Get Inspired by Top 1% Realtor in USA Career Success

Be Nspired by Joe Velasco’s success story with words of advice to those considering a real estate career. He’s named by Wall Street as a top 1% Realtor in the USA.   With more than 23 years’ experience in all aspects of real estate, top-producing agent Joe has closed over $1.2 Billion in real estate sales and ranked in the Top 250 real estate professionals in the country per REAL Trends for 7 years. Joe Velasco Group, Compass Group, JV Homes. 

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Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 0:04
Hi, everyone, this is Leah, Nspire Careers. Thank you for tuning into my podcast, coming to you from the heart of Silicon Valley, San Jose, California. Today I would like to welcome Joe Velasco. Joe has been named by Wall Street as one of the top 1% realtors in the US. In addition, he's a Realtor with the Joe Velasco group at Compass real estate, and has his own development company, JV Home. Welcome Joe.

Joe Velasco, JV Home 0:36
Thanks for having me on your podcast, I appreciate it. Good to see you and great to see all the awesome things that you're doing.

Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 0:43
Thank you so much, I really admire you and impressed. I would have to say that if Hollywood has A- list, you are A-list in the real estate industry, and I love it! I love everything that you're doing so, please tell us how you got started in this field, this is the real estate industry,

Joe Velasco, JV Home 0:55
Getting started in this field, probably takes me back to when I was 12 years old. Parents used to still live in, low-income housing on a street called Farm Drive, which is South San Jose, off Capitol Expressway and Pearl Avenue. And we lived in a fourplex there my, my dad rented a three-bedroom apartment there and I used to see this recently retired gentleman by the name of Tom Nguyen, who was a real estate agent that farmed our neighborhood. When they say “farm,” it's a real estate terminology in terms of sending a lot of mailers to our neighborhood to sell property, etc. And being 12 years old I remember this guy driving a really nice Mercedes had all these fancy suits on and it would say Century 21, Tom Nguyen, and wearing some really fancy sunglasses, with the glitter and diamonds on them, all fancied out, right, always, and didn't really understand what a real, real estate was and I was 12 years old, but I knew that the guy was always in, like, in our neighborhood and the neighborhood was a low income neighborhood, so we didn't see a lot of Mercedes there and we didn't see a lot of fancy cars and it was always there, he was a guy who was the man of that area right there, that was selling property so it always kind of just, real estate always just kind of stood in the back of my of my mind that it related to success and wealth. I think we all measure success differently and it's not just about earning money, I think doing

something you love is success, right, and healthy is success but to be at that age, I saw this guy in a suit and that's kind of what inspired me originally. How I got into it is I was going to San Jose State and taking some economics classes and I knew that for me, my major, I wanted to do. You know I wanted to sell. I wanted to sell something where I got a percentage on it. First, I thought I was going to work at Wall Street and sell big, large portfolios in New York and that's what I thought I wanted to do because I figured if I sold $100 million portfolio or a hedge fund, I'd even if I got 1%. What would that amount to? Tom Nguyen was always in the back of my mind and knew I wanted to be in real estate or high sales at Century, and my older sister, she is a couple years older than me, she went to work for Century 21 and she told me what it took to get a real estate license and how some of these 23 year old’s, 25 year old’s, were making all this money and that I should look into it and that's what I'm kind of refreshed, you know my mind. Then, I was working at Nordstrom’s in Stanford, selling shoes, and a client asked me to translate some loan documents for him. Having my sister being a receptionist at Century 21, I asked her, what do you think about that he wants me to translate these loan documents and they were real estate documents and I was triple inspired, I guess, maybe, is the word when I thought about when my sister had mentioned being there and remembering Tom Nguyen, and then looking at these real estate docs and said I was going to charge the guy like 50 bucks to translate them in Spanish and realizing the kind of money that could be made by selling a property, and also doing loans. So that's how I got started, I saw what he was charging and found out that it was a good deal, you know because we as real estate agents, you can charge as much as 6% on the sale of a home we could charge more, but the standard is 6% There's really no limit. And I just figured, you know, if I sell $10 million in real estate, a month, you know, at 6%, even if I earn you know half of that you know that could be $300,000. You know, I mean it's a crazy amount of money, so I set the expectation high, you know, and this is at 22 years old. I don't think, when I got my real estate license, I ended up selling like 4 million my first year, which was still a great salary, it was about 80,000 a year back then. Yeah, you know, but that's a little bit of how I got started and inspired.

Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 5:13
I love that. What a great background. So, what were the drivers and passions that led to your success because you were young, and you were saying that you made that good money, which is great money, you think back, back in the day but what were the other drivers and passions.

Joe Velasco, JV Home 5:32
Um, I would say the drivers and passions were where we come from, right, being an immigrant and having the opportunity to be in this great country that we call America and it's been founded by immigrants, right, and then all of us looking for the opportunity and I think I remember Don King, probably aging myself, that knew Don King, he always, only in America, only in America, right, and that was kind of like, his thing. He was so proud to be proud of being American and growing up, coming from humble beginnings. My dad was a janitor and he raised us on a janitor’s salary and my mom was a cook at Harker Academy, not having much, but being inspired to like, hey, in America, doesn't matter if you were born with a silver spoon, if you put hard work and determination, this is this a beautiful country where you know dreams can happen and I remember, Britney Spears and Puff Daddy wearing a shirt saying the American dream and I felt the same way, they were inspiring to me, trying to reach that American dream and having those luxuries, and simplicity is life and being able to provide for, for my family, the future, and for the short term.

Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 7:00
Absolutely and you're doing it well, you are an inspiration, there are certain characteristics that a person needs to have, it's more than working hard and having the drive and passion right

Joe Velasco, JV Home 7:14
You know, some of the basic fundamentals, I see so much, I think now with social media and some of these billionaires that are very vocal, like Elon Musk that talk about, Hey, you don't need to have a college degree to be successful, you know, definitely agree with that but it's not really what I would educate my children because I believe that education is super important, but I definitely can agree with Elon to some extent and I have heard Jeff Bezos say the same and the guy from, forgot the guy that does all just went out to space, as well from Virgin Atlantic, you know, they talk about education and I don't know if that's really the right message. You know for me, for my children because I feel that it just, it's a good path in it, to try to get your BA degree and to try to get your master’s and to try to get higher level education. But going back to the basics, it's not everything because I've hired some of them. The most, in my opinion, highly educated folks that have come work for me, they don't have the fundamentals, you know, and

they haven't been successful in my business. Yes, they know how to do it, you know, and they know what it takes to do it, but they don't do it because some of those fundamentals that they lack. And those are something you know I felt that you're born, your DNA and what I talk about is a hard work ethic, My father Paul came to this country from Mexico and not the stereotypical Mexican and bless his heart, because I'm the same way, did not want to ask for any kind of government aid, so we had three jobs, he worked as a gardener on the weekend, and then he's still works at a store, you probably have been down here, remember that store called Gemco and Zody. And my dad was a janitor at both those stores, he worked a morning shift and a night shift. And then on the weekend, he worked at a nursery, as a gardener, and know that what that taught me was a hard work ethic, just watching my dad work that that hard, and then if you go and work for being an entrepreneur, if you go into work for an industry where sky's the limit, and you put that work ethic into it. You set your own bar of what you want to earn and make, because unfortunately for my dad, he sold his time, this is my time. This is what it's worth and that's what he had. And that's what I learned from him. Right, but you put education and I you know, full disclosure, I didn't graduate from San Jose State, but got educated enough and in college, that landed me to be in the industry that I'm in and I think a lot of what I do now is some basic principles that I learned like persuasive speaking, assuming the close, that goes even for being single. I'm not single now but what I'm referring to is like, you know, not asking someone if they want to go on a date, just assuming, it's like hey, I'm free Thursday, I'll pick you up at eight. But it's like who doesn't like confidence, right, and that also applies in sales and friendships, or ask Eskimos to purchase ice, get some ice for sale, and there's a way to do it, and when you go back to your roots and think of how you were brought up and having that hard work ethic, and just really putting it down, it creates results. I use a lot of different metaphors and analogies like the guys at the gym, you know, I don’t look like one of those guys, but they're all chiseled out and the guys looked like photoshopped, right, you don't want to stand next to them and take off your shirt, but you know those guys are like psycho they're like I eat for fuel, not for taste. Right, but that's what it takes, that's what it takes to look like that. Well, I’m that in the real estate industry, you know, I wanted to go for something that was also not very ordinary for Latinos, right, you don't see a whole lot of home selling in the high end, and I felt like okay I got an audience watching, not with social media and Facebook but my baby coming soon. And I know a lot of them talk about what's their why, you know, that was it as well, I wanted to I wanted to do something like JLo where

