Collaboration & Enthusiasm: 5 Keys to Overcoming Real Estate Challenges

John Harcar (00:01.006)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar. And I’m here today with Greg Viti. And what we’re going to talk about is not only his journey, but some kind of mindset and methods that we need to utilize in today’s environment. Remember guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, really all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five extra business by providing the tools and training to help you build the business you want to build, but in turn, live the life you want to live.

So Greg, welcome to our show.

Greg Viti (00:32.472)
Thank you, Jens. So glad to be here.

John Harcar (00:34.864)
Yeah, man, I watched some of your podcasts that you do and I’m super excited to talk about, you know, our topic today. But before we kind of jump into that and get in the weeds, tell our audience a little bit about you, right? Your real estate journey and kind of what got you here.

Greg Viti (00:46.86)
Kessel.

I grew up in Highwood, Illinois, a little small town, like 5,000 people. My grandfather had started his real estate firm there in the 30s.

Before that he was a sewer worker and he got so good at the sewers that he had his own company and he sold that company to a guy named Rataka and the Rataka family and the fourth generation is still running that. So my grandfather started his firm. was, you know, he had like one friend in the world other than Jesus and my grandmother and he had nine kids. So he was very motivated to do well in real estate and insurance. And, you know, he bought a bunch of land way west. Everybody thought he was an idiot. And then he sold a bunch of it to Marriott Lincoln Shire.

you

He bought another piece of land that he did a land lease with the Sheridan. And so I grew up going to the office. My father ran his business. My grandfather is very tight lipped. When I said he had one friend, the friend was a gentleman named Mr. Fiore, a Fiore nursery. And my grandfather had enough money to give him most of the loans to buy over a thousand acres of land over time. so I was around it and my father was an expert witness and appraiser, a realtor,

Greg Viti (02:00.398)
owner and he always seemed so relaxed. I was like, dad I’m working son. I said you’re sitting on the couch. No, I just got the call I’m gonna go show this place and then I would say stuff to him like hey dad I’m listening to you on the phone it seemed like you talk people out of the property more than you talk them into it.

Well, that’s what you have to do when it’s not the right property son. This one had a crack in the foundation. They don’t have the money to fix it. You only have to sell them one, but you got to sell them one that’s gonna work. And even if they don’t use you going out, but that’s what you want is you want that second sale and you want to make sure it’s gonna be right. If they don’t use you, we don’t want them bad mouthing because you know, it’s not worth it. So and everybody’s gonna think you’re loaded because you’re a VD because grandpa, you know, so I’ve got a lot of shit like that.

growing up and my, was a hellion when I was a kid. So I went to college in upper state New York at the Ithaca college and I was actually doing pretty well in communications and I had a little problem with drugs and kind of got kicked out. Not kicked out of the school, but I was forced into being Highland Park and so a lot of my friends are scared to even talk to me. They know I had some problem.

This good friend of mine from Santa Fe, New Mexico, he was from Chicago, but he’s living in Santa Fe and his cousin had started Wolf Construction, which is the number one builder in Santa Fe now, came and he got me, said, look, you gotta move. And so I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I took a train out there, I had $89 to buy that ticket and that’s it. it started such a great situation for me. became a…

busboy to a waiter at night. During the day I was laborer to a carpenter woodworker and I knew my friend was going to be the head of the woodworking on this big site. So he was going to build all of the cabinets, all of the doors, interior and exterior. So I went and did a free apprenticeship.

Greg Viti (03:56.494)
and work my ass off so I could be his assistant. And so when I came back to Chicago, I realized I wasn’t going to get much more than eight, $10 an hour in Santa Fe unless I had connections. I wouldn’t even be able to buy a good car. So I moved back and I started my own construction company and I was just doing smaller jobs and I made a lot of wine racks for the Del Rio. I think you heard that on that video. And so my friend Bill came to me and said, Hey, I want to be your partner. And he gets us two big jobs right away.

John Harcar (04:17.008)
I did.

Greg Viti (04:23.406)
way too big for us. And all of a sudden I had to come up with the right insurance. I had to come up with payroll. And all of sudden I’m 28 years old, we’re about 50 grand and that between the two of us. And I look over at my dad and my grandfather and I thought, why am even fighting this? They can inventory real estate without even having to pay for it. They can make money owning this in 10 different ways. And you’re lot like your father. If you just act like him, I think you’ll have a great life.

John Harcar (04:48.516)
Mm-hmm.

Greg Viti (04:53.36)
So that’s where I transitioned into real estate and I was headstrong again. I didn’t want to just work for him I used him as my sounding board, but I wanted to move to the big city And I remember right before I was leaving my mother said but your dad your dad wants you to do the kitchen I said but mom I I want to go downtown

John Harcar (05:04.411)
Hmm.

