Adam Shively - From Classroom to Real Estate Innovator: Founding Four State Real Estate and Market Insights
Jul 17, 2024
Alimond Studio
What happens when a middle school teacher and high school basketball coach finds his true calling in real estate? Join us as Adam Shively from Samson Properties takes us through his incredible journey from the classroom to founding his own brokerage, Four State Real Estate. Adam shares the pivotal summer job experience with Ryan Homes that ignited his passion for real estate and led to a successful career at Keller Williams Realty. Hear firsthand about the challenges and rewards he faced, and the eventual decision to join Samson Properties in 2022 to refocus on what he loves most—working directly with clients. His story is a testament to the power of following one's passion and the importance of continuous learning in any career transition.
But that's not all—we also tackle the current landscape of the real estate market post-COVID. Adam sheds light on how inventory shortages and a changing industry are reshaping the way business is done, including the role of builders and the critical importance of strong client relationships. Additionally, we explore significant industry shifts, such as impactful lawsuits and the Department of Justice's involvement. Finally, the episode rounds out with a heartfelt discussion on gratitude and overcoming daily challenges, especially for the younger generation. Tune in for invaluable insights and a powerful reminder to stay positive and grateful, no matter what life throws your way.
What happens when a middle school teacher and high school basketball coach finds his true calling in real estate? Join us as Adam Shively from Samson Properties takes us through his incredible journey from the classroom to founding his own brokerage, Four State Real Estate. Adam shares the pivotal summer job experience with Ryan Homes that ignited his passion for real estate and led to a successful career at Keller Williams Realty. Hear firsthand about the challenges and rewards he faced, and the eventual decision to join Samson Properties in 2022 to refocus on what he loves most—working directly with clients. His story is a testament to the power of following one's passion and the importance of continuous learning in any career transition.
But that's not all—we also tackle the current landscape of the real estate market post-COVID. Adam sheds light on how inventory shortages and a changing industry are reshaping the way business is done, including the role of builders and the critical importance of strong client relationships. Additionally, we explore significant industry shifts, such as impactful lawsuits and the Department of Justice's involvement. Finally, the episode rounds out with a heartfelt discussion on gratitude and overcoming daily challenges, especially for the younger generation. Tune in for invaluable insights and a powerful reminder to stay positive and grateful, no matter what life throws your way.
Speaker 1:
My name is Adam Shively and I work with Samson Properties. I'm out of Charlestown, west Virginia, but I service basically West Virginia, virginia, maryland and Pennsylvania. It's a four-state thing, everything within about an hour and a half from my home base in Charlestown. So I've been in real estate for about 20 plus years now 22 years.
Speaker 2:
Okay, and now tell me a little bit about how you got started. I know you have some background with the educational system and your family does as well, so if you want to get into that and let me know how you got into, where you are today, Teachers breed teachers.
Speaker 1:
I mean, that's the thing. So you know, my mom and dad were both educators growing up and it was the easy path for me to know what I wanted to do. I wanted to get into education, I was going to be a teacher. I was going to be a teacher, I was going to be a vice principal, principal, I was going to do what I needed to do there and I was in education.
Speaker 1:
I taught middle school and coached high school basketball for four years and took a summer job because you can't afford to live on a teacher's salary, unfortunately. Took a summer job working for Ryan Holmes in NBR and fell in love with it. And just I worked at a model homes for a little while and just fell in love with the whole environment of sales and kind of infusing the educational aspect into sales and that's carried me through very successfully. And that was in 2002. And I'm an old guy, so even though I don't look it, but you know that was in 2002. And it's just been growing consistently ever since. You know I did there were some changes in that over the course of 20 years. There were some changes and and things that that were you, you know, moving and shaking a little bit, but, uh, I landed with samson properties, uh, in 2022 okay, and now?
Speaker 2:
how long have you been with them and how did you select who you wanted to work with or how you wanted to go about?
Speaker 1:
that's a big story. So you want me, you want me to start back give me a little summary.
Speaker 2:
Okay, just a little summary all right.
Speaker 1:
So I started out with keller williams and Keller Williams and Keller Williams Realty and that was right after I got done with NVR, Ryan Holmes, and I joined up with Keller Williams Realty. I worked with them for nine years and at the end of those nine years I decided to start and break out on my own as an independent brokerage firm and I started a company called Four State Real Estate and Four State Real Estate was also in Charlestown. We grew to about 28 agents and we had four staff members and we had leases in other offices. I had three offices open and it was getting really wore out and didn't, you know, found. You know, you kind of look back and you kind of see what your skill sets are and you roll with those and I decided in 2022 to kind of divest myself of that and join up with Samson. So it was November of 22 that I joined with Donnie Samson and Samson Properties and when they opened their Charlestown office. So that was the time. It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:
Cool. Thank you for sharing that Sure. And now if you could share with our listeners how that transition has been from being an educator to transitioning into a business owner, what the process has been like and any advice that you would want listeners to be aware of or know.
