Tim Street on Selling Smarter Without Relying on Agents - EP30

Tim Street, founder of FoolProof FSBO, joins Steven Weinstock for an in depth conversation about selling real estate with clarity, efficiency, and control. Tim shares his journey from the Marine Corps into real estate, entrepreneurship, and ultimately building a platform designed to help homeowners and real estate investors understand their options when selling property.

This episode explores why selling a home is often the largest financial event of a person’s lifetime, yet many sellers rely on outdated assumptions or default advice. Tim explains how traditional real estate models can introduce friction, delays, and misaligned incentives, and why listing brokers often act as gatekeepers in the transaction process. Steven and Tim discuss real world experiences with listings, buyer behavior, offer evaluation, and how homeowners and investors can make smarter decisions by focusing on efficiency rather than noise.

The conversation also covers how technology has reshaped real estate, why online platforms have changed buyer expectations, and how sellers should think about time on market, carrying costs, and offer structure instead of just headline price. Tim breaks down when selling without an agent makes sense, when it does not, and why understanding psychology and incentives is critical in any transaction.

They also touch on broader topics including mistakes as learning tools, the limits of traditional education, and why practical financial knowledge often matters more than credentials. This episode is especially relevant for homeowners considering selling, real estate investors managing portfolio exits, and anyone who wants a clearer understanding of how real estate transactions actually work today.

Guest Information

Tim Street
Founder of FoolProof FSBO

Main Website
https://foolprooffsbo.com/

Seller Temperament Quiz
https://foolprooffsbo.com/quiz

Investor Resources
https://foolprooffsbo.com/investors

Social Media

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@foolprooffsbo

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/foolprooffsbo

Other Platforms
Tim stated his handle across platforms is foolprooffsbo

🎙 About Steven Weinstock
Steven Weinstock is a real estate investor and founder of WeCapital and the Goethals Capital Fund. Since 2001, he has built a diverse portfolio of residential and multifamily assets while helping investors access passive income through strategic real estate opportunities. On this podcast, he shares real-world insights on investing, capital raising, and what it really takes to build and scale in today’s market.

📩 Want to invest or get in touch?
Visit: www.WeCapitalX.com

📱 Connect with Steven:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevenweinstock1

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wecapitalx/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWealthClockPodcast

Transcript

Steven Weinstock (00:00)
Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the wealth clock with Steven Weinstock. I've been investing in real estate for over 20 years, started off a single family multifamily, now I'm investing in private credit. This show breaks down what actually works, what other people are doing in order to gain wealth in the real estate business and other business ventures. This episode is sponsored by Cable NOI, Net Operating Income.

Tim Street (00:20)
you

Steven Weinstock (00:27)
Cable NOI helps multifamily owners increase their NOI by uncovering hidden cable and internet revenue. Higher NOI without actually raising the rents. Today I have Tim Street. He is the founder of Foolproof FSBO, which stands for For Sale By Owner. Tim helps homeowners treat their primary residents.

like the largest capital event of their lifetime. Tim, thank you for coming on.

Tim Street (00:53)
Steven, I can't tell you what an honor it is to be here. Thanks for having me. I just I love the message you're putting out to people these days, especially now when, you know, there's people having a hard time with money all across the country. It's really good that people realize that there's alternatives out there and you can make really smart decisions that could set you up well for the future. So thanks for including me here.

Steven Weinstock (01:11)
No problem. Wow. Thank you so much for the compliment. appreciate it. Tim, what was your very first job you had as an adult?

Tim Street (01:21)
I was gonna say I was a I was a paperboy, of course, when I was a young kid in Detroit, Michigan. And then I was a cart boy. When I was 14 years old working at the local grocery store. But I'll tell you what I've

I've had some hard jobs before pushing shopping carts through eight inches of snow in middle of Detroit. That was not a great one. That was almost as bad as being a dishwasher. But my first job as an adult, I actually went in the right and Marine Corps out of high school. that was my first, I guess we'd call it a job. And that's where I did a lot of my growing up is right then and there the hard way. It was the best thing I ever did.

Steven Weinstock (01:50)
Okay, that early job, the early jobs you had as a kid, what did that teach you about money?

Tim Street (01:56)
Well, we didn't have any growing up. it was, I always get made fun of at school for wearing shoes from Kmart and never having like the cool designer clothes that a lot of the kids had in my school. it really imprinted on me at a young age that for better or worse, I think it was a bad lesson back then, which was, hey, work hard so you can afford things to be cool.

But what it actually did is it said, listen, you're not going to get anything if you don't work for it. And that was a good lesson to have. And thankfully, multiple things had intervened in my life to where I wasn't out there chasing Lamborghinis. I wasn't out there chasing designer clothes. mean, dude, I shop at Kohl's. This polo probably cost me $15, and I was using Kohl's cash to buy it. All right, so I'm not a fashionista at any stretch. But I have learned to buy appreciating assets, and that's made all the difference in the world.

Steven Weinstock (02:42)
How did you get into real estate? You're in the Marine Corps, you are dedicating your life to our country, our flag, making a modest income on the side or getting paid for it. But you're out, you're in the real world now, or at least in the civilian real world. How did you get into real estate?

