 Real estate companies are making a lot of money right now, all but guaranteed that an offer of compensation in the MLS will be gone very shortly. If a buyer were required to pay the commission, it does have an impact on who can afford to purchase. If you're an agent representing buyers and sellers, I think you should be aware, but you don't have to be as concerned. The best thing you could do for your financial future is to put three more into contract. There's some serious flaws in the business models, like big problems there, because all those leads are no longer leads. If you spend time studying what you do with a buyer, you spend way more time with them and working with them than you do with a seller. I want my gladiator that goes into the arena to do battle for me and help me win. I don't want someone who's representing us. It would make sense to be able to communicate to the agent population that a seller is willing to offer a commission to the buyer's agent. Okay, what's up everybody? Ricky Caruth here. Good to see you. Thanks for tuning in. I've got James DeWiggins here, CEO, co-founder of Nextome. I also have Keith Robinson also connected with Nextome. What's up, fellas? What's going on? How are you? What are you drinking? Fresca? Is that a fresca? Every time I take a sip of fresca, I get a new listing. And there's the secret advice. Everybody needs to follow. By the way, I have them in my fridge, so that's why I was asking. Podcast over. That's all you need to know, party people. Drink fresca, pick up listings, angels get their wings, and I'm just rolling in. There it is. I thought that was all. I double up, though, too. I got Coke Zero. So you have a commitment issue. Does that get you buyers? Is the Coke buyers? Connecting buyers and sellers here. Coke buyers. It's not good to see you guys, man. You too. James, if you could maybe just tell everybody who you are and what you do. So I run next home, the National Real Estate Franchise with my partner in crime here, Keith Robinson. We, in our spare time, also do a podcast, which we were, you graced our podcast as well, which we were excited about, called Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered, which we did as kind of a fun outlet for Keith and I to pontificate on the industry. And now it became this like thing. So it's like another project for us because it's gotten a lot of traffic. But anyway, so yeah, we do that. I've been in the real estate my whole life. My grandfather started a real estate brokerage in 1967. I wasn't even born yet. You were not, well, you're close, but. Easy. Easy. I'm kidding. So yeah, I've been in the business my whole life, third generation. And it's been a roller coaster, my friends. Through ups, downs, ups, and then downs, which were where we're currently at. So. When did, when did you guys start next home? 2014 is when we launched the company. And it's been, it's been a ride. We, we bootstrapped the baby. And nine years later, we have about 630 offices across the U.S. and we do a little bit of business. Are you guys in all 50 states or? 49. 49. We cannot figure out how to get into South Dakota. I just don't. I mean, there's only like one city there anyway, but like, so. If you're listening in South Dakota, we're just kidding. Yeah. I mean, we're not kidding about not being there, but. Yeah. Sparse. Cool. Cool. And then, then you, you started out selling real estate or how, like, what did you do at the very beginning when you got into the industry? Were you a real estate agent listening in sales? Or did you get right into like more like manager team, you know, stuff or marketing or something like that? I'll let Keith share his version. Mine's kind of short. I worked at my parents' real estate company to begin with. And it was a small mom and pop shop that they, they did. Did a lot of stuff with them. Then I got into tech sector and started and sold two tech companies in residential real estate. We were, we had created WordPress before WordPress. So we're very far ahead of our time and we created signature software before DocuSign. So again, we were very far ahead of our time. Both those companies I sold in 2001 and then 2006 respectively. Then then from there I got into, I was sitting on the couch unemployed because I sold the company. And one of my clients has like, you're being a lazy piece of shit. You need to come work for us and do something. So I, it's actually a true story. And I was like, no, I don't want to do anything right now. And basically I went to work for a regional franchise here in Northern California called Realty World. And they had about 420 officers. They're a big organization in Northern California. And so I went there and started as the director of technology. And then I worked my way up to vice president and then ended up buying them in 2014 when we started Next Home and ran both companies side by side for a while. Key is my story is more interesting. But now Realty World is. Realty World we sold in 2020. Yeah. So the only focus on Next Home now. Yeah. I see. Okay, cool. And then Keith, what's your. That was not planned. That was like perfect timing. It was February 2020. So yeah. It was good timing. It's kind of like selling a tech company in 01, right? I mean, that's the dot com bubble, huh? Yeah. Top of it. We sold, we did virtual tours actually. We had a photography network around the country. We used a technology called Be Here. They were out of Silicon Valley. They had these big camera domes and it's a long story. But we did a first virtual tour photography network when. I'm going to date myself now when I picked some bamboo.com were the two major players that was them and. And USA virtual