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Lenny Felberbaum: The Art of Home Design in Real Estate Sales · The iDesign Lab Podcast

0:00
Voice Over: This is iDesign Lab, a podcast where creativity and curiosity meet style and design.
0:05
Voice Over: Curator of interiors, furnishings and lifestyles.
0:09
Voice Over: Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, an interior designer and a style enthusiast, along with her serial entrepreneur husband, scott, idesign Lab is your ultimate design podcast where we explore the rich and vibrant world of design and its constant evolution in style and trends.
0:25
Voice Over: Idesign Lab provides industry insight, discussing the latest trends, styles and everything in between to better help you style your life, through advice from trendsetters, designers, influencers, innovators, fabricators and manufacturers, as well as personal stories that inspire, motivate and excite.
0:43
Voice Over: And join us on this elevated, informative and lively journey into the world of all things design.
0:50
Voice Over: Our special guest today is Lenny Felberbaum, an extremely accomplished entrepreneur.
0:54
Voice Over: Lenny is a fourth-generation realtor.
0:57
Voice Over: Selling real estate is quite literally in Lenny's blood.
1:00
Voice Over: After attending the University of Miami, lenny entered the family business developing condominiums in Miami Beach.
1:06
Voice Over: By the late 2000s, lenny had become one of the top real estate producers in the Palm Beach County, florida.
1:12
Voice Over: In 2018, the international real estate firm Engel Volkers announced that Lenny would become the licensed partner and broker for Engel Volkers Delray Beach, florida, placing Lenny into an elite group of real estate advisors worldwide Of the 11,000 real estate professionals who represent Engel and Volkers in over 30 countries.
1:30
Voice Over: Lenny is one of less than 100 advisors selected to carry the title of Private Office Advisor in North America.
1:36
Voice Over: Today, lenny is one of the top real estate brokers in South Florida and has made an incredible mark in the South Florida real estate market.
1:44
Voice Over: Lenny, thanks for joining us today.
1:47
Lenny Felberbaum: Tiffany and Scott, thank you for having me.
1:50
Scott Woolley: So you have the Engel Volkers real estate business, shingle and Delray Beach, that we know does a lot of real estate business in the South Florida area.
2:01
Scott Woolley: You're, I'll say, a player in the community business in this South Florida area.
2:06
Scott Woolley: You're, I'll say, a player in the community moving a lot of real estate.
2:08
Scott Woolley: So a great question to ask you is design design in people's homes and the way in which the design looks in their homes how important do you think it is to helping you in selling homes?
2:18
Lenny Felberbaum: I would say that the design is probably the most important factor.
2:24
Lenny Felberbaum: Design is probably the most important factor.
2:26
Lenny Felberbaum: When you walk into a home and it's cohesive and has a feel and a definition, it makes it much, much easier to sell.
2:36
Lenny Felberbaum: And even if clients, potential clients don't adhere to that style, like if you walked into a model, yeah, but people want I think the models are good to sell things, but I think when you're selling, like resale homes, people get a feeling when they walk into a home.
3:02
Scott Woolley: So do you notice or do you recognize, when you're walking into a home for the first time, or you're taking on the listing, or you're showing a home that maybe you don't have the listing for, but it's your first time you're seeing it, do you notice or can you tell immediately that this home was put together by a group or designer, or the homeowner really knew what they were doing?
3:24
Scott Woolley: Is there a comparison that you can tell?
3:27
Lenny Felberbaum: Absolutely.
3:27
Lenny Felberbaum: You can tell pretty much right away how it looks.
3:30
Lenny Felberbaum: In fact, I, just a couple of months ago, sold a house that was built in 1979.
3:38
Lenny Felberbaum: And it was the people just passed away and their children were selling it and they spent the house was about what it was called 79, so like 80s vibe.
3:53
Lenny Felberbaum: And they were telling me they came from Great Neck.
3:58
Tiffany Woolley: Long Island.
3:58
Lenny Felberbaum: Okay, right, sophisticated they spent the same amount the house was $300,000, and they spent $300,000 on decorating it.
4:08
Scott Woolley: What was the value then, when they were trying to sell it?
4:11
Lenny Felberbaum: All these years later, All these years later.
4:13
Lenny Felberbaum: Well, they got about almost a little over $800,000 for it.
4:18
Tiffany Woolley: So, it sustained the value.
4:20
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, it sustained the value.
4:21
Lenny Felberbaum: And what was interesting is we were sitting in the living room and there were three siblings and their spouses and they started laughing and I said, did I say something funny?
4:37
Lenny Felberbaum: And they said no, we were just thinking at the same time.
4:40
Lenny Felberbaum: Nobody's ever sat in this living room.
4:43
Lenny Felberbaum: They had a beautiful dining room table.
