The Coastal Collective Real Estate Marketing Playbook w/ Stephen McManus

0:00Hey Skates, what's happening man? Not much Mike, how are you? I'm really, really good. I hear that there's a house party going on at the Harbour Ones Renewer Center talk about it. Yeah Mike, join us on September 23rd at the Music Farm for the Harbour House Party volume 2. We have a dinner at the share house followed by a speaker panel. We've got some awesome speakers, Adam Wexler, PricePix, Larry Place of 8am Golf, Mary Welsh Daystick of Mary Welsh Box Daystick Design. Who, we had Mary on the show. Oh yeah, I watched that yesterday. Oh nice! She's not only the wife of a rock star, she's a rock star in her own right. Hey, where do you find tickets? Because I want to go. You can go and find tickets at the harbourec.org, h-a-r-b-o-r-e-c-dot-o-r-g. And look up the Harbour House Party volume 2 on LinkedIn. All right, we'll see y'all on September 23rd at the Music Farm. Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast. Brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solutions Studios from Business and Art to Hospitality and Tech.

1:00These movers and shakers choose to call the low-country home. They live here, work here, and make a difference here. So what's their story? Let's find out together. Hello everybody, welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast. Powered by the Charleston American Marketing Association. We are coming to you from the Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Lots of Charleston here, buddy. Massive thanks to them for supporting Camo and the show. My name is Mike Compton. I am the current president of RMBO.co. Marketing chair for the Harbor, Marketing chair for Camp Happy Days. We have fun. We have fun, don't we Rachel? I'm here with Rachel. Say hello, Rachel. Hello, nice to be back. Newly minted, Rachel. You have a new brand, don't you? I do. I'm still figuring out if I want to change my last name or not. Oh, we're still with the next number. I'm still Rachel Bacall, as of now. OK. But we're figuring out. Oh, wow. We could dive deep in it. That's Stephen. We're not going to talk about Stephen and the ghosts of collective. It's boring. Oh, by the way, our guest today, say hello, Stephen. Hello.

2:00Hello, everyone. That's my mom, me, man. I said, say hello. That's all I got. Rachel, say introduce Stephen, for me. Yes. So you like this beautiful piece, right? I mean, it's my little tail. I didn't say anything, because I don't want to hear you. Yes. So today we're joined by Stephen. He's a realtor and president of the Colesso Collective Group, Marine veteran, Citadel grad, and Charleston's go-to for coastal real estate for the last 18 years. He doesn't just sell homes. He markets them. And today we're stealing his playbook. Oh, right. Love that. I'll give you some of it. Love that. I wrote this too, though. I found this too. Stephen leads with clarity, strategy, and care. Precision when it comes to guidance without pressure, integrity without compromise. That's deep, Stephen. Let's unpack that in the next 45 minutes. Let's do it. What do you think? I mean, between your name change and that deep there thought, man, we've got a good 30

3:01minutes for sure. We're in a good intro. Welcome to the show, Stephen. As we were talking, I kind of slid into his DMs. Didn't I? I saw a video and I'm like, what is this? It was a real estate. It was a house. It was a... I think it might have been a marketing piece for your company, which house I do. Nice work. It showcased in 15 seconds. You would like it too, Rachel. You're really good at that. It's the reals and the short content. You love the editing. It showcased everything. I'm like, dude, who are you? Let's talk. And they're like, yeah, let's do it. All right? Thanks. Thanks. Thank you, Mickuk. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for coming on. Talk about the Coastal Collective. Where did the idea come from? How did you start this? Yeah. In a construction centric dynamic. Not from here, I'm assuming. No, New Jersey, Born and Raised. I grew up like fielding customer calls with my mom.

4:02Like creating estimates. Oh, cool. I'm like the back office. Part of the business. Learning customer service from a young age. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what part of New Jersey is? Well, we talked before. What? No. Remind me. What part of Jersey? Oh, I.S. What? More is a South Jersey. Yeah. I'm on my way there. I have Valley Banks, a client of ours. So I go for a shoot content for them. So I'm up there this month, actually. I love more of town. Yeah, more of town. I was born. I'm more of town, Memorial. I grew up, first 10 years of my life, was like Hamilton Trenton. So like, you know, we're in Trenton. Yeah, absolutely. And then we moved up to where the rest of my dad's one of 10. I was telling Rachel earlier. So I have a huge family. First cousins I have, I don't know. We have a spreadsheet in Google. No joke. I'm number 18. There's like 170 something with great grandkids and like, you know, my kids on there. I'm sure family reunions fun. I'm kidding. Try planning something like that.

5:05So most people might, in my family, own a business of some sort, mostly in the construction, landscape architecture, engineering, just some sort of like trade like that, that really compliments real estate. And I always had to like get high for design and like, I'm handy. And I just love just the aesthetics of a home exterior interior. Cool. Did you like the house you grew up in? Yeah. I mean, we grew up in a couple of different homes. My dad obviously construction, you know, he built them, eh? Yeah, he built them. So I grew up on job sites and it was pretty awesome. It takes a lot of time to experience that. I didn't really see the true value of that until after I joined the Marine Corps and I'm sitting in my rack and I'm like, what am I doing right now? I built an entire company, but I decided to join the Marines. Well, whatever. I was a great part of my service though. Sure. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's awesome. How long were you in Marine Corps? 12 years. I mean, you're always in Marine once in a while. Yeah. But you were in for 12 years. Yeah. I had to shed some of that.

