Real Estate Explained

Probate Real Estate, Market Shifts & the Psychology of a Winning Deal with Dan Wheeler

• Nick Bush

Share episode

Send us a text

In this week’s episode of Real Estate Explained, host Nick Bush sits down with Dan Wheeler—licensed in DC, Maryland, and Virginia and founder of All Things Probate DC—for a raw, insightful, and often hilarious conversation about the real side of real estate.

They dive deep into probate real estate, breaking down what happens when a homeowner passes without a trust, why wills aren’t enough, and how to protect your family (and your deals) from legal chaos. Dan shares how he became a probate expert, the biggest mistakes sellers make, and why planning ahead is one of the best gifts you can leave behind.

But it doesn’t stop there—Nick and Dan also unpack what’s really happening in the 2025 market, why buyers are hesitant, and how to navigate price drops, lowball offers, and negotiation psychology. Whether you’re an agent, a homeowner, or just nosy about what happens after someone dies with real estate—this one’s packed with gems.

We’re breaking down:

→ Probate vs. wills & trusts (and what really matters)
→ Selling inherited property: timing, strategy & pitfalls
→ Why buyers need to feel like they’re “winning” in negotiations
→ Market insights: what’s sitting, what’s selling, and what’s next
→ A debate on price vs. interest rate (and why $10K isn't what you think)

🎧 Tune in for real talk, expert tips, and a few hot takes—because real estate isn’t just about houses, it’s about people, planning, and knowing how to play the game.

Podcast Intro 

Follow us

Leave a review 

Speaker 1:

We on the scene. Dan Wheeler is in the building. What up? Dan Wheeler sells homes, nice polo.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks man. I just got this straight off the trash, can? I found it on the street? What happened to Liv Moko? Liv Moko man, you know you got to build a couple brands before and I said everybody that. You said everybody was like, oh, it's too small. So I said, all right.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so you just Dan Willard sells homes. Yeah, man, that's where I've been, that's okay.

Speaker 2:

All right, cool man, I like it. It's like you know. I remember I was talking to my mans one time. He was like all right, you are whatever you say, you are Like okay, yeah, cool.

Speaker 1:

You have a cool name, but are you getting to the Are you doing anything?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm the Brightwood Specialist. Okay, I mean, how's these old in Brightwood? None, okay, well, cool.

Speaker 1:

Good, Good for you. So before we get started, tell the people, introduce yourself to the people. Dan Wheeler Sells Homes.

Speaker 2:

Are we running a full podcast?

Speaker 1:

We're doing a full podcast right now.

Speaker 2:

I thought we were just doing clips, man Well, I ain't been on a podcast in a minute.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back, welcome back.

Speaker 2:

Hey, welcome back. Dan Willis sells homes, licensed DC, maryland and Virginia. Specialized in buyers, sellers and investors. Do I really specialize? Well, I just roll with it. Well, you didn't mention prob probate. What's going on with that probate? And I specialize in probate and the probate is cranking. I'm a probate certified, certified probate real estate specialist. My other company is all things probate dc, uh, llc and uh yeah, we are one-stop shop for all the probate estate needs so the reason I had?

Speaker 1:

uh, you know, dan is an amazing realtor. He crush, crushes. His clients are very happy with his services. They give the key.

Speaker 2:

The key picture always looks very you know, actually, I never had no key picture. You don't do the key. I'm staunchly against key pictures, bro.

Speaker 1:

Why are you?

Speaker 2:

against the key picture. There's too many people doing it. Yeah, I would have done it, but the one I like is Coalition of do that, because they're the only ones doing this and nobody really cares. But kids, oversaturated bro.

Speaker 1:

I don't usually go to settlement. I probably go to like why don't you go to settlement, bro, I don't need to be there. You can be there for your clients bro, I'm there, they just sign the paperwork. I'm cool. What about up picture? Yeah, I don't I, I guess, I'm just like you know I'm not taking a thumbs up, bro.

Speaker 1:

No, I'm not really going to settlement often these days. I'll be doing thoughts, bro. I think my social media manager wants me to go to settlement to get the key picture. But I'm just like you don't need a key. That's corny. But uh, yeah, I feel like I've tied it up. Oh honey, you got the range, so I got the range, so I forgot what I was going to say before.

Speaker 2:

They call me the disruptor. I come on podcasts and disrupt.

Speaker 1:

But no, I had to bring Dan back on the podcast. When I texted you, I said, oh, I was telling Dan, I was telling people how Dan was my actual friend. Is what I was going to say? Was Dan a, a, a great realtor, my actual friend and um, you know, I had to question him a little bit when he stopped smoking cigars. But I told you, since you are my friend, I support you. Thanks, man. But um, health is wealth around here. But, uh, I had to get dan back on the podcast. And when I texted him I was like yo, since I got the professional setup now. Yeah, because at first you want to setup now. Do you want to come out? Do you want to come? Do you want to pull up to the podcast? Because we recorded a fire episode, did? We Packed with so much information and the audio just came out bad, so you had to come back on.

Speaker 2:

I don't even remember anything we talked about. Well, we're going to talk about it again. I remember some of it. Same thing. Close. You should transcribe it. We could just re-deduct.

Speaker 1:

No, yeah, it's on the wall behind you. You don't realize that the words are up. They go away when you look at the wall. Only I can see it through my x-ray vision. So I want to get into mostly probate, because we don't talk a lot of probate. So first, for the people who might have just heard the word for the first time or have no clue who we're going to talk about, define what probate is in real estate.

