Tami Pardee on how her model has allowed her to excel

HousingWire

This week on RealTrending, Tracey Velt chats with Tami Pardee, founder of Pardee Properties in Venice, California.   Tami shares how she brought a production-style model from the entertainment industry into real estate and built a high-touch, high-performing boutique brokerage. She also talks about how she tripled sales during the wildfires, uses the tools from an AI collective to empower her agents, and helps homeless women through her Life Change Warriors program.   Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:  Tami transformed her entertainment production experience into a real estate model.  She created a task force to help clients during the wildfires.  AI is a crucial tool for staying competitive in real estate.  Life Change Warriors empowers homeless individuals through support and education.  Building a strong company culture enhances agent performance.   Related to this episode:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠Pardee Properties⁠  https://pardeeproperties.com/  ⁠Tami Pardee⁠  https://pardeeproperties.com/team/tami-pardee/  ⁠Tami Pardee, MBA - Pardee Properties | LinkedIn⁠  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamipardee/  ⁠Life Change Warriors⁠  https://www.lifechangewarriors.org/⁠⁠  HousingWire | YouTube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠More info about HousingWire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  https://lnk.bio/housingwire   The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

Transcript

00:00how are you changing lives in real estate it could be through the work that you do selling

00:05properties um but there's also the charitable types of things today i spoke with tammy party

00:13she's the creator of party properties in venice california and she not only talks about the

00:19changes that she's able to make with ai and being part of an ai collective but she talks about her

00:26charity life change warriors and how she's changing lives of homeless women in her area so enjoy the

00:33podcast and start changing lives tammy welcome back to the podcast thank you it's good to see you tracy

00:42yeah it's been many years so we have a lot to catch up on um and i just want to start with um you know

00:49tell me a little bit about how your vision for your company how it started and how you know since

00:58then it's how it's been impacted and and what how your strategy has really changed over the years

01:04sure um you know when i started in real estate i was actually in production i used to do

01:10entertainment production and i was flipping houses on the side so i would you know work in production

01:16i'd flip houses on the side and i didn't i'd sell them and i didn't like what real estate agents were

01:21doing i was like there's got to be more there's got to be a better way so what i did is i overlaid

01:26what i learned in the entertainment industry into real estate because it's very similar it's like

01:31there's a pre-production approach production and a post-production so what i thought was is they're all

01:37different jobs so what i did is i i basically took those and i i structured a team and i structured a

01:44team way before people were using teams and i did it using that so i like there's one person that

01:49takes it through which is the listing agent but then we have somebody that preps the house somebody

01:55that's there during you know show doing the showings and and then somebody that closes it out and that's

02:01been great and then there's the overlay of the listing agent so everybody has their individual

02:05specialties and it's been really amazing because everybody has so much experience in what they're

02:12doing so really overlaid the i mean use the entertainment industry to to give me a model

02:17a new model in real estate if you will yeah and so you have three offices now right i do i do have

02:23three offices one in the desert culver city and then in venice yeah okay um and i know before we started

02:29recording we were talking a little bit about the wildfire so tell me how has that impacted you

02:35um in your sales you know during and now after yeah so that was a really hard time for us in los

02:43angeles for everybody impacted it it's been an intense it's been an intense year so right away like

02:49for me because it's about my clients and the people right so right away what we put together as a task

02:55force because right away it was about people getting in houses quickly and efficiently so we put together a

03:00five-person task force and what we became as matchmakers for those people and those were

03:05really just for leases and for us we're not really in the leasing business but i saw the need and and

03:11that's what people needed so we went out we collected and you'd be amazed at how many second homes are in

03:17los angeles you would be amazed so it was incredible all these people and we worked with that you know the

03:23la times helped us as well did a big article and helped bring us in people that had second homes and

03:28we matched them with those in need so we had that task force going which was incredible to get people

03:33into housing right away that were in hotels or staying at friends houses or or anything so we did

03:39that we we placed about 300 people in that which was absolutely incredible and that was a free service

