Good morning, and welcome to another motivational Monday. My name is Matthew Hodge, executive vice president here at LPT Realty, and I'm joined by Robert Palmer, founder and CEO. Each week we come to you every Monday, so you can start your week off right. We're gonna talk about the market this week. We're gonna talk about some numbers for March. Before we do that, though, how was your weekend? I gotta It's good. Yeah. Your laptop is echoing back here behind you. Matt Hodge is the king of audio disruption. Yeah. It's interesting too. Like, I had a people I think a few people, because we call this motivation Monday, don't understand that it's also, like, big brokerage updates. Yeah. Yeah. Brokerage pulse. But so tell your friends, like, this is something like, I don't need motivation. I just need to know what's going on in the brokerage. Like, that's what we do here. Right. We just sprinkle a little motivation in. But the the primary focus, this is to make sure we get to talk to you guys every week and tell you what is going on in the world. That's right. That is right. So how was your weekend? It was beautiful. If you weren't out outside, you probably shouldn't live in Florida. I, I took Reagan to Volcano Bay Nice. On Saturday, and we had a ton of fun. Gotcha. It sucks, man. So she's exactly forty eight inches tall. So, like, she can ride Tron at Disney. But without shoes on, she's, like, forty seven point seven inches tall. Right. And so she could not ride the the water slides that she was most excited about. But she was she was a good sport about it. We had a good time. Good little daddy daughter day. Yeah. Mom stayed home with Luna. Wow. And, it was it was fun. Awesome, man. Yeah. It was a pretty cool place. Have you been to Volcano Bay? I've not, actually. I've not. I'm not a big water park guy, but this they did a pretty good job. Yeah. It was it was a lot of fun. Cool. That was that was a good weekend. Good, man. And watched the Masters too. Like, a lot of Masters was a big, you know, big golf tournament. They did such an amazing job on the production. And, we thought it was gonna be exciting, but in the end, it was, you know, kinda ran away with it. So here's what it is. But, yeah, if you watch the Masters, I was watching it there with you. But that was my weekend. Masters and, daddy daughter day at, at at Volcano Bay. Alright. Fantastic. Well, I'm happy that you enjoyed that. The weather was was amazing. I know if you are in the north or someplace else, and you're probably still experiencing some cool weather, but here, it was great. But let's jump into kinda what happened last week. So, we talked about it the previous week. CPI numbers had come out, and, you know, I guess job creation was at three hundred thousand. The estimation was we had two hundred thousand. And so it looks like, hey. We're not gonna see any reprievement in terms of interest rates, and then the exact opposite happened. So walk me through what happened yesterday, everyone. And if you've noticed, there was a big jump in rates last week around Wednesday, Thursday. What what happened? What what kind of causes that, and where are we going? So that may not actually hit the, like, average rate charts until next week because of the way they because of the way they measure it every week. So it's pretty interesting how much that lags. Yeah. So we talked about when the jobs report came out, the jobs report was hotter than expected. Rates didn't react too negatively, just, I mean, a decent amount, but not completely off a cliff because people are really hoping that the Fed, as we talked about, is now more willing to kinda separate inflation from joblessness. Right? Like, they have a dual mandate. And so there's two reasons they'll cut rates, because unemployment gets out of control, which is not happening according to the jobs reports, or inflation gets under control and drops dramatically. And so the jobs report was a big beater, and so that coulda hurt us more, but it didn't because people were hoping for a good inflation report to come out on, Wednesday, and that did not happen. Inflation exceeded expectations and a massive sell off in the ten year. Rates jumped up pretty dramatically. One of the worst days, I think, probably since, like, twenty twenty two for mortgage rates to jump in a single day. So, again, if you have preapprovals out there, they probably need to get looked at. If you have customers who aren't locked, you know, talk to your mortgage guy and mortgage girl, mortgage professional, and see what what what the plan is there because it was a significant move. And I think this just completely reinforces the idea that this was just another head fake. Yeah. You know, we talked about the the six head fakes that happened last year. I really believe that the December rate drop was not just a head fake. We were finally on a good path, and now we are back up ten year north of four point five seven, probably creeping up on four point six as we sit here this morning. And, we one more head fake. So higher for longer is real. These rates are what they are. But the amazing thing is we're still selling a lot of houses here at LBT Realty. And Yeah. We said it. You know, while while the the interest rates are causing some pain here and there, all in all, the market, I think, is really getting used to it. And I think, you know, the more the more things jump up and down like this, it reinforces this idea. Because I think in December, when you saw rates drop, I think a lot of optimistic homeowners said, oh, they're gonna keep dropping. Right. Like, this is it. We're going back to the threes or the twos, which is probably not happening anytime soon if ever again. That was really a pandemic