$5B Real Estate Mogul Reveals The Price of Success | Ep. 411 with Mauricio Umansky Founder and CEO of The Agency

0:00What has been the price of success for you? I found tracker from a paparazzi in my car. My kids, they were on reality television as a result of the choice that Kyle and I made. And they never had the choice to make that decision for them. At 16, he was delivering pizzas. Today, he's closed over$5 billion in sales, sold the Playboy Mansion, and built one of the most recognizable brands in luxury real estate. This is Mauricio Umansky.

0:587.7 million so 50 there's so much change in real estate there's so much chaos and you're influential in an industry that's a chess move

1:13normally when we kick this off we start going back in time because we got a lot of things we're going to talk about i mean you're doing something really controversial right now that a lot of people might be hating on you for around this new organization that you started but there's also going to be people that will love you for it. We got this new fire, by the way. I just love the way it crackles too. It's just so perfect. It's got the great noise and all that stuff. Yeah. Smells good too. I feel like I need a cigar in here. I don't know why. I don't even smoke cigars. You have an interesting story and I was talking to you right when you came.

1:46We just had Daniel Lebesky on, also from Mexico, family from Europe, moved to the US and he talked about how that impacted his life. So your story though, you were in and out of the hospitals. How did that and growing up in Mexico, then moving to the U.S. impact your life? I think it greatly impacted my life. I grew up as immigrants from Eastern Europe. All my four grandparents are from different places of Eastern Europe, Mexican Jews. I was born second generation born in Mexico, Mexico City. I love Mexico City. We got the World Cup coming up. I want to go to Mexico City. Everybody asks me if I'm going for USA or Mexico, and I think I'm going to go for Mexico first and USA second.

2:27I don't think USA is going to win, though. I don't know. Well, just who you root for, right? That's true. I mean, Mexico has never won a World Cup either, but did you know a funny fact? Just a tangent real quickly. I think only six countries have won World Cups. Spain. Italy. Italy. France. France. England. England. Germany. Germany. Brazil. Okay. I think that's it. I could see why. I don't know if the U.S. could ever win. Do you think so? I think the U.S. will win one day for sure. Okay. 2030. Not now, but one day, 100%. It seems like it's getting more popular here. We're getting more popular.

3:08We've got great athletes. We just need to get more kids wanting to play soccer instead of football or basketball or anything like that. But we've got some of the best athletes in the world. I mean, look at the Olympics. The USA wins the most gold medals out of anybody. Did you play soccer? I love soccer. Did you play growing up? I did. No, not professionally. High school soccer. The only thing I did more serious in my life was snow skiing. Snow skiing? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so I was a big slalom, a giant slalom racer. What area? What mountains? I skied primarily out of Vail, Colorado. Okay. And now I have a home in Aspen, and I love it.

3:44Love Aspen. I skied out of Park City all the time. and in the summers I used to go down to Chile. Wow. Yeah. How's that? Is it like Patagonia? Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Las Leñas. It's amazing down there. One time my dad, when I was younger, he went to Patagonia and he invited me. And I said no because I had a really crappy job at 16 years old. What was the job? I think I was at like a kiosk in the mall or something. I was delivering pizzas at 16. Yeah, how was that? When you look back to delivering pizza to now, Now I deliver a lot of pizzas. More expensive pizzas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You sold a really expensive pizza called the Playboy Mansion.

4:24I did, yeah. My wife and I went to the Playboy Mansion party one time. It was like one of the last parties, sadly, Hugh, could not come out because he was like sick at the time. Yeah. But I was just thinking, how much history is in this place? How did that come about? Well, it was a great, I mean, it was such a great experience to sell that. I mean, I used to love showing that property. How can you not? You know, I mean, it almost had multiple microclimates. You know, it had the rainforest in there, the sequoias, not the sequoias, the red, what do they call them? The red tree, whatever they're called.

4:57The huge trees, yeah. They're huge trees. You know, he had the zoo in there. He got bamboo. I mean, it was just 5.4 acres right on the golf course there. But all the history and all the stuff that went on down there, it was just so much fun. They've got this little room that still looked like this. Everything still looked like it was in the 70s. the grotto the grotto you know the scooby-doo room yeah um it looked like the back of scooby-doo's pick uh van and um i just loved showing that property it was it was the best and i got a chance to have lunch uh one day at uh at the mansion with you you know and as you know or everybody knows you know he was dying when when when we sold it and one of the conditions of buying the property was that you had to let him have a a life estate live in the property until he passed.

