Let's Talk Real Estate (feat. Jonathan Brockman)

In this episode, we sit down with Jonathan Brockman to break down what really goes on behind the scenes in real estate. From the role of inspectors and how inspection lists can impact a deal, to understanding paperwork and what it actually means to be a realtor — we cover it all.

We also dive into how to properly interview your agent, what to look for when buying or selling, and tips that can save you time, money, and stress throughout the process.

Whether you’re a first-time homebuyer, thinking about selling, or just curious about the real estate world, this episode is packed with insight you don’t want to miss.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, my peoples. Robert the Realist back today with another podcast. It's a little different today. Our co-host Madison on her first day of being a co-host is sick. So we'll have to heck a little bit about that. But we do have Gia. Hi. Who is going to be um, I don't know, what's your title? Marketing Marketing Manager? Marketing Manager for the Hig Group on insurance and real estate cybos. So she's filling in today, and then we have a realtor with us today that is a realtor for uh Hig Realty Group powered by EXP Jonathan. Hello. Brockman. Um the one and only. Yeah, and he volunteered himself to come on the podcast. I didn't even have to make him.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

So no forcing today.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

No forcing today, um, nor is he getting paid. So here we are. But today I thought the subject that Jonathan wanted to talk about was is pretty important, and I don't know how much in detail we'll go on each subject, but he wanted to talk a little bit about, and I'm gonna probably plug in there, and then we'll let Gia be a consumer if she's got some questions, on kind of the uh what do we want to call it? The behind the scenes, behind the scenes, all the unseen things. Yeah, the ins and outs, the behind the scenes, all the things that go on to possibly have an open house or to get a listing ready or to get um or be a buyer's representative or a buyer's agent. Because I think a lot of times in the I think it's I think I figured up, I thought it was three, but almost four years I've been doing this. Um we don't just throw signs in the front yards. Uh there's a lot that goes in and out of it. So out of uh open houses, listing houses, and helping buy houses, which one do you want to start with?

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Well, let's start with uh listing houses, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Okay. I am the person who wants to sell my house. So what do we gotta do?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Well, if you want to sell your house, and I'm probably gonna get a little bit of information from you first, who you are. I'm gonna verify how motivated to sell you are, and then I'm probably gonna do a little bit of research about the property you're trying to sell before I have a meeting with you and go over you know all the details, explain all the paperwork. There's a lot. Yeah. And you know, uh meet with the seller, you know, discuss price, and have them educate me about their property so that I know it as well as they do. That way I can educate uh anyone else who comes along just as well. Um, you know, go over our marketing plan, discuss open houses, which we'll get to eventually, and hopefully sign some paperwork, talk about pictures and staging and what to expect from showings and other agents, maybe talk about the market, what it's doing at the moment, hopefully run some comparables before you go and meet with the seller so you can say, hey, yeah, this is what's really happening, you know. Give them solid information to know, you know, what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Paperwork. So let's go back to let's go back to paperwork. How many let's just guess? I don't really know. I know I've got the templates created, and I know it's one, two, three, four, five, six, six to eight forms. But how many pages do you think that is that they that do you have to put together for them to sign to even list their house?

SPEAKER_02 3:38

I think a normal listing, and it also depends on if there's a pond, if there's a subject tank, if there's you know, um, how much acreage is there? There's some factors because there's extra paperwork you have to fill out depending on, you know, well I know the template that we have created for listings. Probably 16 forms. Maybe more. And there's disclosures. Yeah, seller's disclosure is like, I don't know, six or eight pages by itself, I think.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah, we do have to remember that the contracts are written by attorneys and then we're sued by the same attorneys who write it, so that might get me in trouble. But um, let's face the facts. So let's talk about pricing somebody's home. What do you what do you think the best avenue is to price somebody's home?

