From #FASTAGENT to #TEAMFAST Kenny Troung Makes Everything Go Faster - #76 Kenny Troung

The “overnight success” story almost never is, and Kenny Troung is refreshingly blunt about that. He walked into real estate through recession-era odd jobs, then built a career by outworking the basics and obsessively testing distribution, from early IDX websites and blogging to Redfin partner insights, YouTube walkthroughs, newsletters, and the kind of local visibility you could not ignore around Oakland.

We talk about what actually drove his rise as a top East Bay real estate agent: creating an ecosystem where every platform points back to a clear brand, then pairing that marketing machine with real operational choices like coaching for accountability and delegating fast. Kenny shares how he thinks about virtual assistants, transaction support, and the 80% rule for handing work off, plus why many agents struggle to survive their first year without a sphere and without a consistent plan to be discoverable.

Then we get current. Kenny explains why Instagram pays off, why he wishes he had leaned into YouTube sooner, and how AI tools like ChatGPT are changing his real estate marketing into a scalable content factory. We also dig into Oakland and Berkeley market signals: slower listings outside prime neighborhoods, the condo reset, rent trends, and how tech money can (and cannot) trickle down into the East Bay.

If you got value from this conversation, subscribe, share it with one agent who needs a new playbook, and leave a review so more East Bay buyers, sellers, and agents can find the show.

Kenny Troung is a licensed CA REALTOR® DRE#01861788

You can follow Kenny on IG @kenny_fast

Declan Spring is a licensed CA REALTOR® DRE#01398898

Transcript

Rebrand And Video Plans

Declan 0:00

This is Declan Spring, and welcome to the East Bay Real Estate Podcast. Yeah, that's right. I've decided to rebrand the podcast with a title that really and truly reflects what it's become. You know, I've played around with a few different names over the years. This podcast was born out of a need during lockdown and the pandemic to uh, you know, continue to be part of the East Bay real estate community and to provide service. And uh so it was originally called Let's Talk with Declan Spring. And then, you know, I realized we're really, really just talking about real estate. So it became the mostly real estate podcast. But I finally settled on what it truly is the East Bay real estate podcast. This podcast is truly a who's who of East Bay heavyweights, and I believe it's become something vital for the real estate community here. It's a veritable library of conversations with people who matter. Now, out of respect for all of my guests, it's also time to bring the video to the show. That that's not happening today, but it does need to happen this year. And to make that a reality, I'm looking for just the right person, somebody you know who's excited about YouTube, social media, and being part of building a brand. So if you're somebody who enjoys creating content, you want to take a risk on a brand, you want to watch a brand grow and become part of that, or if you know somebody who fits that description, I'd love to hear from you or from them. The easiest thing to do to reach out at my email address, and that is declan at the homefactor.com. So that's enough housekeeping for now. Today's

Meet Kenny Chung Fast Agent

Declan 1:56

guest is fast agent Kenny Troung. Now, I've never actually had the chance to chat with Kenny before this conversation, but I've always admired what he's done with his brand. It's everywhere, and it's memorable. And fair warning though, Kenny talks fast. I found myself working hard just to keep up. Kenny's been helping buyers and sellers since about 2011 or thereabouts. He's become one of the East Bay's top producing realtors, uh, and then some, with now a massive team of over 200 agents. And he's based out of Oakland's Jack London Square. I had the pleasure of visiting them there. He's got a whole studio set up there. He's built a reputation for combining cutting-edge technology with a relentless marketing uh campaign of all sorts and exceptional client services. And he's just become one of the Bay Area's most recognizable faces and brands in real estate. And now I bring you my conversation with Kenny Chung.

From Recession Gigs To Real Estate

Declan 3:01

I'm here with Kenny Trung. Uh I can't believe you and I haven't chatted before, but it it's I'm so pleased to have you on the podcast. And there's so many things I want to talk to you about. But I'm really grateful you're you agreed to come on. I think anything you have to say is going to be uh it's gonna be welcomed by people who are newer to the business because you have grown. You grew so fast, and there's many realtors who struggle in the first several years, and man, you did not seem to have that problem. I might be wrong. Thank you, Kenny Chong, for being on the podcast. Listen, well, I want to ask you where you're where were you born and raised?

Kenny 3:36

Uh born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. But my parents moved to Oakland, California when I was three, and that's when they had my brother. So I've been living here since uh 1987.

Declan 3:47

That's really interesting. I had no idea. Do you go back to Canada often? You have family there?

Kenny 3:51

Once every couple years. I have I went for a wedding two years ago, and then I'm planning to go back this October for my aunt's uh 75th birthday.

Declan 3:58

Oh, yeah, congratulations to her. Congratulations to her. So, what were you doing that, you know, this is always the question. Realtors are a funny bunch. It's often not a first career. That's what we always find, you know. Andrea Gordon always says, scratch a realtor and you'll find something else under the surface. So, what originally drew you into real estate?

Kenny 4:19

I randomly fell into it. I was working a lot of marketing random jobs I found on Crazy List. There are gigs during the recession after the market tanked in like 08. Yeah. Um, I found some weird jobs, like the one that landed me here in real estate was to go to the Myriad Hotel and bring back palettes of auction.com signs, those big bright yellow ones back in the day or bright blue. And I brought a lot of them back, and then realtors picked them up from my porch. So I just did like a transfer thing to uh to my house. And then some realtors had the courtesy to knock on my door or ring and say, Hey, this is okay. I grabbed these like, yeah, go for it. You're supposed to just come grab it. Yeah. Uh, and I met this really funny, really large Nigerian guy that was he was like super funny, hilarious. I think it was Sunday Peters, and we hit it off on the spot. And he asked, and this is like a Friday, I was in my pajamas in my pajamas, and he was like, You want me an assistant? And I was like, Yeah, sure. Like, and so I just started work next Monday uh as his assistant doing kind of like entry-level work, like BPOs, doing uh comps price analysis, installing lockboxes. Uh he did a lot of uh foreclosures and bank notes, so I kind of toured those properties, make sure they're like okay in good condition, stuff like that.

Declan 5:33

Yeah, yeah. It was a different world for anyone who doesn't know what a BPO is, a bro, a broker price opinion. Yeah. And they were a big part. So you got your stars really in the recession.

Kenny 5:41

Yeah, in uh oh wait.

Declan 5:43

It it's phenomenal to look back at the kind of prices we had, and that wasn't too far back.

Kenny 5:48

Yeah, I was pretty of sorry. You could buy homes for like under a hundred thousand, yeah, a hundred thousand dollars uh that year.

Declan 5:54

I was I remember like I was reading a lot of books because I was not a business person, right? It was I'm an art background, right? So I was reading a lot of books, and I and I would I read repeatedly that um an awful lot of time greatest wealth is accumulated during downturns and in in recessions. And I was looking around and I was like, how can that be? But you look back now, you're like, oh yeah, I get it. That's fascinating. So you so you decided I'm gonna get my license.

Kenny 6:20

Yeah, I did that for a year while I was working other stuff. I was working like a Walmart, I was working at uh different companies like moving, like I worked, I worked at not for Facebook, worked at Facebook and Pixar and Google moving computer monitors and systems all around. So again, really weird stuff. Uh worked for Sony inside of Walmart, demoing the games, worked for like alcohol tastings at like your Bevmo and stuff like that. And that was all during the same time I was doing the sign company stuff. Uh so I did this. Oh, then sign company, I also like went to 130 homes a month on average to put the signs in the ground, those big yellow ones. Yes, yeah. So I and I were stapled them to the garage. So I've I drove to a thousand homes before I even got like my license. And then I realized how I won't say easy, but I I realized how easy my broke that that uh person made real estate. Look, like you're you just telling me that the bank just gives you homes to list at a way different time, but then and you're telling me if I just hold up open houses, people come talk to me and I just want to buy the house. And there were like that uh in that market, it was a lot of investors. Yeah, it wasn't your traditional real estate, residential real estate, because people are losing their homes. It wasn't uh very relationship-based. Uh, it was more like strategy and helping them save what they can or getting the best deal. Yeah. But yeah, I did the unlicensed assistant for a year, and then I decided, hey, I'm gonna I jump into selling real estate because it doesn't seem that hard. You just get people to talk to you.

