Speaker 1: 0:30

My name is Glenn Stackem and I'm with Keller Williams Realty in Loudoun Gateway right here in Ashburn, Virginia, and I help my clients buy listing properties, selling properties, investment properties, short-term properties and the whole nine yards.

Speaker 2: 0:45

How'd you get into it?

Speaker 1: 0:47

I actually got into it through my aunt and uncle. They asked me to come to Virginia. They had three REMAX firms, and so they said, why don't you learn real estate? And I said, well, why not? So I came over and learned it from the ground up, started answering phone calls and then working the front desk, learning contracts, taking out trash, filling up the coffee, everything. So I learned how to run a business.

Speaker 2: 1:13

And so when did you start and how has the industry changed since then?

Speaker 1: 1:17

I started in see that was 2006. I got my license in 2008. And the real estate business has definitely changed. When I got my license, foreclosures and short sales were it. You know, the market had crashed. My first transaction took me 10 months and I'll never forget that one. I was hungry. When you don't make a lot of money, you're eating peanut butter, jelly sandwiches and you're doing other stuff. That's how I got involved into it. It's evolved. First year I only did one transaction. It was one short sale. Then it evolved more and more and more. So business has grown and it's all reputation.

Speaker 1: 1:57

I see something on your your shirt that says sports and entertainment yes, so that that is ever since I really got into real estate, like, oh, I've always loved sports. Um, I happened to fall into working with a bunch of the redskins now football team, whatever you want to call them and so I got in working with one of them as a rental and they appreciated the level of service I gave to them. They referred me out and the next thing, you know, it just started steamrolling and then I got interviewed by people inside the building to see if I should be trusted to work with those athletes and they like me.

Speaker 2: 2:37

And you passed the test.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Yes, passed the spell test.

Speaker 2: 2:40

Love it. Now, where are you from? You got a little bit of that Southern twang. We talked about it when you came in and I found out.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Yes, I am from Maryland, so I grew up in Only Maryland and moved over to Kent Island, maryland, for a little bit for finishing up my high school years and then moved over to Kent Island, maryland, for a little bit to finish up my high school years and then moved up to Baltimore City for a little bit and then Silver Spring, maryland, and back to Virginia when my uncle told me to come over and my aunt Do you feel like that gives you a little better well-versed in our area, or do you focus mainly in this northern Virginia area?

Speaker 1: 3:13

I only focus in northern Virginia For me. I'd rather send a referral over to Maryland, which I do have referral partners, because for me to drive around that beltway I am not sitting in a 495. Like, I'm sorry, I can't do it Completely understandable. Yeah, but so that referrals are a big part of the business as well.

Speaker 2: 3:32

So you're talking about referrals, talking about kind of the come up and everything that you've learned from like taking out the trash to like working with these high level, high expectation type clients. What are some basic tips that you can give an agent who is just now getting into the real estate game?

Speaker 1: 3:52

And the best tip I have is read the contract, study the contract. My uncle, before I got my license, he sat down with me. He said, glenn, every real estate problem can be solved by reading the contract. So he said, take the contract, read every single paragraph and summarize it for me, and then come back and we'll have a conversation about it. So I did that and it really made me learn the contract.

Speaker 1: 4:18

So if there's an issue, it's solvable, like you, just simply read. Like even today I'm negotiating on a home inspection item. We're giving them a $200 credit and they're like how do we put this on the altar? It's last minute. I'm like you just tell the title company, it's simple. Like last minute, I'm like you just tell the title company, it's simple, like it's not rocket science, just do it. But, um, and they also bought the house with no home inspection. I'm like we only have to give you a credit, so be thankful, yeah, but but yeah, so read the contract, um, study it, because a lot of people do not understand that.

