Navigating Naples: A Real Estate Journey with Tracy Busch-Pate

Dylan Silver (00:01.346)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver, and today on the show I have a real estate sales specialist in investing, works with lot of investors, active on social media, has her own podcast. Out in Naples, Florida, Tracy Busch Pate. Tracy, welcome to the show.

Tracy Busch Pate (00:20.12)
Yay, hey, hi, I’m so grateful to be on your show. Thank you so much, Dylan, for having me.

Dylan Silver (00:25.45)
Absolutely, it’s great to have you. We were talking before hopping on, and I know you mentioned you’re from Indiana. How’d you end up out there in Naples, Florida? I’m jealous.

Tracy Busch Pate (00:36.18)
I moved to Naples, Florida after college and I was ready to, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to have a family. I thought I wanted to be in entertainment and I moved to Naples, Florida because my aunt and my cousins lived here and family has always been a big part of my life. And so this is where I came and I ended up meeting my now ex-husband and had my kids like right after we got married. So I four kids and six, I them for six years and now we didn’t talk about.

this. They’re all, I’ve got one that’s been married for a year. They’re all daughters. The other three are getting married next week in July is the second one. The third one’s getting married in November and the fourth one’s getting married in February. So I’ve got, I’m gonna be, yeah, I’m gonna be a grandmother before you know it. I’m getting excited. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (01:19.106)
You’re gonna be going to a lot of weddings.

Dylan Silver (01:24.032)
Look, a lot of weddings. I want to ask you about getting into real estate. Everyone’s journey getting into the real estate space is different. Did you come from a real estate family or how did you get the idea to get into real estate?

Tracy Busch Pate (01:36.046)
So it’s funny. I’m just, I’m a salesperson at heart. love, I’ve always loved to fill needs, right? And it’s funny because I lived, like I said, I came to Naples and real estate has always been huge here in Naples. And I, when I had the four kids and I was in all these moms group, people were telling me, you know, you really should be a realtor. You really should be helping people find real estate. And I actually signed up for a class and I never took it because I was so busy with the kids.

my ex now ex-husband and I think I like to call him the father of my daughters not ex-husband because that’s negative but the father of my daughters and I moved to the Republic of Panama for 10 years we just all of a sudden picked up and left we decided we wanted something different we went there for 10 years came back 10 years later and well actually came back I came back on a roundabout tour I went

Dylan Silver (02:11.522)
Yeah.

Tracy Busch Pate (02:29.846)
on the other side of Florida for 10 years, because I was like, I’ve been to Naples, I’m not going to go right back to Naples. Spent 10 years in Panama, moved to the other side of Florida for 10 years, South Beach, Coral Gables, Boca Raton East, Boca Raton West, Palm Beach, 10 years was up. I thought, what am I doing here? I need to get back to my kids. So I came back to Naples just in January, just recently. And…

While I was traveling and after I had come back to the United States, it started coming up again. People were like, you know what, especially when I first moved back to South Beach, people were like, you know what, you really should help be a realtor. And my girlfriend who had a penthouse she wanted to sell in South Beach said, she already had just gotten a real estate license, but she said, I want you to get your license so you can sell my place. I said, you’re a realtor. She said, I know, but I know you’re gonna be able to sell it.

So anyway, actually 10 years ago, that’s why I actually went back to real estate school because I was like, you know what, I need to get it. And so that’s what happened. I was actually five years ago because I lived in South Beach for five years, but.

Dylan Silver (03:17.998)
Yeah.

Tracy Busch Pate (03:37.134)
Sí puedo hablar contigo, pero yo prefiero en inglés, y te puedes.

Dylan Silver (03:39.918)
That’s impressive. You speak Spanish. Did you speak Spanish before moving to Panama?

Tracy Busch Pate (03:45.146)
I spoke Spanish, but the irony is, here’s the irony, that when I was in college, studying for my bachelor’s degree, I was studying radio and TV, because that’s my passion. And I actually changed my major, so I wouldn’t have to take anymore Spanish. So I changed my major, because Spanish started getting so difficult, the conjugation of verbs and all this stuff. geez, I’m going to change. So I changed to education. That’s what my degree is now in, elementary education.

And then as life would have it, I ended up moving to Panama. And my ex-husband and I, what we did for the first year we lived there was just work out and take Spanish classes. We decided not to work for the first year. anyway, that’s how that happened. But I was in Panama for 10 years total.