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Well, the first thing would be, well, there's a couple things. You want to go look at the property in person and maybe discuss with them any improvements they've made since they purchased it, you know, what they paid for it, and then you're gonna want to really run some comparables of properties that are as similar as you can find, that are listed currently, either pending or sold. And hopefully within the past, you know, three to six months, if you can't find anything, then you go back farther and kind of spread out more. But you want to find other properties that are similar and just you know see what they're selling for, see what they have sold for, so you can get an average of what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Trick question. Do you ask the sellers if they have a price in mind? Well, they always do. So I guess it wouldn't be a trick question, probably more of an opinion. Yeah. Yeah, they always do. Yeah, they always do. They always do. Tell you how much they owe.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

And sometimes it depends on you know if they're selling their house to buy another house. Yeah. Sometimes they might list their house at a certain number and then they might get more motivated to sell a little lower if they find something that's you know more affordable to move into.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

So that goes back to your timeline, yeah, which is important based off of what's their next chapter. That's what I like to call it chapters.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

That's another important part of the research, is figuring out where they're gonna go next. Are they downsizing, are they upsizing, are they relocating? You know, are they moving them to somebody else? Yeah. That plays a factor in what their home sales for. That is true. Sometimes more than the comparables do. Yeah. Because if they're if they have to move, they have to move.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

So we've done the paperwork, we've run the comparables, we've asked them the price, and then we hopefully agree on a price. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Another factor might be if what they owe the property too. Yeah. The mortgage or any loans or anything like that, or liens. That might be a factor.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Is that pretty that's pretty important to get right? Is to know what they're what they owe on it. So we've got all that done and we agree on a price. We've done the paperwork. Um, what's next?

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Well, we're probably gonna discuss staging and photos and marketing. You know, are you okay with me hosting open houses? You know, um, does the seller live there or not? That also plays a factor. Um do they have any pets? You know, you wanna try and prepare them for what they might expect with other agents. Because sometimes there's other agents that come along and show the houses and everybody's different.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Yeah, I never thought about the pet thing. We just listed a house and they said that their cat was really mean, and they were scared when I went into it for the listing agreement to talk to them about it and look at the house. And the cat was really nice, but they're I do have one semi-horror story of cats, and I'm not a fan of cats. I don't know if you guys like cats.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Oh, I love cats. I have a cat. That's what I figured.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

She only has one eye. I have four grandcats, but I was hosting the open house in this in this house, and they have a cat, and this cat's mean. Like I was I walk in the door and the cat's doing the backup hissing, like we're getting ready to throw down. Yeah, just doesn't like human beings. Throwing off all the signals. Yeah. So the cat disappears. And I'm walking through the house, I'm turning on the lights. Like I said, I'm getting ready to host an open house, and I go to the back door, and the cat comes out from underneath the table in the chair and gets me with a claw and like literally sticks through my jeans and makes me bleed.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

I thought you were gonna say it escaped, and you had to go find it. No.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

No, if that happened, I probably wouldn't have found that cat. But um, no, it's fine. Great, great family. But yeah, so me and cats. Yeah, I don't know. But but it's important to know the animals, and that's and that's what these people that we just listed at their house was like, hey, our cat likes you, it doesn't like most people, and so we probably need to put the cat in the garage. I'm like, a cat, yeah, but then you know I've been attacked by a cat, so it brought back a little bit of trauma trauma, yeah. So um, so we've talked about marketing, we've talked about uh the paperwork, we've talked about potential open houses. How do you feel we do as an agency in marketing? And you can be brutally honest.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

I think we do really well. Okay. I mean, you have a marketing manager, director. Yeah. I mean, not every agency, managing director, you know, we just add as more titles.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

I like more to add to the resume. Yeah. We make a lot of content. Um, we do open houses, um, network with other agents.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

You're like the open house guru, so we also have you know, two digital signs that are right next to Road Frontage. That's right. One of them is brand new.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

One of them is brand new. We have to get that one going.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Both ends of Morley Street.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

