Proptech Pulse: Protecting Your License with Smarter Real Estate Compliance: Troy Palmquist’s Approach

In this episode, we sit down with Troy Palmquist, a 23-year industry veteran and the founder of HomeCode, to uncover why back-office stability is the ultimate competitive advantage. This conversation provides a practical roadmap for protecting your professional license while building a technology stack that actually drives agent productivity.

Success in the current landscape comes from focusing on tech adoption over tool volume to avoid the common trap of "shiny object syndrome." We explore cautionary tales from the True Crimes of Real Estate, revealing how overlooked details like undisclosed referral benefits or social media errors can jeopardize your credentials. You will also learn how to identify high-intent clients through predictive data signals that allow you to anticipate a move before a lead even hits the market.

Troy brings decades of experience managing high-volume portfolios to help you transition from a practitioner to a true business owner. His insights are timely and essential for any leader looking to lead with confidence and professional integrity. Subscribe to PropTech Pulse to stay ahead of the curve and visit our show notes to connect with Troy and explore the solutions mentioned today.

https://www.lwolf.com/podcast

Transcript

00;00;01;05 - 00;00;25;01

Kyle Hunter

Welcome to the Tech Pulse podcast. Your inside look at the world of real estate technology. I'm your host, Kyle Hunter, here to guide you through the latest trends, expert insights, and game changing tech shaping the real estate world. This is your go to source for staying ahead of the ever evolving industry. Let's dive in. Hello everyone. Thank you for joining Prop Tech Pulse.

00;00;25;03 - 00;00;27;27

Kyle Hunter

Very excited to have Troy Palmquist with me today.

00;00;27;27 - 00;00;29;18

Troy Palmquist

Hey, man, thank you so much for being here.

00;00;29;21 - 00;00;39;10

Kyle Hunter

Yeah, absolutely. So Troy's been in the industry, done a lot of business, but, you know, he probably has a better way of explaining his past. So, Troy, tell us a little bit about yourself.

00;00;39;14 - 00;01;00;13

Troy Palmquist

Well, first off, I'm super grateful to have the opportunity to be here. This is a super cool opportunity. IHeart Studios I mean, I'm a Sirius XM subscriber, so this is kind of one of those bucket list things. So thank you so much for that opportunity. My background, I've been in real estate, in industry going on 23 years this year, I think.

00;01;00;16 - 00;01;18;17

Troy Palmquist

I got in really early at 20 years old. So you can do the math at the age now, but, I kind of stumbled into real estate and from there kind of just built this love for, you know, the transaction and the love for really helping people have a experience of being able to find and sell real estate.

00;01;18;17 - 00;01;40;22

Troy Palmquist

And, and, you know, try and foster a positive experience for people with that. So it led me down the the brokerage route. And, you know, I ended up in asset disposition for two of the largest buy and flip companies that were privately owned in the United States, where, you know, at any given point, I was carrying, you know, 100 to 150 homes for sale at a given time and, across four different states.

00;01;40;22 - 00;02;05;29

Troy Palmquist

I think it was two different time zones at the time. And, you know, really learned a lot about the transaction and the, you know, experience and how you can actually help the consumer by being proactive and providing the right information and keeping in contact with the other agents. And so it was kind of just one of those things that, you know, through my career, I've really set out to say, how can I help as many people have a positive experience buying and selling real estate as possible?

00;02;06;02 - 00;02;40;09

Kyle Hunter

Yeah, and I love that. I mean, I think that's really what resonated. You know, in the industry, unfortunately, there's some agents that maybe don't give the best name to the industry. And, you know, having that care for, you know, really helping buyers and sellers make one of the biggest transactions of their life. You know, that is just a positive, uplifting, feeling for getting someone in their dream home or, you know, helping someone and then the investment side of the business, whatever it might be, you know, it's, you know, very powerful and, you know, glad to have you doing that.

00;02;40;10 - 00;02;46;29

Kyle Hunter

Now, I did want to point out, you actually started a podcast recently, right? Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that.

00;02;47;00 - 00;03;12;24

Troy Palmquist

Yeah. So it's the true crimes of real estate, the ways that real estate agents and brokers of lost are license. It's kind of this cautionary tale, but also true crimes. I think everybody likes American greed and likes to hear of, you know, stuff that's happened. And so I launched this with a friend of mine that was, former her name is Sommer Gorelick, and she was originally a de for the State of California, compliance person and, special investigator.

