 That's what you want, because that, see, for me, that's what inflates home prices is Nick, uh, tell me, like, what, what exactly it is? You are, you know, I know you're an investor. Are you also an agent? Yeah, I've been an agent for five and a half years, uh, two up here in North Carolina and then three down there in Florida. Um, but not nothing crazy. It's been like 12 to 20 per year. I'm not, I'm not in it. I'm not in it for the, the 40 or the 80, uh, yearly. So, uh, it's usually two, one to two a month and knock them out. So are you in it more so for the investing side? Is that what you're my, I'm so I oops, my way into real estate as an investor in the Navy, uh, buying a short sale. And I was like, wait a minute, the scales everywhere. And that's all, that's all I've done. So everything I've done has been live in flip. Are you flipping all over the country or just, no, no, no. So I, I, I wholesale all over the country, but I have the only things I've flipped have been houses I've lived in. Got you. Um, so whole selling and flipping. Cool. And you're in North Carolina. I'm in, uh, North Miami, I'm just south of you, um, but I'm in North Carolina. My wife and kids live up here. I make Miami money and we, we have a $1,100 mortgage up here in North Carolina. Life's good. Got you. And how, how long have you been selling? I know you're an agent by 10th year. Okay. Broker associate. Sweet, sweet. And what, what's your, you know, yearly volume? Uh, I think I did 14 million, uh, year before last or last year. And then, uh, you know, this year probably be eight to 10. Again, same kind of method. I'm, I'm pretty independent. I'll do two to three a month, um, you know, average 20, 25 a year. Um, and my, my broker is a hundred percent commission, uh, broker. So I've, you know, with $200 a month out of pocket to work for him. So sounds expensive, pretty profitable. Sounds expensive. I mean, if you do a hundred deals, that's 20 grand, right? No, I'm talking about $200 a month. That's it. You don't pay a transaction fee. Yeah. No transaction fee, no hidden fees, no costs up with EO insurance. I'm $2,700 a month out of pocket. I'm sorry. 20 has 2700 a year out of pocket to sell real estate. What kind of sexual favors or whatever did you do to get that deal? Um, well, I think the, uh, comment, the, the fifth probably be I did at that point, but, um, go ahead. Well, let, let's dive right in here. Um, I saw both of you in the comments of that post I did where I was like, let me talk to a homeowner that agrees with the verdict or whatever. Yeah. Um, and both of you seem pretty, pretty vocal about it. Um, Nick, I'll go back to you. What, what's your stance on the, you know, the current situation with the lawsuit? Yeah. Yeah. So with, with the lawsuit, like the, my, my argument is a legal argument that price fixing has been happening and price fixing doesn't have to be a, Hey, everybody is at whatever 1500 or 25, like price fixing can be a range. And the majority of transactions, like I would have to look it up. But the majority of transactions in the real estate world are in that two to 3% range for, for either side, right? So my argument is just that, Hey, if like, I shouldn't have people that have no clue about the industry coming up to me and saying, Hey, are you going to charge me five or 6% to list my house? Yeah. Right. So that, that is my, my biggest gripe here is that if, if it's not price fixing, then I should be able to charge eight and not have an issue. I should be able to charge one and a half and not have an issue. But I shouldn't have everyday people coming up to me and saying, Hey, you're going to charge me five or 6% for this knowing, Hey, this is, this is the standard or this is what quote, everybody charges. Well, I think, uh, I think you can charge anything you want. You could charge one, you could charge a good charge, anything you want. But I guess the question is, isn't every industry kind of work in a range? I mean, there's a range that roofers charge to roof a house. There's a range that lawyers charge to, you know, sue the hell out of big, um, companies and give homeowners 2000 bucks while they get billions. Uh, there's a range for just about everything. So how, I guess my question is, how does it differ from any other industry? Because there's, because I can get a different roof. I can get a different countertop. I can get a different car, right? And your car dealers are going to get a different range based on each car. And it's actually a different range. The, the only difference in the real estate world is anything that's two and a half, like anything that's less than two and a half percent probably going to sit on the MLS for however long, right? The, the number was 75% of transactions that were two and a half percent or less didn't never sold on the buy side. Right. So knowing that if I know I have to be as a seller, if I know I have to be at a two, seven, five or three or a three, two, five to get this done, it's essentially forcing me to use an MLS or use something else where I know I'm going to get the, the marketing and everything else that goes into it. I, I don't think, I think it's, I think by 20, I think by 2030, I, I don't think the real estate agent exists anymore. I think, I think we're clicking the same way we, we click and buy floors or the same way we click and buy anything else. Because if you are remotely smart as a homeowner, you take some decent pictures, you get it up on a Zello or a Redfin or a Realtor. I think, I think we're clicking three or four buttons and it's going to a title company or it's going to your lawyer. What do you think the difference is in 2030 and now, because people can make a couple clicks and sell a property on their own. Right. I think we're still waiting on, I think we're waiting on adoption for the older generation is, is, is what I think. Because it's the way that, especially with a bunch of those homes in your older generation, like a bunch of those are going to need to be sold. And I don't, I don't see them adopting the tech as quickly as somebody at my age or, or younger where, Hey, I just want to click three buttons and now this is done and it's over with. I think they're still going to have to talk to somebody because it's the way they've always done business. I think we're, we're fighting a, just a personal side, a personal preference thing versus an actual, I still think there's an industry problem, but I think we're fighting personal preference on the adoption side. What do you think? And, and, you know, I'm not, I don't argue that that could happen. Um, what do you, what do you think the process is, especially for existing homes, even, even new construction, there's problems, right? Right. I