03:44we just did it we went out to all the schools everybody so we did that during this you know during

03:50that i think the first two weeks i think nobody really knew what what to do we did have a lot of you

03:56know we had a lot of sales right away though that of houses that we had currently on the market that

04:01were a little more stagnant that sold right away and it was interesting because they'd sell it with

04:06i mean i had one family that came in and she had a baby so and i had one family selling that had a baby

04:12and they were like can we have can we buy your house and we buy literally everything in your house

04:18to the crib i mean they bought everything because my other family was moving to tow it was just it was just

04:24beautiful so it was a lot of almost like a matchmaking of energies and people so the sales

04:30really escalated in february so february is kind of a slower month in our area usually you know and it

04:37tripled that month in sales so and since then it's been a lot the market has definitely been active um

04:44you know i think with the interest rates it's been a little bit difficult with the people that needed

04:47houses there have been a lot of sales due to the fires um of people you know buying and and

04:53also a lot of people which i love is they've been buying small because palisades had very large

04:58houses and they've been buying smaller houses for the like by the beach or closer that they're kind

05:03of like in a little house with their families and it's been beautiful actually are you seeing a lot

05:09of movement in the in the palisades market as far as clearing out rebuilding um it's mixed it's it's

05:17very you know at first it was like everybody was going to stay and rebuild and now there's a lot

05:22more lots on the market i think there's about 200 lots currently on the market so a lot of people

05:26are deciding well they don't want to or a lot of people of those people had second homes and they're

05:30actually moving to their where their second homes was so it's still every you know every week it kind

05:36of shifts it's actually been a very um a windy road as i say on it so i think people are really

05:41navigating and what they want to do with their lives and people that were saying like i want to retire

05:45i want to move here in 10 years are doing it sooner or they're moving to a different place

05:50sooner especially because people can work in other areas now yeah that makes a lot of sense um i do

05:56want to say you're you're one of la's like largest female owned um businesses congratulations on that

06:03i know you've been high up in our rankings uh the realtors verified rankings for years now um and so

06:10tell me how you scale culture um as you've grown from the very beginning so here's here's where i'm

06:19i'm so how i'm different from the larger like the larger brokerages is i'm a boutique brokerage but

06:24we have we do a lot of business as you know we're in track to do about 700 650 to 700 million this year

06:32i believe that agents i don't want to have 500 agents i want to have 30 agents that are high

06:38producing agents where my quality control can be incredible so we give our agents a lot of support so

06:44we have an operations team with five guys on our team that a couple trucks that are always like

06:49going and cleaning our houses i mean we want to give our agents a lot of support they don't do their

06:54own signs we have an entire sign department so we want to really make our agents top producing agents

07:00every agent that works for us um and so that alone like because we only have about 50 people at our

07:06entire company we're able to be a work family so i think then when you scale and you have thousands of

07:12people how does everyone know like when's your birthday you know what's when your kid's going

07:16to college so all of that's really important and then we do do like i just actually did this weekend

07:21we i took everyone like my top producers away for a few days we went to palm desert and just have fun

07:27and just like celebrate and be together i also intimately know all of my agents like what's going on in

07:34their life you know what how can i help you and because everybody has has things that happen in

07:40their life and it's important to know them intimately because this is a it's a work family really yeah

07:45yeah absolutely and um the the one thing uh you run as a team rich though correct we do we do run as a

07:53team rich yes yeah yes um and the one thing i have noticed in analyzing uh the real trends rankings is that

08:00the small teams definitely do more sides per agent yeah and more volume per agent um and i wonder if

08:08it is because of that high touch you know you have a small team high touch with them yeah i mean we have

08:15a small team yeah exactly we have a i mean what would be considered a small team i guess um it's funny

08:19it used to be considered a big team yeah i know but but we have you know i don't i don't ever want to

08:25grow and i want everyone to feel comfortable i think people need to feel comfortable and a sense

08:29of belonging when they're in a company and i that to me is more important than having you know so

