From The Broker’s Desk: Who is Mark Salerno aka @SalernoRealEstate ?

From The Broker’s Desk has been created as a tool to allow me to share my thoughts about life and real estate. Everyone always asks me what my story is, how I run my business, thoughts about real estate and how I have been able to build my brand to the level of success that it is at now. So I decided putting my thoughts into words would be a great way of sharing that information out there for everyone to enjoy. Which I hope you do. Feel free to comment and share my blog posts. 🙂

My Name is Mark Salerno. I was born in North York Ontario, Canada in January 1985. I am a Real Estate Broker and Owner of my own brokerage located in Vaughan, Ontario. (Kleinburg Village).

I have been licenced in Ontario Real Estate Since August 2006. Fast forward almost 15 years and I am proud to say that currently I have built my business to a point where my team and I rank top 80 for 2018/2019 of 56,000+ Realtors in all of Ontario for posted MLS Sales.

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HOLD A MINUTE…………..

I was just reading this to Lisa (my amazing assistant Lisa, who I am sure you will get to know more as I continue writing these blogs) and she pulled up a blog that I had started in the past (2009). I don’t know how the heck she found it. I thought I got rid of that a while ago. I think it will be fun to see what I was writing about over 10 years ago so I am going to copy and paste it here and continue 10+ years later. This is pretty exciting, well at least it is for me lol. Let’s see what changed since that last post.

Here we go!!

My 1st Real Blog Written July 2009

Hello Friends,

As the heading for the note says, this is my first ever blog. I’m not to sure what this will do but I have always been interested in the whole blogging idea so looks like I’m going to give it a shot.

I am the Broker of Record at Euromart Realty Ltd. I have been in the business since 2006;
however have been around the world of Real Estate my whole life.

Why Blog?

To let people know more about Real Estate. My views, goals and insider perspective if you may call it to the business.

My Story……

Getting into real estate at a younger age as I did wasn’t easy (20 years old). I was actually told not to and that I would not make it being so young. That didn’t stop me. I am one of those people who if you say you can’t, I have to prove them wrong. This sheer drive has come from my father Mario Salerno.

Being the youngest of 5 children (My Dad was married prior and had 3 kids, then married my mother and has my brother Michael and Myself.) I have always wanted to be like my father. Being in the Real Estate business since the late 60’s into 2009 the man, to be simply put, Is great at what he does. This brings me to the start of this journey into real estate.

I started my Real Estate career employed at Royal LePage, despite the fact of my father having his own brokerage. My Father dealt strictly Raw Land since the mid 80’s, He wanted me to be at a company that dealt with the resale division, gain experience there and one day if I wanted to join his brokerage and bring it back into main stream Real Estate I could. I spent 3 great years at RLP and was a proud recipient of the Presidents Gold Award for excellence in 2008.

This was a great honor obtaining such an award in only my third year.
2008 was such a great year for me with work I said to myself about half way through the calender “It would be nice to put forth 5 more solid years like this year and when I turn 30 join Euromart Realty Ltd. (My Father’s Brokerage) and bring it to the resale division like it once was”.

September 4th, 2008 is the day that brought those dreams of the 5 year plan and working with my father side by side to a supreme halt.

At 4:30AM I hear my mother screaming for help. My father Mario had a stoke which left him paralyzed on the left side. The doctors telling my family he isn’t going to make it.
Luckily the doctors were wrong, he did make it. After months of being in and out of the hospital, a 2nd stroke which leaves my father blind, I’m here thanking God every day that my father is still here with us. (July 2009)

During the first 6 months of recovery I didn’t work much. I made it my goal to push the 5 year plan to NOW. So In October 2008 I decided I was going to get my brokers license A.S.A.P and take over Euromart Realty Ltd. After my final exam in March 2009 I did just that and the decision was made, transfer complete.

It wasn’t as simple as bada-bing bada-boom your switched, start trading. I had to start from scratch. First thing on the agenda, New company logo. I wanted to give the company a fresh new look but at the same time still have that old school edge. I give special thanks to my logo designer Kathryn who with her vision came up with design.

My main goal when deciding to take on this task was being different from the rest of the companies out there. I always used my own angles and techniques in the way that I worked and now needed to implement that into the company. Needless to say this was a ton of pressure for a 24 year old with only 3 years experience. (I am the youngest Broker of Record in The Toronto Real Estate Board)

We are in the 21st century people. You cannot just expect to throw your sign on a lawn, put it on MLS and hope that the property will sell itself. There are many ways in which you will need to market and direct the property to obtain maximum value for what you are selling.
It started with the vision that when people drive by our company sign they will say wow, what company was that? Over the last 4 months I think we are off to a good start. Beginning from the custom made signs, to our great company website (www.euromartrealty.com ) Euromart Realty Ltd. is on a path for in what I hope is continued success.