The busiest the only agency in town that does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Probably the two busiest intersections in town. So let's say we got the house, it's on the market, and we've done all our marketing and we've got our signage and we run some open houses, and it comes down to time to negotiate. Do you feel you're a good negotiator, or are you, and I'm I this this is this is a Robert the Realist podcast, okay? This is not Robert the Realtor.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Robert the Realist podcast. I think that some realtors are just yes men and women. Like they will do and say whatever their client says to do.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Are is is that you or are you gonna I think I'm somewhere in between in the middle. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna hear what you're gonna I'm gonna hear what you're asking. I'm gonna tell you whether that may be a good idea or not.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Okay. So let's take this. All right, so I've got two houses. One of them is um, and I'm not being a realtor, I'm just gonna say these are examples. I got one house that's brand new, and an inspection is done, and there's 24 items on that inspection list. Okay, this is your example. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna give you two scenarios, and then I have a house that is three years old, but if you went into it, you would think it was brand new because it looks brand new, right? And that inspection is done, and there are six items on that list. So on scenario one, if there's 24 items on a brand new house on that inspection of things that could be fixed, are you gonna list all 24? Are you gonna have a conversation? Are you gonna prioritize? Are you gonna say some of this is, you know, your homeowner stuff, or what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 11:16

I think we're gonna I mean it would really depend on what they were, but I think we're gonna have a conversation and really kind of try and narrow down which ones are the most important. Okay. Because if you ask for 24 things from a seller, they will probably not want to do all of them.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Typically, they probably won't do all of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

I mean, they might. I mean, I don't know, a builder might, but I mean everybody's different, but you might you know, I mean, and there's you know, there are other things you can negotiate too. I mean, you could negotiate a price difference rather than them fixing it. You can negotiate them fixing it. I mean, there's there's more than one way to skin a cat.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah. So you can do some in lieu of maybe some money or something like that. Okay. And then scenario two, house three years old, looks brand new, has six things on it. What do you what do you think? And are and they're very minor. Let's say the most major thing on it is cracked piece of siding. Are we are we going for all six? Are we going for one? Are we gonna just have a conversation about being a homeowner and not rocking the boat? Like, that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

It is a tough one. I think I would try and have a conversation about maybe narrowing it down. But it also kind of depends too on, you know, is there another buyer involved or the only buyer? Are there more offers? Is our offer the most the best offer up? Right. You know, is another is another buyer paying full price without any concessions or without asking them to fix anything.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Sometimes you don't always know if there's another buyer either.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

You might a lot of factors that play into that inspection of how long has it been on the market. Exactly. What's the price you're giving them? Have you already asked for $15,000 off the asking price, but you come back and ask for more?

SPEAKER_02 12:57

That's also a factor too. Like if you came in below asking price already, yeah. And you found some inspection items, right? They might not be willing to give you less money or get give you some more money off if you're already under asking.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

So you say your negotiating skills uh one being the absolute worst and being the absolute best negotiator. Where do you put yourself?

SPEAKER_02 13:17

I think I would say somewhere around a six or a seven. I don't know if I would say I'm just six, seven. Oh, I did unintentionally. I did totally unintentionally. No, I got six, seven to the day at Starbucks.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Did they do the hand gestures?

SPEAKER_02 13:30

No, but my my drink was like six dollars and seventy something cents. And he was like, six, seven. I was like, really? So he did that. Yeah. But I mean, I don't think of myself as like because there's everybody, everybody's different. Some people are like really hard negotiators. I I like to think of um I'm uh more of a creative negotiator. Right. Because there's so many things you can ask for, you know, other than just price or you know, there's so many different ways to negotiate around different things.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

I like um creative and I'm gonna throw this curveball at you because I think this is what should happen, but let's see what you think. And if you think the consumer would go for it, and maybe she's heard enough about the inspections and stuff, she can have an opinion on what she thinks, too. What would you think about the inspection being the first thing done on the house prior to writing an offer? A $300 inspection done. Now it would be at the buyer's cost. Right. But how would you think that would go over if you had your buyer do an inspection prior to writing an offer?

