Keeping It Real Podcast • Secrets Of Top 1% REALTORS ® • Interviews With Real Estate Brokers & Agents

Pieter Hanson talks about how he transitioned from a banking career into commercial real estate business and finally to residential real estate. Pieter discusses how his health struggles have impacted his life and priorities. Pieter also talks about today’s real estate market, how agents can stop exiting the business and what are the useful skills for agents even in the era of AI. Last, Pieter discusses keeping in touch in between transactions and how he does that. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Pieter Hanson can be reached at 563-529-4000 and PIETER@PTHANSON.COM. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Can a realtor be successful in both residential and commercial? Well, a lot of people would say no, but we found somebody who would say yes, stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Peter Hanson. But before we get to Peter, just a couple of quick reminders. Actually, I have something new to say. I normally say the same things every time but I have a new thing. So it was coming to my attention that via the different podcast apps that only about 300 of our 515 episodes show up that is a limitation of what’s called an RSS feed. It’s not we would love to have all of our episodes available. So we actually do but you’re only going to see the top the most recent 300 in you know, whatever podcast app, you might be listening to us. And so if you want to actually go back further, and many people do, because the idea was to create this library of content that would really be applicable anytime. So I’d love for you to grieve and go back into the archives. Well, how do you do that? Well, you can go to our website, keeping it real pod.com every single episode we’ve ever done is there and that’s probably the only place you can find all of them until they update technology and allow for more than 300 episodes to pass through a fee. But anyway, you guys can go to the website if you want to. We’d love to have you check out the website. We’re very proud of it. And you can listen to every episode we’ve ever done. So thank you for that. Also, please leave us a review and tell a friend but let’s get to the main event, my conversation with Peter Hanson. Today my guest is Peter Hanson with real broker in Quad Cities which if you’re not familiar with the Quad Cities, this is what borders Illinois and Iowa there’s four cities as as you might suspect, two on each side. This is like the northwest corner of Illinois, and the northeast corner of Iowa. But let me tell you more about Peter. Now after high school, Peter joined the US Navy after his time in the Navy and then he went to college. He actually worked in retail and also then private banking. In 2007. He resigned from the bank and opened a bar and grill that is still thriving today. 18 years later, congratulations for making it through the pandemic also amazing. But that’s not all. He then got his real estate license in both Illinois and Iowa in that same year. So he worked for a local hometown broker in their commercial division from 2007 to 2014. And to 2014 he transitioned to the residential division, where he practiced both commercial and residential real estate and in 2022. If that wasn’t enough, he partnered with a local microbrew and opened another restaurant just this last October I guess last October to October Scott. He has a long term girlfriend named Julie also my mom’s name, who owns a dog kennel with her sister and live and they live on the property. He enjoys golfing, fishing, hunting and casual Jeep and or Harley riding on the weekends. He has one daughter and three grandkids who live here in my hometown. Well not my hometown, but where I live Chicago. Please follow Peter out his website which is Peter Hanson. realtor.com Peter spelled p i e t e r so Peter with an eye at the beginning p i e t Are Hansen realtor.com You can also find him on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, we will have links to all of that in the show notes. He’s probably the only Peter Hanson, which is p i e, t r, so you can find them really easily. Or you can click the links to his social media, right from our show notes. Peter, welcome to the show. Pieter Hanson 5:18Thanks for having me. D.J. Paris 5:21Really excited to speak with you. It’s amazing, all the things you’ve done. And I think the a lot of what you what you’ve done in your career are some of the hardest professions I’m really, really impressed. Usually people have success at one thing, you are consistently having success and a number, a number of buckets. And I am always so impressed by talking to people who operate at a high level. So tell us see, so from what I understand your story correctly, you went into the Navy, came out, went to school, then had a couple of jobs in retail, and then and then in banking, and then why the switch to real estate just out of curiosity. So I Pieter Hanson 6:05opened up the bar and grill at the same time I got my real estate license, and the bar was always a dream of mine to do I had an opportunity, I liked my job at the bank, and the bank is still a great friend of mine and a great resource and, and a great community bank here in the Quad Cities. But I was getting more and more responsibility that I really didn’t like, I was having to work later hours and, and I just thought you know what I’m gonna do this bar thing I’m gonna get out of the bank, and I need some income. And, and I thought, you know, I’ve always thought real estate, people who are successful were successful because of not necessarily how smart they were, but how many people liked them. And I felt like I had a pretty significant sphere of influence, a pretty great background from the banking and, and the retail side and how to deal with customers and people in the public. And so I thought, hey, I’m gonna open this bar, and I’ll ease into the real estate thing. So that’s kind of how it worked. It’s D.J. Paris 7:11amazing that you took on two things at the same time, both of which required tremendous activity. However, maybe one feeds the other in a certain way, I suspect, it’s probably been times where patrons of the bar have ended up becoming clients as well. I’m assuming that happens once in a while. So Pieter Hanson 7:33to your point, I got into real estate, if you people can remember, 2007 2008 was probably the worst time to ever make this change. And I told myself, that if I can survive in 2007, and 2008 going forward in real estate, if I can survive, then I am going to be positioned perfectly to survive when times are good. And we know that that’s a cyclical thing. And it’s going to drop and up and drop and down. And so I chose that as a challenge and an opportunity to thrive. And I do think that there are some parallels between the bar and real estate. However, when I went into real estate, it was in the commercial division. That’s right. Yeah. And around the Quad Cities, the commercial division is a good old boy network, if you know what I mean. I mean, I were in Chicago, too. I was a newcomer with no experience. And I really had to scrape and fight for everything that I got. Having said that all these people that I’m meeting through the bar, and and all these new relationships I’m establishing are asking me if I can help them buy a house. And I thought to myself, I if I can sell a million dollar building, I can I can sell a house? Well, my broker didn’t allow that. The commercial broker that I work for said, You’re a commercial agent, you refer all those. So I started referring those leads. And finally in 2014, I actually added up the commission that I would have received had I not referred them and I thought this is dumb, I got to get out of commercial and into residential. So that’s how that worked. D.J. Paris 9:18Wow. And now you do you do both. And now Pieter Hanson 9:22I do both. Yes. So one of the things that when I when I got my license and I worked for a local broker, one of the things and I and I actually went from the commercial broker to the residential broker was the same broker. But the policy the company policy is that that you can sell residential and commercial but you say it can’t sell commercial and residential. And the way they explained it to me was that if you went to the ER to get your fingers stitched up because you cut it with a knife, you’d let a thoracic surgeon so your finger up right. But if you went to the emergency room for How to Have a heart transplant, you wouldn’t let an ER doc do that. Right? And so they kind of compare that that, you know, if you can do commercial, you can handle residential, but the same does not always work the opposite way. D.J. Paris 10:14How do you feel about that? Now? Do you agree with that? I will tell you my my opinion, it depends again, on the sector of commercial because certain sectors are certainly more complicated, and, you know, industrial buildings and land development. And some of those things, to me are like almost like Alien and foreign. But I don’t totally disagree with that. I think there is some intelligence there that a residential agent ought to, in many cases refer to a commercial broker, but a commercial broker, certainly, I think the training tends to be a lot stronger for commercial, there tends to be a just a lot, you’re serving a lot more masters in a deal. There’s a lot that can go wrong, and you just are exposed to a lot of different things. But I’m curious what what are your thoughts today on on that policy? Pieter Hanson 11:01I do agree with you. 100%, a commercial agent, you know, commercial is Buyer beware. So there aren’t as many disclosures and cover your, your rear end kind of documents, but at the same time, it’s a slower sales cycle. And you really have to learn to think outside the box, get creative and understand spreadsheets and, and how accountants feel because a commercial decision, commercial building is sold on a financial basis based on the numbers not Oh, I love this building, I have to have it. Whereas a house is a very emotional decision. And, and as long as you qualify can make it happen. That’s D.J. Paris 11:41amazing. I have my brother in law is a commercial broker in Tampa, and he works with a lot of retail, and shopping centres and things of that nature. And so, which is a little closer, I guess, in some ways to, to residential, maybe. But it’s, you know, he can work on deals for two or three years before they close. And then when they close, it’s a wonderful day, but it is a lot of hand wringing and sweating for those three years. Well, yeah, for sure. For sure that residential provides probably more stability. And also just, you know, there’s just maybe just more opportunity there in certain markets, Pieter Hanson 12:21well, in the train, the transaction is way more fun to you know, there’s nothing more satisfying than helping a first time homebuyer or, or helping somebody find a home for their new family that they absolutely love. And you get to work directly with them. And it’s, it’s not as intimidating and it’s just a it’s a it’s it’s more stressful in certain certain circumstances. But it’s also more fun. D.J. Paris 12:47And by the way, we should also mention that, you know, you had a health challenge in the early in the mid 90s, which I’m curious if if you’re willing to share a little bit about that, sort of how that has impacted you, your life and your priorities. I didn’t mention that, of course earlier. So, so Pieter Hanson 13:07I was working at a local clothing store, which was a, you know, for those people in Chicago, the old Mark shale type of of store and high end clothing store and the gentleman that owned it was about 10 years older than me and was an amazing mentor, when it came to customer service and work ethic and doing the right thing at the right time. So I worked for him for 12 years, and towards the end of my tenure there. I got very sick and ended up having a bone marrow transplant at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. And and that was a pretty scary experience because the mortality rate at that time was wasn’t super great for for what I was going through but, but I survived. I’m here and the lesson that I took out of that is that one never give up and always have faith that that things will work out to never worry about stuff you have no control over because you just it’s not worth your your your sweat equity. And three, live every moment like it was your last and take chances and work hard and it’ll all work out. D.J. Paris 14:16I couldn’t I couldn’t add on to that at all. That sounds pretty like a pretty great credo to live one’s life. I want to talk about your success in a sense of, you know, achieving the goals that you set out for not necessarily anyone else’s measure of success. You do a number of different things you do them well. And I’m curious in in real estate, sort of. If you know for our listeners, what are some of the things that you or activities or thought processes that you have that you think separate you from maybe other agents that aren’t having that kind of success or what might you coach somebody to start doing or do more For over 2024 Pieter Hanson 15:02One of the biggest things is commitment. And, to your point, when we were talking about the other business that businesses that I was in, I was married to that first bar that still thriving today 24/7 I, I was always there, I had to be. And so the real estate, you know, my first couple years, in real estate, my transactions were four and five, because I wasn’t dedicating myself to the real estate, but it was allowing me to have this in the background, do as much as I can when I can. And then as I got further along in the bar and grill and, and had a management team and could step away from that a little bit, lo and behold, my traction, my transactions went from four to eight to 18 to 28 to 36. And, and the more transaction I have, the less time I spent at the bar. So commitment, commitment, I think is committing yourself to it is the biggest thing. The second thing is having a support network at home, that allows you to answer that phone call every time it rings, to leave somewhere on a Sunday afternoon when you’re watching the football game, and show a property to to stay up late at night and put multiple offers together and to solicit the help of your family. If in fact, you need some help to get something done. So the family network has to totally understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and be committed to your success as much as you are. Yeah, D.J. Paris 16:39that’s a really good point. Realtors tend to be, it’s tough to set boundaries as as an as an agent, it’s tough to set a schedule, because of course, things fly at you in real time. And they often seem very urgent, and sometimes they are urgent. And so it becomes challenging for agents. And I think back to what you said about sort of being a part time agent, initially, and I think, you know, it’s one of those things, which I hear this a lot because I talk to a lot of new people who just pass their exam. And they say, Hey, you know, I’m just going to be part time for now I have this other job, I need the steady income. And I always say I completely understand I mean, I you have to pay your bills, you have responsibilities. And I say it’s just a harder path. It’s a tougher path. Because you’re you’re now having to do these two things, which both are really full time jobs, even if even if you think the real estate thing is just part time, it’s still going to come up when it comes up. And it’s going to be not probably in alignment with your other job schedule. And, and there are lots of people that will say just quit the other job and do real estate full time. And that would be great. In an ideal world for everyone who is, you know, wouldn’t be too much stressing about paying the bills. But that’s not the majority of us. So I’m glad to hear I love hearing success stories where people because it’s so easy to tell somebody will just quit and do this all all and you’ll be fine. And maybe you will and if you do the right if you do the hard work you probably will be but boy it’s a stressful tough but a few years as you get into real estate as you know, foreign foreign five transactions does not make much of a salary. But yes certainly gets gets you on the path. And yeah, but it allows you to then probably find the confidence to or the the reasoning to go, you know, I can do this. And now I can have somebody helping me here at the bar at a bar restaurant. So So yeah, the part time versus full time thing is always such an interesting conversation because people get very adamant about their opinion one way or the other what somebody should do, and I always say, hey, you know, your financial situation better than me. But, you know, hopefully, in an ideal world, you’d get to a place where you can do this full time. But it but it’s a tough path. I mean, it just, Pieter Hanson 18:52I liked it. I like the people that that say to me, you know, hey, I’d love to get into real estate, what you know, how do you like it? And I tell them that about it? And they say yeah, I’m just, you know, I’m just really looking for more flexibility, a more flexible schedule. And I kind of I react the way you just did. And I’m like, Well, you’re right, you do get some flexibility. You’ll never miss your kid’s Christmas concert. You’ll never miss their ballgame. You’ll never miss their First Communion. But guess what? When it’s over, you’re going right back to work if you’re gonna do anything. D.J. Paris 19:24Yeah, that’s a really good point. It’s, it’s how, you know, I was talking, I was just at the gym just before I came here and I have a trainer and it’s kind of funny. It’s, it’s similar to what you just said, we were talking about training. And we do like weightlifter style workouts. It’s a lot of heavy weights, resistance, things like that. And I was telling my trainer been with her three and a half years and I was kind of laughing because it is kind of funny. I said working out is all about how much pain can you tolerate and pain maybe isn’t the right word discomfort, I guess is maybe a better word. How much discomfort can you tolerate and are you pushing against resistance? And that’s how you build muscle. And it’s pretty much as you know, of course, and our listeners know how you get better at any skill, really. But you have to be willing to tolerate some discomfort, you have to be willing to go to the, you know, go to the child’s recital and then go, I gotta race home after this, and I’ve got work to do. And yes, that is not fun for anybody to do. But it is certainly what is required. And so, you know, realtors, you know, a lot of times only learn that once they’re in, and then they’re like, Oh, I didn’t realize the commitment. For sure, would love to talk about, again, back to sort of your success, you know, being dedicated, fully dedicated, and understanding what is required. How well actually, let’s talk about this year, because we’re talking you talked about the market, of course, being cyclical, we are in a difficult market, I would assume in most, our sorry, difficult time to be a realtor in most markets in the country. Occasionally, I talked to somebody who’s up 50% for the year, and they’re, they’re the unicorn, most people are struggling, at least our agents, our agents are struggling here, we have almost 800. And, you know, most almost all of their productions were down for this year, which of course, is is not fun. But I think you brought up a really good point, when you said that you started in 2007. For those that again, don’t remember, that was a very difficult time. Now in a in a in a way, though, it was really the best possible time for you. Because as people were exiting the business, you were getting in, and you were like, if I can survive this, then it’s gonna be really not as scary the next time when it’s when it’s a market. And I’m curious how you view today’s market, I we’re seeing a lot of agents exit the business, we have a holding company, which is for agents who don’t practice, we went from like 800 agents in our holding company, which is just, you know, a place to hold the license to over 1000. Within this year, just so many people leaving from from the industry. Curious, like if you know what you think about that? And how agents could, you know, stop, you know, exiting the business. I Pieter Hanson 22:12feel like if and I don’t know this to be true, but I suspect this to be true that if you looked at the jump that you made in the past year from 800, to over 1000. If you looked at those agents, my guess is that a majority of those agents have not been Realtors for five years. And so yeah, I feel I feel like they got in the business when times were great. And deals were being thrown at people at a crazy rate. And you had to be an absolute idiot not to get some deals done and make it you know, but now now they’re actually having to work there. And you’re having to market themselves. They’re having to, to work weekends, do open houses do things to get creative, and they’re like, God, this sucks. I’m, I’m working way too much. And so and so that it’s almost like attrition, you know, they just get the retention going and get out. And I think that’s, that’s probably and I’m down this year as well, a little bit. But, you know, I opened a new restaurant last year, and we opened a new brokerage and I left the old firm and started the new firm. And there’s reasons for that. But I feel like those of us that have been in the business for, you know, 1520 25 years are a little bit insulated, because we’ve got our residual clients and our reputation. And so I feel that the the economy does affect it some but but we’re the veterans are a little more insulated than the newcomers. Yeah. D.J. Paris 23:34And speaking of a veteran in a different way, forgot to, of course, thank you for your service as as as a Navy man, to our country, and to all of our listeners here. So thank you. Awesome. Thank Pieter Hanson 23:47you. Well, so D.J. Paris 23:49yeah, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about activity. So if you were a brand new agent today, and I want to sort of set this up. So Peter was was talking about, you know, a lot of these people who have like in our, in our case, our other our holding company. Yes, he’s right. The vast majority of people who have joined our holding company recently are people who either were nearing retirement or just like I’m done, or they were within their first few years, not doing well, and realizing they didn’t want to pay their MLS dues going forward. So, of course, that all that factors in but if I was a brand new agent today, I would actually be excited, because I would there are people leaving the industry, which means there’s market share to pick up. And I think now is the time where agents should really step on the gas in their marketing efforts in their outreach efforts to try to pick up some of these, some of these these clients that you know, maybe they’re not buying right this moment or selling right this moment. But you know, they will be at some point and their realtor may be exiting and leaving. Or just, you know, not working as hard right now. That’s another thing that happens. Even successful agents in down markets tend to, to relax a little bit more. So I think now’s a really good time to get in, although not certainly an easy time. Curious, your thoughts. So Pieter Hanson 25:10I couldn’t agree with you more regarding that. I do feel that when it comes to work ethic and marketing and timing, you know, when in 2007, when I got my license, Facebook was just kind of a brand new thing. And the kids today that are starting to be realtors, and even the, you know, late 50s, early 60s, agents like myself, are having to adapt to the digital age, that computer isn’t going anywhere that Facebook is only going to get stronger marketing and digital media is incredible how you can get your, your name out there and shoot high quality videos. And if you can embrace that, and you can run with that you will be successful going forward. I struggle with that a lot. But, but I happen to have a team that is very good at it that we collaborate together and they’re helping me succeed in that arena. But I feel like agents today are poised way better than, than those of us that used to look in an MLS book, literally a paper book. No, no online stuff, you know, and now, your client comes to you more educated than you sometimes on a property because of the information that they can find. So I feel like the agents today are really set up for success if they if they take advantage of the digital because if they don’t, they’re going to be left behind and the AI for that matter. That’s a whole nother issue. But how amazing is AI and as scary as it is, it’s going to be incredibly helpful in our industry used properly. D.J. Paris 26:53I used chat GPT this morning to calculate the probability of i I’ve met my producer for this podcast is a lovely woman zonna. She’s been with me for four years she lives in Kosovo, she’s originally from Albania. It just so happens that I met another woman unrelated to Zonta independent, who is on I’ve never met in person we meet for we we talk almost every day virtually, of course, he lives in Kosovo. And I met a woman recently, who not only knows Ana, which is complete coincidence, went to school with her worked in the same office as her at the same company, even at one point, and now lives in Chicago. And I said I wonder what the probability of that is. And so I put chat GPT to work and and it didn’t come up with it gave all sorts of interesting equations and eventually said it was one in four quadrillion was the probability which I suspect is probably I don’t even know if quadrillion was an actual word. But I guess it comes after billion trillion, I guess, quadrillion, but regardless, it’s a very low probability. But I love that chat, GBT could figure out some estimate of that. And I think as as realtors, you know, the AI is is going to be really cool, because it will allow us to be more persuasive in our listing descriptions that already does that. It allows us to maybe give some great marketing ideas. You know, if I was an agent, I go, I don’t really know what I should do today. I would go straight to chat GBT and say Hey, can you give me five activities that I could do right now, as a realtor? That might be a good idea for outreach or meeting new people, or I want you to add more people to my database. Where should I go? You know, and there’s all sorts of great suggestions that a chat GBT can have. I have a friend of mine, who’s a CEO of a digital storage company. And he doesn’t have a chief marketing officer because he has built one inside of chat. GBT. So I’m our chief marketing officer. So maybe my jobs on the line. But he’s doing that now. So there are some really cool things coming. And I’m curious, I all this being said, I the My question is, where do you think the important skills that a realtor is going to need or needs today or needs for the future? If it isn’t, hey, I’m the gatekeeper to this building or this property? Yes, they’re going to they have access to pretty much all of that data and information now, Zillow basically changed changed that whole dynamic, but what are the skills that you think realtors are still valued and useful for today? Pieter Hanson 29:26The every, every deal is different. And even though it might be cookie cutter to a certain extent, there’s certain steps that need to happen. People don’t know how to negotiate first of all, they have no clue. They talk too much. There’s a lot of things that a realtor does if he educates his buyer seller properly to ensure that that is going to transaction is going to go smoothly and that everything is anticipated. I like to find myself a prop One find her not a problem solver. I want to find the problem before it happens. And so I don’t have to solve it on the spot. And I think people that try to do this on their own, leave money on the table, frustrate themselves and inevitably lose deals because they don’t know what they’re doing. And everyone thinks with the internet, they can they can handle it. And you know, some people probably can, honestly, but I think the majority of the general public needs us desperately. Yeah, D.J. Paris 30:31I think there’s a lot of soft skills or interpersonal skills that come up that are really important stress management, emotional regulation, under understanding how to deal with adversity, and urgent, bad news that comes up. And in every transaction, there’s some bad news that happens at some point, and it’s going to come up a lot of times unexpectedly, and then it’s about how do I make sure my client is able to remain stable during this? Or what can I do to keep my, my, my client moving forward, or at least understanding sort of the gravity of what’s going on, without succumbing to, you know, sort of, you know, being completely stressed out, because, of course, nobody wants a stressed out client, I went, I bought a condo three, three or so years ago. And even though I’ve been in this industry, I mean, I’m not a practicing agent, but I am licensed. But even being around top realtors, like you and all the agents, here we have about 800 agents in our company, you would think I would have handled that a lot better. And I did not I was stressed. I was like, convinced I was making a horrible decision. I had to I had to basically at some point, I sort of went to that philosophy of an attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client. So I said, I’m not going to represent myself because I am not, I am not the the most objective party here and I’m just getting too emotional. And it made me really appreciate realtors that are excellent at keeping things, you know, decoding the information that’s being sent from the other side, putting it in a way that doesn’t make me completely nuts and or the client completely stressed out. So I think those interpersonal skills check GBT hasn’t yet solved for that maybe it will someday, I don’t know. But certainly, the you know, the the human skills are really, really important. And it made me realize that after my last purchase, well, and Pieter Hanson 32:33I and I think I agree with everything that you said. And you know, I aligned myself with real, because of those technology options between the Knowledge Library, their, their revenue, share their bolt, their AI, or their AI, this company is leading the industry in, in what’s happening in the future. And, and as much as I am a hometown guy, and as much as I am a local shop local, be local, I own businesses, I want people to support me, in this industry. I just don’t feel like the local brokers have the funds and to keep up with technology and provide their agents with life changing financial, security and future that that everybody’s going to need and need to have if they’re going to succeed in this industry. D.J. Paris 33:27Yeah, I agree with you. 100%, as well, I would like to talk about customer service, actually not customer service during the sale. So we’re going to talk about customer care, I guess maybe it’s the better word. I’m not sure what the official word is. But keeping in touch in between transactions. So we know somebody buys a home, depending on your market, they may be moving five to 10 years, who knows every markets a bit different. But you know, there’s some predictable patterns there. So you’re going to have this period of time, where likely they’re not going to actually need you day to day to help them with a transaction. But what are your suggestions for making sure that the client doesn’t forget who you are number one, and we say that sort of is a bit being a bit facetious. But people there are there are amazing studies out there that will show there’s a certain percentage of people who like their realtor, if the transaction closes, and then two years later, they’re like, I don’t remember who our realtor was. It’s a much higher number than then I’ve ever thought happened to my parents. They sold a property and out east and great realtor and then two years later, I go What was I per Realtors name? My dad’s like, I have no idea. So that is that happens. And so I’m curious on how you think about making sure that that doesn’t happen, of course with your clients. So Pieter Hanson 34:47I tend to if you see something, say something is my attitude. If I think that I need to call DJ, I haven’t talked to DJ, I just pass DJ on the interstate, I saw him at the grocery store. I used to think to myself, Oh, I gotta call DJ. And then two days later, I’d run into DJ and I’d say, oh, DJ, I was just gonna call you and DJs. Like, yeah, whatever. Well, I pick up that phone and I make that call. And Julie knows that sometimes I sit in that garage for 45 minutes after I’ve been home at night, because I made that quick phone call to DJ and we struck up a conversation and talk for half an hour. So if you need if you think about something, call them one. Two, I send out postcards because I like to run into DJ at the grocery store and say, Hey, I got your Thanksgiving postcard thanks for thinking of me. Boom, I know, it’s corny the mail is is somewhat antiquated, but I still use it. I’m older, I’m comfortable with it. The the the most important thing that I think is front of mind, you know, all the avenues that we have with Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, posting things online that aren’t asking necessarily for someone to respond, but but maybe giving them a little knowledge about the community, hey, this, you guys have seen this bank building forever. This was built in the 18th, you know, front of mind stuff. So so people say themselves, oh, there’s Peter, there’s Peter without actually going out of their way or opening a piece of mail or answering the phone. So and I need to get better at it myself. And then lastly, Card Writing. I go through spurts where where I’ll write out 40 cards, and I’ll mail you know, 10 of them a week. And, and then there’s times where you know, I haven’t done that since September. But I need to do it again. And I’ll get motivated. And I’ll have a day. And I’ll just knock out a bunch of them. That I think is impactful too. D.J. Paris 36:49How many handwritten cards do you receive? Not once you’ve sending out? How many do you get in just estimating in a given year? 10. Okay, so less than one a month. Mine is much less than 10. I think I meant like two to three a year. And again, I’m not complaining it’s I’m but I’m so honored when anybody spends two minutes to write me a card. I don’t know what it is about receiving a card in the mail, a handwritten card, but boy, it just, there’s a tangible feeling there. That is way beyond a digital, Hey, I saw that you went on vacation, a little, you know, Facebook, like or whatever. Those are great too, of course. But there is something really, really powerful about somebody wrote this card, they put a stamp on it, they addressed it, they dropped it in the mail, as a lot of steps there that are super obvious to somebody when they receive that. And I think it’s kind of baked into the experience. So I am with you. You talked about mailers. I am a huge fan of mailers. Number one because most people aren’t anymore, as you said, you know, people are more digital, of course there, which is exactly why mailers should happen because you’re not getting that much mail anymore. I’m not getting much mail anymore. Even the junk mails is toned down. I’m like what’s happening with all these companies, a catalog companies, I guess they’re all online, but but I don’t even get a lot of the catalogs anymore. And so I’m like, wow, my, if somebody were to send me a postcard, I would absolutely see it now, maybe 15 years ago, when the mail was just, you know, insane. Maybe it would get lost in all of the catalogs and junk mail. There’s not as much anymore. So I think it’s a perfect time to send a mailer. And to your point. This is a way if you’re sending mailers once a month, once every few months, it’s pretty hard for somebody to forget about you, even if it’s just a postcard, because your names there. They might they you know, every realtor sends out an email newsletter. And I’m not saying that’s a bad idea. It’s a great idea. But everyone also does that. So you want to do things that maybe are a little bit more than just that. I’m not saying don’t do an email newsletter. But I love that and handwriting a card. I don’t know that there’s a better way to tell somebody I care that even just hey, I was thinking about you, I hope you’re doing well. Whatever. Well Pieter Hanson 39:06buy, sell, build, get buy, sell, build QC, you know, between Sarah and Andrea, my partners, we’ve got things planned into the fourth quarter of 2024. Whether it’s mum delivery, like we did this year, we bought 500 mums, and the back of my truck was filled for two days delivering these mums and people just absolutely loved them. You don’t need to say hi to them, put it on their porch with a sticker on the thing and a postcard in it. And they would text you and they’d say, Dude, we’d love the mom, thanks for thinking of us. You know, I mean little things like that. And our brokerage does those things extremely well. What’s D.J. Paris 39:44really fun about that stuff to it. I talk a lot about these kinds of fun activities that realtors can do. They don’t have to be expensive. They don’t have to even cost anything really picking up the phone and saying hey, I’m thinking about you. How are you doing? What’s going on? You know, and not necessarily Hey, I need to buy or sell right now I’m your guy, but calling and just saying, Hey, I was thinking about you, how are you? And or I saw this thing on LinkedIn, maybe it looks like your company just did this something big or you got a promotion or whatever there are, those are always the things I think that win the race. And also at the very least, even if it doesn’t necessarily lead to a transaction, you’re going to feel good about yourself when you do something nice, like drop off a mum or two on someone’s doorstep. And then they find it later. Boy, I mean, you can’t you almost can’t put a price tag on on how successful that kind of campaign is. Because people will be talking about it. Like who gets just random flowers from people, nobody, nobody only from your spouse or partner or boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. Those are the only people giving anybody flowers. And so the idea of even just doing a little thing, like mums, and mums are cool to their unique. I love that idea. Yeah, Pieter Hanson 40:59we have we have a good time doing it too. And it’s a big collaboration in the office and it gets brings everybody together to work under under one roof for a common goal. And it’s it’s great team building. And it’s just fun. D.J. Paris 41:13And you know, it’s funny, we should probably talk about this only because it’s the end of the year. And this is you know, holiday cards and holiday gifts. And agents always struggle. Should I do something for my clients? There’s pessimistic people that will say, Well, if you do it once, you’re going to have to do it every single year forever. It’s like, well, I don’t know, that doesn’t sound so bad. But for some people, they struggle with this. I’m curious on your thoughts about end of year, sort of stuff with clients? Do you do them? Do you wait until a different time of the year or, you know, just curious, Pieter Hanson 41:45traditionally, some of my partner’s that had a holiday party. And they’re really expensive. And people look forward to him every year. And they say, Hey, are you guys having your party this year and, and I personally don’t do that. I like to reward the client. At the time the transaction closes. And depending upon how close they are, the size of the deal, whatever dictates, you know what, what I might do for them. But I always do something for them. The remaining time is I might single handedly call someone invite them to dinner with Julie and I. And as much as she sometimes doesn’t like doing it, we tend to have a pretty good time hanging out with someone that we don’t normally hang out with and learn something about that person that we never knew. Generally, that’s our takeaway. I never knew that about it, you know? So we try to do a little bit of that, but I don’t do anything it a certain time of year to reward them necessarily. Yeah. Well, D.J. Paris 42:46I think that’s very encouraging. For everyone listening who goes, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t do anything for the holiday season, December holiday season for my clients, it doesn’t really matter, do something throughout the year. And then at the end of the year, not as important, of course. But I love this, this idea of customer service and customer care, really, to me and hard work and discipline and all of these these things, but Customer Care is just the the key, I think it’s really making sure that people when they think about you go wow, my agent knows what’s going on in my life stays in touch with me. And is is is, is doing some sort of ongoing communication. And you said something very important, I just want to want to end on which was, now we have mobile devices, these super powerful, you know, almost magical devices in our pockets that shoot near perfect video, and for essentially for free of the cost of the device. And you can you know, learn a little bit about a building or maybe a local retailer, if you want to support local businesses, or maybe even interview a local business owner and say, Hey, I’d love to just learn about your business or your building or whatever. And you could post a quick one or two minute video on social media about that. And you could do that every single day of the week. If you if you didn’t if you weren’t slammed with clients, and what does that do for your public the people that are following you? They they think, wow, this person is really into real estate or they’re supporting our local community. They’re active, they’re doing things. So I am such a fan. I just I know you said it sort of quickly. And I wanted to go back to talk about the importance of providing value on social media as opposed to just hey, look at this cool this home I just sold, which is fine. I just don’t think that should be the only thing because right after I see that stuff, I was going I don’t care. Pieter Hanson 44:36You got to start somewhere and you’ve got to do something even if it’s wrong, you’ll learn but what content becomes so important and so impactful when it comes to people enjoying it and not being annoyed by it. I D.J. Paris 44:51couldn’t agree with you more and I think this is a great place to wrap up before we wrap. I want to make a mention we have Gosh 1000s and 10s of 1000s of listeners, we’re so grateful for them for sticking with us for as long as we have. But Peter Hansen, he he works for his brokerage, his real, great brokerage, national brokerage. And he and his team are always interested if there are any, any talent that in that area, any agents that think they might be a fit for Peter and his team, please, please feel free to reach out, they’re always looking to to expand their reach. Also, if you’re an agent that has clients that move in and out of the Quad Cities area, but maybe you don’t practice there yourself, certainly reach out to Peter. And if I were an agent, I would be looking to see where people retire from if they move from the Quad Cities, and then I would be reaching out to Peter, if I was in one of those markets going, Hey, I would love to talk to you about when people leave your market, you know, talking and connecting. So Peter, of course, would love the opportunity. He’s a commercial agent, residential agent, he can do a lot. So if you have businesses that are going in and out of that area, or people going in and out, or if you are an agent and want to maybe join his team and perhaps provide some value, he would love to opportunity to see if they you guys would be a fit. So what’s the best way that an agent could reach out to you if they want to partner with you in some way. Pieter Hanson 46:17So certainly, the email address Peter at Pt hanson.com is a very effective way. Certainly, you could reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook as well. Those digital media’s provide some privacy yet get the message across and I could get back to you. Certainly, if you were to ask me for any of my cell phone number, contact number that way, I’ve certainly would provide that for you. And, and if you’re any good at the internet, you can probably find that through Google yourself. So any of those ways would be a great way to get a hold of me. And I’d love to sit down and, and tell you the real story and tell you my story. I D.J. Paris 46:58love that. And remember, Peter is p i e t er, so he’s super easy to find. If he was Peter Hanson, without the without the AI, it’d be a little harder. So this actually works in his favor. So he’s very easy to find. And he’s a wonderful, wonderful man, and very successful in a lot of different areas. And if I were an agent, I would want to talk to you because I feel how do you do it all? What’s the word of the secrets we got through some of those today, but boy, somebody that, you know, I would certainly want to be mentored by so if you’re an agent in the area, or if you have clients kind of going in and out of that area, please reach out to Peter, he would love the opportunity to connect. And also please reach out to Peter and thank him for his service to our country we our military is is grossly under appreciated, I believe on a regular basis. So even if you’re just want to reach out and say thank you, that would be appreciated for him as well. Peter, thank you so much for your time. today. Thank you for coming on our show spending an hour with us and really giving us a lot of insight into your business and how you juggle many different businesses, but doing them all really, really effectively. And I love that Peter Hanson realtor is the website that’s P e t e r h a n s o n realtor.com. We’ll have links to all of his social media as well as his website, on on our show notes. So please reach out and on behalf of our listeners want to just thank Peter for spending time with us today. And on behalf of Peter and myself. We also want to thank the listeners and the viewers, you guys are the reason we do the show. And if we are planning speaking of Peter talking about his planning for 2024, we are planning for 2024 as well. So if there is a top agent in your market, we don’t really look for guests anymore. Because of the popularity of the show. We’re really, really lucky that publicists usually come to us. But that means we miss a lot of people. So if there’s a superstar in your market, we might not know about them, let us know we’ll reach out and see if we can get them on the show. So think of the most successful agent in your market as a listener and go I want to know what that person does. Let us know who that person is. We’ll we’ll do the rest. But thank you so much, Peter. Really great conversation. And hope everyone I don’t know when this episode will be released. It’ll probably be before the end of the year. So if so everyone have a happy December holiday season. Happy New Year, all of that. And Peter, thank you. We will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, TJ.

