NYC Real Estate Agent

Today's guest is Maggie Kent , a real estate agent who helps people navigate the fast-paced , expensive real estate market in New York City . So , Maggie , thank you so much for being here .

My mom worked with her , so the matriarchs of our family really were winning in the business , as they say . So it was very influential in my life that I watched my mom do real estate and I saw her go through the ups and downs of that industry in a suburb , mind you , in Canada , in Canada , yeah , in Ontario .

Industry in a suburb , mind you , in Canada , in Canada , yeah , in Ontario . So I learned from a young age I would . My mom had me go around and advertise with little flyers in people's mailboxes and I got a commission if she made a sale and I . She actually made a sale from one of the flyers and I made 200 bucks , which is a lot for a little kid .

So you basically you know you get to eat what you kill , but it's kind of like you build your own business and it's up to you , because it's commission based , to keep the business running as effectively as you can .

So there's no salary involved unless you actually work , you know , on a building that's perhaps doing rentals or sales , and you have a salary and you stay on that one particular project and you have a salary and you stay on that one particular project .

Most of my colleagues are independent contractors and they are among thousands and thousands and thousands of agents and brokers in this city . I don't know if we could fact check this , but I'm pretty sure there's over 25,000 agents in this city .

them might be active in the business or just keeping a license for a reason .

You know , the state exam maybe takes a couple of hours . Once you pass the state exam , mail your license to you and then you place it with a firm , a brokerage company . You have to be with a brokerage company , right ?

Attorneys do not , because they , as part of their license it's my understanding as an attorney in New York they are a licensed agent as well , it's part of their .

So let's say you did a sale for $1 million in New York City . Okay , the fee to the buying agent and the selling agent are negotiable , but I can give you a ballpark . So , for example , if I sold an apartment for $1 million and my fee my commission to my firm not to me , maggie Kent is 3% of that .

Let's just say and there's someone has a buyer , they have a broker and their commission is 3% . Let's just say that would be $30,000 on that sale . Now I take the check which is made out to my firm , not to my personal name and they cash it once the sale is complete and everything has closed and that's called the commission .

So then that commission let's say it's $30,000 , depending on your split they call it with your firm which can range from a 50% split to even 80% split . So , like my split of that , if let's say it's 50% , I would make $15,000 and my firm would take their $15,000 .

And then , of course , I pay tax on that right , because there's no taxes taken out of these commissions . So if my split was , you know , 75 , then there's a , you know , know , you see what the numbers go . So it all depends sometimes that's based on your performance .

So if you're a new agent , your split might be 50 , 60 , 70 maybe , depending , and that has been evolving over time used to be always 50 or 60 , would never go higher than 70 . But now I've seen , because there's a lot of competition out there , that a very senior top agent might get what we call a better split . So perhaps

they get 75 or more .

And now if you do four rentals a month , 10 rentals a month , you know that's pretty well , that's a good , that's a good monthly fee . Now there's rental seasons too , so you might not close that rental , you might be working and they don't end up renting or whatever the case may be .

It's having a sphere of influence that you can pull from , whether that's your classmates , your colleagues , to gain access to people who are looking , whether it be for rent or sale . That's one piece of it , and it's to have a flow of business . So , just because you did one rental today and you made $6,500 , where's your next meal coming from ?

Right , exactly , so you need to be farming and planting seeds , and that's the patience .

If they have their own clients that they're working with and they can have a small brokerage , it's just them . They may have a vast network on their own and not need to , for example , advertise and have a website that's boosted in certain ways and overhead of a staff A big headache Right .

There's plenty of ways to do business in this town and it depends on your particular needs . I like a boutique firm . I like having a staff that's there for us an office assistant , an attorney , in-house PR .

So I think that to pay for the photographs , to pay for the floor plans , to pay for the visibility and have experts in-house who are available to you Also as an agent , as a broker , associate , broker , you know you are running your own business . So even within that , your own hours too , yeah , your firm is there to support your business , right ?

