Joining the show in this episode is Magin Patrick, the Director of Project Hawai’i, Inc. In this episode we start by discussing the importance of having a security system for your office or home. Magin Patrick talks about what Project Hawaii is and how they help take care of the homeless kids in Hawaii. She talks about their vision for their non profit organization, when and why she decided to work with children. She tackles the topic of the abusive environment a lot of these children wen through and how your donations can make a huge difference.
Also in this episode: Brandon Fraser of APN Alarm Company, and Keoni Ford to talk about a non profit organization. We have tips of the week, Quotes of the day, this week’s Open houses and Coming soon listings.
Magin Patrick, the Director of Project Hawai’i, Inc. formerly known as the Christmas Wish Program. Along with co-founder Cliff Kama and their volunteers, Magin works throughout the year to provide life changing opportunities to the children living in extreme poverty situations. Providing interactive solutions that help the children to grow and break the cycle of homelessness within their own lives is one of their major goals.
Read word for word from our episode with Magin and Cliff of Project Hawaii below:
Announcer: It’s time to enter the world of real estate in Oahu with Hawaii’s only true real estate radio show: the Team Lally Real Estate Show. Grab a pen and get ready to take notes. For the next full hour Hawaii’s premiere real estate leader Adrienne Lally and Attilio Leonardi will bring you the latest in real estate news and real world strategies on how they can guarantee to sell your home at a price and deadline you agree to – or they’ll buy it! Now here are your hosts Adrienne and Attilio.
[Jingle bells]
Attilio: Ho ho ho. No Santa Claus is not in the radio studio today but welcome to the Team Lally Real Estate Show, home of the guaranteed sold program – or we’ll buy it. If you have any questions you can reach us at 799-9596. What’s that number? 799-9596 or on the web at teamlally.com. That’s L-A-L-L-Y. Well hey everybody this Attilio. Yep doing another solo show.
Attilio clears throat.
Attilio: ADR is on the mainland. She’s attending – what is it? I was telling our product here Stephen – Stephen Storm. She’s attending this event – it’s her second time – it’s called Best Year Ever by a guy named Hal Elrod. He wrote a book called The Miracle Morning. I highly recommend the book. Go to the seminar, it’s about growth. Tony Robbins talks about it. One of our six human needs so you’re either growing or you’re dying. So that’s what she’s doing right now. So anyway, hey real quick. The other day I was at the NBC Arena building a gingerbread house with my family. This lady came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, started asking me a bunch of tax and legal questions and I said, “But mom, what other questions do you have?” So if you hear anything on the show that sounds like tax advice run that past your local CPA and if you hear anything that sounds like legal advice, hey, go see an attorney.
Because today we’re going to have all kinds of information. We’re going to be talking about homeless keiki, how to help them. We’re going to be talking non-profit, maybe organic, farming on the Waianae Coast.
What else are we going to be talking about? We’re going to be talking about real estate. We’re going to be talking about lending property management tips and anyway – so what I want to share with you, typically ADR does it but I’m going to do it. It’s our quotes or our little pearls of wisdom. By the way these tips are brought to you by Duke over at Hawaii Pacific Property Management. We have all these sponsors with Pacific in it. Anyway here’s his quotes of the day.
“If you’re only willing to do what is easy, life will be hard. If you’re willing to do what is hard, life will be easy.” Wow. Okay. I bet you people listening in are nodding their heads saying, “Yeah that totally makes sense. That happened to me. I was doing it the easy way and then life was hard. I started doing it the hard way and then life was easy.” That’s by Bishop Eddie Long.
Here’s the next one: “Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones you’ll start having positive results.” This is from Willie Nelson! He said to himself, “You know I need to be more positive and especially pay my income taxes.” Anyway that’s Willie Nelson.
Last one here: “As we express our gratitude we must never forget that the highest appreciate is not to utter words but to live by them.” That’s by John F. Kennedy. Okay so there’s our pearls of wisdom by Duke Kimhan of Hawaii Pacific Property Management. Speaking of Duke, Duke, Duke are you there?
Duke: Hello!
Attilio: Hello hello!
Duke: Good morning, good morning.
Attilio: Good morning. How are you doing today. You got a property management tip of the week for us?
Duke: I do. I do. Trust a property management company to come in your house every four and six months to do a walkthrough in your homes and give you a report.
Attilio: Okay.
Duke: So why would you have a property management if they only go in once a year to change out your tenants? You never know what’s going on in your house.
Attilio: Yes.
Duke: So at Hawaii Pacific we walk your house if you have pets every four months. If you don’t have pets we walk through every six months, fill out a report. If there’s any damage we require our tenants to make the repairs in 10 days or their lease is terminated.
Attilio: Mhm. Oh wow. Oh and then you guys do a 10 day, when it’s brand new?
Duke: We do a 10 day walkthrough and we take a lockbox off and we do a walkthrough on your property condition form, and we’ll either repair or fix anything that the tenant finds that was maybe left over from the change over.
Attilio: Yeah.I think that’s a good one because a lot of times when you go in and walk through with the tenant it’s not like you’re living there and looking at everything and turning everything on and using things, but when they live there for 10 days they’ll say, “Oops! This outlet doesn’t work or this light switch doesn’t work.” Right? After 10 days?
