SPEAKER_01: 0:30

My name is Kevin Castro. I'm a realtor with Vase Realty. And, you know, I'm a real estate agent and I serve first-time home buyers, homeowners who want to sell their home, and investors.

SPEAKER_00: 0:45

Awesome. I can't wait to learn more. So take me back to how you got started in all this. Tell me how you got to where you are today.

SPEAKER_01: 0:52

Well, it was a bit of a journey, really, because my dad, uh, he was a contractor, and so he would go to visit people in different homes, help them improve their homes. And so I kind of had that, I'm not even sure what you call it really, but I always had that thing, we'll say it for lack of better terms, that thing, that desire to kind of be in different people's home or that attachment, just learning about who they are and how they live their lives. You know, you live you learn a lot when you visit people's homes because it's where they live, it's how they decorate their place, what inspires them. So that kind of sparked the interest, but then you know, I worked in sales for a little bit. So, you know, when you put that and sales together, that's kind of how I got into the real estate gig. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48

Very cool. So I know you've spent most of your life in the DMV area. How has growing up here shaped the way you connect with clients and guide them through buying or selling in such a diverse market?

SPEAKER_01: 2:01

Great question. So, growing up in the DMV area, you're really like aware of a lot of activity, certain trends that are going on, changes throughout the neighborhood. So you're able to guide people through those changes. And the more time you spend studying the market, the more you're able to kind of guide your clients on what those changes mean, what those changes are, and how again how to navigate through all those changes. So, and plus, you know, the MV is a pretty diverse area. Crystal City in VA is different than Germantown, Maryland, let's say. And so you kind of again you pick up on different things, but I love it, you know, because as diverse as those communities are, neighborhoods are, it's all connected you know with the metro, the 495. So I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:52

Absolutely. Our area, I think it's so interesting because you can be in the city if you want in DC, but you can also get that nature kind of vibe to just an hour away.

SPEAKER_01: 3:01

Yeah, absolutely, for sure. Uh, I mean, just on our way here, my way here, I'm like passing by through all the trees and stuff. I'm like, whoa, this is a nice drive. So yeah, like you said, it's very, very different. You get that, but again, it's not, it's only a drive away. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:17

Absolutely. And so you started out helping your father in the contracting world before transitioning into real estate. How did that hands-on experience influence your understanding of homes and the needs of your clients today?

SPEAKER_01: 3:32

To answer that quick, one part of that quickly, one of the things that it helped me out with was that I'm able to identify certain things with that with properties and say, hey, look, this is what you're gonna want to do. This is what you should look out for. I always tell them, you know, I'm no expert because I'm not with the contracting side, but I'm able to get a good eye on the property condition and kind of let them know ahead of time, like ahead of let's say the home inspection, like, hey, these are some things that you may want to look out for. It's giving me an advantage over an agent, let's say, doesn't really have familiarity with that. Also, you kind of learn to really allow people to tell you what it is that they're looking for, especially in this business in this industry. You know, you have to really listen to what the clients needs are. And, you know, they may want something, but with your experience, you can suggest something else, like, hey, you know, we can try to do things like this and that. So those are that's how that's kind of helped me uh shape my customer experience or help me to help out my clients.

SPEAKER_00: 4:42

Sure, kind of sprinkling in that expertise you have.

SPEAKER_01: 4:45

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00: 4:48

So coming from that retail background, you've mentioned that you love helping people and creating great experiences. How have those customer service skills carried over into your real estate career?

SPEAKER_01: 5:00

So you definitely want to make everybody feel comfortable. So the retail experience, what it's taught me really is again to really listen to somebody. You know, when I just to kind of go a little bit more into detail, I work at T-Mobile. So people would come in and say, hey, I would want this and that. And then you kind of tell them, okay, well, based on what you want, wait based on like what you're looking for, we can offer you this, this solution. And so that's what I took is to really kind of again listen to people, uh, listen to what they're looking for and help them navigate through all this. Because, you know, real estate is a big game. You have so much news about the interest rates, the property prices, different changes in the neighborhoods, how all that affects you. So it's really just what that real that what that help experience has helped me do is just really to navigate everything that that kind of goes on.

