Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Joe Siegel, founder and CEO of Aspire Legal Solutions and my Land Trustee, the largest and fastest growing land trust company in Florida. Our passion is helping people aspire to a better life. One of the many ways we do that is by helping them remain anonymous when it comes to their real estate holdings as they build their wealth. But it also extends to everyone else we touch each day. We're fortunate to work with some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country who share our mission of aspiring to a better life. And we hope others will benefit from hearing their journeys, tips, strategies and tactics to get there. Okay, welcome everybody to the live stream for the trust. This podcast this evening, we wanted to do this one live because we figured we'd have a lot of questions about the new nar settlement that's out there working its way through the courts and through the industry. And I have some great guests tonight. I have Richard Terrell, mortgage broker with Apley Homes, Joseph Dion Hope. I'm saying that right, Joe, mortgage broker, also with aptly homes home loans, Tom McNamara, real estate agent with Exp Realty, Andres Hebra, with La Rosa Realty premier, and Jessica Nazario Narazio, title agent extraordinary with your title connections. So before we begin, I just wanna say this, that everybody here tonight is appearing on their own behalf. They are not on behalf of their company.
So anything that they say tonight is their own opinion, including mine. We are all just giving our opinions about where we think we are and where we're going with this whole thing. But I wanna turn the floor over just real quick, let each person introduce themselves, give a little bit of their background, and then we'll jump into the meat of the discussion tonight.
Jessica, let's start with you, because you're the first block I see in front of me. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Excellent, Joe. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure for me to be in here among all of you professionals. My name is Jessica Nazario. I am the owner of your title connection. For the past twelve years, it's been a blessing in this roller coaster real estate. Right. However, I've been in the title business together for 20 years, excited to be here, to be sharing, right. What you said, information and what we think is going to happen with the market so we can continue helping each other and growing in this business. Thank you for having me.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Thank you. And Andres, you're up next.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: Thank you very much for the introduction. My name is Andre Hebra. I am the broker owner for La Rosa Realty Premier and bought it for Lakes.
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Hopefully I can share some information that I may have obtained during these last couple of crazy weeks. But we're all, we're all going to survive. It'll be fine.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: We've survived worse, right? We got through the recession of 2008. Richard, great time to start. Richard, how about you?
[00:03:13] Speaker D: Well, good evening. I do appreciate being here. I represent the southern voice of brown folks everywhere.
I'm a senior loan originator over here at aptly home loans. Partnered here this evening. Beside me is the founder of the company, Joseph Dion. You'll talk to him in just a second. But been in the game since 2002 on accident, starting out as an investor and then got super serious about it in 2007. Right before 2008, nine and ten happened and then got my license as a realtor and then became a loan originator in 17. So it's been a good road like, like we all said we do.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Tom, how about you?
[00:03:52] Speaker E: Hey, thanks for having me on, Joe. I really appreciate it. I'm Tom McNamara, and I guess I'm the most junior guy around here.
I've only been a real estate agent since 2016, so a little over eight years, but I am a broker. I have owned my own brokerage. I've done a lot of investing, and I sell on average of 40 to 60 homes a year. So I've got some pretty good on the street experience.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Wonderful. Great to have you. And last but not least, Joseph Dion.
[00:04:27] Speaker F: Yep. Joseph Dion. I'm managing partner here at Apley home Loans. Tom over here saying he's the newbie on the block and he's, you know, he hasn't repeated year one once. It sounds like he's moved on to year 24578. You know, as I've worked in operations and sales in the mortgage industry for a little over a decade plus since college and a few years back made the journey to open my own company. We've grown and flourished significantly over the last couple years, and we're a powerhouse mortgage brokerage, not just in Orlando, but expanded into numerous states and are growing into a national presence. So we're really excited about what we're doing.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Oh, thanks. Okay, well, and I'm Joe Siegel. I'm the lawyer, real estate lawyer. Been a real estate lawyer since 1996. Started in North Carolina. Now I'm in Florida. Been in Florida since 2000.
So I've been through a lot and seen a lot. And right now our big focus is we have the land trust company where we're land trustee of over 2000 properties across Florida. So we deal with buyers and sellers, agents and title companies and mortgage brokers and appraisers and everybody else in the settlement process all day, every day. So when I saw this hit my newsfeed Friday afternoon, March 15, it was like an earthquake had hit the industry as far as I was concerned, because this is the way things had been done as long as I've been alive. I mean, as long as any of us have been alive. It's basically whenever there's a buyer and a seller, and a buyer has an agent and the seller has a listing agent who's listed their house for sale in the multiple listing service, the listing agent can put in there automatically in a box exactly what percentage of their commission they will automatically pay, without question to the buyer's agent if they bring a buyer, if they procure a buyer for the purchase of that property. Well, last October there was a case, the Burnett, I never can remember the name of it, the Citzer Burnett case.
And in October a jury found that that practice of putting automatic compensation agreements between the listing agent and the buyer's agent was an unfair and deceptive trade practice. It was just not right. So they awarded $1.8 billion as a judgment against national association of realtors as well as some other very large real estate, national real estate companies. And then they went into appeals and they finally agreed. Everybody agreed to settle. Back on March 15, National association of Realtors said, look, here's how we'll settle it. Number one, we're going to pay $418 million over the next four years to the plaintiffs attorneys and we're going to agree that we're going to remove those boxes from all the MLS's across the country so that there's no automatic compensation agreement between the buyer's agent and the seller's agent. We're going to require that the buyers and the sellers, just like the seller's agents, always have a written agreement with the seller. We're going to require that the buyer's agents also have an agreement written with their buyers and we're going to remove the rule that requires the agents, if they are members of the national, if they call themselves a realtor, if they are members of the National association of Realtors, we're going to remove that requirement that they will agree automatically that they're going to share part of their commission with the other realtor no matter what, no questions asked. And they're also going to remove the requirement that you should, that you shall be a realtor to use the MLs, although I believe that's not been a, a rule in Florida. Cause we've had Thompson agents for quite a while on the MLs who are not realtors, who are allowed to access the MLS. But it's not that way in every state. But now it will be. Now the agreement is that this will all go into effect in July, sometime in July, whether the court. Yeah, whether the court's approved it or not. And they hope to have court approval. They're hoping by the end of the year. But they want to go ahead and get this ball rolling to get this started. It protects most of the big realtor brokerages in the country. It definitely protects Nar, national association of realtor from any further lawsuits. Any more copycat lawsuits doesn't protect them against the feds because the FTC may still not like this. But it's hard to believe that Nar wouldn't at least consult with the feds before they made this settlement to see if this would satisfy them. So with that said, I want to get into this and I want to talk to the Realtors first.
