Open The Gate
Breaking down Sacramento Real Estate: Our Favorite People, Places and Mindsets
Open The Gate
Ep. 13: Rico Rivera - From Humble Beginnings to Real Estate Mastery
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Have you ever met someone whose life story sounds like a Hollywood script? That's precisely what you'll get with Rico Rivera, the man who went from an eight-year-old immigrant to a titan of the real estate and home warranty industries. His tale is one of grit, determination, and the relentless pursuit of the American Dream.
As we unpack Rico's journey, you'll be struck by the sheer power of resilience and the wisdom that comes with it. He's not just a success story; he's a beacon for those who need to hear that hard work pays off. We dig into the evolution of the real estate industry, the shift in commission structures, and the non-negotiable importance of trust in every deal. And for anyone out there juggling family, career, and maybe even coaching a little league team, Rico's got some insights on keeping all those balls in the air without dropping a single one.
By the end of our chat, Rico's infectious energy and sage advice will have you reevaluating your own path to success. Whether you're a seasoned real estate professional or just someone who appreciates a good 'rags to riches' story, this episode is a treasure trove of inspiration. Get ready to embrace change, harness your unique strengths, and, just maybe, decide who you'd want to be if you could walk in someone else's shoes for a day. Join us for a conversation that's as heartwarming as it is insightful, with one of the most genuine people you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting through the airwaves.
From Immigrant to Success
Speaker 1All right, dan, after I get started, I already hit record, so the rest is downhill.
Speaker 2All right, we're going to listen to you chomp on your gum.
Speaker 1I'll take that out here. I want to put it underneath. I'm putting it underneath the table like it's junior high again.
Speaker 2Yes, sir.
Speaker 1Did you ever get in trouble? Like I was in trouble a fair amount. I used to have to go in there and like scrape it off. And then I knew there were kids who hated me, who knew I would be getting in trouble and doing that later, and they just like a whole pack of big league shoe and just smear it under there. Right F you in it. Cool stuff.
Speaker 2So I stepped in gum this weekend and I literally told my wife I go. There is a special place in hell for people who spit their gum on the floor Like it's the worst. Stepping in gum is the worst, it's horrible.
Speaker 1I would say it's pretty bad. Second two and this is something I've encouraged a lot more since I started the bullies is dog shit I hate stepping in dog shit.
Speaker 3Oh, it's the worst.
Speaker 1It's the worst dude. It's like I don't know why it smells so bad either, Like it's just the worst.
Speaker 2And the staying power, the ability to drag it through your whole house.
Speaker 1Yeah, they got to get some scientists on, like whatever they're doing with dog shit. They got to weaponize that because it's yeah, it's, it sticks with everything and it's like camouflage, do you like? You think you see it, and then, bam, yes. Anyway this is what we contribute to real estate. So how was? How was your weekend? I'm guessing you were just at home on the couch doing nothing with the kids, just soaking up the vitamin D.
Speaker 2I got a good tan. This weekend we have baseball tournament. My son's team won their tournament down Elk Grove, so that was. That was a blast. Nice Boys played well. We saw some some really cool things. Let's see. My daughter had some volleyball stuff and I got. I was well rested man. I was in home.
Speaker 1You look, you look well that early both nights and you know why I didn't sleep? It is it. I can tell when you come in after like some kind of real estate event because, for those of you don't know, like Dan has had everything and when we show up on Mondays or whatever day it is, to film, I can tell if he had a crab feed, a realtor party anniversary, something that I before, because the guy does not let up off the gas.
Speaker 2And I don't have coffee today. So no, no coffee, no energy drink.
Speaker 1You guys can't see, but Dan looks not a day over 51. It looks great. So well, Dan, tell us a little bit about who is joining us here today on the show.
Speaker 2Today's guest the former home warranty King DJ Rico. The president and CEO of Silicon Island East Real Estate, none other than Mr Rico Rivera.
Speaker 1Well, let's play a song, Get him out here.
Speaker 2Let's go. All right, rico, welcome yeah.
Speaker 1Welcome to open the gate.
Speaker 2Let's go Open the gate, brother. Thank you so much again for being here, rico. So let's, let's, let's jump in, dude. Why started from the bottom? Are we started from the bottom?
Speaker 3A lot of people don't know, man, I'm an immigrant. I was. I came here when I was eight years old.
Speaker 1Where'd you come from?
Speaker 3Mexico, whether the Jala Jalisco with my mom. I'm actually the oldest of five kids. Ok, we jumped the fence, literally jumped the fence right. So immigrant jumped the fence, got caught three times, went to jail three times as an eight year old, oh, and now I'm here.
Speaker 1I mean we came with Persistence clothes on my back, bro.
Speaker 3I literally came to this country with the clothes on my back.
Speaker 1I could guarantee you weren't wearing a shirt that nice though.
Speaker 3No, you guys can see it, but man no, I'm sure he did.
Speaker 1He did surf on the bottom, and now the shirt does not match the bottom anymore. I just like it.
Speaker 2Every time I've heard this story and I knew it was coming. But in every time I hear it it's just like I don't know if people can really wrap their head around how shitty something has to be To move away from it and get arrested and detained three times, like three times. And you weren't going back. No, bro, you weren't staying. Your mom wasn't staying, she wasn't keeping her family there. The kids weren't coming up there like I wasn't happening.
Speaker 3No man, I, my mom is, she's a gangster Like she, she's a badass. And so, you know, if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be here. But this has brought so much, just so much, to our family, to me, to my just just to everything, to my heritage, just like everything you know, and I work my ass off. So that's why I love that song, because, you know, if you know me, you know I put in work. Like I don't, I don't even hand out. I'm not asking for a handout, you know.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I give back for sure. So, more than more than so many people, I know you're you're way up at the top, like I appreciate it. Hard to go, man.
Speaker 3But that's why, though, Like and there's a lot of people that actually help me on the way up.