6:06Yeah. Nice. That transition coming from the Marines to civil civilian life. Thank you. Thank you. And what was that like for you? That was, it was better than most. I'll say that. Because I've heard that because the big reason why is because my last duty station was Charleston. So I was at the Citadel. How lucky is that? I got accepted to be an officer. I was enlisted. And I just got really lucky. I applied to the Citadel and part of the program was like, you picked a school that has an ROTC program. Okay. ROTC program. And the Citadel, I was obviously an obvious choice in Charleston. It's beautiful here. So I did get out after I finished my degree at the Citadel. And it was a great transition from like going from a base like Camp Lejeune with at least 50,000 Marines to, I think we had eight or something like that. Yeah.

7:07It threw me in a different kind of dynamic. And I was able to slowly acclimate away from military life and into civilian life. What does that mean? Acclimate, like calm down a little bit. What does that, what do you think like? Even all transition like learns what real people do. Yeah. Well, I don't march down the street. Right? I have a couple of athlete friends and they still struggle with, you know, because you're getting hit every day, right? You're practicing, you're getting hit, you have those doorphins, whatever the words are that I'm trying to find. And it's tough, you know, your whole life, you're doing this, right? These athletes. And then they're coming away from that. They still have a little bit of anxiety and need to have that, that kind of structure. Like structure. No, like just kind of like, like get beat up, get like exercise, like get challenged, right? So I just see the similarities there. Thank you. You said the right word. Yeah. I mean, when I got injured in the Marines, it's the reason I got out.

8:08Oh, just because I overworked my body. But I was doing marathons. I was training in martial arts. I was a black belt and wrinkle martial arts. I was training the cadets. Mental knackers. I was doing a lot of stuff physically, like at a high level. And getting injured that my, I'll be honest, like my psychologist, because I needed to go talk to somebody. No. They're, it's a great thing. Was like, this is equivalent to doing a hard drug and then stopping. It literally is. Like it was very traumatic. Just stopping doing all those like high level fitness type things to doing nothing. And then changing the culture of the Marine Corps, which is just a totally different world. And then going into civilian world, you're completely lost. Right. And I don't have that. Drug, if you will, of high level exercise and competition and all that stuff. So I kind of channeled all that through my psychologist into coast, local, active.

9:08Oh, yeah. Use it for good. I think it was a great thing to do is to talk to people. I know it's not what this is about, but you know, if you go into something, talk to somebody. Yeah. But yeah, it took my, my experience in the Marines, my discipline, my leadership, my drive, and I funneled all of it into my business. I think when what year was this? So right when I 2016, I got out. So I've been in Charleston for 18 years. I've been doing real estate in Charleston for a little bit over 10. Wow, that's a long time. Yeah. Sorry, with Fitt, Flippes and Fexes. Had an agent. She was great, but my ROI suffered because of it. So I was like, I'll go get my license. Yeah. As soon as I did all my friends and family and my network were like, we're using you. We know that we know what you do. Right. We know your work ethic. Getting that initial padding of, of pipeline. Mm hmm. Oh, padding of pipeline. Yeah, right. It was, it was, it was, was, was nice because of my reputation.

10:08Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hey, team, we're one month away from the happy steps five. And we still need your help to cross the finish line. Join us September 19th, Sullivan's Island, right on the beach. And after party at the island club featuring food, drinks, a raffle and family fun. Register sponsored or volunteer at camphappydays.org slash happy steps. Every step gets us closer. Yeah. How hard was it on how hard is it to become a realtor? Like what is getting your license look like? It's not hard. No. Very, very low barrier to entry. You, you can do some online training or you can do like literally a couple of weeks in a classroom and then go take a test. You take a national and a local test. The tough part is the OJT on the job training part, which is totally different than the education you're going to receive from, you know, I don't know, an online portal or some classroom for a couple of minutes.

11:09It feels like compared to what it really takes to learn the gig. So you have to kind of learn all over again. If you don't have a mentor or a team or somebody supporting you, it's going to be tough. And then you know, last year, don't quote me from what I'm hearing from almost every agent is 80% of agents didn't sell one thing. Wow. By yourself one thing that 80% of agents who have an active license didn't buy or sell one thing. It's a big number. Why? Just because like get into the into the job and you're like, wow, this is really difficult to spool a business. Do you think it's like oh, her saturated? I also don't know what they're doing. I think that's a big number. It's an oversaturated market of realtors. Okay. Yeah. And we're seeing a huge reduction in the amount of realtors in Charleston right now. I'm really across the country. Well that was kind of where my head was too when we're starting in the very beginning of coastal. Like what did you do to get more at bats, you know, especially what did you do to separate

12:14yourself from every other realtor? Yeah. You're in 2016 because I'm bet there was a bunch. Well, it's got to be reputation and visibility. So what are you good at? What do people know you for it and how do you get it out there in front of people? The marketing. Yeah. There we go. So what did you do first? Like, right? What did you do? What was your first part of marketing that you thought, yes, that's successful. Let's move that direction. Well, the first thing and what was the worst? Yeah. I guess the first thing I really did was try to get as much visibility as I could. And I kind of like teach my team this. As authenticity is the biggest magnet. 100%. You are, it's okay to repel people. Because remember, magnet has two sides, right? So you want to attract and repel and both are very good because you want to find who your people are, who your real client base should be and who it shouldn't be. So from day one, I'm like, all right, I have to engage authenticity.

13:16Every agent looks the same. Everybody is doing the same thing. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm doing a lot of the same things you could probably say. It's hard not to. But when people talk to me and ask me questions, I am politely but brutally honest. Well, I'm sure. Because if you're not that way, then again, I was telling Rachel earlier, then you're going to take on listings that you can't keep your promise. I'm selling. It's overpriced or something. You're going to, you're just going to, you're going to phase yourself out of the business because you're going to, people are going to see that your integrity is not there. So, so core values was the first thing I set, set my intention core values I live my life by and authenticity. And then we can now start talking about what am I going to do to get myself out there? So build a quality brand. If it's going to be you, your name, or if it's going to be a different name and a different brand and a different logo, cool. Do that, but figure out what that is and then be very intentional about making it beautiful.

