Deals and Dreams: Our First Real Estate Journeys

Welcome to The Closing Couch.

Real estate veterans Kim Taylor and Polly Reitze kick off their debut episode with infectious enthusiasm and a wealth of insider insights. They share their individual journeys into real estate, recounting early career challenges, memorable deals, and the joys of working with friends.

Their camaraderie shines as they reminisce about forming the podcast idea and outline their goal: providing valuable advice through engaging stories, practical tips, and diverse guest interviews.

With humour, honesty, and warmth, Kim and Polly promise a fascinating exploration of the wild and unpredictable world of real estate.

Listen For:
5:14 - From Advertising to Real Estate: Polly's Journey
10:54 - Quitting Corporate for Real Estate: Kim's Leap
16:13 - Always On: The Importance of Responsiveness
25:06 - Closing with Confidence: Negotiation and Policies

KIM TAYLOR - Rennie & Associates Realty
LinkedIn | Instagram | Website | Facebook | YouTube | X

POLLY REITZE - Engel and Völkers
LinkedIn | Instagram | Website | Facebook |

Transcript

Kim Taylor (00:00):

I'm dealing with three offers and I keep looking at my phone and my son's going, mom, mom, you said you would watch this with me. Yeah, it's a crazy life. It's a wild and crazy life.

Intro (00:19):

The closing couch.

Kim Taylor (00:22):

Hi, I am Kim.

Polly Reitze (00:24):

Hi, I'm Polly.

Kim Taylor (00:25):

Welcome to our very first episode of the Closing Couch.

Polly Reitze (00:31):

I can't believe this. I just can't believe that we're finally here.

Kim Taylor (00:34):

We're finally here. This is so exciting. 

Polly Reitze (00:36):

So exciting.

Kim Taylor (00:38):

We have been talking about this and planning it for about a year now. I think.

Polly Reitze (00:44):

Well, ever since we were sitting in the Pacific West Conference and we are sitting together, we're joined together and we're watching all these people speak and we're like, we should be doing a podcast and giving this kind of information out.

Kim Taylor (00:59):

So that was more like six months ago then, right?

Polly Reitze (01:02):

That was like, yeah, eight months ago.

Kim Taylor (01:06):

I don't know, but I know we're like, why aren't we doing this? We have some valuable information to share. We've been doing this a long time.

Polly Reitze (01:15):

We're very capable. We've got lots of years of experience and lots of stories to share, and it'll be exciting. This is all new to us, so it

Kim Taylor (01:24):

Is. But that said, it is a little out of our comfort zone, so it's taken us a little while to get used to the idea, but we are very, very, very, very excited to meet you and to share with you our experiences. Interview some guests. Absolutely. Give you some good information.

Polly Reitze (01:49):

I think it's going to be a learning curve for all of us, our listeners as well. And you're going to learn something from every episode, and I mean, I definitely will as well. We're going to have some great guests. We've collaborative, we've got stories to tell. We've got experience to share. And every deal is different. Every

Kim Taylor (02:09):

Deal is different. Every deal was different. So Polly and I did a deal this past weekend.

Polly Reitze (02:19):

 That was, what, two months in the making?

Kim Taylor (02:21):

Oh, it was about two months in the making. So whoever says a realtor's job is easy. Just bite your tongue. No,

Polly Reitze (02:32):

That was a lot of, yeah,

Kim Taylor (02:34):

There was a lot going on there. So I listed a beautiful piece of vacant land and Polly wrote an offer on it with her client, which has now been accepted. So yeah, Polly was about, yay. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

Polly Reitze (02:49):

Cheers. Well, it was amazing actually. And in my buyer is so ecstatic and so excited. I know. I mean, to get to your property that you listed, we had to hike in. There's no road access. You could go by boat, but you would just go right by it. You can't get out. But it's beautiful.

Kim Taylor (03:13):

So in these two months you've been looking into the building feasibility, whether you could get electrical or water there, and then a new one for both of us. An archeological study so far haven't found yet. We have not found any dinosaur bones

Polly Reitze (03:37):

Or other bones. Nope.