4:48
Scott Woolley: That reminds me when I was a kid we weren't allowed to sit in the living room, exactly.
4:52
Tiffany Woolley: Well, it's like four-bedroom living rooms.
4:55
Scott Woolley: My sister and I always used to say to my parents why is it called a living room?
4:59
Scott Woolley: Because we certainly don't live in it.
5:00
Scott Woolley: We don't even go in it.
5:04
Lenny Felberbaum: They hadn't even eaten in the dining room.
5:06
Lenny Felberbaum: They used their den, their kitchen and the bedroom, and that was it.
5:12
Tiffany Woolley: So when you sold it to the new homeowner, was that somebody who actually appreciated that and wanted to be able, or would they?
5:21
Lenny Felberbaum: That's why.
5:21
Lenny Felberbaum: I brought this up.
5:22
Lenny Felberbaum: He walked into the house and he looked around and he said I have to have this house Right.
5:29
Lenny Felberbaum: And then he looked at his agent and he said I probably should have said that in front of me and he's keeping most of the basic elements.
5:40
Lenny Felberbaum: He actually wanted to buy it furnishedished and that negotiation didn't work out, but the cohesive way that it was designed and I want to show you the I would love to I want to show you, because they had the whole entry hall, was you?
6:00
Lenny Felberbaum: know, floor to ceiling like oak tambour, wow, and all of the doors I mean.
6:05
Lenny Felberbaum: So it looked spectacular and it stood the test of time.
6:09
Lenny Felberbaum: It absolutely stood the test of time.
6:11
Lenny Felberbaum: Everything was custom done.
6:15
Lenny Felberbaum: A lot of built-in, a lot of built-ins, and the built-ins are still like.
6:20
Lenny Felberbaum: In the master bedroom and the living room were absolutely beautiful.
6:24
Tiffany Woolley: They're not going to change in there, no, and I feel like that style has actually come full circle right now again.
6:31
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, they had beautiful, like a lot of the tables and the lights were showing a lot of brass, which is I've seen that come back, you know it was a huge room so there was a lot of seating areas but the tables were really nice.
6:49
Lenny Felberbaum: They had a really nice card table that was glass, chrome and brass.
6:55
Tiffany Woolley: I love it.
6:57
Lenny Felberbaum: So I mean every part about it was really interesting.
7:01
Lenny Felberbaum: But to see the way the house was truly decorated.
7:07
Tiffany Woolley: It was like a turnkey.
7:09
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah.
7:13
Scott Woolley: So let's go back to design, and today from a design standpoint in South Florida, because we're in South Florida.
7:23
Tiffany Woolley: A luxury market, I would say too, as well as a vacation market.
7:28
Scott Woolley: Are you seeing a particular design style that's more popular than another?
7:33
Lenny Felberbaum: Well, I would say, architecturally, you're seeing a lot of modern homes, right how?
7:41
Lenny Felberbaum: Do you feel about that and in those homes you can only decorate it one way.
7:46
Lenny Felberbaum: One way it's got to be very modern, correct and it's beautiful to look at, appreciate it.
7:52
Lenny Felberbaum: But it's not comfortable living.
7:56
Scott Woolley: Right, but what happens then with the next person who's?
7:58
Scott Woolley: When it's going up for sale?
8:00
Scott Woolley: It's limiting the amount of buyers because there's not a lot of opportunity for looking at it and changing it, because to change something like that is a dramatic and drastic and expensive undertaking.
8:15
Lenny Felberbaum: Well, it's exactly what people that have Tuscan homes are going through now Right, you can paint the whole interior white and I think even a Tuscan home you could modernize it by colors and changing materials, furniture.
8:31
Lenny Felberbaum: A very, very modern home is very hard to decorate in a more traditional way Right or transitional.
8:40
Tiffany Woolley: Yeah.
8:41
Scott Woolley: Or farmhouse.
8:42
Tiffany Woolley: Right.
8:43
Tiffany Woolley: And how like do people, when they come to you, do they say they want a specific feel, or what are they looking for?
8:52
Tiffany Woolley: Mainly A certain amount of bedrooms or a certain amount of?
8:57
Lenny Felberbaum: That's a good question.
8:58
Lenny Felberbaum: Depends if it's a second home or a first home.
9:01
Tiffany Woolley: Right, I feel like that's big with decorating as well.
9:05
Lenny Felberbaum: Then they.
9:05
Lenny Felberbaum: I think that they're looking more for light.
9:12
Lenny Felberbaum: We feel like we sell a lifestyle.
9:16
Tiffany Woolley: Me too.
9:17
Lenny Felberbaum: And that ties into decorating designing because you're designing around somebody's lifestyle.
9:23
Lenny Felberbaum: So I have a house now that we had it under contract and it fell apart because of the coronavirus.
