Motivational Monday. My name is Matthew Hodge, executive vice president here at LPT Realty, and I'm joined by Robert Palmer, founder and CEO of LPT Realty. How are you, brother? I'm good, man. Good morning, everybody. We had a bunch of April Fools shenanigans that we were gonna try to pull off today. We realized that if we say anything too crazy that our competitors will figure out how to use it against us and, like, claim the thing's actually happening, so we just said not working. Yeah. Yeah. We done with our lives. Yeah. So It was fun while we were We're not doing anything wild today for, for April Fool's Day. Yeah. That would have been funny, though. Well, cool. Alright. Well, I hope you enjoyed your weekend, Easter weekend. I know you were down South Florida. I know you spent some time finally getting a chance to go fishings, you know, the pool with the girls, getting some relax time, which we were been trying to claim Yeah, man. For weeks, but it was elusive. Dad time. Yeah. I got I got so much needed dad time with the girls. It was good. We spent a lot of time in the pool hanging out by the beach. And then, so our our beach, is right there on the inlet, and so they, they dredge it every couple years because the inlet starts to fill up with sand. And so, like, the day we're leaving, this bulldozer rolls down the beach. I'm like, alright. Time to go back to Orlando. You guys sound perfect. We're not playing on the beach with these, like, forty ton excavators. They're rolling down the beach dragging dredge pipes. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, cool. Alright. Well, so let's, let's jump into today's topics. You know, it's been just about two weeks now since we had the NAR settlement or the proposed settlement. And, the industry has been talking about it, trying to understand it, digest it. Some people have even started to try to adjust now to, what they believe it's going to look like in the future or what or that aligns with the proposed settlement. And, so what I'm meaning is that there's already people starting to offer, you know, zero commission on the buying side, or they're they're just trying to be preemptive Yeah. To what that could look like. And then we see the headlines still going crazy, of course, and that's what the consumers are paying attention to, which is, you know, realtor commissions are being slashed and, you know, of course, inflammatory headlines. So I know you've done a ton of research on this. So what is, kind of your your thoughts as we've now, I guess, been slightly after ground zero of the of the settlement. Yeah. So we talked about this this weird in between period that we're in right now. And and and the problem right now is because buyer broker agreements are not yet mandatory and had not been mandatory, you probably have consumers who have already toured houses, and now they think they can cut the agent out and go straight to listing agent. And there's just there's all this mess right now. And so as I mentioned last week and I've mentioned our Real Estate First Friday, do not let the headlines and some of the chaos that is created during this gap period, discourage you because it will clean itself up. Like, the new set of rules is actually gonna build a a really good framework, but now we're in this messy middle time when you're gonna see agents trying to take advantage of this, agents who got agreement signed at six, who are now gonna try to potentially offer zero. And there's there's gonna be a lot of a lot of messiness for the next couple of months, and we all just have to keep our head down and power through that and focus on the the final result and where we're gonna land. And, again, we feel pretty good about that. The other big thing I'm seeing is a lot of headlines, and there's a lot of concern and fear about, is this going to create new models? Right? Is this going to do away with the buyer's agent? Like, all this stuff. And and there was one, one headline that actually caught my attention in particular. It was actually from a pretty credible TV show. So, Dave, if you wanna throw this up, I don't know if you guys caught this on TV, but sixty minutes, had a segment on, on this topic. And, you know, the title of the sixty minutes was chipping away at realtors six percent. And this sixty minutes, highlighted this revolutionary new company, next slide, Dave, this revolutionary new company, who is going to save, you know, consumers tens of thousands of dollars. And a couple of quotes from the company's CEO. One, real estate is by far the most screwed up industry in America. Pretty inflammatory. We feel like things that Amazon or eBay or Yahoo have done for other industries, we can do for the real estate industry. These were some quotes from that sixty minutes, segment. Next slide. The revolutionary model is they charge two hundred and fifty dollars per per toward home expecting to save consumers tens of thousands of dollars. Alright? And now I know there's been fear about something like this popping up. We've seen a lot of people say, is this the new model? Are we going to a world where buyer's agents are now just gonna be paid per home like this? You know, is is this what's gonna happen now that the the NARS settlement that's proposed potentially becomes ratified? And so, again, lots of inflammatory headlines. Again, this was sixty minutes. Pretty credible show. Next slide, Dave. And so, I guess this is a little bit of an April fools joke because zoom in on that date for me, Dave. This this sixty minutes article or show aired in two thousand seven. Alright? This is not current. Alright? And so anyone out there who thinks that that this is coming now or that that suddenly this is all going to change, people have been trying to disrupt our industry since way back in the day. And and the company that this that this show is about is