SPEAKER_00: 6:02

Okay. Perfect. And going off of that, clients often say you make the home buying process feel simple and stress-free. What are some ways you help buyers, especially first timers, feel more competent and informed?

SPEAKER_01: 6:17

Well, one thing that I really like to do is before we do anything, I sit down with my clients and I give them a consultation and I say, okay, this is what the process is gonna look like. This is what you can expect that will happen. And, you know, that first meeting that I have with buyers really kind of sets the tone for them because there's a lot of emotions that go into the first-time home buying experience, and sometimes, and I don't blame them because this happens to me as well, but you kind of let your emotions take over when making a decision, and that can kind of not lead into good things. So what I try to say is okay, look, let's learn about the process, talk about the process, ask me any questions that you may have, and so they they're more aware of what's gonna happen and they're more comfortable. And that's how I I try my my best to ease the whole um process.

SPEAKER_00: 7:17

Absolutely. And just having that that good communication and seamless trust from beginning to end is key. Real estate can be, um, and going into that just a little bit deeper, real estate can be one of the biggest emotional and financial decisions someone makes. How do you help clients balance that excitement with the pressure of finding the right home?

SPEAKER_01: 7:39

I acknowledge your feelings, first and foremost. You have to acknowledge how they feel and say, okay, how do you feel? And then you say, Well, you feel this way because of what you just said, because it is a big purchase, because you know, they're already thinking like 10 years ahead. Well, this is where I'm gonna have my family, kids, this is where my friends are gonna come over, and all that good stuff. And that's fine. But then again, we we say, okay, we want to talk about what it is that you're really looking for, and we stick to the process. So we say, okay, uh, one of the things that I like to do is, you know, I tell my clients, I create a list of the 10 things that you really want and that you really need. And no matter how you feel about a house, whether it looks in a certain way, if this house gets into those, fits into that criteria, then that's your house. And so we can kind of I don't want to say take the emotions away, but we can kind of refocus on what the goal is and say, okay, everything's going, I feel my feelings are all over the place here, but I have structure, and that's really what my goal is, is to kind of provide them structure and take the emotions away and say, okay, this is what we need, this is what we got, here we go.

SPEAKER_00: 9:02

I love that. Having their goals in sight.

SPEAKER_01: 9:05

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 9:06

Perfect. And you also work with investors who are looking to grow their portfolios. What are some strategies you use to help them identify smart opportunities and maximize their returns?

SPEAKER_01: 9:19

Great question. So again, it always starts with the the first conversation and say, okay, what is what is it that you're trying to do? Trying to make the most money? Are you trying to build properties that you can then sell or rent? And then based on that conversation, we fit them with different kinds of like hard money lenders that would allow them to do either or. We talk about strategies like where properties have going been home prices have been going up, where there's opportunities um in the MLS to find properties that they can fix and and flip. But again, really, it really is just having a conversation with my in uh investors and saying, okay, what is what is most important to you? And then they kind of tell me, well, not kind of, but they really tell me what they're looking for. And based off of that, you know, we can uh look for opportunities.

SPEAKER_00: 10:15

That's great. And as a realtor with Bayes Realty, how does being part of a strong collaborative team help you provide an elevated experience for your clients?

