Hey. Good morning. Oh, no. There's no Thumbs up. There's one. Alright. We have one. Okay. Fantastic. Okay. Guys, welcome to another Real Estate First Friday. My name is Matthew Hodge, executive vice president here at Ygrene. I'm joined by Lewis Fermi, my co VP. And it's time to speak here today, man. It's been a to be here today, man. It's been a long week of cold week for us. Cold week. Very I mean, we're waking up. It's, like, thirty degrees here at four, which is crazy. Very excited about today's real estate first. It's a special edition. Right? Aren't you You're gonna do that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if some of you guys may know, but before Hodge, you know, was at LPT and a realtor, he actually was a stand up comedian. So Let me let me quantify this. I wasn't a stand up comedian. My friends were like, hey, Matt. You're really funny. We dare you to go to open mic night. And then I went to open mic night as, like, on a dare, and then they ended up inviting me back. And I did, like, improv a couple of times. And then I finally got to my first paid gig. This is, like, after, like, doing it for, like, two months. And they were like, hey. Will you go to the improv in Tampa, which is, like, you know, two hours away? I'm like, yeah. Absolutely. Like, it's a paid gig. You could stay overnight. I'm like, cool. And, like, the payment was, like, seventy five dollars and, like, two drinks or something like that. And so I was like, you know what? I don't have the stamina or the resources to make a career out of this, at this pace, and then I became a realtor. Oh, so so it finished before it started. Yeah. Yeah. So But I heard you got some pretty good laughs. Yes. And never never even got off the ground. I never bombed. I never bombed, which is good. I got close one time. I was getting real nervous, but then I turned it around. But, yeah, I actually I I originally did that because I had such a fear of public speaking that I'm like, you know what? I'm going all the way to the deep end. And I remember the first couple of times that I actually did that, I couldn't even sleep. Like, I legit could not sleep at nighttime the night before. I'd be so nervous. I couldn't eat all day. I would feel like I was about to throw up the entire time. It was absolutely terrible. But from then, it actually, you know, kind of furthered my ability to speak in in front of the crowd. That's awesome actually to hear because it's like you recognize something that you had that was a big challenge for you, and you said, you know what? I'm just gonna jump in the deep end and just do it. You know, oftentimes, we are so scared to do that difficult thing, or we realize that maybe we are not at as good as certain type of talents. And sometimes you just gotta do something. Right? Like, just jump in. Like, some of us may not be good in social settings. We may not be good at networking. We may not be good on, you know, fluidly communicating with customers. And sometimes we just gotta put ourselves in positions to start sharpening those tools because, you know, you do it, you realize it's not that bad, and you can start developing, growing inside of that space that, you know, previously was a challenge for you. So that's That's right. Interesting to hear. And, if I hadn't invited people, I probably would not have actually made it. But because I had invited people, I was, like, forced to actually go. It was it was actually a very, very traumatizing experience. But, anyways, so with that being said, let's go ahead and kick over to Real Estate First Friday. The real reason why yeah. The the real reason why we're here. And so, you know, I think that we probably start off, you know, kind of addressing the West Coast, and and kind of everything that's going there. I know that we've had some agents impacted by the the fires that are happening in in California. And so, you know, our hearts and prayers go out to to that group of Yeah. A lot of thoughts and prayers. Yeah. And, you know, just like in Florida where we were recently affected, by hurricanes and we figured out a way to kinda do some relief efforts, I know we're looking at ways to to think about that as well too to support that group. But, yeah, I mean, it's it's devastating. You know, we even had, like, you know, just kind of rewinding back to a couple of months ago, one of our agents who's a big social media influencer, her name is East Coast DIY. I think she has, you know, seven or eight hundred thousand followers on Instagram, a few million on TikTok. And she kinda had her rise by, when her husband was deployed, she did a bunch of d DIY projects and, kinda, like, built their their house. And then that house got destroyed in the storm. And so then, the next version of that was that they re you know, completely tore down the house, built it up higher. And so they've they've been following along. But either way, big impacts for people who totally lose everything. It was really, really tough. She found a creative way to kinda work way through it, but, you know, some people have completely lost their homes. I know you spoke with an agent yesterday whose house was completely destroyed in the disaster. So, again, if you're affected by that, you know, our hearts and our prayers go out to you, and we'll figure out ways how to try to, you know, support our agents who have been affected by by that tragedy. And we're and we're a family