14:20Right. Right. Set up all the things behind the scenes. Then you got to set up your team. And if your team is a team you join, or if it's a team you create, cool. But you have to have support in real estate. And that way you're going to be able to do more than one deal or two deals at a time if you don't have support. So, like even a solo per newer would probably find a body or a trusted partner to just kind of like split some what is it called commission commissions with the commission. Yeah. You just work out of a deal and typically it would be your brokerage. Sure. Sure. From a very high level, a team provides more support. So more like more branding, more, just more direct support, like more mentoring. What was your thought process when you decided to go coastal instead of madness? Yeah. I was thinking of like name my team name. Even man. I don't know. Sorry. Sorry to all you folks. You have a lot of people out there though, right? I don't know if you. I think billboards out there. Yeah.

15:20Yeah. I just felt like it was a little too. I did a lot of work on my ego too getting out of the Marine Corps. Every Marine thinks they're Superman. Yeah. And I was like, all right, let's figure out how to get back down to earth here and like anyway, long story short. I was like, I'm not naming the company. My name. Yeah. Good. My name was the Kings Carpenter. Talking about the way. Like that. Hey. I just cried that. And there's a couple others that were in my family. No one really named. I mean, there was the McManus design group, what there still is, but that's like an overarching kind of like parent company. So for mine, I was like, all right, we're on the coast. I want to stay on the coast. I want to sell coastal real estate. I always want to be on the coast. And then the collective came together because of just what it means. Right. I want to build something bigger than myself. I want to build a team. I want to build a collective. Who's in the room with you when you started the collective? Because it couldn't have been just you. It was me and my buddy Matt. There you go. Matt, Sessine. He's my partner and current partner as well.

16:21Very cool. Very cool. We were at our daughter's VJJ, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Practice. Okay. She was flipping bodies. Pretty cool. You can boys, but I'm old. You can boys. Well, she's 14. She was like, I don't know, eight. Cute. She didn't want to split in her G. That's amazing. Good self-defense too to learn. Oh, yeah, especially for a dad. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm not going to always be there. You have others? One daughter? Or do you have a girlfriend? Just one daughter. Yeah. I love it. And so we were sitting there. I was just like kind of talking through what I was planning on doing. And he was all about it. He kind of saw the vision. He felt the vision. He felt the passion. And then, yeah, and then I went and built it. And you build it, they will come right? Yeah, I know. Say that a lot. I'm curious. I want to go back to like, I don't think you finished when you're saying, like, you know, I do a lot. I had to find something that was different that differentiated me. So what is that differentiator? Well, I think it was the authenticity.

17:22Okay. It was the core values. So you feel like, okay. Somebody people that compromised themselves just to get a list. Just to get the deal, just to get the the cloud, just to get the, uh, just the popularity. Okay. The big thing for me is like, I don't care how long it takes me to grow. I will grow. But I'm going to stay true to who I am. I will stay true to my core values and who I am, my authenticity. Okay. Because I want to wake up every day feeling like myself. Yeah. And not somebody else. In sleep at night. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're, you're core messaging here that you lead with clarity, strategy and care. Well, there's three, the care. I like that. Yeah. That's sensitive. I'll leave them. Uh, precision, when it matters, guidance without pressure. Integrity without compromise. Mm-hmm. Did you come up with that? I did. It's all accurate. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like I did. Right. No, but from our 15 minutes in the talking, it's the 100% sounds like you and, and so you're still carrying that over and it, it's great. Yeah. My clients get, get spoiled. And that's why we haven't paid for a lead yet.

18:24Like, I think we just started. I think we just started. There was the question. Yeah. Just started doing ads and stuff like that for, for leads. Okay. And that we just started doing that. It's amazing. Like meta ads, or you mean like starting putting out stuff out there. Yeah. I mean, like about your business or your meta ads. Yeah. Okay. We're looking into YouTube ads right now. We're doing Google Google ads through our CRM lofty. Lofty's through real broker. Real broker is where we hang our license. Okay. Coastal Collective Group is the engine behind our team. I'm curious. When you, because I feel like right now, there's so many shows that glamorize. They're real estate world, right? Like when you see, oh my gosh, I'm forgetting the name. Like, I'm forgetting the names of it. Yeah, selling sunset, right? Like exactly. And you hear that a lot of these people, like, they're not even real real owners. Like, what are your thoughts on seeing, I'm not sure if you watch, but hearing about that buzz. I've seen half a show maybe. Okay. Yeah, maybe on a puke.

19:24Really, really, there's an answer. Well, I mean, I said it earlier. It's a popular contest. I know so many people who are like, I don't know, a former model or a former something big, right? Something different became a realtor and they have 50,000 followers on Instagram. So they're like, oh, yeah, we'll go there. I just don't understand why. Yeah. Yeah. They're ability to run a transaction. What part of that? Does that make you want to buy the house? Yeah. Yeah. So here's the thing. I've got a lot of work with a really good base knowledge of real estate and construction. And I took my job very, very seriously. So I was a good realtor from, really from day one. And I added support, right? Support layers to make sure I was going to crush it from my clients. And then I was like, oh, I need to like be popular too. I went back to them like, oh, okay. I got to really build out a sick social media platform website.

20:28I mean, obviously I started with good branding. But I realized I had a scale visibility. We'll call it vanity metrics. I was like, okay, now we got to do vanity metrics. I need certain amount of followers. I need this. I need that. Yeah. I don't know if that answers your question. Well, marketing really. I mean, yeah, you've got to get the word out. Well, I also think that it's interesting because like when you talk to like a potential person who's selling their house. I guess a seller, right? When does it come in that like you're going to market their house? Like, because to me, if I was selling my house and someone was like, I'm going to come make a cool video, put that out there. I like to people pay extra for that. How does that come into the conversation? It's a great question. If you come to me and say you want to buy a house. Yeah. I'm going to do a lot of due diligence behind the scenes before we even talk. Okay. I'm not going to throw a number out. We have obviously a really good solid marketing strategy that we put into a listing presentation.

