How I Sold 100 Homes Personally & Recruited 100+ Agents with Steve Pipich
Jun 18, 2024Episode 247
Raquel Quinet
Welcome to another episode of The Raquel Show! In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Steve Pipich, a top real estate agent who has personally sold over a hundred homes and is the founder of Vi Realty, a thriving brokerage with over a hundred agents in the Baltimore, Maryland market. Steve shares his journey of managing high personal sales, growing a successful brokerage in just over a year, and leveraging real estate investments to build wealth.
We dive into Steve’s strategies for balancing personal production and brokerage growth, his innovative TeamRidge model, and his advice for real estate agents looking to start or grow their investment portfolios. This episode is a must-listen for anyone aiming to become a top producer, build an elite brokerage, and excel as a real estate investor.
Welcome to another episode of The Raquel Show! In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Steve Pipich, a top real estate agent who has personally sold over a hundred homes and is the founder of Vi Realty, a thriving brokerage with over a hundred agents in the Baltimore, Maryland market. Steve shares his journey of managing high personal sales, growing a successful brokerage in just over a year, and leveraging real estate investments to build wealth.
We dive into Steve’s strategies for balancing personal production and brokerage growth, his innovative TeamRidge model, and his advice for real estate agents looking to start or grow their investment portfolios. This episode is a must-listen for anyone aiming to become a top producer, build an elite brokerage, and excel as a real estate investor.
we very much want to focus on the investment space, even larger opportunities, that we have on our plate of, Syndication type deals where an agent says, Hey, I don't have enough to buy a single family. but I want to participate in something. maybe they can be a part owner in that investment, in a syndicate type deal and still cashflow, get the experience, get to be a part of something. That's a lot of agents want to do is they just want to be a part of a movement You are listening to Steve Pippich, a top agent who sells a hundred homes personally and is the founder of Vi Realty that has a hundred agents in the Baltimore, Maryland market. In this episode, we break down how to manage it all with selling a hundred homes growing a brokerage in just over a year, and how to take advantage of the real estate market by becoming a real estate investor. This episode is for anyone that wants to learn what it takes to be a top producer, build an elite brokerage, and become a real estate investor.
Raquel Q:
Welcome to the Raquel show. This show is for entrepreneurs who want to play bigger in business and in life. And as many of you all know, I love bringing guests who actually play bigger. And my next guest, I actually met, on social because he was one of our panelists on a virtual event we did. There's this saying in our industry, in the real estate industry, that you can't make it part time and believe it or not. My guest today proves that wrong by a long shot. He has personally sold over a hundred homes and he has a hundred agents in his brokerage by Burility because he is the founder and he is also a Husband and a father to kids in the Baltimore market. Welcome to this show Steve Pipich. Did I say your last name right?
Steve Pipich:
That's perfect. Yeah. Great job. Thanks Raquel.
Raquel Q:
I want to make sure I didn't butcher it. So I want to get right into it because man, when I listen to you, when you were on the panel, when I read all the stuff that I've found on social media, on the internet about you, your bio is extremely impressive. And I want to get into it. You've sold a hundred homes, right? You have a brokerage of a hundred agents. And I will tell you that like very few people can actually sell in our industry a hundred homes a year and then let alone side by side grow a brokerage or even a team of a hundred agents. So walk me through what that looks like for you, how that journey began. And I'd love for you to share. where you are at today with as far as like time management and like what your focus is and how you get them to actually still work side by side.
Steve Pipich:
Gotcha. Okay. So you're going to focus on my current work schedule, my current routine.
Raquel Q:
Yeah. So how do you sell a hundred homes right now? who supports you in your a hundred homes? Let's talk about your solo or like your hundred home personally. That's impressive.