here, guys. Like, if there's anything you guys need, please reach out. You know, we are here to always support and always help. But, yes, you know, our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who are affected under these circumstances. Yeah. Okay. So we are gonna go ahead and, jump in. So we did a challenge last week on, Real Estate First Friday where we said, hey. We're gonna be talking about interest rates and, you know, giving you some loose understanding of, like, going a little bit deeper below the surface. Like, hey. I'm not just a realtor who just buys and sell houses. I'm actually, you know, watching what's happening at the market so that I can help you, whether you're buying or selling, come up with a strategy that reflects the best kind of expertise based on what's happening at the macro level. And, as we had talked through, you know, we said, hey. Let's get a little deeper of an understanding of interest rates and how certain data points that you're gonna hear, like the unemployment report or CPI or PPI or the ten year treasury. How do those things how does interest rates, you know, affect those things? And the reason why we boil that down to interest rates is because we know that that has one been one of the biggest levers that the Fed has pulled to either cool the housing market or, you know, shrink to supply, shrink inventory, whatever that looks like. That's one of the big levers that they pull. And it also has one of the biggest impacts on the buying side of a transaction because, you know, four hundred thousand dollar house at two percent is one cost. That same four hundred thousand dollars at, you know, seven percent is almost double the cost. And so that really can reduce people's buying power. And so that is a big piece of how people are gonna be reasoning through, you know, as they're as they're looking to purchase in twenty twenty five. Now what we found out was that it is predicted that we likely are in the same exact environment that we are in twenty twenty four, that we were in twenty twenty four, in twenty twenty five. Not too many rate cuts coming. The numbers are still kinda supporting that the economy is healthy enough where they can leave interest rates where they are, which means our current environment for real estate likely stays very similar, which is tighter inventory, a balloon of new inventory coming on through new construction builders to try to solve for that demand, and then buyers who are maybe potentially waiting on the sidelines for more I mean, more favorable economics. And so that's kinda where we work. So we asked you, can you explain that in thirty seconds or less? Your homework was to try to do it over the course of the weekend. Hey. Try to explain this. Get your quick snapshot of twenty twenty five down at thirty seconds. And I said, I'm gonna ask Robert. So he gave us a long explanation on motivational Monday, walking us through the inverse relationship between the treasuries, you know, how the CPI is, you know, calculated inside of, like, the interest rates, and kinda how all that was done. And so then we are gonna play a quick clip. Dave, I don't know if we've got it ready. If you just let me know when we when when you are. We got okay. Where he tries to boil down all this complex information into thirty seconds. He has to take two takes. He misses it the first time, but we're gonna go ahead and play that back to provide some context for the rest part of Real Estate First Friday. We're gonna do a challenge, Dave. We're gonna we're gonna try to see if you can do this in thirty seconds or so. I'm gonna get a timer up on the screen, and we're gonna see, can you explain that within thirty seconds? Hold on. So what's gonna happen is is you're gonna have a countdown timer. It's gonna go from five to one, and then your thirty seconds is gonna start. And you're gonna have to see if you could explain that to a consumer. Like, hey. If I'm thinking about purchasing in twenty twenty five, is it a bad time? You know, that's gonna be the the response. So thirty seconds or less. Hold on. Alright. Are you ready? Okay. We're ready? K. Here we go. So I completely understand that the choice to buy or sell your home is an important decision. That's why I'm here as an expert to help guide you through it. And one of the big factors I do wanna talk about is mortgage rates. I'm sure you've been watching on the sidelines for a while like a lot of my clients, and rates have not done what we thought they were gonna do. They've gone up. They've gone down. What I need you to understand is the dynamics right now for you to buy or sell are what they are. You have to make choices based on your life and where you are and how things are going. And at the end of the day, I'm not gonna be able to do this in thirty seconds. I'm gonna need to redo that. I totally blew that. I'm gonna blame the medicine head. I, give me I did not get a reset. I got I got way too deep. Okay. Let's let's try again. We're gonna do we're gonna do a reset. Thirty seconds. That's It was good. It was good. Tight. That I mean, that's I guess I gotta put that's a TV commercial, man. Like, I'm Yeah. You got it. Yeah. That's a TV commercial. This is this is nothing. I'll be I'll pay all your closing costs. I'm out. No. Awesome. Okay. We're gonna get this reset. We're gonna try one more time. I love putting you on the spot. There's not too many times I've ever seen you