Loading summary
Transcript122 lines
- [00:01]
A
What's going on, everyone? Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate. This is Real Talk Realtor. I'm your host, David Green and I'm joined today by Greg Schwartz, a real estate agent who is also a fan of the show and a real estate investor. And we're going to be talking about how to build a business, working with real estate investors and maybe a little bit about how to build a team. Greg, thanks for being here.
- [00:22]
B
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
- [00:23]
A
That is my pleasure. All right, let's get started at a high level. Just hearing about your business. Tell me where you're selling houses and how many houses you're selling a year.
- [00:31]
B
Yeah. So we are in Bryan and College Station, home of Texas A and M. If you look on a map, everybody knows Austin, Houston and Dallas. Right in the center of that we got our little town of Bryan and College Station, aka Aggieland. I moved here back in early 2020, started my investing portfolio here in town and as an agent. So I've been an agent for about five and a half years. Currently we've got a small team and, and we're on pace to sell 25 to 30 houses this year. On top of that, another 10 or 12 lease listings. So not transactions, but specifically helping out investors. So, so that's another big part of our business.
- [01:11]
A
Okay, that's perfect. That gives us some background here. When you say you have a small team, tell me like who makes up this team and how are you organized?
- [01:20]
B
Yeah, so I was a part time solo agent for a long time and I'm as a Keller Williams agent. You know, mrea. Right, the MREA model and all that. So we started off with a tc, hired a TC that I worked for or worked with when I was on a team. So when I first started, I joined a team. She was an employee there, hired her. We've got her as a 1099. And then my wife and I now work together. My wife's not licensed. She's the admin, she's behind the scenes. She does the QuickBooks and all the good stuff, make sure we pass compliance.
- [01:51]
A
And.
- [01:52]
B
And then we just hired a licensed agent. He's actually a salaried agent in kind of an apprentice role. And his job is those lease listings. So he, he's taken those off our plate because it's a, you know, low dollar kind of deal. But it is a big value add to our clients.
- [02:08]
A
All right, so we got you sort of handling sales lead gen. I'm going to call that front end. We got your wife in A support role, keeping you up there, knocking down what gets set up. So she's doing bookkeeping, she's making sure that your license are renewed. I'm assuming she probably does a little bit of sched for you coordination, like with maybe some transaction coordination or handling the emails. Just usually the people that are really good at sales are not really good at being organized. So we always need people to keep us. Like, someone's got to set those bowling pins up if we're going to go knock them down. And. And now you got a guy that you're bringing in who's going to be a salaried agent to work with. Lease listings. Can you tell me what a lease listing is?
- [02:46]
B
Yeah. So I don't know if it's just our town or college towns in general, but there are a lot of lease listings, rental properties listed on our mls. So of course people still put them on, on, you know, Marketplace and everything else, and directly on Zillow. But we provide that value to our investors that work with us. It's one of the things that we pride ourselves on. I was a property manager and we were very good at getting top dollar for our rental properties. So now we provide that to our clients. But it's something that pays roughly one month's rent, is kind of what you can earn. And we provide a discount to our clients, so we're getting less than that. So it's not, you know, I made maybe $6,000 off of that this year, but I was able to lease out properties faster, get better tenants, and just provide a better service to my clients. But ultimately that we have all this year is when we made that transition, said, hey, we need to hire somebody to take this off my plate. And it kind of worked out well. That'd be a great kind of entry role to our team, you know, cut your teeth doing the lease listings. If you're going to hustle and do that, if you work hard for our clients doing this thing, then I can trust you to do, you know, the actual transactions.
- [03:59]
A
Okay, so this may seem like a silly question, but if you're not making money on lease listings and they're taking up so much time, you got to hire someone. What's the benefit of doing them?
- [04:08]
B
Yeah, so what we find is a lot of the buyers, if. If they feel overwhelmed by that process, they're going to go hire a property manager and getting that buyer back out of that property manager, use them as a client, can be difficult. Right. The property manager is getting those touch points because every single month they're sending them money. We really started working with folks who wanted to self manage but wanted some help with it. And so a lot of the clients that we've attracted are in that position and we have a lot of repeat clients as a result. Actually, our most recent closing this week was with a client. We helped her lease out her property and I think it's because of that value add she trusted to use us again. And she doesn't feel the need to hire a property manager because the hardest was done for.
- [04:50]
A
Okay, so if I understand you correctly, property management is almost like a form of a lead generation tool to get people in your funnel because they become clients and you don't want to lose that element of it just because it's not providing a lot of cash flow.
- [05:04]
B
Right. So we, we don't do property management is one of the things that, and this is, this is a decision for me, my wife, for the kind of business we wanted to run. We didn't want to get into that game. But we also need to compete with those property managers because who are having those touch points.
- [05:18]
A
Okay, so I'm sorry, I should say property management. I should have said placing tenants in properties. Not. You're not the person coordinating with late rent checks or repairs, but you're helping place people in properties who later become buyers when they're ready to buy a house. Right, Right.
- [05:34]
B
Okay.
- [05:35]
A
Now is the. If you're making $6,000 a year but you have a salaried agent who's going to be doing that? Are you losing money at this so that you can keep those relationships alive?
- [05:44]
B
No. So again, this is, this, is that, that kind of growth for him. He spends the first half of his day lead genning, almost like he's an ISA for us. But he's learning that process because I don't want to just turn him loose as a new agent. I've seen it too many times. I did it for myself. I didn't sell a house for my first nine months. Yeah, I can't afford him to have be on my team and not sell a house for nine months. I don't make anything off of him. So he takes us off my plate. He does lead gen. He gets a bonus when something that some business he creates closes. Right. Because he's not running those. I take those, you know, from him, do the actual transactions. But then when he's turned loose as a full time agent, he now has that skill. And we're going to require him to be doing 10 to 15 deals that first year okay. And so that it's a long play, but it also gets him aligned with our business. Now we run things.
- [06:31]
A
Perfect. Okay. And then is this like a friend of yours? How did you come across this agent that you're willing to bet on?
- [06:37]
B
7 interviews, and ultimately my mentor highly recommended them. So a little bit behind the scenes on us, I didn't sell a house for nine months, and my wife was offered a job as a property manager, but she had taken a front desk role at the Keller Williams Market Center. So she said, my deadbeat realtor husband hasn't sold a house. Maybe he should go get a job. So literally, we did. We did a little bait and switch. I hopped in on that interview, got lucky, they hired me. We were house hacking at the time. And that job, turns out, was a property management position for a gentleman who owns 600 plus residential doors here in town.
- [07:15]
A
Wow.
- [07:16]
B
So now I have a mentor who's paying me, and I have a great relationship with him. He's my best buyer. We have conversations weekly, and when he says, hey, here's a young man who's a go getter, he's. He's seen enough of those people come and go that it meant a lot. And that interview went really well.
- [07:30]
A
All right, and so you're on the Keller Williams team building model. You mentioned MREA earlier. That stands for Millionaire Real Estate Agent. That's the name of the book that Gary Keller and Jay Papazian wrote that kind of spells out the models for the way to first build your business as a solo agent and then transition into having a team. So, KW people know what you're referring to now everybody else does too. All right, so you are doing well. Break down how much time you're doing selling houses and then what your portfolio looks like and what it's like owning real estate.