21:33We don't present anything like that. But we'll also do a CMA, which is a competitive market analysis or comparative market analysis. And we'll, we'll marry the two up. So we'll have the CMA and the listing presentation with the marketing strategy in the listing presentation all together. And we'll show you that. We'll send it to you digitally. We'll bring it to you and we'll print it out, but we'll talk you through it. That's it. Like, yeah. You can, you can look at it. I'm going to go from up here and I'm going to tell you what's going on with your home and what my team will do for you. So it's really in depth. I mean, and that's why we denied, I was telling you earlier, we denied listing sometimes because like the seller's just not within the realm of reality. And we spend a lot of time and money up front, entering your home for, for listing. So I'm not going to risk you throwing some wild number out there and then me and my team putting money, effort, energy and our reputation into a deal that's not going to sell or we're

22:34going to have to drop it like crazy. And then coastal collective group is known for overpricing and dropping. Reputations everything. Is everything? Yeah. It really is. It shows, shows what you really do. And, and you push a lot to a word of mouth. It's huge, right? It isn't there a way. I think you do this really good. I was just on your Instagram account. You guys give the, our friends in the, in the audience here, all the listeners out there. The millions of fans, your dot com and, and your handles for Instagram. It's the coastal collective dot com. That's the website. And then the Instagram handle is coastal collective dot CHS. It's, it's worth a look. And I want to show you the videos. I mean, he's good. Yeah, guys got on camera, talent too. I think I was more watching about your personal brand than the real estate company as a whole. So I actually curious, like, how do you build your own brand, right? While you're building this business, it's brand. Right, right.

23:35But, but also, and, and I would say to finish my, what I was thinking too, but keep that in there is like, how do you intentionally be word of mouth? Yeah, yeah. It goes along with it. That's an easy, that's an easy answer. Yeah, you just do a great job. You do a great job. Every time. Every, every single time. Yeah. You, you do what you're going to say you're going to do. But you can get those at that. That's the same time. Yeah. So getting the at bats is, is obviously important. But that's, that's like, you know, injecting yourself into, into different networks, visibility on social media website. Just this morning, I was at the Home Builders Association of the Low Country, coffee and conversation. So, again, showing up being authentic, true to who you are, an expert in your field. And you have nothing to worry about. Any conversation you have, you're going to be like, oh, something's, something's different. This guy's not pressure, you're salesy, he's just trapping bombs. You know, and he's not asking for business. And he's leaving early.

24:35Okay, what's going on? Pull out the camping bomb. It kind of builds trust. So to answer your question, my brand, me, Stephen McManus, is the relationship building, trust building brand. Okay. Yeah. Coastal collective group is the engine behind me. Yeah. And behind my team. So, and that's kind of what I appreciate, my, my agent says, you go out, be you, have integrity for, you know, be consistent to your core values, be an expert in real estate. Like I know you are. I'm your my team and I'm a, I'm your next stuff. I'm sure. Yeah. I wouldn't want to have the first interview with McManus, I don't know, but I don't know my stuff. And then, well, that's why I have a very small team. We call it real estate team sex. Okay. Well, it should be just say that because of CL Team Sex. Oh, sorry, I went over my head. It's brandy marine background. Yeah, we have, we have, right now, we had four agents, one went back to New York for,

25:35for just different reasons, family reasons. So we have three agents, including myself. It's me, my partner Matt and Oscar, Wow, Oscar's a, he's just doing so well right now. He came to me about a year and a half ago. I got a random email in my inbox with a, with a, a resume from a rising senior. Okay. Wow. And I went to get University in North Carolina, collegiate golfer, full ride scholarship. And he was just excited about the brand. Yeah. He wanted to do an internship. I was like, what? I don't know what to do. I just found you on the internet. On the internet. I mean, yeah, he found the website. He's like, I love your brand and with his accent, I'm not going to do it. But I'm like, I don't, I don't know what to do for that. Like, what do you want me to do? He's like, I'll just work for you. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to pay you. Right. Right. I'm like, I would love to, but I'm scaling right now. So every bit of capital is going, you know, directly back into the business.

26:37So he worked for me. He worked his butt off. He did everything I asked him to do. In turn, I worked for him. I mentored him. I taught him. I poured into him. He poured into me. Right before graduation, I paid for his license. He went through everything. He passed all the tests. Got his license immediately onboarded fully as a full-time agent. And I got to say, right now, he is good. Yeah. He is better than most veteran agents that I know. Just from a work ethic and knowledge perspective. I mean, a kid is doing big stuff. And I'm stoked that he's on my team and I'm excited to see where he goes. I'm actually getting 20, 23, I'm 43. So I got 20 years on. Good for you, Oscar. Shout out. That's amazing. Because when you were saying that it was hard when you got out, like, couldn't find that mentoring. Is that before someone like Oscar? Is that something that you're giving back to the community or your too busy, big schedule? What does that look like? Yeah, so when I first became an agent, I didn't know where to look.