just bought, um, five new construction homes and they all have problems. Uh, we actually had to tear up. We had to completely demolish the driveway. They had to bring a, a, um, you know, like, uh, a bobcat or whatever in to, to tear up the driveway because it was, it was messed up and I wasn't, I wasn't going to buy the house. I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to buy that. You know, just sell me another one that you're building right next door. I'm not going to buy that one. Yeah. If you're not going to fix that. And they're like, okay, we'll fix it. So they actually tore it up and report the driveway and did it right on two of the, two of the homes. Okay. Um, you know, there's always stuff, even if it's a brand new home. And when you get into these older existing homes, there's a lot of stuff, right? Right. So how do you think the buyers become protected, um, you know, in those scenarios where real estate agents don't exist, not to say a lawyer couldn't do some kind of liability thing, not to say, I think in those scenarios, there's going to be new insurance, uh, industries, right? New policies that are invented and these, these actually exist in other countries and by the way, the other countries where there's no buyer agent really involved there, there are, it's also a range. It's like two to 3% or one and a half to three, uh, all everything is ranges. Right. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't get the argument that like it's price-fixing if there's like a range that people are familiar with. But how do you think in that world in 2030 people kind of protect theirself, especially like first time home buyers that know nothing about what they're doing? Sure. I, so I think you're, I think you're right. I think your insurances are going to pop up differently. I think you're still going to have your warranties, right? You're still going to be able to purchase your warranty. You can purchase a warranty right now without an agent, right? But I think you see flat rates if you want to bring somebody else in. If you want somebody that's not a lawyer or a title person and you just want somebody that's real estate expert or whatever we're calling them by that point, I think you bring them in and you give them whatever a flat rate is that they decide based on home value or based on their expertise versus what the home purchase price is worth because the even, even industry wide right now as a six, right? Say, say we get a 6% listing. The assumption is that I'm as good an agent as Ricky, as Joel, as whoever else comes along. And that's, and that's what you're getting paid, right? I'm not paying it on the agent side right now. I'm not paying based on expertise or how good you are at your job. I'm paying based on percentage of home. And there are plenty of agents right now that just fill out paperwork and don't provide a whole bunch of value. And then the transaction happens. So what do you think the responsibility lies on the consumer to actually scout out a good agent because 71% I think of buyers and 85% of sellers went with the very first agent they talked to. They didn't even get a second opinion on one of the largest financial decisions that they're going to make in the next 10 years. Why are people not getting a second opinion or even a third or a fourth or a fifth to make sure that they feel like this is a very competent agent that has high integrity, that has experience that they want? At what point, where is the line drawn on responsibility of the customer to actually, I mean, because let's face it, there are bad agents out there, right? And there's a lot of amazing agents out there, right? And so, you know, just because the consumer doesn't go get a second opinion and chooses to go with the first agent they talked to, which could be a bad agent or a good agent. Let's roll the dice, right? I mean, where's that? Where's the responsibility on their side for that? I think it's all on their side, right? So, and that's where, especially on the lawsuit side of things where they're going after, I have no problem with you going after NAR. I have no problem with you going after NAR. I have a problem with you going after smaller teams. Right? And like the fact that this new one has a bunch of smaller teams that are involved makes zero sense, right? That's on the consumer. Just like, which one? So, I would have to pull it up. There's a newer one that names two or three different smaller teams. Is that one? Is that one in the, where is that one out? Is that the one in Texas? I don't know. I don't know what it's at. Is that the one in Texas, Joel? Is that the one in Texas? I think they just named, they just had another lawsuit. Filed yesterday, maybe the day before. Yeah. So, but we'll bottom line before I go to Joel for a second, then I want to kind of go back and forth. Yeah. As far as the verdict goes, like you, you support the the verdict, like that these, like brokerages basically with NAR conspired to inflate commissions. Yes. Yes. Got you. Yes. So, and then can I kind of go back real quick to the the interviewing agents, right? So, yeah, just like if I got, God forbid I get diagnosed with something from a doctor, like you best believe we're going to two or three other ones. And we're figuring out who, who the best doctor is in the world for these two or three things or whatever it is. Right. So just, so as a consumer, it is the biggest purchase or biggest sale of your life. I don't understand why people aren't interviewing two or three different agents in the area, maybe four and figuring out, Hey, who are the actual best people you know versus, Hey, you were first on the Google machine or you were first on whatever I searched. Okay, cool. So we're going to go with you. Yeah. I think a bunch of that's on the consumer. It's, it's a massive problem. Yeah. Right. And, and, and like that's a big part of, I think what's hurting the whole situation in the public eye is that the consumers are doing a horrible job of vetting the agents that they're working with. Right. Um, and I don't know where that comes from necessarily because like, I don't know what the stats are when you get your house roofed or build a house or, um, you know, pick a landscaper or a dentist. I don't know the numbers, right? The stat on like, do people pick the first, you know, landscape or a painter or dentist that they talk to. Um, but that just seems ridiculous to me how consumers don't get a second opinion. Joel, give me your thoughts on the overall, um, like, lawsuit, the verdict, like what's your stance and perspective? Uh, first of all, I think the, uh, the legal system is based on a concept that you're innocent until proven guilty. And I don't think that