Tim Street (03:00)
Yeah, it was interesting. I got into real estate because I had, after the Marine Corps, I became a federal air marshal. And after that, I got into the startup space with my friends, we're creating these startup companies that were super exciting. And these were brilliant guys, but they really weren't good at selling. And what I learned about selling was it's not so much ever convincing anybody of anything. It's about having the...

tools, the tactical empathy to put yourself in their shoes and understand what they want, what they need out of life and figuring out, if my solution fits what they're actually trying to get to, I have to talk to them in a way that helps them realize that because they're going to believe 0 % of what I tell them and 100 % of what they tell themselves. So by getting them to that equation, you know, we had a lot of success. Anyway, after we were so successful, we had several acquisitions. It was awesome. But I got really tired of living at a suitcase and I've got four daughters and at a certain point in life and I'm

teenage girls, need to have a dad in the house. And it was just not going to work for me being at conferences every weekend. So and people are going to start throwing things at the radio when they hear me say this, I decided I want an easier, more calm life. So I decided I would invest in real estate. And boy, was I was that a rather silly thing to do in hindsight. Don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled that I did. But for me to assume it was somehow easier or less chaotic. Boy, what an idiot. So ⁓

Steven Weinstock (04:17)
Yeah. A

lot of people think, you know, real estate is 100 % passive income and it could be in some aspects of it, but most of the time it's not. I remember my first property I purchased was a single family home and I was still working a corporate job and I assumed that I could just buy this one house, pay it off over 30 years and have an extra

retirement asset to sell off when it was time. right away, property management reared its ugly head. And I learned right away this is not passive income. Although I enjoyed it, I had plenty of time to dedicate to it with my corporate job. I was still able to, I was young, I was a kid. And really after two months of collecting rent, I realized, hey, why just one?

why not the second and then a third and a fourth. And that's how I got into it. So what was your first entry into real estate?

Tim Street (05:17)
I was actually sort of an unintentional landlord, so to speak. I got divorced back in 2018. And so it was just me and these two little girls who I love more than anything in the world. And we were we had this massive house and

It didn't make sense for us to live in it. But I also didn't want to give it up because there's a beautiful piece of property. I bought an RV. I parked it off on the side property where nobody could see it. And I actually put the house on Airbnb. And it was a stunning success on multiple levels. Number one, monetarily, was just it was back during COVID, pre-COVID, and then during COVID. I mean, that thing was just rented out.

at insane levels. And number two, my little girls got to learn about how to start a business. That there was a, you know, there's a way beyond a W-2 wage to make your way in this world. And I included that on every step of the process. I even taught them the value of making mistakes. Like I saw them suggest things that I knew weren't going to work, but I let us go down that path anyway, because one of the things that...

you know, I don't love about schools today is they kind of teach kids that making mistakes is horrible. And it's terrible. It's the end of the world. And actually, I've learned some of my most valuable lessons from the big mistakes I made. And a lot of times, as I'm sure you've seen before, Steven, a lot of times when you're successful, all it does is confirm artificial biases that you might have had. And then you continue to go down a path and then a big mistake. And then you're like, God, I'm such an idiot. So that's how I got into this. And then after that, I decided to ⁓

really

go like you said, if not one, why not two, why not three? And in the process of doing that, I realized that the work product I was getting out of most real estate, in fact, all the real estate agents I had worked with was substandard to my expectations. So I spent a weekend, took the class, became a real estate agent, and I started investing in my own properties with myself. And that was a great life hack, to be honest with you. I was able to get right in the door, not having to go through an intermediary. I was able to negotiate my own intentions directly with the seller. It was fantastic.

Steven Weinstock (07:14)
Yeah, I when I started out and I was buying those first few years, I was using a lot of seller financing and I would see two family houses, three family houses with a broker and then I would make an offer. And a lot of times my offer never made it to the seller because either the broker, the real estate broker agent didn't know what seller financing was or they thought it was some sort of scam or they just thought, hey,

you know, this might affect my commission somehow, you know, I'm not going to even bring this. And I found that the brokers, the agents were really big gatekeepers. Later on, I learned to make, you know, prepare a document in LOI and, you know, make two offers, a lowball offer, you know, cash or financing, and then, you know, a second offer that offered seller financing. And I sort of knew that my first offer would probably be rejected.

but it sort of allowed the broker or the agent to now give this document to the seller and the seller would see both of them. And now that would open the conversation and I had a lot of success that way. And in the early years, I bought a lot of property using seller financing. Back then there was a lot of seller seconds. know, a house was going for, you know, hundred grand. I'd be able to get a loan for 75 or 80.

And the seller would hold, you know, 10%, 15%, sometimes 20 % for a short period of time. And I bought a lot of property that way, especially pre 2008. And it worked out for me very well. And it really taught me a lot. And I've used that seller financing, knowledge, creativity into my larger multifamily deals that I'm doing. I know someone selling a $10 million property, I'll always ask the seller, you know,

Tim Street (08:55)
you

Steven Weinstock (08:55)
stay

in, stay in somehow, either as an LP investor, keep some money in the deal. And I always love having the sellers remain in the deal, not just because it makes the equity portion a little easier, but because it gives me like a historical advantage, knowledge of the property. And they're now my partner. And it always meant well when a seller was willing to stay.

