The Most Dwanderful Real Estate Podcast Ever!

What Would You Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail?

• Dwan Bent-Twyford • Season 7 • Episode 404

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Andrea Gordon shares her 27-year journey as Berkeley's top-producing real estate agent for Compass while pursuing multiple creative passions. She created her podcast "Realizations" to educate people about what realtors actually do after feeling frustrated about NAR lawsuits and commission misconceptions.

• Real estate agents meet clients at major life transition points that are inherently stressful
• Most people don't move unless they have to—requiring agents to have both market knowledge and emotional intelligence
• Effective marketing strategies like consistent bus bench advertising for 23+ years
• Increasing marketing during economic downturns helped establish stability when others pulled back
• Understanding when to help clients overcome fear to make good decisions
• Pushing past fear is essential for both clients and agents to achieve success
• Andrea balances her real estate career with multiple passions: pursuing a PhD in her 60s, writing plays, publishing children's books
• Working with a realtor is crucial even for experienced investors to handle comps, listings, and sales
• The value of teamwork in real estate: "Teamwork makes the dream work"
• Andrea's life philosophy: "If not now, when?" and "What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?"

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Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Hey everybody, welcome to THE MOST DWANDERFUL REAL ESTATE PODCAST EVER! I am so super excited to have you on the show today. If you haven't listened for a while. We just reached 1 million views, so I am not views, downloads, so I am so excited to hit the million mark. That was a really big deal for me. So you all know me. First thing I did was like is one million downloads good? And turns out it makes you in the top 5% of all podcasts. So I was like woo. So my new guest here today, ms Andrea, is just learning this. So I'm so excited and it's all because of you and I just thank you and love all of you so much.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Now, as you know, this is the most Dwanderful Real Estate Podcast ever. I took my name Dwan and wonderful and I made a new name. So over here, we are Dwanderful and our motto is people before profits. So if that's something that fits in with you, you're at the right place and I'm your girl. So if that's something that fits in with you, you're at the right place and I'm your girl. So I just want to jump right into my guest, ms Andrea Gordon. And here's the thing Most of you know my first name is actually Andrea.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So it's Andrea Dwan and hers is spelled the same, but it's Andrea. So now I have to be super aware to say Andrea. That's the same thing as someone calling me Dawn, which you all know I hate, they all know. I've had a few people that have been on my show and they call me that and I was like All right, miss Andrea, andrea, miss Andrea, I'm going to make that phonetic because of my own name. So I've been crazy. All right, ms Andrea, andrea, ms Andrea, I'm going to make that phonetic because of my own name. So I've been crazy. All right, girl. So we just throw our guest right in. We want to know who you are, how do we find your social media? And just a couple sentences about what you do, and then I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions.

Andrea Gordon:

Very, very cool. My name is Andrea Gordon and I'm'm a realtor in Berkeley, california. I've been a realtor for 27 years at this point and I am the top producing agent in Berkeley, oakland, albany, el Cerrito, kensington, all of the inner East Bay for Compass, which is really cool.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That is well, congratulations. Thank you, thank you very much To be the top, top realtor in any area that is. I mean people that don't know, don't know how much work that is.

Andrea Gordon:

It's a lot of work.

Andrea Gordon:

It really really is. I have my own podcast, which is called Realizations, and I got really angry about the NAR, doj lawsuits and all of the commission lawsuits and stuff, because what I realized was that nobody really knows what we do. They don't understand what we do, they don't understand the depth and breadth of it. They don't understand how many vendors we have to deal with all of the ins and outs of what it is to do real estate. And so then I thought rather than be mad, because that's not a great healthy thing for anybody that I would create a podcast myself that would address and educate people as to what we really do, why it matters, what's important about what we do in society, in the cities we live in, in the communities we live in the charitable ways in which we give back, live in in the communities we live in the charitable ways in which we give back, and so I've been having everybody from mayors of different cities, to the head of Compass, to painters and To me, soon to be on your show, yeah, okay.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So let's pause right there just for a second. Give me all your socials, because I want everyone to be able to find you, and people sometimes just read the show notes and take a few things and they move on.

