather’s home, and after that transaction, realized he had caught the real estate bug. Danny converted the marketing skills he had developed into a successful real estate career quickly, building not only a successful practice for himself, but also a strong team now known as Lewis Real Estate Group. In this episode Danny discusses not only how to build a team, but also why he recently moved to Dreamtown. As one of the youngest top 1% brokers in Chicago, he continues to expand his reach and success!

Danny Lewis can be reached at 773-988-9092 and [email protected].

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Quicken Loans real estate professionals. When you work with Quicken Loans, you have an agent relationship manager available to you and your team. These dedicated experts are part of the agent relations team. They serve as your single point of coordination so you can count on them to keep you in the loop throughout your client’s entire home buying process, call 888-980-2891 or go to real estate dot Quicken loans.com. Today, call for cost information and conditions equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states NMLS consumer access.org Number 3030 And now under the shop

Welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate brokers for real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris, I am your host and guide through the show. As always, we want to start out by saying thank you to our listeners, and our hosts both who are spending their time either listening or contributing to the podcast, we greatly appreciate it. And a couple of quick announcements before we get started, we do have a sponsor that will be coming on a future episode. So we’re very excited about that. And if you’d like to be a sponsor, for any of our upcoming episodes, you can always reach out to us, the easiest way is go to our our website, which is keeping it real pod.com By the way, that is also the place where you can stream every episode we’ve ever done. Also, of course, we’re on iTunes, Google Play or any podcast app that you might have on your phone. Just search for keeping it real podcast, and you should find us right away. Also, please join our Facebook group, which is facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. We not only post of course links to all the episodes, but also links to articles that we find online that will help you with your business, as well as links to the host or sorry, the guests that we promote. So you can get an idea of what they are doing a digitally as well and follow them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and their websites, of course. So again, thank you for listening, we are gosh, well over 100 episodes now we’re going strong or to keep going strong. And it’s because of you who continue to listen. And our waiting list to for guests to be on the show is now approaching 100. That’s how popular this podcast has become. And we’re so grateful that it seems to strike a chord and help people but we also always need your suggestions. So don’t hesitate to reach out to us, through our website through Facebook. Any way you can find us and say here’s what I want on the show, here’s who I want. And that’ll help us give you guys the best content that would be helpful for your business....

Welcome to the August edition of Coaching Moments with Ryan D’Aprile!

What if canceled, FSBO & expired listings weren’t as difficult to convert as most brokers imagine? In this episode Ryan discusses how to approach these challenging prospects and how to convert them into clients. He also recounts a story about how he turned 12k into 150k in his first two years in real estate through a monthly mailing strategy. That’s a 1,150% return!

Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.492.7900 and [email protected].

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the only podcast made by brokers for brokers, which isn’t true, but we haven’t come up with a better tagline yet, but we might be the biggest podcast out there for brokers by brokers. So we’re very excited because we are doing as per usual, our coaching moments with Ryan D APR segment. So Ryan is on the line. Let me introduce Ryan before he says hello, if you don’t know him, or aren’t yet as familiar as you should be, he comes on once a month and does a coaching session. And the reason why is this is what Ryan does professionally in his own company. So he owns a brokerage firm here in Chicago. They have 13 offices in the suburbs city, actually in three states, I believe, and Ryan actually in their 400 Plus brokers. And in addition to running the business, Ryan also travels, the majority of his time is spent traveling from office to office training his agents and coaching them, and he is generously doing the same for our listeners. So actually, before I bring Ryan on, we should promote as if you’re interested in and you’re a broker or a client, somebody who’s looking to work with a broker, looking to work with somebody from Ryan’s company go to Depot properties.com, which I will also post a link to in the podcast notes and Ryan’s team. They’re always looking for more brokers and their brokers are always looking for clients. So if you’re interested in either of that, contact Ryan’s team at Depot properties.com. Welcome, Ryan.

Ryan D’Aprile 1:39Thanks, TJ. Thanks for having me. It’s always it’s a pleasure. I look forward to these.

D.J. Paris 1:43Yeah, we’re excited to to have you on we get a lot of great feedback for doing these episodes, in particular, because every broker out there whether they’re a top one percenter, like the ones we interview, or maybe a listener who wants to be a top one percenter, everybody needs coaching, you need coaching, I need coaching, we all need it. And the fact that you come on once a month to provide it is really a big deal. We’re really grateful for

Ryan D’Aprile 2:07that. Thanks. Oh, pleasure. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 2:09so Well, I’ve at our firm, we have hundreds and hundreds of brokers, you have the same, and Ryan and I were just talking offline, and he’s like, What are you hearing at your firm? Like, what are what are people say? And, and I said, Gosh, not that much. And then I realized, well, that’s because people are pretty busy. It’s the summer, there’s a lot of activity, I see it in the number of transactions, not even just at our firm, but just across the board and Chicago transactions are up,...

Welcome to the August episode of Learning With A Lender with Joel Schaub!

In this episode Joel Schaub partners with Christine, a renovation loan expert at Guaranteed Rate, to explain everything real estate brokers need to understand about these products. They get into detail about FHA 203k loans and how to use for both home improvement and home purchase. If you’re not familiar with renovation loans, you will be by the end of this episode!

Joel Schaub can be reached at [email protected] or 773.654.2049.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:13Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for real estate brokers by real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris. I am your host and guide through the show today we have our monthly regular segment called Learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. If you’re not yet familiar with Joel, let me tell you a little bit about him. He is a vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. Joel has been doing loans at a high level since 2003. And it’s gotten to that level because of what he does directly for agents and their clients, which is he gives part of his commission back to the buyer on every transaction. Last year alone, he gave back over $271,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with them and that put jewels value in the top 1/10 of 1%. nationwide. out of 380,000 loan officers in the country. Joel has been ranked number 181 year to date, he has closed 163 transactions for just under 58 million in closing. In the month of July alone, Joel’s close to 15 million, which exceeds the entire amount he did in the first quarter. And it’s not like the first quarter was slow. Joel is never slow. By the way, if you are looking for a lender, you really need to look no further. Joel is your is your person. He’s your guy. The his slogan is just called Joel because when you do, he actually will take such great care. You’ll never need to call anyone else. Here’s how to get in touch with Joel can be reached at Joel JL e [email protected]. Or you can reach him on his phone which is 773-654-2049. So let us say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel Schaub Good morning.

Joel Schaub 2:00Hey, good morning, everybody. I really appreciate it. That warm introduction. All the accolades aside, it’s really about giving back. And I think today is going to be a really good show, because we have some knowledge that’s going to help the real estate agents actually close more transactions. And isn’t that what it’s about? We want to be able to provide some value. And I know that we have some great topics for today.

D.J. Paris 2:23Great. Let’s get started. Oh, let’s

Joel Schaub 2:25jump right into it. Right. And so here’s where we’re at. The market was strong. And I think right after the fourth of July, what we saw was a slight amount of this softening. And so what we want to do is help agents out there that maybe you have a property that’s in a perfect location, but it needs updating. We’ve seen this a lot, right? DJ, there’s properties that are great, but what is it you walk into? And there’s something wrong with it? Yeah, maybe it’s not the right kitchen, maybe literally as a big amount of space, and they want to do an addition.