9:33
Lenny Felberbaum: It fell apart because of the coronavirus, but the buyers loved the design.
9:42
Lenny Felberbaum: They had a lot of Lily Pulitzer drapes.
9:44
Tiffany Woolley: Wow.
9:45
Lenny Felberbaum: And she asked for certain furniture and it was two chairs that were kind of Lily Pulitzer Like a palm.
9:54
Tiffany Woolley: Beach Regency.
9:55
Lenny Felberbaum: Exactly and it matched the drapes in the room and everything and the seller was so appreciative that they liked the way she decorated the house that it really helped the buyers.
10:13
Lenny Felberbaum: Not knowing it, it helped them negotiate a good price because they were happy their home was being enjoyed and loved again.
10:21
Lenny Felberbaum: Who was buying it appreciated it.
10:22
Lenny Felberbaum: You know you'll get people that and most of my practice is resale homes.
10:30
Lenny Felberbaum: We do do a decent amount of new construction, but in downtown Delray Beach we have a lot of older homes.
10:34
Lenny Felberbaum: We do do a decent amount of new construction, but in downtown Delray Beach we have a lot of older homes, so a lot of them are resales.
10:42
Lenny Felberbaum: So getting people to either look around the design and having the vision to make it their own or finding something that looks like it would fit them.
10:58
Scott Woolley: Right and well.
10:58
Scott Woolley: In Delray those older homes that you're talking about go back 30 years, 40 years, and a lot of them are being knocked down or completely redone.
11:08
Scott Woolley: I mean, it's just a whole change in the community of how they're being done.
11:12
Scott Woolley: So I guess most people are looking at it from a different perspective and a design that they're not really looking at what it is, but what they could possibly do with it.
11:21
Tiffany Woolley: Exactly, but like take for example, the Lake Ida area, which I love right.
11:27
Tiffany Woolley: I have a lot of clients in that area.
11:30
Lenny Felberbaum: And it's got a lot of character because it wasn't track built.
11:35
Lenny Felberbaum: And you have a lot of character because it wasn't track built and you have a lot of old.
11:41
Scott Woolley: Florida Ranch style.
11:42
Scott Woolley: Yeah, ranch style.
11:43
Scott Woolley: We've got a lot of style in there.
11:45
Scott Woolley: You've got the canals in there the two big lakes.
11:50
Lenny Felberbaum: So what seems to be people have been doing lately is just one style of modern Right and it's appealing to a certain amount of buyers.
12:01
Lenny Felberbaum: I think the big mystery or question is the resale.
12:07
Lenny Felberbaum: The resale, and will it stay in the test of time.
12:10
Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, In Miami Beach they've been doing it longer.
12:12
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, In Miami Beach they've been doing it longer.
12:14
Tiffany Woolley: But Miami Beach, that architecture of the modern I feel like, was not as mid-century.
12:20
Tiffany Woolley: I feel like it was more of the white, a lot of windows because you're on the water or you're at the beach view and it had more of a deco circle, feel to it when now we're kind of—.
12:32
Scott Woolley: And the sand.
12:33
Scott Woolley: It kind of went in with the sand because a lot of them are on the beach but a lot of these homes in delray and in boker and in boynton that are being done, you know, and around the country, they're not necessarily on the water or on the beach, because I think of these ultra modern or very contemporary homes to the homes that are out on, like on long island, in the hamptons.
12:55
Tiffany Woolley: Well, you just kind of know that that area like there's all the modern homes kind of stick together in the Hamptons versus them popping up in the middle of this adorable little.
13:05
Lenny Felberbaum: It's like it's a peppering of the neighborhood, correct?
13:10
Tiffany Woolley: What do you feel is the reaction of the neighbors regarding that?
13:15
Lenny Felberbaum: you're hearing A lot of the old timers, the people that lived here, including a lot of the people in the real estate business, don't really care for it.
13:24
Lenny Felberbaum: They feel it's very cold and sterile.
13:29
Scott Woolley: Well, it's been hot for a while.
13:31
Scott Woolley: I think that the hotness of that is kind of tapering off.
13:37
Tiffany Woolley: Well, and I feel like they're a little more on the generic side.
13:39
Tiffany Woolley: But one thing about the design I've noticed regarding those houses and the resale or the original sale of these houses is they all have a staging atmosphere and I feel like all the pieces are the same.
13:57
Lenny Felberbaum: Do people viewing the houses ever pick up on that.
13:58
Lenny Felberbaum: I don't know if buyers actually do, but it's interesting that you brought that up, because there's a handful of staging companies Right and it's like a repeat.
14:07
Lenny Felberbaum: There used to be a difference between them and now, in other words, you would walk into a new house and you could tell who staged it.
