Andres Bustamante talks about his own life journey as a young real estate agent in Texas. Next, he describes why he thinks that starting with renting is the best strategy to increase sales. Andres also discusses why “referrals and social media“ helps new agents to grow the connections. Andreas also emphasizes that an agent should be a good storyteller, educator and problem solver.



If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!



Andres Bustamante can be reached at [email protected] and (915) 227-9301‬.



This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.











Transcript



D.J. Paris 0:00We know the expression with age comes wisdom, but what about younger agents that already appear to be wise and crushing it? Even if they're in their early 20s? Or we're gonna be talking to one of those agents today? Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren't converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.



Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I'm your guide and host through the show, and in just a moment, we're going to be speaking with Andres Bustamante. But before we get to Andres, just a couple of quick reminders, please the best way you can help our show two things, please support our sponsors. They're the one that pay the bills, and they are the ones that allow us to do as many episodes as we can. So thank you, please check out our sponsors their services and products, consider investing in them by investing in them that will not only help your business, but also help us stay in business so we can keep doing these episodes. And the second thing to do is to tell a friend about the show 2023 is a tough year so far for real realtors, so let's give them the best chance of success, introduce them to the show, send them over to our website, keeping it real pod.com They can check out some of our episodes, and they can always of course like and subscribe on any podcast platform that they might be listening to shows on. Alright guys enough of that. Let's get to the main event my conversation with Andres Bustamante.



Today on the show we have Andres Bustamante with Keller Williams Nino team in Austin, Texas. Now I am really excited to tell you more about Andres. And if you are a listener of our show, and if you kind of just zone out during the bio, I really want you to zone in only for the next 30 seconds, because this is probably going to pique your interest. This is a really fun one today. So let me tell you about about Andres. So Andres Bustamante was actually born in El Paso, Texas to Mexican parents. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin as a first generation. He also spent one full year in France with an exchange family when he was 16. And that helped him become independent at an early age. And when when he was 19. He actually got his real estate license again at 19 years old. And this is the reason why he needed to figure out a way to pay for college. Now being a leasing agent. He was able to accomplish this he actually paid for his college education by being a leasing agent. Now this is where it gets really amazing. His first ever sale as a 21 year old was for $1.1 million. And at 23 years old, he decided to do real estate full time clearly he's good at it. And he joined a team. Now his first year full time he earned rookie of the year he sold 21 homes for almost 7 million in volume. That's in year one. Now in year 237 homes for 17 million. And in year three another 37 homes for 19 million. He's currently by the way, guys, he's currently 26 years old. Now visit all things Andreas on his Instagram and Tiktok at Andres booster TX A NDRESBUSTATX links to both of those will be in the show notes. Andres Welcome to the show, my friend.



Andres Bustamante 4:55Thanks, DJ. That was a great intro. I mean, that's the bio



D.J. Paris 5:00It is the bio and I wasn't joking, you are fascinating to me. And as a young man in this industry, to have this kind of success is is is amazing. It really is inspiring. And I'm so so happy to to I don't know if you found us or we found you. But either way, this is an exciting interview for me. So let's, let's start at the very beginning, which by the way, it wasn't that long ago. But let's start at this idea of being a leasing agent at 19. Sort of how did you even know about that? I mean, at 19? You don't even want to know what I was doing. I was like bussing tables? For nothing. What you got it? How did you how did you learn about that real estate?



Andres Bustamante 5:44Well, firstly, I mean, you ever had one of those moments in life when you just don't know what you want? For your life?



D.J. Paris 5:51Sure, every moment of my every moment of every day? Yes. Certainly when I was younger, for sure.



Andres Bustamante 5:58Yeah. So that's how I was in college. I'm just like, I switched majors, like three times. I was supposed to be doing supply chain, that yeah, then I was like, oh, finance. And then I'm like, oh, I want to travel abroad, let's do international business. But one thing I knew for certain I needed to find a way to pay for college. But But I didn't want to have like that job towards like, I had someone telling me what to do. And this and that. I know a lot of us realtors can relate. So a buddy came to me, it's like, Dude, you should try being a leasing agent or real estate agent. And that's how I really got into it. Because I needed to find a way to pay for college. And I needed to find a way to make more money than anyone else could at that time as a 19 year old.



D.J. Paris 6:42Yeah, and they're just let's, let's face it, there just aren't a lot of opportunities for 19 year olds, right? Like, you get a a minimum wage, or a low paying job, because that's what 19 year olds get. And the fact that your friend came to you with this opportunity is is truly amazing. I imagine you have a tremendous amount of gratitude to that friend.



Andres Bustamante 7:04He's one of my best friends. He was my roommate. And when he was my roommate for like, five, six years.



D.J. Paris 7:09Yeah. Wow. So So when when you started as a leasing agent, what did that look like? How did that work for you?



Andres Bustamante 7:16Oh, it was insane. So it was back when we didn't have the bluetooth for your phone to open lock boxes or anything. So I would have to go to like there was like 20 leasing offices in West Campus. That's where the university students mostly stay. So I'd have to coordinate with like groups of students that were living in the condo to be like, hey, I want to show your place. I have several clients that are interested. It was crazy having to coordinate that, then I'd have to go to the leasing offices to get the keys. So no joke picture a 19 year old driving in his car with like, 20 keys in the clipboard. And I would frantically be like, Oh, is this the key? Or is this the key? And I had moments when the keys wouldn't work. So I'm just like, I turn around to look at my clients. I'm like, Hey, guys, I don't think we're going to be able to see this one. But they were usually older. So I was always like, Oh my gosh, are they gonna trust me? How is this gonna go? Yeah, it was?



D.J. Paris 8:10Did you? Did you work closely with students?



Andres Bustamante 8:14Students, and I had several graduates. During that time, though, mostly students, through groups that I had joined that everyone lives 98 95% of students rented. So the apartments would pay me the condos would pay me once I got them to sign a lease.



D.J. Paris 8:33It's it's it's such a brilliant strategy. Because, you know, obviously, college kids have to live somewhere. A lot of times they're bankrolled by their parents as well. So getting, you know, sort of that part approves probably a little easier. Because you're, you know, I know when I went to college, or I went to the school called Miami University in Ohio, and I think we had to pay the whole semester rent upfront. I don't know if that's still done these days. But well, it was like 200 bucks a month, you know, so. So it was it was, you know, they were like, We don't want to, you know, the landlords over there. Were like, we're just going to collect it all. You Yeah. But, but but in your case, you know, it was probably a really great idea because you could network with the people that you knew in classes and in your social circles. And, and I imagine you were probably the only person in your social circles, aside from your best friend who was also doing it. Were you guys the only two that were really doing it?



Andres Bustamante 9:33So my best friend actually did not end up doing it because he didn't have like, he could not do it because of some certain visa requirements and whatnot. Sure. Yeah, unfortunately.

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