trip up or miss a thirty second mark. Inside the studio at Wesch, they always talked about how he was always to the second. So I thought this would be a fun challenge. Alright. Let's try this again, Dave. Let's get the, let's get the timer back up. Give me the five second countdown. Okay. Get prepared. Let's go. Alright. We're obviously coming off a very challenging year. You have decisions to make in your life about buying buying and selling. So I'm gonna give you the quick rundown on where we are. We thought interest rates were gonna come down in twenty twenty four. That obviously didn't happen. We saw them actually go back up because inflation has been a little stickier than we thought, and the employment situation is staying hotter than we So the Fed is in a tough place. I'm here to guide you through this, though, and we have to understand is pricing dynamics are such that whether you buy now or sell now, you can always refinance later, and rates may be higher for longer, and now is the time to act. You got it. You got it. Awesome, man. Awesome. That was fun. So that was, so that was Robert's challenge. And, it was it was funny to see him get get stumped up the first time. But because it's hard. It is. It truly is hard to try to consolidate so much information down to thirty seconds. It really is. And he he spoke a little faster too, so he cheated just a little bit. I snuck in a few extra sentences. He got a little extra in there. There. But it was great. And, you know, and so, my challenge to to our audience on real estate first Friday is to make sure that you have a shortened version of when someone asks you, hey. What's happening in the market? Or, hey. Is it a good time to buy? Or, hey. You know, like, you've got your quick seconds of, hey. Listen. You know, what we saw in twenty twenty four is that we didn't have a lot of inventory. So, you know, if you're thinking about purchasing in twenty twenty five, we have to actually act very quickly. And And while we're not in an environment of maybe multiple offers, because houses aren't coming on the the the market as frequently that may match your exact criteria, we have to be ready to act right when that house comes on the market. And so, you know, little things like that that you could just quickly say to someone to kinda nudge them in the direction of preparing them for the right strategies of working with you and being successful purchasing a home in twenty twenty five. Those things take practice. Right? It's not the first time I mean, that was the first time Robert said that. Right? But he's explained the markets, you know, so many times. He's got all this information in his mind, and, obviously, he's not speaking with the consumer to that degree where that's necessarily important for him to boil it down to thirty seconds. But it is a great exercise for our agents to be able to do that. So at the end of today's call, we're gonna get a challenge going to see if we can ask him another question on on on Monday. I'm not necessarily sure he'll do it. But You get a cup prepared every motivational Monday to be able to do thirty second something. Put him on the spotlight. He didn't know it was coming. And and that I mean, he knew I was gonna ask him about interest rates, but he didn't know the thirty second challenge was coming. But so Let's let's dissect that real quick because I I know there's a lot of agents who are thinking, well, how how do I even structure? Like, how do I even think through, you know, divulging that information within a thirty second window? And I think what's important to understand is as you're kind of organizing the thought, you know, there's certain things that you can kinda categorize that you need to say. Like, let's dissect Robert's, you know, message, for example. You know, what did he start off with? He started off with, what is the challenge? Mhmm. Right? You know, what is the challenge that is currently being experienced? The high interest rate dynamic. You know, why is it a challenge? You know, that's where he segmented to. So he said, what is a challenge? Why is it a challenge? Then what is my solution? And why will my solution work? And then he concluded with the cause of action. Right? So that's, like, the formula. That that that should be the recipe that you can look through any of these thirty second challenges, a minute challenge. If you're trying to divulge any information to your customer base, if you punch it into that formula, you can truly organize your thoughts in a way that will impact your seller, your buyer in a very high regard because you're not just giving them a a solution without indicating the challenge. You're not just stipulating a challenge with no resolution. You're marrying it all of it together. And sometimes we do it and we don't realize that we're doing these things. But if you're sitting down and trying to formulate, you know, these thoughts and how do I give off any information regardless regardless of the subject matter, punch it through that formula. What is the challenge that I need to solve for? Why is it a challenge? Make sure your customer knows why this is a challenge. How do I solve for it? Or how am I recommending to solve for it? Why will my resolution work? And then hit them with the final cause of action of bundling it all together. Yeah. And and let me give you another example as to why so first of all, let me let me acknowledge what you