Speaker 1:
Lots of learning, man. It's just, it's constantly learning. It's you know, I look at it as being an educator all the way through, because when you're in education and you're working with the kids and things, you're always bettering yourself, you're always learning. Every time you teach a lesson, you learn more about that lesson, and that's kind of how I've grown my real estate business. Every time I do a transaction it's something new and I try to learn something from it.
Speaker 1:
So in moving from being a realtor with Keller Williams to being a company owner, I was encouraged to do that by some very good people in my life, some people that were loyal to me and stayed loyal to me and worked with me. And I realized, you know, after about seven years of doing it, that the business side of it was taking a lot out of me. I like the teacher side of it, I like being with the clients and I like that side of it a lot better. So that led to me saying look, you know, I know what I'm good at, I know what I like to do, I know where I like to spend my time, and it's not doing office stuff. It was out in the field working with people. So I went back to where I started and I'm so grateful to meet Donnie and Samson Properties. It was fantastic and they've been kind of life changers for me because it really took a lot of the stress and anxiety and all that. And put it aside and let me focus on what I know that I'm good at.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's awesome, and I also want to go back to your teaching days. What did you teach? What kind of teacher.
Speaker 1:
I taught middle school social studies.
Speaker 2:
Nice.
Speaker 1:
Okay, it Crazy. I started out teaching woodshop Okay, believe it or not because they didn't have a social studies job for me. So I came out of Frostburg State University and I taught woodshop for a couple years and I, you know, banana-ed my finger in a table, saw, ouch, the whole thing. It was crazy.
Speaker 1:
I had no experience teaching woodshop oh my goodness yeah, so then then it was social studies, which was my chosen field and I was teaching in Montgomery County, maryland. Um, I was the head basketball coach at Seneca Valley High School and and kind of moving down that road and kind of thought that was where it was going to be and, um, and then things kind of start changing. You get married, you start thinking about kids, you start thinking about goals for your family and what you want to do and and, uh, how you want your family to be set up. And you know that that led me down the road of real estate.
Speaker 2:
Okay, very cool, very cool. Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
Speaker 1:
Oh, man, it's, it's. It's pretty wild. You know, my kids are my family's, everything Like this number one that's. That's what kind of led me down this path in the first place. Really was trying to find the income and the time to to allow my wife to to stay home with the kids and raise our kids. And I have two boys and they're 19 and 20 right now. And well, turning 19 and 20 in a month and it's just they're in college. So in five years, with two college guys, I doubt I'm going to be doing anything different.
Speaker 2:
Okay, yeah, that's good. It's good to know what you're going to be doing. Sure.
Speaker 1:
I don't think that the retirement plans are that soon. So now I'm going to keep rolling. I you know I love what I do and I wake up every day and it's in real estate. You know people in the general public don't really understand what it's really like, but you know you wake up unemployed every day. You know, and you really got to work for that job and you got to really go out and find things and be creative and try to figure out what you're going to do to make that income three months down the road, yeah, four months down the road. So it's a challenge and you have to have the right mindset for it.
Speaker 1:
For me it's it's being extremely ADHD and being able to kind of grab a bunch of balls that are in the air and bring them all together and get things done. But with the five-year plan I'll be right here. I'll be doing my thing, hopefully growing the business to this is the direction I'm going. I'm going out into Western Loud and I'm going out into the Virginia side of things, into the front row markets that I haven't really been a part of. So you know I've been, I focused my business on the Maryland and West Virginia side of things and and there's a couple of reasons for that.
Speaker 2:
But you know, that's those reasons, if you don't mind.
Speaker 1:
When you there's a couple of laws that when you're the owner of the company in Virginia, you have to be a broker on the real estate side, and I was. I'll never want to be the broker. That's not for me.
Speaker 2:
Okay.
Speaker 1:
That's more the business side of it, that's more making sure that all the agents that work for you are, you know, doing everything down the line right and and making sure they're making the right decisions. And look, you know, if you're figuring me out yet you know I need to worry about myself and get myself going down the right path every day. I can't worry about what 20, 30 people are doing out there. So even when I owned Four State Real Estate as the company, we hired a broker and we had a broker for hire. Well, because we had that broker for hire, I could not be licensed in West Virginia as the owner or, I'm sorry, in Virginia as the owner, and that led to when I divested my interest in four-state real estate. I was able to then go back and get my Virginia license again.
