Episode 206: Matthias DeJongh
On this episode of The Brad and Taylor Show, we sat down with Matthias DeJongh from The Home Source Group!
To watch the full episode, check it out on YouTube below. In the meantime, here’s a transcript of the conversation…
Here’s what you missed from Matthias DeJongh…
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Taylor: Welcome to The Brad and Taylor Show. Today, we have Matthias DeJongh.
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Brad: You’re listening to The Brad and Taylor Show, a podcast that inspires entrepreneurs to pursue their passions. We’re sitting down with some of the best to learn how they got started and some lessons they learned along the way.
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Taylor: Hey, how are you?
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Matthias: How are you guys doing? Good.
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Brad: Of course. Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Well, let’s get the show started. Tell us a little bit about you. What do you do? Where are you located?
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Matthias: Yes, I’m located in South Haven, Michigan. I’m a real estate agent here. I’m with the Home Source Group. We’ve been here now about two years, in real estate for a little bit longer than that. That’s what I do, help people buy and sell houses.
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Brad: Awesome. I like it. So how’d you got into real estate?
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Matthias: Yeah, I have balanced it a little bit, I guess, out of college, I was a high school math teacher out in Denver, Colorado. That was like 2014 to 2016 and I enjoyed that, but I actually moved back to Michigan. My wife’s father is a blueberry farmer and so he kind of gave us the opportunity to maybe, you know, check it out to get over. Anyway, long story short, blueberries have kind of tanked since then. My grandpa has done real estate in Ohio for over 30 years. I’m listed there too. It’s something I’ve always been. And then I think that like growing up, my dad was a professor at college, not to pin this on my dad, but I think that there’s sometimes that kind of you know, in teaching, I see this too, that like, Hey college is the way you got to do things.
00:01:35:06 –> 00:02:20:26
You got to go to college education, got to do something that’s in that field. And I think there’s a lot of power in that, but I think it’s not for everybody. So I think I’ve always been interested in real estate. The reason it took me a while to finally end up there is that I felt like I was kind of pulled towards, you know, that was just kinda the way everyone in my family did. It is to get your education, complete your degree, and then use it in your job. And yeah, so anyways, I think that I’ve always kind of wanted to do it but it just took me a little bit longer to get there because I felt like I was trying not to please my dad, but our family just kind of of, yeah. So I guess that’s how I kinda got into it. I’ve been wanting to do it, finally doing it and loving it for about three years now, and have found some success in it.
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Taylor: So you said you’ve been in South Haven for two years, right?
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Matthias: So we started a brokerage and that started two years ago in South Haven.
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Taylor: Cool. Nice. When you were starting your group over there in South Haven, what’s the first team member you added on?
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Matthias: It was myself and my coworker. Shannon started it up. We added on another awesome realtor, Melanie. She’s been in real estate, uh, police 16, 17 years gonna pull down that she’s fantastic. So she used the first one that’s cheating and I brought it up.
00:03:03:29 –> 00:03:09:14
Brad: Yeah, that’s awesome. What is one of the worst properties you’ve been to or one that you’re like, I’m not going back to that…
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Matthias: Yeah, you’re trying to bring up the prior nine years. I would say the worst property I’ve ever been to. I mean, we see, you know, everything I’ve done. I’ve had a listing at $850,000 and I’ve had a listing at 15K, so we’re trying to go all over the board. So the worst property I’ve personally been in, it was about 18,000 and you signed an MLS and they got you to know, a beautiful home, blah, blah. Then they got the agent-only remarks. And so the agent only remarks, obviously only agents can see in there. It says it has kind of fluffy details only. It’s like be aware when it’s showing, you know, be careful upon entrance, something like that. And basically, the gist is that the steps were kind of bad and stuff like that. So I saw it as like a challenge they’re saying, Yeah, you got to meet some challenge.
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Taylor: Right. And they’d tell you what to be aware of besides the steps or anything, or was there any?
00:04:16:06 –> 00:04:56:15
Matthias: We’re like stop steps and I’m not a big guy, like 175 pounds. And I like to make myself athletic anyways. So yeah, step on the steps going up and kind of like, oh, is it worth my time to go through here? It’s like, yeah, we gotta check it out. Anyway, his left leg goes through the second step. So the first step you’re like, oh, this is pretty good. And then you put all your weight on that was like, we’re off to a bad start. And then I walked in and when I walked in, it was kind of like super lightened there, there weren’t any windows. So I was like, oh, this is so nice. There’s a lot of lighting in here, like a nice skylight or something. So I look up and it’s just a big hole in the roof.
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Yeah. It’s not the kind of skylight I was hoping to see. There are just so many things wrong with the house. And then, obviously, I think one of the biggest issues with the roof goes, then everything kind of starts going. I think that would be good advice to people who are homeowners. If you get water infiltration, especially through your roof, it just messes everything up. So anyway, it was really one of those houses that when you’ve gone through your life to the ground and the lot was small and it was really not much value to walk on the ground and probably sold 5,000. So that was definitely the worst.
00:05:40:20 –> 00:05:43:20
Taylor: Did you end up selling that one?
00:05:46:08 –> 00:06:03:13
Matthias: I was just like, Hey, because they asked me like, you know, the point of the conversation, it’s just like, I don’t know if he’s going to sell it. Good luck to you. And I don’t think it ever did. I just got condemned. I don’t know. I didn’t follow.
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Taylor: Yeah. Were you able to go back in and put the notes in, that realtor area where it says, like, beware, you might fall through the steps or there’s a hole in the ceiling?
