K-Curve Case Study: Founder of Lark and Fir Realty Chylese Austin on Growing During the Pandemic
Where some businesses struggled during the pandemic, Chylese Austin and Lark + Fir Realty grew from one broker to 12 during the pandemic. How did she and her team do it? Hear how in this exclusive K-Curve Case Study with Chylese Austin.
Episode Highlights:
01:29 - What was the first moment of the pandemic like for Lark + Fir
04:20 - Use of Zoom to support transactions and educational classes
06:20 - The market dynamics of real estate when COVID hit
07:37 - How Lark + Fir settled after the first 45 days of COVID
12:20 - Building the business and adding brokers during COVID
13:48 - What the market is like currently
18:08 - The typical real estate cycle
23:02 - In-migration from others states into Oregon
24:02 - Which leg of the K-curve Lark + Fir is on
28:49 - Why Chylese started her own broker firm
Resources/Links Mentioned in this episode:
About the Guest
Chylese hails from a small town in Massachusetts and spent a full decade in San Diego after earning a B.A. in French & International Relations from UMass Amherst. Twenty years ago, she chose to make Portland her home because it felt like one
Chylese’s early career in technical sales supporting the semiconductor industry refined her writing and negotiation skills. But after twelve years in corporate sales, she was ready for independence, and was quite simply in love with old houses.
Chylese has proudly built her real estate business from scratch; over ten years, she affiliated with three different brokerages, each of which taught her something important but lacked some measure of adaptability. So, in 2013, she co-founded a brokerage on Portland’s inner east side, which became very successful. After five years, Chylese decided that the west side needed its own locally-grounded and focused alternative. With Lark + Fir®, Chylese provides a holistic approach to both connect with her community and help others find their own path to success, which requires outstanding customer service, up-to-the-moment knowledge, app-saaviness, and creative confidence. These tenets make up her mantra of “concierge services.”
Her other passions include her husband’s solos on the soprano saxophone, promoting bilingual education, walking her dog around Gabriel Park… and finding new ways to keep her tween-aged daughter off the iPad.
Chylese Austin
Owner and Managing Broker
Cell: (503) 703-3303
chylese@larkandfir.com
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: This transcript is automatically generated by Descript. Please excuse any errors.
[00:00:00] Rick Thomas: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. As part of our ongoing series on K curve case studies, I'm excited to introduce today's guest Chylese Austin, founder and principal broker of Lark and Fir real estate in Portland, Oregon. For those that are not familiar with the K curve, and we'd like a little more background, you can find a link to my original blog posts below.
[00:00:19] So I've had the pleasure of knowing Chylese for over 20 years. Having originally hired her back in 2000, when I was running sales and marketing for a manufacturing company, since then, she has certainly made her Mark eventually moving into residential real estate, initially as an individual producer to them partnering and starting a brokerage in 2013 to most recently founding her own brokerage, Lark and Fir real estate in [00:00:45] 2018. As with the others had been interviewed so far about how they have weathered the COVID storm. Chylese's tale of how her business and the market of real estate has responded is truly fascinating. And it underscores just how bizarrely unpredictable business has become in this weird new normal.
[00:01:04] I'm sure you'll enjoy this conversation as much as I have. So without further delay on with the show. As you've had an opportunity to quickly scan kind of the premise of the K curve, and let's set that aside for a moment and just think back a little over a year ago, you know, March 12th. WHO announces a global pandemic.
[00:01:29] What [00:01:30] was the experience that you and the team were having on the ground at L ark and Fir?
[00:01:35] Chylese Austin: [00:01:35] Well, at the time that the the pandemic started in fact on I think the 12th or the 13th, it was a Friday. We had a live music event here at the office and with my husband's jazz trio and you know, as is typical, we invite the businesses that are in the village here and clients you know, of course the brokers themselves and any neighbors, anybody that's kind of tootling around and, you know, here's the music and wants to pop in. And I remember having a discussion about, you know, is this appropriate that we should have this.
[00:02:09]Since there was already social distancing coming up and I mean there was no talk of [00:02:15] masks at that point, of course, but just keeping your distance and washing your hands. And I think largely you know, we kind of shrugged that off in terms of, you know, well, we're going to have the doors open and you know, it's going to be a small gathering, which, you know, they, they, they are, they're certainly not 50 people here when those are going.
