KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How To Plan For Success In Real Estate ft. Jared Antin

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Morning Primer is your weekday boost from Mindset & Motivation Monday—quick, focused, and made for agents by KGCI Real Estate On Air. Give yourself a daily mindset reset for the daily direction you need to show up sharp and ready to win.Start your morning ahead of the market and ahead of your competition every day with KGCI Real Estate On Air. SummaryThis episode features a powerful conversation with Jared Antin, a seasoned real estate executive, who shares his blueprint for intentional career growth. The discussion goes beyond a simple "hustle" mindset, focusing instead on a strategic approach to time management, mentorship, and business development. You'll learn how to build a scalable and sustainable business by treating your time as a valuable resource and proactively planning for success.Key TakeawaysColor-Code Your Calendar: Discover Jared's simple but effective system for managing his time. By assigning different colors to different types of activities (e.g., business development, agent management, personal time), he can visualize where his time is spent and ensure it aligns with his professional goals.Be Client-Centric, Not Listing-Centric: Learn why a "client-first" mentality is the key to long-term success. Jared emphasizes that the real work begins with understanding a client's goals and needs, which transforms you from a mere salesperson into a trusted advisor.The Power of an Agent-First Culture: For those looking to build a team, Jared shares his philosophy of serving agents and creating a supportive environment. The episode highlights that when you invest in your agents, they, in turn, can provide exceptional service to clients.Leverage a Legacy Brand: Understand the value of associating yourself with a strong, reputable brand. Jared explains that a legacy brand like Brown Harris Stevens opens doors and provides instant credibility, allowing you to focus on building trust and demonstrating your value.TopicsJared AntinReal estate successBusiness planningTime managementReal estate coachingCall-to-ActionListen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and start planning your path to real estate success! Ready for more? Subscribe now and tap into our Always Free Real Estate On Air Mobile App for iPhone and Android, where you’ll find our complete archive and 24/7 stream of proven real estate business-building strategies and tactics. 

Welcome, everyone. This is Randy Dick here on The Return on Life podcast. And if you've listened in before, you know that it's not about the ROI. At least it's changed for me. I used to always think it was about the RLI. But life kind of gets into your skin there a little bit. And so now it's about the ROL for me, the return on life. And I love interviewing great guests about this. I have an amazing guest today, Jared Anton, and he's the managing director at an amazing company called Elgren, which is also connected with Forbes Global Properties, which we're going to touch on in a bit. But Jared's had a 14-year career there.

He's an amazing agent. Actually lives outside of New York in a community called Bedford, which is about an hour north. And I just can't wait to dig into leadership and AI and, you know, what's driving the market in New York, New York. So welcome here, Jared. Thank you, Randy. Pleasure to be here.

Right on. Well, when you hear Return on Life, what's the first thing that comes to your mind, Jared? It's a great question. So, you know, return on investment in ROI, I always know. Or when I was getting married, it was all about return on invitation. But ROL is a good one, too, because, you know, as I sort of round out where I am after being, you know, in my career for 14 years and, you know, moving from being an agent into more of the day-to-day leadership, it's been very interesting to sort of sit back and I have two young

kids and a great wife. And as you mentioned, I live an hour outside the city. So being able to say, okay, how do I actually balance what I've been able to build, accomplish, and achieve in my professional life, but also then be there, you know, for my family and be able to balance both of those things. It's been very important and also, you know, incredibly rewarding to be able to now experience and take a step back and see that I can be able to balance what I've built inside of real estate and parlay that or leverage that into still being able to provide for my family, but more importantly, being a key part of, you know, their day to day in their lives. Wow, that's cool. So at some point, you're heavily into transactional real estate or helping

people buy and sell real estate. And then you made a conscience ship. the consciousness to move to be more into the managerial side so you can spend more time with your family. That's really cool. That's correct. Yeah, actually, I got into real estate in 2009. I was still in college studying finance at James Madison University down in Virginia. And I had remembered at that point in time, you know, real estate was a dirty word. And my finance department lead basically said, you know, you want to get into real estate.

You should be in marketing, not finance. but I did do a real estate concentration in undergrad, you know, in finance. And for me, when I first started working at another larger brokerage firm in New York City while I was in college, again, 2009. And my logic at the time was this is a really good networking opportunity. If someone's buying a million, two, you know, three million dollar apartment, that's someone I want to know. And I worked with these two great agents. I learned the ropes of, you know, how real estate works in the city. and I ended up getting a job the following summer right before graduation at Elligran,

where I am today, you know, now 14 years later, and I started originally as an agent there. But it wasn't about being an agent, right? I'm good at it, right? I can sell things. I know things I'm quick. And I love helping people, right, find their home. But the helping people is really that common thread because it was all about how do we train, develop, mentor people. It wasn't about just giving them a book and telling them to pick up the phone and going to do a hard sale.

