EP# 131 - Insights from Southwest Florida's Real Estate Power Couple: John & Brianna Opteyndt's

Ever wondered what fuels the success of Southwest Florida's real estate power couple? Join us as we sit down with John and Brianna Opteyndt of Southwest Florida Home Group, the dynamic pair transforming Bonita Springs' property landscape. Their story isn't just about buying and selling homes; it's a blend of deep community roots and cutting-edge marketing strategies, which they graciously unpack in a conversation that's as informative as it is inspiring. From their personal journey into the real estate world to the unique challenges they've faced, the Opteyndts open up about the lessons that have shaped their decade-long adventure in this fast-paced market.

It's not every day you get a behind-the-scenes look at the life of realtors who are making a real impact in their community. John and Brianna not only reveal the highs and lows of nurturing their business but also tackle the common misconceptions about their industry with candor and wit. Plus, they share the added value they bring to their clients through their local events and developments blog, SWFLlife Online. Whether you're curious about the real estate industry, itching for entrepreneurial wisdom, or just in for engaging stories, this episode is a treasure trove that promises to leave you enriched and enlightened.

The SWFL Home Group
John & Brianna Opteyndt
9990 Coconut Rd
Bonita Springs, FL 34135
(239) 292-2317
JohnPaul.Brianna@gmail.com
WEBSITE

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, cabo, jim Schaller.

Speaker 2: 0:10

Welcome Good Neighbors to episode number 131 of the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. Today we have Good Neighbors John and Brianna Opteyndt SWFL Home from Home Group. I got that. I got that all right.

Speaker 3: 0:25

Great job. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Hey, pleasure to finally meet you guys and get to understand what you guys do here locally. So let's just jump right in. And why don't you share with our listeners what you do at SWFL Home Group?

Speaker 3: 0:41

So go ahead.

Speaker 2: 0:42

No, go right ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 3: 0:44

We help people buy and sell houses, so we're a real estate team. We're obviously my wife and I are the main teammates. We focus in Bonita, but we work Naples and Fort Myers as well.

Speaker 4: 0:59

Yeah, john was born and raised in Bonita, so that's kind of our home base. We live here currently in downtown Bonita and following the development and everything over the past few years here. Everything's booming in Bonita, so that's kind of our home base. We live here currently in downtown Bonita and following the development and everything over the past few years here everything's booming in Bonita Springs. So my background is in marketing so I run. Our blog is swfllife online, so that's where we keep everybody up to date with new developments. We've got, you know, local events on there and everything like that, so we kind of add a little bit more value to what we already do in the real estate industry in that way.

Speaker 2: 1:30

Absolutely. I actually get your newsletter and I love it. You guys do a great job with that.

Speaker 4: 1:34

Awesome, I'm so happy to hear that.

Speaker 2: 1:37

So let's back up a little. How did you guys get involved in the real estate industry?

Speaker 4: 1:43

John got his license first.

Speaker 3: 1:48

I pretty much got my license right out of high school, so I've been doing it since I was about 18, 19 probably, and, yeah, I'm 29 now, so it's been like 10 years.

Speaker 4: 1:58

Yeah, I joined his brokerage. So my background's in marketing, like I said. So I was actually doing marketing for a gym in Naples and his broker at the time was going to my gym. So that's how I met him, and he said that he had an opportunity to kind of do some marketing, recruiting and management for the brokerage. So I took that opportunity and that's kind of where I learned the back end, you know, of everything. And then I decided to get my license and so then we started a team together and I've been doing it ever since.

Speaker 2: 2:33

That is awesome. I love that. So starting your own business or being involved in your own business, there's always some type of challenge or obstacle along the journey that we can maybe look back at now and say you know what? I'm in a better place because I went through that. Is there something that happened along your guys' journey?

Speaker 4: 2:52

Real estate. I mean, it's like every single deal you learn something new. I think you never. No deal is the same. There's always hiccups, and so we're constantly learning from you know different challenges, how to you know best navigate. You know situations when deals at the very end are going up in flames or something like that. I think we've, you know, done a really good job of you know learning from those mistakes and being able to you know, seven years in the industry, you see a lot of stuff, so we're able to avoid a lot of those things that we probably wouldn't have seen coming, you know, earlier on in our careers.

Speaker 2: 3:27

It is, and that real estate market is just so. It's so volatile, it's up and down and it goes through major swings and you just got to hang on for the long haul. So are there any maybe myths or misconceptions surrounding what you guys do here in Southwest Florida that we can maybe clear up for our listeners?

Speaker 4: 3:46

I would say that one of the main things is just it's hard to word it, but just every realtor does things differently and I think that people can have bad experiences with realtors and kind of look at realtors as a whole in that way, thinking that you know they're all the same.

Speaker 4: 4:10

You know some realtors are just there are, unfortunately, realtors who just do it for money and things like that and don't put the same amount of effort and care into you know each customer and you know that can end up making a customer feel like they're not being paid attention to and they're not getting, you know, the service that that they deserve. So and you know, just with with different things, you know there's there's a lot of effort that we put into our listings. For example, I mean, you could hire an agent who you know doesn't take professional photography and and you know just doesn't put the effort in that needs to be there and that leaves people with, you know, a bad experience. Put the effort in that needs to be there and that leaves people with, you know, a bad experience. So we try to go really above and beyond with everything that we do for our customers.

Speaker 2: 4:55

And that's important because, you know, nowadays and a lot of different industries, customer service has gone away, you know, and people are focusing on numbers and it's nice to see people that are actually focused on you know, providing a good you know service for their customers.

Speaker 4: 5:11

It's so important. It's, you know, the biggest purchase of most people's lives, so you got to keep that in mind always.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Absolutely so. Are you seeing anything trending in the industry lately?