actually Redfin. And so we're gonna take a minute to kinda look at Redfin and their journey because Redfin started on this this model of two hundred and fifty dollars per house that you wanted to tour. And and they were, again, they were gonna disrupt real estate. They said real estate was the most broken industry ever. They're gonna save consumers tens of thousands of dollars. And so that was that was real that was Redfin's stance back in in two thousand seven. So throw up our next slide here, Dave. Again, lot lots of headlines. And I'm I'll tell you, two thousand seven, two thousand eight, two thousand nine, these there were headlines about everybody. Right? Redfin continues to shrink the real estate market. Redfin's turned profitable. The real estate industry shutters. There were lots of other discounters popping up. Lots of people claiming they were gonna disintermediate real estate. This was, like, the hot thing for for, venture capital and for Wall Street to invest in back in two thousand seven, two thousand eight, two thousand nine because of the rise of the Internet. Alright. Next slide. And then the funny thing is by two thousand fifteen, this article, ran on Vox, and it the headline was Redfin set out to change real estate, then real estate changed Redfin. Alright? Next slide. So the CEO of Redfin, this is this is from the Vox article. Kellman thought customers would jump at the chance to do most of the work themselves and pocket thousands of dollars in extra savings. He was wrong. I want you to think about that statement. The per tour fee stressed people out. Also, first time homebuyers have a lot of questions that Redfin wasn't really set up to answer. So you went from, this is the most broken industry ever. We're gonna Amazon it. We're gonna Yahoo it. We're gonna Google it. To then by two thousand fifteen, they're saying, we were wrong. Our per tour fee stressed people out. First time homebuyers have a lot of questions we can't answer. Next slide. And then and then the best quote is or sorry. And then when they surveyed their customers, the feedback was clear. Consumers wanted to be able to tour more homes and ask more questions even if the service cost more. Alright. This, again, this is Redfin. This is their transformation. They went from two thousand five, six, seven, we're about to show this antiquated industry how this really works, to, hey. Now that we've been doing this for a couple years, our consumers actually don't like our model. They wanna be able to tour more homes. They don't wanna pay two hundred and fifty dollars per home they have to tour, and they wanna be able to ask more questions, and they're willing to pay more for it. Again, now this is from a company that raised, I think, almost two hundred million dollars privately, then had a massive, you know, one point seven billion dollar IPO, and these are the lessons they learned. Next slide. So his quotes you know, Kalman, the CEO of Redfin in two thousand seven was saying again, real estate is the most screwed up industry in America. We feel like things that Amazon, eBay, or Yahoo have done for for other industries, we can do for real estate. And then in two thousand fifteen, he's quoted as saying, to change the game, sometimes you have to learn the game. To affect the real estate the real world, you have to be in the real world. And so here he is eight years later basically admitting that they didn't understand what the disruption was going to be. They didn't understand what consumers really want, and all along the way, they were changing their model. So let's throw that up. Let's throw up a timeline of what the the Redfin changes look like. So they came out in two thousand five, two thousand six saying two hundred and fifty dollars per home tour, and that meant they would rebate a hundred percent of the commission to the buyer. Because remember, back this is in the world when there is a co broke commission, there's a buyer broker commission. Back then, NAR probably really did require it. You know, it wasn't the zero percent or negotiable. Back then, who knows? I think NAR may have actually required a buyer broker payment back in two thousand six. And so the idea was we're gonna rebate all the money and charge you two hundred fifty dollars per home. Because, again, this NARS settlement does not open the door for that. Forty out of our fifty states, maybe thirty nine out of our fifty states, all allow commission rebating. So if a company was going to charge two hundred and fifty dollars per home and rebate back all the commission or now in today's world just say, hey. We're not gonna charge a commission. They've been able to do that and try to do that going back as far as two thousand five, two thousand six. Then in two thousand seven, Redfin went to a new model and said, alright. People hate this idea of paying per tour. People hate the idea of paying upfront. By two thousand seven, they said, alright. We're going to rebate two thirds of the commission. So whatever the buyer broker agreement is, let's say that was around three percent. We're gonna rebate two thirds of that to the consumer. Then by two thousand twelve, Redfin said, well, maybe we're only gonna rebate half of that to the consumer. And then by two thousand fifteen, Redfin said, well, we're only gonna rebate one percent Back it up. Of the of the sales price back to the consumer. And now if you sit here today, Redfin's model is if you sign a buyer broker agreement before your first tour, they will rebate point two five percent of the sales price and commission back to the buyer. This is on the buyer side. Alright. We're not looking at their listing side. There's been a million more companies who we're gonna flat fee, revolutionize listings. And, again, it just has not seen massive market share. Alright? So this this is the Redfin journey set out