Andrea Gordon:

You can find me really at Andrea@ Andrea Gordon Real Estate, pretty much on every platform, and you can email me at Andrea at Andrea Gordon dot com, and you can go to my website, which is www. AndreaGordon. com. You can also find my podcast, which is called Realizations capital R-E for real estate and it's on Hulu, spotify, apple, youtube, amazon you name it, yeah yeah, and you can also find my book. I have a children's book out. It's on Amazon. It's called Yo-Yo in a Tree and it's all about how a Senegal parrot got out and was able to get home after flying far, far away, and it follows the adventures of these two little children, Stanley and Emma, who are desperate to get the bird back.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Oh, I love that. I love that. Okay, so now what you say I agree with. So I have been a real estate investor for about 35 years. I've flipped, I've wholesale or flipped over 2000 personal deals. I've helped, I don't know. I have over 500,000 students. My husband and I are basically rehabbing an entire town, but I've never had my real estate license. I started off as an investor. I started rehabbing houses 35 years ago and I just stayed into the business like that. But I tell people all the time if you're going to be a real estate investor and not have a license, you have to be able to work with someone that is a real estate agent, because we can't be investors without real estate agents.

Andrea Gordon:

Well, it creates so much liability for you besides everything else.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, it's not even a liability. It's like you know we need someone to help us with comps, especially if we're new. We need someone to help us with a listing agreement. If we're doing short sales, if we rehab and we put our houses on the market when they're all done, we need someone to sell our houses. Hang on, I'm trying to get that there we go, I lost my camera. Then we need someone to help us sell our houses.

Andrea Gordon:

Yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And I always tell people listen, don't, don't do everything, Don't have a license and be, try to be a contractor and be a rehabber and be an investor. You know, find the people that that's what they do and let them be on your team. Exactly, I feel like team. I just don't. I always tell my grandkids every day I'm like teamwork, they go, makes the dream work. Yeah, I tell them that every single day when I'm with their kids. We make them put groceries away and do all these things. And there's four of them and the little one's three and the big one's 10. But now everybody helps. Teamwork and they go, makes the dream work. I'm teaching them, embedding that into their brains now, because they have to grow up and realize you, you know you can't just be a one man act and be wealthy and successful without people helping you.

Andrea Gordon:

Yeah, exactly, I mean people. People collaborate all the time. They don't call it collaboration, but really you know when you have community, when you have, you know every place where you go, you have people that are buoying you up and you're putting them up, and that's part of what makes life worthwhile, honestly. It's how, it's how friendships develop, it's how resilience develops, it's how people become productive and not self-involved. So these are all really wonderful things. Yeah, when I sell one of my own properties, I hire a real poor, by the way.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And you know and you should. It's like you're too close to your own projects. I don't know. I swear I feel like I preach to the choir. I'm always telling people that and I get like someone again like, oh okay, someone that actually understands what the deal is, you just can't do it and I have people going to be commissioned. It's like, but you're, if I fix a house up and I selling it, I'm making money. Why should the realtor not also make money? You know, because investors are like I'll just sell my own house, like yeah, but do you know what to do? Do you have the experience, like do you know how to sell houses?

Andrea Gordon:

right no, I'm like well again people people focus on the commission and that's why those lawsuits were so utterly stupid. They focused on the commission, which is that's why those lawsuits were so utterly stupid. They focused on the commission, which is the smallest piece of any of it. You know, on average I get my sellers 11% more than most other realtors do in the areas that I serve.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Well, you know my husband is a Mike Ferry trainee.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yes, he worked with Mike Ferry I guess we both, I guess, got into real estate, both at around 1990. And he was an agent for years five or six or seven years and sold like 500 houses and helped somebody in foreclosure and I guess the way he tells it is like some light bulb went off. He's like, well, I just helped somebody in foreclosure and I guess the way he tells it is like some light bulb went off. He's like, wow, I just helped somebody in foreclosure and this was like I guess it felt more meaningful to help his family.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So I got to do this again. So next thing, you know he was hung up his license and he's an agent, so it's funny to listen to him. We do our boot camps because he's got all the Mike Ferry scripts so and he'll say, okay, top question. Someone's like you know you can't. Can we lower my commission bill's like no, any other questions, right? And I laugh because I haven't listened to the mike ferry tapes.

Andrea Gordon:

It's like, oh my gosh, that's so funny yeah, I worked with um tom ferry, his son yeah and then I actually, to this day, I work with a coach named fonda martin, who was one of tom ferry's coaches. She actually was one of mikeerry's coaches, way back when too.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

But Bill went for Mike, then he worked with Tom and then we actually became friends with Matt and his wife, Cause they're not, you know, they're not into the real estate side anymore. But it's just because I've listened to the tapes filming times with Bill listening to them. I'm like gosh, that's a lot of good.

Andrea Gordon:

Cause the scripts. The scripts are so important, and it's not only that, it's it's that they teach you to be accountable to yourself. Yes, and that's. You know, I don't compete with other agents, I compete with myself. I I have a production tracker that vonda gave me way back when, when I was working with tom ferry, that I still use to this very day. Compass has come out with their own version of it, but I actually like the one I've been working with forever better, so I use it and that way I can tell you, down to the penny, how much money I make. I can tell you. I can tell you how many conversations I need to have every single day in order to make the money that I want to make.

