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Joe Cunningham, also known as Mr. Northeast, explains how he got his nickname from a radio show. He discusses his background in Northeast Philly, including his school and parish. He also talks about his slogan, "We did it again," and how it originated from a class he took. Joe shares his experience of bringing his son onto the team and gives advice to young realtors, emphasizing the importance of caring about people and being prepared. He talks about the power of positivity and how it has helped him in his life and business. Joe mentions their efforts to teach financial literacy at schools and shares a story of a student recognizing him from one of their classes. All right Joe Cunningham aka All right, so what's going on? I guess my first question would just be the most common question, but why do they call you? Mr. Northeast we'll start with that They call me. Mr. Northeast. Well, I've lived here most of my life work play raised my family here, but that name actually came about when I was doing a radio show about ten years ago and There was some heavy hitter real estate guys from the mainline New Jersey and Bucks County and I was the only guy from up this way So he would always say let's get the real deal story from mr Northeast and I like the moniker and I kept it. I cool. So you got it from a radio show. That's interesting I don't even know you think Aiden knows what the radio is anymore. I Don't know That's kind of one thing I do a lot with my run and real estate stuff But I'll send a bunch of stuff to my little brother aiding kind of stuff from the the past typewriters things of that nature I was actually thinking of it earlier because I was thinking of like talking about a Rolodex because I was like trying to explain what this is and like how I'm gonna invite my friends and people I know that are contractors and I was thinking of saying out loud like something in my Rolodex and I literally thought like Probably people don't even know what that is anymore. No, it's more like App on a phone, you know, yeah, I'll ask Aiden. We'll see If he knows what it is, we'll cut it in here But uh, you know I'm going I guess so just a little bit about yourself like obviously you're from Northeast Philly like what parish what school at high school kind of the normal things. What do you got? All right, for those of you don't know. I was originally born in Kensington and I moved up here. I was from Ascension Parish there I moved up here when I was a little kid in the late 60s to Tarsdale was born and raised there or excuse me. I was raised up here and I went to st. Catherine's I played for Tarsdale Boys Club and Spent a lot of time there then I went to high school at st. Joe's prep and College at Catholic University in DC where we played football and other sports and had a ton of fun and Then I lived in Key West for a while and That's a whole nother story. I have a question on the Key West thing coming later. Okay, good Yeah, and then I made my way back to Northeast and I've been a member of Our Lady of Calvary Parish up here in the 5-4 for quite some time cool cool, so I guess uh I Could go back and do it. No, that's good License back in the when you ask that question. You didn't let me answer with the Hi, so going forward. I guess my next question is just like we did it again people tell me it all the time It's kind of like your slogan like where did that develop? Where did it came from? How kind of did that all come about and become a thing? Well, like many great ideas. I borrowed it from somebody else I was getting my broker's license. I want to say about 15 years ago and The guy in the class, I can't remember the gentleman. He was a South Philly guy Italian Really funny. I really enjoyed his class and he said that you have to separate yourself Out there and he said somebody put on their sign I did it again and I was like that sounds pretty interesting But I said, I don't know if I like the I part of it I think more of it like we found it better So I wanted to do it for our whole office and it really didn't take off So I just said I'm gonna do it on my own. So I just Sold a house and put we did it again on it and the rest is history. Yeah. No, that's awesome Speaking of we um, when did you think it would be a good idea to kind of make your expand the team and bring your Son on and also when did you realize that was a bad idea? Well, we you know, like any business you grow out a little bit and You were just graduating from college you had a marketing degree Which you you do a really good job for the team with that and I needed somebody to help me with that And I just figured it would be a great fit and I haven't killed you yet. So you're still here I'm still around count my days here doing a great job Now all good keeping it going. Um, so yeah kind of build off that like we have we're here at Keller Williams in Northeast Um, we have a lot of agents We get to communicate with some that are brand new some that are older and kind of what's like you're as a like an older Person who's done a lot of business and like a mentor standpoint Like what would you give advice for like a younger realtor? That's like kind of just getting in the game All right. Well, first of all, don't call me an older person the rest of this interview