Keeping It Real Podcast • Secrets Of Top 1% REALTORS ® • Interviews With Real Estate Brokers & Agents

The fact that Steven Koleno has closed over 300 sales transactions this year (his second year doing sales) as a real estate agent is astonishing, however, it’s not surprising. In 2016, Steven closed over 1200 MLS rental transactions. He wanted to perfect that model before moving on to sales. Steven is currently the #13 highest producing agent in Illinois (out of over 60k brokers). In this episode Steve shares how he builds systems to become more efficient, effective, and how you can do the same!

Steven Koleno can be reached at 630-796-6500 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 another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for real estate agents, by real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host and guide through the show. And we’re in December and it’s starting to get cold here in Chicago. Hopefully it’s a little warmer, wherever you are, as so thank you for continuing to listen and support our show. We have actually doubled our numbers from the since this time last year, I just looked them up, which is really exciting and cool. And we have sponsors and so we appreciate everyone who continues to listen. And if you want to continue to support our show, tell a friend if you know any other realtors out there that could benefit from listening to secrets of top producers like Steve, which you’re about to hear in just a moment. Please pass this podcast over. Anyone can find us on any podcast app, just search for keeping it real podcast. If you’re an iTunes person where their Google Play Stitcher, really anywhere podcasts are served. And also you can stream every episode. For those of you that aren’t really into podcasts, you can stream every episode right from our website, keeping it real pod.com. And lastly, join our Facebook group which is facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod or just search for keeping URL podcast. And the reason for that is number one we post. We post every time we have a new episode. And you can obviously get you know notified when we have new episodes there. But also every single day our producer Liz comes out and posts an article that she finds online specific to helping you grow your business. We do that every single day. So guys go to facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and like our page so you can get those notifications. All right. I hope everybody has a wonderful holiday season. We’re going to crank out a few more of these episodes before the end of the year. But right now on to our great interview with the great Steve Kalina.

Today on the show, we have Steve Kalina. Over the past few years deep cleaning has quietly built a successful track record representing investors in their real estate transactions. Steve began his real estate career in 2006 as a real estate investor himself...

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

In our final Monday Market Minute of 2019, Carrie talks about how the real estate market has performed both nationwide and locally in Chicago. She also mentions how important staging a home prior to listing is in this era of Instagram. Carrie makes some predictions for 2020 and I provide a tip about how to demonstrate care to your clients in the new year.

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

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 by real estate agents for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host and guide through the show. And today as we do every month we have our Monday market minute with guest host and superstar producer in Chicago, Carrie McCormack of add properties. Carrie is one of the top real estate brokers here in Chicago out of 46,000. She’s routinely in the literally the top 20 At any given moment. That’s how big of a producer she is. And she’s been in the business for over 20 years. And we are so excited to have her on the show. And once again, welcome Carrie,

Carrie McCormick 1:36thank you so much, you always give me such a nice introduction. So I appreciate that. But I’m really happy to be on the show. And I will say that, you know, after we we do the show, and throughout the month, I do get calls from some of the listeners in emails with questions. So I want to just start off the bat by telling everyone I appreciate that. And I think, you know, part of our job as realtors in the community is you know, giving back as well. So feel free to call me email me whatever it is, you know, with your questions. I love to hear from everybody and love to help anybody out.

D.J. Paris 2:10And what’s the best way that one of our listeners can reach out to you if they do have a question?

Carrie McCormick 2:14Yeah, I’m always accessible. That’s my motto, I’m 100% accessible. And it’s true. I mean, people call me all time. But really, it’s call me 312-961-4612. Or you can always email me, I look at both my email and my text messages all the time. So Kerry, CA RR ie [email protected].

D.J. Paris 2:37Wonderful. Well, what are we going to talk about today?

Carrie McCormick 2:40So I thought, since we’re at the end of 2019, to summarize, kind of the economy as a whole, because the economy, you know, it drives our real estate market, and just you know, how people are feeling. So I just wanted to touch on a few points. To summarize, you know, 2019, which is just our economy. First of all, our overall,

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

What does every professional athlete have in common? They ALL have coaches! And so should you! In this end-of-year episode Ryan discusses the importance of coaching, and how you can implement coaching for better accountability into your business for 2020.

Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.492.7900 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.

