Taylor Avakian
trailer the goat how do I get on this podcast of
December 10, 2024 · 35 min
With Taylor Avakian — Host, No Vacancy
The episode in one minute
Today is a special episode. My first Solo podcast. I asked my instagram what they wanted to know, and hopefully I answered all your burning questions.
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Today is a special episode. My first Solo podcast. I asked my instagram what they wanted to know, and hopefully I answered all your burning questions. From Daily Schedule of a Broker who works 100 hrs per week, to 2024 mistakes, to 2025 expansion plan to gross $2M in commissions. Hope you enjoy it. Let me know if this is something you want to see more of, and we may do more of them! Happy Holidays and Cheers.
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trailer the goat how do I get on this podcast of
your I don't like to be beaten at all Michael Jordan Kobe kind of mentality Mamba mentality it's funny people think that I built my business quickly I didn't at all I specialize in apartment sales there's so many things that are constantly changing with multif family there's so many nuances and things change constantly regulations the governor signed a package of 32 housing bills that aim to streamline housing address homelessness and strengthen penalties new buyers new sellers new motivations I'm going to do whatever it takes to try to close a deal everything I've always done I just want to be the best at welcome to episode number 12 of the podcast this is a solo episode because I promised everyone that I would be posting an episode every single week we have a lapse in our filming schedule usually I'm interviewing fantastic ftic real estate owners and operators
I reached out to my Instagram uh and asked them to ask me some questions for today's episode so we're going to be going over some of those questions today some of them real estate related a ton of them about my journey as a broker and kind of how I started in the business my schedule day in the life things like that so if you're interested in understanding myself my journey what uh what it looks like from the beginning in the very beginning when I started in 2018 till today kind of what my schedule looks like and what I'm focusing on maybe maybe even a little bit how I got into the business there's some inappropriate questions in here that I may or may not ask myself um and answer for you guys too and I appreciate everyone asking me but long story
short if you want to go and ask me questions for the next solo episode go check me out on Instagram it's just Taylor of aan but today we're going to be diving in and so I hope you guys enjoyed this one if you like this format let me know I I might be able to do more of these uh I'll be honest with you it's tough talking to a camera and talking to no one is uh is a little bit harder than speaking to someone else so let's get into it and we're going to tackle the first question which today someone asked me or which someone asked me basically what does your day in the life look like as Taylor ven the commercial real estate multif family extraordinaire so I'm going to start you off from the beginning when I started in the
business in 2018 this schedule that I had back when I started was completely different well slightly different from where it is today but in any case it was absolutely insane and it's kind of fun to look back and and see what I was doing at that time because I don't necessarily recommend it to anyone but if anyone's like me I think you'll resonate with this schedule so let's take you back to 2018 I come in rookie fresh fresh-faced nothing know nothing about real estate besides a couple of real estate finance courses that I took in college so we get there and I remember our CEO sitting us down down and saying hey if this isn't the most important thing in your life then you shouldn't be here and uh I'm I'm a Rah ra Rocky Michael Jordan Kobe kind of mentality Mamba mentality I
love that kind of rah rah that gets me going and so I don't know if he knew that was what I needed to hear but it was what I needed to hear so he said this is the million dooll agent schedule here's what it looks like you get it at 6:00 a.m. and you leave at 8: and then he broke down what you do in between there and the basis of it was make 500 call calls a day go on try to present two proposals a week and go on two meetings a week and if you do that you'll be a million-dollar agent and so he was a lot smarter than me so I figured I would listen to him from that perspective a lot wealthier than me and been doing in the business so I said okay I can do that so I remember the first day
getting in there at like 6 o'clock and uh there was already someone in there another agent who was in the office before me and if you know anything about me I don't like to be beaten at all highly competitive grew up playing sports the fact that someone was in the office before me really ticked me off and um and so I told myself all right the next day let's get in about 15 minutes earlier so I get in there 5:45 the following day and I'm waking up at like 4:00 something like that getting a little workout in and then getting to the gym so getting at 5:45 he's there okay all right here we go time to play ball Let's uh let's see how far I can push this thing so I ended up pushing my wakeup time to 3:50 in the morning and I got a little workout