SPEAKER_01: 10:27

Great question. So having a having a strong team that can back me and support me is really key. Because sometimes there's things that I may not know right off the bat, but if I can rely on my team or let's say my leader broker, then he I have that sense of security that I can go with to my clients and give them peace of mind. And as you mentioned earlier, that's really one of my goals, is to really make things as simple as possible. And having a team that has had experience, they've been there, done that, you know, I can kind of go ahead and relay that back to my clients and say, hey, look, this isn't as scary as it looks. This is a solution that we can go about this particular thing, let's say, and then you know, we go from there. Just for an example, if I can give this example, one of my clients, they their property taxes shot up from like, let's say,$4,000 to like$10,000. And they're like, oh my god, what's going on? I have to sell my house, I can't pay my property taxes uh because it's affecting my my monthly payments. But, you know, I and I didn't know what happened. You know, I had asked to look at the monthly statement. Uh, and I went back to my broker and I said, Hey, you know, this happened. Why did it happen? And, you know, it was just simply a simple mistake that the county had made. Uh, they designated the property from a property of a residential to a vacant property, and that's what happened. Yeah, so luckily they were able to fix it and it wasn't so scary. You know, just that moment, you know, that that was scary for them. And this was a whole year after they had purchased their property, so they had felt really like, I would say, like, really disappointed, you know, because it's like, oh wow, we have they're kind of still living on that hype that I just bought my first house, and then boom, oh my gosh, now I can't pay my house. But again, having that experience, that leadership, uh, really helps me to help my clients because the more you know, the well, actually, I don't know what the saying is, the more you know or something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:44

Yeah, I know I definitely get where you're coming from. And I like to say, you know, especially in situations like this, teamwork makes the dream work.

SPEAKER_01: 12:51

Yeah, for sure. Definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 12:54

And technology and AI are changing the real estate industry quickly. How are you using these tools to make your process more efficient and your clients' experience even better?

SPEAKER_01: 13:05

Ooh, okay, cool. So everyone says AI is going to replace everything, right? No, I'm just kidding. So AI, the way we're using it is to better to be more efficient, to be more responsive faster. Uh, you know, I can't be everywhere all at once. So let's say I get a text, we have technologies in place that can respond to the text message, to a phone call, and alert me. So we're using it as tools to kind of make everything run more efficiently. Again, whether it's setting up appointments, doing simple emailing, things like that. But it's again, it's to be more efficient. The end result is for our clients to say, okay, these are guys that no matter you know what's going on, we can always get a response in a timely manner. Versus having an agent that you send a text at let's say 9 a.m. and you don't get a response until 6. You know, that's a whole day that has passed by and you might miss an opportunity. So back to your question, you know, we want to make sure that we're not missing any opportunities with clients and that our clients really feel valued. Because when you don't respond to a client, they really they start to feel that. So we don't ever want to make our clients feel like we don't care about them or we're not attentive. You know, we're very attentive. But again, some things just get in the way, but with AI using those tools, we can make sure that they're being attended to.

SPEAKER_00: 14:50

It's fascinating the growth of AI is is and how it's changing within the real estate industry. And I think it's amazing that you guys are able to use it as a tool to help make the whole process just even more seamless.

SPEAKER_01: 15:02

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, all of it is is really a tool. I know there's people who are doomsdayers or doomsdayers, and they're like, oh, well, again, every AI is gonna replace everything. But that's what they said about the internet, about all these websites that provided the houses online. Like, oh, well, now you're not gonna need an agent. Now you can just go online and pick your own house. But you know, the agents that succeeded in that boom, they said, Oh, well, actually, no, this is making it more efficient. Now I don't have to look for my home. You know, they can take care of that part themselves. A colleague of mine from Coldwell Banker, when I used to work with Coldwell Banker, they had mentioned that they used to look at books and they would have to go through these listings, you know, page by page and pick out which one they wanted for their client or whichever fit their clients' needs. So, but now you can just do it all on your phone. If you like a property, you can share it to me, the agent, and I say, okay, you like this one. Which other ones do you like? And we said appointments. And so really it's just again, just using these tools to be more efficient and you know, just get a better, a faster response rate.

SPEAKER_00: 16:12

Efficiency is the best way you can describe it. I mean, really, it's amazing. And I know you're planning an upcoming upcoming estate seminar focused on helping families pass property down to to the next generation. What inspired that idea and why do you think it's such an important topic right now?

