Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep. # 79 Navigating Real Estate in a Changing Market: Insights from DeFino Realtors
Step into the world of real estate with Adam DeFino, third-generation owner of DeFino Realtors, as he shares insights into his family's legacy in the industry. We explore the evolution of Wyckoff and its transformation into a thriving suburban community, grounded in a foundation of trust and customer care. Adam discusses the emotional journey of clients navigating the buying and selling process and the importance of genuine service alongside market-savvy strategies. Discover how the DeFino family has thrived through various economic shifts, maintaining a commitment to integrity and community, and learn why this real estate firm stands out in a competitive landscape.
Tune in for practical advice, personal anecdotes, and a deep understanding of what it means to truly serve clients in the real estate market. If you’re considering buying or selling a home, or just want to learn more about navigating today’s real estate landscape, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Join us, subscribe, and discover how family values and personal connections are the keys to a successful real estate career!
DeFino Realtors
Adam DeFino
201- 693-0103
adamdefino201@gmail.com
300 Franklin Ave., Wyckoff, NJ, 07481
(201) 891-2022
DRE#: NJ 7800718
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Bergen Neighbors Media Group. I am your host, Doug Drohan, and today we are joined by the legend in the Wyckoff Franklin Lakes area, Adam DeFino of DeFino Realtors. Adam, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Hey, doug, how are you Thanks for having me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I called you a legend. I mean I think you're pretty. You know, defino Realtors is pretty well known, I know you, thank you. Sorry about that, but I mentioned that last week I had a company called Expert Tutoring on the show Carolyn Goodman who's the founder and CEO and we had this origin story how did you get into the business and she talked about how, when she decided to start her tutoring business, your father helped her find and buy the building that she had her office in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that was a building on Everett Ave and I don't know how many years ago, but we've been around so it was actually my grandfather that started the company in 1955, I want to say it was a real estate insurance and maybe a couple other things back then and we've been on the same corner ever since. So I'm the third generation and uh, yeah, we've helped. We've helped a lot. We did a lot of you know still do a lot of residential and commercial, local commercial real estates. We've helped a lot of business owners get going, and especially locally yeah.
Speaker 2:so obviously you had your role models, you had your grandfather, but I guess in the 1950s you know we're talking post-war GI bills, people moving out to the suburbs. You know Wyckoff I think back then was pretty rural and you know there weren't like I'm from Long Island. So post-war they built up these towns like Levittown and and and all these other like subdivision communities where people from Queens and Brooklyn in the city moved out to what was Wyckoff back. You know, like I know you weren't born in 1950, but stories from your grandfather and I'm sure there's truly old pictures.
Speaker 2:But why, in the 50s, like I'm sure, owning a real estate business was, was not really that, uh, you know, heard of back then?
Speaker 3:no, I mean I can't speak to. I think there was a lot less competition way back then, obviously, but um, white cough and the surrounding area was really vacation areas for people out of the city. It was lake houses farm, it was farmland um huge tracks of land available. Like all the developments in Wyckoff were um big planned developments, a lot of them. Um I actually, many years ago I was, you know, when my grandparents were still alive we had found nine millimeter video, I guess is what you call it, and there's a video of my grandfather walking down 208, which one was then a dirt road with a shotgun hunted away.
Speaker 3:yeah, with his shotgun someone's filming he was just hunting on route 208. So that's how rural it was back then. And the surrounding area, oakland, was a vacation area, yeah, yeah, so that was like a lake vacation area Basically. People went to spend their summer weekends and stuff like that. So that's the yeah, that's the how it started out here.
