Winning in Real Estate with Kelly Killoren Bensimon

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2:39It's about having a financial teammate who believes in your potential and backs it up with real tools and real people who actually care. See what genuine partnership looks like at usbank.com because together we're unstoppable. That's the power of us. Equal housing lender. Member FDIC. Trademark 2025 U.S. Bank. Happy New Year's Eve, money rehabbers. It's Morgan, the EP of the show. As we look back on the year, one of the biggest questions that came up again and again was all about how to make the most of the cuckoo-crazy housing market. So today we wanted to re-air an episode with one of our favorite real estate experts, Kelly Ben-Simon, who also was a Real Housewives of New York cast member.

3:24Today, she shares all about the do's and don'ts of navigating the real estate market, whether you're looking at an investment property or trying to beat out competitors with a great application. You're also going to hear a bonus story in the middle of the episode from me about how I make a little extra income through real estate. So don't miss that part. Again, it's around the middle of the episode. Here's Nicole and Kelly.

3:51I'm financial expert Nicole Lapin. It's time for some money rehab.

4:02Today, I'm chatting with Kelly Ben-Simon. To Roni fans, Kelly is an icon from the two seasons she spent on the show over a decade ago. Now she's a successful real estate agent who closed nine figures of sales in 2021 alone. Of course, with real estate being such a hot topic, I wanted to get all of her inside expertise. But there's another money trail I also wanted to follow, the money trail of The Real Housewives. Full disclosure, I've never actually seen an episode of The Housewives. I know I'm probably the only person on the planet, but somehow I am still hooked. Despite not watching the show, I see all of these headlines about cast members who have gone bankrupt or are embroiled in some kind of financial scandal.

4:46And my question is, why? Why are there so many housewife stars with financial skeletons in their closet? Seems to be a story there, and I wanted to find out. Kelly Ben Simone, welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you. I love that Money Rehab. It's such a great title. Thank you. I think we're going to keep it. How did you start in real estate? So I actually stumbled upon real estate. Unfortunately, my mom fell ill and wanted me to help sell our family properties. And my father's older. So I oversaw that, quickly got my license and wasn't really thinking that, you know, this is like just when million dollar listing had gone on and I was, you know, just finished.

5:30finished. I just retired from Housewives, getting my MBA. And I just kind of stumbled into this because I had to do it. And so out of something that's so traumatic came something so incredible. Who would have known that she's asking me to do something to preserve our family, and all of a sudden I'm pulling in$110 million on my own. I was just about to ask that. I was waiting to throw down that number because you were like, Like, I just stumbled into this little thing. Casual$110 million in sales later. Last year. Yeah, just last year. In one year. One year. Started with the number one deal of 2021.

6:10So we're in COVID. No one's in New York City. And I sold 150 Charles, front house of 150 Charles for$42 million, all cash. Nicely done. Yeah, that was really nicely done, actually. It was so... A friend of mine happened to be looking for a$30 million apartment for his son. Does that guy want to adopt another child? The one who wants to buy a$30 million apartment? Who is that kind of person? I mean, they're just New York investors. I mean, I think a lot of New York guys knew what was going to happen. They forecasted that there was going to be something happening. They just bought everything up.

6:42Because it was on the down. So buy low, sell high. And so when - Buy low, sell high. That's your business. That's right. But it works in real estate too. It's really hard to time the market. It's hard to figure out the trends of real estate. It's so city specific. What do you think is going on with the real estate market now, if you could give us a pulse check? Well, so, you know, stock markets, your business, real estate markets, my business, but you know, we had, you know, 14 contracts over 4 million last week and four of those were over 20 million. So, and it was Thanksgiving. So, you know, that's really interesting.

7:20I mean, there's a lot of big cash buyers out there. So when people ask me about my business, they're like, well, you know, people aren't selling anything. You know, I don't want to sell. I'm like, well, you can sell. It's like any market. If the person wants what you have, they're going to pay the price for it. So it doesn't matter what the state of the stock market is. You know, it's like people want what they can't have. And the good news about my business is I have a lot of great properties that most people can't have. Well, it sounds like it's really a relationship business. Completely. Completely.

7:49But this isn't something that I just fell into. People are like, oh, she got a license and all of a sudden she's doing$42 million. This is not how that works. I mean, I went to Columbia. I have an MBA. I had great mentors along the way. I started L Accessories. I started Gotham Magazine. I'm used to working with investors. I'm used to working with advertisers. I'm used to like, you know, I think one reason that real estate really resonates with my clients is because I know everything about lifestyle. I started a magazine based on lifestyle. So it's like I already put the work in. And so I can kind of sit back and say, okay, this is the strategic opportunity for this apartment.