Tim Street (08:57)
you

you

Steven Weinstock (09:23)
because they had confidence in the property itself. So that always worked out. You mentioned about schools not teaching about mistakes. I agree with you. Schools, obviously there's tremendous problems with our school system. They don't teach about money. They don't teach about credit score. They don't teach about investing. It's all about just knowledge. So you can get a W-2 and be a solid citizen. And you mentioned mistakes.

Tim Street (09:43)
you

Steven Weinstock (09:48)
One early on, one of my investors asked

me, I don't want to hear about your successes. Tell me about some of your mistakes. And it really like threw me for, know, because I had this whole script prepared of, you know, this success and that success. And I must have said it, you know, 20, 30 times to other people. And he really got me thinking like, oh, wow, mistakes. Am I embarrassed to say it or, you know, and now I sort of embrace it. And part of my

Tim Street (09:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Weinstock (10:14)
script, so to speak, is mentioning some of the mistakes and how I overcame it. If I didn't overcome it, you know, it's a conversation, but I definitely agree with you over there. So tell me about your company. You're the founder of a company called Foolproof FSBO. For everyone out there, FSBO stands for For Sale By Owner. I remember the first time I saw the term FSBO.

Again, when I started in real estate, it was 2001. It was really like pre-internet in terms of real estate. And like on these message boards, I would see FSBO and I never knew what it meant and it took me a while to figure it out. But I think now everybody with everything online and we have all internet language and acronyms and stuff like that. FSBO is a regular word. But tell me about foolproof FSBO, how you got into it, what you're doing, et cetera.

Tim Street (11:01)
Yeah, first, I first I have to say something that that was like, I think probably how many years seven years of multifamily investing advice in about 30 seconds that you just gave I am I absolutely am so enamored with with something you said, which is having somebody stay on in the deal. means they're not

Steven Weinstock (11:09)
Thanks.

Tim Street (11:19)
writing running all the way to the bank saying haha sucker and then leaving the country it's such a great comfort level to know that you bought an asset that they still believe so number one kudos on that and number two it's just so smart to let people think out alternatively like that because right now people think oh in order to buy a house i have to come up with 20 down and then i have to go through underwriting have to go and you're like no you don't no actually here's here's here's the life hack so

I'm glad you're spreading that message. It is so important, especially these days. When people have a difficult time selling, which they are right now, by the way, they're hitting the 40 % of the market that has a W-2 job. They're ignoring the 60 % of the high earners out there who maybe are commission paid or maybe they're self-employed. So they write everything off and they look like a terrible investment on paper. But in reality, they're much more financially disciplined than my neighbor, the plumber who gets a W-2 job. So yeah, kudos for you on

So as far as what I do at foolproof FISBO, I teach homeowners and investors how to sell a home the most efficient way possible. And right now, I'll tell you, one of the least efficient ways possible is to use

somebody like me, a real estate agent. here's why. Number one, I don't know much about your home, whereas you are the subject matter expert on that house. You've maybe woken up in that home, you've gone to sleep in that house, you've replaced the bathroom, you've worked on the tile, you've watched Fourth of July fireworks from the backyard. You can tell stories upon stories about that property. I, on the other hand, as a real estate, I walk through that house 30 minutes and I say, cool, nice countertops, let's get this thing on the market. The second thing that people have to understand is these

it's not just a question of commissions because if that's all it was, I would tell you that.

actually the majority of the time it is better to sell with a real estate agent because the commissions aren't insanely that high when you realize the work that they're doing behind the scenes, which I used to think was nothing until I became a real estate agent. I realized, wow, there is a lot of work to do. It's kind of like my misperception about being a real estate investor. There's a lot of work that goes into it. Sure, there are some out there who don't do what they're supposed to do and they definitely leave a bad reputation for the rest of us. But the reason you should be able to every bit as good, if not better than real estate agents selling your house is not only,

the subject better, but you're going to be more efficient. You're going to have less time on market, which means less carrying costs. You're going to be able to execute on the opportunity that you're going into. So that means less opportunity costs that you can't get involved in. And here's the big thing that very few people think about as an investor. I know that every dollar I have is leveraged. Maybe it's five, 10, 100 times what it is. So if I'm able to save $30,000 on a sale, it's, you know, as a retail guy, you know, moving to my net. Sure. Maybe that's a down payment on

in the next house, maybe it's a kitchen remodel, I don't care. But as an investor, that's maybe three, four, five other houses that I've leveraged 100X on that money that I'm able to now get involved in all because I didn't take the default route and use a real estate agent. So that's really what I try to get through to people is there's a whole new world out there and people think it's difficult, it can be, but when you follow my system, a step-by-step process.

If you're a real estate investor, my God, you have all the qualifications in world plus some to be able to sell your own properties.