Speaker 2:

So first, I wish I didn't know what we were talking about probate because I would have worn my probate shirt. So, probate, yeah, how many? Probates? Zero, all right, cool. Yeah, how many? Probably zero, oh okay, um, yeah, so probate. Basically, uh is tell me if I'm peaking, because I'm, I gotta allow boy, all right, cool, um, probate is basically a process by which a person who passes away without a will and a trust, uh, their assets are distributed by the state that they live in.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and so when you did, when you gave us that definition, you said will and a trust, not will or trust.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, because you can still get into end up in probate if you have a will but don't have a trust set up. Why?

Speaker 1:

uh, like, what is the trust? I know you're not a trusted state attorney, but yeah, this is not legal advice.

Speaker 2:

And then all the other disclaimers you guys can put down there, um, but I've got 13 years of probate real estate experience and basically so there's. So there's only two, really only one way to avoid probate. Well, there's two ways a quick, clean deed, but the main way is to create a trust. A trust is just a piece of paper, like it's really easy. It's just a piece of paper, but it's an instrument that is kind of similar to an LLC or S-Corp or S-Corp. It's just a legal entity, a legal structure that allows you to put assets inside of so that no other outside entity has access to it. Okay, and then you, or whoever you want to be, would be a beneficiary and a controller of that trust. For example, if you have a house and your name is what? Nick, something, nick, nick bush, nick bush, right, yeah, uh, so nick bush owns one, two, three main street and your wife would be on that mortgage as well, indeed, um, but what you would do is, if you did, and then let's say god forbid, I'll use a different couple, because I don't want to speak that way.

Speaker 2:

Let's say joe and jill own a house one, two, three main street. Joe passes away. Now jill got to go on the probate. If joe creates a trust, puts one, two, three main street inside of this trust let's call it the joe smith trust then joe and jane no longer own that property. Their trust names right. The trust owns the property and they are the beneficiaries and controller of the trust. Uh, so then when they pass away they know there's nothing to do with probate because they don't own the property anyway. The trust does okay. So then the next person if jane is still a controller, she don't have to really do anything because she's just the beneficiary of the trust. If you have kids on there, you throw your kids on the trust. Then when both of y'all pass away, boom, the property inside of the trust automatically goes to the kid. Now you need a will too, because the will is basically the directions of what's supposed to happen inside of the trust.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So if you have a will but no trust, you'll still end up in probate, but it'll go faster because the judge will just look at the will and say oh okay, peter is supposed to get the property. Boom, peter gets the property.

Speaker 1:

So the judge typically respects the will.

Speaker 2:

He has to respect the will. As long as it's authenticated, yeah. As long as it's legit, okay. So that's what the probate will be for if you don't have a trust, set up a trust. Yo. It's only like a thousand bucks if you got a good attorney. If you need a good attorney, holla at me. I have some really good ones that ain't super super, uh, you know expensive, but y'all want to put your family through probate bro so what?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so why not? What are some? If you have a will? If you have a will and it's like okay, cool, like the will is going to tell us what to do, what's the big deal with having to go to the judge first, for the judge to say, yeah, I believe that that's what it says to do?

Speaker 2:

yeah, because you can't sell a property that you don't own. Okay, so there's this, there's two, there's either two situations either there's debt on the house or it's on free and clear right. Either way, whatever state you live in let's's say DC, maryland, virginia, because I'm licensed in all three you see that that's a plug.

Speaker 1:

It's called a plug.

Speaker 2:

All of these states want to make sure that the houses that are in their jurisdiction are being taken care of in some type of way, because they just want money, so they want your tax dollars. If somebody passes away away, let's say somebody passes away and nobody makes a note of it, the house is eventually the tax is going to go behind, the property is going to go uh blighted, and then it's going to look like crap and the the state doesn't like that yeah so if you pass away, they want to make sure that that property's being taken care of.

Speaker 2:

Well, how do they do that? When you pass away, if you don't owe anything on it, um, then you're dead. Nobody's gonna be paying that taxes, right? Yeah, uh, if you do owe something on it, then the bank wants their bread because you're not paying on that mortgage, no more. So one or two things happen. The person who is the next of kin would need to be found by whoever that happens. Um, and then you, you would have to get your name in some way. You had to get your name on the property to either continue to pay the debt or to sell it. But you can't sell the property that ain't in your name, so you have to go to probate in order to tell the judge. Hey, I'm the legal representative of this person. I have. I'm requesting authority to sell the property. The legal representative of this person. I'm requesting authority to sell the property on the behalf of this person.

Speaker 1:

Okay, okay. Yeah, I usually a lot more brief when I'm talking to my clients, but that's like the long bird's eye view and do you feel like when someone dies without a trust, but maybe even without a will, there's just a lot of family fighting and like who, yeah, you want to avoid?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I mean, it's really a lot of time, like. I mean I have my wife like, and the thing is, can we cuss on this podcast? Can we cuss on this? You get, you get a couple cuss words. Yeah, how many do I get? Let's go with three. Okay, do I get three? And then like a hard one.

