Listen, baby. Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low, When I wake up in the morning, love, And the sunlight hurts my eye. And something without wanna love bears heavy on my mind. Then I look at you, and the world's alright with me. Just wanna look at you, with me. Just wanna look at you. And I know it's gonna be. It might seem crazy what I'm about to say. Sunshine, she's here. You can take a break. Okay. Good morning. And welcome to another Motivational Monday. My name is Matthew Hodge, Executive Vice President. I am joining you here, from Lake Mary, Florida which is where we are headquartered. I'm gonna bring in Robert Palmer, founder and CEO. And, every couple of weeks or so I like to just do this. If this is your first time, joining Motivational Monday, we are so excited to be in community with you. We are together every Monday religiously. We haven't missed three years and, we are here to try to digest what's happening inside of the marketplace, give you some things to be thinking about for business planning, and of course, provide that motivation for you to start the week off strong. So with that being said, Robert, good morning. How are you? Hey, man. I'm great. It's, it's off to a great great year here, great start, and I can't believe we're already in March. I mean, just this year seems like it's flying by, but a lot of wins, a lot of exciting stuff, and happy to see the market may be starting to cooperate with us a little bit. So that that's always a positive. Yeah. Definitely, definitely excited to see that. I was kinda watching it over the weekend. Got some questions we wanna ask you, of course, to get your take on what you think could be happening and and maybe what happens in the short term. But before we jump into that, wanna kinda just, you know, it's already, oh shoot, almost the end of March. Q one is almost done. We are going to be heading into, you know, seasonally our our busiest time per year and kind of want to get some thoughts on, you know, how do we prepare going into q two? You know, two weeks left on basically q one. You know, how do we how do we hit the ground running for for q two? What should we be what should we be doing? I think a lot of it starts with, you know, we talked about Slack. Right? LPT is here to help support each agent's individual definition of success. And so I think a big part of that is for everyone to decide, like, hey. What is my definition of success this year? What am I gonna lay out? You know, for twenty twenty five, what what needs to happen for me to look back and say, yep. You know what? That was how I personally define success, and no one's here to do that for you. Right? That can be whatever transaction level it is. If it's growth from last year, if it's, you know, maybe someone who's a solo agent starting a team, maybe it's someone who sold two or three homes that wants to sell five homes this year. Maybe it's someone whose average price point last year was three hundred thousand, and this year they want it to be five hundred thousand. Right? Like, what are those goals? And so I think for everyone to kinda take that step back and say, okay. What is my definition of success? How am I gonna quantify? What am I gonna do this year so I can at the end of the at the end of the year, when we do our amazing LPT wrap up video and we're all looking back on twenty twenty five, you know, what needs to happen for someone to say, yep. I hit my individual definition of success. And I think that's something that you really need to think about and spend some time on it. And while I think a lot of a lot of us maybe have an idea of, like, oh, I think I know what it is. Like, it makes a difference to really take the time, quantify it, write it down, like, memorialize it, you know, remind yourself of it. But really writing down or understanding or just documenting, what what however you're gonna do it. Right? Type it on your phone, write down a sheet of paper, whatever it is, but really understanding your individual definition of success because that's gonna be your North Star. That's what's gonna set the pace for what we're gonna do for the whole rest of this year. And, you know, the cool thing and what I'm proud of is that LPT is here to support agents no matter what that definition is. That definition can be, hey. I sold two homes last year. I wanna sell three homes this year, or I sold six hundred homes last year. I wanna sell a thousand homes this year across my team. Like, we really built the tools and the processes and the systems to support you in whatever that looks like and, you know, the tools and everything we have, but it all starts with you. And I think that's really what I love the most about this business is we are all entrepreneurs. Right? We get up every day and we decide, you know, what are we gonna do today? You know, are are we gonna focus on our business? Are we gonna not? Are we gonna do the things it takes to achieve that individual definition of success? Whatever it is for this year. And that's a choice you have to make each and every day because look, at the end of the day, you you can't really get fired, you know, like, you don't show up for work here. You don't get fired. You just don't make any money. Right? There's no commissions coming in. You're not going to reach that definition of success. And so we have to have something every day to motivate us. We have to motivate ourselves. We have to say, hey, this is what I'm gonna do this year. This is what I'm gonna hold myself accountable to. These are the little steps I'm gonna take along the way. I'm gonna take the really big task, whatever that individual definition of success is, and I'm gonna break it