Good morning, and welcome to another motivational Monday. My name is Matthew Hodge, executive vice president here at LPT Realty. And, I'm here in LPT headquarters. If we could bring in Robert Palmer, founder and CEO of LPT Realty, who is joining us from, Yellowstone Club in Montana, man. How are you this morning? Hey, man. Doing great. Good morning, everybody. It's a big day. New month, new quarter, halfway through the year. Let's let's talk about what we're gonna do to finish this thing out strong today. That's right. Actually, today is exactly halfway point through the year and always a great reflection point. If you think about how the first half of the year is going, you're either right on track, you're a little bit behind, or you're killing it. There's always kinda like this reset that you can say, hey. What do I do for the second half of this year to finish that strong? So, Robert, I know that you've gone through so many cycles and so many different businesses where you've had to, like, benchmark your progress, against your goal for the end of the year. So what are you thinking halfway through the year? I feel good. You know, I took a little time last week. I took the family down to Yellowstone National Park, which is about forty five minutes from where we live here in the club. And, Reagan's first time seeing Old Faithful and seeing a lot of the geysers in the hot springs Nice. Everything and, really neat experience. Although, I would tell you this, on the way back, there is, like, forty five minutes on this sketchy road where you were, like, winding back and forth between the Montana line and line, middle of nowhere, nothing but, like, some logging trucks and semis. Jill's driving, and we get a flat tire. And so we we have to pull over on this, like, sketchy shoulder, like, down the side of this, you know, pretty good drop off, and Reagan's panicking. You know? She's like, are we stuck here forever, dad? What are we gonna do? Logging trucks are, like, blowing by us going way too fast. I I have never changed a tire so fast in my life. I I was like, I went into NASCAR pit, you know, pit crew mode, and I had us back on the road in, like, six minutes. This was, you know, now I'm even more my my little six year old's hero because I got us back on the road. But That's awesome. It was a great time. We saw, you know, we saw bison with with babies running around. It was just, you know, the animal, the wild animals and wildlife were amazing. You know? I haven't been there in probably twenty years. And the last time I was, at Yellowstone National Park, which is crazy because our house here is only about forty five minutes away from West Yellowstone and the West Gate. The last time I was there, I was actually in Jackson Hole with my dad, like, twenty years ago, and it was, it was a great trip. And so feeling I'll go back, you know, twenty years later and do that with my girls. Obviously, they're much younger than I was at the time. But, look, man, it it's a real reminder of why we do a lot of the things that we do. You know? And for me, the time when I come up here to this beautiful mountain top and our mountain is hidden behind me in the fog right now, it's a big reminder on on why we do work hard, why we do push through, because we have all chosen a career that can be very difficult. You know? The rewards are massive. And, you know, I I I like being a beacon of that for a lot of you. You know, what we can accomplish in the fields of real estate and related, you know, you are an entrepreneur. You have an amazing price point, an amazing opportunity to help other people. I think it is absolutely one of the most fulfilling industries out there because while there are other industries where you can make a lot of money, maybe you're not being as helpful. You know, we're really impacting people's lives in a dramatic way by helping them buy and sell real estate, while also as an entrepreneur having an amazing way to build our own business, you know, achieve our own definition of success, whatever that is. And and there is this direct correlation to how much you put in to what you're able to get back out. But the problem is it doesn't happen all at once. Right? And so the time we put in today, the effort we put in today is the reward we're gonna see three months from now, four months from now, five months from now, and sometimes we forget that. And so if we think about the fact that some of the activities we're gonna do right now, right, we are at July first. We've got July you know, fourth of July holiday coming up this week on Thursday. This year is halfway over. There are literally activities you're going to do right now in July of this year, and you're not gonna see the reward. You're not gonna see the commission check. You're not gonna see that family's life being changed by buying or selling real estate until next year, you know, until January, February, March of next year because the business we are in, there's a very long cycle from when someone first has that conversation with us. Remember how much we've been talking about conversations lately. From the time someone has that first conversation with us and says, you know what? I think it's time to buy real estate, or I think it's time to sell the home we're in because we're gonna downsize. We're gonna upgrade. We're gonna move to a new part of town. Whatever we're gonna do, those conversations that start right now in July may not close, may not get to the table, may not find the perfect home, may not find the perfect time to put that house on the market until next year. Right? And so think about that. As an entrepreneur, we have to keep ourselves moving. We have to keep ourselves focused, and we