Good morning. Good morning, everyone.
Welcome to another BBA morning coffee. I'm sure we're gonna be joined here in just a minute by a few additional executives. We'll get started right at nine zero three as always, but I'm gonna DJ our way through it. And this song, I think, is very, very fitting.
So let me get let me get my settings turned down right. Okay. Here here's what we're going with today, guys. This was a request earlier on this week too.
Whoops. That's not it. There we go. That's what we're looking for. Wrong song.
You you got a yin yang.
Look at that.
Uh-oh.
The other one was at last. Either way either way it works.
That's what we're telling anyone who doesn't wanna sign a BBA.
We've got some Backstreet Boy request. I don't know if that's a a shade of the three of us.
Even though with the remix, look at that.
I got you know I always got the remixes.
I've always got the remixes.
Damn. Good morning, RP.
Good morning.
How are you, buddy?
I'm fantastic.
We're letting our agents know that they will survive. In fact, they're gonna do more than survive. They're gonna thrive.
There it is.
We're gonna get started guys in here in just one minute. Nine zero three will get started.
If you're not signing that BBA, you're walking out that door, baby.
Nobody's had their morning coffee.
Yeah. Dude, I don't even drink coffee in the morning, man. I have too much energy.
I'll drive my wife I got a mushroom coffee.
Mush You I have to try that. I've gotta try that. You told me about that last week.
Yes, sir.
Alright, guys. So it is nine zero three. We're gonna go ahead and get started here. Welcome to another, BBA morning coffee.
And again, every day we're gonna start recapping, what the previous week has kind of unveiled, what the trainings, the nuggets that have come from that, the questions that we continue to see. We'll recap that here every morning and get you set up to start your day right. So today, as you guys know, is our final day under the current atmosphere, right? While we start to see the transition already, people are still trying to figure things out.
It's not mandated. Tomorrow is day number one, and we're gonna do great, guys. We're gonna be fantastic at this. So one thing that we've learned over the theme of this week is it's really in your confidence and your ability to communicate your value, on a couple different things.
One, your ability to communicate what you bring to the transaction and being confident in that and starting to break that mindset that, hey, I'm not just worth the two and a half or the three percent or whatever was given to me before. I have the ability to increase my value. So if I wanna go out there and charge ten percent and tell them, hey, every showing, I'm gonna pick you up in an Uber and I'm gonna design this structure. Like, the free markets are gonna design whatever it's gonna design.
So if you're saying, hey, I'm a one percent person because I don't ever pick up my phone and I only text message you and I might show up to, to open the door. Yeah, I might charge you, you know, the one percent. But you've got this ability to take commissions into your own hands now. And so, I think that that's been a great awakening over we've seen over the course of the week where people are saying, hey, you know what?
I'm even more worth more than the three percent or the two and a half percent or whatever was given to me before. So that's been amazing. And then we've gone through a lot of practical scenarios. What happens if I'm inside of an open house for a LPT listing?
On other listings, when are these things triggered? When do I have to do what? And so that's been really great to see too. So we're excited to continue that today.
I know we've got a daily schedule. Let me pull it up here real quick. I'll let me grab that graphic and I'll screen share it so you can see what we've got for today. Where was that, Natalie?
I know you sent it to us just this morning.
It's in locksmith. Here we go. Let me screen share this for just one second and we'll walk through your state specific. So your state specific classes are gonna be the actual documents that you need to use inside of your state.
The national classes are gonna be the ones that are just about, hey, this is high level overview. Here's how to handle conversations with buyers, sellers. Here's the best time to start talking about what. But then let's go down and say, Hey, if I need to know what my forms are for my particular state, Alabama is different than Florida and different than Tennessee.
You're gonna wanna take those state specific classes to go over your state forms and best practices, and that is taught by your broker. So these are the classes that are being taught today, in addition to the the national classes that we have. And make sure you tune in at eleven Real Estate First Friday. We have a BBA edition.
So with that being said, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to Robert to kick us off for this morning.
Hey. Good morning, everybody.
Quick updates. You know, obviously, we've been doing these, you know, five times a day this whole week, all next week, this weekend. And and, Tay, it really has been amazing. The feedback and the the scenarios and the information you're sharing with us has been really impactful.
And so I wanna share that. You know, I had a I had a call with our legal team yesterday talking about our forms. You know? So, again, we made this decision to hold our forms until closing ceremonies next Friday along with any technology marketing because we really wanted to focus on, the conversations, the education, the confidence.
