Pivot or Get Left Behind: How to Win in Any Real Estate Market (Mindset, Strategy & Adaptability)

In this episode of the Be The Solution Podcast, Maria Quattrone sits down with real estate investor and entrepreneur Daniel Harvey (“Dan the Real Estate Man”) to talk about one thing every agent, investor, and entrepreneur must master:

👉 Pivoting in a changing market

From COVID to rising interest rates, the last few years have proven one thing—there is no predictability in real estate or life.

Maria and Dan break down how mindset, adaptability, and strategic decision-making separate those who survive from those who thrive.

If you want to build a sustainable business that can withstand any market cycle, this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways

🔄 The Market Always Wins — So You Must Adapt

🧠 Mindset Drives Everything

⚙️ Your “Operating System” Matters

🚫 “I’m Not a Victim” Mentality

🏗️ Pivoting Creates Opportunity

🏡 Today’s Market Reality

🔥 Best Quotes

Maria Quattrone:
“Who do you need to become to have the life that you want?” 

Daniel Harvey:
“The market always wins—you either adapt or you get left behind.” 

Guest Contact

Daniel Harvey (Dan the Real Estate Man)

🌐 BRAG Investors:
 braginvestors.com

🏗️ Construction Company:
 DTRMConstruction.biz

📱 Instagram:
 @DanTheRealEstateMan_

📱 Facebook:
 Dan The Real Estate Man

Markets change. Strategies change. Conditions change.

But one thing stays the same:

👉 Your mindset determines your outcome.

If you take ownership, stay adaptable, and continue to grow—you will always find a way to win.

Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535

Transcript

Welcome Back And A Quote

Maria Quattrone 0:00

Welcome back, friends. This is the Be the Solution Podcast, and I'm your host, Maria Quatron, and I'm excited. I am excited to talk to Dan, the real estate man. Dan has been a guest on our show before, so he's a friend of the Be the Solution podcast. And Dan, I have a quote for you this morning.

Daniel Harvey 0:20

All right.

Maria Quattrone 0:21

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way, you are right.

Daniel Harvey 0:28

That's it.

Maria Quattrone 0:29

I know that quote. I love that quote. Dan, it's one of my favorite quotes, actually. I've been saying this quote for as long as I can remember. So it has to be at least uh upwards of 30 plus years. I've been saying that quote. So I welcome you to the show, Dan, and we're gonna we're gonna dive right in, man, this morning. We're gonna get right at it.

Daniel Harvey 0:54

Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Real Estate Cycles Since 2020

Maria Quattrone 0:56

My pleasure, always, always my pleasure. If anything, the last few years have taught us, I'd say, let me go back. The last since 2020, since COVID, you think we would learn the lessons, the lesson of there really is no predictability of life of things. We're going through life, la da dita. COVID hits. We get through that, which was a lot for people. Interest rates drop. We're gonna interest rates drop, da-da-da. We have more and we think it's lasted forever again, right? Two percent, three percent in six months went to almost eight percent. So full circle in regards to real estate, these cycles greatly affect the business of real estate that we're in, whether we're buying and holding, buying and flipping, uh, land development, construction, and here you are constantly. We're reinventing ourselves or reinventing what we're doing in the business, and I think it doesn't have to kill you.

Mindset And Self Talk That Sticks

Daniel Harvey 2:15

No, no, it it doesn't. I so I've been doing it for for 20 years, but I'd say as a more full-time thing since since after roughly the last 16 years. So this this was really as I came in after the last cycle, after the 08 crash, is when I really started buying a lot of property. So I didn't really, I mean, I went through it, but I was working a full-time job in real estate was a distance side thing, and so really living through this cycle and actually being a full-time investor and doing all the things you just mentioned. I was building, I was flipping, and I was doing a land ground up project. I was doing all those things when when when COVID hit, so I could really speak to all those different levels uh uh investing. But you certainly use the word that um I think is is is very important. I talked about it once I realized things were changing, not so much all through COVID, but especially when rates change, which is pivoting, right? It it you you have to have flexibility, you have to have like mental flexibility. Um and you have to have you have to have financial flexibility. So it really taught me a lot of lessons. It's it's like you were saying, um, you you get into a routine and it seems like this thing is gonna go on forever, and then it changes. You're like, oh, okay, well, this this strategy is not working right now. This, you know, this I I have to do something different. I think the smart people realize that quickly and do what they need to do to actually make those corrections. I think you get some stubborn folks um that think that they're going to go against the market. The market always wins.

