Real Estate Talk Podcast with Jesus Castanon | RETalkPodcast
The Ultimate Real Estate Unveiling! Raw, Real & Revealing insights from industry experts
Dive headfirst into real estate's most electrifying depths with industry legends - Jesus Castanon, Josh Cadillac, and Richard L. Barbara. Why legends? With billion-dollar deals, groundbreaking innovations, and wisdom that's transformed the landscape, they've not just witnessed the game; they've been the game-changers. And if that's not enough, they're joined by a parade of industry-expert guests, spilling secrets and dishing advice that you won't hear anywhere else.
Expect RAW, REAL strategies that shook the market, REVEALING insights, and timely takes on today's market, coupled with actionable advice.
This isn't your typical real estate chitchat. This is RETalkPodcast - where the titans and top minds of the industry unite. Dive in, and prepare to have your real estate perceptions rocked!
Real Estate Talk Podcast with Jesus Castanon | RETalkPodcast
Riding the Waves of Pandemic: Thriving through Business and Personal Transformation | RETalkPodcast | Episode 4
What if the lockdown period could be a golden opportunity to improve your deal-killing skills, rather than a hindrance? It's time to unmask the secrets of thriving amid challenges - mastering time management, maintaining a clean workspace, and driving your business forward amid the adversities. As we sail through this period of turmoil, we advocate for transforming the adversities into stepping stones.
In this episode, we embark on a deep-dive into the subtle art of understanding people, especially in the realtor business. We challenge you to consider others' feelings while ensuring your objectives are being met. Our discussion takes a turn into how our parents' interactions with the world shape our perspectives and handle a unique situation of needing a commercial appraisal for a residential property. Furthermore, we shed light on the importance of preparation, embracing discomfort, and ambition to advance in business and life.
Our episode doesn't stop at that. We explore the power of mindset, negotiation tactics, and self-improvement. We reveal how understanding body language can unlock the true intentions of others and how digesting books like 'Think and Grow Rich' by Napoleon Hill can set you on the path to financial success. A critical discussion on the appraisal process, setting healthy boundaries, and the impact of fear and discipline on our lives is also on the agenda. Lastly, we share some personal stories about owning a mortgage company, dealing with restaurant reopening, and the significance of building strong relationships with mortgage brokers and title companies. So, are you ready to transform your lockdown routine into a treasure trove of learning and self-improvement?
Real Estate Talk Podcast with Jesus Castanon - @retalkpodcast: The Ultimate Real Estate Unveiling! Raw, Real & Revealing insights from industry experts
Dive headfirst into real estate's most electrifying depths with industry legends - Jesus Castanon, Josh Cadillac, and Richard L. Barbara. Why legends? With billion-dollar deals, groundbreaking innovations, and wisdom that's transformed the landscape, they've not just witnessed the game; they've been the game-changers. And if that's not enough, they're joined by a parade of industry-expert guests, spilling secrets and dishing advice that you won't hear anywhere else.
Expect RAW, REAL strategies that shook the market, REVEALING insights, and timely takes on today's market, coupled with actionable advice.
This isn't your typical real estate chitchat. This is RETalkPodcast - where the titans and top minds of the industry unite. Dive in, and prepare to have your real estate perceptions rocked!
Meet The Legends:
Jesus Castanon: Visionary CEO of Real Estate EMPIRE Group, transforming property transactions into success stories.
Josh Cadillac: Renowned real estate coach, national speaker, and author; revolutionizing the art of 'closing for life.'
Richard L. Barbara, Esq.: Florida's legal luminary, pioneering change and setting the gold standard in real estate advocacy.
All right. So, look, there's nothing we could do about it. We're going to be locked in the house or in the wherever you want to lock yourself up in a place 30 for 30 days or more, it depends who you ask. Okay, so we could either take this time and come out of this better, okay, and take this time. Everybody should be reading books. Everybody should be watching some self-help videos. Everybody should be doing stuff that makes them better. We all know what.
Speaker 1:I have a list of books. I mean, you're probably the only guy who's probably gone through all your list of books already, but I have a list of books that I want to read, right. I have a list of stuff that I want to get better at, right. So I am focusing my time on coming out of this better. There's things with the company that I've never been able to sit down here. Shit, I might even clean the office, like my office. A bunch of stuff around here that I want to get rid of. I might even take advantage of that, you know.
Speaker 1:But what things can we do? So the topic today is what can we do to become better at what we do in life? Okay, because obviously this is a real estate heavy podcast, let's say, sure, okay, but what can we do in life? All right, to make us better through this time, all right. So we're also going to talk about different deal killers, okay. So what deal killers are the most prominent deal killers? What do we got? We got appraisal, appraisal, inspections, mortgages, title, and then the biggest deal killer of them all Other agents, other agents Right, so we're going to talk about that. And, by the way, the reason why this podcast works with both of those things together is because let's talk about one. Let's talk about the realtors. Sure, other agents, let's hit the worst one first. Sure, all right.
Speaker 1:So I always tell my realtors look, guys, I don't want to bullshit you. There's good news and bad news, all right. The realtors in this business are going to be unprofessional. Anybody to get their real estate license, you know, anybody. Fog up a mirror, have a poll? Hey, anybody, anybody. The people that I have seen, I have.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how many times I look at this person. I'm like, oh my God, I cannot believe this fucking person actually passed that, because I had a hard time passing it. I'm one of those people that probably shouldn't have it. You know what I mean Intelligence wise. So if I failed it six times, right, how many times? Oh, I had a buddy of mine that went to get a degree and he was a college guy, university guy, had a degree in criminal criminal justice, masters in criminal justice failed that shit 20 something times, whoa, 20. He just got in his own head is what happened after After like number five. It was like downhill from there, right. So? But the people that get their license in this business, there's a lot of people that shouldn't have it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's the bad news, but it's also the good news. Why is it the good news? Because that's your competition, absolutely. You know, it's easy, I mean it. This kind of bodes well with with the topic of the class, which is like how of the of the podcast, which is like how to use this time. Well, this is right here. Something like this, taking on a subject like this, is using that time. Well, you're sitting there trying to figure out which whether you should get another twinkie or another little hostess cupcakes right now on your couch and trying to make sure you caught up on all the important stuff and like like the most recent episodes of keeping up with the Kardashians or just watching the news to scare the shit out of you all day. Absolutely. Why can't we be taking advantage of this time to take and catch up on all those things?
Speaker 1:Cleaning the office, I mean, look, a clean workspace helps you to function better. Is my office dirty? No, I never thought so. All right, thanks, man. Not a clean desk dude, I mean, just like me, a clean workspace. You know, the cleaner you keep things, the more effectively a piece of equipment can run, and you yourself are your most critical piece of business equipment. If you don't keep yourself in a position, if you don't set yourself up to succeed, well, you're going to fail. And so, taking advantage of this time to really get in there and say, hey, look, what's wrong with my business, what are the things that I've been putting off? You know what? Let me, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1:I don't like to drop the big hammer right away. What does your email inbox look like, man? Why you got to go there? Man, I'm going to tell you right now. I'll tell you right now. I see them all right, but let me defend myself here. I'm going to tell you 5,000, 3,000, sorry, 5,000. Yeah, 358 unread emails? Now, guys, I read every. I know it sounds crazy, but I read every single email. These are ones that I know are either spam or some shit I already read or stuff that I don't really don't have to look at. Until I have to look at, like, for example, like the leads that come in through the office, I want to see them, but I don't have to see them. So I'm defending myself a little bit. What's yours at zero? Mine, right now, because I cleared it out about an hour ago, is 21. I'm going to lose a point in you, but okay, there's going to be a zero. There was only one from yesterday, 20 from today. So, yeah, stuff like that. But look, let's go step by step. We could almost join this. Instead of it's being part one, which is what to do with this business, it's, let's go step by step on those on the deal killers and let's talk about how to improve yourself on these deal killers during this time.
Speaker 1:So, first and foremost, realtors, all right, what? So? Here's the thing that, man, I tell my agents all the time guys, I was horrendous at school. All right, I was horrendous at taking tests. I graduated high school with a 1.5 grade point average the year before they switched it to a 2.0. All right, so if they switch it to a 2.0 while I was already there, no bullshit, it would add it a couple more years to my stay right In high school and I'm zero kidding. I just did not like school. I did not like what I was doing there, right?
Speaker 1:But, that being said, always knew I wanted to be in real estate since high school when I got out of there, my first book, actually my second book, the first book I was a basketball guy, so I read the Magic Johnson book. But the second book I read, and every other book I've read, I've never read a novel, I've never read anything fiction. It's. Everything's been to get myself better, all right. So how do we get ourselves better to deal with the most difficult person possible, a person who is going to just they have a listing, you have a buyer, they're going to make you suffer through it. Okay, I tell you what. There's one book and I'm going to just bring it out there right now. Whoever's listening to this, all three people that are listening to this, all right. So if you guys go out there, if you want to improve your real estate business immediately game changer.
Speaker 1:If I had one book that I would have to read and if they would tell me forget about all those hundreds of books that you've read, read one, it would bite. No, not even a close. Second would be how to win friends and influence people. Sure, okay, by the way, since you know, it meant everything to me, but you that have read as many books as you have, is that, is that in your top 10? Even it's up there. I would say it's probably Eliminating fiction and all that stuff. All right, yeah, self-help, and just yeah. No, I mean, it really was the granddaddy of them all when it comes to the idea of self-help, and it really takes into account the fact that to get anything done, there's other people involved Always, and it's something our society doesn't do particularly well. Now I remember again I was just talking to you earlier about this today in the office my father was almost 50 years old when I was born, so he was born in 1930 and they thought differently back then.
Speaker 1:I would go to the movie theater with him. The first thing is a little kid, you do. You run up, you put your hands in the glass and you look at the candy, right, cause you want the candy. My father would grab my hand and say no, you don't do that. If you touch the glass, somebody's going to have to clean it. He was always thinking about the other. You never walk out of a door and just let it go behind you.
Speaker 1:You look to make sure you're not released dropping it on somebody. You think about other people and so you know recognizing that other agent. Maybe he's having a bad day on the other end of that line and that you can either add to that or take away from that. But other agent is a lot of ways, a gatekeeper to what you want to get done. And so if your life can be built around the idea of taking and making other people's lives better and in the process getting done what you need to have done, that seems like a much better life than the very selfish lives that we tend to live. And so I think that's what that book really kind of crystallized for me. Yeah, it to me, it, you know.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, I have to give all credit to my dad here. I've called him. He never asked me to do this, but he was. He was after me and after me and after me. It just sounded boring to me.
Speaker 1:The title was like how to win friends. I'm never how to make friends. You know what I'm saying? What I miss was the influencing people. Right, like again. I just read the beginning of the first and I'm like, what the hell do I need this for man? I have called him like maybe 20 times to thank him, for I thanked him more for that than I thanked him for being a great father, and he was a great father. So it's, it's one of those things that I, I, I, I would have hung up a phone call and I would have been like, holy shit, I don't want friends and influence people. Save my ass again.
Speaker 1:Yep, cause I was able to understand there's, there's, this person is in between me and success, right, I mean, listen, and there was one deal in particular, man, that that um that always pops up in my head and, by the way, it deals with one of the other things was the deal killers, was the appraisals right? So people always think that once the appraisal number comes in, that's what it is Right, dude. So I had. It was. It was a um, it was a sister I don't want to name names. Well, it was a sister of a very famous baseball player that was, um a realtor at another office, but I had a mortgage company back then, so she was sending us the loan on that, on that deal, right, the appraisal. It was so complicated because this house, um had marble in imported from like Italy, the fountain was imported from out of no what it was.
Speaker 1:It was such a weird residential property that we had to get a commercial appraisal, a commercial appraisal on it, right, which, right right off the bat, it was. It was crazy. Right, it was um, it was a um, it was a unique situation that I didn't even know that that was possible back then, right, so, um, the market was already kind of going to shit. Things were starting to get weird. You know, it wasn't completely dead, but it was, you know. So I've always, you know, I had a residential mortgage company, but I've always lent on commercial real estate, so it's something that I really liked. So they called me on it because it was really a commercial kind of loan it was. It was kind of weird, right, so, man, that appraisal.
Speaker 1:First of all, when I called the guy um, right off the bat, he put his guard dude, I've been doing this 25 years. Right, like fuck you If you think you're going to convince me of anything. Right, so the appraisal, because the appraisal came back about a million bucks short. Oh, wow, right. So anybody, if I tell you what, if it wasn't for that, my life dependent on it at that particular moment, I would have been like dude, I'm not even going to deal with. This is crazy. Like, why am I even going to call? But I had to call, I had to make that phone call.