tours, which is the company we got. We got bought by a newspaper firm. I can't remember who that was now, but it was a long time ago. So yeah. Wow. Mine's not so interesting. I started 25 years ago in residential real estate, representing buyers and sellers, but missed that sort of small business startup. Vibe and jam because that's what I had done before. So went down the leadership track for residential real estate. A tiny little company called Keller Williams was coming to Northern California. But at the time they were no, I remember making recruiting calls for KWU when they first launched and I would call and say, hey, it's Keith Robinson with Keller Williams and they would say, yeah, I don't need to buy paint because they would smush together Kelly Moore and Sherman Williams. Yeah. Launched a bunch of offices for them in Northern California. One point in time I ran the 19th largest real estate company in the nation. Funny story. I was like, okay, I'm done with all the corporate shit. I'm just going to, you know, and I'll do flips and ground up construction stuff, maybe a little regional private money bank. James reached out and said, hey, I'm launching this new thing. And I said, nah, man, like I love you, but I just can't do the corporate thing anymore. He's like, come on, just come take a look at it. So we met. He's like, it's got this great name. I got this great concept. And I was like, yeah, no, it's really cool, but I'm good. He's like, okay, we'll just help me out. He's so good, right? He's like, help me out. I need to solve a mortgage situation. So just come solve that problem for us and then see what happens. Of course, as I got to spend more time with the leadership team, all of whom I tried to recruit at different times in my career and couldn't. So proof James is a better leader because he recruited all of us. No. But in the end, I remember that feeling being very early KW where like I was like, damn, I don't know where this is headed, but it's special. And in the time that I was spending with next home working on this consulting project, I was like, I don't know where this is headed, but it's going to be special. And you don't always get an opportunity to be part of the leadership team for something that will be significant. So I said, yeah, and here I am eight years later, nine years later. And he's completely miserable. It's like a marriage. No, that's not true. I love almost most of most of my days. I'm kidding. So yeah, that's my background. Well, I mean, you guys are crushing it. If you're in 49 states, you got all these offices. How many agents? We have about 5,500 agents and we do quite a bit of business. So obviously the market's down a little bit here, but we'll close the year out probably close to 30,000 transactions and over 12 billion in volume. So company, company does some good, some good business. Yeah. Very nice. So I was thinking about which way to take this conversation because there's so much, you know, going on. Yeah. There's so much on residential real estate, so much like, you know, knowledge, you know, on this, on this show. And just that the buyer can. Is that another buyer? Yeah. A minute. I'll get a seller. But I mean, like what number one, I do want to touch on not necessary the lawsuits because like who, who really, I mean, at this point, who cares about that? It's, it's kind of become a mood point, honestly, with just like every day there's a new one and it's a small stuff. And everybody kind of knows what, you know, they've done their own. They've dug into it as much as they want to. And they kind of understand to whatever level they want to, you know, what's happening there. I would like to talk about like certain scenarios that could play out and how that could affect agents and what agents can do. What we think agents should be kind of, should they even be concerned? I want to go down that road a little bit. But I also want to talk about, you know, like when you guys bring agents in, right, do you guys have in-house coaching and house training? Like what are you guys doing to help agents, you know, double their volume when they come over, get going as a new agent? You know, what do you guys have in place there? And what kind of, you know, what direction are you guys going with agents in terms of lead gen and different things like that? Are you guys? Where do you want to start? You want to start with the lawsuit side? Yeah. Yeah, let's start there. Okay. You go first James, then I'll, you do play by play. I'll do color. Okay. Yeah. You know, I think, I think they do need to be concerned about the lawsuits for a variety of reasons. You know, one is their brokerages are, many cases are already being sued. Litigation defense costs are astronomical when it comes to antitrust litigation. It's very expensive. It's a very specialized practice of law. They're having to hire. They can't just use their general counsel basically. So they've got to go hire a firm that understands, you know, antitrust federal antitrust issues. And it's happening at a time when brokerages are, are broke. The first part of that word is broke. So, you know, real estate companies aren't making a lot of money right now. And like, look, agents think brokerages make all this money. They don't. Okay. You actually have to remember that you keep a majority of the split. And, and so these companies, because they're, they're the fiduciary are going to bear a majority of these defense costs. And depending upon the firm, they either can afford it or they can't. And if they can't, then the only option is bankruptcy. And I'm not suggesting that's going to happen everywhere, but I do think you will see that occur