Multi-State & Multidimensional: Kaushik Sirkar On Selling in Two States & The Power of Marrying Data with Expertise

When our guest first moved to Arizona way back in 1995, she knew there was something special about it. Who wouldn’t want to be here? 

Fast forward to the present - we’re no longer the best kept secret. Everyone wants to move here, and we’re seeing it reflected in our real estate market, and all the people coming in from other places. Just about every corner of this state has something for everyone, and you can find the neighborhood that matches the lifestyle you want to have. 

How do you zero in on your perfect place in Arizona? 

From Silverleaf to hidden gems like Pinnacle Peak Vista, Lisa Westcott shares the areas she’s obsessed with. She also talks about the market and what it takes to win as an agent. 

You’ll also learn;
What sellers need to know about putting their home on the market
How Lisa got involved with The Boys and Girls Club 
Lisa’s advice to new or aspiring agents 

Guest Bio

Lisa Westcott is an associate broker at The W Group at Silverleaf Realty. She is an accomplished residential luxury specialist in Arizona and has been a licensed Realtor since 2002. With an international clientele, Lisa’s experience spans professional appointments as the former Director of Sales and Marketing for a formidable Arizona luxury homebuilder and a former Director of Marketing for the Premier Marketing Group of Realty Executives, serving over 115 realtors. She has served on numerous boards including SAAR (Scottsdale Area Association of Realtors) Board of Directors and Carefund and is currently on the Executive Board of the Boys and Girls Club.

For more information, go to TheWGroupAZ.com, follow @lisawestcottrealtor on Instagram, send an email to lisa@thewgroupaz.com or call 480-229-3455. 

In a market like today, many deals blow up, not because of the buyer,seller or even the rate. Deals collapse because of the agent’s attitude and temperament. Nothing is more dangerous than an agent who needs to be right, and puts their ego about serving the customer. 

Agents need to be armed with the skills they need for the market - and this includes removing ego from the equation, conflict-free negotiation and being the best fiduciary they can be for the consumer. When leaders prioritize these things, they create a group of agents clients will have confidence in, no matter what’s going on in the market. This is the level of training return guest Rich Barker is providing to his agents. 

In this episode, Mr. Fountain Hills catches us up on what his team has been working on and shares his take on succeeding in this market.  

You’ll also learn about;
The evolution of Rich’s team and leadership 
All the cool things happening in Fountain Hills 
The work Rich’s foundation is doing to shed light on missing children 

Guest Bio 

Rich Barker is the owner of The Barker Team and founder of The Richard F Barker Foundation. He has been practicing Real Estate since 2010, and he has created a team with other like-minded agents to form the best team in the state of Arizona. Together, they have built a professional team of Realtors that are ready, willing and able to help buyers, sellers and investors fulfill their dreams. Rich Barker has personally been involved in the successful sale of over 1,200 homes throughout his illustrious career. 

Find out about his non-profit at https://www.facebook.com/RichardFBarkerFoundation/ 

Closing on a home means a lot more than having an asset and a roof over your head. For anyone who’s gone through personal hardships and tragedy, buying a home is the new beginning that allows them to breathe again and change the trajectory of their lives. 

Getting a home is a symbolic milestone for people who are dealing with a lot, and Kimberly Tocco experienced this firsthand. After a family tragedy and going through the process of rebuilding after a devastating loss, real estate played a huge role in her journey. She believes deeply in the role real estate can play in the healing process, and that’s what led her into real estate herself.  

In today’s episode, Kimberly shares her story, why she’s so driven to share it with the world, and all the work she’s doing now. 

Guest Bio

Kimberly Tocco is a Metaphysical Realtor, motivational speaker, certified spiritual healer and #1 best selling author of Memoirs of a Suicide. 

For more information, visit https://tenacious360.com/ and follow @tenaciousangels and listen to her podcast Tenacious Thoughts on your platform of choice.

Buying real estate empowers millions of people by taking them from renter to homeowner, but it doesn’t have to stop there. With the right strategies, you can take that path further and become an entrepreneur by getting a few properties under your belt without changing a lot about what you’re doing. 

In a market like this where homes don’t sell as fast as they used to, hanging onto a property, turning it into a rental and then duplicating that process a few times over is a great move. Most people think this is hard to do, but the right agent can turn a home purchase into the beginnings of an asset base and future wealth. 

This is why Lauren and Josean Castillo call themselves Wealth Designer Realtors. For them, it’s not about just buying and selling homes, it’s about providing the consumer with a path to financial freedom through real estate. 

In this episode, they share why it’s a great time to buy a home, and why we could all benefit from having an investor mindset. 

Visit YourNeighborhoodRealEstateShow.com to view full show notes.

