Episode 213: Leila Modetz
On this episode of The Brad and Taylor Show, we sat down with Leila Modetz from eXp Realty!
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 Leila Modetz…
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Taylor: Welcome to The Brad and Taylor Show. Today we have Leila Modetz.
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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.
Taylor: Hey, how are you?
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Leila: I’m great. How are you guys?
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Brad: We’re good. We’re doing good. Well, let’s get this show started. Tell us a little bit about you. What do you do?
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Leila: I am a residential realtor. I’m licensed here in Michigan and I’m also licensed in Florida.
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Brad: Awesome. So when you were younger, was this what you had planned for your future?
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Leila: No, to be honest, I think if not every month, every year I would, you know, decide, oh, I’m going to be this. I’m going to be this when I grow up, but never a realtor. That’s not what I thought I was going to do.
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Brad: How did you get into real estate?
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Leila: I’ve had a lot of jobs. I went to college. I have a degree in accounting. I did that for 10 years. I had my own business and it just was not fulfilling, like sitting on the other side of the computer crunching numbers all day, having no customer interaction. And I’m like, this is not for me, but the business mind, the accounting mind, I would always like to analyze other businesses and I’d come home with my husband, say, oh, I’m thinking about this. He’s very supportive. And then like, Hmm, this doesn’t make sense. Like when you figure how many hours you’re going to put in and how much money you had to put in and like no business model made a lot of sense. I was like, I’d love to own an ice cream shop. Goodness, gracious. How many scoops of ice cream do you have to sell a day though? Like, make this work. That’s not going to happen. So on a whim one day I said, you know what, I’m going to get my real estate license. That’s how it happened. And my husband said, okay, go for it.
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Brad: Here you go.
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Taylor: Awesome. Yeah. When you switched over from the accounting side to real estate, did you just jump full into real estate or did you kind of do part-time until you got used to it or how’d that work for you? How’s that transition?
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Leila: So luckily at the time I had wrapped up most of my accounting business. I only had one client, a local brewery here in Oxford. I was part-time so I decided I wanted to get my license. I researched it. There was a real estate school in Flint. So I signed up to go in person. I went Monday through Friday, banged out the 40 hours. I studied all weekend. I walked in on Monday to the state exam, took it, passed it, got licensed, and jumped right in full-time.
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Brad: That’s awesome. So how’d you got that first transaction? How did you get it?
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Leila: Oh, my first year was actually, this is a good one. So it was a family property. It was on her son’s island. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with Parsons island, but it’s a cool little island. You have to drive your car onto the ferry to get there. Anyway, my family had this house, but everybody was working and nobody was really using it. So everybody else was using it. It didn’t make sense. So two other realtors had tried to sell the property. And when I got licensed, my family members said, well, if you want, you can sell it. No one’s been able to sell it before. So my first listing was a $1.3 million house on her son’s island and I hustled and I got that thing sold and just kept on going.
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Brad: That’s pretty good.
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Taylor: How did your second leads go from there? Did they come pretty naturally after that? Or did it take some time for those other ones to come in?
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Leila: Yeah, so I would say most of my leads are friends and family. I’m from Florida originally. So most of my friends and family are in Florida, which is why I got that license there for the summer. But my husband grew up here in the Rochester area and his family owns businesses in Oakland county and become a county area. And, you know, they just have been very involved in the community. And my husband’s friends are all pretty much here that he grew up with and just word of mouth and hustle and people knowing like, okay, she’s a businesswoman. You know customer service has always been my thing, like full service. I kind of consider myself, like, if you’re going to pick an airline, if you’re going to fly spirit, you know what you’re going to get with spirit nickeled and dimed and have a horrible time, or you can like pay the premium and go on Delta and like get the full-service package. So that’s my approach to real estate. And it’s totally paid off because it’s just referrals and word of mouth and friends and family knowing I’m going to do a good job.
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Taylor: That’s awesome. Yeah. When you first started out in real estate, were you on a team, or did you just jump in solo?
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Leila: Nope. I’ve been a solo agent from the get-go.
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Taylor: Nice. I can’t believe your first listing was 1.3. That’s amazing.
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Brad: Well, speaking of that, since you went from the 1.3, what is the worst property you’ve been to or showing?
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Leila: Yeah, so I have a couple of clients that are investors. So when you get into the investor realm of things, I mean, you’re walking into houses that have holes on the floor. I’ve seen poop on the walls. It’s just like, you know, even if you don’t need a mask, you’re covering your face up and you’re using your flashlight to walk through and you’re not leaving your client’s side and doing your best to walk through it and then get the heck out of there.
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Taylor: That’s crazy. Have you ever been to an investment property alone?
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Leila: So, okay. There’s this old church in downtown Lapeer that someone converted into a house. And I was like, oh my goodness. I was listing a property, not too far down the road. And I just saw it when I was running constantly. I want to see this thing. It’s super amazing. So I had a showing schedule and I parked my car and you had to like to go around the building. It was really, and I heard men talking and I was like, I put the code in the lockbox and I went to open the door and I’m like, no, like the hair on the back of my neck was standing up. I was like, okay, I’m going to lock this. And I’m going to bring a friend for him back with me.
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Taylor: I know you never know what you’re walking into with those investment properties. That’s why I want to ask you that. Just because it’s, you don’t know what you’re walking into.
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Leila: You don’t know. I don’t really see too much of this by myself. I wait for my client to arrive. I’ve never had such an incident. I know other women, you know, have a license to carry or have pepper spray or something like that. I don’t have any of that. I probably should, but I always try them.
