Power Players Size Up The SoCal Market And Talk Strategy

We really do mean it when we say the best agents in California are here at California Listings. Just look at our 2nd annual Power Players Real Estate Showcase, which brought together more than 100 agents, brokers, lenders and industry leaders in Beverly Hills for a day of networking and learning from the power players themselves. 

This year’s event, held on Oct. 4, featured Kofi Nartey, Rochelle Atlas Maize, Kenya Reeves-Costa, Ernie Carswell, Sharran Srivatsaa, Molly Hobin Williams, Hana Cha, Dennis Chernov and Joey Ben-Zvi, plus an invaluable keynote from social media expert and TikTok superstar Lisa Remillard. And among the nuggets of wisdom shared throughout the day, the biggest takeaway to the captive audience was a call to action: meet the moment and pivot!

“Because of interest rates, ULA, the strike, we have had to pivot. And pivoting for me has meant communicating more with our clients,” said Rochelle Atlas Maize. “Not texting, not e-mailing, but actually pick up the phone and call. Clients want to hear your voice. They want to know what you think will happen in the market. Once they hear that, it can then lead to other conversations about things in their lives, friends that might be selling, and it opens doors that you may have never had if you just sent a text or e-mail.”

Even the most infrequent consumer of real estate news could point to a slower market, but many at the Power Players Showcase pointed to the importance of looking at SoCal’s market in context. People are still selling. People are still buying. You just need to find them.

“You can’t just wait for something to change—change with the market. Be available for business,” said Dennis Chernov. “The difference between now and a year ago? If you were working with four buyers, now you’e got to work with eight. If you were working with four listings, now you’ve got to have 10. You just have to do more.” 

New development expert Hana Cha offered some positive outlooks from her side of the market, highlighting a number of SoCal projects that have inventory to move.

“New development is selling! As an agent who is not focused on this end of the business, this is a great time to visit new development projects and learn about how new development works,” Hana said. “Selling new development from the selling side is really about match making. If you go and experience a project and walk a building, you may think of clients or relationships that you have and go, ‘Oh, this person would love this!’ So for agents where business may be slow and you want to talk about skill and opportunity, well here’s an opportunity. Figure out how you can be more relevant in the space and create more new business funnels.”

The bottom line from our esteemed speakers—market predictions are a dime a dozen but what matters is what’s happening right now.

“Nobody knows what’s going to happen in the market. But it feels like somebody has hit a pause button,” Rochelle added. “It’s not like the market is crashing, it’s not like the market is going up like it was—there’s just a pause.” 

For more highlights from the 2023 Showcase, search “Power Players” at CaliforniaListings.com

Photos by Dexter Brown