SPEAKER_01: 16:32

Great question. So, a lot of my first-time homebuyers, fortunately, have bought their properties, and so they're thinking about the next step, which is maintaining the property, maybe buying a second one to expand their portfolio. And then a lot of them, you know, the idea kind of struck like, hey, you know, how do I pass this on to my kids with paying the least amount of taxes? You know, everybody's heard of trusts and what it means. So that kind of I took that those conversations for my clients and said, okay, well, why not create a seminar for not just my clients, but this will be open to the public about handing out, handing off, excuse me, the the title, handing off your property or properties from yourself to your your children. And you know, I work with great title companies who are always giving me information, so it really is just based off my clients' need. Well, that's where that inspiration came from.

SPEAKER_00: 17:38

It sounds like such a great opportunity just to get that knowledge and in details that people are seeking. So that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01: 17:45

Yeah, thank you. Hopefully, uh we get a lot of people coming.

SPEAKER_00: 17:49

So I know there will be. I'm excited for you. How does the culture at Vase Realty align with your own values when it comes to service, integrity, and building long-term relationships with clients?

SPEAKER_01: 18:03

We at Vase Realty, we really care about how we make people feel during the trend during this transition period of you know, whether you're selling your home or you're buying your first home. So we care about how not only we come off, but how we're able to simplify things. And that's something that we share and we talk about, okay, well, how what is it that you did that was successful in this period? What is it, some things that we could have worked on? We have that open communication um with all the agents, and we share our experiences and we kind of bounce ideas off of each other to better serve our clients and get more ideas off each other and say, okay, well, I tried this, this, and this, maybe you should too, or hey, this didn't really go well for me. Maybe avoid that. So I'm really bad with with naming like the actual word for it. But that's what we do. You we we really bounce off ideas. We we have an open communication. I always tell my coworkers that they can call me whenever, and they do. And I do too. I call not only my broker, but I call my colleagues and say, hey, look, what's going on with this? And again, we bounce different ideas, whether it's how to serve our clients, or maybe seminars, or maybe uh I think the last event that we did and that we were bouncing off ideas, I was in Winchester, and I did a um uh Latin food festival and we had a booth and everything. But again, those are we do that again because we're able to talk to each other openly and bounce ideas off each other. So and again, from that we can take that all that good stuff and pour it into our clients.

SPEAKER_00: 19:54

Yeah, I think that's just a great business model, especially for getting that end result for the client. So the real estate industry is becoming increasingly competitive. What do you believe is the key to building longevity and maintain strong client relationships in the business?

SPEAKER_01: 20:15

I think you have to stay connected with your clients. You have to stay connected to all your clients as hard as it may as it may be. You know, you have to reach out to them and see, like, hey, you know, how are you? Try to be on top of mind without being so salesy, you know. Like, I don't want to call my client and say, hey, do you have referrals? No, you you want to give them value. So you want to say, hey, look, you know, we you're a homeowner, you have children, we're gonna do a seminar where you get to learn how you're able to pass off your property from yourself to your children if that's something that interests you. Come through. Oh, and by the way, like, you know, do you have anybody that you may not know of? So really is so to get back to your question is what's important is for us to stay connected to our clients and try to figure out different ways to reach out, you know, whether it's social media, internet, internet, uh boosting internet, I forgot what it's called, uh marketing. Sure. Uh we'll we'll call it that. But um, yeah, just again, making sure that you have that good client relationship. Because I feel like even with technology, word of mouth is still the best referral, you know, because one person could know five people that either are gonna buy or sell. And based on going back to what we talked about earlier, you know, depending on how you make them feel, they give you that referral and say, okay, well, Kevin, you know, he's really great. He knows he helped me with this. So again, just having that awesome client relationship, I think that's key to to staying in the business long term.