maybe 30 minutes so I'd be done around 5:15 then I'd shower get to the office which was a couple miles away 5:30 I beat him in at 5:30 great he gets in at like 5:40 he notices me in there before him and we go back and forth a little bit oh sleeping in aren't we yeah so that was the little competitive nature that we had the next day of course he beats me in and uh and this goes on until I think at one point one of us I I definitely won I'll be honest with you because again I'm a a little bit insane when it comes to this kind of stuff I ended up getting in for like two weeks straight at 5:15 in the morning and um no before 5 like 4:50 in the morning at one point and it was just absurd and um for
the longest time my schedule was wake up work out 30 minutes shower get to the office 5 5:15 I did that for a very long time and it was absolutely insane and I don't recommend it to anyone and I would stay till 7 8 8:30 sometimes I I like to go to bed at like 9:00 it was just work 247 7even days a week I literally would work from Monday Sunday to Sunday every day and that really hasn't changed much but that was my schedule and so I'll walk you through a little bit about what the day went like what are you doing at 5:00 a.m. in the office I used to get that a lot so if you don't know brokerage a lot of it is you eat what you kill so if I don't close a deal I don't get paid I'm a1099 independent contractor which
means that the only way that I make money is if I close a deal so that beginning stages when I was first starting out I really didn't know what to do in the beginning it was a lot of research trying to study the market figuring out what is going to be happening um you know who I'm calling for the day where the leads are studying some of the sales comps things like that like admin stuff maybe if I had a BV I'd work on a boov here and there but I really didn't have much to do besides cold call people and I took that to I took that to the extreme so I'll tell you a little story I think I was two or three months in and was still on this insane schedule and I got in really early and I didn't have anything to do literally I felt
like like I don't want to study the comps right now like I've been doing this every day I kind of know what's going on I feel pretty confident about the market I have my leads list who I'm calling today I'm not going to start calling them before 8:00 8:39 what am I going to do for three hours and so I had the bright idea of pulling up co-star and uh you know going to a part of the country that was awake at 6:00 in the morning that happened to be New York City pulled up co-star and I I sorted by multif Family Properties and I started calling um multif Family owners in New York City and mind you I'm a multif family broker in Los Angeles I sell apartment buildings I have no idea about anything that goes on in New York City I don't know any of the comps
I don't know anything about New York and um it was that bravado I think that was that level of like I'm gonna do whatever it takes to try to close a deal even if that's called New York City which again we'll we'll dive into that a little bit later but that is not a good strategy at all it is not a good strategy but nonetheless I ended up calling New York I got a couple people on the phone they told me I'm not selling which is fair enough and um and I told my senior at the time I said hey you know I called New York City this morning I spoke to a couple people didn't really get any leads but you know whatever and he goes wait what did you do you called New York City what the are you doing man
and I said what I didn't I mean I try I don't I I'm trying to dig up some deals he said don't do that again so I didn't um but long story short that was kind of my mentality in the beginning it was do whatever I needed to do to make deals happen and it was continuous and so typical we'll get back into the schedule again so 9:00 a.m. 8:39 a.m. rolls around I'm calling owners I had a list of 1500 2,000 owners that I was just calling Hey do you have any interest in selling this was from 9:00 a.m. to really like 456 p.m. and then if I had a BV maybe I'd stop around 56 but I would call until I got to 100 plus cold calls a day like that was my goal I had to to call a hundred owners leave a
voicemail or speak to someone a hundred of those a day and we didn't have like a sequential dialer or anything that this new technology nowadays I was clicking and it was dialing and I was leaving voicemails every single person so it took a long time and that was my schedule for probably the first 18 months of the business maybe two years and I I still love cold calling so I call from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. today but in the beginning it was just the only way that I knew how to dig up business was on the phones had no other skills had no other attributes had no track record to really lean on um was calling a new area that my senior hadn't done any
transaction in transactions in so I couldn't lean on his reputation there so it was really one of Let's just try to dig up as many opportunities as we can and that's what the schedule looked like for probably the first two three years of me in the business and as I got more listings and Deals obviously the the calls I try to keep them at 500 a week to be completely honest with you I I did do that but it became more okay now I got to go on meetings here now I got to do a little research I got more more BS that I got to underwrite studying the market a little bit more you know doing research on contacts owners things like that so that was the that was the daily schedule from the beginning now let's go till today what does my schedule look