So you choose your firm based on what kind of support you really want and how big is the firm . What are the advantages for me , agent X , you know to have by working with this firm , that or the other ? Why did you pick the firm you're with ? Good question . So I was working at a competing firm .

I started sales there and I started in rentals in Soho and then I met some people in that company . When I first started in the business and I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay in the business , I said I'm going to try this .

I felt like I needed to be educated and understand if I liked the business because I came from another industry performing arts and I tried other things in Manhattan . Trust me , I gave myself a goal , I set it and I said I'm going to make my first deal in two weeks and you did and I did , I made it in 10 days , and that's the power of manifestation

.

Inspiration is , need you know , a necessity right . So from there I learned very quickly and I was also , you know , surviving in New York , which is a hustle town . I mean , let's face it , you in order to be here and work here .

There's an energy to it and if you can last a couple of years in New York after moving here from another country , you feel confident . You feel you can keep going , you can keep doing it and lots of things are coming at you in this city . I got my license quickly . I learned from even just getting my license what the business was about .

And then I started it , and I started small . I didn't join a big team . Now there's this trend to join a big team and work under a senior agent . That opportunity didn't present itself to me at the time , but if I were starting out now , I'd do it .

Consistency is the key and I think I , as you know , I was on a television show for several seasons and I think that what's happened in the last decade and a half is the shows present it looking easy and that's what shows do . That's the fun of it .

It's a fast , it shows things , it condenses it down to this glamorous , wonderful thing and there's , you know , a lot of drama and fun in these gorgeous homes and luxury is like a dopamine thing . You get to look at all the way these gorgeous homes and luxury is . It's like a dopamine thing .

You get to look at all the way these people live and it's fantasy and there are great agents on . I happen to know the people on those shows because I've worked with them And- .

I felt that it was also the brand that worked for me because it was HGTV , and many other people ended up on the show too , but I was the first and it was in the first pilot for that show . It was fantastic . But there's a lot that's happened since then and there's a lot of fantasy and there's a lot of , you know , staged moments and we get it .

That's what that's fun . So , with that , though , when you see that it does look very easy and you see these big numbers of hundreds of thousands of dollars of commission going to agents , that does exist , I think . Where I come from is I feel like you could make $80,000 a year or you could make $80,000 a month . I mean you can make a lot more .

The thing is , because it's commission , it's all based on luck . Based on luck , based on work , based on network , based on consistency , based on marketing , based on referrals , based on knowing and learning this business and really understanding it . People are very wise in New York , they're smart , they have money , yes , but they can also , especially in this age .

They can do a lot of research on their own online . My mom , you know it was a very different time . There were fax machines . You know you had to go see the property . You couldn't swipe like you're dating a house right . So now you can do that and you can not even read the copy .

There's co-ops here , which is very different than if you're working outside of the state and in a suburb . You can show up and there could be a lockbox and you don't even need the other agent there . They just send you a code . So that doesn't happen here .

What happens is you make appointments and quite typically , you're in the room with an agent that represents the seller and you represent your buyer , or vice versa , and you still need to understand what you're buying . There are situations where people buy off a floor plan in new development , but a very typical sale here would be okay .

I'm living in a one-bedroom or I'm living in a rental and I'd like to get more space . I'd like to home office . My career is different than it was five years ago . I'm going to buy a two-bedroom now . Let me go see some apartments . Can you do that on your own ? Sure , it's a full-time job if you're a really serious buyer .

So you need to have an expert to understand how to purchase in a co-op , for example , what to ask the right questions

, and also , it's great to have a consultant . Like in anything , we consider ourselves experts and consultants , as if you wanted to , you know , have a financial advisor or it's something that's important in your life . Why wouldn't you want someone to advise and be your expert ?

But often , more often than not it takes quite a while for someone to make a decision after seeing even 20 apartments . I'm working with someone right now who's worked on and off with me for one year Wow yeah , and we've seen over 20 apartments .

Someone else could still come in and make an offer on that property before it's fully executed . Once it's handed off to the attorneys , it is their job to do the diligence for the buyer and for the seller . We keep in good communication in terms of where the deal's at during that process . There's also final walkthroughs , closings , inspections .