08:35many agents on yeah yeah and when i was doing this analysis i was looking at 50 um agents and under

08:42as a small team believe it or not i know when i started in the businesses i said there weren't teams

08:49like yeah it was one-off agents and then we started this and then it was funny then everyone started

08:54you know getting bigger and bigger teams but i i prefer to have it under 50 agents yeah definitely

09:00so you've worked with obviously celebrities tech innovators um renowned architects i know that you

09:06have advised developers like um frank gary and marmal radzen i'm not sure redzener okay yeah

09:14so tell me how you balance that high touch with um running a high volume operation and how do you

09:21manage um you know i want to do touch on private listings since you do work with a lot of celebrities

09:26and and higher profile clients um tell me a little bit about how you service them that might be a little

09:34different um from those working with um you know a different a different client yeah so i so a lot of

09:41people want to have a private listing because they don't want all their information out so what we do is

09:46we work with the brokers in the area too and we take that information out to them we also go on tan

09:51network as well and then we also leverage we have 22 000 people in our database that we leverage it

09:57too i'm also a member of ypo which is a organization um with ceo so i leverage that as well so you know

10:05really depending on who it is and what they want is how we kind of navigate that at the end you know we

10:11do know the buyers in the area we've been doing this for a long time so we have a very high touch

10:16with who is the buyer right now and there's a lot of times there might be a private listing but we know

10:22we know who's looking at the public listings and so we just bring them we bring them over to a private

10:27listing as well okay yeah and so what percentage do you feel like your of your listings are private

10:33um because i do feel like the luxury market especially in la is different yeah i mean it it depends it

10:40really depends i would say about i'd say about 15 of them are private or just one-on-one yeah yeah so

10:47i mean that's a pretty that's a pretty high percentage and i do think you know this whole

10:51kind of controversy over it isn't considering that um you know there are there are ideal times that

10:59you want to have a listing private or that the client wants the listing the consumer wants the listing

11:05private um there are instances where it makes a lot of sense and especially in a market like yours

11:11it seems to me that it does make sense um yeah you know if that's what the customer wants obviously

11:18it does the thing that they we do miss on private listings is the international the people that are

11:24there's a lot of people that are behind the lines on their computers people that you would never expect

11:29yeah that when some zillow calls you're like wait who is this yeah wait a minute you know or

11:36yeah or just people coming into open houses that you would never expect so you do you do usually end

11:42up with a little bit more money if you bring it on online but there's there's a trade-off there

11:47there's definitely a trade-off so yeah as long as the consumer understands that um you know it's

11:52just about being transparent exactly transparency is important and we always we always we have

11:58actually we talk about we call them whisper campaigns for the privates and so we um we

12:02talk about that with the clients always yeah yeah so you've had a lot um you know just in general in

12:11in your market with the fires with covid with you know the commission post you know post settlement

12:16it's been a little chaotic these past four years or so um so as a leader how do you stay nimble how

12:25you know what are some things that you do to really um be forward thinking and stay nimble in

12:31these types of markets i mean so i sit down and i have a i have a time every morning that i strategically

12:39think and i actually spend time on my own sitting in my rocking chair i know it sounds silly with my tea

12:46and now with my ai thought partner too um really just thinking about things i i put everything in a

12:53bucket and then i'm like okay how how can we do this better what do we need to be doing i mean

12:59and then i have a think tank after i have my strategic thinking i bring in my you know really

13:04my my top four people at my company and i say like these are my thoughts what are you thinking where

13:10where am i missing things so i think for us it's been amazing because i feel like for our company we've

13:16been at the leading edge of so many things but we're so small like you know we had a you know

13:22compass concierge came with that whole thing they you know they got that because one of our agents

13:27had gone to compass and told them they had to do like this this is what they're doing you know we

13:31had two two handymen on our staff we would go basically flip people's houses before and pay for

13:37it yeah so for me i'm like what are the pain points of the deal and how can we make it better