Speaker 2:
Okay, and you didn't need to be, I guess, a broker for-.
Speaker 1:
No, I'm not a broker, I'm a realtor, I'm a salesperson, got it.
Speaker 2:
Got it, making that clear.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, yeah, you don't need to be a broker to practice real estate. I mean, a broker oversees the actions of their agents. Got it Okay?
Speaker 2:
And what kind of resources did you use when you were transitioning from I know it's like kind of hand-in-hand to educating, because you're educating your clients right? What resources did you use? Were there any good books? Did you have a mentor?
Speaker 1:
I had some great people. So NVR, ryan Holmes, is a training organization first now, and so is Keller Williams. Okay, so Keller Williams and NVR my two first big jumps into real estate are both training organizations first, so the training you get from NVR in the new home side were just fantastic sales training skills and I mean they put you through a rigorous training environment. And so, moving into real estate with Keller Williams, which is also, I think they call themselves a training organization that just happens to do real estate, you know it just continued that. So you know, mentors like Gary Keller and Mike Zrurik, who's a fantastic guy out of the Columbia office with Keller Williams, were big role models for me. And then, you know, opening my company I opened the company on the Keller Williams model, essentially in terms of how you treat people and the way that you run your business. So it was pretty easy for me to transition after, after nine years of of getting the drinking the juice.
Speaker 1:
You know, and then uh, and then. So, as I've, as I've moved on to Samson um, it's very similar. Um, they still have a very heavy training side of things, which I love, and um they're. The difference is they're an extremely agent-friendly company. They treat us like gold. I mean it's unreal. So the divesting of my own company and moving to Samson you know as difficult as that could be has been made a lot easier just because of the way that Samson treats us. Yeah, absolutely, it's awesome. It's like a big family.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's great. No, I love that you have like a good relationship and that they've been there for you and they're treating you well Without a doubt. That's amazing, that's great to hear Good for you and who are you outside of real estate, like, what do you like to do?
Speaker 1:
What are things that you enjoy doing on the weekend, or maybe with family? Sure, I mean, I'm a dad and I've always coached my kids in basketball and watched that move on to even the level that we're at right now. So I've always worked with family. I have 23 acres of land out in Shepherdstown, west Virginia, and that's one of my biggest hobbies is working. I love working in the field, I love mowing, I love tree trimming, you name it. Outside stuff is great. There's a three-acre pond down there. We enjoy fishing and outdoor stuff. So you know, from kayaking to I know it sounds crazy, but yard work, it's a huge stress relief.
Speaker 2:
I'm sure you get a lot of like of you sweat, burning some calories and you see a product at the end of the day. There you go.
Speaker 1:
You get yourself. So that's all stuff that I really enjoy, and then it just comes down to doing things that my family is doing my kids and girlfriends and my wife and getting things, keeping it, keeping it, keeping it moving. Really.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
You know I have one son going to WVU next year. My other son attends Shepherd. He's a finance major. My son that's going to WVU is completely the opposite spectrum. He's a fisheries and wildlife major and wants to be a. He wants to make money with fish somehow. So we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 2:
And we'll see. I know it's awesome. It's awesome Good for him.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Two very different personalities, but both doing their thing and excellent kids, super good kids and good students, and I attribute a lot of that. I mean, in real estate you work so much that having my wife at home and raising them has created a really good house environment. So I'd say, outside of work it's, it's my family and my home and that's where I'm at. I mean, I'm almost 50, you know, so can't go out partying anymore and stuff.
Speaker 2:
No, I love that balance that you have right now with like work and then the wife helping with the kids and then the kids going off to college. Like I, I liked the little dynamic you got going on, and that's something that's important for people.
Speaker 1:
As you move up, or as people think you're moving up the ladder in business and you're wanting to go out and create your own business and be the entrepreneur, the balance does get lost and it can get lost, and I think that's probably the biggest thing that I realized after owning a company for seven years and doing that on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes you can lose yourself a little bit and it can be difficult. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to get back into just what I enjoy doing every day and and kind of lessen my role a little bit you know, and but in lessening my role, it's better for my clients, you know, so I'm able to spend more time with them.
Speaker 2:
So wonderful Love that and could you give maybe our listeners who are maybe interested in learning something new from this podcast, maybe like three little tidbits or tips or anything new that's going on in the real estate world that you would want to educate them with.
Speaker 1:
Man have you heard.
Speaker 2:
I have not. I'm not actively looking into that, because oh boy, it's real estate today, is?