depending upon who the defendant is and sort of what their cash flow is and what they can spend on, on defense. And I think agents do need to be prepared for that. I think they also need to be thinking very strategically about what is going to happen with these, these cases. The DOJ just came out and said that they're not happy with the no select settlement proposal. They want an outright ban on an offer of compensation in the MLS. I think that needs to sink in like you're going to see a world, whether it's done through these civil cases, through the Department of Justice or through the Federal Trade Commission. You've got three entities or both, three different directions that are hitting on changes in our industry. I think it's all but guaranteed. And I'm happy to go on record of saying that all but guaranteed that an offer of compensation in the MLS will be gone very shortly. And so what does that world look like? Right. How are you going to provide information to a buyer's agent? How are you going to bring a transaction together when the DOJ and these government agencies as well as the plaintiffs in these cases want a world, this is the world they want. They want the seller to pay the seller's agent. They want the buyer to pay the buyer's agent. That's fundamentally what these things are about. Yeah. That's fundamentally where they want it to go and fundamentally where it's going to end up one way or the other. Right. So the plaintiffs are sellers so far. There's a case with buyers who basically are saying like they wish they could have negotiated and I guess paid their own commission. But this is seller saying this. A seller, they want the seller to pay their commission, buyer to pay their commission. What do you think the buyers want? Well, the buyers would prefer to have it be the old way, especially your first time home buyer. Right. The downside to this is that if a buyer were required to pay the commission, it does have an impact on who can afford to purchase. Right. We already have affordability headwins in the United States. That'll only be exacerbated if the buyer is required. And we'll unpack a little bit if you want like some solutions that we see. But you don't want, if you want a robust real estate market and by robust, I mean buyers can buy and sellers can sell whether prices are trending up or down. You want liquidity and ease in and out of a real estate market. You don't want anything that adds headwinds to the first time home buyer marketplace. And that will be a real issue. There are some ways that you can work around it and there's some skills that James and I have been telling anyone who listened they need to develop and work on. But it will get a little harder to sell a house. If everything that we think will happen will happen, it will get harder for the entry level buyer to purchase. I want to add one small point to what James said. But part of the reason we get along so well is we don't ever always agree. Look, if you're an agent representing buyers and sellers, I think you should be aware, but you don't have to be as concerned. And so like concern and aware to me are two different things. And if you're an agent representing buyers and sellers, the single best thing you could do for your financial future, lawsuit or not is put a few more into contract. And so be aware of what's going on, be thoughtful about it. We'll talk to you about some skills you should be working on if you represent buyers and sellers. But don't get obsessed with the lawsuit talk. Don't go watch hours and hours and hours of James and I's podcast. I mean, do because, you know, it makes us feel good and our moms like it. But most importantly, the best thing you could do for your financial future is to put three more into contract. So be aware or a likely outcome is, but don't let it distract you from your sales business. I think that last word is important, prepare. Just plan. But you're right. This is going to take a lot of time for it all to figure itself out. So don't like, you know, stay up late at night worrying about it. Let us do that. Broker concern. Broker, if you're a broker, you need to have a higher level of understanding and awareness because at some point, you may get named in a suit, right? And so you need to be thinking a little bit more and have some more concern than an agent who I don't mean just in the you know, air quote, just representing buyers and sellers. So broker, you should be concerned. Agent, you should be aware everyone should be preparing for what is probably on the other side of this, which is a change in the way business is done. Do you think to two questions, do you think that individual agents could potentially be called into suits? And number two, when you ban commissions from being offered on MLS, is it a complete ban rule? Can't do it even if the seller wants to do it? Let's do this. Let's do the second one first. Are you going to do the first one first? No, we'll do the second one first. I actually just had this conversation. So it's kind of relevant. The answer is the DOJ wants it removed completely. The fight is going to be that won't preclude a seller can still it's still America mostly, right? If a seller wants to give the buyer's agent money in order to facilitate a transaction, a seller can do that. And that won't change even if compensation is removed from the MLS. So it will become another term just like, I don't know, you know, everyone listening is from all different places, right? But everywhere you've got all the check boxes on the contract where you say buyer pays for this, seller pays for that, we split it 50-50 and you've got norms in your local market for who pays for