The Jason Theory
S3 E7 - From Leads to Loyal Clients: Strategies for Modern Agents
Ever wondered how to turn internet leads into long-term clients in the real estate market? Join us as we explore the complexities of platforms like Zillow and Redfin and the benefits of setting clear expectations for your clients. We're excited to welcome John Floros and Nick Nostos from Fulton Grace Realty to share their insights and celebrate their new office in Elmhurst. From showcasing personal experiences to discussing temporary agreements for one-off showings, we cover it all to help you navigate the fascinating world of real estate leads and commissions.
We also tackle the nuances of legal and ethical practices in real estate. Discover why "love letters" can lead to unexpected legal troubles and how current MLS practices may affect your transactions. Our discussion highlights the importance of transparency, the impact of major players like Zillow, and why independent SEO strategies are crucial for staying competitive. Plus, hear about the essential technical knowledge that every agent should have, from HVAC systems to effective client engagement, and the often amusing side of real estate transactions.
Lastly, prepare yourself for some shocking stories about real estate scams and client red flags. John and Nick share riveting tales of con artists and flaky buyers, emphasizing the need for vigilance and due diligence. We also explore the advantages of multilingual networking and the surprising trends in online leads. To top it all off, we dive into market predictions amidst high-interest rates and housing shortages, ending on a humorous note about John's dating life. This episode promises a blend of practical advice, laughter, and professional insights you won't want to miss!
Ever wondered how to turn internet leads into long-term clients in the real estate market? Join us as we explore the complexities of platforms like Zillow and Redfin and the benefits of setting clear expectations for your clients. We're excited to welcome John Floros and Nick Nostos from Fulton Grace Realty to share their insights and celebrate their new office in Elmhurst. From showcasing personal experiences to discussing temporary agreements for one-off showings, we cover it all to help you navigate the fascinating world of real estate leads and commissions.
We also tackle the nuances of legal and ethical practices in real estate. Discover why "love letters" can lead to unexpected legal troubles and how current MLS practices may affect your transactions. Our discussion highlights the importance of transparency, the impact of major players like Zillow, and why independent SEO strategies are crucial for staying competitive. Plus, hear about the essential technical knowledge that every agent should have, from HVAC systems to effective client engagement, and the often amusing side of real estate transactions.
Lastly, prepare yourself for some shocking stories about real estate scams and client red flags. John and Nick share riveting tales of con artists and flaky buyers, emphasizing the need for vigilance and due diligence. We also explore the advantages of multilingual networking and the surprising trends in online leads. To top it all off, we dive into market predictions amidst high-interest rates and housing shortages, ending on a humorous note about John's dating life. This episode promises a blend of practical advice, laughter, and professional insights you won't want to miss!
I think if you pick up a lead, you better say the first thing hey, listen, I'm the buyer's agent. You have to sign representation paperwork. I can't go out with you this and this and you know what it's going to be. But people are like no, I'm okay, I wonder if there's going to be. I'll just call Durend, I'm okay, I wonder if there's going to be. Like that's everybody's pitch this. And I said the reason we're in this problem is because of Zillow leads.
Speaker 2:Because they're calling the listing agent. No, I get it yeah.
Speaker 1:Zillow's abuse of that. Because, listen, when I did a lot of stuff with Zillow, you know the first thing Zillow trains you to tell people hey, don't worry, you're not paying for me. That was straight out of this. That's their pitch. That's their pitch. What's the five P's? Do you remember it? Proper preparation prevents poor performance. There you go. It doesn't matter how much money we get, if we don't close, it's no money, right? So no, close is no money. I'm everything that I am because of my dad's death, and I wouldn't be as successful without his death, death, and I wouldn't be as successful without his death.
Speaker 1:Hello, welcome to the Jason Theory. We are in episode five. This is a first for us. We have two guests, because I am sometimes too boring. So this is like our little beer crew here and we're going to just talk about what's going on in the market, the NAR agents that should be leaving, the industry, agents that are good, that we wish there were more of. We're going to just really take this next 45 minutes and, if you're interested in real estate, just actually be BSing about everything that's going on in the real estate market right now. So let's start, because I thought about this last night. First introduce yourselves. John's been on before, so John.
Speaker 2:I'm John Floros with Folding Grace Realty.
Speaker 3:Nick Nostos with Folding Grace Realty, and you guys are both team leaders. Yeah, 77 group.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, yep, and you guys just opened up, are opening up an office in Elmhurst, that's it All right. Perfect Congratulations on that, all right. So let's talk about this first. You guys do a decent amount or maybe not. You tell me of internet leads, because you guys have a very good software that provides leads. Correct, what are you telling people and what are your thoughts and how are you going to bring in those leads? I guess first thing I would ask is what's the first thing you're going to say to people now, now that rules are going to be changing soon, so as a lead comes in hey, we want to see this property what is the first thing that's going to come out of your mouth and make sure it's?
Speaker 3:compliant Sign here. No, no, I guess the biggest thing is do we even know I don't even know off the top of my head Do we know? Can we do one-off showing and stuff? That's the biggest thing me and John always talk about.
Speaker 1:I thought about that too. You could do one-offs. But think about this If you do a one-off and they like it and there's not a time element, they could just wait, because every contract has to have a close, close, correct. So if you do a one-off, is it a one-off with a six-month exclusive on that one-off. Are you guys going to try to do that? How do you hold people to?
Speaker 3:this. This is my problem. That's the hardest part. I mean, like right now, without the agreement being quote-unquote required. The biggest thing is we just want to get the lead out and we use that first appointment of talk through our coffee meat and then we kind of build a relationship that way and kind of grow it. So with this, I don't know, I mean you could do the one-off show that property and then hey, then we can work on that.
Speaker 1:I don't know, me and john are trying to go through that do you say to him hey, here's, if you buy this, you owe me x amount of dollars. Or hey, this one-off has a commission. You don't. I'm getting paid from the other side, but there may be times when you're going to have to pay me. This is, this is.
Speaker 2:This is it's complicated when, when, when you're just talking to an internet lead and they want instant gratification. They clicked on a button and they just want to go out.
Speaker 1:They don't want to, they don't want. They're not looking to hire somebody at that point.
Speaker 2:They're not. But a lot of times, even before this in our lawsuit and lead out. And, just like Nick said, that was our opportunity to interview them, get to know them, show them our value as to why they should go back out and look at more homes with us again. I'm not going to buy the first one they see. Usually, so kind of trying to approach this now is like we don't want to go without having something signed, because what if that one property is the one that they're going to end up buying? We don't have an agreement in place. So I think we're going to have to get some kind of temporary like you said, it could be seven days, it could be an exclusive just on that one property and hope that one time we take them out that we show them enough value that they'll sign something for three to six months. But we don't know how we're going to navigate it.
Speaker 3:I don't think the buyers know, because the buyers are used to clicking whenever it's coming up. I don't think the buyers know. Yeah, because the buyers are used to clicking whenever, well, it's coming up, I mean you've got to have your 17.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've got to have your gate.
Speaker 2:Well, what's Zillow going to do? Like they're going to find some quick solution to get buyers out. You know, with Like you go on One time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then what happens when the agents figure out that they'll go out them one oh, I don't have to pay you now Like, are you going to send Another thing I thought about? We'll get back to that. Another thing I thought about we'll put on the background, I just want to forget it. How do you?
Speaker 2:send clients now to like an open house. Somebody was talking about it. I wouldn't send one to an open house. For any new agents or seasoned agents, open houses might be the best place now to get leads, because I mean, if someone comes in there like you shouldn't, I don't feel comfortable having my client go on Sunday look at homes in.
Speaker 1:Glenview. Well, I did back in the day when you were like you would email hey, my client's coming here this and this or this, but there's no more recurring costs. It's done. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's going to be. Are they going to mark your name and say I'm with Jason Stratton when they go to an open house?