Speaker 1Sure. So you know, there's nothing wrong with that, Right For sure, and I'm a citizen Like now.
Speaker 3I'm a. Well, I love America. You know, I'm a diehard citizen.
Speaker 1I love it. Dude, I'm a little fired up here man. I should have had a sweatshirt.
Speaker 2I'm getting hot already.
Speaker 1So oldest of five were. Did your whole whole family come at once? Did you come?
Speaker 3And I'm the oldest of six now, oh, six. There is a young, a youngest daughter, or a sister that was born here. Ok, but at that time, yeah, there's five of us it was my little sister who was like three months old Wow, she was wrapped around my mom with a sheet, you know and then my little brother who was one, he was like one and a half and then my other brother who was like three, and my other brother who was seven, and then me, and that was eight.
Speaker 2Yeah, don't take this the wrong way, but I mean start and understand why you got caught three times, like that's exactly. Dude slowest moving army ever.
Speaker 1I'm sure you guys were dead silent too. Yeah, man, I can't get through Costco without getting dirty looks from people, so I can't imagine trying to cross the border.
Speaker 3That's, that's crazy, that's literally why we got caught to be honest and when we actually got through, we got through a foxhole. We didn't actually have to jump the fence or climb the fence, but the last time we actually got through a foxhole, so the coyote was like there's no way, we're going to, we're going to not get caught with you guys trying to jump a fence.
Speaker 1Three months old. They just can't jump that well, I got the leg muscles.
Speaker 3Yeah, bro, it's crazy, it was crazy, I mean it's. You know it was meant to be. We're here.
Speaker 1I mean we're laughing about that now, but like in all seriousness that it has to have driven you to the success that you're having now.
Speaker 3Right, oh, absolutely. It definitely made me who I am. Like just just to see, here's the deal. Like we came here for opportunity and this is the land of opportunity, right? But my parents always said, like we're here to work, like we're we're here to make our lives better, right? That's why we left Mexico.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Opportunity, opportunity, everything. Our lives better.
Speaker 1Yeah, so not here for easy street, here for an opportunity to grind.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And you've done that Absolutely and I think that that you know it's tough, like we live in a relatively affluent area and I don't want to. You know, paint broad strokes for everybody's family. But you know, I was having a conversation this weekend with about you know a bunch of other dads about youth sports and how caught up they are and like you tend baseball and no offense towards you, dan, obviously because your kids are legit but these other knuckleheads, man they were talking about throwing a coos to house. You know parents and and just all the dynamics of this and I'm like man, this is, this is what we had time to worry about, this shit.
Speaker 1And there's people like Rico's family that are coming here. It's crazy. They're coming here not to the bitch and moan about that. They're coming here to have an opportunity to grind and do something for their legacy, for their own health, for their own sanity, for their own family. And I just think that we're in a little bit of an era of if you're not a second, third generation, you know immigrant here, like we've kind of forgotten a little bit what it means to work hard as a society.
Speaker 3Well, I agree with that, and even in my own home, like I have two daughters and I feel like they've forgotten, like what.
Speaker 2I went through you know what I mean.
Speaker 3So, but that's kind of our fault For sure.
Speaker 2Like you know, Marina's Marina's story is fairly similar. She came here from Brazil she's an immigrant as well on a volleyball scholarship, and I mean, she came further than you, did no big deal she was well, she was way. She's the, she's the breadwinner, she's, she's the, she's the athlete. I'm like dude.
Speaker 1I'm just saying Brazil is a lot further than Mexico, but you know no big deal.
Speaker 2Well, she got to come on an airplane.
Speaker 1And oh, come on, man, this bitch. I could say that because I know she doesn't listen to the podcast. I wish you didn't have a three week old with it.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, but even still, I mean, you go back. You know we go back to Brazil and we see that, we see the lifestyle down there and the differences and it's like man, yeah, we take it for granted. And the same thing. My kids, yeah, they grow up privileged and with things and, yeah, the sports stuff, all the things.
Speaker 3Well, we always as parents and I don't know if you're a parent- but, as parents, we wanna make sure our kids don't suffer like we did, so then we forget to show them why we're who we are right, Cause we don't want them to suffer.
Speaker 1So you're like, oh yeah.
Speaker 3I never was able to buy anything or get anything when I was at the store. So when my daughter's like, can I have that? Yeah, absolutely, yeah, right. And it's like, well, kind of like wait a second.
Speaker 1Then they become more. Where's the lesson?
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly yeah it's a double edged short right. You want better for them. And then I've talked about this phrase before, I'm sure you've heard it too is that you know, hard times create strong men, Then strong men create easy times, and then easy times create weak men, and then weak men create hard times. And so it's this cycle that's really hard to not perpetuate. I mean, I had that in my own family. We're not immigrants, but my dad grew up in an abusive home, extremely poor, in Detroit, during race riots, you know really bad upbringing. He came to Seattle. He did a generation better. I'm trying to do a generation better than that, and so that's. I think that is inherently in us, that legacy mindset. But then it's really hard, Like with my own kids. I'm like man, I'm spoiling you guys already?
Speaker 2No, for sure yeah.
Speaker 1And so it's. Sometimes it's and I had this conversation with a realtor not long ago trying to almost artificially create challenges for them and then I think that sometimes why things like youth sports become such a mecca or a focus, cause you're like man, you're not going to get this anywhere else. I'm going to have to create this for you in like toughness and drive and endurance and like passion. But you know what? The other thing I like about this sometimes the the rural interface around here a little bit is that you get like I love to see farm kids man, cause those kids are grinders. They're workers working on horses and pig slabbing. Obviously I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm doing a guy in Placer County that doesn't own boots but it's. I love to watch young kids work and want to grind.
Speaker 3When my daughter was 16, I got her a job at a warehouse for summer, just so she can like really understand what it feels like to work in a warehouse with no AC and stuff like that. She can hate it, that job.
Speaker 2Yeah, which is great.
