We Are Selling with Lee Woodward

154 - Real Estate In LA - Glen Coutinho

• Lee Woodward • Season 1 • Episode 154

Share episode

Send a message directly to Lee ( Include your details )

This episode highlights the impact of recent wildfires on the LA real estate market and the resilience of agents like Glen Coutinho, who relocated to LA amidst these challenges. Glenn discusses the personal and professional adjustments required during a time of crisis, emphasizing the importance of community connections and adapting to new legislation in real estate.

• Discussion on the aftermath of wildfires in LA and its effect on local real estate
• Insights into how recent legislation impacts pricing and real estate operations
• The unique challenges faced by agents who have lost personal and professional assets
• Comparison of real estate practices between Australia and the US
• Importance of building authentic relationships in real estate
• Glenn's transition to a new real estate brand and its significance
• Personal stories from Glenn’s family and their journey in the music industry



Hosted by Lee Woodward
Proudly brought to you by Lee Woodward Training Systems.

Brought to you by Nexr
Elevate your real estate business with Nexr – the strategic partner that helps you overcome challenges in securing more listings, building better teams, and achieving faster growth. With over 20 years of experience in developing Tier 1 agencies, Nexr provides bespoke solutions tailored to your unique needs. Ready to redefine the future of your business? Visit nexr.com.au today.

Discover more:

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to the podcast we Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, the author of the Complete Salesperson Course. Today's podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, nexar. Nexar is a dedicated real estate platform specializing in lead generation and database management of the entire real estate company for BDMs and agents. Working as one platform to generate opportunity. Nexar seamlessly integrates into your business systems, allowing you to have an extended solution. Let's get started with this week's episode. Our agent on the ground in LA is the incredible mr glenn cortino. Many years ago, glenn decided to pick up the entire family, leave his incredible career in melbourne to go to la, start all over again as an agent, and he joins us now.

Speaker 2:

Glenn, welcome aboard hey, lee, how are you welcome to new york city? I believe you're in, correct, I'm in New York. And Glenn, on a serious note, how is LA? La is amazing, even though you thought it was 45 minutes away. It's like seven or eight hours. But yeah, la is pretty good. It's unusual times over here with all the fires which I'm sure you've seen, so it's testing times for realtors, agents, owners, the whole lot. We're working our way through it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, glenn, the scenes have been absolutely devastating and a big reason I wanted to cross to you what's the effect on yourself, the community and how is the community?

Speaker 2:

It's a little shocked because, well, we have an office in the Palisades that has 100 staff in there and that burned to the ground. We have at least a dozen of our agents who lost their houses. And you can imagine if you worked in the Palisades and you've lost your house, you can't go to work, you can't work from home and you lost your car. So that's on the real estate perspective. And then most of your clients have lost their everyone's lost their house. It's probably a five to seven year rebuild, so it's pretty messy.

Speaker 2:

And of course there's legislations. Because of its natural disaster, legislation's really heavy here too. So you've got to be very careful about how you price property as an agent. You can't prospect anyway. You're not allowed to do that, so that's been outlawed in certain areas. So agents don't really know what to do. You have to be very careful about how you run your business at the moment. But with the new government taking place, the market was due for a kick anyway and it felt like it was going to take off with the new government taking over. And now you've thrown 10,000 people onto a market to buy or rent houses. There's more demand right now than there has been in 100 years.

Speaker 1:

Now this legislation side of it is very serious. At the Eamon conference I was listening to the new CEO of NAR and that lawsuit and settlement I think the first payment's about to go through of $200 million. What happened?

Speaker 2:

The reason that all happened is because their agents were forced to put a fee that they were paying in the MLS magazine and they were saying that that's the main reason. That's not allowed anymore. If an agent's offering a commission, you've got to ring and ask them what's your commission? Are you paying a buyer's fee? But in the past it was just advertised and it was forced to be advertised. So that's where it all came from. But the legislation now in relation to the fires is completely different. It's to do with price gouging and my boss, who's amazing just said listen, if you're going out to get your newspaper from the front door, make sure you're not in your underwear because you might get arrested. And they are arresting agents. It's a one-year jail term and a felony and a $10,000 fine. So it's pretty serious if you overprice anything.

