Explore Baris Berk's journey in the Real Estate Industry

Yes, it does. What it really reminds me is when you first hear about rootless you think about detachment, about not caring about anything or anybody. This detachment can make someone become ruthless. To me, it all depends on how you utilize it. For example, I would prefer to lose money in business rather than lose the trust of a client or customer. If any of my employees violate certain core values I have or integrity or reputation, I will be ruthless. – Baris Berk

I grew up in Turkey. I came to the US when I was almost 24 years old. At first, I found a job at a cruise line. I worked there for three years. It was really tough. Other people say that I work hard in real estate but I consider it a piece of cake it compared to what I used to do in the cruise ship. We used to work almost 16, 17 hours a day, seven days a week and I had no days off. It was almost modern slavery. The good thing about it was eating what was cooked for the customers and we were making good money back then. On those three years, I was able to save $100,000. At that time, it was good seed money as capital. In 2007, I quit my job and with my capital money decided to follow my dream. So, I started in real estate but I didn’t know anybody, the areas etc. Some of my friends and family discouraged me by saying I couldn’t do it because I needed to have connections. However, I believed that if other people could succeed, I could too. I was not less or more than them. Why wouldn’t I succeed if I trained myself. I believed I could and actually pictured myself succeeding. I started as a real estate agent, set goals and I became number one agent in my first full year in the company I worked for. I was working really hard. One of the good things the cruise line gave me was the work ethic which was robust but unmatchable. I was able to compete with people because I overworked there. They would have fun or taking it easy while I was working. I would be working on weekends and holidays too. I had a dream, a goal and knew I had to work hard to achieve it. It started like a snowball and in each turn, it got bigger. I slowly got bigger, hit the ceiling in the company I worked for and felt like there was nothing left for me to do there. I had formed a successful team, so next step for me was opening my own shop. The next step I took was buying a ReMax franchise. – Baris Berk

I only had $1,800 in my pockets when I first got here in the US. That’s all I had. I believe that in every business you run and operate, you have to spend three things: time, energy, money. When I was young, once I quit my job, I had the time. I also had a lot of energy but I lacked money. In order to boost my money, I had to work. The first step I took was setting my goals and breaking them down. I called them smart goals because they were realistic. Once you break them down, you hit them slowly. I had to outwork other people because I was in a disadvantage. I wasn’t born here, didn’t know anybody, the place so I had no other choice. Back then, there was no GPS and I would get lost sometimes. I faced a lot of adversity. That usually leads to success but on the flip side, some people try to discourage you instead of supporting you. The discouraging words felt like a whip to me. I think anybody who wants to be successful in the US should know that it’s a free world, you can be successful as long as you have the enthusiasm, hunger and drive. It doesn’t matter where you come from. You have to utilize whatever you have. If you have money and time but no energy, use those two. A plane has 4 engines, if you lose two, the plane can still fly with the other two. Business is no different. When an aircraft tries to take off from the runway, the pilot gives full throttle. It takes tremendous effort to reach to a certain altitude but once you reach 13,000, the pilot cuts the throttle and the plane flies. It’s the same thing. When I got to a certain level, I still worked hard but not as hard as I used to. I experienced less difficulties, had more leverage and was smarter, more experienced. Making the first million dollar was more difficult than making the second one. Marginally, it gets easier. – Baris Berk

When I was 15, 16 years old I was in Turkey, in Bodrum. I used to work at a restaurant during the summertime. My boss was doing real estate deals in 1988. I was riding in Mercedes cars, S class and had a phone in the car, which was my boss’. I saw the money these businessmen made in this industry. They bought land, negotiated and sold. So, I saw so much money circulating back then. I always admired how they talked and made deals while we all sat together. However, I didn’t have money. I wanted to get into real estate but didn’t have the money. I also had no idea where to start so I always thought I would do it sometime in the future. After a while, I was able to finally save money while working on the ships and the $100,000 became my seed money. It became a stepping stone for me, a gateway, a passport to richness. – Baris Berk