Speaker 3But I love my friend for giving her that job.
Speaker 3I'm like hey, bro, thank you Like that that made a big difference in her life and she's still. She's still trying to prove herself to me Right Cause she didn't want to go to school. She's like I don't, I don't, that's not for me, I'm like you're a smart girl, like stupid. So now I think she's starting to realize like damn, you know I should have, and she's only 18, still Like she just graduated last year. But I think it's opening her eyes to do I really want to do this type of work for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1And how can you better convince somebody than by their own experience? Right, like you lead a horse to water things. Totally true, but the truth is like that horse might be like oh. I'm thirstier than I thought. Like I mean, I mean maybe death also.
Speaker 2Nobody can understand or feel your pain. The way we feel pain is all different, right? So different pressure points and things like that create different feelings.
Speaker 1And it's like until you go through it.
Speaker 2You'll never know.
Journey to Real Estate Success
Speaker 1And nobody can want it more than you. You know, like when we had Kaylee Cornell on here a few weeks ago and she made this recent transition from title rep to real estate and one of the things that she says she had like amazing people that she worked with but she also part of her move was she has some frustrations of like. I'm trying to give you all the tools I can. I'm trying to prep you, you know, prep you more than more than you care. Why don't I just do that for myself and then go out and make the grind, cause, like you, you're not going to be able and I tell this to my kids I said I will support you to the end of the earth.
Speaker 1Like, no matter what you do, you can kill somebody, I'll still love you. If you want to grind like, we'll be behind you, but I'm never going to want it more than you do. Like, as soon as you don't want it. Like mom and I aren't going to spend the money or the time. We got three kids like, we'll move on to the next one, 100%.
Speaker 3You're gone the time and the effort I spent money on. I'm my first daughter to go to college, right? So she, she wanted to go to college, and this was during that pandemic. So we, you know it's like New Hampshire university, which was like online you spend some money for her.
Speaker 3And then she like totally said I'm cool and I'm like, I'm like $4,000 in, right. And then the second one I'm like you pay for college If you really want to go to college, cause you want to do like photography or whatever, and I'll reimburse you when you graduate.
Speaker 1Oh, I love that.
Speaker 2Show me how much you really want to do it. Yeah, and I'll reimburse you. You're going to give her the interest on that too. Everything.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's floating, it's on an arm, or index and margin, everything I'm cool, I'll make it happen.
Speaker 3Yeah, but I want her to like show me right, that little one's doing it. Like show me that you're actually interested in it. I'm not going to just spend money, yeah.
Speaker 1And show yourself really right. Like it's easy. I mean I'm speaking, I didn't pay for school and I had hope for my folks too, and but I look back and I'm like I didn't work as hard as I could have and I know that if it was my, it was me deciding like I'm going to spend this money on school instead of on whatever else, or I have to earn it. I mean I worked all the way through. But it's definitely a different thing, man, when you're having to earn it yourself and the skin in the game and at a mortgage mentor and he basically just always relied on that. Like I'll give you. You know we'll do compensation and we'll hook you up with everything, but like you got to have skin in the game, otherwise, you know you're just an employee.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1Yeah, Well, that's awesome man. So when you guys got here to the US of A, where did you lay in first?
Speaker 3So we laid in San Diego for like a few weeks. As my grandpa was living in San Diego, he helped us out a little bit. And then my dad was already here at the time and he had this is funny he had an. He was sharing an apartment, a two bedroom apartment right With. At the time it was with a family of seven, so he was just in a room, a two bedroom apartment, and out of nowhere he brought his whole family from there. So instead of him by himself with his family of seven, right, it was him with his family of seven.
Speaker 1Dang bro.
Speaker 3So we're all rooming with another. We're all in this room and we're all sleeping on the floor. I mean, I'll never forget that, like we all slept on the floor and you know it was. It was crazy.
Speaker 1Dang. I was gonna say like, doesn't there have been enough room for bunk beds? Yeah, yeah, man, you can't even fit enough bunk beds in there for that. Nope Dang Well, and then how did you make your way up here to the greater Sacramento area, and where do you live now?
Speaker 3I live in Elk Grove. Now, what's your address? I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I don't care, bro, you can just look it up, it's all right.
Speaker 1The three people that listen to this, including my mom, aren't gonna come visit.
Speaker 3So don't don't stress More than three, though, and not that I'm on the show, bro. Yeah, we're gonna rise man.
Speaker 1I love it, dude.
Speaker 3So I live in Elk Grove now and we came up here. When I was in high school, my dad got a job as construction. My dad actually poured the foundation of the house that I live in now.
Speaker 2Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's super cool, that is cool.
Speaker 3Early 2000,. I never knew that, but he was like. He came over to you and was like I pour the foundation to your house. I was like, really Like, because he's a construction where he's been in construction concrete 30 years now. But yeah, there was a boom in the 90s and Elk Grove was growing.
Speaker 2Sacramento was growing.
Speaker 3And that's when he got a job up here, he used to work two jobs, so when we first got here he'd worked at Hunt's Ketchup and then he'd work at Wooden Park, the hotel which was a knots of berry farm Right.
Speaker 1A knots of berry farm.
Speaker 3Okay, so two jobs. I saw my dad during the week for four hours and he would be asleep because he was working. Two jobs, oh yeah.
Speaker 1As a young man like did you understand that? Did you understand?
Speaker 3Yeah, I totally. I understood it, but it sucked right Because you're selfish at some point and it was shitty that he never went to my games. It was, you know, like he never went to my practices.
Speaker 1Like we as parents, go to all the practices, all the games.
Speaker 3He never did any of that.
Speaker 1He's like bro, you're native Mexican, you're gonna be good at soccer. Just get out there and go, bro, you'll be fine, you're gonna be good, you'll be totally fine, you got this.
Speaker 3Yeah, but I understand it now as a parent Like I understand it now as an adult. Like damn, he hustled, Like he that's a sacrifice.
