Episode 158 Transcript: Kat Gandolfo

On this episode of The Brad and Taylor Show, we have Kat Gandolfo from Remax!

To watch the full episode, check it out on YouTube below. To listen, head over to Apple Podcasts. In the meantime, here’s a transcript of the conversation…

Here’s what you missed from Kat Gandolfo…

00:00:00:15 –> 00:00:15:09

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. 

00:00:16:03 –> 00:00:16:11

Taylor: Hey Kat!

Kat: Hi, how are you?

00:00:17:02 –> 00:00:18:06

Taylor: We’re good. How are you doing?

00:00:18:27 –> 00:00:20:24

Kat: Great. Fantastic. Thanks for having me.

00:00:20:27 –> 00:00:25:00

Brad: Oh yeah, for sure. Awesome. Well, let’s get this started. Tell us a little bit about you. Like, what do you do?

00:00:26:07 –> 00:00:33:08

Kat: I am an agent, just an agent, no broker license yet, but that’s the goal, on the Flanders and Garrett.

00:00:34:06 –> 00:00:36:09

Brad: Nice. How long have you been in real estate then?

00:00:37:12 –> 00:00:56:11

Kat: So I started a couple of years ago. I’m kinda just doing rentals. I let people in to see and do leasing and then I started working with the Flanders and Garret team about a year ago, actually, and then got my license and joined us as an agent.

00:00:56:21 –> 00:01:02:29

Brad: Nice. That’s awesome. So when you were younger, is this what you had planned for your future? 

00:01:04:05 –> 00:01:13:04

Kat: No, so my friend and I were convinced that we were going to own our pet store and basically it was going to be personal pets and then they came in and ruined it for us.

00:01:14:17 –> 00:01:26:03

Brad: Oh man, I’m still at it. So, did you do something else? How’d you get into real estate? Like how did that get into doing the real estate stuff you did previously?

00:01:26:08 –> 00:02:24:25

Kat: Yeah, it’s been kind of a strange transition. I grew up in marketing for years, years, and years, my whole family. My mom did local advertising and handled a lot of local companies. My dad did national advertising and media buying. And then I kind of fell into that. I followed them. I did go to college to be a teacher because I thought that that was where my passion was. I was disheartened by some of the things I saw in teaching and decided just to go and join the family business. I did that for years, you can watch me grow up in commercials. I did media sales for about 10 years nationally, specializing in billboards. I really enjoyed it, but there was no social aspect to it at all. It was e-mails and research. Once in a great while, I got to talk to somebody on the phone, I worked from home, it was kind of lonely.

00:02:25:12 –> 00:03:23:13

My husband at the time started working for the real estate agent that sold us my house doing property management. And I always love looking at houses. I’ve been like a Zillow freak since they first came out, always on Zillow. I just really loved it. I love helping people and working with people. So I started leasing with them and really, really enjoyed it. I decided when I started leasing that I was like, okay, I think I want to be an agent, but I want to explore what it’s really like to be an agent before I just dive in. The marketing background really helps the advertising background, like understanding sales and how to work with people. That was really nice. I just really loved it. I loved working with the people. I like meeting new people and I love taking someone into a home that one person might not think is great.

00:03:23:13 –> 00:03:58:00

To the other person, it’s everything. I can live here. I can have a home. And that feeling of helping someone find a home, I was like, I need to do this every day. I need this to be my everything. It’s addictive, that feeling of helping someone find where they want to live. Like there’s no other feeling like that in the world that I found at least. That was how I got started. A good friend of mine recommended Maggie. I had already taken my class. I started talking to her, met the whole team and it was just fate.

00:03:58:26 –> 00:04:11:14

Taylor: That’s awesome. Take us to your first transaction. I know you did some leasing before, but when you got your license as an agent, how did that first transaction go for you? At that point, you probably already had some experience with what to do.