Speaker 2:

No hard ones. Just three love balance jokes. I'll save them for later. The thing with women they don't really like to talk about death and stuff. Okay, you're never going to die. No, I don't want to talk about it, nick, but you need to. They're also going to die. Yeah. So, spoiler alert, everybody gonna die, everybody. Yeah, that's just in case you didn't know. You're gonna die too, watching this, uh, this podcast, or listening. So it behooves you to get all your stuff straight before you're too old and you joe biden out and nobody knows what's going on with you. They gotta. They don't know if you're competent, right, they start questioning your will. So it's good to get it done early. Yeah, why, while everybody's still like chipper and fresh?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I'm actually um pushing my dad to get the will done and the trust done and, um, lauren, my wife actually uh called him like maybe, like six weeks ago we were I don't know if he was traveling or we were traveling, but there was a specific reason and she was like, hey, what's, you know what's the paperwork Like, what are the codes to things? And she was like curious to this and my dad's, you know, classic, like oh, you know my dad. Oh, no, you know. Well, you're trying to get all over my business. What you trying to get you have your setup. No, I don't have any of that setup, your setup.

Speaker 2:

that's the easiest way to do it. If you're listening, don't try and get nobody else to set up anything, just set yours up. Then, when you got your setup, you show them like, okay, that's what I had to do. I was like, look, mom, I got all my stuff right here. See, my son is here. See, my wife is here. See, you're right there. Boom, I got it done. Then she go. Then they feel that pressure like, oh, first they see, oh, it wasn't that hard in the first place. But then, two, they see that you're not trying to take nothing from them, you're actually just doing it like yo, I care about my kids. Yeah, do you care about your kids, mom? I do this like 15 times a year.

Speaker 2:

People who get a property dropped into their lap. They don't know what to do. They're trying to figure out the codes to banks and trying to figure out passwords. Then you got to run back and forth to the probate court. And then the tough thing is too, if you got life insurance, life insurance will forward you a certain amount, but they won't give you the entire policy, um, until like after like a certain amount of time. But when you're dead, people gotta pay your funeral expenses, yo, yeah, so why not just have everything in a book? This is my when I die book yeah I got it all.

Speaker 2:

I, my wife, know where everything is. Babe, it's right there in case it go down on the streets. You know what I'm saying? I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not a thug, no more. Uh, but I used to be, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Laura's dad. When they travel, especially out of the country, he's like everything is upstairs in the closet, Of course she does. Of course he does. Yeah, Okay, so what type of things are usually happening when you're trying to sell? I guess when we first met, kind of around the time, maybe a little shortly after, you had a ton of listings that were probate, potential flips, things like that. A lot of them were vacant, needed to be flipped, needed full updates. Is that the typical situation?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man, it's always difficult. Can you see my logo? All right, sorry, I'm just joking. All right, sorry, I'm just joking, uh, it's just it.

Speaker 2:

See, the thing with probate man is like you, um, you, always what I try to do with probate is I try to leave people in a better condition than when I found them. So a lot of them are always like like once, usually, once I get the problem on the market and everything, I'm always pushing them, recommending them to, like an attorney, to say, hey, you see, this crap that you're going through right now, maybe you don't want to put your kids through the same crap. Maybe you might want to consider also getting your will and your trust set up. But it's just the craziest thing.

Speaker 2:

Everybody, you know everybody, want to go to be morbid, but, like, I think it's actually the most, I think it's the most life-affirming uh realization to admit that, yo, this is all temporary, this is none of this is permanent, um, and because it's not permanent, that's what makes it so great that we're not going to be here forever and then, at the same time, recognizing that when you leave, people gonna be talking about you. Yo, yeah, you're not just gone out of everybody's memory. Like people gonna be talking about you. People gonna remember, like I remember my dad passed.

Speaker 2:

Luckily, this was pretty simple, but it was still just like he had nothing set up yeah and most people, this is one another misconception to husband and wives just think oh well, everything just go to my wife. But it's not always that easy. Why not? Because you still got to go through probate.

Speaker 1:

Oh, so the judge has to agree.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I mean, yeah, the judge has to, even though it should be simpler. You never know, man, you could have a kid come out of nowhere.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like that's my daddy. You're like well, I ain't never even met you before.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but they have, they could have rights to that.

Speaker 2:

You gotta fight it could be completely anodyne and everything could be on the up and up. My dad was on the up and up, but it was still. It would have been nice if he had his will trust set up so my mom wouldn't have to go down to the probate court, file all these papers. You know, sit in front of some guy. You know, it's just a. To me it's. There's something to be said about having your. Having your, we can say shit, right yeah, that's a little shit together.

Speaker 1:

You gotta give dan one.

Speaker 2:

He said it twice now no, that was just one, I only said it once, because you asked permission to say it and then you said it yes, I only said it once well, no, you said it two times no I oh yeah, I think you have one left.

Speaker 1:

Come on, that's a technicality, but I'll give you two because you did it bro.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you get you get a mulligan so are you.

Speaker 1:

So I actually was at an event estate attorneys and cfps and realtors was the certified financial planner, and so this was the event, and I ran into an estate attorney. It was a couple years ago. I didn't even know, I didn't even know this was your, your lane at the time, and I, uh, ran into an estate attorney. You know her um we, because we've talked about her before any um short black amy, I think it's amy that sounds like black and uh, she's a beast.

Speaker 2:

She got her own whole phone yeah, and I asked her.

Speaker 1:

So we started having a conversation, um, about basically what I said to her. I was like, well, when I'm trying to, you know, get all these assets, etc, etc. So when I pass away it, my kids can, you know, get all these assets, et cetera, et cetera. So when I pass away my kids, can, you know, set up the trust so that when I pass away, my kids can chill if they want to? And she was against the chilling. She's like totally against it. They can't chill, they only get a certain amount of money. And I want my kids to be ambitious. But I said, well, I want to give them the option, right, and she was totally against that. But then we started talking about do we sell Big Mama's house or do we not sell Big Mama's house? What are you, what's your opinion on that?