It was rather nurturing individuals to give them sort of this amazing experience to be able to improve or elevate, you know, the experience of buying, you know, property. And it's always incredibly stressful when you're transacting. And in New York City with co-ops and boards and all this stuff, we've made it even way more stressful. But yes, for me, I did make a conscious decision fairly. early in my career that I wanted to train, develop, manage, lead more so than sell. I still do transact because I think it's really important to keep your feet grounded and stay fresh, but we've been able to build really an incredible culture of incredible people here at Elligran and do great things. So I'm excited to be part of it. That's cool. So me being that I've been to New York a few

times. I always think it's all about the asset and not the experience because, you know, it's the center of the universe when it comes to finance and money and all that kind of thing. But it is really about the experience as well, I would think, right? Yeah, I mean, we say in New York, you buy a bedroom and your living room is outside because the apartments are small. But what is very interesting is we're in the experience economy, you know, coming out of COVID and also with the, you know, next generation that's up and coming. And I spent some time at the end of June out in Vail, Colorado at the Forbes Global Properties annual owners retreat. And there was really good conversation, really good insights. But one of the key themes that permeated through that time was the experience

economy. People want to buy experiences now, not things, right? During much of COVID, we were buying things, not even real things, you know, Bitcoin, all this other stuff, right? And, but But now you're looking at travel. You're looking at buying the experience. There was an article the other day talking about how domestic travel is now hurting because of the rise of international travel. For real estate is a beautiful thing, especially in New York City, because it is both an asset, right? Something that's going to preserve value and hopefully make you money. And it also gives you the experience to live a certain way or experience a different city or a different lifestyle.

So for us, it's all about how do we parlay the – real estate with the experience, not just once you own it, but also the experience of buying it or selling it. How do we make it as easy as stress-free and as seamless as possible for our clients? So I'm in Vancouver, which is a world-class city, as we would call it. It's a very livable city. It's a very expensive city to live in. And we have all these groups complaining about the price of real estate and how it does in cash flow or how it's so expensive to rent.

But I mean, New York is New York. And is there investment opportunities there, that cash flow, or how would an investor look at a property from a purely investment standpoint in New York versus maybe somewhere else that an apartment is, you know, $150,000, $250,000, versus millions and millions and millions of dollars? That's a great question. So real estate is certainly more expensive, you know, in New York City than the average. But some of the beautiful things about the city is it's a very transparent and very liquid market. So it makes it easier for an investor to buy or sell or to be able to cash out than other, you know, less, you know, big markets are.

So when you look at the return on investment for real estate in New York City, there's really two components. You have your actual yield, your cash on cash return, that's going to be your net income, so your rent minus your expenses divided by the cost of the purchase price. Right now in the city, prices are high for purchase, but price are also high for rent. So we're seeing an average of about 2.8 to 3.2% yield, right, or cash on cash return from renting. So that's one half of the equation. The other half of the return equation is your average appreciation. The average appreciation over the last 50 years in the city is about 5 to 6%.

So let's call it 5.5% a year. So if you put the two together based upon, again, your time in the market or your holding period, on average an investor would see about 8%, right? Five plus three, eight, eight and a half percent, you know, total return. There have been a few articles and a few stories, you know, talking about New York City as the Swiss bank account, right, of the world. because you can store money here. And New York City, if you look at a long-term price trend and actually elegant insights, that's a research division, published an article not too long ago, terming it as New York City is catastrophe-proof, quote-unquote.

I hope we don't have to put the city test again. But we did this after, you know, 9-11, 2008 Lehman and, you know, the COVID. And each of these times there were, you know, media pronunciations that, you know, New York City is dead or who wants to live in the city. And what zooming out tells you is that the city fell for a short period of time and only by a little amount and then quickly recovered. So if you zoom out and have a long enough whole period in our market, you will do pretty well, right? New York City, as we call it, is sort of this blue chip, you know, international destination, top five international destinations for real estate in the world. It's not going to rise super, super fast like we saw with, you know, Boise or Austin or Nashville, but it's also not going to be. then have that correction or come back down.

There are safeguards in place with the buildings around how much liquidity, how much capital investors need, and that helps put a price for. I like the way you put that. I never put the two together, the appreciation and the, you know, the cash on cash to come up with a number. I work with a lot of investors as well. So I like the way you did that. I've always said the cash on cash is the main course and the appreciation is the dessert

and the meal. And I kind of play with that as well. But I think you're still bang on there. I think if you buy real estate in the top 10 cities in the world, you can pretty much bank that it will really never have a serious depreciation and value as an asset. And it would just continue to appreciate because the land is the commodity. And there's such a shortage in these larger cities. Like, you know, when's the last time that you've seen a vacant piece of property in New York City?

I don't know. Maybe you have. I'm assuming there hasn't been much of a vacancy of land anywhere. That's correct. You're buying a building and knocking it down to redevelop or over, you know, a long period of time assembling. But, you know, very simply, I would label New York City's real estate market right now as discerning, but liquid. So the buyers know what they want. But if you're priced correctly and you have something.

desirable, it will sell. And just to put in context of taking your cash on cash and your appreciation, you're going to see in New York City compared to nationally a little bit lower of cash on cash return, but a little bit higher appreciation potential. So that's how that balance is here. I know we're talking about return on life, but I really find that investing interesting. And so are the majority of the buyers, cash buyers, or is there a lot that's leverage through mortgages and debt? Yeah, so in aggregate, even when interest rates were, you know, relatively cheap or cheap, we still saw about 50% of the market or the deals being cash purchases.