Speaker 1: 4:52

Get good training from your brokerage firm. Make sure that they have good training. Um, because there are some brokerage firms which don't offer training at all and I can really tell when I negotiate against them or when they write an offer and like half the offer is blank, I'm like this is terrible. We're professionals. We need to be professional. You're making a lot of money. You're helping clients with some of the biggest assets they'll ever sell, so be a professional. And money. You're helping clients with some of the biggest assets they'll ever sell, so be a professional um and what else?

Speaker 1: 5:27

I think that's really it that I have.

Speaker 2: 5:27

I mean and be yourself, and be yourself, be original. And what does that mean? What?

Speaker 1: 5:29

does that mean? Be original? Be yourself. Don't try to be anyone else, just just be yourself. Be kind and treat everyone exactly the same. Whether it's a $3 million property or a rental for $1,800 a month that you're making 200 bucks on and you spend more time on that than you do a sale, just treat everyone exactly the same, because you never know where a referral will come from. That's actually how I got going back to sports entertainment. It was a rental and it led to another rental and then it led to my first big sale of 1.95. And it's like you treat everyone the same.

Speaker 2: 6:05

Yeah, you never know how karma comes back and pats you on the back for that one.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Yeah, because when people see you and don't tell them what they want to hear, or you really give your opinion and give good, solid advice, that is your reputation and that comes back to you and people understand that. They respect that and that's why they refer you and that's why all my business has been by referral only.

Speaker 2: 6:29

Now you mentioned being yourself, and then earlier we were talking about social media and how much you despise it yes, yourself. And then earlier we were talking about social media and how much you despise it, yes. Do you think that there is a connection between people wanting to be like somebody else because they see it on social media, or sometimes I think they try to do too much to get likes, um, or they want to put too much content out there.

Speaker 1: 6:54

You know, and maybe there is a point where content every day is good, and that's why I'm not a social media expert. But I feel like, if you're going to put content out there, put good content out there, but I just don't do that. Yeah, I do, but I don't. Yeah, I post in ghost, that's the term right.

Speaker 2: 7:12

It sure is. Now. You spoke about training, but it sounds like you had more than just training. You had an actual mentor.

Speaker 1: 7:20

I did. I was never on a big team because I knew from what my uncle and my aunt were definitely my mentors and my trainers. I watched other real estate agents in my office who I love to this day at the REMAX office. They taught me, they taught me. Everyone taught me the same ways and I would watch. Uh, I'm a big visual learner so I would watch people how they handle business, how they handle their clients and, um, I learned a lot from that for sure.

Speaker 2: 7:50

And you had mentioned, like there's no two transactions that are the same. So even if you get all the training in the world, there's going to be that random thing that's going to pop up that you've never dealt with before.

Speaker 1: 7:59

Yes, yeah, like mold being in the house and how do you fix that? And being able to call contractors right away to get them out to fix the problem and ease everyone's minds and settle everyone down about the house, because there's scary things that happen and you just got to put everyone at ease. Be the problem solver, and that's probably the one thing that I really do like is being a problem solver.

Speaker 2: 8:24

What's one of the biggest problems you've solved? At least that comes to mind.

Speaker 1: 8:28

Biggest problem that I ever solved. I'll tell you a fun story. All right, I'll tell you a fun story. I'll tell you a fun story. All right, I'll tell you a fun story. So I had a client of mine who went and we looked at a house. I won't say where it is, but they were like, let's buy this. It was a short sale. And so I'm like, all right, let's go look at it. We're looking at it. All the neighbors are like peeking through the window, staring at us. I'm like what's going on? And then we Googled the person who lived in the house. Well, he had just gone to jail and he was up for being a spy. And I'm like what? I'm like am I going to get audited by the IRS now because I'm going in this house? What's going on? But anyway, so we ended up getting that house under contract and he had to pay the bankruptcy fees for the person who was going to jail. And that was a fun one. That was a fun one because he's trying to negotiate with the attorneys about the fees. We're not paying the attorney fees, we're not paying this, we're not paying that, but you have to.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Unfortunately, some of the biggest problems I think I've had were dealing with home inspections and you know like the home inspector may say oh, the siding is warped right next to the fireplace but it's like there's a window right next to it and the sun is east west. So if you look at it, sun is like a magnifying glass off the window. So it's warping it. There's no issue on the inside of the chimney. So then you get a chimney specialist to come out and you prove that. But sometimes the parents of first-time home buyers are more scared. They're timid, you know.