And Tom, I'll go ahead and I'll just start with you, but why don't you explain what a buyer's agent, from the buyer's side, what is a typical day in the life like for a buyer's agent and that life of the transaction with a buyer's agent? What do you do as a buyer's agent with your buyer?
[00:09:40] Speaker E: Sure.
So thanks for starting with me. I appreciate that, Joe.
So, you know, it's funny, because I've been thinking about this more and more as I've digested this big change that's up and coming. And the positive of it is it has made me reflect on what our value actually is to the transaction. Right. Because I see a lot of people saying things like, oh, it's so simple. You just go punch a four digit code in a box and you collect a big check after you fill out a form. I wish it was that simple. Right.
So, you know, we do quite a bit more than that. First of all, you know, dealing with the public, the general public, is a trick unto itself, right.
People are very guarded. They don't like to let you know everything. They don't, I'm saying they lie, but they don't like to give you the full truth. They don't like to tell you what's going on.
They don't understand the process yet. They want to drive the process and tell you how it's going to work. So our first thing is understanding who we're dealing with, where we are, what's going on with them, what do they need? What's driving them to buy or sell or move or change? We need to understand all those things because we're going to need them later to remind them why they're going through the pain that they're going through. Because the process is painful. It's confusing. There are challenges all along the way.
The other thing that we do is help them with a market analysis. Now, that's not like looking at a specific house, but understanding the market. Are we in a buyer's market? Are we in a seller's market? Do you have to move fast? Can you take your time?
All those kind of things.
The third thing that we do is help them search for properties. Kind of funny because that's what people usually start with. Hey, I found five houses I want to look at, right?
And that's not usually the best way to start, but that is what they do. So when they start with that, we usually drive them back to what are their needs? What are their wants? What are their desires? Well, by the way, how are you going to pay for this thing? Let's go get you pre approved, or where's your proof of funds so that we understand their financial capabilities.
And then after, you know, once we find the house. Right. Again, that's, I don't want to say that's the easy part because it's the physically demanding part. But once we find the house, then we're negotiating, we're off making offers on contracts, we're providing guidance through the process for inspections, appraisals, all the approval things that come back with underwriters and different guidelines and conditions and all those things that people don't deal with on a day in, day out basis. Right. Obviously, we lean on our partners to do that. Right. We've got our title partners, which I will say, without a great title partner, you have a really hard time closing. Without a great loan officer, you have a really hard time navigating underwriting.
There's a lot of jokes about underwriters asking for some weird stuff out there, but it's got a basis in truth. They really do come back and ask for stuff. You're like, I've already given you that six times. What do you need it for again?
And honestly, support. Right. We're there because again, I close 40 to 60 transactions a year. I do mostly work on the listing side, but I close a lot of transactions. I've been through the process I've seen, I don't want to say I've seen everything because I know something will pop up tomorrow that I've never seen, but I've seen a lot, right. And if I haven't seen it, I know somebody that has. I can go back, I can get you the guidance and help you through the process.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Right. And I think that's, that. A lot of that's called the Dunning Kruger effect. A lot of people think, well, anybody can do this. They overestimate their capabilities and they go, all I've got to do is go on zillow or realtor.com or whatever, put in my own search, and I can find the house wherever I want to go. So I know that that's a big issue, that a lot of buyers think anybody can do this. So why do I need an agent? And I think you definitely illustrated that. Andre, explain about the commission. Because everybody thinks, I mean, they see on the settlement statement and I mean, we'll admit it, you know, it seems like five to 6% seems to be about what the brokers get, the listing broker gets, and I hear all the time people complaining, well, the broker made all this money, they just made all this money and they didn't spend any time on it. They didn't do anything. What exactly happens with that commission when it comes off the settlement statement then? What happens in the background after the closing?
[00:14:22] Speaker C: Well, you know, thank you for asking that question. You know, I often, in all my trainings, I always, in, in my communications with the agents, I always let them know this is, you're running a business.
And unfortunately, a lot of real estate agents don't look at it as a business. They just, you know, look at it as they got a commission and great. And you, whenever the next one comes, you know, but when you run it as a business, it becomes repeatable business, repeatable income.
And with anything that is in a business, you have income and expenses.
You're gonna have expenses. So agents have to pay for the brokerage, the brokerage commissions, whatever systems they may have, the MLS, the boards, any marketing in which, you know, if you take any coaching, you know that, you know, whatever your, whatever your income is for the year, you should be spending about ten to 12% on marketing so you can build your business, right? So if you take that math, you know, you need a little bit of sales to be able to cover these expenses, not to mention your vehicle, your vehicle insurance, your gas and so forth. So, yeah, you know, when you look at it, you have to run it as a business.
We have to get our agents to understand that we need to get our agents to be, you know, a little bit more serious, especially now with what's coming on.
One of the things is, as a buyer's agent, I think Tom alluded very, very eloquently what a buyer's agent goes through in a transaction. You know, I love getting listings. That's why he does listings, too. You know, when you do a listing, you spend a lot of time up front. You prepare it and you put it out there and you do some marketing. But, you know, you're going to have somebody driving around, spending a lot of time with their buyers, getting them under contract. And one of the things that people don't realize as a buyer's agent, and I hate that this is happening to them, but as a buyer's agent, you know, the responsibility in the transaction is predominantly on you. You know, you have to, once you find a home, I always tell my agents, that's the easy part. Finding a home, getting them, that's the easy part. Now you have to follow up. You have to follow up and you have to keep your customers safe.
There's definite timelines.
And unfortunately, one of the, we have a couple of mortgage brokers here, a lot of agents, unfortunately, you know, they know about the inspection period, they know about this. But then when it comes to finance, they let the financing contingency run out. And if you're not experienced and you don't have these things, you're going to have a lot of bad experiences. Right, Tom?
[00:17:14] Speaker E: Absolutely.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: And you're going to learn, and, you know, you could learn upfront, or you can learn and it's gonna cost you money. And that's basically how a lot of people learn. But yeah, this whole thing, agents now are gonna have to start treating this as a business. All the agents I've spoken with that have. That are experienced and are good agents, they're licking their chops because they're looking at this as an opportunity.
The agents who are gonna suffer are the agents, the newer agents, the agents who can't articulate their value, who can't articulate the whole process, and then therefore, they're going to have to ask for a commission. It's going to be a little harder on them. Right. And that's the people we really need to train. The good agents, they already know this I don't want, you know, I mean, really, even the new agents, you know, like when they go get a listing, they know they need a listing agreement. Right.
You can't list the house without a listing agreement. Well, you know, now you're going to work with a buyer, and you're going to need to have a buyer's agreement. And basically, that's what it's going to come down to.
Eventually, everybody will get comfortable getting a buyer's agreement.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Well, the buyers get used to it, too.
