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

In this episode Maggie Ives, a luxury real estate professional, talks about the beginning of her journey in real estate and how she transitioned into luxury properties. Maggie reveals the activities and disciplines to deepen relationships with clients. She describes her custom listing plans for properties and how she considers all details before going live. Last, Maggie talks about the books she loves and recommends for every agent to read.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Maggie Ives can be reached at 239.910.2581.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount and now on with the 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 have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a realtor working in the high net worth luxury space? Well, in just a moment, we’re going to find out and we’re going to be speaking with Maggie Ives from Florida who is one of the VIP Top realtors in the entire country. And she is going to share exactly how she got involved in real estate and how she grew her business to where it is today. Before we get to Maggie, just a couple of quick reminders please tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Maggie and let them know about our podcast, you can always send them over to our website keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done, you can stream right from your browser. Or if the person you’re sending our show to is a podcast person haven’t pull up a podcast app and search for keeping it real. Hit that subscribe button so that you can get all of our episodes as we deliver them. And also please follow us on Facebook you can find us on [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our interview with Maggie Ives.

Right today on the show we have Maggie Ives from premier Sotheby’s International Realty in Naples, Florida. Now Maggie is a results driven licensed real estate professional specializing in Fort Royal and old Naples as a Southwest Florida native her local expertise is invaluable. Her through understanding of the area its history current trends gives her an advantage in putting together the right deal for her clients. Now combined with over 30 years of successful corporate sales and customer service. Maggie ranks among the top concierge Realtors buying and selling high end luxury real estate in the Naples area. She has built her reputation on providing a seamless experience to our clients. And she guides them through the many steps of a transaction to a successful closing a please everyone visit Maggie’s website, which she just recently redid and it looks beautiful. It’s Maggie Ives which is IV S So Maggie ives.com and follow her on Instagram at Maggie Ives realtor. Maggie, welcome to the show.

Maggie Ives 3:11
Thank you so much. It’s amazing to be here. Thank you.

D.J. Paris 3:14
I am so excited to have you. We it’s funny out of all of the episodes we’ve done over the years. It’s so interesting. I really I was thinking about this just the other day. I really rarely have had on agents who specialize in the luxury market we’ve had some on over the years, but not as many as I always find luxury real estate to be so particularly interesting because it just seems so exclusive and untouchable. And it just seems like a whole different world. So I’m really excited to sort of explore that part of the conversation at some point. But I always, always like to start at the very beginning of the journey. And we’d love to hear about, you know how you transitioned from from corporate sales into real estate on so can you take us back sort of how that decision got made.

Maggie Ives 4:01
So I went to work for a builder, one of the top builders in Naples, building in Port Royal and old Naples and along Gulf Shore Boulevard drive condos redoing condos and I opened their estate management division and I was the director and I had my license at that time. And they were building spec homes as well. So I was helping with the spec homes and then i was running the estate management division. So after about four years ago that I decided that I really was full on sales while state management was wonderful and I learned so much. I wanted to move into selling real estate and connecting people to homes. But all of my clients I had about 45 clients they were all in old Naples and Port Royal. So I was managing multimillion dollar homes at the time and I had a team of five. So I got I got very used to running these I’m seeing these homes understanding the homes. And that has been a huge benefit to selling them. Because I understand them. I know vendors, I understand how it works, what it takes to run them, I understand the client and how they need to be serviced. So that’s just kind of I just transitioned from state management right into southern B’s in that same area, and started connecting people directly to homes.

D.J. Paris 5:28
Yeah, it makes sense. And it sounds like with the sort of property management side of it, or the management side, you really got an understanding of what the luxury client is looking for what they need, how they are different, maybe then, you know, traditional buyers and sellers on who are not in the luxury space. And also, what’s so interesting about about Florida, to me is Florida is a state where there are so many real estate agents, I think it’s, I think it’s the second most, there’s the second most number of licenses outside of California, I think is Florida. So there’s no shortage of Realtors, in in, in Florida, but there’s probably not a whole lot of them that can really satisfy the luxury client. And I know there’s a lot of our audience because we get the we get feedback all the time about, hey, I would love to participate in the luxury space, we have 750 Realtors here at our own firm, all of them would also like to participate in the luxury space, but it is a very difficult space to to, to sort of find and service. So I’m genuinely curious about sort of, if you won’t mind sharing some of those, you know, like maybe how that’s different than a traditional retail client who doesn’t play in the luxury space.

Maggie Ives 6:49
So my client, it’s their second, third, fourth, or fifth home or condo, always, their focus is always on their children and their grandchildren and the experience that they’re going to have in Naples, Florida. Sure. They, it’s always about an investment for them as well. So it has to be good in the portfolio. It has to, you know, crease in you know, has to be good investment. Plenty of space for everybody. I apologize for the noise,

D.J. Paris 7:19
oh, no, you’re fine. Are you sure?

Maggie Ives 7:21
You’re so and they, they have a team, they always have a team. So a lot of times you have to know how to deal with the team, they have full time assistants, they have full time managers or state managers, their lawyer and their brokerage firm is assisting them, their accountant. So you have to understand that the principles in the middle and you’re most of the time dealing with the team around them being directed. So it’s a totally different type of sale, the less you say is more, let’s just say it’s better. Sure. And then you have to be very good at communicating, listening. And being able to connect them to where they want to go, you have to feel them almost and and really listen. And then hone in, they’re not the kind of client where you send them 50 properties are 20 All right, it has to be specific in you’re not listening, I mean, you need to listen, like this is what they want. People say, you know, buyers are liars, which is, you know, I never say anything to say I listened to them always and just try to follow their lead. So I my client, and my world is the hero, and I am the guide. And I am taking him through this process to get to the end, and get them safe in their very new space for their families. So they can build memories, all the while building their portfolio.

D.J. Paris 8:53
And also to it’s it’s interesting, because your clients do have other properties. As you mentioned, sometimes this may be their fifth property. And so they have a certain expectation about how, you know how the realtor should interact with them with also their team. So in some ways, you know, and I’ve also interviewed other agents on our on our show who have sort of similar, they’re in the luxury space and they’ve said similar things and and I would think for me as somebody who who isn’t an actively producing broker, but certainly is in that world, it seems to me to be a very difficult thing to navigate because you have to appease not only the client, but also all of their team members, all of which have different personalities, different functions, different jobs. And trying to to be a good connector, as you said, is gotta be one of the big challenges I would assume because there’s a lot of people in the decision making chain I’m guessing and and your your help trying to help navigate through all of that. So I imagine that can be quite complicated.

Maggie Ives 10:02
It is and they’re they’re moving, they’re flying in on their jets or flying them in their jets, they’re here for three days, they don’t have the normal constraints of a regular person. So they’re always on the move. And you have to be very careful if you’re emailing or texting, you know, what is their preferred your the phone communication, like, what do they like the best? And how do they like to be communicated with what is their timeframe? What are their goals, and but you can’t ask them too many questions, but you have to ask the right ones in the right way. You always dressed, you’re always in a dress, you’re always in heels. My real estate partner is always in a suit. I mean, no matter what we’re doing, they and they, they come in shorts, and their little collared shirt, you know, and whatever they want to wear, and they’re in there, whatever doesn’t matter. You are always dressed, my car is always clean. I have a brand new car every year. You know, it’s always has a yeti in the back. It always has waters and special things for anybody that might need it because I’m running clients to the private airport, or just kind of anything they need to do. And that’s the other thing is that once you’re in this circle, you don’t go away. You stay you drive them to a doctor’s appointment, if they need it, you pick up the phone, and you stay in touch with them all the time. birthday cards. One of my clients just had a grandbaby. I sent a get $150 gift and I had it customed to them and you know with a card and so it’s just very, I had a client that referred me $13 million for the business. So I flew to Atlanta, I bought a $2,000 remez blanket that I knew it’d be perfect in the home out North Park City and delivered it to her thank you No, you know, so it’s just a whole other world. I have a restaurant down in Naples that I love. And I booked the wine room out and I have brunch on Sundays and I handpick clients, I create experiences for them. And that helps keep them in the nest. But you keep them. It’s your your you become part of their team ever crossed the line, you’re never them. You’re never them. I have a billionaire client and her assistant, his assistant told me one time and she was getting on his jet. They driven to the airport. She said, every time she gets up to go on the plane, she says this might be the last time I’m climbing on this plane. She never know, you know, in your wonderful man. But you just you just never know. You just it’s just that, that that group. So you’re very, very hard to service them stock refrigerators. Just yeah, do anything. And they ask you to do all sorts of crazy things. And you just do it you just do it.

D.J. Paris 12:53
So I would imagine those those clients tend to be delegators often because of course they have a team. And And I’m curious too is Is it ever common? Does it ever happen where the actual client prior to purchasing a property with you might just send their team in advance? Or may not even ever see the property? In person? Or do you usually the client actually come to survey the property before before purchasing?

Maggie Ives 13:22
So I would say 65% survey and the rest and the team ahead? Always, you know, head? So that’s, that’s a great question. There usually, so time is the most valuable thing they have. sure everybody has the same amount of time. So my goal is to save them time. And for example, like when you go into an inspection, normally you get an inspection report, you read it, you look at it, you’re like, well, the water here, when you get an inspection report for this client, it goes to their lawyer, my contractor that I pay in Naples, I’d say here’s this inspection, go through it with a fine tooth comb, it goes to their lawyer, they redline it like so you’re paying it, whether you have a buyer or seller is a lot of money going out, I’m not paying his lawyer but I’m paying my contractor. Because you just have to be cut what’s important, what’s not important, who needs to deliver the message to the client or to the team about what the issues are in the house and how we should fix them or what we should do and you know, it’s and it’s protecting them, they have to be protected and you can’t put them in a home without making sure that everything is shipshape and if it’s not they know about it and you have to have a solution like sure you know these for example in your mind but

D.J. Paris 14:36
in once I imagine some of you know these high net worth clients hell that that that you that you service, I imagine that of course they know each other. I can only assume the referrals that that come from doing a good job with these clients is just unbelievable, which is why I assume that that you get referred, I would assume to many, many clients in the same spaced.

Maggie Ives 15:00
I do. I’m very, very fortunate that way. And it was a long time coming. I mean, even though it transitioned, I had these clients in a state management, it was quite the transition to wear a different hat full time. And, you know, transition to that. And all my a lot of my state monad 66 report I had a lot. They already had realtors, you know, they’re already dealing with other people. So it was, you know, just who I could stay on with and who I couldn’t and a lot of lunches, I will tell you when lunches, more lunches than anything but dinners, breakfasts and just staying in front of people, and you’re also a data gatherer, they want data, they want information, what’s going on with the four seasons in Naples? What’s this? What’s that? So I spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day, every day, you know, what’s the new data, what’s happening, what’s being built? And then I spent a lot of time talking to other realtors in my group, which got what’s going on? Who’s this? What’s this? How many here? You know, and just, and I, so every day, I try to be 10 phone calls, and two out of the 10 phone calls are realtors, even no matter what brokerage? Hi, how’s it going? How are your sales? How are you feeling? How’s your family? So, it took me a while to figure out that other realtors are just as important as your clients? Sure.

D.J. Paris 16:25
Well, it’s interesting too, because and I want to flip over to the sell side for just a moment because I what you said just sparked a memory of mine where, when I was first, I think we only had maybe 15 Realtors at our company, we have a lot more now. One of them got a I think like a five or a six mil, maybe it was somewhere between four and $6 million property to list in the suburbs of Chicago, which is obviously a very nice listing, I’m sure. And I said, wow, you know, when I heard about this, I said, I’m not a practicing agent. So I don’t really know what goes into to a lot of that. And certainly I didn’t know, I knew even less back then. But I said, Wow, what an amazing listing this is, you know, and I calculated the commission, and oh my gosh, it was so much money. And I said you’re gonna just crush it. She goes, actually, these are very difficult to sell. And she goes, you don’t just throw these on the MLS and wait for the buyers to come walking in. And I said, Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Because there aren’t that many people that are just waiting for a $5 million home to go on the market. And when it hits the MLS, they get automatically, you know, sent those emails, she said, No, what I have to do as the listing agent is actually have to kind of find the buyer. And so what she was saying was something you were mentioning, was talking to other realtors. So when she would get these big listings, she goes, I am pretty much the person who finds the buyer, even though she’s not paid to do that. She’s like, I’m calling every realtor I know who has clients who who will can afford properties like this. And I’m like, You have to come check this out. She goes otherwise it kind of just sits there. And so I’m curious if it’s sort of similar with some of these luxury properties for you is how important is it as the listing agent for you to really source the buyers,

Maggie Ives 18:01
very important listings or listings are that is a big, big deal in my market it is you gotta manage the seller, always about the portfolio, the money, it’s the bottom line, it’s all I mean, it’s so business oriented, and you you’re on the phone with them once a day, if not every other day talking to them, encouraging them, every single time a person comes through, you have to call them, let them know what happened. You know, it’s just a tremendous amount of management there. And then you’re 100%, right, I mean, I bring in a drone from Miami and we do a whole drone video, then I have the whole photographer, then the floor plans are about $1,000 Especially if you do color, sometimes more. Everything you write has to be perfect, then you’re paying for the Wall Street Journal to go in, you know, you’re paying for ads going magazines Go for Life. And then sometimes we do the video portfolios out of Miami where I send the video, and they make a book out of it. So you can just open the book, and you send it to certain people you know, but to us a long way of saying other agents are unbelievably valuable on a listing, I show up on every single listing no matter what it is, even if I’m like at 500,000 or 899 I’m always there. And I go to school in the house. So you know it inside and out and you know, cold. And then I memorize an introduction like when they walk through the door. Welcome to this full of law. This is the bottom floor, I’d give a brief overview. And I stepped back in would you like to tour some people want me to lead a tour. And I always walk through and do the tour almost like theater. I love theater in high school. And that’s really come into play because it’s almost like a play, you know, walking them through and letting them know and then we do beautiful books to give everybody that comes that are beyond Sotheby’s that has the highlights and talks in depth about the property. So if they’re interested, they’ve got everything at their fingertips to go through and that That’s takes that’s money in time. And, you know, my full time assistant does that so but you have listings, and it’s expensive, on average of listing in Naples. I mean, anywhere from 1000 to, oh God 15,000

D.J. Paris 20:17
Just for listing, just in marketing and getting it ready.

Maggie Ives 20:20
Getting it. And I have a real estate partner and I often bring him in the objects are very good. If it’s a girl and a guy shot level, some men just want to talk to men, some men, some, you know, somebody wants to talk to a woman, that the houses are so big, it’s nice to be able to split up on the showings. So just, you know, it’s

D.J. Paris 20:40
funny to thank you that is such great information for our audience. Because I think even though not everyone, not every realtor plays in the in the luxury space. A lot of lessons from, from what you just mentioned, really can be applicable to to other types of homes. And I, you know, I wanted to ask you, you talked about, you know, this being, you know, when you go through this and do the the tour, and the showings, you’re there with a buyer’s agent and the client and the potential client. And you’re, I assume you’re telling the story of the of the sustainance. Property?

Maggie Ives 21:16
Yes. And building them? Yes. It’s tricky, because you want them to build memories. So basically, you don’t want to talk too much about who used to live there. We also really stage it out, like everybody, nothing personal. We tried to remove every single personal item in the home, which can be difficult. Sometimes we pre staged it for every single showing, and then we have to scramble put everything back. Wow. Yeah, because you want them to see their pictures there. And they, you know, just see themselves there. So that’s, that’s, that’s a little tough. But here you are telling the story. There’s, there’s one agent enables that she names her homes. Oh, I love that about that for a while, um, she puts it home. And so and then her books, she titles, you know, she says this is the beach beach day home on. So every home, and that’s how she has in our catalog. That’s how. So that’s that’s an interesting approach. It’s It’s not mine. I don’t it’s too. It’s too serious for that for me to sell somebody’s home. It’s, too. It’s too important, but she’s done. I’m not saying her naming them isn’t important. It just puts a little fun. Yeah, that I don’t feel like is there when you’re moving that kind of property. But it is it lends itself to her personality, not to mine, I should say.

D.J. Paris 22:47
You also said something really, really important. And it reminded me of one of the top agents here in Chicago who I had on the show years, a few years ago, or actually, I apologize or No, I did have her on the show a few years ago. And we have about 44,000 agents in Chicago, and she’s in the top 10 As far as production, very successful play also in the luxury space, predominantly. And I asked her this is so funny, you’ll get such a kick out of this. I said, Well, what’s your secret? And you know, in not that there is a secret, but what are you doing that you think other agents are? In other words, what I asked her not about being in the luxury space, I said, Why do you think your production is so much higher than other agents? And she said the funniest thing, or at least I thought it was funny, because I assumed it was just something everybody did. She said, and this is goes back to what you had said earlier, she said, Well, I call all of my clients at least once a week and let them know, you know, what’s going on with the property? And I said, Okay, well what else? You know? And she she said, No, that’s that’s pretty much it. And I’m sure there’s a lot more things that she does, of course, with exploitation or marketing, but she said, DJ, you would be shocked at how many how many agents don’t do that. And I think there’s a lesson there for all all of our listeners. And you know, you contact your clients every day. And that’s what that’s what they need and deserve. But I suspect there’s agents who don’t even call their clients once a week. And that just is shocking to me. When you know whether they’re buying or selling and not, you know, letting them know, here’s what’s going on. And I guess you probably have the the the opinion if the if the client has to call you you’ve probably failed them at some point because you’re so proactive and calling them

Maggie Ives 24:28
yeah, that she’s right. That’s definitely different to communication. Being able to is huge. It’s just you’ve got to communicate. You know, I want to say to two realtors. Every market has its challenges, but there’s one agent here in Naples and she works in an area called Golden Gate and their homes range anywhere from 300,000 to 995. They’re single family homes. There are big pieces of land. People like golden gates way out there. They’re like two, two and a half acres And she made almost a million dollars last year in Golden Gate. And she just has two full time assistants. She has a wonderful marketing girl. She doesn’t work, like dress up like I do, but she has khakis and super clean outfit and loafers. And she shows up every time. She does not talk to them every day when she’s listing but she has a whole program that they get updated, you know, different that kind of client seller needs a different type of communication. And she just kills it out there. And so I remember hearing about her a couple years ago, and I just thought you think you can do a great job in any market? Like it’s just an I can’t do her market? I can’t I pull my hair out. I mean, they have a millions of questions. And it’s so tricky. And the houses are tricky, and there’s wonky things happening. And the land is huge. And there’s sewer and there’s wells, and there’s, it’s very complicated out there, I think her job is much harder than mine. And they need more help her clients need a lot more help, you know, getting things done and title companies and they have budgets, so they can’t pay the $1,000 for the lawyer and that, you know, they need somebody that’s 350, that’s going to do their job. Well, in some ways. I think that’s even more talent. So I would just like to say that any realtor out there, whatever market you’re working, whatever price point you can kill it, you can just just kill it. If you’re if you know, that’s your jam, then. And you know, you’re in the right spot, then just get down and go for it. Yeah, there’s millions to be made.

D.J. Paris 26:34
There is and and systems, right. And you have amazing systems to ensure that your clients are getting the feedback, and the communication that they want and that they deserve. And you you said this at the beginning. And it’s so funny, I’m so curious, because in the luxury space, I would love to I really want to ask this question. And there’s no right or wrong answer, obviously. But I’m just genuinely curious, when you show up to a listing appointment. And let’s say it’s a client that isn’t necessarily a strong referral, it isn’t a slam dunk. Victory for getting the listing, you have to win the listing, when you show up. You know, some agents, although I think this is less common these days, but maybe in the luxury space, it isn’t used to say years ago, will you show up with a blank pad of paper, you ask a million questions you write down and you don’t need a presentation. And then other agents are like you absolutely need a presentation, you need some sort of visual guide to show here’s what I do. And I’m curious when you meet with with a potential seller, you know, are you bringing material there? Or are you just having an informal conversation? What’s your process,

Maggie Ives 27:45
so I get the referral. And then immediately we start researching the person the property, there’s a whole in depth. And then I have a special place that I pay a lot of money that I can really research the person like where they volunteer what they like to do, they like horseback riding, back riding, I mean, it’s so where they donate their money, how long they’ve lived in Illinois. So I do a whole in depth study on how many properties they have everything. So we get that down. And then if I’m lucky enough, I try to speak to the client on the phone, the before the listing. And I try to ask just a few questions just as many as I can. A lot of times they want to tell you something that they think is important. All that’s very valuable. When I have that conversation. It’s very quiet, it’s behind the closed door and I’m very concentrated. I’m not like walking to the grocery store or anywhere or I’m sitting in my car with a pen and paper. So once I get that that leads, you know, if they asked me something, then I’m then I’m onto it. So two days before the listing or sometimes three, I send beautiful flowers, especially if it’s a husband and wife from Kaleidoscope on Fifth Avenue. It’s beautiful. It’s $200. And I have a beautiful listing packet from Sotheby’s and I put the I’ve had it custom done. It has my biography and it has an entire marketing plan that I’m going to do for their home. And that changes from client to client to click because everything’s different and changes with changes with COVID. You know, there’s nothing it has to be redone every single time I go to a listing, so it’s custom for them. So they get this package from me, they read about me then they read about their marketing plan that’s so they’re dying to know like how I’m going to list their house with some of these can do for them and portfolio and everything. So I have a driver that stressed and they deliver all that to them and it’s all wrapped in a big bowl with beautiful flowers. So when the time you show up, I’ve done all of my homework. Sure I need to know what it’s worth. I kind of know where we’re going price wise. They run all about Saturdays all about me all about the marketing plan. Sunday’s are things circled or arrow like what about this? What about this and please talk to me a little bit more about this. And so really when you get there after all of that I just relax. And I said Would you kindly take me on a tour of your beautiful home And then it just comes alive, they walk me all through the home, up and down. And they just want to show the whole thing off. And then we sit down. And we usually talk about price and kind of, and I get a feel for what they’re thinking. And then we talk it out a little bit. And then they’ll sit, sometimes you get hired, right? Sometimes they’ll say, You know what, we’re gonna go move with you right now, I always have a listing agreement with me, it’s already written out, I fill in the price. And then of course, exclusions, you know, but it’s all there, it’s ready to go. And I also have that to hand that to them, will they get it in the pre listing packet, so they can read the contract before I get there. So nothing’s a surprise. Sometimes they say we’re gonna think about it and get back to me. It just depends. And I follow up with more questions. The next day of the day, you know, how was you know, just following up. And I usually do that by email, because you don’t want to be invasive. Sure. And then you just go get it or you don’t get it.

D.J. Paris 30:58
You know, Maggie, we I’ve interviewed hundreds of Realtors on this show. And I think I’m, I’m the world’s worst memory. But I’m pretty confident that that’s the first time that I have heard somebody sending that information before the listing appointment. And it is one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard. And I think that can also apply to non luxury clientele, or I think anyone any, you know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a $200 bouquet of flowers. If it’s a lower commission, that doesn’t make sense price wise, for a realtors marketing budget, but boy, that would that would sure impress me if I was a seller, and somebody even just said, Hey, I’m sending over a packet of information. And you know, maybe a little house planters or something, it doesn’t even have to be necessarily anything important. But just to receive that. And I want you to take a look at this ahead of time, so that when I show up, you might have a little bit of a better understanding of what I offer. And then we can Boy, that is such a smart idea. And I think any realtor should should and could do that to some version of that. And I wonder what percentage of Realtors actually do it? It’s got to be less than 1%? I bet. So I don’t know. It’s the first time I’ve heard it on the show. And we and we’ve had on, you know, big, big producers over the years. And again, maybe they just didn’t talk about it. But what an amazing tip. And I suspect not something that is as common as as you know, you do it. So you know, it’s second nature to you. But what a smart, smart idea. So everyone listening or watching, you know, and I want to go back to something that you said once and then we sort of move past it. But I think this is really important. You talked about really doing your your your research on the person to know, what are what are their interests, you know, I mean, even linked in, again, I don’t know that you’re really playing LinkedIn. But But again, even just for the average working class person has of LinkedIn profile, it talks about sort of at least their professional life. Obviously social media can let you know more about about their social life and their family life and their interest. But I love that you sort of create a dossier on that person. And I imagine that helps in conversation where you can even just appear to know a lot about the person, which of course you do. And that is incredibly impressive to any individual. Whenever you know someone meets them say hey, I know that you’re really into this, does that come up a lot in conversations where you’re able to talk about that information that you know about them?

Maggie Ives 33:33
Yes, I’m careful with it. Very, very, very coarse for a lead to it, you know, lead to it. The other thing I want to say is usually the day before I go like the night before like around five, six o’clock, I always email the client and just say I’m looking forward to the next day or Monday give them the time and then I send them a virtual you know, I send them a virtual book. So what I’ve sent them in the mail they can look on online for any reason to so it’s the same thing I have it all scanned in and so it’s just another way that they can they can get it and see it and you have to have it anyway because you have to send it to you know, other people need to see it house managers or I don’t know just you have to fit. Thank you for that. That’s really nice. It really works. It definitely definitely works so well.

D.J. Paris 34:19
Everybody wants the luxury experience even if they’re not you know in the luxury space and I think if people are realtors are listening, you know treat your clients as if they’re the most important client which obviously Maggie you do, and because they are and and and it should be for every realtor, whatever the price point is and if you treat them like if you give them the Four Seasons experience, especially if there’s somebody that isn’t a four seasons type of person in their own private personal life. Boy I can’t imagine that would ever go wrong. It’s it’s everybody wants a luxury experience and as Realtors we have the opportunity to do our best to give that to someone. And I think that’s an amazing lesson for for all of our audience to hear. And, oh, I wanted to before we wrap up us, we were Maggie and I were chatting before we got started. And she goes, can I talk about some books that I really enjoy? And I love that. So do you mind sharing a couple of the titles that have really helped you in your business or just books you’d recommend our audience to check out?

Maggie Ives 35:24
So ninja selling by Larry Kendall. I’ve been to ninja trainings. So if anybody has that ability, just go online. It’s a tremendous course it changed me completely in 2018. It was amazing. So it’s called ninja selling. So if you can’t get to the course just read the book, but it’s excellent. And the tastes like

D.J. Paris 35:47
Yeah. And then just selling has been all the rage for years now. And from what top agents tell me so many of them say it’s the gold standard in in training. It’s so I you know, I’m not affiliated with Ninja, but boy, I have just heard it time and time again. So everyone should should at least go get the book.

Maggie Ives 36:06
Yeah. So if you can, and then the Go Giver is excellent. I’m sure many of you read that already. But I don’t care. It’s a great little book. It’s a fast read, but every word of it is phenomenal. And then another book that I love is called into the magic shop. And it’s a wonderful book about a neurosurgeon and how he befriended when he was a boy, a woman in a magic shop. And he she taught him how to think, how to meditate how to separate emotions from his brain. So he could go on and become a neurosurgeon. He was very poor, and it was a tough childhood. And he learned how to hold space, and think and concentrate. And I think that’s really essential in our business to hold space for people and let them talk. I have a wonderful coach. I coach with the Life Coach School, Brooke Castillo. She’s excellent. She has a free podcast, it’s out every Thursday. She completely changed my life. And you can just listen to her free podcast and get anything out of it that you want. But she’s very clear thinker, very focused, and she’s taught me how to listen to other people, which it’s all down to communicating. And of course, you know, Chris Voss never split the difference. He’s the top FBI negotiator. Jerry Metcalf loves him, but I’ve read his book, I’ve listened to his tapes and I’ve coached with his group,

D.J. Paris 37:30
you know, it’s, it’s so I’m sorry, just to I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I always forget about that book because it’s not specifically a real estate book. But it is a book about negotiation. And, and again, realtors what do they do they negotiate so this it’s a it’s a must read? I never thought about that. And thank you for bringing that up because everyone should go get that book as well.

Maggie Ives 37:50
Yes, wait for you want the no you want the No. As soon as you get the No I was had a listing for 6.6 I’ll just say really fast $6.6 million listing and we were just in there and I was on my seventh showing and the gentleman said I could tell he his wife really loved it they lived in the neighborhood and he said well and he said I don’t like this I don’t like this on this and I said to myself okay, there’s all the notes now let’s get to the yes and then I said that the data and he looked at me and he went show me the golf cart garage and I was like okay, and we got back out I pushed the clicker went up he looked at it he said I’d get one golf cart there one golf cart there were three cars there and I had an offer in 30 minutes to get all the nose out. And so normally in the before I read Chris’s book I’d hear nose and I would I would think it was over sure I heard his nose I thought were more in and that in sales that made me go okay, we’re headed towards the yes let’s help him get there. So instead of my brain shutting off and going Okay, my next listing Oh, here we go. Let’s get the yes

D.J. Paris 38:51
well you probably hear the word know a lot and not because of anything you haven’t done correctly or, or but just because these are people who are used to being imagined very exacting. They have very specific standards. And so the word know isn’t necessarily a bad word because they’re used to seeing something that maybe isn’t perfect saying no and then somebody maybe part of their team or somebody goes we can get that fixed we can we can make this work and so I imagined the word no is isn’t uncommon in your world at all.

Maggie Ives 39:28
It’s not it’s not and once I say no you can tell they’re so relieved that they can start to think like I’m often look I said no, no, all I really think can I afford you know, what am I what am I going to move money from you know, and then because they’re off the hook, and they’re wise you’re like okay, and then the magic happens. So anyway,

D.J. Paris 39:48
don’t be afraid of you know, it’s funny I was we were at my girlfriend was getting was looking to buy a car we were down visiting my parents for Mother’s Day, this last weekend, and so they we all went out To the car dealership, where my where my father’s friends with the owner. And so I suspect we probably got, you know, nice treatment, and the manager came over and and you know, there was no, there was going to be no negotiation which of course, in car sales is usually the most uncomfortable in the worst part because you feel like you’re getting ripped off and it just feels uncomfortable. And so he’s like, he’s like, guys, you know, here’s what I can do. And what he said, because there was no real negotiation. And he showed us all the numbers. And he said, You know, I don’t he was just, you know, whether you buy the car or not, he’s like, really doesn’t matter that much to me. He goes, we’re giving you this friends and family discount. So quite frankly, this doesn’t even make our dealership whole lot of money. But but just you know, if you see something better out there, he’s like, please call me. He goes, I’ll tell you whether it’s a good or a good deal to buy that from another he goes, doesn’t really matter. He’s like, I’ve known, you know, he said to my parents, I’ve known your parents for 30 years, he’s, he’s like, I just want to help you. He goes, if you don’t buy it through me, that’s okay. We deal with rejection all day long. And I thought boy, that was one of the smartest sales pitches I’ve ever heard, because it made me want to give him that business. Because I thought, oh, all you ever want in, in a service person is somebody that you trust in that you like, and and I now trusted and liked him. And in a industry car sales, which doesn’t typically have a lot of trust, right, we always kind of walk in going, I think I’m getting screwed, or at least you’re worried that you might be getting screwed. And so I think what you just said is so important because this idea of of, you know, listening to somebody and getting to a level where they trust you because you’re telling them the truth. And and going above and beyond is probably the most important part is what I’m guessing.

Maggie Ives 41:44
Every day I wake up and when I do my readings and say my prayers, and I just say no, who can I serve today? How can I serve find somebody that I can help today. And that’s that’s that ninja that’s ninja selling, you know, serving? Let’s, let’s go let’s help somebody. And if I get to the end of the day, and I haven’t helped somebody I usually get in a Starbuck line and you know, pay for the person behind me and like, Okay, did something for somebody. So but it’s a great story about the car. So I sold cars for about seven years at Lexus. So I understand that was a really good selling ground. We had a guy named Jack jewel, and he taught me a trick. He wouldn’t you’d clients and they were really close to buying. And they’re like, oh, they said, I would always say to them, oh, I would take us what we’re giving away today we’re giving away ice cream. And I would have really wonderful boxes of ice cream. And then you give them the ice cream in this special bag. And then they’d have to go home. They couldn’t go shop you Oh, I love that. All them when they got home and I was like, thank you so much for coming in that their kid was usually eating the ice cream. And then we’d usually put the deal together.

D.J. Paris 42:49
Oh, I love that. Mark.

Maggie Ives 42:53
That’s an old old car trick. But I incorporated it and it really, really worked for me and Jerry’s.

D.J. Paris 43:03
Well, yeah, so maybe if you have a listing and you’re doing an open house or something, give everyone ice cream on the way out so they have to go home. Well, Maggie, I could talk to you all day you are you’re just a wonderful realtor. Of course, you’re an amazing success, you were actually referred to us from one of our other guests, Chris, who we recently had, in fact, I think I just pushed his episode live today. So funny, funny. And we are so grateful to have you and really love your you being able and willing to share the experience of working in the luxury space it is, it is absolutely clear to me why you thrive in that space and why you’re so successful. And I would also just mentioned, because we have so many Realtors from all over the country that listen to our show. You know, if you have high net worth, luxury clientele, or just really anyone that may want to move to Naples, and you of course, maybe don’t service that area because you’re in a different state or a different part of even Florida. And you want your clients to work with Maggie or somebody that she knows that she can refer to. How should our agents get in touch with you if they have someone for you?

Maggie Ives 44:11
I would love to speak to any agent for any reason. And you can call me direct 239-910-2581 Chris read with Arthur SEO did my website. He’s amazing. It has amazing and he’s incredible. And if you go right to my website and I Yeah, it’s dot com My phone number is there, my emails there. It’s super easy to get in touch with me from there. We’ve designed it so anybody can reach me and please I would love to hear from you for any reason about anything. And I love talking to my fellow realtors. It’s amazing. So what’s very

D.J. Paris 44:45
generous of you and you will probably get some emails and phone calls from audience and hopefully, yeah, and you know, one thing we didn’t really talk about, but the reason I brought that up is is since you know Maggie plays in the space where her clients are often have other homes and other parts of the country or in different countries, the relationship she has with other real estate professionals is really critical because it’s a real two way street or I imagine you’re sending, you know, your your clients to other realtors when they’re looking in other areas. And of course vice versa. So please get in touch with her. Let’s build those those relationships between Realtors is a cooperative, you know, industry or at least it should be. So let’s let’s do that. So on behalf of our audience, we want to thank Maggie for continued for being on our show spending time with us, which I know she does not have she is that busy, she is that successful. And she found time for us. We’re so grateful for that. And on behalf of Maggie and myself, we want to thank our audience, the listeners and the viewers for continuing to well not only listen to this episode, but you know continuing to support our podcast. And if you are interested in supporting our show, the best way to do it is just tell a friend, think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing this great interview with Maggie send them a link to our show the couple of ways to do that. If they don’t listen to podcast, just send them to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done, you can stream right from our website. You don’t need to have a podcast app, just listen there. Or if they are a podcast person, have them pull up their podcast app, and whichever one they use and do a search for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button and we’ll keep producing episodes like this. So Maggie, thank you so so much and also please everyone go visit Maggie’s website to see what a really nice realtor website looks like. Which is Maggie ives.com. And please also follow her on Instagram see how she talks about her properties and her clientele which is at Maggie Ives realtor again, that’s I ve So Maggie is realtor on Instagram. And you can find all of her social media on her website as well. Maggie ives.com Maggie, thank you so much for being on the show.

Maggie Ives 46:51
Thank you. I appreciate it.

D.J. Paris 46:53
Great we do too. All right. All right. All right. We’ll see everyone on the next episode. Okay, fine.

Amy Kong, the AREAA National President and Founder of Trust Real Estate Team explains what agents should know about AAPI real estate professionals and the current climate they’re experiencing. Next Amy talks extensively about AREAA community, networking, education and activities. She also discusses the rise in Asian hate crimes, house discrimination and other obstacles her community is facing. Last, Amy talks about the steps AREAA recommends a realtor should take in case they witness a case of discrimination.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Amy Kong can be reached at [email protected] and (650) 740-9928.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet. Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount, and now on with the 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 Amy Kang from the Asian Real Estate Association and she’s also the co founder of trust real estate in California. Before we get to Amy, just a couple of quick reminders. Please help us by telling a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Amy and send them a link to our website that anyone can find us right at keeping it real pod.com Whether you’re a podcast person or not, and you can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from your browser. If you are a podcast person or the person you’re going to refer to us is a podcast person, just have them pull up any app that does podcasts and search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And also please follow us on Facebook you can find [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pod or just search for keeping it real podcast in Facebook and also hit the subscribe and like button so that you can see all of our updates every single day we post an article that we find online specifically designed to help agents grow their business. So thank you for continuing to support and listen to our show and now on to our interview with Amy Kang.

Okay, today on the show we have any hung from the San Francisco Bay Area. Amy is an immigrant from Hong Kong and she has served the San Francisco and MidPeninsula real estate markets since 1988. She is the co founder of trust real estate in San Bruno California. Honesty and integrity are her core values in the business and also in community outreach. Among her various local and nation national endeavors. She is now the the ARIA national president Aria is the Asian Real Estate Association of America. Amy is bilingual and English and Cantonese. And I’m gonna read you Arias mission really quickly because we think it’s very important. Aria is dedicated to promoting sustainable homeownership opportunities in Asian American communities by creating a powerful national voice for housing and real estate professionals that serve this dynamic market. Now, please visit Amy on her website, which is trust R E. C a.com. And also learn more about REO visit reo, which is a r e a.org. Amy, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being part of us.