this, this industry has been proven guilty of price fixing. Um, it would be almost impossible to prove that they're guilty of price fixing. And because every transaction is different and every seller and every buyer has the right to, to negotiate commissions, every single one of them. Yeah. And, you know, we make recommendations on what commissions could be and we make recommendations on, you know, but I, uh, every listing presentation I've been on, and I'm more on the listing side has been with the, with the sellers to say, you have the right to choose how much you want to pay for commission. I think the problem is, is that a lot of agents don't do that. Right. And they show up, you know, as part of your justice that you should, you know, they give the option, you have the option. I think that the, the, what happened is we forgot that the buyer is the one that provides the money to buy the half. Uh-huh. The buyers provide the money for the commissions, right? Which is kind of part of the problem, right? Because what their argument is, is buyer commissions that they don't get to negotiate and flay at home prices. Well, they do negotiate. The, the buyer's commission is set by the seller. Yeah. Seller has the right to, to negotiate that commission. I, or the one bringing the money that's paying for the house and ultimately deciding the purchase price doesn't get to negotiate their commission. Um, therefore inflating home prices. That's the argument. Mm hmm. That the buyer, that the buyers doesn't get to set the commission. The buyer doesn't get to negotiate the commission that their agent is getting, therefore inflating home prices. You know, there's a home buyer lawsuit. Um, right? So as soon as the sits or Burnett got the verdict came out, then, you know, of course, there was like 10 more lawsuits that were filed the next day. But like one of them was home buyers who said, wait a minute, we're not even the sellers get to negotiate, uh, what our agent's going to get. That's not right. There are agent. Right. So that it kind of brings me to, um, it's like, okay, it sounds like people for, for one thing for me guys, honestly, this is to me, just the biggest money grab in history in the real estate industry. Number one, both arguments are silly in my opinion. Um, but for the buyers, it's like, well, okay. So you want to negotiate your own commission. Okay. But do you want it figured into the price or you want to pay out of your pocket? Right. You know what I mean? Right. Um, it's like, okay, you're wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Do you want it figured into the price and you get to negotiate? Right. Or do you just want to buy the house for what you're willing to pay for the house? It's like that, that's the other part of the argument for me. The buyers negotiate not based on what the commission is. They bait, they, they, they, they negotiate and pay what they're willing to pay without even a commission even being part of their negotiations. So what does it matter? It's figured into what they're, they, you know, they're willing to pay for the house. And now they want to, and so what will happen on the opposite, the contrary is they negotiate what they're willing to pay for the house and then pay a commission on top of that. That's what you want. Because that, see, for me, that's what inflates home prices is if you pay what the price, the retail price, which is what people are going to pay no matter what happens with this retail is going to stay retail. This isn't going to fluctuate home prices. And then you're going to pay another, you're going to pay a commission on top of that. So you're actually paying more for the house than you are right now. Yeah. Right. That's my argument with buyers paying their own fees is that prices aren't going to go down. Sellers aren't going to take 3% less than retail because they're not paying a buyer age of commission. Right. Right. And I think that this will actually increase the cost of housing. Um, at the, at the end of the day, they were paying for it already anyway. Right. Yeah. Right. So if, if they're looking at, because when you're looking at the settlement sheet, right, if you're just looking at it and you're like, Hey, why is this what commission's the one thing they're going to go to? Right. Cause it's the, the quote only thing they think they can negotiate. So if I took that out, we negotiate everything else. The majority of buyers commissions are paid through the loan right now. Yeah. They're not paid through. They're not paid through proceeds of the house. They're not paid through, like they are paid through the, the money at the bottom of the sheet where you're like, what needs to go where to make all this work. Right. So I think that portion of the what needs to go where to make this work. Is I guess unclear for the consumer. We're cool. Okay. Let's just take all that out and you give me whatever a flat 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 outside of this problem is people don't have that money usually to be like, here, Ricky, here's your, here's your 17,000 for this home that you just got this done on. Right. It's inside of, it's all inside of the transaction. So I think everything being inside of the transaction is the issue that is in question here versus if it was just a, Hey, if I, if I went to a local coffee shop and I give them $10 in cash versus $10 in a card, right? I'm going to pay more with the card. So am I going to pay more inside the transaction with the buyer's agent right now, or is that something I'm just going to pay cash? And Hey, here you go. You, you do whatever you need to do inside of there. I understand that that's not exactly how it works, but from a transaction standpoint, if you pulled that out of the actual settlement and you said, Hey, here, here's what I'm charging. I need $10,000. I think that person goes away and they, and the buyer figures it out on their own or they're talking to somebody else. But I don't think anybody's going to come out of pocket to pay a buyer's agent moving forward. Oh, I don't either. Well, I think some people would. Um, we've even had a lot of emails and comments and stuff like that from buyers who are like, I'm happy to pay, you know, my buyer's agent. If that's what it comes down to, I'm never going to do a deal without someone representing me, um, wealthier people, right? People that have the money. And that, and that's another part of the problem too. You, you wipe this out and now you're kind of it's coming. It's kind of like now we're picking on, you know, the lower class, the middle class, that like scrape up to get to the down payment. And now they have to go unrepresented. Right. Um, so that, that's like the