Episode 41 - NAR Buyers Comp from the field! What's REALLY happening!

- **Host**: Bob Mangold, the Listing Coach
- **Podcast Title**: *If You List, You Last*
- **Episode**: 41

### Episode Highlights
- **Industry Resilience**: Discusses the recent disruption in buyer's agent compensation and the resilience of the real estate industry.
- **Open House Observations**: Bob visited eight open houses to gather feedback from agents directly interacting with consumers.
- **Market Insights**: Analysis of current mortgage markets, jobless claims, and predictions on interest rate movements.

### Key Takeaways
- **Feedback from the Field**: 
  - Agents' experiences with buyer apprehensions due to misinformation from media.
  - Varied levels of preparedness among agents to handle new industry changes.
- **Training and Education**:
  - Importance of educating buyers on new compensation structures.
  - The necessity for agents to develop a strong value proposition.
  - Encouragement for agents to attend training classes to better navigate the changes.

### Actionable Advice
- **Engage with the Market**: Start conversations with clients about the current market and upcoming changes.
- **Prepare for Change**: Develop and practice a buyer’s presentation to confidently explain industry changes.
- **Stay Informed and Educated**: Attend training sessions, join Facebook groups like Real Estate Asset Advisor, and stay updated with reliable sources.

### Conclusion
- **Industry Outlook**: Despite challenges, opportunities remain for those who adapt and focus on building a strong listing business.
- **Next Steps**: Focus on listing strategies and ensure you're prepared to navigate the current real estate landscape.

### Call to Action
- **Join the Conversation**: Participate in the Real Estate Asset Advisor Facebook group for discussions, training links, and more insights.
- **Prepare for the Future**: Keep honing your skills and strategies to succeed in a rapidly changing industry.
- **Reminder**: "If You List, You Last."

Join our Facebook Group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/realestateassetadvisors

Visit our website to watch replays of our Wednesday "Elevate Business Briefings" at: www.RealEstateAssetAdvisors.org

Download a copy of my book, "If you list, you last!" at www.IfYouListYouLast.com

Transcript

Hey, welcome fellow listing agents, Bob Iangold, the listing coach here with episode 41 of the If You List, You Last podcast. Can you imagine 41 episodes already in the bag? As always, thanks for listening, sharing and downloading. We've gone through the first week of the big buyer's agent comp disruption and guess what the industry survived We're still here agents are still working.

People are still listing buyers are still buying pretty cool, right? So this weekend, I thought I would go out and I visited eight different open houses  Because I wanted to get some boots on the ground feedback from agents that are actually working and talking to real live consumers, not the ones posting stupid comments on Facebook.

So today I'm going to share the feedback and some observations that I think can help you. Just a reminder, make sure you join the Real Estate Asset Advisor Facebook group so you can join in on the conversation, share your thoughts, comments, or questions, and most importantly, get links to private training classes that I hold that I only post inside the Facebook group, and that way you can participate in any of the topics that I discuss right here in the podcast.

So let's roll with this week's show. What's going on in the mortgage markets this week?

Let's talk about what's going on in the mortgage markets this week. Gonna be a ton of housing data that comes out. And we unfortunately need to pay attention to the jobless claims too. Even though, as I've said for months and we proved a couple weeks ago with that revision, Folks, they're 100 percent fiction.

The problem with it is that the Fed is making monetary decisions based on it. And last week in Jerome Powell's speech, he came out and said as much that they know that the numbers are false. Yet they still make decisions based on that. Is that ridiculous or what? Now there's all this talk about 25 basis points or 50 basis points and we'll just have to see but it is based on those jobless claims.

Again the fictitious ones. And then we're going to see you know PCE come out and a lot of housing data on what's going on. So that's going to have an impact. Really the biggest thing that's going on in the market right now folks is they're waiting for All this data to come out to try and get a guidance on whether or not Paul's going to adjust by 25 or 50 basis points.

The betting money is on 25 basis points Which, may be good, may be bad. Personally, I think that's too late. The disparity between what inflation's at now and the interest rates that we're paying is a huge gap and it's historically significant. But again, in my opinion, I believe you're going to see interest rates coming down, which is very favorable.

So get ready. When by the end of the year, folks, I believe we could see rates into the five and three quarter to 6 percent range, which would be a big deal, right? I think you'll see a lot of that will bring a lot of  Buyers into the market and I think that will also free up some of the sellers when you start to look at The interest that they're paying on credit card debt and that they burn through those savings One of the things people are going to find out as well They could sell the house take some of the cash and pay off debt their credit card debts that are ridiculously high interest rates and non tax deductible and go out and buy a bigger house and actually have better cash flow.