Andrea Gordon:

So there's a way. It's a way of stabilizing your income and and moving forward, understanding what you need to do in order to make this all work. And a lot of people get into real estate thinking it's going to be easy, thinking they're just going to work two hours a day and make millions of dollars. It's a very, very, very hard job. Beyond being a very, very hard job, you have to be consistent in your marketing efforts. You have to be consistent in your in your prospecting. You have to be consistent in your follow through and follow up. It takes a lot. It's really it's it's kind of amazing.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Actually, I say all those same things as investors, but what I want I do want. What I want to touch on is you said that you know you help people really understand, like, what you do. And I think, like people just think, oh, I'm going to list my house, and they don't really understand what it is that you do. That's why they're like oh, lower your commission, you take this, you know, do this. And that it's like hey, listen, that person has to stand up for their own worth and their own self-value and they are also working and doing a service and they're helping you. But I think people think you're like you put it in the computer and why can't you take less? But there's so much to it. So I like the fact you start off saying you basically teach people like that's, yeah, that's the whole point of what I do depth of it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So I want you to like, if I'm brand new and I'm talking to you, what some of the things you would say to me because your approach is so great. Thank you.

Andrea Gordon:

Thank you. Well, one of the first things that I mentioned when I'm teaching people is that you're meeting people at some of the most stressful points in their entire lives. Even if it's good stuff like like, let's say, they've just gotten married and they want to buy a house, or they've had a baby, or they've had another baby You're meeting people in real estate who have been through a major life change. Generally speaking, most of us are pretty inert. We don't want to move any place unless we have to. You know, my husband and I, for many, many years, we would buy a house, fix it up, live in it for a couple of years and then sell it. But then we found a house we really, really, really liked in 2004. And we've stayed here because we really love this house and we love the land and we love all that about it.

Andrea Gordon:

But most people don't move unless they have to. Most people, you know, and it can be exciting things. It can be you get a big bonus at work and therefore you can now afford to buy a house whereas you've been renting before. Or it can be you got divorced or your kids went off to college, or, but it's always some incredible pivot point in their lives. So, realtor, not only do we have to be really, really astute as far as marketing is concerned, we also have to be really, really astute as far as dealing with concerned. We also have to be really, really astute as far as dealing with people in very stressful moments of their lives.

Andrea Gordon:

Usually, people aren't at their best when you're working with them as a realtor and you have to learn to let that stuff just roll off your back and feel like it's not personal. There's a wonderful, wonderful book called the Four Agreements, which I read to everybody all the time because you, you, when you read it, you realize that, yes, that that whoever's having that problem, it's not really your problem, and if you take it on, you become less effective. So part of your job is to stay a little bit away from any of the emotionality of the situation, to be compassionate and empathetic, but also to also to be the person who can act and isn't paralyzed by the situation and problem.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

See, I'm dealing with people that are in foreclosure yeah, something has happened there too and a death, a divorce, job loss, all the same things. I'm I think I'm with them a little further down the road because they you know most people will try to sell their house first, sometimes like they just can't. It's too much disrepair, too many things are wrong. And I always tell my investors I'm like, listen, you're meeting them, just like you said, at probably, and in my case, one of the worst times in their life.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And if you don't want to hear their story and try to help them and like, for me, I pray with them and if you don't want to do all those things like that, you don't have any business being in this business, because these people need help. Like, real help is not about what you're going to make. They need real-life help, right.

Andrea Gordon:

No, absolutely I like that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You emphasize that because I don't think enough people do.

Andrea Gordon:

Well, and that's so. That's part of the job. Another part of the job is being a top-notch marketer. You have to know how to market properties to be a realtor, and that takes an awful lot right now. I mean, there are a lot of people that are not terribly tech savvy. If you aren't tech savvy and you don't have the gene that will enable you to be tech savvy, hire someone who does. I mean that's. The other part of all of this is that people are frightened to spend money. People really really really fear spending money.

Andrea Gordon:

The best investment I ever made was hiring my first assistant, my business. As soon as I hired an assistant and I had been very low I'm very I don't know what the word is, but I'm kind of anal about about numbers and things, and you know and I actually do know how to do absolutely everything, and so I was trying to do everything myself and essentially I was my own assistant. So you know, there I was doing what I could pay somebody you know $40 an hour for in California. I don't know what it is elsewhere, but $30 an hour in California for something that you know. My job pays more like $ and you supervise them and you figure it out.