Speaker 2:So your grandfather, then your father gets in the business and then so has there been like a like, an overall, like underlying theme of how you guys do business, dating back yeah, I mean years, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I mean we've been around now. I mean we're, we're. There's not many independent real estate companies left. The industry's been sacked by you know conglomerates and whatnot. So we're one of the few independents. There's a couple still floating around and whatnot. So we're, we're, we're one of the few independents. There's a couple still floating around, but we've survived on just good customer service, honesty, integrity, doing what's right for the you know the customer and we. We get a lot. Most of our business comes at a referral and repeat business and that's how we've survived good, good people working here that have the same mentality and same integrity and all that, and that's that's kind of how we've kept going all these years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know it's been. You've obviously there's been ups and downs in the economy and the real estate market and you know, more specifically, in the last five years we've probably seen two big seismic shifts in some ways. You know, between COVID, which at the time time, march and april we thought was going to be disastrous for real estate, ended up being a boon for real estate, and then um, in the last couple years, with inventory and you know what, seemingly to some people with no history think it's high interest rates, but certainly compared to what we had, you know, five years ago. You know two, 3%. But so how have you guys managed to, you know, not only survive those times and you go back to 2008, you know. So now we've got three.
Speaker 3:You know, in the last 20 years we've had really big economic Well, that's a good question and you said something that was interesting in between. Some of the words about people think that we have high interest rates now and I think that's the big misnomer out there that, oh my God, you know these rates are. They're a disaster. They're not. They're normal. What we had prior to the last year and to you know, 2019, 2020, 21,. Was it artificially low interest rates? 2019, 2020, 2021 was artificially low interest rates, and now you know, we have a lot of people stuck where they are sitting on a really good interest rate.
Speaker 3:That cannot justify moving off of that. To get to your question how to have? You know how we've survived? Well, we're. You know the unique thing about our companies. You know we've been here so long. We own our, we own our office. We don't have huge layers and layers of management. We're all self-run here. We can really adjust on the fly when things change.
Speaker 3:There's been a lot of change in our industry in the last four years, more so in the last four years than the first 22 years. I've been doing this Between COVID, between historically low inventory rates in New Jersey. Then we had a huge ruling from the National Association of Realtors that had impact on how we structure commissions and whatnot. So there's been a lot going on. The nice thing is I can sit in here with Tony and we can have a chat and decide. You know what we're. We're switching gears tomorrow.
Speaker 3:We don't have to go through layers and layers of red tape to get something done when we want to switch something up. It's just kind of a quick decision. And that goes for when we're dealing with customers and clients too. If we got to make a quick adjustment to make a deal, we do it. You know it's not a not a big deal here, so we're easy to work with in that regard and we've been able to survive by being lean and mean some years, and that's kind of where we're at right now. It's, this is a hard. This is going to be a very hard year for our industry, for for people in it.
Speaker 2:So tougher than last year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say so. It's that's my gut feeling coming out. Um, there, you know, there was a ton of people that got into this industry 2020, 21, and, uh, you know they're not going to survive. Um, you know, if they haven't left already. So you know, that's just how it is.
Speaker 2:I mean kind of like what happened in 2008. I mean, I knew people that no real estate background. They were from up here northeast or they were from a different country. They went down to South Florida. I'm going to be a realtor. I got my real estate license. I could sell these condos in South Beach for a million dollars. My commission is whatever. Then, when 2008, 2009 hit, that was it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even back then, I'll trade that market in for this market any day. Again, selfishly speaking as a real estate company owner, I'll I would gladly trade the 2008 uh environment for you know for this, yeah there's definitely a lot of inventory. That wasn't a problem yeah, we could, we could work and we had value. Um, now it's just like a. You know, anybody can sell a house right now. Let's be honest, honest, you know it's more about the relationships you build and you know and what you can do with that.
Speaker 2:So, going back to this ruling about commissions and all that, you guys have a competitive commission rate that you offer. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So when I entered this field coming out of college was around 1998, 1999. So I got my feet wet a little bit but I didn't get going until maybe 2004 and five. You know I was young and what I was seeing then, if you can go back, we had a similar seller's market back then. You know, we would put houses on the market. They'd be on the market for a week and then we'd be flooded with offers for them within days and at that time a lot of companies were charging 6%. 5% was a discount, if you will and I was kind of looking at it like, well, I didn't see the value in what we do for that a very there's a value to what an agent can bring to a transaction. I just thought it was out of whack. So what, what I told?