5:44So that was one of the complications doing it. But that was the first$100 million sale in Los Angeles, which was kind of cool. So when you sell something like that, because I've seen this stuff that you sell, which by the way, before I get into the next question, what is our fascination with luxury real estate? Like why do we like to watch shows about it? Like why do we love it? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it allows, you know, look, I mean, We've been watching, you know, it's the motivational level, right? We've been watching the, you know, lifestyles of the rich and famous since I was a kid, right?

6:16Like we've been watching, you know, why do we like to watch James Bond, right? Like why do we like to watch Mission Impossible? Because it's these things that we get to see, right? So when you have luxury real estate, like you're seeing such amazing beauty. And it gives you something to drive for. It gives you something that, you know, you may want, right? Whether it's luxury yachts, luxury boats, luxury real estate, mansions. What are the rich and famous? How do they live? How do the celebrities live? What are they living in? What are they doing different? And I think there's a great fascination over that.

6:51If you could have any luxury item, any luxury item, doesn't matter the cost, what would it be? But if you could only choose one. Oh, man, that is a hard question. I mean, I'd have to pick one that you can't buy. Time. Right? I think that that's the new luxury item, you know, longevity. I think that's what people are really into right now. You know, even in your homes, the way you're setting up your centers, your wellness centers. I mean, that's kind of the newest amenity. It's all about longevity. It's all about time. How old do you want to live to? As long as I'm healthy. Let's say you could be healthy at any age.

7:28What would be? I mean, I'll take anything. 120, healthy. 200? Sure. I don't want to die. I'm not scared of dying though are you scared of dying? so my dad put a lot of fear in me about dying to be honest with you he told me he was dying every day since I've known him and he's like 80 so he did put a lot of fear about dying and then my wife though she's like very fearless so she helped me get out of that rut of like I always was worried about it I know it's crazy it sounds but yeah when you love life you don't want to When do you think, though, when you look at success, when is enough enough when you don't want to sell real estate, you don't want to have a brokerage?

8:12Is there a time you think where you're like, I just want to sit in front of the fire or sip margaritas and just chill? Well, look, when is enough enough? I mean, enough is enough for depending on who you are and what you do. I mean, $5 million liquid, you could be doing anything you want, right? Like, I mean, you could be great, you could be good, you could retire, all of that stuff. But I think that the most aspirational people and the most successful people are not doing it for an amount. They're doing it because that's what they love to do, right? I work my butt off, and I mean, you look at people, I'm not even putting myself into this category, but the Elon Musks of the world, the Jeff Bezos of the world.

8:56Like, I mean, you know, it's a chess game. They're in a deal, right? Like, this becomes more than about making money. It becomes making moves. It becomes, you know, a way of living. It becomes, you know, it's like, what's my favorite thing to do? Well, my favorite thing to do is to play chess with my money, okay? With investments, with, you know, the industry that I'm in. you started off by mentioning that I started the American Real Estate Association, that's a chess move and all of these things, that's the chess and when you have that vision in your head and you're moving stuff and you're changing an industry in my case, real estate I really want to make an impact on the real estate industry and I want to move it and I want to change it and I'm willing to change it and I'm willing to be very controversial on that whether it's through American Real Estate Association whether it's through launching a national listing platform, whether it's really creating all of the firms to work together and to collaborate instead of working as competitors.

10:09All of these things that are happening right now, there's so much change in real estate. There's so much chaos. And when there's chaos and you're influential in an industry and you can actually help affect the industry, that's a lot of fun. That's a fun place to be. And so it's not about what's enough. It's about when am I bored, right? And right now I'm not bored at all. I'm really happy, right? So I loved waking up every morning. I mean, I woke up this morning. I was up at 4.30 in the morning. I was ready to go. I mean, I had nobody to call. I called Qatar. I had a conversation with Qatar. Then I called a client of mine in London.

