Inside Real Estate: The Broker’s Role in Building the Future

A gentleman from Poland.
He was looking for work and I was trying to figure out what to do with my life.
So we got a Better Homes in Garden handbook and we started renovating a little cabin.
We didn't know what we were doing.
Hi, I'm Ravo Zeri and welcome to How Much Can I Make.
I am a curious journalist, fascinated by what people do for a living, what their jobs are really like, and how much they can earn.
Join me as we dive into stories behind careers, uncovering insights and details, which I hope you'll find as intriguing as I do.
So let's get started.
Today we're talking to a real estate broker, Cree from the McCree Group.
It's her company.
So if you want to get into the real estate business and eventually become a broker, let's find out what it takes.
Thanks, Cree, for being with us, and let's dive right in by telling us how you get into the business.
I really started in Los Angeles building with a company that's similar to uh Habitat for Humanity.
In South Central, we would build houses, and I wasn't a contractor, but I volunteer a helper of sorts.
Also, I was going down to Mexico with a group from my university, UC Irvine.
What did you study at university?
Biology.
Oh not none-related.
No, it was I secretly got a degree in anthropology because my father wanted a doctor, and I didn't want to be a doctor, but I was afraid to tell him.
So I got a degree.
As you do when you're 18, 20 years old.
Right.
So we were uh building shelters down there, and I really got a feel for that.
After I graduated, uh I worked for Gay and Lesbian Center.
It was just a gay center back then, but I worked for them doing nonprofit work, uh, a lot of housing advocacy, things like that.
So I applied to NYU when I was in Los Angeles for a degree in urban planning.
I got a scholarship, a free ride to go to grad school there at the Wagner School.
Because it was free, I took advantage and took a ton of courses, enough to nearly get a degree in the real estate school.
So I knew that urban planning wasn't a way to really make money so much, but to do good and then concurrently I learned the finance and development side there.
So it was clear to you then that you want to stay in the real estate business?
Yes, but not as a broker.
I that was never on my in my purview.
Right, exactly.
So how did you become a broker?
I started temping and worked for a bunch of different companies, uh, finance companies, because I was thinking I might want to get into finance, but women didn't look very happy there, so I thought I would just continue on a different path.
Uh but I found one really great company that handled very they were business managers, they handled portfolios of real estate developers, celebrities, different folks, and I learned a lot and I was able to utilize what I knew at those companies.
But from what I know, you have to be an agent before you become a broker.
So were you an agent before, just doing sales?
No, I had my my master's degree uh and then in urban planning, and I had taken not quite enough for a master's in real estate at NYU.
I think I'm short a couple classes, but it was enough for New York State to allow me to take the test for a broker.
Additionally, I had with a partner of mine had done some leasing and such.
So, but to dial back a little bit before I got my license there, I had worked in the World Trade Center.
Obviously, we know that wasn't a good situation.
After that, I lost my job, came up to Ulster County Woodstock, and bought a property.
I had nothing to do.
I had lost my job.
You lost it because of 9-11.
Because of 9-11.
And with a gentleman from Poland, and he was looking for work, and I was trying to figure out what to do with my life.
So we got Better Homes in Garden Handbook and we started renovating a little cabin.
We didn't know what we were doing.
It took us maybe four or five hours to take down a tiny tree because we didn't know you had to cut both sides.
We were just cutting one side.
So, what happens when you get a couple people with master's degrees trying to do the trades?
But eventually we learned and kept learning, and we had our first little rental.
I had hired Taran Realty to represent us in a sale of one of the properties, and I wasn't really uh liking the way we were represented.
So I applied for my broker's license.
Oh, I I want to back up a second.
What is the difference between a broker and an agent?
Generally, you're a broker, you're an agent first for at least two years, and you have to have a certain number of transactions, transactions under a broker.
So you're an apprentice of sorts.
So all your listings are owned, you know, those contracts are owned by the broker.
And then after that period of time, that number of transactions and number of years, you can get your broker's license as well.
If you stay within a brokerage, you know, under a principal broker, then you're an associate broker.
Otherwise, you can go off on your own and uh take all the risk yourself.
But so how long have you been a broker?
How many years?
23 or 24, something like that.
Are they specific school and courses that agents around the country have to take to become an agent with the hope that later becoming a broker?
Sure.
And you need certification in every state?
Yeah, each state has its own level uh of hours that you take.