down into its little tiny parts. And I know that I need to do these actions every day, every week. This is how I need to interact with my sphere. This is how I need to interact with other agents. This is how I'm gonna generate referrals. Right? These are the things I'm going to do. And when you make that commitment to yourself, like, that's how we win. And so, again, it starts with you. LPT can have all the tools in the world, all the technology in the world. It just doesn't matter. It has to start with you. And I think for most people here, we understand that. But if anybody needed a reminder, today is the day as we do get near the busy season. Because really, for a lot of agents, their year is going to be made over this kind of spring buying season. Right? We're seeing mortgage rates cooperate, which is fantastic. You know, excited to see that. We're we're at, I think, nine month lower or whatever it is right now on mortgage rates. So that's gonna motivate some folks to get off the fence right in time for the busy spring buying season. We've seen an increase in inventory coming off of lower home sales in January. My gut says we're gonna have a little bit lower home sales in February. But, again, we're in a good spot now for things to pick up. And so now is the time to make that commitment, to make commit to the business, commit to yourself, commit to that individual definition of success, and go out there and get it. I mean, this is this is the window, Matt. This is where we gotta do it, man. That's right. And I'm, we are actually gonna be doing a workshop planning this Friday on Real Estate First Friday. So if you're interested in kinda thinking about that, maybe you're not quite sure what that looks like to find your version of success, we're gonna be doing a q two workshop planning this Friday on Real Estate First Friday so that you can be prepared to kinda hit the ground running. So we've got two weeks left on q one. Of course, we wanna close this quarter out strong, but we obviously wanna be prepared for our busiest time per year, which generally starts in in q two. And so with that being said, Robert, there's some things happening in the industry. So I know you lightly touched on kind of what was happening with the rates and that being, you know, somewhat cooperative recently. But we've seen some big industry shifts. We've seen some, you know, acquisitions recently. And so can you kind of walk us through, you know, if there's anything that you think is kind of happening? Like, where where are you where are you seeing the kind of the industry going from these big announcements that we're seeing? Yeah. So I I think, you know, we're we've had enough years of of low home sales that you're gonna see consolidation. You're gonna see moves like what's happening. You know, you saw Keller Williams do their deal with the private equity firm. You know, now you see, Rocket purchasing Redfin. You know, again, big move. I don't I don't know that necessarily impacts the way we do business. You know? I think that the the kind of client avatar who chooses to go with a Redfin and a Rocket, that probably wasn't an okay move for them because I I think that client is probably suited between the two of them. They're not looking for that local expertise. They're not looking for that best local mortgage loan officer and that best local mortgage realtor that best local realtor. And so I think it probably was a smart move for Rocket. I think Redfin needed the help, and they've kinda looked like a rudderless ship the last couple of years. They have a lot of traffic on their website. They have these positive things, but they just really didn't figure it out. I I think any company that that launched themselves on the idea of they're going to, you know, get rid of the local real estate agent, had another thing coming. And I think that this purchase by Rocket is kind of the end of that that era. You know, in the end, all Redfin's gonna be is a conduit for Rocket to sell more mortgages. And I think that's probably where they deserve to land based on their original business model and and how they came on the scene. So I I think that one's kind of a, like, yeah, good for them. I mean, I'm it's better than them going out of business and a bunch of people losing their jobs. And at the end of the day, if they can feed mortgages to Rocket, which is all Rocket's gonna care about, then that's gonna justify their existence. But, you know, Redfin was kind of that last holdout when you look at the companies back in that that Wall Street fueled era that said, hey. We're gonna get rid of the local real estate agent. They made too much money. They don't do the work. I mean, all this nonsense that those companies were built on, and most of them are gone now. And while, again, Redfin's not going away, they might as well be gone because being owned by a mortgage company, like, their their goals and and aspirations are a different thing now. It's no longer about how many customers can they serve. It's about how many mortgages can they serve up to rocket. And so that's the I think that's the big move we saw there. From a a deal size standpoint, I mean, it's fantastic. You know, Redfin is about the same size as LPT now when you look at transaction count and, you know, Rocket just paid one point seven five billion for that company. So I think, I think it does a great thing for us as shareholders at LPT Realty as we continue on this path toward IPO. But, again, big shake ups. I think we're gonna see more. I know of some other companies that are out there kinda on the the the for sale block. I think we're gonna start to see more and more movement because we've had just enough time, just