Real Conversations

Real Conversations: Sunny’s Story: Service, Success & Snohomish Roots

• Dan Edwards • Season 1 • Episode 12

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0:00 | 23:34

Sunny Burruss is the founder of Sunshine Luxury Properties and a highly experienced real estate professional serving Snohomish County and beyond. With over 30 years in the industry, she has built a reputation for delivering exceptional service, strong negotiation, and a deeply client-first approach. 

She began her real estate journey at just 19 years old, launching her career in Snohomish and quickly developing the work ethic and people-first philosophy that still defines her business today. 

Sunny leads a top-producing team based out of Bothell and serves clients across Snohomish, Skagit, and King County, specializing in residential, luxury, and investment properties. 

Her guiding principle is simple:
 👉 Take care of your people first—and everything else follows.

🌐 Website: https://www.sunshineluxuryproperties.net/
📧 Email: sunnysellswa@gmail.com
  📱 Phone: (425) 239-4547 

 🏢 Brokerage: Keller Williams Realty Bothell 

 ⭐ Zillow Profile: https://www.zillow.com/profile/Sunny%20Burruss

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the Real Conversations Podcast, the podcast dedicated to real stories and successful real estate professionals. With your host, Dan Edwards. Good afternoon. I'm your host, Dan Edwards, with Real Conversations, and I am here with Sonny Burrows, top real estate agent here at Keller Williams Bothel. Welcome to Real Conversations.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

All right, so we are going to jump right in. First, I want I always ask everybody, tell me about the house you grew up in.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, well, I grew up in a few different houses, but um my most memorable one would be the one I grew up in, Snohomish. It was my grandparents' place, and it had it was a rambler with a daylight basement, it had a full basement with like a bar, and it had a pool table over here, and the like one of the first big screen TVs where you had to pull the thing out, and it had the mirrors with the red and oh yeah, the lights that shined up. And and the coolest thing about that house was it had a swimming pool with a diving board and a slide. So you gotta learn how to swim at a young age. So my my grandparents did a lot of a lot of gatherings there.

SPEAKER_01

I was gonna say, so the the parties were always at your parties were there.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So you grew up in Snohomish?

SPEAKER_00

I did, primarily grew up in Snohomish. A little bit of Monroe, a little bit of Skycomish, and then back to Snohomish.

SPEAKER_01

But but born and raised, basically.

SPEAKER_00

Born and raised, Snowhomish, and Skycomish, though, is my heart. I lived there for a couple of years, eighth and ninth grade, and um my parents lived there for almost 20 years.

SPEAKER_01

So for those that don't know, Skycomish is on highway two.

SPEAKER_00

It is about 16 miles from Stevens Pass.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's really close. So it's pretty rural.

SPEAKER_00

It is. It's it's fun town though. I have a lot of good memories there.

SPEAKER_01

And that was between sixth and seventh grade?

SPEAKER_00

Uh eighth and ninth. Eighth and night. Eighth and ninth grade, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And then you moved to Snohomish after that?

SPEAKER_00

Back to Snohomish back in with my grandparents and and uh graduated from Snohomish.

SPEAKER_01

So uh back in the day, uh your parents just let you go do whatever and then come back with the lights or home.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

When the lights went out, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I was the kid who got straight A's. I followed the rules. I still went to the keggers on the weekends, you know, but but for the most part, we um I I could write my own letters because my mom I knew how to write my mom's signature, and I would just call her and let her know. I wrote a letter saying it would be late to school or I needed to get out of school early for whatever. I would have called her know let her know that I was writing a letter and signing her name. So in case the school called, she would say, Yeah, I wrote the letter. Oh, okay. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So lever you learned leverage early on. I did how to use that. Okay, so then where'd you go to high school?

SPEAKER_00

Snowhomish high school. Snowhomish high school.

SPEAKER_01

Graduate. What is the I don't know the alma mater of uh Panthers.

SPEAKER_00

The Panthers. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So you then where did what then was it?

SPEAKER_00

So I went to call. Well, actually, while I was in high school, I did the running start program. I did one year at Everett Community my junior year, and then my senior year, I went back just to high school. I wanted just kind of enjoy the last year of school, and then I went to Central Washington University for a year. Yep, Wildcats, and then I came back, went to Everett community, and then that's when my grandma talked to me to get my real estate license. Really? I was 19. 19.

SPEAKER_01

And was your grandmother in real estate? She was.