Amy Kong 3:24
Thank you so much for having me, DJ, very nice meeting you.

D.J. Paris 3:28
It’s a pleasure. We Amy and I were just talking for about 20 minutes before we even started. And I realized, boy on a lot of this we should have we should have recorded but we’ll go over it again. Because Amy has a lot of good things to say. And we are really grateful. We should also mention that it is May which is which is AAPI Heritage Month, which we should talk about what API is because we’ll be using that acronym at during this conversation. So do you mind defining what a API is?

Amy Kong 3:57
Absolutely. API is not a homogeneous group API, combined together represent more than 50 countries. So the short form, the long longer description of API is Asian American Pacific Islanders.

D.J. Paris 4:14
Wow. And we should mention that the AAPI community in the realtor community best that we can tell is about 7% or so of the overall realtor a makeup and so we have now we have about a million and a half Realtors so that translates to roughly 100,000 AAPI realtors out there so it’s about not a not insignificant group or number of people and you know also the the bigger conversation I think we’ll we’ll be having later on in the conversation is is the rise of some, unfortunately, some Asian anti Asian hate crimes that we’re experiencing. We want to have conversations to raise awareness in the realtor community about that. But before we get get to that, we’d love To hear Amy about how you got into real estate, we’d love to hear that journey all the way back from to 1988 to today. So can you tell us about how you got involved in real estate?

Amy Kong 5:09
Well, I’m, I’m an immigrant, right? I’m immigrant from Hong Kong in 1988. Right before the 1997. You know,

D.J. Paris 5:20
hangover transfer of power. Yeah, yeah.

Amy Kong 5:23
So I came from a very traditional family. So I did not get an opportunity to go college. So someone with no college degree, it’s very difficult to locate a, quote unquote, better job, right. So at the moment, you know, we have a relative that introduced me and start working in a very traditional real estate office in San Francisco Chinatown called the chin Rio de. And at the time, I started as a receptionist, to handle the book was, like part of the property management work, right. And then later on, my broker found that, hey, how can you finish your job so quickly? So while I was young, right, so everything, we can computerize it, so then I, he started to give me an opportunity to learn what mortgage is all about. So I started to do mortgage. So you can imagine back in 1989, when the global recession started, yeah, interest rates started to come down, right. So I get the privilege of surveying a group of Asian people within Chinatown to refinance their mortgages. So naturally down the row, I started to tap into real estate buy and sell. So I became an independent broker and run our own business since

D.J. Paris 6:50
year 2000. Wow, well, congratulations. That is That is quite a quite a journey. And, and how big is is the is the trust real estate team? I know you have several, several team members.

Amy Kong 7:03
Yes, ever since the year 2000, I’ve been telling myself that I really need to deliver quality work. So our office has never been big, is always I call it a boutique office. So now trust me as they grow to a team of approximately 12 people, I didn’t count that. But it’s like Around 12 people. But it’s interesting, you mentioned that because ever since I partner with sai end, which is a technology based company, right? The the level of availability of my time to not just serve the community, but also doing my business are increasing. So the production and that kind of care towards our agents increases. So I’m very happy with the new partnership.

D.J. Paris 7:53
Let’s talk about that partnership only because I will absolutely forget to mention to ask about it later. So let’s talk about siding and the sort of technology platform that that assists you in your business.

Amy Kong 8:05
Well, you know, in 2000, I started to become a business owner, so I have to do everything, anything within the office. And then 2001, I gained my broker license and become the broker of record. So you know how that is, as a broker record, you always have worry about everything out there, and all kinds of stuff. Of course, you know, I’m lucky because I have really good licensees that, you know, work together with the same vision to do the best we can to serve the company. But you know, as time goes by, I got tired as well. But when I joined psi, you know, I offload this kind of responsibility. But I can really focus in making sure that the next generation realtor are doing their job, because a lot of times that because of technology like DocuSign, and all kinds of stuff, it eliminates a lot of personal touch with our consumer. So back in the old days, I’ll have to bring my you know, contract, go into my clients house, explain to them one by one and what they’re entering into nowadays, a lot of people don’t even know what their contract did getting their client into. But we’re siding with the technology and the background. It gives us more time. So the interaction with consumer are much better now. So I really love the partnership so far.

D.J. Paris 9:30
That’s wonderful. And, you know, let’s let’s talk about about ARIA because this is a very important organization that, you know, our audience might not be as familiar with. And, you know, now where, unfortunately, we’re seeing a huge uptick in in violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. You know, it’s becoming more and more prominent in the news and we want to continue to bring that awareness to to our audience, but can you talk a little bit about what ARIA actually does.

Amy Kong 10:03
Aria actually, but before I go into Aria, let me share this with you some statistics that I just pull up. It’s like, just in the 2020. Last year, you know, the ancient hate crimes against Asian American dramatically increased 150%.

D.J. Paris 10:22
Yeah, I saw that same same statistic. And what was what was most interesting to me about that statistic is that hate crimes overall, actually decreased, which is even more shocking, that that the Asian American community had this massive increase where other groups actually saw a decrease. So this is a major, big, big problem. And, and it is finally getting some media attention. But it is it is something that that is just so shocking. And I’m curious, and I apologize for cutting you off. I’m just curious on where you think that stems from what’s happening, that that or what’s our best guess on on why we’re seeing that uptick in the AAPI

Amy Kong 11:05
symbol, I guess all these conversations started when our previous president trum, started to call all these China virus, Kung Fu, all kinds of thing and pointing the finger over to Chinese people. So from that point on, we see all these things happening. There, I tell you, there are a lot more verbal abuse than at actual hate crime that you can see on TV. And we are blessed that because there is some Asian reporter that dedicated their lives to report all these incidences, otherwise, I tell you, a lot of people would not even know about it. So we’re, our culture has been so quiet, we have been so quiet, you know, we are taught not to rock the bow we are taught, you know, to, you know, take things in without creating a lot of trouble. But I guess this is not going to continue happening. Our community is standing up, our community is speaking up. So we would not allow things like that happen again. And again. So ARIA, what are you do is that we are not any social justice organization. But at the time when people comes to us, because all of our member, our chapter leaders, are so passionate about our community, and nobody would like to see our people suffer like this. So when we all get it together, we will like, number one, what has it to do with Aria? It has a lot to do with Aria, because our members are the one that is serving this community. You tell me how people are living in fear. They cannot even walk down the neighborhood for a decent morning walk, we are so worried that our senior will be attacked. That’s the kind of fear and insecurity of building within our community. We as a realtor, we have to really know what we can do in order to protect this group of people from being harmed, not just physically. But for the housing needs. Right? This has a lot to do with fair housing. Think about it. You’re right.

D.J. Paris 13:26
I imagine. I imagine you’re seeing right, I was gonna say I imagine you’re seeing an uptick in discrimination with respect to housing for the A Pei community as well.

Amy Kong 13:38
Yeah, so you imagine if our people are so fearful and living in a certain neighborhood, but that neighborhood is something that is affordable to them, that prohibit them from going over there and started a family and started the American dream to own their own home. So that’s why we put together the diversity and fair housing summit to make sure number one, we know how to be empathetic to everybody’s situation, not just to the Asian for everybody, even though our African American brothers and sisters, right? We have to be empathetic and understand be on somebody’s choose on what the situation is. Number two, we really have to speak up when we see things, having discrimination action against our community, we have to speak up. Number three, we will do all things possible to report incidents like that, yes, we might not be able to prosecute a person right away. But at least once we file that incidence, continuously if these people continuously doing discrimination action against certain groups, it will pile up and we can prosecute them.

D.J. Paris 14:48
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s so interesting. You were we were talking about the increase in the statistics of of the violent crimes that are reported but you brought up a really strong point, which is Most of us have have the real crime, or it really isn’t violent and doesn’t get reported. It might be verbal, or or it may be violent and not reported. And so I’m sure those numbers are actually much higher. And as you said, maybe part of the culture is to sort of take it and not always report. And I applaud you for trying to, to change that to bring more awareness so that when you see something, say something, whether it’s, you know, in a PII member witnesses something or somebody who’s not part of the community, but witnesses that kind of abuse, that that can report. And I imagine, you know, landlords are probably, you know, denying more API people than in previous years, I would assume, although that’s probably not reported, either. So it’s a really difficult time right now, to be an API. person, I imagine.

Amy Kong 15:54
Yeah, well, yeah, it’s a difficult time for a lot of people, you know, within the federal level, we have a group of protected class out from discrimination, right. So we also bring to the awareness of our group. Sometimes, if you’re not in a situation, it’s hard for you to understand what the struggle and where the tears coming from. So being empathetic, is something that I will do you know, real estate professionals, will they have to rethink the way how we do business? Sometimes it’s not about money. Sometimes it’s about am I providing a safe place for this person?

D.J. Paris 16:36
Yeah, and also, we should talk about the AAPI realtor community is probably also experiencing additional challenges that, you know, maybe they didn’t experience as much of it in previous years. And I know that your your members have had been communicating with each other and sharing those stories of discrimination. You know, realtors can be can be petty, they can be mean, they can be just like anyone else and treat other realtors poorly. Have you? Have you seen an increase in the reporting of the realtor members with their own business being affected by by some of the anti Asian sentiment that’s going on?

Amy Kong 17:18
Well, I guess. You know, a couple of years ago, the news, the report from New York, really spell out a lot about the action in that particular region in New York, on how we alter discriminate people, right. But I can certainly tell you, right after the report, the realtor community has been working so hard to making sure that you know, our members are not ignorant, our members are well informed and now have the knowledge to how to handle different situations. So that’s one good improvement. But if you’re asking this question, I would like to share some comments and stories from our people. You know, Amanda, realtor community, woman Realtors outnumbers the male realtors. And a lot of times because of all these crazy hate crimes going on, and all kinds of crimes been going on, especially in our region, I have heard from some of our female Realtors now, uh, hesitating to go out and show property to to all these strangers that found them online. Sure. So what does that translate it limited, you know, their, their possibility of making money, wanting their family. So that’s not anything good. But in the meantime, you know, we are always advising and suggesting to our realtor member when you go out and show properties not just female, right, but also male, you have to be really cautious about your safety to where you should park and you know how, how you supposed to present yourself. Those are the things that we really have to be cautious.

D.J. Paris 19:03
And also possibly having a first meeting in a more public space with lots of people probably, you know, decreases the risk of anything violent happening. But but it is still a risk and it is a very difficult risk and it’s very sad to me to think a realtor gets this lead is excited to want to help that home buyer or home seller or renter and then feels unsafe going to service that client and of course they they’re feeling unsafe. And and it’s just an unfortunate place to be right now.

Amy Kong 19:43
Yeah, it is realistic that we have to protect ourselves as well.

D.J. Paris 19:51
Yeah, and what I love about ARIA is not that well that I do love that that of course the the primary mission is to empower homeownership opportunities for for the Asian American community, but also to provide support to those realtors to the AAPI. Realtors or for realtors in general who who work with AAPI buyers and sellers, investors renters? Can you talk a little bit about the community that Aria is created where you know, those realtors can communicate and support each other?

Amy Kong 20:23
Well, absolutely, we have conventions, we have opportunities, networking opportunity all the time. So I tell you, a lot of the people not just call ARIA not just to help people that I’m already a member. So a lot of times that people will say I’m part of the ARIA family. You know, this is how we are you know, as time goes by, we ended up become really close friends, because we have common topics to talk about, you know, our business, our encounter our family, how our spouse is supporting our business, oh, no, what we can do all kinds of stuff. So ended up we really become close friends. And as you mentioned earlier that you know, a lot of people are moving away from California, the migration, the API migration from some of the statistics are showing that people, Asian people are actually moving down to the south east states like Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Alabama, Texas. So within our area, we have a lot of referral business organically growing and continuing. So that’s another fun part of being part of the ARIA family. So the networking opportunity is just tremendous. And also, the education program that we put together, also very inspiring as well, like, at the beginning of the year, I was chatting with my edge chair, Aria has a group called Edge, which is all these young professionals. So I was like, hey, maybe we should put together some program and bring to the awareness of the young realtor, that this is a time for you to start building your retirement income by investing in real estate. So we call that a fire movement, which is financially independent and retire early. So that’s something that like our x group just put together an event last month, it was fascinating. We see a lot of these young Realtors actually has been doing things like that. So for others on the audience, they were like, Oh, maybe I should start doing it. Especially interest rates so low, why not? Right? Yeah.

D.J. Paris 22:36
Wow, it sounds like your offer a tremendous number of programming. Also, you know, community and, and support. And we should mention, too, if anyone, if any of our listeners are either part of the AAPI realtor community, but aren’t a member of ARIA, or you are, even if you’re not part of the AAPI community, but you want to support Aria, what’s the best way somebody should get involved?

Amy Kong 23:03
You know what, TJ, you don’t have to be an Asian in order to be part of the reo family, I tell you, I have 42 different chapters across the US and Canada 17,000 member, a lot of our chapter leaders, they are non Asian. And what you can do locally, just look for an aria chapter locally, right? If you don’t know where you, you know, whether your location has a chapter, go to our website, aria.org, contact us or you can look upon all of our chapters demographic, then you will be able to find a local chapter to connect. But then again, if you cannot find anything, feel free to reach out to myself or to ARIA national staff, we will definitely help you connect. And the most exciting part is that reasonably, because we know that there is a huge Asian migration to the southeast states. The newest chapter is in Charlotte, North Carolina. So I’m waiting to go there and visit them and put them all in store as chapter leaders.

D.J. Paris 24:07
Very excited. Well, congratulations on the the expansion of ARIA. And it’s really a magnificent organization. And I will tell you, we reach out to many organizations, realtor Association organizations, and we we usually get a good response. But oftentimes the president themselves does not that does not often come on our show. So we are so grateful that you were willing to spend the time and I also want to ask sort of a final question about you know, if anyone in our audience who is a practicing real estate, professional witnesses, any sort of AAPI discrimination, whether it’s to another realtor or to a client, a customer, or maybe has, you know, just witnesses something that violates fair housing, or possibly violates just just law in general How should a realtor go about sort of reporting that? Where should if they don’t know where to report that, should they reach out to reo and say, Hey, I just witnessed something. What should I do? Or do you have any any proactive steps of how they can proceed from there?

Amy Kong 25:14
Oh, absolutely. So as a realtor member, of course, you know, we always suggest that, go ahead and talk to that broker of that agent first, right? If you cannot resolve that issue, bring it up to your local association or realtor. Right, I’m pretty sure that they will definitely take action. Yeah, so you still don’t see a satisfactory result. Go ahead and report it to HUD. Right. Yeah. And all these resources are all on our REO website, you know, so go ahead and go to the reo website, and you’ll see resources on there. And if you still don’t know what to do, feel free to reach out to us and then see what we can do to connect you. I can share one story with you our diversity and fair housing summit co chair and Lisa, she’s from Denver, Colorado. It is very difficult for her to every time you know, tell this story, but the condo she lives in is something that is like really high end in Denver, Colorado. And majority that people of course is not Asian. She’s the one that only Asian girl in there. She’s a single mom with kids and she was pregnant. At the time, the HOA keep bothering her neighbor keep complaining about her on the ferry and reasonable level. So ended up she feel like Is it because I’m Asian that people do things like that to me. So and then up to file a complaint to the HOA, the HOA, ignore her everything. And then she filed a complaint everywhere ended up she filed a complaint to HUD to make a record there. So down the road, if anybody move into this complex that are not in the same color, and experience, things like that, at least there is a record. And that person in the future can absolutely do something about the HOA. So that’s part of the action that we can do. And we should not continue. And we will not continue to second. You know, our name is AAPI. A lot of times that people will love us because our number is more, a lot of statistic people will put coat white, African American, Hispanic, and other right. Some years ago, Aria did an app policy advocacy effort to change to ask for change on the quarterly housing report produced by the Census Bureau, to our Congress and Senate to review, they lump us into order and ended up they created a new separate category called API. So if you wanted to help the API community, and make sure we no longer the perpetual foreigners, make sure on all of your research, your report include us, and our name is AAPI. We are not other and we will not tolerate anybody cause other.

D.J. Paris 28:18
That’s a very, very strong point. And it’s a not insignificant number of people in this country. You know, II 5.4% sounds small as a percentage, but we have hundreds of millions of people in this country. You know, we know there’s almost around 100,000 AAPI realtors, in the United States alone. So there they this is not an other, and nobody should be in the other group anyway. But But yeah, there is a large community of API buyers in in this country, and they are going through a tough time. Right now. This is a difficult, difficult time. And the main reason that that we asked me to come on was well, of course it is Asian American Pacific Islander National Heritage Month in this country, and we want to support that, but also to bring awareness, unfortunately, to some of the, what we’re seeing in the news and AAPI realtors are experiencing this as we talked about, of course, a not non realtors who are part of the AAPI community are you know, of course dealing with horrific crime. There were four I think it four incidences in New York over the weekend, which were, you know, which were, unfortunately very violent. And so this is a real thing and we just want to continue to raise awareness and, and let’s have empathy and compassion for those AAPI realtors out there and AAPI customers who are scared there’s real violence happening. And so as Amy said, you know, if you see something, say something, report it, whether it’s to police or if it’s a realtor issue to your local association. And then continue up that chain of command, and also report it to HUD if you see any housing violations, but we hope that it’s so interesting to me as, as I was thinking about, you know, and it’s so I feel so ignorant to not have put this together. But I was I was saying earlier to me before we started, I said, I’m embarrassed to say, but I was thinking recently, like, I wonder why there is an uptick in all this violence. I didn’t even connect that because the previous administration had so demonized China in particular, for for COVID, that that would translate into real world violence. And sadly, it has, and that seems to be the most explainable reason for this uptick in violence. And so it’s something that that we need to remember that words matter. And words can can can create unfortunate action. And so the more awareness I think we have, and the more compassion that we can some it sort of summon up in ourselves, as is, I think, what the best antidote maybe we have, and also legislation in place to protect, protect those those marginalized groups. So I applaud you, I know this is a difficult time for for, for your community right now. And, you know, we just want to, you know, thank you for coming on our show and raising our awareness, and continuing to, you know, support the AAPI community and letting us know what we can do to support to support the AAPI community as well. So Amy, on behalf of Oh, and we should mention real quickly to for everyone listening, please go and visit Arias website, which is a r e a.org. Learn more about it, sign up, become a member. They are a fantastic organization, they have an amazing reputation, and they do a lot of good work. So go do that. And then Amy, if there’s anyone out there who happens to be a buyer or a seller or renter and investor who is in the San Francisco Bay Area and wants to work with somebody on your team, because this is an amazing time in real estate. Of course, with low interest rates and just a lot of people itching to, to move, what’s the best way that that anyone out there who wants to work with with somebody from trust, should reach out to you

Amy Kong 32:20
go ahead and miss it our website trust are ye ca.com. And I will give you my contact information. And then if anybody inquire about it, feel free to share. Honestly, I’m here to really make sure you know, the AAPI community is being noticed. And and again, you know, it’s not about the deal or the money. It is about putting somebody in homes, that they feel safe, happy and grow their family. So DJ, I really appreciate the opportunity to share some of the work from Aria. So I’m hoping that our community will continue to be better. I wanted to end this. I always share this with a lot of people. I really like Bruce Lee, not just because he’s handsome. But because there’s things that in his mind will inspire us. Remember one of the interview he has with the producer, the producer asked Bruce, do you want people to see you as a Chinese or an American? And Bruce answer is, I want people to see me as a human being. So yeah, housing is not just for API, but it’s for everybody. So that’s what ARIA wanted to promote and create this kind of peaceful environment. And quietly, we will make the change.

D.J. Paris 33:46
Well, I love Bruce Lee as well. And he he was quite the philosopher which a lot of people might not know, he had a lot of really intelligent beliefs and thoughts and he he’s he had written a lot of them down. And so if you’re interested in learning more about Bruce Lee, there’s there’s books that capture a lot of his his philosophies of life. And that is a perfect example of a really progressive thought back, you know, at the time when, you know, those those thoughts weren’t as common. So I appreciate you bringing bringing that up. And so we are want to continue to support Aria. And we will continue to, to to, you know, let our audience know about the different events that you have coming. And if there any Is anyone out there that wants to join that ARIA please visit aria.org ar e ae.org. And Amy, thank you so much on behalf of our audience, we appreciate your time we know how busy you are running a company as well as Aria and doing all the other amazing things that you do. So we know how busy you are, especially this month. So we appreciate the time you took to come on the show. And then of course on behalf of a Amy and myself, we want to thank our audience for continuing to support our show. And if the best way you can help us is to just tell a friend, think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from having heard this great conversation with Amy and send them a link to our show. Easiest way to do that, you can send them right over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done, you can stream right from the website. If they’re a podcast person, just have them pull up a podcast app and search for keeping it real, and have them hit the subscribe button. And then they got all of our episodes. Now. Amy, thank you so so much. And we will hope to see a decrease in the next time we talk in Asian American violent crime. And we hope that that that obviously changes course and we’ll do everything we can to bring that awareness to our audience. Thank you so much.

Amy Kong 35:48
Thank you, you have a good day.

Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com.

In this episode, Chris Linsell from TheClose.com discusses how to make time for yourself and how to notify your clients when you’re away. Chris also spends time discussing what happens ‘when’ the market turns and what it means for properties selling at high prices today. Chris shares tips on how agents can add additional streams of possible income. Last, Chris mentions why agents may want to advise clients to sell now and rent for the next few years.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Chris Linsell can be reached at [email protected].

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount, and now on with the show.

Welcome to 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 today once again, is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lynn self from the clothes.com. This is a partnership between keeping it real and the clothes.com. And let me tell you about the clothes. Now the clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals, they cover real estate marketing, lead gen technology and team building strategies. From the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level, please visit the closed.com That’s th e c l o sc.com. And subscribe to their newsletter so you can get notified every time they publish an article. It’s a it’s our very favorite website for learning anything related to growing your business in real estate and also just knowing what’s going on in the market with us, as always is Chris Lynn self. He has a staff writer and a real estate coach for the close. Chris is the closes resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing, lead generation transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. Chris has been part of hundreds of transactions from modest rural, sorry, modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. And when he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his community theaters production. Chris Welcome once again to keeping it real, we’re excited to have you.

Chris Linsell 2:13
You. Pleasure to see you as always excited to be here.

D.J. Paris 2:17
And we were talking just before we started it is the beginning of tryouts or trot season is officially started. So you have been able to get out there and resume your fishing habit.

Chris Linsell 2:27
I have been in church a total of five times when I say church, I mean the river. And we have been the season has been open nary, I think nine days now. So you know I’m getting those these early season gotta get out there kind of wiggles out of my system. But I’ve got a trip, a trip of five interrupted non cell phone days planned here in about a week and a half. So just wow. Or to being on the water,

D.J. Paris 2:56
five in a row five, consecutive disconnect, detach,

Chris Linsell 3:00
going, going off going getting a cabin on the river, with a friend of mine literally been going to this cabin for 30 years since I was a kid. And we don’t get any cell coverage there. We take a large variety of pickled foods, and books and fish stories and fish all day and, you know, tell tall tales all night. And quite frankly, it’s I look forward to it every year. And I use it as an example all the time with real estate agents because, you know, people, you know, regularly talk about how challenging it is in real estate to have that work life balance that makes sense for people. And, you know, I I tell people every year I’ve been I’ve been going on this trip. In fact, I’ve made I’ve made the trip longer as I have gotten into real estate because I realized when I come back from this trip, I’m much more focused, excited about work excited about being leveling up and being more successful. So you know, agents, especially right now one of the things being as crazy as it is in the real estate market. Gotta find time for balance.

D.J. Paris 4:04
Quick question. So before we get into our topic for today, I’m curious when you do go away, and you are not going to be able to interface with your clients just based on the fact there isn’t cell coverage where you are. How do you notify your current customers in advance? Hey, I’m not going to be available during this time. If or do you have team members that you have as backups? How do you work that because I know right now, as you were saying about crazy, everything is agents are feeling really taxed and stressed about this idea of you know, replying so quickly because things are happening so quickly. So what’s your process there to make sure that your clients don’t feel that they’ve been abandoned for a few days?

Chris Linsell 4:42
Sure. So I do two things. The first thing is I typically will strategize my time away so that I am not gone for an entire, like Monday through Friday work cycle. For some reason, psychologically This is more challenging to our clients when they feel like you are unavailable for an entire in their mind week. There, it doesn’t matter what processes you take, you’re going to appear disconnected if you’re gone for that long. But I’m not saying that agents shouldn’t take that that time. But that’s the first thing that I do. Second thing I do is anyone that I’m working with actively, I make sure that they know Hey, I’m going to be out of town, I’m not going to be responding to calls, texts or emails for this period of time, you are very important to me, your needs are very important to me. And then I line up the third thing, which is if you’ve got something that absolutely can’t wait between when I leave, and when I get back, here’s the contact information of the person who’s handling emergencies. For me, this is always somebody who is local. This is somebody who is plugged into my market, and someone who were there to be an emergency like, you know, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but something that required immediate attention. A virtual assistant isn’t going to be able to help somebody boots on the ground, somebody who’s covering for emergencies definitely will. So that’s that’s the last thing I do is I make sure to put something in place. So that there is somebody who could meet me or meet a client at a house on a Thursday at four if they had to. And then the last thing I want to say on this, and I just encourage real estate agents to be thoughtful about this. You can’t be everywhere at once. And it’s not only possible, it’s likely that if you especially if you’re really active in like paid lead generation, that you may have a lead opportunity that you don’t capture as a result of being away. And that’s okay guys, because, you know, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. If you are an accountant, or if you are a teacher, or if you are a firefighter, taking vacation means being out of the office, it means being away from opportunity. You know, it could be that you know, a prestigious client in your accounting office walks through the door, and you don’t get that because you’re on vacation, it could be if you take vacation as a teacher that you don’t have a chance to have that one on one with your principal and this person who’s chartering your professional development, this is opportunity cost guys, this is a reality, this is part of being a working adult. And you can’t be everywhere at once you don’t win every single time. And that’s okay. Because what you get out of that vacation is a benefit to so don’t feel like you have to capture everything, because you simply can’t. And make sure that you’re understanding the benefit of the vacation too, because you can’t serve the people that are important to if you’re not taking time to recharge and kind of restore yourself to

D.J. Paris 7:55
I think that’s really well said, and you had a lot of great tips there. So don’t feel like you can’t disconnect, the most important thing is to communicate advance to the clients that you know that there is a process in place, if all of a sudden they stumble across a for sale sign and want to put an offer on happened, you know, while you’re happened to be gone, you have a backup and that they know when you’re returning and that most I think most people are understanding of the fact that they take vacations. Most professions allow for a certain number of weeks per year, and real estate agents should be afforded that same same luxury. I think it’s all about just communication as as you have so eloquently described on your process. So I was actually thinking about this the other day, because whatever somebody asks so I’m in management at which sounds a lot more impressive than it is. But I don’t I’m not boots on the ground working with clients, I’m more of a business to business kind of person, cuz I’m more on the recruiting side, and helping manage our brokerage business which we have about 740 realtors or so. And so from our perspective, and in looking at the bottom line, boy, it’s never been better. You know, we looked last year we went, Oh my gosh, we we crushed all of our records. This year, we’re on pace to do this and we’re not unique. Most firms, I’m sure are having great years. However, if you were to ask me how it’s going, I’d say this is amazing. However, when I talk to our agents, they’re about as stressed as I’ve ever spoken or ever noticed. And when we send out you know, it’s so odd to have the brokerage doing so well. And agents just being feeling like they’re overworked. They’re stressed because of of course the competitive buying environment that exists. So I know we wanted to talk today about that buying environment and what agents can do to sort of deal with that. And and you know, we understand that it is tough out there right now as a listing agent. It is great and you are just boy seeing the benefits of of having those relationships where people are reaching out to want you to sell their home and getting offers within minutes and and sometimes you know for well over Asking price, but for agents representing buyers, boy, it is it is it is tough right now.

Chris Linsell 10:05
Yeah, yeah, it really is. You know, I think I think it’s important also, as we’re getting into this conversation to recognize that the vast majority of real estate agents are not just, you know, buyer’s or seller’s basically most agents, unless you’re very specialized, you know, especially in Metro markets, this happens a little bit more in Metro mark and major metro markets. But most real estate agents are both buyers and seller agents. And there is a significant amount of frustration in the professional community in the agents that I’m speaking to right now, around what’s happening in our market, and most of that frustration is coming from the buy side of things, because we’re working with buyers who are not finding what they’re looking for. And when they do find what they’re looking for, they can’t pay the market price for it. And, you know, we as buyer’s agents wind up in this really tricky situation, because it’s our first fiduciary our first responsibility to represent the fiduciary best interests of our clients. And I think a lot of agents listening to this could could probably resonate with the fact that with the way prices are right now, you couldn’t say with confidence that the home that they’re offering 70 grand above asking price, is actually worth 70 grand over asking price, we can’t say with confidence that this is this home is worth this. And that puts us in a tough situation, because our clients need a place to live. But what do we do? I mean, do we tell them not to make an offer? It’s a catch 22? I think,

D.J. Paris 11:48
yeah, I was having an non podcast conversation with a top producer from a completely different company, who I’m friends with. And it’s something so funny, he’s, the person said, I don’t know why anyone’s buying, right? Because it is so competitive rates are so low money is so cheap. And of course, inventory is also is very low. So you you are getting these, these, and especially on the investor side as well, boy, we’re hearing a lot about that for investors are just see investors are really frustrated, because they’re seeing these cash offers for these investment properties that are so beyond what, you know, the numbers sort of pair out to be that, you know, it’s like they’re struggling, you know, traditional home buyers and sellers are homebuyers, rather, are also feeling that that competition, and it is tricky because as an agent, somebody wants to buy something, and they get into the mindset of I want to win this, this offer. I’m in love with this home. And now the bidding war starts and all of a sudden, there’s there’s sort of two major issues as you and I were speaking about before, which is number one, the most immediate one is making sure this appraises and is something that can actually close and we’re seeing I know, at my firm, we’re seeing this happen more and more than we’d like. It’s happening quite a bit. And you know, everyone gets disappointed when that doesn’t happen. Nobody wins. Really. And and then, you know, you were mentioning the more longer term challenge, which is let’s say it does appraise and then you know, what happens if the market turns next several years and all of a sudden, that that appraisal isn’t the reality anymore?

Chris Linsell 13:29
Yeah. And you know, I think I’m gonna I’m gonna amend a little bit of what you just said. You said, if the market turns it’s when it’s when the market turns, you know, like, and I’m not being you know, an alarmist about this, the real estate market, like all markets is cyclical, there is just no two ways about it. If you think that the real estate market I don’t mean us specifically, I just mean in general, if you think that the real estate market is just going to be a straight line up and to the right forever. I don’t know what planet you live on. But I would love to buy real estate now there because that’s that’s the only 100% investment that you’ll ever make. The fact is markets turn and I think you couldn’t throw a rock at a young professionals meeting and not hit somebody who doesn’t say the markets a little overheated right now that that home values are not necessarily lining up with home prices. And this is further reinforced by the significant appraisal gap occurrences that we’re seeing across the country especially in major markets. And so I mean just envision this guys when the market corrects when things start to cool back down. That buyer client that you helped, you know buy a house and wrote a successful offer 70 grand over asking price, if somehow this made it through appraisal Um, you know, if you think that the home is actually worth 500, but you got a got the home through at 570 when the market corrects, and all of a sudden this home was worth 470 or 440, you’ve got a client who is like a third of the way underwater at this point. And have you fulfilled your fiduciary responsibility to them? I would argue no. And I gotta be honest with you, there ain’t no way this person is going to be recommending you to their friends and neighbors, because you’re the person who got them into this mess in their mind. Is that true? No, but we know how our clients minds work. This is the consumer strategy, nobody blames. Nobody blames themselves for making the bad, bad purchase decision, they blame the store and the store. So there are some there are some things to think about here, guys. And I’m not saying don’t write the offers, I’m just saying be thoughtful about where things stand right now.

D.J. Paris 15:58
And also be thoughtful, it’s the same sort of conversation, I remember, in my real estate class, that that was that was the instructor brought up, which was around dual agency. And at the time, he said, you know, you may, in fact, have a dual agency scenario, where it all works out, but three years from now, if that person all of a sudden has a conversation with someone else and says, Oh, my agent, you know, represented both sides and in a dual agency position. And that person says, well, that’s not right. And then all of a sudden, the instructor says you could still be brought up on an ethics violation even years after. So it’s I don’t know that that writing offers, you know, above asking price necessarily puts you in a similar predicament, but it certainly has a fiduciary responsibility that each agent has to their client, it is something to really consider this is we live in a litigious world and you want to protect your license, you want to protect your, you know, your your brand, as well as you know, your pocketbook. And so sometimes it might make sense. And sometimes the hardest thing to say is oftentimes the most well received, because if you’re going to tell somebody, Hey, I think you’re making a mistake by offering X amount over. I think this isn’t going to be a good decision three years from now. Boy, I mean, I wish I had people in my life telling me things like that. So I think it sort of stinks short term for an agent to forego a particular transaction, because of course, that’s most likely how they’re getting paid. But to do that, to salvage a future relationship, or possibly even a, you know, a possible violation is probably worth thinking about.

Chris Linsell 17:44
Yeah, I completely agree. I completely agree. And, you know, I think, agents, let me just, I guess, reiterate the fact that I, I, it’s not that I don’t empathize with agents who are in a situation where they have to make a decision between recommending that you write an offer, which will, you know, get you paid and paid, you know, keep the lights on and pay the mortgage, and, you know, pay Zillow next month. It’s not that I don’t empathize with that I totally do. But I also would like to encourage folks to remember that if you are in a, I’m living transaction to transaction scenario, then real estate is not a career yet for you. This these are the these are the hallmarks of a job, or honestly more of a hobby. Because if you’ve made a career of this, your life you don’t you don’t live or die by a single transaction. And you know, if this becomes a pattern, like if it’s 610 15 transactions where this becomes the case, then yeah, this affects anybody. But I’m just encourage folks that if you’re living and dying by a single transaction, you have other things to be thinking about, too. There’s there’s business planning that you can do so that you protect yourself against that sort of volatility. Because ultimately, that’s what we’re dealing with. Right now. We’re dealing with some extreme market volatility right now, things are pushing really hard up into the right. But it’s not always going to be that way. So what are you, you know, what are you going to do today? in the best interest of your clients? That’s what you need to be asking yourself every single transaction.

D.J. Paris 19:23
And so I know you had some ideas for agents, because then I’m sure there’s many of our listeners who might be thinking, okay, great, well, easy to say, you know, tell the client not to write the offer, and I’ll just move on to the next customer, but maybe there isn’t a next customer, currently. And so I know you had a few ideas of ways that agents could still stay productive, active and possibly even earning additional streams of income. You know, so let’s talk about that.

Chris Linsell 19:52
Yeah, so two things one, and this is a little bit easier to do if you live in a major match politan area, but licensed real estate agents can get paid on leases and rentals, too. So, if the purchase market is overheated to the point where as a buyer’s agent, you can’t effectively service clients consider getting into the lease space. And I’ll say this for two reasons. One, the typical commission on a lease is one month’s rent. And so even though this isn’t a massive amount of money, leases take a significantly shorter amount of time to close. And so, in the process for getting approved for a lease is significantly easier than the process of getting approved for a mortgage. So you know, leasing agents in New York City, for instance, it is not uncommon for them to close three or four deals in a week. And that’s a pretty typical kind of workflow.

D.J. Paris 20:52
And, and a pretty great income stream,

Chris Linsell 20:54
and a pretty great income stream. Granted, if you’re living in a place where you’ve got three or four rental closings a week, your cost of living is probably pretty high. But you know, every market is a little bit different on that. So as an example, a place where this, this totally works, is in college towns. Think about places where you have high rental turnover, college towns are massive in their rental turnover, a professional real estate agent can make a nice living off of leases, in college towns, because the cost of living if you don’t go to school, there is pretty, pretty low. And the opportunity for rental turnaround is pretty high. So that’s the first thing I’d say. Consider how to stretch your real estate license in different directions and getting commissions on rentals is one of those.