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Because what happens I mean, people have wanted to do that. I've had people ask if they can do that or not.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

I'm like, well, uh what happens is we do all the build-up, you do all the build-up of the of the contract and negotiations and all the stuff, and then you come to the inspection that can, and again, I've said this before that inspectors just have to file and pay for a license. There's no exam to be taken to verify that they are specialists in anything. They are great, some of them are, some of them aren't, and the ones who aren't know that they aren't because I've told them. But they can, and I've seen other realtors talk about this too. The inspector can make or break a deal based off their wording. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Yeah, the wording is really kind of important.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

So do you think an inspection should be done prior to making an offer? Or I mean, I know they only give you like 10 days to get it done, so you gotta get it done pretty quick, but man, inspections are like keep you up at night.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

I mean, I could I can see both sides of it. I mean, you know, that would uh it would be easier for the buyer just not to make an offer. But then also a seller might have ten people having inspections in their house before they ever made an offer.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

What do you think about a listing agent having an inspection done and open for the public but before, during, or after? I mean, obviously before or not before, but on the date it goes live, make it one of the forms that's available. I mean, that would be interesting.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

I wish that they had an option to where you could do either. Like if you wanted to wait and then do it after you've already made an offer, or you can do it beforehand at your own discretion. Like, if that was an option, that would be pretty nice.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

I don't even know if it's an option. I'm probably getting in trouble for even talking like that. I don't know. I just think inspections blow a lot of deals up.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Yeah, yeah, they can. That is one of the things that keep us awake at night. Yeah, and inspector, and the inspectors.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

It really is. And the inspectors, a lot of times it comes down to wording. And again, they're they're paid to find stuff. Yeah. They're paid to find the little piece of caulk that's missing or the little small little crack in the siding or whatever it is. And that's okay, but if you do that 25 times on a house, the people are gonna be like, whoa.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Yeah. Well, and it also depends on who's reading the inspection, too, because if I'm a home builder and I go buy a house, for me to fix those 24 things might be nothing. I might be, I might have a guy or do it myself. But to somebody who's not a contractor or construction knowledge, it might be overwhelming to them.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah, or they might just look at the number of bullet points and be like, uh, I'm out.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

Yeah. That's one of our things you have to do as a realtor is set expectations and and really educate people on what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Trying to explain all the nitty-gritty details of it.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah. Say there's gonna be an inspection.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

And that guy's getting paid to find every single thing wrong with the house. But let's look at the major points. Like if that roof is falling in, let's have a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Yeah, I mean, there are some things that come up that I'm like, no, that's really not a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah. No, I agree with that. I agree with that. All right, let's transition to what you also do well as a buyer's agent. You know, they think you just take a buyer to a house and they buy it, and then you get paid a commission, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Well, I mean, there's that, but there's a lot more stuff behind that. I mean, you know, first you have to, you know, talk to the buyer, see if they're pre-qualified, see how motivated they are to buy, if they're even able to buy or not. Because a lot of people want to go look at houses and they haven't even talked to a lender to see if they even have good enough credit or if they can even afford a loan. Preach, yeah. Um, you know, so you want to make sure that they're pre-qualified, maybe hook them up with a lender that that you know, then you want to, if you know they're pre-qualified, you want to figure out what their budget is, what they're looking for, you know, where they're looking for it, you know, want to figure out what the most important things are. Because people have a long list of things they want in a house. Right. Everybody wants a 10-page list of things they want in a house. Right. But you really have to figure out, you know, what's the most important, like school district, you know, is it location, is it community distance to a job, or you know, the size of the house, bedrooms, or you know, what's the most important, you know, five things? Because you can't find there's no house that's gonna check all the boxes. Right. That's impossible.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Unless you build it.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Well, unless you build it. But it takes time though. Yeah. And not everybody has time, has patience to wait. Right. So you want to figure out what their most important desires are. And sign a buyer agency agreement. Buyer's agency agreement. Which people have a lot of uh there's a lot of people don't like to sign them. No. And I don't know why. Because if you sign a buyer's agency with an agent, you can literally terminate it in writing. And I have never heard of an agent that will say, No, I'm not gonna terminate my agency agreement with you. I mean, it's just you tell them, no, I don't want to do more, and then you just cancel the agreement. You're done. Just transparency. Pick another agent. I mean, it's not like you're locked in forever, you're not getting married. Yeah. Like if you don't buy it.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

You owe me $10,000 or something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

