How a Beverly Hills Realtor Is Reinventing Real Estate

"Top realtor and Beverly Hills, they'll go to one of your AI platforms and say, "I want to buy a house here, that's where I'm going, is into those AI platform." Valerie Fitzgerald is the founder and president of the Valerie Fitzgerald Group. A Beverly Hills luxury real estate team and the author of Heart and Soul.

With more than $3.5 billion in career sales, she has spent decades navigating the Los Angeles

luxury market while constantly adapting to how people buy, sell, and discover real estate. What I'm really excited about the reaction we're getting with the content we're using is it's, look, it's like the TV shows. Oh, I'm the best and I'm, you know, and I've got 50 million dollar listings and I look at great I am and I'm completely flipped on everything and mine is all educational.

“If you wait, tell me you can wait, but if you wait, I mean, what are you waiting for?”

Could prices go up, could they go down? You've got to talk to someone who can help you through this obviously. Price is the only change if there's an over supply, right? Which doesn't look like that's going to be happening anytime too soon. So we have higher interest rates and all that.

So there's a lot of things to factor into how do you step into your first property, but I always say. It's our over, I'm telling how we're doing. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of living your legacy podcast here

at Insight Success Studios in Miami Beach. And yeah, we've got the privilege to speak to some of the best entrepreneurs, the disruptors and experts across all kinds of industries and we've got a special guest here from LA. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us about your business? I'm gallery Fitzgerald, very nice to meet you.

Thank you for having me today. Yes. So I have a real estate business in the greater part of Los Angeles. My office is based in Beverly Hills. Okay, I actually drive about 13 markets, which means I'm driving three or four hours a day.

Oh, meaning people, fires, sellers, investors of all types. But my base is my office base is Beverly Hills. Gotcha. And we buy sell real estate and vests. Yeah.

So real estate Beverly Hills, it all sounds so Hollywood and sexy and, you know, what kind of real estate are you guys investing in?

First of all, it sounds sexy.

I'm sure because of all the TV shows.

“Yes, it sounds like a selling sunset or something like that, right?”

Right, but that is not the way you-- No, no, it's not all like that. Okay. Those shows are entertainment and they're scripted. Yeah.

Actually, those shows kind of click pass. It's kind of like too much for me. Like I've never seen it. I may be seen a poster or a two, but yeah, it looks like a lot. Like, no, it sounds like that.

No. Okay, let's get it. But it still sounds sexy, right? Because the housing market out there, I don't know. You think, you think, kind of, what is it?

The Prince of Beller and Beverly Hills and nice houses and LA mansions and Hollywood, but there's all kinds of real estate there.

“What kind of real estate are you getting invested in?”

Well, it's sort of like a media thing, right? So the bigger, the better, the more fantastic, you know, the 50 million kind of stuff. But that's not really the average market. I mean, the market is, you know, goes from first-time home buyers. And we're seeing a lot of young money right now.

We're seeing a lot of young money. A lot of parents are helping younger kids in their 30s to buy property. And they're buying condos, they're renting condos or I call it two stepping, maybe renting. And then they're buying into a condo and then they sell the condo buy into a house. And that's sort of, which is exactly what I did.

And now we see all kinds of things.

Investors are always looking for real estate to develop, which there isn't a lot of land

in the primary locations. And so we have some a lot of new vertical living, which we're not well known for, because we're mostly a housing market. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the market out there seems like so crazy. Like the smallest house is like millions of doctors, right?

Do you see like that, that first kind of home purchase, right? For the first home buyers, you said that the parents have to come in and help them, right? Because the market is just so high over there, right? Yeah. There's a couple of different things.

I mean, if you wait, tell me you can wait, but if you wait, I mean, what are you waiting for? Could prices go up? Could they go down? What are, what are the fact?

You've got to talk to someone who can help you through this obviously. Yes, yes. Because prices only change if there's an over supply, right?

Which doesn't look like that's going to be happening any time too soon. So we have higher interest rates and all that. So there's a lot of things to factor into how do you step into your first property.

I always say you rent or you rent to buy or you start with a condo.

And then you gain some equity in the condo. And then you can sell that and buy a house. And those are all the steps that I personally took myself. Yeah.

“Are most people buying to live or they're buying to flip or they're buying to kind of create an Airbnb?”

Well, there's different pockets where they people buy to flip or buy to create Airbnb's. Yeah. Those are different price areas and really very different locations. But the most of what I see are people are buying to to live. Okay.