in two thousand four and five to fix the most screwed up industry in America by changing the way the the commissions were charged. And now here we are currently, and they look just like every other real estate company. And, again, this is not because of NAR's rules. This is because of consumer behavior. Next slide. So, again, in the beginning, Redfin was going to change the rules of real estate. They took venture capital. You know? Next slide. They they had their big IPO at a one point seven three billion dollar valuation. Today, they sit at seven hundred sixty one million. They've lost a billion dollars in value. And the idea is it worked until it didn't. And, again, I think this is the most powerful quote. Common thought customers would jump at the chance to do most of the work themselves and pocket thousands of dollars in extra savings. He was wrong. He used that quote. He used that idea that, hey. If you let the consumer have the opportunity to save all this money and do the work themselves, they're not gonna pay a ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand dollar commission. He had the venture capital to do it. He had the public company money to do it. Redfin is still here today. It they proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that consumer behavior in this country will not allow for this type of model to take place because consumers do not like the risk of having to pay upfront. One of the big reasons that real estate commissions are, quote, unquote, as high as they are is because we as the industry, you as the agents are the ones taking the risk. You may show someone twenty houses and then they never actually buy. They end up renewing their lease. You know, these things, all are just a part of the psychology of how things work. Alright. Next slide. And so as we think about that in the US, our consumers love success based pricing. Our consumers love pay later. Our consumers love I only wanna pay if I have success. I want you to imagine a consumer who tours twenty homes and pays two hundred and fifty dollars per home. That's five thousand dollars out of their pocket to tour twenty homes and then ends up having to renew their lease because they couldn't find a home in time. And we all know this is happening right now in our market a lot. There are consumers that you are having to show houses to over and over again, and then they they're making offers. Those offers are not getting accepted. This idea of a pay upfront service just does not fit with the American consumer's idea of how to do business. Now there will always be a small number of people. Like, Redfin does have a point eight percent market share. Right? Less than one percent of consumers love that idea of, like, hey. We're gonna we're gonna go with a lower quality of service. We're gonna pay something in advance, whatever all that looks like. And you see this across most of the the the discounting brokers out there. So discounting is not new. Discounting is not going away. These NAR changes, in my opinion, do not make discounting any more likely to be successful because, again, in thirty nine states, you could already discount via commission rebates, and it's easier to to discount via commission rebates when there's a coop commission. So I think even discounting gets harder under this new model, but this has been tried. And it is it has been tried by a company that had a lot of capital, a lot of resources that is still around today. Lots of really smart people. They have chief real estate officers and their own economists. Like, Redfin knows how to spend money. Right? Like, they know how to bring in talent. And their own research broke their own thesis. Right? The thesis the company was launched on, the way that that they were able to go out and get other people's money in their early seed rounds, all of those things were based on what they have now admitted and proven to be a false assumption about the US consumer's desire to do more work on their own. Right? And so, again, you guys can run your business how you want inside the LPT model. That's one of the great things about it. But I do not see any large scale threat any more today than I did five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, any large scale threat to the way consumers are served because consumers do have choices, commissions are negotiable and have been, and and the, quote, unquote, savvy consumer could have always negotiated a commission rebate just like Redfin offers. And there's other companies that offer these too. So the sky is not falling. This is not the end of the world. This is going to make some changes in how we do our paperwork. I believe it's going to create opportunity for savvy agents, but the idea that that this is suddenly gonna lead way to this crop of new startups is not going to have any different level of success than Redfin did. Now I tell you, there may be some pop up because when you wanna go raise money from someone else and you have all these headlines in your hands, it may be easier to get someone to give you that money. Right? You got it. Most of these guys starting startups, they need to go raise capital to pay themselves. They need to raise capital to pay all the bills, and they need a great story to tell the guys they're trying to raise capital from. And so right now, there is this potential for a great story. So we may see some Redfin clones pop up who go back to Redfin's original thesis from two thousand five and six that if you let the consumer do most of the work themselves, they'll do it. But I believe firmly they will see the same result that Redfin did, which is they will just become basically regular real estate companies because that is what the consumer wants. This is the consumer making this choice is what pushed Redfin to go to a more normal model from a discount model on the