Speaker 1:I would tell you right now that, um, I was able to get the deal done. I was able to bring him to where we needed. Guys, there's no way on this planet that I would be able to convince somebody of this. It was both sides. I kind of both sides were able to kind of, you know, adjust and everything. But I was able to get that deal done and it was specifically 100%, because how to win friends and influence people, I had to get a guy who thought he knew it all and probably did know it all in that business Right From somebody who had never done a commercial slash, residential, imported shit type type appraisal. And I had no business in there. But I had to dig in and it was all human.
Speaker 1:There's, even though there's numbers involved, there's always humanity in every deal. Right, there's always the human level, the human um. You know personalities, emotions, egos, right, like, one of the things about how to win friends and influence people is dude. If that guy thinks he's the man, why are you convincing him? He's not the man. Let him be the man. Make him more of the man. Sure, right, there's always the famous uncle or cousin that had his real estate license 30 years ago, that knows more than everybody else. Right, there's always that guy. So when you go into the house or you go into the property or whatever, and you're dealing with that uncle that knows everything, you either make friends with that uncle real quick and make him think that he's even better than what he thinks he is. Remember, he already thinks he's the best in the world. No, you want him, he's the best in the galaxy. So you walk in there and every time he says some stupid shit, you're going to be like this guy's good man, solid. Look at this guy, look at this guy, man, damn, hey, dude, why don't you get into the business man? Why don't you get really into the business? Would you mentor me? Right, right, or or just as simple as this guys, this could be a hundred thousand dollar deal, it could be a million, I could be a hundred million dollar deal, same dynamic, right? So that's what I'm saying. Numbers matter, but the dynamics matter than more than anything else.
Speaker 1:There's always going to be that guy when you deal with athletes, by the way, I have removed myself from working with athletes. I have a lot of athlete uh uh contacts and everything. I refuse to work with an athlete ever again in my life, right? Why? I mean there somebody who is already entitled. Then you get the financial advisor calling you and that guy wants nothing to do with you. Okay, but again, I was able to get some of these deals done because you're dealing with the financial advisor that knows it all, and then the athlete who gets it all and you start working those deals. But you know, back to that deal. So back to the book.
Speaker 1:Actually, that book prepares you on getting that person there, that person in that house, and saying you know, do you either leave there? They loving you, right, or the uncle loving you, or the uncle saying dude, this guy's an asshole, there's no way you're gonna get that guy. So if you tell the guy hey, oh, you know everything. Oh, you're the man. Hey, this guy's good, he's gonna walk out on you. I really like this guy. Something about him so I don't know what it is Seems to be really professional. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what something is that you've been playing to what he wants, right. So do the facts matter? If you, being the best realtor at Comparables, okay, let's say it's a comparable situation. Okay, let's say your Comparables are right on the money, but this guy says they're not, okay, let's say the contract, I say you're the best of contracts. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So a lot of one of the things that realtors one of the, if I had to say, one of the biggest mistakes is that they think that real estate is learning the MLS, learning the contracts, learning the Comparables, learning the finance, and it is okay, but none of that matters. None of that starts ticking and none of that gets up and running. If you're not good at convincing people and making them understand it, you know, if you're not good at reading people and reading the room and recognizing the human element that goes into there, because the reality of what you're talking about is the benefit of the doubt and the appraisal could take. The appraiser can give you the benefit of the doubt or he cannot, and that could be a 30, $40,000 swing easy. Hey, you know, this house is a little nicer than that house, and so there is that human element. And so getting to that place where you recognize that this is not just a real estate business, it's a people business You're a great listener, is someone that goes in and reads the room well, reads the people that they're talking to.
Speaker 1:I know for me, when I started to take and actually pay attention to the people that I was talking to and what they needed, I got much better at getting my listings done. When I started to consider where they're coming from, the emotional state that a person that was listing their property especially listing their property for the first time was in and started addressing everything I do to, that I became a much more successful listing agent. In fact, that is what allowed me to transition from working with buyers at all to working exclusively with listings, because I know now if I go to get a listing I'm gonna come out with the paperwork side and it's not because you are better at comparables or you fill out that contract impeccably, it's because you are gonna walk into a room, you're going to be able to read the room. Okay, and that's the thing. So I gave you an example a little while ago. So it's the $100,000 property, a million dollar property or a $10 million dollar property.
Speaker 1:Let's use those numbers. There the numbers are significantly different. Sure, I mean one you're making a three grand, the other one you're making 30 grand, the other one you're making 300 grand. Okay, you're using it on a 3%. Okay, big difference in numbers. Same dynamic. Sure, right, you could have the same exact dynamic.
Speaker 1:The person that you need to get through, one might be a financial advisor, one might be the uncle, one might be the wife that doesn't wanna sell but the husband does, or vice versa. So you being able to go in there and convincing that person, right? So what does it take to convince that person? Right? How to win friends? And then from those people I already mentioned that. But how about negotiation? Of course, it's all a negotiation, I mean realistically.
Speaker 1:I mean I can tell you, just talking about two different listings, that I went on just a couple of days apart, there was an agent from this office that called me about doing a commercial listing to help them out. They hadn't done a commercial listing before, so it was when we went it was two schools that were looking to list. And I walk in the door and it's a mother and the son, and the son I could tell is already a little bit of a problem, but it nicely yeah. And so I walk in and he says give us an open listing, basically, or get out. I said, okay, now I've already taken and assessed what this meeting is gonna be like. This is gonna be combat royale, right. And so I changed how I would approach this to combat royale. I started to push back on him really hard and I pushed back on him really hard till I could see that I had gotten some respect, I had earned my place at the table. Once I did that, I kept pushing back and then I took a step back and said you see how hard I'm pushing right now. That's why you want me, because that's how hard I'm gonna push for you. We do this. I like you, the other side, I don't need to like them For him, for that customer. That's what they needed. Again, making friends, influencing people.
Speaker 1:Another listing I went on. The woman was 85 years old Just recently in the coronavirus thing she's scared to have people in her house. I had to take and talk her down, had to calm her down, dealing with the relatives in a different part of the state. I got that listing from teaching a class in Ocala. Somebody in Ocala knew this lady. It just super convoluted, but I'm dealing with all these players and I have to keep them all calm and on track through this whole thing.
Speaker 1:Reverend, were you born with the ability to do that shit? No man, I am like the worst at this kind of like networking. I am the worst person to take networking 20 minutes. I'm out of there. I can't do it. It's not my job. That's my point. One of the things that I see like a lot is that not that people think I got lucky where I'm at and the success I've had in this business, but I was kind of born with some kind of like gift or, oh yeah, because you're really good at that, motherfuckers, because I made myself really good at that, right I was.
Speaker 1:When I first started in this business, I was raw, raw Guys. I grew up in a trailer park, you understand. I grew up in a place where I didn't need to speak a certain way the business way the kind of that I speak right now, and a little bit more. I'm not the most eloquent guy in the world, but I could hold a professional conversation. I did not have that, so much so than when I started in the business.
Speaker 1:I would go to the worst neighborhoods possible. I would go to the hood to be able to get my listings, because I wasn't sure of myself. I grew up playing basketball, so I would wake up in the morning and play in. I had to find the worst neighborhoods possible because that's usually where the best competition was. So I would wake up in the morning and figure out what the bus routes are to get to wherever it is, so I could play with the best competition. So that, to me, I wasn't scared of that. It was part of my daily routine, almost. So when I started I felt more comfortable there. So understand what lack of preparation does to your mind. Okay, guys.
Speaker 1:So I felt better going to a 50 or $60,000 property that I would make almost nothing in a place where my biggest concern is coming out alive. Right, right, I would have to go with a sidearm, like I like when they call it sidearm. For some reason I would have to go with a sidearm. I had to be vigilant. I didn't want to go at night, but I wasn't scared of that. I was prepared for that, but I wasn't scared of it. What terrified me was going to a million dollar property. Oh my God, what are they gonna ask me? What are they gonna do? They're different. They're like oh my God, they're this or a multi-million dollar property. That's the fear. The lack of preparation scared me so much that it led me to stay all the way down there. Now I made the choice of not staying down there. Right, I made the choice to get myself, start speaking a little bit better, start getting more eloquent, start being more professional, preparing myself Again.
Speaker 1:The books that I just mentioned, the books on negotiation, body language, some of the, a lot of the stuff that we deal in the negotiation class body language, lie detection and just preparing motivation. So, in order to go from a $100,000 property in that case, let's say, to a $500,000 property, it takes some motivation, it takes some courage. I need to get myself up in the morning and go do that. And let me ask you a question Was that comfortable? No, let's see. Here's the thing. It sucked. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1:What worked for you is you were more uncomfortable staying where you were. It was more uncomfortable to stay put. It wasn't an option. It wasn't comfortable enough to stay put. You got so uncomfortable with that that you were willing to take on the discomfort of these other things. If there was one thing that I could tell people out there listening is to get uncomfortable. Don't be comfortable with where you are. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. You have to love being uncomfortable because the reality out of this, you are stuck with you. If you don't get the best out of you, the person that loses is you. You have to figure out how to take and motivate you. And you know what? If you're miserable where you are, you'll actually go do something about it. If you're comfortable, you'll stay there. You'll be unhappy, you'll complain about it. You'll call your friends up and you'll say, oh gee, you know it sucks and yada, yada, but it's not enough to make you get off your butt. Pick up a book, take a class, find the money to get something done, to take it and build into yourself, because at the end of the day, you are your chief operating tool and if you're not taking and working on this, you're missing the greatest tool you have for change in your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and look, my son wrestles and listen. I hated wrestling when I was in high school. I thought it was disgusting, I thought it was. I mean, it was everything right that I didn't want to be involved with. But because my son wrestles and everything, I've met a fallen love with that sport and the main thing about that sport. There's like a mantra in that sport it's fallen love with the grind, the everyday thing. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. And I can tell you my son's nine years old, that son of a bitch is comfortable being uncomfortable. Three hour practices, daily, man, the stuff that he goes through and that's the stuff that you need to go as a realtor. You need to understand as a professional I'm just saying realtor because it's realtor.
Speaker 1:But your main thing, you asked me, was that comfortable going to inputting? I just didn't want to. I refused to settle. I didn't get into this business to be a regular realtor. I did not do that. I needed to be at the top, I needed to grow. I have my goals. I'm on my way to be the biggest real estate company in Miami. That's just it. Like that's the goal Now, if you're in biggest real estate company in Miami.
Speaker 1:Now, all of a sudden, what is it? Miami, LA, new York, there's certain you know cities. So now, all of a sudden, you're the biggest around and the most powerful around. Mean powerful meaning hey, man, we get deals done and our sales volume and everything like that. So that's the goal. That's the stuff that wakes me up every day. I could have settled with having 10 realtors and that type of stuff. Nothing's wrong with that, but that's not what I wanted.
Speaker 1:So I brought myself from a guy who had to go to the hood to get a listing to right now working on about getting to 400 realtors. Now you know what I mean. So, because I didn't settle, because I prepared myself hey, you think, recruiting agents from different companies and everything like that and telling them hey, here's why we're better. You think that's fucking easy. You know, you think it's easy to. It's a tough, tough value proposition to make, but I could only do it because I woke up in the morning every day and I decided to be better, right.
Speaker 1:So what's happening around? Let's talk coronavirus. Let's go back to coronavirus. So you have the chance right now to read hundreds of books. Okay, I know that the moms, you know, and some of the dads are working and I get it All right. But, guys, that means you wanna find an excuse, no matter what. You're at home more than ever right now. Get your ass on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's go case by case. Let's talk about appraisals, right? Sorry, realtors, how are you going to deal with a difficult realtor? You're going this is number one difficulty. If I had to list them in level of difficulty, it's gonna realtors is number one. That's. There's no if answer, but it's about it. Difficult realtors, unprofessional realtors, realtors that you have no business being in this business. Okay, that's number one obstacle.
Speaker 1:How the fuck are we going to get better In the 30, 60, depends who you ask. Let's call it 30 days, right? Not even call it 30. We're already at what? Two weeks, three weeks? Well, it's April 7th. Yeah, we're three, four weeks into this, Okay, so I'll call it two months, right? So what we're starting today? Let's call it another month, month and a half, right, where you, at least, are going to be home a lot more than you usually are. Okay, let's get better at dealing with other people. Again, that's the book, but negotiation, right.
