 Now you're just putting it right back on the hands of the seller where the buyer really can't negotiate. It creates a scenario where now the conditions are involved in the negotiations of the actual purchase agreement. We're going to move into that world, but guess what? It doesn't change what we do, guys. What is our job as a real estate agent? It's to connect buyers and sellers. People think we get paid to open doors and put a property on the market and get an offer. They know more about it than we do because we're looking at the whole market. We're showing a bunch of houses. They're zoomed in on one house and one subdivision. They went deeper on that specific area than we have. Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for Ricky Karoo. Super excited. We have Mr. Zero to diamond himself, Ricky Karoo. So thank you so much. Shout out to Brad Allen for setting this up for us. Ricky, the floor is yours. Good morning. Morning, everyone. How are we doing? Doing great. How are you? Oh, really good. Really good. I drove to Montgomery and back yesterday and did a keynote for a couple hundred agents. I'm a little tired this morning, but I did get a good workout in. Now, good to see you guys. I don't know where you guys are all located. Is everybody in the same location or tell me a little bit about the group? We're in South Carolina. So we are throughout Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, South Carolina. Oh, beautiful, beautiful. And is this on? This is a brokerage. You're the broker. This is a team. Tell me a little bit about the dynamics here. So we are Century 21 Excel and Century 21 803 Realty. Just to give you a little background, we were up until December, Excel Real Estate. And the founder of Excel Real Estate was the broker owner, but recently merged with Century 21, excited about the partnership. And so you have us from different assets, different offices throughout Century 21. Okay, beautiful. And what do you believe the key issue is right now or the key bottleneck in everyone's business or the issue that we need to be addressing right this second? What's on everybody's mind? Well, Ricky, you just came in on me reading a statement regarding the whole NAR lawsuits that we've been experiencing when it comes to commission and how we get paid, especially working with buyers. So I do think that is definitely something that we're looking at regarding our market. Also, we are battling these 40 year listing agreements. We are starting to see those coming up. So we're certain that there are going to be some regulation to counter at those, those long listing agreements. Anyone else want to share? What was basically just the summary, just the quick, you know, baseline idea behind what the president of NARS said about it. So the baseline is we, we should be compensated. And sellers and listing brokers should have the right to make that decision on how buyer's agents and buyer's brokers do get compensated. Essentially, they're just sharing, they're negotiating the commission with the seller. And it's up to them to negotiate, you know, how much we get paid for buyers. Well, guys, listen to me. This is a much ado about nothing. Okay. We deserve compensation. There's not a world that we live in where we don't get compensated. Is there a world that we live in where roofers and plumbers and, you know, concierge and servers and anyone, anyone doesn't get compensated. There's not. There's not a world where we aren't get, we don't get compensated. You know, the DOJ, all they want to do is try to justify what they're doing. And it's, it's hilarious because they say we're not going to accept the settlements because this is going to continue what we're doing, which is what the lawsuit was all about. And we don't, you know, this is not going to continue like that. So we're going to switch it. We were, we're basically going to erase buyer agent commission filled from MLS, but you know, we want, we want buyers to negotiate their own commissions with their, with their agent, which they can't do right now because it's, it's, it's going to negotiate it in the listing agreement. However, hey, all you have to do is put it in the offer now. Okay. Now think about that for a second. The DOJ said this. Okay. Just put it in the offer buyers. You know, what's wrong with that? Well, there's a lot of things wrong with that. Number one, now you're just putting it right back on the hands of the seller where the buyer really can't negotiate. Now that, now the buyer is negotiating their commission with the seller, not their agent. It's so backwards. Furthermore, what does that do? It creates a scenario where now the commissions are involved in the negotiations of the actual purchase agreement. How is that ethical? That the commissions are actually part of the negotiations of the house. The way it is now is negotiated up front and it's not an issue during the, during the offer. How is negotiating commissions into the offer ethical? You know, now there's this whole thing that creates a scenario where now, you know, there could be a lot of things. Like, you could lose a deal over the commissions. Not, not, not you lose a deal. Like your buyer, your client could lose a deal, but you know, everything could have been worked out fine except for the commission thing. And then we, we don't get the deal. Absolutely. How is that ethical? Right? How does the DOJ come out and say that out of their mouth? It's, it's, it's really something. So, but back to my original statement, this is a much ado about nothing. I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even look at this study and think about it because it's literally not an issue whatsoever. There's not a world where we don't get paid. Now, you know, if we, if we move along and what we will, we will move into a world where Bioagent commission is not in, not, not an MLS, I believe I'm convinced that they're going to race that field from MLS. Sellers can still pay it if they want, but it's going to be considered a concession versus Bioagent commission. Same way they pay closing costs, et cetera. Now, we're going to have sellers, we're going to have sellers, if you, whether you like it or not, say, well, I'm not going to pay the Bioagent commission. I'm only going to pay your commission. You're going to have sellers who are firm on that. They're also going to have friends who sold their house without paying the Bioagent commission and, and the deal went fine. So, we're going to move into that world, but guess what? It doesn't change what we do guys. What is our job as a real estate agent? It's to connect buyers and sellers. What are we going to do when, when laws change and rules