And we do call shout out Nick eight inches. We do call them oldie. That is a fact. Okay, okay Repeat the question again. You said what kind of basically what would you have like as a mentor for like a younger realtor? Like obviously you brought me on the team. It's a different dynamic. We have the same last name We can kind of build it but someone who's just starting from scratch someone that's like hey, I look at the real estate I like the idea of it. What would you say to somebody to start now? Like what would be the most valuable advice you could give someone like that? Okay. Well number one we We do this Because we care about people. I mean, obviously we have a business and we generate income from it but I take a lot of pride in what we do here and I think that if you care about people and you generally are trying to help them fill whatever need that they have Selling a home, you know, there's a lot that goes into it. There's a lot of emotion that's there and If you can just stay on top of things people want to People want to know that you're good at what you do. So please if you're gonna do this, you can't do it Half-ass. Yeah, you know, you just can't you got to be prepared you got to You know, if you don't have an answer you can always go to someone that has more experience I was gonna say I think that's like the biggest tip of advice Like I get some people obviously that come to me too that are like, oh I'm thinking about getting my real estate license like one thing. I think some realtors are like a little standoff They're like, oh, like it's a competitive thing where I'm like, there's a ton of houses out there Everyone can sell us on our houses like we could all be together but I think the biggest thing is just finding someone that's gonna mentor you that's like genuinely there to help you like that looks at You as like a valuable part of their team where you can kind of both benefit from being on the same upward like incline You know, I mean, so you got to make yourself confident. You have to get your education Do whatever you can hang around with people hang around with people that know what they're doing and you have to show that you care You can't fake that, you know, that's that's being genuine I think like the most important thing in real estate any really service industry Yeah, we're here to help and the more people you serve the more people you help the more things that happen that you do for Others make a ton of good things will come back to you. And again, you stay positive All right I was thinking that yesterday like we went out to lunch and we brought like a couple of the Younger like one of them's a more seasoned agent one of them's a little bit younger But we brought them and ironically like he's on a team He coaches and one of the teams he's coaching against like with someone that we knew like one of our clients and I Ron Swear to God, I'm not making this up He's like, yeah like I talked to him and he and I said like yo like tell him that like, you know me and my dad like I coach his kids for a while for football and stuff and he's like yeah, like Joe's just got all this positive energy and Cuz literally that was kind of like just a segue into my next thing But like the positive energy thing like where where did you develop that and asking for a friend? Where do you think you could have someone could like implement more of that into their life? Okay. Well, I didn't develop it It's been around for quite a quite a long time Starting out with the Bible but Listen life beats you down. It's easy to go down a negative trail social media the media in general Everybody wants to tell you how bad everything is or on social media They want to show you how good their lives are and you get a highlight reel of everybody else's life Sometimes you think maybe my life's not as good or my business isn't good or my family or whatever it might be And I'm here to tell you, you know every day. You just got to remind yourself how lucky you are and how positive That you know, you got to put a positive spin on things and I look every day I try to be grateful for all the blessings that God's given me and the more that I do that and remind me It just seems like things work out a little bit better for me. Sometimes. I'm not so positive, you know, I swear to God I was about I was really thinking my head I swear to God he really is like this all the time like we could turn the camera off is exactly how he is But when I was a kid like when I was in high school, I would be like, all right, dude Like shut up. I'm going to school But now I'm a little bit more like I appreciate it and I've come to like have kind of like a more profound respect for it But uh, yeah, literally I was just thinking that to speaking at school Like we go to a lot of schools like that's kind of a thing That we've developed that we want to try to teach people like financial literacy Like we've gone to judge a couple times like our boy JD hooks us up We go to a class there weirdly enough over the weekend I coach high school basketball one of the kids came up to me and he's like yo, like I was at your class I was like, what are you talking about? I had to like kick in for a second I'm like, oh like the class at judge and he was like, yeah He's like he was asked me a bunch of questions about