00:04:11:24 –> 00:05:36:00

Kat: Yeah, yeah. A little bit. It was almost too perfect. It was a random Zillow call. I took the call. They were so nice, just the most understanding and sweetest people we went to. I think they were coming in from out of town. We went out to five houses while they were in town and found one they really liked. We did some negotiating, we wrote an offer and we were told at the time, which was the COVID market, it’s insane trying to get a house. You have to write over and there’s so much competition. There was no competition on the house they wrote for under offer. Like it was ridiculously smooth. At the last minute, somebody came in and sniped it and took it from us but we accepted an active backup. Three days later, we got a call that they got it on an active backpack. And by this time they’d already gone back home so I was able to give them the call that, Hey, you got it after all. They came back for inspections and everything was beautiful. The house was great. It was a really cute, old house in East Lansing. And they just loved it. They loved me and we just had a great relationship and we’re still friends. So it was just amazing how they were the perfect client and I couldn’t have asked for anyone better.

00:05:36:10 –> 00:05:41:23

Taylor: Yeah, and it sounds like all of the negotiating and everything went really smooth for you too. Good first transaction.

00:05:42:02 –> 00:06:03:09

Kat: I’m so thankful for her because she was so kind and I straight up told her, I was like, this is my first transaction. I appreciate you being patient with me. And please let me know if there’s anything that I need to adjust. She was always just incredible. I’ll never forget, Lynn, I will forever remember her and all of her help.

00:06:03:15 –> 00:06:12:11

Taylor: That’s so cool. Good for you. It’s awesome that it worked out that way. Kind of switching the gears here a little bit talked about the positives. What’s the worst property you’ve been to?

00:06:13:24 –> 00:06:56:15

Kat: This is an interesting question because I don’t really look at properties as being bad or good. To every person, there’s something that they’re looking for. So even when a property might be really bad for one person, it could be really great for another. I do work with a lot of investors. So I have been to a lot of very unique properties I could say. I’d say one of the most interesting things I’ve found at a property. I mean, they listed it ahead of time, before walking in, there are bats on the property. I was like, okay, let’s do this. We walked in and you could walk in this back room and there’s a big crack in the wall and you could hear the bats.

00:06:57:11 –> 00:06:58:28

Taylor: They were living in the wall?

00:06:59:10 –> 00:07:17:26

Kat: They were living in the wall and the ceiling. I told the buyer, we don’t know if this is for you, unless you would take on the bats. It’s just that every property has it. If you’re looking for that fixer-upper, it’s a great property.

00:07:17:29 –> 00:07:19:03

Taylor: Did they end up getting it?

00:07:20:10 –> 00:07:20:26

Kat: They did not.

00:07:22:04 –> 00:07:22:25

Taylor: They didn’t want to take out the bats.

00:07:23:28 –> 00:07:25:09

Kat: They bought the house before that one, that didn’t have bats.

00:07:25:23 –> 00:07:32:13

Taylor: Right. I know we kind of mentioned goals when you first started. What are your goals to kind of finish out this year and go into the next one?

00:07:34:25 –> 00:07:59:02

Kat: That’s an interesting question. I mean, I’m sure it’s a really regular question. I’m not the best at setting goals. I’m more looking towards how I can help the next person that calls me. What can I do to be as useful to my community as possible? So I guess my goal for the rest of this year is to help as many families as I can to find the home that they want.

00:08:00:14 –> 00:08:05:04

Brad: That’s awesome. I like it. 

Taylor: How many transactions have you had since you got your license so far?

00:08:06:06 –> 00:08:08:25

Kat: I believe 13. 

00:08:08:25 –> 00:08:11:07

Taylor: Oh, wow. So that’s been in the last year then, right?

00:08:11:29 –> 00:08:45:01

Kat: Yep. When I started, I was still assisting at my son’s school and I just had a hard time letting go. So I finished out the school year with kids that were 18 months to three years old. So seeing them through COVID was pretty special to me. Once the year ended in June, that’s when I went full-time. I was working part-time until June and had probably about three or four transactions in that time so most of my transactions have been since June.

