37 Years, Same Towns, 1,000+ Homes with Stephanie Mallios

I never paid for any of your education, but I'm gonna pay to send you to real estate school so you can get your license and sell this house and get out of this crappy neighborhood. I'm like, what do you mean, mom? And then the next day I found out. So two weeks later, I had a real estate license. Three weeks later, I had finished my training at Weichert Realtors, and the next month I sold five houses.

My guest today is Stephanie Mallios. She sells real estate with Compass in Northern New Jersey, mostly Short Hills, Millburn, Maplewood, South Orange, and Summit, which incidentally is where I was born. Here's the number that got my attention. She has won the New Jersey Realtor Circle of Excellence in an unbroken run going back to 1989. Not most years — every year since 1989. Her own count is somewhere north of 1,000 homes sold, all of it in basically the same handful of towns. But that's not really why I wanted to talk to her.

Stephanie got into this business because she bought a house, and the experience was so bad that she decided the only fix was to get licensed and handle the next one herself. I'm sure a lot of you can relate to that. That was almost four decades ago. She never left those towns. As a matter of fact, she's on her fourth house. Stephanie grew up in Washington, DC, in a Greek family that owned restaurants, which I suspect explains a lot about how she runs her business.

A few things I keep coming back to. She built an entire website around one condo building in Maplewood, and then went out and sold most of the building. She listed the house Richard Meier designed for his own parents in 1965, his first commission ever. She walked away from Coldwell Banker to become a founding agent at Compass, and then this past January, Compass turned around and bought Coldwell Banker. Stephanie has also been the president of her neighborhood civic association since 2012, which is genuine community service, but also may be the most patient lead generation strategy I've ever heard of. Maybe both. 37 years, same towns. Let's find out what that actually takes.

>> Stephanie, welcome to the show. >> Thanks, Ross. Thanks for having me. I have to make one correction, though. I didn't apply for the Association of Realtors Circle of Excellence award in 1988 because I only had 12 units, and you had to have 15. So I didn't count the house I had sold to myself. I didn't know that counted, and I could have made a $100 donation to RPAC and volunteered on a committee, and then I would've had the 15.

I literally got my license in August of '87, a month after I closed on my house in a town where I didn't know I bought a house because my realtor — my friend's mother — drove me to the Maplewood train station and said, look, isn't this beautiful, when I asked her what the town looked like, but I didn't buy a house there. I bought a house in an adjacent town. And I bought it in February on a Sunday at five, where there were no people, nobody was out. And then when I closed on it in May, I'm like, what town is this? And my mom, who had become a realtor by that point, said, I never paid for any of your education, but I'm gonna pay to send you to real estate school so you can get your license and sell this house and get out of this crappy neighborhood.

So two weeks later, I had a real estate license. Three weeks later, I had finished my training at Weichert Realtors, and the next month I sold five houses. And I thought, well, I'll just do this for a while before I go back to New York to a real job. And that's it. That's how it started. Within a year, I bought my next house, and everyone said, that's quite a step up from where you are to Short Hills. When you fall into a job that doesn't feel like work, you just do it forever.

>> Take me back to that first transaction. You hated the experience, so what did that agent actually do or not do, and what did you promise you would never do with a client? >> I always drive them around — now everyone brings their own car — but I would drive them around to the nice part of the town and the not so nice part of the town, and the town adjacent, and say, look, I want you to see. This was before GPS, before cell phones. We were living on the Upper West Side in a beautiful brownstone, but we had roommates and we were like, get us out of here.

My friend said, oh, you should look in New Jersey. And I just said, I will never live in New Jersey. I grew up in Washington, DC, not Maryland, not Virginia. I lived in London, not Wales. I live in Manhattan, not Queens, not Brooklyn. I will never live in New Jersey. She showed us a co-op in Teaneck and I said, if I was gonna move here, which I'm not, I'd want a house with a yard and a garage, because I had a car in Manhattan like a crazy person. So we followed her down the Parkway, she showed us one house, we asked her what the town looked like, and who wouldn't fall in love with Maplewood Village? It's adorable. There I was, total sucker.

My mom asked about a home inspection. The agent said, oh, I'll have one. She provides it. Nice house, hardwood floors. As soon as I move in, I have headaches, headaches. Not feeling well. We couldn't figure out how to get the furnace on. She goes, I'll call Public Service. I said, there's a public service that turns on your heat? She goes, that's the name of the utility company. How am I supposed to know? I thought it was Con Ed. Finally somebody comes in and sees that the hot water heater had been installed with the draft going down instead of up, so I was getting all the gas fumes back in the house. I could have died, and that's why it was a VA foreclosure. The people just looked, as my neighbor said, like zombies all the time. They were being poisoned. And they walked away.