puzzle that you got to figure out for the 2030 industry is how do we protect those people? Right? Where, where's the protection going to lie for those people? Go ahead, Joel. Somebody's going to take advantage of that business opportunity in that niche and create a program that, that works for them. I think they already have. There's a lot of startups right now that are happy. If you search around and read some articles, there's a lot of startups that are focused on buyers and, um, you know, um, doing things differently and innovative ways to work with buyers and stuff. So that, that's already happening. There's already startups that work directly with buyers and, you know, help them and, you know, it's like one and a half percent here and, you know, it's cheaper kind of stuff. There'll definitely be some disruptions when it comes to all this. Right. You know, my point in the, what I wrote to you, Ricky, was that what other industry does the seller pay the buyers commissioned or the buyers agent to negotiate against them? Uh huh. Right. And so from that side, from the seller side to the buyer side, I can understand the argument that I don't want to pay somebody else's commission. But I also want. Well, it comes back to the have your cake and eat it to kind of deal. Right. You don't, you don't want to pay the buyer agent commission because they're negotiating against you, but you want all 4,000 agents in your area to be working hard to sell your home for the highest price. Right. Right. So it's like, well, you know, okay, you take this away, then you don't get this. Right. And so you have to decide, okay, pros and cons. Okay. What side of the fence am I on it? It's almost like a, it's almost like politics. Like it's like you're on the right or left here. Like it's like you, you want, you know, that that's kind of how this is kind of starting to play out. It's like people are on one side of the fence or the other. Do we have, do we see us a time moving forward where dual agent, like I have a dual agency clause everywhere and everybody does it. Do what now? Do we see a time moving forward where dual age, like they would obviously have to change some of it, but where dual agency would be the only thing. Hey, hey, I'm going to take this at whatever percentage and I'm going to sit here. No, there's a lot, there's a lot of states that don't allow dual agency. Right. So number one state by state, see state by state would have to kind of like there would be different rules state by state number one. Sure. And so something massive happened. We're still waiting on the judge to roll, right? Is there going to be an injunction? Are they going to actually change the way we do business with a stamp of a finger until appeals go through, which could take years. Right. That could happen any day. We're waiting to kind of see what what happens. But but with dual agency, it's different for every state. Some states don't allow it. So if something if something happens injunction wise and then certain states that don't allow it may allow it, who knows what will kind of happen there, or like the states that don't allow it, they allow you to work with the buyer as a transaction broker where it's basically arm length. You can't you can't work on their best interest. You're you're you're basically working with them, but not for the right. You're a referee, essentially or the seller. Right. And you're trying to get the highest price there. And this is this is the problem, right? You're working for the seller to get them the highest price, but you're not trying. You don't have a fiduciary to the buyers and you're basically tell you can't advise them. So it's like, OK, seller, here's what the buyers are offering. You know, I would do this. OK, counter great. Go back to the buyer and say, here's the counter. What do you want to do? What do you think we should do? Can't tell you can't. I can't say because I represent you as a transaction broker. You tell me what you want to do. I go back to the seller. Go back to the seller and say, here's what the buyers say to that. Here's what I would do. And so that's what it turns into with these non dual agency. And then when you get in a dual agency where you have a fiduciary of both sides. Well, isn't that a sticky situation, right? As a real estate agent, now you just increase your liability 10 times over. Correct. And so now you're in a really weird spot because you're trying to fiduciarily help everyone. So that that gets a little sticky. But no, I don't think a lever gets a place where like one agent handles the whole deal because I think even in a world where buyers have to pay for their own representation, most of them, I don't know, maybe half. Maybe it's not even most. Maybe 50 percent or I don't know what the number will be 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 percent won't pay for their own representation. They'll go straight to the listing agent or whatever, but you'll still have a big group of people who who won't do a deal without out an agent. So I don't think there'll be a world where it's one agent doing the whole deal. Even when you get to your 2030 scenario where agents don't really exist. I think at that point, they're still going to want one person that has that fiduciary duty to make sure everything goes smooth, you know, for them one way or another. And to be honest, like right now you talked about different dealerships and different cars and different because I mean, we we kind of have that in a way with the discount brokerages in the Red Fins and the the different. There's different brokerages that charge different prices. That's what's so funny, too. You've got six percent, which is kind of like the norm, right? Sure. And then Redfin is named in the second suit that the sister Burnett Lawyer filed the day of and Redfin is named in that suit, that second suit when Redfin's commission is like four percent. I want to say it's like. So like how you're kind of OK, it's like price fixing, but the defendants, you've got one charging four percent and then these other traditional ones charging six. Sure. Like I guess are you saying that since they charge four on every single deal that that's price fixing? Maybe so. I don't know what the argument is there. Right. But we get to look, let's stay in the car world for a little bit, right? So I can hop on to pick a website right now and find a car. And I'm going to pay whatever whatever that number is directly. Like there's a sure there's a dealership option. There's a direct from a seller option, right? My I don't have a I don't have somebody I go to to make that. I don't have a third party to go make that conversation happen, right? I go by the car. I don't have somebody