 Happy Thursday, everyone! We're in our new time slot for Geeks R Sexy, new to me because this is my first time new time slot. If you have a regular watcher every week, you've been watching for a little while with Michelle Davis. But we are now at 2 o'clock on Thursday afternoons. It's great to be here. It's a little easier to get out of the studio and on our way on a Friday afternoon instead of being out here at the busy time on strip traffic. So welcome to Geeks R Sexy. I'm Jason Laduke from Evil Genius Leadership Consultants, and I'm your host today to talk about all things about how to have a successful business and a successful professional life here in Las Vegas. We're gonna jump right into it. My first guest today is Lene Forbes of Forbes Realty Group. She specialized in the sale of new and existing homes in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and Henderson. And as part of her industry experience, she's had a lot of opportunity to work all the little jobs that go into real estate. So she hasn't always been that real estate agent out in front showing the homes. She's had a lot of experience working in the Air Force. We call it Back Shop, the behind the scenes work in real estate. And that really helps her with her clients. And she likes to arm her clients with an understanding of the market to help them make sound decisions and that she believes that the most satisfied client is a client who feels included in the process and that leads to a successful closing for them. Excuse me. I'm having a hard time today. So Lene, thank you for being here. Welcome to Geeks R Sexy. How are you today? I'm awesome with the exception of the heat. Yeah. So last month, I talked about how hot it was. Well, it's even hotter this month. So I'm gonna stop talking about the weather here in Las Vegas because it leads to me talking about how hot it is on the show all the time. So let's jump into what it is you do and how you do it differently than other realtors here in Las Vegas. Tell us about the philosophy you have, your philosophy of helping people buy and sell homes here in Las Vegas. And what's the driving force behind what you do for the people you help? Well, my biggest thing is is I want to encourage my clients and empower them. So by the buyer, we empower them to be able to search the internet 24 seven. With our sellers, we empower them to be flippers in their own house. Yeah, that's what I really want to get into a little bit today. That's exciting. Yeah, that's a fun, exciting part. But when you talked about the back story, the backside of everything. So I worked a number of years as a notary signing agent, which included working for escrow companies. And that was a great experience because you get to understand what the escrow companies are looking for, what the title companies are looking for. So often I'm ahead of my peers because of that. And then I also processed loans for five years for a company here for about three different loan officers. So that too was very enlightening process. And I enjoyed it. What's something specific you learned from working the back shop, the escrow side of things that helps you help serve your clients a little better than someone who hasn't done that might? Well, when I know how to read the settlement sheet, I know how to read the preliminary report. But I also know some of the what's behind what why they ask certain questions of clients. Like, you know, if you're married, and but you're actually buying the property and you're going to be a soul and separate. Did you know that even though you're going to be soul and separate on that property that your spouse still has to sign off and it's not signing off their rights, it's only signing off to ensure the file. Big difference if you're talking to in a divorce attorney because just because you sign that document doesn't mean you lost your rights in the state of Nevada for actually settling with your spouse if you get divorced and that that property is only in their name. So that's hugely important if you are a real estate investor or you're you're buying a rental property, even if you're putting it in one name for whatever reasons you might be doing that nefarious or otherwise, the sound you're the spouse still have to sign off on that. Yeah, I am very hard time today. And that's the biggest reason why is for the it's for the title company to ensure the file. So often people don't realize when you just go file a document with the county, let's say you decide that you want to put it into your trust and you didn't talk to an attorney, and you go sign that document, you send it down to the county and you record it. It is considered an uninsured document. That's one of the things that most agents don't understand. And the great news is is that when I see something like that, I'm already ahead of it. I'm already asking my seller, Hey, by the way, do we know who this person is can get ahold of them. We're gonna have to do an affidavit for the title company because we got to ensure this document now. That's one of the things I learned in the Air Force, especially when I was working a staff job at a headquarters in Colorado Springs is that documentation needs to be really tight. You need to have a really good understanding, not just of what it is you're trying to do, but all the little pieces that that everyone along the way who's going to have to touch that document needs to see and it sounds like that's what you've got here is with that back shop experience, you know all the people who have to touch a document before, before it goes into that final file and becomes that public record and not become like the, you know, the ninth hour. Oh, everybody's