Steven Weinstock (14:23)
Yeah, no, I feel that when it comes to real estate investors, there's a lot more FSBOs going on than with homeowners. That's just my little sample size that I see. I'm sure you could speak more to that. With your company, are you targeting or dealing more with real estate investors or homeowners themselves, or is it just a mix?

Tim Street (14:42)
It's really as a mix because the message to both groups is radically similar. I would just say that when I talk to my fellow real estate investors, I become a little bit more passionate about it because of the leverage question. It is so much more advantageous for us to save a dollar on a liquidation than it necessarily is for my mom and dad who are lovely people.

They're retired. They're just going to take that money and maybe roll it into a 401k. Okay, that's fine. But my fellow investors are going to take that dollar, multiply it by 100 and have $100 of buying power to their next project.

Steven Weinstock (15:11)
Do other real estate agents hate you when you meet them and talk to them?

Tim Street (15:16)
It's funny the the the insecure ones who are

Yes, they do. The real professionals. So my wife is a real estate agent. My best friend up in Detroit, he's a real estate agent. know, Bobby Neely, he every year donates thousands of dollars every year just to get school kids backpacks. Like these are really, really fine people. And we as real estate agents have a big reputation problem because, you know, a lot of times the bottom 10 % in any organization tends to be the loudest. And so you have all sorts of people out there

kind of making people feel that real estate agents are to get them, that they're just trying to get an easy dollar. And yes, 100%, everybody's guilty of that to a certain degree. What I will say though, is when I speak to real estate investors, real estate agents or homeowners, they all will admit.

that sometimes this is a good idea. And I'll be the first one to admit, by the way, Steven, that sometimes selling your home on your own could be the stupidest idea. I'll give you a couple of examples. Number one, if the home is subject to any kind of illegal procedure, let's say it's in middle of a divorce or there's an estate, like a probate function, or perhaps there's a judgment against a home.

Do not try to sell that home yourself, write that check to that real estate agent and laugh your butt off because they're going to go through legal hell for you trying to get that thing sold. Another reason that wouldn't make sense is, I don't know, you're a cardiologist and you're making $30,000 a day. Are you really going to listen to a guy like me say, hey, Chuck, go ahead and take the week off work so you can save $20,000 in commissions and sell your house yourself? Obviously not. So there are certain circumstances where it doesn't make sense to sell by owner, but.

the really good real estate agents out there, the ones who are at the top of their game, understand a couple of things. Number one, a lot of people go out to sell by owner and they ultimately fail and they need a soft landing. And the best way to give somebody a soft landing is to not sit there the whole time and say, hey, you'll never do this. You'll never be successful. You know, I'll be here when you fail. That is such stupid advice to give to people. Give people the opportunity to succeed. And if they succeed, pat them on the back and if they can't be there for them when they fail. the good real estate agents

They tend to love what I'm doing because I'm giving people a soft landing and a path to ultimately get to a real estate agent who cares. But the other ones that are very short sighted, they have that scarcity mindset. They think I'm somehow taking food out of their mouth. And it's like, I got news for you, pal. Those people were never gonna use you anyway. So don't be mad at me. Work on your own game.

Steven Weinstock (17:29)
Where do you, what do you think of like Zillow and these websites now that are not just a listing service anymore, but they're sort of getting involved in more aspects of it. I spoke to a relative of mine. She was older. She is probably now about 70, but I spoke to her about five years ago and I asked her about, you know, Zillow and she said, she hates it. I said, why? She said, we used to be the gatekeeper. You know, the MLS was

hours only and no one could see it. It was really proprietary. It used to be easy. We just get a listing and we put on the MLS and now all the buying brokers have access to it. But with Zillow, I'm getting calls from tire kickers. I'm getting calls from people just looking at it online. People see more product. I want to show this house to a potential homeowner, but they're saying, no, I saw two others on Zillow.

You know, granted this relative of mine was from an older generation. Real estate agents today, do they like all these Zillows and realtor.coms and all that? Does it help them? Does it hurt them? Do they think Zillow is encroaching on them? What do you think?

Tim Street (18:37)
I think they do. I think they do have a distaste for Zillow. And there's a number of reasons for that. One of the things I would respectfully say to your relative is I'm sure there were lots of folks who were making horse buggies who were rather angry at Henry Ford when he came out with the Model T, but that's progress. And to sit there and lament for the old days where we were able to gatekeep.