SPEAKER_00

She was. She and two other people actually started the Window Mirror and Snohomish.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. So this goes back. So this goes back. Your grandmother at age 19 convinced you. And then instant success?

SPEAKER_00

Uh, I wouldn't say instant success, but I mean it was uh, I definitely was I think my first year I made like 14,000. And and so that was actually a pretty good year for 1955, yeah, for a 19-year-old.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00

And so consistently kind of doubled my income.

SPEAKER_01

But so as you're as you're looking at this, because most of the time when I'm going through this story, there's a whole long line before people get into real estate. Yeah. And I talked to a lot of young kids that just they're like, hey, should I get in real estate? Because they're like right in your situation.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

What was it because it was a family business or was there more? Like, was there more a passion for real estate because it was around the family?

SPEAKER_00

I would say more of a passion because it was around the family. I I actually always say that I really have been doing real estate since I was like two, because I went on inspections and appraisals and and all through high school, I cleaned the office. I was the cleaning lady of the office, and then the weekend receptionist, after school receptionist. So so I it's kind of in my blood. My grandma, you know, groomed me from from what I can remember.

SPEAKER_01

So to do real estate. So you you were probably a pretty good negotiator. Obviously, you were forging signatures though. Right.

SPEAKER_00

I was forging signatures, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Which she does not do in real estate. Just want to be clear, everybody knows that. Yeah. Um okay, so kind of walk me through then. So since you've been in the business since 95. Since 95. So um what is what was kind of your first like um uh brush with real adversity in the business?

SPEAKER_00

Well, um I guess it was kind of right off the bat, actually, because the biggest adversity that I came across was the fact that you're 19, 20 years old. How on earth are you gonna sell me a house? I know way more than you. You're just a kid. Yeah. So it took some getting used to and getting getting kind of through those barriers. And and you know, I did use my grandma. I I kind of went off the coattails of grandma and the fact that I'm like, well, I'm I might be 19, but I've been really doing this my whole life. So I I've been on inspections and appraisals since I can remember. So I've learned how to negotiate. I've been around my grandma most of my life, and so she was kind of like my second mom more than my grandma. So yeah, I guess the biggest first adversity was my age. Yeah, was that I was young. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So and you overcame that by knowing your stuff and then also relying on your your grandma to kind of help guide you through that process. So that you had a good mentor.

SPEAKER_00

I had a great mentor.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so that's that's fantastic. So tell me about a time where um where kind of the deal fell apart, um, but you pulled it back together.

SPEAKER_00

There's one that that really comes to mind, and this is one I've actually talked about before, but uh obviously won't mention any names. But uh the client actually crawled in through the window and started living in the house five days before closing. Oh, yes. I didn't know, the seller didn't know until like the day a couple days before closing, and of course the seller was very upset, and um and I was representing the buyer, and unbeknownst to me, he had done this, and so we ended up we kept the deal together and it closed, and he just moved in a few days early through the window. Didn't communicate.

SPEAKER_01

That's so funny.

SPEAKER_00

That's no, that was back probably in my late 20s where that happened.

SPEAKER_01

So what did what did he think? Why was he thinking that?

SPEAKER_00

I well, his parents were actually buying the house for him, so he had some some mental stuff going on. But um, yeah, I mean, he seemed like a pretty normal guy. So I mean, yeah, but it it all worked out in the end, and and the sellers were happy. Obviously, the buyer was happy, he was excited to get into his new house, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So every year in real estate since '95, you've had growth years, yeah? Every year has been good?

SPEAKER_00

Pretty much, yeah. I would say consistently. I mean, moving to Keller Williams in 2012 was a big shift. I mean, uh, with education, with all the education that Keller Williams offers, you know, I I kind of had hit a cap at Windermere. I I just wasn't really, I didn't know what I didn't know. And so moving to Keller Williams was a big, big culture change and education change. And so since moving to Keller Williams, my business has has grown a lot more because I've been more focusing on helping clients and helping everybody as a whole rather than just, you know, the next deal, I would say.

