Today, we welcome back. I guess we all know in love James Harris, the star of Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles, a man who brings his perfect blend of British style and American drive to the show. He and his business partner, David Parnes specialize in high-end residential real estate in Southern California.
There are no nonsense approach to closing deals coupled with their extensive network of high net worth international and domestic clients meet. That they continue to close deals and set records with the listing portfolio. I think of around a billion dollars might be 1.5. I’m not sure we’ll find out James.
Welcome back to the RUN GPG podcast. David GPG. It’s so good to be back. Thank you for having me. And, I always loved being a guest on your podcast. Good James. And you know, this is becoming a thing. Just had Ryan, sir, hint on the show a few days ago. And both of you are now two time guest alumni. So yeah.
So congrats on that. Thank you so much. And we, I’m sure are both big fans of you and your podcast. And I always tell you the desk, your branded. Is on point. I give you a 10 out of 10 on your branding, the music you put behind it, the images, the graphics, so great job on everything you’re doing to David.
Well, thanks James. We like it. You know, you and I talked a little bit over the past year, you know, you came to the GPG bootcamp as a guest speaker. That was really cool. And then we talked and texted a few times, so I know what you’ve been up to for the most part. And we’ll get to your business. Not your podcast now.
But it will be good to get your perspective on what’s happened on the west coast, over the past year and where it’s going. You know, again, we had sir hands on the podcast a few days ago and we got his perspective on the east coast. You know, what was happening at the epicenter of the pandemic in New York.
So, just like in New York, LA or LA. It seems to be a, you know, ground zero for the pandemic in California over the past year. So from a business perspective, from a business perspective, how was the real estate market and your business affected last year? Like how did you and your team cope with the pandemic?
So, great question. You know, when the pandemic started in early March of 2020, I think we all were at home terrified. What’s going to happen. What’s next? Where do we go from here? Is this going to be like 2008? Where we’re going to go into a recession? When are we going to come out of it? We’ve never seen anything like this.
And I think a lot of the younger ages. It started to shift their mentality. Once we were stuck at home, we took to social media. We did talk panels. We, we went digital and we sort of changed our business once we were on lockdown. So the second the pandemic hit in early March of 2020. I think everybody was terrified.
Where are we going to go from here? Are we going into a 2008 global recession? We’ve never seen anything like COVID-19 before, at least not in our lifetime. And I think a lot of real estate agents at that moment. T to digital media, social media. We shifted our perspective whilst we were stuck at home and we stayed front and center, but the second that real estate was deemed essential, at least in the state of California.
And we were allowed out of our homes, the real estate model. Was immediately on fire. And I believe strongly. The reason for that is that COVID changes people’s lifestyles, right? You can no longer go to a gym. Children are no longer going to school. Parents are no longer going to an office. Therefore people’s lifestyles are changing.
They need a home office, a home gym, a place for the children to zoos. People immediately wanted more security. They wanted gates and you look at all of that as a lifestyle chef, coupled with low interest rates. It set the market on fire. And so from there, the market just started to rally and buyers were buying, sellers were selling and it was actually the first time in my career where I can ever say I sold both a buyers and sellers market.
It was really, and still is a very interesting time. Yeah. Interesting. What happened to the luxury market in Los Angeles? Like how was that? The luxury market stayed very strong. I mean, I can tell you that last year we saw sales in the range of 30 to a hundred million. There were probably. Minimum of 10 to 15 of the big, 50 to $150 million transactions last year.
I can tell you that David and myself closed 93 transactions in 2020, which is more volume transactions than we’ve ever done in a single year. In our career. A lot of those deals were in the two to $20 million range. But the luxury market is hot. There’s no international market because the board does a shutdown.
So everything that’s trading right now is domestic. So we’re seeing. Northern California moved to Southern. We’re seeing a lot of east coast moved to the west coast and look, LA has always been founded on the lifestyle it provides. And so we’re really seeing that in full effect at this time. Awesome. Good to hear.
So you’ve always had tremendous success, year over year and obviously the pandemic didn’t stop you either. So what did you do to stay focused? Okay. Staying focused in the pandemic. So let me take. Right back to when the pandemic started in March, 2012, I went into a state of anxiety, worry fair. Everything I’d worked so hard.