change and this, that and the other? Nothing different. We're going to connect buyers and sellers. That's all we're going to continue to do and we will continue to be compensated for it. It's funny because here recently, a client of mine, I sold him his condo years ago, probably 10 years ago or five years ago or something like that. He called me a couple of weeks ago and he said, hey, there's a bigger condo in my building. I'm thinking about buying it. I'm kind of scared to do so. What do you think? I said, buy it. You can't lose. You're not going to lose. And he called me, you know, this week earlier this week and he said, hey, I'm buying that condo by owner and I'm selling ours by owner. I said, great. Awesome. You know, that's cool. He said, I got a question for you though. He said, I got this offer and it was a really weird offer, right? It was kind of one of those really strange deals, right? And I said, Mike, I said, this is what you need a real estate agent for. I get you're trying to save money and you don't, you don't place value on real estate agents do, but the fact is, is that we don't get paid to find a buyer. Buyers are everywhere. You can put a house on the market by owner and get buyers and get offers. No problem. That's not what we get paid for. We don't get paid to go unlock doors and open doors so people can just see properties. That's what people think. People think we get paid to open doors and put a property on the market and get an offer. That's not what we get paid for. I said, we get paid for exactly what you're calling me about right now is protection on the contract because you don't know what you're doing. You think, you know, you think you can do what agents do and this is the problem with the general public. They think that they can do what agents do, but they cannot. All you have to do, all you have to do general public is go try to sell your house by owner or buy a house by owner. All you have to do is try it and you'll find out real quick the value of a real estate agent. When people say, I'm going to go by owner, I'm going to buy by owner, I'm like, knock yourself out. I got some popcorn. I'm going to sit back and watch. I'm going to sit back and watch because you're going to run into situations that you need a professional for. It may be this one little thing, this one little thing, but it's the difference in you getting screwed or not. It's the difference in you saving 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000. There's one little thing. Sure, most of the deal might have been easy cake, but my expertise in knowing how to handle situations is what I get paid for. I don't get paid to find a buyer. I don't get paid to show houses. I get paid for the expertise that I can help you through the deal, make sure that you are protected. Now, would you walk into court without a lawyer? No, right? You can go into court without a lawyer. You may get lucky this time, maybe get lucky that time, but eventually that's going to bite you. Same thing with this. You can sell by owner this time. You can sell by owner that time. It may go through, find a couple of times, but then you're going to run into the deal that didn't end up good. And now you're going to end up in court. So the way I see it is go ahead, go by owner, sell them by owner, representing yourself. It will eventually land you in court. Either you got screwed and now you're suing the other guy or they got screwed and they're suing you. So the way I see it is you can either pay for an agent now or you can pay for a lawyer later, but you're going to pay. You ain't going to get around it. You may get lucky a couple of times. If I went to Dallas, if I went to Atlanta, if I went to Miami, guess what? And to buy a house, guess what? And I'm an expert. I've been doing this 22 years. I sold over a thousand properties. I bought hundreds of properties and I've sold represented people on thousands of deals. Guess what? If I went to, even if I went to Birmingham, a city in my state, I'd still get an agent in that area to represent me. You bet your ass I would. And I'm an expert. I can't imagine how oblivious the general public feels. Now, when my first sell by owner called me and told me that, and I said, Mike, this is what you need an agent for. He said, well, you ain't in the, you're not even selling anymore. And I said, Mike, you didn't even call me. You called me to get advice on the first thing. You didn't call me and tell me you're selling your condo and asked me what I think or what you should do. Now you're trying to save money and call me and you want the free advice. You don't want an agent to represent you, but you want to get consulted by the agent on the part where it matters, the part that I get paid on. My expertise to make sure you don't get screwed. You want me to do that for free. I'm just calling my friend to get some advice. No, you're not. You're calling to take advantage of someone that you call your friend. Now you may be, you may be oblivious. You may be ignorant to the fact of what you're actually doing. I believe that he doesn't have bad intentions, but this is the perception of the general public. And I say that to say this guys, you have so much job security. It's not even funny. These people cannot do deals. So what's going to happen is when they change the rules and they say buyers, you got to pay your own commission or get it or negotiate it into the deal or hopefully the seller offers it or whatever, right? What's going to happen is, is we're going to have a big percentage of buyers who are used to the commission being figured in. Go try to represent themselves. That's the shock wave that's going to happen. Let's say, you know, 60, 70, 80% of buyers switch over to going straight to the listing agent. Through that process, I think every year we'll see that number go down. Year one, it's 80%. Year two, it's 65%. Year three, it's 45%. Year five, it's 20%. And we're going to get to a place where hardly any buyers will step foot in a house, ride an offer, do anything without an agent. It'll take time. It'll take time for that, for that to play out like that. But that's the way, that's the way I believe it's going to go. Um, we're not lawyers, but we are just as valuable as lawyers based on our expertise of how to handle situations. That's our value proposition, not opening doors or finding buyers. Um, you know, and they say, well, there, we have all the information now. You know, we've got all the information. What do we need you for? We've got all the information. Listen to this stat. We're at an all time high in terms of the amount of information consumers have agreed. We're at an all time high. They