Speaker 1:There's another thing that I didn't have when I first started this one, I went on my crusade of getting better and reading books. It was YouTube, I mean. Yes, guys, it did exist, but it wasn't nowhere near what it is right now. So, books on negotiation, books on body language, right, understanding, right. So I've gone into deals where body language saved my ass. Sure, because, okay, I'm a pretty damn good negotiator, right. I mean kind of like we teach a four hour negotiation class.
Speaker 1:When you're teaching anything you got to like really prepare your mind and I do consider myself an above average negotiator, definitely right, but you know, going out there and preparing yourself for negotiation, understanding it, right, body language is key to everything. If, when I was telling you that story, I was, it saved my ass. Body language saved my ass and a lot of things, because I'm talking to the person and I'm negotiating with the person, and they're telling me one thing, but their body is completely different. They might be saying yes, but they're leaning back in their chair and they're crossing their hands and they're looking away, but they just said yes. So who do I listen to? Do I listen to the body language or do I listen to the words out of their mouth? Guys, not even close. Body language all day, every day. What people say means nothing, how they say it and what comes out of like literally leaning front, leaning back, hands closed, hands, open arms, open arms closed the whole situation, all of that matters. So if you don't understand that, then you don't need to become a body language expert. Guys, let me tell you a little secret. If you can, great, but if you're I say the story all the time because it's a body of mind that I was sitting in a chair.
Speaker 1:I asked him a question. I was sitting in a chair, he was standing up in front of me. I asked him a question that I knew could have gone either way. My buddy, I needed him to do something for me. And I brought up the subject and he goes yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and took a step back. Right, I'm like dude. See, these are the cases, bro, because you're my buddy, I kind of wish I didn't understand body language as much as I do. Okay, tell me why you didn't like it. What do you mean? I'm like, dude, you actually step back and he crossed his arms Right, step back and step back and cross his arms. I'm like all right, dude, just tell me what's up.
Speaker 1:And then he had, of course, he had to admit that he didn't like what it was, and then we talked that out, right, so that could be a $10 million deal, or it could be just me and my buddy, you know, trying to negotiate something between us. Right, it's still a preparation, right? So when you're dealing with these clients, when you're dealing with these other realtors, you need to understand that, because when, when you're going to to, to meet with them at maybe you're going to go meet with that realtor at the house or something like that, and you're talking to them and you're trying to get a deal done, you want to know what the real truth is. You want to know what the hell's going on Body language, lie detection, right, when somebody's telling you something, wouldn't it be, let's say, that I could give you a pill that every time somebody lied to you you have a pretty good, not for sure, but you had a really good determination on whether they're relying to you or not.
Speaker 1:Would you take that bill? Sure, right? Well, we didn't kill you, right, you know? I'm sure it kind of like started thinking oh, it depends. You know what are the, what are the side effects? No, no, I was on it. I mean it, it, it makes sense. I mean all of those skills and I mean we could throw on top of that, I mean for me, the things that helped me. A lot is and it's going to sound odd, but economics and history are huge ports.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because I can now take and have context. If you look at what's missing in our world today, there's lots of opinions, the very little context. The reason why we're so freaked out by the coronavirus thing is because they put the numbers out there with no context. They don't compare it to anything that's happened in the past. They sit there and say, oh, we have this number. Well, how does that compare to car accidents? Well, and that's what's trying to scare the fuck out of you. They're just trying Because bad news sells and I get that.
Speaker 1:But what I'm saying to you is if you're a person that is looking for context, so when I go to make a listing presentation, I put forth an opinion. I don't say, hey, this is my opinion. I see, this is what I think and this is why I think the way that I think here's all the context that leads to this idea and that gives my customer a sense of peace. So for me, having the history component, to sit there and say, hey, this is what's happened before when it's like this and this is what's happened after that. So if we're here, we can anticipate this. That helps me make my case. Also, economics, which is just really the study of what people do with scarce resources, based upon various forces that are applied to them, and so all of these things, let me look at a market and give people a conversation that's different than what they are going to get from the other nine agents they interview. And what I'm always looking to do is to sound different than all the other guys, all the other folks that go there. And so, again, using the time and the opportunity to do all of those things to add to your chief piece of business, equipment yourself, to your brain. And here's another thing mentality, your mental state. So these, by the way.
Speaker 1:Book number two let's talk about book number two that I would recommend. I don't consider it a close second, but it's definitely second, because if I had to stay with one, I mean right, but it's Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, because I did not grow up rich. My parents were awesome, but they did not grow up rich. As a matter of fact, they were dirt poor, right. My dad, more than my mom, my dad their stories with my dad didn't have enough, so he had to make his own clothes. So he always wanted a suit, you know, and so he wanted to make his own suit. But he only had enough material for the shirt for this part right here. So he made the suit so that the shirt could sew on to the suit. So he only saw it. It looked like he had a suit, but the whole other shit was just bareback. Oh, wow, right, so that's the level of poor, level of poor that I didn't experience.
Speaker 1:I mean, listen, we weren't exactly kicking ass over here when we first got here from Cuba and everything, but it wasn't nowhere near that. I mean, he tells me the story. He would go to the party and he saw this shit, but he could never take the jacket off because the jacket couldn't take it. I just you were stuck with it. So you know, but it's, it's. You know, I lost my train of thought. Where the hell was I going with that Kind of like that? That started getting me thinking.
Speaker 1:Mentality, yeah, listen. So you, you want to. Mentality wise, you want to, you want to make sure that every single day, you're out there and you're getting motivated, and you're out there and you're getting better and you're not settling for stuff you want. You know. If you start off in, in, in, in, you know again not economically where you need to be. You got to know that you're not stuck there. Times like this are exactly the time to do that. When else are you're going to have time to read as many books as you're going to read right now? Go with this, you know. Listen to as many videos. Prepare yourself as much as you're going to read.
Speaker 1:Oh, here, I know what I was thinking now the how to win friends and influence people. So I had to get my mindset away from that, right, I had to get my mindset from my parents doing their best, right? But how do rich people actually think? Sure, right, like what makes them different? So this was the first book on the study of wealth and what and and accumulation of wealth. Did you? You've read that one, right? I think I've read it right, yeah, sure, yeah. So I was like to ask, anyway, the all right? So it's the first.
Speaker 1:Again, guys, these are a hundred year old books, right? Also, these are over a hundred years old books that you could buy for like five bucks, seven bucks. So you're not going to have to buy a $50 hardcover or one of these. What do you call it? You put on the on the coffee tables, right, yeah, but these are $7 books. You know, you buy them used probably for three bucks, but again, it's, it's a hundred years ago.
Speaker 1:This guy going out there and studying the brain and the mind of the wealthiest people back then, which was? Which was Andrew Carnegie, henry Ford, all of that kind of stuff, rockfeller, rockfeller. What makes these people different? I remember man, like what? Like, oh shit, like. I've always won.
Speaker 1:I always had ambition. I grew up that, I will tell you was. It was, let's call it, a natural gift. I've always had ambition. Ambition was always there since day one. Never wanted to be the same as everybody else, always wanted to be better than everybody else, right?
Speaker 1:But how, what? What does that mean? How do you get your mind from the poor kid from the trailer part to hey, feeling comfortable with a multimillionaire in a table, feeling comfortable with the richest man in the world in a table, right, how does that? You know? Where does that mentality come from? What do you got to do? How do you got to think? How does your brain operate? The only way to do that? Normally rich kids are taught by their rich parents and their rich, rich grandparents. But if you don't have that lineage, that rich lineage, how do you got to get it? How do you? How do you know what, how you have to think and what you, how do you? How you look at the world, where you're going to have to read it.
Speaker 1:To me, no better book than Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It was the first book, so let's put it this way All the self-help books pretty much come from that one that I could say that that's the seed that then grew. Is that fair to say? I know that's, it was really the granddaddy of them all. Right, so that's the, that's the seed that grew all the other trees and then the fruits, and it continued from there. So you're going to once you read that one, like everybody should read that one, so they could understand all the other ones, how they, how the pieces come from that, because at the end of the day, they did such an amazing job, that Dale Carnegie, that it was a Dale Carnegie. Yeah, right, no, it was Dale Carnegie, or Think, or or Think and Grow Rich. No, napoleon Hill. Napoleon Hill, that's right. Napoleon Hill, that was a I don't want to.
Speaker 1:So Napoleon Hill did such an amazing job going in there and interviewing people and researching and understanding it. That's a book that I've read 10 times and, as a matter of fact, I'm pretty much do for it again. It's like one of those things that you got to take every once in a while to kind of refresh your memory, to open up your mind for that. But again, it's understanding. So, in these times right now, if you could come out of this of these 30 days, 60 days or whatever, being better at negotiation okay, being better at body language, which is going to make you better at negotiation, lie detection, going in there and watching videos, reading books on negotiation, straight up, one-on-one negotiation, understanding the dynamics of it.
Speaker 1:Then you go and and and you know you do how to win friends and influence people and think and grow rich. So you're going to understand the dynamics of dealing with other people. How do you influence somebody to be on your side? And then you start thinking how do these rich people think? What? What makes them different? Are they genetically different? And that's the thing. I know it sounds crazy, but I remember thinking those people were different, they were different. I remember thinking, as a pork, you know, they're, they're, they're different, right, if I would have looked at myself right now, I would have been scared shitless of my myself. Now, my, my, my 18 year old self would have been scared shitless of this guy right now. Right, I'm sitting in a big office, big company, the whole situation, dude, this guy, oh man, you know, so it's it's. How do you, how do you think? How do those people think? What makes them becoming comfortable knowing that everybody is the same?
Speaker 1:The only thing that's going to separate you is your preparation, is your understanding on how the, the, the human mind works, how other realtors work, how, just everything. You know, it's all, it's 90% human interaction. This business, you know Absolutely, and I mean it's, it's getting better at your craft, and I mean it's actually an interesting thing because, in addition to YouTube stuff and all the other avenues out there audio books, audible, they stayed just yesterday, frick just met and approved online classes to be taught for continued education the next 90 days. Okay, it's probably gonna stick too. It may, we'll see, because they want to take and make sure, like you're in there, you're not sitting there, you know, watching whatever in the background. So you have the opportunity to go out there and do what I can tell you I definitely did. In the first two years of my business, I collected every real estate certification and designation I could because, at the end of the day, I wanted to be master of the craft that I was doing.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, guys, I want to make sure I have mentioned that he is not exaggerating. I let's put it this way If you guys find a designation he doesn't have, doesn't have let him know and he's not going to be able to control him. So he's going to go out there and he's going to go get it Right. Every his signature is about five pages long. His email signature, he has every single one. And and his ace, his ace, classes, ace, what's? What's the exact name of it? He's a credit closing expert. Yeah, okay, so those classes are every piece of of information. So he took one class, I don't know 15% of it was actually useful. He kept that right and in most cases less, but it's maybe it's just one thing. So he started adding them and adding them and adding them until he created his courses, the ace courses, and it goes through negotiation, it goes through objections, it goes through everything. So this is a guy who's been out there getting information, teaching around the country so that he teaches for the national association of realtors. He teaches locally, you know, and it's specifically realtor stuff. Right, but gotten from all of these different designations, you know.
Speaker 1:Aside from that and I know I mentioned that, you know, but you know audio books guys. You know, when I say he's read books, he hasn't really read books. He does the audio. I kind of sometimes do both. I do the audio first and then I read the book, like the, the. The Ted Turner book, I did both, I did audio and I read it. The Steve Jobs one, I did it. I did the, the, the. What's his old man? The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. I remember Charlie Munger as his partner. Yes, which? Charlie Munger has a very good book. Oh, does he? Yes, he does. Warren Buffett, warren Buffett, everybody else knows his name, but so, warren Buffett, I read his book and I heard it on audio too. So those are the kind of the three. I think the Bill Clinton one also, but those are the books, that I've done both.
Speaker 1:But you could do audio. I mean, you could do audio. What I like to do with audio because I have a serious attention deficit disorder I'll listen to it twice, right, just so that I listen to it once and not caring that I miss something, right, so I'll just I'll have it on, let's put it this way, right? So maybe before I go to sleep, when I wake up in the morning, when I'm in the car, the whole situation, I'll have it on and then the second time I run I'll go and I'll kind of focus a little bit more on it. But hey, look, if you're one of those people that I could assimilate information you know Cadillac listens to it on what? On two or two and a half speed, two and a half, two and a half speed. Can you put that on there real quick?