Duke: Right, or the traffic pattern in a living home with a family is different than if you had just had a couple in there. So a lot of times you’ll find that when your tenant moves in that different things will have broke and the owners says “You know I’ve lived there for 10 years and that’s never broke before” but if the dishwasher was never run, and now they run a lot of dishwasher a lot – a lot things will be different in the living pattern.
Attilio: One of the the things we tell people is don’t unplug your refrigerator. I used to sell refrigerators and what happens is there’s an oil or a lubricant that circulates along with the freon, and it settles all into the condenser so it could work – if you never shut it off that thing would perfectly for 20 years, and you shut it off and turn it on at the 10 year and it breaks.
Duke: Well a lot of times the owners will shut off their refrigerator and don’t empty their ice maker.
Attilio: Doh!
Duke: Yeah and they got wood floor – oh yeah. We’ve had several wood floors ruined by the owners.
Attilio: Well and other important things things that people realize – because the owners won’t do it it’s like detailing your car, you bring it to a professional, they’re going to do an awesome job. If you do it yourself you’ve got all these missing, dirty spots on your car – but a lot of times the tenants, unless you practically go in there and visit with them, they’re not going to say anything but they’re going to grumble and they’re not going to feel good about being there, and they’re not going to want to renew their lease.
Duke: Right.
Attilio: Right?
Duke: Right.
Attilio: So-
Duke: So you know I have two goals when I take your house on for property management: one is to protect your home and the second is to put money in your account. Those are my only two goals that we work off of, all of our decisions are based on those two goals.
Attilio: Yeah we tell people “Hey get a professional property manager” because you guys are handling the headaches but with these walkthroughs you’re doing preventative headache maintenance.
Duke: Right. PM.
Attilio: Yeah you guys are like the aspirin for the property owner.
Both laugh.
Duke: And we have a guarantee –
Attilio: Yes! What’s that?
Duke: Where if we don’t rent your home in 30 days or less at an agreed upon price we’ll pay you that amount in rent. We also have another guarantee where if we put a tenant in your home and we check the background out and everything doesn’t work out real good and they don’t pay the rent on time, we’ll evict them at our cost.
Attilio: So you guys-
Duke: Yeah that’s the big one.
Attilio: I think the big thing is you guys do all these guarantees because you feel very confident that you guys are going to go there and do a good job for these people. Right?
Duke: Yep. This is all we do. We don’t do buy/sell real estate. We hand that off to the experts. We are the expert in property management so you can check our reviews on Yelp or you can go to our website at www.hipacificpm.com.
Attilio: Alright you guys are like what Orville Redenbacher said. He says do one thing and do it well. That’s why he did popcorn.
Duke: We try. We do our best.
Attilio: Okay well thanks Duke.
Duke: Take care.
Attilio: And have a great weekend.
Duke: Talk to you next week.
Attilio: Alright guys that was Duke with Hawaii Pacific Property Management. If you want to get ahold of anybody on his team over there, give them a call. 445-9223. That number’s 445-9223. Again their website, hipacificpm.com. They got a rent guarantee. If they don’t put somebody in there within 30 days at an agreed upon rent and/or time frame they’ll pay the first month’s rent. Alright so we’re going to go with – we got Brandon.
[Beeping noise]
Attilio: Brandon! Hey Brandon are you there?
Brandon: Hey Attilio can you hear me?
Attilio: Yeah! How you doin’ Brandon?
Brandon: I’m doin’ good. How are you doing?
Attilio: Good. Welcome to the Team Lally Real Estate Radio Show. I know I had the two times to call in so I’m glad you called in on the early one, right? Early bird gets the worm.
Brandon: Yes sir.
Attilio: Alright so Brandon tell us. Tell us about the name of your company. I know it’s APN. APN. What does that stand for?
Brandon: Advanced Protection Networks.
Attilio: Alright if you didn’t say anything else everybody’s thinking all kinds of different things. You guys are like, internet security, you’re like personal bodyguards. Tell us more about home security. Which one of those three is the correct answer?
Brandon: We’re pretty much home security. Personal and home security. Burglar alarms, fire systems, medical equipment, and security cameras.
Attilio: Yeah tell us more about the company. I know we had a chance to meet at the office the other day and what I like about your guys’s company is your guys’s history. Tell us about the history of APN.
Brandon: Okay. Well we’re statewide. We’ve been serving Hawaii since 1994, local and active. What really separates us from all the other alarm companies out there is our customer service.
Attilio: Okay.
Brandon: If something was to breakdown at 12 o’clock today then we guaranteed it would be fixed by 12 o’clock tomorrow.
Attilio: You know that’s important to know because it’s happened in my neighborhood. Right? I’m not going to put you on the spot but I’ll be the bad guy and say a lot of these mainland companies, they’ll come in, they’ll bring in what we call a canvasser is it’s not a piece of wood with a canvass over that you paint on, a canvasser is an actual type of marketing person that goes door to door, knocking on the door looking for appoints to see if you can get an alarm system set. And I know that you guys do that too. Here’s the big difference: I know there have been companies that have rolled through, they knock doors, sign up a whole bunch of clients, and then they’re gone.
Brandon: Yeah with you guys it’s local guys – it’s not some college student from somewhere in the mainland that’s knocking doors. It’s the guys with the company. Again so local ownership. How long you guys been in business doing what you’re doing.