Speaker 2: 10:03

They're like oh, it has to be perfect for my son or my daughter it's like yeah, no, house is perfect, even new construction do you find that when parents get involved, it makes things, or other parties get involved, it makes things harder?

Speaker 1: 10:19

um, yes, some, especially if they're a real estate agent. Yeah, coming in from a different state, yeah, like, uh, I had this one where the mom was a real estate agent and she came in from a different state and she kept saying, oh well, we need to 15% off because that's how it is in our market, and I'm like we're in Northern Virginia. That doesn't happen. Like if you get 2%, 3% off, you're winning all day long. Like that doesn't happen, but it's like, no, in our market it does. So that's probably another challenge.

Speaker 2: 10:54

What are like when it comes to dealing with agents and because you work with other agents all the time, what are some tips that you have or some challenges that you've seen in the Northern Virginia market about how to play well in the sandbox?

Speaker 1: 11:09

Yeah, you got to play nice. You got to understand that every agent is a person and sometimes, if they don't know what they're doing, you help coach them along, but you don't flex your muscle. If you, will you be kind about it? You say, hey, you know, maybe there's a better way to go about this so we can all close this transaction. Sometimes you do have to do the other side's job, but you help educate at the same time, you know, and then you offer advice. But okay, look, I'm always offering advice, and if someone would like to ask me a question, you know about a transaction while we're going through it, I'm like look, I'm open door, call me. Like. Communication is huge between real estate agents. Some people hide behind text messages, which so much gets misc skewed during that period, because it's like just pick up the phone, it gets solved real fast, like I'm old school though, yeah, so have you seen the Kenan and what is it Peel?

Speaker 2: 12:06

They'll say what is it called Kenan?

Speaker 1: 12:09

Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2: 12:09

Is that what it is? I think so. Have you watched any?

Speaker 1: 12:12

of those. I don't think I have no, okay, nevermind, I'm going to have to like play the clip. So it's all about text messages.

Speaker 2: 12:17

It's the way like you read the text message makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Yeah, yeah, and it could be like your mindset at the time, like maybe something bad happened, and then you get a text message and you're like, oh well, this ain't good, like I got to respond back. And then you respond back as a D and the next thing you know, the conversation gets played up. A portion really can just be easy fix and they were just happy to put the exclamation point. They weren't angry, you know, like I'm that way Everything is high.

Speaker 1: 12:45

Yeah, yeah. Or big caps is like. What do you mean? Why are you yelling at me? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:49

Yeah, okay. So when it comes to like you talked about referrals, as it was a big piece of your business, treating people with respect sounds like it's literally part of your marketing plan.

Speaker 1: 12:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:59

What other things? Concrete types of marketing tricks, hacks, strategies.

Speaker 1: 13:10

So, being that I've learned kind of the old school way. I do stay more traditional to that. I personally don't feel my single Facebook page is going to sell someone's house. The MLS is going to help sell it. The way you market it, the way you do your pre-marketing, the coming soon advertising, all that's what really leads up to playing into it.

Speaker 1: 13:32

I also belong to groups like the Real Estate Action Council we call it REAC which is just a group of agents all around Northern Virginia that come and we meet once every month I think it's like the third Wednesday of the month and we talk there's no recruiting, it's just conversations. It's what listings do you have? We bring in vendors to talk about title work or case laws and things of that nature. So you're learning at the same time. But then you also network your listings, you have conversations and that is a big part of selling. Um, let me.

