Meet Stacey and Isaias Ocampo Corado | Real Estate Agent and Roofing Contractor
We had the good fortune of connecting with Stacey and Isaias Ocampo Corado and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Stacey and Isaias, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
First, (Stacey) has a real estate business in helping investors find properties as a realtor and helping family’s buy and sell their home. Because of this start and passion on wanting to help individuals get educated with real estate investing and homeowners always needing connections to contractors and work to be done, Isaias decided to start his own roofing business that emphasizes on roof repairs, drywall, and painting. We both once heard this mentor of ours say we as business owners always want to be known as the people who connects others to other businesses and brings value to them. In a way, we tag team and connect people we know and the database we have built to needed work that’s done efficiently. Isaias thought process behind starting I & S Services was to not only serve the local community, but coming from a 9-5 and serving someone else that he had to rely on to keep him afloat, he decided he would take control of that as well and create services he loves doing within our own business. He decided to invest his own time back to himself and the family as well and in return can do what he loves and know he’s taking care of these clients and their homes. Vice versa for Stacey.
Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
For Stacey as a real estate agent, I think what sets me apart is starting my journey early and putting in the back end work that not a lot of people know about. I started working (unpaid) for a well known real estate investor named David Greene, who’s the host of the Bigger Pockets podcast. I worked countless hours to accelerate my learning, but was also willing to be unpaid for it. For me, I think practicing what I preach is a huge aspect on who you’re hiring as an agent. A lot of realtors don’t even know or have gone through the home buying process themselves, or don’t invest in real estate themselves, but I had the courage to take the opportunities and invest myself (owning 2 properties as of now from the past 3 years). I think this is important because as I’m advising my clients, I’m not telling them it’s the right time to buy, I like to focus on the long term gains of real estate, which is why I’m here to guide them. The challenges I’ve come across is really the growing pains and anxiety that comes with real estate. You come across difficult people and really need to be keen on the psychological aspect of sales. Then there’s the multiple hours of unpaid time you spend on your business. A lot of my first year was unpaid while building my brand (which I am still doing) and by then, most people would have quit already. I was on a real estate team that took 50% of my income and although I gained experience while on the team, that was a challenge of itself in paying bills and expenses. In I & S Home Services, (Isaias) I’ve accelerated quickly from word of mouth and I’ve learned that a ton of opportunities will come your way when you make yourself credible and available for people. Communication in this business is key because one of the main weaknesses contractors have is communication and organization. My wife was on my butt about over communicating and most, if not all of our clients, we won over because we over communicated, even though they were getting other estimates. The challenges I’ve learned is learning how to best price ourselves within the competitive range and market ourselves to customers. But what I want the world to know about both of our brands is we’re honest people who care about our work and how we treat others in our business. It’s not all about us, but on how we bring value to our people. If it makes more sense for them to go another route, we encourage that instead of trying to get them to be in business with us just for our selfish gain. Our values include integrity and we truly both just care about our work and love what we do. We drive with each other and are constantly talking about how we can better one another and each others business with input.
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I would take them to go hike Vasquez rocks if we were to stay in Santa Clarita. Then eat at a couple of places: -The Loaf for some pastry snacks
-Sushi 661 for some sushi or ramen
-Handels ice cream
-Big Chicken for some chicken sandwhiches
-Boba trap for some drinks
All these foods come from Izzy and I being super simple and we don’t go fancy often. We love the outdoors and even playing soccer and exercising in our free time so we’d be going around and walking around by the plaza where Nordstrom Rack is to look at a couple things and walk the trails. There’s minimal things in Santa Clarita so we do like to travel outside of Santa Clarita! I think the most exciting people we meet are people who are ahead of us. We get inspired by them and learn. We get excited from asking questions and learning from others. Conversations that are higher level always make us think bigger and we love it.
Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Books: Think and Grow Rich and The 10 Pillars of Wealth Our past mentor and friend: Jorge Pelayo who constantly inspires us to learn and stay true to our values. Reminds us subconsciously to always be striving for more.
Our support: Our family members and close circle who has always supported our journey with words of affirmation.
For Stacey: Izzy has always had my back and couldn’t have built my real estate business or stay afloat in the beginning years without him.
For Izzy: Stacey has helped me with system, management, and admin that I couldn’t do without her, plus supporting me in this new journey after getting terminated from my job. We started this business of I & S Home Services after I got fired and took that risk instead of going back to a 9-5.
Instagram: Realestatestace and iandshomeservices
Image Credits
@_goatedmedia and @airn.media
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