That's not a good answer. The market is always going to find its way around inefficiencies. And like it or not, real estate agents have been, in some circumstances, continue today to be an inefficient means of getting the job done. As you experienced yourself, Steven, how shameful is it that you could put together an offer that truly would have benefited a seller?

better than any offer they got. And it wasn't even presented to them because the real estate agent didn't understand seller financing. That happened to me. would, when I would represent it. So I do understand seller financing and I'm a huge, huge fan of it, especially in these days when interest rates are so high and it's so hard to get approval from the ridiculous underwriting standards. you know, I had a person, their house was sitting in the market for like six months. They gave up on their old agent. I called them up and I gave them a new plan and it,

Again, he was one of these people that just said, I need 500k for this house. Listen, first things first, the market doesn't care what you need for the house. It doesn't care what you want for the house. It doesn't care that you've got four little girls in college next year. They don't.

care. The market cares about comparison shopping and if it can find a three bath two bed 1800 square foot house in this neighborhood at a cheaper price than yours, it's going to get first priority. And I'm sorry, that's the way the world works. But this guy had this house sitting on the market. Well, I had an investor come to me and they offered full price, but they had to carry the note for I think three or five years, something like that. It was it was such a great

deal for this guy. And you know, he wouldn't go for it. He would not use like, I can't do that. I can't. He didn't need the money. He didn't. It's not like he needed all of that money to pay for his next house. He just refute. He felt it was risky. So he ended up taking a deal. I want to say he had his house was maybe worth 400 and he had listed at five. I think he might have ended up taking 380 for it when he could have had 500.

full price, was just, it was frustrating. anyway, real estate agents are never gonna be as efficient as going directly to the seller or directly to the buyer. And that's just, that's the nature of game. I don't like gatekeepers. I don't wanna be one. And that's why I'm kind of taking what I do. I just give away for free now. I give it to everybody. It's like, here, use my system and let's get it done.

Steven Weinstock (21:05)
You know, I used to drive around certain neighborhoods, I guess they call it driving for dollars. And, you know, I was looking at for sale signs, know, for sale by owners, I would quickly write down and call if I saw a house with a real estate broker agent sign on it. And when I first started, I was sort of loyal to my one broker. So I would see a house that, you know, said a different broker's name and I would say, OK, tell me about this house, et cetera.

And after being in the business a while, I realized that the listing broker who basically controls the deal somewhat would be a little, I hate to use the word selfish. And if they have two offers, if their listing price is 500,000 and they have an offer from a different broker at 500, or if they have an internal offer at 500, they're going to take theirs and they might not even present the other one because they don't have to split the commission.

Tim Street (21:55)
Yep.

Yep. you

Steven Weinstock (21:58)
And sometimes, you know, the house can be listed for 500. You know, they'll have their own offer at 490 and then from another broker at 505. And they still might not

present it because, I can control the deal. I know the buyer. I'm in control. And it got to the point where anytime I saw a property for sale, I would only call the listing broker. You know, I would bypass my own broker, you know, and I feel bad, but, you know, I want the deal.

Tim Street (22:10)
Yep.

Right.

Steven Weinstock (22:25)
And I was just calling all these signs and making my offers directly with them. And I just felt that, I guess once you have a listing broker, you're sort of a gatekeeper into the deal. it definitely, I say ruined my relationship, but it just dissolved my relationship with my existing brokers that have bought me deals in the past.

Tim Street (22:25)
you

Yeah.

It's in you shouldn't necessarily feel bad about I mean, it's not like, you know, we live in the real world. And we understand that everybody's incentives are going to be aligned, not necessarily parallel to each other. you know, when I see people trying to work around market, I mean, hell, Steve, that's why I got my license. You know, I don't know, I don't know how much more disloyal I could be then, because I was I was so bad that I was like, I dislike all of you so badly, I'm gonna become one of you.

It was just funny, but as you saw, I mean, you saw this yourself. You actually had to start preparing your own marketing sheets. Where you're like, I'm gonna hand them to it, which is genius, by the way. You say, I'm gonna make this so simple that.

even the real estate agent can't pretend they don't know what the benefit is here. So like doing things like that, you just, there's people who are going to lament that, hey, this world is unfair and boy, all these hoops we have to jump through, or there's gonna be successful people who have made mistakes in their life. They realize coloring outside the lines is okay. And then they're going to say, listen, I'm gonna get this deal done come hell or high water. I'm gonna get my point across. And the only reason that this deal isn't going to work is not because the seller didn't know about it.

just because they didn't like it, which is totally acceptable. That's a fine outcome. Much more preferred than this agent who, in my opinion, they're committing malpractice by not even presenting the deal in the first place.

Steven Weinstock (23:58)
You know, when I used to look for deals, you know, on the one to four space, I would look at listings that were nearing their six month mark. You know, typical agreements were six months and I would, you know, find the owner's number somehow, probably like two weeks left. And I would say, hey, I'm an investor in the area. I've driven by your property a few times. However, I don't like to deal with brokers.

Tim Street (24:09)
yeah.

Steven Weinstock (24:24)
That was what I said. didn't mention because I want to save money. I just don't like to deal with brokers. If your deal expires, I see it's been on the market for a long time. Here's my number. I'm definitely interested. And it's a numbers game. And here and there, I was able to get them to call me back and able to buy some deals really at a discount, saving the 30, 40, whatever it was on it because the broker was out of the picture.

Tim Street (24:42)
That's awesome. Yeah.