like today I will forewarn you this is what I do this is not what you need to do this is not what a ton of successful Brokers do this is just what I do currently today and um I don't know if it's the best way to do it it's probably not the best way to do it but this is is what I do so my alarm is set for 4:35 a.m. in the morning I like to work out before I go to work so Monday Wednesday Friday I go to the gym I get there around 5ish 5:05 is I work out from 5 to 5:45 weights um stuff like that I should start running again but I don't then I my office excuse me my gym is in my office building and so I shower at the gym and then I come up to the
office around 6 6 61 15ish and from 6: to 8:00 in the morning I'm reading my emails I'm going through some news I'm trying to understand what's going on the market I'm responding to all the emails that I missed last night if I said hey we're gonna send you over some deals late last night I'll send people over some deals I'll look through maybe what I missed the previous day kind of write out my schedule and what I need to get done today and I do that until about 88 8:30 then from 8:30 9ish I start calling and I call from about 9 to 11: and most of these are either cold calls nowadays it's it's more of just following up with people because I've been doing this for so long I think I calculated it
once because I have these sheets that um if you can see in the video These are like cold call sheets they used to look different previously but I track every single call and so if I'm my numbers are correct and I have a lot of these sheets I've made over 100,000 cold calls in my career that's a lot of call calls but I just love doing it so anyways I called I call people from 9 to 11 from 11: to 12 those are pretty much follow-up calls maybe 11:30 to 1200 answering some emails things like that getting back to people who during my call period which I block out I cancel my email do all that stuff I respond to the emails that I missed maybe if I missed a a call someone call my cell phone I'll call them back things like that follow-ups from 12 to
1 you know I'm eating lunch slash at my desk figuring out what else needs to be done maybe responding to some more emails seeing what my my meeting schedule looks like uh for the rest of the week who I should be focusing on um trying to think about specific deals that I'm trying to get done how I can get those done or who the right buyer is and how we're negotiating those things it's a lot of mental stuff then if I don't have meetings which I would prefer the afternoon be in-person meetings lunch meetings um BV pitch meetings proposal meetings things like that some networking later in the evening but let's just say I don't have any of those I'm calling I'm I'm calling again and I'm calling until 4: or5 p.m. um and that's what I do every day and then
from 5 to 6 sish I'll do bvs underwriting uh some social media content writing things like that and and that's my schedule that is what I do almost five a week for sure and the weekends are a little bit different but that's just working on the business most of the time which is like what AI tool can I start implementing to to make my life easier which probably isn't the best use case in my time but it's what I do anyways and so um that's what my schedule has looked like from dayto day I'd actually love to know what your guys' schedules are um if you know me or in the comments you can actually put it in the comments here like what does your schedule look like I I don't know what other people's schedules look like
but I'd love know it if I'm missing some things or I can improve on some things which is another blessing and a curse that I have I'm always looking to improve and sometimes that can bite me in the butt but I'm a lazy hardworking person and so I like to figure out is there an easier way for me to do what I'm trying to do right now all right let's get to the next question how hard should rookies work their first two years time to come in on the phones character Etc I think I kind of answered that as hard as you can like work as much as you can what there shouldn't be and I agree with what my CEO said there shouldn't be anything else that's more important in your life than the business at least in the beginning now again I don't think
that the way that uh I did the business those first few years is something that is sustainable and will lead to a good life like if you do that forever probably not going to be the most important thing but if you sacrifice quote unquote two years two and a half years to just do that like you will thank yourself because that compounds if you're working 12 14 15 hours a day you're basically working double what every other person is working so you get four years of experience in two and it just leads to better opportunities you're creating your own luck which I'm a big fan of I always say or someone said it once it sounded really smart to me like you create your own luck you put yourself in opportunities to get lucky and so for
me just the amount of sheer work that I was willing to do because I didn't have any other redeeming skills to be honest with you that's how I created my own luck so that's what I would say work as hard as you possibly can and see what happens all right next question um how you built your business so quick you know it's funny people think that I built my business quickly I didn't at all I closed my first deal 12 months into the business and for most people they would say that's average but but for the amount that I was working that's not average at all there were many other agents in the office some who did different product types but some who were doing multif family that got listings and closings within the first 12 months and I didn't and it was very frustrating and there were