Things like that I would never allow. Oh, we won't have a home inspection — no, you have to have a home inspection. Oh, we don't need to test for an oil tank — yep, it'll be the best $250 you ever spent in your life, is do an oil tank scan. Especially in Jersey. This is where they can't find Jimmy Hoffa. You don't know what's under the ground.

>> I want to know about the Greek family restaurants. What did you learn working in a restaurant that you still use in real estate? >> As my dad used to say, if you don't watch the pennies, the dollars walk out the door. Managing a restaurant is all about food cost. People think, oh, I like to eat, I can run a restaurant. No. These are two different skill sets. That's like, I like houses, I can be a real estate agent. Exactly. Two completely different skill sets. You just have to be paying attention.

My dad's work ethic was unbelievable, and he loved his work. He never complained about it, except that he couldn't get people to work. There was my dad delivering pizza in a Cadillac convertible to the White House, in a jacket and a tie, and the guy was like, huh, I'm not tipping you, you make too much money already. My grandfather bought the corner in 1950. The Trio Restaurant, the Fox and Hounds, and Trio Pizza at 17th and Q NW. The Fox and Hounds was famous because when you ordered a rum and Coke, you got a glass full of Bacardi rum and a bottle of Coca-Cola, and you had to drink some of the rum to fit the Coke in, for $2.50 with a great jukebox. He never had those squeezy guns with the sodas. You got a bottle of Schweppes tonic with your gin and tonic. The real deal.

When you own the land, you're not paying rent to somebody else. That's the lesson. We just closed the lease of the person who took it over because he wasn't my dad and he wasn't running it right. All the neighbors are complaining, greedy landlord. I'm like, no, how about elder abuse? He didn't pay my dad rent. You can't get involved in those online chats because people don't know the whole story.

>> It took me 10 years in real estate before I started running it like a business instead of like a high labor job hobby. The biggest differentiator was actually running a P&L and paying attention to expenses and revenue. The majority of agents are not paying attention to their expenses. When you see these lists of top agents, it's based on volume, but often the ones lower on the list might be more profitable than the ones higher up. >> Or they're cutting their commission to have a lot of transactions, but they're not actually making better money.

I retooled that myself. In a seller's market it's hard to preserve your commission, but I walk in with much more confidence now, even after all these years. That's one of the reasons why I went to Compass — I wanted to be surrounded by other top producers that I could learn from. Even though I've been in it forever, and I was a child bride, I'm still learning from people. You can't get too old to learn, because the business is constantly changing, more now than ever. The past few years have been wildly changed with technology. I can't say tech is my best friend, so I need to evolve and stay on top of it myself, which is why I hire younger people.

>> You've been around through the early '90s, 2008, 2020, the rate shock afterwards. What is the actual mechanic that keeps you producing regardless of all the ups and downs? >> I'll say don't get a lot of sleep. Apparently I don't need it. I just wake up going, and as I'm going to bed I'm sending an email at midnight. When something comes into my brain I have to either write it down or put it in an email or I forget. Pen and paper by my bed. Last year we closed 59 transactions, and that ain't a part-time job. From January through June I think I took two days off.

I'm not asking you to grow it to a 30-person team. I don't really want to be a manager. I want to be around the people. You just have to show up every day. In the olden days, you had to go to the office because that's where the phone was, so we got dressed up. I don't wear jeans. I'm handling somebody's largest financial investment. When you walk into a bank, nobody in the bank is wearing jeans. It's money. If I'm not dressed, I feel very uncomfortable because we're talking something really serious. Most of my friends become my clients, most of my clients become my friends.

>> Your reviews are full of people who've been with you 13 years, 22 years, 30 years. One family bought a house through you and had you sell it 30 years later. Do you have a system for keeping in touch? >> I wish I used my systems better. When I started it was paper, the pure gold book with the index card. They made us send out announcements to 200 people when we got licensed. I didn't know 200 people, so I went through business cards in my desk. I found a business card of a childhood friend I hadn't seen in years. I sent him something. I sold two people a house out of that initial 200-person mailing, and it just keeps going. I probably have about 9,000 contacts in my Compass CRM, and they're all people that I've met.

The phone just rang the other day. It was a woman whose sister I sold a house to 32 years ago. I listed her sister's house, she didn't want to stage it, I convinced her, and the stagers transformed her house. She hired them to decorate where she went next, and told all her friends. She's my ambassador. If you don't like the people you're working with, you're in the wrong business. Somebody told me, if you sell to people who are like you or doing what you're doing, you'll be successful because you're excited about it. I like helping people, and the people I get the most satisfaction from are the first-time homebuyers and the immigrants, because all four of my grandparents came to America as children, Greek, with no education, didn't speak any English, and all four of them ended up owning a house.