Maria Quattrone 4:12

There's no no outs, there's no outsmarting the market.

Daniel Harvey 4:16

No outsmarting market, and so you just have to look at it. And so I certainly I have projects that I either had to that I decided not to do, or um I decided to do something different than what I had um planned uh uh originally. I I I do have a question, it just I know you you started off with the quote. I was curious about why that's your favorite quote. I know why I like it, I was just curious why you like that quote.

Maria Quattrone 4:46

Good question. I believe that if you believe that something will happen and you can do something, that you can, and if you want to do something and you don't believe that you can actually do it, you'll never do it. So I use that of believing, finding a way to believe in yourself, believe that it's possible, and once you believe that it's possible and you take action, that thing that you want, that dream will and can come true.

Daniel Harvey 5:23

I I I agree with that. I I think when I when I hear that quote, it speaks to two things. One is the power of mindset, right? I mean, I know that word is thrown around a lot, but mindset and I in my life in working on mindset, I've I've I've seen tangibly seen the difference in how working on your mindset can can physically change your life, right? It can actually change. And then the other thing that quote speaks to me about is self-talk. What you tell yourself matters, and you and you can't escape that. You can't intellectualize it if if what you if what you believe in here is opposite of what you're saying, what what with what you tell yourself and what you believe is going to win, right? And there is no way of getting around that. You can learn all the strategies, they can learn from you, they can learn from me, but if you don't believe that you're capable, for whatever reason, you you will be stuck, and there's no getting past that point, in my opinion.

Maria Quattrone 6:31

Well, I agree, and uh take it even another on another level, you have to believe it unconsciously, you can say it all you want, and you can believe it consciously, but your being has to believe it, and once your being believes it, then off to the races. And I had it in my own life, in my own experience.

Daniel Harvey 6:56

Absolutely. I mean, uh most people don't realize most of most of our patterns are in our subconscious, not in our conscious, right? Most of the things that we're not conscious thinking, oh, let me breathe right now, let me do the it's just it's it's it's your internal operating system, and just like like just like like a computer or anything else, you have to install the software that tells it how to operate how you want it to, otherwise, you will still get that operating system, but you'll get it from outside, you get it from everybody else, and they and that's what will that will be your operating system, so you will have one whether you choose to or not. I prefer to choose my own. Unfortunately, what I found is most people, first of all, are not even aware of how they operate, but they allow for that operating system to be dictated by the outside world, and they never question it, they just accept it. Um, and then when they have all these issues, um, they don't understand that they themselves could solve a lot of the issues if they change their operating system.

Ownership Over Victim Thinking

Maria Quattrone 8:11

Oh, yeah. Well, it goes to where you are at in your life. Great, it's your fault. Are you not where you or you want to be in your life? Great, it's your fault. It's the whole um context behind be the solution. It's about you taking 100% ownership of your life, and that's why you know you write a lot of posts about I'm not a victim. And we had started earlier and talking about we're gonna discuss that. I'm not a victim, I'm not a victim, you're not a victim, only if you choose to be a victim, and it's the mindset of I am the solution. Pick that mirror up, look in the mirror, and find out who you are. Because this journey, whether it's flipping houses, doing construction, doing property management or real estate sales, whatever, anything, it's all about the journey. It's all about who you become along the way, and who do you need to become to have the life that you want? What old patterns you need to erase? What things do you need to let go of? Why do you post that? I'm not a victim.