said, which is that formula is fantastic because really behind every sales pitch, every organized thought is really kind of a a a what what would you call that? Like, an a pattern? Yeah. I guess you could say, like, a a a pattern. Right? Like, you like, when you think about, like, people who put things on YouTube, they'll say, hey. Okay. Within the first three seconds, you have to do this. Within, you know, three seconds to ten seconds is where your pitch is, where, where your hook is. And so there's a actual formula that you can, you know, adopt that gives you more views so that you can say, hey. YouTube recognizes as a play. It ranks it higher on their algorithm. Same exact thing with Instagram. Like, there's a certain formula that you can do that says, hey. You're gonna start your your reel off like this. You're gonna put this in the caption. There are communication formulas. And the reason why this is important in having a deep understanding of it is because regardless of what you ask someone so someone could say, hey. Is it a good time to purchase in twenty twenty five? I can almost take that same exact sentence and just change a couple of little pieces to answer their question. Well, hey. Let me, yeah, in twenty twenty four, we're expecting that twenty five twenty twenty five will be very similar to what we saw in twenty twenty four. We saw lower inventory, which hate which kept, you know, prices stable. And while we didn't see appreciation as high as what we did in previous years, we still saw the market go up. And so it addressed the biggest concern is is is my house gonna lose value when I purchase it? We are gonna we saw that in twenty twenty four. We're expecting to see that in twenty twenty five. So let's get started today. Oh, well, I'm waiting for interest rates to come down. Well, let me explain. Yeah. I'm gonna continue to rent. Well, let me explain to you what happened in twenty twenty four. Rents went up by thirty percent. The market continued to duet. Like, you can really just apply that same subject to that same formula, and it gives you the ability to answer those questions and be a resource and nudge them in the direction of, you know, hey. Let's get off the sidelines, and let's start, you know, moving towards homeownership today. And so, again, that formula, that pattern has to start with one understanding, like you said, that piece of I'm putting the challenge in there, I'm putting the resource and and kind of the understanding of that, and then I'm putting the solution and then the carry forward. But you also have to have an understanding of the market in order to be able to apply that knowledge too. So it kind of all fits, it kind of all fits together. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely get comfortable with that rhythm. Right? The more comfortable you get with that rhythm, the more you'll be able to use it in application, you know, no matter what is the circumstance in front of you, whether it's, you know, a buyer expressing this, you negotiating with another agent on the other side, and you're trying to position yourself for, you know, what you're trying to receive for an inspection issue, an appraisal issue, whatever the circumstance may be. But if you follow that formula, you know, it's it's proven in sales that it it it genuinely works. Right? It it does work. You position yourself as the expert. You show your knowledge. You're coming up with solutions, and you're just putting it all together in a way that it will, you know, resonate very well with most individuals out there that you that you communicate with. And, like and let me just give another example because this is another real life example. I had a conversation with, my brother who still runs our team here, and, he was dealing with someone who had gone through inspections. They really like this house. They had been searching for a while. Six hundred thousand dollar house. And they were asking through their inspection period for, like, fifteen thousand dollars in in, you know, repairs and and closing costs kind of credits, which is kind of unrealistic for the condition of the home and kind of the things that they were pointing to. And so that same exact formula worked again. Hey. As you know, we've been looking for a house for quite some time. It's unlikely that we're gonna be able to receive fifteen thousand dollars from this seller. If we go back and take this house off the market, not only are you out of the money that we've spent into it so far, which can make sense for the right circumstance, but we go back into a market where there's very low inventory. And as we've seen, we don't expect any real meaningful interest a movement in interest rates, which means that homes will continue to be more and more expensive. So by you delaying it off of these little things that you can fix when you're in the home, it's actually putting you further behind. Same exact formula, same exact, you know, market data that you're showing them. Like, hey. We're we're looking at the strategy of purchasing through this market. So going there and asking for these crazy high inspection period and potentially losing the home is a bigger hurt to you. Now if there was real things, of course, we have to address those things. But they, I think, were trying to inflate the issues in the home so that they can get you know, use that as, like, a negotiating leverage piece, and that doesn't