Lesson Learned: Take time for you

What do clients need to know before they begin a real estate transaction?

I always try to do everything I can to ensure that my clients experience the smoothest and best real estate transaction possible. But after 20-plus years in the business, I know this isn’t always the case, and sometimes things just happen that usually come out of nowhere. So I am always thinking ahead, and I have my own system in place to try to avoid as many problems as I can foresee.

Almost all of the time, the client has no idea what actually went on behind the scenes and thinks the deal was smooth and easy, which is always my end goal.

What do too few agents know that would make their lives easier?

Organization is so key and is extremely important in the real estate business. Organization is not only about having a great CRM system or following up with emails, but it’s also about having what you need when you need it in today’s connected world. It only takes a few days of work to properly set the system up, but so many agents don’t do this and run around panicking or wasting so much time.

For me, personally, being organized truly helps me to live my life to the fullest and allows me to work from anywhere in the world, which I do right now. So no matter where I am or whatever I’m doing, I have almost everything I need at my fingertips. And since the majority of my business comes from my website, I am able to reply and send the information the client wants almost instantly.

What is the one thing everyone should be doing to make their life/business better?

One thing that really works for me is to learn how to just “turn it all off” when I’m having a bad day and things are not going very well. So rather than swimming against the tide and making things worse, I just take the rest of the day off and do something I enjoy.

Maybe I’ll go for a long walk, go boating or even just stay home and relax and not even look at my phone. Of course, I’ll email or text my clients or team and tell them that I will resolve everything and will circle back tomorrow.

I used to feel really guilty about doing this, but for me, it ends up helping me so much. It’s sort of like a reset button. And almost all of the time, things will end up fine at the end of the day.

This brings me to a quote that I live my life by: “Everything will be alright in the end. If it’s not alright, it’s not the end.”

If you could do anything other than real estate, what would it be and why? 

I am crazy about all things design, but more specifically yacht design, architecture and interior design, so I’m pretty sure that’s what I would be doing had I not been in real estate. Hopefully, that will happen in my second life, which isn’t so bad.

Being in real estate allows me to see incredible condos and homes all the time, many of which are designed by world-class designers, so I am always getting good ideas and keeping notes.

Tell us a story about your most memorable transaction.

One of my most memorable transactions was a condo that I sold in Miami Beach back in 2008 in a very high-end building. I had done a postcard mailing to the building, and I ended up getting a listing on one of the best units in the building. So that postcard mailing worked, and it was an amazing listing to have — priced at $3.5 million, which at the time was a very big listing.

A few weeks later, I found my own buyer, which came from my website, and I double-ended the deal. To add a cherry on top, the same buyers ended up buying a $12 million home a few years later. So sending out that one postcard was really the most memorable transaction in my mind and resulted in an incredible client and friendship. To this day, I am friends with both the buyer and seller.