real estate So it was cool like kind of just to be able to and the real estate parts cool But like more just like financial literacy credit things of that nature like things that I think to be honest They don't teach you on purpose because they don't want you to know about that stuff But uh, what do you think like we could do going forward to kind of get that more off the ground? Like I was thinking about obviously more schools and things of that nature But what do you think about kind of the whole financial literacy thing? It's important that our young people know about finances and I agree with you that it's really not taught that much and I Think you just gotta you know, if you just keep putting it out there I think it would be a good thing if they could get it into the schools eventually now I can't speak on funding and everything like that, but we certainly would do whatever we can Well, I know a realtor to put it at a humble brag has his master's in teaching that Might be able to teach a little bit of financial literacy one day. Yeah, I would love to do that Listen, we would love to get the message out To the kids and listen, they need our kids need positive Encouragement, you know the world just keeps telling them that they're not good in this generation and that's it You know, it doesn't work and this and that and you know what? I think that's a bunch of BS I've been in front of these kids. They're all hungry. They all want to learn They all want them to earn a living and do things. So You know, yeah, it's important and I'll do whatever I can for that. That's no problem Yeah, if anyone's out to JD But yeah If anyone's out there and you have some connect to a school or anything like that and you ever want on us to come by We would love to come by We're pretty relaxed. We'll talk about whatever financial literacy credit real estate anything that you want. We'd be love to help out Um, and then I guess going forward to pivot a little bit off of the real estate stuff I just thought of this story and I'm thinking about what to talk about But like you obviously like to go fishing a lot. We've been fishing a ton of places Down the Gulf of Mexico, but I was just thinking about like how what would be a funny story for somebody that's younger But can you tell a little bit of the story of when you went to Canada? Yeah, well Tough today to pull that off. But uh, so I'll give a little brief thing They literally back in the day. They used to have a magazine right like a Field and stream they just came out with this new thing. It was sick. I just saw Morgan while I'm posted it but uh Anyway, they came out feeling stream the back of the magazine has this ad like go to Canada and fish for a pike in this Random like lake or something and these dudes drove to Canada like away from civilization Like if you died or got hurt, you'd probably be dead Yeah, and 24 hours north of here by the Arctic Circle in Ontario It sounds so intimidating when you say Arctic we drove in a van and we put two beach chairs in the back And we drove all the way up and it was actually the first time I had ever been on a plane It was an air a water plane that land on the lake We were 50 to 75 miles from any people at all and they said if anything they drop you off at a lake and it's got a little fort there basically a little Cabin, and there's a couple boats and they just leave you there and they say listen if anybody gets hurt or if you need help Put a white flag out there. They might see it, but they come back for you a week later Basically it it was one of the most incredible trips of my life. I was 22 at the time I can't imagine doing that like oh, let's just go out there and have no connection to the entire world And you were probably had to fish to eat right? Yeah, we ate mostly fish there It was good time, but I cool going forward. I have this one little idea. I wanted to do so every week We're gonna ask my brother, so it's Joey Nick chase eight, and I got them a question so obviously You're quite familiar with these four individuals, but I told them a so we're doing the trial run here So we'll see where we're gonna go so I'm not gonna. Tell you who asked the question at the end You got to guess who? So going forward this one is the first one. Who's your favorite kid? Who's my favorite? Geez man well I'm gonna say Matt Since I'm not one of the four so you did good there. I'm gonna say Matthew right here my number one all right all right Fair enough, who do you think is that one? You got Nick Aiden chase Joey I'm gonna say Aiden nope all right next one next one all right, so this one is a prep question so you went to st. Joe's prep I did obviously my brothers these kids go to st. Joe's prep some of them play football lacrosse they play a ton of sports This one's a question for you, but as a high school player, so you've seen both these players playing high school Who do you think was better in high school D'Andre Swift or Rich Gannon? They're play two different positions But I Think Swift was the best high school player I ever saw they were both very dominant I didn't get to see very dominant I couldn't say one was better than the other Richie was one of the the best players I've ever seen I was a long time ago But D'Andre when he was on the field was was the best player almost every time he