Hey there and thank you for joining me for another episode of YQG In Bloom.
My name is Tracy Martens and today I am at Pinnacle Plus Realty with Marco Spurduti
and Jared Dennis.
I'm sorry.
But Pinnacle is going to be celebrating their fifth anniversary coming up March 1st, right?
I believe so, yeah.
Awesome.
Marco, how long have you been here at Pinnacle?
I've been at Pinnacle for about three years.
Are you a real estate agent?
Yes, I'm a real estate agent.
I was at a different brokerage before and then decided to move over to Pinnacle.
So yeah, it's been great.
And you've been here for three years as well?
Yep, I've been here for three years.
Myself, I was working in a bank and then I came here to Pinnacle Plus.
Marco, what made you decide to come to Pinnacle?
What made this a good fit for you?
I had done a deal with Ed Azar and coincidentally our fathers did many dealings back in the
day.
My dad was a banker and Ed's dad was a developer and he enticed me to come over and just to
talk to him and Larry and it's incredible the amount of support that I got.
So with educating, mentoring, awesome place to be at.
The real estate agency is local.
It is from the Windsor-Essex County area, correct?
Yes, we have other branches in the United States but we do have most of our main work
here is in Windsor and Essex County.
We have a branch in Kingsville and then in Plymouth like I said.
And John Eshak is the broker record and then Ed Azar, Larry Pickle and Mack Laforest, they're
all kind of co-owners.
Okay, excellent.
And we're their minions.
And people can purchase over in the states as well.
So it's really nice that you guys have the back and forth.
For sure, for sure.
Both myself and Jared have referred a few clients over to our broker there Mack who
does the majority of the work there and he's helped all our friends find homes, investment
properties.
Definitely an added bonus of working here at Pinnacle Plus, that's for sure.
And how many real estate agents are at Pinnacle Plus?
You'd have to definitely ask Michelle or Ed but I think there's about 30.
Approximately.
And then I think there's four in Kingsville and then a couple in the states.
Yeah, 30 in general.
We'll flow between all of our offices so we can help people in Essex County everywhere
from Sarnia to Chatham to Windsor, Essex.
And now I know for you Mark, you also used to flip homes.
Do you still do that?
Now I'm more customer focused and if somebody's looking for a flip I help them shop for one
but I know what I'm looking for in that situation.
Bad wiring, bad plumbing, things that we can add value to, changing old kitchens and kind
of the cost involved in some of that.
So I have a few clients that trust my opinions and help make them a lot of money.
Now did you enjoy?
I loved flipping, yeah.
It was a real fun process but it's a lot of work.
So HGTV is a line to people, it's not easy and it takes more than a weekend.
It's a lot of work but if you take pride in what you do and you really love it then I
said there's money to be made, you change a property to somebody who's really going
to enjoy it and it's kind of a win-win all around.
Well it's rewarding.
Sure, of course.
I mean nothing better than going in and seeing what it was and then at the end.
But we've both seen bad flips.
Oh yeah, that's for sure.
I mean they're all over the place, right?
But you've got to be really careful.
Lipstick on a pig, you see that quite a bit.
You can only polish that turd so much before it's...
Now you, Jared, you own rental properties or you used to?
Yeah, so kind of how I started, I worked at a credit union that Pinnacle Plus ends up
banking at.
So they kind of drew me away from that and brought me here.
My family owned, or a family member owned some rental property and while they were away
in Toronto area they trusted me with kind of managing everything down here for them.
And yeah, I got some experience flipping those properties over, managing some lease agreements
and stuff like that.
So really it all kind of came together once these guys kind of reached out to me and brought
me here.
Well it's nice to have that extra experience on both sides to be able to help any of your
clients if they want to purchase a rental property or flip a house, which I would be
completely lost at both of them.
Now Jared, when we were talking earlier about First Time Homeowners, you were telling me
about a lot of different incentives and various grants that are out there.
And not just for First Time Homeowners, for anybody really.
Yeah, there's a lot to be definitely looked at.
You might not qualify for every single one, but there definitely is a lot of government
incentives.
Some of them have to do with being eco-friendly or even just as simple as putting your money
in certain savings accounts so that way you save money on taxes.
So yeah, there's different strategies for different buyers.
Oh and it's nice for you guys to be able to help people when they're buying the house
and trying to work out our market right now.
It's just so confusing.
Well and sometimes when we're shopping with First Time Buyers especially, because a lot
of times we'll work together on helping people find a place because there's just so much
to see, we'll not talk people out of a house, but we'll steer them away.
So your eyes are bigger than your stomach right now, right, where they think they can
do every renovation or totally gut a house where they might be biting off more than they
can chew, right?