I can go after if I got sold. You just click and buy and they do. Right. So and it does. This is not just your car. Van is right. Like I could go meet somebody. I hand them however much money. I now have the car by all right. My owner right. That's all on me. Right. That's all on me as as the buyer. I don't understand why people don't take the same like the same precautions that you would with the car with a home. You you you find that first that first person that first agent you say OK cool let's go. No idea whether the good or their job. But that's my other argument is like does that person need to be there or do I have a free marketplace where I where somebody just has a home up there and hey I could market your home better Ricky. I see that you have it up here as a for sale by owner. I have two or three buyers that I know I could bring is that worth X amount of dollars to you and I negotiate that either outside of it or inside of it. I guess I guess my question is do we know stats on how many people actually buy a by a car by you know from directly from owner. First I don't have I would have to. I would like to look because recently six percent of people did buy their home buy the home directly from the owner people do do that. It's just a really low percentage. I don't know how many people do that with cars. Right. I'm sure it's higher. Sure. It's a lower ticket item. I think the higher the ticket goes. I think the more the the more fear people have of not having some kind of I mean a car if you buy a bad car could cost you you know tens of thousands you buy a bad house it could cost you hundreds of thousands. So I think it's just more risky and that's why you know if fewer people do it at scale. Go ahead Joel. I think there's there's what's going to result here. There's going to be more options for the consumer. They're going to drive more options. They're going to. First of all again I think it's going to be really difficult to to prove collusion and price fixing in this industry even with the kind of the norm like you said Ricky if you know three five six percent the average person thinks that's what the commission rate is. But that's not the reality. The reality is all commissions are negotiable. Every deal is different. I think I don't think it's right to choose what they pay a commission and the buyer's agent and the buyer or the buyer has the right to to you know negotiate that commission if they don't want to pay their buyer's agent the whatever is advertised in the MLS. I think the problem is is that there's agents that don't negotiate. Right. And that's what's muddying up this entire thing is that they don't explain like I have I've negotiated on probably 80 plus percent of the deals I ever did. And I even had buyers throughout my career like back in 2012 and stuff. I had buyers like there was deals where I would make 20 grand and like the buyer as we're negotiating say take five percent stake five thousand less on the buyer agent commission. And I would. Get the deal for five thousand less. So I but I think the problem is not every agent operates like that and they definitely haven't been trained to operate in that manner. We kind of trained as an industry to show your worth and don't take less than six. And like I have like in my coaching program like one of my things is is tell them you're be the tell them you're the cheapest agent out there when they say what your commission is say lower than anybody else's and then that way they come back to you and you can determine OK do I want to take this at four point nine or four point four or five point five or whatever or if somebody's going to do it for three knock yourself out or have fun like I'm not going to take it for three or two point nine or whatever. But the market's going to be the market. I think that I think I think two things that's going to come out of this that are great is is hopefully the public is being educated to some extent on the fact that they can negotiate. You know commissions and the second thing is I think we're going to I think that the end of the day as long as like the DOJ doesn't come out and say you can only take two thousand dollars per deal or some shit then and they actually allow the market to speak. I think that'll be a really good thing. Right. And I think what a lot of the haters out there of agents. I think what they don't realize is that when we get a check for 30 grand we don't get 30 grand as a 10 99. You know the W two is they get taxes taken out and they spend the entire check they get. Right. We pay taxes. We pay business expenses marketing. I mean at the end of the day like what are we netting 1 percent when we take three we're netting like one right. And that's what people don't get. They think oh my god you made 30 grand you literally. And two it's like the faster it sells the matter they are right. You saw you made 30 grand and it's sold in two days. It's like did you want me to. Did you want to sit on the market for 60 days. Right. You want to get your money as fast as possible. And so now you're mad at me because you got your money so fast. I did such a good job. And now you're pissed. And the one thing that we sit on the market a while then you're then you're pissed. It's like I can't win for losing. Yeah. The one thing they think that we control which we don't is if there is a buyer in the market for their product at that time. Right. Don't control that. Yeah. Well it's also the your I've never had I've never had a client under a certain dollar amount complain about a commission structure because they know they're paying for time and paying for a bunch of stuff that they don't want to do. Right. So that's where if how are you looking at this money. Are you looking at this money is oh man I'm losing X amount of dollars. Are you looking at this money is hey I'll pay I'll pay Ricky. It's a three million dollar house. Ricky here's forty thousand dollars do whatever you need to do. I need this gone. And I don't want to have to deal with it because I have 19 other things that I'm doing. Right. So the the more that we as agents portray that that you're not you're not just paying for me. Right. You're paying for the you're paying for your quality of life while this is listed and to have the least stress inside of a transaction you can have. That's why you pay me. Right. And the more that is actually brought out and said hey here's what I'm actually doing to get this going. And yeah we're glad you got under contract with forty eight hours. But I think the easier it becomes. But I don't know that they're inside of either the buy side or the sell side. That's half happening a lot. Yeah we're just looking at it as a dollar amount versus everything else