14:16
Tiffany Woolley: Right.
14:16
Voice Over: Now you can't, because they all look exactly the same.
14:21
Lenny Felberbaum: They have the same artwork on the walls the black and white, and is it?
14:25
Tiffany Woolley: really enticing people.
14:30
Lenny Felberbaum: Yes, so it works.
14:32
Lenny Felberbaum: It definitely works.
14:33
Lenny Felberbaum: People I find most buyers You're talking about staging.
14:39
Lenny Felberbaum: Staging Most buyers don't have a vision, so then do they buy it Most consumers, like once they buy a house and now they're moving into that empty house, don't have a vision of what it can look like, or how are they going to make it look, which brings.
15:03
Tiffany Woolley: When they do the staging, do they purchase the homes furnished at the end?
15:08
Lenny Felberbaum: A lot of times they do, a lot of times they do, especially in the new construction.
15:16
Tiffany Woolley: Do you know with the staging, do they sign a long term?
15:20
Tiffany Woolley: Is it a lease?
15:22
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, it's usually a three month minimum.
15:26
Lenny Felberbaum: Usually it's a six month contract.
15:27
Scott Woolley: So, as a homeowner who's looking to sell their house, staging it, realizing well, I don't have the right furniture or it needs to be changed and updated or someone like you, you know, or someone on your team going in and telling the homeowner who's looking to sell their home, you really should think about staging this.
15:48
Lenny Felberbaum: And staging, say it costs $30,000 to $40,000 to stage a house for six months.
15:56
Lenny Felberbaum: Depending on the price range of the home and I would say this is in the $2 million and up range that expenditure will usually bring you back three to four times your investment but, more importantly, it will get your property sold.
16:20
Tiffany Woolley: So is the staging and the decorating companies that you're aware of.
16:24
Tiffany Woolley: Are they like interchangeable or how does it?
16:26
Tiffany Woolley: That's kind of an avenue I'm not 100% familiar with.
16:29
Scott Woolley: Well, you've stayed away from staging.
16:31
Scott Woolley: You basically have just focused on developing a style and a lifestyle for a person around them and the couple or the family.
16:40
Scott Woolley: You've had a lot of different people come to you for staging.
16:45
Tiffany Woolley: I like the process, the staging.
16:50
Scott Woolley: Well, we did another podcast where we talked about staging, because how I look at staging, it's temporary.
16:59
Lenny Felberbaum: Exactly.
16:59
Scott Woolley: Tiffany doesn't, and what she's done with TW Interiors isn't temporary.
17:03
Scott Woolley: It's creating a lifestyle for a family.
17:06
Tiffany Woolley: It's an investment for the future, long term and an investment for their home, hopefully, my clients will have people like your friends that you just sold their house, that love and appreciate it 30 years later, 40 years later.
17:18
Tiffany Woolley: That's where my passion is as far as that goes.
17:22
Tiffany Woolley: But I do find it so intriguing because, for example, in our neighborhood there's a house for sale and they staged it and two days ago, because we're quarantined and I'm riding my bike, I saw them unloading all the furniture and I was like I know the house wasn't sold, but or they probably wanted to stop paying for it, right.
17:42
Tiffany Woolley: I just found that so interesting that it's like a lease, I guess.
17:47
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, you're basically leasing the furniture.
17:49
Lenny Felberbaum: It's not to be used.
17:50
Lenny Felberbaum: You know, like staging companies don't rent furniture.
17:54
Lenny Felberbaum: You know to be used, got it.
17:59
Lenny Felberbaum: It's to be used in an empty house.
18:00
Lenny Felberbaum: And you know, and that's what's interesting, it's like when you go to models and new construction and you see the way the houses are decorated.
18:11
Lenny Felberbaum: They look beautiful when you walk through them, but if you really look at it and sit down on the couch or get comfortable, it's not comfortable.
18:22
Lenny Felberbaum: No, they're scaled differently.
18:24
Tiffany Woolley: Differently they're smaller, there's no doors on anything, Exactly so.
18:29
Lenny Felberbaum: it's a.
18:29
Lenny Felberbaum: I guess it's like using an airbrush to touch up a photograph.
18:36
Lenny Felberbaum: You know, they put a lot of coverings on the wall.
18:41
Tiffany Woolley: They are.
18:42
Tiffany Woolley: They're props, it's true.
18:43
Scott Woolley: From my background of television and film.
18:45
Scott Woolley: It's props.
18:46
Scott Woolley: It's temporary.
18:47
Lenny Felberbaum: Like if you go to GL Homes they do a beautiful job.
18:50
Lenny Felberbaum: You go into their models.
18:52
Lenny Felberbaum: I've never seen so many wall treatments.
18:55
Lenny Felberbaum: Right All in one house, all in one house, but you know what?
