Ep 08 – Peter Green: Grow your real estate business by embracing new technologies

Case Stories / August 30, 2022 / By: Carlos Concepcion
Ep 08 - Peter Green: Grow your real estate business faster

Carlos: Hi, welcome to another episode of The Pipeline, a show where we like to display and showcase real estate businesses and agents who are at the top forefront of their market today. I’m very excited to have our next guest, Peter Green, a top producer team in the Miami Beach market. Welcome, Peter. Tell us more about you and how you started in the real estate industry. 

Peter: Thanks for having me, Carlos. I really appreciate it, and it’s great to see you. I was born and raised in New York City and I always had this interest in Latin America and Brazil. I studied Portuguese in college. I minored in major economics and to be honest, I really never thought I was even gonna be involved with real estate. I thought I was gonna go into some type of banking or something with international sales or importing or exporting, because of the language skills and the sales component. I moved on to Miami and I was here for a few years. I worked in hotels and I opened up this other business with technology.

One day someone told me I was really good with people and that I should really consider real estate. My mom was a real estate broker for a long time, and she made it seem like it was tough to do deals. I just never was really like thinking I was gonna get into this, but it was a time where I needed to make some money business, and somebody said “It’s sales and you look good with people”.

So when I was in Miami, about 14 years ago, I decided to get a license and I’ve been involved with real estate ever since in luxury real estate.

Carlos: Well, we both know that it’s a very challenging industry, particularly in the luxury and the high-end market. And for those watching Peter, how did you get into it? What were some of the things that you did to get started with the industry and get new clientele business?

Peter: When I first started, like in 2008, I didn’t have any clients and I didn’t know what to do, but I was living in a building in Miami Beach and it was this company, there was a bunch of young guys called condo.com at the time, it was like one of the first companies that were doing lead generation. I immediately connected with them and they gave me free leads with a referral fee percentage. So I was getting leads left and right. In my first year, not knowing anything, I made like 75,000 because I was closing rentals and I was focusing on rentals and sales sometimes.

I just had a good year, I was excited and I was focusing a lot on the same areas. I do like Miami Brickle and Downtown. And that’s how I kind of started, working for a small brokerage company and just having a good commission split. The whole idea was to get leads. I wasn’t really getting listings, every once in a while I would, but I was dealing with buyers because there actually was a buyer’s market in 2008 with the recession and the financial crisis. 

Carlos: You’re very knowledgeable about the internet. And since you started, you were acquainted with the internet world as a real estate owner business owner. How important it’s for you to have your business process online, to generate new business?

Peter: I think it’s very important because e live in a digital world. 90% of buyers are going online and looking for properties. If you don’t have an internet presence and a website, people can’t understand what you’re representing or your experience and it becomes difficult for you to get business.

You can call people on prospect, and of course, that’s what they teach you in real estate. And it’s very true and it’s very part of it, but part of the job and the business really has to do with your internet website and your presence, because you’re gonna approach sellers, they wanna know what you’re representing and what you’re gonna do for them. On the buy-side lead generation you have to have buyers coming in continuously and dealing with people and having a CRM, which is something that I really learned is very important.

Carlos: It’s a challenge to get used to new technologies and get them to work in our favor to help us be more productive. What has been your experience using a CRM, using technology? Has it been, you know, better for the day-to-day processes?

Peter: Having an effective CRM that you’re comfortable with it’s a game-changer. There’s no right or wrong answer to what CRM is the best. I love the CRM that you use, somebody actually once presented it to me, but I never used it. Then you guys brought it back. It’s integrated into the site, the follow-up boss. It is just a very real estate-centric system, which it’s important because you have the app on the phone and desktop, and it reminds you to follow people. You can track conversations, emails, texts, what people were searching for, and when they go back. So you really have good control over your client base.

It’s great because if you’re just putting in an Excel, you’re not gonna be effective. CRM really keeps you effective. Whether it’s the buyer lead that comes in through the site that is connected, that is uploaded into the system, or the people you talk to, the sellers, and creating different seller listings, and current clients and contacts or whatever.

The main thing is that you have to constantly be in contact with people. You have to be prospecting and dealing with your warm market.

Carlos: I consider it a very powerful tool to help us on a daily basis. How do you see the market moving in today’s ecosphere?

Bill: We were in a very fast-paced market since January of 2021. The world is coming to an end during COVID and then suddenly you just saw an influx of people from everywhere, just coming to Miami, because of its attractiveness and price point. The market became hot and more expensive. I see now, like that was like an 18-month run. And then in the last two months, I kind of see things leveling off. Why? Because the interest rates have doubled. The cost of money was a lot less expensive. And then number two, you just see that the financial markets and everything that people are investing in has happened to downfall in that, you see some price cuts.

You see the new development projects are selling out and we’re in the summer. So I think things are kind of leveling off and there are a lot of buyers and people who wanna come from all over the world, see Brazil, elections in Colombia. So there’s a lot of like economic and political uncertainty. People are kind of waiting to see, and not everyone’s paying full price as they were last year, at the beginning of this year, up until the spring.

Carlos: We’re talking specifically about the South Florida luxury Miami Beach market.