that's going into it. And the time. I'm going to have to disagree with Nick I think there will be agents in twenty thirty. I think if you look at the travel agency business that you know I can go online now and book everything I need to book for it to. But or I can go to travel agent I'm going to go to Iceland next year. I can go and do all that research do everything by myself. Or I could go hire an agent a travel agent who knows all of those niches and and and ideas and places to visit and pay them a little bit of money to help me schedule. When you compare it there will be agents. But I think that the options that are going to be available to the consumer as a result of this lawsuit are going to be greater options for how commissions are going to be paid. And that and that's a good thing for the consumer. When you compare it to travel agents there's way less travel agents now than there were. And they make a lot less. Yeah. And so making that comparison. Same thing is going to happen to buyer agents. Right. It's it's it's it's what about listing agents as my coffee cup says. Let the adventure begin. What about listing agents. Listing agents again the listing agent in the presentation and how we're going to have to train out the real estate agents is that every transaction is negotiable. Every commission is negotiable. And as the next generation gets older and start ups and technology gets better. It's going to be so easy for a seller to just click click boom and advertise their home. Sure. And I'm just looking for the argument of why people will listen. You know what I think actually I think there'll be more buyers agents than listing agents in two thousand thirty honestly. I think because I think people can list their properties on their own a lot easier in two thousand thirty but the buyers are going to be the ones that need the you know the the help the consultation the the protection and stuff you know what I mean. Well the both sides do. They they really do they really do I mean I don't know now here now here's something that's really messed up. The whole for sell by owners make less thing. Now I've dug deep into that and I found a lot of research and what and what I've come up with is that this number that they make less is kind of it's kind of skewed based on the fact that higher in people use more agents than lower in properties. But then when you compare apples to apples the for sell by owners get about the same with or without an agent. And I I was very disturbed about that because I've always been shown the data where agent where an agent makes you more than as a for sell by owner. And so that was disturbing for me because I felt misled by the entire industry. And then I then I felt I felt manipulated like I was brainwashed to I was programmed to think that agents get people more money in order to say well this is why we're worth it for us to use us. I don't think price is the reason does the value that that that agents have for sellers. I think the value is taking care of taking care of the deal forum right through people backing out of deals and all the other like terms that are negotiated in the contract and kind of knowing when you're dealing with a bad buyer or not. And things of that nature knowledge experience. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's also the when pick your Zilla redfinrealtor.com right initially your your zestimate was could could be within a 40 percent range. Yeah. Right. Of what the home is actually worth. And here recently just looking at comps I've run and then looking at the three or four numbers that across the websites that we're within one or two percent now. I don't have this this giant range of everything. Right. So the comps that doesn't make sense that every the expertise if there was if there was a calculator on one of those websites that the whole industry agreed was hey this was accurate. You only need me for paperwork and a couple of negotiations now on the list side. Right. Because on the list side you draw your circle and you say OK go. Ricky I like the hey there might be more on the buy side depending on how informed that seller is moving forward. Yeah. Yeah. I I want I want to say that I want to say that by 2030 would just have a lot less agents. But very high quality agents. 100% I think we'll have better agents. You know more disclosing more about the process. Right. Making less per transaction but doing way less work than we were. Right. Well I also think you're way more hyper and not that people aren't doing it now. You're good ones. But I think you have a way smaller community and niche that you're in right now versus saying hey I'm your what your South Florida real estate agent and I'll handle anything from whatever Fort Lauderdale all the way down to South Beach. Like no you won't know you will be the the South Beach Waterfront condo agent because that's what you did or you will be the the residential middle of middle of America agent in subdivisions because that's where your expertise is and I think we're going to pay a lot if they're still out there I think you're paying a lot more on the expertise side versus somebody that's just getting you through the transaction doing paperwork. So what are you saying exactly there's going to be as time goes on you're going to have more niche. I think you're going to have better agents that are very specific in what they do. And not that that doesn't exist now but just like your travel agent world has shrunk I don't know what the number is but has shrunk exponentially. I think the real estate agent world shrinks exponentially because all of your part time agents aren't going to be able to show the value that that that other person is that they're competing against if they're competing. I think that I think that this process of listing presentations we have the tiered commission structure where it's like you know you know 3% for this 4% for this 6% for this 7% for that. I was never a big fan of that. I gave everybody the highest quality serve like the highest form of everything I could do. I did it regardless if if they were paying me 4 and a half or 6 and a half. It didn't really matter. I gave them the highest service period. Sure. But in this new world right where there's going to have where they're going to have more options that almost makes a lot of sense like I'm an agent. Like if you just want me to handle the paperwork for you and like make sure you're good and negotiate then it's 3% and I'll just charge you 3% nothing to the buyer right or 2% or whatever. If if you want me to actually advertise and handle showings and everything then it's 4%. You know if you want me to and then I think this I think this tiered like the way that