How Good Interior Design Helps House Flips Stand Out & Sell | Nickolas Zubek

Nickolas Zubek (00:00)
When we’re in this space of design and real estate, I think that the one thing that I’ve learned in my career is that good design sells. So it doesn’t have to be the most neutral, it doesn’t have to be liked by a thousand people. It can be liked by a hundred people, and you’re still gonna get

to the end of the road, and you might even get there faster.

Quentin Edmonds (01:50)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest. He is an interior designer, a real estate agent, but so much more. The way that he walks you through the process, he’s on board—he can literally be on board to the very end. And I’ll let you—let him explain that. But I love the way that he’s serving his customers, serving his community, serving his clients. And so

I’m excited to learn from today, Mr. Nick Zubek. Mr. Nick, how you doing today, sir? Good?

Nickolas Zubek (02:25)
Hello, good. How are you, Q?

Quentin Edmonds (02:27)
Listen, I’m so glad you’re here. You’ll hear me say this probably at the end, but thank you for your time. I value people’s time, and I think time is our most precious commodity. So, man, thank you for being here. And Nick, I am a type, sir, I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days, if you don’t mind. Give us a little origin story, how you got into the space that you’re in, and then tell them what markets you’re operating in.

Nickolas Zubek (02:51)
I appreciate that. And so I have been in the design industry for nearly twenty-three years. I went to school in Chicago for interior design or interior architecture, actually, and promptly started my own business and worked with contractors mainly, doing—actually my first job was

designing high-end basements. Like, you’re talking like four- and five-hundred-thousand-dollar basements with like movie theaters and turnstiles. And one of my favorites, he was a White Sox fan and bought a White Sox pitcher’s mound, and we put that on the floor in like an original World Series White Sox something pitcher’s mound, and we put it in the floor in their workout room. Like cool stuff.

That was one of my first jobs where I really understood the construction elements along with the design elements that come second nature to me. As I developed my residential design career in Chicago, I became a real estate agent and I started flipping houses in the Chicago market and then actually in the coast of Michigan, like along the vacation coast of Michigan, the

Hamptons of Chicago. And then I moved to Florida, and now I’m in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I operate in this area for a lot of—some in residential interior design, but my main focus is working with investors and real estate developers who either want to be in this market or in other markets.

I have programs for both, and basically allowing them to do what they’re good at, which is being a contractor or just being the investor and being silent behind it. I have a—a number of those people that I work with. Depending on what they need, help them from finding the property to purchasing the property to designing, sourcing, renovating

the property to selling the property and all things in the middle. So, of course, my best clients are all-encompassing of those things, because I get to do the good things that I’m good at, right, which is designing it and project managing it and then marketing it the way I think so only someone who truly knows the property can.

When—I also do staging, too. But then in other markets I do digital design or e-design. As an investor, if you have a property and that you’re struggling with an aesthetic, or you’re struggling with how to take this property to the next level without investing

huge amounts of money, I can look at floor plans. I know structures of homes. Basically can say, “Change this, knock this wall down. Yes, you’re gonna need an I-beam, but it’s gonna be worth it.” And then you can take those sketches to your architect locally and have that done. And then I give you a list of paint colors and doorknobs and chandeliers and cabinets and all the things, and where you might purchase them,

links to purchase if it’s a specific item, and you take that and implement. So there’s a couple of ways that I help people achieve their dreams while not overextending themselves. Like I have a great—a great customer who does projects in Nashville and projects here,

and his wife was designing both and she was overwhelmed, ’cause they have some major projects there. She can’t do all the projects here. So while she’s a great—a great selection designer, she can’t handle it, and by bringing me in, he’s able to keep his business moving smoothly. So that’s my goal, really.