18:58
Tiffany Woolley: And ceiling details.
18:59
Lenny Felberbaum: If you ever walked into a newly constructed house that has no options.
19:04
Lenny Felberbaum: It looks awful.
19:06
Tiffany Woolley: I know.
19:07
Scott Woolley: You know you see these expansive walls of sheetrock, you know it looks awful and they do a brilliant job of either wallpapering them or which is where most people majority of people don't have the vision for what you're talking about for that wall covering and what I should, what they should use and what colors they should use, patterns and layers, and when I even feel like for companies like a GL.
19:36
Tiffany Woolley: You are buying a mass-produced home or a track home, so how can you set yourself apart when your neighbor might have the exact same model as you?
19:47
Lenny Felberbaum: Right.
19:47
Tiffany Woolley: So you want to have some character and personality brought into that big house of sheetrock.
19:57
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, and I think in their case, the designers that do that.
20:01
Lenny Felberbaum: I think they get credit for it and they refer clients to it.
20:08
Scott Woolley: So let's talk a little about what's going on in the world today with this virus.
20:12
Scott Woolley: We know it's certainly hurting the real estate market and I understand that at Engel and Volcker you've started and implemented a few different things.
20:24
Scott Woolley: I know one thing especially you've done to try to reach out, to give more information.
20:32
Lenny Felberbaum: Yes, we've been really proactive because we feel that we're leaders in the industry and that we feel a responsibility to our clients that we give them accurate and real information.
20:49
Lenny Felberbaum: And I think, between myself and our firm, we were founded in the 70s, which, coincidentally, is the same time that I kind of got into the business world and you know there's a lot of experience there and we've seen since the 70s, starting with the Arab oil embargo.
21:14
Lenny Felberbaum: I've seen the peaks and valleys in the business and each stock market correction or recession, recession.
21:27
Lenny Felberbaum: At the time we're going through it it's painful and it's frightening, but I think what experience brings you is perspective and that's what's helped Like this time.
21:41
Lenny Felberbaum: It's helped me personally because I've lived through a lot of this.
21:45
Lenny Felberbaum: I see a lot of like my kids' age.
21:48
Lenny Felberbaum: Kids in their 30s.
21:50
Lenny Felberbaum: They only know one thing is prosperity.
21:53
Lenny Felberbaum: I remember as a kid listening to my grandparents that lived through the Depression and I could never relate to what they had to go through and a lot of the way they dealt with their finances and their approach to acquiring things you know was completely different than you know, my parents' generation.
22:18
Lenny Felberbaum: And then, you know, take it down to now to like the millennials.
22:25
Tiffany Woolley: Right, they don't know what to do with adversity.
22:28
Lenny Felberbaum: No, no.
22:29
Lenny Felberbaum: And so I think that I feel responsible as a business owner in the community to be able to give accurate perspective on what's going on, even though at this point in time, it's so fluid that nobody knows is it going to be two months, three months, six months.
22:49
Lenny Felberbaum: Is it going to be two months, three months, six months?
22:51
Lenny Felberbaum: But, unlike other situations that we faced coming into this, all of the fundamentals of the economy here were quite strong.
23:02
Lenny Felberbaum: We're not over-leveraged.
23:07
Lenny Felberbaum: Most of the low yeah, we have a pretty low inventory Most of the homeowners don't have mortgages.
23:16
Lenny Felberbaum: The ones that do are well qualified.
23:18
Lenny Felberbaum: Put the appropriate amount you know, 20% down.
23:23
Scott Woolley: Now you have the Federal Reserve at almost zero.
23:26
Lenny Felberbaum: I mean mortgage rates.
23:27
Lenny Felberbaum: Are Mortgage rates are at historical lows?
23:31
Scott Woolley: I mean mortgage rates are at historical lows.
23:33
Scott Woolley: Yeah, I read that Zillow did a study on previous I don't want to say pandemics, but serious situations like this, and their study said that they believe that with this outbreak and so forth, that once it's through, home prices are going to pretty much stay the same.
23:49
Scott Woolley: We're not going to see a big drop.
23:51
Scott Woolley: So that's great for the real estate market in itself.
23:58
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, I think you're going to see pockets.
23:59
Lenny Felberbaum: You're going to see the major cities like New York is going to be harder hit than most, so you're going to see.
24:08
Tiffany Woolley: Well, they were being kind of harder hit with taxes and everything People.
24:11
Tiffany Woolley: I feel like were coming this way.
24:14
Lenny Felberbaum: They've seen about a 20% to 25% drop off in their market value of their properties from the high.
24:21
Lenny Felberbaum: So it's all relative because they may not have bought high I'm sure some did but it's really all relative to what your basis is.
