About us
In KOTULA Real Estate we understand what it means to sell or rent one´s property. You might be moving and need to sell the place where you´re currently living or you´ve inherited an apartment and would like to find out how to sell or rent it. Whatever it is, you want to deal with the situation as quickly and easily as possible.
The problem is that selling or renting a property is a complicated process and can be difficult to manage. Negotiating with people interested in your property can be tricky. Contracts and obstructions can turn joy into a feeling of burden.
If you do it yourself, you risk losing money. Negotiation may not work in your favour or you will miss something. You also run the risk of losing time if the sale or renting takes longer than you expected. We´ve been helping people to avoid these pitfalls for more than 10 years. We know that the real estate process might be difficult but we believe that the sale or rental of real estate should be liberating and not burdensome. You deserve a trustworthy partner to guide you through every step of the way.
PIf you are now considering selling or renting real estate, let's talk. We want to get to know you and learn more about you and your real estate so that we could work out a plan that will ensure you get the best financial result in the fastest possible time. And when the thing is done, we want to celebrate with you!
If you are considering selling or renting your property in the near future, we can help you by providing a free estimate so that you can know the true value of your property.
Daniel Kotula, the founder of the real estate agency
Beginnings in my first job
I studied management at the University of Economics in Prague, a special two-year study program Honors Academia and a two-year real estate valuation program at the Frank Dyson Institute. In 2004-2009 I worked in an international logistics company. I was in charge of productivity of people who moved packages from point A to point B. At the beginning, I enjoyed the work thanks to the fact that our logistics centre was just being established. I had the opportunity to participate in something completely new. We were a team of people who didn't know each other and we weren't well-coordinated because the team had been set up de facto by recruitment agencies. We started working in a building the construction of which wasn´t finalized yet, we were to work with applications that only their developers had experience with and I could go on like this for a long time. I took to this environment like a duck to water, I like getting to know new things and new tasks, and it resulted in being trusted by the managers and being given more work, of course. Over time, I was given the responsibility of staff training and I was appointed a process specialist.
Saying good-bye to well-established stereotypes was fast. I now have unlimited personal growth and my colleagues too, we meet plenty of interesting people and with the office team we create our own vision of good work.
At risk of stereotype
Couple of years later, however, work turned into routine and I was getting bored. At the same time I got married and our first child was born. I had plenty of time at work to think about my future. I had a good, stable position in the company and was moving up the career ladder but in spite of this I didn´t feel satisfied. I'd always been tempted to devote myself to finances. I started studying how to invest in real estate and stocks, toying with the idea of changing jobs. And then one day I told my boss, "I'm leaving when the season´s over," which was less than a year away.
Looking for a new direction
At the time, I had no plan of what to do. I was searching for various jobs on professional portals but I knew that a similar job, only in another company, wouldn´t solve my dissatisfaction. I said to myself that I could work in investment companies such as Penta, PPF, J&T etc., so I tried to get job interviews for various positions. I wasn´t invited to most of them as I didn´t have the necessary qualifications. And when I was invited, it was clear to both parties that I wasn´t the right person. Also, I realized that I´d have to work much more in these companies than in my then job. At that time, however, my wife and I were expecting a second addition to the family. So from this point of view, my career desires should have been put aside. I also realized that this work wouldn´t bring me much job satisfaction either after a while. A few friends had worked or were still working in investment companies so I was aware of what such work was about.
Our experience now allows us to have something to offer to people in webinars, courses and in individual sales and rental orders of our real estate agency.
How I got to brokering sales and rentals
The last few months remain until the end of the season, I ´m reading the town hall magazine and I see an ad from the local real estate agency RE/MAX stating "We´re searching for new brokers in our branch." I say to myself, the office is about five minutes from home, it would be a nice change compared to the one-hour long commuting I have to do now, I'm going to ask what the work of a real estate agent is about. I met the then owner and about two hours of conversation later I knew that I´d become a real estate agent. That job means exactly what I expect from my professional life. No one restricts my proactivity and invention, as is unfortunately common in corporations where I had to stick to work instructions and where it was extremely difficult to carry through any suggestions for improvement. I´m the master of my time. I have unlimited personal growth. I meet many interesting people. The boss was surprised that I really left when the season finished and, on top of it all, that I left for real estate. He expected me to want to continue but I´d already been focused on something different. Saying goodbye wasn´t easy, I can see it as if it was a couple of days ago, I´d made friends with lots of people in those five years and the step of getting into real estate wasn´t really easy to understand.
We believe that customers should feel good about selling or renting real estate and that they should get real value from their property.
Beginnings were hard
Hard times came upon me. The profession of real estate broker has its advantages, as I mentioned above, but one aspect of this job is very negative when compared to employment - you don´t have a regular salary. For a novice real estate agent, it takes many months before they learn the profession at least a little bit, win the first contracts and successfully implement them. It took me six months to earn my first real estate money and the amount corresponded roughly to one month's income from employment. At the beginning, my savings weren´t huge, I was the breadwinner of a family of four, and, on top of it all, I had to pay mandatory social security and health insurance contributions, telephone bills, marketing, etc. all this time. I would buy one banana and kephir for lunch, it cost only 18 CZK and it was filling. Six months later, I had used up my overdraft maximum limit, I had a credit card and a few small debts. The next six months were a bit better, I earned less than at work but it was a regular income at least. In the second year, the situation improved again, I started to pay off my obligations and I could say that I had survived the transition from a stable job to real estate business. In the third year the income was decent but the owner of the RE/MAX branch decided to close down the office because it didn´t earn as much as he had expected.
That's why I and several colleagues made an agreement, bought the RE/MAX franchise together and set up our real estate agency. This was the turning point. As a co-owner of the office, I felt much freer and at the same time I was able to start building a team of professionals.
Present
We decided to become independent and since November 1, 2019 we´ve been operating under our own real estate agency brand that can´t bear any other name than KOTULA 🙂