buy side here seventeen years later, consumer choice. Consumers want better representation, and consumers do not want the upfront risk. They want that success based fee, and they're willing to pay a premium to get a success based fee because we as an industry are the ones who are having to say, you know what? I I I showed this consumer twenty houses and they never bought. I showed this consumer fifteen houses they never bought, and then I show this consumer one house and they did buy. Well, did that consumer overpay? Did the other consumers get a great deal at free? We, as an industry, are the ones having to put all that together and come out with a pricing structure that makes it work for the consumer, and that pricing structure has been proven day in and day out for decades now. And and I, again, I just I do not see these NAR rules making a massive shift in how commissions are negotiated or the the level of commissions. It's just going to change who the commission is actually negotiated with and how they're documented. Yep. That's, that's great research. And, you know, I know there's a lot of people who have questions about this and this exposure and hearing you talk about this, start to repeat this, start to think about this, start to explain it because you are gonna get the questions. You are gonna be asked by people. And the more times that you hear about and digest it and regurgitate this, the better it is gonna be for you to, you know, tell someone in an easy, you know, layman's term way that really helped explain what's happening because there's a lot of misinformation. Because, again, on the inside of the industry, we have access to knowledge like this, whereas the consumer is really just reading headlines. And as we can see, those can be pretty pretty far off based. So I know that you did a ton of research on this, and we had always talked about, like, man, you came up with the strangest time to kinda really think about launching LPT. I know it was once the settlement was kind of already, you know, talks were out there. These models had already existed. How much of that thought process went into, I guess, the way that you modeled LPT? Yeah. Look. So I I think the the big decision for me, you know, was was to launch LPT and fund it personally. Right? Because if you look at again, go back and look at Redfin's story. They came up with an idea, and they went and raised capital from other people so they could pay themselves and not take the risk themselves. You know, I have funded every penny of LPT so far personally. Not money I borrowed, not money I raised from venture capitalists, not money I raised from Wall Street, like, money that would have been my wife, kids, my family's, like, our legacy, our estate. You know, I used dollars that I earned to fund this company. And I it's because I believe in it that much. But let me tell you, before I did that, I did a ton of research. I mean, I dug into all these models. I wanted to understand, is there a potential for some discount or to pop up? Is there some potential for massive disruption? Because I'm here to bet on the real estate agent. And so to do that, I have to understand what are the threats to the real estate agent because we are all in this together. That is the LPT model. And so, yeah, we did a ton of research. We experimented with stuff. Like, we tested things. Like, we got so deep into that world leading up to the LPT launch to understand, is there some true threat? And remember, the the big lawsuit was already filed, and the DOJ was already talking about commission decoupling. If you remember, the DOJ and NAR had a settlement, I think, about a decade ago. When that settlement happened, that's when a lot a lot of these same headlines popped up. They know now that NAR and the DOJ have settled, you're gonna see the commission discounters finally get get get the the spotlight they deserve. Didn't happen. But at the time, the DOJ was already saying, hey. We don't like the way the current model works. These lawsuits had been filed, and we're working on getting class certification. And so we took all that into account. I had done tons of research on all of the Redfin, Purple Bricks. I mean, you name all of these different models out there, and I sleep great at night knowing that I'm here to bet on the real estate agent. And and I prove that with my dollars. You know, I didn't I didn't come up with an idea and go to go to Wall Street or venture capital and say, hey, guys. Guess what? I think we can build this cool thing. Give me money to do it. No. I I took dollars out of my checking account, my savings account, money I would have left to my little girls, you know, and I use it to fund up this company. And at this point, between Listing Power Tools and LPT Realty, it's tens of millions of dollars of my own money that I have put into this thing because I believe in what we are doing that much. And and that belief comes from the research, you know, looking at all these different models. I mean, you know, the this Redfin thing, like, I knew this story to put it together and tell it because I studied it. I wanted to understand it, Because if there was going to be some massive shift that disintermediated the real estate agent or made real estate agents less valuable, that would be very damaging to LPT because LPT puts agents first. LPT gives agents choices. And so I knew that the company I wanted to lead would would have those key principles, but we had to do the research and make sure that we felt great. And and I, again, I sleep great at night knowing that there is no existential threat to real estate agents because of the service we provide, the way we guide consumers, consumers' desires. It has all been tried before. Right? It has been tried in two thousand five and six. It was tried in two thousand fourteen, fifteen. It will be tried