The website is a great tool to show you what our company is all about. The main goal when creating the site was for it to be informative, and most importantly user friendly. From the ability to perform MLS searches, to researching a community you’re looking to move into, helpful daily resources, and most importantly the services our company has to offer. It is now 3 AM so I am going to turn it in for the night. Feel free to check in from time to time to hear about recent news, featured properties and again insight to the Real Estate world.

Back to my “New First Blog” Present Day 2020!

Firstly, I want to express the emotions I felt reading that. To be honest, I had tears in my eyes as I rehashed many good and painful memories.

When I wrote that, my father was still here with us. In February 2001, he passed away after two and a half years from his original stroke date.

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I am so thankful to God for allowing me and my family to have those extra 2.5 years and thankful for my dad for putting up the fight that he did. You are my fucking hero dad!

Even though he was suffering, went blind, had 70% brain damage he was still able to talk with us, love us, and believe it or not still talk to me about real estate.

I am sobbing over my key board right now as I remember the talks we would have and literally asking myself.

How? After everything this man has gone through…is he not complaining about ANYTHING? How is he still as sharp and knowledgeable about life and work? If I ever in life think I can’t, or it is too hard, think about what Dad is going through and how he is still giving us 100%.

It was so important to me to keep the tradition & legacy that this man had built over the last 45+ years in Real Estate.

Long after my dad passed and still till this day people ask me if my father was Mario Salerno and it is the best feeling in the world.

Fast Forward to 2020

A lot has happened in my Real Estate career and life.

In 2013 I married the love of my life Daniela.We have since given birth to 2 incredible girls names Amaya (5) and Aria (2).

With Real Estate I always wanted to maintain the “boutique brokerage” feel. I went from running the company out of my parents house in 2009 to opening Euromart Realty Ltd. first office in 2013.

To selling the building 1 year later, going back to working from home (now my home). Until 2017 rolled around and an opportunity came up where I rented a “room” in a commercial house in Kleinburg, On. (That I only used maybe 10 times in 12 months) as my office was still at home.

You may ask why I rented that room then? It was next door to Starbucks in the Village and I was allowed signage in the parking lot for $500 a month. The signage alone was worth it and I ended up getting a signing room out of it.

My business every year from when I got into the business was growing. I made a big push into starting a business page also at this time on Instagram. (which now has over 114,000 followers. Follow me @SalernoRealEstate https://www.instagram.com/salernorealestate/?hl=en)

I hired my first assistant. Moved from a 100 sq/ft room & home office into a 1,200 sq/ft office in the Village of Kleinburg. Also, I should mention that this office had horrible signage as it was in the back of a building; but, it was an opportunity to plant roots. (Scared shitless when I signed that 3 year lease as it was only me and 1 Sales Rep, Joseph Marsala who has been with me since 2010, Love you broski). It was added pressure! Which if you continue to follow my blog journey you will learn about how I was a competitive athlete in my younger days and always wanted to be the best at whatever I did.

In 2018 I started a small team. Which started with 2-3 team members. Ended up placing top 75 of 56,000 Realtors that year and doubled my business selling over 70 homes. Now Euromart Realty is becoming a house hold name in the business.

2019 I hired a full-time in house photo/video along with my team members and assistant are rocking and rolling. Mid Year, We decide to change the company name from Euromart Realty Ltd. back to the original 1970 name with a slight change to Salerno Realty Inc.

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This was something I have been wanting to do for so long but I was scared to do it as I would need to rebrand and start from scratch, yet again. It was very intimidating – was I really going to change something I have built and put so much work into?

100%! And the timing couldn’t have been better. In the building next door to us, one of the nicest units in all of the Village was becoming available. It had a clothing store that was selling the business and I said fuck it, Im buying the business just so I can get the lease opportunity. This unit was prime time frontage on Islington Ave. with big windows etc.

I will save that for another blog, but needless to say big changes happened in matter of 3 months heading into the summer/fall of 2019.

We finished top 80 again in 2019 surpassing our sales volume in 2018.

I am writing this today April 3rd, 2020. We all know what big changes and limitations we are all dealing with around the world. Covid-19 is in full effect at the moment and the world is at a pause.

This story has a lot more to be told.

But you will need to stay tuned and come back to hear more. I promise to keep this blog going. My life has evolved so much from the last time that 24 Year Old Mark Salerno sat behind the keyboard with aspirations of writing his thoughts and experiences.

I feel that I have so much insight and valuable information not only about business, but about life that I want to share with you. Are you ready to be a part of my journey?

I would love to hear some feedback on my “1st” blog post.

Mark Salerno