13:43so when zillow came in you know 17 years ago or something i embraced zillow i was like this is amazing

13:49all the other agents were like oh my gosh why would you ever want to use zillow yeah same thing

13:54so then we did the party prep we call it party prep and then like with ai right now oh my gosh i am

14:00so deep in ai right now it's incredible so i joined an ai collective i'm in ypo so i get a lot of um

14:07i get a lot of um tips from when i go to the you know when i go to my ypo conventions and i bring

14:14them into real estate into our brokerage so it's been fascinating what we can do

14:18so tell me some of the applications that you're using it for on ai yeah you mean yeah so i'm using

14:26it right now so i'm in the ai collective so i joined an ai collective i went to barcelona and i was at the

14:32ypo edge conference i met jeff woods who was in charge of the ai collective so i basically been going

14:38in there and there's a there's a hundred of us in the ai collective and we're really just learning on

14:44how best to navigate ai together like before our call i just got off a call with an a couple people

14:50so we're looking at it in several ways i mean i'm believe it or not we're using chat but we're using

14:54it in a way that people are not using chat gpt we're using it as a thought partner which and we're

15:00really bringing in people like i can be on and i can say i want five people i use ai to do this i want

15:07to bring in um barbara korkin korkin you know gary keller tom ferry i want to bring in brene brown

15:14because i love her i want to bring in michelle obama i bring them all in to my ai and i ask them

15:20questions on how they would deal with a certain situation in real estate so i've trained all of

15:25my agents on how to do that and it's incredible because we know what we're doing but sometimes we're

15:32stuck in a little bit of a box and we want to be see see the world right as real estate agents and

15:38brokers and so that has been it's been mind-blowing actually and it's been really really effective for

15:45us and i'm really like we're kind of leading the charge on this with our agents and it's been

15:50it's been incredible actually so yeah i never really thought of it like that like i use it um i use it for

15:57like just analyzing some of the data that we bring in and kind of getting takeaways from it or

16:03coming up with like a compelling headline um things like that but i never thought of it to actually

16:09you know say think you know go into the mind of so and so and tell me how they would solve this

16:14problem that's i love that i love that that's something i've not heard either from other people

16:19so go ahead it's fun it's fun it's just so it's just every day is like i'm like how can ai help

16:27hey how can ai help you know because i want to be out there with my clients i want my agents sitting

16:32there being with who they're talking to and and not doing the minutiae so we just got off a call with

16:38another um ai company that we're you know looking at bringing in ai they call them agents but i call

16:43them assistants because it gets confusing and real estate views agent agent of how can we navigate

16:49this better and quicker for our agents or our real estate agents can have more time and doing what

16:56they do best so i've never heard of the ai collective so tell me what that is so it's a

17:01group so it's a group of ceos um basically it's with jeff woods he wrote the ai driven leader and he

17:09formed a collective and i were i'm in the first collective he did um and i joined it and i'm loving

17:15it i'm learning so much i mean we have a what's up we you know we had a meeting yesterday

17:19we meet a couple times a month and then i go i just came from the conference in austin

17:24so and it's really it's really like brainstorming on how best can we navigate this to help our

17:29businesses grow and i feel like with me at pardee properties i've always been on the cutting edge we

17:36might be small but we're nimble and i we can change things on a dime and we can implement things quickly

17:42and efficiently so that's what we're doing so is it all different industries it's not just real

17:47estate then no it's all different i don't i i don't get a lot when i go to industry

17:52yeah things it's like i've been doing this for a long time it's there's nothing groundbreaking for

17:56me when i go there so what i do is i always go to different industries and different conventions

18:03in case no one's seeing me usually at the big ones yeah and i'm like okay how can i take what they're

18:08doing and implement into real estate to have a better experience for my clients so for this ai

18:16collective do they have uh do they keep it small yeah um so you have different ones you can join

18:23no i mean they it's just it's called the ai collective but they do keep it it's only a hundred

18:27people there's only a hundred people in this one i didn't know if it was like you know like the the i

