Episode 228: Kate Clemons
On this episode of The Brad and Taylor Show, we sat down with Kate Clemons from Berkshire Hathaway Home Services!
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 Kate Clemons…
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Taylor: Welcome to The Brad and Taylor Show. Today, we have Kate Clemons.
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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 Kate.
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Kate: How are you doing? I’m great. Thank you so much for having me.
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Brad: Of course. Yeah. For sure. Well, let’s this show started. Tell us a little bit about you where you’re located and what do you do?
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Kate: Okay, great. So I’m Kate Clemons and I am a real estate agent here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I work for Berkshire Hathaway out of the Mount Lebanon office. A little bit. Do you want a little about myself? Is that what you said? Yeah. Why not? Yeah. Okay, great. I am 28 years old. I live with my boyfriend and our beautiful rescue dog. And let’s see, you’re going to find it this out, but I’ve lived many lives. I do a lot of things, and I really enjoy doing all of the things, because I don’t like to sit still. So I am a trained opera singer as well. I have two degrees in music. I have two degrees in music and I’m not really using them at the moment, but that’s okay. , you know, life kind of ebbs and flows, so we’ll see where it takes me. I also have a bread business with my boyfriend. We make wonderful sourdough bread and I sell it nicely. I don’t know what else you would need to know right now.
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Brad: That’s perfect.
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Taylor: So I wear many hats.
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Kate: I really do. I prefer to do that rather than just have one job. That’s maybe like the same every single day. And that’s why I really like real estate. Cause it’s not the same every day. Right? Yeah.
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Brad: So true. So let’s back it up a little bit. What’d you want to do, what was the first thing you wanted to do when you were younger?
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Kate: So, honestly, I think I always wanted to be a singer. Apparently, I was singing before I could really speak full sentences as a child. And one time, one of my family members was like, that’s like, she’s good. She’s singing on pitch. And my mom was like, okay, well, we should probably get her into this. So honestly, I had always wanted to be a singer growing up. Yeah. Okay.
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Brad: That’s awesome. So how’d you get into real estate? Like where did that fit in?
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Kate: Do you, I mean, what version do you want? I can give you long or short.
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Brad: We want to know the details.
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Kate: Cool. So I am from upstate New York and in like, like a very rural area. My boyfriend and I moved here to Pittsburgh in April of 2020. So at the height of the pandemic and be like before we really knew what was going on with COVID. , and when I moved here, honestly, real estate was not even on my wavelength. I wasn’t really even thinking that that was something that I might want to do but with the pandemic and I had done a lot of work in restaurants and foodservice and it just kind of didn’t feel right to go all the way back to it and be a waitress. It just with COVID being unpredictable, it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. And I knew some people that were real estate agents, and I started thinking about it and I was like, well, I could do this.
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I think I could do this. I love people. I love talking to people. I think I can sell stuff. So let’s see what happens. So I took the two and a half week expedited licensing class. I don’t know if I recommend it. It was a lot, I’m not going to lie to you. Normally people take about six months and I did it in two and a half weeks. , pass my tests, got signed up with Berkshire Hathaway, and got started. And I really found success this year in 2021 and the latter half of this year. And now it just feels like so natural and I mean, but it’s, it’s so unpredictable and there’s new stuff every day. So that’s why I really love it, but yeah, that’s kind of how I got started.
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Brad: I like it. So did you start on a team or do you start a solo? So how did, how did you get those first clients and like, tell us about that.
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Kate: So I started solo for a little bit, and I kind of worked with a couple of different people, trying out some different teams, and some just weren’t for me. Until I found the bar baker team out of my office in Mount Lebanon with Berkshire Hathaway, Barb has there’s about nine or 10 of us on the team, I think. And all of us combined have over a hundred years of experience. , I met bar when I first became an agent. I started doing open houses for her. That’s one of the main things that you do, you know, when you first become an agent is just do as many open houses as you can to try and find some clients. And Barb always had all the listings. So I would just text her and be like, Hey, do you need an open house?
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Hey, do you need an open house? And she really liked that, that I was always like trying to, you know, do business. So I joined her team in February of 2021. And the resources that we have are just, I mean, so irreplaceable and the people that we have on the team are all irreplaceable and just having support and having nine different people that I can call. If I have a question, it means the world. I mean, I’ve had my license for a year and a half or so, and I definitely know quite a bit now. I definitely feel like a real estate agent now. Whereas like the first six months you don’t, you don’t know what’s going on. Am I right? So I definitely feel like a real estate agent now, but I apologize if you hear my dog. Hang on one second. I’m so sorry. So sorry. So anyway, so having, you know, nine different people that I can call at any time if I have a question is huge. I have a lot of different, you know, backgrounds and experiences that I’m able to pull from. And that’s just, like I said, totally irreplaceable.
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Taylor: Yeah, for sure. Did you get any advice maybe from any one of your team members or Barb, herself who helped you out when you first started that maybe just stuck with you?
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Kate: You know, I mean, how many people say fake it til you make it? Like, all of them are surprised.
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Taylor: We haven’t heard that one too often. Oh my.
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Kate: Yes. I mean, fake it til you make it definitely is one. I don’t know how much I really advise faking it until you make it because, in real estate, you really need to know. So you take it to someone, you know, a client, and then in the behind-the-scenes be making all these frantic phone calls, trying to find the answer. And that’s kind of definitely a big thing that I have learned from Barb, herself. She’s just so cool and calm and collected. And she might not necessarily feel that way, but her clients always trust her. And I like to think that mine feels the same way that I’m taking care of them because I like to say like, you know, let me handle it. You know, I got it. And then do the behind-the-scenes work of like, oh my God. , but fake it til you make it. Definitely. And another thing is those nice cars are overrated is what the bar baker told me because, you know, everyone always says, realtors, need, like, you have to have a fancy car. You have to have a nice car. And she’s like, no, you just have to, like, they’re not going to care. If you have a nice car, you have to do like good business.