Speaker 1:And then that agent says hey, you know, we're not paying a co-op If you don't use an agent directly from me, from us, you're not, You're going to get X amount of dollars. People are going to do that.
Speaker 3:I had that happen already. So in the suburbs Park Ridge I won't name the brokerage there. What they're doing is what I'm noticing three initials, so they the knee ends with the P, yeah, yeah, and what they're doing? What they're doing is what I've noticed is they're doing the listing agent has like a URL for their website for like all their listings and do an auction style. They have tech set up like it was a barbecue and people were walking up signing in there. Ask them do you have a broker? Yes, okay, you're paying. They literally said you're paying 3% commission to the buyer's agent and then if you're not a broker, we can talk about it. That's what they were saying.
Speaker 3:So you go on their website the buyers to put in the offer and the price and say it's 575 was a list price. It got all and it's on the market on the website for five days, like basically auction style, and you can see every offer that's coming in. So the two, bob and Mary, were just fighting for each other and then some guy, david, just swooped in last minute and got it, but offer was $6.68 plus 3% buyer commission. Their actual offer was $6.90 almost. So the messed up part is you can't put an offer in lower than the previous offer.
Speaker 1:So, for example, let's say you don't have a broker, you're still paying the same amount.
Speaker 3:No, I think they're adjusting it. What I saw was here's your offer. Here's the offer. Here's agent compensation. Here's your total offer.
Speaker 2:But you don't know nothing about. And the buyer?
Speaker 3:has to put it in, the broker doesn't put it in, the buyer puts it in and then you have to register or some sort. I didn't do it because we didn't get that far. I just seen it on the outside looking in. So it's kind of interesting. But the messed up part is, from what I understand, is you can't put an offer in lower than the previous offer. So let's say, example John has a cash buyer for 600 grand. I have a finance buyer that can do 610. 610, but 600 grand, as is this, that the other cash, they won't even look, you can't even submit it.
Speaker 1:It has to be over the 610 or the previous, but that's not the best for the, that's not the best for the seller correct.
Speaker 3:I agree, it's just drying up, just driving up, right the flaw of the system.
Speaker 2:Yeah they're doing it, it seems like.
Speaker 3:Again, I didn't get that far so I don't know the ins and outs of it, but on the surface that's what it looked like. It's crazy to me. So I was where. What city part?
Speaker 1:that one was park redridge, but they all have people just what people do right, like, just so people know people put in offers that they know aren't. Are that that the appraisal is just gonna shut down? Yeah, correct. And they'll be like hey, put an offer in, so you get it, it'll go to the. I mean, I would never do this, but I know people do it. Just put an offer in way over, ask and let the appraiser take it down at least, then you've got it and you've beat out everybody else people are asking these appraisal caps.
Speaker 3:Now, literally I'm getting sellers, listing agents literally saying, hey, offers only considered with appraisal gaps. No love letters. No, this like well, the love letter is illegal. Fyi, oh, I didn't know that. I don't like it many ways, but that's the only way I see them I.
Speaker 2:They're illegal.
Speaker 1:I never even thought about them being illegal. They're illegal. If you get a love letter, never give it to your seller, Because the minute you give it to your seller and they don't take that offer they could sue Discriminatory. You saw my letter, you knew I had three people, three boys or two girls. You knew my ethnicity. You cannot give love letters.
Speaker 2:A lot of the listings I see on broker remarks like no love letters, well, because it's illegal. Yeah, I know, but you're seeing that more. But, like earlier on this last couple of years with crazy auto offers, people would still send them.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, because you need a broker that actually knows that they're illegal, like they're literally handing their clients something that's going to get them sued, but they don't know because they're idiots.
Speaker 2:There's going to be a lot more lawsuits. In general, You're going to probably see them too, like just where people are going to go into an open house and not realize that you're hosting the open house. You represent the seller, and then I walk in and you're like I could rent a contract for you.
Speaker 1:I think it's going to there's going to be shenanigans the same way. There were shenanigans the one way, there's going to be shenanigans the other way, but at least I think, at least the way it was the shenanigans at some point. I think you, as a buyer, you figure it out, man, by the time you go in as a buyer and the selling agent has you writing all these things and this and this, you're locked in. You may not even know Because they're going to pose it not as that I'm representing you. They're going to pose it as it's cheaper.
Speaker 2:That's how-. Oh, to not use it? Yeah, for sure they are, but is it cheaper? When you're getting no advice? You're not getting any kind of guidance.
Speaker 1:Well, you don't know because you could be paying 5% over market Right Even. Well, no, because you could be paying 5% over market Right Even though you think it's cheaper. But it's really not because you're not being told what the actual comparables are and the person running the comps. Their job is to get the buyer, the seller, the most money, for sure.
Speaker 2:No, I know it's a conflict. I mean, we all see it, it's got to be interesting.
Speaker 1:I mean I think it's still proposed is that doesn't have to be?
Speaker 3:I think I don't know, though I don't know we're, I'm under the assumption, assumption that it's happening.
Speaker 1:That's the iron and then the northwest mls said F you, yep, freedom of speech, we're still going to put the compensation.
Speaker 3:I think it's going to domino effect. I hope it domino effects into the other MLSs.
Speaker 2:Embrit included. Yeah, they called it with like an intermediary, like MLS I don't know which other area it was and it's freedom of speech and like if you're trying to push transparency, like why would you remove it and what are we going to do, you're getting away from transparency. I think so 100%. It's obviously a good knowledge. Yeah.
Speaker 3:We'll go left trying to get a listing agent that's busy or lazy on the phone to ask them what you're paying, if you're paying.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So like, would you guys have any inclination of being like, hey, I'm just not going to Like, when you get, if you get burnt once on this, I don't want to tell buyers how they can burn people, but I've been thinking about it. Give the strategies jade. So, listen, you could. You could like I was actually talking to the head of legal berkshire and we're talking like, oh, but you have an agreement. I'm like, yeah, I said, but do you understand at any the the agreement? Someone could fire you. Yeah, everyone, at any point. Just like, at any, someone could fire you. Yeah, at any point. Just like, listening, at any point, someone could fire you. Yeah, so if they fire you, the exclusivity on that property is gone.
Speaker 2:Unless you take a retainer fee or something which I don't see a lot of people doing it I don't know.
Speaker 1:So I could spend a month with somebody. Yeah, they found their dream house. I went to 50 places. They find their dream house. I went to 50 places. They find their dream house on Thursday. They fire me on Friday and put the offering on me and then, oh, they would first go to the 77 group and then Of course I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1:You run the comps, you go on with the royalty. He goes. This guy farts in his car when he's with me, I, this guy eats while we're doing, showings everybody pink eye. We don't know that, but they can. They can then just fire you and and go and you and even if you went three times that same agent saw you three times it doesn't matter there's no procuring calls yeah, so weird, that's so crazy.
Speaker 2:Is that what happened? Like that, like you spent a month and then I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I would. I mean, I know you guys do that and I'm really interested in these lead gen people, but I don't know if I would invest all that time on somebody that I don't know.
Speaker 2:I will say this jason, I know nick and I have kind of like talked about it. At least we are not in a position and we're grateful and fortunate to be having a stranglehold from Zillow. We own our own sites, we do our own SEO. Our leads aren't costing us more money because of this change. I think a lot of people it probably will make buyer leads maybe cheaper. Obviously, seller leads are hard to get online. But anyone who's dependent on Zillow because Zillow is the only player now like I mean rent fit loans dude, oh my God, comes making a big Super Bowl put yes, but they're spending one billion on marketing.
Speaker 1:Do they sent everybody billion? Yeah, yeah, a billion on marketing but what are they doing?
