Benjamin Sens, from BOSS Construction Group, interview David Marder, head of Level Realty in Fort Lauderdale.
More information on David Marder and Level Realty
https://www.levelrealty.com/
If you need a Lien Search, check out Reliable Lien Search
http://www.reliableliensearch.com
Transcript
Benjamin Sens
Hi, everyone, this is Benjamin cents, your South Florida code compliance specialist over here with David martyr broker owner level Realty. We’re over here in his new office in Fort Lauderdale. What is updated? A lot of things, a lot of things. Yeah. Well, we didn’t want to do our standard interview today, I want to talk about what’s real. I want to talk about what’s happening. I want to talk about you as a new father. I want to talk about what’s going on in real estate. Oh, man.
David Marder
I know that was a lot of Yeah, no, I like it. Because when we spoke, we both said, Let’s not do the old Wario. You know, Where’d you come from? What’s going on? You know, generic interview, so everything’s good. I have a nine month old son. Yeah. I have a 10 month old company.
I have a lot going on. I
Benjamin Sens
followed you. I mean, yeah. When I started marketing my business about three or four years ago, very aggressively. Yeah. I mean, I followed you all the way back from when you were CB we were at awards events. Yeah. He’s like that. So it was
David Marder
Margaritaville. Yeah. Right. It was the Coldwell Banker.
Benjamin Sens
Yeah, awards for it was very interesting how we both got to see it. Like, I mean, I look at what I do is pretty instrumental in the real estate community. You’re a luxury agent, and you’re evolving into commercial and new construction and doing innovative things. So we’re kind of like we get to see each other grow and grow. And we get to follow each other.
David Marder
Yeah, that’s phenomenal. It’s fun. It’s fun. Yeah. I was happy, because shortly after I met you at CB, I had to go digging through the drawer for your business card. I appreciate you know, that. And all the times we’ve interacted since many
Benjamin Sens
agents, you know, do Yeah. You know, and many agents find the service that I provide, they find trying to handle themselves. Again, you know, I mean, we just talked about some open pool permits, all these things come up all the time. So I try and be there the best that I can, you know, in the shutter permit navigator, I’m like, you know, sometimes. And I try and give people the best advice. And like, Look, you want to get to the closing table, try and credit the buyer. And that’s how that’s how, you know, one thing I wanted to talk to you about that form the businesses. It’s a generic term, but it’s something that we have, we have a relationship short term. So you give people good advice, when
David Marder
I call you and I got a seller who’s at a town and I don’t want to be at City Hall and having Torah for one day or more, right. And first second, you give me the phone number to call to get the engineer and this and that. It’s it’s a lifesaver. No
Benjamin Sens
one I was just I was over at the porch design building over there this morning, open flooring permit. They passed the soundproofing, oh, absentee absentee owner, the property was on an auction. But again, they you know, the guy got into a fight with a contractor. And thank God they had the soundproofing inspection
David Marder
didn’t have to tear up any of the marshmallows. When you have a condo, they want to see every layer that thing is you would have to rip everything off.
Benjamin Sens
Yeah, and and some of the thresholds where the powder room was where the main floor met the stairs, you know, so I’m always going, I’m always going into these situations. And, you know, even like our daily lives, the resolution isn’t the same. So we need to explain that to the client. We need to maintain our relationships. You’re working, you’re not working with cookie cutter properties. No,
David Marder
you weren’t never at no deals the same. And now we have almost 50 agents here. Wow. So they’re all so I’m getting a lot of phone calls every day. And now it’s not just my deals that I’m trying to manage. But I’m trying to be there for you know, all the other things that pop up. That’s phenomenal. Yeah, yeah. That’s growing. We’re growing. We have about 35 residential 15 commercial ones around the number, right. So we’re almost at 50. And we’re doing good. We’re very excited. And we’re very excited.