Declan 7:39

Yeah. I I think that I think that's definitely, you know, that that's definitely the thing about real estate and why there's so many huge numbers of people who are licensed. But then but then you discover like how many agents didn't, you know, close a transaction last year. Right, right. So it's a low barrier to entry and it's it's seemingly fairly fairly simple, right? Like you just said, I just talk to some people, sell some houses. Yeah, but not everybody can do it. It's not as easy as they had it in their minds, right?

Kenny 8:10

Yeah, it's not just the talking people because most people can talk to people. Like most realtors are high eye, or most people just naturally pre like social media, right? Yeah, most people are just easy to talk to because you don't you don't find people online, you just have conversations. But back then, I think to this day, it's still like prospecting. How do you create business for yourself? How do you get people to talk to you or find you? How do you like make more connections? Which which now is much a much bigger challenge for a lot of people because the space is so competitive.

Building An Early Lead Ecosystem

Declan 8:35

It is very competitive. So walk me through your first, you know, your first successful couple of years in in real estate. Because you rose, I mean, you rose very, very quickly. I mean, I remember you were a guy who was using social media in ways that nobody else was at the time. I mean, that's you know, and you had you you're a brilliant marketer, and and you were able to, you were able to just harness the power of great marketing right at the time when social media was taking off.

Kenny 9:03

Yeah, but a little bit of social media, a little bit of other things. Um, I remember I sold like 60 homes to my first buyer. Yes, and it ended up buying this home for like $60,000 in Richmond. Um so I made like $700. I don't think this is really worth it, but then I still got licensed. But my first year of seriously selling real estate, um, which was the following March, from March to December, I actually ended up closing 24 deals. Okay. My next year I closed 25 deals um because I kind of leveraged not just social media. Social media was barely picking up what years what years were those. Uh that was oh nine. Okay. That's pretty respectable numbers. What I did effectively was I I took my brokers. Then I when I've uh when I've got licensed, I joined a different company. Um my one of my close friends' sister was trying to recruit me to a small company, smart that year, yeah, called Michael James Real Estate. Okay. Or essentially 21 and Michael James Real Estate. The year before, they had like 120 agents 12 months ago. And when I joined, they had six. So the market kind of completely collapsed. Uh, but then my that broker picked up an REO account, so he's working on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and some other asset companies. Got it. So I did some things like I I manually uploaded every single listing. There wasn't IDX feed, so Zillow. Zillow just started that like pre, it was like pre-it had Zillow's existing, but it was like pre what what you think of is now. Uh like Zillow and truly I didn't have a feed, so I manually took every photo and uploaded it. It's kind of like essentially doing a listing entry. Yeah, like on our MLS. I did that manually for every uh property. Uh so then I got cloud got feedback from that. And then I built that website myself. Turns out I spent like 100 hours building a website on Flash. Turns out Flash has no SEO, so I had to throw away the whole thing. Uh and then paid my friend to build me a website on WordPress. And I actually I was actually the uh very first agent that I know of in the Bay Area or Northern California that had IDX on their website. Right. I saw some guy in San Diego have it. It was like revolutionary. So this is a way, way like different time. Yes. And then on the signs I stabbed in the ground at you know, foreclosure auction, I had these cheap visa print business cards, a free one. I stapled them to the back of the signs because no one, no one could get a hold of the REO agents because they were managing, you know, 20, 30 homes at a time. Yeah, you just couldn't get a hold of it. So yeah, between that, Craigslist, Zillow, Trillia, I was blogging on um for our website, I was blogging, but but I was also blogging and on Trulia and on my website. I kind of created a huge uh ecosystem and sphere of like of people finding me.

Declan 11:30

Yes.

Kenny 11:31

And then social media, I think only really started my second year-ish, because Instagram came out that year, I remember, but Instagram only had an Android app. Yeah. So I saw my my very first post of on Instagram. You want to scroll back 16 years is a picture of a screenshot of the Android. Hey, you're welcome to Instagram. Wow. Um, so this like all the stuff you can't really replicate now.

Declan 11:53

I so I I do want to just pause for a second because I I just want to highlight one thing. Is you know, you said earlier you you'd you'd seen how uh how people were were working and it seemed fairly easy in your mind. You know, you talk you'd sell some houses, like not too hard to get into. But what you're describing actually is an an extraordinary level of work. I mean, the amount of work you must have been putting in incredible hours.

Kenny 12:21

Probably like 70 a week. Um also very young, had a lot of energy. Sure. Work late in the office and go go go out late at night, start over again every morning. It was just like Yeah, but you're trying everything. Oh, yeah, trying, trying every single thing I could do.

Declan 12:35

I mean, it's unbelievable because I, you know, I was in the industry then as well, and and uh gosh, I worked hard as well. But um, but the the amount of things you were trying, it's like I can see your mind like processing, testing everything, finding your way, filtering what's working, what's not working.

Kenny 12:50

There was a couple other things I really took off too. Um some things that I I thought were like HomeSnap before homes.com acquired them many years ago, had this app where if you took a photo of a house while you're there, you will rank high on their app and be visible.

Declan 13:03

Yeah.

Kenny 13:03

Uh and then on Redfin, I signed up as a partner agent, my third year in. That year, my third year, I ended up doing 52 deals. 23 were from Redfin. So I was number one across all seven counties. Right. But on Redfin, you could leave partner insights. And if you did leave a partner insight, that listing on the search on the search screen, on the UI, would that whatever listings had um insights would pop up to the very top right. They would like prioritize them. So then I would write really funny, um, dumb educational insights on properties. Then I would actually link and say, dah dah dah, dah, and then I'll link them here, here's uh more information on property. I I probably can't do that now legally, or they wouldn't let it. And then went back to kennytrung.com slash blah blah blah blah. And then on the website, my website, Kenny Trung, um during that time too, I during my third, four, fifth year, I think recorded like almost 300 videos, walkthroughs, yeah, with my GoPro, my really crappy uh buggy eye, fish eye. I'll host the videos on YouTube and embed them on my website, kennytrung.com, and then retfin are right funny tour tour insights, redirecting them to Kenny Trung. Um, so if you're on Home Snap, on Trillium, on Redfin, on something else, on um whatever, like Craigslist, I there I am.

Declan 14:13

It's unbelievable. It it because a lot of agents, right, what they're looking for is they're looking for help, they're looking for a thing to bypass, you know, they're looking for a hack. They're, you know, they're they're trying to find a way in. You know, what you did is you like took massive ownership of your of your career and you tried, you tried everything. But as you said, you built an ecosystem, which is extraordinary. Honestly, I talk to a lot of agents, and I have never heard of anybody doing this level of work, you know, across every single thinkable, imaginable platform, especially back then, like 2012, you know. I mean, let's see, iPhone came out in 07.