Speaker 2:they're trying to well. Well, they're going to the listing agent give them all the leads.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it's all the listing agent it's. I mean, concerning what's going on right now, it kind of is like, if you're going to buy leads, I'd rather buy leads on stuff that I own. Yeah, sure, for sure, absolutely. I actually think that the MLS should not, we should not sell any of our homes to anybody. The fact that the fact that we pay you know we pay have our homes listed on zillow, you know we pay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, zillow doesn't pay. No, we have the inventory. Yep, right, it goes from the iman syndicates. Yeah, we pay zillow, yeah, and then zillow takes our leads and and give them someone else and they're getting money. Yeah, what the fuck is with that? Well, that's, that's all. That's how the someone else and they're getting paid.
Speaker 2:What the fuck is with that. Well, that's how tech companies work right. I've never been on Zillow. I don't know if you have, but it's People pay a lot and I get it. I mean it's a good return for some people. But that's what I would be worried about right now. I was like if I was dishing five, they're in the Zillow, plus another five from a lender, you're at 10. And now those leads are going to be and you don't think there's going to be testers.
Speaker 1:I guarantee you For sure People are going to get Zillow calls and you're going to test it. I think if you pick up a lead, you better say the first thing hey, listen, I'm the buyer's agent. You have to sign representation paperwork with you, this and this, and you know it's going to be. But people like, no, I'm okay, I wonder if there's gonna. I'll just call jared, I'm okay, I wonder if there's gonna be. Like that's everybody's pitch. This is why we're in the problem. I had a guy on, I had a title guy on like three weeks ago and I said the reason we're in this problem is because of zillow leads because I think they're calling the listing agent.
Speaker 2:You know not, I get it yeah zillow's abuse of that.
Speaker 1:Because listen, when I did a lot of stuff with Zillow, you know the first thing Zillow trains you to tell people hey, don't worry, you're not paying for me. That was straight out of this, that's their pitch. That's their pitch. Now it changed because six years ago they're like you can't say that anymore Because you are paying, so you haven't been able to say that for a while. But when I started with zillow david guys, I've been in here- like I was doing zillow before all the guys were spending.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was the pitch and that's still. I don't care what anybody says. That's still coming out of people's mouths. It may not be in writing, but my services are free. Yeah, like that quote, unquote, what cannot, what you have not been able to say, but now it's like if you say that, you're really going to be in trouble. Oh, absolutely, I believe that. Yeah, I just think that person, that product, it's like trying to convert somebody that wants to use Redfin, that's you know.
Speaker 3:Well, that was my thing. Like what's going to happen in Redfin? Is you go on there, you're listing, it says next available, showing 6 o'clock. Is it available at 6 o'clock? It's 24-hour notice. It's this what's going to happen with that one? The buyer clicks on a live tour and then you're not available, right, are they able to work with this agent and how are they going to work stuff out to get us? Basically, they is. I'm thinking even, maybe even for our site.
Speaker 3:I don't know if we can even incorporate this. I don't even know if nara's gonna allow this, or emmet, or whoever. It should be an online form. Bingo, exactly. Sign you register on my website. Bob smith, here's my website, here's my or my phone number, email address, and then, cool, I consent to work with john for this one day, or this one showing, or whatever the case may be, or a longer term, whatever we can agree upon. I wonder if they're going to adopt something like that. I would assume they're going to have to something, because these online leads that's the only way to get them to semi-commit. I don't think online leads are you going?
Speaker 3:to go, and can you even go on the show blindly? I mean, are people going to regulate?
Speaker 1:I don't know documents, we don't know that I mean like I'm very no one's going to walk very interested to see like people's volume to august. Yeah, and then fire from august.
Speaker 2:It's over, I think it's.
Speaker 3:I want to see the implications of leaders and wikis.
Speaker 2:I want to snap because I expect a lot anyway after august this year election year. No, it's gonna be a shit show, but it's gonna say it wasn't around.
Speaker 1:You'll know. We'll know like by mid-year of next year, but I'm just wondering how people are going to approach that subject now. The good part about all this is we can talk about all the bad agents that are going to lose their job, and I don't know. I don't want anyone to lose their job. You're so excited about it, but I'm so frustrated about the lack of. They're all nice, just the lack of education on the product is insane to me. Like if someone came up to me and said I want to be agent, what I want to do, what I want you to do, I'd be like you need to sit in construction sites and you need to talk to everyone about what this is, what this is, what this is, what this is, what this is, what this is.
Speaker 3:I mean the amount of people that don't even understand anything is bananas. To me, barrier to entry is very low. That's very. That's part of it. Yeah right, I mean I don't think that's ever going to change, but I think this will help keep the more educated, the one that are dived into the industry, more than the part-timers or the half and half hours yeah, I mean, you know people will be like oh, I'm just a buyer's agent because I have friends, you know friends.
Speaker 1:okay, your friend's gonna cut you a check for 25 grand when you literally don't know anything you're talking about. I can't believe how many people don't know that the A-coil produces air conditioning in the furnace and people think the condenser produces the air conditioning. John, don't look at me like that because I'm going to be upset.
Speaker 2:He knows about the B-coil. He knows about the A-coil. I don't know the internal HVAC system. We rely on inspectors. Listen, you're. You're more like. You know everything about, like construction more than a lot of people. I don't think we're hired to be construction experts, not hired to be a structural engineer. I hired for any of that. But you gotta have good resources and know at least something about construction.
Speaker 1:But I'm telling you this next iteration of our job when people are paying you 20 grand, you better know that stuff, because that's what they're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna call up their friends and say, oh, you're spending, because if not, I have a friend. Now that's done with. Yeah, yeah, it's who. Who am I willing to pay?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, it is gonna be. You're gonna have to show your value, you're right. Yeah, I definitely going to have to do that. But there's people who walk in and they don't do nothing. I mean, how many times have you seen agents walk in and sure, the listing agents are jobs to really sell the property, talk about it. But the buyer's asking all these questions and their agent's just standing behind them. I'm like why are you texting?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're texting you people do a texting on their phone. They're looking at Haptui memes.
Speaker 2:Here's a way Do it, let's do it. Come on, let's get one out of you. Haptui, holy shit, that was funny. Oh, that's funny. I'm so sure that's what they're doing. Yeah, they are doing that.
Speaker 1:They're watching that over and over. Oh goodness, I mean. But there's agents that are. I think there's agents that are veterans, like I know, agents that I've known since the mid-2000s. When they walk into a place, they're just texting the whole time.
Speaker 2:I mean I get it. I mean we're all guilty. I text too, but I'm being attentive. I ask questions. Put my phone on the side.
Speaker 1:I'll be upstairs in the bedrooms and this guy is on the couch texting people and this guy is on the couch texting people.
Speaker 2:And these are big agents. Yeah, that isn't good. I mean, that's a point where I feel like you got to at least give your buyer God's name. Your name of day and spend some time with them. Show they didn't care.
Speaker 3:Here's another question what if you know family members reach out to us? So what if the listing agent is not paying? You're going to ask about a number. Hey, give uh 20 grand to write 15 grand.
Speaker 1:How many times we try to cut a deal or do whatever and you know kind of and let's give them all. I worry, I, all of our. I mean I would say, 15 of my business is my inner circle. Yeah, that's 50, 15, 15, 15 to 20 is my inner circle, like where it's like it's like I would do that's a hard ass.
Speaker 2:Cousin, a sister, a brother or whatever, just got married, they're having a kid. Oh, by the way, the way I don't blame them.
Speaker 1:I'd be like you saw the check I gave you for your wedding. You just need 10 more of those checks and you're fine. Yeah just give me the envelopes, just give me the bird cage.
Speaker 3:That's great, and the money on the floor from the Greek dance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, from the Greek dance. There's enough dollars there.
Speaker 3:That's a really good one, so that's the biggest thing for me. That's one of the things not the biggest but one of the things I thought of was like oh, we're Greek too, so like yeah, you get a lot of reach out.
Speaker 2:My current clients are family and I thought about it. I'm like thank God they're buying before this August thing.