Andrea Gordon:

At this point. I have two listing coordinators, I have a full-time transaction coordinator, I have a virtual assistant in the Philippines and I have buyers agents that handle buyers for me. I'm almost entirely listings at this point in my career and it works out really, really well for me. I'm not a major team. I mean I hear about some of these mega teams that they have at, like Keller Williams, where there's, like you know, there's one guy in Oakland, california, who has a team of 369 people. I am sorry, you are not a team. If you have 369 people working for you, you're not really. I mean, I doubt that guy has been in house for for several years at this point.

Andrea Gordon:

So so it really just depends on how you want to set up your business, and there's so many different things you can do in real estate, like look at what Dwayne is. I see I did it now.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's okay, we're even, we both are now.

Andrea Gordon:

Look at what Dwan is doing. She is working on foreclosures, flips, investing all of those things. That's a job in real estate. Appraising is a job in real estate. You can become an inspector and work with real estate. There's so many different companies and different ideas of businesses that are associated with what it is we do companies and different ideas of businesses that are associated with what it is we do. We are an entire. We're like the biggest segment of the us economy now you are, you really are.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I think there's more realtors than any other type of a job class. There's more people that are in the real estate agent, real estate investor agent side of the business. There's more agents than like any other, like versus stockbrokers or versus this or versus that.

Andrea Gordon:

Yeah, there are almost as many attorneys, but there are, there's a lot of attorneys.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's because we're too sue happy. Tell me about a couple of your marketing. I feel like I know that at my age, at 66, you know, I was not born with a computer at my fingertips but I have gotten pretty good at learning marketing. But I've taken a lot of classes at a lot of weekend workshops learning marketing. What are some of the top marketing things that people need? Because I don't? People are like, well, I'm just going to get my license and people will find me. It's like they won't find you. There's like 100 billion people they're not gonna find you.

Andrea Gordon:

Okay, so a few things. Just a little bit of background for me. I used to teach at different universities, I'm a theater director and playwright. My work has been produced nationally, I have directed all over the country and with that and $2.50, I could buy myself a cup of coffee. So the arts are not very well funded in this country, especially now.

Andrea Gordon:

And so what happened for me was, at that point in time, most of my friends in theater would go work at a restaurant. They'd be a bartender or a waitress or a waiter and I instead went to work for Hal Reinion Partners, which was an advertising agency in San Francisco, and I became yeah, I was their in-house casting person for a while. I left to direct a production of Death of a Salesman in Los Angeles, but that's a whole other story. But the point being, I learned a lot from when I was there, watching how advertising is created and what's important and how campaigns are created and what they do, and I think that that has really, really helped me in my work as a realtor ever since then. I learned how repetition is key. I learned how, like if you put one ad in, it's meaningless you have to have consistency.

Andrea Gordon:

You have to keep doing it over and over again. Many, many years ago people laughed at me because I got bus benches. So I have bus benches.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I have bus benches too. I love them. I have so much business of bus benches.

Andrea Gordon:

Exactly, they, they, they are subliminal. People drive by them every day. They are subliminal People drive by them every day. They see your name on there. By the way, I have never, ever, had my photo on my bus benches, because I kind of come off looking like a potato and I always forget to wear makeup. What have you? You're like beautiful. People always think my picture is on my bus bench and they remember me.

Andrea Gordon:

Like, I went for a massage at this massage place and the person who was giving me a massage went oh, you're the real estate lady. And then, of course, proceeded while she was doing the massage to talk to me about real estate values. That's so funny. But I've had those bus benches for, like I want to say, 23 years now. Yeah, and they are worth gold. During the economic downturn in 2008, I actually added bus benches. I actually increased my spending on my marketing during the downturns because I knew that if I was the last person standing in that situation, that people would be like, oh, she, she, she survived, she did well, she's OK. And so I I upped my marketing and that's something that's very hard. It's like, it's like what's his name? From Berkshire Hathaway, the guy that's that's retiring now. He's wonderful, the older gentleman who is, who is like. I can't remember his name.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Anyway, I can't remember, I'm sorry, we'll figure it out.

Andrea Gordon:

Anyway, he, warren Buffett, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, warren Buffett, during downturns, he buys stock, he buys, he buys. That's the thing. The biggest thing that holds everyone back is fear. Fear is the most dangerous thing in the entire world. Fear stops people from doing. I remember when I was a kid, when I was like 18, some people that I knew were getting married and I knew it was going to be the best wedding on the middle of my nose right before the wedding, and I have regretted for my entire life that I did not go to this wedding, which people to this day still talk about, because it was so much fun, because I was so worried that people were going to be looking at this gigantic carbuncle in the middle of my face. Now, the reality was it wasn't my day.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Nobody would have given it down.

Andrea Gordon:

No one would have cared day. Nobody would have cared, no one would have cared. But I had fear, and fear was the thing that stopped me from doing something wonderful that would have made me happy and giving you all those memories with shared memories exactly so.