And and and through that, we're already making some changes to those forms based on scenarios we're seeing and based on quote unquote bad drivers and and other types of feedback we're getting. But one of the really interesting things is, and I have actually seen this on most of the forms that brokerages have put out. The way the legal team originally designed the form, it was not going to allow you to account for your transaction fee. And and I think this is a big oversight.
If you look at a lot of forms right now that brokerages are putting out, they're having you choose one. Am I am I going with percentage based compensation or am I going with flat rate compensation? Because that's the type of language that lawyers use and how lawyers think. And the problem with that is if you can only pick one box as a lot of the forms including the one we would have released had we not continued to iterate on this, it was one or the other.
And in reality, we have a mix. Right? At LPT, there's a one ninety five transaction fee. So your buyer broker agreement, I know Natalie has been teaching this in our classes, it's actually three percent plus one ninety five because the one ninety five is still commission.
It's still compensation. And so again, yesterday, we made an edit to that form. It's now reading percentage of purchase price plus tray plus, you know, flat fee of. And then in our system, you can default the one ninety five, the three, whatever you wanna put in there.
But I think it's just a great example of how we are all still going through this and iterating. And so I immediately went and looked at some other brokerages forms, and sure enough, they are not written in a way. And a lot of agents and they are gonna are gonna have a surprise when their their BBA doesn't include that transaction fee and now they're having to eat it. So just something to think about.
And again, this is a great example of how this very collaborative process that we're designing together here at LPT by talking to you guys five times a day for two weeks straight and and being purposeful about when we are releasing our forms and our documents. Look, you have everything you need to do business right now. Right? Every form you need is in dot loop.
Dot loop is an amazing system. It's mobile. It's friendly. You can get, you know, signed on the phone.
Like, everything you need is in place right now with your state forms. However, LPT wants to do more. We're going to do more. I think we were the first brokers to come out and say we were gonna do more back in March.
However, I made this strategic decision to say, you know what? Let's focus on the state forms, the existing technology during this window of potential chaos before we try to introduce a brand new system, a brand new set of LPT specific forms, which may or may not be perfect. We're already making changes to them. So that's where we sit.
I'm so confident that by closing ceremonies next Friday for this BBA marathon, that we're gonna be tightened up and the product that we put out will be one that can stand the test of time, and that you all will be ready then to embrace something new because you'll have this full two weeks of understanding the state forms and the existing technology before we add something new. So, again, really exciting. I wanted to share that the conversations just yesterday with the legal team. You know, Louis and I have been spending a lot of time on this, making sure that we are buttoned up, making our forms as friendly and as low friction as possible while also still compliant.
And, so here we go.
Awesome. Alright. Looks like we have an additional executive joint team. Hey, Christina. Good morning. So, Robert, thank you for taking, the the time to to walk us through that.
I know, again, you know, there's a lot of people who want to rush it. They want things in their hands right now, and, really, they want technology, I've heard as well too, that kind of helps them with this conversation or replaces them in this conversation. And I really think philosophically that just doesn't make sense, man. You have to have the understanding.
You have to know how to fish before you can upgrade, you know, your your fishing pole. And if you don't have the ability to communicate what's happening, you know, a one pager or a sheet, that's not gonna that's not gonna suffice it. You're you are the the secret sauce to every transaction. They trust you.
They are hiring you. They are not hiring OPT. OPT is here to support you, just help them, but they are hiring you. You have to be the point of of of information and trust for them.
And so we're excited that you guys have taken the time to continue to invest in your careers every single day to really understand this. And one thing that we talked about yesterday, Robert, is that just even at the executive team, we've talked about this so much over the course of the week that I've gotten smoother and easier, and I understand how to talk about it at a different level than I did even at the start of this week. And that's gonna happen for everybody. But how quickly can you accelerate that curve?
You know? How quickly can you start talking about this in a quick and succinct way before your, you know, the other brokerages or other realtors are doing that? And that's what starts to create that opportunity for you versus someone else. Hey.
I met this guy. He was sharp. He knew exactly what he was talking about. He just said it.
He made me feel comfortable. That's my guy. I talked to this other person. They kinda stumbled through it.
Well, yeah, they've only talked about it one or two times. Maybe they went to one recorded training and never asked any questions and that was it. You know, we we took a different approach. We are arming you to be the expert, not the technology.