Speaker 1:One's buying like over a million and the other one's know asking them no, you're gonna have to say hey, listen these ones, if I do two shows with them.
Speaker 2:They're like you're gonna make 25 grand, like it's hard to to help people understand that.
Speaker 1:But you know, sometimes you're out with people six months a year and so when people, when people say that you're making 25 grand, do you ever sit down with them and tell them what you actually make?
Speaker 2:oh, after taxes, after expenses, that no, of course time.
Speaker 1:Really. So some guy called me up. I bet a lot of people will actually ask us that, yeah, so some guy. They don't ask me that. What they say is I had a guy. We had a listing on Winona 5140 Winona, which is just one on a contract with this person. Okay, they, he had a broker. I had no idea who this guy was.
Speaker 1:He calls me up and starts negotiating the commissions. He's like well, you know, I was doing these numbers and you're making two and a half percent or three percent. It's this, this, this. I said man, let me know where I can go and make two and a half to three percent on my commissions? Literally, I said, because I said you live in america. He's like yeah, this is guys having my age. I'm like, okay, I, you live in America. He's like, yeah, this guy's having my age. I'm like, okay. I'm like do you pay taxes? He's like, yeah, okay. So right off the bat I'm giving 40% to Uncle Sam. You know what the state tax is in Illinois? It's four to 5%. So right now I'm at 45%. Oh, guess what?
Speaker 1:I work for a company called Berkshire. They make money because they make money for me. So now I'm paying him, I said and then I've got $2,000 in marketing costs. I go so, listen, the place is 850 grand. Man, you want seven grand or six grand? That's what we're talking about, I said. And then I always say I said, listen, get on the phone, get on your computer, hit Redfin, have Redfin take you to the spot and you can deal with a kickback from that. I'm going to have nothing to do with it, because that person is going to be a pain in the ass for the whole time. I tell people to go to Redfin. When anyone says to me I want cash back, I go go to Redfin First. I can't do it. Yeah, go to Redfin. Yeah, do it. Go to Redfin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're going to get what you get from a company like Redfin. It costs them more, A little kickback cashback. I don't even know what Redfin offers. It's like fine, you're going to get a Redfin all-in agent.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you what. If I'm representing the seller and I have a non-agreement, I have a non-agency agreement with the buyer. I have a non-agency agreement with the buyer. He's going to get more from rent than he's going to get from me, because I'm going to take that kid to the cleaners, yeah, and that's what's going to happen to all these people that are in the rent, because my job is for the sale. Exactly For sure.
Speaker 2:And when you're coming by yourself and you think you're that slick, oh yeah, they think they're just so smart Like anybody could just be a realtor. I can get my own contract, I can write it until they don't know what to do. And, like you said, you're going to take them to the cleaners. Yeah, they're going to pay significantly more on the purchase price. They're not going to get the best terms. And guess who ends up losing? They do, they do, yeah.
Speaker 3:Which is sad, but that's their choice, losing in general right then well, yeah, I mean, it didn't start out this way.
Speaker 1:They they put buyers agents because buyers were getting screwed correct, so it just makes no sense to think about it. We got deals right now falling apart with the representation, not the greatest.
Speaker 3:Well, they're not wrapped. Yeah, yeah, that's the greatest. But like, try the. What about this? This quote-unquote savvy buyer that wants to go in by themselves, good luck. We don't know people saying other brokers saying 70 of his deals that are unrepresented, go south like that's. That's gonna be happening a lot until the buyer, I think, realizes it. And then who they calling at 10 o'clock at night asking about a coils? And who the hell?
Speaker 2:yeah, definitely not that. If your heat's broke, call payson or your age, he's probably up he didn't know what.
Speaker 1:The eight point was.
Speaker 2:Don't put me on, no, none of us. So I don't even think you that air working in here. Do you know where your b coil is?
Speaker 1:it's b it's a, I don't care because it's framed like an a that why?
Speaker 2:yes, there you go.
Speaker 1:We learned something when the air conditioner breaks, you know why it breaks normally. Why does it break? Okay, different people don't clean the filter. Okay, so when you don't clean the filter, okay. So when you don't clean the filter, the air coil over freezes and then what happens is it shuts down, it gets wet, it freezes and it turns into an ice block and then it cracks and the air coil cracks and then you're kaputty. And the problem with that happening now is that you can't get Freon anymore. All right, so when your air coil cracks and it's a freon a-coil, you're screwed. Now you have to do everything. Yeah, changing the filter is literally the most important thing to do. Yeah, and no one does it. Yeah, everyone's like oh, I had a client. That's so cheap. What's the blue green? What's the blue building on right off lasalle?
Speaker 3:that's like Blue glass, the blue glass 110?.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have air handlers in there. They have a different type of cooling system. It's extremely expensive. She lived there six years, never cleaned her filters. Both the ACs broke and they pulled it out. The filter was like a wall and they broke because she never changed the filter Six years, come on. That's crazy. There were once every couple 20 grand a pop for just two of them. That's the box yeah, good luck, that's bad, so let's talk about. Secondly, let's talk about social media and you guys when are we going to start seeing?
Speaker 3:you always saw I fuck at it. John at least posted his just list. To just close a couple dog photos. I'm horrible at it. I post pearl jam stuff and maybe a couple of salmon gyro sandwiches, but it's just about it's.
Speaker 1:It's like having a conversation like this. You can have a conversation totally. I just, I'm just bad.
Speaker 3:I never really find the time to do it, not that I don't have the time, I just I you know many videos I have of like places I've been to and showings and stuff, and randomly, when I'm like sitting on the couch, I'm like, oh yeah, let's post this. I was there two weeks ago and then I just do it randomly. I get a lot of activity, a lot of comments, a lot of you know dms and stuff like that about it. I was telling my wife the other day I guess you probably start doing this more often and then you do a lot of facetime stuff, um, you know you just, I don't like, you're like, I mean, you got that personality, but you guys have to see the personality.
Speaker 1:I thought about it last time. When we're at a bar and we're having a drink, we're all laughing, we're all saying the same shit. There's no reason that you shouldn't be able to turn around and do it and you're single. You should be able to spit game like this Going online, going online.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm drunk, I'm doing that.
Speaker 1:Get drunk and do it.
Speaker 2:You don't always feel like people want to just see you Like I get annoyed seeing the same shit over and over on social media. Yeah, I get it From realtors, you know everybody's. It's not the podcast, it's just everybody's like oh, look at me, I'm showing a property. It's such a nice $2 million place. It just becomes so redundant and you keep seeing, just like the Hock Tooie, we keep seeing it in our thing, but I keep watching it.
Speaker 1:So come on, that's a bad example. I know I could watch Huck Tooey all day.
Speaker 2:We're our own biggest critics when we're like on video and on, you know, watching ourselves on social media. I don't know he doesn't do it a lot, I don't do it a lot. I just kind of like say, hey, here's a picture of my dog, he's cute.
Speaker 1:Onto the next property and do we, do we think the dog photos?
Speaker 3:oh god, I told them his dog, I think. Jaywalking with jay, that's what he should do. The dog's name is jay. Yeah, walking with john, sorry, jaywalking with just keep. Will you have him on as a guest?
Speaker 1:no, because that matches your wall here, the two of you when you're together, so it's scaring me, oh relax.
Speaker 2:What scares me? What's on your nose right now?
Speaker 1:he may bite you. Yeah, so I'm going through midlife crisis and puberty. At the same time I have a zit. My wife pointed out to me and I was like no, I. She wakes up. She goes what's on your nose? I'm like I go, I feel it. She actually said to me do you want me to step on it? I'm like, no, just let it be, because I'm a listen. This testosterone, I got it natural there's a testosterone.