Daniel Harvey 9:36

Well, you touch on a lot of it. I mean, I I think that um your taglines and mine are kind of two sides of the same coin. Ultimately, what I'm saying is that listen, tough things are going to happen, bad things are going to happen, but you don't have to, you don't have to, you don't have to internalize those issues, right? Meaning that's not who you are, that's a thing that has happened to you, possibly if something has happened to you, because that's where sometimes people push back against my message, like, oh, I was a victim. I understand something happened to you, but it doesn't necessarily mean you have to now wear that as your character or as who you are, right? And I was saying, and I'm gonna just be straightforward about it, where it really started was just from my upbringing and how I how I was conditioned coming from like a black neighborhood, where it's not overtly where somebody's saying you are oppressed. Well, it is some of that's happening now, but it it's it's how things oh things are gonna be so much more harder for you, this that and the third. And what happens is whether that's true or not, if you start to see yourself through those lenses, you that is a discouraging idea, right? It it's it's a limiting belief that before you even start, there's going to be all of this. Um, there's all of this resistance that's going to happen, which in turn stops a lot of people from even trying. Because like, well, why try if there's going to be all of this issues that's going to be in my way? And I believe that stopped a lot of people, or stops a lot of people that come from similar similar backgrounds. And so, and there's a lot of voices that I feel that push that narrative. So I felt like, well, in my experience, that has not been the case, right? So if they're going to be loud about how tough things could be, I should be as loud as of how things could be if you believe in yourself, um, if you put the work in, right? And to be clear, I'm not saying that there's not injustices out there, of course there are, but you don't have to internalize those things, like I was saying earlier, and make that your operating system. That's what I don't believe in. That's where I'm not a victim comes in. And then it's it's it's it's expanded because, in my opinion, victimhood has become like cachet now. There's there's actual value in people finding victimhoodness in all sorts of things, and and I think that ultimately um that's going to be a problem, not just for people personally, but you know, possibly for the for the for the country as a whole, for everybody's finding their own little victim clicks, if you will.

Maria Quattrone 12:32

You're Gen X, right?

Daniel Harvey 12:33

What's that time frame? I'm I was born 1979. Is that Gen X?

Gen X Grit And Figuring It Out

Maria Quattrone 12:37

Yeah, you're Gen X. Okay. So I was born 1970, and uh we didn't know any better. I grew up in a neighborhood, Northeast Philly, Castor Gardens. All I know is you either went to we went to school together, you went to Catholic school, or you were Jewish and you went to the public school. I was pretty much it. It was a you know blue-collar, safe neighborhood, but not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, you know, like I don't know, I guess middle class, maybe I don't know. But we didn't know any better, Dan. And what I mean by that is that I remember distinctly my father saying, my mother saying, You can be anything you want to be, you could do anything you want to do. All you have to do is set your mind to it. I remember that since I've been, I don't even know, five years old, six years old. I didn't think I couldn't do anything. I wanted to be an actress and I wanted to be a lawyer. Who knows? Like, but I didn't know any better. I didn't know, you know, about a lot of stuff. I think that that was there was a lot of positive in that because we just dreamed and we weren't surrounded by what we're surrounded today, like social media, and watching you could take good things and bad things from it. But I guess my point is that we found a way. It was the generation where um nobody knew where you were, you're on your bike. I don't even think we had it. Wasn't like you got a bottle of water and like left the house.

Daniel Harvey 14:23

Yeah, yeah.

Maria Quattrone 14:24

It wasn't like I had like a garden holes. It wasn't even like you brought like a yeti, like a yeti, $40. It wasn't even like you had a yeti, you'd be gone for eight hours, no food, no drink, no nothing, not thinking nothing about it. That exploring, just being doing whatever. In my case, for the majority of it, I stayed out of trouble. But you find a way, you're like, Oh my god, so thirsty, I'm so tired, I'm eight miles from the house, and you just like go, right? But I think you know, that part of that is makes you who you are today. That figure it outness, that grittiness, that you know.

Daniel Harvey 15:13

And yeah, I mean, obviously, even with the way we raise kids now, is you're even me. I'm not to act like I'm much different than most most other folks. Yeah, you don't give kids that that same freedom uh that we had. And arguably, it's I would imagine it's probably a bit safer of a world with all of the cameras and stuff, so you and you could track them and all that kind of stuff. Uh, so I I don't know what really happened uh between then and now because my parents was the same way, and I just I just had this conversation. Like, yeah, you go out. Well, there was no cell phone, so it was really no way to call. You were just out, you were just you were riding.

Maria Quattrone 15:51

I didn't even I had a quarter, I wasn't going to use it on the phone. No, in like a candy bar or I like to cream donuts at the time, yeah.

Daniel Harvey 16:02

And the funny thing was when I think about it, my parents really didn't even ask me any questions about what we did when we were gone, we would just go back and you were just home, and they didn't really ask what were you doing?

Maria Quattrone 16:13

Just you know, this is really funny, Dan. They used to put it like a some kind of not a commercial, but like a message on TV. It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your kids are? Yeah, like like reminding you, they're reminding them you have kids, got kids come home yet?

Daniel Harvey 16:30

Different, different, different, different time.

