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From the Classroom to Closing Deals

• Courtney Twiss • Episode 36

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What if transitioning careers could not only change your life but also fulfill your deepest passions? In this episode, we sit down with Jake Fahnhorst, a former teacher from Livermore, California, who now thrives as a successful real estate broker. Jake's story begins with a personal home-buying experience and a pivotal conversation with a broker friend that sparked his real estate journey. Listen as Jake reveals the supportive role his family and friends played, and how he achieved his real estate license within an impressive three months. His journey is an inspiring testament to determination and the joy he finds in helping clients with their real estate needs.

Ever wondered what it takes to leap from a stable career into the unknown? Jake opens up about the challenges he faced while transitioning from teaching to a full-time role in real estate, highlighting the emotional and financial preparations necessary for such a significant change. He shares invaluable strategies for balancing dual roles initially, and the importance of maintaining a community-driven, service-focused ethos. Jake’s advice is practical and encouraging for anyone contemplating a similar career shift, emphasizing the importance of resilience and preparation.

Navigating the bustling Livermore real estate market is no small feat, and Jake offers his expertise on commission negotiations and ensuring affordability for buyers. He discusses innovative strategies to navigate these hurdles while building a solid social media presence, organically growing his following to almost 2,000 without any shortcuts. This episode concludes on a high note, with expressions of gratitude and excitement for future interactions, leaving listeners inspired and informed about the realities and rewards of a career in real estate.

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Speaker 1:

by way to the bay in a couple of weeks and just pound you down.

Speaker 2:

That would have been tough, but you could have done it I believe you don't know the general. I got to ask the general. I know that.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Now Podcast Making Moves in Real Estate. This is episode 36. Today's guest has been a licensed real estate agent since 2017 and obtained his broker's license last year, in 2023. So he's born and raised in Livermore, california, a dedicated husband, super proud dad to their eight-year-old daughter, and leads a very successful team of four agents. With a hands-on approach, he guides his clients through buying, selling or investing, using his expansive network to ensure success. So he's got two dogs, gizmo and Cashew. Life's always exciting, and let's go ahead and dive into Jake's journey. Jake Fawn Horse. Did I say that correctly?

Speaker 2:

You got it Fawn Horst. Yeah, nice, you got it Welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me Really appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I don't know if you even remember this, but I got your name from Jeremy Wallace. Do you know Jeremy? Yes, I didn't know you.

Speaker 2:

No no, so I coached his son back, maybe 10 years ago, maybe eight years ago, golf coached him in golf and actually I helped Jeremy sell their house this year.

Speaker 1:

So I don't know if you knew that. I did not know that, so I need to know about that. Did he move out of the area or is he still in the area?

Speaker 2:

They stayed in area. They're still in Livermore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2:

Cool.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, I know Jeremy and his wife from back in the day, my former pharmaceutical years. So when he said you got to call this guy, I called you. I don't know if you remember that called you.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if you remember that. I do, I do recall, I do recall, and we've been misconnecting for ever since. But here we are now.

Speaker 1:

So here we are, so tell us about how great you are at Livermore, because you were a teacher before. What made you get into real estate?

Speaker 2:

real estate. Yeah, so I was a teacher starting 2011 and then wrapped up my teaching career in 2019. And I was in real estate. I got my license October 2017, so almost seven years right now and I was doing both jobs for a couple of years. But what got me into real estate is, well, when me and my wife purchased our first home back in 2016, kind of piqued my interest, and I was actually painting the exterior of my house with a buddy of mine, michael Schau, who he was a broker, and he was on the phone talking to clients of his. He was working on a deal, helping his friends purchase a property in San Francisco. And I was just listening to him talk on the phone and, you know, working this deal, and I thought to myself I could do that Right. And my grandmother and my aunt they always told me you should be a realtor, you should be a realtor. And I was like, no, I'm a, I'm a teacher, you know, I want to be a teacher, that's what I'm going to do.