Speaker 3:There's an Instagram field to fix that up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 50 with acne means that I'm doing something. I don't know what it is. So tell me, guys, like a recent story of a buyer or seller that really made you laugh. Yeah, nick, something that happened to you over the last two months that was like, oh my lord, like I think all of us think that we see everything and then we see something else, that you're like jesus and I've seen everything and then it's like, oh my god, no, I've seen everything or heard or this or that, and he's, you know those good stories you're in real estate.
Speaker 3:So I mean I got a seller from last year.
Speaker 2:How about the buyer that won't sign the contract?
Speaker 3:I mean, I don't know if you're laughing about it, no, no, no, I have a buyer who doesn't speak much English, greek, no, asian. Oh, can you get an interpreter or something? She didn't want one. She says I'm good with you, okay, and we walk and talk and it's like yeah, yeah, yeah, and back and forth. Showed her a bunch of places, budget like three million bucks. Um, she has proof of funds. Showed it to us. You know, whatever made an offer on a place, missed out on one because she took too long. That's the biggest problem is like we just text. So she can communicate easily with text. Oh, probably converts it google yeah yeah, for sure, and I.
Speaker 3:So, um, we're in person, we kind of Um, but when we're on outside, obviously just texting takes forever to sign. Like, right, she signed the offer. Like there's a place with an offer on for the last like three months and we're just basically finally agreed on price. Yeah, okay, We'll take it. Send her the contract with the updated terms, easily sign the contract to make the offer. Now it's time to put pen to paper to make it official.
Speaker 3:And it's like, oh, to put pen to paper to make it official. And it's like, oh, my english is bad, I don't I'll, I don't know if I can sign it. Okay, I'm gonna send it to my attorney. I said, okay, great, you can take a look at it. You're trying to take a look at their attorney. Do you have the attorney's email? No, she won't give it to me. You're correct, exactly. So I'm trying, yeah, something's up. And literally yesterday, I'm like, hey, if you, I'm literally sitting on the couch. I'm like you want to like sign it or or not, or just keep looking other places. She goes, I will sign it, and this has been now. I will sign it, for I can show you the text messages for the last month at least.
Speaker 3:So these are like and the bro, I feel bad for this, for the listing agent, because he has high hopes. He's like thank you. He's like so appreciative every time I give him some sort of answer but it's never happening because it's a three million, three and a half million dollar place, been on the market for a while, it's in the, you know, it's in the Gold Coast, whatever. And he's just like hoping for this deal to happen. And I feel bad and I tell him like hey, I was literally told what we saw and we even saw the place three times. It's not like we only saw it once and made an offer and whatever. We saw it three, multiple times during the negotiation process too. And I mean there was one, sorry, we got an offer that all of a sudden, magically, her offer went from, took her a month to do, to respond to make a counter offer. It went up two, three hundred grand within seconds. Still. I mean we still were too late, but I don't even know if she would have signed it in time.
Speaker 3:So like that's the granted. That's three. No, so you got it kind of like yeah, but like I'm not, I'm not running around, I'm just texting at this point. So it's not like it's a waste of my time running around. I'm like literally sitting on the toilet, sitting on my couch, I'm like texting her.
Speaker 2:That's a buyer agreement type lead you'd want like, yeah, sign this or we're not going to ever work together because you're wasting the listing agents time, the sellers time next time, everybody involved. And I think, to go back to the nard thing, I think there is some good in it, you know, it's not not just the transparency, it's the hey, you're actually going to agree to work with me and you're not going to cheat and go click on redfin one day and the next day show it with jason or me or nick, and I think we do need that. But yeah, yeah, like, just like nick said, I think it's just it's going to be hard to navigate, like when those leads are inbound. How are we going to get them to sign? Is it online? But yeah, I thought I know Nick tells me about this every day and I'm like but when did she sign? He's like what scam. Oh, you're ready for now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is a good one, kenilworth. This guy's not met this guy. No, I was. It actually was a. I was helping somebody out, but then she was pregnant, so I just kind of took it from start of that finish basically horror stories of online league.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, but this is this is, though. This is this one's crazy. So, 2.9 mil, he goes in there. He shows up in like a little rusted out dodge, neon red. Okay, comes out during covid, he's wearing a mask. Go in there, shows it. Sees, he's like I used to live, I used to be in this house, my friend so and so back in so and so years used to live here. Oh yeah, this is a family that owned it before. No problem, calls me back. Hey, let's make an offer. I said great, it's like I'll do cash.
Speaker 1:Was it verified that that was a family? That it, yeah.
Speaker 3:The listing agent was there and she was telling us oh yeah, I mean there's a little. So that was like that was okay. It was to the beyond. Keep in mind, this guy's like 50. I can show you the picture. All right, I can show you the picture. I guess that guy's like 55-something years old and he's walking through it. Cool. He's like I think I'm going, gives us a Harris Bank statement with like $8 million in it. Great, submit the offer. Boom, $3 million or whatever it was that we agreed upon. Done, do we do the inspection? He didn't want to come. He's like I'm busy. Great, $5,000 inspection for the inspector. It's a huge house, super scopes the whole deal. What was the price? 2.931 or something like that. Doesn't pay the inspector any money. Okay, that's one. The scam starts there. Now we're due for earnest money. Oh yeah, I sent it. Broker's like no, I don't have it and I'm like. He's like oh, I'll give you the confirmation number. Never give the confirmation.
Speaker 2:I'm like hey, Michael or Steven, or.
Speaker 3:Scammy Scamerson, yeah, Scammy Scamerson. I'm like hey, oh, Joe Right off the bat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, joe, I got problems.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I said, hey, let me meet you to get a check for the thing, no problem. First, it says it's going to drop it off at the Winnetka or North Shore at property's office. Says it drops it off after hours. They go back the next day. Checks that in there. I'm like I'll meet you. He's like, oh, meet my prospects, I meet him, my prospect. He's sitting in his car. I walk up to the window. He's like, hey, I got.
Speaker 2:I'm like did you drop it off.
Speaker 1:He's in the neon, yeah he's in the neon, he's like I had my phone.
Speaker 3:I had my phone, I had this jacket in a pocket here I had my phone sticking out. And he goes hey, I don't like talking around on cell phones. I said, all right, fine, I put it in my back pocket. So I don't like when I see cell phones, no problem, I go. He's like I'm like, did you drop off the check? He's like, yeah, gives me this piece of paper. He goes here's this piece of paper. I open it. I still have it. I should frame it, actually Open it up. It's literally a piece of paper that says pay to the order of at properties 120 grand Joe, one, two, three main street. And on the back it had it signed Like he literally drew a check.
Speaker 3:His sign Hock Tuohy. No, that was before this time. So he literally drew a check. I said, why just write me a real one? I'm like this is not going to be good. It's not like an IOU, oh my God. So why just write me a check With a check, dumb and dumber, yeah, why just write me a check from that checkbook right there?
Speaker 3:He's like how do I do it? I go Probably like a basketball. Now, keep in mind I'm supposed to meet him at Harris Bank downtown Because he says I go to the fifth floor and that's where I have my bank card, all this kind of stuff. I go up to the, I'm waiting for him. I get there early because I know this now we're getting scammy Just to beat him up to go up this escalator to go to the elevator. Never shows up. He says I was there, I was there, I so I don't know if he's going to come to closing or not At this point. That check has not bounced or cleared yet, because the closing is happening. No, he hasn't been tendered at all. No, the seller still has high hopes. Well, it's 10 days yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's been that long. Yeah, it's been 10 days for that check. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's happened in 10 days.
Speaker 3:So, no joke, that morning check comes back, final walkthrough, the seller's there. It's like, listen, I'm not giving this guy shit until whatever, until something goes down. I'm like, listen, I'm gonna go to closing. I haven't talked to him in two days. He's not responding. I don't know he's gonna show up. I pull up and park behind these bushes like I'm an investigator freaking dodge me as shows up to closing. I saw I pull a, like I'm coming in. I'm like hey, joe, how's it going? It's like, yeah, he's like man, my dad's gonna kill me. He's like man, my dad's going to kill me. He's like he doesn't know I'm buying this house. He's like I'm just going to tell him the house is sitting for like 30 days and whatever.