Long Game Real Estate And Giving Back

Maria Quattrone 16:32

So it's like what happened? So I think there is a there's a lot of lessons in that because we try we dreamed, like we had dreams, a lot of dreams, and I spent hours in the library reading books, bring coming home with a whole thing of books. I don't even know how I got them home on the bike. You figure it out. There's a lot about that, like figuring it out, and it goes back to the times of like you we figure out things, you figure out okay, I'm building so you started your career, you were accepted for all these years, doing real estate on the side, resigned from that to be full-time in real estate, flipping houses, then doing new construction projects, then doing bigger new construction projects, then flipping houses, then having a construction company where you're helping and teaching other people uh who have means who want to deploy their money into real estate. And we do know long-term real estate, long-term real estate is one of the best investments you can make.

Daniel Harvey 17:34

Absolutely.

Maria Quattrone 17:35

Look about look at what it cost in 1980 for a house and look at what it costs today. Nobody can say that that's not true over time. Yes, there's been hiccups, it went down and it comes back up, and it actually came not only comes back up, but beyond, because in the last five years, a lot of neighborhoods have doubled in value. So long-term real estate, if you are in this business for the long game, and I don't care what part of it you're in, the long game, you build relationships, you build credibility, you build experience, you build hopefully wealth over time. And and you know, we're aligned in so many ways, Dan, because being in contribution and contributing back to the community to tell and show other people how to do it.

Daniel Harvey 18:26

I think that's a big piece of it. Um, I I I I believe me and I talked to you, I I created a group called Brag, which is the Black Real Estate Alliance group. And it's open to everybody, it's open to everybody, absolutely. And and let me just quickly explain um why I created the group itself. Like I said, I've been doing this for you know 20 plus years, like I said. And when I started out, um, when you would grow go to real estate groups, um, mostly were out in the suburbs. There wasn't really uh a lot in in Philly, and quite frankly, the groups would be all white, right? Which is fine because I didn't have any issues at at the groups at all. But what I found was there was a lot of opportunity there, there was a lot of resources there, there was a lot of networking there, and I started to question like, well, why isn't there more black investors coming to these uh events? Um, and you know, I didn't really understand why they weren't showing up there, but I saw the benefit of it. So I said, you know what, I'm gonna recreate this similar event, but just do them in areas more like in the city, um, where a concentration of the black investors are. And it's grown to a membership of over 2,500 members, done millions of dollars of deals inside of the group. I personally have done millions of dollars of deals with folks in the group, and it has expanded to not only being uh just for investors, but the whole real estate ecosystem, which which I'm really proud of. Um, so yeah, I definitely I believe in giving back, but that goes to the to what you were asking me uh about earlier about the I'm not a victim mindset, right? Is like, you know, I can show you better than I can I can tell you, right? I can sit here, pontificate, or I can create structures to help other people that come from similar backgrounds to hopefully reach some of the same goals, meet some of the same folks. And we again, like you said, it's open to everyone. We invite all kinds of speakers from all kinds of backgrounds. Um, so it's not about about exclusion, but it is certainly about bringing that level of of expertise that I saw in in other areas to um you know black uh investors and so forth.

Maria Quattrone 21:00

That's amazing. 2500 members now. Congratulations!

Daniel Harvey 21:04

Thank you.

Maria Quattrone 21:04

That is fantastic, Dan. When's your next event?

Daniel Harvey 21:08

So we're gonna have an event uh March the 18th. We're gonna do a uh round table uh event. At that event, what we do is we bring in experts, uh, generally three experts in the past. We've had like, you know, lawyer, lender, uh, architect. People can scroll around and quickly learn about the functions that they play in inside of the real estate space. So just you know, so this get a better understanding of uh of uh of the professionals that they're gonna need to hire um as they build their real estate business.

Maria Quattrone 21:45

That's awesome. March 18th. So you have monthly events pretty much?

Building BRAG Into A Real Network

Daniel Harvey 21:49

We do. So we have monthly events, um, and then we do a big expo every year. Last year, uh, we do a Bragg expo. Uh last year it was in September, and so That's like we had, I don't know, something like 25 speakers. Um, and we did it at the provident campus right there in 46 in um and market. Uh, we had a few hundred people there, so it's a really good event. So that's that that that is that's that's our marquee uh event, but then we do monthly meetings, mostly they're virtual, and then once a quarter it's it's in person, and then we do social events too, because I'm a big believer, it's good to get educated, but it's also good to socialize, right? You get to know people um on a deeper level, I feel in more social environments, like happy hours or something like that. Um, and that's what I feel is a good basis of potentially building um business relationships because you get to know what their personality is like. Is there somebody, you know, all things being equal, is there somebody that I actually want to speak to? There's somebody that that that that you know I want I want I want to do business with. So so we do um at least three social um uh events a year as well.

