Adam Torres and Vivian Lesny discuss the NAHREP at L’ATTITUDE conference.
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Show Notes:
Listen to the NAHREP at L’ATTITUDE coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Vivian Lesny, Realtor Team Lead at Vivian Lesny & Co. Explore real estate and the NAHREP at L’ATTITUDE event.
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About Vivian Lesny
Vivian Lesny has been serving clients and exceeding expectations since 2001. As a top producing agent in Silicon Beach, she has successfully guided hundreds of clients through the home buying/selling process.
Being a savvy investor and home owner, Vivian prides herself in her ability to understand clients, help them identify their needs and navigate them through the process to achieve their desired results. As a listing specialist, she goes above establishing the market price for a home. She takes specific actions adding value to the home by introducing an interior designer, professional photographer and utilizes the latest marketing tools to best showcase the home.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I am in San Diego, California, and I’m at the NAREP conference with Latitude, and I have Vivian Leslie on the show.
Vivian, welcome to the show. Hi Adam, thanks for having me. All right. So I snagged you out of the audience and I’m like, all right, we’re going to talk because I want to do some interviews. I want to see what’s going on. And this is my first year to the conference. What brings you to the conference this year?
Honestly, leadership. I had no idea what NARAP was. I somehow stumbled upon it. What invited you? Hold on. Gabby, actually. Gabby Gonzalez. Gabby’s been on the show for all the long term listeners. Go ahead. And she, I admitted to her one day that I was a little bit lacking in my roots and culture, and I decided I needed to become trans.
Really more Latino what I really am. I had parents who sort of shunned away from that And I want to get back to it and I think it’s because i’ve had my own children now And I understand the importance of culture So I need to know my culture and be with my people in order to instill that and pass that along to my kids Yeah, so correct me if i’m wrong primarily you’re doing business not in the latino community for the most part currently Correct.
All right. And where do you do business primarily? You I would say Culver City, Marina del Rey, Mar Vista. So West LA ish. What, what keeps you in that market? Geographically, I just, I’m very bound to that area. I haven’t ventured out and explored much, so it’s worked for me. Yeah. But I love those areas. Culver City.
I’m one of the first places I moved when I moved to L. A. was actually Palms. So I hung out in the Culver City Palms area for a little bit, a solid year or so when I first moved out here. So I like the neighborhoods. I feel like they’re coming up and they continue to have like a great it’s a great market.
Great school system. It’s they’ve evolved. They brought in a lot of foreigners. So it’s a great place to call home. What has been one of your favorite parts of the conference here so far? So far I would have to say it’s really the conversations that I’ve been having in private. So sort of like the couch conversations, I like to call them or by the bar, because you meet with people and the bond is where that happens.
It’s great to hear a motivational speaker or to have a tidbits of information. But after 23 years in the business, I hate to say, it’s really less to learn. And now more about connections with people. Now, what I found interesting about this conference is I feel like deals are happening. Like things are happening all around, whether it’s, Real estate, private equity, otherwise.
Like, do you get that feeling? I don’t know. It’s not just a feeling. It’s a reality. I had a couch conversation that I connected my business partner with who’s here with me and another member, and we’re already discussing merging some funds together and starting flipping together. So grassroots early in the on beginning stages, but I’m confident that this will lead to something.
So I’ve 20 years. And now I’m just looking for partners. How’d you, how’d you get into flipping originally? I started with real estate and that started with my Colombian mother who came to this country and decided to do real estate. And then I watched her acquire properties. How long ago was that? Roughly?
Roughly, she started, I would say in 1987. So she was very ahead of her time, a Latina woman in LA and getting into real estate. I mean, I would argue, am I off? I feel like she didn’t have many choices. So sometimes the lack of options is a good thing. So she naturally went into and fell into real estate and then it’s become a generational business.