Welcome to Breaking Down Ali’s Systems mini-series with Ali Garced. In this mini-series Ali will be explaining how she built her systems both for buyers and for sellers. In the second episode of Seller Checklist series, Ali picks up on the pre-list part where she left off in the first part of this checklist. Please follow Ali on Instagram here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Ali Garced can be reached at ali@garcedrealty.com and (914) 318-4918. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today on the show top agent Allie Garside is going to share with you more about her seller checklist that she uses to convert dozens and dozens of clients every single year. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Ali Garced 1:34What’s up everyone again, it’s Ali Gorsedd ally, the agent. Coming back with part two of the seller checklist. Again, this checklist has helped the agents on my crew on my ESP crew earn six figures in six months, making like three times the amount that they were making. Previously at other brokerages, it’s so important to have a foundation, I’m not saying that you need to join me in order to make this happen. I’m saying you need to have a foundation and I’m giving it away to you. So if you want a copy of these checklists, here’s the checklist to get a copy of the chocolates ready. Number one, give a five star review to keeping it real on this podcast that you’re listening to. If you’re watching this on YouTube, number two is like and comment below saying anything that you’ve learned, however, the slightest bit that this may have helped you. I know this is going to help you a lot. But any comment will help. And number three is text me for the checklist will meet its will meet over zoom. It’s 520-341-2552. That’s my work, phone number text the word checklist to that number checklists, by the way, being one word, text checklist 25203412552. If you’d rather hit me on Instagram, I’m Ally FBI agent. So let’s begin last time I left off on the listing presentation. So let’s assume we got the listing what to do. So from here, we’re going to start on the pre list. Now, we’re going to make sure that we have a copy of the keys, of course to all the screen doors, the detached ad, use the garage, you know any anything and everything, the front door, the back or the side door, the window, the sheds, everything, have make sure that the sellers have an extra copy. And the garage openers, it’s they want to make sure that they I see that they keep it on their person. Because I just don’t like I don’t want to have to deal with any theft. So of course want to make sure that if they’re going to be living in the property, make sure that they hide their valuables stored in the safe or just take it out of the house or take it out of the condo. If the property is gonna be vacant, then they can leave the garage door openers or maybe you want to safeguard it for them. However you want to do that make sure you just do it the same way every time. So that way you don’t forget and think oh, I have the the garage door opener for 4712 North palisade but on this other house on North Street, I ended up keeping up the house, you’re gonna drive yourself crazy. So whatever method you want to do do the same thing every time and that is key consistency always wins. Okay. Then you want to tell them the the photo requirements and the staging tips. We tend to work with one photographer. We like them a lot. They are pricey, but they do amazing work. So they have their own photography like list. If you do not already have a go to photographer, reach out, reach out, you know, find some on Instagram, find some on Google and see if they have a list of photography, like tips for real estate sales. That way you can use their checklist. I’ll show you in my emails to my canned emails that I use my photographer’s checklist because why am I going to recreate the wheel just like with these seller checklists with my buyer checklist that I’m giving to you guys the referral checklist? I haven’t even gone to that section yet. Would Do not recreate the wheel, you should be just like adding to it and making sure that it’s as you know, as easy to follow as possible for your business. Okay. And then you want to make sure that they are the the sellers are working toward that photography, a checklist. Hey, have you mowed the lawn? Hey, have you pulled the weeds? Do you need a landscaper Dena contractor for that? Because I have you know, I know a guy. Okay, carrying on then you want to? Oh, seems like maybe my computer’s a little frozen here? Oh, no, there it is. All right, then you want to schedule the photographer. And you want to make sure that you have enough time in order to do that. Or rather that the sellers have enough time in order to do that. Sometimes as you know the house as soon as you walk into the listing presentation, it’s ready to sell. Sometimes it’s not. There was one time Oh, just a super quick rant, if I may, again. So this was the that same listing my second listing ever that I got off a postcard my very first round of postcards, and the one who lied to me about Hoa, he was a hoarder. And as I was walking upstairs to where he hadn’t been upstairs in probably over a year, a year, he hadn’t been upstairs, there was stuff everywhere I was I was going up the stairs, he’s I stepped on a gun, I stepped on a gun, which was loaded. I mean, I know how to I know how to use guns, you know, I was a federal agent for the Air Force for a decade. But just the fact that like I step again, just the point being some sellers are going to need some extra time, in order to get their house photo ready, some will need your help. Some agents already have this available to where they have, you know a cleaner to where the cleaner can help them. Again, everyone needs to sell no matter who they are, like what kind of background they have. So it’s always always good to have a cleaner or two in your back pocket. If you do not have a cleaner, I would suggest going on Airbnb and message some of the owners so as like a as a guest, I message them in the owners and say Hey, who do you use as a cleaner I’m looking for I’m looking for reliable cleaner they’ll give you they’ll help you. So because I think if someone were to message me on it on Airbnb, because I’m a I’m a landlord as well, I own about eight properties. And if someone were to message me, you bet I would share my cleaner. I want to help her. Anyway, here we go. Um, okay. So you want to make sure that the house is ready to go you this this goes into the specifics of which photography package we get. We do the same thing every time whether it is a luxury Well, luxury, of course is I think, subjective. But so whether it’s like a $700,000 house or a $200,000 house, we do the same package every time. Now of course we might add on the videography for the meet the middle package or the extra package like what I talked about last week. Or I might add on even more the 3d Home Tour The the the Zillow so that way connects to Zillow and it bumps your listing up on Zillow higher because you paid for that Zillow feature, the Matterport, whichever you want to do, we do the same thing every single time. Well, depending on the package that they choose, so you want to make sure that that’s labeled. Because always think about this, you might not want to be selling forever. This is the purpose of a checklist. I had a checklist that I was following this my first year in the business. And now this is the checklist that everyone that I refer to follows everyone in my crew, they have this foundation for them, they don’t need to think I didn’t want to think I just want to wake up and say okay, what part of the checklist Am I at Check, check, check. And it’s it’s just automatic. Not automatic as well to do it, but you get my boy. Okay, then you’re gonna have your TC send disclosures. A quick note on TC, if you don’t have a TC get one e me delete. I said that kind of weird immediately get a TC because they are oh my gosh, there were there. They are so worth it. For what even if the TC is charging like $500 for a transaction, the amount of hours that they’re going to save you for every single transaction and it’s labor upfront, and they only get paid if you get paid at the close of escrow. And if your seller cancels, they don’t get paid. I mean it’s a no brainer. So I do want to backtrack to what I said last week when I said that I have a $3,000 cancellation fee. Part of that $3,000 cancellation fee goes to the TC for her troubles, so I will give her her Porsche and not not I don’t think it’s like 100% of what she would have made had be continued with the sale. But I believe it’s like 50, maybe 40%. So I want to keep my TC happy because we’re sending her a lot of business. Okay, create showing instructions. This is super important. I really like showing time not all agents use showing time. Not all agents know it’s showing time is not all agents will even bother looking up showing time. I know that you know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t you might be, you might be the agents that refuses to use showing signs or refuses to comply. So here we go. I use showing time because it’s so it’s super easy to block out times for, you know, times where the house is ready to view and times that are blocked out. So this is super important for homes where the sellers are going to still be living in it. If the sellers are still living in it, I always have a CBS code on the Super box. I am pretty sure that everyone that has a Supra will probably have access to CBS. I don’t think that that would be Arizona specific. But I do I have noticed that not a lot of agents know what a CBS code is. So you know how there’s a super box, right? Like you need to have your phone you need to have Bluetooth on you need to punch in your code for your MLS and then pick an excellent you get the key is that having a CBS code is an extra layer of say, protection against privacy or for privacy, to where if to where agents can’t just roll up on the property after not having viewed showing time, not realizing that the sellers are in their home that they work from home, or that they’re having Thanksgiving dinner, or that they’re just having dinner. And so it prevents people from just being able to get access to the key after they sign in. And then it’s going to ask them okay, what is the CBS code. And I have sometimes agents will have the CBS code on the MLS, I always have the CBS code after they talk to me they have to talk to me, I never want to be in a situation where an agent who doesn’t read and you know what that’s all of us sometimes just rolls into a house while the seller is there with their family, you know, just gotten out of the shower. I work with a lot of military and military love their guns, I do not want to be responsible for any sort of shooting, you know, just to be safe. And it doesn’t even have to get to that extreme. But just to be safe. I want to make sure that my sellers have their privacy. So that way, as soon as I get a call or a text saying hey, what’s the CBS code? I’m asking them? Are you outside of the property schedule a call schedule a time through showing time? That is when the property is available? Oh, well, we’re outside. Okay, well, I’m so sorry. The showing time clearly says on the MLS use showing time. Again, this is the this is the process that I use. Not everyone uses it. This is because the a lot of the listings that I have are occupied homes, if they’re not occupied, I’m not going to have a CVS code on there. I want to have as little amount of friction as possible. And I just want anybody that rolls up. Sure. Go right on in. Of course after using the super box. So also another thing that I used to get a lot which I don’t get that often anymore. Are people saying that their Supra wasn’t working? Hey, I think maybe like my super box is or my phone isn’t updated. And I’m like, Okay, well then update it. You know, I My concern was how do I know you’re even an agent? Of course. I was looking them up online. So this is the story a lot of people I got quite a few amount of phone calls, saying hey, I’m outside your listing at you know, 4712 North palisade drive, and I can’t get in my go. That’s, that’s strange. There’s a super box to the super box die, because my side shows that it’s at no charge at 80% What’s up? And they’re like, oh, yeah, I think it’s a problem on my phone. I think I just haven’t updated it. I’m like, okay, cool. Well, the property is available. Let me know when you’ve updated it, and then you can head right on in some time, and I was getting some pushback sometimes again, you can never be too safe. I think. I would rather I would rather turn away a potential buyer than allow a stranger that with with bad intent into a house into a listing of mine. So you know, all day every day I’d rather turn away a buyer than put somebody in danger. So at that point, I would I wouldn’t have to look them up you know, like hey, if you were refusing to update your your, your Supra app on your phone, one your that’s probably the only house you’re at, you know, are you doing this at every single house that you’re showing? So I’d say okay, you know, like what’s your what’s your car number or your MLS NUMBER? Your your license number? I’d look them up. So So, anyway, that’s just a side note, make sure that you just don’t allow anybody all willy nilly, you know, into the property just because they say they’re an agent. So yeah, that okay, stepping off my little soapbox here, talk with the seller and confirm all the data that you’re going to be using the open house, verify that, because you’ve already you’ve already established this at the listing presentation. Either they either they’re, you know, green with open houses to go or maybe not, or they have dates where they know they want to stay in the house, they don’t want to be bothered, so no open houses, then. And then it’s your own decision, whether you want to host the open house, or whether you want your partner to or whether you want someone else to now, I do want to say this, as soon as you have a listing it that’s like, you know, at a higher price point for your neighborhood, oh, you’re gonna get calls left and right, the week that you put it on the market, from actually, you know, what, you’re not going to get calls, you’re gonna get text messages, the amount of text that I that I get for listings that are on the higher price point for Tucson, they’re like, they come at me with all sorts of grammar will say that, and they’ll say, hey, I want to do your I want to be your open house person this Saturday. And that’s it, you know, that’s all the text will say I’m like, Okay, hi. Which listing? What’s your name? Are you an agent? Which brokerage? You know, like, it’s, it’s so easy, I think to get an open house, if you’re looking for an open house, first of all, call them second of all send a voice or video text of them, showing them that you’re a real person that you’re not a bot, introduce yourself. There was one one person that was very, very, very seem shady and was like, oh, you know what, like, I you know, I don’t even it’s just started giving me like a little bit of attitude. And I was like, You gave me no information. I don’t know which property you’re looking to do an open house for? Why should I choose you? I’m getting six of these texts every day. Not that it should be any sort of competition, but just doing the bare minimum, say a phone call, you’ll stand out. Yeah, just do what other people are not doing and you’ll get for this business, you just have to be just a slight have a slight edge, if you will, if you’ve read that book, okay. Um, let’s see. As soon as you have the open house dates, this is why okay, this here we go. As soon as you have the open house dates, and they’re verified till the TC, make sure that it’s on the MLS, either have a VA, verify that it’s on the MLS, or you just take the time to make sure that it’s showing publicly and on MLS, drop the MLS input sheets, pages one and two, this is probably just Arizona specific. So I’m just gonna say make sure that your paperwork is done. Make sure that the sellers sign on all and they don’t finish on all the pages sign wherever they need to ask your TC for that, create a single property, squeeze a squeeze page and add the link to the description box of each of the sellers checklists. So I sell or I have I give my sellers homework. Right. So sort of from that very, very first phone call in the first series of the seller checklist. I give them homework, you know, I want them to look up the H the year of the H fact that you’re the water heaters what needs to be done? Why is it not a level 10 out of 10 What would make the house a 10 out of 10 Just start thinking you know, have a copy of the keys when I come and start working on the clue report. That’s their homework. And so then after that, once I get the listing, I’m going to I’m going to create this the property page, the squeeze page through KB core, again, it’s just two steps, you could probably just YouTube that or if you are with exp you know, ask your broker. So once I have that, that website, that is a website that I tell my sellers to share. There are some Facebook pages that I cannot post in because I’m a realtor, you know, like there are some pages where they can post in because they’re not a real estate professional, therefore they can post so I’m gonna say don’t share the Zillow listing share this website, this is the website that I want you to share. Because anybody that clicks on it, I get their information, I’m able to start the you know, Excel sheet or start tracking how many people have viewed the property and I can start that conversation, it’s a better chance of conversion to sell your house. I’ve never had any seller had any issue with that they’re happy to comply, unless they don’t do Facebook, which you know, that’s fine, then just email. So, of course at that point, we’ve got the listing so we want this the signs to be placed. Call your sign or sign company or go online and order the coming soon. If you do coming soon. I’m actually not the biggest. I’m not the biggest fan of coming soons because I’ve noticed that as soon as I do it coming soon. The intent is to draw more attention, right like ooh, like create a buzz and have it like on the mark Good and, and but what it does in reality in from my experience is it attracts the lowball offers for however long you’re doing the Coming Soon I think it’s like 14 days max for ours. I don’t even do that anymore. So I don’t even know how long it is i I’ve written coming soon it’s out. It it tries to lowball offers. And it attracts very aggressive agents, which I do this on the buyer side, too. I get it. But it attracts very aggressive agents saying, Hey, we can take this mark the property off the market if you accept our offer today. And that’s not what I want to do. Because of course, the sellers are like, Oh my gosh, we’re already getting offers great, yes, but they’re below us. And we can get more. So I don’t do coming soon as anymore. I just have it live, you can compete with everyone else. And I will know who is more serious because at that point, everyone has the same starting time. I want everyone you know the gates to open for everyone at the same time. Therefore, it’s the most apples to apples comparison I can make. If someone is presenting me an offer that says hey, I’ll order a order. I’ll offer an extra $10,000. If you accept today, we might lean more toward that if you know if everything else is even Steven, or if someone else, you know if all the offers are around the same but one person says we don’t want any seller concessions, our buyer will pay for all the closing costs. Wow, that’s great. Or my favorite, which I do with all of my buyers to get our offers accepted 99% of the time is we have non refundable, earnest money, take our money in case we decide to back out you get money, here’s 500 bucks, you know that? What does that do one as a buyer’s agent. This is a quick tidbit on the buyer side as a buyer’s agent that makes sure that your buyer is actually on board with selling with purchasing the property. And as a listing agent, you can present that to your seller saying hey, the buyer is so serious about this that they’re willing to lose $500 Just for the opportunity for you to take this off the market. This is this is brilliant. I mean it’s it’s every day that this happens in North Carolina. It’s never that this happens in Arizona. non refundable earnest money is on heard of in Arizona. That’s why you get my my offers accepted as a buyer’s agent. Because we don’t have to offer much we can offer 150 bucks. And then that way we can be under contract for two weeks. If for some reason something happens the seller the buyer is only out 100 of the bucks, but the seller walked away with something. So of course more is better. But um, anyway, back off my my rant here, add a lockbox Of course, if you don’t already have a lockbox, this is where I tell my my crew to go. Let’s see. Okay, next, write a description that’s not boring. There was recently a post that I saw that have a listing that was written I mean, like, like someone in Gen Z wrote it and it started with this house is busted. Don’t you think that is eye catching, you know, like, for better or for worse, like that property drew a lot of attention. And whether or not you agree with using words like bussing or popping or or I forget, man, it was a whole paragraph like a whole six lines of just Gen Z speak. And it was like it was nothing about the property, not any of it. And like no part of that said, this was a three bed two bath house in this type of neighborhood and says that this house is buzzing, no lie, no cap you don’t like that draws attention. So of course that might not be bring on brand for you that might not be on brand for the seller. Always ask your seller for permission before you do something like that. But that the amount of likes views just on Zillow, that that property had blew everything else, all of its neighbors out of the water. So don’t be afraid to be different, is what I’m saying. Show a sense of humor, especially like when you’re reading a listing, when I’m reading a listing agent as a buyer’s agent, and it has a sense of humor. I already want to work with that listing agent. It maybe that’s just me, you know, like if this was a normal, very boring, very dry listing description, then I’m like, okay, cool. Just another, you know, another transaction, all right. But if it shows any sort of personality, or like, Wait, this agent is going to be pretty cool. And I already feel like I connect with them. I want to work with them even more. Okay, so then you want to send your off off market property email to your buyers, again, that’s very similar to that to the email before which says I’m about to meet with the seller. Do you want more information? I can’t really tell you too much yet. But if you do want more information on this, as soon as I can tell you more, email me the word V IPE My throat is going a little dry here. Okay, then you want to create the Canva order postcard, oh, this should be in bold because I don’t do this, this is my BA. So you want to create the the postcards to be sent out, I use t pmco. There are plenty of other ways to send postcards out, this is just one that I got used to it’s pretty good price, you can have a sample sent to your house. And it’s a way for you TPM co.com, by the way. So that’s you have to create a free login. And you can create either like a radius around your listing, or you can draw the area that you want to send to you you can have I think like as few as maybe like 30 properties you can mail to or as many as you want. And you so you just upload a front and back of the postcard that you can create on Canva. I don’t create anything on Canva. I don’t even know how to log in, I don’t want to log into Canva I have my VA do it. I say hey, use these photos, use these words, make it pretty. And that’s it, then send it to me for review. Then I upload it to TPM CO and we mail it. So I said eight mailers throughout every single transaction. One is Hey, did you know that Bob down the street is selling and then those I just keep them updated throughout the throughout the entire transaction. And I tell them Be on the lookout for my next mailer when we go under contract. Be on the lookout for my next mailer. After the appraisal after the inspections are done. Be on the lookout like congratulate like what they do. The appraisals was run perfectly Be on the lookout for my next mailer after the appraisal is done. And then of course the closing the follow up, you know you want to send her just have as much traffic as you can to your property. Then I do a video on Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, I also include LinkedIn and threads, and I pay my VA $1 per post to post on six different platforms every single day. He is a virtual assistant out in the Philippines. I found him on online jobs.ph. And so I pay him $1 per platform. So $6 a day, times 30 days in the month, I pay him about $250 a month and I am on every single platform that I can think of is ever Pinterest. And I personally do YouTube. And I’m always top of mind. So anyway, that’s just a little side rant there. So I make a video on I throw it on all these websites describing the off market house. If anyone wants a private viewing before it goes live, let me know. And of course, keep in mind you have to make sure that you’re staying, you’re cooperating with the clear cooperation rules, then call all of their neighbors and go on our real estate Bible. That’s again, that’s only for my my exp crew but the scripts give away to find out what they say. Ask for a free CMA for what their home is worth. These are different social media posts to have. And let’s see KB core, this is the listing presentation. We already did this. A week before it goes live, call the signs or just do it online, have your VA switch it from from coming soon to for sale. If you did coming soon. Then you want to call again, make sure that that clear report the insurance report if your state requires this, that your sellers are working on it if they need any help help them if they haven’t already have the sellers send a copy of all the paperwork that they signed. At this point. If you haven’t already, if you probably should have introduced your TC to the old parties of the all selling parties. And yeah, just introduce them. You want to make sure that they save your TCS information so that we know emails get lost and share phone numbers too. If your TC is okay with that input photos and listed on Facebook marketplace and then boost it. I don’t always do this I used to the quality of the leads are not incredible. So I stopped doing this. You can also do it on Craigslist Craigslist is hit or miss depending on what city you’re in. And then if the listing date is pushed back, which sometimes it happens, sometimes the sellers aren’t ready yet they haven’t cleaned they haven’t. You know whatever it is, tell the tell, make sure that you you have that reflected with your videos. So for example, over here I have tell my lender to postpone the listing of the week video. Again to make sure that we’re staying in like you’re clear cooperation. But any any content that you want to make sure that you’re posting at an appropriate time. You want to make sure that your videographer makes the video and edits it with your at your with your with The Properties address your phone number, your logo, and upload the link to your YouTube. I am bullish on YouTube, I started heavy on my YouTube channel, Ali the agent or why EXP and that is what I’ve been hitting hard. I’m very very big on on YouTube because even though I had close to 70 transactions more like 68 transactions, my first two and a half years in the business, all through social media, well 94% of my business was through social media, I would have doubled those transactions had I focus on YouTube instead. Now, I can’t you know, I can’t really kick myself too much. I did pretty well. I made more money than I ever thought I would this this fast. But I you know, I whatever I can only do I can only control what I can control. I can’t control the past. So now I’m heavy on on YouTube. If you want to talk about YouTube, let me know. I’m all about right now. Okay, tell your TC, the super box info. Especially there’s a CBS code. And so tell them which serial number of your of your super box that you have for which property, the CBS code what is etc. Let them know that the showing time as well. So that way they can up update what dates are good still, what dates are not good for viewings, and have them double check the county parcel info or the lot info because sometimes it will be wrong, you don’t want to get a fine. And if you haven’t already get the TOS sets of keys from the seller want to keep in the Super box and want to put in a contractor lockbox, just one of those that you buy from Home Depot. Again, it’s just in the rarity that an agent you know, hasn’t updated their their Supra app on their phone and they are a legitimate agent and you verified it just in case you know all that fails, then you can say okay, this is the this is the lockbox code, and then they can show the property. So, if the house is vacant, or if it will be vacant during the inspection period, then tell the TC and you can that way the TC can just schedule the vendors whenever they want. If the house is not vacant, you want an end say like the well either way, whether the sellers work from home or if they go to the office, you they need to know when the inspections are. So you want to make sure that the TC doesn’t just automatically schedule listings or, or listings that they don’t automatically don’t just schedule inspections. So you want to make sure that they are that they’re good with that time. And the sellers, the sellers homework on helping advertise. Again, I give all of my sellers homework every single step of the way. But because this is a group effort, I’m not working for you, you’re not working for me we’re working together. So submit the photos, the description onto the onto the following Facebook pages that I cannot post on or they’ll delete it. The Davis you know any sort of local Facebook groups this is only gonna apply to Tucson so local Facebook family groups, spouses groups, knitting groups, soccer groups, everything and anything that they are a part of church groups, whatever, bowling, whatever it is how the posted everywhere, because if it were to come from an agent, you are going to be probably reported booted from the group. You don’t want to do that. But the sellers have a lot of leeway. So have them work with you there. And 24 hours before going live send that email with a subject line forward to a friend. This is not something that I came up with on my own this is from Tom Ferry, the subject line is going to be thorough to a friend. Now the in the body of this email it’s going to say we’re about to list a property in the next 24 hours that I believe will sell in two weeks. The home is located in Tanka verta Arizona, and will be listed for $500,000 forward this email to a friend who you know is in the market but hasn’t found a home yet. My personal cell is 914-318-4918 Yes, it is my my actual personal cell. They can call me directly and I can give them the details before it hits the market. Sincerely Aligarh said PS if I don’t pick up leave a voicemail or text me This is huge because it already starts that advertising for you. And it’s you’re telling them there’s there’s the CTA or the call to action in the subject line. Oh, I’m supposed to forward this message. I’m supposed to forward this email to a friend. Now this next section here I’m not going to cover because it’s very very specific to southern Arizona MLS only and it’s only to be done if you are doing the paperwork which I do not suggest you do the paperwork very different from me saying you shouldn’t know the paperwork You should know the paperwork, the contracts like the back of your hand, which by the way, which side is the back of your hand, I like never really knew that. But either way, know that know the contract that pays you money. Doing the contract does not actually pay you money, someone else can do that for cheaper and faster, with fewer errors. So I’m going to skip this. If you don’t have a TC, if you’re with exp go on exp workplace and look up. transaction coordinator Vegas, you’re going to find a lot interview them, also know that they are interviewing you, you want to make sure that you are a good fit, they do not just work for you do not treat them like they are just like they they’ll just wake up at, you know, at midnight to write an offer for you respect them. Otherwise, they will drop you they don’t need to work with you. Okay, the next section of the checklist for sellers one week before going live. So some of this is like not just completely in chronological order, but you get the point. So give the transaction coordinator, the property description, the showing instructions, we’ve already done this, the HOA information and ask the seller for the complete list of all dates and times over the next three months, where they will not be able to drive back to the house to let the dogs out the dates and times where the house will not be clean, say Thanksgiving dinner, that they do not want buyers in the house. That’s you’re going to tell the TC to mark to mark or block off on showing time. And then you’re going to send the seller emails, which I haven’t even gotten to yet but I’m going to end this video here. So stick around, I’m going to show you my canned emails that I send every single time. And the last section here is take a screenshot of the Zestimate the Zillow Zestimate before your listing goes live. And then you’re going to take another I’m giving you a little bit of a What is it foreshadow into the future? Take another screenshot of your listing after it’s sold. And of all the properties after you sell the house. And you tell them hey, this is how much your property increased after my listing on 4712. North palisade drive and Tucson sold. So this is why you do this before and you do it after that where you can start those conversations. Oh my gosh, this ally, the agent person increased my home value by $13,000. Maybe when we sell oh wait Barbara needs to sell? Maybe she needs Sally’s information. Yes, she does need Ali’s information. Okay, next section here is live on the market. Once you’re live, well obviously the first checklist item there is live. And again, I hope you’re watching this on YouTube. If this has been helpful so far, text me for the word checklist or text me the word checklist for the checklist. Text checklists 25203412552 If you’re enjoying this, give this episode a five star review. You can do it right now while listening to it it is for free guys. Did you know that that to leave a review it is free 99. And if you’re watching this on YouTube, give us a thumbs up. I super, super appreciate it comment below whether you want more of a specific topic within these checklists, or if it’s helped, I want to hear from you. Okay, carry on. So as soon as you’re live in the market, please ensure that you go on Sky slope, this is going to be exp specific. So just make sure that you’re following your rules for paperwork. And this is where it’s important to make sure that you’re also overseeing the TC. So you want to make sure especially with exp that your your transactions need to be uploaded into sky slope within 48 hours in order to become in compliance with Arizona Department of Real Estate. Don’t get in trouble. And then give the property tours, the property videos, tour etc. To the TC have them upload it to get ready to go live on the market. If you haven’t already done that, the Facebook marketplace any other Facebook, local Facebook pages, they are money guys, if you’re not on them, get on them right now. Join as many as you can. And make sure you read the rules. If for some reason you’re not finding any good groups create your own. Now that’s a whole beast and a half. Actually on my podcast, the aging Goldmine, we interviewed someone who has like 15,000 people in their Facebook marketplace, or the Facebook group. And that’s how they get all of their leads is just their Facebook group now and it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work to get people to respond and you have to do polls and like check in and constantly post. But if you don’t want to do that, then just write on other people’s Facebook pages but also make sure you abide by the rules or you’re getting kicked out and that will be the last listen you’ve ever posted on there. So put the just listed email send that out. We already did that that forward to a friend email remember, send out the open house email and along with the postcards to the neighbor’s door knock, invite them to the neighbor only, I do the neighbor only open house just 30 minutes before the actual open house starts sometimes an hour depending on the type of neighborhood that we’re at, if I think that they’re going to take their time, and really snooped around or really just want to talk for a long time, then I’m going to have that neighbors only for an hour. If I think that they’re that the neighborhood is little bit more hustle and bustle, they want to get in and out, they want to see, you know, what’s the condition of the property. Okay, that’s it, that’s all I want to know goodbye, then I’ll probably just do 30 minutes. The importance of that is because sometimes you never know what type of neighbors are going to come into your open house. So if you have the open house at just one time, the neighbors are gonna come in whenever they want, right, because that’s not the neighborhood only exclusive, you know, neighborhood VIP preview, that’s just for them. You don’t know the exact relationship that your sellers had with that neighbor. And you’re inviting everyone, right? Unless your neighbor unless your seller says, Hey, invite everyone, but you know, but Nancy across the street and never got along with her that I’m sure that’s happened to you guys before or at least happen to me like, hey, you know, because I’ve asked them, Is there anybody that for some reason, would not talk highly about your house? Because guess what, I’m not gonna go door knock that house. I, the last thing I want to do is invite that person to the house and have them crap talk my listing, and have them say, Oh, well, the sellers, you know, bash the sellers bash the property. That’s not what I want. And I think that’s a great reason why to have the neighbors only first to get their gossip out. And then we can shoot them along, say, thank you so much for coming. Now, I do want to follow up. But I want to make sure that the public has access to this house now. So they are able to view it with fresh eyes. And I’ll see you on the next one hearing it whatever it is. So because I think it’s even worse to have an open house and then have like that one neighbor that stays for the whole three hours, because I know that you’ve had this happen, or at least I’ve had this happen. And they’re just, they’re just oversee everything, you know, they want to know who’s coming in, because I want to make sure that I you know, I choose the neighbor, it can get very open houses, they’re a lot of fun. Are they okay? After every agent that views the home at Oh, ask them for feedback. So ask them what the what the buyers liked what they didn’t like. And what I’m looking for here is is stuff that that can be changed, hey, the you know, the plants out front are just too much, let’s move some of them to the backyard. Let’s move some of this over there. Or it actually smelled you know, hear which you should be able to tell unless you don’t have a sense of smell like me. You know, anything that the sellers need to know, it’s also really good to get that feedback. Because at that point, you’re getting more and more feedback that usually says the same thing. What do you think of the price? And if a lot of people are like, Oh, it’s a great price, then that’s excellent. But if a lot of people if you’re consistently saying that the that the buyer’s agent thought that the buyers thought it was way out of, you know, way too high, then that’s something that you can take back to your seller and say, hey, the the market has spoken. Four out of the six people that have viewed the house all thought that the property was listed too high. And at that point, you can have a price adjustment. It’s important to get that feedback and keep it in a spreadsheet, you can keep it in this Trello checklist put at the very, very top in the description. Okay, and then every single day send a bom bom text to the seller. And well. Okay, this is I used to have every single day back when homes were flying, right like COVID. But now that homes are maybe taking weeks, some depending on what area of the country you’re in, might even be taking months to sell. Maybe every single day, it’d be a little bit too much. Either way, you want to make sure that the seller knows how often you’re going to be communicating with them. So if you if you told them you’d be sending them an update every single week, do it put on your calendar for you know, Fridays at 9am to let them know what the recap was. How many people showed the property you know this week? Brett there were 14 people that viewed the views of house eight people left you know reviews or left feedback saying that and a majority that feedback said this one person said that we had you know XYZ amount of showings and and this is a great way for you to do the research every single week right before you send this bom bom saying there were two other listings that came up on the in our zip code or in our neighborhood and or this one house sold essentially what what went under contract, what sold what’s fresh in the market, essentially what’s our new competition, you always want to let them know. So I think something that’s really bad is when the sellers are the ones that are telling the agents Hey, have you seen this property? If that is, if you ever have attacks, you are so behind on it like you’re behind. And if you cannot handle that, then that is such an easy thing to outsource to somebody else. So hire a transaction coordinator, or I’m sorry, hire a virtual assistant. Or maybe even pay your transaction coordinator a little bit more to do that for you. Everything in life is negotiable. Man, everything, okay? Add a copy of the Supra of the key to the super box. This should be up for there. But you get the point. We’ve already done that before. If it’s been if the property’s been on the market for too long. Then at that point, with all of the feedback showing that you have proof, it’s not just you coming out of the woodwork all Boolean all willy nilly saying, Hey, we let’s come down on price. You can say, hey, out of the 3560 days that we’ve been on the market, we’ve had 14 showings or we’ve had 25 showings and out of those 25 75% of the buyers thought that the property was purchased was listed too high. I think it’s time to make an adjustment because the market has spoken. I suggest that we adjust the property the price to XYZ. Take a look that information below and let me know your thoughts. This should not be a text, any single piece of roadway good information or really, really bad information, Do not text that as a phone call. And that’s coming from me. I don’t answer phone calls. I don’t do phone calls. But you need to make sure that you are on the phone with them to be able to leave that phone call on the level that you want them to be. If you were to get this as a text, and you’re the seller, how would you think immediately you’re thinking, Oh, it’s it’s game on let’s we’re fighting, you know, like, you never want to leave something as big as this or the appraisal to a text. Guys. Call call call call. And I never thought I would say that slightly feel like a boomer but for that important stuff, you need to make sure that you’re that you’re calling them. Okay, once I have the photos of the listing, add them to the AEC Marketing Center, this should have already been up there. Um, you know what, I have a feeling as I have shared these checklists, I think some of this has been rearranged. So I’m now going to be sharing these checklists as a PDF, not as a seller, not as a Trello link. This was an order. It’s not an order now. I think maybe I took I was naive thinking that everyone knew how to use Trello and stuff is being rearranged. Okay. Open the super lockbox to make sure that it’s posted on the site and the front door, the side of the house that should have been done already. mailers, I mail 30, around 30 homes. So you can which is very, very small compared to a lot of people who get a lot of listings from mailers, you know, they send 100 300 500 I send 30 I sent 10 houses to the left that house to the right 10 You know, north south east west. And I say I have a QR code that is linked to a bom bom video, I use bom bom because I can track the how many people opened it, the percentage of people that watched it. And this is what I say, Hey there, it’s Aligarh said if you’re receiving this, that means that you are a neighbor of the listing that I currently have at 4712 North palisade drive, and they wanted to take advantage of this market, they wanted to sell at what they think might be the highest. And it’s a three bed two bath house, in case you don’t already know, it’s about 1500 square feet. If that sounds similar to yours, and you’d like to see how it goes. Follow along, I’m going to be keeping you posted throughout the way. If you happen to know of anyone that would be interested in purchasing the house. Like if you know if your Uncle Joe wants to move to the neighborhood. Hahaha, you know, let’s let’s discuss it, give me a call. My phone number is 914-318-4918 I’d love to talk to you. And that’s it. That’s it and I took one minute max. Keep it short. Keep it simple. Introduce yourself, add your personality. People are not going to call somebody that seems extraordinarily boring unless maybe they will. They’re boring too. That’s a match made in heaven. Either way, add your personality, everyone’s personality is different. And there’s an agent for everyone. There’s a client for everyone. Okay, and I’m sure that you’ve know you know this by now seven times is the magic number. Well, I’ve heard between seven and 14 times is the number for people to even remember who you are let alone list with you. So make sure that that you are getting in front of people and getting in front of people doesn’t always have to cost money guys, you don’t have to do postcards. I’m I’m not the biggest fan of postcards. Again, it’s because I haven’t stuck with it long enough. Anything that you stick with long enough will work but it the more that you do open houses and you’re to put 30 signs out all in a row with all you know your your face on every single one, people are going to see that if you send mailers people are going to see that with your face on it. If you drop off just you know your business card or that Zillow Zestimate saying, Hey, I think, you know, this is what Zillow thinks your property is worth. I love to hear your thoughts because I have my own call me. And you have your little, you know, photo on there. The more times you get in front of people, the more actually that people will think that they already know you. So, yeah, that’s, that’s it, okay. If the house is on the market for the average, or like or more than average days on market, then go to your seller and say the good news is that we now know what the buyers think your home is worth. This is something that we didn’t know when we listed your property because we didn’t have that information available at the time. And now we know what the buyers think your home is worth. And talk about the price adjustment, copy and paste the URL that goes to your single property squeeze page that you created. post is a post this again, this is a duplicate this, and this is bolded. So this is something that you don’t have to do your VA can log into your Facebook, and post that listing on on everywhere that they can give the sellers a squeeze link, this is a repeat. Okay. Oh, man, I’m glad that I have a duplicate of this that’s just on my own personal off to the side here. Okay. Marketing the property, tell the title company, go on business.google.com. Again, back to your business page. It is so so important. So add, I would schedule it to add one photo of each of your listings every single week, you always want to keep your your Google business page active. So don’t dump in all 40 photos all at once, dump in one, maybe two a week, schedule it out, put it on your calendar, put it on your BAS calendar, say hey, VA, I want one photo, the kitchen and you know, or just this is the link to all of the photos. These are the photos that I actually want up there. Can you post one every Monday and one every Thursday. And until until it’s depleted. Create a single property squeeze page we’ve we’ve been over this but this goes to a specific KV core, a good a good YouTube that I found on how to do it with kB core. And then create a video on YouTube shorts, depending on what you think about about shorts, but I love YouTube. I’m bullish on YouTube, like I’ve already said, so put your listing on YouTube, and partner with your partner with anybody if you have a good lender partner, or if you have a good title partner or attorney partner, you you can get in front of their audience who also works with buyer agents. And you can have them do a listing of the week. Or you can just do it on your own, send it to all of your buyers and send it to all the buyers in your office. If you have a crew send it to all of their buyers and say, Hey, this is the Deal of the Week. Why is it a deal with a week? Well, if you house hack this property, you could probably save you know, $200 a month, you could probably make $20 a month if you rented out these bedrooms, whatever it is just you know, put the property out there I love if you can’t tell already. I love digital social advertisement as opposed to paper. Okay, creating a video to run as a YouTube ad. This isn’t mandatory, but it is a way to put your property in front of masses. So I do have I found a couple of videos that it that where you can put your listing as a YouTube ad get in front of more people. And that also helps when it comes to your future listing presentations as well. Because because you can say hey, for my platinum package, we also run your property as a YouTube ad. These are our previous stats we’ve had, you know 14,000 People see this one video. So we got in front of 14,000 potential buyers. That’s a way to make yourself stand out because not many agents are doing YouTube ads. They might be throwing it on YouTube, but are they putting money behind it? Maybe maybe not. Okay then sellers homework to helping you advertise this is a duplicate we’ve already got over this. Okay. Next tele sellers This is again a duplicate Wait, this looks a little bit different here. Okay, the contractor This is backtracking this should be earlier but if they need assistance with anything if they want to fix you know, the you know, whatever it is you have connections if you don’t ask around and make sure that you befriend these connections because you’re going to need them a good contractor reliable contractor or plumber, insurance come person everything and then you’re going to mail out all of the Zestimates of the neighboring homes. Remember what the the list of 100 200 neighbors that your VA or you got a lot and you took a screenshot of those estimates now that your property is on the market you can you can use this as a way to Dornoch with something in your hand saying hey just wanted to show you that this is what Zillow thought your property is worth. I have my own thoughts but I’d love to hear yours you can just drop it off or you can actually snail mail it whatever you want to do have a call to action call me open house of course get their permission we’ve we’ve already covered open houses quite a bit so I’m going to skim through this portion. Decide on what dates and times work best make sure that it’s advertised create brochures ask your title company because our title company here I mean they’re great they have branded small water bottles with my photo with my name with my number on it. And then on the other side is their logo their photo their number and they pay for it they pay for little like you know personalized bags of what is called Oh cookies, yeah, they a little cookies. They could do the the brochure they can they can help with advertisement do not think that you are alone in paying for all of these advertising costs. There are lenders that you can partner with their title companies that you can partner with their insurance companies that you can partner with. And they will help you especially at this time, everyone needs to rely on each other even more, it’s no longer you know 2020 2021 Where houses are flying off the shelf. So use that partnership to grow together Introduce yourself doing a bom bom video, introduce yourself to the neighbors send out those send out those mailers and the day of the open house by or maybe the day before by some large balloons get put out your 20 At a minimum 20 signs making it very obvious for people will say that like don’t pay attention when driving on the road. Make sure nobody gets lost make sure everyone knows it’s so obvious where to go when to turn left when to turn right when it turned around when they’ve gone too far. So place your 30 signs out. Put the balloons up by Champagne, maybe you know however you feel about alcohol put out the branded information put out your branded pens, the sign in sheet whether you want to do that paper or digital I liked digital but I found that people weren’t too comfortable putting it digital or war they were putting in wrong information. So I just went back to good ol ink and paper pen and paper. Okay, five days before the open house you want to make sure that you’re telling the sellers to clean up giving them any last minute to dues if you want to do a face to face time say hey just want to make sure like if if you’re comfortable with it if you want to have a double but just verify that the house is in good shape let’s let’s do a FaceTime whenever you’re ready so that way I don’t drive across town or you know our agent here doesn’t drive across town sees the property and realizes no no this property is not ready for an open house. Okay and then I that’s when I hook up with my seller or seller with my cleaner if they need cleaning if they want to pay for cleaning then hey this is this is my my girl she’s a great cleaner and you can coordinate where I usually coordinate because she speaks only Spanish so extra credit print off all of the Coming Soon listings and the pocket listings that you know of plus any other properties that builders or developers are creating put it in a big big like three ring binder and with a title saying like off market do not show the public and don’t open that folder. It’s all it’s all about what what it looks like right like appearances are everything and we used to do this a lot as like federal agents for better or for worse, right i mean cops is all time they’ll come to a subject interview Victor, not victim, but Senator to interview, they’ll bring their B folders and it’s you know, saying Oh, pretty much giving them the psychological thought in their mind that oh my gosh, they must have a lot of evidence on me. I’m screwed. You know, like I’m caught I might as well tell the truth. But instead it’s just paperwork that we’ve had on the floor it’s just whatever we thought hey, who has a folder who has a folder good put it all together boom put on the market or put on the market put it on the on the table. But this shows your value Hey because you do have access to builders you do have access to to you know the built the developers you have access to off markets you have access to coming soon and that that’s a good way to pick up buyer clients from that. During the open house pace a place a pad of paper and pen to sign in or electronic already covered this portion. For clients with realtors with them just ask them to sign in just for because the sellers usually want that and then ask if they’d like the tour or just come back if they have any questions. For clients without a realtor, some people go very, very aggressive. Some people are very, very standoffish or not standoffish, but like, Hey, do you do your own thing? It’s whatever way you feel comfortable with. Some people are like, Oh, you are working with an agent. They step outside. They’re like, oh, where’s your agent? Then? Are they too busy? That I think that’s very aggressive. Some people are like, okay, cool. Well, then walk around, you’ve seen a house before. If you want the tour, I’m more than happy to give it to you. Otherwise, I’ll be here. I am going to ask you a couple of questions that will when you get back if that’s okay. And they’re usually like, okay, cool. So what questions do you ask them? When they come back? Say, Hey, what did you What did you enjoy about the property? I’m looking to give as much feedback to the seller as possible? And then what did you not enjoy? Like, don’t worry, and this is always what I say there. They’d never want to offend the seller, right? They’re always like, Oh, well, I’ll only say this this little bit, but I’m not going to tell him the truth. And that’s what I say, Hey, if you can be as brutally honest, they don’t know who you are. And I’m not going to tell them who you are. Don’t worry. And they’re like, oh, okay, cool. Well, I thought that the, you know, whatever it is, I thought that XYZ could be improved. Perfect. That’s really you can take that to your seller, and maybe fix that, or work on that or just keep that in mind. For if offers come through. That’s probably gonna show in the offer, okay. Then you’re going to add all the names, numbers, emails to your Cavey core of everyone that showed up that same day, you’re going to send them a bom bom or if you don’t have bom, bom. Just send them a regular text video of you video is important. The key word is video of your face saying, Hey, Bob, it’s Emily gar said we just met a couple of hours ago at the open house here. It’s the warmth of the pool in the backyard. I just want to say thank you so much for coming by the open house. If you have any other properties that you’d like to look at, I’m more than happy to show you. I actually have available tomorrow all day. So if you’d like to view any properties, let me know and I’m here for it. So, men, you want to give the debrief to the seller, given the numbers and leave them with either a feel good or maybe not maybe it’s not a feel good maybe the sellers need to know that XYZ needs to be fixed. So it might not be feel good again, they need to hear the bad, the good, the bad, the ugly everything they are they hired you to give them advice. So do not give them just what you think they want to hear which is feel good. That is not why they hired you. Okay, next is any new clients that you have follow up any of the agents that you met follow up saying it was great to meet with them because of course, you don’t want to be a butthead to any agents that you potentially might be working with. You might be working with them on that property or in the future. So always be nice. This is something that sometimes is so hard for agents and and I don’t want to call anybody out but man some there are some age groups that are very, very not nice. So and of course if you’re looking to recruit this is a perfect opportunity to be like, Oh man, this agent was killer. If you’re looking to expand your brokerage that’s perfect. Don’t ever be rude. Okay, go on na r dot realtor slash safety. For safety tips when doing open houses. Be very aware if you would prefer to do a buddy up you know, buddy system for open houses, a lot of our agents in our crew do that and they kind of just like one off like split the leads that come in, or work them together. 5050 And then you want to ask for referrals. So do they know if anyone else has been on the market that’s looking to sell right now? Do you know of anyone moving to any state at all? I can help them if I know of someone that that’s a good agent in that city. And then of course, if they’re usually gonna say, oh, no, not at this time. That’s when you can go one step further. Oh, okay. You don’t do not know anyone that has recently had a job promotion? Or maybe like, what about having a baby? Or maybe like a couple whose kids went to college already? They’re looking to downsize? Okay, still no? Okay. Well, I would love to if you could keep me in mind. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to be following back up in like about a month if that’s okay. Or whatever it is. Just be yourself. And then this is the last segment before I’ll cut it because I didn’t realize I had been babbling for 62 minutes. Here we go. If the property has been sitting on the market, remember if the house isn’t selling the price is not compelling. So let’s talk adjusting the price. If the house has been on the market for two weeks or dipped again depends on the on the days on market, the average ask the Ask the seller in case you haven’t already, what price are you no longer seller because say they only wanted to sell if they can get for 75 but they want to list that 500 But they you know at 450 They would rather just rent you you’re gonna want to have that conversation again. Because maybe it is the case where you do just have to cancel they would rather just rent the property and then you get your $3,000 cancellation fee and you wish them the best you connect them to a couple of good property managers if you know of any. If you know of any in Tucson, please message me at the agent on social media, and then yeah, okay so then the last segment here is going to say if again this is again if the property has been sitting on the market make sure you you do your weekly update updates to the seller you know what the days on market are week after week. If this is too much for you have a fellow agent do it have a VA do it for you. And say the market has spoken typically when there are buyers that walk through the property, but I’ve placed no offers. That means that the pricing is off. And sometimes it’s off between two to 5%. And if the house is listed, and there are no viewings, or no no showings and no offers, that means that their pricing is off by more than 5%. Luckily, we’ve had viewers that walked the properties but no offers. So let me ask you, would you like to lower it to two or five by two or 5%. And of course that’s after you’ve run the numbers to a more appropriate price. That’s going to be it for today. On the next video I’m going to finish the checklist as well as show you the canned emails. I never think of what to say in email. It’s the same email one through six every single time. Do not recreate the wheel. We agents do enough of that in their business. If you have any questions hit me up on Instagram. I’m Ally the agent al i. If you want a copy of the checklist, let’s meet over Zoom Text the word checklist to 520-341-2552 If you enjoyed this video, give this video like comment below and give DJ and keeping it real a five star review on Apple and Spotify in order to get the checklist. We’ll see you on the next one.

