The Luxury Listing Strategy Most Agents Don’t Know (From a $50M Deal)

Get comfortable with what you enjoy and know it really well, and it will sustain you.

I arrived with a list of questions. What are you looking for? And the questions you ask are actually more important than the questions they ask you.

This is Real Talk with Leigh Thomas Brown. Today I am bringing you a really fast-paced conversation with David Kramer from the greater Los Angeles area. I think you're gonna enjoy this enough to go to the comments and ask me for round 2. So let me know what you think, and I'll see you on the other side. You know, here on Real Talk with Leigh Thomas Brown, we just, we just enjoy having conversations. And I'm so glad to have David Kramer with us today. David, tell my audience who you are, where you live, how long you've been in and around your professional life. Give us a little thumbnail sketch of you. Okay.

Grew up in LA, Culver City, which was a different city when I grew up. Went to Los Angeles public schools, was not on the right side of the tracks, I'll just say. So, you know, didn't have connections, didn't know anybody. My parents didn't help me out. And when I was in school, I met someone whose father was a realtor when I was in college.

Oh.

And I don't know, I was like, this is it. This is what I want to do. So not that I had some stellar law career waiting for me or, or to be a doctor, but I was doing okay in school and I switched over to real estate. And at the time, They had just begun asking people to take classes and tests and everything else. So I was like the first wave. I don't even want to tell you when, but I started very young, so I'll say that.

So obviously we're old enough not to ask those questions, but I'm only laughing a little bit because I recognize it.

Yeah. And when I got in, it was just, it was a different world. Contracts with the TDS had just been announced. If you can remember. And I remember my boss saying, you mean, you know, they were asking questions like, you have to say something's wrong. And he's like, okay, to give you perspective, let's say the house slides down a hill and every year you cover it up. He goes, you gotta tell 'em about that.

And, and they're like, that was the example they gave is the house sliding down the hill.

Yeah.

Only California, I guess, because That's what we do.

We slide.

We have mountains here, but the houses, well, they did during Hurricane Helene, but that's a different story. Okay. So that's your licensing example.

It was just, I was trying to give an example and I remember like, wow, that's fascinating. And, and there's been a lot of change in, in the years I've been doing this. I'll say 38 years. So I've been selling real estate. So the caravan was a guy driving around with—

I love the caravan.

Yeah. Well, that started with a guy who drove from office to office and copied the sheets and So a lot's happened, obviously. I know there's a lot of controversy, but I actually think in many ways the business has gotten better. You've gotten more professional people. Information, I do feel, is better when it's out in the world rather than held closely. So I do feel overall the business is better. I'm not crazy about everything that's going on. I listened to your last speaker who's brilliant, and I agree with a lot of what was said. And I started right before the recession. I thought I was really smart. I sold 6 houses in 6 months and So I was like, wow, super genius at my age.

And got this.

And, and then 2 years of not doing that. Right after that, barely made any money, didn't pay my tax, gotten myself in a lot of trouble, and then was fortunate enough to start selling foreclosures. I just got picked and started selling foreclosures. And so it was a business angle of learning how to sell real estate, and that really guided the rest of my career. Because we dealt with attorneys, we dealt with lawsuits, we dealt with, you know, defects. We've dealt with all kinds of stuff. And that informed kind of how I do my business today. Don't know if I've answered everything you've asked, but that's kind of my brief history.

Well, it gives us a starting point, but I do have two questions. The first one is, did you ever see a house sliding down the hill?

Oh yeah. Oh, I've seen— maybe not physically sliding at the time, but I've seen ones that I wouldn't consider stable. And I've sold it. I sold it.

I've seen houses move off their foundations, but I haven't seen them slide down the hill. Is that an earthquake fault line kind of a thing? You're California.

Well, I remember this one. This was great. So when they originally dug Sunset Boulevard, which used to be called Beverly Boulevard back in the day, they cut the road and they dumped the fill into areas along the coast and they didn't compact it at the time. This was before my time. And so, they still do that now.

Some builders do.