And that's because we have a large portion of international buyers that have their own sort of financing nuances. And then we also have a fair amount of investors coming into the market. Now where interest rates are, we're seeing about six. 60, a little upwards of 60% of our deals being cash deals. Because, again, people are less willing to finance at these rates. Now, they may be taking out a liquidity access line or some other way to access funding. But in terms of traditional straight mortgage, we're seeing a declining share of that.

Okay, great. So sticking with return on life, you know, we're always looking for ways to make our lives maybe easier or better anyways. And AI is really a hot topic right now. Is AI going to give us more return on life as real estate agents? Or how do you see AI playing out here in the next one to three years? So one to three years is a long time horizon. We're in the infancy, you know, the current AI boom. You know, Siri or Alexa, where the initial foray, you know, in the early AI. And And Chat GPT sort of took the world by storm when it came out last fall. So here we are eight, nine months after that and already a world further where you're seeing all of these different technologies start to integrate, you know, this AI technology.

So we're definitely in its infancy, but it's a very, very exciting time. And I believe that there's a lot of different applications for this within the world of real estate, both for consumers so that it gives them a different way to search for real estate and a different way to access. information at their fingertips. And for real estate agents, it helps them to delegate and elevate. It helps them to be able to offload the more mundane tasks, albeit very, very important task, notably with prospecting or helping to draft, you know, certain documents or clauses or things like that. So, and it lets a real estate professional be able to spend their time where it's most valued or most needed. And Elgren, you know, our mission, as we say, is to humanize the world of real estate.

But at the same time, we're incredibly tech forward. And the two mesh, because it's all about using technology to empower and enable the real estate agent to be smarter and more available to their clients when they need it. So I believe that an agent will or should adapt to use AI, and by doing so, we'll put them ahead of the curve and allow them to do more with the same amount of time or do more with less time, if that's their decision. Awesome. I love that to delegate to elevate. That's really, really great. So you've got a large training program, coaching program at Elgren. Is that right? And are you meeting that yourself?

Are you part of that? Is that something that you participate in? So I do participate in our coaching. Ben Willig, though, who is our director of sales, really runs point in that avenue. And coaching and development is really one of the key three tenors of who Elgrin is. The first, is giving you that true partner in the operating system that you need to run your business. The second is our coaching and development to meet you where you are today

and move you to where you want to be tomorrow. And we have a whole agent journey map, which we can talk about in a moment. And then third tenor is that global exposure and the global amplification through our exclusive partnership with Forbes and Forbes global properties. But back on the coaching piece, it's all about understanding where agents are.

And we have this really thin. fantastic agent journey map, which starts from what we affectionately call unconscious incompetence, right? You just pass your real estate license. It's like when you first got your driver's license. You're so excited. You're behind the wheels, but you don't actually know what you don't know. And then it actually goes downhill a little bit to where you have conscious incompetence. So now you're aware, oh man, I really don't know how this works. And you're starting to figure it out, right? And then you're climbing this hill again. And it's all about saying, okay, like, which way is up? I'm trying to wrangle that bear. I got it. Like, I'm getting onto firmer ground.

Like, all right, then it's how do I start doing it better? What are the systems? What are the processes that I need that allow me to make this sustainable for me? And that ties right back into the return on life. Because if you don't put the right safeguards in place, if you don't invest in the right resources, the right team around you, this is a losing battle. And once you start figuring out how you do it better, then hopefully not too long after that, you're generating more business than you can handle. And how are you going to work with that? Because either you're going to lose business, you're going to provide, you know, less than stellar service,

which is not how you've gotten as far doing. Or you need to figure out, again, back to my favorite term, delegate and elevate. What is that team structure? Are you going to hand it off? Are you, do you have a team dedicated, you know, listing agents, buyers agents? You have the right, you know, operational support. And then as you keep moving and as you figure that out, you cross this imaginary line in our agent journey, which is really the crux of all this, where you go from working for

your business to where your business starts working for you. And that's really, really important because in this business, in the life of selling real estate, for too long, if you don't do it right, you're putting in way more than you're getting out. But then all of a sudden, you reach this aha moment where it's like things are coming out of the woodwork, deals are clicking. This person calls you to buy. That person calls you to sell. And you start getting more out of it.

And then everything that we are working towards in our agent journey is all about what is your end? Because very few people get into this business to be the best real estate agent they can be. And that's it. For some people, certainly. But for many, they want to parlay this into something else. Do they want to be a developer, an investor? Do they want to go and coach? Do they want to be a motivational speaker?

Do they want to go own a vineyard and a bed and breakfast? That's my wife and I's retirement dream. So what is their end? And then ultimately it ends in this, what's your succession plan? Right? If you were a doctor or an attorney, you'd sell your practice. You'd sell your patient load. But here, no one really talks about a succession plan.

And we've built a really easy and simple way to model it out. So if you're an agent that has 10, 20, 30, 40 years of relationships and connections, great. Let's partner you up with another really hungry agent who's going to go and nurture those relationships, work those clients to the same degree that you would, and you'll have a financial benefit for it. So that's what we've built this full 360 agent journey. And that allows us to identify where everyone is, where they want to go, and what is that tailored coaching or development that they need then to get them in the next step?

