Alright. Good morning. Good morning. If you can hear Been great. I will tell you this. It's it's been a marathon. You complete a marathon. Another marathon starts. You complete that marathon. Another marathon begins. So you you have to make sure you stay hydrated throughout the whole process. If not, it's gonna really catch up to you really quickly. But that's what this is. It's not a sprint. It's definitely a marathon, and you gotta be prepared to continue moving down that trajectory. Every every day is a new beginning for something else. That's right, man. Awesome. Awesome. Happy that you are you are hanging in there with me and doing your thing. So real quick, I'm gonna give us a a a topic for today. So we've spent a lot of time talking about BBAs, and, you know, I feel feel like there's a lot of information available in the knowledge base around that particular topic. So we're gonna move past that a little tiny bit, but I wanna break down a couple of different things. I know because, obviously, you're, you know, legal background. If you don't know, Lewis is also a a real estate attorney. And, and so I wanna kinda talk through some of the value added things. And so we talked through the BBA process that, hey. You can add more value to the transaction and be compensated for that. And so, and we kinda give you some loose ideas of what that value is, I wanna go a little bit deeper into that. As we're starting to see, you know, people start to interact with actual BBAs, what are consumers finding valuable, and what are people doing changing when their process to add more value to the transaction. I wanna highlight some of those things, in hopes to maybe trigger some thoughts for you or strengthen an idea that you currently have, and and let you know that you're on the right path. And so, with that being said, I kinda wanna start with the buckets of what a consumer finds valuable. And so there's kind of like two different things. You can say, hey. They they like to work with people they like and trust and that's one side of it. Right? And there's some value there. But let's talk about actually actually adding value to the transaction, and that's gonna be from an experience standpoint. That's gonna be we'll we'll break into three buckets. The experience that they have with working with you, they're gonna the expertise that you have on guiding them through the process and we can lump negotiations inside of that as well to you. And then lastly, mitigating risk. And those are the three biggest things that we see that consumers value. Right? And so we can unpack each one of those things and say, okay. Well, the transaction, that's gonna be I'm sorry. The experience. That's gonna be how, you know, prompt are you on your phone? How good is your communication? Do you follow-up on the things that you wanna do? You know, like, there's that. And then there's the expertise. Okay. Do you really know what you're talking about? Are you can you help me with financing? Can you help me with this house? Is you know, has Polybee piping? You know, like, all these different facets. And then the last thing is can you mitigate risk? And that section is more so really understanding how to control the transaction and represent your buyer to the fullest or your listing, you know, depending which side of that you're on, through the terms of the contract. And now that's state to state, but we're gonna use Florida as an example just to highlight some key concepts of how to ensure that you are, you know, mitigating risk through the confines of the contract because a lot of people don't necessarily always know the full details of the contract. Yeah. And I I definitely love how you break up and and you kinda organize those three buckets because these three buckets are very important. There's the first one, the experience. As Matt mentioned, how does the customer feel throughout the you the interactions with you, throughout the experience of of the actual transaction? You know, are they feeling stress? Are they feeling anxiety? Are you there to be their support? Are you there to be their resource to help them mitigate some of those, you know, anxiety levels that they ultimately have? And then there's the second bucket that exists, which is, let's call it, like, the how to. Right? Your knowledge. Like, how do I get to the finish line? Like, how do I even get under contract? How do I go through the motions of getting an inspection execute or or or set up and appraisals taking place and financing approved and ultimately closing and receiving my keys. Those are like the mechanics. Right? The how to mechanics. And then there's this last bucket that exists, which is like the mitigation of the risk. And from that perspective, it really comes from experience as an agent and truly understanding what you are ultimately doing. Correct. You know, there's a lot of things that we can incorporate to make sure that the client has great experience right on one side of the expect from. You know, we have a lot of these conversations regarding proactive communication, making sure that you're showing the customer what's around the corner before they even know what's around the corner. The how to, I mean, those are kind of the basics. We can kinda rewind and go back to the BBA marathon that we were having where we were emphasizing, you know, knowing