Speaker 1: 14:06

I've sold so many houses off market that don't go into MLS because a the seller doesn't want it in them up in the MLS. They don't want to have a bunch of people through the house and like, just if you can sell it, we'll sell, and sure enough it happens. So you're always marketing with conversations Like we were talking about Orange Theory. You know, I go there and I work out. There's a group of realtors in there which I think Sue Smith might have been here, and so I work out next to Sue, you know, and some other people from different companies and we talk. You know, that's how selling really happens.

Speaker 2: 14:37

Relationships.

Speaker 1: 14:38

Relationships. Relationships is key, especially when you're negotiating on a hot property and let's just say there's 15, 20 offers coming in. If I know you and I know you close deals you have a reputable, you know lender and we've done deals before in the past. I'm going to tell my client look, I have a good relationship with this person. Their clients are probably grade A, I don't know this other one. It's all about terms anyway, but you know you just let people know.

Speaker 2: 15:08

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Because getting a deal done is the biggest thing.

Speaker 2: 15:11

Yeah, Now in terms of your upbringing as a child, could you see things early in your childhood that would have led you to this career today?

Speaker 1: 15:24

Not at all.

Speaker 2: 15:28

What did you want?

Speaker 1: 15:28

to do growing up. You know, I probably Between being a football player. That was one thing I wanted to do because I love football. Then it was owning a restaurant. I wanted to own a restaurant. I call it Steak'Em Steakhouse.

Speaker 2: 15:43

That's pretty good yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:45

I was like I'm all about that, but then restaurants fail. So that was probably my dream doing that.

Speaker 2: 15:54

So what happened with the football?

Speaker 1: 15:56

I played and then when I moved over to Eastern Shore, the team wasn't that good and I was like I'm not going pro, like I was actually a running back and I was behind this guy. His name was Richie Anderson. He went pro, but he was also like 6'2" in high school, like 220 pounds, and he just would not be tackled. I'm like, yeah, I'm not that good oh yeah, I was good, but I'm not that good no wait, what's his name?

Speaker 1: 16:23

richie, good not rich, not richie anderson good, no, that guy was a beast. Yeah, yeah, um, but I guess maybe that also helps me with. You know, getting into having conversations with the athletes now is being able to talk on their level and just meet eye to eye and understand their needs and things like that One thing. So when I left REMAX, it was kind of sad because my family owned it. It was sad. I do miss my people at REMAX, but going to Keller Williams has also opened up doors for me.

Speaker 2: 17:00

Why did you?

Speaker 1: 17:00

change. I knew my aunt and uncle were getting a little bit older and they weren't going to own the business forever. I didn't have the capital to buy it, which that's ultimately the end game. If you have a business, you want to sell it and that's what they did. And so I decided to go to Keller Williams and it's been a great thing. You know, I've enjoyed my time there. I've met great people like the sports entertainment that was something that popped up A good friend of mine, Jordan Stewart and Jason Ross they kind of spearheaded it and my buddy, Paul, up in Boston.

Speaker 1: 17:39

They work with high level athletes all the time and they decided to form a group of like minded people to all network together and kind of create a big team, but not really a team, we're not all connected, it's just relationship based. And we wanted to have training, we wanted to have events where we could go to like down in Atlanta. We went to a big event down there Chicago, Orlando. So we're always meeting up and just trading secrets and talking and when you build those relationships, that's when those referrals come in. So, like Paul, who's up in Boston, I became really good friends with him, Like he deals with the Celtics, the Bruins, the Pats, and we just became good friends and I deal with a lot of the commanders down here, and so we built that bond and we just kind of clicked, like-minded, if you will.

Speaker 1: 18:30

And he called me one day and he said I got a friend coming into town to DC not even at Keller Williams and I said, OK, great. He said, why don't you meet them for coffee? So I met her for coffee and we just talked. Next thing, you know, she was telling me about a pocket listing. She had I shouldn't say pocket listing, an off-market listing and she goes I'm going to be selling it. It's appraised at this price and if you know anyone out in this area, let me know.

