They say life's a journey, not a destination, and Brad Mitchell's voyage from a Mississippi Delta native to an accomplished South Florida realtor is a testament to that. On the latest episode of the Good Neighbor podcast, I, Jeremy Wolf, had the pleasure of unraveling the fascinating layers of Brad's story. As we chat, he takes us through his early days as a chef and carpenter, to his daring leap into the transportation industry, and ultimately, how he found his calling in the real estate world with the Keyes Company. Brad's tale isn't just about the homes he sells; it's a narrative steeped in passion and adaptability, demonstrating that with the right mindset, change is not only possible but can lead to incredible success.
Brad doesn't just sell houses; he embodies what it means to truly live in pursuit of happiness. Throughout our conversation, his philosophy shines through—don't wait for the perfect moment, seize the present to chase your dreams. Whether you're mulling over a career change, contemplating a move, or simply love a good story sprinkled with southern charm, this episode promises to leave you inspired. Brad's experiences, from gastronomy to realty, underscore the importance of following your heart with a side of practical advice—like why timing the market is a job best left to the pros. Tune in for an episode where personal anecdotes blend seamlessly with professional wisdom, all courtesy of one of Cooper City's finest.
They say life's a journey, not a destination, and Brad Mitchell's voyage from a Mississippi Delta native to an accomplished South Florida realtor is a testament to that. On the latest episode of the Good Neighbor podcast, I, Jeremy Wolf, had the pleasure of unraveling the fascinating layers of Brad's story. As we chat, he takes us through his early days as a chef and carpenter, to his daring leap into the transportation industry, and ultimately, how he found his calling in the real estate world with the Keyes Company. Brad's tale isn't just about the homes he sells; it's a narrative steeped in passion and adaptability, demonstrating that with the right mindset, change is not only possible but can lead to incredible success.
Brad doesn't just sell houses; he embodies what it means to truly live in pursuit of happiness. Throughout our conversation, his philosophy shines through—don't wait for the perfect moment, seize the present to chase your dreams. Whether you're mulling over a career change, contemplating a move, or simply love a good story sprinkled with southern charm, this episode promises to leave you inspired. Brad's experiences, from gastronomy to realty, underscore the importance of following your heart with a side of practical advice—like why timing the market is a job best left to the pros. Tune in for an episode where personal anecdotes blend seamlessly with professional wisdom, all courtesy of one of Cooper City's finest.
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolff.
Speaker 2:
Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Good Neighbor podcast. I'm your host, jeremy Wolff, and today I am joined by a friendly fellow. He's a good neighbor, cooper City resident. He actually was reading my publication, cooper City Living, and he reached out to connect and I'm sitting here with Brad Mitchell, and Brad is a realtor with the Kies Company. Brad, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:
Jeremy.
Speaker 2:
Oh, it's our pleasure and thanks to our listeners for tuning in. So, brad, excited to get into this. Tell us all a little bit about your business obviously your realtor Everybody knows what a realtor does. But tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, how you help our great community.
Speaker 3:
Well, I'm one of over 200,000 registered members in Florida who are realtors.
Speaker 1:
Only 200,000.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, over 200,000. Most of which are sales associates. I'm only 15% of broker associates. I do fall within that 15%, which is the first thing that sets me apart from the majority of realtors. I cover Dave Broward and Paul Beach. I'm always looking to sharpen my commercial talents and improve and develop my skill set to better represent a client or customer. It's always the right time to follow your dream. That's my tagline. That's my biggest message. It can be applied literally and figuratively. Always pursue what makes you happy and never try and time the market. Let a professional handle it for you. We're worth every penny.
Speaker 2:
Wise words, my friend, wise words. So how did you get into real estate? Tell us a little bit about your journey and how you ended up here.
Speaker 3:
That is a long journey.
Speaker 2:
Let's go for it and get into it.
Speaker 3:
Well, I grew up in the south Mississippi, to be exact the Delta. After high school I attended college locally because I was in a relationship and already had two jobs, one in a restaurant at night and one working for a carpenter during the day. I was trained as a chef and a carpenter. We were ahead of our time in the restaurant, especially for the area. We were contacted by Sparks Edmison Investment Group out of Memphis, tennessee, to open up another location. So we expanded into their hotel in a neighboring town. Now that became my restaurant, so I was a restaurant tour at a very young age. We expanded further into a country club in a neighboring state, lake Village, arkansas. I had started a painting remodeling business and I put that on the side when I had my own restaurant.