8:29This apartment needs staging. This apartment needs press. This apartment needs, you know, a party. This apartment, you know, whatever it is, you know, everything needs a little love in some kind of way. And, you know, you just can't like, you know, they always say like put lipstick on a pig. Like we don't do that. I like make it movie magic. I did bid on a place in L.A. and I lost it. So I need help. We've seen these crazy bidding wars. Right. It was like, you know, when interest rates were nothing, lines around the block for open houses, like they were giving something away. I mean, that's. For rentals and for sales.

9:04Yes. And that's kind of changed as interest rates have gone up. But what would your advice be for winning a bidding war? To have your financials in order. Just be ready to go. because, you know, for example, my, you know, my daughter is looking at an apartment and they were like, okay, it's not, hasn't even finished yet. It's like they literally, the apartment is in construction and they're like, okay, you need to zell the money, you know, first month's rent, earnest deposit, all this money, like zell it, no checks, zell, like right away. So you have to be really ready to go. You can't be like, oh wait, hold on a minute.

9:37Let me just get myself together because there is that person that has their money ready to go. And that's when you lose something. I mean, I don't hate renting. I talk about this a lot, too, because if you are taking out a jumbo mortgage and you're paying money every month, most of that's going to interest in the beginning. Right. And that's money you're not getting back. So when people say you're throwing money away by renting, you don't get that interest back. You don't get a bunch of other stuff back. You don't get closing costs back. Right. And so do you think we should bring sexy back to renting?

10:10I mean, there are so many. I mean, the rental market in New York is just insane right now. And I think there's a lot of fear associated with buying properties because there's fear with the unknown. And it's not like because of the volatility of the stock market, people are like, okay, that's a forecasting of what's going to happen in the real estate market. But again, I live in this beautiful building. I just sold, it's approximately, because it's a co-op, so it's approximately 1 ,800 square of feet, one apartment for$2.9 million. And then I sold another one a couple of months later for $4.1. So I basically raised the price of the building.

10:52Obviously, the other apartment was a different apartment with a different narrative. But do you see what I'm saying? You can really make really good money. If you're living in a great home, for example, I represent this insane home on the Upper West Side, 26 West 87th Street, where Billie Holiday, she lived. And it's this phenomenal townhouse. It's been completely renovated for 13.7. And that's a place like if you bought that home, I mean, you could really later on do whatever you want and really make a lot of money. So it just depends. If you're not paying a lot of mortgage, because if you take That big lump sum, like if somebody saved up$200 ,000 to buy a million dollar place, but they only have 200 grand and they put all that money into their house, they're kind of house poor and then they can't use that money to put in the market and make more money potentially.

11:49So that opportunity cost of the big lump sum sometimes doesn't make sense for people. Well, we have like different buckets. So we've got the Midwestern bucket where they're putting money under their mattresses. And then we have the real estate bucket and then we have the stock market bucket. So we have different people trying to figure out their finances in different kinds of ways. And it's just really like what works for you. Some people are just like, I'm just going to put that cash under my mattress. Which we don't recommend for the record. But some people are just like, I'm just going to save it for a rainy day because cash is king.

12:18Queen. Queen. King and queen. So you may not recommend it, but at the end of the day, sometimes it's good because during COVID when you had a lot of cash, you could really buy anything you wanted. So there's just three different kinds of buckets and it's just really what you want to do and how you want to do it. At the end of the day, whether it's real estate, stock market, or your mattress, the most important, the number one priority for me in anything that I do with anyone is I tell them like, your family, they're your legacy. So you need to give them shelter. I like it. Like that's crucial.

12:55And food, water, and shelter, those are the things that people need. Everybody needs shelter from the storm. Can we talk about a type of storm? The storm that is the housewives. I think there are a lot of people listening who will know you from the housewives. Do you think there's anything that you learned doing that show that helps you with real estate? I mean, I am so grateful for housewives and for Bravo because they gave me this massive, they basically took my name that was like a small name in New York City and like blew me out of the water. So looking back, this is not something you regret doing.

13:28You're happy about being on the show. No. It paid dividends. Yeah. Many, many. I mean, I think that like when everyone ever asked me about the regrets, like the only regret that I ever had was not showing like my real life, because it wasn't fair to the single women to not show them like how I was making money on my own. Like they just thought that I was running around, you know, cartwheels, like, you know, like chewing gum, having fun, which is something that I do all the time. But I also know how to make money and provide for my family. And they didn't show enough of that, you don't think? Well, it was, yeah, they didn't want to because they were like, she's a supermodel.