Speaker 1you know Sure and 100%.
Speaker 3We could never like think about this, right, there's five kids growing up in a household. Your dad's asleep when he's home, so you have to be like super quiet. Oh yeah, you better shut up. We could not like make noise Cause if you woke my dad up the time he was trying to sleep before he got back to work. It was done, forget it.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3And then my dad would never spank us if we were asleep, like he never would wake us up to spank us, right. So whenever we knew my dad was coming and we were going to get in trouble, we would be sleeping, sleeping. It'd be like two in the afternoon.
Speaker 1Sleep is nap time, oh cool, you guys had some night quill. I just stepped under the bed. Quick hitter, pass it around.
Speaker 3Yeah, that was. It was cool, it was funny, but it is what it is.
Speaker 2I mean, that's a survival skill too, yeah, I would go to sleep, my dad's coming. Adapt, adapt and survive. Literally.
Speaker 1Well, I mean, I can only imagine what that that does to fuel your business, and we can get into that a little bit. How did you find yourself in the world of real estate, or what path did you take to get there?
Speaker 3So I actually got into home warranty when I was 19 years old. Okay, Tempt to hire. You know, at a high school my wife was pregnant. I've been married 23 years. We just celebrated our anniversary, Congratulations.
Speaker 2Congratulations.
Speaker 3Thank you, congrats, we've been together 24 years, she's pregnant at a high school and I'm doing like odd jobs or whatever right Like I actually work at Jack in the Box warehouse for a little bit. I actually got fired from Jack in the Box from not coming in on Super Bowl.
Speaker 1Oh wow, dude. So did you work there through 91 when they had the huge like everybody died that was up in Washington actually they were like six kids died E Coli.
Speaker 3I worked there in 2000. Okay, oh, the easy times. No big deal, easy times.
Speaker 1We're back to the breakfast. Jack.
Speaker 3Yeah, sorry to Jack, we could even afford Jack in the Box in 91. I was here in 89. So I don't even think I got into like a restaurant restaurant until like 94 or 95.
Speaker 1I don't want to sidetrack you here, but this is like one of my favorite stores. I grew up around a bunch of rich kids and I would say I like I wasn't rich, but you know, comparatively I was a first. I was not a first generation immigrant, but I used to get a ride to school, to basketball practice, with this kid who had more money than a lot of money and we'd go to Jack in the Box on the way and he'd stop and he'd get the order. The breakfast Jack, which was back then, was 99 cents. I'm kind of dating myself. The sourdough Jack is a buck 99. The only difference is the bread. So he would say hey, man, I want like four sourdough, I want four breakfast Jacks, but can you just swap out the bread for sourdough?
Speaker 1And they're like oh, you want the sourdough Jack. No, no, I'm sorry, I don't think you understood Like I want like the breakfast Jack. But I was like man, we're riding to school and a brand new Chevy Z71 truck and you're grifting these guys or the bread. I wish I would have thought about that, but you know it's all right Back then you're. You know, a buck is a lot back then. Anyway, I digress.
Speaker 3I love that. Sorry, Because you know what. That's how you, that's how rich people stay rich bro. Oh, for sure.
Speaker 1I'm sure he's found his way into some tax breaks now, some of the most frugal people you'll ever meet are super wealthy. And the sourdough Jack is significantly better than the regular breakfast Jack.
Speaker 2Well, it's because on sourdough bread yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, so I would have paid the buck, but the fact that I didn't have to.
Speaker 3That's great, yeah, anyway.
Speaker 1So I digress, sorry. So you went to Jack in the box and then all of a sudden, bam, home warranty. How do you get there?
Speaker 3Tempt a higher job. My, my, my mother-in-law was the one that recommended just go get a temp to hire job. I started old Republic, work my way up, starting to pay $9 an hour. People would be like why are you driving from Modesto or Tracy to San Ramon every day for $9? Wow, I'm like it's going to work out, so just work my way up.
Speaker 1And when you say it's going to work out, that can mean a lot of things, but they you feel like it was going to work out because I'm a grinder and I'm going to make it work out. Or did you feel like, oh man, there's something here for me I like about real estate, or what did you?
Speaker 3say it wasn't even real estate, so it's home warranty. It's an old Republic right. And so the very first day they told me, the president of the company used to be the secretary of the company.
Speaker 2And so.
Speaker 3I saw that like boom. If the president now is my secretary.
Speaker 3I'm there Like that's who I want, to be right. And they said we hire within, so if you do really well, we'll just keep you, keep moving up. And that's actually very true. Like that, exactly what happened? Like within three months I got hired on and then I went through almost every single department at old Republic, except for like accounting. And then from there, I'll never forget this. So I was at the department where all the account executives, all the sales reps, would call in to get help, right, it was called the sales service department.
Speaker 3And on a Friday night I'm the it's my first Friday night and the rep calls in and she's freaking out because somebody's water heater is out. And she's like, hey, I need this water heater replaced. And I look at the plan and I'm like it. Just it was effective today. Like that's pre-existing, we don't cover that. And she's like you must be new. And I was like, yeah, she's like what's your name? Rico Rivera, Okay, cool, Hangs up Monday morning. I get in trouble. I come in Rico Rivera, come see me, my boss, right. And I'm like what? Like what's going on? I just this is like my first week, right.
Speaker 3In this department and you're like it's the creamer, the crop. And she's like I heard you got called by Ellen Peterson. I'm like yeah, she called and she was asking you know. And she's like Ellen Peterson like pays your bills, dude, like she writes your checks. She calls and she says jump, you say how high. And I was like really, and she's like Ellen Gloria Navarro, kathy Lanceford, yvette Meyer, like she just told me what reps can call and say whatever they need done, done Right.
Speaker 3And I said how can I be that? I want to be a rep? I want that God power. She said don't worry about it, you'll never be a rep. Really Get to work. No way, bro. I put that on my goals I'm going to be a rep. And then I became a sales rep and that's how we came home morning to King.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3So when so?
