Gina Mullen - How to Thrive in the Luxury Real Estate Market

The Built-How Podcast is part of the Win-Mate Give podcast network. Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Built-How Podcast. My name is Lucas Sheradon. It is an honor to be your host. This is the podcast as you have listened to it in the past. You know that this is the podcast where we specialize in understanding the real estate industry by taking the very best real estate professionals and asking them a simple question. How did you build the business that you built? I have one of those top real estate professionals. I just actually had the privilege of being with her and teaching her team this last week. Gina Mullen, out of the Gina Mullen Realty Group, outside of Fort Worth, Texas. Thank you so much for being on the Built-How Podcast. Well, thank you for having me. I'm super excited about this conversation. I've known you by reputation for years. I've been able to get to know you a little bit over the last year or so. So I'm excited to hear your story. So before we dive into that, Gina, tell us a little bit about your team and what it looks like today, how much you guys sell. And I know you've got a couple of niches that you really specialize in. Sure. So we are not a high unit team because we are a luxury team. So last year we closed 76 units. We did close to $60 million in production. And we are a small but mighty team. After COVID, when the market shifted, we had a lot of real estate professionals who left the industry. So what we have currently is there's myself and one other agent on the team, our director of ops, who is also licensed, our listing coordinator, who was also licensed, and a transaction coordinator who's also licensed, as well as various support roles. And so when you just know that our, because luxury means different things in different parts of the country, I love at Kansas City. And I think luxury is definitely different here than New York City. So what is luxury in the DFW area for you? Sure. So if you go by the CLHMS designation, that will tell you over 750,000. But I will tell you here that over 1.5 million more likely as we continue with time, it's really over 2 million is truly luxury. Gotcha. So that helps because like, Kansas City luxury genuinely is about 75800. That is genuine luxury. I thought your area is considerably higher. It is. So how long have you been in real estate, Gina? So I've been in real estate. This will be my 12th year in real estate before that I was in the legal industry for 20 years. So what made you change from the legal industry to real estate? When I was in the legal industry, my last 10 years, I ran a high volume litigation department. And then I took off a few years to finish raising my children. And when it came time for me to go back to work, I did not want to return a litigation. That's 110, 120 hour work week when you're preparing for trial. And when you're in litigation attorney, you're always preparing for trial. So I had a friend who was in real estate at the time. And she said, I really think you would make a great impact in this industry. She said, you say what you mean and you mean what you say. And that goes a really long way. So I thought about it for a little bit. And my husband is in oil and gas. So we moved eight times the first 12 years we were married. Oh, wow. And we were young. So we really relied on our real estate agents. And if I'm going to be honest, I realize, especially now, that we were taking advantage of, we were not really guided the way we should be guided. We were guided more in line with what the agents best interests were versus hours. And unfortunately, just like any industry, those type of people can come into play. And so as I thought about it, I thought, you know, this is a way that I can make an impact in people's lives, which is what feeds my soul was making positive impact in people's lives. And helping them with what, for most people, is the largest financial decision that they will make in their lives. And so we really, I really just started out hoping to save people from really bad real estate transactions with, you know, other agents. I love that. And so instead of doing kernel mustard and the, Dan with a candlestick as an attorney, you're now helping save, save, because the truth is there's a lot of real estate agents that aren't real attentive to the details of the transaction. And it's true. One of the things I had, I just was at a listing presentation the other day and the seller said to me, well, I'm going to be interviewing other agents. What's the number one question you would ask other agents to determine if they're professional and they're going to give me the level of service that I want? And I said to him, this may surprise you, but the question that you should ask is, do you have a P&L? And he said, that's the question I should ask. And I said, yes, because it's a mindset. Somebody who has a P&L is running a business. Somebody who doesn't have a P&L is making hobby money. Okay, Gina, I'm going to jump in number one, 1,000 percent agree with that. And because I know our audience, a P&L is a profit and loss statement. In fact, the fact that we have to define that for real estate agents tells us a lot about the mindset industry. So I'm glad you're one of the professionals. Yes. So how did it go? Yeah, going from attorney to staying home with kiddos to jumping into the real estate space. How did that go your first year or so? So it went really well. Pretty much within my second month in real estate. I realized that although I had the legal background and contractual background, this was much different. And I need a guidance on how to be a day-to-day real estate agent. So she really, her name is Cindy Nguyen Chi, was really extremely impactful in getting my business started. And then my son was just graduating a private Christian school. And that actually ended up being where a lot of my first pieces of business came. And I tell my agents on the team this all the time is that you interviewed to be somebody's real estate agent long before you got your license. Because you let them know who you were and how you would show up for them long before you had a real estate license. And that's what I kept hearing from people. We don't care that you're new. We know how