Speaker 1:

That is just unbelievable, especially for yourself, glenn, who's come from an auction background where this could go anywhere, and you've also got it in the rental market. That will take us into that, because the rental market is going through the same challenge.

Speaker 2:

It's more to do with the rental market. For example, you put a property on the market now for $8,000 and you think you're doing a great job, and you get 20 applications and you pick one at 10, then you're in the cell with Bubba it's all over, so you can't even rent it for over the list price. You have to price it at last year's prices, which I think is a good thing. I mean, it is price gouging when you're taking advantage of people that are in trouble. So they've done that in place, but obviously some people don't follow it and it just causes a lot of stress. You just got to be very careful. I'm just not doing any rentals because it's too dangerous for your business.

Speaker 1:

So, glenn, as an agent and you're very well known in the Australian real estate marketplace, not just for your incredible results auctioneering, you also did training over in Australia for us as well. How does it feel to be the difference of an agent in LA versus what you did Like for our listener, trying to understand how you guys have to work, which is very different? What is that difference?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is very different and I think that the weird thing is, coming here when you've got 38 years experience in real estate and you come here as a newbie, you really have to take a minute and recalibrate your mindset because you think you know what. I actually don't know what I'm doing. I don't know north, south, east and west. When I first got here I couldn't point to the beach. That's a really bad thing when you're in real estate to not be able to tell people where the beach is. You pronounce all the street names wrong. You don't know the school zones Somebody tells you they live in. You know in Melbourne they say you live in Monomath Avenue and you know exactly what's the best street in town. When they tell me that here, I don't know where it is, yeah, that's tough.

Speaker 1:

So that is yeah, and're very fortunate that you're the author of the People Lover and have been able to get some great results from your connection to humans. Then property why do you think they're selecting you over the American model?

Speaker 2:

I mean I just have follow-up systems in place. I keep in touch with people for a long time. If I meet somebody here today, they're my best friend within a day, you know. I mean I met this lady the other day and her husband and I had you know her name, her wife's name, her kids' names all their birthdays football side, you know and it's a lifelong. I look for a lifelong connection. And then the real estate follows. My last client, when I bought a car, I feel like I delivered 10 boxes of pizzas to the dealership and end up listing a house for them. So I kind of go out and make an impact everywhere I go, a friendly impact. Don't fight with anyone. Made great friends with all my competitors. Every time I close a deal in LA, I send the competitors cakes and chocolates. Nobody sends me anything, but I always send them something. You just be the nicest guy in town. I think that's the easiest way to do it.

Speaker 1:

Now tell me, when I look at these devastating fires and no matter where you sell real estate in the world, there is a land value, and then there is the property improvement value, which is now called the dwelling, with some of those famous, very high-priced dwellings that are now just a block of land. What do you do, or what does the owner do, with the lost wealth?

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean unless it was insured, because remember that a lot of the insurance companies pull the insurance on people a year ago because it's such a fire zone. So a lot of those properties probably could have halved in value because you've got the land value. But if you've got a $50 million house on it, if you go and buy a block of land in those areas now, by the time you get through the city which will probably be three years and then by the time you build a house, you're going to be living in a war zone for 10 years. Every house in the street is going to be being built at the same time, and then there's also the contamination of the water and everything else. So I'm not sure if people are going to go back there, to be honest, for a long time. It'll be a whole new generation and I think people that owned houses there will say you know what, five years of my life I'm not going to go through going back there. And even if you had a house there now and it didn't get burnt like, we've got clients that have got houses that survived they don't want to go back and live in a building site for five years. It's nothing but trucks going through and if you are living there, there's no shop, supermarket, there's no butcher, there's no cinema, there's nothing. It's just completely gone. So it is devastating times. And I mean where we live, in the valley.

