KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Closing Deals & Opening Doors Beyond the Property Lines

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Hey, everybody. This is Kathy Burns with Real Estate Riches. And today, I'm here with Nicole. I love that last name. Nicole? Thank you. Hi. Hi, Kathy. I appreciate this. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. Oh, it's great. My pleasure. So excited because I think we have a similar story. I was doing a little homework on you. You're a realtor in the Chicago area. You want to tell us a little bit about your story and who you are where you are right now and then maybe tell us how you got here. Sure. So I'm in Chicago, actually a little one block outside the city and Park Ridge. I live here. I moved here four years ago. But born and raised in Chicago and have a small team, work for Dreamtown Realty. So I hold my license there, but I do have a small team and I work with some fabulous people that have been working with me for a few years now and have a fabulous assistant stage around my team and continuing to grow and add services. couldn't be a one-stop shop.

So that's where I'm at now. That's important because, and it takes a while to get there, right? I mean, it sure did for me. And I'm anxious to hear your story of starting in real estate going forward because so many agents, my mission is really to kind of help agents that are the 40-plus age group because a lot of people, especially with this whole NAR thing going on, they're freaking out. many just want to just walk away. And I said, no, it's all fixable.

It's all figure outable. But people panic because change is tough. And especially if you start life over in the middle of your life, you know, like the spectrum of what your life would be. So tell us your story of like how you got into real estate and how it was a huge success right off the bat or tell the truth. Not really right off the bat. It took a few years.

but I got into real estate 2007. So when everyone was getting out of real estate, I was getting into it. We got into it because my dad who owned a commercial plumbing company that's been in the family since 1929. He was pretty established. My mom had her own business too. So live that lifestyle for a long time just by being in the house with them and getting to be able to work for him. Old school Sicilian put me to work at 11 years old. So I was working for him very early doing payroll and.

getting to see what the business side of life was like. So he's the one who told me, hey, get your real estate license. I already had college education. I was doing, I was studying creative writing and photography in college, started with some different majors and ended up in that, and then worked in corporate for 10 years and worked for a remodeling company for another about decade. So I had that experience. And then my dad said, you know what, you should definitely go into real estate and get your license. I did that a year before he passed away. And I got into it the year that everybody was getting out during the crash,

where it was very hard to find sellers and very hard to find qualified buyers. So it was an interesting baptism by fire type of couple of years. And you learned really quick to get in to just learn, to get in there and do not really podcasts at the time, but more so classes. I was taking classes and reading books. and figuring out, okay, what do I need to do? What do I need to know to be successful at this? And put all the experience I've had in the past into this career,

into this profession and be really great at it. Because I worked in advertising before print production and TV production. So I said, okay, this is perfect. I can still be creative and still own a business and do something that I really love that can bring some creative pieces of my past in. And that's how I got started. You know what I heard there, I love your dad right off the bat because he started doing the business at 11. My kids were out there with, we were doing yard sales when they were like six.

I was raising little entrepreneurs, which is what he was doing. And he was teaching you a work ethic. And he was teaching you how to figure things out. You know what I mean? So if you're in the trenches of a business and, you know, it wasn't something you chose to necessarily go do. Dad just probably said, hey, get in here. We're a family. We're going to just do this together. And it wasn't listening. That was a gift that he did because it built a work ethic in you. So I got in 2006 the year before it all crashed. So I was watching it go up and my background was financial planning. And I kept thinking, something's really wrong here. It didn't make sense the way it rocketed, the way anybody could get a loan. And then it did make sense when it went down.

