Tik Tok has long been more than just a children's app. Thanks to this platform, Jakub Kaláb, a law student and a very successful real estate broker, has rented and sold properties for a lot of money
Jakub, how did you get into real estate brokerage?
I got into this job thanks to my parents. My mother has been a real estate agent for about eighteen years and together with my father they built the family company hitreality.eu, I worked there as a temporary worker from the age of fifteen. I enjoyed it immensely, so I took my real estate agent's professional exams at the age of eighteen and have been working as a real estate agent ever since.
Have any bizarre situations happened to you in your career in this industry?
I have a bad memory for this, but I have to say that with any job working with people there are always countless situations like this.
I can think of one experience that happened to me less than a month ago. I was renting an apartment in Vinohrady on Bělehradská Street, where the former tenants were still living, but since the beginning of December we needed to find new ones. In such a case, there is always a situation during viewings when the new tenants meet the existing ones and are embarrassed to look into all corners of the apartment because they feel bad towards them.However, this wasn't the case here because the lady who was interested in the flat in question, after a relatively short while, started feeling the mattresses to see how hard they were, which I still didn't think was that bad, but after I lost my attention for a while, all dressed up and in her winter boots, she started to get into bed. That was actually the end of the tour, with a big apology to the current tenants and on my part for letting the prospective tenants indulge in such a thing. I found this really bizarre and actually absurd that a lady would climb into a stranger's bed to try out a mattress.
Is this job something you would recommend to people who want to completely change their industry and start from scratch? What are the benefits and pitfalls?
I would definitely recommend working as a real estate agent, for several reasons. The first one is the variety, because you are in the field, in the office... You are taking care of social networks, arranging viewings, negotiations but also dealing with contracts. The other thing is the financial evaluation, which is very interesting in a real estate agent if you are skilled.
The big pitfall is competition. Today it is really hard to stand out and be interesting. At the same time, you have to be adaptive because you have to communicate with each client a little bit differently, everyone also wants something different, and I have to say that it is sometimes very challenging to meet everyone, to be able to get offers and to complete the deal.
How can you combine being a real estate agent and studying at law school? Do you manage it without complications?
At the moment, it's easy to combine. I'm in my fourth year now, where I've already done the hardest part, however, if I had that much work at the beginning of my studies, it wouldn't be so easy. I have to be available to clients who put their trust in me pretty much all the time, which is then difficult if you're studying at a relatively demanding school. The advantage is that Charles University Law School is time-consuming especially during the exam period, which means one month once a semester. There are no tests or big projects to pay attention to during the semester, which is great for this job.
Do you have any tips on how to be more productive?
I would love to give a recipe here for how to be productive and keep everything nice and on track, but unfortunately I don't have one. I would even say that my time management is sometimes very bad. Of course, you want to have a social life, travel, in addition to school and work, and sometimes it's difficult.
But the only practice I have, which may not be completely correct and sustainable, is working overnight. I'm a night owl, so I'm able to do contracts until two or three in the morning, but then of course I suffer in the morning, so it's kind of a two-way street and I don't know if I would recommend it to anyone.
You're active on Tik Tok. Do you see the point behind sharing real estate content on that platform? We still have this stereotype that only kids watch Tik Tok and they probably don't have to deal with housing issues...
I have to say that I was skeptical about Tik Tok too, and mostly a bit shy. However, looking back, I have to rate it as one of my best moves in the real estate business because I have scooped up, rented and sold properties through it, and also created a database that now numbers in the lower hundreds of enquirers that I can send offers to on a priority basis, which I think is great. At the same time, it's something that sets me apart from the competition.
My goal is to get each of my property listings to as many people as possible, which Tik Tok allows me to do. Of course, you can't compare the number of hits on Tik Tok to the number of hits on real estate sites where people are already searching for a property on purpose, but I'd like to break the stereotype here that only kids use Tik Tok. Today, adults, companies and agencies are on it. In addition, I have had several times where a prospective buyer has told me after a viewing that they found out about an offer because their child saw it on Tik Tok, so there is potential overlap across all age groups. A similar experience also got me working with a real estate fund a few months ago.
How did you get the idea to start filming?
The inspiration definitely came from abroad, where different brokers started making these short-form videos. I had the advantage of having friends who are into photography and videography, so they helped me with the realization.
I assume there is a well thought out strategy behind this. Has it brought you any concrete results?
In the beginning it was just a test to see if there would be any results behind it. Now I'm trying to stay consistent, to get in front of more and more people, and I dare say I'm really succeeding so far.