Kim Taylor (03:39):

And the best part, it's a backup offer on a backup offer, right?

Polly Reitze (03:44):

Number three.

Kim Taylor (03:45):

Number three, yeah,

Polly Reitze (03:47):

That's my favorite number.

Kim Taylor (03:48):

So no two deals are alike, are they?

Polly Reitze (03:51):

Nope.

Kim Taylor (03:52):

But they're all very exciting and we learn something from every single deal. Absolutely. And we are going to share all of this good information with you.

Polly Reitze (04:03):

It's pretty exciting. Every deal, like you just said, there's no two deals the same. Every deal is different. Every person you deal with is different. Every paperwork you have is different. Times change, policies change, paperwork changes, realtors change, brokerages change. There's just so much to constantly be in the know of. This deal was just icing on the cake for the opening of our first podcast. I have to tell you.

Kim Taylor (04:35):

Totally. I know it's the best. We're both going to both deal together, but I just love doing a deal with a good friend, colleague. Right? Absolutely. It was a of fun trust.

Polly Reitze (04:47):

They're reliable, that they're bringing in someone that's qualified.

Kim Taylor (04:51):

We have that trust. It's not,

Polly Reitze (04:52):

We do

(04:54):

And I've been in the business probably 20 years now, and it's lots of realtors who have just come up the ranks with me as well. And it's great to work with all the colleagues along the way that have, so we're a tight knit community.

Kim Taylor (05:10):

We have some good people. Good people in our business.

Polly Reitze (05:14):

We

Kim Taylor (05:14):

Do and some not, but we won't go there, but just kidding. Podcast too. Yeah. Polly, how did you get into this crazy business?

Polly Reitze (05:26):

Oh my gosh. How do you make this a short story? I will try. I was an advertising executive for a firm downtown many years ago, and we specialized in doing all the advertising for developers, and those were the heydays of condominium buildings being sold in six hours lineup around the block. So I worked with this advertising agency that strictly did naming of projects, brochures for projects, designing the sales office for projects, for the people to come in the site model and everything. And from there it was great, but I was on the advertising side. So from there, I got hired by a developer and that developer bought the Mountain Westwood Plateau, and we subdivided into 15,000 lots over years and named Streets and Schools and golf courses. It was very interesting, still not having my real estate license, but I still had that interest in real estate.

(06:29):

From there, it went into being hired by a really great real estate agent who had the project at the Bayshore, and we did five towers and I was helping her and got married in the meantime, had kids in the meantime, still didn't need my real estate license per se, because you could be hired by the developer back then and still help with the conveyance scene and sales from there. Then it went into pre-sales of gosh, resort marketing and soy use to Fino Kelowna. And then from there, I just said, the kids are going into kindergarten and into grade two. I'm going to go get my real estate license and so I could work with people. And that's exactly what I did. Amazing. No longer in a sales office, no longer working 12 to five every day could work from home. Technology is a godsend. The more years I've been in the business, the better the technology has come along the way, and that's how I started. And I

Kim Taylor (07:36):

Love it. I love it.

Polly Reitze (07:37):

And then even up until 20 years later doing this deal with you today, in the last two months, no one deal has been the same. I've had the same clients over and over, which is great, and now starting to have their children, which is great as clients. But yeah, that's how I started.

Kim Taylor (07:55):

How about you, Kim? I love it. Love it, love it. Good. Sounds like a good transition. You were set up to succeed.

Polly Reitze (08:04):

It was education in the real estate business all along, and it's something that I liked all the way, of course, trying to make money. I was paycheck to paycheck with those developers. So you're not, when you get your own real estate license, you are self-employed. When you work in a sales office, you could garnish three grand a month, then you don't really get paid though until the building's completed or built, I should say. So that was a bit tough, but as you know, now we have to work for every penny, no more penny success for every dime that we are a nickel. Yeah,

Kim Taylor (08:48):

For sure. Yeah, that can be scary too. Yeah, totally. Sometimes you can go a couple months without a deal and you're freaking out a little sometimes, right? So you have to be self-disciplined, and other times you're doing three or four deals a month, so yeah,

Polly Reitze (09:08):

You are. It's lunch on you. Yeah. Okay.

