KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Unlocking Global Luxuries: Expanding Horizons in Real Estate with Michael Burke

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

SummaryThis episode is an essential guide for agents looking to move beyond residential sales and into the lucrative world of investment real estate. Featured guest Michael Burke, a seasoned expert with over four decades of experience, reveals the critical strategies for success in the multi-unit market. The discussion provides a clear blueprint for understanding financial analysis, leveraging tax strategies, and cultivating the unique mindset required to thrive in this high-stakes arena.Key TakeawaysTransitioning to Income Property: Learn the fundamental distinctions between residential and investment property sales. The episode provides a clear path for agents to expand their business and portfolio by focusing on duplexes, apartment buildings, and other multi-family investments.Mastering Financial and Legal Acumen: Discover the crucial importance of understanding tax-deferring techniques and analyzing income/expense statements. Michael Burke emphasizes that this financial literacy is non-negotiable for guiding clients through complex income property transactions.Building a Powerful Network: Gain insights into the value of a strong professional network. The discussion highlights how a robust network of commercial brokers and vendors is a key asset for finding deals and navigating complicated negotiations.The Value of Specialization: Understand why focusing on a specific niche, such as apartment building investments, can lead to unparalleled expertise and long-term success. The episode showcases how specialization allows you to become a top-producing authority in your field.TopicsMichael BurkeInvestment real estateMulti-family investmentsReal estate career growthTax-deferring techniquesCall-to-ActionReady to expand your horizons and unlock the potential of income property investments? Listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform!

Hey everyone. This is Real Estate Rich's podcast, and boy, is it going to be rich, full of the wealth and the tips and the tricks of all kinds of successful agents, because that's what you want to be, right? A business builder who has success in their business, well, that's what we got going on here. And I'm going to have all kinds of agents, men, women, younger, older, sharing all their stuff because there's technology, there's just, how do you build your business? There's so, many questions, right? So let's learn from some of the best. Gather your wealth and build your business. That's what this channel's all about. And I'm excited to bring it to you. I'm Kathy Burns and I'll be your host and stay tuned. Let's get at it, right? Hey, everybody's Kathy Burns here with

Real Estate Riches and my guest today is Michael Burke and he is the team lead of the Paradise Luxury Group. Hey, Mike. Hi, how are you? Great. Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate I really do. I'm excited to have you on. You know, everybody's got their own talents, what they bring to the industry. And as I mentioned to you, my agenda here is to help the ones that are going to stick it out through the challenges. Because the truth is, if you've been in the industry for any period of time, there are always bumps in the road. Oh, yeah.

You just got to figure it out, right? It's sickle, like, you know, it has its ups and downs. And right now, I don't know exactly where your business is here in Southwest Florida. We have a full flood shift towards, it's a buyer's market now. Yeah, I'm in North Carolina. Yeah, I can say there's definitely more buyers than there are sellers because they're coming from everywhere, just like they come to Florida, right? Right.

And I'm switching personally global because I see better opportunities globally. And instead of me trying to sell global, I want to refer global. That's my mission. That's one of my takeaways are. already. There you go. Yeah, thank you. It's funny because I'm coming to Miami for a convention for our company in October and I've been asking them, let me teach the agents how to wake up their audience of who they are to global marketing and how that they can market other properties without saying the agent's name, without saying where it's at, just the money, the concept of the town,

finding the towns that people want to have other properties in and teaching them how to expand their audience and think bigger and think outgoing referrals because it's an additional stream of income that can come to your business, right? That's so true. It's even like here, though, too, is like Naples area is 50% of our people, our clientele is absentee home orders because we're a vacation destination, a second home. And it's not about, we don't sell homes. I'm sorry, we provide a service and provide a lifestyle based on their criteria.

Right. Yeah. And as second homebuyers, many second home buyers have third and fourth homes in the luxury arena, right? Exactly. Yes. Yeah, so whether they be here or Miami. And yes, we have some people that have a place up in the mountains in the Carolinas too. Yes.