14:03And you have to remember too, like back when I was on television in the Ice Age, it was like 2009. You know, being a single parent was definitely not sexy. That was like almost taboo. Being able to provide for your family was like an anomaly. And just talking about being single was something that's like, oh, you're not with a man. It's like you're not a unit. You're not complete. You're not like a traditional family. So there were all of these interesting layers of things that people didn't want to necessarily hear about. And now people are like, how did you do it? How did you do it? I'm like, I don't know.

14:39You asked my kids. They did it. I didn't do it. I just like pushed them. So we heard rumors that Bravo wants you to come back for Housewives of New York Legends show. Are you going to do that? I mean, you know, I'm definitely thinking about it. You know, it's like I love the brand and I love the women. So I'm just I'm definitely thinking about it. But leaning more toward yes. We'll see. Sounds like it. We'll see what happens. I never you know, you never say never. but everything has to align. Hold onto your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. Hey guys, it's Morgan, the EP of the show. And as you're loving all of these great real estate stories with Kelly Ben Simone, I have another tip for you.

15:24Hosting on Airbnb is an amazing way to make your real estate work even harder for you. I love hosting on Airbnb. Because I work remotely, I'm lucky enough to get to spend summers back where I'm from in Maine. So when I'm away for the summer, I host my apartment on Airbnb, and it's been such a great side hustle. So yes, I am a proud Airbnb host. But what I'm even prouder of is the fact that I got my best friend's mom, Lori, to be an Airbnb host too. Lori lives in New England and is retired, and she and her husband go off on all these really cool backpacking trips for weeks at a time. And when they're gone, their house just sits empty.

16:01I told Lori that hosting on Airbnb is just a no-brainer for her. Her house could be collecting checks for her instead of just collecting dust. But also, because she's retired, she's just not making the big bucks anymore. And through hosting on Airbnb, she could have some income coming in. That income can help her feel even better about her retirement nest egg, but also can contribute to a slush fund for those phenomenal trips she takes with her husband. But the idea of having to make the house spotless and coordinate with guests while she's also getting ready for a big trip felt like just too much for Lori.

16:35But Airbnb's co-hosting feature changed the game. Airbnb's co-host network is a network of high-quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and guests for you. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for or just don't want to do, like managing reservations, messaging guests, giving support at the property, or can even create your listing for you. When I told Lori about this, she finally signed up, and she has her first guest lined up for the summer thanks to her co-host. Find a co-host for you or for your friend's mom at airbnb.com slash host. That's airbnb.com slash host.

17:16And now for some more money rehab. It sounds like it. I mean, Bethany has said that there's always a number to go back to the housewives. Right. Do you have a number? Well, it's work at the end of the day. So there's always a number for everything. I agree. It's not a charity. Right. Okay. So what was your, like a ballpark? I don't know, really. Okay. So I'm going to give you$50 million. Would you go back to the housewives? $50 million? I'd probably go back to the housewives. $10 million. We're doing an auction. Why is it 50 to 10? That's terrible. It's usually like 50 to like 47 or like – We're not buying a house here, sister.

17:59I mean, I'm just trying to find the ballpark. That's what I'm saying. I'm just trying to find the range. Everyone's always asking me. What neighborhood are we in? No, but everyone's like – when they ask me, I'm like, oh, no, no, no. I don't really like that number. They're like, why? I'm like, what should be like 4975? They're like, what? But it sounds like the salary isn't really where you're making the money. But you get paid by episode? It depends on your deal. So there's not a standard thing. Everybody gets. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't. I mean, I don't really know what other people are getting.

18:25I don't really like a lot of a lot of housewives. They like try to commiserate. I'm like, no, no, I'm like, I'm good. You don't like talking about it. I like financial transparency. I do, too. But I think that you have to be careful, especially on a show like that. It's different, like when you're working together. But when you're like on a show that's being filmed under like a microscope on HGTV, I think it's different when you're talking because there's that constant, like, the level of competition just gets really, really high because of, like, how much the person's getting paid versus, like, what's at stake emotionally.

18:59Do you know what I mean? Got it. I'm sure Bravo doesn't want everybody talking about it because there'll probably be, like, some collective bargaining agreement where everybody goes up and tries to get money. Again, like you don't want to be like, you don't want to have, I mean, you wouldn't want to be on a show. You wouldn't want to produce a show where you have like four people already arguing about knowing how much the other person is making. I mean, there's a balance, right? Because I think, especially for women negotiating in order, this will be a real estate analogy for you. In order to price your house, you need to know the comp of the area.