had just started in six in a new state, didn't know anybody but one person. So just like you, we have to figure it out. And that's the grit that's so important, actually in this situation we're in right now with our. It's not like it's not something we can't figure out. It's not. And it's not even that big a deal. It's just being perpetrated as that big a deal. It's just about presenting our self different and our worth and educating the public. I think is a really big deal too because they're misunderstanding what a realtor really does, don't you think? Oh, definitely. I think a lot of people have a misconception of what we do. Yeah. You know this. Yes. It's, you know, we're not just opening doors. There are some, yeah,

that do that. And those are the ones that usually after the first year decide not to do this anymore because they realize it's a lot more than that. I've hired people too. I have young people on my team that have said, you know, Nicole, this is very hard to make a living at and be consistent and have a consistent form of income from. So they decided to go into like corporate law or something different and kind of steer away from real estate, especially with all the changes being made right now. So it's, but every year in real estate, and I'm sure you see this too, like it's always different. Every year is always different. It's always a challenge. Every end of the year, you look back. And I know I do this and a lot of people in my team.

and then throughout the industry, business plan. And I teach a business planning class twice a year. I actually got my coaching certificate and coach other agents right now too. But you realize like when things kind of shift and you're not shifting with it and then you can't analyze what you've done in the past to see what works and what doesn't work, it's very hard to make that shift because you don't know what direction to head in. So it's very important to do the business planning. And if you kind of see what your successes have been over the year,

and know that you can handle this change because you've handled all those changes before over the years, like over the last, since we've been in it in seeing us, gosh, and like you were saying, I didn't start this until my 30s full time. So late 30s full time. That's a little bit, you know, now I look back going, oh, my gosh, I like put my job and had two small kids under three and decided this full time. Like what? Gutsy.

Thank you. How did I do that? How did I make you do that? And I know a lot of people have done that too. They've quit their jobs and gone into real estate full time. And it's usually with a sales background. Those people are usually very, very successful that have a sales background because they can just pick up and move and go and be motivated. And like what you're saying, have that grit.

Because I take a lot of grit to really analyze yourself and see, okay, is this something I can maneuver through? Can I prove myself to other people? Can I educate other people about what we do and really enforce. also the public about some of these misconceptions because the media likes to just inflate things and blow them up. And I've had so many people ask me, what's going on? You know, so obviously, right now, nothing's changing until July. Right. You know, we're not going to see co-op on the MLS. But, and negotiation has always been, commission has always been able to negotiate it. I think we have to be a little bit more transparent about it and talk about it a little bit more because it can be a

touchy subject. But if we show our value, we have experience and we have a plan, it's, you find your ideal client and the people who are willing to pay for your services, just like a dentist, a doctor, a tutor. I've done my landscaping for years. I don't want to do it anymore. So I hire somebody to do it. Can I do it? Sure. But do I want to have done well and know what flowers to get and when to plant them so they don't die so I don't screw things up, sure, because sometimes they can cost, you know, $10,000 to do a nice front yard. And you're never going to do it like they did it. I'll never do it because I don't know.

I don't have that type of education. I haven't spent that many years in the field knowing about these different plants. I mean, it's the same thing for any profession. And that's what I understand is that every profession, every person who is working and should end up being an expert in their field and be able to provide. value as well. And none of us are on their tails about it, right? Right. I totally agree with that. Well, she might business. And it'll kind of sort itself out, which I think what you're saying, Kathy, it will sort itself out. It just takes time. We just don't know exactly what we're dealing with yet.

But as agents and brokers, we need to educate the public. We need to step it up. We need to be transparent, more transparent than ever before. And give our clients choices. I think right now it's very important till July. We need to really be educating the public on exactly what we do. What does a buyer's agent do? I think listing agents, we've been used to saying what we do as listing agents because we are selling that service basically, and that's more. With buyers agents, I don't think I have ever really touched it so much. It was more like, I know this area, tell me about you, I'm learning about them. A lot of them, referred to me, but in the beginning, it was more the company, because years ago it was more a company than it is individual branding than it is now. And I think we really need to actually say what a buyer's agent does, because a buyer's agent went on chat GPT yesterday. I'm a big fan. So I go on there and I said, listen, I want you to research the internet and tell me all the things that a buyer's agent does. And it comes back really quick with 12 things. I go 12 things. He said, hardly.

