 What's up everybody? Ricky Caruth here. Today I want to talk to you about why I deleted all the lawsuit videos, why I didn't do the Michael Ketchmark interview, all that stuff, because a lot of you speculate on why I did this, why I deleted it, why I didn't do the interview, why I haven't spoken about why I did all that stuff. And so you know what? I had to let some time go by to process the enormity at this, that the actual stakes were much, much higher than what I realized at the time. I'm just a guy on YouTube bringing you value, you know, giving you commentary, telling you what I feel like is the truth every step of the way about the market, about these lawsuits, about your business, about life, about anything that I can bring you value on. Okay, I'm just, somebody here having fun bringing you value and to kind of get called up in this little situation that ended up being much larger than I knew. And I got excited, you know, I got the guy, the number one guy, that the guy that's at the center of this entire thing. This would have been the interview of the century. This would have been, you know, this would have been the most dynamic interview out of all the interviews I've seen about the lawsuits, you know, on TV and on YouTube. This would have been by far the very best one. What you have to understand is that I had a lot to, I have everything to lose and absolutely nothing to gain in this situation whatsoever. It wasn't a risk I was willing to take. I want to tell you exactly what my thought process was. I want to tell you the exact thing that triggered me to back out to, to delete the videos, all the above. Okay. I want to get into all that, right? And as, as this happened and as this was happening in real time, you know, I had to, I took a step back because I had to do a lot of praying about this. Like, what are the different circumstances? Like, what are the different outcomes of these situations? This is not a joke, ladies and gentlemen. There are lawsuits on the line with billions of dollars, okay, the B word being thrown around, just B word, not even thinking twice about it, just billions and involving a lot of people, a lot of people. I mean, when you talk about the buyers and sellers that are involved in this, along with the brokerages and all the agents, this is, this is a, this is a large amount of the population that is actually involved in this. This is massive, right? And so I, you know, as I'm praying and, and really contemplating and thinking about this and, you know, I got to, it got to where I was like, wait a minute, this, this is like a risk versus reward. This is like a situation where there's a decision to be made here. This isn't one of these things. Oh, just do it. Nothing's going to happen or whatever. This was something that I had to really try to, try to be smart about. And when I think about what I had to lose, right, what I had worked 20 years plus of my life to build, it wasn't a risk I was willing to take, right? I think about some of the things that I accomplished this year, my rental portfolio, right? I added seven units, right? New construction, existing, commercial, flipped eight houses. I'm buying three acres to build 46 apartment complex. I'm building my net worth daily, right? I have a lot to lose. My brokerage. I've got 800 agents. We did $1.2 billion in sales this year. We did $1 billion last year. So we did more volume with less agents in a less transaction environment. We are crushing it. I have a lot to lose. I went from free coaching to paid coaching. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was one of the most liberating things that I have done in this entire process since I started coaching. It literally was because I, as I grew as a brand and more and more agents knew who I was, I didn't even know that I felt the way that I did about it until I actually flipped from free to paid. I didn't realize the amount of people that I felt were taking advantage of me. And you know how I know people were taking advantage of me because when I flipped from zero to $99 a month for the value I provide, right? Four sales calls a month, listing challenges, you know, et cetera, everything that we're doing in the group that's amazing. We're almost up to 400 agents. When I switch from zero to 99, people are hitting me up saying, okay, I knew this was going to happen. Look here, Ricky, I'm not going to help you build your wealth. Wait a minute. So what you're telling me is that you want me to help you build your wealth, right? You want me to help you double your business, triple your business, which I've done for free for thousands of agents. I've helped thousands of agents double, triple their volume. A lot of them will speak up. A lot of them will be, you'll see them in the comments. People have been following me for five, six, seven years, two, three, four years who double, triple their volume and haven't paid me a dime. And that's awesome. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to build my brand on helping agents double and triple their volume. But when I switch from paid, from free to paid, because I want to weed out the people that aren't serious and I want to build a real community, I want to do yearly events and go on vacations with people. When I've switched and you tell me, you don't want to help me build my wealth, but you want me, you expect me, you expect me to help you build your wealth. And $100 a month is out of the question. That's not building my wealth. You know how many thousands and thousands of people don't have to have for that to actually build wealth? That's not building wealth, right? For you to say that tells me that you are taking advantage of me. And I don't, I mean, it was a weight that was lifted off my shoulders. That's one of the, you know, are the calls now smaller? Is it more like 200 people right now instead of 1000 plus? Yeah, absolutely. But guess what? Those 200 people are serious. And that's what I love about it. I switched that, right? My speaking career, I'm starting to get big checks being offered to me to go speak at huge events. That's