10:45And then finally it was 7 a.m. and I could get the New York people up because they don't get in the office at 9 a.m. they get in the office at 10. And yeah, that's, you know, you just you just get going. Are you a texter? Or do you like to phone call? Because I like to call people. Some people think it's weird because I'm like, I hate texting. Like I want to have a I want to wake up at five in the morning and have friends in Asia so I can call them. I like both. I like to I there's certain things that you can only get done on a conversation. I love voice texting. Voice texting, right? Just sending a voice memo.

11:22And then the text message to me is really more about, it's not about communicating. It's just more about just a straight like message, right? It's not, I'm not trying to negotiate a deal on text. Like that's a$130 million deal. Yeah. That's a conversation, right? But texting is really good for just bouncing back and forth quick. Yeah. Quick bounce backs. So why is it so important right now to start this organization? And then And at the same time, I just read some news that a lot of agents are quitting real estate because of the market. The market's terrible. But in everything, it bounces back and forth, right?

12:03I mean, we just had an amazing market going into 2020 and post-COVID. The market was incredible. You have to understand that real estate agents look at the real estate market differently than a real estate investor. okay real estate investor looks at price right what we know where's my price am i at time i lost money because my price went down did i lost did i make money because my price went up a real estate broker real estate agent we care about transaction volume okay so you know 20 22 2021 we were averaging about i'm going to round up seven million transactions per year we the country Not we, the agency.

12:44We, the country, was advertising. One day. One day. Yeah. I'll just keep my little 20 % share of that, and I'm happy. 7 million transactions per year. Today, we're at 3.6, 3.7 million transactions. So 50 % when you think about that. Okay? So that's what the market has reduced. When that happens, there's multiple reasons people are getting out of the business. It's not as easy as all these television shows made it look. Okay? They make it look really easy. They make it look really easy. Are they real or is it fake? A little bit of both. Okay. I mean, most of the transactions are real, but then they fake them to make them look for television.

13:23Okay. Right? Makes sense. Okay. So they kind of reenact it, if you will. Yeah. But it depends on the show. Okay. I can tell you our show, By the Beverly Hills, was really real. I mean, we had to make some stuff for television. Makes sense. For television. You got to make like a storyline. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was pretty real. Okay. and everything that happened there, every deal that happened there happened. We never faked a deal. I don't know if others have or haven't. I'm not even beginning to question that. There's a lot of turmoil going on with National Association of Realtors. It all started with the lawsuit, the big lawsuit that cost the Association of Realtors $5.3 billion, which was a lawsuit that had to do with commissions and commission fixing and price fixing, and NAR did not do a good job at defending it and protecting us.

14:15And then they left all the big brokerage firms hanging high and dry when they created the settlement. And so all the big brokerage firms had to pay a lot of money. We had to pay a lot of money. And we all got very upset with NAR for that. They have not been good at protecting the real estate. It's the National Association of Realtors. And in my opinion, they don't protect the realtors. They protect themselves. It's a company that has the largest trade association in the country, larger than the bar, larger than the doctor's association. It is the largest association, 1.3 million members. And they have a for profit arm.

14:54They make a lot of money and they're protecting themselves, not the real estate agents, not the realtors, which by the way, you know, whatever. And so we, I really want to protect the real estate agent. I want to protect our industry. I want to get the industry back to, you know, an amazing industry. And I don't think we need to have 1.3 million real estate agents in the country. I think that, you know, A, with AI and everything that's happening with AI, like we can be way more efficient, right? And the more efficient I become, you know, I should be able to do. If I do, I do approximately 35 transactions a year still, believe it or not, personally.

15:32And with AI and the usage of all the tools and my efficiencies, I could probably do 50. to 55, right? With the same amount of time, right? So if I'm a consumer out there and I want to give, you know, if somebody calls me up and I can only handle 35, I'll pass them off to somebody else. I'll refer them. I can't handle more, right? But if I can handle more, I'm going to take it on. That's going to eliminate somebody else's job, right? So it's going to go smaller and smaller. The crazy thing about the AI is like the people building platforms with AI are 100 % trying to replace the people, right? I had an argument with someone recently who's building something.

16:11I said, if you're telling me what you're telling me is, the further you go down this road, you are 100 % trying to replace the human. They said, no. I'm like, that's impossible. You are 100%. But obviously, the people don't want that. So it's an interesting mix. Now you have the builders who are really trying to build platforms to replace humans. And then obviously, the humans don't want to be replaced. How do you see this going with AI? I mean, obviously, Zillow, I'm sure, like that all changed a lot of things, I imagine, but this is probably bigger. There is such an, it's such an interesting thing because as a business owner, I can tell you I need my efficiencies to get up, okay?