And of course, a lot of times you can take them online now if you're going for your agent license, which is generally the first step unless you have the uh a master degree in something.
Right.
Or if you're an attorney, they can get and if you have a you could be a property manager for many years and apply for it.
So there are different avenues.
If you have the specific coursework, I had to give them my transcripts and show them proof that I did these transactions.
They weren't in an MLS, so I had to show them a bounty of leases and sales that I had done privately.
I know agents have to take continuing education every two years to renew their license.
Right.
Does a broker have a license that needs to be renewed on a regular basis?
Yes.
It used to be after 20 years you were grandfathered and you didn't have to, but unfortunately, they've changed that.
Well, maybe fortunately, I think we could all use a little uh pick-me-up in the continuing ed area.
But uh we all have to take continuing ed.
Yeah.
What are the best skills that one should have if they want to become a broker?
You need to know real estate, but that's that's not where it's at.
It's running a business.
So you need to have the right team underneath you, and like you're building any business.
Negotiation, because you're going to have internal conflicts, you're gonna have external conflicts, uh, and being able to manage those.
Because at the end of the day, it's you.
Uh, everything comes down to you.
And how does it work between broker and agents?
Because you make a certain percentage from every sale for through your office, right?
Yeah.
Is it like a set percentage?
Every brokerage has its own setup.
Some have desk fees.
What is a desk fee?
It's a benchmark, and it's for you to have a desk.
We don't really.
This is sort of the old model.
Uh some brokerages still use that.
Uh there are teams now.
Uh I think there were teams before, but now they're extremely prominent in the bigger brokerages.
So that's like a big corporation with mini corporations, like having Comcast and then its satellites.
What is a typical day of a broker like?
Right now, because we're end of end of the fourth quarter, we start talking about where we're gonna go.
So this fourth quarter and beyond, um, there's a lot of accounting, a lot of compliance, making sure that we're compliant.
All the files are done properly, just double checking everything.
Uh, some people have office managers for bigger offices.
We're a small office.
So how many agents do you have under you?
Eight right now.
That's nice.
Yeah.
Some are more part-time, but we have five who are full-time, and this is all they do.
What is the process uh trying the listing that you will be the broker of?
Like for me, I've been doing this for over 20 years.
So I have people who will just come to me, and I also run another business concurrently where we're searching for property.
So our brokerage is more of a teaching brokerage.
So we do multiple things.
We don't just do brokerage work.
So some of the leads we find are people who might need help in a they're in foreclosure.
Uh, they might need help just trying to navigate the system.
We handled Fannie Mae and other bank foreclosures for many years, I think five or six years.
Uh we don't do that any longer, but we represent people who need help, and the referrals we get are huge.
Each agent gets his or her own listings through their own means, through their sphere of influence, through connections and other businesses.
We have some agents who have vacation rentals, we have some agents who have interior design businesses, we have some agents who have construction companies.
It's all tied in, but from those networking sources, I'm a parent.
So I get a lot of other parents.
So that's most of those people I refer out, but I work in tandem.
So it's my agent's listing, but I'm there as a support system.
So let me ask you something about Zillow and Realtor and all of that.
How do you deal with this?
Because today everybody can just go directly to the seller via Zillow, right?
Yes, they can.
Um Do you feel like you're making a lot less money since all this become ubiquitous?
No, no.
In fact, you can call anybody up and take a look at a house.
It's like going out to, you know, Mr.
or Mrs.
Car seller, a used car seller, you go and take a look.
Do you know what's under the hood?
No, you want to go, you want to help find those experts that can help navigate you and come up with those questions you might not think to ask on your own.
Help you negotiate the best price.
Since the podcast is called How much Can I Make?
As a broker, give me a ballpark.
How much realistically can a broker make a year?
It's what you dream about.
Whatever goal you set is what you'll achieve.
If you decide you want to make a certain amount, then you take those steps to make it.
You visualize it and you make it happen.
It could be anything.
It depends your market, it matters so if you're working in New York City versus upstate versus say Arkansas, it's all very different.
So you might have to sell more houses, right?
Or you have multiple streams of income.
I've been in this business long enough to see the ebb and flow.
I've seen when it was booming, and I've seen it when it was busting.
Right.
What do you do in a down market?
Multiple streams of income.
You can't be a one-trick pony.
That's my perspective.
And so, you know, even though I have nothing to do with my agents' other businesses, I support them with those and encourage them because that will keep them well-rounded.
