Long Beach & Los Angeles Realtors | Slava Ploshkin & Joe Goodman

Born in Belarus among identical square apartment blocks, he lived in Moscow, traveled the world and landed in America at 20 with almost no English. He became fully fluent while building the creator audience he had been growing since he was 15, then spent a year studying California real estate in his second language and passed the license exam on the first try. Today he is a licensed REALTOR® (DRE #02323623), the founder of The Slava House and the person who designed and built most of what you see on this site, including the page you are reading. Online he is known as Slev Taylor; on MLS paperwork his legal name shows up as Viachaslau Ploshkin. Same guy.

Joe grew up in the San Fernando Valley, studied at the University of Hawaii and ran his own piano store before real estate, back when the LA music scene knew him by name. The connections stayed, the showmanship stayed, and for more than 25 years he has put both into California real estate, through 2008, the pandemic and every swing in between. He founded Hayden & Bach, the brokerage behind The Slava House; on legal paperwork you will find him as Joseph L. Goodman. Ask him about either business. He likes talking about both.

Over an actual book. Slava had just moved to Long Beach and was reading a real estate book at a sidewalk table with his coffee. Joe walked by and had to stop: a twenty-something, reading about real estate, on paper, in public. They started talking, kept finding common ground and decided to work as a team. It happened on a street in Long Beach, not through an agency.

A real estate company Slava built from scratch instead of renting a franchise name. Inside it: Explore, our own MLS search platform with live listings and smart alerts; an in-house film production team; the AI tools Slava develops himself; and a combined audience of 10 million. The philosophy is simple: no spam, no cold calls, no chasing. Our systems keep buyers and sellers informed, and we call only when there is something worth a call. And yes, the name was the easy part: The Slava House just sounds better than The Joe House. Joe agrees.

Because we run every deal together, and the second agent costs you nothing extra. Slava is with you day to day: the search or the sale, tours, offers, negotiation and every escrow deadline. Joe has been a broker for more than 25 years, and he reads every offer and contract with Slava before you sign anything.

Ask his clients. Most of them are older than he is, and they wrote the reviews. Slava passed a famously tough California licensing exam on the first try, in his second language, and he is the kind of person who actually reads the regulations, then reads them again. Talk to him for five minutes and you stop thinking about his age. And if you still want some grey hair on your side, Joe reads every deal too.

Home base is Long Beach, the city Slava chose for its character: Naples, Belmont Shore, Bluff Park, the streets we walk every week. From there we cover all of Los Angeles and Orange County, including Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Irvine, and we are especially strong on the luxury coast: Malibu and the Rancho Palos Verdes peninsula. If your city is anywhere on this coast, we will meet you at the property and probably know a great lunch spot nearby.

Да. Slava runs the entire deal in Russian when you want it: showings, offers, lender talk, contracts explained line by line. Many of our clients are Russian speakers buying their first American home or relocating from abroad, and the whole process happens in the language you actually think in. Russian or English, your call.

Start with one message: the contact form, the buyer quiz or a free home valuation. One of us calls or texts you back, usually the same day. On that first call we ask what you're after, your timing and your budget or your home, and tell you plainly what we'd do. If you're buying, next come the homes that fit and the tours. If you're selling, a price range built on recent sales and a plan for the launch. Nothing gets signed on that call, and no spam follows it. Representation terms go in writing before any tours or listing, as California requires.

It starts with a price we can defend: recent sales nearby, the homes yours will compete with, and the house itself. Then we plan the launch with you: what's worth fixing and what to skip, the photos and the video, and the day it goes live. Once it's out, the MLS, our audience and Explore's buyer alerts all carry it. When offers come in, we read every one together and lay them out side by side, the price, the buyer's loan, the contingencies and the dates, so you choose with the full picture.

Two people on every deal, whether you're buying or selling. If you're selling, we don't just put your home on the MLS and wait: we film it, put it in front of the audience Slava has built, and Explore sends it to matching buyers within the hour. If you're buying, you see every new listing the moment it's out, with our honest take on what it's worth and what to check. Either way, Slava answers his own phone, and clients rate us 4.9 on Google.

Toward a new kind of brokerage. The plan: Slava becomes a broker and opens a brokerage for agents who have a story, with an in-house media team to tell it properly. Not a desk-rental agency but a place where every agent gets the same cinematic treatment our listings get. Magazines, shows, films about homes: the goal is for people to talk about real estate the way they talk about cinema.

Every California agent has a public record. Search the license number on the CA DRE website and you'll see the status, the brokerage and the history. Ours: Slava Ploshkin, DRE #02323623, and broker Joe Goodman, DRE #01300057, both with Hayden & Bach. Please do check, and not only ours. It's a good habit with everyone you hire during a purchase.