Speaker 2:

Funny enough, on the Real Estate Wire podcast we did a show called Do you Sell Big Mama's House? I think it just depends, man. I think, um, I think renting all right, I'm a real estate agent, but I'm gonna go against the grain a little bit here. Renting is not for everybody, bro. Like being a landlord, being a landlord correct, yeah, renting isn't for nobody, but being a landlord is not for everybody. Um, it's a lot, bro, and you know there's a lot of things to consider. Like imagine, think, think about this for a second.

Speaker 2:

Imagine if you were from cali. You moved to dc and then somebody in your family passed away from cali, left your house in cali, compton. Yeah, you moved away, you don't want to go back to compton. Now you got this house, maybe it's worth what's the property worth? 1.2 over there, something like that but you don't want to rent it out. The property in Compton. Everybody's like, oh man, you should rent it, but I don't live there anymore, like that's not my life anymore. You could take that money and move it into the market or move it into anything else. Move. Real estate is not the only investment on the planet. It's one of the dopest, but it's not the only, and if it's not your bag man renting has its own set of complications and challenges that you have to have a very specific personality to even want to do that. So do you sell Big Mama's house? I say do whatever you want to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense too, especially when the house is paid off or damn near paid off no-transcript a year and I have a tenant. But it's like I could also sell this cash out like $650,000. And if I want to be a real estate investor, I have way more leverage than I did collecting my $5,000 a month. So even with our property in DC, I think about selling it all the time and I want to sell it. But that's because, where I am from a mindset standpoint as far as real estate investing, I'm like yeah, I got this $100, dollars net, like in my property, but I know I could take this hundred thousand dollars and create more than the five hundred dollar cash flow that I'm getting right now.

Speaker 1:

You know, and appreciation is cool, I guess in 15 years I also look at as like a bank, like sure, the college is already paid for, because I could also sell this in 15 years and like pay for college and maybe give my kids their first down payment, whatever, but I could also create some income with this money too. So I think that that's a good. I think it's like you inherited a house. Learn to like figure out what the value of the house is talk to a real estate professional about, like, what you can get on the market and decide if you want to be a landlord. Like did you just get your first investment property, or 10th maybe? Or like can you do something else with the money? I think people don't want to sell the house because they assume and they're right mostly that people will just blow the money.

Speaker 2:

You know yeah, I mean there's a lot, you know, there's the ideological component as well. People don't want gentrification to happen there, against white people moving into black neighborhoods, but they People don't want gentrification to happen. They're against white people moving into black neighborhoods, but they also don't want white people to move out of black neighborhoods because they're going to fight. So it's just like you can't work for losing, you just got to do whatever works for your pocketbook.

Speaker 1:

You know what I'm saying? I've never had that second part of that second sentence. I've never thought about it. I like thought about it a bunch of times, but not together at the same time. That's actually hilarious. So what do you? So what's happening in the real estate market right now? Are you? Are you more buyer heavy or more seller heavy? Right, more seller heavy, bro.

Speaker 2:

Okay that's good, good for you. A couple buyers I'm working with too, I think I'm working with like four by. I got like four buyers I'm working with right now, um, and we're just looking, man, I gotta, I gotta, I'm, I'm interested, like what are you saying? Because I'm trying, I, I've been, I've been, I've been in the, I've been in the cave like for a minute, man, just like, just like going on appointments and going home like I haven't really been yeah, I got the kid he in karate.

Speaker 2:

Now you know I'm saying so, but it's good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, try to get him in, uh you know, step it up you know he likes him, so I want to make sure he can take care of his hands, you know. So as long as he got that, I'm good. Okay, he got his hands together so we could do something else, so, um, and then he do the swimming. So I haven't really been um in the, in the, in the crowd. What are you seeing? I'm seeing buyer. I'm seeing a bunch of properties on the market and I'm seeing a lot of buyer indecisiveness. Okay, um, and I'm seeing on my listings like extended days on market, like a mud, yeah so that's.

Speaker 1:

That's interesting, because I'm not really in the crowd anymore. I don't like value the crowd as much as I did. Um, especially because my business is I'm you know, I'm dropping the divorce thing because I'm like I don't actually want to do that anymore, I'm not inspired to do that anymore and I just have a sphere-based business. So for me, although I know what's happening, you know you have to keep your finger on the pulse, but that's just happening mostly when I'm out with clients and then, since we're experts at this, we could pick it up, you know, right away I could say okay, this is, this was happening in the market, this is the strategy we need to take um. And so what I'm seeing and I think I've been feeling like this for a couple years is that if you're a seller, you need to make your property cream of crop right, and what I mean by that is you need to paint it, you need to update it. If you can, you need to update it, you need to paint it, you need to stage it, move out if you can. If you can't move out, make it easy to show um and price it correctly. If it's in a desirable area, it's gonna sell over list price in the first weekend or second weekend, right? Um, I think that paint is one of those like I'd stress to every seller like you need to paint, because I used to discount the, the value of like a house being painted when you move in, until I had a listing that didn't have the basement painted and people were throwing a fit about it. Um, so I'm telling my sellers, like get your house ready, man. And like I think that mostly, mostly people have left 2021 behind, right, and are kind of operating normal. But I think there's still a group of people who think like, oh, low inventory, I'll put it on and it'll sell. And for buyers, that article just came out, that and I didn't read the article, I just saw the headline. So I'm sure that there was something in the article that was that was valuable and maybe disproving. The headline is that 44 percent of sellers are offering seller subsidy you know, closing costs to buyers and so I think, any time. So I think the market is balanced right now.