Welcome to keeping the real the largest podcast in the country made for real estate agents by real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris I am your guide and host for the show. Today is our monthly coaching moments episode with Brian De April. Ryan 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 depot properties has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland and also in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan and hundreds of brokers. A depot properties is a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with every single agent individually focused focusing on their business plan, coaching and accountability for the agents. If you’d like to take your career to the next level, or if you’re just not getting the attention you need from your firm, check out the April properties you can visit them at D APR properties.com. And welcome the owner of deal properties and the founder Ryan Ryan D APR. Welcome. Thanks, DJ.

Ryan D’Aprile 1:57How are you?

D.J. Paris 1:58I’m good. I’m really I love these episodes, because really you are the crux of what we are trying to do on the show. And we do it through various different ways by interviewing top 1% producers. And we’re so grateful that you who is really 100, a full time coach and a trainer to the trainer’s is willing to come on once a month. So this You’re exactly what we’re attempting to accomplish. And we get so much great feedback from your episodes. So really excited to have you on again.

Ryan D’Aprile 2:26I appreciate It’s my honor. How you how you Braving this cold?

D.J. Paris 2:29Good, so yeah, so for those of our listeners who are luckily not in Chicago, you’re not? Well, maybe in other parts of the country. It’s this cold too. But yeah, it’s pretty ugly this week. Lots of ice and snow, how about you

Ryan D’Aprile 2:41nowhere, like just boom, and I’ll hit us the snow in the cold but, but that’s why we live here. And that’s actually it’s why I love it here. I love the change I love,

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

In this episode Joel Schaub discusses the recent rate cut by the Federal Reserve and how this is NOT necessarily going to reflect mortgage rates decreasing. Often these cuts are predicted (in-advance) and lenders already have baked them into current rates. Also, Joel provides a strategy about asking your loan officer for a no-cost loan, and why that often is preferable than the lowest rate (plus fees). You’ll be able to call your contacts with this information and provide incredible value!

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

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Joel Schaub at guaranteed rate. As a realtor it’s important to partner with only the most trusted name in mortgage lending. Joel has 1000s of satisfied clients and gives $1,500 of his commission back to your buyers on every closing. He is known for his ability to close even complex deals start to finish in only 14 days to learn what 1000s of others already know. Make a note to call Joel at 773-654-2049 or email [email protected] Guaranteed Rate is an equal housing lender licensed in all 50 States Consumer Access Number 2611 And now on with the show.

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 guide and host through the show today we have our our regular episode learn with a lender with Joel shop. Now if you’re not familiar with Joel Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. He has been doing loans at a high level since 2003. And it’s gotten to that level because of what he does directly for his agents. And what he does is he gives back part of his commission to the buyer your client on every transaction. Last year alone, Joel gave back over $271,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him and that put Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% nationwide. Now out of 380,000 loan officers in the country. Joel is ranked number 181 year to date, he has done 268 transactions for just under 98 point 6 million in closings. In the month of October alone, Joe’s closed 14 million in sales averaging over 10 million a month. And by the end of this week, Joe will hit a huge milestone in his career, and it will close over $100 million in one year, not even a full year in loans truly incredible. If you’re looking for a mortgage professional, Joel is the very best in the industry. And he can be reached at [email protected] Again, [email protected] and also on telephone and he answers the phone at 773-654-2049. So let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan that I know Joel Schaub Good afternoon.

Joel Schaub 2:39Thanks for having me on DJ every time I hear the numbers, it just reminds me of how much We’ve both grown since the first time I’ve done the show,

D.J. Paris 2:47we were just talking about this, I couldn’t believe that you’ve grown to $100 million. That is, it’s almost like a fantasy number. And you’re there. So this is what you’re 16 for you in the business, something like that.

Joel Schaub 3:0116 years, it doesn’t happen overnight. But it’s all about that giving back and teaching and educating.

Sign up for Gogo’s Bootcamp here and save 10%!

Gogo Bethke arrived in the U.S. with only $6, no sphere of influence, and English being her third language. She proceeded to get her real estate license and start marketing on Facebook. Within a few years she sold 45mm in real estate and today commands a team of 110 agents. In this episode the social media queen talks about how most get brokers get social media wrong and provides best practices that you can implement today to find more clients online. We’re HUGE fans of Gogo and you will be, too!

