How a Beverly Hills Realtor Is Reinventing Real Estate

0:00The new wave of what's going to be happening is people won't go to Google and say, top real-term Beverly Hills, they'll go to one of your AI platforms and say, I want to buy a house here, that's where I'm going is into those AI platforms. Valerie Fitzgerald is the founder and president of the Valerie Fitzgerald Group, a Beverly Hills luxury real estate team and the author of Heart and Soul. With more than $3.5 billion in career sales, she has spent decades navigating the Los Angeles luxury market, while constantly adapting to how people buy, sell and discover real estate. I'm really excited about the reaction we're getting with the content we're using, because it's, look, it's like the TV shows. Oh, I'm the best and I'm, you know, and I've got 50 million dollar listings and look how great I am and I've completely flipped on everything and mine is all educational. If you wait, I mean, you can wait, but if you wait, I mean, what are you waiting for? Could prices go up? Could they go down? You've got to talk to someone who can help you through this, obviously. The price is the only change if there's an over over supply, right?

1:01Yeah. Which doesn't look like that's going to be happening anytime too soon. So we have higher interest rates and all that. So there's a lot of things to factor into how do you step into your first property, but I always say... It spans the globe like a super high school Internet Elvis. Ready? The day Apple is going to reinvent the bomb. It's not over until I win! The Living Your Legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy podcast here at Insights Success Studios in Miami Beach. And yeah, we've got the privilege to speak to some of the best entrepreneurs, the disruptors and experts across all kinds of industries.

2:03And we've got a special guest here from LA. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us about your business. I'm Valerie Fitzgerald. Very nice to meet you. Thank you for having me today. So I have a real estate business in the Greater Part of Los Angeles. My office is based in Beverly Hills. Okay. I actually drive about 13 markets, which means I'm driving three or four hours a day, meaning people, buyers, sellers, investors of all types. But my base is my office base is Beverly Hills. Gotcha. And we buy cell real estate and vests. Yeah. So real estate, Beverly Hills, it all sounds so Hollywood and sexy. And you know, what kind of real estate are you guys investing in? First of all, it sounds sexy. I'm sure because about the TV show. Yeah, it sounds like selling sunset or something like that, right? Right. That is not the way. No, no, it's not like that. Okay. The shows are entertainment and they're scripted. Yeah. I should those shows like kind of click pass. And it's kind of like too much for me.

3:04Like I've never seen it. I've maybe seen a poster or two. Yeah. But yeah, it looks like a lot. Like, it's not like that. No. Okay. Well, that's good. But it still sounds sexy, right? Yeah. Because the housing market out there, I don't know, you think, you think kind of, what is it? The Prince of Bel Air and Beverly Hills and nice houses and LA mansions and Hollywood. So, but there's all kinds of real estate there. What kind of real estate are you getting invested in? Well, it's sort of like a media thing, right? So the bigger, the better, the more, you know, fantastic, you know, the 50 million kind of stuff. But that's not really the average market. I mean, the market is, you know, it goes from first time home buyers and we're seeing a lot of young money right now. We're seeing a lot of young money. A lot of parents are helping younger kids, you know, kids in their 30s to buy property and they're buying condos. They're renting condos. I call it two stepping, maybe renting and then they're buying into a condo and then they sell the condo and they buy into a house and that's sort of, which is exactly what

4:07I did. And now we see all kinds of things. Investors are always looking for real estate to develop, which there is a lot of land in the primary locations. And so we have some, a lot of new vertical living, which we're not well known for because we're mostly a housing market. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the market out there seems like so crazy. Like the smallest house is like millions of dollars, right? Do you see like that, that, that first kind of home purchase, right? For the first home buyers, you said that the parents have to come in and, and help them, right? Because the market is just so high over there, right? Yeah. There's a couple of different things. If, if you wait, I mean, you can wait, but if you wait, I mean, what are you waiting for? Could prices go up? Could they go down or what are, what are, you've got to talk to someone who can help you through this? Obviously. Yes. Yes. Because prices only change if there's an over, over supply, right? Yeah. Which doesn't look like that's going to be happening anytime too soon. And so we have higher interest rates and all that.