Kenny 14:52

Something stupid that I was doing all the time too. I was on Pinterest, just pinning cool things, pinning homes, pinning clothing, pinning laws, pinning, pinning cars. And they used to have this ticker same ticker symbol on the right-hand side, top right at Facebook. So every time you you pin something, it will alert everyone. If they're watching ticker symbols, so like it would just alert everyone um there too. Yeah. And then I ran a Facebook business page posting local community updates. Yeah. This was not that not gonna dive too deep into it, but then like people were mad about gentrification and all that. But uh, because I was getting so much um momentum on Facebook business page, I was like, how do I find offline people to find me? Yeah, um, find me online. So then I started buying bus benches. I had 10 of them uh started around like Merit. Yeah, that's just a hashtag fast agent. Yes. Uh and within like two years, I had a hundred, like two or three years, I had a hundred bus benches in Oakland layered on top of like, I don't know, 10 grocery stores, safeways with the divider sticks and then the um the hand moisturizing thing and thing. So you can imagine almost every corner you anywhere you go, anywhere online.

Declan 15:51

You were everywhere. I mean, I remember like you were all of a sudden you were everywhere. Hashtag fast. I don't think I knew what a hashtag was. When did you come up with fast?

Kenny 16:00

I think around my third year. I had a BMW M5, a V10. So the five is significant because I got a uh license plate that says FastAgent with the five in there, F uh5T, yeah, A G N T. And then after that, I was like, I'm gonna I was like, I'm gonna start using this online. And then Facebook didn't have um Facebook didn't have hashtags yet. I think maybe Instagram released hashtag. I don't think when they launched Instagram had hashtags, but I started using it there, and then within a couple of months I started doing email marketing. I did that for six years straight. Right. And just like copying this pop culture or our brand stuff and parity or changing the logo. So that started making hashtag fast agent newsletters, and I did that like every week for six years straight.

Declan 16:38

Yeah, yeah.

Kenny 16:39

That won me a lot of award and recognition.

Declan 16:41

Yeah, I mean, you know, the experience I had was you you you weren't there and then you were everywhere. Like it was unbelievable. It was like you were omnipresent all of a sudden and on panels and talking to people. But what do you remember? Do you remember that kind of rise within the industry? And like how how was it? Because you must have had like if you go from nothing to like being everywhere.

Kenny 17:05

During wells kind of my maybe like my fourth, fifth year, uh no, my fifth year, for sure, it was my fifth year. Yeah. My fifth year, because I joined the new company Climb. I um my my bench hats were everywhere, so they can't start getting trash, and then people are destroying them. So that got me super famous. Um the news, the local news put me on the on the cover. Right.

Awards Publicity And Going National

Kenny 17:25

Uh I still have a picture of that East Bay Times. And then I was in the Chinese newspaper, and then my friend, now friend is to this day, um, wrote up an article about me for Inman, and then I got featured in Inman a couple times. So that and then my fifth year in real estate, when I was at Climb, I won award. I beat out uh like Josh Altman, beat out Ryan Serhan, and um just big agents for uh in Inman Most Innovative Agent of the Year, Dolly Lentz. Uh so that put me on the map nationally. And then my company won most innovative brokerage. So it just continued to like just escalate on the on the kind of like local and uh national presence.

Declan 17:59

And you were and I know you were on platforms, of course, nationally, locally as well. And and I would imagine the number one reason people showed up or people probably the number one question people ask you is like, give me advice on how to get it. Social media. Yeah. I mean, but how do you give advice when uh when this is not this is not teachable? This is innate to you. I mean, you're just a force. Is it teachable? Was it teachable?

Kenny 18:22

It's teachable back then. It was like, you know, like documenting your days, talking about what you're doing, stuff that you would maybe post on your stories right now. I documented my food all the time, and and then I had a hashtag called FatAgent. That was funny. There's still hundreds of pictures. So, like, you know, like as a buyer's agent, I'm I'm traveling a lot. So I took pictures of my, I don't know, took pictures of my car in front of homes, I took pictures off the homes, I took pictures of like funny staircases, yeah, cool views, food on meeting, the conferences I go to. So it was constantly just like yeah, putting stuff in front of the consumers. And then my my fifth year, and so my sorry, my third year, I actually recruited three agents, and then when I left my company and my uh at the end of my fourth year, I left everyone behind because like this team thing doesn't really work out for me. Right. Because I I thought, and whoever's listening to this, like, I don't know, you're young, and I I thought everyone's young, everyone has time. Why wouldn't everyone just work hard to make as much money as possible? Like if you don't have any other priorities, you don't have kids, you don't have uh hobbies, I'm sure, but it's a recession. Here's how we make money, go go go go work 60 hours, 70 hours a week. Yeah. But I realized I was an anomaly and you know, like I thought like everyone should be like me. Like we should just work.

Declan 19:32

Yeah, because you this is what I'm saying is like it's very, very hard to teach mindset. Yeah. It's very hard. Like it's all around us all the time, especially nowadays when you open your Instagram or whatever algorithm, if you're a realtor, you know, you're gonna be siloed into a million, you know, mindset, you know, posts on your Instagram all day long. But I I find it's a very difficult thing to teach mindset.

Kenny 19:54

That's why you gotta brainwash yourself. Like I started listening to audiobook books early on. I remember one of my favorite books, I think it was called Unbeatable Mind.

Declan 20:01

Yeah.

Kenny 20:01

Um, it was from some guy who was in a SWAT. And even like, I'll give you an example, even like three months ago, I was going through a big uh life transition. I unfodeled almost 2,000 accounts from my Instagram. It took me probably 15, 20 hours to do that over the course of like a month. Right. So yeah, like brainwash yourself into just only having good information or lying to yourself that everything's easy and you become successful. Right. So like if I go Instagram right now and I I'm on Instagram probably five, six hours a day, to be honest. Right. Um, but I'm talking to people, that's where all my most of my deals are at. That's where I meet agents, I talk to them, but I'm I'm browsing all day long, like to look for content to copy and recreate. Right. Uh example, like I like September, September last year, like September 24, 25, I only posted 18 times on my wall. Like I I grew this team to multiple a couple hundred agents without having post a lot, just posting my stories. Um but then my brand started my personal brand started getting lost. I know people know me for this team, team fast, fast real estate, but I don't have a brand. I don't have a consumer-facing brand. So I really started diving into AI and stuff. Yes. And now I probably spent 20 something hours a week making AI posts. Right. Um, I post two, three times a day now on average. I noticed. Yeah. It's that's why I'm here. Yeah. And I'm averaging right now like a million views a month.

Declan 21:15

Okay.

Kenny 21:16

Like between I think January, February, March, I probably averaged like 300, 400 followers a month. Right. In the last 30 days, I picked up 1400 followers. And this has been been really growing. Right. It's honestly, yeah, it started taking off in the last couple months, but it's it's constantly has more momentum. And yeah, um, I track track it all the time. So I'm I have I get to do what I love, which is marketing. I get to look online and educate myself. I read a ton of newsletters, right, um, email, and every time any interesting article I think can create become educational resource for consumers or the agent audience, I make something out of it. So all day long, like I am I'm never not making something. One thing I walk, it's in the car, an Uber, or whatever. Like I'm constantly creating something.

Declan 21:54

Right, right. Yeah. And we'll get to that in a second. I think it's a great fun time for creatives to be in the business. Business and more than I prefer it now than I did personally 10 years ago. Let's get back to like the moment you realized that you know you as a solo agent could become something much bigger. Because as you said, at this point you've got well over 200 agents.

Kenny 22:15

I think it was my third year in uh first year, 24 deals, 24, 25 deals, second year, 24, 25 deals, third year, 52 deals. Again, 23 from Ref. And I was like, this is really I won't call it easy, but I know I got some help that year. I brought on TC, I paid her percentage on all my deals. So she managed all the backend stuff. Yeah. So I I brought on a couple team members. Yeah. And then I think that year I actually became the number one agent in Oakland for uh for units representing buyers on our MLS. I was like, this is again like I see everything as like a like a process, like, oh, if I do this, this is the outcome. So and then I just did that again next year. I think I sold like 49 deals. You give some numbers too. My first my first year in production between the 24 deals, I only sold I only sold $4 million worth of homes. Okay. So average price was like under $200,000. That's true. It was an insane market. Yeah. Second year, same thing, like $5 million for um 25 sales. I get it. Yeah. Third year, 20 million or 19 million, 20 million. Next year again. So by then I was like, okay, I got this locked in. I can prospect all my lead generating is working. Yeah. I just got to get people to come work with me. So I hired a couple of virtual assistants, a couple of friends locally.