The technology is coming. Of course, you know, we will always do what we do, but we will bring that technology for you. But it is to enhance you. It is not to replace the conversations that you have to have.
Yeah. Look. And, Jaime, when you look at it, you know, by the time we're done with these fifty sessions, you know, you look we have, what, six representatives of the leadership team at LPT on this call today. We will have probably invested two or three hundred hours of leadership time into this two week period.
Like, that was a massive commit from us. Trust me. It would have been way easier to record one session and just replay it a bunch of time. And that doesn't count the the ten a day from our state brokers.
Like, we we have probably put five, six, seven hundred hours worth of LPT, leadership and manpower into this process because I think it's necessary. We all believe it's necessary, and we're seeing the fruits of that labor and that labor of love where we're hearing agents that are saying, yeah, like, we I'm having the better conversations just like you explained, Matt. And again, I there was no way to replicate this. No AI bot teaching a class, no prerecorded Zoom that replays fifty times, like, the authenticity, the transparency, the community, the relationship, the the the the two directional communication.
As I explained earlier, it's making us better, you know, it's making you all better, and I'm just I'm so excited. And you're gonna see it. Just like LPT agents blew it up in March ahead of the curve this year, ahead of other agents, I think we're gonna come out of this thing so much faster than everyone else. Because we're not just preparing you for the theory, we're preparing you for like what's actually happening out there.
Like these are the bad drivers, these are the other scenarios, these are the ways you talk to your sellers and there is no there is no there there is no substitution for that And it will constantly change. And, you know, next week, we're gonna be putting out that schedule later today. Little more structure on classes next week because we have a better understanding now of where the gaps are, what people wanna learn, what they wanna understand. David Lewis' class is gonna be on the main schedule next week talking about, you know, his value wall that he uses in his team.
We're gonna probably gonna do a deep dive into dot loop to really show people. I think maybe because some of our agents aren't using dot loop, they're still using maybe transaction desk or whatever is in their MLS. Dot loop is an amazingly powerful tool for getting this buyer broker agreement signed, and it's got all the state specific forms. You know, it it's a third party, very enforceable e sign system versus, again, the the touring agreement that we're gonna release is on our own e sign software.
Right? It's not dedicated to all fifty states. Again, we are trying to bring everything together, but right now the focus is the tools you already know how to use, dot loop, the state specific forms that have been vetted and released by your MLSs, which again, we wanna rely on those first. Then, yeah, LPT is gonna come over the top at the end of next week with more amazing stuff, but we had to get the blocking and tackling down first.
And again, I'm I'm so proud of everybody. I'm proud of our agents. We've had so much amazing participation. Hundreds of agents tuning into all these classes.
When you think about that, fifty sessions, hundreds of agents on every session. Like, we are touching so many amazing agents over this two week period.
And, Robert, you know, that's such a great point. It's the fact that we're arming the agents with this information to go out there. We don't know what we don't know, but we're here to sort of support all of them and be in the front line side by side with all these agents. We're learning together.
We're starting to sort of get where the third rails are and stay away from them. I was on social today, and I saw some of my colleagues from other brokerages that are getting fined already. They're posting that they're getting fined by what they're writing into the MLS. So the idea that we're sitting here and doing it five times a day and having hundreds of people on the call, We're touching thousands of agents every single day times five.
Right? So we're getting to the to the crux of our family, of our community, arming them with this information.
And we're here, guys. We're gonna stand side by side with you. Tomorrow's the day. Tomorrow's the day that it changes.
We're gonna come in here and and be by your side. I've already seen in the chat a lot of people are doing listing appointments tomorrow. It's their first day under the new regime, the new rules. So we're gonna learn together.
We're still standing by you. We're doing these calls also on the weekend. We're going to be here. And so next week, when it's post eight seventeen, we'll be here to learn from the lessons.
So this is why it's important. We're all in community here, and we're all doing this together. And as Robert said, you guys are going to lead because you've got the information. You're the ones that are gonna educate the bad drivers.
You're the ones that are gonna win. You're the ones that are gonna win the listings since you have the tools and the understanding.
Huge difference.
Yeah. We're about yeah.
We're we're about halfway through this marathon now, and the amount of collaboration that we've had just this last week has been absolutely amazing. Because it's not just these calls, it's all the conversations we're having with each and every one of you at the conclusions of these calls and hearing the examples and the different scenarios and us being able to then come back on these calls and reshare it with everyone. It's been a really cool way for us to all collaborate together. Like, I can say this, you know, we've been dealing and hearing about the NARS stuff since March.