Sure. It wasn't compacted and it was about 80 feet on the coast. And I remember fantastic story because the seller said like, this is the situation. And he goes, and if you tell them, I'm going to sue you. And, and so then we got a buyer and Obviously you have duty to disclose when you know something like that. I mean, builders had gone by and said, listen, someday this won't be here. So I called an attorney and like, both sides can sue me. And, and it was such an educational moment because he said, what's the better and cheaper lawsuit? He goes, that's how you have to choose.

There's a question I've never been asked, but I would say you probably have the cheaper lawsuit by disclosing what could have happened.

That's what he said. He goes, one of them, he'll sue you and he's probably not going to win and cost you some legal fees. The other one is going to be millions.

So, you know, one of them is morally right and the other one is morally wrong.

So, 100% as well. But, you know, when two people are threatening to sue you, basically, you know, there's moral and there's also, you do have to make a choice. You have to kind of think about the whole process of what's going to happen. Um, and I did disclose and I never got sued.

So, well, come on, David, there's, there's no option. You know what's right and what's wrong. Money can't matter. You would have picked the correct side no matter what the outcome was.

Oh yeah. But again, you know, when you're 26 years old.

Oh, okay. Your brain wasn't yet formed. That's true. Well, for a man, it was just formed. I guess the frontal lobe develops in the male at 25. That's right.

So you were just out of that. Or 60.

I mean, 60 is the new 50. 50 is the new 40.

That's right. Or something like that.

Okay. So the other question I had was, and by the way, y'all, that's not just a California thing. It's also a North Carolina thing. And it's an everywhere thing. They're called material facts and no seller anywhere can tell a real estate licensed professional, you can't tell people something if it's material to the property. So if you're an agent out there, who's ever been tempted, shame on you. And if you are one of my consumers, full disclosure is to be expected. The only thing that's different, by the way, from a material fact standpoint, state by state, has to do with things like death in a home. North Carolina, you do not have to disclose if somebody died inside the house. In some states you do. And so you also don't have to disclose ghosts, but some states want you to disclose everything. You've got a 150-page disclosure. I've got a 5-page disclosure. So just know your state laws, make sure your agent knows your state laws. Now back to the other thing I wanted to ask you about. So you said you fell in love with real estate early because of your friend's dad.

It just clicked. It's not that he sold me into real estate. It was more just, I, I heard it and I was like, I've always been a risk taker. I've never worked for anybody else. I worked for Vaughn's. I got fired. That was it.

Vaughn's grocery store?

Yeah, I was a box boy. That was my only real job.

How do you get fired from the grocery store?

There might have been a little weed involved, but—

Oh, you were an early entrepreneur of things you shouldn't have been an entrepreneur of? Okay.

That's right. That's right. And, and never a great employee. And I always just thought, you know, sky's the limit. I love taking the risk. It is your own business. You get to deal with who you want to, how you want to. I mean, listen, you can be as successful as you want. And the other thing I love about the business is there is no right way. It is what you make it and how you make it. There's people who make it completely differently from me and you and other people, and they're incredibly successful. And that's why when people say like, tell me what to do, and it's like, it depends on you. What do you want to do?

I literally had this conversation with an agent this week who's like, tell me what to do. And I'm like, all I can do is give you a starting line. You are the only one that can take a foot over it and go And do, and the where that you go and the where that you do and the way that you do it. Yeah. That's huge.

I've never made a cold call in my life.

Yeah.

I've never made a cold call in my life. I'm terrible at it. Terrible. I mean, you know, and there's other people, they make their entire living. But I just want to back up one thing is, um, I always say to people, disclosure is only free once. And that's before you make the deal.

I like that. I might steal that because that's really well said.

Stupid.

And by the way, we always know in situations like that, the only person who winds up making any money is the lawyer.

Right, right.

It's not the seller. It's not the buyer. It's not the agent. It's just the lawyer. And you actually were fortunate to have the kind of lawyer who gave you the counsel to say, choose your own adventure, and here's how to make that choice. Because you are old enough to remember how good those books were.

Yeah.

Whether you get killed by the vampire at the end or not. Okay. So you fell in love with real estate, which is odd. Most people don't. They land in real estate by some generous mistakes in life. And they say, may as well give this a try, find out they love it and succeed at it.

Taxi Driver, remember?

Yes.

We're all here temporarily, just because, you know, until a real job comes through.