Jared, that's amazing. I love the journey map, what you just shared. That is something I haven't heard of another brokerage really doing for any of their agents. And that's magical, a succession plan because most agents don't have a succession plan. Most agents don't have a way to actually monetize this thing called a real estate license beyond just, you know, trading time for money, time for money. And so to have that, that is significant. So I love that. By the way, I love your analogy.

It sounds like Deming's rule to me. Did you guys steal from Deming's rule? We didn't, no. So the unconscious, the conscious, the incompetent, the competent. So I play with that myself and coaching all the time. And I was going, oh, my goodness, he's talking my language. It's all so awesome. That's great.

Why did the succession plan come up? Like something must have brought that to the surface to say, we have to build a succession plan for our agents. Do you know the background of that? So it comes from a few points. I mean, one is anytime there's a crisis, sort of speak, in our market. So again, I point back to the same things, 9-11, 08, you know, COVID. When the market gets hard,

you have a compression of salespeople, right? People will naturally leave the market, you know, when times are hard, we enter the market when times are good. So we needed a way to say, okay, how do we deal with some people that may be more sensitive to COVID, right? Don't want to necessarily go out there and be face-to-face, but have really good connections and really good networks. How do we help them still, you know, leverage that and make money off of that?

And it started there and it's carried forward. now obviously as we come out of COVID to say how do we help people be able to travel, experience different things, and how do we help them still monetize and service those relationships because everyone's and or everyone's succession plan looks differently. For some it means they're just older, right? And for others, it means they could still be young, but their interests have moved beyond real estate. And again, tying this back to return on life, you spend so much time trying to build this.

How do you actually monetize it for what it can? can, but still create the life you want to have. And it doesn't mean you have to slave away at the deal. And that's why we actually have three different personas that we look at our agents are. You have the originator who has the relationships. They're out there procuring them. They have the connections. They have the deals.

We have doers, which do the day-to-day job of real estate agent, right? Here's Bob, Sam or Sue. They want to buy, sell a rent. Great. Go and do it. They know how to do that day-to-day job of an agent. And then we have supporters, whether that's a junior agent, a VA, a back office support, something that keeps the plate spinning. And again, you put all those three personas on our agent

journey map. You generally move through personas as you move through the journey, but then also when you look back at our team building or coaching and development, how do we connect the right doer with the right supporter with the right originator? Because you need all three to truly make this run. That's magic. That is magic. I run a team. as well. And, you know, we have pieces of that all the way through. But I think you've just given me some fantastic ideas how to bring it together and even make it more magical. So love that. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that. Who's Jared in the quiet? You knew when there's nothing standing in front of you, there's only selfish Jared. What's

What's Jared doing in the quiet by yourself? So I haven't met quiet, Jared, in quite some time. So I would really want to find out. But all kidding aside, I'm an avid golfer, although with two kids now, I don't get out there as much as I can. But I do tell my son. So I have a son who's five and a half entering kindergarten and a daughter who's 14 months, who is finally now in the last three weeks sleeping to the night. So I feel new again.

It was a long journey. And I tell my son affectionately, you can either carry my bag or your bag, your choice, but you're carrying one of those bags and we're going to play golf. So I do love playing golf. My wife and I love traveling, seeing new places. We love fine wine and trying new different wineries and things like that. And I'm really someone that just loves to be around people. We have a great close circle of friends.

Your kids become that perfect social weave and social fabric because our friends become the parents of our kids' friends and everything like that. So just someone that likes to have a good time, kick back, and relax. That's awesome. It's often. I often talk about what's the change agent or the ingredient that you have to kind of keep it all going. So what's some of your special superpowers to keep? the kids, you know, satisfied and happy. You've got a beautiful wife.

You're busy working. You're traveling to the city. All that. You know, what makes Jared tick and what's some of your superpowers? So it's actually a very interesting question. My wife and I, and we've been together half of our life, we met day one freshman year of college, literally moving day and started dating, you know, later on in freshman year. But it's funny because the two of us are incredible. type A, go, go, go, people.

And again, because we've been together for so long, the majority of our relationship has been around what's next, what's to come, right? Get through college, graduate, you know, first crowd, buy a house. So after my daughter was born, right, and we wanted two kids. We had a boy and a girl. We had the house. Like, I went to this moment where, which was very unusual for me, a quasi sort of depressed state because what was next, right?

Like, what was I pushing towards? I had this moment and where for my wife, it was this immense calming like, okay, I can relax and enjoy. For me, it was like, holy crap, what am I pushing towards? It's retirement in 45 years, but I don't actually know how to say that word. So, like, I had this moment where I was like, I don't actually know what I'm pushing for, right? And it was this sort of untethering of what has been driving me forward, which actually forced me to step back, reorient, re-index into the conversation where we started off this podcast, be able to actually say, okay, let me take a step back.

Let me understand how the dots have been connected and how my decision to pivot from, you know, day-to-day transacting to more of the leadership and management has allowed me actually to now live the life that I've designed it to be. And it's okay to be selfish to your prior question to enjoy the fruits of that labor. That doesn't mean that I'm lazy. That doesn't mean I'm not working. No, it means how do I protect my time, my family, you know, my own sense, and be able to say, okay, this is what I'm doing now.

My purpose has changed. My anchor has changed and my motivator has also changed. And it did take me in all fairness some time to get around that. But now that I have, you know, it's been a supercharged forward. And it certainly helped, you know, when professionally, you know, we got rocked by the changing market. So that's quick to knock you back. And then we had this amazing accelerant of Forbes and Forbes global properties.

