International Real Estate in the time of COVID with Tina Mak

Brokerage Insider

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TRIBUS CEO Eric Stegemann sits down with Canadian international super agent Tina Mak to talk about what international buyers are looking for right now, what new technology is helping agents close more sales, and what to make of the real estate world right now.

TRANSCRIPTION

Eric Stegemann (00:00):

Hi everybody. And welcome to the brokerage insider podcast. My name is Eric Stegemann and I am the CEO of TRIBUS, a real estate brokerage platform vendor. Today we're here with Tina Mak and Tina is a specialist in the international real estate community. She has a number of accolades that she's achieved as well as things that she's doing to work with international buyers that I think will be a particular interest to our listeners. So, first of all, welcome to the brokerage insider podcast here.

Tina Mak (00:36):

Thank you for having me. Thanks very much and hope everything's everybody is safe and well.

Eric Stegemann (00:42):

Yes, definitely. Definitely and that's a, a good topic to lead into. We'll get to in just a second and talking a little bit about the virus specifics. Why don't you first tell us a little bit about yourself and tell us about your business.

Tina Mak (00:57):

Yeah, so I am an immigrant from Hong Kong. I moved to Vancouver in 1991 and I started doing this business in 1992. So it's my 28 years in the business. I have been with the same brokerage company since day one, so I haven't changed anywhere, gone in anywhere. So you talk about loyalty. I, I think that is pretty rented.

Eric Stegemann (01:21):

Yeah, for sure.

Tina Mak

Yeah. So since 2010, I've been on a speaking role from Coldwell banker to Engelmann’s to NAR to Hong Kong, to China, speak in front of the policy makers cause they would like to you know, like have their cause real estate is very different in that side of the world. And they would like to improve the professionalism. So I was representing Canada to let them know what we're doing in North America, in Canada for them to, you know, like just they're just policy makers. So, you know, like put some policies together and get agents to follow and things like that. And I also do have my own radio show, a real radio show and the radio stations since 2007. So it's my 13 years you know, 13 seasons, you know hosting this weekly radio show is a Chinese radio stations, but my guess is from all over the world.

Tina Mak (02:29):

And I do have a guest speak English, speak Mandarin. So I will do live translations right away. And I've got a CEO from if, if people there realize, you know, like no religion. So pretty much like all the brand, most of the CEO was on my radio show. And and then I got people from Australia, Hong Kong China, friends, India, my last one was India just all over so that it will give my listener is the Chinese reach out to 80% of my Chinese community in Vancouver so that they will know, you know, what is going on around the world and how people invest globally.

Eric Stegemann (03:18):

That's great. So obviously you are a specialist when it comes to international real estate and how even it works in different countries. You know, first thing that I didn't even have on my list, that something that you just mentioned but something that I wanted that I think is worthwhile asking you about, and I know this, but maybe many of our listeners do not is, you know, what, how is real estate different? How has a real estate agent different in Hong Kong or in Germany or in another country as opposed to the United States or Canada?

Tina Mak (03:51):

One major distinction is that we have exclusive listing and we have MLS. They don't, they are open you know, like listing meaning that I list my house. I can list it with a hundred different brokerage company. There's no exclusiveness over there. And to be honest, we are spoiled in this part of the world because if we all, you know, move to that side of the world, we will be so struggling. You know, like it could be very chaotic to us because we have system over here and to them that I don't want to say they don't have system, they have their way to do do business. And that applies to Europe Hong Kong any Asia, you know, and European countries. So there, that is the major distinctions and also for commission wise. Okay. Here, let's be honest that like we are the boss of the brokerage owner.

Tina Mak (04:49):

Okay. Because without us, they, you know, without transactions, you know, they, they got no business. Okay. So, and then we have split house, we have hundred percent house, you know, depending on which part of the North America you're in, but in that side of the world many of them they're like salary base. Okay. Just like, you know, like in this part of the world, you know, if you go to buy a car, the car salesman, they have a salary. Okay. And, and then, or maybe you go to any mall, you know, shopping and they have a basic salary. And that side of the world, it's the same it's basic salary. So the brokerage owner is the is the boss. So in that side of the world, they would like to, you know, they always recruit the franchise because the owner will make the most money as high, as let's say, a commission is $10,000 as high as they will get $8,000 and the agents will get only $2,000.

Tina Mak (05:43):

Okay. So in that case, you know, that, that is very, very different. And in that side of the world, not everywhere, they have to take an exam and pass the exams to be a realtor or agent. Whereas here we do. And so in that side of the world, they can be you know, a janitor can be a real estate agent, a car salesman and not, you name it, you know, like they all have, you know, like multiple jobs. So in that case, I mean, not saying that we don't have it on this side of the world, you know, like in in Canada since the late nineties, we kicked in the competition act in my days when I joined in 1992 we, I was not allowed to have a second income. I don't know about us, but I was not allowed to have second income until late nineties and the competition act kicked in.

Tina Mak (06:39):

So because a lot of the agents, they said, okay, I cannot make my living, you know, like things like that. So they said, okay, you have to put food on the table at the house. So they allow this happen. So unfortunately, you know, many of us became like a part time now. And that side of the world, that probably happens in the, you know, I don't know what the percentage, I don't want to, you know, like make it out of proportions, but you can imagine it's because they don't have that Russo anybody can be enriched the agents and this side of the world. We, we we care about the knowledge, knowledge, worth something, knowledge and experience worth something. Okay. In that side of the world, not necessarily. Okay. So so in that case, you know, there's a lot of huge difference, obviously cultural gap.