Andrea Gordon:

Whenever you have fear, my biggest advice to you is to look at it really, really take it out of you like it's a thing and put it on the table in front of you and think about why it's a problem. And if you cannot come up with a genuine reason why your fear is real like sometimes, fear is real like you know, but if, for some reason, if you realize it's you putting an obstacle in front of you doing something, then you just have to knock that away. Yeah, you need to. You need to pass right through that, because those moments in time when you evade fear are the moments where you have breakthroughs. Yes, I agree.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I said so much of my life earlier being afraid of things. I finally went. It was just like you know, screw people I'm afraid. And now I'm just like. I don't even care what people think, what you think I say about me, I'm not afraid to try anything. None of that stuff even fazes me. Yeah, and that and that sure does when. Until you overcome it, exactly exactly.

Andrea Gordon:

And you know, I I look back on pictures from from my youth and I keep thinking about the things that I was pursuing and and it makes me sad in a certain way, some of the things, because I didn't realize how great something was, I didn't fully appreciate the moment, and and that's you know this, last week, actually two weeks ago, my best friend, who is 94 years old she's an incredible playwright she had a major stroke. She lost the ability to talk because of the stroke. It hit her in left temporal lobe of the brain and the day before, my other best friend, ellen, and I had gone out to lunch with her and we had this incredible conversation and we were talking. Actually, because I'm in a PhD program, by the way, I decided to go back to school and so I'm taking, like you know, two classes a semester, which means that by the time I'm 80, I'll have my PhD. But it's never too late, exactly Well, that's my motto. My motto in life is, if not now, when? If not now?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

when I've had that motto. I developed that a long time. It's like you know, if I'm doing it, what am I waiting for? People like wait. They wait for something to happen before they start something. But it's like the waiting is what kills you. Like just do it. If it doesn't work out, do something else, but stop.

Andrea Gordon:

Same issue. It's the same fear thing. Honestly, you know, fear of failure is like a big. I have a, I have a, I have a paperweight.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I don't know if you can see this Some of it, your screen's in the way a little bit, anyway, it says what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

Andrea Gordon:

And I'd attempt to do everything. I mean everything, everything I, you know. And so I have started at this point in my life, because by the time you hit your 60s you sort of feel like you, you might as well. I mean, what is there to lose at this point? Yeah, so I went back to school. I wrote a children's book. It's called Yo-Yo and a Tree. You can look it up. It's on Amazon.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It's actually I'll get it from my grandkids.

Andrea Gordon:

My illustrator is this guy named Tiago Moto that I met. He's in Portugal and he's brilliant and wonderful. We're actually already working on a second book, um called Stanley and Emma go to the bird store. I check, I looked, I researched it a little bit, and there are no children's books that are based on on birds, and so I thought oh, a niche.

Andrea Gordon:

All right, that's fun, yeah, so, in any case. So I wrote a children's book and I wrote a play, and the play was very, very personal to me and I've been writing plays my whole life, so it's not like it's unusual for me to write a play. But what was unusual was I submitted it to a bunch of different contests all over the country and it was a runner up in like three of them, and then the Magic Theater in San Francisco actually produced it and I produced. I created a production company based on putting all of this stuff together called Rainbow Zebra Productions and created an LLC. Because you want everything to be all kosher, oh yeah. And subsequent to that and that was in 2023 that this all started happening Subsequent to that, my Rainbow Zebra Productions has now become named a resident theater at the Magic Theater in San Francisco. Good for you. Uh, resident theater at the magic theater in san francisco. Um, and yeah, and I sponsor a play reading um uh series, that is, all plays written by women over the age of 55, with great parts for women over the age of 55, and we are anthologizing them into books, um, so, so this whole project started just from the germ of me going.

Andrea Gordon:

I want to do the things I want to do. When I turned 60, I started taking piano again when I was a little little girl, and Mrs Hooties, my Danish piano teacher, used to whack me over the fingers with a ruler, and I got so annoyed that I quit, and I'd always regretted it my whole life that I didn't go back to it. And when I turned 65, I was good enough that I bought myself a Steinway Grant. Wow, nice for you. And I'm still taking lessons. So. So there's this wonderful cellist named Pablo Casals. You might have heard of him. Somebody asked him when he was 86 why he practiced every day, and he said because I think I'm getting better. So what I want to do is just get better and better and better and better and better.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And as far as real estate.