00:06:15:17 –> 00:06:58:28
Matthias: Yeah. Now if I were to that, that and much more, but no, no, that was so the way real estate works, right. As he got buying agents and listing agents, the listing agent, you know, works with the sellers, they list the properties and there’s a buying agent, you know, you obviously get someone who’s interested in the property and you go show it to them. So in that case, I was the binding agent. So I have no power over the listing or what could be written in there. I don’t think the listener was doing the wrong. It was just kinda like, man, I don’t know if you know, this is funny. We should feel like and say that everything’s just kind of after walking through it, he’s like, man, I cannot imagine some of mine that’s without the idea of it going to have to be torn down and just rebuilt.
00:06:59:05 –> 00:07:06:00
Taylor: Right. Yeah. Do you have any goals for the rest of this year and kind of going into the next year for you personally or for your group?
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Matthias: Yeah, so I would say for me, I have two young kids. I got 2 months and you’re supposed to know, and your months later, it’s almost two years and it’s like, everyone always labels the monster.
00:07:23:05 –> 00:07:23:21
Taylor: Yeah.
00:07:23:27 –> 00:08:08:23
Matthias: I think it’s 22 months. And if my wife wants, and then we had a four-month-old and so we got a young family I’m 29 30. So anyway, I guess I’m saying all that because I think my first three years have just been really hitting it hard. You know, getting some good traction, having a record year for myself this year, every year proved a little bit. And I think that my main focus for this has really been around building my business. I’m finally getting to the point and I think you’ll like it a lot if you’re interviewing, yawn agents, agents were discontinuing this, one of the struggles, I think when you first start is that you’re working kind of primarily as like a buying agent. And not that that’s a bad thing, but the problem with that is you’re running from listing to listing.
00:08:09:04 –> 00:08:58:07
Prices on houses have gone up. It has gone up in our area 20% since last year and increased. I think it was like 15 to 18% from point 19 to 2020. And then, time on the market decreased. So anyway, that’s insane. All of that when you’re working with people and buyers, you’re running from house to house and finally kind of transitioning where I’m working at a greater percentage of listings. I think I’m about 70% listings this year, where it was like 40% listing, 60% buyers. And so in saying all that, I want to continue to see my listing side grow. I want to obviously work with buyers. I think it gives me more opportunities to kind of find a balance between work and family. And I think that’s one of the great things about the real estate profession, you know, I can make a living, but I can also kind of pick and choose.
00:08:58:07 –> 00:09:38:08
I mean, there are some nights when I get to work really late. I work a lot of hours, but it gives you some more flexibility than a lot of other adults. And so I think one of my goals for this year is to continue to grow my listing inventory and to achieve a good balance between family and work, which I don’t think I’ve done, you know, to be honest with a great job of these first three years, which is you just got to grow your business. So it is what it is. I think our goal as a company since we’re new to South Haven. I think we have a lot that we can offer. Our whole business model is, you know, we’re not pressured that people get nervous about any kind of pressure tech, our tactics they’re salesmen. And our goal is to kind of work with people to achieve what they want on their time schedule.
00:09:38:21 –> 00:10:37:11
So I was just excited to promote our brand Home Source Group. I’m going to be doing a lot of big things here in 2022. COVID through the ranch for everyone, like what would excuse, but we’re supposed to have our building done. It’s kind of like right before 2020 and anyway in drag all the way towards the end of 2020. So that kinda just slowed everything down. I think we’re all excited to kind of take a deep breath and get rocking for 1.2 and really bring a lot to our business. So that’d be my goal, just that I don’t want people asking you, oh, you know, we worked for the whole semester. So we’re getting there. I’d say those are like my two big goals. Less work around family, get a good balance, and then let’s just crush it this year and get our brand outcome.
00:10:37:16 –> 00:10:46:02
Taylor: Definitely. I know you guys mentioned that you have a building. That’s fairly new to you guys too in that area. Where is the building located? Where is your office?
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Matthias: Yeah, it’s on the 73rd. It’s kind of for people who know South Haven, it’s a little bit by Arby’s, kind of on the off-road. It’s cool to partner with a builder. His name’s he does construction, it’s I think, I’m sorry. The name is Visits Construction, the owner of the scoreboard. If you kind of put that together, that was a little redundant, but so anyway, we partnered with him and then, Julie, who does design. So they do like interior design. It’s a really cool partnership because we can kind of handle the real estate side, but we can also answer the questions of like, what kind of staging can we do? And then who do we call? Well, we got to court, so we’re kind of like, I feel like it’s a good partnership. We’re excited if people come through our doors.
00:11:43:06 –> 00:11:45:29
Brad: That’s awesome. I like it. Well, how can people get a hold of you?
00:11:48:11 –> 00:12:12:21
Matthias: Yeah, obviously cell phones, I think I got a Google business page is biased, young, real personality, even if you type that in Google come up. It has my phone number and has all my business information on there. It says I’m open 24 hours a day, which I try and you know, don’t try me at two or 3:00 AM.
00:12:13:29 –> 00:12:18:00
Brad: You’re like, Hey man, I have an idea. You’re like, Hey, maybe up.
00:12:19:07 –> 00:12:41:27
Matthias: Yeah, probably I’ll be rocking a crying baby. But I guess in saying all that definitely, you know, cell phones, all my goal is to answer any text phone, call them 30 minutes to an hour and hold me through that.
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I like it. Awesome. Well, Hey, thanks for coming on and sharing your story with us today.
Hello. Hello. Are you there? Are there, are there, Hey guys, we just wanted to thank you for listening on either a podcast or on the YouTube video here. If you guys wanted to subscribe, that would be awesome. That would mean a lot to us. If you guys could give us a five-star review as well, that would be amazing. And we’ll see you on the next one.
Check out Matthias DeJongh:
The Home Source Croup
www.thehomesourcegroupmi.com/agents/matthias-dejongh/
Facebook: @TheHomeSourceGroupMI
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