Welcome to the October episode of Learn with a Lender with Joel Schaub of Guaranteed Rate! In this episode Joel discusses the changes happening in the lending world and also shares strategies for listing agents to get the most out of the changes in the loan limits. Next, Joel discusses why this is a great time to buy. Joel also shares his thoughts about the upcoming market. Sign for Joel’s newspaper by sending an email at joel@rate.com writing “newsletter” in the subject line. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Joel can be reached at joel@rate.com and 773.654.2049. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Did you know there have been changes to the loan limits for jumbo loans versus conventional loans? Or we’re going to talk about that today and show you some creative solutions to get around high interest rate environments. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris, I’m your guide and host through the show today, once again, is our monthly series learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now, Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. And he’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. And he got to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is that he gives back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction. So last year alone, Joe gave back over $300,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with them. And that puts Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of loan officers nationwide. fact there’s 400,000 loan officers in the country and Joel is currently ranked number 137. Even in this down market. Joel has closed transactions this year for 102 million. So if you are looking for a loan officer, we cannot more highly recommend Jolie’s the very best we’ve ever worked with Joel can be reached at joel@rate.com. Again, Joel at jll@rate.com. You can also shoot him a text message or call him at 773-654-2049. Let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel sharp. Welcome back. Joel Schaub 2:55Hey, thanks so much for having me on. We have so many things going on in the market right now. These are usually my favorite time of month getting on here. Giving back and talking about things that really can help agents grow their business. D.J. Paris 3:10Yeah, thanks. We love having you. And even when you are either in your office or working Mobley you always make time for our show. And we absolutely appreciate that. So yeah, let’s talk about some changes that have been happening in the lending world. I’ve been hearing a lot about loan limits that have changed. Um, can you shed us some light to our audience of what is that and what do agents need to understand about it? Joel Schaub 3:40Yes, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve been seeing multiple posts from everybody talking about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan limits have gone up, instead of just talking about it. How does that help me as an agent what was not able to get a loan above the new limits before? Right? So the numbers, if you haven’t heard are up to $766,550 a mouthful, right? So the bottom line for this is that you’ve always been able DJ to get loans above it before but they were considered jumbo mortgages, right? So if you’re in the jumbo category, they were with higher interest rates, they were with more downpayment and typically a lot harder to get underwritten and approved. So now, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have said that loan amounts that go up to 766 550 now fall under their category, which means a lot more advantages for first time homebuyers, for example. So D.J. Paris 4:44now we’re we’re what used to be classified as possibly jumbo is could potentially be non jumbo at this moment. Joel Schaub 4:54And so think of it last year if you were buying an $800,000 home you couldn’t put down On 5%, if you were buying an $800,000 home, you are well over that number, that 5% down would have put you into a jumbo category. Well, now you’d go out and buy an $800,000. Home with $40,000 down. And now the loan amount there of 760 falls under the jumbo limit. So there’s some big advantages for first time buyers here. And that’s why I always like to, like get into the weeds with this, it’s not so much seeing the data and hearing the numbers. But if I’m an agent, how do I go out and market to my database right now to get one more buyer or one more seller. So think of this right? A lot of times, you’re right on the cusp of pricing a property, right, we’d ever want to price ourselves into a jumbo loan, if you can, right meaning now knowing that first time homebuyers can bind with 5% down in most of the Fannie Mae conforming limits. Think of that as a strategy in terms of how you would price the home, maybe you wouldn’t price it at 825, maybe price it down at 805. Knowing that a first time homebuyer would qualify. And that’s where they will be setting their limits themselves. D.J. Paris 6:14That’s an interesting strategy. So actually listing agents may want to consider if they have a home that is within these sort of like, if they have a home that’s 800,000 or above, this would be a great thing to consider when pricing. Joel Schaub 6:32Yeah, take it to the next step, what would have put somebody out of jumbo before, okay, so the jumbo limit last year was 726,000. That means if you had a listing that was over 907, everybody was 20%, Down, Right? You had to otherwise, you were in a jumbo without 20% down, and I won’t get into how that would really affect the rates being higher and mortgage insurance. But now that $907,000 listing is easily under the 766 number. So taking a little bit of time doing the math to see where you should price your homes. And then knowing this gives you a lot of talking points when you’re out getting a new listing or helping a buyer. Yeah, D.J. Paris 7:18you know, I’m thinking as, as what an agent might want to consider talking to their buyers about is maybe now is a good time to buy because number one, a lot less competition, a lot less buyers are flooding the market. So prices are relatively stable at this point. We know when there’s lots of buyers that flood the market, of course, supply and demand the pricing goes up. So what you can always do is possibly refinance your rate, but you can’t refinance. You know what you spent, what you bought the property for. So this may be a good time. So what you know, but at the on the other side of it is the public goes but rates are at seven plus or you know, maybe even higher. And yes, money is a little more expensive to borrow at this time. But with a lot less competition, you’re not going to be likely to overpay. And so to me, I think this end with these loan limit increases as well. This is what I would be educating buyers on if I was an agent working today I’d be talking about I know it seems like it’s not the right time, because everyone else wants a three to 4% You know, loan but those days those days have passed. And the good news is less competition and probably lower pricing. Joel Schaub 8:37I think you’re exactly right DJ with the rates this year. It’s been sixes sevens and even eights as of this month and buyers are still calling 80 to 100 a month, I’m actually overwhelmed by the number of people, especially where I live in Chicago, that the rents DJ are just so much where they’re still looking to buy even though the rates are high. D.J. Paris 9:02Yeah, and again, just remember to guys competition, right? We want to talk to our buyers about competition and when we have lots of buyers flooding the market, we know that influences prices, and you know your job as an agent is your fiduciary. So you are to do what is best for the client’s financial interests. So having these conversations with buyers about Yes, it’s a slightly more expensive time to borrow than it was in previous years. But I would much rather borrow at a higher rate for temporarily for to get a lower price on the home I want to I want to buy so we’ve seen you know prices are stable right now. So now’s the time to get the buyers off the fence and can you know encourage them to consider not waiting for those rates to come down. Joel Schaub 9:51You know I had an agent the other day asked me so they know what I do in terms of even in this down market doing $10 million a month and They say I want to get to $10 million a year. Howard, how is it possible that you’re doing it? So I shared one of the two, one rate buydown techniques that I talked to a lot of buyers about. And when there’s no competition out there when you’re actually submitting an offer, because rates are high, and you can ask the seller to fund a to one buy down, I like to tell them that, if you don’t ask, you’re not going to get all right. So if you’re not familiar with a way to do it, if you’re an agent, connect with your lender, ask them do you facilitate to one by downs, almost every lending partner out there, we’ll do this for you. And on a $400,000 loan, just asking the seller to give a 10 to $12,000 credit DJ will lower that client’s payment by almost $500 a month. Versus if they were just getting 10 to 12 grand off the price barely changes their payment by $88. Wow, writing. Yeah. D.J. Paris 11:01So this is a great a great option for sellers to even consider as maybe putting that in as part of their offering. Without waiting to have it as for say I am willing to work with you on your loan. And if a if a buyer down would make sense to get this deal closed, we will do it. And so it really becomes I think a marketing tool for both sides, obviously at the buy side, but it’s also something that listing agents should be aware of. So they could consider if that would make some of these these offers more attractive. Joel Schaub 11:37Instead of doing a price reduction, right, a $10,000 price reduction is probably not going to move the needle and we certainly don’t want to do a $25,000 price reduction on a four or $500,000 home. Therefore, if we could just give up 10 to 12 grand in price, and give it to the buyer that’s gonna make that buyer in that price point, make that home look so much better than the neighbor’s house, right? It’s about payment. For a lot of the first time homebuyers. Almost everyone asked me, not how much am I approved for but what are my payments if I buy this home? And so that’s the big deal if I’m a listing agent, and I know that it’s overpriced, and I don’t want to ask the seller and come back with that damn conversation about they can sign for another price reduction. How about we do a marketing blitz and show right now that with rates down there in the low 70s, I even today was able to lock in a 30 year fixed with the buy down where for the first year the rate was 4.99%. In year number two was 5.9. And then fixed for the 30 years, we were back to 6.99%. And that was all because the seller gave a 3% credit to our buyer. So we use that to drive the rate down and then use a two one buy down strategy to further give the client savings. D.J. Paris 12:59And these are the kinds of strategies that really do separate the top agents from the rest that agents who are willing to understand there are these creative solutions that 99% of agents aren’t that familiar with that this is how you get to become a specialist. And this is where why we have these these episodes with Joel because he of course is. And he teaches all of you the same stuff. So you know, just as a quick plug for Joel, he’s been coming on our show for five plus years, providing incredible value to everyone. So please, if you don’t have a loan officer that is bringing you these kinds of ideas, reach out to Joel, he would love to chat with you about that as well. Joel, I would also love to talk about your sort of thoughts about the upcoming market. So we know it gets a little slow in the winter months. And of course, spring is not far away. So do you have any thoughts about what we might be thinking what we might be seeing? I know it’s no one’s got a crystal ball, but what what are your best thoughts for for this upcoming spring? Joel Schaub 14:06Well, I have a hot take, okay, this is it might not be what everybody’s expecting. But this is gonna be an earlier spring market than ever. Okay, rates really did just come down in the last two weeks. Okay. And by all indications, we’re probably about a 48% chance that the Fed cuts rates and QE number one, meaning buyers are going to be out there hot and heavy. They don’t want to miss out and it’s strange, but it’s true. There’s going to be multiple offers if the properties are priced right. And I’m not talking March, April, May, I’m talking January, the start of the new year we’re going to start seeing rates, they might be down into the mid sixes. And if we see that we’re going to have buyers coming out of the woodwork that say finally, rates are no longer in the eighth they’re not in the sevens I can easily get into the six says, and then still use a buy down strategy to get a rate maybe at four and a half or five and a half for the next two years. There’s gonna be a lot of activity early. And we’re going to look back on this episode saying to him, Joel, you were right. D.J. Paris 15:16You know, I still just think there’s so much opportunity right now to convince buyers are not convinced, of course, they should do what’s best for them, but to encourage them to really consider the implications of if the Fed did drop. If tomorrow if the Fed decides, you know what, early Christmas present for everybody, we’re going to drop 200 basis points, we’re going to drop 2% of the rate on a rate. Can you imagine what would flood the market as far as buyers? Everybody who is on the sidelines right now, would jump back in because of course, it’s such a huge event. And this would be really, it would be a good and a bad thing for buyers. It’s good because it gets them off the sidelines bad, because now they’re all competing with each other. Joel Schaub 16:00You’re exactly right. This is the we’re gonna see early, but I think towards the q4. So it’s gonna be this kind of like a camel shaped recovery next year, I think we’re gonna see it really shoot up in q1, when feds are talking about rates, summer is going to be a little bit slower, but the feds are going to cut again. And so when we get into the fall market, there’s going to be rates considerably lower multiple offers, getting back to the tougher situations as agents that you better be ready for. And so TJ is exactly right. Knowing that this is coming, like they’ve outlined to the feds are cutting rates, why wouldn’t we try to go out and buy now when there is less competition, because once we own the home, the client can refinance that loan, and get the better interest rate down the line. We should D.J. Paris 16:51also mention too, that these types of strategies, you know, this goes back to sort of the stock market ideas. Buying when a stock is undervalued or underperforming, doesn’t feel as encouraging at the time of purchase. If you are, you know, just getting into the stock market, or like oh my gosh, this company’s down, I want to buy them when they’re not doing well. Well, yeah. Because then when they when they rebound, of course, you’ll you’ll receive all the upside benefit. So you have to I think, as an agent, really think about how do I start conditioning my clients that even though that rate feels a little yucky at the moment, don’t worry, it’s yes, it feels yucky. But here’s why it’s still a really good idea. I think if if if agents can start having these conversations with some of these bullet points that you share every single month on our show, they would get more transactions right now, I am absolutely confident of that. Because everybody talks about the rate and rate rate rate rates are high. Yes, yes, we all know that. And here’s why it’s still a great time. And having those conversations is is really doing the right thing for your client. And it’s doing the best thing for them from a fiduciary perspective, making sure that they know what everyone else doesn’t that it’s actually a great time to consider borrowing right now, even though that rate is higher than anyone would like, of course, rates are always going to be higher than anyone would like Right. Of course, that’s always the case. But we know that the Fed has Joel said is outlining an opportunity in the next year or longer to decrease rates to a more palatable time. You don’t want to wait for that time. Because by the time that happens, everyone’s going to be in the market. Joel Schaub 18:28If we can afford the monthly payment with the higher rate, think what happens. Okay, so now we’re buying a piece of real estate today, when it’s uncomfortable, right? Let’s be clear, like rates in the low 70s. Even if you get them down into the six, that’s still a lot of uncomfortability for a lot of folks when rates were in the twos and threes during COVID. Okay, but stick with me here and think of like in my market of Chicago, it’s not crazy million dollar homes. My my average client, most of them hundreds a year are four or $500,000 homes. And if you bought a $400,000 home right now when nobody else was buying, because rates were in the sevens, and rates get down to five and a half, you better believe that $400,000 home is worth more buyers are going to start paying more for homes when rates go down. So why wouldn’t we go buy something now when rates are high, only if we can afford it, we don’t want to get in over our head. We don’t want to buy a piece of real estate and it’s going to cost us too much money. But if we can comfortably afford it, and we know that rates are coming down, you know your home is going to be worth more and then you’ll reap the benefit when you refinance the loan. D.J. Paris 19:42I love that it’s so true. And we’re gonna keep banging the drum on this because once rates do start to really come down, this is all going to be a lot more obvious. And so we want to try to get you in on on the ground floor so to speak, so that you can do not only do what’s right for your client, but also To begin to, you know, really show your value as an agent, right value as an agent, why are they paying you as much as they are to help them buy or sell a home? It’s because of ideas like this. So thank you, Joel, for that I also Joel, Joel is what a lot of people who listen who might not know this about about Joel and his team, is they are exceptional at client appreciation events. Really, Joel and his team, it’s the best I’ve ever seen in this industry, with the amount of giving back that Joel does it he and his team. And I’m just curious to know, because you are always so on top of this. You know, it’s the holiday season agents are probably thinking about what they may want to do for their their clients in it, whether or not it’s you know, something for this holiday season or the future. What might you suggest because you always have amazing ideas for your own clients. Joel Schaub 20:57Well, I’m already looking ahead. Unfortunately, the December months have been booked and planned since July, right. So right now, as of this taping, what we’re talking about, we just did it with my team this morning, Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day, all right, and sending sending gifts on these off days. So it’s not just the events that we do if you’re an agent, trying to come up with ways to touch your database on off days, like Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, I do Presidents Day, I do National Pizza Day, I do all of these little cute things. Because if it’s Christmas or New Year, you’re lumped into the mix, there’s so many gifts, I stopped doing birthday gifts as well, everyone gets a birthday gift. And I know that boo, you don’t send out birthday gifts, I don’t I want to stand out you as an agent want to stand out, no matter how good your gift is to a client. Something better, right? You’re gonna send but when they’re not expecting a gift, when they’re not expecting something boy, they say that that came from my realtor, that realtor sent me this gift. So I encourage you to think of these off days where you can send out small tokens of value where you look different. And I know DJ, you were talking about events. And I just went on the tangent because I was just doing you know, D.J. Paris 22:19I really I really meant all sorts of marketing appreciation that you do, which whether it’s events or product, or you know, gifts. And I really miss it was my Miss misspoke. But But yeah, so of events are obviously always great as well. I was thinking more about the the actual gifts. So you were you were saying you were saying what I didn’t say. So thank you for that. And yeah, so maybe not focusing so much on the December holidays. As much as it’s kind of like this, we do the same thing for our holiday parties. I don’t know, if guaranteed rate does the same thing as we stopped planning them for December because we’re like, Everyone’s so busy, nobody so hard. Like we’re we just do it in January now. And we do that because number one, it’s kind of fun to have a party in January when no one’s expecting to have a party. So Joel is basically saying the same idea whether you’re doing a client appreciation event, or just a gift, you know, find a fun, cute thing that is on an off day where people wouldn’t be expecting those kinds of things. Joel Schaub 23:24I had a I did a kind of a pipeline review with an agent today. And so this was an agent that is in the city of Chicago has a big database. And they do a lot of volume. And I looked to see who their preferred lender was. And I noticed that they were only capturing about 5% of their business. And so during the presentation, I was sharing with them that they did last year to the tune of about 310 deals, but their person, their their person that they were so loyal to only captured about 5% of the business. And I shared with them that they’re leaving money on the table because out of the last 15 transactions. There are 14 different mortgage lenders on that list. And I said whether you decide to partner with my team, and I showed him everything that we do, and I said this is worth money, literally there’s RESPA compliant ways that lenders would pay to be your preferred lender. And on that example, it was about $48,000 A year is what I shared that I’d be willing to step up in a heartbeat and write them a check for 48 grand a year to apply to RESPA compliant things like silho and their events. And it kind of blew them away. They I knew we were valuable. And I knew that my preferred lender that they liked it was a high school buddy and he’s like, I know about grown to them and I really did need to you know they connected with me. They wanted to hear what I was doing with other agents. And the reason I bring this up is if you are listening to this and you do a lot of business, connect with a lender. literally doesn’t, you want somebody that’s local that you really like that wants to spend money with you? Okay? And this is where all realtors they’re afraid to go ask but don’t lenders will step up DJ, how often do you hear me talk about this D.J. Paris 25:14every single time and I love that you’re you’re you banging the drum about this is hold lenders accountable for helping you grow your business, they want more of your transactions? Of course they do. And as a result that that is worth something and of course staying within RESPA and and you know whatever association rules apply making sure you’re doing it the right way. But making sure you’re not undervaluing your business as an agent. You know, if you’re doing however many deals a year, and on the buy side, think about how many different lenders did I work with? And on those those lenders? What did they do to help me further my business? And what are they doing currently to help me further my business? And did they send me any referrals, and you know what, and that now it’s time to start interviewing loan officers. Joel Schaub 26:04So if you’re listening here, and you’re doing over $20 million of annual production per year, reach out to me for sure, I’ll show you what you should be doing. And how you can go back to your lending partners there and say, there’s somebody else out of state that’s willing to do this for me, can we even come up with something close to it. And if you’re doing less than $20 million, reach out to me and get on my newsletter. This is where I share with you the simple tips, tricks, and things that will make you sound smarter. Make you have real talking points in digestible little bites. So it’s just an email to me, it’s joel@great.com JO el@rate.com. And in the subject line, you can write a newsletter. And then that’s it. There’s nothing you don’t need to write me three paragraphs unless you want to tell me how much you love us. But it’s easy to sign up for the newsletter, you can unsubscribe anytime, and it’ll be action packed with things that you can actually use to grow your business to the next level. D.J. Paris 27:08Yeah, I really echo that get on Joel’s mailing list every Wednesday or so they are sent a sends out this great, super easy to read and understand and actionable bullet points about here’s what’s going on in the market. Here’s as an agent, what you should be talking to your clients about. You don’t have to wait for Joel to come on these episodes, although we hope that you continue to listen to our show as well. But don’t wait even for this, you want to know weekly what’s going on. So get on his mailing list, send him an email joel@rate.com There’s 1000s of people on this on this email list. Now it’s grown hugely popular, and it’s a nice service that Joel provides for our listeners. So thank you, Joel. And also again, if your loan officer is just not really helping you do more production, or come up with creative solutions for your clients in this market. Now’s the time to again, find the really good loan officers and guess what Joel is one of them. So reach out to him and if he can’t assist you, He will give you some great ideas of where you could possibly go but he and guaranteed rate they’re licensed in all 50 states they can of course help you as well. So Joel up, everyone emailed Joel get on his mailing list joel@rate.com If you are, you know doing more than 20 million also say, hey, I want to do a review of my business with you and see what Joel can and his team can put together for you as well. So Joel, another wonderful episode, it’s our last episode of the year for learn with a lender. So Joel, thank you so much for another year of service to not only me personally, and my team, but also every single listener, we had the most number of downloads to date. In our entire history. This year, we were up about 30%. So we are super grateful because it’s people like you that come on and give us this valuable information that keeps people coming back. So thank you to our audience too. You guys are the greatest this may be the final episode of the year. So I would be remiss to say thank you to everyone who’s been with us, either whether you’re new or that you’ve been with us since the beginning but we appreciate you please tell a friend tell a friend and by the way if you know another agent that’s like that, you know, their their preferred loan officer isn’t doing a good job for them. Send them a link to this episode. You know, it would do them a service as well. And just keep keep the love going let other agents know about our show. But on the in the interest of wrapping up this year, we will say goodbye to Joel and hello to Joel in January for a whole new year of content. So thank you to Joel and his team at guaranteed rate again, email him joel@rate.com guys he’s really that good. And I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t believe it. It he really is and he’s earned my business so he should he has let them have the opportunity to earn your business. as well, Joel, I need to become your pitch, man, maybe we can, we can work out, I could start doing commercials for you, I’ll be the I’ll be as your biggest fan, I’ll be your pitch tomorrow big Joel Schaub 30:10fan and everyone that. Remember, like the sky is not falling rates have already come down. So take away with this next year. If you’re in this business now stay in the business. If you’re new to the business, stick with it, there is so much that you’re going to be able to do when other people leave. So keep positive, know that rates are coming down. And know that no matter where rates are at if you work your sphere, work, the people that you know, and then do a great job. This business is for you, you’re going to do great now D.J. Paris 30:43is that now’s the time really that the good agents do even better. So this is the time because they take market share away from the agents that are falling behind. Don’t let that happen to you. Keep listening to our show, reach out to Joel he will give you ideas about how to keep moving your business forward. And please keep coming back and listening. So Joel, on behalf of everyone. Thank you on behalf of Joel and myself to the audience. We love you. Thank you for a great year, and we will see everyone in 2024 Thanks Joel.

Welcome to our monthly feature Unpopular Real Estate Opinions with Chris Linsell. Chris Linsell talks about the current situation in the real estate market. Chris discusses mortgage rates and why this is an amazing time to buy a home. Next, Chris talks about AI and its impact on the real estate market, an agent’s job, and the commissions. Chris also discusses how agents can evaluate the level of service they offer and what they can do to improve. Last, Chris discusses the importance of building a portfolio of expertise. Please check Chris’ profile on LinkedIn. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00is AI coming for your job? Well, yes, but also No. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I am your guide and host through the show and today I’ll return to keeping it real as our one of our favorite people that has been with us almost since well, almost since the beginning of our show certainly has been with us for many years Chris Lynn cell and we actually have a new title for Chris’s episodes that he’s going to be coming on regularly with us used to be called closing time, we came up with a with a different and kind of a more fun title we both thought, which is called unpopular real estate opinions with Chris Lin Sal, let me let me actually tell you more about Chris, if you are new to the show, if you are a returning guest or sorry returning listener to our show, you probably already know this about Chris, but let me tell you more about him to everyone who is new. Crystal Ansel is a real estate technology analyst and director of content at large. He specializes in new solutions to old questions, constantly exploring the cutting edge of technology in the real estate space. And Chris also has many years of experience as a licensed Realtor in the state of Michigan, and has worked as a marketer, a digital strategist and a trainer for major national brands like Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices of Michigan, and Coldwell Banker Schmidt realtors. Throughout his real estate career, Chris has been part of hundreds of transactions ranging from modest rural starter homes to multi million dollar waterside compounds, and accomplished musician, actor and speaker Chris has engaged with audiences sized ranging from 30 to 3000. Most recently, Chris was just a featured speaker at the 2023 National Association of REALTORS Convention, which he just returned. Many of you listening may have already may have seen him speak there. But Chris, what oh, by the way, before Chris comes on, please follow Chris on LinkedIn, we’ll have a link to his LinkedIn page. He has writes great content there. And also if you are looking for a sought after speaker, either for a brokerage, maybe an association or a conference, Chris would love to chat with you. He is constantly traveling across the country speaking to lots of Realtors, Chris Lynn cell.com is where you can find his touring schedule and how to get in touch with him. Chris, welcome back to the show. DJ, Chris Linsell 3:57it’s great to be back, we might have to work on cutting that intro down a little bit, I realized I gave you a lot of info. And you know, most people that don’t care about that stuff, they just want to they want to get to the meat inside of the sandwich. So thanks. Thanks for having me back. It’s really a pleasure to be chatting with you again. You know, when I was or anyone who doesn’t know, DJ and I originally met when I was the senior writer for a website called the clothes and did a lot of content and and professional development for real estate professionals through the close hence closing time the former name of our segment but now that I am have moved on in the next chapter beyond the close, launching some new ideas here Unpopular Opinions perhaps man I’m looking forward to digging into it today. It’s It’s It’s good to be back chatting. D.J. Paris 4:56It’s very exciting to have you back Chris is very very important person, I believe, currently in the real estate journalist space. Chris is very, very well informed on what’s going on. From not just from a news perspective, but also from the perspective of working agent. And you’re also in direct communication with working agents as of course, you being a working agent yourself up. So let’s, let’s get right into it. What? Well, there’s a lot to go over. What do you what’s on your mind today? Chris Linsell 5:30Man, what’s on my mind today? Well, you know, there’s a lot of stuff, obviously happening in the real estate space right now. I think I think it’s important for for real estate professionals right now, to realize that we are, we’re currently I don’t know if you ever seen the video this, we’re currently standing on the beach, watching the water get pulled away from the shore. Like, like what happened in I think it was in Thailand, when there was this earthquake. You know, out in the ocean, everybody standing on the beach was watching the water recede, like there was waves that were getting pulled back like the tide was going out. And everyone was like, What the heck is going on? It’s pretty quiet in here right now. But there’s no water like we’re used to all of that water. In this video is building to a giant wave that’s going to come crash over the beach. And right now I have this kind of gut feeling that real estate might be going through that scenario. We’re all standing on the beach. It’s relatively calm. There’s, you know, it’s not perfect, but we’re not getting splashed right now. But pretty soon, we’re going to face some challenges as an industry challenges that we haven’t faced in a long, long time, maybe ever. And it is time for real estate professionals to start thinking about this, because we’re about to get wet as as the same would go. But I’m here to talk about why we might get wet and to tell people where they can buy their surfboards, because just because the waves are common doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful either. D.J. Paris 7:12Yeah, it’s funny I that I think that’s a really apt metaphor. And it makes a lot of sense, because it does feel very calm. Right now, certainly, the waters are murky. And, you know, there’s a lot that people are, at least the agents that I communicate with are unhappy about, but not as unhappy, maybe as they’ve been in recent, previous years. But there is obviously there’s there’s challenges with inventory and interest rates. I saw Jamie Dimon yesterday from from Chase, had basically said, Yeah, recession is coming. So um, that was that was depressing to see that usually. I don’t know, whatever Jamie Dimon says, I usually think is probably probably close to accurate. But he is not an economist either. So who knows, but he has a team of them working for him. But yeah, we would love let’s talk about where that kinetic energy is building right now out and out in the surf. And when it’s going to come crashing into us and what we can do sort of brace ourselves for it. Yeah. Chris Linsell 8:18Well, let me let me start by giving you an unpopular opinion, but not untrue, about the mortgage rates that you just mentioned. So it’s true that we’ve seen volatility in the mortgage rate sector, significant volatility relative to what we’re used to, right. Like it was not that long ago, that the status quo for mortgage rates was in the threes in the fours 4% for residential loans. What felt high at, you know, in recent memory, so to see rates where they are right now feels volatile, it feels like a shock even for those of us who have seen rates higher than this. It’s just been a long time since those rates have been that high. But let me set some, let me let me kind of set a straight here. It’s not popular for me to say this, but we are going to experience as an industry, a significant set of disruption. When industry went when our interest rates come down a little bit. And let me explain why. Right now, most people in most markets are experiencing what I would consider price stagnation. Relative to the interest rates, these high interest rates are not driving prices down. They’re just generally keeping them pretty, pretty pretty much flat. This is because these high interest rates, which usually would drive prices down are being buoyed by our lack of inventory, as you mentioned before, right like, even though you Interest rates are high demand was so high that now that the interest rates have come up, we’ve just kind of hit that equilibrium. But not down here where we want it, it’s up a little bit higher, this equilibrium is higher than most people are comfortable with. So imagine what would happen. If say, in 812 16 months, the interest rates drop two percentage points, and all of a sudden, we are seeing mortgage rates in the five percents. While all of this pent up demand for home purchases is going to explode onto the scene. And imagine what will happen when the buyer pool literally doubles in two weeks, when interest rates snapped down again, we’re going to see prices pop, especially in on demand markets, like major metros, tourist destinations, anywhere where there’s water, especially freshwater, we are going to see prices pop by 30% 50%, even in the span of a quarter, it would not surprise me to see interest rates go down, and prices pop by 20% 25. This D.J. Paris 11:12is a pretty this is a competition thing. We’re talking about 100% competition 100%. Chris Linsell 11:17Because you’re gonna have all of a sudden, all these buyers who had decided, I’m going to wait out the mortgage, the mortgage rates, I don’t have to move right now. But I cannot surrender my my 3% mortgage rate on my existing home, I can’t surrender that for an 8%. But I might be able to stomach it for 5%. So all of those buyers are going to flood into the market and all of a sudden, we’re going to see prices on homes skyrocket. And this is not going to be good for our markets in general, we’re still trying to find this balance between supply and demand. So an unpopular opinion, all that to say is the following. This is actually an amazing time to buy a home for buyers. Because if you have the capital to be able to temporarily brace the existing payments, thanks to the mortgage rates that are elevated, you have low competition and flat prices, which means your your your search process is relatively predictable. You could if you bought a house right now, if those mortgage rates like we’re all predicting, popped down by 2%, in the next 24 months, you can refinance that house, but you cannot refinance the price of the house. If you want to wait. If you cannot lock in today’s price, and then wait to buy it for two more years, you got to lock in at both places. But you can refinance that rate, even though it’s a little higher than you’re used to. Now, not everybody has that opportunity. I recognize this is another reasons unpopular opinion. Not everybody has the opportunity to go in at the higher mortgage rate because capital is tight, I totally get that. So this isn’t something that applies for everyone. But if you are working with buyers right now, it is time to start framing this situation as an opportunity because genuinely hate to say it, I don’t think it’s gonna get easier for buyers. In fact, I think it’s gonna get harder. And right now is the time that buyer’s agents should be counseling their clients to say, Now is the time if you want to strike on these sorts of things, it’s time to be active in the in the in the market right now. D.J. Paris 13:35I agree, I think that I would love to see a calculator. And by the way, if one of our listeners is so skilled in their in math to create this, but I would love to see based on some of the assumptions you just mentioned, what that breakeven point is for when it doesn’t make sense to purchase in a higher interest rate low competition environment like now which because and then assuming that at some point in the next several years, you may be able to refinance down to a lower rate if if rates do in fact decrease, which which we would hope they will. But you’re right, that the as the value or as the price. As the interest rates come down, of course, competition will be increased. So I think you’re right, this is, I think a huge opportunity for agents to just explain to their buyers money is just more expensive right now. It’s just a little bit more expensive. And here’s the good news. The bad news is yes, it’s going to cost you more to to you know, get a place currently, as far as the if you’re borrowing but you have not only less competition, as Chris said prices are relatively flat and a less competition. And then you know, as interest rates of course increase you’re able to or decrease you’re able to refinance hopefully in the future, but you know, you’re basically going to get a better price today. Just based on competition, Chris Linsell 15:01yeah, 100% 100%. Now, I want to layer in another unpopular opinion that goes along with this one we’re talking about, I mean, it’s easy to talk about the mechanics of our market. Because we’re all kind of watching we’re I mean, most most MLS is you can see what’s closing, you can see when it’s closing, you can understand the volume of your market, you can understand it relative to the historics. So most of us can see that stuff pretty pretty evidently, if we’re looking for it. But let me add in a layer of kind of unpopular opacity, if it will, something that kind of cloud things a little bit, which is the the added element of technology, specifically AI in this conversation. I know it’s unpopular to say this. But AI is common for your job. And let me be more specific, you’re not going to get replaced by AI, but you’re going to get replaced by somebody who uses AI very soon. Like, I’m not kidding, in the next 36 months, this is going to be a real consideration for people. And let me tell you why I think that this is true. We have seen an unprecedented acceleration in terms of the the path of AI, DJ, I don’t know if if you saw this or not. So if you if you did, I’m gonna give you a gimme here. And if you didn’t, then we’ll we’ll go from there. How long do you think we’ve been talking about chat? GPT? How long do you think this tool has been on the scene for us? How D.J. Paris 16:38long has it been on the scene? I don’t know. Yeah. How long is it? How long has it been in the zeitgeist? I’d say, year, maybe year and a half. It Chris Linsell 16:50just chat GPT became available to the public, just barely a year from when we’re recording this. It’s been available to the public one year and one day from today. It feels like we’ve been talking about this for a long time. Because I mean, a year is a long time. But we’ve also been really intensely talking about it. And one of the reasons we’ve been really intensely talking about it, is because it has developed so fast. Think about where we were a year and a half ago, nobody was using it was even thinking in the context of technology, how can I use AI to improve my real estate business? And now, I mean, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, I have spoken to literally 1000s of Realtors over the last just three months about how AI will affect their real estate business. And let me tell you, things are not slowing down, things are speeding up. It is very reasonable to believe that a year from right now, AI will be unrecognizably powerful relative to what it is right now. So if you are thinking to yourself, This is a technology that will not affect me and my business. You are akin to the realtors, who in the early 2000s thought now, there’s just no way that a company like what are they called Zillow, Zillow, zili, there’s no way a company like that could affect my real estate business. Of course, people are still going to want to come in my office and flip through the phone book that was the MLS, then if you are one of those people, you’re fooling yourself AI, and somebody who’s using it is coming for your job. And if you’re not prepared for that three years from now, you’re going to be doing something else. D.J. Paris 18:54Yeah, I mean, it’s even AI has even changed the way that I searched the web because now for the most part, I will well, I’m trying to think of if this is a true statement for me, it’s close enough to true most of the time, I will go to chat GBT with my query before I’ll go to Google. And that is only going to in Google’s developing their own. They have barred, they have their own AI. But eventually, we are going to stop submitting even search queries the way that we’re doing now. It’s it’s chat, GBT already has voice input, and that’s going to continue to develop and people are going to just start getting accustomed to talking to their devices and asking for information. I do it almost every day. i The way I think about it is you know, I don’t know if it goes back to the Odyssey but but this whole or wherever, whatever mythology this is, but the oracle at Delphi, this Greek mythology thing I have that now and or at least a version of that. And I speak to it all the time. And I’m curious and how Do you think that may impact a realtors job? Well, you mentioned? Yeah. Like how? What? Yeah. Chris Linsell 20:07Well, I mean, I’ll start off by saying, This is not an exaggeration. My children speak to and I don’t want to say it out loud. Our smartest speaker. Yep, my children speak to our smart speaker literally daily. And they ask it the sort of things that would have taken me a minute to get for them using the internet, and would have taken me at their age going to find somebody who just physically knew the information that I was asking. So my kids, this is this isn’t a learned behavior. This is an organic behavior for them. And it is for anybody who grew up using this technology. And the emergence of of artificial intelligence to pair with that sort of interface is going to, like I said, completely revolutionize the way that we think about information and execution of tasks. How will that affect real estate professionals? Well, there are two big things that I think we should consider. The first is, and I know, unpopular opinion here. But the first is if your value as a real estate professional is based on your access to tools, or your ability to execute procedural things, you’re screwed, I hate to say it, but this is going to change the way that we conduct real estate holistically, there will be no longer there will no longer be hours necessary for editing photos for writing listing descriptions for inputting and updating the MLS, there will no longer be hours necessary for sorting through and prioritizing communication on platforms like CRMs, there, frankly, will be no longer a need sooner than later to, to automate and even generate the sort of passive communication that just two years ago, I was on the close, trumpeting as an absolute necessity for building your real estate brand. Having email drips, creating the right social media content, making sure your website stays up to date, these used to be jobs that we did with our own fingers with our own precious hours, this is going away. In fact, I would be willing to bet 30% of real estate hours in our job will be gone and dedicated to machines. Within timing, I want to say 24 months, but maybe more like 18 months, 16 months even. I mean, it’s going to change the way that we think about this business, it is no longer going to be a to do list, it is going to be a list of important commitments. It’s no longer I have to do these 20 things to get my listing live, it is just two questions, how can I serve my clients and what is in their best interest? Those are the things that you will be responsible for. Can you imagine a world where you don’t have to post to Instagram or update the MLS? Or think about filling out the forms for your for your, for your local boards, license renewal, you don’t have to do any of that stuff any longer. Great, but also terrifying for those of us for those of you frankly, who hang your hat on the ability to do that stuff, because you’re not going to have to do it anymore. D.J. Paris 23:39Yeah, I sort of I sort of have a few thoughts about that. So what Chris is saying is absolutely right, it’s going to be wonderful thing for agents in particular with MLS input for listings and just you know, photography all of that is going to be much much simpler and it’s going to just be automated you’ve talked about you know, email marketing and different sorts of ways that that agents are spending their their man hours you know working on responses to clients a lot of that casual stuff or operational stuff will absolutely be automated I’m curious do you think Commission’s will be affected as a result of a lot of a realtors operational tasks being, you know, auto generated or automated to some degree is that going to squeeze commissions because typically when I hear about any when I hear about efficiencies that are, you know, technological efficiencies that are coming, I wonder how that’s going to impact the public’s view of a realtors worth and are they going to want to continue to pay you know, five to 6% to sell their home? Chris Linsell 24:52Yeah, I actually think it’s gonna bifurcate commissions and if my broker is listening I I apologize in advance for the argument, I’m going to start in the office in just a second. I think that Commission’s AI is going to affect Commission’s the following ways it’s going to make, it’s going to drive down the cost of somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 to 70% of real estate professionals, I bet you in three years, I bet you that most real estate professionals, 70% of them will be operating in the realm of what discount brokers operate in right now. flat fee, hourly, that sort of thing. I genuinely think, because there’s so many real estate professionals, frankly, who hang their hat on their ability to access the MLS and schedule showings, that sort of thing does not, that is not a resume skill anymore. So I bet to a whole chunk of those people are going to go down to the discount brokerage level. The other percentage, the other 1520 25, maybe percent of commissions, or a commissioned agents are going to get paid more. And let me tell you why. Because right now, these agents are kind of in the mix with everybody else here, it’s difficult to separate this wheat from the chaff. But AI is going to make it abundantly clear, who has the skills necessary to really serve their clients and their clients needs. On a personal and dynamic and individual basis, it is going to be the difference between a dedicated, like think about it this way, they like the agents who are going to be in this top performers. These are your personal physicians who know that your health and wellness inside and out, they know every square inch of your medical record, and all the rest of these people are going to be WebMD. So you are going to have the opportunity to either have the most premium service available, or you’re going to essentially have a self service experience where somebody is just facilitating access to the platforms that you need. Now, what are the downstream effects of that? It could be hate to say it, it could be a bifurcated experience for a lot of consumers, that only the rich get this premium hands on experience. And the whole, all the rest of us get the self service experience. But let me unlock this as an opportunity for anybody who is thinking about where they fall in here. There is an incredible opportunity for anybody who wants to provide that five star service to those who don’t think that they either deserve it or can afford it. Yeah, you have a chance to bridge that gap to become all of a sudden like, like think about when luxury brands all of a sudden create a line of products that are accessible on multiple price levels, but with the same level of service and integrity. It is it is a transformative moment for those businesses they quadruple or sometimes 10x their business, you could do that. It’s just a matter of understanding, how do I provide that level of service? How do I make it accessible to other people within the market? How do I make it so I am not just serving the elite of the elite? There’s so much opportunity there? D.J. Paris 28:48How would you recommend somebody Mayst would start to think about providing or increasing the amount of service they provide. We talked about, you mentioned the sort of white glove service this this five star service? How does an agent start to evaluate? am I providing that? And if not, what steps should I start to take to improve? Well, Chris Linsell 29:12I mean, I think honestly, this kind of dovetails very nicely with some of the conversations I’ve been having and other people have been having around the effect of these lawsuits that have recently been levied and, and, you know, I’ve hit inflection points against the National Association of Realtors. If you’re not in the loop on that you’re I don’t know where you’ve been. But long story short, National Association of REALTORS was found liable for promoting practices that were seen as uncompetitive or that were uncompetitive. That’s what that’s what the verdict was essentially that collusion essentially correct collusion collusion, a tie tied to the way that we pay by IRS agents specifically and just the Commission, the commission structure in general, promoted by the National Association of Realtors. D.J. Paris 30:09And let me see if I understand because I have a very rudimentary understanding of of why this system was set up the way it was, why it’s a problem. Now, I guess that’s maybe where we could start. So my understanding is that the way that this was set up for to encourage homeownership was to say, Okay, we’re going to, we’re going to do a basically you pay it when you leave scenario, so that as a first time homebuyer, which we want to encourage, in this country, we’re going to you’re the buyer technically isn’t going to shell out write a check for the realtors commission for to their agent, when they purchase a property that is going to be paid, technically by the seller who is going to write that check to both agents, if there are two agents, and then when that home buyer goes to sell their property, they’re then going to pay back into the system that they So my understanding is, it was a way to encourage or incentivize homeowners who didn’t want to or weren’t able to bring, you know, this commission to the table to close to buy a home, and then they’re gonna basically pay back into to it when they sell. Yeah, Chris Linsell 31:18that’s that’s certainly the the kind of the, that’s the National Association of REALTORS explanation for sure. Not to say that you’re, you know, like, you know, puppeting that, that viewpoint, but that’s definitely the argument that they used. I don’t think that that’s a perfect argument, nor do I even think it’s a really a fair characterization, frankly. Agreed. D.J. Paris 31:41Yes, it’s but I would say that was the idea, right, that the National Association of REALTORS will say is, is Hey, and the challenge with that is it’s not really how it works. Because the way that Commission’s yes, technically the seller is going to pay the Commission’s however, it’s all baked into the price anyway, so it really is being shared by the buyer and the seller, regardless of who’s actually writing the check. Right, Chris Linsell 32:06right. So, so thinking about this scenario, we can go, you know, into the lawsuits. In fact, maybe we have an entire episode where we just shrug into lawsuits, because I got a lot of unpopular opinions about both sides of this lawsuit. But as far as applies to kind of our, you know, anyone who’s listening to this, if you’re in the real estate space, and you want to think about how you can start preparing yourself to be on the correct side of that bifurcation of commissions, and make sure you’re not relegated down to the hourly employee, essentially, who’s just pushing buttons. One of the things that you can do right now is to start thinking about not just not just your Commission’s and your lead, you know, lead database, and the clients that you serve, not just thinking about these things as individual transactions, but about thinking about them as an overall building of your portfolio of expertise. And let me let me give you an example of what I mean here. It is rare, that you have a successful attorney who has on his card, something like John Q, attorney, good at law, all of it, you know, like, they don’t just that’s not the way that expertise is built. Same with your doctor, frankly, you do not have a doctor who’s like, John Q. MD, I know the whole body. And now you know, doctors they need to know the whole body. Generally speaking, lawyers need to know the whole law, generally speaking, but these are not the people you pay the big bucks to, nor are they frankly, the people that you would go to if you have a very specific question about a very specific thing, lawyer, medical or otherwise, you as a real estate professional should be thinking about this to each of the clients that you take right now should be a part of building this portfolio of expertise. Such that you have a reason to say I am John Q realtor expert in blank. It is no longer excessive or acceptable to say I am John Q realtor expert in real estate. We’re all experts in real estate. We all have a real estate license. You’re an expert, I’m an expert. We’re all experts. Okay, whether or not we actually have the definitional knowledge that’s a different story. But as far as the public goes, we’re all experts. What you need to start thinking about is separating yourself and your expertise by building a portfolio business the debt bounce traits, what the heck you’re actually good at. Yeah. And one way, a quick and easy way you can start doing this is when you take on new client conversations, let’s say you’ve got a lead who’s interested in buying a house, maybe an interested person is interested in selling a house, the first meeting that you have with them, and this is going to feel so unnatural, I realize this is going to tell me I’m crazy for this. But you need to say something along the lines of, well, I’m interviewing you, too, I haven’t decided whether or not I’m taking you on as a client, I need to make sure that your needs make sense for me as well, to start thinking about every client as an opportunity to build your portfolio of expertise. And if you have potential clients that are not going to work towards building your portfolio of expertise, these might not be the right clients for you. And again, I recognize this is this is first world problems, if you are in a situation where the rent is due, and you’ve got to get a transaction closed, by all means. This is a place where you say you know, I’m going to prioritize this next month. But if you are not in an emergency situation like that, if you if you believe that your expertise, for instance, is in waterside condos, and somebody comes to you with a piece of vacant land out in the middle of the woods, this is not your client. This is not going to help you build that portfolio. D.J. Paris 36:31I think you’re right in real estate. Real estate agents seem to be it seems to be we’re a little bit behind on some of these other specialized professions where, you know, yeah, you pass the bar, you get get your law license, and then you are really specializing in some version of law. Yes, there are general practice attorneys, and there’s general, you know, physician, physicians, general practitioners, and they can do some basic things. And what what they what they will almost always do is is refer out when it comes to something specialized. So I think you’re right, you know, I wouldn’t go to my estate planning attorney, if I had a, you know, a civil matter that I wanted to get resolved or criminal, or, yeah, I would, I would go somewhere else. And I think the opportunity is for each agent to really start to think about as, as you said, very bluntly, but I think elegantly at the same time is what are we actually good at? Right? Not not the collective we the individual, I what am I actually good at? What what service Can I can I provide? And how do I increase? Not only how do I increase my knowledge of that service? But how do I start to rebrand or, you know, just evolve my brand, to really start to focus in one to two sort of specialties. Yeah, Chris Linsell 37:55100%. And let me let me bring this analogy, full circle, the those like just kind of general practice attorneys and general practice physicians, those people play an important role in their field, I’m not gonna I’m not discounting that. But those folks are more akin to that bottom portion of real estate professionals that I was talking about, they are hourly, or flat fee, they are not going to do something specialized for you, they are not going to do they’re not going to execute a specialized task. And that is, Okay, if that’s the kind of real estate you want to