Kim Taylor (09:16):

Yeah. So my career began in the dynamic world of restaurants. So early on I worked as a hostess and a server and a bartender, just loving that fast-paced environment. One of my favorite roles was as a bar hostess at the Old Park Royal Keg. So my job was to literally sit with customers and buy them drinks. So I was extremely popular on those nights. That's

Polly Reitze (09:46):

A great job. They don't have that anymore. Do they

Kim Taylor (09:48):

Know I don, my

Polly Reitze (09:49):

Son would die for

Kim Taylor (09:50):

That job, right? Oh my gosh. It was a blast for someone going through university. I just loved working in the restaurants.

Polly Reitze (10:00):

That's great.

Kim Taylor (10:00):

Yeah, so after I got my business degree though, I transitioned more into the corporate side of still at restaurants. I started as a receptionist and then I moved my way into leading their marketing department. I eventually got a little bored though, and it prompted me to seek out getting my real well, not necessarily getting my real estate license. I wanted to learn more. So I started taking the online real estate course, not having any idea what I would do with it. Eventually one day I made a decisive move and I quit my job and I got my real estate license, and I started a family and one very, very eventful year. So I have no idea what it's like. At

Polly Reitze (10:51):

Least you said a year. I thought you were going to say a month, but

Kim Taylor (10:54):

Well, I won't tell you it was very quick, but it was, yeah. I just have no idea what it's like to be a realtor and not have kids at the same time. So my kids are now 13 and 11, so still

Polly Reitze (11:14):

I'm not mentioning my age. The children there, they're older than that.

Kim Taylor (11:18):

Your kids are now also realtors.

Polly Reitze (11:22):

They are

Kim Taylor (11:26):

Walking in their mama's footsteps. I love it. We'll see. Yeah, so it's busy being a mom, realtor or a mom, entrepreneur, having your own business and being a mom, not just being a realtor, but it's a busy life, but it's one that I wouldn't trade for the world.

Polly Reitze (11:48):

Absolutely. I love every day. I mean, being able to work from my home, have an office as well. You do too in rave. It's fun to go in. Not a lot of work gets done. When I go to the office, it seems golf is on or tennis is on and people are all chatting, and you definitely find your niche in an office situation, but I love the comradery and you get ideas on who's listing what and what's coming down the pipe and what they've done on the weekend. And

Kim Taylor (12:19):

I would say work does get done, and I've always said it's really important to go to the office. A lot of realtors work from home, and I sometimes do, but I have an office for that reason. Because I feel like when you surround yourself with other successful people, they're talking about properties that they have coming on the market or buyers that they have looking for a particular property or deals that they've done, or you just absorb it and you learn more. And I feel like it makes us a better realtor and just do a better job for our clients. So I just did an off market deal over the weekend just talking to another colleague. So it's important to, yeah, and I've always said those relationships that we have with our colleagues are just as important as those relationships that we have with our clients because we need that trust. If we're in multiple offers and we're writing a deal for our client, our buyer client, we want that listing realtor to trust us and vice versa. We want to know that we can trust the realtor on the other end who's writing the offer and that their buyer's.

(13:40):

And so yeah. So I think that's very, very important.

Polly Reitze (13:45):

It is a hundred percent

Kim Taylor (13:48):

Being in the environment.

Polly Reitze (13:50):

Yeah, no, it's fun. That's how a lot of these inside information gets known about too. And actually they help with pricing as well, because they tell you of something that they've just come across or they've evaluated, or they just had multiple offers on something similar. And so maybe we should raise that market value or the price on the listing.

Kim Taylor (14:13):

Yeah, totally. It's so important. It can be a lonely business, right? Yes. I've been doing this almost 15 years now, and for the first 10, I would say it was very lonely. I didn't really have those realtor friends. I was really young.

Polly Reitze (14:36):

I remember when you started. I do.