Benjamin Sens
That’s cool. So and I mean you’re almost what’s what’s what’s really amazing to me is you’ve you’ve surpassed the brokerages that that you started with as far as size and numbers. Oh, well, I’m not bigger than Coldwell Banker. Yeah. No, but I mean, some of these, some of these branches that I’ve seen. Yeah, you know, and again, great people. You know, we learned a lot of great things. When I first got into real estate I was a Keller Williams agent across the street, okay, three months, sure, until they told me I couldn’t list my own property and the capital. But you know, these these companies have helped, you know, guide us and structure us but the reason why from what I’ve seen people want to work with me and people want to work with you is because us, they, they like level they like the brand They like the company in the beautiful Class A office, but they like the relationship with,
David Marder
they don’t true, it’s true, you know, because I’ve always, it’s one thing to say this, and everyone says this. And I can’t tell you, I’ve never gotten into an argument with another agent. And at the end, it’s the it’s the business. But I would hope that if you pulled every person that ever spoke to me, and I would hope that the proof is in the amount of agents that are starting to come to the company, that you want to work well with the other agents, right. And like, you’re saying that you have good relationships with everyone.
At the end of the day, it’s good.
Benjamin Sens
No, but I mean, what I personally didn’t like about the companies, and we’re kind of going off a little, which is fine, because most of our viewers and audiences in the real estate community is that the I didn’t like the structure, you had to take the listing at 6%, the franchise says this, it’s all the time, it’s not good for the client. And you have clients that have different situations, and you have agents that have different situations in different structures. Well,
David Marder
okay, you’re saying something that is a big part of why I started.
Benjamin Sens
Did I touch on you? Did I touch on?
David Marder
it? You know, there’s no, you don’t want to you don’t want to say
Benjamin Sens
anything about other companies? No, but I’m just saying the big guys, the big names, you know, they all want a 30 year income and people talk about this shit.
David Marder
Well, no, shit. Okay. So, commission. splits are one thing. I’ll tell you, Florida has very high commission splits compared to other parts of the country, though, you know, and there’s a ton of what about
Benjamin Sens
Israel, where it’s like
David Marder
1%? I actually I don’t know about that. But I know other parts of the US and New York and this but you know, people aren’t 5050 6040 7030 is high here. Everyone wants to be on a 9010 and everyone’s going 100%. That’s the culture
Benjamin Sens
that the hundred percent has started. Well, you know, I wouldn’t want a couple thousand agents attaching their license and running around to me for a transaction fee and $60 a month? Well, exactly. Where
David Marder
we’re not that model. My motto? No, my motto is come work with me and come work my partner you take any commercial? No, we honestly, I, I know we have a big number for
Benjamin Sens
you won’t take any listing? I do not.
David Marder
We have a big number for only being open two and a half months since COVID. Because you know, I shut the doors in February. And then that didn’t count really so but we’ve done very well. I’ve made a couple phone calls. I’ve sent no recruiting emails, I don’t want every agent. I don’t want that one want agents Hello,
Benjamin Sens
dbpr list all right real estate license, I didn’t see a blast from level real. I’m not at the Gold Coast,
David Marder
graduation, with my business card. And you
Benjamin Sens
really can’t solicit in the classroom. You gotta wait. You’re like the ambulance
David Marder
chaser out the door. And I might hire someone to stand out the door. But that’s down the line. But right now, if you’re less than two years in the business, and you haven’t done X amount of deals, and isn’t that, you know, where I’m succeeding is kind of talking to agents that over the years while my teams and other brokerages, I helped a lot of agents where maybe they were stuck at 5 million, maybe they were stuck. They couldn’t break through 10 million. Maybe they want to get the 15 million, right. I’m not the biggest agent in the world. Last year, I did 25 million. I’m not like, shy to say, I know there’s a lot of people bigger than me smaller than me. You know, whatever.
Benjamin Sens
Here’s your you’re successful yourself. I,
David Marder
I like myself. But my point is, where I’ve really had success is your 5 million, you’re somewhere where you don’t really get the support of Hey, David, I don’t get marketing that well. I don’t understand PPC SEO, I don’t know how to make pretty flyers, whatever, whatever the question was, I love the brand. And
Benjamin Sens
I like yes, I need a closing core like that, that that simple support services, things
David Marder
like that, Ben, you know what, with that type of stuff, I think any company can can hire a transaction coordinator, where I am is you’re an agent who’s good, you’re already functioning at, you’re firing on almost all cylinders. And you want to sit down with me once a week, schedule a meeting, and you want to talk about how you’re going to go from x to y, right? And we’re going to sit down and put a whole branding campaign together, I’m going to show you the success that I’ve had and what’s worked for me, and we’re gonna come up with something unique for you. And really, when I sit down with these agents, one thing I say is, now you’re turning this into a recruiting video. So I thought I didn’t want to do much of that. But one thing I really say to people is, every interview you go on, they’re going to say we’re so agent centric. Yeah, all about the agent. And then you sign a deal. You get there and you realize, brokers put these roadblocks in front of you, oh, we want our logo here. We want this, we want that it can’t sign that listing agreement. You have to do that what you were just saying, and I want to really put the agent in front, but level behind. Right and I don’t need my name and head and face on everything. And hopefully, some of the stuff we have rolling out very soon is going to prove that and really we’ve had an incredible incredible last few months. I’ve seen it and for the for the for the team to not not me personally right. So it’s been good.