got, they know more about it than we do because we're looking at the whole market. We're showing a bunch of houses. They're zoomed in on one house and one subdivision. They went deeper on that specific area that we, than we have. They know more about that. They know more about that subdivision in the house than we do. Let's be real. We're at an all time high in terms of the amount of information that consumers have. We're also at an all time high at what? The usage of real estate agents. More, more of a percentage of people, buyers and sellers use real estate agents now than ever in history. So think about that stat. Most information, highest uses of agents, all time highs in both. So if the fact that people have more information means they don't need agents, then why are they using them more? That didn't line up with what you're saying. Your theory is bogus because the data doesn't support it. So why is it that we have more buyers and sellers using real estate agents than ever before, although we have, at the same time, we have more information to the consumers than ever before? It's because when you have as much information now as the consumers have about something that they have, they're oblivious to what they're doing, now it looks like Chinese. It's information overload and they're like, oh God, and their brain explodes. And now they need us more than ever because now it's confusing. There's like so much stuff. And the more more information they have, the more confused they're going to be and the more they're going to need us. In my opinion, AI is decisions. And although it may work this time or that time, I think that it's, I think that that would open up a lot of lawsuits, a lot of lawsuits. So be careful when you hear people say, oh, AI is going to come along and people are going to be able to hit a button and get everything they need. And they're going to be, you know, they're going to get the best advice. And then no, no, AI will do nothing but help us sell more property in less time. And it already has. It's already helped us sell more property in less time and it's just going to continue. So yeah, this is a much ado about nothing. We're in a great, great, great position. You know, we need to continue to build our brands and expand our influence in our markets and help people, help people connect, buyers and sellers sit at the bottom line. The more you kind of ignore all this noise and go more all in on what I just said, then the better off you're going to be. You got to find peace with all this. There's a lot of unknowns out there. You know, but in life, things happen, you know, people that own bookstores, you know, 20 years ago and, you know, travel agents, you know, they didn't see coming, what hit them. Could that happen? Sure. I'm not so oblivious or dumb that I don't believe that something could happen 100%. I don't see it in the horizon. It could happen tomorrow, right? But in life, ladies and gentlemen, when one door closes, more opportunities present themselves. If something happened that erased real estate agents, hey, that just means there's a massive opportunity somewhere else for each and every one of us. I'm not going to lay down a cry about anything. I'm going to stand up and say, what's next? What can I conquer? You know, put me to work. You know, thank you, Jesus, for allowing this challenge before me. Without challenge, there's no champions, guys. It's the same thing as last year. We had the same year last year that we had in 2008 in terms of transactions. We're all still here. We're all still shining. We're all still crushing it. And you may not think you're crushing it, but you are crushing it. You may have only sold four properties last year. That's crushing it. You know how many people in the world would die to be in your position to have sold four properties last year and still be in the business, still be growing, still be learning and be in the position of where we're going to be. We're going to have another 7 million transaction year at some point in the next five or 10 years, I believe, 7 million transaction year. We had that back in 2007, six or seven, 7 million transactions. In 2021, the year of the boom that we just experienced, there were 6 million transactions. We had 7 million back in the boom back in the mid-2000s. There was a year where we had 7 million transactions. We will see that again. The demographics are there, loud and clear. Okay. So I don't know how much time we have or what we're getting into today, but that's my two cents. Ricky, that was some great stuff. I think Brad has a comment or question. And Ricky, you said that we're getting ready to go into another year after 2008 and then last year. How do you suggest going forward to get to that? Listen to me. The way I look at it is I'm building my career. I could care less about 2024. If I don't have the skills, the tools, the systems in place to scale my business, you see every single person I talk to, buyer or seller in my market, I'm not thinking, oh, I hope they buy or sell today. I'm thinking how many deals is this person going to do over the course of my career? If I'm thinking I'm going to be in real estate for 10, 15, 20, 30 years, how many deals will this person be responsible for doing themselves and referring to other agents over the next, let's say, let's say I want to do real estate for 20 years. My job is to stack as many deals into that 20-year period as humanly possible. I'm going to do plenty of deals today because I'm talking to people every day. 80% of buyers and sellers do business with the first agent they talk to. 80% more than 80%. It's like 82%. Buyers and sellers do business with the first agent they talk to. What does that tell me? I need to be the first one to talk to them about what they're trying to do. So what am I going to do? I'm going to go have conversations with as many people in the market as I can every single day, screw everything else. It's just data. I'm going to go buy the data. So yeah, talking to the highest quality prospects as many as I can every single day to expand my influence in the market, to have a great 2024, but also realizing that even the people that aren't doing deals today are going to be worth 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 to 50 deals to me over the next 20 years. The repeats and referrals, but then guess what? This is where it gets interesting. The referrals of the referrals. Oh, that's where it gets really interesting. So dude, this is a much ado about nothing. Markets are going to come and go and ebb and flow, but guess what? They never go to zero. We'll never have a zero year transactions. Prices will never go to zero. If