SPEAKER_01

You know, so if you if you're to evaluate, and I I think, you know, if you're to evaluate the the idea, because I get a lot of people that will say the reason a lot of people should start at Keller Williams, but you came here. I'm the opposite of having yeah, yeah. And and I I picked up a little bit on it, is you're you're more focused on the customer experience now than the next deal.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. I feel like I mean, I one of the things on my favorite paper that I hand out to my clients is on the last, the last line is that you're stuck with me for life. So that's cool. Uh, and and I mean that in a good way. Like I want my clients to be stuck with me for life together and be happy.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, okay, and then you in the last few years have brought on leverage, right? And when did you when did you realize that that would be a net positive for you in your business? Because I know a lot of people that are like, I can do this well, and it's gonna be hard for somebody to do it the way I want them to do it. So I'm just gonna go ahead and do it. You see a lot of that independence here in our industry. Yes. So when did you realize it was okay to do it? And then how did that process go for you?

SPEAKER_00

Well, again, I guess moving to Keller Williams, I realized that that was I I had never even thought of bringing on an assistant or somebody to help me with showings prior to even coming to Keller Williams and taking like the bold class and learning different, different, you know, all the different education that Keller Williams offers. I just I never thought about that. It wasn't even a thing. And so then moving here, then I realized, hey, I'm gonna hire a transaction coordinator, which was the first time. That was just automatic.

SPEAKER_01

When you came here, you're like, hey, I'm gonna do this.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I hired Simona and she's been with, she's still with me since I moved to Keller Williams. And that was that was like huge aha. It's like, oh my gosh, all this time, all this time I've been wasting where I could be a lot more time focusing on my clients, the people, the time, rather than focusing on you know, all the the signed paperwork that really Simona does better than me anyway.

SPEAKER_01

So, right, and how did you decide on Simona for your assistant?

SPEAKER_00

Um, for for Simona for transaction coordination, uh some of the other agents in the office used her and said she was great. So I was like, well, let's give Simona a try.

SPEAKER_01

So by referral.

SPEAKER_00

By referral, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

See, that's kind of ironic, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01

And so now you've got somebody that's taken over that leverage, but then you decided to add more leverage. I think before we get on to the more leverage, like you said, Simona it can do it quicker and easier. So that allowed you to spend more time with the client. And that meant you could do more clo work with more clients.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Yeah, work with more clients and give them more of a specialized one-on-one service instead of you know worrying, you know, being spread so thin. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01

Well, how did how did that affect your family?

SPEAKER_00

Well, at that time I didn't have any kids, and so um I was just in the process of, you know, we've been trying to have kids, and so um it was actually two years later that my daughter was born after I moved to Keller Williams. And so that even became a huge, huge, big important and still is the biggest driving factor in me having leverage, having an assistant. So now I do have Simona, and then hired Carolyn, which I've I've hired a few other people who have come before Carolyn's. I tried buyers agents, tried showing agents, and I had another assistant, Chris, who was amazing, and then she decided to go on her own and do different things. And so um, she actually trained Carolyn, who's my assistant now. Okay, and Carolyn is phenomenal. I tell her every day how much and grateful I am for her because not only does she is she amazing with our clients, but she also has been given me that ability to provide the level of service that I provide. I'd even say her level might be a little bit higher than mine, even right. And um, that she gives that amazing level of service service to our clients, and biggest thing allows me to spend a little more time with my family and really enjoy and be present with my family.

SPEAKER_01

So I and it's I mean, that's why we do this, right?

SPEAKER_00

Just gonna say there comes a point we gotta have a reason why, yeah. And and my reason is my my beautiful kids and my husband, I want to be able to have not just it. I there's a meme that shows a person sitting in the water on the beach with their laptop and their phone. I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be, I don't want to be, I've been that person. You have, yeah. I have, but that's now that I have Carolyn and with Simona, I can actually be sitting on the beach and spending time with my family and not with my computer or my phone.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and a lot of people, when they think of Keller Williams, they think of teams, they think of these giant teams, and that they're you know, a bunch of people cold calling and doing all this stuff that's not gonna do.

SPEAKER_00

Your business is based on referral, a referral, like 85 to 88 percent of my business. I I that's another thing I started doing was tracking my numbers about 10 years ago, trying to figure out you know, where is the business coming from? And about 87% of my business comes from return or referral. Yeah, so that's huge. I mean, all the people that already know and love me, so I'm grateful. Thank you all. Yes, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I love and that's the that's the whole idea is you you seek leverage for two reasons. One, to take stuff off your plate and to have a have the kind of life that you're designing on purpose. So um we have bold coming up, and I understand you're planning on participating in that, and you have participated before. How many times?

SPEAKER_00

Seven.

SPEAKER_01

Seven times?

SPEAKER_00

Mm-hmm. Yeah. What?

