Speaker 1: 0:30

My name is Taylor Tolbert. I'm a real estate agent with Pearson Smith Realty here in Northern Virginia. I've been selling real estate for this is my fifth full year now. It's been an amazing run. It's super fun, I love it and I think you know the best way that I serve my clients is just giving next level customer service and really caring about my clients. I think that's what really sets me apart long term and just in business in general. I've always been a relationship-based guy and I think that's what's really that's allowed me to connect with my clients so deeply over the years and just create friends for life and clients for life, and that's what's really helped me get to where I am today.

Speaker 2: 1:04

That's awesome. Tell me a little bit about how did you get into the real estate industry.

Speaker 1: 1:10

So, backing up, I was in insurance. I graduated school and I got into the insurance business for two years, right out of school. What?

Speaker 1: 1:17

kind of insurance, commercial insurance, so property and casualty, and then life and disability. That sucked but I gritted through it. I did it for two years and I'm telling you I was just knocking doors on small businesses all across Northern Virginia, talking to small business owners, individuals, for life and disability. Everything I could get my hands on I would. But I was literally suited up like this, driving around Nova for eight hours a day in the 105 degree heat 22-year-old kid didn't know my ass from my elbow and it was just intense and, like I said, I hated it but I gritted through it for two years, did really well and I think that really established my baseline of how to sell, how to close, how to speak to people, develop that skill level.

Speaker 1: 1:57

And then I pivoted into software sales which, spoiler alert, I also didn't like that, but that was selling payroll software to mid-market companies anywhere from 500 to 5,000 employees. Ironically, I didn't do very well in that, just because it wasn't the best work environment for me. But again, similar to insurance, I took a lot of lessons from being in that business and that kind of. They meshed together well to make me a really good real estate agent. The insurance was more blue collar, informal sales process knocking doors, cutting my teeth and then getting into the payroll software world was a much more corporate, white-collar environment where you learn how to professionally prospect and sell and run a sales process and ask questions and develop a business relationship and close deals that way. So I think they both mesh together well to where now I'm in the middle, where it's not as informal as knocking on a tiny three-man auto service center but I'm also not calling on.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Amazon or Google. I've done the B2B. It's a it's a grind. It's a hard industry out there. It's definitely a grind, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:59

But no. And then I got into real estate in 2020 or right when the pandemic started, and it's been a hell of a ride so far.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Yeah, what have been your challenges lately, lately, since then? I mean, like, obviously COVID was. If you started during COVID, covid was a challenge in itself, yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:16

I think it was more of a blessing in disguise, because I quit my job in December of 2019, got licensed in February of 2020, ran a marathon in between because that was the free time I had. Why not? Why not Exactly? It was crazy Starting in 2020, because in the beginning, there's different levels in business of skill right In the beginning, you don't know what you don't know and then eventually you get to.

Speaker 1: 3:41

You know what you know, right, so and everything in between. So in the beginning I didn't know how, like, what a hot water heater did Obviously it heats water. What age, like just the most basic shit you could think of. I had no idea how any of it worked basic shit you could think of. I had no idea how any of it worked.

Speaker 1: 3:58

And now, fast forwarding almost five years, I've sold 175 homes, I've done deals down to 150K, up to $3 million and everything in between. I've seen all types of different houses, types of different cities, worked with all kinds of different people from different walks of life, made friends, a couple of people who aren't friends, but that's part of the deal and I've know I've just learned so much and it's been you know, it's been insane. I think I've been fortunate to do very well, very quickly, um, but I think to your point. The challenge is in the beginning or you don't know anything, you don't know anybody. But for me I was just like I'm going to put my nose down, not worry about the money initially and just work as hard as I can, and that alone ought to take care of me, and it certainly has.

Speaker 2: 4:33

Yeah, what do you find most rewarding? About just the industry, everything that's going on.

Speaker 1: 4:40

Yeah, I mean, the most rewarding thing for sure is just the relationships I get to have with these people afterward, like if you were going to go to buy insurance life insurance. It's not a fun conversation, it's not a fun thing to buy, it's not something you look at or you experience every day. It's just not that Real estate. Though, even if you're not looking to actively buy or sell a home, it's always fun to look at houses. That's why HGTV is so big, because we all love houses.

Speaker 1: 5:05

So for being in real estate, you get to help people with the biggest purchase of their life. It's one of the most intimate purchases because I get to know you personally on a financial level, a personal level, because I need to know what you guys want for you and your family in terms of a house. And then we get to drive around Nova or analyze your home that you've been in for 20 years and we get to do business that way. So, like it's just such a fun thing. That's unlike any other asset class that I've seen because it's high dollar, so pretty intense in that regard and very important for me to do my job there. And then very personal because it's your home, you know.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Do you have a focus on a specific set of people, like first-time homebuyers, or you know people who have bought several homes, or do you just help everybody?