00;03;12;24 - 00;03;31;04

Troy Palmquist

So she's she has a badge from back in the day when she was an investigator. And, we started as pen pals. She would send me a letter and I would write back to her and, you know, respond back with a binder. Versa full of stuff. And, so we were talking last year and I was like, hey, want to start a podcast?

00;03;31;04 - 00;03;50;14

Troy Palmquist

And I'm like, yeah, I've thought about it, but I didn't want a podcast. That was like everything else. I wanted something that could really help provide education to the consumer, or to the real estate agent or the broker, and help them understand ways that they could actually lose their license through ways that others have. And so we filmed three episodes now.

00;03;50;14 - 00;04;12;19

Troy Palmquist

The first one was a property management company that went awry. And you know, ended up taking a lot of money from the trust accounts, which is, you know, trust accounts are sacred money. And so the first episode launched, it was a lot of fun to produce with her. And I think the education that came from it was, bits of information that everybody could learn from.

00;04;12;19 - 00;04;31;07

Troy Palmquist

And so that's really the goal with that is there's a lot of things that happened in the transaction, and a lot of things that happened within the brokerage space or as an agent that you might not necessarily not know is illegal. Or that you could lose your license for and in fact, you know, here's a way to educate people.

00;04;31;07 - 00;04;59;14

Troy Palmquist

Like I recently learned that if I paid for your windows to be cleaned and you were reimbursing me, but I paid for it on my American Express Platinum card, and I got points for that, that point, that is points and that is secret profit. And I didn't I learned that through this. And if you're making any sort of like revenue points or anything like that, it needs to be disclosed to the person in the other side of the transaction that you're working with.

00;04;59;17 - 00;05;12;02

Troy Palmquist

Yeah. How many agents pay for staging or the power washing or the windows that like, you know, it's it's not disclosed that I got discover cash back or American Express points.

00;05;12;05 - 00;05;34;02

Kyle Hunter

Yeah, I know that one's not. That one's, pretty of a stretch there. But, you know, in being with Lone Wolf and even prior to that, I was with back office, my father's back office, real estate company. He was a broker. But, you know, when you're dealing with the back office, part of the real estate industry, there's a lot of things that go on.

00;05;34;02 - 00;05;56;15

Kyle Hunter

There's a lot of situations that you run into where, you know, brokerages and agents are doing things that they shouldn't do. And I think that it really resonates because, you know, we'll be on the receiving end of, of some legal documents that we need to produce for, whatever the situation is, because basically, you know, there's a lot of things that that can go wrong.

00;05;56;15 - 00;06;11;15

Kyle Hunter

And I think that you doing this and kind of providing that exposure to how, agents and brokerages should be transacting business and keeping aboveboard, you know, you almost need to turn this into a C class and and go all over the country.

00;06;11;21 - 00;06;28;09

Troy Palmquist

That might be the the next thing is the key credit for for it. I think that would actually be really cool. But I think, you know, educating the, the real estate agent about things that they should be aware of at their brokerage level and, you know, educating the broker of things that they might not know about.

00;06;28;11 - 00;06;45;14

Troy Palmquist

I mean, one of my pet peeves is the the is the number, the smallest font size on the signage. It's just a pet peeve for me because I can spot it like that, but there's so much other stuff out there. Like even down to social media. Is your brokerage name in the social media? You know, discreet.

00;06;45;16 - 00;06;46;10

Kyle Hunter

Side.

00;06;46;13 - 00;07;20;05

Troy Palmquist

Number in there. And there's so many different things that I think, you know, we just don't know. And it's unfortunate that it's like you start to know when it's too late. And I think by bringing awareness to compliance and you know, more over like the right technology that can help with compliance because, I mean, there's still a real estate brokerages that keep track of their compliance, you know, and their archives of stuff in a, in a folder or in a Google Drive, not in a transaction software, back office software to help actually keep track of that stuff.

00;07;20;07 - 00;07;41;01

Kyle Hunter

Yeah. No. And obviously, you know, with Lone Wolf having, transaction management and back office, it's near and dear to our heart and something that I think is important. And so, I appreciate that recently, actually, at Inman, a couple of weeks ago, you had a really cool contest, and, and with home court.