Speaker 1:
it's pretty insane. So after after COVID, inventories went way, way, way down and I was sitting in a sales meeting with 20-plus agents and during the COVID time we had to be really careful with our sales meetings, right? So we would meet like maybe once a month in person. We spread out all in the office. Remember those days where everybody had a mask and we were spread out trying to keep everybody.
Speaker 2:
Did you cough, did you sneeze? Yeah, oh my God.
Speaker 1:
It was crazy. And so we were meeting one day and I said, guys, we got to be super careful right now. I was just focusing on one market and I said the inventory in this market has gone down to 150 houses resale homes and I said, as we know, this is supposed to be 400 houses or so and that's what it's been traditionally and that is a healthy market. We're at 150 now. We've got to be really careful and really watch this and stay on top of your game. Well, about a month after that it was in the 70s, so inventory got smacked and so it's constantly changing the way we do our business. Still today, because it never really recovers all right, it never. Inventory is still way down. Builder inventory great, they're out there because they're they're, you know. Builders are building houses because they know there's nothing available, right, so they're just grabbing everybody they can.
Speaker 1:
But when it comes to resale, real estate and general brokerage, it's really difficult right now. So you really got to stay on top of your game. You really got to stay in front of your clients. You got to make clients your friends. You got to know your clients, you know. And then, outside of that part of it, you got to balance your life. You have to find time for yourself and time for the people that you care about and balance your life out and make sure it's not all work, because, man, that can be really frustrating right now, but there's a lot of other stuff happening right now. In real estate there's some massive lawsuits that I would have never seen coming ever in 22 years. I've never would have thought this would come about. But when a bunch of, I guess, when a bunch of attorneys grab a hold of a lawsuit or a concept and they find that there's a lot of money to be made for people and for themselves, they ride that train.
Speaker 2:
Oh man.
Speaker 1:
And so we're seeing a national. It's a national thing the Department of Justice is involved in real estate right now, which is again really weird. On politics aside, the Department of Justice is changing the way we do our business. So what's happening right now is we're seeing it's a daily and it's as absolutely right now. It's a daily change to the way we do our business and we're coming across new things every day and new ways that we have to operate and new forms and new laws and new rules for the way that we treat our buyers and our sellers.
Speaker 2:
So it's very complicated right now yeah, it sounds like it oh, it is, it is yeah the fact that you like I mean I'm sure this applies with any industry, but especially the real estate industry, where you have to like, stay up to date on everything and constantly like learning, so you can help educate your clients on the best decision or help them be aware, and like that's the educator in you, right, you never stop, never stop learning and teaching right, no, but that's so insane Like you have to be on top of that, right.
Speaker 1:
You got to be on top of it and the public's very confused about it right now because of the people that read and people that study what's happening in the market. I mean, I've sat at kitchen tables recently where they say so you don't mean I don't have to pay a buyer's agent anymore, which means I can discount my commission down to nothing. No, technically, because of these lawsuits, you don't have to pay for the buyer agent that is going to be bringing people into your house.
Speaker 2:
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:
But why wouldn't you? You know you want to expose your house to the most people that you can. If a house, for instance, is $300,000 and a buyer's agent is half of the commission, right? So maybe let's just say $300,000 equates to a $7,500 commission. Let's just say whatever yeah.
Speaker 1:
If you are making the buyer pay that now because of these lawsuits, which is the case, right? If the buyer can't afford it, they're just going to have to pay less for your house or they're going to have to ask for help. It doesn't work on their home. The reason they were paying for the last forever since the late 80s, you know to buyer's agents is because the buyers need to spend their money on buying the house Right yeah.
Speaker 1:
So it all works and it's worked forever and we are changing that now and we have to educate our consumers now. So it becomes way more important to understand how to communicate this to the buyers and explain to them that, yes, we're going to ask for your commission to be paid for by the sellers, and when we sit with our sellers, we're going to tell them look, it is in your best interest to offer it to the buyer's agents because they're the ones that are out there working. Look, the hardest job in the real estate industry is being a buyer's agent by far. You're going out Saturday nights, sundays, you're going around work schedules, you're going out on vacation days and everybody else is off. You're working right, you could write. There's clients that I have where I've written 10 contracts because we've been outbid on things because of the inventory shortfall.
Speaker 1:
You know the amount of money that people see at the end of the day if you really break it down for a lot of these transactions. Now don't get me wrong. There's some good ones, there's some fast ones, you know. But when you balance it out, it's not as insane as people think. Yes, you know it's a tough industry. It's definitely a tough industry and I feel for a lot of the younger agents that are getting into it right now. If you can make it now, you can make it anytime. That's the bottom line. It's one of those times right now. If you can do it now, you're going to be just fine, but it's a tough time to get in.
