Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Cooper City
Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
EP #206: Hope Stoller with Charles Ruttenberg Realty
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Embark on a journey with Hope Stoller of Charles Ruttenberg Realty as she navigates the lively currents of the South Florida real estate market. Our latest episode isn't just a look into property trends; it's a masterclass with a seasoned pro who traded the New York hustle for Florida's charm. Hope opens up about her trajectory through the complex world of property management, leading to her prowess in the luxury home niche and a shrewd eye for the art of the deal. The conversation veers into the current market's hurdles—low inventory meets high interest, and the plight of first-time buyers in a market thirsty for affordability. Meanwhile, an influx of new faces from out of state is reshaping Southwest Broward County's real estate canvas.
Yet, this episode isn't all about business; it's a heartfelt tapestry weaving the professional with the deeply personal. Step onto the dance floor of life as we reminisce on a father-daughter dance that blossomed into an unexpected avenue of connection, in a world where screens often eclipse conversation. We ponder the delicate dance of guiding teens through the minefield of social media, and how families can maintain harmony in a digitally dominated era. Wrapping up, the spotlight turns to the essence of clear communication—be it within the walls of home or the bounds of business—emphasizing that transparency is the cornerstone of trust, whether you're closing a home sale or simply closing the day with family. Join us, and tune your ear to an episode that transcends the transactional to touch on the transformational.
Learn more: www.hopestoller.crrunited.com
Call me: (954) 610-0605
Email me: hopesells28@gmail.com
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolff.
Speaker 2Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to the Good Neighbor podcast. I'm your host, jeremy Wolff, and our guest today. Actually, I'm surprised we hadn't met, because I've been pretty active here in the community for a year and a half now since I started my journey and I've seen her around. I believe I've seen a banner up at the high school and most recently I believe I saw her on the cover of one of the local community magazines. I said you know what? I got to reach out and I got to get our next guest on the show. I'm sitting here with Hope Stoller, with Charles Ruttenberg of Realty. Hope, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 3Hi, good morning yeah good morning. You may have also seen me at John the Baker.
Speaker 2Yes, I am also. I also frequent the establishment myself, so probably stay there as well. So, yeah, but I'm excited to get into this today. Thanks, as always, to our listeners for tuning in to learn more about our great community and the businesses that serve us. So Hope, everybody knows what a realtor does, but tell us a little bit about Hope Stoller and a little bit about what you do with Charles Ruttenberg of Realty.
Speaker 3Okay, well, first of all, I'm a licensed broker associate, which means I'm a real estate agent, but I'm also licensed to have my own real estate brokerage office and I primarily work in Southwest Broward County, including Cooper City, of course, which is where I live. I assist my clients who are buying and selling properties and I work with first time home buyers, investors, empty nesters looking to downsize and more. I have four agents on my team that assist with showings and social media, open houses, marketing and all that good stuff. I'm also a certified luxury home marketing specialist as well as a certified real estate negotiator, and you know it's important to understand market trends, as we've seen things drastically change since COVID.
Speaker 3It's an understatement, I'd say yeah, it really is, and also it's important to keep up with the latest marketing tools and techniques. And the only thing that hasn't changed over the years is my service that I provide, but things do change.
Speaker 2How did you get into the real estate game? To talk a little bit about your journey. Is this something you've been doing for your entire professional career? Was there a backstory behind that led you to real estate? Let's get into that.
Speaker 3Sure, Well, 30, I'm sorry. 23 years ago sorry, I'm not that old yet 23 years ago I moved to Florida from New York and I began working in the family business of property management. And when I moved down, my dad said get your real estate license. I said, okay, I'll get it. So I was doing that along with property management. That was in 2001. A year later, I took my broker course and opened up my own office, and then, in 2021, I joined Charles Ruttenberg Realty.
Speaker 2So 2001 is when you moved down from.
Speaker 3New York yes, and I got my license.
Speaker 2Okay, so I beat you down here. I moved down to New York in 95. I'm sorry, I moved down from New York in 95. I'm from Rockland County. Where abouts in New York are you from?
Speaker 3Oh, I knew that. Long Island Plain Hill.
Speaker 2Long Island. Okay, so I came down in the midst of high school. My mom apparently got sick and tired of my antics up in New York. I was getting a little bit of trouble up there in my youth and I came down here to sunny South Florida and haven't looked back since. So it's been quite the journey, quite the ride. So started, came down here, got into real estate, been in real estate that whole time. I always ask realtors when I have them on the show. I like to ask this question. It's like tongue in cheek, right, let's get out the crystal ball. It's been a lot of crazy stuff going on. As you alluded to, post COVID. The market is, I guess. Things seem to have calmed down lately. Interest rates are coming down. Prices are still inflated. Where do you see us headed in the next six months, 12 months, in the years to come? Where are we going? I mean, what's the state of the real estate market, so to say, down here South Florida and I guess here in Skipper City for our residents?
Speaker 3Well, inventory still low. That's a huge issue we have and also interest rates are still high. So people are still moving from other states to Florida. I have many clients coming from out of state looking to purchase. I think until we increase the inventory it's gonna remain. The prices are going to remain high. I mean it's just, it's a you know I'm gonna find a man.
