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Broker Spotlight: Max Fitzgerald
Name: Max Fitzgerald
Title: CEO, co-founder
Experience: 9 years
Location: California, Arizona
Brokerage name: Craft & Bauer Real Estate Co.
Team size: 55 agents
Sales volume: $454,000,000
How did you get your start in real estate?
After graduating college, I had a general interest in pursuing real estate as a career, but I wasn’t interested in joining a big-box brokerage to be a traditional residential real estate agent. I had a greater passion for building businesses and learning the ins and outs of the real estate industry as a whole.
I knew this would only come from hands-on experience in a smaller brokerage environment. I was able to break into the real estate industry as an unpaid intern at an independent brokerage in Los Angeles, Manhattan Pacific Realty.
During my time as an intern (and eventually as a licensed real estate agent), I learned everything from the inner workings of the financial operations of a brokerage to the pros and cons of different commission split structures, to how to be a good leader (kudos to my former broker, Richard Haynes), to scaling a business. This was the knowledge I needed to be able to take my next step as a real estate professional, which was starting my own brokerage.
What’s something you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
The ability to say no to clients. As a newly licensed agent, it’s hard to be selective about the people you choose to work with. As a young real estate agent, I was hungry to build my business to its greatest scale. As a result, I ended up working with everyone I could, including people who didn’t have realistic expectations about buying or selling property.
As I progressed in my career, I was able to narrow down my client list. Instead of working with everybody and anybody, I focused the majority of my day-to-day efforts on my closest clients who were actively buying and selling. This allowed me to not only strengthen my pre-existing relationships with these people but made my time that much more efficient.
The biggest point to newer real estate agents is to go broad and wide at the beginning of your career, and then start to hone in your day-to-day efforts as your real estate practice matures.
Tell us about a high point in your brokerage career
I’ve had many highs and lows in my real estate career, but there is one moment in time that sticks out as a highlight. I started my real estate career as an unpaid intern attempting to soak up all of the knowledge about the real estate industry. After a few months of being a licensed real estate agent (and many more months of being an unpaid intern) I ended up putting my first deal together.
I was representing a buyer who wanted to purchase a single-family home in Manhattan Beach, California, for its development potential. While my buyer was working through due diligence, it was discovered that this particular home sat very close to the neighbor’s lot line. So much so that it was unclear if this home could be torn down and rebuilt by my buyer.
At this point in time, I was about 10 months into my career and had been living off of savings. If this deal didn’t close, I was out of money (and probably out of the real estate business).
After an agonizing few weeks of due diligence with architects, contractors, and surveyors, this lot ended up clearing the neighbor’s lot by three inches, and my buyer was able to close on the property. That commission from my first sale allowed me to not only stay in the business but gave me incredibly valuable experience.
What’s your top tip for freshly licensed brokers?
As with any sales position, the effort that someone puts into building their real estate practice is directly correlated to the results they get out of it. The freedom and day-to-day flexibility this career offers can be both a gift and a curse. If someone is a self-starter with great time management skills and a people person, that individual would have a great foundation of skills to work off of.
However, building a sustainable business is all about consistency — especially through the ups, the downs and the uncontrollable. Having the ability to pivot your strategies with buyers and sellers based on current market conditions, interest rate fluctuations and macroeconomic factors are all characteristics of excellent real estate professionals.
What makes a good leader?
A good leader has the ability to be empathetic with the people that they are leading. Whether those people are members of their team, their employees, or their peers within the industry. Having the ability to not only connect with people on an emotional level, but to understand their strengths, their weaknesses, and their overall “why” allows someone to lead at a much higher level.
It’s also essential that good leaders are great communicators — especially to the people who are following them. If the vision and direction of an organization is understood and accepted by everyone within the organization, then it becomes much easier to lead. Disorganization and lack of communication leads to people feeling left in the dark with no sense of direction.
As a leader, make sure that you are confident with your overall vision, you understand the “whys” of your agents, employees and staff, and the members of your organization have an overall sense of direction of the company.
Know someone who should be featured in an upcoming Broker Spotlight? Nominations, please, to brokeredge@inman.com.