18:32think it's ypo does different chapters right they have different so i didn't know if it was something

18:36like that or it was just one okay so yeah so it's just one and it's ceos from around the country or

18:43worldwide okay around the world yeah i mean you could learn so much from that um is there one i know

18:50i'm putting you on the spot but is there one takeaway that you've kind of gotten that you think our

18:56audience could really learn from i mean i you know pulling in different people and really learning

19:03at ai and leveraging it i mean for instance there's so many different things that you can

19:08do with it but i love the fact of pulling in who i want is it like i'll i'll sit there and i'll say

19:13i have a client you know this is where they're tech like they're data driven so i will bring in data

19:19driven people and sometimes i'll ask ai who would be the best to pull in for this and then i'll use

19:25that information to ask how to best you know respond to the client and it's not that i you

19:32know just give it over to ai and say that is not it at all i mean it can hallucinate it there can be

19:37major problems so but it gives me really great ideas and i also want it to be like for us it's

19:43like a very high touch point so i want the connection i want you know the voice of brene brown

19:48like outlining some things i want you know it just depends on who it is i mean i you know i use

19:54all different people jim collins from good to great i'm like pull him in let's pull him in

19:59and talk to him for a little bit no i think that's a great idea i love that so um i want

20:05to talk about your charitable giving because you have life change warriors and i know when we last

20:09talked that stuck in my head is like you know i love that idea so why don't you explain to our

20:16audience what that is and how it's evolved over the years because i know you said you kind of had

20:20the shutdown during covet and you restarted so yeah give me the background on that and and where

20:25you are today so basically where we live i live in venice and there's a lot of you know homelessness

20:31is it was very it's tough and and yeah what i realized is is that i mean we're all people you

20:36know there's a everyone's a person at that anyone that's out there on the streets they were a daughter

20:42or a son or a best friend and they had a first kiss you know they yeah they're people and i have the

20:48chills when i say that um a lot of them just like kind of like had you know like ended up on the

20:57streets for a reason for for no you know for whatever it is so my goal is is that i want

21:03everyone to live in their best life and so what we've done with life change life change warriors is

21:09we go to you know shelters but it's not shelters it's like um harvest home which is a home for homeless

21:15pregnant women and we teach like a 16 hour course to them and we go through their past present and

21:22future so we go through their lifelines and there's usually 16 people in the group about 16 people

21:28um and this is all women this this one group obviously and we will go in and they'll tell

21:33all their stories and it's like once everyone starts in a group telling their stories they're like

21:39everybody has a story and then all of a sudden it's interesting because they haven't really done

21:43it and group a lot of them and they're like oh wait it happened to you it happened to you and you

21:48know for me when i grew up i had a lot of trauma in my background and when i started healing myself

21:53and doing all the work i was like wait i can do this because i have money to do it like i'm able to go

21:59to therapy i'm able to go you know to hoffman i'm able to go do all of these things but these

22:04people that have no money they're not able to to even experience that so we basically there's about

22:10five or six things that most of these kind of self-help places do and so we put together that

22:15for them and we take them through that process and it's incredible because they're seen they're like

22:21oh i'm not stuck here this isn't who i am i can get to the other side and we've had such great

22:28experiences of these women really going from homeless and actually having jobs and you know a lot of them

22:36we put a lot of them in um actually it's a funny affordable you know housing we i have a friend that

22:40does affordable housing and he has man they're managing their affordable housing so they're living

22:44in the affordable housing but they're the managers there and they actually have the job of doing that

22:49so to me i've been so fortunate i want to make sure i get back and since i'm in the housing you know

22:57business and real estate i want to make sure that the homeless aren't overlooked and that was the best way

23:02i knew how to do it and it's very effective it had to you know with covet it had to stop because

23:07we couldn't it's not effective over zoom it's just not it's in person so we're just like we're revamping

23:14up we were actually going to do it in january and then the fires happened so now we're revamping it