D.J. Paris 21:45
And I want to give a quick quick suggestion for those who are listening and saying, you know, yeah, Chris, I guess it’s one month’s rent. However, if it’s on the MLS, I’m going to be sharing that with the listing agent. So really, now we’re down to half a month’s rent in most cases. And boy, that just isn’t isn’t a lot of money. And I will tell you what, what we do here in Chicago, which again, is a major, of course, metropolitan market. But I would almost bet, even if you’re in a very rural area that this could possibly work. So in Chicago, of course, we also have an MLS here and a lot of rentals are, you know, are posted there. And of course, those are listed by a listing agent who is going to likely take half a month’s rent as the commission and offer the same to the broker who brings the renter. So you might say okay, well, that’s my MLS doesn’t have a lot of rentals, or they’re just, you know, there isn’t a lot of money there. Well. So what we do here in Chicago, and this is something I think anyone could probably attempt and probably would have some degree of success is if you are in an area and the reality of it is when people come to work at our firm just just stood or diverge for a moment. They’ll ask about rentals. And we’ll say they’ll say, Well, there’s only about 7000 rentals on the MLS, and we say, Oh, we’ve got outside of that we’ve got about 15,000 rentals, not on the MLS in our database. How did we get that 15,000 And to Chris, to back to Chris’s point, those those are management companies that do not list their available apartments or homes for rent on the MLS. But they do work with realtors to get them rented. And they do offer as Chris said earlier, one month’s rent in almost every case. Now, here’s the question, how do you get access to this inventory? Well, I’ll tell you how we did it, which is shockingly simple and almost embarrassingly. So we’ve literally just started calling property management companies about 15 years ago. And we said, hey, we notice you have all these apartments. Do you ever pay a commission? If a broker if a realtor brings you a renter? That was literally what that conversation how it went? And some people said yes, others said no, the ones who said yes, we said, Great. Could you send us on a regular basis, your availability, we there here, we call them hot sheets, that could be called anything, but really just available units. And we get dozens of these property management firms who send us this inventory. Now, you could do the same thing. Here’s an easy way to find these apartments, go on to the apartment rental website, websites that your clients use, and look for some of these management companies and lob a call over to them and say, hey, if I work with renters all the time, they’re looking for places just like this, if I bring you a renter, and if they sign a lease, would you be willing to pay me a commission for that? And some will say yes, and some will say no, I will right now at least here in the Chicagoland area. Almost all of these property management companies are saying yes, we will pay you a commission because here in Chicago, the rental market is really stagnant. So this is I’m sorry, I’m going off on on a long tangent here. But this is a specific way all you have to do is start calling some of these companies and asking them if they’re willing to pay rental commissions. And you’ll probably find more often than not depends how desperate they are to get places rented out. But if it’s like, here it is in Chicago, if it’s if it’s like that in your current area, you’ll probably get a lot of yeses. And all of a sudden, now you have inventory that most other realtors aren’t paying attention to, because maybe they don’t know it exists, or it’s just not on their radar, it’s not really, you know, they’re checking the MLS exclusively, now you have additional inventory, and you can service those clients, and you’re not giving half of the commission away to the listing agent, because there isn’t one. And you know, a lot. So I just I know, I just said a lot there. But I just wanted to give you some tips about how we literally built this huge rental database, we literally just made a bunch of phone calls

Chris Linsell 25:35
100% 100%. And guys like the other thing to think about here, too, and honestly, this seems like it should be a no brainer. But put this into the into the calculus here is when you put a renter into a lease, most of the time, what you’re doing is you’re just extending out the life of this lead cycle by whatever their lease term is, if they’ve in a 12 month lease, you have a built in check in mechanism, and you know, to check in with them on a regular basis. And then when their lease is coming up on. On an expiration, you’re going to know this because you helped put them in there. And you can start the lead process with them right then and guess what this person is assured of your commitment to their financial and fiduciary well being, and this person is going to absolutely follow her advice. If you come to them and say you know what, it’s a great time to buy the market has cooled a little bit, money is still reasonably cheap. I think there are some options right now, that might be great for you, we should start testing these waters. And if you do that 60 or 90 days before the end of their lease, you can absolutely slam dunk this when you think about it, because you know what time, like you know exactly the day that they need to have occupancy and they need to make a decision. You You have now control over their timeline in a way that most real estate agents would literally salivate at. So take advantage of that, be thoughtful about that. Remember, you’re not giving up a commission, you’re just adding a lease Commission, or a potential lease commission, and then extending out the life and nurturing cycle of this particular lead.

D.J. Paris 27:34
100% could not agree more. It’s really it’s an interesting point about you know, their exact entry date and exit date or not even exit date, but the date they need to make another home living situation decision. And you can start to prime them along the along the way of their lease to say, Hey, what are your future plans? You know, I always heard and again, I’m not a boots on the ground realtor. So I don’t know. Exactly. You know, I can’t empathize as much with this expression, but I never liked it anyway, when you hear buyers are liars, right, we hear that a lot. And maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t. But I’d like to, I’d like to encourage all of our listeners and viewers to reframe that to say buyers are former renters, because almost everyone that buys unless they were very fortunate in life and just went straight into homeownership probably rented a place first. And they probably didn’t work with an agent either. So if you want to work with them, even if there isn’t a commission to work with them on the leasing side, and trust me, nobody should have to work for free. But as Chris said, this is a great opportunity to start the relationship now and then develop it over time, and then be that person’s guidance for when they do make that switch over to home ownership

Chris Linsell 28:49
100% 100%. I mean, if anybody is agents, if you’re listening to this, and you have a like a broker maybe chirping in your ear, or a managing broker, if you’re in Illinois, chirping in your ear to say, you know, real estate is easy, you just have to do X, Y, and Z and then you’re just gonna get checks for 1000s or 10s of 1000s of dollars. These people are probably not real estate agents, those people who are chirping in your ear like that, this this career requires a sustained attention to relationships. And there is no better way to build that relationship than by establishing trust in your clients the trust that they have in you that you’ve got their best interests at heart. The second best thing that you can do though, in addition to establishing that they you have their best interests at heart. The second best thing you can do is be proactive in your pursuit of that best interest for them. And one way that you can do that is if there is not listing inventory that satisfies their needs, go out and create it and I know this sounds kind of pie in the sky. But I’ll give you a specific example of something that we’re doing in my local market. For buyer’s agents who have clients that are not being serviced those buyer’s agents, a lot of them, some of whom I’m close with some of whom I’ve done some work for, are literally establishing what their buyer’s needs are. And establishing identifying neighborhoods are areas where those needs could be met. And literally prospecting each house in the neighborhood that meets those criteria and say, look, I’ve got a buyer, this is their budget, your house would be perfect, have you thought about selling. And one of the benefits here is you win on all fronts. The first front is your buyer client thinks you’re a hero, there, totally gonna write you a great review and refer all of their friends and family to you. The second thing is, when you find the right piece of property for that buyer, you get both sides of this commission, granted, you’re probably going to bargain that commission down a little bit, because you’ve got somebody who’s like, I didn’t even want to sell my house in the first place. Well, guess what, now you can do it for four and a half, or four and three quarters percent instead of 3%, you still get nearly double what you would get before, and everybody feels happy with this. And then the last thing here is you’re controlling effectively, a one party exclusive listing that nobody else has access to, you’re not bargaining and bidding against other people, you can create a price point that makes sense for you and your buyer. If the seller takes it great. If not, you’re out, you know, the day that it took to have that conversation. Other than that, you know, no harm, no foul, and you can keep moving on. This is the sort of strategy that is just necessary for success in an incredibly aggressive market. This isn’t going to be the way it is forever. But the people who are really eating at the table right now are the ones who can find the places they can be aggressive, and they’re pushing hard on those spouts. I was thinking

D.J. Paris 31:51
of my while you were speaking of that I was thinking of my parents and their home, which they’ll probably end up getting rid of, and in a few years as they sort of downsize and maybe even move out of their local area. And I was thinking, you know, I imagine that homeowners are always curious on what is my home actually worth? And most of the time, they probably don’t know the answer to that, because that’s just where they’re living. They’re not thinking of selling, they’re not thinking of moving. And they aren’t checking the Zillow Zestimate every couple of weeks, like Realtors do. And so they’re just kind of, it’s kind of out of sight out of mind. And somebody all of a sudden approaches them and says, Hey, you know, I have a client that is looking for a home just like this. I don’t know, if you’ve considered, you know, selling, but if so I’d really love to be able to show my client this property. You know, that is? I don’t know, I can’t imagine unless somebody is absolutely 100% Guaranteed to not want to move, I would be it’s kind of like the Hey, I’ve got this job offer for you. Would you be interested in hearing about it? You know, most people would go, yeah, go ahead. And I’m always interested, I like where I’m at. But you know, hey, if you’re going to offer me something crazy, I might just consider it. This is a good opportunity to get more creative that way. And so the question is like, Well, how do you do that? And that’s that was where the creativity comes in. Because, you know, obviously, with Christmas, I was mentioned, we were talking about this before we started recording, and I said, Oh, great. You could go door knock. And then I was like, then Kristen, well have COVID Oh, of course that that of course would would be would be possibly challenging. But that is one option. You can also you know, try making some phone calls. You know, there are plenty of places that are happy to sell you this information. So you can get in touch with some of these, these homeowners and you know, that are scrubbed from the do not call so you’re not doing anything that violates the can spam acts or FTC regulations. But you can make some of these calls. And you might find, I mean, gosh, I owned I owned a condo for 15 years. Nobody ever once called me and said that. But I would have taken the call and I’d ever came in.

Chris Linsell 33:53
Well, you know, I’m I want to, I want to give away something here because I usually this is a strategy I’ve been kind of saving up but you know what I’m feeling it’s Monday, it’s the first Monday of May, it’s a given day here. I want to just kind of let out into the open here. This the true gangster strategy here. So here’s what you do if you’re struggling with this agents is what you do you go in your local market like DJ set, you call up these rental places that are offering rentals, you find out if they will offer a commission. If you bring a renter who will sign a lease, find out what the what the lease amount is on that. Let’s just say hypothetically, let’s say it’s $2,000 a month is the lease price. Then you go to places that have really desirable homes. And based on tax records, you look up what the mortgage amount is and you estimate what their mortgage amount, what their mortgage payment is. And you’re looking for anybody who’s got a mortgage payment of more than $2,000. Let’s just say they got a mortgage payment of $2,500. You have now got a cohort of homeowners who are paying $2,500 a month, they could be paying 2000 a month if they leased in this really nice spot that you found. So you cold call these folks or you reach out to them via prospecting any any means that you’ve that you’re comfortable with. And you say, Look, right now your home was worth a ton of money, we could cash you out of your home, you’d make a big profit, because prices are so high. I’ve got this lease over here, it’s a really nice place, lease here for 12 or 24 months, save $500 a month, bank all of your profits from the sale of your home. And when your lease is up in 18 months or 24 months, and the market has cooled back down. You can take your proceeds and turn around and buy again, it really is the it’s the situation where you can have them sell high, and then buy low and lease in between and you collect 123 Commission’s

D.J. Paris 35:58
wow, I was I was not expecting that. And that is an amazing, amazing strategy, a tough a tough thing to actually get somebody to do but maybe even getting them to do it isn’t necessarily the point. The point is you have now brought a solution to somebody who wasn’t looking for one, whether they take it or not, you have now established yourself as a trusted or at least maybe not necessarily trusted, but somebody who’s got knowledge. And all of a sudden you become that person’s you know person and you become somebody that they may go to for future decisions. So whether or not you can convince somebody to switch from being a homeowner to a renter, which is absolutely makes all the sense in the world right now. But again, a tough thing to actually execute you at least start that conversation. And that’s probably a conversation that nobody else is having with them. So that is a brilliant strategy.

Chris Linsell 36:51
Well, you know, that’s that’s the thing is if you can get it to work, dream come true three Commission’s you’re in great shape. But if it doesn’t happen, like you said, you have initiated relationships with a leasing company, you’ve initiated relationships with a home seller or with a home owner. And you likely have relationships with buyers who would be interested in making a purchase on that person’s home. So if the whole thing works out, great. You’ve got Commission’s coming in, left and right. If it doesn’t work out in that dream scenario, then you have all these other parties that you can continue to work to connect the dots with. Oh, perfect.

D.J. Paris 37:28
Well, what a great place to wrap up I, I say this probably every month. But I love speaking with Chris, because not only is he incredibly knowledgeable about the industry, and he keeps abreast of trends and news. And he writes, and he coaches but he also is a very tactical, not just strategic. He’s very tactical, sort of coach, because he actually is out there doing some of these things. And all every time we have him on he’s always giving great tactical advice. So please re listen to this episode, if not everything if things went by too quickly, because, boy, this I we’ve been doing. I’ve been doing this for four or five years now. And this was about as chock full of tips and advices as we’ve ever done with an episode. So, Chris, on behalf of the listeners and the viewers, we want to thank you for sharing that great last gangster tip. But all of the other tips that came along in this hour. And on behalf of Chris and myself, we want to thank all of our listeners and viewers, and we want to encourage everyone please go visit the clothes.com it is I and I say this not just because Chris is generous enough to be on our show every month. But it really is my favorite website to learn about what realtors can do. It’s what I send every article to our Realtors we have 700 summit at our firm and they all get these articles, because every article they write is just chock full of great information. And it’s not just five things realtors can do to grow their business and it’s five big tips that anyone could have written and doesn’t really help. These are really in depth long form articles. They also have a subscription model so that 99% of what’s on there is free but they have a subscription model which also Chris can you talk about what the close pros

Chris Linsell 39:11
Yeah, close pros fantastic option for agents who are looking to grow their pool of professional resources, like you said 99% of what is on the close is totally free. Just come read get better. That’s that’s all I tell people. If you want to level up here, we do offer the close pro it’s 35 bucks a month. Or you can get down to 25 bucks a month if you want to go with the annual package. And essentially the close Pro offers you weekly small group coaching. We run a ton of really great masterminds with me, and with other absolute banger real estate professionals in the industry. We have a huge resource library that includes massive strategy guides on everything from farming to CMAs to Have you know literally dozens I probably actually hundreds now that I think about of templates and scripts and and resources for texting, email and phone calling door knocking and literally anything you can think of. And then I also get access to these crazy courses to like the close road has a great course called six simple systems to transform your real estate business. We’ve got one called How to survive and thrive in any market. I mean, just the list goes on and on and we’re adding to it every single week. So come check out the close if you haven’t read it yet. If you love what we’re doing there which we’re sure that you will consider the close pro 35 bucks a month gets you signed up you can give it a try. See what you think $35 You know, that’s it like that’s less than pizza night at my house. So for less than that. You know, come Come see if it’s worth it to you. If it is we’d love to have you and I can’t wait to interact with it because I interact with all of our close pro members on a regular basis. So come on, get in the pool, the water is warm.

D.J. Paris 40:57
Love it. All right. Well Chris, we will see you next month and again to all our listeners and viewers. Thank you so much for continuing to support our show support our guests go to the close.com read subscribe to not only their their newsletter, but also the close pro see if it works for you. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Chris.

Chris Linsell 41:17
My pleasure. Can’t wait and see you soon.

In this episode Scott Fisher, the founder and CEO of SentriLock, discusses how an engineer ended up in the real estate technology business. Scott talks about the importance of security and how his company is focused on safety and compliance. Next, Scott gives a description of SentriKey, their newest product, and why it’s a natural evolution for agents. Scott also talks about how SentriLock handles data collection and why that should matter to real estate professionals.

To learn more about SentriKey, click here!

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount and now on with the 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 Sentry Locke, founder and CEO Scott Fisher. Before we get to Scott just a couple of quick reminders number one, please tell a friend about this podcast and one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing from top producers and industry veterans like Scott and send them a link to our website keeping it real pod.com They can find every episode we’ve ever done in streaming right from their browser and also follow us on Facebook, you can find [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pod we post every episode we do there. We also as we’re recording episodes live, we broadcast them live on that Facebook page so you can watch in advance of us actually producing the episode and you’ll get early access. So again facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our interview with Scott Fisher.

Today on the show we have Scott Fisher from Sentry lock Now Scott is the CEO and founder of sentry lock LLC, which is a subsidiary and the official lockbox solution for the National Association of REALTORS as an innovator with over 30 years developing and delivering technology solutions in the real estate industry. Scott has 24 US and foreign patents to his credit and is the catalyst for technology driven development for century lock now over 400,000 Realtors currently use sentry lock. And as we mentioned, they are the official lockbox solution for NAR if you’re not yet using sentry lock or their newest product century key which we’re going to be speaking about, please contact your local REALTOR ASSOCIATE association or visit century lock. And that’s century with an AI century lock.com. Scott, welcome to the show.

Scott Fisher 2:44
Oh, great to be here. Thanks for having me.

D.J. Paris 2:46
We are really excited to have you here. And I am we normally don’t have you know, what we do on the show is predominantly talk to top producers and ask them how they became successful. And most of our top producers that we’ve interviewed on the show over the years, we’ve done about 300 episodes or just under you century lakhs. So we thought this was a perfect opportunity to speak to the man behind the technology. And also you guys have some exciting news of a new launch that happened last month. And so we are actually I guess, almost two months ago now. And we’d love to talk to you about that. So my first question is for anyone out there who’s a realtor who might not be currently used utilizing century lock? Can we just talk define what century lock is and what it does?

Scott Fisher 3:30
Yeah, so essentially, like we started the company back about almost 18 years ago, and when we came in the market to do was to provide a competitive solution to the electronic lockbox that was out there, market being primarily dominated by Super at the time, which was owned by General Electric. And my partners and I started the business specifically to bring a competitive lockbox solution into the marketplace. And now it’s pretty much us and super out there.

D.J. Paris 3:55
And how did you get involved in the real estate industry? Are you are you an engineer or you’re an inventor, sort of what’s your background?

Scott Fisher 4:03
My background is engineering. And I’ll give you the short version. And we’d have to get some beer involved in this because it’s a long story. But my background goes back really 30 years ago. So back in the days and some of you will remember this some of you looking at me like I’m talking from the dark ages of computers is that my first product in this space was a terminal access software that was used by real estate agents to access or multiple listing service. This of course, is all pre internet pre browser. And what it allows you to do was use your dial up modems, if you might remember that from many years ago to access those proprietary mainframes download photographs, all the things that your browser does without even blinking an eye today was all done over dial up in those days. So my partner’s partner I business we we basically sold our products primarily through forest systems which again you know, ancient MLS names will pop up here, and ultimately more data management which would have the compass product and our product at one point was probably the most widely used terminal access software. So there was a software side of the business which we ran for about probably 10 years. And then as part of that, you know, getting exposed to other real estate technology needs. We looked into the lockbox scenario, because there were a lot of customers saying that they were looking for choices, new technology, new opportunities out there. And interestingly, my one of my partners had started a rapid prototyping business. This is back in the days when 3d printing was just coming on the market, the printers were, you know, half a million dollar pieces of equipment, etc. So, in house, we have this kind of interesting mix of engineers and software developers and people with real estate technology background, we created a lockbox solution, which we then partnered up with NAR, that became a majority investor in the business and promoted that to real estate agents. And now we have 400,000 Real estate agents in the US and Canada using our product and service.

D.J. Paris 5:53
And so, essentially, lock is a huge leap beyond going to Amazon purchasing a lockbox for $20, you know, putting a manual code in and, you know, hoping no one else gets gets access to that code. Right?

Scott Fisher 6:06
Right. Absolutely not, you know, the technology we focused around, you know, agent productivity, certainly the security, the product is important. You know, ours is, you know, one of the most independently tested, attack tested products out there. But to make sure the readers feel safe putting it on there, plus, it’s a differentiator for agents coming in to their clients, you know, if they put a Master Lock combo lock on the property. And that’s pretty, pretty benign, you know, you can get those at Home Depot. However, you know, bringing on something new the clients like this one is, this is the best technology that’s out there to help track your activity, the listing provide the data, we need to support the sale of the property, etc. So we think it’s a differentiator from a market perspective for agents promoting themselves to clients,

D.J. Paris 6:46
and additional security, because, of course, you know, realtors are the only ones to get access to those codes through through the sentry lock system.

Scott Fisher 6:57
Exactly, of course, you know, we’re app base now. So that makes the security even greater, there’s no code floating around unless it’s a temporary access solution. So again, It really tailors to what agents are using every day. And if nobody, if you don’t believe me about the security aspects, just go on YouTube, and look up any commercial lock product out there, that’s a lockbox. And you’ll find that there are certainly a lot of people very creative ways of getting into this product. So we, we think that we try to keep our product focused on providing the best possible security for agents again, as well as the data and the best customer experience for their clients.

D.J. Paris 7:31
Yeah, and you guys have a huge, impressive customer, sir, sort of satisfaction score of like nine, almost 100%, like 96%, which is saying a lot, because as we know, realtors tend to be very critical of technology, in particular, anything, where anything could possibly go wrong, they are going to want to blame the technology, you know, and your technology seems to seems to get blamed free almost because it’s so it’s so effective. And, and efficient. And, and I know you, but I really want to talk about sentry key, which is, which is your newest iteration. And we’d love to hear I know that you’re super excited about it, you guys just rolled it out. And we just want to make sure everyone on who listens and watches our show is aware of how to get access to it and what it does and why they should choose it.

Scott Fisher 8:17
So let me just give you a little background, the central key showing service products was an effort that we started about 15 months ago. So this was pre some of the current merger and acquisition acquisition activities occurred. So our board of directors and I and our leadership looked at this and said, we noticed there’s a lot of consolidation going on, this is showing service space. And we said, you know, this is a great fit for the lockbox side the access piece there like peanut butter and jelly, they go together very easily. You know, if you’re accessing the properties, usually in relation to a showing appointment that’s scheduled. So we said why don’t we add the appointment scheduling capability into the platform, leverage our great customer service platform, we have our call center technology, we have to really compete with the the showing times other products out there in the world. That was really the kind of genesis for it. Certainly today with the recent acquisitions in the industry that’s generated a lot of greater interest in the product. Now this isn’t an option or an alternative out there. We’re excited about the the interest that’s generated in the marketplace.

D.J. Paris 9:18
Yeah, we’re interested in a I’m in the local Chicago market and showing time is what’s currently built into our local MLS. Can you talk about sort of how agents would if they were interested in using sentry key? How they would you know, make the shift or or you know, how would they actually, you know, sign up for it to be able to schedule showings?

Scott Fisher 9:40
Yeah, so here’s how this is going to work. So initially, as we’re launching the product, we’re launching into associations and MLSs first as a kind of a platform play, simply because for us to try to go out and attack you know, a market of 1.4 million agents out there covering you know, a zillion different jurisdictions 1000 associations and MLSs we we said okay, let’s Go with that approach because then we can put the platform out there and then agents can subscribe to that. An important fact that we’ve been asked a lot about is do you hit does it require that the sentry lock lockbox platform be in place? The answer is in q3 it will not in q3 will offer an any MLS or association regardless of lockbox platform. Today, it’s just easier for us to launch on our own platform just to make it make that transition smoother as we kind of get, get our legs under it and get more customers on board.

D.J. Paris 10:25
So if anyone’s currently a century lock subscriber, do they have access to Century key today or not quite yet, or

Scott Fisher 10:33
not quite yet, it would take the association or MLS to basically engage our product on that level. And then the agents can basically purchase the additional functionality from through us for the platform, some of the MLS ism associations we’re talking to are actually rolling out the product system wide to all their agents and all their members that way they can utilize it. And depending on the association, or most might be the very basic integration or maybe as much as the call center integration. So different levels, different needs for different folks. But we’re seeing that activity coming primarily again, through the associations and MLS is initially.

D.J. Paris 11:08
So as the overall sort of vision for MLS integration with the software. So for example, the software that’s used here locally in Chicago is called M read. And right now in M read, I believe showingtime might be the only native option inside the software. However, do you see that going forward? You know, there would be two options or two or two choices, right? If you want to subscribe to you know, centric key that may show up natively as well inside of each MLS.

Scott Fisher 11:36
Yeah, I think you bring up a good point, certainly, some associations and MLS is one product to support. And that’s fine. And they may choose us, I may choose other options out there. But I believe you’ll see in multiple markets where there’s a choice of platforms, and there will be the little bug on the listing or whatever that’s either, you know, a central key showing or showing time showing. But I fully believe over the course of the next few years, you’re going to see where MLS is probably may adopt one or more platforms to provide their agents choice again, second, choose the platform that they’re they’re most familiar with or most comfortable with or the features or what they’re looking for. So I do believe you will see that there’s been some discussion right now within Rezo. Effectively the real estate real estate standards organization about potentially starting up a a showing service, cross platform functionality or interoperability kind of standard, which will be important, I think, in the future. Because certainly having multiple platforms in the market, you need to make sure those platforms talk to each other. That way, if an appointment is scheduled on one app, they can actually have it to show up in the other platform. So I think you’ll see some interesting things come out with that over the next six months to a year.

D.J. Paris 12:39
And so let’s I’d love to just get granular all the way down to the end user sort of experience, meaning the realtor experience using sentry key, can you just walk us through a workflow of sort of, you know, what, what can be done, how it works and sort of the the end game as well?

Scott Fisher 12:56
Sure, so just like any appointment scheduling platform, the first of all, the agent can set up the appointment, the calendaring, they can set up their itinerary for their showings, they’re gonna perform the all of the confirmation activity is all done electronically, either through the app or through telephone calls or through text messaging. So we support all the different communication platforms. Something is very interesting about our platform, one thing that we’re investing in as a lot is artificial intelligence or machine learning that’s related primarily around the appoint rescheduling. So we know that in showing services rescheduling happens all the time show listings go off market, you know, buyer interest changes. So what we know happens currently is there’s a lot of manual interaction between the listing and or the buyer’s agent, the sellers agent, trying to maybe you know, Justice schedules, we’re trying to bring the machine learning in place that can actually automatically do all that work for the agent. I can even take into account things like traffic conditions, it can rearrange the itinerary around saying gee, you know, there’s there’s a backup on Interstate 75. And you know, you’re gonna be late to your next appointment, would you like me to help reestablish a new appointment time or reorganize your schedule in a way that will be more effective, so we’re trying to do is give the agent more time with their clients. So they’re not worrying about all of those, you know, administrative kinds of tasks they have to do and really making that more effective for their, for their use of their third time in a day, we know that agents definitely today are stressed by the amount of time that their workload takes up for them. So we’re trying to provide a little relief on that so they can be more efficient, how they perform showings on properties.

D.J. Paris 14:23
Boy, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And that is very exciting. And I just sort of want to reiterate the how cool it would be with the with the AI module to be able to concept consistently evaluate showings, not just doing the rescheduling, but actually evaluate your current showing schedule and and saying hey, we might suggest a reschedule here, just based on you know, weather or traffic conditions, which is very, very interesting and exciting. Curious about will century key direct communicate with the customer or is it really only a broker to broker system or Agent agent I should say certain states call them agents, others brokers but realtor to realtor or will it also communicate directly with with the end user or with the buyer? So

Scott Fisher 15:08
it’s a good good question. So for example, on the buyer and seller side, certainly the agents can involve their buyer and seller in the communication process so they can receive the notifications, they can respond to this notifications. But it allows the agent really to decide whether or not that’s what they want to have their client do or does the client expect them to do that on their behalf. Typically, most of your appointment scheduling and always the, you know, the, the agents always going to vote with their clients because you know, schedules change, etc. But I think we’ve got a very nice mix of the ability to control that based on the type of client needs that you have. So, but there is the ability for that platform to communicate directly out to the clients, we have have a client app that allow those clients for your buyer, you can go around and track the properties you visited, manage all your showing appointment, your own schedule through that have your spouse or significant other as part of that process. So we realize involving in electronically and certainly with today’s incoming buyers, a lot of millennials that are very technology focused, they love to have that ability to see that information immediately make those adjustments, they expect they’re tethered to their phones, they want to use their phone as their primary means of communication. If you say we took a phone call, they’re like, What I don’t talk to me on the phone, I just want to do it electronically. So that’s the way that the product was built. And I will tell you that we designed this really from the ground up through focus groups looking at you know, other technologies out there. And so this was not something a bunch of engineers in a vacuum built, we had focus groups, etc, from agents around our area, help us design the key functionality that makes her life easier.

D.J. Paris 16:33
Yeah, that makes sense. It’s I used to my before getting into involved in real estate, I was an IT marketing person. And I used to witness daily, oftentimes the disconnect between the developers and the end user simply because two completely different personality types and skill sets and understandings. And being being that you did a lot of focus groups and continue to ping the realtors to make sure that the products are meeting their needs and their client’s needs is is obviously critical. And You’ve obviously done a great job of that with Century lock and also century keep. Well, I want to ask sort of the big question or what maybe it’s not the big question to our listeners, but but something that certainly is very prominent here in the news, especially around technology with some of the mergers that have happened, which is around data. And what is done with that data, is that data, you know kept private Is it is it sold? Is it parsed out and utilized for advertising purposes. So obviously, you know, can you talk a little bit about data collection? And then what you guys intend to do or not do with it?

Scott Fisher 17:38
It’s a great question. And I think that’s a great, very relevant question, what’s what’s going on in the industry with a lot of consolidation. So what we do with the data currently is there’s only one place that data goes to, and we take the access data, and we summarize that and send it over to na ours, Chief Economist, Lawrence Yun. And he uses that to help provide market reports to agents, the data doesn’t go to any third party that will utilize that data in any any other way we realize that the agents data, and the brokers data around the listing and the sale is incredibly important and should be kept private. And they are certainly doesn’t have any aspirations to use that data for anything other than products that would benefit real estate agents and keeping that data in the family basically. So we don’t use it for anything else either. We will use it to help agents promote listings to other agents that are looking for particular types of properties. For example, one of the great things we can do that’s been available on MLS for years but isn’t widely used is that buyer prospecting buyers are visiting particular types of homes, we can understand what that looks like, when new listings are placed in the system, we can give those listing agents an opportunity to promote that listing right to those buyers are looking for that type of property. So we can help, you know, facilitate, hopefully faster sale, more eyes on the property to basically provide the maximum value to the seller, and give those buyers the maximum out of choice letting new listings are coming on the market. Today, certainly the environment with the low inventories, listings coming going on the market and coming off very quickly, incredibly important to give those buyers an update and say, Hey, did you know this house just one of market, you could go check it out right now. Because at five o’clock today, it may not be on the market any longer. So those are our data usage that we actually put into place, but you’re not gonna see us out there selling the information, we have privacy agreement set up with the MLS and association that we will not read resell their information. So it’s safe. We’re a trusted provider in the marketplace. And we’ve never taken the data over 18 years that we’ve had and resold that to anybody. So and that’s probably a big differentiator, what are we doing? We’re not going to utilize that information against an agent or a broker in another some other sort of competitive way. And that’s where I think we deliver a distinct advantage in that space.

D.J. Paris 19:40
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And just a quick question, this was actually coming from one of our property management team members here at our company here in Chicago, which is do you ever anticipate moving into the self showing space so so being able to work directly with consumers not bypassing Realtors but for other purposes? is like I know show Mojo does that currently, are there any plans to sort of get involved in that vertical?

Scott Fisher 20:06
Yeah. So for on the the self showing side, let me tell you what we are doing. So we are doing it in kind of an adjunct market in the apartment rental space with a company called rally, rally uses the Sentrilock product and a lot of their listings for, you know, basically for people to go and visit an apartment that’s empty or vacant, and they can view it without the property manager having to drive across town to meet that prospective renter. But on the real estate sales side, most associations and MLS has have have rules restricting self showings. In other words, they want an agent present as part of their bylaws. So from a technology perspective, our product can do it today, we can certainly it’s certainly possible through our temporary access codes, etc. It’s been available for you know, 15 years, you can do that. So but we don’t have any direct desire to push into that space unless an association MLS found that to be, you know, a new way to do business or an advantage if that’s the case, our product certainly supports it. But we want to keep agents out of trouble with their local association and MLS. So we discourage the practice. And certainly, those associations MLS as if there’s enforcement issues, can can’t do that, on our behalf or on their behalf to try to, you know, limit that activity if that’s what their objective is.

D.J. Paris 21:14
And also, yeah, thanks for that. That’s, that’s particularly helpful. And I as somebody who came from the IT space, and just finds, you know, develop a roadmap stuff really interesting as the nerdy side of me loves to, to to, to ask about, are there, you’ve talked about some of the future, the future sort of features that your your team is working on. But is there anything else coming in which you may or may not be able to share, but curious if there’s anything that you could share about or what might be coming in version 1.1 or version 2.0 of Century key.

Scott Fisher 21:49
So on the showing service, certainly, you know, there’s a long roadmap of feature functionality that’s coming out. And so users, that system will see continued improvements, new feature functionality, things as simple as mileage tracking has been some best selling when asked for all tax purposes, just you know, some very simple things. There’s also some more complex features that will be coming down the road, that, you know, you’ll see, in terms of greater usability, greater flexibility, you know, more contact options, certainly better integration with our call center, these are all things you’re gonna see incremental improvements in some areas, and some some very interesting technology again, and machine learning that we’ll continue to leverage for agents using the platform. So what you see today is a very functional system provides the core scheduling capabilities that an agent needs. But there’ll be a lot of very interesting adjunct features that we have on the roadmap coming forth in the next 12 months that I think agents will be really excited about.

D.J. Paris 22:42
Well, once that happens, we’d love to have you back to to keep introducing those new features to our audience. But for right now, if any of our listeners who are realtors and are currently sentry lock subscribers wish to participate in the century key system, how do they make that transition to Century key?

Scott Fisher 23:00
Yeah, so the best thing to do is check with our association MLS see if they’re actively researching we are currently right now in conversation with associations that MLS is representing over 700,000 agents in the US and Canada. So like I said, we’ve had amazing feedback. Now, I’m sure not all those are going to choose to go with Century lock. But we’ve got a lot of market interest right now. And we have a number of customers are coming on board over the next six months. So good chances are we’re probably there’s some conversation that may be happening already, check your association MLS see if it’s on the radar, and if it is, they’ll be able to give you a better idea of timing.

D.J. Paris 23:33
And if they if they aren’t currently exploring that or if you don’t know whether they’re exploring it, you know, contact your local association and ask and and I think it’s important that if agents want choice that they should ask the associations work for the agents and the agents are paying, paying those dues and fees. So reach out to your local association, you know, ask them about century key and, and, and asked for choice if there’s only showing time. For example, if that’s the only option and you want to option to do century key built right into the MLS, you have to tell your local association what you want. So reach out to them. And and then yeah, and then as far as if you’re not currently a sentry lock subscriber, you were saying in quarter three of 2021, you will be able to sign up directly as well, we believe Correct?

Scott Fisher 24:20
Absolutely. Yeah. So the platform itself today can support non lockbox system users. But in terms of our rollout and overall planning, we said we’ve got enough interest in our current core customer base. Let’s address them first. But as we move forward here into q3, you’ll start to see and we’re in conversation with a number of customers that are not on sentry lock right now. We will see us rolling those into the platform as well.

D.J. Paris 24:44
Very, very exciting stuff. Well, I will let Scott get back to to his busy day. I was telling him just before we went on that I wasn’t sure I would be able to make it through this. This conversation without passing out since I got my second vaccination shot yesterday afternoon and then just came from a workout I made it through. And I appreciate Scott’s patience, as I was sweating through this entire this entire conversation, but I think this was a really good conversation and an important conversation as well. And agents are, you know, it’s funny, we get out our show, we’re constantly pitched by publicists for different technology providers and services. And we’ve returned down pretty much everyone, because I’m never quite sure which technology provider is even worth talking to, or talking about the space is so large, there’s so many players, but century lock is a trusted name. Obviously, probably almost all of our listeners are either using it are familiar with it. So we are thrilled and honored to have Scott on the on the podcast. And we will definitely be bringing him back as the product continues to evolve. So if you’re not already using sentry lock, contact your local association and learn about it. And then also ask about century key and if they are working to get that integrated with their MLS software. Scott, thank you so much for being a part of the show. Thank you, I really, really honor you and appreciate your your patience, and, and your generosity of time we know how busy you are running a huge company, and having time to share with our podcast is really appreciated and for all of So on behalf of and also on behalf of Scott and myself, we want to thank all of our listeners and viewers for continuing to support our show. If the best way that you can continue to help us grow is just tell a friend think of one other realtor or real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this great conversation with Scott and send them a link to our show. The best way to do that, go right to our website, send them a link to keeping it real pod.com every single episode we’ve ever done is there to be streamed right from the browser. They don’t need to be a podcast person. If they are a podcast person, they’ll have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And on behalf of the audience. We thank Scott for his time, and we will see everyone on the next episode. Thank you, Scott.

Scott Fisher 26:56
Thank you appreciate it. You did great by the way. You didn’t No, no, no, no, nothing. Your your vaccine didn’t affect you at all. You’re looking great.