Steven Weinstock (24:49)
In New Jersey, which is primarily where I buy the one to fours, the brokers, the agents have a very large role in the closing. I live here in New York. I'm born and raised in New York City. when I bought some, I'm not really an investor here, but I happen to own some stuff here. And the brokers here are really almost like hands off. It's really all the attorney that deals with everything. And in New Jersey, was like the broker dealt with everything. The attorney just.

you know, showed up, you know, to get paid and look over the contract and that's it. It was the brokers that really just handled everything. I believe the real estate agent broker course or test in New Jersey is much, much tougher than New York, I for that reason. That's just, you know, some of my history. What does your company, Foolproof FSBO,

What they actually give sellers that maybe they would never normally see on their own?

Tim Street (25:40)
Sure. So one of the things I like to do is remind people that depending, regardless of whether you need to work with a real estate agent because of your circumstances of your home or the circumstances of your personal lifestyle, whether you do that on your own or whether you don't do it on your own, we're still going to save you tens of thousands of dollars. So the first thing we give homeowners and investors is clarity. I want you to know exactly what you're giving up by selling with an agent.

And sometimes you're not giving up hardly anything at all. And it makes sense to sell with an agent. And sometimes you're giving up so much more that you didn't even realize, in which case it does make sense to sell your own. Like I think of folks like my parents again, I bring them up because they're amazing people. They're retired. My dad still mows his own lawn. He changes, he's a bigger man than I am. And you know, they love DIY projects. They'll build a deck off the back of the yard for fun.

They're in their 70s, they're crazy. But like they're so motivated and so cool. They will absolutely do, they will sell by owner every single time that it's been given an option because they can, they're capable. So I give people like that clarity, but for those who go through and they find out, hey listen, I'm not set up for this.

What do I do now? I still have the option for them. I actually have a network of real estate agents across the country. I've pre-negotiated their commissions down. all I'll do is I'll say, hey, Bob, this is my friend, Steven. He's got a house he wants to sell. Please take care of him. And Bob's going to still sell at a reduced commission, full service listing. So whether you sell by owner or sell with an agent, if it's one of my agents, you're still going to save tens of thousands of dollars either way you go. And the best way to figure that out is my website is foolprooffisbo.com.

That's foolprooffsbo.com and then you go forward slash quiz. So foolprooffsbo.com forward slash quiz. I created, it's like a two minute seven question quiz. And it's going to tell you the brutally honest truth. Hey, you're a great candidate for doing this on your own. Click here to find out more or hey, this is not the right spot for you. Here's why, but we can still help you. And that's where we send you through the agent route.

Steven Weinstock (27:34)
You know that URL is a great URL. Was that available just when you were searching for it or did you have to buy it?

Tim Street (27:39)
Yeah, yeah,

I didn't have to buy it. Yeah, I was was very fortunate.

Steven Weinstock (27:43)
Wow, okay, okay. So let's go back into your business for a second. So just walk me through it for my audience and for myself. I own a house. It's a two family house. I am an investor. I'm not a homeowner. know, this is, you know, I'm a mountain top investor, as they say. I don't want to pay a commission. I want to do it myself. I find this podcast and I reach out to you. Give me some of the steps. What's my next few steps? know, I...

Okay.

Tim Street (28:10)
Yeah, the very first step is just either take the quiz, which again, I think is probably going to be the best thing for you.

After you take the quiz, we're going to be in touch and we're going to say, Hey, it looks like you were a good fit for this. Click this button to learn more about our program and the program we have. And actually I'll say this upfront. I legitimately do give this away for free. I was a great real estate agent. I got my sellers above asking price. Every time we tried selling, we were usually off the market in the first weekend. And I was that way because of my background in the startup space. had to learn negotiations and putting deals together. It was a boiler room type of situation.

It was a lot of pressure. But because of that, I I approach the market far different than any other real estate agent does. So we almost always had bidding wars on our properties. And it was not because we had prettier photos or we use more flowery language. It's because we understood consumer psychology. And I understood the best way to get a crowd in front of a bar is to put a velvet rope across it and make it exclusive. And that's what we effectively did with our homes. We made them hyper exclusive. You had to really work hard to get a showing.

you had to be there on a, had two hour slots for open houses. And I mean, it was chaos in the driveway. People were fighting over parking. There was people like squeezing past each other in the hallways, which is what I wanted. When you do this right, it's when you, if you've ever had a child and you see one, two of them fighting over a toy that's been completely ignored in the closet for the last six months, it's because there's one thing and they both not want it. Cause they saw the other person went in this guess we did not grow that we're all babies inside still.

And so we will still start emotionally bidding and pursuing an asset when we see other people are interested in it. So I teach that. I teach my investors and my homeowners today how to make your home exclusive. How do we spike interest in it? How do we strategically under price it in a way that it gets bid back up beyond what you wanted for it in the first place? We're effectively hacking consumer psychology and getting people to overpay for the house.

And by teaching people how to do that, not only are we selling faster and for more money, we're allowing people this tool that they're now going to have for rest of their life. every other time they're going to liquidate out of a real estate asset, whether it's my mom and dad who might do it one or more two times in their life, or a real estate investor who's got a portfolio and he's swapping it over every seven years or five years, whatever, he's going to be able to do this forever. And that's what gets me the most exciting. It's the ripple effect of what we're creating in the back end.