Speaker 2when, when I met Rico this was 12 years ago, 11, 12 years ago getting into this, getting into this industry Rico used to literally have a King's hat, like a crown, and a crown and a cape that he wore and I remember in the back of my head going, fuck man, I don't want to have to do that. She's going to be successful in this industry. But I was looking at my dude like Rico knew everybody.
Speaker 1And everyone was like dude, like he was. Yeah.
Speaker 2I mean absolutely Like I. I absolutely emulated tons of things that I saw Rico doing in the industry.
Speaker 1Back then. I will see a cape. I'll see no crown.
Speaker 2I know I got boundaries yeah.
Speaker 1I'm going to talk to Zach about that. Hey, I had this idea, Look look, Marina.
Success in Real Estate Through Consistency
Speaker 2it doesn't see the world the same way as Tanya in some regards, so she's like hey, once or twice a year you can go dress up and look like an idiot, but outside of that she's like you know. I need my choppy husband Plus Rico had already done it man. Like you got to be, you got to be yourself, you got to be new.
Speaker 1I think there's two dudes that could pull that off.
Speaker 3Like it sounds like you had to swag to pull that off that and like the count from you know Sesame Street, bro bro listen, I went into an industry, was a sales rep, where, and there's the reps that I was going against, you know, stephanie Jeter, yvonne Nelson. They've been reps for like 10 years, before even me they were already like 10 years in.
Speaker 3Like all these reps right now. They're like 30, 40 years in the business, right, and I had to be. I just had to be different, yeah. And so for me, I went into offices, like like real estate offices, teaching them about technology, teaching them about social media when it first came out, teaching them about videos, like I was doing videos before anybody was doing videos. I was doing YouTube videos before YouTube was actually owned by Google. So that's what got me the home warranty king.
Speaker 1To adding value outside of the warranty? Yeah, 100% it was totally.
Speaker 3People were like yeah, you can come in and talk to us. So I'd come in into offices and talk to them about like social media technology, videos, stuff like that.
Speaker 2Oh and, by the way, oh and by the way, the home warranty guy.
Speaker 1You know like this was a great presentation. Can we ask why you were in that crowd?
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, no, they knew. Do they know we do with the king one?
Speaker 3Yeah, it was totally like that dude.
Speaker 1And then my competition hated me like but did you make a brand and a niche? You know what's interesting now that I think about I'm trying to think of the home warranty reps I know, and the names you just listed off like I don't know any men in that field Was that is that?
Speaker 3No, no, no, it's very common. I mean, there was like in our whole company at the time, I think there was five or six of us and there was like 90 women there. Yeah, I mean, and listen, I'm not the cutest guy, bro, I'm going against these. Oh, don't sell yourself. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1You know what I'm saying. They're like I don't know what you mean.
Speaker 2actually I'm looking right at you, that's why we're not letting you off the hook, that easy girl, just so you guys know we keep the windows open in here just because it gets a little.
Speaker 1It gets a little warmer in the studio. The bees just sweat. Well, that's awesome, I mean. And so tell me about so. Obviously you found some success there. What motivated you to move to real estate? Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3I saw what real estate agents were doing. I mean, you know, I was. We just had a conversation earlier. So I'm going around teaching everybody what you should do and then I'm like, why don't I just do it for myself?
Speaker 2Then I had the opportunity.
Speaker 3Maureen was the first person to give me an opportunity and hire me to be a team leader, manager of an office with that that's right.
Speaker 2I forgot that. You went, yeah, straight to team lead. I totally forgot about that.
Speaker 3Yeah bro, I was literally right into the manager's position of an office A guide, I know, at a Keller Williams Okay, because.
Speaker 3I was Sac Metro in Natomas and I had no real estate license and I was like I don't have my real estate license. And she was like you know everything. You don't. I don't care about that. Like you know how to lead, you know how to hire. Like your leader, you can do it. I trust you and the broker can answer all the real estate questions. And I said let's do it. So started with like 60 agents. One time we left I was at 140 agents, hired a ton of agents. We killed it. We did a great job and then I went from being the team lead to doing my own thing in 2019. Started Silicon East real estate and now it's guide.
Speaker 2Did you pull Bobby out of insurance right?
Speaker 3Yeah, no, no, no, no. But I didn't pull Bobby out of insurance. He actually was already in real estate. He went I think it was code three, and then Brie Max, and then he came over with me. A lot of the agents that are top producers I brought over.
Speaker 2Nice, and now they've grown.
Speaker 3Oh for sure, they're like over 200 agents now.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's awesome.
Real Estate Industry Changes and Trends
Speaker 1So tell me a little bit about that, though, too, because we have a lot of. We have talked about real estate loosely here, but I think we talk about how to be successful. We have a lot of interesting people on here that are successful at different levels, and you obviously. Somebody saw something in you that was not a real estate license, and now, this last week, we had some big shakeups in the real estate world, and so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what is it that is going to make people, or has made people, historically prime for success, because if you were able to do it without somebody sitting in you, without even having a real estate license, what are those intangibles that make people grinders?
Speaker 3I think it's. One of them is consistency.
Speaker 2That's the big one, man. I like it.
Speaker 1We should just put that on the wall here it's like the theme of the show.
Speaker 2Change the name of this thing, Open the consistency.
Speaker 3And if you look at top producing real estate agents, they're all different and there's niches that people have Like I'll give an example Micosaurus. Micosaurus passes out like 20,000 flowers a month, very consistent. He's been doing that for 20 years, so he's done that. Tom Dave has been around forever. Tom Dave does radio shows and TV commercials and all kinds of different things, and that's completely different. And then you have cold callers, people that just cold call, just constantly cold call, cold call. Then you have people that door knock and they just door knock. And you have people like me that do social media, and so it's like there's no one way to be successful in real estate. But one thing that I know for a fact is they're all consistent in what they do, 100%, all consistent, like they won't miss a day, and so I feel like that's a big one. And to answer your question about the shakeup that's happening, because it's a real shakeup, it's never happened and the 100 years that we've been losing.