Quentin Edmonds (07:04)
Love it, man. Nick, thank you, sir. Thank you for taking me through journey, showing me just a little of the origin story, letting me know what you’re—what you’re involved in now. And so, from designer to agent to working with investors, project manager, marketing. So obviously, you have been through the transitions to get to success. And so, Nick, I often say destiny has no wasted moments,

right. We learn from each leg of our journey, from the success, from the failure, it reinforces the person that we are today. So throughout your journey, what has the journey revealed to you about yourself? Has it revealed like discipline, humbleness? Has it cre—increased your innovation? Like what has your journey revealed to Nick about Nick?

Nickolas Zubek (07:47)
That’s a great question.

I think naturally for almost everybody, right, it gives you a semblance of your resilience. So I had a project that took me down. A few—about ten years ago, I had a project that just—everybody’s bought that one house that seems to be cursed, couldn’t get it done, finally got it done, then it flooded.

A snowstorm caused a bunch of damage and flooding, and you learn that you just pick yourself up by the bootstraps and you look at it a different way. And I think that part of being a really good designer is being able to look at something in a different way, right, seeing the flip side. And so

what all the challenges in my life have taught me is that’s a skill to apply to daily life, right? How can I look at this different? What’s the flip side of this conversation? Yes, sir. I may be feeling like this is a negative, but there’s some positive in here somewhere. I might have to dig, I’m gonna find it.

Quentin Edmonds (08:39)
No, sir. No, absolutely, man. Like I said, we learn from each lesson. I always say failure is fertilizer, right, like so that’s part of the maturation process. And if we allow just the hardship to kind of give us nutrients,

it will give us nutrients for growth. And so yeah, absolutely right, we dig deep enough, we will definitely find a lesson in it all. And so one thing about being successful is having a good operation in place. So I would love for you to maybe give us an operational tip—like what’s one operational thing you’ve put into place, let’s say the last two years, that has really helped you be successful?

Nickolas Zubek (09:16)
Well, I’m daily—I’m working on the concept that I preach to my customers of

doing what you’re good at and outsourcing what you’re not so good at, right? So for years, I was the person who did my own books and did my own ad marketing and advertising and did my own website and did my—I did everything. And while I have strong opinions on some of those things, I am not a tech person, I’m not

a bookkeeper, I’m not an attorney. So I think operationally in the last two years, that’s really been my path is investing in those things so that I can focus on helping my customers the way that I need to, just like I preach that if you hire someone like me on a project, yeah,

you’ll save yourself time and money in the long run.

Quentin Edmonds (10:03)
Nope. I love it, man. No, absolutely. I love that. So what’s next for you, Nick? What’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve at scale next, my friend?

Nickolas Zubek (10:11)
My

next six to twelve months is really scaling into the digital formats so that I can help more people in more locations. Through my career, I’ve done homes in Los Angeles, I’ve done homes in the Midwest, and I still continue with a lot of those. So I would really like, and I think just the way of the world obviously, to be able to help people digitally from any space.

So I’m building a platform, basically you just upload your pictures and your floor plan and we’ll spit out designs that are aesthetic, appropriate for your location, right? What works in Florida doesn’t work in Kansas, so with those things in mind, and

give you those things so you can take your projects to the next level without questioning yourself, and for very little investment from maybe hiring a full-scale firm, if you will, to do that locally.

Quentin Edmonds (11:04)
Absolutely. So Nick, talk to me about relationship building from your perspective. Like what are some healthy business relationships that you’ve built with other people, or relationships that have helped you be successful, and maybe relationships that you’ve helped other people be successful? So just talk to me a little bit about relationship building within your sphere.

Nickolas Zubek (11:22)
My best relationships business-wise and—are just, well, and personally, right, are relationships that I enjoy, right? Relationships that we have respect for each other, we bounce off of each other. I am a person who is no better than anyone. I’m no better than the—

whatever, the barista or the chimney sweeper or whatever, or the president of a company, and I’m no better or worse, and we’re all—so I look for those type of people to work with. And I think when we work together and we respect each other and we gel, great things will happen. And so—and I think I naturally gravitate towards those people. I don’t have a lot of problem—magic—

problematic relationships in my life. I think because I approach most things that way, right?