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Yeah. That’s what matters, you know? So it’s nice to have that kind of perspective too, in a mentor rather than, you know, someone who’s, who’s really focused on image. Yeah,
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Taylor: For sure. For sure. What is the worst property you’re showing you’ve been to?
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Kate: Okay. I saw that question and I was very excited to answer. Well, it was October 2020, and someone sent me a link. A client of mine sent me a link for sale by the owner. And it was my first for sale by the owner that I was going to show. So I contact the owner and I’m like, you know, Hey, whatever I’m going to, I want to show this place. And he said, okay, there’s tenants living there and they’re going to have to let you in. And so here’s the tenant’s number, text this person and they can let you in. Okay, no problem. So I did, I get there and the woman says to me, well, you can’t go in the basement. And I was like, well, okay, red flag. Right. I know red flag. So sometimes people like to leave their pets in the basement for a showing or something. Cause they don’t want them to freak out. So I was like, oh, okay, that’s fine. What’s going on? She said, well, there’s three inches of raw sewage in the basement.
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Taylor: No. And they were living there?
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Kate: And so I was like, oh, oh, does your inboard? No. And she said, yes, he knows. And I was like, and he’s not doing anything about it. And she said, well, you know, we haven’t, it’s COVID we haven’t been able to pay rent. So he won’t fix it unless we pay rent, which was just like a very sad and terrible situation and very uncomfortable for all of us involved. I actually ended up trying to give them some advice about something that they could possibly do to get that fixed, given that it’s such a crazy health hazard, but anytime I go into a basement now, and it doesn’t have three inches of raw sewage.
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Taylor: It was crazy. Did you end up selling that one?
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Kate: No. Oh my God. No, absolutely not. It was too far gone and I, they, it was it’s right up the street from where I live actually. So I often think about it, but okay.
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Taylor: But I forgot fixed right away or I don’t know. That’s crazy. I know the crappy situation to be in
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Kate: Crappy, really crappy
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Taylor: Unintended. So it kind of goes to coming up for 2022.
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Kate: So 2021, I did 10 transactions and just almost $3 million in gross sales, which I feel pretty good about, you haven’t, you know, I’m a newer agent and in 2022, I would like to do 20, I think, 20 homes, 20 sales. I don’t necessarily have a number for gross sales or anything like that in mind, but ideally I’d like to do two closings a month, so we will see what happens there. And that’s, that’s where I’m going to focus. That’s awesome. For 2022. And I think that that will get me somewhere, you know, further than where I am now.
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Taylor: Yeah. It sounds like your first year went really, really good for you too.
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Kate: That’s awesome. I’m very lucky. And you know, it was kind of a tough start when you get thrown into real estate. I was in a new, you know, city. I mean, I had just moved here like four months prior, so I really didn’t have a sphere of influence. So I had all these obstacles that I had to overcome and somehow I just did it and I’m just going to keep doing it until I can’t so
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Taylor: Nice with all the knowledge that you’ve learned in the last year and a half. What’s one thing that you would do differently. If you could start over,
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Kate: I would have had more money in my savings account. If I could have people don’t talk about it. , you know, real estate is great, is a great business, obviously, and it’s really lucrative and it can be really lucrative for those that do it full time. But one thing that we don’t talk about is how to like be a new agent it’s really difficult. And another thing that we don’t talk about is that you should have, I would say at least 5,000 in savings to get you started for the first three months of being an agent. So many stuff that fees, and it truly is like starting a business. So it’s not something that you can really do lightly or oh, I think I’m going to try this on.
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Taylor: A whim. Yeah.
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Kate: Yeah. You can’t really do that and it worked out, but I don’t recommend it. So yeah, I would say, you know, if anybody is listening and is thinking about becoming an agent, you shouldn’t have a good amount in your savings first, just so that you’re not, you know, eating ramen every night.
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Taylor: Yeah, definitely. I know you got to have that backup. So you and Casey don’t get a sale right away.
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Kate: I mean, you might not, it’s not a big deal. It took me a while to get my first sale. And it was really difficult. So some people, it can be a month, some people at six months. So you really want to make sure that you have something that you can live and be okay, with a cause you don’t want to, you know, totally wipe yourself out by becoming an agent. I don’t recommend that. Right.
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Taylor: I think that’s where the burnout comes to.
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Kate: I think so too, because you’re just so well, I mean, I lived it, you’re just so desperate to like make a sale and make this work. And unfortunately, people can sense that sometimes. So if you’re a little less desperate on have saved, probably going to benefit you in many ways
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Taylor: Before we go today, Kate, how can people get ahold of you?
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Kate: Okay. Yeah. So you can find me on social media. I’m on Instagram. I am at Kate Clemens underscore real estate. I’m on Facebook. You can just search my name, Kate Clemens. , my last name is C lemons like the fruit, you can also, those are my main forms of social media. , you can also email me any time. I don’t know if you want me to share that. Okay, great. So my email is my name, Kate K A T E at Barbara Baker, team.com. And should you have any questions about becoming an agent? My team is hiring too. We’re always looking for, for some agents that have a little bit of experience, but that would benefit from being on a team. So anyone’s listening and thinking about that. That’s something to consider as well. So any, you know, I’m always happy to chat real estate, always happy to chat food and music as well.
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Brad: Awesome. Hey, thanks for coming on and sharing your story with us today.
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Kate: Thank you so much, guys.
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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 Kate Clemons:
Berkshire Hathaway Home Services
https://kateclemons.thepreferredrealty.com/
Facebook: @kate.clemons.5
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