they do, we got bigger problems. Never happened. It's never happened in history. So anything you're worried about, you need to erase it from your existence. Worrying about stuff that doesn't matter, doesn't move the needle, needs to be erased from your cranium. Anyway, I'm sure that's not the answer you're looking for, Brad. Go forth. Tell me what I can do to help you. No, I'm just wondering, because I was one of those agents last year that only had one deal and just trying to move forward. Yeah, got you, man. How many people are you talking to every day? I'm doing your letters and I'm calling. Brad, how many people are you talking to every day? At least at the very minimum, 50. You talk to 50 people a day? Yes. How are you talking to these people? I ain't never talked to 50 people a day in my life. What's your secret? Oh, no, sorry. I'm not talking to. I'm calling at least 50. So I'm talking to probably about five to 10. There we go. There we go. It's how many people are we talking to a day? Now, who are we talking to? Who are these five to 10 people? So these are homeowners around. So I'm calling homeowners that I wrote letters to. That are around pretty much geo. And you're saying, hey, I wrote a letter. How are you doing? Yeah, just, hey, I wrote you a letter last week. How are you doing? We're going to buy our prospect. Cool. Okay. Five to 10 people a day. All right. For how many days in the past 12 months? Um, so in the past 12 months, I, uh, I've just started back up. I had a rough year last year, but no, I understand. I understand. I'm just wondering how many days in the last 12 months you've talked to five to 10 people? Uh, so probably the last two months I've been doing it consistently. Okay. So two months. So that's eight weeks. How many days per week are you calling 50 people? It's not every day. No, it's how many days? What'd you say? It's three days. Three days. All right. So three days. So we're talking, so we're talking about 15 to 30 people a week for eight weeks. All right. You're not even scratching the surface. You see, whenever, whenever you go out on these listing appointments and people are interviewing three agents, okay, you go out there, you know, you talk to them, you know, you send them a letter, you know, you, you talk to them. Oh yeah, come look at it. We want to sell. You go there, list the appointment. You sit down with them. Everything's great. And they list with somebody else and you think, huh, what happened there? I'll tell you what happened. They've been talking to that agent for two years. You've been talking to them for two weeks. They planted the seed two years ago. You just planted the seed two weeks ago. They're going to win. Now, what does that tell us? That tells us in two years, all the people that we're talking to, when they decide to sell and they interview three agents and you're one of them, you're going to be the one they pick over the other two that are newer or just started talking to them or cold called them out of the blue at the right time. They still went with you because you planted the seed two years ago. You picking up what I'm putting down. Oh yeah. This is a, this is a, this is a momentum game. This is a compounding game and it takes time to, to, to plant the seeds and to, and to get to the harvest. That doesn't happen overnight, bro. You've been doing it for two months. You got to keep your head down. You got to keep doing exactly what you're doing and say, I'm going to do this for 10 years until I make a million dollars a year. That's what you have to do. There's no easy way around it. Now, a lot of people want to go out and say, oh, I'm not going to call people. I'm not going to cold call people. Okay. Do YouTube videos and wait on people to call you. Get by Zilla leads and wait on people to call you. Do, do Google ads and wait on people to call you. That's fine. But guess what? Remember, more than 80% of buyers or sellers go with the first agent they talk to. So while you're waiting on them to call you, I'm calling them right now. I'm talking to them first. So I have 80% plus chance to get that deal. You don't. You may, you're going to get some deals. Yes. You're going to get some deals, but your business is not going to grow as fast as my business because I'm putting myself in the 80% vote because I'm talking to people all day. Now, one reason why people don't call people is because we're brainwashed. We've been programmed to think that when we call sellers to get listings, we have to ask them either a, if they'll sell their property. Would you think about selling your property today? Or we have to say we have a buyer. Let me know in the comments. Would you, would you guys prefer? Okay. You can't pick both. If you had your choice, would you pick 30 active listings or 30 active buyers? Let's see what you guys say. Listings. Let's put it this way. Anybody here would pick buyers. So what's so funny is, is everybody that's putting listings, I guarantee you that probably more than half of you spend 100% of your time on activities that do nothing but attract buyers. But your, you know, your, your, what you want is listings. So what you want are listings, but what you do is attract buyers. So your business is confused. And the reason you don't go after sellers is because you're scared to call them. Why are you scared to call them? Because you're scared of rejection. You're scared of people being mean to you. So the people that go after buyers, let me just ask you, have you ever had a buyer be mean to you or reject you? Because what's so funny is, is that we run away from rejection and fear and mean people to again, we're programmed to brainwash to spend a bunch of money to get buyers who reject this and are mean to us. And furthermore, when your business is dependent on incoming leads, inbound leads and the market dries up like it did last year, guess what? Your business is screwed. If you do not develop the skill of being able to create the highest quality prospects out of thin air, once you develop that skill, it doesn't matter what the market's doing. You're not, you're not subjected to the market anymore. So what do you guys think I would like myself? Listings or buyers? Put in the comments. Okay. You guys probably know, I didn't like tell my story and stuff. And I don't know how many of you guys are actually following me or no, no, no me at all. But I got a real estate in 2002 and made a mill and then lost it all in the crash and everything. But I came back and I sold a hundred properties a year for eight years in a row as a single agent, no listing agent, no buyer agent, just me and an assistant. She handed all the back end, transaction coordination, MLS, set