some of these coaches and stuff have laid that out. I think that's going to become more prevalent in the new world and I'm excited about that because it's going to give people options because not everybody's going to want the same thing. This seller is going to be like all I need is somebody to make sure I don't get screwed on the paperwork. Okay great. Two and a half percent done. Right and the next seller is like I don't want to even think about this. I don't want to talk to buyers. I don't want to see anybody. I just need you to handle the full service. Okay. It's you know 5% for that or whatever. Right. I think that's what we're going to kind of get get into. And I hope that I hope that we're living in a world where the seller gets to choose if the buyer agent is paid from the listing from the commission that they negotiate with the seller. I hope that doesn't get outlawed so that it's just the seller's choice to do that or not. Right. If they don't want to fine. Right. But if they do you know hopefully they will be in a world where they can if they want to. Right. Go ahead Joel. Absolutely. Cool. Did you have anything to add to that Joel. No I think that's the that's the whole gist of this lawsuit is that there needs to be more more choices for the consumer. And well I got it man man I have my box and gloves on with you guys. I was thinking this is going to be a lot more heated than this. This has been a very kumbaya type situation. This is this is a conversation Ricky versus the sound bite where your and we're going to say anger than you should be. I think anger than you should be on the post. And then all I saw was like a bunch of yeses and a bunch of people that were agree on the post you commented on. Yeah I saw a bunch I saw a bunch of people that were agreeing and I was like hang on a second. I was like here's here's my actual thought in whatever the paragraph that I sent out. But no at the end of the day this is I think if we take it outside of the transaction if we if we take buyer's payment outside of the transaction. I think this whole thing goes away. Right. I also think if we make I think if we make it a clear cut choice. Right. The seller to include it or exclude it. Yeah. Right. And you should be doing that now on the list side. If you're not if you weren't doing that now that's on you as the agent. But like that that was always an option. If that's not how it was presented then I'm all on board with the lawsuit. Well here's the thing that gets me is the seller the plaintiffs were OK paying let's just say five percent. Sure. OK. They're OK paying the five percent regardless of if there's a buyer agent involved or not. Right. So they're going to pay the listing agent five percent. If they represent the buyer or if they brought the buyers a transaction broker or whatever they're OK with their net number paying five percent. And it's like OK you're still just paying five percent. Why is it that just because of buyer agents involved and I'm not getting all the five percent that now you're mad at me and my brokerage. Right. Right. That's my that's the silly side of this for me is that you were happy paying me the whole five percent if I brought the buyer. Why are you unhappy that I use part of the money you just you you agree to pay for me to get the job done to entice you know thousands of agents to help me sell this thing for top dollar. That's the plan. Sure. Sure. Were you my question there is are you bitching to your client that you're losing some of your commission to the buy side now because if that's what steamrolled this if that's what got this whole thing rolling and that's on us as agents if I understand both but like if you said oh man I'm only going to get three percent now because they brought somebody else like that's on you as the agent and that's not something you're whining to your client about. Right. No it's never the money's there to find a buyer whether the agent finds the buyer or the buyer's agent finds the buyer the money's there from the seller to find a buyer. Correct. Out of it you don't have any trans you don't have a transaction. Brick I would like to say that I wish that you were in that courtroom. Absolutely. I was in for this argument for for N.A.R. that we are doing exactly what we should be doing which is providing competitive services we're providing knowledge and information and training and and everything about online on the whole thing. Okay. Thanks. The whole thing is is not the verdict because I think the verdict is bullshit. And I think the whole thing is a scam. Right. I think the whole thing is a money grab. And that's why all the why are all these lawsuits popping up now that there's a verdict. Why weren't they already popping up. Right. It's a scam. Right. And the weird thing is the lawyer is suing somebody for what he's doing while he's suing them. Right. Right. The same thing the owners get two thousand bucks and he gets five hundred million. And now I'm not going to sound like one of the consumers talking about agents because I know he doesn't get five hundred million. He has to pay taxes. He has to pay expenses. Blah, blah, blah. I get it. Maybe he ends up with a cool hundred mil. Okay. Poor him. But my thing is on the on the actual trials scams on the actual issue. I'm kind of in the middle. Right. I'm really in the middle. I'm not really right or left. I'm I actually love I actually would love for this to get to a place where let the market speak, let everyone make their own decisions, let technology and the next generation come up, let everybody make their own decisions on how they want to operate buying or selling, you know, give everybody the all the options available and let them pick what they want to do. I think it'll weed out a lot of agents, which will be a good thing because the ones that are left are going to be the good ones. And I think it'll make the industry stronger overall. I think there'll be more market share per agent because, you know, a lot of them will leave. I think this is great. Honestly, it's going to clean out the industry, which people have talked shit for so long about it with the, you know, bad agents and blah, blah, and the low bearer of entry and stuff like that. So I'm excited about the issue at hand. And I want it to be worked out fairly for everyone, which means transparency and options for everyone. But as far as these trials and lawsuits and shit go, they are scams. And that's what pisses me off about this whole thing. What's the what's the average gross commission income for an agent in this country? It's like $40,000, right? That's before tax. Fifty five. Fifty five. That's before tax. So you take a third of that. But you have to understand, though, Joel, about