- [08:00]
B
Yeah, that's. This is, this is where my wife really, really, really helps us out. So I spend 95% of my time doing real estate. So I wake up at 5:15. From 5:30 to 7, I work on our business and then get the little girl off to school and then we're back at it from eight to five and then, you know, in the afternoons, like every other agent doing some follow up, my wife manages our portfolio to include our Airbnbs. She is awesome at that. So she's 50% the admin side of our real estate agent business. 50% running our portfolio. Right now we're at 26 doors, some fourplexes, duplexes, single families. Eight of those are midterm short term hybrid model. And so she does that full time. And I've always been better at the acquisition side. As you, as you mentioned, just personality type, organized, not really my thing. Uh, so when it comes to, you know, collecting rent on time, making sure that we do all the things we need to the bookkeeping, it's just not really my deal. Probably why it wasn't a great property manager for those three years for my mentor. But you know, I, I, I did what I had to do to, to make sure that he got what he needed out of it so I could have a great mentor.
- [09:12]
A
But yeah, so you're catching the fish, she's cleaning the fish together. You guys are eating all different kinds of fish. I really like this just because it's, it's no secret. The market's really tough right now. I think everybody knows this. If you're stubbornly identifying in today's market as. I am a buyer's agent, I am a listing agent, I am a real estate agent and I work in this area. This is a subjective opinion I'm about to share, but from my perspective, you're basically valuing your comfort. I don't want to leave this area, I don't want to learn something new over your success. When it gets tough like this and you don't have a ton of buyers to show houses to and there's not a ton of listings to sell. I mean, overall inventory is probably 30 to 40% of what it was in a lot of markets across the country. You need to transition and do more stuff. You need to do property management, you need to do lease listings, you need to be out there if you're handy fixing things. Like the most beautiful thing to me of a real estate agent is that you can find a client anywhere, anywhere you go. If you have the right personality and you are a person of integrity and you do what you say, you can pick someone up that's going to need to buy or sell a house. The problem is when that's the only thing you do. I don't know where you're supposed to meet these people. You got to open houses, you got door knocking. That's all everybody's going to tell. You got mailers, right? But when you get out there and you're living your life in the community or providing value in other ways, you meet the people that you could sell an investment property to and when the time comes, they're going to sell their house. And I've been preaching this to so many people and it just falls on Deaf ears for most of them because they don't like the idea. They look at property management like it's different than being an agent. I look at it like it's all real estate. There's definitely components of it you will do better at and you'll be more successful at, and in times of plenty, focus on those things. But in famines, when it's not a feast, you got to do what you got to do, man. Like, I've transitioned in a lot of ways, a lot of ways since the market went down. So I love that you're out there as a family doing this business and doing different things. So do you have anything you want to share on that before we get into the houses that you're selling?
- [11:13]
B
Yeah, I think on that point, I mean, that's kind of, you know, the lease listing side is with tough times, we want to make sure we stood out. I feel that agents are. We're sometimes a commodity. Right? We're all the same. Especially for us. We don't see it that way. Right. We're like, oh, no. Like, each of us is very different, but from the outside looking in, but you can flash your stats, but other than that, hey, you're an agent. You're gonna sell my house. But if you can come in and solve a specific problem that other agents aren't even thinking about, hey, when you buy that investment property, I'm gonna get it leased out for you at top dollar at half the price, you know, half the time with a better tenant. No one even mentions that. So now immediately, I stand out.
- [11:49]
A
I love that. I love it. And I love that you're sort of holistically incorporating. We are meeting people, we are meeting clients that need a place to rent and knowing that if we keep that relationship alive, that becomes a buyer. Five, six, seven years later, that becomes a seller buyer combo. And then you get all these referrals coming in from them. And when you do this for a couple of years and you get an exponentially increasing database, that's where it gets to the point that you don't really lead gen anymore. They're coming to you. You can't keep up with it, with the amount of people that are coming. But it's just involves the scraping and clawing, like you're doing right now at this phase of your career, which I think most agents don't want. They want to step into. Somebody hands me a deal and I go close it. And as we both know, that's what every realtor is looking for. I mean, I Wonder if they've ever done a study of how many realtors the average person has in their context of their phone. Yeah, right. We tend to look at ourselves like, I'm a realtor. That's my friend. I'm his realtor. You're. He might have 12 people that have licenses that they could use at any given point. So when you can provide something extra, solve a different kind of problem, you sort of jump the hierarchy in their mind of who they're going to use when they sell a house. And I think that's key.
- [13:00]
B
Yeah, this is, this is top of mind. I heard this and I don't know where, so I wish I'd give them credit, but you call them a client, do they call you their realtor? And I think about that constantly because we do. We. We look at our database and we're like, these are my clients. No, they're not. If they're your clients, then. Then they would also reciprocate saying, you're their realtor. So if you're not providing that value constantly, they are just people whose numbers you have who might buy or sell. So if we're not providing that value, we're not their realtor. We're just, we're just, you know, a guy who, who is enthusiastic about real estate.
- [13:33]
A
Yeah. That's a beautiful and humbling statement that everyone would benefit from hearing in the book I wrote Sold. The book I wrote Sold and the SQL skill I have basically, like the lead funnel in there that explains. These are the classifications of human being that you're going to come across. This is the definition of each classification. You think you have a phone full of leads. You don't. You have a phone full of people. They are only a lead when they are contacting you about buying or selling a house and they're able to do it. And just because they're a lead does not mean they're a client. That only happens when they sign a buyer broker agreement or a listing agreement. Right. And I always looked at it that way and I maintained a sense of urgency. Like if somebody calls me about selling their house, that is not a client until I have that paperwork signed. So my goal is, how do I get in front of you? How do I bring the paperwork? How do I blow you away with a presentation that you go, this guy's already more committed to my success than anyone I've talked to. I have no problem signing. Now that you've signed, you become a client. You've earned me picking up the phone at 9 o' clock at night. I'm not doing that. When you're just a person in my database with a question about real estate when you might use a million other realtor. In a weird way, people get uncomfortable when I say it. I don't know why. It's kind of like dating, you know, like if you're dating like 10 different people, it's not a wife, it's not a husband. You're not giving them the same level of your heart, soul, energy and attention. And too many people treat agents that way. And agents don't understand that that is like they're in a situationship with all these people. You're maybe showing them a house, somebody else is too. They're calling this person. They think that they have all these different agents for all these different reasons. It's just a number in your phone. Right?
- [15:05]
B
Right.
- [15:05]
A
Until you put a ring on it. That's not your person. And I like that mentality because it forces us be intentional about the process that we're building, the value that we're offering clarity to the client on what to expect. And if you want me to commit to you 100. Which you should, I need you to commit to me 100. We have to have conversations. Do you guys do presentations when you're working with clients? Do you meet in person? What do you do to transition them? Is what I'm asking out of person or lead into full fledged client?
