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Brian Gubernick (Homehelper Consultants) Real Estate Agent

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Brian Gubernick
location_on Scottsdale, AZ — Homehelper Consultants
Get to Know Brian Gubernick

Brian Gubernick – When he proposed to his wife, he turned his 29th birthday party into an announcement gala surprising Ellie by having her friends and family on hand to share in the news. (A week before he’d asked her parents for their blessing). Big.

When he did his first real estate deal at 25 it was so successful he left his job at Honeywell as a financial analyst and never looked back.

“It was tough to make a bad deal” in 2004, Gubernick says. He knew he wanted to be in business for himself, so away he went.

“I was fixing and selling homes like most others at that time. Not that skilled,” he says. “Tough to screw up then.”

A one point, though, he became overextended, finding himself in an upside down situation.

Not a shy guy, Gubernick called a banker and within 72 hours he got his loan knocked down by $10,000.

“I didn’t know if this was common, or I was lucky,” he says.

That experience of calling a lender and reworking this loan was his first entre in the world of the short sale. Fortunate timing. When the current real estate recession hit, Gubernick already had acquired an expertise in a much-needed aspect of the industry.

Gubernick, who became a licensed Realtor in 2006, partnered with Ryan Zeleznak – “we knew of each other from high school” – who is a nationally top-producing agent within Keller Williams. Homehelper Consultants operates under Keller Williams Arizona Realty offering listing and Realtor partnership services.

When he opened his shop, 14 of 15 people he helped had a topsy-turvy mortgage, Gubernick says. He thought short sales would be just one service he would offer, but economics dictated another path and by 2008 he was educating other real estate agents on the short-sale process.

“I’m not one to get in the car with buyers; that’s not my expertise. I want to get on the phone with the bank.”

Ninety percent of the loans he negotiates get approved. “I like to be ready with the right arguments and come up with a strategy,” Gubernick says. “My most valuable piece of property is my contact list.”

He’s the No. 1 producing agent in Keller Williams Arizona Realty and the 10th most productive in the Southwest region.

His office has nearly 140 transactions in some phase of the short-sale process.

Gubernick has surrounded himself with graduates of his alma mater Horizon High School. Loyalty.

(When he and Ellie got married in 2007, instead of getting wedding presents, the couple started an academic and athletic scholarship fund at the high school. Gubernick was a running back on the varsity team, graduating in 1997).

At 17, Jeff Buettner, came to Homehelper Consultants from Horizon as an assistant and is now a lead negotiator and licensed Realtor. Buettner, who is now 20, and most of the rest of the staff also are in their 20s – Chris Lopez, Danny Schilling and Derek Zieder. Gubernick, Matt Huff and his listing specialist Denise Ecalono are the relative oldsters at 31 and 30, respectively. Ecalono is the only non Horizon grad.

Gubernick says he has a bit of a problem convincing his staff to go and get their degrees at Arizona State University because they all make good money for their age. “I’m all over them about going back to school,” he says of the ones who don’t have degrees.
His dad Jeff Gubernick says he’s proud his son believes in loyalty. “Loyalty has been embroidered into us from generation to generation. I’ve always emphasized to be loyal to family and friends.”

Gubernick graduated from the University of San Diego, where he moved after a year at Dartmouth to be closer to home. He wanted to see more of his brother’s football games. Loyalty.

His best friends, he says, are his dad and brother Stephen. The family, which includes mom Joanna and sister Jennifer, moved from Philadelphia to Arizona in 1987. His folks, both pharmacists who met at a Rite Aid, had a string of drugstores in Pennsylvania. Now the family owns Community Pharmacy in South Phoenix, Biltmore area, Mesa, Prescott Valley and Arrowhead.

Gubernick’s work ethic began early as he ran deliveries and stocked shelves in the family business.

“I thought it was normal that my parents worked as hard as they did,” he says. He still works in the family business when he can. His wife’s family is equally close knit. Ellie, like her father, is a dentist.

“Both sets of parents have been together a long time. That’s one thing we share, we both come from very tight families,” Gubernick says.

His dad described Brian as confident, trustworthy, and truthful. “He hasn’t changed since elementary school,” Jeff Gubernick says. Will and desire push him to success.

“He’s a finisher. The best way to describe him is that he gets it done. There’s no baloney there,” he points out.

Gubernick works toward a day when his practice becomes a business. Now, he says, he can’t leave for a month without consequences, but a business “can operate at the level you want it to.”

“I don’t have the balance I need right now,” he says. But that’s OK, he says, he’s confident he will. He especially likes the idea of the European take on vacations – two months. He may get that from his wife, who is Bulgarian.

He’d also like more time to help out with the family’s pharmacies. “I know I can’t continue at this rate,” he says, but for now long weekend trips and hikes with his wife, and walking the couple’s yellow lab Julius (for basketball legend Julius Irving) and Chesapeake Bay Retriever Moses (for basketball great Moses Malone) allow time away from the rigors of his business day. “I don’t work weekends, beyond my BlackBerry,” he points out. Both he and Ellie are fitness enthusiasts. He likes cross-fit training and she competes in bikini body-building events.

Gubernick is a big hit at the weddings of family and friends and is a sought after reception speaker. “It’s a side of him people may not realize; he’s really funny,” Jeff Gubernick says of his son. “He did it at his brother’s wedding and his sister’s – he writes hilarious poems. People look forward to his poems.”

Gubernick says he would like to emulate his parents — his dad coached Pop Warner Football and his mother was heavily involved in leadership roles in the organization. Balance.

“I am a very firm believer that attitude is everything,” he says. “I love coming to work. I love working with lenders. I love knowing we’ve saved hundreds of people from foreclosure.”

“We really studied the craft. Knowledge is king in this business,” Gubernick says. He continuously works hard to know the foreclosure laws and anti deficiency statues inside and out so he can talk from a position of strength and ease with lenders and attorneys.

It’s about keeping the client protected, he says.

“No matter what you do in life, you need to do it right and do it big, and big means something else to different people,” he says. Back to big.

www.homehelperconsultants.com