So you both say that you prefer listing.
What percentage of your listings would you say that? You end up working both sides because the buyer comes and they don't have a buyer's agent. And when you work both sides, what is that like compared to when there is a buyer's agent involved? Tom?
[00:18:48] Speaker E: So I have only actually done that one time, and I did it one time, and it, I won't say it was a bad experience, but I felt, I felt like that I was being pulled in two different directions, because as things went wrong, I felt like I needed to protect both sides of the transaction. So I vowed to never do it again. So anytime I've ever had a buyer, unrepresented buyer, approach me at one of my listings, I have referred it to another agent. Now, admittedly, I did collect a little bit of a referral fee from that agent, but I at least put it off on somebody else that would take care of the details, protect that buyer, keep them in line, help them through the process, and I didn't have to do that.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: What about you, Andrew?
[00:19:36] Speaker C: Well, that, Tom is correct. That's a. It's. I've done several where I represented both sides, thank God. I haven't really had a bad experience, but I know, you know, I know that can happen.
But the reality is the buyers today, and they have the majority of the work. And one of the things that, going back, 89% of all buyers come represented with a buyer's agent. 89%. Right.
So that's, you know, within this whole thing, I got so many things on my mind, I like to. But within this whole thing, I've spoken with a lot of agents in our brokerage, outside our brokerage, and one of the things that I'm hearing right is that now more than ever, we're going to have to work together. We're going to have to communicate. Another thing, I advocate big, just communicate. Make the call. Just the more communication you have in the transaction, the easier the transaction will be.
One of the things is, you know, like, now as a listing agent. Right, Tom? I think we have to educate the sellers a lot as well. Like, well, you know, I don't have to pay commission. Yeah, you don't have to pay commission. But, you know, if 89% of all buyers are going to come with a buyer's agent, won't you behoove you to offered the commission? Right. Because what are they going to do? They're going to pay out of their pocket to a home that's already almost unaffordable. Right. So we're running into an affordability problem, and now you want to say, oh, on top of that, you have to pay the commission.
We have two mortgage brokers here, and I'd love to hear their opinion on this, because I don't know what's going to happen there. So I really, if you're asking me, I really believe not much is going to change.
What we do is not going to change what we do. We sell real estate. What we get, we get commission.
What's going to really change right now is how the communication of the commission is going to be. Okay. That's what I feel.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Well, Richard and Joseph, do you guys ever work with any borrowers who, in a purchase transaction, who don't have a. An agent working with them? Have you ever had that happen?
[00:21:57] Speaker F: I'll have Richard.
[00:21:57] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:21:58] Speaker F: Take that one.
[00:21:59] Speaker D: Yeah, I've experienced that, and it's. It's one of the most uncomfortable positions for that box, for that buyer or that borrower, is they are. They are without guidance. And if it wasn't for someone like myself that has experience through that and the compassion between myself and the title office, they are floundering. It is. It is very discomforting for them, and it's one of those things where it's better for them to have that type of representation so the buyer's agent piece of that. It's not to be overlooked at all.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: What about you, Jessica? Do you ever work with buyers who don't have an agent involved on their side?
[00:22:39] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I fully agree with Richard.
The title company we get a lot of for sale by owners, usually is in both sides, and we become their everything. I mean, we become their realtor, their judge, their attorney, their everything. And it's. And I'm telling you, they're lost. And they're asking so many questions that we cannot answer for them because we're not licensed for that particular job. So I fully agree with everyone what they're saying. It is so important to have an agent to represent them extremely well.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: And I'll point this out, too. I heard when all this started swirling around, one of my colleagues was on another podcast, another lawyer, another real estate lawyer, and she pointed out that the number one time that listing agents get sued after a transaction is when the buyer had no representation, when they had no realtor working with them on that deal.
One of the big, the big push of this and the whole impetus of this lawsuit was supposedly that this will lower the price that buyers pay for houses. This will lower the cost that sellers pay. So in the grand scheme of things, it will lower the price of housing and buying a house. Even the president, he's gotten a lot of blowback about this, said, oh, this is going to save you $10,000, save the average buyer $10,000, which I think we all went, how?
But, Tom, what do you think of that? Do you think that this is actually going to save money for buyers and sellers in the long run?
[00:24:27] Speaker E: I think there'll be a perception that it might.
It's hard. I think if there is an impact, it will be so small that it'll be washed out with all the other changes and flows that happen in the market anyway.
The cost of a transaction, of a house going up and down, five to $15,000. When you're talking about the average being around 400, 5440 in our area, it feels like a lot when you say it, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really have that much of an impact. And, you know, I heard somebody the other day say something along the lines of, you know, on a $400,000 house, the seller is only going to, you know, they're going to, they're going to save $12,000 in commissions, and at the same time, the buyer's going to get a better 12,000 better deal. I'm like, they can't both save the money, right? And so, you know, I think they're double counting a lot of the money that's out there.
At the end of the day, I think it will compress commissions a bit. I do believe it will. However, we were already on that trajectory. The national average is actually 5.2.
That's the national average.
Where there's dual representation, it's 5.2%. So the 6% thing was B's. The average is 5.2. We all know there's flat fees out there. They've been out there forever, right? So it'll probably have some impact on housing prices. But I do not see it saving housing. What I do see it doing is keeping first time home buyers from actually being able to buy a home.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: And why do you think that?
[00:26:05] Speaker E: Well, the first time homebuyer is the one that needs the most handholding okay. They're going to go out there gunslinging. They're going to go out there trying to negotiate straight with a listing agent that does not have their best interest at heart. They're going to do it with the loan officer that the listing agent pushes them to, because that's what they're going to do. Right. Because they want, they want to make sure they protect their sellers. So I was like, hey, I know my guy. My guy's good. I'm going to go to him. I'm going to drive you that way.
And then without buyer representation, sure, they don't have to write a check for commission, but I don't think they're going to save money on the house. If they do choose to have buyers representation, they're either going to have to pay for it out of the pocket or raise the price of the house to get some sort of compensation to pay the buyer's agent. So I just, you know, I don't see that helping. And the worst ones are going to be the va buyers. And to the mortgage guys, I don't know if there's any swirling around that changing, but the fact that a veteran cannot pay a fee on a va loan tells me that they can't pay a buyer's agent fee.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Joe and Richard, have you heard anything, any, anything swirling around the mortgage industry about maybe changing that rule that FHA, first time homebuyers and VA can't pay anything toward a realtor's commission or compensation at all?
[00:27:26] Speaker F: Yeah. So, I mean, it's a little bit of a challenge.
[00:27:29] Speaker E: Right?