- [15:34]
B
Yeah. So being that we were investor focused, we are. We're very heavy on buyers. And my buyer presentation is just been molded into a conversation about the market. That's. That is very natural because I've done it so many times. My listing presentation is very much a printed out listing presentation that I use to keep myself organized. And yeah, in both cases, it is a very specific presentation. It has a very specific flow to it. Again, the buyer side, very natural. But it is starting off with their goals and their intentions. And we even start with, you know, why this market? Because I want to understand, are they not just committed to me, but are they committed to Brian and College Station? Because I can't help them buy or sell in Waco. I can help them find an agent, maybe, but I can't, you know, if they might already have an agent over there, I need to know, are they committed to this market? And then we go from there to the goals and. And then we go over what is available in Bryant and College Station that could possibly meet their goals. Right. So it, it's. That has a whole progression to it. And I. The whole Time I'm screening them the same way they're screening me to make sure that I can solve their problem. Because I can't solve their problem, then. Then we're wasting each other's times. You know, if they're trying to get a 1% rule single family house on market in College Station, like I'm gonna have to tell them, hey, you're go find another market. Like, Memphis will probably get you 1% rule. Have fun. Here's some focus in Memphis. So you got to save your time.
- [16:51]
A
There's a psychologist that you're gonna need when you get that 1% rule in Memphis.
- [16:56]
B
Yeah, yeah. Because. Yeah. And I usually tell them my first purchase was in Huntsville, Alabama. After reading the long distance investing book, I just jumped in. Didn't follow any of the rules, but I just, I did it. I had all like, the, the, like, I can do it without any of the. Like, you should do it this way. Even though I read the book and I, I invested in like, yeah, 1% rule. My property manager wouldn't go in without a concealed carry. And I was like, why do we need a gun to go into my property? Right. So long story short there, that's the buyer process listing, very similar. We come in, we let them know what kind of value we're providing, how the team works, we're going through, how. What stands us apart on that side really is the investor mindset. And it's all about making them the most money given the market that's available. And same way like as a buyer, investor or a buyer, you can only make as much money as that market can produce. Right. Your ROI is really market dependent, what's available and, and similarly on the sales side, I can't sell your house for 500k. I can only sell your house for what the market's willing to pay. And so that's kind of what we do on both very much a presentation, starting with their goals and seeing if their goals are realistic for the market and where it's at.
- [18:04]
A
Do you say it that way because it rhymes or did you just make that up right now? Probably just, I can't sell your house for 500k. I can only sell your house for what the market will pay.
- [18:15]
B
Yeah, no, that, that just, that just flowed out. I like it though.
- [18:17]
A
Yeah.
- [18:17]
B
Right down there.
- [18:18]
A
By any chance, are you from the East Coast?
- [18:21]
B
Baltimore originally.
- [18:22]
A
Yeah, I get. It's the accent. I'm slowly learning them. I just finally left California and now I'm getting to know all the different people in the South And I'm learning. All right. Do you have any advice, Greg, for an agent who's not used to list or, sorry, an agent who's not used to presentations? They are used to just putting a buyer in their car and showing houses and hoping that it turns into a contract. Now we've got the, the fallout from the Sitzer Burnett. We have to have buyer broker agreements. This made things very uncomfortable for a lot of agents that don't have a streamlined process or confidence. What do you have to say for those agents who know that they maybe need to have a presentation and sit down with someone and they're just nervous about doing it?
- [19:03]
B
Well, there are, they have a hobby, they have a side hustle. They don't have a business yet, I think is what I see out of that. Right. If, if you run this as a business, you're going to realize that the presentation helps you more than it helps the client because you're setting expectations up front. Like we talked about, you know, the 1% rule. If I have a buyer come to me and I simply say, yeah, let's go see some houses and we start running off. But we haven't set expectations about how I communicate, what's available in the market, what's going on, that they have to sign an agreement, how I get paid, then those are just bumps in the road we're going to hit. And ultimately they're not going to have a five star experience. And so yeah, if you're running it as a hobby or side hustle, that five star experience might not matter as much. But when you're building Google reviews and you're building an actual business and you want those repeat referral kind of business, which is, I mean, from what I've seen, the biggest agents, that is still the largest portion of their business soi so sphere of influence, repeat and referrals. And you don't get that by just running and gunning in your car. You can sell 10, 15 houses a year that way. But I don't think it's scalable.
- [20:09]
A
One of the things that I used to say when I was first meeting with people because I noticed that it's just, it's hard having uncomfortable conversations when you don't have like a script or something to stick to. And so I would say, look, here's the deal. If I'm more committed than you are, I'm going to be bugging you by blowing up your phone with all these things. If you're more committed than I am, you're going to feel like I Don't care about this because you're going to be asking me questions that I'm not replying to. I only win if you're happy. So what I need to know is, on a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to getting a house? And then they would usually give me a number, and then I would have to define what that means. Okay, you said you're an eight. That means in my mind, if I find a property that works for you and I send you an offer at 9 o', clock, you're signing it. You're not waiting until the morning? Oh, no, I'd wait till the morning. Okay, maybe you're at a six and a half, seven. That's good for me. Right. And then I would say, how committed are you to using me? And that would get kind of awkward if they haven't. Right. Well, you know, we like you, David. They don't hurt my feelings, but we're kind of talking to other realtors. Okay, I'm glad that you said that. And by the way, no offense, I totally understand, this is why we have this conversation because I don't want to be more committed to you than you are to me. That's going to lead to me bothering you all the time. If you guys are halfway committed to me. How does it look for me to be halfway committed to you? What do you mean? Well, that means I'm going to probably respond to some of your messages, but not all of them. I'm not going to answer the phone every single time you call. I do that for my clients. It sounds like you're kind of in an open relationship with several different realtors here. I don't know that you're going to want to work with me if that's the case. What I would like to know is what would you need to see from me to know you feel good about me being a realtor? Now they're going to tell you. Well, one time we called, you didn't pick up the phone. Well, we thought you were going to do something. That's where the dirt comes out and you get to own it and you get to try to fix it. And those conversations can really, really help. I think that agents listening to this use that script to get into these conversations. And then once you know what they want, is so much easier to give it to them.
- [22:07]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's expectations, right? I mean, what you just said is you're. And I love that, because you're presenting your expectations, you're also pulling their expectations out of them so that you can know whether or not, and maybe, maybe their expectations aren't realistic. You know, you want to know that up front, too?
- [22:23]
A
Yeah, that's a solid point. If they don't have realistic expectations, you need to reset them or you need to get out of that relationship. This isn't the right person for you to be dating, if that's what they're thinking. Right. Okay, let's talk about some of the advice that you're giving to real estate investors. First off, okay. How do you sniff out if this person's legit or if this is someone who's kicking tires and wanting a free education?
- [22:45]
B
Yeah, I mean, the good news is I have a lot of free education, so we started a YouTube channel. So when they, when they start asking a lot of questions, I can defer them to the channel. Hey, like, there's. There's a great resource for that. Go check it out. We. We do probably. We're probably on the side of giving more to, like, the tire kickers, the guys looking for a free education, than we probably should. That's just. I got kind of a teacher background. Dad, mom, teachers, so maybe that's probably something we should work on. But you can, you can tell if someone's serious or not by the education they've already done. If they're talking real estate terms, if they mention watching podcasts, if they bring up a book they've read, then now they've done other stuff besides just come to me. If they come to you and go, I heard you can get rich buying real estate or, my uncle owned a piece of property one time and he said it was a good idea. You know, I don't know. I think I want a duplex, but maybe a single family home. We probably want to Airbnb and do some flips. That person, those are the red flags, right? If they come and say, I read this book, and because of this book, I am looking for a single family house that we can midterm rent, close to a hospital. Now they've done their research, and I can really work with them.
