Negotiating New Builds Like a Pro: Persistent Tactics to Save Every Penny for Buyers in WA & TX

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In this conversation, Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa discusses his experiences in negotiating real estate transactions and how building a reputation within the community has led to success in his business. He emphasizes the importance of strong negotiation skills and the impact of word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied clients and neighbors.

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Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (00:00)
Correct. think one is having those negotiation skill sets. think negotiation is a very hard skill set to find. Although what I have realized is that a lot of people claim to have it. But based on my own experience working with so many realtors, think very few people have those really strong negotiation skills. I think apart from negotiation, I think what really helped me was I was very persistent and consistent.

I ⁓ don’t give up. So basically, when the negotiation process happens, I ⁓ try to be staying on top of it and don’t give up till I save every penny possible for my client.

Dylan Silver (02:18)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a realtor in Washington and in Texas and is the number one realtor for EXP in 2024. Great success. Please welcome Chandra Vennapusa. Chandra, welcome to the show.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (02:28)
Thank you.

Thanks, Dylan. Thanks for having me here.

Dylan Silver (02:41)
I have lots of questions. I’m an EXP realtor myself. Funny enough, I actually met my sponsor through EXP on this show, just like I’m meeting you right now. Before we get into the weeds on scaling in real estate, I wanna ask you like I asked many of the guests on the show, how did you get into real estate?

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (02:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, actually I did my masters from Texas A College Station. And then I worked in corporate industry for many, years. I worked for Fortune 500 companies, Deloitte, Amazon, Expedia. And while I was buying my first home, I met my realtor. And then after I bought my first home, I felt so happy about achieving something. ⁓

hard for me to explain in words, like how I felt. So I was thinking like, you know, you know, how about me being on other side and, you know, seeing those, you know, ⁓ reactions, right? So seeing those feelings, ⁓ I felt like the realtor is doing something, you know, really, really good for people like me. And that’s how I started ⁓ my real estate business. ⁓ It was the

Dylan Silver (03:29)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (03:58)
you and dedication of how you help achieve others, ⁓ their financial goals, as well as, you know, this is like probably the biggest investment for anybody in their entire life. ⁓ I felt so happy about it and I felt probably I should be on the other side and helping more people.

Dylan Silver (04:12)
in their lives.

At that point when you bought your home and you had a good experience and you said, want to help people. Did you make a shift quickly? Did you start thinking, how do I exit corporate? What was the transition like?

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (04:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I started work at that time I was working for Expedia and I started studying for my license. Obviously, there are licensing requirements and I started doing my certification. And before I could complete my certification, I moved to Amazon. ⁓ I got a really good leadership role in Amazon and I moved to Amazon.

And then after I moved to Amazon, was extremely challenging for I completed like 75 % of the course and to complete the remaining 25%, it was extremely hard. Amazon, you know, most people that work in Amazon know

extremely challenging. So I was part of a global team. I was, you know, I had calls starting from 5.30 AM in the morning because I had teams in Asia and Europe and everywhere else so that we had to interact.

Dylan Silver (05:58)
Yeah.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (06:12)
And so ⁓ I completed the certification, you know, through Amazon. I mean, while I was in Amazon. ⁓ But then what happened was that my business ramped up very, very quickly. ⁓ In the first year we were in business, we did like 60 transactions. ⁓ That was like kind of a record. Like as a new realtor, it takes time for you to build a network and understand the nuances of the business and understand.

how you perform transactions. ⁓ I was in top 10 realtors in Washington in the first year ⁓ for my company, which is kind of unheard of. business ramped up very, very quickly. And then COVID came, and then I got so busy. Amazon work itself was like two people’s full-time job. And then I was doing this, and ⁓ I was handling everything by myself, like end to end.

And we were doing close to 100 plus transactions every year from second year onwards. ⁓ So at some point I had to make a decision between corporate and ⁓ after four years into real estate and doing Amazon as well, I had to take a call that I had to pick one or the other because it became very challenging to do both. And I was extremely passionate about real estate and

Dylan Silver (07:30)
Yeah.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (07:34)
I loved helping people and we already did like you 400 or 500 transactions by that time and you know that’s how I transitioned full-time into real estate. This was June of 2021.