not something that was in my business plan. That's just something that's happening. But it is happening. Social media, I hit 100,000 on YouTube this year for every night, every 90 days to every quarter, I picked up another 20,000 brand new Instagram followers just because my content is getting better and better and better and bringing more and more and more value. I have a lot to lose and I'm not going to risk anything on an interview that I think might be the most incredible interview that we've ever seen. Am I going to do that to risk everything that I've got? Let me dig deeper here. The one reason why I deleted, I'll tell you why I deleted all the content first and then I'll tell you why I backed out of the Michael Ketchmark interview. The reason I delete all the contents because I don't want to get caught up in court. I appreciate you guys saying that you think that I would be a great voice and you would love to see me up there in court telling the plaintiffs and the jury and everybody else how it really is for us agents. You don't know how much that means to me. It means the world to me for you to say that, but I don't want to end up there because I don't know that I would fear being more harmful to the situation than helping the situation number one, right? And if I deleted the content, why did I delete all the content because they can use basically any video. They use a Tom Perry video from 2019. It wasn't Tom, it was a guest that he had talking about he doesn't negotiate commissions. You know, they could use, I mean, I've got thousands, I've got 2000 videos just right here on YouTube, not to mention the, you know, many, many more thousand probably have five, 10,000 videos on the internet. But when it comes to my videos, I've always had the same exact stance on commissions, negotiate them, be flexible, make the deal happen. I think that the coaches and the agents who say stand firm and never take less than 6% and all that are horrible negotiators. You're a horrible negotiator. I'll tell you to your face because the thing is, is I'll take that commission, I'll take that deal for 0.01% less, 5.99, you know, I'll take the deal and I'll get all the future business, all the repeats, all the referrals, all the referrals of the referrals, right? I know how to multiply the business. You're going to walk away over 0.1% or even 1%. That's not good business. That's horrible negotiation. You just, you just walked away from say 20 to 30 deals over 1% on one deal. And let me tell you the times I've negotiated, people say, oh, when do you negotiate? The deals are going to get out of that, the referrals and all that. They're going to expect you to be lower. No, they didn't. There's a lot of referrals that I got that I got full commission. See, the thing is when you get referred, when somebody that trusted you enough to refer you, a lot of times the people that come to you, they don't care how much you cost. They're going to pay your price because you are referred by a trusted friend, family, coworker, whatever. And a lot of times they're going to pay you whatever. And a lot of times these people, there's been people that I went down on and then they ended up paying me full commission on the next one. Why? Because how good did I do on the first deal? They're okay paying at the second deal. They're not going to go look for another agent. Nevertheless, I digress there. I, my point is, is that my content has always been flexible commission from day one back in 2016, 17, when I started doing content, flexible commission, put the person over the money, relationships over transactions every single time from day one. That's been one of the core values of zero to diamond relationships over transactions. That's one of the very first affirmations of it. And so throughout my content over the years, I have never wavered from putting the consumer first over the commission rate always. That's always been a mantra of mine. So I'm not worried about them going back and going through all the content and sure, maybe they can find something and twist it up. That's the world we live in now. The media twists all kinds of stuff and takes all kinds of stuff out of context and twist it up for their benefit to turn around and using against you or to go with whatever narrative they have. Right? And maybe that can happen. Who knows? But I was, I've never been, I've never put out content that I believe was against the consumers. And I think this is a consumer, this is a consumer driven, I'm not going to call it lawsuit. Let's just call it movement. This is a consumer driven movement here because the consumers don't, don't know what's going on. They don't realize what we do and how we get paid on really both sides, buyers and sellers. And the sellers are pissed because they feel like they were tricked into paying the buyer and commission, even though it was in the contracts and all this stuff. And a lot of agents say, well, you signed a contract. Does contract not mean anything? Yes, it means something. And no, I don't believe you can go back and say, well, I didn't read it or I didn't understand it. So I can get out of it. I don't believe that. I don't believe that you can just say, I didn't understand what I was like, why was I signing? So I can get out of this. But what I will say is that I don't believe that it was explained to them the way that they want it to be explained to them. And I think the way that they want it to be explained to them now that they think they know what's going on is that they want to be explained that they are not a hundred percent, it is not a hundred percent mandatory that they pay the buyer agent commission, even though, you know, it's figured into the full commission. They agree to pay the listing broker, you know, and then the listing broker basically takes, you know, it's just like the seller agreed to pay this 5% let's say, regardless if there's a buyer broker involved or not. Okay. But when there is a buyer broker involved, okay, now on paper per the HUD, it looks like the seller paid the buyer commission. That, ladies and gentlemen, I