have to keep ourselves committed through these long periods of time because we're doing the efforts. We're doing all the right things, but we're not seeing that reward. We're not seeing the emotional reward of helping that client achieve their goal. We're not seeing the monetary reward, which is important to any important to any entrepreneur. It's it's a big part of why we do this until so much later. And a lot of the closings you're seeing today, those are from the efforts you did six months ago, three months ago. You know, maybe some of you really pushed hard in November and December to encourage you all to get out there and door knock those neighborhoods and use those prospecting packs and get those active marketing plans and nine critical questions and seven home buyer strategies magazines that are all such an important part of the collateral marketing system here at LPC Realty. We encourage you to get those into consumers' hands during that period of time. And I know we have closings happening right now, six months later, from efforts that you put in toward the end of last year. And so, again, I think as we sit here at the halfway point, as we sit here as kind of a reset halfway through the year, and and for me, this year has flown by. We've accomplished so much. We've been so many amazing places. A lot of hard work. This year has absolutely flown by for me. But, again, I think today is an important day to reflect on where are we going, what are the things we have to keep doing even if we don't see that instant gratification. And, look, the rest of the world has made instant gratification such a bigger part of its life. Social media, the clicks, the likes, the shares. You know, we put out a piece of content, and we instantly know how many people liked it, how many people heard it, how many people shared it. And so while our industry is actually going the other way right now, right, we find ourselves in a place where consumers are delaying buying or selling real estate in a lot of cases because they're waiting for rates to come down or they're waiting for home prices to stop going up or they're waiting for the economy to change, get get more clarity around maybe their business and and their company, and all these things are causing consumers to delay. Right? We're seeing a much longer time right now from when a consumer first says, hey. I need to do something. I need to buy. I need to sell. Something in my life has changed. They're delaying because they're waiting for something to change at a rate that is much higher. Rewind a couple of years, people got that idea that seed got planted, and they were running out to get into the frenzy and do business as quickly as possible. So, again, at a very time when most of our lives are moving more toward instant gratification, Amazon can have me a package tomorrow or even same day. My social media posts can get liked and loved and engaged on instantly. Our business of real estate is taking longer from decision and initial conversation to closing. And that means it's even harder for us right now as entrepreneurs to stay focused, to continue putting out that effort because we are having to delay the gratification. And so I think really that's what today's message is all about. We're gonna really help everyone refocus on doing those things. We talked two weeks ago about having the conversations. That's one important piece of it. But then the ideas don't stop. Right? Because that conversation you had two weeks ago, it hasn't turned into a closing yet. It had very little chance of turning into a closing yet, but we are setting ourselves up for success in q four, in q one, and through all of next year. And then one day when the market does turn and that little bit of frenzy comes back and people start pulling those decisions forward, that's when we get to have a boom as agents. That's when we get to have a boom as a brokerage because we get to take advantage of all the folks that we were planting seeds with for six or nine months, and then all the new folks who are gonna move much quicker because whatever it was about the economy rates, home prices has now changed to make them move quickly. Yeah. I think that's so important that you kind of put the timeline and the the thought process around it that way because you're right. As you think about where we are today, you know, over the last couple of years, there was a lot the the buying pool or you would say the transaction pool of people who were transacting in real estate was a lot of preference based. Right? Needs and preference based. And as we get into this environment right now, a lot of people who were making those preference choices, oh, hey. My house feels a little too small. I would love to have x. I don't have that need, but I would I want it. Those people are putting off those decisions. And so for us, it reduces transaction count, and that feels like a drought, to our revenue. It feels like a drought to our transactions, and that can be tough to to, you know, make it through that period of time. But know that when you look at the the stats and you can see, hey. There's new listings coming on the market that are x percent, and there's a price reduction. That's the highest part of the market right now. We know the market is in the period of correcting, and it's a healthy correction. It's not like the the cycles that we've seen in the past where, you know, things have fallen off a cliff and now we're in a completely different, you know, total environment, this is just a healthy correction. And so to your point, you have to continue to put the work in right now because then as things start to normalize, as people start to say, hey. Six and seven