When I first started, I didn’t know anything. I was driving people around, show houses and they would end up buying with someone else. After three months, I got discouraged because it was really tough. I was starting to question myself, thinking maybe it wasn’t for me. But I knew I was not a quitter. I had come here for a reason and had to succeed because I was not going back to the ships. I was either going to succeed or succeed, there was no other choice. After three months, it downed on me that the name of the game were listings. I didn’t know how to get listings because I didn’t know anybody. I laserbeam focused on how to get listings, build inventory because real estate sales are invedntory sales. If you sell water, you need water to sell. To sell shoes, you need shoes which is easier. I was doing cold calling, I called everybody saying who I was and talk them if they were thinking to sell property and if they said no, I would ask them if they knew anyone who was. I used to ask three times because there is magic in threes. That was one thing. Then I went after expired listings, people who tried to sell but couldn’t. it was the best way to generate listings because you don’t have to spend money. Out of 100 expired listings, 80% still wanted to sell. But when you call, you need to ask the right questions, convince them to meet you. I learned the dynamics of that and once I mastered the delivery, the presentation, my business skyrocketed. At that point I stopped working with buyers. I only work with buyers if I know them on a personal level or the sellers who become buyers. If someone comes from street, I would qualify that or get a referral. So, I exclusively work with sellers. – Baris Berk

Right now, what I;ve learned in my 20+ career years is that real estate brokerage is not as profitable as one may think. If a top producer is planning to open an office I would sugggest to that person that it’s better to build a team and let someone else run the show. You’ll still make money. If you have a big ego, go for it. the profit margins are not that good but I make more money with my investments, contruction flipping business, it’s far superior return and you have better life. If you ask me what I’ve learned in 20 years is that if you want a living, work with buyers, if you want to make a career, work with listings and if you want to build an empire you have to buy, own real estate. Anything in between, you can do good or bad but real estate ownership, buy. Sell, rentals. The trick about real estate, the beauty of it is that even if you slip, you’ll still make money. Can you do that in any other business? There is the depreciation factor, tax advantages plus you can collect the rental income. Instead of just opening your business, follow what your hear and soul say. Don’t go after the money. If you solely want money , you’re going to start cheating. You’ll set goals that are important to you. Why do you want so much money? What is the ultimate go? To me, instead of raising my life standard, I’m more focused on raising quality of life because there is no amount of money in the world worth losing my sleep, peace of mind or health. Money is important but is only one ingredient. The real wealth is your health. I think most people who show off their luxurious belongings on social media are miserable with their life. You’ve got to live for you. What’s the point of you trying to impress some strangers if you are miserable yourself. If you think about it, a lot of people want a big house, cars, nice funritures, clothes, partner but everything in life has a price and the question is whether you are willing to pay that price? Sometimes, you kill yourself, do everything but your goals are not yours, they might;ve been what someone else wanted. As a result, you might hit that goal but are still not happy. I tell people to love what you want, do what you really want and you’re going to succeed. Money will come eventually. If you choose to do something just because of money, 95% you’re going to fail because it’s not in your heart. It’s called enthusiasm. An ancient latin language enthusiasm means god is with you, god within you. – Baris Berk

When I opened my shop, I bought ReMax franchise. By the way, I really like that franchise, it’s a good company. At that time, I figured out we were opening brand new and not many people are going to resonate with us because we didn’t have history as a business. So, I lacked that muscle. That’s why I decided that a franchise would be the better option at the time. Four, five years later we figured out we didn’t need ReMax even though I respected them. We didn’t need anybody for that matter. I started thinking that if I can win the bread by myself, why did I need to share with ReMax or anybody? After we completed our franchise terms, I didn’t renew. This happened in 2008, when the market completely changed due to the economic crisis. Our company had zero debt but by the end of the year, we were almost 250,000$ in debt. So, I had to put money out of my own pocket. A lot of companies went bankrupt but I didn’t give up. I kept putting money because I believed in what I was doing. At that time, I always focused on the solution, not the problem. That’s because every problem carries seeds of solution, every crisis equals opportunity. At that time, people were losing their houses left and right and since we couldn’t get regular listings, we decided to go after exclusively short sales and bank-owned foreclosures. That’s what we did. In 2009, 2010, I used to sometimes get seven listings a day. We were in a golden era. It wasn’t because of luck though, it was all due to systematic, hard work. We were going after the cheese instead of asking who moved the cheese? – Baris Berk

 When I first started, I had two partners and I bought them out along the way. I was also in charge of recruiting and training agents. It was tough. My personal business went down because I used to list and sell a lot and wasn’t doing that anymore. That happened because I was spending time to retain, train the agents and the profit margin wasn’t up because I was building a team. We had almost 50 agents at that time and that’s how many we still do. I have the capacity to open 20 other offices but that’s not my goal. I want to keep what we have in the brokerage but also grow the business with our existing agents so they can have more wealth and success. I am also involved in real estate investments because it’s more lucrative. You can also build wealth faster. On the flip side, we’re not giving up our brokerage but we keep our status quo and improve the agents’ lives and dreams but also grow on the investments. Why? Because it’s an opportunity to have a bigger, faster and better quality of life. – Baris Berk

