 Once you build your income up to the level that you want and say you're doing 200 deals, that's where you want to be. You don't want to go to 300. You can literally live off your database at that point. The work you did to build your database got to that point. Now you can live off the database and maintain that level. Real estate rock stars. This is Aaron Amuchastegi. Hey, I think you guys are in for a treat. I think this is going to be a fun interview. This is the guy that's been on the show at least a couple of times before I was the host when it was getting interviewed by Pat Hyban. I was thinking about how I wanted to introduce him right now. I just pulled up his Instagram. The Ricky Carruth has 228,000 followers on Instagram, 20-year real estate agent, a billion in sales, been coaching agents, doing all sorts of stuff out there. The jack of many trades right now and we're ready to have a fun conversation. I was just looking at this chart from Sacramento. I live in Austin, Texas now. In Sacramento, as you were saying your years, in 07, median sold price was 400,000 in July of 07. And by November of 08, it was 200,000. So price has gone from 400,000 to 200,000. But then during that time, it went from 13 months of inventory down to like four months of inventory. And so like transaction or different things kind of make stuff jump. And there's less transactions happening, but they're happening. So it's like trying to figure out how people... Well, they're happening by the truckloads, right? So one thing to understand for agents is that your individual business is literally a microscopic dot in the entire scheme of the industry, even when you break it down to your local market, right? So like the top agent that probably has like 30 people on their team, they probably have at the end of the year, transaction-wise, 1% of market share or less than 1% or maybe a little more than 1% or somewhere around there. And that's a 30-agent team. And you look at an individual agent, a new agent, let's just say, for example, their market share in terms of transactions is so minute, it's not even visible. It's a grain of sand on the beach. And so for even in an... Like your business is, let's just say a beach, right? And your business is a grain of sand on the beach. Take 50% of that beach away. Let's say you got a 100-yard beach. You take 50% of that away. You got a 50-yard beach. Well, your business is still completely non-existent compared to the overall market, right? And so I really want agents to understand that, you know, sure, there's less transactions for the overall market, but that doesn't mean there's not room for you to go out and double, triple your business, right? You can double and triple your business. And one thing to understand about down markets is that all the really top producers, if you really pay attention, they'll all tell you the same story that they came out of the ashes of a down market. And what they did during the down market is what propelled them to be that top agent, okay? So like for me, for example, 2008, that's when I got back in the business. And what I did in 2008, 9, 10 and 11 is literally the reason why by 14, I was selling 100 properties. The 100 properties didn't come because of what I did in 14 or even 13 or 12. It's what I did in 8, 9, 10 and 11. During those down years, that's why, because the foundation I built of people in my market who knew who I was. And so the next part about market shares that in my mind, it's not how many listings you have or closings you have compared to the rest of the market. It's how many property owners in your market know who you are that you've talked to that you have a somewhat of a relationship with that you're remarketing to, that you've gave a great first impression to, right? And that there's a good chance they're probably going to do business with you. You know, maybe, maybe not, but you're putting your name in that hat. And the more hats you have your name in, then the more deals you're going to do, the more times your name is going to get pulled, you know, from the hat when they decide who they're going to use as a real estate agent. So think of market share as property owners in the market, right? And whatever agent has the highest percentage of relationships with those property owners in your market, that's who owns the market. I don't care if they're doing 10 deals a year, right? And another agent's doing 200 deals a year, right? But the guy doing 10 deals a year is, you know, is surpassing this year number of relationships in the market with property owners. And they're remarketing to these property owners through weekly emails and social media and different things. I'm going to put my money on the 10, 10 deal a year agent who is building relationships at a far, you know, faster pace than the agent that's selling 200 deals. I mean, they're dead in the water if they're not continuing to try to grow their influence. They're going to be stuck at that 200 deals forever. And that's the cool thing too. Once you build your income up to the level that you want and say you're doing 200 deals, that's where you want to be. You don't want to go to 300. You can literally live off your database at that point because your database got, you know, your database, your work you did to build your database got to that point. Now you can live off the database and maintain that level. That's why you see agents who are doing 150,000 a year and they do 150 every year, every year, every year, every year. You know, they want