Sign up for Gogo’s Bootcamp here and save 10%!

DISCLAIMER: Gogo’s 30-day moneyback guarantee is no longer valid.

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 real estate podcast made for real estate agents by real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host for the show and coming up in just a moment. We have gogo from gogos boot camp. She is a social media superstar in particular on Instagram. So for so many realtors out there wondering how do I get my social media to actually work for me? How do I find clients? Gogo is going to show you how to do that here in just a moment. So in addition, I want every single listener to think of another realtor that you know that could benefit from hearing this sort of interview right where not only do we interview top one percenters, we also interview social media experts gogo is both a top 1% producer and social media expert. We’ve got over 117 of these episodes. So I want everyone to think of someone that could benefit that really wants to learn from top producers how to go about building their business and send them a link to this podcast, you can simply send them a text with the URL, keeping it real pod.com. That is right for our website, podcast. Every episode, you can stream directly from there. You also please everyone follow us on Facebook, we are [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pot every single day, we find an article online about helping you grow your business and we post it there and we also do a weekly video. So follow us on Facebook. And lastly, thank you for continuing to listen, we really appreciate it. We’re going strong. Now if you are by the way, if you’re a sponsor or somebody who would like to be a sponsor of our show, let us know we’ll definitely can tell you more about how that works. But guys, thanks again for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. Thanks for following us on social media and onto our interview with Gogo.

Today on the show we have gogo Beth key from GoPro boot camp.com Gogo came to the US in 2003. To build her American dream she was broke, she had no sphere of influence,

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

Keeping It Real Podcast producer Liz Lape is here to guide you on an actionable strategy to help your business.

In today’s Liz Lesson she discusses best-practices regarding stigmatized properties!

Transcript

Liz Lape 0:04Hi, this is Liz lake, a producer for keeping it real podcast and this is a live lesson. A stigmatized property is one that may include a less than attractive history, like the like a death on the property or even the supernatural. You know if your clients believe in that sort of thing. In Illinois, you’re only required to disclose anything that has a physical impact on the property. Anything else would be considered a psychological defect or stigma. This can be a major deciding factor for clients. Even though you’re not required to disclose everything. We encourage you to disclose everything. This actually benefits both you and the buyer. Because disclosing as much information as possible can help you avoid a lawsuit and also helps to build trust. In addition to this, the truth will often come to the surface anyway, neighbors always talk. So if the stigma is big enough, be upfront with the buyer, have a neutral and respectful conversation about everything you know about the property. They’ll definitely appreciate your thoroughness and honesty. This has been a Liz lesson and I’ll see you next time.

Haley Levine and Tony Mattar met years ago while working for a top 1% real estate team. They instantly bonded and in 2019 decided it was time to open their own brokerage, HomeCo Chicago. In this episode Haley and Tony discuss why they started a firm, what it takes to be a top 1% broker and why client events have been a critical component of their success. They also talk about what most brokers miss about social media and how to attract younger clients. Their passion and excitement shines through and you’ll understand why they’re the hottest new brokerage in Chicago.

Tony Mattar can be reached at [email protected] and 248.568.6732.

Haley Levine can be reached at [email protected] and 847.644.6848.

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 on to 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. Coming up in just a moment, we have an amazing interview with Tony matar and Haley Lavon, from home coach Chicago. And before we get to their interview, I want to mention a couple of quick things. First, we have you know, I should I should mention this because we’re here in Chicago and our listeners are largely in Chicago, however, we now have received some national attention, which we’re really grateful for. And it’s opened us up to an audience outside of our local metropolitan area. So what does that mean to you? Well means we’re going to start including guests from outside of the Chicagoland area. So at the very beginning of the show, I mentioned, we’re the largest podcast made for real estate brokers, by real estate brokers, but not every state has real estate brokers. So that might be confusing to some of you. So in Chicago, we don’t use the word agent, it doesn’t exist anymore. So everyone who’s a realtor as a real estate broker. So if you’re in a different state, you’re like broker, that’s just real estate agent or realtor. So same thing. Also, we’ve now been getting some attention from national advertisers. So if you are listening, and you are an advertiser, or would like to be an advertiser on the show, let us know find us through our website, keeping it real pod.com. And you can submit a request to be considered to advertise on one of our shows,

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...