[00:27:29] Speaker F: Like, that's a big one that came out because VA is very point blank. No buyer commission can be paid by, like, buyer agent commission can be paid. Like, you see that a lot. And that's something that the VA is going to have to address in some way or somehow. One of the big things right now is, well, it's going to be now we're taking what used to not be a part of the contract, is now going to be a part of the contract, and we're going to have to negotiate that the buyer's agent commission is technically paid by the seller, and the seller's paying the buyer's agent commission, which is going to create some complications of it. I mean, I'm just going to say it, right? When has the VA ever been known to do anything super quick?
Do we really think the VA is going to make a policy change by July 1 or clarification? Probably not. You know, Hud did come out and make a response like FHA for, you know, HuD oversees FHA. They made a response, and it was kind of funny. Under existing policy, if sellers continue to pay buyer side real estate agent commissions and fees as a matter of state or local law or customer, and if the commission and fees are reasonable in the amount existing policy will not be treated, will not treat those payments as interested party contributions, basically, FHA was kind of just like, hey, well, if the seller pays it, and it's still customary that seller pays it, we're good with it. Well, that's. We already know that. Like, that's the one thing is like, yes, we understand that if the seller pays, and that's where I think we're going to see a lot of the challenge. And what I've talked a lot to realtors about is if you're negotiating on that contract, how you word it is going to be crucial. We can't have lazy line items added to be like, hey, seller to pay buyer agent commission of 3%, seller to give a 3% credit to buyer for closing costs, well, that's two different things.
That should be good. But if you sit there and say, buyer to pay 3% closing costs and seller to give buyer to pay 3% commission and seller to give a 3% credit, well, now you're tying this up as a buyer expense and not a seller expense. So I think how it's going to be worded, that's what on lenders, and that's when I talk to the executives, underwriters, and the leadership teams and vp of underwriting and this and that. That's what they're all looking for is they're saying, hey, like, how it's worded is going to dictate how we're going to handle it.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Jessica, I was in title for over 25 years, and I know it was much tougher. You mentioned for sale by owners. I know those were. Yeah, we always charge a little extra on those. Do you foresee in title that title agents, if they see a buyer coming in without any representation? I mean, you know how much harder it's going to be? Do you think title's going to have one settlement fee if you have a buyer's agent and different settlement fee if you don't?
[00:30:21] Speaker B: Interesting one. I actually asked that question to our underwriter, and I'm waiting for a response since this is so new, because, yeah, you know, if we're going to be having that many buyers without representation again, it becomes, and of course, we always want to help the buyer is especially like, you guys were saying about the first time homebuyers, they have no idea what's going on. We handle a lot of investors and a lot of first time home buyers that come from other countries.
The business, the way is done in Florida is completely different to Colombia, to Venezuela, to Puerto Rico, which, by the way, that's the reason why I created classes for the agents, because they come from those countries and I need to teach them how things are done in Florida so they can teach their clients. Because they're not. No, because when I purchase. Yeah, but you're in the United States of America. That's the way I tell them. It's like things are done differently here. We have to follow the rules. Everything has to be in writing, et cetera, et cetera. So it is going to be a lot more challenging for us because we want to, like Tom was saying, they need hand holding all the time. They don't know what they're doing. They think that, you know, even with the realtor, sometimes we have to get involved because the realtor might be new. Like Andres was saying, you know, there's all these agents that they have no idea, you know, what's going on. They get their license. And, you know, it's so easy in Florida to obtain a real estate license. And everybody has a license, you know, in every household. There's my cousin, my aunt, my this. But who exactly knows what they're doing? One of the things that I wanted to mention and with the first thing that came to my mind when I heard this news, news is like, the realtors, at least, I don't know, you know, I'm not really good with other percentages, but at least 30 and maybe plus percentage realtors are going to be gone because like Andres was saying, education, you know, they get their license, they don't know what they're doing. You know, you're representing a client, you don't even know how to fill up a contract because you're, you know, the two week class did not teach you that. They only taught you how to, you need to pass this test. You need to pass the test, and this is what you're going to learn. And these are the answers. Basically, that's what happens. So then everybody has a license and everybody represents. And in my opinion, being in the business for 20 years, is that the good realtor, you know, the realtor that doesn't have the experience, it's giving the other realtor bad reputation, because now it's like, oh, realtors don't do anything. They don't answer the phone. They don't do this. But it's because it's the realtor that just got the license because they were going to help their cousin to purchase a home or to sell, and that's all they do. But, you know, the good realtor that is there, you know, like Tom and Andres and many that I mar, that they do this for a living, that we have a passion, and I include myself as a title agent. I have a passion for this business, you know, to help people. I go the extra mile. And in a way, I believe that in a good way, I will say, you know, all those agents are going to be, there's going to be a cleanup. It's the way I see it. And then the good realtors are going to stand out again. It's going to be probably a little extra work and whatnot. But I do believe that the good realtor that is doing this full time is very well educated, continues to educate themselves and educate their clients. While Thomas Tom was talking, I was thinking in my head of a list, you know, you guys as agents, you know, if you prepare, I'm thinking if you prepare a list of the things that you do for that client and say, this is everything that we do for you, you know, because people need to see all the work that you put into showing a house, talking to the, to the lenders all the time, the title companies.
So it is a lot of work, and a lot of realtors are very good, you know, agents that, again, with a passion. And because they do this as a living, not just as a part time or just because I want to have a license.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: So now, Andre, Jessica made a good point there, that the way it's done in Florida is not the way it's done in Venezuela and Argentina, all these other places, the way it's done in Florida is not the way it's done in North Carolina or South Carolina or California. So it's different from state to state. But I've heard a lot of people compare the UK or Canada, and they go, well, they don't do this UK or Canada. People just find it and their commissions are much lower. So I went and I looked at what percentage of the GDP is the real estate market in each of those countries versus the United States. United States, the largest financial, the largest economy in the world. The real estate sector is 17% of our GDP, so it's trillions of dollars. The UK, it's 7%. Canada, it's not that big. Simply taking. And the way I've always looked at these check boxes or the boxes with the numbers of how we're going to share the commission. I've looked at that as grease in the wheels of the ball bearings that make the real estate market move smoothly and quickly. Do you think just simply, if they do nothing more than just take those boxes out, a buyer's agent is going to show they got a buyer and they go, hey, I've seen this house online. I want to go look at this house, or this met our criteria. We got the email about it. We want to go see this property.
Now. How is that calculus going to play differently for that buyer's agent? Getting ready to go show them that house? You think this is going to speed it up, not affect it, slow it down? How do you think this removing these boxes is going to change that?
[00:36:19] Speaker C: Well, obviously, you know, it's a great question. I thought you were going to make me do math there for a minute.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: No math.
[00:36:28] Speaker C: You know, I've really dived into this. I'm really trying to get as much information as I can.