to get to 250, want to get to 300, but they're just stuck at 150. Well, why? Well, if you dissect their business, you can see they're not prospecting. They're not, they're not doing anything to grow their influence and grow their database, right? They're just basically living off their past kinds of referrals that like they did a bunch of work in the beginning to get it to 150 and then they shut the prospecting switch off. And now they're just coasting on that and it's a mirage because they're doing deals and they feel like they're going to break through in a minute, but when you're living off your database, you're just maintaining. You have to grow your database to see the exponential growth. And that's where a lot of agents kind of misconcept with market share, which is what you were saying with fewer transactions. Who cares if there's fewer transactions in the market? That means so little to you and your business. It's not even funny. You know, this is a relationship acquisition game and the transactions are going to fluctuate with the market a little bit, but if you want to go out there and let's just say we're going to have a down net year next year, which most everybody's predicting, we're going to have 4.5 million transactions or something for existing home sales versus 5 million this year and 6 million last year. Even though we're going to be down, you know, is what everybody's saying. You have to take all the predictions with a grain of salt, but even in a down year like that, you can go out and double triple your business. You know, but if you get caught up in the media hype that things are down and you know, you kind of your actions kind of line up and you know, kind of correlated to, you know, with this negative, that's another thing, man. The media is really disappointing me through this. Our media is driven by clicks. How many clicks can we get? It's not driven by how can we provide people with the information that's going to help them. It's driven by how much engagement and clicks can we get on this headline? That's super disappointing, man. Yeah, there's been, I mean, the news all over the place. It's been a problem the last several years of where can we just get accurate news? Where can we get accurate so we can make decisions because during, you know, in real estate, it's really easy to say like, well, let's see how many months like, let's see what the average days in the market are. Let's check out the zip code. Let's like do this. The stats are there. So you can say like, okay, this zip code is performing better than that. That zip code, that's like being able to use news to make decisions and the news that we get, it's so tough to make decisions. You know, I like, I like your point about how Mark, however many transactions are happening, doesn't matter because you don't need to have a high percentage of that. You just need a higher percentage of the transaction shares that you had last year. And if there was, you know, a thousand transactions last year, and you did 10 and there's 500 this year and you do 11, you've done a huge percentage change or something like that. So some people right now, I'm getting a lot of questions that people message me on Instagram. And one of the recent ones was somebody's trying to figure out if they should, and really you're saying, hey, in my town now, there's only 80 transactions a month, the last month, which, and it used to be 400. So it dropped down a lot. And they're saying, should I double down on my current stuff and be patient, like just do my open houses, do my door knocking, do my same plan and knowing that I'm building market share. And when the market comes back, I'm going to fly, or should I expand and actually like add in new cities, new counties, new zip codes. So geographically, should I spread because they're trying to figure out if I need transactions now, the only way I can actually see more is go wider. What do you think about that? Is going wider, better than going deeper? Is it, is it both? Do you think it matters? Depends on the town and the population and how far these geographical areas are. If the next geographical area that you're expanding to is five minutes away, and that's fine. If we're talking 45 minutes away, then that's a different story. You have to kind of evaluate that because what you do is you're setting yourself up for driving time and efficiency. So like for me, um, you know, generally speaking, it's like, okay, call property owners. Well, which ones do we call? Well, call property owners that own property that it's in the average price of the market that's close to you, closest to you geographically. So now you're setting yourself up for the highest income per hour, right? So it's the properties are going to sell the quickest for the most amount of money. Once you go way above the average price, it tends to take longer to sell stuff under that you're making less money right there at the average price, you're getting your best bang for your buck as far as ROI on your time. And then if you, if you look at something that's close to you geographically where you work, now you're cutting down in your driving time as well. And now you're being super efficient and you're making, you're trying to maximize dollar per hour. Um, you know, there's a lot of factors, you know, I'd have to understand more about the market and this or that, but to answer your question, just generally speaking, um, you know, we're going to double down on what, what's working. So what you want to do right now is, is