Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the show. This is the highest and best you podcast where we talk to people who are thriving and maximizing their potential within the real estate industry. Each week, we sit down and talk with someone in or around the real estate market and see what they're doing to reach their highest and best. I'm your host, Jake Varna, and this podcast is brought to you by VRA Realty. For more information about vra realty, visit vraalty.com today we are here with Dylan Buettner. Dylan is an agent here at vra, and I'll let you just introduce yourself.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Jake, thanks for having me on. Yeah, my name is Dylan Buettner. I've been with DRA for four years now. I think I came over in end of 2019 into 2020.
Yeah, I'm an investor and a realtor and realtors kind of that dirty word. But I do have that I like. I prefer agents. You're just a salesman. You know, it's, it's. It's a tagline that we got, and not all of us had the bad rep, and I'd like to think I'm the one that doesn't.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll get into your full story. I mean, I'll start off by asking you just a couple simple questions. I mean, where are you from? What we're. What's your origin?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: So originally from Malvern, I grew up here, went to public school, kind of.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Had high school graduate.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: I went to Great Valley High School just right down the road, just 10 minutes from here.
Realized I actually grew up around a lot of real estate.
It was never. My plan was to be in real estate. You know, after I got out of college, which I went to Westchester University right down the street here, that was my second or third choice for school. But Westchester is just the. One of the best towns in the area. And finding a brokerage that was built out of there and, you know, staying close to home, I think this was the perfect spot. Not only just because the location, but the people that we're surrounded with, you know, as none absolutely went.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: What year did you get your license?
[00:01:58] Speaker B: So I got my license in 2019.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Okay, first year VRA was your first choice?
[00:02:03] Speaker B: No, so actually I originally signed with kw, which I'm glad I did. I think KW was. Was a great place for any new agent to land at first. They had great, great education. But I just, I admire so much how much VRA has changed into that. And we've really come to a place where we can develop new agents now, too. Which is really cool to see that, you know, Steve has made that shift as well.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. I started with KW as well, and I felt like I got a ton of training and support. When I first came over to vra, that was something that was lacking. And over the past year or so, we've definitely made those drives to make sure that we can support.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's so many new agents that are coming into real. Someone hears about real estate, they're like, oh, this is interesting. I want to jump right into it. And then, you know, they usually do find their self at a KW because they advertise their amazing training programs, which they're pretty good.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: They are.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: I would say you want to be a robot.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: If you want to be a real.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Estate robot and drink the Kool Aid and.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: And. And I'll meet with people that want to get into real estate in all sense, that from them, what. Who do they want to be in regards to real estate? Do you want to be a robot salesperson? Because KW might be a great fit for you. And up until probably about last year, any new agent that came to me, I said, you should probably go to somewhere like a KW first and figure out what you want to do. But if. If there was a brokerage like VRA is now, when I was getting my license, I would immediately came here because I wanted to speak a certain language in regards to real estate and no other brokerage. Can you find the way conversations are had like they are here at vra.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: They sure are different. It's. It's an amazing place to be, really. I mean, in my year and a half here, it's. The conversations are definitely different. And, you know, we talk about the three reasons why, obviously our commission, the way we talk about investing, and investing is a really big one, and why people come here. And you mentioned that you're an investor yourself. You want to tell me a little bit about that?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like I said, I was. I was surrounded by real estate growing up. Didn't really realize it. My family owned and managed a MO home park and some residential property around it.
I'm in the middle of doing a transaction with my uncle to kind of take over some of the residential real estate. I'm also doing a subject to deal right now as well that I have in the works. And then I just got done meeting with an investor that wants to possibly sell or finance 10, 10 properties with me. So it's just, you know, when you. When you come to a place like vra, you're Surrounded by opportunity.
That's what Steve, our broker, kind of says. This is his net. You know, if he makes a couple dollars from it, great. But it's the opportunity that comes. And I kind of feel the same way with my team, the way I design my team and why I surround myself a bra. So without getting too much in the weeds. Yeah, for sure.
It's subject to.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: But we'll let Steve explain that in another video.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean, it's.
When you come to a brokerage like this, you're surrounded by opportunity in real estate sales. But then you learn the creative financing, which our job as realtors is a lot of time problem solving. And if you can't speak the language of all the investment side of things, you're never going to have the best ways to solve each problem, which I think you're going to get here more than you're going to get anywhere else.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Absolutely, I agree. You mentioned your team. I mean, go in a little bit of depth about that. Your team. Now. I was. I had Rob on. On another episode. We talked about his team strategy, and obviously every team strategy is a little different. I asked Rob, why did he choose a team? Because when I first got into real estate, I joined a team of 56. I was number 49 out of 56. It was a lot. And I think they even knew they brought too many on that they couldn't handle. Now I talked to Rob and his reasoning for a why is probably going to be different for your reason. And I want to hear your why. Why did you start a team and why is your team? It's a little bit different if you explain that.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: My team's definitely unique.