You know, and I started to rattle off just on the first one that did. I said, you missed all the minutia with all this number one here. And there's hundreds. And then so it redid it and it came back with 10. I said, you're going backwards here, buddy. And I said, what are your sources? And because I had them search the Internet because I used Chad to P2. And it's, they were blogs, three blogs.

And it was actually acting defensive. And I'm like, oh, wow, if the Internet and it doesn't have. sources that I know that it could go search and it comes back with only blogs, then the public really doesn't know what we do. And so I think that's our mission is from now to July, we have to explain our real value that we're out there. And for the ones that just opened doors and barely do anything else, they'll dissipate. And that's okay, because they probably were going to dissipate anyway. It's the ones who have grit. It's the ones that want to run this like a business that are going to dive in and do it.

And I think video is a very important tool. And I believe I have to forget what I look like and just go forward and do my best because I sit back. I don't know if you notice that. I'm not as close to the camera as you because I've got a lot of age. I'm pushing my back. And you should be on camera all the time. Thanks.

Well, believe me, the reels that they do, I'm like, girl, can't you back it up? oh my God, I look like a leper out there. Anyway, I digress. The point is, it's irrelevant what we look like. It's what's the message. It's the message. And if you're teaching people, they're eager. They're eager to learn, you know?

And if I'm out buying a house, I'm going to start listening to somebody that's telling me what they do. They're also going to tell me what they know about the neighborhood or whatever. And we just had a woman call me. I haven't talked to her in 12 years. She's a realtor. and she's been watching a lot of my stuff and she's aging out in the industry and thinking, I don't know what I'm going to do with all these changes.

And you just got to pay attention, decide what it is that you want to do. And then market to the people, not just your skills. Talk about what you actually do. Because if people think that they can do it on their own, good luck. and you cry. But will you do an effective job for you? You know, you want to know that what you're buying is great. I've got an agent right now.

She put in an offer that we're under contract on a $2 million house. They're only doing a little bit of inspections. This is 17 years old. Me? I give my client when I'm a buyer's agent. Here's my wish list. There's every single inspection possible in this house. And here's a horror story for everyone you don't want to do

because you don't want to spend the money. It's your house. It's your benchmark. It's your choice. And I'm not going to make you feel bad. I'm just going to let you know. Here's all the realities that could go wrong, but wouldn't you feel safer? Isn't it worth it?

If it's a $2 million house, don't you want to know everything about all the components? And they may or may not negotiate repairs, but at least now we got a benchmark. Oh, I completely agree. Because if you, yeah, we do more than 10 things. Like I brought in. Hundreds. friend of mine who built homes and we looked at a house that my client was going to buy and my friend said do not buy this house. We moved on. They bought another house and now that house is worth

over a million more than what they bought it for within four or five years. So we save from a bad purchase to a good because it's all about this business is about networking. It's about knowing your craft and being an expert at it, knowing how to negotiate and really knowing the right people to bring in at the right time. Because those things can save you time and money, a lot of heartache later. You know, it just sets you up. We're super proactive when we're listing. We like to find out everything that's going on with a building or a property.

There's things that are happening behind the scenes that some agents don't even know about until it's under contract. And then all of a sudden the problem, it goes back on the market. And then once you put it back on the market, that's kind of the kiss of death. maybe not so much in this market right now because everything is so busy and selling for more. But there's so many times I talk to my clients and they're not aware of appraisal gap riders or escalation clauses or when to accept them, when not to accept them, and how they can hurt them or benefit them. And these are the things that we bring up and talk to our buyers about and our sellers

about because it's different depending on what side of the transaction you're on. Right. Honey you hire makes such a difference. The lender you hire. We just closed the deal on Friday. That took five hours to close because I represented the seller, but the buyer's lender was in California. And that lender did not know the rules here in Illinois about tax peration or another document that they had to sign. It just, it took forever to get that done. I represented the seller, not the buyer.

