Alright. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to, the first real estate first Friday for the year. If you knew it was okay yeah. Happy New Year. If you hear it's okay, give us a thumbs up in the chat. This is a new link, so we are giving everybody an opportunity to join. Alright. Got the thumbs up. I was getting nervous for a second because you know me and audio. I'm I'm gonna leave bad audio in twenty twenty. In twenty twenty four. Yeah. Yeah. But you know one thing that we didn't leave behind? What? Our color scheme. Like, we're we're starting twenty twenty five once again matching. Matching. It's like we are not making doing ourselves any favors. People are always asking us if we're brothers. We are not. We're not related, actually. Just, just we've somehow started to look a lot alike. We just start more family, I guess, after working with each other for a decade. You know what I mean? It's it's It's like like like, pets and their owners. They eventually start to look like we're we're anyway, that was a bad example. Alright. Well, guys And that's today's topic for real estate. Yeah. That's what I was asking. Who people are wondering, who's the who's the pet here? Alright, guys. So, my name is Matthew Hodge, executive vice president here at LPT Realty. I'm joined by Lewis Fuhrman. I almost said Robert Farmer. Lewis Fuhrman, my co VP. And, each Friday so if you're just joining for the first time, Real Estate First Fridays is a high level overview of, like, themes that are happening inside of your business. So things to think about from a mindset standpoint, actionable items that you can do and to implement inside of your business to help you grow and maybe overcome some obstacles. And because we have so many people joining, there's always someone new on here. So we like to take just a little bit of time to help you understand what Real Estate First Fridays is about. From time to time, we have guest speakers on there, and sometimes Robert, himself joins and kinda will walk us through some concepts that he thinks about in terms of how he's built massive businesses in the past. Yeah. But today, what we are focusing on is how to kind of use this information. Right? So every motivational Monday and every, Friday, we're out here kinda giving you these themes, teaching you about the market. We're gonna talk through some of those things that are important today. But, you know, we're gonna kinda center these things on how to implement the things that you hear into your business. So if you're hearing information, it's making you more knowledgeable than the realtors that don't have it, definitely more knowledgeable than the consumer. How do you then utilize that information for your benefit? What do you do with it? And that's a question that we get asked all the time. Like, hey. I get these things, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it once I get or understand this information. So we're gonna talk through some of those concepts today. And, and then we're gonna walk away thinking about you know, explain some of the some of the bigger themes, some of the macro themes and micro themes. And that way, you can have conversations at a very high level with the clients that you serve in twenty twenty five. So my initial thoughts, Luis, what are yours? Yeah. So initial thoughts. I mean, one one of our biggest commitments that we've we always indicate inside of our brokerage is we wanna create a collaborative community. Right? You know, create this, you know, syndication of of information and be able to, you know, disseminate it accordingly. And, you know, there's two big checkpoints in the week that we have, motivational Monday with you and Robert and then real estate first Fridays. And, you know, oftentimes, we'll we'll have our listeners and we'll have our agents, you know, participate on these calls. And the question arises of, you know, well, what do I do with this information? You know, sometimes we just, you know, sit down, watch it. It's great to watch, but we really don't do anything beyond that. And and, you know, we focus very hard on trying to leave, you know, little nuggets, you know, that you can utilize to apply into your business practices to sharpen those tools. And I think to start off this year, we kinda wanted to top up talk upon this topic of, you know, how can we utilize this information? Where can we apply this information? There's multiple categories that we can use the things that we learn and the knowledge that, you know, categories that we can use the things that we learn and the knowledge that, you know, Robert shares, that we share, that your colleagues share at any given time. And it's taking that information and applying it in your business so you can continue to grow inside of the space because that's what it's all about. Right? You know, year after year, month after month, quarter after quarter, we wanna be able to reflect back and say, hey. We've grown from this place. Like, we always wanna grow inside of our craft. We always wanna grow inside of our businesses. And growth doesn't necessarily always have to mean bottom line. Right? Like, hey, I'm being more productive. I'm doing more closings. Sometimes growth can happen in areas that we don't, you know, feel monetarily. Right? Like my interactions with my customers. I'm much I'm I'm having much easier conversations and more efficient conversations and more effective conversations with my consulting with them in a different way, and I'm sharing different levels of not like there's different areas that you can use, you know, to grow inside of your business that's not necessarily monetarily. But for today's purposes, you know, we really wanted to focus on, you know, ways that we can, you know, use information that we've heard, that we're learning, and how can we apply it inside of our businesses. Perfect. I love it. Very, very well said. And really important to know, like, what you're saying is growth isn't always defined by saying, hey. I'm gonna do more houses or I'm gonna make more money or I'm you know, it's it's not always something like that. Sometimes it's I'm gonna grow