Andrea Gordon:

Real estate is the sort of thing that you can do and get better and better and better, and it will teach you everything about life. By the time you're done in real estate, you will have been through vicariously, of course, both as a participant, as the agent, but also as an observer. You'll have learned so much about human nature. It will be amazing to you. It's a great teacher, it's a wonderful, wonderful teacher, and I actually was asked by Compass to teach a masterclass in real estate closing because most real estate agents don't know how to close.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

They just don't, they don't. It seems like at a closing, everyone is kind of rambling about and no one really knows what's happening.

Andrea Gordon:

Yeah, it's, it's. What happens is Thank you, darren. A long time ago, a long time ago, people got the idea that as real estate agents, they were just trusted advisors. So what happens when you're a trusted advisor? You advise Does anybody ever take your advice? Does anybody automatically do?

Andrea Gordon:

No, every once in a while you have to push somebody a little bit off of a cliff so that they will actually do something. And if you don't know how to do that, you will not succeed in real estate. Because there's not a single person on the planet, except for possibly, dejuan, who walks into a house and wants to spend a million dollars. Oh yeah, there is not a person. They put every obstacle they can possibly put in front of themselves because as soon as they actually want something like that, all the doubts, all the fear, all the incapability comes back in and they start talking themselves out of it in and they start talking themselves out of it. So part of your job as a realtor is to slightly push them off the cliff, and it's not because you want the commission, it's because it's the right thing for them to do it is.

Andrea Gordon:

I just got somebody into contract yesterday who had written an offer on a property about a week ago and the offer that she wrote was really namby pamby and she has plenty of money, by the way, she is capable of doing this but she was fearful and so that offer that she wrote a week ago on this house that I didn't think she really really wanted was not meaningful and ultimately, our area is still experiencing lots of multiple bid situations. There were nine offers and her offer was not at the top, she was in the sixth, she was third from the bottom and we talked about it and I said to her you know, I told you during the course of this that I didn't think that was the right house for you and you just went for it anyway, but you didn't really go for it because you didn't really want it. And so then another house came up almost immediately afterwards and it was a lot more expensive, but I also knew she had the money and it was exactly perfect. It was like like the day that I taught I do.

Andrea Gordon:

I do an intake with every client that I have and I write down what it is they want and what are the things that seem to be important to them. I asked them a bunch of questions so that I really get to what's important to them, because you have to go in depth with people about this stuff. You do, sure, and so this house came up and it was perfect, I mean all the way down to a shared communal garden.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And it was perfect.

Andrea Gordon:

I mean all the way down to a shared communal garden. How often do you? Oh, wow, that's nice, yeah. And I was like don't let this one go, don't, let don't pass this one up. And we decided on a price. And between deciding on a price and me having to go to a risk management seminar that was required by Compass for everyone yes, she was working with my assistants and she cheaped out by $100,000.

Andrea Gordon:

And I got out of the thing and the agent who was representing the seller called me and said hey, andrea, you have this offer in here and I have to tell you you're not at the top. They loved her letter. They thought she was wonderful, they thought she was great, but it's not enough. And I said what would be enough? Would this number be enough? And she said oh, she would get it. She would get it, she would be ahead of. There's an all cash offer. That's a little bit behind that, but they liked her letter so much I think they would go with her.

Andrea Gordon:

So I went back on the phone with her and I said you need to. You need to do this if you want this house, and otherwise you're just going to be sitting there and not getting this house and we're going to continue looking for another six months because this is a rarity, this is a unicorn. You're not going to see this again. I can tell you already. I know all the inventory in the areas I serve and you are not going to see this sort of thing. She stepped up to the plate and she got the house.

Andrea Gordon:

Yay, and that's why they need you. Yeah, that's why. That's why all, all clients need a realtor. But you need to be, you need to have strength and you know I was going to say balls, but that seems rude you need to.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You need to. You gotta have balls. You have to have balls to be in business and to get a PhD and to write plays and to write books. You got to own us.

Andrea Gordon:

Anyway. So so, um, you know I I taught this class at compass and I transcribed it and it's turning into a book called Realizations. It's a guide for people who want to be realtors and it's just basically addressing the things that are the real issues. And whether you're successful or not in real estate, you need to learn all the laws. You need to learn all the forms. You need to know what to do. You know when to have somebody talk to an attorney. You need to know when you should be talking to your manager. You need to know what to do. You know when to have somebody talk to an attorney. You need to know when you should be talking to your manager. You know what. You need to know what the questions are to ask. But there's a lot that you don't need to ask anybody about. You just have to figure it out for yourself. And that's what, and that's what my book's about.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Nice, I love it. So let's jump topics for a minute. I love everything. You are a plethora of information. Thank for a minute. I love everything. You are a plethora of information, thank you. Tell me and let's so we're going to talk about just you personally for a minute. Tell me what's your favorite band of all time? Oh, my goodness, the beatles. I love the beatles. I do love the beatles. That's one of the first bands I probably I remember back in the day. So I was born in 59. I listened to the Beatles and my mom loved Elvis.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yep, yep, yep, yep, so like as a kid I was like oh, I love the Beatles and I love Elvis, I'm going to marry all of them.