27:40Yeah. It's tough to tell. Agents wear masks, right? They really do. So I ended up pulling away from the company I was with because I wasn't getting that. Okay. I wasn't getting that leadership. It was a lot of pomp and circumstance. Okay. Yeah. All the things. And so I ended up just really going heads down and learning everything myself, studying, reading everything, right? Obviously producing, performing. Well, I mean, it's not what we want. But producing. And so yeah, now I do have a heart to serve. I genuinely do. I know that sounds, yeah. No, I'm the same. I genuinely do. I can't really do a heart to serve. I get that. And that's why I built a team. I don't want to just do this myself. I want a team I can share it with. I want to see Oscar get married. I want to see him pop out some kids. I want to not him, but I want to see, you know, I want to see this business that I built,

28:43put food on people's table. Yeah. That are in my team. It's like way more motivating than getting rich or being popular. That's fun too. But it's not what gets me up every day. Absolutely. That's a really cool story. I mean, hearing that someone have a confidence reach out to you by email. And then you took the rest, but you're like, you got to prove yourself. He did. And now he's killing it. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. No one say rags the rich of story, but like working hard and making it. Yeah. Another cool thing is his dad was in real estate. He's from Leeds, UK. OK. So he's from England. Oh, wow. He's not even been here maybe five years-ish. OK. And he's just doing so well. It's wild. He's got that accent, too. He's probably handsome. Oh, I'm from Leeds, UK. He's handsome, right? I mean, it's not 100% criteria for ghosts.

29:45Like, I doubt it. I doubt it. It does not hurt. I don't know. You've stopped working out. It looks like after the episode. I'm going to pull a shit right now. The guy's jacked. Oh, I don't know. Watch on YouTube. There's always somebody more jacked. And always someone less jacked. That's true. Also, Oscar is a collegiate golfer, and he just shot a 70 yesterday. Oh, wow. Randomly, I don't know where he works seven days a week. Yeah. But you got your own schedule, though, in real estate, your own. Yeah. It'd be flexible. You can go. And a lot of the business happens on the golf course. I could be a fourth Oscar. I'm a 16-handy cat, but I'm not a good. That's pretty good. You think so? I see my, I come from a family that golf, so they're all better than me. And I'm like, I shot a 96 yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Up in there. But it had fun. That's it. That's it. Where did you go? The Burge Chirpin. Oh my gosh. Sneaf arm. My favorite. Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure.

30:46My in-laws live in Sneaf. What are you up? I'm in Carolina Park. OK. I'm in the class point. Upper mountain. Upper? Oh. Not north. I like that. I actually, I'm going to take that front of you. Upper mountain. Pleasant. Where are you? I'm like behind the home team. So I used to say north mountain pleasant, but I like the upper. Oh, man. We got to say upper. That's awesome. And it's just curious to me, you're a realtor like where would where you live. That's a pretty cool spot. Where else would you think is a cool spot to live here for like new people coming in the town? That's kind of an up and coming hot little still affordable spot. Ooh. Yeah. I did. And the weird voice too. Not Mount Pleasant. There's still some pockets. All in Dawes becoming a really awesome extension of Mount Pleasant. Upper mountain. Yeah, upper mountain pleasant. Yeah. I think all in Dawes pretty neat. They got a lot of infrastructure plan to go in.

31:47So that's a cool spot. Huge. If you're thinking, I want that. What about huges and that kind of building houses? Yeah. Yeah. Huge yet. Why don't know? Huge. I don't know. Maclaulandville. Is that like past Summerville? Sort of. No. Or other way. No, it's for us. Oh, so behind Dawes and Dawes. Behind Clements. Yeah. OK. But I mean, I'd say I think Summerville has an incredible amount of inventory right now. And it's also infrastructure-wise commercially building out a lot. So there's so many options. You don't really need to leave Summerville unless you want to go hit the historic downtown, which is hit the beaches, right? Which you have at your fingertips in the five minutes away. I think Hannah Han is starting to really blow out because why because Park Circle is pretty much done. Not really, but I mean, right. It's not my shell, Stabil. It's also that super affordable anymore. Yeah. I lived there for a little while. I built quick story. I built the townhouse.

32:47Cool. Right outside Park Circle in Oak Terrace, Preserve. It's a little tiny community new builds for 160K. In 2012, sold it like I don't know, three years later for I don't know, 100,000 more or something like that. Oh, for sure. Should have sold it. But that area is done. As far as entry level is done, unless you buy something that's a fixing flip. Or there's a lot of town homes going in over there now. I think Hannah Han has a lot of opportunity right now because I feel like it's an extension of Park Circle. If you want to stay closer to things, it depends on what you're looking for. If you need a single family, it's a very different world. And if you're looking for a town home or a condo. Because Daniel Island's got opportunities in the 300s if you're looking for a condo. No kidding. But if you're looking for a single family, you jump way up to 1.5 at the base level. Yeah, base level. Yeah. So yeah. That's interesting. So some of the North Charleston's got some good stuff.

33:50Do you ever think that there's going to be a dramatic? Everyone keeps talking about, OK, the prices have to eventually go down. What would it take besides the economy, I guess, crashing? Would it take to get there? The economy crashes, the prices go up a little more. But if you got to get better, then maybe that's what I'm thinking of the opposite of that. I don't know if they're ever going to go down. Because people keep saying that. They're waiting on it. The house is it's got to go down. It's got to go down. Yeah, I don't think they're going to go down like that. Yeah. Where they were. Don't. Because if you look at it in comparison of the rest of the country, we're a little bit higher than everything else in the southeast, maybe. Not everything. Florida's got its pockets. North Carolina has its pockets. Yeah. Yeah, we're not wildly overpriced. And our taxes are low. I think where we're at right now is a good, we're balanced. We're becoming a little bit more balanced. I was telling Rachel and the lobby that were probably should have waited. But we're seeing some areas of Charleston