24:36
Lenny Felberbaum: Just like in the stock market.
24:38
Lenny Felberbaum: You could have lost $500,000 in a day, but you really don't lose it until you sell it Right.
24:47
Lenny Felberbaum: You have an opportunity.
24:49
Tiffany Woolley: Still to wait for it to come back.
24:52
Lenny Felberbaum: Exactly so.
24:53
Scott Woolley: I think calmness has to prevail, See we believe that once this pandemic we get through it, we believe that from the from TW Interiors perspective, business is going to pick up quite a bit.
25:06
Scott Woolley: It will pick up because we believe that most homeowners, or people who are looking to either move or change, are going to probably stay where they are Because, I think, home construction is going to be a little bit slower.
25:19
Scott Woolley: A third of all the building materials in this country come from China, and China has been shut down for two months, for two months.
25:29
Scott Woolley: So there's a factor that's going to affect the new home building which will probably, we believe, will have a good effect for people who are looking to upgrade and change, so they're going to go into decorating correct, I think that when you quarantine people have been home now two weeks.
25:50
Tiffany Woolley: They all want it done.
25:52
Lenny Felberbaum: They're motivated.
25:53
Lenny Felberbaum: Now we're in want it done.
25:53
Lenny Felberbaum: They're motivated.
25:54
Lenny Felberbaum: Now we're in for another month.
25:55
Lenny Felberbaum: They're motivated.
25:56
Lenny Felberbaum: And you're looking at.
25:57
Lenny Felberbaum: Oh my God, either I love my house or I want to decorate it Whereas you know, we're spending more time home and enjoying it.
26:08
Tiffany Woolley: So do you have to get creative during this time of?
26:10
Tiffany Woolley: I mean, is anybody looking at houses?
26:13
Tiffany Woolley: Are you emailing people listings?
26:14
Tiffany Woolley: I know you just spoke about the concept of even soliciting right now.
26:22
Lenny Felberbaum: There are people that are looking.
26:23
Lenny Felberbaum: We have you know, in South Florida we have people that move down and are renting something, looking to buy the right thing for them, so you do have that and there are people looking at showing.
26:37
Lenny Felberbaum: Sunday I had one on Friday, but we've had it change and fortunately for us, being a German company, our technology is really second to none, so we've adapted.
26:50
Lenny Felberbaum: We're doing a lot of video presentations where we're meeting with our clients via video.
26:58
Lenny Felberbaum: I don't yet really think that somebody is going to buy a home through a video, right, they're going to want to see it at some point.
27:10
Tiffany Woolley: So what about anybody coming down from the north to quarantine to go throughout this?
27:16
Tiffany Woolley: I've even noticed some of that on social media.
27:19
Tiffany Woolley: There's been a lot of that can I rent a house to get out of?
27:24
Lenny Felberbaum: we've had people willing to pay up to $50,000 a month for a furnished rental large enough for the families.
27:32
Lenny Felberbaum: In fact, last night one of my clients texted me because the house across the street from her was on the market and all of a sudden there's like four or five cars in the driveway and they all have New York plates, and so I texted the agent who's listing it in.
27:53
Lenny Felberbaum: It was because it didn't look like it was sold on MLS and I said did you rent that house out?
28:00
Lenny Felberbaum: And she said no, we actually sold it at close this past Friday and they moved in over the weekend and that was.
28:11
Lenny Felberbaum: Those were people getting out of New York.
28:13
Lenny Felberbaum: So I think we're going to see a tipping point.
28:17
Lenny Felberbaum: You have a lot of converging things going on.
28:23
Lenny Felberbaum: You have the baby boomers that are now empty nesters that live in the northeast and they're in houses that are pretty much, most of them, paid for and, um, even though that market's going to take a hit, it's still overvalued for what they are invested in exactly so they could come down here and buy a nice home and be done with it.
28:51
Lenny Felberbaum: I think, you know, I know personally a lot of people that have been flittering.
28:55
Lenny Felberbaum: Do they stay up north because their kids are up there or, you know, do we have a better life for ourselves?
29:02
Lenny Felberbaum: So I think this is a tipping point, because people that are cooped up in apartments in Manhattan or it's you know, we're going to see a big influx of people coming.
29:14
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, I mean down here, we've not been as affected.
29:19
Tiffany Woolley: I don't see the weather as good.
29:20
Tiffany Woolley: You're quarantined.
29:21
Lenny Felberbaum: You're in a pool with your kids.
29:23
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, you know they don't have that up north.
29:26
Lenny Felberbaum: It's still miserable.
29:28
Tiffany Woolley: Some people don't even have balconies or anything.
29:30
Tiffany Woolley: It's like you're literally quarantined.
29:34
Lenny Felberbaum: You're going to see a lot of babies being born.