5:07So there's a lot of things to factor into how do you step into your first property. And I always say you rent or you rent to buy. Yeah. Or you start with a condo. Yeah. And then you gain some equity in the condo and then you can sell that and buy a house. Yeah. And those are all the steps that I personally took myself. Yeah. Are most people buying to live or they're buying to flip or they're buying to kind of create an Airbnb? Well, there's different pockets where they people buy to flip or buy to create an Airbnb. Yeah. Those are different price areas and really very different locations. But most of what I see are people are buying to live. Okay. That's so strong. Longer term by young families, young kids. You see those changes. Yeah. And there's a lot of talk out there about this like kind of like it's been out there for a while, but the great California Exodus, right? Does that kind of influence the market over there or of any way? So when you hear about the great California Exodus, it's because they're coming to Florida.

6:09Yeah. And the market here is insane, right? I think it's a lot. But it was also a lot to Vegas, right? Maybe a little bit of Arizona. I think it's Texas and Florida, mostly. Yeah. But I think a lot of Florida. I mean, I think Miami is equal to even more expensive to Los Angeles. Yeah. So I mean, you're seeing condos here at $20 million, you know, that we're a few guys in square feet. We don't have that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of political tailwinds that are pushing the Exodus from California and New York. Yeah. But how does that affect the real estate market? Are there changes it? I mean, it hasn't changed yet because you're talking about the very high end. Yeah. Those people are exiting and they don't have to sell their house. So there's, it doesn't enter the market where their home comes on the market and they're waiting and selling. It's not selling or something like that. So you really don't see it on the very high end level. Yeah.

7:10It's definitely changing end for tax reasons, usually. Yeah. And so for all the, you know, people with the stars in their eyes moving to LA, right? What areas of LA would you recommend? Because LA is massive, right? Yeah. A lot of you driving all around, you must hate the traffic, right? You know, I get a lot done. Oh, okay. Okay. You're multitasking. Yeah. Are you in like one of those self-driving Teslas then or no? I have a self-driving, but I don't use it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's scary me to death, but no, but I don't mind the traffic because I can text and call and email and get through all those things so that I don't have 100. Gotcha. So when you're working on your phone, then you get a lot of work done. Yeah. Okay. So the area is, I think it depends. When, if you've got kids or if you're young, but if you're single for activity, I think it's affordable. I think you still have pockets of areas you would not really know about. But West Hollywood's one of them, which is very lively and young and affordable.

8:10Yeah. A lot of things. I love the arts district. And the arts, but that's downtown. Okay. That's downtown. Very funky. Very funky. Lots of work to live down there because you've got to come all the way. If you're coming to the West side, you've got, you know, maybe an hour drive. Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The people that I know, they're all retired. I live there. Okay. Right. There you go. I got some mentors that live there. But yeah, former Disney people, former Nashia geographic people, but like a lot of people that enter the entertainment industry there. Is that also shifting the real estate market? Kind of the shift and the entertainment industry. It's changing, right? You got studios leaving. Yeah. You got, you know, it's kind of changing to AI, right? Have you seen that affect the market at all? Well, there's a whole movement now to try and you give them tax credits to reduce them back. Because a lot of the production has left the state because it's less expensive to shoot outside of California. So yeah, there's efforts now to bring all of that back.

9:11But I feel that the entertainment business has really changed a lot. I mean, you know, people don't go on interviews anymore. They send in, you know, videos of themselves, you know, film filming is done differently. It's not all the union stuff, you know, studios. So the old fashioned way of doing, even though the studios are still there, I think there's been a couple of big purchases recently and a couple of big mergers. Yeah. But I think the technology has changed a lot of that. They're still trying to, they're all trying to figure it out too. So far, right? I know, I know. It's all so fast too, right? Yeah. Because they figured out one week and then it's completely changed the next week, you know, it's like, oh my God. But yeah, what am I missing? What's exciting about the real estate market out there? What are the, what are the great areas that you recommend? What are you seeing? Tell me what's hot and what's not. So what's always hot is what we call the Beverly Hills flats. Okay. It's a small area. Yeah. But it's also outside of any of the Los Angeles tax issues that we have.