Yeah. I was in a listing. I'll tell you what this agent did here in a second. But I was in a new construction listing, $8 million on the water. And I love what this agent did. But I said, where are you getting your buyers from? And he goes, Florida. And I said, are they first-time buyers?

Or are they, is this their primary home or their second home? He goes, typically their second home. And I said, okay, what's the age group? And he goes 30 to 50, sometimes 60. And he goes, because this is a really contemporary home in a not contemporary area. So it stood out a lot. And I figured everything that he said, I figured he was going to answer that because it just makes sense to me that it was a second home buyer. And $8 million, which is interesting to be a second home, but that's not uncommon in luxury. Right. And they are from

Florida, which they probably came from someplace else. We call those halfbacks or be backs. People come from Midwest, sometimes they go back or to Carolina. It's a halfback where they're staff back up. So it was funny. But he did a really cool thing. And I thought it was a brilliant marketing move. So he's got this contemporary, stunning new construction home. And he partners with the builder to list it.

But one of the things that he did was do a broker open from 10 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And he said to everybody, this is where you can come in and take all your B-roll. You can take all kinds of pictures here. you can do videos, you can do everything. You can tag the house, you can tag me or not. But I thought, is that brilliant or what? He exposed every one of those realtors to that house. They also learned how much the commission that the seller was willing to pay.

So the agents are all primed and ready for this. And now they're going to go do marketing like crazy on that house, looking for that buyer. So he just expanded his marketing leverage dramatically, even if they didn't tag him, but I'll bet you most of them do. I mean, I sure did because I was blown away with the idea. It's a great idea. It's really good.

I like it. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know what he's getting paired or what his piece is. It didn't matter because I started talking to him about what social media platform are you using? Because for me, I have been using Facebook and LinkedIn as my key target for luxury. I didn't think of Instagram.

much for luxury. I was really wrong. Holy cow. He said last year alone he did 17 million just from Instagram, Instagram, which I'm thinking is a whole younger group. Nobody's paying attention to that. Oh, yes, they are. And so I'm switching gears. Then I said, what about TikTok? He goes, well, interesting, you'd mention that because I thought it was just a, you know, I'm on them too. I'm on all of them, but I don't focus on them all. And so he goes, we've got to. We've got to a 70-year-old woman who was selling her listing, her home here in Lake Norman, which is where I'm at, and she said, she found them on TikTok. I said, get out of here. I love her. I'm 74. So I thought, well, I'm on TikTok, but I think I'm one of the only ones anywhere near my age that's on there.

But I thought, I have to rethink where I'm marketing. Yeah. And what we do, today is not going to be the same tomorrow. Right. So do you do my? on LinkedIn? No, that's not one of my fortees. We have quite a few marketing spokes, but LinkedIn is not one of them. Many videos, like YouTube videos. Yes, we have, I've dedicated it more to videos. And as we talk about now as the videos, we talk about the market bet. I don't think people really care about stats or data as much as they used to. So we have gotten in the habit now. We pick like three communities. Because we live, down here in Southwest Florida, a lot of communities are gated for different types of lifestyles. I know Lake Norman. Can I name drop real

quick? Sure. You know Bobby or Janet Falk? Yes. Well, I'm good friends with them and also the temples being part of the KW family. Yeah. But anyways, so down here we have a lot of gated communities. So now we're doing videos about different gated communities, what the amenities are, what they look like, and showing the lifestyle. Yes. So as soon as I can match up a client's lifestyle, finding a house or a condo is so easy. It's finding what they want to do, whether it's Mr. or Mrs. or either or, but finding what they'd like to do, whether it be golf, pickleball, be close to the beach, walking distance, dining, and shopping, all those things.

So when people land on the website through our Google AdWords, one of the first conversations is, you know, I can find you a house. We're looking at homes at that time, our houses, but I dig deep into that lifestyle question. Yeah, I think that's critical. Well, you know, you're trying to meet their needs. So that I can, right? Yes, exactly. So I heard an interesting thing where an agent was saying that she does not do just like a video of the house.