I've heard a lot of different perspectives and somebody was saying, and I, this is, you know, we, at the beginning, we said this is what we believe, right? This is how I think things may play out. And so don't, don't, don't hold me, don't kill me. But I don't think much it's gonna change.
As far as like buyer transactions, that's not gonna change. It's, I do believe the agents who don't have the experience are not, are gonna have a hard time. And I do believe the agents who do have experience are just gonna have more business.
And so I've kinda made it a point that's kinda one of my pet peeves. Now I really, I have to help all our agents and I have to do the best I can to, and, you know, we've always had ongoing education, but now we have to step it up a little bit more and get our agents even, you know, different mindset a little bit more professional. And they have to now start, and I kind of alluded this at the beginning, they have to start defining themselves. They have to know what their values are so then they can go out and one, negotiate their commission comfortably and then two, be able to do a real estate transaction and pull it off so they can get referrals. Okay, now that's, you know, the GDP, that's really good. I had no idea on that, that, you know, but real estate is huge in this country. Yeah, without a doubt. Real estate is huge, and I really don't think that the transactions that are being represented by buyer's agent is going to change much.
Tom did allude to something that our commissions have been slowly coming down. You know, they were 3% now, then they turn to two and a half, and now you're seeing 2% commissions offered for buyer's agents. So they have been coming down.
But, you know, another great fact, you know, millennials, millennials use real estate agents and that they're the buyers now. They're going to be now the buyers of the future, and they use representation. Okay? So it's going to be now up to the real estate agent to be able to market themselves and get out in front of the situation, market themselves and somehow get the business.
[00:39:04] Speaker E: I have a very different take on it. Andres. I believe you'll see two different impacts to this or of this at the lower end of the spectrum, below median.
Those, to me, those are the buyers that need the most help. Those are the ones that are coming with the least resources, and the sellers are the ones that are making the least amount right out of their transaction, whatever they bought versus they're selling. And so they're the most cost conscious. Right. And so you've got those two people that need us the most that are going to want to push back on how much they pay us the most. And so I think at the lower end, you're going to see a lot of buyers that want to go and go straight to the listing agent, right. And think that they're going to save commissions. And they might, they might save commissions, right? But then they're put in that, that bad position. At the same time, you're going to see those same sellers, those sellers in the below median are going to be pushing their listing agent to. I don't want to proactively offer commissions. I might do it later, but I don't want to do it now. They're going to push back because they want to receive the most of their proceeds. The people in the well above median. And I'm not talking about the barely over 400, but the million $2 million homes.
They value representation. Right? Those are the guys that when they go out and buy something big and expensive, they don't do it themselves. They get somebody else to do it for them because they're a pro at it. Right. And they don't mind paying for professionalism. So I think you're going to see two different, and you already have that to some degree, two different markets. But I think you're going to see a bigger split of that, of people using and valuing agents. So it's going to be on us as agents to be able to display and produce value more so than it ever has in the past. To Jessica's point about it's easy to get a license, it shouldn't be, right? I mean, 63 hours. Course, I think it's 2040 8 hours to get a cosmetology license in Florida. Are you freaking kidding me? Right? I mean, so, you know, it is way too easy to get a real estate license. Yes. And I think the bar is set too low. 80 something percent of all agents don't renew their license. Right.
It's just a hamster wheel constantly churning. That'll be the positive impact of this. I think Jessica said a lot of agents are going to leave whatever the number is. She's right. There's going to be a lot of amateur agents.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to this edition of Trust.
[00:41:35] Speaker E: More so than they have.
[00:41:36] Speaker A: You got something out of it? Please press review to help us reach others who can benefit from this series. Until next time. But I think there's going to be an impact on the market as far.
[00:41:47] Speaker E: As, like, who does what with who.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: So, Tom, to that point being a listing agent a lot, how do you plan to handle the, instead of people, buyer's agents just saying, okay, fine, they want to see it. They call you or they look at the showing instructions, they know what they're going to get paid. They go, fine, let's go see this house with the buyer, get in with the super key, show them the house, leave, let you know what their thoughts were. Now, before they do that, they're going to be calling you. What's the seller's offer? Compensation. What's the seller's offer? Compensation. How are you planning to handle those 510 1520 calls a day?
[00:42:25] Speaker E: Yeah, that's going to be a challenge for sure. So I haven't completely thought that through exactly what I'm going to do. Obviously, that's going to be a bigger conversation now as part of the listing agreement as to what will you want to offer proactively or what will you be prepared to offer and selling them on the value of a buyer's agent. And then once I understand where that seller is, you know, because there's going to be that seller that's going to say, absolutely not, I'll pay you two and a half percent. I won't pay anybody else a nickel, you know, and until they feel the pain of not selling their house, then maybe they changed their mind.
So, yeah, I'm going to have to answer those calls and, you know, I carry anywhere from typically three to seven listings at a time. And so I may have to end up hiring an assistant to take those calls and give out that information or have an autoresponder that sends out, you know, text this number for your offer of compensation. I don't really know what I'm going to do to get that out there, but.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: Line for that, Tom?
[00:43:29] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah, I've got a few months to figure that out. But, you know, I mean, yeah, it's because, I mean, I get enough phone calls as it is. I look at my phone, I think on average I get about 75 phone calls a day. Now, 40 of them are spam, you know, but, you know, it's, I get a lot of phone calls that talk, talk on the phone a lot and it's just going to increase that for sure.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: When I want to point out, I mean, the settlement is that you simply can't put that offer of compensation on the MLS.
[00:43:57] Speaker E: Correct.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: You can put it somewhere else. So if you have internal ways of doing that, I think you'd be just fine with that. Andre, are you, do you think you're going to see a lot more of the teams out there?
More people teaming up? Where, I mean, I know there are some agents out there who just love being the buyer's agent. They never want to list anything. Are you going to see more of this? Where they go, look, let me just team up with a good listing agent and sort of, like Tom said, I don't want to work both sides. They'll just, every listing they get, if they get a buyer come in, there's going to say here, I'm throwing them over to you. And we've already got the compensation worked out inside of our brokerage. It's already said, do you think you're gonna see a lot more of that?
[00:44:37] Speaker C: Yeah, we're gonna see a lot of, a lot of little changes. You know, I don't, again, I'm not, I'm not anticipating these huge changes. I'm not. But we're gonna see a lot of little nuances. I've already seen, you know, like a lot of agents are gravitating to teams. That's been happening now for, for quite a while. That's not something new. So, yeah, agents are gonna gravitate and they're gonna try to find the best way to how, you know, now some of we were talking about right before we started, you know, on April, I think May 31 is when Nar is going to be giving us these new forms and kind of like, what, how we're going to be working. Right. And then it'll start in July and then in December. So we're going to see a lot of little changes where we may see some big changes.