percent is just the deal. I have this need. I'm gonna start transacting. It's the people who are planting the seeds right now that are gonna win. It's the people who are not allowing the macroeconomic environment to slow them down or discourage them or to stop them even though that's exactly what you wanna do. Right? It's the opposite of what you should be doing, but it's what you feel like you should be doing because there's, you know, obstacles ahead of you. And so I strongly encourage everyone, like Robert said, to continue to push through it, continue to know that the things that you do today will bear fruit. It's just not today, but it could be, you know, thirty, ninety days. We will see a difference in the market again, and you'll be happy that you you stuck with it. And I love that you called out the tools and the tangible things that people can be doing right now to stay in front of their audience, to stay visible, to stay active to their sphere. So then, again, as those needs arise or as those preferences start to get pulled back in, you're the you're the realtor that they're thinking about. And we're we're we're seeing Okay. You know, we're we're seeing a lot of a lot more, listings come on the market. You know? Again, by historic standards, we're not in any type of warning level for listings in most parts of the country, but we are seeing more inventory, which is a blessing. Right? But it is also a shift. We're also starting to see listings expire again at a higher rate than we had in a very long time. And the nice thing is, like, really, this is the type of market that Listing Power Tools was built for. You You know, this is the kind of market we were in, and this was the kind of market that inspired me to design these tools back in in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. Because when when inventory does go up a little bit, when time on market starts to expand a little bit, this is when an agent armed with listing power tools has an even bigger unfair advantage on the competition. This is where having your face on the cover of that active marketing plan, that nine critical questions, that seven home buyer strategies magazine is an even bigger unfair advantage. And, you know, I'll tell you with with expired, it's kinda picking up a little bit. Listing power tools and the pop buy. Right? Getting in front of those those potential expireds, dropping by their house, dropping off an active marketing plan. You know, when we used to to teach on this in the early days of Listing Power Tools, the script was something like, hey. I'm so sorry that a million of my colleagues have been blowing your phone up for the last twenty four hours, you know, since your listing expired. But I just wanted to come by with some free information and be a resource. And, obviously, your last agent didn't get the job done. They probably didn't market your home correctly, and I'm not here to try to sell you anything. I'm not here to ask you for your listing. I just wanna share this resource with you that I think you'll really find helpful. And, again, I'm sorry for all the phone calls you're getting from my colleagues. Yeah. I I'd tell you some other big wins there is there are a lot of these expired listings where the phone number isn't available. Right? Even with all the data scrapers and all the the data folks out there, they don't find a phone number, and you get in front of those with the listing power tools, active marketing plan, or a sample pack, you've got a massive advantage. And same thing with the do not call list. You know, all of the all the expiring listings around the do not call list are not getting hit by other agents. And here with us being what I'll call more of a canvassing based brokerage. Right? Boots on the ground. Like, let's get out there in our community. Let's use our tangible printed products to differentiate ourselves and show the consumer how much different the world is when you do business with an LPT Realty agent who is armed with the best marketing on the planet to sell their home. And now is the time for us to get out there and prove those things to these consumers. It's not quite as important in a super low inventory market. You know, the the power pack is not quite as impactful in a super low inventory market. And so as we see ourselves moving toward this little bit of higher inventory level, this is where LPT gets to shine. And so those of you that have they've been using the tools and seeing sellers reactions to the power pack, to the active marketing plans, through what has been a a fairly low inventory, you know, market, it's only gonna get stronger. It's only gonna get better. It's only gonna get more powerful now that we find ourselves in this little bit of increasing inventory market where homes aren't necessarily all sell are all selling. Some are priced too high. Some aren't marketed correctly. Some don't have the right photos. There's all these different reasons, but we have the solution for so much of that here at LPT Realty. And I'm so excited to see all of our agents now experience this and experience how much more powerful these already very powerful tools become when they're in a slight an inventory market of, you know, slight increase in inventory here in the market, which is what we're seeing in most parts of the country right now. Yeah. That's right, man. And, excited for that also to be amplified by the future changes that we've got coming where it kind of the done for you listing. If you, wanna know what I'm talking about, if you go back to motivational Monday, June seventeenth, watch that episode. It will talk about the packages that we have coming forward, that are gonna be amplifying your