Maria Quattrone 23:08

That's a lot of stuff going on.

Daniel Harvey 23:10

Yeah, it is.

Maria Quattrone 23:11

Do you have your date for your signature event?

Daniel Harvey 23:13

I'm sorry, I said that again.

Maria Quattrone 23:14

Do you know the date this year for your marquee event?

Daniel Harvey 23:17

Yeah, it's the third Saturday. Um look at my calendar of September. So it'll be on the 19th of September.

Maria Quattrone 23:30

Locking that in.

Daniel Harvey 23:31

Yeah, so we'll just do some some marketing for that shortly.

Maria Quattrone 23:35

Oh, that's fantastic. So you've recently, in the past, I guess, year or so, started your own private construction company where you are representing uh helping, excuse me, investors who are getting into the game, uh, renovate their properties mainly for hold. And how did that determine to do that? Like, because you could just do your own stuff.

Daniel Harvey 24:03

Sure. So that's it. So, you know, going back to what we talked about earlier about about pivoting, one of the things that I did when rates shot up. So I was doing larger projects. And one of the one of the one of the key functions when you're doing a larger project is you have to be able to model them out, right? You have to have an idea of where the rates are going to land, um, so you can build those projects out. So kind of took some time off while when when rates were shooting up. And um, quite frankly, I would, you know, I had my rental properties, and so I was just kind of sitting back and excuse me. Um, but I you know started to get a little, you know, a little uh like man, I want to get back out here again. I want to doing some some some one of the biggest issues, one of the biggest things that I hear um from hosting uh tons of of coaching and mentoring is people having issues with contractors. And so what I set out to create is the kind of contracting business that I wish um existed when I first started. And what do I mean by that? Uh, a contractor that has um a very clear scope of work. This is what we are doing, right? Not vague contracts, uh, ways, ways for uh investors to actually track the work. Um, and uh somebody that that you actually get on the phone, right? It's not me personally, then then then on my team. And so that's that's what we what created. Um really, really proud of it. We mostly work with uh investors that investors, professionals that invest on the side. So think you know, lawyer, engineer, doctor, and they want to buy uh a long-term hold. It can be a flip as well. We've we've we've flips for for investors. Most of our in investors are are are buying rentals. Um and one of the key reasons, other than what I just mentioned, is is my experience obviously in creating hundreds of my own rental units. I understand what what is is asking for. So there's a bit of that guidance uh along with it. Um, and so that's what we've been able to bring to to the with with with with the company.

Maria Quattrone 26:33

That's super exciting. And I know that people find you through your group, they find you through social media, you probably get a ton of recommendations for there's always there is a shortage of good GCs out there, yeah.

Launching A Contractor Business That Works

Daniel Harvey 26:48

Yeah, I mean, I I think and when we're doing more, I mean, most of the work right now is is through word of mouth. I mean, as you know, I I saw a lot of uh uh events, we're actually sponsoring some some uh now uh as well. Um but most of it is just through word of mouth. So I'm looking to grow the company, but much, much, much more organically. Want to make sure that we can handle the you know project flow. Um, but uh I'm I'm I'm excited. We've been getting really really good with like every new venture, right? There's always learning curves. Um, but you know, we're we we end up and you know growing better every every uh day, I think.

Maria Quattrone 27:35

What's your favorite part of all of it?

Daniel Harvey 27:37

Well, the part that it's always been is it's it's it's something that maybe nobody wanted into something beautiful. I love that creative piece of it. So going back to what I did previously, which um was mostly multifamily conversions, right? I love those projects where you turn a warehouse into apartments. It takes creativity, right? It takes you know, figuring out how to move walls, how to move stairwells, where to where to certain things that I love that piece of it. Um, that's the part that gets me gets excited, and then seeing that mental vision actually come to life, right? And I always tell people this and and done it, it's taking something out of your mind and turning it into a physical reality. There's nothing like it, and I recommend people most people kind of go through their lives almost in a scared way, as if if they're enough, they're gonna live forever. It doesn't work like that, and and all the and a lot of them, I don't know if it was Jim Rohn or it was Les Brown, it was one of the two to talk about people die with all these great ideas, and it's a shame to never take um a lot of those um ideas and visions that you have and make them make reality. And when you're in construction, it's a physical representation of something that that you thought up. So that's the part that that I the design, the creative.