16:50And, you know, when I ask the people that work for me, are they using AI? They tell me yes, right? But then I just did a survey to really find out, like, well, what does yes mean, right? Does that mean that you're, you know, talking to your chat GPT and just saying, hey, help me out with such and such, or are you using AI to be more efficient, right? And the problem is that you start hiring people to start implementing AI, but then they realize quickly that they're being hired to replace their own job, right? So then it's almost like a sabotage thing, right? Because it's like, well, wait a minute, I'm going to replace my own job?

17:24Like, how does that happen? I think there's going to be new jobs that are created that still require people. You know, the agentic AI is really interesting, which is going to be replacing a lot more people. That's that whole robot situation that's going on. There's so many great AI stuff with that. But I personally think that we all need to incorporate AI into our businesses. And it's pretty simple. If you work for somebody and you're not using AI, you're going to get fired because you're less efficient than somebody else using AI. Probably, yeah. So it's all about efficiency levels, and you've got to be the best at it and be the best at using it for your own efficiencies.

18:04I don't see AI replacing us. The world's not going to be mad. We'd have to have a whole new economic system, right? If all of a sudden it becomes a robotic world, right? Then I guess we just go to communism? I don't know. Let's say hypothetically we are all replaced by AI. let's say there's a universal basic income. This is total hypothetical. You don't have to do what you're doing right now anymore. You're doing super sci-fi right now. This is super sci-fi. You don't have to do, you could do anything to give you purpose throughout the day. What would it be? Anything. Money does not make it, it does not matter anymore.

18:44What would you do? I think I'd be a DJ, by the way, but what would you do? I like DJ. I mean, I probably would have a bunch of different habits and stuff. I love to hike. Okay. So explore. I probably would become a full-on outdoors explorer. Yeah. Where in the world do you want to explore that you haven't explored yet? Great question. There's a bunch of Alaska I want to explore. The Antarctica I want to get to. Oh, that looks amazing. It looks amazing. I've not gotten there yet. I think people go from Chile, right? Or somewhere around there. Okay. That's the roughest waters in the world. Yeah, that pass, or Drake Pass, I think it's called.

19:20I've heard it's like either it's calm and it's still rough or it's like everyone's Yeah, that's what I hear. I'd love to explore that. Love to explore Norway. Oh, okay. You know, the fjords and all of that kind of thing. There's a lot of Africa that, you know, I was going to go on. I was supposed to go in September on a trip to go explore the gorillas in the Congo. Oh, wow. But there's been a little bit too much news with, you know, I think is it the Ebola virus? Ebola, yeah, okay. Yep. Yep. So I canceled that trip because it's all right in the Congo. Right in the Congo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be an amazing trip, though.

19:55That's the epicenter. I'm like, all right, we'll do that another time. Next year. That'd be an amazing trip. Like I said, I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm not putting myself in a situation where I need to die. I definitely don't want to die from Ebola. No. And they got this Hentavirus. I'm like, no. I think we're all traumatized, but we haven't really faced the trauma since COVID. I feel like that. Anytime you hear anything, it's like a trigger. I agree. By the way, do you like saunas? I love saunas. So I was in Norway. They have a floating sauna where you go into the sauna and then you jump into the water because the water is freezing.

20:29Yeah. Do you do anything like that? I see you're obviously in great shape. Do you have any sort of... How are you going to live to 120 healthy?

20:40Mobility, staying strong, bone mass. Okay. You know, and then whatever science is out there to help us. Is there anything that you're using or doing right now that you're like really excited about? Not really. I started to play around a little bit with the peptides now for the first time. I mean, I'm about to turn 56 years old in a couple of weeks. And just now started to play with the peptides. Okay. You know, I take care of my skin, which is super important to me. I think that's important just to look good. I'm not sure that, you know, and then, you know, strength and mobility to me is what keeps you good.