Speaker 2This is going to be an interesting six months, for sure.
Speaker 3Six months to a year. I think you're going to see more professionals in the business. So, in my opinion, a lot of people that are your part time agents are probably going to go away. Because if you're a part time agent and I gave you this analogy earlier, right, bro, what are you going to offer a client as a part time agent that you don't even know the business? Every day, like, our laws are changing, our forms are changing, and I was telling my neighbor, would you let a part time surgeon work on you? Like, hey, I'm going to go ahead and do that surgery for you. I have my regular job during the week, but on the weekend I got you, bro, go ahead and operate on you.
Speaker 1Yeah, man, the last few have turned out pretty good. Yeah, you'll be fine, I'll discharge you half.
Speaker 3Get out of here. So I feel like, honestly, I feel like it's going to get to the point where you're going to see more professionals. But there's two things that are going to happen. It's going to be the rest of the bottom Right, the one percenters which we have in the Bay Area already. We have the agents that are one percenters that are just going to charge the one percent. We used to have the help you sell, but it didn't. When the market tank, that went away too, because then there wasn't any money for them. So we're going to have that. We're going to have agents that are going to do the. We're going to charge you one percent or flat fee 3,000, 1,000, whatever. It might be right, but you get. It's always what you pay for. You get what you pay for.
Speaker 2Oh, totally.
Speaker 3And then you're going to have the professional real estate agents that have been doing it for a long time, that know what they're worth. That are going to be the professionals that are going to take care of the high end, and they're going to take care of anybody that wants to deal with a professional right, and then you're going to pay for what you get. That's what it's going to be, so. I actually think that listing agents are going to get a pay raise.
Speaker 2Yep, yeah, so there's so many factors I saw I can't remember who I saw it from, but I saw it just this morning about because for those of you that don't understand, like we're talking about the commission structure and who pays the commission and traditionally it's been the seller pays the commission to an agreed upon amount with the seller's agent, who then pays a portion of that to the agent that brings the buyer's representation.
Speaker 1And now all home inspections are going to be $10,000 and all pull inspections are going to be $5,000. And that's just. You guys got to take that for what it is, and that just says what it is now. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2I mean, shoot, look what prices have done across the board in life In the last few months. I mean, I was just I feel bad. I just sent an email to my insurance broker going dude, come on man, this is absurd. For six months of auto coverage, like absurd.
Speaker 3It's ridiculous and it is, and it is.
Speaker 2It's that ripple effect. But I think that it's going to be really, really interesting because the model that has existed for so long and, quite honestly, in the last two months I really felt like the industry had tried to make a reactionary move to going okay, we need to really push this buyer broker agreement. And we got to. We got to really draw, communicate what the expectations are and what the deliverables are and what the fee structure and everything looks like. And then it was almost like NAR came back and was like, yeah, we settled.
Speaker 2And that was just like, oh God, like I want to talk about that real quick yeah.
Speaker 3Because I want to make sure that people are aware of all three people that can listen to it.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Rico is bringing us at least 50 lists. I love it, dude.
Speaker 3I want to make sure that people are aware what actually happened with NAR and the fact that they settled. But their settlement was okay. We will no longer put commissions on the MLS right, but it doesn't mean that you cannot negotiate and the seller cannot pay for the buyer's agents commission. So that's a big deal, because they actually wanted that to be completely gone. They wanted no broker op, they wanted no broker representation. They wanted the sellers to not be able to pay for the buyer's agents commission at all period.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3So that didn't go away. So we just have to negotiate it outside of the MLS. We have to pick up the phone and talk to the agent and say is your seller willing to pay for my commission? Is there any room at all? Or we have to put it on our website hey, seller's willing, it just has to be outside of the MLS. That's a win for real estate but and right, and for sellers it's a win in the sense of I don't have to pay for it.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 3Now I don't have to pay for it and it's not going to go into effect till July, but I guarantee you, there's a seller today that doesn't want to pay for it Exactly.
Speaker 1That's just like okay, interest rates. There's an announcement of what they're going to do.
Speaker 2The national narrative is just that, it's the national narrative and it's whatever they've chosen for it to be. Where we're having conversations like this going hold on a second like, just because this is what everyone's talking about. Well, here's the fine print, here's all the here's all the writing between the lines that says oh, this you know, because the next question is going to come up is you know? Is there going to be a first lender that jumps on board and says oh, you know what? Yeah, you will finance that buyer side commission. Yeah, no-transcript. Why do banks lend money? Because they're making money on it.
Importance of Trust in Real Estate
Speaker 1When there's retail brokerages. I can guarantee you that are already wrapping their head around like, and this is how it is, like it's the same shit, we're just gonna chop it up and package it in a different way.
Speaker 1And it's the same thing, right, and it's gonna be, and it's a little bit of sour grapes sometimes coming from the lending world, but, like I've seen it a million different ways and this is, I guess, the root of this. What I'm getting at is not only the professional's gonna win. I think trust will become more important than it's ever been. And if you're listening to this and you're thinking about buying a house, I can't tell you that I'm a cheapskate man. Sometimes I'm like I wouldn't say I'm a cheapskate but I'm frugal, like I think about the value I get for my money, and RICO is correct in the fact that you are going to get what you pay for, that. You're not buying a baseball bat at you know Dick's Sporting. You're buying a huge asset or you're selling one, and there's more implications than there's ever been.