Speaker 1:

I think if you're a seller, you have to put your house on the market and make it shine. Make it shiny, or people will pass it over or wait for a couple of weeks, and if you're a buyer, it's a good time to be in the market because you can get your contingencies and your closing costs and maybe potentially something off list price, and then you know if you can afford the mortgage payment. You're in good shape, and if and when interest rates drop, sure You'll have a ton of equity Cause. Then the other people will sell and prices will go up in your neighborhood. Yeah, and so I don't think there's anything other than like general advice. I think that I have homes that are, you know, sitting on the market for a while and I have people that are selling like this dude, I don't really think there's no like.

Speaker 2:

Everybody's always looking for like well, almost everybody but I think the the people who have the least success in this market are the people who are always trying to time the market and I know it's cliche not supposed to time the market, it's about time in the market, but that literally is the case that I've seen throughout my career, like the people that I've that are my past clients that just took action. They're winning big right now. Yeah, and the people that I've had that are like start.

Speaker 2:

I started with them back in 2019, post-pandemic, and they're still farting around like they're losing big time yeah losing and now the properties are more expensive and the interest rates are more expensive and you know, it's kind of like they're just like holding this lottery ticket waiting for like even with stocks. I told them I'm I'm trading stocks and getting into the options market and everything and there's a few cool little axioms that they that I've been learning. One is so that when you, when you get into an option and you go up a little bit, inexperienced traders will hurry up and take profit real quick and they call that see profit, take profit. Like as soon as them go up, you take your profit. Right. But that's really a lack mentality and sometimes you gotta let the let it, let it play out yeah all the way, because you could be missing out on some actual real returns because you were so quick, soon as you saw profit you took it, yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's how I feel about my XRP. You see, Even though it's not going up, I'm like, I mean, when it goes up, I'm like that's the first time it went up.

Speaker 2:

It's going to go up more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the other axiom is I lost it. But the point is a lot of people kind of doing the uh double dutch, waiting for interest rates to come back down. When interest rates probably, even if they do come back down, the prices are way higher than they were five years ago anyway, or three years ago anyway. So even though if you may buy at a lower interest rate, you're still buying at a higher price yeah, so they offset each other they're not even offsetting each other.

Speaker 2:

You're losing, you still lose it. So, um, I was talking to ea for the other day. Um, hot take, not a hot take, but hot seat. So I I don't know if I've ever heard anybody say this before. Um, oh, I'm reading my bible again.

Speaker 1:

Bro, it's back that was that bible study on wednesday for the first time in like four years crisis king bro, crisis king that way.

Speaker 2:

Um. So I don't know where this thought, this idea, came from. It must have just came from god, I guess. But I was thinking because I was talking to a buyer and the offer was for.

Speaker 2:

The list price was 675 okay and they wanted to put an offer in for 665 and I was like amen. I looked at the comps. I was like yo, 675 is about right. Where are y'all getting this number from? Like are you? Where are you? And buyers tend to have this, the need to to haggle. Right there's I forgot what book that was, I think it was. Uh, when buyers say no I think I think it was when buyers it's called. When buyers say no, buyers have a psychological need to haggle. They want to haggle and sometimes you have to throw the haggle, especially when you're on the selling side. You have to throw something in there so that they can haggle, so that they won't get buyer's remorse later on. It's like a negotiation strategy or whatever. So you give them a whole bunch of stuff, knowing that they're going to counter something. So you get your actual number, yeah right, and then that satiates their need. You do that on like a home inspection addendum sometimes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah you throw a whole bunch of crap in there that you know they're going to haggle. Sellers do too, because if sellers, if sellers get their number too quick, then they feel like, oh man, I should have priced it out of higher. Yeah, I could have got more. So then they later on in their transaction they start picking at little stuff like they got a good deal yeah, they already got all my money.

Speaker 2:

you sold it exactly where it should be. Yeah, buyers are the same thing and it's like they feel like if they don't get ten thousand dollar reduction in the price, then they overpay. Yeah, when, a lot of times that ten thousand dollar if you, when you stretch it out, is what 60 bucks a month on your mortgage. So I said this to Ian Ford. I was like, bro, like when you think about it, who am talking about? Who is that? Who's that? Who's that $10,000 more important to you or the seller? Well, me, obviously, right Me.

Speaker 2:

But think about it for a second. You're fighting. If you stretch that $10,000 out over 30 years, over 12 months, that's $60 a month more in your mortgage payment every month. For the seller, that's $10,000 right now, cash, yeah. So let me ask you this question If I gave you a lottery ticket and you won, you won the lottery ticket and I say I'll give you $10,000 over 30 years, over the next six months, you get $60 a month. Would you take $60 right now or would you take $10,000 right now? That's a good point. Then they get it, y'all.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a good point. Obviously, the $10,000 is the answer guys.

Speaker 2:

You'll take $10,000 right now or will you take $60 every month for the next 30 years? You'll take the $10,000 right now. That being said, let's offer 675, because the $10,000 is way more important to them than the $60 is to you. Yeah, did they win the deal? Nah, they didn't win the deal what happened? Why'd they lose? Because so alright, well, to continue that story, they actually did go in at 675, okay, but then the seller jacked the price up to 700 oh, wow. And I was like yo, y'all are listed at $675,000.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they counted at $700,000?