up showings. And I handed it all the front end, showing properties, prospecting, following up, negotiating, going to closings, etc. And we did a hundred deals a year of standing on our head. It was easy. It was just cake. And that was because, that was because we built, I built a brand, okay, through a weekly email, making calls, developing and expanding my influence on my market. That's a whole another zoom call. But what I'm getting at is that I am, it's incredibly efficient while agents are on YouTube and in Instagram and Zillow and Google getting buyer leads to show them at six o'clock at night. I'm at home eating dinner with my family while they're showing my listing. So everybody's making money at six, seven o'clock at night. It's just a matter of if you are at home chilling because your listings are being shown or you're out showing like we have a choice. We can do either one because again, it's the same thing, you know, rejection and mean people, you're going to run into it either way. Why not go get what you want? But here's why I'm going with it. I'm a hacker, okay? I hack productivity and efficiency. So when I look at listings versus buyers situation and I think about where's my time best spent and how can I knock out two birds and one stone? Guess what I see? Why would I not go after? Okay. And in Richard says buyers because they come with more referrals and future potential business. Why do they have more referrals and more future? How do they have more referrals than sellers? And how do they have more future potential business? I've never heard that one. That sounds like a made up thing. Nevertheless, where I'm going with this is that what's the highest quality prospect? More people don't own a home than actually. I don't see how more people... Okay. Are you able to unmute to expand on it? I think I see where Rashad is going with it as in a case of what we saw during the pandemic where there were just so many buyers. Is that what you're saying Rashad? I just want to be sure. So many buyers, right? But guess what? Every buyer that closes, guess what else has to be there? It has to be a house. They have to be exactly. So guess what? Coincidentally, it's the craziest thing in the world, but there is actually the exact equal amount of buyers and sellers because every transaction has them. Rashad, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning, bro. How are you, man? I'm doing well, man. Good, bro. Tell me what you're talking about. So I just think statistically there are probably more people in the market chew by a house than not to buy a house. And so in terms of numbers, there's probably in my opinion, there's more potential business with those who would need to purchase a house than would need to sell a house. I just think about, especially people I know, I know more people who don't own than people who own houses. So some of that may be demographic as well. Yeah. And some of those people never own a house. They'll rent forever. But you know what's so funny is for every buyer, there's a seller. Right. So there's the equal amount of people who sell and buy. You would agree? No, I don't agree with that. Can I jump into? Hold on, James. Hold on, James. Hold on, James. Every single deal, Rashad, there's a buyer and a seller, correct? Exactly right. But again, I think there are more people who need a house than houses that there are to sell them or people who are selling the houses. So for instance, you know, we're in a little bit of a debacle right now, industry-wide, where we're not, you know, being able to keep up with the number of houses that are being built for the number of people who need to purchase their houses. So we're kind of in the deficit in terms of inventory. Yeah. Yeah, no, there's an inventory issue. Sure. Sure. But the people that actually close houses, buyers that actually close, there's the same amount of number of sellers, correct? I agree. There you go. So the amount of people that close houses, so it's the same number. So you're saying there's more people than want to buy houses that sell, but not true. It's the same exact number. There may be people that want houses that can't get it. They can't afford it. They can't find it, et cetera. But the same amount of people actually close the deals. So again, good. No, no, no. Sellers know the same amount of people as buyers. You only know so many people, right? Like let's just say you can like be best friends with like what, like 20, 30 people at the most, you know, or like 10 people or whatever. And then, you know, you may like acquaintances, you know, 100, 200, 300 people, something like that. It's the same capacity, right? I'm just trying to figure out. I'm just trying to understand. I mean, you may be onto something. I'm trying to understand how buyers have more referrals than sellers. Again, I think there are more people who need to buy houses than people who actually own houses. And so I think, again, the pool of people who need to purchase is larger than the pool of people who desire. So here's what I would say, and then I'll hear from you, James, is that God bless you because you know what? Guys like me who want to have dinner with their family at night and chill because my listings are being shown. And we need people like you out there in the streets showing those properties. We need you. So God bless you. James, go ahead. So first of all, I love the conversation and where this is going. And I think all of you are absolutely right. I think we will all rather spend our time with our families by deploying listings and having people, you know, do that for us. But I think to Rashad's point, I think, and this is how I see it, because tomorrow I have a home buying seminar and live podcast that I'm doing at New Construction. I selected New Construction to do that because I feel like that's where the inventory is right now. About a month ago, Candice was at the SCR conference and sent me a copy of a picture of a slide that showed in 2019, the average number of contracts written or the total percentage of new construction contracts written was like 28% in 2019. Last year was 50%. So then I looked at the area where I'm doing this New Construction seminar. It's an area we call Lugol. And I was able to pull the stats. And I saw 43% of all contracts written in January were New Construction for that area. So then I pulled it again for Richland County. And I think it was 34%. So the trend is New Construction is becoming the answer for our supply issue. And so if you're doing New Construction, it doesn't mean you don't have a home, right? But it means I think if your first time buyer is probably going to New Construction, 