what you have to do or knowing what the changes are. Those are the how to's. Knowing how to fill out your contracts and your state specific, requirements, you know, that's the how to. And then that last piece is is generally that most challenging one, which is how do I now mitigate the risk? How do I keep options available for my customer? How do I do things in the transaction in which they're done because I know that there's this possible thing that the cooperating agent may interject, and I'm utilizing this to ultimately protect my client in the event that this other thing were to happen. Yes. And, again, that's something that experience would would come with that. And I kinda before we, you know, leave the introduction for today, you know, one way that I love thinking about this topic is, you know, real estate is a building block. You know, this is an industry in which you are constantly building. You are constantly sharpening your tools. And one thing that you do not wanna do is forget about some of the basics and forget about some of the foundations that got you to where you are today. Whether that's your ability to grow your business and your sales and your pitch and your your ability to be a resource to your customer, You never wanna forget the foundation. And sometimes it's very easy to do so, especially when so many things are happening around us. There's the the buyer broker agreement. We spend two weeks, you know, hyper focused on that, hyper focused on, you know, how to use that as an opportunity. You don't wanna exit there forgetting about the basics, forgetting about, you know, some of the other things that take place in the transaction. You need to use those things to build on those basics, and that happens across the spectrum and across the board. That's right. That's right. Okay. So we've got an example. I want to start with this example. As you guys know, I still have, an active team here at LPT. My brother, who has a master's in real estate development is, the leader of our team, And we just have a small group of just ninjas who are surgical in in real estate, and they they are are fantastic negotiators, and they really understand, you know, how to utilize a contract to advocate for the best interest of either the the seller or or the buyer depending on who they're representing. But we were representing a, a seller, and it's a relocation. And, and so, you know, title companies, if you've ever done a relocation before, you know, generally are not in the same area as the actual house. Right? They're with national companies, and so they may say, like, we are in Orlando, and they the title company may be, you know, three, four hours away because that's just the one that they use for the entire state. And so, Dave, if you could, put up that screenshot. So it's a little bit here. Let me let me get to my phone so I can I can read along with you guys? I thought that this was an excellent negotiation. We're talking about someone who understands and you and utilizing the contract now, to their benefit of the buyer. And so let's read this together. It It says, good morning, Kayla. I've I've blacked out. Oh, I would also let you know it's an LPT agent on the other side. I blacked out the information, just because the the transaction still is still pending. But, anyways, let's look at what they said here. Good morning, Kayla. Thank you for your response. I reviewed the contract and found and this is to to to provide the context here. They received from the title company, the Ulta, and there was a two hundred and fifty dollar, fee for a mobile notary because the relocation company has the the title company. I don't know. West Palm. I don't know. Some place like that. It's it's not here locally. And so, the agent who's advocating for the buyer says, I reviewed the contract and found that according to the FarBar section, one, line four fifty eight, the closing must occur in the same county as the property. The contract states closing will be conducted by the attorney or the other closing agent, designated by the party paying for the owner's policy and title insurance and will take place in the county where the real property is located at the closing agent. Since the property is Orlando, Orange County, and your office is in Palm Coast, Flagler County, I believe the buyer should not be responsible for paying the mobile notary. Can you confirm this? And, of course, in the immediate response from the title company, who I'm sure is a standard practice that they charge this, you know, people this all the time, said, okay. Absolutely. We will we will, take this fee off. And so and she was a fantastic negotiator all the way through and advocating for her buyer on things that most agents don't go in that extra that extra step. But I love how she used the the verbiage from the actual contract, which no one really goes inside not no one. Right? But majority of the time, we're not constantly browsing through it and rereading and be like, oh, you know what? I think, you know, here's this particular line. I love how she set this up. And to me, this was an expert piece of, like, one, how to. Right? The negotiation side, one, but then you've got the mitigating the risk. Right? This is two hundred and fifty dollars that she saved just at the final steps. Like, all the other negotiations were done, but she