The anxiety has been there. The jitters have been there. Leading up to this week, the jitters were still there. And fast forward to today, I can say at least for me at least, those jitters have decreased.
And that's been because a lot of those, you know, these conversations that we are having collectively and thinking about it together. And I'm excited to see what next week's going to hold as we continue to collaborate and and and figure this thing out and go into this new uncharted territory. And we're seeing how, you know, this is kinda like clicking over from, like, the how to, because that's kinda how the week started. Right?
Like, how do we do this? Like, how do we fill out the forms? What does this mean to, hey. I see this as an opportunity.
I'm gonna go in there and use this to create an opportunity for myself. I'm gonna excel my business because I know now there's gonna be bad drivers, and I'm gonna find these opportunities to go in there and, you know, not be that bad driver and take the steering wheel from the bad driver that was previously driving it. Or I cannot go in there and articulate my commission in a certain way. And, you know, one day I'm thinking I'm only worth one percent, and now I'm excited that I can go in there and negotiate four percent.
Right? Like, you know, so those clickovers that have occurred throughout the week had been great, and I'm just excited that we're able to do it with all of you guys.
I I I love exactly what you said, Louis and Matt and Michael, and I wanna kinda tie it into some of those things. I'm finding a lot of agents are are having a ton of success by being that first person to go tell everybody they know what's going on. Your your past clients, your sphere, everybody in your phone book, every online lead, this should be the opportunity that you're reaching out to each and every one of them to educate them because regardless if they're buying or selling right now or renting, it's who they know. And if you're the first person to tell them what's going on and it comes from you and not, some social media feed or a a bad news article and it comes from you, you're gonna create opportunities. So I would recommend each and every single one of you to to revive your pipeline, call your past clients, look at it as you're prospecting, and you reach out this week, and it's gonna create a lot of magic for each and every one of you.
Okay. Perfect. So, thank you for that, Christina. I think that's a great, you know, actionable item.
Hey. Let's go with everyone that is in your your sphere you're currently working with. We know when we did those polls on real estate first Friday and motivational Monday, about half of the group was working with, by definition, with a a buyer that come eight seventeen would require a BBA to be signed. So, obviously, that's your starting point.
Let's have the conversations with them. Let's make sure that they know what's changing because it is a different conversation from when you guys first started. So that is, that is a great advice. I wanna go through real quick to the chat, and just read some recommendations.
Robert, I I wanna see what you think about this. Scott Jacobs says, just by sharing, the email that we receive daily at eight AM and sharing that information out, has allowed me ability to have numerous new conversations in regards to agent attraction and LPT. I'd highly recommend to use this as an effort to grow this amazing community in our universe. Too many agents who are still clueless and left in the dark by their current brokerages.
We can be a beacon for them, make those deposits into our business. So, basically, it's asking, can we open this up so that outside agents who are not being supported by their brokerage in this way? I know that we had kind of thrown that idea around, and we said, hey. We really want this to be about LPT and making them, you know, the best.
But we've heard so many people continue to ask. Like, hey. Can I share this? So what are your thoughts?
Is that something we should, think about next week?
You're muted.
It is interesting. We talked a lot about this. And, again, the the most important thing to me was taking care of our family. Right?
And so that was really where we focused this first week. You know, we do have agents that shared their links with agents outside of the brokerage and everything. But at the same time too, we weren't trying to get, you know, three thousand, five thousand, ten thousand agents from all across the country on these Zooms because if you think about it, the chat, like, the intimacy of these, the fact that it's been, you know, five hundred, six hundred LPT agents first, five thousand, ten thousand, you know, every agent. But I I do think there's an opportunity.
Maybe we look at live streaming it out. Maybe we do take certain classes next week and open it up because, like, I do want to help other agents. I we wanna get those other bad drivers, off the road or we wanna help educate them. So I think that's something we're gonna really talk about.
We're gonna be putting out the week two schedule. I think week two, we may highlight some things where we say, look, these are gonna be open or we're gonna stream these out on YouTube to make them available to more folks. But it was really important to me. And again, look, we wanna grow.
Right? We wanna build a bigger brokerage. We're the fastest growing fastest growing brokerage in history. But you've heard me say this before, we are real estate first.