Brandon: Since 1994.
Attilio: Okay. You know reputation’s everything, right? People want to check you out and then you establish that trust by being a client and they refer you all their friends and relatives and you were telling me something about the Better Business Bureau.
Brandon: Yes we actually have a A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.
Attilio: Okay. Alright so they can check you guys out at the Better Business Bureau. More importantly what’s your guys’s website and what’s a good phone number?
Brandon: A good phone number would be 808-222-1846. Our website is at apnalarm.com I’m pretty sure.
Attilio: Yeah you know they can Google it even if you don’t have the exact name. 222-1846 if they’ve got questions. So give us some – I’ll share an anecdotal story why a home security or business security system is important and then maybe you could share a story and talk about a couple of other things and then we’ll let you get on your way to enjoy the rest of your weekend here but here’s the story I’ll share with our listeners so come close. Come close.
Attilio (whispering): It’s like telling a story we’re gathering around the fireplace.
Brandon laughs.
Attilio: We’ve got one of those high-definition surveillance cameras up in the corner of our lobby and myself and Damien – my media manager – I was going to borrow the drone that we have to just do some stuff for the family. Hadn’t used it in a while so I just needed a brush-up on my drone flying skills and just to give you a picture our office is located across the street from the Kapolei Regional Park and our front doors, first floor, face the park.
So literally we just walked across the street. We figured, you know, we’re directly across the street, we don’t need to lock our front doors. We’re going to be there like 10 minutes and walk back. Well in the time it took for us to be obviously distracted by this drone, and learning how to use it, and getting back to the office, he had set – or I was supposed to take also – some camera equipment and a camera game and it was probably about $3,000 worth of camera equipment. So it was not the drone, the drone was with us, and he said it out for me, he goes, “Attilio did you take the camera equipment?” I’m like “No?” He’s like “Well I put it right here and it was here right before we left,” and it’s like “Uh-oh!”
So we run around the outside of the building, don’t see anything, nothing goes on, we call the police, we file a report with our surveillance because it’s being recorded 24/7 we’re able to play back the footage and lo and behold what do you think we found? What did we find? What we found out that someone had walked in within literally 10 or 15 seconds, looked around, grabbed the bag, and walked out like casual, no big deal.
Well we took the video, the still shots, we posted on social media and we did a little public shaming. We just said, “Hey,” and we have a really, big, strong presence with social media so we were able to post it out there and get it across all the social media. Some people started responding, “That’s so-and-so. He graduated from such-and-such high school. I know him!” So basically it probably got back to him that we had this video that we had this video clip and still shots, and it’s clear as day, you can see who it is. It’s not like one of them blurry ones that you see on these caught-on-tape type shows.
So we responded “Now that we know who you are, so long as you return the camera equipment to us back the next day we won’t press charges.” Lo and behold the physical therapy company down the way in our building, they saw the social media post, they got a brown paper bag on their doorstep, they open it up, our camera in there and all the equipment. Came back the next morning. This is why you probably want to have a security system. So you’ve got a quick story you want to share with us Brandon?
Brandon: I actually have a similar story from one of our clients. You know how everyone takes their shoes off before they walk into the house.
Attilio: Yeah.
Brandon: Well he had like a brand new pair of Jordans outside of his house and someone walked up to him, broad daylight, and took the shoes.
Attilio: Wow.
Brandon: So he actually went and posted a picture of them on Stolen Hawaii and within four hours he had all the information.
Attilio: I’m telling you man.
Brandon: It will make a difference.
Attilio: People do sneaky stuff but if they know you got caught. Boom! “Oh shoot I’ve got to do the right thing!” So anyway great story there. Give us a price range so you guys come out, do a free consultation?
Brandon: Yes sir.
Attilio: Okay and when you come out there, you guys going to go through your presentation – and you’re like a hard sell right? You’re going to put them in a headlock and make them sell stuff?
Brandon laughs
Brandon: No no no no.
Attilio: No.
Brandon: Not unless they’re hard headed I guess huh?
Attilio: Yes exactly. But it’s well worth it folks just for that peace of mind. You know we talked about it the other day, you’re not selling an alarm system you’re selling piece of mind. Especially a lot of families, the kids come home, they’re by themselves. Wouldn’t be nice as a parent? Here’s the thing – you guys have got an awesome phone app. You showed it to me. It’s so user friendly. You can check to see. Did they come home on time?
Brandon: Yeah our Total Connect. Whenever your kids come home, you get a text message. Now with our new system right now it’s going to send you a text message and a picture so you know that your son or daughter is home and safe.
Attilio: Okay well great. We’ve got Brandon on the line from APN. What does APN stand for?
Brandon: Advanced Protection Network. When seconds matter we’ll be there.
Attilio: Yep and you guys have – you tested your system. I think you said, something like an 11 or 12 second response time. Which is awesome. And locally owned, local technicians, everybody that does installs is within your company. You guys stock backup equipment for the equipment you’re installing so if it breaks you can fix it right away.
Brandon: Yes sir.
Attilio: And you’ve got – you know – you’ve got great service. So if you guys want to get a – not necessarily get a system for your home – but just get a consultation, give Brandon a call and Brandon what’s that number?
Brandon: 808-222-1846.