To say that this is what's going to happen right now is kind of hard. But I already expressed that, you know, I think the experienced agents are going to do well and the number of transactions are still going to be there. And I think the experience agents are going to do well. And, you know, and I already said it, 89% of all buyers come with a buyer's agent. I don't know.
I don't know what's going to make that difference right now.
[00:45:56] Speaker E: Well, I think, you know, 89% of people come with a buyer's agent. But at this point, I know we can't say free anymore, but at this point, buyers look at it as that was free. I didn't pay for that, and that's going to go away. Right. And so, you know, or I shouldn't say it's going to go away. That's going to be, it's not going to go away, but it automatically, first of all, you're not going to, you're not allowed to say free anymore. Right. So that is one change, but I shouldn't say that's a change. You really weren't supposed to say that all along. But now it's in a court ruling, so.
But, you know, it's, it's, it's just going to make that conversation that much more complicated. Right. And so I think a lot of buyers are going to, you know, I mean, I talk to a lot of people that are buyers that are saying, well, now I can go straight to the listing agent. Well, you always could have. Right. Or I don't want to have to use a realtor. It's so easy to open a door. You never had to. Right. Except nobody's going to let you in their house as long, you know, I mean. Right. So anyway, I think that percentage, I think if we look two years from now, I think you'll see that percentage drop dramatically. Now, is it going to go to zero? Heck no. It might go to 70, 75%. So that number of transactions that lose out of, out of dual agency or double agency is going to be where those savings come in that the DOJ is going to ultimately tout, because you know how at some point a year or two years from now, they're going to show you how much they saved the public. They're going to show you how much this impacted the public.
[00:47:29] Speaker F: Right.
[00:47:29] Speaker E: What they're not going to show you is how much the lawyers made. Sorry, Joe. That how much the lawyers made off of this thing, because those are the guys that really want, you know, the average. The average plaintiff is going to get like $30, right? The average. The average attorney on this, on the case is going to get about 30 million. So, you know, let's go ahead and be honest about what really happened. Right.
[00:47:51] Speaker C: At 33% to 40%.
[00:47:53] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: 33 or 40% was saying a lot of agents, and you see it in, you know, in social media, you can hire me because it's free. You know, exactly what Tom was saying, because that was a hook for to obtain that buyer. It's like, oh, it's not going to cost me anything. And then when you tell them that you need to pay a transaction fee, they start screaming because, oh, my God, now you told me it's free, and now I have to pay 345. So, you know, a lot of what Tom was saying is, you know, is the changing of, you know, free doesn't really mean free, in my opinion.
You know, not anything comes free. So anyway, that was actually, in my opinion, the wrong, you know, way of attracting people. And again, now it needs to completely change the way they're going to be presenting themselves as professional to obtain a commission for all that work they're going to be doing.
[00:48:53] Speaker C: Well, you know, I got at the end, who's paying for this transaction?
The seller wouldn't have money. Buyers didn't pay him the money.
[00:49:03] Speaker F: What's interesting about all of this, if.
[00:49:05] Speaker C: The $600,000 house, who's responsible for that, bringing that $600,000 to the transaction, it's not the seller, it's the buyer.
And so if the seller has to part a little bit to get the 600,000 that, you know, it's the seller who brings the money.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: Joseph, you want to say something?
[00:49:26] Speaker F: A lot of this is like, you know, we're talking a lot, and we're talking about the impact of the buyer and the buyer's agent. Right. But this entire lawsuit was because the seller didn't want to have to pay it. Right.
And I think the big thing, Andre, I think you and I and Thomas, we all think kind of in a roundabout, the seller, it's still going to kind of end up being paid by the seller in the long term. But let's say the goal of what these attorneys and what these sellers of, I don't want to have to pay that buyer commission actually happens and occurs. Right. Right. Because right now those appraised values are taking into consideration that those commissions are built into them. If the entire goal actually occurs of getting rid of that 3% buyer side or 2.5 buyer side piece at a certain point and it becomes a buyer standard, the appraisal value will start to factor that out. Now, that's long term. That's probably something we'll never get a report on. But it will happen because right now, you don't see the appraiser going, you know what? Well, technically, two and a half percent of the commission is going to the buyer's agent. So it's really not the value and they're reducing. Right. But if an appraiser goes in and goes, hey, like these 15 homes all have seller credits. This and that, like, the house really isn't worth this. That and a depreciating market or a declining market, now we can see values impact. Well, what happens when it now becomes a buyer expense, truly is it now evaluated differently on appraisal and ultimately the seller loses out on that value that they think they're there, that they're saving. Like, this is a really good question.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a very good point. Very good point. Yes.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: Well, and Joseph, to that I was. That's also occurred to me as, okay, you've got two houses. Let's say it's two condo units in the same condo. One is sold for cash, and the seller doesn't have to pay any commission because they, they put it on a, it's either a FSBO or they put it on the MLS on a flat rate. And the buyer's agent comes. The, the buyer has enough money and they just pay their agent their commission that they agreed to pay them. Next unit right down the hall, same exact unit, just down the hall, goes up for sale a few months later. Suddenly, oh, well, now this is a first time home buyer. They can't afford to pay a commission. So we're going to bump the price up 3% to pay their realtors commission. Plus I'm paying my realtors commission. Plus. Now let's bump it up another 3% because they're their FHA. They need some help with their closing costs. Now an appraiser goes, this appraise, this cannot appraise as high as they're wanting it to because the values have not gone up that fast after what this one sold for two months ago right down the hallway. I cannot justify this. So now the buyer just loses out on the house, seller loses out on the seller.
Has anybody thought of how that will start to affect values overall and what appraisers are maybe going to have to start thinking of when they're doing these appraisals?
[00:52:30] Speaker E: I mean, I know appraisers today do take into account if there were concessions, right? So if the, that's why we have to report that on the MLS, right? It's one of the reasons. So if the, if the seller gave nine grand of seller concessions and that's in there, then the appraiser takes that into account. So it's possible that they may start actually calculating commissions into account as to the true value of the home, how that's going to impact things. Again, my point was earlier, yes, it will happen on an individual case basis, as you just pointed out, it absolutely will happen. But on the overall broad market, I think it's going to be so minuscule, it's not going to be impactful.
[00:53:17] Speaker C: Richard, may I add one more thing? It's always statistically proven that when a buyer is represented by a buyer's agent, they get a better price. So there, if you go on, you know, if you go as a buyer to a listing agent, you're gonna get your socks clean, you know, so, so then the appraisal is gonna come up because higher value sold. Right.