Maria Quattrone 29:08

What can I turn this into? Was our brains like some of us are like we were very creative people, have to have an outlet for it. Yes, and that's an outlet for it in the in the business. What do you face?

Daniel Harvey 29:20

What do you think the biggest challenges you face today are in the construction field or just in general in real estate, just personally?

Maria Quattrone 29:31

However, you want to answer.

Daniel Harvey 29:33

Got it. Um, the biggest challenges, the biggest challenge for for me probably has always been is just taking on too much, right? I I feel I think I can do much more uh than what I could probably possibly do. I'm sure my wife would would would uh I have a really good capacity to take on things. Um, but what I'm actually learning and figuring out is sometimes it's good to cut some things off and and and more things, kind of focus in. So that's what I'm figuring out right now. Is what things do I need to kind of let go and what things do I need to focus in in not in every opportunity that kind of comes along. So that's uh that's one of the challenges um that I'm facing.

Creativity Plus The Discipline To Focus

Maria Quattrone 30:24

Now, granted, it's a good challenge, but it it is a challenge because there's something in me that wants to take everything on, and that obviously that that's just now and then we dilute, we have a delusion because yeah, one of the things I've been studying is the effect of going deep versus going wide, and uh you could just like even use it in something basic like sales. Is it better to talk to more people less times or less people more times? And I did a study over the last three years of data, my own personal data, my database, finding having more conversations with less people has resulted in more opportunities. It's interesting.

Daniel Harvey 31:19

It is. I mean, and I mean, obviously that that's gonna you know vary with different fields and everything else, but I I am a believer, I mean, I I'm the same with my relationships. I mean, you spoke about this earlier, and I that can't be overstated when it comes to business, is building really strong relationships, and so there's folks that I've you know done business with for a really long time, and you you know, you really build a strong bond. I you know, obviously you shouldn't just get stuck there, but if there's anybody that I can grow with, I'm gonna choose those folks rather than trying to find new people to do things with. Um, so uh I I I see there's always a a balance, you know, especially for my former investors. Um it's kind of interesting because I joke, I I I have a loyalty problem. Because like once I once I don't trust you, like I I'll do business with you know you with that. But that can be a bit limiting too, right? Because listen, people go out of business, people change, you know, jobs and like positions, and if you don't have other avenues, you can find yourself stuck, which has happened to me, or you kind of stagnated and you lose track of of um I've had that dealing with favorite subcontractors, uh, dealing dealing, dealing, dealing, dealing with insurance brokers, lenders. When you when you're comfortable, you kind of go there, but you lose track of okay, I haven't gone to the open market in a while to see what's actually out there. And I've been shocked. I have quite a few stories of that, of doing that, and then going out to the market and being shocked, like, oh I'm I've I'm now better terms, better, better, better, better rates. Um, and so you know, again, it's just a bit of a balance.

Respect Over Likeability In Business

Maria Quattrone 33:15

It is, you know, it's just keeping up with everything that's going on and all the all the and I think you know it's also uh a little bit of you know, we only have so much time in the day, so how do we like just be open, present, and still have that, you know, loyalty? But I I do, but I tell all the time people say, Well, I already have a burger, and I'm like, that's okay, I understand. I said, Well, would you want to hear about a different process that probably you never heard about? I bet you didn't hear about my process, the gold standard, concierge home selling system. I bet you never heard about it. I bet you never heard about the things I'm gonna talk to you about because I developed this personally due to all the problems in the industry. You know, I looked at other industries and said, Why do they do it like this and we do it like that? Well, I'm changing how we're doing it, but you know, people wouldn't know if they think we're all the same, we all do it the same way, and it's just about personality, and I like this person better. I tell people time, you don't really have to like me that much. That's true. I know that you know, somebody who took 192 listings in one year probably has a clue of what they're doing.