response. But I think people were thinking, well, let me wait another three or four months. If they drop this much in December, how much lower can they be by March, April, May? And now we sit here in March with rates back up as high as they were during the peaks, of twenty twenty three. And so I think that is now going to get home buyers to get off of this idea of I'm going to wait it out. Right. And we've talked about this idea that a lot of people have tried to push the decision to move to buy or sell as far forward as they can, and they're running out of runway. You know, you only have so long before you gotta do something if you're trying to move for a job, if your family is growing, if you just your current house just doesn't work anymore. And so there's just this this this runway is starting to run out. Mhmm. And I think people were like, hey. If rates are gonna continue to drop, we're gonna hold on a little bit longer, and now here we are back at high rates. So I I don't think it's going to have as much of a negative impact on volume as we saw in October last year. But, again, we we never know. And and we don't know where things are going. I mean, there is a there is a number where if rates continue to go up, it does start to get really uncomfortable. Yep. We hope that doesn't happen. I I hope we've you know, this kinda four or five to five percent level on the ten year, which is putting rates in the mid sevens is probably hopefully where we land. But, again, we just don't know until until the next inflation report, the next drop report come out, and we're we're literally living month to month, you know, kinda week to week on the these data and reports. And, you know, people at one point were calling for six Fed rate cuts, then it was three Fed rate cuts. Now it's two Fed rate cuts. Some people are saying zero Fed rate cuts. We're Now they're like, just please don't raise it. Yeah. Yeah. No raising. And I think I don't think we I don't think we're gonna see raising. I don't think the Fed feels like they're at a substantially restrictive level, but you just you never know. I mean, if inflation starts to really peak, if inflation starts to put up numbers in the fours and fives and sixes, then, yeah, they would have to do more. So we're just It's crazy. We're gonna stay focused. Again, our goal here is to keep you guys up to date on what's happening, but big big negative week for mortgage rates last week. Yeah. That really was. And so, guys, I know that we are kind of used to saying in industry, hey. It's always a great time to buy real estate, and we'll come up with these arguments as to why it's makes more sense to purchase now instead of waiting for it, you know, some macroeconomic change. But this is the type of verbiage that you're gonna wanna use when you're talking about it to educate the consumers what's happening. Like, hey, guys. Just so you know, there are no rate cuts coming into the future. So if that's what you're hinging your idea on, we you know, you can point to this data and say there's not that's not coming, and then you can make your argument. So little things like that really make the difference in helping your consumer understand, you know, why it's smart to purchase and and and make it applicable for their for the life. Yeah. Alright. So Real quick. Before we get into it, did anybody join the Zoom today through the new link inside of Connect? I tested it right before we went live. It worked for me. I know for a few people, it did not work. We're testing this new feature where you can click a tile inside of Connect, bypass the registration, bypass the login, and get straight into the Zoom meeting. Again, it worked for me, but I I think for some people it didn't work. So we're trying to debug this to figure out, does it it works if you have the app, it doesn't work if you don't have the app, because it's it's working for most people, but I know there are a few people who didn't work. So if you tested that and it didn't work for you, please submit a ticket so we can try to figure out your settings. If it's the version of Zoom you have on your phone or your computer, try to let us know that in the ticket. But this is interesting because this is what's going to drive the, circle up feature inside of Connect two point o that we're integrating directly in with Zoom. So we're testing that at scale now on Motivation Monday and Real Estate First Friday. So, basically, what happens is, I think I think thirty minutes before the meeting starts, the tile appears for Motivation Monday on Mondays and for Real Estate First Friday on Fridays. Dave, if you have a shot of that, I don't know if we can throw it up. Up. You click that, and it automatically sets your name, first name, last name, and everything, and puts you directly into the Zoom, without having to register everything. So just a nice little reminder. The big thing is we're testing this because this is gonna be a big part of Connect two point o because this is how the circle up feature will work. So whenever there's live education happening, whenever there's you know, right now we have these two meetings a week. With Connect two point o, we could have hundreds of meetings every single week going on. And so so we're testing this integration, this lights out integration between Connect and Zoom that can put you right into the meeting, as a part of getting two point o ready to launch. So really exciting stuff. Yes, sir. I I don't think he has a screenshot of that, but we will we will get one. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like a lot of people said that they were able to make it through, so that's great. Alright. Fantastic. Alright. So let's jump in to some, brokerage updates and some numbers for, ending in q one. Yeah. Let's specifically the month of March. Yeah. So I, you know, I I I mentioned on the last day of March that we were we were very close to breaking the billion dollar, volume number for March, and we were right there on the bubble. Again, but part of that is, like, you know, we we don't necessarily get alerted the minute a deal closes. So, like, we spend time going back to the title companies and saying, hey. Did this deal close? Did that deal close? We know we issued a DA, and then we either confirm with the title company or we get the check-in for our piece, and that's how we know in DA states that the deal closed. And so it takes us, you know, week or two to figure out what all actually closed, what didn't close. So we we have finished that, and we're gonna report those results here. So if we can go to our slides, Dave, we're gonna go through the the March update. We we had some oh, actually, we're not going on March twenty twenty one. Order. I'm not no. I'm not in order. I think it's on the wrong path. Alright. Rewind. Yeah. Rewind. We're gonna get to that in just a minute. Yeah. So let's go through the travel schedule for the next couple of weeks. Before we get into that, the corporate team and I are gonna be traveling. I'm gonna be speaking at some events around the country coming up in the next month. We wanna let you guys know about that. We will be in Arizona. I'm on a panel at, the t three sixty Leadership Summit. This is the group that puts out the Swanepoel Power two hundred, which I was named to this year, which was a great honor. And I'm speaking on a panel, with them with a few other real estate CEOs, in Phoenix. It's kind of a they bring all the leadership together from all the largest brokerages. It's a pretty big conference out there. So we will be in Phoenix. We're leaving Sunday. So we'll be out in Phoenix on Monday and Tuesday. And then we are flying directly, from Phoenix to New York, and I'm actually giving a couple of other real estate company CEOs a lift on my jet so that they can make the, they can make their their meetings in New York for rates, because there weren't any commercial flights that would get them there in time. So then, in New York, I'm doing the nine lessons I learned spending a hundred and fifty million dollars on TV and radio to a group of, big teams and clients of Matt Wagner's radio and television experts. This is a mastermind for people who are running TV and radio commercials in real estate. If you've ever seen the TV commercials with Barbara Corcoran, you know, this is it. The, the New York one is for rate members only or if you're in a market where rate is available. So we can connect you with Matt Wagner and take a look at your market. But I am gonna do an LPT meet and greet while I'm there. So Trace will be putting out details. We'll find a a restaurant somewhere in New York, maybe do a lunch or a happy hour or anybody who's in any of our states up there near New York who wants to ride the train in or fly in. We'll have a little LPT meet and greet somewhere so that I can hang out with folks, who are not actually going to the radio and television experts mastermind. If you are interested in that, if you are interested in looking at the potential of purchasing TV and radio ads with Matt and his group, we can put you in touch with him. But, that that particular event is for clients of theirs or potential clients of theirs, looking into that. And then finally, the one back in Orlando, the one that everybody can come out and support, coach Pipes is doing his sales power twenty twenty four event in Orlando, May sixth to the eighth. I'll be speaking at that. And we actually have a discount code for that one for LPT agents, anybody who wants to take advantage of that. So go into the the next slide there, Dave. There this l p t two four nine g three two four code, you put that discount code in on the last day the last screen if you're buying a a ticket, for Coach Pipe's, Sales Power event, and you'll get it hundred dollars off retail, which is two hundred and forty nine bucks for a three day event. Some of our really big teams, coaching with with Bill, he does a great job. Lot of energy. He's actually speaking at rate as well, so he'll be in New York with us. Really interesting guy. Super motivational. Brings a lot of energy. Really focused on growth. So I'm excited to participate in that. I think a few of our agents are speaking on panels there as well as well, which is exciting. So if you can make it out to Orlando, March sixth to the eighth and take advantage of that event, I would love to see you there. And we may do some type of happy hour or something there as well, at one of the hotels nearby for our LPT agents to come hang out. And then I see some other people bringing up other states. I am planning on a Texas trip, later this year. We're also planning on a big North Carolina trip, at the beginning of the summer. So, trying to get around, hit as many states as we can. Love to meet you guys in person. Love to see everybody. And, you know, again, help help drive growth and help drive the LPT Message Institute market. So That's right. That is our upcoming travel schedule. So it's it's pretty, we're gonna be back on the road here, I think, pretty heavily. The roadshow. I've had two solid weekends of not working, so I I have, like, the twitch. And now we're gonna, like, go on this bender and and get out there and and get out in the the market and go see everybody. Awesome. So, yeah, it's exciting. Alright. So that's the travel update. And now we can get on to the volume updates There we go. We did in the amazing month of March. So, Davey, if we can get to