you work. We know how what your heart is like. And we want to hire you. And that private Christian school is now our largest farming group and provides about 40 to 50% of the business on the team. Oh my gosh, okay. So that, yes, that is, you know, that is really true because people aren't just hiring a professional skillset. They're hiring a person. And that person does it substantively change just because you become licensed by track or by a real estate commission, right? Correct. And so as my first piece of business trickled in, I actually had about a four and a half month period where I did not have any buyers under contract. I didn't have any listings and it was January 1st and I was sitting at the island with my husband. And I let out this big sigh and he said, you know, what's going on? And I said, well, I have never worked at anything so hard in my life and not seen a rate of return directly in alignment with how much effort I'm putting out. And he said to me at the time, God has a plan for you and I think this is it and I think you should just stick with it. So two weeks after that, my business really took off and within another eight weeks, my coach was telling me I needed to hire an admin assistant and a buyer's agent. And so that's what I did. So I formed a team at month eight after having my license, which is early and at the same time I just had so much business. I wasn't going to be able to provide the service that I wanted to if I did not have the help that I needed. And then from there, let me back this up for things. So for your first four and a half months, you're working, working with no result. Did I understand that correct? Well, my first two months, I had a couple pieces of business trickle in. So it was enough that I could see what that kind of looked like. But again, I went after those first two months. I went four and a half months with nothing. And that is when I just I've never worked at anything so hard in my life and not seen a rate of return at any level. I want to because, you know, this is, I hope every agent hears this whole idea of delayed gratification that's in your story. What were you doing this four and a half months where you're working so hard and you're obviously not working on a transaction. You're not working on a resolution or a brazen or getting something to close. So you have no current business, but yet you're working really hard. What were you doing in that four and a half months? Sure. And it's a lot of what we do now as well. We just do more. But what I was doing is I was holding at least four open houses a week, two on Saturday, two on Sunday. And sometimes I even went around with an additional one on Thursday night, one on Friday night. If there was a big sporting event or something like that. In addition to that, I was making 250 dials a week and trying to have 50 contacts. I was having at least three lunches and coffees or dinners every week. I also was also nurturing my friend group. So I became the organizer for our friends dinners. And I had a big group from that private Christian school. We met every week for dinner. And I was the one in charge of setting the dinner. And it was a group of 12 women. Sometimes we only had five or six show up, but sometimes we had all 12 show up. And then I was going up to the private Christian school. And every week I was providing them breakfast when they had their devotions so that I was at school and they could see me. And I also adopted Denton County Emergency Services, which is our fire department. So once a month we're delivering lunch to them. And then Teresa's house, which is the memory care facility, I was bringing a cute little something, whether it was cookie cakes or something like that for the people in the memory care center. So I was also a member of the community. I was a member of the community. I was out there all the time and I was beating the sidewalk if you would. And making sure that I was not a secret agent, I was getting it out there that I was an agent. My coach worked with me on how to very organically get into a real estate conversation no matter who I was talking to. My best friend or a stranger up at school. And so every conversation I had, I made sure somehow directed itself to real estate. But if it was something as simple as, "Oh gosh, Gina, I haven't seen you in a while. How are you? Oh my gosh, I'm so busy." The real estate market has just heated up. It's busy season. And I've been out previewing homes and showing homes. And it's just been really active right now, which then automatically goes into, "Oh, what are interest rates doing?" Or, "What are you seeing out there as far as offers are concerned?" So I was able to have a real estate conversation with almost every single person I came in contact with every week. Okay, so I just, just because you say that so humbly and you say that so matter of factly, I want everybody to hear that. Before and a half months, you're doing four open houses, 250 contacts, networking, showing up with three lunches for different causes, and no evidence on the outside where the typical agent might call for one week, talk to 10 people and think that this prospecting and lead generation doesn't work. It's amazing how much luck people seem to find the heart of that they work. Yes, yes. And so even with all of that work, there was still a little bit of delayed gratification in the beginning. Oh, yeah. And but then, like I said, two weeks later, and I do, you know, I am a spiritual person, so I do believe it was a God thing. I think God answered my prayers to Him, if I just need a sign. And the sign was, my business took off. And when I say took off, it took off in a big way. But that also falls into all the trainings that we go to that say, the work that you do now is the business that you will have 90 to 120 days from now. And that is exactly what happened. Love it. I love it. Love it. What do you think other than tenacity and grit, and then obviously having a coach that helps you with some of your languaging? Was there any secret sauce outside of that? There wasn't a secret sauce, but there were things that my either eye identified or my coach identified that I needed to become really well versed in. And so that would be what was going on in the real estate market. And that is directly impacted