Benjamin Sens
I I’ve seen it and again, I think what What’s really cool is all those relationships to circle back that it brought them back. They’re coming back. Yeah, the, again, the and these these buyers and sellers and people who you’ve been honest with and have dealt with properly, they’re coming back because, again, you know, I hear so much down the line Oh, you know, my realtor told me I could build a pool and the setbacks are this. And that’s more long the technical stuff that I deal with that I
David Marder
help people, I don’t want to give people advice. That’s why I got you. Correct. So on that,
Benjamin Sens
what I try and explain to agents and title companies and real estate brokers and Real Estate Attorneys is that let I want them to keep the relationship with their client. I want to be the one to provide the technical advice as a third party, and I want to take that liability off of you guys. So kind of like that’s the role that I serve. It protects the brokerage, it protects the transaction. And I think it’s very important. It is, you remember my crazy story, you know, to try to paraphrase just so that I can give you a shout out on your own thing here.
David Marder
Okay. Thank you. A lady closes Two days later, the city is knocking on the door, hey, everything you did was done on permit. And the sellers are gone. Right. And you work a little bit of magic and I can go without a long story wrecked. And
Benjamin Sens
I think that’s the culture. I you know, I think that’s the synergy. And in South Florida. A lot of contractors are fly by night. I’m in Hillcrest in Hollywood. And that shutter guy puts up shutters for all these elderly people. Yeah, and gets approved to work in the building, and then gets the permit issued, but doesn’t call for any inspections. So I think that’s a lot of what we’re what the mess is that particular building. The manager of the association was letting people do stuff without permits. Sure. Then she thought she was being nice to everyone. And then some people might say, Oh, I love living here. They’ll let me do whatever. Oh,
David Marder
yeah, right
Benjamin Sens
until a kitchenette sink. There you go. There you go.
David Marder
You’d rather be in the building that says no, no, no one’s allowed to see the paperwork then go ahead. And
Benjamin Sens
you know, You’re shitting where you see all over the place. Yeah. And again, I was at a building on hallandale Beach Boulevard, where I helped an investor close over 66 permits. And the and this was built up over a long time. But, you know, the point is, when he went to refi, not even a sale when he went to refi. He had all these open permits, or expires he had unpermitted work, which is completely separate different. So now we need to bring the city in to close these open permits. All these tenant improvements, things like that. But again, like del Prado, or any older condo in aventura, these guys want to put washer dryer in the unit. And this is how they This is how you end up creating, you know, millions of dollars in litigation and damages. And again, you know, it’s just right at the bottom of the line. Whenever you sign a lease with a tenant, you make sure they have an occupancy certificate, you make sure they’ve done their you know, build out correctly. But again, it’s going to end up biting you know, the owner, the property manager, or the realtors are really eager to make the deals and
David Marder
well you don’t have to know it was a little surprising to me is that you have a title company, run all their searches do other stuff. Not that comes up clear title, but nothing comes up because they never pulled anything correct. So now I’m picking myself Whoa, if I know I’m walking into a brand new place, I might want to tell the title company. Hey, on that clear search you sure right? did nothing come up in the last 30 years? Correct? Was there never anything done? Because then I know so putting my seller and my buyer in a bad position
Benjamin Sens
that that gets into a very interesting point where there’s unpermitted work on the property. One of our partners reliable lien search again, amazing company they pull the city reports for the title companies and Real Estate Attorneys and other what’s what’s what’s phenomenal about them is again, the this information costs money. All the municipalities take different turnaround times. But they don’t tell you about unpermitted work. So all the all the all the lien searches include, like you’re saying are expired, open permits, liens, code violations, water issues, unpaid bills, unpaid taxes, to prorate at the closing all those things. Okay. And so what we’re, what we found a lot is that, again, the home inspectors, they, you know, or the and the agents, they don’t acknowledge that. I see a new kitchen. It’s a family. I I don’t know if this pull permits and I don’t want to say anything seller might have signed a seller disclosure, but what we’re finding is that these the sellers, they’re really getting taken advantage of two reasons about the contract. By the contractor, and people really don’t pull sit, you know, kitchens and bathrooms, single family, they will pull permits, because it’s more than the entire work and the city stops you every point. But they’re getting beat up during their general inspection period. And then after the general inspection period, that’s when the lien search comes in. Yeah, they’re getting negotiated with a second time, right. And then the agents find themselves in a disarray.