many conversations that I had with my mentor um at the time I'm like dude what am I doing wrong what do I need to improve on I need to practice my pitch skills am I not sniffing out the ball what's going on here and I would just beat myself up over and over and they they say comparison is a thief of Joy it really is cuz I was just eating myself alive and it sucked it really did but I will say that I used that lack of um success early on as fuel that's what got me in the office so early that's what made it easier to stay late that's what pushed me to come in on the weekends and just grind it out because I wasn't succeeding and I hated I hated not being successful in what I was
doing because that was everything I've always done I just want to be the best at it and that's a that's a um a flaw slash I don't know benefit I guess you could say but I wanted to be the best and um and so I just I just kept pushing at it and it really didn't click until about the end of year two like I did a couple deals four or five in year two but year three was when things started taking off and I think year three we did 12 or 13 deals and year four was like 16 or 17 and big deals I think year four I did $70 million wor the sales which was the most of the time I think I definitely the most that I had done in a long time and the most for multif family in
the office and that's what kind of I think people started taking notice so it was not quick it was long it was very very long and um and there's still parts of my business today that I'm trying to improve because it hasn't been an upward trajectory the whole time like I've I've not eclipsed what I did in 2022 which is frustrating it's very frustrating but it's part of the business it's part of the market um it's part of finding ways for me to get better and improve at what I do which is this brokerage thing and me constantly iterating and trying to find out how can I build a better mouse trap how can I be more efficient with my time how can I serve my clients better build more Rapport and allow myself to be the best goddamn broker that has ever existed inside of me what the best
that I can be um which for me is always the best ever but if that happens great if it doesn't great I'm just going to try to keep pushing and doing what I can because that's all I can control and um I'm fortunate to know you can control you can only control what you can control um so I try to only do those things all right um let's see okay let's talk about niches in real estate niches ni e Niche I specialize in apartment sales apartment sales and land for apartments that's it and really only in Southern California I don't sell retail I don't sell industrial I don't sell office I don't sell anything else and the reason that only focus on multif
family is because I still don't know everything about multif family there's so many nuances and things change consistently constantly excuse me regulations um new buyers new sellers new motivations there's so many things that are constantly changing with multif family that if I tried to do everything I couldn't do anything because it's you're just spreading yourself too thin you only have so many hours in the day and even when you're working 15 16 17 hours in the day like you have to focus and so for me specializing and niching down in multif family and even if you want to go further in like Korea Town which is my bread and butter historically is where I started if I if there was enough transaction volume in Korea Town and the 1500 owners that I knew I would
only call those 1500 owners and be their best friend and be the go-to guy for Korea Town like like if you sold if you wanted to sell a property in Kore Town there's only one choice that you have it would be me right that that's what I would do if specifically there was only volume in if there was enough volume in Kore town for for me to do that it's a little bit harder a little more nuan so I spread it out a little bit but um the basis of that is it takes a very long time to know everyone and get in touch with everyone and have the owners know your name and if you're just constantly that guy who's you know your billbo not this is example stake or a metaphor something like that you know the guys who have
the Billboards um called Jacob like I know that call Jacob guy everywhere because he's he's in Los Angeles I don't see his signs and other locations he's focused on Southern California same kind of thing you want everyone to know your name and a specific area because it's not about you calling a person at the right time and them saying I want to sell it's they think about selling and the first person that comes through mind is you and so I would highly suggest that if you are going to be doing any sort of sales r that you Niche down specifically and dominate dominate which to me dominate is like 30% of a market you dominate that market um so for niching down and even on the investment front if you're an investor like have a specific kind of building or location
or area that you specialize in because you're going to build the economies of scale for the management you're going to know what kind of fixtures and finishes you're going to know the market rate rents because you just know that product type that market so well that if anyone else is going to come and try to buy that building they're not going to be able to compete with you you can make a lot of money doing that you can I've seen a ton of owners and investors make a ton of money just specializing in one asset class like there's an investor who just does these 1920s buildings and like this one little pocket of La that's it and his rents are 15 20% higher than everyone else's it's because he specialized in that product type and he's so good and he's known