And we went through a full rebrand, and that has been an amazing ride for my firm, Ellengrind to really elevate in the business, in our market, and recruit some really incredible agents and still going and really just level up the game. And that has been another thing that has, again, given me renewed focus or renewed vigor on the professional front. You know, there's the gifts that we have can be the greatest curse or the greatest gift, And then there's this other word called settle, where we see so many people settling, but we can also be at the other end of that where we never settle.

Like we never, we never just go, okay. And we just keep driving, driving, driving. And I've seen, you know, I'm a driver as well. And it's gotten me into trouble at times because I'm just so committed to the drive that I miss the experience or I miss out on something that was way more beneficial. So sometimes I'd be careful. So I really appreciate that share that you gave. I want to go back to Forbes property

and how that's really significantly changed what you guys do and how you attract great agents. Maybe elaborate on that a little bit because I know that's a really big piece for you guys. Yeah, it's been huge. So Forbes Global Property is started in 2020, and it's the residential real estate arm that's connected back to Ford.

Right now they're across about 55 members, across 22 countries, 440 office locations, and about 14,000 agents in total. And what they've done is they've selected one leading, you know, independent brokerage firm in key markets across the world that they've partnered with. And for Elogren, what it's done is a number of things. One is, you know, we built the business on hiring really great people, giving them the right tools, resources, mentorship, coaching, and development. But we never invested in traditional marketing or traditional branding.

We invested back in the people and the business. So being able to take the operating system and the coaching and development and that intentionality and bolster that on with arguably borrowed credibility that is Forbes, right, internationally renowned international recognition with this incredible amplification and megaphone for properties has been unparalleled in what it's done. We've doubled our listing volume and doubled our average listing price. last spring to this spring, right, on the heels of Forbes. We're hiring incredible agents that are being able to say,

okay, I want to be able to leverage the power of Forbes, and I love your new tech stack because we just relaunched a whole new tech package earlier this year. And the coaching and development is something that, you know, other firms are just not doing in-house and being able to put it all together where we can be that true partner with our agents because we believe the independent contractor model is broken, right?

You know, you have bundlers and unbundlers and Elgin has sort of come on in this middle part by saying, okay, let's invest in you, let's partner with you from a strategy, execution perspective, and then from understanding how do you want to move your business forward? But Forbes has been really, really beneficial and helping to, again, put that name next to us that has gotten us in the door. And then as properties have gotten harder to sell, they've been able to give us just incredible opportunities to be able to get exposure for these properties through the curated Forbes network. Very cool. That is just amazing. So it's actually helped in so many ways bringing in better agents as

well. Has it pushed anybody away? Because when you make changes, people sometimes don't buy into that. Has it actually pushed some people away in some cases? And maybe those are the people you didn't really want in the office anyways. But is it? mainly been a magnet of attraction or there's been some repulsion as well? So it's been largely a magnet of attraction. Have we lost a few people? Sure, but there are arguably people that weren't producing business anyway. So it's been a huge net positive that has truly, you know, far exceeded any of my wildest expectations for what it could have done. because they gave us, if nothing else, the courage and the comfortability and the awareness

to own who we are in the marketplace and go out there and tell all about it because we never really told our story before. So it's been this incredible, you know, magnet of attraction because it's now unified many, many things that people love. COVID was such an amazing crucible moment. And it's probably, I'm thinking that it, it's. benefited you in so many ways when you look back. What are some of the moments that going through all that was like, oh, my goodness.

And then, oh, my goodness. Can you share any of those? Because I think New York was kind of epicenter to so much. I have a few friends in New York. They said it was just like so crazy. Like you look down the streets and there wasn't a soul on it. How did that all play out? So it's very interesting.

One is I'm very thankful I didn't live. in New York City proper during COVID. You know, being up in Westchester with a yard was good. Two, I will never bicker about the cost of daycare because when daycare was closed for three months, best marketing for daycare. But in all seriousness, you know, the city was interesting because our office, you know, is three blocks south to Times Square. In fact, you can see Times Square right behind me if this wasn't here. And it was deserted and dead. And if you looked on the media, right? They would only show you pictures of Times Square. But if you went to other areas that were true neighborhoods where people actually live, you know, West Village, Upper East Side, Upper West

Side, they were more lively than ever before in some ways because you had this street dining and all this stuff and the parks. So it transformed the life in a very interesting way. It also made everyone think about their space differently and that's not unique to the city. But what was interesting is in the early days of COVID, everyone thought it was a density issue, right, because it hit New York before it hit many other parts of the country. What we quickly learned is it's not a density issue, it's just a transit hub issue. So people generally enter through, you know, New York or a few other key cities in the country. So the outflow quickly then replaced, and it was this interesting thing where you had a lot of locals moving into Brooklyn.