The c—all of these—a lot of—there’s a lot of contractors in the world, and I see the way that they treat some of their staff or whatever, like if that’s the way you roll, you’re probably not my ideal customer. Yeah, but it—people that chew each other down on numbers and all of that stuff, like I don’t—I don’t roll like that. And I think especially in today’s world, like respect and commonality

and just being here because we want to be here, not because we have to be here. Like we all have to work, we all have to make a living. I want to be in this space. I don’t want—I—I created this niche for myself because I enjoy it and because it’s what I’m exceptionally good at, yeah, and it combines all of those things. So

working with people that are doing the same. They want to be in real estate, they want to be in development. If we’re all putting our heads together, the product’s gonna be so much better than these average—I see these flip homes constantly with the same—every single house has the same grey laminate floors and white cabinets, and

then they think they’re being special by painting every door yellow. It’s like, “Okay, well we see your yellow front door and we’re gonna raise you.”

Quentin Edmonds (13:18)
Yeah,

I love it, man. No, but I love your take on just being around people that you want to be around. Often say what relationship—so closely associated to community, right? And community is common unity, it’s people who agree on the mission together, have different talents, but agree on the mission together. And so I absolutely love that. Hey Nick, before we give people—how—tell people how to get in contact with you, before we do that,

is there any other message about your business, about you, any other words of inspiration, education? Like I just don’t know. There—if there’s something that was on your mind that you wanted to make sure our viewers know, I want to open up that space for you to land that if it was something like that.

Nickolas Zubek (13:58)
One of the thoughts that I didn’t

touch on is that

we’re in this space of design and real estate, and I really approach it, and I think that the one thing that I’ve learned in my career is that good design sells. So it doesn’t have to be the most neutral or the most liked by—it doesn’t have to be liked by a thousand people, it can be liked by a hundred people, and you’re still gonna get

to the end of the road, and you might even get there faster, because

I’ve had like a lot of homes that I’ve done locally have like reels that have gotten hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views because they just don’t look like flips on the market. And I think that that’s something that if I can impart even on people that would never work with me, right, is

like we don’t need to continue to make the boring—to strip all the character from homes and just slapstick on the market or whatever. That’s your business. Like let—let’s put some design in it. Let’s bring design back. Design was amazing years ago, right, hundreds of years ago, the

architecture and stuff, and we’ve gone to these like s—s—square white boxes, and it’s kinda sad to me, actually, that things have to be made or dramatic or whatever. But I think there’s definitely space for it, especially in the trends of today as we’re moving back into some cultured design. Yeah. I think that’s probably my—my imparting words of wisdom to anybody.

Quentin Edmonds (15:25)
I love it, man. I had a designer on the show sometime past, and she said, “Listen, there’s a difference between an being an interior dec—interior decorator and an interior designer.” And so you’re right. Bring some design back to it. We’re not just talking about just decorum and decorating up, we talking about some design. So I love it, man. I’m glad you do what you do. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you?

Nickolas Zubek (16:34)
The

easiest would be my website nickolasjohn.com, spelled N-I-C-K-O-L-A-S J-O-H-N dot com. And all my pertinent information is there. My cell phone is listed there, goes directly to me. Leave me a message, drop me a text, or send me an email, and there’s a contact form there, too, as well that you can just submit.

Quentin Edmonds (16:55)
Absolutely. Well listen, let me say three things to you sincerely. One is a reiteration: Again, thank you for your time, man. Thank you for just showing up. Thank you so much for your time. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for the gift of your integrity and authenticity. I believe as we tell our stories, as we talk about what we do, we sprinkle seeds and we never know when those seeds are gonna take root.

But the seed is there, so I thank you for coming and sprinkling some seeds today, Nick. And lastly, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you coming on today.

Nickolas Zubek (17:26)
Thank you. I appreciate it.

Quentin Edmonds (17:28)
Absolutely. But listen, y’all heard my friend Nick. His information is in the show notes, so please get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here, cause I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Nick. So, sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, you have a fantastic day.