by I have a deeper understanding of my craft or I have a deeper understanding of what, you know, things that happen at the macro level affect people's buying powers and decisions and, like, that process. Right? And and what we'll see is, some people don't really care about the details of that. Like, a first time home buyer is not necessarily going to need as much information as someone who is maybe sold three or four houses, and maybe it's a luxury property or maybe they're doing a ten thirty one exchange or it's some level of, you know, interaction or transaction that's not the basic, they are going to want more information from you. They're gonna want your expertise at a higher level. And sometimes there's that's a an area where where we neglect. We get so used to just doing the basics and answering the minimal questions that we stop thinking about really strategies on on other on other avenues with inside of real estate. So let's start real quick with by defining two different buckets that we're gonna talk through. We're gonna talk about the macro bucket. And macro bucket, we're gonna say that is the bucket that affects everybody. Right? Like, interest rates is a macro bucket. Right? It it affects new construction. It affects resale. It affects people in California and in Florida. Like, that is the macro kind of theme. Right? Then you have micro. And micro would be, hey, in Orlando, Disney is going bankrupt. They're laying off all their employees. Now we're gonna have a ton of houses that possibly go on the market from people who are, you know, having to displace. Right? That's micro. That happens in my market. It's not happening everywhere. It's just here in Orlando. And so there's a strategy built around that specific local thing. Right? Or hey, there's a brand new community. They're gonna be building ten thousand houses. Whatever. Like, I wanna build a strategy around that particular thing. And then there's the macro which is, hey, we're all in this insane environment. The consumer's hearing out the national headlines. They're not just hearing on the local stations. Like, those are the two two different things. And so those are examples that we'll have. And so when we talk on motivational money about these macro level things where we're saying, hey let's talk about interest rates. Right? We know that interest rates right now are a big topic. It's not maybe as big of a topic as when the rates first started going up and everybody was going through the change. Now that's somewhat normalized but you're at the second part of that equation which is people having to purchase in a higher interest rate environment. So you've got people who are gonna be like, hey, I wanna wait till interest rates come down. I think that the housing market's gonna eventually explode and houses are gonna be like, you know, that kinda creates its own thing afterwards that you have to work and and and work through. People's affordability, though, in terms of the home that they maybe originally started looking at the price point, that is now lower because of the the higher interest rates if they were looking through that that curve. Right? So you've got that piece. And so when we talk about interest rates and things like that and we know that these are conversations that you're ultimately gonna be having and explaining to your consumers as they enter this market, it's really important to know what controls those things. Because the headlines are gonna do what the headlines are gonna do. They're usually gonna put information out after the moves already happened, but they're gonna talk about things like the ten year treasury. And they're gonna be like, well how does the ten year treasury affect interest rates? And you don't necessarily need to know the exact details of that, but if you don't understand that those two are inversely related, you know, at to some degree, you could miss a conversation that with someone who has a better understanding, generally a higher priced client, if you don't have those loose understandings. And so again, my thought process there is like, hey. I always wanna make sure that as Robert's talking about, hey. Here's what the ten year is doing. Here's kinda how it affects. Here's what, you know, maybe the headlines are saying we're expecting two interest rate cuts in twenty twenty five. You know, I'm arming myself with all those information. So when you, mister buyer, come and say, hey, man. I'm thinking about purchasing a house. When's the best time to do it? How's the best time to do it? I've got these little sound bites that I can make them feel comfortable and help them see the the playing field a little bit easier. And then, of course, they are now relying on me as the expert because it's just not information out there. So that's like something that you can use as a macro level to start guiding those conversations and implementing inside your business. So if you've never tried to explain to someone how interest rates are, you know, being adjusted, you should start doing that. Because the very first time that you do it, you may notice your words are not as a sync. It's not as sharp as a thought as you may think it is. So I would really recommend trying to explain that. Louis, tell me about who just writes, you know, and then you'd be able to tell me in, you know, twenty seconds or less in in layman's sermon. And and, I mean, that's an example of the how we started off today's call with, you know, growth. Right? Like, that's an area that you can grow. You may not be feel comfortable today having those types of conversations, But through practice and through growth, you'll become much more comfortable to have those dialogues because it is very important. Right? Like so first, you know, the examples that you gave, I think one thing it's important to kind of, you know, start organizing this thought in a way where, you know, the information that we will consume will come soon will come from, like, two different types. Right? You're gonna have macro level information. You're gonna have localized information. When we hear this information, what do we do with it? I kinda