efforts with inside of the real estate space either buy or sell, and a lot of those packages are gonna help you aid in that. And so, again, to your point is as you start to come into this environment where inventory is starting to expand a little bit and you have these opportunities, they are gonna be the people. That's your stage. People are gonna be watching what you do. We know that every listing is your audition for the next listing. And so how you go out there and you transact is what's gonna be the the the calling flag for the next person who's got that need in that neighborhood. And so many of the tools that we offer here allow you to stay visible, allow you to stay in contact, and show proof of performance of how you market those property and not actually just getting the household, but tangible things that you've done. And that's always been a big miss inside of the the industry, I believe, as a whole is that there's never really been this really consistent way to show proof of performance to your sellers and walk in with an organized plan on how you plan on marketing the property to get it done. So excited for that change in the future we have coming. I also wanna talk and I know that we the the August seventeenth is the date for kind of this click over for the buyer's brokers agreement. We're not really gonna get any specific guidance on it because I know the states are still working on the language. But what we do know now is that working with an agent is considered sending them homes actively through I IDX or CRM and then physically touring with them. And so, again, while we're not giving any specific instructions on that interaction yet because we're waiting for that state approved language, what should we be thinking about as this shift is coming towards, the real estate industry? Yeah. You know, it's interesting, Matt. You know, we sit here forty five days away. Some states have, you know, have released their their documents. Some states have not. You know, our state brokerage teams, our education teams are working on getting, you know, getting those education classes put together because there are there are different rules by state. And so while the idea globally that, hey. Once you are working with an agent, which we now understand open houses are not considered working with, we got a little bit of clarity there from NAR, which is fantastic. We do understand that some type of document agreement acknowledgment has to be signed with the amount of the buyer broker commission in it prior to the initial showing. Right? But different states have a different definition of what that document actually needs to be. In some states, that's going to need need to be a full blown buyer broker agreement. In other states, it may be able to be a a slightly lighter document that maybe doesn't bind you to them, but does outline your compensation. And so we are looking at this at a state by state level. We're waiting for some of the the state associations and the state regulatory boards to kinda get their take on the NARS settlement back to us so we can do that. But if nothing else, again, we do need to be preparing mentally for what's happening. And and for those of you maybe that missed the the motivation Monday we did right after the NARS settlement took place, it's a little bit over an hour. A lot of great information in there that is in the knowledge base. But, again, we continue to see some things shape up. I'm a fan of this. I believe this is going to put more power in our agents' hands. I believe this is going to give our buyers' agents more control over their commission. I know personally as an entrepreneur and as a salesperson, I wanna negotiate my own commission. Right? I don't want I don't wanna be stuck with whatever the listing agent negotiated for the unknown buyer's agent who was gonna show up with a buyer. I wanna negotiate my own commission. I'm a professional. I know my skill set. I know my value. I wanna negotiate my own commission. And now this new structure gives us so much more power to do that. And the idea that the the listing agent is going to negotiate their commission with the seller and the buyer's agents negotiate their commission with the buyer, I know it can sound a little scary, but I am so confident that, again, with our tools, our agents' level of knowledge and expertise and training and education and the backing of LPT behind you that you are in such a great position to go out there and win and serve your clients at a high level. I think we're gonna see agents who who maintain their previous commission levels, maybe even earn higher commissions because they're no longer at the mercy of the listing agent pre negotiating their commission. And I think over time, you're gonna see less and less listing agents go through the motions of pre negotiating. Right? Now, again, this is not me saying, hey. I don't think you should pay buyer broker commission. That's not at all. I think buyer broker commission is a very important part of the system here in the United States. It's what allows our consumers to not have to make a lot of upfront payments. It's what allows our consumers to have a success based model where their agent only gets compensated when they provide a successful closing and a successful transaction. But I do think we're gonna see less value in the listing agent pre negotiating how much the buyer's agent commission needs to be because they don't know how much each buyer has agreed to pay their agent. And so I think the conversation is very important to say to your seller, today we're negotiating my commission, and that's what's going in our listing agreement right now. And we need to be prepared that most of