Steve Pipich:
Yeah, so I think this year may be a little bit less than a hundred just because the market plus the growth of our company Focusing on the agents and their production plus also different opportunities, right But for me, I had a real estate team that was highly leveraged For several years. We created a brokerage last year, which is very much like a teamerage type environment. So we all have access to different, pieces of leverage in the company. So my unofficial team, cause I'm a solo agent at Vybe is I have a transaction coordinator that writes all of our offers for me, seven days a week, 9am to 9pm, your transaction coordination, listing management, listing coordinator, all of the, things that go into Vault and as far as capturing a listing So I have all these people that are supporting my business, for buyers and sellers. Yes. I still actively work with both buyers and sellers, a lot of
Raquel Q:
you actually show properties today
Steve Pipich:
yeah. so I tend to want to show at least the first property, the first time going out with them, just to build a rapport and build a relationship. Plus also a lot of times these are, friends and family and repeat and referral business. So I want to be there for them to support them in that relationship and grow that relationship tree. so the, for the first appointment, I do want to go out and meet them. then beyond that, I'm typically quarterbacking it Having one of our agents in our company who wants to volunteer and be a showing assistant. and it depends on where they're looking in different counties in Baltimore. As we've now a hundred agents in the company and we're located in a good bit of areas. So I will lean on them for shelling the property and then give my advice for how to construct a competitive offer, what it might look like, how we can get offer accepted using my relationships and how we potentially could, be a favorited offer in some capacity. and then for the most part, just being hands off, to a degree as far as like in the weeds of showing a property and more just being behind the scenes.
Raquel Q:
you pretty much doing your like offer strategy on zoom today is majority of your, day filled with. Just client offer strategy or like listing strategy on Zoom.
Steve Pipich:
I mean, it's probably a good idea to do that way. for me, I've been a little bit lazy in the fact that I just do it for a phone call. so a lot of times what I do is once we see a property we like, I ask them to whether it's a married couple or a couple together, Think about it amongst yourselves. Maybe call your friend, your parent, whoever it may be, depending on their situation. And, if this is a home for you, once they give me the green light of what it looks like, yeah, we're interested. I will give them what my opinion of a competitive offer, how we can potentially get our offer accepted. Now it's to what I think is a great offer. It may not always be what they want to do. So I would pretty much tell them the playbook of Hey, here's what I think the value is. Here's what I think that we could do to make our offer competitive and being creative in the financing, the inspections, the appraisal, the rent back, whatever it may be. and I'll let them tell me how comfortable they feel in that conversation. So a lot of us through text message, hear what it looks like, digest it, read it, internalize it, and let's have a conversation around it. That way, a phone call is a bit at once, and it's, I think, a bit overwhelming. Allowing them to, read it, and then talk to their peer, or talk it to their spouse, their partner, it's easier to just have the conversation.
Raquel Q:
Super impressive. Now on the brokerage side, you have a hundred agents. How did you guys grow to a hundred agents? Do you have a sales manager there who helps you and supports you on the brokerage?
Steve Pipich:
Yeah, so we started this May of last year where it was essentially three small teams. Collectively, we probably had about 25, agents in a support staff of maybe seven or eight. it's been all organic recruiting, which is wild because I've never made one recruiting phone call to any agent or company. And I think now we're at a hundred and about 110 agents. and so we're adding them, weekly, a few a week, it seems like. We do have a pretty thorough, work chart, and we now have 20, 24 on the support staff side, which range from transaction coordinators, both local plus remote, our director of operations, director of finance, our broker, our creative director, Our SIRM manager. So it just goes deeper in those departments. so a lot of times in those conversations and somebody raises their hand of, Hey, I would love to learn more about Vi, let's have a conversation. I do that conversation. and then I typically then plug them into my director of operations. and they will have a conversation of what it looks like within our company, what we do, what our models look like, where they could be a fit, showing them some of our tech and. Our best features of why somebody would join our company and letting them have the conversation. And I think once that happens, it's a selling point because our DOO is speaking the same language that I'm telling them. I'm more of like the guy that sells real estate still. I'm the fun guy. I like to hang out and make friends and have fun. and then our director of operations, Kelsey is her name. she's the one that has these deeper conversations of what we do and speaks the same language. And then from there, she then has a, an assistant or a partner, that also helps on the onboarding side. So it's a collective effort.
Raquel Q:
I love the name Vibe Realty, and I also love how you spell it. I think that's really unique. and I'm sure You mentioned the word TeamRidge, and obviously for those that are listening or watching this on YouTube, TeamRidge is when you merge a team model and a brokerage model together, am I correct? how you used it. Yeah. So I'm curious to know, what makes your Team Ridge so competitive and stands out in your market today?