The why was never.
Was never a goal of mine. Actually, I prefer mailbox money. I don't like to be in the foreground. I'm a leader for sure, but at the same. Same time, I never thought I was going to build out a team. And it came as an opportunity. That's when I surrounded myself with. I met my business partner who is actually with a different brokerage. So we actually call our team a referral network because we have agents all spread across different teams. But the why came down to wanting to help the most clients and the most agents have success.
I just thought if I could help a bunch of agents, I could free up time for myself. Just like the same reason we buy investment properties. Buy investment properties to get your time back. I wanted to bring on agents to help more agents grow their business while I got my time back. I'VE got a two and a half year old. My, my why is her and my, my fiance Shay. So my why came from. Okay, let me get as many great agents in the specific areas that I market in, give them the business and I'll get referral checks.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Right. I love it. And, and I know a lot of your team, your business, you know, it comes from personal stuff as well. But you also, you've dived really deep into Zillow recently.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: And I've heard, you know, some people talk really bad about Zillow. So why is Zillow something that you guys choose to invest in?
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: So it should. It is an investment.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: It is, it is. Our Referral network is 100% based through Zillow.
I think to answer your question, why, why do some people love it and some people hate it?
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Some people think it's the enemy and some people really. And some people love it. I think it's very few that do love it. And I think the reason that most people don't love it is they can never get into a big enough investment for it to reap serious dividends.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: So the smaller your budget is, just like any lead gen system, you get a, you go, you get a small amount of leads, you're going to get a small amount of conversion. If you get a bigger amount of leads, hopefully you have more to convert on. So as we grew our budget, it certainly helped generating more leads. So we were able to close more of them because a lot of them are.
And a lot of them are good. Yeah. So you're gonna get, some of them are good and we focus our areas there. But I think the biggest shift that's really helped with Zillow businesses, anyone could sell 2, 3, $400,000 house. And that's where most of our business was in 2020 and 2021. And we shifted the business into higher end zip codes and that has reaped dividends for us and our agents that we refer the leads out to.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Very good, very good. And how many people are in this network?
[00:08:45] Speaker B: So me and my business partner were one of the two team leaders. And then we have five agents, four of them are with vra. And then we have one that's actually with Patterson Schwartz. So we've got one team leader that's with kw me with vra. We've got four agents that are at vra and then we have one more with Passion Short. So we're kind of spread out amongst area and we have, we have three to five more people that Want to come on that were.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: That was my next question. So what's expanding the team look like?
[00:09:20] Speaker B: So the expanding of the team actually looks like we're going to expand to more agents in the office. Whether or not it becomes official team at the office. You know, we're, we're going to see how that pans out.
I think one of the most unique things about my business model is I'm not, I'm not a team where like if you have personal business or stuff, it's all going to go underneath my name. I get the credit for it or whatever and I take a big cut. Like my team is based around providing value, providing back end and providing leads for my agents and when I provide them a lead it's, I take a cut of that lead. If they have their own personal business, I don't take a single cut.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: That's the biggest difference between your network and the team is like when I, I was over at my team, I believe when you brought over some personal 80 20.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: That's, you know, the team had nothing to do with that. Obviously they provide you support, you know, do you provide your agent support and help what needed or.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: That's something I'm working on. Growing on systems is never something I've been good at. It's honestly what I lack at most in my business. So bringing on people systems and providing that support is really something. That's the next step to take my business to the next level. Just got off the phone talking to a recruiter that's possibly talking about finding an executive assistant for me to really take the next jump because we have an assistant now that also is a transaction coordinator and it just feels like we need something to get over the next hump.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: I gotcha.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: But to answer your question in its entirety, the overall growth that I see this business growing into is to all high end markets around the nation. I firmly believe that I can build something up to where we buy the leads and partner with agents in those high end markets and then we also bring in a lender to cut into some of the cost of doing so. So the lead goes to that, that realtor and then the lender comes in and tries to close it and then we can focus on expanding into different states of which we're thinking of going down to Florida and the Carolinas next.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: So very interesting.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: If there's any state still left, we'll say that's amazing.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean there's a lot to unpack there but I want to get to a lot of Other things. So let's move. We talked about your investment, we talked about your team. Let's talk about you. So you grew up in Great Valley. You were surrounded by real estate. How old are you?