Speaker 1: 5:53

Up until this point I haven't, I've really just helped everybody. Because why not? I don't want to pigeonhole myself because you know, in the beginning, Up until this point I haven't, I've really just helped everybody. Because why not? I don't want?

Speaker 1: 5:57

to pigeonhole myself because in the beginning it's like I don't know anybody, I'm going to do everything. But now we just moved into our dream home in Waterford, so Western Loudoun. So now my focus is I'll still go all over Nova. I have a big client base now but I'm primarily focusing on Loudoun County and specifically Leesburg, purcellville, lovettsville, that triangle and then ideally you want to work with sellers a little more than buyers. But the buy side is just so much fun for me and I really enjoy that, so I like to do those too. But if I could do 60% listings in Western Loudoun and Leesburg and then maybe 40% buyers in that area, that would be dream scenario. That's what I'm focusing on.

Speaker 2: 6:36

Okay, what advice would you give a business right now, or not a business, but another realtor who is getting into the real estate industry. Just any advice coming in. Like you said at the beginning, you didn't know what, you didn't know, right.

Speaker 1: 6:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:51

So what advice would you give those realtors coming in now?

Speaker 1: 6:55

Advice for a new realtor.

Speaker 1: 6:56

I don't even know how qualified I am to give this advice, but I would just say because I can only speak to what I did, which was put my nose down, take every single kind of business across the board, learn the process, learn the game. Don't worry about the money in the first year, and just. You need to establish yourself right. Whether you're making 50% on a transaction or 100%, it doesn't matter. You need experience and you need deals. That's what I tell people. I'm like. You can be as cute as you want on social media and buy all these fake awards and look cool online, but the only thing that matters is you getting into a transaction, doing a deal and moving on to the next one while building that client base.

Speaker 2: 7:31

So where does your client base currently come from? Like social media, what do you do for marketing?

Speaker 1: 7:37

I mean now I do a lot of marketing, I do a lot of stuff. I have a website that I push all across Northern Virginia. I do postcards every month to a bunch of different neighborhoods. Now A lot more word of mouth, which is great, because in the beginning, like you know, it's like all the good agents I speak to are like we work on referral. I'm like I don't even know what that means, dude.

Speaker 2: 7:55

You're like, I don't even know who to refer what to refer.

Speaker 1: 7:59

Who's going to refer me anything? I have no idea. So that now, though, that's certainly a snowball, but that's the compounding effect of five years of hustling, so now it's a lot of repeat and referral. I've done very, very well at open houses over the years, and I've crushed, crushed online leads, whether that's Zillow, realtorcom, pay-per-click leads that I buy. A little bit of everything is kind of how I've run my business, and that's part of it too. In the beginning, you don't know what to even do, so you start to do business, and then you're like, oh, this works here, this works here, this doesn't work here. And then, eventually, you're operating on so many fronts that you have business coming to you in so many different ways where you're not relying upon each individual one, and then you're also just growing that word of mouth base simultaneously for the long term.

Speaker 2: 8:43

Yeah, true, yeah. So tell me a little bit about you. Who are you outside of the real estate world?

Speaker 1: 8:53

Outside of the real estate world. I'm just Taylor. I'm just a dad and a husband. That's really what I do. I don't hang out with friends a ton of the time. My main focus of my life is my wife and my kids. Kelsey and I have been together. It'll be 14 years.

Speaker 2: 9:08

We met way back in high school which is crazy your high school, sweethe. Together it'll be 14 years. We met way back in high school, which is crazy.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Your high school sweethearts, high school sweethearts, that's awesome. And then we just had our second son, a few weeks ago.

Speaker 2: 9:16

So we've got two little boys, congratulations.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Thank you. So two little boys. So I mean, my main focus is really just go work my ass off out in the field and-.

Speaker 2: 9:24

Hustling for the family.

Speaker 1: 9:25

Bring it home to my family and live our life together. So what we like to do, we like to hang out, watch TV, obviously, play with the kids, run around, do all that and just go to restaurants and spend quality time together. That's our biggest thing. We're not like we don't go out much. We go to restaurants and stuff together, but it's really just quality time and just hanging out. We did just buy our dream house, which is super exciting.

Speaker 2: 9:48

I was going to ask that.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Yeah, we got three acres brand new house up in Waterford, which is way farther than I thought I would ever go and I'm only 29, which is cool. But it's still really cool to look back and see that seven years of just grinding and hustling and trying to figure it all out. And then you look up and you're like, oh shit, here we are now. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 10:16

It's pretty amazing. So what made this house your dream home? So a few things. We were living in Chantilly and we had a very nice house in Chantilly but it was on 0.15 acres, so no land. Essentially, we've always wanted to build a home from scratch and we've always wanted to have some land. So we found a really nice farm that Van Meter had bought up in Waterford and we got an amazing three acre lot one of the best lots in the neighborhood. We were able to build the house it's about 5,700 square feet with all the different finishes and options that they had and it really came to life from just a piece of land up there to our dream house now.