was on the field So it's tough to say yeah, incredible player. Yeah, he cooked me his freshman year Left right just complete air. It was rough, but uh Who do you think guess who do you think that this one's a little more obvious? I would think that was Nick nah chase Oh All right all right this one well on that one we're gonna do we're gonna dial it in they got to get better with the Questions I'll be honest because they're kind of a little generic I thought they would be funny or like tied to you, and I kind of hit him on the spot with it All right, so what was harder being a realtor or coaching football at Calvary I Love both of them coaching at Calvary I mean Calvary's got a special place in my heart He was there for like a decade, and then he just took his first year off, so I could I do catch random dates He'll be he'll like kind of prod me like oh like how's your team and all and I'll be like oh What's up, and then of course his team the team he had for the last decade they win the championship literally the first Like oh, that's for them guys. Oh, dude. That was cool. Yeah, so all right cool to them And then the last one I don't even know if I'm gonna keep this one in here, but Aiden said what did you and Kelly? I'm gonna guess that was Aiden I'm not I got no comment on the sloppy. All right. That's fair. We're gonna keep that under the radar. Yeah All right last question here. Let me see if I can find it All right, so this one here Um I just want to ask you this one. We're gonna spice this one's gonna be the sponsor It's the final question so it's sponsored by us the joke on a game team best team in the Northeast for real estate, but anyway the question so This one's a little bit more about us, and I was thinking like I had a couple people I was asking like hey What would be a good question to ask them and I had someone say like hey like you should ask them like what your best Memory is like working with with your dad You know I mean like we work together We're a real estate team, and I thought of it, and I'll go first, but I think my favorite memory kind of just working and I thought instantly back to like before we were real estate because like believe it or not when You we work together a lot as just a team like and I always think of this and you're pretty the older I get the more like value I've seen it But like you were pretty stoic and we were growing up you had like a ton of quotes like The wall would say when we were leaving. It's like Notre Dame when you would slap the sign It would say like what is the winner don't or winners never quit quitters never win But my favorite one by far is and it's grown like fine wine But is you would always say whether you think you can or you think you can't you're right and when I was a kid I used to always kind of focus on the You're right, or you're wrong Like you can or you can't and the older I get the more I think about like the think part And I was like just that for some reason when the person asked me that question I thought of that quote and then I was thinking of like back when I was in high school I used to play football And I used to think I couldn't play in like in college like I never even thought of the idea And it came to me last night because I'm talking to chase and chase is playing football And he's thinking about going to college And he's like I like I don't know if I can go here here And I'm like thinking and I felt like I was like out of body like thinking Myself and I remember when you used to talk to me And you would be like dude like you can play like where are you gonna? Go it wouldn't even be like if you can I'll be like I saw like I'm not going there And you would just always say that to me and the older I get like the more value I just like I really appreciate you Tell me that I always could even when I couldn't you know I mean and just that's kind of like one of my favorite things About working with you is no matter what like we kind of always it's never perfect But we always find a way to make it work. Just because we believe we can you know I mean so I guess what man I guess my question would be what is your favorite memory of working with me? Favorite memory working with you. Well. There's just so many I Think when we do our events together. I enjoy that and I'd like to see the way that you grown But just when we're all together as a family And we have all our clients And we have a lot of people that we have such great relationships with and then bringing my son into the fold with that And introducing to him to some of the great people that we have surrounded ourselves with and work for and with in the past I Think that's it's not one certain thing, but I just remember a lot of the events. We've done like Trenton Thunder and Going to the food drive and bringing food up there. Yeah, I'm saying you guys embrace that And embracing some of the things that I actually said I never knew you guys listen to What the funny part is I The older I got the more I thought about it and the irony is like I'm around like a lot more little kids now And I'll catch myself like saying some of you the things you said boy. I know it's it's terrible so all right I appreciate it. Um I think that'll be good for today I'm gonna try to we'll work on the next one, but we should I thought that we did it again