No.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

But uh, and it also goes back to, you know, if you're a buyer, I would recommend interviewing your agent before you sign with them. Ask them questions, you know. How and some buyers are working on the. Or just choose you. No. I mean, yeah, that would be nice. But you know, um I mean I would there are some definitely questions I would ask a realtor if I was a buyer. Uh how experienced are you? Not just the amount of time you've been doing it. Because there's some agents that have been doing it for 20 years and they sell one home a year, which there's nothing wrong with that. Right. But there's other agents that have been doing it for you know a year and sold 20 homes or helped buy 20 homes or whatever. I mean, there's like a I don't know exactly what the numbers were, but there was a statistic somewhere that says like 20% of the agents do like 80% of the work or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, the bad statistic is and I I think it's like 76, but I usually just say 75% of realtors did not do one transaction last year, meaning they did not help anybody buy or sell a house. 75%.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Yeah. So you I mean, you might want to ask them, you know, how many transactions have you done? Right. You know, or another thing is like, you know, do you do transactions and, you know, the thing I'm trying to transact in? You know, do you work on buying and selling homes? Do you buy and sell, you know, homes less than $100,000 or do you do, you know, more expensive homes?

SPEAKER_01 20:52

That's good.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

You know, where do you usually, you know, where do your experience at? You know, Weberly, Columbia, you know, where do you live at? Do you know how well do you know the neighborhoods? You know? How many, what's your network like of contractors or people you know that can help solve whatever problems come up?

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Right. So relevancy is important. Yeah. It's not how long you've been doing it. Yeah. It's how many have you done your experience behind doing that, helping people buy and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

I think another good question to ask is do they have a team? Because an agent that works in a team might have more leverage than a solo agent.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

So we have to define a team because there's plenty of teams, and then there's teams that work like the teams that I build, which is everybody can do everything. Right. Versus you could have a team of 20 realtors, but if they don't all work together and they're all competition against each other, yeah. That may not be the right team you're looking for.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

That may not be the best. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

And I and I know there's I'm not pointing out any agencies, I'm just stating facts that how we work. Together a lot. Lock boxes, go out, it doesn't matter. Whoever, whoever can do it. And I'm talking about being a realtor. I'm supposed to be a realist. You're supposed to be the realtor. Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Oh, we do we do work really well together. That's what I think I like about this office is you know, you have a buyer that wants to look at a house, but you're busy, you call me. Hey, are you doing something right now? Or you know, yeah, okay. Yeah, and go show them and figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah, just figure it out. That's right. Yeah, get it done. All right, so you could show as a buyer's agent, you could show houses. Houses, plural, and months and months. Oh, yeah. I think I've the longest I've win is a year of showing houses. That's a long time. Yeah. And I had the person's house for sale. And that's again, kind of you know, going into the realtor mentality, but it was it was pretty weird how it happened. They really didn't want to take a price reduction until they found the house that they wanted. Then once they found the house they wanted, then everything else the dominoes just fell down. So that's another way to another way to think of it again. Timelines. Yeah. All right, let's talk about open houses. And I know that you've done a ton of them here recently, but haven't had a lot of success, but it's a lot of people. I think part of it is the weather. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

I think that we're getting hopefully next weekend it's warmer. I think that would play a fact. Because the last weekend I did one, it was warmer, and there was a couple of people looking at so I think that also has.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

And the other ones you were like, you know, Arctic temperatures out there.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Arctic blast or or raining, one of the two. Yeah. It was like I had to bring a hammer to drive the the flag into the ground because it was so frozen. That's too much. But but yeah, if you want to have a to have a successful open house, there are several steps. Yeah. First, you want to, you know, make a plan on which one you're gonna do, advertise it with your social media people. Typically about a week in advance or so is probably plenty. Get it out there, put up signs, make sure everybody knows when it is, and then actually show up and put all and hopefully, you know, put out some more signs today of. Yeah. And then you know, go open the door, turn the lights on, and wait for people to come in.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Signs. So I know you're gonna be big on signs and we're buying a bunch of signs. Yeah. We're gonna litter places with signs. Um you think signs are important?