pick out the two or three things of working really well out of the, you know, seven you're doing and get rid of four of those things that aren't working that great and spend a hundred percent of your time on the three things that are really working well. And yes, you want to expand the market share of people and know who you are and get ready to ride them, expand with the market. See, this is why the, those big top producers that, you know, really made it when the market, you know, had a downturn is because they put this foundation in place like as I did, they put this foundation in place, really grinded out to make sure everybody knows who I am, what I do and that I'm here to help. And then as the market re-expanded, which happens 110% of the time, your business explodes with the market expanding. And so that's what it is. You know, you want to put your, you want, whoever asks that has their head on straight with thinking about putting yourself in the position to expand with the market. When you think about transactions today, that, that creates some, that creates a lot of cloud because now you're thinking short term and that's a dangerous game to play. You know, you know, if you're, if you, you know, if he's maximized the amount of relationships he can create in his local market where he's at, then it might be a conversation to expand. But I doubt anyone has maximized the amount of relationships they can build right under their nose. So I would stay right where I'm at. If the price point is good and, and all that, I would double down on what I'm doing. I would build influence. I'm going to close a lot of deals by doing that as a byproduct, but, but I love what they said about get ready to expand with the market because that is where the real top producers in each market, that's how they do it. You know, they set theirself up for their business to expand with the market. Like right now is nothing like, dude, we're going to have positive appreciation this year. Right. And, and I believe we're going to have positive appreciation next year, year over year, positive appreciation that the year after the worst prediction is down 2% next year. Everybody else is up. Fannie Mae, Morgan's Banks Association, NAR, realtor.com, you look at all of them. They're all calling except for the, except for I think one or two that are saying we're going to have maybe a one or two percent decrease in price, you know, appreciation year over year. That's crazy considering, you know, how massive of a crash. Everybody's, you know, trying to make this thing seem, but we're not even going to lose any appreciation, any equity. You know, yeah, we've lost 10 to 15% from June to now, but we're going to end up the year positive. And we haven't even, we've barely scratched the surface of losing the gains that we've, that we've gotten since March, 2020, beginning of the pandemic. Like this market's insane, insanely good for everyone. Right. Like next year, realtors can go out there and triple their business straight up. Like if you want it, go get it. If you just, you know, want to sit around and complain, then that's cool too. You're the same ones that were complaining about no inventory and, you know, too much competition on listings last year for the, for the investors, rents are sky high. They're not coming down anytime soon. If they do come down, it's going to be a tad and there's, now you're seeing some pretty decent deals. I think the big play next year, honestly, is big commercial multifamily that are sitting on these adjustable rate mortgages that are running up against these higher rates. I think that's where the actual play is going to be over the next 6, 12, 18, 24, 36 months. I'm gearing up for that by the way, but for buyers, buyers are buying houses to live in them. They're not buying them to flip them and they're buying them to, to keep, to live in, to enjoy. We know, we know what we're going to be pretty flat next year up, you know, we're going to be up, up and up. Like prices are going up over the next five, 10 years. You're in good shape and sellers are still getting amazing prices dude. We're 52% of listings right now are going at or above listing price, still 52% at or above listing price for the properties that are selling. You know, there's a lot of sellers that, that are out there at overpriced because they're still dreaming, but that's even coming to a head, right? So it's just a really cool market and I just wish that agents and even buyers and sellers could see it for what it is, you know, and not be so scared and so skittish about the situation. It'll be really interesting to see the year over year stats because we've seen big corrections, big decreases in Texas since like, you know, April, May to now, but you know, probably May was probably our peak prices. Our prices are down a lot from then, but it's important to look at year over year because they probably still are up over December last year and then, and being able to see over the next year, what will balance out with some of that as buyers come back in the market? What was it like during like, March and April of 2020 where you're at? Because the, you know, because it sounds like, you know, early on in your career, you realize like you quit real estate to go do roofing and you're real. And then, and then you're like, I shouldn't have quit. The same conversation I had with my brother, you know, at, where recently we were doing so good in, you know, in 2012, he decided to, you know, we were flipping houses doing good. And