Speaker 2:

But at that moment I got the, got the thought in my mind, and then me, michael, my wife and his wife, we had dinner that night and several wines, we'll say, and we around the fire pit. We decided we came up with an idea plan All right, you've got your broker's license, I'm going to get my license and we'll start helping people in Livermore license. And we'll start helping people in livermore. And the next day I signed up for the classes. I called michael. I said, all right, we're doing it. He was like, oh, you were serious. So, yeah, exactly, exactly. So. Three months after that so that was in july by October I had my license.

Speaker 2:

By the new year, michael Schell Cole, solid, thank you for getting me started here and he actually joined my team later and he's back in the tech field, but anyway, so that was kind of how it started. And then I was doing both jobs for a couple of years, got to a point where you know, doing real estate, doing coaching, teaching, new dad it got too busy to the point to where I had to make a decision on going full-time real estate. So bet on myself, got the wife on board and she said, all right, you've got my permission, you could go all in on real estate. And 2019, uh, june 2019 was my last time full-time in the classroom and then pandemic hit and it was crazy because I had some escrows going and then they all canceled and it like what's going on now. You know I don't have a guaranteed paycheck coming without, but as we know what happened in real estate during pandemic it all worked out in the end.

Speaker 1:

Can we, can we sit on that for a second? In regards to you overlapping careers Because there's a lot of agents that do that right. They're scared to make that leap of faith and quit whatever their full-time job is and get full-time into real estate. We have a few people I can think of on a team of someone that we work with down in the Fresno market we're meeting with someone today and we're meeting with someone today in the same boat has a tech job and would love to do full-time real estate, but they're hesitant to leave a paycheck that they know is coming. What, what advice can you give to someone that's in that position, or what helped you get off the fence?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I looked at it like I had two full time jobs. I didn't look at it as I was a full-time teacher, a part-time realtor. I was like I'm all in in both areas and I'm going to do my absolute best in education as well, as you know, in the area of real estate. Um, so that was the mindset, right? So if anybody said, oh, you're a part-time, no, no, I'm not, I haven't, I have another job. But I'm still like I could service you, I could serve you, help you as a client, um, just as good as as any other realtor, right? So that that was the mindset. But also from a financial perspective, um, I didn't't go full time until my wife was convinced. But once we had reserves, enough to be like, all right, if the world ended or if everything stopped, no sales happened for a year, we'd be okay, kind of thing. But got to a point in the business where I had escrows and then I had a pipeline business where I was, you know, I had escrows and then I had a pipeline and it made sense to to make that full-time leap into the business.

Speaker 2:

So it was tough leaving my you know, my career as an educator because it was, it was what I did for a decade and it was part of my identity. It was what I did for a decade and it was part of my identity, right, it was my brand, right, if you look at it from that perspective. So that wasn't an easy decision, because you tell somebody you're going to do something, go a different direction. Everybody has their opinions, right, like why would you do that? You're such a great teacher, and X, y, z. But ultimately, like I said, bet on myself and I always had an entrepreneurial bone that I wanted to utilize.

Speaker 2:

So it worked out how it was supposed to work out. Yeah, it's, it worked out how it was it was supposed to work out, yeah, so advice would be have, you know, have some reserves, right, because we're in sales. So if you're not making sales, then you don't have a paycheck, right, so you got to live. So have reserves, but have the mindset of I could serve you as a, as a client, just as good as any other full time realtor, right, you just have to time block, right. So I couldn't be out showing properties or meeting with clients from you know, eight in the morning till three, thirty or whatever, but I could meet you at three thirty one, right, I could have that phone call on my lunch break at school or whatever. So just time blocking, utilizing your calendar and having the mindset of I could serve just as well as any other agent, but right now, being a full-time agent, I feel like I could serve my client. You know I'm available all the time, right, but that was the mindset, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So, speaking of serving your clients, you have community-driven service-focused everywhere. I've noticed on your signs on your social media. You speak it everywhere. I've noticed on your signs on your social media. You speak it. So I suspect a significant part of your business comes from your referral network and your ability to live by that. Essentially, that's your mission, I'm guessing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's kind of the slogan, right, the mission is to expertly serve our clients with care, compassion and consistency. That's technically the mission statement. But my personal mission statement is to be a plus in the lives of others. So community-driven service focus, that's the tagline. So community is that's like, it's what keeps us going right, it's our long-term fuel for, you know, my life and our business, right? So it's we. We have, uh, let's say it's people helping people, php. So that's as simple as the community driven we're. We're here to help people and in whatever capacity we can. And service focused above and beyond is the standard standard. That's our other kind of our vision statement. So, yeah, community-driven service-focused kind of rolls off the tongue a little bit right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you have a team now, so you were on your own for a few years. When did you start your team?