Greg Viti (05:13.26)
So she got me so mad that I took everything out of the garage and started breaking through a brick wall. I called my dad’s good friend, Mr. Hunt, and I bought the, he went down to W.E. O’Neill with me and we got these joist holders, put the joist holders up and renovated the kitchen into the garage. No permit or anything, I just got it done so I could get downtown. And when I finally got my license,

John Harcar (05:33.38)
Nice. There you go.

Greg Viti (05:38.988)
I was working at this Calabanker office, a residential office, and this woman, Cheryl Fisher, she was the only person who really did business in the office. Everybody else was doing their nails, and they weren’t on the MLS. I didn’t know that when I, and the manager kind of pulled that on me. And she brought me to this guy, Lee Harris, and he was in the middle of a meeting with a developer, and she’s so aggressive that she went in, forced.

our way into his meeting and he’s like, I’m a techie. says, listen, let Greg listen. And he was explaining the zoning on a building and he was trying to explain to them, here’s the highest and best use and why. And he went on and on and on and on. And he had all these big awards behind him. So after the meeting, after the development, he you want to be like this? to get the awards? I said, well.

I want to do very well. To me, it’s not all about the money and that it’s about being a service to people. And he kind of looked at me like I was nuts, but he’d understand how deep rooted my third generation of being a realtor to really try to help people and not think of myself first. that’s how, so I’ve always done that. And it’s progressed where I’ve ended up working with, I was 12 years with Remax, 10 years with Caning and Stray, seven years with Sotheby’s. But the years that are in between was with Berkshire Hathaway. And now I’ve been running my own.

business within a business at Keller Williams for getting on my fifth year. And I still really get a kick out of first time buyers because they don’t know anything. And it’s so fun once they trust you and like you and you can really help with the process. There’s a magic that happens. It’s really not about the money.

John Harcar (07:13.244)
Mm-hmm.

Greg Viti (07:15.384)
Then with the commercial, it’s so exciting when someone calls me with a challenge. I always think, wow, if they wouldn’t pass much, if we couldn’t really help them with their challenges. So three days ago, one of my old time clients, had some problems over some things that had happened in the past. He understood where I was coming from, but he knows I’m very talented and his sister works with me and he’s been trying to sell a piece of land since 2017.

And he said, Hey, I saw your, I saw that broadcast, your podcast with this gentleman. If he would buy this, I’ll give him the zoning change. Cause I know he get it done.

And he told me the price and it made sense. So I called Jimmy and now we’re going under contract today. It was like boom, boom, boom. So it looks so easy when it goes like that, but it’s hard earned over a lot of years. know, I think in this business, a lot of people don’t understand that when you have to show up, when people say, Greg, why you compare to them? Well, I have enthusiasm.

John Harcar (08:02.384)
Congratulations.

Greg Viti (08:20.942)
When you hit people with enthusiasm, that’s a different energy than they’re used to. Because most people don’t have enthusiasm. And if you really love and you have passion for what you do, and you’re a good listener, and you really want to help from your heart, a magic happens. And people don’t get that. And everybody’s all about the numbers, numbers, numbers. I sold this, I sold that, and everybody’s like, shut up. Who have you helped? What have you done? I don’t care about your numbers.

John Harcar (08:45.596)
You

Right.

Greg Viti (08:50.646)
Number, okay, you have 28 people on your team and you did so many million. great. That’s like you’re saying, I’m a real estate officer. did this or what? Who cares? Have you touched people’s lives? Have you made it better for them? Have you taken challenges and done something extra ordinary? You know, as I’m getting older now, I’ve realized we don’t have as long as we think in our minds, our spirit never changes, but it does change. And so how are we going to make an impact?

John Harcar (08:59.098)
Right.

Greg Viti (09:20.66)
podcast lately. I’ve kind of taken a little shift to do some like I just interviewed Ike. Well it’s it’s a real estate story. His dad was an addict. He put together a little league deal. The mother homeschooled all of them. They all went to Ivy League schools. They started this Hope Academy on the west side.

and they’re taking people and putting them in all these schools. But then they bought Tim Glover’s old gym where Jordan was working out. And they’ve got 15,000 kids going through that now. And so putting out the energy and being around people that are do-gooders, that care like that, what happens is I get attracted to so many more now. And life’s better when you have really great people around you and you have that like kind connection.

John Harcar (09:51.556)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (10:11.002)
Yes. Yes.