And Brooklyn was already, you know, 2015, 2016, 17, 18, starting to gentrify, redevelop new construction, new things pushed there. And COVID was a big accelerant for Brooklyn because people were able to move there, you know, get more space, less density, more air, you know, for the money. And then New York's or Manhattan actually became incredibly cheap from a rental perspective for a period of time because if you, you know, remember, New York City is also about 60, 65 percent rentals. So it is one of the few cities where there's actually more rental housing stock than there is for purchase. So the outflux didn't mean that people were selling and leaving. It's literally the lease was up and they were going to leave, right? Like, why renew if you didn't have to be? So then landlords starting offering renewals or new lease that are very, very low rents

where you can actually live in Manhattan for cheaper than Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey, or different places. So you had this amazing pouring back in out of just a simple economics perspective. And then life started coming back and you had the vaccines and the first trance of trying to get returned to work. We'll see what happens with the third, you know, attempt this September. and New York just started picking back up. It is an incredibly resilient place. And as soon as you can start enjoying all that New York has to offer,

people want to be here. So never count in New York down and out. That's right. If there's one thing that we learn, we learn which businesses are bulletproof through this. And obviously, real estate is pretty much bulletproof in the right locations. There's no doubt about it. You're involved heavily in leadership.

Do you have a leadership? style or somebody that has influenced how you lead? Is there something that you can share with our listener that says, you know, this is the way Jared leads? Yeah, so I've had the benefit and the lucky fortune of having a wonderful CEO who has invested in professional development for himself, for myself, for the team. So I've had a few, you know, different coaches over the year or over the years. But as a firm, we operate on an operating system.

system called traction. So it's been a really good way. We've been doing this since about 2018 to align all of the different department heads. And it's all about, you know, what is the division traction organizer? So who is the business? What are the one, three, five-year goals? And then it breaks it down into these quarterly rocks that each of the departments align on it. Like, these are the things that we're going to do, the two, three, four, five things that are going to move the business forward. And that's been a really good way for our company to work. Now, obviously, you know, we, we are to some extent reactionary, right? To the market, to what our agency need and things like that.

So it is so important whether you're running a brokerage firm where you're running, you know, a single agent or a team, do it to stay grounded with what you want to accomplish and where you want to go, right? That mountain for this reason with these troops, with this battle plan, helps keep you grounded because the enemy back to the return on life is being reactive, not proactive. If you want to get there and you want to get there quicker with greater degree of certainty, you have to be proactive. If you wake up every morning and you don't know what's going to come and you're operating in this reactive mindset, you're constantly going to get beaten and batted around. So one of the things that I always do is at the end of every day, I look ahead at my calendar. What's on tomorrow?

What do I need to prep? What do I need to know? Because for me, I start the next day, the night before. and that's one little way that I, you know, maintain the proactivity in my own life. Love that, love that. I have a thing of compression and urgency. I always have to have urgency and then compress whatever it is.

And what you're doing when you're already looking at tomorrow's work in the evening is you're already putting that into an urgency mode and then you're going to compress it the next day. I love that. Really, really love that. We've talked a little bit about return of life and some of the things that you've done. A balanced life is kind of like this mystery. Is it unicorns and rainbows?

And I've heard the saying, you know, balance equals broke. But I get a sense that you've got kind of a pretty good balanced life. Yes, no, maybe a little, maybe not. It's funny. I gain every day an increasing awareness of that fact, right? It is so easy to, you know, lose sight of. of what you actually have or fall into the social media trap or these different things, but taking that step back

and truly assess it and going to that old-fashioned, you know, pro and con list on paper, without a doubt, I really am incredibly lucky, fortunate, and more importantly, appreciative over, you know, what I've been able to accomplish, who I've surrounded myself with or who chooses to be surrounded by me. So I think so, but I don't take it for granted. And I still have this inner drive to how do I do better?

How do it help more people around me? How do I, you know, move us all, you know, sort of forward? Do you have a very strict schedule, time blocking? What's it looked like? If I could open up your schedule right now, what would it look like? Yeah, so the number one thing I did, and this came out of a coaching exercise about four or five years ago, was actually color code my calendar. So I use Google Calendar.

and I have a different color for different things, whether it's business development, whether it's recruiting, whether it's, you know, agent management or, you know, executive function. I have a different color for each of these things. And the reason is it allows me to understand where is my time being spent and back to traction of my rocks. I have a certain commitment to myself and the business to spend a certain amount of time in certain areas to do certain things. So it's a really a good way to sort of understand that. Two, there are certain things that, you know, get done at certain times a day or certain, you know, days of the week. And I am a creature of habit to some extent, not necessarily by fault, but for benefit. One of the things that, you know, we're always

doing internally is I send out what I affectionately call my Saturday email. And with Jason Thomas, who's our head of research, we write this whole weekly market update. And we also do one on monthly basis, but it's so important to be able to aggregate all the things that are happening in the market here, as well as things that are happening internally at Elgin. And I compile everything up that I want to send during the week into one Saturday email that I send over a couple coffee in the morning. And then that is given to agents to be able to go and repurpose on their social and share. So there are certain things that I do have set up that, you know, this happens this time, this happens this time, and a whole lot of flex in between.

Love it. The one thing for a real estate agent is prospect, prospect, prospect, what is your one thing, Jared? Are you still prospect, prospect, prospect, or is it a different one thing? Yeah, so prospect's important, but for me, it's really continuing to leverage those relationships, you know, within my network. My age cohort is in that place where they're, you know, trading out of that first place, getting into that second place, maybe, you know, move into the suburbs. So prospecting is always important. But for me, truthfully, the number one thing is it's about taking the step back now and trying to actually remove myself from the weeds or from the go, go.