see it as two categories as well from there on. Right? You know, category number one being, how do I use this information to shape my workflows and shape my business practices? How does this information affect me in my day to day practice? So for example, in the example that you gave regarding, you know, Orlando, localized, you know, information, You know, Disney's going out of business and houses are gonna flood the market. You know, how is that going to impact me? It's gonna impact me because now there's gonna be more volume. Right? There's gonna be more market share. There's gonna be more houses. There's gonna be, you know, a a demographic of individuals there that are probably gonna move property. So I need to now develop a a business plan to be able to tackle that specific issue. But then the second category is when we hear this information, how do we give our customers the best level of experience where they trust us, they see our knowledge by us being able to have these conversations with our customers as well. You know, going to the example that you gave with the high interest rate environment. You know, this is a conversation that, yes, it could impact my business because it helps me understand, you know, the market share that may be available as it pertains to houses. But I see that information being one in which I wanna be able to find a way to share with my customer base who are buyers and even sellers for them to understand what's going on out there. And they may know it from a macro level. They see it in the headlines. They see it in national news, but they're not hearing it from their agent. Right? You know, they they just assume that we know. But how do we now craft it in a way where we can uniquely have that conversation with our customer? Because that will shape the experience that that customer ultimately has with us. And unless we're bound by some type of exclusive listing agreement or some exclusive buyer agreement, You know, sellers, if they're having our buyers, if they're having a bad experience with us, it's it may not result in the ultimate outcome that we're looking for, which is the closing because they may wanna start seeking other, you know, agents that are gonna give them that better experience. So here, we're, like, hedging that position by just spreading that knowledge to the customer. And it's gonna make them that much more knowledgeable of a consumer as well. And, you know, another area of growth is after the closing takes place, that experience can be very different than if this information was not disseminated to the customer where they move into the home, they sell the home, they understand what's going on, they feel good about their purchase. Like, these are a lot of different areas that we may not see because we're done with the client. Right? We moved on. We're helping somebody else. The file has closed. But that good feeling, that trust that you've given to your customer can now transcend years down the road, months down the road to a referral, you know, to another lead, a returning customer. Like, these are all the things that will shape those avenues from happening, but it all started with that experience that you're ultimately giving your customer. And one of those pillars of that experience is taking the information you hear here every single week and finding ways to be able to have these conversations to your customers accordingly. Yeah. That's right. So let's let's, let's talk through some of those actionable items that you can do. So now we understand, hey. There's this macroeconomic environment. There's this local. Those are two separate things. Right? I can talk to you about, hey. Here's kinda what we are hearing for twenty twenty five. Originally, we had talked about, you know, four interest rate cuts. Now it seems like it could be two. What that ultimately means is, you know, we're likely gonna be in an environment that was very similar to twenty twenty four, which means that we may have lower inventory. So you, mister buyer, our strategy for purchasing in twenty twenty five is gonna be a couple of different things. We can wait to try to see if any of these dips are meaningful. But more importantly, what we wanna do is because we know inventory is gonna be tight, we wanna be really prepared to move when the right house comes on the market. Because the opportunity of the right next house coming on the market could be further apart because sellers are kinda locked into their homes right now because we are in an interest rate environment where it's higher than where a lot of the previous year's transactions were just done. And so that slows down people's ability to move. Eventually, they are gonna have to move. Right? It's gonna turn from a desire into a to a need, and so they will eventually move. But it's it's not going to happen maybe as quickly as we've seen in in previous years. Let's look at twenty twenty four as an example of that. Okay. Here's what we expect in twenty twenty five. Those are the type of things when you say things like that to your consumer base, whether it's a of of conversation that you're having because you're walking through a strategy or you are building a newsletter campaign for you to educate your entire base or you're putting out something on social media. Those are the things that really make sense for people and that are easy for them to understand. And so that's what we talk about when we say, hey. Listen. Take these bigger themes and make it up, you know, make it easy for for your consumers to understand. If you're constantly putting out like, hey, guys. Here's what's happening. You know, we're gonna see what happens with the Fed meeting next week, whether we have interest rates or not, but we want you to know what's happening locally in your market x y z. You put that information out at any level of consistency, people are going to gravitate to you. They are going to rely on you for the information and you will start to grow your business. But again, it takes you understanding those two dynamics. What can you talk about locally that makes sense and how can you make sense on what's