David Marder
Now you’re in a tough spot. You know, know what’s cool, though. And it sounds like they might be doing this. But when you come back and say, Hey, everything’s clear. Sure. A one liner that says, and by the way, the last permit pulled was 1974. Right? That’s because that line comes in I go, Wait a minute, correct. How is that possible? There’s kitchen rule yesterday, and I’m gonna go Oh, it’s clear, because they never pulled anything correctly.
Benjamin Sens
That’s a cool safety net. And we were doing this just, you can fish around on Pompano beaches, building Department website. Again, there’s a lot of times they’re not accurate. Or you don’t know why the inspection failed, and you kind of have to dive in there. You know what papineau is doing that way?
David Marder
How they’re checking the pictures? Yeah, right. Yeah. found that out. Yeah, yeah, they’re going on Zillow. And they’re gonna check. I’m gonna I’m going to talk to the audience. Right. So if a home is sold, and they go on Zillow, and they see a new kitchen, in the photographs, you might get a letter at your door, right?
Benjamin Sens
So what they’re doing is without even
David Marder
looking, Hey, you know what, I need to turn this mic on. Am I doing good right now? Okay,
Benjamin Sens
with that. Alright, I’ll talk a lot about the years we’re
good. No, but what the amazing thing is, without even looking there slapping a notice on the property owners door just on
David Marder
pictures on the internet, just
Benjamin Sens
on pictures from the internet. A lot of times the property owner lets them come in, which really they shouldn’t. But a lot of time it’s a condo commando, or, or you know, but what we’re mainly speaking about is pictures when you list a property on the MLS, or an agent being syndicated on to all the different websites, which is what we pride ourselves. Yeah, in our in, that’s part of our marketing. And it’s, you know, the cities are being very aggressive. But again, you know, they’re, you know, in condominiums, you like in office buildings, you’re attached to other people. So again, they’re looking out for the huge water damage caused the huge problems, but the problem is how they’re going about doing it, which I don’t like it because, again, you’re throwing a wrench, a residence in a hardship situation, you’re throwing a wrench in there sale. So everything’s been negotiated with nothing came up on the lien search because there weren’t any open or expired permits, and then they get hit with this thing on their door. Well, maybe they you know, maybe they almost want people to know that they do that as a deterrent. Right. I mean, a long time ago, the city of Hollywood, which this was found unconstitutional, you know, would do you know, they were going into open houses, code officers who were disguised Wow, going into open house had ever heard that they were not. And I think what was very interesting is they got in trouble because they weren’t presenting themselves. They weren’t presenting themselves city, North Miami, Biscayne Park el foretell a lot of these cities in Miami Dade, they have re occupancy inspections, which means the city needs to come out to the property to inspect the bed and bath count any unpermitted work, and really anything that they want, before you sell before you get that certificate to sell the property. So I was gonna say it’s in the same breath, like New Jersey and other states that I know that I find to do business there and I used to live there.
David Marder
On a regular house sale, there’s a co John’s gonna come out and make sure the fire alarms work, make sure everything as if you just built a new building here in Florida, if I sell
Benjamin Sens
your house, so if you have if you have a 1920 house, right, the city or the township or the county
David Marder
when you go to sell it to me and I do an inspection, it’s not just Oh, my inspector came and what I want fixed and major violation. It’s a seal and they got to check certain boxes off in this seal fire alarms. The step is too big
Benjamin Sens
to rise in the ride.
David Marder
Yeah, yeah, things like that. There’s no railing here. That’s a safety. There’s actually a CEO. And we don’t have that here in Florida.
