Becoming a successful real estate agent looks different for everyone, but some stories are truly astounding. Unlike most real estate success stories, Christine and Carl Battista’s started their career in luxury real estate during the real estate crash in 2008. They knew that it was one of the most challenging markets in history, but they decided to put their heads down and do the work, anyway.

With the Institute’s training behind them, the former ICU nurses landed a downtown Denver condo as their first, real luxury listing.

And then, something amazing happened.

Putting everything they learned in their ILHM training to use, Christine and Carl sold their listing within 18 days at a record-breaking price. 

“We would really be remiss if we didn’t emphasize the pivotal role that the Institute of Luxury Home Marketing played—and still does—in our profession and really in our lives, especially in those very early years. It gave us the confidence, the strategies, and the wherewithal, and also really impressed the sellers that we could get it done in that market,” Christine says.

Going all-in on explosive marketing

Like most luxury real estate agents with impressive real estate success stories will tell you, exclusively paying attention to online or in-person marketing is like leaving money on the table. Making sure that you’re going all-in with high-quality marketing both on and offline is crucial to getting listings sold. Christine and Carl call it “explosive marketing”.

“It’s very difficult to change the perception of a home once you’ve launched it. We say that ‘time on market is not your friend’, you don’t want your home stigmatized,” Christine explains.

Christine and Carl simply won’t list a property that isn’t perfectly ready, and they are highly involved in arranging the improvements of a home so that they can choose their stagers and ensure that clients are getting the best help they can possibly find.

Another strategy the team has used religiously is using their “Sold”, “Pending”, and “Under Contract” listings to drive urgency and foster trust.

Christine says, “We create social proof, the things that are moving well. We do that on social media.”

Focusing on relationships is what creates real estate success stories like these

Christine and Carl are genuinely passionate about serving their clients’ best interests. They foster trust right away by having their clients tell them what their experience in real estate has been, what they liked or disliked about other agents, and what a successful transaction would look like to them. 

Then, Christine and Carl will write up an email and reiterate all of the points they touched on during their conversation to confirm that they’ve understood correctly, and their clients appreciate the effort they put in to establish clear communication upfront. 

Beyond that, the team also creates video snippets of themselves doing the day-to-day marketing of a seller’s home, whether they’re doing a quick last-minute vacuuming before a showing or going out to network, and then sends it to the seller through text or email. 

“They just love it, they’re wowed by the extent you’re going to market their property and we found that most sellers have no idea what’s happening day-to-day unless you do something like this,” Christine says. 

And much like they did in the ICU before their career in real estate, the couple first and foremost makes sure that their clients’ needs are met before thinking of their own.

Carl adds, “Especially when you get into this elite group, it has absolutely nothing to do with money. If you’re doing this because of money, that’s not it. You just work as hard as you can and do everything in their best interest. Our number one job is not to help them buy or sell, it’s to protect them. After that, then it’s to help them buy or sell. It’s all about doing the right thing, and if you do the right thing every time, eventually the money will come.”

If you want to be part of the elite group Carl has mentioned, then click here to join us online or in-person to earn your CLHMS designation to wow your clients and boost your career…we’d love for your success story to make it to our Member Spotlight, too!