But if I always try to recommend and refer my team so it could be lenders that I had really great success with over the years and a great attorney does pre-inspections, which I'm sure you do those too because you're doing your inspection so thoroughly. And then having a qualified inspector too, that takes it, unless you get super lucky up front, it takes years and years to develop all these people and resources and be able to share that with your clients with utter confidence. Right. I tell my buyers and my sellers, I say, listen, I got a team and you don't have to use this team. You can do whoever you want. I said, but these are seasoned people that we all know the nooks and crannies of how we work together. They're great service.

They're fair priced. They're quality contractors, every single one from the lender or whatever. And you can do who you ever want. But when I have a buyer come to me and they'll say, I'm doing an online lender or out-estate lender, I'm going to say, oh, you're killing me here. There's never been a time when I didn't have an issue with an out-of-state lender versus if you want to shop, around here, okay, and I can give you a couple if you want, but I'm going to tell you, we might have problems. I've never seen it not have problems. You can do whatever you want, but they've had nightmares with some of these lenders, just like you said. Sometimes they don't

go. Right. And we don't want that to happen. I had that almost happen once. But it's just, it's a lot of networking and a lot of just, if you go out there and you get out there in this profession and you go to the award ceremonies, let's say. You go to different events that people are hosting and the associations are holding. You start to meet other agents and you start to do deals with these people and they start to get to know you. And it's kind of the same 10% of people that are doing most of the deals. There's a lot of realtors out there.

I mean, I think in Illinois is like 32,000. So it actually just went down into the 20s. And when we look at our stats, we're like so amazed because we're in like, I think, think the first 200. And that's a team. It's not all me. It's my team too. And you have to have a good team in place as well. I think the future is going towards teams. It's hard to do this if you want to make money. And especially with inflation, it's very hard to do this on your own and have a life. Like if you want to, depending on where I live, it's about 15 million or more a year. And that's a lot of real estate in some area. We are in a median $400,000 price point here where I live on the northwest side of Chicago,

a lot of city workers, tons of teachers, COBS, and that's a good $400,000 median. Where I live in Park Ridge, it's a little bit higher. And we do luxury properties and we go out. I mean, I have one for 2.5 right now. Another one for 2.2. So it just varies. You never say no. you always go where opportunity goes. That's what helped me a lot too, getting to this point in my career. And building this team is that you don't say no. You say yes.

You have the grit to keep up with the yeses. And do whatever it takes to either let those yeses go at some point or keep moving forward with them. Because sometimes it can be difficult. People, you know, contractors or lenders or other referrals and recommendations or even the house itself, right, the property itself can give you some trouble. So it's just to stay with it, know who to call, and be super solution driven.

That you get to keep going in this career is by having solutions to people's problems. Figure out, call in your ideal client, figure out who your ideal client is and work with those people who like you, get you, trust you, and think you're an expert. And then find out what's going on with them and create a solution to that to get them from point A to point B. And not one can do that. And that's more about what being a realtor as being a broker is, knowing about homes, knowing about the right people to bring in, knowing how to negotiate what you should do,

when you should do it. And so they can put money in the bank, move on to their next chapter in their life. I totally agree. Now, you mentioned that you're doing coaching. Is it within your own team or do outside coaching? Outside at Dreamtown. So I'll do. Oh, okay.

Val Degani is the owner of Dreamtown. And he's a very forward thinking, very progressive. So he instituted some training and coaching maybe seven, eight years ago. And then still has that going on in the company and does growth groups. A lot of training. We have monthly meetings there too as a company. And we do mastermind classes. I taught classes there, seven classes for three years.

And so a lot of the newer agents had to come to my classes and go through some new broker training. Sure. And I built my career. He helped me build my career that way too because he, when I started teaching, I was able to say like they trust me enough to teach, right? Yes. They trust me enough to sell your home if they're trusting me enough to teach other people

what I do. So I use that as part of my credentials too. I would too. I would too. Yeah. So you said getting yourself out there and known in the industry about and being different. How would you say you set yourself apart like from other agents in the Chicago area there? I think that you said you read my story a little bit.