[00:02:33] So, you know, we had a nice evening and went home. And the next morning the governor basically shut the state down and called them called off school. And you know, shuttered, shuttered our business. And so, it really was almost like a light switch. And then suddenly, you know, there was a lot of material that you could read about what was going on and it was pretty dramatic and, you know, I, at the [00:03:00] time, you know, we were very small, it was me and there was admin, the licensed admin and one other broker. So you know, it was a small group and You know, we just went to remote. I was still coming into the office, sneaking into the office to work, but even my admin was working from home and it was like that for three months.
[00:03:22] And I do distinctly remember that for about the first six weeks. So probably through April and maybe for sure through April and maybe into the first week of May everything just completely stopped. You know, there was talk about you know, whether people would have to make offers on houses without seeing them and you know, home inspectors, not wanting to go [00:03:45] inside houses or, you know, just a lot of discussion and legal liability around that.
[00:03:49]If you got a COVID and or, or someone in got COVID from a visitor that had been in their home, you know, would you be legally liable for that? And so there was a lot of uncertainty and, and you know, everybody just kind of like had like a froze moment that went on for a few weeks.
[00:04:10]You know, I took the opportunity to adapt to zoom. Pretty much right away. And I got certified to teach a few classes with a couple of different title companies.
[00:04:20]Rick Thomas: [00:04:20] And let me, let me ask real quick. So. Aside from teaching the classes with zoom, were you using zoom to support any transactions or, or [00:04:30] was there not any deal flow at the time?
[00:04:34] Chylese Austin: [00:04:34] Gosh, the deal flow. I mean, things that were already in escrow, just kind of you know, they got forced through the holes, you know, they, they had to happen. People, once they have their home under contract, you know, they, they need to sell and, and buyers that have an accepted offer and have had their home inspections, you know, they, they need to close.
[00:04:52] And so, you know, I remember there was a a couple of weeks of, of jockeying, I guess, at the state level to consider us essential services or essential service providers and you know, honestly it, you know, the, what was already in the hopper had to come out. There were a lot of people that decided to take their house off the if they didn't have it under contract.
[00:05:14][00:05:15] And yeah, there was just You know, kind of what do we do now moment? And I just took it as an opportunity to kind of work on stuff that I never seem to have time for. And we just made the switch to, to virtual and You know, all the title companies really jumped into action with, with offering classes and being supportive and that's just how we rolled for I think, three months.
[00:05:38] Right. um, What would you say the the impact in terms of transaction and, and deals to to your business? In that first three months was,
[00:05:50] In a way it's kind of hard to say because you know, so many people make these decisions to buy a house and even to sell their house without warning.
[00:06:00] [00:06:00] I mean, you have the set of people that you know, okay, I'm gonna accept the job. That means we're moving to Minnesota, you know, and there's that, or they had a scheduled retirement or, you know, they're having another baby and there's no more bedrooms in the house. There's a, those sort of necessity things that you know, like, okay, this is what we're going to do in the next three months, we better get busy.
[00:06:20]That's only probably about 25% of the transactions, right. They're like, honestly, planned out a long time ahead . If I had to guess, I don't know. I'd have to really look at my numbers to give you a hard number, but that would be my gut feel So, you know, about 25% of what I would have sold, you know, it was pushed out.
[00:06:39]I might've had one client or two clients that said, you know, I'm, now [00:06:45] I'm worried about my job. And so I don't want to make a move because if I'm going into more debt or more exposure, I'm not comfortable with that because I, I could, I could get the, the ax. So, or my hours have been cut or the second income in their household was cut.
[00:07:03] And, you know, I think the real complicating thing for a lot of people was the whole childcare aspect of it. anybody with kids under the age of 12, maybe you're lucky enough to have a remote job to start with, but you had to kind of stay home and, and make sure the kids were at least attempting to go to school online.
[00:07:23] Right. And, you know, especially people, I know that with really younger kids it was super challenging. So I was fortunate [00:07:30] that I had one salty 13 year old,
[00:07:37] Rick Thomas: [00:07:37] right? So, so you get past this 90 day, mark, what begins to happen? How does this new normal. How does that begin to settle in for you in the business?
[00:07:50] Chylese Austin: [00:07:50] Yeah, so, you know, as you know, I mean, I really kind of have two jobs, right? So I'm, I'm running a company and the company needs brokers for it to be profitable brokers who pay desk fee income.