Andrea Gordon:

They seem so creative and cool. My favorite Beatle was John. My best friend's favorite Beatle was Paul, and we would play that we were married to them. It was very stupid no, it's not.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

No, it's not. My daughter was working at the ritz carlton um down in denver and ringo she worked on the vip floor. Ringo checked in oh wow, and you're not allowed to ask for pictures. Not allowed to. You know, you can't tell your friends they're here at the hotel Because they want the discretion. But her favorite Beatle is Ringo, oh my God. And she's like, and she calls us. She's like oh my God, if that's going to throw up. I'm walking him, I'm showing him around his suite, I'm getting things for him, I'm doing this. I hands behind his back. She's like groovy, groovy. This is great. She's like. I wanted him to take a picture so bad, but I couldn't ask. She just stood in the elevator looking at him. She had tears run down. I was like oh.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I said it, but they're not allowed to ask, like they actually get fired. And she's like I was just like, please, please, please, ask him. I want to take a picture with you. I'm funny she still talks about to this day like what a just like being alone in an elevator, take him to his room and just everything she did. She's like it was just unbelievable and I was like I know the beatles had such an impact on everybody.

Andrea Gordon:

I think. I think they did and they had an impact on music. I was going to tell you a really weird thing in my life is that I have been in bathrooms three times in three different continents with Yoko Ono.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Seriously, seriously. Are you a Yoko?

Andrea Gordon:

Ono fan, not particularly I. Just it's like one of those weird things that happened I used to. I grew up in part in New York City and they used to live about six blocks away from me when they were at the Dakota. I was was the time at Gristiti's, what have you? So it wasn't three continents, two continents.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I saw.

Andrea Gordon:

I saw her in Europe, and I saw her in New York and in Los Angeles in America.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So in the bathroom, no less. That's a fun story Washing hands together in the sinks. That's a fun story. What's your favorite food? What do you love to eat?

Andrea Gordon:

oh, lord um. What do I love to eat? I, I love italian food. I I you know I I'm not a foodie. I I eat like a six-year-old.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I love all the stuff that's like pasta and cheese and I tell my husband sometimes like I don't know what happened once we got the kids out of the house and just eat whatever we feel like eating like. We eat like teenagers. We're just like you know hot dog. I'll make up some mac and cheese as I have it for the grandkids like this. Stuff's really good the stuff I'm eating is so bad. What's your favorite time of day? Where's your super happy place when you think, oh, this is the best time of day?

Andrea Gordon:

I I love sunset yeah, me too.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You know a lot of most people always say, oh, early morning I get up before. I'm always like, why, like, why, why I'd much rather watch the sun go down than the sun come up. It's just, it's the.

Andrea Gordon:

We have a really really. I have a my. Probably not for you, but our lot it's the. We have a really really. I have a my. Probably not for you, but our lot here is enormous. I have a 24,000 square foot lot and it looks like a park. Oh, wow, and and at nighttime I don't have the city view, I have a canyon view, but at nighttime, the way the sun dapples off of the leaves, it's just exquisite right.

Andrea Gordon:

Oh, that's gotta be so beautiful it is. It's gorgeous, it's absolutely gorgeous and makes me happy. That's why we didn't leave here is because it's so peaceful and beautiful. And to be in the middle of an urban area like Berkeley and to have this incredible yard it's I would stay for the yard too.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

We have nine acres up here in the mountains and the sun, just beautiful, and goes down over the trees. It's like that's so pretty. It's like you couldn't pay me to live in denver and be all around all those people all the time I I could not do that.

Andrea Gordon:

That's why I couldn't take new york.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It was too much and I love new york. It's my favorite places to visit. But yeah, there's covid and like just some, some more violence and things and all the riots and I love that. It's like I don't even have the desire to go there anymore right now.

Andrea Gordon:

Yeah, when I was a little kid, I would get home from school and I would be so overloaded by all the people in the street and the smells and it's New York smells really bad most of the time, by the way and and I would be vibrating, I would have to calm down because it created anxiety for me.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah.

Andrea Gordon:

So you know, coming to California was just felt like freedom to me.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, california is beautiful. My daughter lives in LA right now. She loves California. She's pregnant. She's getting ready to have a baby. She's 38. She's pregnant. She's getting ready to have a baby. She's 38. She's got a big job working for I think they're called Insomniac. They do all the concerts and the EDCs. Oh, very cool, she's like the second charge. She's loving California right now.