Speaker 2: 10:46

And it's fenced and it's on three acres and it's on a cul-de-sac, like it's everything we could have ever wanted that's so rewarding to see because you see it obviously from it was just dirt to this whole whole thing, yeah, yeah and it was.

Speaker 1: 10:59

It was really nice to be able to work with a quality builder like van meter because, like we knew, they were going to take good care of us. And then one other thing I definitely wanted to point out, though, is Kelsey. She's always been the catalyst for that next step in life. Like when it was time to buy our first house, she was like we should actually definitely do this. And then, when we upgraded to our second home, I was terrified because it was a big price point relative to our age.

Speaker 1: 11:23

And I was like, oh no. And then she helped us do that. And then the same exact with this house. She was like listen, taylor, it's not going to be cheaper in five years.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Listen, taylor.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Yeah, she's like we can afford it now pretty comfortably, on paper at least Like let's do it, like bet on yourself, like you've been doing your whole life.

Speaker 2: 11:38

Let's go get our house, let's do it now and we'll keep rocking and rolling and she's amazing shout out to her right absolutely, she's the best so what are some things, um, currently that you're seeing with new builds or stuff like that that more people are going for, um, whether it is, like you just said, finish, certain finishes or certain things in the house, that people are kind of looking for that style more so now than before, or do you notice any of that?

Speaker 1: 12:17

I mean there's new construction popping up everywhere in Loudoun County and all across Northern Virginia. A lot of the builders are building these little like sardine houses is what I call them where they're just jammed right on top of each other.

Speaker 2: 12:27

You can reach out and touch the sides Like a cookie cutter, yeah, yeah, which.

Speaker 1: 12:30

I guess there's a place for that, because, like, I mean, it is what it is. But what people are ideally looking for is not that that comes up in conversation all the time, where hey, there's a new development in Brambleton and it's like they're just sandwiched in between each other. People like to have a decent of an acre, a quarter of an acre, a nice open floor plan. Obviously, like all the builders build, and it's always got to be feeding to good schools. That's a big part. There's a couple neighborhoods where they build up but they don't feed to good schools and they have trouble selling. So it's just a combination of all of it. And then the quality of the builder too. There's a few builders around here that don't have the best reputation.

Speaker 2: 13:18

I won't name names, but it's the whole package really. Yeah, what's the craziest request or the craziest story you could tell me of somebody, a buyer or a seller Like a crazy story where you were like, oh my God, I really had to do that, or I had to really figure this out for them.

Speaker 1: 13:30

Yeah Well, I would tell you about the one where my client's house burned down, but already told that on another podcast. Oh my god, but that was crazy. Um shit, I should have thought of that.

Speaker 2: 13:37

Let's come back to that. I'll think of something. In the meantime, we'll come back. We'll come back um, what um? Would you be able to give our listeners a little bit of advice on? Right now, the market is obviously, we know, a little bit strange yeah what is your biggest advice for people who are looking into maybe buying their first home, or looking into, you know, possibly, like you just did build up a house, but they're definitely too scared with these interest rates or with everything going on.

Speaker 1: 14:14

That's a really good question, I think. Speaking directly to a potential homebuyer right now, my thought process is this I can only speak to Northern Virginia, which is our local market. Northern Virginia is one of the most quality real estate markets in the country. We have Washington DC, we have all the government jobs, all the contracting jobs and then everything else in our local economy, so it's extremely, extremely stable here. My thought process and I just put my money where my mouth is building my new house and buying a new house here. So I'm not just spewing, because I obviously make money when people buy houses.

Speaker 1: 14:45

I don't see a world where things are going to get cheaper over the next five years in Northern Virginia. They're building like crazy. People love Northern Virginia. There's so much job growth here, amazon's here, there's so much going on that short of a complete collapse and even if there was, it would bounce back but short of a complete collapse Northern Virginia is going to be a strong market no matter what. So I would say that when you can comfortably afford a house that you want and you like comfortably financially, do it, because when rates come down you can refinance and I'll tell you when rates come down, people are going to come swarming back into the market where maybe you got a 5% rate but now you're paying $50,000 more for the house in equity. So my advice is, if you can do it comfortably, buy a house now, because it's not going to be cheaper in five years.

Speaker 2: 15:31

Refinancing is always there.

Speaker 1: 15:33

Yes, yes and again, that's easy to say, but I just gave up my 4% rate for a 7% rate on a much bigger house, so it's like that's what I believe.