Dylan Silver (04:30.894)
So how long were you in Panama for?

Dylan Silver (04:35.468)
That is amazing. So I’m actually moving to Santo Domingo and the Dominican Republic in September. I’m to be doing a little bit of dollar arbitrage because most of my business right now is remote. And so I’m thinking, I mean, I’m in a fairly cost effective area in DFW when compared to northern New Jersey, 27 miles outside of Manhattan, where I grew up. But even still, I’m thinking like, hey, I know what I can get out there in Santo Domingo.

Tracy Busch Pate (04:57.434)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (05:02.272)
and you experienced it when you were in Panama. don’t know too much about Panama, but did you pay attention at all to the greater real estate landscape? And can you give me an idea of what like rents might be in Panama or what a home might cost in Panama?

Tracy Busch Pate (05:15.578)
Well, to be honest with you, everybody thinks it’s so much cheaper in Panama. But I’m going to tell you it’s not because by the time you have to when you live in a place like Panama, all of a sudden now you have to have a maid. You have to have a driver. You have to have like all of these very inexpensive things that are luxuries here in the United States. But there for the middle class, for the middle class, just right above the upper class.

It’s a necessity, know, it’s like, you’ve got to have one, you know, a maid for $50 a month, you know, it’s like, I got to have it, you know, so anyway, but so all of a sudden, real estate prices add up. Yeah, because you’ve got to, yeah, you got a good price on the real estate, but then you got to have all these other things. And so it’s not really a really inexpensive deal, like you think, but.

Dylan Silver (05:46.158)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (05:53.88)
the things start adding up.

Dylan Silver (06:02.958)
Yeah, hear you there.

Dylan Silver (06:10.368)
Okay.

Tracy Busch Pate (06:11.158)
There are sacrifices to be made to live internationally, which I made them and I loved it. I loved living in Panama. But when it got down to the, you know, 10 years of me after my ex-husband and I got a divorce after four years, 17 years marriage total. And so then I was living there as a single mother with my kids going to international school. And we scaled down from two maids to one maid, moved out of our penthouse and I moved into a…

smaller place for the kids and we were really roughing it as the kids thought we were roughing it because all of we didn’t have this big place anymore and

Dylan Silver (06:45.166)
Yeah, it’s a different deal, right?

Tracy Busch Pate (06:48.122)
I negotiated very low on the rent because I’m a chief negotiator. That’s why I’m such a good realtor because I can give my clients a great price, right? My friends a great price. But I actually negotiated only like $1,500 a month for a three bedroom, two bathroom place, which was right down the road from the Miramar Intercontinental Hotel, which if you know Panama and all, that’s the best place to be. I would go there every day and work out, swim laps.

Dylan Silver (06:54.402)
Yeah.

Tracy Busch Pate (07:15.066)
and it overlooks the bay. It’s just beautiful. anyway, I mean, like the rents, are comparable to what they are here. I mean, here they’re probably like $2,500 a month, but I just, I’m a good negotiator. So that’s one of my skills. That’s one of my skills.

Dylan Silver (07:28.514)
You got it down.

I want to talk about that. So pivoting a bit here, Tracy, working with investors and having that, I would say, frame is a different game. And I know this because when I went to real estate school in March, I was telling people, yeah, I work with a lot of investors and we do creative deals and I’ve I’m a wholesale and I’ve worked with other wholesales. And it was just like, you’re one of those guys. And then I was like, well, what’s wrong? And then I slowly started to realize that there’s kind of

two different worlds and probably more. There’s the single family residential world and then there’s working with investors. And so I didn’t realize just how different these worlds really were.

Tracy Busch Pate (08:15.394)
Why do you say that?

Dylan Silver (08:16.984)
Well, because I was going in just thinking like, well, everyone’s going to be happy to be there, you know, and then I need to be at real estate school and then to graduate and get a real estate license. And I didn’t know that a lot of realtors have this perception that working with investors is a hassle, the ego, and then dealing with creative deals and I’m getting these creative offers, but they’re quote unquote, not serious. And I’m like, dang, I was making some of those creative offers.

Tracy Busch Pate (08:22.57)
Where’s where?