practice, there’s ways to be successful there, too. You just have to ramp up your production, you got to be able to close, I mean, seriously, I think in four years, if you’re on the, on the lower side of that bifurcation, you’re gonna have to close 100 transactions a year in order to, to make this you know, a real, a real career that you can scale and be successful in, relative to the, like, 11 that most people do right now. I mean, 10x in your business is not an easy feat. And we’re not going to have 10 to 10x number of transactions in the country. So you’re not just going to have to increase your business, you’re gonna have to take it from somebody else, which, you know, not an easy task either. So, all this to say, don’t be a real estate professional, who is just satisfied, filling out the boxes on the MLS, and just taken every opportunity that comes along. Like you know, and treating them all the same. This is your time right now. We are we are in relatively consequence free zone. We’re on the beach. The wave has not come in on us yet. This is the time to be figuring it out right to be putting sandbags up around the beach house so that when the wave does come in, it’s not going to wash you away. We have the time right now. If you’re not doing it right now. Uh, I mean, I guess, thanks for, you know, for me and mine, you know, we’re gonna be more prepared than you will be. But there’s room for everybody here if we can all get on if we can all get on board for sure. D.J. Paris 40:14Yeah, I’m just trying to think now of what are some practical action steps agents can take one of courses is defining what their actual value is for themselves, you know, really to sit down on a piece of paper and say, Why would I hire me? What is it that I can actually provide? And then how do I market that or two things? How do I improve those skills? Or continue to evolve those skills? And how do I? How do I market that and really start to get people to associate these particular skills, not just I can help you buy, sell rent, etc. But I am particularly good at x. And, and you know, you maybe you’re right, as you start thinking about, if anything is outside of that, it’s tough to say right now to people to do this, to maybe turn away business when the market is is, you know, not as apt not as active as anyone any realtor would like, at this time. But maybe it does make sense to start to think about what might I turn away? That doesn’t necessarily fit into my skill set? And and where can I refer that and still get paid a referral commission? Of course, just like, attorneys do this. I don’t know if physicians operate that same way. But certainly attorneys do. And, you know, just something to think about. Yeah, Chris Linsell 41:32for sure. I mean, one, one practical step you can do right now is, and let me be totally clear, I’m not suggesting that when I want, you know, my this strategy, I’m not suggesting that the strategy is exclusive, meaning this is the only thing that you should do. But one thing that you can do right now, is get together a collection of your colleagues who all specialize in different things to essentially create a referral chain, to be able to say, I’m good at condos, you’re good at vacant land, you’re good at luxury, you’re good at for at first time buyers, you’re good at first time sellers, we need an opportunity to create these referral relationships such that we don’t lose. It’s not about losing business. It’s about appropriately allocating the people who need a podiatrist, to the podiatrist and the people who need an optometrist and the optometrist. It is not a matter of like, of giving up business, it’s a matter of getting it to the right places. And if you find yourself in a situation where you’re like, Well, nobody’s sending me referrals. No, I don’t have anybody to serve us right now. It’s an indicator that your niche is too small for your market. If you do not have anybody that you are good, if there’s no clients for what you’re really good at, you have a skill that nobody is utilizing, that is not necessary for your market. And that’s a clear sign that you need to either switch, expand, or team up with somebody. And this is the kind of the last thing that I would add in the situation is I think we are going to see the emergence in the next three years of I don’t want to say a run, well, maybe I do. We’re going to see an emergence, a renewed importance, emergence of real estate teams, and how teams address the needs of their of their clients, both because it allows a real estate professionals to work together to be able to offer that premium service in a way that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to do individually. And we’re also going to see these teams emerge as vehicles for stability to be able to generate leads together to be able to use technology tools together to be able to share the burden of the business across multiple, multiple people. I mean, teams are pretty popular model right now. It wouldn’t surprise me if we see a dramatic increase in these people are calling team ridges, like brokerages that just focus or function as big teams. I think that might be a thing pretty soon. D.J. Paris 44:21Yeah, it seems like it should be and this idea of just sub specializing and merging, you know, different practitioners together into a team. It’s already happening. It’s been happening for years. And now with the additional sort of pressures of technology that are coming to sort of reduce the need for the general practitioner and increase the need for the sub specialist. I think you’re right that teams are going to start having it’s it’s, it’s going to be a lot of yes on my team. This is the first time homebuyer here’s the condo person Here’s the renter or the rental, you know, agent, etc. and commercial agents and all of that. That’s very, that’s very interesting. I do, I do see that coming, because we’re starting to see that even in our own brokerage, we’re seeing a lot of people starting to team up just to offer a wider breadth of services. And, you know, they’re basically their Commission’s are staying the same, but they’re able to provide better service to their agents. So I think that that’s a lot, you know, I think is a great place to sort of stop for today, because it’s really a lot for our audience to think about is really to start mapping out. What does if I were to specialize in in a couple of areas of real estate, what would that what would that look like? Where and what would I need to adjust? In my business right now to find more of that? How do I find more clients that are first time condo buyers in my market, or, you know, it could be also to like, I work with young families, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a specific type of transaction, it could be a specific type of individual or group of individuals that you enjoy working with, but But creating some sort of specialty, and really thinking about how do I, how do I penetrate that market, through my expertise, and through marketing. And, you know, I also think, too, if you’re not sure what you’re best at the best, because I think a lot of us, you know, we we may have either an inflated sense of self or deflated sense of self, but it might not be always the most accurate sense of how the world perceives us. So if you aren’t sure what your skills actually are, ask your clients, ask them, you know, in a way, say I would I’m trying to revamp my marketing, I would just love to know, if you were to think about why you chose me? And what was it about your experience with me that you know, that that led you to have a happy experience? I think if you ask them for that you will find out very quickly, you’ll start to notice patterns in the way that people respond. And you can start to organize that into a thought of okay, how do I specialize in these kinds of skills? I guess? Chris Linsell 47:09Yeah, 100% 100%. And, you know, the long the short of it is you can strip all of this conversation down to basically a single axiom, which is, do something really well and do it for your clients. If you can do that, you’re gonna be okay. But I know easier said than done. Reminds D.J. Paris 47:31me about something Adam Carolla has been saying, his whole life, he says, I never met a really, really skilled carpenter because he comes from the carpentry world, who was ever out of business, or was ever was ever lacking business. And he said, in really good carpenters are rare. And as a result, they are in high demand. And they are never, never at a loss for work. And you know, that is something to consider as well, as you were saying about, you know, if you have this specialty, but it isn’t being appreciated by your community, or you haven’t maybe effectively marketed it. Or maybe it’s just not that useful to your community. This is where you can start to think about, if I specialize in something, yes, it’s scary to then think I maybe I’ll turn away certain things. But maybe I’ll attract a lot more of my audience who really just wants X, and I’m the person that provides x. And I think that’s true. Like, if you’re good, it’s anything, you’re unlikely to ever be really out of work unless you’re you unless you have some particular skill that’s just not valued in the workplace. But certainly for realtors, everyone’s got to live somewhere, almost 93% of all homes, I believe this is accurate, as a whole. All homes sold, are sold through a realtor in the United States, something like that. So they’re still utilizing realtors. So now it’s time to think about what can I specialize in? And how do I get so good at it, that I’ll, I’ll never have to really worry about being out of work. It’s kind of like becoming become unfavorable if you have a boss. And the way that they say that is provides so much incredible value. I mean, it’s so simple, but it’s hard to do. But if you provide so much value at your company, even if you get fired, you’re going to get picked up by someone else who sees your value. So I think that’s just a really great thing. This time to increase skills, I guess is 100%. Chris Linsell 49:23And you said it perfectly become on fireable guys, we are our own bosses in real estate, become unviable from your own business. That’s that’s the I love it. That’s the best way to leave those blank. D.J. Paris 49:37All right. Well, Chris, we are so so happy to have you back. And we’re Chris is going to be coming on regularly as he was for unpopular real estate opinions with Chris Lynn. So for all things Chris to see his touring schedule to learn more about what his current thoughts are. Go to his website Chris Lynn cell.com You can also book him he you know if you work in particular if you are volunteering at your local association or state association or you’re part of the National Association. Chris has spoken to too many, many associations all over the country. So consider him for your next speech or if you have a brokerage. He would be happy to speak with you about that as well. Also follow him on LinkedIn crystallin Sal, just find him on LinkedIn. We’ll have a link to both of those his website and LinkedIn on the show notes. Chris, welcome back. We are so happy to have you. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Chris Linsell 50:32Thanks DJ

Jerry Wolking with Keller Williams Greater Quad Cities talks about how he transitioned from landscaping business to real estate. Jerry discusses his involvement with Graduate Realtors Institute and how important it is for realtors to seek similar courses. Jerry also the importance of knowing how to navigate your career when the market shifts. Next, Jerry talks about local association and its importance. Last, Jerry talks about how he got into commercial real estate and why. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Jerry Wolking can be reached at (309) 373-0373. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we’re going to talk about a realtors most valuable resource. No, it’s not time and it isn’t your clients, it’s actually your reputation. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcasts made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show and in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with Jerry Woking. But before we get to Jerry, just a couple of quick reminders as we finish up 2023 The best holiday gift you can give us not that we’re asking you. But if you are so inspired and love our podcast, please do share it with a friend won’t cost you anything but please send them a link to either our website keeping it real pod.com Every episode can be streamed from any browser or send them a link to from Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you might be listening to this podcast and also please leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. We appreciate it but I hope everybody has a wonderful holiday season we’re going to be cranking out just as many episodes this month as per usual and we have some really exciting things planned for 2024 So stay tuned for that but let’s get to the main event my conversation with Jerry Wilkin. Today on the show my guest is Jerry woking from Keller Williams greater Quad Cities, which is actually Illinois, and Iowa. So there’s four cities for those of you not in the Midwest and not familiar with, I guess Quad Cities was self explanatory, but it actually borders two states, Illinois and Iowa. But let me tell you more about Jerry. By the way, before I get into Jerry’s bio, Jerry is Alex Wilkins father, Alex is somebody we featured recently on our show, we were so incredibly impressed with Alex, if you haven’t listened to that episode, I really encourage you to do that. And Alex is like, Oh, I learned everything from my dad. So we’re like we probably should bring his dad on to who’s also a very successful agent for 30 plus years. But let me let me go through more of Jerry’s bio. Jerry has been in the business since April of 1993. That is 30 plus years. Congratulations. He started as a part time agents like so many of us and became a full time agent a year later in 1994. After selling his landscape company, he is licensed in Iowa and Illinois. And Jerry is one of these rare types of agents who is able to successfully boot residential and commercial. So we’re going to talk a little bit about how he manages both of those lanes. He is also a graduate of the realtors Institute and a certified negotiation expert, in my opinion, the most. One of the designations I think agents should explore because certainly it’s something you can tell your clients that you are a certified negotiation expert. I’m a huge fan of that. Also, he Jerry has served on the Professional Standards Committee, the Grievance Committee and the commercial committee and now teaches classes to realtors on various topics at his local association. Jerry Oh, I’m sorry, fine. You can learn more about Jerry at his website. We will have a link to this in the show notes and in the description, which is QC biz box QC bei zbox.com and goes over what Jerry is all about. Jerry, welcome to the show. Jerry Wolking 4:54Thank you, sir. D.J. Paris 4:56Well, Jerry and I just had we were just talking sort of back Stage, if that’s the right expression, and it was really a lot of fun because Jerry is your so much like, like your son, and he is just such a wonderful young man in this Chicago market. And we’re so grateful to have him on the show. And now we’re so happy to have you. So you’ve been doing this congratulations on 30 years, by the way. Yes, Jerry Wolking 5:21sir. Yes, it’s been a long haul, as D.J. Paris 5:26well, you know, right. Right. Now I well, actually, Jerry, let’s talk about how you got into so I know you were in landscaping, you had a business and why the switch from landscaping to you know, I guess, the way I think about it, landscaping is one of those industries that seems to never go out of fashion. And real estate say people have to live somewhere and people need to maintain their their properties, their lawns, etc. So why to switch from from landscaping. Jerry Wolking 5:57Thank you for asking. I’ve done many, many things DJ I’ve had, I’ve had a very I tell people all the time if I died tomorrow, I have lived a full life. I’ve been a drummer and a heavy metal band for a long time. I raced motorcycles, semi professionally i i sold life insurance, I was a welder at John Deere. I’ve been an auto mechanic. I’ve been a contractor many, many different things. And I found a love of landscape back in the late 80s, early 90s and still do a lot of it today. But you know, the body only holds up for so long. They don’t make a laptop that will plant the 400 pound tree so that that takes its toll after a while but I had always had an interest in real estate. And it here in the Midwest and landscape season is pretty short lived and when it gets November, December, all of a sudden there’s no lawns to mow there, you’re not planting flowers and and the ground is frozen for doing any planting. So the winters would be scarce very scarce. And I was actually working in a body shop and I was getting paid $100 a car to paint cars out in Geneseo Illinois, no heat had a little space heater. And this guy was flipping cars he gave me 100 bucks a car to paint them. I was miserable. And, and I was sitting in this little office and I happened to be reading newspaper on my lunch break. And it said a career in real estate reading in the newspaper. And I’m like, I’ve always had an interest in real estate to see what it’s like. So I had to borrow the money long story short, I was so broke, I couldn’t pay attention. I had to borrow the money to go to my real estate my real estate class started. And I get and went through it passed the class with flying colors pass my test. And then next you know, here I am a real estate agents and that was in April of 93. Still had my landscape company. And as you know real estate being a commission business, I’d never worked in a commission world before. It was scarce to start with, you know, because it is far too easy. Here’s my quote of the day, it is far too easy to get a real estate license it there are so many people in this industry who shouldn’t be in it. And let me preface DJ by saying I’m probably going to say something that offends someone today because I love your show. The name of your show is very fitting. So let’s we’re gonna get real here today. D.J. Paris 8:16Let’s get real. Yeah, Jerry Wolking 8:18there you go. So, you know, I started out like most other agents taking open houses from from the big producers who didn’t want to do them. And at the time, I was working for the one of the largest brokers in the Quad Cities that were the largest broker in the Quad Cities at the time. And we had this thing called floor duty, where you could sit at this table in this little office for two hour shifts. Each agent got two hour shifts, and any phone calls that came into the office inquiring about listings, went to the floor duty person and that was your business to capitalize. So I was taking as many floor duty sessions as I could get most of them in the evening hours five to seven, five to six, because I was out planting trees and mowing lawns during the day. And what had happened was I was getting busy enough after for duty in open houses that I would literally change clothes three and four times a day I would go out and mow two lawns, change clothes, Go show a house go out and plant two trees, change clothes go out and show a house that was going on and on for months. And the turning point for me was I had a showing at a condominium in East Moline and I was planting trees all day I was mud from head to toe and I was late for my appointment like 15 minutes late and I did not have time to go home and change clothes. So I drove to the appointment with my rig had my you know my mowers and everything sticking out the back. I’m in my landscape gear. I’m mud from knees down to my boots, dried mud and as I walk up to the showing and 15 minutes late and the gentleman is sitting on the front porch of this condo on the front stoop. And I said hi my name is Jerry walking. I’m the realtor here to show you the property and he just looked at me he He goes, Are you a real estate agent? And I said, Yes, sir. And I also landscape company. And this was the turning point in my career. This day, this gentleman looked at me, he had a very stern look on his face. And he said, I’m not interested in a part time agent. The next week, the next week, I sold the company, I sold the landscape company and went 100% in two real estate, that was a big jump, and I went five months, my first five months with no paycheck. And I had been used to, you know, having steady income, I had employees at trucks I had, you know, plenty of contracts to do, I sold my company to my dad who was retired from the military looking for something to do. He, by the way, today still runs that same company to this day, off of a lot of the same clients that we had back in the early 90s. But it was that push of that gentleman telling to me telling me I’m not interested in a part time agent that made me go, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t continue to go changing clothes three or four times a day. This went on for months. And it was wearing me out. And I wasn’t succeeding at a high level at either position. Now, you know, because I’m part time landscaper part time real estate agent. So it was probably the greatest slap of reality I could ever get for him to say that. And that’s when it turned and I started taking off from there. And I was lucky enough to have a broker by the name of Irene Romeo, who said to me, you’ve got great stuff, kid, you need to go to GRI now. That’s where you need to get so I did my my first full time year I started GRI did the I think he did a fall session spring session fall session I didn’t consecutively learn to not and it catapulted me forward on being able to get my business started and growing. So I’ve been surrounded by a lot of great people who helped me get started and saw something in me that was worth that was worth nurturing. So I’m very fortunate that way. D.J. Paris 11:54And for any of our listeners who aren’t familiar with GRI Do you mind sharing just a little bit about what that is? That’s Jerry Wolking 11:59a graduate Realtors Institute. One of the things I noticed today, we I’ve written several real estate classes. My partner Deborah and I, we’ve written classes, she does all the technical stuff, the PowerPoints and all that and we presented these classes to realtors, and now the Board of Realtors has picked them up. But GRI is a class is a segment of classes from everything about marketing, about personal growth, about the real estate industry about appraisal. It’s a great place for residential agents to go and get a lot of education in a short period of time because it’s like four and five consecutive days of classes. And one of the things that I’ve noticed is now is brokerages, at least in our area. And please know everything I’m saying is based on our area because that’s what I know. They’re fragmenting so much it used to be in the early 90s There were two 800 pound gorillas here in town. And they controlled everything one of them control 52% of the market at one time. So every other house was listed by this brokerage well as these other companies have come into play, Keller Williams exp, and all these other companies that are coming. It’s fragmented the talent. But what happens when you fragment the talent, unfortunately, is those startup brokerages don’t have the resources or the time to train those agents properly. And that that creates now we’ve got an industry full of the blind leading the blind. And it gets chaotic. And you can ask any veteran agent most of the time. It’s the new agents that are exciting to watch when they’re growing, but they’re also the ones that tend to get in the way it’s not their fault. It’s because nobody’s teaching them. That’s why I said earlier, it’s far too easy to get a real estate license because real estate pre licensed course they don’t teach you anything about the business. You know, it’s all law and agency and all those sort of things, but don’t teach you anything about getting through a transaction how to get through a bad appraisal, how to get through a bad home inspection. And in my opinion, commercial this is just my opinion, commercial and residential should be two completely different licenses. Why why are they able to do both is beyond me. They are two different animals. But so back to GRI what GRI does is takes for a small brokerage or brokerage who doesn’t have a training or mentor program, put those new agents through GRI put them through CRS, the CRS and the GRI courses will teach you years and years of knowledge that you’re not getting just by bumping and banging your way through the pinball machine. In you learn from you know, I’ve said I’ve gotten enough credit hours from the school of hard knocks that I could graduate with a master’s degree now. So but luckily I was at a brokerage that had a great training program. We had some we had a mentor program in place that was very, very helpful. So GRI CRS for residential agents starting up dad is one of the first places that I would go to start getting Your real estate training unless your brokerage offers D.J. Paris 15:03or even in addition to what your brokerage, what your Jerry Wolking 15:07I attended, what I see a lot of is a lot of training and exercise and efforts, put in the areas of lead generation, lead generation is awesome. But if you get a bunch of leads, and you don’t know how to convert them, or you don’t know how to keep their transactions together, you’re shooting fish in a barrel and are coming right back to life again, through another agent somewhere. It’s a bad experience for everyone all around when you don’t have knowledge and skills to close a transaction. D.J. Paris 15:32Yeah, let’s talk about the current sort of climate for realtors right now. So we’re recording this. So it’s we’re getting close to Thanksgiving 2023. We know interest rates are higher than buyers would prefer in relation to where they were three years ago, not in relation to historic averages. But the buyer temperature out there is cool to bid because of the interest rates, a lot of people are locked in or at least feel maybe locked in to a refinance rate they did years ago, I know I feel this way I have a 3% rate on my primary residence. And I don’t want to give that up. And so we have a lot of people like me, who are in a similar situation. So there’s not much inventory, obviously not as many buyers flooding the market. And also it’s the end of the year that tends to slow things down as well. So Jerry, you’ve been doing this 30 years, what do you know that people who haven’t been through this kind of part of the cycle of the business, maybe it’s maybe some part of a down cycle? What do you know that that? Or what would you say to somebody who’s who’s struggling right now? Yeah, in this area? Great Jerry Wolking 16:43question. So, so where I pride myself mostly DJs. In my I have, you know, I’m not one of the top 1% producers, as we talked about earlier, but but I can weather the storm, because I can wear many hats. Being is as well experienced in both residential and commercial as I am. It allows me to adapt in many different ways I can go where the hunt is, and I’m very comfortable going where the hunt is, there’s no conversation with any agent that I’m not comfortable having now, regardless of what you produce. I can I can hold that conversation with you. And there was times when, when I remember in down markets, it wasn’t so much. Where’s my next lead? Where’s my next deal? It was what can I learn to get me that next week? What can I learn to get me that next deal, I’ve always built my career on being the chase, not the chaser. And the way I’ve done that is by learning things and getting in depth knowledge on different ways to do things. So you know, when I came in the business in 1993, interest rates were still double digit. So when we hear people talk about now the interest rates are climbing, interest rates are climbing, my first house was 11.75%. And that was on a special lottery drawing rate. I had to stand in line at 530 in the morning to get a lottery ticket to get this special low rate of 11.75%. And I was one of the people chosen. So yes, rates have increased, they doubled from where we were a year or so ago in some cases. But when those things happen, like when 2008 2009 rolled around, that was a huge change foreclosures were coming on the market everywhere. So my adaption was if there is there’s foreclosures and things that’s coming on the market, that means the investors are coming out of the woodwork. So how do I get to work with the investors? I got to learn the investment game and I had some real estate investments before. But I dove deep into figuring out net operating income and what is the vacancy factor? And, and what’s what’s my cost coming in? What’s the cost outlay going to be for purchased this home for 36,000? What’s it going to cost to get it up to 110. So you can be profitable, learned about holding costs, all of those sorts of things, a lot of it, I knew already in the back of my mind, but it moved it to the forefront of the mind. So as the market changes, and it is changing, you need to look at other ways that you can be helpful that you can be of service to the public good. You can be of service maybe to other agents, because when you don’t have something to offer, there’s no reason for anyone to call you. So I just got I just got a call yesterday from a gentleman who wanted to fight his property taxes. His assessment went up considerably. So we took a look at his properties. And I called them yesterday and I said I said Chuck, you might want to keep your mouth shut. They got you assessed at 65,000 square foot. Be quiet. Don’t play that game because you should be higher than what they’re assessing you at. So it just that piece of advice and information alone was priceless to him because he showed up to spend $900 $1,000 on two appraisals. So just by giving that information, but he’s called me multiple times over the last three or four years we’ve done Two or three transactions with this gentleman. But so the point being, there’s always somebody buying something, there’s always somebody selling something, how do you get in front of those people? And how can you be valuable to that particular part of the market when it becomes an investor market be valuable to the investors if it’s a buyers market be valuable to the buyers. But it’s a seller’s market be valuable to the sellers in use constantly, ever changing. Adaptability, learning to be adaptable to what’s in front of you right now, I talked to an agent of a couple years ago. And when the 2008 crash hit, his business dropped dramatically. So he learned how to fight tax assessments. And he was charging people I think, $150 or something like that, to put together their tax assessment, though, he would give them all the information, and they would go to the board of appeals and fight their taxes. But that kept him alive, kept him in the game kept him relevant. And so then when those people, when the market started to turn, they come to list or sell. He’s the guy they call because he got them out of a bad situation, whatever. So I’m very big on knowing the game not just being in the game, but knowing the D.J. Paris 21:07game. Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more, as you were giving so many great examples there, I was thinking, you know about the current situation where I don’t know what the percentage is anymore, I want to say it’s 85% of homeowners in the US have a mortgage rate of less than 4%. That may not be true with a capital T, but it’s close enough to where we have a lot of these people like myself, you know, anyone who has a mortgage who’s refinanced or, you know, in the last several years probably has a pretty attractive rate. So I think there’s a huge opportunity for agents to start having conversations with people like me, people who feel trapped in not trapped, but locked into this low rate. And say, actually, there are some creative solutions. If you did want to move right now, there are ways we can sort of, you know, navigate through high interest rate environments like to like buy downs, for example, there are this is this, I think, is really were in a good agent is separating separate from, you know, really divides the good agents from from the not good agents, because the good agents will will will call somebody before they call them going, Hey, I’m thinking about buying or selling right now. Because maybe there’s lots of people right now that aren’t thinking about that. But if it was me, I would be calling everybody I know saying, Hey, I just want to give you my take on what’s going on right now. If you are thinking of a move, we do have some options and creative ways to explore that. But again, just establishing that, as you said, I’m just not in the market. I know the market. I know what’s going on. I think that’s so important. Jerry Wolking 22:44Yeah, it was to touch on what you said about the buy downs that there’s one of the things right there that you should be focusing on right now as an agent coming in, in the game, how does financing work? And one of the first things that I started learning about when I got into business, I would notice and remind you I was in the business before the pre approval thing was a big deal. So now it’s it’s pretty much standard. But I remember you could get pre approval letters and everybody that was like golden. But I sat down with a lender name was Brenda Wilde one day I talked her on the phone. I said, Brenda, what are my qualifying ratios when I’m talking to people? I want to know when I’m holding these conversations with people about buying debt. Yes, you can’t afford to buy so many times, EJ if somebody said, Well, I can’t afford to buy. Well, where are you living now? Well, I rent a little apartment. How much are you paying 1300 a month, or $1,300 a month here in the Quad Cities, you know, our market is about a third of what you that are there in Chicago $1,300 A month I’ll buy you 140 $150,000 house. And a lot of people don’t even realize that. So I’ve had a lot of success in converting renters into homebuyers, because they didn’t think that they could buy not realizing what it cost. They don’t understand downpayment, they don’t understand closing costs. So there again, whenever you’ve got storms like this happening, there’s usually programs that all of a sudden spring up to help keep the market of flow. So you learn about first time homebuyer programs. You learn about programs for veterans that veterans can use, there’s usually something out there to help people. So you have to go learn that program. Because let’s face it, if you’re doing 3040 transactions a year, and then all of a sudden that drops to 15. You need to make up that difference somewhere if you’re going to stay in the game. This is when we see markets like this is when we’ll see the agent count start to drop. It happens all the time. And as is the real estate market picks up all of a sudden everybody wants to be a realtor because they’ve watched HDTV and they like houses I love That’s my reason for getting in the business because I like houses. Okay, let’s see how long that lasts after you’ve shown 137 of them in four days. But anyhow, just learning where there’s always an apple to pick somewhere and is watching closely and learning to see what that is. There’s always nothing stops dead. There’s always some movement somewhere When D.J. Paris 25:00you said something really important earlier, which was about providing value being of service? And yes, that really is the name of the game and in my in my opinion, it’s yeah, it’s it’s really, I think it’s, it’s a creative fun thing to to consider for your business. Because you know, we have this database of customers we have or prospects, and we go, Gosh, I don’t why do I? Why Why would I, I don’t have any reason to call so and so well, you should have reasons to call them you should know a lot about every one of your contacts in your database, you should know what’s going on in their lives. And you if nothing else, if there’s nothing to talk about with real estate, you could at least contact them and celebrate things that they’re experiencing or or helping them with any like, you know, Jerry, for example, is, you know, he has been doing this 30 years. Do you think he knows the best Roofers in town? Of course he does. He knows the best accountant. He knows the best inspectors. So Jerry is is breadth of wide breadth of information that he gets to then reach out to his sphere and say, Hey, I’m your guy. I know these things. And of course, that takes time to develop lists like that. But if you can start to put your value proposition together, and start to think about how can I continuously add value, people only buy and sell when every five to 10 years, seven to 10 years, whatever it is. So you better figure out something that you can do in those seven to 10 year windows, where you’re going to stay in front of them. And it’s probably not just your real estate, email newsletter, hey, that’s fine, whatever, it’s fine. But you should be thinking about other things that those customers actually want to learn about. During that time. To obviously, just keep your name in front of them. Yeah. Jerry Wolking 26:43And being very involved in your community. That’s where Alex has had huge success. Being very involved in your community became become the the source. I just had a guy text me here last week, he goes, You’re my source, man. But I need something. You’re my source. So what a great compliment, actually, for you and I got online, I was texting a previous client who’s like, hey, I need somebody to put windows in Who do you suggest, you know, being that go to source that keeps you in front of people a lot of times, but being involved with your community is another big way. Because people recognize your name. And I’ve been around long enough now. I can be be anywhere Menards or Lowe’s and I’ll put down my debit card and the person go, oh, you the real estate guy. That’s awesome. To hear that they know you for that. But yeah, there’s this being involved on different levels and being of service to everyone around you. That part I think I’ve done very well. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to help a lot of people with a lot of things. And a lot of times DJ the business comes to me just because of those things. Not not not because I’m out, you know, pushing my Facebook post, or, or I’m the greatest realtor. And none of that is just because I’ve established a relationship on a different level through a different avenue. And they know you’re the real estate guy, right? Yeah. Why do you ask you buying or selling? What I’m thinking about selling my mom’s house, whatever. Next thing, you know that conversation is going whenever someone says to me, you’re the real estate guy, right? I always say, Are you buying or selling. And then we go from there to conversations things into something. I D.J. Paris 28:15love that it reminded me of one of one of the interviews I had a few a year or so ago, where a woman gave a suggestion that I had not heard before. And it’s so simple. And that, you know, if you have a local newspaper, for example, most most markets do. And you know, reach out to who’s ever in charge of the real estate portion of not necessarily the advertising. But if anyone’s you know, the real estate person to talk about what’s going on real estate wise in the community and start sending them stats, say, Hey, mister missus, reporter, I’ve got some stats about what’s going on out here. I thought maybe that would be helpful for you because they’re looking for content. And I said, Oh, that’s such a smart idea. Because people still read newspapers as much as we think people don’t some some people do, of course. And this is another way to get your name out there. And to be seen as an expert, when you can help a journalist with making sense of what’s going on out there. There’s a million ways to do it, to be of service and to be a value. And I want to make a big strong push, Jerry, with your help to encourage our audience to get involved with their local association. I want to talk about why that’s important, and how that can benefit the individual because I wish I would have done that. 14 years ago. I just started getting involved about five years ago. And I wish I could go back and get involved at our local level earlier because what it did for me and I’m curious to get your thoughts. What it did for me is not only did it did it, is it a lot of fun and we do a lot of good work and we’re here to support the industry, the real estate industry, and I got to make some wonderful friends along the way people who are like minded people Who want to see the industry succeed, and also just mastermind with all these great agents who also give back. And so I’ve learned more about the industry, I have a better social life. And and I’m doing good out there, or I think we’re doing some some version of good out there. So I’m just Just curious. And also, there’s so many great things the association’s offer, that the members oftentimes don’t take advantage of trainings, you know, all sorts of things. But just, I want to make a pitch for everybody to consider getting involved. And just want to hear your thoughts on that. Oh, absolutely. Jerry Wolking 30:30There again, when I first got in my career, I was so blessed to have Irene Romeo, who pushed me towards GTRI. But I was also still to this day, I hear this gentleman’s voice, I see his face. And I asked questions, sometimes I get into situation and I’ll and I’ll be to myself, What would Fred tell me to do? Fred Desso, the best broker in the business as far as I’m concerned, he’s just a wealth of knowledge. And and he always has an answer. Even if he has to make it up. He always has an answer, but I just love talking with him. He’s just full of wisdom. But both of those agents are very involved with the both those brokers were very involved with the board, they suggested I get involved with the board. And I did, I got involved with the board very early on with the professional standards, the Grievance Committee, the regional professional standards, sitting on different various committees throughout the board, and we have a dynamite Board of Realtors. But it teaches you not only do you get to know the players and who’s who in real estate, but you also see the adversity sometimes that people are dealing with from a whole different perspective. See, it’s very easy as an agent, you have a rub with another agent somewhere and you’re defending your position. But if you get out of yourself and get into what is that person experiencing. And by being on the board and hearing, especially on like the grievance committees and professional standards, you hear those stories and things going on, and then you start to have a little little more compassion for I get it, I know why they got in this position. But it helps getting yourself in that position, you know, at some point in time, and it just helps move the board forward as well. So I cringe a little bit when somebody complains about some of the board raise the rates again, well, of course, they did just look at the economy in general, that’s not the board trying to gouge you. The board’s trying to keep up so I get a little offended sometimes when people complain about a board because our board does a lot for us. We have a great MLS, we have great keysafe system, we have great leadership, we’re in great position financially. And that’s all from having good people sitting at the table. So you learn a lot from the inner workings of the business, when you’re involved at the board level as well. It’s not You’re not seeing it from your little perspective, but seeing it from the overall marketplace that you’re in. So highly, highly encourage getting involved with the board at some point in time. I D.J. Paris 32:59couldn’t agree with you more, I think I’d be shocked if it didn’t result in actually indirectly getting you more business, even though that’s not why you’re going to do it with Jerry Wolking 33:10us. Yeah, I think I told you earlier, a lot of the commercial referrals I get are from residential agents, even from other brokerages. They have their own brokers, and they’ll refer me people because I can speak their language or I’ve sat on a committee with them. And at some point in time, so I’ve established that relationship. You know, there’s a great dynamite agent here in the Quad Cities, his name is John locust and, and he’s told me once I saw him last year, I did a class I was teaching, and he said, you know, you have two reputations in this business, one from your peers and one from the public. And that is very true. That is very true. So D.J. Paris 33:45yeah, I want to I’m going to say that I’m going to say that for Jerry, again, we have two reputations in our industry, one with our peers, for remember is called a cooperative commission. Everybody cooperative compensation, and, and and with our clients as well. So those are two separate things. And oftentimes, the relationship between the agent and the customer might be different from the agents and to other agents and you want to have a good relationship with both because you both have to play in the same sandbox. Jerry Wolking 34:17Absolutely. And, yeah, D.J. Paris 34:20I want to I want to talk about the importance of learning the market. So when when people are newer to the industry, of course, the primary focus is on lead generation as it probably should be. And they also have to become good at the job which of course, we’re talking about skills. So I want to talk about actually becoming a good realtor. So there’s the marketing side, the lead gen side. I’ve talked about that. A ton on the show over the years, million ways to lead generate. I would like to speak to you and get some best practices in your opinion about if if I was a newer agent and I’m full could sing in a local area? How might I start to learn about the actual inventory? Price points? You know, what, what do you recommend? Because ultimately, you do want to be an expert in some some geographical area. Yeah, Jerry Wolking 35:14yeah. And, again, that’s where Alex has excelled. He’s learned his neighborhood just by walking the streets getting involved with neighborhood associations, those sorts of things. And myself area, because we’re in the Quad Cities, there’s a large difference between the Iowa and Illinois sides of the river. Valuation wise, big difference. In fact, the joke is, for a lot of us, it’s not the Mississippi rivers, the Mississippi ocean, because it there is a huge divide between the two sides of the states. If you’re an outsider, coming in, a lot of it looks like one big city here to us. But from those of us who live here, it’s very territorial. The difference between Iowa and Illinois and the islands, to try to get somebody from Iowa to come to Illinois is very difficult. Although there’s one little catch to that. But we there seems to be more people moving from Illinois go into the Iowa side, the property taxes are less those sorts of things. So by knowing your market is knowing not only the price of the home, the sell price of the home, how many days on market, that’s all stuff that you can get from your stats. And by looking at it. But knowing what makes those areas tick, what makes those neighborhoods work, like Alex talks about the neighborhoods and he’s worked in, he knows the historical, the history of a lot of those homes. He knows who owns those homes, he knows who lives in them. Now, those sorts of things. Same as myself, I look at things more from a I’m a very mechanical person, I’m blessed with the ability to fix or build anything. In fact, 20 minutes before I got online with you, I was I was putting brick and mortar on some columns. I’m building a site but I learned the neighborhoods from the architecture from the years they were built from the mechanicals that were used to build them like for example, a simple example would be here we have certain neighborhoods that have this sewer system called Orangeburg pipe. Not all four cities have the habit Moline hardly use it at all. Rock Island uses it a lot that dwarf the older parts of bettendorf used it Northwest Davenport used it a lot. It’s failing across the board, it’s getting old enough now that it’s collapsing, it’s not a question of will it collapse, just when so buy when I’m representing buyers, going to those particular neighborhoods, I’m asking that house in into we’re just Orangeburg pipe us there because that’s kind of set forth and inspection that maybe I would not use in Moline. So knowing your market that way, not only valuations and wise, but what makes that neighborhood work? Where are the city streets? Where’s their development coming bike, if you go to bettendorf in North Davenport, you know, to 53rd Avenue corridor, I know you don’t know what that is. But 20 years ago, that was cornfield. Now, it’s 200,000 plus per acre, to go out there. So if I’m leading an investor, and he’s going to be looking forward to long term buy and hold properties, let’s go where the growth is next, you know, so our cash flow may be a little less right now. But in the end result of property value increase. So it’s knowing the market that way as well. And not just average sale price and things of that nature. There’s so many other things in the intrinsic values is what I call it, what else is happening there? Are their school closings coming up, or their school boards and merging. Is there we just had a new Amazon development that come into town here this year. Where’s that? What’s gonna happen around that area, we have an area called the T BK that’s growing like wildfire out there. Those sorts of things. It’s knowing the market from from that aspect, as well as the dollar values and things of that nature, if that makes sense. D.J. Paris 38:47It makes perfect sense. I was just thinking that one specific example about the Amazon like a distribution center, or whatever’s coming coming out your way. That’s a really, it’s a really interesting sort of comment, because there is opportunity there because now we know they’re going to be hiring people to work at this particular plant, or maybe they already have people there. But just getting curious about what is that going to do? Where are those people going to come from who are going to work there? Where are those people may be live? What would their commute look like? If they are coming from further away? And maybe they now want to move closer to the facility? You know, where’s where are the school districts that are desirable for people, you know, understanding that, what the needs of those, you know what, here’s what’s coming? Situations, I think are making just incredibly valuable. You’re more proactive than reactive because, yes, I want to I wanted to also switch gears and talk a little bit about commercial because this is we have about 800 agents in our firm and boy, a lot of them who are really residential agents go I would like to dabble a little bit in commercial. And of course that’s like what does that even mean? Because there’s Lots of different sectors of commercial. And of course, it’s not just a, you can’t paint it all with the same brush commercial could mean lots and lots of different things. But you, you really straddle both, which is impressive and difficult. So I’m curious about how did you get into commercial and why Jerry Wolking 40:17being a bigger business owner in the past, commercial use was important to me. Because I needed space, I needed a shop space. And it’s probably one of the calls I get most is for people for shop space, but I guess had an interest in it and watching it. And I like math and working with numbers who work with numbers a lot. And I noticed there was a void. There was a void in that marketplace as far as people being serviced, and a lot of it was from intimidation. A person wants to start a business and they’re not sure where they’re going to find space. So they don’t know what a triple net lease is. They don’t know the difference between triple net and a gross, and they don’t know what cam charges are. And it wasn’t being explained to them on many levels. And and there used to be signs I remember seeing signs up that would say you’re in front of a space that would say available, what is available means it means for sales that mean it’s for rent, what is available mean? And I so I just started learning the language itself and managed to get into a couple of transactions and started learning from there. But there’s the difference DJ, I started learning, I didn’t just do the transaction and get a commission and walk away. I wanted to know the why. How does it work? So So you know, started doing a lot of reading leases, just just going through them and reading what does that mean calling an attorney say okay, this clause says this, what exactly does that mean? And took a CCI M course some different CCM courses, reading articles and realtor magazine, truly learning what it’s like or what it is to be a commercial practitioner, because I truly believe with the whole of my heart that commercial and residential should be two different licenses. And they’re not. And unfortunately, you know, I was really looking at one of your podcasts from another gentleman, I can’t remember where he’s from. But he’s talked about staying in your lane and referring out I think he said when he bought his own house, he referred to a residential agent to buy his own house, because he didn’t know that area. And unfortunately, our license gives us the ability to list and sell just about anything. And that creates problems. And you know, the commercial practitioners they get irritated with our residential person is trying to do a deal with them. And I can see why then that agent will call me say, well, he won’t talk to me and won’t give me the information. And it’s because you’re not going to know what to do with it even if they gave it to you. And if you’re going to represent a tenant, for example, let’s take a tenant that’s going to go and lease this space. And it’s $13 a square foot, you know, net lease and you got to canvass $7 a square foot and you can’t calculate that rent, or you look at their lease, and you can’t determine if it has an escalation clause. And what is that escalation clause? What is the escalation clause based on as far as the rent, increase those sort of things, there’s so much trouble that you can get a person into because you didn’t know how to play that particular game or didn’t know how to guide them. And you should really stay out of that, because you could think about it. I take it very personal as my responsibility. If I’m representing a tenant, and I’m getting D.J. Paris 43:26weak Jerry there for just a second. He’ll be popping right back in so bear with us just a moment. There’s Jerry. Okay, once. All right, we that’s okay. You we were just finishing up with we were just talking about commercial and how maybe referring out is, you know, staying in one’s lane and yeah, not necessarily practicing until you’re competent, so to speak. Yeah, Jerry Wolking 43:52exactly. So if you’re going to do a commercial Ted, you use the term dabble. I hear that all the time. Don’t dabble. And Don’t, Don’t dabble, your financial responsibility that you have for that client is huge. And it can be the determining factor of their business profitable, they’re not because you got them in a bad lease in a bad position or something where they made a bad purchase. And there’s so much more than just pricing and dollar per square foot and all that it’s what are the environmental, what’s the environmental outlay look like? You know, Is there potential problems there? I lost the listing once because I noticed the test spot on the building and I asked the gentleman about it, and he’s like, Oh, that’s nothing I meant nothing. Because across the parking lot, I see a trailer over there. This is environmental survey or something like what what is this all about? Come to find out he had been contaminated by a neighboring gas station and he didn’t want anyone to know that. So when I asked him to prove to me you’ve got a clean site. It cost him $5,000 But it made him angry and he pulled the listing from me and I was okay with that. I’m okay with that. Take that list right If can’t be honest with it, but yeah, so you’ve got to know the game is more than just making a commission because you can make huge especially in commercial, you can make some really big mistakes, and people are relying on you the expert, and you did not give them expert advice. D.J. Paris 45:18Yeah, I agree. So if you know, or at the very least partner with a commercial agent and be you know, their apprentice or be their shadow, while you are educating yourself on the transaction, just make make your life as easy as possible. Don’t, don’t take on clients that you can’t service, it’s, it’s just not gonna Jerry Wolking 45:42only make your life easy, but it’s take care of that client the best way you can and some way, you know, I would not go to my dentist to get my ankle operated on. They’re both in the medical profession. But you know, they’d be able to figure it out. Maybe, but no, I take that responsibility very, very personally, and I wish more agents would do. So there’s a lot to know in the commercial world and you need to learn that game. Yes, you can bang your way through. I’m happy to help anyone who will get through a transaction, but I don’t partner very often, I’ve been asked to do 5050, I’ve always turned it down except for one occasion. Because it won’t be 5050 It’d be more like 7525. And so I have offered it if someone wants to 5050 Look, I’ll coach you through if you want to try that. If you want to try the transaction, but you need to put in your time, you need to serve your pain, because there’s a lot to learn and it’s not gonna be as easy as you think it is. D.J. Paris 46:41Yeah, I agree. I think for everyone listening right now, there’s the you know, to sort of recap everything Jerry was was talking about on the show. We On this episode, I think we’re really speaking of his competence, and I think or skill development maybe is a better way to say it. Let’s make 2020 for the year of skill development. So what how are you going to do that? Well, you’re going to lean on your brokerage for additional trainings, you’re going to seek out certifications like GRI, certified negotiation expert like Jerry, who’s who’s does both? You’re going to reach out to your local association, not just to maybe serve on a committee, but also to find out what are they offering? What sort of trainings and support are they providing to agents, remember, we do pay our associations quite a bit of money. So there are lots of services I’m, I’m on our member care taskforce here in Chicago, I didn’t even know all of the benefits and services that we provide to our members. Until I now I’m the vice chair of the committee and I still don’t know them all by heart. So reach out to your local association, especially if you’re struggling and say, Hey, I’m struggling right now. Do you have any suggestions for classes I can take people I can talk to, you know, and also, as Jerry said, you know, we got to learn the market, right? So this is a great opportunity to really do a deep dive into your local market. Get that expertise so that when people do reach out to you, you have knowledge about what’s going on. Jerry Of course, does 30 years in the business. I think this is a great place to wrap up I do want to encourage anyone who’s a buyer seller and investor, commercial or residential who is interested in doing something in the Quad Cities area Jerry wilking is your man please reach out to him Jerry if there are any buyers sellers investors out there that would love to speak to somebody with your expertise what’s the best way the Jerry Wolking 48:34best way for me actually DJs to text me because I respond to texts we get so many bombarded with people trying to sell us Internet services and marketing services text me because then I have a greater chance of knowing that you’re real and that you’re legit but or email email me very well also. D.J. Paris 48:55Yeah, do you mind sharing your your number numbers 309-373-0373 Jerry Wolking 48:57and email is Jerry walking kw@gmail.com. D.J. Paris 49:08Well, Jerry walking Keller Williams Quad Cities the not only a 30 year veteran in the industry amazing reputation and has a now a son who is crushing it here in the Chicago market. This is the first time we’ve done a father son not combined episode but had a father and son on the show at different times. So it is it is no surprise how, why, how and why Alex is doing so well. Jerry, so congrats to you on your career and also on raising another realtor family who is not just not just surviving but thriving in thriving in this market. So please check out Alex’s episode and let’s send Jerry’s episode to anyone else in your area. Any other realtor that may be struggling right now guess what? Everybody’s struggling a little bit right now. So send them a link To this episode, the best way you can help us our listeners is by telling a friend just think of one other realtor that could benefit from all the great stuff Jerry said and shoot them over a link to this episode. Also leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. We would greatly appreciate it on behalf of our audience. Want to thank Jerry, for coming on. We appreciate you, Jerry, thank you gave us tons of great strategic sort of objectives that we can do right now. And on behalf of our audience want to thank Jerry for spending his time with us today. We will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Jerry. You’re Jerry Wolking 50:32awesome. Thank you, man.