Speaker 1:Just a common folk, normal folk here, could see what that sounds like. It sounds like something like so, because he's able to kind of capture Audible bank presents, don't you believe it? Exposing the myths behind 250 common beliefs, houses written by her right, never did, by Michael Kramer, yeah, something like that. That sounds like a chipmunk. Yeah, he had to give it for this book for a second. That's what people want to stop now. So he goes through it now he's able to concentrate and listen to it. But the whole point is, I don't know how the hell he captures that, but whatever it gives you a train yourself, right? Yeah, a little practice Set there with a room, dark room. So that makes a five hour book Hour and a half hour and 45 minutes, yeah, but I mean it's not just. I mean there's one cardio session.
Speaker 1:There's a piece of all of this which is also the real practice of real estate too, which is the idea that you're not just taking and doing the job of going and doing your job. You're actually looking at what you've done to determine whether or not you can do it better. And that's, if I look at All the time agents do the same dumb things over and over and over again. And you're having trained agents for a long time, in addition to having been a top producer for a lot of years looking at it and saying, why are you doing it like that? Is there a better way? And so this is a time this time is also a time to assess your business, I think, to take a step back and look at the whole thing. The ace course is. I mean, one of the cool things about this time is I've written more courses during this time off.
Speaker 1:In fact, what we're talking about right now is going to be a class that's dealing with the deal killers. Yeah, we're actually preparing a class right now. We had some point of topics to discuss today all these deal killer stuff. We decided, like, let's just go on the podcast and let's talk about it there, and that way we're gonna. So actually, we're creating a class. We're catalanx creating a class here based on the stuff that we're talking about today.
Speaker 1:Because, I mean, there are. You could be the greatest agent in the whole wide world. You could take all the other classes and do everything right, but there's other people that are involved in your deal that'll kill your deal. So we went with realtors, right, what's another deal killer there? Okay, well, I mean.
Speaker 1:So again, let me just summary. Let me just not leave this up in the air, all right. So summary to deal with other realtors, you got to get better at yourself at dealing with people. That means every aspect of it. That means body language, that means lie detection. That means how to influence people. That means just straight up negotiation. It means everything that has to do psychology, anything that has to do with dealing with people. By the way, that's number one for a reason, because I think it's 80, 90% of it. Oh sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean whether it's assessing whether that agent is the know-it-all agent that's been doing it forever, or it's a brand new agent that has no clue, or he's actually a real one that knows what he's doing, and then you want to give him the respect and you want to be like hey, you want to do run the show here, absolutely. Hey, listen, you've been in this business 40 years, man, I've only been in it 20. What do you think we should do here? I mean, the question is, as an agent, is that when you're picking that phone up, most agents are just trying to say the thing they're supposed to say, as opposed to thinking, hey, I need to assess who this person is on the other end of the line. That's one of the biggest transitions there are for dealing with other agents. I think is switching from hey, I just need to tell him something or her something. I need to listen and see how they answer. They respond to what I'm saying. I need to suss out what kind of person this is that I'm dealing with, so that I can deal with them in the way that's going to be best for them to get the result that I want. So, no, I think that's so.
Speaker 1:Appraisals next, right? Sure, we can call that a second, yeah, so look this one. We talked a little bit about it off the microphone. So we're talking about how to avoid these deal killers, how to be prepared to fix these issues or just to avoid them, and in reality, when we talk about appraisal, my take on it was like, really, this is more like a preventative thing than anything else. This is a preventative pill that you're going to take to fix this ailment.
Speaker 1:How do you handle, how do you avoid appraisal issues? Do your comparables the right way and don't have fucking appraisal issues. Right If you do your comparables the right way, if you prepare yourself. So here's another thing to get better at comparables, right? Call your mortgage guy, tell him to put you on the phone with an actual appraiser and understand. So we give classes here where we actually bring an appraiser in and we pick their brain on stuff and we make them. You know, we want to understand what rules, right, is it in 90 days. Do you go back 90 days on the comparables, right? Close sale comparables. Do you want to go with a half a mile? A mile if it's inside the subdivision if it's outside the subdivision, right, all of that stuff. You want to get within, appraiser, and you want to do.
Speaker 1:How much is the charge for? How much is the charge for an appraisal? 400 bucks? Pay him 100 bucks. Pay him 100 bucks and say can I get 30 minutes of your time? Yeah, I mean, people are happy to pay 120,000 for a college education, but actually to take and spend some time with somebody, that real world is the gatekeeper to whether or not you make your commission that people don't want to take and do it's. Hey, hey, appraiser. Oh, why are you? I'll sell you a cash, happy, 100 bucks right now.
Speaker 1:Give me 30 minutes where I'm going to have a shitload of questions and walk me through this process. Is there a better way to spend the 100 bucks? I mean, well, there's a lot more fun ways, but you know, is there? Is there ways? Is there if we, if you, could come out of this whole thing understanding appraisal appraisals way more a one on one class by an actual appraisal having three or four different properties where you're going to go through it together and you're going to be on the MLS together and you're checking comparables together. Seriously, you wouldn't do that. Come on Like right now again, how are we going to get out of this shit better? How are we going to get out of this 30 days better? Tell you right now get an appraisal. Pay him 100 bucks. If you get him for free, Great. Use your negotiation skills that you learned from the other, from the other stuff, right, and influence him into uh, into, into doing it for less, but but either way, do it. Get better at that. So, yeah, how do you avoid appraisal issues? You become real good at doing these comparables If you're already there and the shit hits the fan.
Speaker 1:Then revert to number one, which is how to deal with people, and try to convince that appraisers be there at the house, absolutely Okay. So supposed to appraise for a million and appraise for 900,000, right? Or you're thinking, or you're starting to think. Maybe show up there, show them the comparables, lead them in the right direction and try to convince them because, believe it or not, I know this for a fact. I've done this to countless amount of our print not done this, but I've done this with you know, I show up there with my comparables, right? So if there's a question on it, I show up there and I and I lead them in the right direction. And I've done that not once.
Speaker 1:I give you that example at the beginning of this. I've done that a million times. Right, you got to be prepared for it, but you know what? I knew, my shit. Well, that's the other piece of it, and there's, there's more than most agents feel like once they get the. Oh, I need three active and three closed comps and I'm good to go. And that comes from doing BPO's. I mean, I know you've probably done a bunch of BPO's. I, I did thousands of B.
Speaker 1:Let's, let's, let's talk about BPO's for a second. Who, just so you guys know, just so you guys who didn't suffer through that 2008, the only way to make a buck 2009, 2008, something like that was these banks would pay you 30 bucks, 35 bucks, to go out there, take a picture of the property and do a comparable broker's price opinion, broker's price opinion, and so that basically gave you a form similar to what an appraiser would have to use. And now you have to sit there and think about well, this one's 1972 and the other one was 1960. Do I make an adjustment for that? Is that is a property more valuable, cause it's 12 years newer you have to take and it makes you go down this list of things and it makes you much better at comps. But here's the big takeaway for me.
Speaker 1:This is this is kind of the big thing that I would do differently is that I'm not just going to show up with three active and three closed comps. I'm going to throw up, show up with a three active and closed comps. I want them to use and I'm going to show with all the other comps I can find and disqualify all of them and say, hey, I'm not using this one because and I'm not using this one because because, at the end of the day, the appraiser has to do that, he has to make the equate case why he didn't use these other ones. If I can't again influence him by saying, hey, look, I've done the work for you. This one's no good cause it was a distress sale. This one's not. This one was no good because it was a complete gut job. This one's no good it had $5,000 worth of leans plus a whole bunch of other stuff they had to take. If I can disqualify those other properties, it saves them the time of doing that research and maybe missing something that I picked up on.
Speaker 1:Because, guess what, appraisers are human and they make mistakes too, and so all of these things are ways to take and you can't fix it, but you can at least try to mitigate it, minimize what effect those folks have. But you also need to know the rules of appraisals, right? So okay, so you have a property. We have a town here here in Miami, it's Doral, right, so that's where my office actually is. Right, so, doral, 90% of Doral is private communities and I'm being nice, by 90. I might be almost 100% of them are private communities.
Speaker 1:So what does that mean? If you might have a property that's right across the street from another and the value is drastically different, why? Because of the amenities, because of the age of the community, maybe the pools and the Olympic size pool with like waterfalls and there's actually one case in Doral that literally has waterfalls and a badass gym and everything Then you have one across the street that's plain. Jane has a puddle for a pool, you know, and one has a security gate Like this one example here has a like an actual security company at the gate that actually won't let you in, right, and they have two sides and they're in real uniform and they're super serious about it. And you got the one next door that, if you just wait for somebody to go in, you can follow them in. Yeah, you know one of those. So those are the things, right. That makes that differentiates the value.
Speaker 1:So, do you use the comparables inside? How many do you? If there's three inside, do you use all three If there's only two? Do you go outside? If you go outside the community, how do you go outside the community? How far do you go? You go a 0.5,. You go a mile If it's a rural area, right, sure, how far do you go? Rules change, rules change, right.
Speaker 1:So how the hell do you guys expect not to to succeed and not survive? We're not talking about survive, we're talking about succeed. Thrive, yeah, thrive, succeed in this business. If you don't know that, shit it. What separates you from the rest? Okay, so by sitting down one in a paraisal and getting all this information and understanding it, what have? Have a condo? Have a single family house? Have something in a rural area, right, do a commercial one? Understand it? You know income approach and and and and cost comparison approach, and and understand.
Speaker 1:Go back to your and let's say I can't believe I'm even recommending this but go back to your real estate book, right, go back to your, to your, to your this, where you got your license and and read the part about appraisals and understand what is. Dive into it. Get out of this thing with like 100 percent more knowledge than you have right now. Right now, all you know maybe is oh, you order an appraisal, yeah, and then you get back a number and hopefully that number is better than it works, yeah, and maybe it works. If it doesn't, oh man, no deal. If you're thinking that way right now, guys, I am going to enlighten you. That's just not the way it is. You could avoid having an appraisal issue when the if and when, at some point, this appraisal number doesn't come work where it's supposed to be, you're able to to to.
Speaker 1:Uh, what's the word they use? It's not the bait is not combated, it's uh. Oh, I know what you're saying. Uh, whatever, you tell the, you tell the guy no, uh, I need you to. I'm, I'm. I wish I knew that word. So let's go ahead and fight it, right, let's just use that word. Yeah, let's go fight it and contest, contest. You could contest it and you could, and you could offer them comparables. Some of them are going to ignore it, but some of them are not. Some of them are going to be like, oh, okay, damn, I didn't, I didn't see this one. Why? Because they're doing a bunch of appraisals. Maybe they didn't see it. Maybe they didn't see the one that wasn't on the MLS, maybe they only use the MLS.
Speaker 1:There's other programs that you could use. That just pulls up the for sale by owner sales, right. The tax records, the actual property, uh, uh, um, uh, the county property records, right. So you know again. So we're by two things that you could do right now. You could get yourself better on dealing with these realtors and you could understand that appraisal thing one, I mean from one end to the other. And you could pick these guys brain and understand the rules that they give, so that you don't do comparables on a property that's sold in 120 days when you could only use 90. I gotta say that you know this is definitely a sign of the times.
Speaker 1:Since you mentioned that Olympic size pool and that kick-ass gym. I have not been able to pay attention to anything this COVID-19. I want to go in the pool, I want to go to the gym. Man, this is so not cool. The gym's not, you know, listen and and when you, uh, listen, and when you say that, I got to say so, I called my buddy the other day. I, you know, it's kind of hard to talk. I don't want to, you know, throw anybody under the bus or not even under the bus. I just don't want to name names, right.
Speaker 1:But so I've been doing the numbers on risk for this COVID-19 by the. So I get the total amount of cases right In Dade County, the total amount of cases, people that have tested positive, which, again, I don't even want to get it's, it's warped anyway. But okay, people, I'm out there, tested with the amount of deaths, okay, and I'll get a number. Usually, the number that I'm getting is anywhere from a 0.5% mortality rate, meaning that you're going to die from it. If you get it, you're going to die from it. It's anywhere from a 0.5 to a point to a 1%, okay, but it's usually doesn't even hit 1%.
Speaker 1:So I call the buddy of mine and he's like um, you know we're talking about this. He's like frustrated and, uh, and this is crazy, man, I can't believe that. You know they're shutting everything down and everything. And then he's like, uh, I tell him about the number and I go yeah, man, we're at a. I think that day we were at a 0.6. And I'm like, yeah, man, dude and the you know the mortality rates at a 0.6 is at 0.6. So I'm like to me 0.6,.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh, and I, to my mind, that was like oh, wait a second, am I calculating this wrong? Is this, is it a point 20? Is it a 20%? Or, like I was, I was scared of what he was going to tell me because I had been in my mind safe with that number and I didn't want him to come back with some crazy ass you know high number than all of a sudden, I got to start being scared too. So he goes no, man, what you got to do is actually divide that by the population. You got to divide that by, so you get the 50 people that have died, Okay, and you got to divide that by 2.8 million people that are in Miami, dade County, and that's going to give you a 0.000096. That was yesterday that I calculated right.