the buyers who come to look at the property are going to also be represented by an agent, and that buyer and that agent are going to have an agreement in writing for how much that agent is to be compensated. And there's a very high likelihood that the buyer's going to ask you to help cover that compensation. They're gonna ask you to help cover some closing costs. They're gonna ask you to help cover the compensation. This is part of being a home seller, and just know that as those offers come in, as your trusted expert, I'm going to guide you through this, and we're gonna look at each offer, and we're gonna understand here's the sales price. Here's how much this particular buyer is asking me to contribute, whether it's the closing costs or buyer's agent commission or whatever it is. And we're gonna calculate your net, And then together, we're gonna choose the offer that meets your financial goals around net proceeds, around closing date, around contingencies. Right? Around all of these different things that we're gonna look at. And so there's no reason for us to get caught up today in trying to predict what we think that number is because we just don't know. We don't know how good of a negotiator the buyer was. We don't know how strong of a value proposition the buyer's agent had. So let's not waste our time today trying to throw darts at a dartboard and guess. Let's just understand that when the offers start to come in, we're gonna analyze them together and understand that there will be concessions we're going to wanna make in order to sell this home and meet your goals as a seller. And mentally, I think that's where everyone needs to be getting prepared for right now because that's where things are going. And and, again, in in the messy middle, we've talked about this. There are gonna still be, you know, listing agents who are pre negotiating buyer broker commission. They're going to be, you know, sellers who say, I'm not paying anything. You know? These unfortunate, you know, kinda overreactions are going to happen. But at the end of the day, the free market system is very efficient, and and sellers and listing agents and buyer's agents are all going to find that I believe we've actually put ourselves in a better position as an industry to move forward because the control of each individual commission now lies with the professional who is earning that commission, and nothing now stops a seller and a buyer and a selling agent and a buying agent from coming together to negotiate the right contract with the right combination of price, commission concession, closing cost concession to ultimately consummate a transaction that allows both the buyer and seller to reach their individual goals. And that's what we're here to do, guys. That's what we are here to do as as an industry. That's what makes us so special is our ability to put those things together. And this is where technology alone and, you know, and again, the big the big fintech companies or the big prop tech companies who have wanted to to destroy real estate agents for decades will continue to fail, have continued to fail. And, again, I think under this new system, it just makes our role in the transaction even more valuable and more critical because now you have more moving pieces that we have to bring to the table together. Absolutely, man. And and so well said. You make it so easy to understand exactly what's changing and really what we should be focusing on about this change. Because if you just read the headlines or you're on you know, uneasy about this, you can be a little fearful towards the change. But as you said, for so many people, it's a positive thing. And I know that here at LPT Realty, we will do our part as a brokerage to ensure that our agents have the right tools and the right education around how to present themselves and their value proposition so they can go into this opportunity and birth this this this change and have more opportunity. And as you always talk about, opportunity is birthed through change. This is gonna be a big change, and we're gonna make sure that here at LPT Realty, we are doing our part to make sure that our entrepreneurs succeed through this change and gain additional market share. So excited for that future change. I know that we'll continue to put out information as it becomes available. Again, because the states are kind of all over the place, we don't have that available to give right now, and we don't wanna front run this. Right? We wanna make sure that we've got the state approved language before we start giving guidance. And so we'll wait till we receive that, but that is something that you can look forward to us, look forward from us in the next couple of weeks as we get closer to the state. So thank you for the time for for thinking through that. So, it looks like we are just about at time. I wanna see, did you have any final thoughts, or what should we be thinking through to start the second half of this year and finish strong? Yeah. Look, man. I I'm excited. I'm excited for where we are as a company. I'm excited for the potential that this market is going to give us. We we have all survived together through what has been a very tough real estate market. At some point, it absolutely turns around. You know? Not nothing stays the same forever. We are a very adaptable species as as human beings, and and industries and markets are the same. And, you know, every month that rates stay high, there's more people adapting to the idea of those higher rates. There's more people getting off the fence. This is why we've seen, inventory go up a little bit. Right? Because more people are saying, you know what? I'm not gonna wait anymore. I have to