23:18it's like yeah okay yeah so i mean i just think that's so impactful um especially with small groups like

23:27that um and i love it i'll be i'll i can't wait to hear more about it once you've got it ramped back

23:32up again and yeah and you know they're how you're tweaking it and and what you're doing yeah we're

23:37also actually taking them at the end of the course they actually they actually make a life plan like

23:42a life board in the life plan and then they on the steps and they take the steps and it's amazing the

23:47little tweaks in life you can do and just be like have confidence and feel okay and then you can

23:52go launch your own life and so that's why yeah yeah it's called and now with that part of your

23:58trauma your diagnosis with ms and is that what shaped you um you know in your in your career

24:05how has that shaped you i guess in your career and with your charitable the ms you know when i got

24:12diagnosed with ms at 29 i was like it really made me realize like this is like my only life and so i

24:18want to live it to my best and so it really did like every day it wasn't like oh i just you know

24:24i didn't want to let a day go by that i wasn't doing something actively to make everyone's life

24:30better and so that's like i literally every single day i'm like okay how can i how can i make my life

24:36better how can i make my family's life better how can i make my agent's life better and how can i make

24:40just people's life better so it really impacted me but you know it's a silver lining sometimes those are

24:46those are signs and those are those are when something happens to you it's like there somebody's

24:52trying to tell you something yeah it's a message for sure yes i agree yeah so i i two more questions

25:00because i know we're running short on time sure but i want to talk since you're you're out there

25:04you're going to a lot of different meetings outside companies like what are some of the trends

25:07that you're seeing that could impact agents or the industry or brokers um you know within the next

25:15year or so i mean ai it's all ai it's i mean if you're not on and i said this i said this at a

25:21conference i was speaking it was funny the other day and i was like if you're not on the bus with ai

25:27you will be left behind and everyone i i don't think they liked my speech i think they liked that i said

25:33that they were like people were so upset but the thing is is that you it's like zillow when zillow came

25:38on i embraced it instead of like shunning it embrace it and be like how is this going to make my life

25:44better how am i going to be better at my job like what can i do and that is you know it's not

25:50replacing us it's a partner to us we're the leaders and it's a partner and leveraging it like

25:57that is really really important so but ai if you're not i mean i will say that i strongly believe if

26:04you're not on that bus it's you're you're going to be left behind for sure yeah yeah i agree i mean

26:10it's everywhere right now and yeah just navigating it can be difficult but um sometimes you just have

26:17to jump in and just baby steps too you know like i started baby steps i just talk to it all the time

26:23and you know it's kind of knows it knows who i am it's like tammy ai is also out there you know i mean

26:28my goal ultimately is is to recreate myself as a virtual person or virtual ai so that when my agents have

26:36questions they can ask my ai you know persona before they even ask ask me and and and we have

26:44so much information from the last 20 years that we're putting in our ai platform that it's basically

26:50knows everything that we've done so it's it's incredible it's incredible instead of holding it all

26:56in our minds yeah exactly that doesn't always work for me it's like oh gosh

27:02so i wanted you to leave our audience with one um piece of advice for to kind of

27:11grow a brand with impact and staying power um it could you know whether you're speaking to brokers

27:17or agents what is that one piece of advice you could leave them with i think adaptability like

27:22embrace change i think that embrace change be curious and and just kind of go with the flow if

27:30something is flowing like i always say red light green light i'm like if i go and i feel like a

27:35stop i'm like wait but if there's a yellow light or a green light i'm like let's open it up and be

27:39curious and explore it because then you're going to be at the cutting edge and then things are still

27:44exciting too for you and your team right so just keep looking at life and looking what we're doing

27:49and and embrace it and be like and at the core we're helping people in one of the most important

27:54decisions of their life and that's such an honor and a gift but our goal is is to remain curious be

28:01open and be on that cutting edge of what's next yeah absolutely well tammy thanks so much for

28:07joining real trending it's always a pleasure to speak with you tracy thank you it was such a pleasure

28:12thank you all right have a good one

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