Tracy Busch Pate (08:44.578)
Wow, I’m surprised to hear that. You know, I love to work with anyone that gets excited about real estate. I love to make dreams come true. That’s my best. My favorite thing to do is to help someone reach their dreams, whether it be with health, with media.

or with real estate. Finding the real estate property of your dreams is amazing. Whether it’s an investor or a home buyer or a first time home buyer, it’s amazing. It’s an amazing opportunity that they’re giving you that they want to work with you.

Dylan Silver (09:07.086)
it is.

Dylan Silver (09:16.012)
I want to ask you about scaling a business in Florida. There’s a lot of competition out there, right? And you’re in an area, of course, everybody knows of Naples, Florida. There’s so many areas within Florida. You said something before hopping on the podcast here, which is they’re not just clients. These are really friends and family. And that’s so true in a lot of ways. That’s so true, you know, because especially

Tracy Busch Pate (09:35.192)
Yeah, I’ve heard me call that quiet. What’d you say?

Dylan Silver (09:42.35)
being from New Jersey and comparing it to where I am in DFW right now, you just see a different lifestyle.

Tracy Busch Pate (09:50.98)
How’s that? How do you say difference?

Dylan Silver (09:52.92)
Well, would say, and I don’t mean anything negative about where I’m from or where I was raised in northern New Jersey, but it’s all about the numbers out there and it really is. I mean, you might get invited to some events, but here, I mean, it’s a barbecue every weekend. And here is we’ve got, you know, ranch and country life. There’s no ranches in northern New Jersey. And so just the whole vibe of everything is different. Not to mention, Texas has its own culture in particular. So if you…

extrapolated Texas from even the southern United States, Texas would still be kind of unique. But you you experience something similar with you know, the relationship with with your your buyers and that has been long standing.

Tracy Busch Pate (10:27.95)
Yeah, I’m sure.

Tracy Busch Pate (10:38.244)
Well, yeah, and I’ve also noticed that when I moved from the east side of Florida, that’s a whole different place over here in the west side of Florida. There are different buyers on each side and there are different people and each side is for a different type of person. The east side is more professional, New York oriented, direct. The west side is more…

Dylan Silver (10:59.278)
Yeah.

Tracy Busch Pate (11:03.45)
country club atmosphere, you know? Well, I don’t know if maybe I’d say the other, the other side might be more country club atmosphere. This side is more house parties, you know, dress down. What? Yeah, this, this side of it is just more gatherings, leisurely activity, you know, going out in the boat and the, and this, that’s what everybody’s good to this weekend. I’ve had three invitations to go on the boat.

Dylan Silver (11:14.542)
Gatherings.

gatherings.

Tracy Busch Pate (11:30.49)
to go to an island that they call Q Aiden here off Naples where everybody goes. And I haven’t been there since I moved away for 20 years. And I just got back in January. So I haven’t been there yet, but I hear now there’s a guy out there that sells hot dogs and hamburgers on this island. I’m like, are there restaurants out there? They said, no, it’s just this guy in a boat that has hot dogs and hamburgers out there. You know, so, but it’s, it’s a different buyer and a different lifestyle on each side of Florida. mean, Florida.

Dylan Silver (11:33.752)
Alright.

Tracy Busch Pate (11:58.202)
really attracts a lot of people because of all of the freedoms that we have here, right? And some people say, but it’s expensive there. Like I just was serving the prices here. The median sale price decreased 3.8 % over the past year. So I mean, it’s getting more and more affordable. Month supply of inventory has increased. It’s 5.5 months of inventory.

Dylan Silver (12:00.119)
It does.

Tracy Busch Pate (12:27.266)
Six months is a totally balanced inventory. know, so yeah, anything around there is balanced. So we’re totally balanced here in Florida, you know? So there’s no crisis or anything that we’re going through here. I mean, there are so many reasons for people to want to live here and to move here, but you have to have a realtor who knows where exactly is the best place for you. You need to be able to talk to your realtor and say, where is the best place for me and my family? This is what we want.

Dylan Silver (12:30.349)
Yeah.

Tracy Busch Pate (12:56.738)
And then your realtor has to know exactly the different parts of Florida that maybe they can direct you to help you find the best place.

Dylan Silver (13:03.552)
Is there any level, I have to ask you, there any level of competition or friendly competition between East and West Coast of Florida? I’ve heard this concept, which is like two different lifestyles, two different personality sets, and like when I talk to people from the West Coast of Florida, they’re like, yeah, we’re nothing like the East Coast of Florida. When I talk to people from Miami, they’re like, yeah, Tampa’s a, you wanna go live in Tampa? Why do you wanna go live in Tampa? And I’m like, man, is there some competition between these groups?