21:14I mean, I broke a rib six weeks ago. Oh, shoot. That's all good. I heard that takes a while to heal. Yeah, it's almost good. I broke my clavicle a year ago. Oh, my God. What were you doing? Like soccer? Well, the clavicle I broke in playing skiing. I tried to do a little jump that was more than a little jump, but I missed it. That's why I don't ski. I love that. It's my favorite thing to do. and the ribs I broke in a fight club situation. Fight club. Okay. I took a punch to the ribs. Nice. Yeah. How was the other person? Better than me. Okay. It was a big man. Really? It was a big man, 6 '9", 265 pounds.

22:00I'm not quite 6 '1". I was 65 pounds underdog and I was a 9-inch underdog. I mean, that's like taking a bite out of it. Like Jake Paul, right? Like he fights people much bigger. So I appreciate it, right? It's like you're going for the, you're not going for the title match. You're just going for the, I think they call it the badass belt. Exactly. The badass belt. I've lost every fight I've been in, to be honest with you. Yeah. Even when I tried to do martial arts, I got kicked in the face. Because I dropped it. I'm like, I'm not built for this. It's a special thing. in my head. I've asked this question to other people who've been on the show.

22:43It's a two-part question, but I'll ask the first part. What has been the price of success for you? Because we've had, like you said, billionaires, crazy successful people like yourself, and it seems like there's always a certain price of success because people like you, people like us we it's like we can't stop but unfortunately it can come at a price why has that been for you uh two two things um number one is a lot of my success has come because of reality television i've used reality television in order to grow the agency to grow my brand to grow the company to grow all of that stuff the price of that has been losing privacy and that's a huge price to pay.

23:33You know, having a, I mean, I found a tracker from a paparazzi in my car. I'm like, how do they keep finding me? I went through my whole car, I found a tracker. I'm like, okay, now I know they're finding me, right? The, you know, whenever you're at a restaurant, everybody with the cell phone is a paparazzi nowadays, right? And that cost of privacy is a huge sacrifice, a huge sacrifice that's number one number two when I started working I had no money I didn't have anything and I had to work my butt off and I've always been the hardest worker right you know in I'm the first one of the office the last one to leave my friendships my friends was a huge sacrifice you know you only have 24 hours in the day right you need six to eight of those for sleeping, right?

24:23Depending on who you are, but you should sleep at least six. And then, you know, you need a few hours for yourself and for your family. And I have four daughters, four gorgeous daughters. I sacrificed my friends and it was a huge sacrifice. Talking about the reality TV, knowing what you know now about that sacrifice, but at the same time, it's also what you, To me, it sounds like it's also led you to a higher level of success, starting from literally zero. Would you do that same path again? You know, I think about that all the time, and I don't know. There are days when I wake up and I say, yeah, I would do it all over again, and then there are other days, you know, that when I wake up and I'm like, it would have just been so nice to just, you know, be me and not, you know, be judged and looked at.

25:18But there's been a lot of benefits that have come from it. I've gotten a chance to experience a lot of things, not only success and money, but just different experiences that I've done in my life because of television. I change my answer on that every single day, and I think about it all the time. I'll tell you what's hard and what drives me a little bit crazy is the fact that my kids, that I didn't give them that choice. They were on reality television as a result of the choice that Kyle and I made. And they never had the choice to make that decision for them. And that hurts me a little bit. They're good kids and they're in good shape.

25:59I'm not afraid of like, they're old, they're good. My youngest is graduating high school tomorrow. Congratulations. Thank you, I'm super excited about that. But it does hurt me that I didn't give them the choice. It was forced on them. If they had the choice, do you think they would want the fame? I think I have four daughters, and I'm going to say that two of them like it and two of them don't. I'm going to go 50-50 again. Look at this. We keep hitting that 50-50 mark today. Yes. uh i if somebody says like one bad if i get one bad comment it breaks me down my wife always yells at me she's like why do you care so much i'm like i don't know i'm not sure why i care yeah but i mean i'm like very small like two people know me like my wife knows me and then one other person knows me that's so if it's one bad comment it's coming from one of them it could be 100 depending on you know how she sees me in that day yeah but for you how do you handle that like you're saying anywhere you go you could be walking around a tracker that would drive me insane how do you handle these comments do you think it's because there's a misconception about you well first of all the way I handle the comments is it's simple I don't read them and I don't look at them and I don't give a shit it's that simple I don't read them I don't look at them I don't give a shit I'm going to live by that This is very simple.