enough years of it not coming back the way people expected. Because you have to remember, while while price points have been good, transaction count is down. Right? I mean, four million annualized home sales last year, you know, coming down from seven almost seven at the peak, around seven at the peak, It's just it it's hard. You know, it's hard for brokerages because brokerages, especially the bigger ones, are based on transaction volume. Yeah. We've been blessed and that we've been able to grow into the market, which was the original thesis. Right? You you launch at the bottom of a bust and you you have nowhere to go but up. LPT doesn't know what it feels like to have a a six or seven million annualized home sales a year. Yeah. We haven't we haven't had much north of four. And, it's it's really great to see just how well we've done, to see our agents succeeding. I still love hearing so many stories from agents who are using the LPT tools and getting those extra couple of deals a year. They're seeing that transaction count growth. They're seeing that price point growth. We've been talking a lot about that lately. You know, how do you use the tools to go from a four hundred thousand average price point to a five hundred thousand average price point? Again, not saying break into luxury, but just that little move upward, is a really big deal. And and so, again, a lot of the companies that were built in these times when you really couldn't do anything wrong. You know, when when there's seven million home sales, every harebrained scheme in the industry can work because there's just only so much capacity and now there's so many transactions. You know? This is what Warren Buffett calls, you know, the tide going out. The tide is going out. We're gonna see who the who the titans are of the next era of real estate, and we're gonna see kinda who goes the other way. And and to me, this announcement this morning is Redfin going the other way and kinda giving it up and and and merging him with Rocket. And again, now now their their primary function in life is to serve up mortgages. Yeah. And, you know, it's funny that you that you kinda say that, you know, we were built into the bus. And from a personal standpoint, I remember when I first got into real estate and we met and I was asking you advice on how to grow my my business. And I was asking, hey. Should I hire this person or leverage so and so? And you said, Matt, if you can't afford it when things are the worst, then you can't afford it. Like, you can't look at things right now because they're going well and then say, hey, I want to go do these things and bolt on all this expense. It's like you have to be able to afford it when things aren't going well because that will position you to be, you know, like a rocket ship when things do go well. And so I think about that as we have, you know, defined the the strategy I guess for for LPT which is launching into a period of time where you're right. Like you had to get the right things to work because it wasn't just anything that was gonna work. Right? Like when you're doing seven million annual sales per year, you feel like a genius because anything that you throw out there works. And so you really don't understand what works and what does not. And so I love that that that is, you know, visible through the way that we have built the company, but then also the messaging to the agents which is like, hey, right now as you said, we are in the bust, meaning that we are in suppressed sales, and right now is the time of preparing for the boom. And so that means putting in the sweat equity. That means doing the work that other people may be discouraged to do right now because it you don't get the immediate result. You have to kind of put it into that, you know, hey, I'm gonna do it with the hopes of having the return in the future. And so now is the time that businesses are built. And if you wait until things are good, well then you're gonna be in the sea with everyone who's doing it because things things are good, and you're not gonna have a real understanding of what works and what doesn't. But right now is when you battle test and you harden, you know, those tools on what is actually efficient, what moves the needle in your business, and then you throttle that up as as things continue to to grow. So excited to see we have a little cooperation with the rates. Very interesting to see what this cycle is gonna look like this year. You know, what's your prediction in terms of twenty four versus twenty five? Do you think that we see an increase in transactions? Is it gonna be similar to twenty twenty four? What are you kind of thinking? And while I know you have no crystal ball and, you know, this is just a, you know, a a guesstimation, I guess you could say, what are you thinking for twenty twenty five? Yeah. I I think I think it's too soon to say. You know, rates have proven they can head fake us. You know? Like, we've how many head fakes have we dealt with? Right? How many times have we thought, like, this is the one. Rates are finally coming down. And so I think what we know right now is you have a lot of buyers who are gonna be able to lock in in this little window. Right? Because that's the one thing with the head fakes is we've been able to hold low rates for some period of time. It's not like they're there for a day and they're gone. I mean, we've at least had a couple of weeks. And so I think we're in a position where the low rate headlines are going to bring the buyers out of the woodworks. And so even if rates go up a little bit by the time they need to lock, most of them will continue through with the transaction. You're gonna see a lot of people