what. There's going to be a new item that you're going to get to negotiate some day in the not to this in future that is going to be buyer commission. And every area will generate its norms and there will be different solutions in a really competitive environment in the same way you tweak some of those terms on the contract agreement, you're going to tweak some of those so that your offer can be more acceptable if it's a non-competitive situation and you kind of tweak them the other way to benefit the buyer and the seller may carry some additional costs in the contract. This will be one more term in condition albeit a big one, right? There's a lot of dollars associated with this in the grand scheme of a real estate transaction but it's really like if you want to simplify it it's one more term in condition to negotiate in the future. I completely agree with everything you said and I'll just add one. I don't have anything else to add to it other than I think the fight you're going to see well, let's just put it this way the fight you will see 100% is the DOJ wants the offer of compensation removed in the MLS. They're going to get that. The question is can we have a field in the MLS that allows the seller credit or concession to keep comment. They can do money for a 2-1 buy down or we're going to give you $5,000 to fix the deck or we're going to offer the buyer's agent 1% to help close the deal. I think that is a very realistic thing because But would they be able to put that in MLS though? That's the question No buyer commission then That's not commission though. That's a credit the seller is allowing to offer a credit to whatever that they want to do so it can be an auction website. You can't prohibit a seller from the keys comment. If I want to give an extra incentive for somebody to buy my car I have every God given right in this country to do it unless we want to destroy America. There's a question there but the reality is if a seller wants to say I want to do something there should be in a mechanism but it's not an offer of compensation. Here's a field you can put things into for whatever that scenario is which to keys comment time and space and area and transaction if we're going to put something in MLS that doesn't say buyer commission but it really is where it's not the different where I think and look we're all forecasting pontificating, speculating that's all fancy words for saying I'm just trying to understand we're all guessing I'm thinking about this a lot buyers are saying we don't even need agents, everything's on Zillow do you realize that's not even why you need an agent most buyers aren't really saying that though some are but the ones that are that think they understand let's take those buyers for example everything's on Zillow if you take buyer agent commission off of MLS now why at that point is Zillow, Zillow's going to move their business model over and they're not really going to necessarily be syndicating all these listings for free if they can't sell buyer leads, correct? Yeah, let's unpack that a little bit access to information has done nothing but gone up over the last decade so the human being who buys and sells a home, their home has more access to information about the residential real estate process values everything than they've ever had in the history of the world and over the last decade it's spiked it's a hockey stick, more information you know what's happened to the use of a real estate agent over the last decade it's gone up, not doubt so the more complicated it gets and the more the human being becomes aware of the complication the more we look for another human being to shepherd us through that process so I think use of a real estate agent on the other side of this will probably go up, not down I'm basing that off of the history I agree, I agree I've been talking about that the value of agents I think we lose a lot of agents that don't understand how to navigate or adapt to the new market but the ones that left the value of those agents actually increases in the new market and one thing is that I'm trying to wrap my head around is why would Zillow continue to syndicate where's a different problem for Zillow theoretically I think it's a good problem actually because I think a different business model like a pay-to-play like homes.com or whatever well Zillow has he's got this really good one by the way so our belief, James has alluded to it our belief is that you will have every state that will require a buyer broker agreement they'll all be a little different based off of state norms etc but there are 12, 13 states it's now 15 is what I've heard 15 states require it so they require a buyer broker agreement that means when you meet with a buyer and you say I want to be your agent then you sit down and you go over what you get paid, how much and by whom and what you do and the buyer agrees if no one else will pay you I will that's most buyer broker agreements that I've looked at I've not looked at all 14 if I meet with you and I we signed a buyer broker agreement you now we're committed to working together and working together exclusively and we have outlined the terms of how I'm going to get paid and our relationship that's great that's awesome super clear but what happens when you go fill out 10 online lead forms for Zillow and I've already signed a buyer broker agreement with Ricky Caruth and now Zillow takes in those leads I guess and resells them and sells them to another agent that's a mess it's not just Zillow by the way any lead portal because you can't have what is it the last number I heard in 2021 was like 86 million leads were distributed to agents and yet there's still only