Kim Rittberg is an award-winning Digital Content Strategist and On-Camera Coach who helps real estate professionals and business owners grow their income leads & credibility with video and podcasts. She spent 15 years as a media executive at Netflix, PEOPLE Magazine, and in TV News and she launched the first-ever digital video unit for Us Weekly magazine. Kim coaches real estate agents to be better on-camera and make unforgettable social media, video & podcast content that brings in leads, clients and revenue. Kim has spoken at the Berkshire Hathaway Home Services National Convention, been featured in Business Insider and Fast Company and has been a speaker and instructor at PENN and Syracuse University. She also hosts The Exit Interview with Kim Rittberg podcast spurred by her decision to quit corporate and launch her own business after working in the hospital while giving birth to her second child. The podcast helps women craft careers that work for their life – instead of the other way around. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Connect with Kim Rittberg on Instagram. Grab her free download – Sell More Homes With Better Quality Videos. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today our resident video expert Kim Rydberg is going to show you how to make great video content. When you’re all alone. Stay tuned to this episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads in interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Kim Rittberg 1:29Hey, keeping it real folks. I’m Ken rickford. It’s always a pleasure to be here with you. I’m really excited to talk to you today about how to make content alone. And the reason why that’s so important is because all of us need to be making content all the time to grow our business. So as a real estate agent, you need to make content, you don’t always have somebody with you. If you do have an assistant or a social media manager, that’s awesome. But a lot of times you don’t. So I’m going to go through the specific details on how to make content when you’re alone. So I’m Kim Britt Berg, I’m an award winning Digital Marketer. I spent 15 years in media, meaning I was the person writing and producing scripts for national news outlets like inside edition and Fox, I even went to the Oscars for Us Weekly. I was the video head for Us Weekly. And now I love taking all that knowledge about how to write scripts, create content that really appeals to people from social media, and help you real estate agents grow your business. And I’ll tell you the rules about what makes great content never changes, the platform changes how you make it changes, the technology is much more accessible now. But making great content is universal. And you can learn it, it’s a skill you can learn. And I now teach agents across the country, in group courses, my video bootcamp course, and I do one on one work where I work directly with agents to help them make better content specifically to get leads to sell more homes, and to get more clients to grow your revenue. So I want to jump right into how to make content when you’re alone. So I was thinking about this recently, I went to Paris. Very nice, where I went to Paris. And I went to Paris to piggyback my husband’s work trip. And so when did it happen was I had a day where I was by myself and I was like dressed nice. And I want to shoot some content. I’m like, okay, like thinking in advance, what am I going to do when I shoot the content? What am I going to use? What tools am I going to use, and I realized, this is great. This is something I teach my clients and students in my courses, so I wanted to bring you into it. So when you’re thinking about filling by yourself, the situations where you might need it is you might be doing a home tour, you might be filming something in your area, right like a local restaurant or a bar. Again, a big part of being a real estate agent is being that trusted person that trusted resource. And so you want to be bringing people into what’s in your area, presenting yourself as that local expert, you don’t always have someone to film you. Ideally, if it’s a super active filming session, you have someone but you might not. So when you’re on a real estate tour, maybe you’re doing a neighborhood tour, maybe you’re just filming a video about your area. And it’s not necessarily a tour, but you’re featuring like something that you love, right. So it’s very important to understand how to film by yourself. So number one, thinking about what materials you might need. I’m a big advocate of like not over buying things, I have a whole cabinet basically a graveyard of dead equipment that I don’t use. Because even if I know how to use it, I don’t feel like using it. It’s either cumbersome or hard to set up. And if you’re not a super techie, it’s just annoying. So I’m a big advocate of only buying what you really need. When we’re talking about filming by yourself. What you can do, I think the bare minimum is really some sort of tripod with a ring light. And now if you’re sitting in your office and you’re not out on the go, a standing tripod, meaning there’s like three tries three things on the bottom, a stand, you can put your phone in it and a light around it, that’s gonna light you nicely and that’s not going to have your phone bubble around. Now if you’re on the go, it’s important to get something like that but that really can fit in your bag and your briefcase, whatever, that you can Bring with you. Not too big, not too cumbersome. So, one thing is if you’re filming content on the go, like for example, like I mentioned, I was in Paris, I had a selfie stick, that then doubles as a tripod. Why is that a great physical and to have so the selfie stick, you can hold it across, you can hold it out from you, and then you can film yourself. But when I opened the tripod, that’s when I could sit it on the street and walk by and create content capture content without needing someone to help me. So that was an all in one. So I bought us a little selfie stick, that then had a little tripod that opens out from the selfie stick. So selfie stick has like an arm, a metal arm, those little tripod legs folded out from it, it folded down to a really small size that could fit in my purse. So to me, that’s very important. I’m on vacation, I’m not carrying around a backpack, I’m just wearing a regular bag. So that is what I got. So again, I recommend a tripod with a ring light, whatever size fits where you’re going to be. So if we’re talking about filming on your own, and you’re going into an apartment and you’re kind of by yourself, yeah, just bring a tripod with a ring light set it up. But if you really think you’re gonna be out on the go, I would recommend getting like a traveling tripod a small one. And if you’re looking for like specific materials, you can message me you can message me on Instagram. I’m Kim Rydberg ri TTP ERG message me and I’ll give you some ideas. So once you have your materials, you bought your equipment, you have to think about what you’re gonna film, right. So you have to have a plan in mind. So let’s say for example, you want to film something awesome in your town, maybe you want to feature a really great new restaurant. So we’re talking about what are you going to film you have to think about? How am I filming this? Where am I going to be? What might it look like? So knowing where you’re going to film. So I’m going to go back to the example of me being in Paris, and I have a video that I have on Instagram, it says like how I filmed myself when I was in Paris, you can set up the tripod, put it on the ground. And again, this depends on on how big your tripod is where you’re at, you’re gonna put it down on a surface either on the ground, or on a table or something like that. You’re going to turn it on, the best resolution of the camera is not the selfie mode, it’s the regular mode. But if you can’t manage that do selfie mode, so that way you can see the screen. You prop it up on the tripod and you set it down. And let’s say you want a shot of you like walking into the restaurant, right or maybe you’re walking in. So for me in Paris, I wanted a shot of me walking by the camera on the Sen river. I just it was like a cool shot. It’s just like you see the water next to me a little pedestrian overpass, you could see people kind of walking around it looked Parisian. And I wanted to get the idea that I was in Paris right that I was there. So I was I walked really far away from the tripod. Don’t look at the camera, and you walk consistently past the camera. This is called B roll footage. It’s footage where someone’s it’s not the action is not your sorry, it’s not you talking to the camera, it’s kind of action that shows what’s going on. So let’s say again, you’re going to the restaurant, maybe you set up the tripod where you’re seeing the name of the restaurant above you, and you’re walking through it. So maybe we’re seeing the I’m going to like pick a random restaurant in New York City. White Horse tavern, it’s a bar near I used to live in the West Village in New York City, White Horse tavern, the sign is above you, the tripod is set up across the street, you walk across the doorway, and you’re setting up that you’re going in. Or maybe you’re walking, you’re walking from one side, you’re going into the door, and then you close the door. And the tripod is catching that from across the street. Or maybe it’s set on a table outside. But again, you’re getting the signage to you’re showing somebody where you’re at. So it’s one shot, you know, you’re getting, again, you have to visualize what am I going to do? What am I going to film to tell the story. So if you know you’re going to talk to camera and explain a little bit about what’s happening, you can be setting up that camera where you’re talking to camera. So we just got the shot where you’re walking in, and you’re walking into the restaurant. And then you can be setting up that little tripod at a table or you can bring it inside where you’re filming as long as it’s not loud. Set it up talk to camera, we’re talking about framing it meaning like what is what does it look like? What does the composition look like? You don’t want to be too close you want it to be so that there’s a little bit of space above your head. There’s you know more of your body in the shot. And when you’re really trying to establish where you are you want to film wide enough wide enough shot so that you’re seeing more behind you. A lot of times we see a lot of content on social media, it’s like the same background. We’re talking to camera, you’re in your office, it’s a lot of the same when you’re out and about really make it look different. Like capture that cool stuff. If this restaurant has some really cool fountain. If this restaurant has a really amazing mosaic wall, maybe it has like a cool living wall of plants. Maybe it has a cool smoker Maybe it’s like a barbecue pit with an amazing smoker. really capture that whether you’re in the shot or not. You want to be capturing that content. Okay. And we talked a little bit before I mentioned about prepping your video. Have write it down. Have your overall idea ready, I like to say prepare your script. A script makes it seem like you’ve to write it out like an article, even just three bullet points of what you know you’re going to cover that will help keep you organized, it will keep you moving. It will make sure your video is more interesting. And it will make sure you don’t ramble, I think it’s very important to understand without a structure, a script or bullet points, you’re just gonna ramble because you don’t really know what you’re covering. So it’s always important to go in with the plan. So let’s say you say, Okay, I’m going to walk into the restaurant, I’m going to show the sign in the restaurant, I want to cover the kitchen, I want to film the actual, like dining area. And I want to talk to the camera about what I think is interesting about it. So you have to be thinking about the shots. So you know, you want that exterior shot that says the name of the restaurant, and you’re gonna want to show the actual inside of the restaurant. And but for that shot, you can hold your camera and be turning camera ever so slightly, very slowly to show all the different sides of the restaurant. If you do not have a steady hand, you can always film it study, you can play with a lot of things in edit, don’t worry about it. If you do think you’re going to be doing a lot of like moving walking shots. In terms of materials, you can always get a stabilizer or a gimbal to put on your camera. Totally optional, not mandatory. Again, in terms of preparing it if you’re filming for vertical social media, like tick tock or Instagram, you’re gonna be filming things things vertically. If you’re filming them for YouTube, and vertical, you’re gonna start to film horizontal. And then you can always edit it down to be vertical later, make sure you’re always filming the highest resolution, go check your camera settings, Google, how do I get the highest camera settings possible, make sure for your own camera, you’re filming on the highest possible settings, this will take up more space, but it will make a much better video. Right. And now you know, if you’re doing a restaurant video, you might want to do something where you’re like showing someone around the restaurant. And even if you don’t want to talk to camera, you’re gonna want to voice it over leader. Voice Over it means when you hear someone’s voice over the footage, write that down. When you’re doing a voiceover, you really want to be concise, so write it down. And then you’re going to record that. Lastly, if you don’t have a tripod, you can always use a shelf. So you know, there’s kind of always like a ledge or a shelf or something, sometimes I’ve used like a my purse, I take my purse, I lean it up against something, I’ve used a water bottle, I mean, it’s just anything that you can get a steady place to put your phone can be a tripod, one thing to remember is lighting. So as you’re filming all of these things, you always want to make sure you’re you’re getting good lighting, meaning it’s not too dark, but it’s also not too light. So if you’re in the middle of the day and have a really, really bright light, that’s going to really be harsh, okay, it’s not gonna look that good. So you kind of want to balance light. And you don’t want to be half in shadow and half out of shadows. So you want to be in one spot. Consider the composition when you’re filming. So it’s good. If you’re, if you’re talking, you can kind of be right in the middle of the frame or slightly to the side. That’s nice. And then you want to kind of have things balanced, you know, the rule of threes, like have things in different thirds. Because we’re doing a lot of vertical vertical content, the composition rules have changed a little bit, if you’ve ever heard the rule of thirds is if you’re looking at something and it’s like horizontal, like a sideways painting, they have the rule of threes, where you want something like not always just in the middle, but kind of in the different thirds. Vertically, it’s a little bit different, right, it does change. So it’s just important to remember that and you just want to have your shots a little bit different, not always like the same thing in the middle all the time, you’re gonna vary your shots a little bit. Um, one thing to remember is very, very important. Always film B roll footage B roll footage is footage of what you’re seeing. So in a restaurant, that’s the restaurant booth sets the kitchen, that’s the entrance sign, it’s anytime that you’re not really talking to camera. The reason why that’s important is because you can always add things later. You could make your whole video without you in it, and just film a lot of that same restaurant, and then you can talk over it afterwards. Or you can add text. But without that B roll without that footage. It’s hard for someone to know what is this restaurant? Where is it? What’s it like? What’s cool about it? And again, when you’re filming something, don’t forget to think about what do you think is cool about it as you’re making that video. So you have to tell the story. From your point of view. This is not a Google article about the restaurant. It’s your point of view in the article. And it’s your point of view on the restaurant. And that’s why people are working with you as their agent. They trust you and they trust your opinion. And so Leslie so you’re getting that B roll, you’re thinking about lighting and composition. And in terms of filming on your own. One last thing when you’re filming and you’re out and about give context to where you are so if this restaurant is on the main street, make sure to show the main street if this restaurant is like a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and as beautiful farm or maybe this beautiful sunset this beautiful beach show that sometimes we live in this like small world like you know the phrase seeing the forest seeing the forest for the trees or seeing the trees of the forest but stepping back, stepping back and saying Great. I’m in this little restaurant. Awesome. Step back. Where is this restaurant? Is it by highway? Is it on the main street is it on the beach? So just giving a little more context to where this says, All right, so today we’re talking about how to make content when you’re alone. So I’m going to recap by the right materials. So figure out what you’re filming. And if you’re going to be on the move a lot, or if you’re kind of standing, you’re going to be getting some sort of tripod with a ring light or like a little travel tripod, maybe with a selfie stick, whatever is good for you, you’re going to prepare your video most important, think ahead about what you’re going to talk about what you want to capture, you can always write it later. But you need the ideas of what you’re going to cover and what you’re going to talk about, you really only get one chance to film it. So make sure to cover filming a lot of it film all the interesting things that you might have noticed. And lastly, so the on that note of making sure you know what you’re filming, if you’re going on vacation, same rules apply. Like think about all the things that make your vacation interesting. So you would want to film the ski slope or the pool or or the ocean or your hotel or an amazing meal you had. So you really want that varied content. The one thing is you don’t want a video of just you talking to camera. When you’re in the Bahamas, I want to see the Bahamas right. So really bring people into your life by capturing as much content as possible. You can always add text or voiceover later. Alright, as you can tell if you could probably tell my voice I love teaching people about video. Video can grow your business, it is the most amazing thing and if you don’t know how to make great video to grow your business, you’re never too late. It’s never too late. You’re never too old. You’re never too young. It’s perfect. So reach out to me on my instagram Kim Ripper KMRI TTB erg. I also have really awesome free downloads you can grab from Kim ripper.com/newsletter drop me an Instagram I love hearing from the keeping it real folks, you’re all really cool. And I’ve now worked with so many of you in my video bootcamp classes that I run twice a year. Reach out I hope to hear from you. And if you’re making content when you’re alone, make sure to tag me in that video. Whether you’re making an Instagram story or a full reel. I want to hear what you’re making when you’re alone. Tag me and I will cheer you on. I am a big cheerleader. Alright, thank you so much for joining me. I am Kim Rydberg and I’ll talk to you next time

Louise Phillips Forbes describes her transition from dancer in Broadway to an industry leader in real estate. Louise talks about what is she and her team doing now at a down market. Louise also discusses the importance of building relationships with other realtors. Louise also talks about how her very authentic style/look impacted her business. Next, Louise discusses the importance of participating in associations and giving back to the community. Last, Louise discusses teams in real estate business. Please follow Louise on Instagram here and also her team here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Louise Phillips Forbes can be reached at 917.846.8640 and lphillips@bhsusa.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we’re gonna talk to an agent who had no business background before becoming a real estate agent, and his todate closed over 5.5 billion in real estate by embracing her authentic self. You’re gonna want to check this one out. So stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host to the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with superstar and I really mean superstar Louise Phillips Forbes from New York. And before we get to Louise in really You guys can’t get we can’t get to her fast enough. But before we do, please do me a favor to things leave us a review whatever app you’re listening to us on. Let us know what you think of the show. We really do take those comments to heart and it helps us get in front of more people and also tell a friend I think one other realtor that needs to hear what Louise is about to tell you and trust me you’re gonna want to share it after you hear this but let’s get to the main event. my conversation with Louise Phillips Forbes. Today our guest on the show is a New York City legend Louise Phillips Forbes with a Louise Phillips sports team with Brown Harris Stevens in New York City. Let me tell you more about Louise. For over three decades Louise Phillips Forbes has been an industry leader in New York’s residential real estate market with their career sales exceeding dramatic pause 5.5 billion end up dramatic boss she is considered one of the elite power brokers in Manhattan she really is a true superstar Louise has been named residential agent of the Year by REBNY, which is the Real Estate Board of New York for her consistent achievements and leadership within the industry. She’s a multi time winner of homesteads real estate, which is now brown hair Stevens esteemed broker of the Year award. Louise has also been acknowledged many times as the number one listing broker company wide and currently lists one of the firm’s top sales sorry currently leads one of the top firms top sales teams, she has developed a significant following among developers buyers and sellers throughout Manhattan from the Upper West Side and upper east side to the West Village Tribeca Wall Street really everywhere Manhattan and and the boroughs are Louise probably serves prominent New Yorkers, please follow her on Instagram, which is Louise Phillips Forbes team. I will have a link to that in the show notes and also visit our website which is Louise Phillips forbes.com. And we will also have a link to that as well. Louise, so happy to have you. Thank Louise Phillips Forbes 4:06you. I’m just gonna add to that lovely intro. That there’s also Weezy underscores says and that’s W E z e underscore F E z if you really want to get a little essence of Weezy D.J. Paris 4:23should I call you Weezy as opposed to one Louise Phillips Forbes 4:25I met my husband on a blind date and I was like oh, all my friends call me my husband’s very elegant and he certainly elevates me. And I was like oh my friends call me Wheezy and he was like turning the menu going. I will never call you with a D.J. Paris 4:42fan of the Jeffersons or Louise Phillips Forbes 4:44I don’t know but you know I’m from Nashville, Tennessee, and that’s just what everybody called me growing up. So I D.J. Paris 4:51love that you still have a little tiny bit of that Nashville accent which I just think is one of the best accents in our country. I love that Nashville accent Well, Louise Phillips Forbes 5:01you know, when I when I’m negotiating particularly, it’s something that I don’t intentionally do it. But when I’m a little nervous, I go home, you know, we go home, my home and my accent and so, yes, wait till I spend about 10 days in Nashville. And then I’m like, y’all, it’s waiting for y’all do it. D.J. Paris 5:23Oh, I love Nashville. So my everybody loves Nashville. It’s pretty much a universally beloved city. It’s like Charleston is kind of that way, Austin, there’s a few cities that you’d never you’d be hard pressed to find somebody that goes, Oh, Nashville, yuck. Like everybody loves it. But anyway, let’s get to to your origin story. Like our audience always loves to hear I know you’ve been been in this business for 30 plus years. But why did you get started? And how’d you get started in real estate? Louise Phillips Forbes 5:53Well, I always say that I kind of fell off the boat from Nashville to New York City, I came here, really seeking the Broadway lights, I was a dancer. And, you know, I still I miss it. I did some off Broadway things. But you know, really, with everybody who is in real estate, we all have multiple chapters in our life, I would say the new generation is being educated to be in real estate. But my journey was through the back door, which was through through coming here and ended up in New York. And literally, I was bartending and somebody was like, you’d be so great in real estate. And I went, I took the card, I met her friend, and he was like, You got a job. And I called my brother, I was like, I got a job, I got a job. And he’s like, you know, that’s commission only. Oh, no. And for all the new brokers out there, I just want to say keep coming back, because I literally made $8,400, my first year. And I lived on 30 bucks a week, I came to New York with a ton of bucks in my pocket. And, you know, almost $6 billion later, you know, I have I am. So in the right place, I have a degree in special education and elementary education. And I had a scholarship to dance and dance to dance companies, and how real estate, build all those holes, I have no idea. But it’s not the business of brick and mortar. It’s really the business of people. And that is what blows my skirt out. You know? D.J. Paris 7:39You know, that is, by the way, just the blows my skirt up expression is adorable. I love I love that. I love that. But But you’re right. And it is it is a relationship, of course business. It’s an interpersonal business, and you know, brick and mortar. Even real estate offices aren’t that packed anymore, unless there’s teams that are working in need to sort of have that space. So many people are, you know, moving away from from the brick and mortar offices, although I still there’s obviously still tremendous value in that. But I would love to learn a little bit about, you know, you’ve been here, you’ve been around 34 years, I want to dive into sort of just a more challenging topic, because of where we currently are. And it’s something that everybody’s probably experiencing some version of, which is it’s a down market, it just is we it’s where we are. And the interest rates are up, of course, inventory is down again, I know Manhattan is kind of its own echo system there that maybe sometimes a little bit outside of what the rest of the country is, is experiencing. But, you know, I would always love to hear from huge producers like you and your team. How are you keeping everyone motivated work moving forward? What is your team focused on right now? Because of course, you’re still working? Louise Phillips Forbes 8:58Right? Of course. I mean, listen, I I didn’t have a Rolodex for all the young listeners, that was a thing that we held all of our contacts in. Now we have our phones, but but I had no context. All my friends were like starving artist. And, um, and you know, I would just say that I was not comfortable with the Commission model because that meant that I needed to, I had to find I had to be worthy. I needed to earn my keep. And and something clicked in me which is a philosophy in down markets and up markets. It doesn’t matter. That I realized that if I looked at myself, not as a salesperson, but an educator. I felt much more comfortable and if I operate it from being of service at all times, what goes around comes around. So these are those markets that operating by Mike by being of service to my competitor, and sharing my knowledge and collaborating and doing more than I need to do comes back 18 fold. So, that is one of the greatest wisdoms that I’ve learned through trial and error, honestly. And there’ll be people that will, you give them an inch, and they take a mile. And then when you really need them, they’re not there. But for the most part, for the most part, it is, it is appreciated. And honestly, it’s what buyers and sellers come and go, but we have each other for decades, and the richness that that gives you in wise wisdom and experience, and I love it when I’m going to lose a piece of business. Hopefully, I’m losing to somebody I respect. D.J. Paris 10:58Yeah. And and, you know, there’s enough business to sort of go around, right, and you don’t win every deal. Of course, as you have been in this business long time you win a lot of them, obviously. But it is it is always I always say it’s always a good idea to play nice in the sandbox, especially because it is at least for now. It’s called a cooperative commission. We’re supposed to be cooperative. Yes. Yeah. How important? How important is the relationships you’ve built with other realtors over your career? Louise Phillips Forbes 11:25Massive, massive? I mean, every time I do you know, so you’re talking about like, you’re asking me, it’s a difficult market. So what’s my advice? What are we doing? You know, we are out there every day. I, I am very data driven. I always say I’m not the smartest pencil in the in the bucket. But But I but I get so much accolades for effort, energy consistency, I never I never give up. And and I think these are the markets where your knowledge and data like who can figure out what anything is worth since COVID. Right? Because it’s so there’s no cycle, right? And so I, every time I get a pitch, which we probably average five to seven a week, if not more. I talked to 50. I’m not saying for 50. Brokers just for that analysis, what’s happening? Do you have any offers heavy, you know, when you drop the price, did it make a difference, then I’m not only giving my owners a bunch of numbers, I’m telling the story to the texture, the broker wanted to list this at $2 million, but the owner asked to put it on for three weeks at two and a half. Well, eight weeks later, they just dropped it to 199. And the market is different today. So So that’s telling the story. So I don’t have to pressure anybody, we’re partnering together. It’s like, Hey, I can’t make up the market. So that kind of collaboration is how I approach everything, whether it’s a buyer, a broker, I’m interviewing to an agent to come and work on our team, like, Who are you, and you demonstrate that by the data points that you share them? D.J. Paris 13:19Yeah, so it’s important to know the market and to study the market on a daily basis, which I suspect, most agents probably could upgrade their amount of time they spend learning, learning the market and on a daily basis. And in addition to the prospecting and working with their existing clients, and all of the things you need to do to keep the business running is this idea of and collaboration, learning from other agents is so important. And I wanted to go back to something you had said about educating because you are an educator, that was your, that was your training. That and and in in special needs, which of course is requires an even really a more sophisticated skill set to be able to address the needs of of people with developmental disabilities and those types of challenges. And it probably I would assume your level of patience that you have, in communicating with with clients and really educating them is probably served you extraordinarily well. Because again, as Realtors we oftentimes can forget how challenging, you know, emotionally a purchase or sale can be for the client, it’s easy for us to sort of say oh, it’s all going to work out, but it may not feel that way to the client in real time. Louise Phillips Forbes 14:32salutely Absolutely. And I would also say that I learned a long time ago for myself, because I used to be on the same roller coaster as is them when we didn’t get the deals. I was so disappointed. I also felt it was somehow another my fault. And and you know what I have come to look at everything and this is part of me having an executive coach and me learning so that you know, like, sometimes your skill is not necessarily the most important thing, if your will is there. And, and it’s also how you perceive it like, listen, have faith in the process, that was not the right house for us. And we have to, we have to say, what can we have learned from that? What would I have done differently? Should we have given that extra 20 grand that we really wanted to wait? Maybe we could have gotten their attention. But But I also don’t dwell on it. Because usually, we learn a lot about ourselves. And most of all, they learn about themselves in their partnerships, their relationships have of who’s going to really make the final decisions, and when do you let go of the numbers and you focus on the heart of it. Because that, to me, is why I really am so fulfilled, because what I do is not a transaction. It’s it’s, you know, it’s purposeful, it’s it’s making, it’s, you know, I built the rest of my life around my home. To be a part of that is such a privilege. Yeah, D.J. Paris 16:10it really is, there’s, I think we couldn’t ever over focus on the interpersonal importance of, you know, being in this business, you’re legitimately, you know, working with somebody who maybe it’s their largest financial purchase of their life, or certainly one of the larger financial purchases in really, probably anyone’s life. But it’s more than that. It’s that emotional connection we all have to our to our abode to our residents, we we feel a certain way about it, it’s important, it defines us in a lot of ways. And you I also want to talk about aesthetics, just just briefly, because I think we never talked about this on the show. And of course, aesthetics are just one little minor portion of anyone’s business. But I love the fact that you have a look, you have a style very much unto you, that is very much you. And it’s very cool. And you are a creative person, you are a dancer, you know, so you have this really cool way of expressing yourself physically. So I would just love to hear a little bit about how you’re able to do that in real estate. I love that. I Louise Phillips Forbes 17:15love that. Well, you know, talking about my look, I always when I teach real estate classes or whatever I’m working on in collaboration with with some of the real estate board or our courses for continuing education. I literally tell the story about when I showed up. My first day in real estate. Okay, just everybody close your eyes, I usually say Okay, good buddy. 400 kids in the audience, and I’m like, close your eyes. All right. Imagine a unity car with a prairie skirt, green cowboy boots with a hole in my left one. And shoulder pads. I just I just want you to have the visual. And honestly, I had never been in an office. I was a dancer. I have a degree in special education. I didn’t. I didn’t even I did Tony Roberts, creative visual Robins. I listened. I listened to his I learned how to creatively visualize who I wanted to be. Yeah, I was in my 20s. And I’m just wasn’t, I was pretty cash. I mean, as you see, I haven’t changed that much. But I do have a look. Because, you know, I remember when my sister I’d go home and my sister was a school teacher, and she married her college sweetheart. And she’s amazing, but we’re like, getting in gang. And, and she would like Let’s go shopping. And I would end up with all these outfits that my sister would wear. And I was like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing? So I would say just embrace who you are today and who you become every day. You know? Because I don’t know. I mean, I’m a lot for a lot of people. So I mean, yes, sometimes I’ve left and the wives would say like, you know, I’m gonna go next time, my husband, you’re you’re really high energy for my husband. D.J. Paris 19:17But I think I think what comes across for you in your sort of your energy in your presence is two things that come to mind. For me authenticity is absolutely first and foremost, I believe you. And I believe that you are the person you’re portraying, which is really a skill in and of itself, because a lot of us have fear around being, you know, uniquely ourselves and maybe how that may be perceived. And also so there’s that authenticity, authentic part, but also I think there’s this sort of passion that sort of also radiates from you that is very clear that you are doing what you want to do. in your business, it is there doesn’t seem to be hesitation or you I mean, you’ve been doing for 34 years. But it is like you are you are, it seems you are as into it today, as I suspect if I would have interviewed you 33 years ago, I bet it would be about the same level of passion and excitement. Louise Phillips Forbes 20:16Yes, other than I would be a little more timid, because I will never forget the first coop deal that I did with the attorney who I’m still working with today. And she it was a $63,000 walk up, apartment. Yes, they did exist at that point. And she’s like, so how’s the board package coming in? I’m like, what? She’s like, well, this is a call off. And I’m like, wait a minute, what does that mean? So I just want you to know that it’s okay to not know everything. I mean, you might want to know a little more than that. But, but, you know, I learned a long time ago, I’m terribly dyslexic, and I only make dyslexic children. And, you know, owning those imperfections in ourselves, actually, for me, turned out to be my secret weapon. My spatial memory is like rain, man. So I think that sometimes, I have heard kids say to my own kids, wow, I would never tell anybody. I’m dyslexic. And my son is like nine years old at the time was like, just means I learned differently. It’s no big deal. But that vulnerability is inviting. Yes. It’s like, I’m going to trust you with a little bit about me. Yes. D.J. Paris 21:32And I’m trusting you with information that you can use to harm me, meaning you can reject me, you can make fun of me, you could and most people won’t do that. So it’s this fear we have of like, If I reveal this about me, maybe I’ll get punished for it. However, most people aren’t like that. Yes, once in a while somebody will, you know, especially kids in a playground, maybe in grade school, they’ll make fun of, but, but adults aren’t really so much that way. And I think I think the courage to be vulnerable, is is both one of the hardest things to do. It’s also one of the most rewarding because what you find what I found in my life is that people don’t run away generally. And Louise Phillips Forbes 22:12I think, you know, listen, I have had, you know, my, I’m not sure my passion came came from being just so incredibly grateful. I mean, I lost my mom when I was 23. And my brother died in my arms when I was 30. I had a boyfriend who passed away when I was 38. And my dad passed away 10 days after I met my husband on a blind date. And, and I literally think that my mother sent me my angel and brought me from, you know, took hers back. But but when you go through those kinds of obstacles in your life, you just can’t sweat the small shit. And believe me, I still do a maybe you can believe that. Sorry. That’s okay. But I still do but that but but but when you have loss, and when when you have the privilege to be focused around people’s homes, because what is home thing for you, it’s family. I left my family, right, I lost a lot of my family. And so my clients, I have seven, eight, God children, you know, they can’t I mean, I met my husband on blind date from a client. So I created a new family that happened to be part of what I do in business. D.J. Paris 23:29I am so I am so touched by that. And you know, you did just list a lot of challenges that you have gone through, because of course, you’re human and people leave us they you know, it’s just part of the deal. Louise Phillips Forbes 23:45I was gonna say it also armed me to deal with this dates, and loss, and family. And when I have I hear from my clients that they have an autistic child, well, I am the first person to connect the dots. Let me let you talk to my friend who has three boys and her son is three and he’s autistic. And she’s got so it’s like, sometimes it’s too much for people. But again, I just want to be of service whether or not exactly D.J. Paris 24:14and you know, also going through tremendous heartache and pain builds resiliency, and that allows you to realize, wow, I can get through difficult times I can I can survive them. And I can emerge a stronger person because now I know how to handle some of the really, really tough, you know, valleys of life as they say. I would you know, you are very immersed in in giving back specifically, I know that you do a lot with the local association, and maybe even statewide and national but certainly I know you have contributed a lot Can we just tell all of our audience because I I do a lot of volunteering at the at the local level. Here with our association. We tell everybody they should Get involved with their local association. Yes, Louise Phillips Forbes 25:02yes. And, you know, it is through giving. I mean, a sounds like, I feel like I’m a minister for a minute, but in through giving, we receive so much. And, you know, I think that, that I’m always an all when somebody who always is like, well, you’re so busy, it’s like, but if I’m too busy to make a difference than I am missing my purpose. So I will say that, again, if I am too busy, to try to make a difference to pause to be present for somebody’s need, then I am missing my purpose. And that’s really, if you live like that, that that, you know, it does pull you thin, because I don’t have probably enough boundaries. But I, I think that’s the way to live, if I go to bed, and I still haven’t done enough, and maybe I’m gonna wake up tomorrow, again, with the purpose to do more. D.J. Paris 26:06You’re right, and I feel the same way. So I’m probably stretched too thin myself, however, I can always pull back on certain obligations. But what I have gained by getting involved with our local association here is I’ve gained a social life, way more than I had before. I have all sorts of events to go to. But more importantly, I have all of these like minded other real estate professionals, who are committed to helping and being of service. And boy, is that a great energy to be around. And whether it be up totally Louise Phillips Forbes 26:38whether you’re doing you know, I mean, we are in every kind of nonprofit world, the people in our world of real estate, because they’re, you know, they’re not just a handful of us, they’re millions of us. But you know, nothing is better than when you’re doing dealing with something that’s for Housing Works, or for ALS. I mean, I have I’ve been to a number of the my, my dear friend was honored and also client honored for the American Society for cancer for breast cancer, and she was a survivor of breast cancer. And that’s just been the last three weeks. But it is really like, if we can find what fills our soul. And it’s not about ourselves. It’s also where you know, your, your sphere of influence becomes where you can be a part of the fabric of a community. D.J. Paris 27:36Yes, and you know, I always say to, you know, life has so many challenges, and so much pain is going to come into all of our lives. It’s just part of the human experience. So if you can build in sort of guaranteed wins throughout your life, they help sort of offset some of the challenging times. And being of service for me has been one of those things that it just feels too good to give up. It’s almost I almost feel a bit selfish when I do it, because I’m really sort of doing it for me, because I want to I want to feel good, but I’m also hopefully doing some good out there in the in the community. But, but I do it for me. Sort of Yeah, for sure. Because I know I’m going to feel proud of myself this Louise Phillips Forbes 28:19this morning. And literally I just said to my my husband because my kids one my son is in college and the other one is in boarding school and I was like for Thanksgiving, why don’t we go to the Bowery and let’s serve. And then let’s go look at the parade. Like you know, like, and, and I, I listened to a guy who was a doorman, who goes every Wednesday, every week to serve breakfast a meal at the Bowery. And he’s like, my whole week is like set. You know what I mean? Like it sets appreciation, gratitude, that you know, being thankful. And he said he just gets to work as a doorman and he’s like, there’s nothing that’s gonna shake me because life is great. I have my health and I have a roof and so you know, I’m not everybody’s journey to finding what what blows his skirt up is going to be different but but but make the time to do it because it’s it’s really in giving. You know, my mom used to say you have to give it away to keep it and I would be like, but wait Ma, if you give it away, you don’t have it. Right. So you know that one by one. D.J. Paris 29:37And what you said earlier, it once you give it away it comes back and you said 18 fold, which again, I’m sure it’s just a number that you’re using. But it’s but it’s it’s it’s not so much whether that’s accurate or not, but it’s accurate enough to be able to say it comes back in multiples and that is something that I have found absolutely true. There’s almost a little magical element to it that I can’t quite put my finger on why it comes back? You know, but it does, it seems. Yeah. Louise Phillips Forbes 30:04Yeah. And if it doesn’t, it’s that that’s like that that story, pay it forward, it doesn’t doesn’t matter if it’s not that person. It’s the seed that’s planted. You know. Um, so that’s the way I feel about sharing about my dyslexia, about having lost, it’s like, I might make somebody uncomfortable, but I might make somebody go, Oh, I’m not alone. Yes, you know, um, I wanted to say also that kind of, in bringing back to what we do, and when you have this philosophy of being of service, and, and being generous with your knowledge, you know, hey, you know, having people that I probably just said this last night, I was talking to somebody about meeting them for coffee, because they’re, they want to do something different. And I was an asset, I think that I probably brought, like, 80 people into real estate by this point, you know, where people are like, Well, I was a sales manager, I was an architect, I was an investment banker, I could do this, you know, or I was an actress or whatever. And, and I will say that the time that I had that cup of coffee, I promise you, when you get you see, you know, when you see somebody who’s going to be great at real estate. And, and when you get that time, and you give that time, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on the other side of the negotiating table. And they’re five bids, and they’re like, Wait, please, listen, here’s the deal, you need to come up, I would love to see if I can’t tell you what the other bids are. But you know, you really get you extended yourself to me. So I want to make sure I do my best for you. Because I know they’re your personal friends. Right? That’s, that’s all about relationship. D.J. Paris 31:58I mean, what that is worth is almost it’s almost not countable. Because it’s so it’s, it’s worth so much to build those relationships, and then those relationships will possibly help. And that is I wasn’t expecting Louise Phillips Forbes 32:11that just to be clear. But again, it’s just a seed that was planted. And I’m saying that for people, when you know, even when I know, I can’t make an appointment, like, I know, I can’t do it, because my owner is definitely not gonna let me in. I sometimes pick up the phone, and I will say, I’ve just done my best I cannot even negotiate this. But let me tell you what I can do for you. Because and brokers are like always, like, you didn’t need to call me for that lease. But to me, doesn’t that make you feel important? Yes. Because I do care. And sometimes I can’t do anything about it. And that seven tene second phone call is like 27 chips. Again, not why I did it. But but that’s how I know how I feel when somebody makes that effort. D.J. Paris 33:05Yeah, it’s it’s important to be heard, to feel heard, to allow others to be to be feel heard as well. And that is something that that is so so critical. I want to switch gears to talk just a little bit about teams because you run an incredibly successful team. And right now we have seen over the last, well, gosh, you’ve you’ve been at this much longer than I but certainly a flight to teams or a trend towards team building. In the last I would say five years or so certainly in the last Louise Phillips Forbes 33:37I would say 15 years. But yes, there are some I mean, in New York, we have some teams that have, you know, 1230 I mean, you know, the sort of I mean, Serhan has his own business now. You know, so listen, I I built my team, not purposely because honestly, I don’t think of myself as a business person. However I am, which I’ve come to learn. But it really came out of being of service and I can’t be everywhere and I don’t like it when somebody says you know, she’s my boss. I mean, I can’t stand that it’s like minute and a we are a machine and I’m a spoke and you’re a spoke, and we all need each other. But I think that the most important thing and I said it earlier you know, I spent many many years not wanting brokers or agents who were in the business to come on my team. Number one, I’m dyslexic, I have to do things a certain way. I rarely write my emails because I will be here for 973 minutes just to get three paragraphs. Um, and I say that jokingly but it’s kind of an accurate. And, and so I need a lot of support. And and I don’t want very established agents habits. Because the philosophy of being of service, the philosophy of going above and beyond the philosophy of, you know, well, can I just send it like this? And we’ll just add that other stuff later? No, we have to provide excellence and value every turn, because that is demonstrating why they should choose to operate with us. It shouldn’t even be a question, if we so so. So that’s sort of one thing, I would say. And I think there’s a natural mentoring, although people tell me I’m very intimidating, which I find very funny, because if you really knew me, it’s like, I’m just a little kid. But I guess I guess it’s really I built my team, purposefully today around the support that I need, but also looking for the right chemistry, because we all have to have the same philosophy. I’ve always, you know, I don’t like to have one person work on this and one person work on that. I don’t even want to have the energy to try to figure out who should be what I do match personalities. I don’t match the financial or the specialty. I match personalities, because I do know, my clients. D.J. Paris 36:39You use a personality test to do that as well, correct? Louise Phillips Forbes 36:43I do. I mean, my husband is wicked smart. And people are always like, you know, you and your husband worked as like, oh my god, we he would just, I would drive him crazy. Because he is I always describe us as like, I’m the kite and he’s my streak. So, so, but he is very smart. And he is a tech entrepreneur, and has built and sold a number of companies. And at some point, you know, he started trying to figure out how to hire the right people in his own businesses. And, you know, he, he, for the heck of it, he gave me this personality index. And it was created by the guy that was selecting the bomb, the person who dropped the bomb, so it’s a pilot, and the copilot. And so that’s how it was created in the 40s. But it’s morphed into this tool of determining personalities and what people are good for? Well, you know, it’s a, b, c, d, personality traits. Well, I am so off of what’s important on relationships, that’s the B, it doesn’t even mark and not only that, my husband jokes, he’s like, You care more about the relationships that that are not nice and don’t like you, and you want to figure out why than the ones that are just right in front of you sometimes. You know, I just want to try to figure out what makes those people tick. Sure. Um, and so what I did come to realize that I had at one point in marketing guy who was also a real estate broker who came back came in from the advertising world. And he was desperately trying to be a broker. And he presented well, and he was amazing. But when he did the personality index, he was literally turning himself inside out. He was not at all being who his natural self was. And so, you know, I know. I mean, now I have enough of the right people in the right seats, that we literally can finish each other sentences. And, and by the way, when I piss somebody off, which I do, because I’m a lot, you know, the intent is, you know, my intent. It’s not that it’s just not having time. And so the trust that’s built with those moments, and lots of them, you have built your own dynamic of a family. I also, I want to say one more thing about compensation because I remember watching older agents have assistants, and they kind of barked at, like, get me copy and make copies and that’s a typo. do that over again. It’s like it was not collaborative. And I really wanted to have something that was people I couldn’t hit, I can’t be everywhere. So I didn’t want many knees. I just wanted people that complimented my many weaknesses, but also that diversity of who’s going to be attracted to who I As we work together, and and that that is was a really good. I don’t know if it was intentional, but it just sort of happened where, where I felt I feel I filled the seats with people that complimented my weaknesses, or, you know? Yeah, I would say that. And so they don’t think like me, they, they complement our strategy. D.J. Paris 40:30I love that. And we should also mention, too, that if you are a realtor in the Manhattan market, and maybe you are thinking of a switch, or maybe you just want to see what other opportunities are out there to see if there is better chemistry. Maybe you’re not currently on a team and you think that could you could provide some value to the team and maybe get some value as well. Or maybe you’re somebody that’s currently on a team and it’s just maybe not the right fit. Of course, not all teams are. And so if you think that you would like to partner with Louise and her team, obviously she does not take everyone in fact, she doesn’t take hardly anyone because she wants to find the right fit. But when she does find that she she embraces them and brings them on, she has a very successful team nearly 6 billion in sales. So Louise, if any of our listeners who are realtors in your area, are interested in thinking that maybe they would be a good asset to you, what’s the best way they should reach out? You Louise Phillips Forbes 41:28can do you can DM me on Wheezy underscore says or you can go to the website. I don’t know if if if you’ve got a chat log in your in your podcast. But no, I mean, I think those are two great spots. D.J. Paris 41:44Yeah. And and also realize too, that, you know, when you’re reaching out to top producers, like like Weezy, she’s, she’s busy, she’s a very busy person. So so be be patient. A lot of people listen to our show, and a lot of people will probably be messaging her. So please be patient there. And also think about I always think if you’re going to approach a top producer, think about what you can, what problems you can help solve for them. And if you can think about what, what you can bring to the table, as opposed to just what you might get, you’ll probably get a lot further. And Louise and her team obviously are exceptional. They’re really they’re legends in the New York market. So it is a very, very big deal. And please do reach out to her if you think you could be a good fit for her. And then her and her team will we’ll take a look. But also I want everybody to follow Louise, check out her website, which is which is sorry, it is Louise Louise Phillips Forbes 42:41forbes.com.com. And D.J. Paris 42:44then Louise Phillips Forbes team is where you find her on Instagram. We will also have a link to your Wheezy one as well. We will have a link to all your social profiles, but also just wanted to ask one final question. What was the biggest mistake that you think you’ve made in your into 30? Or a mistake that you sort of wish that you could go back and correct? Because I always like to humanize our guests a little bit too. So can you think of something that you wish you would have done different in your career? Louise Phillips Forbes 43:14Hmm, wow, there are so many things. What would I have done differently? I mean, I you know, I don’t I don’t think there’s I am grateful that I don’t live in regret, right? Because even if I’ve made mistakes, which there are pretty much every day, the ability to clean up your mistakes and own your part in it, I think is really valuable. So you don’t live in the negative. I’m trying to think of an example that that that just stands out. I mean, I’ve I’ve D.J. Paris 43:58here’s what I love. Here’s me by the way, just Well, here’s what I love about why, why you’re stopped. I love this because you don’t live in regret, you keep your side of the street clean. When you make mistakes as you say you do every day, you own them, you acknowledge them, you make amends if you need to, and you move on and you don’t hold on to it. So the fact that you’re not holding on to it doesn’t mean you you don’t didn’t make mistakes you admitted as much. But that you know, you don’t you don’t have a list of these horrible atrocities that have been committed, which probably weren’t horrible anyway, but the idea of letting go and moving forward is really Louise Phillips Forbes 44:35I will say one thing about and I can think of one of the most difficult times in my I almost got out of real estate. So I had a team, a couple of team members that worked with me, and you know, I had a contract but I am not a business minded individual. And, you know, I just it just, I operate with such trust and You know, people I used to I remember, I had somebody who sat next to me and when I was young, younger in the late 90s, early 2000s, and she was locking up her desk with all of her files. And I thought to myself, like, how odd is that? And so I never felt like, you can’t take AI relationships. Right. But in fact, you know, I had a team members that worked for me for a decade, and just shy of a decade, and we had had such an intricate fiber of how we operated. That, you know, I knew exactly where I was, you know, if I’m, I’m selling an apartment to somebody that my kids go to preschool with. And I’m kind of clear where that that relationship came from. But I had a couple of agents that left and went to another firm, and they left very strategically on time at, you know, planning, probably three to four months in advance and targeted my business for five years still today. And I was so devastated emotionally, that I just didn’t understand that betrayal, that it took me three years to thaw out. Trust, unconditionally, however, I got my ducks in a row. So. So if you’re building a team, even if it’s your best friend, have a good contract, don’t be short sighted. And also, if you’re going to have employees, like operations, drivers, marketing people, have a third person, contractor, third party contractor, hire them, have them on a payroll, pay 20, whatever percent more for their salary, protect yourself, because I have had, I’ve had people fall and be disabled. And you know, or go on disability, and I would never have known how to manage that. So it’s a big thing that people who build teams are not addressing, and it’s going to bite them in the rear end. D.J. Paris 47:11100% agree. So if you are joining a team, make sure that that team seems to have their HR in order and some sort of operations in order so that you can Louise Phillips Forbes 47:22clear yes, contract terms, everything. Because you’re in the business and you you need to take care of yourself. Sorry about my phone. D.J. Paris 47:32No, it’s no, it’s perfect timing, because I gotta get a good call as well. So this is perfect time for us to wrap up, you’ve provided so much value to our audience. So on behalf of everyone listening, we thank you, Louise for your time today. You are a superstar, obviously in the New York market. And we are so honored to get some of your time today because we know how valuable that is for somebody as busy as yourself. So on behalf of the audience, thank you. And on behalf of Louisa and I we want to thank the audience as well for sticking around to the very end, please tell a friend about this episode. Please leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. But the best thing to do for sure is just keep spreading the word. Let other agents know that this podcast exists. And we have grown to we just crossed over 3.2 million downloads. Thanks to you guys. Not things. Not thanks to me. So we apply it. Thank you on behalf of our entire crew here. And Luis thank you again. We will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks a lot. I’ll Louise Phillips Forbes 48:27see you in New York soon. D.J. Paris 48:29I will be there and I will we’ll go to Katz’s or something we’ll have fun. I love it. Alright, see you later. Bye bye