that slide. So we all know that we we finally reached the ten thousand agent march, mark in March. That was obviously a very big milestone that we reached in March. We also reached an additional milestone on number of closings. So in March, we closed three thousand one hundred and forty seven transactions here at LPT Realty, which is a significant increase, from our previous months. And and next slide there, Dave. What's interesting is if you go look at real trends for twenty twenty three and you order that you go to the ranking by sides, there are only nine brokerages in the country that averaged more than three thousand one hundred and forty seven sides per month in twenty twenty three. So at our current size, we would be expected to be now a top ten brokerage as ranked by transaction volume, in the country, which is pretty outstanding seeing as March was our twenty fifth month open Yep. And our twenty fourth month of production. Yep. Because we didn't close our first transaction until March of twenty twenty two. And then we are now twenty four months in production doing three thousand one hundred and forty seven sides, which is pretty exciting. And then next slide. And, obviously, the big drum roll, that did put us over the billion mark, by just a little bit. One billion four point nine million, was our final tally for the month of March. So, really incredible. My hats off to all you guys. You absolutely crushed it. You know, and and to be honest, you crushed it sooner than we expected you to. Oh, yeah. So let let's throw this next slide up here, Dave, because I wanna talk about this. So when we look at historic seasonal production volumes, we should not have hit the billion mark based on our agent count and based on the market conditions until May because May is the high watermark. And so what this means is all of you outperformed the market. You outperformed your peers Yep. And you outperformed, our projections, which is amazing. Right? Go LPC. So, basically, all all that time we spent in November and December talking about get out there and put out your door hangers and pass out your active marketing plans and your nine critical questions. All of that stuff worked because, statistically, we should not have hit a billion in volume or three thousand plus transactions until May. So you guys are absolutely crushing it, the tools, your hard work, the dedication, putting in the time when things were tough and and maybe didn't feel great, you're absolutely winning and and you exceeded our projections. Now the downside to that is we did a lot more transactions in March than we expected, which put us a little behind on staffing and scaling. And so, you know, I think we did a pretty good job in March, but we didn't meet my expectations. Like, my service level expectations for you guys is very, very high, and we fell short of those in March because you did so much more volume than what we accepted, expected or projected. And so for that, I apologize and I take responsibility. You know, I should've I should've had more faith. I should've realized how much you guys are gonna absolutely crush it coming out of the gate. And so we were projecting to have all of this extra staff and things in place and ready to go for May to hit the billion, for May to hit the thirty one hundred transactions, but we did it in March. And so we actually had started this project to staff up in February. Now I know I should have started it in December. So next year, we will back things up, and we'll get started earlier. But since February, we've doubled the compliance staff, and we've three x ed the compliance leadership. And and this is critical because, basically, we've now hit a size to where before compliance was centralized, it was running under kind of a single team of leadership, and that can only scale so far. And that was the right system and the right setup for us to use to get to three thousand transactions. But now as we go beyond three thousand transactions, we are restructuring compliance to now regionalize the compliance management. So now each region, has more dedicated compliance staff, dedicated compliance leadership. Previously, the bulk of the compliance was being done, through corporate, and now we are moving that into the individual regions. And we think that's gonna help overall, give a better overall, you know, experience because, look, when the corporate team was trying to do all these different states, maybe there's not as much of an expert in every state. Maybe they're asking for things that aren't applicable to your state because they're applicable to a different state. And so by regionalizing compliance, we feel like we're going to have a much better experience as we continue to grow and scale, and giving the regional brokers and the state brokers more authority over what that compliance process looks like, what we're asking for in compliance. And so, again, this is this is a a growth transition we are going through, and this is part of us, you know, being the fastest growing brokerage in history. My commitment to you all was to stay in front of it. And, again, in this particular instance, I missed by a couple of months because based on our historic charts, it should have been May before we had to deal with this massive influx of volume. So I'm so proud of you all for doing it in March, but it did pinch us a little bit. But know that we've we've been working hard on this. You know, we take this very seriously. You know, we want to have the absolute best level of service, you know, imaginable for you all. You know, again, the idea behind LPT is the best possible tools, the best possible service at the most affordable comp plan. We don't want you to sacrifice