think is the problem. And you can't just do an easy fix and go back and just adjust the HUDs, because now it's too late. Now they've already found that technicality and now they're taking the ball and running with it. And listen, here's the bottom line with the entire lawsuit. I want to get to exactly what triggered me to not do the interview and actually move forward with deleting some of these videos. But you've got the government, you've got the general public, the DOJ, the Federal Trade Commission, several other government entities that want to see this change happen where the listing broker, okay, through the seller is not offering that buyer, agent, broker commission. Okay. So when you think about that, a lot of you say, well, that can happen if a seller doesn't offer the buyer broker commission, then we're going back to the 60s and 70s. This is why we did it in the first place so that we can have more access to agents who are, you know, motivated to help us sell the properties. And that is all true. I do not want to see it go in this direction. But when you think about the direction it's going in, it's almost like it has so much momentum, you can't stop it. Maybe there's a presidential election this year that turns in the favor of this and maybe something changes with the momentum and the direction that this is going in as far as the government entities are concerned. Who knows, right? But all I can tell you is what I feel is happening. I feel it in my gut that we're moving in this direction. And when we take out the buyer agent commission from the, from being offered and on MLS as the, on the advertise on the listing, whatever the case may be, when we do that buyers are still going to show up either with an agent that they're paying with an agent that tries to negotiate the buyer agent commission in the deal or directly to the listing agent. But the buyer is not going to stop looking at a house that they love that they want to buy because there's no buyer broker commission offered. They're not, they're not going to do that. It's not going to happen. They're going to move forward with that deal. They're not going to let anything stop them. They're going to go in there. They're going to negotiate that deal. Now we're going to be in a world where, and you tell me, even the naysayers who think that this isn't going to happen. Okay. Let's say it does. Okay. Just think for a second that it does happen. How many buyers, okay, 90% of buyers use an agent now, 90% of sellers use an agent now. Out of the 90% of buyers who use an agent now, how many of them will still use an agent if they have to pay the agent? Okay. If you can't get it figured into the, to the price, you know, and they sign a contract that says, I'll pay you this much. If you can't figure it into the, to this price, how many buyers would sign that contract? How many, what percentage of buyers out there? Is it, is it 30%? Is it 40%? Is it 50? Is it 70? Is it 80? Is it 90? What percentage? Let me know in the comments your thoughts on this. What percentage of buyers will continue to use buyer agents if they have to pay? It is going to be a percentage. It's not going to go to zero. Okay. So you're going to have this group of buyers who are still willing to, to pay for a buyer agent because they really feel they need one. There's going to be this huge group of buyers who do not. What is that going to cause? It's going to cause a lot of dual agency. Then you got the states who don't allow dual agency. What's going to happen there? There's a thing in my state called transaction broker where you don't, you don't, it's not a fiduciary relationship, but you still have, you're still, you know, basically, you're not, you're not advising them, but you're literally like sending them documents to sign, letting them make their own decisions in so many words. How does it work with the dual agency, non, non dual agency states? And then how many lawsuits, how many more lawsuits are we going to see come out of this of these unrepresented buyers who feel like they were forced to go to the listing agent who was looking out for the seller, not them, because they can't afford their own buyer agent. Yes. I think we're going to see a lot. And so it opens up a whole new can of worms. Do I want to see it go in that direction? No. I think the current system is the best system all day long. But I feel like there's nothing that you and I can do about the momentum of this movement from the government and from general consumers and of course the lawyers who have a lot to gain when they see this go through. And so that's what we're dealing with. Okay. It's like interest rates. You know, they go up, you know, you can't change that. You have to learn how to work or you have to learn how to work with higher interest rates. Same thing here. If this changes, we can't, we can't do anything about it. We just have to look at the new rules and say, okay, let's go. And that's why next week on our coaching call at zero to diamond.com, I'm going to actually lay out exactly how you can continue to build your million dollar year business without buyer agent commissions involved. I'm going to lay it out really simply for you because when this does go down and again, I'm speaking like it's going down for sure. I'm speculating. I feel like it's going to happen when and if this happens, which will happen this year, 2024, it's not going to be, we're not waiting for the appeal process. A lot of people say, oh, to get drug out in court for six years. You know, they haven't even officially filed the appeal. They say they're going to appeal, but do you know that they haven't actually filed for the appeal yet? FYI. It's not even filed yet. It's not even for sure that they're doing it a hundred percent. They haven't filed it. Okay. Speaking about in pills, and it's going to get drug out in court and this, that and the other. Okay. I'm sure it will, but they haven't filed yet. So I don't know that for sure. But what I'm saying, we've already got in my lessons. It went from $1 to zero and even are went from went from $1 to zero on