Andrea Gordon:

Every part of the United States feels completely different. I feel really blessed that I've been to most parts of the United States and there every part has their charms. But there's something about California for me that is just so freeing and liberating and beautiful that I always want to come back here.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So I have a house. When I met Bill, I lived in Florida, so I have a house in Florida. Florida is my happy place. I love I mean I love the mountains, but I'm in Florida, I'm on the lake, the beach is right there. It's like everything in the world is perfect. That's what I'm talking about. No, I get it. I get it Okay. Last thing I would like you to. I always like our guests to leave us with a word of wisdom, but just one single word not two.

Andrea Gordon:

Nope, okay, then I guess the word I would say is breathe oh, okay, now hang on.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Uh. So at my wonderful world, over here, we have a word of the week, and when people listen to the show, I say write the word down, stick it on your mirror, on a sticky, and every day you're brushing teeth, you're brushing hair, say the word, breathe and just say the word. So that way. So we have a word of the week.

Andrea Gordon:

So I, uh, so that's why it has to be a single word, but I do want to know what that word means to you if you take the time a few times a day to just stop and take six really doesn't have to be like crazy deep breaths, but just breathe deeply six times you will find that it's resets your inner clock in a funny way. I mean, all of a sudden, everything that's been annoying you will stop, you'll see things more clearly and you'll feel revitalized. So it's a very good thing to do.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I agree, I do the 10 deep breaths. I do them twice a day and then, since I started doing it, my anxiety has incredibly gotten lower. I followed like a video of how to like hold them in so many seconds, breathe out the whole thing, and I was like you know, breathing is a great thing. People just don't. They don't do it.

Andrea Gordon:

Most people breathe very shallowly and you know, in my training I used to teach voice addiction at different colleges. What have you? And breathing is so important. People don't realize how significant your breath really is, and so just taking a moment to remember to breathe because people don't, I mean it's, it's automatic. You know, by the way, something else I was going to tell you about my friend, the one who just had the stroke. She has something called expressive aphasia and she can say phrases like I love you, oh that's terrific, oh how wonderful. Yes, those are words that got beaten into her brain by how many times she says them. And now that she can't say anything else, it's kind of an interesting thing. All of the goodness that she's been manifesting her whole life is what's is what's left. So whenever you're talking, remember that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I love that. Oh, thank you for sharing that. That's very, very sweet. I'll be praying for your friend. Thank you, please. She needs it. Well, I pray for everyone, but what can I ask her name so I can put it on my prayer board? Lee?

Andrea Gordon:

Brady.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay, yeah, I have a little board I write everyone's names on and I pray over everybody, so it'd be my honor, that is sweet and beautiful, thank you. Yeah, no, I have been my honor to pray for her and you know what?

Andrea Gordon:

hopefully she'll have a full healing and you know, what I love is, that is that, even though she's 94, they see how, how fit she is and they see how capable she was, and they also see how many friends she has and they are really working hard to rehabilitate her.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Well, you know my aunt is 98. She has no health issues whatsoever and she still walks like three miles a day. Perfect, 98. She just has a little walking stick and she walks. And you know I shouldn't drive anymore. But I mean she doesn't have a health issue, nothing. She doesn't even take like a Tylenol, nothing. It's like I don't understand how you can be that crazy healthy. You're 98 years old. I'm happy about that because my mom's 80. She's healthy too, and I'm 66. I'm like, okay, I am claiming that healthy longevity of my family. I want that healthy longevity of the women in my family. So it's never too late. She can have a great recovery and live another 10 years and do some more amazing things.

Andrea Gordon:

That's what I hope. That is my strong hope. So that is my hope with you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

All right, everyone I want to thank you, and Ms Andrea, I definitely want to thank you. You have just been so much fun. I'm going to have you back on here again so we can talk about so many things. You got the theater and you got the things. You got the real tour. You are just a wonderful person. You have so many great interests and I wish more people were like that.

Andrea Gordon:

Oh, thank you, and I'm really looking forward to having you on my show, because I have no doubt that you're going to be a fascinating guest.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Well, we'll find out pretty soon, won't we?

Andrea Gordon:

Yeah, we will.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

All right, everybody. Again, find me at dwanderfulcom. All social media is Dwanderful D-W-A-N-D-E-R-F-U-L. And on the podcast, I want you to leave a five-star review. Write something, because the more reviews and the more nice things you say, the more downloads I get. And help me reach two million and we'll be back next week, Same bat time, same bat channel. And remember that the truth is in the red letters. All right, everybody. Thank you, Ms Andrea, thank you, Bye All right.

Andrea Gordon:

Thank you so much.