Speaker 2:

We had to pack. So you know, they told us to have all your stuff packed, which is a really weird thing. You know, my wife said everyone has to pack their bag tonight because we might get noticed to go. So she had her bag and her passport packed. Everyone was packed. I only had one thing packed. Do you know what it was? No, mccartan beanie. I didn't pack anything else. I still refused to pack. I got my carton beanie. I'm ready to go.

Speaker 1:

So, glenn, what will you do now? What's your plan as an agent who's just gone through a life-changing experience? You're in a different country, you've just changed brand, which is an interesting thing in itself, and just on that, what's the type of?

Speaker 2:

So I've moved from, obviously, harcourt's, who are amazing. I love working with them. I moved to Rodeo, which has sort of been here for 60 years. They sold the Godfather house for $60 million. They've got a couple other deals for $80 and $100 million. So I went to a really well-known, 60-year established brand, probably because I think for me I just don't have time to rebuild another brand at the age of 60. And you walk into a house here and you're up against biggest agents in town. You really need some power behind you. And now we're pitching on houses every day for 10, 20, 30. I pitched on one for 100 million. I haven't got it, but I pitched on. It got in the door. I wouldn't have got in unless I was at a brand like Rodeo. Rodeo opened the door for me and then it's on me to win or lose it. Unless I was at a brand like Rodeo.

Speaker 1:

Rodeo opened the door for me and then it's on me to win or lose it. Now tell me and I know we can't mention any names, but us being way over the other side of the world, in Australia what's the type of owner of a property of $100 million? What's their background? How do you change your interview process?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean the sort of person that owned that house was actually originally owned by Conrad Hilton, so Hilton Hotels, that's the sort of person that owns that. Or you know, you've got houses around here. I mean Beyonce they bought one for $190 million in Malibu. The owner of WeChat. Facebook owners you know Tesla those sort of people are up in the hills. You know people that own shares in Facebook. And people you know, alan DeGeneres and Justin Bieber all those people up there. They're not my friends, I don't know them, but I'd like to say I did. But I don't know them. But they all sell houses all the time up here. They all move. You know Stallone that's the sort of clientele you're dealing with at that end of the market, generally tech. Or big Walmart all those sort of people are the people that live in Beverly Hills. And actors all the actors live around here, all the movie stars. Leonardo DiCaprio, the boys went to a party the other night and Leonardo was there, so they get to bump into all those people at these famous events.

Speaker 2:

I don't get in, I'm too old, but the young kids get in. They're all buying and selling real estate. Our average price I mean the stuff that we're doing is probably, I'd like to say, $5 million, which is you know, and then when you get to that $30 to $40 million range, you really either have to have been here for a long time or gone to school with somebody, or you can get lucky sometimes, and for me I just make my own luck and I double my call rate. And in this market it's changed. I started on the 1st of January and I went back to when I started with James Tostum and back to 100 calls a day, so I was always doing 40. Anyway, I'm a 40-call-a-day, six-days-a-week guy, have been all my life but I'm back to 100 because I had to restart and Glenn in those 100 calls.

Speaker 1:

what's on the call menu for Glenn Cortino? Take me through how you do those calls.

Speaker 2:

At the moment it's people that I know that have been affected by the fires really to see if they're okay and that's all. You can't really go any deeper than that. But it's also lawyers, doctors, bankers looking for business. I mean, I'm asking people today do you have anyone that needs any real estate help? I rang some divorce lawyers today to make connections. I try to ring two or three divorce lawyers a week just in case someone leaves me or in case they have the opportunity. They're all looking for agents mortgages, sales, banks, bankruptcy sales. I just prospect all day, the key to being a successful agent in any market in anywhere in the world. 75% of your day is prospecting and I'm probably the only person you'll meet in real estate in a suit and tie, but I won't go to a pick without it and everyone else does. I just don't. In LA it's a t-shirt business, but not me.

Speaker 1:

And I love that about you and your brand. Wherever you go and I've seen you at some big celebrity parties you've still got your name tag on. You're still suited up. I get shit for it. I get shit for it all the time I get shit for it.