Attilio: Alright that number’s 222-1846. Alright thanks Brandon for being on the show.
Brandon: Thanks for having me.
Attilio: Okay. Alright so next up is – it’s Kioni. Hey Kioni!
Kioni: Yeah. Yep. This is Kioni who is this?
Attilio: This is Joey Buttafuoco. No. This is Attilio.
Kioni: Oh hey Attilio. How’s it going?
Attilio laughs.
Attilio: Good good. Hey welcome to the Team Lally Real Estate Radio Show. It is a real estate radio show but we like talking with the people in the community to find out what’s going on. Now I told the people in advance that you’re calling from the westside, talking about – what nonprofit organization would you like to talk about today? And then also tell us a little bit about yourself.
Kioni: Well hey Attilio. Aloha and good morning and merry Christmas to everyone and everybody!
Attilio: Merry Christmas! Yeah.
[Jingle bells]
Kioni: I’m actually in Makaha Valley right now.
Attilio: Oh wow!
Kioni: I drove up to Makaha Elementary, my alumni where I went through elementary school, and next to Makaha Elementary is a wonderful nonprofit called Hoa ʻĀina O Mākaha.
Attilio: Okay.
Kioni: It’s H-O-A Hoa ‘Aina A-I-N-A O Makaha and what that means is land shared in friendship in Makaha.
Attilio: Mmm.
Kioni: And it’s a 37 year old nonprofit that has been giving back to the children of the Waianae coastline and it’s an aina based learning platform. So the kid shave a chance to work in the garden and I’m actually pulled to my nonprofit and I’m actually walking the gardens right now.
Attilio: You’re looking it at all right now!
Kioni: I’m actually looking out into the fields right now as we speak and I’m walking past the third grade and fourth grade gardens.
Attilio: Oh wow.
Kioni: And everything here at the farm, the keiki touch. So we teach the children about the water cycle, science, math, technology, but ultimately having a relationship with the plants so that they can have a relationship with others.
Attilio: I think that’s important there and I just want to jump in real quick. You know I’ve seen these researchers who go to little kids’ and say “Hey where does the french fry come from?” and the kids are all going “Oh the french fry plant?” A lot of them are so disconnected from the actual natural food that was converted into whatever they’re eating. So I’m so good that you guys are taking the kids out there to show them what does an eggplant look like? What does a watermelon, papaya, all those good things. I’m just guessing so what kind of plants do you guys got out there?
Kioni: So right now I’m actually standing next to eggplants and recently planted kalos.
Attilio: Oh wow! Oh nice.
Kioni: Now I’m passing bananas and green beans as we’re going into third grade.
Attilio: And the kalo is it a dry land or wet?
Kioni: We’re doing dry land out here in Waianae because it’s very successful.
Attilio: Okay nice. Yeah.
Kioni: But going to about nonprofits and giving back to your community, I mean really what it’s about is I just want to inspire people to connect with their nonprofits in their communities and December is 80% of donations to nonprofits come in around this time of the year.
Attilio: Yes.
Kioni: And a lot of times business owners and entrepreneurs and just, you know, everyday people, folks want to give back and a lot of times they don’t know what to give back to when they give charitable donations. So they give to United Way and Ronald McDonald House and there’s nothing wrong with that but a lot of the times it’s just the most meaningful you could give is to your community.
Attilio: Yes.
Kioni: And there’s so many wonderful nonprofits out there that just require donations to continue to do operating and we’ve been doing this work for 37 years and we live off of the help and support and volunteering and the donations but over the years we have served over 1,000,000 children who have come through Makaha Elementary.
Attilio: Nice.
Kioni: So that’s 2,000,000 hands when you count the hands, and then if you’re going to talk about the connection to the community and the family, their moms, their dads, their grandparents so you multiply that and the true reach that we’re achieving here at Hoa ʻĀina O Mākaha is 5,000,000 we’ve touched in the 37 years that we’ve been doing this work. So I just want to wish everybody a merry Christmas and if you guys have time in your busy schedules please go and visit your local nonprofits in your area and try to find some amazing programs that you guys can support. Get behind, volunteer, and if you don’t have any to give to I recommend you guys go to hoainaomakaha.org and you could make a donation there, big or small.
Attilio: You guys uh, you got a donate button on there?
Kioni: We have a donate button.
Attilio: Alright guys. Nevermind eating the donuts. Hit the donate button on their donate website. Give some money back and we appreciate you coming on the show and talking to us about your great organization out there on the west coast. Thank you Kioni.
Kioni: Yeah thanks Attilio. You guys have a great one. Aloha.
Attilio: Alright we’re getting ready to take a break. Stay with us we’ve got Janyce from Dream House Drafting talking about a permit tip of the week.
(Commercial break)
Attilio: Alright welcome back. So if you’re just tuning in you’re listening to the Team Lally Real Estate Show, home of the guaranteed sold program – or we’ll buy it. And I’m Attilio and I’m still Attilio so if you have any questions you can reach us at 799-9596 and on the web at teamlally.com. Alright so we’ve got Janyce on the line. Let’s go ahead and bring Janyce on the line. Janyce are you there?
Janyce: Yes I am.
Attilio: Hi Janyce! So we’ve got Janyce from DHD. Janyce what helpful information are you going to share with us today?
Janyce: Well you know here in Hawaii most homes have space problems.