So you mentioned before your other businesses.
What are the what are your other businesses?
I have rentals.
Um, I started back in 2000 with that first house that we did with uh with a book.
And there are a lot of mistakes in there, but you know, we fixed those over time.
Uh, that was a vacation rental when vacation rentals really weren't a thing.
They were just starting.
And then I started flipping houses.
Did you ever get burnt or lost money on flipping houses?
Not yet.
How do you deal with difficult clients?
With compassion.
I do, you know, when there's a problem, people will come to me.
It's gonna happen.
You're gonna have you know it's high emotions.
You're selling, you're moving, you're letting go of something.
And then you have sometimes people get in a huff and they're like, I want my way.
Well, I'm not gonna give you your way.
And you have to find that path.
So your primary goal is to stay calm because it's not about you.
It could be a really hot day.
I had a closing or a walkthrough one time.
This is many years ago.
The sellers were moving out.
My buyers said they wanted to come at a specific time that was not convenient to the sellers.
So we were told no, and the buyer said, Well, we're gonna go anyway.
Oh.
Oh, yeah.
It was that was probably one of the most difficult situations that I had because I really thought there was gonna be a fight.
And I'm like, not on my watch, no fights.
But it was really hot.
There was a lot of emotion, it was a home for many years.
So it's having that empathy.
And what can I do to help make this better?
The seller got in my face, was screaming at me, threatening me, all kinds of every which way.
But I know how to keep a cool head.
What's the biggest misconception about a broker's job?
That you take money for do you're taking a piece of something uh from an agent for nothing.
That may be in some cases.
You know, you could be at a big brokerage where you're not getting any support, or um the number of times I have agents call me and say, I don't know how to value this house.
Or how do I market that?
How do I get around that?
And that's where I'm really strong.
And that's where my training from NYU came in the real estate school because we were given a vacant parcel of land, or we were given something, you know, a vacant building, and we were graded on how much money we could make from that highest and best use.
What is the best way to build a client base?
I think one of the fastest ways.
If you have a big sphere, so it depends on if you're somebody who has a lot of friends or a lot of people in your phone you can contact.
Uh, people who would who would buy and sell.
I mean, if you're 20, you may not, your friends in your contact may not be your best, your sphere may not be the best source.
What's the best thing that you have done that made you stand out in the in the market?
Just our knowledge.
We just know a lot.
And we're in it with you.
I do a lot of investing, I do a lot of renovations, holds, and different things.
So I have a lot of investor clients.
An investor client may not buy something expensive, but those investor clients are gold.
Because again, it comes back to volume.
You can have one client and they're gonna buy, they're probably not gonna sell their home again for a while, maybe you know, five to seven years on average, you have that one.
Uh, and they might refer you, so that's great too.
But if you have an investor and they're buying one, two, three, four properties, they're flipping this one, selling this one.
I've had 10 deals from one investor in a year.
Oh, you don't need many people, you don't need many clients.
Right.
So it really goes back to like, what are you targeting and what do those investors need?
And what do you do that other brokers don't do that they come to you?
I usually get people contacting me who have very their house is full of mold.
And I've had houses where they've said, oh, it's a teardown.
I'll walk over and I'm like, nope, not a teardown, but let me double check with the building department.
Nope, not a teardown.
The agent who listed it swears up and down it's a teardown.
That's a big disservice to your client because you didn't know.
Right.
Right?
So, you know, that we did very well there.
So we have other, you know, have other investors who are going to do better because of our knowledge.
Right.
Of course, knowledge is the is king here.
What I'd like to know is about AI.
Does it pose any threat to the business?
Or and do you use AI in your business currently?
I use AI as often as possible.
For what kind of things, for example?
Oh, to help me.
I sometimes my listings are a little verbose.
So I write, you know, general information and I have AI clean things up for me, make it more succinct.
I use it for marketing.
I'll put in parameters and suggest certain things.
I haven't used it to its full capabilities for certain, but I think it's part of who we are now.
And to deny it is to deny progress.
So tell me if you have, if you can share a memorable success story.
You know, I have a different perspective.
I know it's about making money.
I just believe that when you make people happy, not when you make people happy, not when you make someone happy, because you can't make anyone do anything, but you just bring joy and you bring positivity and encouragement and enlightenment.
All of it is super joyful for me.
When we come in with big checks, sometimes I'm really shocked at how much we make because I didn't anticipate it.