necessarily work. And so, again, that same exact formula based against market knowledge allows you to to, you know, use that that formula. And and to take it one more step further, like, when when we're thinking about, you know, incorporating this into our natural workflow. Right? Because, you know, one of the things that we always wanna do as we're sharpening our tools and and real estate is to make more things become organic, where we're not thinking about it. Because what that's going to do is increase the level of efficiencies that we have inside of our business practice, which is so important inside of real estate because we are in what we call a very spontaneous line of work. You know, there are so many things that could arise at any given time. And oftentimes, when we're thinking about focusing on our efficiencies, You know, we focus on efficiencies as it pertains to, like, technology and CRM and how can we lean on these things to help support our crafts. But there are efficiencies that we can also unlock through our natural skill. Because the more of those skills that we can translate to become organic, the more or or the easier it's going to be for us to be able to just apply it without putting much thought into it. You know, we can all relate back to when maybe we did our very first listing presentation. How long did we sit there practicing, you know, sketching it out, creating what is the proper approach to do it. You know, you do it. You go back home. You retweak it. You modify it. You do the next one. And slowly but surely, you start realizing, like, all of that effort that maybe was done at one time, these things are now becoming much more natural and organic. So less of that thought is required. So you unlock all of this additional time, which is important because as you grow in the business, as you do more files, you know, you're gonna have more likelihoods that spontaneous things can arise. And if you don't have a baseline, if you don't have a foundation for, you know, your processes, it will make it very stressful for you to be able to handle these spontaneous things that you may not be expecting that will arise not only in your line of work, but also in your personal life. You know, these things could happen, you know, at any given time. And then what tends to happen if you don't have these baseline fundamentals down pack, you will start riding roller coasters. And you will start wondering, well, why was this month I was very busy, and then the next month, I'm not so busy. The following month, I'm very busy. The next month, not so busy. And you're not riding like an upwards trajectory. You're just bouncing off of support and resistance. Yep. You know? So a lot of that is going down to the efficiencies. And, yes, technology efficiencies can solve a lot of it, but you still need to be able to work on your craft and always doing something that is implemented in ways that you are translating more less of very high thought to more organic side of the equation. That's right. That's right. Okay. So, I'm gonna give you guys a quick sneak peek, into, this Monday. So we are going to make a challenge where agents can try to, you know, explain the market within thirty seconds, put it on social media, and tag Robert and I, and then we will repost the best ones and possibly even have the opportunity to play it on motivational Monday. So we're gonna talk about that on motivational Monday, but our real estate first Friday crew has, a little bit of a jump. So first thing that you need to do is connect with us on social media. I prefer Instagram so I can follow you back. Facebook limits us to the five thousand, so I can't add any more, people there. But Instagram doesn't have that. So follow me on Instagram and prepare yourself. That would be fun. Prepare yourself for the challenge. I wanna see, who's gonna rise. And it's basically a challenge is gonna be a thirty second challenge for you to explain the market. You're gonna put it on your social media and tag us, and then we will repost that to our own pages to allow you to have some additional reach and possibly feature you on motivational Monday if you are selected. Yes. My social handle is m hodge zero six on Instagram. You can also find me on, Facebook, but it will not allow me to add you because I am maxed out there. So you can follow me there. But on Instagram, I have the opportunity to follow you back. And and I know there's some individuals on this call now that are like, I I'm I'm too nervous to do that. I'm too shy. Don't wanna do it. But how do we start off this call? Do that uncomfortable thing. You know, if this is something that you are not comfortable in doing, just jump in the deep end. Do it. No. We're a family here. We're gonna give constructive criticism. You never know where it can land, but it's gonna make you feel like you've accomplished something. Right? Like and you're putting yourself out there. You're you're working on this craft. Like, just do it. Take a few minutes of your day. Take thirty minutes. You know? Think about it. Practice it. Do two, three, four shoots of it and submit the one that you feel is most appropriate, but just do it. Like Just do it. It's gonna be fun, man. It's gonna be fun. And I will tell you, I just like how it's like, when we started off when you talked about, doing comedy, which was it was probably one of the scariest things that I've done in my life. Like, you