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Brad: Oh, that’s too funny. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They are. They’re having some fun over there. What are some of your goals for 2022?
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Taylor: It’s an arcade though, right? So what are you going to do? We can’t stop them from having a good time. I hope they’re winning over there.
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Leila: Oh my goodness. I think we’re going to hear it one more time too. My goals for 2022. So when I started…
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Brad: It’s all right. When you start talking.
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Taylor: No, it’s like perfect timing.
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Leila: Okay. So goals for 2022. When I first started, I was with Century 21 and in April of 2021, I switched to exp Realty because they have, I don’t know if you guys are familiar with the brokerage, but the level of revenue streams is just incredible there. And given my business background, I thought, well, this makes sense. So I’ve tested it out just as being a solo agent there for 2021, building my normal revenue stream through selling houses. And I brought on two agents to join me. I just wanted to make sure I understood the business model and that everything they had to offer was true before kind of jumping all in to tell everybody else about it. So in 2022, I will still grow my production, but I’m definitely going to work on growing the agents that I have in my group at exp. So those two are probably my biggest focus. And then I have a 10-year-old and she decided she wanted to start a slime company. And that’s on my 2022 business plan to help her grow her slime company. Cause I think that’s pretty badass when your ten-year-old is like, I want to start a business. So got to go all-in on that too.
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Taylor: You’re going to have to let us know once you guys get that up and going, I’ve got kids myself and so does Brad. So we’re going to need to interview. You have to need to get some slime and some interviews go in.
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Leila: Love that!
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Taylor: Promote her business.
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Brad: You totally get that. Does she have a website? Does she have a website yet?
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Leila: I’m great. It’s like we’re going to build it all out. I’m going to have a website for Instagram, the town. She’s going to have a YouTube channel. Like the whole thing, everything I shouldn’t be doing, I’m probably going to go all-in on hers before I do it on my own.
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Taylor: That’s awesome. Yes. You’re definitely going to have to let us know when this is up and going and we will get her on the show.
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Leila: She’s going to be so stoked when I tell her this.
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Taylor: First ten-year-old that we’re going to interview. If you could start over today with all the knowledge that you’ve learned in the four years that you’ve been in real estate, what’s one thing that you would do differently?
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Leila: I would’ve made this switch to exp sooner. I say that, because I sat on the sidelines for a year watching two women grow there and I was like, okay, finally, I’m going to join them. And so I did. And then I sat on the sidelines for basically another year, making sure like, you know, everything they said was true. So if I could go back, honestly, if I could go back, I think the biggest thing our industry is lacking is education on what it truly means to be a realtor. You know you go to real estate school, it’s 40 hours. They don’t tell you you’re running your own business. There’s a lot that goes into it. You know, they don’t explain to you how the commission structure really works, how franchise fees work, how marketing works.
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There’s so much that goes into it. If I could go back to the beginning, I would have done more research on how the entire industry worked and just know that going in. I would have probably made some different decisions. So I think that my goal is just to educate because people have no idea. You know, they interview at one or two brokerages. They go with one of them. They have no idea what it really means. They work really hard. They sell their first house and then they look at their paycheck and they’re like, what? Like where did it all go?
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Taylor: Yeah. Do you have any business books or anything that you could recommend to a new client coming on or a new agent that’s joining? I know you said you wanted to kind of grow your group and this next year coming, what’s something that you could recommend to those new agents?
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Leila: When I started, I just started listening to podcasts and YouTube videos and just connecting with other realtors who had been in the business for a long time. And I think it’s important because it’s such a unique business where I mean, every person is different. So every realtor is different and I say, figure out what other people are doing and then go with what works best for you. You know, I hear it all the time, people do cold calling. Maybe I just like it, I’ve tried that recently. I just tried an online news source. That’s sending me leads and that’s not my personality style, you know? So I’d figure out what your personality style is, what lead source is going to work best for you, and do that. So, you know, find that and then start listening to podcasts as realtors we’re in the car all the time. I don’t have time to, sit down and open up a book and read but I can listen to a podcast. So this past weekend, when I was in Florida, I was driving back and forth from Fort Lauderdale to Lakewood. And I’m just going to pull up my podcast here until you hear what I was listening to.
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So there’s one called the social bamboo, it’s social media marketing. And he poops quite often, but it’s basically just keeping up with what Instagram is doing or what other social media platforms are doing. So I think that’s our biggest thing is this, you know, social media. So I would say listen to a podcast on that and some people on there. I also like listening to CEO school. Let’s see if there are any other ones. Those are probably the main two that I listen to.
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Brad: Nice. Awesome. I like it. So how can people get ahold of you?
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Leila: I have a website that’s modetzrealestate.com. I’m on Instagram @leilamodetzrealestate. I’m on Facebook, my personal page on Facebook. If you want to know more about me as an individual Leila Taguri, that’s my maiden name. T A G U R I, I also have a Facebook page made. That’s real estate. If you Google me Leila Modetz, you’ll see me there too. It’ll direct you to my website. You can see my reviews and then my cell phone number. If anybody wants, that is 8 6 3 5 2 8 9 3 9 0.
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Brad: Awesome. Oh, perfect. Hey, thanks for coming on and sharing your story with us today.
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Leila: Yes. Thank you for having me. I’m so excited.
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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 Leila Modetz:
www.modetzrealestate.com/
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