Guest Bio 

Lauren and Josean are wealth designer Realtors, investors, speakers, educators and leaders of The Castillo Group. 

For more information, head to https://www.castillogrouphomes.com/ and follow @thelaurencastillo on Instagram. 

In real estate, two neighborhoods can be in the same area and be two totally different real estate markets. Now imagine what that means when you compare areas in two different states, like California and Arizona. The two might be neighbors, but the real estate transactions can be night and day. It takes a multi-dimensional real estate agent to bridge the gap, and successfully sell in two booming and attractive real estate markets. 

Being multidimensional as real estate professionals allows us to tap into different models and strategies so we can best serve our clients. For Kaushik Sirkar that means selling in two states, providing a wealth of multi-disciplinary expertise, and bringing multiple prongs of value to every aspect of real estate. 

In this episode, he shares how he approaches real estate, some of the most surprising parts of selling in California, and how he’s encouraging investment to his clients. 

View full show notes at YourNeighborhoodRealEstateShow.com

Kaushik Sirkar is a Top Producing Realtor and owner of The Sirkar Group, a boutique real estate organization serving Los Angeles, Orange County, Phoenix and San Diego. For more information, go to https://www.thesirkargroup.com/ and follow @homesbykaushiksirkar on Instagram.

The reaction to the real estate market comes in a variety of flavors, from fear and panic to excitement and calm acceptance. How people feel about the market isn’t really about what’s happening presently, it has a lot more to do with what was happening when they last bought or sold. 

In real estate agents, 3 distinct camps have emerged - the people who were around in 2008, the agents who were around post-2008 and pre-2020, and the agents who only know the extremes of the pandemic market. When you last bought or sold influences how you feel in this market and how you take action in it. The market is a lot more accessible and healthy than we’re often led to believe, and you can see it if you’re not wearing 2008 or 2020 tinted glasses. When you start from the angle of when you last took part in a transaction or when you first got into the market, it makes it easier to provide the advice that gets them to take the right action. 

In this episode, Realtor, the owner of The Amy Jones Group at eXp Realty and founder of Community on Purpose, Mindy Jones talks about why the market isn’t as bad as it’s been made out to be. 

Mindy Jones is a Realtor, the owner of The Amy Jones Group at eXp Realty and founder of Community on Purpose, Inc. She  is a dynamic leader with a proven track record of success in both the public and private sectors. On a mission to thrive, Mindy has created a platform for gritty, busy, hard working women who want to live their best lives personally and professionally by serving through real estate and community. Founded on the core principles of doing things better, Mindy’s team is focused on educating and empowering consumers to make the best decisions for their families. It is with intention and purpose that Mindy leads the charge in creating community for women in business and leadership through her quarterly speaker series, local business mixers, and her Live Love Local and Through Her Eyes video platforms. For more information, go to https://www.amyjonesgroup.com/ and follow @amyjonesgroup and @mindyejones on Instagram. 

To find out about Mindy’s community and charity work, head to https://communityonpurpose.com/ and follow @communityonpurposeaz on Instagram.

There’s no louder death knell for the seller’s negotiating power, a listing’s success and its final selling price like days on market. Whether it’s a seller’s market, buyer’s market or something more balanced, the longer it sits, the more the leverage crumbles for the homeowner, the less attractive the home looks, and the harder it becomes to sell it in a manner that works out well for the seller. 

To avoid the stagnation and even expiration of a listing, a lot of work has to be done on the front end to set it up for success. This is what the 72SOLD process is - it’s a strategy to sell a home faster for more money with a lot less stress. 

In this market especially, this process is critical. It creates more excitement for the home front, and prices it perfectly so that it flies off the shelf. What does the process look like in practice? In this episode, I’m joined by agent and 30 under 30 nominee, Ari Jakobov. He talks about getting homes to sell faster, and why 85254 is a great zipcode to buy a home. 

View full show notes at YourNeighborhoodRealEstateShow.com

Guest Bio 

Ari has been ranked in the top 1% of Realtors in Arizona and is a 30 under 30 nominee. He was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. Growing up with a mother who does real estate full time, Ari was exposed to lots of experience at a young age; following his mother around for all her showings and open houses. Long before Ari received his license, he already had fallen in love with the real estate process and assisting clients with their needs. Since then, he has seen enormous amounts of success in and outside the industry through his persistence and determination. Find Ari on Facebook, follow @ari.jakobov, and call 602-500-9874.

The power of real estate is undeniable. It sets people up for wealth, it has created more millionaires than any other industry, and you don’t have to do much to succeed as an investor. 

The problem is, most real estate agents are so focused on the sale that they miss all these opportunities. The major focus of this industry is serving the consumer, and an agent can spend a lifetime making other people wealthy while surviving on commissions with no retirement or chance at generational wealth.  