29:36
Tiffany Woolley: I know and you're going to see a lot of divorces.
29:39
Tiffany Woolley: I know I've seen all those funny memes.
29:42
Lenny Felberbaum: It's true.
29:43
Tiffany Woolley: There's a lot of good ones.
29:45
Lenny Felberbaum: Well, so that gives me hope.
29:47
Lenny Felberbaum: The creativity in the memes and even the turnaround in television commercials how we've adapted to this is phenomenal, and I think, as a country, that's who we are.
30:02
Lenny Felberbaum: I think we're resilient, we're strong, people aren't going to give up, and what's unique about this it's the enemy is totally unidentified and it doesn't discriminate against anybody whether you're poor, wealthy you know when you live, where you came from, so we're all in it together, we're all in it together, we've all been neutralized and I think, as much of an economic disaster that this has caused, I think there's been a lot of good.
30:40
Lenny Felberbaum: I saw a meme that said I guess we all weren't getting along, so God sent us to our rooms.
30:49
Tiffany Woolley: I have that one too.
30:50
Tiffany Woolley: I love that one.
30:51
Lenny Felberbaum: And when I saw that, I said that's exactly what it feels like.
30:56
Tiffany Woolley: It does and it does.
30:57
Tiffany Woolley: It makes us all take a step back and look inside and spend quality time with those we live in the four walls with.
31:08
Tiffany Woolley: I mean, I personally love having my kids home, but when it comes to me being home, I'm also wanting to redecorate my house.
31:21
Lenny Felberbaum: But it really is like a reset for everybody to whether on a professional basis, work on your career Absolutely, it's a good time to learn.
31:32
Tiffany Woolley: To launch certain things.
31:33
Tiffany Woolley: I also saw one article like how many businesses were built in the recession of what was it 2006?
31:41
Lenny Felberbaum: or whatever.
31:42
Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, all these amazing companies that came out of that time.
31:49
Lenny Felberbaum: Be proactive.
31:50
Lenny Felberbaum: People are creative.
31:51
Lenny Felberbaum: There's a lot of good things happening Just in Delray Beach.
31:55
Lenny Felberbaum: In the town is one of my fellow realtors formed a socially distant supper club.
32:04
Tiffany Woolley: Really.
32:06
Lenny Felberbaum: I think they have about 3,000 members now.
32:08
Tiffany Woolley: Okay, ian Patterson did it too.
32:11
Tiffany Woolley: It's the same one.
32:11
Tiffany Woolley: Ian Patterson did it too.
32:12
Tiffany Woolley: Yeah Well, it's the same one, ian.
32:13
Lenny Felberbaum: Patterson and John Brewer.
32:14
Tiffany Woolley: That's awesome, did it?
32:16
Scott Woolley: For restaurants For restaurants.
32:18
Lenny Felberbaum: So they pick a different restaurant every night.
32:21
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, we saw that they put a menu out like two days in advance, so the restaurant could actually prepare and be ready for it and it's pretty inexpensive prices of what they're charging.
32:30
Scott Woolley: Yeah, very reasonable prices you call in, I guess, and they prepare it and you drive up out front and pick it up and each night it's promoting one restaurant, giving that restaurant a surgence of business.
32:44
Scott Woolley: Exactly, yeah, we had one of our favorite restaurants, one of our favorite lunch stops.
32:49
Scott Woolley: Papa's Topics was last night.
32:51
Scott Woolley: Yeah, they did it last night we were going to do it, but it was like last minute for us.
32:58
Tiffany Woolley: I know, I think there's going to be a lot of great concepts that come about, and that's where, also, delray shines where we live.
33:04
Scott Woolley: That's kind of design.
33:05
Scott Woolley: It's designing a new business and designing a new way of trying to help out restaurants who have been hurt, you know, and two people who have put a little bit of effort to that.
33:16
Scott Woolley: We know one of them.
33:16
Scott Woolley: It's a nice thing that they're doing.
33:20
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, it's a very nice thing.
33:21
Scott Woolley: Because I think the night before was Flybird, I think they did, or I know Park Tavern.
33:28
Lenny Felberbaum: Park Tavern was Sunday night.
33:29
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, I think Flybird was maybe Friday night and the owner posted in Facebook that, thanking them that he made payroll Isn't that amazing.
33:44
Lenny Felberbaum: So it's sticking together Instead of hoarding our cash, and we all bought toilet paper and a floor for a month, I know right.
33:57
Lenny Felberbaum: You know, do you stay?
34:02
Tiffany Woolley: home and cook, or do you?
34:04
Lenny Felberbaum: support these local businesses and I think it makes us much more aware of how connected we all are, because as a community, the world is small, the world is very small and, as a community, how we're really dependent upon each other's successes.