Speaker 3: 5:25

Great, well, everything kind of, as the rates jumped up. Everybody you know the past year or so. Everybody knows rates are a lot higher than they used to be. So we kind of were waiting to see what happened with the market, you know, because real estate takes a while to respond to certain changes in the market.

Speaker 3: 5:44

It's not like, you know, the stocks or anything, so it's been kind of inventory has been growing so there's a lot of houses for sale versus the same, you know, this time last year. But it hasn't really affected things too much. I mean, other than days on market is a little bit higher. It's taking places around like 90 days to sell right now, but other than that everything's moving pretty well. Sale prices haven't really been affected by. You know, since there's more inventory now, a lot of people would think sale prices would start coming down, but they haven't really come down, so it's in a good place. It's more fair for buyers right now versus a year or two ago, but at the same time sellers are still selling fairly quickly and, you know, for a lot more than they were a couple years ago, Right right.

Speaker 4: 6:36

Oh, I'm so sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna add that I think you know these changes that we're seeing kind of nationally are affecting, you know, slower markets more and faster. So there are definitely areas in America where you know home prices are responding to the change and they are coming down a little bit. But just Southwest Florida, just in general, is just booming. There's so much development, there's people move, so many people moving here daily. So with such a strong demand it just makes it a little bit healthier of a market than you know others, compared to others in America.

Speaker 2: 7:11

Absolutely, and you mentioned you guys are from down here in Southwest Florida, so you've probably seen a lot of change throughout the years.

Speaker 4: 7:17

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:19

It's crazy. I mean I know I moved down here in 1989 and just the amount of changes from then, it's just, it's crazy. It's you know there was nothing. There was no Benita, there was no Estero, it was just nothing.

Speaker 4: 7:31

I always make a joke about when I because I moved down here from New Jersey, actually coming up on like 10 years ago, 12 years ago, and I joke with John I used to live on Strike Lane and he used to live right off of Paradise over there. It's where he grew up and I remember when he would pick me up from my house and we had just started dating he would say oh yeah, when I used to strike lane, me and my friends rode horses down strike lane and there used to be a canal in the middle and I'm like how old are you?

Speaker 2: 8:00

Right, he's a cowboy there you go, right that was only one time.

Speaker 3: 8:05

There you go.

Speaker 2: 8:06

Just one time, there you go. So, I know you know being in real estate having a child is very demanding. You probably don't have a lot of free time, but what do you guys enjoy doing outside of work?

Speaker 4: 8:19

fishing yeah, we love, we're always on the boat beach. Um, our daughter, as she loves to be outside, she does not like to be indoors at all. So, uh, yeah, we're on the boat boating at the beach a lot there you go.

Speaker 2: 8:33

True, florida girl. Huh, there we go I love that so is there one thing you wish our listeners knew about what you guys do that maybe they're not aware of?

Speaker 3: 8:53

I'd say all this, all the steps I mean as far as our customers go. There's a lot of things that realtors do, should be doing. You know, a ton of steps, from from meeting the client to closing. There's, there's so many steps, steps whether you're helping them buy or sell, and I think like she kind of to go off what she was saying earlier um, there's a big misconception. I think a lot of people, especially if you've had a bad experience in the past that realtors are just in it for a commission and it's a lot of advising and then from there, a lot, of, a lot of different steps to get to the closing and um, so I'd say you know there's a, there's a lot to it behind scenes a lot behind the scenes, definitely yeah that's the important stuff, because that's what makes a good experience for everybody right so how would our listeners go about getting a hold of you if they were interested in learning more?

Speaker 2: 9:40

looking for a home, looking to sell a home? If?

Speaker 4: 9:43

they were interested in learning more. Looking for a home, looking to sell a home yeah well, our website is great. So swfl. life, not com, it's life. So on there we've got some different tools, but there's a great blog for anybody to check out. We follow all the new developments going on from really Cape Coral down to South Naples, so that's really fun for people to look through. We also have different restaurant, new restaurants. I've got a great happy hour guide, things like that. So even if you're not looking to buy or sell right now, it's a great resource. We've got our newsletter, too, where we send out all of those articles, so definitely sign up for that and stay up to date on all of those things. Each Friday it comes out, so you've got the events coming up for the weekend and things like that. So it's not your average real estate newsletter and I think Jim can vouch for us on that one.

Speaker 4: 10:35

And definitely check out our website.

Speaker 2: 10:37

Absolutely no. It's a great newsletter. Like I said, it's very informative about what's going on. I'm like what can I do this weekend? It's always great newsletter. Like I said, it's very informative about what's going on. I'm like, what can I do this weekend?

Speaker 3: 10:45

It's always in there, awesome, and my cell phone number is 239-292-2317 for anybody. You want to just call or text us anytime. We're always available. Perfect, and we also have real quick.

Speaker 4: 10:58

I guess I'll give a quick plug that we are running a buyer incentive this spring up until June. So that is offering cash back to our buyers up to $5,000, depending on the purchase price. So that's a great way for buyers to buy down their interest rate or lower their closing costs as well.

Speaker 2: 11:16

That is awesome. I love it. Any last words for our listeners.

Speaker 4: 11:21

No, I don't think so. We appreciate you having us. This is awesome. No, awesome, don't think so. We appreciate you having us.

Speaker 2: 11:23

This was awesome no awesome getting to know you guys. Thank you for being such good neighbors and I hope to see you out in the community soon.

Speaker 4: 11:31

Thanks, jen, good talking to you.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Astero. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpestero. com. Go to gnpasterocom. That's gnpestero. com. Or call 239-296-2621.