for that and tenants want to live in those kind of buildings he's identified that and he's made that his specialty so I say whatever you're doing investing and or selling Niche down Niche down make yourself a specialist and um so everyone knows that you're that guy or gal you're ex person when you get that label it's actually a good thing it's a very good thing when you're in the investment and sales world uh because it's highly competitive very highly competitive all right what's next what's your advice for someone looking to make their first real estate investment I'm going to take this from the approach of a broker or in another term relationships with Brokers because if you're going to go into any Market you're going to going to need relationships with the brokers who are actually doing deals
because you're going to want them to send you deals before they hit the market or when they have an off-market deal and so what I would do if I was first starting out and wanting to build relationship relationships with Brokers is I would try to call all of them cold call right get their email it should be all public information tell them here's this is me here's the money that I'm having here's what I'm looking to invest in give them your buy box exactly and just be like Brokers are to owners follow up check in take them out the coffee um build the relationships Smo smoo a little bit no broker doesn't like going golfing or no broker doesn't like going getting taken out to lunch um you know going to the shooting range whatever it is it's just building the relationships you got
to look at it as your clients are the Brokers and you got to do whatever you got to do to build the relationships with those brokers and those quote unquote clients to make sure that you're known as the guy who gets the deals now when you let's say you do get a deal done and you're in the comps right I would make sure that all the Brokers know that you just close this deal here the metrics of the deal and call them and and ask their advice Brokers love giving advice hey just bought this deal what do you think Market rents are in this little pocket like what are you seeing happening over here do you think it was a good purchase like just start asking them questions and having them spit out their knowledge make them look really smart because Brokers love seeming smart we
love seeming smart and if you make us feel like we're really smart we're going to love you I'll tell you that firsthand um giving us opportunities hey I got this deal like what do you think about it if you're looking at other deals get their opinion on pricing like you're building a relationship with these Brokers almost as if they're a confidant or a consultant and you're bringing them in into into your world and working on this building this portfolio together and that's a huge thing that I try to do from the other side and if I was to go and start investing I would do the same thing because I know what I like I know the clients that I like to set deals to First and they're the ones who treat me like I'm almost on their team like they want my advice they seek my
advice they're looking for my expertise and that makes me feel good and that makes me want to reciprocate and send them deals so I would say if you're a first-time investor again build relationships with Brokers know your market like the back of your hand but hopefully that goes without saying but just build build build build those relationships all right let's talk about 2025 we're going to go into a little bit about where the market is and where I see it going um so this is for all the people who are actively investing or looking to invest in Los Angeles I'll give you a little insight into my opinion where I think it's headed and um how you can kind of take advantage of it so 2025 to give you an answer on that let's look back in the last two years there's been a ton of turmoil
and uncertainty regarding Los Angeles multif family first of all we had one of the craziest run-ups of interest rates any investor seen in 50 60 years that was a Black Swan event in terms of no one thought that it was going to go up as fast as it did it went from zero to basically you know 5 6% and so the last two years have been one of wow okay um where's market pricing where where can I start underwriting these deals what is someone willing to pay for it and there was a disconnect for a certain period of time I feel like now in 2025 now that we know who the president is we know that certain regulations did not pass prop 33 to be one of them uh which was a big uncertainty level from local perspective here in Los Angeles people were
unsure if that did pass what it was going to do do to property values like it did in New York which at the time I think was 30% property values dropped so fortunately that did not happen now that the the FED has said that they're going to most likely reduce the rates people think that prices are going to increase they're going to increase a little bit because interest rates are still in the high fives low sixes but if we get more rate Cuts because inflation is seems to be tamed it's looking like prices are going to be going up what that also means is there's still this period that the sellers expectations and where the actual Market makes sense for buyers it actually inverts which means you can get a very good yield going in a good cap rate going in so you could buy a