like 5.5 million people that buy a house so these leads are going into multiple websites and if you comment if the first point of contact with a buyer property which will be where it's pretty standardized is you have to sign a buyer rep agreement and then they keep going on and filling out lead inquiry forms yeah to your point Ricky like there's some serious flaws in the business models like big problems there because all those leads are no longer leads now that being said I think that it's important to understand the comment that you made we don't think that buyers agency goes away I think that's a myth the reason I say that is for everything Keith mentioned and this is a very infrequent transaction look I'll go on my soapbox for a sec agents suck at articulating value on the buy side we've never had to do it we haven't because we were like look this is what we do I'm going to help you buy a house and by the way it's paid on the other side and the buyer is like okay like nobody's ever sat down and treated a buyer super important comment treat a buyer like a seller you're not going to sit down with a seller and not do a listing presentation and provide comps and explain what you do and your value and the marketing and the advertising and all of this stuff do the same thing on the buy side here's the funny part by the way I guarantee you if you spent time studying what you do with a buyer you spend way more time with them and working with them than you do with a seller yet we don't in most cases find a buyer rep agreement asking for exclusivity we have to get good at this and it's not complicated I'll use this one example it resonates with people when my mom moved out of the mountains to a house because my father passed away I used an agent one of ours and this is really important she sent me the disclosure package for the property that my mom was going to purchase my mom's a retired realtor by the way but it's 15 years ago she doesn't know what the hell is in that package and I'm not studying this 55 plus community that she's moving into it was 126 pages so everybody hears that by the way when everybody talks crap about California you can thank us for how big your contracts are you're welcome you're welcome and this is the point this is so important she sent me the disclosure package and in the email was like 6 or 7 bullet points of things I needed to know and then I was like great we'll talk about them tomorrow morning in our 30 minute update and I said I hit thank you and hit reply what I didn't do until 5 minutes later was I was like looking at that doc I'm like I don't have time to read this shit and I was like man I responded back I was like hey hey Don how much how long did it take you to how long did it take you to read that thing I spent 6 hours going through that for you see the problem I as the buyer there was no value to me in the email of the bullet points and I didn't think about the fact that somebody had to read all that stuff because we suck at articulating our value we have to actually stop stop sheltering our clients from everything and go I went through this last night took me about 6 hours to do but here's what you need to know okay well now I'm adding components because if we want to get rid of the buyer's agent have fun go read that thing on your own and understand everything in it in that specific community where you know nothing about that community and feel comfortable buying that property with all of this stuff that is not a world that buyers want so why do you think that they're leaving in that direction where the buyers pay their own commission which increased the cost of the entire process it really screws up the entire system makes it harder for people to buy homes and like it's just don't they see that this is a money grab on the industry this is a money grab by the lawyers and the plaintiff getting suckered in and con no hold on hold it is a money grab by the lawyers I agree as you know but any lawyers listen and I apologize but that's what lawyers do I'm not okay you're not apologize Keith Robinson is but it is a little weird okay if this fiduciary relationship is of special meaningful relationship and in a fiduciary lawyer in the plaintiff or the agent in the client yes right regardless of wherever you create a fiduciary relationship it's incredibly important yeah it is very strange that for decades our industry has not clearly communicated to their client for whom they are a fiduciary how we get paid and by whom and that is the flaw in the system it is a flaw in the system and that should change because the agents who have said don't worry about it the seller takes care of that that's not right so that needs to change now the way it changes is really important and it may not change in a way that is best for the industry but I believe in capitalism or the consumer I believe in capitalism I believe in creativity I believe in entrepreneurship and I feel very confident that once we know what the rules are we will figure out ways for ease of transaction we will figure that out but I think our industry has to take some personal responsibility for setting up a structure that if you were going on trial for murder and your attorney walked in and said hey sorry fine if you were going on trial for anything and your attorney walked in and said hey I'm going to save you a couple bucks I'm going to represent both sides and be like forget I don't know if we can on your podcast I'd be like forget that I want my advocate I want my gladiator that goes into the arena to do battle for me and help me win I don't want someone who's representing both sides both sides which by the way is the next battle to be clear