Towards learning over all of these years of how to overcome fear, how to step in front of anxiety was gone. It was wasted. And I would go to bed at night paranoid. I was just scared. I was in full fare mode. And after about two weeks, I said to myself, and I remember it clearly going to bed one night.
That’s it. I’m getting right back to where I am. I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning. I’m going to implement all the rules. I’ve worked so hard to learn false evidence, appearing, real fear and faith cannot. Co-exist the opposite of fear is faith. All the same that I say over and over and over again, because if I say it, I believe it.
And I live it and I mean it, and I went to bed one night and I said, I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning and I’m going to live in faith and I’m going to get out of the feminine. Absolutely believe that everything’s going to be okay. And the next day I immediately took to social media. I started to jump onto panels.
I started to hold my own panels. I started to get creative. I started to think of outside of the box, ways to market my business. I started to move everything. I was in print media to digital media. And I realized that times were changing right there in front of us. And we had to change with those times.
And with that, I jumped in front of everything. I got busy, I got excited. I got rid of the fear. And that was when we just started. Take off man and, and, and begin to focus a reshift, my perspective and energy. And that’s when everything changed. And that’s when business started to get busy again, and things became exciting again.
And I accepted that. I had no control over COVID and the pandemic, and I accepted that. I could only control me not that. And the moment that mindset mindset shift took place, everything changed. Yeah, that’s great. You know, as I, as I mentioned, and as you’re mentioning you, you know, you guys did okay, but I know, I know you, and I know how hard you guys work.
So it’s not a fluke that you were closing deals. Setting records had one of the best years ever. However, the pandemic has affected, you know, many agents in some markets. What would you say to the struggling agent? What would you say to the struggling agent coming out of this? Who’s living paycheck to paycheck.
You know, I would say the same thing to a struggling agent through COVID, as I would have said to the struggling agent pre COVID, you know, but especially now, you know, because you’re struggling, this is not vacation time. This is a time to be preparing to set up for the future. This is the time when you have to identify who you are as a person, and what separates you.
From the competition. What is your unique selling point? How are you going to sell you versus the way everybody else is selling them? I think struggling agents may look at successful agents and think, what the hell are we doing differently? And how can I be more like that person instead of them thinking what makes me unique?
What makes me, and I think a lot of these agents need to truly believe in themselves and they need to find their strengths and they need to act on those strengths and they need to think about outside of the box, creative ways to market themselves. They need to get out of this.
Comfort zone step out of their comfort zone and start doing things that make them uncomfortable.
And I think once you can really understand who you are as a person and what makes you unique, then you can go out and crush it because you’re being true to who you are and yourself.
Yeah, I love the way you break down unique selling propositions and differentiators uniques. You have to have them, especially as a young agent, you know, you have to have something that makes you happy, you know, so that’s, I, I’m glad you touched on that. I want to get your opinion on the brokerage community.
We’ve talked about this before. We believe the pandemic kind of sped things up from a brokerage point of view. You know, touching on the. The future of the traditional box brand brokerage. I know how you felt a year ago, but what are your thoughts now? I don’t believe in the word traditional periods, right?
So I’m not going to throw out brokerage names. But if your, and again, this is a, a very personal answer, but I don’t believe in anything being traditional. I think if you’re going to go to one of these substandard brokerage, It’s a waste personally, because everything about where you’re going to hang your license is going to be traditional and substandard.
I believe in boutique brokerages, creative brokerages, forward thinking brokerages, brokerages that understand the times are shifting the market is shifting. They need to. That I think that your brand in this business is absolutely everything. I think the perception of who you are is absolutely everything.
And I think if you’re going to go and hang your sales, Paskins license at an a brokerage, you better believe that they can provide value to you, that they can help you grow your business, become more successful, create uniqueness in you and your brand and your business. And if that brokerage comp provide those things for you.
Then why the hell are you going to go and hang your license there and give them 20, 30, 40, 50% of your commission? So my thing is think wisely. It’s not as my opinion. Yeah. Well said, well said, PSL what’s P is a PSL. Am I saying that right? It’s the PLS PLS. Sorry. What is the PLS? PLS is the property listing service.