Malte Kramer the CEO of Luxury Presence talks about his journey and how he ended up in real estate. Malte dispels a few myths around website creation and talks about SEO and how to bring traffic to your website organically. Malte shares a few recommendations on nurturing leads. Malte also discusses AI and its impact on the real estate business. Last, Malte shares his short-term predictions on real estate market. Check out Malte’s profile on LinkedIn and follow him on Instagram. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Malte Kramer can be reached at (310) 955-1077. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Are you thinking of upgrading your personal realtor website? Well, today we’re have a conversation with one of the top website designers in the industry, and he’s going to tell you exactly what you should think about if you decide to upgrade. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with multi Kramer, who is the CEO and founder of luxury presence. They make realtor websites. So it’s gonna be a really interesting one because we’re going to talk all about what a realtor website should have and shouldn’t have and maybe what you should consider for your own site. Before we get to Malte please tell a friend about the show. That’s the best way you can help us think of another realtor that could benefit from this great conversation we’re about to have or any of the other conversations we have in previous episodes, send a link over to another realtor that would really help us and also please leave us a review especially if you’re listening on iTunes or really anywhere that you’re finding our podcast. Let us know what you think of the show we appreciate it and are so grateful for everyone listening right this very second it’s been five or six years we’ve done 500 episodes over 3 million downloads all because of you guys really it’s all because of you so I’m so grateful. This is we’re getting towards the end of 2023 and I just wanted to say thanks in case I forget to do it in a future episode. So thank you thank you thank you keep listening. We’ll keep making episodes and enough from me let’s get to the main event my conversation with multi Kramer. Okay today our guest on the show is multi Kramer and I want to tell you more about multi. Multi Kramer is the CEO of luxury presents, which is the leading real estate marketing platform and one of the fastest growing propped up companies in the United States since founding the business in 2016. He’s grown it to over 100 million in revenue with a global team of 600 employees and a client list of nearly 10,000 real estate professionals. To date luxury presents has raised 50 million from notable investors, including top VC firm of Bessemer Venture Partners, Zillow co founder Spencer Rascoff, real estate Coach Tom Ferry, NBA champion, Dirk Nowitzki, and NFL Pro Larry Fitzgerald. Now originally from Germany, Malte moved to the United States on a basketball scholarship to Pepperdine University, and after graduating as valedictorian he began his entrepreneurial journey by launching a fundraising app called giver and went on to receive an MBA from Stanford. Multi was named a Housing Wire rising star in 2021, rising Entrepreneur of the Year in 2022 by.la, and Housing Wire tech trendsetter in 2023. He’s a dedicated rescue dog dad, the author of play for something which is a North Star for student athletes and a finisher of a half Ironman multi Welcome to the show. Malte Kramer 4:32Thank you so much for having me DJ. I D.J. Paris 4:35forgot to give you the most important thing a plug. Everybody go visit multi and his website which is luxury presents.com. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes and I’d like you to follow a luxury presents on LinkedIn as well as Instagram. Just search for luxury presents and subscribe again LinkedIn and Instagram. We will have links to that as well in the show notes notes, I am very excited to chat with you. Because before we get into what your company offers, I, I very rarely have I been impressed with real estate agent websites. And I know you do more than that, but specifically that I think you guys probably do it better than just about anyone. So I’m excited to get to that. And I’ve also noticed over the years being on this show, we have we interview top 1% agents and more than any other website design firm, the luxury President shows up over and over and over again. So I figured it’s probably time to talk to the to the man who made it all happen. And I’m curious to sort of get your thoughts on why your brand has attracted so much top talent in the real estate game. And I know that you aren’t just for top tier brokers you can handle and I’m sorry, in Illinois, we call everyone a broker. So Realtors off site, but you work with individual Realtors of any of any production level. But um, let’s let’s first start with you. So tell us you know, we understand your your guy from Germany, you came over, did your undergrad by the way undergrad in Malibu, right? Is that where Pepperdine is? It? That’s right. Yeah, that’s a tough, that is a tough place to be. It’s like it’s almost right on the beach, even if I remember correctly. Very Malte Kramer 6:24little studying gets done out there. Grade school under. Yeah. D.J. Paris 6:28And then and then off to Stanford. So tell us a little bit about your journey. You know why? Why real estate because it doesn’t appear that that was really in your background? Malte Kramer 6:39Yeah, you’re right. I I fell into real estate. I was an entrepreneur out of undergrad. So I had two previous companies in different industries. One was a nonprofit fundraising app. And in 2015, a real estate agent out here in Beverly Hills, who was a friend asked me to do some consulting work for her. And I was very curious about the industry. And she was she still is one of the most successful agents in the world. Her name is Jade Mills, she sold over 7 billion in her Korea sales. Some of the most expensive homes has sold the Playboy Mansion and Chartwell estate and all of these very famous, you know, 100 plus million dollar homes. And naturally, I wanted to see what does the inside of her business look like? How does she market herself. And so I spent several months working with her and I told her, I will do all of this work, set up your digital marketing, which was my background, if you let me be a fly on the wall, I want to come to listing appointments, I want to see how you run your team. And so that’s how I got started and how I fell in love with the industry. And it for me, it’s always been about helping other people scale. It’s something that I really enjoy. I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life, it’s what has opened doors for me and us, I grew up in Germany. So I’ve been able to build my life and my business here and find my fiancee here. And all of it goes back to the ability to start a business. And so it’s something that I’m passionate about. And I’ve just found real estate agents, ultimately, they are all intrapreneurs at heart. And I love the idea of being part of their their growth and helping them scale. How D.J. Paris 8:15did you start to put together an offering that would be unique from other other tech firms that are offering website development solutions for realtors? And what was what was what was the hole that you saw in the industry that you thought you could fill? Yeah, Malte Kramer 8:35we wanted to bring together the performance side and the the design side and the especially in the luxury market of the very high and aesthetic that agents were looking for. Most of the agents I talked to, they said one of two things, they either said, I have a website, and it looks great, but I’m not getting any leads. And I’m not really using it for any advertising. Or they said I have a website. It’s a lead gen site, I am getting some leads from it. But I’m embarrassed to put it on my business card, I’m embarrassed to put it on my flyers. And it never made sense to me why you had to pick one or the other. And so our goal in the very beginning was to come out with a website product that worked for the very high end agents like Jade Mills, who cared about aesthetics, but also had were built on a platform and had the tools and had the services to provide the performance marketing the lead gen that agents were looking for, and that they really needed to grow. So that was the that was the starting point. And then since then we’ve obviously built a lot more and it is a full end to end marketing platform now. D.J. Paris 9:38Yeah, let’s let’s talk about I want to start first to dispel a few myths around website creation and then we can get into some of the the other other ancillary stuff that you do that is not just a front end website design, but there’s a lot of misconception even still with why someone should have why Realtors should have their own website isn’t just a online business card, should it have a home search feature with IDX data feed, so that they, you know, visitors can can search for properties. There’s a lot of debate on this topic. And I’m curious of how and you talked about this is we want something that looks beautiful, but also performs. You know, let’s, I would love to talk about all of this conversion. What’s the intention? As you guys think about websites? Is it more Look at how pretty I am? And is it also I want to push you through some sort of funnel so that you know you’re being marketed to, but I’d love to hear just, you know, overall, how you think about websites? Yeah. Malte Kramer 10:43There are two goals for for any website. And the first is to establish credibility. It’s about branding, establishing trust, and you can use your website just as a digital business card and still serve that first goal. So credibility is number one, and then two is lead generation. And not everyone uses their website as a lead generation tool, not everyone chooses to run digital ads, or do SEO, or do social in a way that drives traffic to their website. But that first goal everyone has, and everyone should have, in my mind, you know, just think about what you do when someone tells you about a product or service they like, right, you take out your phone, you Google it, and you go to the website, and you do your research. And it’s no different with any business we learn about. So even if you’re not running any advertising, chances are any repeat or repeat, sorry, referral business or word of mouth, those people are going to look you up. And so not having a website, in my opinion, is means you’re missing out on business. Almost certainly, right? If someone Google’s your name, and nothing shows up, right? You don’t you don’t have credibility. So that’s part one. And then on the lead gen side, there’s a lot that goes into it. Obviously, you know, conversion rate of the website matters a lot. You really should build dedicated landing pages, in my opinion, if you’re using them for specific ad campaigns. And not just drive traffic to a general homepage, which we both know is is never going to convert at the same level as dedicated landing page. But yeah, those are the two high level goals that we that we start with. And then based on on our clients preference, we built the site accordingly. D.J. Paris 12:21One of the one of the myths I want to dispel is the idea of putting up a website, and not understanding what SEO is and how important it is to actually drive traffic if you’re looking for organic traffic, meaning, you know, putting up a website and just hoping that people find it. You know, if I think most of our audience would know that, that that isn’t the way the world works these days, and hasn’t for quite some time. But it’s really important for people to remember that SEO is a is a is a difficult, difficult beast to really work with. You’re dealing with hundreds of factors that Google takes into account in order to determine when somebody does a search what you know what rank your particular website will be for that particular keyword or key phrase. And you’re not only competing against all the other realtors potentially in your area, you’re also competing against the brokerages themselves. Online lead gen companies like Zillow, Redfin, there’s a tremendous amount of competition for what we would call short tail keywords, which would be something like I live in Chicago, so Chicago realtor, if I were to try to rank for that, it would be very difficult, it would be a long, multi year process. It’s possible but it would be incredibly difficult. But there are longtail keywords that that people can have success with. So for example, in Chicago, maybe Chicago Realtors is too difficult to break into on Google, but maybe Wicker Park realtor cop for condos, you know, which is a long a longtail keyword meaning many, many words in that phrase, that is something that possibly you could work towards. Can you just talk just for a moment on SEO just so that when people are thinking about websites, they’re not necessarily getting the wrong impression? I’m going to put this website up and people are just going to find it? Yeah, Malte Kramer 14:15this is a very common misconception and a mistake agents make is they launched a website, and then they think magically, leads are gonna appear. And the reality is you have to drive traffic there somewhere. So the at a high level, there are three ways you can do it in a scalable way. One is on social media organically, which requires a lot of content. And we can get into that later, too is on Google organically, which is SEO, and then three is paid advertising, which we can talk about later as well, which is the most reliable, fastest way, but also probably the most expensive. So let’s hone in on the second one SEO. There’s a lot that goes into it. Google’s algorithm has hundreds if not 1000s of ranking factors that we know They take into account when they decide what are the 10 results that they’re going to show on the first page for any given search. And as you noted longtail keywords, the more specific and the smaller the search volume. Typically, the lower the competition, the easier it is to rank. And that’s usually what we recommend people start with is create a block, put blog posts on there that answer very specific questions that someone in your market may have. So something like what are the property taxes in Silver Lake could be a great blog post that someone might look for. Now, this keyword pause perhaps is only getting 10 searches a month, 50 searches a month, something very low. But if you do that with enough articles, and you rank for enough of these keywords, you can drive significant keyword search volume over time. The great thing about SEO is it compounds right you write the article once, and then once it ranks, it generates traffic every single month. And you don’t have to spend any additional money on acquiring that traffic. So it is a very effective high ROI long term strategy, in my opinion, D.J. Paris 16:02that we should, we should I just wanted to make one quick point about about that particular strategy. So what we have to think about, I think this will be helpful for anyone who has a website and is looking to rank organically for some of these longer tail keywords, like Malte was saying property taxes in Silver Lake, what you really have to focus on with respect to the blog post is, and this would be my recommendation, do that keyword search, do it in an incognito browser, so you get a true search result, versus doing it in your you know, locked anyway, just do the search, look for the top three or four results, see what kind of content those search results are, are, you know, have published, and then you have to beat that you have to do better than those top three searches. So you’re going to want to put some video in there, you’re going to want to put longer form content, the days of short form, text content is are over people want long form. So these are these is the way if you really want to go down this this path, you have to beat everyone out because Google’s objective is to serve up the best possible content for that particular search. And if yours isn’t the best possible content, well, Google can tell pretty quickly because people will bounce off of your site more quickly than maybe other sites and they’re gonna go well, we don’t want people to bounce off our site and have to do another search. We want them to go to the one that they think has the best. And they were just going to look at consumer behavior. So they’re going to look at what happens when someone visits your website. And then they’re going to determine Hey, this is a pretty good or not so good answer to this question that somebody put in the search. So let’s let’s talk about the other two ways of generating traffic because I think this is the more predictable path and certainly, certainly, yeah, certainly the less arduous task, which would be paid advertising and social media, organic social media. Let’s Yeah, let’s start with Windows. Malte Kramer 18:01Yeah, let’s talk about let’s talk about paid ads. Next, so paid advertising both on social and search, for obvious reasons as the most reliable way to get traffic to your site, you’re paying per click. And the way I recommend you approach it is by thinking about what type of offer you can make that will get get someone to give you their contact information. And usually that is a lead magnet or a type of offer that provides a lot of value. This could be a market report, this could be a home valuation, this could be access to a curated set of listings, if you have access to off market listings, this could be the promise of getting access to those. So think about what is the what is the thing that someone who’s searching on Google, or someone who’s browsing social media could be a good client will likely want and see value and and when you start with that offer, then the rest of the ad and the landing page becomes pretty clear. Usually you would target a keyword around that offer. So let’s take home valuations for example, you could target free home valuation or home valuation in Silverlake on Google, someone clicks on the ad gets to a landing page. Again, you want to mirror what you’re targeting on the landing page. So it should speak to that particular keyword search. And then you have on that landing page, a forum where someone can put in their contact information. Obviously, the more fields you ask, the lower your conversion rates going to be if you just ask an email to probably get a lot of leads, but you don’t know a lot about them. If you ask a phone number a conversion rate will be lower, but generally the quality of the leads will be higher. And from there the last and maybe most important step is these are leads that have to be nurtured. These are internet leads that are going to be on Google intent will be a bit higher than on on social media in general, because people are searching proactively for something within real estate whereas on social media, you’re in interrupting their experience by showing them an ad. So they may not be in the market at all. And so generally quality will be a little bit lower, and they’ll require more nurturing, and nurturing should take place over weeks and months. Speech elite matters. And then you want to have a nurture sequence, ideally automated, and some type of email marketing going out. Again, with the goal of providing as much value as possible, the goal is not to aggressively sell these people, the goal is to give them so much value that they trust you. And when they’re ready to transact, you’re the the agent or the brand that they call. So that’s the approach that we take two paid advertising at a high level, we’re D.J. Paris 20:40talking about email drip campaigns, on possible text campaigns, depending on what contact information you’re getting. Also, if you’re getting a phone number, the speed to lead is so critical. And again, these are a little different than a zillo lead. So Zillow, people have already raised their hand, they’ve already clicked on a particular property and said, I want to go see that. So it’s already as hot of a lead as you could probably get it being that they already want to take action. Whereas you’re right with paid advertising. Yes, they’re searching for something that you hope is is you know, a call to action. But you’re right, there may be a delay in the actual step to purchase or sell a property. So that the idea of how do you recommend nurturing? What what do you guys, what have you found with your clients works? Sort of the best for ROI? Is it? Is it a series of emails? Is it a combination of email, video text? What are you guys finding, as far as trends that seem to convert most, Malte Kramer 21:45it’s a combination of all three, ideally, and I would base the exact sequence on where the leads came from and where they are in the funnel. So if we’re talking high funnel, top of funnel, meaning someone on social media who downloaded a market report, you don’t really know if they’re ready to even talk to you. So phone call may not resonate, well, those we would have a sequence that’s a little bit lighter touch, I would recommend something that’s mostly email based, and you’re going to start sending them to newsletter, they’re going to need more warming up. Now, if you get someone who requested a home valuation, chances are on Google, chances are intense, a lot higher, they’re a lot more ready, definitely call and text them. And a lot of touch points, probably nine touch points over the course of two weeks as appropriate. One of the really exciting things that is happening now, thanks to AI is so much of this can be automated and still feel very personalized. We are about to broadly released, we’ve been in beta for our AI texting tool. And so leads that are coming in from your website, this tool can engage them. And if you read through the conversations, you are not able to tell that you’re not talking to a human being. I mean, it’s, it’s uncanny how well it corresponds. And it then sets up an appointment. And we’re seeing about 15% lead to appointment conversion rates, which is Wow, very high, obviously, for internet leads. And this was just text based text conversation. D.J. Paris 23:15And just to sort of put that in perspective, a 15%, lead to appointment ratio would be about Well, I think it’s three times or Well anyway, well, it’s gonna say, as I know, for Zillow, and upcity, and leads of that nature, which are internet leads already raised their hand, I want to go see this, if you can convert 5% of those leads, which by the way, our pay to play leads, either you’re paying on the front end, or the subsidy, you’re paying on the back end, but you’re buying the lead from those tech companies. And if you can close 5%, you’re a superstar. So the idea of, of getting a 15% conversion is incredible. And Malte Kramer 23:54to be clear, this is 15% from leads to meeting requests. So there’s the additional step you have to share of actually close, it may end up being a few closed and 30% of them that would get you to a 5% close rate, which I would be extremely high. You know, on average, I think industry average is something like 2% If that so but yeah, these, these AI tools are making it a lot easier. So you’re not the one anymore who has to do the texting and the calling yourself you can outsource that to to an AI assistant, which is really exciting. Are D.J. Paris 24:26you guys I am the most excited for AI around I’d love to talk about AI I’m most excited personally outside of real estate for this idea of having an assistant for me, where I’m able to converse with this assistant. Make sure that they know what I need on a daily basis, whether it’s scheduling, reminding me about XY and Z go pick up the groceries go, you know, whatever it may be that’s coming. And we’re seeing the most earliest versions of that in some of these website AI systems whether it’s Customer Service, we’re seeing this now, it used to be a lot pourer. In years past where you would go onto a website, you’d start a chat you clearly, they would just lie and say it was somebody’s somebody that wasn’t a real person, you can tell really quickly, because the conversation wasn’t all that authentic and organic. But now AI is getting a lot a lot better. And we’re seeing you’re actually able to have a meaningful interaction with with an AI Chatbot. Because the technology is just, you know, it just keeps keeps evolving. Are you guys adding that in as a feature as like a customer service? chatbot, I’m assuming to your front end websites. Malte Kramer 25:42We are Yes. So on the on the consumer facing side, there are a lot of these tools popping up now. And more and more companies doing this where the AI will communicate with the consumer on your behalf. And obviously, your website, chat is a great medium for it. Text after a contact inquiry comes in is a great medium for it. So that’s one part. And then the second part, which you also touched on, I’m even more excited about is AI, an AI assistant for the agent. So something that plugs into your systems, and then gives you a ideally voice based interface to interact with the AI assistant in the same way you would interact with a human assistant and just give a TAS and ask it to provide information. This is coming. We’re working on something we announced in August presents copilot which is our AI powered mobile platform. So this is exactly what we’re working on is giving agents their own 24/7 ai assistant who can take all the admin work all of the stuff that you hate doing, and take that off your plate. Yeah, D.J. Paris 26:46to me, that’s, that’s the, that’s the most exciting part for me is the idea of having some sort of assistant that and and companies are working on this, you guys are working on this, I think, you know, this is so exciting for agents, you know, maybe not as exciting for virtual assistants who, who who are working overseas right now for a lot of lot of realtors. But, but it is going to be really helpful. And companies like yours are going to start offering this product soon. So very excited to to see that offering in the future. Let’s talk about the platform of the actual website platform. So there’s the front end, which is the customer facing website, where they can learn about the agent, possibly search for properties, get a sense of the the realtors skill set their aesthetic, all of those things I will say before I ask about other other parts, because luxury presents, I believe has some of the prettiest and most aesthetically pleasing website design on it that I’ve seen in real estate. Have you were you surprised when he first got into this business that there wasn’t a lot of beautiful realtor website designs out there because I just can’t find them other than what you guys have. Malte Kramer 28:02I was and there’s so much great content to work with, especially in the luxury segment. That was always something that I was really passionate about is great design. And we from from the very beginning, we’ve invested in a in a strong design team, we brought over a design leader from Airbnb and she’s built an amazing design team. So it’s been part of the company’s DNA from from day one. And yeah, I always felt that was a missed opportunity for a lot of agents if you have this, this much great photography and videography and you’re selling such great product. Why not build a website that matches that that beautiful aesthetic? Well, let’s D.J. Paris 28:43talk about conversion. What’s what’s behind what’s under the hood. So we know what’s going to face the you know, eight client facing, you can go to luxury presents.com You can see some of the biggest names in real estate use luxury presents. But I’d love to know what’s behind the hood, what we can’t necessarily see ourselves, you know what’s going on behind the scenes outside of just this beautiful looking website. Malte Kramer 29:07Yeah, so the whole platform was built from the ground up specifically for residential real estate agents, teams and brokerages. So the entire CMS, the entire back end of the websites, everything is specific to real estate. So when you go into the back end, first thing you’ll notice is that the CMS is super easy to use. All the input fields are related to the type of content you want to show on your website. We have modules for your neighborhoods, we have pre built landing pages, we have an instant home valuation tool that you can use for lead gen, we obviously have our IDX home search tool. We’re expanding that into full collaborative search now with presence copilot, which works sort of seamlessly across desktop and mobile where you can take the leads that are coming in from the website and then start sharing listings with them via a mobile app. So it’s all integrated into one place. And then obviously you have module As for your listings, so they’re coming in from the MLS, and then you can showcase them on your website, you can create standalone property websites. So with a very intuitive website builder, you can go in, you can launch single property sites. And then you have modules for your leads for all the things we’ve talked about, we have a lead intelligence feature. So we pull in third party data, to tell you more about the leads that are coming in from the website. It’s quite spooky, actually, you go into lead, and suddenly you see past addresses they’ve lived in, and their social media links and their, their, their family names. And so it’s very easy to gauge, is this a real person or spam? And are they in my price range? Are they a good fit customer? Should I be spending my time on them? So yeah, there’s a lot there. And all of it is real estate specific. And we’ve we’ve worked, we’ve built this in very close partnership with a lot of our clients, many of which, as you noted, are at the, at the top of the game, and we take what they’ve learned what they found works, and we try to distill that into the product. D.J. Paris 31:04Yeah, you know, in particular, this consumer behavior, sort of database is retailers use this all the time to be able to predict when somebody is pregnant, for example. And it’s not because they’re necessarily buying a birth control, or sorry, a pregnancy test. There’s other signals that retailers have access to just with all this buying data that would actually tell somebody before they might even know that they’re pregnant, that there may be something going on with them and being being pregnant. So there is some incredible ways of of sort of taking data and running it through different systems, like you were saying, partners of yours, who then can really provide incredible information, here’s their social here, here’s what we know about their family, here’s what we know about them based on the email address they provided and their name. And it really just gives the agent more information to be able to have that conversation when they do reach out. And it gives them more than just an email and phone number and first name. So I’m a huge fan. Tell us a little bit about sort of the CRM functionality or the now that the leads in the system. So someone visits the website, there’s some call to action, they sign up, and then it goes into some sort of nurturing capacity. Talk a little bit of if you don’t mind talk a little bit about sort of what that looks like for the agent, how the agent sort of sees that lead come in and what they do do with it from there. Yeah, Malte Kramer 32:36so we we are not a CRM. And we while we offer some, what I would call lightweight CRM functionalities to manage your leads to now with presence copilot, do collaborative search to invite a client to have them on a list and tagged so there are some CRM functionalities. But for teams in particular that are looking for a more robust and full fledged CRM, we recommend that they use any of our integration partners. So we have native integrations with all the major CRMs and generally recommend using us in conjunction with with a CRM. Yeah, that D.J. Paris 33:13makes sense, because that’s a whole other sort of vertical to try to a mountain to climb, and you’re competing against massive, massive companies that have, you know, 15 years on you maybe have experience. So I agree that would be that’d be a tougher mountain. So the good news is they do integrate with all the major players out there, because of course they need to. So the good news is, it’s really, really easy, and it’s a pretty seamless integration. Let’s talk about I’d love to talk about website trend design trends, because this is something that is always evolving and changing. I remember 10 years ago or so there was a move to go to what’s called flat design, or minimal and flat design. And I’m curious on Where’s where do we think websites are headed? Because ways in which consumers are interacting online is changing. So I’m curious if you if you have any future trends that you think are emerging? Yeah. Malte Kramer 34:14In terms of the aesthetic, I would say, a trend. One trend we’ve noticed is back to real simplicity. And I think a recognition that what matters most at the end of the day is is usability and we have to start with usability and and craft the aesthetic rather than the aesthetic getting in the way. So there’s there’s a trend towards simplicity, I would say, given what’s possible now. We’re seeing more sort of more immersive experiences and interactive experiences. You know, five years ago had you asked me would not have recommended having video playing the background on mobile Now this is very much possible because of where internet speeds is and what technologies. So, you know, more interactive experiences, more, more use of video throughout the side. And, and I’d say an overall trend back to simplicity. What D.J. Paris 35:17about light versus dark as far as just color, I know you guys tend to skew dark, which I think is particularly interesting around real estate. That is a more modern trend, although now, white is is is real popular inside of homes, although that’ll probably be changing in 10 years anyway. But I’m curious on just color, what colors, I love the fact that you guys skew darker, or at least the a lot of the websites, I’ve seen skew darker, because that’s also was not really that popular in you know, realtor websites until you guys came along. Yeah. Malte Kramer 35:52So the preference between dark and light, I would say really comes down to the emotion someone wants to evoke. And I have seen some agents that really want the light and airy feel that you can get with a lighter color palette, and especially in markets that are perhaps more more something like Miami, where you would want to sort of present that type of feeling. I’ve seen light color palettes work really well. But overall, yeah, I think especially in the high end market, agents still love the dark and moody look. And the the one thing I would say is just regardless of the color palette, just to make sure that everything is very legible. Sometimes I see people use very small fan fonts, because it’s, you know, it looks sexy, to minimize the fonts. But again, like focus on the usability first making sure it’s readable and easily easy to navigate. So, you know, not letting the creativity get in the way of the usability. And then I do think it’s valuable to have accent colors beyond black and white, even if it’s sparingly used for things like your CTA buttons. If you’re just working in a variable, a CTA is a call to action call to action. Yeah, you want to be able to draw attention to specific buttons on the site or specific links, especially if you’re using it on as a landing page. You’re not going to get the landing page to perform as well if you don’t have any color on it, and it’s just black and white. So some color as an accent is always a good thing. D.J. Paris 37:31Yeah, I agree. And one thing that I’ll just sort of share if you’ve this is how you know if you’ve visited a luxury presence website for for an agent. What and I was so impressed you guys were the first company that I found that that did this. And now I’m sure they are all doing it probably copying what you guys, you know, came or I don’t know if you’d necessarily pioneered it. But really, we’re the biggest firm to bring it to market that I found was that when a consumer visits the luxury presents website, one thing happens. In fact, I have seen this a lot of brokerages now have this as well, where as the login, Google login will instantly show up, especially if you’re on a Chrome browser. So what happens is person visits website, they instantly get Hey, please log in, well, they probably haven’t logged in before. If there are new new person, they click on that it instantly creates a connection between their Google account if they’re logged into Google, which they are most likely. And then it instantly creates an account inside of the back end system for luxury presence so that the agent gets to capture that information instantly. It’s a one click thing. It is very, very, very cool. And I hopefully I’m not sharing too much of your secrets, because it’s not really a secret. But I love the fact that you guys really put a lot of faith into that process. And it works. I can’t tell you how many websites outside of real estate, I have clicked on that exact same Google thing. Before I even done anything on that website. I just go okay, whatever I’ll call click on it. It’s amazing. I’m curious to know how that came to be. And yeah, how successful that is for you guys. Malte Kramer 39:07It’s been incredibly successful. It’s the single it’s the one thing if you don’t do anything else, and you want to get more leads from your website, that’s one thing you should add is the one click Google login. It came about we have a team that’s just constantly focused on innovation around conversion and how can we drive more leads to our clients from their websites, and out of their research and and dem testing things? We get these ideas like this one click Google login tool. I’ll give you one other great one. This would probably be number two on my list, which is an exit intent form I was just about D.J. Paris 39:47to ask. Okay, so here’s what exit intent is every one as the person starts to move their mouse closer to the X for that particular tab or even the browser. The website can And notice through like JavaScript or whatever, some sort of script that will notice the mouse movement will notice its persons moving in that direction. And they will put up an interstitial, or what we would call like a faux pop up a little pop up saying, Hey, before you leave, or that’s what they used to do. I don’t know what they show now. But a little bit of a like a call to action, just before the person is like walking out the door. If it was a retail shop, one more thing, kind of thing. Malte Kramer 40:24Yep, that’s exactly right, that works extremely well as well. What D.J. Paris 40:27do you recommend putting it like, so I have a thought I want to get your take on it. So if you are going to add an exit intent, which is what we’re talking about somebody wanting to exit out the website and getting a final offer. Now, if it’s retail, if you’re selling a sort of a product, maybe you’d put off 10% off if you know before you leave that kind of coupon obviously Realtors don’t have necessarily that but it could be a white paper could be a free home pay. Before you leave, let’s let me find out. Let me tell you what I think your home’s currently worth something like that is that what you’re seeing works best? Malte Kramer 41:01Yeah, this goes back to the previous point around offers. Whenever you interrupt someone’s experience, I recommend make sure that you’re giving them a lot of value. Otherwise, they’ll be angry, right, you’re sort of they’re trying to leave your website and you’re telling no Hold up a second. And that’s not the time to make an ask, it’s the time to give a lot of value. And the way you give value is through an offer, like what you just mentioned, something that works really well is if you have access to off market listings, that’s often often something that’s has really high perceived value. So sign up here to get access, that’s a D.J. Paris 41:36good one off market. That’s a great one. The other the other thing I was I was thinking of with respect to to sort of website trends and design is, is less is more with respect to text. Because at least on a on a homepage, we certainly want information there. That specific that does talk about what the agent does, who they are. And you know, but the more information we provided in a text form, I think we start losing people as we get. Again, they’re all dependent. While I should let me back up, it really depends on the intent of the actual consumer. So what I recommend, and by the way, anyone who has a website, can can find a service that will do this is install what’s called a heatmap system, which will just basically track the clicks the mouse movement on somebody’s website, and you will start to get a better sense of what your consumers like about your site, and what they don’t like if you’re getting a high bounce rate, if you’re looking at your Google Analytics, and you know, the average bounce rate is 13 seconds. Well, okay, what why are they leaving after 13 seconds? What am I not? What am I not providing? And the heat map will tell you what’s most interesting to people on your website, it’ll give you at least a general idea of maybe the direction to go. I imagine you guys use heat mapping all the time to constantly refer How often are you reef reforming your designs to match the sort of consumer behavior that’s always changing? Yeah, Malte Kramer 43:13we we’re constantly adding to the library of elements. And often we’ll find something that we think everyone should have. And we turn it on for everyone if we believe that it’s a best practice. So the Google one click login, for example, people can opt out of it. But we’ve established it as a best practice that comes standard with all of our templates are all of our themes. And then our library, I think at this point, we have over 500 different elements, meaning widgets that you can use on the website. Obviously, our websites are always very customized. So every agent has different preferences, different elements they use. But there are some best practices that our team develops that we then roll out for everyone. And this is I would say on at least on a monthly basis, we come out with something something new. D.J. Paris 44:02And with respect to the somebody becomes a client of yours, can they do their own design? Meaning can they utilize your elements and organize them in the way that they think makes sense? And can they also offload that to you guys as well? Are there different levels of service there? Yeah, there are Malte Kramer 44:23we offer everything from working with our team to use the existing elements to create something that’s still customized, but within an existing design framework. All the way up to something fully custom where we’re starting from scratch our design team is can design anything that you have in mind. We don’t have a self service offering where you would build it left completely on your own. That said, once we build the first draft of a website, many of our clients they’re in the platform all the time building their own landing pages and using the existing elements so that it is very much possible Yeah, D.J. Paris 45:00I think that is really cool. And I would like to make sure our audience knows how they can learn more about luxury presents, because we want, even if you don’t choose luxury presents as your front end website, sort of design team, and you probably should consider that. But at the very least, you’ll get a good education of what good design looks like. So that if, if luxury presents isn’t the right fit, you can go maybe find somebody that is a little bit closer to what you need. But what is the best way that an agent can learn? And by the way, when you go to the luxury President web presence website, you will see some big names on there that you know, in the real estate world, and, you know, from from all different sorts of providers. They’re all big fans of luxury presents, but what’s the best way? Should they go to the website and request a demo? Or how does how does it work? Malte Kramer 45:49Yeah, so if you request the demo on the website, you can have a consultation with our team. And they’ll be able to walk you through examples of our design, they’ll be able to show you case studies of the marketing we’ve done for our clients. So you can get a sense, if you just want to get a sense of our design work on the websites we have on our website, we have a design portfolio page, you can check out or if you follow us on Instagram, we post a lot of our work there. And that will give you a good sense of the design quality. D.J. Paris 46:20And I had one final question and I just Oh my gosh, I It’s eluding me at the moment. So I will remind everyone to please visit luxury presents.com. There’s a call to action on there where you can put in your information and they will reach out to you and give you more information about In fact, the top producer in Chicago, actually in Illinois, Don McKenna is She’s a local legend here in Chicago. And she’s also in Florida, and I think South Carolina and a few other markets. She is She’s a customer. And along with a lot of other very Jade Mills, you mentioned Ryan serhant, Tom Ferry, etc. There’s lots of lots of big names on here. So guys, really, you should check this out, whether it’s the right fit for you today, or it’s something to aspire to, because this is not the lowest cost provider. But that’s why it’s a luxury brand. luxury brands have luxury pricing. But the top agents in the country really do use luxury presents, and they really don’t have much competition, quite honestly, at least I have. I mean, there’s little shops that in every city that will build people websites, but not people that understand realtor websites quite the same. So I definitely recommend checking that out. And also please follow them on LinkedIn. They actually I was talking to multi before the show. And he said actually our LinkedIn is really, really successful for us. So luxury presence is where you find them on LinkedIn, same on Instagram, I will have links to all of this in the show notes. And since I can’t remember my final question, I will just ask you, where do you think the real estate market is headed because you are affected by high interest rates as well. Because even though you’re in the luxury space, and you’re your audience, our top Realtors mostly who are doing just fine. This year, we have a lot of agents in a down market currently who are struggling. I know that this is a little bit outside of your purview necessarily. But are you hopeful that the that interest rates will change in the next year? Do you have any any insight you could share about where you see trends coming for, for what real estate agents might expect? You know, in the next year or so? Malte Kramer 48:33Yeah. I am hopeful. Although I think it’s it’s gonna get a little bit worse before it gets better. Yeah, my best guess is six months of things getting worse. And then as slow recovery. The numbers I’ve seen all have a two plus year recovery to get back at least to get back to historical averages. And it’s not the best news. And obviously it’s you know, it’s a tough market right now. But I think it’s better to be realistic about how long it’s going to take and to buckle down and find a way to be successful in this market environment because it may last for a while. But yeah, that’s my best guess is probably two years of recovery. D.J. Paris 49:23I think you’re probably right. And I did remember my last question. It was about recruiting. So this is a huge opportunity. Right now we are seeing a flight to teams in the brokerage world in the agent world really I should say agents are either joining teams creating teams this is I mean Maltese business is pretty much all teams for the most part. A lot of his these big producers, our teams, not all but a lot of them are and these are also great recruiting sort of magnets for agents because agents are always looking to see what teams might be a good fit And they’re going to look up the website. So even if there’s two sort of components, there’s the consumer part of it that you want to attract. But it’s also if you’re looking to build your team, you really need a beautiful looking website to also attract those other agents. Are you seeing some of your some of your agent clients using them as recruiting tools? Malte Kramer 50:18Yeah, it’s a great point. And you mentioned Dawn McKenna earlier, she is actually a great case study for this. She launched with us back in 2016. At the time, she had four agents on her team was doing about 120 million in annual sales. And since then, she has scaled to 20 agents, six markets, she’s now in Naples, she’s in Salt Lake, all over the place. And if you ask her, she’ll say it was the brand she created. And it was the website, those two things have helped her the most. And she gets a lot of her agents through just organically, they there, see the brand does see a social, they see the website. So it definitely helps in that regard. And one thing I’ve seen, some teams do is create dedicated recruiting pages on their website that speak to agents who may want to consider joining them. D.J. Paris 51:03Yeah, that goes back to the idea of creating specific landing pages for different people who are visiting the website. So driving somebody just to the homepage, it gives them a general overview of what that agent is all about, or the team is all about, but having a specific, dedicated page that you drive somebody to maybe through either organic work, you know, best real estate team in Silver Lake, for example, or looking to join a real estate team in Silver Lake. Those are longtail keywords that people do search now. And they might not get more than, you know, 10 to 50 searches a month, like multi was saying earlier, but wouldn’t you like to be number one for those 10 to 50 searches, I know I would kill to be number one for those, even if it’s just a handful of people a month. So creating those individual landing pages is really, really critical. So please reach out to luxury presidents, they have all of these tools and guys, the best. The biggest plug I can give to them is the top agents in the country use it. Almost everybody I’ve interviewed on this show. That’s a bit of an exaggeration. But the vast majority of people I interviewed today on the show us luxury presents, so I am not a paid spouse spokesperson for them. I am literally just telling you what I witnessed. And that’s why I had multi on the show today to talk about sort of what makes them different. And boy, they are they different. So check them out luxury presents.com. Follow them on Instagram and LinkedIn links to all of that in the show notes. And on behalf of our audience. Malte thank you so much we know you were you know you are a you know, a mid sized company of 600 employees this is this is you don’t have time to just basically jump on a podcast for an hour. Every every every so often. So you do this. You did this as a favor. I appreciate that. Thanks from our audience to you. And then of course, we from our audience we want to we we also multiday, I want to thank the audience for sticking around to the very end, please help us in a couple of ways. One, if you know an agent that’s looking to build a website, shoot them over to luxury president.com presents calm or maybe they probably already have a website and they want to maybe improve it, shoot them over to luxury presents. And also please tell a friend about this episode. Think of one other realtor that’s looking to up their online game in 2024. And send them a link because this might actually give them some information about how they can improve their web presence. And also, please leave us a review wherever you’re listening to the show. Let us know what you think of the show. Leave us a review. Tell us we read every one of your comments. And it always helps us to improve as well. Marty, thank you so much for being on the show. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Malte Kramer 53:38for having me. This was a lot of fun. Thank you