by what is going on in the economy. So I became very well versed in all things economy, in all things investing, in all things real estate, so that I could have conversations, especially at the private Christian school with people that are in a higher socioeconomic level who are investing and are very knowledgeable about the economy and money and what money can do, what you should do with it when this happens. For instance, one of the questions my coach asked me is, do you know what it means when they on yields in vert? And I was like, I have no idea. And she said, so we need to learn about that. So that was one of the things. And then the other thing is, it's a fun going to be very honest, even though I had a very great background in the legal industry, I had never been a real estate agent before. And I found a coach who I trusted and that I knew she had been an agent herself and she had had a very great career. And once I trust someone and I believe that they are the expert, I just did whatever she told me. I didn't try and change it. I didn't try to do it my way. I didn't try to make it so that it felt less awkward to me. I just did what she told me. Love that. Was there like, I just think about a successful litigator to the real estate industry, other than obviously there's a difference initially in finances? Was that hard for you? Just because succeeding at one career doesn't always translate it. Succeeding in another career, especially at the very beginning, because sometimes I think people at the beginning think I'm going to have the same clout that I had at the end of another career. Was that transition harder or easy for you? Did you ever think like, you know what, I'm going to go back and go litigate again. Were you ever tempted to go back or anything? And so I wasn't actually an attorney. I was a board certified paralegal. Okay. So I assisted the attorneys. But I think for me, and I'll tell you this, Lucas, about all areas of my life, I show up authentically as who I am. And to me, although I do set goals and I manage to reach my goals almost all the time, it's not because my purpose is my goal. It's because my purpose is to show up authentically who I am. And when I show up authentically who I am with integrity and my core values in line, my goals fall into place because then I am walking it exactly the way I should walk it. That's so good. Okay. So if I heard you correctly, you said eight months in, you're starting to already form a team which is like, I think that's record speed for anybody I've had on the built out podcast. Why did you have to start forming a team at eight months in? I had so much business at that point. I had so many people in our farming group. I was also cross fitting at the time and anybody who has cross fitted understands that functions as a family. And so as soon as I got my license, they were supporting me. They were so great to me and they're still my clients today. And so they, and again, I was interviewing to be their agent long before I had their license. So as soon as I got my license, as soon as they had a real estate need, they were more than willing to use me. And I all of a sudden had all of this business that I was not going to be able to work effectively. And again, it was not a decision I made. It was on advice of my coach. So as soon as she said, you need to do this, then I went ahead and did that. And I had somebody in my cross fit family who wanted to be an agent. We took her through the career visioning process and that she was a great match for that. And then my admin assistant was somebody who had worked at the private Christian school. And so she walked that walk and talked that talk and knew all the people. And she was drumming up business for me as well. And so it was just, it was a great match. We were a great team, the three of us, but then very quickly we had to grow even being on that. >> Yeah, so what did you, like, did you have any kind of learning curve there as you start to bring other people on the team? Or was it a pretty natural flow for you? I know sometimes when people bring additional individuals into their sales process, there's sometimes a learning curve there. Was that a pretty easy process for you or? >> You know, the biggest learning curve I had was with leadership. And that's a twofold reason. First, the generation that I am, we were managed. We had managers and we had bosses. And the generations under us do not respond well to managing or having a boss. And so my first learning curve was learning to be a leader versus a boss. And then in the beginning, my definition of leadership was, I'm going to teach you all the things that I do, all the things that I learned so that you can also go and do and learn them. My learning curve with that was there are multiple ways to achieve what I achieved and not everybody is going to do it the exact same way. So I need it to learn how to motivate people and how, the way I'm motivated is not how other people are motivated. And so I had a learning curve that way is figuring out how to lead an individual versus looking at the team as a whole and leading the team and everybody on the team the same way. >> Yeah, that's actually a huge learning I think people. I think we may spend the rest of our lives figuring out how to do that. That really is a big learning. >> Yes. And that's what that's the training we just had with you, right? Is how to learn how to communicate with people in the way that they respond to so that everybody can be pick a word more efficient, more productive, more relational, whatever that needs to be. >> That's right. So you kind of had to a moment ago that you added a couple of that all of a sudden you found yourself needing to grow even more what happened there. >> Yes. So after six months of having a buyer's agent and an admin, we needed to add another buyer's agent. And we actually added two. And that's when I first started to realize that a lot of people are enamored with the real state industry, but we have a huge amount of people who leave the real estate industry because they don't realize what it is. And in the beginning, I was not real great at describing what those first year or two looks like when you're in real estate and you're trying to build your business. Because even if you're on a team and