Attilio: Mhm
Janyce: That’s evidenced by how many storage places we have popping up all over the islands and so today’s design tip is how to – just a suggestion to maximize some of the space that people may have. If you’re not one of those people who absolutely, positively has to have a formal set dining room, and dining room table, perhaps you can repurpose that space, especially if you have room to put an island in your kitchen and by making use of perhaps white or really, really light wall cabinets and cabinets around the perimeter of the kitchen, if you then do a contrasting, dark island that has heating, if it’s appointed properly it can actually look like a very nice dining room table and also you gain some storage space and some counter space.
Attilio: I think people would be very motivated for the idea because, you know, we’ve sold hundreds of homes. We’ve been in many, many, homes and every – I don’t know of anybody – the only they use the formal dining area is when they’re staging it for when we get to sell the home, but as far as actually using it’s like going to be like one or two times, Thanksgiving maybe, and any time I’ve been to a friend’s house it’s like nobody’s really eating there, that’s just where all the kids spill over to. I would say that 98% of the time that formal dining is being used for where the kids do homework, so I think storage is a great idea. Hey folks, stop paying for all that storage down at the storage place. You know give Janyce. Alright Janyce so can someone reach out to you and get a free consultation?
Janyce: Anytime.
Attilio: Yeah? Okay. Thanks Janyce for that design tip.
Janyce: Thanks, take care.
Attilio: Alrighty. So that was Janyce from DHD. You can reach here at 206-7107. Here website is dreamhousedrafting.com. Also just a quick thing, for realtors out there, you need somebody to help you unravel the messes of the permits after the fact? We spent many years working with different people. We finally narrowed it down to just one person. That’s Janyce with DHD. If you’re looking to get a house up for sale, you’re a homeowner, you want to have that full value of your home, with the unpermitted areas becoming legitimized by being permitted, Janyce can help unravel that mess for you. Give her a call. She’ll do a free consultation. Again her number, 206-7107. Alright next up we’ve got Magin. Hi Magin are you there?
Magin: Hello. Yes.
Attilio: Yes alright so Magin welcome to the real estate show, you are with Project Hawaii. Real quick, tell us what is Project Hawaii?
Magin: Project Hawaii is a nonprofit organization ran 100% by volunteers and supported by public support and donations.
Attilio: Mhm.
Magin: We care for homeless and sheltered children across the islands on a year round basis.
Attilio: Nice and you know we had a chance to talk earlier this morning and I know people want to – and I know this is a question that probably naturally pops into people’s minds when they see someone like yourself giving so selflessly to run a nonprofit organization, because correct me if I’m wrong, you don’t have an 80 foot yacht and 4 car garage and a big home Kahala alright?
Magin: No I do not.
Magin and Attilio laugh.
Attilio: So ‘cause you’re all about taking care of the kids not that there’s anything wrong with you having the nice things and all that, there’s nothing wrong with that either but the big thing – the reason why you’re doing, you know, tell us if someone were to come up to you and say “Magin, why did you start Project Hawaii?” or “Why do you give so much of yourself to that program.”
Magin: Yes that question is asked quite a bit and I believe it’s my kuleana, that what I was put on earth to do was take care of the homeless children.
Attilio: Mhm.
Magin: And I believe it probably stems from my childhood. I wasn’t raised in a traditional family. There was a lot of abuse, and a lot of homelessness, in and out of being homeless, and not having a stable environment so I feel that that’s what gave me the insight I guess to be so caring and want to help homeless children escape their cycle of poverty. I know it can be done because I did it myself and I want to help so when I started the program I was a teenager and I started with a Christmas Wish program. A lot of people still call it Christmas Wish because it was that for so long but I started it at Christmas because that was one of the profound incidents in my life when I turned 10, the neighbors had all got gifts from Santa, it was a big – you know, everybody was outside playing with their new gifts, and I asked my mom why we didn’t – why Santa didn’t come to our house and she said it was because Santa doesn’t come to bad children, to bad little girls, and being from an abusive household how a child can fathom that thought that they’re not bad, the parent is bad. That doesn’t make sense.
Attilio: Sure.
Magin: And so that really – that was something that really stuck with me and as I did this program I gave a Barbie doll to – or Santa gave a Barbie doll to a homeless child that was living in a tent and years later – I hadn’t seen her for a long time – years later she stopped me out in the road and she said “I don’t know if you remember me but you gave me a Barbie when I was little and I took that Barbie to college with me.”
Attilio: Wow.
Magin: That was my hope. That was something that made me know there was more out there than just my life. So I believe Christmas the hope that the children need in order to escape their cycle that they were born into.
Attilio: Yeah. That is such a beautiful story. I remember – I go to conventions and they’ll bring in a keynote speaker and it’s all kinds of different speakers and one of them, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this girl, but I think she wrote a book called Homeless to Harbor and same situation. She just wasn’t going to let – you know – some connection with some adult, early in her childhood, inspired her to reach for those higher heights and so she literally went from yeah to being homeless and living with a homeless family to graduating from Harvard. You know it’s probably one of the most expensive universities and most prestigious universities in the United States but yeah that’s a really inspiring story so I think we talked about it earlier, where people don’t realize – you know you think “Ahh! What is my $20 donation, $50 donation, maybe a nice $100 donation, how is that going to make a difference?” And again you shared that story where that girl got the Barbie, and then like you said, she kept it with her all the way through college.
