Sister Act: Milkovich Team Leads the Way for John L. Scott Real Estate

Kristine Milkovich, left, and Lisa Milkovich

It was when doves cried for the final time in Seattle that sisters Lisa and Kristine Milkovich knew joining forces to become a powerhouse team for John L. Scott Real Estate was their destiny.

And so it has been. The result? $56 million in sales volume last year. The Milkovich Team also includes Heather Gogan, broker and client care associate; Matt LeDoux, broker; and Jill Wear, operations manager.

“We believe that every client, every home and every detail matters, and that’s where the strength of our team really shines,” says Lisa, going on 23 years with the company. “We offer comprehensive, start-to-finish services that cover every detail of buying or selling a home.”

Kristine, who came aboard a decade or so ago, adds that “for sellers, we assist with professional staging, quality HD photography, detailed, high-quality online and print marketing—whatever it takes to get your home market ready. For buyers, we come to you as Certified Negotiation Experts, with a winning track record in multiple-offer situations. We are as committed to your satisfaction as we are to our own success.”

Both sisters had successful careers in other industries before landing in residential real estate. Born and raised in Michigan, Lisa was first to arrive in Seattle.

Before joining John L. Scott, Lisa spent 10 years at Honeywell on a team that provided data and communications to Fortune 500 flight departments. The technical and detailed customer service she provided at Honeywell laid the groundwork for her success in real estate.

She attended a Dale Carnegie seminar at the outset of her real estate career, and set a goal to sell 30 homes. In her first year, she not only sold those 30 homes, but the final one was to Carnegie’s daughter. She knew she was in the right business.

As former director of education for L’Oréal USA, Kristine led training, partnering with the account salesforce to help implement the best systems, tools and sales tactics in the industry. After 23 years of advancement in the salon business, she was looking for a pivot and joined John L. Scott corporate in 2013 as the company’s director of public relations and communications.

The Milkovich sisters decided to combine their talents into a team at a Prince concert. “I convinced her to join forces during his final live performance in Seattle, in 2013,” says Lisa. “So we always say that as a fun memory. His last living concert here is where we sealed the deal. We’re pretty proud of that.”

Michael Catarevas: What roles do each of you take for your team?
Lisa Milkovich: We’re both sales principles, and we both co-manage the team, so we kind of divide and conquer. We share leads, we get our own leads, but we treat everything as part of the team.

MC: Do you work together on specific houses and with specific clients, or keep that part separate?
Kristine Milkovich: If I field the call, I generally take the lead. If Lisa fields that call, she generally takes the lead. Together, we are the pricing strategists and the market experts. Then we have a team that helps us with everything from prepping the home to market research to setting up search portals to showing homes.

MC: What are the strengths as far as working together the way you do?
LM: We’re both really strong at negotiating. We’re in a very competitive market, and so our book of business is 50-50. We help 50% buyers, 50% sellers almost every year. And we love that because we know both sides of the market so well. We are experts at winning in multiple offers. And that’s how the Seattle market is. You compete for almost every transaction, and we’re so skilled at it that we teach it to other brokers within John L. Scott. We’ve created a class around it, and feel like that’s our superpower. We call it the Milkovich magic.

MC: Talk about John L. Scott. What’s special about your brokerage?
KM: In a sea of Wall Street- and globally owned-companies, one of our points of difference as a brokerage is we are nearing our hundred year anniversary as a born and bred, family-owned, four-generation company, and we’re really proud of that. It is a point of difference that we lean in on. When you have tenure in a brand and you’re going out in front of people to be interviewed, it shows that you’re committed, you’re there for the right reasons. We’re grounded and rooted, based on some really great principles.

LM: One of the wonderful things about the company is the John L. Scott Foundation. It’s 100% funded by the company, and they encourage every broker to contribute at a closing. It brings in $15 to $20 million a year, and all of the money goes to the local children’s hospital and children’s organizations. We as a team contribute around $20,000 a year.

MC: Talk about the Seattle market. What’s it been like over the last several years? Has the social unrest that hit the city had an effect on the housing market?
KM: The market is very robust because there’s a vast job market here. We’re still in multiple-offer situations with the mid-price range up to about $2 million. As far as any political unrest, I think the media and the news sensationalize a lot of key markets in the U.S. and the world. There was definitely some uproar and movement, but when you have your own boots on the streets and you live and make your life here and your business here, it is really a lot of collaboration and communities coming together. There’s actually a lot of inclusion and diversity. The problems took place a number of years back, and the silver lining is that people have come together and worked on aligning as opposed to having opposition.

LM: We saw the market change with Covid. It kind of dipped. We had to pivot and figure out how to do virtual showings and virtual open houses. Then we saw our market skyrocket again. Last year it started to decline because of the high interest rates, but we’ve been pretty insulated from that because there’s so many jobs here, so many large companies like Microsoft, Google, Boeing and Facebook.

Buyers are finally not afraid of the interest rate. I think a lot of them thought they were going to wait until prices went down, but we just haven’t seen that, and now we’re seeing the prices escalate again and seeing almost every house sell with multiple offers.

MC: What are the advantages of working as a team as opposed to just being a solo agent?
LM: For one thing, you can have balance in your life, and that is really the gift of a team. You can provide better service and handle more business because you’re not a onesie that has to do everything. It’s a lot more fun, too.

KM: It’s also about collaboration and integration and more minds working together. And also making the best use of time. With real estate, there’s a lot of facets to it. It’s a lot for one person to do themselves. Even one transaction, you’re doing a lot of work by yourself. It’s just so much more rewarding with the team because you collaborate and you have balance in your life. Real estate can really consume your life if you don’t have help.

MC: Other thoughts?
LM: I know Lennox Scott (chairman and CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate) would be overjoyed if he had me share that one of our key campaigns this year is just one word: connectivity. Even when you have tenure and a database, you can’t just sit back on your laurels. In lots of places, the market’s down. Yes, we have a reputation. Yes, we’re known to be kind and honest and skilled, but if we don’t stay connected by doing the thank you cards and the birthday cards and picking up the phone and having the marketplace event and following up during a 30-day transaction, then we’re no different than anybody else. So we have to stay connected in order to weather downturns. It’s super important.

Recent John L. Scott/Milkovich Team Listings