that do lock those rates in. I'm a fan of locking. You know, as a mortgage guy, I would encourage you to counsel your clients. Don't float the rate to the last minute. Like, if it's the payment you want, if it's a good rate, lock it in. You can always refi right after closing if if rates drop dramatically, but lock it in. Don't gamble with your mortgage payment. Don't gamble with the largest purchase of your life because we have seen periods of time when rates shot up dramatically out of nowhere, and there's people that couldn't close because they didn't lock in their rate. So I think we're gonna see a good spring home buying season. I really think that the the combination of the headlines and the window of time that we have with rates where they are now in kind of a good a better place than they have been, that we're gonna see that transaction spike that we need as an industry for, like, March, April, May. You'll probably get us through June, you know, q two into q three. From there, it's really gonna depend on where the rates go. You know, we need some type of pop. I you know, a lot of economists, a lot of the experts are predicting, you know, four point four, four point six, you know, four point eight million home sales for this year. It really, I think, is gonna come down to rates. I you know, again, the the data hasn't come out yet. I think February was worse than last year, just from the data we see and the amount of MLSs that we can track because rates were better earlier last year and then got worse. There's a real chance we end up right where we were last year. There's a real chance this is a third year in a row of that right around, you know, low four millions annualized home sales. But if we can catch that tailwind, if we can catch low rates into the slower seasons, you know, if rates can stay where they are or get a little better, and we can get up to, you know, four point six, four point eight, maybe five million home sales. I mean, that's the crazy thing. Like, by historic standards, five million is not a great number. It's gonna feel great to us because we've been dragging this four million number for so long. You know, I I did this exercise. We went back through and we basically said, hey. If LPT had done exactly what it was had been doing in a six million annualized home sales year, what would that look like? Right? And it basically means that we would close fifty to sixty percent more transactions each month with the same agent count. Right? The the same number of motivation Monday Zooms, the same, you know, core expenses that we have, and it just really dramatically transforms the business. And the fact that we're doing well as a company and our agents are doing well in this depressed market really is a testament. Because, look, you can go out there and and it's easy to win when we're at the six million in North home sales, and and we're gonna benefit from that rising tide too. But I think the real testament is when you look at who we are as a company, who our agents are, the activities our agents do, the tools our agents use, things like the box, the Power Mail, the LPT Digital, the active marketing plans, and iAncritical Questions. All of this stuff becomes even more critical in this depressed home sales market because competition is tougher. There's less opportunities, and and it really is cool to see how well we are doing in this depressed market. And then, yeah, at some point, the thing turns around. But I don't I'm not really confident that it's gonna be this year, Matt. I think there's a lot of I think there's a lot of transient forces right now that are impacting rates. There's uncertainty around the tariffs. Obviously, we've seen, you know, the stock market come down. Like, this is what's driving today's interest rate movement, but those are things that can turn around. You know, they can go the other way. You know, remember, we're in the industry that wants pain. So while on one hand, you may be saying, oh, my my four zero one k doesn't look as good as it did because the stock market's come down, but that is why rates are getting better. You know, we we live in this this weird industry where our volume are you know, the affordability of homes is is better when things aren't great in the rest of the economy, when when companies are downsizing and laying off and folks are losing jobs. Like, these are all bad things for the general economy and bad things, you know, for for the world, but it it helps our industry because it brings down mortgage rates in the situation we're in. So but that's really what's gonna hinge on. We are just we're in this world where rates are gonna drive the overall home sales. It's interesting that it's not really it's not really price. You know? Sales price, I don't think, is what's gonna drive the moves. It's gonna come down to rates, and we are seeing more inventory, which was which is a a a good thing as well. So I think all the right ingredients are there. We just need them to come together and bake this cake, and and we can have a a a pretty good twenty twenty five. That's right. Alright. I'm gonna ask you one last question, which is a prediction again. Of course, I'm asking tons of things that, you know, are difficult for you to answer. But I was watching this stat, and it was basically saying, hey. In June, there was like, I think eighty two percent of, like, economists thought that we would see additional rate cuts. And how they are all coming to that data, I I'm not gonna take the time to kind of, you know, unpack that. But the prediction was eighty two percent thought that there would be rate cuts in June. Do you feel like that is accurate? Is that something that we should I