So how do you actually take a step back and take stock, right? I'd rather something be done better, but better but take an extra minute or two, which has not always been the case for my professional career. but at this point it's like, all right, how do I make sure I do it right? How do I have that 360 degree view? So if I'm doing something or I'm making a decision, how does that affect those that around me and being able to now to play out and raise up my head beans? That's been something that, you know, took a little bit of time to be able to do intentionally,

but now as it's become part of my day is coming a bit more naturally. And that's really about being a student of the game as well and recognizing that. Do you do a lot of self-audit, self-audit on yourself, on the business, on your business, maybe even on your personal life. Do you ever self-audit yourself? Not always in the most productive way, but I certainly do. And it's funny you bring that up and you talk about a student. So my boss and the owner of the company, Mike Rossi, you know, has for a number of months repeated the same lesson to me.

And it finally clicks and his kids go to private school. And I was a byproduct of the public schools. And he talks about how as a public school student, you know, you were taught something, then you took a test, then you moved on. It's like in private school, you'll be taught something, you'll take the test, and then you'll be given the option to take the test again. And what's important and where this comes through in the context of this conversation, and also for me and my professional life is you can't just.

move on, right? It's not the test is done, you throw it away, now you're on to the next thing, you can forget it, right? It actually is in the self-awareness piece some of the flaws about how our public schools are done and don't even get me talking about the stuff they don't teach you about financial literacy and that stuff. But putting that aside, it's all about you don't have to redo the test. No, you did it pretty well, or you didn't do this that well, but hey, you don't have to do it all, you just have to fix 40% or 10% or 20%. So that lesson is something that has started clicking of late. It probably only took about six months,

but I now understand it and know how to use it and internalize it, where it's like, okay, you did it, you got certain feedback. Now, how do you jigger? What do you keep because it worked really well? What do you get rid of? Because that didn't really work. And this is the little bit that you can finesse and tweak and get a lot better result from.

I like that. That's a great takeaway. Great takeaway. What do you think the future of real estate is for us, agents. Is our position secure AI going to change that? Will always be needed to help in that relational transaction of real estate? So I would love to say yes. So I think it's market by market and place by place and it also is mostly dependent on the individual. So I believe that with, you know, increasing information at hand. I mean, back up one step. If you look at the rise of

Zillow, for instance, right, you had that first information change. So originally, real estate agents were the gatekeepers to information. Now they are the pathway by which information gets made sense of, right? They help you understand it. They help you break it down. So we as professionals have had to re-index the way that we're operating with the consumer. No longer they're coming to you trying to find out what's on the market. No, they know these 10 things are on the market and they want you to answer these very specific questions. So with AI, it's going to give consumers even more information, maybe to some extent more information that you even have yourself. So then how do you use your knowledge, your expertise, and your professionalism to help them make sense of that information

and create that experience by which they transact? I believe, especially in a high touch, high net worth market like New York, people want that white globe. service. So I think that real estate agents that, again, can adapt, can provide, you know, high expertise, high touch service will do very well. You know, in some middle, you know, parts of the country, suburbia, can you disintermediate? Can the blockchain replace brokers? Maybe to some extent, probably, yes. But I think what's going to happen is you're going to have, let's say, a similar level of transactions. I hope in the short term, you may actually have a bit more. If interest rates drop, let's call it 150 basis points.

I think you're going to have this great reshuffle, where it's actually going to increase the amount of transactions, similar to what we saw during COVID, but we can pin back that in a moment. But I believe you're going to have a similar amount of transactions, but what AI and what technology is going to do, it'll allow the agent to handle more transactions in a shorter amount of times.

You're going to have this compression, right? You're going to have this flight to quality that's going to occur where you're going to have, larger teams, larger agents that are doing more value. So you're going to have a smaller share of agents controlling more of the activity. And this is no different than what you've seen in any other industry, you know, since the industrial revolution. Yeah, so too.

And I mean, I've often had clients that are way more knowledgeable of what's happening in the market. You know, they've just because they're devouring it because they're addicted to whatever they're looking for. and I may not be in that lane at that time. However, they still need an agent to take a complicated situation and simplify it so they can see how to get to the other end. And really, we're just, we need to be really, really good at communicating complicated things and making it really, really simple for people. And then, of course, giving them an experience and will forever be needed, forever be needed.

That's never good. And it's funny, so when I bought my house being a real estate agent, I didn't find it. My wife actually found all four places we've ever lived in, but she found her house on Zillow, was four sub by owner. So here I am representing myself, the sellers representing their subs. There was no one in between us. I could be a great coach. I was a horrible player when it was my own deal and the stress and everything.

So it is so important how much you need that real estate agent, if nothing else, to be that sponge, to be that person that can absorb the friction, the tension, the stress, and repackage it to the other side. So true, yeah, so true. Talk about supply and demand in New York and how it is today and where it's going and what you see maybe in the nation.