[00:53:46] Speaker A: Richard, one of the things that Tom mentioned earlier was that you've got people buying houses over the median to them. Typically they hire lawyers, they hire a buyer's agent. They understand that, and they have no problem paying the fees and the cost of having that professional representation. But then you have the people buying below the median. Typically they need that free realtor representation. They can't afford to pay a lawyer to represent them. They're relying heavily on the title company to hold their hand through it. Do you see this creating sort of a widening gap in the haves and have nots in the buying real estate over time?
[00:54:27] Speaker D: It's very, it's a very healthy question to consider the disparate impact on, on the result of the judgment. Well, on the result of the pending judgment at that. So it'll definitely, it'll definitely be a conversation to where if they don't have buyer agent representation, they've got to find an outlet of someone they can trust. So the next professional voice besides their mom, father or uncle is going to be the loan guy. So it really, it becomes one of those things. What is the, what is the experience of the loan professional with the real estate market? To be able to feasibly step into a field that we really should not step into because it's outside of our lane, it becomes a conversation that it's a, it's a sympathetic risk on, on the lender's perspective to step into that. So it will become a question for myself, like, what type of liability do I want to put my company in? Because I spoke in a lane that's not really covered under my, under our insurance, if you will.
It's a big challenge there, Joe.
[00:55:41] Speaker A: Well, and this is going to bring me to one of my last questions. Here is, one of the things I'm concerned about for brokerages I represent and lenders is everybody's got to be careful of steering and discrimination. You know, and unfortunately, a lot of these first time homebuyers who come, they're first generation homebuyers, they come from protected classes when it comes to discrimination. And my biggest warning I'm trying to put out there to realtors and lenders and everybody else involved in the settlement of real estate is be careful that you're not steering if somebody comes to you and says, hey, I've seen this house, and I want you to take care of me. Okay, well, fine. Here's my buyer's agency agreement, and I'll tell you how this works. My first house I ever bought was in North Carolina. North Carolina.
Everybody has a buyer's agent and a seller's agent, and you sign a buyer's agency agreement, and that buyer's agency agreement says, you are going to pay me x percentage of the purchase price or a flat fee, whichever is more, whether the seller pays me or not, which is really what these agreements are going to come down to. First house I ever fell in love with in Asheville, North Carolina. That's where I was practicing. We were going to buy this house. It was for sale by owner. They put it flat fee listing. Our realtor, he said, look, this is FSBO, and they don't have to pay me anything if they don't want to. We said, we don't care. We want to see it. Took us through the house, showed it to us. We loved it. He goes to the sellers. He says, they loved it. We were honor. We want to write an offer, but they can't afford to pay 3% over and above what you're asking. And the seller said, too bad we're not paying a dime. And then we said, well, then, too bad we're not buying your house. And we went and found something else. But you know, that at least that broker, I mean, he took us on his clients knowing that, hey, there's a good chance these guys may never be able to afford anything. But I'll go ahead and take them on and show them around, show them houses and help them write a contract.
But now, what if I'd gone to him and he looks at me and he's like, I'm, I'm gonna drive you around all over these mountains for the next month, and then you're gonna find something that you can't afford me on, and then you're either not going to buy anything or you're not going to be able to pay me. So I'm just going to go ahead and save my time now, and I'm not going to take you on as a buyer. So I'm warning, I'm putting that out there. I want to get that bug in everybody's ear that you've still got your, your duties of non discrimination. And you'll have to be more, even more mindful of that now more than ever to go, even if you're one of these buyers that says, look, I'm just going to have an a la carte menu of services I'm going to provide to these people as lawyers. We look at people and we're like, you can't afford my fee, but we're allowed to tell them flat up, you can't afford me and you're going to be wasting your money. So don't you know you're going to have to go find some other way to do this. When you're in the real estate realm, the discrimination rules come into play. The laws come into play a lot harder there. And suddenly you just saying you can't afford me, so go away, becomes a big problem. So I just want people to keep that, that in mind.
And if anybody has anything they want to chime in there, feel free.
If not, I can go on to the next, to my next question for everybody. Anybody got any more thoughts on that?
We say the d word. We say discrimination. Everybody's like, mm hmm, that's bad.
[00:59:36] Speaker F: We can't target nice neighborhoods for advertising without targeting other neighborhoods because we can't try to only pick certain clients out. We have to service everybody. And we've got to fill out reports that say how many clients, what percentage we get audited. Like, they look at it and go, hey, did you service enough minorities? Like, what's the average?
[00:59:57] Speaker A: What's this?
[00:59:57] Speaker F: And we, so I get it. And that's a piece where you're going to have that across the way and exactly what you're saying. Like, that's going to be, like, that's going to be an issue and it will pop up and then you're going to, and we're going to see like five years down the road, like, we'll potentially see class action suits going on in relation to this, to exactly what you're saying because of this change. And that's where I think that nearsightedness of this proposed settlement looked at solving problem a, but created problem efgh to k. That's right.
[01:00:34] Speaker C: So I don't think the system was broken, and now you have to fix it. But now we got to deal with everything else that's going to come along with it. And that's unfortunate. Yeah, but Joe, that is a concern. But, you know, it's up to us to try to educate our agents best as possible. And. But, yeah, it's a concern.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: Well, and for the mortgage brokers and title agent who get their business typically from referrals, from buyers agents, how is this going to affect your marketing channels? Are you going to be doing more direct to consumer marketing or how are you going to make up for this? If, if the impending doom of a million buyer's agents leave the market and just leave the profession, how is that going to affect your marketing, what you do? Jessica?
[01:01:34] Speaker B: Well, in my case, if we were talking before we started in Florida, there are four counties where is typical, where the buyer chooses title company. Therefore, the buyer pays for title policy.
Burwick County, Collier satisfactor and Miami date. So I'm in Orlando, in Orange county specifically. And I also have a couple more offices, satellite offices. But I have to say the 85% of my clientele in the past, since I opened the company has been sellers market. It's been the listing agent is the one that drives the, we actually have the connection with that listing agent and they're the ones that bring the file to the office. I do have a lot of investors for sale by owners, you know, a small percentage lenders as well. For example, when COVID hit, nobody knew what was going to happen. I had to hire people because the refinances were like flying through the, through the door, which, you know, business wise was a blessing. And so most of the time, I do have a listing agents. But like everyone was saying, I'm still a believer in being in the business so long that the good agents are going to stand.
We are here as a title company to continue educate the agents of what happens at the title company so we can work as a team. It's so, so, so important that we have communication between the two agents, the lender, if there's an attorney involved, you know, everyone. But education is a plus, you know, for all of us. I actually, the other day at that nar, what do you call it? Juana Watkins from Florida, Realtor, she gave such a beautiful explanation of, of everything that is going to happen and the way she explained it so well. And all of us in this market have to definitely educate ourselves and continue knowing what's out there. What can we do to better ourselves and the services.