mean, at least for we know the consumer is going to be hearing that. But, you know, internally, you know, how should we be digesting that? Does that make a difference to us? Do we, you know, say that to our buyers if our people are on the fence? Or, you know, how do we interpret that data and utilize it to go forward in our business? Yeah. So here's the thing. It's already baked in. Right? Like, that the fact that that eighty percent believe that is why we've seen mortgage rates come down, why we've seen the ten year treasury come down. So, you know, basically, the the the idea is that mortgage rates and ten year treasury's front run the actual fed cuts. They're they're guessing what the fed's going to do, and so it's already baked in. Now the consumer doesn't necessarily understand that. And so just like when the Fed did their first cut in three years or whatever it was that we celebrated and we made noise around, and as an industry, we saw a pop around that. That didn't actually make mortgage rates go down. Mortgage rates actually went up at the moment that the Fed started cutting because there were some who believe the Fed cut too much, and that was gonna put us back into a position very much like we've been in now, where things started to overheat a little bit again and and rates and then the the future cuts were canceled and rates went back up. And that's what we actually saw happen. But, again, the consumer, the headline, the news media is gonna talk about a fed cut. And so I think I think a fed cut is good for us. Again, it's already baked into the the mortgage rates, so it's not gonna move the needle on that day. You know, we're in the Fed blackout period right now where they can't give speeches or comments because we're coming up on on their decisions around, you know, the future and everything. But I think I think at the end of the day, we need the good headlines. Right? We need just like we needed them when they did the first cut, we need the good headlines, but then we also need rates to cooperate enough. Because the downside of that is if we get the good headlines and then rates go back, you know, into the mid sevens or high sevens, then those good headlines didn't do us any good. And so it's the right combination of some good headlines. The Fed cutting is always a good headline. You know, if you go back even, I think, thirty, forty five days ago, there were there were experts saying no cuts this year. And now we're back to two to three cuts this year, and we'll see where it goes. It's just things are very volatile right now. There's a lot of uncertainty, and it's because, again, we're coming off of this unprecedented economic time, and it goes all the way back to COVID. Yeah. We saw unprecedented booms in in sales prices and low rates, And now we've had a couple of years of of pain on the other side for our industry while the stock market did great and everything else, and now things are kinda coming back to normal. So we're gonna see where it lands. You know, they they talk a lot about the economy and this idea of a soft landing. Can the Fed pull off the soft landing? And that's hard to do because they're trying to land this plane in a lot of turbulence, a lot of uncertainty. The landing lights are out at the airport. You know, all this stuff is going on, and they're trying to have a soft landing. And and so we'll see where it goes. But we're gonna continue to watch it. You know, at the end of the day, I think I I think we're in a good spot. The the fact that we're gonna have a good spring buying season is great. I mean, we can we can do a lot the next couple of months that really set up the year. And right now, rates are in the right position for us to do that. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I hope that everyone is kind of, like, thinking about what they're gonna do for q two because we know that, like you said, we're probably gonna have a fairly decent q two. And where we may see some softness towards the end of the year, we don't we don't know whether that exists or not. But we know for sure that seasonally, this is the busiest time for a year. So you want to be in position and you want to make sure that you are doing the things now to prepare for that extra volume. And what we see generally is that we'll see this dip in business where as people get busier because they're doing more transactions or working with with more people, there's only so many, you know, hours in a day. Right? So the time that was previously available for them to prospect and build their pipeline and kind of do that side of it ends up being eaten up by the transactions that they're doing and the, you know, inspections they have to go through, the appraise you know, the the work that they're doing today for the transaction. And then what happens is that creates a hangover where now they're gonna be in a period of time where they weren't really doing prospecting. They weren't really filling the pipeline. And so once they do all the transactions that were, you know, that they had the time to create initially, they've got this low. And so, you know, we are really making sure that you understand like your q two planning should be around that exact choke point. Like you're going to be more busier with transactions. However, you cannot allow that to erode your ability to have a future pipeline because if you do that and the second half of this year is soft, you're going to be in a really uncomfortable spot. So really just thinking through that and really encouraging our entrepreneurs to plan your q two, plan the busiest time, allow it to be a launch pad that helps you solve for q four, not something that actually hurts you in q