then it was like, man, this isn't working. Let's go do something else. And he said, man, if I would have just stayed doing that and dug in the people that stayed, it turned out great. So you've gone through this and now, so when COVID hit, was it the same? Was it more extreme? I know every state in the city was different like it is today too, but like March and April, were you still, did you have that same mindset? Yeah, no, when this hit, you know, I adopted all this, all these philosophies when I lost everything in 08 and came back and realized I went through the oil spill, I was done with worried about crashes and stuff. When, when the, when the pandemic hit, I was like, here we go, you know, this is, this is another thing. So we were down pretty much like the rest of the country down about 20% transaction wise during that month and a half that we were completely shut down. You know, we had about 20% of people, well, we had 80% of the same amount of people write contracts and go under contract on stuff. That was the most amazing thing, wasn't it? During the, during the complete shutdown, okay, we still had 80% of the same amount of closing. So we had 20, about 20% back out of contracts, but 80% still closed. And then we had 80% of the same amount of people from that same period like the year before actually write contracts and negotiate and ratify deals. I mean, that's just amazing because here we are in this, you know, 100 year scare of a pandemic. Nobody understands what's going on. There's a lot of uncertainty with the financial markets and life in general, if this thing is going to kill everybody or whatever, no human human contact. And people are still writing contracts and doing deals and putting stuff under, under contract. It was like the craziest thing I've ever seen, but it just goes to show you how resilient the real estate market is and how solid of a business that we're in and how much job security you have as a real estate agent, you know, that nothing like, that was mother nature, dude. Like you can't take the market down. It's going to find a way to close deals, you know, to, to, to go under, you know, it, how did banks and title companies adjust that quick to get 80% of the same amount of deals closed and no human human contact and get deals under contract, it's nuts. So I did a video, it was like, it was late April and I was like, we're fixing to see the largest real estate search we've ever seen. This is when we're still locked in our houses as a country. Well, why did I think that? How did I know that? Well, I didn't know it. I, I, I assumed it and I had a feeling about it because when you see a market go down and transactions, especially that quick, I know based on experience that that's just building pinned up demand and that, and that when we get to the other side, it's going to explode like an atomic bomb. Now, did I understand the dynamics between printing money and stimulus and everything else that happened that actually created, you know, the actual amazing, you know, surge that we saw? No, I didn't realize that was going to happen at the time, but just the fundamentals of the real estate market, I knew that we're going to see a surge of real estate deals. And so I was excited. You know, I think I closed two deals, two or three, during that shutdown, I had a bunch of people fall out of contract, I closed a couple and it was like, man, we're down low, but I was thinking the back of my head. It's okay, we're fixing to see some serious business flow through. It's the same thing I'm thinking now, you know, when we're seeing these transactions go down, the demand is still there. You know, people still want houses. They just kind of got knocked off of being able to because of interest rates and the combination of high prices and high rates. But, you know, I don't know if you still sell now, but earlier this year, when we were at that 5.5% 30 year fix for like two months or whatever, however long that little stretch was, we're kind of hovered around five and a half. That was heavenly. I mean, you know, buyers were able to kind of breathe for a second. Sellers were still getting amazing prices. We were still selling things. I mean, that we weren't getting 30 offers in an hour. We were getting two offers in a week. Things were great. That was an amazing little moment right there. It was like, man, if it could stay right here, this would be heaven on earth for the whole market. Buyers, sellers, agents, investors, everybody. And that's where we're headed now. Next year, at some point, we're going to hit five and a half-ish. I assume I'm assuming that. I don't know anything, but I would think that we're going to hit somewhere in there. It's going to come back down. If not next year or the year after, it's going to come back down. And when it hits in that five range, you know, under six, we're in the low sixes now, um, we're going to be at a lower price point when we do hit that than we were several months ago when we were at that five and a half percent interest rate. So we're going to get into this market where we're going to be in this. This is what I'm hoping. This is what I'm, this is what I'm dreaming of right here. Okay, that we get into a market where we're at this five and a half, you know, percent 30 year fixed and prices are lower than they were last time we saw five and a half percent 30 year fixed. And it's going to be even more heavenly than it was, you know, then, um, but yeah, no man, when the pandemic hit, I, uh, I just caught my head