Speaker 3:I'm like this is a 50-some-year-old man that is talking about buying this house for $3 million. Did you tell him his check bounced? Yeah, he's like oh, that's weird. Here's the confirmation number after the check box in the morning. Okay, he's like I wired a two point whatever to the title company. Go to title company, sign all documents, everything. Title company's like okay, well, the money's not here. Here's the wire here. Here's confirmation number. He's like well, it's at the Harris Bank. I look at the Harris Bank nearby. It's only three minutes away. Oh, come in. So I take him to the Harris Bank, okay, cool. He's like hey, I want the money out of this account. He's like joe, this account's been closed for like eight years he's like he's the same, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 1:But didn't you have a fear for your life, like, why would you still communicate with this guy?
Speaker 3:because the stuff because the seller listing agent was like kind of they're again having high hopes and they thought this guy was going to be legit and he showed up to closing. You don't go through the process.
Speaker 2:Sign document the one percent chance that he closes.
Speaker 3:It sounds like the seller the seller wanted me to do it like someone's there, so I'm like, all right, fine.
Speaker 1:So I think you have a one percent of closing and a 20 percent of of being shot, chopped up, yeah, thrown into lake michigan yeah.
Speaker 3:So then he sends me this thing. He's like, oh. Then he's like can I still close? I go, no, there's no money, you can't close, you can't get the keys. It's like, oh, let me go in my, maybe I'll get it from another account. I go, whatever you figure out, you call him, he sends me. Whoops, he sends me a screenshot from, uh, a different bank. I have a friend that works at that bank and he looked it up. He's like no, it's like the closed account from a previous, when we bought out a previous bank that huntington bank bought out or whatever. But what was his game? I don't know. I think he had some sort of emotional attachment.
Speaker 3:I mean, I I had some I like I don't know if I should say this or not, but I had like a cop friend look him up to see he had a lot of like witness protection type stuff and like his, his, his. I should look it up earlier is basically what I said but I should have done. But he, his, his identity was kind of like disappeared. So I don't know if it was when anyone's like cashing or something.
Speaker 1:We were two and a half million. I'm shocked to the doubt. I'm straight to linkedin and I'm straight, yeah, I'm. I'm straight to like the internet. And if you have no, if you have no, like there's no history of you anywhere, like there's no internet history of you, you're not. Something's up, yeah, so he. No one has three million dollars in petty cash and is not for sure but his grandfather and his dad have all the same names.
Speaker 3:I think he was using an account that he had previously. From that. It was just weird. He had some weird attachment to it. He knew everything. He was like oh yeah, this used to be here, Because it was complete regret. Jason Hero actually was renting the place at the time. Who's it? Doug Cubs later. Oh so, yeah, so, like I don't know, he had this weird attachment about the previous family and this and that I don't know what the guy was probably going to disappear.
Speaker 3:Then he shows up back on somebody else's website. Oh yeah, I know your story. You're going to tell Somebody else's website. I wasn't talking about that guy. What.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was talking about him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought he showed up on somebody else's website wanting to buy a River North condo. Bail down the kennel workplace. So I'm like, don't even talk to that guy, he's a frog. So anyway, that's my long story to shorten me, because what's?
Speaker 2:your story. Oh no, my, my guy didn't waste as much time. Yeah, like nix, did this guy like it's like. I was like this is too good to be true. Show one property up in evanston off the lake and he's a cash buyer. He brings his money, guy, with him. He's got a matte black G-Wagon the younger girlfriend, the typical thing. I'm like, okay, whatever, go in see it, this is great.
Speaker 2:I was like, what's your reason for buying out here? We just want to be by the water. We own XYZ company that does something related with boats. I was like, okay, that makes sense. You want to be by the water. Um, boats and hosts. Yes, we did the. Uh, we did the earnest money. You know. They got the first installment. Fine, he had a legit attorney. Um, apparently what I didn't know, somebody that nick knows who also has like a website. She had written up 14 deals for this guy and none of them them went through. This is the first one that I was on. Essentially, he was just making odd requests. He was a really good talker, always had excuses and I ended up finding some stuff about him.
Speaker 1:Giving him odd requests, odd requests Do you want to have dinner with me and your dog?
Speaker 2:No, he was more like I had the seller cover it, like I don't want no credits as is, but remove the mirrors. I don't like all the mirrors in this place. They freak me out. Tell them to take all the mirrors out. I go. No, it's a $3 million place. We're not going to remove the mirrors because you don't like them and you're going to gut the place anyway. So they were like what? So they started getting a little suspicious.
Speaker 1:And then they filled up. This is when I stopped doing online leads. Yeah, from this stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, good and bad comes from online. Yeah, I'll say this was like a bad one. Keep going, I want to. No, basically they said no, yeah, and the seller looked him up and then found some shady stuff in another state about a house.
Speaker 3:There was, like you know, like an eyewitness news, like I watch or whatever, like he was the head topic of that guy in like a.
Speaker 1:So what did he do in that different state? What, what, like?
Speaker 2:I'm always curious he, he owned the one of the biggest mansions in I believe it was north or south carolina, but he had to buy it. He got it, but it was just I don't know. I was this guy looked at her, he had money, he had legitimately money, but I don't know what his game was screw, screwing this other agent, having to write offers on 14 places and buying none of them.
Speaker 3:Oh, she was like I bet his wife and all his girlfriends. So I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know what the end game with that was, but he had some money and I guess he wasn't paying vendors out there and this and that, but they're not all bad. I had run into it the last. I had an online lead who's Spanish speaking only. Oh, this is great and Nick would laugh. I hear you speaking Spanish. You can speak Spanish. I can speak decent.
Speaker 1:Spanish, so Spanish, greek and English obviously. Yeah, that's impressive, but I was going to write that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, english, yeah, it's like a language. So I helped them buy a place and then I had a good Spanish lender and also I found an attorney that's Spanish speaking only. I found an inspector that's Spanish speaking only and we did a great deal, helped them out and they do like daycares, so they do home daycares. So a lot of the ones we're looking at were up like north, like Portage Park kind of areas. So they've referred me like three, four other people and I'm like, okay, this is great. And the next person comes in and they think I'm like fluent in Spanish and they're just rolling stuff at me.
Speaker 2:So sometimes I would get Nick on the phone and he just hears me babbling something Tranquilo. Yeah, that's a lot of that. I've heard a lot of that. If you open the opportunity to say, hey, I speak some Spanish, but I don't know, escrow or ofuerta is off, like you start learning and you start picking up things like I knew restaurant spanish yeah, like really like all the fucking when greeks are speaking like from their village dialect and they said he's like, my wife is my wife, my wife is fluent.
Speaker 1:We saw, I've talked yeah, but my mother is too, and when my mother was talking to my father-in-law she looked at when she goes. She was half these were and she was born in. In Greek she's like a lot of this is like village Greek. Other words, it's like slang.
Speaker 2:Dialects yeah, the Hispanic people I worked with in restaurants spoke Greek and the Greeks spoke Spanish. Yes, and my dad doesn't have an education and he spoke pretty good Spanish. Yeah, and then his.
Speaker 1:English, and then his English. Well, he probably was speaking more Spanish than he was what he's at home. He's speaking Greek, right, right.
Speaker 2:When he's at the restaurant he's speaking pretty much Spanish. Yeah, like he's on the line and you'll have someone up front. You haven't been able to do that. So like there is some good stuff like online leads. You see somebody who, like they, don't speak a ton of English or almost no English, and they're running a really successful daycare business and you met them online and you get a bunch of referrals. So yeah, online leads are not all crazy.