Peter: We focus the group at FIR (Fortune International Realty) in South Florida. We really focus on Miami Beach, but we deal with Downtown, Edgewater, even Fort Lauderdale. We sold one of our first deals right now. So a great family, a great deal, they paid over the asking price. Anything renovated single-family home that’s brand new gutted or a brand new house is selling. Forever.

Carlos: What are those new projects that are bringing a lot of attention? Especially in Miami Beach.

Peter: I see a lot of attention being directed to one of the products that we showcase, which happens to not be a fortune project. And we do represent fortune products. But one of the projects, because we’re in the south of 5th, we’re in Miami Beach, is Five Park Residences, which is really a 90-unit building. It’s high-end. There are only about five-floor plans in the building, they created a park. It’s gonna really enhance the area by creating a bridge that connects 5th street to the south of the fifth area. You don’t have to cross that expressway triple lane, it’s gonna be a safer solution.

Carlos: For those who wanna know more, we’re gonna include all your information on the website. We are happy to say that these podcasts have been a reason for connection between other agents. When they’re looking in this market, they refer to you. So how can people find you online? 

Peter: Our website is www.fir.com. If you Google us, you’re gonna see things connected to Fortune International Realty, and new development projects. We’re really starting to enhance our ad spend and acquire more listings. So you’re gonna see us come up, associate Harry Baxter, myself, we’re connected to the new developments. You have new developments like St. Regis, there’s gonna be a new one in Sunny Isles. There’s a St V just in Miami, near Brickle.

So there are a lot of things that we’re involved in because new development is a good thing. People wanna put deposits down and they look to the future to be able to move into something new. Cause people always want, this is like the third cycle of new development right now. A lot of people are thinking about moving to Miami. Of course, you have the tax situation, the attractive climate, and the security. It’s a safe place to be. 

Carlos: If you were to start in real estate today, what would be something that you would recommend to a new agent starting today in 2021 in real estate?

Peter: Firstly, I would say to take classes and courses and read about what to do. You can’t kind of freelance this business and kind of wing it. I started at a time when it was a buyers’ market and it just happened that it made sense to deal with buyers. And I had a company spending a lot on ads, but that doesn’t exist anymore.

Nowadays, you really have to invest. I recommend that you don’t go into real estate with at least 6 months of savings, minimum, to pay your cost and some marketing expense.

The main thing is to prospect and that doesn’t cost anything. Get a CRM. Put all your contacts in a customer relationship management system. It could be a $20 system, it doesn’t have to be a follow-up boss. I think a follow-up boss it’s worth the investment, but for people starting out, it’s important to call sellers because the name of the game really is getting the listing. Right? Its contacts equal contracts. 

A simple goal of mine is, even though I’ve been doing this for 14 years, I prospect. I code call, I have a goal, and I speak to 20 new people that I haven’t spoken to a day, that’s a hundred people a week. So you have to make the call. You have to be willing to put the work in and have a focus, you can’t just spend two weeks with the clients showing them a million things.

You need to have a schedule and create some type of structure, and that’s something I didn’t do. I recommend to all agents to have a routine. People say real estate is not really a nine-to-five job, but it kind of is in a way. In a sense of working, you know, 8.30, 9 o’clock prospecting in the morning and setting up meetings. I always like to say: keep it simple. Call in the morning, and have a meeting in the afternoon. Don’t have meetings in the morning, unless it’s a specific thing, then you can move your schedule around, but have a certain schedule prospect.

Of course, if you have the money to invest or partner up, invest in a company like Trem Group for example, which is an amazing interactive digital company that generates leads. They have great quality and they take it seriously.

Carlos: Our whole goal is to equip you as a real estate business owner with the platform and the technology that you need, to represent your brand online and to generate new prospects of people that are currently using the internet to look at those areas that you want to dominate. Is there anything else that you wanna add for people that are checking us out today?

Peter: We just want to let people know who we are, like me, Harry Baxter, and some of my other associates, we have combined experience of over 30 years, 35 years of experience really in the general side. So we deal with investments. It could be multi-family, we focus a lot on single-family homes and of course, luxury condos. I’ve been doing this since 2008 and we take the job seriously, we have a great team to contract admins and attorneys. We have a good rep, we care for the client and we work hard to get them the highest price possible for a seller or the best deal possible for the buyer. I love your team and you guys are amazing.

Carlos: So teamwork and collaborations, that’s the name of the game. And that’s what we’re doing. This type of content too.

Peter: I agree. Cause I could have put “Peter Green Team” or something like that. And for me, I have aspirations to do development and investment. Who knows how long I’ll actually be a real estate agent? I have passions and I have other passions that combine, but I like to work with groups who call the group FIR not because we’re the group, we’re just a group of guys who work humbly and we’re happy to do it. You know, it is a pleasure. We like to give good service.

More about The Pipeline

The Pipeline is a conversational podcast hosted by Carlos Concepción, Chief Sales Officer at www.idxboost.com, a real estate business accelerator platform that combines the power of innovative technology, proven marketing strategies, and experts working alongside. 

IDXBoost has scaled real estate professionals to 9-figures in yearly sales, by helping them boost their brands, dominate their local markets faster and generate higher financial returns year over year.

The Pipeline’s goal is to share knowledge and provide awareness of how top real estate producers leverage the internet’s power to achieve their business goals nationwide.

Start a Free Trial
Watch
the video!
Learn
more!