Declan 23:20

I think you were you were like the first person that I knew of, you know, because uh people would people would talk, you know, people always talk about the bigger agents, like what are they doing? Yeah. And I had heard Kenny, yeah, Kenny works with virtual assistants, you know. And I I was like, what the heck is that? Like, you know, so you were one of the first people.

Kenny 23:39

Yeah, my third year I got a virtual assistant. Uh it's just like writing on my offers for me. I remember.

Declan 23:44

Wow.

Kenny 23:44

Because during that, it was still the McGol, it was still the Aryo era. I was writing easily 10 offers a week, but people were just writing loba offers, like, oh, why don't we 100 grand under on this one or whatever? So like it was like tasks taking um, I was like a I don't know, take just taking tasks all day long, taking orders.

Declan 24:01

Yeah, yeah. Well what I mean, what you must have a fairly good IQ. I mean, because there's so many things going on in your life, and but you're holding all those patterns, you're you're seeing all the patterns, you're keeping it all somehow, your mind, however it works, you're keeping all those balls in the air, adding more balls.

Kenny 24:19

I would like to think of a high IQ. I haven't measured it, but I I'm definitely uh on the autistic spectrum a little bit. Oh, really?

Declan 24:25

Yeah, okay. Well, I think you know, we all my kids say the same thing about me, so there you go. But it it's just fascinating because the focus on many things, but yet all having them go in the in in one direction, like you know, the Kenny Chung singularity is happening, you know, it's amazing. What was the responsibility of having, you know, eight teammates, uh people under you, people part of your team? What was the shift from being a solo agent, a very busy one, to now being, you know, having some responsibility toward being, in other words, leadership?

Kenny 25:01

What

Coaching Delegation And Team Growth

Kenny 25:02

was um it wasn't easy, but I had a strategy, and I remember my third year in, I went to my first Tom Ferry Success Summit. I immediately hired a coach. So I was learning and getting help and guidance and reading all the time on how to do that. So I already had an assistant. Yeah. Later on, I'm brand and marketing assistant that helped me with all this cool newsletter headers. So six years I was doing those newsletter headers, I didn't personally make a single one. Okay. Uh, and then uh they've been you know, this guy making custom stuff, websites, flyers, and and their the responsibility was different. I was like mostly because it was like buyer side. So I was like, hey, go go go uh go be with this buyer, or there wasn't even CRM back then. I was we were using a spreadsheet to kind of work with clients. So I wouldn't say I was like a leader leader, I just knew how I kind of managed my business to kind of like get some help. That's why by end of my fourth year, I left the company and left, I actually left all three or four team members behind. I was like, I I okay, it didn't seem like it was worth it to run a team.

Declan 25:59

Okay, what brokerage was that?

Kenny 26:01

I joined uh beginning my fifth fifth year in business, which was Clime Real Estate. Okay. I wanted to build build something like Clime because they were just like underdog. The client broke off from Vanguard. I think at one point, Vanguard uh Clime, Chris Slim, Marchoe, their team made them more than half the production in Vanguard. So I started our own company and they're kind of like nitty-gritty, small underdogs. They had like you know, they went to the mega brokerages. Right. When I joined them, they had like uh around 60 agents. Wow, yeah, and then they didn't have a footprint in the Bay Area, they did have two agents that did a lot of business in in the Bay Area but didn't live over here. I remember one was Tom Watson. Yes, I think the other person was uh Michelle Baylog, I think she was in Alameda, but I was their first true uh fully East Bay agent. And that was a really good synergy because that in that year I won my award, they won their award, and then uh turns out they had this later telling me, hey, we have this Zillow team we're running. Like, can you can you look at us or manage it for us? And they're paying like 10 grand a month on leads and they kind of took off. So with that platform, I was able to recruit very heavily the company. Uh during my time at Climb, I brought on over 70 team, uh 70 agents to roll bridge myself through social media, through attraction. I didn't get paid a dime till maybe like four if you're in.

Declan 27:10

Wow. So you've been you've been consistently like ahead of the curve with with all of the you know latest tech, latest tech. Yeah. Which one like which one has paid off most?

Kenny 27:22

Of all of these things you've tried or I live on Instagram, so that's everything Instagram has paid off. I can't put ROI on my bench ads, but people know me from that. My email email newsletter didn't cost anything. I have my open rates, but I did it for six years, and a lot of people know me from that. So a lot of what I do is like multi-brand recognition. Right. Uh, and that's where I that's why I'm able to recruit agents. I can't put again, I can't put ROI on on I can't like tell you, oh, I got this and got this agent because it's kind of a mix of things. And I've and I've probably done like 30 or 40 these interviews before. Yeah. So that gets you know marketed through the companies. Companies like Chime back then or Real Scout. When you join Real Scout right now, you'll get an email blast like how can he build his business? And this is from like 10 years ago. They're still using some of the same stuff. Yeah. So like as I got my name out there more, I got more recognition. So a lot of the stuff I can't measure it back directly to like a specific thing.

Declan 28:16

Yeah. How competitive do you think you are, scale of one to 10?

Kenny 28:20

I just go for it. Like if I don't, if I don't win something, I don't, it doesn't really bother me. Like, I like I don't actually don't even celebrate my awards or trophies. I I try to make sure I'm some of my team posts about it, but I don't, or I don't know, I kind of jade it too, because I like I was the number one agent. I use it in my pre I use it in my listing presentations and buyer presentations. I was the number one agent in Oakland for 10 years for units. Right, right. But that just helps me get more business. So over time, like but I don't really pay. If you look at my wall right now, there's been I posted one accolade because I uh I was number 12 team in the US uh and number four in California for but past that you can't you can't find an accolade in my last like 80 posts. I don't talk about myself too much. Well, so I got my first computer in fifth grade, but I was building websites by maybe eighth grade. And I had MySpace and Zang and but and on Facebook I had like a big following, but you couldn't find a picture of me. So everything I did has never been about like me. I still like mark mostly market what I like marketing, and uh it's a weird dynamic, so I don't so I mean I am competitive because I don't want to make good stuff, but I it's never really I've never even since I was young made it about myself, which is a weird thing to say.

Declan 29:26

Is there any tech along the way that you missed or feel like you didn't utilize enough?

Kenny 29:33

And you know, I I really wish I got into YouTube sooner and not waste so much time on Instagram because right I was doing Instagram stories. I'll I I'll post when I go to conferences like 50 times. You know I broke the hundred times many, many times, like, but then I was getting a thousand views a day, but that started declining in the last couple of years. So then like I get 200-300 views. I wish I had invested a lot more time making long-form content. Okay. And I right now I I literally have a teleprompter sitting on my floor with a pedo from a gado. Yeah. So I've I now I I've decided to set that all up to make to make long-form content.

Declan 30:05

Yeah, I think I think it's interesting you bring up YouTube because I I might be wrong. I I I I can only take in as much media as I can take in. But it yeah, I've been talking about YouTube on this podcast for several years. And it seems to me, now maybe you can tell me if I'm wrong, I don't think there's we have some great stars locally on social.