50% of the time in Charleston, 43% of the time in the area that I'm talking about, because we know a lot of sellers that are not New Construction are in golden handcuffs, right? And so the conversation with them is, how do I get you to exchange your 2.5% rate, the kitchen you just remodeled in the pool you put in in 2020, and exchange it for a 6.25 rate that's probably New Construction because what you want isn't out there because they're in golden handcuffs too. Yep. Cool. So this is what I think about that. I would rather, instead of working with first time home buyers in which I have to educate and spend hours and hours telling them what a contract is and what property taxes are and how they have to handle insurance and maintenance and upkeep and all the stuff with the closing call store, how we get paid, et cetera, what I feel like the highest quality, I'm just telling what I feel like the highest quality prospects are, what I would be doing if I were you is I would be calling people who have older homes, smaller homes than the New Construction. Okay. And then it went out. I've got a really nice four bedroom that's brand new, never been lived in. I love to show you. Oh, we have golden handcuffs. We have our hands tied. Well, if we stereotype James, every single property owner, they have golden handcuffs and they're just not going to sell because they have golden handcuffs. We lose if we, when we start stereotyping the prospects, as this is what everybody's doing, we lose our ass and we lose the opportunity that's right in front of our face. Here's the opportunity is when they buy the new construction, guess what they're going to do? Sell their house. And now I, now I did two deals and one. So now I'm putting myself in position where I'm not educating them because they're a first time home buyer. I'm not getting one deal. Now I've compressed my time, erased the education time and all the work I would have put into a first time home buyer. And now I'm dealing with a person that's educated and experienced and, and I get a bonus deal out of it because they're going to sell their house. Well, how are we going to get around the golden handcuffs? They'll figure it out. If you look in your MLS, you'll see homes of people that have 2%, 3%, 4% interest rates who are listing their properties. Why aren't they listing with you? They are listing. Is it a lot of them? Nope. They are listing though and there's a lot of them. It may be lower than normal, but we're getting back to pre-pandemic levels. And guess what? Guess what James, here's the best part. When you do that and they don't want to sell because they have golden handcuffs, when interest rates come down in a year and you've been, you've been communicating with them through a weekly email on the same day of the week for a year and they know you, they like you, they trust you, they've found that you're dependable, consistent, hardworking, and you have integrity. They're going to be like, that's, we're ready to go. Interest rates are down to, down to, you know, three, five and a quarter. You know, we're ready to let go of our 4% because we just got to have that, that brand new four bedroom. You're going to be the guy they come to when interest rates come down. So I'm looking at the opportunity of the gold rush of the people that are in these golden handcuffs who hate their house every day more and more and more that builds as pressure and built up demand. It's pent up demand that's going to be released. And I'm going to be the one who gets the brunt of that, that rush of people. Cause again, I'm building my career. I'm building my career and I'm going to run into the people, golden handcuffs that are okay, letting go of those golden handcuffs in the process and do a lot of business now. Cause I'm going to do two to your one and I'm going to spend less time on it cause I'm not having to educate the buyers. When I got in real estate, I was like, I'm going to have first time home buyers. That's why I'm going to get into real estate. And then after helping two first time home buyers, I said, I'm going to have them first time home buyers anymore. I'm going to go sell go front condos cause that's where the money's at. You've got to go where the money's at and where you can make the most impact to help the most people. When you make the most impact to help the most people, you make the most money. We're going to make the most impact to help the most people. For me, it's people who want to upgrade. So back to the 30 listings versus 30 buyers. I want buyers. Why? Because I want the buyers who also have to sell. And now I can do two deals instead of one. And now I can build my database of people who have golden handcuffs who are going to release or going to break those chains in the next 12 to 18 to 24 months. And I'm going to be the one that's been planting those seeds for two years instead of you who wants the golden handcuffs be released, then you're going to start calling them. But it's going to be too late. I've already been talking to them for two years. You got to start planting the seeds now and you will, you will sell more properties because you will do two deals instead of one on each deal instead of spending our time doing buyer seminars and helping all these first time home buyers learn how to do deals. I'm just saying it's not efficient. It's great. It's God's work. You're doing good to the community. I applaud you. But it's not efficient. It's not the most efficient thing we can do with our time to expand our business rapidly. Rashad, hey, I want buyers. I hope you heard me loud and clear, but I want the buyers who already own properties. Those are the highest quality prospects. When they buy, they're already educated. When they sell, it's a listing. I don't want to deal with the people who don't own a house. Those are the lowest quality prospects. I got to educate them. They're only going to do one deal. They don't know what they're doing. Give me the highest quality and it's the most efficient. Just saying. Now, how do we do this? Guys, you can wake up in the morning and sell any listing you want to sell. You wake up in the morning and pick any listing, right? Pick any listing. Doesn't matter what it is. One of yours, somebody else's. Pretty soon, it's going to have to be yours because no buyer commission, right? In MLS, it's going to have to be yours on market, off market. It doesn't matter. You find a house that somebody wants to sell and now you find all the owners around it that have a smaller house. Call them. Say, hey, I see you've got a two-bedroom. I'm going to get a three-bedroom. You need a four. Now we're not calling to say what we've been brainwashed