- [24:01]
A
I love that. I love that. Okay, let's say that the person comes to you and they give you the. What you just mentioned. They're all over the place, the big bowl of spaghetti. How do you gracefully get out of that without damaging the relationship or hurting a potential referral in the future?
- [24:16]
B
Yeah, we get this a lot from, like, out of town folks. We get a lot of out of town tire kickers who want to know about your market and learn A lot. And I started charging up front to give them the tour of the towns. That's one way. So they fly into town and they want to take up my entire Saturday to just understand the market. It's 500. I charge them up front. Now it's credited to them at closing. But if you're a tire kicker, that'll weed you out pretty quick. Yes, right. And it's the same thing if it's your first time buying a property. I will also pull that card. If I'm. If I'm wondering whether or not you're a tire kicker, I'll pull that card. Say, hey, here's the deal. In order for me to get you up to speed on the neighborhoods, the local areas, the right properties, there's a $500 upfront fee that gets credit to you at closing. But I need that because there's a good chance that you don't buy with me, and I need to protect my time. If you're an investor, it's. It's enough to be enough, but it should not prevent somebody. It's not like that. $500 shouldn't, you know, if you got 20% down, even 10% down, we're talking about $30,000. $500 shouldn't be a difference.
- [25:20]
A
Well, what's their argument going to be? If you say it's credit to you at closing, are they going to say, oh, well, I was never attempting to close in the first place, so I'm not going to pay that. It sort of puts pressure on them because the whole reason you were taking your Saturday show them homes was you're assuming they're going to buy. Now, I think this used to. We have, we never had to have these awkward conversations until the sincere Burnett fallout where they forced this on the buyer's agents with. I just think was foolish. I think the people out there that thought, yeah, why should I have to pay for a buyer's agent's commission? Like, it was so much better the way it was before. Primarily because the buyers are paying for everything else. They're paying their moving costs, they're paying closing costs, they're paying lending costs. They're like, they're, they're the, the down payment of the house itself. The seller has very few costs, so the commissions being on their side, it almost made it even now, it's just incredibly uneven benefiting the sellers. And anytime a market is incredibly uneven, it stops matches from being made. The dating market, if you have one side with too much leverage, it's not good in the real estate market, same thing. And I have to wonder how much that might have affected real estate sales when we're already in a bad economy. We already had really high rates. You already have. People can barely afford to pay rent. Now they have to go buy a house. It just seemed like a terr. Terrible time for that decision to come out. But I think you're navigating it really well when it comes to that area that you're in. Did you grow up there? What made you pick College Station?
- [26:44]
B
So I grew up in Baltimore, went to school in South Carolina, joined the Marine Corps, eventually ended up in Corpus Christi, Texas, in flight school. Met a cute girl and she was Aggie, a Texas A and M student. She. She joined me in North Carolina for a number of years. Told me very early on in the relationship we would not be owning a snow shovel. So Baltimore was out of the picture. So we got out of the military back in 2019, moved back in with my in laws and want to figure out where we were in a, like plant in Texas and College Station checked a lot of boxes, you know, for, for us personally. But on the investment side, it was a very steady market, very strong market. It didn't. It was insulated from ups and downs. So when Austin went nuts, we didn't go nearly as nuts. But now Austin is in a tough spot and we're still seeing year over year appreciation. So it was a very strategic decision and I couldn't have been happier. So when I first got my license, I didn't know the major road. So people would be like, oh yeah, it's off of Texas Avenue. And I'm like, texas Avenue. And then they would look at me like, we're going to trust you to buy or sell a house? Like, sure. So probably why I didn't sell a house for nine months. But now, now I know my way around and I know every street, every back alley. But yeah, it took a while.
- [27:59]
A
I had a similar experience when I first started selling houses in the Bay Area. So I grew up in Northern California, but it was. It wasn't even the Bay Area so far east. It wasn't Bay Area. It was a city called Manteca, right between Stockton and Modesto. I got a job in law enforcement in the Bay Area. And so I had a rough understanding of the cities out there because I worked for the transit department. But like neighborhoods within cities, no effing clue. But all my clients, they were coming to me that were my cop friends or family members of cop friends expecting me to know the bay area, and they grew up there. It was the same position. And they would say things like, they asked me a question that I didn't know how to answer, and it's terrible. And the trick that I learned to overcome this was actually a trick that I learned being a cop. When I was in hairy situations. I learned that if I kept asking the suspect questions, their brain wouldn't be available to figure out how to run or how to fight. If I'm like, I think this guy's got a gun. He's acting so nervous. I'm pretty sure he has a gun. And all his homeboys are around, and it's just me and my covers, like, eight minutes out. This is not the place to be in a shootout. I need to stall for time. You don't sit there looking nervous and letting them figure you out. I'm like, dude, are those the Jordan 13s? And he's like, no, they're the twelves. He wants to tell me all about the color scheme of the 12s. I'm like, just keep this guy talking. Right. It was similar with my clients. So we'd be showing houses, and I'd say, so tell me what your favorite school district is in this city. Because I don't know them. And I'm learning from my clients as they're showing me houses. Like, what's most important to you about how close you are to the freeway? I don't need to be that close. Well, tell me which freeway you're going to be on the most often. Oh, I'm probably going to be on 880. If you didn't take 880, which one would you take? They have no idea what I'm doing, But I'm absorbing all the information I need to know about these different areas. The school districts, the main thoroughfares, the parts of town people want to. And at the same time that I'm asking these questions, they can't ask me questions. Right, right. Every agent is going to go through this. When you're new in an area. That's my advice. Ask them so many questions that they don't have time to ask you. I'm sure you probably figured some. Now, you seem like you have the right personality for this.
- [30:03]
B
That's a great skill anyway, right? I mean, we talk. I talk. I know I talk way too much. 100%. My wife tells me all the time. I get off a phone call, and she's like. She just looks at me like, did you let them talk? So. So learning and getting better at Asking questions. Something where I'm constantly focused on. And. And yeah. So it gets you out of all the situations. Why do you want that house? Why do you want that investment? Why is it roi important to you? Why do you want the big backyard? Why? Oh, and then. And then you learn so much about the client that it makes it so much easier later down the road and you less surprises. Right.
- [30:37]
A
So, yeah, that's a great point. What's your goal for building all this wealth? What do you want your retirement to look like? It also does this weird thing where it causes people to believe that you care about them, which is. But I'm not saying you shouldn't care about people. I'm saying asking questions does not prove that you care. It just makes them think that you do. And most people won't look at your actions. They'll look at your words. I don't know why, but people in America are like this. So when you ask questions like that, it makes it easier for the clients to feel like you don't have commission breath. You're not just trying to get them in a contract. You understand their goals. They're more likely to come back to you to see you as their realtor. Exactly like what you just said. When they feel like you care about the goals that they have. When you talk the whole time, which is. I. I mean, I'm a podcaster. I make that mistake too sometimes. Right. I think it gives people the impression that you're proving you're smarter than they are or you know more than them. That that can be applicable if it's a stranger who doesn't know you and you need to make a good impression. Like at an open house, I would have to talk a lot. They don't want to open up and tell me stuff. But once they've decided they want to work with you, you're 100% right. You want to flip it around and most of what comes out of your mouth. You want to be a question.