D.J. Paris 27:05
Well, I’m gonna go pass out in about one minute, so I will. I will. It’s Scott also I was telling me when he got his first shot. He went on a bike ride afterwards and had that same experience of oh, maybe this wasn’t the best idea, but I’m glad we got through it together. Scott, you’re a great guest and thanks so much. Thank you

In this episode Khoi Le from Hunter Chase Realty talks about the struggles he faced in the beginning of his life in US and how it helped him shape his future. Khoi emphasizes how important it is to understand people and how psychology is the foundation to your success. Next, Khoi discusses the importance of planning ahead and visualizing your perfect world to use as a guide. Last, Khoi talks how realtors can get support whatever communities they identify themselves with and what they can do to give back.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Khoi Le can be reached at (505) 918-9893.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount and now on with the show

Hello, and welcome to a 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 koi Lee, a top producer from New Mexico and Hunter Chase Realty. But before we get to Koi, just a quick reminder, if you’re brand new to our show, we would really love it if you would subscribe. So if you are listening on a podcast app, hit that subscribe button. If you are listening through our website, pull up a podcast app on your phone and search for keeping it real and then subscribe. And if you’re watching us on YouTube or Instagram, we are thrilled to have you there as well. But please tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that would benefit from hearing these interviews with top producers like koi and send them a link to our show. If they’re not a podcast person, send them right to our websites keeping it real pod.com They can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from the browser. And also you know if they are a podcast person haven’t pull up keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And also please follow us on Facebook we post all of our episodes that we do right there and we even while we’re recording them, we broadcast them live on Facebook so you don’t have to wait for us to produce the episode which usually takes a few weeks you can find us on [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our interview with coyly.

Today on the show we have koi Lee from Hunter Chase Realty in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Let me tell you a little bit about quite a quite has been in the real estate. It has been in real estate rather for over a decade and enjoys traveling to teach real estate across the nation. He is the Operations Officer and head trainer for his brokerage he attended a top 10 worldwide college for his Master’s of Business Administration in in management of technology, graduating college in Albuquerque at 19 which is incredible. I didn’t graduate till I was 22 shows you what I did in college. But he also won the UNM business school competition it’s which has allowed him to pursue his dreams of helping others through real estate. As a master certified negotiations expert quite loves to find the deal and make dreams come true. His background in psychology has been a tremendous help in this relationship oriented industry quite loves to teach social media to agents and local businesses because it’s such a powerful tool to create and deepen relationships. He is also a member of Knakal rep which is the National Association of gay and lesbian real estate professionals. And we reached out to national rep earlier this month and told them we’d like to feature more of their members on our show and Clay was the very first person they recommended. So we are so excited to speak with him today. Please follow koi on Instagram you can find him at at the koi which is th e Khoi, so Instagram the koi koi Welcome to our show. We’re so excited to have you.

Khoi Le 3:50
Hey, man, thank you so much for having me and thanks for that great introduction. Couldn’t have written it better myself.

D.J. Paris 3:56
Well, I you know, it’s we are here to celebrate, you know, top agents and what they did to get to where they are. We are we’re nearing about 300 episodes and our audience just loves hearing from successful realtors. I just saw statistic. Well actually, my boss told me about this statistic. I didn’t see it. But there are 100,000 More Realtors now as there were about 10 years ago. So it is really exploded. And you know, obviously content like this I think is really helpful for our eight for a our listeners who can hear from somebody who’s had so much success so young. So I’d love to start all the way at the beginning of your real estate career. Obviously, you you you crushed college at a very early age, which is beyond impressive. But tell us how you got into real estate.

Khoi Le 4:48
So um, I I’m actually from Vietnam, and my my, my mom immigrated with me to America we lived in various cities, but we ended up in Albuquerque. And, you know, she worked multiple jobs. But she knew that, you know, the first thing she needed to do was get a house. Okay? And so we, you know, when we’ve purchased our first house, ourselves younger and everything, and she accumulated, she started her own business, a jewelry business and bought more houses, etc. But there was a big frustration, their frustration was, she didn’t speak English well, and she didn’t know how to read English well. So what comes with that is an opportunity for people to take advantage of. And I just remember one time when we, we lost a lot, because an agent went out and took advantage of this, and we lost our, our, our deposit on a house, and he took it, you know, and, um, you know, so, you know, when, when you’re, when you come over here and for opportunity, and everything like that, and then you lose everything that you worked for, because somebody swindled you out of it, that, you know, that that’s, that’s a major blow. So, of course, I committed to going to college and everything like that, you know, it’s, it’s a case of, and we talked about this a little bit off air too, you know, it’s hard to just speak about, you know, the struggles and everything, but I’m okay with sharing. Because I feel like it’s important for people to know that it doesn’t matter, you know, where you come from, you know, you can achieve whatever you want. So there was bouts of homelessness, you know, sharing, you know, 10 people to a room, etc. But we did what we had to do. I went to college, got out as soon as I can, because I knew that the faster I got out, the sooner I can, you know, help help out. So with that I, first I did the management of technology, skills, I sold my first business, which was the biodiesel business.

D.J. Paris 7:12
So were you a real developer, or you were just a tech guy, or tell us if you don’t mind?

Khoi Le 7:19
Yeah, so management technology is cool. So what you do is you, you work with, like engineers, and you work with sciency people, and then you take their ideas, because what they’re good at is sciency stuff, what I’m good at is marketing, and logistics and everything. So we take that idea, we take it to from a seed company into the marketplace, you know, IPOs, and things like that. And we’re very lucky that we have three big labs here in Los Alamos Labs, Sandia Labs, and also the laboratories at UNM. So we would take ideas, see where we can commercialize them, and take them to market we advised on angel investments and everything like that. So because of that, with that business plan competition, I got a, you know, a large some back of the day that was large for me, and, you know, started that business, sold it off, and then got this one thing out of my veins, which I hope I opened a nightclub.

D.J. Paris 8:20
Wow, what a change. Yeah, so,

Khoi Le 8:22
so opened the nightclub, and then ran it for a bit, sold it to some investors from Las Vegas, and then, you know, decided, hey, I’m gonna take some time off to just kind of see what’s up, I travelled a little bit and then got really, really bored. But then I remembered, you know, that, you know, I should get into this profession because one, I’ve helped my mom with all of her real estate dealings, you know, I’ve translated for her, etc. But she’s not the only person out there that needed help, you know, with with these forums, and you know, deals and everything like that. So becoming an agent that can, you know, speak their language and, you know, help help the Vietnamese community out it has been a tremendous help for my career, as well as being part of the LGBTQ community and having a opening a gay bar.

D.J. Paris 9:20
Wow, that’s because you said so much that that’s it’s really impressive that you’ve really had success in three very different industries. You know, the, the sort of you are kind of part of the incubator, it sort of world and taking good ideas and bringing them to market and then then switching over to the nightclub world. And that’s a tremendously difficult world as well, from what I understand and then having a success there is even probably more rare and then of course, having success in real estate and I’m curious if there’s a certain if there’s certain habits that you cultivated that have sort of stretched Spanner across these different industries that you’ve had success with that, you could say, hey, you know, I’m really sort of doing similar daily tasks, or at least daily, you know, disciplines that I’ve that really, you know, sort of go across all these different lines of work that you’ve been involved in.

Khoi Le 10:16
Yeah. So one thing that when I was going through school was everyone was saying, Hey, you’re, you’re getting your MBA, that’s that was the end goal, right? Sure. Getting an MBA, why don’t you go to business school? And for your bachelor’s degree? And I, you know, I went for my psychology degree, right? And I had people ask me that I just answer them same thing as, who do you work with when you’re in business? And if they’re confused, or think I’ll answer for them, you work with people, right? You don’t work with machines, you need to understand people, first and foremost, it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in one year, you need to enchant people. And two, you’re always selling something, okay? I don’t, it doesn’t matter. If you are an engineer, you’re selling your resume to that manager, that you would work for that national lab, okay, engineer, as a salesperson, everyone is selling something. And so, you know, when we identify what their needs are, you know, people’s needs are, we can, you know, go more in depth and help them and build that relationship with people. And so that’s why the habitus psych background has been tremendously helpful. Now.

D.J. Paris 11:32
Go ahead. Oh, no, go right ahead.

Khoi Le 11:34
Sorry. Yeah. So having a psych background as has been helpful. And I think the traits in be with any industry to be successful in any industry is going to be want, first of all integrity, do what you say you’re gonna do. If you’re going to work in tech, if you’re gonna work at a nightclub, if you’re gonna work in real estate, do what you say you’re gonna do. That’s, if you if you go that far, like you, you’re already more successful. And then most people, they’re second,

D.J. Paris 12:07
pause you, I want to pause here for a second, just because I want to talk about about that integrity. It’s such, it’s such an easy thing to sort of say, you know, to just sort of define, as do what you say you’re going to do, which is absolutely the truth. But I’m curious in when you’re working with your buyers and sellers, do you set the expectation in advance? And, you know, make sure that that they are on board with with what that means? In other words, are you telling them you know, here’s how often I’m going to communicate with you? Or, or here’s what how this process is going to go? I’m curious on on on that part of it for real estate, because I know that communication is everything, when it comes to working with clients. And I’m just curious on what that looks like for you. Yeah,

Khoi Le 12:53
if communication is everything, then yes, you should communicate how they’re going to be communicated to right. I always say no, communication is also a form of communication. If you’re not updating your client, you’re telling them, they’re not worthy of being updated. So think about it that way. I also work on a philosophy of if they ask you a question, you have failed. Okay, so I tell my team, if our client asks us a question, we have failed, you know, if they’re asking things like, hey, what’s an appraisal? Right? What do you mean, you know, how do you not know what an appraisal is? Of course, that’s not going to be our answer. Our answer is, you know what, hold on, write up the blog post, write up the email, send it off to them, and then copy that for the next client. Right? Because each time we reiterate, we reiterate. And that’s one thing that we did with our management technology courses. Now that just kind of had I had a little bit of epiphany of something. So I’ll touch base on that in a little bit. But we reiterate until we get it right. Okay, so, so yeah, if if, if they asked us we failed. Back to your question, do we tell them ahead of time how we operate? Of course we do. Are you going to be the one who’s going to control the narrative? Are you going to let the tail wag the dog? Okay. I tell him. You’d like that

D.J. Paris 14:24
one. Yeah, no, no, I love that. Because it’s, it’s, you know, it’s funny. I interviewed a top producer here in Chicago a few years ago and out of 44,000 Realtors, we have in the Chicagoland area, she’s in the top, literally the top 10. And I asked her, I said, Why do you think you’re in the top 10? And please don’t say you work harder than everyone because I’m sure that’s true. But But what else do you think it is beyond hard work? And she says, this is gonna sound so silly, and I’m embarrassed to say it, but it’s probably the truth. I call every single one of my clients every single week and give them an update on how things are going. And I said, and she goes then That’s kind of it. I said, why doesn’t everybody do that? And she goes, No. So I just I just was thinking that that came to me while you were talking about the importance of if they have to ask you a question, if they have to say, and even if it’s just, hey, what’s the next step? That’s probably the biggest failure of all right when they say what comes after this, because then you haven’t really prepped them correctly. And so I think we’re talking about overly communicating and not overly in a negative way. But making sure that that any possible question a buyer or seller might have, you have already have that as part of your process so that they don’t have to think about it, you know, and then ask you. Yep,

Khoi Le 15:42
exactly. You know, if they’re asking you things such as you know, hey, what do I gotta do to get to get my house ready for inspections, right? Now, of course, you can type it out in your text messages, and just send it to them. Okay, now, I did that this one time. Next week, I have to do it again. And again and again, right? Or you can systemize it, do it once and send it out each time you schedule inspections, to the seller, what is your this is what I asked my brokers is, what is your business going to be like, in five years? Okay, are you in five years? Are you still going to be typing out that text each time somebody else? Or are you your business is going to be so good that you have to have your assistant send out that email? Well, if it’s if it’s going to be the second, why not create that thing now?

D.J. Paris 16:36
It’s a really, really amazing suggestion. So everyone who’s who’s listening or watching right now this is a great we do this here at our company i i work on the recruiting sites I recruit realtors, I don’t work with with buyers and sellers directly. But what we’ve done over the years is we have every single question that somebody might be who might be looking to join our firm might be curious and knowing we have all the answers written out and as Realtors you can, obviously you should accumulate all of these questions, put them in a in a database, put them in a spreadsheet, have these answers, pre written, pre formatted, tightened up and sent out in a systematized way so that they don’t even have to ask but when they do, you can shoot that out. But boy, that is such a great suggestion is, is just write down every question that buyers or sellers ask you and have the answers ready to go. And then figure out how to incorporate that into your into your systems.

Khoi Le 17:28
If you take, let’s say one hour, okay, if it takes me one hour to write out, what’s an inspection, put it on a blog post, put it in PDF, save it to, you know, send this out, after you scheduled inspections, if that takes me one hour, but it saves me one hour every week, that’s 52 hours in a year is your time worth that? Mine is I charge a lot of money per hour.

D.J. Paris 17:55
Well, that’s the other thing too is you know what you charge per hour, it’s another great exercise is working backwards and figuring out, you know, a realistic sort of goal for the end of the year, and then figuring out how many hours you’re working that year and then making that dividing that up and then realizing if if anything I’m doing is not generating that amount of money, it might be a good idea to outsource it. Now virtual assistants are so popular, you know, the entire world will bid to help you with your business. And you know, you can find some really competitive rates. But back to your you were I got us off track and I apologize you were listing you were on your your second tip. And I apologize, I sort of got off track, but I’d love to hear it if you could remember if I didn’t take you too far away. Yeah, so

Khoi Le 18:39
your question was, what between those three industries, you know, is a common denominator? I would say of course, the first one is the integrity part of it doing? What you’re gonna say going to do to is definitely, definitely systematizing things which we talked about right? is, you know, you know, whatever you’re going to do repeatedly. You know, write it down, systematize it and then outsource it to somebody

D.J. Paris 19:06
quick, have a quick question for you. So it’s funny, because you’ll talk to some agents, although I think these agents will be in the minority. When you ask them like, hey, what do you bring to a listing presentation? Almost everyone I’ve ever interviewed on our show, and hundreds of people that have been on the show, have all said, Oh, I have a whole process. I have a whole you know, like for listing presentation, for example. I’m going to bring, you know, a questionnaire, I’m going to bring maybe a little what we used to call a war book or some slides or you know, and then there’s other people, but I think they’re in the minority, but it’s still not all that uncommon. Who go I show up with a blank pad of paper. I’m curious on on what your process is when since you are so systematized are you I’m assuming you’re probably not a blank pad of paper guy or you bring that up in addition, but I’m assuming you have a whole process on top of that.

Khoi Le 19:54
I have both okay. And so if I have a listen up like, Man, I can message one of my team members. And I can say I need a listing padfolio it’s a leather padfolio for this address, okay, and I, if I go pick it up, or I can have it delivered, if I really need to, and I’m going to be at that property, they’ll meet me at the same time drop it off, right? It will have, let’s say, any previous MLS sheets are gonna be printed out, the house surveys printed out, our sellers book is printed out, I have samples of our marketing material in this, this thing too, I have two pens, one of them is green, because I only write in Greek. And because green is money, I have key tags to key tags, because that’s what I require from my sellers, I have my business cards, I have every single little thing that I might need. And also I have a checklist. And that checklist needs to be filled out and checked to make sure that I that I know every single little thing is already in there. If something’s missing, they’ll also they’ll write you know, like get no previous data on there. So if I glanced at this piece of paper, for 15 seconds, I can go in and start right away. Yes, I have a blank piece of pad on the end. And that I write notes in after the listing is done. If it’s signed, great. If it’s not, I still send it over the padfolio over to my team member, there’s a system for them to be assemble it, input things into my CRM, update notes, scan anything that needs to be scanned, dissemble things that weren’t used such as key tags, pens, whatever that was go into its own cubbyholes, it goes into a separate slot, depending on where it is signed, unsigned, etc. And then they also schedule onto my schedule for next week to follow up with these people, or whatever tasks that I put on the pad, I say, you know, get this skip discuss this. And it’ll all be done in my sleep. Basically,

D.J. Paris 22:00
it’s really incredible. And for everyone listening, you know, this is the year this is if you’re not this organized, and you don’t have the systems yet in place. This is the year to do that. This will just ultimately it will sort of ironically, these systems will actually give you more freedom in your life, it might seem constraining and certainly, you know, realtors tend to struggle with organization because the personal person to person skills, interpersonal skills tend to be more prominent in realtors and organization tends to be, you know, something that that a lot of realtors struggle with. But this is the year to systematize so that you don’t have to think about each of these steps every single time because you’re likely to forget one or you’re likely to just you know, make a mistake, because it’s easy to do that when it’s not systematized. So I applaud you for that. That is a really incredible system.

Unknown Speaker 22:51
You want to know my secret? Yeah, I’m lazy. I don’t want to keep doing this over and over and over again. I’m forgetful. I’m like, Oh, crap, I forgot to pen. Can you show up to listen point without a pen? Hell no. You know, so. So I just wrote everything down. I am not a good paperwork person, I’m not a good, I’m actually probably not a good operations guy. But I’m just lazy. I don’t want to keep doing the same thing over and over. So then I hire people that are very good at that stuff, right? To help me organize and create a system that you know that I want this particular thing this particular way. Yes, you might not make sense at the moment if you’re new. But then you come come in and see the hive, everyone buzzing around. But there’s a there’s an art, there’s a dance to this whole thing. And once you figure out what you want, and which again, we are saying is more freedom. I’m spending that one hour to say 52 hours, you know, in a year. Right? So I’m just I want my free time. I know I need it. So do I do the same things over and over? And again, you know, that’s

D.J. Paris 24:03
it. Yeah, it’s it’s so it’s so simple. And for those of you that haven’t developed these systems, it can be overwhelming to think about building all of it at once. And, and and I would encourage everyone to just start somewhere and start with one little chunk of chunk everything down into little small pieces. And over, you know, a month or two, you could probably develop a good good number of your systems. And then you just have to run them. It’s the same. It’s funny. Almost a year ago, I realized I’m 44 I guess I was 43. A year ago. I said I struggle with getting to the gym I just my whole life. I just it’s not something I’m naturally inclined to do. I’m certainly not alone there. But there are people that seem to have an easier time just getting to the gym and exercising. And that’s just not me. But I know it was really important. And so I said how do i systematize this because I leave it up to me trying to find the motivation to do it and to try to remember to do it and to find the time. It just doesn’t happen or at least I have most of my life as evidence but it doesn’t happen. And so I said, you know, what if I hired a trainer, and I thought, Well, that makes sense. Because, you know, when I pay for something, I tend to want to use it. But but also, you know, there’s a built in accountability there. And so that’s how I systematized exercise. And I haven’t missed, you know, a session since now, it’s very expensive sort of process to do it that way. But it’s the only way it works for me. And I wish it I wish I was just naturally one of those people that went to the gym, just like I’m sure a lot of us wish we were more naturally organized, I fit in the same category as you there. So I have to systematize everything, because I’m just forgetful, maybe probably more forgetful than you are. And so I can appreciate building these systems to help account for some of our challenges. And you know, we’re good at certain things, and we’re not good at other things. And having systems in place. There are so critical. So I appreciate you sharing that.

Khoi Le 25:51
Yeah, again, work backwards. What is your business going to look like five years from now? Are you still going to be the person that’s looking through to make sure that their listing package is all together? Or are you at such a level that you have an assistant that makes it for you on the fly? And they know exactly what they’re doing? Because you, you know, you recorded the videos, you wrote down everything already? Okay, so decide now what your business is going to be like in five years, and then act like it?

D.J. Paris 26:20
So I have a good question. All right. I don’t know if that’s a good question. Sorry. It’s a question. Based on something you said that I was really impressed with, which is just having a five year vision. And wondering, you know, what, for all of our listeners, you know, that exercise is so critical. And of course, you know, what you think your business should look like in five years may change, it may evolve over time. And, and ultimately, it probably will. But knowing sort of where you want to end up is really important. So I have a question, because a lot of people I think would answer that with Well, I want to work mostly, or almost exclusively by referral in five years. And I’m curious, and I’m sure that you probably are we’re already working almost exclusively by referral. But I’m curious if you have any suggestions for some, some walking backwards to what people can do today to help sort of set up that kind of future.

Khoi Le 27:13
So on my door, right over there, it says on the top there $28,571,428. Okay, that’s how much I need at a 3.5% withdrawal rate for to gain $100,000 a month. So that’s the money I need to be in my bank account or investments at a 3.5% for 10. Well, $100,000 a month. So that’s one exercise I did is how much money do I want per month? Right? So first, that’s what we’re, that’s working backwards there. Right. And then underneath there, I have my real estate business. Property Management, commercial insurance, business, staging, business, leasing, business, social media, fix and flip loans. And SEO. Yeah. SEO there. So those are all my companies that I have. Also,

D.J. Paris 28:11
these are all the funnels that that ultimately drive in revenue for you.

Khoi Le 28:15
Yeah, and I already have some of those already. Okay. But that’s posted on my door, I see that every day. Okay. And that’s, that’s the number that I’m shooting for. Yeah, it’s pretty low. Okay, 28, millions low for me. But that’s what I gotta get to get started. Alright, so the, the number one exercise, not everyone, you know, cares about the dollar amount or everything, but the thing that I take my agents through is called the perfect world. Okay, I have them shut their eyes, and you walk through every single moment of your perfect day in your perfect world. And you repeat every single sentence in my perfect world, okay. In my perfect world, I’m waking up at this time. In my birth world, I work out here. In my perfect world, I woke up in this house, and has this many bedrooms, and this is the person next to me. And I check my phone. At this time. Some people like to check it early, later, whatever, you know, and then what do you do next? What do you do next? And until you complete your perfect day in your perfect world, and then that tells you what your goals are. Okay? If it’s you want to work, wake up to the perfect partner, you want to get more time for the gym, etc. You identify what you want. Yes, you know, it gets pretty emotional when we go through this exercise. And then we ask the question, what does it take for you to take from today? To your perfect world? What changes can you make now to become your perfect world? So yeah, you know what, in my perfect world, I’m at the gym. And you know, I’m at the gym with my trainer, and I’m super fit, blah, blah, blah. What’s the gap? Well, is the gap that you know, I haven’t woken up and done this, or I need to get a trainer. You took that step too. way to bridge the gap between where you are now with where you want to be. Right. And so the perfect world exercise is kind of what I would refer to first. That’s a

D.J. Paris 30:13
great I know some people refer to it as like future authoring perfect world, it’s really important. And you don’t always have to know exactly how you’re going to get from here to there. Because sometimes even just recognizing the end goal will open up over time what those steps may be to get there. So if you’re, if you’re like, Well, I want to earn a million dollars a year, and I’m only earning 50,000, right now that the brain can’t really figure out how do I get from 50,000 to a million, but what it can do is say, here’s the lifestyle I want, here’s what I want my day, my life, the emotions, I want to feel my physical vitality, my my spiritual vitae, you know, everything, you know, my relationships, everything, and then that’s what I want. And then you can just and then the brain starts hunting for ways to actually get you there. Um, you have to do the work, of course, which is the hard part. But But So I’m curious, is it been your experience that most of the major shifts that we make that will actually get us there are actually pretty minor shifts that if we just repeat them, you know, sort of day in and day out, ultimately get us on that track? versus sort of, you know, if you want to make a million dollars a year, you could get lucky and buy a lottery ticket? And I guess that’s does happen to people? I don’t know that it’s a great plan. But it’s certainly that’s one way to do it. But it’s not a very predictable way. Probably the least productive and it’s

Khoi Le 31:38
not repeatable, yet. That’s true, right? Do you just want to get a million once? Or do you want to do it every year? And then eventually, every month? Right, so that’s the question. Now, the changes that I’ve made are probably minor, right? If you reduce it to the ridiculous is what I call it, right? You know, just reduce it, reduce it, and then and then you say, Okay, if I got to call 50 people to get one, yes. All right, great. I got a call. I want 100 deals this year. So that’s, you know, 5000 calls I gotta make, right, what’s 5000 divided by 365? You know, and then you just take that exercise, and then you know, you can reduce it even further. You just gotta call 14 people to get 100 deals. Right? Can you and

D.J. Paris 32:29
how’s pretty amazing return on investment or return on effort? I would say that’s a that’s an incredible return on effort. Yeah, exactly. So

Khoi Le 32:37
1414 calls, if you have 16 minutes, and you have 14 calls. That’s an average of four, four and a quarter minutes. Can you spend a quarter like a four and a quarter minute every day to do this? Right? Is your is your time worth 100? deals that weigh in? Yeah, of course mine is right. And so that’s why that other agent, you’re talking about making phone calls, weekly phone calls to her people? She’s, she’s paying herself right there. Right? So it is very minor changes.

D.J. Paris 33:11
Same thing to with staying in touch with with sphere of influence, right? Or previous clients. You know, this idea of, oh, my gosh, you know, this client that I use that use me four years ago to buy their home, use someone else to sell it? And yes, of course, that happens. Sometimes someone’s you know, family member gets in the business, and you’re probably not going to keep it based on, you know, things outside of your control. But there’s so much within your control that oftentimes, you know, as agents, we don’t have systems in place. You know, we close the sale where we had a great experience with that buyer or seller. They like us, they know us, they trust us. And we know they’re probably not going to use us for another seven years, let’s say. So then the question is, okay, do I want that person to think about me seven years from now? Of course, I think everyone would answer yes. But then the question is, what am I going to do to earn that for the next seven years? How, why should they think about me? Just because I did a good job. Well, okay. Yeah, that’s something but what what’s more gas I can put in that tank over the next seven years? I’m just curious if you have any suggestions or thoughts about I’m sure you do about how to stay in touch with people after the sale.

Khoi Le 34:21
Yeah, so let’s address two things there. Right. So the first thing Yes, if somebody uses somebody else, it can feel like a devastating blow. Set, especially for the first time. Here’s what I think. Things don’t happen to me. Things happen because of me. Okay, and if I don’t follow up in a manner that they want, then I have it. Sure. Right. Now flip flip it around. What are your thoughts when somebody uses you instead of the their family member? Right. Yeah. What did you do, right? Yeah, exactly. I

D.J. Paris 34:58
mean, it’s a huge fad. are in the cap of anyone who, who’s being selected that way. And, and that’s where you need to think back is what did I do to maintain this relationship?

Khoi Le 35:07
Right. And so recently I have had a, one of my attorneys, he asked me to list something for him, his daughter and his I think his son in law are both realtors. Wow. Okay, but guess what? I didn’t do it to them. Right? It’s things happen because of me. And so if I am elected to be the expert in my field, they’re experts in their fields, right? I need to market I need to communicate that my value is still there, above and beyond every single other agent in this state. Okay, my expectation of myself is I’m going to be the first team to close 1000 deals a year in New Mexico. That’s, that’s who I’m going to be. That’s what I project and I give them every single reason to work with me. Right? So what do I do? Yes, I, you know, it’s lots of phone calls, lots of mailings and brochures, I have a magazine, I, you know, I’m on the radio here, I’m on TV, etc, but be where your clients are, right? That’s one thing we learned in, in management of technology is, where should we put this product product? Put it where your clients are going to be? Right? Shall we put it at Smith? Well, are the are the people that are going to buy it going to be at Smith’s great course, then then put yourself there, right. So be everywhere, all at the same time, basically, and I it sounds daunting, it sounds overwhelming. But you know, look at you, you’re you have this podcast, right? But then you have a system after this podcast to get it edited, sent out, you have this email that you send ahead of time, etc. Are you writing this email out by hand each time?

D.J. Paris 37:01
Thank goodness, no.

Khoi Le 37:03
Do you have a system right? We then so and you have a system of distribution, etc. Once that gets systematize done, and everything, you you can assign it to somebody else to do so that way you can focus on the next thing. So follow up is so important. Because, you know, if you tell them, you’re only valuable to me every seven years, yeah, right? They’ll hear you. They will hear you. Okay, now, flip it around. And this is what I tell people. What if your client, they’re at closing, you know, they give you a bag of money now. But if you continue to talk to them every few weeks, every few months, talk to them everything, they’re gonna leave these bags and bags of money at the title company. And as long as you talk to them, they’re going to send you to one of their friends, and they’re going to help buy and sell. And then you can grab another bag of money from them. It’s not every seven years. You’re right.

D.J. Paris 38:04
I’m curious, when you stay in touch with people after the sale? Do you have any just quick suggestions for content? So in other words, you know, obviously, if somebody moves into a new home, they’ve purchased a month and you could say, How’s the new home? How’s everything going? But let’s say it’s a year in, and now they’re settled? You know, and you do want to reach out because you want to maintain that that relationship and still add value to their life? What are some what some of the ways or how are you communicating with them like a year out? Where, you know, it’s it’s not hey, this brand new, exciting home? Or maybe it’s, Hey, it’s the anniversary of your home purchase? But aside from those more obvious sort of reasons to reach out, how are you continuing? How are you trying to stay in touch with them?

Khoi Le 38:49
So it’s, it’s uncomplicated to talk to people, right, you have the everyone knows their Ford’s scripts, how’s the family? How’s work recreations streams? That’s easy. That’s easy part. But if you’re blanking on things, there’s I we do, like National Donut Day. All right. Cool. That’s, that’s a cool thing. We’ll partner up with a local donut shop and send people coupons, you know, and so are you adding value after the sale? Also, are you saying, you know, are you out there being an expert, so if you if you have, like news of things being built or new, new coffee shops, etc. You can partner up with them, send coupons out, etc. You can talk about communities, events that are happening. So there’s so much out there that you can give to people, your value should not stop after they sign. Right. I have had you know, this, and again, this is working backwards, right. I work in in the manner that I expect my clients to give me a closing gift that’s how good I am

D.J. Paris 40:00
I love that. I love that

Khoi Le 40:03
say, and people ask me all the time, where should I go for a closing give? I’m like, What do you mean get client closing gift, you should work so hard, and they love you so much, that they get you a closing gift. Right? And that has happened. I’ve even gotten like a cash, you know, just them giving me cash, you know, you know, given to the team gifts and everything like that. But that’s, that’s the level you need to be at, right? To get where you want to go. And again, you gotta determine where you want to go. Now, content wise, there’s so much content out there, right, next door app. I don’t watch the news. Trust me. I don’t have the time for it. I always stand in my stances. If it’s important, somebody will tell me. Right. And so next door that people are telling you what’s going on, you know, if you’re, you’re paying attention to the news, anything NAR is going to give you things to talk about, you can give market updates, you can be an expert, you can talk to reporters, you know, I write articles for our news, our newspaper here too, you know, based on what’s happening. So there’s so much out there that it’s going to be paralyzing. You know, because there’s so many choices how I’m a perfectionist, I don’t want to be seen, like I made a mistake. Right? So to the to a fault that I don’t even execute until I have a mastery of it. And so for a longest time, I wasn’t sending out postcards or anything because I’m like, no, no, this doesn’t look exactly, yeah, this font isn’t right, you know, and it’s like Easter needs to be over here. But now it’s like three Easter’s later, I still have incense. No. Right. So so just do something, just do something is better than nothing, you know, holidays, you know, change your batteries, things going on in the community. Here’s new builds. You know, there’s so so much out there health, I even talk about, you know, here’s, here’s my new favorite app, to some people, you know, this app, I can scan things, I can measure things. So you know, I know, these people already bought their house, why would they care, right? But hey, if you’re buying a new couch or something, check this app out. Or, you know, if you’re buying a new house, and you’re in an open house, on your phone, you could be measuring things. So there’s just there’s, I can talk forever, basically. And so just be yourself, just be who you are to their people, you don’t need to be this professional that’s on a suit, you know, sending out postcards, you know, to change your time or anything like that, you know, just be yourself.

D.J. Paris 42:41
We should also talk to us about the importance of brokers. At least here in Illinois, we call them brokers, I’ll just say realtors, because they’re called different different things in different states. But how realtors can get get support from members of you know, whatever communities they identify with. And obviously, you’re a member of Nagal rep, which has, which is the largest organization for you know, an LGBTQ plus realtor community. And obviously, there’s other organizations to support other communities and groups. And I just want to talk about, I’d like to get your thoughts about the importance of getting that that level of support from other like minded, or they’ve been certainly like minded, but people who identify in a certain group and why that’s so helpful.

Khoi Le 43:28
So I do I do a class on tribal marketing, right? And about, you know, identifying your tribe why tribalism is important, and how you can market to these groups and everything like that. It’s people want to feel like they belong somewhere. Okay. And it’s not, I grew up in an era where I was, I was beaten up, you know, they threw rocks at me and my car, they would prank call, etc. And so it’s funny, because just years later, and now we joke No wonder people joke. We joked in office, we’re like, Does this seem weird to you that, like, everyone’s gay now, you know, back in the day, you know, you know, we couldn’t be ourselves, basically. Right. Right. And, and then we realized, I realized that I don’t want to work with everyone. Yeah, I only want to work with people who want to work with me. And if that’s the case, that you know, if a client it doesn’t vibe with my lifestyle, or orientation, I don’t have to work with them. I’m, I’m not desperate. Remember, my I am going to be the first one to close 100 deals, or 1000 deals a year in New Mexico. Does that guy in five years care? If this person is a beggar? Not no, he does not. And I’m going to close that gap. And I’m going to act like have that today. Okay. And so it is very important to get support for whichever community because guess what, you’re not the only person that needs support. Your client needs support, too. I’ve had so many people talk to me, because they know that I’m not going to question their pronouns. I’m not going to miss gender them. And they said, You know what? I don’t want to deal with that. This is who I am. I don’t need people to question to say, Wait, what do you mean, your husband, you know, on title. And I’ve had a case of that happen in in Albuquerque, which is one of the most progressive states in terms of laws for LGBTQ community, the community here, and the title person did not understand that these two women were married. And of course, you know, they, they got married in 2012. Right. And she kept she kept saying, No, we can’t do that we need the husband’s name over and over again. And, and she said, No, there’s you can’t do that. And I had a meeting with the President of the title company here, you know, we did training for that, you know, for that group, you know, don’t want to single anybody out or anything, but it should not be coming up. Right. And so we have to be the first line of defense for our clients here. So not only do we need support from each other, in our groups here, but our clients need advocates to what if, what if that person who was denying that a woman could be married to a woman? Was their realtor that they walked in on an open house? And that’s was their representation? Do you think their experience would have been good? Absolutely not? Do you think they would have gotten fair representation? Probably not. Right, right. And so back, then, you know, when people were discriminated against if your last name was Garcia, or you know, if you had a black sounding name, or nowadays, it’s, you know, okay, these two guys are on on a purchase agreement. You know, so, you know, can, can we send an offer letter, a love letter with these two guys, you know, to this to this family? We don’t know, will that count against us? Right. And so these are still things that I’m advising clients on, if they asked me, you know, about love letters, and everything, I have to tell them, you know, it’s not always that, you know, a person is as open minded, as, you know, working with us or etc. So please consider, you know, your offer still may be discriminated against if they know, your lifestyle, etc. That shouldn’t be the case. Right? And so when people say, oh, you know, gay rights, you know, you guys, you guys can get married now, what more do you want?

D.J. Paris 47:53
It’s over, it’s completely equal. Now. Everything’s equal.

Khoi Le 47:56
Yeah. You know, like, you know, pride flags, sales are down, we’re done. You know, so that’s why people ask the why don’t we have straight pride? You know, why do Why do you guys have gay pride? The fact is, you know, it’s, we’re not done. Right? Yeah, we’re not done fighting for equality for our clients and everything. So it’s very important to identify people that you can talk freely to with these issues. If I came up to a, a colleague, who, let’s say, a straight, who has no experience with, you know, transgender people, can I freely discuss with them, you know, hey, my client likes to be referred to as, as male, and etc, it should be, it should be not a thought it should be just be boom, done. We’re good. You know, but it’s not always the case. So that’s why it’s important to have support, it’s why it’s important to have, you know, a group of people that you can go to that have had similar experiences as you do, that have gotten overcome a lot of things. And like I always say, I don’t want to talk about the speed bumps on their journey. I want to talk about the end, right. But it is important to let others know, hey, you know, this is how I got over that speed bump. Or be aware that there are still speed bumps? That’s a long answer to your question.

D.J. Paris 49:16
It’s, it’s an amazing answer. And it’s absolutely the exact same way I feel so you know, finding your tribe as a realtor. The good news is there’s lots of tribes and there probably is an organization that has members for you know, whatever challenges or maybe not even challenges that you’re facing, but just wanting to communicate with other like minded individuals who can help you when you do find the speed bumps along the way. But also, you know, you know, in this podcast is is hopefully a small version of that because what I’ve learned after all these years of doing it is very rarely have I interviewed anybody on the show, who said You know, it was really easy. I had A whole bunch of friends that were ready to buy and sell homes, the moment I got my license, and I just had to pass the test, and then the floodgates opened up with business. It was it’s almost, or a different version of that is I joined this firm, and they gave me every lead that I ever needed. And I didn’t have to do any real prospecting. I’ve not yet had heard that story, maybe somebody’s has that, that’ll be on our show at some point, but 300 guests, and I haven’t heard it yet. And everybody has speed bumps along the way, whether you know, you’re part of a group that that gets discriminated on, or whether you’re just, you’re maybe not part of a group that deals with a lot of discrimination, what you’re still struggling is finding a tribe of people who can say have been there, I know how to do that. And on our show, we highlight a lot of challenges that people face. But I think that’s so important to reach out to some of these organizations and see if you know, they can be of a benefit to you. And if you can be of benefit to their members. Obviously, you’re you’re part of Nagal reppin, and probably other organizations. And I imagine that just provide some comfort to know that I have a group of people who are having similar experiences to me that I can share with and help them through their journey.

