Join us as CINC sits down with Dean Aguilar of the Dean Aguilar Group and hear his journey of growing a booming real estate business in California. He shares his story of traveling across the United States to start his brokerage, the lessons he learned building a top-performing team, and how he eventually sold his brokerage to California's fastest-growing brokerage, Big Block Realty.
Dean: I've been in real estate for 19 years. I started in 2001 in the Washington DC market as a buyer's agent and did well. In 2005, I started and grew my first team until the market crashed. Right after that happened, we lost everything, trying to keep the business afloat. It was a rough time. But my wife and I decided to rebuild in California after a two-year hiatus.
When we moved to California, I started my real estate business back up, with no sphere at all. I was always great at sales, and without a sphere, I knew I had to get in front of people and fast, so I started going to open houses, probably about 4 or 5 a week, and that started generating enough revenue and business to need and support a team.
Dean: When I started building my team, I was in San Diego. I started with a virtual ISA, who is still with me after eight years. That role was first because I was so full of leads that I had too many leads and couldn't keep up, a terrific problem to have!
Once my ISA and other team members were hired and hit the ground running, I started investing in Zillow when they were really cheap, and we were closing about eight deals a year in California.
It exploded my business, which then funded additional technology services, including CINC! With the CINC leads and platform, my team and I were able to stay organized, and my business continued to snowball.
Dean: You need something for the person to graduate into to continue their career. Always have a next step for them to grow their career. If you don't, they will leave, and in 2017, I lost four big producers. That equated to about 200-300 deals a year, which changes your perspective, especially when you have spent an entire year training them.
That was a problem I needed to fix! I decided to open my brokerage so I could have solo agents, and they could grow their team. I ended up deciding to go with a virtual brokerage, and it was the right choice for my team and me.
Dean: Leverage your time and resources through three pieces of advice:
Dean: They were our clients in the brokerage, so Sam from Big Block approached me about the acquisition, and I realized it would bring a whole new level of resources to our agents. I knew we were putting our agents in a position to change the financial bloodline of their families. If the model had been perfect, then I would have never sold, but I always focused on being able to allow my team to continue growing.