The conversation with Karla Saladino elucidates the intricate dynamics of real estate transactions in Manhattan, particularly highlighting the challenges posed by privacy concerns and the unique market structure that eschews traditional MLS systems. Saladino, a co-founder of Mirador Real Estate, articulates the necessity for brokers to maintain direct control over high-value listings, advocating against their exposure on platforms like Zillow, which may divert leads to less qualified agents.. Through her extensive experience, she emphasizes the importance of matching agents’ strengths to their roles within the industry, encouraging new agents to undertake personality assessments to ensure alignment with the demands of real estate. The discourse further delves into the significant impact of regulatory changes on market availability, noting how over-regulation has contributed to a scarcity of rental properties. Listeners will gain valuable insights into the nuances of Manhattan real estate, along with practical advice for aspiring agents navigating this complex landscape.
The discussion between Bill Risser and Karla Saladino unveils the multifaceted nature of the Manhattan real estate market, highlighting the unique challenges faced by brokers and developers in this iconic urban landscape. Saladino articulates her perspective on the evolving dynamics of property transactions, particularly the impact of digital platforms like Zillow that complicate traditional brokerage practices. As she elucidates the intricacies of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) and the lack of a conventional MLS in Manhattan, listeners gain an understanding of the market's distinctive framework that prioritizes privacy and personalized service. Saladino also shares her insights on the pressing issues of housing availability and the implications of recent legislative changes on rent stabilization and development, showcasing her expertise and the proactive approach taken by her firm to navigate these challenges. This episode is not merely an exploration of real estate; it is an insightful commentary on the broader socio-economic factors influencing urban living.
Takeaways:
- Karla Saladino elucidates the complexities of the Manhattan real estate market, emphasizing the unique challenges posed by limited MLS functionality and privacy concerns.
- Saladino articulates the necessity of aligning one's innate strengths with specific roles in real estate, advocating for rigorous personality assessments such as DISC testing.
- The discussion underscores the critical importance of effective communication within real estate teams, particularly in fostering a cohesive work environment for enhanced productivity.
- Saladino's insights reveal the intricate relationship between leadership styles and market dynamics, highlighting the need for authenticity in one's approach to real estate management.
- The episode expounds on the detrimental impact of excessive regulatory measures on housing availability in Manhattan, suggesting a need for a more organic market-driven approach.
- Saladino encourages new agents to thoroughly evaluate their compatibility with commission-based roles, reflecting on the high attrition rates within the industry.
Links referenced in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So they're like, I don't wantit up there. You know, I want every
lead handled by the brokerthat I hired or the, you know, the
co broker in Manhattan or theco broker that calls. I don't want
it up on Zillow. I don't wantit showing what I paid for it before.
I don't want my leads beingrouted to someone who's buying zip
codes. I want my leads to goto someone who knows how to sell
$16 million townhomes. I don'twant it up there.
(00:24):
You're listening to the RealEstate Sessions and I'm your host,
Bill Risser. With nearly 25years in the real estate business,
I love to interview industryleaders and comers and really anyone
with a story to tell. It's thestories that led my guests to a career
in the real estate world thatdrives me in my 10th year and over
400 episodes of the podcast.And now I hope you enjoy the next
(00:45):
journey. Hi, everybody.Welcome to episode 415 of the Real
Estate Sessions podcast. Asalways, thank you so much for tuning
in. Thank you so much fortelling a friend. Today we're going
back to one of my favoriteplaces. That's Manhattan, New York.
And we are going to talk toCarla Saladino. She's the co founder
of Mirador, sort of a combodevelopment company, brokerage company
(01:08):
in Manhattan. And she's gotsome really interesting, first of
all, background. And then weget to kind of talk a little bit
about how real estate works inManhattan. And I always find that
fascinating. And you muststick around for her answer to my
final question, the same one Ialways ask. We've got a brand new
answer in episode 415. After414 other answers, Carla nails it.
(01:29):
So let's get this thingstarted. Carla, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you. Thank you forhaving me.
It's going to be a blast. I'vetalked to a few people that focus
and specialize in Manhattan,and first of all, I love the city.
My wife and I love goingthere. I'm kind of a big Broadway
freak. A lot of musicals in mybackground. Maybe 20 shows. Yeah.
(01:51):
Wow.
Oh, we'll fly up from Floridato get up there and catch something.
What was your favorite? Whatare some of your top.
Oh, it's absolutely going tobe Lee Michelle, who was, you know,
from Glee, and she playedFanny Brice in the redo of Funny
Girl and.
Oh, wow.
I'm also a huge Streisand fan.Here we go. We're talking about me,
but. And so it Was really coolto see that. So that was my. Definitely
(02:14):
my favorite. I thoughtSpamalot was amazing. Many years
ago, we took our son. Soyou're right there in the middle
of it, and I want to talkabout that. To start, first of all,
I know you've been there nowfor a couple of decades. Did you
grow up somewhere near the city?
I grew up on Long Island. Igrew up in Huntington, Long Island.
And I went to school my firstyear in Delaware, and then I transferred
(02:37):
out of there. I've always beena very restless person. I think I
had to go to four colleges atsome point to complete because out
of high school, I had a yearand a half of college under my belt
because I was in all APcourses. And then I went to Delaware,
and then I was working anddecided to stay in New York, and
then I worked in the WhiteHouse. I got that job. So just kind
of all over. I was. I wasalways very ambitious to be working,
(02:59):
so I was always working and incollege. And then I enrolled in law
school. And my parents onenight said, I think you just want
to live in the city, because Ipicked a law school in Manhattan.
And they said, why don't youwork for a year? And when I was looking
for an apartment for lawschool, that person that was the
(03:20):
broker of that firm was like,why don't you just work here? So
that's how I literally startedmy real estate career when I was
looking for apartments for lawschool. Small, started there. I closed
a deal on, like, my second orthird day. But I'm just kind of a
restless person, so that's. Ijust fell into it that way.
Yeah.
And then I started my own firma couple years later. We sold that
(03:41):
firm, and then that firm gotsold, and I was approached by some
developer partners to start afirm for them. And then that's. That's
kind of how it went down. It'sbeen over 10 years there. So I just
sort of stay. Stayed thecourse. And I bought a house on the
east end of Long Island. Andmy neighbor is the dean of the law
school that I was deferring,that I got into initially. So we
(04:05):
have this joke that I'm stillon, like, a permanent deferral.
You can always go back.
I could join the law schoolanytime I want.
Never too late, right? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
What law school was it? Canyou tell me?
New York Law.
Awesome. Yeah, that's cool. SoI. Yeah.
And I have to say, as a. As adean of a law school, I've never
seen a Man like care so muchabout his students and you know,
(04:27):
he throws a party every summerand I get to meet some of his students
and people that are going tobe graduating and it's just so cool.
He actually, like, youwouldn't think the dean of a law
school would really care abouteach student individually and their
career placement and wherethey're going. Like, I've never seen
a man like just invest so muchof himself into that. It's very cool
to see. I mean, who gets tomeet the dean of any school ever,
(04:49):
you know, and then you realizelike what they, they go through and
how much care andconsideration. I mean, I, I'm sure
all deans aren't like this,but how he really knows every single
student and he prides himselfon that job placement number and
he won't take more studentsthan he feels he can job place in
three years, you know, like,it's mind blowing. Like you don't
even think about this stuff.
(05:10):
You definitely, you definitelyneed to go back. I mean, eventually,
you know, so let's, I want toback up a little bit. Their 16 year
old. Carla, you're. I, I mean,were you into sports at all? What
was your, what was high schoollike for you? Let's talk about that.
I started working the minute I could.
Okay.
I think I even like fudgedsome paperwork to work a year earlier.
(05:34):
So the minute I could legallywork, I worked. And then I sold skis
and snowboards and things likethat, you know, for many years through
high school. And yeah, I wasalways working, I was always a top
student, I always playedsports. Now later on they realize
it was just a lot of adhd. ButI think that the beauty of ADHD in
(05:57):
a world without smartphones isyou don't fall into that hole. You're
like, okay, what am I going togo do now? So there are always a
lot of hobbies, a lot ofsports, a lot of things to keep me
busy. And then withsmartphones, I think kids with the
same neurodivergence fall intovideo games in a bit of a hole because
I know if I start a video gamewith somebody, I will sit there for
(06:19):
16 hours and I will not getup, you know, because it just sucks
you, sucks you in maybe.
A bit competitive, I'm justguessing with the sports.
Extremely competitive.
Extremely competitive in whatyou do. So that's great.
Yeah. And always friends witheveryone and never really saw the
reason and not to be. And justa lot of fun. Growing up was a lot
(06:40):
of fun.
Was there one Thing you wantedto do in high school, like, you're
thinking ahead 10 years, youknow, in the future. At the age of
26, were you thinking, I wantto be doing this?