Benjamin Sens
Obviously, if they find if they find unpermitted, we have them for new construction. But for new construction, of course, you got
David Marder
to get a DC Oh, and to see if they find unpermitted things, then they don’t give you your they don’t pass you. Correct or violations. Speaking of. One of the big things that we’re doing here at level realty is we have a new construction division. Now our first project I’ve been working on for about two a little over two years now is called Main Street lofts. You’re going to meet that developer from Azhar equities today. After this, we’re doing a little team meeting and you know, I got a special thing. I love it for a little investment group that we do here. But we’ve talked to all the agents about their their best ideas and see if we can help them with it. But I don’t want to give them Real quick Yeah, just got our SEO finally got delayed goes to COVID in the town of Davie, and things are moving slow. But I got news yesterday that was able to start closing next week. So not 40
Benjamin Sens
I driven by the site so many times, but yeah, I’ve never got the huge 30 foot banner ripped
David Marder
blue. Yeah, my big head blue a but uh, but we got 46 of the 49 sold, but then we have another building coming next that we just launched like a month ago for reservations. And in two years that will be done like a sister building with another 50.
Benjamin Sens
And how did you? How did you get? I mean, we know you’re in the relationships in the circles with developers? How did you get into, you know, you really see the hybrids, you know, the the residential and commercial? And then you’re working with developers? How did you get all that?
David Marder
You know, it will this developer relationship, okay. I’m someone who grew up in New York, I came down here at 22 years old, I got an associate’s degree, I went into brand development and marketing. And I had a whole career before real estate marketing, but brand management, I used to fly to China four times a year and bring products in and create brands and packaging and all these things, right. I I love telling the story one day, it’ll look good on a resume that I’ll never use. But the point is, you know, maybe that helped me grow my brand. And it definitely did. So with that being said, you know, where I was going with all that? Oh, my point is, I had no connections. I didn’t have a dad down here down here, who was a lawyer or my mom wasn’t the head of the association. I didn’t have friends in high school where I can sell there. First of all, I just one day, got my real estate license. And it’s very hard to be real to people think it’s easy. So you pound the pavement. But my point is in pounding the pavement, I’ll tell you a funny story. I don’t even tell the
Benjamin Sens
doors the phone sells to to be honest with you.
David Marder
There was nothing you wouldn’t, I’m not ashamed to admit this. I started buying every crappy lead service, you could you could you could find figured out which ones I work I liked and that worked well. And tweaking my pitch, you know, and the best pitch for me, it will go off in different tangent, but the best pitch for me was, you know what, with newer buyers, on a one phone call, I can turn what is gonna be a five minute phone call and do a 20 minute phone call. Sometimes it’s a blessing and a curse, right? Yes, I talk too much. But I’m able to show my value to a new homebuyer very easily. Hey, did your lender tell you that you need to find a condo with 10% reserves if you if you want if you can, if you don’t want to put 20% down, like the things that I knew they wouldn’t have known just starting the process, I was able to hook them, show them that I’m a smart guy, tell them things and they go, Well, we gotta we gotta use this guy. Right? So no,
Benjamin Sens
you look, I mean, you’re providing your value, which is amazing. you’re developing the relationship.
David Marder
And, you know, I mean, so Ben was gonna say I’m sorry. It’s hard to do that now. Because now if you call me with a million dollars cash, and you want to go buy something, or you’re a lead online, who comes into my website, or Zillow, or whatever, you don’t need me to teach you FHA. You don’t need me to tell you about money. You don’t need my title guy, you don’t need my lawyer, right? Because you got some guy even use it for 30 years. Sure, you don’t need my mortgage person, you’re gonna get a portfolio. So now how do I tell these luxury people? What’s so good about David? Because they don’t need any of my, you know, under 510,400 conventional loan wisdom. Sure. So it’s a different game, different game, but sorry.
Benjamin Sens
So that’s how again, that’s how you you bridge it, you know, into commercial transactions, new developments, things like that. So what happened with the new development is
David Marder
pounding the pavement meeting people. And one day, I’m at a company, and I just switched brokerages. Five or six years ago, my first brokerage to my second brokerage, and I won’t give names, but I’m someone that likes to sit down and meet everyone in the office. So I sit down on my second or third day, next to one of the admins and I say, Hey, I’m David, I’m the new guy. I’m gonna sell a lot of real estate here, right? And she goes,
Benjamin Sens
over talks to me.