Speaker 2:
Yep, oh man. That's some good advice there for anybody who's listening, you know, and wants to know more about the real estate and what's going on Like this is great information. I wasn't aware of this.
Speaker 1:
You wouldn't believe how many times I get I want to get my license, I want to get my license and I'm like, all right, let me tell you what you got to do and I'll give you what's up. But it's definitely something that people see because there is a low barrier of entry into real estate. You don't necessarily have to be, you don't have to have a master's degree, you don't have to have a bachelor's degree to get into real estate. You can take your continuing ed classes, you can keep up your license and all that. But that's the easy part.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
The hard part is actually getting out and finding the clients and getting people to trust you and making sure they know you.
Speaker 2:
Building that reputation and also being able to have that income right, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and that's a big, that balancing act is tough man yes. So it took a little while, but it's moving. I mean, I'm doing about $21 million in volume annually right now, and that's just me. I don't have a team right now. When I divested myself from four-state real estate, it was I wanted to find myself again, so that's what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2:
That's good for you, yeah.
Speaker 1:
So it's kind of like a reset yeah At 50?.
Speaker 2:
We love a good reset. Yeah, no, that's, that's great, I'm happy for you that you are finding out more about yourself, finding out what you like, what you don't like, and just finding out new things about what you're willing to do, and not right.
Speaker 2:
And just finding what you like. So I think that's awesome Good for you. Thank you, and now for my final question. Wait, actually, before my final question, is there anything that maybe that you want to talk about that maybe I did not touch on? I just want to make sure, while I have you here, that I touch any key points that you would like to.
Speaker 1:
It's just, you know, for me, if anybody has questions and things like that, I want them to reach out. I want people to let me know, even if it's you know, if it's from getting into real estate to getting my house on the market, to finding the right property on the commercial side, on the residential side, because I'm also certified in commercial. So the commercial side, the residential side, the land side, the commercial side, the residential side, the land side. Look, if you want me to go out and show you beautiful properties out in, like you know, quarter H and Route 60, whatever in Hardy County, and going out to all the way out in the middle of nowhere, let's go. I mean, I love to spend my days out there. There's no cell service.
Speaker 1:
And it's awesome so nobody's able to hit me while I'm out there and we can sit there and talk and we can drive out to the countryside. So you know it's all that stuff, but you know, really, no, you've done a good job of hitting the main stuff.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I just want to make sure that you got to say, like what you wanted to say for the podcast right, yeah that's it, okay. So now my final question if you could leave our audience with a message or maybe a mantra that you live by. It can be, in regards to your industry, your life lawn mowing.
Speaker 1:
Sure Anything.
Speaker 2:
What would you like to leave our listeners with?
Speaker 1:
It's on my arm.
Speaker 2:
It's on your arm.
Speaker 1:
You got to be grateful.
Speaker 2:
It reminds me every day that it's my be grateful tattoo.
Speaker 1:
It reminds me every day that it's my Be Grateful tattoo. You know, every day we wake up and there's a challenge and there's something new that we have to overcome, and there's something that we have to that we are going to be dealt over the course of a day, even if it's a small challenge or or the biggest of challenges. Right, you know, you wake up and all of a sudden your whole industry is being sued by the Department of Justice. Right, oh, my God, get out of here. There's always something to be grateful for, right, yeah, always.
Speaker 1:
And you and I try to teach my kids this all the time that even in the toughest days when you wake up, you've got to get up grateful and you've got to feel like there's something good for you on the other side of the day. You know it's here and sometimes you just got to dig a little harder to find it. You know, but feel those emotions. Don't deny yourself your emotions. Don't deny yourself, you know, feeling sad. Don't deny yourself feeling happy. Don't deny yourself feeling stressed or anxious, because those are all learning things, you know. Don't deny emotions that come into your head. Work through them and keep them balanced, um, but be grateful every day.
Speaker 2:
I love that.
Speaker 1:
That's a really good one, cause sometimes I find myself forgetting and, I'm sure, other people who are listening you're like yeah, life ain't easy, right, I mean, and and and especially, you know, for the younger crowd too, it's a challenge, man. I mean you're, you're young people here, you know, for the younger crowd too, it's a challenge, man, I mean, you're young people here. You know it's a challenge to try to figure out what those next steps are and how to overcome certain things in life. But there's so much to be good to be grateful for.
Speaker 2:
I don't care where you are, any day, every morning, every night, Wow, thank you so much for being on the podcast and for sharing that. That was a great ending note there.