Speaker 2:

We came in at six. Actually we came in at $660,000. But for easy math it was at $650,000. We went in at $660,000. Then they counted at $700,000.

Speaker 1:

OK.

Speaker 2:

So then I told them I was like guys, they're not playing around, let's just give them like price. It's priced right. I looked at the comps. We're not the highest price that they were. Then we counted at 675. The sellers were salty. They were like oh, we want 700, we put too much work in the house. It's actually two lots and so that didn't got me. Man, I that that pissed me off the discount is a customer.

Speaker 2:

So I said so. The agent called me back. She's like, hey, they want 675, 700. And I was like this is my last customer. So I'm like fuck them. I'm like y'all can go jump off a bridge, bro. Yeah, so, because that's, that's negotiating in bad faith. Yeah, if we give you exactly what you're asking for and you jack up the price and say you want several like 25 000 also is a lot, that's a lot like yeah you should have just listed it at 75, at 700 000, because that's what your sellers really wanted.

Speaker 2:

But you listing agent priced it too low or priced it right actually, but they think that it's worth more. Yeah, so that's where they're trying to jack up the price of 700. So then they so we was like man, f that? Right, that's my last question. So they say f that. So they went. So she's like sorry, you know, they had multiple offers, so no, actually this will happen. They came back at 700 and I was like whatever, screw you guys. So then she said do your sellers want to, do your buyers want to counter? I was like, yeah, they're counting at 530. What I was like yeah, we're counting at 530 000, y'all want to, y'all want to go crazy? We have 530 000. And she goes okay. So then they accepted another offer. Yeah, then the offer fell through. Wow. So she called me back last week hey, are your buyers still interested?

Speaker 1:

and I was on her, then you know I'm in my, I'm feeling myself now.

Speaker 2:

I don't know, man, I don't know that we've been looking at a bunch of houses I I really had to see. I know they probably not. They might be interested but definitely not at 675. I'll have to say they might be closer to 650 at this point, but they're really a number of detail-oriented people so I don't know. I had to reach out and see Give them all the sauce, yeah.

Speaker 1:

All right, I hope that deal gets closed, bro. I hope so, man, it'll be a good one. So I think it's interesting I've been saying lately that we're not as I never felt like I was in sales first of all, but I've been specifically saying lately that like we in the education, we're in the education business right, like the kind of the job is to like education, educate and then like frame things for people and you know.

Speaker 2:

I think educating is a part of sales.

Speaker 1:

Sure, it's a part of I. It's interesting to say because I had a debate with someone, debate because I let it go. But, um, I was, I was, I was letting it go during the political season. I was saying, like the democrats don't have anybody, that they have no sales people right, like they need, they need sales and marketing right after they have good sales people.

Speaker 2:

I just think the product that they're selling nobody wants to buy sure and so.

Speaker 1:

And so this person said, like this is not sales, it's politics. I was like, well, politics is sales, sure. And then I brought up how speech is for sales. It's a sales pitch. You know, speech is a sales pitch. And so I always say, like we're in the education business and like you're framing things to your clients Like, hey, $10,000 or $60.

Speaker 1:

And I had to do that for one of my buyers recently. He already bought his house. So this is a good friend of mine Bought his house. He can no longer afford the mortgage, right, and he's trying to. You know, he's underwater, he's trying to figure it out. And so he called me to see if he could do the HELOC, what's the value, etc.

Speaker 1:

And I remember on the phone I was like you know, I'm kind of sorry you're in this situation, but this happened because you thought you can wait. You could wait and wait. And you know we talk right now about how high and how high the interest rates are and people are choosing to wait. And before you, before you got here, rami was saying that, um, you know, having a lower purchase price is better than having a higher interest rate, right, and I was telling him. I was like right now.

Speaker 1:

You're in a situation where you bought a two bed. You know he bought in 2023,. You bought a two bed, two bath condo for three 30 and your mortgage payment is $2,400 because you went VHDA. I said but when we first had this conversation and you were telling me the market was going to crash was 2017. And in 2017, you could have gotten a three bed, four bed, two and a half bath townhouse with a garage, fully updated, with a three-ish percent interest rate three and a half percent interest rate and your mortgage payment would have been. You would have bought that house for 250 to 300, your mortgage payment would be 1800 and you would be up 200 000. So you thought that you couldn't afford to buy. But what actually happened is you can't, you can't afford to wait and I think that, yeah, that's sales, that's sales. Is that sales?

Speaker 2:

that was a sales pitch I guess it's sales.

Speaker 1:

I'm yeah, I know I'm in sales, bro, but it's like you, I feel like it's more education like.

Speaker 2:

I think the problem is sales. I know we sell a bad name. I think you are a natural salesman. I look at my son. Yeah, this dude can negotiate, bro. Oh yeah, I love it, man, because I be teaching him how to negotiate. I'm always teasing him. Ever since he's a kid, I always teach him negotiate, man of your word. We shake hands on it. All right, that's what we're going to do, okay yeah, six more minutes.