the team supports you and makes it easier for you to do what you do best, you still have to start a business. And so out of our first two agents on the team, one left probably after month four. And I was not real great at having that conversation of what financial reserves do you have that will help you during this time when you're building your business. And it became a money decision for them. And with each person that was on the team, I learned how to have those interview conversations better in order to help prepare them for what life looked on the team. So then we were left with the one of the new agents and then the agent that I had on the team. And then we continued to grow because then we started adding events to what we did. And before the first year was out, we were holding multiple events a year and we do events really well. Well, then we were getting a lot of business from that. And so at the height of my team, which was 2022, we had 10 agents on it. team. We had six admins on the team. Oh, wow. Heavy admin. We did. We were heavy admin. And we needed to be because being a luxury team, our average price point on the team is 2.2 million. And I just didn't audit for my business partner because I wanted to hire somebody and we had to do a time audit. So in July of 2025 with we have a lot of luxury listings that are agent to me, meaning that the agent, the listing agent needs to be there when the buyer's agent and their, their clients come. I spent 17 hours in the month of July at my listings hosting agent to meet showings. And so it looks different, right? And so we do need, that's why my, my admin are licensed is so that they can, you know, do things like that. Yeah, they can be the age to me. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about the, you just kind of started that conversation because I hear a lot of people say, well, I'd love to get it to the luxury market. And I think they're looking really at price points and percentages. What's some things that you know now about the luxury market that are really, really important for people to be mind if they want to break, be mindful of if they want to break into that. This is a great conversation because I am also a coach as well. And most of my coaching clients come to me because they want to get in a luxury. Sure. And most of the reason that people want to get in the luxury is because they see what they perceive to be big paychecks that come with that. That's right. And with the big paycheck comes a lot of other big things. Our expenses are bigger. So if I've got a house on acreage that, you know, sits far back from the road, one, we have to have multiple signs and we have to usually do a custom sign. You know, that's 10 feet high and six feet wide and costs $5,888. Because it's the number. I do. And so they had, they install the sign for us. They remove it for us. They create the sign for us. It's got these big, huge wood poles and you cannot stick your regular real estate sign on a 20 acre property and expect that it's going to be seen and get the, the attention that it needs to get. Our brochures are different like our brochures for our $500,000 houses are one price and our brochures for our luxury homes, not because the luxury homes deserve better marketing, but they have more bells and whistles. So we have to do more of a brochure with that. So that cost is 10 times what the amount is for the brochures on our non luxury properties. And then you have the expectations of your clients. So a lot of our clients are CEOs, private equity guys, people who own their own businesses. And a lot of times they're surrounded by yes people. And my job as a luxury agent is not to be a yes person. My job is to be able to have really fierce conversations with people who do not normally have fierce conversations because they're surrounded by yes people. And so, you know, there is a lot, a higher expectation on the service they will receive. There's a higher expectation on a lot of my clients have very expensive artwork or very expensive memorabilia that needs to be protected, which is why we're doing the agent to meet showings. And we're also doing that so we can describe all the bells and whistles that are in the house. We are as much selling the house during the showing as well, we're actually selling the house because the buyer's agent is there to advocate for their clients, but we're there to help sell the house. And so there's a higher expectation on time commitment. There is we are consistently having conversations with our sellers all during the week on what the market is doing. If we've had something a blip in the economy or a war with Iran, for instance, our luxury sellers want to know how this is going to impact their listing that they have. So you are also having a lot more conversations with your clients and you've got higher expenses. So you have to be exposed to in some way shape or form the people with which you want to do business with. So for me, it was this private Christian school. We've got a lot of professional athletes there, a lot of business owners, a lot of CEOs. For somebody, it may be joining a country club and being at the country club and being there for dinners and being involved in golf and pick a ball, whatever else they may have there, but you have to be exposed on a regular basis. And that cost money as well. So before you also, before you start to see those big commission paychecks from the larger luxury listings, you are also spending a lot of money if you're not already exposed to that group of people, getting yourself exposed to that group of people. Yeah. So somebody's starting out just there. Let's say somebody's average sales price of $500,000. You know what? I really want to move to the luxury. Give me steps one, two and three. What would you do? The first step I would think and what I coach on is that they need to go up to that next level of price point. I don't think jumping from 500,000 to 3 million is going to serve them well. And so we should aim for that $800,000 to million price point and deal with the expectations at that price level, which are different than the $500,000. Could be something as simple. At a million dollars, somebody can purchase a home and carry two mortgage payments for several months and they need to know what that