I wanted to have my owncompany. You know, I wanted to be
an entrepreneur from veryearly, I think in junior high, I
created a company that waslike selling jewelry. By, you know,
17 or 18, I had my firstcleaning company. And I would like,
(07:03):
clean houses and find otherpeople to help me clean houses and
stuff because I wanted to payfor a car. I always just wanted to
move forward, like to ascend,you know.
Yeah, I'm gonna go way aheadof the game here. I wanted to ask
you a question. I imagine whenyou're hiring, you know, at the brokerage
Mirador, do you look for thosekind of traits in people? I mean,
(07:23):
is there a way to, like whenyou're interviewing someone or having
a conversation, try to findsomebody who's got that same entrepreneurial
spirit? Because in the worldof real estate, it's kind of mandatory,
right? Yes. You work for abrokerage, but your own company.
Yeah. Oh, one more thing. Sothe way I learned to do that, I coached
with Tony Robbins for a reallylong time. I studied different hiring
(07:44):
styles because it is a veryfrustrating thing to hire agents
and be like, how comeeverybody's not like this? You know?
And the way to do that is withdisc testing. You know, we pay a
company called Abelson. It's alittle bit more expensive than like
the free test you find online.But you get like a 14 page report.
It helps you interview andmanage them to their strengths and
weaknesses. It helps themunderstand themselves. And if you
(08:07):
want someone like yourself,you look at your profile and you
just try to match thatprofile. My profile is not necessarily
easy to manage, but it'sextremely driven and it's a very
high D profile. The onlypeople that we hire as salespeople
are high D or high I.Typically, the eyes are more inbound.
They're better for inboundleads. The D is more outbound. You'll
(08:30):
be going out and gettinglistings. So you just have to kind
of determine who you wantbased off that. But that does take
a lot of the mystery out ofit. So if you test yourself and you
want someone like, you lookfor people with profiles like you
have.
Yeah. And so season S is thereyour admin?
I guess they are incredibleadmin. You know, our season we. If
you put a high D or high I inour closing department, they'll quit
(08:51):
within a week. You know, sothe S'S and C's are who you work
with.
Yeah.
And you work with well. Andthey appreciate you and you appreciate
them, you know, but they arelike, a client will walk into the
office and I'll be like, oh,thank God, now I could stop doing
this spreadsheet. A clientwill walk into the office and they're
there and they're like, I haveto stop doing this spreadsheet. It's,
it's just miraculous how blackand white it is. So I always encourage
(09:13):
people to desk test, but notjust for the disc result. That's
very helpful. But a morecomprehensive test. I think. We pay
monthly. But the reports thatwe get back even help you on how
to interview them. Becausesome people, even if they have a
similar profile, don't likejumping around on topics. Some people
love jumping around on topics.Keep it, you know, keep it interesting
(09:35):
and it will tell you that andit works to the T. It's wild to see
how accurate it is. So we'veinvested, we've leaned in very hard
on disk testing and probablyhave the most expensive disc testing
you could get. But I love alsobeing able to give the person that
tested the report, you know,so they can learn about themselves
whether they're a fit for youor not. We've had clients take it
just because they're like,should I get into real estate? I'm
(09:56):
like, this will tell you. Thiswill save you a lot of time, you
know.
Yeah.
Should you get into commissiononly sales at all? If they grew up
and were never drawn tocommission only sales or waitressing
or things with tips, they'renot just going to wake up and be
drawn to that now. It's very rare.
Yeah. It's funny, I, you know,in the podcast I've, if I, I've said
this a few times. I alwayswant to find out what people did
(10:17):
before. Right. And you, you'velaid out a really, a really cool
path. And it was, there's thenumber one thing in the past for
successful realtors that I'vetalked to somewhere along the line
they were in service, theywere bartending, they were a server,
they were all that stuffbecause you're building relationships
with that client. It's a veryshort term relationship. Right. It's
however long that they'redrinking at the bar or eating their
(10:39):
food. But you're trying to doeverything you can to build that
relationship and make surethat they won what they appreciated
what you did and you got moremoney. I mean, it's unbelievable
how, how many of those. Andthen you see some. I see a lot of
empathy thing. Like teachersand nurses. Those are like two and
three, right. Because you gotto have that piece sometimes so.
As well. But it's.
Well, and that's your inbound,you know, that's your inbound sales.
(10:59):
Because people that areattracted to being a teacher or nurse
are also looking for somestability and paycheck and so forth.
So with that inbound sales,they have the patience for it, they
have the empathy for it.Sometimes it takes a little longer.
Where your high D likes ashorter deal cycle. The nurses and
teachers will put up withpeople for eight months. That's a
longer deal cycle. So justhave to look at your deals and match
(11:20):
people to the deal cycle thatthey're on. And then again, the S's
and C's are. Are usually themost integral part because they make
sure that your closing ratioremains extremely high, you know,
and people are followed upwith. Because your high D will forget
about the deal he handed inyesterday and it'll accidentally
die. So we find when we addclosing people to high D high I people,
the closing ratio can go upfrom 40, 50% to 90 to 95%. So they'll
(11:44):
end up closing more business.You know, the pairing. My company
pays for about 120 hours aweek of closing staffing for our
agents. And that keeps ourclosing ratio in the high 90s.
Wow.
Yeah.
I'm going to go. One lastquestion about what you laid out
for us growing up. The Officeof Management and Budget. I know
(12:05):
what OMB stands for. I'm goingto flat out admit to everyone listening
that I wasn't really good inthe civic side of things, I guess
in high school. What does thatoffice do exactly? I have a sense,
but I would love to hear justkind of your take on it. Kind of
interesting. Someone who was in.
Yeah. So the omb. I mean, Iwas very young when I worked there.
(12:25):
I worked for a reallybrilliant, you know, appointed woman
named Barbara Chow. She washead of OMB for education, income
and Maintenance. And then shewas also on the Domestic Policy Council,
which was West Wing. And whensearching for what job I was going
to take, I was a confidentialassistant to her. And I also got
West Wing clearance because Iwould go to the West Wing and get
(12:48):
to see her there also. So hermain assistant moved with her to
the West Wing. And then I wasadded over at omb. And frankly, a
lot of what I did was gettingthere very early clipping. Like we
used to have to make these,like clipping books of like all the
articles and all of thethings, you know, she needed to look
at that day because thereweren't these aggregators, you know,
online. To be fair, it was theend of the administration and it
(13:12):
was the election year. So inan election year, all of these appointed
officials really wind down.That's why I was able to get such
a high level role out ofcollege, because a lot of people
leave in that last bit becausethey know that the role is going
to be eliminated. So we didn'tget to actually do too much when
we left. We had a 480, Ibelieve, billion dollar surplus and
(13:34):
we had mugs made and everybodywas cool. Right after that they did
that program where they mailedeverybody $1,000 and they just dropped
it, you know, to the ground.So that's, that's what we focused
on. That's where money went,you know, education, income and maintenance.
And then they, right afterthey gave it all away. So it's made
it feel a little useless. Butit was more. I wish I knew more about
(13:57):
what they did there. I don't.I just did like the job I was given
and then got to absorbeverything sort of around like understood
what lobbyists did. Got to goto high level meetings, got to go
to meetings with thepresident, you know, and that was
super cool.
So that's awesome. Yeah. Bythe way, the first guest on the show
who served at the White House.That's awesome. Let's, let's, let's.
(14:19):
I'm just intrigued byManhattan real estate. It is its
own universe. There's nothinglike it in the country. Right. I
mean, when I try to tellpeople there's not really an MLS
for Manhattan, they have somethings, they have something there
that brokers can at least worktogether in some way, shape or form.
Yeah, Talk about, explain thatto some of the people that just really
(14:42):
have no idea about, you know,trying to transact in Manhattan.
Yeah, transacting in Manhattanis interesting. So we have a great
real estate board calledrebny. The MLS has tried to come
in. The Manhattan MLS is that.I think it fell apart. Rebny is a
pretty powerful organizationbecause Unlike most straight MLs,
the members of Rebny are likethe major landlords, you know, in
(15:03):
America and all of thesethings. And that's sort of their
lobbying arm. The fact thatthey're also. The MLS is like a side,
you know, and for a long, longtime the way that they published
and sent out listings didn'tmatch the national way of doing it.
So we couldn't use nationalsoftware because it didn't click
in and nobody wanted to buildsoftware purpose built to New York.
So we don't have like an MLSpage where they could just search
(15:26):
all listings on the mls. Andour listings are put out in different
ways. So you could put it outbroker to broker. You could put it
out via IDX where it'sshowing, you know, you could put
it out in rls which they canlog in and see. There's someone some
that you just can't see. Onlybroker to broker can see. Because
the thing that we have goingon in Manhattan is we have a lot
(15:46):
of people that want to keepstuff private. So they don't. They.
There's the Zillow debate now.But a lot of what goes on in Manhattan
is someone will have a $16million townhouse if it has to go
on Zillow. Zillow is going totake your lead for your $16 million
townhouse, which is few andfar between and sell it to some guy
(16:09):
in Arizona. So they're like, Idon't want it up there. You know,
I want every lead handled bythe broker that I hired or the, you
know, the co broker inManhattan or the co broker that calls.