five and a half six cap deal where you get an interest rate at 5 a half% you're positively leveraged that has not happened in Los Angeles for a very very long time I mean in 2021 2022 it was when rates were zero maybe you were getting positively leverag but it was for a short period we haven't seen positively leveraged deals day one for a long time and so what that means is when you can get a 5 and a half% interest rate deal and a 6% cap rate and you can increase the rents add value in whatever way you can to say say a seven seven and a half but you can sell it for six cap or five and a half if we're lucky you get a huge spread and so what I'm anticipating is that a ton of
owners are a ton of people over the next 12 months who were actively buying in Los Angeles are going to find those deals and they're going to make a ton of money they're going to make a ton of money and if I was investing my own money in Los Angeles I would go try to find the worst building in the best neighborhood at the best basis which means the lowest
price per unit price per square foot and if the cap rates you know in the fives okay but if I can see a path to get to a six seven 8% cap rate eventually three four years down the road um and I know that my building's basis is going to be in line with where other properties have traded for in that area I'm feel very comfortable about making that investment because rents are going to continue to go up they're not building enough properties here to keep up with the demand of rentals and units and so I think Los Angeles is going to be a rent constrained market for the foreseeable foreseeable future which mean which means that your rents are going to be good you're going to be safe in terms of your rents not coming down and um I think that's a great move if
you're looking to invest in 2025 is going in trying to find Better B areas the cheapest property there even if you pay a little bit more on a price per unit comparative to other neighborhoods in Los Angeles buy the cheapest price per pound for that location with a decent yield going in and you're going to do just fine that's what I would do that's how I'm looking and telling clients that I work with hey here's the strategy that I would be doing what do you think does this align with your investment goals and we're going out there and trying to find Opportunities like that I also think that adus are going to be a huge play with SP 1211 which was a new regulation that just passed basically if you have eight units you can build eight adus on that property if you have
more you can build more but you can build up to 8 adus on most properties in Los Angeles if they're zoned for residential excuse me zone for multif family so R2 and above and um and that's going to be incredibly lucrative for people who can build those adus for you know 250 300 bucks a square foot and the rent income they're going to get from that is going to be you know $2,000 a unit like it's a significant significant value ad which the cost makes sense in most areas to build those adus so I think that's going to be a huge play I think you're going to see a lot of investors going towards adus especially with rent regulations and laws and and things like that so that's what we're going to be pitching that's what we're going to be trying to do in terms of The Brokerage side um
unlocking value in potential ad used that previously was unable to be unlocked so we're just I think Savvy investors are looking for ways to unlock value as any smart real estate investor is going to do they're going to look for those things that the Arbitrage what what piece of information do they know that other owners don't and right now it seems to be the adus is is the big one not that other owners don't know about it but they're just not looking for it they're not looking for existing buildings that oh actually I can build ground up adus in the back or in this parking lot or previously I could build two adus but now I'm going to build eight on this site that's a huge value unlock so I see 2025 people going out that way and uh and really trying to maximize their
land value and maximize what they can do with the properties in today's market all right so to wrap it up you know this was a shorter episode but I hope you guys enjoyed it all right so let's wrap this up I appreciate you guys for listening thanks for listening to me ramble about my schedule and my day and 2025 and the Outlook and all that fun stuff if you like this kind of podcast episode format style let me know um I could definitely do a better job of organizing these questions and trying to talk through it I'm getting better so stick with me on this and again I'm thankful and grateful for everyone who's tuned in and joined thus far overall the podcast has gotten over 15,000 Impressions views plays on across all the platforms which is just
so incredible like I can't believe that 15,000 people have watched or listened to these episodes it just uh kind of blows my mind so I'm looking forward to continuing this we're still going to be doing one episode every week so tune in um hit that like button but or subscribe I guess um rate this five stars if you enjoyed the podcast thus far let me know what other people you think you'd like to be on the podcast episode I'm I'm actively looking for investors real estate people Los Angeles business entrepreneurs people like that who are in the real estate space to come in and share some knowledge with you guys so if you have any specific um people or genres of people that you think you'd like to see on the show let me know and um yeah thanks for thanks for
joining and listening to the podcast and we're looking forward to continuing this in 2025 my goal is 52 episodes in 20125 one a week continuously so um let's see what we can do with that and yeah thanks [Music]