So it's a real fine line with excitement and cautious optimism, right?
So they both lead to the same thing where you're getting a house, but if you focus too
much on getting those flips or getting a house that you want to make your own or a house
that has character, well you might be just putting yourself at risk for financial duress,
right?
So you really have to look at the fundamentals of a home where there's good bones and good
mechanical and that type of stuff and kind of pick your poison on what you want to update.
Part of our job is more so like coaching these people or our clients, so we have to look
at it from an area of conservatism.
I think both of us with both of our backgrounds, Marco having his flipping background and then
me coming with the banking background too, we're very conservative with all of our clients
and yeah, like Marco said, you have to steer them in the right direction.
There's a lot of lipsticks on pigs out there, so we have to kind of help them find the right
one.
So a lot of times we kind of joke about this, but what we're not here selling houses, we're
here to talk you out of a house.
And if you can ignore what we're saying and it's still the right house for you, then there'll
be no cognitive dissonance.
You'll be passionate about the purchase and really excited about your future, right?
So if we can point out all the bad stuff, because everybody can see the shiny and new,
if we can point out all the bad stuff and you say no, that's something we're willing
to take on, then you're in a good spot.
It's the right house.
It's something that they got to also think about in the long run, like we're talking
about if it's the first time homeowners and it's like, make sure you know the area and
the schools and...
Yeah, location, location, location.
Yeah, you got to look at the big picture and not just a small one.
And a lot of people, they see that picture online and it's like, okay, this is my house
and they get there and it might not be.
It can happen a lot, especially when people are looking at pictures and they can take
it for face value.
But I guess it takes like an expert eye of looking at those pictures every single day
to know where do you nitpick and where do you tell them, this isn't exactly what it
looks like.
The wide angle lens.
Yeah.
It's very deceiving.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
I mean, it's great because it sounds like you guys actually really care about your clients
making sure that they are happy at the end of the day.
For sure.
Yeah, of course.
If I was in somebody's house at Christmas because I know they're mad at me, then I did
a bad job, right?
So for the most part, you can be friendly with people and you become friends with people,
but then just as quickly as they come into your life, they leave, right?
And it's really hard holding onto those relationships.
And for the most part, I stay friends with a lot of the people that I help transact houses
with.
And like I said, if you approach this business like that, then you'll do all right.
It's not just a transaction.
That's what we try to avoid.
Oh, that's nice.
Yeah.
Especially if you guys can stay friends with the people afterwards and see them grow in
the house that they bought or maybe even get their next house when they outgrow it.
I saw people actually, I took a call today.
There was somebody that called me asking for referrals.
They said, well, this is what happened with the house.
Can you help me with that?
There was an HVAC problem.
So I gave them a number of another client that I helped buy a house and hopefully it
worked out.
But so you constantly become a resource for them.
It's not just during that one period.
If you do your job well, then they'll keep calling you and say, hey, you have a lot of
connections.
What do you think I should do in this situation?
Yeah.
That's great.
It's like an ongoing relationship.
Yeah.
It's always great to get to know people, right?
Like you said, you want to sustain a relationship, but it's hard because you know so many people
coming from this industry, but it's always good to at least get to know people and connect
throughout the community, right?
Yeah, it is.
It is really joyous.
And Jared brought up an excellent point.
He said one word that really stood out was community.
For the most part, I think most realtors tend to be or try to be as generous as possible
with the community involvement.
You'll see a lot of active activity, right?
For me, Goodfellows is very important.
I try to sponsor as much as I can.
Jared, I know you do a few things.
Yeah, I've done a few things.
One of the ones that I've done is the Windsor Pride Fest.
Something that I like and enjoy to go to and like to support.
Just part of community, right?
And building those relationships, right?
So it's all part of that.
Well, that's great.
Now, did you go to the True Fest that we just had in Amersburg?
No, I didn't get a chance to go out to that one, but I was at the Pride Fest this year
and I have been in previous years, it's just that I was able to sponsor it this year.
So that was nice to do.
I have not hit the Pride Fest yet and I'm looking forward to it because it looks like
it's a lot of fun.
You should have won.
He was giving Lady Gaga tickets away, I think, right?
No, I thought about it.
I did thought about it, but I ended up giving a giveaway to a couple nights stay at an Airbnb.
So that was fun, too.
Well, see, here you get real estate agents, you get Lady Gaga tickets, pretend.
Or we can drive around and listen to Lady Gaga.
There you go.
Hey.
OK, now, I know a lot of people have so many misconceptions with the market, whether you're
purchasing a house, selling a house, and it's not just now, it seems forever.
Everybody's always thinking, oh, we're on an upswing or we're on a downswing.