[00:08:03] So they're, you know, able, they're bringing in transactions and looking for support and education and training and all that kind of stuff. And you know, a year ago, There was only one [00:08:15] other broker here. So, you know, I was really focused on growing the company and in some ways, you know, the pandemic was very helpful because number one, it forced me to work on things that I, you know, don't take time for, or don't make time for as much as I should, which is sort of that big picture planning and, you know, recruitment and, you know, Getting the word out and getting certified to teach classes for title companies was was a great way to share my experiences and my expertise with the broker community.
[00:08:49] And, it worked, I mean, that's what, how we started to grow. And I think there was a lot of, honestly, within about a month of the pandemic hitting or six weeks, I think a [00:09:00] lot of agents are like, okay, so this looks like, I think it took us all about a month before or more before we realized, like, this is going to be a year.
[00:09:08] Right. Right.
[00:09:09] Rick Thomas: [00:09:09] And let me ask Chylese, on that recruitment piece. So, so you're in a virtual environment. You're doing this remotely. How did you do that recruiting?
[00:09:20] Chylese Austin: [00:09:20] Well, a lot of it had started when I first opened this, this office, right. I knew that the best way to announce the company would be to, you know, have events that would bring in brokers and having had the benefit of my experience.
[00:09:37] You know, co-founding another brokerage, you know, I knew that you know, there's only a certain number of people that we're going to feel [00:09:45] comfortable enough to just show up for an information session or an open house like that, that really didn't work. You had to have something of value and you know, where they could say, look, I'm just here for the thing of value.
[00:09:56] I'm not here. You know, wink, wink to talk about your brokerage or to hear about your brokerage, even though they knew that was going to be. You know, the price they paid. So, so, I was really just wanting to get the word out. And so I had been doing live classes here twice a month for months and months.
[00:10:17] And so, it took what I've learned. One thing I've really learned in the last year. And this is. Partly the, maybe this is associated with the pandemic and maybe it isn't, but it, it takes a while to [00:10:30] recruit people who are not brand new and, you know, see moving brokerages as a pretty big deal.
[00:10:38]And honestly the more they have their act together, the more seriously they take it, which makes sense. Right. Those are the people you want. And, you know, they're a slow burn. And you know, the first people who, who came aboard you know, in fact, almost everybody that has come aboard since June of last year, which is when we started to really, to grow in numbers consistently.
[00:11:03]Or people that had come to the classes the previous year, and even the most recent broker was someone I had met with the month before the pandemic started. And you know, it took [00:11:15] her a full year to say, okay, this is where I want to go. And and she, she came over and so, you know, it's hard to know whether that was really the pandemic or in some ways I think the pandemic might have prolonged that process for them because everybody was, you know, kind of figuring out how to do business. Right. You know, I've had clients, I have clients under contract right now, actually, who I have not met in person. We have only, you know, zoom chatted.
[00:11:45]They don't live here. I have two clients that are under contract now that have not seen the homes that they're buying and for what it's worth, both homes are over a million dollars. So people are making big decisions, [00:12:00] financial decisions now, because I think that. It, this is, this is the new norm.
[00:12:06] And who knows when this is really over with. I mean, just when we started to take a breath, right. Then, you know, India had 300,000 cases in a day and it's not, we have all the variants, you know, I mean, it's
[00:12:20] Rick Thomas: [00:12:20] sure. And I do want to talk about the market because that is something that's extraordinary.
[00:12:27] I don't want to go too fast over this internal piece which is focusing on building the business internally and just to tease the trajectory of what you've been able to build this last year in terms of brokers, where does it stand a year later? How many [00:12:45] brokers do you have on board?
[00:12:45]Chylese Austin: [00:12:45] I have 12.
[00:12:47] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:48] Rick Thomas: [00:12:48] So average to one a month generally.
[00:12:51] Chylese Austin: [00:12:51] Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, there was kind of like a smattering that came on in the summer. And then honestly the rest of them came aboard between December and March. So, so yeah, there was you know, just a couple of periods of little rushes, if you will, or
[00:13:08] Rick Thomas: [00:13:08] it never happens linearly it's it's that always seems to be these series of exponential jumps.
[00:13:15] So, so let's talk about the market then, because that's the part that you couldn't control.
[00:13:21] Chylese Austin: [00:13:21] Right. Right. So, I mean, I think, you know, and I, I knew we were going to talk about this. So I was walking my dog this morning and thinking, okay, how do I [00:13:30] articulate my feeling about it. So, it, and it feels like so long ago, but 11 months ago was May right.