00;07;41;01 - 00;07;47;11

Kyle Hunter

So I'd love to hear about home code and kind of how that came about. And, you know, what's your plans? What are you doing with that?

00;07;47;13 - 00;08;09;15

Troy Palmquist

Yeah. So home code's a new, website platform that I launched. It's think of, you know, a real estate directory for technologies, but also Yelp. So I've written for, you know, Inman News and for Housing Wire for a few years, and I wanted to create a place that, real estate agents, you know, didn't necessarily have a paid wall to look at stuff.

00;08;09;15 - 00;08;30;06

Troy Palmquist

And, you know, I love my relationship with Inman and Housing Wire, and I'll never stop writing for them because I think it is, you know, very important. And what they do is important. But like, I wanted to tell the story a little bit differently. And, I, I've seen a lot of technology through my career and, you know, really love looking at the new stuff and looking at a company's roadmap.

00;08;30;06 - 00;08;49;25

Troy Palmquist

And but like, even as a you know, prior broker or as an agent, there wasn't a place that I could go and look and say, okay, I'm looking for this or I'm looking for this. And so then you kind of start googling and looking for stuff and like, you never really know what's out there. And so I wanted to create this directory of product.

00;08;49;25 - 00;09;14;19

Troy Palmquist

And so home code launched as this directory. And then we took it another step forward where we can leave, you know Yelp style peer to peer review. So if you're utilizing a platform and you love it go talk about it. Because what happens is it gives the ability for another person that's looking for something that it might be the right fit for validation, that it's the right thing for them without having to go do a demo, and then being harassed by a sales team.

00;09;14;21 - 00;09;35;25

Troy Palmquist

But then we took it another step forward and really trying to look at, giving the viewers or the readers of these articles and these podcasts that we put on their roadmaps to what other people have done. And so the first interview I did with was Kenny Truong from NXP. He's one of the top teams. They're a team fast.

00;09;35;28 - 00;09;53;10

Troy Palmquist

He's got a couple hundred agents on his team. And we started talking about, you know, what the technologies are that he uses. And he's not necessarily doing the compliance back office piece because he's got a brokerage that does that. But he's got a dozen other products that his agents are using. And so what does adoption look like?

00;09;53;10 - 00;10;14;00

Troy Palmquist

Well, that was it look like to find the right product and really give somebody that's looking at that the roadmap that if they want to build something like that, there's that opportunity and then we did another one with another, team leader that has a team of eight, and they did 100 and something transactions and no paid leads.

00;10;14;00 - 00;10;34;23

Troy Palmquist

All, you know, sphere of influence is favorite product is client giant. And Monday you know okay. And so you really start to look at these different things. And for a real estate team leader or a brokerage or an agent like this is a roadmap that I think I like or I love to emulate this piece of this individual's business.

00;10;34;25 - 00;10;43;13

Troy Palmquist

And so I didn't think that that story had really been told in like a way that resonated with me. And so we built built it out to do that.

00;10;43;15 - 00;11;08;04

Kyle Hunter

Yeah. I mean, I love the idea of peer reviewed, yob style. I mean, I don't know how many times, you know, we're looking up a product and my wife says, hey, well, have you checked the comments? Have you checked the ratings because somebody is going to say something about whatever the thing is, and it's and it's true in real estate, you know, people want to see validation from their peers and people they trust.

00;11;08;06 - 00;11;32;06

Kyle Hunter

And so having that component I think gives, you know, gives the ability for agents to really see a true view of what, you know, what they're about to get into. And it's different for everyone. You know, every, every technology is a little bit different in how they use it, like you said Monday. I mean, that's a generic solution, but if it works, you know, obviously, and that's what that's what matters if it works for them.

00;11;32;08 - 00;11;54;06

Kyle Hunter

Enjoying the Prop Tech Pulse podcast? Don't miss a beat, hit the subscribe button and stay in the loop with all of our latest episodes and hey, if you're loving the content, leave us a review. It really helps us grow and reach more real estate pros like you. Also, don't forget to follow us on our social channels. We're sharing tips, trends, and behind the scenes content you won't want to miss.

00;11;54;08 - 00;12;12;01

Kyle Hunter

Find us on all the social platforms at Get Off! If you were to start a team brokerage today, or let's just say a team, like if you're building a new tech stack and you said, okay, you know, and really like, what kind of components would you be looking at?