Welcome to Breaking Down Ali’s Systems mini-series with Ali Garced. In this mini-series Ali will be explaining how she built her systems both for buyers and for sellers. This is the first part of the Seller Checklist series covering the whole process from the beginning, even before you meet your client, to the follow-up after the end of the transaction. Please follow Ali on Instagram here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Ali Garced can be reached at ali@garcedrealty.com and (914) 318-4918. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today ally Garside is going to share with you her seller checklist. Trust me. This is awesome. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Ali Garced 1:30What is up my beautiful friends beautiful agents I am here. This is Aligarh said ally the agents on all social media spelled al I am back with another series of the seller checklist this time. So we’re going to go over from the very, very start before you even meet with a seller all the way to the very, very end past the transaction what you do in the follow up. So we’re probably not going to get to every single portion during this one series. So this is going to be maybe either part one of two or part one of three in the seller series for checklists. So thank you, DJ, if you have been enjoying these checklists, please give keeping it real a five star review on whichever platform you listen to it. I believe Apple is the best way to give the review. But however you listen to it, I highly suggest you watch these series again on YouTube. Because I’m sharing my screen, I’m going to be vocalizing as much as I can, but I can’t get to everything. Plus, to be able to maximize this experience. Fellow real estate agents hop on YouTube and watch this in person you can that way. That way you can follow along and start creating your own checklist. I’m showing you everything I not like holding anything of these checklists. To me, I am very much in the opposite mindset of that I like to share, which a lot of people don’t have doing unless they have been featured on this podcast because this podcast is all about sharing. So again, please give DJ five star review. I would super appreciate that. If you’d like to give me a follow and connect with me talk with me. We can become referral partners, whatever you want to do. My name is Ali, the agent on all social media that is spelled a li that’s how I spell Ali Ali, the agent or if you want a copy of these checklists, text the word checklist as one word one word checklist. Otherwise, it doesn’t the auto response doesn’t work. So one word checklists to the phone number 520-341-2552. And again, I’ll give you the buyer checklist which I already covered the seller checklist which I’m starting today and the referral checklists. I mean I also have onboarding checklists for teams and crew. These checklists are what helped my crew. The agents on my on my crew earn six figures in eight months. Some of these agents are earning three times the amount that they were earning at previous brokerages before coming over to us before coming over to our crew. So if it’s helping them you know, it hopefully will help you and I’m glad to share these with you from the bottom of my heart. I’m literally just trying to help so yes, let’s get started right. Alright, guys, we let’s get started. Here we go. Okay, I use Trello. Again, you don’t have to use Trello So in previous in previous episodes already, I’ve laid out how I organize my Trello board. So in here again following on follow along on YouTube, I have already opened up my seller checklists my seller template. So at the top here you’ll see that I name it seller name that I have the name the address the Coming Soon date if we decide to do that I’m actually not the biggest fan and then the go live date and the expected Close of Escrow or Coe. as I go along, some things are going to be just Arizona specific. So keep in mind, Always talk to your broker because you have any questions always talk to your TC two for a quality check. Talk to whoever else you might need to to see hey, is this How do we do this in our state or start implementing it, because there’s something that I there’s some things that I implement from other states, for example, I implement the non refundable, earnest money that North Carolina does into Arizona, which Arizona does not do that, which is crazy, Arizona is very buyer, it’s very safe for a buyer to back out and get all their money back, they can really, really hurt a seller if they wanted to. But um, here we go. Okay. So in the description here, again, you don’t have to use Trello. But it is it is free, I have a bunch of questions where I will, I will get to it in the method that they that they asked me. So sometimes a seller or a potential seller will call me because they saw me on Google, and I don’t pay for Google ads, guys, I just have my Google business page. So if you do not have your Google business page, you are missing out on the number one website in the world, which is free, it is free to have a Google business page. You know what here, let me show you mine. So in that way, business.google.com is how you’re going to start your business, your Google business page, you do have to be verified in order to in order to like make into any sort of rankings. And to be verified, you have to gate post postcard in the mail. So if you have a formal address, like a work address, perfect, if not, you’re going to have to use your personal address. So if you don’t mind sharing it excellent. If not, use your work address or you know, figure it out on some other way. But Google reviews are so so powerful. I have been in the business for two and a half years. And I have been ranked number one on Google when you search like military real estate agent in Tucson or some sort of specific word, someone told me that I that I rank for number one I’m on, you know, the one of the first real estate agents in Tucson, and I’ve been doing this for two and a half years, I only have 77, zero Google reviews, you don’t have to have hundreds or more in order to start getting phone calls from sellers. So I will say that, for Google business. This is a whole, you know, Bs in and of itself. But always try to be adding photos, I’m pretty sure you could also add videos too. So definitely do that. But as long as you’re tweaking it somehow, once a week, add one photo on there of a listing that you have, or or maybe even someone else’s listing, of course with that listing agents permission, always always gonna have it in writing and saving in your folder. But if you get a review, then go ahead and respond to it. And yeah, and also some people will think that negative reviews will hurt you. It is all about how you respond to those negative reviews because that is what people want to know how you respond to negativity. Because I’m sure it’s human nature. Like whenever you go to a Yelp for a restaurant and or like a moving company, I just recently did that you see like the negative reviews? How does that company publicly treat that person? You know? Anyway, I’m going on a rant here, but Google Business Review. So get that started there Google business page, and keep that up to date. So where am I so depending on how the seller comes to you, whether it’s a phone call, or an email, or a group chat, because you’ve trained your your besties your friends to say, hey, whenever you know of a potential seller, please have that group chat sort of group chat with me, don’t just give them my phone number. I’ll never hear from them that way, please sort of group chat. It’s a warm handoff, and it creates more stickiness. So however, however way you typically have that first conversation, which might be various different ways, depending on how long I feel, but those sellers want to stay on the phone, I will stay as long as they want. Sometimes they just want to touch base and say, Hey, we’re interviewing around, and I want to give you the opportunity. No, we want to interview you. So great. Go ahead and establish a little bit of rapport. Do not keep them on the phone too long. But make sure that before you get off the phone, you have that appointment scheduled, some sellers are ready to chat, they are ready to go. So if you have time, if you answer the phone, then at that point, do it you know, stay on the phone and go through these questions until you start getting a sense that they are you know wanting to get off the phone that they have other things to do so but the point of the foot the first phone call or the first text message, you know, the point of that initial contact is to get the listing appointment, get your foot in the door, so that you might be asking all these questions you might be asking three questions. It really really depends. So that’s like the funnel Right? Like they might come from here from there from wherever you that at that point, you want to start putting them in your funnel the way that you do things, which is the same every single time. So what I do and what you guys are more than happy to. I’m more than happy to share these exact questions with you. If I go on Calendly I love Calendly you guys are free to copy and paste these questions calendly.com. So let’s see a l e n d fly. I don’t know why I’m like trying to memorize it, I can literally just read this slash gar said Realty cars. That is my last name, G AR CE de Realty slash seller. If you go in that, you’re going to see exactly what I’m showing you here. So this is the information that I want, before we book the formal or more formal, either phone call or a zoom call, I always prefer zoom. So here we go. I asked for their name, their email, their phone number, of course, the address of the property they’re selling. And I asked them, if they would like a connection to a great real estate agent in the city that they’re moving to or agents, a couple of agents, of course, that’s going to help with the referral. Right? Oh, and I blocked this off for about 45 minutes just in case. I also ask them have Have you ever had to file an insurance claim on the property you’re selling? At least in Arizona, it takes quite a bit in order to get those insurance claims. And of course, state by state check with your broker, in case you aren’t sure. But whenever there is, we have to do a clean report, right? We have to find out the comprehensive loss underwriting, you know, whatever report has the property ever had to file a claim because the buyers need to know about that. So if that’s if they do if they ever have had to file an insurance claim, that takes a very long time. So you want to get that process started ie immediately, then the next question is, in a perfect world, when would you want to sell your house by that gives you have the opportunity to or the insight to know okay, I need to meet these with these sellers like tomorrow, or oh, they’re not looking to sell for another eight months? Great. They’re just doing research. Keep them on your follow up. And I’ll get into exactly what the follow up is like in my checklists. But it just gives you an idea of how fast you’re looking at. The next question I asked, What will a buyer a buyer be nitpicky about during their inspections, or the walkthrough of your property? This? And by the way, I have all of these questions with asterisks. So they have to put something in of course, they could put, they could get by with just putting like a spacebar or like a period and not answering it. But I’m going to ask it again, in the Zoom call. So what this question does here is have them start thinking, putting there was a phrase, let’s just start thinking like a buyer, you know, like star taking a little bit of emotional attachment away from the home that they love so much. And start thinking about what is the buyer going to be complaining about? Oh, yeah, we’ve had that like sink that’s always leaking? They’re probably going to be complaining about that. Or, Oh, we do have a you know, whatever it is. And then the next question, what is most important to you in a real estate agent? What specifically are you expecting of us? I use the word us because I again, we’re in case you don’t know this, I was interviewed on a couple of episodes ago, if you search ally on keeping it real, where a DJ interview just me and my business not not not the checklist stuff, I actually run an an out bound referral only business. Now, I had so many leads my first year in the business, that I couldn’t keep up with it. So I had to form a crew, a team, I use a team loosely because we don’t have any team splits at all. So that’s why I say us, because I fell in love with prospecting, I fell in love with finding clients. And that’s all we want to do. So when I start saying us, because it’s not going to be just me working on selling your home, it’s going to be me and a trusted agent, someone on my crew who I refer to refer to my crew members. So to the client, it is we are both helping them out. It’s two agents for the price of one. But on the back end, it’s really just a referral. So we work hand in hand. Of course, I’m here for anything. But that’s why I started saying us just in case you’re wondering about that. And the next question, will all parties be on the title? Sorry, will all parties on the title be on the call that you booked on this Calendly? If they say no, do not go on the call, say Okay, Let’s reschedule. And let’s make sure that all parties are there. So you want to make sure if you use Calendly you know that as soon as somebody books, if you have the settings up, you’ll get an email and you’ll get a text message saying Aligarh said a potential seller booked a call with you November 14 at 5pm. Excellent. You can then log into Calendly or look at your calendar on I use Google Calendar and see the questions that they answered. If this question is checked, no. Then And I’m not going to have the appointment. I want all the all the parties that need to be there on the call otherwise, every time you flex on your rules, you know what happens? Guys? I don’t even need to explain that to you. Okay, what else? And then the last question, what else should we know before we meet? Again, that’s a catch all pretty similar to my buyer side where, where if you wanted to take a look at my buyer checklist, again, it’s the same thing. It’s calendly.com/gorsedd Realty slash buyer. And then the last section is where they can send text messages to so that way they receive the link to the Zoom call. So after that, after that is, you know, they fill out the information, they book a call, and all the parties are going to be there and they’ve answered all the questions. Then at that point, let’s Let’s book a zoom call, or I will call them because sometimes at that point, it’s just go ahead and start the start. Have that be the listing appointment. Again, this part is still a little bit flexible. Sometimes they just want to do zoom, which is fine. I will I will go at your pace. Because the last thing I would want to do is force my foot in the door when they didn’t want me there. Like and force the listing. That is just a recipe for disaster. We’re starting off on the wrong foot, I’m probably not going to get a five star review. No. So if they wanted me to resume first before in person, perfect, let’s do that. If they so I’ll send them a text after that say, Hey, Ali, I’m so I’m so excited to to get you scheduled a call, would you like this call to be over zoom? Or would you like it to be in person at your house, boom. So either way, zoom or at their house, then let’s go to the Trello checklist. So of course when we go to the we’re jumping a little bit forward here, but when we go into the the listing appointment, the rest of these questions in this Trello are going to be answered. So it’s going to be you know, the typical questions How much do you own the property again, shoot me a message text the word checklist to phone number 520-341-2552 to get a copy of these questions. You know, Hoa any litigations, any additional liens? What should I know that we haven’t discussed yet. Age of the, you know, roof H HVAC, water heater, etc, everything. But here we go. Let’s start starting with bullet point number one, under the very first section of the seller checklist pre meet, what are you doing before you even meet with them. One, of course, add the client or clients all the parties involved to your calendar for either daily, weekly, monthly follow up, depending on how far out they plan on selling. And so I of course add them to my CRM as well, which is right here, a couple of bullet points down, add them to my Cavey core. But I also add them to my calendar because I do not want this to get lost you because I’m sure you know it, it sometimes can be hard to catch up on everybody that you need to talk to on your Cavey core or on your CRM, right like there’s sometimes like 40 people to reach out to a day, that’s a lot, especially if they all decide to respond that day. So you’re having all these conversations. So therefore, as a as a safety measure, I also put them on my calendar in the color red, red means appointments to me on my google google calendar, so I will never skip out on that. Then next, get their full names filled out. Because of course, sometimes people go by nicknames or people go by their middle names, but that’s not what the tail record, say, etc. Get their email, get their phone number and immediately ask again, in case you haven’t already, or in case they haven’t answered, hey, what’s important to you in the agent that you’re choosing to represent you to sell your home? And then take notes and make sure that you are listening. The next question or the next item on the checklist is ask the sellers two questions before they’re going under contract with them. So and same thing with the buyer side too. How often do you expect to hear from me or us? And when you reach out to me how quickly do you do expect the response back? Because if they’re if this is a perfect time for client expectations, same thing with the buyers, were sometimes we sleep. I don’t think clients always know that. But sometimes real estate agents do sleep and we kind of have to remind them of that, hey, I actually turn off you know, my my business hours after six o’clock I’m actually just spending with family. But if there’s anything else that you need for me, you will be the first thing that I get to the morning the next day. So what if they seem to be maybe I don’t want to say the word reasonable but if they’re like hey, you know if you’ve take if you take a couple of hours, four hours to get back to me totally fine, perfect. Whatever your business I’m not saying there’s any right or wrong. I’m saying whatever. works for you. Perfect, if not have that conversation with them. Because if there’s if they’re expecting X and they’re not budging, and you’ve tried to establish those expectations and it’s still not going to work, then it might be a red flag to continue. Remember, it’s not always the best to take on every single listing, you’re not going to get along with every single client. Sometimes you can save so much time and even better, so much energy and peace of mind by not taking some clients on. Never forget that. Oh, man. Okay. Ask me how I know. Okay, so then next, ask them what the best method of communication is for them. What I do, whenever I send a referral out is I’m on the text, thread, especially for all iPhones. Even better, if not, I’m actually leaning toward WhatsApp, especially since I have a lot of military clients and they’re coming from all sorts of the world, you know, Germany, Japan, Korea, so WhatsApp is super important to us. So all the parties are going to be on WhatsApp, that’s gonna be me, the actual listing agent, all all of the bar, the seller parties, maybe even you know, title or on the buyer side lender, and then stick to that if they prefer texts, or if they prefer phone call, or if they prefer email, just make sure I actually add that to the very, very top of this Trello checklist I never forget, I just put in all capital letters, text or email. But if it is email, I usually text them to saying hey, I just sent you an email because I don’t know if that’s what I would want for me. So okay, going on. I add them to my Cavey core, I add them as you know, either a prospect or an active lead or an actual client. And then I set up market alerts on Cavey core there’s probably same thing if you’re using command if you’re Keller Williams or you know anything like that Lyon desk, then I go to my county assessor website of course, this is only going to be for Tucson here but go in your county assessor website or ask title and look up who else purchased the home who else is a legal owner of the property is an LLC, is it multiple sellers, one time I was selling a property that was owned by five different sellers. Luckily, four of them were in we’re still in the city. But the other one was, I think in like across the country, it was very, very difficult. But hey, at least was my third transaction. I love that I had these difficult transactions in it like early on. So that way you know everybody that you need to be talking to. So everything that I haven’t bold in these checklists, I have a virtual assistant do you can do the same thing. So pretty similar to like my buyer checklist as well. So then I have a virtual assistant. The next step here is to send the pre list email. So I also have them send the 47 ways to make your home sell faster. That’s a document that I will be giving you as part of this checklist after we meet the ultimate seller checklists and the what we do for you attachment. I create a timeline for the sellers to get ready for the listing appointment. I make the listing appointment this is very easy with exp if you’re with exp you just hop on Cavey core and like in a matter of maybe three clicks you have the listing presentation, of course then you have to personalize it or customize it for that address for the radius for Nina just getting the comps but it’s a great listing presentation and they actually just increased their they now they don’t have like the listing boxes or whatever I actually personally haven’t used that yet they just rolled it out. Then of course the make the listing appointment you should have already done that. Then the next step is again in bolt. So this is something that your that your virtual assistant can do or it can be automated with using Zapier or Zapier or however we pronounce it. So choosing the title company that you typically work with, send them a text and then a call, whatever your method of communication is typically with them and say hey, what’s up Gina? I have another listing can we do an early bird escrow? And would you mind assisting me again with those snacks and the branded water bottles? With both of our branding This is the address this is these are the open house dates that we’re thinking of. I’ll let you know in case they change. Y’all are the best I’ll be so much XL XL. Yeah. Then you want to make sure that after the title company again, this might be different depending on your state but after the title company looks up that property you want to make sure there aren’t any liens that you weren’t aware of. And that way you can have done your research before you even meet with them. So the rug can be pulled out from under you. I assume that these phrases I should probably just make up my own at these. This boy okay. You want to call the HOA if the HOA applies. You want to make sure see if there are any liens on the property. This Bibi in the boat one time Oh We went on the market. And the seller told me this is my I think my my second listing ever came from my very, very first round of posting fliers up or doing mailers. And which was like one of the very, very few times that I’ve actually, anyway, it doesn’t matter. I am not really the biggest fan of mailers. But it’s because I have been consistent with them enough. So I sent out one one round of mailers, and I get a listing. I’m like, Oh, my gosh, this is amazing. Why doesn’t everybody do this? Right? So I’m getting with the seller, and the seller never told me that. Or rather, the seller told me that the HOA gave gave him a pass because he was elderly, because he’s a vet that he didn’t have to. But he didn’t have to mow his lawn. Well not mow the lawn, but like take care of the weeds because we don’t have grass here in Arizona, that the HOA, like dude was doing it out of the kindness of their heart. And I believe that this now that I’m saying this out loud, I’m like, how could I even believed it the way that he said it was very convincing, guys. Okay. So it wasn’t until we went on, we went live on the market. When what hope I forget how exactly I found out I think maybe it was title at that point, because I did title after instead of opening up earlybird escrow, which I will always open up early bird escrow. This is a reason why to do it. They said yeah, you cannot sell the property unless the seller pays off the debt that’s already in collections. That was from the HOA, because the HOA said, No. Why would we ever just allow somebody to have weeds? Why would we be doing this work for free? We did not have that, you know, that agreement set with him. And he paid he waited so long to pay off his bill that we now send it to collections. And of course, once it’s in collections, I can barely do any talking because it’s through the attorneys. And it only had to be him he didn’t want to. And he pretty much said oh yeah, I thought you wouldn’t notice I’m like, okay, cool. On taking, I’m naughty, I’m deleting you from my KB core. I’m not even gonna ever do a follow up with you. But a lesson learned, please do not make my mistake. Open up the earlybird escrow? Yeah. And then of course, after this, we’re going to be getting into a lot of the questions that you want to make sure that you have prepared for the listing appointment. Why are you moving? Are you aware of any of what homes in your neighborhood are going to be selling are typically selling for already? How much do you owe on the property? Does it have solar? How much is left in the solar? Is it a lease? Is it alone? What will happen if if you don’t sell what are your plans, then if they say they don’t really care, then that means they’re not really motivated. And at any point, they can just say, You know what? Cancel this listing, I just want to rent it out. Instead. I’ve had that happen to me, too. And off, does that hurt? So before I even get any further, I do want to give you this lesson learned as well. I now have a $3,000 cancellation fee. Do you know how much I’m sure you do. You spend a lot of money up front working with sellers, you do not spend upfront money working with buyers. For this reason, I actually lean toward working with buyers. There’s no there’s gas, that’s all I pay for gas and my time. It’s not the $1,000 for photos and staging and videography. And for the drones. And for the aerial photos. It’s not you know, the staging, just in and of itself, there is so and all the marketing that comes to it is a lot of upfront. Time, money, effort, blood, sweat, and tears. So for that reason, I always have no matter who it is no matter what, I have a $3,000 cancellation fee. That’s a catch all. So that will pay for the photos, the staging, if we do that, the marketing efforts that we took, and the rest is to pay for our time. Because we are professionals. There is no reason that you know, attorneys should be you know, even I can go on a rant I already am going on a rant about this, huh? So attorneys have the what is it called? The Why am I blanking? Man, what is that word? I’ll get to it. But if attorneys can be paid like beforehand before they even do the work, so can we and our contract even says So again, this is Arizona. Our contract is different from every other states. But our contract allows us to work on what’s the word, please comment below the word if you’re watching this on YouTube, or if you’re even, you know, listening to this on Apple comment the word below I know you’re thinking of it, and I can’t think of it. But you know what I’m talking about. So, no matter what, I have a $3,000 cancellation fee. Only one time ever have I ever had that been? Have you ever even had an objection to that? And I explained to them, Hey, we’re spending a lot of money upfront the photos alone cost nearly $1,000 and I’ve been hurt before in the past where I spent, you know, $3,000. And then the seller decided to take it off the market. And then not only did I lose $3,000, but I also lost the opportunity cost in order to help out other clients. They honestly, I was just so honest with them, and they’re like, You know what, I get it. So the cancellation that I have is in the additional comments of my contract my TC knows that I do that every single time that everyone in our crew, like in my ESPN downline, they do that. So that way they don’t get burned. Because I got burned once and girl, do you know that I followed up? I followed up until I got that listing again, like, Hey, how’s the rental going? Hey, have you gotten any tenants in there yet? Hey, like, luckily, the property management companies in Tucson are not that good. So that helped me I got the listing back, we sold it. But after that, that was a lesson learned that I will not be working for free again. So please don’t do you know, you also should not be working for free. Okay. So the next question, if you were a buyer looking to purchase your house today, what would you pay for it? And of course, this is going to elicit some emotional reaction, but also could tell you that the sellers are pretty much on core on on par for what the house is what the house is worth. Then, on a scale of one to 10 with 10, being your home is perfect. How would you rate it? That’s question number one. The follow up question to that is what would make it the 10? That question that part of the question is the most important of those two, because it gets them thinking, oh, what what could I do? What would the buyer be wanting to do in order to make this the perfect property? So and then, of course, is that a price range that you feel comfortable with? How soon would you like to be settled into your new home? How much longer do you plan to stay in your current home? Who do you think would be the next person on your street to move get those referrals have listings, listings generate more listings, just like buyer buyers can generate listings, especially if your buyer knows what specific area that when I moved to but they have no homes there on the market that are available? Boom, that’s money. So door knocking? Alright. How much do you think your home is worth? And how did you get that number? And what if any objections Do you think the buyers are gonna have about your home? The other one is, will you be living here while it’s in the market? Or will you have moved out by then? Or do you plan on staying at say, like an Airbnb or staying with a friend in order to make sure that your house that you know, if buyers come outside see the see the for sale sign outside, they can just hop right in without having to coordinate their listing agent, or their buyer’s agent calling me then calling you taking you out of work saying hey, can you leave Davis Monthan Air Force Base and come open your house, they’re already outside. So you know, don’t rush too much don’t get a don’t get a speeding ticket, but they’re outside and don’t you want your house to sell, it can be a lot it’s very, very, it can be very frustrating. So it might be worth taking a week or two. And making sure that you don’t have the dogs in the house and it’s clean one time and that way. It’s just show ready for the next two weeks. The next question, what are the best selling points of your home? What questions do you have about the listing process? And then you want to mail them, depending on the timeline, right? Say they want to meet tomorrow, I’m not going to be mailing them. I’m just going to bring them my five star reviews, my home selling guide why to work with me, essentially, why you want to fall in love with me to be able to fall in love with me because you want me to sell your home. When I come over on Friday, say Are you prepared to live with me at that time? This is a question that I never really felt too comfortable with. But now I realize I need to ask it. And I’ve been asking it the last couple of times. And it is it. I don’t know why I was scared of that question. I thought it was too strong, but it’s direct. So you need to ask them when I come over on, you know, Thursday that we just decided next week? Are you going to be able to list with me at that time? Guess at that point, you’ll be able to see their actual reaction? If they’re serious about listing? Or if they’re not, will all the decision makers be present. And that’s when you look at the title and say, Hey, will you and your brother and your sister and your aunt and everyone else is on that owns this property? Will everyone be at the appointment because everyone needs to sign? And then the day of the day that you meet them before meeting them, create a video outside of their home and say, Hey, this is hey, it’s Emily Garson, what’s up guys. This is one of my clients that are that are potentially bringing their home to the market soon. If you’re looking to live in this community of bear Canyon hills in Tucson, Arizona, send me a message because this home isn’t for sale yet. And then save it. And during your listing presentation, which I’ll show you later. says show it to them say this is something that I recorded and with your permission, I would like to send this to my database. I’ve already started working for you. And it’s like Whoa, no other listening agent that came to my house already did that. And this agent isn’t shy to get on camera. She’s gonna do whatever it takes to sell my house. So, then the day that we meet, take a photo of the property the questions that I need for the listing agreement, what uh, of course, this agreement is going to be slightly different depending on your on where you are, but what appliances are going to are you going to be bringing with you what will be staying make sure you you don’t want to be you don’t want to have to end up paying for a fridge. Luckily, I’ve never had to do that. But uh, hey, I’m gonna say Never Never. So all right, it’s not doesn’t paper. You want to make sure the list price that you give them the comps. And the commission. Of course, now commission is so you know what’s going on with commission. So make sure that you are providing enough value to where they are comfortable with that. And of course, if they’re dual agency, you’re gonna need to have them sign that I do end up reducing my commission if if we do dual agency. And of course, we have questions on our on our listing agreement that says do you consent to signs? Do you consent to marketing? We’ve never had anybody say no. Do you authorize that we use a keysafe that will allow me to open up the lockbox, etc. Just follow follow, I won’t go too much into detail with that specifically, but just pretty much ask them go through the listing agreement with them. That’s pretty much what that bullet is. Email the sellers, about the pre appraisal. So these are the steps to take before and during the appraisal appointment. So you can maximize your home’s value, therefore increasing the likelihood that the transaction is going to go smoothly. And an appraiser is just an opinion. But they’re going to be doing some extensive research on the comps and the condition of your property. So I always tell my sellers to stay if they’re able to be at the house with the appraiser. Perfect do it. Because there but also give them give the appraisal give her her space. But you’re going to hand them the piece of paper of all the updates that you’ve done what you love about the property. And that way, if the appraiser has any questions Who better to answer that then though, then the sellers themselves, I have found that to be really, really good. It’s worked out it’s worked out really well. And then of course, just very simple exterior, you want to start keeping in mind that you need to mow your lawn, you need to pull your weeds and not say that the HOA is doing it for you for free. You need to put away any toys or you know tools like a trip the appraiser, I’m kind of getting like a little ahead of myself here, but the interior, the access, the comfort, these are just things that I already want them to start thinking about, hey, I haven’t even had the listing yet, but I’m already giving you homework, I’m thinking ahead, that’s what I’m showing them. So keep your children and your pets out of the appraisers way. And of course give them the list of upgrades that you’ve done. Anything you know can be Hey, I painted this at you know, anything that has shown that the sellers care about the property. Then, like I mentioned before, get the listing presentation that’s just on this website KV core, or wherever you get your listing presentation, it’s just called when the listing and then create for seller, and then you input the address and you click enter. That’s it, it’s as easy as that with with exp. I’ve never done anything else, it’s worked for me and it works great. So then you want to bring the following printed documents with you. This is where it depends on how you want to do it. And also depends on who your audience is. You might not want to go fully digital. If you’re selling 55 Plus home or you know homes in a 55 plus community, you might want to go digital if you’re selling you know and millennials home or you might just want to get the wet ink signature for the listing agreement and then do the rest later. However you want to do it that I will leave completely up to you. Because I have found that I brought every form in the beginning every form on paper because I just wanted to make sure that we could just take a photo easily scan it send it to my TC start getting ready. But signing all of the all the paperwork in person t know how tired the seller is, you might not realize how tired they are because you’re pumped. Your adrenaline is going you’re like oh we just got this listing and the sellers like oh my god, there’s another forum. Why did I choose even sell my house? You know, like, no get get in, get out. And believe them wanting more. So then tell the seller to call their insurance company and get a clue report. You want to start that immediately. Again, I’m not sure if this is just for Arizona or for all 50 states. But make sure you get that insurance list with the last five years or as long as as as long as they have owned the property because they’re going to provide that to the buyer within five days of being under contract. Ask the seller if that if they have any prepaid HOA and asked if they can get it back. Sometimes people will prepay the HOA they forget that they sell the property they lose, you know, they lose the property to sell the property and they’re like, oh my gosh, wait, I spent I just like lost $500 on prepaid HOA. So see if they can get it back. Or if they can’t get it back then at least incorporate it to the negotiations. Maybe get another extra $500 or the equivalent amount in you know, less closing costs or higher purchase price, whatever you want to do. Pre qual the sellers, ask them, why are there selling? Ask them? What’s their plan B, this is again, this is in case you maybe didn’t ask them beforehand what was on the checklist? I hope you’re still staying with me if you’re if you’re liking this, please give this video a like if you’re watching this on YouTube, if you want these checklists, text me 914-318-4918 I’m Ally, the agents on all social media. And let’s continue on. Oh, or text the word checklist 25203412552. So when you’re looking at the title commitment, look at who’s the seller is that? Is it the same as who we thought it was? There was a lot of fraud going on. There was a lot of fraud, so you don’t want to waste your time on a fake seller. And then Zillow, this is so so important, because this is going to help you leverage that one listing for more listings later on. So take a screenshot of the Zestimate. Yes, I’m saying Zestimate. And no, I’m not saying that that’s accurate. But take a Zestimate screenshot of that the house that you’re about to list, because you want to save that for your records for later. Because in case you didn’t know already, if you take a screenshot of it, your as soon as you list the property, the Zestimate is going to change. So you want to keep that typically lower amount as proof. And then after fast forward to after you sell. You want to take another screenshot of the Zestimate then after he sold the house as far as what the house is worth according to Zillow, and that is bragging rights all day every day you to to do it a step above, you want to do the same thing for all 100 neighbors of that. Have that listing 100 200 300 Have your VA do this take a screenshot of the Zestimate of all of the neighborhood neighbors in the area before you go live. With that listing. Say you know the house is 480,000. And then after you sell it’s now 492 boom that is perfect, perfect mailing stuff to mail or door knock or just talk about say, Hey, I sold the house on 123 Main Street, your you being here at 124 Main Street, just by me selling Bob’s house next door, your property increase $12,000. Like that is a great foot in the door in order to get the listing. Okay, then you want to email your buyer database with a subject line. I’m about to go meet a potential seller I got this from Tom Ferry, and their conferences and in the body of that email to your to your buyers. You want to say I can’t share too much yet, but I’m about to meet up with a potential seller who’s thinking about listing their home. What I can tell you is that homes like this usually or typically sell for above ask in just a few weeks. Of course we used to say days but now it’s no longer days at least here in Arizona, it’s not. If you already know that you want the details reply with V IP, boom, what are you going to do once you send that email once whoever responds or you can also post it on social media, whoever responds, put them in your Cavey core, put them in your CRM with a specific hashtag or tag, I would do VIP or I would do VIP palisade or VIP you know street name, and then remain in strong contact with them because that is a buyer so and if you don’t work buyers, then refer it out. Okay, then the day of the listing presentation, what you want to bring with you calendar, like a printed out calendar, or at least like it again, depends on who your audience is, maybe if they are more digital than just your computer, it’s fine to show them the calendar. Because you want to reverse engineer when you want to be listing. You want to print out your Zillow reviews, your Google reviews your your business card. If you do business cards, I don’t do business cards, the CMA, the MLS input sheet, again might be different your area and the folder for them to keep it if it’s branded even better, and the copies of the signed contracts. Along with the seller net sheet, I leave a couple of different seller net sheets. So one is if I leave three. So one is kind of where I’m what I’m thinking that the house is going to be at depending on what they’ve already told me over the phone. Or if I if I’ve already seen it via FaceTime or zoom, and then the second one is going to be a little bit lower. And then the third one is gonna be a little bit higher. They don’t want to make it too high. It’s I don’t want to get their hopes up. And I will never want to be the agent that says oh, I can sell your property for more than the other listing at that than the other agents so that they could because I don’t ever want to set anybody up for dinner. appointment I will I’m a straight shooter. Hey, if I don’t think it’s gonna go that high, I’m never gonna lie to anybody. But okay, next, have the sellers fill it out completely Of course. Then you want to go on ESP Marketing Center and create the digital media post it’s um it’s free on easy marketing center I’m sure your brokerage probably as the same thing to just go there, create some digital posts or maybe hire a virtual assistant to do it. And then you want to add the YouTube video link to the link tree if you have a link tree saying hey, new, you know, you just want to start promoting it digitally. Already with like the the listing presentation, follow your MLS rules. Of course, if you have any questions, ask your broker, send the clue or the insurance to the TC and add that to the MLS. Because it’s even better if you know add everything to the MLS. And then remember that you’re going to be their agent for free until they tell me that they want to list with me. So I’m providing value value value, I’m saying hey, this is what you get when you list with me. And it’s okay at that point, if they say you know what, we will be live with another agent, because I know that I that we probably weren’t going to be a good fit, there was something in there. And I always ask, you know, always ask, Hey, you know, is there something that I could have done? Is there something that we didn’t cover that I should have covered more, I’m looking just to just to improve. And sometimes they’ll tell you sometimes they’re they’re too shy, and that’s okay, you know, it’s fine, you can’t win them all, there’s so much more business to go around than to dwell on one listing, although it hurts, you know, like, I will not discount the fact that it hurts, especially maybe if you really thought that you were going to get it. But just take that effort and double down with this checklist. This checklist will show you how to double down and get even more listings out of it. So again, the more you have in the pipeline, the less emotion you’re going to have, if you end up losing a listing, so keep your pipeline Hi, baby. Alright, then the last portion of this side of the segment is schedule a day with the sellers. So when you the videographer can create some videos. So if you have a local videographer, perfect if not, if you have a spouse, perfect, that works too, it doesn’t need to be professional. In fact, the more professional looking it is, the more polished it is, the less real it is, the less people can can actually relate to it. So and I also I do videos of me, it’s not just the property, but I have my face on there, again, my branding, and you can put it on YouTube, you can throw YouTube ads behind it, you can do a Facebook ad behind it, you can use that, throw it into a QR code, send it to the flyers, send it as flyers, to the neighbors and get more listings that way. Then the day that was the presentation, I’m gonna do this listing presentation. Well, I’m not going to do the listing presentation, I’m going to tell you what is on my checklist. And then I think maybe that’s where I’m going to end it. Maybe we’ll see we’ll see also, for the future, if you’d like me to just do one street shots or like all throughout the entire checklist, let me know I’m here for it. I would love to hear your feedback, put it in the Apple podcast review or Spotify review, for keeping it real. We want to hear from you. I do want to thank you for all the positive reviews that you’ve left so far. I really appreciate that. So yeah, five star review, please do it for DJ. Alright, the listing presentation, our crew within exp has access to something called the locker room nation. So we all have our logins and this has like hundreds and hundreds of videos. Ask your broker in case you don’t already have one, but I’m sure you have you have access to some sort of Google Drive or something like this, where you have access to watch actual listing presentations, buyer presentations, you know, anything, etc. So that way you can just get in the mind in the mind flow. That’s not the word in the mindset. That’s the word of the listing presentation. So review it, maybe hop on some podcasts, listen to other episodes of this podcast, have maybe like a potential listing agreement or listing presentation of what it’s like, hype yourself up, do a couple of push ups, you know, get the blood flowing because you want to show up with energy. And maybe I said that because I would I’m more attracted. I think people are more attracted to people with energy. But not everyone is I am not everyone’s cup of tea and I get that you know, if I were to show up with listening as a listing agent to get a potential listing with a seller that was not me you know, that was very easy or or very like, you know, we wouldn’t get along. And again, that’s okay. There’s an agent for every one So be yourself. This is me so this was this was a wham Okay. Review the listing presentation from the real estate Bible. This is this is the real estate Bible is a Google Doc that I have for my ESP downline. It’s like To now close, like 200 pages. Okay, so skip that. Ask for referrals. Of course, hey, do you know if anyone else is looking to this looking to sell on the street? Especially they’ve been there for a long time. They know the neighbors. I feel like now in this day and age, a lot of people don’t know the neighbors, which is crazy. But But yeah, it’s not just other sellers in that area is Do you know of anyone moving to any state? Do you know of anyone that you know, needs to upgrade their house? Or downgrade their house? Or Did anyone get a job transfer and they need to relocate than anyone else in the military that, you know, that’s PCs saying this this season? And then typically be like, Oh, no, I don’t at that point, you make it one step further to try to connect make that connection in their mind that does anyone you know, that’s recently had a promotion, or they plan on starting a family. So they want a bigger house now, job relocation, make specific, specific examples. So that way, they’re like, oh, my gosh, yeah, I forgot that hairy digits get promoted. Or maybe Harry did just lose his job. And he’s looking to downgrade his house. And you can help. Okay, next, go over the open house schedule. Not all sellers want open houses, some sellers want to open house every other day. So ask them what you know, this is depending on if you like to do open houses, if you want to do open houses, if you plan on having someone else do open houses, then perfect. But so this is whatever you want to do. And go start those dates, because you want to have those dates immediately. You want to start mailing the neighborhood, for the neighborhood only open house and you want to start mailing you know, advertising the actual open house, because the faster you can have those open houses put on online on the MLS, the more people you’ll get through. Then, of course, the clue report, again, at the end of the listing presentation, ask them, Is there anything that you have heard that we’re out of sync on? Or is there anything that you’re confused about? Is there anything you’re worried about? You want to make sure that anything that’s on their mind that they get off their chest? Because they’re gonna have questions, and you will probably have to ask this question at least twice. They might not feel comfortable. If you’re a stranger, they might not feel comfortable asking you, oh, man, well, we met with, we met with this other agent, this other agent brought us cookies. And they said that they would sell you know, they promised us X but they don’t want to tell you that because they’re just waiting for you to say that. So ask them, hey, is there anything that maybe another agent said that you would like to go over? Because there might be some that we didn’t even cover and I love to show you what we do. So make sure that you’re talking like honestly, to them about that. If they are working with another agent, or if they’re interviewing other agents, what has the other agent done that I haven’t already gone over? Not if they’re working with other agent that was a poor word to say poor wording to say that I do not I’m not in the business of stealing plus, again, only sets you up for failure. But I definitely been that person where there’s different theories of when to go into listing appointment, if the seller is going to be interviewing agents, some people want to go first, they want to get the foot in the door. That’s it, I will, you know, smash it. And they’re there, I’m going to leave with listing appointments. So that way, no one else, anyone else after me isn’t even going to have a shot. Some people want to be the last one. So they’re like, Hey, let’s go over all of you know, all of whatever, maybe they didn’t say that didn’t make you feel comfortable. I’ll show you how I can make you feel comfortable. And this is what I do in order to list your home. So different opinions on that. I don’t I’m not really persuaded either, you know, one way or the other. There are pros and cons to both. Because if you do bank on being the last one, and that first agent gets it, then you snooze, you lose, you know, but if you are the last one, and they still they are still thinking of that first one where it was like, Oh my God, that first one was so good. There’s almost like so what’s the opposite of like the recency bias, where they’re like, oh, they they’re glorifying that first one, even though it could have been the same as the last one. And it may psychology in there. You choose which one you want to you want to do. But you just want to make sure that you cover everything that maybe other agents have covered. So yeah, and use the pricing structure if you do not have a tiered package for sellers create one now. I have one for my exp downline and everyone uses it. That’s how we get 8% listings. So again, it’s think about what like, think about this, if you were a seller, what would blow you away? What would you pay extra for in order for people to market your property and then see what’s realistic, see what you what you can do and create three different tiers or maybe two different years or four. But at least that way, psychologically, when you go to a listing appointment. Instead of them thinking should I choose ally, or should I choose Mark instead of that If you’re thinking, Oh, should I choose Ali’s bronze package, Silver package, or gold package? You know, it’s a different way of thinking in the BiggerPockets world or like investing world, instead of saying, Hey, this is my this was my offer, take it or leave it and stand you say, Hey, this is my cash offer. And and this is my financed offer. Which one would you like? So that way they’re like, oh, it’s instead of yes or no, it’s do I choose a? Or do I choose B, I love the tiered structure, again, this, I’m only giving that out to those that join my crew. They have it and it’s working well, for them, they’re getting 8% listings. But it’s not hard, you know, like, just think about what, what extra things you can do, add it to your middle package, and then add even more to your to your 8% package. But you have to bring in the value, you know, anyway, so if you ever want some more trainings on that, I do that all the time. When you get the listing, you know, when you get the listing, if you get the listing, when you get the listing, tell your virtual assistant and this is where I say take have your virtual assistant or you I guess but hire someone else out, get your kids do it. Get your kid to get the list or title company to get the list of all 100 or 200 homes nearby. Before you go live right. Take the screenshot of the Zillow Zestimate take all the Zestimate values, save them in a folder. You’re going to need this later on. And when you walk the property Oh yeah, well, we’ll leave it here right after this walk in the properties. This is a checklist that I created because I always forgot to check the year of the H vac every single time every time I leave the house but I don’t I forgot the year of the H back in the year the water heater. So now that’s part of the checklist. Check the vents ask them if they’re gonna get new vents installed or filters. That’s an easy fix right like vents can look so ugly and it can change it can change the the look and feel of a property. But just popping up a new vent and just changing the filter can make a world of a difference. Especially if it goes from yellow to white. And then of course the number of bedrooms. If the owner changed it, make sure that you are not advertising a property that’s that was say a five bedroom as a five bedroom if they changed one of those bedrooms into a den say they turned you know a closet or they got rid of a door or anything like that. Just make sure that you are aware that sellers might be able to might be changing some stuff around a five bedroom when they purchased it might not be a five bedroom when you’re selling it. So I think this is where I’m going to leave it off. If you have been enjoying this. Thank you so much. i Please please please give DJ keeping it real podcast a five star review, letting them know how these checklists have been helping you again, I’m sure I’m sharing everything that I have with you. So if you want a copy of these checklists, text, the word checklist to 520-341-2552. My name is Ali, the agent on all social media that is a Li and that’s it. I’ll see you on the next one. And until then, stay safe.