[00:13:37] And may was the beginning of what we still are experiencing 11 months later, which is like. A game of musical chairs from Hell.
[00:13:48] You know, the music stops and there's never enough chairs in on somebody's ass is on the floor. And it's not pretty. And especially if it's your ass on the floor round after round after round. And if you have. You know, cash and you're very flexible about where you want to be.
[00:14:07] And You know, what the place looks like then no problem. Right. But for people that have five or [00:14:15] 10% to put down, which is, you know, super typical, especially in a first-time buyer experience. And when you think of the average sales price being basically half a million dollars now, I mean, you know, that's not a trivial amount of money to have to put down.
[00:14:28] I mean, you basically got to have between 25 and $50,000 minimum to get just your average sales, but your average home here. And you know, when you think about that that's not your average home in Irvington, right? It's not, you know, your average home in Lake Oswego this is
[00:14:49] Rick Thomas: [00:14:49] for those that are not from the Portland area, Irvington is Portland proper.
[00:14:54] Correct. And Lake Oswego is just outside. But both in both very desirable [00:15:00] neighborhoods.
[00:15:00] Chylese Austin: [00:15:00] Yes. Irvington has a lot of historic architecture and it's very close to the, to the downtown area and also is, you know, known for having highly rated public schools. And Lake Oswego is a wealthy suburb of Portland with, with a Lake.
[00:15:15] Right. And a nice mixture of you know, historic sort of grand homes on the Lake and a lot of newer, higher end construction. And so if you want to buy a home in one of those areas, then I would say that the starting price is probably 750 or 800,000 for something not fabulous. Right. So, so anyway, I, I think that in May it was just insane.
[00:15:43] I had four buyers [00:15:45] that just popped out of nowhere, three, three out of the four popped out of nowhere. And You know, finding houses for them was like you know, one of those one of those shows like the amazing race or something like that, the networks have where, you know, people are running to get to the plane to get to the Jeep, to get to the open water dive or whatever they have do.
[00:16:06] Rick Thomas: [00:16:06] Yeah, all that to get to the listing.
[00:16:07]Chylese Austin: [00:16:07] and going into houses, you know, there would be lines of people and everyone is anxious. If we all think about like that experience of going to the grocery store, when this all started and how how stressful it was, it was super stressful.
[00:16:20] And I loved going to the grocery store cause that's always been like my time to sort of vege, you know, and. Not have to be mommy and not [00:16:30] have to be, you know, I don't have real estate conversations in the grocery store and I love to just shop and and just tune out and it, this got taken away from me and it really stressed me out.
[00:16:43] Rick Thomas: [00:16:43] Okay. Just empty shelves to calm your nerves
[00:16:46] Chylese Austin: [00:16:46] that, and just, you know, people weren't there yet. Right. They didn't, you know, they didn't have the dots on the floor and they didn't have, you know, strict protocols about wearing a mask. Wasn't a requirement right away and. You know, it was just it, it was super stressful.
[00:17:01] I mean, there were people that just weren't wearing anything and you know, and then the grocery clerks were stressed out and anyway, it was like that showing houses too. You had people going into houses and they weren't wearing masks. You know, and, you know, [00:17:15] I, I was very tempted to sort of, snitch on a couple of realtors that who were in front of me showing a property and, you know, just flouting the protocols.
[00:17:24]But you know, it just, it was so, It was so it, wasn't fun. Usually touring a house is fun. You know, this felt like, you know, we're going into surgery now, you know, and you're gowning up and you've got your gloves and your hand sanitizer and your gloves and your mask. Right. And your booties and don't touch anything, you know?
[00:17:43] And it was insane, you know? And there was a line of people after you. So you had to like hustle through the house and. Yeah, there's just nothing fun about that.
[00:17:52] Rick Thomas: [00:17:52] So, so this, this wave that, that you said begins to hit in may, this [00:18:00] frenzied, frantic activity and, and when did it let up or has it led up?
[00:18:08] Chylese Austin: [00:18:08] You know, there have been a few periods of I mean, now that I have a person perspective on like last summer or last fall, there was definitely like a wax and wane to it. That was just not like any other summer I'm normally. Summer is once you get through June or July 4th, it, it it slows down usually for most of July and then even more so in August.