That's a long longer term by young families and kids. WC, you see those changes. Yeah. And there's a lot of talk out there about this like kind of like it's been out there for a while. But the great California Exodus, right?

Does that kind of influence the market over there of any way? So when you hear about the great California Exodus, it's because they're coming to Florida. Yeah. And the market here is insane, right? I think it's good.

But it was also a lot to Vegas, right? Maybe a little bit of Arizona. No, I think it's Texas and Florida. Yeah. Mostly, yeah.

But I think a lot of Florida. I mean, I think Miami is equal to even more expensive. Oh, yeah. To Los Angeles. Yeah.

So, I mean, you're seeing condos here at $20 million, you know, that or a few thousand square feet.

And we don't have that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

“And it's, yeah, and it's, I think there's a lot of political tailwinds that are pushing the”

Exodus from California, New York. Yeah. But how's that affect the real estate market? There changes it. I mean, it hasn't changed yet because you're talking about the very high end.

Yeah. Those people are exiting and they don't have to sell their house. So, it doesn't enter the market where their home comes on the market and they're waiting or selling is not selling or something like that. Yeah.

You really don't see it on the very high end level. But yeah, it's definitely changing and for tax reasons, usual. Yeah. And so, for all the, you know, people with the stars in their eyes moving to LA, right? Yeah.

What, what areas of LA would you recommend? Because LA is massive, right? Yeah. A lot of, you're driving all around. Yeah.

You must hate the traffic, right?

You know, I get a lot done. Oh, okay. Okay. You're a multitasking. Yeah.

“Are you in like a, one of those self-driving Tesla's then or no?”

I have a self-driving, but I don't use it. Yeah. Yeah. It's scare me to death, but no. But I don't mind the traffic because I can text and call and email and get through all

those things so that I don't have a hundred. Gotcha. So when you're working on your phone, then you get a lot of work done. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. So the area is, I think, depends on when you've got kids or if you're young, but if you're single for activity, I think it's affordable. I think you still have pockets of areas you would not really know about. And West Hollywood's one of them, which is, you know, very lively and young and affordable.

Yeah. I love the arts district. And the arts, but that's downtown. Okay. Okay.

That's downtown. Very funky. Very funky. Lots of work to live down there because, you know, you've got to come all the way. If you come into the west side, you've got, you know, maybe now we're drive.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that I know they're all retired. I love there.

Okay. Right. There you go. Yeah. I got some mentors that live there.

But yeah, former Disney people, former National Geographic people. But like, a lot of people that entertain the industry there. Sure. Is that also shifting the real estate market? Kind of the shift in entertainment industry.

It's changing, right? Yeah. You got studios leaving. Yeah. You got, you know, it's kind of changing to AI, right?

Have you seen that effect the market at all? Well, the whole movement now to try and give them tax credits to keep them. Keep them. Because a lot of the production has left the state. Because it's less expensive to shoot outside of California.

Yes. Yeah. There's efforts now to bring all of that back. But I, I feel that that the entertainment business is really changed. I mean, you know, people don't go on interviews anymore.

They send in, you know, videos of themselves. You know, film filming is done differently. It's not all that union stuff, you know, as studios. I mean, so the old fashion way of doing, even though the studios are still there, I think there's been a couple of big purchases recently and a couple of big mergers.

Yeah. But I think the technology has changed a lot of that. They're still trying to figure it out too. It's so weird. I know.

I know. It's also fast too, right? Because they figured out one week and then it's completely changed the next week. You know, it's like, oh my god. But yeah, what am I missing? What's exciting about the real estate market out there?

What are the, what are the great areas that you recommend? What are you seeing? Tell me what's hot and what's not.

Okay. It's a small area. Yeah. But it's, it's also outside of any of the Los Angeles tax issues that we have. Okay.

And so why is it hot because of the tax issues? Yeah, because people can go, they don't have the same tax structures. If you're in LA County, it's very expensive now.

I mean, the tear downs there are 10 million.

Yeah. Maybe not compared to Miami because you still have to pay 20 million. I know. I know. I know.

It's a thing. You must look at the market here. I mean, like, this is insane. You know, it's crazy. I went to Palm Beach yesterday.

Yeah. And there's starting prices in one building was 20. I know. It's like I'm like 20. I know.

It's crazy. And then they don't even live there.

“I think I feel like it's just a park your money, right?”