And as a part of being real estate first is making sure that our LPT agents are ready to go out there and continue to win in real estate and not get caught up and not get trapped in something or not be able to earn a commission or not be able to win. And, you know, I would be a hypocrite if I put recruiting above, you know, above taking care of you guys when it comes to real estate. However, I think we've done such an amazing job this week, and I think we've really been able to connect with most of our LPT community that I think that's definitely something we can look at getting getting broader and getting more opened up next week so that we can help other agents who aren't part of the LPT family with this type of knowledge and this type of information.
So, absolutely, love the way you're thinking about it, Scott. And look, I love that you're sharing the those emails with other people in your, you know, in your kind of sphere of influence with with agents. You're absolutely welcome to invite other agents. We know that's not gonna blow things up.
But, you know, again, we're we if if we put this out there globally and put some advertising behind it, who knows, we could probably have ten thousand people on one of these Zooms, but that would very much change the dynamic of it. And and so maybe we do something different for that purpose. I definitely love the way you're thinking, but it's important to me that we protect what we have, but we will definitely think about how we can build something in that framework because we do wanna help other agents, and we do wanna help you guys grow. We wanna help you grow your teams, grow your organizations, bring other amazing agents into LPT.
Awesome. Awesome.
Okay. So I'm gonna go through a couple of different questions that I've seen in the chat. Okay. Can you guys provide advice about providing transparent information and fees, on business on our websites?
Who's taking that one?
That's gonna be either Lewis or You you picked it, man.
What are you talking about? You picked the question, and you're gonna try to throw it at somebody else.
Oh, yeah. Hey. Listen. I'm MC. That's what I get to do.
Louis, you're up. I'm gonna spotlight you. You can't get away from it.
You're you're gonna have to repeat. Oh, look at that. You got the thralls for the spotlight. Alright. Repeat the question.
So it says, advice about providing this transparent information on fees in our website. So, basically, can you you know, on your own website, can you put information about commission and and things like that? What are the rules around, you know, MLS versus your own IDX website?
Yeah. So remember, the the the rules do distinguish between your personal website or your personal marketing material versus what's being shown on the MLSs. So I know in, the NAR one on one class, we do have some slides that kinda talk through that in which, you know, where can you post fees? And, you know, one big place that we've, you know, discussed you know, listing power tools. And that's releasing that tech to be able to have these fees and and and show that the seller is willing to offer a buyer compensation within listing power tools. So the rules do distinguish between MLS and IDX attached MLSs versus, your personal websites or listing power tools or social media. Those two are two separate categories there.
And and your own listings. Even on an IDX website, you can put comp on your own listings. That is specifically spelled out on the n a r f a q. So on your lofty site, if it is your own listing, you can add the compensation to it even though the overall lofty site is fed by MLS.
And then listing power tools is completely detached from MLS and IDX. And so we have a lot of flexibility there and we have a lot of agents using that, which is cool too. Yeah. Because the consumer can get that when they text the sign writer.
And again, guys, I I really do think we're gonna land in a place where pre negotiated BAC is less less of the norm. Right? That more sell more listing agents and more sellers are going to gravitate toward the idea of, hey, let me negotiate my listing commission for you, and then we're gonna wait and negotiate the buyer side when the when the offer comes in. Again, we're not forcing that as a brokerage.
We are agent choice. We are here to empower you with all the different methods and tools. But my gut says that is where we're going to go. Because, look, I mean, think about this script to a seller.
Hey, you know, mister seller, like, let's go ahead and and I'm your listing agent. I'm three percent. You know, we're not gonna pre negotiate a buyer's agent commission because we don't know how much is gonna be asked for. We may get an offer with one percent request.
We may get an offer with two percent request. I don't wanna sit here and and charge you too much without knowing. Right? Now we're not saying you're not gonna pay buyer's agent commission, mister seller, mister and missus seller.
We're just saying we're gonna wait for the offers to come in. Whenever an agent calls, I'm gonna say our famous line, my seller is willing to entertain all requests for buyer's agent commission. Please submit it with your offer. That way the showings still happen.
They still come in. But the agent who says that is going to sound more appealing than the agent who says, hey. I want you to sign today at five or sign today at six. Now, again, I'm not telling you how to run your business.
We are here to support you in whatever method you choose. But I can tell you psychologically when you're talking to a seller, the seller who gets who gets presented the idea of maybe I'm gonna save some money on buyer's agent commission if I don't pre negotiate because I might get an offer that doesn't ask for it. I might get an offer that asks for less. That agent is going to have a slight advantage.