Steve Pipich:
So when we first started this, we had just one model. It was the full service model. So an agent coming into the company, which was agents that were on my team, we then collapsed the team and moved it into a brokerage. So all the agents are now solo agents in the brokerage, but get the same benefits of having the team. It allows them to have their own identity. If they want to have their own team or brand, they can do that. without being in the team itself. and so for us, it was just one model, full service. You get all the services that I mentioned earlier. but then we had, other teams that already had some leverage. They already had a transaction coordinator, a runner, a marketing person, things that were, things that we could offer them, but it wouldn't pay the comp model that we have because they already have their own salaries. So we then pivot to a capping type model, where we do offer some other services as well. but they already have their own business. They're very similar to a lot of other, brokerages that have a capping type. structure, but they're getting some other services that we offer to our full service agents as well.
Raquel Q:
So on the Team Ridge model, they're on a cap structure, just so that I have this clear. On the team model, they're on a split structure. You guys
Steve Pipich:
Correct. Yeah. Team model. Yeah, it's a full service type model split that you would see on a normal team, on the,
Raquel Q:
you guys have one team, team split across the board?
Steve Pipich:
no. So it's production based on experience plus production. so ranges, the low level, although it's a pretty competitive service where, The ones that are the top getting a very attractive, split, they are agents, we're not making a ton of profit on those agents just because they're more there for attraction and recruitment. So they help sort of, and those spaces, we also ask them to, give us their brain and then coach our agents or, present to them in some way and coach them in a training session. so they're more of the, I guess the recruitment agents, 150 50 or lower level, they're the ones that are probably driving more of our, it's a lot of, more work, more handholding. They're typically newer agents and we're pouring more into them than we are the ones that are doing, or have done more business.
Raquel Q:
Awesome. And because you're in production and I love that you're in production cause you're, you got feet on the ground of what's currently happening in the market. If you had to start all over today, knowing what you know, what would be three things to get your production quickly in today's market
Steve Pipich:
Yeah. so something I'm guilty of still now, if not doing embarrassingly, is lead generating. I lead generate all day. I don't set aside two hours or three hours or four hours to call my database. it is something that I need and should do. And I'm actually working on replacing myself in my personal production where I have an agent doing my production. and I'm there more just to generate more business. So I'm hoping my production even increases and I hope that I'm sure that it will. and that's what I'm going to get onto the phone calls and start lead generating. Cause what a friend of mine that we have a mutual connection with, he encourages me to have a production. environment, production environment. So the way for me to do that is for me to step in and do this myself and show the agents this is what I'm doing, this is what's working, and you should do the same. and a lot of times if I'm doing it, then they also have a reason or no reason not to do it. so that's one thing is lead generating, in getting more in touch with my database and my CRM. and so the question was how to get more business correct. How to sell more real estate or.
Raquel Q:
today? Knowing what you know, selling a hundred homes What are three things that you would do in today's challenging market?
Steve Pipich:
Yeah. the second thing I guess in this market for me, I'm going to take a look at this as far as like the recruiting side is probably, bringing more agents to where to our brokerage. I'm not again, calling people and, and especially my team when I had a team as well, I never did lead generate. I was just my same person. but I would think I would want to have more exposure and. Talk to people that I wouldn't normally connect with and see if they're a fit for our brokerage or my team at the time. That's one on one as well. the third would be, I guess just being aware of the red flags when hiring some people. everybody I've hired great people, I can't say anything bad about them, but there's some things that I probably ignored when in either the hiring and conversations or. Working with them in the beginning, where I probably could have, essentially rebated the hook and sent it back out and found some new talent. but I probably waited too long just because of my personality, where I tend to want to see the good in people and not want to, let them down. So yeah, pay attention to the red flags.
Raquel Q:
Where does the majority of your business from your hundred transactions come from today? Is it all sphere? Is it all database?
Steve Pipich:
Yeah, it's a hundred percent. SOI, repeat referral business. I would say probably a good 25 of my 25 percent of my business is investors. so allows me to sell more real estate because a lot of times, they're analyzing a property. I can do that from home. I can send them, with one of our agents to look at the property. And I tend to want to find one either off market or one market deal and send it to, a handful of my investors that may be looking, because not all of them May work in that area. It may not fit their parameters and they may have a full plate time. So I was sent to a handful and whoever in theory, is able to offer the best offer. Um, we're doing that. and a lot of times when they list it as well, I typically just stop by when it's finished and maybe get some insight along the way. But, there's not a lot of time spent on the appointment because it's just the come list me type business. Okay.