again now by folks, and it will end the exact same way. This is too important of a decision. This is too large of a purchase, and consumers here in America have different expectation than other countries. Alright. Now in other countries, alright, in other countries, there is a different model where maybe commissions are lower, but most of those countries also have a big component of pay upfront. The consumer has to write a big check upfront. So what that means is that consumer who doesn't actually get the property and has to go back to sign their lease, they are out something. Mhmm. And, again, that is just not the way American society works. You know, we love credit in this country. Right? We love to buy things on credit, financing cars, credit cards. Like, it is who we are. American consumers are very much, you know, low financial risk on these types of of transactions, low down payment, don't wanna use money. Again, these are different psychological and consumer behaviors than what you see in other countries. And so, you know, when when the lawyers try to compare our commission structures to other countries, they have to understand that that the lower commission structure has always been available. It's been available with Redfin. It was available even more so early on with with Redfin, you know, and and it's available with other discounters. There's there's Clever. There's there was Purple Bricks. I mean, the the list goes on and on and on. There is no shortage of a consumer's ability to get a discount via a rebate under the old system in today's world. And so the idea that now that that dynamic is going to suddenly flip just isn't gonna happen. Right. You know, savvy the the consumer that that one percent of consumers, two percent of consumers who are willing to do the work themselves. Right? The type of consumer that the CEO of Redfin was because he himself said, well, I would go do all that work myself. Why won't everyone else? Well, you're not representative of of the broader community. Like, the average consumer is scared going through this process. They don't understand it. They want the expertise. They want the help. They want the hand holding. They don't wanna feel like every time they go view a house, a ticker is running up. Like, could you imagine that? Like, alright. You know, so now you're concerned, like, yeah. This is gonna be two hundred and fifty dollars per house you wanna view. Here's fifty houses. How which one would you like to look at? Imagine the husband and wife thinking, like, well, honey, we only have seven hundred and fifty dollars, so let's pick the three that we wanna look at. And then another agent says, hey. How about this? I'll take you to all fifty. And when when we close, I'm gonna make fifteen thousand dollars, but I'm gonna take you to all fifty houses. And and on the flip side, you can pay two hundred fifty dollars per house, and you only have seven hundred and fifty dollars, so you can only look at three. I just the American consumer has proven for decades now that they like this model. They want this model. This model is not going anywhere. Now look, the way you the way you negotiate with buyers is going to change. The way listings negotiate with with sellers is going to change. Like, that's not in doubt. But the fundamental structures of the value and dollars earned for what we do has been under attack for decades, and it's just I I disagree that NAR is the reason Redfin couldn't make it work. Nothing in NAR's survey said, oh, we failed because NAR wouldn't let us rebate commissions. They did. Mhmm. Oh, we failed because of the eleven states that won't let us rebate commissions. Mhmm. Hey. There's plenty to do in the other thirty nine states. You know? They said we failed because we misunderstood upfront money in the game. And that is a fundamental understanding of the American consumer that has not changed and will not change based on any proposed settlement. Well, I'll tell you what, man. That, that is very motivating. You know? That's you you put the the title in today. Right? You put into real work. Motivational Monday. Yeah. I feel motivated, man, to, you know, really continue to do my best for the consumer and to go out there and give them the choice and not let this nonsense of of inflammatory headlines slow me down because it can slow you down. Right? It can make you start to change your behaviors. You feel a little less motivated to go out there and do something. And, you know, those are people who will be stopped by these obstacles. And what I hear you saying is, like, hey. Listen. This is something that's been under attack from so many different ways. We thought about this. We knew about this. We built the model to to survive and thrive in this environment. You just gotta go out there, put your head down, educate your consumers, create value, and we are and we are gonna win. Yeah. Totally look. And if if we do see some pressure on commissions. Right? And, again, I'm not talking dramatic, but slight slight pressure on commissions. LPT's model of providing more value to you to give to your consumers, the power pack, the upcoming buyer power tools. You know, all these things we've done to maximize your value to your consumer and then also taking less from you as the agent, those two things line up perfectly with whatever might come. Right? And so, you know, again, I I do not see any dramatic shifts. But if we do see slight pressure on commissions, whatever changes we see in this gap, if we see nonsense, a brokerage like LPT is built to survive in that because, again, we take less and we give you more. And and that is the one key to truly being agent centric, to truly giving agents choice, to truly being able to survive whatever comes and goes is the way we structured LPT. And so, again, as the guy who has the the money on the line and who funded this thing up, I sleep great at night, and I'm banking and betting on each and every one of you. And I continue to feel comfortable, and I continue to wake up excited every day to lead this company, and I have zero doubts that LPT Realty is the model of the future and that our agents are exactly what consumers need to lead them through this time of change. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we are, gonna shift gears real quick. We're gonna talk about some additional tools. And then we wanna validate this to, you know, talk about our numbers this month to see, you know, is your thought process is the bet paying off? So before we get there, let's talk about, showcase. That was a service that was offered through ShowingTime plus, and we know a lot of people really enjoyed that service. We saw tremendous results from it. We had tested it out for a little while, and we didn't have it part of LPT, and we're excited to bring that back. So as of today, you do have the ability to order showcase. If you're unfamiliar with what that is, we actually have a training this Thursday at two PM, that will walk you through all the benefits of what showcase is. And what's cool about the new service is before, they had a relatively small geographic footprint that the service was offered in. They have now separated photography and the actual showcase benefits, meaning that the, floor plan online, interactive floor plan, the Zillow boost, all of those things, and you can use your own photographer now. So to understand exactly how that works, this Thursday at two PM, we will have the team on here talking through it. So if you use it in the past and you wanna do it again or if you were unable to use it because they didn't offer, photography in your area, you can now use your own photographer. There's a easy way to get your photographer set up with it, so that you can continue to use that person, as you always have, but then take advantage of this, new service. So that will be this Thursday at two PM. And so to switch gears again, let's talk about is is this concept that you're talking about, the agent and LPT, you know, is it resonating? Is it working? And so where are we where are we gonna land this month? How's it? Yeah. So I I mentioned this, you know, I mentioned this on my Facebook page on Friday, but we we are really close to having, our first ever billion dollar month of sales volume. What was that? Billion dollar month. Yeah. I bet you. I bet you could get better. And so, so one, we made the Real Trends list of of five hundred largest brokerages. I I should know this. What were we number twenty six, I think? I I should know this. You can you can go look it up on RealTrend. I I should know the number. We were in the twenties, you know, with about with about five billion, like, four point nine billion in sales, last year. K? So for that's our first full year in business. Right? Pretty fantastic. So if you think about it, you know, we launched in February of twenty two. That's, you know, the soft launch. Our you know, our official launch was August, but our soft launch first agents came on February twenty two. We had our first closing as a brokerage in March of twenty two. Alright? So in in March of twenty twenty two I know this number. In March of twenty twenty two, we closed nine million dollars in volume. Right? Nine million dollars worth of sales. I think we had, like, thirty agents at the time. Nine million dollars in sales in March of twenty two. We are now talking about in March of twenty four, two years later, knocking on the door of a billion dollars in sales. Yeah. Nine million to a billion in monthly sales in two years. Now we're gonna come really close. Right? We may be a little short, nine hundred and eighty million, whatever. We won't know for, like, another week because we gotta get all the checks in. Right? So a lot of you that are closing deals on DA, you get your check at closing. The title company snail mails us our check. Right? So we need to we gotta have some time to do the accounting. From our projections, it looks like we're gonna be right there. I mean, it my projections we'll know for sure. When we do know for sure, we're gonna post it. Because, look, whether it's nine hundred and eighty million or we get that extra comment and go to a billion, I am so proud of of going from nine million in sales to at least nine hundred million in sales, potentially a billion in sales, in just two years of from our first closing. So that that is really exciting. And, again, we're gonna let you guys know. And here's the other cool thing. Based on our transaction count for March, we will be one of the top ten brokerages in the country. Alright? So when next year's real trends comes out based on what we just did in March and we're not done growing. Right? You gotta think. Of our ten thousand agents, two thousand of them were not here long enough to be in production in the month of March month month of March. Right? Because a thousand of them joined, you know, fifteen hundred of them joined, like, in the last four to six weeks, and so they haven't been here long enough. They're still closing out deals at their old brokerage. And so we're already probably a one point two billion dollar a month brokerage, maybe more just based on agents that have already joined but haven't been here long enough to start closing deals yet. And so if you go look at Real Trends and look at how many brokerages are doing more than twelve billion a year, you know, which for us is about thirty six thousand transactions, you know, that puts us in, in the top ten for next year. So, again, if you scroll up, Davey, it'll that's I need our yeah. It's not on there. Our rank wasn't on there. We're somewhere in the twenties right now. If you guys go look up on real trends, you'll see us. I think we were, like, twenty