Speaker 1:We've had more ghost stories than bad on online. They were great, like I don't know what it is now, but back in the day, man, they were like no, no, no, they were great. It was a new thing. There wasn't scams, it wasn't this. I remember one time I have clients that I've known now for 15 years that I met off Zillow oh, I did, and there's thousands that are fantastic and they're like we were just having dinner and we're at Southport Quarter and we felt like, hey, let's take a look at what's around here. You like this area, and then click it. It came to me. I answered. Then I ended up servicing like four of her the mom, the dad.
Speaker 2:I found like four of her. You know the mom, the dad, I found them in in town and all the kids. And but don't I blow your mind that some of the nicest people like like whether they're buying a four hundred thousand dollar home or like a two million dollar home, and you end up closing them and you're like these people in their circle don't have a realtor or somebody's online referral to you know what I mean?
Speaker 3:a friend or whatever. They have these. They're there's fear, right? You don't have anybody. They don't have anybody they can refer them to and they just come to us on online like it's. We're grateful and we're thankful for it. Yeah, it's like crazy to think that I'm shocked.
Speaker 2:I think it happens a lot like, do they like have a realtor? They didn't think about it.
Speaker 1:Or I mean, I get it if you're buying a second home in another city, but like, like I think we take it for granted because we're surrounded by realtors, but, like I think that we always take everything, I think we take our knowledge for granted in terms of like we think that other people should know what we know. Yeah, and I, that's like. That is like one of the biggest things, where you're like when I make a mistake or something like that, my mistakes are usually like I assumed that person would have known what an A-coil was.
Speaker 2:Still with the A-coil. I'm never going to hear the end of this.
Speaker 1:No, but you're right. Like my dad used to say, assume is you, make an ass out of you and me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's spelled Like physicians. I mean, how many doctors don't know about? I know you can talk about that. They're smarter than a lot of people, but they've never bought a house, so they don't know they don't even know that.
Speaker 1:They don't even know that you go to a locksmith for keys. I mean, it's a fucking next level, bro. It is next level no, you're right.
Speaker 2:You're right. No, but there's, there's a lot of them, but they're in school, yeah you go to school when you're 18, you're not out of school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 35, you're focused. Not really, they're busy and they're not in the real world. No, no, you're not getting locked out of a house. You're in a campus, you're this, you're yeah, you know you're sleeping at the hospital, or then you go into round this and that's obvious yeah that's that.
Speaker 1:But they like. Whenever someone tells me they're a doctor, I'm always like all right, don't like, don't assume anything. Yeah, yeah, because of that. And it's not. It's just because they're so hyper focused for the last 10 years on, you know, fixing someone's hip or god I remember when we were, when I first started, we're doing all that leads and over getting these.
Speaker 3:So my website started cranking a little bit of bar. We started getting these higher price point uh budget leads that people are looking at and all of a sudden you see this million dollar buyer and you're like, oh crap, I gotta wear a suit and I gotta do all this stuff. And they show up in like beat up shorts and like, and they have millions and millions of dollars in their accounts and they're just like the most down-to-earth people. And here I am stuck up in a suit, like I, I just it's. It was. It was a refreshing thing to see, basically because you just have this perception like must look like this and that there's like a.
Speaker 1:If you had like a, like a few of them showing the way you're dressed right now. If you had like some sort of like uh, I don't even know what to say like like there's an a for you to the a frame, yeah, like.
Speaker 1:If you were like, if you were like taking how people dress and the money they make, it's kind of all over it for sure as the money gets more, the dress gets worse, totally until, like you're, you're like you're talking to have like $500 million in the bank and they're in Birkenstocks and like whatever they woke up in.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like the, it's the, fuck you money. You're like I don't, I don't care, and I had a short t-shirt. You're not going to let me into underground or like someone like that thrives to say but you know who I am, you know how many? Yeah, I don't know that.
Speaker 1:My old boss when I was a trader that silly money said I don't dress up to let people know how important I am. He goes because I'm not going to dress up like everyone else. But if I can walk into underground or walk into this place in shorts and everyone else is in suits, yeah, like that stands out.
Speaker 1:Everyone's looking at me and being like how is this guy at a table, the best table? Yeah, shorts and a t-shirt, yeah, like, and I'm like all jazzed up. Yeah, well, you told me some stories when you're gonna, yeah, but like he would always, like he made a point to dress no matter like when, when dating myself, like back in the day when dragon room circus, and when anything was like the spot, he would be like I'm going to go there as tattered as possible I remember when I worked at I worked at yoke, the breakfast place and group bonds headquarters was oh, you're buying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the one owner would come in and have meetings, or partner owner, whatever. The guy's name was, andrew something, I don't remember what his name was, but he would be in shorts and like a goofy t-shirt and everybody else was suits. Yeah, like. And then you're like that's the guy that's important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like sad with the covid covid's changed the the dress code in the real estate industry big time. I think people I'm not saying don't wear a suit or don't look nice, but some people just got like lazy, like I just woke up out of bed wearing crocs and like my toes sticking out of the hole and in sock.
Speaker 1:It's like it's not where are you, or like you take their shoes off and two people's eyes. You and they're like oh, I didn't wear socks today and I'm like well, bro, you're going yeah, and it's usually a girl or a woman. You're going to like 10 homes. You're going to take your shoes off.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna tell you, yeah, it's like. So that's kind of like. I'm not saying, wear a suit and be whatever, look like a banker or whatever, but like just be dressed up and just look clean. Some people just literally come in jogging pants and just out the door like it's not. I don't, I'm not a fan of that. Yeah, whatever, like you're fine, like this is what people wear. Like you're fine, we're fine, just want to make people feel comfortable.
Speaker 2:You're not, like you know, sometimes like you wear a suit and you're making somebody else look so dressed down unless it's less important, but it's like, hey, you got to just make them feel comfortable. It doesn't matter if it's $300,000 or $2 million. If you don't accept most of these $2 million, $3 million buyers, they're not going to come to you. They're not coming from the law office and wearing their suit and die.
Speaker 1:No, I agree with you. What do you guys have? We'll end on this. What do you guys have for predictions for the tail? I mean, I know it's election year, it's slowed up. I mean it's interesting that Chicago now goes from full faucet to drip, drip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I only think and you're Mr, interest rates, you know that we're not athletic rates. Yeah, I thought only if the rates go down as we get closer to the election, that may really impact some people to just start buying again during a slower fall season. Yeah, if they're not in audience. So I think it's gonna be slow.
Speaker 3:My prediction is it'll be slow. I just think that's it. There's gonna be some people trickling, it's a drip, but it's not gonna be like super busy. I don't know about the suburbs suburbs still kind of crazy, but um, I don't know, we'll see. I think it's gonna be slow because we watch you on Instagram. We don't watch us.
Speaker 1:I'm like you know, like I could be busy one day and not busy the next day, and that day I think the world stopped. Yeah, right, but like, I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be interesting, I think it's going to be. They're not going to I think. I know this sounds nuts, but I think them not changing rates is what's kept it somewhat busy. But hear me out, I see where you're going with it. Hear me out. Yeah, when rates drop, people wait to buy because they think it's going to further drop. Sure, like, I have clients who are always like, well, we're going to go further down, further down, further down. I think when people are like, hey, listen, this is it Like we're not changing R, Like, hey, listen, this is it Like we're not changing. Rates are not going to change.
Speaker 1:I did a. It was really interesting. I had a. I did like a two second thing, we can end on this and I said, you know, everyone always says to me or like we're talking, what about rates? What about rates? And I'm like, hey, we're at seven right now, yep, and this is good. I think rates are going to be right around six, 5.75 to six to quarter, depending on what the Fed says that month. And you're like, well, I'm stuck in a three.