Right? And so, again, just keep that in mind as you are out there negotiating.
I, I I have also seen a a Linktree is a good easy simple way on the go. Linktree does have a free option. I highly recommend you guys let it live inside of Connect and, you know, your listing power tools. However, a lot a lot of you I have spoken to, you want something on the fly. You're showing someone reaches out to you. What's the compensation?
You can actually simply just put the address in Linktree with with a percent with whatever compensation.
Also, your website's blogs, if you guys are not blogging, you can easily have a blog post that's updated on your website. And the that is the label, is the compensation that you're offering, and that could be easily updated as well. So our our sites, if you guys aren't blogging, that I recommend because that can easily be updated if you're not gonna do it within the, listing, portion of your website.
Right. And, you know, so let's let's talk through this just one last second. We'll we'll probably cut it here. But one thing I wanna really, like Robert talked said is, like, hey.
Right now, people are going to try to make it as close to the way we are doing business today as possible. And so a lot of the things of listing that compensation is really in spirit of doing that. It's really saying, hey, guys. We're still offering two percent, two and a half percent, and they're totally missing the opportunity to say, hey.
We're gonna make this more competitive. We're gonna make this more negotiable. I may be at three percent, and I don't want to accept your predefined two and a half percent or whatever that looks like. And then there's also gonna be people who call around.
I know that, I've already heard those type of calls. Someone saying, hey. We wanna make sure that your seller is paying commission. And if so, how much?
You know? And, again, that that open ended, you know, answer of, like, absolutely. We are open to compensation. Please go ahead and submit it with your offer.
Everything is negotiable because we wanna continue to have as many people walking through that door as possible so that the seller has the highest chance of making the most amount of money on their sale. That's that is the the the focus. That is the emphasis. The clarity piece that we are trying to bring and that the clarity piece that is trying to be brought to the industry is saying, hey.
Let's make the commission part of it more transparent. And that's why there's this BBA that has this amount sign beforehand that says, here's how much I'm going to pay regardless of whether the seller is going to pay it or I have to make up the difference for your services. And so if we start getting to this predefined era where that's what everyone's trying to do, you break the psychology on the other side. And so if you're trying to charge more at three percent and you're constantly amending down to two and a half percent because it's predefined, you're you're starting to go backwards.
Use this as an opportunity to go forward. Right? Every obstacle is an opportunity for you to gain more momentum. Some people will sit behind that and say, I'll just take whatever is given to me because that's how I'm comfortable.
But what we want you to think about is how can you increase the experience of working with a buyer so that they're saying you're actually worth four percent. You're actually worth five percent. Why where were you before? Like, that's what we need to hear from your buyers.
And so that's what I would really want you to think about. We we did a session yesterday with a conversation with buyers, and we kind of outlined what do people find valuable. They're gonna find guidance valuable. They're gonna find negotiations valuable.
They're gonna find communication value valuable. They're gonna find trustworthiness valuable. Like, those are the things that they are going to attach to say, yes, I'm getting my money's worth. So I would really implore you to think about how you are, you know, thinking about increasing that with your interactions with your consumers right now.
How do you really put that on fire so that you can go out there and command your commission at whatever level you think makes sense? I actually have heard someone say, hey, listen. You know what? For my for my, most expensive clients that are looking at a certain price point, I will send them, you know, XL Ubers.
And that will, you know, but I'm gonna charge them four or five percent, but I'll make sure that they never have to drive. Like, these are real things that people are coming up with as to how they plan on adding value to their, you know, to their side of the equation. So just think about that. Think about how you can be creative.
Of course, it has to make sense for you and your business, but I really want you to break that mold of that two and a half and that three percent and think about what would I have to do to offer four percent or five percent? What would that really look like? Why would a consumer be willing to say, yes. I'm so excited to give you this because this is so great.
That's where I want your your minds to go. With that being said, I'll turn it over to Robert for for final words.
Yeah. A couple of last things I wanna grab out of the chat. So, you know, Eric had a question. You know, if I've only negotiated the the listing side, what happens if I end up representing a buyer on that house?
I would encourage you even if you are just you know, while, technically, if you are only showing a buyer your own listing, you don't have to get a BBA signed, But why not? Right? Chances are they're not gonna buy that house. We know how this works.
You meet with that buyer, you wanna sell them another house. You will go broke if you just try to go show buyers your own listings and then don't try to flip them to whatever they're gonna buy next. So I would still get the BBA signed, and that is the key. Remember, the amount you make for representing the buyer, even if you also represent the seller, is whatever you negotiated with that buyer.
