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Team: The Barnett-Bittencourt Team
Names and titles:
- Jared Barnett, licensed real estate salesperson, co-founder of The Barnett- Bittencourt Team
- Augusto Bittencourt, licensed real estate salesperson, co-founder of The Barnett-Bittencourt Team
- Joseph Castillo, licensed real estate salesperson
- Evan Danzig, licensed real estate salesperson
Experience: Over 20 years of combined experience
Location: New York City
Brokerage name: Compass Real Estate
Rankings: Top 3 percent by total sales volume at Compass
Transaction sides: 182
Sales volume: $350,000,000
What are 3 things you’d like readers to know about you?
Jared Barnett:
Jared Barnett
I was born and raised outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My father is from Brooklyn, New York, so I have always had roots in the city. I consider myself a New Yorker now, as I’ve been a Greenwich Village resident for 15 years. I am a founding member of The Barnett- Bittencourt Team. We focus on luxury sales in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Augusto Bittencourt:
I am Brazilian; I was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro. Starting at 12, I was an actor in many Brazilian soap operas. I played leading roles in Les Misérables and Chicago in São Paulo. I am a founding member of The Barnett-Bittencourt Team.
Joseph Castillo:
I was born and raised in a surfing beach town in Costa Rica. Living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, I deeply appreciate the romantic and smaller-scale hidden pockets of New York. I am the newest member of The Barnett-Bittencourt Team. I quickly moved from rentals to luxury sales.
Evan Danzig:
I focus on luxury sales in New York City and Florida and maintain residences in both locations. I wanted to practice real estate law before becoming a residential agent. I have frequently guest-appeared on Million Dollar Listing New York.
What’s the best advice you ever got from a mentor or colleague?
Jared Barnett:
The turning point in my career was when a mentor taught me the value of outsourcing. There is only so much time in a day, and her advice was, “Spend your time on tasks that bring in business; everything else can be outsourced.”
I spent so much of my day doing administrative work, creating marketing materials and monitoring my social media which took a ton of my time. Once I began outsourcing all these tasks, I was able to focus on building my business and became much more successful.
What do clients need to know before they begin a real estate transaction?
Augusto Bittencourt:
Augusto Bittencourt
When you email a listing to see a property, many non-brokerage real estate websites will forward your inquiry to a buyer’s agent rather than the listing agent. The agents paying for leads are often inexperienced and not experts in the areas you’re looking for. Do not work with an agent solely because a website assigns them to you.
If you want to hire a buyer’s agent, do your due diligence and either get a recommendation from a trusted source or interview multiple agents and hire one who you think will best represent your specific needs.
What would you tell a new agent before they start out in the business?
Evan Danzig:
Evan Danzig
This industry can be tough and challenging, so be prepared to work. This business is not for the faint of heart. The workdays will be long, and weekends can be virtually non-existent. You must be on-call for your clients and always go the extra mile.
This is one of the most competitive industries in the country, but if you work harder and smarter, it can be extremely rewarding. There is no ceiling to your business, and there is nothing better than being your own boss.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? How does real estate relate to that childhood goal?
Joseph Castillo:
As a child, I wanted to be a doctor. As I grew older, I realized it was not the medical field that interested me but being able to help people. After I developed a passion for real estate and architecture, I got my real estate license. Now I get to help people with some of the biggest transactions of their lives — including doctors.
What’s one big lesson you learned in real estate?
Jared Barnett:
We are not in the business of collecting listings; we’re in the business of selling homes. If you have a seller who’s unrealistic with the price of their home, don’t take the listing unless you agree to terms of when you’ll make a price reduction if no offers come in.
At the beginning of my career, I would take any listing I could get, even if the seller wanted a price I felt was unreachable. I once agreed to take on a listing for a price much higher than I suggested.
The seller would not reduce the price, and after our six-month exclusive period, he hired a new broker to get a “fresh start.” The apartment was relisted for the price I originally suggested, and the new broker sold the apartment in three weeks. It ended up being a huge waste of time and money for me.
Augusto Bittencourt:
Focus on networking to build the foundation of your business. You can know everything about the real estate market, but if you don’t have people to sell apartments to, your knowledge goes to waste.
There was a guy in my previous office who knew everything about the real estate market. He could tell you details about every apartment on the market and every new development in the city. He was a very knowledgeable agent, but he ended up leaving the business because he didn’t know how to network and find buyers.
Joseph Castillo:
Joseph Castillo
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to approach every transaction with the same enthusiasm, no matter how big or small. Over the summer, I assisted an NYU parent with finding the perfect studio for her daughter. It turned out the mother was the admin of a big Facebook group called “Mothers of NYU.” Since working together, she’s referred me to six clients.
Evan Danzig:
Patience is key. With many real estate reality TV shows out there, people are coming into the industry with unrealistic expectations. It takes time, patience and tenacity to build a trusted Rolodex. I had countless $2,000 rental clients turn into multi-million-dollar buyers. No deal is ever too small, and this was something I learned very quickly.