Kenny 30:24

There's probably like seven, eight people on on YouTube that I can gather that are active. And only maybe three that are really active within the inner East Bay. Yeah, I I who are they? I don't even know who they are. Um Katie Pratt is doing something pretty often. I think this guy named Bo. Okay. But in the South Bay, Spencer Sioux, uh at EXP, Austin Clark in San Francisco, and Wilson Lung in um Peninsula are very active. And my I have friends um in Sacramento that are doing well, really well. But there's really not enough consistent people on YouTube. Like it makes no sense for me not to do it. And I I'm not afraid to you know upset people what I say. So I feel like I have a strong take on things, and I think consumers will will appreciate that.

Declan 31:09

Yeah, I I agree with you. And that goes back to your your approach to marketing. It's always been like even your recent uh your you know, your recent campaigns on Instagram, they're definitely designed to make people stop scrolling, you know. I mean, um I liked the one about single men recently you had like that was fairly interesting.

Kenny 31:30

Yeah, a little bit the number one growing population demographic in the US right now is single men. Yeah. With their flasks, with their little dog.

Declan 31:41

Yeah.

Kenny 31:41

It's I don't know. I like to poke fun on things. I'm kind of uh like like following like trends and data.

Declan 31:46

Yeah, you know, you have a great sense of humor uh uh you know online, uh, which is which is difficult actually.

Kenny 31:52

And also the the chat models, I mostly I was worked using Higgs view with custom stuff for a long time, yeah, specifically on Nano Banana up until two months ago. But now I build almost 100% of all my stuff in the last two months. Uh it's just within the chat GPT chat. Yeah. Not cloud design, not cloud cowork, none of that. It's it's so easy, which is insane.

What Makes Agents Thrive Now

Declan 32:11

You get to see an awful lot of agents, right? They come in and out. I'm sure that the the team is, you know, it's a sort of a I mean, with the with more than a couple hundred agents, you see people come and go. Yeah. Who are the agents who thrive? I mean, this is a difficult question to answer, but you know, people look for answers. They're trying to get into this career. You know, a year like this where inventory in the East Bay has been down 30 percent, that's just been a durable feature of our market this year. 30 percent down over last year. Last year was already down. What do you see as the difference between an agent who can get in there and begin to close some deals and thrive?

Kenny 32:44

Is grit like I I can think of, yeah, the grit they're showing up every day, they're coming to all the training, they're coming to the offices, they're not afraid to ask for help. The agents I think do the best are ones that show up all the time and are self-sufficient. And then the ones I I can name probably at least 10 agents have been our team. Within their second year, they're doing 20 deals, which is a really huge feat. That's huge. Yeah, we've had a couple rising stars, California rising stars. We have a handful of top 30 and 30. It's just they show up, and then like the common theme now with most of my top, top agents that are have or ones that have experienced very fast success in a short amount of time is social media. They do things their way. Many, many of them are going through property tours as their thing. Some of them are some of them are doing cute things. Um, and top of that, no, you're obviously your open houses and um your door knocking and pinging your clients, but I just don't do anything, which is really which really sucks. Like, here's a playbook, follow it. Like, uh, I don't know. And then you kind of make up excuses. I just have a hard time understanding someone that if they're newer, they don't have a lot of responsibility. So maybe on a younger side, and you have nothing else going on. When you just dive deep and learning every single aspect of the business, creating social media, going every single training, like so and so. But people just don't do it. Um, that's why real estate now, before I think two years ago, there was like a 65% uh quit rate in the first year with 85% within three years. But now from from more recent studies, I think over 75% of people quit within the first year. And we see it day in and day out. We've uh currently our team is about 220, but I've had over 900 agents work for me throughout the last six years. And the national NER says the median age of the first of the agent now is actually uh first time first year agent, or and the average agent is actually older. Okay. So the young agents are just not able to sustain and drop out because if you're young and newer, you just don't have a sphere yet. You don't have past clients to rely on. Right. And if you're and then unfortunately in this day and age, people are less social than ever. They're online, but they're not like social, you're not out mean people. It's always very expensive in Bay Area to just go out all the time. Yeah. So it's a challenge to build that, build that ecosystem to rely on.

Declan 34:49

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. I have a pet theory that um that no matter how anybody, you know, works hard in their first few years, you know, when you literally kind of should be doing everything to find your lane. I have a pet theory that at the end of the day, most agents are striving towards uh uh a referral-based, you know, sort of system. Is is that is my pet theory getting up-ended by the No, it's that's still very true.

Kenny 35:16

Um, example is we're we're we are a big Zell team, Zillow. Yeah. So we get 300 connections a month, but only only uh 15% of our business is Zillow. Okay. But you need you need those connections, you need those closing to then build your base, and those connections become future clients and then referral referral opportunities. Okay. So you just gotta figure out the fastest way to build base is usually through online leads or working on a team that has a good database.

Declan 35:39

Got it. So to kind of restate that then, um, let me know if this sounds accurate. So the strategy for a lot of people getting into the business or midway, you know, several years in, the strategy is to find a way towards having a referral-based business. But the the tactics are all changing. Like now we have social media. We didn't have that.

Kenny 35:57

Yeah, social media is at scale. I mean, like Eric Henry just saw walk through the door, like he does like 30-something deals a year, over half his business social media. Right. His social media didn't even take off till like uh a little over a year ago. Right. And now I think now he has like 40,000 followers. Most of the videos have hundreds, tens and tens of thousands of likes and uh hundreds and hundreds of shares. And he's dancing and being his rock. He's unbelievable. He's on the social. So you can't compete against not like him specifically, but it like if a video has hundreds and hundreds of shares and you're getting tens of thousands of views, like how many doors do you have to knock to go have a thousand people discover you? Right. You're gonna be knocking for weeks, or you should just put one video out.

Declan 36:35

Yeah, so the tactics have really changed. Now we have and and and of course, you know, up until AI, you know, it was all SEO, SEO, SEO. Now we have AI, right? So the tactics are gonna change again. How do it's it's very unpredictable.

Kenny 36:50

Um social media is very easy now, too. I say that because one of the things I like my company grew off on early on was adopting social media, like, you know, my background and teaching this early on during early COVID years. But now any person can hire a professional videographer that can write your scripts for you and tell you what to do. So I've seen many agents with no sales have the most polished videos and they keep that up. Granted, that that is expensive, but you keep that up, you're guaranteed to have a sale. Like it's it's inevitable. Yeah, so like we're like personally on our team, we're we've lost that edge because that is so easy to do. So like we we really now we're having focus. Because we had a studio, we were the first team with a full, full blown-out custom studio. The best content right now on social media is like being someone's BFF. You're just doing yapping, you're just literally talking to a camera at home in your car, and that be that type of content really has is anyone can do. So now people have less excuses. You want you can either yap at no cost in your car or can hire a professional to do these high-end videos. Like, if you're not doing either, then I like then.

Declan 37:49

The people who are doing best are literally just being themselves, which is something I I I rave about in the current iteration of you know the real estate career, is that you know, you can just really, really be yourself. Like the Kang of Realty is a perfect example. I mean, some people would look at that and go, I'm who would hire this guy to sell my house?

Kenny 38:08

Other people look at that and go, I'm a fan, you know, like Yeah, lean to your personality and realize that not everyone will will like you. And I I know that for a fact because during my uprise, yes, um, I was I had so much hate. I had like death threats, all crazy stuff. Um, I was like the no most I was the number one agent in Oakland, but I only did two percent of all the deals in Oakland.

Declan 38:30

Like I mean, you must have had so many haters.

Kenny 38:33

But yes, I had so many haters. So I built my business on that. And you know, that not everyone in the Asian community likes me. I know that for a fact, too. Because, you know, the more traditional, old school, quite dinosaur agents, like this new kid just came in and he's doing like he's loud, he's being dumb on social media, he's buying online leads, he's doing all this stuff.

