Esther Percal, along with 7 other highly productive real estate agents were invited to take part in the panel for the 3rd annual YPN, Legends & Millennials All Star panel. Esther took part of the legends panel, were her and 3 other legends discuss how real Estate has changed since they started, and what the biggest differentiators are and how they have changed their business model & practices.
The legends spoke about there beginning’s and what road they took in order to get to the position they’re in today. “I always wanted to sell Real Estate. Even though I went to college and graduated with a degree in speech therapy, I started working in a resale and rental office in Brickell Avenue selling and renting condos. That was the only place that had some decent condos back in the late 70’s. Then I went to South Beach to sell South Point and nobody ever though that anything would have come out of the South of Fifth neighborhood. Then I got into general real estate and 40 years later here I am.” Esther Percal spoke on how she got started in he business. Esther mentions how she believes agents who are just starting should work in a “hyper local” way. “When we started working we had farms which were little neighborhoods we just focused on and there are still some people just work this way. This is all about knowing the neighborhoods. We use to have people who would work a condo and all you had to do was mention a unit number and they could tell you who the owner was, who was there maid, who were the kids, and even the dogs name. This is what we had to know. That is why I always say start really small, get to know that area.
Esther also discussed the importance of knowing you’re market “We’re fighting the system, some sites on the internet give estimates and values that we as realtors have to counter. You see this most in condo buildings where fully renovated condos can sell for twice the price per square foot as a unit that is still in original condition. My team just went through this were we needed to educate the seller who’s $500,000 condo was valued on one of those sites at $700,000. There is no way we can get this much. We all have to educated on what were selling and what the neighbor paid and why.”
