To cap off November, Five for Friday features Brian Resendez, CCIM, a Senior Advisor at SVN | Bluestone & Hockley in Portland, Oregon. Brian is a Partner Circle Award winner who specializes in the hospitality, and land and development areas.
What advice would you provide to an aspiring advisor who is new to the industry?
I have four specific pieces of advice:
- Get focused and specialize. Either find a asset class or geographic region, or both depending on your market size.
- Create and grow your database. Begin your database on day one and track all owners, properties, and recent sales to create talking points to show owners and investors that you are the market expert. And be careful to only track what is necessary and no other superfluous data that will have zero ROI.
- Be disciplined. Make calls, show up, and create an effective routine and stick to it. We all do this a little different from each other, but you must find your rhythm.
- Create your own realistic goals, and a mantra you review and repeat on a regular schedule.
What does the SVN Difference mean to you?
The SVN Difference is about the corporate culture. It attracts great people who are honest and hard-working.
What learning tools (book, blog, website, etc.) would you recommend to your colleagues to further their knowledge and enhance their careers?
A great resource is the CCIM Institute. I started going to local/regional CCIM Meetings to try to understand creative deal making, and although I have not done any deals with local CCIMs, I did learn a lot, and they all now know me as the local hotel expert.
Some books I recommend include:
Brokers Who Dominate by Rod Santomassimo
Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller
Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller
What was your most memorable deal and why?
The Hampton Inn in Eugene, OR might be the most memorable deal I have been involved with. The seller challenged us throughout the deal from the time we did our BOV until after closing. The most memorable part of this was getting to the finish line, and then finding out that the property was built a few feet over the property line and was actually on the neighbor’s property! Unbelievably, the builder, subsequent buyer, bank and others throughout multiple financing and refinancing events never caught this. The issue was that the previous land survey was pulling the wrong survey pins. When we found out, the neighbor was not willing to cooperate for months. In the end, he did cooperate, but it took a grueling amount of work and effort to get it done.
List a fun fact to share about yourself – something that people may not know and that they may be surprised to find out.
There are a few things that make me who I am:
I pray most mornings. This includes an Abundance Prayer and my own mantra.
I play mandolin and violin in a band called Slippery Slope.
I was a ski bum in Steamboat, CO for a year and recommend everybody take a year off to play and find yourself.
Is a career in commercial real estate in your future? If so, there many opportunities with SVN.