So, the business is ran more like a boutique family style. They can come, call me, even during nighttime. I don’t think that would happen if they worked in another company. We have trainings all the time and I train them in addition to third parties. Furthermore, we list a lot of foreclosure properties and short sales and most of our property prices are good, people want them. Once we get them to do open houses, they get opportunities because I’m not working with buyers. I make it possible for the agents to benefit from all the generated leads and open houses. When I want to sell the houses I buy, I have the agents do the open houses so that they can get the buyers. The other companies don’t do that. You can keep people by hugging them, showing them love only for a short period of time. What I believe is giving them the opportunity to build wealth so they cannot afford to leave you. In order to have consistency, you have to make sure they’re happy, they’re growing and they’re making money and progress. People are happier during progress. Let’s say you want to make $200,000. You’ll be very happy the minute you achieve that but three months later it will wear off. To keep that enthusiasm alive, you need to progress constantly. Ultimately, you’ll the maximum amount of happiness in your life when you are progressing, learning and discovering your own skills. It’d hardwired in our brain. A kid gets happy when he learns how to ride a bike. Our subconscious mind directs our conscious mind. Have you ever bought a new house and when you’re coming home you go to your old house instead of the new one by mistake? It happens all the time. – Baris Berk

First of all, you have to do an excellent job. Then, you can ask for referrals and word of mouth. It takes months and years to keep a customer/client but only minutes to lose them. Secondly, you have to spend time, money and energy to build your brand. So, have a logo, hire a professional designer and make sure the logo has a meaning. My company’s logo is the Medusa with open arms, as a sing of welcome. She also holds a scale in her arms as a sign of fairness. Everything has to be thoughtful. Also, advertise wisely on Facebook, Instagram. Put the logo everywhere in the brokerage: in your materials, files, paperwork. If you walk through my office, you can see my branding even in my pillows. I see many agents are “secret” agents. I always tell them to wear a name badge and put real estate sales in it, don’t put consultant. You will go to the grocery store; the bank and people will ask you about the real estate market. That’s how you lure people into starting a conversation. Another thing is to be a proactive. I think talking to everybody and introducing yourself is a great virtue and skill because people have got to know who you are what you do. You also have got to show genuine interest on them, not just on yourself. In America everybody listens to WII.FM radio – What Is It In For Me? We can go to the bank tomorrow; everybody there knows my heart. The community should know who you are and what industry you work in. Most of the brokers don’t even want to give their cards because they don’t want to waste them. The cheaper you are, the more broke you are. You have to spend money to make money. It’s a business. If you want to catch fish you need fish bait, etc. To open a barbershop, you need almost $30000 to $40,000. You may not have that money and it’s fine. Firstly, make the seed money. One step at a time. You have to start the snowball effect. – Baris Berk

Everything in life has a price. If that company is giving them something, they’re not doing it for free. The question is: you do the same thing with your own money and have a better return? That’s what they have to look at. Secondly, what’s the highest and best return on the investment. When I say investment, I’m not only talking only about the money. I’m also talking about the time and energy. If the company giving certain tools and are happy with what they’re getting, it’s fine. However, if they’re not happy, they should find out what they should do to increase production or if they should do it on their own. For example, if they give you a lead and charge 50%, let’s say commission in $10,000, you’re giving them 5,000. If that’s the case, why don’t you spend that $5000 and maybe can generate 4 instead of one. Like I said, everything takes time, money, energy. To answer the question, every situation is definitely different but if the salesmen are not happy, they’ve got to find a way to make quantum leap. If they don’t agree with the politics or environment because there are some companies who favor certain people in the company and the new ones have no chance to prove themselves. I know because that happened to me in the past, they would give certain areas to certain agents and the others would feel left out. My office offers fair opportunities. If a property owner has a listing to offer, anybody can have it. If people are not happy with you, they’ll fire you. If nobody can work, the company loses and I don’t want that. Everybody works for the company and the company works for everybody. One for all and all for one. – Baris Berk