Where it doesn't look like shady. Yeah. Why are you get the tax benefit? Yeah. Yeah.

I'm becoming a Florida resident. So you were talking about the Beverly flats, right? Yeah. And I'm like, okay. My head is it, you know, forest fire friendly, right?

Like, free of forest fires. And also when I started to talk about that in my head, like, it's like, how is that market? You know, like, you had whole neighborhoods that are gone. And they're kind of rebuilding, right?

How's that affecting the real estate and your energy? I was, it's called the Pacific Palicades. And there were 6,000 homes that were down. Yeah. And I was actually there last week with some clients on that.

A lot of rebuilding, you know, a lot of the issues there that people were underinsured or were not insured at all. Yeah. So then they're selling their lots. So then then developers are coming in buying up lots and redeveloping.

So there's a lot of development going on as you see. But it's probably going to be five or six years before. Otherwise, you, if you buy a house in the middle of 5,000 houses that are built yet, you'll be living in a construction zone for many years. So there's all of that to consider.

There's no infrastructure except for what we call the carousel development center, which is in the center now. Just open a few days. Okay. Which is beautiful.

It's all the restaurants. He didn't burn down. Yeah. And it's all the restaurants and cafes. And, and Erwin, all these different stores that we have there.

That's, it's bringing some, some hope back to the area. Erwin is bringing back hope. What? I believe it. I know.

I know. It's crazy. But yeah. So we got the Beverly flats, right? What else is hot right now?

So since the fires, a lot of those people had to relocate some. Yes. So the areas of Santa Monica and Bradwood blew up. Okay. Probably one up 40% within a period of a year.

Wow. Yeah. Because of all that.

“I think a lot of it's kind of settling out now because some people”

going back and rebuilding some people going back. You know, to their homes, that totally burned out. I've got a friend that's it. I mean, they had some, some, it wasn't completely burned down, right? But they had some fire damage, right?

Right. And they're just getting finished now. You know, it's not even done yet. Like, I was on a zoom with him. And he had like air conditioned people.

And, you know, like, finally he's taken the zoom in the house, right?

You had to live, you know, fortunately for him. He had a friend with kind of like a, you know, self-sustaining apartment above a garage. Yeah. You know, him and his family could live there, right?

Yeah. So everyone wasn't, yeah, correct. You know, all right. So, yeah, Santa Monica went up 40% where else was that? Brent Wood?

Brent Wood? Okay. Yeah. Malibu suffered a lot. Malibu suffered a lot.

It's so beautiful over there, though. You know, in a house, it's like, oh, my God. A lot of a lot of, I know a lot of people in the Disney community out there. You know, a lot of Imagineers are living out there. And their house is all affected, right?

So that whole Disney community was affected. It's like so, so sad.

“And some people got lucky, you know, just skipped over their houses, right?”

Were you or any family affected by that? No. Well, actually I lived with it. I was in the mandatory evacuation area and they kept knocking on my door. You know, I could see the fire from my front door.

And they would say, prepare to evacuate. So I had suitcases by the front door and the smoke was like, it was like snowing outside The Ash was so thick. Yeah. So you prepared, but I didn't go a lot of people on my street did.

But I did my neighbors didn't kind of waited it out.

But it was, it was a very scary time there for the first week or so.

So let's talk about the business a little bit more. Do you have a team? Is it a solo project? And kind of what sets you apart from the other real estate people out there? So I do have a team.

I revamped my team recently with doing all kinds of new things and programs and adding a lot of really cool AI things into what we're doing. Nice. I have a new podcast that's coming in. So I'm going to rewind you back to the cool AI stuff that you're doing. Is that like taking an empty house and then like furnishing it with AI or?

We've been doing that for years. So online the pictures look pretty great. And then what's what's the cool AI stuff then?

It's not, in other words, it's from my website.

It's to all the press releases we do. It's for my podcast. Great. It's for it's building authority. Obviously that's what it's all about.

So it's educational and authority building. And that's kind of what we're concentrating. Because the new wave of what's going to be happening is people won't go to Google and say top real term Beverly Hills. They'll go to one of your AI platforms and say, "I want to buy a house here and who would it?"

And they'd ask, "Of course." I got a complete conversation question. And so that's where I'm going is into that AI platform. Great. So are you kind of working with LLMs and large language models in terms of like,

"Okay, well, I've got all this content or all these emails and conversations that I can put into my own language model." So that the AI knows these are the areas that I was focusing on. And these are my clients we're looking for. Is there any kind of that development in it?