Greg Viti (10:11.47)
really trying to do something. So I don’t know if this is your normal real estate talk, but this is where it’s kind of come to with me now. You know, it’s like, it’s not just about the lead and the money. It’s about changing people’s lives, really giving good solid advice. I mean, that’s what we have is that our expert

John Harcar (10:20.728)
No, I love the story, right? Because I mean, there are a lot of technical aspects we can talk about real estate or about investing or…

John Harcar (10:32.31)
Exactly.

John Harcar (10:36.6)
I got a quick question. you, you, you, you learn, think it was carpentry or cabinetry and all that type of stuff. When you went back, what, what prompted you to go into real estate sales or traditional real estate versus maybe doing some stuff with construction or building or anything like that?

Greg Viti (10:52.706)
You know what? I thought that brokerage was the place to start. that through brokerage, you can learn like, like my father had always explained to me, son, I did the biggest zoning change in highwood history and people hated me for it, but they loved me because I’m the sweet, guy, but they disagreed with me. But

Still do business and I watched the way he would do that He would talk to people and basically nicely tell them how he totally disagrees with them and he give them that but he would do it in such a gracious way, know, so I always thought like brokerage is hand-to-hand It’s the way to start but my fourth year in the business this woman wanted me to go to remax and badly and she kept offering me more and more

And finally she said, OK, it’ll be five months free. This developer who doesn’t know what he’s doing, that’s OK. I’m interested in meeting the developer. So I went to meet him. And I realized this guy doesn’t know anything about construction. He really needs my help. When he had someone doing his model, they were putting the conduit on the outside of the wall. And he goes, what do you think? I said, we’d the professionals to put it on the other side. That’s what I think.

John Harcar (12:08.058)
Yeah.

Greg Viti (12:11.564)
But I was able to really use my talents of construction that way. And I did own a few buildings that I would do. I always picked the wrong partners. One partner got deported. Another partner was going bankrupt and we needed to sell. Now my partner is my daughter and she’s a wonderful partner. you know, less is more sometimes.

John Harcar (12:35.74)
Yeah, yeah. And that’s what I was going to ask you. Like, you when you started getting into real estate, what were some of the challenges that maybe you came across in building your business or building your skill sets or stuff like that?

Greg Viti (12:45.002)
You know, like I tell everybody, you’ve got to really get your database together. And you don’t jump in a well and yell. You’ve got to be able to talk to a lot of people a day and not be a pushy salesperson. Don’t talk about real estate. Build relationships with people. They’ll know what you’re doing. My father would always say, I say, Dad, they want someone aggressive. They do, but when the time’s right.

Upfront aggressive and obnoxious Right, why do you want to push people away? So my things upfront Once I started working with Lee and I realized the intensity that he was working with and the other people around me were working with You know, it was a different era. I would knock on

John Harcar (13:16.176)
Yeah, push them away.

Greg Viti (13:34.19)
30 to 50 doors a day. And then I would call 10 to 30 people a day. And sometimes I wouldn’t stop until 10 o’clock at night. And by my fourth year, I started selling over 40 properties a year. In my first 15 years, I sold between 40 to 50 properties a year. At my last like seven years at REMAX, I would win this award, the Platinum Club, which means you gross $250,000. And I would win that award between March and May every year.

And now I look back on it, I’m like, what the hell did you do with the money, Greg? Why did you buy some buildings? Well, you know, I had a great lifestyle. I’d go out west and ski twice a year. We would go on nice vacations. My kids went to great schools. And I was never smart enough to really do my books. Like, I interviewed Mario Greco, and he’s one of the top producers in our area. Nice guy.

And my wife said, Greg, why don’t you like more like Mario? listened to the podcast. I said, Oh, about him at the end of the week, knowing exactly where he is, netting out, what’s deals and all that. She goes, yeah. And the spreadsheets and stuff. I said, well, did you hear the part about him getting two degrees from Northwestern and engineering at the same time? And then after that, going to law school too, we’re different people. I have you to do the spreadsheets. I wasn’t smart enough that young to put you to work for me. But in any other case, we survived all the way till now.

John Harcar (14:49.978)
Mmm, yep.

Greg Viti (14:59.982)
The future really does look bright as crazy as this world is and all the tariff and all the talk and everything else If you take it up a notch a little higher and you’re dealing with people that are trying to put together large developments and smaller developments and and so I built the building There’s a it was a four million dollar project. It was new construction. I raised all the money. I put my ass on the line I had I didn’t sleep

John Harcar (15:07.43)
Hmm.