Speaker 2Yeah, I do see quite a few new developments popping up, though. Over in Davey they're building a bunch of houses. I mean it seems like builders are at it, so hopefully they are.
Speaker 3You know those are much higher end homes. I think it's a lot more difficult these days for regular folks, hard-working folks, to purchase and that's where I see a huge you know issue when I take first-time home buyers around. There's just so Little inventory for them and it makes it a lot tougher.
Speaker 2So they're developed. The most of the development that's going on, that we see they're all higher end. There's not much, much more on the lower end.
Speaker 3Yeah, there's not too much there. Anything that they are building generally are rentals. We don't see a lot of you know, town home communities being built. There's one in Pemberg Pines, but those are still over $600,000 for a townhouse. So we're not seeing new construction for you know, the, the, the, the medium price, if you will, for people looking to purchase.
Speaker 2I wonder why that is.
Speaker 3I'm trying to piece it together in my head and think of a reason for that, but it's not coming to me because I think because the land is so expensive and buildings materials and labor has increased so much that it just, it may not make sense economically for these builders to, you know, build smaller homes.
Speaker 2What are some common myths or misconceptions that people generally have Surrounding the real estate industry? Everybody has everybody has their opinion about realtors.
Speaker 3Yes, they sure do, I'd say. From sellers I hear a lot of. You know I don't need a realtor to sell my home, I can sell it on my own for sale by owner. But they need to understand that an experienced realtor has a lot of knowledge when it comes to certain things like staging, pricing your home correct, correctly which is super important marketing negotiations, contracts, addendums just the entire Transaction is so involved. People think we just come in and show a home and, boom, we sell it. You know there's a lot involved. We have to prepare the home for the sellers in order for them to receive, you know, receive the, the best price, with the best terms. We want to bring in as many buyers as we can, and All of those things that I mentioned are essential for a success, a successful sale.
Speaker 1So you know, and not only that.
Speaker 3The statistics show that working with a realtor will net you more proceeds and working without one.
Speaker 2Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And another thing that I think people sometimes tend to overlook most realtors work with a, the team of professionals, and it's not just the real right. They have a, they have a wonderful mortgage broker, they have a wonderful title company they work with, they have a wonderful interior decorator, like you name it. They have it and that takes takes a heavy load off home buyer or somebody that's selling or right, yeah, especially if you're doing it your first time Because it could be difficult trying to go out there and navigate that and when you get a really good realtor that has all those, has that team if you will in place, again, it just takes a heavy load off Off the home buyer or seller it does and you know you're reducing.
Speaker 3your stress is huge during this process because you know you also have to deal with moving somewhere else. You know you've got it from both sides, so it's certainly more beneficial, I think, to have a realtor, an experienced realtor.
Speaker 2I Like the idea of reducing stress in any area of my life that I'm not an expert in, because we everybody has their own thing they deal with. Everybody has their job, their family. You know why be burdened by the stress of having to deal with all this other stuff. Yeah, let's a team of experienced professionals handle it for you. And one of the reasons why we do this show is to kind of get business owners out there and get a look under the hood and have people in the community get to know other members of our community that own businesses build trust, build long-term relationships so that when you do go through a big project, like sell on your house, for instance, you have a team in place that can help you through that process. So very good.
Speaker 3Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2So you live in Cooper City.
Speaker 3I do, we're about to live in Embassy. Yeah.
Speaker 2Very cool Very cool.
Speaker 3Love it there yeah.
Speaker 2What do you like to do for fun when you're not working? Maybe talk a little bit about your family.
Parenting Challenges and Bonding Moments
Speaker 3Well, I work a lot, but when I do have free time I try to spend time with my children. But I have three teenage boys and Oof you got your hands full there. Yeah, it's rough, apparently, hanging out with mom is not fun. So, oh, come on. Yeah, I don't know. I ask them always let's go to, let's watch a movie, let's do this. And they say, mom, teenagers don't hang out with their mom, why, I'm just as fun? They don't think so.
Speaker 2Teenagers how old?
Speaker 3Two 15-year-old teenage boys and a 13-year-old teenage boy 15th, because so my daughter is 11.
Speaker 2And she just started pioneering Not quite a teenager, but she thinks she's a teenager and she generally doesn't like to hang out with me either. And, however, I went to the annual father-daughter dance.
Speaker 2Oh, that's nice this past weekend and I got to tell you I had asked her if she wanted to go. Almost like, sheepishly, tongue-in-cheek, I thought the answer was going to be, of course I don't want to go. But she's like, yeah, I'll go, and I had one of the most lovely bonding nights with her. I will be going to that event every year from now on into the foreseeable future.
Speaker 3It was just such a good experience. That's so nice.
Speaker 2Hopefully it doesn't change when she gets a little bit older.
Speaker 3But you have to hold on to those moments, because once they get older it seems like they just want to do their own thing. But from what I've told, they come back, and I think I did the same when I was a teenager. I didn't want to be around my parents as much. But as an adult I call my mom every morning when I get up, and if I don't call her by 12, I think she's going to put an APB out on it. So I've got to call her every single day, and then she needs an evening call as well.
