Steve Valentine: The Major Opportunity Agents Are Missing Out On By Focusing on Listings & How He Built a $50 Million Portfolio

The power of real estate is undeniable. It sets people up for wealth, it has created more millionaires than any other industry, and you don’t have to do much to succeed as an investor. 

The problem is, most real estate agents are so focused on the sale that they miss all these opportunities. The major focus of this industry is serving the consumer, and an agent can spend a lifetime making other people wealthy while surviving on commissions with no retirement or chance at generational wealth.  

We’re around houses all the time but 95% of real estate professionals have never invested in property themselves. This doesn’t just harm us, but it also hampers our ability to truly solve problems for consumers. Real estate today is a lot like a choose your own adventure book, consumers can choose the path to take when selling a home based on the problem they want to solve. From rentals and pulling out equity to grow multiple assets simultaneously to creative financing, there are many ways to go about a transaction. If we’re showing up with the traditional listing as the only solution, the consumer is missing out big time. On the other hand, if we become the resource with all the options, we’re more valuable to the consumer and also to ourselves. 

My guest Steve Valentine’s passion and mission is advocating for looking beyond a traditional listing and getting agents to wake up to the opportunities right under their noses. In this episode, he shares how this passion came about and how he built a $50 million portfolio as an agent. 

You’ll also learn;

• Listing appointments vs. strategy meetings and why we have to become guidance counselors. 
• Why an investment property just might beat a traditional college fund
• Steve’s ‘rent it from yourself’ perspective on buying a home 
• How Steve saw past a $9,000 commission to capture a $80,000 profit 
• Chasing a buyer vs. chasing the money 
• Creative ways to build a big portfolio 

Key Points 

Stop doing listing/buyer appointments and start solving problems 

Real estate can be a flexible model that solves the specific problems of a seller. But 95% of agents don’t invest in real estate themselves, so they are completely oblivious to the true power of real estate. As a result, they are going into appointments with one solution when they should be able to give the homeowner a whole menu of options. When someone says they want to sell their house, this is an opportunity to ask further questions to see what they’re really trying to achieve. Is it capturing equity and wealth-building, creating passive income, moving to the next place or getting rid of a property in a stress-free manner? For the right agent, each answer has a solution that can be tailored and delivered to the consumer. 

Instead of doing a listing/buyer appointment that’s all about you and your achievements, change to strategy appointments where all you do is find out their real problem and then apply a unique real estate solution to that issue. That’s how you become more valuable in this market. 

Chase the opportunity, not the transaction 

The sad truth about this business is many real estate professionals are on the hamster wheel of commissions with nothing in the way of retirement funds. If you think about what’s praised and chased in real estate, it’s volume, GCI and transaction counts, not wealth and financial freedom. Our entire value and purpose is focused on a 3% commission when we could be capturing a lot more by simply becoming consumers of the thing we know the most. We come across great deals every single day, and it doesn’t take much to convert one listing opportunity we come across into a mutually beneficial investment deal. When we look beyond the traditional listing, we don’t just make ourselves more valuable to the consumer, we also become highly valuable to ourselves. 

The advantage of buying in this current market

In a market where everyone’s too fearful to make a move, having the stomach for a little bit of downside can set you up for a great opportunity now and massive long term gain. The only factor that’s really holding up buyers is the rate, but with that downside, there are a lot of positives that wouldn’t be present in any other market. Concessions and seller contribution can be used to sweeten the deal, and then set you up for bigger returns by just owning an asset. 

Guest Bio 

Steve is a real estate investor, strategist and mentor. Once a traditional real estate agent focused on transactions, GCI, and his “competition,” he discovered the secret to a happy career and happy clients. His life, family and career changed forever when HE STOPPED SELLING AND STARTED SOLVING!

With more than 20 years of real estate experience, he’s fanatical about handcrafting the right strategy for each client using his toolbox of absurdly effective techniques. He’s more super-hero when it comes to investing in real estate and in his relationships with clients, employees, and family. He out-right refused financial ruin to build a retirement-sustaining real estate portfolio of more than $15 million in value. A portfolio that is so diverse and has been so fun to create, he’s educating others to do the same. In the past 5 years Steve has created a real estate business that encompasses all of today’s top strategies including traditional real estate, flipping homes, buying off market opportunities, building wealth for himself, his team, and his clients. 

For more information, head to SteveDValentine.com and follow @iamstevedvalentine on Instagram.