She goes, what I do is I do a video of the area. I talk about the amenities they're going on here. And she goes, and then I do a sample home that I have listed right now. And so this is a YouTube video, right? So she's already talked about the neighborhood. She's got the amenities. She's got fun things that are going on because she saves B-roll from like the cool little things that are happening. That's all incorporated into that video.

And here's an example of a home. Then she does the home too. So that home is in there because it's a sampling of that area, right? And so that's a YouTube video that she does. And then the title would be, want to know what it's like to live in, whatever that little town is, right? Correct. And so it's evergreen that way so much more than if you just did a video of the house, right? So you got more banged for your buck, which I thought was brilliant.

And you can take excerpts of that where the part that's just the house is for the website. But you can have the full video for your YouTube. Exactly. And even like for Facebook, though, too, is like we put a flyer out there about a specific property, then link the B roll about the amenities of the neighborhood. that pops up also. See, that's great. That's great right there.

A lot of people, see, this is where people need to start picking things up. You've got, number one, to show the whole picture, just like you're saying. And you've got to put it in where it's accessible to the property. And it's visible. It has got to be out there all the time. Now, you just said Google AdWords. Do you have a big ad budget that you do on Google? We do about $1,000 a month on Google AdWords.

that's probably, that brings us, it's about 20 to 25% of our business. Is it? Yeah, we change it up, though. It's not always static. If we're getting weak AdWords and that just aren't getting a lot of play, we change a month. My operation manager Hunter handles a lot of the technical stuff. But again, it just depends on what people are looking for and we do the research to find out

what the hot words are. I'm not going to go put in Naples real estate. It just doesn't. It's way too broad. So get back to these gated communities that we talked about. We can research behind the scenes to see what people are searching for in the gated communities. And I'll plug those in. And just like when we do our videos, we label or tag as much as we can so that you get that extra search engine juice from especially Facebook.

Yeah. Or social media. Do you do blogs at all? Well, we have a blog. It's on one of our sites, yes. So we write an article for the local newspaper so that gets there. But also we have something very unique that a lot of agents don't have is we push out 100,000 email addresses a month.

100,000. I have a little gift or knack for finding homeowner directories and using them. Homeowner directory has a, you know, the person's local address, their northern address, if there is one, their email or emails and phone numbers, whether it be sales or businesses. So once we get a directory, we create a market report just for that community. So right now we're about up to 110 directories and that's pushing 100,000 emails. I'm sitting on over a million email addresses that we're having trouble seasoning them. You can't send out one big broadcast. Right. So we're doing what we can, but it's working.

And our monthly market report is probably a good portion of closer, I would say, 50% of our business. Wow. Well, that's powerful. Yeah, it is. Now, it's a longer nurture. Yeah, I get it. People are asking for home evaluation. So when they get the automated one, it's done by computer AI, it's not that good. So then we follow up and do one right from the MLS and then call them and qualify them at a higher level. You know, if they're just looking great, then we just drip them properties of relevance for long term. And then at the same time is that they want any more information. We're usually front of mind. But I'm very, very careful.

It's like, you know, you and I get a lot with your audience gets a lot of spam and junk. Yeah. But so if somebody's a long-term return, I'm not going to send them listings every week. I might do it every other week or once a month just to be top of mind. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. So I did start doing something about a year ago where I took my blog that I was writing for my website.

and I asked chat GPT to help me convert it into a well actually how I created the blog was I took videos of content that I was doing like let's say you're talking about a town right and what's the town like in Orlando or wherever it is Fort Myers or Naples and you do a blog on Naples right so now well you've done a video first so now you've got this video and it's really cool it's got all this stuff. But the verbiage that's in there, I take the transcript from the video. I put it into chat GPT and I said, now you, I want you to utilize the tonality and the verbiage that was in the video so that you know my tone. Now create a blog with a strong SEO heading and make it a four-minute read with a call to action at the bottom that links them back to that YouTube, that specific one.

and if they want to know, see the whole thing in live in color. And then if they want to see the channel where I have others, it's a second link to that. And then if they want to book an appointment to talk about it, that's a third link. And all that is a blog and I do it as an article in LinkedIn. That's impressive. And you know what? It was simple to do. And then I figured it out myself.