And then I find myself in, you know, 26 years after I said I wasn't ever going to do this and I'm not the only one in that space. So you decided you wanted to do this. What was the career stop before real estate? Not counting Vons, did you have another professional life or is real estate your professional life?

After, uh, my, uh, grand firing from Vons, I started waxing cars and I started a detail business, which actually grew to a nice size. I had people, you know, that I worked with. We went to offices and we did that. And at the time I was actually making pretty good money, you know, again, in high school and, and early college, you know, a few hundred dollars a day consistently. And again, cash entrepreneurial. And that was it. That's all I've ever done.

I mean, I've just been in real estate, which is very rare because it's hard to survive in real estate because our revenues and our incomes are very unpredictable.

Still are.

Well, yeah. I mean, honestly, until you become a really good saver and start building in other revenue streams, you're living in the same level of uncertainty and I'm not willing to live in uncertainty, which is why we have rental properties. But where have you landed after all these years? You get to see the different pathways of real estate. And I think that's one thing new licensees don't quite understand because they come in with the HGTV mindset of residential real estate, which is the bulk of people that have their license, and then they may discover commercial. They may then hear about the land side or the development side. If they get involved in rentals, they learn about property management, then they may learn about investing. There's all these angles.

How did you represent developments?

Yeah. And where did you land? What do you enjoy about the different pieces of real estate?

By the way, I've gone through all of those. I represented properties in different countries. I've represented developments. Um, I've, you know, land, uh, just everything. I've tried it all. I've ended up back where I started, which is literally I'm a residential agent in Los Angeles selling in Los Angeles and the areas I know and I'm comfortable in, and that's it. I realized when I did the math, you know, unless you find it fun to do all these different things, there's enough money in whatever you do, whatever segment you are in, there's enough money in it if you do it well and you dedicate your time and you're not scattered. And, you know, last year is my second best year after COVID. And people are like, you know, I have this property here, you can develop this development. I'm like, this is what I do. And that's it.

Okay.

It's just great.

So you're giving the focus advice.

For me, again, you know, there, there is people who successful as few people in my office, they're in multiple cities and states and, and they're doing really well. And I'm, thank heavens, good for them.

But that's not the norm. I think, I think you're on to something where you talk about get comfortable with what you enjoy and know it really well, and it will sustain you. So if a, if a younger realtor were to come to you and say, David, how do I find my focus? What was the magic sauce? How did you know? What's the advice that you would give to somebody who's struggling to find their, their niche?

I heard your last speaker and the two of you talking, and there's a lot of things that resonated. And first of all, I think, and from what you just said, This is a business. And so, you know, people do come to me a lot and they're like, I want to get into real estate. And I go, fantastic. How much do you think you want to make? And nobody ever answers the question. And I go, well, let me give you some examples. Do you want to make $100,000 a year? No, no, no, no. $400,000, $500,000. Yeah, that's a good start. And I go, great. That's good money. You know, fantastic. What have you done so far? To advance your career to get to that number? Well, I've, you know, I took the test and I, you know, this. And I go, have you read the contract?

Absolutely.

Tell me about liquidated damages. Well, you know, tell me about this paragraph. Tell me about that paragraph. Well, you know, and very rarely do you get the legal definition. And what I say is, Now, who makes $500,000 a year? Doctors, lawyers, professionals. There's a lot of other people to do, but essentially this is a serious profession. And first of all, I think you'll find it more enjoyable if you understand the contract and you understand what they mean. It's fun. I guess I just nerded out myself, but—

Oh my gosh, but it's so true because it's comfort. Comfort comes from knowledge and comfort gives you confidence. Say this all again, David. So true.