offering buyer agent commission. What does that tell you? I'm going to let you answer that, but what does that tell you right there? Okay. Things can happen instantly. Brokerages can change policies instantly. MLSs can change policies instantly. We don't have to wait for appeals for things to happen. But we'll see. But in and when, when and if this, all this, all these changes happen, we're going to lose a lot of agents because let's just say 50% of the buyer pool will still continue to use buyer agents and pay the buyer agent. Let's just say hypothetically, I don't know. That's a good 25% because you got, you got a hundred percent of sellers, a hundred percent of buyers, right? If half the buyers, that's 25% of the total commission pool. That's 25% less of the total commission pool available, right? And you've already got agents that aren't selling much, aren't selling at all from what I understand only 800,000 agents, or I want to say 800,000. Yeah, 800,000 half the agents out there have not sold anything this year. You're going to see those 800,000 agents, right? Some of them may hang in there and we got some that are selling one or two properties, leave the business. You've got about half the agents out there that will leave the business when this happens. I want to talk Monday on our coaching call about how to crush it in the new world because I have a lot of ideas there. All right, that's at zero to diamond.com, log in, go to the weekly coaching call section. Moving on to the reason why I didn't do the Michael Ketchmark interview because a lot of you think that, you know, he said this or he paid me or he did something. I don't know what you guys think. It was literally just a 15 minute conversation. And basically ended up with us just saying, Hey, let's just do an interview. You know, we kind of went back and forth a little bit on the lawsuits, on our, on agents, whatever. It was nothing at all dramatic because I literally told him, listen, you know, as soon as we started to get a little bit, even just dipped our toe in the water, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's say this for the interview, man. Let's talk about this on a video. That's how excited I was about the possibility of having him on and interviewing him. This is the guy. But the reason why I did not do this is because after that, and we scheduled it and everything else, man, I started to digest the enormity of the situation. I started to put all this together and it was really put in two and two together. It wasn't even like a complicated equation, right? It's like, okay, I'm with the EXP. EXP is in the new lawsuit that he filed for $200 billion. It can be troubled up to $600 billion. Here I am talking to the plaintiff's lawyer and actually going to do a live recorded interview with him on YouTube. And I just thought, wait a minute, how stupid is this, right? How dumb would it have been for me to do that? Again, nothing to gain. I would have nothing to gain from that except for an entertaining video. That would have been it, right? However, something that could have been set of that video could have been twisted and took an out of context. And I could have been pulled into this so far that I could have been in a situation where EXP decides that they want to cut me loose, where they want to retire me from the company, where they want to send my license back in, where they want to separate their self from me. And in so many words, I'm an independent contractor, but in so many words, fire me. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was what I was the most scared of in the world, right? Because when I think about, and some people are like, well, who cares about that? Let me tell you why. Because if I were to be let go from EXP, where would I go? Where would I go? Right? Put it in the comments. Where would I go? Because there's not even a close nowhere, nowhere in the same stratosphere of a company, for me personally, than EXP. There's not even, there's not even like a contender, right? And that goes for even if I open up my own brokerage, right? There's just nowhere even close to the equity that I have, to the group that I have, to the volume that we do, to the money that I make, to the liabilities, to the expenses, to every little piece of the puzzle, sales, everything, every little piece of the puzzle that you that you try to glue in and put together, nothing even comes close. And so that, ladies and gentlemen, scares me half the death, because I'm in this for the next 10, 20 years to build this company, right? And when I think about the coaching business, when I think about the brokerage, when I think about my rental portfolio that is growing by leaps and bounds, and the next next year, I'll probably add another 20 units, just single family homes, I might even buy a couple apartment complexes, and I might be up to 100 doors next year, not to mention the 46 units that I'm building, I'm going to continue to build that up to a billion dollars, right? There's a clear path for me to have 500 million dollars worth of real estate over the next 20 years, okay? When I think about the social media, the brand equity, all the opportunities that I'm getting left and right, this didn't even hold a candle to any of that. So with that being said, that's the reason why I backed out, that's the reason why I deleted the videos, and I hope that you appreciate the transparency. I hope that you're 100% clear on why I do this, and I already know that you appreciate the fact that I did it, you appreciate the fact that I had to let some time go by to process what had happened. I'm sure you appreciate the fact that, you know, I'm sitting here every single day, busting my ass to bring you the most value possible to help as many of you double and triple your volume as I possibly can. I mean, that's why I'm here, that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. So with that said, I hope you guys enjoy, you know, let me know what you think of the comments, and I appreciate you so much. Have a good rest of your week, and I'll see you on the next video. Let's go.