when this is all sorted out on this side dual agency is 100% the next target by the DOJ they're just continuing to tie our hands further but look the key is common and I'm not shy about this I hate dual agency I'm not talking about too much conflict of interest these are questions that are going to come up but to be clear when all of this whole mess is done the next thing that's going to get targeted is dual agency like that it's 100% guarantee that'll be the next battle because the keys comment they want a world where I am clearly saying I represent you and you pay me now that does not mean that I can't write a purchase contract that there's a stipulation in that purchase contract that the seller offers a credit to the buyer to help pay my fees or that the seller pays me directly some rules around that but that's certainly something that can be done but I wholeheartedly agree with Keith that there's actually some change here that needs to occur that will be better for consumers as well as long as and this is what the civil cases and what the lawyers are getting fundamentally wrong they don't understand how this works they're not paying attention to things because I'll take my comment back slightly there's a part of greed here on money to understand it as long as the mechanisms are in place for a buyer to be able to have representation and afford to do it and not have to pay for cheap crappy representation I don't want the court appointed lawyer representing me in my trial I think that those are the questions and I do believe Ricky that we'll find a way to get there I think there's a lot of posturing right now if is NER going to appeal is it going to settle I mean I'm pretty public it needs to settle the reason it needs to settle is that appeal could take 3, 5, 7 years the industry doesn't have that long with all these copycat cases they just don't like it can't afford it that was kind of the next question do you feel like these cases could be kind of pushed out till we get a resolution on the those go to court while we're waiting for this one to appeal and then those get appealed to pass those if NER appeals and takes it on that track then all these other cases continue to move forward and that's bad if they appeal if they appeal if they continue the appeal there's a lot of things they haven't filed yet to be clear they're working through that but they've intimated that they're going to go to the mattresses and appeal this and fight it all the way but they've also intimated that they're willing to settle as long as it's realistic that's always been something NER is open to doing but that's they're also fighting for changes that the plaintiffs want they're like we'll talk about a settlement but we're not giving up on this that's an example of in their particular case they want to see an offer of compensation still be allowed inside the MLS they view it this way by the way they're fine with it can be zero but they want to provide an opportunity for the seller to offer compensation on the other side I think that they want to not mandatory but the ability to which really does make sense because there will be instances the first time home buyer marketplace I own some rentals and they're in that first time home buyer market segment when and if someday when I go to liquidate that asset assuming these changes have come into play I'll be very comfortable offering the buyer's agent a commission because that's going to give me more access to more buyers and give me the maximum value for my property and so I'm speaking for myself just in case any attorney ever listens to this and wants to bring me in on a deposition I would be willing to do that it would make logical sense to me so there are use cases in which it would make sense to be able to communicate to the agent population that a seller is willing to offer a commission to the buyer's agent that that is important to know and it should be because that is what will make it a more fluid and in order to transact right what the Department of Justice wants is it can't be mandatory anymore okay cool fine but allow us to communicate when a seller decides that they want to so far that seems to be a sticking point at least from what I've been able to glean from talking to people and when you look at the Northwest MLS situation how realistic is that like a lot of people look at that and say okay almost a hundred percent of a seller still offer it you know are those agents actually disclosing that they don't have to pay it are there disclosures in that market that actually spell this out the way that you know it should be and sellers are still deciding after being told hey you don't have to do this they're still doing it or what I've never really got to the bottom of that yeah I haven't read the actual disclosure for it but I can tell you that that is also if you look at the settlement with no select that's a stipulation you can see that is becoming a standard to be clear is that there's a disclosure on this is compensation you don't have to do this it's negotiable etc the key in Northwest MLS just for clarity is that I believe that there is a disclosure of compensation but I do not believe I could be wrong if someone of your viewers can correct me on this because I have not read it but I do not believe that there is something in there that states that you don't have to do it I could be wrong on that in either case they went to zero in in October of last year and to your point it was a negligible change in the way things are done because the agents are explaining this to people and telling them that like look I mean it's what Keech has said it's like your house has appreciated 300% in