Kim Taylor (14:40):

And so it took me a long time to, it was so cute. Is that what you said? You were

Polly Reitze (14:45):

So cute. Oh my God. I'm like, I like her. This is

Kim Taylor (14:49):

Great. That's so nice. I think you

Polly Reitze (14:51):

Came through a couple of my listings. I'm

Kim Taylor (14:52):

Like, yeah, we did a deal. Actually. We did a deal in Lions Bay. Yeah,

Polly Reitze (14:57):

That's true.

Kim Taylor (14:58):

That's true. We did. It's long time. So it can be a lonely business. For the first 10 years, I really didn't feel like I had any friends in the industry, was very lonely. All I would do, I would talk to my husband and he quickly got a little bored of it. But after that, I started making some good friends, and that was just been incredible for my business. Just in so many ways. I'm happier and I feel like I'm just doing a better job too.

Polly Reitze (15:35):

You're very successful. It's great to watch. I love it. I love how you handle clients. I love how you handle your business and it's great doing deals with you. So I always know you've got your material all organized, what you need to send us, just easy communication and immediate communication. You do a very good job.

Kim Taylor (15:55):

Well, thank you. And the feeling's mutual.

Polly Reitze (15:58):

Thank you. Thank you. It's good. I mean, I think that's important about being a real estate agent. I think when someone texts you, they don't want to be answered in four hours from now. I think it's important to be on the ball and

Kim Taylor (16:13):

Totally give

Polly Reitze (16:14):

Them the answer

Kim Taylor (16:15):

And part of this business, and it's good and it's not good, but part of this business is you are always on. So if somebody sends you a text or gives you a call and it's six o'clock at night on a Friday night or Saturday night or Sunday night, and you're with your family or watching the Canucks or watching the Canucks, I mean, who calls in the middle of a Canucks game? But if they do, they expect you to respond right away. And not everybody does. But as part of my business, it's always been call that client back or that potential client back immediately. Exactly. Because it's a fast-paced business. They could be asking you to write an offer tonight and something that's selling in multiple offers at night. So you have to make it your priority and you have to drop everything.

Polly Reitze (17:06):

Well, I mean, so we're only as successful as how hard you work,

Kim Taylor (17:13):

And it's good and bad because it can be hard on family life and hard on the kids. And I have to pause them. So Saturday morning, my daughter was at a sleepover, my husband was at work. I had promised my son that I would watch Spider-Man, three with him promised him. But it's a very long movie. I don't know. I'm going to guess three hours. And this is the day that I got three offers that morning. Two were from you, Pauly, and one was from someone else. And so I'm dealing with three offers, and I keep looking at my phone and my son's going, mom, mom, you said you would watch this with me. So yeah, it's a crazy life. It's a wild and crazy life.

Polly Reitze (18:03):

Well, yeah. I mean, I sent you two offers on Saturday morning. Yes, you did. But I was up till midnight writing them Friday after going out and watching hockey. So I mean, this is how the business works. Both parties wanted to write and write a certain price, and I knew that I wouldn't have time in the morning. So you stay up late, but you get up early too and cross your T's and dot your i's and

Kim Taylor (18:33):

Yeah. And you just always have to do what's in the best interest of your client. So sometimes that means dropping everything.

Polly Reitze (18:41):

Yep,

Kim Taylor (18:41):

Yep.

Polly Reitze (18:43):

We're getting good at that. Oh

Kim Taylor (18:44):

God. But at the same time, you have to have boundaries. So how does that work? You have to be a magician a little bit, but I think we're getting better at that, I think. Right? Still working on it 20 years, 15 years.

Polly Reitze (19:02):

Yeah. No, I've always found, I mean, I love athletics. I've always raising my kids. I've always done my working out in the morning, get up early, so I love mornings, make my coffee, do my emails, go to the gym, came back, get the kids to school. That was my routine, and it's sort of carried on that way. And having my kids see me do that, that's exactly what they do now.

Kim Taylor (19:28):

Amazing. And so

Polly Reitze (19:29):

It's funny how you're, their

Kim Taylor (19:32):

Role model.