Speaker 2:
Hold on back up there You're a restaurant tour in the restaurant business, a business that's notorious for taking insane hours, and you opened another business on the side.
Speaker 3:
I had already had a business on the side, so basically I worked all day and all night.
Speaker 3:
When you're young, you can do that, I guess, yeah so you know I, I still wanted more, though you know the only way that I could do that was to break away, and you know so many hours kind of helped me do that. I did make a difficult decision to leave two successful careers. I had a chance, you know, just for something more. So I got my class ACDL. I moved to Memphis, tennessee, got into transportation, traveled the United States and Canada, did that for a couple of years, looking for the right opportunity. I came down here twice for business actually.
Speaker 3:
I fell in love with South Florida and Relocated to Miami over 20 years ago at the age of 27 to attend Johnson and Wells University. So it's kind of like out of the frying pan into the fryer. So the plans after that were to move to Charleston, south Carolina, and open up a restaurant, you know, with my old partner. So I must be a glutton for punishment, right, yeah. But once again I found myself in a relationship. I didn't want to leave South Florida. I loved it down here. But if I was gonna stay I wanted to continue sharpening my commercial talents and one way I did that was by getting my real estate license about 12 years ago Now.
Speaker 3:
At that time I knew I wasn't ready to pursue that career. I always kept it current, waiting for the right time. So I continued working in hospitality in some capacity. Bar manager saw me a dining room captain, waiter pretty much done it all. I worked in South Beach for the last 10 years for Miles restaurant group. Got married, settled down, we decided to do the family thing and Cooper City met all of our criteria for that. But I, working until three o'clock in the morning on a Saturday, made it increasingly difficult with the toddler. I'm sure you can imagine you have kids.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:
So on top of that, my daughter was four years old and about to start pre-k, and you know we were coming out of a pandemic. At that point we had lost our nannies. One moved away. Actually, everyone needed childcare, so availability in qualified applicants was very thin, so my wife and I decided it was the right time, and that's basically my story. Love it. They've ever told you that you have a radio voice.
Speaker 2:
I.
Speaker 3:
Have never heard that before because I've never been on the radio before.
Speaker 2:
Well, there you go, could be, could be an additional calling for you in your, in your journey. Certainly been been around, for sure, for many, many years. So I Wanted to ask you about dig a little bit more into the real estate aspect of what you do. So that's what you're doing right now. What are some of the biggest challenges that your clients and customers tend to face?
Speaker 3:
Well, I think the biggest challenge for clients and customers is probably going to be time. Time is the greatest challenge, followed by expectations, especially for first time home buyers, the expectations for selling a home and purchasing a home. They're mostly based on the value of time. After that, affordability, lack of inventory, concerns over potential price decline, potential mortgage rate decline. People trying to time the market they have to really be diligent. Consult a professional long before they're ready to buy yourself and never try and time the market.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I've tried that before. It doesn't work very well, Not had much success. So what's going on right now? Every time I sit down with a realtor, I always like to ask them for their temperature on the situation right now. What's going on with the real estate market? Maybe coming off the heels of COVID, prices exploded. We're seeing some interesting things happening. What's your perspective on that? Where are we at right now? Where are we going?
Speaker 3:
Where are we at and where are we going? Well, business models are typically cyclical. Covid was a new event, so it's very difficult to say after that where we're going. My forecast I would say I have a positive outlook, especially for Southeast Florida. Home sales are anticipated 7% year over year, with the expansion by the end of 2024 driven by decline in mortgage rates to 5.25%, with appreciation of a modest pace of 5%. But I would go further and even more granular. Just say, in Cooper City particularly, we're up 13.7% in sales year over year, with the average sale price per square foot up 3.7%. So I anticipate an upwards of 13% appreciation for Cooper City area.
Speaker 2:
I like it. I like it. Good stuff, good stuff. So what do you like to do for fun when you're not working, brad?
Speaker 3:
What do I do for fun? Well, jeremy, in my past years, throughout all of my travels, I was an avid mountain climber, really. Yeah, I lived in, you know, in South Florida. You're living here. You either need a boat or a motorcycle, so I'm a motorcycle enthusiast. I came down here with a bike, and I've had a bike, you know, ever since, as well as a scuba diver. I've been diving so, but now that I have a daughter and a family, I'm giving up the motorcycle for a golf court and my climbing gear for golf clubs. So I'll hang on to my scuba gear for now, though, but you can usually catch me at the driving range at Cooper Colony at this point in life.