Speaker 2That's so funny. I had a conversation with my mother the other day Like obviously my kid's 11 and 9 of a 9-year-old son and every day I'm 44 now and I'm trying to impart wisdom on them, like things I've learned now. If I just knew that back when I was younger, how much easier life would have been. So I had these serious conversations with them and it obviously goes in one ear out the other and I was speaking to my mother the other day and I said I told her this and I said I don't remember when I was their age. I don't ever remember you sitting down with me and talking to me about all this life wisdom. She's like I used to talk to you about that all the time. I was like, oh OK, so in one ear out the other and I kind of got that and so now I have a little bit of better understanding when I'm dealing with my kids about in terms of perspective, as far as what they're actually listening to. But really, really fun stuff. That's good.
Speaker 3Yeah, but it's definitely different these days than when we were growing up. I mean the amount of social media and there are always people on their phones. I just sent them a it was like an article on people being addicted to their phones and I sent it to the three of them. I wanted them to read the article and they said mommy, so are you? I go back to work.
Speaker 2That's a little work.
Speaker 3It really is mostly work, but they don't see that. They don't see that.
Speaker 2They just see you on the device. They think that intuitively, they're thinking. I mean, they might not know what hypocritical means, but they feel that because they were telling them get off your phone, you're on there all day. You're on there all day as well. Yeah, exactly, there's definitely. My son got a VR headset thing and he used to. He was going outside playing all the time. He never was really into video games and so my brother-in-law bought it for his birthday. I figured he'd play it once in a while, and now all his friends that used to go out and play in the neighborhood they also have the headsets.
Speaker 3Oh, that's the op-sets.
Speaker 2Yeah, so they're in like it's the coolest thing ever, but it's super addictive. And they're in like playing Gorilla Tag all day, and it's just like I have to have his friends come upstairs and drag them outside to go play soccer now. So yeah, so. So many distractions out there, so much noise.
Speaker 3There certainly is, I understand, I think. Now, as an adult, our distraction, at least for me, is Netflix, netflix and chill. That's one of my other favorite things to do.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, watch.
Speaker 3Netflix.
Speaker 2You get along real well with my wife. She's, she's, she. I think she's watched every show on Netflix by now. People go. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's, it's. It's funny because I work about 70, 80 hours a week and that's it.
Speaker 2That's it.
Speaker 3That's it. And when I tell my friends oh, you know, I've just watched this or I've just watched that, they go. How do you?
Speaker 2how do you have this?
Speaker 3when you work so much. I go. I find the time every night for an hour before I go to bed. Every morning when I'm working out, I work out in my garage. I have a whole gym set up. I get a good 45 minutes in and there I just I love it. It is addicting. That's our addiction as adults. We just don't realize it.
Speaker 2You're entitled. If you're working 70 hours a week, you could take that You're entitled for sure.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2What would be the one thing you'd want to leave? Leave our listeners with. Let us let them know what they, what you'd like for them to know about your business before we wrap up.
Speaker 3Um, I mean, I like to say that you know my clients and you could read a lot of my reviews online. Um, they always receive full service for me. I make myself available all the time, questions concerns, and I'm very, you know, good at communicating. I work with a lot of clients at once, but they're always abreast of everything that's happening, um, and I want to keep them aware of every step, because they don't really all know everything that goes on behind the scenes, and I want them to understand what exactly is happening with their transaction and they appreciate that. Another thing is, I always give my honest opinion. I don't know if it's welcome, but I but I always give it.
Speaker 2Honesty is always welcome around these.
Speaker 3I always sell them, but I truly do work with you, know integrity and what you see is what you get, and I'm always going to do the best job I can and as long as I'm selling real estate, that will be first and foremost is integrity.
Speaker 2How can we learn more? Maybe share your website contact information. Let our listeners know how we can reach you.
Speaker 3Google me. Uh, hope Stolar. H O P E S T O L L E R. Um, a real chair with Charles Ruttenberg realty for your Cooper city listeners. You can drive along Sterling road and snapshot my banner for all the old schoolers. Um, you know, I think Google is just fine. Um, my website is pretty long so I think we just want to Google me my phone numbers there. My website, my email is hope sells 28 at gmailcom, but probably best to call me. I don't know if I could just blurt out my phone number, but you can just Google me.
Speaker 2All right, we will of course, link in the description to all of your contact information. Hope, thanks for joining us today. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 2It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to finally meet you and learn a little bit about what you do in our community. It's always good when I can have an actual. There's so many business owners in Cooper city and just people don't realize that a lot of the businesses that are in and around the area are owned by our neighbors and it's so nice to get a chance to meet everybody in town and kind of help spread the good word. So truly thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 3Thank you, I really appreciate it. Yeah, that's our pleasure. Yeah, everybody.
Speaker 2Yeah, everyone take care. Thanks for listening and we will catch you next time. Have a wonderful day.
Speaker 1Thanks for listening to the good neighbor podcast Cooper city. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, go to gnpcoopercitycom. That's gnpcoopercitycom, or call 954-231-3170.