- [31:46]
B
Yep.
- [31:47]
A
What do people need to know about College Station investments? Where you finding opportunities? Where are you finding clients?
- [31:53]
B
Yeah, so I mean, finding clients is right now been a lot of. We're really, really, really tight on our follow up with folks in our database. So we're digging the database hard right now. Folks that we already have relationships with and then outreach through education I think to be super important. I'm also really convinced that AI is gonna be the new search engine. So we're very sensitive to whether or not all the AI bots realize we exist and Making sure we stay on their radar. So that's something we've been focused on for growing the lead flow and make sure that keeps coming in. In terms of Bryan and College Station, it is very much a large college town. It's the second largest university in the Nation or thereabouts. 75,000 students in a 200,000 person town. So, you know, this is very much a college town kind of a play. It has a lot of advantages specifically for investors. So one of the things that investors really like about the town is the pre leasing. All of my leases end in June or July and all of my tenants owe me renewals in February. So I have March, April, May, June to find a replacement tenant. So we pre lease. I have pre leased every single unit in my portfolio for five years. I've never had a true vacancy, meaning tenant moves out and I don't have somebody else lined up. And so there's, you know, anyone who's faced a true vacancy is, it's. It makes you sleep a lot better at night when you know that you've got somebody moving in, you know, a week or two after that tenant moves out.
- [33:20]
A
Where did you learn that trick?
- [33:21]
B
From my mentor. So there were a lot. When I worked as a property Manager, I managed 150 units and we had a lot of rules and a lot of the rules had exceptions. One of the rules that did not have any exceptions was the leases will end May, June or July. It didn't care when they started. They could start in October. They're going to end May, June or July. And because of the college town. College towns create like a force around them, right? Like gravitational force. And if you're not within that season, it could be a difference of about 10% on your rental income and no difference to the property. And then the pre leasing is just icing on the cake. That allows you to get aggressive, like. Yeah, it just gives you. Gives you an extra month or two to just get stupid aggressive on the pricing. We try to price it at that point, what would make us giggle, you know, like someone's gonna pay that. And then we get kind of serious about month two, three, and by month four, we're at or below market rents. Make sure we fill it with good tenants. Always going to lower our rent rates before we lower our standards.
- [34:19]
A
Yeah, that's really smart. I like that you learned real estate not from a salesperson perspective. You learned it from a more functional perspective of property management. Personally, I think that would give someone a lot more confidence when they do get their License and they start working. When someone starts in sales and they don't know anything about real estate, it's not surprising to me why most of them fail. I don't know how you could. I just think about when I got my license. I owned eight or nine houses at that time. That's where almost any confidence I had came from. It was, well, I own real estate and this is the way I think about it. So I feel confident saying that to someone else. And then, then I started selling homes and made money. Then I could buy more houses. And your knowledge and your confidence grows. But when you're new, you don't know real estate, you don't know sales, you don't know forms, you don't know the brokerage. Of course, you sound scared of your own shadow and people can smell that. So I love this idea of doing something useful and having utility in property management, in construction, you are a home inspector, you are an appraiser, even in mortgages or something. And then you get your license. You've got an area of expertise that you're starting from, that you're communicating with. My guess would be when people talk to you, Greg, they can feel this guy knows what he's talking about, and that's why they pick you as their realtor. And if you're listening to this and you know that you don't know what you're talking about, that's the problem that you got to solve before you try to figure out where to get leads.
- [35:37]
B
Right? Yeah. I think what I heard there is the repetitions. You had bought eight houses, so you had gone through that process eight times. I had leased out hundreds of units and walked plenty of rental properties and dealt with tenants. So when we work with clients in that kind of, you know, I'm assuming working with buyers and even sellers, though, you know, you led, you led with experience, and that is going to give you the confidence. And that's. I try to tell the younger agents, get reps in something within real estate. Do a bunch of open houses, just walk a bunch of houses, right? Just go tour 50 houses. Because then when you're walking with a client and you're walking a house, you're. You're going to notice things differently. You're going to have a different aura about you when you walk and go this. I've seen this kitchen layout before and I really don't love it because the pantry is over here. Why would they put the pantry over there? And now they're like, oh, this guy is, is a pro, right? When you walk in and you're. You're kind of lean on them, like, do you like it? I think this should be the linen closet. Oh, no, that's the bathroom. You know, because you just haven't been enough houses.
- [36:39]
A
So get reps. Yeah, really good point. I'm thinking about times when I've met with a realtor, and they made comments offhand like, oh, yeah, there's a listing right down the street that just came out yesterday. I don't know why it makes me think you're paying attention. You know what's going on. You got your finger on the pulse. Your opinion now has more credibility to me than the one like you said, that's just scared or they don't know. Is there a worse feeling when you're a realtor, you're meeting the client for the first time, you can't open the front door.
- [37:08]
B
Yeah, we use Supra. I don't know. Right. Like the. The super boxes, and it's like, it. I don't. Yeah, you get there early, open that thing up. Like, that's the worst.
- [37:17]
A
You just. You're starting off the relationship as, I don't know what I'm doing, and it is so hard. Even if they don't care, in your own mind, your confidence is shot. Or you get the key out, and then you can't figure out how to make the door open. You know, we've all learned that there's some doors you got to pull in a little bit when you turn the key. Or there's, like, little tricks to freaking door opening. And the client's watching you and you. And you're just there. You know that they have to be thinking, he can't even open a door. How could he be my agent?
- [37:44]
B
Right. And if you're in Texas or in the south, it's 110 degrees, sweat is rolling down your backside. You feel it from the back of your neck all the way between your cheeks, and that's all you're thinking about. I can't get the door open. And they were just watching the sweat just pull up on my back. Because we can't get in this AC house.
- [37:59]
A
And they're mad, and their makeup strip it, and they're trying to get inside, and you're like, I promise I can use DocuSign just because I can't open a door. That's a good point. What's something you think Realtors that are struggling to get started need to understand that this is crucial to their success, that most of them don't.
- [38:17]
B
So I gave a class recently with some of the realtors, and I kind of realized it as we were going through it is like two things. One, you just have to understand it's going to be harder. Like, it. We used to joke around in our house, like, harder than it should be. Everything's harder than it should be. Everything worth doing is harder than it should be. Because your brain's gonna connect these easy dots. Oh, I'll go on Instagram, I'll make a post, I'll get clients, I'll show two houses. We'll put one under contract. It's gonna take X what you think. And all these 10x books, they say it, but you just. It takes a while to wrap your brain around it. And I think the second piece of that is. And it kind of goes in hand in hand is the consistency. What I did wrong in my first nine months, besides not knowing the local area, is I door knocked for two weeks. And then I did Facebook ads for two weeks, and then I did open houses for two. You can't do anything in two. You can't do anything in less than two months. So our most recent agent with his lead gen, I have him doing. It's going to be an entire quarter. So three months of consistent action, tracking his inputs and outputs before I will let him change. He's got only three legion options. He's doing LinkedIn, open house, and social, like local networking groups. Those are his three legions. And he's only allowed to do that for the next three months. Track his results, and only then will I let him get rid of one or add one.