I don't want it up on Zillow.I don't want it showing what I paid
for it before. I don't want myleads being routed to someone who's
buying zip codes. I want myleads to go to someone who knows
how to sell $16 milliontownhomes. I don't want it up there.
(16:31):
And you know, there's alsoprivacy concerns because when Zillow
puts up your listing, it sayswho the owner is and they don't want
people stopping by. There's awhole thing. I think that in New
York there's a lot of people.It's not that the sales are off market.
It's they do go into our lesswe do see them. We can call their
broker. But there's a lot ofstuff that happens here that doesn't
(16:52):
need to be splashed andbroadcast across everyone. People
pick their brokers because oftheir Rolodex of people that they
know that they can sell this10, $20 million apartment to in rentals.
It's even more complex becausewe're dealing with rent stabilization.
Good cause eviction. Buildingsthat were built in the 1800s. They're
not these like gardencommunities owned by Grace or Inazuto
only, you know, they're allunique. And sometimes a landlord
(17:14):
won't pick an exclusive brokerand they don't have an on site team
because it's four units. Sothey'll send it to a group of brokers
and they're like here's ourlist, take your clients here. It's
not advertised and it doesn'tneed to be. So it's, it's a very
complex market. People keeptrying to tame it, then it fights
back and then now what we'rein because everyone's trying to tame
(17:34):
it is a market where the,there's nothing to rent. Like the
vacancy rate is nothing.There's about 80 to 100,000 warehoused
units right now. Because thestate passed a law that if you have
a rent stabilized unit, itused to be that if somebody passed
away or they left, they couldrenovate it, bring it up to code
(17:56):
and it would still be rentstabilized, but 1/40 of what you
paid in renovation cost wouldgo into the rent. And then the new
person moves in, it'sstabilized. The city took away the
ability to do that. So ifsomebody passes away or leaves a
50 year old apartment withlead based paint and all of these
things to bring it up to codecould be $100,000. They have, they're
only allowed to charge nowwhat that person was paying. So it
(18:17):
makes absolutely no sense. Sothe landlord warehouses it. So by
over trying to regulate andforce these things instead of building
more apartments or allowingfor building more apartments, they
just keep sucking more andmore apartments off the market. So
it's just people keep tryingto tame it and it's not good. I think
the market needs to be themarket, you know, because no one
(18:37):
can find housing right now.
It's so. It's weird inManhattan because it's just the sheer.
Everything's up, not out.
But you could build more out.But it doesn't make sense to build
more out. They keep changingthe rules on developers so you'll
be mid development and thenthey'll say it's almost like eminent
domain. Right. So I have afree market building and I can charge
(18:58):
whatever I want. They came inlast August and they said oh no,
you can't charge whatever youwant. We're changing the rule. You
can only increase the rent 8%year over year. And then what? You
know, so now they just tookaway the value of that building or
people who bought buildingsthat had stabilized units in it.
The plan on those stabilizedunits are like people will eventually
leave them. It's a long termhold, you know, whatever you'll.
(19:20):
There was an article thatrelated was dumping them for half
of what they paid becausethose stabilized units are now valueless
because they can't renovatethem, they can't increase the rent.
So now the value of yourbuilding went down. So developers
don't want to develop in anarea where the rules change every
six months on their asset.It's unfair. So you're not seeing
developers rushing into NewYork because the laws change all
(19:42):
the time for tenantprotections. Instead of the city
saying, hey, we should make,maybe we should lift, we should allow
this commercial zone to havethis residential building on it.
Or we should bring back 421Awhere they get a tax incentive for
building a high rise with lowincome housing in it. People are
just like, yeah, you're goingto change that rule in the middle
of my build? I'm not doing it.You know, and they're going to build
(20:05):
in places like Texas thathave, you know, more freedoms, Florida,
so forth. That's where, that'swhere the development's going. So
it's just creating thisenvironment of like, we don't trust
you and you don't trust themand nothing's getting built.
This is kind of yourspecialty, right? I think one of
like one of your key roleswith the company. I think I'll make
sure I say it the right way.Like national development, marketing
and leasing kind of thing.This is what you're talking about,
(20:27):
right?
Yeah. So we started in NewYork. We have a brokerage in New
York, but we do developmentmarketing all over the country and
we kind of specialize inturnarounds. So if a building isn't
doing that well, we'll bringour team in through marketing, sales,
leasing and turn the buildingaround, get the leasing process better.
Sometimes we consult onmanagement, like what we're doing
in Houston and you know, andwe make the building profitable again.
(20:50):
I would imagine that thatrequires. That's how there's renovation
involved there. There's awhole bunch more than just, is it
or is it strictly just, just,you know, how, how it's being run?
Sometimes it's how it's beingrun. Sometimes it's how the leasing
is being run. Sometimes theydon't have talented salespeople,
so sometimes they don't havegood lead flow. You know, often I'll
be sitting with a very highlevel portfolio manager from a big
(21:14):
company or a pension fund andI'll be like, all right, it's 4:30,
let's call the building. Andyou call the building and you get
a voicemail and thatvoicemail's full. That's it. Change
that, you know, like a lot ofpeople don't micro into it and they'll
do these shops or they'll paythese shop companies from people
that could never afford thatunit or the shoppers, they're so
obvious, you know, they're noteven from the neighborhood, they're
(21:35):
not looking at the comps. Soit's not a real shop. You know, like
a real shop is somebody whocould afford the unit. Even if you
can't go find someone thatcould and be like, what do you think
of this? You know, would youmove here? And until you can get
that to a yes, that's a realshop. You know, like I launched a
building for Lifetime, the Gymin Connecticut. And we would bring
(21:57):
people up like vendors and I'dbe like, you know, this would be
your life. And they're like,you know what? Like I live here for
a year, maybe I'll live herefor a year. And I'm like, great,
it's working, you know,because these are people that could
afford it. There are peoplethat, you know, your lifestyle appeals
to them where a shopper that'spaid like 150 baht, like they don't
actually know. They don't knowthe comps. They don't, you know,
you really have to dig and youknow, not show up during the open
(22:21):
house hours. Like call duringa normal, like I have a job till
5. Can I get an appointment at6? What happens when I call? Does
the phone route anywhere? Soin our buildings we have phone numbers
that will ring all theapproved salespeople for that building.
And they aren't W2. They're,they're licensed. So the phone can
ring and they could pick it upat 9:00 at night. I don't care, you
(22:41):
know, so they actually getlive response. It's group answering
with on site agents. The clockstops because they're not allowed
to work overtime legally at 5.And if they don't come back until
the next day or the day after,that's when your leads are getting
answered. Where we get back topeople in like four or five minutes
because we have groupanswering. So there's a lot of ways
to solve it. You could haveleads going to a mailbox. No one's
(23:02):
checking. I mean that's happened.
So yeah, that happens outsideof Manhattan too. In the residential
world a lot. There's peoplewho buy leads and just never. They
say they are horrible. Andlike really, when's the last time
you've tried to call?
It's just transparency isimportant. We have the leads go into
systems that everyone on theteam can look at. They can see your
(23:23):
conversations. They could seeif you did a bad job. And our attitude
is if you didn't respond,somebody else could take it.
Yeah, that's great.
So take it.
Let's talk about the birth ofMirador. You know, it's a, first
of all, very interesting name.I'm sure there's a story behind that.
But yeah, talk about how thatgot together. Because you're one
of the co founders, correct?Of the. You have a role on the residential
(23:43):
side and sort of on thedevelopment side.
Yeah, it's very cool. SoMirador was started. It was actually
started. It was called NorthStar, but there was a fund called
North Star and it was tooclose, you know, so I was just looking
through like architecturalterms and things like that. And a
Mirador is any kind of turretbalcony anywhere that's like a high
(24:05):
view. It could be amountaintop where you can see a lot.
And I always really like that.So we pick that because that's a
lot of what we do. We, we lookat the landscape and then we figure
out, you know, from a reallyhigh view and then we boil down,
boil down, boil down and fix,fix the problem. We see where markets
are going, technology, soforth. So that's, that's what that
is. And starting that, thecompany I had sold my company to
(24:29):
decided years later to rollinto a larger firm. And at that time,
a few developers contacted methat they wanted to start a brokerage
arm. Not necessarily for them,they just wanted the research, they
wanted some salespeople. So wedon't work for one developer, we
work for a lot of developers.But it was more they wanted to take
(24:50):
me and my team and have accessto. We were running very successful
occupied apartment programs atthe time with our brokers. So on
a portfolio that maybe wasn'tset up to show occupied apartments,
our brokers were having atleast 70% success in gaining access,
gaining trust, no complaintsfrom residents, and Pre leasing stuff
(25:11):
50 to 70% of the time, whichon a, you know, a portfolio that
pulls in two or three milliondollars a year, say it's a significant
lost rent recapture. So somepeople just like wanted that focus.