We’re around houses all the time but 95% of real estate professionals have never invested in property themselves. This doesn’t just harm us, but it also hampers our ability to truly solve problems for consumers. Real estate today is a lot like a choose your own adventure book, consumers can choose the path to take when selling a home based on the problem they want to solve. From rentals and pulling out equity to grow multiple assets simultaneously to creative financing, there are many ways to go about a transaction. If we’re showing up with the traditional listing as the only solution, the consumer is missing out big time. On the other hand, if we become the resource with all the options, we’re more valuable to the consumer and also to ourselves. 

My guest Steve Valentine’s passion and mission is advocating for looking beyond a traditional listing and getting agents to wake up to the opportunities right under their noses. In this episode, he shares how this passion came about and how he built a $50 million portfolio as an agent. 

Guest Bio 

Steve is a real estate investor, strategist and mentor. Once a traditional real estate agent focused on transactions, GCI, and his "competition," he discovered the secret to a happy career and happy clients. His life, family and career changed forever when HE STOPPED SELLING AND STARTED SOLVING!

With more than 20 years of real estate experience, he’s fanatical about handcrafting the right strategy for each client using his toolbox of absurdly effective techniques. He’s more super-hero when it comes to investing in real estate and in his relationships with clients, employees, and family. He out-right refused financial ruin to build a retirement-sustaining real estate portfolio of more than $15 million in value. A portfolio that is so diverse and has been so fun to create, he’s educating others to do the same. In the past 5 years Steve has created a real estate business that encompasses all of today’s top strategies including traditional real estate, flipping homes, buying off market opportunities, building wealth for himself, his team, and his clients. 

For more information, head to SteveDValentine.com and follow @iamstevedvalentine on Instagram. 

Everything going in this real estate market has given both buyers and sellers great pause about pulling the trigger on a transaction. Buyers are uncomfortable with how high interest rates are, and sellers are hoping for home values to climb again before putting their home on the market. 

Even though the hesitation is seemingly driven by different circumstances, the solution for both buyers and sellers is exactly the same. While it seems prudent to sit on the sidelines until things change, the truth is there’s no time like the present. You can’t get a better deal than the one you’ll get right now, and better yet, there’ll be a lot less competition. There are many people secretly in the market already, looking at homes, getting pre-approved, biding their time and waiting for any slight change to pounce. Wait any longer, and you could be missing out on something great. 

How do you get ahead of the market? In this episode, husband and wife team and co-CEOs of The Morales Group, Sarah and Jesse Morales share why it’s better to pull the trigger on a transaction now, predicting the growth of Queen Creek and why they love Eastmark. 

View full show notes at YourNeighborhoodRealEstateShow.com

Guest Bio 

Sarah and Jesse are a husband and wife team and CEOs of The Morales Group. Their mission is to be the Valley’s most customer-centric real estate group, offering the highest level of knowledge and service to our clients.

Whether it is working with a first time home buyer, a luxury home listing or a seasoned investor, Jesse prides himself on his unparalleled service with an aptitude for problem solving – something essential for navigating clients through the challenges of today’s real estate market. 

Sarah’s knowledge, honesty, integrity, and fairness have been evident throughout her career. In addition, she has a keen sense of the local luxury real estate climate, allowing her to guide her clients in acquisitions of primary residences, second homes, and investment properties. She understands the importance of providing a truly personalized service to her clients, always putting their needs ahead of her own and paying close attention to every aspect of the transaction.

For more information, head to MoralesGroupAz.com and follow @moralesgroupaz on Instagram. 

When Erik Kelly was a guest on our show back in 2019, the market couldn’t have been more different to what it became in 2020. It was before Covid, before the super low interest rates, and the fierce frenzy of an extreme seller’s market and multiple offers. 

2019 was a more normalized and balanced market, and we’re returning to that again, but it doesn’t feel that way after the madness of 2020 and 2021. That’s why some people label this market as “bad”. In reality, the market doesn’t need to be painted in such a negative light. The landscape of the market might be dramatically different to what we saw in recent years but that hasn’t eliminated the motivation or the opportunity. 

Erik Kelly returns to give his take on the twists and turns the market has taken to get here, why it serves skilled agents so well and he also talks about the Ahwatukee resurgence.  

Visit YourNeighborhoodRealEstateShow.com for full show notes.

Erik Kelly is a real estate consultant, and host of Live Your Legacy. He is honored to lead a talented group of Real Estate Professionals who are committed to creating an optimal client experience. Erik and his team leverage leading edge technology and superior standards to ensure that they can provide personalized service, strategic solutions and deliver remarkable results for their clients. 

Listen to the podcast on your platform of choice or call him on 480-229-6699.