to say for the last 40 years, which is, hey, I got a buyer or would you consider selling? In that scenario, we're trying to take something that's why nobody makes calls because we feel like we're calling to take something from somebody. We're trying to get them to sell. We're trying to get them to do something. But when you do it like I'm saying, we're calling to offer value. Why don't we try to sell your house? I'm trying to see if you need a better life, a bigger house, a newer house, a better view. I'm Mr. I want to make your life better and give you a better quality of life, not Mr. Every other agent who just wants to try to get your listing. And then guess what? Through the process happens, you get the listing and you help them do whatever it is they want to do because now they open up to you and tell you everything they want to do and why they want to do it. And now you can actually help them. This is what it's all about, ladies and gentlemen. Let me read Tim's comment because he says there's a flaw here. Many buyers are renters, so they're not selling anything. I don't know what you mean there, Tim. So they're not selling anything. The sellers still have to live somewhere else. It's still one-to-one ratio. Every seller needs to buy. Every buyer needs to sell. Tim, where are you at, buddy? I'm here. Tell me what you got going on. Well, it's just like what Rashad was saying and you said, see, saying if you're a representative buyer, you can get more leads and you were saying it's one-to-one. You know, every seller needs to buy, everybody needs to sell. It's the same concept. You're saying you would rather have the listings, which is so would I, honestly, because they're just easier. But you said you'd rather have the listings because it generates more down the road because they have to. I didn't say that. I'm sorry. You'd rather have the buyers because they have to sell. If they're renting somewhere, they have nothing to sell. I'm not calling renters, my bro. I'm calling the owner of the house. Right. But you're not calling renters. Okay. But you're still not going to get, all of your buyers aren't going to be someone who is already having a property, already has property. There's going to be a lot of renters in that as well. No, no. Tim, I'm only calling property owners. I'm not calling renters. I'm only calling property owners. I'm not calling renters. Okay. I said it twice so you could hear me. Okay. And then who's buying the property that you're selling? Hey, maybe I'll find another owner who wants to upgrade to that house. Maybe another agent finds a buyer. I don't know. What does that matter? Because the way you're saying this, the way you're putting this as, you know, when you're representing this person, you're getting two. When you're representing that person, now that two becomes four. At some point, the logic fails because some people who are buying don't have a property to sell. It's the point that I was making. If they don't have a property to sell, that's fine. If it's the first time a buyer is awesome, I sold the property. Why would I care about that? Tim, all you have to have is one buyer or one seller. If you call a subdivision and say, hey, I have a four bedroom, do you need a four bedroom? You're going to find out of 100 people, you'll talk to 10 and then out of that two people want to do something, but not by that house. You know how much work that gives you to now call more people? Right. My only argument is the flaw in the logic is that it cuts both ways. Whether you're seeking out listings or whether you're seeking out buyers, it's the same at the end of the day. That is what I'm pointing out. So if I go for the listings instead of going for the buyers, they still have to buy a house. So it's still one-to-one. They're not going to sell their house and be homeless. This goes right back to 2020 when everyone was saying, oh, my house was worth two times what it was. I'm going to sell it and make money. No, you actually have to live somewhere. So you're going to sell it for twice, but then you go buy another one that costs more. So it's a watch. That was my point. Okay. So in your point though, they do two deals, right? In your scenario? As long as they are an owner, yes. If you put a listing up and the person who's interested in buying a new renter, then no. Okay. Even if your effort is turned into one deal, okay? Yes. Either do one deal or maybe two deals, right? Did you just get one or two commissions doing what I said? Yes, but that doesn't change. Again, the argument was that you're saying you focus on buyers, specifically buyers who have a homeless as you stated. It doesn't matter whether you're targeting the buyer, whether you're targeting the seller is the point that I was making. It's the same. It's one to one just like you said earlier. Where are the buyers that you're talking about targeting? Where are they coming from? Is it Zillow? Is it YouTube? Is it Facebook? Is it worth it? If I'm on the listing side, like I said, I prefer listings. If I'm on the listing side, I'm not targeting buyers. I'm putting the listing up and targeting them. I know, but the argument that you're making is, is that it doesn't matter if you're targeting listings or buyers. That's what you're saying, right? Okay. So in that scenario, in that scenario, where somebody's targeting buyers, where are they getting those buyers from? That would depend on the agent and me personally. I look through, you know, you can pull the metadata and you look for somebody who's been in the home more than five years. You look at someone who's likely either, because that's what I call property owners for buyers, to be the buyers. So that, that's exactly what I'm saying to do. So what's the argument? That you were saying that it's better to target the buyers. My point is, it doesn't matter whether you're targeting, listings are easier. I think we can all agree on that. You put the property up, you're going to get buyers no matter what. Listings are easier. Whether that leads to, and really we'd be talking about four closings, but that's again, that's how it works in real estate. There's matter, because you've got your listing, you've got a buyer that's two. You've got, if you get that lead, and then you've got their end and their end. Anyway, point is, it doesn't matter if you're targeting listings, or if you're targeting buyers at the end of the day, every home needs a buyer, every buyer needs a home. And as long as we don't put the renters back into it, if you find it easier, because again, the point you were making was, you target buyers because it generates more work, not inherently. That's the flaw. You can target