[00:11:42] Speaker B: I'll be turning 30 in a week. Here. Oh, October 11th. So I'm hitting the big three zero. Yeah, yeah.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Something that I struggle with. And I just thought of this because it's, it's something that I deal with a lot. I'm only 22 years old. I got in real estate when I was 19 and something that I dealt with. And you got your license when you were about 25?
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah. After school.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: How'd you deal with the adversity of people constantly, just like, you're too young to do this or, you know, they don't want to be represented by somebody that's only 25. How'd you deal with that?
[00:12:18] Speaker B: So the biggest way I bridge that gap was I talked about my resources and who was backing me.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: So I didn't have anything to leverage. When you have a conversation and you, you have mentors and you're the mentee, I think the biggest thing, and this goes for anyone, not just you, anyone who comes into real estate or any business that is adjacent to real estate or any, any industry where you have a mentor and you're trying to earn business in a sales type way.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: You need to leverage the experience of the team that's behind you.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: So when I would start to take, you know, they were warm calls that would come in through Zillow, and that's still what they are. I wouldn't talk about myself at all. I would say this is what my, this is the team. This is my business partner. He has this much experience. He's a third generation builder. He's built over 40,000 homes up and down the East Coast, a majority of them in Pennsylvania and Delaware. So if you find a couple taglines that can build credibility for your network and who you're surrounded by, it goes a long way. But if you don't have experience to lean on, someone that's smart enough is going to sniff out if you're trying to feed them some bullshit. So it's definitely something that I've learned is in any sort of conversation, you need to lean on where there's leverage, because if you don't, then you're just making stuff up.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I. What you said, I mean, it's, it's spot on. There's so many new agents that come in, they just pretend like they know everything and I think people sniff that out, like, immediately. They're like, no, you're bullshit, and I don't want to work with you. And, I mean, that's how the young agents fail. So, I mean, what she said is spot on. And I think a lot of young agents under 20, I mean, if there's a two in your age, I think you're definitely getting looked at a little bit differently, and that's just the way it's going to be. But if you have someone to lean on the experience and the credibility, I think that's. That's huge.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: I think it's perspective, you know, like, every time a question is fed to you that you may or may not have the answer to, you know, whether you're young or not, you know someone that does. You know what my answer to the question is? You know what? I know someone that's way more qualified to answer that conversation. That's part of my network, part of my team.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: They're actually a mentor of mine. Whatever. You put some sort of tagline on it that says, I'm going to get the best answer for you and get back to you with that answer, because I'm not the person that's qualified. And that's kind of how I built my team out was, okay, if I'm not the right person to sell them that house, I'm going to send the person that is the right person to sell that house.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: That's an amazing way to look at it. That's an amazing way you're providing that value.
Let's switch gears again to. Let's switch back to vra.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: What's your favorite. I mean, what's your favorite part? I don't want this to be like. Some say, like.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: No, no. I know how to answer this question 100%, and I talked about it with Steve. Is it a T shirt? No. Sometimes I just got this T shirt. It's my only T shirt. I've been needing more.
It's pretty simple. I pointed this out in a few of our. We have our Friday morning meetings.
I've seen this company take four different shifts that I clearly can point out. And I admire Steve, and I pointed out to him all the time because sometimes I'm the elder in. In those meetings. Sometimes I've been.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: With VRA for the longest. Which is weird to say that, because, you know, I'm still 22, 29, so sometimes I feel like I'm still one of the younger ones in the room.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: You definitely are.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: What?
[00:15:50] Speaker A: What?
[00:15:50] Speaker B: It comes down to is when I first came on to vra, the first conversation I had with Steve, I remember he corrected my tone of how I stated something that I wanted to do. And he changed my language and said, you will do this, you will do.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: That, instead of I will try.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: And I immediately said, okay, this is who I want to surround myself with. That was step number one.
He at the time was trying to bring on experienced agents. That was year number one.
Year number two, I saw him make a pivot back towards his investments.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Year number three, I watched him bring on resources around him to grow the business itself. Actually, that was kind of year two into year three. So he was bringing on people, branching out, trying to bring on agents and stuff. And now we've gotten to the point where we're growing offices and providing value for newer agents. So we're not just experienced agents, we're not just investor agents now. We provide value, excuse me, from people that are new to experience to the top tier agents in our area. And we're starting to attract a little bit of everything. So that is my favorite thing, is to watch how Steve has successfully shifted this business in four different years, four different times, with four different styles of investing into his own business. And each time he's executed. And that's what he preaches. So I think he does, by far is my favorite part of this business, is the way he's ran it.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: Fantastic.