Speaker 1:So that means cause, and I go like but why are you? He's like? I'm like, oh interesting, why are you doing it that way? He's like cause. What I want to know is, when I go out in the street, what are my chances of, what are my chances of dying of this thing Right Now? Here's another thing, though. If you notice and if you speak to the medical professionals here locally and I'm speaking here locally, but I suspect it's around the same shit everywhere Flues, flu illnesses and flu deaths and flu everything was on a spike up Before coronavirus got here.
Speaker 1:Guess what they did? They disappeared and they can't, they can convoluted the two together. They disappeared, right. So then I got, I got, I got buddies that are fire Station, you know, guys, rescue, guys at work, and ambulances, and this is type of stuff. And they're also telling me hey, man, when they take these people to the hospital, they're just Categorizing them as as, as COVID-19. So even that numbers work. But again, you know, listen, we could talk about this shit for forever and we would never get to our other with the three-deal killers. Yeah well, I mean, you know, this is just to take an end and and kind of give a quick brush over these ideas and the idea that you know, these things don't necessarily have to kill your deal there's, there's skills to be had to get, to get better.
Speaker 1:I want to take a step back for just a second, tell a story. I had a guy that used to be my personal trainer back when I was working on, and this guy would eat the same thing Every day, like I know a couple guys, like like tuna, but like in water, in water and like a cup of brown rice, like, and it was like the most blank, like if he ate the styrofoam plate it would probably have tasted better than anything he was eating, right. And so one day I asked him I said you know, like, how do you manage to take and do this? And he said you know, look, I'm terrified that if I start eating good food, I won't be able to stop. Like an addiction, almost it is. And and I sat back and I thought to myself my god, you know, this is the most disciplined guy I know and he's terrified of himself. And I think that there's there's a good I, because I had a very similar conversation with somebody the other day. They're like you know, josh, you have to become comfortable in your own skin, and I was like you know, I don't ever want to be comfortable my own skin. I always want to have a problem with this guy. I always want this got to be better, and then eventually I'll take a six foot. That's never enough, yeah. And so I think that there's, there's that place, because I mean, we're in a society right now that tells us oh, we're all beautiful butterflies, here's a participation trophy. Oh, you did so good, I went. I'm sorry. You know what that story is. I don't want to forget one, but go ahead. Good night, you had to sign, so I want that.
Speaker 1:I want to play basketball with my son the other day, right, because he's like oh, let's play basketball. Maybe he I think he does that because I played basketball and I was a kid. So he's like let's go play basketball. That I'm like all right, let's go play basketball. So I go to this park and I'm like so I asked that kid if he wants to play. So he asked the kid if he wants to play and the kid says yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, they start playing and my son scores in a point and my son goes all right, it's one zero. And he goes no, no, no, no, no, we're not taking score. He looks at me All right, son. Looking at me, he's like what the fuck, how do you play a game with no score? And I'm like, dude, like how you looking at me, I go, you keep score. You don't want to keep score? Let's, don't let him skip score. So that's the, that's the world we're fucking living in.
Speaker 1:But I mean, I believe that actually, what you said to your son is absolutely right. You know what, for some reason, no, it should Honest drives me crazy. Honestly, our reaction to this in general has pissed me off. But what you said your son is really good advice, because the reality of it is I don't tell anybody what the score is With my personal game. Wins and losses for myself, right, but god knows, I'm keeping score. I'm keeping score because you know what? This guy, I got to watch him. He gets lazy. You know you got, I got to stay on his ass. He's a problem, we're, but is that that's? But? That's an actual reality. Right now, where people are telling their kids Play sports but don't take scores, the reality of it is what the fuck?
Speaker 1:We have become a super risk averse society. I mean I, I see, you know men used to be the risk takers, right? I mean I probably shouldn't say this out loud, but I mean renting. You said it. I think you said it already. Yes, it's a ship of sale, but I mean, if you look just historically, men have always taken them, or higher risk occupations. I mean there's a lot more statistically correct. There's there's more women that are kindergarten teachers and more men that are explosives experts. It's just you know natural tendencies, right? I all the men I know are like tripping over themselves the show. So how socially aware they are. And you know how they have hand sanitizer and how cleverly are they got a little hat that's got Dual hand sanitizer dispensers on it, stuff like this.
Speaker 1:You know, like I don't know, I'm walking down the street, I got no mask, I got no gloves on it and I I'm fine and I like it almost irritate, like I'm almost doing it to be counter cultural, because I feel like we become so soft. See, I've caught myself just doing it For the sake of I'm just not going to play this game. Yes, I'm just not. And then I've I've been good at saying okay, okay, okay, okay, don't catch yourself, because I'm arguing with my friends all day because I have my group of friends and we're all in this chat and I'm arguing with them all day because we have half of us that are, you know, one side, half on the other side of mark, and then I catch myself, I'm like I can't, I can't start being an idiot either Because of it.
Speaker 1:You know, and I brought myself back and I and I, and there's one thing I go back to every single time. Every single time I go back to it is statistics, numbers. Don't lie guys. Please take my advice here. We have a certain amount of homework we're we're giving you, we're giving you homework so far. Right, go call an appraisal, go go read a couple books, right, turn off the news, yes, for three days and only look at the reports, only look at the numbers.
Speaker 1:Now, unless you're going off, fucking Wisconsin, dels, wisconsin, okay, don't check Wisconsin, because condoms probably at zero. But I don't know why I picked that, that state. But If, unless you're going to New York, manhattan, new York, why are you looking at New York? Unless you're going to Italy, why are you going to Italy? This is not a universal thing. There is a hygienic. Uh, um, I can't even say what's what's the word for katoom and yeah, there's, there's, um, yeah, just the way society functions, you know, like, like, uh, uh, in, in Italy, you know, maybe there is there more smokers than than they're all here. Is there an older population? Oh, my god, yes, okay, so why are we comparing Miami Dade county in my particular case?
Speaker 1:Right, and you could be in another place, hopefully, I got people, we got people. One of the three people that are listening are in some other state, so I could feel cool about this. You know, I got people in other states. Can we track if people are listening from another state? Yeah, uh, we'll figure it out, I guess, but, but, um, you know, look at the place that you're at and look at your numbers, just the numbers.
Speaker 1:Don't go on on uh, you know, uh, fox or cnn, and look at their numbers. Go to the cdc, the actual cdc, and you know, go to the fire station Right here, locally and ask them for their report, their daily report, okay, and ask, and, and they have it, trust me, they have it because I have it, because I've asked for it, okay, and, and, and you'll see, and you're gonna get that number and you're gonna divide it. If you want to divide it by cases, go ahead, divide it by cases. I'm gonna tell you what. In my particular case, it's always been under a 1%, okay. And if you do it by the amount of population which I agree with my buddy, it's the correct way.
Speaker 1:When I go out into the street, what's that number look like? Yeah, you know what. What. What does it look like? So just turn off the news and only look at numbers for three days.
Speaker 1:And but here's another thing Don't listen to your dipshit friend that all he does is pound you With negative news. Just look at your own news, just look at your own numbers and make your own mind. That's all I am saying. I'm not trying to to With my friends. I literally stopped answering questions when they, when they, bring up anything. My only answer is no comment. Yeah, no comment, because I am tired Of bringing up these facts. Nope, nobody's sitting here telling you to go out and lick doorknobs in the coronavirus ward. So, nobody, nobody's saying that.
Speaker 1:But but you know, at the end of the day, I, I there's something to be said for being Courageous, you know to take and go out there and do what needs to get done and to work, and the reality of it is a lot Of people are being harmed by this, by people not being at work. And you know, I've gone to work every single day. I have I've come up with projects that needed to get done, that are going to take, and keep my guys working and keep them employed, because you know what if I don't? Yes, maybe the government might step in and provide this, that or the other thing, but who cares? You know, as their employer, my responsibility to them is to keep them working. I, I've promised them a job and I want to keep that going. Sure, absolutely. And so you know, if I'm a coward, if I cover up and hide, they're materially hurt by that, their families are materially hurt by that, and you know, I don't think that's good and I don't think it's good to be Eddling more of the fear now.
Speaker 1:That being said, is there a risk? Do I? Do I have a concern that my older mother, who's frail? And then, yeah, you know, I'm concerned for her, um, but that, okay, you're that perfect, You're a perfect example. Your, your mother's an older, older lady. Like you said, she's frail. Okay, by the way, she's a worker. We're there, right, every, okay, keep her home. I just want to add that, okay, all right, it's impossible to keep her home, right? So, hey, you're, it's your responsibility If, if she, you probably can't get her to do so. But if, hey, mom, stay home. I got this. Yep, hey me, me personally. Hey dad, hey mom, stay home. He might.
Speaker 1:My parents are, like you know, real young, looking in and and and and, real, real healthier than me, maybe, even so. So it's a bad example. But you have older parents, stay home. I got this. It's not stay home. I'm gonna go fucking stay home and I'd with you.
Speaker 1:That's not American, it's not Reality, it's not the way we teach our kids, it's not the way we function. If you're older, stay home. I got you as a society, stay home. We got this. Okay, right, sick, stay home. We got this. That's the sign of a successful, organized society. We take care of our young, we take care of our old and we take care of our sick. Yep, it's not. I'm 25 years old, no pre-existing conditions. I'm gonna go fucking hide with the 85 year olds, right? Or go to the beach and spring break.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean, you know, this is this is a time when people should be Be an idiot either. 100%, yeah, you know people need to be pulling together and, as you said, you know, stepping up and covering for the folks that maybe are at greater risk. And the fact that you know everybody's in their foxholes, cowering, shaking, I don't know it. Definitely it rubs me the wrong way because you know, I worry that when, when the hard times do come, when other hard times do come and people do have to step up, all they've seen all their life is cowardice. Is it the? Is there any correlation with the kid who doesn't want to take score at the park To what's happening right now with our society that has not said, hey, just like our boys back in the world war two where they said, hey, old people, stay home, I'm gonna grab this gun and I'm gonna get dropped off on a ship on a beach, right, and I am night.
Speaker 1:You want to talk about fucked up statistics? What? What were the chances? I think there is a statistic on that. What were the statistics? If you were to get off that boat on norm and normandy, oh my god, that you were going to die Is was it a point six? No, it was a little bit different than that, it was a point six that you were going to live. Yeah, no, right, the first guys that I mean, watch the first few minutes of, watch the first few minutes of saving private ryan. Right, the people that were there on normandy, most of them had to walk out of the movie because it was so realistic. That's what it was like. How many guys drowned because the boats didn't get close enough and that the weight of their equipment dragged them down. That's the ones that didn't get, you know, nailed by by um, machine gun fire, it's, and that was their responsibility at that point.
Speaker 1:So, the way I look at it and if you want, you know, at the beginning I was being very careful with upsetting people and everything like that and everything I'm like, guys, listen, let me tell you something, just like it was their role To go into that, into into and I'm not comparing, listen, I'm not comparing myself even nearly that brave, I don't make sure that. All right, that's that. No, I don't have the courage to jump off with a gun and get shot at. But, yeah, guess, guess what? It's my responsibility, just like it was theirs, to go to work every day, okay, and to try to get as much done as possible, this podcast Right for all our, you know, listen, we don't have all the listeners in the world, but I'm getting to a certain amount of people that hopefully tell a certain amount of people and, hey, we try to do as much as possible. If you're home, great. If you're driving to work, because you're essential, or or you decided to go to work, anyway, then hey, guess what? But make yourself better. We can't stop society. We can't stop society.
Speaker 1:Listen, I am a huge UFC fan. Okay, I played basketball my whole life and there was a time where I stopped playing basketball and I started, you know, only watching UFC stuff. Right, but I am even more of a fan of it right now because that president of Dana white, um, president of the UFC, said hey, guess what? I'm going to hold my event, no matter what, on april 18th, okay, and I'm gonna make it safe. I'm gonna make it safer than your supermarket. That's actually what he compared. He goes I'm gonna. If you're going to the supermarket, my fights are gonna be more safe than the supermarket. I'm gonna have more doctors there than ever. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to keep everybody safe, but I am going to continue on. I think he either purchased or rented an island or whatever, and he's gonna start holding these fights there Because he says, hey, this, this is not about stopping.