19:29Obviously. Okay. So the same thing works for like salaries, right? If you don't know the comp, like how are you pricing yourself? You're shooting in the dark. Right. That's a good point. But I think that when you're seeing people that are getting like a million versus like other people that are getting like 10 ,000, I think that that's such a like it doesn't level playing field. And so then people get like at the onset, like ferocious. And they don't want that. They want people to be genuine and they want people they want to like it's HGTV. You want to see like authentic moments. Yeah, although I would argue with Housewives, there's been so much financial turmoil for so many of these women that maybe talking about it would be helpful.

20:11Because the number of bankruptcies, the number of financial scandals. Well, I mean, if we talked, if you're talking about actual finance, if you're saying to like so-and-so, like if you went on and were like, hi, this is what you need to do. Or if someone was in a situation with bankruptcy, if you were there to be like, well, I can help you navigate that. I think that's different than like trying to get people to on the onset to be like, you're making 10 ,000, I'm making a million. Like I'm better than you are, you know, kind of thing. Should I bust into the house? Because you don't know what's going to, you don't know like who's going to be the breakout star.

20:45Like you don't know just because you're making X amount of dollars doesn't mean that you're not going to be that you're going to be the breakout star versus the other one. You don't know that. It depends on like the narrative. It depends on like what they're doing. You know. So I'll be honest. I haven't watched any Housewives franchise at all. You should be honest. Which one should I be on? There's a Potomac. That's not a joke. There's Dubai. There's Potomac. They're all over. There's Miami. I'm coming on. I'm going to help these women. There's Beverly Hills. They can tell me. We don't have to put it on.

21:15They can tell me how much they're making. I can look at the books. Because it seems like there's always a headline about a financial scandal on the Housewives. There's Jen Shaw. There's Erika Jayne. Teresa. I don't know how to say her last name. Chudice. Chudice. Why do you think so many Housewives get into financial trouble? Because I think they live above their means. I think they get excited. And I think that they forget why the fans want to hear from them. They want to hear their story. And then all of a sudden they're like, I'm wearing Louis Vuitton. I'm in our G-Wagon. I'm killing it. Look at me.

21:51I'm famous. And then all of a sudden, cameras stop rolling. It's like in any business. It's like an entertainment business, like music, modeling, acting. You see all these people doing so well. And then all of a sudden they stop doing well. And money stops coming in. And all of a sudden it's like, dun, dun, dun. Then life gets real. So I think you'd be great. I think they would be, you know, I think it'd be great to just have you just like general, just like telling women like, you know, how to take care of themselves. I'm in. Sign me up. Because it's not even living within your means. It's living below your means, which is not fun and sexy, but it builds long term wealth.

22:31Just saying. With Erica Jean, she's been having all this trouble with her husband, ex-husband. it came out that she didn't have a prenup or something like that. What do you think about prenups? It depends on the situation. You know, I think that some situations you should have a prenup. I mean, I didn't have a prenup with my ex-husband. Was that a mistake? No. No. Because, I mean, I had money coming in, he had money coming in, and, you know, I just genuinely wanted to, you know, move forward. and you know money wasn't the impetus like I didn't marry him for money and I wasn't divorcing him for money I was divorcing him for freedom and to raise my kids and to give them the greatest life ever and I just didn't feel like you know being with him was doing that so I don't necessarily I don't think of it like that like some women are like oh my god money which is great or you could flip the script right and say like this is an empowering thing I'm a woman I make my own money like I need to protect my own stuff.

23:36Right. Well, there's, there's two sides of it. I mean, I definitely raised my kids with good values and a sense of self and they've always worked. And, you know, my daughter's worked through college and they've, you know, I've done everything from like babysat to do what, you know, like bartending, waitressing, like they've done it all. Personally, I don't know. I mean, it's like, I don't judge people, but I don't marry for the ring. Like I, I married my ex-husband because I thought he was amazing human. If I thought that was marrying for the ring, I would have gotten a bigger ring. I think some people think of it that if you get divorced or if something happens, it's like having insurance.

24:18You don't want the state to decide. You just want to be in control of what happens. You throw it in the fire or whatever. So would you get married again? Definitely. Yeah. I mean, if we're talking about your inheritance, like your family's inheritance or something like that. Like, I don't think that that's fair for, you know, for an ex to get that. That's not fair. But when you bring something to a relationship and you are in the relationship and you're going under contract, you know, it's a transaction at the end of the day. It's a legal contract. I'm going to marry you and this is what we're going to do.