Marija Volkman asked LA fire survivors what they wished they'd saved. Nobody said the house.

A violin someone's father gave them at seven. A cheerleading sweater from high school. Marija spent the year after the January fires with people who lost everything, and found clients who were not shopping for a house at all. They were grieving, under pressure of time, pressure of neighbors, pressure of insurance, being asked to decide things they had not had one day to think about.

Patrick Merrill has sold on the Mississippi Gulf Coast for sixteen years and still catches himself reaching for something Katrina took in 2005. A RealTrends Verified Top Agent holding the ABR and GRI designations, he pushes Marija onto the numbers most agents never see. A canyon lot where shotcreting the hillside ran near half a million before a single wall went up. A teardown where a 3,600 square foot property acquired around 2.9 million became a 5,100 square foot build plus ADU that sold at 8.2 million.

Hosted by: Patrick Merrill

Guest: Marija Volkman

Marija Volkman is an architect, designer, and the creative force behind Archicraft. Operating between Los Angeles and Prague, she specializes in transforming ambitious concepts into exceptional projects by combining thoughtful, resilient design with strategic problem-solving and a highly personalized approach to architecture.

What You'll Learn

• Spot the client who is grieving rather than shopping, then reset your timeline

• Run teardown math before you decide how to list an aging property

• Budget a hillside lot for what disappears underground

• Raise insurance earlier, after hearing how policies vanished months before the fires

• See two houses where a buyer sees one, using SB9 and ADU rules

• Borrow the In-N-Out argument for clients who think design is decoration

• Ask the question Marija asks: what do you wish you saved

• Keep a pipeline alive when the market stalls, the way Patrick did twice

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CONNECT WITH MARIJA VOLKMAN

• Website: https://marijavolkman.com/

• Studio: https://archicraft.co/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marijavolkman/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marija-volkman/

• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/makivolk/

CONNECT WITH PATRICK MERRILL

• Website: https://cbsmithhomesalabama.com/agents/patrick-merrill

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LIFTED-Patrick-Merrill

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lifted/id1882611045

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/30tXkqPjyDfrcfPOoxd0kE

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