34:24
Tiffany Woolley: I agree completely.
34:26
Lenny Felberbaum: And I think the culture of our economy and social media was really the opposite.
34:34
Lenny Felberbaum: It was.
34:35
Lenny Felberbaum: You know, people will climb over each other to get what they want and the reality of it is we're much better together and you could spend an insane amount of money on the nicest car, but if you have nowhere to go, what good is it?
34:56
Lenny Felberbaum: You know and I really keep coming back to the word reset I think that you know, as a society or a community, we're resetting to a much simpler time.
35:15
Tiffany Woolley: A little bit more neighborly too, which will also be great for the market in the long run too.
35:21
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, it'll be much better for the market.
35:25
Lenny Felberbaum: It's like I was telling somebody, like when you see an accident on a highway, you slow down Right and then, as soon as they're out of sight, you speed up, and I'm hoping that people don't forget what we've gone through.
35:40
Lenny Felberbaum: It's just like you know living through a hurricane.
35:44
Tiffany Woolley: I know which is what it feels like.
35:46
Lenny Felberbaum: It brings us all together and then, once things get back to normal, it's like every man for it for themselves.
35:53
Lenny Felberbaum: So, like even with my business, we have every tuesday brokers open houses, so it's a time for each of us to see each other's listings because we, even though we compete with each other, we work cooperatively, together and collaboratively.
36:10
Lenny Felberbaum: And, um, you know, this is I guess the third week that we really haven't had that.
36:17
Lenny Felberbaum: So I instituted on I'm doing it on Zoom a socially distant social hour for realtors, and the purpose of it is for all of us to have an outlet to talk to one another.
36:34
Lenny Felberbaum: You know other top producing agents.
36:38
Lenny Felberbaum: And you know, even we invited you know everybody that's a realtor in the Delray community to join on it, because you know we have about 24 agents and you know some people do well, some people don't do as well and the ones that aren't are frightened, so suffering.
36:58
Lenny Felberbaum: And to them, I tell them this is a great time.
37:03
Lenny Felberbaum: I mean, there's so much education online, there's so many things that you could be doing, master classes are popular right now too.
37:11
Tiffany Woolley: Exactly so many, I mean, even for our kids, resetting online, I mean even though we want them to still read books and learn handwriting and everything.
37:20
Tiffany Woolley: They also have been a little bit behind on the technology, so I feel like even myself it's kind of pushing me to open new avenues.
37:30
Lenny Felberbaum: Yeah, I mean I had a few years ago started playing the guitar and then I got just too busy to keep up with the lessons and the practicing, so I already did a you know online, like some YouTube on playing some stuff.
37:46
Scott Woolley: Teaching yourself, teaching myself how to play.
37:56
Lenny Felberbaum: So you've been doing that during this sort of downtime?
37:57
Lenny Felberbaum: During this downtime, I've been Coronavirus.
38:00
Tiffany Woolley: So how much time do you give that to focus on?
38:03
Lenny Felberbaum: I've done probably an hour.
38:07
Tiffany Woolley: That's fantastic.
38:08
Lenny Felberbaum: You know an hour a day, I play the drums, which I haven't really played that much, so I'm trying to do things that I didn't do.
38:19
Lenny Felberbaum: I've listened to albums which I haven't listened to in ages.
38:23
Tiffany Woolley: I know music in the house every day too.
38:25
Lenny Felberbaum: It's a whole different experience listening to an album versus downloading songs listening to an album versus downloading songs when you listen to the whole album.
38:33
Lenny Felberbaum: It brings you back to exactly where you were.
38:36
Scott Woolley: It's a different sound.
38:37
Scott Woolley: Also, we have the same thing in our house.
38:39
Scott Woolley: We have a record player.
38:41
Scott Woolley: We've got all our old records.
38:43
Scott Woolley: We do that with the kids every so often it's a lot of fun.
38:48
Scott Woolley: I appreciate the difference in the sound than the digital sound, the sound you get out of the record.
38:52
Scott Woolley: It's a lot of fun.
38:52
Scott Woolley: Well, I appreciate the difference in the sound in the digital sound the sound you get out of the record.
38:55
Lenny Felberbaum: It's a much warmer.
38:59
Scott Woolley: Well, we really appreciate you coming in today and spending time with us.
39:02
Scott Woolley: It was my pleasure.
39:04
Scott Woolley: I know, and going over things.
39:05
Scott Woolley: I mean we wish you continued success with Angle and Volkers and what you're doing here in the South Florida area.
39:13
Voice Over: I think you're doing some incredible things, so keep it up, thank you iDesign Labs podcast is an SW Group production in association with the Five Star and TW Interiors.
39:24
Voice Over: To learn more about iDesign Lab or TW Interiors, please visit twinteriorscom.