Speaker 2:
So when you said mountain climbing, were you talking about, like, hard rock climbing of faces and cliffs, or just hiking up mountains, or a little bit of all, a little bit of everything.
Speaker 3:
I'm talking about mostly just hard rock climbing, tread sport, free, solo, really. Yeah, I was talking about that because when I was driving, you know you're going all over the United States, you're going to Canada, you know, through the mountains, you're seeing all these marvelous places and you know, it kind of started for me just, you know, being on the edge of a cliff looking off at my first sunset, you know, out in the Colorado Rockies, and all of a sudden, you know, I've never seen purple and blue and pink mountains when the sun. It was just fascinating. It was just beautiful, very inspirational. And I ended up going out to Westsac and I had some friends out there when I was traveling and we went to an indoor climbing gym and that was hooked, hooked and at that point I just took that and took it outside and, you know, started traveling and climbing. I've climbed all over the world, climbed in Spain, all over the United States.
Speaker 2:
I used to climb when I was younger and I tried to get my kids into it. We went to some climbing gym locally down in Fort Lauderdale and they seemed to like it. I just didn't really stick. But for those listening out there, Brad mentioned free solo before. If you don't know what that is, that's climbing with no ropes.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I don't recommend that for anyone. Just as a disclaimer, I'll go ahead and put that out there. Sitting here with Alex.
Speaker 2:
Honell yeah, that's a fascinating one, for sure. Free soloing. So you mentioned Cooper Colony or Abed Gawr. Now that's your handicap, yeah.
Speaker 3:
So I'm going to say that my handicap is pretty much everything. I am as new at golfing as I can possibly imagine. Okay, new, yeah, I'm a newbie. I'm just now starting to pursue that. I still have the motorcycle in the garage, but I'm about to get rid of that.
Speaker 2:
So I used to play pretty frequently. I had it in a while. I haven't played now in six months, maybe a little longer. So when I play I I no longer keep traditional score. I score myself by how many balls I lose, and then you give it a round.
Speaker 3:
That sounds good to me. We maybe we can get together and play golf.
Speaker 2:
I, you know I've been, I had, like I said, I haven't gone in six months, but I've been getting the itch lately. The weather is just getting it's, it's been beautiful out and I gotta get out there and play. So who know, you know, maybe we'll go out and, uh, at least hit some balls. So you mentioned you have uh son. You said right.
Speaker 3:
Have a daughter six years old.
Speaker 2:
Daughter six years old. Ah see, minor nine and eleven, so you're, you're right behind me, alright, yeah, so lots, lots of of my daughter just started pioneer middle school. Get excited, yeah, First year.
Speaker 3:
My daughter goes to.
Speaker 2:
Renaissance, and she's a senior high school teacher. So, brad, before we wrap up here, what would be the one thing that you'd like to leave our listeners with that you'd like for them to know about?
Speaker 3:
your business. Well, I guess that it's not really a business at all. In a sense, it's more of a partnership, um, partnership with mutual benefits. Um, it can't take place without relationships with people. I can't do what I'm trying to do without the trust. The purpose is to trust someone with your most valuable investment and, you know, some people may call it an asset, I call it a home. Um, if you're looking for assets and investments and commercial properties, I have those as well. Um, you know, I know what it is to follow your dream, no matter how far that leads you, and as a broker associate in South Florida, I can help others do the same. I have an extensive background in hospitality, as well as construction and transportation. I've also made real estate a perfect fit. You know, I hold two degrees and two professional licenses, as well as an SUAS commercial pilots for drone operation. So I'm all in and as a homeowner, father, husband and resident of Cooper City, I pride myself in community values.
Speaker 2:
How could our listeners learn more? Let us know how we could reach you.
Speaker 3:
Brad. Well, the easiest way would probably be through Facebook under John Bradley Mitchell. But you know that is a great information website, email, everything. Um, some people don't have Facebook. So you know, my email is Brad Mitchell at kaiscom, that's easy enough. My phone number is 9546471257.
Speaker 2:
Perfect, and we will, of course, link in the description below to all of your contact information. Brad, thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3:
Thanks for having me, Jeremy.
Speaker 2:
Now it's our pleasure, and to our listeners, thanks for tuning in and we'll catch everyone next time.