Declan 38:53

Right.

Kenny 38:53

And and it was like, we don't get it. And so I had a lot of hate from my Asian community.

Declan 38:58

Oh my gosh. So it was like a so culturally you were you were doing something that was not.

Kenny 39:03

Yeah, it's never been done before. Yeah. So and I was young, I was just kind of loud kid, like 25. You know, your average age, your average agent's probably 60. Yeah, I'm this kid 25, just crushing the business, and people are like, what the hell's going on? And I remember I had that same experience last last Christmas. I went to a holiday party. Uh, I was like 40 years old, and then I was like all these early 20s something year old, they're just like I feel so out of place, and I was like, okay, I get it now. Like, I I yeah, I don't get what they're doing or how they dress or how they talk. Right. And realize I'm 40 and they're like 25. But when I started in business, I was 25 and all these agents here were 60. Yeah. Like, what is this guy doing? Why is it working? I mean now, look, like everyone is on social media and everyone's doing this, and everyone's oh no, everyone's doing all the things that you weren't supposed to uh that were normal, now is normal.

Declan 39:53

You said

AI Marketing And Content At Scale

Declan 39:54

you like Chat GPT. If you were to bet on any three, the Gemini and Chat GPT or Claude.

Kenny 39:59

Uh I would say ChatGPT is the best for marketing because Cloud is great. Okay, here's the thing for most people, not not realtors specifically. Cloud is the best for work. It does like, you know, it creates outputs with these dashboards and all that. Nothing beats it. It's just a machine and analyzing stuff.

Declan 40:16

Okay.

Kenny 40:17

Um but it doesn't have its own image model. So you could tell if uh something's been created, like a graphic or a carousel has been created on chat. Uh sorry, Cloud has a very distinctive look.

Declan 40:28

Okay.

Kenny 40:29

More recently I heard like it's way, way different now and better because of design. But I like my design really messy and really crazy and bold and just random. Uh-huh. Uh and chat GPT has its own image model. It's called GPT image. Yeah. Similar to how Gemini has its own image model, called Nano Banana. They're nano banana, the nano banana pro and nano banana two. Um, but I now do everything inside chat because if you're creating marketing or like carousels or set of things, that memory feature is really important to know what was created in there.

Declan 41:00

Yes.

Speaker 41:00

Uh, for the last couple months prior to it's June right now, I'll say prior to April, all the marketing I made, I made it inside this uh third-party platform called Higgsfield. And I kind of want them all to look alike. It was really hard to get like a like a smooth look across of them. They can look similar, but the fonts and everything is all crazy and different. Uh to discover ChatGBT more recently, the image model got upgraded. Now I make make things in there at a scale without going all the details. Like AI is so powerful now because any person can become become like his own content factory. Yeah. Not only is AI your ideation person, it's your creator, it's your feedback person, and it's your uh post post uh production partner. But you need to give it feedback throughout all the steps.

Declan 41:44

Yeah, okay.

Kenny 41:45

And that and that's all inside one chat for one project. If you use this chat you need for more than it's like six hours a day or upload too many things, you break it because I was breaking my thing all the time. Uh-huh. But like I created all this stuff for the last couple of months on like a $20 a month plan. I would I would think agents who do less business have more time in their hand, not have a lot of business, they can study this on their own and create these things to like get get you know get out there.

Declan 42:07

Do you do you think it's you know, do you think it's uh essential, like absolutely vital to the you know, career of agents moving forward, that they just have to engage this? Or do you think there's still plenty of room for the agent who just works a small sphere by referral?

Kenny 42:23

I've seen many, many agents on our team don't do social media and have done well, but it's it's just an easy way to get more business. If you have a listing, when do you want to market it? Right. So then more sellers will see you, and then also your sellers will hire you because hey, I saw how you market that property. Right. Once you have a closing, when you want to show that off. And then yeah, you can you can write the words um you can write the words Berkeley specialist in your Instagram or website, but if you don't have a lot of sales there, yeah, I think I think a lot of this too is actually in the favor of the new agents because you don't have anything to work off of. You don't have the history, you don't have the experience, yeah, you don't have the proof of uh concept or proof of success. So I can't you and then like I just started this journey in like September last year because I'm known as a team leader. So I actually scrap most of anything online that's a team leader, and I'm a local listing specialist because sellers don't want to work buyers and sellers don't want to work with a team leader, they want to work with an agent. So like I had as of like I'm competing against the agents in my marketplace for like eyeballs, so you have to create content that speaks to what you do or are. You're a birthday specialist, you better make content about the way what I wouldn't say call oh, but you know, the the more common way a couple years ago is to go then go feature more, go interview more coffee shops and go eat at the restaurants and talk about the parks. But now with AI, I can do write-ups on like top top parks and top things to do. With AI and marketing, you get to put your personality out there, you put your expertise out there, or at least you try to make it look like, yeah. Um, and you put your voice out there. Outside of that, if you didn't have that, then you just have a bio on LinkedIn and you have a bio on your website. Right. Um sure, if I if I because agents like I see they All too often want to meet more um sellers. Okay, great. You door knock, give me a seller, then you leave a flyer, then they look you up online. What do they find online?

Declan 44:09

Right.

Kenny 44:10

If they find nothing online, why would they give you a call?

Declan 44:12

Yeah, yeah.

Kenny 44:13

Unless you luck out, they really are not savvy at all. Granted, there are people like that, and you can catch them at the door and have a really great conversation. Yeah. But chances of that happening is pretty, pretty slim.

Declan 44:22

Yeah.

Kenny 44:22

So what is your online resume? What is your and now with AI too? Um, I've had over 10, maybe 11 clients call me this year or found me online. Like I ranked really highly on Claude and Chad and all the like one seller, he didn't not hiring me, but he said I was on Claude, Gemini, and Chad as one of the top agents in Longfellow. Okay. Uh, and then he asked Gemini who should uh interview, and I was like, I was the number one. And another seller recently hired me because he looked up uh who is one of the top selling agents in Oakland, and then and then he asked who has the most social media reach, and I was number one. Okay. So I asked Claude simply Are they Kenny Chung.com website and give me suggestions. And that's the only thing I put in. And then it was like, hey, compared to um Kush Real Estate and Red Oak, and they gave me a like a list of like 40 different things, like this site has this, this site doesn't have this. And I was like, okay, I didn't I didn't think it would give me all that. So then I immediately sent it to my team a little bit more prompt. So I gave it to my A team, uh, my marketing team, like, go on my site, make sure I have these 40 things.

Declan 45:22

Right, right. Like it's a radically new technology in the sense that you don't have to learn, it teaches you, right? It like it's like the tables that turn.

Kenny 45:32

The term I keep telling my team that I learned from someone is AI is the only tool where you don't know how to use it, you ask it to. And then it that does take a switch in your brain to kind of like get that process going. Because early on, I was making a lot of same mistakes and all that, but it's incredible. Like anything you want to do, any any mark, any person's marketing you see is cool, you you can steal it and copy it. Like 95% of my stuff is not original content.

Declan 45:55

I love that you're coming back to being an agent again. You want to get you you want to get into it again, engage the market, you know, as you said, like just you and the market, not not as a team leader.

Kenny 46:06

Yeah, it's been really fun. I made that. I really wanted to like make an imprint again on my market. I realized like going out, I do I still do a dozen deals a year. I realized as I was like shopping, helping buyers out last year, I was like, I'm still really well known in my market, even though I have been on the ground for many years, like at that level. So it was really fun to be out there. And I see it as a wasted opportunity, uh an opportunity cost if I'm not using my name to get business.

Declan 46:33

Yeah.