34:52go down a tad. And we're seeing some areas continue to rise. So there's still areas in Charleston, County, Dorchester County, and Berkeley County that are still going up. And there's some that are leveling out and going down. You see areas that builders are injecting an incredible amount of new construction into. And inventory is going crazy. Then obviously prices are likely to go down. Or you're not going to go up. And if you do buy something, you better plan to stay in it for the next five to 10 years. Right? That's a key. You're not going to get a whole appreciation out of it. Absolutely. Equity out of it. Right. But your niche is more luxury anyway, isn't it? Yeah, we serve anyone that comes to us. I mean, I just put a $250,000 homeowner contract an amazing first time, second time home buyer actually. Actually, I think it's a fourth thing that I'm going to do. $50,000 home? Town home. And Dorchester, all of a sudden. Great spot. That's so good because I feel like town homes have gotten

35:54a lot of the gotten way more expensive too. For sure. Yeah. But I mean, I have clients in the pipeline that are in the 7 million range. Yeah. So they're all over the place. Our real, I guess, bread and butter areas somewhere around 1.5 to 2.5. Yeah. Because obviously there's more inventory. Yeah. Less of a legacy sale. So it's a quicker kind of like, hey, here's the comps, here's the CMA, here's the neighborhood. Let's come feel it out, do the deal kind of thing. Yeah. You get into like the 5, 6, 7 million. It's a much longer process. I mean, right. Right. Of course. What are you doing to market to that luxury, to that 1.5 million above? Honestly. Are you doing anything else? What you see on social right now, we're gearing more of our, I mean, we have current conversations with my marketing team, visual content producer, which is my editor. Nice. And I call my marketing guy, the director of brand and growth. Brand and growth, man, it's got a lot of hats.

36:56It's a team, but is it one person? No. Director of branding growth is one. And then the visual content producer is the other. Nice. I just want to make their title sound cool. Yeah. I love it. No, no, for sure. But I love the fact that you didn't just hire another salesperson. No. No, we have a transaction coordinator full time. We have marketing, full time, editor full time. Editor full time, full time. That's amazing, full time. What? What do you think? He's got a team of three, two realtors. What, they mean they? And three behind the scenes. And three behind the scenes. You're not going to see that in any other real estate company. I would imagine, especially when the ones that are 10 and above, are 10 and above. No. Our next hire is going to be another backend support. So the fact that you put a lot of emphasis into that shows. By the way, congratulations. You did the right thing, I think, in my book. Yeah, because the goal is to take care of clients. Yeah. Not your image. Yeah. You know, it's important you to take care of your clients. Right. But you need somebody to take care of your image as well. So you hire a professional to help you.

37:56Which is what we preach. Right, right. And those videos are so fun. They're really fun. Right. I'm guessing they're using drone footage and the drone to film them. Oh, yeah. But it's all custom. It's all their footage. Yeah. And those stock. No, nothing like that. No, nothing. Everything. Everything. Everything. It all looks great too. It does. None of its stock. Yeah. You'll see some, like, I don't know, maybe some stories I go out that might have something. Yeah. As Oscar started this series called Real Estate 101 because he was a newer agent. And he's like, how do we pull? I mean, it's tough to mix luxury with, like, you know, first time home. Yeah. He's like, how do we educate the first time home buyer? How do we educate people in my age on Real Estate 101? So we have a series of that where he just does like 60 to 90 seconds. So smart. You know, talking videos. Talking videos. It's giving good best practices. They have stuff. Eventually, they're going to get to that million dollar or a million and a half. 100%. So yeah. Bring them in. Yeah. It's why does Nike, why does McDonald's advertise the same thing?

38:57Yeah. Keep, you know, keep hitting them younger. So they, you know, generational branding, you know, so that's a smart play. Oscar. Good job. Yeah. Good job. As long as the content looks good, I'm sure it's. So some of that will have a little bit of B-roll. Yeah. Yeah. You talk footage of somebody shaking hands or something. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, most of their stuff is good. Because the homes you have are beautiful for kind of loud. So it's almost like you have to bring a camera on every time you go there because the visuals are cool. We've also. We've also done some stuff where we haven't put anything on social media too because we've had some like big time investor clients who are. We really respect our privacy. So you worked with them. So we're very discreet with actually a lot that we do. Don't worry, Danny. Run. No, no, no, no. No. You wouldn't tell me anyways. I wouldn't tell you. I have integrity. But I can tell you no. No. I mean, I've convinced them to let me do a real one of them or something.

39:58But no, we have some really, I mean, some amazing clients who are doing very well who have multiple properties who just don't, you know, don't they don't want their stuff out there. Right. Of course. And all of them have become really good close friends too. And it's been super cool to see that. Those relationships grow. Definitely. When that's what's all about, you know, the day, I mean, that's what I'm in my business for. It's just a building, growing relationships, you know, just kind of, you know, hey, let's go golf or let's go out or whatever or to see you because we see you each other, you know, in the restaurants in the grocery stores. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to see you at Teter. I'm sure of it. Like one of the days now that I know you. And you know, I mean, like, can I borrow your big card? Yes. Yes. I'm going to use my phone number. Cheers. But, but you know what I mean? I mean, so you can't really treat people bad around here. You can't really do the wrong thing around here because if you go out and step, people

40:58are going to, they're going to know they're going to see that. So you kind of have to live that authenticity. You don't live that truth to yourself. Yeah. Especially here because it's just so small. I know. More trials. I like it. I'm not, I'm not complaining at all. It's the Charleston marketing podcast. I love it. Charleston is the love story behind this, right? I mean, it is. So why did you stay here in Charleston? The moment I stepped foot in Charleston, something changed in me. OK. Well, first of all, though, you came here from New Jersey. So let's just go there. Shot fire. Shot fire. Shot fire. I'm aware. We'll go ahead. Yeah. I mean, so I joined the Marine Corps in 2004. And I got stationed at Beaufort was my first duty station. That was a culture shock from Jersey. I'll tell you that. 2005 Beaufort was not what it is today. Beaufort is beautiful, by the way. Yes. So cool. But I, just like every other Marine, bottom motorcycle, bunch of Marines, got to Charleston