six. But, anyway, twenty six last year with a little under five billion. If we don't grow anymore, we'll do twelve billion or more in twenty twenty four. We're gonna keep growing. I think we do more like sixteen or seventeen billion because we're still adding agents like crazy, and we're still growing like crazy. And and we got so many more states we can open. There's just so much great stuff happening for LPT right now. So based on our March numbers, you annualize that out. We are now at top ten brokerage. Twenty eight. Top twenty eight. There you go. Top ten. You know? So we're number twenty eight. So we were not even on the list in twenty twenty two. And because, again, in March of twenty twenty two, we did nine million dollars in sales. Right? We didn't even do a billion dollars in sales in all of twenty twenty two because we were too new. I think the twenty twenty two number is, like, seven hundred million. Yeah. Seven hundred million. So we did set we were gonna do more volume in March of twenty four than we did the whole year of twenty twenty two. Alright? And then twenty twenty three, we did about eleven or five billion. And now this year, I think we're gonna do, like, fifteen or eighteen billion, which will put us solidly in the top ten brokerages in the country. Second full year in business, right, because twenty twenty two was not a full year in business. We only had closings for ten months. You know, we didn't close loan we didn't close anything in January or February. So first year open, ten months of closing, seven hundred million. First full year, twenty twenty three, almost five billion, twelve months open. And now twenty twenty four, second full year in business, third year of existence, top ten brokerage in the country. Yeah. So, I'm pretty proud of what we're all doing together. I'm proud of the path we're on. You know, it's interesting too, you know, you get these other brokerages that talk about, oh, LPT is not gonna go public. It's a risk, this and that. Those both of those brokerages, when they went public, had less than a thousand agents and were doing, like, fifty million, sixty million a month in volume at the time they went public, but they wanna tell us that a brokerage knocking on the door of a billion dollars a month with ten thousand agents is never gonna be able to go public. I mean, it's just such nonsense, but I I get it. I mean, people say nonsensical things when they're trying to protect themselves at somebody else's expense. That's right. So we're here to keep winning. Again, I I sleep great at night. I'm so excited about the path, Ron. I see opportunity in the new NARS settlement. I see opportunity for you to show your value directly to your buyer, directly to your seller, and have more control over your ultimate commission because you're negotiating with your client, not dependent on the other agent negotiating with their client of what they're gonna pay you. So, really exciting times ahead, really exciting times ahead for LPT, really exciting times ahead for the industry. But, again, it's more important than ever that we show value, and we are here as your partner, as your brokerage to make sure you have the tools and the knowledge and the education. Connect two point o is coming. All of these amazing things to make sure that you can absolutely show the most value to your customer so that you can negotiate that fair commission and run a solid business here at LPT Realty. And we're gonna keep building. We're gonna keep innovating, and we're gonna keep growing. You know, we're just getting started. We're we have so many more states to open. We have more countries to open. Like, we have so much to do. And the fact that we're already knocking on the door of that billion is just so exciting. The sky really is the limit. So, I'm proud for each and every one of you to be here. I'm proud of proud of you. I'm proud of what you've accomplished. Keep crushing it out there because we are real estate first. And and growth is great. Growth means that a lot of you are believing in us, but we're real estate first. And seeing you all crush these production numbers like we did in March is so exciting. And, again, a couple weeks from now, ten days from now when we announce that that official number for March, and we're gonna announce it whether it's got that extra comma or not because it is something to be proud of. I hope it has the extra comma. Me too. Right? But I'm I'm proud regardless, and we it's gonna be right there. So congrats to everybody who's a part of this journey, and I'm proud to be in business with each and every one of you. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Alright. Well, so we have our last housekeeping. Last Yeah. I want good. Yeah. So on that topic, if you are depositing checks at your local bank branch, it is really important that you tell us you did it with a ticket because, otherwise, we can spend a lot of time trying to figure out what closing that check was for because sometimes the title company does not put the address on the check anywhere. Sometimes the amount of the check does not match exactly what we were expecting based on the last compliance check of the file. And then two, the bank doesn't actually get us the image of the check for twenty four hours. Alright? So if you deposit a check today and you put in a ticket and you say, hey. I just submitted a check. This is the property it's for. We can start our job immediately. If you don't do that, when the check acts the check image shows up from the bank, which can be a day or even two days later, now compliance is trying to figure out, what property that check is for. Because some come some title company just put, like, a file reference number on the memo line, which means absolutely nothing to us. And so, like, we get a check, and it's like, there's a it's from a