David Marder
Exactly, but but actually a little better than that. I said, Tell me about you. What’s going on? What did your husband do? Or fiance at the time? We’re friends now? So she says, Oh, he’s a loan officer. And I said, Oh, well. You give him all the business from the making sure everyone uses him, right? She goes, No, no one in the office ever uses him. I go, Why? She goes, I don’t know. So I got clients card. I went and called him right then. And he said, will you meet me next Tuesday? And I said, Absolutely. I went there next Tuesday. He said I have a surprise for you. I walked in and the developer that I now sell 100 condos for is sitting there. Wow. And now that’s a great thing. David fell into luck kinda, but I don’t call up but it then took me two years to chase that developer because just because he met me there and I was a newer agent who’s who’s uh, so you know, a little, you know, quick Docker didn’t mean he just said, here’s my condo building shirt. Now for two years, I chased him around, I showed up at his projects. I tried to bring buyers to him, I sent him handwritten letters, I did everything you got to do. And then finally, he gave me a very small opportunity. He put me and five other agents, or maybe four or five total on a project, but due to the test, he didn’t want to sign exclusive for his whole building. So he said, David, we’re gonna play. He’s gonna beat him right now. He said he didn’t say this, but this is my spin. He said, David, we’re gonna play realtor survivor. Oh, we’re gonna see what the last one on the island that sorry. And I survived. So I got the second building. That’s great. Yeah, that’s the full story you
Benjamin Sens
earned. I mean, you earn through your persistence, and and and building your relationships, you earn the future business of the client.
David Marder
Well, once I got the opportunity on the building, what happened is what happens is this, you have five agents, right? You give me three listings, this one, three, listing this one, three, all these people. But we’re paranoid creatures, real estate agents, and real estate agents, if you if you have a listing on unit 123, and I’ve listened for five, six, and I go send fliers all over this neighborhood, Ryan, sure. someone gets the flyer, they might call up unit 123. And you’re gonna get the sale,
and you’re gonna get the sale because I did the marketing. So all five agents were saying, I’m not going to spend money. And I’m not going to do this because I’m not protected.
Benjamin Sens
Oh, and I want exclusivity they want to make and I
David Marder
don’t blame them. I thought that at first, if I build a website and pay for Google clicks, or I do or whatever, but I said to myself, but these are very closed minded people. I said to myself, I’m either try or not try. Sure. So what I did was built the website, ran the ads, did the click campaign started calling offices saying Can I do a presentation, right? And I said, This is my project. This is my project now. Right? And I started sending out developer videos of me doing presentations in front of all the offices in the area. Every other week. Listen, I had residential real estate too. It’s like I said, the sales center. I have other responsibilities. This is now like four years ago when this so
Benjamin Sens
he’s doing his video four years ago.
David Marder
Oh, yeah, even before that, but what I’m telling you, I had my camera with me in front of 50 agents at ABC office in Weston. And then I would send it to the developer and be like, hey, are any of these other guys doing this for you? Right? Hey, have you seen my website? Hey, have you seen my video? And then I had the most sales on top of that, too. So that didn’t hurt. Yeah,
Benjamin Sens
but you don’t. I mean, again, you don’t have to explain yourself, you show by action, and you share value. And one of the things I admire about you is your sincerity. Again, that admin circling back, you, you you initially knew that you were going to be working in the office, and you wanted to simply just meet the people that you were working around. And that’s not luck. I mean, you know, I, you know, I mean, when I worked in the building department, I had the custom home developer and windmill reserve, and I had the service America guy pulling plumbing permits, and you treat everyone the same. And you know, that’s how you you take care of your business, and people seem to gravitate around. It’s hard because in real estate, when you have a $2 million house and a $200,000 house, you know, where which one’s making you more attention.
David Marder
But you have to treat as best as you can. I’m not telling anyone to leave a million dollars on the table. $1,000. But this $200,000 house, that’s their mansion, career, and if you can really, really realize that they are calling you freaking out, because it’s the biggest thing in their world. And you can really, whatever the word is empathize with that and show them that you’re really you know, it But no, it’s got everyone the same, but you know, you gotta make you gotta you gotta you know, it’s tough at times, you know, but he tried. He tried. But last thing.
Benjamin Sens
Yeah. Did you meet Bo Jackson? Oh,
David Marder
how’d you know about that?
Benjamin Sens
I heard going around the office.