42:00in 45 minutes. Did you get the cops out there? Wow. No, I'm going to be here. Yeah, here quick. We went to Shem Creek. Sure. And I was like, what is this? Especially coming from Beaufort in 2005. Yeah. And seeing Shem Creek, I was like, this place is magical. And like, it just, it didn't leave me. And I went back to the fleet, went to Campbell's June, whatever seas did my thing. Got approved for the officer package. Came back to Charleston to the Citadel. And I didn't want to get injured and get kicked out. I promise you. But it was just like, I don't know, an act of God or something. Universal, whatever you subscribe to. And ended up just being able to stay here. I mean, obviously, I'm not leaving. Right. So I built routes here. I built relationships here while I was in the Marine Corps. I was at the Citadel. I fell in love with Charleston. The Citadel sort of cemented that network. And then made some very good friends here. My daughter was born here. He's found your wife here? Yeah. Yeah, her mother and I met in 2000, about a year and a half after I got here.

43:07Quick. Yeah. It was pretty quick. That's a little bit longer than that, Stephen. That's pretty quick. Yeah. We've since separated. But she's an amazing mom to my daughter. She lives right down the street, like two. Oh, so. She kept that. I'm just saying build her house. I'm just saying build her house. Oh, OK. No, actually, we did build that house. Oh, no. We built that with, oh, man. It's dream finders now. It was Crescent Homes. Oh, I know. Crescent Homes. Yeah, it did a good job because I was in there every day. Hey, hey, keep it close to us. And then I built a one-hour. And then, you know, well, ours got different products at different price points. But I was also in there every day. So I've had nothing wrong with my house since I've had good then. That's cool. But you have to put termites in my house right now. True story. I can help her that. No, guys. There's not fine. I already got a tank here. All right. It's really bad. It's really bad. Our house is built in O3. And so, you know, there we have it. I mean, wood frames are going to catch.

44:07Yeah. Yeah. But anyhow. You need a bond. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all that. So how has the Charleston like real estate, how has it changed, I guess, in the last 10 years? Like, what's the biggest thing that pops out to you? Well, 10 years, five years, 10 years, it's changed a lot because of just the popularity of the city. It's like viral. Yeah, it's true. The inventory has gone through the roof because of builders coming in here and just going nuts. But the last five years, Charleston has the attention now, all right? Well, same 10 year is Charleston is center stage to so many people who never knew about it before. Last five years were accounting COVID in there. That was wild. That was a wild time. I think everybody knows what happened there. But what's happened recently is the two eyes, inventory and interest rates. So, inventory is through the roof.

45:08Interest rates are back to normal. Some would say through the roof. But so now buyers have options. They have options and they're not in a rush. So, again, that's kind of why agents are being phased out is because the amount of transactions, the speed of the transactions, was incredible. You just needed to get somebody with a pulse back to how to license and say, I want to buy that house, put it off for $50K over asking and you'd get it and you'd also have instant equity. Now it's like you have to really do the work. So, it's just changed a lot. I'm just going to continue to change. But I think interest rates have mostly leveled out. We're not seeing too much variability. We're seeing buyer behavior kind of picked back up again. Inventory last month was, I don't know, almost 6,000 homes. COVID time, it was like 1,500. Right. But we're seeing it fluctuate a lot more

46:08and we're seeing transactions move faster. Inventory might stay the same for a while, but the transaction number has gone up. So, people are listing more and buying more. I feel like moving quicker. I feel like the houses and planners point when I've been there for the past six years, a lot more people are moving now. Now, four sales signs are going up all over the place. Exactly, yeah. But also buyers are doing more in the same place. And then they're being bought as well. Like, they're flipping. I'm like, this isn't a transient neighborhood. What are you people doing? Yeah, no. It's definitely, I'd say, more of a buyer's market right now. Yeah, oh, I believe it. Realtors, you can disagree with me, but that's what I'm seeing right now. You can comment. Yeah, yeah, comment below. What's kind of wrapping it up a little bit? What's the future look like for the collective? I think we're going to continue to build our brand with intention. We're going to continue to perform according to our core values. And it's just see if we can scale,

47:09we don't really have a time table or a goal. It's really more of like, let's just continue to lean in and operate according to our core values. And you know, just build a pipeline. Right? There's really not much more that we can do. I'll tell you right now, we're just loving the journey. That's amazing. The journey is where it's at. So I don't know. It's a tough question to ask. It's actually I stumble over answering that because I'm so in the present. I'm so in the moment every single day that I don't really care where it goes. It's so rare to come into our spheres. I love it. Yeah, we're going to crush it for anybody that comes in our sphere. And we want to stay in that moment. Yeah, no, it's very refreshing. Yeah, absolutely. Because you're so people like thinking about the past, the future, and it's like you're never in the moment and actually enjoying what you're doing today. So it's really refreshing to hear. Is there any other locations that you have your eye on

48:09that you would want to get into? Are you looking for a house for your life? Are you sure? You're not married. We can talk after. Like outside of the charts in South Carolina area, just like that you think is a good place to that's very profitable. That would be a place to expand to. Yeah, I mean, there's actually a couple. I mean, I would say one is the Nashville area right now is actually. Nashville has always been a hot place. Take it off. It's right now. It's something. You're coming back again. Tampa was that Tampa flu. There's so much growth there. Yeah, I mean, I think yeah, Tampa's still got some meat on the bone, I think. Yeah, I mean, there's some areas in North Carolina too that are doing really well. I love North Carolina. Like Asheville or not so hot. I just really depend on what you're looking for. If you're like an investor or if you're looking for a primary. But there's I say, I think like North Carolina to Florida area.