on straight and just kind of looked at the situation like, okay, things are fixing a really bust open, you know, um, but yeah, I don't know. I had like 13 deals. I had like 10 of them, you know, drop the contract and, um, you know, so it wasn't the most fun, I can tell you, but you know, um, you just have to stay calm, you know, too many people freak out. It's just a great point that when you think about how quickly transactions came back then is by May transactions had picked up a lot and the, you know, people were, were kind of back in and it was a lot harder to do the deals. And that does show kind of some of the resilience of the real estate market and where that demand comes from other stuff pushed demand later and people wanting, there was all these external forces, but maybe one of the biggest forces was just, there was no transactions for a few months. So that pent up demand starts building up even more, you know, you started with talking about how real estate, I think real estate and people getting licensed and real estate agents, like one of the best, best businesses in the world to start for somebody, because the barrier to entry is like taking that test. And there are some of the expenses. I know some people that like, you know, they should have memberships that like eight MLSs and they only have one because they want to save some money or they're trying to figure out, you know, what to do, but you can make the income of the doctor or a lawyer with the, with the night. I mean, you don't even need to have a high school degree, you know, the, but, but it's the equivalent of being able to, to start and learn and so much of that mindset stuff. I think the, I think today's interview has been great. I think for our listeners, it's, you know, over the last month, we're getting to share so many different perspectives of statistics of some markets that are, you know, of people that are going, you know, transaction changes and people that are saying it's going to be bad, you know, people are going to say it's going to be able to be worse as we're trying to just give the real, you know, news out there and show people how to succeed. The most important part of any down anything is how are we going to succeed? How are we going to push through? And that was the biggest reason I wanted to get Ricky on here today was because that's what I've seen on your social media more than anything. I can tell you, I pull, I did my weekly email that I do every Wednesday since 2007 to my real estate clients. And so I, I, you know, once a month or two, I'll really, you know, deep dive into the, the data of my MLS. So right now we are up over a hundred thousand average price wise year over year. And that's not just December to this December. This is all year last year and then all year this year. Condos are up from the average price of 508 to 616 and houses are up from 647 to 706. Transactions on condos are down 18%, but only down 3% on single family homes. You know, that's my local market here, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach. Um, you know, so, I mean, you look at the 3% down on single family homes and you think, okay, you know, prices are up from 650 to 706 prices on condos, average prices up a hundred thousand from last year. It's just like, man, guys, this, this is just like an incredible, and what everybody needs to do is going during their MLS. I urge everyone to go their MLS and instead of complaining and crying and, um, you know, worrying, go there and look at how many closings are happening every single day. You know, and multiply that times two, because that's two opportunities to represent a buyer or a seller on every deal and realize there's that many opportunities in your market every single day of people that are actually executing deals, not to mention the ones that are just looking around or making an offer and don't go under contract or back out on a deal. These are people that actually closed the deal and this is business that is happening right in your market. I think too many agents don't really pay attention to MLS and what's really happening and, and I was a victim of that back in 2005 when I got out of the business, I didn't realize, you know, that deals were still happening. I was in this mindset of, oh God, you know, the sky is falling and, you know, nothing's happening and I got to go do something else to pay my bills when I could have sat right there and continued crushing it. I just didn't realize, you know, that it was the power of relationships and branding and the market itself is like mother nature. But yeah, man, um, no, it has been a good interview. Yeah. Well, real estate rock stars, you heard it from Ricky. That's Ricky Caruth. He's over at Instagram. I'm Aaron Amuchasteghi. Come reach out to us on there. Both of us. I mean, we message people back, you know, we answer our DMs, we provide content. We try to really provide value out there. That's the most fun I was telling Ricky before we started recording. I have the most fun on social media, getting to try to provide value and then getting to meet the people that I did it with. So, Ricky, thanks for joining me on the show today. Hey, thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope it brought you tons of value. Let me know what you think in the comments and I'm going to put the next video right here for you. So you don't have to go anywhere. You can just click this video to keep that Ricky train rolling. Hey, we'll see you guys on this next video and I'll talk to you soon.