Speaker 2:

So, technically, ken Quimby he's been with me from the beginning with MH Real Estate. So I was with MH Real Estate 2017, october and then November 2019, made the transition to Keller Williams Tri-Valley no-transcript september 2019 with me and ken and then, once we shifted to keller williams um, you know, started the brand of the jake fawnhorse team.

Speaker 1:

so we've what's the structure of your team, like how, what?

Speaker 2:

you have a lot of people that tell we're still working that out, to be honest, like I'm still learning how to run a team Still. Yeah, so the structure right now we have an admin, our success manager, edson, so he's kind of the behind the scenes, you know, with some marketing stuff, our systems and things like that and then we've got agents on the team not necessarily buyers agents, but just agents, right, and then they're able to leverage the brand and we could serve our clients better by. It's not just my availability, if I'm not there, someone else could be there, no matter what, somebody is going to be there serving our clients. So that team concept and having everybody buy into that, and everybody on our team is here to help each other in order to help our clients. So we've got a solid squad right now and so I'm really happy about that.

Speaker 1:

Is Livermore still? I mean, I know it was growing exponentially given the proximity to the Bay. What's is that still? Is it still dropping off or stabilized?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would say at Livermore it's kind of that, that Goldilocks zone, you know, to the Silicon Valley and San Francisco it's not too far, it's far enough away that you still get good bang for your buck. So it's still booming. It's still a little bit of a secret, not everybody knows about it, but I think people are starting to hear and I think it's going to continue to grow. For that reason, once people realize how great it is here, they'll continue to come.

Speaker 1:

Once everyone hears this podcast, I feel like we've asked our guests at Nazium how things are going specific to the changes in our industry. But it wouldn't hurt to get your perspective on and, given that your team is doing so well, I suspect you've been rolling through it just fine but maybe any particular nuggets that you've learned through the transition that you can share with our listeners? That would be great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean dealing with sellers, working with sellers. Working with sellers, the conversation has been a little easier, to be honest, versus talking to buyers and I'm probably 70% sellers. So, working with sellers it's you know, here's my value, here's what I charge, and then typically a buyer's agent will be compensated. We'll cross that bridge when offers come in, but I would anticipate paying up to 2.5%, but it'll be a negotiation point and that's been great, having that be the conversation, that most offers that are coming in are requesting the concessions for the seller to pay the buyer's agent commission. That's been my experience so far and there hasn't been any issues yet that I've run into.

Speaker 2:

However, on the buyer side, I've actually got a meeting at 930 with some buyers who I'm working with right now and we've got, you know, we've showed property. Therefore we've had the buyer broker agreement and you know I charge what I charge and. But I also said you know, I also said you know I'm going to do everything in my power to help you and be compensated by the seller and what that's going to do, that's going to help you with your affordability and ultimately it's going to be a win-win situation for everybody, right? But we wrote an offer and the seller is not wanting to pay commission to the buyer's agent. So we're having a meeting to talk about that today, so it'll be interesting.

Speaker 1:

Do you on this particular deal, if we don't mind walking through it a little bit. So, on the MLS concessions, yes or no when you showed it, that's no longer a thing On our MLS.