Greg Viti (15:30.04)
Probably for two years and so I have a different empathy for the builder developer because I’ve done a lot of it and I understand it looks so easy and it looks like you just make millions and everything but in the meantime It’s hard work. It’s sweat and you never know what can ruin the development or half the numbers go south and everything else so I’m definitely been working with a lot more builders and

municipalities. And so it’s upgraded from residential brokerage to land, multifamily, mixed use development. And then I keep doing that. So I spin those plates. I get people to help me with the residential. Now, like with the retail brokerage, I’ve got someone else who helps me with that. And so I’ve always been kind of a control freak, but now I’m learning how to scale and let other people help me. And like, I just talked to a woman this morning and she was telling me how she got a grant from the city.

She started this whole program. She’s going to do all this stuff with the city schools. then she said, Greg, I listened to your podcast with like this morning. And I said, do want me to help you? She goes, I know you would. I said, for sure I will. That’s what we need. Our souls need to help others. It’s not just about us, I, me, me, me. It’s about we. And how can we get that energy? How can we make it contagious so it catches on for a lot of people to think that way?

John Harcar (16:55.183)
Mm-hmm.

Greg Viti (16:56.332)
It’s not easy, but John, hopefully you’re helping with your podcast.

John Harcar (17:00.56)
Yeah. So what are, what, what, what, I mean, what do you, did you work on mindset wise to, you grew, right? As your business kept going to stay humble, right? Cause I mean, you seem like you’re, you’re very, have a servant heart and I love that, but what kind of mindset and what kind of things did you do to help kind of keep you on that flat ground?

Greg Viti (17:18.19)
So, you know, as a child, when I was about 18, 17, I really got into yoga and meditating and hiking. And I always remembered that if you can control your breath, you can control life. And if you’re frustrated with someone, you can visualize them in white light and let them go and ascend. You can forgive yourself and visualize yourself in white light.

And so what I try to do, and I’ve tried to do this my whole career, is get the sheet of paper out or get the book out and write the 10 things that are really important to get accomplished today. And then do something in each one of those rooms. But in the meantime, talk to people with good energy. I mean, a lot of these realtors, they think that the other realtors are their competitors.

They don’t understand that’s where the magic is. When I get a great listing, I don’t just go out and call buyers. I’ll call those realtors that I know half the buyers or they’re going to be my buyers. I worked with Joe Somerville. I sold him four different properties. I worked with Larry Bernstein. I sold him three different properties. It goes on and on and on. I partnered up with this guy. Why wouldn’t we? When you figure out…

John Harcar (18:21.18)
Exactly.

Greg Viti (18:35.982)
Like I love doing puzzles. Since the COVID, I’ve probably put together 50,000 piece puzzles. And my wife helps me too. Sometimes she gets mad at me. She’s like, holy God, you’re done with that one already? Yep. Because when I’m thinking harder about a project or a real estate thing, I get going on the puzzle. It seems like the numbers, the mixing helps me with, and I’ve tried to do that in my life too.

John Harcar (18:46.513)
Cheers.

Greg Viti (19:04.215)
And I know I drive my kids nuts because I’ve always got a positive spin. They’re like, you’re like the biggest optimist.

As opposed to me being the biggest negative like yes, I believe in myself and others that we have a higher calling that there is a bigger spirit and that we can tap in at any time. Like I’m a big Wayne Dyer guy. don’t know if you’re so like the power of intention that book where he, I mean, he’s such a smart guy and he takes enlightenment. reads thousands of books and done all this to put it into a really easy understanding.

understandable way. When I figured that book out, I was in the middle of building that building and I was totally freaking out. I listened to the tape program probably 500 times because every time I put it on it would like heal me. And so now don’t need the tapes day to day because I’m so excited about the things I’m working on and the people that I’m putting around me. And so I feel very blessed that way.

John Harcar (20:07.772)
Yeah.

Greg Viti (20:07.886)
So I don’t know if that answered your question well or not, but show up early. Try to stay late. Answer your phone. Follow up. Have a good attitude. Don’t pretend like you know something if you don’t. Tell them you’ll get back to them.

You know, it’s research a little bit. Find other people that are smarter than you in certain things and reach to them. You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. You don’t have to prove anything to anybody. You have to really connect on a different level. And you know, sometimes you’re dealing with them today and nothing’s going to happen for four to five years. This big deal that I’m putting together on that high rise I was telling you about, I’ve known the developer there for probably 30 years. We’ve talked about real estate probably a hundred different times. And this will be the first time we’re going to make money together.

But he was making sure that I was getting the right split and everything. So, you know, it’s hard earned. It takes a while. Sometimes it happens really fast. Like that other land deal I put together in 10 minutes. This other one, it’s taken 30 years. But you don’t get less than it works.