And then we brought all of ourother clients over with us and it
just kind of grew from there.
I can't imagine how manyniches there are, you know, where
someone who decides to enterjust the big giant real estate space
(25:36):
in Manhattan, there's so manylittle nooks and crannies right that
could be attacked and won.That's very cool.
Yeah.
I do research. I try to listento a few things or dig up some stuff.
And I was really intrigued by.You were talking about the difference
between masculine and feminineleadership styles. And, you know,
(25:56):
so it'd be great to hear someof those major differences. Are there
any similarities? How doesthat play out?
Yeah, and some. Some of itboils down to the person, you know,
as. As well. It's interesting.I think it's more important to just
have authenticity, I think, inyour. In your leadership style. But
there are definitelydifferences. I. My COO and I will
(26:19):
say we always think we aren'tdoing a good enough job. You know,
we could be doing better.Whatever happens is probably our
fault. Where in the masculine.We do notice more of, I'm doing a
great job. I'm really good atthis. Like, is. Is the internal dialogue.
And sometimes that's reallyhelpful. And sometimes you're like,
(26:40):
yeah, but you didn't do thespreadsheet. Like, but I'm sure you're
really good at it. But wegotta actually do the. You know,
so we do notice that a littlebit. But I noticed those traits.
Those traits could also linkto anxiety. Those traits can link
to neurodivergence. You know,feminine leadership doesn't mean
you have to be overlyfeminine. I think you just need to
(27:01):
tap into the side of yourselfthat needs to show up to that, you
know, that situation. But I dothink that women don't broadcast
as much what they do. Youknow, they're not very good at that.
I have a man that broadcastswhat I do. Like, he's putting together
a newsletter, even to theinternal team about what I did that
(27:22):
week. You know, things. Thingsof that nature. Because I just won't
say they're like, carl, youbrought on two new buildings and
you. You did this or that. AndI'm like, yeah. And are you gonna
tell anybody about it? Like,even on your own team? And I'll be
like, oh, no, I'm here now.They can come here if they want.
You know, like, I just won'tbroadcast out.
Yeah.
Where I think sometimes menare much better at communicating,
(27:43):
like, what they're working onand their wins and more newsletters
and, you know, stuff likethat. I think they're better at it.
Like, when. Even on, like,Selling New York, when that show
was out, it was very hard tofind a female to be on that show
and stick on that show. Allthe people you remember from Selling
New York are the men, becausethey're very good men at promotion,
(28:04):
where the women were kind oflike, oh, you're here again. We have
to film. Like, you could tellthey were not as, you know, but some
of the biggest producers inManhattan real estate are women.
You just. There's no showsfollowing them around because they're
like, that's a pain in theass. Like, I don't really want you
to do that. You know, I hateit. I absolutely hate it. That's
why somebody has to, like,follow me around and be like, we
are filming content today. AndI'm like, all right. You know? But
(28:26):
I find that the realpowerhouse women, they. They don't
get a lot of PR out there.They don't get a lot of stuff out
there. You don't see it.
You know, you're doing greathere, by the way. So this is good.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Once I'm in this situation,I'm fine, like. But I need someone
to be like, this is in yourcalendar. This is what you're doing.
I'd never set it up on my own.That's why I realized I have to hire
someone. That is their job toset this stuff up, because it is
(28:46):
important. It's important tocommunicate. And we're actually upgrading
him to a communications rolein my firm, which I've never had
before, because he pointedout, no one's communicating with
each other. You know, theyneed to know if somebody's left the
firm, somebody's joined thefirm. You know, what we're working
on week to week, where thecompany's going. And I was like,
I think I have thoseconversations in my head and don't
(29:08):
actually send them out orshare them on a consistent basis.
So finding somebody just toget something out consistently is
important. If it's not your strength.
Yeah. I mean, you obviouslyknow everything that's going on with
your company, but it's insidethere. And you're like, I got it.
It's here.
All good. Okay.
Yeah. And then you, like, seeyour dog or you go on a hike, you
get distracted, and I justlive in a world of distraction. So
it's good to have thoseanchors throughout the day. One of
(29:30):
my requests for this year frommy partners, which was so graciously
granted. Like, in New York, wehave four or five offices, and I'm
like, I want one office.
Wow.
They're like, you know, we ownsome of those offices, right? And
I was like, yeah, you know,but I want one hq. I don't want it
to be a storefront, you know,because we have a Storefront, it's
quite large. I want it to beone hq. I want some private offices.
I want. Conference. I want.Because everything we have is so
(29:51):
open and running around that Iwanted this and they built me a beautiful
space which we're taking thisweek and next week. Actually the
move is going on right now.One of my high S's and C's are coordinating
that move and it's goingflawlessly. She showed up on time.
The stuff. Showed up on time.You know, that's awesome. Amazing.
And then I could do this callwith you. But yeah, so that is one
(30:13):
thing. Like when it comes tofocus and rounding, everybody in
that I asked for was to haveone space because it'll help in communication,
you know, so everybody couldbe on the same page.
Yeah, there's a whole lot ofstuff going on in the world of real
estate that is sort of outsideManhattan, to be honest. Right. The
lawsuits that were settled,that had to do with the way their
properties were sold. And wehave. So then all of a sudden buyer
(30:34):
broker compensation is anissue. And then buyer broker agreements
are a big thing. And now CCPseems to be the topic of the the
hour with clear cooperation.As you know, there are companies,
big companies around thecountry doing different things. Do
you have a take or a feel onthat? Or is it, you know, because
you're, you don't really playin that space too much. It's.
I do, you know, the. I thoughtthat the lawsuit, the NAR lawsuit
(30:58):
only benefited the guybringing the lawsuit because I found
it to be extremely curiousthat he immediately turned around
and started a buyer'sbrokerage. But that benefited him
and no one else. Lawsuits likethat, that have these huge payouts
I think are really selfish andshould not be allowed. I think if
something is brought up andsomething needs to change, I don't
think all the money should goto one attorney. I know in markets
(31:21):
like out east and othermarkets that are more into this,
sure, they use buyeragreements. But to me, I don't think
buying your home, your numberone investment. I believe you should
have buyer's representationand I think it should be good representation.
I always tell people you canwork with a 15 year expert or you
could work with your Cousin'sfriend. Pick the 50. It costs the
(31:44):
same amount, right? Cost,amount. Stop working with your friends.
Like pick the one that knowsthis house is a dud in this market.
You know, pick your attorneysthat way too. Like stop picking friends
and family. It's the worstidea because these are the people
that are going to protect yourinvestment. I think working with
a really, really good buyer'sbroker is extremely important. If
they really know the marketand they say, hey, that house has
(32:06):
been on and off the marketthree times, it's got a mold issue,
it's got that stuff youwouldn't discover. Like you want
the person who knows all thegossip in that market. So I would
say use a buyer's broker. Ididn't understand the case law behind
it, why it needed to change. Ireally didn't get it. Where I think
case law is important is fairhousing issues, redlining, these
(32:27):
kind of things, these terriblethings that happen with discrimination.
That's important, right?
I have the final question Iwant to ask you. It's the same question
I've asked every single guestthe whole way through. And I know
you're going to have an answerfor this. It is, what one piece of
advice would you give a newagent just getting started in the
business?
I would say make sure you disctest yourself to see where you belong
(32:55):
in the real estate process.Because jumping into commission only
sales, for example, which youdon't have to, you could be on the
closing team, you could be onthe marketing team. And having it
not be within your strengthsis so painful and time consuming
and a waste of time and money.So what I would say is start there,
disc test yourself and if youwant to go even deeper, do Strengths
(33:17):
Finder. With Gallup, you coulddo Strengths Finder 2.0 and find
out a lot about your corestrengths and what kind of stuff
you should be working in. Ialways equate real estate to like
running a marathon. If youdidn't enjoy long distance running
growing up, running a marathonbecause your friends are doing it
is probably going to damageyour body because it, you're probably
built to throw heavy things,you know. But what people will do
(33:38):
is move away from theirstrengths towards this like arbitrary
goal. And I think it's reallyimportant to find out is, are you
made for commission onlysales? Because in real estate I think
the stat is there's only about5% of people left after two years
that take their real estatelicense. If everybody was disc tested
and only Ds and eyes went into real estate, we'd see 50% at least.
(34:00):
You know, it's, it's not easyto go commission only and you don't
have to go commission only.You can join a team in other aspects
and still very much be anintegral part of the team. So that
would be my number one is, istest yourself or find a company that
I know. Keller Williams isvery into this, testing to put people
into the right roles. I thinkthat's extremely important to learn
about yourself, to see if thisis something you want to do before
(34:21):
going and wasting a two yearcareer where you're going to be really,
really resentful.
So this is really hard to do.But in 414 previous episodes, no
one has ever had that answer,which is.
That's awesome.
Yeah, congratulations. I feellike I should be sending you a prize
or something. But that's amazing.
What is usually the answer?