So my son who’s 22 is now dabbling in real estate as well. So we’ll be three generations soon. What’s your earliest memory that you can think about of your mother and you in real estate? Like when you knew that she was in real estate, like you had to be pretty young when you realized it. What’s the earliest memory where you understood what your mother did?
I was eight years old and she was yelling at me that it didn’t point the real estate sign in the right direction. Oh, that’s awesome. So you were setting up real estate signs at eight. I was wow And so now did you think I know a lot of people when they’re like their parents are in a certain business Maybe they don’t think they’re going to that same business or they fight it or other things I’m, just asking for you.
Did you know or were you? No, I did a little or you’re like, no, I’m doing this. No, I absolutely fought it. I, I remember saying something like, I will never follow in your muddy footsteps because I, I really had to say money or muddy, muddy, muddy, because I remember her being in the dirt almost putting up real estate sites.
That was a very pivotal moment in my life. There was a lot of real estate signs, a lot of Standing in dirt and putting signs up. I said, I don’t want to do that. And then I looked at my father who was a highly educated person making X amount of money. And then my mother who was an immigrant to this country and making even more money and I thought I thought I would like to make money.
Wow So that’s how I got into real estate and that developed into a passion later. Wow. What, what was one of your first? So then now, you know, you have this passion about what age were you when you kind of took the leap or got licensed or even just started doing your first deals? Like I was 21. Wow. What was that like?
It was a little scary. I was in a predominantly white affluent area and I was a 21 year old. And they’re like, what do you know? Like Wow. How’d you break through? How’d you persevere? Cause that couldn’t have been like. It was tough on the self esteem and ego for sure. I think it’s very similar to acting.
If you’re an actor and you get rejected constantly, but then you wait for that one break in your career and then everything changes. So my break occurred after doing countless open houses, Tuesday open houses, which are brokers opens and nobody wants to do those. But that’s the only thing that was offered to me.
So I took it. And slowly I developed a client base off of that because in a broker’s open, you can meet buyers. Yeah. So I highly recommend getting your foot in the door any which way possible. So now, okay. So now you’re starting this practice, you’re 21 or whatever the age is, and you continue to build it.
What keeps you in the game? Like as you progress in your career, like what keeps you in the game? It really has become a passion for me. I love connecting on a deep level with individuals. And even if some clients have not been, let’s just say my favorite, there’s absolutely learning that comes from that.
And I have grown as a person with every interaction I’ve had with every client, whether it’s a great interaction or a poor interaction, there’s something to learn. And I think I’m really grateful that I’ve had the ability and choice to to capitalize on every interaction, whether they’re good or bad, it’s learning.
So how’s the market in your area doing right now? So I know you have a very specific area that you work in pride predominantly. First, tell us that area and talk to us about the market. I work the Culver City area and let’s just say about a mile around that. Not too much further just because I’m very You’ve seen that grow through the years though, cause I’ve been in LA about 10 years.
So you’ve been there that whole time and you’ve seen that growth and then that year and it’s just, it can continue, but it’s a special time. I’ve been there for 44 years and I vividly remember telling people in junior high, they’d ask, where do you live? And I’d say, Oh, I live in Culver City. And they would say, You live there with this disgust and this like, and I remember being ashamed of living in Culver city.
And now when I tell people I live in Culver city, they go, You live there and it’s a completely different look on their face. So that shows me the evolution of the city and its development. So I’m very proud to be a native born and raised. Amazing. Well, last thing I want you to do is I want you to tell us how we can follow you, visit your website or any other contact information you want to leave.
So look into the camera, everybody where, how they can follow you and how they can connect. Well, my name is Vivian Leslie and you can follow me at instagram at Vivian Leslie. I’m looking for flips. If you have flip opportunities, send them my way. If you’d like to partner with me, I’d be happy to partner with you.
Let’s start flipping together. Amazing. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll put the links in the show notes so you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters, And you haven’t done it yet. Hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. Vivian, again, appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks for having me.