So, you know, talk to an escrow officer who's maybe trying to build their career and say, let's align. Teach me about escrow. Find a title person who will spend the time with you. Teach me about title. And those things, you know, I have a potential closing today and we were having some issues and I said, can we set up for a gap close? What's a gap close? You know, They hate when I ask this question, but, but the thing is there, there are things that you can do in the business that other people just don't know exist. And there's ways to maneuver the contract. There's also ways to offensively maneuver the contract. And, and I can give you one quick example that I tell everybody, and I, I think education's so important, is liquidated damages doesn't apply evenly to all. You know, if you have a vacant house in a market that's going up, liquidated damages great tool. You have a family of 6 moving across the country, putting their kids in private school, putting a deposit on the house based on that deal closing. Liquidated damages may be the worst thing they ever signed. So things are not equal in our contract. It's, it's really understand all of the components of what we do, and it's really very little. That's the other thing. You know, we have one contract. You kind of know what it's going to tell you. And then, you know, have partnerships that are lenders. I've, I've saved deals by calling my title officer and saying, hey, listen, we have this issue. Thank heavens you told me earlier. I can take care of that. I actually picked up a few deals in my career. I remember one that was hilarious. The deal completely fell apart. They called me and said, we hired you, we choose this other person. Can you, do you think you can save this deal? They canceled and terminated all rights to anything. I took the same house, the same contract, the same buyer, And I made the deal. The same parties, everything was the same. They, you know, it was a unique property and going through a private bank gives you a different set of appraisers than going through a regular bank. And so I said, have them apply through a private bank and they'll be the upper end appraisers, kind of understand intricacies of a jewel box type of home. Made the deal. I got paid by just a little bit of knowledge.

So I think that's— the public needs to understand better in a world of the commoditized real estate agent and the commoditized house, which is how the mainstream media tends to talk about real estate because they're all, they're all big corporations. They're all, but they're all in bed together. All of that is the same messaging across the board. You don't need an agent, just buy a house online. And every time I see that, it just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up because every house is so unique. And every house is unique because of the humans that are doing the buying and the selling. And because of how communities change and how water and sewer change and how school districts change and how taxes change and elected officials change. And you have all these layers. That impact every house every time. And if the public understood that you take the one house and all these different angles going on and the outcomes are wildly different based on that linchpin, which happens to be the realtor in a lot of these scenarios, because that's the one having all the different constellation of conversations. Mm-hmm. What question do you wish you were asked by prospective buyers and sellers in your area of Los Angeles to know that David is a wildly different choice than Bob, Jane, and Mary, and they're all fine in their own regard, but they're not the same as David. What question do you wish they asked you?

So I learned a long time ago. I'll give a little bit of a secret, but not all of it. I learned a long time ago.

Partial secrets because your competitors are watching. Hey everybody, right by the way. That's right.

That's right. I used to be a seminar guy. I'd go to any seminar I possibly could. And I remember I drove up to Northern California and I went to the seminar and 2 days—

Please tell me it was a Success seminar, one of the Zig Ziglar ones, because those were the best.

It was, it might have been something like that. And I left 2 days of, you know, I could have brought a pillow, but I learned one gem and that was ask them. So I flip listing appointments. You know, they ask you questions. I arrive with a list of questions. What are you looking for? What do you, you know, and the questions you ask are actually more important than the questions they ask you. You know, again, like there's all kinds of things you could say, but if you're in the talking business, you're not going to be as successful as if you're in the listening business.

So, say that again for the people in the back.

If you're in the talking business, you're not going to be as successful as the listening business. Really simple. So you ask questions. Now, they, one, and then shut the fuck up when you ask a question, you know, right? Listen. And so I ask questions that, one, help me understand where they're coming from, what their needs and wants are and what they expect. But two, Uh, he said, only ask questions where you are the yes. So, so I am offensively offering, asking questions to where the other realtors are going to fall into my little trap. That's right.

So, uh, but it's very smart and it doesn't just apply to real estate. That could apply to anything where you have a desire to win and a desired outcome. I like that approach.