happening on the bigger theme easy to understand for your consumers. Conversations drastically change the moment you start giving your customer the why without them having to ask you the why. You become the resource. Yeah. You become that resource. Right? You are shaping that road map of of their understanding of the process, you know, to your example. You know, an agent can go in and basically say, you know, hey, we need to be ready because if a house pops, you know, there's low inventory and leave it at that. Right? But by expanding upon that, why is there low inventory? What is the dynamic that the industry is experiencing right now? Where has the industry been? Where do we foresee the industry going? Taking the time to be able to fill in those gaps, connect those dots, answer those questions would just make you again give that customer that perception of high level of the knowledge inside of our real estate industry. And that totally changes, like, again, drastically changes that experience that that customer will have with you. That's right. And, you know, so let's let's think about a couple of different ways that we've seen this really successfully done. There are social media there's social media campaigns where their agents are saying, hey. My I guess to stay top of mind for my my sphere is to say, hey. I've just listed this house, and I've just sold this house. And I've just got this house under contract, and look at this happy closing. And that's how they just stay in front of you. And so you start to think, man, this person is really good at their job. They're having all these closing. That's ultimately the psychology that ends up happening. Right? It's like, hey. They do a lot of transactions. They must be an expert. So through that type of consistent communication, they are building their credibility with their base. Some others will say, hey. I'm going to be some level of niche expert. So I'm just gonna cover waterfront properties. I'm gonna tell you all the new waterfront properties that are happening. If there's anything that's happening in flood changings or insurance, I'm gonna constantly put that information out there. And so when I think about if I'm a consumer who's looking for waterfront properties, Lewis is my guy because I know he's always talking about that information. So that's the the piece of the consistency happens. If you don't do that and you want to be more macro, meaning that, like, you just want to think, hey. When I think about real estate, I think about Lewis. These are some of the dynamics that happen where you talk about, hey. Just so that you know, we have a thousand people moving to, Florida every single day, which means we have x amount of houses available, which means that prices are likely going to continue to hold steady or increase. We don't have a crystal ball. But based on these two dynamics, things that you may not be able to see because I'm the expert in the real estate field, I'm letting you know that this is the environment. We've got a higher interest rate environment, which means that less people likely will sell. So here's the makeup you should be thinking about in twenty twenty five. Reach out to me for more details. If you are thinking about purchasing in twenty twenty five, I wanna make sure that you have the best plan possible for us to be successful. You put little nuggets, like, out there that which shows that you have this deeper understanding and you do that at a level of consistency, it will work. People will reach out to you. Right? Like, there's these themes that you have to consistently bake into in order for it to work. And so what we see is some people say, hey. I just sold a waterfront property. Oh, hey. Here's what inventory and they're kind of all over the place. So the consumer doesn't necessarily know how to brand you. They're just like, oh, it it gets too confusing. You have to pick a theme and stay consistent with it and move. And then maybe that theme changes over time. Maybe you eventually wanna become a waterfront specialist or you wanna become a first time home buyer specialist. We've seen our new construction specialists. We've talked to all these people who run successful businesses just putting that type of information out. But, again, it starts with the big level of knowledge. So real quick, just to kinda put a little a little thought process, a little appeared at the end of this this kind of long rant that I went on, which is that you really have to take this big information and you have to go just slightly below the surface. You cannot just stay surface level and have the same level of understanding of what's happening in the industry as the consumer and then your expertise is just the transaction. You have to go one step layer. You have to be understanding what's happening in the industry and then how that affects your strategy for transactions. Then you start to look a little bit different. Now you start to sound more of like an expert because you actually are becoming an expert. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. And and and some things that you know, some takeaways there is, you know, using this knowledge to not only, you know, have conversations with your immediate customers, but you again, creating awareness at the top of the sales funnel. Right? Like, how do I use this information to attract new customers and having that theme type of purposeful campaign that you have initiated to basically create this sense of awareness. And and one actionable item that I would encourage everyone to do is, you know, at the conclusion of, let's say, for example, motivational one Monday, pull out your nugget. Like, pull out a nugget each and every Monday and translate that nugget into your theme, into your style. And there's one marketing campaign for you. There's one consistent marketing campaign that's going to be fresh week after week. After every single Monday, you have some topic that you'll be able to creatively craft inside of your theme. You know, create that as your business practice. You know, combination of that, you know, just your success stories. Right? You know, just