you're a dancer, you're an actor, you're a singer, and a producer, you know, I wanted to be a triple quadruple threat so I'm like, what, what else can I do that I haven't done that is not the ordinary or goes against normal, my background or gets into, right, and it's accepted and that was it, so I broke into the high end, working in Los Altos, near Atherton and Palo Alto. I made a conscious decision that I wanted to go after. And this is back in 2010 homes that were 1.5 or more, in my neighborhood I was living in homes that were $400,000 houses, but I go hey, if I'm going to work 10 hours a day, I want to be in this arena, I want to be in, again, it was a little uncomfortable but I put myself in that situation and then I ended up closing $40 million in business that first year. I was able to afford an assistant and I hired one and then I was getting so busy that I end up building a small little team of, you know, three, four, agents that knew how to close, and they just needed a little bit of help, generating leads but they were great closers and I formed just a very lean and mean real estate team, and had a lot of success. For the last nine years, I've been in the top 1% of the country, year after year. My first year I was in the top 10% and then the second year, because I felt like it's kind of recreated myself in 2010. And since 2011, I've been in the top 1%, year after year.

It got to like in 2015, was talking about my developer game, because that was your question. You know I was part of getting into the high end, and selling ultra- high end real estate, I knew that that if I could bring value because really, I think life in general is about bringing value right to your friends, to your spouse, to your sphere, and that value could be close personal relationships, whatever that is, but in my business, bringing value to a developer is like hey, you can buy this piece of land, it's going to cost roughly about this much to build it. And you could sell it for this much, and here's the profit margin. When I understood that, that he who finds the deal, and brings it to a developer, they got never-ending money or they could get it, you know where you can show someone, hey, you can buy this piece of land for 150 cost a million dollars to build the house, two and a half. Everything around there selling that 4 million, and you could do it in 18 months so there's about a million and a half margin between your cost and, and, you know everything else goes to commissions, whatever, prime make a million bucks, give or take, you know, just like if I asked the audience how much is an iPhone 13 I think everybody knows or 13 $100, you know, if I got you a brand new one right now, in the box, not stolen, for 400 bucks when you buy it. Everybody probably should say yes, even if they can't afford it, because you can put it on Craigslist tomorrow and sell it for 900 and make 500 bucks, why would you not. Right, right.

And so that's what I did, and it cemented relationships with developers, for them to give me those listings when they were done right when they bought, they bought it oh hey you know Joe's making me a million bucks, that's the value, right, and then I charge them the appropriate real estate commission, and then I represented those developers, real estate developers and what I enjoyed was high end real estate, and I was the listing agent and then I attracted a lot of attention to tons of marketing and branding and built a niche, I was doing this from 2013 to 2016, and after coming close to hitting bottom when my daughter was born, and then just getting after the real estate market I saved enough money, by living now within my means and keeping things extremely simple. In terms of like, I know in Japan that the teachers save first, buy later and I think in this country, you're like, buy now, pay later, and that's part of the problem for our children and for us as a culture and as Americans because the high debts that we carry. I then saved enough to be able to have conversations with my developers say look, I find you this project, like an iPhone 13 for 400 bucks. I'll put in 100 bucks you put in the 300 and let's work something out when it's built, well I did that enough. I did that enough that it was like a Harvard education and made these guys my best friends and we're super close and we're buddies and, you know some of these developers that I work with now, because I run two different businesses a realty job, and then my own development company. Now these guys have gone to Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and these guys are so happy that I'm bringing them opportunity, and they're sharing all the information with me, so I've gotten the best education from these folks from living it and bringing them the value, right, and, and we've become friends and we've vacationed together etc. why build enough at a point where I can either do things myself, or continue to partner on so literally in 2016, I bought my very first piece of land by myself and my wife and I developed it and we made a great profit, and then we're like, oh great goodness so we bought two more, and we're like let's move into one of these, but you know we're living in Morgan Hill, being ballers on a budget, and just watching our money. We even remodeled our house, never spend a penny on it when we're living in just, you know, we went from, you know, driving high end cars back in, you know 1996 to driving a Honda hybrid and just keeping it simple because I wanted to be like what I saw. In the Hindi community, that is good friends of mine, you know, my buddy Samir and Navneet, and some of my closest friends, they didn't wear their money, they lived very simple until they're able to gain assets and that's what I did. I just followed their map and I applied some of the principles that I had learned in the past. And you know, this year, I have

developed 15 luxury homes. I've sold nine one yesterday, and I have currently four I'm developing in Austin, and in currently here, six that I'm developing here, and that's how my development business got started.

Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 18:27
I love it. Congratulations and wonderful to see, and I know we're going off topic, but I do remember the day that I ran into you at Valley Fair, and it was a day you were running off to get married. Do you remember?

Joe Velasco, JV Home 18:41
Yeah, that is right, This September was 12 years. Yeah, it was 12 years ago.

Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 18:52 Okay, Yeah, that's, that's what I remember.

Joe Velasco, JV Home 18:55
And on that note, I bought a ring for $25. That's where I went. Because at that point, we had saved like $80,000 and, you know, typical, he knows, like well let's have a wedding, let's do this. Why don't we just put that into a house and why don't we do this, and we'll, we'll get the fancy rings later. So we went to the court, we went to the courthouse we got married on these two little $25 silver rings.

Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 19:25
Let's get back to this. I feel that what I see from you is that you really love what you're doing, you're, you're enjoying it, you know, just seems like you're having a really good time. So, let's go to this, how would you recommend someone break into the industry.

Joe Velasco, JV Home 19:46
I definitely enjoy you know being a mentor and motivating, but you know the truth is that this business is not for everyone, you know, in terms of my real estate business I run, you know, multiple businesses, but being a realtor, it's not for everyone because, first of all, no one's ever going to tell you have to be at the office at 830. You know when you become a realtor, you become human resources, you become marketing, you become the salesperson, you're the admin, you're the everything, right, there's no benefits, there's nothing, and when you first get, you're like hey I want to become a real estate agent, it's even a little

bit demotivating because when you open the book. It's extremely simple to get licensed to become a real estate agent, super simple. I wish they made it a little bit harder because it would, you know, it would weed out, you know, certain folks in our industry or personnel that I feel at some point they probably didn't deserve to be here, for multiple reasons. But going back to the book on how to get your real estate license, anybody can get their real estate license, usually within 120 days, it's super-fast, and it's amazing that you can pick this career, and you know you can make, you know, $5 million dollars a year if you want to, you know, I mean, or more, and depending on what you sell, right, it’s also extremely simple to make, in my opinion, $80,000 a year by just selling three houses, you know, but what's demotivating, and that's why, put that out there that I don't want to demotivate folks but you only need to read two books to get your real estate license, and then you take an exam that's 150 questions, those 150 questions, you only need to answer 105 of them right. If you answer 105 right, you get your real estate license and sky's the limit. However, when you read the first book, it's called Real Estate Principles, it says, welcome to Real Estate. As you're reading this, I want to let you know that 95% of the folks that get a real estate license that get it are out of the business forever. So only 5% of us make it, you know and that reason being, Leah, is because it's just like the guy at the gym, or the girl at the gym that we've all seen him on Instagram and, and, you know, Facebook, they look that way because they eat for fuel, not for taste. Right, it's something that requires a very hard work ethic, and you know it's not like you go hang your license at Century 21 and you just become, you know, wealthy and driven like no one's ever going to push you to work so you got to have that hard work ethic in you, and you got to have those systems in place that getting fit doesn't come from just working out, it comes from a you know a diet, those two go hand in hand, and it comes with consistency. And I think we've all been a victim of like oh I'm going to Cabo next month you're eating salads today are going to Cabo in two weeks you think you're going to look good because you're eating salads for a week. It doesn't work that way. You know you get results in eight months, not eating a salad, you might as well enjoy your burger bro. Because it's not going to help you are going to have tacos when you're down there, I already know you, but there's been no, you have to look that way, and to be successful in our industry, you got to have a great diet and a great workout plan, and a great regimen, you know, if you don't have that in you, you're going to fail, but my advice would be like hey, this company will pay me 70% split, or 50, or 30, or whatever it is, go work for a company that offers mentorship, and that can hold your hand and walk

you through what it takes to be successful like hiring, you know, a fitness trainer because you know when you get a real estate license and you just show up, there's no one really to help you out, you know, you can go work for some of these really like high end office like Compass, like where I'm at, we just we hire seasoned. Seasoned agents that we give them tools to do better, but they already know what to do. And, you know, for me, like right now, I would never hire an agent that just got their license yesterday because I would be setting them up for failure, because I'm so busy learning my day-to-day operations, I don't have the time to be able to tell someone like me learning how to drive. Okay, put it in first gear, you know, adjust your mirrors, and look behind you and put it in reverse.