- [39:36]
A
Okay, that's really good. When you. When you say all the different things you did, I get this image in my mind of a person with an ax walking through a forest, chopping every tree three times.
- [39:46]
B
Right.
- [39:47]
A
You know, like, it's a lot of work. You're gonna be sweating, you're gonna get calluses. But I've. I've talked to the agents on my team about this very same thing. One of my big pet peeves is when you are 98% of the way the finish line and someone takes their foot off the gas.
- [40:01]
B
Yeah.
- [40:01]
A
And they risk a whole deal falling apart or whole deal does fall apart because you celebrated too early. It would drive me. I mean, I could still remember some of the cases where we called someone and said, the seller accepted your offer. We are. The house is yours. And they said it before we had an executed contract because the listing agent told them that we were going, that they would accept the offer. And then the other agent found out. It was like, oh, really? We'll give you ten grand more than that. And they're like, okay. And the next thing you know, we don't have the house. And I got to call the guy back and be like, actually, we didn't. And I was so mad. But it was like the people on my team just lacked that focus to see it all the way to the finish line. You're better off to screw it up when you first start than you are to get 70% of the way there and then screw up the relationship with the client. If you're gonna start something, I mean, don't keep doing it if it doesn't work. Let's clarify that. Like, it doesn't make any sense to just keep chasing a bad idea. But if it does, if you do believe in it and you see some success happening, if you quit it and start the next thing, all the work you've already done was for nothing. Like, you gotta. You gotta keep getting that momentum. That door knocking. Yeah, that's great. You gave them a card. That doesn't mean they're going to use you to buy a house. People don't pick realtors off of business cards. They pick them off of the relationship that was built. So giving them a card was a step in the direction of a relationship. It was not the goal. And I frequently find this problem curious, Greg, if it's similar for you because you came from the military, so maybe you avoided this trap with W2 workers who look at life like, my job is to be in a physical location, and that's what I get paid for. Or I have a checklist of things I have to do. That's my job. I do the things. They do them blindly. They don't ask why they're doing them. They don't try to do them well. They just do it. Versus what I call the 1099 mindset, which is, my job is to sell a house. How do I sell a house? These are all the steps that I need to do to do it. Handing out business cards or holding open houses in and of themselves was not the job. It only got me a little bit closer to the goal, and then I got to follow with the next. Okay, you went to my open house. I got a bunch of people that signed up. Now I got to go send them a note, send them an email, call them, text them, follow up. They didn't reply to my phone call. Take a video of me in the office talking, send them the video. So that they know it's not spam. Follow up. Two weeks later. Oh, they just, they called me back. I need to get you in the office. You got to meet with me. I got to make you like me. I got to make you see that I know more. The attitude was never okay, I did everything that I said I was going to do. My checklist is done. That was a day's work. I'm wondering, because you were a marine, if you just had the mentality of the job is accomplish the mission, not the job is to do what I'm told.
- [42:38]
B
Yeah, I think, I mean, even, even in the military though, right? Like the, the, the people we see in the office at the market center, you know, at the, in the, the offices that are the water cooler people have the W2 mindset. I, I'm not, I don't want to make small talk with you at the water cooler because I, I, I need to make money right now. Right. I'm out hunting. Right. We're not, we're not, we're not sitting around shooting the shit. Sorry for the language. I don't know where we're at now. You're good. You know, in the military, you have this, you have the same thing. You have a lot of, you know, we're just killing time till the day's over. When there is a mission, though, then everybody gets focused, gets driven, and everybody starts running in the same direction. But then when that kind of goes away, you start seeing people kind of fall the wayside again. I think the beauty of where I'm at now is, is the mission is, is consistent. And so therefore we have the consistent action. But yeah, I do think there's a mentality switch for sure. And I think it comes down to if you, you can have small talk that doesn't grow your business during the business day on a regular basis, and that doesn't bother you, then you don't have the right mindset because you're gonna, I look back at that and I'm like, I just spent an hour that didn't, that, that is very valuable to me. That didn't help me give value to my clients, didn't help me get new leads, didn't help me close a deal, didn't put better systems in my business, didn't grow my, my employees, yeah, a hundred percent. I think there's definitely a mindset switch. And I really think it comes down.
- [44:06]
A
To an hour is so much more time than people think it is. Like, if you just say an eight hour day, which is what Most people, they don't work more than eight hours unless they're successful, right? And you say, I'm gonna. You know, you're gonna waste an hour scrolling on the Internet, and then you're going to spend an hour having mindless conversations that those two undisciplined actions are literally 25% of your entire day. That. That is a hugely expensive thing. When you look at it like there's 24 hours in a day. I just spent one hour talking. Big deal. It doesn't seem that big, but you're not going to be working for 24 hours in a day. The people that work 24 hours a day, they definitely don't waste time talking at the water cooler. Right? And the reason we bring up this mindset thing is because it's a tragedy to me that you could have so many agents that spend so much effort and calories doing things, but they don't see it all the way to the end. I mean, I would pick, jump in and take clients from those agents constantly. There'd be an agent who, like, God, this one would. I couldn't believe sometimes that would work. They would go through all the work of nurturing a seller lead. They would run all the comps. They would do all the research. They would get a listing agreement signed. They put all the effort of putting a house into the mls. They would be communicating with their clients. They paid all the money to the different MLs that they have to belong to and the different associations. They've done so much time, effort, and labor. And then they got pictures taken with their cell phone that they threw up on the. Okay. And then the house doesn't sell, and the agent cannot in good conscience tell the client it's because I didn't want to spend 500 on pictures. Or maybe they're less in some markets. And so the client would come to me, like, I heard you're the man. I never. I don't know you. I was told to come to you because you're really good at selling houses. And I look at the thing and I'm like, that's.
- [45:47]
B
This is a layup.
- [45:49]
A
Like, I'm not. I had to almost make it look like I needed to do more than I did to sell their house so that I wouldn't. They wouldn't feel bad paying me 3%. But I would get the listing and I would just get professional pictures taken. It was under contract within, like, 48 hours. And they gave me credit. They're like, wow, this guy's good. He got My house sold. But I know. Why did that other agent put in so much time and then skimp on almost the only thing that matters when selling a house is what does it look like online. Right. Like I know that agent put more effort into their Facebook pictures, their dating app pictures. They use filters on all their personal things. But then they're selling someone's $900,000 house and they've got like garbage pictures that they didn't even look at the order in. And it's the same thing we're talking about. If you think your job is to upload the pictures and then you check the box and you say I did my job, you're just wasting your own energy and time. You need to be thinking of what is effective.
- [46:46]
B
Right? Yeah. Or the descriptions with AI. Well, for one, using AI and not putting the inputs so you have an AI description that doesn't line up the house, which is great. It's a chef's kitchen. It's a galley kitchen that's falling apart with no oven. It's a chef's kitchen. An open, spacious, updated floor plan. Not at all. Right. It's. It's been a, it's a 90s built house that's been segmented over and over again and has a caved in floor. So that. Those are great too. And you're like, okay, you just. And that is, that is your job at that point is market the property. And it's not that hard to do. But you're right. It takes. It's so hard to get a listing. Why would you not go full bore once you get it?