Speaker 1: 18:58

I made a phone call, sold the house and that's all how it happens. Relationships. They're just selling property out in San Francisco. But that's the cool part about real estate and a lot of agents don't look at that as part of their business because you might not get stats for it, because everyone says, oh, I sold $20 million, I sold $50 million. Well, if you don't care about your volume or your stats, the only thing that really counts is making money and having a successful business that lasts. And so when you have the referral business, that money comes in, but you just don't get stats for it.

Speaker 2: 19:33

Yeah, what do you see? The future of your industry?

Speaker 1: 19:41

I'm excited. I am Because I think that people are going to be weeding out the bad agents who don't know how to have conversations or are timid about having conversations with the seller over compensation. They don't know how to show their worth and know how to explain that. I mean, I've done transactions recently where I've negotiated with my client three and a half percent, where the offers came in and the buyer's agent is negotiating a whole heck of a lot less. I'm like well, that's on them, we're offering compensation If you don't want the full amount, that's on you. I think that those weak agents who discount their sales, their value, they will start to wean out because if you're discounting your value, how can you stay in business? You know you got bills to pay, you got everything else and we all know if you're discounting it then it's not going to last.

Speaker 2: 20:45

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:46

But that's just my personal opinion. I'm excited.

Speaker 2: 20:49

You don't hear that often. I'm excited. That's good.

Speaker 1: 20:53

Because, I mean, we do need to be professional, like everyone needs to know their value. They need to know how to work with sellers, because every seller is different. You type a, type b, type c. You need to know how to navigate those and explain the process to them what would you say to a future?

Speaker 2: 21:13

like somebody who's listening to this and they're thinking about selling their home, buying a home, do you have either inspiration for them right now, like what to consider, or thoughts about?

Speaker 1: 21:26

You know, first thing I do if someone calls and says, hey, I'd like to meet you know, talk about selling my house. We look at it and I say, well, where's your interest rate at? And if it's low, I'm like, can you afford to purchase and keep this as an investment property? Because if you have like a two and a half, three, three and a half I mean it's almost like free money and your rates are so low it's like try to keep it. But if you can't, then we'll come up with a plan about how to sell it and where you're. I'm a big net sheet, I'm a numbers guy. So it's like, okay, this is where we could sell your house. Possibility could be higher, could be lower. You know, break the numbers down and show you where you're gonna make your money at and go from there.

Speaker 2: 22:06

But yeah, I try to help people keep the house because investments is great I was gonna say that's actually mind blowing, that you would do that because you would make more money if they sold their home. So just the fact that you're considering your client's financial portfolio versus over yours, I think that speaks volumes about your character.

Speaker 1: 22:26

Yeah, thank you. I had one of my clients. He was living in his house. He was going to sell it to buy another one, but his parents were also looking to buy a property and I said why don't you just have your parents buy your house? This is a great, solid investment. You know it's a good, sound house, and then you take that money and you buy the next one. Which there it is. I lose out on a sale and a purchase, but it's in the end, what's best for the client.

Speaker 2: 22:51

They're going to say go and talk to him because at the end of the day.

Speaker 1: 22:53

No, they have some referrals. Yeah, I'm sure they did, and that's exactly what it's about.

Speaker 2: 22:56

Yeah. So to wrap things up, give me one last, like what's your parting words or something that you say often to people that you feel like you kind of live your life around?

Speaker 1: 23:08

What do I live my life around? My wife and my kids? I don't know, just be you, be authentic. My kids, um, I don't know, just be you, be authentic be original.

Speaker 2: 23:23

That's it. That's it. Have fun, have fun.

Speaker 1: 23:24

Life's too short not to have fun. Sounds like you're having lots of it. I try I try.

Speaker 2: 23:26

Thank you so much for being on the show yeah, you're welcome.