Khoi Le 51:07
Definitely. And it’s, you know, even if you’re in your own city, and you don’t have any resources, you’re the lone realtor that’s in this community, know that we’re out there, where we’re here to help. And if you have any questions, how to navigate things, doesn’t matter. If you’re part of the LGBTQ community, if you’re part of whatever community, I’m always open to talk to people, I give free coaching advice, basically, when people message me, because they asked me things like, you know, you know, how do you start a charity? How do you do this? I’ll just throw it out there. And it doesn’t matter if you’re in my market and my competition, because you aren’t my competition, you can’t compete with me, I want you to win, too. Yeah. And that’s it.

D.J. Paris 51:54
And there’s enough business for everyone. And it is, I always try to remind our listeners, not that they need reminding, but I like to remind our even the agents that our own company, this is it is called a cooperative commission. Compensation as well, you know, to cooperate with each other gets gets the job done. But I would like to wrap up by saying, you know, if there are any buyers, sellers, investors renters in the Albuquerque slash Santa Fe area of New Mexico that is wanting to work with with one of the top agents and teams in the state and the team that is going to get to 1000 1000 transactions a year, what’s the best way they should reach out to you.

Khoi Le 52:35
So I’m always available on my phone number, my number is 505-918-9893. I’m one of the people that will return your calls. You know, it might be a little later in the day, but you know, it’s gonna get done, I am on [email protected] slash the koi t h e KHOY, on Instagram at the same handle. And of course, Koi at Hunter Chase realty.com. And this is for everyone, not just in, in our market. But if any agent out there has questions or needs help or anything, please reach out. Because if you have that question, somebody else has that question too. And like I said, you know, the more questions we we write down and answer for people, the faster we can progress as an industry as well.

D.J. Paris 53:29
Well, I very much appreciate your generosity in appearing on our show and providing so much really amazing content. There has just been a ton of tips and advice. And I think all of it was just absolutely the same way I feel. So I’m so grateful that you took and I know how busy you are. Because while you might not be at 1000 deals a year yet, I know your phone rang about a about a dozen times just during this hour. And yeah, and koi has a lot of phone calls to return. And I am this is just how busy he is. And this is so impressive to us that that you would take time out of your busy day to do this. So thank you. On behalf of the listeners and the viewers, we appreciate your time and on also behalf of koi and myself, we want to thank our listeners and viewers for continuing to listen and watch and support our little show here. The best way that you can help us grow is by telling a friend just think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this amazing conversation we just had with koi and send them a link to the show. Easiest way to do that is have send them right over to our website. It’s keeping it real pod.com They can stream every episode we’ve ever done right through the browser there. They don’t need to be a podcast app person. But if they are a podcast person, have them pull up a podcast app on their phone and search for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button. And that quiet thank you so so much for being on the show. This was an amazing conversation I could I could talk to you for another few hours and I know you do not have that much free time so they

Khoi Le 54:55
always keep some time for you. And I just want to throw it out there to it. As I started listening to these, these podcasts and these shows, about top producers and everything, and just you know, keep listening, getting those tips out there implementing one thing at a time to, to iterate your your process until you get it right. Until there’s so many people that want to work with you that you have to hire out, you have to refer and etc. So, you know, just keep it up. You know, it all will work out for you.

D.J. Paris 55:27
A perfect way to end keep it up, do everything that you can and do it daily. And don’t worry too much about the outcome. Because if you just do work and focus on those daily disciplines, like we were saying, you know, 14 calls a day might just net you 100 deals in a year and boy, now you’re making me think about other things I should be doing in my business. So I appreciate the the reminder there. All right, quite well, thank you so much. And we will see unless everybody or everyone will hear us or watch us on our next episode. Thanks coy.

Khoi Le 55:59
All right, talk to you soon. Thank you

Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties!

Ryan D’Aprile presents Erin Stojakovic from MidWest Lending, a sister company of D’Aprile Properties, to focus on how there are similarities between success strategies of real estate agents and loan officers. Ryan and Erin talk about incubation in lead generation and explain how to move leads into customers. Erin discusses why loan officers should attend open houses. Last, Erin and Ryan discuss the managing the emotions of buyers and sellers and also the value of being charitable.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.590.6416 and [email protected].

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount and now on with the Show

All right, welcome to 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 today is our monthly coaching moments episode with Ryan de April. Now if you’re not familiar with Ryan, or if you’re just new to the show, Ryan comes on every single month to give our listeners and viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. So let me tell you about Ryan Ryan de April is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for all of his agents and staff at depot properties and Midwest lending. His strengths are his motivational skills, his coaching style and his dedication to training. He has 14 offices throughout the Chicagoland area. And he’s also in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan with hundreds upon hundreds of top producers. DAPL properties is a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with every agent individually focused on business planning, coaching and accountability. If you’d like to take your career to the next level, or if you’re just not getting the attention you need check out April properties visit de April properties.com. That’s da p r i l e properties.com. Welcome once again, Ryan. Hey, thanks,

Ryan D’Aprile 1:54
TJ. Appreciate you having us. And the wonderful and beautiful IRS activists.

Erin Stojakovic 2:00
Hello, nice to meet you, DJ.

D.J. Paris 2:02
Nice to meet you, Aaron. And for those who are listening instead of watching, Erin, tell us that tell us about yourself. You’re on the lending side,

Erin Stojakovic 2:11
I am on the lending side. So I am entering my 20th year of mortgage lending. Oh my gosh, fell backwards into it. My husband is vice president of hospitality and strategic management at the United Center. And back in 99 2000, I was catering sales manager there with him. Both of us were working some long arduous hours. And he drew the short straw, I got to go become a loan officer who stayed working crazy hours. And, you know, fell backwards. I really was looking for a career that would allow us to have a family and maybe present for the you know, raising children. But also make real money. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 2:53
So rope roaming around the United Center, both husband and wife probably isn’t ideal for for raising family. And I my my brother in law, his father was the concessions manager at Madison Square Garden for like 40 years. And so he basically lived, you know, lived and died there. So I could appreciate that. So So lending has given you obviously a great career 20 years congratulations. And obviously this last year, I imagine has been one of your more busy years would be my guess

Erin Stojakovic 3:26
it has it actually is probably my capstone year in that sense. Definitely my one of my highest spheres of production. And just a really exciting time I’ve been with Midwest lending, which is a sister company to do both properties since 2014. And it’s just been so much fun to see these Realtors come into their own and really blossoming and, and growing, we can all work side by side. And as loan officers in this company. We were part of the coaching system. We’re part of the accountability system. And we’re truly partners and co workers with the realtors. And it’s just been really gratifying to see so much success for my friends that have come into the business to join us. It’s been wonderful.

Ryan D’Aprile 4:06
Yeah, you know, and one of the reasons why I asked Aaron to come on the podcast with us today is that a real estate agent or a loan officers skill set on daily routines are almost identical. They obviously partner with each other. We’ll talk about the nuances of that as well. But again, Aaron I met in 2014 and she’s raised amongst the ranks and she was just in Cabo with us last week with the 70 other top producing real estate agents celebrating and loan officers celebrating 2020 And what a great year it was. But, you know, as Erin said, you know, we are a culture full accountability and structure, which is I think, the number one tool an agent needs to be successful in the business. The D word distraction is what takes us off and the distraction is Primarily our own business. But you know, we really partner and work with each other, we’re gonna touch on a whole bunch of different things about the business. One of the things I may ask Aaron and we might talk about as well as the emotional intelligence that’s required, the more you become a top producer, the more emotional intelligence that’s required of you.

Erin Stojakovic 5:21
Yeah, especially in the market, we’ve been seeing, you know, there’s a lot of situations that it’s really important to have a lending partner that understands how you work. I have realtors, who will basically say, only call me if there’s bad news, and I have one to want me to text them every time I get me now, you know, it’s a different level of scalability from what they want from you. As far as communication and with your clients, all the clients are different. And it’s really nice to have somebody that you’re working with, who has knows your work style, and also knows how to help you be successful within your own skill set. So we do a lot of that. Yeah,

Ryan D’Aprile 6:01
DJ, one of the things that Aaron taught me back in 2014, which I’ve incorporated into my coaching, and it was really eye opening in 2014, I had been an agent approaching 10 years in the business. And she taught me about incubation in the lead generation process. And it was eye opening. Yeah. And so I’ll summarize it, but and we give you credit for teaching me on this. And it’s really important for real estate agents understand this. And again, the purpose of every and any podcasts that we do gather DJ, since you’ve asked me to come on here is what information can I relay on to your audience, and help them grow in their business and see it when you light? Right? So let’s just talk about the consumer, let’s talk about the human nature. We make all our decisions, at least 95% of our decisions based on emotions and not logic. And so if you break it down into our, our industry and what we’re in, I’ll prove it to you if we were logical, okay, if we were logical, we would first go to a mortgage lender, and we get qualified. And we find out what we can afford, what we can afford and what we can do. And then we move on to a real estate agent. Aye, aye, have been coaching now for close to 20 years, don’t shouldn’t be coaching now for close to 10 years in the industry for 20 years, have grown for significantly sizable organizations in the real estate industry. And I’ve been teaching this is she taught this to me 2014. And I recently went looked at a home. And I looked at the home before I got qualified. And it’s because I can’t change the strike of a tiger, even myself, because they’re with us. It’s like, I wouldn’t fall in love. And now I’m running around and getting qualified. And it just how it is. So how do you use that in your business? Well, as a real estate agent, you have to understand that’s a huge advantage that you have. It’s a gigantic advantage that the consumer shops with their hearts. And the fact is that they’re going to come to you first. And that’s coaching us coaching an agent of ours. Actually, I was coaching an agent this morning, wasn’t agent marks an agent that was brought to me and said, Can you can you culture, so absolutely. And she was on our dashboard. And I asked her about her pool business and where it looks from and when I mean pool like lead sources. And like, like this stool I’m sitting on, okay, it’s modern, but your traditional would be a four legged stool, I said, your business should have either three or four lanes. The first one should be your network. And then the other should be maybe a farm, maybe purchase web leads, maybe open houses, so on and so forth. And so I said, Let’s not talk about the network, let’s talk about your other sources. And we went and looked at her purchase web leads. And we went and looked at her open houses and categorized in what is called a prospect test. And it was interesting to see the time and effort that she had put into open houses. But the no follow up, right, you know, the two months, the one month and I said you’re going through the motions, and you’re just wasting your two hours because the truth is, is purchasing a home it’s probably an 18 month time period. Yeah, you know, I don’t know the number but about 18 months that say,

Erin Stojakovic 9:39
mystification process too. And some people do it much more quickly. But some,

Ryan D’Aprile 9:43
but you start thinking a lot to buy a home you work on your you know your work with your heart and your motions. And again, instead of visiting open houses, it’s a great lead source for real estate agents out there. But in terms of generating revenue for ourselves is there’s any Sebacean process to that. And as a real estate agent, there’s a right way there’s a wrong way to run your business, there’s a right way to be an ally flow with their network, there’s a right way to farming, there’s a right way to open houses, there’s a right way to purchase web leads. And really having a partner in the lending business is a incredibly strong tool in terms of lead conversion.

Erin Stojakovic 10:22
Yeah, I would agree with that. I feel like one of the partnership benefits is, you know, once I meet the client, or referral, or a person in an open house with you, it’s so much easier to have that, that synergy and energy in the relationship. I’m making them my friend, this is my other friend, we’re all going to be buddies working together to accomplish your dream of homeownership. I always tell them that the realtor sells the dream, I sell the reality, because I’m the price tag essentially. But you know, it’s, it’s really a lot of fun. And we really want to form a relationship of trust and excitement. And that’s, you know, when you speak to the emotional intelligence, we’re helping them through those stressful moments and some of the anxiety inducing aspects of purchasing a home, but also celebrating the wins and getting excited for them and helping them envision what this is gonna really look like in their life. And it’s easier for them to incubate a lead, when you have a partner, because I’m able to, you know, get their income information, go through the hard conversation of credit, and some things that people don’t usually want to go through more than once going through self employed documentation, things like that. And then I’m constantly bouncing them back to my realtor partner. Yeah, and making sure that we are in tandem and working together. And that, you know, honestly, they say that a client can meet as many as 17 Realtors throughout a transaction. They’re in and out of open houses all the time. But I’m going to try and have that one conversation, that one tough conversation, and then keep them for my partner, and make sure that I’m constantly redirecting them back to you, so that we can work together and build our partnership and our relationship as well. Transaction by transaction.

Ryan D’Aprile 12:05
So in you know, when I need a lead, and I work with my, my partner, my lending partner, I know that look, it’s going to take 1218 months, and what I have to do is I have to follow up that lead every two to four weeks, right? Two weeks, it might be four weeks. But I know there’s going to be that radio silent period, that radio silent period is where the loan officers intubated. Right. And then I have a partner to speak with, like, how they communicated? Has it been proof of light, right? Where we asked, how’s it going? Right? They’re not going to share any personal confidential information? Nope, the rich that were chatting. But right now you’re here for them? Because right now they’re applying logic to the process.

Erin Stojakovic 12:52
Sometimes they move on to, you know, a different they’re interested in a different town, and well, do I need to work with someone else, I tried to make sure that no matter where they’re spinning, that they’re always spinning back in the direction of my current. Yeah.

Ryan D’Aprile 13:05
And that’s, that’s what is it’s, I have spoken to the coach, obviously, hundreds 1000s of real estate agents. And you come across conversations, and a lot of agents say to a loan officer, when you give me a lead, and I’ll give you a lead, and I tell the agent, you’re looking at the wrong way. Because there you are the magnet, they’re going to come to you. But you just want to bouncing off to the incubator, it’s how do you work, right? One officer might have one referral to a year max, you’re not working, you’re not using that tool properly. It’s, it’s really, it’s a long term partnership. It’s a friendship.

Erin Stojakovic 13:49
And the benefit extends throughout the transaction. You know, when things you know, as sometimes you may or may not know, they can go sideways a little bit sometimes in real estate lending, maybe out and appraisal doesn’t come in where you want it. My first call is to my partner, and I make sure whatever I’m doing, I’m going to make them look like a hero and informed and knowledgeable and make sure that the client understands that this team has them taken care of. So we make a plan first we talk and we make sure that we are on the same page to protect our client and make sure that we’re looking out for their best interests in tandem.

D.J. Paris 14:27
One of the one of the questions I had I just wanted to go back to something you guys had both said and wanted to just as a tip for our our listeners and viewers which was about the loan officer Aaron, you showing up at open houses and being there to to greet the participants, the people that walk in the buyers, How helpful is that to you know, secure the business when there’s not only the realtor there but their loan officer partner? I suspect that’s something that most Realtors do not bring with them to an open house. US, and I just would love to hear your thoughts. 20 years in the business of how helpful that is, you know, to secure it back. Oh, you’re back. Everything sounds great. Now we’re perfect.

Ryan D’Aprile 15:11
All right. No worries.

Erin Stojakovic 15:13
So I think we’re talking about how a loan officer can help you through the transaction and work in tandem with you to the benefits of process open houses being an open houses. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I was answering, it helps secure the business. But also, it’s really good for the sellers to have extra eyes in the house. It’s more fun to to the realtor to have a partner there. You know, for socialization and for camaraderie, it makes for security, for sure. And honestly, when a client comes in, it makes conversation a little more fluid. It just makes it kind of improves the whole overall situation, I don’t go to every open house expecting that I’m going to get necessarily a contract that day, I go to support my realtor partner. That’s my, that’s my goal, I’m there to help keep the house secure, to help have a good time, and make sure everybody’s

Ryan D’Aprile 16:04
safe, you know, for the yellow or the real estate agent, you know, to keep in mind and go into these open houses. And it’s just one of many lead sources where I partner with my loan officer, the key to is are you going to buy it the correct way. And for a real estate agent, its reputation is day in and day out as follow up. And it’s a good 12 to 18 month follow up. Whether it means somebody to purchase web lead, if I meet somebody from from my network, or somebody is referred to my network, and I’m talking about buyers here, I almost said farm but that’s typically listening. So I didn’t say farm, I really like to partner them with them. And then you know, a lot of our coaching and training is about your growth in this business. And you know, a lot of people once they start experiencing success tend to self destruct. And it’s really good to surround yourself with like minded individuals that can help you not do that. And what I mean by self destruct Well, you know, real estate agents and loan officers make a lot of money. And and they do that if they’re doing the right activities in terms of lead generation, they make a lot of money, the money is earned, the money is well earned. And the reason the money is earned is because you’re such raw emotions. In a real estate transaction, your therapist, your therapist, and as a real estate agent, and even more so as a loan officer. There is no getting away from the turbulence of mortgage lending, or the real estate transaction. And so it is us in our number one priority, after a property is under contract, is to kind of keep our composure. And what I like our lenders to do is keep us involved in the transaction, and what’s going on. And as a real estate agent say our clients going to be helping attorneys gonna be yelling. I’ve been doing it for 20 years. So

a lot of hands in the pot. It’s a lot of hands in the pot, a lot of things and bad personalities,

a lot of personalities. But this is why we can pay the income that we get paid. And it’s it’s it’s composed ourselves, and not self destructing. And let back take us off of our daily routine because you live flow consistently, don’t you? Yeah, absolutely. And it’s a very important part of your business.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Staying in touch with all my clients and

referral partners, it’s very easy to say I don’t want another loan or a real estate transaction because the emotions are so raw and so vile. But, you know, if it walks like a duck, it sounds like a duck. Right? It’s made up. That’s mortgage lining. Yeah. And that’s real estate.

Yeah, but it’s really you know, when you have a team when you are working consistently with a realtor or and an attorney and a title company that all work in tandem, and know how each other works and knows the role, you can really lock arms and make it a lot less tumultuous and turbulent for the client. It takes a lot of the guessing games and the wandering of communication and who’s doing what nothing’s covered. Everyone’s got their role and their job and it can run like a well oiled machine.

D.J. Paris 19:06
Let’s talk I wouldn’t like to ask about emotional regulation in today’s market. So really helping the client and we’ll talk about buyers because I think that’s most relevant to what we’re discussing today. And how of course rates are very low at historic lows and so people can afford more money is cheap right now which which is great for buyers, but also we’re having an inventory shortage right so there’s there’s you know, properties go on the market and that are immediately sometimes sight unseen, you know, offers are pouring in. So buyers really have to have somebody whether it’s their loan officer or their realtor ideally both helping manage their emotions as they fall in love with the property get out bid maybe they get a cash offer that supersedes their their financing offer. What What should loan officers and realtors be doing to manage expectations and emotional you know, expectations? I have the buyer right now who may be going through multiple properties, getting out bid losing deals, you know, what are some strategies there to keep the client sane and happy during you know, it’s it’s turbulent right now it’s tough for buyers,

Ryan D’Aprile 20:14
it’s honestly, it’s I’ve seen some agents getting really creative on how they’re going to manage the emotions and help keep their buyers Lakhtin and spirits up. Because know, depending on the scenario, there’s a lot of, you know, multiple offer situations that might not go your way. They’re really going the extra mile to try and make the client stand out and advocate for their client. And also, I’m involved much more on the front end, I feel like at this point, I’m talking to a lot more listing agents, you know, upfront to make sure that they know how qualified my buyers are, and what’s going on with my, you know, rock solid client, and helping to try and bridge that gap and communication and make your clients stand out in a different way. Yeah,

and I’ll go over to two exercises that I’ve seen for buyers, that works out well. And the first one, I’ll circle back to the emotions. I’ve seen the practice and actually just put into practice myself on a property that we’re purchasing, multiple bid. situation, and I was the only one to write a personal letter to the buyer. Oh, really, the seller wrote a letter about why I wanted the home. And I was just thoughtful in it and put in and the listing agent. So that’s, that’s one of the reasons why I was selected as a winning offer. So that’s one thing, and it’s going to the emotions, because, you know, my home was part of my family. Sure. And so from selling it, it’s going to be, you know, a part of the equation. So that’s one thing. Another one is, and this is again, for all the professionals in our industry, lenders, agents, attorneys, is and this is a practice that is not, I believe, practiced enough is to under promise and over deliver. Yeah, everybody’s over promising. And at the end of the day, the deals going to get done, right. But we need to learn how to manage the expectations. And so I think transparency, like when I work with a buyer or seller, you know, I always use words. It’s gonna be fun. Yeah, this is what we do. You know, and we get under contracts, and Alright, it’s

gonna be hard.

But we’re going through it together. Yeah. You know, so I really think, you know, taking the model in like, this is a lifelong practice of self improvement. Like, I don’t have it figured out, do you got to figure it out? No.

Are you learning every transaction is different, every client is different, right? And,

you know, so the key to all of us is like I said, self destruct and, and curse off the industry in the business, it is what it is. But there is a payoff. For the price of US pain of the emotional therapists we deal with in the industry, there is definitely a payoff. But let’s continually improve on our skill set. And again, the one thing I try and tell everybody is during the transaction after a certain point when it’s under contract, start under promising and over delivering and over communicating. And then don’t be afraid of your client after the transaction. Everything goes smoothly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, you know, I have seen many grown adults, professionals, top titans of industries, act like children during a transaction, and 30 days later, give a referral because they stay in touch with them. Yeah, it’s one of the things that it’s it’s heartbreaking to see real estate agents and loan officers shut down after a transaction where the client yelled at them a handful of times. And quite honestly, the client is gonna yell at you regardless. Because the clients has a certain ability to handle the emotions and they might not be the best at it. You’re the target. It sucks. You’re making a great living from it, but quite honestly, they forgotten about it. Six days, they don’t feel the sting, and personal help personally when taking it when they’re being hurt and rude to you. But so many people self destruct and go into a ball. What are you doing? Ask them how it was two days later. How’s the house? How’s the kitchen? Can I come over and see it? Oh, I just saw I heard you said you’re gonna do this the kitchen. Did you do it? 30 days later? I’d love to come over and see it. And you know what? There’s a climb over? Yeah. It says we’re speaking with a loan officer. So we’re talking more on the buy side transaction. You know, folks, every buyer should refer you at least four transactions a year. And if they’re not, you’re not doing the proper fine Follow up, however I understand, because it’s so turbulence the transaction, especially now, yeah, where your buyer might write seven Office offers. And now you’re the scapegoat.

And they’re, you know, putting these offers on a silver platter, it’s they, I mean, they really can’t even believe some of these offers that aren’t getting necessarily accepted. And it can be heartbreaking

for the poor agent who has the first buyer that’s out and they want to write an offer in at 10% 9% of asking price. Oh, there’s three others, and I know they’re going over, but they’re not going to listen to you. Yeah. Okay, that’s a part of the transaction. Yeah, let them go. Let them lose the transaction, let them get upset with you. But it’s all education process. You’re the teacher, you got to be there through thick and thin. Yeah, you know it well. And

as the loan officer, it’s my job to help you with your emotions, right. So the loan officers, I mean, we’ve got some, you know, you’ve got seasoned agents who have done hundreds and 1000s of transactions, and you’ve got newer agents who are kind of just, you know, entering the business, and maybe, you know, working for the first time through this, the stress and the anxiety that some of this business can bring upon you. And you know, and I feel like my job is to be the, you know, the mortgage Mom, I’m the leader, I’m taking care of them and helping them and if, if they’re not sure the direction they’re supposed to go or anything like that, we really try to help manage their emotions and keep their stress and let them understand, you know, that this is normal. And you know, the business takes a thick skin, and you’ll get over it. And once you go through a few of the transactions like that, really, they get a better understanding.

I’m going to pivot off that for a second. Okay, DJ, yeah, sure. And I’m gonna talk to probably what should be 80% of our jobs as loan officers and agents, as I coach on this is continuing lead generation. I want to ask Aaron about this. Is it tell real estate agents and loan officers as a coach? Well, is it important to be a part of the community?

Absolutely, yeah, I would say that, you know, for me, it’s one of the benefits of the job, because it’s something I just kind of naturally enjoy, you know, leadership roles and being involved in, in coaching and that kind of stuff with kids and whatnot. I have three kids, I’m on the board for Parkridge baseball, and I’m always involved in the schools, and then my kids sports and things like that. And I don’t consider that part of the job. It’s, it’s for me, it’s a benefit, because I enjoy it so much. But it really is part of your network. And part of building your brand is taking an active role in community and, you know, contributing, really giving back to the people who you’re asking for business every day. Yeah.

And it real estate’s hyperlocal Yeah, it’s a hyperlocal. Industry now, Aaron’s a loan officer, and she lives in Florida, and Indiana, Wisconsin, and, and all over, but you know, you’re gonna have your nest egg of business, and it’s going to be local. And, you know, I mean, Ben actually started to coach real estate attorneys. And it’s very interesting that the practices and the philosophies are identical, it’s hyperlocal, your network is your net worth. And you need to be a part of the community, because people are buying community not buying a house, right, of course, you’re buying the house, right? To buy in the community, we’re going to walk the dog, we’re gonna get the coffee, where the kids gonna go to school, you know, what clubs, what boutiques, so on and so forth. And everybody is an ambassador in the real estate transaction, to their community, you can be a real estate attorney, you can be the lender, you can be the real estate agent, you’d be the home inspector. But we’re all ambassador in coaching attorneys, just little sidebar, journeys or school to learn how to fight, right? A transaction here. And as real estate agents and loan officers, we want the deals to go. So it’s interesting coaching, the attorneys could

see that 100% Definitely, so I got my workbook out from and the emotional intelligence side of the transaction there. What we

D.J. Paris 29:02
want to go back to the community idea, and really participating in being involved, whether it’s through volunteer efforts or, you know, other other means of being visible in your community and want to just just on the on the sort of volunteering side, I want to just really quickly talk about how important that is. And obviously, we would never encourage somebody to participate in volunteer efforts if that wasn’t something they actually were passionate about or excited to do. I think people can typically see through you know, shallow opera, you know, shallow sort of experiences, where people are, are participating in community events simply to be seen and to possibly further their own business. But when people aren’t doing it authentically, even if you know as anyone who is listening or watching right now, whenever we witnessed one of our friends, getting involved in an organization or a local community of you know, charity or nonprofit It’s very impressive to us, right? Despite the fact that that, you know, we all are trying to be more charitable and be more philanthropic, the reality is most of us probably feel we could do more. And so whenever we witnessed somebody doing that, it’s very impressive. And it’s something that is a is highly valued in our society. And so it’s a nice side benefit in helping all of your your community in different, you know, organizations, by actually just being seen as somebody who No, that’s not the reason to do it. But being seen as somebody who’s charitable is is a huge high value thing. And it probably can’t be overstated. It is something that that absolutely will help your bottom line over time, even though that’s not again, the reason to get involved.

Ryan D’Aprile 30:46
Yeah, I think we’re really beneficial. I don’t know if Brian knows how influential his strategic location of how he’s designed, the company would work out. But we’re really strong in a lot of luxury markets around Chicagoland, like Geneva, Hinsdale, some really beautiful areas, and effluent areas where you find the generosity of the community is off the charts. And we’re blessed to have a lot of those culture driven leaders, and on, you know, many women, such as myself, who are really interested in giving back to the community in ways that are really, really rewarding to those around them. There’s a strong contribution that can be made to these different areas. And I really feel like you see a lot of our agents and, and other people establishing their brand, but also doing it in such a, you know, philanthropic and altruistic way for the others around them. It’s really a lot of the strong leaders in those areas, I’ve just really touched my heart.

D.J. Paris 31:56
And that should should really be part of your, you know, maybe it’s not a daily discipline, but it should be part of every agent’s overall business plan. And again, not specifically doing it for business, but having organizations that are local that that you can participate in, will ultimately help visibility, you will just you will literally get more business as a result of it. So it’s a win win, because you get to feel good about yourself, because you’re participating and contributing, and other people are gonna see you do that and want to work with you.

Ryan D’Aprile 32:25
Yeah, yeah, it is an obligation that we have. And so, you know, when I say community, a community can mean many different things. And I really want our listeners to just dial into what I’m about to say here is, you could have geographical community, right. But you could also have a shared interest community, pediatric cancer, you could have a cultural community. I was born in Poland and grew up there to, you know, fifth grade or freshman year high school, and I’m here my family’s well and have a Polish community, right. So there’s so many different communities and in one of the things if we want to thrive in life, right, not just in our business, is what is your community, and you can have multiple communities, right? I have my geographical community, but another community is my child’s grade school, you know, K through seven, it’s curiosity. It’s driven by community for the next eight years K through 17 years. Private K through six, but you get, right. And I implore all the listeners here, just like Am I really involved in my community? Or communities shouldn’t be, right? Am I involved in my community of atomic 11 might involve my child’s community and are involved in a shared interest community. And that’s your business. That is what we do to create business. And then the rest is

right and naturally and organically. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m attracted to the doers, the people around me who are problem solvers or are making things happen creative. The people who who really are not afraid to stand out in a crowd when it comes to being idea centers or being thought leaders for the process of making the community better, or problem solving things or, you know, helping, and we’ve had a really interesting year, even with the kids being home, you know, and 2020, and COVID, and all these things. And it’s, I’m really attracted to people that are thought leaders that way and the doers and the givers. And so I imagine in business that’s reciprocal, you know, you’re still having that same kind of attraction to people who who are givers and doers and thought leaders. It’s that kind of leadership that helps. Really, yeah, brand your business and yeah, helps brand the business of those around you and gives

you a platform to create relationships, right you know, just gives you a platform to expand your network or deepening your relationships with people in your network, which again, is at the forefront of what we

do, you have met many of the leaders within our company at Charity events and net necessities that is being part of the board of pediatric cancer foundation, which is going

back almost 10 years. Right? And, and you know, and things happen in life comes up. And you know, it’s, you know, I got these three girls, we’ve got everything else. And we have the bear walk on on Lakeshore drive, like, oh, my gosh, I don’t have time for this, right? It’s so much more epic, we go as like, Oh my God, my daughter’s we love it, my friends, we walk, you know, it was an incredible event, it feels so good about yourself. And it’s like, I don’t know, it’s just you got to keep, you got to keep going, you got to keep moving forward. And it’s like getting up, you got to get your feet on the floor every morning and just push yourself. I’m going to circle back to the individuals coaching today and saying, hey, you know, this person that you met in house, have you friended him on Facebook. So Oh, my gosh, there’s so much out of my comfort zone. So you’re gonna have to learn to get out of your comfort zone. There’s nothing wrong with that you met a person, you guys had a great dialogue reach out to each other. She’s on Facebook, send her friend requests. Yeah, you know, it’s a part of it. It’s like, five in the morning, I’m exhausted. Yeah, one foot on the ground.

So being in the business, as long as I have I was, I mean, we were pre social media. So it’s interesting to me, when people have a comfort zone, when it comes to that kind of stuff. Because it’s such a gift, that the ability to connect with others, you know, over social media and digitally and getting to know people in a different way and see their lives. I mean, I feel like in my business is such a gift for me to help. Just develop and deepen the relationships of the people that I already care about. And I want to see, but it’s easy to lose track of in life and you know, not making it too much of a distraction. But we’re just I mean, it’s so nice to have these opportunities for building relationships and developing with others, you know, it’s such a, such an easier platform, I love it,

D.J. Paris 37:02
it doesn’t mean giving up your own personal privacy necessarily, right? Because that might be a lot of people thinking, Gosh, I don’t want to friend these prospects, or even maybe clients, because I want to keep my personal life separate. But you can still really keep a lot of your personal life separate, and still participate on social media. But maybe, as Ryan has said, on many episodes, in the past, maybe the best part of social media isn’t really the content you’re creating or putting out there, although that certainly can be can be very helpful. But it’s really the deepening of the relationships of the people that you follow and participating. So you know, the the person you were coaching says, Well, I don’t really want to friend that person that’s outside of my comfort zone. But the opportunity is, but you’ll now get to see all the cool stuff they’re doing in their life comment on it. And that gives you more, you know, a more intimate relationship over time, you’re participating in their life, whether they participate in your own posts, and everything is up to them. But you’re showing them that that you have taken the initiative to want to be a part of their of their social media life. And that typically, ultimately ends up in a deepened relationship.

Ryan D’Aprile 38:16
Yeah, well, I’m I’m from Michigan originally. So you know, I went to Michigan State and moved here after college. And what a blessing to have this. It ties in with my business because we’re licensed in Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Florida and Michigan. So I’m able to connect with people who would have no idea what I’m doing in life, and write loans for my friends from high school or, you know, their referrals that are moving to Chicago, you know, a lot of second homes in Florida, a lot of second homes in Lake Geneva, that luxury markets blooming. We have a lot of products right now that are jumbo loans that are beyond creative and exciting for some of those, you know, higher price points that we specialize in. So it’s just been a real blessing to be able to let my community and my network know, via social media, all those opportunities that we do have available. It’s exciting, it’s fun.

D.J. Paris 39:11
I would love to ask both of you just as as a way to sort of wrap this up with some daily disciplines that would benefit whether you know someone’s a loan officer, an agent, an attorney, just some and we’ve talked about some of them already, but any general I rather specific instructions about what you could do on a daily basis, like Ryan said, just getting that foot one foot on the ground saying here are the you know, this is

Ryan D’Aprile 39:39
his wheelhouse. You’ve got his number right now,

but you know, it’s it’s great that you know, Aaron here Aaron is one of the most selfless people I know. She’s also a mother and mother’s never put themselves first. And then a lot of the coaching that I do is like at some point, you must put yourself first. You know, we just came from Cabo. meals were taken off on, whenever we come home. But whatever. Sunday, I was watching the flight attendant saying, hey, when the mask falls, put it on your self before you put it on your child. And when it comes to our business, you know, if we don’t put our business in ourselves at some point in the day first, we’re never gonna be able to help our families are the ones we love, right, that we want to contribute to. So a really great daily practice DJ into your question is, is, what is your hour? Okay? And one of the biggest reasons most real estate agents and loan officers struggle is because of the business to get and what happens in the eighth or plat toe. All right, or burnout, one or the other, they plateau or fade out, and you don’t want that to happen. And so what in order to do this started with a satsang, that’s going to happen. Okay, one hour a day, where the distractions of the business that you have is set aside and your business development activities, one hour, one hour reaching out, and let’s talk about what a business development activity is, is sending a text message Facebook message, a handwritten note to your friends? How are you adding significance in their life? Do it for one hour a day and watch your business snowball and watch after three, four or 510 years, it actually gets easier to grow your business, especially if you still have that one hour of routine five days a week?

I would say that’s one of the biggest benefits of Ryan’s coaching is one he’s always reminding us that it’s just taking a couple of you don’t have to. Yeah, always, I always used to eat an elephant analogy, one bite at a time.

What’s the guy’s name?

D.J. Paris 41:56
Brian Tracy. Well, he Brian Tracy did Eat That Frog. But But yeah, yeah,

Ryan D’Aprile 42:02
I say punch it in the face. But okay. Yes, I’m tempted to just punch in the face. But anyway, we’ve got that benefit of him kind of, you know, being the voice in the back of our heads. It’s constantly pushing us in the right direction. And I said to him this morning, it’s really great being somewhere where the true north is always very evident. And what I mean by that is, I know, I don’t feel like when I’m doing my live flow. It is authentic. It is it is a task, right to sit down and to discipline. But it’s so rewarding, because that’s really the TrueNorth of who we are as professionals and salespeople and business leaders. And, you know, we’re in service, a service industry, in my opinion, and just really being able to sit down and think about those around me rather than thinking about myself for an hour and thinking about who can I reach out to who can I make feel good? Who can I have be seen today? Who needs to be heard? Who am I not talked to? It’s, it feels out? Even though it might sound selfish, it’s It feels very selfless, because I’m doing something that I really feel truly is my TrueNorth

you’re adding significance? Yeah, you give them attention again, love, we’re really lucky

to take an hour a day to sit back and be grateful for our friends.

And I just I just implore everybody who’s listening right now you oh my gosh, just do that one hour a day. I’m telling you, there’s more than a time,

but it’s rewarding. In other ways. It’s rewarding in your business. Yes, it’s a byproduct. But it’s so rewarding intrinsically.

D.J. Paris 43:37
If all all of our listeners did for the next 30 days, is you just spend an hour each day and find it. Or if you don’t have an hour, you have 30 minutes. So you don’t have 30 minutes, you have 15 minutes. But find as much time as you can block those out. Don’t allow anything to interrupt that time, however much time you can afford and use that time to deepen relationships as it as Ryan and Aaron said, it doesn’t have to be, Hey, are you going to buy a home next week or this year? Nobody wants that. Nobody wants those calls or messages. But you could, for example, stay in touch asked people how their families are doing comment on their social media posts, send them text messages, let them know you’re thinking about them, checking in with them, see if anything’s changed in their life where they might need a realtor. If you just do that on a regular basis, if you do that for an hour for 30 days, I would be shocked, I’d be absolutely shocked to you, you know your entire network, even if you only know 50 People, which would be like one person a day. But if you can do it too, however many people are in your sphere of influence. I would be shocked if you don’t get at least a couple of either transactions, or the startup transactions or referrals. I would be just completely shocked if that didn’t happen.