It’s the platform that we created to help empower agents put the control back into the hands of the real estate agents and give them yet another, that unique tool to be creative and to think outside of the box. And all we’re trying to do is, and we’ve created this platform specifically for real estate agents is allow them to launch a property on a Friday.
And it doesn’t go on the MLS till Monday, which is within the clinic cooperation roles. It allows that agent to put that property out there to those real buyers, where we have a lot of other key components to the platform that is now accessible to the general public. If they want to come and find properties.
And again, it’s just taking on companies like Zillow that are really taking the power away from the agents. And we’re trying to put it back into the hands of the agents. So I do recommend. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for breaking that down and telling us what that’s all about. Okay. What can you say about motivation?
You know, to have success as an entrepreneur, as a sales professional, you need to be a self-starter right. You need to be motivated. However, some are finding it difficult to find that spark get motivated again, any. Yeah, motivation is key, man. It’s everything. If you don’t have the motivation to be successful, how can you be successful?
If you don’t have the motivation to be a killer? How can you be the best version of yourself? If you don’t have the motivation to get out of bed every day? Be the best version of yourself, how you supposed to do it. So without motivation you enough. And I believe that no matter what business you work in, you have to be passionate about it.
You have to love it. You have to sleep it, feel it, touch it, envision it, manifest it. And if you don’t have any. You don’t have anything because to become the best version of yourself, it starts with the motivation behind you. And for me, what I get to get up and do every single day in my life, I’m passionate about it.
I love it. I want to be the best in it. I want to be competitive and I don’t want to be the best at it. And that starts with motivation. So the first thing I’d say is if you’re in a business that doesn’t motivate you, you’re in the wrong business. I always believe it starts with you, right? It’s like, when you’re on an airplane and I love this so much and they’re going through the security debriefing and, they bring down the mosque.
What’s the first thing they say, put it on yourself first so that you can take care of someone next to you. Right? So for me, the motivation and before even having motivation, you don’t have to work on yourself. So you can go out and take care of others and motivate others and be of service to others.
Right? So my whole thing is I’m going to work on myself so that I can help others. And if I work on myself, then I can motivate myself and then I can motivate others. The same as in business, man, you’ve got to take care of yourself first, so you can take care of others. Do the work, spend the time on it, become the best version of yourself you can be, and they can go out and help.
Yep. Great. Great thoughts. A perfect illustration. Perfect illustration. Okay. What’s the most important thing for sales professionals, real estate agents and entrepreneurs to focus on in 2020. Being creative and thinking outside of the box. And that for me is never going to change 20, 21 or 20, 25 or 2050.
If you’re not willing to be creative and think outside of the box, then don’t expect to become the best in your field. Because if you’re the type of person that’s just willing to be average, then I feel sorry for you. I really mean that because average to me. It’s a waste of time. You have to believe in yourself.
You have to be creative in order to do so. You have to sit down and get creative by thinking outside of the box to become successful. And I think, especially at a time, like now where so much is changing, lifestyles are shiftings. People’s perspectives are changing. Therefore you have to change with the time, get creative.
And, and think about how you can separate yourself from everyone else and be the best version of yourself.
Fantastic. Okay. Moving along to what you’re doing now, what happened to the podcast? I was enjoying that positively chaotic. What happened typically chaotic with James Harris was a podcast that I just was passionate about. I wanted to hear about major entrepreneurs and celebrities, and the reason I did the podcast and the title of the podcast was I wanted people to hear other people’s stories of their road in journey to success.
’cause I think so many people look at a celebrity or a millionaire or a billionaire and perhaps think it was an easy road. And I wanted others to see how positively chaotic that journey really was the ups, the downs of where they started when they lost everything, how they got it back, how they became who they are today.
We wrote it, man, I had probably 10, 12 guests on the poke costs. The numbers were going through the roof. I got offered a super deal from a big pump cost company. And I had to make a really big personal decision on that podcast, which was, I had to look at my career. My agency business, my partnership, where David and I are taking this business and we have some really big goals of where we want this business to go.