[00:18:32] And then it comes back after labor day and that's pretty reliably how, you know, how it goes in real estate. And there was just, there just was no letting up in July. It was like, you [00:18:45] know, They were just trying to make up for April and March for a really long time. The inventory wasn't catching up and you just, we had interest rates at 3% and 2.9 mean some crazy stuff.
[00:19:00]And everybody, I think had this gut reaction, like. Okay. Oh my God. Like interest rates are really low and I'm going to be working from home like forever and, you know. Okay. So I'm just going to, like first it went to the suburbs, right? All the suburbs, the rural suburbs of Portland.
[00:19:16]Those areas started to heat up very quickly. Last summer, all the way down to Salem. And so, you know, that was very unusual that, and of course we had demonstrations, we had black lives matter marches all over the [00:19:30] city and people were fanning out. I think away from that and away from, you know, more expensive Tax situation where they could get more space for the same money and their home values were up and, spiked up I would say by the beginning of June, and we started to see some of these transactions in may closing. So I think there was a, a, like a sort of a gut, you know, like a knee jerk let's. Get out of the city. And and then there just became this sort of there's multiple forces, right? You have a lot of people who, now that the dust has settled a little bit.
[00:20:09] Realize like, okay I want to move to Oregon, right. Or I want to move [00:20:15] away from Oregon. You know, we still have a very high rise over run in Oregon. More parts of Oregon are are now part of what, what are making our numbers good. Then what used to be the case? People were moving to rural parts of Oregon and not the Portland area from, from different States.
[00:20:33] So that, that is up quite a bit.
[00:20:35] Rick Thomas: [00:20:35] And anecdotally Chylese I heard on the news this morning that. The population increase in Oregon was such that we actually gained a congressional seat in the U S Congress because for Oregon, because of the population due to the recent census and one of just a handful in the us.
[00:20:56] Yeah. To your point.
[00:20:58] Chylese Austin: [00:20:58] Yeah. I think there's [00:21:00] still, you know, and I think that some of the people that That the long-term residents here, we're certainly emblematic of the political divide in the country where the Portland area is, you know, leans a lot more liberally and progressively and the rural areas are more conservative and, you know, I've definitely seen those forces.
[00:21:22]It's, it's mellowed a little bit. Thank God. You know, in the last, maybe since the election or since, you know, January 6th you know, there's like this, that reckoning moment where like, okay, we're not going to abandon democracy here. So, you know, let's all just take a beat and try to work together.
[00:21:39] And and so I feel like, you know, it's not as, as much of a powder [00:21:45] keg. But you know, there's still very much, I mean, there's just a lot of movement. There's a lot of people moving. I was reading in the New York times on Sunday. There was an article on, you know, they're speculating on what, what, what the home home buying industry is gonna look like.
[00:21:58]You know, because it's, it's not sustainable where it is and, you know, we can, we can all agree on that. But it's really hard to know when this will. Uh, Bait. You know, I think that interest rates will slowly trickle upward. Like they have been since I dunno, September or something just a little bit, but they're still so low that.
[00:22:19]there's still a really good story for buying. And, you know, you still have a lot of shuffling people shuffling into smaller homes, bigger homes, you know, homes with more yard, [00:22:30] space homes and, you know, districts that have lower taxes. And, and also we have you know, the migration of people coming from other parts of the country.
[00:22:42] And you know, for quality of life reasons or, you know, whatever the attractions are here, that, that, you know, suit their personal interests. So I don't see that just like all of a sudden stopping, I think that has been the general flow since I got my real estate license. And even before that, since certainly since I moved here in 2000,
[00:23:02] Rick Thomas: [00:23:02] Right. Yeah. Yeah. I, I certainly from a lay perspective, what I've observed is while things have certainly got more expensive in the Portland Metro region to buy a home, to live whatnot by West coast [00:23:15] standards. It's small for a big city and it's still pretty inexpensive and businesses are still moving here in just outside of Washougal where I live a California business, announced that they're moving up and they'll bring up a hundred jobs with them and, you know, and, and that kind of stuff is still happening.
[00:23:32] So, so. T to kind of sum then while to your point, it's waxed and waned over the last 12 months, generally the activity has continued. Yeah.
[00:23:42] Chylese Austin: [00:23:42] When I say wax and wane, maybe that's not a good way of describing it. It just they're subtle shifts from, you know, just Unsustainably stressful to moderately stressful.
[00:23:52]
[00:23:52] Rick Thomas: [00:23:52] So instead of having a Prozac day, maybe you'll have a, a bourbon day.