Speaker 2:

All right, six minutes is up. You man of your word, right. You man, you're like yep, I'm man of my word, boom, right. And so he was talking to my wife the other day. I was gone, obviously, because that's when he run the house, um, wife, um, he was asking her for something like some more like uh, he eats these little bars, these little fruit bars or whatever, but they're like healthy, organic, whatever. You know, you know what I'd be doing. So he asked for a bar, but it was wasn't the time to do it. So he was like no. He's like can I have a bar? She was like no, you can't have a bar right now. He was like come on, this is what he said he's like yeah, how are you like, okay, how about just half a bar?

Speaker 2:

she's like this is negotiating with me right now she and she gave it to him. Yeah, well, I mean because it was so reasonable. You know what I mean and I teach him that you know being reasonable. But I'm teaching him sales because but I think sales has gotten a bad word, that's true to be like a sales guy is kind of feel like sales you're convincing people to do something that they don't want to do.

Speaker 2:

That's true. That's coercion. Yeah, we're not coercing people, we're persuading. That sounds way more aggressive than sales, if I'm forcing you to do something you don't want to do. That's not sales, that's persuasion.

Speaker 1:

Sales is. So then you can make a choice. Yeah, and you know I had to tell him that and he kind of responded and it was natural that I was telling him that. You know, because it sounds like when I'm telling the story I was scolding him. A little bit Sounds scolding, but it was natural and it was actually me. I was frustrated Because he ain't listening to you. Because I was frustrated, I was like bro, like I've been telling you this, I knew this was going to happen.

Speaker 2:

We should start getting testimonials from the clients that are like not winning yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I was like I'm sad and it's like this is the message that, and this is the message that we have to. You know, we give them to our people and they're not, they're not listening.

Speaker 2:

So it's like I mean, I do think that the people who are listening, and so I was in taking back to the kids karate class. One thing I noticed about that teacher I hope she's listening. I'm so. I have 10 years of childcare experience. When I was in my twenties, I took care of basically the most bad kids that got kicked out of school and I would run, run them. Okay, that's funny, bro. Yeah, and I love kids. Most people think men don't like it. I love kids, right, like taking care of kids. I love it. I think the way they think to me is just is amazing, right? So, um, we're sitting in my kids karate class and there's. So when I, when I talk to my kid, I'm very I speak not positive, but I speak direct to him, right, so I don't tell him what I don't want him to do. I always just tell him don't want him to do.

Speaker 1:

I always just tell him what I want him to do, Okay that's good.

Speaker 2:

Pick up the toys. Clean up your room. Be gentle with your mom. Speak politely to your mother. Be brave, let's go. I don't say things like your room is so dirty. Don't talk to your mother like that. We're running late. Don't yell, don't scream, behave right. I don't say those things because they're they're pointless. They, they don't give him any, any. They don't give him the picture that I want him to see there's no directions there.

Speaker 2:

There's no direction, it's just an accusation behave, behave implies that he's not doing what I want him to do. No, I don't care what you're doing, I just want you to do this. Yeah, right, I want you to talk respectfully to your mother. I don't want you to say don't yell at your mother, okay, so what do you want me to do? Not yell. Well, I don't have any, he doesn't have enough. Right? Give you an example Don't think of a pink elephant. Don't say it again. Don't think of a pink elephant. Yeah, saying don't think of a pink elephant, the pink elephant, don't think about it. Stop thinking about the pink. You can't not think about it because you have to think about it to not think about it. Well, let me think about the pink. Okay, now I have to stop thinking about pink elephant. You see, if I want you to not think about a pink elephant, I'm just going to tell you think about a yellow bird. Yeah, think about a yellow bird. Think about a yellow bird. Now you got a yellow bird, you see. So that's how the mind works. It's just a unidirectional uh organ, right? So I say all that to say I was in my kids karate class, right, and the way his teacher talks to the whole class. She only focuses on the bad kids. She does not focus on the good kids, and there's only like four bad kids in there and the rest is like maybe 12 kids, 13 kids and my kid. She doesn't pay them no attention. The only one she pays attention to are the bad kids. I stop behave. I'm going to count to three. You got three strikes, two more strikes, be quiet. And I'm just like and all the other kids are just sitting here chilling and they don't get any attention. Yeah, and the optimal way to run a large group of kids is ignore the bad kids and you only focus on the ones that are doing what you want them to do.

Speaker 1:

Hey, thank you for sitting so quietly.

Speaker 2:

Ah, thank you for following directions, George.

Speaker 2:

Hey, Chris, you're sitting so quietly, Because then everybody yeah then you know that that's the tone and everyone and then all the other kids, because they're getting attention. They want attention, all kids want it, all humans want attention. But if you're rewarding them and giving them attention for being bad, what do you think they're gonna keep doing being bad? Why I say all that? Because when we focus on our crappy clients, we're just gonna keep getting a bunch of crappy clients, as opposed to focusing on the ones that's actually buying, that's actually making moves, that's actually taking action. In the moment we're looking back, we're sending them happy anniversary cards and doing client events and stuff like that. Then we start to get more of those types of clients. I agree, bro.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was long. We got Dan Willow on the pod Since we're over time, because Dan had to get into a little accident.

Speaker 2:

I'm always over time. Hey man, Dude Anyway I didn't get into accidents.

Speaker 1:

What actionable advice and we've kind of said it a few times, but what actionable advice would you give home?