I was involved, and at the time of the short sales, you guys been enough in the business. When short sales came in, nobody knew what a shore sale was. I became an expert on short sales. I'm like, either I do that, I learn how to do that, and I get into it, or I have to close my company. So we get creative with the systems. I mean, and that's, again, the way I like to deal with the business. We can not only focus on listings or buyers or investors. We need to learn abroad, and this is for the realtors. We need to learn how to work with all kinds of agent for clients, you know, investors from, you know, investors locally, no Fricta foreign nationals and all those kind of things. So we are able to pivot if we want to keep our businesses. So I'm honestly, I am not afraid because I've been in the business long enough, and I can manage and handle and being able to partner with different agents to be able to help each other on it. So. And again, we're here to help. We're here to continue educating agents till we can, you know, move forward and, and get used to, because this is part of anything, you know, in probably a year or two, it's going to be normal. Oh, yeah. The buyer has to pay or whatever the case is. So it's, that's the way I see it as a business owner.
[01:05:16] Speaker A: What about you, Richard and Joseph? Are you guys doing any planning anything different on how you market to get the business?
[01:05:24] Speaker F: Well, I'll let Richard go from an lo perspective, and then I'll kind of talk about from a broker owner perspective on how I'm handling things.
[01:05:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:05:33] Speaker D: So thank you, Joseph. I would say that from the beginning, it's always been about communication, and I think relationships are going to drive that connection point for being a part of the transaction as you move forward, be experienced, if you, if you're, if you're a seasoned loan originator and you've been in the game if you haven't been making every transaction count to where you're communicating not just with the buyer, the buyer's agent, but also the listing agent. Like that relationship and your reputation is going to carry you, the milestones forward in this upcoming season. If that groundwork hasn't been laid, you're going to have to do some serious, serious networking. And I'll use that word very generally because it's going to be, it's going to be the ones who actually have proven themselves or are willing to go that extra distance to show that they are capable of making sure that the transaction continues as smoothly as possible. I think from the hierarchy of the different tiers of lending sources out there, I believe the institutions are going to struggle the most because they're not of the brokerage mindset to where we're flexible, we're agile, and we're open, and we're available to be assisting for those relationships in the brick and mortar eight to 430 type frame. It's going to be a little bit of a struggle bust there. And I think that's where I'll hand the mic over to Joseph.
[01:06:51] Speaker F: Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's very interesting and rich kind of talked a lot and hit on it.
Experience, expertise, Jessica. Experience, expertise being not like, I think we've all mentioned how the, Andrea Thomas, you mentioned those newer agents, those non producing agents, those agents that have maybe repeated year 110 times because it was so easy to keep a license and do one or two transactions, they might be gone. And that's not who we've ever wanted as referral partners, referral sources to try to get business from. Right. But what I see is that both on the real estate side, there's going to be a lot larger learning curve to show value, to gain experience, to gain knowledge. Right. And you're going to see that on the lending side, too, of, well, when we bring in Los, if like, do we bring in Los with no experience? And that's not a model we do personally. We bring in Los with great reputation, with good experience. We look up their numbers, we call their agents that. They close buy side transactions before we recruit them because we want to see what are, what are their partners saying about them. And I think we're going to see a little bit, like for us, we do a little bit of direct to consumer marketing. We're probably going to do a little bit more. We always try to make sure we have the best name and reputation when it comes to our buyers. Our buyer's experience and the listing side, but we're going to see a little bit more, you know, making sure that the listing side feels extra warm and fuzzy about us because we may need that. You know, the big thing that I would say so far that I've seen is I used to get one to two calls a month of some realtor wanting to get to reach into my pocket for their business, right. And I put that very gingerly, right. Since this nar, since March 15, I get five or six of those calls a day. So there's a lot of fear right now. What's going to change of am I going to make less? How do I get part of the lender? And for me, I sit there and say, that's not how we operate. That's not a part of our business model. We provide the absolute best. We do the best buy, and, and that, you know, rich mentioned the direct lender. Some of these, they buy relationships, and they do all of this, and they have higher rates and higher margins. Guess what? The market changes. And let's say maybe it turns out that that buyer has a buyer's agent agreement that they're committing to 3%. Well, I might have to sit there and have a loan level. Like try to get lender credits to help them cover those commissions.
Like, that's where you're gonna see, I think some of it change on the lending side is those retail lenders that are operating with super high margins. Right. Because they're paying everybody and paying all these other places. They're gonna struggle to do that if it becomes part of the game, or they're gonna give rates that are just so much worse that they're gonna lose market share because they can't compete with somebody like myself in our company.
[01:09:48] Speaker A: Good to hear. Good to hear. Well, I want to check, Rick, do we have any questions we've not answered already tonight?
[01:09:55] Speaker F: No, sir.
[01:09:56] Speaker A: Okay, so we've answered all the questions. Well, the one thing I'd like to sum up tonight, somebody asked Jeff Bezos one time, they said, jeff, how do you keep up? How do you predict what's going to change in the future, to change your business, to always stay on the cutting edge? And he said, I never try to predict the future. I focus on what will never change.
And he said, no one ever is going to come to me and say, you know, I really wish Amazon would raise its prices. I really wish Amazon would slow down how fast they deliver things. And more than ever, I just wish they'd stopped telling me exactly where my package is. Along the way, he said, so we focus on those things and we always stay hyper focused on it. What I'm hearing tonight, and I've heard it over and over, is focus on experience and education and getting that value proposition out there to the buyers so they understand what you do and what you can provide to them. And I also go back to Kiyosaki, rich dad, poor dad. There are certain people, you always just pay the money and you don't ask questions because if they're doing their job, they're actually saving you money, which we've heard tonight. And part of one of those people, in addition to being your lawyer, your CPA, your brokers, your brokers save you money in the long run.
So as long as I think everybody focuses on what people will always want, what will not change, they spell that value proposition out to potential buyers as well as sellers and borrowers and buyers in the title realm, I think everybody is going to do just fine and this will just be another change. We'll all roll with it in the industry and I think we'll all be fine in the end. But I want to thank everybody for coming on tonight. Everybody did a great job, great insights, great information.
And I know it's been a long day and a long night. But again, I want to thank you all very much for everybody watching out there. We're definitely going to, this will be recorded. It's going to be out there on YouTube, on our channel. So you can watch it anytime you want. You can jump to any chapter you want, any question you want. And we're also going to have everybody's social media tags and websites and contacts down in the show notes. So be sure to watch for that. And with that, we'll end tonight. And again, thanks everybody for watching and thanks everybody for coming in and attending.