Kenny 46:34

Because I have the search history at SU, I have all this stuff. So and then I my my content is really good. So why am I not leveraging get business? And also with that, I can also you know bring on bring on more listings and partner my agents on it and just kind of keep keep growing. So just like doing a whole brand refresh. So I decided to be consumer-facing uh early this year again with my marketing. Actually, no, late last year, I was shifting some things around. And then even our team page on Instagram, it's always been uh agent-facing. There was there's no listings on our team page, there's no reviews. Okay, it's just lifestyle and and and showing what it looks like to work here. But I I made a huge switch about a month ago. I was like, I need to bring their brand back to make it consumer-facing. I want agents to work here, knowing the brand has the power to carry them and help them get more business. Kind of like Ryan Surahan, a little bit of that. Uh, and I also need to use it for recruiting. So now like I I switched to messaging about a month ago for my team page to now feature listing videos, to feature market updates. As I get better at the things I'm working on already and master it, then I then I kind of see new ideas as they come. So now our page is tricked out. Like, and then now now you can reorder your grid Instagram. Before I didn't want to post too many carousels in a row because it gets boring. So we're very video based. Yeah. One year when they had like 20-something posts on the wall, I was like, this is stupid. I have a full-time video guy. I was like, we need to ramp this up. It's yeah, our page that's both. Like, we're making sure we're posting a couple times a week on there.

Declan 47:54

Yeah.

Kenny 47:54

And I'm collaborating with my I personally, my page is collaborating with my team. Yeah. Another thing we're doing too recently is taking team listings and making really cute carousels, not just just listed, but storytelling on it.

Declan 48:05

Yeah.

Kenny 48:06

And then featuring it with because then I can't depend on the team members to make the things look good. That's not their job. Yes. So I'm taking my marketing brain and I and creating custom carousels for each listing and collaborating with my uh with the team page and myself, and I'm running Aspen behind it. So trying all kinds of things.

Declan 48:22

Are you enjoying it now?

Kenny 48:23

Yeah, it's just super fun to do that. And then I'd only started doing the last two things I mentioned uh less than a month ago.

Declan 48:29

Wow. Yeah. I love that you're like re-engaging on this level. Um, I just I want to go back to just a few themes as well, because they they didn't pass me by, but they might have passed some people

Brand Refresh And Listing Storytelling

Declan 48:39

by. But there are a few things I heard that I think are valuable. It it sounds like during the course of your career, you knew when to spend money on coaching. You knew when to lean into coaching. And that that to me is a superpower because some people are reluctant for the short-term spend, they don't get the long-term gain.

Kenny 48:56

Yeah, I would say coaching too, just I I I've had three real estate coaches. I actually ended my relationship with my most recent coach about three months ago. Okay. A lot of what people pay for in coaching is accountability. Yeah. Uh, because your coach would check in with you. Because at least today's day and age, every information you want to know about selling real estate or marketing or design or or you know, farming or open houses, whatever, yeah, it's all online. Information is on is so much abundant information and it's moving at the speed of light. But what you need is like someone to check in on you. Did you work in this project? Yes. You do this. Yeah. So there were times early on. I remember like example, my four or fifth year, and like, how about that home value website? I'm still working on it. How about home value website? I was working in it like a month, like two or three months later. Hey, build this home website. I just got three leads from it. I I I told you to like fill that out. So over and over, you're just having someone check in on. So I think most people maybe should not be in coaching. Oh, they should have an accountability partner. Okay. They should be joining all the Facebook groups because all the information is free out there. Okay. They should be tapping with sales manager at their office, maybe holding weekly 10-minute check-ins. Hey, did you do this? Okay. Because coaching could be very expensive. I think, I think it's like $1,200. It's like you're paying essentially like $250 to $300 for a half-hour call.

Declan 50:10

The other thing that you appear to have been, you know, masterful at too is understanding when to delegate. Like I cannot grow, I can't do everything myself. You know, I I need to delegate, I need to hire.

Kenny 50:23

Yeah, I've been doing that since very, very early. You just need to, I learned from many people, including uh Chris uh Lim at Climbs, like if you can get someone to do what you can do at 80% quality, then let them do it. So I've been delegating everything since like my third year. And then one thing with delegating too, if you're talking about the projects, rocks, or marketing space, not everything is a priority. So you need you need to know what what should be done and when. So some things like, hey, I saw this new tool. Can we look into it uh maybe uh in by November this year? Or hey, this is kind of cool. Can we look at it sooner and later? Let's hop on the call. Can we check it out next week? So have because then as you're delegating what I found with uh staff is I would freak them out every time I go to the conference, I bring back so many ideas.

Declan 51:08

Ah, get it. I can't.

Kenny 51:09

And they're kind of like, I don't know where to start. So now, like being very organized on that.

Declan 51:12

Uh that makes perfect sense to me, right? Because if you're an ideas person, it can just be like, it just comes out of you. And and you gotta give people that context of timeline. You know, hey, don't worry about it. This this is.

Kenny 51:23

Yeah, like hey, when we get this done, give me back to me. I'll take a look in a couple weeks.

Declan 51:26

Right. Uh let's uh we'll start to wrap it up.

Oakland Market Signals And Outlook

Declan 51:29

I'm curious now that you're back sort of in the game, wanting to sell houses again and and and get uh some inventory and all that. What what are you what are you seeing in the local inner East Bay market, Oakland, Berkeley, that kind of thing? What's what's been the story of the year for you?

Kenny 51:43

I have like eight listings right now, and I'm like like half of them have been in the market for like two months and plus. So it's a lot of the market is very slow moving, and like the future, you know, the prime neighborhoods are all doing much better. Yeah. Sellers and buyers kind of tug awards, the sellers want what they want, and the buyers not willing to pay. So it's been a pretty flat market. Overall, from what I've seen, um, I think yeah, sales are down 20%, I think, year over year in some markets. Yeah. But a lot of markets are just flat.

Declan 52:11

Locations become like we've always had the old adage location, location, location.

Kenny 52:15

Oh, that's more extreme than ever.

Declan 52:17

It's extraordinary. It's just like you can cross the street and all of a sudden the game has changed.

Kenny 52:21

Yeah.

Declan 52:21

Like more than ever before.

Kenny 52:22

Yeah, homes that are prepped are doing really well. You know, your your your premium neighborhoods in Oakland, like your Trust Oakland, Crocker Island, Temascal Rockers are doing exceptionally well. Yeah, there's and there's everything else, I guess.

Declan 52:34

Yeah. And so um, what are you what are your thoughts around? I, you know, we're reading a lot of stories about you're just mil minting millionaires and billionaires in San Francisco right now. And like Noah Valley average price point's four million, I think. Um, do you you know there's always the promise that that's gonna wash up on our shores?

Kenny 52:53

I think it will. Okay. Um I follow, again, I post a lot about the stuff, so I like I know very specifically on the data. I know starting, I'll give you an example when like open AIs like released some shares last year in September, October, the San Francisco market went on fire. Yeah. Uh, and then right now, rents in San Francisco are like 20% over last year. Certain cities like Emirateville rents are up, I think, 15% versus last year. Yeah. So we're the ultra luxury market is has been very hot pre-I pre-tech, pre-IPO, just during COVID, uh, when rates went high. The tech market, the ultra-luxury market did really well. And that's continued to um happen. And then now with the tech money, places like it's crazy for me to call like we our our cities are really nice here, but I wouldn't call them A-tier cities. And yeah, in uh relationship to like Atherton and Los Altos and the parts of San Francisco, those the ultra-lucky market is getting absorbed really quickly. And then we're starting to see the trickle-down effect of like single-family homes in the premium market, but the bulk of the Bay Area has not seen that trickle down money yet. Yeah, like I think a lot of people are going from renting to um maybe usizing and renting or getting something nicer. Uh-huh. But we the we're seeing a lot of money going to the upper, upper, way upper market and upper market, but the middle market itself have not seen the bulk of the money. Yeah. And then from what I've seen, like it's typically the trickle effect. You need people to be priced out certain homes, and it pushes the next class of buyers down. Yeah. So Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda are kind of like overflow markets. Yeah. Definitely, I personally have, and many of the team members have worked with tech buyers, but we haven't gotten that many tech buyers. And also in San Francisco, because their market was one of the worst in the nation during COVID, yeah, they just recovered. Like, so there's still a ton of condos available. There's still a lot of like lower inventory until that gets absorbed and runs out. Like, I don't think people are necessarily coming over to the Bay Area, especially that now that um remote work is less and there's more hybrid work, and there is more like you have to be in the office more days a week, even more. So like people don't necessarily want to travel.