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Um, I think so. I think that if you place enough signs in the right places and get people's attention, because a lot of people don't just look for open houses. They're like they they drive through the neighborhood or up and down the street and down the highway, and they're like, oh, there's an open house. Let's go look at it.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

I don't think I think it's just a different type of person. Like they're not on social media, they don't see that you're having an open house on the opening.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Well, and that's that's also true. I mean, it may not be your friend on Facebook, they might not see it, you never know. So by combining you know the social media aspect with the physical media signs and get a little bit more exposure.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

So you mean if I post that I'm you're having an open house on Facebook and I have 5,000 friends, they don't all 5,000 don't see it?

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Well, it depends on if you just post it on your Facebook, maybe not. But if you post it on Facebook, it more people might see it. Maybe they're not your friend, but there's 5,000.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

They're not all my friends. Yeah. Yeah. I just I think it just goes back to marketing itself. It's like some people will see it on Facebook, some people will see the signs. Yeah. Some people will see and it's hard to figure out which one. You just do it. Some people just be on Zillow and see it there. Yeah. But we've got you gotta attack all those on the open houses. Gill, what do you got? You got any got any questions for uh Jonathan, the realtor?

SPEAKER_00 25:40

I mean, not really so far. I mean, one question that I was thinking about was the market obviously fluctuates. So what like season or time do you think is best to list a house?

SPEAKER_02 25:55

That's a good question. There's many factors involved in that. Part of it's motivation. Um, if you have to move or you have to move for a job or or whatever the case, if you have to sell your house, you have to sell your house. Right. But if you had to pick the most, you know, I don't know if there's really a perfect time necessarily. Because I mean houses do sell in winter time. There's people that move, you know, they have to move for jobs. I mean, there's always people moving, yes, whether they want to or not. Yeah. But um, I think traditionally they it does pick up spring, summer, yeah, you know, into fall, and then slow down in the winter time. Yeah. For the most part. Statistically, yeah. Another factor is interest rates. Oh, yeah. If you have a if you have a home with a 3% interest rate, don't sell that house.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Please, don't sell that house.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Or I mean, but some people have to. Right, right. It just doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Upsize or move somewhere else or a different school district or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

I mean, there's there's always factors where people have to move one reason or another. Yeah. But interest rates are coming back down, maybe. Hopefully. Hopefully. They're starting to.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

That was I think one thing that stuck out to me, you said earlier, that your wording was different than most. You said pre-qualified instead of pre-approved, which there is a difference. Yeah. There's a difference. Yeah, anymore. Most of them are gonna just pre-qualify anyway. So they used to do like a pre-approval, and they would just kind of do a 10,000 foot view and they wouldn't run your credit, and if they did, it was like kind of a quote unquote soft pool, and they just kind of have a very high view, but it was not getting the information they need. So now they do more of a pre-qualification, meaning they do run your credit score and they do look at deeper, deeper uh details. Uh, because that to me, uh pre-qualifying for a house before looking is super important.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

It it can make the it can make or break a deal sometimes. I mean, if if you're pre-qualified and the seller knows you're pre-qualified, then you have more leverage on making an offer. Right. That is true. Especially if there's more than one buyer.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

And the problem though, I it's not a problem, but the problem that I see with that is what a lot of people don't think about is they just think about principal and interest on the payment, and they just throw a number out there of $100 a month for insurance and $100 a month for real estate or for uh for taxes. But those numbers fluctuate.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

Yeah. Taxes go up and down, insurance goes up and down just as bad as interest rates. So you've got insurance more than taxes. Taxes do go up and down, but yeah, insurance definitely goes up.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

I'm just saying, like, if you let's say you know, Gia was wanting to buy a house and she's like, I'm pre-qualified for you know $250,000 based off of $100 a month insurance and based off $100 a month taxes. Now I do I I can go show her $250,000 houses, but your insurance may be $200 a month, and your real estate may be $200 a month. So I think that's a big swing because you know you're probably you know, you're looking at a certain monthly payment that you're comfortable with. Are you willing to spend two or three hundred dollars or more based off the house, the insurance, and the and the taxes? So that's why I like to when I'm pre-qualifying somebody, send a house that they're interested in to the broker, mortgage broker, because that way he can really hone in on insurance and taxes, and so you have an idea of as long as you stay on this path with this type of house, you know, your taxes and insurance, you'll be in the right area, yeah. You'll be in the right area. Yeah. And and his interest rates stay, but they've jumped up 0.2 or 3% in the last month.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

