Tina Mak (Darla Furlani Photography)
By Susan Doran
All successful real estate sales reps are “control freaks,” says Tina Mak, newly elected founding president of the Vancouver chapter of the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA).
She laughs when she says this, but she’s not joking. She readily admits she’s a card-carrying member of the control freak club. “I’ve fired 13 people in my career. If they are not up to par they are not up to par,” she says. “Why should I lower my standards? That ain’t going to happen. I would rather have quality people than quantity.”
Sounding not even slightly abashed, she adds, “I have a hard time finding a team.”
She’s well aware that many people (for starters, those she’s fired) likely consider her to be just this side of obsessive compulsive.
“I have been scolded a million times that I need to slow down and smell the roses,” she says. “I can afford to have a balanced life but I’m not doing it. I don’t encourage people to work like me. I know I’m a workaholic.”
The flip side, she says, is that she’s fun loving and has a sense of humour that often leads people to tell her she “could be a stand-up comic, like Russell Peters.”
With clients, she’s all about relationships, she says. “I’m not interested in just doing volume. …People come first, profit after…Eighty per cent of my clients have become my friends. I like to take care of clients like I do family. People find me authentic, because I tell the truth.”
In fact, one pair of Chinese men were so comfortable with her they had her meet them at a seedy strip club to close a real estate deal. She’d expected the place to be a pub.
“All I saw were G-strings. It was kind of an Oh-My-God thing. You never know where you are going to end up in this business,” she says.
Mak certainly didn’t set out to wind up in real estate – she claims it was “a fluke.” In 1992, recently married, newly arrived in Vancouver from Hong Kong and experiencing cabin fever as a result of working out of her home as a piano teacher, she obtained her real estate license on the off-the-cuff suggestion of a friend. (She also has her broker’s license.)
She’s been a top producer pretty much ever since. Inman News recently placed her among the top 100 most influential real estate leaders in North America.
Mak wears many hats, propelled by her passion and perfectionism for all she does. (“I do not allow myself to do a mediocre job,” she says). A top-producing 20-year real estate industry veteran who’s with Coldwell Banker Westburn Realty in Burnaby, B.C., Mak is also host of her own weekly real estate radio show aimed at the Chinese community, and she is a popular speaker at real estate conferences.
Now, as the president of AREAA’s Vancouver branch, this complex and driven personality is attacking another new set of challenges. She credits Coldwell Banker Canada president John Geha with being a mentor. In a past REM article, Geha, who has professional affiliations with AREAA, explained that the organization has “deep roots” in the U.S. and hopes to make inroads in Canada in order to help better serve the growing Asian market.
An international, non-profit, professional trade organization geared to promoting sustainable homeownership opportunities for Asian communities in North America with the help of a network of housing and real estate professionals, AREAA’s mandate is to provide international referral, networking and educational opportunities to its 13,000 members worldwide.
Membership is open to individuals of all nationalities who are interested in understanding or connecting with the Asian market, from Realtors to accountants, lawyers, property managers and web designers, says Mak.
With her own extensive international connections allowing her to market her clients’ properties both locally and internationally, Mak is excited about AREAA’s potential to help Canadian real estate professionals become increasingly culturally educated and able to collaborate with other professionals worldwide.
She plans, at least initially, to leave cultural politicking to other organizations. In her assessment, “Essentially AREAA is a networking organization.”
Her Chinese heritage and the fact she is fluent in English, Cantonese and Mandarin have undoubtedly helped her gain a strong foothold in the Asian market.
“Chinese still tend to work with Chinese, Indians with Indians,” she says.
She likes to consider herself a “bridge from East and West,” and a conduit to the further opening up of global transactions. (“Money has no sense of direction,” is another of her favourite adages.)
There is a huge “buzz” about the Chinese around the world, says Mak. Their buying clout here in Canada is clearly evident in Vancouver, a gateway to Pacific Rim economies (although Mak says that at the moment, Vancouver is witnessing a slowdown for Asian buyers and an upturn in local buyers). That doesn’t mean that professionals in Vancouver or elsewhere in this country generally necessarily know how to work with Asians, says Mak. Her hope is that through education, AREAA can help change that.
She has some eye-opening cultural observations.
“As a Realtor, you don’t want to ask an Asian where the money is coming from. They don’t want to tell you,” she says. “We Chinese are very discreet.”
In addition, “Chinese are frugal,” she continues. We like to get the best deal in town. We were not raised in a consumer environment – we don’t spend more than we make. But now parents are spoiling kids in a way, so they don’t save as my generation did. It will be different – there’s a feeling of entitlement, due to the one-child policy in China. I’ll be interested to see if the new generation will become spenders, with credit card debt, just like North Americans.”
She also expects to see changes in the way negotiations are handled. Many Asians over 40 tend not to be keen on using technology to do business, often preferring to interact face-to-face. Not so with the younger generations, says Mak. “It’s bizarre right now. Maybe negotiations will all be done through text messaging in the future,” she says, laughing.
Realtors should bear in mind as well that in Asia, dual agency – where one agent represents both buyer and seller – tends to be the rule rather than the exception. This means that the clients’ best interests are not always respected there, resulting in a lack of trust of Realtors, Mak says. Thus, taking time to establish trusting relationships with Asian clients is key for North American sales reps wanting to get a leg up on the market.
Asked if she can offer any advice for new agents, she gives a typical over-achiever’s reply. “Do not think of having a day off. It’s a 24/7 business at first,” she says. “Don’t talk about balancing your life until you balance your books. That’s the Asian way.”