in any way to be here. And, again, we got a little we were a little behind the curve because I underestimated our March closings. And then finally, we're doing a regional realignment as a part of this as well. So we're gonna be moving a few states around. But I really feel good about the position this puts us in, the addition of the compliance teams, the addition of more compliance leadership, and then having that compliance leadership now be focused on the individual regions and the problems and compliance requirements that are faced in that particular region, in that particular geography. And so, next slide, Dave, so we can highlight our moves. So couple of moves we made, Kansas and Missouri, moved over to region two with Jen McDonald. Amanda Hanon's region picked up Illinois and Wisconsin, which are two new states, and we have a new state broker there we'll be announcing. And then North Carolina moved from region five to region four with Amanda, and then we moved Alabama and Mississippi from region one down to region five. So, again, we're looking at this. How do we best balance the volume across where our growth is happening? How do we best balance states that have similar compliance postures because some states are much more restrictive than others. Some states want the broker to review files within a certain number of days. Some states don't have that requirement. Some states are very much sticklers about certain forms. Other states are not. And so this graduation now from a centralized corporate compliance team to primarily now regionalized compliance teams is going to allow us to give you a better quality of service and now be able to really match the growth by region and by area because some regions are growing faster than others. So the staffing levels need to be different. So this was a big project. We started this from the corporate side and talking about this structure all the way back in, like, November. And and it took us then to February to get things lined up and start hiring staff, and now they are finally getting trained and getting in place. You'll see more and more folks come into play. We're gonna be ready to roll for that May bump because we're not gonna stop growing. Right. You know, we are moving into a higher level here. One of the big moves we made is, I would say at this point, almost all of our compliance staff is now licensed. Mhmm. So early on, we were using unlicensed compliance staff. We've now moved to licensed compliance staff. Again, just things that we're doing as we grow to constantly improve the process for you guys. But it, you know, it takes time, and we're growing so fast that us missing a projection by even a couple of months put us behind. But, I feel like we did a good job. You know, shout out to the staff. They did an amazing job with handling that massive influx of volume in March, that we were not fully staffed for at that point. April has gotten better. May will be back to perfect service levels like we were seeing at the end of last year. And, again, we we thank you guys for bearing with us. We are a growing company. We're very focused on this. This is this is not we're asleep at the wheel. It's just we're trying to project these massive swings, and and we almost saw volume double Yep. Between December, January, and March, which is just massive. And and you gotta think in any business, being able to handle a doubling influx of volume is a lot. Again, we thought the doubling would happen in May. So, again, my apologies for anybody who did experience any type of negative delays, last minute things in the month of March. I I I take this one on me. I will be more ahead of the game next year in getting the the staff in place because now we know that this brokerage likes to pop in March and not May. And and, again, we're gonna continue to grow, and we're gonna be in position for it next year. And I think what's gonna happen eventually is you'll start to see state level compliance teams. Right? So when we started, we were smaller. We had corporate compliance, a few regional here and there, but the bulk of compliance was happening at the corporate team. Now we're moving into regional level compliance. The next move will be as certain states get to a large enough size, now having state level compliance, which means that now that compliance team is a hundred percent focused on your state rules and your state guidelines, but it there's a scale that it requires to get there. So Yeah. So it's funny because over the weekend, when you were kind of finalizing the numbers, he said, I was telling everyone to plant seeds. And, man, they planted a lot of seeds. They planted a lot of seeds. LPT agents planted a whole lot of seeds through q four, and and we saw that windfall come in March. So Yeah. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. So in addition to that, we do have some new state brokers joining as well. So that's what we did with the compliance team. In addition to that, we've added new state brokers. If we can go to those slides, I wanna welcome these folks. So, we have a new, North Carolina managing broker, and he's also gonna have a role of regional education director. His name is Jerry Farrell. Jerry comes to us from the, largest, cloud brokerage, in the in the country. Really great following in the state of North Carolina. We're really excited to have him. Real rock star coming on with us. And so, this is part of of the idea of the regional realignment, you know, giving him a a little more autonomy in his state. Patty's been doing an amazing job to continue with South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama, and we're excited to see what happens there. We've had a couple of big