Speaker 3:You know I was with tony was with us back then, him and I talked and, uh, we just started saying you know what we're gonna? We're gonna offer a more competitive commission rate, um versus our competition. Because we kind of, instead of starting, all right, how can we do the deal for 3% or 4% when everyone else is doing six? So you know we had Tony had a kind of a saying well, start from 0% and work your way up and see where the value is. And that's kind of how we did it. And we came to a. You know, we were doing a 3.9% commission rate, way before anybody else was was cutting and discounting, and we've been doing that 15 years.
Speaker 3:So when this new ruling came across, yeah, it changed things, but didn't really affect how we do business. We've been doing this for 15,. We've been doing it that way for 15 years already. So, um, we, we kind of, in a way, welcomed it a little bit. Um, but it's still a work in progress and it's the feeling out process, you know, because it's new, but nothing's really changed.
Speaker 3:There's a value to the job that a listing agent brings and a buyer's agent brings and I think it's just was out of whack and it's going to get corrected and that's where you know.
Speaker 2:That's where you know, that's where you're going to see things go yeah, because when you had all these people trying to jump in and make a buck because they saw these shows on hgtv or they, um, you know, one of my pet peeves is I I, when I had a condo down in hudson, hudson county, um, you know, they didn't know anything about the community, the building, the commute, what it was like.
Speaker 2:I ended up writing the marketing copy because I lived in that unit for over 10 years, you know, and it was a great commute into Manhattan. It was a view of the city. I talked about the sun, the moon, you know, shining off the Hudson into your living room window or watching the fireworks over Central Park at New Year's Eve and walking across the street and walking, you know, your dog in the park and having the bus there at 24 seven. But I found that you know a lot of people. They just thought, all right, you're going to list with me, I'll show you the unit and I'll make my, you know, two and a half 3% that I get to split and I said but what value are you bringing? You're not. You know, right, and that that's what's that.
Speaker 3:This is a long time coming in in our industry and and and and I I couldn't agree with you more. I I've, you know, we've done transactions where you know the commissions can get pretty high and that's why people want to jump in. And it's one of the problems in our industry where you can have someone that's not a professional, they'll sell one or two houses here and there and all of a sudden they've, you know, they've made 15 to $20,000 and it's worthwhile kind of keeping their, their real estate license, but it's not good for our industry. Uh, I've always had an issue with it and you know I'm I'm a rebel in our industry, in my opinion, and I don't care who knows it, and we're more about what you know, what's our value to the public, what's our value to our customer, what's fair and what is our job worth. Every job has a work you know, and when you get greedy about it, you know, that's when things you know correct, and that's what's happened, in my opinion, in this industry, and it's okay.
Speaker 2:So you guys have been ensconced in this. You know western Bergen County area, the flow district, for you know 70 years. So what do you like if I'm a new? I'm moving from the city, I'm looking at Wyckoff because I've heard so many great things about it. I come to you. What are you selling me on?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm first. Before I'm selling you, I'm asking I come to you, what are you selling me on? Oh, I'm first. Before I'm selling you, I'm asking, I'm asking you why you're moving out here. What do you? What do you? What you know? Why are you moving to the burbs? What are you looking for? You know what's your, what are your priorities. So once I know what your priorities are, I'm just going to fit you into the best area. So it's not me really trying to sell you on an area. It's more about what are your wants and needs and then getting you matched up with that. But to sort of answer your question, I think I know where you were going with that. The benefits of living out in this North Jersey suburbs, which are the most underrated, you know, I think it's a very New Jersey is really underrated. It gets a lot of, a lot of uh slack out there in the world.
Speaker 3:But we have beaches, we have incredible public schools, we have incredible restaurants. We're at the stone store. From New York, you can go skiing within an hour pretty good skiing, you know. Um, great culture, great people. Um, you know that's what it's about for me. I love it in New Jersey and I I love the, I love this area and I've raised three kids here and, uh, real happy about it and they've all, and you know, turned out great and you know, I think that's why you come out here to raise, you raise a family, get your children a great education and, uh, you prepare them for the, for the world, and right and it's a safe community.
Speaker 3:You know, generally speaking, it's you don't worry about um. You know your daughters or wives, you know you.