I won't make this too long winded. I just want you to have your closing statements. Where can someone find you? What's your specialty? The floor is yours.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So, I mean, you could probably bet your bottom dollar if you click on any house on Zillow, anywhere along the main line, Westchester, or down 202, my phone's probably going to be the one that rings. And you're damn lucky if that's the one who picks up the phone. So I'll definitely toot my own horn about that. And if you connect with anyone else on my team, they're the right, right person in that area for sure.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: And they have the back of experience.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they do. They do. And we, you know, I'm on Facebook.
You can find me in your local Philly style magazine. Now, I just got a feature.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. How could I talk about that?
[00:18:06] Speaker B: I mean, that was, that was pretty cool.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Was that a surprise? I mean.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: Well, it was an opportunity. Whether or not it was a surprise, I don't know. I mean, it was, it was an opportunity. They reached out to people that had done ten plus million over the last twelve months. And you know, it was, I never wanted to.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Plus million. Close volume.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Not, not $10 million in my pocket. No, no, no, no. We don't have the fu. Money as we call it.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Not yet.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So the, you know, that was, it was a cool opportunity. I never really wanted to do anything like that, but I saw it actually as my fiance and I sat down, talked about it and I was like, oh, that's not really who I am.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: She goes, I think it would be a really cool way to document your 30th year of life. So that's kind of what I did. It was kind of a way to check off something off the box.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: When I saw that, I mean it was just like I kind of got the chill. I know this guy, he's in a magazine now. It was awesome. I mean, great to see, we love to see your success. Something else I wanted to touch on. I don't know where my mind was going.
So first of all, a Rolex is a lot more than a watch. Right. It signifies something.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Time is value, whatever.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Let's talk about the lion. Oh yeah, I heard you talking about the lion. I forget if it was in another video.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: It was in the magazine.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Was it in the magazine?
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Talk about.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: So I've always, I've always had a lime pendant.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: You know, I got the line.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have always, I've always had a lime pendant. Recently my best friend bought me this one that was a little more blinged out that I've, I've never really rocked diamonds or gold or anything like that. I've always been a white gold, silver guy. But really it's, it's more about the pride of providing for my family and protecting my own. So it's always been line hearted. Eventually it'll be tattooed on my chest. If, if I didn't have a family and kids, I'd be covered in tattoos. But every time, every time I go to spend money on tattoos I'm like, that's you know, 12, $1500 that I could go spend elsewhere. So eventually I will be all tattooed up and I will have lionhearted and I will have a, you know, a male and a female lion on my chest because I really, that's the way I view my life is the pride, you know, and. Yeah. And providing and protecting for my family. So I've always lived by the lion heart of mantra and I will continue to do so. And I wear it around my chest and Yeah. I mean in regards to the watch. You know, people ask me what time it is, and I actually pick up my phone. They're like, aren't you. Aren't you wearing a watch? And I go, yeah, but my watch is to tell you how much my time's worth.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: Not to tell you what time it is.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Who said that first?
[00:20:46] Speaker B: It was actually where I heard it first was.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Wasn't it, Diddy? No. Never mind.
It was not.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: No, it was.
Oh, I've seen the clip. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyways, tight end for the Broncos. I'll think about it. I'll think about it in a second.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Okay, you keep thinking about that.
But. But no, I. I don't mean to. To make you humbly brag or anything, but it. Definitely. A Rolex is much more significant than just the watch itself.
Yeah, man. I mean, when I first saw that chain around your neck, I'm not gonna lie, I thought it was the gaudiest I've ever seen.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: That's fun.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: I was like, what is this guy doing? And then when I heard the story, it was like that. You know, you just. It's judging someone before you get to know them. Yeah, we're all victims to it.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: I've never worn anything like this, but it came from my best friend. Um, In. In fact, like, I. I probably will. Will get rid of the gold somehow. I. I heard you can white it out with white gold, so I've never really. I don't have enough skin for rocking the gold. I'm a little too pale, so. Always, always rock the silver and white gold. Yeah, but, yeah, I wear it proudly.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I just. It was. You gotta know someone's story. I mean, it's just a. Another one, a tidbit I want to throw in there, but. But no, man. I mean, listen, your success in this. This podcast. Excuse me. Is all about finding people that are. That are doing the most that they can to reach their highest and best potential. And that's hence the name highest and Best you, which we see that you're doing. You're. Every single day, you're now trying to find new opportunities to make better for yourself and who you work for. And it's definitely very admirable. So we thank you so much.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: I appreciate that.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: First of all, being a part of VRA Realty.
[00:22:27] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: I mean, that's. Ultimately, the podcast is brought to you by VRA Realty, but also, it's. It's. We're. We're grateful to have you a part of our culture, because that's something we preach, the contribution, the community and all of that. So thank you so much, Dylan.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Thanks, brother. Thanks for having me on.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Appreciate it.