You want to hire people, that’s the goal but you don’t want to hire just anyone. If you bring the wrong person, who doesn’t have the right business culture, it’s going to cost you a deal. it’s like a bad apple. Have you ever bought a bag of fruits and see a bad apples, it touches the others too and makes them all bad. Now you’ve got to get rid of the other two. Same thing. When you bring in the wrong person, you might have ten people and he or she can poison others. So, be careful who you bring. More importantly, I hire people not because of who they are but due to who they can become. Our techniques and knowledge are teachable and transferrable but I can’t change their attitude or character. I can train them, the dialogue, how to, but if the person has poor attitude and character, not a high level of integrity, you can’t. it goes by character. I’ll tell you something: in business, one thing I love about me is that I have gut. You heard the expression: no gut, no glory. You have to have guts in business. That’s one of the ingredients in order to be successful and also be able to work under pressure. There are a lot of smart people but not all can run business. They can work under pressure or take risks but are not cut out for business. If I see a bad apple, I’m going to be ruthless because it will give my company a bad image. Some people don’t like firing their employees because they think it will ruin their business but if they keep that person, they will ruin you. If there’s a bug in your water, you’re either going to drink it or remove the bug, disinfect the water and then drink it because that’s all you have. Get rid of the fly. don’t let the door hit you from behind on the way out. – Baris Berk

First, you’ve got to have dreams. You need to close your eyes and know what you dream about. Picture yourself in your mind that you are a success. If you can’t do that, you’re not going to make it. that’s the first thing. Have a dream, set realistic goals. By realistic I mean smart. Smart goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and have timeline. When you say you want to become wealthy, that’s not a goal. It has to be specific. When you say you want to buy a specific car, that;s different. If you’re making $100,000 a year, you set a goal to make 2million next year. That’s not realistic. In our company, we put our yearly goals on board. I let them take the boards home so that they see their goal when they wake up, brush their teeth. It keeps someone on the tracks, like a train, so, be hungry, set goals that are important to you, not to the people around you. There are families who push the children on a direction they don’t want to and in order to make the family happy, they do it and are miserable. So, do what you like, you’ll never work a day in your life, you have fun with it. I’ll give one last example. Julio igleasias is a singer who was originally a professional football player, the goalkeeper of Real Madrid. What happened is that he had a car accident, couldn’t play football anymore so his dreams were ruined. When he was recovering in the hospital, he was playing music on his guitar and writing songs. He made 100 songs and tried to sell his song to music companies. He went to so many places, nobody accepted. One company agreed to buy them cheaply on one condition: that he would sing them. He started doing that and became a big hit. He told this story in a concert of his. He is also a lawyer because his father was pushing him to become a lawyer, he studied for his father but never practiced law. That was a waste. Don’t sacrifice your dreams. It’s your life and you only live once.  Live your dream, go for it. Enjoy the ride, money will follow. – Baris Berk

I’ll tell you one thing. When I was a kid, I always wished to become rich. Now that I am 47 years old, I say to myself that I’m glad I wasn’t born rich. I look back at the rear-view mirror and think of what a ride it has been. If I were rich, I wouldn’t have that excitement. A rich person may think he has it easy but he won’t build the muscle. It takes the fun out of the journey. We are hardwired to work, to think. I can guarantee, when you retire and stay home, your life expectancy will shorten. We are not designed to sit. A lot of people get back aches because of long sitting hours because we’re not designed for that. The muscles get weaker because in nature you can’t sit on a chair. Sometimes, when you want to do something, you get frustrated because you know what you’re supposed to do but aren’t doing it. A lot of people, especially in the U.S are fat in an unhealthy way because of the junk food. Everybody knows they have to lose weight and be healthy but how many of them have the discipline to do it? You must have discipline in business and life too. Once you have the discipline, you automatically become successful. There are examples of people being successful but not healthy. Sometimes, movie stars, soccer players, etc. are successful professionally but aren’t healthy physically, mentally etc. To me, success is not about making money, it’s about your wellbeing. To me being rich means having good health, peace of mind, friends, good reputation, family, job or business you love to do, reciprocated love. If you have all these ingredients, you are successful but if some of them are missing, you are not complete. – Baris Berk

I think that is important in life, not just in real estate. I get calls from real estate agents, I buy houses. There are a lot of investors they can deal with but they work with me because they know if I say or promise something, it’s a done deal. Sometimes, I don’t even sign a contract, I just give my word and it’s considered done. There are times I have lost money on a deal because I had given my word and didn’t back down. I always look at the big picture. My word is like steel, gold. In business, everybody should be honest, not just because of morals, laws and ethics but because for me, it’s the only way business of doing business. If I lie once, I have to cover it up with other and it becomes a mess. – Baris Berk