still went in there and did this. And so this is something that I find that a lot of agents don't necessarily do. Right? They know the contract. They know how to fill it out, but they don't necessarily remember all of the things like calculating time and, you know, how to prorate things and, like, really being experts there, and that you can mitigate a lot of risk. And so through the enforcement of the language of the contract, she was able to to advocate for the buyer's rights. And so I just thought that that was really impactful, enough that we're talking about it today. And so I would encourage, right, this is state specific. Right? But they are going to be this exists in every state contract. And so, you know, if we really talk about adding value to the transaction, right, you've got this BBA that says, hey. I'm evaluating your services now. I can no longer just say, hey, mister buyer. My services are free. Don't worry about it. The seller takes care of all that. Ultimately, that may still be how that happens but at the end of the day, the agreement of compensation now comes from the buyer. Hey. I'm willing to pay x amount of dollars for your expertise. You may go and get that from the seller but ultimately, I'm agreeing to this and now I have to evaluate you and see how much value you bring. This is the type of things that you're gonna have to have in place and so being an expert of the contract, knowing how to advocate for your buyers best interest through the details of the contract is going to be a massive value add. Right? And so the best thing that you can do to advertise your service is to be an expert at your field. Right? And that is something that I believe we don't always get in the in the right order. Yeah. I mean, it it's it's so easy to just, you know, get to perfecting the how to's and it becomes so it it's a great feeling once you can perfect that. Right? Like, yes. I know how to get through a contract. I know how to fill it out. I know what the basic things are and how to make sure that I incorporate the right contingencies in place. But to that example, I mean, this this agent probably saved their clients a few hundred dollars in a mobile notary. I mean, that's, you know, massive. That's a a a maybe a brand new TV for one of the rooms in the bedroom that they can ultimately purchase. Like, these are, you know, big swings in numbers. And sometimes it's not even just saving dollars, but it's also, like, protecting your client or even helping your client achieve maybe a goal that they have. And as Matt mentioned, every state has their own little nuances. And granted, we're very proficient with the Florida rules, but you can go down your state contracts. Highly encourage you guys know your contracts, know where these sections exist, have these, you know, arguments in your back pocket. You know, going back to calculation of time, you know, most state contracts do specify what happens if a time frame so happens to occur on a weekend or a legal holiday. Like, what happens? Right. You know, for the longest here in Florida, it would go to the next business day to mid to noon the next business day. That was a nonholiday day. Recently, Florida has adjusted their contracts where it's basically the full day. Now the full nonlegal holiday weekday that the time frame gets pushed. So I have an example as well. A few years ago, I was representing a buyer, and this particular buyer, for whatever reason, needed their escrow deposit to be due on a Monday. Because for whatever reason, maybe he got paid, it was a big lump sum payment. You know, the three days that is standard in our market for for escrow deposits to be made would have fallen on a Friday. And the seller already said, hey. I'm only giving you three days. I'm not gonna give you an additional day. I'm not gonna give you until Monday for you to make this deposit. You will have the three days, which is a standard practices in in this market. Yep. So by knowing the contract in terms of knowing calculations of time, I was able to have a really good conversation with that particular buyer. Hey. Listen, buyer. Here's one of the options that we have. Currently, we have the ability to fully execute this contract. The final initial is on us. And per the contract, so long as we initial that field and we submit it to the seller, then that is going to trigger the effective date and then time periods begin from that date. Now here's one strategy that we can take. You know, one of the strategies that we can take is I can wait till midnight. I will stay up for you. And at midnight, I will submit that contract to the seller, which will mean that three day escrow deposit will land on a Saturday, which per the contract, it's gonna push it to the end of day on Monday, which is now gonna satisfy your ultimate needs. The seller's so adamant that it has to be due by Friday, but we're gonna use this exception to the contract to give you the time that you are requiring. Now granted, there are pros and cons to that approach. We have not fully executed the contract yet, which means that a seller could technically revoke their contract prior to me submitting it to midnight. Correct. But in that instance, I'm becoming a resource. I'm creating avenues for options for that particular client. The client loves it because now they have options. I've painted the picture