Daniel Harvey 34:41

You you are right. I I'll talk about Leia. Like, like is the it is overrated in a certain sense, you know, personally and um business-wise, you don't have to people don't have to necessarily like you, and this goes to my I go, I'm not a victim, you don't have to like you, right? But they have to respect you. That is a non-negotiable in my life, it's a non-negotiable liking me is like yeah, that's up to you.

Maria Quattrone 35:06

Yeah, so I look at it like like like want to be your friend and hang out with you, yeah. You don't have to want to be my friend or hang out with me, you have to respect me. You don't like me, you have to like like what I'm saying and doing, but you don't have, and I think people confuse Dan the two of like of like I want to be your buddy, you know, and it's more like uh women aren't really like as like this, I guess, because it's I feel like it's more like you know, oh the guys all together. We're all doing women really aren't like that, but um it's it's really has to come down to you know, am I open to all the opportunities that are out there in the market? Do I know about them? Or am I still sitting like because things changed a year ago, you know, things changed five years ago, they changed four years ago, things changed a year ago. Yeah, we've had one of the most challenging markets in in residential and commercial sales over the last three years, and I would say like 2008, nine, ten were hard in a different way. We didn't have you know the glam of social media and i HGTV and you know all this other nonsense back then that was going on that we have today, and there was a lot less people in the industry, so there was a lot of things that were hard, but a lot of things that were easier, and today we have a lot of negligence in the industry, unfortunately, from all sides of the thing realtors, lenders, title, yeah.

Daniel Harvey 36:49

I think too, with people that are fairly new, and I've seen this on the investing side, I'm sure on the realtor side, is very similar. If you came on a realtor, say 2021, where things were just flying off the shelf, and you really didn't have to work that hard, and just it was flowing because basically it was the market basically doing all the work, you just had to show up, and you started to think back to what we were saying that this is the norm, this is how it is, and then it shifts, and then you have to do all this work, right? Um, you know, a lot of people can't make that change, right? And and I mean, I think that's the purpose. Honestly, it sounds brutal, that's the purpose of the market, it flushes out, you know, probably the folks that shouldn't have been there in in it in place. I mean, it happens, it's brutal, but you know, life is brutal. Um, and so if if they start to uh expect things to work like that all the time, I see that got caught in into everything. You could you hurt everything just because the rates were so low, and yada yada yada, and that's not happening, and then you're stuck in these projects. Um, you have money stuck in deals, and um, and there's no plan B. There was no there was no other uh um idea other than you're gonna win every time. It's like that's not reality.

Maria Quattrone 38:12

But sometimes the market corrected people's mistakes, yeah.

Pricing Bullseyes And Philly Inventory Reality

Daniel Harvey 38:18

Yeah, which which is the purpose, right? It's impossible. If it it if and and if it didn't, you wouldn't even have a you wouldn't have a business, right? Because you obviously properties can't keep going up at the rates they were going up in 2021 and the kind of is it would be impossible. Nobody would be able to afford homes. So would you rather it it rather things you know changed a bit or you had no industry at all? Because that's where it would have obviously ended up at some point if if prices the same and prices go up, at some point there's just a price where uh where average American in any given area just can't afford the properties, um and and would have forced the market to shift anyway, even if rates didn't change, because we were like, Well, I see what you're asking, I just can't afford it.

Maria Quattrone 39:05

Yeah, well, that's it's the the you're the beast, it is, and right now we have definitely more of a buyer's market in some ways, and there's a gap between the buyers and the sellers.

Daniel Harvey 39:23

Are you seeing that? I I feel it's it's I've from what I mean. You're doing obviously tremendously more deals, so you would have more of a data set, but it seems like they people have to understand the rates are the rates now. Like, I don't not hearing a lot of talk about oh, I'm waiting to see if the rates are gonna drop anymore. They probably just staying on the market for longer for sure. Um, but it seems like people understand that this is what it is now, and it's not gonna be some big change up or or down. Are you seeing something different?

Maria Quattrone 39:57

No, no, no. Mean is that well, first, you know, in the last decade, the average age of a first-time home buyer went from 31 to 40. Wow, the first-time buyers usually make up about 32 to 33 percent of the market, and it's at 20.

Daniel Harvey 40:16

Wow.