So even if you did have an extra three percent commission in there, if you're gonna take it for doing the quote, unquote buy side, you need to get that buyer under a buyer rep agreement to be completely protected and be able to sell them another house. So I really we gotta think about these as two different transactions, guys. Hey. I'm gonna negotiate my three percent as the listing agent, and then, yeah, if a buyer calls me on my own listing, I'm gonna put them under a buyer broker agreement because I'm not just gonna go drive around for free and show them that one property because that doesn't do me any good.
I would still treat them just like they were a buyer calling you on a random property and put them under a BBA so that you can get compensated for your services to them in addition to your services for the seller. And this is how we have to think about things going forward. You know, I saw, you know, Shelley, and, who else was the matter? Shelley and somebody else were Stacy.
You guys were talking about, you know, kinda what are the pros and the cons.
To me, the only pro to pre negotiating buyer's agent commission is the idea that you are making the listing more buyer's agent friendly. Right? Like like, we all we all wear this hat. We we see the social media post.
We do not we do not wanna feel like we're saying, we don't want buyer's agents. We know we need buyer's agents to help sell the house. Right? We know that having buyer's agents bring their clients is the the best path to getting our seller the highest and best offer.
And so for a long time, that meant how much BAC are we issuing. If if I if I negotiate more buyer's agent commission, I may get more showings. If I negotiate lower buyer's agent commission, I may get less showings. But all of that dynamic only existed because the amount was listed in the MLS.
Right? Agents were looking at it upfront, and they could make decisions and prejudgments where in today's world, if someone calls you and this is the decision you have to make. If someone does call you and says, you know, hey, hey, Stacy. Hey, Shelly.
What is the buyer's agent commission on this listing? If you answer two and a half percent versus answering my but my seller is actually willing to entertain any amount of of buyer's agent commission. We made a decision not to pre negotiate it because we don't know how much you need. We don't know how much you value you've shown to your buyer.
You may need ten percent if you're driving around in Excel Ubers like Matt Hodge wants to do. Right? So my seller and I made a decision not to pre negotiate it. We are absolutely open to paying it.
Please submit it with your offer. If you believe that saying two and a half percent is more likely to get that agent to come show your house and bring their buyer, that is the only pro. Right? If you think that explaining to them, hey, You set your own value with your buyer.
Submit it with your offer. We're gonna entertain it. It's all good. Go show the house.
We are buyer's agent commission friendly. We just didn't pre negotiate it. If you think that is an equally powerful statement when communicating to the other side, then I personally see no pro to pre negotiating buyer's agent commission. But again, you're an entrepreneur, you're a business person, LPT is about agent choice.
We are not here to tell you how to run your business. You make that choice. Am I gonna pre negotiate three percent or am I just gonna prepare my seller to to to entertain any requests for buyer's agent compensation? That is your choice as an entrepreneur.
Again, the only pro I think is how you feel about it. It's how you believe it positions you to get other agents to bring the offer. They can't see it in the MLS, so they've already made a higher level of commitment to your property to call you or reach out or whatever. And I believe over time, we're gonna see less agents reaching out in advance because, like, most reasonable sellers are going to pay buyer's agent commission.
Even even the uneducated sellers right now who are saying, I'll never pay buyer's agent commission. I promise you, if the right offer comes across their desk, they're gonna change their mind. You know, I said this on one of the Zooms the other night, do not take a no from someone who is not authorized to give you the yes. Do not be convinced as to what will or will not be accepted in an offer until you submit that offer, and the seller, the only person who can actually say yes or no under the new framework, is able to review that offer and make an educated decision.
Those are the pros and the cons. I appreciate you guys so much. We'll catch you at eleven for real estate first Friday.
Awesome. Thanks, everybody.
I'm sticking with you guys for a few minutes to get this song going.
I don't hear anything. You got the I think you got the audio on wrong again. Oh, hold on. Hold on. I don't hear you, man. I'm hanging out too. If we're dancing for a minute, I'm hanging out for the for the jam session.
What you think about this? Alright. Stop.
Okay. A little vanilla ice in the house this morning. This song makes me wanna do the sprinkler.
Right?
Oh, yeah.
That's so good. I hope you guys have a blessed and prosperous day. We will see you at eleven AM for Real Estate First Friday.
We're out.