10:15Okay. And so why is it hot because of the tax issues? Yeah, because people can go, they don't have the same tax structures as you do if you're in LA County. Yeah. It's very expensive now. I mean, the tear downs there are 10 million. Yeah. And it's not a Miami because you still have to pay 20 million. I know. A two-bedroom condo. I know. It's insane. You must look at the market here and be like, this is insane. I know. It's crazy. I went to Palm Beach yesterday and their starting prices in one building was 20. I know. It's like insane. 20? I know. And then they don't even live there. I think I feel like it's just to park your money, right? Where it doesn't look like shady. Right? Yeah. Or you get the tax benefit here. Yeah. Yeah. I'm becoming a Florida resident. I'm a Beverly Flaz. Right? And I'm like, OK, my head is it, you know, forest fire friendly, like free of forest fires. And also, when I started talking about that in my head, like, it's like, how is that market, you know, like, you had whole neighborhoods that are gone and they're kind of rebuilding, right? How's that affecting the real estate and your...

11:16So I was... It's called the Pacific Palisades and there were 6,000 homes that were down. Yeah. And I was actually there last week with some clients and a lot of rebuilding. You know, a lot of the issues there that people were undershirt or were not insured at all. Yeah. So then they're selling their lots. So then then developers are coming in, buying a blood summary, developing. So there's a lot of development going on as you see, but it's probably going to be 5 or 6 years before. Otherwise, you... If you buy a house in the middle of 5,000 houses that aren't built yet, you'll be living in a construction zone for many years. So there's all that to consider. There's no infrastructure except for what we call the Coruse. So development center, which is the center now, just open a few days ago. Which is beautiful. It's all the restaurants. It didn't burn down. Yeah. And it's all the restaurants and cafes and Erwan, all these different stores that we have there. So it's bringing some hope back to the area. Erwan is bringing back hope. What? I believe it enough in the lower one. I know. I know.

12:16It's crazy. But yeah, so we got the Beverly flats. Yeah. Right? What else is hot right now? So since the fires, a lot of those people had to relocate something. Yes. So the areas of Santa Monica and Brantwood blew up. The price is probably 1% to 40% within a period of a year. Wow. Yeah. Because of all that. I think a lot of it's kind of settling out now because some people are going back and rebuilding. Some people are going back to their homes that totally burned down. I've got a friend that said, I mean, they had some... It wasn't completely burned down, right? But they had some fire damage, right? Right. And they're just getting finished now. It's not even done yet. I was on a Zoom with them and he had air-conditioned people. And finally, he's taken the Zoom's in the house. He had to live. Fortunately for him, he had a friend with a self-sustaining apartment above a garage. That him and his family could live there. So everyone wasn't... Yeah, correct. All right.

13:17So Santa Monica went up 40%. Where else was... Brent Wood. Brent Wood, okay. Yeah, Malibu suffered a lot because they all loved it. Malibu suffered a lot. It's so beautiful over there, though. And the houses are like, oh my God. A lot of... I know a lot of people in the Disney community out there. A lot of Imagineers are living out there and their houses are all affected, right? So that whole Disney community was affected. It's so sad. And some people got lucky. Just skipped over their houses. Right. Were you or any family affected by that? No. Well, actually I lived with it. I was in the mandatory evacuation area. And they kept knocking on my door. I could see the fire from my front door. And they would say prepared to evacuate. So I had suitcases by the front door and the smoke. It was like snowing outside the ash was so thick. So you prepared, but I didn't go. A lot of people on my street did, but I didn't. My neighbors didn't kind of waited it out.

14:19It was a very scary time, therefore the first week or so. So let's talk about the business a little bit more. Do you have a team? Is it a solo project? And what sets you apart from the other real estate people out there? So I do have a team. I revamp my team and recently we're doing all kinds of new things and programs and adding a lot of really cool AI things into what we're doing. Nice. I have a new podcast that's coming up. So I'm going to rewind you back to the cool AI stuff that you're doing. Is that like taking an empty house and then like furnishing it with AI or? We've been doing that for years. Okay. Yeah, we've been doing as coverstual staging. Yep. I've been doing that for years. So that online the pictures look pretty great. And then what's what's the cool AI stuff then? So the AI stuff is in my business. It's not. In other words, it's from my website. It's to all the press releases we do. It's for my podcast. Great. It's for it's building authority.