Speaker 2:

I get shit for it all the time, but I always remember my name tag everywhere I go. You know why I get business. I've got Rodeo Real Estate on the side of my car, on the back of my car, and I picked up a $3 million listing at the petrol station and I picked up a million-dollar buyer at Walmart because they came up and saw it on the side of my car. So I know what works. People don't like it. I don three listings a year off it, so that works for me.

Speaker 1:

And then I do my socials every day seven days a week, following your life on socials. I feel closer to you now than when you're in Melbourne because all these wonderful things that you're doing and just on that, our listener, especially for the UK and Australia. They'd have no idea that you picked up. The whole family moved to LA and that was because your boys had a passion and a goal for music. The boys have done some incredible things over this time. How are they're great.

Speaker 2:

I mean they just put out a couple of albums, a single. They've opened up a couple of shows. They got a big break. They got to open up Luke Bryan in Florida, which was huge, was about 10,000 people. They just got to open for Chainsmokers at an event down here in LA. So they're on their way to some pretty big things. They had some meetings with some big management companies and their time will come, but they're committed to the process. They write and produce all their own music and they put out a song virtually every week. So you know they're on top of their game and when it breaks you'll know about it. They'll be. You know they came here to be world famous and their music was played in 178 countries last year. Wow. So I think they missed eight countries, so that's not a bad win.

Speaker 1:

Well, I love when you post the video clips. As you know, I'm passionate about music, but trying to break in where the boys are is just the hardest thing in the world, and to do what they've done is absolutely amazing. But that didn't just happen from music, it's you teaching them how to connect with people. You still get them to write thank you cards to people. Take us into that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's funny because I was at an event the other night and I went up to this guy and I said let's connect on Instagram and give me your cell phone. And the guy said I just met your sons. They've got it all already, so they're hunters.

Speaker 2:

They chase, follow up, go to events. They don't party or get drunk or do stupid stuff. They're hustlers and if they met you today you'd have a text before you went to bed and a follow-up card and you know they have hustle in them. That's all. I gave them hustle. I didn't give them any talent, but they have hustle and they're humble and that's the most important thing is that you know with fame you lose your humble. They won't lose that. They have really good people skills and you know they'll talk to the average guy on the street, the cleaner and the billionaire, and that's really important that they've been. You know people's moral compasses. Children are set by the time they're 12. It's hard to change, so unless you get it right at an early age, it's all over.

Speaker 1:

Couldn't agree more. And your daughter, Brooke, she's in the business as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so Brooke's my business partner here at Rodeo. She runs the office. We have 60 agents out of this office, our little office at Rodeo Realty, and so we have 60 agents here. And then she closes a few deals herself. She closed a couple of big ones coming recently and then she just went to Australia for three weddings. She'll be back in a couple of weeks but she's in Melbourne at the moment. But she's a powerhouse. She runs dance classes as well as a side hustle and she'll have 50 people in a dance class. And then she's back at work and if you message her at 5 in the morning she'll reply. If you message me, you're going to get. You know I might be a couple of hours behind her, but she's up and out the door at five and she's got the greatest work ethic I've ever seen.

Speaker 1:

Well, glenn, I'm so glad that everyone's safe. You're okay. This time in LA is just indescribable. No one's seen anything like it. And here at Inman, when I'm at the conference, they brought up the footage, the scenery on the big screens, yep, and there was tears everywhere.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's pretty horrible. I mean, we've lived through it, we've driven through it, I've walked it. It's like being in a war zone in another country and it's a long time to come back. But you know people here are pretty resilient. They, you know LA always seems to have tragedies all the time and they seem to bounce back all the time. And you know there are a few agents that cop a hard time, but most of them do you know every agent I know is out doing charities, delivering food, cooking for people, buying presents for people, offering their house to people. You know the real estate community is pretty good in that aspect. Unfortunately, there's a small percentage that bend the rules and destroy it for everyone, as in every business, but most of the people here are pretty good at it.

Speaker 1:

Well, glenn Cortino, thank you for joining us on the program we Are Selling and we look forward to speaking to you again in the future.

Speaker 2:

Okay, mate, thanks a lot. Thanks for having us.