Polly Reitze (19:33):

Role model, I was thinking of another word, shadow, but they sound like me. They act like me, is cute. It's cute. I love it. But yeah, finding balance in life, for sure. Staying fit, staying healthy and making some money and having some fun

Kim Taylor (19:50):

And having lots of fun.

Polly Reitze (19:52):

So this podcast is going to be great to educate both of us. We're going to have some great guests on here, and we need comments too from our listeners. So

Kim Taylor (20:04):

Polly, what was your first deal like?

Polly Reitze (20:07):

Oh, I remember my first deal. A friend of mine entrusted me to list her home, and it was wonderful. I couldn't believe it. I probably had my license for, I don't know, four months or so. I can't remember exactly. So I got my sign out there. I did everything and I had a vacation planned, and I'd had this planned for about a year. I was in the Caribbean on a catamaran. It sounds extremely wonderful. And of course, I get an offer on that property. The properties in Vancouver, I'm in the Caribbean. The sellers are on one island in Hawaii, and the buyers are on another island in Hawaii. And my business partner at the time was on another island in Hawaii, and the property was in Vancouver. And we actually ended up, it was a client that just walked into an open house that turned around and called me and said that they wanted to purchase. So there's a lot of policies that have changed on that regard. But my business partner wrote the offer. It was my listing, and it was really fun. And I think she's still in the house today, so that's pretty neat. Yeah, stay in touch with her. And I'm still very good friends with that, my friend who entrusted me to list the home. So that was my first deal. It was great. Amazing. I mean, technology lets you be in different areas of the world, four corners of the world, which was very exciting.

Kim Taylor (21:39):

And another takeaway from that is basically if you want to get busy, you just book a vacation, right? Yeah,

Polly Reitze (21:45):

Absolutely. Yeah. You want an offer, spend a thousand dollars on a plane ticket, and you're definitely going to be busy when you're

Kim Taylor (21:52):

Away. It's a really good investment. True. Yeah. Go to Hawaii.

Polly Reitze (21:58):

Go on a catamaran that you don't have, wifi cell.

Kim Taylor (22:01):

No, it was good. Love it. How about

Polly Reitze (22:03):

You? What was your first deal?

Kim Taylor (22:05):

Yeah, so I can't remember my very first deal. I can remember the first deals, and I can tell you that all of 'em were friends who took a chance on me, friends and family who took a chance on me and some people didn't starting out. And I get it. I totally understand this is your biggest investment, and you want a professional and someone with experience to handle it for you. So those friends that did take a chance on me early on, I've never forgotten that. True friends. Seriously, just because they want to see you succeed. And that's what a true friend is.

Polly Reitze (22:55):

Well,

Kim Taylor (22:55):

Great. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So okay, back to this podcast. I think people might want to know how we came up with the name, the Closing Couch, Vancouver Real Estate Life. So we were at ISTA having lunch, and we were like, what

Polly Reitze (23:16):

Are we doing? We came up with it really

Kim Taylor (23:17):

Quick. We did, because

Polly Reitze (23:19):

We actually, we did. It was excellent. Yeah. I

Kim Taylor (23:20):

Feel like we both said it at the same time. We knew it was the right name for us because for us, the closing couch. So the couch to us symbolizes a comfort and trust and intimacy. And most of our clients, as we said before, are buying or selling their biggest asset. So it's extremely important that they're comfortable throughout the process. Right. Well,

Polly Reitze (23:50):

I just remember we were sitting in a booth in that little cafe. It was wonderful. And we're trying to Google these different names and trying to see if they'd already been taken too. And then we came up with the thinking of somebody's living room. When you do go into evaluate a home, you walk in and they show you their home. And usually you sit in the living room on a couch. And so we sort of osmosis came up with the closing couch together very simultaneously. And then we quickly, you were so good on the patent thing at the registry, we're it? We're doing it, we're doing it. And then you look at it and you was like, it's available. So we did it. And then there was sitting in the booth next to us and she's like, whatcha, are you guys working on whatcha are you doing? And we're like, did she hear us? What should we

Kim Taylor (24:42):

Doing? And also an important part of that title is closing. We're often closing on the couch. Right.