Steven Weinstock (30:35)
Your company, is it a flat fee? it commission based? What's your pricing structure?

Tim Street (30:41)
Yeah, there's absolutely no commission. If people want to learn how to do this, they could do it for free. Just follow, just go on my YouTube channel and watch what do. Now, Steven, I do have people who say, Tim, I don't have time to watch, to binge watch 100 hours of YouTube chat. I need a course for those people. And for one on one coaching with me, I built a blueprint. It's $397. And it comes with the can't lose guarantee. The can't lose guarantee says this, if you buy my course, you put your house on the market and we don't sell it

by owner, not only do I refund your money, but I also then, once again, at my expense, go through, find a real estate agent in your area. If I don't have one, introduce them to you. They'll list it full service for you, and they'll get you sold at a drastically reduced commission. So that's kind of my guarantee. You just literally cannot lose with this.

Steven Weinstock (31:27)
Wow. Okay, Tim, outside of real estate, do you do for fun?

Tim Street (31:31)
Man, I'll tell you, I've so I've remarried. We listen, I now have four kids. And so my entire life is just being I'm so blessed. I get to be home with my kids. My oldest girl is now in college. She's a mechanic, studying to be a mechanical engineer. And then my younger one, she's already the the team captain and the MVP of her swim team as a sophomore. And she's swimming varsity swimming. She's amazing. My next little one, she's into volleyball. The next little one's actually

She's thinking she's going into theater. So I mean we've got a crazy house over here, but this is this is literally my life I mean I joke around even the dog is a freaking girl in this house. I am so outnumbered here, dude But yeah, it's it's a beautiful beautiful life. I spend every waking moment. I can just

being thankful for this beautiful life that God's given me and that I have this amazing family that I get to watch grow in front of my eyes. That's kind of where I am. Motorcycles, airplanes, boating, all that stuff is fun. I'm into all of it. But when it comes down to it, my happy spot is being at home with my wife and kids.

Steven Weinstock (32:33)
What's one number sellers should care about more than price?

Tim Street (32:38)
Oh, God, that's a great question. So the a lot of people when they see offers come in the front door, and I think you kind of touched on this earlier, Steven, they get fixated on the top line number, like how much am I getting? But what you have to realize is there's contingencies with every offer. So a $490,000 cash offer that's going to close in seven days is far more valuable than a $510,000 offer that's contingent upon the buyer selling their existing home first. And oh, by the way, they have to get approved for finance.

And by the way, and by the way. So the number that most people should be concerned with this is definitely not necessarily and only the offer price. There's a lot of numbers that go in behind that. And that is so important to be cognizant of because I want people to think about if it takes.

an extra 60 or 90 days to sell a home. Let's say you're carrying costs for mortgage, insurance, utilities, let's just call it 2,500 for easy math. That's $7,500 out the window that you will never see again because you chose to take what you believed looked like a higher offer, but in essence, because it took so much longer to close, it actually ended up losing or maybe breaking even on it. so that's a great thing to keep in mind. Don't just get fixated on that top number. Figure out what they're actually saying throughout the rest of the offer.

and then make sure you're comparing apples to apples.

Steven Weinstock (33:56)
When you're not busy with the kids, busy with work, busy with boating or motorcycling, watching any good TV or any great TV shows or movies, it could be old. What's your favorites? What have you binged in the past? If we were having a beer together, what would you tell me to watch?

Tim Street (34:03)
Hahaha.

man, my favorite movie that I must have seen. There's two I've watched over and over and over again on repeat. The Big Lebowski is one of my favorites and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I love those two. And then, you know, there's some other outliers out there that I just think were cool from a weird perspective like Magnolia, Vanilla Sky, No Country for Old Men. Like those were all cool. But in pretty much any Tarantino movie. Yeah, I'm going to watch that as well.

Steven Weinstock (34:21)
So, so, so.

Yeah, Magnolia was pretty good. I saw Fear and Loathing at the theater. I remember the time I didn't like it, but I saw it afterwards on cable and obviously it became a cult classic. ⁓

Tim Street (34:43)
wow.

Same same

thing. I the first time I saw it couldn't I was like this makes no sense to me and then like took a couple times but yeah Wow

Steven Weinstock (34:59)
At the time, never heard of, what was his name, It's based on, I his name, the writer, Andre Thompson. At the time, I never heard of him. I was a kid, I guess, when the movie come out, maybe in the year 2000, give or take, maybe late 90s. But, you know, for the most part, I was a kid, so I didn't know who he was. I think I found out about him afterwards, but definitely, definitely a good movie. I guess last question, what's the worst advice that you hear?

Tim Street (35:04)
Hunter Thompson. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Steven Weinstock (35:25)
constantly.

Tim Street (35:25)
Oof. Gosh.

It comes from my parents' generation, which hurts me to say because I love my parents so much. the generation, the time and age that, you know, my mom and dad, graduated high school in 1970. And they grew up in a much different world than guys like you and I did. And so the predominant advice back then from my very well-meaning parents and their generation in general is get good grades in school.

study hard, go to college, get a job. If you do that in 2026 and you get good grades in a school, you probably haven't learned much. You've learned how to regurgitate information, but you probably haven't done much learning and there's a difference.