My opinion, I see that happening by the first of the year. Get your plans ready, get your market ready, start talking to your database and have those conversations with people. to see how  they're thinking. Make sense? All right, so let's get into the heart of this. I went to the eight open houses, and my first stop was at a local new home builder that was listed by a local team.

So it wasn't an on site agent from one of the big, home builders, anything like that. Just small local builders that hire Real estate teams to do it.  Person sitting the open house was not a licensed agent, but a hostess. Her comment was that the people are actually afraid to sign in for fear of being locked into a contract.

Not signed into a buyer broker agreement, but literally signing into the new home subdivision. Just like you ask somebody to sign in at your open house. She said that people were afraid to sign into that because they didn't want to be locked down into a contract. Now, she had talked about one of the local TV stations reporting that sellers would no longer offer to pay buyers agents.

And it wasn't like, hey, they have the option. Apparently, and I did not see this this is what she relayed to me, was that this TV station said that there's absolutely no way sellers will pay Buyers agents and that buyers absolutely have to come out of pocket to pay their agent and they were simply not willing to do that.

Which folks if you present it in that manner I promise that's what their reaction is going to be. So what do we learn from that? The media as usual is totally reporting false information. What that means for us folks is we certainly have an uphill battle to educate the consumer, right?  My question for you is what have you done over the last few weeks to put your buyer's presentation together so that you could educate the consumers properly?

Now have you practiced it so you can convey in a confident and professional manner how these new changes really work? If you don't do that, folks, you're going to really struggle. Now, last week's podcast, I gave you four different conversations. that you could have with buyers, you may want to go back and listen to episode 40 again.

My second stop, the agent felt 100 percent prepared to discuss the changes with her visitors and she felt her broker did a good job of training them and explaining the changes to the agents so they could actually educate their clients. So hooray for her and her broker. I was actually really happy to hear that.

On every open house visit I've made in the last 20 years, I always ask, why would I want to work with you as a buyer? I was happy to hear that she was educated and confident enough to have that discussion, but now the next question becomes, and always should be, has nothing to do with this, we've always been paid, but why would I want to work with you as a buyer?

So I just said, Hey,  tell me why I would want to work with you as a buyer. Unfortunately that's where the agent fell apart. I got the deer in the headlight look and got the standard answer. I really watch out for my clients. I'm available anytime. I always have their best interest in mind, all that normal stuff.

Now, I was not there to critique. I was there to, build relationships and, just meet some people and talk to them and see what was really going on in their heads. So I wasn't there to critique. So I just smiled and said, thanks. But in my head,  I was saying, man, we have to do better than this.

We just have to. Then my next visit, the agent was an absolute train wreck. So I went from going, wow, this was really good. This agent was on top of her game to this one going, oh my God, she's a train wreck.  Her plan for the open house was simple. Only talk about the house,  period.  She was not willing to even talk to visitors about potentially working with her. 

She felt there was just way too much risk in talking to them or potentially explaining these new changes. The sad part guys is she was unsure about the future or about her future ability to earn a living as a real estate agent and was really looking at leaving the business. Now if I've said repeatedly I believe this unwarranted fear will push many agents out of the industry.

Instead of spending time to learn and practice and understand these changes,  they just take them and at face value and go, wow, throw my hands up and I give up. The sad part was she felt totally unprepared. to explain the changes. When I asked her if she planned on focusing on listing, she said she was going to try.

So my answer for try is a little bit harsh, but try means nothing. Try means that you left the window open for you to give me the excuses on why you couldn't do it. So she was going to try, but she didn't know how she could sell a home if the seller didn't offer buyer's agent. And I asked her how she'd explain it to a seller. 

And she told me that she still had to figure that out. She was in limbo until she figured it out.  Now folks, I don't know, I don't know her broker. I know what company she works for. And I could pretty much guarantee you they did training classes. But even if they didn't, I know my company did training classes for other agents and other companies.

I know other companies executives did the same thing, right? So I think we've all done a really good job going through this and working together to try and educate agents. I'm not sure how this one missed it or how she could even possibly  be in limbo. Now on this one, I just didn't feel it was appropriate to ask her why a buyer would work with her because she clearly didn't have an answer, right?

She just didn't want to talk to somebody about that. Now, my next two visits went great. They understood the changes that have happened and then they were comfortable discussing it with potential clients and they had no fear in addressing it. A lot of the comments to me were it's not really changed.