And so you ask a lot of questions and they answer them, and then the next person comes in and they're having this conversation and they're like, oh, you know, and it's fantastic when that happens and you get that call. It's like they were just a mess. And it's like, yeah, I know I set that up. So, you know, that's a lot of it. I had my scariest listing appointment ever a couple of years ago, and I was warned, like, this guy, they call him the General. And he, like, our third appointment, it was a big house. Our third appointment, he said, I want my kids and my board to be there. My board. And I went to his office and there was like 8 people were sitting around a table. And they're, you know, they're like, okay, we have questions for you. And I fully believe his intention was to educate his kids on how to kind of destroy a real estate agent. And so I showed up with 10 pieces of paper with about 10 questions on it, and I passed out the questions and I said, before you get to me, I'd like to ask you a lot of questions. And he's like, okay. And one of them, he was extremely worried about security. And I said, in the day, this modern age, we're going to go off market in this modern age of information where somebody will tell somebody else something. There are no secrets in this price range. When you start circulating information, maybe photos, you have, you have to, got to tell somebody. What are you going to do if it gets out? Was my first question. Because it probably will. So how are we going to handle that? And he looks around and he goes, this guy, and he goes, you paying attention? And he looks at my questions and I turned the tables and asked a lot of questions and I got the listing. And the thing is that, you know, we're always on the defense. We're the ones, you know, you said what questions they can ask you. The question is, what am I going to ask them? You know, and by asking specific questions that align with their needs, if you've been listening, you know their needs probably. Then by asking them questions, you're actually turning the tables and having an intelligent conversation showing, you know, your business, you know what you're doing, and you're more likely to be a peer than a subordinate.

I love that. It's so smart. And I don't know how I would've reacted if I'd gotten dragged into a boardroom, but now if it happens, I'm prepared because David Kramer led the way. So you said it was a big house. I'm in North Carolina. Our big house is wildly different than the Los Angeles Orange County area.

Only in price. Only in price.

What's big? 2 years ago, what's big? 20 million?

5,000 feet. Oh, oh no.

3,000 feet?

Yeah, 50 million.

Yeah. 50? For— is this his primary residence? Oh, this is a second home? Third home? It's one— is it in the portfolio?

I have another saying. If you hadn't noticed, I have a few sayings. I'm not a curious person. I'm not in the why business.

I'm so nosy.

I'm in the what's now business.

I'm old. We had a blackboard in the classroom when I was in school and They would put names on the board for busybody. I was on the name list for busybody. So, all right, so if you're 20,000 feet in California, how much would it cost to heat and cool that? Do they get affected by the brownouts too when your grid goes down, or are they exempt from it 'cause they're super big and super money people?

No, a lot of people have generators in that category.

Well, that's true.

And we don't have as many brownouts, you know, depending on where your house is, but we don't have as many.

I guess it just depends on your proximity to the people in power, whether you have brownouts or not.

That's a bigger, bigger question.

I know that when there's an ice storm, I know where the power comes back on first. It's not rocket science to figure that out. Okay, so David, if anybody is looking to buy or sell real estate in the Los Angeles area, they want to just connect with you because they are fascinated by your story and they're already Gonna have to get in the comments and tell me to bring you back on again because we have just scratched the surface and I think we could have another really fun conversation if you'll come back. How do people find you? What's the best way to find DKG?

That's it. Um, just David Kramer Group. We spent a lot of money on SEO. Just put my name in.

That's where you'll find out if you actually come up on Google page 1 or page 3, because then we got a problem.

I just got my first call on, uh, ChatGPT and the guy said, who's the best realtor to sell my place in West Hollywood? And he, I came up, which is funny because it's definitely not my area of specialty. So we did something right. I don't know.

But wait a minute, isn't West Hollywood the sketchy part of town? Didn't I learn that from watching trashy TV?

It's definitely not sketchy. I'm going to use the word texture. Parts of Sydney have a lot of texture.

Okay, that's such a California thing. Okay, so I know, but words have definite meaning. All right, so if West Hollywood has more texture, But you came up for West Hollywood, which is not your area. Does that mean David has texture?

Definitely has texture. Depends on who you ask.

Well, apparently if we ask the large language models, they have developed an opinion about David Kramer. And you, my viewers and listeners, have also developed an opinion. So say something nice about David in the comments and absolutely drop in there if you want me to have him back for round 2. David, thank you so much for coming to the show to chat a little bit about some various things and giving us some perspective and some great ways to think about not just our businesses, but life. I'm very grateful to you.

The same. Fun talking to you. And next time, old fashions and a longer conversation.

Let's do it. All right, y'all, hit the bell and make sure you come back and see us next time.

All right. Take care. Thank you. Have a good day.

Hey, if you've got a story too wild to keep to yourself, send me a message because you just might be the perfect next guest. Thanks for hanging out with me. I'll see you next time, right here where real estate gets real.