Magin: Yeah. Most children who are born into poverty, or born into being homeless, they don’t escape that cycle. They have their own children and that’s just their life lifestyle. So it’s very rare for us to run into families that have children that go to college, let alone, you know –
Attilio: Break the cycle of homelessness.
Magin: Yeah so you never know whose life you’re going to touch when you’re out there and I believe that the essence of being a child is that wonder and that mystery or that – you know – that belief in something out there called Santa that never comes.
Attilio: Mhm.
Magin: And when Santa does come it changes their whole perspective of who they are and that they are actually worth something more and that’s something you can’t just instill in a child. It has to come from Santa. So all of our gifts are delivered by elves from Santa, or by Santa himself.
Attilio: Yes.
Magin: They are tagged with the child’s name and say from Santa we don’t allow the public to take, you know, credit for that. We don’t have this, you know, a handout where kids stand in line and get gifts. It really is personal to that child so that they know Santa cared enough to visit their tent or, you know, go up the mountain or go through the bushes just to find them and that really makes a huge difference in their lives.
Attilio: I think that’s important because I was listening to a TED Talk and they were talking about compassion and how people – human nature, it’s natural for us to become compassionate to the people around us but we get into this humdrum of this rat race of this routine and we kind of almost ignore the homeless people because we don’t want to get involved or take the time because we’re too busy. But thank goodness for people like you and Cliff and your guys’s organization. I’m listening to this story, unless I’m a Scrooge in my indoor – you know a Grinch and my heart is 5 times more small than my body, and I want to give back because who wouldn’t after hearing that story about the Barbie doll and your own background, what’s the easiest for someone to help your organization. What’s the easiest way to help your organization?
Magin: The easiest way would be to go online at projecthawaii.org so the website projecthawaii.org and there’s a donation link or donation button right on the homepage and you can just make a donation that way. If you want to find out more how you can help we have a Christmas page as well. It goes over how details how to sponsor an individual child, where to volunteer, different places to drop off toys, so the website is a really good tool how to find out how to help us more. The mailing address is also on the website if you want to save those paypal fees.
Magin laughs.
Attilio: Yes we’ll save Project Hawaii the Paypal fees if you want to give and 100% of your donation gets put into action. You guys have a high percentage of your money that reaches what we call the “beneficiary,” I like that. We at Team Lally are supporting you, we’ve committed our budget every year is about $30,000 that we’d like to personally, through our company, contribute. Pretty much a piece of every transaction buy-side or sell-side goes to Project Hawaii to help break this cycle of homelessness. Magin how long has Project Hawaii been around?
Magin: So Project Hawaii like I have stated was founded as Christmas Wish Program, it started in 1988 and then it’s been on the islands, I moved here 2002. It was still called Christmas Wish but we changed the name to Project Hawaii in 2010 so we’ve been here a long time but on paper Project Hawaii was here in 2010.
Attilio: Yeah so I want to do a shoutout to the business owners. I know I have a lot of realtors, business owners, that are listening in. I want to teach you a program I want to teach you a program called, you know, if you want to get somebody to do something you’ve got to put it in a way that benefits them.
So here you are business owners. 1.) You want to give back to the community, get some good karma, do the right thing, show compassion, do all those things that we talk about when we go to church but do it through the rest of the week and the rest of the year. I will personally work with you on a one-on-one basis, ADR and myself and our team and teach you what’s called “for-benefit marketing,” so we’ll teach you how to incorporate supporting Project Hawaii.
Here’s our goal. We’d like to find 9 other businesses to participate at the $30,000 level per year. The challenge that these nonprofits run into is that, and correct me if I’m wrong, you guys are always struggling because a lot of the big corporations, they give you the donation but they do it once and then you’re constantly, every year, looking for the new donations to come in from organizations. For you to be focused on your programming and improve your programming, get more volunteers, if we can just make the fundraising cycle a lot easier and more efficient for you, benefit for you as a business owner, people will see that you’re giving back to the community.
Here’s an interesting statistic Magin, I’m not sure if you knew this, but when a consumer takes a look at two businesses that have like services and one gives back to the community, they will 98% of the time go with the business that gives back to the community if the services, in their perception, are similar. So help yourself, help project Hawaii, by going to their website and donating. One last thing Magin before we let you goal, what’s your current need right now? Any projects or things you need sponsoring with or help with?
Magin: Yeah we’re working on our Christmas. Christmas is just around the corner so this weekend and next weekend we are doing toy collection drives and fundraisers. Kapolei, we do need volunteers for that, and if people want to drop of toys or, you know gifts, at one of our collection sites, that would be awesome too. So we’ll be at Kaneohe this Saturday and Pearl City next Sunday from 11-2.
Attilio: And I think you said that island wide on Oahu, the locations is it West Coast Ink Tattoo?
Magin: Yeah West Coast Ink Tattoos has a toy drop off and the one in Kapolei actually has a wish tree where you can take the keiki tag and sponsor that child.
Attilio: Then bring the gift back to where the tree is, right?
Magin: Right.