teams join recently, in North Carolina. We've got, you know, two of the the largest teams in that state, and, I'm gonna be planning a trip up there, at the beginning of the summer Awesome. So we can spend some time in North County. I welcome Jerry. Absolutely great guy. I've enjoyed getting to know him through the interview process, and I think he's gonna bring, he's gonna bring a a wealth of knowledge to LPT in his role as a North Carolina managing managing broker. Josh Allen is our managing broker for Wisconsin and Illinois. Two new states were opening. Wisconsin is not one I had announced, previously. So that's a new one for everybody. Wisconsin is now open. We landed one of the largest teams in the state of Wisconsin. They were an independent brokerage, and they rolled into LPT. And then Illinois is also now officially open, and and, we're gonna be making some some waves up there soon with some folks we have to announce. But welcome, Josh. Focused on those two states. We've added another, an additional managing broker in the state of Florida. Joanne Luss comes to us. Again, wealth of knowledge up in the Panhandle. Excited to have her join us here. We have one more, managing broker that we're gonna be adding to Florida here in the near future. And then, last but absolutely not least, I'm I'm excited to announce, Kristen Peglow, as our chief technology officer here at LPT Realty. Kristen has been with me for a long time and kind of running shared duty across multiple companies, taking care of technology and marketing at, RP Funding and mortgage and mortgage lit, in addition to trying to help us out over here on the the LPT side. And so we've now hit a point in our growth where we need Kristen absolutely and a hundred percent focused on LPT from a technology standpoint. So I'm giving up one of my aces, from my other companies to now come over here com and completely focus on technology at LPT Realty. With two point o coming out, with the growth we're seeing, there's just so much stuff we have going on. We need her completely focused on that. Also, this is a big part of getting that that management team in place, for us to continue to grow and go to the next level as a company. So, big round of applause with Kristen. Having her now fully focused here at LPT Realty and someone fully focused on our technology, is gonna help us, again, continue to scale and grow and, and go to the next level. So big round of applause, Shadi. Congratulations to everybody. For sure. Big moves happening there as as we continue to add new folks. And, like, we're, you know, we're we're growing. We're growing fast. We're doing our best in making sure we keep up with that growth. The the biggest issues are more when we have to go through these milestones or we have to restructure and not just grow. It's easy to add staff into the existing processes, but, again, processes that work from zero to ten thousand agents are not the same processes that will work from ten thousand to twenty five thousand agents, from twenty five thousand to a hundred thousand agents. And then finally, we think somewhere around that hundred thousand agent mark, we have the scale to kinda sink into what the ultimate processes look like. You know, so that's exciting. The other big thing is, you know, again, just one more time to kinda pull this up, and and I want you guys to really pay attention to this. What you did in March you know, again, look at look at twenty twenty three. So you saw from January, and then volume dropped between January, February, and March. So January was higher last year. February and March were lower. And then we saw the big spring closings. Remember, you're gonna write a lot of contracts normally in February and March, but those contracts aren't going to close until April and May, which is usually when we see the spike, and then we see a drop, and then it kinda levels off toward the end of the year. If you look at twenty twenty four, January and February were flat, and then you guys just went absolutely nuclear, in March. And, again, so we we doubled transaction count from January to March. And and we were up about fifty percent from just January to February, which, again, the rest of the did not experience. Nope. So this is a combination of agent count, but even agent count doesn't account for this. This is you all going out there and winning with the team, winning with the tools and winning with the team and winning with the culture and winning with everything together to absolutely move the needle forward on this market. That's right. That's been really exciting to see. So, yeah, I'm I'm really proud of everybody. You know, this puts us in a great position. Know, while we're in New York, we're gonna be meeting with the investment banking group at JPMorgan. One of the big things we're gonna talk about is our state expansion strategy. And does it still make sense to hold off on opening certain states, or should we bring them forward and just go ahead and get the whole country opened? Our growth has exceeded their expectations. Our, volume and margins have exceeded expectations. Like, this brokerage is really performing at such a high level because of you all going out there and winning and selling real estate. It's amazing how that works. When you're real estate first and your agents go out there and absolutely crush it with real estate Yep. It puts us in this, absolute amazing position. So, I really feel like that's gonna happen, but we're gonna have those discussions in person while I'm up in New York, with the investment banking team at JPMorgan about what it would look like for us to go ahead and open up the rest of the country in, like, the next fifteen to eighteen months. And