title company, which means nothing to us. It's got a title company file number on it, which means nothing to us. Your name is nowhere on it. The property address is nowhere on it. The consumer's names are nowhere on it, and and we then have to try to figure out whose check this is, and that can delay you getting paid. Yep. So inside of Connect, there are instructions. You can go into Connect. You can look up our payment what we call single check states. That is the states who will not write two checks. So, like, in Florida, Texas, it's easy. Title company writes two checks, one to us, one to you. They hand you your check at closing. We get our check-in the mail later. No big deal. There are states that do not allow that. Single check states. They will only issue a single check from the title company to LPT, and then you can take that check down to a local branch at Chase, Truist, or Synovus, which between those three banks, they're everywhere, and and we're adding more. I think we're gonna add Wells Fargo probably next to give even more coverage. Or you can mail it to us. You can FedEx it to us. There's wire setup policies on there, all kinds of things. But the key is submit the ticket so the compliance team knows what that check is for. And just uploading it to dot loop is not gonna gonna do it because that doesn't always trigger notification. You gotta understand. We get, like, ten thousand dot loop notifications of new documents being uploaded every day. This is why it's really important to use the ticket system and to use Connect. And so fastest way for us to know what's up, is for you to submit that ticket so so that we can match the check you're closing. Because, look, we wanna pay you as quickly as possible, but we can't pay you if we don't know the check is on your closing. And, again, sometimes the title companies are not doing us any favors on that. So, again, just wanted to get that housekeeping item out there. I think that's all we had to cover today. Yeah. Yeah. So that that's it. We've, I hope you guys enjoyed oh, social downloads. Yeah. So we added a new social download today, the quote about our culture. So if you let's let's everybody log in to Connect right now and see if we can crash it again. Again. Yeah. I think we fixed it. It was there was there was an old database call to one of the old listing power tools, the legacy database that was that crashed the system last week. But if you log in to Connect now, under featured images, and Desi is still spitting these out. They're coming. There's a featured image. There's two options. There's a a Facebook cover photo that has, the quote about our culture. Can we get that updated? Do you have the the mountain graphic that you ran, pre, preshow? Anyway, your face on there, and that quote, both in a, and Connect is down. Fantastic. We're gonna we're gonna keep stress testing Connect by getting everybody to log in at the same time on Monday, until we get this figured out. But under featured images, you should still have the ten thousand agent graphic, And now you I should have looked at this before we went live. And now you should also have this quote graphic, which is in two formats, a square that you can post on your feed or a background image, that you can make your Facebook background image that says I'm committed to building a single connected community, empowering agent choice. See if I can get this right. I don't know. Yeah. Close enough. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We get get my quote up? Yeah. There we go. It went to seventy percent CPU usage as soon as I set it. So we're gonna have to upgrade that server again. We're just gonna keep upgrading the server until we get this right because I wanted to be able to handle so you gotta think normally, during the week, you know, I don't know, maybe couple hundred agents are signing in at any one given time. And now we knew when now when we know when two point o comes out, that's gonna go up. And we know when I mentioned on Motivation Monday, that goes up. So we're just gonna keep stress testing the server here live on Motivation Monday. So we learn together. We're gonna figure this out We're gonna get this server right before it's connect two point o launches. So that's so good. Okay. Any final words? No, guys. Again, I appreciate each and every one of you. Keep your head down. Again, don't don't ignore the changes that are coming, but don't fall prey. Don't fall victim to the noise, the fear. There is so much opportunity for us to win together. We're already winning together. We're setting records. We're we're helping so many consumers. We're empowering you guys. We're building an amazing culture. The list just goes on and on and on and on. So, keep your head up. Keep doing what you gotta do out there. Do be ready for some chaos for the next couple of months. Like, it it is going to get messy during this transition period because people are still interpreting the rules. People are making up their own rules. If If you go on ten webinars, you'll hear ten different interpretations. We tried to keep our analysis as kinda down the middle as possible without drawing too many random conclusions. That is not the approach others are taking. So just know that that as the final rules do come out from NAR, we will be here to go through them with you. Keep your head down. Get through the muck. The other side of this thing, the future is bright, and we will all win together here at LPT Realty. That that is my commitment to each and every one of you. You believed in me and this company and all of us as a leadership team and this brand when you joined LPT Realty, and we don't take that lightly. And and I can promise you that I have your back, and this entire team has your back, and this entire brokerage has your back, and we will win together. Awesome. Have a great week.