So I just wrote about 138 new pages. That all I see optimized for my website. So it's all new and it's all really cool information. And what I've done is I've got now an AI company. Because you have to, in order to go to the authority,

“you have to have the editorial, what do you call articles?”

Yeah. And all the media on your, so I have a whole media section. Is AI crawls all of that? So they're all, and we're getting 30 days I've had. It's just been blowing up.

Wow. My website stats and my social media stats and all that. Amazing. So the strategy results like really fast. Yeah.

Really fast. That's amazing. And I can only say that I know nobody else is doing it. And, you know, and in three or four or five years, they won't have a business because it's, it's changing so much.

You've got to hop on that AI train. You've got it. Because it's a bullet train. It's fun. Yeah.

And it's fun. And it's fun too. Yeah. And so you've also have a podcast. Yeah.

How is the studio? Well, that's the subject. Because I'm using my office for the, for the studio.

“So every time I'm looking around like, what are the best lights?”

You know, because we've been disastrous with lights. But you guys are so talented here. You're doing all the lights in the center. You've got some ceiling lights. You got some neon background lights.

It's so awesome. Yeah. It's like a little nook, right? It's cozy, right? But, you know, on camera.

It's got all the corners kind of like all the accents and everything, right? But, talk about multitasking. Yeah. Which you guys do years extraordinary. Thank you.

To involve these talents to do all these things. Yeah. I'm looking at Ray's lights and going, I should get that light. My podcast. And maybe some center blocks.

Yeah. Yeah. That you don't see on there. But, you know, yeah. Great for mounting mics.

You know, easy to move around. So what's the podcast? Yeah. What's the podcast about? What do you think?

What do you talk about? It's called Queen B. Great Grace and Reinvention. Okay. And it's not a podcast that's talking about perfect,

your life is. And, you know, that, and just, exchanging stories of like that. Yeah.

It's really, basically, I, I wanted to be for women who have had

really difficult chapters in their lives. Mm-hmm. And it could be that women sitting in her kitchen going, I don't know what I'm going to do next. My husband passed away on my kids.

I got little kids or I'm your own money. It's the women who have, have some stradder strength. Yeah. And they keep going. And that they will continue to reinvent themselves.

Because that's my story. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. I've never done that.

You have a platform to talk about all that stuff. So, what do you really excited about right now? I mean, I know you just talked about AI and the podcast, which I'm sure they were really excited about, right? But in terms of like maybe the market and real estate,

is there anything that you're really excited about with how things are going over there? Well, I'm really excited about the reaction we're getting with the content we're using. Mm-hmm.

It's, look, it's like the TV shows. Oh, I'm the best, and I'm, you know, I've got the 50 million dollar listings, and I look at great I am. Yeah. Yeah.

I've completely flipped on everything, and mine is all educational. Okay. So, and the reactions coming back in a huge way. So, it's, I'm excited about that. I'm excited about the information.

I'm excited about the educational excited about who the authority. Nice. I'm excited about the podcast. I'm excited about, and watching the market.

“Of course, because that's what I do, and that's my business.”

Yeah. And the first thing I do is with the information I have is sharing it with my buyers and sellers to prepare them or to give them my heads a heads up or something. I had a time. Of course, we have to navigate all the, the bureaucratic and the political issues we have around us, which is an easy, you know, but you know, you find a way.

And there's always going to people who need homes.

People are dreaming about a future. Yes. And I got those L.A. stars in their eyes, right?

L.A. is nice, because a lot of people out there chasing their dreams, right?

“Well, that's so important to have a dream.”

Yes. Well, thank you so much for joining us. How do people find you?

So you can find me on my website is www.ValoryFitsGerald.com.

Okay. Social media is my name. All my soul. My social varies. Because they're my name.

Perfect. Thanks in my name. Yeah.

My Instagram Facebook is my name.

Valerie Fitzgerald. Yeah. I'm super easy.

“And then you can probably go into, you know, the chat bots and give them a prompt.”

How do I find Valerie Fitzgerald? Yeah. And it'll give you all the information too. All the information. Perfect.

Well, thank you for joining us so much. And thank you guys out there for joining us again. Here on Living Your Legacy Podcast.

“And if you want to learn more about the L.A. real estate game,”

and how she got to where she is, then tune into her episode, where you can get all the details on that. So thank you again, guys. Cheers, everyone. Thank you.