When I first started, some people know this about me. A lot of people can talk about it maybe or say, you know, oh yeah, I know Nicole from this back when I was married to policemen. And we have three kids together. They're older and gone through the school system and whatnot. So we've met a lot of people over the years. So I think what makes me different is that I do share that story. I've told people through my business planning classes and some of my training, like, hey, listen, if I can do it, you guys can do it.

I was with no money with three children, ended up just moving into a new. I bought a house. My mom helped me with that. And at the time, because you had to have two years of consistent income as 1099. And this was not so when I first started, but I was getting divorced with three kids under six. and one was two one at the time ended up getting divorced when she was two and a half and then six and seven and a half so they're little and i to work day and night i did not sleep much but i'd say for about three consistent years i collected data on what i should be doing as a realtor how i should be doing it the best ways to do it creating systems knowing that oh my gosh i don't want to do this on my own this is crazy i can't do this on my own i don't want to do this i'll have no life and then slowly building that team and getting to a point where I could hire people. So now what makes us different, I think, is just having that grit from having to do that

before. Yeah. And when like, okay, my realtor kind of went through a hard time and got through it. And now has grown her business through that because she had a hustle. She was hungry. So she probably knows more than, you know, some people in the industry just because of time. Yes. Yes.

And we try to set ourselves apart with our systems and our concierge service and our knowledge and expertise and our team as a whole. We bring people in that have different niches and can all help each other. Oh, I think that's a great idea. So we set ourselves apart that way. And we're continuing to do that now. Mm-hmm. I end up partnering with a guy that's been on my team, Mario Bongiorno, for almost four years now.

So we're going to end up partnering, putting our names together, and making a big push and getting out there. And I know everything's changing and we're going to put our names out there. And kind of have that be a little bit of a distraction for us and keeping us moving forward. I think that's smart. Yeah. And just change it up. And I said to him yesterday, this is probably the perfect time to do this. But you have to work up on it.

It can't just happen. You have to work to it. Because if it just happens, sometimes it doesn't. stick. And we both want to stick. Yeah, we both want it to stick. So we're just trying to increase like the systems, the procedures, our systems, having an easier time for our assistant and our team members and bring in more leads and create a full service, like one-stop shop for our clients. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I'm known here as Kathy's got a guy. I do these sendout cards and I will feature a person that I trust every single month.

And it goes out to my database of the ones that I know I'm going to continue to do business with, not my entire database. But I send this out. So the front of it says, I got a guy. And on the inside, I feature their logo, their web address. And I, a little blurb that they say about themselves on there. And on the right hand side, I go, hey, this is my monthly. I got a guy card.

that I send out featuring someone I know and trust that I wanted to share with you. And if you don't need them, maybe you know someone who does. And this isn't someone that you need, but you need something else. I got a guy. And if I don't have a guy, I know a guy that's got a guy. And I have a little bio on the back. And then the back is all about my branding on the back, right? The phone number is always on the inside right.

And I send those out once a month. And they are great. And people think of me, Kathy's got a guy. We get people to call off those cards, not necessarily to buy a house, but they'll say, hey, do you have a roofer? Do you have this? You know, their past clients of mine, they share the cards. I even send them to other realtors that I'm hoping will come over to my company with me.

And I do it so they can see things like that are horrible. It's helped me through the years. Matter of fact, I got a $5 million listing from a woman I've been working on for 12 years because she had a she bought this house in foreclosure was around three and three point four million when she bought it beautiful monster house on the water and she had a little bead business in the local town and i had bought a group on to go make a no necklace at her thing and she taught a one-on-one class with me she was telling me about her house and i go the house i live right around the corner in a very small rental and we started talking and i and she said well, I'm going to be doing a little show or she was advertising something that weekend. I said, let me promote it. And so I started promoting her stuff for years and years and years. And on this one Facebook group called 365 things to do around Lake Norman, because that's our lake. So I just created that group. I've got 15,000 people in there over the years.