What they should do is to venture up. You must firstly have capital and reserves. If you don’t have reserves, it’s going to be very difficult. This business is not straight, it goes up and down. The moment you don’t have reserves, you’re going to choke before you even go up. That’s my number one advice. The second one is to have a business plan. Don’t just say you know business because you don’t. You only know how to show a house, list a house, how to fill forms but you don’t know how to manage people, how to keep the books, how to work under pressure, managing training. I’m not saying you cannot learn but you’ve got to train, have the right equipment and the right people. One of the virtues and skills sometimes you have to hire professional people to do the job better than you. I hire a bookkeeper or CPA to do my books. To this day, I don’t sing the cheques in this company. I hire and collaborate with reliable, trustable people. I have a marketing team. You have to use the talent and skills at the right place. Use leverage to your money, time. If I need my property to be painted, I don’t go get the paint and start painting myself. I could save a thousand dollars by doing so but could lose 20 thousand because on the two days I spent painting I couldn’t make calls and get business. That’s why your time has value. What is your hourly rate? In real estate we don’t work 40 hours. Let’s say we work 70 hours a week, ten hours a day. If we multiply 70 hours x 50 weeks, you work 3500 hours a year. If you make $200,000 a year divided by 3500, your hourly rate is $57. If your painter charges you $10 per hour, you’re a fool to paint the house by yourself because your hourly rate is higher. If he charges you $300/hour, then you better do it yourself. To grow, either your hourly rate has got to go up or transaction volume has to grow up. That’s what I discovered. To me, investment deals are far superior on my time compared to the brokerage. Maybe they’re 20 times higher compared to the brokerage deals. That’s why I consider my broker job as my part-time job. I am a full-time entrepreneur. – Baris Berk

I would start investing way sooner. I highly advice young entrepreneurs not to save money but to invest. Instead of keeping it in the bank, invest either in real estate, mutual funds or stocks but find a good company. You may be scared because you are preconditioned to feel fear. The system wants you to stay that way. The government doesn’t want you to be successful. Banks give you, 0.2% or 0.5% but mutual funds go back 50 years and in average give you 7%. The good thing about real estate is that it’s tangible, real. I don’t care about how much I pay for an investment property. I worry about the cash flow, how much money it generates and what my monthly payment are, the taxes, interest, insurance, principle, utilities, maintenance. In the end, what is left for me? If I’m making money, it’s irrelevant because the goal to buy and make money with rental. Cash flow is like blood. The minute the cash flow stops it’s the same as the blood not going to your brain. My rule thumb is that if you can amortize the money you invest in ten years, it’s okay. If it takes seven years, even better. If it takes more than ten years, it’s not good. The rental values multiplied by 100 should give you the overall value. However, it’s very difficult to use that formula because the demand has risen the prices so high that the numbers don’t work. That’s why you sometimes have to use more leverage on booster and other cheaper areas. That will have its own problems because it may not be as easy to rent it out compared to a metropolitan area because there is higher demand in the latter. When you buy investment properties, make sure they’re close to amenities, the bus, train so that there is a high demand. – Baris Berk

What I would say is to never give up. It doesn’t matter if there is a problem, there is always a way out. If you can’t find a way, create one. Also, you could have adversity but they will bring success. Our weaknesses can turn into strengths. You have to turn whatever you lack to your advantage. Use resources to do it. Run your business like your life depends on it. Sometimes I stay here until 11 because I want to make it happen whatever it takes. Once you set your goal, you’re going to hit it. When I was an agent, my goal was to have three listing appointments every week. If I called 50 people and set up three appointments, that was good. Sometimes it took me 100 calls or even 120 but I was constantly making calls until my ear fell off. Set the goal, break it down, do whatever it takes. The last thing I’d say is to stick to the stick. It takes planning, preparations and the right tools. if you don’t have that, you’ll fail. I see a lot of restaurants opening that have no parking or visibility. They’re probably going to fail from the get-go. Did you study the demographics? If the people in the area don’t have purchasing power to buy the product/service and the rich people from the other area aren’t going to come there, the business will me a failure. So, you have to study before starting a new venture. It’s the same in any business. There will be obstacles but you have to try nonetheless. A Norwegian proverb says that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. Another one I like is that if you are a baker, bake your bread with the flavor you have. Work with what you have, don’t underestimate your own power and skills. Even if you have weaknesses or lack something, face it and try to strengthen it. Frustration comes from knowing what to do but not doing it. Everybody wants luxury goods but not all are willing to pay the price. Business requires discipline. The weather may be nice and you may want to go out but instead you have to work because that’s the price you pay. I have reached at a certain point in my life where I try to enjoy my life more so materialistic things are less valuable to me. I like them but they’re not too important for me. So, follow your dreams and be hungry. – Baris Berk