[00:23:58] Chylese Austin: [00:23:58] Yeah, that'd be yeah, two [00:24:00] Tylenol and a whiskey day.
[00:24:03] Rick Thomas: [00:24:03] So bringing this back to the K curve as you look at the the four different paths that. You know, maybe it's too simplistic, but businesses have taken on the K curve.
[00:24:15] Where would you plot? Where would you plot it for Lark and Fir?
[00:24:19] Chylese Austin: [00:24:19] For the company? Well, I think we're very, I think we're very well positioned because you know, and I say this as a realtor and as a business owner people are like sheep and You know, I mean, th th we, we kind of still joke about the fact that even in this market where there's not enough houses, you know, people are hesitant to put an offer in, on a house that's been on the market for more than, you know, five or six days, because they think there's something [00:24:45] wrong with it because they don't already have five offers.
[00:24:47] And that just makes me crazy because there are all kinds of reasons that could be, you know, why that house didn't get offers, but still will get multiple offers. And and so, but you know, once other people want it, then people want it, you know? And so I think similarly as the company has. You know, added a few brokers and has, you know, is now at a size where, you know, you'd certainly could still call us a boutique brokerage.
[00:25:18]You know, we're not tiny and we're starting to put out some you know, some good numbers, some noticeable numbers. We've got a nice balance of people here in terms of ethnic [00:25:30] and linguistic diversity and experience and, and age. You know, I have a 26 year old broker and a 65 year old broker and everything in between.
[00:25:41] So, you know, I'd like to think that that would make it more attractive to a greater range of people and, you know, we're priced on the lower end of the full service brokerage scale and Yeah, in terms of desk fee. And I think we already, the people that are out there that that know the realtors out there that know of us they, they think of the company already as being sort of education forward.
[00:26:05] And that's great. That's a great place to be.
[00:26:08] Rick Thomas: [00:26:08] So, so I'll answer the question for you then which is you know, again, you, the first 90 [00:26:15] days, it, you know, the business took a hit. But then after that, it's, it's been full bore since then.
[00:26:22]Chylese Austin: [00:26:22] I would say that the first 45 days we took a hit and then you know, when I, okay, so total personal metaphor moment here.
[00:26:30]So I grew up in what was rural Massachusetts and my grandfather was a farmer and he had cows and chickens and his land Butted up against where our house was built. So there always cows that weren't very far away. And sometimes I had cousins that were just down the street in a similar location.
[00:26:51] And my cousin, Kathy and I were always like in the fields and exploring, and sometimes we would go all the way to their farm, which was probably a [00:27:00] half a mile. You know of connected fields away and they had a henhouse and henhouse was, you know, was a big hen house. I mean, I don't know whether a thousand chickens in there maybe, you know, they were all in cages, right?
[00:27:14] Yeah. They're all in cages at the end of the day, let's put it that way. They had a way in and out, but then they had, they were all in their cages. And if you went into the hen house, there was like a corridor. That you could walk from one end to the other and the cages were all on either side of you.
[00:27:28] And if you open the door to the hen house and they're all, you know, there's this low egg, and if you yell really loud they would completely shut up and there'd be utter silence for like 12 seconds. [00:27:45] And then they would start you know, clucking really, really, you know, loudly, right. Because they're nervous.
[00:27:51] And then they were all hungry. And I feel like April and April was that, you know, moment or that mid-March was that moment where, you know, somebody stepped in and yelled and everyone just. Stopped and shut up.
[00:28:04] Rick Thomas: [00:28:04] So 12 seconds of silence that took about 45 days.
[00:28:07] Chylese Austin: [00:28:07] That's right. It was just you know, like the proverbial, like barn, doors burst open, and everybody just comes right out.
[00:28:14]It was just an amazing experience and just crazy. It was crazy in the month of may. So, you know, I had. Transactions closing by June, you know, so it was really just the first 45 days that felt like the Twilight [00:28:30] zone.
[00:28:30]Rick Thomas: [00:28:30] So, segwaying a bit. So you started Lark and Fir in 2019.
[00:28:36] Chylese Austin: [00:28:36] Well, the end of 2018.
[00:28:37] Rick Thomas: [00:28:37] Okay. end of 2018. Thank you. Why did you want to start your own brokerage? Cause you've been in this for almost 20 years. If not 20 years. Yeah.