John Harcar (21:15.544)
Yeah. Well, and I like some of the things you said, like, you know, the cooperation, I mean, collaboration, not competition, right? You know, when you say work out, work out and reach people, find people, if you don’t know something, find someone who does. What type of tools or resources or things do you found that, or did you find that helped you with your mindset of, of being that type of person you are?

Greg Viti (21:38.438)
you know, again, I was always a basketball player and I always had the attitude that I have to be in better shape than everybody else and I have to play harder than everybody else. And to make sure my shots go down, I’m going to take a hundred shots a day or more. And my brother would look at me and laugh.

John Harcar (21:40.028)
Besides yoga.

Greg Viti (22:00.302)
6-2 so I’d say, Blaze, stand here and he would watch me doing hook shots from either side 20 times, me coming into him and pulling back and my brother was the kind of player that he couldn’t play for, he wouldn’t play for a week and he’d come out and hit 20 shots in a row sometimes. was streaky as hell. But I always wanted to make sure I was well prepared so that same athletic mentality I’ve always taken into real estate and it’s an athletic event to me. It’s not a competition.

And I feel like when you judge others, it doesn’t hurt them, it hurts you. But the worst is when people judge themselves so harshly. So most people on the planet, Wayne Dyer says 85 % of them, their thoughts weaken them throughout the day. So how can we be part of that 15 % solution? How can we bring our energy level up?

How do you quench the negative and bring up the positive and go to the next thing? How when you hear, that deal didn’t go through and that’s the $20,000 I needed for next month’s how do you take a deep breath and smile and laugh and make that next inspirational call? I remember hearing a Zen leader talk about how to be truly Zen, you’re being chased by the lion.

You climb up, you’re on this last branch, you can see that you’re gonna drop 200 feet, but there’s the berry there. He picks the berry and he eats and says, it tastes so good as he’s going down. And I feel like we all need to have that sort of, you know, let’s be nice to one another, let’s be nice to ourselves, and let’s get goals that, and we haven’t really talked about goals, you know, like.

Goals are so important because when you commit to it and you put it on paper, you’re going to ruin your day if you don’t do it. So when you really commit hard, if you’re a person of real intention, you have to do it. You have to…

John Harcar (23:58.449)
Right?

Greg Viti (24:06.286)
And it’s not just about the sale or the money. It’s more about the connection. The more connections, more you help others, the more you get taken care of. I’ve always felt it like I don’t figure out what the commissions are upfront. That’s a kiss of death. I turn to how can I help people on a radically exciting way that they’re going to tell everybody. They become billboards for you and your business.

John Harcar (24:21.861)
Right.

John Harcar (24:29.83)
Sure, yeah, yeah.

Greg Viti (24:31.102)
better way to get business where the referral business is the number one. When someone loves you and they tell someone else why you’re the person and then you can really prove that to them. Again, I don’t…

I try to be chameleon with people. I don’t talk as much with people that don’t talk much or talk more with people that do. But if someone comes to me in their way off base, I let them know that kindly. And I don’t take on assignments that I don’t see myself being successful at. I might put somebody else in that assignment, and I warn them what I see as the pitfalls. But I don’t feel the need to have to force.

John Harcar (24:50.48)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (25:02.118)
Yeah.

Greg Viti (25:12.756)
anything at this point.

John Harcar (25:13.658)
Right, right. I love your outlook. I love your mindset. I love your servant heart, man. Your clients must be, are blessed to be able to work with you. You got this podcast going right now and I watched a couple of episodes. It’s pretty cool. If folks want to reach out to you and talk a little bit more, maybe they’re in your neck of the woods and maybe want to try to do some business. How could they reach out to you? How do they find you?

Greg Viti (25:35.384)
Sure. Well, to see the podcast, you could go to realestate-legends.com. Well, that’s really to hear the podcast. If they wanted to see the videos, it’s on the Real Estate channel on YouTube.

And then my phone number is 773-617-8880. 773-617-8880. And my email is gviti at kw.com. And I also have gregviti.com. And I’m on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn.

John Harcar (26:12.38)
Awesome. Well, Greg, thanks for coming on and sharing all that, guys. I hope you got some good nuggets. For me, got collaborate, don’t compete. Really control the narrative in your mind and focus and work with intent and help others. Yep, and believe in yourself. Greg, thank you again. Guys, hope you had a fantastic show. I know I did. And I’ll look forward to seeing you guys on the next one. Cheers.

Greg Viti (26:27.246)
Work with the kind of, believe in yourself. Yeah.

Greg Viti (26:37.986)
Thanks, John.