This week, I was lucky enough to interview one of Portland’s amazing luxury real estate agents; Karina Stark. Karina has been in real estate for 26 years and has worked with over 1,200 families. She has tons of experience and knowledge about the industry and has been so helpful to me as an aspiring real estate agent. Not only is Karina charismatic and personable, but she is also a badass. Nobody knows the Portland area as she does and I aspire to obtain the success that she has in real estate.
How it all started
Karina grew up in a real estate family, so she always told herself that she would avoid that career path. Although she thought she wouldn’t take the real estate route, once college graduation came around her mom insisted that she at least get her license and go from there. When she got her real estate license, something switched and she became eager to dive deeper. She then became an assistant to another real estate agent, where she was mentored and learned as much as she could in the following three years. During this time of being an assistant, she helped schedule meetings, prepare documents, assist with open houses and coordinate showings and any other tasks to help out her boss. She also worked her butt off to learn the Portland Metro area in those years in order to be the best she possibly could be when she went off on her own.
Hard work brings success
Karina began working on her own when she was 25. After three years of being mentored, she was confident in herself and was ready to begin selling houses. Karina was persistent in making phone calls and making it known that she wanted to help in any way she could. With her consistency and persistence, she was able to further her career and get clients. Many of her first clients were friends and family, but after working with a few clients and doing a great job, the word began to spread about her. People want to work with agents who are reliable, get the job done and do it well. Karina was able to prove that she can do it all. She is now one of the top-producing brokers in the Portland Metro area and continues to have an outstanding work ethic and drive to help people.
Learn, grind, repeat!!
Finally, I asked her what one piece of advice she would give an aspiring real estate agent. She encourages aspiring real estate agents to surround themselves with successful people in the industry and learn as much as they can from them. Karina is precisely where I want to be in the future and I hope I can reach her level of success in the amount of time that she did. Her work ethic and perseverance are an absolute inspiration. After speaking with Karina, I came out with many helpful tools to become successful in real estate. My main takeaways from this are that you need to be consistent and persistent in order to get clients and that having a mentor in the beginning years to learn as much as possible will be favorable to your career. I am so grateful I was able to learn from Karina and continue to learn from her as I begin my real estate journey.
Check out her website for more information about Karina and the amazing work she does.