Tina Mak (07:30):

We absolutely have a lot of cultural gaps, you know, like between the East side of the world and the West side of the worst. And I don't want to make it that macro, but make it like a micro. So in, in E doesn't matter, what is U S or in Canada, East coast and West coast, we all behave differently. Okay. So, so just to think of that, so let alone his cross Pacific ocean. So, you know, there's a lot of cultural differences and how you greet and meet people. And when you I always say one thing, if you want to be a good salesman's advisor or whatever the case may be, if your clients is three years old, you better speak like a three year old. And if your clients is 90 years old, you better speak like 90 years old. They don't understand our language, you know? And, and then I, we always have to put ourselves in their shoes. Often we have our, I mean, we all opinionated in some way, you know, but we have to put ourselves in their shoes, understand their culture, understand the background in order to break the ice fast. And so that probably is a long answer for your one questions.

Eric Stegemann (08:43):

Thank you. You've touched on a number of interesting points there. And always the thing that surprised me if now, you know, 21 years of selling real estate, when I first met people that sold real estate and other countries, I was so surprised that the discrepancies between a, either how much more schooling that they needed than here, like, for example, in a lot of Europe it's my understanding that you essentially have to be a lawyer and go through school to be a lawyer to sell real estate in those countries. And then in other countries like South America, where anybody can pop up and say, I'm selling real estate today and have no qualifications. Yeah, exactly. So from that perspective and, and certainly the compensation on that line as well, or that you were talking about where an agent may make a lot less money, also, something that I've always found interesting about international the way international real estate is done is that the commissions are not anywhere near 6% in other countries. Is that, is that your experience too?

Tina Mak (09:50):

Well, let me tell you, you don't need to go to that side of the world in Vancouver, our commission, if you're lucky is 3% across the board.

Eric Stegemann (10:02):

Yeah. Yeah.

Tina Mak (10:04):

So you don't need to go to that side of the world. I'm telling you.

Eric Stegemann (10:07):

Yeah, we have a client in the Dominican Republic. TRIBUS has a client in the Dominican Republic and the owner was sharing with me what their average commission, even on million dollar houses is, and it's, it's next to nothing. It's just not compensated the same way as the States. So any which way? Well, that's you know, I, hopefully that's enlightening to our listeners about how different a different real estate is and other places. I wanna, I do have some, some things that I want to ask you about, first of all, what percentage of the transactions that you personally represent? What percentage of those transactions come from international buyers or sellers?

Tina Mak (10:47):

For the for the international business, I will say is right in the ballpark is about 5% or maybe a little bit more, however because my business is a hundred percent referrals. So and I do travel a lot. My peak time was like, I travel once every two months. So my luggage is constantly, you know, opened up, you know, like, you know, close in, close out and things like that. So you know, like being an international agent, a realtor it's like a lot of the luxury, you know, like agents, you know, a lot of the agents would like to sell luxury. A lot of the agents would like to sell international. It is not that simple now. We are both us and Canada. We're very metropolitan, you know, especially a few cities, you know, like New York, you know, Vancouver, Toronto LA you know, like Seattle, you know, all this prime city is very metropolitan now just because you are having a listing and then you have different ethnicity clients customer buyers walk into your open house, or you sell it to them doesn't mean that you're doing international business because doesn't mean that you really understand their backgrounds and things like that.

Tina Mak (12:15):

So I do travel a lot and for that reason, I got referrals from all over the world. And then is this a big part of my business? I deliberately do not want to make anything a big part of my business. Just like in any investment situations is that you don't want to put all your eggs in the same way

Eric Stegemann (12:37):

Well, there you go call Tina if you want to work with them. But so let as far as the buyers that are coming, let's say, you know, the buyers that you've had that are coming from China and, and coming from other places and coming to Vancouver, have you noticed any uptick or downtick because of the virus of them trying to get out of ch of China or any other country that you worked with international buyers from. Okay.

Tina Mak (13:04):

So the virus has nothing to do with why people move around. Okay. The virus now believe me or not, I spoke to my clients a couple weeks ago and he is one of the major, I mean, he sent me to retire, but he operated on my father more than 20 years ago. And he became my clients. He has a surgeon in our major hospital in town. And he is now teaching in the university as well. He said to me, he said, Tina, there's no vaccine said, there's never a vaccine for SARS, never have vaccines for Ebola. [Inaudible] Nor it will have vaccines for COVID-19. And I said, are you serious? Is that yup. Is that the flu shot never works? So I asked him, I said, so do you think that you know, like if there is ever a vaccine, I said, would you take it?

Tina Mak (14:02):

He said, no. And then I said, so you're telling me that all the news out there talk about vaccine, vaccine, vaccine. They are just propaganda. He said, yes. So I'm not trying to spread out any force or whatever, but this is an actual conversation I had with my client. So to go back to, is the Corona virus, the reason why people they move out of the country? No. The reason why the people move out of the country sometimes often is politics. Okay. For example, people from Hong Kong, people from Taiwan, people from India and different part of the world or Mexico, they go to us and anywhere it's all because of politics. Now, China actually is the least the, the, the Chinese people from China, actually, they immigrate has nothing. Well, I don't want to say it has nothing to do with politics, but mainly is for better quality of life.

Tina Mak (