What I excel in when people come work for me is that they have two or three years in the industry, they're already closed maybe seven or 20 deals. I can tell them how to get there faster. They jump on highway 85 to 280. So, if you tell me what issues you're having while you're not closing, I can tell you, best practices, and show you how to get there faster and make more, but I can't really show you how to write a purchase contract, I'll end up pulling my hair out because I just don't have that time. And my point is, for whoever is even thinking about getting into real estate, you need to work with someone that has that time to explain to you. Adjust your mirrors before you put it in reverse, this is what a map on your navigation looks like. That's where they need to go so when they're out interviewing, where they're going to hang their real estate license, it's going to be with someone that really can work with them and teach them what it takes because getting your real estate license doesn't mean you learn to be successful. We all learn how to drive by experience, not passing a test at the DMV. You learn to drive by getting behind the wheel.

Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 25:29
Joe, I feel that the qualities, characteristics that a successful realtor would have would be their honesty, their integrity, excellent interpersonal skills, follow through. I think that those are extremely important in your profession.

Joe Velasco, JV Home 25:46
Yeah, you're 100% right, Leah, and then you know and treating the janitor, the same way you would treat the president United States. My philosophy is it doesn't matter if they want to sell a mobile home with me or if they want to sell a $16 million dollar home in Los Altos, I treat everybody equally and I respect their time because their time is whatever they make per hour, it doesn't matter if it's $15 an hour or they're making, you know $10 million a year, it's their time and time is the most precious thing that you can give someone. Once you give them that time, you are never able to get it back, it's the greatest gift, right, and you talked about integrity, honesty, yeah, this business is built around, reputation, the ability to close. And again, understanding the needs and wants of individual sellers and buyers, when you meet a buyer and they have a special needs child, you know, if you know they're Hindi and they want to know where the nearest Temple is or they want to know where the nearest grocery store is, like really taking the time to interview the prospective buyer or seller and find out what is their wish list, what are their needs, and what you can do to be their financial advisor. This is the biggest investment of their life and, and it's personal, it's not hey I'm buying a building; this is a place that you're going to call home. There's a saying, home is where the heart is and, and everyone's home is an extension of who they are, from the time that you walk in, the pictures they have up, the scent in the house, I mean, and it could be you know someone that loves cats and have ten cats or ten dogs, I mean it's a home, so personal, and if you're not taking that as an agent, as a professional, to heart, it eventually catches up. It's not about having commission breadth and making that quick buck, you know, treat someone well in our industry. I've had it where I've had the first-time homebuyer, buy from me they're 20 to 23 years old when they call me at 30, and they're ready to move up, and then from that point they're also ready to move into a bigger home. It's gotten easier with social media and staying in touch with people that, like you said, you're able to see them grow, you've seen me grow, and you feel like you know them, and then you're watching them and it's that nice, it's a great business to be in if you do a good job, you grow up with that person, you grow with that person; they went off to college and now they had their first kid, they need a bigger house, they go to the townhouse or the house, and you know it says, such a beautiful thing or when you meet him, midway in the middle of, you know, you meet them when they're in their 40s then, you know, and then they have kids and all of a sudden now you know they're empty nesters, I started in the business when I was 22 and I turned 49 on Friday and I've had I've had the opportunity to see folks that are in their mid 40s become empty nesters, and that's also really exciting like where they go next, after they sell that big house.

Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 28:54

You are an inspiration Joe, for those that are interested in following you. What is the best way that they can?

Joe Velasco, JV Home 29:03
Follow me on social media, on Facebook, Joe Velasco on social media and on Instagram @real.joevelasco. The last thing I would tell the audience who wants to get into the business of being a real estate agent is to don't get caught up in, you know, what's my percentage and commission, don't get caught up in that at all, like, when you're starting out.

Leah Solorio, CEO/Founder Nspire Careers 29:26
Thank you so much, have a great day. Job seekers. I hope you're inspired by this conversation. Here's a quote that I think fits beautifully. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle as with all matters of the heart. You'll know when you find it.” Steve Jobs. Connect with us atNspirecareers@gmail.com Nspirecareers.com and Instagram. We look forward to hearing from you.