make that move. Whatever happened in my life, I've pushed it off as long as I can, and now I just can't anymore. I have to take action even though I don't like the rates. I don't like the prices. Whatever it is I don't like. And right now, there's a lot of things consumers don't like about housing, but they're finally moving anyway because, again, there's only so much elasticity in making those kind of decisions. So as we sit here on the first day of the second half of the year, we have an amazing community here at LPT Realty. We have an amazing group of well over ten thousand agents now who are rowing together, toward a common goal. We have amazing tools. We we have an amazing atmosphere, and we have what is coming up a lot of changes in the back half of this year. We have the changes around buyer broker. We have the changes around NAR. We have internal changes. We have new exciting technology coming out. We're listing power tools x being released into beta. We already have agents right now who are ordering their marketing collateral on the new version of Listing Power Tools natively inside of Connect, and that will continue to roll out to more and more agents as we get into full release. We have agents using the new commission wizard, which is simplifying the DA processes and simplifying the the commission invoice processes for single check states. All those technologies are coming through. We have connect two point o right around the corner. We have LPT plus right around the corner. We have so many exciting things coming out at a very time that we as a company are coiling to take advantage of what will be a mini boom in real estate as things start to cut loose and we start to get a little bit of rate relief or we start to get so far into this market that consumers just realize this is the new norm, but consumer behavior will start to return to more normalized levels when it comes to buying and selling real estate. And we are coiled as a company and ready to take advantage of that. You know, I I personally, you know, dug in this weekend, I spent a lot of time reviewing our practices and processes around the single check states, around getting agents paid when the title company cannot pay them directly. I discovered some interesting things about some of the different banks we're using, and, again, we are digging in to improve what those processes look like. We're beta testing a new Chase mobile app where agents can take pictures of the check instead of having to go to a bank branch, and those checks actually show up faster for us when we do it that way than when you walk into the branch. So, again, these are speed improvements that we're seeing along the way. Just know that that that a corporate and from my chair down and through our amazing leadership team, we are very focused on making this company better each and every day. And that's better with new technology. That's better with new marketing. That's better by just solving simple processes that maybe worked really great for us in in the first states we opened, and now aren't working as well in new states because of different guidelines and different policies, different banking relationships, different title company restrictions, but we are very focused on making sure that LPT gets better each and every day for all of you. We're just over a two year old company. We have so much positive energy and so much amazing things on the horizon for this company. I can't wait to see what we look like at a decade old, at fifteen years old, where some of the legacy cloud brokerages are at this point. You know, we are rowing so much further and so much faster ahead. I would put where we are operationally, culturally, you know, marketing wise, tools wise, technology wise against any other two year old brokerage in the history of this industry. We know our agent count dwarfs any other company that was two year old in the history of this industry. We know our transaction volume dwarfs any two year old company in the history of this industry. So, again, I I sit here on the first day of July, the first day of the back half of this year, very excited. I see so much opportunity coming for all of us to the back half of this year, and I'm just so proud and honored to be able to lead you all through this back half of this year because I do think we're gonna see big changes. Again, we're not gonna see the industry implode. We're not gonna see the industry derail quite the opposite. I think we're gonna see big changes to the positive. I think we're gonna see massive opportunities for those like LPT who are positioned to take advantage of the changes, to take advantage of the changing landscape, to take advantage of coiling successfully for that rebound that we're gonna see. And, again, I'm I'm sitting at the top of a beautiful mountain, so excited for the future, and so excited to be partnered with each every one of you. So go out there and stay focused. Right? Stay committed to the work. Keep doing the little things. Keep having those conversations. Keep passing out that collateral marketing. Keep visiting those expireds. Keep visiting those FSBOs in person with your door knocking collateral. Right? Keep doing all the little things that keep your business moving forward because we're gonna keep taking care of the big stuff behind the scenes so that you are positioned to win at a level that no other brokerage can provide or has ever provided in the past. So with that, I think we'll wrap up today's motivation Monday. Go out there and make it a great week. I'm proud of each and every one of you. Put in the time. Put in the work. We are winning together, and we will keep winning together as a family here at LPT Realty.