David Marder
All right. Well, why don’t I say this, actually, but we Well, okay. I won’t tell you where but we, we leased his his new office here in South Florida. And so I got to give a shout out my commercial division. I’m a residential guy i like i like the marketing and the branding and all that stuff. And commercial. You know what my partner makes fun of me. He goes, David, it’s my job to find out how much the paint costs. It’s your job to tell me what color of paint you want. Right? Yeah. And we have a good relationship, right. And we have a competitive relationship where the residential guys are better than the commercial guys and the residential girls. But it’s all in good, good. Good, you know, humor and good faith. But the point is, they’re doing amazing right now commercial level, we have three out of four corners basically listed and under contract. The only corner we don’t have an Oakland Park Boulevard and federal is target right. And that’s not for sale. Right. Yeah. Okay. We have a bunch of big things coming. I mean, a lot of people don’t know about this, but we have the pier in Lauderdale by the sea listed right now for $30 million, with a lot action on it right and a lot of international action on it. And everyone who’s scared a commercial right now. And they’re scared of mostly office space, because light industrial and things are doing very well. I just, I got two commercial properties closing, and I’ve never done commercial in my life. Wow. So what we have here at level is your residential agent, actually, let me take one step back, we’re making resimercial not a dirty word
anymore. Okay, if you’re at
ABC, commercial real estate company, and you want to sell a house, they stick their nose up, and we don’t do houses, man. And if you’re at XYZ residential, you know, we only got one guy in the back that does commercial here. We’re creating incremental business on our agents. Because when you sell a house fear, that guy knows someone that owns an office,
Benjamin Sens
I think it’s, you know, again, to limit yourself and put yourself in a box. I mean, I even talked about myself as a GC, you know, if I was just the guy selling windows, but I’m not, I’m an engineer’s consultant, I’m a land use environmental, I do business tax receipts, I do open permits, close outs, and you know, I’m not gonna, no, you’re exactly what would be the epitome. You know, again, I’m, I’m an owner’s rep and a consultant. But again, I didn’t put myself in a box. When I was an agent, a long time back, when I left the city, my whole family was in real estate. I felt like I was doing rentals and property management. And, you know, I at the time, I was in my mid 20s. And I didn’t really understand the business, as I do now of things. But but but again, the real estate, the sales part of it, what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to teach these agents how to be sustainable, which most agents don’t have cash flow, and they’re not sustainable. So again, that’s how you have people making the right business decisions for their clients. Absolutely. And I mean, I think that’s the I think that’s terrific.
David Marder
And we’re finding an issue with that with the resimercial thing. And if you’re an agent, and you come here, and pay, everyone knows what’s going on right now, people selling to businesses and the houses in New York, come here, Sure, well, they need a house, they need a business. Sure, we’re gonna help you with both. And if you don’t want to even touch one side of that deal. You only want to deal with the commercial, not the rest, no problem. But we’re not going to, we’re not going to tax you too much on that either. We’ll do something very fair. We’ll take care of the client. And now you just got to sales instead of one instead of having to refer it out. And I don’t know why it’s such a rare thing. But I’m happy to I’m happy we’re doing it. So
Benjamin Sens
I think, you know, look, again, I think a lot of the big names, said this person is a team leader, and this person’s a buyer’s agent and everything so structured and organized. But what I say what I say is, again, we’re in business for ourselves here for every opportunity and the agents are agents. Okay. Okay. Yeah, the agents are here, you know, so if, if you tell them, hey, you heard about this, don’t worry about that. To what you do. Put yourself
David Marder
in the corner. know, Hey, you know what we’re doing after the after, after this meeting. It’s basically bring us your craziest ideas, and we’re going to fund them for you. Right? Yeah. So when I talk to agents, I say if you want to come to level, you got to promise me one thing. Anything that you could think of any crazy idea? I want to say yes to bring it to me, and not so many people have brought up to me. So we’re calling a company meeting and will bring me your crazy idea. We’ll get ready because you’re gonna be the guest judge. We’re putting you on. You’re in the Shark Tank, man. You’re a shark today. So tell me the best idea and we’re gonna fund it.
Benjamin Sens
I love it. David martyr level real key. We’re over here in Fort Lauderdale for our interview sponsored by reliable lien search again, we really love being here today. David, thank you for having us. Look forward to your meeting.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