[00:28:47] Chylese Austin: [00:28:47] Pretty close. Yeah. And
[00:28:49] Rick Thomas: [00:28:49] you've been pretty dang successful. As a, as a individual broker, why did you want to start a brokerage?
[00:28:57] Chylese Austin: [00:28:57] Yeah, that was a good question. And one, I know, you know, that I, I grappled with quite a bit I mean, I, I will say if there's one thing I can say for it, it was a very you know, sort of thoughtful.
[00:29:09]I'm, I'm normally very intuitive and I have, I trust my instincts a lot, and [00:29:15] this was not one of those moments. I really felt like I had to think about what do I want. You know, out of the next, maybe the last 10 working years of my life you know, or 12 years and you know, what brings me joy, right?
[00:29:30] What do I, what do I really like about what I do? What, what do I like best? I mean, I like to think that as we get older, one of the only. Fun things about getting older is hopefully you're in a position to, you know, choose what you want to do more and what you like, you know, what you like, hopefully by the time you're 50 and you know, you want to try and do more of those things.
[00:29:50] And I don't just mean, you know, fun things. I mean, work things. And and there's this weird blurring that happens. Or at least it did for me in that, [00:30:00] you know, at some point I realized that work. Was a lot of what I really liked to do. And you know, it's not supposed to be, but what would I do? I, I really get a lot out of personally.
[00:30:11]And so I w I wanted that to continue and having co-founded a brokerage before that it was you know, trying to extract the best parts of that experience. And You know, that necessarily included mentoring people and training people. And, and also hopefully in a small way kind of elevating the profession a little bit.
[00:30:34]I think there's still a ton of misinformation out there about, you know, what realtors do. You know, I'm seeing a lot of comments in social media now about like, [00:30:45] you know, why do I even need a realtor right now? I mean, everything is selling and you know, and there are realtors that, are kind of thoughtlessly putting out statements like, Oh, you know, or telling people I can sell your house in a weekend.
[00:30:57] You know, I could put your house on the market tomorrow and you'll have offers by Sunday. But you know yeah. But are, you know, are you going to maximize that major transaction doing that. And the answer is of course not. And, you know, certainly, you know, the difference of what the real estate agent is paid is something that can easily be made up for, in terms of, you know, pre-marketing preparation at the house and the trades.
[00:31:28] References and [00:31:30] relationships that we have knowing what sells, knowing how to script that and you know, how to put that package together. I think that, you know, there, there are, you know, just like in every profession you have people that are really good at what they do and people that aren't. And I wish that more people would scrutinize who's writing the offer for them because the seller or someone else is paying for that. And so there isn't a lot of attention paid for toward, you know, am I really getting my money's worth from this person? And you have every right to expect that. And you know, it's in your best interest to hire someone who is going to do all those things, to protect you and to advocate for you so that you, you [00:32:15] know, pay as little as possible or in this market that you're successful in getting an offer accepted.
[00:32:20] Right. So, yeah, that's, that's why I'm doing it is because I'm feel pretty strongly about the value that that, that I bring in that other really great. Real estate agents bring to their clients. And if I can, you know, help a few more agents do their job better. And like I said, elevate it to the public and, you know, educate them more about what we do.
[00:32:45]Then I'm happy.
[00:32:47] Rick Thomas: [00:32:47] So in, in a few closing minutes, we have, as you think back on that start what was one big decision that you wish she could have a do-over on? And what was one big decision that, [00:33:00] that you can think of is like, you know, what that was the right decision to make.
[00:33:05] Chylese Austin: [00:33:05] Yeah. The do over. I'm not sure how to answer that question, honestly. I'd spent a lot of time worrying about where the company was, is going to be and You know, maybe I was a little too hung up on, on that. And you know, that was a distraction. And then, I think just focusing a little more consistently on, the recruitment aspect of it.
[00:33:31]Once the, the walls were up and the website was up and, you know, knew where it was going to be But, you know, it kind of feels like even if some days feel like one step forward and two steps back, there's still this continuous [00:33:45] momentum forward. And and even the decisions I made that were like, well, that was, you know, was that really the right decision?
[00:33:53] I don't know. It's so hard to know. Cause I feel like there have been good things that have come out of even some of the questionable decisions. So yeah, it's really hard to go back and think, what would I have done differently that would have been made, made it more successful?