Then I gave it over to my VA. I said, okay, here's the deal. now convert all these videos that I'm doing. And what it did for my LinkedIn was incredible. I started getting traffic like crazy. I joined different real estate groups, and we would send those articles over to those different groups. So now I started getting asked by LinkedIn,

and I don't pay for anything on LinkedIn. I started getting asked to make comments about different articles. So I'll do it, just because you're a realtor in your season, you know, you got some input that you can share. and what that did for me was give me like I'm a top somebody in LinkedIn and I just like it that it's in gold and says she's really good and I'm like yes I'm really good it helps the credibility doesn't it right yeah exactly I loved it so and what it did though was it picked up all the other views that I post for like let's say I've got a property a luxury property I had a $5 million

one I did a couple years back I put it all over LinkedIn because money's on LinkedIn. I did it on every platform. And now that I'm doing a lot of outgoing global, I'm focused on Portugal. So I have agents that I'm working with over there in Portugal, and they're sending me their property, pictures, their descriptions. And I'm getting, I'm kind of creating posts that are around, who wants to own property in Portugal?

Who's interested in fractional ownership? who's interested in Lisbon or the Algarve or whatever because now I'm building a database of these people that are interested in it and I will now start to nurture them. Okay, I've got some realtors out there. What's your price points? Here's the price points of some of the ones that I've got because I'm targeting the luxury market. That's my market. That's good. And this is where that international touch is coming from that you're talking about.

Yes. And I just joined a global organization because I really. really want to take this to another level. And I also found out from a woman I interviewed right before you, she said all our real estate associations have a global division. And you can sign up for that and you can start thinking more global. I just thought, you know, your company has, Keller has companies in different countries. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do too. I mean, with the XP, there's 24 different countries that we're in. And there's just a lot of opportunity because people are really thinking global today.

And some of these places are just amazing. And the price points are pretty great too. And same thing. We do a lot of business with Canadians, people from the UK. So while we deal with the original clients, you know, we're going back and touching base in the offices up there in Canada or the UK, of course, KW. But we've done it. We have cross-pollinated to other companies, though, too, because some of the boutiques don't have

the reach that we do. Right. Yeah. That's exactly it. And that's why these organizations, I think, are pretty powerful, too, because it kind of blends that over as well. So, and there's a lot of people that, let's say they're from England and they wouldn't mind have. And, like, have you heard of fractional ownership?

Yeah, I have. Okay, good. And I'm thinking that makes sense. Like, if I'm from England and I wish I had property back in England, where my folks were because I go back there. It makes sense to invest in the property there. And it may be new to them, fractional ownership, right? Correct, right.

And so now you start talking about it and say, you want to have a vacation place back there that's going to appreciate, you know, and you have ownership with other people? It's a hybrid of the timeshare. Except this one, you get the D. You're on the D. Exactly, exactly. Big difference.

Big difference. And so far, the only thing I'm hearing about, is that it's a cash deal. So for everybody, it's not financed, which again, put you in the luxury market, which is good. Yes, it is. Yeah, so I like it a lot. So what are your thoughts on AI? Do you do much with AI? We do to use chat GPT. We did use some texting through our contact manager of AI, but to me it just wasn't personal. It's personal. Yeah. So we don't use it there, but we use it for a lot of our marketing and our blog posts, and we do look up some script ideas. So I know we touch the tip of the iceberg, but I'm old school where I want to touch people

and talk to them and be personal about it. So I'm into quality versus quantity. Me too. I hear agents say, I want to do 30 more deals this year. I go, why? I don't want to do 30 more deals. Just get another team member to help you. I say, let's just double our price point and let's do 15 deals and it's equivalent, you know?

Yeah, that's true. I'm always thinking, let's, I pay attention to my net, not my growth. And the last thing I want to do is increase my workload unless I've got systems in place that are going to leverage it all out so that I'm not increasing my time because, you know, the older we get, I would like some time freedom, you know? Yeah, and that's high D personalities or type A personalities, though. it's tough for us to let go, isn't it? Very tough.