SPEAKER_01

And you're participating again.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I love it. It's a great, greatest class.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so uh tell me why somebody like you, you've got she's got her platinum uh award here, platinum, which is amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. Um, why would you even need to take bold again?

SPEAKER_00

You know, I feel like I if it came every year, I would take it every year. Just it's it's not a classroom setting where you're sitting in a row listening to somebody speak at you all day long. You're actually sitting in round tables with groups, you're doing group activities, you are, you know, getting information from a coach. And it's not really like it's a teacher, it's more like a coaching situation. And every bold class that I've taken, I, you know, like there's so I mean, you're getting flooded with so much information so that you couldn't possibly take all of it in in any one class. I mean, if you take one or two things from each class and implement just a couple things, then it's a win, right? Rather than taking all that information and trying to implement it all, then you're gonna fail, right? Because it's too much. So that's too much. So my opinion, just taking the bold class every year or two when it comes and and then take one or two things, implement those, and just focus on those things. And I mean, you can you can take bold every year and you can take one or two things every time out of it.

SPEAKER_01

And so as we're as we're talking here, I I'm noticing a theme is number one is education. Yeah, that's important to you. Very important to me. Number two is family and let you know, using leverage to have family, and then number three is action.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So taking action is that when you when you go to learn, right? I think a lot of people say, well, um, you know, yes, you can you can go to you know family reunion, you can go to these things, but if you don't actually take action. So I know you are were at family reunion, yeah, um, which was you know Keller Williams' annual conference where we we get a lot of information. So, what is something that you added to your business after family reunion?

SPEAKER_00

So we were focusing on AI. I mean, a lot of a lot of the classes were focused around AI, but that's what we were focusing on and just how to implement that in our business. I mean, I've already been dabbling in it and I've already attended a few classes prior to family reunion, but um the main thing that I the takeaway that I got that we've already implemented is YouTube shorts. So so we do a lot of videos already, but we weren't focusing on the YouTube Shorts, which apparently that's a good place to focus at for AI and to help you um come higher up on when somebody searches on on an AI search engine. And so, you know, whether or not it'll help us in the long run, I'm just that's one of the things we're implementing.

SPEAKER_01

Um so tell let's talk a little bit more about that tactic for you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So you have a YouTube channel, okay, and in that YouTube channel you're doing some kind of content.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Um about Snohomish or what?

SPEAKER_00

Like So we so primarily just, you know, maybe uh yes about Snohomish or about, you know, what uh like you know, what are the top five things the seller should do to sell their home, or what are the top five things the buyer should know before they start to buy real estate? Or um we just actually completed a whole little short short videos about Carolyn and I. Cause I think it's important for people to know, not just so sell real estate and how can we help you with real estate, you know, like we're doing now. I think is important learning a little bit more about my background. What you know, where did I grow up?

SPEAKER_01

What you know I have to the personal side of you because people do business with people that they know, like, and trust.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you've got the trust because uh obviously you've been doing this since you're 19. So you know, if you've got that skill set, it's do they like you, which I most people I know really like, Sonny. Yeah, which is super sweet. Is there anybody that doesn't like you?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I'm sure they're out there.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Um okay, so you you're adding uh shorts, which basically uh then point back to uh your YouTube channel and help raise the awareness of it.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So we are focusing a lot more. I'm focusing on doing at least one video a week that that maybe answers a question that somebody might have about real estate. You know, the last video I just actually sent in this morning was um, what is title and what does it mean? What is what is title insurance for? So just and and low cognitive load is another big word that we learned is just trying to focus on not everybody does this everybody every day. And so, you know, what does title insurance mean in simple terms? Right?

SPEAKER_01

So basically keeping it simple so that um everybody, you know, not talking in in vernacular. See, I used a big word.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Not using big fancy words to explain things, but things that anybody can understand.

SPEAKER_00

For sure.

SPEAKER_01

All right, so if you're to give um agents out there advice about today's market, what what kind of advice would you give them in order for them to thrive?

SPEAKER_00

So, not just in today's market, in any market, my baby is my database. My database is my baby. I spend 85% of my time on my database whenever I send out cards or letters. I'm when I get a return, I make sure and reach out to that person and say, Oh, I sent you a card. I see that it was returned. You know, do you have a new address? What is it? Um, you know, and then I have a system set up in command so that I'm I'm contacting my database and then events. We do like five events a year. Some the office helps sponsor, some I do on my own. And um pop bys is another big thing that we do. So I my like I said, well, 87% of my business comes from my database. And so I we pop by usually around like Thanksgiving time. We'll pop by, we'll select a few from our database and pop by and bring a little cup or a I don't know, something, something for appreciation.