Speaker 2: 15:41

That's where you kind of have to do the little seesaw and see which thing kind of works out better for you right.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Definitely, definitely. As long as you're staying within those means of what you can afford and you're happy with, I think you'll be okay long-term here.

Speaker 2: 15:54

Are you currently seeing? You were saying that Loudoun County obviously yes, loudoun County is growing a lot. Do you think that because of those changes, maybe some people are moving out of Loudoun County?

Speaker 1: 16:08

Not because of any changes here per se. I think people leave Loudoun County because, relative to other parts of the country, our taxes are a lot higher. It's very expensive to live here, like a house that's a million bucks here would be $350,000 and other more rural parts of the country, which is fine. It is what it is. But I think people they only leave here when they're retiring and they're done, because it makes sense to take your money and run or if they just can't afford it because life is hard.

Speaker 1: 16:31

I get that like run yeah yeah, it's like we retired, we made our money.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Let's get out of here and go buy a house for 400k and ride it out, you know yeah, definitely, um, is there anything that we haven't touched on that you would like to mention or you would like to speak on so our listeners can get?

Speaker 1: 16:52

Yeah, yeah, I mean your other question where you said the craziest thing. This isn't a very crazy thing at all. But what I will speak to is I've always been focusing on building this business for the long term and with relationships. So, for example, I was in my previous neighborhood in Chantilly for barely two years but met some neighbors, made some friends, had some good relationships. You know, because you never know where things might go.

Speaker 1: 17:14

And then you know, maybe six, seven months ago I found out one of my neighbors was from my original hometown, crazy. He was building a new house and then he was going to sell his house, which was three doors down from mine, but he already had an agent which stunk. But I was like, hey, if anything changes, my door's always open. Obviously I would love to. I sold my house, crushed the neighborhood record and then about seven days ago he calls me and says hey, can you help me sell my house? He's getting ready. He wanted to make sure he hired an agent that knew the neighborhood and could do a good job, so that other agent's no longer in the picture. Obviously they signed the paperwork with me this morning, but the whole point of that being like when you just.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Thank you. It's like when you just are nice to people, you're helpful to people, you work really hard and your portfolio of work speaks for itself. You'll get opportunities. Like seven days ago I hadn't even spoken to him in a couple months, but then my phone rings and now I just signed a $1.1 million listing. So if you just in this business, if you take care of people, focus on the long-term and do it right, opportunities like that will come out of the woodworks all the time, and that's what I've been focusing on.

Speaker 2: 18:14

That's awesome. I like hearing that. And then for my last question if you could leave our listeners with, like a message or some sort of mantra that you live by, or anything like that, what kind of message would that be?

Speaker 1: 18:31

Yeah, I mean from the beginning of, I guess, the entire process of me building myself into who I am today, which I would say started when I was like 12 or 13,. It's always my stepdad who I credit most of my success to, for instilling that in me was just-.

Speaker 2: 18:45

Shout out to your stepdad, Stepdad.

Speaker 1: 18:47

Bobby's the man Just keep your nose down, work your ass off, outwork everybody, put up results and do your best and that's it. So from when I was middle school, lifting weights and playing sports, I was always the best in high school or whatever. But just because of that sheer work ethic and I've taken that with me from when I was insurance I didn't enjoy it but I was like screw it, I'm going to go down and work hard and I'm going to be the best. And that's what I did when I got the payroll. Didn't work out, but still, you know, I worked harder than everybody else, undeniably. And in real estate, same thing.

Speaker 1: 19:18

It doesn't matter what the trade is, whether it's real estate, finance, photography, podcasting, it doesn't matter If you have the capability to learn from your mistakes. Work hard, continue to build your skill set, focus on something and just stick with it Like truly, you can grow so much and you can make so much money in a short amount of time if you develop the skills and put yourself in that position. So it's just the default thing for me. That's always gotten me places is just my pure work ethic, and now I have skills. So I'm pretty dangerous in this game.

Speaker 2: 19:51

You seem very, very passionate, very, very like.

Speaker 1: 19:54

yeah, I mean I love life and I love what I do and I love taking care of my family and real estate's fucking awesome.

Speaker 2: 19:59

So it's just, it's for me, that's awesome, well thank you very much for being here with us today, Taylor Of course, appreciate your time and coming in and sharing and give us your socials real quick. Do you have social media Instagram, Facebook, website so people can find you?

Speaker 1: 20:14

I do. Yeah, the best way to get ahold of me is on Instagram. It's just at T Tolbert underscore. I'm wearing the same suit actually in my picture, so you can click on it. Find me pretty easy. I'm on Facebook as well, linkedin, and then I'm not too hard to find my cell phone number online. So go ahead, look me up, hit me any way you want, and I'd be happy to help.

Speaker 2: 20:31

Awesome. Thank you very much, taylor, cool Thanks.