Speaker 2:

there's no anything with concessions or commissions. That field has been removed from our MLS based.

Speaker 1:

Okay, ours still has a yes or no. Obviously it doesn't reference amounts. Did you, did the listing agent like? Do you? Are you guys having conversations with the listing agents prior to showing to get a feel, or are you just rolling and then hoping to negotiate after the fact?

Speaker 2:

ah, gotcha, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this one's an off market um, but prior to showing, I, I personally I don't call and say, hey, is there a commission? Okay, that's just not, it's not really a thought. Um, you know, honestly, I'll just write it in on the offer with the concession and there, and then, you know, negotiate from there. But I haven't had that be an issue yet representing buyers until this off market situation here.

Speaker 1:

Gotcha. So what's the plan in this crucial, crucial conversation? I want to know, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So we had a consultation, a buyer consultation and basically where I said, look, I'm here to help you and I want to, whatever way I could help, and I'm going to get paid from the seller. And if I don't, honestly, then I'm going to. This is me personally, this is I'm not speaking for the whole industry, right, right. But I said I'm going to help you, I'm not going to charge you, even if they don't pay. Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:

And I, I'm a man of my word. So that's what. When it comes down to it, that's, that's how it's going to roll, and the thought behind that is 10 years down the line, 20 years down the line. You know, if they're, if they are gonna sell.

Speaker 1:

They're not gonna sell with anybody else well, you know we're yes, and the buyers, so your buyer broker agreement has a zero no, no, it has a 2.5, but I don't I'll amend that.

Speaker 2:

I'll amend it and I'm because I told them I I said what I said and I meant what I said and yeah wow I?

Speaker 1:

that's awesome. I don't know. We're definitely not approaching it that way. If anything, actually, I'd say we're, we're, we're in. Our markets may be different, but we're.

Speaker 1:

I'm coaching my team to actually try to pre-negotiate. Before you even go look at a home and try to, you know what we could get in anticipation prior to, especially with our first time home buyers in our market. That price points, you know, 350,000 to 400,000. So they don't have a lot of. Just because a law changed, they don't have an extra $10,000 to throw down to pay us. So I guess in our mind it's important to know that we will be able to get compensated and it will be based off of how good our negotiation skills are from the seller to help protect our buyers from having to pay us. Because, on the flip side, I think our time is valuable and our expertise in our market. We definitely don't want to sell ourselves short. So we're kind of approaching it a little different than you and that's why we like having these conversations, because right now it's like the wild, wild west and it's different for everybody in every market. So it's kind of neat to hear different strategies, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 2:

And I'm in business, we're in business, we don't like to work for no compensation, right, but at the same time, in this instance. But this is what is happening yeah, and they might.

Speaker 1:

Great, I'm gonna pay you, jake, you're amazing, I think. I think he's confident in his ability to get the seller to pay something I have a seller. I said no, well, but they're going to negotiate, right? No, he's talking to his buyer, so negotiating with the seller is still not. It's an opportunity.

Speaker 2:

No, so we're in negotiations currently, right now. We're not in contract at the moment, so we'll see how this one shakes out. But yeah, and like I say, I think one of them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I say up the offer. Enough to cover your commissions, right, add an extra whatever 20 grand or whatever the percentage equals out, and add it on top. Yeah, yeah, that could be something.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. I mean if, if push comes to shove right Cause having to pay two and a half percent of 1.3 million on top of your other closing costs and down payment, versus having it amortized over 30 years, that's a big difference. So you know, we'll see how it goes right. But at the end of the day, I'm thinking long term, I'm thinking in decades, I'm not thinking in, you know, next month.

Speaker 1:

So, anyhow. All right. Well, there's a couple of personal things I wanted to mention. Did you know that he's a Cal Poly, st Louis Bistro graduate? Aw, that's where we just took our daughter. This is her first week there.

Speaker 2:

Go Mustangs.

Speaker 1:

Go Mustangs. Yeah, I'm a proud mother.

Speaker 2:

Is she in the dorms in Mustang Village?