got a race to get it down because someone just discovered it, right? Because I know how to read those documents and I know how to ask the questions. I'm already on it before we you don't have to ruin somebody's Friday afternoon trying to track that stuff down. So that's awesome. Well, so you have a unique way of helping homeowners make more money on their sale. And that's really what we want to get to today today. Well, I think the biggest one is to talk about is that we actually can help our sellers get anywhere from seven to 11% more on their listing. If they get work done that prior to, for example, just basic things, painting, carpet, the last house we did, we replaced all the toilets. The kind of the kind of work that just about every home needs to have done if you've been living in it for any length of time. Exactly. Or it's been a rental, which has happened often to us. Oh, yeah, for sure. So I'm closing one tomorrow. We actually got our client 10.3% over list. Okay. And so tell us, tell us what the tell us what the what our viewers need to know about how you do that for a seller. Well, first of all, we go in and it's called taking the flip out of real estate. By the way, I got a call from the trademark company or trademark of the government, the USPTO. And we are actually on the road to getting that trademark standing. Congratulations. I needed to give them two more documents and I have to do that on Monday. So it's been tm'd. We've also done a show. Yeah, I want to hear about that. Okay. So part of what we do is the introduction is showing me the property. Now, one of the things that I think is important is as an agent is knowing what's going to sell. What is a buyer looking for that? I know why because I work with buyers too. And what's the biggest complaint I hear from buyers? Oh, I don't want to paint even though it's an inexpensive thing to do. They don't want to deal with it. Right. So I've talked the seller into doing what we call the very basics. We don't do over the top. So we do the painting, we do the carpet. In the next house I've got, we're going to do linoleum in the current house. We did the toilets, fix the cabinetry, just little things that make a huge difference. If this house had gone on the market without any of the work, I can tell you right now they would have gotten beat up on their price, gotten insulting offers. So not only do we take the flip out of real estate, we take the insult out of real estate too. Yeah, and that's something I know is really stressful for a homeowner when they're trying to sell. Did you know that 39% of the sellers out there who would choose to sell would rather go get the tooth extracted than deal with repairing their house and preparing it for the market? I did not know that. And so the thing here is that the sellers don't put the money up front for these repairs, correct? No, we handle all of that. We finance it, we find the vendors, we do the whole, we do the whole ball of wax. As my last client Kim said, you took the stress out of my life. And I think that's really the key to this is the the money in your pocket at the end of the process is nice, but money in your pocket plus not having to deal with the stress of those insulting offers, those other house flippers trying to come in and get this for for a song and trying to kind of kind of lean you, lean you to taking their price because the well it means this work and this is done and this is scratched and we did less than $6,000 worth of work to get this seller the 10% over list. Yeah. And the list price that we usually go with I actually went through an appraisal class and we really work to make sure what is out there, what is an appraiser going to see. And I pull all those comps together and then I come up with a price and our price on this particular house was 273.8 because that's what it worked out that an appraiser would see. Right. So that was appraised you got 10% above that. And we did. Right. So quick math in public. So $27,000 for $6,000 that you put in. So that seller walked away with $21,000 more than they would have by not doing the things that were stressing them out. Exactly. And there's the big one, the stress. Yeah. So she was out of state on top of that. So there's that stress is gone. She knows we're closing tomorrow. It's like she's so excited. I'm excited. That's awesome. So you're putting all this in a TV show. You've shot one episode but it's not ready to air and you're not sure where you're going to air yet either. Correct. So we're going to have to have you back. I know. When you have your premiere we're going to have you back on this show. Okay. Even though there will be small potatoes to you by then. But we're going to have you back on this show when your show premieres. But in the meantime tell our audience how they can get a hold of you so that you can help them take the flip out of real estate. We actually came up with a a phone number. It's called 213 flip out. There's a message there how to get a hold of us. But the other one is is forbsurlitygroup.com. You can find me and all of my contact information linked in Facebook the whole even our YouTube channel which is youtube slash forbsurlitygroup. So we've got we're out there so it's really easy to find us. And of course we'll all will have all the information the phone number linked up in our show notes for this as well on my website. So thank you for being here today. This is exciting. Great to have you. We're going to have you back in a little bit for our panel discussion talking talking about education and workforce development here in Las Vegas. I'm Jason Laduke. This is Geeks are Sexy. We'll be right back with Dr. Thomas Kenney.