00;12;12;03 - 00;12;17;27

Troy Palmquist

I think you have to first look at, you know, where your lead generation business is coming from Legion.

00;12;17;27 - 00;12;19;07

Kyle Hunter

And.

00;12;19;09 - 00;12;24;00

Troy Palmquist

And then kind of build into that. So I think the CRM is.

00;12;24;02 - 00;12;24;17

Kyle Hunter

A.

00;12;24;19 - 00;12;27;19

Troy Palmquist

People ask all the time like what's the best CRM? Obviously it's the one that you're going to.

00;12;27;19 - 00;12;28;12

Kyle Hunter

Use, the one you use.

00;12;28;12 - 00;12;47;10

Troy Palmquist

If you're still using a CRM that's 15 years old and there are ones out there that are using it and you are using it, and switching is going to be cumbersome and it's going to cost you business because it's going to hit. Also don't switch like, but I think that looking at the CRM first is probably the piece that I would really like dive into.

00;12;47;10 - 00;13;12;01

Troy Palmquist

And then from there look at, you know, are we sphere based trying to coach our our agents? Are we trying to coach them through social media? Are we trying to coach them through, you know, inbound lead gen. And I think then I would kind of identify how can I coach them correctly through that and really try and help get engagement because engagement and adoption is the hardest piece.

00;13;12;03 - 00;13;38;24

Troy Palmquist

I mean, you can go sign a contract for a new product and have 100 seats and 100 agents, and you know, that bill doesn't change if 40 of them are using it. So you really do want to get the adoption with it. I think now as you start looking at the evolution of AI with technology and how some of these companies are making it easier to keep track of what's happening with the, you know, the individual person in the CRM.

00;13;38;24 - 00;13;57;02

Troy Palmquist

I think that's really cool. Which is something that wasn't there 5 or 7 years ago. I think that's really cool. And I think it it really does provide value to helping keep track of, you know, where the conversation is with somebody. So I think there's a few different ways you got to look at it if you're building from scratch.

00;13;57;02 - 00;14;07;07

Troy Palmquist

But, you know, I think looking at what the end goal is, and I think fewer products is probably the right way to go if you're starting something and then slowly add stuff to it.

00;14;07;08 - 00;14;14;07

Kyle Hunter

So fewer products, higher adoption, really focus on using what you have. I mean that's important to it.

00;14;14;07 - 00;14;40;16

Troy Palmquist

Is you mean make sure you're getting the use out of it. But I think also like if you were evaluating something from scratch right now, like, you know, products that play well in the sandbox together, I think is the way of the future. You know, Lone Wolf has been, you know, making leaps and bounds movements with being, you know, friendly with everything now, which I think makes you know, the best in class products that Lone Wolf has, you know, obtainable to work with with everything now.

00;14;40;16 - 00;14;55;23

Troy Palmquist

And I think that's great on your guys's part. And I think, you know, looking for those type of products is, you know, as a, as a team or as a brokerage that's, you know, evaluating new stuff is really important because you're going to find stuff that you want to connect and connectivities critical.

00;14;55;25 - 00;15;18;25

Kyle Hunter

Yeah, absolutely. No. And I I'm glad you pointed that out. We do. We did take a different approach. And that is you know, we would love for everyone to use all of our solutions. But we understand that there's different needs in different markets. And so having flexibility and the ability to integrate, you know, definitely, we feel is the best route for the future to get people to, you know, really tie their systems together.

00;15;18;27 - 00;15;36;01

Kyle Hunter

Because at the end of the day, it's about productivity and it's about getting the most use for, you know what, you know, what's going to have help you sell business and brokerages run their one that run their brokerage. So, so what do you think? You know, obviously with home code, you see a lot of tech.

00;15;36;01 - 00;15;51;28

Kyle Hunter

There's a lot of, you know, a lot of people coming in and going. But what do you think is one of the most, maybe overhyped trends or things that maybe, is, you know, being blown up beyond it's useful in right now.

00;15;52;00 - 00;16;22;14

Troy Palmquist

I think just the word AI is kind of played out. I wish there was a way to describe a product different than saying we're I or we do this or we do that, you know, really getting to the core of what the product was, versus saying it's, it's AI. Everything has a component to that now. But realistically, being able to tell somebody what the product, you know, how it's going to impact their customer and how it's going to impact the, you know, agents journey.

