Commercial Buying Agent
Mike Talbot
Mike Talbot studied real estate finance at San Diego State in the early 1970s, which means he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life before most people figure out much of anything. Then he spent a few years bartending, waiting tables, playing beach volleyball, and generally having a very good time — getting his real estate license along the way — before eventually getting his head straight and getting to work.
He’s been at it ever since. Talbot is 75 years old and has been selling commercial real estate in the South Bay since 1978. He has, by his own count, exactly zero complaints on his record in all that time. “Not one,” he said. “So that says a lot. A lot of returning clients.”
What drives him after nearly five decades is the same thing that drove him at the start: the moment a deal closes, and the people on both sides of it feel like they won. “When I’ve completed a transaction, and I feel the gratitude from the people I’ve been able to service — not only my clients, but the other side of the transaction,” he said. “You’re not always just holding ground, trying to win every inning for your client. You’ve got to massage the deal to make it work. Being able to coordinate all that and make it happen — that keeps driving me to make more deals.”
His approach is old school in the best sense. In an era when people are almost afraid of phone calls, Talbot picks up the phone. He goes to lunch. He shows up. When a residential agent calls him not sure how to fill out commercial forms, he sits down with them and walks them through it. “Let’s figure out how to make this work for your client and mine,” he said. “That goodwill comes back tenfold.”
He comes from a big, close family — the kind where you help your younger brother, you don’t argue about it, you just get it done — and he has run his career the same way. For more than 40 years he has worked with RE/MAX in the South Bay, and speaks about the Sanders family, who now run the operation, with genuine affection. “They’re family oriented, and I’m family oriented,” he said. “Like minds.”
Now he is grooming his successor, Kevin Yamamoto, walking him through lease deals, introducing him to major clients — including, at the moment, a group of Nvidia executives looking at a $32 million apartment building. (“Two of them could buy it all cash and not even worry about it,” his lender told him.) Within a year or two, Talbot plans to hand Kevin his book of business and head to Paso Robles, where the wine is good and the pickleball courts are waiting.
The road to this moment has not been without heartbreak. Talbot had polio as a child — the vaccine came too late for him — and it left him with feet two sizes different. It also kept him out of Vietnam, a fact he does not take lightly. He lost his first wife, Cathy Moore — a local therapist who kept her birth name because she had built her practice around it long before they met — to breast cancer. He coped the way he always had: by running. During the darkest stretch of her illness, he would slip out early in the morning and run for two or three hours along the beach, returning calmer, steadier, ready to face whatever the day held. He ran 10Ks, marathons, ultras — the furthest a 75-mile race, which he completed and immediately decided was enough. His first wife, in her final days, urged him to keep moving, keep helping people, and go find someone new — she didn’t want him slowing down on her account. He honored that. When he met Carmen, he did what he has always done in business: recognized the right opportunity, committed fully, and made sure everyone walked away happy. He’s glad he did. Between his two marriages he has four children and nine grandchildren. “I’ve been the backup quarterback for two teams,” he said, laughing. “It’s been one fun ride — and they’re keeping me young.”
These days he kayaks, plays pickleball, bodysurfs with his grandkids, and watches them compete — they finish first, second, or third, and when they finish fourth, they’re furious about the wave selection. He gave up longboard surfing last year when his hip reminded him he is 75, not 45. The kayak, he has discovered, can catch waves too. He is adapting, as he always has.
Body Glove co-founder Bob Meistrell built his life around a simple motto: do what you love, love what you do. Mike Talbot isn’t famous for saying it, but he’s lived it.
Mike Talbot
Estates Property
63 Malaga Cove Plaza
Palos Verdes Estates
(310) 422-4309