Tracy Busch Pate (13:28.548)
wouldn’t say competition, but I think that when I moved from the West, well remember, I was on the West side, then I moved to the East side, and I was over there for 10 years. So I know very well what the East side has to offer. I chose again to come back to the West side because this is more fitting for my life at this time in my life.

But is there a competition? Before I moved over here, you better believe everybody’s saying you’re gonna move to Naples? Sleepy old Naples? my gosh, that’s where old people live. I said, she’s out. I met my now, the father of my daughter is here in Florida when I was 23. And I was in the biggest mom’s club at that time. I mean, it was huge, huge, full of these moms with little kids. So it’s not only for…

Dylan Silver (13:56.6)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (14:05.358)
Yeah.

Tracy Busch Pate (14:19.162)
older people and also, and there’s so much more interesting things here like restaurants that are just amazing. Even more than there were when I was here before. Architecture here is amazing and beautiful. know, I mean, there’s so much more. There’s so much more in Naples than people give it credit for. And so like even just the other night I went out to this hot spot that I was invited to at 10 p.m. at night.

Dylan Silver (14:20.738)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (14:34.888)
Ugh, you’re gonna make me move over there Tracy.

Tracy Busch Pate (14:47.802)
And I had to do a FaceTime video that I put on my YouTube page, being Tracy, B-E-I-N-G-T-R-A-C-Y, because I had to put it up in there and say, look, this is what people are doing at 10 o’clock at night. This is the East Side Bar in Fifth Avenue South in Naples. It was packed. So it’s just like, that’s what you have here. You don’t have the blatant.

Dylan Silver (15:01.55)
Really?

Dylan Silver (15:08.779)
Amazing.

Tracy Busch Pate (15:13.242)
dressing up and gowns and all this that you do as much in Palm Beach, which, don’t get me wrong, I loved it over there. But there is, so that’s why I say there’s just a different location for different people at different times in our lives. There was that time in my life, but now I’m back here.

Dylan Silver (15:22.189)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (15:33.45)
I think every time, it’s so funny Tracy, every time I talk to someone from a different area of Florida, and I’ve been to some of them, I go regularly probably five or six times a year to Miami, Fort Lauderdale area, and every time I’m in Fort Lauderdale, I’m like, man, this is nice place on earth. But then I’ve had so many people from Tampa and St. Petersburg tell me, you gotta go check out West Coast, because West Coast is where it’s at. Then I had a guy from New Smyrna Beach, I don’t really know where that is, I guess that’s east, going off east, but.

And every time I have these conversations I say, what a nice area, I gotta move to this other area of Florida. And now Naples.

Tracy Busch Pate (16:08.751)
Yeah.

Well, this is the thing that I love about Naples. There are all these little crooks that you can live in. Like I, when I lived in South Beach for five years, I sold my car in Panama before I moved back. I drove a bicycle with two baskets on it and rolled my roller blades around South Beach because I didn’t even have to have a car when I lived there. There are so many places like that. When I lived in Coral Gables, I got a car because I was in real estate then. I just got my real estate license, but I could have easily lived there next to the Miracle Mile without a car.

Dylan Silver (16:34.798)
Sure.

Tracy Busch Pate (16:39.674)
You know, like there are so many wonderful little nooks that they have here in Florida and I’m sure they have them all over the United States and all over the world, but I find here in Florida that that’s more of a mainstay and that that’s something we can look forward to.

Dylan Silver (16:55.596)
Now we are coming up on on time Tracy. Where can folks go to reach out to you and maybe learn more about the business or to listen to the podcast.

Tracy Busch Pate (17:03.908)
So my podcast channel is HTTPS colon forward slash forward slash TheBeingTracyShow.com. That’s on YouTube. It’s B-E-I-N-G-T-R-A-C-Y. I also have that page on Facebook, which has reached as many as six and a half million. So I’ve got a pretty good footing in the real estate market as well as media. My family owns the American Chiropractor Magazine. So I’ve got a…

a real strong footing for holistic health as well.

Dylan Silver (17:34.712)
Tracy, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Tracy Busch Pate (17:38.126)
Thank you, nice to meet you, Dylan.