- [47:26]
A
Oh yeah. Especially when you consider not only is a listing hard to get, but in everything in real estate it has the most value outside of just commission check. You pick up buyers from listings, you pick up other listings from listings. You pick up clients at open houses. You get to put it on your social media and everyone gets to see that you did something. If you make the cutesy fun videos and you're doing it on your listing, you get a lot of value out of that. You learn a lot about real estate by talking to escrow company from getting your. The I'm. My mind's blinking right now. The, the pre. Title. What am I trying to say right now? Greg, what's that thing called when you're. Yes, well, when you're getting ready to put on the market and they, they do like an initial check.
- [48:06]
B
Oh yeah, yeah.
- [48:07]
A
Whatever that is that I can't remember. Like these are all experiences for you to gain knowledge about Real estate that will benefit you. And then my goal with any listing I ever had was I need a minimum of one other listing and hopefully a buyer. Because if you can do that, you never run out of listings. You will always perpetually have at least one, and then when you get two, you'll have at least two. And it kind of worked that way. If you sacrifice, when you get a listing, if you do everything you can to market it, you put it all over your social media. You host open houses all the time. You tell everybody that you know about it, you send it out to your database, you get other people to ask questions, then you give them a CMA on their house. And then when it sells, you go tell everybody about, hey, this house just sold. I've got buyers. If you really wake up and say, like, I'm giving this thing everything I have, that might be responsible for 80% of your business. If you do it right, it blows me away that they're willing to do all the work that doesn't lead to money. But then when you finally get the golden goose, they let that one go. And that's why we're talking about mindset, because it's so important. It's just the W2 culture of America, where we have grown up thinking, I need a boss that tells me what to do, that does all the thinking. I just want to be a mindless drone that never feels stress, pressure or tension is poison to successful people. Not just making money, but just like in life. Life is not gonna ever tell you what to do when you have kids. I don't have any, but I'm sure people with kids understand this. They don't come with an instruction manual. Right. When you're out there trying to accomplish a mission in war, you can have a plan of what you're going to do. Things go on and you have to adapt all the time. Right. Like, that is the nature of how life works. You have to be able to adapt. And I even worry about. We mentioned AI. I worry about the people that don't understand that AI is a supplement. They're going to lean on it as a foundation. What's going to happen to their own critical thinking skills when they're just asking chat GPT what to do constantly? Is that a thing that you put any thought into that, like, we may be cognitively diminished if we just rely on it for everything?
- [50:04]
B
Yeah, I think it should enhance what your abilities are, not replace them or sub or. So if you don't know anything about, let's say, the investment Side, Right. You're not an investor agent. And you start, okay, you're going to use ChatGPT and some client asks you a question, you respond to their email, chatgpt. But you don't try to break down and understand it. You are. You're now easily replaceable. But if you're going to learn from it and you're going to say, okay, why. Why is it saying it in this direction? Why does it say that, you know, rates are going to go up or down? Right. Why? How does the Fed adjust the interest rates? And how do the interest rates affect investors? And how to, you know, how does that expense affect their cash flow? And what kind of ROI are they looking for in this kind of market that might be going into a recession? What's their goal? Like, there's so much more you can learn with ChatGPT. So use it to learn, don't use it to be the replacement. It's the same thing. Like, hey, we talk about those listing descriptions. Use ChatGPT to make you a better description. Don't let it write your description.
- [51:09]
A
That's great. I love that. Yeah. Ask yourself, why does that sound better than what I came up with?
- [51:15]
B
Right.
- [51:16]
A
You know, here's another thing that I noticed in real estate that a lot of people didn't do. When I had a listing, I was always trying to look at it from the perspective of the buyers. Okay. So I would get a seller who'd be like, hey, my house has crown molding and theirs doesn't. It cost me $10,000. It has to be at least worth $10,000 more. Right. And you and I are laughing because we know that it doesn't work that way, but the sellers want it to work that way. That's how they like to think of it. And so the key was I had to get the seller to look at their house from the perspective of a buyer. Another one, this would come up like, well, we're not going to paint it or get it ready for sale because the buyer is going to paint it whatever color they want anyways. This was always the case, right? Like, no, that is not.
- [51:57]
B
We don't. We don't know what color the buyer is going to want, so why would we paint it?
- [52:00]
A
Yes.
- [52:01]
B
Well, because right now everybody thinks it's.
- [52:03]
A
Ugly if you paint it 100%.
- [52:05]
B
Some people might think it looks good, but it's not the right color for them.
- [52:08]
A
Yeah. Yes, that's it. Buyers are looking at how it makes them feel. They don't walk into it knowing exactly, exactly what they want. You need to make it look better so that it shows up in the pictures. But you have to figure out how you get your seller to look at their house from the eyes of a buyer. Right. I know you guys don't want to take all your pictures off the wall. And some people would even get offended when you're like, we need to take off the baby pictures.
- [52:32]
B
Right.
- [52:33]
A
It makes people feel uncomfortable when they walk your house and they see that little scene from stepbrothers with the guy on his stepbrother's shoulder, and it's not their home. Like, they can't picture themselves living there. They're just thinking, I need to out of this place because I'm intruding on somebody's life. Right. And the same was true when I was working with buyers. I needed to get them to look at this, their offer from the perspective of a seller. Like, if you're going to write that offer and the house has been on the market for four days, it is going to offend them because it is an offensive offer. Let's write those offers on. The houses have been on the market for 90 days. And let me figure out how to massage it before we just blast them with it. Right. And that key, when you're an agent, will really, really help because you're. If you want to get your house ready for the market, you want to beat all the other houses on Zillow. You're looking at. What are buyers seeing? What are the other houses they're looking at? That was another thing I would do when I'd run CMAs. I'd want to know what my competition was, because everyone thinks when you're going to look at a home, that. Or, sorry, when you're a seller and there's an appointment to see your house, every seller assumes they're coming to look at my house specifically quickly. But you go on tours, Greg, do you ever go show, like, one house at a time?
- [53:43]
B
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Your house isn't special. Sorry. Yeah, you're special. Snowflake. Right.
- [53:47]
A
There's like six homes. You're going to look at all of them, and you're like, where does this one stack up with the other five? That's how a buyer is thinking. So you would literally have to see what is my competition? What do they have? What could we have that would make us a little different? Where could we spend the money that would make us stand out? We don't want to look just like every other house. We certainly don't want to look worse like, it's. There is some critical thinking that goes into being good at our job is your. You should be thinking about that. And the same thing when you're working with buyers is like, I don't want to go show you the house that every other buyer is looking at that's getting 20 offers right now. I want to find the house that's been marketed poorly or that didn't show up in the search for whatever reason. Like, sometimes I'd catch a house with square footage that wasn't included or whatever. I love what you're talking about because when you're looking at real estate from the perspective of the investor that you are, we are trained to look for that thing that everybody else missed, and that's value that you can offer to your clients when you're doing it for them.