Speaker 2:

buyers and home sellers right now. Sellers, I don't really think. Look, it's like this. I don't think this is the best time to sell your property, unless you have to. If you're trying to flip, trying to take profit, I don't think this is a good market to do that right now, because you're not going to get what you think you're going to get. If you gotta sell, go ahead and sell if it makes sense for you. If you, what's the five d's right? Uh, death divorce diapers dollars and whatever the other one is, I'm gonna figure it out death divorce diapers dollars and death divorce diapers, don't I'm trying to like logically come to the conclusion Death, divorce, diapers, dollars and whatever the other D is right the actual reason that you're moving.

Speaker 2:

If you have one of those reasons, go ahead and move, but if it's just to move up now, you're going to be thinking about it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, let's Google it. Hold on, hold on, hold on. What's the five?

Speaker 2:

Ds. Paul. What are the five Ds? Hold on hold, on, hold on. What's the five D's, paul? What are the five D's? It's done Death, divorce, diapers, dollars, doorknobs.

Speaker 1:

Look that up, this is a different Diamonds, diamonds.

Speaker 2:

Marriage.

Speaker 1:

Oh marriage okay. Yeah, I really said divorce. I didn't think about marriage anyway.

Speaker 2:

Death, divorce, diamonds, dollars and diamonds Right, exactly. Dollars in diamonds right, exactly so. If those, if you sell them for those reasons, then sure, um, but like you said earlier, you got to make sure your property looks dope the days of just throwing it on and demanding that your real estate agent price it as as many zeros as you can squeeze in the mls like that's over, yo, those days are now.

Speaker 2:

What I do think is my crystal ball, and when you look back at the real estate wire podcast, a lot of my crystal balls have been correct, paul. So I think that around now, all this elon stuff coming through a little monkey ridge in my predictions, but I think but I am buying a dip, though with his stock, you should, yeah, you should, it's gonna go up. The option plays on injuries. I'm not, you know, I'm a beginner. So I think around November or like around the end of the year, I think they're going to drop interest rates because Trump wants to look good for the primaries. So I think he's going to basically force the Fed and I think Jerome Powell is up next year too. They're bickering right now him and Jerome Powell.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but he can't fire him because that would be stupid. But I think that interest rates are going to. I think Jerome Powell is going to drop interest rates before he leaves or somewhere around November, december, january, february. I think that's what's going to happen and I think that's going to push the market up, okay, and that's going to give us back. That's going to push the market up, okay, and that's going to give us back, that's going to push prices you know the market, so you think that you should wait right now.

Speaker 1:

and and if?

Speaker 2:

you don't have this, like if you're saying, yo, we just need a bigger house. We trying to make a move.

Speaker 1:

Wait until.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, cause buying. Well, no, I'm saying selling have to. Yeah, go ahead and do it. But if you're just trying to parlay, I would say probably like, hold your, keep your powder draft a little while, see what happens with interest rates. Then when everybody all the pinned up demand jumps into the market, that's gonna put your property value up and then you could sell, probably in a week or so. Cool buyers just buy whenever, like you always, just do it right. Yeah, it doesn't, because when you buying you're losing money the longer you wait, because houses appreciate in every market 4% per year. Sometimes they go up six or seven, but at a minimum four. So you're losing money if you're not buying right now and you're ready to buy because interest rates don't matter. Interest rates go up or down. I disagree with the past guy. Whatever he said about the purchase price is more important than the mortgage. I think it's the other way around. I think the monthly mortgage is more important.

Speaker 1:

No, what he said is that the purchase price is more important than the interest rate, basically saying um, if you have to to the to buyers, like, basically like so what if you have a 7% interest rate, if you can get this $500,000 house for 490,000, that's more valuable.

Speaker 2:

No, I don't I disagree. Why do you disagree? Because over the next 30 years you're going to pay like 800 000 for the whole house well, what he was saying is.

Speaker 1:

He says the interest rate is can be flexible because that's going to change.

Speaker 2:

He goes that purchase price is going to so maybe I'm mishearing it, but I think the interest rate is more important, because money today is more important than money tomorrow. So if you buy at a seven and your mortgage rate is $3,800 a month, that's above your budget.

Speaker 1:

So that affects the size of the house, obviously the first thing you have to do is make sure you can afford your mortgage payment right.

Speaker 2:

Bingo.

Speaker 1:

But if you wait to buy and I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, I'm just framing kind of what he said Sure, right, right, right. If rates are 7% right now and home prices are $500,000. And let's just say you can buy that house for $500,000 today, Well, when rates go to 5%, right that home price, because the market might go up to 510, 515, 525, 600, right. And so now you lost because you wanted to wait for the rates to go down, when, if you bought that house for $500,000 today when rates went down, you could just refinance to the lower rate. Sure.

Speaker 2:

I think you just got to buy what you can afford. I don't think you need to focus on the purchase price at all. I think we need to focus Mortgage payment shopping all the time. That's all you got to do. You figure out how much you can afford per month and then, whatever house that buys, you buy it. Yeah, don't worry it. Yeah, don't worry. Oh, I need to wait until I can buy an eight hundred thousand dollar house, because that's what I think I want. Nah, yo, you need to get in the game, buy the stock right now, where it is on the bottom, and then just let that joint ride up, uh, until it gets. You get enough equity so you can move that equity to into your next property. Yeah, so I think that that's what. That's what I think. If you're a buyer, by now I know you think, oh, you're a real estate agent, so you just going, I don't care, I got my own property like it, doesn't you're?

Speaker 2:

like I'm already executing on what I'm actually doing what I'm telling you to do. So yeah, that's my advice all right, shout out.

Speaker 1:

Dan wheeler sells homes in the building.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Nick Bush

Host