Attilio: Yep and then I know you were mentioning but Team Lally, our offices at 1001 Suite #106 Kamokila Boulevard, we’re in the James Campbell building. Our front doors face the park. We’re open from 9-5 Monday through Friday. If you want to bring, what is it, and unwrapped gift?
Magin: Yes an unwrapped gift.
Attilio: And/or you can also bring an unwrapped check.
Magin: That’s right.
Attilio: And we’ll take that check from you and just write it out to Project Hawaii. Is it Project Hawaii-?
Magin: Inc. I-N-C.
Attilio: Oh I-N-C got it. Mmmkay. Alright Magin anything else you want to send out to our listeners
Magin: Just you know I hope everybody has a great holiday and keeps our homeless children in their hearts as well these next couple weeks.
Attilio: Yes. Alright well thanks Magin for calling in. Alrighty so that was Magin Patrick. We’ve met her, we know her, we’ve been working with her for a long time. She’s the one nonprofit organization that we’re focusing the majority of our efforts on to support. Folks when you’re driving out to the west side, Makaha Beach, and you see those tents off into the bushes, and the kids running around, you know, going back and forth to the bathroom and you think that “Oh they must be just there for the day!” No! Unfortunately they live there and you know we can’t fault these kids for being born into this but we can make a difference and so again I’m appealing to your heart strings right now, tugging on them hard, for you guys to go to projecthawaii.org and hit that donate button. If you want to save them some paypal fees just mail the check in. Business owners, come on, it’s a write off. They’re a nonprofit organization. Write that check as big as your heart. Okay? Thank you so much.
Alright next up we’re going to be talking about open houses. First up is Abbi. Abbi are you there?
Abbi: Yes hello I’m here.
Attilio: Alright Abbi tell us about your open house.
Abbi: Okay so this coming Sunday from 2-5 I’m going to have an open house, it’s a grand open house, so nobody has seen this house before and it’s at 91-256 Namahoe Place and this is in Kapolei. Really nice house, you know, if you’re a chef at heart this house is for you because the kitchen was completely renovated.
Attilio: Oh yeah it had a nice kitchen.
Abbi: Owners spent a lot of money on it. So please come down, check it out, and also it comes with a 21 PV panel system, so you know it will help you with your electric costs and I’ll be there 2-5.
Attilio: Yeah that’s Sunday 2-5. Hey one thing about Abbi’s open house, you know, what’s the one thing guaranteed about our electric bill? Is it going to stay the same, go down, or go up?
Abbi: Definitely it will go down. It might even go negative.
Attilio: Yes! That’s with the PV panels. But if you don’t have them they’re going to go up over time so it’s awesome, and here’s the other thing we know and why you should go visit Abbi at her open house: the PV panels, it’s a lot harder to get them installed now because of the permitting process so go visit Abbi. Abbi also one other thing, if people want to come drop a toy off or unwrapped toy off at that open house for Project Hawaii will you be gracious enough to bring it back to the office?
Abbi: I’ll be more than happy to bring it back to the office.
Attilio: Yeah look for the Team Lally Signs. Come to any of our open houses, drop an unwrapped toy off for Project Hawaii. Thanks Abbi! Alright next up is Keli’i. Keli’i Aaaloha! Hi Keli’i.
Keli’i: Aloha Attilio and aloha everybody.
Attilio: Tell us about your open!
Keli’i: I’ll be sitting a wonderful open house this Sunday from 2-5 in Mililani. Mililani Nob Hill. It has a large private patio area, wonderful rainy weather these days, and it’s just close to the Mililani Town Center.
Attilio: Alright and-
Keli’i: Oh! And the address is 94-1430 Lanikuhana Avenue #481.
Attilio: Now you gonna be in Mililani so Keli’i I just asked this of Abbi and I know I’m popping this up on you guys but you guys are such big hearted people, here’s my idea. Project Hawaii, you know which helps homeless keiki, and part of all our transactions go to support them, they’re doing a big toy drive right now. So here’s what the announcement is: Would you be gracious enough – if anybody comes to your open house with an unwrapped toy – would you be gracious enough to bring it back to the office on Monday?
Keli’i: Of course!
Attilio: Alright. Alright. So I know I’m springing it on you guys but I think that’s what we’re going to be doing – is any of the open houses between now and Christmas that you see Team Lally signs at, bring an unwrapped gift. You see an open house sign, Keli’i tell if I’m right or wrong, you see the open house sign. Make a u-turn. Go to the mall. Buy an unwrapped gift. Go to the open house and visit our awesome, awesome team members and give them that unwrapped gift. For Keli’i bring him one: spam musubi.
Keli’i laughs.
Keli’i: Yes and it’s only five minutes away by walking so it’s right.
Attilio: Okay. Thanks Keli’i!
Keli’i: Thanks.
Attilio: Alright next up we got Brooks. Brooks in the house. Are you there?
Brooks laughs.
Brooks: Hi Attilio.
Attilio: Yeah.
Brooks: Yes I am here and I’m talking about an incoming property. We’re going to have our first showing which is our grand opening at this home, a beautiful home, in the Iwalani development in Kapolei.
Attilio: Nice! Yeah.
Brooks: You’re familiar with that area.
Attilio: Yeah!
Brooks: It’s super nice. This is a very large home with a nice, large yard. Some of the bells and whistles include a 15 panel PV system.
Attilio: Oh wow!