How do you ease people's nerves going into either selling their houses or buying a house?
I don't know about you, but for me, I always think about, OK, how would I be in this situation?
And I'm always one to kind of go for it, but from a conservative perspective.
So if anybody's having any jitters about putting that offer in and they see the dollar value
that they're putting in, for example, or the deposit amount that they put in, you have
to come from a place of encouragement and letting them know that you're going to be
subject to market fluctuation, subject to market fluctuation.
But you're growing.
You're moving forward in your life.
So you kind of have to remind them that like this is this is a positive thing and you're
headed in the right direction.
That's kind of the perspective that I always come at it with.
And I always I'm big on the I think both of us are.
But education, the most anxiety comes when people are not educated.
So when I'm helping somebody buy a house for the first time, our first meeting might happen
six months before we actually buy a house.
But through that whole time period, you're nursing their questions and you're reinforcing
their feelings.
And then for sellers as well, it's the same thing.
Hey, you're looking at selling.
Well, that's not happening tomorrow.
Let's figure out how we can earn you top dollar.
And it's once again, it becomes education.
So that's kind of kind of the approach that that I take.
So that makes it easier to have that good relationship and have them be happy with either
their purchase or their sales.
For sure.
The realtors in Windsor, Essex are really pro.
You learn that when you go into different markets or when other agents come from different
markets.
I think for the most part, we have a really good group of people that operate with a lot
of integrity and I learn a lot from other agents every day, especially ones with a lot
of experience and how they operate.
And I think for the most part, agents in the area operate that way with not too much pressure.
I agree with you 100 percent.
And that's something that I would love to educate people on.
The community, it's we're in competition with each other, but we still work together.
So I might have a buyer for your property.
And I'm bringing my buyer to you and we work together as a professional to make sure everybody's
happy at the end.
Even though we're in competition, we still work together.
It's not me versus them type of attitude for the most part.
And you learn really quick the smoothest transactions and the realtors that help get deals done.
So it's a really good working relationship.
It goes like that, I feel like in a lot of industries in Windsor and Essex County.
Everybody knows everybody, very tight knit community.
So you see everybody like I do cornhole on Wednesdays out in McGregor.
And I'm not out in the county very much, but on that day I see a bunch of realtors that
are there playing alongside me.
So it's nice.
But like, yeah, it's a big tight knit, I would say, family.
That's what I always told my son when he was growing up.
It's like Windsor and Essex County may seem like it's big, but honestly, everybody knows
everybody or at least there's that six degrees of separation.
For sure.
How do you see yourself?
I like where I'm at right now.
I don't know, more importantly, like in the future where I want to be is just a really
focused dad.
Yeah.
That's a lot more because this job does take a lot away from you.
So that's where I see myself in the future.
I want to focus more on balancing my life and that's always a constant evolution.
I like that answer.
Yeah, communication.
Like communication.
So I was very fortunate.
I used to work at Families First as a director and I've been a funeral director for about
20 years and they sent me to Dale Carnegie Training, which was wonderful.
So yeah, so it helps with communication, listening, that type of stuff.
So those are different things.
It's self-improvement.
Not necessarily, I'm content in my business.
I'm content with the people that trust me.
So if I grow, great, but if it's at the detriment of my personal life and my family life, then
I don't need that.
I don't need that headache.
I really love the people that I work with and if clients trust me, then I'm happy to
work with them too.
That's where I see my life.
You know what?
That is a perfect answer.
Now how many kids do you have?
You should ask my wife.
So me and my wife, we have two kids.
She says three.
She includes me in that mess, right?
So Elizabeth kind of manages our whole life.
If it wasn't for her, we would disintegrate.
So yeah.
Good answer.
Yeah, yeah.
So anyway.
And then...
Yeah, I have one on the way actually.
We're pretty excited about that, but yeah, just going to be new in that sort of part
of life.
That's exciting.
Yeah, we're very excited.
And kind of nerve-racking at the same time.
Yeah, I can be, but my wife is pretty good at...
Like you said, I would disintegrate if I didn't have her because she's been babysitting from
a very young age.
And I'll lean in on her skills and abilities during that time a lot.
That's great.
And I mean, having a wonderful family life really helps enhance the work life.
It sounds like you guys have great lives.
Yeah, you know what?
Life is good.
And if it's not, then it'll get better.
It always does.
It changes, it evolves.
Yeah, it's a natural flow, right?
Exactly.
I really want to thank both of you guys for being here today.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
And again, my name is Tracy Martens.
Please make sure that you subscribe and like YQG In Bloom.
And we want to wish Pinnacle Plus Realty a happy fifth anniversary.
You guys all have a great day.