Everybody I talk to has got this supply demand conversation happening in their head. What's happening for you, Jared? Yeah, so I'll give you the New York specific and then we can broaden it back out. New York City is holding about an average level of supply. If you look over the last decade, we're in that average range, about the low 7,000. So we don't have a supply shortage. Obviously, anyone will say that we don't have enough good inventory, but that's the case anywhere, anytime. So we have an average level of supply because there's a fair amount of

just natural turnover that happens in New York when you have a lot of non-end users invest. things like that, international buying. It's been a good time for some international buyers to take a profit, and while the dollar has been strong, be able to, you know, onshore that into their native currency. Demand, we actually have the Elgin, Forbes Global Properties, Consumers. Let's just stop there for a second. This is interesting.

See, when you've got international owners, the currency plays a part in that, too. We have that in Vancouver as well. Yeah, unfortunately, have blocked all foreigners from purchasing for the next 18 months. Yes, so that's interesting. Great point. Okay, so carry on.

Yeah, so we've built this consumer sentiment index that allows us to track against a seasonally adjusted pre-COVID baseline, you know, how much demand there is on a weekly basis. And what we're seeing is New York City as a whole is incredibly above the baseline, more demand than the historical average, And the summer has been busier than normal. If you break it down by borough, you know,

Brooklyn has been way overshooting. It's been incredibly hot as again, you have people continuing to move in there, either leaving the city or instead of moving to the suburbs as many would have otherwise. Manhattan is holding right about parity with that historical baseline. So we're certainly not below, but we're not as high

as Brooklyn has been. It's moving, right? Back to the comment before it's discerting but liquid. There's not deals coming over the tranches. It's sort of a lose-lose. Our rents are very high and interest rates are very high. So, you know, do you buy, do you rent in New York City because it is so expensive? You usually buy by bedroom size.

So are you buying a one bedroom, two bedroom or three bedroom? And our holding periods also tend to be a little bit shorter. About five years on average for condos and about seven years on average for co-op. So that's also down from the national average that's, you know, close to six, seven or even ten. 10 years. If you look at the national market, we're seeing a lot of constrained in inventory. Why? Because where are you going to go if you're a seller, right? And there's a huge amount of the population that has a sub, you know, 5% interest rate, a sub 4, sub 3% interest rate. If rates are at 6.5 or 7%, the arbitrage, the spread is just too large to be able to say, okay, let me sell and then let me go by.

Why do I want to go and do that unless I need to? So what we're seeing is the lack of want to buyers. We're seeing a lot of need to buyers. Do I have a family change, baby, divorce, marriage, job change? Is there some reason I need to transact or do I want to transact? The want to transact in my opinion and what we're seeing is getting kicked to this pent up demand that's forming. And when you see rates in my opinion, again, drop to let's say five, five and a quarter,

maybe even five and a half, you're going to have this great reshuffle and this great unlocking that, in my opinion, is going to be two to three times large than what happened, you know, during the COVID piece. Because you're now having had people stay in their homes longer than they may have wanted to. But once it becomes financially possible, you're going to have a influx of inventory, but it's not just an influx of inventory. You're also going to have an influx of demand because those sellers are going to be buyers in the other side of the coin. So you're going to have this great reshuffle that for real estate agents, I think, think is going to be really, really good. In the short term, what it's done is it's kept a price floor in place. In the face of rising interest rates, which effectively increased the cost of real estate, prices have stayed or increased. That is counter to Econ 101, but it's true because demand

has stayed and supply has decreased, right? So I don't think that you'll see prices drop when interest rates drop, if anything, it may actually accentuate it the other way. Yeah, great share. That's a great, great share. Well, let's finish it off this way. Elgrin and Jared, I think you guys are the best in the world. Is there somebody better than you? Who's the best in the world of what you guys do? I don't know. You talk to a few more people. I don't know. Let me know. Well, I love what you shared about your training program, your journey for the agent, you know, being connected with Forbes. Like just everything sounds like you've really got to dialed in.

So I'm really impressed, really impressed. And we have some incredible, you know, partners and other members across the Forbes network that we've been able to, you know, work with and share best practices and be able to transact. So we're certainly not in this alone. We have some really good people that are surrounding us and, you know, helping us to do what we do. So really appreciate you having me on, giving me the opportunity to share some words of wisdom. And thank you so much for what you do. Well, we're going to have a little bit of a speed round first.

before I let you go. All right. Eat around here. So, you know, if you could do fine dining takeout, skip the dishes or a home-cooked meal, what's shared having? I like to, it depends. Home-cooking, though. Okay, home-cooked.

You can go out with just your wife or just your kids or together for a meal. Just my wife. I love it, love it, love it. What's your favorite band? That's a great question. Match Fox 20 was the first one I went to concert. They still stick in my mind to someone that I love to listen to. It's always the first.

One of the first ones for me was Brian Adams. And I saw him in Vegas last year. Oh, my goodness, it was so good. Audible or book? Book until it doesn't work, and then you have to audible. Okay. And last question, a little bit of a trick. question. If you were a scratch and sniff sticker, a scratch and sniff sticker, what would you

smell like? That's a great question. Grit. I don't know what grit smells like, but grit sounds like it could work. I guess that sounds like a little bit of fresh dirt and lumber and concrete, all wrapped up in a warm. Awesome, awesome. Hey, well, thank you. so much for being such a great guest, Jared. Great insight and love what your company's doing. So carry on and just keep crushing it. Thank you, Randy. You're right back at you. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Jared. Take care of you.