So another thing about pre pre-approvals is sometimes you can get a rate lock.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Like Yeah. You can.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

If the rates go up while you're looking for a house, as long as you're still in your rate lock, then it stays the same as what it was when you got pre-approved.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Nice. I didn't know that. Lock that in.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

That's another factor, too. And if if you take too long to find a house, you can pay for an extension sometimes, but we'll get you there.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Yeah. We'll get you there. I'll get there.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Another reason to get pre-approved is a lot of times a lender will lock lock that rate in and whatever it was. That way, if they go up again while you're still looking, it's still consistent for 25% later.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Okay. I like it.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

And you're not married to the rate. Yeah, I mean it could change, but you could you could refinance. Yeah. If it's if it makes sense later if interest rates drop. Yeah. I'm a three percenter on my house, so I probably can't ever sell it.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

So anything else you want to add or take away or uh I think when it comes to like buyers, I think part of part of the buying process is like educating them on um like what like you know what a hundred thousand will get you or what two hundred thousand will get you. And it kind of goes back to trying to figure out what they really want out of a house. You know, how much house can you get for the money they're gonna spend in the area they're looking for? Because it differs from here to Columbia or or even across mobile, it differs. You know. That's part of the process too. Yeah. And sometimes if you have a buyer that wants to look at seven houses in a day, it's you might spend an hour the night before doing scheduling and figuring out the best route to take through all the houses to get them all through their own time so they can go home back to Illinois the next day.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Which is also important that they're pre-qualified before doing that to make sure they can even get the house before you spend a whole day showing seven houses. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, I think you've been there. So that's it's fine though. They get there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

I mean, that it was a good experience.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

If the people are good.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

I've never done it before.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

First time for everything.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah, I think I'll let you take that on your check mark list. I'm not gonna I don't want to put that on my check mark list. I've done two or three houses in it.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

It definitely took some thinkering. I had to put all the addresses in Google Maps and figure out the best because I didn't want to go back and forth across Columbia, you know. Yeah, that's it. I don't want to waste their time when they're traveling.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

True. But yeah, lots of people.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

And that's another thing of like when you first meet with the buyers, you know, setting the expectations on looking at houses, you know, how much notice do you need to figure out how to get them into a house? You know. If it's empty, you might be able to just call me up and say, Look, we'll get it now. Yeah. If it's occupied, you might have to give them, you know, 24, 40 hours notice to get in there. And then sometimes you might have to call the other agent and say, Hey, did you get my listing? Did you get my showing request? If they answer. Yeah, if they answer. If they answer. I mean, usually that's with showing time, that's not usually a problem. But sometimes they don't answer your request and then you have to call them and say, Hey, did you get my request to show your house? Yeah. Can you approve it or tell me no? One of the two.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Sometimes you have to wonder, why are you doing this job since you're not you, but the other realtors.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

That's another part of being a realist agent, is you have to answer your phone all the time.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

So I get to I get to be a realist on here and I get to speak the truth, and yeah, they need to answer their phones or quit, one of the two. But no, I I uh I think that kind of I don't even know how long we've been going, but that that dug in pretty deep on what's and I know that's just that's high level. Yeah. That's high level path of least resistance, best case scenario.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Yeah. There's a lot of little mini master classes you could learn about all kinds of things along the way.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Yeah, not one transaction's the same.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Yeah, they're all different.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Every buyer, every seller.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

And that's part of the part of the thing about being an agent is you have to know how to navigate every different thing. There's so many different I mean, there's you can there's so many different and like you know, there's different areas of real estate that you can get into, you know, luxury, you know, investors, you know, yeah, normal everyday homes for regular people. Right. You know, uh foreclosures, bank owned properties, second homes. Yeah. I mean, there's you know the list, the whole thing. So many different, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah, four years, and I don't know. I scratch my head sometimes and go, what was I thinking? Like a pretty cushion job, just owning an insurance agency. Let's do real estate too. But I'll I mean I do. I I like it, I enjoy it, it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

It is fun. Every day is different.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

It is. There's a challenge every day. So anything else?