SPEAKER_00: 22:03

Got it. That's amazing. It also seems like networking is just a really big thing in this industry. It can take you very far.

SPEAKER_01: 22:10

For sure. And so that's actually a great point. I think my networking pals are gonna hate me for not mentioning that. So shout out to you guys. I'm sorry. So, yeah, you definitely want to have uh a lot of networking friends, whether it's people in the lending uh industry, title industry, or home inspection industry, uh, because they can offer things that may pop out, whether it's assistance with down payment programs, whether it's knowledge or experience in title transfer, speed of process, how things how quick the title company is able to move. Those are other uh very important relationships to have again to stay in the business long term because a lot of companies do different things, you know. Some of them help you with your open house, and that builds exposure, you know, that that expands your brand. Man, I can't believe I didn't think about that. You're really awesome. So thank you. Yeah, no, I think I'm actually maybe I'm I'm doing some things wrong. Um, but yeah, so yeah, definitely you wanna you definitely wanna put your brand out there. And again, having those relationships really help.

SPEAKER_00: 23:19

Oh, they're key, for sure. And looking ahead, what excites you the most about the future as you continue to grow, serve the surrounding communities, and make lasting impacts through your work with Bayes Realty?

SPEAKER_01: 23:34

Hmm. A lot. I'm interested in a lot of things, not just how communities are gonna look different, you know, with all the construction that's going on, all the planned changes that have been like in DC, and they're gonna put the the Washington Commanders stadium right there. You know, the the purple line that's gonna go through Maryland, some parts of DC, I think. I think I'm sorry. So all those things are gonna bring changes. I'm excited to see how the changes turn out, whether it's people moving from one community to another, or just people, again, like just choosing where to live based on these changes. I think that's gonna be interesting to see. I think what I'm also interested in is how AI really is gonna make things a whole lot smoother. I think there'll probably be a point where you might just be talking to uh like let's say a secretary, a completely a complete AI secretary, you know, where they answer the phone calls, set the appointments, and then notify the agent. I think that's possible too, maybe in like five, ten years. And that's really it, you know, like just again, just really excited to see what changes, what kind of changes happen and what those changes do and and the technology that we'll have in the future.

SPEAKER_00: 25:04

Absolutely. So many fun, new, exciting things happening in your in your industry. So as we wrap up, is there anything you would like to add that I haven't touched on today?

SPEAKER_01: 25:14

Yeah, I mean, uh just want to quickly, you know, mention that the for the buyers, this is a special one for you guys. The the buyer's market, the market is definitely more in favor of the buyers, depending on which areas some of the listings have taken longer to sell. So that presents an opportunity for the for, especially for cell phone buyers, uh, where you know, if you can get a fortune in a situation, you might be able to get a price reduction, and excuse me, and you might also be able to get the seller to help you pay for, if not all, some of your closing costs. And on top of that, the lenders are up, there's a lot of lenders out there that are offering down payment assistance programs. So it's a good opportunity. I know the rates are a little bit higher, so there's a lot of hesitancy to buy. If you can get down payment assistance, a price reduction, and closing cost help. I think you're looking at a real big grand slam here, especially because you know, we're looking at the rates coming down in the next few months. You know, that's that's the hope that's going around. And if it does, you know, you already have a property that you have that you can just refinance versus when the rates come down, now you're gonna have to compete again with everybody, you know, out there. So um just want to make buyers aware of that opportunity and definitely make the most of it.

SPEAKER_00: 26:46

It's a great piece of information to keep in the back of everyone's head.

SPEAKER_01: 26:49

Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 26:51

Well, thank you so much, Kevin, for joining me on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to hear your story, an inspiring one. That thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 26:59

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 27:00

And um, I wish you the best of luck in in all that you do in the future. It was great speaking with you.

SPEAKER_01: 27:05

Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate you having me on. It's really awesome. I love the studio, by the way.

SPEAKER_00: 27:09

Thank you.