How a New Real Estate Agent Grew From 10K to 200K Social Media Views

Samantha Lauritzen (00:00)
Yeah, so last month I had about ten thousand views and that’s when I was just starting up, getting really serious on it. And this month I am broaching two hundred thousand.

Issa Hanna (00:13)
Wow. Wow. So you really understand how to market yourself. You understand how to make those people click. And for people at home, if one of those two hundred thousand people calls Samantha, guess what? That’s thousands of dollars right there. So she’s definitely on the right track. yeah.

Samantha Lauritzen (00:29)
Social

media is one of the only marketing campaigns that is pretty much free. You don’t have to pay anyone to do anything except for some of your time.

Issa Hanna (02:13)
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pros Show. I’m your host, Issa Hanna, and today I have from CENTURY 21, Samantha Lauritzen. Samantha, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Samantha Lauritzen (02:24)
Hi. I’m doing good. How are you?

Issa Hanna (02:26)
I’m doing great. I’m super excited to have you. So, for people that want to know more about you and why you’re on the show, please give us a rundown of what you’re doing today. What are your day-to-days look like?

Samantha Lauritzen (02:39)
So day to day, I take, let’s see, three to eight classes a week, trying to learn everything I can. I do BPOs and study the market a lot of the time. I my Instagram says 500 plus a year, which is kind of a crazy workload. and then I also do social media, which includes going to locations, shooting.

Finding out information about the property and editing.

Issa Hanna (03:13)
Definitely. So you’re basically keeping yourself up to date on the market, keeping yourself educated on it. You’re not staying stagnant. That’s definitely a huge plus for a realtor to have. So kudos to you on that. Now, everybody gets into real estate in their own way. And I love asking how people get into real estate. So if you can, please share with us your origin story. How’d you stumble into the real estate?

Samantha Lauritzen (03:42)
So originally I was a sous chef. but I decided to have a child. and unfortunately in the kitchen business, going up just means sacrificing more hours. you’re in the kitchen. I was only at sous chef level and I was there for maybe ten to twelve hours a day. Which is not super conducive to raising a kid.

So after I gave birth to my son, I transitioned into some less demanding kitchen positions while I studied and educated myself on real estate.

Issa Hanna (04:29)
Nice. And then you got the real estate test. if you don’t mind me asking, how long did it take you to finish the school?

Samantha Lauritzen (04:39)
Mm, I’d say just about three months, including the tests taking.

Issa Hanna (04:44)
That’s very good. a lot of people take almost a year. most people six months. Most people fail the test the first time. So definitely good job. That just goes to show how much you studied for it. Not an easy test to pass, you guys. so word of wisdom for up and coming realtors or people in real estate school. Learn how many square feet are in an acre. so

Samantha, you’ve been in the game for a little bit. you’re looking to start investing in the future, correct? Mm-hmm. Can you tell us a little bit more about your investment plans and what you got cooking up?

Samantha Lauritzen (06:12)
So right now I’m studying in tax liens and how that is going, especially on a state to state basis.

I am looking into maybe keeping some rental properties. probably out of Washington State because Washington has some really tough landlord laws. as well as I really enjoy fix and flips.

Issa Hanna (06:44)
Beautiful. So you you’re definitely cooking up a million dollar idea right now, or million dollar ideas. So good luck with that for sure. I definitely know just from talking to you a little bit, you’ve you’ve got it in you to achieve everything you plan. so I know you’re a little bit early in your real estate career. Every real estate investor, every real estate agent, every loan officer, even

real estate students that are in school have some type of nightmare, some type of time where something went sideways and they had to pivot. care to share one of those times with us?

Samantha Lauritzen (07:23)
Well, so early in my career it was a little bit touch and go, especially with income, as I still need to feed my family and live in a place. so that’s when I started doing the BPOs as supplemental income. it really helped a lot being able to basically give me some cash flow marketing and

You know, covering those basic needs.

Issa Hanna (07:56)
Definitely. And when we were talking earlier, you mentioned social media. Now for people at home or just starting their careers and you know, mm just getting into the real estate market, maybe becoming loan officers, whatever space they want to be in. How important is social media for new people?

Samantha Lauritzen (08:15)
I would say it’s pretty important, but you can’t be boring. Like there’s if you post every day and it’s just a graph or it’s just something, you know, to post, not because it’s interesting, it’s not gonna get you very far.

Issa Hanna (08:36)
Definitely. And you yeah, you gotta make it interesting. You gotta make people want to click on your footage, on your you know, on your content. So if you don’t mind sharing with us, tell us how many views you had last month compared to this month in your social media.

Samantha Lauritzen (08:54)
Yeah, so last month I had about ten thousand views and that’s when I was just starting up, getting really serious on it. And this month I am broaching two hundred thousand.

Issa Hanna (09:08)
Wow. Wow. So you really understand how to market yourself. You understand how to make those people click. And for people at home, if one of those two hundred thousand people calls Samantha, guess what? That’s thousands of dollars right there. So she’s definitely on the right track. yeah.