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Um the only thing I can say is if you if you're an interviewed agent, ask them questions. Yeah. Ask them how hard they gotta work for you, how much of this extra stuff, how many hours are I gonna sit down and look at this stuff? I think that's a good takeaway. I think that's a good takeaway. Yeah, because there's you can spend a lot of hours looking for houses to show because that's you know, if you're a buyer's agent, you want to find houses that fit their I mean, they're gonna send you houses they won't look at.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

You want to be proactive and find them houses to look at.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

And don't choose them just because they're your friend. Or don't choose them just because of your family. Now you hope that you can after you've you know interviewed, and maybe you don't have to interview if it's a good friend or family. You just your track record speaks for itself.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

It does. And usually, I mean most people, it's pretty obvious.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

But yeah, ask them questions.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Yeah, it's important.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Whether they're seller agent, buyer's agent, ask them questions before you hire. Ask them how how hard they got to work on your behalf while you're not looking. You get the right price.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Don't get the don't don't choose the realtor that says they're gonna sell it for the most.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Because I get to say I'm right a lot on that one because the house sets for six months. Gosh, I'm going from realtor to realist to realtor. I'm going back and forth. Sorry guys. It's fine. It's my podcast. It's like the ones on the right shoulder, one's on the left shoulder, just speaking in both my ears. Yeah, it's my podcast. I can do that, I guess.

unknown 35:23

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Yeah, so if you want to get a hold of Jonathan, um, he is with Take Realty Group powered by EXP for what, six months? How long? Time flies. January. January. Three months. Three months.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

But I've been doing real estate since 2024.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Been doing real estate since 2024, had a took a stab at it, didn't work out that time. It's working out pretty good now. Hosts a bunch of open houses. Yeah. Got a listing coming up, I know, that him and I are going to work on.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Um there's a whole lot of stuff in the pipeline.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

A whole lot of stuff in the pipeline. Yeah. Just waiting to take off. Yeah. We're bringing he's bringing, we're bringing on another realtor where hopefully that they'll team up and and start selling some houses and buying some houses. And so you know how to get a hold of him, obviously. Um, through our website, through our office. I'm sure he's he you can find him on Facebook as well. So I appreciate him.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Instagram, TikTok, all the things. All the things. He is on he is on all the things. He's one of the few. You'll probably see me wandering around town because I live here in my place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Local, local, local guy. So born and raised.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

I have a I have a weird phone number. It throws people off.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

What's your phone number? Go ahead and tell us.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

It's 251 504 0750. Yeah, you throw me off. It's a weird phone number. People say that about mine, but mine's 618.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Mine's 618. It's an Illinois number, and they're always like 618. I'm like, yeah, I have a weird phone.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

I promise I'm born and raised here.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

Yeah. If it shows up in another country, it's fine. It's still Jonathan. Yeah. Well, yeah, so he's he's I appreciate you kind of going behind the scenes. Um, real estate. Yeah, real estate can be tough. And I think you broke it up. Yeah, you broke it open a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

We can spend many hours talking about the hard parts. If you if you're gonna hire an agent, go find interviews of them talking to the people. See what they say in interviews.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

You did volunteer for this. I did not ask you. You volunteered for this. I'm like, what do you want to talk about? He said, behind the scenes, and I'm like, okay, so yeah, here's your interview.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Interviewed by the boss, too, but nonetheless. Yeah, yeah. And he wasn't a yes man either. I like it. He just he just spitted out the truth with you. So yeah, we'll get uh we'll get this podcast out. And this is Jonathan Brockman's interview as the realtor. So he gets to hear it all. So I appreciate it. Got anything else you want to add?

SPEAKER_00 37:38

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

I appreciate you plugging in today and taking over for us. Hey, I love the yap. I'm always down. I asked her if she was down, she said I like the yap. I'm like, oh, there you go. I think that works. Yeah. But other than that, guys, I appreciate you tuning in. Remember, like, subscribe, all the things, and we appreciate you so much. Robert the realist's out.