It's just, we have to say things differently and we have different paperwork. And if you go into this thinking that and believing that and understanding that folks, that's the reality of it. Sellers are still going to offer compensation. Buyers are still going to take and buy homes. And agents are still going to get paid.

We just got to go through more mechanics to do it. That's it.  Now, one of the agents told me that one of the visitors totally went off the rails on her. And said she would never pay a buyer's agent. She dropped a few F bombs in there too. When I asked how she handled it, She said, hey, I just remained calm.

I wasn't offended. I get it.  And she says, I just took them through a series of questions that when I asked her what they were and she went through them, hey, they were well thought out to underco to uncover why the person was upset and then calmly explain to her how it works.  By the end, the woman said if it works like that, then it wouldn't be a problem.

Now, clearly this agent's broker and the time the agent invested in attending classes to get educated and putting this together or putting a plan together to deal with it, it was impressive. Now, here is the coolest part to me. When I asked her how she left it with her, she said she was literally that vile and I would never work with her.

So I just said, now that you understand how it really works. The good news is I have the ability to select what clients I want to work with, just like you have the ability to select what agent you want to work with. And quite fortunately, or quite honestly, the way that you handled yourself, I simply couldn't do business with you.

So I'm going to wish you luck, and good luck finding another agent. That's what we should be saying, folks. We shouldn't be denigrated. We didn't create this problem. We didn't create this headache. You should not allow people to denigrate you over this.  And so my kudos went off to her. I was like, totally thrilled on that.

Now, when I asked why would I want to work with you as a buyer?  Unfortunately, I received almost the same answer as other agents. I was like, yikes.  So I invited her to a class I'm doing this week. I'm creating a value proposition so that people feel compelled to work with her. Sadly, she's not registered for the class yet.

And I'm shocked by that, right? I guess agents can only take so much training.  Now, on another visit, she was a 20 year vet, and her new business strategy was pretty simple. It's only do open houses for lead generation, and she was only going to have people sign one property agreements. Right? Single property agreements.

One at a time.  Now, unfortunately, she didn't understand the full ramifications and processes in place for doing that.  And, her comments were, She's really looking for a way to figure out how to get around that. It's why not just explain that to people? Now I invited her to the class.

She hasn't registered yet either. I invited her to listen to the podcast, send her the link. I don't know if she did or didn't,  but my fear for her is that she's going to be fine substantially  in the next few months. She hasn't figured out the proper course of how to take her business into the future. 

And the reality of it is just her attitude, tone, and comments. It led me to believe that she's going to be fined out of the business, right? Because you're only going to get a few swings at the bat on this. And finally, the last two agents, I can't believe this, but they were a hundred percent oblivious about what I was talking about.

They had absolutely no idea  what I was referencing. Now, I can't even fathom how that could possibly happen. How could they not know? It's not like it's a well kept secret or anything.  Now I asked both if their broker had classes and the response from one was maybe, they might have. 

The other said no, in all honesty, I don't believe that for a minute. Brokers have more to lose than agents. So I guess these two are going to have to figure it out pretty quickly.  I just can't figure out how it could possibly happen. So it was an interesting experience for me to get out there and talk to people and see how some were like, yeah, cool, no big deal.

Little different language a little bit of different paperwork how  Flustered and dejected some of them were and I'll be honest. I'm not really surprised that we had some clueless out there I've been reading those Facebook group posts. You guys know the ones that I've seen right anonymous member So I guess that's really where we're at in the state of the business right now I do believe what I've said to you in the past is a hundred percent true You're gonna see a fairly significant number of agents either leave the business or be fined out of the business You because when you're still talking about taking shortcuts or you have no idea what I was talking about, folks, those people are in trouble.

They're going to get hit financially and they're going to be forced to leave the business.  So even though this will be a little bit shorter than normal podcast I wanted to just share those thoughts with you and just implore you, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to a few of the episodes, the last few episodes I've recorded, even though the title of this podcast is If You List You Last.

I spent a lot of time talking about the buyer side of this, because let's face it guys, in order to sell our listing, we have to have buyers. So you have to understand this. And if you're out there taking a lot of listings, you're hiring buyer's agents, and we have to train them, don't we? So I get that it's an If You List You Last podcast, but this is critical stuff going on in the industry right now.

So my summary for you is, we're just in for some really interesting times. My advice, do it the right way. Don't short, take shortcuts. Focus on listings. Remember, now or six months ago or six years ago, the most lucrative business you can build is with listings. Period.  So we'll talk to you next week and remember, if you list, you last.