Brooks: Some split A/Cs to cool down the house. Designer touches throughout. The boys who went over there to take the photos the other day just thought this was a great home and I agree with them. We’re going live soon and we’ll have that grand opening on the 18th.
Attilio: The homeowner’s retired right?
Brooks: You know I think he’s retired but he does have a little part time gig over at the airport here in Kaleialoha.
Attilio: Well here’s the deal. I got the chance to meet him and this is what I know about old, retired guys: they spend a lot of time getting their house perfect.
Attilio laughs.
Brooks: Exactly.
Attilio: So I’d highly recommend somebody go check that open house when it is available but if – again, Brooks, do you think it’s important to stay in contact with a team that’s got a lot of coming soon inventory and existing inventory in a seller’s market?
Brooks: I do think it’s very important to stay in touch with a team of this kind.
Attilio: Yeah. So, here’s one of the things that we do, Brooks. Help me spread the word. I’ve got the buyer agents on board but Project Hawaii, obviously our nonprofit that’s supporting the homeless Keiki here and helping to break the cycle.
Brooks: Yep.
Attilio: You know stop these kids from growing up to abuse drugs, domestic violence, and ending up incarcerated. Here’s how we’re going to help out. Any time you see an open house sign, a Team Lally open house sign between now and Christmas, feel free to go to the open house and drop off an unwrapped gift and we will make sure that that gift in the hands of Project Hawaii who will be personally delivering it to these kids with the name on it, to these tents. They’re not going to be some big collection point. They’re actually going out to these children dressed like elves and Santa and changing their lives. Brooks you didn’t hear it earlier but Magin shared a very touching story. She had one of these kids who brought to her and showed her a Barbie doll that she had taken with her to college. That she had gotten when she lived in a tent with her family and it was the one thing – it had a profound effect on her life.
Brooks: Barbie doll yeah.
Attilio: Yeah, Barbie doll. So your $10, $20 donation-
Brooks: Let’s recast that idea if you have time because that’s a phenomenal plan. Open houses, anybody’s cruising the neighborhood, they happen to have an unwrapped gift you said.
Attilio: I tell ‘em you know what, you see the sign, make a u-turn, go to the mall, buy one gift and then come to our open house.
Brooks: There you go. I’ll spread the word, man.
Attilio: Okay. Hey Brooks one last question for you. What would be the top 3 things that you’d recommend for a homeowner do to their home to maximize the sales price.
Brooks: Well let’s see, if it’s depersonalized, decluttered, and clean, clean, clean.
Attilio: Yes!
Brooks: I just use the three Cs. Clean, clean, clean is the-
Attilio: Is the big one.
Brooks: -is a big priority. Yeah.
Attilio: This is what we tell our home owners: listen folks any amount of effort or elbow grease that you put into your home will be rewarded with good offers. Right?
Brooks: That’s right, that’s absolutely correct.
Attilio: Alright Brooks thanks so much.
Brooks: Okay thanks Attilio, take care.
Attilio: Alright guys believe it or not we just blew through a whole show. I did it by myself. Man I can talk and the people that were on the show can talk.
[Jingle bells]
Attilio: Santa Claus was here for a little bit. Let’s hear Santa Claus he’s right here, helping me out.
[Jingle bells]
Off-mic: Ho ho ho.
Attilio: There he is in the background. So hey one last thing I want to share with you guys. When opportunity knocks open the door wide open. Listen up folks. We’ve got a very unique situation. A local chain of stores is looking to be bought out. If we told you the name you’d recognize it immediately! Many of you have frequented their locations here in Oahu in the last year, maybe even last week. Maybe today. We cannot disclose who they are unless you sign a nondisclosure. This business generates $30,000,000 in revenue every year with a net profit of $150,000 per month. If you or someone you know wants to know more details just send us an email at info@teamlally.com. Put in the subject line $30,000,000 and we’ll send you that NDA and tell you more about this opportunity.
You know here we are. It’s the holidays. It’s the time of the year people kind of let off the gas, especially if you’re in sales or any type of business that’s generating business. Don’t do that. When everybody is letting of the gas, stick with it and stay steady freddy because your actions that you do today if you have a business are going to determine your results come January or February and that’s when everybody else starts. So one last tip I want to give to our homeowners that are thinking about putting their home up for sale. Here’s a common misperception. Everyone says “Well I’m not going to do it during the holidays because I’m probably not going to get really good results.”
Here’s what I would tell you: the holidays are the perfect time to put your home up for sale because that’s when the serious buyers are, and so don’t hesitate because here’s the deal. This is what everybody does, and I know if I asked everybody even if you’re not in real estate, what does everybody do if they know they want to sell, they’re thinking about it during the holidays, what do they do? They wait to put it on the market come January. Well listen up folks, I looked at the inventory levels for homes coming on the market for the last ten years and MLS, January. So don’t compete with everybody else. Put it on the market now. Give us a call. Well hey it’s the end of another awesome real estate radio show and this is what I want to tell you. Thanks for listening and thank you to our sponsors
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If you want to get ahold of any of our sponsors just go to teamlally.com. We also want to give a big thank you to Stephen our producer here in the studio. Make sure to tune in next week we’ll have one of our awesome guests talking about something that’ll change your life forever. This is the Team Lally Real Estate Show home of the guaranteed-
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