There's a lot of, you know,find. Find a mentor. That's pretty
(34:43):
popular. Mentor, right? That's good.
Yeah, that would probably bemy number two. Like join a team.
Yeah, exactly.
A lot of people don't want tojoin the team because your split
is lower. But 0% of 100% is nothing.
Exactly.
You got to learn.
You need to learn the ropes.And there's no better way than going
in with somebody who's goingto show you what to do and, and be
invested in your success.Yeah. So those are the most common.
So, Carla, this was reallycool. I can't thank you enough. If
(35:07):
someone wants to reach out toyou, what's the best way for them
to do that?
Email's good or my website'sgood. My email's K, just the letter
kiradorrealestate.com.
Well, my next trip up to NewYork, I might try to look you up.
I might just say definitely, Iwant to see hq because you're, you
know.
Yeah, you can check out ouroffices. They're beautiful. We're
actually right at Rock Center.We're right across from St. Patrick's
(35:28):
Cathedral. So for somebody,our view is St. Pat's. So for somebody
visiting, we're next door toSachs. We're right at Rock Center.
It's super cool. So if you'revisiting, it's actually a good place
to visit anyway. And ouroffice is right there.
You can count on it. I can'twait. So thank you.
We look forward to meeting you.
Thanks so much for your time.
So they're like, I don't wantit up there. You know, I want every
lead handled by the brokerthat I hired or the, you know, the
co broker in Manhattan or theco broker that calls. I don't want
it up on Zillow. I don't wantit showing what I paid for it before.
I don't want my leads beingrouted to someone who's buying zip
codes. I want my leads to goto someone who knows how to sell
$16 million townhomes. I don'twant it up there.
(00:24):
You're listening to the RealEstate Sessions and I'm your host,
Bill Risser. With nearly 25years in the real estate business,
I love to interview industryleaders and comers and really anyone
with a story to tell. It's thestories that led my guests to a career
in the real estate world thatdrives me in my 10th year and over
400 episodes of the podcast.And now I hope you enjoy the next
(00:45):
journey. Hi, everybody.Welcome to episode 415 of the Real
Estate Sessions podcast. Asalways, thank you so much for tuning
in. Thank you so much fortelling a friend. Today we're going
back to one of my favoriteplaces. That's Manhattan, New York.
And we are going to talk toCarla Saladino. She's the co founder
of Mirador, sort of a combodevelopment company, brokerage company
(01:08):
in Manhattan. And she's gotsome really interesting, first of
all, background. And then weget to kind of talk a little bit
about how real estate works inManhattan. And I always find that
fascinating. And you muststick around for her answer to my
final question, the same one Ialways ask. We've got a brand new
answer in episode 415. After414 other answers, Carla nails it.
(01:29):
So let's get this thingstarted. Carla, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you. Thank you forhaving me.
It's going to be a blast. I'vetalked to a few people that focus
and specialize in Manhattan,and first of all, I love the city.
My wife and I love goingthere. I'm kind of a big Broadway
freak. A lot of musicals in mybackground. Maybe 20 shows. Yeah.
(01:51):
Wow.
Oh, we'll fly up from Floridato get up there and catch something.
What was your favorite? Whatare some of your top.
Oh, it's absolutely going tobe Lee Michelle, who was, you know,
from Glee, and she playedFanny Brice in the redo of Funny
Girl and.
Oh, wow.
I'm also a huge Streisand fan.Here we go. We're talking about me,
but. And so it Was really coolto see that. So that was my. Definitely
(02:14):
my favorite. I thoughtSpamalot was amazing. Many years
ago, we took our son. Soyou're right there in the middle
of it, and I want to talkabout that. To start, first of all,
I know you've been there nowfor a couple of decades. Did you
grow up somewhere near the city?
I grew up on Long Island. Igrew up in Huntington, Long Island.
And I went to school my firstyear in Delaware, and then I transferred
(02:37):
out of there. I've always beena very restless person. I think I
had to go to four colleges atsome point to complete because out
of high school, I had a yearand a half of college under my belt
because I was in all APcourses. And then I went to Delaware,
and then I was working anddecided to stay in New York, and
then I worked in the WhiteHouse. I got that job. So just kind
of all over. I was. I wasalways very ambitious to be working,
(02:59):
so I was always working and incollege. And then I enrolled in law
school. And my parents onenight said, I think you just want
to live in the city, because Ipicked a law school in Manhattan.
And they said, why don't youwork for a year? And when I was looking
for an apartment for lawschool, that person that was the
(03:20):
broker of that firm was like,why don't you just work here? So
that's how I literally startedmy real estate career when I was
looking for apartments for lawschool. Small, started there. I closed
a deal on, like, my second orthird day. But I'm just kind of a
restless person, so that's. Ijust fell into it that way.
Yeah.
And then I started my own firma couple years later. We sold that
(03:41):
firm, and then that firm gotsold, and I was approached by some
developer partners to start afirm for them. And then that's. That's
kind of how it went down. It'sbeen over 10 years there. So I just
sort of stay. Stayed thecourse. And I bought a house on the
east end of Long Island. Andmy neighbor is the dean of the law
school that I was deferring,that I got into initially. So we
(04:05):
have this joke that I'm stillon, like, a permanent deferral.
You can always go back.
I could join the law schoolanytime I want.
Never too late, right? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
What law school was it? Canyou tell me?
New York Law.
Awesome. Yeah, that's cool. SoI. Yeah.
And I have to say, as a. As adean of a law school, I've never
seen a Man like care so muchabout his students and you know,
(04:27):
he throws a party every summerand I get to meet some of his students
and people that are going tobe graduating and it's just so cool.
He actually, like, youwouldn't think the dean of a law
school would really care abouteach student individually and their
career placement and wherethey're going. Like, I've never seen
a man like just invest so muchof himself into that. It's very cool
to see. I mean, who gets tomeet the dean of any school ever,
(04:49):
you know, and then you realizelike what they, they go through and
how much care andconsideration. I mean, I, I'm sure
all deans aren't like this,but how he really knows every single
student and he prides himselfon that job placement number and
he won't take more studentsthan he feels he can job place in
three years, you know, like,it's mind blowing. Like you don't
even think about this stuff.
(05:10):
You definitely, you definitelyneed to go back. I mean, eventually,
you know, so let's, I want toback up a little bit. Their 16 year
old. Carla, you're. I, I mean,were you into sports at all? What
was your, what was high schoollike for you? Let's talk about that.
I started working the minute I could.
Okay.
I think I even like fudgedsome paperwork to work a year earlier.
(05:34):
So the minute I could legallywork, I worked. And then I sold skis
and snowboards and things likethat, you know, for many years through
high school. And yeah, I wasalways working, I was always a top
student, I always playedsports. Now later on they realize
it was just a lot of adhd. ButI think that the beauty of ADHD in
(05:57):
a world without smartphones isyou don't fall into that hole. You're
like, okay, what am I going togo do now? So there are always a
lot of hobbies, a lot ofsports, a lot of things to keep me
busy. And then withsmartphones, I think kids with the
same neurodivergence fall intovideo games in a bit of a hole because
I know if I start a video gamewith somebody, I will sit there for
(06:19):
16 hours and I will not getup, you know, because it just sucks
you, sucks you in maybe.
A bit competitive, I'm justguessing with the sports.
Extremely competitive.
Extremely competitive in whatyou do. So that's great.
Yeah. And always friends witheveryone and never really saw the
reason and not to be. And justa lot of fun. Growing up was a lot
(06:40):
of fun.
Was there one Thing you wantedto do in high school, like, you're
thinking ahead 10 years, youknow, in the future. At the age of
26, were you thinking, I wantto be doing this?
I wanted to have my owncompany. You know, I wanted to be
an entrepreneur from veryearly, I think in junior high, I
created a company that waslike selling jewelry. By, you know,
17 or 18, I had my firstcleaning company. And I would like,
(07:03):
clean houses and find otherpeople to help me clean houses and
stuff because I wanted to payfor a car. I always just wanted to
move forward, like to ascend,you know.
Yeah, I'm gonna go way aheadof the game here. I wanted to ask
you a question. I imagine whenyou're hiring, you know, at the brokerage
Mirador, do you look for thosekind of traits in people? I mean,
(07:23):
is there a way to, like whenyou're interviewing someone or having
a conversation, try to findsomebody who's got that same entrepreneurial
spirit? Because in the worldof real estate, it's kind of mandatory,
right? Yes. You work for abrokerage, but your own company.
Yeah. Oh, one more thing. Sothe way I learned to do that, I coached
with Tony Robbins for a reallylong time. I studied different hiring
(07:44):
styles because it is a veryfrustrating thing to hire agents
and be like, how comeeverybody's not like this? You know?
And the way to do that is withdisc testing. You know, we pay a
company called Abelson. It's alittle bit more expensive than like
the free test you find online.But you get like a 14 page report.