So that's that's a bonus.
There are times that I've been sad writing checks to the IRS, but um everybody does.
Yes, yes.
I would say my biggest success was a house that I had in Woodstock that I had no money, and I wanted to buy it, and I was bound and determined to get it.
Now, this was in 2006, things were a little bit different, but in order to get the deposit, I borrowed money on credit cards.
I've not to say that I haven't done that before, like many times.
So I'm really good about having multiple lines of credit.
I I'm not just a plan A, plan B.
I've got A, B, C, D, and E.
I've got multiple places to catch myself because I have tripped many times.
And you know so you bought that house on credit card?
I did, I did, and renovated it on credit cards?
I did, I did.
And that was uh incredibly taxing, but I ended up, I had it on the market, this was pre-COVID, for a million dollars.
And then I was just devastated that COVID happened right after uh I listed it, thinking that oh, I had spent all this money renovating it.
And then and then it was crickets.
So we took it off and I just rented it because people needed a place to go, and then when things started shaking out, I listed it for 1.3 million.
And sold it.
When other brokers said, Well, we saw it on for a million, you'll never get more than that.
And I said, I beg to differ.
I know there's value here, and I can see it.
And we got exactly what we wanted.
And while you were sitting on your debt for the credit cards, were you able to sleep?
Sure.
I have this unwavering faith in myself.
Is that what it takes to be successful in this business?
It sure doesn't hurt.
Right.
Yeah, but I mean for me, I can have I mean, there are times I've had three million dollars in debt.
Oh my god.
Right.
But I have multiple plans, I have multiple systems, I have things and I know, and I know how to hustle.
I know how to have and I don't mean hustle in a bad way.
Right.
I mean like it's speedy.
Even for my 56-year-old self, I can still hustle.
So I just I believe with such passion that there's no other way but success.
I think that's what it takes if you believe and you you can create it.
Yeah.
Where do you see the real estate industry going?
I see consolidation of MLSs.
I mean, you see, in California, um, they've got A massive California MLS with some smaller offshoots still existing.
Our own current one just merged with a couple counties above us, and I'm sure we'll end up merging with the big one just south of us that's pretty much gobbled up all the other MLSs.
Is there really a reason to have an MLS today when everybody gets in their email the latest property on the market through Zillow on Realtor, every person.
Right.
Zillow gets them from the MLS.
If there was no MLS, Zillow wouldn't be.
So everything that's how they get their data directly.
And unfortunately, we gave as agents and brokers, we gave away our information to the beast, and you can't really get it back.
So we're a little symbiotic with Zillow now.
It is one uh I've heard Compass talking about Zillow being the MLS, but you still have Zillow still needs information to feed into.
That said, Zillow isn't always correct on pricing.
I've seen I've seen many mistakes on Zillow.
What's the one thing in your opinion that would surprise people about brokers?
That we might seem boring and like we don't do a lot, but really underneath it, there's an entrepreneur that's hustling.
That's what it's about.
It's hustle for what you love.
Find your highest and best, you know, love, passion, and follow it.
And the money will follow.
What advice would you give somebody who wants to become a broker?
Do you really want to be a broker?
Do you love your job?
Uh I enjoy people.
Um, the management piece of it is, I would say, not my favorite.
I'm an in-the-field kind of person.
You will never really find me in an office unless I have to be.
And my office is my laptop and my truck.
That's my favorite place to be.
Because I like going out and seeing houses, I like meeting people, I like doing things.
I don't want to sit in a box.
To me, that's depressing.
So, what would you advise a broker?
I want to be broker.
Really, it comes back to do you love real estate or do you love management?
Because brokerage is management, it's not so much real estate.
And as an agent, you're in sales.
It just depends on like you really have to sit down and figure out like what do you dream about?
I ask myself this all the time, you know, and I'm pushing 60.
Like, what do I really want?
What's gonna make me happy?
Because at the end of the day, we only have so much time on this earth.
I would rather keep my time and let someone else keep money.
I want enough money to keep me happy and moving.
It's not worth, it's not worth the grind stress and hustle.
All right.
Well, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and expertise.
Oh, my pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
It was so much fun.
Very helpful.
Thank you.
Okay, that's a wrap for today.
If you have a comment or question or would like us to cover a certain job, please let us know.
Visit our website at how much can I make that info.
We would love to hear from you.
And on your way out, don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with anyone who is curious about their next job.
See you next time.