Raquel Q:
So you have a lot of investors. You said 25 percent of your business comes from investors. And you have help a lot of investors and you probably help them on the acquisition. side of things. Do you also manage the project when they are flipping the property and then do you go and list it as well? Is it like from start to finish or do you just come in at the end?
Steve Pipich:
Yeah, so I'm typically Given them properties of what it should look like, because when I'm giving them the after renovation value, the ARV, this is how it should look. And this is what's sold nearby of the quality of materials or quality of renovation. And of course you have five different investors. They may all have different levels of what renovated looks to them. so it all depends on that person. I'll give them feedback like, Hey, this is what it should look like. And that way, if they don't make it look like that, I can give them my Feedback of, hey, this is what I generated the comp off of. And so they may ask some questions. A lot of times I would say a majority of them are choosing their own fixtures. I do have some close, people in the construction space where they're doing the choice of, materials. but a lot of these investors, they like to add their own touch to it. it's more than just the financial part. They like to add their own taste or flavor to the property. So I let them Partake in that, and that's, you know, color of cabinets or appliances, countertops, flooring. So, um, you're trying to make it, not make it too complicated, but enough for them to want to have their own input.
Raquel Q:
I think what's really cool about you too, as I was reading your bio is not only are you in production, you also own a brokerage and kind of manage a team. But you also are an investor yourself and have built a portfolio of 40 units, which I always tell people like transactions are great. You can do a hundreds and hundreds of transactions, but where you actually build wealth is through investing, right? Whether it's investing in properties and assets or in people, that's actually where you get the most leverage when you invest in some of those things. And so I'm curious to know, or curious what advice or tips you would give for agents that are listening to the show on when it comes to starting out with their portfolio or managing or growing their portfolio.
Steve Pipich:
Yeah. So just the background of my investment, sort of like growth. So I, the home I grew up in, we rented our entire life. so in 2017, I bought my first investment property. my wife finally gave me the okay to go ahead and do So the first one I saw, I bought. And, it's a great property now. At the time I probably overpaid 5, just because of the renovations that it needed. I under budgeted the renovations as well. but now it's a great property because I bought it, seven, eight years ago. the second investment that I bought was actually my mom's house she lives in now. I bought my mother her first home. which is probably the biggest milestone that I've had. and she's my, one of my biggest supporters. and, so that was the growth journey of that. And every property that I look for, I tend to want to look for a property that needs work, To add value to. There are some that I've bought that are turnkey just because they were sentimental to me in some way. I bought one on a popular street in Baltimore, during the holiday time with Christmas lights and things. And it's an area that I grew up in. So I wanted to buy that specific property. but I still added some value to it. so I tend to want to buy using private money, hard money financing, renovate it using the hard money loan, and then refinancing into a DSCR loan, a Debt Service Coverage Ratio loan, a long term loan once I place the tenant. Able to pull out sometimes more money than I even invested. I would get paid and cashflow. sometimes I'll leave some money in the house, but I'm still cash flowing. Some number, that, that's, that's still good.
Raquel Q:
Yeah. So as you look ahead at, things are constantly changing in our industry. How are you positioning yourself, your brand, your company for the future?
Steve Pipich:
Yeah. just to go back to your point about investing, what's crazy is only 75 percent of real estate agents own their primary residence, right? And
Raquel Q:
I might know that.