SPEAKER_01

Like like on Valentine's Day, maybe a little bit of chocolate.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly, a little cup or something.

SPEAKER_01

So something I want agents listening to this to hear is is how she framed the name her database. It's a baby, right? And you would really want to take care of it, right? And nurture it and feed it and and those things. And what I find is a lot of agents will will go, well, okay, I'm only putting the people in there that are buying and selling real estate. Is that a mistake?

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. So who should go in your database?

SPEAKER_00

Every for me, I I keep everybody in there that at least knows me. I mean, I don't, um, I mean, I could always be adding to that, right? It's always adding, but there's something that I take away too, you know, like I still will keep people if they move out of state, I still keep them in my database because they lived here before. They still have family and friends that are here. So, and oftentimes I've had a lot of referrals from people who have moved out of state who've actually said, Oh, well, my sister still lives in Washington and you know, you need to use Sunny. So there you go. So I still keep people that are out of state.

SPEAKER_01

Do you send them market uh updates?

SPEAKER_00

I do. Yeah, I mean, I still send postcards. I still and I I actually just had somebody the other day who emailed me that was a client. I sold some land for him, and he emailed me and he said, You know, I I'm not gonna come to the Easter egg event. You know that I'm in, I don't even remember what state he moved to, to be honest. But I emailed back and I said, Well, that's great. I said, Do you still have family or friends here in Washington? Because if you do, I'd love for you to be my referring partner. And he said, I do actually still have family and friends there. So, okay, great. I'll definitely you can I'll still refer you to my family and friends.

SPEAKER_01

Which is exactly the purpose of that event, period, is to have that FaceTime. And so in in sending out that event, he's like, Hey, remember, I'm in Ohio. And you're like, I remember. Yeah. And you're always welcome to if you're in town to come say hi. Yeah, it's keeping that relationship. For sure. You know, and and uh, you know, people kind of push back on technology. They're like, oh, I just do this, I kind of pick these meetings out of my, you know, all that. And it's why they don't have the platinum uh award. Right. Yeah, because the platinum award is meaning you're intentional, yeah, right. And you're you're being intentional about great relationships with people, right? It's you're not just calling them because you want to sell their house.

SPEAKER_00

No, I most of the time I don't even talk about real estate when I call people. I usually that's another big goal that I made for this year is that to do 30 coffees or lunches this year. So I probably I usually kind of do that anyway, you know, but now I'm being intentional about it. And so, and and just meeting with people to get to know people get better again. You know, I if they bring up real estate, I'll talk about it. But I usually don't really try to bring it up, you know, to oh, are you looking to buy or sell your home? You know, I just just want to be there as a friend for them. I mean, I post enough stuff, people know I sell real estate, so I don't really need to it's in the world, it's in the world, and exactly.

SPEAKER_01

And I I would say give me a percentage, but um, when you are having that lunch or coffee, what how what percentage of times does real estate come up?

SPEAKER_00

Probably 70% of the time. And it's them them bringing it up.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. Yeah, yeah, and it really is. It's like this is a people business, this is a professionals business, and it's all about the relationships. And it it the more people that know you do real estate, that creates an opportunity. And if you're not intentional about it, then it it's just not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and that and that's it too. Is I mean, you know, again, going on Facebook or different, you know, social medias and stuff, you know, I I back a few years ago, they're like, oh, you need to post everything on your only on your professional page. And I I went against the grain. I disagreed with that. I was like, you know, I think people want to know who I am and my business too. So I do have my professional page that pretty much only professional stuff gets posted, but I have my primary Facebook page and Instagram page that that's where I post everything. I post about my kids, post about my business, post about my vacations, you know, videos. I am doing more videos now. Even though I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Okay, let the people on camera know how to get a hold of you, um, whether they're a real estate agent wanting to know more information about Keller Williams or a buyer seller or whatever.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Okay. So I am Sunny Baris. My um direct line is 425-239-4547. And then also my email address is Sunny Sells W A. That's a plural sells at um gmail.com. And then also my website is sunshine luxury properties.net or dot com, either one. So sunshine luxury properties.com. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much for being on.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you for having me. Yep, appreciate it.