looks like at 500,000 more than likely they can't do that. So that would be my, my first thing would be to target that price point. Once you've got that target, that price point down really well, then what you're going to do is you're going to move up to that 1.5 to 2 million. And that's where you're really going to start to have to be involved in activities that expose you to people in that are swimming in that pool that, you know, really stay full. That's right. Is there anything last question about luxury? Is there anything that you've discovered that's different about the luxury client buyer seller that would not be the same as somebody other than there, there may be like CEOs or surrounded by yes men, which that's kind of a fine dynamic. But other than that, is there anything that somebody needs to be mindful of that the client's psych, psychedemographic is different fundamentally than somebody that I have a million dollar. I think your foundation, your knowledge foundation of all things financial needs to exponentially increase as you're increasing your price point and going into luxury. So whether that's becoming knowledgeable about 1031 exchange, we see a lot of that at the luxury level. I have clients who, you know, they, their primary resonance is three or four million dollars, but they're buying investment properties, you know, that are three, four, five hundred thousand dollars. So you need to understand that dynamic of because I've got, you know, one of my investors, for instance, he could care less whether his property cash flows. He could care less whether his rent covers his expenses. As a matter of fact, it's almost better if it doesn't because he needs the tax right off in other areas for that to happen. So you have to understand that different investor mindsets, you have to understand the economy. So you can have conversations with them. You have to be confident in having conversations with them about money. And I had a client of mine who was a financial consultant and I said to him, hey, can I buy you lunch each week for the next four weeks and you teach me whatever it is I need to know in order to be able to have conversations with people. So I am a learner. I've always been a learner. It has served me well. And I rely on the people who are experts in the field. I don't usually rely. I'm not saying I don't get information from Google or any type of internet information, but usually if I'm going to have regurgitate information in a conversation, it needs to come from somebody that I know that they, I know they know what they're talking about. And that gives me a really good basis. And then of course, he gave me places to go on online that I could get information that was sound information in the financial field. So same thing with my lenders, I have calls with my lenders once a week to find out what's going on in the lending industry. And I think the other thing that you find when you get into the luxury world is that your regular lender is not always going to be who is the best lender for your client. If they're in wealth management, they're going to be able to get ridiculous interest rates, especially if they're getting loans against their assets and investments. And so there's, it takes you outside of that box of standard lending and you have to be able to know what's available outside the box of standard. Yeah. Yeah, the whole creative financing just being smart about that. So so Gina, outside of what we're talking about and you've given us a lot of a lot of great information outside of what we talked about as we bring this episode to a close, is there any advice that you give to the person who's hearing your story? As a gosh, I really resonate with that. I really, really find my voice in what she's saying. Is there any advice that you would give to that person is listening to this episode? I think the first advice I would give to anybody is if you're starting out in real state where you're scaling into a different price point, there is not going to be an immediate return on that. And you have to have consistent actions. So you can't get disenfranchised and then back off on what you're doing and then expect to see a return from it. So you have to show up consistently. That's another thing I think all of my coaches would tell you is that even when we're in a down market or even when I may not be feeling it, I'm still showing up the same way, regardless of what is going on around me, regardless of what's going on on my team, the economy, the market, it doesn't matter. I show up the same way, not that I don't pivot in shift, but you have to be able to maintain consistency. It's the only way for you to have consistency in this industry. And I think that's the biggest thing. People come into the industry expecting things are going to happen quickly. When people are scaling or they're attempting to tap into a different market, whether it's luxury or farm and ranch or land or whatever it may be, they think to themselves, well, I've been a real estate agent for 12 months. And so I'm able to, I'm gonna be able to do this quicker. That's not necessarily so. There's some different lingo. If you want to also do small commercial, commercial lingo is completely different than residential. So there is gonna be a learning curve there. And I think you just have to show up consistently, regardless of what is going on. And if you've, most of the time, if you're not seeing your result, and you really reflect on what's been going on the last, you know, 90 to 120 days, maybe there were some gaps there that you didn't intend to have. - That's right. - Gina, it's so good. So much good, good stuff here. I love your story. Thank you so much for sharing with our built-out audience. I appreciate you. - Thank you so much. And thank you for having me on here. It was an honor and a blessing. - We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Built How podcast and got some valuable takeaways that you can put into place and into your business right away. Don't forget to visit buildhow.com and register for our next live or virtual event. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast, leave a rating, and a review, and check out all the other podcasts on the WinMateGive podcast network. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)