If you go to college for a degree that you probably don't need these days, you're now $110,000 in the hole after four years. And now that the government owns that student loan, there's no bankruptcying your way out of it. They're going to pursue the end of the world. They're gonna garnish your wages to pay that back. It's a bad day for you. And so my parents mean well when they say things like that, but that's some advice that I kind of try to have to counter with my children today. And I say, listen, everybody who tells you that, they want to see you succeed.

but they did grow up at a different time than we do. And here's the reality. And I'm a lot more, I'm a lot more realistic about things, I think, where it's, it's not necessarily, no, there's nothing wrong with good grades. There's nothing wrong with studying hard. I love the habits that it establishes, but it used to be that you just got good grades for the sake of having a 4.0. Well, now it's far more important to walk out of school with a 2.0, but being understanding of how to actually build real wealth, real success, balance a checkbook that it necessarily does to have great grades.

Steven Weinstock (37:05)
I agree. I agree. I'm college age. One of my kids is college age and I'm conflicted. It's hard for me to tell them, hey, it might be a waste. It's one thing you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, but just to go, there's almost like, I guess, an education bubble these last 30 plus years. used to be a manager at Walgreens 30 years ago. You needed a high school diploma and

Tim Street (37:14)
Yeah. Amen.

Steven Weinstock (37:29)
be a decent person. And because education became so easy to attain, now they make you have a college degree to be the manager of a Walgreens, let's say. And I'm just picking Walgreens. Now the job didn't change, and there's nothing you're really learning in your English Lit class at community college that helps you with the job. But since college became so easy and it's so out there,

Tim Street (37:42)
Yeah, yeah.

Steven Weinstock (37:54)
And there's so many loans and grants that just make you almost waste your time going. I guess it's the HR department's way of just weeding out, I hate to say it, the losers, so to speak. It's like, it's the same thing almost, didn't graduate high school. It could be 60 years ago, you didn't even need a high school diploma to be the manager of a grocery store. But just because it becomes so easy and it's so, they just assume.

Tim Street (38:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah.

Yep.

Steven Weinstock (38:19)
you're a loser if you didn't graduate high school and you didn't graduate college. And I know with some other degrees, know, it used to be, you know, the undergrad degree was enough and now it becomes the master's and then becomes a PhD. And it's just constant, constant, constant. And really what it delays is it delays this person from like getting into the real world where someone getting into the real world at 18, you know, making a decent wage might be better off having that five years of work experience before him.

Tim Street (38:38)
That's it.

Steven Weinstock (38:48)
So by the time he's 25, he's ahead of the game. Instead of somebody with great grades in English literature coming out of college at 25, he's in debt. And what's he going to do? Now get a starting job. So yeah, I'm very conflicted about that.

Tim Street (39:06)
Yeah, I I had the same conversation with my kids. was like, look, if you're going into a field, law, medicine, engineering, something where you actually have to have a degree, I'll support you 100%. But if you want to start a business, do not go get an MBA. Start a freaking business and fail and start another one and fail and fail seven times. And by the time you hit number eight, by the time you hit number 10, you are going to have done that within 19, 20 months.

your friends will still be at your peer group will still be at school taking Spanish 101 and you're learning about profit and loss. You're learning about tax rules. I mean, start the best way to start a business is to start and fail at 10 of them. And then it has nothing to do with an MBA. And I'm not discrediting anybody's college out there. God bless you if you went to school and you want to do great things. Good for you. I love it. But I know from my own experience and I know from watching other people do it, it is very, very hard to get a good start in life.

when you're six figures in the hole and you're starting with zero experience at the age of 23. That is just a real, real tough sell these days.

Steven Weinstock (40:08)
Yeah, Tim, this was a great conversation for everyone listening. Tell everyone how they could get in touch with you, email phone number, website, social media. I'll put it in the show notes, but tell us.

Tim Street (40:19)
You're the best, Steven. again, folks, go to foolprooffizbo.com forward slash quiz, take the temperament quiz. Now for my investors out there like me, I actually have an investor power pack I built especially for us. So if you go to foolprooffizbo.com forward slash investors, it tells us about what does it mean to actually sell by owner? What does it mean to take full control of your sale? You can follow me on all the socials. Again, all of my handles are very simple. It's foolprooffizbo. So on YouTube foolprooffizbo. If you go to Facebook, I'm foolprooffizbo. Check me out on there.

I publish everything I do for free. You don't ever have to pay me a dime. I'm thrilled to help you though. Reach out to me, email me, contact me through those sites. If you ever find yourself in a scenario where if something doesn't sound right, it doesn't fit right, give me a shout. I help everybody. This is literally what I do full time now.

Steven Weinstock (41:03)
All right, Tim, thank you very much. Thanks for tuning into the Wealth Clock with Steven Weinstock. Like, subscribe, share, and reach out if you know someone else who should be a guest. Tim, adios.

Tim Street (41:05)
It's good.

Adios, thank you

sir, have a good one.