It helps you interview andmanage them to their strengths and
weaknesses. It helps themunderstand themselves. And if you
(08:07):
want someone like yourself,you look at your profile and you
just try to match thatprofile. My profile is not necessarily
easy to manage, but it'sextremely driven and it's a very
high D profile. The onlypeople that we hire as salespeople
are high D or high I.Typically, the eyes are more inbound.
They're better for inboundleads. The D is more outbound. You'll
(08:30):
be going out and gettinglistings. So you just have to kind
of determine who you wantbased off that. But that does take
a lot of the mystery out ofit. So if you test yourself and you
want someone like, you lookfor people with profiles like you
have.
Yeah. And so season S is thereyour admin?
I guess they are incredibleadmin. You know, our season we. If
you put a high D or high I inour closing department, they'll quit
(08:51):
within a week. You know, sothe S'S and C's are who you work
with.
Yeah.
And you work with well. Andthey appreciate you and you appreciate
them, you know, but they arelike, a client will walk into the
office and I'll be like, oh,thank God, now I could stop doing
this spreadsheet. A clientwill walk into the office and they're
there and they're like, I haveto stop doing this spreadsheet. It's,
it's just miraculous how blackand white it is. So I always encourage
(09:13):
people to desk test, but notjust for the disc result. That's
very helpful. But a morecomprehensive test. I think. We pay
monthly. But the reports thatwe get back even help you on how
to interview them. Becausesome people, even if they have a
similar profile, don't likejumping around on topics. Some people
love jumping around on topics.Keep it, you know, keep it interesting
(09:35):
and it will tell you that andit works to the T. It's wild to see
how accurate it is. So we'veinvested, we've leaned in very hard
on disk testing and probablyhave the most expensive disc testing
you could get. But I love alsobeing able to give the person that
tested the report, you know,so they can learn about themselves
whether they're a fit for youor not. We've had clients take it
just because they're like,should I get into real estate? I'm
(09:56):
like, this will tell you. Thiswill save you a lot of time, you
know.
Yeah.
Should you get into commissiononly sales at all? If they grew up
and were never drawn tocommission only sales or waitressing
or things with tips, they'renot just going to wake up and be
drawn to that now. It's very rare.
Yeah. It's funny, I, you know,in the podcast I've, if I, I've said
this a few times. I alwayswant to find out what people did
(10:17):
before. Right. And you, you'velaid out a really, a really cool
path. And it was, there's thenumber one thing in the past for
successful realtors that I'vetalked to somewhere along the line
they were in service, theywere bartending, they were a server,
they were all that stuffbecause you're building relationships
with that client. It's a veryshort term relationship. Right. It's
however long that they'redrinking at the bar or eating their
(10:39):
food. But you're trying to doeverything you can to build that
relationship and make surethat they won what they appreciated
what you did and you got moremoney. I mean, it's unbelievable
how, how many of those. Andthen you see some. I see a lot of
empathy thing. Like teachersand nurses. Those are like two and
three, right. Because you gotto have that piece sometimes so.
As well. But it's.
Well, and that's your inbound,you know, that's your inbound sales.
(10:59):
Because people that areattracted to being a teacher or nurse
are also looking for somestability and paycheck and so forth.
So with that inbound sales,they have the patience for it, they
have the empathy for it.Sometimes it takes a little longer.
Where your high D likes ashorter deal cycle. The nurses and
teachers will put up withpeople for eight months. That's a
longer deal cycle. So justhave to look at your deals and match
(11:20):
people to the deal cycle thatthey're on. And then again, the S's
and C's are. Are usually themost integral part because they make
sure that your closing ratioremains extremely high, you know,
and people are followed upwith. Because your high D will forget
about the deal he handed inyesterday and it'll accidentally
die. So we find when we addclosing people to high D high I people,
the closing ratio can go upfrom 40, 50% to 90 to 95%. So they'll
(11:44):
end up closing more business.You know, the pairing. My company
pays for about 120 hours aweek of closing staffing for our
agents. And that keeps ourclosing ratio in the high 90s.
Wow.
Yeah.
I'm going to go. One lastquestion about what you laid out
for us growing up. The Officeof Management and Budget. I know
(12:05):
what OMB stands for. I'm goingto flat out admit to everyone listening
that I wasn't really good inthe civic side of things, I guess
in high school. What does thatoffice do exactly? I have a sense,
but I would love to hear justkind of your take on it. Kind of
interesting. Someone who was in.
Yeah. So the omb. I mean, Iwas very young when I worked there.
(12:25):
I worked for a reallybrilliant, you know, appointed woman
named Barbara Chow. She washead of OMB for education, income
and Maintenance. And then shewas also on the Domestic Policy Council,
which was West Wing. And whensearching for what job I was going
to take, I was a confidentialassistant to her. And I also got
West Wing clearance because Iwould go to the West Wing and get
(12:48):
to see her there also. So hermain assistant moved with her to
the West Wing. And then I wasadded over at omb. And frankly, a
lot of what I did was gettingthere very early clipping. Like we
used to have to make these,like clipping books of like all the
articles and all of thethings, you know, she needed to look
at that day because thereweren't these aggregators, you know,
online. To be fair, it was theend of the administration and it
(13:12):
was the election year. So inan election year, all of these appointed
officials really wind down.That's why I was able to get such
a high level role out ofcollege, because a lot of people
leave in that last bit becausethey know that the role is going
to be eliminated. So we didn'tget to actually do too much when
we left. We had a 480, Ibelieve, billion dollar surplus and
(13:34):
we had mugs made and everybodywas cool. Right after that they did
that program where they mailedeverybody $1,000 and they just dropped
it, you know, to the ground.So that's, that's what we focused
on. That's where money went,you know, education, income and maintenance.
And then they, right afterthey gave it all away. So it's made
it feel a little useless. Butit was more. I wish I knew more about
(13:57):
what they did there. I don't.I just did like the job I was given
and then got to absorbeverything sort of around like understood
what lobbyists did. Got to goto high level meetings, got to go
to meetings with thepresident, you know, and that was
super cool.
So that's awesome. Yeah. Bythe way, the first guest on the show
who served at the White House.That's awesome. Let's, let's, let's.
(14:19):
I'm just intrigued byManhattan real estate. It is its
own universe. There's nothinglike it in the country. Right. I
mean, when I try to tellpeople there's not really an MLS
for Manhattan, they have somethings, they have something there
that brokers can at least worktogether in some way, shape or form.
Yeah, Talk about, explain thatto some of the people that just really
(14:42):
have no idea about, you know,trying to transact in Manhattan.
Yeah, transacting in Manhattanis interesting. So we have a great
real estate board calledrebny. The MLS has tried to come
in. The Manhattan MLS is that.I think it fell apart. Rebny is a
pretty powerful organizationbecause Unlike most straight MLs,
the members of Rebny are likethe major landlords, you know, in
(15:03):
America and all of thesethings. And that's sort of their
lobbying arm. The fact thatthey're also. The MLS is like a side,
you know, and for a long, longtime the way that they published
and sent out listings didn'tmatch the national way of doing it.
So we couldn't use nationalsoftware because it didn't click
in and nobody wanted to buildsoftware purpose built to New York.
So we don't have like an MLSpage where they could just search
(15:26):
all listings on the mls. Andour listings are put out in different
ways. So you could put it outbroker to broker. You could put it
out via IDX where it'sshowing, you know, you could put
it out in rls which they canlog in and see. There's someone some
that you just can't see. Onlybroker to broker can see. Because
the thing that we have goingon in Manhattan is we have a lot
(15:46):
of people that want to keepstuff private. So they don't. They.
There's the Zillow debate now.But a lot of what goes on in Manhattan
is someone will have a $16million townhouse if it has to go
on Zillow. Zillow is going totake your lead for your $16 million
townhouse, which is few andfar between and sell it to some guy
(16:09):
in Arizona. So they're like, Idon't want it up there. You know,
I want every lead handled bythe broker that I hired or the, you
know, the co broker inManhattan or the co broker that calls.
I don't want it up on Zillow.I don't want it showing what I paid
for it before. I don't want myleads being routed to someone who's
buying zip codes. I want myleads to go to someone who knows
how to sell $16 milliontownhomes. I don't want it up there.
(16:31):
And you know, there's alsoprivacy concerns because when Zillow
puts up your listing, it sayswho the owner is and they don't want
people stopping by. There's awhole thing. I think that in New
York there's a lot of people.It's not that the sales are off market.
It's they do go into our lesswe do see them. We can call their
broker. But there's a lot ofstuff that happens here that doesn't
(16:52):
need to be splashed andbroadcast across everyone. People
pick their brokers because oftheir Rolodex of people that they
know that they can sell this10, $20 million apartment to in rentals.
It's even more complex becausewe're dealing with rent stabilization.