four. And, I know that it feels good when we're doing the transactions. The money comes comes in, you know, like I know that feels great, but we have to think about what the next step is right around the corner because ultimately we could still be in a year of like you said depressed sales and that is not going to look like what it was in our previous years where you know, you could do almost anything. You could do no wrong and sell houses. You really have to be, you know, really focused on the right efforts so that you have a great year. So with that being said, Robert, I'll kinda turn it over to you for final words as we are heading into these last two weeks. We know we've got some q two workshops. What do you wanna see from our entrepreneurs? What should we be thinking about as we close out the month of, March and and ultimately q one? Yeah. I was gonna say, if you're not tuning in to Real Estate First Friday, you know, check it out. I mean, the the nuggetage is dropping there, the things he's talking about, the business workshop planning, You know, we we really these these two key, you know, kinda Zooms we do every week here. Kicking off the week with motivation Monday, ending the week with real estate first Friday, which is very tactical, very planning, you know, very hands on. You know, make make sure you're plugging into those too if nothing else. We've got all this amazing training throughout the week. You know, there's so many great resources we've put together here. But if you're just gonna catch two things, make sure it's make sure it's Motivation Monday and Real Estate First Friday. And I know, again, going into this period of time, you and Lewis are doing a lot to prep people for where we're going. I know we've we're seeing a lot of success in LPT plus right now. Know, that program's kinda just now getting old enough where people are having a lot of success. You know, people are figuring out how to use the tools to drive those couple of extra transactions. That's exciting to see. You know, that's two more opportunities for masterminds a week, in the LPT plus group. And and, again, the the big the big thing we have on the horizon is, and I don't know I don't know if Levy got you the picture of it, but the studio, you know, is is is, like, thirty percent bigger now. You know, so we're we're redesigning the Motivation Monday studio. We wanna start doing more live audience stuff. The idea is that maybe one week a month, it's like open campus where we invite folks down. And so this is the studio now under construction, you know, made it considerably bigger than it is. They're replacing the carpet, and they're getting that done for when I get back from Montana. But, you know, the Ascend campus is really gonna be a new dynamic to what we're doing where, you know, folks can come down to Orlando and, you know, do in person classes and in person masterminds and trainings. And, you know, we're looking at doing some in person stuff. For the total brokerage, we're looking at doing some in person stuff specifically around LPT plus and Team Growth plus. It's just it's gonna be a really neat, addition to how we're interacting and where we're going. And then that's gonna drive even more content for the broader brokers because whatever classes and things we are doing in person there, we're also gonna put them out over Zoom and put them out through Connect. And so, really cool to see that project coming together and and where we're heading. And, again, you know, this this concept of cloud brokerage is new, and and we're, you know, newer. You know? It's got a little legs to it, but we're all still figuring it out. And I think I think the idea of the real world campus, you know, we we saw another brokerage try it with a virtual campus. I think this idea of a real world campus so that when people do wanna say, hey. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna go down to Orlando once a year and and see other agents and and do the in person trainings and, you know, you you tack that on top of the regional conference plans we have, the thousand Ascend events, the big conference in October. It's just we're really approaching this differently, and I'm excited about the future. So, yeah, yeah, keep doing the things that are that are most important. Right? We're going in the busy season. It all starts with you. It starts with you helping your clients. It starts with you being that absolute local expert who will do all the things it takes to help your clients succeed in a way that the the big box companies just don't necessarily do, in a way that that that local salaried Redfin agent just isn't gonna go to work for for an agent for a customer the way you will on a Sunday night or whatever it is or, you know, the way you fight for for that deal to get done. I just have so much respect for all of our amazing agents and the hard work and the caring and support they put in to making sure that that customer has an absolute amazing experience in what is the largest transaction of their life. And we're just here to keep trying to come up with creative ways to support you in that, give you the tools, give you the motivation, give you that little bit of an unfair advantage, that little bit of an edge to reach your individual definition of success. So take the week. Think about what those words mean to you. Think about the actions you're gonna take. Make sure you plug into Real Estate First Friday this week, and let's get ready for a busy season because rates are cooperating right now, and we're gonna really start to feel it. Some of you may already be feeling it, and we're gonna just continue to feel it as we go. So make it a great week out there. Awesome.