Healing Through Helping Others Find A Home with Scott Harris

What if buying a home isn't a transaction but a deeply emotional transition that reveals who you're becoming?

In this episode, Scott Harris shares how he helps people navigate the emotional journey of finding their dream homes as the founder of Magnetic Real Estate, a boutique residential real estate brokerage in Manhattan. Scott has been a residential real estate agent in New York City for almost 23 years and has sold over $2 billion in real estate. Growing up as a child of divorce, he moved back and forth between his parents' houses approximately 500 times before turning 18, and when he started helping people buy homes, he realized he was healing the damage of being from a broken home himself. He nearly burned out in 2014 while building a team, emerging wiser with the realization that real estate is much more than a transaction. His innovative approach, The Magnetic Method, ensures clients attract homes that help them reach the fullest expression of who they're meant to be. Scott firmly believes real estate agents are doing sacred work, and he wrote "Pursue Your Home" to change the narrative around buying a home.

Scott reveals the relationship that transformed his career: Howie Cusack, his mentor at a booking agency in Boston when Scott left college wanting to be in the music business while performing as a singer in a boy band acapella group. Howie took Scott on as an intern and trained him for six years, teaching him how to manage crazy artists, put complicated deals together, and navigate producing concerts and booking tours. Scott toured approximately 100,000 miles a year in an RV performing about a thousand shows opening for bands like NSYNC, working from dial-up internet as the original work-from-home person. When Scott moved to New York and got into real estate, he realized he was armed with incredible skills from Howie, plugging right into the business from day one. This foundation equipped Scott to deal with level-11 insane moments, like when a client called the night before a $7 million closing asking to borrow $350,000 in closing costs, and Scott channeled Howie's ballsy presence from when a reggae act pulled out a chainsaw demanding payment and Howie said "get your butt on stage, you know you're gonna get paid."

 

[00:05:20] Founder of Magnetic Real Estate

• Boutique residential real estate brokerage firm in Manhattan, New York City

• Been residential real estate agent in New York for almost 23 years

• Serves people buying and selling real estate in New York

• Connects with people all over the globe

[00:07:40] Child of Divorce: Moving 500 Times

• Child of divorce, moved back and forth between parents until age 18

• Did the math: moved about 500 times between their houses

• Started on rental side of business in New York, felt very transactional

• Got into sales and got such satisfaction from helping people buy homes

[00:08:00] Healing Through Helping Others Find Home

• Finally put two and two together

• When helping people find homes, also doing work to heal damage of being from broken home himself

• When he bought home with his wife, it was same work

• To have a place that's really yours changed his life

[00:09:20] Helping People Through Tough Things

• One of first sales: helping older Italian woman who was divorcee find home after bad divorce

• Got call from estate attorney representing Maurice Sendak's estate (wrote "Where the Wild Things Are")

• His estate went to serve organizations that helped kids

• Satisfying to know they were helping many people when they sold the apartment

[00:12:00] Real Estate Agents Are Doing Sacred Work

• Firmly believes real estate agents are doing sacred work, really important work

• Some of most important work there is

• If people change the way they think about themselves and what they're doing, changes whole tenor

• Need to bring whole self into relationship with buyers and sellers

[00:15:20] Started in Music Business as Intern

• When first left college, wanted to be in music business

• Also was singer and performer

• Got job as intern at booking agency (represents bands or talent buyer like clubs/colleges)

• Introduced to Howie Cusack in Boston

[00:16:00] Learning to Sell Bands and Put Tours Together

• Real estate is competitive and hard, but go try to sell bands to bookers at clubs

• Or to college kids probably smoking weed half the time on phone calls

• Really hard to put tours together for bands

• Had amazing mentor in Howie, worked together for better part of six years

[00:16:40] Producing Concerts is Multifaceted

• Producing concerts is so multifaceted

• Putting bands on road, booking tours, all those things

• All skills from working with Howie influenced way he plugged right into real estate business

• Right out of the gate, made huge impact on his life

[00:17:40] Touring 100,000 Miles a Year

• Working phones from RV while doing 60,000 or 100,000 miles of touring a year

• Really grateful to Howie for making huge impact

• Had RV, went all around country performing at venues

• Boy band version of acapella group (like contemporary Pentatonix) with beatbox

[00:18:20] Opening for NSYNC and Doing 1,000 Shows

• 23 to 24 years ago

• Opened for bands like NSYNC

• Did about 1,000 shows together when he was there

• Credits experience for making him appreciate giving back

[00:18:40] Everyone's Got a Story

• Been to so many little towns: upstate New York, Indiana, Ohio, eastern seaboard, California

• Meet people living their lives, get to know them

• Everyone's got story to tell

• What's their superpower? Everybody's got something they're uniquely awesome at

[00:21:00] The $7 Million Townhouse Crisis

• Represented songwriter (very well known, wrote popular songs in 60s and 70s)

• Made a lot of money, but also crazy deal maker

• Night before buying $7 million townhouse, calls Scott

• Even though told him 50 times about closing costs, didn't register he'd have to spend $350,000

[00:22:00] Get Your Butt On Stage

• Howie looks him right in eye: "Get your butt on stage. You know you're gonna get paid. Get outta my face with that"

• Scott inhabiting this ballsy guy

• Client asking for money Scott didn't have sitting around

• At closing table, client did significant gymnastics to make it happen

[00:24:00] Free Resources at Pursue Your Home

• Bunch of free resources so people can get flavor of what's in book

• Go to pursueyourhome.com

• Can take assessment to learn your own communication style

• Strongly encourages people to take time to be prepared before jumping in

[00:26:00] Surround Yourself With People Who Care

• Need to surround yourself with team who really cares about you

• Family and friends that support you, cheer you on, in trenches with you

• If there are people in your life that secretly want you to fail, leave them on outside of this conversation

• Important to surround yourself with feeling where people see you and hear you

 

KEY QUOTES

"I firmly believe that real estate agents are doing sacred work, really important work. We're doing some of the most important work that there is. If people change the way they think about themselves and what they're doing, it changes the whole tenor of the dynamic." - Scott Harris

"Everybody's got something they're uniquely awesome at. If you prejudge them, you miss it. You miss that moment. If you can just be with somebody, you end up learning a lot." - Scott Harris

"Finding a home is one of the most stressful things people go through because it is so deeply important to our existence. The word for human and the word for home are the same route. You can't untangle those two things." - Scott Harris

CONNECT WITH SCOTT HARRIS 

🌐 Website: https://www.pursueyourhome.com 

🏠 Magnetic Real Estate: https://www.magneticre.com 

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrisresidential 

📱 Instagram: @scottieharris 

📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScottHarrisResidentialTeam

 

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