Speaker 2:You feel safe with them out there and doing the thing you know so when you, when somebody's um, you know, looking to buy a house probably the most emotional, one of the most emotional experiences of your life, you know, buying a house, selling the house, um, you know, I think what, uh, the challenge I went through sometimes is that you find this house and you love it, but then the inspection report comes and you're like, oh no, and they uncover something like how do you handle, uh, you know, how do you handle those kinds of situations when maybe you're covered as a roof or the backyard's really wet and the basement's showing signs that it's been wet?
Speaker 3:Yeah, One of the ways you actually, as a professional, you handle that is knowing what you're looking at before you sell someone a house I would say 90% of the people and I'm not sitting here trying to bash my industry, but it's funny what I've experienced.
Speaker 3:A lot of the people in our industry honestly don't know a lot about houses I'm not talking about the paint colors and this and that Most of the people in my office that I work with here we can go in and identify things that we know are going to be an issue on an inspection.
Speaker 3:And it's not that we don't tell them and wait for the inspection, but we advise the buyer hey, listen, you know there's asbestos on the pipe so you can see it here. So don't let it freak you out when the inspection comes up, you know make, we know what it costs to get it removed. Here's how you deal with it. Or we can kind of just have a feel for a home that we think is poorly built or constructed, but we know enough about construction and houses. We've been on hundreds and thousands of home inspections ourselves and listened. So having knowledge of actual home construction and knowing what things are and knowing what to look for when you're selling someone a house can alleviate that before it becomes a problem. So when they tell you, oh yeah, these are asbestos tiles in the basement, your buyer's not shocked and panic at the inspection.
Speaker 3:It's not a big deal. You know, these are all houses. You know, as long as they're not falling into the ground, everything can be fixed.
Speaker 3:But, knowing what you, knowing what you're looking at before getting in the contract, is important, and it's not only for your buyer but for the seller of that home too. Of that home too, don't forget. And when you sell a home, a lot you know, you it's not. It's a lot of times it's 30 days before the inspection issues come up, or three or four weeks. So now you've, as a seller, you've started planning, you've maybe committed to an apartment or another pound, who knows. So that's why it gets emotional. You know there's a lot of, there's a lot at stake for the buyer and seller. So you got to know what you're doing and know what to look for where there could be potential issues. You know, you know, with home inspections, mortgages, whatever the case, appraisals, a lot of hands in the pot with these deals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's always nerve wracking when you're selling your, your, your house, waiting for that inspection and the appraisal. Yeah, I had a hundred. I had had a house that was about 100 years old in Hudson County and I was just like, when we bought the house, we serendipitously uncovered that it had an oil tank buried out front and the owners at the time didn't know there was an oil tank. But when I was in the basement with my home inspector I said, hey, what is this thing? And there was this like little hatch on the wall and opened it up. He's like, hmm, that might have been where there could have been an oil tank here years ago. And and I ended up by you know, hiring a oil tank search company and he's, like you know, digging for jimmy hoffa and, uh, we found the oil tank and the owners, the sellers, were mad at me, but I'm like I, you know, I'm doing my due diligence.
Speaker 3:It's your problem now, if you buy it, though, yeah, exactly, and if you have an oil tank and there's contamination, so that you know so it's called it's only oil comes from the ground anyway, but they call it contamination.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's tens and tens of thousands of dollars to clean up. That would have been. That's on you. Now you own the house.
Speaker 1:Once you sell the house.
Speaker 3:your responsibilities are gone pretty much. So there's things to even look for. With an oil tank there's, generally speaking, there's always little copper pipes that come out of the wall or from the ground that you would notice. So those, should you know, those are things we like when we show a home. You know we're looking for that, we're looking for these things, Not that we're home inspectors, but hey, we pick up on a lot of that before you get to that point and your deal could have got messed up at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the sellers didn't know there was an oil tank. It wasn't you know, it wasn't divulged to them when they bought the house and I just happened to have a good home inspector.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and he did his job.
Speaker 2:Then when I was selling the house. So now you're waiting for the appraisal Because when you're in Hudson County you could have a house that's worth $800,000, but a block away is one worth $300,000 because it's a piece of crap, right? So you know you're holding your breath. Man, what's this going to be like?