then, obviously, we're gonna make sure that we are prepared for that, that we're staffed for that. We're not gonna do anything that puts our service levels in jeopardy or puts your overall experience, our ability to control the growth, but there may be a shift. And, obviously, I'll be back here on Motivation Monday sharing it with everyone where before we were purposely holding out about half the country for after, twenty twenty five. We may go ahead and and launch a lot of states here in the next, you know, fifteen to eighteen months, to kinda get ready for that next step for us as a a company from a capital market standpoint. So, really exciting times here, but it it all happens because you all are winning and and closing real estate transactions and outperforming the market and exceeding expectations. I'm so thankful for each and every one of you. That's what we're here to do. You know, the the growth is great, but the growth is a byproduct of the opportunity that LPT creates for a real estate agents to win. And that's really what it's all about. You know, creating a platform where every real estate agent here at LPT Realty has the tools and the support, and the marketing and the culture to go out there and win. And then, you know, two point o will be coming online in another, you know, three or four or five months. So, again, we're we're in that window of three to six months that I originally set out, at at conference. I can't believe it's been a month since conference. Been a month. You know, we're moving along there. A lot of exciting things happening. The new button to get into Motivation Monday, that is a precursor to Connect two point o. So you'll see some of the codes start to appear in the existing Connect before we make the full switch over to two point o. But just a lot of really exciting stuff happening from a growth standpoint, from a success standpoint, and and I'm I'm just really proud to be in business with all you guys. Right. And we're winning together. Yep. Hey. I got so I've got a question real quick. So a lot of things are happening. That number is crazy. Right? A billion dollars in sales. That's a lot of sales for you. I don't care who you are. I mean, again, top I mean, we're top the top ten brokers in the country. Only nine brokerages in the country did more than thirty one hundred transactions, which is what we did. There's a few that have higher volume because of luxury or whatever because they have a higher average price point. But when you look at volume of transactions, there are only nine brokerages in the country that are larger than us now. Yep. That that is insane. That is insane. That is insane. So, just a quick question. What is that what has the journey been like from inception to right now? You know, we know that you have built successful businesses, but to going through the process, it's not always like, it's so easy. It just feels great. There's no stress. There's no risk. It just you just go out there and win. So what is it like for maybe someone who's out of place? They're, you know, beating against the wall right now. They're trying to make it happen. They're trying to plant the seeds. It's not quite sprouting yet. You know, what does it feel like through that journey all the way to a place where you can say, okay. This is a validation that what I'm doing is working. Yeah. Look. I I I think it's interesting because I think, you know, the the wins and losses come on both sides. Right? So when volume is not where you expect it to be. Right? Because coming into q four, you know, October, November, and December were worse than what we projected because of interest rates being up in just the overall market. And so there, you know, you kinda have this feeling of, like, is this gonna work? Like, are these tools really working? You know? Like, look, there's some doubt that creeps in. As much as I know the marketing works and as much as I have, you know, in my own career proven that all of these marketing principles and this idea of planting the seeds works because it's how I built everything I have, There's those moments of doubt Yeah. Because, you know, look, volume was lagging a little bit for us as a brokerage, but it was very much market driven. And so there are times where that fail like a fail you know, felt like a failure. You're, like, questioning, like, is this working? Like, are are these concepts translating? You know? Is this is this market just that much harder? You know? What's really going on? And so you start to doubt. And then the flip side happens, and all of a sudden you see this massive windfall of business. And now you're stressing out in the month of March because you're like, man, like, files are taking longer to get through a client. Like, DAs are going out to closer to closing than what I wanna see. And, you know, and it's like you're watching these numbers, and now you feel a little bit like a failure on the other side and saying, man, like, now we're we're we're struggling because we've had too much success. And so I think it's just always understanding the balance happening on both sides, and it's it's keeping your head down and staying committed, staying focused, you know, not ever giving up and focusing on solutions. And I think for me, that's really a big part of it, staying focused on solutions, being plugged into the data because you have to know what's happening. But but wins and losses can come on both sides of the equation. There's probably times that you pulled a win out from something negative happening that you didn't realize. There's times that something positive happened ended up creating a loss. Like, these are the things that that we have to deal with as entrepreneurs. I think