Speaker 1:I am not going to stop the company. I am going to adjust, I am gonna make arrangements and I am gonna keep this thing safe. Okay, but I am gonna continue on my schedule. My UFC schedule, my UFC fight schedule is gonna continue on, no matter what, and I guarantee you what, what, what days today, today's, the April 8th, people are gonna see that, other sports are gonna see that and they're gonna be like, okay, there's a way to do it and they're gonna start functioning and other sports Are gonna start opening up in a safe manner. Because if we had to continue on which we, technically we do, but for whatever reason, we decided not to there has to be a way to do it right. There's doctors. Doctors have been complaining they're not making enough money. Hey, doctors, let's get to work Right, let's go support these sports. Let's go use our brains and figure out a safe way to get a bunch of people in a room by testing them and keeping them safe throughout the Process, so this whole thing goes through.
Speaker 1:So that is a little micro Example of what I think that the whole United States should, should, should, function like we be very, very careful, we'd be very, very responsible. We listen. If, if, if you're being crazy and you're being reckless, you should be fine and you should be arrested and you should be everything right. But If, if, if you're living your life and you're and you're moving forward and you and you're and you're trying to keep this country up and running, hey, that's what we should do. You know? Kind of like what's another deal killer there, before we start, we swear you spend another hour on coronavirus. Well, I was actually. I was actually thinking about.
Speaker 1:There's a couple of things I was actually looking up and if you ever get a chance to look up chesty puller quotes, chesty puller was a famous Marine and there's been a few situations where the Marines were in, where it was just just ridiculous, like one Marine division was surrounded by 22 divisions and these guys made it out was a thing chesty, chesty puller, yeah, and in the process, they managed to slaughter seven divisions of the enemy which, by the way, the enemy divisions were larger than theirs and, as quote on the way out of something along the lines of the male Services, been great here. That's about all the Air Force was good for in this whole thing. I mean, he's that guy, you know, like the enemies on our left the land. He's in front of us, behind us, on both sides, and he says something like well, they can't get away from us this time he's surrounded but he says yeah, I think a lot of it is perception, a lot of a person.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite stories to tell. I like war stories, especially marine stories, because they have some of the best stories in and I just a quick story, but it's a good one in. In the Korean War, the Americans first that the Koreans came down. The North Koreans came down and push us almost off it out of Korea. Then the Americans came back, macarthur came in and they pushed it the North Koreans almost all the way out of North Korea into China.
Speaker 1:But what they didn't realize was the Chinese had come into the war and they had surrounded with almost a million troops. It was only a handful of troops that they had, I think it was 75,000 American troops total in three different divisions to UN divisions, and then this division of 25,000 Marines. This division of Marines is surrounded, this place, code that's called the Cho Sen reservoir and they're surrounded by like a million guys. They managed to Break through and rescue the two other divisions that were completely captured. They managed, over the course of two or three weeks, built a bridge, managed to escape, taking a hundred thousand refugees with them, took all their wounded with them at all their equipment, everything. They get the Marine General who was in charge on the ground with these guys and said to him how did the Marines manage to pull off such a masterful retreat? He said retreat, marines don't retreat. We attack in a different direction.
Speaker 1:And you know, on days when people are towering in their homes, I think it's good to bring stuff like that back out, because you know what. That's just a different way of looking at a bad situation and go out and kick an ass. So anyway, on a deal killers, one of my personal favorites. I'm a general contractor, so this one kind of hits close to him. I also a licensed home inspector is late and defa is home inspections right, home inspections. I Took to me.
Speaker 1:It starts with the conversation Both the listing agent and the buyer's agent have with the customer to inform them of what the home inspection. Yeah, talk about how, specifically how you handle if you're on the listing side, how you handle the inspection, because when I learned out the way you did it was was was pretty cool and this avoids if you're on the listing end. You're actually resolving issues for both sides by doing it this way. So how is it that you handle the listings and the inspections? One of the things that I do, especially if it's a home that I know that maybe has repair issues, is I'll recall, I'll ask the seller if they want to get a home inspection. I let them know that it's, it's something that it's. It's potentially a problem for us. And so if we have a home inspection, if the seller pays for home inspection, we take and attach that to the MLS as an attachment and say hey, any questions, please see the home inspection.
Speaker 1:All right, that means any offer we get on that property Should be based upon the information that was predisclosed in the home inspection. If that information, if that offer, if they get a home inspection after that, they look to pick and bring the price down based upon items that were already disclosed in the other home inspection, that offer they made was in bad faith and I call them out for it. Right, I said wait a second. So you make a mortar, the inspection, you make your seller pay for the inspection Okay, which is not an easy thing to do, but when you, when you bring it up and the way you bring it up, and you it's a hell of a solution say, hey, look, this is as is as this contract. Right, that's what you use it, as this contract and, by the way, I'm gonna even make it even more as is. Okay. Here's everything that's wrong with the property. Do you still want to continue? Absolutely. Here's everything that's wrong with it. Here's whatever repairs that we did. Here's receipts for it. Here's everything. Disclose it up, because the reality of it is on the listing side. The other side gets two bites at our apple right, potentially Inspection and appraisal.
Speaker 1:Appraisal we've talked about appraisal, what you can kind of do to help yourselves out. You have a lot less control with the appraisal, with the inspection, though, there's a few things also. One is the inspection is supposed to bring up latent defects, which means things that weren't readily visible, which means, if they're bringing up to me hey, there's a keyword, yeah, if there's a crack tile on the floor, I'm saying to them wait a second. You saw that crack tile when you walked on the floor to look at the house because you came in, I bring another because you wanted this. Count, right? You want to discount? Wait a second. That means your original offers in bad faith because you knew about this and you made the offer at this price anyway.
Speaker 1:So, having that clear dichotomy in your mind, that clear separation, that hey, latent and not latent defects, and and to take and Keep it clear going forward when you talk to the side, a lot of times I get inspection reports back that have cost estimates for what things are gonna cost. Now, that's not ubiquitous, that's not everywhere. It's parts of the state that doesn't happen, parts of the country that doesn't happen. But sometimes they do this. Guys, I gotta tell you something you need to know what things kind of cost. When you see $27 for a light switch cover, I know it's 79 cents at Home Depot, right. So I'm immediately gonna say, hey, look, your guys got 22,800 for repairs on here. I see about $2,800 with the repairs on here. So let's take and figure out how we're gonna break up this 2,800, see how much of my sellers willing to do and how much of what we're gonna leave for you, and figure out some credit. But most agents say, oh, 22,008, and they lose the deal because the buyer now backs out, because they see 22,008, they don't have 22,800 dollars and so there's a dialogue on the listing side. You need to make sure that the buyer's agent has had the conversation with the other side and said hey look, you understand what the home inspector's job is. Right, his job is not to miss anything that ever, under any circumstances, could ever break in this house in the next year or two. Right, so he's gonna put every say if, if a meteorite could come down from the sky and hit it and break it, he's gonna have it on the report because what he doesn't want to have happen is have something break in this house. That's not on his report, so he's looking to cover his butt. So just because it's on the report doesn't mean it's bad.
Speaker 1:The place that I live right now, the AC, was in the last year of its usable life. It lasted nine more years. I was praying the thing would die. I had a home warranty on the house. I was hoping the home warranty people have to replace it. Finally I got rid of the home warranty and got rid of the air conditioner because it would just never die. And it was terrible, air conditioner didn't do the job well. So I mean Recognizing that you have to set both parties up and not expecting that buyer's agent to have the good conversation with their customer and say, look, I know, we're buying the home inspection.
Speaker 1:And it's like if you listen to your attorney all the time, you would never do any deal ever because their job is to. My attorney has been on this podcast and I am very clear and I tell them all the time like dude, I would not be in business if I listen to everything. Of course I would, because and he's like in his defense he's like, hey, man, I'm I here to put shit, I'm I here to present things pretty for you. I'm here to tell you worst case scenario, here's your exposure. But the he's always worst case scenario. But yeah, here's your exposure, here's the worst thing that could possibly happen. Now you make your decision based on that. A good businessman Will probably listen to him a lot less than then the other stuff that he's.
Speaker 1:You know, it's, it's and it's the same thing with a home inspection. Here's the worst case scenario. So you gotta make sure to take an explain to your customer. Hey look, this is the worst case scenario. If you do that and they're prepped when they see that inspection and there's all these things on there. Guys, you remember, it's the worst case scenario. Oh, okay, they take it with a grain of salt and that's how it should be taken. It's not all broken. It's all these things are in various states of decay, but guess what, since the second the home was built, everything in the home was in a various state of decay as well. Right, so it could be a 2020 house. Guess what? The roof is no Longer brand new. It's 10 days old or whatever. It's on the way to being done.
Speaker 1:Just like us, we're all dying same thing, and so you need, once again, back to context, making sure to give the customer, who doesn't do this all the time, the proper context to look at that inspection report through is huge. Yeah, what else we got? We got a Inspec mortgages financing. Sure, yeah, financing entitled. Listen, this is another. This is another one of those that this, you, this should be more preventative than anything else, right, if, if you get to the closing table or you get to 15 days before the closing and your deal does not close as a realtor and I'm gonna make this very clear as a realtor it's your fucking fault. It's your fault. It's your fault Because you don't have the right mortgage broker. It's your fault because you haven't spent enough time, because maybe you're out there going around using a different mortgage broker every single time and you're not creating a relationship with your mortgage broker.
Speaker 1:Now I own the mortgage company for about Seven years, maybe seven years of my life, so I respect Guys. The reason why I am not in the mortgage business it's not because I can't all right is because I absolutely do not want to. It is an absolute Nightmare. Yeah, the attention to detail that you have to have coronavirus. The attention to detail that you have to have is Is just incredible. The, the, the room for error is zero. You could have a realtor that could miss addendums on a contract and fill it out Horribly. If the deal closes, nobody ever finds out. Yep, you will not close a mortgage deal. If one issue is not correct, if there's one mistake on it, you will not close the deal. Okay, so it is a an Extremely, extremely difficult.
Speaker 1:The worst years of my career was the years that I owned a real, a mortgage company. I don't. I don't wish it on my worst enemy. It sucks, but that's why I have such a phenomenal relationship with my mortgage guys, because you know what, when I'm calling them, I'm not calling them and saying, hey, what did you do wrong? Hey, what happened? Right.
Speaker 1:When there's an issue, when it gets stuck or thing what's going on, they explain it to me. Here's the key. I Understand it, yep, okay. So just like, just like coronavirus and numbers, and listening to a reporter, I don't listen to the fucking reporter, I listen to the numbers and I listen to the statistics. Okay. So I call this guy and go what happened? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Speaker 1:And because I'm able to understand it, I know if we're in really deep trouble, if there was a major mistake, main a maid, a minor mistake, main, and if we're gonna be able to fix it. So I usually say what happened, how we're gonna fix it? Yeah, okay, and that's it. There's no drama, there's no screaming, there's no pointing fingers, and that's why they respect me so much and that's why I'm gonna say they like me so much, because they might not really like me I don't know that. I'm not there, you know, but at least they respect me, I respect them. We have a phenomenal working relationship because there's a real bull should involve in it, but I am able to have that level headed and and and leveled respect with them. They respect me. I respect them because I know my shit. Yeah, I know my shit, and what is that? You know? Listen, I always say a story.
Speaker 1:My first year in real estate was an absolute nightmare. So you got to understand what I. This is what I was. I never wanted to be an astronaut or anything like that. Real estate is really what, what I wanted to do since since high school. So Weird, but it is what it is. So you know, I got.
Speaker 1:I got to this business and my first year I didn't close one deal. At that particular one I was. It was was century 21. I was actually a prudential first, which is like huge biggest company back then prudential real estate, and then it was century 21. So I was in both of those companies. I didn't close a deal, not one deal. I put a bunch of offers but I didn't close any deals.
Speaker 1:So, man, this was and it means that I mentioned it because I was. It was so depressing. I'm like, man, maybe this is not my cut out for this, maybe this is not for me. What the hell am I gonna do now? Am I already told you I graduated with a 1.5, right? So what the fuck? What? What am I going to do now? This is not for me, obviously, I didn't quit, and, and that's part of it.
Speaker 1:But so then I went to a really tiny company that didn't have an office. It was so small that it didn't have an office. So I had to call. I got a call from a mortgage that one of my buddies knew, a mortgage broker named Joseph Schneiderman. I'll mention his name super sharp, super Knowledgeable, talent, one of the most talented mortgage. I don't think he's in the business anymore, which is unfortunate, but he was such a talent, he was phenomenal. So he tells me that they were. They had a little mortgage company too, but it but they had empty space. So he's like hey, it's just come work, come work here with us in the office. So never forget it.