Speaker 3:And that appraisal is just some person's opinion based on information, but they could see it totally different than the next person. So there is a lot of, like I said, we do a little. When we sit with sellers we say, hey, listen, the process of selling it involves 20 people and the realtors, the buyer, the seller, the buyer's parents, the home inspector, the appraiser. There's a million people that could screw the deal up. The attorneys we're not letting them off the hook either. I've seen them screw up a ton of deals.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, with those frustrations aside, what is it you love about the real estate business and about owning your own?
Speaker 3:I like the freedom of you know it's a give and take. You know, like a lot of times hey listen, you know, like today, my son's got a hockey game for Ramapo High School today at four o'clock. I'm not missing that, so I'm leaving, I'm going to go watch it. You know I love that kind of freedom. And as far as owning your own company goes, you know the drawback on that is everything falls back on you when there's problems. So it's a stressful. It's stressful, but like who doesn't have stress, right? You know there's stresses. You know it's part of the part of the gig for any anybody trying to make a living.
Speaker 2:You know that's what it is. Well, I say to people that you that you know entrepreneurs that start their own business. It sounds great on my own boss in the words of um of spider-man with great power comes great responsibility. And you want that flexibility to go see your son, of course, play a hockey game. Well, you got to pay, you know. You've got to bust your butt and and earn that right, because nobody's paying you to just show up.
Speaker 3:You know, yeah, and if I miss a, I miss a deal or whatever. Like, hey, when I go on vacation I gotta take vacation, I gotta take the family vacation. But like, yeah, you know, there's a lot of times where like, hey, that cost me a little bit, you know personally, because I was away, but like you know, you got to live life too a little bit bit.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but you. But you earn it because you worked your butt off to get to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a give and take.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So, adam, how do people reach the Fino real estate? What's the best way to reach you guys?
Speaker 3:I mean we're you know, email, text, phone, walk-in.
Speaker 2:We have a lot of we still get a lot of walk-ins. We're on the corner of 300, franklin Ave, across from the Caddy Corner, from the Dairy Queen, and you have some funny saying every day or every week oh yeah, what is it today?
Speaker 3:Today, I think I'm going to. We went a little racy on this one.
Speaker 2:I'd rather I mean listen. This is not a family show, Go ahead, it's a podcast.
Speaker 3:You can edit this one out, this one you know this is one of our funniest, so this one, tony Donato comes up with them all right.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:He works hard at coming up with them. He's got a good knack for what's interesting and what isn't, but that's a huge popular thing for us Almost everybody that we meet with oh, I love your there's a different name for it the traffic light yeah. Yeah, they sit there and they look over at the window and people do like it. We'd like to give back to the community a little bit and make someone's day a little better with that.
Speaker 1:We don't put it on social media.
Speaker 3:We don't add, we don't ever put it up on social media. What the fun fact is, we want to make sure it's organic and people have to come and drive by or when they see it, they're out there, so it's. We don't want it, you know, to be seen on the internet. It's just something that, hey, if you're, if you're driving by, you get the, you get the benefit of getting a chuckle or something. You sound smart at your cocktail party, you know.
Speaker 2:Right, right. Next time you play trivial pursuit, you'll, you'll have the answer Exactly. So the female realtors is is on 300 Franklin Ave in the corner of Godwin and Franklin. Phone number is 201-891-2022. I don't know if you want to give out your cell phone but, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can call me, I didn't know. You're telling me to give it out now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go yeah.
Speaker 3:Yep Only my fifth interview today. I can't.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my cell phone is at at 201-693-0103. That's.
Speaker 2:Adam.
Speaker 3:That's my cell phone.
Speaker 2:Got it All right, Adam. Sorry, squeaky voice there, Puberty it's a bitch yeah it's a bitch. Yeah, so yeah, thanks for joining today. This is great. It's good seeing you again All right Adam.
Speaker 1:Thanks man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so bear with us. We're just going to have Chuck take us out here.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen. com. That's gnpbergen. com, or call 201-298-8325.