Dylan Silver (07:47)
Give me a framework, so you had a job, full-time job, you’re up early, working, it’s very much ⁓ consuming in a lot of ways, and at the same point in time, you’re scaling a real estate business, you did 60 transactions in your first year, give me a framework for new agents, how to get their first 60 transactions.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (08:08)
Yeah, I always tell people that you should focus on one transaction at a time. In a sense, I think you should put your 100 % into everything that you do. And when you do a good job, I think with that specific transaction, people go ⁓ and talk about you. So for me, what happened was that the first few transactions I did, I negotiated pretty strongly with the builders. And at the end of the

you know, transactions, once the community was closed, that specific community was closed, obviously, you know, neighbors talk to each other, right? So they ask, ⁓ you know, how much did you get? How much did you get? You know, those kinds of conversations. they, lot of my clients as well as other people, realized that they got the best deal going through me. ⁓ So that’s how the message spread. So what I would say for new agencies, you know, don’t focus on scaling your business.

right up front right focus on doing the best job possible for each client. So your customer your client is your biggest you know marketing tool they will vouch for you if you do a good job so focus on specific clients that you get and focus on doing the best job possible.

Dylan Silver (09:25)
It sounds like you found a niche in negotiations and negotiating with builders, right? So this is an interesting niche because a builders do at some points of the year need to sell and they may be more willing than at other points to to make deals. But also, too, if they have a captive buyer and they know that this person is going to shop and they’re going to have multiple options right in some of these markets. You talk about Washington, you talk about Texas. There’s new builds going up everywhere. It feels like in Texas.

you were able to make a name for yourself in your circle and in the circles of your clients through those negotiations.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (10:38)
Correct. think one is having those negotiation skill sets. think negotiation is a very hard skill set to find. Although what I have realized is that a lot of people claim to have it. But based on my own experience working with so many realtors, think very few people have those really strong negotiation skills. I think apart from negotiation, I think what really helped me was I was very persistent and consistent.

I ⁓ don’t give up. So basically, when the negotiation process happens, I ⁓ try to be staying on top of it and don’t give up till I save every penny possible for my client.

I think that’s another trait that helped me. ⁓ also, ⁓ how you negotiate, ⁓ a lot of realtors, what happens is that they want to close the deal faster.

Dylan Silver (11:27)
Yeah.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (11:36)
and move on to another client, right? So that was not my focus. My focus was how do we ensure that we get the best possible deal for my clients? I think apart from negotiation, the consistency and being persistent about what you do has helped me quite

Dylan Silver (11:54)
I want to get granular here Chandra, because 60 deals, 12 months a year, that’s five deals a month while you have a full-time job working for Amazon, In international, it sounds like logistics and teams and very difficult. So how did you manage 60 deals? Did you have an assistant? Did you physically have times where you were, you know, kind of running all over the place to get to a closing to get to?

an open house and how did you physically manage that while having a job?

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (12:27)
Yeah, excellent question. So the first four years while I was with Amazon and doing real estate, I think my schedule was more like I used to sleep around 12 or 12.30 and then wake up by 5 or 5.30 to take my calls. So I tried to, I think I was sleeping very less time compared to what I’m used to because of the fact that there was so much going on. And there are things that

you know, you can do offline. You don’t have to do during business hours. So I prioritize those tasks, you know, later in the evening at night so that I can complete those tasks. I was doing everything by myself. I didn’t have an assistant. I was doing everything by myself. ⁓ But I think it’s more prioritization of tasks and how you prioritize things. For example, I always prioritize customer interaction activities. So if there is a question from a customer or a call from a customer or

you know, anything that is related to customer facing, I always prioritize that as ASAP. And then I de-prioritized all those tasks to later in the evening that doesn’t require customer facing. And the other thing that I did was I think ⁓ I used different, you know, techniques on how to, you know, because I have limited time, right? So ⁓ I had to ⁓ meet a lot more people at the same time.

⁓ I tried to do lot more group meetings with clients. Like for example, if I have to schedule time with a builder and we have to go show you home, ⁓ most of my clients were comfortable having like multiple clients together and I take tours for them together with me, right?

⁓ So that way, for example, if I have five clients, I don’t have to spend five hours, right? So most of those clients are comfortable. ask them, hey, are you OK if my other clients join you guys, right? So ⁓ I had to use different techniques to manage my time and at the same time deliver more transactions.