Speaker 1:

She is. She's in the Yosemite dorms is where hers is all right, ironically uh, yeah, yeah, good coincidence there yeah yeah, cal Poly was, yeah, great school, great town, good times, good memories.

Speaker 2:

There haven't been back in a long time.

Speaker 1:

But uh, I'll have to go back and then, before we wrap, um, we have to talk about the 49ers. Like I don't know, I've been playing. I played your game. You know the draw last year. None of my numbers got picked. You have a promotion going on right now that I participated in. I'm like pick me, jake, pick me. So what's going? On you gotta pick me though. So what do you? Think we'll see what we can do yeah, well, they would just make my husband.

Speaker 2:

I think I mean it's early in the season, right week four the Patriots coming up. It should be a good get right game, get us back on the right track. I think injuries hurt, yeah, and yeah, it's a long season. Would I like to be better than one and two right now? Yeah, I think the whole 49ers organization would like that. But I'm faithful. I'm thinking that at the end of the the season we'll be in the postseason and hopefully we've got healthy players and we'll be able to make a good push, maybe another super bowl, super bowl appearance would be nice.

Speaker 1:

Is your daughter into football?

Speaker 2:

She is into cheerleading. So she's done like some cheerleading camps and she was doing like a cheerleading what were they called the California Bullets, but it was a little too crazy. They were like the super competitive ones that like go on ESPN, you know that type of thing. She wasn't quite ready for that yet but she's. She likes cheerleading. She watched the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders on Netflix and she's gonna be a. This pains me, but she's gonna be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader for Halloween oh my god.

Speaker 1:

No, jake. Well, she's still a Niner fan, but she's Cowboys cheerleader for Halloween?

Speaker 2:

Oh my God. No, yeah, well, she's still a Niner fan, but she's a DCC fan, is what she says. So we're going yeah, we're going, as a family to the to the Patriots Niner game on Sunday, and she's not going to be wearing her Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders outfit.

Speaker 1:

That's going to be a fun game.

Speaker 2:

Should be a win. Should be a win, yeah, but so my family played for the 49ers. So my, we said my uncles, but it was my, my dad's cousins. So yeah, keith and Jim Fonhorst, they played back in the heyday, the 80,. You know, my dad's cousins Got it. So yeah, keith and Jim Fonhorst, they played back in the heyday, the late 70s, 80s and early 90s. So, fun fact, the catch. You know the catch Dwight Clark, joe Montana, rolling out to the right against the Cowboys. The catch if you look at number 71, block and form out, there's keith fawnhorst.

Speaker 1:

so that's fun. I'll have to tell my husband. That's awesome yeah, so you hurt your daughter back, huh oh no, she's, she's niners. She's not just the cowgirl cowboys, cheerleaders well, so if our listeners want to follow your amazing stories on 49ers bay area trips to mexico, giving back to your community, which is just awesome to watch all the things that you do, where can our listeners follow?

Speaker 2:

follow more about all of that yeah, I guess on instagram would probably be the best place to do that at jeke fawnhorst real estate. Yeah, you could. You could be one of my few hundred followers and see all the fun stuff you gotta have more than that.

Speaker 1:

Dude, like I'm all you're, I love watching you it's.

Speaker 2:

It's not a lot, but it's it's my people right, so I, that's what I'm about that is what it's yeah, yeah, I didn't.

Speaker 1:

I didn't purchase any followers, so you have almost 2,000, stop it oh, look at us, yeah, look at us well, jake, we really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. We love what you're doing. We're going to definitely continue to follow your journey and hopefully you know if we get go to the bay or if we're watching games or something, we'll hit you up sounds good.

Speaker 2:

I'll be here and thank you very much for taking the time to to have me on the podcast I. I feel like a big shot here, so thanks, courtney.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for sharing. Yeah, I mean. Thank you so much, jay.

Speaker 2:

We'll talk soon. All right Sounds good. Have a great Friday. Bye.