Good cause eviction. Buildingsthat were built in the 1800s. They're
not these like gardencommunities owned by Grace or Inazuto
only, you know, they're allunique. And sometimes a landlord
(17:14):
won't pick an exclusive brokerand they don't have an on site team
because it's four units. Sothey'll send it to a group of brokers
and they're like here's ourlist, take your clients here. It's
not advertised and it doesn'tneed to be. So it's, it's a very
complex market. People keeptrying to tame it, then it fights
back and then now what we'rein because everyone's trying to tame
(17:34):
it is a market where the,there's nothing to rent. Like the
vacancy rate is nothing.There's about 80 to 100,000 warehoused
units right now. Because thestate passed a law that if you have
a rent stabilized unit, itused to be that if somebody passed
away or they left, they couldrenovate it, bring it up to code
(17:56):
and it would still be rentstabilized, but 1/40 of what you
paid in renovation cost wouldgo into the rent. And then the new
person moves in, it'sstabilized. The city took away the
ability to do that. So ifsomebody passes away or leaves a
50 year old apartment withlead based paint and all of these
things to bring it up to codecould be $100,000. They have, they're
only allowed to charge nowwhat that person was paying. So it
(18:17):
makes absolutely no sense. Sothe landlord warehouses it. So by
over trying to regulate andforce these things instead of building
more apartments or allowingfor building more apartments, they
just keep sucking more andmore apartments off the market. So
it's just people keep tryingto tame it and it's not good. I think
the market needs to be themarket, you know, because no one
(18:37):
can find housing right now.
It's so. It's weird inManhattan because it's just the sheer.
Everything's up, not out.
But you could build more out.But it doesn't make sense to build
more out. They keep changingthe rules on developers so you'll
be mid development and thenthey'll say it's almost like eminent
domain. Right. So I have afree market building and I can charge
(18:58):
whatever I want. They came inlast August and they said oh no,
you can't charge whatever youwant. We're changing the rule. You
can only increase the rent 8%year over year. And then what? You
know, so now they just tookaway the value of that building or
people who bought buildingsthat had stabilized units in it.
The plan on those stabilizedunits are like people will eventually
leave them. It's a long termhold, you know, whatever you'll.
(19:20):
There was an article thatrelated was dumping them for half
of what they paid becausethose stabilized units are now valueless
because they can't renovatethem, they can't increase the rent.
So now the value of yourbuilding went down. So developers
don't want to develop in anarea where the rules change every
six months on their asset.It's unfair. So you're not seeing
developers rushing into NewYork because the laws change all
(19:42):
the time for tenantprotections. Instead of the city
saying, hey, we should make,maybe we should lift, we should allow
this commercial zone to havethis residential building on it.
Or we should bring back 421Awhere they get a tax incentive for
building a high rise with lowincome housing in it. People are
just like, yeah, you're goingto change that rule in the middle
of my build? I'm not doing it.You know, and they're going to build
(20:05):
in places like Texas thathave, you know, more freedoms, Florida,
so forth. That's where, that'swhere the development's going. So
it's just creating thisenvironment of like, we don't trust
you and you don't trust themand nothing's getting built.
This is kind of yourspecialty, right? I think one of
like one of your key roleswith the company. I think I'll make
sure I say it the right way.Like national development, marketing
and leasing kind of thing.This is what you're talking about,
(20:27):
right?
Yeah. So we started in NewYork. We have a brokerage in New
York, but we do developmentmarketing all over the country and
we kind of specialize inturnarounds. So if a building isn't
doing that well, we'll bringour team in through marketing, sales,
leasing and turn the buildingaround, get the leasing process better.
Sometimes we consult onmanagement, like what we're doing
in Houston and you know, andwe make the building profitable again.
(20:50):
I would imagine that thatrequires. That's how there's renovation
involved there. There's awhole bunch more than just, is it
or is it strictly just, just,you know, how, how it's being run?
Sometimes it's how it's beingrun. Sometimes it's how the leasing
is being run. Sometimes theydon't have talented salespeople,
so sometimes they don't havegood lead flow. You know, often I'll
be sitting with a very highlevel portfolio manager from a big
(21:14):
company or a pension fund andI'll be like, all right, it's 4:30,
let's call the building. Andyou call the building and you get
a voicemail and thatvoicemail's full. That's it. Change
that, you know, like a lot ofpeople don't micro into it and they'll
do these shops or they'll paythese shop companies from people
that could never afford thatunit or the shoppers, they're so
obvious, you know, they're noteven from the neighborhood, they're
(21:35):
not looking at the comps. Soit's not a real shop. You know, like
a real shop is somebody whocould afford the unit. Even if you
can't go find someone thatcould and be like, what do you think
of this? You know, would youmove here? And until you can get
that to a yes, that's a realshop. You know, like I launched a
building for Lifetime, the Gymin Connecticut. And we would bring
(21:57):
people up like vendors and I'dbe like, you know, this would be
your life. And they're like,you know what? Like I live here for
a year, maybe I'll live herefor a year. And I'm like, great,
it's working, you know,because these are people that could
afford it. There are peoplethat, you know, your lifestyle appeals
to them where a shopper that'spaid like 150 baht, like they don't
actually know. They don't knowthe comps. They don't, you know,
you really have to dig and youknow, not show up during the open
(22:21):
house hours. Like call duringa normal, like I have a job till
5. Can I get an appointment at6? What happens when I call? Does
the phone route anywhere? Soin our buildings we have phone numbers
that will ring all theapproved salespeople for that building.
And they aren't W2. They're,they're licensed. So the phone can
ring and they could pick it upat 9:00 at night. I don't care, you
(22:41):
know, so they actually getlive response. It's group answering
with on site agents. The clockstops because they're not allowed
to work overtime legally at 5.And if they don't come back until
the next day or the day after,that's when your leads are getting
answered. Where we get back topeople in like four or five minutes
because we have groupanswering. So there's a lot of ways
to solve it. You could haveleads going to a mailbox. No one's
(23:02):
checking. I mean that's happened.
So yeah, that happens outsideof Manhattan too. In the residential
world a lot. There's peoplewho buy leads and just never. They
say they are horrible. Andlike really, when's the last time
you've tried to call?
It's just transparency isimportant. We have the leads go into
systems that everyone on theteam can look at. They can see your
(23:23):
conversations. They could seeif you did a bad job. And our attitude
is if you didn't respond,somebody else could take it.
Yeah, that's great.
So take it.
Let's talk about the birth ofMirador. You know, it's a, first
of all, very interesting name.I'm sure there's a story behind that.
But yeah, talk about how thatgot together. Because you're one
of the co founders, correct?Of the. You have a role on the residential
(23:43):
side and sort of on thedevelopment side.
Yeah, it's very cool. SoMirador was started. It was actually
started. It was called NorthStar, but there was a fund called
North Star and it was tooclose, you know, so I was just looking
through like architecturalterms and things like that. And a
Mirador is any kind of turretbalcony anywhere that's like a high
(24:05):
view. It could be amountaintop where you can see a lot.
And I always really like that.So we pick that because that's a
lot of what we do. We, we lookat the landscape and then we figure
out, you know, from a reallyhigh view and then we boil down,
boil down, boil down and fix,fix the problem. We see where markets
are going, technology, soforth. So that's, that's what that
is. And starting that, thecompany I had sold my company to
(24:29):
decided years later to rollinto a larger firm. And at that time,
a few developers contacted methat they wanted to start a brokerage
arm. Not necessarily for them,they just wanted the research, they
wanted some salespeople. So wedon't work for one developer, we
work for a lot of developers.But it was more they wanted to take
(24:50):
me and my team and have accessto. We were running very successful
occupied apartment programs atthe time with our brokers. So on
a portfolio that maybe wasn'tset up to show occupied apartments,
our brokers were having atleast 70% success in gaining access,
gaining trust, no complaintsfrom residents, and Pre leasing stuff
(25:11):
50 to 70% of the time, whichon a, you know, a portfolio that
pulls in two or three milliondollars a year, say it's a significant
lost rent recapture. So somepeople just like wanted that focus.
And then we brought all of ourother clients over with us and it
just kind of grew from there.
I can't imagine how manyniches there are, you know, where
someone who decides to enterjust the big giant real estate space
(25:36):
in Manhattan, there's so manylittle nooks and crannies right that
could be attacked and won.That's very cool.
Yeah.
I do research. I try to listento a few things or dig up some stuff.
And I was really intrigued by.You were talking about the difference
between masculine and feminineleadership styles. And, you know,
(25:56):
so it'd be great to hear someof those major differences. Are there
any similarities? How doesthat play out?
Yeah, and some. Some of itboils down to the person, you know,
as. As well. It's interesting.I think it's more important to just
have authenticity, I think, inyour. In your leadership style. But
there are definitelydifferences. I. My COO and I will
(26:19):
say we always think we aren'tdoing a good enough job. You know,
we could be doing better.Whatever happens is probably our
fault. Where in the masculine.We do notice more of, I'm doing a
great job. I'm really good atthis. Like, is. Is the internal dialogue.
And sometimes that's reallyhelpful. And sometimes you're like,
(26:40):
yeah, but you didn't do thespreadsheet. Like, but I'm sure you're
really good at it. But wegotta actually do the. You know,
so we do notice that a littlebit. But I noticed those traits.