Speaker 1And I think if you don't truly trust somebody to because it's too much for a buyer most buyers I would say, that I encounter, or even knowing a lot of people that sell their homes it's too much to fully understand the scope of everything. And so if you have someone that A you know can get the job done right, they have to have the goods, they have to be able to be a professional, but if you can truly trust them, it'd be the same thing as the doctor. Well, I didn't go to medical school but I know you as a person, doc. Like I trust you, whatever you think. Do I get the surgery? Do I not get the surgery right? Like I can Google it all day but at the end of the day, like I want to be able to trust you and I think people really do want that I can't carry that burden. You tell me you're the professional and I think those people end up winning.
Speaker 3Well, and the reality is, in my opinion, and a lot of people don't I don't know why people don't talk about this more why you should use a real estate agent is for the liability purposes. Oh, like you, just just the mere fact that you use a real estate agent for a transaction like this, which is a home, that a lot of things can go wrong in a home. Right Like that liability, there are E and O covers if something happens. Right, like you're literally just giving the liability to that realtor. They have a license, they have to tell you all everything, all the forms that you have to sign, everything you have to disclose, like as a seller, you're not gonna do that.
Speaker 2Like what are you trying to say? As much money as possible.
Speaker 3We're in California, right, and so there's times where I'm telling my sellers, like listen, you have to say it, you have to say that you repaired that. We're not lying about that Like a lot of things.
Speaker 2They're not gonna not see that giant water stain.
Speaker 3Yeah, the last thing you want is to say, oh, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1That's an accent. Well come on, man.
Speaker 3And it's help. Like you don't want to be live, but we're in California. Like you'll lose your ass.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, there's gonna be some growing pains as these nuances ferret their way out, but ultimately, I do, in my heart of hearts, believe that it puts us in a better position, especially the industry as a whole. Rico and I were talking about it before we started. Like the most, the bitterest, worst complaint that you hear from someone who bought a house is my realtor didn't do shit and they made 20 grand or they made five grand or they made 40 grand on this deal and their sense is oh, they didn't do shit, like, and you know, like I-.
Speaker 1And some of them don't.
Speaker 2I can tell you that there's a lot of truth to that.
Speaker 1Some of them don't. And sometimes there's a freebie that falls in the lap too 100%.
Speaker 1But I can't tell you the agents and this is the thing, right Like this is probably like being a parent as a kid Like you never really know how much your parent like did for you till maybe you're growing up in hindsight and I would say that same thing. Like the real estate transactions I just had one that was crazy and it's like that duck analogy right Like above the surface, duck is cruising and underneath client doesn't need to know it. Men, they almost fell through six times. Now you thought it was smooth, but that was what your agent is doing and they're negotiating and they're back-channeling and they're talking and they're staying on the timelines and they have a good TC and they have a good process and they set expectations early and they communicate and they pick up the phone.
Speaker 1And I feel like now, because this was all supposed to be about more transparency now, if some of that stuff isn't posted like it used to be, if I'm looking on Zillow and I'm the buyer of first time home buyer, I don't know what the heck. I'm looking at online more than ever. So I think you have an agent that calls and I tell this to buyers all the time and it'll have changed a little bit. But you I have so many of them are like, well, I don't want to use a real estate agent. I was like, bro, you don't pay for it, you're gonna like you have a concierge, you're not gonna use.
Speaker 1Don't try to book the cruise yourself man. This is a big deal, but now more than ever, I think there's gonna be less transparency for the client and you're gonna have to find someone that you trust, and so I just see a huge opportunity for real estate agents. To the ones that are successful just keep leaning into like being a local source of knowledge.
Speaker 3Local, trusted source for sure, because now people are gonna pay you directly. So now it's like how much are you actually worth, bro, and are you worth anything, right? And it's people actually trust you because before you're right, before you could be a part-time agent and I'm gonna get paid by the seller. You don't have to pay me, you're my homie, just give me the deal, I'll take care of you. Yeah, it's gonna go away, bro. Yeah, well, and it's In his last words.
Speaker 1Yeah, some of the stuff has happened in the lending world already. Right, you have a couple different models. So you have like a true retail point equity where there's non-delegated broker. Then you have actual broker models. So some of those like a retail lender, like well finance America, rest in peace. But APM or some of the other places around here movement, they don't have to disclose what they make. It's not really on there. There's a processing fee and everything but those commission structures. They're not on any of the forms you go to the broker side. All those disclosures have exactly what Blake Bottleman, the loan officer, is making on this loan, and so it's not bad or good, it's just different and I think it really does come down to trust. At the end of the day, if you have partners in the industry and I think that's what's gonna happen too right Is, rooms like this are gonna become more sacred because I think people are gonna be like hey, dan, I don't know what real estate agent should I use.
Embrace Change, Be Yourself
Speaker 1Well, I've always said this person, but in these times, definitely this person. Don't try to do it on your own, don't try to go for the cut right here. And here's why Because, more than ever, you're just gonna need somebody to forge ahead, because you guys aren't getting people in the back of your Mercedes and driving around like we did in the 90s, right, but it's a new game and there's a ton to be done there. That's still really valuable, and I think the people that show their value just like you did, showing up as the warranty king and doing the things you needed to do to organically grow the business those people, I think, are still gonna be fine, because in every market there can be winners.
Speaker 3Oh 100%.
Speaker 2Yeah. So I think that obviously, with everything we've just talked about, it's apparently that this is a difficult industry that's about to get more difficult. Right now You're seven, eight years into doing what you've been doing. Now Someone, go back, if you could talk to Rico eight years ago, before you decided to make what was what would be the two or three things, you say, hey, little Rico, man, you got to do these three things in order to like be the best that you possibly can be and outpace you know what your expectations are Got to embrace change.
Speaker 1First of all, yeah, like we're talking about right now, what's?
Speaker 3happening right now. Embrace change, which is super hard.
Speaker 2Oh, bro, that's like that is the hardest thing. People are creatures of habit for sure, hard.
Speaker 3Sometimes I think it's harder than moving, even though I hate moving. Yeah.
Speaker 1Moving is the hardest thing I hate moving.
Speaker 3I'm in real estate. I hate moving.