00;16;22;14 - 00;16;50;07

Troy Palmquist

Helping that customer, I think, is a better way to say it. But I think there's there's categories, I think that are highly saturated, like photo rendering. And you know, I descriptions, there's a bunch of products in there. And I think that that those kind of categories are still, you know, really looking for the defined leader of who those are going to be in the products that emerge from there.

00;16;50;09 - 00;17;09;17

Troy Palmquist

I think there's a lot with data right now that, you know, how do we utilize the data for propensity models to say, this buyer's likely to purchase this home when they walk into an open house or, you know, this seller in or this person in my database has been, you know, in the database for X amount of years.

00;17;09;17 - 00;17;30;29

Troy Palmquist

And now their propensity model like, oh, they just had a baby. So they just had a baby and they're buying diapers right now. So in nine months from starting to buy diapers based on the Vons records, then they'll be ready to, you know, buy a new house and move. But they also just bought a new flat screen TV, so they're not moving.

00;17;31;02 - 00;17;39;22

Troy Palmquist

Yeah. You know, so I think propensity scoring I think it's one of those things it's really like, you know cool. But I don't think there's really one out there that's crushing it right now.

00;17;39;28 - 00;18;01;17

Kyle Hunter

I agree I think there's an opportunity I mean looking for signals, which there's plenty of them out there. But tying those signals together to really identify when someone is preparing to transact is, you know, it's something we certainly think about and talk about, like, where can we look at all of the data and help, you know, help that help, help identify.

00;18;01;19 - 00;18;19;00

Troy Palmquist

Think about this. If somebody goes to Home Depot and buys a bunch of cleaning supplies, then they go to Best Buy and buy a TV. Are they a buyer or seller or are they staying put? Because most of the time, somebody that goes to Best Buy and buys a flat screen TV, they're hanging it up on the wall.

00;18;19;00 - 00;18;39;04

Troy Palmquist

They're invested in the house, they're not moving. Versus going to Home Depot and buying some light landscaping and some, you know, cleaning supplies. Are they spring cleaning or are they getting ready to list the house? And so you get these little data points that, you know, then layer into, you know, mortgage data. Are they looking at, websites to do a refinance.

00;18;39;04 - 00;19;05;25

Troy Palmquist

Are they getting a credit at pulled? I mean, they're much stronger, you know, potential buyer if they've done that. Are they a buyer or seller. You know, the the diaper curve is something I heard about a long time ago. Somebody does start buying diapers. The likelihood is they're not going to be a seller or a buyer until the baby's a certain age, you know, nine months, 11 months that like that baby's at a point where it's leaving the primary bedroom and going into its own bedroom or nursery.

00;19;05;28 - 00;19;09;10

Troy Palmquist

So that's the point that you start looking at them as a seller or a buyer.

00;19;09;13 - 00;19;37;11

Kyle Hunter

It makes sense. I mean, they start walking. You have stairs, they're dangerous. Yeah, yeah. You need a bigger house. There's too much going on. So yeah, those, those timing signals are you know, super important. And, I think if you can get a hold of it. What mistakes do you see agents making in selecting tech? Like when they go, go out and decide to choose something like, what do you think that, takes them in the wrong direction?

00;19;37;13 - 00;20;03;08

Troy Palmquist

I think you can look at this not just as an agent, but, you know, smaller brokerages or even bigger brokerages or teams. Like, I think that new shiny object really gets people, you know, no matter what it is, I think a good salesperson can really help somebody see what they want them to see. And that's where I think, you know, really having the opportunity to communicate and talk to others that have a product.

00;20;03;08 - 00;20;21;11

Troy Palmquist

Is this really the right product fit for me? But I think the new shiny object, I think people really do like to see the good in a product. But they need to really ask themselves, is the agent going to use it at the brokerage or on the team, or as a single practitioner? Am I really going to use this?

00;20;21;13 - 00;20;41;00

Troy Palmquist

Like because otherwise you're signing up for something that you're going to forget the website and you're going to forget your username or password, like unless you're going into it every day. And so I think that, you know, really making sure that it's not just this new shiny object that that is something that you're actually going to use and it's actually going to impact your business, then it's worth going.