going in front of a crowd to try to make them laugh. There's and there's no mercy. You're either funny or not, or they're like, you suck. Get out of my, you know, like, there's no there's no soft landing there. So it was very nerve wracking to me. But because of that, you know, now you and I have the opportunity to talk in front of thousands of people, live or on online, and I don't feel that same level of anxiety like I did before. Like, I feel like me again. Before, I felt like I was almost, like, outside of my body. You know what I mean? Like, I would be sweating through my shirts. You guys have no idea. But I'm excited for this challenge. I'm excited to highlight some of the things, and I'm excited to hear how our agents interpret the market. I think a lot of nuggets are gonna come about this, and what's great about it is that you guys get to learn from each other. You got to only practice. Right? It's good for you in simulating your sphere, but you also have the ability to learn from other agents and maybe pick up some things that they're saying that you may like and vice versa. So definitely looking forward to to that challenge. So you guys have a slight head start. We're thinking about it through this weekend. Prepare yourself because on Monday, we're putting out that challenge, that thirty second challenge for you to explain the market in thirty seconds. Follow us on social media, tag us, and we will repost your replies. So alright. With that being said, we will cut it here for real estate first Friday. Looking forward to it. I'm gonna see if I can get Robert onto another challenge. We'll give you just quick second. If there's anything that you are curious about or wanna see Robert explain, go ahead and type it into the chat. We'll see if we can get him to do it this Monday. We'll give it just a a few minutes here to to to give you an opportunity to ask a question or explain or script something. What do you wanna see Robert's script? So let's see what we've got here. I'm gonna grab my laptop. See what we've got going. How to get buyers who are looking to finally pull the trigger? Okay. Why should I pick LPT and not Keller Williams? Okay. Explain LPT. Alright. Please script door knocking. That's a good one. I like the door knocking one, because that you know, as with all the changes that are happening with the TCPA and the text message and then people having to enroll, there could be a portion of the market that has to go away from the kind of a third party lead system in the way that they saw before, a cold calling. That may be getting less and less, just because of the the rules that are being enacted there. And if you're unfamiliar with that, there is a new kind of version of the t c TCPA, that is enacted on January twenty seventh. We will be covering that for the next couple of weeks or so. Not like the marathon, but we will have classes to walk you through some of the things that you can do to get around that if you use cold calling as part of your business and then just making sure that you understand exactly what's happening because text messaging But that door knocking challenge seems pretty because it's like it's like knock knock door opens. You typically only have thirty seconds to you know, before you get the door shut on you. So that may actually be the good one for you. Okay. I like door knocking. The correlation of market housing market and inflation, and creative ways to use the box. Alright. So let me, let me take some notes here real quick so I don't forget these. And, we will ask Robert one of these. Let's see. Door knocking, inflation. What else do we have? Why waiting is not a strategy? I like that. A strategy. Okay. What else? Creative ways to use the box. I don't know if you'll be able to do that in thirty seconds, but that's why it's a a challenge. Right? Alright. Getting a scared buyer who has lost a home from losing a job to buy again. Okay. Overcoming the past. That was actually something, in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, after that where the where the bus kind of happened. And, Lewis and I at the time were doing a ton of short sales, and we kept in touch with a lot of those clients. And around two thousand and twelve, two thousand thirteen, when people were start to ready to get back in the market, there was a lot of conversations around that. Like, hey. The market seems to be going up again. What happens if this big crash? Last time I was responsible, I did the right things. I, you know, put a twenty percent down payment down. I was unable to sell my house. I had to short sell it. You know, like, not necessarily because I couldn't afford anymore, but I, you know, had a life change, and I couldn't sell my house. I was stuck with it, so I had to do this short sale. I lost all the money that I put inside of it. You know, even though they had the forgiveness piece of its side, they didn't get their down payment back. That was a big challenge that that Lewis and I worked through. So that I love that suggestion. Okay. So I've got these here. We'll see what, what he ends up going with. We'll see if we can get this going for, Monday, that thirty second challenge. Again, remember, prepare yourself for your thirty second challenge. Share with each other. Get out of your comfort zone, and, let's see let's see how this goes. So looking forward to connecting with you guys again soon. Have a great weekend, guys.