Speaker 1I don't really drink anymore, but you know what it used to help. I was like get drunk when I packed boxes that somebody taught me that in college and that's actually a way better way to move. Have a couple of drinks, turn on the music, and then it's actually kind of fun, it's not so bad. But now I'm you know, I'm an older man Now I don't want to move anything. So anyway, I could appreciate that.
Speaker 3Yeah. And then I would say find out who you are, right, cause a lot of brand new agents and this happened to me, but a lot of brand new agents want to be someone else, like they always want to be who the top producer is, and if they, if they're out there door knocking, they want to go door knock, like you always want to do what the top producer is doing, and the reality is that's not who you are, and if that's not who you are, you're never going to be successful. So find out who you are, stick to what you know and then just like, hone your craft, like, do that, cause if you're consistent, you'll do well, that's awesome man.
Speaker 1You know what I heard about that Cause.
Speaker 1I would say in my businesses, like that has been, the most challenging thing is to to act out of a true identity, because it's really easy to watch what other successful people are doing like mentors or other competitors, and try to emulate what they're doing. And it's okay to keep an eye on them and keep a finger on the pulse of what they're doing and see if it integrates into your business or not. But somebody had taught me one of the best ways to do that is to go people that you really trust, either professionally or personally, and ask them like kind of who do I, who do you think I am, what are my strengths? And not in a you know, tell me who I am and what my worth is as a person. But more of like what? What do you see Like when you're thinking of me?
Speaker 1Cause, when I did that, I was actually a little bit surprised. Some of the resounding things that everybody kind of said and there weren't things of like that came to the top of mind. And then a couple of things are like well, I probably needed to hear that.
Speaker 2Like, maybe that's not who I want to be professionally and pay attention to your own personal body language. When someone says that, like when Rico, if we go to work, come to me, you go hey man, I grew my business through door knocking and I was like, oh, you know, I'm pulling back going. There's no way. Like, yeah, I got no desire to do that. Like I got to identify that and go now, if it's something. Now if Rico is like, oh, I just went out and did a bunch of networking, I'm leaning in, like I love it, I'm all about people and their stories and talking to them and getting to know them. Like, and now I'm in, I'm like, okay, cool, the networking thing works for me. The door knocking I didn't feel very interested in probably not going to work for me, that's going to be a job.
Speaker 3Yeah, Same same. I feel the same way.
Speaker 1But you said something really good there, though, to Dan, because you know Rico says consistency and we laugh because every single gamer that we have on here every week is consistency. There's no more more consistent, I know, than Dan, but we talk about that. Okay, maybe there's something you're not good at, but sometimes you also have to like lick that toe too right, Like you can't just do all the things in your business.
Speaker 3Yeah, you got a higher, yeah, higher, yeah, absolutely Got a higher. I mean there's a lot of moving parts to real estate, like day one I had a TC there was no way I was going to do all that paperwork. Like, bro, that's not me, and the good TC, they're great at it. Bad ass. Like man's a bad ass yeah, and we, and he lives in Florida.
Speaker 1Yeah and listen up. Realtor's like from the lender side, I would rather deal with your awesome TC who has all of our shit or his shit together than you. I mean, you go out and you be the face and you be the real estate person you make the phone calls. But man, a good TC makes everybody happy, absolutely. It's like a great kindergarten teacher, like I'm gonna. I'm gonna give everybody their juice box. I'm gonna make sure everybody sits down on the right color on the mat. We're all gonna play nice.
Speaker 2And.
Speaker 1I know all the rules it's gonna be scheduled.
Speaker 2The kids are gonna stay in line because they know what's coming next. Pretty emails with nice pictures and timelines and dates.
Speaker 1Yeah, I love that man. Well, Dan, we got a question we love to ask.
Speaker 2So we're going to wrap this thing up. Man, I know you're kind of pressed for time. This is our favorite question. We ask everybody, before we conclude every episode, if you could be someone for a day, dead or alive. Who is it, man?
Speaker 3So so that's a that's a deep question. Hell yeah, man, and honestly, if I could be someone for a day, dead or alive, I'd be myself 20 years from now, in the future Future you, okay, 20 years future me Wow, that's who I'd be, even if I'm dead man, because I just went through a quadruple bypass. Oh, man, and for me it's like if I could be myself for a day, 20 years from now, whether I'm dead or alive, I just want to be able to look back because I think it would tell me a lot. Yeah, and they will answer a lot of questions that I have today, questions that I have about the future, questions that I have about real estate, questions that I have about the stock market.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, you want that back to the future.
Speaker 3I was going to say yeah, I know this thing.
Speaker 1This is back to the future too, with Biff and the sports on my neck.
Speaker 2Yeah, his Rico Tana, exactly, Exactly, fly I thought about all the people I could be.
Impressive Real Estate Professional Interview
Speaker 3But the reality is like. I mean, there's a lot of people that you know I come to mind, but for one day I wouldn't learn as much as I would learn from just being me.
Speaker 1Man, you know what? We have not had a shitty answer to that yet on the show. And a lot of these have. Like man, I would never thought of that. Yeah, that's why the question is so great.
Speaker 2Yeah, I stole it from another podcast and I love it. It's so insightful Like I don't think you can trademark a question.
Speaker 1Probably soon. Man, you can leave it up to the NAR, they'll figure it out.
Speaker 3I trademarked Silicon East. That's true. Yeah, yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1Yeah Well, it's been a pleasure. Man, I really look forward to getting to know you better and thank you for coming on the show and a very inspiring, awesome story. If you're looking for real estate or looking for somebody to emulate in your game and working, your try. I didn't think you guys out there especially if you're young, up and coming, and one of the guys, one of the one of the biggest open hearts, just giving people you'll meet in the industry.
Speaker 2I mean everyone we've had on here super approachable. Rico Rico is just he's second to none. He's he's salt of the earth. So check him out.
Speaker 1Thanks, thanks for joining us, guys, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1Absolutely.
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