We had some really big dreams of where we want this business to go. And at the beginning of the year, I spoke with my wife. I spoke with David and I just realized that I can’t do anything. And I can’t be the Jack of all trades and I have to focus my attention right now on my business, on the show on development.
And I just cannot fit everything into a 24 hour time. The podcast will definitely come back in the near future. It’s a passion of mine. I love being guests of punk costs with great people like yourself, and it will be back. And, glad that you asked me the question. Yeah, well, we’ll be watching for it.
Dammit. Ricky,
we blame Ricky. We blame Ricky. Okay. So what’s next for James Harris? The team in 2021. You said you have big goals, any specific goals you want. Absolutely. Amanda has no secrets. I think the goals are to continue rising, to continue growing. We want to organically scale the size of our team. We want to bring young hungry agents that are ambitious to be successful onto our team.
We want to set up a development company, a fund where we can go out and help others buy real estate and invest into real estate. And you know, at the same time, nothing needs to be. You know, I’ve always been a very knee-jerk person and salesmen get sold. And so if I hear an idea and I like it, I’m like, let’s go, but I’m all about this year.
Just slowing down, thinking about my decisions, having a strategy in place, as you know, I know. A business coach to bounce ideas off someone that I trust implicitly. And for me it’s all about slowing down, taking two steps back so that I can take five steps forward. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in our business and the growth of our business and our team.
And there’s a lot of exciting things to do. Yeah, that’s awesome. You can only know where you’re going sometimes when you have a coach, you know, so I think it’s really important, especially in real estate to have a coach. I agree with you there, where, where do things stand with a million dollar listing Los Angeles?
Is it in a holding pattern? Is it filming what’s going on? I have no idea how I’m supposed to answer to that, but we are looking good and we are definitely coming back. And, I’ll just say this it’s going to be incorrect. That’s all I can say on the matter, but it’s going to be really incredible. Looking forward to it.
I just found out about this, that you had some beef with Madison Hildebrand, right? From like, wow. Yeah, you dad watch the show day. You’re like 10 seasons in, like, I can’t remember where that was, but you had some beef with him. Is that, is that a legitimate. That’s legit beef. I don’t think the guy, he had done something super unethical on a co-listing that we had together at Malibu.
He was trying to sell another property. Once we were selling that one to people that we had brought to an event. Anyway, we don’t need to relive that moment, but yeah, no, I’m not. I’m definitely not a fan that’s for sure. Okay. And then, where do things stand with you and Josh Altman? Are you guys going for beers now?
Definitely. No. You know, I will tell you this Josh Altman and I have zero in common, except we both love real estate. And we both have an incredible passion to work hard and be successful. We couldn’t be more opposite, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t highly respect. And his entire team’s hustle because they’re hard workers.
They get shit done. With just incredibly different in the way we do everything. I’ll say it like that. Fantastic. Now, James final question, you’re opening a bottle of champagne one year from now celebrating something you’ve accomplished. What would that be? My family. Period. I mean, what my accomplishments were 11 years ago versus what they are today.
I come home to this madhouse every single evening to two screaming. Children are hot Bolivia and wife, and I just count my blessings every day. Man. I had such a crazy childhood, such a, Strange upbringing with being kicked out of schools, left right and center and not knowing where I was going to land.
And I got an amazing mother now who lives in California with me, beautiful wife, two children that I’m blessed to have. And that’s a celebration. I get to enjoy everything. That’s awesome. You know, James, always a great time with you really appreciate you jumping on with us, talking about the current state of luxury real estate in Southern California, along with what it’s going to take to be successful for sales professionals, entrepreneurs in 2021.
We’re also looking forward to having you at the, greater property group mastermind in the, in the next couple of weeks, I think on March 16th. So. I look forward to that. My man, and I love chatting with you, David, you guys are awesome. And I love watching the success of the podcast and seeing all the great guests and thank you for having me.
Fantastic. Where do you want the people to connect with you or follow you? Do you want to send them a, I guess to your Instagram? For sure. James Bond. S T where else? Anywhere else you want. That’s right. Just come to Instagram, James Bond S T stay connected. Let’s help want to know. It’s become successful this year.
Let’s be the best we can be. Let’s break records this year.