Dylan Silver (14:33)
I’m picking up on two things here. So first is that A, it’s possible to manage a lot of deal flow even in potential downtime or time aside from a job. I think there’s a lot of realtors that would like to scale 260 deals in one year and that’s how you started. So I wanna ⁓ point that out and point out how impressive that is. But then tangent to that, it sounds like you also found a niche with new

ground up construction and selling ⁓ from developers because you could kill so many birds with one stone. You could bring people into

new area and say, a lot of these homes may be similar or this is the floor plan, so to speak. And then you could have multiple people coming through the new build versus if you have a one-off, a property that’s been flipped or a home that someone is selling that may not be in.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (16:00)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (16:11)
an area that has a lot of other homes that are being listed, then you have to drive around more. Is that accurate? You were selling a lot of new builds.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (16:19)
Yeah, I started with lot of new builds because also the learning curve for new builds is ⁓ a little bit less compared to resale because with new builds you have the builder’s agent and you are coordinating with them. They help you with some tasks. So for ramping up it really helped me and also from a learning perspective as well. ⁓ Of course, know, ⁓ that really helped me to build large network.

because I was selling so many newer constructions at that time. ⁓ And that helped me to get a lot of, you know, resale home clients afterwards. ⁓ Of course, you know, I never prioritized which one I do, but it so happened for me. It started with new builds and then, you know, because of the network I built in the new builds, I got, I started getting a lot of clients who were looking for resales.

Dylan Silver (17:11)
I have to use that strategy. I have to go look into the new builds. And I think I have a small network and a good buddy of mine. We’re both getting started as realtors and we may both now look into this. I want to pivot a bit here Chandra and ask you about scaling from 60 transactions up and the processes that you put in place in order to go beyond 60. 60 is a lot.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (17:22)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (17:39)
But then I’m imagining you said, okay, I’m gonna go full time. How do I go full time? Did you change anything in marketing, in allocation of ⁓ your energy in order to scale beyond 60? Or was it doing in a lot of ways more of the same?

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (17:55)
Yeah, so that’s an excellent question, Dylan. ⁓ Obviously, I was trying to do most of the work by myself initially for the first few years. ⁓ But I think when I thought about quitting full-time corporate job and becoming a full-time realtor, I started thinking about how can I scale my business more, right? So I started hiring people that helped me with documentation and

also ⁓ started taking help from people who could help me with lot of agent assistant activities. So definitely that really helped me to focus ⁓ my time more on customer service and have my assistants help with documentation and taking care of back office work. That is definitely something that I did. And in terms of marketing, right? So I’ll be very honest with you. ⁓

Dylan Silver (18:45)
It’s huge.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (18:53)
I think people are very surprised and kind of shocked when I say that I don’t do lot of marketing. ⁓ I don’t, to be honest. ⁓ Of course, I’ve been changing and evolving. I can’t keep doing the same thing. So I’m starting to do more marketing and things like that now. But in the past, when I went into full time also, I was not focused so much on marketing.

because I was always focused on serving the clients well, and they always made sure that I get more clients. Some of my clients referred 10 to 15 of their friends and family so far. I have so many clients. Think about one person going and referring you to 10, 15 deals, not just referrals, they actually bought homes with me. So that’s the kind of trust we have built with our clients.

Dylan Silver (19:29)
That’s right.

Yeah.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (19:51)
I think that is something that really helped us to scale you know very very fast.

Dylan Silver (19:56)
The best endorsement is ⁓ referral and referral that closes, well, that’s just gonna net more and more referrals. We are coming up on time here, Chandra. Where can folks go if they’re interested in reaching out to you? Maybe they are looking at homes where you’re licensed, Washington and in Texas. Maybe they are a realtor along the journey and would like your feedback on maybe what they can do to improve. How can folks get in contact with you?

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (20:23)
Yeah, they can reach out to my number. ⁓ And I also have social media sites. ⁓ We have social media site in Facebook. ⁓ I’m in Zillow. I’m in Instagram. So I’m more than happy to share those links with you, Dylan, if they want to reach out to me. You can just search for my name in Google. And I think you will find most of these websites. And we also have a Google Business page. So you can reach out to us that way as well.

Dylan Silver (20:52)
Chandra, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Chandra Kaladhar Vennapusa (20:55)
Absolutely,

yeah. Thanks a lot, Dylan, for having me here and I really enjoyed the conversation.

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Negotiating New Builds Like a Pro: Persistent Tactics to Save Every Penny for Buyers in WA & TX

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