49:10There's like probably five areas of interest that out. I want to actually open up another branch of Coastal Collective group. Oh, yeah. There's a future thing here. It's actually totally stole your question and went somewhere else. That's OK. That's why I asked them. Big reason. I mean, for me naming it, there's a lot of thought that went into Coastal Collective group. And I didn't want to be like Charleston specific or the logo to be Charleston specific is obviously a palm frond as our icon over. But we want to we want to expand eventually when it feels right when we meet the right partner in that area. Because again, culture core values is everything. Absolutely. So if that were to present itself, we would expand along the coast. So I'm sorry. I'm with Carolina. Maybe parts of Georgia. Yeah. And Florida. But that's maybe the answer to that last question. That's kind of like on the horizon if it works. Sure. Not getting greedy trying to drive landbows around here. It's more, again, service driven, quality driven,

50:14legacy driven. All my daughters see that her dad operated a business that was, yes, profitable, but also actually affected real change. Yeah. I love that. And that's what's all about here. Making change in Charleston. Oh my goodness. Any other random questions you got there? No, I already asked him a random poll question. You never get it. No, we're good. The random poll got to fall about. You said cool right now, but you just made me think of pool and putting a pool in your backyard is super expensive. Yeah, like 150K expenses. Wow. Unless you're doing a cocktail pool. Are you guys talking about that? We were. I'm trying to convince my husband to let us get a pool in our backyard. So he's asking. Oh my god. I did not know that. By the way. If he thought it was a good investment or not. But I like to talk to it. Yeah. Tell it to the truth. It depends on the neighborhood. That's funny. Yeah. And you're looking at between really, because you got to think you got to think landscaping, how they get back there, all the stuff, the machinery that they got to get over, fence houses, and the fencing. Maintenance afterwards. Yeah.

51:14So all of it. And like what quality pool, how big, how many gallons, all this other stuff at your backyard, look like. Yeah. And what's the opportunity cost? There's so many different things that goes into it. Depending on the neighborhood. Do this. I'd say it's mostly not a great investment. If you're in the 1.5 and above range. Well, you're not in the community, though, either. You're not in a neighborhood. No. So you don't have that pool on the neighborhood. No, we don't. We don't. So that could be something. But it depends, right? It does. It depends on the price point. And you got to look at the comps in that area. That's the head. Does anybody else have a pool? Yeah. He was saying he's selfishly if you get a lot of value out of it. And you're staying there for a long time, that makes sense. But we don't know that for sure. So we had a pool. Yeah. I appreciate it, his honesty. That's another side of it, too. If you're a pool person, you have been since birth, and you just need one, and you get a ton of value out of it, and then you maybe break even, maybe lose a little bit, then it's worth it for you. Yeah. You're just limiting the buyer pool when you go to sell.

52:16Absolutely. Which was what was surprising to me, because I feel like, at least in this area, I feel like people look for a pool. People talk about the same square footage, type of house location. But with a pool, it's between $50,000 to $100,000 more. But you do have to think, okay, if a family's coming in here, do they have little kids? Is there a fence around it? Do they want to put the maintenance in? So I didn't really think about the buyer pool, being pool. But the amount of people that you'd be losing, looking at your house. Exactly. They don't want the maintenance. The carrying costs. Yeah. Yeah, the maintenance costs. There's also, yeah, it's a lot of extra energy to use. So it's so funny, just kind of real quick. If you want to really get your husband going, right? Take a photo of your backyard. I already did it. And chat GVT. I already did it. I have like four of them. Do you have 40 dead? Yeah, I've already done it. He's not on board. But it looks great. I know. I know. It's definitely a positive and a negative to both sides.

53:17It depends on the person. Right? And how long you're going to stay there? That's the big thing. How many times you ask him? So many. He told me, go speak to Realtors. Do your research. Speak to your spoken to another Realtor. It's proof of truth. It's recorded. And one of them said a little something a little bit different. But to be honest, you hit the nail on like, how long are you going to be staying there for? Like, do you have any H.A. amenities? Like just the area itself? Is it, is a pool? Does it make sense? And I think he's going to really like you. You might have made me like, all right. This is a really long-term wish. But I just don't want to see people losing money. It's a whole job. It's so hard to get in the first place. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. It's so hard to get the money in the first place. For some people at least. Yeah. And so, a count somewhere to a high yield. Right? Right. And then when you move, you have a lot more pool money. Yeah. See, oh, it's a good point for you. I know.

54:17I know. This guy. All right, Stephen. Thank you for your time today, man. Really appreciate you having, you know, give us some time to us, you know, and hang out with Rachel and answering all her questions. You got a few. You guys are great. I'm having super comfortable. Oh, very, yeah. Very intentional. Cool for the same person. Awesome. All right. Well, thanks to the Charleston media solutions. As always, Matt, you're still awake. OK. The conversation didn't put in the sleep. So that's a win. He's been engaged the entire time. And if you're looking to buy our cell a house, this is your man. Oh, yeah. Let's talk to you the whole of you there. Yeah, if you're looking to buy yourself, give me a call, a 4.3991030, Stephen at the CoastalCollective.com. And yeah, I'd love to serve you. Let's do it. Yeah. Thanks, team. We'll talk to you next time, friends. John, what's the number one marketing question you get from business owners? Honestly, it's where should I spend my money? And how am I going to get more customers?

55:18And that's exactly why we're launching Media Made Easy. Every episode will tackle the real marketing questions about advertising, AI, social media, search, radio, and everything in between. No marketing jargon, just real talk. Just honest answers from people who do this every day. Fine. Media made easy on Charleston marketing podcasts, wherever you listen. That was fun, right? Yeah.