Steve Pipich:
only 7 percent of agents own at least one investment property. So here we are at 7, 7 percent of agents. So here we are, encourage our clients to invest and buy when the agents aren't doing it themselves. And there's ones that I know that are very successful and sell a ton of real estate, but don't own any passive income producing properties. so for us in our company, me being an investor first agent, some of our other agents are very investor focused. When I go into a property to list, the first thought I have in my head is, can I buy this? Do I want to buy this? Does it make sense for me to buy this? And of course, it doesn't make sense for me. It doesn't make sense for the seller. Then it's the listing conversation and how we can sell their property in the market or whatever it may be. so we do give our agents a handful of. Free sales a year, whether it's for their primary, but most importantly, their investments, we want them to, whether they're buying hold, which is your passive money or you're flipping for your transactional income and just using that money to now hopefully buy a passive income property. It's too. Get them to have some sort of retirement package because we know in this industry, there is no retirement package. when you retire from real estate, you don't have a pension. You don't have any 401k unless you're doing something, with your escort or whatever it may be. But, there is no that. So how can we get our agents to buy an investment property? And that is now, something they can lean on for when they retire. And if it's paid off, great. They're making, several thousand dollars and that can then replace this potential pension they would have earned in a full time or nine to five job. for us, if I'm answering the question correctly, we very much want to focus on the investment space, even larger opportunities, that we have on our plate of, Syndication type deals where an agent says, Hey, I don't have enough to buy a single family. but I want to participate in something. maybe they can be a part owner in that investment, in a syndicate type deal and still cashflow, get the experience, get to be a part of something. That's a lot of agents want to do is they just want to be a part of a movement or part of a
Raquel Q:
Yeah, for sure. For sure. I love your answer. What would be your biggest lessons as you look back being in this, right? You started part time. Now you're doing, different things. what has been your biggest lesson that you've learned in your journey?
Steve Pipich:
Yeah. I would say I guess taking action right away compared to thinking that things are going to be okay. of course, we all experienced some change in 22 when the market sort of rates have increased and production has slowed down. People were panicking of, I don't know what's happening in this market. and so for me, I held onto a lot of my, my, high salaries and expenses when I probably could have leaned out a little bit quicker. and those are tough conversations to have, I still did keep a lot of my, people plus things that we did and never went to go backwards, but just had like real conversations with people of maybe how, tough things were, for me, it was, taken an L for several months, just in hopes of the business is going to turn around and, encouraging or you just to sell more business. But. yeah, probably take an action when I see, when I see something, either an opportunity or, potential, something around the corner.
Raquel Q:
So definitely take action. Don't let your PNL. be in the red for too long, right? Their magic number when you watch your P& L go in the red and go okay, this is like month one. Now it's month two. Now it's let's start skinning the expenses.
Steve Pipich:
yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And even production wise, I was still selling, two, three, 4 million a month at the time. And I'm still watching myself go on the red. It's like, holy crap. this is, I was funding the company, and other agents, naturally we're struggling too. So it's, I understand where all people are coming from. So just being aware of that environment and those conversations.
Raquel Q:
what's next? you've accomplished a lot in such a short period of time. What's next for Steve? What are you most excited that you're working on right now?
Steve Pipich:
Yeah, so it's like we said, it's been a year since we've launched this brokerage, a little more than a year. we've grown significantly, we're selling a crap ton of real estate. it's now partnering, with great people and the verticals. so getting into some other, spaces for, whether it's, in a transaction, your mortgage, your title, your insurance, your construction, you're moving, Whatever it may be, getting into those spaces, and forming better partnerships with those people, different markets. I have a few coaches and sometimes I want to run fast and get there yesterday, so sometimes knowing to slow down and just there's enough business in my backyard and to water that grass. so being aware of that, but there are several other markets that people have connected with and we tell them what we're doing, as a platform and they could lean onto. So it's eventually those conversations when the right time arises and if it makes sense for both parties to like economies of scale, what we have going on and the larger we grow, the higher the percentage of return, becomes. So leaning on that to hopefully. Grow into different markets and through different people.
Raquel Q:
I love it. I love it. And as we wrap up, there's always one question that I ask every guest on the show is, what does Steve do to play bigger in business or in life?
Steve Pipich:
It's collaborating and being in touch with people that have big businesses and doing what is successful to them and bringing it to our business. for us, we have an ISA, outgoing call, team around our listings. And for a while, that wasn't present in our business. there's teams and people that I know in our company that are investing heavy and using these type of, systems And tools, and so why can't we do it for our agents? And so we're bringing those teams into our company, things that are working for somebody else, just bring it into our business and hopefully, it's a win for everyone.
Raquel Q:
Amazing. Steve, I want to say thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being on our show. You dropped a lot of nuggets. Where can people connect with you?
Steve Pipich:
Yeah, so my Instagram name, is stevepip28. Our brokerage Instagram handle is vybe underscore realty, it's V Y B E underscore realty. Connect me on those platforms and I'm happy to reach out and yeah, connect.
Raquel Q:
I definitely appreciate, like I said, your time. I can't wait to keep cheering you on and supporting you as you continue to play bigger, my friend.