Hubert Johnson a Tax Attorney with Guardian Tax Law talks about how he got into tax law and why he decided to stay in this lane. Hubert discusses tax liens and what realtors need to know on this topic. Hubert also talks about property seizure and how important it is to get valid information in order to avoid it. Last, Hubert talks about property protection. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Hubert Johnson can be reached at (520) 526-9850. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00If you’ve been a realtor long enough, you’ll run into the situation where your buyer or seller can’t buy or sell because of a federal tax problem. We’re going to show you what to do in those situations. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we are going to be speaking with tax attorney, Hubert Johnson. Before we get to Hubert, just a couple of quick reminders. If you are new to the show, we appreciate you thanks for tuning in. And the best way that you can help us continue to make more episodes is by two things tell actually three things, maybe three things to do. First, tell a friend I think of one other realtor that could benefit from these sorts of episodes and please share with them also support our sponsors. There are really the reason we can keep paying our staff and continuing to make as many episodes as we do. So please, we love our sponsors. Please love them back check out their products and services. And third, leave us a review on whatever podcast app you may be listening to us on or watching us on. We appreciate it. We read your comments and we make changes to continually improve for you. Alright guys, let’s get to the main event my conversation with Hubert Johnson. Today on the show, our guest is tax attorney Hubert Johnson from Guardian tax law in Tucson, Arizona. Let me tell you more about Hubert. Now, Huber Johnson has over 14 years of experience as a tax attorney. And in that time, Mr. Johnson taught graduate tax law at Baruch College, lectured to tax professionals in seminars and training across the country and has co written two books on debt tax debt resolution. Mr. Johnson launched Guardian tax law PLLC in November of 2019 and has assisted 1000s of individuals and businesses in dealing with IRS and state tax issues. Hubert has five children he’s married to Katie Johnson. His passion is coaching and officiating youth sports, mostly basketball and soccer, volunteering in his community and for His church. He loves history, sarcasm and helping people pay as little as possible in taxes, please visit his his firm’s website which is Guardian tax law.com. We will have a link to that. In the show notes we’re going to talk about specifically why you’re going to want to reach out to Hubert for either yourself or your clients also follow his follow his YouTube channel which is at Guardian tax law on YouTube, just search for Guardian tax law. We will also have a link to that in the show notes because they have some great content out there to learn Hubert Welcome. Welcome to keeping it real. Hubert Johnson 4:18Thank you for having me. D.J. Paris 4:19Oh, thank you. We I’m excited to this is a bit of a departure for for us I spend most of my time talking to top realtors. And I love when when when we have a guest opportunity that is a little bit outside of what we normally do, because I think this could really provide some excellent value to our to our listeners, but I’d love to learn a little bit more about you. As you know, we know you’re a tax attorney. So how did you sort of get into tax law? Was that something that you knew from from day one of of law school that you wanted to get into or how did you get there? Hubert Johnson 4:53I actually hated loss tax law in law school. I took a federal income tax And I ended up teaching it later. That’s what I ended up teaching. But I didn’t like it. And so my, it’s one of those things I graduated, took the bar and my wife ended up in the hospital for five months, life just went upside down on me. And so I needed a job. And I ended up applying for and working at a tax law firm. And when I first went in, I did the interview, and I was talking to my brother afterwards. And he’s like, he was asking me about, and I said, Well, I’m just helping people who haven’t paid on taxes, etc. I said, Hold the phone. Helping people to pay less in taxes is one of the most patriotic things you can do. And I fell in love with and I’ve done it ever since. D.J. Paris 5:42You know, I do I do like that. And I’ve always loved the expression, whatever side of the political spectrum that you fall on. i We are, you know, sort of em, we don’t we don’t have a political slant on the show. Certainly our guests can. Well, but you know, we are agnostic, I guess for politics, but I’ve always loved the expression. Nobody pays $1 more in taxes than they then they want to or that they that they ought to. Right. So nobody does that, regardless of whether you’re the wealthiest Americans or not. I think there’s something to be said that, that we all could, you know, we want to use the tax laws at our disposal to really make sure that we’re minimizing our tax exposure. And Hubert Johnson 6:24it’s across the spectrum. It’s all Americans that are impacted by the IRS. I don’t help people avoid taxes or high taxes, because then you go to go, you get to go to a criminal tax attorney, which isn’t me and you do not want to go there. But again, helping people wherever they are. realized and know what their rights and options are is really important. And my office manager makes fun of me. She says I always make people cry. But it’s from unburdening this huge burden that affects people dealing with taxes. D.J. Paris 6:55And we should also mention, I mentioned Hubert has taught at Baruch College in New York, I didn’t mention New York, but for those of you that aren’t from the East Coast, maybe aren’t familiar with that university, that is a very, very excellent and top tier university. So this is this is a very, very smart and competent man. And I’m excited that you’re here. Before we get into some of your actual specialties, around tax liens, and what you wish Realtors knew about, you know, the roadblocks or getting over some of those roadblocks they may run into with clients situations. Can we just talk for a moment about how about a realtors own specific tax situation specifically around how they’re compensated? And I know this, this isn’t exactly what you do. But can we just make a plead for our listeners to consider incorporating and actually exploring being paid as a, as a business owner versus just as an independent contractor? Sure, and Hubert Johnson 7:49this is pretty much falls into how do I not become or need Guardian tax law. So if you follow this advice, you won’t be in trouble with the IRS. And again, I love giving free advice out that helps people avoid these tax issues in the first place. Because it is amazingly stressful. Issue number one, net corporate get a business structure, some kind of formation if and the main reason for this is it protects your personal assets from any IRS debt, believe it or not, when you have a corporation, and if you incur liabilities under it, and you close it out almost all of the tax that under that corporation goes away with that corporation, that doesn’t mean you can open up one ein after another and just try to avoid it. But if something happens, economy goes bad, you have to close the business down and then reorganize in a different form. You can do that. And we close out business debt all the time, and it protects, it separates the business tax issues from your personal issues. D.J. Paris 8:50I have I have a great story or sorry that maybe it’s not a great, it’s actually kind of a sad story. But it’s a story that illustrates this. Just yesterday, I was with somebody that had owned a very successful brokerage, real estate brokerage here in town, he sold it, and the building that he had purchased 20 years ago, while this is more of a Chicago thing, but the taxes for the property taxes for that particular property went from this is not an exaggeration from 30,000 a year to 106,000 a year in one year now. So basically, you know, 300%, or whatever percentage that that would be. And any year he’d already appealed it, it was supposed to be 100. And like 40,000 He got it down to 106. So anyway, he was at a scenario now where to your point, he he’s like I’m just I can’t he was I’m just gonna give the keys to the to the bank at this point because I can’t obviously afford to continue that and because it’s in an LLC or however he has it structured. We’re talking about the same sort of situation. Hubert Johnson 9:48Absolutely. And it’s not just text and like you mentioned, yeah. D.J. Paris 9:50So yeah, so if if you and by the way, this isn’t really what Hubert’s firm does. But if you would like to incorporate if you are You know, I say for sure if you’re a full time practicing realtor, you really probably ought to, it sort of depends on income level and you’re your CPA should be able to determine when that makes sense for you. But Hubert also knows a lot of CPAs across the country, not only does he know them, he knows the good ones. And, you know, I love my CPA is do I know for sure that she’s one of the good ones? I don’t know. I haven’t gone to jail. So I’m hoping, but, but the truth is, I really I really don’t know. I mean, I love her and I’m probably never gonna leave her unless she screws up badly. And I do really like her but but the truth is, I found her on my own. And I think it’s a better a better way to go is to go through somebody like Hubert who who knows who the at least some of the good players out there. So reach out to him if you are interested in considering that because if you’re being paid just as an independent contractor, there’s a very good chance, again, depending on how much commission you’re earning a year that you could actually save in basically how it could work. The way that I have it structured for me is I am an employee of my own company, my my aunt Well, I’m not a realtor in the traditional sense, but if I were those Commission’s would be paid to my business and then I take a salary. And the Ivan S corporation and the government or the the feds are actually quite lenient about what I have to pay myself based on my overall income. Anyway, so talk to a CPA if you don’t have a good one. Reach out to Hubert he’ll connect you with somebody. But let’s talk about your specialty now, Hubert, so thank you for that. But tell us all about tax liens and what what Realtors need to know. Well, Hubert Johnson 11:34just real quick on that. estimated tax payments, if you work for yourself, etc. Business write offs, a good CPA will save you a ton of money if you’re using TurboTax. h&r block, sorry, not to knock them but you need. There are plenty of CPAs that are cheaper than those companies and will do a much better job. As far as my specialty, we work directly with the IRS, we’re on the phone with the IRS and state tax state taxing agencies every day. And one of the big reasons we work with love Realtors so much is that we can help people buy and sell property. And so we have realtors that send people to us say, Look, this guy owes so much, we will set it up in a consignment agreement. And what to help people buy once you get an installment agreement, they still need to qualify based on income to debt ratio. But once that establishment is set up, there are mortgage companies that will still finance a mortgage, as long as it’s in an installment agreement status. Once that’s done, they can purchase the home and then we can go back and renegotiate with the IRS doesn’t mean they’re stuck pick making that payment. So there’s plenty of times that we get them into a home. And then we change gears and do something better for we might wipe out the debt, we might do something else. But getting someone into a home makes some a huge difference for people. And it is so important. So D.J. Paris 12:59let’s start with the beginning. So a realtor has a client who would be a perfect a perfect client for somebody for your firm. Hubert Johnson 13:10So a perfect climate is someone that knows they have a tax issue and is willing to deal with it. And so they usually run into those issues when they go to refinance, when they go to purchase a property and someone tells them Oh, you have a tax issue, you need to deal with it before you can do A, B or C. So they come in, they want to get this address, they want to move forward, purchase a home, move forward, improve their lives through working with realtors in purchasing real property. And those those are great clients because they’re ready to take care of the issue. D.J. Paris 13:44And I remember let’s say 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago there was a boom in the in the what would they call it the not tax reduction business but the debt consolidation business and, and that I see you smiling because that is that that was a very interesting business where there were a lot of non professionals playing in that space. Can you speak a little bit to that just because I know I heard a lot about that even just on news and radio and and all of that and how this is different from that. So Hubert Johnson 14:18debt consolidation really is people giving good financial advice helping people pay down their tax debt, you can get a lot of the same information from Dave Ramsey, or other financial professionals online. They’re not using any special licenses or skills to negotiate with the IRS. You have to be licensed with the IRS. You have to been having that experience to go in and do what’s called an offer and compromise a settlement. takes years of experience I’ve had over 300 accepted offers in one year alone. Me personally. And you’ll just the I think it was about a month ago we settled on $49,000 for 20 bucks. Your regular basis, we go as low as $20. If if the shoe fits, if you qualify, it’s an amazing service, we get one or two of those accepted every week. Unbelievable. D.J. Paris 15:08This is Yeah. So for those of you that are just going to, you know, a standard debt consolidation company, this is not really what that’s not really what they do, they may call your credit card company and try to negotiate for you or something of that nature, but they’re not going to have the licenses that are necessary to actually communicate with the IRS, with the feds and actually get something. Something done. And yeah, so that’s a fantastic suggestion. What else do should Realtors really understand about sort of the tax liens and, and you know, how you guys can fit in, so Hubert Johnson 15:43we can help people sell property, and that’s the other half of it is when they have a tax lien on their property. And they want to sell they can get rid of it. I had someone who interesting story. He was a third owner and a property. We went and dug into the taxes. He knew you owe the IRS, but he didn’t know how the debt was IRS tax that goes away after approximately 10 years. So we found out exactly when he needed to sell. We pursued it and made sure that debt fell off. He sold it he was able to walk away with that money. Wow. Simple. D.J. Paris 16:21That’s yeah, that’s incredible. Um, let’s talk about property seizure, because we know that that’s also an important topic that happens Realtors run into that all the time. Let’s talk about how to avoid that. And maybe how a realtor could at least begin to have a conversation with a client in that situation. Hubert Johnson 16:39So property seizures is something that I’ve never had an active client had their property seized, because you have to do a lot of things wrong to add property seats. I have had, I’ve stepped into cases where the other attorneys have done everything wrong, where they ended up going to tax court and losing. One guy charged him $25,000 To go to tax court and filed in the wrong venue or place. I still charged him the 25,000. No, that’s horrible. D.J. Paris 17:09No, I’m just laughing because of the absurdity of that. Yes, that’s yeah, no, Hubert Johnson 17:13but they had their their case was already before the Department of Justice. So here I’m dealing with this in federal court to give you an idea of where I am. And you know that the sale went through because they owed over there was over a million dollar home and they had a second home too. So that’s the very sympathetic situation. But I’ve stopped home cells that were with the DOJ as well. You don’t want to be before the DOJ. You don’t want to go to tax court and 99% of cases, you want someone that will attack that that get rid of it and preserve your assets and your property. There are ways to do that, without making it a 25 $50,000 case. Usually, you can deal directly with the IRS or state and address those issues. So if someone’s telling you, hey, we need you to go to tax court pay me 25 grand for it, get a second opinion. A lot of times if you do owe even if you have assets, equity and assets, you can settle or you can set up some kind of arrangement and just let that clock run or if the tax lien shouldn’t be there in the first place. So we’ve gone in and released tax liens one case where gentleman he partnered up with someone who was an ex con didn’t know it. And he embezzled money he put his name on property shouldn’t have had you’re shaking your head. So again, it was a giant mess. And you know, we went through and fixed it all up with the tax lien department. And one nice thing about the IRS, it’s not known for its efficiency. That’s sarcasm. D.J. Paris 18:41No, I’m laughing because I have I had Thankfully I’ve haven’t had any IRS issues. But I did actually just a funny sidebar. I I got a phone call years ago from the IRS and it was a gentleman he said, Oh, I need to you know you there was this one form for my business that I didn’t send in and I’d always heard the IRS will never call you. So if someone’s calling you it’s not the IRS. And I went play sounds like the IRS. He’s just asking for this one form that I don’t know why a scammer would want that. And sure enough, no, he really was with the IRS and he really did need this one particular form and and I faxed it over to him and he was he was actually here locally in Chicago so but most of the time the IRS I don’t think calls but but they do call once in a while or at least they called me and we got it resolved and it wasn’t it wasn’t a big deal. But but you’re right the efficiency of it. I think they were five years late I didn’t even know I owed this particular document and they called me five years after the fact and that’s why I got really nervous because I thought well that this doesn’t sound right. The guy goes everybody thinks I’m not who I am you can look me up I’m really the guy I worked on at the you know building a flatbed building downtown it was it was really more funny than anything but but for the first five times he called me I just deleted the voice and I’m like this is obviously a scam and no it was actually URL, but great point. So, so if if somebody is worried about property seizure, that’s when when they should reach out to you and just sort of get this get see what the options are. Is that Is that fair? Well Hubert Johnson 20:13call us right away. Because most situations can be saved and fixed. But what I was gonna say it’s about the efficiency. If you need to sell a property, the IRS actually will jump on it because they’re getting money from the sale of the property. Sure, well, we can within 30 days, we can help with the sale property getting a payoff letter from the IRS or lien subordination, or subrogation, that’s, you know, fancy terms for it, but allow for the seller property, even if the IRS isn’t going to get any money. So there’s a taxing department that is the most responsible department of the IRS, and you can jump on these cases and get it resolved. But as far as seizure, usually, like, everything’s going the wrong way. We’ve saved homes, we’ve saved properties for people heading in that direction. But again, they’re not doing everything wrong. They’ve got bad advice, or they don’t know what to do. And I have a client that I actually had to fire recently, about a year ago, because they were doing everything wrong. They had a rental property, that one they didn’t tell me about. Don’t tell your attorney, which they’re there to represent you that you have attorney client privilege, you can tell them pretty much everything about where your bodies are buried. But so they didn’t tell us about that they tried to hide it from the IRS, the IRS found it because they see most things. They tried to put it in a trust after they knew about the debt, which is a problem. Sorry, hit the wrong button. The trust was invalid anyway. And then they blew off the IRS. Ironically, we got $400,000 to, you know, that went away and expired in their case, and they owed about 800,000. But they still had this property that didn’t didn’t want to disclose. So the IRS went and now the notes on the door and started taking all of their renters payments. So they were moving to seize the property, they sent them notices to appear for summons. So they were being summons. And if you don’t appear to those you can have an A warrant issued for your arrest. So again, doing everything the wrong way. And eventually we terminated with them and said, Look, you’re not listening to us. And you’re going to end up in a criminal case. And so we’re this is the strongest way we can warn you. But listen to your attorney, listen to a good attorney, if you’re not sure, get a second opinion. But you can save most properties I’ve had people call me when I was just coming in to seize accounts, seize property and be able to stop it. As long as it’s not too late. If it’s too late, you might have to contact a bankruptcy attorney which again, they’re worse than we are. D.J. Paris 22:55So I’m curious for the majority of your clients who are dealing with a real estate sort of tax situation or tax lien rather on real estate? Is it more often investors who these are invest in best investment assets? Or are they more primary residences, just out of curiosity, Hubert Johnson 23:16there’s some investment property, but it usually not an investment group. So it’s usually an individual that has different properties that they’ve invested in rentals. We do a lot where we protect primary residences. The interesting thing about rentals if you’re using it to produce income, you can protect that from the IRS and even do an offer and compromise and wipe out that’s if it’s producing income for you. It’s seen as a mini business. So having rental property that’s actively being used, can really help serve you and we can protect that for you. D.J. Paris 23:48Yeah, that’s a really important point. If it’s making money, there’s, there’s that’s a good thing. And of course, that’s what investors are looking for. Is that positive cash flow. Also, I want to talk about property protection. Like, when will the IRS I know like come after a property that’s that’s encumbered or in a business? You know, and how can What do agents need to know about that? Hubert Johnson 24:16So I’ve never had someone come to me where I helped them, they listen to me and they actually had property seized. The main reason is, if you do it, right, you produce the documents you work with the IRS. Again, they’ll give you bad information. It’s It’s It’s always fun dealing with them. But when I step in our case, I’ve had plenty of times they told me Look, why are you here, this or that? A month or two later, they’re seeing a completely different tune. Oh my gosh, you’re making my job easy. It’s like Yeah, cuz I don’t want you looking too closely at my client. So we work with them for the benefit of our clients wrap up the case. That’s the main thing you have to work with the IRS. Putting your head in the sand is not a good strategy. And that’s the worst case scenario. I’ve had too many people hire me or others, and then ignore them. And things don’t go well, because the IRS just ratchets up, they’ll ratchet up the pressure until it’s easier time. And if it comes to seizure, you’ve gotten a lot of bad advice, call us, we can jump into it and usually stop it, but have a little horror story if you want to hear it. Love to. So this isn’t real property, but someone that I owned a car lot, who came to us and we were going to charge him seven grand on the spot to start. And I called the IRS spoke to the revenue officer. And he told me, there’s nothing you can do to save this client. They had been trying to get the seizure payment paperwork, process, and they have to send it to their attorneys. And you almost never deal with IRS attorneys. And he had been waiting months for and he told me as soon as that comes back, it could be Monday, it could be a month from now. I’m going in with a fleet of tow trucks. And I’m going to cut open the gates and just haul all of those cars off of his lawn. And I said, Well, that’s lovely. You know what, what do I say? I’m like, Okay, well, thanks for being straight with me. I called the club. Don’t hire us. You need to hire a business bankruptcy attorney right away to save your property. And I asked him, Are those cars even yours? He said, No, they’re on consignment? Oh, do you give that information to the IRS? said well, he asked for it. But I haven’t gotten around to it. So he called the Business Bankruptcy Attorney called me back and said he wants $20,000 I said pay the man. Don’t wait, don’t don’t blow off the IRS. It’s always better to deal with it and get good advice and deal with it head on. D.J. Paris 26:41Yeah, you know, it does seem to happen to car some mechanics, or I’ve heard of this happening very, it’s not that uncommon, where the business goes bankrupt, the cars they were working on, or the cars that are on consignment at the time. Get all wrapped into the debt and and it’s my brother in law lost lost a car that way. Anyway, so So yeah, it’s it’s yeah, that makes perfect sense that, that, you know, you’d want to step in pretty pretty seriously at that point and make sure that, you know, doesn’t all go go to pot. Hubert Johnson 27:17So success story. D.J. Paris 27:19Let’s Yeah, let’s Hubert Johnson 27:20hear. So this isn’t dealing with real estate, this gal actually got prosecuted for fraud. So pretty serious case, caught prosecuted by the DOJ owed as close to a million dollars and had quite a few rental properties in Chicago. So we tried to come in and look at it in a holistic manner. She didn’t know what was going on with the rentals, which ones are profitable, which ones weren’t, we lay that off or out for her got a bookkeeper got a CPA, and were able to look at and we actually sold off some of the properties that weren’t profitable, consolidated her holdings, so she was making money off of it got rid of other debt that was just killing her and not helping her. And she was able to turn around and set up an installment agreement and to deal with this and stop all the collection, stop all the seizures, and came out of it with all the properties she still wanted intact. Wow. D.J. Paris 28:14And so when you work with somebody who has a million dollar situation like that, and obviously every situation is unique, but what what could that be whittled down to when you when you’re dealing with the IRS? Could it be whittled down to zero? Or is it typically a percentage of it that? How does the IRS typically look at those kind of things. Hubert Johnson 28:34So that’s the you’re talking about the offering compromise. So it’s kind of like Cinderella shoe, if your financial situation fits what they’re looking for. It’s an amazing offer, we do it all the time I had. But if your situation doesn’t match, so again, I have an actor. And he’s making a couple million a year and he owes a couple million in taxes. He’s paying it down, he’ll pay it all off eventually. But he doesn’t qualify for an offer and compromise. It just makes too much money. Yeah, the other the gal that I was talking about, she had assets, she had rentals, and she was making well over 100,000 a year at her normal job. She just made too much money didn’t qualify. On the other hand, I just brought someone in, he has a lot of bills, but he’s making 17 grand a month. And he might not qualify for an offer, but we’re gonna put him in a hardship status where he doesn’t have to pay anything to the IRS for at least a couple years. And We’ll reevaluate a situation once it becomes a little more established. And consider those other options. So if you’re making, even if you’re making 10 to $15,000, it’s not automatic that you’re not going to qualify. Get a thorough review. I’ve had people one gentleman had a house. And this is an interesting real estate story. He had been told by a couple other tax attorneys that he didn’t qualify for an offer and compromise couldn’t do it. And then He even went on the IRS website plugged in his numbers. They told him no. He was referred to me by his parents and said, You need to call this guy he called me up. We went through his numbers. And by the numbers, he didn’t qualify, but I said, Hey, let’s make a couple adjustments. He had a 401k with about 14,000. And he ordered $80,000 Simple. Tell me about your house and it was valued by Zillow. We know Zillow valuations are accurate. D.J. Paris 30:27It’s usually not but sometimes. Usually, I’m friendly with Zillow. So I’ve tried to toe the line there. But the the listeners know what they think about Zillow. Hubert Johnson 30:38Well, he went got a sonar evaluation or appraisal of the property. But this house was built in the 1880s, or 90s. Last updated in World War Two, he was there with living with a couple of kids married with a couple of kids, it had led piping through the house, the roof leaked, I mean, it was it was needed so much work to it, I don’t take the 401k to necessary parents to your home. So you don’t have lead piping in your house, at least fix up the kitchen, the bathroom basic stuff. And I said talk to your wife, see what she thinks she loved the idea. And we because we redid the evaluation, we took the 401k didn’t necessary Paris, which is allowable by the IRS, we were able to settle that for I think it was between six and 7000 wiped up $80,000. And he got to keep this house. Now, D.J. Paris 31:26when somebody went when something somebody goes through that particular situation, just out of curiosity, how does that typically affect credit score? Or does it not? How does that, you know, with the IRS, you know, is working on, you know, an agreement that you guys come to settle on? does, how does that affect things like Fico. And Hubert Johnson 31:48it greatly improves it, because it shows that this debt has now been settled. Got it, and it doesn’t report it anymore as a negative, that that’s not being paid installment agreements. Again, you still have this tax debt, but it shows that you’re making regular payments on it. So going in and setting up some kind of resolution. Not only helps your credit, but it also stops the IRS from coming after you because that’s the worst thing I get the calls people you know, my bank accounts got it cleared out, I just got hit by a toxin I didn’t even know about that’s, that’s typically what we see is people come to us when the house is on fire. We love it. When people come to us with questions, hey, I might have this issue, or I think I owe but they haven’t come after me yet. Great, we can set it up for you. So they don’t have to worry about the world crashing down. As we deal with this, we can prevent all of that as we go through most cases. D.J. Paris 32:38Wow. And we should also mention to another reason to consider anyone who’s having a tax situation over to Hubert’s firm is that a lot of times with some of the creative strategies, they have to, you know, work with the IRS, you know, there is sales of property that happen, certain properties get sold. So, Hubert has to refer business out to realtors from really all over the country because his clients are kind of from everywhere. So can we talk a little bit about how a realtor could connect with you in the event where they have the situation? What would be the, for one of their clients? What’s the best way they should they should reach out Hubert Johnson 33:17what call her main line at 520-485-7371, you can contact us through our website. But the best thing is just called we do a free consultation. So I’m a little old school, I feel people should actually have information before they start paying for services, etc. And especially with taxes. People want to know how much I’m going to how much is this going to cost me compared to how much I owe. So we do a free consultation for people put their mind at ease. And we’d like you said, I call people and I use different networking, networking resources to refer business out across the country. I would love to have realtors, we keep a list a contact list of who we can refer business to who do we know and who do we trust? D.J. Paris 34:02Yeah. Yeah, it’s a really, really important point. And we should also mention too, that you are you’re located in in Tucson but you’re able to work with, with clients from really all over the US because you’re dealing predominantly with the feds. That’s sort of my understanding. Well, Hubert Johnson 34:18we deal with the feds and we deal with most states. There’s only two states that we can work with. And believe it or not, it’s Oregon and Washington. D.J. Paris 34:28So if you’re in the Pacific Northwest, find somebody else. Hubert Johnson 34:31State taxes that we can’t deal with because they require that you be licensed in the state as a CPA or attorney. But we work everywhere else. Hawaii, Guam, Alaska, New York, New Jersey, Florida. We handle state taxes wherever they have income tax and where they have sales. We deal with sales tax issues, when needed as well. But as far as property, yeah, we refer business and all across the country and we help people All across the country. D.J. Paris 35:01I also wanted to I was curious, you’d mentioned that you’re, you’re speaking to the IRS really daily. And obviously, the IRS is a massive employer. There’s, gosh, I don’t know how many employees work at the IRS. But I should have looked that up ahead of time. But it’s a substantial number. And I think the number is increasing, if I remember correctly with the current administration, I think almost, yeah, doubling, right? So is, is, I want to say 100,000 people, maybe I can’t remember the number. But regardless, you are, you’re dealing with with a specific group there? How important is it to work with an attorney? Who does have relationships with some like you? Do you deal a lot with the same people at the IRS over and over? Or is there a reputation that gets built up between attorneys and an IRS for like, oh, you know, for easier, smoother transactions. Hubert Johnson 35:55So technically, we can’t legally say that we have special relationships. Yes. But as you work with them, you gain a reputation. Yeah. And I’m not going to say that I have certain IRS agents on a blacklist, that I might just hang up on them when I get them because they’re horrible. But, you know, again, any professional relationship, you develop a reputation. And so we I think we have a really good reputation. But especially when it comes to resolving cases, we know the local revenue officers, but we deal with people all across the country, the number one asset that we bring into it to the table, as we know how to get the things done quickly. We know how to force the IRS to move when they don’t want to move, because they can take years to move on some things. But we know how to maneuver through their bureaucracy, it is You wouldn’t believe they just added about three layers to their bureaucracy in the last couple of years. And one of my associate attorneys was just in here complaining about how ridiculous it is. And when you’re talking to the IRS, we tried to skip the line and go about three to four layers deep into their bureaucracy, the average person calling the IRS they get bad information, they get told the wrong thing all the time. And so when people are trying to help them out, you know, again, one of the key things that I hear all the time is to qualify for a mortgage, you have to have your tax returns filed. The IRS will tell you you have to go back and file 10 years of returns have you heard that? It’s wrong. It’s in their internal revenue manual, their regulations that they can only go back six years. And the only reason to file a return older than three years is to lower a balance that’s already been assessed. So you can’t get a refund more than three years old. And following more than six years, they can’t even demand that you do it. So you’re paying a CPA to do work that’s unnecessary. Ah, D.J. Paris 37:50that’s that is interesting, because I always heard that sort of seven year number or whatever that number is. Certainly not. Yeah, that’s very, very interesting. So anyway, for anyone out there who has client with a tax lien or any sort of tax situation, that they are nervous about, that they have a debt that they’re that they owe to the government. This is a great time, you know, to reach out to Hubert because this is going to help get them on the right track path to homeownership and, and just out of their tax situation. So Guardian tax law is the website and Hubert and his team are specialists in tax strategy, especially related to the IRS. So reach out to him, he is looking for great realtors to refer business too, as well. So please consider adding him to your professional network. We are very, very impressed with what Hubert we just to pull back the curtain a little bit. We do get requests almost almost every week from different PR firms that are representing law firms, we almost always pass on those because they don’t seem to always be a good fit for us. But we were really excited to speak with Hubert today. So please consider using him. He works with a lot of a lot of realtors, and he helps your clients. So reach out to him Guardian tax law is where you go also follow him on YouTube at Guardian tax law. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes. Hubert I very much appreciate you coming on today and talking have we made tax tax liens fun or at least more fun than they probably are in normal conversation. So I appreciate your your your candor, and I really appreciate you being so generous with this information. I know that you know not all attorneys are so forthcoming with you know, sort of free information. So I really do appreciate that I know our audience does as well. So on behalf of our audience, want to thank you both for coming on our show. And we also want on behalf of Hubert and myself. We want to thank the audience for coming to getting to the end of this episode. I really want to encourage our audience to do two things. Two things that will help out both Hubert and our show. Tell a friend Think of one other realtor that could use this information. Maybe they have a client with a tax situation. And it’s becoming a stopper for them doing any sort of transaction, the perfect reason to reach out to Hubert and his firm. And also, please leave us a review that would help us know what you like and what we can improve on the show and also helps us get in front of more people. So tell a friend and leave a review. We very much would appreciate that. As always. Again, Hubert, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time, and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Robert. Hubert Johnson 40:32Thank you, DJ. It’s been my pleasure.