Speaker 1:He had his desk on on the right over here. I had a little desk next to him. I would put some you know, other realtors and the office listings and the on the on the newspaper back then. No, no, zillow, no, anything, it was newspapers. Okay, that's how. That's all I'm getting our whole damn. And I would get those phone calls and I would pass it to him. He would qualify him, pass him over to me and I started closing deals and more deals, and more deals, and more, and that's it, and more and that's it.
Speaker 1:I took off like a rocket ship. The only thing I was missing was that connection. The only thing I was missing is that mortgage part that that Remember here's the key. I was putting in offers on the other one but they weren't closing Right. They weren't closing because I, the financing was off and I wasn't knowledgeable enough in that to know what mistake I was making once that happened. So I remember thinking, when I opened my real estate company, I'm gonna open a mortgage company too. Huge mistake and it was a nightmare. But hey, I'm glad because I really understood the business.
Speaker 1:So, but the story, the reason why I got to say this whole story, is because when I opened the mortgage company I was lost. You know, I was basically a, an all-right realtor kind of starting, but in order to do, in order to open that, I needed to become a student of the mortgage business. I Needed to to understand it. So I remember I asked a friend, of a friend To let me to speak to. It was. It was a. It was a.
Speaker 1:There was a prominent mortgage company back here, a huge mortgage company here locally, and I was able to get to the president and the president of the company Because of the person who did me the favor and connected him Was able to get me in there and sit down with the underwriter. Sit down, this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to sit down with the underwriter, I wanted to see what they did, I wanted to sit the whole day with them and I wanted to take no. So I spent almost three, four or five days sitting down with the underwriter, sitting down with the opener, the closer, the pricing department, the processor, and understand. I studied what they did and I just I remember Looking at how.
Speaker 1:I just want to see what a file looks like. I want to see how they stack it up and what they do and what is underwriting like, what? What is it like? I want to know what the hell it is. Yeah, all you guys know, the people that haven't done this is is well, some mean lady that that that tells you that you have more conditions and she already told you there was a last condition, but she's giving you more conditions. It's a box where I submit the papers in.
Speaker 1:They push it back and say no, yeah, right, pretty much, but it's not that. There's a logic behind it and there's rules, and there's that. Here's the word guidelines, absolutely guidelines that they follow. So why are they saying no? Because there's guidelines, water guidelines, every loan program has guidelines, right? So what? That's what they follow, that's their Bible, okay? So I needed to know that. I needed to know what the processor with the opener, with the closer. So I spent I Said 3, 4, 5, remember now, but it was, it was days, it was days, all day for days Sitting there and understanding what they did. Okay, so you guys want to get better.
Speaker 1:During these 30, 60, whatever days, hopefully not 90 days Call your mortgage guy and tell him hey, can I have a 15-minute phone call with an underwriter? Can I have? Can you walk me through the process? What's first, second? That's another thing that I wanted to know. What comes first, what comes second, what comes there? What is the flow chart? Yeah, right, what's the sequence of this? Where does it go? What happens in this whole quality control thing right before the deal closes who they call, right. So I needed to know that. I needed to become a student of the game. If you guys take this time and you just understand what is what, what is an underwriter, what is a processor, and understand what a file looks like, if they're still working, if they're still operating, and if you could show up there with a hazmat suit and just listen to whatever it is that you know and understand what they do, you will be better at the end of this. Now you're speaking to an appraiser, now you're reading some books that are going to make you better. Now you're you know. Maybe you're changing the way you do these inspections and understanding it a little bit better and you're understanding the financing business a lot better.
Speaker 1:If you're able to talk to your mortgage broker, talk to several mortgage brokers. What guys? What is the biggest mistake? Their realtors call them up and go hey, what's the biggest mistake their realtors make? What is it? I want to know, right, I want to know. I want to know. Call another one, I want to know and pick a mortgage broker that you're going to send business.
Speaker 1:Why do my guys close? Because we send them a lot of business, right, do they pay more attention. I'll tell them to their face. Of course it's human nature. I send them so many deals that you know what. It sucks a lot more to fuck up one of my deals than anybody else's. One realtor that sends one deal, hey, hey, hopefully it closes, but we'll be all right If it doesn't close with me. They know, they got to call me and they got to explain and I'm a nice guy about it. But hey, nobody wants to lose deals and they got to explain to what the mistake was and I'm going to understand it in the whole situation. But I don't want mistakes and that's the. That's the relationship.
Speaker 1:So that whole thing about jumping around here. You want to make it better. You want to eliminate issues with mortgage brokers. Pick one, one mortgage broker, one guy, maybe two, maybe one English speaker we're in Miami, so an English speaker, a Spanish speaker, whatever. But pick the same guys that you're going to do business with on a regular basis, because those people are going to appreciate your business a lot more than you're the one off. And when you show up with a buyer and a buyer shows up and they have a random mortgage broker, you better train yourself. There goes to, there goes. We're going back to number one again. Prepare yourself to be able to convince that person and influence that person into understanding that it's way better for them to go with your guy.
Speaker 1:Okay, as long as the deal is the same in the whole situation, because there is this relationship, because you could trust what that person says, because they're not going to lie to you, because when something happens, something happens, they're going to you know, like I say not if, but when something happens with the deal, you're going to be able to call that mortgage broker and you're going to be like hey, mortgage broker, what's going on? And they're going to tell you the truth. If it's somebody who you don't know, they're going to bullshit you enough to buy themselves some time to fix the issue Absolutely. And then you're going to have that wrong information. What's going to make you make wrong decisions, and worse than that even, is you give the wrong information to your customer, repeating what they said to your customer, and then that turns out to not be so and it comes back to bite. You hurts your relationship with your customer.
Speaker 1:My father used to say my father was a very successful businessman and he used to say to me all the time if you want to be great at your business, know what comes before and what comes after what you do. And I found in this business, especially knowing what the mortgage broker does and know what the title company does, know how you can give them the stuff in a way that's most helpful and meaningful to them, because what I'm trying to be for them is the person who's deal they want to get done. You know, again, if they're in a human job, they see it's me, they see my title company, my mortgage broker sees it's me. They know I'm always nice to them on the phone. They know I'm always grateful for everything that they do for me. So they know they have a different reaction and interaction with me than somebody else.
Speaker 1:Does it take and make every deal I do with them close? No, but it makes more of my deals close and it's all about trying to get as many of the deals that we're working hard to get in there actually closed. And same thing with the title company. I've been using the same title company since 2005. That's 15 years, maybe 2006, but I'm pretty sure it's five. Let's go 15. It's a nice one. It's rounded off a little bit.
Speaker 1:So again, when they already know what I want. They already know how I want it. I know what they want. I know how they want it. I have an attorney there which is, coincidentally, in this particular case, my attorney also had started that way. They started as my title company. Actually, it's kind of both really.
Speaker 1:But, that being said, when there's an issue I had an issue just two days ago Called them and I said hey, man, I need you to resolve this issue. One of my realtors issue was resolved. They jump on it. They jump on it. Yeah, they're nice guys and they're nice girls, but it's really because we have a successful business relationship and we protect it and we professionally handle it. If we make a mistake, if I make a mistake, I own up to it and I fix it. If they make a mistake, they own up to it and they fix it. And we have that 15 year successful, thousands of deals closed because of that.
Speaker 1:So have I sat there in their office and have I learned their process and understood it Absolutely? Actually, in that particular case, have I forgotten it? Yeah, I have forgotten it. I'm not a big title guy, but maybe it's because they're so damn good. Yeah, don't have to take the pressure off. I didn't have to. I never really had to learn it and now that I think about it, I probably should take the opportunity and learn a little bit more on it.
Speaker 1:But, and again, guys, I've been doing this 20 plus years and look what I just said. I'm going to go take this. I'm sure I'm having this podcast and I'm going to take my own advice and I'm going to learn more about title. I'm going to go sit down and I'm going to realize it. I'm going to realize that, hey, you know what, since they've been so good, I haven't had a reason to learn it. And I'm going to go learn it. And what makes them so good? Absolutely Right.
Speaker 1:So, but there was a point at the beginning where I did sit down and I did walk myself through it and I did. I had one month that that I it was like about 90 deals that I had to close with them, aside from my other business. I did some it was a counter conversion or something. I had like 90 deals that I had to close with them in that month and and I literally had to go work there for a couple of weeks, you know. So in that particular case, I really learned it and I and I and I understood it. But again, I, since you don't exercise, you know, see, on the mortgage thing, there's always issues and stuff that I'm not because the mortgage guys are not good at, just because it's more of an issue. It's a more of an issue Intensive, it's a nature of it, man. There's just stuff happening all the time, no matter what. So you know, I've been forced to refresh my memory on a regular basis. Loan program change on a regular basis, so you got to keep up to date. So you want to know. You want to know another thing you could talk to your mortgage broker about understand the loan programs.
Speaker 1:Do you know the difference between an FHA and a conventional, between a a or a VA or a bank statement program? Do you understand debt, debt to income ratios? Do you understand the difference between why somebody would rather go with an FHA than a conventional? Probably because of the credit score? You're allowed a lower credit score. You're allowed more debt Sure To income. You know the ratio. You're allowed to have more debt in the debt to income ratio. Those are the stuff. So do you know that? Or do you just say, well, let's go FHA? Do you really understand why people have to go FHA or should it go FHA? And that doesn't. That's not just the down payment, guys. There's down payment, there's, there's. There's conventional deals that have the same down payment Lower 3% versus three and a half, right, right, but you don't go with it because they don't have the same debt to income ratio type stuff. So do you really really understand what an FHA is? Do you really understand conventional? Do you really understand FHA in condominiums, conventional condominiums? What's the restriction on going FHA and what's the restriction on going conventional?
Speaker 1:Do you know what a what a what a condo questionnaires? Do you know that that's the biggest deal killer in financing for condominiums? It's a condo questionnaire. Have you read a fucking condo questionnaire? Have you sat down and actually read? Go pick three condo deals and read the condo questionnaire. What does it ask? Why is that such a deal killer? Do you know that? Cause I know it, right, I know it. I know I know it cause I had to teach it to my realtors, right? So if you want to, here's another thing hey, read another homework, read a condo questionnaire. Sure, understand the condominiums, read all the guidelines, understand the financing. That's different and I would say I want to.
Speaker 1:I want to put one more out there. When it comes to financing, know where to get your investor's money Because, especially coming into the time that we are what it's looking like, what we need to figure out I'm good, we need to, uh, have sources of money available for our investors to borrow. We need to know, hey, it's this kind of property and this is the, this is the lender that can get us money on on this and this is the kind of down payment they're going to require. They're gonna give us 70% LTV or 60% LTV or 85% LTV, depending upon what it is Understanding the investment side of the business. I know for me, I got much better at this business when I started to really understand the investment side of the business.
Speaker 1:Going to CCIM, taking in, really getting my head wrapped around about how investment real estate works. People think, oh, you're a commercial agent, then you gotta be commercial. No, it makes you better at all aspects of the business. You understand the product much, much better and I don't think there's any reason to be in a car with somebody driving around showing him property without putting in them planting the seeds to turn that person into a real estate investor, even if they're looking for a home to live in for themselves. You need to take and be able to talk about your product in such a way that they're compelled to say, gee, you know what. We need to get an investment property as quickly as we can. That sounds like something we should have as part of our plan to retire part of our financial plan going forward Right, so go to YouTube Again.
Speaker 1:I want everything with homework, right. So that's a phenomenal point. How do you turn a person into an investor? You explain it to them, absolutely. So go on YouTube either. Go to one of Cadillacs, your next class for the investment class. Well, who knows? Who knows? I just answered my own question. So go on YouTube and say to yourself, hey, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna watch videos on how to analyze. I guarantee you, you put it in there, go analyzing investment, real estate properties, real estate, investment properties right, I guarantee you, you're gonna have more than enough videos to watch. Is one of them gonna change your life? Maybe, probably not, but all of them together will, sure. So the next time you're at least at least able to bullshit your way through it. And guess what happens when you're bullshitting your way through 10 different. The same thing 10 different times. You're no longer bullshitting. Yep. You know A buddy of mine that said the other day well, I read somewhere that you shouldn't make it.