00:08:45:14 –> 00:08:57:05

Taylor: Do you time block at all? How did you kind of transition from what you were doing to the real estate side of it with your time in the day? I know there’s so much to do all the time. How do you do it all?

00:08:58:24 –> 00:10:15:00

Kat: Well, I was really glad when the year was over. I was so busy and I had more and more clients. Right. Do I try to time block? I find that I really like structure, but I’m bad at it because the more structure I have, the more stressed I get. So if I’m doing this at this time and this at this time, then when I get a call and I need to drop everything I’m doing switch. That’s hard for me. So I do a little bit of flying by the seat of my pants and a little bit of time structure. I’ll give you a general idea. I make a list of what I want to achieve that day, but I don’t give a set time because then I’m going to get stressed out if it goes past that time or if I get a call and I need to drop what I’m doing. In real estate, I find that you need to be super flexible and adjust quickly. I just try to have a very vague idea for my day and adjust when it needs to be, because I primarily work with buyers in this market, you have to drop what you’re doing and go. So that’s how I run my life. I run my life like I’m about to drop what I’m doing and go. I had to work on it until I did that.

00:10:15:11 –> 00:10:31:13

Taylor: Yeah. That’s funny. I know that’s probably how a lot of people feel. It’s not just you, I’m sure a lot of people are like this, especially in this market. What’s one thing you would do differently if you could start over with everything that you’ve learned over the past year, what’s one thing you would change?

00:10:33:29 –> 00:10:52:24

Kat: You know, I don’t think I would change a thing. Okay. There’s so much that I’ve learned and every client I’ve worked with, every transaction I’ve had, every agent I’ve talked to, I wouldn’t change it. I’ve loved it all.

00:10:53:05 –> 00:10:56:06

Brad: That’s awesome. What’s your favorite business book you’ve read?

00:10:57:14 –> 00:11:48:29

Kat: That’s a good question. I do not read business books and I am an auditory learner. I also don’t listen to audiobooks. What I do is I listen to Tom Ferry’s podcast and I am a real proponent of conversation. I’d rather have a conversation with somebody, which is where the team I’m on makes such a difference because I can learn from their experience. We do like a weekly sit down and kind of talk and that has been more valuable to me than anything because listening to what they’ve gone through, what they’ve done, how they do it, being able to ask questions and interact. There’s no tapping that. I love every aspect of that. I also have a four-year-old so right now a lot of my reading is children’s literature.

00:11:50:13 –> 00:12:01:11

Taylor: I’m right there with you with that. I’m sure it’s hard to find time in the day, too, when you’ve got so much going on to actually pick up a book and sit down and read one. That would be very time-consuming right now.

00:12:02:10 –> 00:12:28:22

Kat: It is really nice though, because I don’t know how much you guys know about Remax, but they have some really great training programs where you can just type in what it is that you want to learn and how to do it. There are like 10 videos telling you how to do it and giving you a step-by-step. We have great people that we can call that will give us screenshots and walk us through. Here’s how you do this. Here’s how you do that. It’s been amazing having Remax behind me.

00:12:29:22 –> 00:12:33:12

Taylor: That’s awesome. Before we go today, how can everybody get a hold of you?

00:12:34:19 –> 00:12:54:26

Kat: So, you can look me up on Facebook. It’s Kat Gandolfo. Or, give me a call. My phone number is (517) 898-7593. Email me, Google me I’m everywhere.

00:12:55:14 –> 00:13:00:08

Brad: Oh yeah. That’s awesome. Perfect. Hey, thanks for coming on and sharing your story with us today.

00:13:00:26 –> 00:13:05:13

Kat: It was so fantastic meeting both of you. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. 

Check out Kat Gandolfo:

Remax

http://Kathryn-gandolfo.remax-michigan.com/

Facebook: @GandolfoRealEstate

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