Those traits could also linkto anxiety. Those traits can link
to neurodivergence. You know,feminine leadership doesn't mean
you have to be overlyfeminine. I think you just need to
(27:01):
tap into the side of yourselfthat needs to show up to that, you
know, that situation. But I dothink that women don't broadcast
as much what they do. Youknow, they're not very good at that.
I have a man that broadcastswhat I do. Like, he's putting together
a newsletter, even to theinternal team about what I did that
(27:22):
week. You know, things. Thingsof that nature. Because I just won't
say they're like, carl, youbrought on two new buildings and
you. You did this or that. AndI'm like, yeah. And are you gonna
tell anybody about it? Like,even on your own team? And I'll be
like, oh, no, I'm here now.They can come here if they want.
You know, like, I just won'tbroadcast out.
Yeah.
Where I think sometimes menare much better at communicating,
(27:43):
like, what they're working onand their wins and more newsletters
and, you know, stuff likethat. I think they're better at it.
Like, when. Even on, like,Selling New York, when that show
was out, it was very hard tofind a female to be on that show
and stick on that show. Allthe people you remember from Selling
New York are the men, becausethey're very good men at promotion,
(28:04):
where the women were kind oflike, oh, you're here again. We have
to film. Like, you could tellthey were not as, you know, but some
of the biggest producers inManhattan real estate are women.
You just. There's no showsfollowing them around because they're
like, that's a pain in theass. Like, I don't really want you
to do that. You know, I hateit. I absolutely hate it. That's
why somebody has to, like,follow me around and be like, we
are filming content today. AndI'm like, all right. You know? But
(28:26):
I find that the realpowerhouse women, they. They don't
get a lot of PR out there.They don't get a lot of stuff out
there. You don't see it.
You know, you're doing greathere, by the way. So this is good.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Once I'm in this situation,I'm fine, like. But I need someone
to be like, this is in yourcalendar. This is what you're doing.
I'd never set it up on my own.That's why I realized I have to hire
someone. That is their job toset this stuff up, because it is
(28:46):
important. It's important tocommunicate. And we're actually upgrading
him to a communications rolein my firm, which I've never had
before, because he pointedout, no one's communicating with
each other. You know, theyneed to know if somebody's left the
firm, somebody's joined thefirm. You know, what we're working
on week to week, where thecompany's going. And I was like,
I think I have thoseconversations in my head and don't
(29:08):
actually send them out orshare them on a consistent basis.
So finding somebody just toget something out consistently is
important. If it's not your strength.
Yeah. I mean, you obviouslyknow everything that's going on with
your company, but it's insidethere. And you're like, I got it.
It's here.
All good. Okay.
Yeah. And then you, like, seeyour dog or you go on a hike, you
get distracted, and I justlive in a world of distraction. So
it's good to have thoseanchors throughout the day. One of
(29:30):
my requests for this year frommy partners, which was so graciously
granted. Like, in New York, wehave four or five offices, and I'm
like, I want one office.
Wow.
They're like, you know, we ownsome of those offices, right? And
I was like, yeah, you know,but I want one hq. I don't want it
to be a storefront, you know,because we have a Storefront, it's
quite large. I want it to beone hq. I want some private offices.
I want. Conference. I want.Because everything we have is so
(29:51):
open and running around that Iwanted this and they built me a beautiful
space which we're taking thisweek and next week. Actually the
move is going on right now.One of my high S's and C's are coordinating
that move and it's goingflawlessly. She showed up on time.
The stuff. Showed up on time.You know, that's awesome. Amazing.
And then I could do this callwith you. But yeah, so that is one
(30:13):
thing. Like when it comes tofocus and rounding, everybody in
that I asked for was to haveone space because it'll help in communication,
you know, so everybody couldbe on the same page.
Yeah, there's a whole lot ofstuff going on in the world of real
estate that is sort of outsideManhattan, to be honest. Right. The
lawsuits that were settled,that had to do with the way their
properties were sold. And wehave. So then all of a sudden buyer
(30:34):
broker compensation is anissue. And then buyer broker agreements
are a big thing. And now CCPseems to be the topic of the the
hour with clear cooperation.As you know, there are companies,
big companies around thecountry doing different things. Do
you have a take or a feel onthat? Or is it, you know, because
you're, you don't really playin that space too much. It's.
I do, you know, the. I thoughtthat the lawsuit, the NAR lawsuit
(30:58):
only benefited the guybringing the lawsuit because I found
it to be extremely curiousthat he immediately turned around
and started a buyer'sbrokerage. But that benefited him
and no one else. Lawsuits likethat, that have these huge payouts
I think are really selfish andshould not be allowed. I think if
something is brought up andsomething needs to change, I don't
think all the money should goto one attorney. I know in markets
(31:21):
like out east and othermarkets that are more into this,
sure, they use buyeragreements. But to me, I don't think
buying your home, your numberone investment. I believe you should
have buyer's representationand I think it should be good representation.
I always tell people you canwork with a 15 year expert or you
could work with your Cousin'sfriend. Pick the 50. It costs the
(31:44):
same amount, right? Cost,amount. Stop working with your friends.
Like pick the one that knowsthis house is a dud in this market.
You know, pick your attorneysthat way too. Like stop picking friends
and family. It's the worstidea because these are the people
that are going to protect yourinvestment. I think working with
a really, really good buyer'sbroker is extremely important. If
they really know the marketand they say, hey, that house has
(32:06):
been on and off the marketthree times, it's got a mold issue,
it's got that stuff youwouldn't discover. Like you want
the person who knows all thegossip in that market. So I would
say use a buyer's broker. Ididn't understand the case law behind
it, why it needed to change. Ireally didn't get it. Where I think
case law is important is fairhousing issues, redlining, these
(32:27):
kind of things, these terriblethings that happen with discrimination.
That's important, right?
I have the final question Iwant to ask you. It's the same question
I've asked every single guestthe whole way through. And I know
you're going to have an answerfor this. It is, what one piece of
advice would you give a newagent just getting started in the
business?
I would say make sure you disctest yourself to see where you belong
(32:55):
in the real estate process.Because jumping into commission only
sales, for example, which youdon't have to, you could be on the
closing team, you could be onthe marketing team. And having it
not be within your strengthsis so painful and time consuming
and a waste of time and money.So what I would say is start there,
disc test yourself and if youwant to go even deeper, do Strengths
(33:17):
Finder. With Gallup, you coulddo Strengths Finder 2.0 and find
out a lot about your corestrengths and what kind of stuff
you should be working in. Ialways equate real estate to like
running a marathon. If youdidn't enjoy long distance running
growing up, running a marathonbecause your friends are doing it
is probably going to damageyour body because it, you're probably
built to throw heavy things,you know. But what people will do
(33:38):
is move away from theirstrengths towards this like arbitrary
goal. And I think it's reallyimportant to find out is, are you
made for commission onlysales? Because in real estate I think
the stat is there's only about5% of people left after two years
that take their real estatelicense. If everybody was disc tested
and only Ds and eyes went into real estate, we'd see 50% at least.
(34:00):
You know, it's, it's not easyto go commission only and you don't
have to go commission only.You can join a team in other aspects
and still very much be anintegral part of the team. So that
would be my number one is, istest yourself or find a company that
I know. Keller Williams isvery into this, testing to put people
into the right roles. I thinkthat's extremely important to learn
about yourself, to see if thisis something you want to do before
(34:21):
going and wasting a two yearcareer where you're going to be really,
really resentful.
So this is really hard to do.But in 414 previous episodes, no
one has ever had that answer,which is.
That's awesome.
Yeah, congratulations. I feellike I should be sending you a prize
or something. But that's amazing.
What is usually the answer?
There's a lot of, you know,find. Find a mentor. That's pretty
(34:43):
popular. Mentor, right? That's good.
Yeah, that would probably bemy number two. Like join a team.
Yeah, exactly.
A lot of people don't want tojoin the team because your split
is lower. But 0% of 100% is nothing.
Exactly.
You got to learn.
You need to learn the ropes.And there's no better way than going
in with somebody who's goingto show you what to do and, and be
invested in your success.Yeah. So those are the most common.
So, Carla, this was reallycool. I can't thank you enough. If
(35:07):
someone wants to reach out toyou, what's the best way for them
to do that?
Email's good or my website'sgood. My email's K, just the letter
kiradorrealestate.com.
Well, my next trip up to NewYork, I might try to look you up.
I might just say definitely, Iwant to see hq because you're, you
know.
Yeah, you can check out ouroffices. They're beautiful. We're
actually right at Rock Center.We're right across from St. Patrick's
(35:28):
Cathedral. So for somebody,our view is St. Pat's. So for somebody
visiting, we're next door toSachs. We're right at Rock Center.
It's super cool. So if you'revisiting, it's actually a good place
to visit anyway. And ouroffice is right there.
You can count on it. I can'twait. So thank you.
We look forward to meeting you.
Thanks so much for your time.
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