Yeah. I'm learning. I am a control person. My daughter keeps saying, you know, you got to let go. I'll do my best. Yeah. But I do have two VAs, which helped me tremendously. And when you get someone that you trust, you can give.

That's true. My operations manager is my business partner, my right hand. He's got the keys to the store, which is okay. And then we have a VA, two VA that we want. work very closely with. And we're still training them to work at a higher capacity, a higher level with us. But I do love some of the things that I could take off of his plate now and give to them. So I can do more things here in the office or some of the big project picture thinking with him. So you and I agree that this is really a relationship business.

I'm not a cold caller, never have been. I applaud the ones that can do it because it's a whole different. It's a different style completely. And I feel like it's more of a churn and burn. You know, you get their deal. You're done. The agents that I've worked with don't really stay connected to those people. And they wouldn't have to make those calls if they just, once you build up your people, now you just nurture it and get all the family. Well, you know, that's a great observation because at one time I was one of those churn and burn people. You know, I was a dominant a listing agent. And, you know, in half, not quite, quite a few, I don't know the exact number, but quite a few of our clientele where the halfbacks are B-backs, they go back up north. So I would never

see them. It was no really need to stay in touch with the high level. But back when the market shifted, you know, I'm working with more with buyers today, which is okay. But the buyers I'm working with today, I love them. And there's something, they turns to some of my best friends. Yes. And so making the phone calls are really not about business. It's more social. And I, I know they refer me out on my team, which is awesome. So it's just a little bit different here. In Lake Norman, I do know that you have a lot of vacationers in that area. So you could appreciate what we have to deal with.

So we wear many hats in the client environment. Yeah. When I first got into the business, I was dead broke. And I knew one person in the state, my daughter, and I was trying to build a career. but my background was financial planning. And I'm from Michigan originally. So what I did was on the lake here, I started to study the lake because it's manmade. And I said, well, let me figure out the rules.

And then I said, well, let me figure out if there's any second homeowners here. Whoa. I like this one out. If there's any second homeowners here. And so the only way to do that back then was to go one by one by one through the tax records. and so I started to create a list. And I thought, those are my people.

Because those are the ones that may want to sell this, especially when the market turns, and they were. So I kept reaching out to them. I didn't call them, though, because they didn't have phone numbers. So I would mail them. And I would also send out postcards in the area to that because I also had a very limited budget to do anything. But I really learned the water.

And my mission was to live in that. territory so that I could be exposed to the people that were living there. And I ended up renting a little cottage that was a garage converted to a one-bedroom cottage. And it was on the water. It was great because now I'm in proximity to all these people that are on the water. And that was how I really started to build it. And then we worked expired. I had a business partner at that time. And we just worked expired down that one peninsula that was all waterfront. And we're class classic car lovers and she came in one day with a 65 fully restored vet humming with its side pipes on like beautiful and I said Patty that is the perfect marketing machine I said we start going

down here and calling on expired where they don't even open the door I said they're going to open the door because this is race city and we're a NASCAR right here so we got our first 1.8 million dollar listing with that car, that very first weekend we went out because of the sound of it. They just fall in love, which, of course, if you love cars. I do. I got a 65 Shelby Cobra. Awesome. She's a replica, but she is the love of my life.

I can understand. Well, anyway, thanks so much, Michael. I really appreciate having you on here. Good tips. And I'm sure everybody got benefits from it. and we're going to have Michael's information on here. So if you're in Florida, any of this sounded interesting to you, be sure and reach out to him, all his contact information,

all his social media, reach out to Michael, and it's been a pleasure. Thank you. It's a pleasure meeting you too, Kathy. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. So thanks for joining me on this episode of Real Estate Riches. Wasn't that great? I'm sure you've got a nugget or two. I know I did.

So if you liked it, please subscribe below, share it with everybody, make some comments. We really find that invaluable. And if you're thinking that you would love to talk about this a little bit more, let's schedule a business strategy call. I'll have the link below. Let's see if we can't mastermind together and see if we can't empower each other. That would be great.

So until next time, signing off. Hope to see you on the next one.