Speaker 1:I had this conversation and then I put it on a story and my guy has a three and a half. He's like, oh, it's so hard to move because I have a three and a half. I said, okay, that's great. I said, but you're never going to be a three and a half, that's the pass, you can't look at it. I said let's look at it this way. We're at 675. We may get a low five and a half to six.
Speaker 1:I said, is the discomfort of the house you're living in and what doesn't work for you. Is it worth paying 675 to six or 575? What's the spread on that? You can't do the spread from three and a half on a condo to a million five house. Now the spread has to be a million and a half right now versus a million and a half next year when rates are only a half a point lower. What's that monetary money? Because that's your real money. The three and a half is old news. It's done. It's old news. It's never going to happen. So you can't look at an unrealistic expectation and then try to make an educated decision on that expectation. It's unrealistic. The realistic expectation is five and a half to six and a half. Is that enough of a change to halt you from buying and living in the house that you really need moving forward?
Speaker 1:And I think people look at it a little differently. My client was like, I see what you're saying. I'm like, yeah, man, you can't go. I can't say hey, say hey, man, I'm not gonna buy eggs next week because because fucking eggs were a dollar fifty, ten years ago that's something. I'm gonna buy eggs this week because the eggs are gonna be the same fucking price next week. Yeah, that's how you have to look at it. I mean, I, I love old price of eggs, I love the old price of gas. It's not there, not there. So we have to live in the here and now and not in the past. What about like and that has helped a lot of my One five now is us.
Speaker 3:That'll be one five next year. Well, I said that to him too, that's the other, totally, that's a bigger, that's, that's a spread. That's the realization of a lot of people I think we have. A lot of people are just either looking around or sitting behind the sidelines waiting for the drop. But the drop is going to cause the uptick in pricing which is already but the drop is the drop is not going to be it's not going to be significant.
Speaker 3:It's just more of a mental thing. If they see a six in front of the thing, it's an optical illusion for the buyer.
Speaker 1:I think that's the only way to really get these people to understand monetarily that you have to make the life decision. You can't sit in a place that doesn't work for you anymore because you're paying X amount of dollars.
Speaker 2:I mean, how many people do we would? I mean, we've all had this. I'm waiting for the market to crash. I'm waiting for the market to crash. It's just got way more expensive.
Speaker 3:I had people at 3%, 2.5%, 3%, telling me to wait for the market to crash for prices to drop. Well, four years later, prices have gone up and market isn't crashing. We're short 4.5 million homes.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. So there's 1.8 million new families every year and the most homes we've built in the last four years is 1.2 million. Oh glory, and I don't want to get into the politics, but we just let nine million people into fucking america, yeah. So, like, where are they gonna live? I'm just saying, like that's how short we're short. Four and a half million dollar, four and a half million, yeah, and we don't make enough. We don't make. You know, and then, on top of it, all the regulations I just read yesterday. It takes four, the, the. The time that it takes to get a permit in the state of Chicago is four and a half times longer than it was four years ago. Four and a half times longer.
Speaker 3:Longer. Yeah, what's the holdup? None of the people working signing up. No one works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the biggest thing, Everybody's like Everything's a video call yeah, or this or this. It works. Yeah, it's the biggest thing. Everybody's like Everything's a video call. Yeah, or this, or this or this.
Speaker 3:Pulls down the hole.
Speaker 1:So it's all the process and they attach. I have nothing wrong with affordable housing, but when you attach affordable housing to zoning changes, a developer can't build those homes because the minute you go affordable housing, the development is upside down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it doesn't make sense. Let people upzone, let people build smaller places and you will get affordable housing and you'll get more housing. So no one's built like my client would love, my developers would love to build, because it diversifies the risk. I would love to buy a double lot on Greenview and build 21 bedrooms or 10, two bedrooms, a couple of one bedrooms. I'd love to do that. Unfortunately, we're going to build a million and a half dollar condos because that's all zoning allow. And the neighbors, who all love everybody, won't allow the alderman to upzone because they say if you upzone, we're not going to have you come back, we're not going to vote for you. So everybody wants. It's all NIMBYs, right? Yeah, everybody wants stuff, but no one wants it in their backyard, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we've seen that and that's why pricing Political side of things too, and that's why pricing is not going to fall.
Speaker 1:People are waiting for pricing to fall. Now Go to Econ 101. It in demand. Yeah, I don't know. We could go on a rant about that too in the politics. Alright, cool, any parting words. Give us your socials, even though you guys don't post on them Socials. Maybe people want to reach out to you. Know how you keep your guys' hair so nice. They're so jealous.
Speaker 3:Look at this hair Shut up. Yeah, we got a shine coming off the light. It's nice.
Speaker 2:Oh, actually, you did actually have hair. Yeah, do you remember your sister? You had a little guy, airline, they called me sister.
Speaker 1:Hold up, they called me two head Shut up Because I didn't have a forehead. Oh, I had a two head. My airline was down to here, no shit.
Speaker 2:Dude, I had the best hair. It it's good. I grew to turkey get a transplant. Oh, I'm on a turkey, I see it all over the internet.
Speaker 1:Oh dude, something will happen to me, up like my foot will fall off, I'll be getting a tan, something will go on. So that's gonna happen. That boat is like that. That boat's like the left of building. That's okay. Um, all right, so give us your guys, your information uh for instagram, I'm yanni.
Speaker 2:Underscore drama yanni with a y with.
Speaker 3:With a Y, not Giannis, like the Greek freak, yeah, and X, nostos, for me, for Instagram 77 group and in terms of your guys' website, chicago'spropertyshopcom and cchicagorealestatecom are the two websites we have. Oh, those are good.
Speaker 1:Those are good URLs.
Speaker 3:And we got livealumerscom too. I just bought that one.
Speaker 1:I wonder what someone would pay you for that URL, the Chicago property or the Chicago other?
Speaker 3:one, no one's ever, really no one's ever come up to you. No, no, not yet, at least, maybe I'm never. I always went, I was fired.
Speaker 1:Give me a thing I always found it. When the internet exploded One day, I was just like sitting at home and just getting wasted and then just bought like there's carscom, fordcom, yeah, somebody went, somebody bought all those for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's that's, that's just like really forward thinking. Right, just start, or you're just messed up like you're having a bunch of sites into urls.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but they were like, not the like. There's a couple people that would reach out to me. They would email me and say, hey, do you want chicago apartments? There's somethingcom for 25 grand you could buy this.
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't need it I like I want like 25 urls when I was probably 15 years ago, like every, like yeah, oldtowncom, oldtown agent, lincoln park agent. I own lincoln park agent, lincoln park, uh, condo agent, but I don't use it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you don't use it yeah, I mean a lot of buy, as good as what you do. You buy and you forward until it's amazing. Yeah, it's really. You don't have to build a whole new site.
Speaker 1:Someone to buy me out for a couple million my website? It'd be nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and retire and not have to listen to people. We can go chasing fake leads with no money.
Speaker 3:I mean he's got the bank account 8 million in there, apparently from nine years ago Anyway.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, that's it for us. Please follow Spotify. You've got to thank John and Nick for their time. Yeah, thanks for having me, and you can. We didn't get into John's dating, which I wanted to. That's a whole other podcast, but that's two years ago. We talked about John's dating.
Speaker 3:You're always trying to. Should we start auctioning them off like the website? We're like? I don't know anyone else, that's single.
Speaker 1:You don't know anybody else. That's single.
Speaker 2:No, it's you, I can't be the only person single.
Speaker 1:Yes, that I know, you don't know enough people. I know a ton of people. They're all married and miserable.
Speaker 2:That's all right, that's all right, they'll be single, at some point I take the divorce. Oh, that's not fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the best thing. When someone calls you up and says I'm having problems, I said you know we need to find you a place.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're such a jerk.
Speaker 3:Better hurry up. That's funny, marcus.
Speaker 1:No, all right, thanks so much. We'll see you guys in a couple of weeks. Yeah, bye.