Speaker 1:Shake it. What is it Make? What's that saying? Again, fake it till you make it. Fake it till you make it. You shouldn't be faking anything until you make it.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, let me tell you something whatever moron told you that you shouldn't fake it till you make it. He was born rich, got into this business rich, cause anybody who had to start in this had to fake the shit out of it until you make it. I'm sorry, you need to. It's almost like you're, I remember it almost like acting. I was acting like a successful realtor. I was acting like I would look at those guys and be like all right, I'm gonna act like that until I became one of those guys. So, yeah, you damn it. Whoever told this? I'm gonna call my friend the moron and he's gonna listen to this and he's gonna know exactly who he is and I'm gonna and I already told him that whoever told him that was also a moron, or was inherited millions of dollars and didn't have to fake it cause that's complete bullshit or born and died, broke one of the other.
Speaker 1:Right right, right, right, right, right. The reality of it is, when you come in the licensure test, what they teach you in FREC-1 and FREC-2, the pre and post license is not the actual practice of real estate. In fact, like you said, going back now and looking at the evaluation portion, the appraisal portion, would be really helpful because once you've been in the business a year or two, that's when you need that information. That's when you have enough context of how this works to say, oh wow, this makes a lot of sense as opposed to you know, here it is. It's like teaching a kid in kindergarten calculus. Well, I'm going to the title thing also. Title right. Go back and the title theory state and the link state. Refresh your memory on that. Understand it. Go back Right now. You're at home, locked up.
Speaker 1:If you're a mom, you know, as soon as you finish with the kids, decompress. I went home the other day, dude. I went home for lunch and it was a war zone in there. Dude, kids were fighting, my wife's freaking out, she's pulling out her hairs. I'm like I am out of here. I was going to hang out for a little bit. I'm like I am out of here. So, moms, I get it. Listen, I really do get it. It is.
Speaker 1:I am sorry you guys are I'm not going to say the real casualties, but obviously there's people dying. I can't even joke around here because you know I'm worried about that, but you guys are also casualties here because you guys were these moms are having to put up with. They went from being moms to teachers and you know what the other ones I have are teachers that are also moms, are having to teach a class and teach their kids at the same time. They have to be a mom and a teacher. Then teachers, teachers with kids in school right now. Man, those are also casualties of this coronavirus, casualties of war and all here. So what else? We covered everything pretty much, right. We've covered everything pretty much, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, guys, in summary, here you could either you could take this, you know, and look, I don't want to call anybody who's home, you know, less courageous or anything like that, right, my gut tells me to do that, but you know it's not right. There's people that are home for a certain reason. There's people that you know might, you know, be a lot more afraid of this than normal, might have some kind of you know situation where it makes it more, I guess, possible or you know, I don't know Increased likelihood, increased likelihood. Okay, that you should stay home. But for those that are home or could get out and go to a park and sit and read a book or, while you're doing cardio, listen to some you know audio books and go on YouTube at night and make yourself better in these points, we gave you plenty of homework here. Plenty of homework. I think one of the best ones that I said was pay a hundred bucks to an appraiser for his time and sit there and get that information. If you could do these things, guys. Now another thing if you decide and this is where I was going before if you decide to say, all right, you know what dude I am.
Speaker 1:Real estate agents have been allowed to continue to work. We've been considered, you know, essential. You're allowed to show properties, virtually, you're allowed to go work. Maybe you're not allowed to go hold open houses, maybe you're not allowed to join, you know and have you know showings with a ton of people out there. You gotta have your social distancing, but if you're able to follow these guidelines and you're able to show properties understand that whatever marketing you do right now and somebody calls you, that person really wants a house. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:Here's another thing. So what I am proposing is that, potentially, just let's just pretend for a second, okay, that I have, that I'm making some kind of sense here. Okay, just give it a shot for 48 hours. Put some marketing out there. Whoever calls you understand that. Not only are they way more interested than most people because they're out there searching, so they might need a house, they might need to move out because their lease is out. And that's probably why we stayed essentials, because if your lease is about to end and you need to move, or you have gone, transferred in a job and you need to move, somebody needs to sell you that house, okay. So if that's the case and you could also understand that you have a lot less competition out there right, there's a lot less realtor's working right now. There's a lot less traffic there's, kids are in school, all kinds of stuff, okay, and now you also have a market that might be I'm not gonna use a word desperate, but a lot more inclined to receiving a lower offer.
Speaker 1:Yes, right. So now, out of 10 houses, out of 10 sellers. There might be three of them that are 100% convinced of the world about that. Absolutely stockpiling and ammunition. They are going insane and they need to sell this property extremely quickly so they could put that money in a box or buy gold. Well, to finish the bombshell to behind the house Absolutely they're gonna. So they could get the down payment for the new bombshell to and that might be the person that your client, that might be the house that your client really, really wants, the client that you put for the marketing, the client that you don't have to fight a thousand realtors for, all right.
Speaker 1:So just analyze that part. Analyze the logic behind it, okay. Analyze the fact of your statistic danger in working these deals. Okay. Also, understand that you might this might be the opportunity to make some real money right now to be the person that's out there working this deal. Am I asking anybody to put themselves in danger? If you really think this is dangerous, don't do it. Okay.
Speaker 1:But understand another thing there's a very high probability not possibility probability that this is gonna be a V-shape recovery. Okay. V-shape mean goes down and it goes up just like a V, all right. What does that mean? That if in two weeks, potentially, maybe, hey guys, maybe I don't know shit, maybe I shouldn't even be talking, okay, Maybe I am such a moron that you guys should just turn this shit off and never listen to me again, but maybe I'm not okay. So if this is a V-shape recovery and in two weeks, news start coming out hey, it's already starting to come out. It's already starting to come out. It's starting to come out saying the numbers are a lot lower than expected, yeah, they already adjusted from what was 96,000 down to 82,000 the other day and they're already starting to prepare. Hey, guys, maybe this was a little exaggerated the way we brought it out. We can't compare ourselves to Italy, we can't compare ourselves to China. We're a different animal, the whole situation. So, potentially, let's say again maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm seeing this completely crazy. Okay, fine, okay. But if in about two weeks, the news start coming out oh, wait a second, guys, we might have miscalculated this. We're okay, we got this under control. Stark market is already starting to go up, but it goes even more up. It's true.
Speaker 1:Restaurants are open again. Mmm, oh, the real fat guy. Oh, boy, fat kid's sitting over here. See, I'm a drinker, so I just want to sit at a bar. All right, like, I just want to sit at a bar. I want to get there hungry. I want to go to a gym. Man, I've been having a go running. This is brutal. Listen, that is number five on my priority list. All right, the gym I'm talking about. I want to sit down there. I want to pour myself a single malt whiskey at a bar. Okay, I want to go there real thirsty and real hungry and I want to feel a cold drink just going down my esophagus. All right, that's, that's what I'm going for.
Speaker 1:But, hypothetically speaking, if I am maybe just making a little bit of sense here and this shit, in two weeks or three weeks, everything opens back up again. Okay, you might potentially look back at this time and say like, holy shit, I didn't take advantage of this, I lost this. I lost this once in a lifetime opportunity to get myself better. Hopefully, once in a lifetime. Yeah, yeah, hopefully. Good point, probably, probably. I don't think we're going to go in. I think we're. We'll learn lessons from this that probably won't shut down the whole damn country. Find a better way to do this. I can't happen every year, just can't, no. So potentially, you're going to look back and you'll be like all right, man, this is a 30, 45, 60 day time to spend some time with my family.
Speaker 1:Okay, by the way, I taught my daughter how to ride bike. We were always so busy. My son plays the sport, my daughter plays the sport, where, between practices and work and get home late and everything, I realized, holy shit, she doesn't know how to ride bike. So I taught her to ride a bike. It was awesome and I'm spending time with her. It's great. That too.
Speaker 1:Okay, take seriously, take the time and spend. You know, hey, spend the time with the family and everything. Remember what's important. Remember what's important. Okay, you're alive, you're here, you're safe, everything's good. And make yourself better. Make yourself better.
Speaker 1:Right, let's say you buy leads and they say you have some leads that have been around that you haven't really paid attention to, that came in a year ago or came in December, or came in something. Let's call them up, say hello, say hello. How you doing Is everything okay and you're going to be able to feel if they're in a bunker or they're like this is bullshit, I'm dying to get out, absolutely. And hey, by the way, do you know anybody? Are you, or anybody that you know, thinking about buying real estate. If you haven't been able to have a chance to update your CRM, go in there and you'll get an update. Your fucking CRM. We should put that number six Deal killers. You know why it's a deal killer? Because the deal never started. It's dying in the fetus stage, at embryo. If you're not organized, that deal's never starting.
Speaker 1:So go back and organize your CRM Absolutely. Clear up your inbox, clean up your CRM. Tough one, oh you know. Look, it's one of those things that once it's done, it's just a matter of maintenance. It's just a matter of maintenance. It's like, you know, when you have to lose a bunch of weight I've had to do that in different times in my life and, yeah, it's tough, but once you get down, then it's just maintenance, yeah, and then you can eat a hot dog every once in a while. It's not the end of the world, it's good. And so you know, set yourself up.
Speaker 1:Coming out of this, you have a chance to assess your business, and I mean, if we're going to leave with anything, I think that that's really the place to leave with. Stay hungry, Look at your business, assess it. Where are the places where you're not organized, where it's not clean, where it's not crisp. That business is a reflection of you, and so take it personal. Take a look at your inbox, take a look at your CRM, take a look at everything and say, hey, does this reflect the kind of business that I want to run? And if not, if it's not the way you want it right now, take the time and fix it and make it great, come out of this with something better so you can sit there and say, hey, life gave me lemons and I made some kick ass. In your case, I'm sure, spiked lemonade, right. Yeah. And I'm going to want one last thing here If we're going to include the CRM with the gym, talk, right.
Speaker 1:One example I always give with the CRM, right, the CRM's. You know we have a CRM here at the office and I recommend, you know, I know you like one page, one page CRM. We use conversion here, right, there's. You know there's a million of them, right? But one thing I get all the time is like well, as soon as you know, I purchased a CRM and it doesn't work for me. It's like buying a badass treadmill with all the bells and whistles that has the fucking TV. Has you? You know the youth of the YouTube. It has the Bluetooth for your, for your ear, for your ear pods or whatever. The little robot like arm that wipes the sweat from your forehead. It has it all the fans, just in case you're getting a little too hot. Incline decline has everything right.
Speaker 1:So you paid $10,000 for this thing and then you're going to say this thing doesn't work. Well, if you don't get your fat ass, are we supposed to say that now, cause it's a body shaming, or no, let's go with it. Okay, I talk about my fat ass. I talk about my fat ass too. Um the well, I tell you what I'm a fat ass. But I don't blame my fucking treadmill for it. No, I just don't. I blame myself for it. I blame the three hot dogs I made myself last night for dinner, exactly. So, um, you know. So I hear that all the time.
Speaker 1:Well, it doesn't work, dude, if you don't get yourself on that treadmill, it doesn't matter how amazing that treadmill is, you've got to get on it and you've got to work it. So, right now, look at that CRM like that treadmill. Go in there, make the adjustments, put the information. If you have people written down, go back six months call leads, spend an hour, two hours, 30 hours a day calling old leads and reintroducing yourself, putting him in the CRM and activating them. Guys, this is a once. I sincerely think it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to organize yourselves and just really take off. Really take off Like make this the day that you're like you know how these New Year's resolutions type of stuff, where they're like all right, well, and you hear it all the time man, there was that day and I just got fed up with it and that's it.
Speaker 1:And those are the days that today, after today's the day, and and my life was never the same after that day Make this shit, this Corona virus thing, which is a negative, make it a positive. Say hey, man, I've been kicking ass since Corona virus because I really sat down and I really adjusted, I've meditated, I've read books, I've taken the advice, I listened to the most amazing podcast in the world, and then, and then that's after, and then I was right after you know so. So yeah, man, I'll leave you with that. Guys, I am absolutely going to take my own advice. You want? You want anything else? So kind of like I think that just to kind of summarize what you just said. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. There you go, and so you know, really, really take that, take that into account and make tomorrow a better day and the day after a better day, and so on.
Speaker 1:With a CRM, the answer is easy what is the best CRM? The one you use, yeah, the one that you will actually use, and I'll tell you what it's not. It's never right. The shit by hand on an old bag, oh my God, no, please, no, I don't care how old school you are. If you want to go listen. The conversion is a very complex CRM that we use. Right, the one page CRM is very, very strict. It's literally one page, yeah, strict down. If you can't do that one, if you can't function with one page CRM, call the DBPR or call whatever local real estate department and hand over your real estate license. You should be handling transactions. You should be handling transactions. You just shouldn't. So, um, all right. So hopefully we were recording everything. That would suck if we did that. All right, guys, I will hopefully talk to you again next week. All right, thank you for joining. I hope it's been useful. No-transcript.