>> You've done as many as 15 transactions with one family. >> That couple walked into an open house I had where we had 75 people, and that was a really big number. I didn't take anybody's phone number. They found me like six months later and said, we called every office trying to find the agent named Stephanie. They got transferred to Hong Kong — I sold their house. Six months later they said, oh, we're back, and I sold them another house. Six months after that, just before September 11, they said we're getting divorced. I sold it again, sold him a place, sold her a place. Then he got remarried, and I sold them a different place. Then she bought another place. Then the husband's new wife, I sold her brother a house. Then they moved to London for four years, moved back, I sold them another house.

>> Often people I talk to who are just spectacular at referral business sometimes don't really know how they're doing it. If you were advising a new agent, how do you build a business like that? >> You have to stay in it long enough to see the rewards. And you just do right by people. I've talked people out of buying houses. Nope, that's not the right one for you. I'd make a lot of money if you sold right now, but I think you should hold. Especially people who lose a spouse. Do not sell your house a month after your partner passes. Your head space isn't right. I try and make them wait so they're making the right decision, because I don't want to take advantage of somebody in a vulnerable moment.

I bought the last apartment in a brand-new 92-unit building that came online as the economy was tanking in 2009. Sold the last one to myself. Lived there for nine years. That's why I do so much business in that building. I never ever discussed real estate when I got on the elevator. I didn't want people going, oh God, that realtor's gonna. But people would ask me. The most fun I had was when I moved to Manhattan and I was reverse commuting, and I could go out to dinner with my friends and no one asked me how much their next-door neighbor's house sold for. I was like, I'm on, being interviewed. Give me a break.

>> What has changed that makes it more difficult to start now versus when you did? >> There are more opportunities, but we used to answer the phones. I give good phone, apparently. So phones and open houses. But now in our market, things are selling before they hit the market, so there aren't many open houses. Agents keep asking me, can I do an open house at your listing? I'm like, no, I'm doing an open house at my own listing. If there's a second one, I priced it wrong. They're selling the first weekend if I price it right.

With the rate shock, once we went from 3% to 8%, all we heard for at least a year was, I really want to move but I can't give up this 3% interest rate. All of a sudden this year it's opening up. Nothing's gotten better economically, but business is way busier and we never hear anyone talk about 3% anymore. The problem with the rate shock, which is such BS anyway, is I bought my first house with an 8.5% interest rate on a six-month ARM, so I don't feel sorry for anybody. My friends are like, oh, my poor kids, they can't afford to buy a house. I'm like, hold on. How much do they earn? 300,000 and they're under 30? I don't feel sorry for them.

You gotta marry the house, date the rate. When the rates go down and there's more buyers in the market, you're paying more for the house because then there's bidding wars. You have to live somewhere, so why not live in a place that's going to eventually pay you back.

>> Tell me about your team. >> Kimberly Casero was a client. They had bought a new construction townhouse and decided to move back to Manhattan. I would send them a postcard every month — new to market, just sold, results delivered. Whenever I list something I say new to market. Whenever I sell something I say results delivered, sold with multiple offers 9% above asking price. A radius around the property. If it's a market area I don't service much, it's a one-off. People get one postcard, they go, how much, and I have a QR code on the back and they click on it to see more information. That sends me an email — so-and-so at such-and-such address just clicked on your just sold card — and I can put them into my database.

I have a farm, which is basically my neighborhood. I've had three listings on my street in the past year. I send them everything I do. I may not do all my business just in my town, but it gives them perspective on what's going on here. Kimberly was in fashion, traveling to Asia. She said, I want to become a realtor. I said, work for a team of somebody with integrity. And she did. Then she had a baby, moved back to the burbs, and eventually came to work with me. She's a realtor on my team. She's great at staging. This morning we were looking at a house with red high-gloss hardwood floors — nobody wants that anymore — picking a lighter stain with the stager and the floor guy. She's visual, she thinks in terms of how a buyer will see the space, and her clients become clients for life because she really is involved with them.

Then I have Ron on my team. I had shown his townhouse years ago when he was still working on Wall Street as a trader. He called me when he retired and said, I want to be a realtor. I'm like, who, what. He said, I've met a lot of realtors over the years, you're the only person I would work with. He rolls in with a million-dollar listing — he's brought three million-dollar listings this year. While he's on the golf course. He had a license in New York, bought and flipped places in Manhattan and here, so he really knows what he's doing. The nuts and bolts stuff, he's not good at, but that's what we're here for, for support.

And then I have a virtual assistant in the Philippines who has been really, really transformative, because he works 9:00 to 6:00, hour for lunch, two 15-minute breaks. He's always available. If one day he's not there, the team takes over. That's with Composite Global Partners. You really need leverage in lots of different ways to be able to do what you're doing. I was one of the first people in my office to have a computer. The other woman and I were the only two who had a laptop computer. Our manager didn't want us to have them because then you'd have to pay $150 to not have a pooled phone line. He's like, well, what if everybody wanted one? I'm like, gee, that would just be terrible if everyone had their own computer. We had two computers in the office for 100 agents. Different world.