Maria Quattrone 40:17

So if you look at the national landscape, and I follow not only Philadelphia trends, but the national trends because we mirror pretty much the national market for the most part, there's more sellers than there are buyers right now. Wow, and unless your inventory, your house is priced in the bullseye that it needs to be in, in the bullseye is critical, critical. Price in the bullseye, in the best condition, in the best location for that price range in that neighborhood. Okay, I'm not comparing, you know, North Philly to Britain House Square. You got to compare North Philly to North Philly, be the best one there. Be it's about being, you know, a guy. I a guy called me yesterday. I had called him about his condo in uh actually in Rittenhouse Square, but one bedroom condo, it's only like 270,000. And he called me back and he's like, Maria, it's on the market. I'm like, I'm looking it up, I don't see it. And he's like, Really? And I'm on the MLS looking it up. Okay, well, the agent put the condo in the wrong address. They they didn't so when you have a condo building, it's usually more than one address. You actually have to put the whole address in there, so it didn't come up. But what he said to me was he goes, I don't understand this thing's been on the market. I'm on my second broker, it's still not sold. I said, Well, let me look at the inventory and I'll give you a call back. So I pull the inventory report, I pull the market stats report, I look at all that, and it's not sold because there's five sell in a month, and there's 45 on the market, and they're all priced around the same. And there's that means nine months of inventory. So, how do you get ahead of that? Best price, best location, best condition for the market that you're in for that market for that submarket, really understanding that remove it, and that's like there's so many things like that that go into it that people don't know about, don't never heard about, and you know, those things are critical right now, they're critical to get sold because every day it's not sold is less money, you know, more money out of the seller's pocket because there's fee, you know, insurance and blah blah blah, this and that. Anyway, uh, yeah, so I say it's really important to be, and I'm talking mainly by the way, Philadelphia County, in regards to this conversation. If we're talking about um house in Narwhirth under a million, forget it's still high demand and there's still low inventory. Every you really need to understand the market and understand the inventory. The understanding the inventory is critical in understanding where you can go with pricing. And I think that's something that isn't looked at. It isn't looked at from a uh not only a very high level, but also very drilled down to like the tiniest of details.

Daniel Harvey 43:39

Yeah, I mean h hiring hiring a agent in this in is it's gonna make all the difference. Either they're doing that level of research or they or slapping it um on on to MLS and praying that it that it sells, and that's yeah. That's not what you need uh in this in this market. This is just not gonna work.

Maria Quattrone 44:04

No, it's definitely not gonna work. We're coming up into our spring market now that the uh snow maget in.

Where To Find BRAG And DTRM

Daniel Harvey 44:12

I know, right? This has been a wow. That was wow, especially that last snowstorm. I've never I've anything like that in in my whole life. I mean, obviously, we we've seen more snow, but now they just stick around for two weeks and not go anywhere. It was just a tundra. Um that was that yeah, the cold.

Maria Quattrone 44:31

We got March 18th event coming up, a round table event. You got September 19th is your signature event. Dan, people want to find out more information about these events, about Bragg, about you, about how they can talk to you about your GC services. Where do they go?

Daniel Harvey 44:48

Sure. So for Brag, they can go to braginvestors.com. That's braginvestors.com, all the B-R-A-G. B-R-A-G investors. Um, they can go there and they can see everything that we have going on, all the events, all the social events, everything's uh laid out there. Um, if you have uh a project coming up um and you wanted to book a 15-minute free consultation and talk about your project and see if if DTRM Construction is a good fit, you can go to DTRM Construction. I think it's dot biz. DTRM Construction.biz. I'll confirm that and get you the the right one. And obviously, if you guys just want to follow me on social media, I'm always walking through my flip projects, do my rental projects, um, in in and through my construction projects uh on Instagram. It's Dan the Real Estate Man underscore. I don't know if I told you, but somebody stole my Instagram last year. Yeah, they yeah, they took try to get it back. I couldn't get it back.

Maria Quattrone 45:58

That's terrible.

Daniel Harvey 45:59

Yeah, and then on uh Facebook it is Dan the Real Estate Man. So you can follow me on all those social media. Um, always posting things, always posting projects. Um, and talking about my I I I'm not a victim um mindset and different little you know ideas and thoughts that I that I have uh subject.

Maria Quattrone 46:24

So I love it. I love it. Well, thanks for being on the show. Thanks for keeping the solution, Dan. I'm excited about I'm excited about the year, so let's rock and roll.

Daniel Harvey 46:35

Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Maria. I appreciate it.

Maria Quattrone 46:37

My my pleasure.

Daniel Harvey 46:39

All right.