for me, though, the most exciting part about all this, you know, and you kinda compared it back to my other businesses is, with my other businesses, I was the entrepreneur very much winning alone. You know? Like like, yeah, my my team and I have been together for a long time, but it was it was it was a single business. It was my entrepreneurial business, my entrepreneurial vision winning alone. We're now with LPT. We have ten thousand people's individual entrepreneurial vision winning together. Together. Yes. And I gotta tell you that that feels so much cooler. Like, it's just such a different thing. And and, look, and that that's not something I had the resources to put together, you know, in in my first go around. Like, you know, fifteen years ago when I launched my mortgage company, I just had enough resources to build my own thing. You know, I had just enough capital to scrape by and build my own thing. I had just enough of a management team and just enough understanding and knowledge and experience to build my own thing. And now to come back, basically, out of retirement in two thousand seventeen when Reagan was born, and now take a much different level of resources that I've been able to accumulate, a much different level of knowledge and relationship and an amazing team around me, and now be able to win with others and win through others winning. Yep. Because that's really what LPT does. LPT doesn't win because LPT is a great business. LPT wins because of your great businesses. And that's such a a different dynamic for me because I'm not rooting for LPT. I'm rooting for our ten thousand agents, and LPT wins as a byproduct of that. That's right. When my first business, it was rooting for me. Like, my name's on on the company. I'm in the TV commercials. It was very much like I put the company on my shoulders and carried it up the hill. This is not that. You all individually have this company on your ten thousand sets of shoulders as you build your business, and that is the tide that lifts the ship that is LPT Realty. And and for me as an entrepreneur and as your leader, it just makes me so proud, to be a part of this. And, it's just it it is a totally different feeling. It's a totally different journey than anything I've been through before, and I'm so excited about it. And so a lot of this for us a lot of first times together. Right? This is my first time being this type of position. You know, for a lot of you, it's your first time being in a in a a model like this where you are the entrepreneur, where it is your brand. We're here to provide tools and support, but you've gotta go out there and put your individual business on your shoulders. And then you carrying your business up your individual hill is what drives the entire LPT organization, up together. And, and I I'm just here to help steer that ship and and cheer for you guys and help you all find more success in your business because that's how we that's how we win. And and we don't take that for granted. You know? Like, it's we appreciate you guys, and we recognize what our role is in this. You know? We are here to support you and support your businesses, and that is how we win. That's right. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we are about at time. So exciting news. Looking forward to the continued travel schedules. Get out there and meet some people. So, any final words for, you know, historic month just came off of that. We're going. We're blazing into into April. Now look. I I think we're gonna blow the doors off again in April and May. I don't think we're stopping because, you know, we did have a big influx of agents in in January and February. And and you gotta think it usually takes thirty to sixty days for agents to get into production with us. They're still closing out deals at their old brokerage. Maybe they have listings. The old brokerage won't transfer. There's old new construction deals at the old brokerage. Like, it takes time for agents to fully get in lockstep with us. So we we are expecting another big pop. You know, I can see us getting to that billion three, billion four, maybe billion five mark, during the summer. So just we are positioned for another massive amount of growth. This time, we're ready. We've got the staff in place. We've got the restructure in place. We are ready to go to this next number and ready to keep climbing our way up the, you know, up this this largest brokerage chart. And and it doesn't take a lot. I mean, we're we're gonna be top five before no time, and just continue to grow and excel and win together. And, look, if if we do take the handcuffs off and decide to open up more states, which again, will be dependent on me feeling confident that we are ready from a from a a a fulfillment standpoint and a service standpoint, but then also that it's the right path for the company from an investment banking standpoint, that's really gonna change the trajectory of where we go over over the next eighteen months. So excited to be on this journey with you guys. Keep going out there and crushing it. Stay focused on your business. Keep planting those seeds. Keep harvesting those crops. Let's keep winning together. I can't wait to see what these numbers look like six months from now, twelve months from now, eighteen months from now. We are working we are working together. We are winning together. We are growing together, and, I'm proud of you guys. So go out there and have a great week, and we'll see you back here next Monday on Motivation Monday. That's right. I love it. Are you scared? I had no idea that was coming. This is from Celebration Title Group. They sponsored this for us. I love it. I love it. That's all we gotta clean this all up.