Ryan D’Aprile 44:48
Yeah. And you’ll be happy. You’ll feel good. That’s the that’s the thing. That’s the other byproduct. That’s amazing. Yes, yeah.

And to your point and we’ll end there deejays I’ve never seen anybody do that and not be successful. Never, never. I’ve seen people talk about wanting to do it, not do it, come in the business, join four or five different companies and exit the business. But I’ve never seen anybody put in practice and not have success. Never. Yep, I

D.J. Paris 45:17
know Brian Buffini who a lot of our listeners know, he has kits where He sends out these monthly mailers. And they’re not really personalized. They’re sort of a mass produced thing. But it’s a it’s better than nothing. And all he tells you to do is stuffing envelopes, shoot it in the mail. And you’d almost think, well, that’s not very personalized. And it isn’t. But yet it does work. So if you can go that extra step beyond that, and actually connect with somebody’s, you know, with just their life, here’s, you know, and with social media, as Erin said, we’re so blessed to have the opportunity to peek in in an ethical way to somebody’s life and participate and say, Wow, that looks really cool that you were just on vacation in Cabo. Tell me about that. You know, was it fun? You know, we all love to make connections. That’s That’s how we’re wired. And, and so yeah, so for everyone listening, do that for the next 30 days. Let me know if you don’t get any additional leads or business, but you won’t let me know that. Because if you will,

Ryan D’Aprile 46:13
yeah, and honestly, if you think about it, if you think it’s hard to send a friend request or a Facebook Messenger, imagine 20 years ago, and we didn’t have to do when we didn’t have that we’d have to pick up the phone and actually, you know, call someone and talk. I think my husband is the only person who’s still calls all of his friends on his way to work every day. And they’re always like, he’s like the only person I know who calls me just to talk, but that’s just who he is. And he you know, it’s building relationships. But nobody,

D.J. Paris 46:42
I think that’s a really a perfect place to wrap up. And, and Aaron, we should also say, you know, if anyone out there is looking for a loan officer to work with, and, you know, is hasn’t, you know, is maybe they’re doing like Ryan said, where they’re seeing the properties First, there’s they’re searching Zillow, and they’re seeing all these great opportunities, but they don’t really know what they can afford. Or maybe they’ve, and I know when, when I bought a home, not that long ago, I couldn’t believe how I reached out to three different loan officers, which I only knew one personally, and I went just to like websites for the other two. And I was shocked that that only one of the three loan officers really followed up with me beyond like one initial phone call or email. And then they just I just dropped off, you know, whatever system they’re using to stay in touch. And the person I ended up using happen to be the one that stayed in touch with me. So which I’m sure is no surprise errand to you or to any of our listeners. But it’s really important to partner with with a loan officer who actually can take great care of you. So if there’s anyone out there, whether they’re an agent, wanting to partner with you, or or a buyer, specifically, who’s looking to speak with you, what’s the best way they should reach out?

Ryan D’Aprile 47:53
You know, I’m on Facebook, I’m on Instagram. It’s Aaron Stojakovic. It’s definitely a mouthful. And my cell phone is 773-220-9094 I’m I’m you know, always available via text setup.

Are you on Instagram mortgage? Mom?

I am. I’m Aaron. Aaron stage mortgage mom.

Yeah, you’ll find her Google to all the real estate agents out there.

A lot of Tuesday Tips videos, she’s a great partner to have. So if you’re looking for somebody looking for a friend in industry, look for accountability partner. Yeah, he’s a great way to go. I appreciate that.

D.J. Paris 48:26
And they always say if you want something done, right, give it to a busy mom. Right. So

Ryan D’Aprile 48:30
I say that all the time. I think I’m gonna get that into a t shirt.

D.J. Paris 48:35
Busy mom’s never dropped the ball. I don’t know how that’s possible. I dropped the ball all day long. But But yeah, busy moms get it done. Couldn’t agree more. All right. Well, we want to thank Ryan and Aaron for coming on the show again today, as they do ours Ryan does every month and he brings on some members of his team which is always welcomed and fun. For everyone who is listening and watching. please tell a friend about our show. Just think of one other real estate agent or a loan officer or an attorney that might benefit from hearing from top producers like Aaron and coaching sessions with Ryan and send them a link to our podcast. The best way to do it, shoot him right over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is streamable right there or have them pull up a podcast app. Look, search for keeping it real podcast and hit the subscribe button. Guys, thank you so much for being on the show and we will see you next time. Thanks. It’s a pleasure.

In our April episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @Properties discusses what’s it like to be a buyer in this market. Carrie goes on to describe that there isn’t a huge difference any longer between the demand for properties in urban versus suburban areas. Carrie also gives tips for agents who are working with buyers on how to educate their clients on what to expect from this market. Last, DJ provides his quick marketing tips of the week.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Carrie can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 312.961.4612.

Please follow Carrie on Instagram by clicking here.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount and now on with the show.

Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made for real estate agents and by real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show today on the show we have our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from at properties she is the head of the Carrie McCormick Real Estate Group. She is a top 1% performer in the Chicagoland area with over 20 years of experience helping buyers sellers and investors. In fact, in the past 12 months out of 44,000 real estate agents in the Chicagoland area. Carrie is usually in the top 15 not 15% the top 15 individuals so she is in the top 1/10 of 1%. She’s a true superstar and an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors, and luxury properties. She also works with a lot of developers and is often chosen to represent their high end developments, please visit Carrie at her website, which is Carrie McCormick R e.com and Carrie McCormack r e.com. And please follow her on Instagram, which is Carrie McCormick real estate. So at Carey McCormick real estate Carrie, welcome once again to the show.

Carrie McCormick 1:55
Thank you as always love that introduction and appreciate everything that you do for our industry. So thanks.

D.J. Paris 2:01
Well, thanks, you are part of the thanks because you provide a lot of value to our listeners and audience as well. We were Carrie and I were talking before the show started. And she was saying How’s business because, you know, we have gosh, I think 730 Realtors at our firm care firm Carrie works out I think they have 3000. So we both are larger firms. And she was saying how’s it going like, oh my gosh, it’s so crazy. We’ve never been busier. And Kerry specifically was has never been busier. And so we were talking about buyers and how buyers have it sort of it’s like the best time and also a really difficult time. Because there’s so much competition with interest rates being so low people can just afford things that they couldn’t afford before.

Carrie McCormick 2:40
Yeah, it’s really kind of a little bit of a battleground out there. And that’s really what I wanted to talk about today is, you know, being a seller in this market right now is easy. But buyers on the other hand, you know, that’s a totally different story right now. So that’s what I want to talk about. So let’s talk about the buyers. So everyone that’s listening, the housing demand is going to continue to surge due to several factors here. One thing that people don’t think about is the millennials, they have aged into the prime home buying years, and now they are the fastest growing segment in the real estate market. These young consumers are mostly buying their first homes at this point. And here’s a really fun fact. So I read this on Bloomberg, not only are millennials buying homes, but their starter homes. So think about like your starter home. They are now multimillion dollar homes. They’re not starting out with like a $300,000 home. Their first home out of the gate is a multi million dollar home rather than, you know their traditional first property. And Millennials are expected to continue to drive this market through 2021. And with all the homebuyers, not just millenniums, but all the homebuyers active supply is lacking. As we know the current pace of home growth seems unlikely to change in the near term. So being a home buyer in this market, you’re obviously facing a ton of competition. And you have to act very quickly. So the main reason behind such an extreme pace of home sales and appreciation is really just the basics of economics, the seesaw effect of supply and demand. So we’ve got a ton of demand and no supply. And this is not just in Chicago, this is really across the country, and the country needs more homes to meet this demand. The pandemic of course, you know, coupled with with this whole supply and demand issue, it’s really also hindered the home builders so think about, you know the cost of building a home and the cost of construction. That is soared and we don’t have enough land to build on so the home builders are also a little strapped of trying to keep up with this competition. Jen. So we’re kind of in this, you know, like I said, the seesaw effect of supply and demand. Mortgage rates, as everyone knows both inventory of homes and mortgage rates are at their historic lows. The month’s supply of existing home sales has fallen to 1.9 months. It’s the lowest lowest level since 1999.

D.J. Paris 5:22
Wow. It’s interesting to like, I know, you mentioned, developers, that’s something I kind of wasn’t thinking about. But I know lumber prices are so high right now that almost almost two times as much of what they know, or like 40% Higher, and developers are going to have to pass that over to consumers. I guess the good news is, with money being a lot cheaper to borrow, it’s it’s but still there’s increased competition. So everyone’s paying a premium right now.

Carrie McCormick 5:50
Yep. Absolutely.

D.J. Paris 5:54
And now, do you think there’s going to be a slow down anytime soon?

Carrie McCormick 5:59
So my answer is two fold. Yes. And no, would be like that answer. So I don’t think that there’s going to be a slowdown in the market. But if there is, it’s only because we don’t have enough inventory, to keep up the pace. So think about like the North Shore, for example. There’s, you know, I don’t know, 22 homes on the market right now, once those homes gets get sold, there’s not enough inventory for buyers to purchase. So by default, they you know, the pace is going to go slower. So we may see numbers trickled down a little bit. But it’s not because of demand. It’s truly because of supply.

D.J. Paris 6:43
Yeah, that’s, that’s, you know, that’s interesting. And we’re seeing I know, also a lot of flight, at least here in Chicago, and probably probably across the country, in the more urban areas, you know, people moving from urban to suburban, is that a myth? Is that actually happening? I know that that’s what we hear about happening. But it’s a bit as up in your experience,

Carrie McCormick 7:06
to some degree, but you know, honestly, the city is doing really well. And we’re seeing a lot of movement there too. So with obviously the rise of remote work, or remote work, that people are able to work from anywhere, right. So we’ve seen that big now suburban, boom. And one thing that, you know, people just keep talking about, like you said is, you know, everyone moving out of the city to the suburban areas, and again, there is some truth to it. But there’s also some truth to people wanting to stay in the city and just have a bigger home or have a yard. And actually Zillow, because I do a lot of research and a lot of reading, as you probably can tell, but Zillow did publish some market data. And then it showed that there’s not a huge difference between the suburban growth and the city growth. They’re both kind of growing at the same pace. And they’re seeing record sales in both urban and suburban markets. You know, in the city, there are some segments, I would say the city is broken up to Chicago is broken up into different market, it’s a market within a market, if you will, you know, some neighborhoods are outperforming others, some type of product is outperforming others, some price points are outperforming others. So if you look at as a whole, it may not seem like it’s moving that quickly. But if you take let’s just say, single families in Roscoe village, you know, they’re skyrocketing. If you take condo buildings in Streeterville, well, maybe they’re flatlining. But you know, each neighborhood is performing at a different pace. But all in all, both suburban and urban markets are doing very well.

D.J. Paris 8:47
Yeah, it’s interesting. I just saw a statistic today from I believe Chicago agent magazine, I just want to credit them. And I think it I think it was them. And it was something to the effect of the median home price in Chicago now is just under 300,000, where it was traditionally around 275,000 or so. And it’s risen significantly in the last year because of I’m guessing, decreased inventory, increase of buyers flooding the market. Obviously, the pandemic, maybe getting a lot of people who are now working more from home thinking we need to expand or get a bigger place. But boy, everything is just and just increased competition from buyers. It is everything’s going up and up and up. So great time if you are looking to sell but definitely challenging for buyers at this point. What what are some of the tips you have for agents who are working with buyers, that you know, just how to maybe even prep the buyer in advance to here’s what’s going on.

Carrie McCormick 9:48
You will definitely have your financing in line. You know, that’s a total given. Unfortunately, and fortunately, there’s a lot of cash in the market right now. So it’s hard to beat a cat offer, what some buyers have to do or strategically have to think about is waiving their appraisal contingency. I know no one likes to do that. Attorneys and both lenders, you know, kind of frown upon that, but it’s also up to the buyer of you know, how, how they feel about it. So it’s really your financing has to be in line, you have to put together a very strong, compelling, clean offer to the sellers. And you know, it’s a lot of talking up front, you know, when you see the house, what’s important to the seller, so make sure you find out what’s important to that seller, and you give them exactly what you are, what exactly what they want. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 10:45
and I would imagine to, is just making sure that buyers know that there’s a speed to lead kind of situation here where it’s or speed to close, I guess, or speed to offer, where once it goes on the market, that clock is ticking, and it’s ticking very fast. And I would imagine, you’re probably telling your buyers, you know, if you like this place, we need to put an offer on pretty quickly,

Carrie McCormick 11:09
right? Absolutely, you have to see it that day, you have to make an offer quickly. So it’s, it’s a race to the finish line. And that’s why it’s important for any buyers that are listening, is you have to work with an experienced agent, I you know, recommend someone who’s got a very good network around them and a good support team, so you can get across that finish line.

D.J. Paris 11:33
And it is called a cooperative commission when the realtor is of course working together. And, and that’s where it’s really important to have have good relationships with other with other brokers, because right now when when your offer comes in, if they recognize the name, and they’ve done transactions with you in the past, they probably you know, have certain feeling about you know, working with you and whether they you know, it was smooth in the past also, you know, the LEND if they’re working with a lender, seeing what lending institution it is, oh, hey, that’s a really well reputable company, they’re going to be able to get this pushed through versus, you know, so it’s probably tougher if you’re a newer agent right now, because you might not have a lot of those relationships in play. But it’s a really good time to start developing those relationships. So that you know, you’re

Carrie McCormick 12:17
right, it’s about the offer package, I tell people, it’s who your broker is, who your lender is, who your inspector, if you’re doing an inspector who your attorney is, I mean, a seller’s gonna look at that as a complete team that’s buying the home, not just the buyer. So it’s a full package that we have to give. One thing that I don’t understand is why brokers argue with each other. Like when if I’m a seller, and there’s a buyer’s broker, that’s going to be I don’t know, troublesome, I guess at the beginning of you know, getting their offer in and how they want to present it and start causing problems at the beginning. It’s just not a great way to approach an offer.

D.J. Paris 13:04
Yeah, it is called cooperative. So it’s a good thing to remember, for all the agents out there that everyone’s a little stressed right now, agents are stressed, sellers are stressed because they’re getting so many seller agents are stressed, because getting so many offers, they’re having to figure that out and deal with all of the buyer brokers who of course, are going worth what’s going on with my offer. So everyone, if we could all just could breathe a little bit and treat each other with compassion and kindness is probably going to go a long way to once once things settle down, people won’t have lingering bad feelings about working, you know, with you in the past and, and I know that you you’ve even told me, you know, Hey, you said you’d be shocked at how some agents even talk to you. Who and you are very well respected and liked in this in this industry. But it’s tough right now. I mean, agents are dealing with a lot of abuse from other agents sometimes.

Carrie McCormick 13:54
Yeah, and you’re right, I mean, I understand it’s a stressful time for everybody and tensions are high and we’re all a type personalities, I totally get it and you know, there’s some times we just got to take a step back, take a deep breath and we’re all in this together and just treat everyone respectfully and be nice.

D.J. Paris 14:14
And for my quick Marketing Tip of the Week, this is such a simple idea but it is just a gentle reminder for everyone out there who is who has clients who are leasing this is a good time to have the conversation. And And again, we understand that that prices are you know, things are expensive right now but still may be a great time for somebody who’s renting to make that transition into homeownership because of rates being where they’re at and you know, just a great time to have that conversation. You might be able to actually save them money on their you know, their monthly rent. Yeah, by getting them you know, to convert over to homeownership. So, anyone you know, this is the time where they’re probably going to start thinking about it because it’s so in the news, eat rates are still talked about all Time The public is seeing that. And if you’re not having that conversation with renters, you know, you know, they’re going to have that conversation with somebody. So might as well be you. So simple tip, but just a good reminder. It’s kind of like telling somebody, oh, I want to work out, we’ll do some push ups. It’s like, well, I already know I’m supposed to do that. But it’s good reminder. So do your push ups, talk to the people that aren’t yet homeowners, and talk to them and ask them what their plans are. Say, Hey, do you plan on buying in the next year or two, because we could start looking at that now. And let’s, let’s run some numbers and show it to you. Because they’re either going to do it through you, or another realtor, or they’re gonna go directly to a lender. And that’s fine, too. But it should really start from you, you should be the hub of everything, real estate. So reach out to your to your renters, and let them know that just to have that conversation. If you’re not busy right now, it’s a great opportunity to get busy. But other than that, I think that’s a good place to wrap up for this episode. Carrie once again, given us tremendous insight into the Chicagoland market, but also just what her experience is as a top producer. And hopefully this is this has been helpful to our agents Carrie has been coming on for years and providing great insight. She’s very well liked by our listeners and followers. So thank you, Carrie, once again, for taking time out of your busy day. This I imagine this year might even be another record year for you. I suspect it probably will be. So I know you’re super busy.

Carrie McCormick 16:22
Yes, I am. Well, we appreciate

D.J. Paris 16:25
you taking time to do that. And for everyone who is listening or watching please check out Kerry’s website, you can go to Carrie McCormick, r e.com. But more importantly, follow her on Instagram. She is amazing on Instagram and a great example of what a realtor can do. She does it all herself as well. So that’s Carrie McCormack real estate. So that’s on Instagram. And just you can just find her by searching for Carrie McCormick as well on Facebook and all the different social platforms. And Carrie, you might also if any of our audience has a question for you. Should they email you just

Carrie McCormick 17:01
call me I always pick up my phone. So call me at 312-961-4612 or you can email me at Kerry. It’s ca RR ie [email protected]. But I’d love to help anyone out just chat with anyone. I’m always here for you.

D.J. Paris 17:21
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Once again, on behalf of our audience, we want to thank Carrie for spending time today. We had to reschedule this like three times because this is how busy Carrie is. So we’re so grateful we finally got her and trust me we get it. We know how hard it is as busy as agents are. So thank you. Thank you. And also on behalf of carried myself we thank the audience we think our listeners and viewers for continuing to support our show and we just asked you to do one thing, tell a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing great these episodes with people like the great Carrie McCormack and send them a link to our episode to our show. You can do that. Send them right to our website, keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real. They’ll will pop right up have them hit the subscribe button, and then they’ll get all of our episodes. So thanks Carrie once again. We will see you next week. Next week. Next week next month. See you next month.

Welcome to the April episode of Learn With A Lender with Joel Schaub of Guaranteed Rate!

In this episode, Joel talks about choosing a closing day that is other than Friday and how agents and clients will benefit from this practice. He also speaks about likeability, and why this is one of the most important qualities to develop. Joel gives advice on how to educate your clients on the timing of transitioning from renting to buying. Last, Joel provides a rate update.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Joel can be reached at [email protected] and 773.654.2049.

D.J. Paris 0:00
On this episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Joel Schaub at guaranteed rate. As a realtor it’s important to partner with only the most trusted name in mortgage lending. Joel has 1000s of satisfied clients and gives $1,500 of his commission back to your buyers on every closing. He is known for his ability to close even complex deals start to finish in only 14 days to learn what 1000s of others already know. Make a note to call Joel at 773-654-2049 or email [email protected] Guaranteed Rate is an equal housing lender licensed in all 50 States Consumer Access Number 2611 And now on with the Show

All right. 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 am your guide and host through the show today once again is our monthly series called Learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now Joel is the vice president of lending guaranteed rate he has been doing loans at a high level since 2003. And it’s gotten to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is he gives back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction. Last year alone, Joel gave back over $291,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him and his team and that puts Joe’s volume at in the top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. Now this is out of 400,000 loan officers, Joel is ranked number 137. Last year, he closed 535 transactions, his highest amount ever for $195 million. Now already this year, which is even more incredible. Joel has already closed 198 transactions, we are still just out a quarter one for $77 million. So he is on pace to even best his last year. If you’re looking for a loan officer, we cannot highly recommend more highly recommend Joel he’s the very best we’ve ever worked with. He was my loan officer I just closed a few months ago. And I can tell you from firsthand experience, he’s that good. And if you are do not have a great relationship with a loan officer or just want to see what other loan officers offer. Joel is the guy that you should be talking to and his team is amazing. You can reach him at [email protected]. That’s j o [email protected]. Or shoot him a text message at 773-654-2049. Let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel Schaub

Joel Schaub 2:51
AVj thanks so much for having me on. And those numbers are great. And that’s cool that you always mentioned that you’re way too kind to me. But this is the time we’d like to give back. So I really liked the time that we spend each month to help agents take it to that next level. And you’re always busy no matter what you’re doing. But our hopes is that you get something from each and every time you tune in. And you can take it to that next level and close the type of transactions that we are.

D.J. Paris 3:20
Great. So what do we want to talk about this time?

Joel Schaub 3:24
Agents always look at the closing calendar, we’re writing a contract, right? And they look at an actual calendar and they pick a closing date typically like a Friday at the end of the month. Right? Why do we do that? As agents? Why? Because borrowers want to close and buyers want to close on a Friday and get in before the weekend. All right. I want people to start moving away from that. And I want to remind agents out there that there are days in the week that aren’t a Friday. There are Tuesdays there’s Wednesdays or Thursdays. And all joking aside my agents that I work with and even the ones that I don’t that I’ve seen really take it to the next level. actively choose closing dates other than Friday. I want to know why

D.J. Paris 4:07
I would because I have a guess why? I’m assuming because since that is probably the most selected closing date. It just taxes the resources of lending teams and it just makes it probably more difficult and more stressful to kind of cram it all in is that that’s my guess.

Joel Schaub 4:25
God, you’re good. You’re so good. Okay. That’s one thing, right? That’s absolutely right. But it’s harder and more work to close on a Friday. Okay, so let’s just think about it. Even if you are a great agent, and you’ve partnered with a good lender and everything goes fine, and they’re closing on Friday. Everybody else is also closing on Friday. So it’s not the lender. It’s the title companies that are really an escrow that are backed up, right. So processing that if they can do it on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. They’re done and they have a good experience so that they can refer you more transact auctions.

D.J. Paris 5:01
Well, I am I am a silent partner in a title company and I can absolutely I should have that should have been my first answer to why Friday’s aren’t great, because I should know that because I’m sort of involved in that. And he Joel is absolutely right. It’s it’s oftentimes the title company. And I know that when I was closing my condo, just just recently, with Joe’s team, the only hiccups we had had nothing to do with Joel’s team at all, it was all on the title side. And it and it just happens and Joel’s team was perfect, they were great. But because we were closing on, towards the end of the day, on on, I don’t remember what day it was. But boy, the waiting room and that title company was jammed with people. And I wish I would have chosen a different day. So I completely agree with that.

Joel Schaub 5:47
escrow officers and title companies have a lot of work. So for example, as we’re recording this, it’s a Wednesday and I have two clients closing today. I have two clients closing tomorrow, but I have 11 clients closing on Friday. Oh my gosh. And so if that’s just one story, multiply that over the number of agents. And so here’s what we want, okay, we want the buyers, and you want your clients to have great experiences, not just to get through the transaction with you, but get through. And that’s the last part that they remember the signing of the docs and getting the keys. And if they have a really great experience there, you’re going to get more referrals, and how did I do $77 million of closings already. And just over three and a half months. It’s because we’re strategically educating agents on how to do more business and get not just close transactions, but raving fans from the people that close so that you don’t have to go out and pay for more advertising, the best advertising or the people that you really care about that closed and closed on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

D.J. Paris 6:53
You know, that’s a tip that I think we’ve never given on the show, or that I’ve heard ever, in all my years in this industry. So that’s a really great tip. So, you know, work with your loan officer, talk to the title company, and maybe even ask them as the agent, hey, what’s the day that works the best for for both your teams, the loan, you know, the loan team, and then also the title team and find out and it’s probably a struggle said probably not a Friday. So you can then bring that to your client and say, Hey, I know you want to close on Friday, but I’m going to give you a couple of reasons why we should do that earlier in the week, and we just have a better chance of it going more smoothly. And that brings your right that just brings a better experience to the customer. It also shows that you care and that you’re knowledgeable and you’re not just sitting there with the attorney. You know, your clients aren’t sitting there with the attorney and that at the title company going, what’s happening is something something’s going wrong. And, and we all know what that’s like, as an agent to sit there feeling helpless. And, you know, you could have just scheduled it for a different day and everyone would have been happy. Now I know you also wanted to talk about what happens if somebody is moving, transitioning from renting to buying and trying to figure out the balance of when do I stop renting? And when do I When Should I close? When should I move with my new purchase?

Joel Schaub 8:10
So as agents, you’re exactly right, DJ, the conversation comes up a lot. So I want to educate and just re emphasize some of the big selling points that you can do to educate your borrowers about when is the first payment due on the mortgage side of things, because even experienced agents sometimes forget this, right? So we’re in April right now. And if we close today, the payment doesn’t come due in May, it won’t come due until June. All right. So it’s always that next month. And so we can schedule around the clients last rent payment, and the first mortgage payment so that there’s not a doubling up where I have to pay rent and the first mortgage, and then I’ll alleviate the anxiety of the buyer, and they’ll be more likely to move forward if you can educate them on the timing of this.

D.J. Paris 9:00
Yeah, it’s a good thing to remember, right now with gosh, so many buyers, because rates are so low, that there’s just so a flood of buyers into the marketplace and people who are renting. And really it’s a great opportunity for agents, all of our listeners and viewers to talk to everyone who is renting and say, Hey, rates aren’t going to be here forever. And let’s run some numbers. And they say, Well, my lease is still up in two months, say hey, that might not be a problem. Let’s take a look here and remember, you’re getting a little bit of a window there before you have to start paying so great opportunity to have those conversations with renters and, and understand the flexibility of of, you know, moving from from renting to buying and I know with my place I left with a few months left on my lease. I worked out an arrangement with my owner, but I still owed him for one month and that that was negated out by the fact that I had four weeks you know, without a payment on my mortgage and it worked out perfect. So I’m a perfect example of that.

Joel Schaub 9:56
Here’s a good tip if I’m an agent and I’m working with One of my good mortgage professionals reach out to them because we all know that mortgage payments are typically due on the first. But a lot of companies like ours will allow the client to pick any date that they want for the automatic payments all the way up to the 15th of the month. Which means for example, if a client was closing next week, and they closed, in the very beginning of a month, let’s take may 3, for example. They could literally not have the mortgage payment due not in June, but July and as late as July 15. DJ that means 72 days in between the closing date, and that first payment due date. And if they select the 15th with their lender, that means every month that’ll be the due date to correspond with probably a payroll, right? It’s a really great way to do things.

D.J. Paris 10:51
Boy, that’s so smart. And that’s really where as agents, you know, you don’t have to know all of this, but what you do need is a good loan officer relationship. So you can talk to them and say, here are the concerns that my clients having, can we figure out a solution. And you know, obviously, there’s good lenders and good institutions that the lenders work for, are able to accommodate some of those, and maybe some of the smaller lenders, who are maybe you know, not as fully featured, maybe wouldn’t be able to do so that and also just getting things to close, making sure you’re working with a lender that can get things to close. As quickly as possible. I know you have an incredibly low number of days, you know, average site cycle from from start to close.

Joel Schaub 11:36
Yeah, on the purchase side of things, DJ right now, when a contract comes in, my goal is to have a fully completed file in under 10 days, that includes appraisal, or an appraisal waiver all the way through underwriting and what we call the CLEAR to close. Some of them take 12 to 13 days, some of them are a little bit longer. I had one today that was six days from start to finish. And so it’s one of those things where it allows you as an agent, when you’re partnering with a good lender in your community to actually be the leader and go get offers accepted that other agents are because you can give very good terms we can close in 21 days, we can close in 14 or 15 days, when there’s multiple offers in this market, having a lender that will actually just expedite the loans for you could be invaluable. So that you’re not just always having to come in at the highest and best, it could be the best without being the highest.

D.J. Paris 12:32
Well, yeah, that absolutely makes sense. And this should also be a good reminder to everyone who is working with buyers to only only take out buyers especially right now in the current low interest rate environment. And the competitive environment that buyers are facing, we all know how difficult it is to get up just to get contracts because there’s so many buyers have a pre approval every single time. If you’re submitting offers without a pre approval listing agents are going to, you know, maybe deprioritize those to you know, other other offers that have those pre approval letters because they know that that’s serious. And it’s got a you know, big financial institution already banking on that person.

Joel Schaub 13:13
As an agent right now, I’m absolutely calling the lender and having them update the pre approval DJ to make sure that the lender has today’s date, that property address and the exact dollar amount that we’re offering so that the offer stands out. Agents, you guys know it, you’re getting 12 and 15 offers, half of them are sloppy at best, some of them are good, but you’re looking for that outlier, who’s going to be the easiest to get done. And so the first one is cash, right? A cash buyer, even if it’s a few grand less is going to be a lot better than having to deal with us mortgage jerks. Okay? If you can do cash, that’s going to be key. The next one would be the number one financing, right. So it’s not just the highest offer, we’re really encouraging agents to reach out to the lender that’s on the letter, and you’ll know within a few seconds of talking to them is the financing solid. And that’s how you should be selecting the offers for your seller is who’s doing the financing because that highest offer DJ isn’t the best. If they’re 55 grand above listing, and there’s kind of a shaky institution ordering the appraisal and the financing, you as an agent are gonna be putting their property back on the market again. So you want to make sure that you’re doing the right service to your seller, and picking the buyer that has the strong financing terms and you know who they are. Right You know, the people in your community that really get the financing done every single time that answer the phone, and that actually know what client you’re talking about when you answer instead of the WHO The what now which buyer. You know what that is an agency that all the time, right?

D.J. Paris 14:54
Yeah, I was also I wanted to sort of, we didn’t I didn’t mention this ahead of time, so I’m gonna throw this So this very simple thing that you because I found it very interesting and just, you triggered a memory, that we also have to remember too, that with social media in particular, our clients are seeing all sorts of information that has been thrust upon them on Instagram. Now Tiktok, Facebook, of course, and all the other social platforms. And sometimes their information will be like, here’s a little hack for how to hack your mortgage. And I’m not talking about House hacking, where you buy a multifamily property and live in one of the units and rent out units. That’s an amazing opportunity. But right as I was about to close for my property, my girlfriend said, there’s this viral video on tech talk about how to hack your mortgage. And she sent it to me and I said, I’m curious, what is it? And so it was a guy saying, here’s, here’s what you do, you basically pay as the little amount, you put down as little as possible. And then in your second month, you flood the payments you do, you know, without, you know, find a place without prepayment penalties, and you put, you know, a ton of money in there, and then that saves you 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of dollars. And I looked at that I go Yeah, that’s not how things work. There’s, there’s no way lenders are going to allow you to do what this guy was saying. And he was like, You’re gonna save, you know, $50,000 over time. And so I What’s What was funny about it is it looked really great. It was shiny and cool, and, and exciting. And then I realized, oh, but that’s not how things work. And I realized there’s a lot of consumers out there that are just getting some bad information from social media. And that’s where it’s really important to have that good lender relationship. So if your client calls you and says, I just learned about the secret trick that you can use to to reduce your overall payments. You know, by $100,000, you’re like, well, that doesn’t really sound right. Let’s talk to our our lender. But I was funny, I meant to mention that to you. Because I saw that I went, Hey, that sounds great. And I thought about it for a minute. I’m like, There’s no way lenders let you do that. Now you can prepay things, but the way that it was sort of suggested to do was just not the way that that loans were.

Joel Schaub 16:59
There reminds me of the guys that really have the secret tricks to roulette or a secret blackjack trick. Yeah, if this gentleman knew how to make so much money at a casino, then why are they sharing it with you. And maybe the information on that mortgage part was right in a degree in which if you make a $50,000, free payment, I’m sure the total interest goes down. But I don’t subscribe to like tricks we want tried and true information each and every single time so that you can educate the borrowers and just be honest, there’s no magic in anything. It’s just what works and what doesn’t. And going forward from a sense of education. And that there’s not just like the next big thing, there’s not mortgages have been around, there’s a couple of flavors 15 year, 20 year and 30 year, there are adjustable rate mortgages as well. But there’s no major secret. It’s about having a good credit score, good income, and then having somebody that’s in your corner, helping you and not just walking into the bank, because you have money at the bank, the bank will do a good job, of course, but the person there works for the bank, right? So hiring a private mortgage professional, they’ll go out and shop all the different rates for you and the different terms and bring those back. That’s the reason why I’ve been at the same company for 16 years because of the educational piece. I’m not beholden to my company’s rates or programs, I can go out and educate and even if it’s not the Guaranteed Rate program, sometimes we do take loans to the big national banks, and that is great for the consumer.

D.J. Paris 18:33
Yeah, I agree. It’s the same reason why if you’re looking, if you’re looking for health insurance, for example, you might not only want to talk to a Blue Cross representative, which is great blue cross here, at least in in Illinois is an amazing major medical health care provider. It’s what I have. But I want to talk to an agent that can represent, you know, lots of different options to say, here’s the best plan for you. Obviously, you do that at guaranteed rate where you’re able to shop around and and find the best product for the borrower. Let’s talk about rates real quickly before before we end up on because I know rates have ticked down a little bit. So is this doubt still an amazing time to get your your buyers on board? Yeah,

Joel Schaub 19:10
most mortgage rates when we talk rates are 30 year fixed. And as agents you know, you saw them come up over 3%. And that scared a lot of buyers. And we all know if you’ve been in the industry anytime these are still low threes for 30. year fixed was a godsend that we haven’t had any time in the last 50 years, right. Some people got spoiled last year when it was really through the throws of COVID. And we didn’t know where things were going to go that the rates got down to two, five and to six and to seven. There’s not a major difference DJ between something and just below three and just above three, unless you’re borrowing 1,000,005 and 1,000,006. The big thing here is figuring out your total payment, talking about the property taxes, insurance and if you’re buying in a building that has assessments, those are the needles that really move Have your payment a lot more than an eighth or a quarter point and rate. And if you can teach your borrowers that as an agent, as a realtor, you’re going to get more business because it’s not so interest rate driven. Okay? But yes, rates are back at 3%. And there’s a lot of loan programs that we’ve been locking for clients that are under that. But you shouldn’t always have the focus about rate with your borrower, it should be payment. And it should feel comfortable, so that they’re not cursing you, every time they write the mortgage. You want them happy in the home that they’re buying. And you want them referring you more business. So right now rates are low, and we anticipate all the way through 2021. And into 2022. The Federal Reserve is keeping a cap on rates. And that equates to mortgage rates at a real macro level where we’re not going to see a big spike. So teach your borrowers don’t sell fear. So many people are telling your borrowers and these clients hurry up and do something because rates are going up. Once you start hearing that kind of talk, you’re not educating, okay, you never can predict the future. So make sure the client is comfortable with what they’re doing. And not just buying because they’re afraid rates are going higher.

D.J. Paris 21:11
Yeah, it is a good time to educate your your renters and anyone who owns a home who might be thinking of upgrading or moving, that it is a good time to consider based on current, you know where we are with rates. But it is also not the time to start fear mongering and saying you know, because, as Joel says, nobody has a crystal ball. And it reminds me I have a funny quick story to tell you’ll get you’ll love this. So my, my parents in the when they bought there was really I guess their second home anyway, this was in the mid 70s. Like, let’s say 7677, they were able to lock in a 30 year rate at like six something which was incredible for them. They were real, that was an amazing rate. And then we remember the rate, we had a big rate problem, a big interest rate problem right after that, and rates skyrocketed. This is in the late 70s. And all of a sudden, the average 30 year rate went to like 18%. So here’s what happened to oh two home sellers, they couldn’t really sell homes, because it was so expensive to buy a home with rates. And so my parents, they needed to move from the suburbs of Chicago down to Central Illinois, because my dad’s job was moving down there. And they had their home on the market for 18 months with a very reputable REALTOR at the time, who just because of rates just nobody was buying. And so this is so funny. So they had got their mortgage, initially from their local savings and loan. And it was a friend of my mom’s who was the loan officer. And she made she made a huge mistake on the mortgage. So what my mom eventually said to to an attorney, Hey, can I sell this thing myself, my realtor isn’t really doing anything, I’m gonna hire you as an attorney. Just take a look and see if there’s anything goofy with with my situation. The attorney called her back and says you’re not going to believe this. But I’ve almost never seen this, you have an assumable clause in your in your loan, which basically means the rate is assumable and can be transferred to somebody. He goes, we never see this. So my mom’s so my mom put a sign in the yard, or? Yeah, in the suburbs that says assumable mortgage 6%. You know, and she goes, I sold the home in a week. And isn’t that I don’t know how common those are anymore. But my mom was saying it was she goes we called we called our friend and said, she and the friend said Do not tell anybody I made this mistake, I will get fired. And they said no, no, you’re our hero. We’re not gonna tell anybody. So this is back in the late 70s. But isn’t that amazing? Like just a funny, funny little mistake that ended up allowing them to sell their home,

Joel Schaub 23:45
it became the best house on the block not because of price because they were hundreds of dollars less than anybody else buying the neighbor’s home. Those assumable rate mortgages, banks that hold their loans, that’s still an option. Okay, this was reached out to a lender right now, specifically, if you’re trying to sell a home and this is the problem that we’re seeing a lot of banks that hold their paper a portfolio loan, you may have a rate once the market goes up, that’s going to be very attractive. Okay, but the big national sellers, the big brick and mortar institution, they all have non assumable mortgages, but don’t assume that your loan isn’t assumable

D.J. Paris 24:23
Yeah, but I just such a funny story. And my mom loves telling that story because she’s like, you know that that loan officer who wasn’t supposed to put that clause in there and just had made it she was new to being a loan officer and just made a mistake. So that ended up saving my parents. Funny But anyway, if you are out there looking for somebody who doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes and is able to give you your clients the best possible service. Joel is is really the person I’ve known I knew Joel for years before I ever worked with him. You know, we’ve had him on the show for years because he is all about adding value. He did that to me throughout my entire loan process my by Same process, but also on the show, he has been giving our 1000s and 1000s of listeners that guidance as well. So please give him and his team a chance if you don’t have a great strong lending relationship, guaranteed rate is eligible in all 50 states and Joel and his team can assist you, Joel, if somebody is out there wanting to work with you and your team, what’s the best way they should reach out?