15:20Obviously, that's what that's all about. So it's educational and authority building and that's kind of what we're concentrating because the new wave of what's going to be happening is people won't go to Google and say, top real-term Beverly Hills. They'll go to one of your AI platforms and say, I want to buy a house here and who would it and they'd ask? Of course. Like a complete conversation question. Yeah. That's where I'm going is into that AI, those AI platforms. Great. So are you kind of working with LLMs and large language models in terms of like, okay, well, I've got all this content or all these emails and conversations that I can put into my own language model so that the AI knows these are the areas that I was focusing on and these are my clients we're looking for. Is there any kind of that development in it? So I just wrote about 138 new pages that are all SEO optimized for my website. So it's all new and it's all really cool information. And what I've done is I've got now an AI company that it because you have to have an

16:24order to go to authority, you have to have you have to have the editorial what you call articles. And all the media on you. So I have a whole media section. All right. Because AI crawls all of that. So they're crawl and we're getting 30 days I've had. It's just been blowing up. Wow. My website stats and my social media stats and all that. Amazing. So it's trying to see results like really fast. Yeah. Really fast. That's amazing. And I can only say that I know nobody else is doing it. And you know, and in three or four or five years, they won't have a business because it's changing so much. You've got to hop on that AI train. You've got to. It's because it's a bullet train. It is. It is. It's fun. And it's fun too. Yeah. And so you also have a podcast. Yeah. Yeah. How's the studio? Well, that's the subject. Because I'm using my office for the studio. Yeah. So every time I'm looking around, like what are the best lights? Yeah. Because we've been disastrous with lights. But you guys are so talented here. You're doing all the lights in the sound. You got some ceiling lights.

17:26We got some neon background lights. And press for all the stuff you've got mostly. It's like a little nook, right? It's cozy, right? But on camera, it's got all the corners, kind of like all the accents and everything, right? So talk about multitasking, which you guys do here is extraordinary. Thank you. Should have all these talents to do all these things. Yeah. So I keep looking at everybody's lights and going, I should get that light by podcast. And maybe some center blocks. Yeah. As you don't see on there, but you know, great for mounting mics. You know, easy to move around. So what's the podcast about? What's the podcast about? What do you talk about? It's called Queen Bee, Grick Grace and Reinvention. Okay. And it's not a podcast that's talking about perfect your life is and you know, that and just exchanging stories of like that. It's really basically I want it to be for women who have had really difficult chapters in their lives. And it could be that woman sitting in her kitchen going, I don't know what I'm going

18:27to do next. My husband passed away or my kids, I've got little kids or I know money. It's the women who have some stuff, they're strength. Yeah. And they keep going and that they will continue to reinvent themselves because that's my story. Yeah. Amazing, amazing. Well, I'm glad that you have a platform to talk about all that stuff. So what are you really excited about right now? I mean, I know you just talked about AI and the podcast, which I'm sure they're really excited about, right? Yeah. So that was fun. So the market and real estate, is there anything that you're really excited about with how things are going over there? Well, I'm really excited about the reaction we're getting with the content we're using because it's, look, it's like the TV shows, oh, I'm the best and I'm, you know, and I've got a $50 million listings and look how great I am. Yeah. I've completely flipped on everything and mine is all educational. Okay. So and the reactions coming back in a huge way. So it's my, I'm excited about that. I'm excited about the information, excited about the educational, excited about the

19:30early authority, excited about the podcast. I'm excited about, I'm watching the market, of course, because that's what I do and that's my business. Yeah. Yeah. Is, is, is with the information I have is sharing it with my buyers and sellers to prepare them or to give them my heads, heads up or something. I had a time. Of course, we have to navigate all the, the, the bureaucratic and the political issues we have around us, which isn't easy, you know? But you, you know, you find a way and there's always going to people who need homes. Yeah. People who dream about a future. Yes. And that got those L.A. stars in their eyes, right? Always chasing a dream. That's what's L, L.A. is, L.A. is nice because a lot of people out there chasing their dreams, right? Well, that's so important to have a dream. Yes. Well, thank you so much for joining us. How do people find you? So you can find me on my website is www.valloryfitsgerald.com. Okay. I'm a media's my name. All my soul, my social, very easy because they're my name. Perfect. So I've linked in my name.

20:30Yeah. My Instagram, Facebook's my name, Valerie Fitzgerald. Yeah. Easy, greasy. I'm super easy to find. And then you can probably go into, you know, the chatbots and give them a prompt of how do I find Valerie Fitzgerald? Yeah. And it'll give you all the information too. All the information. Perfect. Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us so much. And thank you guys out there for joining us again here on Living Your Legacy Podcast. And if you want to learn more about the LA Real Estate Game and how she got to where she is, then tune into her episode where you can get all the details on that. So thank you again, guys. Cheers, everyone. Thank you.