for them. Okay. I can either hold on to this contract, wait till midnight. What is the likelihood that the seller's gonna, you know, revoke their contract by midnight? Do we wait till midnight? And then I can go ahead and submit it, which will give me the time necessary. At that moment, I have no option Mhmm. To make the deposit by Friday. So I'm hedging my position. Even if he revokes it, it's a dead deal anyways because I can't make a deposit by Friday. Right. So let's just wait till midnight, submit it by midnight. The agent on the other side tried a battle. It was like, hey. Listen. Like, you gotta make your deposit by Friday. Like, no. No. No. I sent you the contract at midnight o one, which means that if you count the three days, it lands on Saturday. And per the contract, it now pushes to end of day on Monday. I'm sorry, but you never revoked it on time. And he realized it, and now he has to go back to his client And and make and and and explain that circumstance. But there's an example of, you know, using the calculation of time provisions, which, again, every state has a a provision in their contract that advises how to calculate times that you're able to use to, you know, meet your client's best interest. And then on the other side of that, if you represent the seller, you have to understand that that exists. Right? And you have to be able to counsel your client correctly. Is that, hey. Currently, the final initials are on the buyer side. Like, the buyer has the right to fully execute it, submit it to us, and that creates the effective date so long as it's within this time period of getting back to it before it's automatically revoked, whatever your state contract states. And if the seller is adamant that they need the the escrow to be made by Friday, you gotta also now advise your client, hey. Like, if they submit it to me by midnight, it's technically not gonna be due by Monday because now you're gonna look like a horrible agent Mhmm. If you didn't give that advice to your seller. So regardless of which side of the equation you on, whether you're mitigating the risk or you are being that resource to your seller, you wanna know your state contract because that will also bleed into your client's experience with you, that experience of feeling like they've been counseled, the experience of feeling like you've provided them options, that you understanding you know what you're ultimately doing in the transaction. Yeah. That's, that is that's a great example. Another one, and I'll I'll share a little secret with you guys, a a little tip here, that we use all the time is that when we are at the beginning of the week and we're writing a contract and we wanna, let's say, better our terms and the same exact thing, you know, that your inspection period can't end on the weekend. There's so many people who don't necessarily realize that this is state specific for Florida. But your inspection period can end on the weekend. Like, it automatically defaults to the Monday. And so if it's a Monday and, you know, most people are gonna say, hey. I want seven days or whatever. It really doesn't matter because you could write that same thing. It's like, hey. I'm gonna do it for five days, which is gonna end on the Saturday, which is going to land me at the same exact It makes the contract look better. But it makes the contract look better. And so you can explain this to the buyer. Hey. Here's what I'm gonna do. We're gonna go with the five day inspection period, and here's the reason why it's gonna strengthen the offer. It's gonna make it look more appetizing. The seller's gonna feel like we're working in the in, you know, it's a it's a better offer for them. But here's the reality of it. We're still gonna have this period of time, and here's the reason why. If you look at this part of the contract and you explain to them, when you when you show someone your level of expertise, the next time it comes to a little hurdle, they're gonna be like, I know Hodges got it because he always knows the little pieces of the contract. And then when you go or they speak your praises or when you close with them and someone says, hey. How'd you you know, they hear about a real estate need. They are going to be a fan of you and they're gonna be like, listen. This dude knows his stuff. Like, this guy is a shark. I'm telling you. He knew all the, you know, the ins and outs of the contract. He got us exactly what we wanted. Those are the things on how you build a long term business. And I will tell you that is how you make more money. Like, you can go massive volume, low experience, low commissions, and increase your volume, make a ton of money. And if that's your version of success, feel free to do that. We are not here to define that. But if you are saying, hey. I would like to make more money per transaction. You're gonna have to add value to the transaction. And this is what we know for sure the consumer has voted and said, this is what we believe is what we're paying you for. Right? And so understanding that this is what they are paying you for and then becoming an expert at that gives you the ability to expand inside of that particular range. Yeah. I mean, we can't emphasize enough how, you know, just doing maybe one or two or three of those with your customers goes such a long way. So, like, it totally changes the