And I'm always updating it. I don't do anything about me in there. I'm always promoting somebody else. And through the year, she would call me up because she would get that. I got a guy card. and she would say, hey, my son wants to buy a house. Can you help me with that? Sure. My sister wants to buy a house. Can you help me with that? Sure.

So it would be little houses here and there. And then one day they called up and said, we're selling the big one. I'm like, the one I've been waiting for. And I got that listing. I sold it in 11 days. So excited. Wow. That's amazing.

And I was just saying this to Mario on my team yesterday. Actually today, I think it was this morning. the littlest things. Like, I was going to buy a dog. And then I decided not to buy that dog. And she said, hey, can you help me find a property? And now I'm the agent for all their rentals. They own 80 properties. And I'm doing that for them. So it's just sometimes when you least expect it. But it's about being out there. And it's not being invisible. Like I don't wear a little badge all the time. I everyone knows that I'm a realtor. I don't keep that a secret. It's not like, hey, can I sell your house? it's like just start a conversation.

Well, I'm a realtor. You know, I hear something that I've told one of my clients. Tell a story. It's nothing about pitching them ever. I've just shown them what I do and they just kind of start. I get connected with them on Facebook or wherever. I want to build the relationships because it's a relationship business. Right.

I say that's networking relationship and just who you are. And this is a business too that we can all take what we're really good at and what we're really just maybe creative parts of us and put it into this business. Yes. Your business can be run completely different than my, right? Yet as long as we have our systems that we're consistently taking care of our clients, we know our industry, we're working it, it's all good. Yeah.

And it just keeps people interested, educated, and knowing that we're in it every day, that we're in business every day and knowing that. business every day and knowing the up and what's going on. When somebody asks you, what's the market like? You know, you can say, well, it depends where you're at and what situation you're in. And if you're seller or buyer, not just like, oh, my God, the rates are so high. And now this NAR thing and this and that. No, there's much more to it than that.

And every year, it's something new. And every year we have to go back to, oh, my gosh, got to replicate that again and do a little bit better this year. Yeah. And you figure out how to do that. And it's if you keep doing that with the great. like you're talking about, you will be successful. There is no doubt.

But you got to do the work. You got to have the action there and do the work. I mean, I spent hours and hours and hours in the middle of the night, just trying to learn as much as possible. And I did a lot of coaching. I did. I hired coaches to help me, real estate coaches and personal coaches too. My first personal coach I hired off of a credit card when he really couldn't afford it to get me through my divorce because I didn't know. what to do or how to do it, where to do it, or if I was even doing the right thing with three

little kids. So I had to hire somebody to do that. And I took the risk of spending money I didn't have at that time to get that kind of help because I said, I don't know what I don't know. And I'm going to need to pay somebody to figure that out so I can do that. So I can do that later. That's really wise. And I can continue with that philosophy of I don't know how to do things. I need to get and and enlist the help of others. And most of the time you have to pay for that. And you're paying for it because they know what you don't know and they're going to help you get there faster.

Right. Yeah. Right. Realtor, same with brokers. That's what we do. You don't want to bother with it. We will do it for you and we will do it efficiently, effectively, and put money in your pocket and have a good, he'll have a great experience. And sometimes find you houses that you normally wouldn't be able to find.

Yeah. Absolutely. And people forget that too. Yeah. That part of it. Nicole, thank you so much. This has been wonderful getting to know you and learning some nuggets from you. And we're going to have your information as links below so people can reach out to you in Chicago

and you can reach out to me here in North Carolina. And again, thank you so much for being on here and sharing your truth. Thank you, Kathy. I appreciate it. It's been a pleasure.