If you decide to have an inspection here in New York , which is , you know , sometimes you do , sometimes you don't , I know , with homes outside , it's usually a given . Those are a few of the things .

So I feel it's like from day one that you're working with someone right to the closing table and beyond , because of course , when you say beyond , do you have any responsibility beyond .

So , having to do with the process and the transaction till it's done , yes , I'm involved and at certain points I'm more hands-off , but what happens eventually , you know in this business , and if you're , you keep in touch with your client . Many of my clients are referrals from that family or that person because I did a good job . So they come back around .

Or when they decide to move in five years , you're their agent . In some cases they I didn't even do a transaction , but they remembered me because they liked working with with me to your point of showing 20 apartments and nothing happens . Because you know what ?

Maybe they lost the job , they decided to move out of town , but they're back , or their , their kid is coming to school here . They remember you , not always , but your hope is that you provide good service , no matter what , whether you close or not , your job is . You're in the service industry , so you make the experience as seamless as it can like .

I would like to be treated Just like you'd like to use a plumber again that you trust . Right ? You did a good job on your pipes , right ?

is the biggest challenge of working as an agent in New York ?

If you are , if you're not good with people , don't bother . I mean , if you can't take rejection , don't bother . And some people really aren't in this industry for that , or they leave this industry .

You have to have to have the tenacity and the drive to want to be in sales number one , number two , although those commission checks are great , you could have a great sale and then you could be dry for three months .

I saw how the city bounced back . I seen the crash in 2008 . The pandemic . Oh , so you went through at least three cycles like this yes , you know , interest rates also didn't help when they climbed that has made these last couple of years just sort of very interesting , like because people are staying put in their rentals and they're maybe not wow purchasing .

Because , like , if you have a , let's say , a three percent interest rate in the home you're in now , maybe you would stay in and renovate that rather than move to a shiny new penny because you're going to pay 6% or whatever . Yes , so that's altered the last few years .

So the eye candy of virtual staging , and it's so advanced now sometimes you can't even tell . So I've been doing this long enough . When I first saw Virgilies , I'm like , oh , that looks so fake .

But it really works because it draws . It also gives aspirational thoughts to the home .

There's apps you can get to look at an apartment and they can plan it for you . It's really really cool . I think it's amazing . I think it's inevitable that AI is coming to every industry if it's not there already . We're all really using

AI anyway . Right , it's just a matter of like how and how much , and whether we realize it or not . It's to be seen .

Will a real estate agent exist in 10 years in New York where you have to physically go see apartments in order to understand what you're buying , or if you want to physically go see them and not have a robot do it or a drone , and you're that kind of person , you're going to live there .

I think it would be helpful to have a human there who's bought and sold themselves , who's done it for several years and knows the ins and outs of the process . You know there's always going to be a need for the service industry . In that respect , a personal touch , All right .

We're going to see less new build because there's it's more expensive to build and so if it's more expensive to buy land to assemble properties , we're going to have to go into office conversion .

Now , if you're talking about going to Queens and building there , that's different , maybe way more activity happening there from what I've read and I don't do a lot of business in Queens , but I understand the new development .

there is a very different animal than it is in Manhattan , which makes sense , and this was the same for Brooklyn when it started exploding in the market there , so we could say that I'm going to see more conversions .

We're going to see zoning changes for that reason , like Hudson Yards , which didn't exist really 10 years ago , A whole new who thought that that would become a new high-end luxury neighborhood , but it did . You know , everyone's talking about AI , how the workforce changes .

But the good news about New York if people are working from home , they're going to need a home to work from right . We've seen people move out of the city . We've seen some people come back from the city . There's always new industry popping up here . The tech industry changed things . Disney , Google is here .

This is why I think in this town you're going to always be able to do business . It's just a competitive business because , again , the entry point is very low to enter into the industry and it's highly competitive . So to survive and make money you have to stand out from the crowd and you have to make it work for you alright , then .

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