dynamic of the interaction, how your client, you know, ultimately trust in your ability to negotiate for them, to advocate for them, to understand your advice. Like, these are talking points that they're not bringing up. You are proactively presenting them with options. And I would encourage you every single client that you have, find somewhere in the transaction in which you are proactively creating an option for them. That's right. You know, where they're not asking you for the question or something did not happen during the transaction. Like, make it your mission. You know, make it your mission regardless of of, you know, the level of of of difficulty that the transaction ultimately was. Make it your mission to have one, two, or three scenarios during that course of that transaction in which you are proactively, again, having some type of conversation with your customer and showing them why maybe you're taking certain strategical approaches so they can understand that you are that master chess player. Like, hey, the person I have hired, the person that I've now entered into a BBA and and have agreed to pay three percent knows what he is doing. And I believe that this person will help me achieve my ultimate goal, you know, in terms of, you know, home purchase. Another big one in our industry is, you know, there's a lot of, legislation that dictates in which if a seller does not provide a buyer certain documentations or certain disclosures, then a buyer has technically an out out of the contract. And they even have a certain amount of time after receiving that disclosure to basically terminate the contract at any time. Mhmm. The big one here in Florida, if you're one of the floor one of our Florida agents is the HOA disclosure. You know, there's a rule in the statute that basically states that if a seller does not provide the HOA disclosure with certain language, and that's why the HOA disclosures have big bold letters, certain language because that comes from the statute. If that statute language is not provided to the buyer, then the buyer basically can terminate the contract because they never received that disclosure. And even if the seller provides the buyer with that disclosure, the statute states that the buyer has three days to review the disclosure and terminate at their sole discretion for whatever reason after that disclosure was provided. So now imagine that. Right? You're a buyer's agent. The seller never uploaded that document to the MLS. You know, that language that the statute requires for the seller to disclose has not been made. You as the buyer, are you gonna request for that HOA disclosure? Probably not. Right. Because what do you want? You wanna create options and mitigate, you know, opportunities for your client. So you know now throughout the contract that even though the inspection period has lapsed, even though the financial contingency has lapsed, you now technically have an infinite out out of the contract because the seller has never done their due diligence in providing you a document that the statute requires the seller to provide with certain language. So now you as the buyer's agent forever have an out. You know, you and you can lead up to the closing table and have that out. That that's right. And it's so funny because, you guys may not know this, but Lewis and I, have worked in real estate for for a very long time. And, our our first kind of professional relationship together was, Lewis was, negotiating short sales. And so he would go to the to the judge and, you know, either extend the stay of the seller who was inside the home or negotiate the the payoff amount, and then I would sell the property. And so that's how we would work together. He was, doing legal side of it, and I was actually selling the assets. And that was how we formed our our kind of our first professional relationship. Over a decade ago. Yeah. It was over a decade ago. So that was when short sales were rampant. So this we've been at this for a long time. But, you know, there was a time where we actually had to use that loophole of the HOA. And there was one time that you've caught it from me, and I'm like, oh, yeah. Good call. But we did use that before to get out of a transaction. And so that obviously was fantastic for the buyer because it ended up being where they ended up have buyer's remorse, and we were kind of trying to figure out a way. They were looking at, you know, another property that was gonna be a better fit for them, and they were contemplating having to lose their escrow. And so we had noticed that the HOA document had never been, you know, executed or provided to us. It wasn't in in the MLS. And so we were able to utilize that. And now I'm not saying go out there and try to trick people, but what I am saying is is that because the seller was the listing agent was not prepared, it gave us the ability to advocate for our buyer in a different way. And so, it's going to be a rare scenario when something like that happens. But, again, being an expert at what you're doing is going to provide those opportunities. And so that buyer is absolutely like, how on earth did you get us out of this contract? You know, because this is unheard of. Like, I thought we were we were locked in, you know? And so things like that is what makes you the expert of the field, but where do you start