listed, just sold, just one pending, like, incorporate that inside of your your your practice. You know, having these consistencies are so important. And you're you're you're at a brokerage that's, you know, feeding you with this level of knowledge. Right? Like, use it that one step further. You know, use it in your interactions with your customers. Use it in your marketing, you know, mechanisms for you to create awareness at the top of the sales funnel. Utilize it to evaluate your workflows inside of your business to see what works, what doesn't, what I need to implement. Hey. Market share is low. How do I solve for that now? You know, what are the things that I need to implement? Where are areas of the market that are expanding? You know, a few weeks ago, we were talking about new construction. Right? And we were, you know, sharing examples of how certain agents, you know, prosper inside of a new construction type of an environment and how they shift their market share or their portfolios to be much more weighted on the new construction side of the equation. Like, pull out that nugget. You know, even though it may not be, you know, black and white exactly how I'm going to run my business, like, find a way that you can sharpen your knife a little bit. You know, that's all it takes is sharpening that little bit of the knife, moving into a different direction or a positive direction or a growth direction, applying it to your business practice, and then seeing where it lands and just testing it and not being afraid to test it. That's right. Right? You know, one of the one of everyone's New Year's resolution for this year is maybe trying something new that you've never tried before. That's right. You know, implement something inside of your business that you've maybe been scared of or it's felt uncomfortable and just see where it lands. You know, what's what's what's the harm it's going to do? What's the best time to try it when the inventory is low anyways? Right. Next thing you know, you stumble upon something that's great and it works for you and you find a way that it it it does bring you fulfillment or passion or whatever the case may be. Now when things change, market changes, now you have this new thing that you were able to test now. So find that thing, you know, just find that thing and implement it. That would be a big suggestion or an actionable item that I would share. Alright. Well, we're gonna wrap it here. I wanna I wanna have you do a little bit of homework and a little bit of an assignment. So, one, try to explain what's happening right now. In thirty seconds or less, try to explain to someone what's happening with interest rates as it based to the ten year. The ten year is in the bond market that ultimately is like the leading indicator of what's ultimately gonna happen with interest rates. It gives you a little peek of what's gonna happen. If you're unfamiliar with that at all, that's okay too. But just try to explain something a little higher level in thirty seconds and see how see if you can do it. See see what your your talk track sounds like. I am going to ask Robert this Monday on motivational Monday to give us another quick overview. Hey. Teach me real quick how the ten year affects interest rates. And we're hearing them talk about CPI numbers, and we're here talking about the unemployment reports. Just give me a quick breakdown of why these things are important. So we're gonna do that on motivational Monday. But to be prepared for to understand your gaps if you have any, try to explain it right now to someone in thirty seconds or less. If you can't explain something in thirty seconds, it means you truthfully do not know it. If it takes you five minutes to explain it, you're you're still fishing. Fishing. Trust me. Yeah. Yeah. Fishing. So, thirty seconds or less. That is your that is your challenge between now and motivational Monday. On motivational Monday, we're gonna hear from Robert again. We're gonna ask him to explain to us real quick why these things are important and maybe what could be happening in the short term. After that, we're then gonna challenge you to then figure out one piece of content you can create, whether that is a email blast to your consumers kind of summarizing the information, whether it's a social media post, whether it's just you, who you're checking in with your clients and you're, you know, wishing them happy new year still, and you're giving them those little nuggets, you know, in terms of what's gonna happen in twenty twenty five. So we're gonna do some of these little tiny challenges on every real estate first. Right? To help you start putting these things in practice. And I will tell you, everything that we are talking about, we have successfully done. Louis and I, if you're unfamiliar with us, have worked together in real estate for for a very long time. Louis was a short sale attorney. He would go to the, to the court houses and negotiate short sales for us. I was selling the assets. We have done a lot of volume together for a long time. And everything that we are talking about right now are themes. Even though some things change because, right, when we were doing, like, short sales, that that was a thing. It wasn't the interest rate. And now it's like the interest rate, then it was like four you know, there's always been a a larger theme that is happening in real estate market. But again, the principle of saying, hey. We understand what this large theme is and then how it affects my local area. That concept has not changed. So we are giving you real things that work in the business. We analyze so many agents business all the time. And I'm telling you, these things are alive in one way or another with inside their businesses. So that's your challenge between now and motivational Monday. We will see you on motivational Monday with Robert Palmer, founder and CEO. We're gonna do a deep dive into the market. And then I think we're gonna talk about some marketing packages that are gonna be happening that we didn't get to finish from now. So Exciting. Cool. Alright. We'll cut it there. Have a great weekend, everybody.