- [54:40]
B
Yeah. On the listing side, you know, we. We talk. There's two things you hit on that I love. One is we talk about Active listings are your competition. How do you compare to them? Both price and presentation comps are the price at which the houses went under contract. So that's not the price it sells at, but that's the price you need to be at in order to get an offer that is acceptable. And then of course, comps are what they're selling at, but that's in the past. It's the rear view mirror. So it's not addictive of direction we're going, particularly right now where the market's getting softer. Similarly, we started actually including a credit off of our. Off of our fee off of our commission to the seller based on their price point to get them to make repairs. Now, it's not enough to cover the repairs, but if you don't use it, you lose it kind of a thing.
- [55:27]
A
Thing.
- [55:28]
B
So I recommend that you do lawn care or landscaping. Your. It looks like the projects out there. We need some bushes, we need some roses, we need a little tree. I need the door to be painted. And I need, you know, this living room not to be this accent orange or whatever you have. I've got that whole thing might cost $5,000. I'm giving you a $700 credit. If you don't use it, you lose it. So that at least gets them to call the contractors to get the estimates and to get the ball rolling in that direction. Because sometimes it's all you need is that nudge. And then once it gets rolling, you can kind of get them going the right direction.
- [56:02]
A
And this is, this is just for your. Your sellers that don't want to spend any money.
- [56:06]
B
Right? Yeah. So in the market we're in right now, now, not necessarily, you know, three years ago, but we're in a market right now where if you don't do anything, we know you're dead in the water.
- [56:14]
A
Yeah.
- [56:15]
B
There's no pictures I can take that can make you stand out if you don't do anything. So I need you to do something, and something leads usually to more things.
- [56:24]
A
And then that is really smart. You're actually talking about affecting the psychology of the seller.
- [56:30]
B
Right. That's get them moving, get them to the gym, Ask them just to do a bench press. And then they're going to do some leg presses and some curls. They're going to get on the treadmill and everything else. I'm only asking them to do a bench press. It's what's the atomic habits, Right. You put on your. You put on your running shoes, then you'll go for a run. All I'm asking you is put on your running shoes.
- [56:51]
A
Oh, you're talking to me right now. Like, if I go to the gym, there's a 99% chance I'm going to get a very good workout.
- [56:59]
B
Right.
- [56:59]
A
If I. The problem is if I don't feel like it, I. I talk myself out of going a lot of the time. Right. If I clean the kitchen now, I'm like, what else needs to get cleaned? And I just become a clean machine, and I go until I'm exhausted. Like, getting started is usually the hardest part. So if you make it easy for them to get started, like, you help the momentum, they're likely to jump in and do a lot more. That makes your job easier.
- [57:21]
B
Right. Once the contractor gets there, he's going to recommend three or four more things that'll be perfect for your listing. It's more than what you had budgeted, but they're like, well, I'm saving 700 bucks, so sure, I'll spend 3,000.
- [57:34]
A
Anything else, Greg, that you can leave us with for advice for Realtors really appreciate what you've shared so far.
- [57:39]
B
Yeah, you know it. This morning, my wife and I had like, a talk about our systems and stuff, and one of the takeaways that I had about it is like, there's always going to be problems. And this was the kind of the summary. There's always problems in your business. The goal is to pick the one that's the bottleneck keeping you from growing right now. Focus on that one problem, because the other problems will always be there. So for us, my communication with my Sellers is not where I want to be between me, my admin and my tc. It's not where I want it to be, but it's not going to prevent me from closing or helping people close houses. It will help. It will prevent me from scaling the way I want to. So that's a problem we have to solve eventually. But there's 10 other problems and there might be one more important right now. So we're going to face this thing where you're going to if you listen to a podcast like this regularly, you're going to come away with 17 things you need to fix in your business right now. Don't try to do all 17. Please don't try to do all 17. It'll end up. You'll just be overwhelmed and you'll get none of them done. So pick the one thing you think is the bottleneck that's keeping you from growing today. Fix that one at a time. I think doing those things sequentially so much better than trying to do them all at once.
- [58:47]
A
What do you think about when you're trying to figure out where to start picking the thing that will make fixing all the other things maybe a little bit easier.
- [58:55]
B
Right? So for us, right, we're mostly on the buy side. I want to take on more listings things, but I don't feel comfortable taking on listings because my systems aren't quite the way that I want them to be in terms of the communication. I don't feel like I have a good handoff from when I take the listing appointment to my admin team running everything in the background right now. So if there's any hesitation in my comfort level taking listings, and that's gonna slow me down. So I think you have to look at your your business and go, hey, if my goal next year is xyz, what is the thing that would prevent that goal from happening? And if it's legion, then we need to lead into lead with open houses or door knocking or whatever it's going to be. If it's systems that you need to lead in, you know, or lean into those. But that's the best thing I can do is just think about where I want to be in six months and then what is it between where I'm at and where I'm at now, or where I want to be and where I'm at now, that's preventing that.
- [59:47]
A
You made another or difference that was super good there where you said, if I feel like my systems aren't good enough for listings, then I won't go get More. And that is.
- [59:55]
B
You feel confident.
- [59:56]
A
Yes, that's a hu. What I noticed when I had a team, if my team had bad attitudes, if they, if they were skipping steps I told them to do, I would subconsciously think, I don't want to lead Jen, because I'm going to let down the client. And it was the worst thing for the business. I needed to be in this aggressive. Oh my gosh, we're crushing it. How do I go get more? So the mindset of the realtor, you got to protect your own head so that you like what you're doing. If you ever get to the point you're like, this job sucks. I don't like you catch yourself thinking that way. Those are expensive thoughts because they will subconsciously hold you back from going, getting more clients.
- [60:31]
B
Yep. I think we said it multiple times. The confidence is key. Whether it's the. From selling it to growing your business or everything you're doing. And that comes from reps, comes from the systems. And I think too coming comes from listening to podcasts like this, listening to what other people are doing and having, you know, you can get experience from this. You can get experience off YouTube and, and, and podcasts and stuff.
- [60:52]
A
So yeah, that's a great point.
- [60:53]
B
That too.
- [60:54]
A
Yeah. You're so borrowing other people's experience. I see why you got a YouTube channel. Man, you're pretty good on a mic. If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to have you do one of the Seeing Green episodes with me where we take questions from the investing community and have you throw your two cents in and help me answer them.
- [61:09]
B
I've got some thoughts.
- [61:11]
A
You guys can get more of Greg Schwartz. Greg, if people want to reach out and get a hold of you, where can they go?
- [61:15]
B
Yep. So very niche investing in Brian and College Station, Texas is the YouTube channel. You know exactly what we talk about on there and then on Instagram. We're Schwartz Realty Group.
- [61:26]
A
All right, everyone go give Greg here a follow. Show him some love. And remember that today's show was sponsored by the one brokerage. The one brokerage to handle every loan you could ever need. You can reach us at intake@the1brokerage or you can go to davidgreen24.com and use the chat option to get a hold of yours truly. Yes, that is me that answers them. Almost everybody starts it off by saying, is this really David? And it is because I want to make sure we get you put in touch with the right person, whether it's a short term rental property manager for your Airbnb or it's a loan for what you're doing. Whatever the case is, we want to help you. So reach out. We'll get you connected. And make sure you give Greg a follow and let us know in the comments what you thought of today's show. Greg, thanks again for being here. It was great to meet you. We'll have to do this again.
- [62:08]
B
That was a good time. Appreciate it, David.