with that process? Right? And it just goes with reading the contract. It really is fairly simple when you read it. If there's questions that you have, you can always reach out to a state broker to you know, at at here at LTE, of course, or, you know, maybe another agent. But it's it's fairly simple. It's all for you know, pretty spelled out. It just takes a time for you to understand how to start to work within the confines of the language. Because most people do do the basics. Oh, I'm gonna write the time for acceptance. I'm gonna write the, you know, how long for inspection. But they don't read, okay, time for acceptance is like this. This is how long a counter offer is. If someone were to not respond in this period of time, here's the options that become available for you. You know, they don't do those things, and that is really what makes you an expert at that. And then you will eventually start to formulate your business and your negotiations based off of that. And you will spot when you know other people just have the basics of the contract and they haven't fully digested and understood it and it's not a part of their negotiations and then you will start to elevate. And then you will walk to your next buyer with more confidence to say, hey, I'm an expert in negotiations. Trust me. Like, they are not gonna pull the wool over our eyes. I will get you the best deal in this market with the lowest amount of risk and the best experience that is going to be four percent or five percent, but it's gonna be worth its weight in gold, and I more than likely can negotiate the majority of that, in concessions from the seller anyways. And so those are the things that make you an expert and really start to elevate your your field. Yeah. And and remember guys, there's two sides to that equation. It's not just the proactive side in terms of you in in the example that we gave prior representing the buyer, but you don't wanna be that seller in which now all of a sudden the buyer was able to terminate the contract because you forgot to do something. Right. You know? And because that's gonna be a very hook moment. You know? That that seller may not wanna hire you again if you're getting close to your expiration of your listing agreement and one little mistake caused, you know, a fifteen thousand dollar escrow to get sent back to the buyer. You know, it's probably not gonna end in in very good terms. That's right. That's right. So, you know, it it it's very important to not just, again, have those proactive conversations with your customer, you know, finding ways to, you know, have these dialogues where you're showing them options. But it's also from protecting your customer, you know, from from that other side. And when you bunch all those three categories together, how we opened up today's real estate first Friday on giving great experience, knowing the how to, and looking at it from a mitigation of of loss perspective, you will really level up and elevate your skill set and really elevate your your interactions with your customers. That's right. That's right. Okay. Well, we are gonna gonna go ahead and cut it here. I hope this, provides some valuable insights in terms of what you can be concentrating on to start ratcheting up those pieces of value. Again, if you look at all the national surveys, what do people what do people find as valuable from a real estate transaction? They're gonna lump negotiations in. Right? And that's gonna be a couple of different things. Some of the things that we talked about right now, but also the guidance piece, the mitigation of risk, and then the experience. What does it feel like to actually buy a transaction with you? Remember, most people make decisions based on how they feel. It's the same thing with experience in terms of, like, how they, you know, translate to value. Like, hey. I made this decision because I was hungry. I was upset. I was happy. I was jealous. I would you know, that emotion can really drive a lot of decisions that people make. And so use that as your arsenal. Don't fall victim to that. And then the last thing is as a little homework piece, if you haven't gone through, even if you've been a agent for a long time, you haven't gone through and read the contract recently, just go through and take a light little read. Not super exciting to do that, but it will just, you know, kinda refresh you on some of those things. And the next time that you enter in negotiations, exactly as you saw in this email with a reference, the language of the contract. According to this part right here in the contract, this is what I'm advocating for my buyer. You shut people down ninety nine percent of the times when you cite the source specifically to the contract. Because likely, they don't know where it is in the contract. Or if they do, they're like, oh my goodness. This person knows their stuff. So I would encourage you to just take a light read through either the listing contract or the buyer's contract this week and just get a little familiar. And the next time you're in negotiations or you're having a conflict with, you know, on the opposite side, point to the to the language inside of the contract to, to to put your position. So, we appreciate you guys so much. Thank you for joining us today. Have a blessed and prosperous weekend. We'll see you guys on motivational Monday.