Joel Schaub 25:21
I actually pick up the phone I mean, test me, right. So you can always reach out to the office line, which is 773-654-2049. And DJ, a lot of agents for the last couple of months have just emailed me just simple questions. And I’ve taken the time at night, to give thoughtful replies on situations that they’re facing marketing things that we’re doing that can help them and just be a resource. It’s fun. I really like being here. And thanks for having me on once again.

D.J. Paris 25:51
Awesome. Well, on behalf of our listeners, and our viewers, thank you Joel for continuing to come on our show and provide value on behalf of Joel and myself to the listeners and viewers we say thank you and please tell a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from these great episodes and send them a link to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com or have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. Alright, y’all, we will see you next month and thanks again.

Joel Schaub 26:19
Yeah, it was really great. Thanks again, DJ

In this episode Kris Reid the founder of Ardor SEO talks about the importance of backlinks and lead magnets and how to use them to benefit your real estate website. Kris provides tips on how to rank higher in Google using high quality content. Next, Kris talks about Ardor SEO and what services they provide for the real estate professionals. Last, Kris talks about the Real Estate Masters Summit and gives a presentation of the speakers and what’s going to be presented there in 7 days.

To subscribe for the Real Estate Masters Summit, click here.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Kris Reid can be reached at +1 323-457-4087 and [email protected].

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by the real estate masters virtual summit. The real estate masters virtual Summit is the biggest real estate event of the year 42 superstar speaker presentations, and live q&a sessions over seven action packed days starting June 1. The best part is that it’s 100% Free for all listeners of keeping it real podcast. Join the event for access to exclusive content from the comfort of your own home do not miss out seating is extremely limited. So sign up today. Again, it’s seven days of completely free training from dozens of industry experts, visit real estate masters summit.com right now and sign up again real estate masters summit.com. And now onto the 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 Kris Reid, of the real estate masters Summit, which all of you should go sign up for right now. But before we get to Kris and the great conversation, we just add, I want to remind everyone that we are so thankful that you are a listener and supporter of this show, we are working on some big additions to the show that we’ll be announcing shortly. So stay tuned for that. And also, as we continue to grow, we always ask you to help us and we really only need you to do one thing, which is tell a friend think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing from top producers about how to grow their business to become a top one percenter and send them a link to the show you can always send them right to our website keeping it real pod.com And also, please follow us on Facebook we [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pod we post every episode we’ve ever done. And while we’re recording our episodes, we actually stream them live right there on our Facebook page so that way you don’t have to wait for us to produce them you can watch them as we’re recording and see all of our screw ups along the way too. So again, follow it find us on Facebook facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our interview with Kris Reid.

All right, today on the show we have Kris Reid from Ardor SEO. Now originally from Brisbane, Australia. Kris studied software engineering in the Queensland University at Queensland University of Technology. Pretty much as soon as he graduated, he moved to London to work in finance. When the financial crisis hit Kris lost his job is nearly everyone in finance did and he headed back to Australia with his tail between his legs. But Kris has always built desktop applications. So he wanted to learn web programming, and he decided to build a simple online game called mob warrior. As the game came to fruition, he thought How do I get people to the website to play the game? Pretty important question right? Well, Kris started to learn about search engine optimization otherwise known as SEO and then this marked the inception of what would become ardor SEO. Now our guest developed a simple system to get your message in front of your ideal customer to predictably grow your business. And that’s exactly the system he is going to share with us today. Kris has designed and implemented the simple system for many individuals including Avery Carl who was one of the top 100 Realtors the United States. Now this proven system is repeatable for any business and in any industry. And the best part is that our guest is so confident in his system that he guarantees successful results. Now Kris will also be talking about our the upcoming real estate master summit which we are promoting heavily and how the audience can get involved and benefit from this event. Now let’s welcome our guests coming all the way from Saigon, Vietnam, Mr. Kris Reid from Ardor SEO welcome, Kris.

Kris Reid 4:12
What an introduction Chad thank you so much.

D.J. Paris 4:15
We’re super excited to have you We should also mention before we get started that everyone should be signing up for the real estate masters Summit. So everyone who is not driving a car at this moment or if you’re driving a car, please pull over and visit real estate masters summit.com again real estate masters summit.com and sign up there’s I think 42 speakers Kris being one of them to teach you everything you need to know about how to be a successful real estate agent or if you’re already successful, how to get to the next level and also visit Kris’s company, ardor seo.com For all your SEO needs. But Kris, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Kris Reid 4:52
Just as you mentioned that I like Avery Carl she is amazing. I absolutely love working with her. She is one of our clients and She’s speaking at the summit. And if you’re a realtor, she’s a woman to follow. She is a gun. Not only did she have a have a baby last year, she 300% grew her business, just just to an email that was a person that was looking to work with us. Avery sent an email to them recently. And I’ll just read out the one line she wrote. She said, I told her I sold 56 million in real estate in 2019. And I sold 158 million in 2020. Wow, amazing you guys and hiring more agents to help with the volume are the only two things I did different. I mean, like what a testimonial. And Avery is speaking at the summit, and she’s it’s not like a podcast, she’s doing a presentation she’s showing you exactly how she smashed her business growth whilst taking more time off to be with her baby. So man, if you want to be like heading towards she’s she’s on track to be one of the top 10 realtors in the US.

D.J. Paris 5:55
You know, it’s really funny, really funny that you mentioned her name because out of nowhere about three or four weeks ago, what her publicist or whoever is booking a podcast for reached out to us for Avery and we I think we ever booked on a future episode. So we’re super excited to to speak to her just coincidentally, and we’re speaking with you and helped fuel her success. So this is a nice coincidence. And I always like to to meet the team even behind you know, the face. And Avery of course, is a huge success and so is so are you as well as our SEO. So tell us a little bit about how you got into the SEO game and and what that means for realtors.

Kris Reid 6:35
Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned, I worked in finance as a software engineer. I was living high on the hog figured my ego as big as the sun love and life up until the 2008 global financial crisis came in took my job way. life sucked. I know, I’d been living in London enjoying Europe with lots of Pound sterling to enjoy my time. I had to lick my wounds head back to Australia, and what the hell am I gonna do with my life. And there was no jobs to be had, especially in finance. So there’s no way I could make the same sort of money I was making. And being a computer geek, I built an online game, not particularly to be a businessman, I knew nothing about business. Just just geek it out. And then as a well, how do you get people to a website to play the damn thing? I started studying about SEO, search engine optimization, how to get people to your website from Google. I’ve discovered the secret of how Google works, which is backlinks build a bunch of backlinks to my website, it’s shut up in the rankings. I got heaps of traffic and I went wow, this is super cool. And super valuable. And I’ve been doing it ever since.

D.J. Paris 7:41
Well, it’s funny, I will tell you in a past life, one of my sort of just side creative gigs was to have a humor blog. And so I’ve been writing that for for many, many years. And it was somewhat popular. And what happened. So what Kris is talking about backlinks and so backlinks, what they are is when other websites link to your website through a hyperlink, right? So somebody might be writing an article on their blog saying, hey, you know, DJ just wrote this really funny article, or maybe it’s a real estate related thing and saying, Hey, you should check that out. And so they’re, they’re gonna link back to your site. And then the search engines like Google, of course, take note, and they follow those links. And they say, okay, you know it. First of all, when they want to look at the originating website that’s linking to your website, is it an authoritative site? Is it something where Google says, hey, you know, if cnn.com, or any of the major news sites link to my blog, that’s a pretty big deal. While none of them ever did, but but a lot of other smaller websites did. And so I started getting, you know, I started shooting up the rankings for terms that I didn’t even anticipate to, you know, to rank for. And at one point, I was ranking for the, the word best blog, and I was number one, above. And Kris, we lost Kris for a second. What I was telling Kris is, I got so many backlinks. And for my blog at the time, this is 10 years ago or so. And I was actually ranking number two for the term and just imagine the traffic for the term best blog. I was number two, I was behind Time Magazine’s 20 best blogs of whatever year that was, and somehow my this is before Google kind of tightened up their policies, and realized that maybe my silly little humor website shouldn’t really be the second result for best blogs. But what I will tell you is being that I did have a number of backlinks to get me there. What it did is it exploded my traffic organically. What we’re talking about is when people search on Google, obviously being in those first two or three positions, really is going to generate, you know, the vast majority of those clicks. So what Kris is talking about is how do we get people to of course, rank at that level, which is very, very difficult and usually, you know, requires a tremendous amount of effort.

Kris Reid 10:01
Can we can we take it back a step DJ, because most people really don’t even understand the purpose of the site. No, web designers don’t understand the purpose of website web designers. They generally do a really bad job, they take people’s money, and they steal it. Because they, they’ll take $20,000 from you, and they’ll build you a website that generates zero business. And that’s the vast majority of websites, the vast majority websites on the internet do absolutely nothing. And that’s because web designers who are allegedly professionals don’t understand anything about marketing. The very first thing you need to do is understand who the hell is your customer? Who’s your ideal customer, you’re looking for cheap houses, or you’re looking for expensive houses? Who’s your customer avatar, you need to understand that, then you need to do keyword research, you need to understand what it is those people are typing into Google, it’s pretty easy for a realtor generally, you know, are they searching for luxury real estate? Are they searching sell my house fast? That’s kind of a little bit easy. But for more hard, harder to understand business. Generally, people are searching for a problem. You know, they don’t know what the solution is. Otherwise, they just go and get that solution they’re searching for how to invest $50,000. You know, that’s a really good keyword for multifamily syndicators, I got a chunk of money, you got an inheritance or whatever? What am I what do I put this money, I’m searching for a problem and your business solves that problem. Then, from that keyword research that dictates everything, how you structure your website, how you write the content, and how you set your title tags and meta descriptions. And then that’s that building the website. And that’s the bit the web design is don’t understand. And then you need to, you know, show Google that you’re a trusted authority because Google wants to protect people, they want to make sure that their search results are accurate, and they can’t implicitly trust what you say. They have to trust what everyone else is saying about you. And that’s how they have important backlinks. But that my friend is only stage one, you’ve got someone to your website, that ain’t worth boo. You know, you can have people come to your website all day long, doesn’t mean you’re gonna make money. You need to turn that person into a customer. And you know, even Zillow, right, Zillow has a really fabulous web website that generates a lot of traffic, they don’t capture leads very well, they can improve their lead magnets substantially. Like a good example, is Amazon. Amazon converts way better than every other website on the planet. Because everyone knows and trust Amazon. If you’re searching for blue widgets on Google, and an Amazon comes up, you click on you go, yeah, cool. I trust these guys, you’ve already got an account. It’s very easy to buy with them. Where if you went to another website, you’re like, I don’t have these guys. If given my credit card number, is it safe? Is that product any good? Is it going to come to me like it’s you standing out a lot behind amazon in trust. So asking people for money straight up is a bad idea. Like a really good example. For say a syndication company, like I was just talking about how to invest $50,000. It’s generally like multifamily syndication, that’s the minimum investment. So that’s a really good keyword how to invest 50k. So you have a nice article about how to invest $50,000. Yeah, here’s a couple of different ways, the best one being multifamily. And people like wow, this guy really knows what he’s talking about. And then you have a nice call to action at the bottom, or like an ad on the side of your page, or you have a timed pop up or an exit in tempo, say, hey, download our free guide about the five biggest mistakes people make when getting started with investing, the more and that’s called a lead magnet, the more relevant your lead magnet is to whatever the content was, the better it’s going to convert. And there’s an old saying that the money is in the list. And it sure is that everything that’s all your website is meant to do attract people and get them onto your list. That’s stage one. And now you’ve got a lead. And this is where the valuable part comes in is your nurture campaign, you need to nurture that lead. So especially if you’re asking someone for 50k You don’t want to do it straight away, because they’re gonna go get out of here, dude, why are you a Nigerian prince? Where if you can nurture that person and go, yeah, hey, listen to me on this podcast. Yeah, watch this YouTube channel. Look at this article right now. Like, wow, this DJ guy knows what he’s talking about. And then by the time you go, Hey, how about you jump on a call, and I’ll show you how we can help you solve your problem. That person now already understands what you do. They already know your funny accent. So they’re not shocked when you pick up the phone. And they’re proactively sought you out. So you’re not filling up your pipeline with crappy leads. You’ve got really quality leads that for one aren’t gonna stand you up. They already understand what you do. They understand the commitment and they’re ready to buy. And that’s the purpose of a website.

D.J. Paris 14:54
Yeah, and I think the way a lot of realtors think about an approach to building a website And to be fair, we’re not picking on realtors, we love realtors, but they have to run every part of their business. This is not always something that they know a lot about, or can even spend a lot of time doing. So oftentimes, as Kris was saying at the beginning, is they hire a web designer who knows how to make things look beautiful and pretty and sparkling. And with, you know, even some video, right, right on the some, you know, background video, when you know, somebody visits the website, and it looks beautiful, and then all of a sudden, 1000s of dollars later, and they say, Well, it’s a nice online calling card, it’s certainly showcases how magnificent I am and how great of a realtor I am. But I’m not really getting any leads. And what Kris was really mentioning was, that’s because it wasn’t designed with the intent of capturing leads, and then pushing them through some sort of sales funnel. It’s, it’s really an online business card, which is fine, I guess. But you should also have parts of your website that are designed to solve problems, as Kris was saying is create content that will actually solve problems. And what you need to first do is think about what are the problems your clients have, and there’s a million different ways that you can solve those problems. But Kris had brought up a really great, easy suggestion for everybody out there who already has a website, create what they Kris mentioned a word and he said it very quickly, but I’m gonna explain what it is. He mentioned the word exit intent. And that is a really powerful thing that if you just remember one, one thing, you could easily implement this on your site, what Exodus intent is, is basically a tracker on your site that is going to notice when someone is either scrolling a certain way down the page, or is about to leave your website. And what that what you can do is you can very easily with really, really very little coding understanding at all, or you can hire somebody for very cheap to do this. They can put a little pop up an interstitial, that’ll show up and say, Hey, before you leave, download this white paper, download this, you know, but as Kris said, five biggest mistakes before investing $50,000 into multifamily property, right, that’s solving a problem. And that also add somebody, of course, as Kris said, to the most valuable part of your website, which is, of course, the lead and list generation.

Kris Reid 17:07
Can I like what we were talking about what you mentioned, that is a business card, right? So you can have fabulous, beautiful business cards. Sure you don’t do crap it unless you are out there handing them out. And that’s the same of the website. Beautiful websites don’t sell things. It’s words that sell things, and people need to see those words or it doesn’t diddly. You need to get in front of people, a beautiful website will convert better, but it won’t convert as well as one that gets a lot of traffic. That’s the number one thing. But just to touch on realtors, one thing they’re missing out on the most is the average American sells their house every seven years, right? When they want to just use the same realtor. If you have a nurture campaign that just even has a timed email to keep you top of mind, send him an email every couple of couple months, they’re not going to mind that and so when they’re ready to sell, sell their house again, boom, you’re already top of mind. But one thing to think about is I often speak to realtors that spend 1520 grand a month with buying leads from Zillow shirts, like crazy. Zillow doesn’t give a crap about you. They’re just selling those leads to whoever’s going to give them the most money. And so if someone else comes around with bigger pockets, hey, gonna boil those leads and you also gone or invest in your own business? And if How much is it worth? If you sell a house even a cheap house, you get 10 grand 10 grand commission check, sell a good house you 50 grand 100 grand like that there’s a lot of money. So what’s it worth building a website? I mean, like if you really spend just 50 grand on building a great website and ranking it. Wow, that you sell one house a year and it pays for it. Like how valuable is that? And then next year, the beauty of SEO over every other form of marketing is its compounding the work you did last year you get this year you get next year. So if you spent 50 grand build up awesome website and ranking and generating consistent reliable leads, and it makes one sale to pay for it. Next year, you get all that traffic for free. It doesn’t do you can stop doing SEO and and it keeps on working for it. That’s the power of a website and investing in your business.

D.J. Paris 19:15
Yeah, it’s such an important thing is I used to work for an IT company before I got into real estate and the the the Chief Technology Officer handed me a book we were we were doing some redesigns on some of the websites that that the properties we manage. And I had all of these beautiful aesthetic ideas of how to make the website you know, just gorgeous. And this is this goes back about 15 years and my ideas were good. They were aesthetically very pleasing. However, he said, Well, where do you want the customer to go when they visit the website? I said Oh, because I’d only thought about I want them to be impressed. I want them to see how beautiful everything is and that is a good idea. But then then what and he gave me a book and it was called Don’t make me think it’s a famous book. Look for user experience for websites for website designers, which basically is push somebody through the funnel had them down that path that you want them in, in an or Realtors case, you want them to sign up for either email notifications, or download some sort of white paper or guide that you have or subscribe to a YouTube channel or a Facebook page, you want them to do something or contact you directly. And you see you have a little, you know, for example, on Kris website, he has a Facebook Messenger plugin, which allows people to instantly chat with him and his team, whenever you visit his website, how valuable is that incredibly valuable, right? Because what’s happening is people are visiting his website, they’re like, probably have a million questions about SEO. And they don’t have to pick up the phone and call they can start typing in that’s just a simple plugin that anybody could add to their existing website.

Kris Reid 20:51
Yeah, for sure. You really don’t want to make people think it like it might sound counterintuitive, but people don’t. People are really lazy. They’re inherently lazy, your brain is always looking for shortcuts. And so if you can make it easy for someone, like whenever we’re in a, in a in a sales process around speaking to someone, we break it down really simple for him, and write it all down. If people can read it and see it, you read it to them, it makes so much. It’s just so much easier. So like what we do we work with a lot of multifamily people. And let’s go okay, so if you want to raise a million bucks, right, you need, say 20 investors at 50k. So how many people? Do you actually need to say that they’ll give you 50k? Because when it comes to

D.J. Paris 21:35
a lot more than that, yeah, exactly. So say, say 10

Kris Reid 21:38
times that. So you need 200 investors ready to go. So you can raise a million dollars in capital. So how many leads do you need to come in through your funnel? Before you get that to turn to good quality with leads, say 10 times. So you need 2000 people downloading your lead magnet? And what’s the conversion rate on your website. And let’s just say 10%, again, to keep it nice and easy. So you need 20,000 people coming to your website. So then you can just work out okay, great. This is the search volume of these keywords, these are the keywords that I need to rank for. And we can work backwards, this is the website that you need to build. And this is how much that costs. Now it’s very, it’s the beauty with any form of digital marketing, whether it’s YouTube ads, or Facebook ads, it’s so measurable and so predictable, you can draw it all out. And if you draw it out, even if you’re selling a house, you draw out the plan for your client, we work with some quite high end, Luxury Realtors, and they walk their clients through the whole process. You know, as a realtor, you’re used to doing it every day. And you’re like, everyone knows this, right? But that’s not true. Most people don’t buy and sell houses everyday. They don’t know the whole process. And so if you walk them through and they’re like, wow, this person really knows what they’re doing. I’m not gonna change shock or, and no surprises that I have to pay this fee here or this. They’re, they know the process and I trust you so much because you were transparent with it. And you saved them from having to think

D.J. Paris 23:07
so, so let’s Yeah, let’s talk about what Realtors could be doing more of so if you’re if I already have a website, and I’m not getting the leads that I want. I’m a realtor and you know I am a hyperlocal realtor, I have a specific geographic area that I want people who are searching to buy homes in my area. I want them to find my website and I understand Zillow is going to show up number one, Redfin is going to show up number two, that you know, I’m not going to be at the very, very top very easily it’s possible, but I understand I might not be at the top, but how do I just get some sort of presence where when people are searching, they might stumble across me,

Kris Reid 23:44
just searching your local area. And the more localized you get, the easier it is to rank so it’s better and if Zillow or Redfin are coming up, that’s great, because they’re easy to be on a local level, they suck. They just rank because they’ve got really big domain authority. The more backlinks, you have bigger your domain authority, and the easier you rank for anything. So it’s the same as Amazon. If Amazon comes up for any ecommerce website, ecommerce terms, like if you want to rank for blue widgets, and Amazon comes up, it’s really easy to beat Amazon. Amazon’s SEO is garbage. It’s just that they’ve got massive domain authority, and so they can rank for anything without trying so you can beat them on a local level. So one thing that’s very counterintuitive is more content about the same topic can lead to degra gated results. For instance, we’ve got a one client that sells luxury real estate in Atlanta. And you can only have one page that targets luxury real estate Lanta. If you have multiple pages, you get what’s called keyword cannibalization. And Google’s not sure which page should rank and different one will rank at different times and eventually start pulling each other down. So rather than have one page on the one page ranking in the top 10 of Google, you’ve got full pages ranking in the top 100 But only in the bottom. It’s it’s it’s not ideal. And so you need to be really specific and keyword mapping, you need to understand what keywords you want to rank for. And then which pages to rank for each one of those. But a really good example, is building out what’s called informational content. So you only have one page, it’s about luxury real estate in Atlanta, that you need to become synonymous with real estate and Atlanta. And so some really good keywords like cost of living in Atlanta, crime rate in Atlanta, best schools in Atlanta, you know, which shows google how this person knows everything about Atlanta, those sort of keywords are exactly what someone that’s moving to Atlanta is looking for. And they usually have really high search volume. And they’re really not competitive at all, because they’re not transactional, they’re not money keywords, they’re not going to convert at the same rate, as someone searching luxury real estate, Atlanta, but the search volume is so much higher, that you’ll still get clients where the main purpose is builds up your overall relevancy and trust with Google, Google wants to see not that you’re just there to take people’s money that you provide value, and that you’re about everything to do with Atlanta. So building localized information about whatever area you’re in, that’s really going to help your money pages rank better.

D.J. Paris 26:15
Yeah, so let’s use an example. So I’m moving to Atlanta, I’m a consumer, I don’t know anything about real estate. I’m not a realtor. And I have kids, young kids, and the most important thing, or one of the most important things is picking the right school district. Right. So the one of the things I’m going to type into Google before I move because I live in Chicago, I don’t know anything about Atlanta as what are the best, you know, a school districts in Atlanta. So what Chris is talking about is understanding what your customer needs, what they’re typing in what they’re searching for. And that’s a pretty obvious one that anyone with children is going to care about when they move to a new city. And guess what they’re going to search for it. So if you can create content, and it’s this is the important part, it has to be really great content, it has to be the best article about school districts in Atlanta, or at least a very good article, because you want people not only to show up and visit that page, but you want them to stay on that page and read your content. So what Chris is talking about is identifying problems and creating content that solves those problems, and realizing that this is not traditionally what Realtors do. Realtors are always you know, looking for real estate transactional stuff, they’re not looking to become an authority on a particular subject. But that’s exactly how you can capture leads.

Kris Reid 27:32
Yeah, and you and you think about the compound interest on that, right, you build a an article about the best schools in Atlanta, you rank it now. And it pays you month after month after month. And then you build another article about the best social clubs, best parks, best walking tours, best, best bars, best restaurants. And month after month, your website just gets more and more traffic, and it becomes a guide to Atlanta, people start linking to your content, because it’s so good. And Google just keeps rewarding you with good traffic. One of the things with SEO is it’s hard to get started because Google doesn’t trust you. And rightly so because anyone can build a crappy website and say that they’re the best in the world. And so they actually critique new websites, untrusted websites a lot harder. So it’s way more important to make sure that you don’t have any broken links to your site loads faster that it’s in really good shape, because Google’s looking at you with a fine, fine tooth comb to check that you’re not crap. So building up that trust and authority. But once you have a Google is just going to reward you with more and more traffic. And the more you get, the more Google likes you because they understand that people enjoy your content. So another thing is actually what’s called bounce rate. So if you have an article, best schools in Atlanta and our ranks and people click, people click on it, they go to your website, and they quickly come back to Google. Google sees that as a crappy search result. And they’ll they’ll drop you. In fact, a quite a funny story is there’s a SEO website called Backlinko.

D.J. Paris 29:07
And Brian, Dean, yeah, we love.

Kris Reid 29:10
And a few years ago, he wrote a wrote an article How to get high PageRank backlinks. And it rent in the in Google for the keyword how to get high. And he got a bucket load of traffic. But obviously, he’s got to the right track about how to get started. And so Google understood that very quickly, because the bounce rate was extremely high from that from that keyword, because it wasn’t relevant at all. And he only ranked for I can’t remember less than a day, I think, and got a massive amount of traffic and then dropped in the rankings instantly. That’s That’s what Google is trying to work out what pages to rank for, and what’s good for the user. So if you’ve got crappy content, it’s not going to convert and Google’s going to punish you.

D.J. Paris 29:58
Yeah, it’s a really good point. And you know, what you really want to do with the content is, so many people do a half assed job of content, they want to they identify a problem, for example, back to our Atlanta School District, you know, best school districts in Atlanta, and they write a mediocre article that really doesn’t inform we’ve all seen this, you know, all over the web. And then what happens is, maybe they do start ranking and people start visiting, as Chris was saying, and then what happens is people bounce out pretty quick, because they realize the content isn’t that good. Google notices when people bounce out, and they devalue that particular page, and probably the the website entirely. So what you really want to do is, is create just an incredible content. And for a lot of our listeners, they go oh, my gosh, I’m already doing every part of a real estate transaction. Now I have to create incredible content on you know, Atlanta school districts. Oh, I don’t have time for that. So what would you say to somebody who says, I know what I want to create, I don’t have either the knowledge or the time to actually put that content together. To two books

Kris Reid 31:04
that changed my life. I’ve read a lot of business books, and I think I’m doing pretty good at business. And two books that really changed my business, both by the same author called Mike McCalla wits. First Book is profit first about how to always have a profitable business, which kind of sounds easy, but it’s, it’s kind of not. Yeah, and so we met profitability and everything where we won’t do a job, that’s probably why the hell bother. And once you get that, and all your team members mindset that we need to make profit on this, or we’re not doing it, then you know, it, it’s a really good way to keep your whole team thinking that his other book is even more powerful. It’s called clockwork, and it’s about how to build a business that doesn’t revolve around you. And it’s so, so important. I’m not perfect at it that I took last week off, took my family up to the mountains, enjoy some, it’s hot as hell inside, and we want to escape the heat. And it was great. Now I came back, my inbox isn’t overflowing business is just number one massive. And that’s the purpose of business. Like every car that I mentioned, yeah, she three, three extra business 300% growth she had a baby was doing. And you know, we just did a new strategy for her. I’m delivering it to her on Thursday, actually. And it’s to make all the other team members stars so that she can really step back, you know, she’s got a new baby that she wants to be hanging out with. She doesn’t want to be selling houses at the same rate that she works. She wants to have other people doing, and building a business that’s not around her. And, you know, real realistically, if you sell houses, you should stick to selling houses. That’s what you’re good at. Unless you are an SEO expert, you should not be doing SEO, because it’s really hard. You have to learn a lot about it. I talk the talk, but man, I go and sit with our nerds and man, they they spin circles around me this stuff is really, really cheeky. But it’s really, really valuable. It’s like we as a problem first approach professionals to do our accounts, she does a way better job than we do. We outsource our payroll to a payroll company, because it’s not what we do. Everything that our team members should be doing is SEO, they should be working on our client sites all the time. Anything that’s not what our company does, is not what we do. And that’s the same for anyone in real estate, stick to what you’re good at, you probably don’t write your own contracts using a lawyer. And it’s the same user service provider and stick to what you’re good at. You know, if you spent 50k, and you sell $100 million worth the houses, like is that a good investment? Like why would you draw and do that yourself?

D.J. Paris 33:35
Yeah, it’s a really good point. And it’s one of those things that Realtors often you know, they get, they just get stuck in, oh, I don’t have time for that. And it’s like, well, that’s why there’s, we live in a global economy live in a gig economy. This is the time where you can now leverage people from all over the world who are experts. And we’re now no longer limited to, you know, finding, you know, if you needed a cold caller, for example, when people are still, I’m assuming some people are still doing cold calling, you would have to put an ad in a paper or an ad online and you’d have to interview people you know, locally and you’d hopefully find somebody good now the whole world is is eager to help meet those needs. And tell us a little bit about Artur SEO like what do you guys do? You know specifically for realtors?

Kris Reid 34:20
Yeah. So I wish that I’ve sucked at lots of things in business. And one thing is people said I should niche down I was like, that’s why we can do SEO for any business. Right? And you can we can work on any website. The same process works. And it’s really hard like we have, we do have clients in plenty of different niches and it’s really tricky when it’s a new niche that we know nothing about. But understand that business and who that customer is and it’s a lot of work. The more we’ve niched down into real estate so much easier. It’s great. Like, like we’ve got a luxury Realtor in Atlanta. We’ve got a luxury Realtor in Naples we go Little luxury Realtor in Toronto, it’s exact same thing. It’s like you just you just changed the city name and it’s exact same strategy. You know this the same with our multifamily people with we understand their businesses, we don’t have to do anything different. That saves so much work and heartache for us and make lets us streamline our business. So that’s what we do is this first conversation we have with a client is, well, how many more clients do you want? How many houses do you want to sell? How many leads do you need? What’s the customer worth to you? How much can you afford to pay to get one customer like if you if you sell if a deal is worth $50,000 to you? Well, you can spend quite a lot quite a lot to get that customer. And so that’s the sort of thing that we need to work out. But how many customers do you want the internet is so big, our little human brains cannot understand the numbers. It’s just unfathomable. Even in a any little niche, not Atlanta is a big city, you go to buck Haven, Brook headed the two most fancy fancy suburbs in Atlanta, this is my my knowledge. I’ve never even been to Georgia. But you know, even just those two suburbs have so much search volume, that it’s way too much for one one realtor, you know that it’s really, really big. So you really just need to understand how many customers do you want? You know, where do you want to be understanding, begin with the end in mind what success look like for you. And a lot of people have never thought about this and don’t know how to do that. And that’s one thing that we help people with, is let’s help you understand how big your market is, and set some goals for for the next year. And your goals will change. Like Avery’s goals were just sell a bucketload of houses. And I thought that, you know, she really wanted to be the number one realtor in the US. And she’s like, now I want to spend more time with my baby. And it’s like, okay, cool, then let’s redesign your strategy. So that, you know, it’s your your team members that are the stars now so that you can step back from from your business. And so once we understand what’s important to you, then we design a strategy of how to get you there. And with digital marketing. And that’s any form of digital marketing. It’s so predictable. It’s so good. You just draw out the numbers do the work, and it works every time.

D.J. Paris 37:18
Yeah, and it’s it’s complicated enough to where individual Realtors unless you are have a background in SEO or SEM or it or analytics, you’re probably better off hiring somebody. If not, you’re probably you’re definitely better off hiring somebody. This is just not your lane. And honestly, it’s not my lane either. And I used to live in this lane, it’s really not my lane either. But you hire a company like Chris’s to say, Okay, here’s my end goal, here’s what I want, what do I need to do? Or what can you guys do to help me get to where I want to go. And a lot of it has to do with they already have the data, they know the sales funnel, they know what gets people to click, we know what looks pretty, we don’t necessarily know what converts. And oftentimes what looks pretty is not what converts.

Unknown Speaker 38:10
Yeah, and that’s that’s the number that you need to focus on. Because search engine rankings and traffic said they’re not going to pay the bills it’s new customers do. That’s what you need to focus on how many customers are popping out the other end. And so just to give people a really great example of what a sales funnel is, have a look at ours, it works really well we get a lot of leads coming in and this, I don’t have time to talk to everyone, it filters out the crap, it makes sure that people understand exactly what we do, and that it is a big investment, I want to ask you for around $50,000 You’re going to I don’t want to speak to someone that’s not willing to invest $50,000 into their business, I can help you sell $100 million where the houses but it’s gonna cost you 50k That’s a pretty damn good return on your investment, you get $5 million, because you’re 50 grand Hell yeah. But you need to have a sales funnel that’s going to filter that stuff out. So if you go to art or seo.com/keeping it real, you’ll see a video of me. And if you pop in your details, I’ll do a video review for you. So I’ll show you exactly how many people are searching for your products and services, searching for houses in Atlanta or wherever you are, and in what quantity and then show you some simple things that you can do to get your website in front of where these people are and predictably grow your business and take a really close look at you know our signup forms the content on our pages, the emails that you’ll receive from us because that’s exactly what a great sales funnel looks like. It’s what keeps my calendar chockablock full, but only with really quality leads. I don’t have people that back when we I wasn’t such a good market and we had a crappy a website. Like I used to have people that would book calls and they wouldn’t turn up and it’s like Man that that ruins your diets, you’re wasting time you were waiting for someone they didn’t, that could have been a time when you were speaking over someone that’s gonna give you money, our conversion rates really high because people already understand what we do, and they’re proactively sought us out. And man, that’s what you want is a kickoff sales funnel. It’ll grow your business and save you time.

D.J. Paris 40:20
And I mean, if we think about it, just from a meta perspective here, don’t you want the same sales funnel that Chris has implemented for his own company? On your website? Wouldn’t that be great if you could somehow sift out the looky loos or the people that aren’t serious about working with a realtor or in Chris’s case, aren’t serious about investing in SEO, and funnel and somehow, number one, attract all of those people to your website. And then number two, filter out the people that aren’t really going to be a good use of your time or their time? And I mean, he’s already built this funnel for himself. So wouldn’t you want a similar funnel built for your website, but I promise you the the approach it takes to build something like this is a very different approach from what is considered common sense, or aesthetically what we like, we’re going to be thinking about what looks cool, what feels cool, does it flow? Well? Well, that’s all well and good if it also converts, which means you have to be able to sacrifice sometimes what aesthetically looks nice for something that actually works better. And that requires a tremendous amount of testing. And that’s what Chris’s company does is they actually go through and make adjustments along the way say, well, actually, this converts better even though maybe, I might not think it looks as good. It works actually better at the end of the day. What’s more important than generating leads is that’s the most important thing.

Kris Reid 41:39
So a good example is like please, Nigerian scammer emails, right? They have bad spelling mistakes on purpose because Wade, smart people from looking at them, it’s meant to get the naive gullible people. It’s so ridiculously outrageous that anyone that thinks about it is going to go away. And so that they’re filtering through and getting the people that they want, which is the gullible people that they can scam. Yeah, and that’s the same thing in adverse that you need to do is have your sales funnel filter out all the people that you don’t want to be wasting time with only speaking to your ideal client.

D.J. Paris 42:18
And let’s, let’s also before we wrap up, I talked about the real estate, you know, the virtual master summit that’s coming up. We’re big fans of this. We’re promoting quite a bit every one of our listeners and viewers absolutely should sign up. Chris is one of the speakers. Can you tell us a little bit about the summit?