listings. You can target people who are home owners who are listing now, and generate the same amount of work. If you find listings easier, like I do, focus on the listings. You will still get the same number at the end of the day. Here's my point, Tim. For the people who focus on YouTube, Facebook, Zillow, Google Ads, where 80% of their business, 90%, I know a guy who did 100 million last year off YouTube, right? He'll tell you 95% of his business was buyers. Okay. My point is, if you're focused on buyers, and 95% of your business is buyers, you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off, correct? Absolutely. And that's not as efficient as what you and I, you and I are talking about the same thing. We're talking about calling property owners, either to get listings or to see if they want to buy something, either way, whatever. We're calling property owners to serve them, to see what it is they want to do and why, and help them do it, correct? Sure. Absolutely. Okay. So we're talking about the same thing. What I'm arguing against is focusing on strictly buyers, and our actions bring buyers in from the streets. We're not calling property owners to see if they're buyers. Where I'm saying income inbound leads from Zillow, Google, Facebook, YouTube, okay? That's not as efficient of a business as what you and I are agreeing on. That's all I'm saying. But I think maybe I missed it in the wording, because you were saying you target buyers, that you would rather represent buyers. And I'm saying, no, I'd rather represent listings. Yeah, who own property? Yeah. Who are going to list. I'm doing it to get listings, Tim. Right. Okay. We're on the same page. Go ahead, Candace. This is certainly, I love hearing different perspectives. Are you doing it? Yeah, so that way we can hear different sides. As James said, it's a spirited conversation this morning. And I think ultimately, Ricky, I'm just going to kind of summarize what I'm hearing, is we are looking at how we can leverage our time. It's all about leveraging time as agents. It is about what can we do? If we do target buyers that own homes, own property, and convert them into sellers, it's a win-win. And at the end of the day, when I first started out, guys, I was big 85% buyer's agent. That's what I did. I worked with first-time buyers. I was at the first-time home buyer grant seminars. I knew the first-time home buyer programs, like the back of my hand. And then pretty soon, I saw that I was missing my daughter's birthday parties. I was missing vacations because what was I doing? I was showing houses all the time. So with this perspective, if we do look at taking a look at leveraging our time, targeting the buyers that may have to sell to James's point, new construction, 50% of what we sold in our market in South Carolina was new construction in 2019. So if we do that, we can leverage our time. So, Ricky, I believe that was the point. Again, I love the perspectives that we're all coming from. So I just wanted to kind of take a look at that because I love leveraging my time. When I became a broker owner, I could not work with buyers anymore. At the level I did, it was practically impossible. I'm managing over 100 agents trying to show 10 houses a day. It wasn't going to work because I was not giving that buyer the level of service they deserved. So it depends, guys, on where you want your business. We need buyers' agents. We need buyers to sell, to close our listings. But where do you want your business to go? So I just wanted to kind of chime in on that. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Listen, I never consider myself a listing agent or a buyer's agent. I consider myself a real estate agent who helps anybody. I've never turned a buyer down in my life. Never, never referred a single one of them out. But 80% of my business is always listings. Now, the strategy I'm talking about with calling sellers to see if they'll upgrade, you guys realize when you do this, they hardly ever want to buy the house you're talking about. This gets into a conversation that allows them to open up to tell you what they actually want to do, which most of them has nothing to do with the house you're calling about. Now, it's just a better angle on the conversation other than as opposed to do you want to sell, would you sell, or consider selling, or have a buyer, trying to get them to do something. You're bringing them value first. Then they're like, wow, I never had an agent actually call to bring me value. I like this person. I'm going to open up to them and tell them what we actually want to do. We're thinking about doing. You have a much better chance of getting the listing. At the end of the day, that's all I'm saying. Can I mention the other thing that I might take away, my summary takeaway that I want everybody to hear is what Ricky explained. We got to look at what we do. It's a long game. Real estate is a long game. And I think too often we play and look for the low hanging fruit because we need something to close right now. But what Ricky described in that strategy he's talking about is you're looking at the time you want to be in real estate, whatever that is for you, your career, 10 years, 20 years. How many deals can I fit into that time? Because I've got to put something in place where I'm talking to these people, buyers, sellers, whoever it is over the course of time or I'm top of mind. So when it's time, they call on me. And it's a long game, not a short game. And we got to play it that way. Yeah. And if you play the long game at a high level, you'll do twice as much business now. Twice as much. I love it. I love the debate, the spiritedness and all the viewpoint. That's what we're trying to go after anyway. Sometimes we say stuff to try to get you to come off mute. So Ricky, thank you. My pleasure, guys. My pleasure, guys. I appreciate it. Much love. Go to my website, zero to diamond.com. You can join that platform for free. I've got all my scripts. I have all my email templates for my weekly email. You can connect with me there, zero to diamond.com. And just let me know if there's something I could do to help you guys. You know, here's the deal. I'm not Jesus when it comes to real estate. I can only tell you my experiences over the last 22 years. And hopefully at least some, maybe a little piece, 1% of something I said, maybe click to help mold your business into something better. That's my hopes for today. So you guys have a good rest of your day. And I appreciate you guys and just keep doing what you do. Yes, Ricky. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. We appreciate it. We do appreciate it. It's great. Absolutely, guys. Thanks, guys.