the past year and a half and we're the most unaffordable real estate market in the history of real estate your buyer is going to be strapped to be able to afford the closing costs on this house I really highly encourage you to come up with compensation for the buyer's agents because it's been done this way the past 40 years and to be clear if you don't you may not have a deal because the buyer may not be able to afford to do that and if they can't then they won't have an offer that they're going to write and then we're going to be sitting on this property and what seller is going to be like okay like let's just screw it like they're not going to be like okay we want to get a deal done so it's part of the reason why I keep telling everybody not to panic so much like there's going to be to Keith's comment this negotiation that's done in this process I think Ricky to your comment though anything is where you're alluding to you're going to see this with everybody you're going to see it go where every MLS you can you know you can do zero or whatever if it's not outright banned by the DOJ and you're going to see a disclosure that's signed by the seller very quickly understanding compensation is negotiable you don't have to offer anything to the buyer's agent like that's going to be a hundred percent standard I think that's the best outcome honestly yeah yeah I mean look there's even some people that I've talked to and you know maybe they're sadists or whatever but they're kind of excited about these potential changes because they know they're damn good at what they do yeah and so they can't wait I've been I've been excited like a kid in a candy store the whole yeah like I now look I've got perhaps too much but I've got confidence in my abilities so I would much rather have a conversation with a buyer and be in control of my destiny on how I get paid and how much and how I tweak it and how I don't and what I do and what I offer because now I can craft and curate an offering where I could go win even more business or win more business at a higher rate and but I'm in control now of my destiny versus being at the mercy of some good or not good agent and how they've negotiated on their list of presentation going back to the zero commission thing and are wanting to keep that keep the option open where you can offer it you know what the lawyers say about that right they say you're just trying to keep keep something there so that you know buyers agents are still around and you've got high membership and you've got all these fees coming in that you keep your fees high etc with the irony of it is when lawyers are charging 30 to 40 percent on these cases like you know this whole thing give me a break like I have my aunt and uncle my my aunt they're married by the way my my uncle's a lawyer and she's a judge oh anyway yeah you can Thanksgiving must be a good time but they're all like but even they're just kind of like this is there's an element of this is it's not like these plaintiffs randomly came up and thought about the fact that I like got screwed one day just not how that worked so they were curated into this conversation even the guy on the stand said he was happy the way the deal went then his lawyer asked him do you think that remax um uh conspired with the defendants to to get in your back pocket he said no there was zero evidence presented to be clear on a conspiracy there was not in in no emails no nothing and I'm not to be clear I'm not I wasn't at the tribe friends that were there and I was kind of getting play by play but there was zero evidence of a conspiracy that was that was played out because there isn't one that we all know that now all that aside this is where we are today and you know we have to move forward and understand what it is I think the the comment that Keith made is interesting I'll throw another thing out there and we only run out of time here but you know it's um there's a lot of conversations about business model shifts is this going to be the the end of the buyer's agent is it going to change things and I want to reiterate a couple of things that I think it's important people to hear number one they're like okay are we going to become lawyers and and charge hourly well first of all the IRS carve out that we have as an industry where all the agents can be independent contractors you can't charge hourly otherwise you're no longer an independent contractor I just want to be clear so like unless everybody wants to be employed by their broker and I'm going to speak for about 99% of the brokerage community and saying they're not going to that's not realistic so then it's just for the viewers so they understand how why the lawyers get to do that why the lawyers get to do what I'm sorry charge by the hour well they're not because they're employees they're not they're they are employers are independent contractors yeah yeah so we have a specific carve out in our in our industry on that and that by the way is an example of the great thing that NAR does for you like we have a whole pot on this but like so there are a lot of you are like let's burn any out of the ground like no no no no no no no there's a lot of things that are happening that you are not educated on that you need to pay very close attention to one of those is every single year they are trying to make sure that that carve out as a 1099 doesn't get removed by the government and that's a whole of it do you think that the way that agents haven't educated their buyers on what their value is that NAR is kind of in the same boat with their value 100% really educated like okay they're the largest donors on Congress like okay can you tell us what the hell you