Kris Reid 42:33
For sure. So we work a lot in real estate, and it’s and it’s brought us to put on the real estate master Summit. Our host of the summit is Tony Potts, who is the host of Access Hollywood and also hosted the Sundance Film Festival this year. Our producers produce for NBC. He’s working on Access Hollywood for 20 years. That’s how he knows Tony, and how we can be working together. We’ve got 42 speakers and massive lineup. It’s not podcast format. It’s where people are actually doing presentations and showing exactly what they they what they did. Our lineup is really huge. We’ve got people like Jim Kirkpatrick, who’s the vice president CBRE, my favorite marketer in the world Donald Miller from story brand has I’ve read his book three times. It’s fabulous. We’ve got Avery showing how she’d made 158 million in sales. Sam from real closers, Tristan from labcoat agents, David Greene from bigger pockets like 42 speakers in total. Everything from commercial real estate law marketing, sell my house fast, triple net leasing you know there’s 42 speakers and all of them are absolute ballers and it’s 100% free so go to real estate Master summit.com and get your free ticket

D.J. Paris 43:48
Yeah, please do this. We’ve had many of the guests that are featured on this have been on our show in the past. I think real estate marketing dude is also speaking at your event he is Yep. And we’ve had him on. He’s an old Chicago guy before he went out last but we love him but anyway guys, really we could not be a bigger fan there’s no catch here is absolutely 100% free real estate marketing summit.com and also your master selling real estate masters summit.com My apologies real estate masters summit.com and real estate marketing summit calm it’s probably something else we don’t want to go there real estate masters love it. But also maybe I should buy that. But also go to Artur seoardorseo.com forward slash keeping it real to see the sales funnel and see what Artur can do for you. We’re huge fans. Guys. You need a better converting website. Are you tired of buying leads? Are you tired of not getting conversions? You have a beautiful website and nothing’s happening. You got to do something about it. You got to get an expert in there and it’s not going to be the person that Sara Lee who designs the site, that person makes it look pretty, Chris’s team will make it actually work for you and generate income and generate leads. And look, I will tell you, I built our website for keeping it real pod. It might not be the most beautiful website out there. But you’ll notice when you go to my website for this podcast, keeping it real pod.com, what you’ll see in the bottom right hand corner is a little a little pop up, what do I want people to do? I want them to give me their email address. Why? Because every time we put out an episode, I shoot them an email. Now, we average about 10% of the people who visit our website, click, actually fill that out. And if you imagine over time over the last four years, imagine the size of our list, I don’t even know how big it is. It’s 1000s and 1000s, of brokers at this point, realtors, because all I did was just put a little thing in there that by the way, you can listen to every episode we’ve ever done, you can do all sorts of cool stuff on our website. But what I really want people to do is fill out that little form and give me their email address so that I can send them every time I do an episode right to their inbox, you need something like that, but don’t try to do it all yourself. Hire a company like Chris’s like art or SEO and they can work with you and get you to where you want to be. You need more leads. We all need more leads.

Kris Reid 46:14
And money’s in the list. Man, the money is in the list.

D.J. Paris 46:17
Well, what a great place to wrap up. I want to thank Chris on behalf of all and I apologize if you’re watching this, you’ve noticed that my room has gotten much darker because I am in I’m at home to Chris, of course is in Vietnam. So we’re doing this from home to account for the time differences. And it is now fully pitch blackout outside we started with slight. So if you’re seeing what has happened, there’s no magic going on to the simply the nighttime at my place. But if you’re not Yeah, the sun’s over over Chris. It’s only set. It’s about 8am where Chris says it’s about 8pm My time. So anyway, we want to thank Chris for taking time out of his busy busy morning, and really getting up early to be on our show. And we want to thank on behalf of the audience want to thank Chris for being on and talking about Artur SEO talking about the real estate master Summit. And of course all the information about SEO that that Realtors need to understand. And also on behalf of Chris and myself, we want to thank our listeners as well as our video watchers. And remind everyone if you want to help us support our show and continue to grow. Tell a friend think of one other real estate agent that could benefit that wants to get to that next level that wants to double their production and hasn’t yet figured out how to do that, send them a link to our show, you can send them right over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button. We’ll be eternally grateful. So Chris, thank you so much. And also everyone before we go go sign up for the real estate master Summit. This is I mean really, we get invited. Being in that we have a real estate podcast we get invited to so many different conferences. None of them are free. None of them are free. This is the only one with 42 speakers guys. I know some of these people. It is amazing. What a brilliant idea. So real estate masters summit.com. And also Artur seo.com. Forward slash keeping it real. Chris, thank you so much for being on our show.

Kris Reid 48:10
Thank you sir

Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com.

In this episode, Chris Linsell from TheClose.com discusses what should buyer agents do right now to navigate through these challenging times. Chris emphasizes how important it is to educate your buyers for the situation in the market at the moment. Chris also talks about the challenges of the high velocity markets like now and how appraisals cannot keep up. Last, Chris gives tips on what buyers can negotiate with the sellers apart from the price.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Chris Linsell can be reached at [email protected].

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount and now on with the show

Welcome to 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 today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lynn sell from the closed.com. Now this is a partnership between keeping it real and the clothes and let me tell you about the clothes if you are new to our show, or haven’t ever visited their website before. The clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals. They cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology and team building strategies. From the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level, please visit the closed.com That’s th e c l o s e.com And subscribe to their newsletter so that you can get notified each time they publish an article and with us, as always is crystallin Sal, he is a staff writer and real estate coach for the close. Chris is the closest resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing lead gen transactional best practices, and everything in between. He’s a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. And Chris has been part of hundreds of real estate transactions from modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. When he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing and trout season Chris told me is just around the corner. So he’s very excited. Almost there. And Chris also performs on the stage of his love his community theaters pro local productions. And Chris Welcome once again to keeping it real. Rick, so excited to have such a renaissance man on the show. Thanks, DJ, glad to be with you. I’m really glad to be back, chatting about all things real estate. Yeah, that’s, that’s great. We’re excited. Chris and I were talking just before we got on, and we were sort of saying, like, Okay, what should we cover? You know, what are we hearing out there in the field, Chris does a lot of coaching. He’s not only a producer himself, but he is very tied into the industry through his coaching and also through the clothes.com. And I was telling Chris, that I’m seeing on a lot of the forums that I participate with, with with agents that there’s a lot of talk about, okay, there’s, you know, working with buyers is obviously can be challenging during this time, because of course, we’re at a low interest rate environment, so you have more buyers, a bigger pool of buyers to choose from, and now, buyers can enter the market in you know, with more purchasing power than they had before, which is an awesome thing, if there’s adequate inventory. And we’re seeing in most areas, at least here in Chicago Chris’s in Michigan, but we’re seeing in most markets that I’m aware of that there is a shortage of inventory. So of course, there’s just huge competition, and a lot of the top producers I am talking to from all over the country are saying, oh my gosh, it’s so hard to work with buyers now because everything just gets outbid. pretty much instantly our own managing broker just yesterday, put a home on the market. And within 15 minutes, he had at least one showing, I think he had a second showing even scheduled within 15 minutes. So that’s how insane it is. And I know it’s being very it’s very frustrating for agents who work with buyers. And Chris would just love to give your thoughts about what should buyer agents be doing right now to help you know, navigate through these these challenging times.

Chris Linsell 4:02
Yeah, well, you know, there’s there’s a handful of things for sure. But I mean, before we get into that, let’s just call a spade a spade here and you touched on it a little bit and I think it’s worth even further emphasizing

D.J. Paris 4:14
there is a national inventory shortage relative to demand that has has really become

Chris Linsell 4:25
it’s really become a wave maker when it comes to how real estate transactions are being conducted in the United States. You know, I’m hearing from folks all over the country you know, in my own backyard all the way to the to the most extreme markets across the United States that there are simply not enough homes to purchase and it’s creating some some unique behavior amongst buyers and sellers and it’s creating some some some hiccups in the in the traditional transactional process so Oh, you know, there’s a bunch of things that you can do as a real estate buyer’s agent to prepare your buyer. But the very first thing that you need to do is just be completely transparent about the current market conditions, because your buyer is going to hear from other places that it’s a seller’s market, that there is a, there’s a shortage of inventory. If they’re not hearing that from you, you start your relationship, as somebody who is uninformed in your buyers eyes, and you don’t want that, you know, you are a position of authority for these folks. So, you know, we don’t want to be doom and gloom, we don’t want to be negative about their, their outlook and their prospects, it is our job to be a shepherd through this process. And that means keeping a positive attitude, even when you might go home and say, you know, this is never going to work, but to them, you know, that’s, that’s going to be your, that’s gonna be your first your first priority is, is engage and educate, let them know, these are the market conditions, this is what we’re seeing in our local market. And be realistic about this, this is going to give them a feeling like they’re on the team, it’s going to set expectations. Well, so they know, you know, if I if they know they have to be in a timely manner and pick up the phone, when you call, then they’re more likely to do that. And they’re going to feel like they can be a part of the bigger strategy, which is honestly the first step towards success.

D.J. Paris 6:36
Yeah, I was thinking as you were talking like, and again, I it’s easy for me to pontificate on it since I’m not actually out there boots on the ground, doing it like all of our listeners, and like you are, but I was thinking, if I were working with buyers right now, and just thinking about somebody who just bought, I just closed out a home not too long ago, and I know just how stressful it was, from my perspective, and I’m in the industry, and how difficult it was, I would be if I was working with buyers, I would, as Chris was saying, I’d have before I ever went and saw property, I’d have a State of the Union sort of address, saying, Guys, you know, hey, just to set the proper as Chris said, expectation, I want you to know just how how, you know, sort of, you know, sort of busy the market is right now with buyers, and how there is a shortage of available homes for sale. So what that means is when we go see a property, you might not have as much time as you as you may be had the last time you purchased a property to make a decision. And, you know, you really you know, and I would even say we really need to make decisions and, and maybe even say, you know, there’s a timeline that I recommend for currently where we’re at in the market, and then I would re emphasize that the moment they’re ready to make an offer, because that’s when they’re most excited. They’re, you know, they want this property. And now they might they’re about they’re possibly about to be very let down. So that’s where I would re emphasize, hey, remember what I said at the beginning, I want to you know, just let you know, we’re going to submit this, I’m going to stay on top of it. But there may be a lot of other offers. So just be prepared, you know. And, and I think you’re right, I think it’s all about expectation and just managing the stress of your buyers. Yep. Yeah, totally, totally. So, you know, in these in these scenarios, I often will start by thinking about what are the what are the potential pitfalls, where are the where are the problems between here and the closing table that my buyers potentially going to face. And I use those those pitfalls, those traps as the points that I need to pre educate my clients on so that we can have a strategy and I don’t say they can have a strategy. So we can have a strategy because they have to be collectively bought in to the team strategy. If you’re if you’re trying to work one strategy and they’re trying to work another, you know, you’re never gonna get to the, to the end of the line as efficiently as you could if you’re working as a team. So, so I kind of look at the look at the the timeline between first starting off and at the closing table. The first pitfall that that a buyer could could face is how aggressive the timing has to be. In this market, when you have a super competitive market when it comes to buyers. When a new property hits the market, you have to be ready to jump when it comes to just putting your feet on the ground in the property just just getting a showing because more than likely we’re gonna see offers pretty quick on this home and if you’re not willing to write an offer sight unseen and you want to be able to see it, which is a totally reasonable excellent exponet expectation. You got to be ready to get in there. So you know one one strategy I suggest for agents on this is give your clients like a text message code that you use, like, like you know, start the text message and sometimes you Look at your phone. And you can only see like the first line of a text message

Chris Linsell 10:05
established like the the code like priority, probably the word priority is the one that I use here. If I need my clients to pick up and read this entire text right away, I started with all caps priority pay, there’s a there’s a house that just hit the market. You know, I know it’s a Wednesday at 11am. But if you can come see this this afternoon after work, this is your best chance at getting them an opportunity at it. Otherwise, you know, they’re not reading on that timing. You know, it’s likely like you said, there’s gonna be some heartbreak because they didn’t even get to see what could have been their dream home.

D.J. Paris 10:41
That’s such a good suggestion. So So Chris suggesting create, and I also think there’s kind of a fun element to that as well. There’s some there’s something that’s kind of just sort of fun about it. And so Chris is saying, come up with a code word, and say, Hey, if you ever see a text for me with the word priority, or red alerts, or what well red alert sounds kind of negative, but whatever you want to choose, and you can almost even come up with a fun word with your clients say this is a priority. And then I would also explain to them that here’s what happens when a home gets listed on the MLS. You know, say there’s so we all know there’s there’s a lot of buyers, you know, they’ve you’ve already educated your buyer about the state of buyers out there, and say a lot of them are going to be instantly emailed the moments this goes on the MLS. Most MLS does have this functionality, because brokers are putting all their buyer clients on, you know, these automated searches, which you know, that based on different variables are going to just instantly pump out those emails directly to the client. So you can say it’s not only that all the realtors know about this property that’s on the market that just went on, but probably lots of buyers as well. Or maybe those buyers have Zillow alerts set up on their own, and they’re gonna get notified, you know, within that same timeframe. So it’s it’s so important, like, as Chris was saying, to have a priority communication channel between you and your client. And, and you could get really creative like that, you know, choosing a codeword or even do it in a different way. But that’s really, really important. So it’s speed the lead is usually we think about speed to lead with, you know, hey, if a buyer contacts you or a seller contacts you making sure you reach them back. Of course, you have to do that too. But now speed delete is about scheduling showings and getting people in to see properties because if you wait a day or two, it might be too late.

Chris Linsell 12:29
Yep. And actually, that kind of brings me to my next point, which is don’t rely on Zillow. And I’m not I’m not down. I’m not I’m not trashing Zillow here. I actually think Zillow provides a ton of value if it’s used correctly. But don’t let your clients and quite frankly agents don’t you be reliant on Zillow for updates here, because here’s the truth. Here’s the truth. Zillow is they syndicate their listings via your MLS, and there are some MLS is that have a rapid response syndication, which means you know, Zillow has been updated every 15 minutes or every 30 Or every 60 minutes, there are some MLS is whose syndication is closer to 24 hours. And there are plenty of reasons why that syndication process may slow down that that seem completely unrelated to market conditions. So if you’ve got a buyer who said don’t worry about sending me listings, I’ve got alert set up on Zillow, you may be literally a day behind the rest of the market. So don’t let your clients rely on those sorts of sources. As an MLS member, you can get literally instantaneous alerts via their in house system. So get get plugged into that and don’t rely on these third party systems. You want to get as close to the source as possible here.

D.J. Paris 13:54
Yeah. And sometimes the API feeds that Zillow pulls from from all of the MLS is are broken or down or inaccurate. And and, you know, believe me, Zillow does not ever want to publish anything inaccurate, but it happens. And it just, you know, it happens due to, you know, a failure on any of any of the different ends. But yeah, it’s a really great point. So just, you know, make sure your clients know that you have to have some sort of priority communication structure, so that it’s different than, hey, every day, you’re going to get an email from the MLS with the new listings, and that’s our daily email. But if you get a text message from me with a red alert or whatever on it, please, please see, you know, prioritize that. So I think that’s a great and also agents, you should be thinking about, you know, how do I notify my clients in real time? You know, am I only test sending a text message? Am I also coupling that with an email, and maybe even a voicemail? You know, what am I doing? You know, because it’s really your job to make sure the client knows and you should ask the client you Hey, what’s the fastest way I can reach you? Is it a text message? Is it a phone call? So you want to make sure you know, because right now speed is just so, so important.

Chris Linsell 15:09
Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so that actually leads to my next point, like, I think, think through those pitfalls. The second pitfall, for me is speed to offer or speed to paperwork depends on how exactly you want to think about this. But right now, just by virtue of competition, as markets heat up, as it becomes a deeper seller’s market and more competition amongst buyers, that means that offers become more competitive. And by extension, their more competitive offers happen more quickly, and tend to be more aggressive. Now, there’s lots of reasons are lots of ways you can be aggressive with an offer. But in today’s market in April 2021, you may have literally hours or even minutes, if you want to be the first one in with an offer on a high value property. Three years ago, if you were looking at at April 2018, you could have days or even a week, and still be the first person in with an offer. And that’s just not the case right now. So buyer’s agents should be preparing their clients to say, when you find something that you like, it’s time to write on it, the time that you got to sleep on that your decision, you can still have that time, but you need to have that time as a function of, say, your inspection contingency window, rather than the time prior to making your first offer. Because those who cannot pull the trigger on their first offer, often are not going to be the ones that are going to get the property under contract in the first place.

D.J. Paris 16:59
I just did an interview with a realtor who said one of her secrets. And she said it’s so funny to even call this a secret, because she’s like, it’s not a secret. But I am shocked at how many agents don’t do this. And she said, whenever I’m working with a buyer, she says I bring a contract with me, every single showing I go to Yeah, and it’s already prefilled. It’s she’s like I already have it all done. And if I’m going to see 10 places, I have 10 different contracts already failed. And I guess she must still use paper. But obviously, if you’re using an electronic signature service, like DocuSign, dot loop, etc. You know, you can even even possibly do it faster that way. But But yeah, it’s just having the expectation and telling the client, as Chris was saying that, you know, we really do want to make a decision pretty quickly based on the market conditions. And if you are going there have everything with you so that they can sign it if you need a wet signature, or for dotloop make sure your phone is fully charged. And you’re in fact I would even we use dot loop at our company, you can actually create a loop in advance, you could create a loop for every one of your showings if you wanted to, and then have everything pre loaded and only probably take you 10 minutes to do that. And then you know, you could you could pull it up and do it 100% And you know for for agents that are looking for a power up here. I suggest because dot loop both dot loop, and DocuSign are technology tools that are very easily handed off to virtual assistants, you’ve got, say a day with 10 showings in it. And maybe you’ve got a virtual assistant working with you send the send a task of creating a loop for each of those showings or contracts for each of those showings, send it over to your virtual assistant, this sort of work that they are literally trained to do quickly and efficiently. What might take you 90 minutes to do a whole swap of things and get them all organized and collate in the right place. It’s going to take your virtual assistant 15 minutes to do. And then you can spend your time focusing on your clients rather than on the paperwork. But that actually is the the other part of this for me too is I take I make a specific point when I’ve got a situation where buyers need to be thoughtful about being aggressive. The first thing that I say to them when I see them the day of the showing is today could be the day or write an offer. Are you guys excited? I love that. But in their mind, I don’t say Well, today is going to be a great day to learn about what’s important to you in your home buying process. That day is gone. That day was yesterday that day was you were supposed to have that date in your living room when I sent you that checklist that you’re supposed to fill out what are the things that are important. Today is the day we write an offer. And I put that right in their minds. The first thing that I say to them and I try to remind know on a regular basis, guys, we could be, we could be one door away from finding your dream house and writing the offer. And you know, believe it or not, that’s sort of like, you know pseudo psychology, you know subconscious approach that works that gets people pumped up about the process. And often the cold feet that hold people back from making that aggressive move, those feet can be warmed up with just a little bit of psychological encouragement. If you want to learn more about that phenomenon, I believe it’s called priming. So if you Google psychological priming, where it’s exactly what Chris is talking about, we’re priming the pump, so to speak, letting the buyer know, Oh, that’s right. Today might be the day I put an offer in. And and it’s, it’s, again, it’s an exciting thing for most people. And it does, it gets them in the right mindset that they could actually make a decision to put an offer in today. And Chris is basically saying that is possible and kind of expected as well. But he’s not exclusively saying expected. He’s just suggesting that. And I’ll just throw in this, this real quick tip only because we wouldn’t probably think to say this, and I’m sure every one of our listeners does not need this tip. But just in case, never, ever, ever, if you’re if you’re dealing with somebody who’s who’s financing a property, never ever, ever go out without that, that you know, that letter, you know, the pre approval letter, it just you this is not the time in the market to just say, well, we’ll get the pre approval letter after we find the property getting that done both well before you ever take somebody out, because the time is that you’re going to just lose the deal.

100% right now, especially financing, you know, there are so many markets where where mortgage offers are, are in such a disadvantage, because cash is king right now. And so if you are working with a buyer who is borrowing money, which to be totally clear, this is not a dirty word mortgage is not a dirty word here, the vast majority of I mean, the overwhelming majority of home purchasers are utilizing, like a mortgage instrument to to make their purchase. There’s nothing absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if you are working with somebody who is who is borrowing money, you are doing your clients a disservice by not making sure that they are 110% prepared to pull the trigger on an offer because there is there’s just no way.

Chris Linsell 22:31
I mean, I know I know, listing agents right now, who would who would give the offer to their clients because they are obligated to do so. Right? But would do it with this message. This person isn’t pre approved. This isn’t a serious offer. I have to give this to you legally, but you should not consider this. Yeah. So offers are actually kind of the next pitfall that buyers need to think about. Now, everyone gets nervous about offers right now, because we’re hearing these crazy stories write about properties, you know, selling for 5060 $70,000 over asking price, or if you’re in major metro markets with really high price points. I mean, there are there are stories right now of of in New York and Los Angeles, and, and Phoenix and Miami have properties going for seven figures over asking price. And you know that nobody can buy things with mortgages, you have to use cash and all these crazy things. So this is something we talk about with our buyers right now is that the prices that we’re seeing are very aggressive. And this all comes from this idea of market velocity. Now if you don’t know what market velocity is, it’s pretty this is pretty easy. It’s just the speed of the market. It’s That’s how fast properties are changing their price. And so as an example, the prices in April 2021, they’re higher than they were in April 2020. We’ve had we have market velocity and we’re seeing the growth of those prices speed up a little bit. So velocity is gaining. As we’re getting higher velocity. It’s harder for other elements of our transaction to keep up and this is why this is a potential pitfall I’m talking about appraisals I’m talking about. About just straight up being pre approved for enough to be to cover the purchase price of the home that you’re interested in. There is this trail of of people behind your offer that all have to kind of line up and if you need to as a buyer’s agent right now be informing your clients to say look, chances are you’re gonna need to be aggressive with price here. There are going to be places where this you know we’re gonna have to jump through some hoops but if we can get aggressive if you can spend what you’re comfortable with and be aggressive, we still have a good shot at getting this property.

D.J. Paris 25:04
And I think this is where the pre approval letter is so important because what that also Prime’s, the buyer to think, okay, I can afford up to a certain amount. And if you’re working with a good lender, they’ll have those conversations. And then when you’re showing a property, I know psychologically, I never want to pay more than what the list price says, for anything in my life, whether it’s, you know, toothpaste, or obviously a home, it just doesn’t feel psychologically satisfying. You know, we nobody walks into a car dealership and says, I’m gonna pay, I want to pay that sticker price, we always want to wheel and deal and get a little bit of a discount or a little bit of a, and that’s just maybe maybe you’ll get that now, but but there’s a good chance that there’s so much competition that you might not. So as Chris was saying, part of that sort of expectation conversation is saying, now we’re going to be looking at properties. But just so you know, these homes are typically trading right now at a percentage above list, if that’s the case in your market, and you need to have that conversation. So when you see 300,000, it’s maybe really 320 or so. So just be prepared. But don’t worry, your pre approval letter says we’re good. But you know, because I know that psychologically, I would feel a little goofy about pay, you know, putting an offer for more, just because I saw what the price was. And now we’re you know, we’re exceeding that.

Chris Linsell 26:21
Yeah, that’s true. No, I think I think it’s worth pointing out here. Because this, you know, this might not be common knowledge for everybody just want to just do a quick level set on one of the one of the issues that comes with a market like this, which is appraisal gaps. So an appraisal gap. If this isn’t a term that you’re familiar with, don’t worry, we’re all we’re all we’re all learning this together here. And appraisal gap is when the purchase price that agree it is agreed on by the buyer and the seller is higher than what the bank’s appraiser says the home is worth. And the reason that this is a problem is the bank is using the appraisal value to determine whether or not the property is worth what the price is. And the reason that’s important is the bank doesn’t want to lend money for a property lend more money for a property than what it is perceived to be worth. And one of the challenges with a market with high velocity like we’re experiencing right now is that prices are going up so fast that appraisals can’t really keep up with that because appraisals are based on historical data there are based on there are some current market conditions that are used in determining an appraised value. But they have to determine an appraised value primarily using historical values. And so if you are looking at comps that are six 912 months old, the market may have accelerated beyond those prices already, which is going to create this gap and, and your clients are then left with a dilemma. Let’s say the appraisal gap is $50,000. A bank will then say look, we’ll lend on the appraised value. But that $50,000 gap that’s going to be up to you to cover. And unfortunately, this kills a lot of deals because most buyers don’t have that sort of spare liquid assets laying around that they can cover. Maybe if it was like $5,000 That’s one thing. But regularly, we’re talking about gaps in this sort of market that are 1520 $25,000 Plus,

D.J. Paris 28:47
yeah, this is a major, I see this this question come up a lot. In some of the forums that I’m in where people are saying, oh my gosh, I’m now really nervous that this isn’t going to appraise out meaning the appraised value isn’t going to come within a reasonable ballpark of our contracted price. And then the deal, as Chris says, can fall apart. So I think this is where working with a good lender, who can have that educational conversation with your clients before going out. And buying and putting offers in is really, really helpful. And also understanding maybe even speaking to the buyers and saying Do you have a cash reserve in the event that this does not appraise out, because as Chris is saying, your data that you as the agent has access to is the MLS and you can see historical data. And if you’re using maybe the last handful of months, then maybe that’s a reasonable or maybe it isn’t reasonable, I don’t know. But but that’s really all the data you have. And that’s where communication is also really important with the other agent, the listing agent and making sure that that you’re sort of aware of what’s going on because what we’re seeing is some of these large offers that are way above list price, that a lot of them tend to be cash only offers because they don’t have to worry about appraisals and they see some sort of future benefit for overpaying or what what we might think is overpaying today, especially in investment properties, it’s we’re seeing almost exclusively those scenarios happening across the country. So you’re getting a lot of cash buyers who are just willing to outbid you, because they don’t really have to worry so much about the about the appraisal or really at all, but they know you do. So it’s also a tactic for them to win properties.

Chris Linsell 30:31
Yeah, so let me let me also kind of add in here, the appraisal gap in other markets, like in a non seller’s market, like we’re facing right now, is actually can be an advantage for the buyer and not for the seller. And the reason here is, you know, the seller has a vested interest in the property closing to they they want, they want to get their money, they want to move on to the next their next home, what are their next spot, whatever it is. And so an appraisal gap is a problem for the seller as much as it is for the buyer in a balanced market, it’s sure of a problem and a buyers market. So one thing that buyers and buyer’s agents should keep in mind right now is an appraisal gap isn’t necessarily the end of your transaction, it often is right now. But what you can do here buyer’s agents is you can evaluate the market. And you can say, collectively, on behalf of your buyer, you can say, Look, we have we have two parties that want to make this purchase, we have offered a certain amount the bank has determined and that’s the key here, you say the bank, not us. It’s some other it’s some other third party that has determined that this price won’t work. What can we do to negotiate this contract, so that our price can come down in order to meet the needs of the bank. But you can still feel like you’re being fairly compensated for your property. And I’m actually working on some some content, at least in the development stages for the close right now about how you can negotiate contracts beyond just the price. And this is a great place where you can where you can do that. Because if you know that the price can’t go above a certain level, there are other things that you can do to negotiate like, for instance, let’s say you’re a buyer, and you got that appraisal gap. And you say, Well, I can’t go any higher than this. But what if we closed on May first. And you could have six weeks of free occupancy in the home. After we close, you know, the typical, if you’re in a major metro market, six weeks of occupancy could be you know, on a dependent on the property, this could be 1000s of dollars worth of rent, if you were elsewhere. This is if you are a buyer who has some flexibility in their timeline moving forward, like let’s say you’ve got a lease that is you know, you may still have some time on the lease anyway.

D.J. Paris 33:13
You can say yeah, that’s fine, let’s let’s offer him some extended some extended occupancy, let’s offer a really advantageous

Chris Linsell 33:24
inspections window, you know, like, actually, I guess, if you’re doing the appraisal, you’ve already been doing inspections, but let’s offer some other things that as a part of this, this negotiation like

D.J. Paris 33:39
non refundable, earnest money deposit, or some sort of

Chris Linsell 33:45
some sort of bargaining for you know, like, like new appliances or in their next home or something that something like that, like there are, there are handfuls of ways that you can kind of juice forward, your your negotiating position. And that appraisal gap could be the start of that conversation. So even though it’s frustrating and is often the real kind of nail on the coffin when it comes to the buyers position. It doesn’t have to be it can be something you negotiate through.

D.J. Paris 34:20
Yeah, boy, you just said so many great things there. And I think the and I’m very excited to see that article eventually, when that’s completed about some creative ways to negotiate other than price, because there are ways to do it. Chris just gave, you know a couple that I would have never thought of like I’m going to upgrade your appliances in your new place. I mean, that is a really creative idea. And especially if they’re, you know, if they’re moving they’re likely buying another place. You know, you could say you know what, I can come take a look at your new place, we can take a look to see what it would cost to upgrade your appliances and we can do that for you. And by the way, you can stay in the old place for a bit longer and also remembering us Usually you don’t end up paying your first mortgage payment for four weeks anyway. So, you know, yes, we’d all love to live somewhere for a month, essentially rent free, but might as well give that to the seller, if that becomes a negotiation. And in fact, for them, it might help them in giving them more flexibility to move. So those are just a couple of ideas, there’s a lots of other ways you can do that, too. And I guess the the key is to be to be very, very flexible and creative. And that’s, you know, as an agent, that’s what you need to be able to do to bring to your, to your buyers to sort of, you know, give you any sort of advantage you can, because the moment one of those cash offers comes in, you know, that’s that’s going to be tough to beat. That’s just a tough thing that to be. And the other thing too is I’m curious, Chris, and that this is a non financial negotiation, it’s not even a negotiation tactic, it’s just back to prior to just submitting an offer is I’ve heard of agents who asked their clients to write a little cover letter about how much they loved the home, what they liked about it, and and just submit that along with the cover letter, it’s probably the only one they’re going to get, if they get multiple offers. Maybe you can even help write it for your client with their permission, and have them sign it and say, Hey, I just want to let you know, this is how much my clients love this property, submit it with the offer, as long as it’s authentic, and genuine and heartfelt. That a lot of times that you know, we make decisions sometimes based on on emotions over over logic, and they might even take an offer that they feel the home’s going to go to someone who really appreciates it more than somebody they don’t know. Yeah, that the the buyer Love Letter strategy is one that is is out there. And it is, honestly, it’s pretty effective when you’re dealing with single family. Single Family transactions, like consumer to consumer, where I will say that buyers need to, you know, temper their expectations with here is honestly and I don’t mean to paint all investors or income property owners with the same brush here. But if you are buying your property from somebody who doesn’t have an emotional investment in the home itself, like say somebody who is selling, you know, a home that they just use as an income property for writing, those love letters are necessary. Because these folks, honestly I’m sure, I mean, again, don’t want to paint them all with the same brush here. But they couldn’t care less whether or not you can envision your kids running in the front yard, they only care about whether or not the the ink at the bottom of the page is red or black. So you know, be just kind of temper some expectations on that. And actually, that kind of leads to the last thing, the last pitfall that I always

Unknown Speaker 37:56
caution buyers to and want to get a strategy towards, which is we need to be ready with our end game. Should everything go forward, man.

D.J. Paris 38:07
And here’s here’s what I mean by that, let’s say you put in the offer, you make it through the negotiation process, you get it under contract, great, you make it through inspections, maybe there’s a couple of small things here. One thing that the seller is going to fix other than that looking good, fantastic make us through appraisal, hallelujah, we made it after that. The last big hurdle is to just get to the closing table to get you know, the allow the title company to do their research and to get all the documents in order. And then to get to that closing table.

Chris Linsell 38:35
I am like shocked and appalled at how many transactions sit in limbo between post appraisal and the closing table and how many transactions I hear about that

D.J. Paris 38:49
don’t that don’t get completed, even after they’ve done the hard work. And it is by virtue of clients just being honestly just being difficult to deal with.

Chris Linsell 39:03
So if you are a buyer client right now you have no legs to stand on. Don’t be persnickety about when you go when you close on the property. Don’t be Don’t you know, don’t put up a big fight about whether it’s a virtual closing or around the table closing.

D.J. Paris 39:19
Don’t you have no horse in the race here?

Chris Linsell 39:22
You want to get the keys in your hand here so buyers this is this is I’m telling you buyer’s agents right now the message you need to tell communicate to your clients is I’ve got it from here. All you have to do is sit back I’ll tell you when to be where other than that, just let me handle it because the buyer at this point is experiencing a lot of emotion they are experiencing. They’re about to go through one of the biggest moments of their life financially and otherwise, honestly, these are not the kind of people in the kind of state of mind that you want planning the party You are the professional party planner here, you handle all the details. Don’t let the client talk to the title company, you talk to the title company, don’t like the client schedule, the final walkthrough with the sellers agent, you schedule the final walkthrough, you’ve got to be the captain of the ship to get it across the finish line. Otherwise, you end up like that ship in the Suez Canal, you just jammed in there, nobody’s doing anything.

D.J. Paris 40:26
Well, thankfully that that ship I believe has been completely dislodged. But we you know, if we were following the news, we know how that really is to just to go off Chris’s example, there really was a major problem for trade and commerce. And it was just a transportation and logistics for the entire world really sort of, in some ways kind of came to a standstill for a few days, that’s the same thing that can happen. And not only it’s worse than that, right? Because you can lose a deal. Or you could just piss off the seller enough to now all of a sudden, the seller is like, you know what, I have five other offers. And you know what I’ll I’ll I’ll start the process over again, just to make my life a little easier, because I have so much opportunity. So Chris is right, you really have to be careful that your clients, you know, the same negotiation strategies they might have used at the last minute, when buying a property, it’s not that you can’t do some of that you just have to be really cognizant of how far you can push the seller because you just don’t want to push the seller too far right now. They just they have too much power.

Chris Linsell 41:27
Totally, totally. And it’s it’s just, honestly, I mean, just kind of, like, in all seriousness, our fiduciary responsibility is to the well being of our clients, and the well being of your clients, includes getting you across the finish line here, you’re not negotiating for an extra 50 bucks in rent, you’re negotiating for the sale or the purchase of the home here. So be thoughtful about, you know, setting those priorities. And for goodness sake, like you’d be the captain here, let your clients let your clients know that this is what you are a professional in,

D.J. Paris 42:07
this is what you’re trained to do here. I mean, I wouldn’t let

Chris Linsell 42:12
you know, if I’m a doctor, I’m not gonna let a passionate family member operate on their son or daughters, because they really care about it here. I’m gonna let the the person who’s actually been trained to do it here, use the same mentality here.

D.J. Paris 42:26
Yeah, you need to really establish yourself as the, as the knowledge source and, and if you handle everything for your client, they will, they will, they’re less likely to seek out their own information. Not that they shouldn’t. But as as the only means of getting across that finish line. You want to be so professional and so knowledgeable that you are like, here are the steps. Here’s what we’re where we’re at, here’s what happens next, here’s what emotions might come up, here’s what pitfalls might come up. And then they can breathe a sigh of relief, which, because they’re already stressed out, it’s a purchase there. It’s a major financial purchase for almost everybody for a primary residence, right, this is a big deal. Even if it’s the fifth time they’ve bought a home, it’s still a huge, huge deal. So even though they may have been through it before, those emotions come bubbling up. And you know, people typically only move every, what, seven years or so maybe, maybe longer. So the reality of it is is we all forget what it’s like every time we do it as a buyer and and also as a seller, so you need to be that expectation setter. So Chris, this was awesome. What a what a great JAM PACKED episode. We are such such big fans of Chris. You know, we always promote the clothes.com which of course, we will always continue to do. But Chris i Is there any way else that people can follow your thoughts? Because you have just a lot of opinions. They’re always well thought out, well researched, well informed. What’s the best way I know you are on Twitter? And also Instagram. Do you want to promote any of those as well? Yeah, totally. Like, I’m really glad you asked. I want you to go to YouTube. And check out the clothes has a great YouTube channel. We do have other people who’ve contribute to it occasionally. But for the most part, it’s just good ol me if you like watching this podcast and seeing my beautiful bearded face, you can get a ton of that over on YouTube. You can find it super easy. Just search the clothes real estate. And you’ll get it there. We just dropped the video today actually all about real estate scams, the most persistent and pernicious real estate scams and what you can do to protect your clients from them. So I had a lot of fun making this video. This is a really interesting topic. We have a ton of stuff on there, including long form walkthroughs of technology products, reviews of CRMs all sorts of stuff. So check it out. Over on YouTube, the clothes.com We’re everywhere baby. You gotta start following us there too. Yeah, I just I just hit the subscribe button. So if you go to YouTube, you just do a search for the clothes you’ll see Your channel, it’s their logo is a red background with a white seed that’s that’s slightly italicized. And Chris has got tons of great videos here. And so everyone needs to subscribe. You can also get to the YouTube channel from the clothes.com. But yeah, subscribe and walk, watch some of these great videos and pay attention to Chris. And then Chris, is there anywhere else where people should follow you? Yeah, you can find me on Twitter. I’m there, Lindsey. Well, Chris, but you can just search my name Chris law and sell on there, you can find me on LinkedIn. Those are the places that I’m probably most active. But also, you know, I love engaging with our Facebook audience. On the closes Facebook group, we have a group called the close real estate agents mastermind group, it’s free to join, we’ve got 1000s of people in there now, conversations are really lively. They’re ranging from all different topics, including, like, operational, get it done today sort of things all the way up to like, kind of bigger conversations about the real estate industry in general. So if you’re looking for an outlet on Facebook, I love being active in there too. And yeah, you know, you there’s just unlimited potential to hear my thoughts on thing. Well, we’re grateful to have one of those channels to dedicate to your voice because it’s an important voice. It’s a knowledgeable voice, and, and I know our audience appreciates it. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna say goodbye to Chris. But we will see him again next month. Well, so say thank you to all of our listeners and viewers we have so much appreciate your dedication to our show. We love the feedback we get from you. And we are just eternally grateful for you sharing the message of this podcast with other agents. So please tell a friend, think of one other agent and send them a link to our show or just have them pull up a podcast app and do a search for keeping it real. Either way, they can find us pretty easy and turn, turn them on to the show, help them become successful. We’ll continue to help you become successful. So Chris, thank you so much, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks, DJ can’t wait.