Samantha Lauritzen (09:24)
Social

media is one of the only marketing campaigns that is pretty much free. You don’t have to pay anyone to do anything except for some of your time.

Issa Hanna (10:11)
Definitely. So I’m sorry, go ahead.

Samantha Lauritzen (10:14)
And when you’re starting out, you might not have a lot of money, you might not have a lot of things to work with, but you always have your own time.

Issa Hanna (10:23)
Exactly. And that’s actually the point I was going to make is you’ve got the time. You’re in the market. Promote yourself. Take the time, shoot the videos, put out. Don’t be embarrassed. So great, great piece of advice, Samantha. and your social media is definitely pop and I’m curious to see where it’s gonna be in a a a year from now. So we talked earlier, and I’m not from Washington, and I know a lot of our viewers aren’t from Washington.

And you mentioned DADUs. So can you break that down for us a little bit? it seems to be a great opportunity.

Samantha Lauritzen (10:59)
So first I’ll just say DADU stands for Detached Accessory Dwelling Unit. and here in Washington, we’ve just cleared the path. We’re one of the only areas that are doing this to make these much more accessible to build, to sell. the price range for is now you can get a fully functioning unit for like two hundred to four hundred thousand dollars. It’s

It’s really amazing. Yeah. like I said, they just passed the legislation so that you can have up to two on your property. so you could have two rental incomes. And they also cleared the legislation so you no longer have to split the land. You can make them condos.

Issa Hanna (11:32)
That’s super good.

Samantha Lauritzen (11:53)
And that’s super important because just getting someone to split the land takes, you know, well over a year. And then with actual building, you would then need to get every municipality and every everyone’s approval on it. And we no longer have to do that.

Issa Hanna (12:12)
Nice. So in other words, the legislation now is basically you can build these ADUs and for example, like we were talking, you gave me a couple of examples earlier, carriage houses, maybe a pool house. So these things can be put onto your property now. You can rent them, make extra money, and in in high value markets like Seattle or Washington State, period, a lot of people need that help to cover their mortgages. So this is a great way.

to earn rental income and now you do not have to subdivide your parcel of land. So you can build this on one piece of land. And how many ADUs can you have on one parcel?

Samantha Lauritzen (12:53)
One parcel is two ADUs. So you can have three separate dwelling units. and so you can you can completely sell them if you would like, which is amazing because like I said, they’re like let’s say two hundred to four hundred to build, and the lowest single family units around here are like six hundred.

Issa Hanna (13:22)
Wow. So it’s not like California where you could just rent them. You can actually sell them as like you said, like a condo almost.

Samantha Lauritzen (13:30)
Yeah, exactly.

Issa Hanna (13:32)
That’s definitely gonna help for sure. help get people into houses more affordably and then also help people make money. So kudos to Washington State. You guys did a good job.

Samantha Lauritzen (13:44)
Yeah. Sure. There’s a lot of excitement around here and I’m not sure if the rest of the US has even heard about it.

Issa Hanna (13:51)
No, this is my first time hearing about it. I’ve heard something similar in California. never heard being sold. So I’m actually super excited about that. Yeah. And hopefully more high value markets pass these type of laws. So yeah. Thanks for thanks for sharing that with us. A new piece of knowledge I just I just learned from you, Samantha. Samantha, for people just starting out.

You know, they’re just getting in, maybe they’re in real estate school, maybe they just graduated, they got their license and they’re looking around saying, Okay, now what do I do? I need clients. do you have any advice for them on how to foster business relationships, grow their network?

Samantha Lauritzen (14:29)
Yeah, so me and my office we like to do charity work. it gets you is as a part of the community that you’re going to be serving. it lets you know what’s going on in the community, it lets you connect with everyone, and it really integrates you completely.

Issa Hanna (15:37)
So charity work, you guys. it’s a good way to meet people and then it’s a great way to help the community and feel good about yourself. So again, congratulations to you. You’re building the right real estate career. yeah. And I can see you having a very, very bright future in this field. So with that, Samantha, somebody wanted to call you in Washington State, use your services as the greatest new realtor,

Washington has, where could they get a hold of you?

Samantha Lauritzen (16:09)
My phone number, which is 707-796-3064 my Instagram, you can always DM me, which is @samlauritzensellsseattle. Or my you can just Google me and my business page will appear.

Issa Hanna (16:31)
Nice. And you know her social media, she will respond because she’s on top of the social media game. Samantha, thank you so much. we’re all out of time for today, but I really, really enjoyed talking to you. I see you having a bright future. You got a lot of stuff cooking up, you’ve got the knowledge and you’re learning even more. So thank you for coming on and I would definitely love to bring you on here in the next couple of years and see your progress if you’re interested.

Samantha Lauritzen (16:59)
Yeah, that would be great.

Issa Hanna (17:02)
Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on. And if people at home enjoyed my conversation with Samantha, make sure to hit like and subscribe. I talk to people every day that could bring us different knowledge on every aspect of the real estate industry. Until next time, the Real Estate Pros are out.