did I mean like yeah I'm like let's keep NAR yeah no the advocacy part is so important like we did we literally just did a whole pot on this with the federal liaison for the basically does all this advocacy and it was I was like oh my god I forgot about all this things that no NAR needs to do better but also every realtor in the industry needs to actually pay attention you need to read some of the emails you need to go to meetings you need to do some of those things and not just read a headline about stuff and educate yourself because part of personal responsibility is also educating yourself and like even Keith and I are like when we before we did the pod we started looking stuff up and you're like damn I didn't know about all those bills that they crushed so I mean like how many of you got PPP loans which has never happened for independent contractors you know why you got those so I'm not saying that any art doesn't need to change there's a lot of stuff that needs to change there but we also need to remodel it not build the burning down two other comments Ricky menu of services is certainly something that's interesting I think you might see more of that pop up flat fee I will just simply state if you go back in time so far in the United States and you can go to Foxtons you can look at purple bricks you can look I mean hourly on Redfin hasn't worked out like these models haven't taken hold and I everyone's like oh this this whole model is going to shift I'm like I mean maybe and I'm not saying that there won't be some new players on the block but so far Americans like the idea of full service and not discount service offerings and so until somebody cracks that code I'm not convinced that will be the norm in the model going forward 60 seconds love I've heard you say that we're going to lose a lot of agents if in fact these large so changes happen in the industry how do agents not be one of the ones that have to leave the business and I run this one yeah you go yeah look there are three things that James and I have both been telling everyone in our company and candidly anyone who will listen in the industry to prepare for okay so number one we believe the buyer broker agreement will become mandatory in every state across the country so learn how to talk about it most states have one go look at it print it it'll look different when all the rules come down but get comfortable having a buyer broker agreement discussion practice it role play it get get on a coaching call with Ricky have him have him talk to you about how he talks about it but practice your buyer broker agreement conversation number two your buyer consultation of tomorrow better look a lot like your listing presentation of today so instead of we do a great job at this visionary size tell me about your perfect house you want a large lot what for you got two dogs awesome it was a small lot but a dog park was across the street but that still work right all this stuff we do every day is great you've now got to add all the things you do on your listing presentation like your market how are you different how are you differentiated and why are you worth what you cost so your buyer consultation you better level that up number three now negotiation has always been part of the business and candidly apart that most agents are great at because you have a beautiful servants heart you answer that phone call at 10 o'clock at night to go over the home inspection with a crying buyer and that's part of the skill set that's needed but that beautiful servants heart makes you not a great negotiator you have to level up your negotiation skills they've always been important they're going to be paramount when now you are forced to negotiate for your commission with a potential buyer so where you go 60 seconds why are agents going to quit why would they quit because of this because of some change why are they going to quit yeah why with why why are we going to lose 20 percent 30 percent why are we going to 40 percent it's going to be 40 percent I think when it's all said and done why why are that many agents going to leave the business it's amazing because they're not because they're not willing to do the hard work this isn't this is the days of like everything popping in your lap is gone like we have to get good to Keith's comment he's talking about negotiation learn to negotiate go get your top five books for negotiation like you have to get very good at articulating your value and if we can't do that then you won't be here but that's not there's a reason why 10 percent of the agents do 90 percent of the business they're good at what they do they have a coach they listen they educate themselves they're willing to work hard you told your story on our podcast think it's important for everybody to hear that like you have to be willing to pick up the phone and have people hang up on you nine times out of ten but it's that 10th call that makes the difference you got a call to somebody that was interested at that moment in time and most people and not just agents but most people aren't willing to have the door slammed in their face that many times and so Keith thank you guys so much for coming on you guys go check out their podcast was it called again real estate insiders unfiltered let's do it guys to go out there subscribe to the channel check them out they always have incredible gas and check out the one with Ricky he tells his story it's really these guys are well connected in the industry you know interviewing you know the CEO of Zillow and you know other big huge pillars of the industry so go check them out guys thanks so much for coming on and sharing it thanks for getting you guys