[00:34:10] Rick Thomas: [00:34:10] Well, I heard a pretty clear answer for you Chylese, if, if you didn't hear yourself say it and, and, and that is and, and you're not alone here by the way. Because I've certainly experienced this. And almost every client that I have is experienced this in, in, in running a business is as they look back, [00:34:30] they realize I spent way too much time worrying about whether this was going to work and not just relying enough on the fact that all the experience that you have in this industry and the fact that you've been successful to date.
[00:34:44]You're already successful. Now you just got to focus on the mechanics in terms of the timing of it.
[00:34:52]Chylese Austin: [00:34:52] Thank you. I mean, there's some truth to that, you know, that's that having had that experience or that success is, you know, at the, at the core of what, you know, propels you forward. Right. And and helps you make, you know, decent decisions.
[00:35:05]But it, but, you know, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that, that. Yeah, owning a brokerage is, is a different animal from selling real estate. They're not a hundred percent different. They're, they're tied together more [00:35:15] than I wish they were.
[00:35:16] Rick Thomas: [00:35:16] Maybe that's another podcast discussion.
[00:35:18] Chylese Austin: [00:35:18] I know it's like modeling that, that behavior of being a good broker and then being a good managing broker.
[00:35:27] Yeah. It's, there's a blurry place there and yeah. Anyway,
[00:35:32] Rick Thomas: [00:35:32] to summarize then, was there any decision that you look back and go, okay. Yeah, that was the right decision. I'm glad I did that.
[00:35:39]Chylese Austin: [00:35:39] Yeah. Well, certainly having that, just sticking with the in-person classes. Even though, you know, it wasn't like at the, at the end, you know, when people have book signings and there's like a line of people that want to sign, you know, can you sign my book?
[00:35:53] I certainly didn't have that experience.
[00:35:57]not that I really hoped that I would have that [00:36:00] experience, but I think I thought that like, you know, at the, I was kind of hoping at the end of every other class there'd be somebody who's like, I want to learn more about the company and it's just, that's just not how it rolls, you know, it's harder than that.
[00:36:14] And, but. It did. I mean, it was just you know, even I, and I was still surprised by it even until like maybe the end of the first quarter this year, when I realized like, Hey, you know, the last three people who've come to work here were people that were coming to these classes before the pandemic, because we didn't have any, you know, you could say, well, no, they came to some classes during the pandemic, but everything was virtual, you know, that was, they, they kinda stayed [00:36:45] interested is kind of how I look at it.
[00:36:46] And honestly there's like at least a dozen or 15 brokers that whose names I see on the list of people on the call, you know, on the class over and over again. And I'm like, okay, I just need to take the time to connect with them personally and, you know, tell them, I want them, as my husband says, you gotta tell him you want them and you know, he's right.
[00:37:09]So, yeah, I mean all things in, in good time, but, but I'm glad that I did that and that I stuck with it because, you know, with the, the last brokerage the first, the co the co-founded brokerage, you know, that was something that we thought of right away, but it didn't, it didn't work. And I think that had to do [00:37:30] with the location of the company and the culture at that time.
[00:37:34]You know, and what was happening with independent brokerages, I think in particular, at that time on the East side And just what the agents that were willing to come to those sessions that lived in the neighborhood were not people we wanted they weren't people selling real estate really.
[00:37:54]You know, and so, but with this, I just said, you know, I have to give it I have to give it that shot. And because I knew culturally it was different over here and I just hoped that it would be different in a way that would be, you know, conducive to that being working. And it worked better than I hoped, you know, but I'm just glad I stuck with it.
[00:38:14] Rick Thomas: [00:38:14] Cool, [00:38:15] on that note, Chylese, we'll wrap it up and, and I'll let you get back to the mayhem.
[00:38:22] Chylese Austin: [00:38:22] The Merry-Go-Round musical chairs.
[00:38:25] Rick Thomas: [00:38:25] This is good, great Chylese. And, and I had no doubt that. At the chicken coop is going to be stuck in my mind as an analogy for quite a while. I think that's perfect. For anybody that's interested, they can find you certainly on the web at larkandfir.com
[00:38:41] yes. Or assuming you're on Instagram,
[00:38:45] Chylese Austin: [00:38:45] on Instagram. Yep. Larkandfir, very simple.
[00:38:50] Rick Thomas: [00:38:50] Or certainly contact you directly and it Chylese@larkandfir.com. All right. I got that. You got that [00:39:00] plugged in. So great. This has been perfect. Thank you. And to your continued success here.