00;20;41;02 - 00;21;06;06

Kyle Hunter

Yeah, it goes back. I had a broker that I was visiting a couple months ago. And, you know, he instructs his agents to cancel their credit cards at the end of every year. And start a new one because you know how many things they've signed up for and they never see it again. Probably not. Good advice, but interesting in that, you know, a lot of times they're, you know, choosing, picking up things that, that they really shouldn't be, you know, putting on their credit card or not.

00;21;06;06 - 00;21;07;06

Kyle Hunter

Just using. Yeah.

00;21;07;06 - 00;21;25;01

Troy Palmquist

But I mean, even that piece, it's, you know, are you running your business like a business or are you just running it on subscriptions? Because, I mean, I think I could tell you exactly how many links subscriptions hit our credit cards because they get all QuickBooks entry. It is, you know, annual subscriptions or monthly like reoccurring things. So I can tell you exactly what I've signed up for.

00;21;25;03 - 00;21;34;13

Troy Palmquist

But I think that, you know, that, you know, is an even bigger conversation is that, you know, are a lot of a lot of people running their business like a business? Are they just running?

00;21;34;16 - 00;21;54;11

Kyle Hunter

Yeah. And that's a great point. How many of them are actually not using, not running their business like they should? Last question. In five years, how do you think technology is going to change the industry? If you were looking into the future?

00;21;54;13 - 00;21;59;03

Troy Palmquist

I think I will have.

00;21;59;05 - 00;22;30;13

Troy Palmquist

Defined it space and where it's going to be and how it's going to be used. I don't think that AI is going to replace the real estate agent. I don't think that a computer can really help people, make the largest investment in their life. You know, quite arguably for most people. Obviously you can look at, you know, the stock market and stuff like that through, you know, historical ways, but being able to really help somebody understand that, like, yeah, this house does check all the boxes for you.

00;22;30;13 - 00;22;57;10

Troy Palmquist

Or maybe you should look at this area or this area or, you know, this or this. I think I definitely has a place I think I really is really good with, you know, looking at data and helping agents understand where their business is at or how they can convert more or where their business is lacking. But I think I has it's, you know, it's spot that it kind of fits into.

00;22;57;13 - 00;23;25;11

Troy Palmquist

But I don't think that technology replaces the human interaction that real estate is whether it's on a brokerage level with their agents, which are their customers, or the agent and the buyer or the seller, like, this is a human relationship, isn't it's like it's hard to, I think replace that. And I think you see that like, you know, technology and, you know, ease of transacting with like, you know, the stock market and how you trade stocks, you know, was replaced.

00;23;25;11 - 00;23;50;26

Troy Palmquist

There's not very many stock brokers anymore. You don't call the trade stocks anymore. It's not going to be that way with real estate. And so I think that, you know, that that human touch is never going to go away. And I just don't think that like in five years that it's it's gone. I think in five years you might have more ways to remember to keep in touch with people and more assisted types of operations.

00;23;50;26 - 00;24;02;06

Troy Palmquist

But I think I as a like catch phrase, will probably be a little less familiar. I think it'll become standard and stuff.

00;24;02;08 - 00;24;23;14

Kyle Hunter

Yeah, no, I to 2.1, I think the AI just vernacular is going to go away and it's going to be, well, this does this and AI component pulls out. And so I agree that'll just be embedded into whatever you're describing. And then yeah, I mean real estate, it's a belly to belly business. Like people want to have that relationship.

00;24;23;14 - 00;24;37;20

Kyle Hunter

They want to see the person they want to interact. And all the other world is not going to be able to take that human relationship away. So I think it's a great point. Yeah. So, Troy, thank you so much for having IRA for, joining the podcast today.

00;24;37;20 - 00;24;39;17

Troy Palmquist

Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah.

00;24;39;20 - 00;24;58;11

Kyle Hunter

Thanks for tuning in to the Prop Tech Pulse podcast. Looking to take your real estate game to the next level? Check out our cutting edge tools. Visit airwolf.com to learn more and see how we can help you succeed. I'm your host, Kyle Hunter, and I'll catch you next time as we continue exploring the future of real estate together.

00;24;58;14 - 00;25;06;01

Kyle Hunter

Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and stay connected. Until then, keep innovating and thriving in the world of real estate.