that, is that we are manipulated. Right. That's figuring in every agent. And you know, 80% of them don't sell anything. So really the top 20% are really the ones that, you know, OK, multiply fifty five thousand times one point six or whatever. Right. And that's how much, you know, what is that? A hundred mil, right? Because like it's like a hundred. I mean, a hundred bill, like it's supposed to be like a hundred bill, like 70 bill, 80 bills, what the commission pool is. OK. Now you divide, you divide that by 20% of agents, not a hundred percent. And that, and that dude, this right here is where I start to get disturbed when, when I'm getting told that for sell by owner, sell for less money. When I'm being told that, oh, agents make fifty five thousand. No, they don't. They make a lot more than fifty five thousand. Right. The ones, there's, but there's agents that don't make anything. Right. And then so, so, so, OK, let's do the numbers. Yeah, I'm going to do the numbers real quick. North Carolina was, I forget the numbers, but when you did it all out, it was less than less than one transaction per agent with the number of number of people they had in the industry when I was getting into it. See, OK, let's just say 80 billion, OK, and then 20% of 1.5, let's say, because it's about 1.5 million right now. That's 300,000. OK, that's two hundred and sixty six thousand dollars per agent. Maybe it's, let's just, let's say, let's say 70%. Let's see, that'd be 450,000 agents. That's a hundred and seventy seven, even if you split it in half. Well, let's do this. Let's say 1.6. See, there you go, dude. There you go. If you divide the 80, 80 billion by 1.6, that's 50,000. So that's where they got their number from. They took the entire commission pool, divided it by a total number of agents. That is misleading. That is, that is manipulating, bro, to me, because now you talk to the general public and say, well, we make 55,000. OK, I'm making a million a year and I don't even, I'm not even in the business anymore. You just made 45 on one transaction. There's no way you're making 55. Now, but when you figure in the 80% of agents that don't do anything, OK, right? OK, they do the one or two all year and that's it. They're either going to get out of the business or they're going to become one of the superstars that make an average of 150,000 a year, let's just say, right? So this is where I feel like as agents, we've been taken advantage of in terms of manipulated by the system. I'm starting to feel that way. And for so long, I didn't. I believed all the stats. I believed for sell by undersell for less. I believe all this stuff, right? And now I'm like, wait a minute. Have I been? I've been full, dude. I've been tricked. And so now I'm like, OK, I understand the game now. You know what I mean? Yeah, Ricky, do you think it turns into more on the training side? Is that going to be more at the raising the barrier for entry or is that going to be more on individual brokerages from a let's just call it compliance. Compliance per state per state. OK, I think it'll be. I don't think the bear of entry is going to change, although it could. I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is disclosure to consumers. Right. And I think on a state level that they're going to have to put in laws that say, you have to show this document right here. And you have to make sure. Which we do in most states. Yes, but this new document is going to actually spell out what they're all their options. And the brokerages are probably going to come out with their own disclosures, too, that says, hey, just so you know, you can list by owner if you want to. I think the disclosure is going to say that. Hey, your option here is list by owner without an agent. That's your option by law. That is your right to for sell by owner. Here's your next option. You can elect to pay the buyer agent commission or not. Here's the next option. And I think it's going to go down the line where you literally have to go through that document with every client so that they understand everything about it. I think that's really where it lies. And then as the industry changes with technology and new generations, I think that will weed out the part timers. We'll see. I think you're spot on. And we've got an agency disclosure form we already used with the first material contact about buying or selling real estate. That form is required to be signed by the client. I think the problem is agents don't go over it. And it isn't as clear on like, I'm sure it doesn't say, hey, do you know you can sell this by owner and not pay a commission? Right. I think that needs to be stated somewhere in paperwork so that people know. Because part of the argument I hear in the comments is I'm like, well, 90% of people use an agent because they want to, not because they have to. It's by choice. And then people comment, they're like, well, that's because they don't know they can do it on their own. Well, first off, it's like, well, OK, you're going to sell a house for a half a million bucks. You're not even going to Google what are my options. Number one, number two, you're going with the first agent you talk to. So again, a lot of this lies on the consumer responsibility, in my opinion. But I think that's where we as an industry have to step up to edge. We have to realize that we assume consumers know what know a little bit about what they're doing when they don't. Right. I think that's part of the problem. We walk into every appointment with a buyer or seller assuming that they know more than they do. And we just kind of go through the transaction real fast because we're the expert and it's like breathing air to us. It's not even, you know, like we do this in our sleep. So it's like, we don't even realize how much we actually know more than the general public. So we're just breezing through the transaction. But then I think we need to slow it down a little bit, you know, just to make sure that they understand that way. And again, dude, I think we're always going to live in a world where you can't make everybody happy and there's always going to be people no matter what you do that just hate on people and sue people and, you know, say that you did them wrong, even though you've been over backwards. But again, I'm excited about whatever changes come out of this. And I'm looking for opportunities to expand. And I'll be on the front end of whatever wave happens. If we end up with 300,000 total agents in the US by 2030, I'm going to be running 100,000 of them, right? I'm going to be running a team of 100,000 of those, right? So I appreciate you guys coming on and sharing your perspectives. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.