Polly Reitze (24:52):

Making the deal final. Yeah,

Kim Taylor (24:54):

Finalizing.

Polly Reitze (24:55):

Solidifying

Kim Taylor (24:56):

The deal. Yeah,

Polly Reitze (24:57):

Getting those signatures, getting the price that we've all negotiated. Negotiation should be another one of our podcasts, for sure. Yeah,

Kim Taylor (25:06):

Absolutely. Yeah. And we want to know, sorry for interrupting there. We want to know what you want to hear about. So we want, do you have questions about real estate, about the business, about deals, about the market? Anything? Yeah, do you have a suggestion for a topic or a suggestion for a guest? We'll be interviewing some great guests. We already have some lined up. Pauly and I, we went to a trade show recently in North Vancouver, and we had a booth there, and we were there for three days. And we met so many amazing people, and many of them gave us their story about some positive and some negative real estate experiences that they've had. They had some suggestions for us. We just loved it. We had such a great time. Was fun. It was really

Polly Reitze (26:09):

Fun. Everybody has a real estate story, I think, because the moral to that story and everybody's experience is different. And lots of people have good, lots of people have bad. I just remember one of 'em, she defined a home really quick because I think there was a relationship breakup.

Kim Taylor (26:31):

Right, right. This happens quite a bit. Quite a bit. Well, I

Polly Reitze (26:36):

Mean, we can't mention any names on this.

Kim Taylor (26:39):

No. But when people are buying and or selling real estate, often it's because there's been a significant change in their life. And so sometimes it's a positive change, like a wedding, having children needing more space. And sometimes it's because somebody's passed away or there's a divorce or it's a financial crisis. So we have to be really sensitive to that. And it's an emotional time. We wear lots of hats in this business, right? Counselors, we

Polly Reitze (27:16):

Psychology,

Kim Taylor (27:16):

Lawyers, psych, quite psychologists, home inspectors. We're not qualified for most of them, but on paper, but

Polly Reitze (27:29):

Maybe,

(27:31):

I think the years in the business really help real estate agents. They see things, they know it right away. They know a value. Or they know a contractor, they know a painter. They know approximate cost to paint your house, 6,000, 10,000 flooring and 1200 square feet can be 12 grand to 15 grand. Bathroom can be 20 grand, depending if you want a gold faucet in there or not. But you can add up a lot of costs in your head to help your purchasers or your sellers. I just find those type of numbers and how you say it with confidence as well too. And you can also back it up because of what you've seen in the past and what you've brought to the table, and having a contractor and all your suppliers readily at hand to walk the property during the inspection too. The deck's going to be $40,000. A garage is 75 grand paving, the driveway is blah, A pool is a hundred, an elevator is a hundred. It's whatever people want. You can normally get a approximate price, but policies change.

Kim Taylor (28:45):

Do they ever,

Polly Reitze (28:48):

Goodness. What

Kim Taylor (28:50):

Will they come up with next?

Polly Reitze (28:52):

It's daily. It's different

Kim Taylor (28:54):

Daily. So

Polly Reitze (28:56):

Tenants with properties. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Kim Taylor (28:59):

Okay. Well, we are really, really, really, really excited.

Polly Reitze (29:05):

Are we ever

Kim Taylor (29:06):

to be here and to meet you. And we're so happy that you're here on this journey with us. We're here for you. We want to know what you want to hear. So please, please let us know.

Polly Reitze (29:21):

You can Google the closing couch and we're on most podcasts, Spotify, and they can DM us.

Kim Taylor (29:28):

We would love for you to leave a rating and a review and even share this episode with your friends.

Polly Reitze (29:34):

That's it. Share it.

Kim Taylor (29:36):

So thank you for spending time with us, and we cannot wait to see you soon.

Polly Reitze (29:41):

Absolutely. Have a great day, and we will be back. Thanks

Kim Taylor (29:46):

Again. Thank you.