Declan 54:54

Do you have are you optimistic that you know Oakland's always been one of those metros where uh you know Oakland's on the rise and then Oakland falls flat? You know, do you think it's rise gonna rise again? Are you optimistic?

Kenny 55:06

Um Same with San Francisco, like when it when it's bad, it's really bad. Sacramento too, when it's bad, it's really bad. Oakland has like busted. Uh, but Oakland in a bad and good way, we built over 14,000 apartments in six years, yeah. And which is good, but that's killed the condom market so bad because it actually makes more sense to rent than buy at most places and just maybe rent again for another year. And then maybe your third year and maybe this year, next year, then the numbers make sense for you to buy. Yeah.

Declan 55:31

So yeah, I that whole argument uh that's been pushed, and it was the New York Times was pushing it hard last year. Um, I I feel like it's a very uh there's there's some really bad reporting.

Kenny 55:42

This is from Zumper, by the way. Zumper or socket site has really good information. I think our rents are down like 20% um from their peak in like 2019 or 20 or somewhere like that. Um and then, but the good news is that Oakland rents depends depends on you are good news. The Oakland rents have ri risen like three out of the last 12 months, not like consecutively, but essentially Oakland rents are kind of like uh flattened out and bottomed out for many areas. So we're slowly on the rise now for rents. And when renting gets more expensive than buying, people consider buying. People are definitely on the uprise of that conversation. And I remember a socket site, uh, like last year, Oakland condos are at 2019 price, and more recently I saw Oakland condos are at 2006 prices. Yeah, it's they're a time machine.

Declan 56:31

Kerry Nazalmondu says they're a time machine. Yeah, it's crazy.

Kenny 56:34

It is bad. I don't know. And I before my team, I was like number one eight. I was I was I was doing a ton of business in West Oakland, like near it. And I remember going to the listing appointments in West Oakland all the time, like like the comps were the same as three years ago and four years ago, five years ago, like the prices don't move. Yeah, and West Oakland, you know, people mostly lived there, not convenient, they lived there because it's close to San Francisco to commute. But when you didn't have to commute for COVID, the prices tag. Now people are commuting again. So then now prices are starting to creep back up a little bit.

Declan 57:03

So you're optimistic because I know this was supposed to be our recovery year, and then war in Iraq, uh Iran didn't help. And so our recovery year maybe is getting pushed out to next year. Who knows?

Kenny 57:12

I think next year looks every I think if you talk to most agents, they'll say next year looks pretty promising. Because this this wasn't this was a pretty flat year. This is a pretty flat year in prices, but many agents are not able to survive this market. So that's that's an inventory issue. Yeah, so the agents who do well are most of them are doing a little bit better, like because they're taking business away from the people who quit, the onesie and twosies. Right. So if you can survive these three years, next year should be a good year. This should this should have been the good year. Should have been next year. I really think it's we're kind of and I kind of appreciate this like slow grind appreciate the markets. Uh huh. Then you're it's not just a you know speed delete or whoever can write this offer first. Like it takes a lot of skill and negotiation and pro uh prospecting and following up. Like it and your agents really need to work harder for you to do these things. All of that and in the background, there's creating much stronger agents.

Declan 58:05

And and in the background, there's this radical change in tech happening all through this difficult period. It's quite fascinating.

Kenny 58:13

I don't know enough about it. I I have some articles I made about it, sorry, carousels about it, but then the separation of like these really you know new new minted millionaires and all these uh layoffs.

Declan 58:24

Yeah.

Kenny 58:24

I'm not too worried about the layoffs though, because it's mostly the mega companies are doing the massive layoffs. Yeah, there's so many new startups and mid-sized companies also like buying taking up, leasing up the mid-space offices. So there's just a new breathe of smaller companies. So it's just a cycle.

Declan 58:40

I I'm not a doomer on that stuff.

Kenny 58:42

Yeah, I think I think we'll always be fine.

Declan 58:43

Three

Lightning Round And How To Connect

Declan 58:44

last questions, but and they should be short. We'll call this the lightning round. Um what looking back uh on your career 15 years ago. First of all, did you do you sleep?

Kenny 58:52

I sleep a lot lot.

Declan 58:54

Really?

Kenny 58:55

Yeah, I train, I work out six days a week. I'm training for a half iron man in higher ox and calisthenics. Wow. I exercise and sleep a lot.

Declan 59:02

Wow. I I can't believe it. I don't know where you find time to sleep because I heard you say you're six hours a day on Instagram and you're six hours a day on ChatGPT. So I don't know where you sleep, but anyway.

Kenny 59:11

Those are uh simultaneous.

Declan 59:13

So what advice would you give young Kenny if he were to walk through the door right now and try and join Team Fast?

Kenny 59:19

I would say join a team or join the I would say lash on if you can find someone to mentor you, lash on to a small team with a little bit, it's so hard to find though, a little bit surplus of business, someone willing to walk walk you through. And then as you're exploring out there, like one thing I did early on was like like stalk every agent online, like learn what they do, and then find some agents and model after and take them out to to lunch or coffee to pick their brain.

Declan 59:45

Oh, yeah. Okay, that that advice never gets old.

Kenny 59:48

No, I remember like talking to Aaron Brown or Daniel Winkler like early on and just seeking out people I want to learn from. Like, hey, can I buy you coffee?

Declan 59:54

My last question, I like asking people this question, so you can pause. What have you changed your mind about recently?

Kenny 1:00:00

The main thing that I can think of like changing my mind that YouTube is not for me because I like fast, short, instant, really cool looking content. But I realize if I want to build a longer business, uh that I need to like focus there, even though I don't love it and it might not be my thing, I that's I know what it knows would be healthy for me. So it's I don't know. I I change my mind about things all the time. So I don't it's just like I've but I've always been a believer try like try everything as you can see, and then it doesn't work, I quit it. So like change my mind about that and then like find the few things that work and focus on it.

Declan 1:00:35

Okay, no, that's beautiful. That's a great answer. Kenny Chung, I'm so pleased you came on the podcast. I look forward to uh releasing this episode as soon as I can. Yeah. And before we wrap up, though, I want to make sure we're going through all the methods of communication where people can find you. So please slowly let's go through.

Kenny 1:00:54

Yeah. Easiest would be to find me on Instagram. I'm at at KennyFast. And there you can find my website, whether you want to check out one of our many websites like fastrealestate.com, fast.realestate, fastagents.com, or um yeah, KennyTront.com is my main main site.

Declan 1:01:11

Thanks a lot, Kenny.

Kenny 1:01:12

Thank you.

Declan 1:01:18

Let's do the credits. This episode of the podcast was edited by me with original music by Chuck Lindo. ChuckLindo Music at gmail.com. The episode was produced by the Home Factor team of Realtors, the HomeFactor.com. If you'd like to reach out to me with suggestions for the show, text me at 415 446 8591. Catch you on the next podcast, everybody.