Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Are live. Hey guys. I am Heather and this is Andres with Real Talk. We are here because we know entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is messy. Business isn't always pretty.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Man.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: And it's interesting and well, this is live. So just like that echo, all our mess ups are here. They're not going to be edited out. What you hear is what you get. Andres, how are you doing today, man?
[00:00:26] Speaker B: I feel like I'm out of breath just trying to get set up here.
But I am doing great, doing excellent, better than I deserve and great to be back.
I think the week of Thanksgiving was awesome.
It was much needed but I'm happy to be back and get things rolling again.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: That's awesome. For our listeners who don't know we're a little bit late coming on the air today because Andres was. I said he was questing for Zelda. He was trying to find a spot where the service was good because he kept freezing. So just so you know, there's a lot that goes into this show that you guys don't see, including hot potatoing around the office until he finds the right spot.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Well, seriously, we just cut the office about a month or two ago, which eventually I want to do some the live podcast here. We have an office set up for that as well.
It's all work in the progress, but in a particular corner I'm in the signal was not the greatest. Just trying to find a signal where I can. We can do this without any interruption. Like I said, it's been a quest. So made it to this corner today.
We'll find out where we're going to be at next week. I mean next Thursday.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Awesome. Yep.
Today we have actually we're starting the launch of something we're going to do which is free ebooks. So we have our partnership with the CE shop and you want to talk a little bit about the book we're going to go over today, Andres, and the details of it.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah, book we're going to go over today. It's the psychology of home buyers. Right.
Oftentimes I don't think we pay too much attention to that. We want to have some conversation or as agents sometimes we, we can easily get discouraged when we see some smoke screens or Objection.
And we don't really try to understand the mindset of the buyers.
Right. Especially as a newer agent coming in, sometimes we get too excited.
We have a new buyers in front of us and we may start doing the little things that actually push somebody away.
So I think it's really important to bring some of this up to bring Some awareness and, and how to handle the situation a little bit better. I think there's always room for improvement.
The more information, the more that we know, the better we can handle the situation. And we want to share this with you guys, the audience. Whether you're a real estate agent or home buyer yourself, these are some little things that you want to be conscious, want to be aware of. Right.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: And whether you guys are following along or you want to read the book later, just scan the QR code at the top that says free ebook and you can have your own personal, personal book from us as well as be brought into the community of real talk. So make sure you scan that QR code so you can follow along. And we're going to on Tuesdays be basically like a little book club here. Andres. We're going to be diving into all of these books and giving them all away for free to our listeners.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I see that Tuesday. Some weeks it's going to be on Thursday, depending if we have a guest for that week. We try to keep the guests on the Tuesday, so. But yeah, we'll make it happen.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Like you were saying a little bit about this book. And again, this book is called A Close look at the Psychology of Home Buying. And this is something we've touched on a lot on our show. The home buying and selling, not just buying, selling to journey is a very emotional process.
And a lot of times as agents you have to make sure that you want that balance of not being too emotionally invested, but also understanding the emotional roller coasters that your clients are going through.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Absolutely. I think gets overlooked a lot of times. Right. You, you, you get excited, you have a client.
But from the client perspective, I like to always put myself in their shoes.
You know what got you to this point? What, what are some of those triggers that got you to this point?
How can I make this lot easier, this process, not just explaining the documents, making arrangements, how can I make this a very unique and a special experience for some? A lot of those people I personally like to work with first time home buyers is a big investment, some of the biggest investment they're making in their life so far.
And I want to make this unique. I want to make this special.
So definitely have to look at all the details on how we can make this happen.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: And you have to know the situation that your buyers are in. And this is focusing on the buying side. So we're kind of go with the mindset of the buyers. You never know. There's all kinds of reasons why people buy and sell A house, right? You've got marriage, divorce, a baby coming, a death in the family. They inherited the house, they need to move for work.
There's so many reasons why people move and all of those have their own unique feelings attached to them. And sometimes Tony just recently had ASL where it was a divorce listing. And so he had to talk to the wife and he had to talk to the husband. And he basically had to have two totally separate conversations, but the same conversation because they couldn't talk to each other. So he had to explain it to one and deal with, you know, their emotions and then explain it to the other one and deal with their emotions. And he's like, I'm working double on this one. I'm like, yeah, you are.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: And that's not easy. Let's be honest, that's not easy. You have to, you have to be biased. You can lean one side or the other. You have to be there for both of them in their respective way.
And like you said, you have to be someone different to each of them to ensure that you are sitting there and you understand exactly what they need and be able to explain to them the whole transaction, the whole process.
And this is something that gets overlooked from a home buyers experience. Like oftentimes people ask the question, what does the real estate agent do? It's a prime example. You have to wear different shoes to talk to each particular partner in that time in order to make this as easy as possible for both of them.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: You really do. And I know some agents are like, oh, well, that's, you know, being fake and you're being fake with your client. It's not about being fake. You're being genuine. You're adapting your ways of communication to the person that you're communicating to. One thing I have on my buyer intake form is how do you like to be communicated with and what time of days are your preferred communication times? Because say I'm a texter, I like to text. But you're a caller and you like to actually have that on phone call it person to person phone call. And I just text you. And I've texted you 10 times that day, Andres, but I never called you, not once. At the end of the day you're going to be like, damn, she's not even telling me anything. She's not calling me. She's not, she doesn't even, you know, bother. And to me I'm like thinking I'm over communicating because I'm texting everything. So if you're not on that same page, it's not going to go.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Yeah, you just got to ask a question. The preferred method of communication, you know, and they want it once a week, twice a week, three times, you know, every time.
Just got to communicate that and be able to make that happen. And, and just to tell you a little bit outside story, right. On an instance where last week I had an agent asked me, hey, can you give me some feedback on this particular clients? I've talked to them a couple of times but, but you know, I haven't heard back from them.
And I looked at the calls, I look at the history of the conversations and two of those clients had a life changing event happened within their week.
You know, family sick, accident happens.
And in that conversation that the agent was having, he was focused on trying his next objectives, trying to schedule the next conversation rather than putting that aside and being sympathetic for a moment. Right. Taking the initiative to help that person on a more personal level, you know, being there as a support, sometimes just to listen. Right.
Rather than focus on what are we doing next, the next steps.
And sometimes you have to put your sales or your real estate tap, put it aside.
And you have to be a human, you have to be a friend. You have to be like you said, a therapist. You have to be able to connect and just provide them some support. So similar, different scenario than Tony. Right. But sometimes you have to stop being an agent and just being, just start being a friend.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
You need that human, that human connection to people to let them know that you, you care about them and that they're not just a file to you or not just a check at the end of the day.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. You have to.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Back to our ebook. In our ebook, there is different reasons why people would want to purchase and some of the reasons it lists are some different reasons than you would typically think of. But these are some really good points.
So there's wanting independence from landlords, which is understandable. If you've been renting and you're like, I can't deal with this anymore. The rising rent rates, not being able to do anything to the property and to go along with that, the ability to own pets. A lot of times there's rental restrictions when it comes to pets. And when you own your home, unless you have a spouse who's allergic or something, then most of the time you can have whatever pets you want pending. You don't live in an hoa.
You've got access to school districts, you've got a shorter commute to work, proximity to places and people that are, are A value to your life, a sense of pride in home ownership. And that also coincides with an elevation in personal status. You know, it's like getting the American dream. You have that white picket fence, that house, the 2.4 kids or 2.5, however. I don't know how that saying goes, but however it goes. So there's a lot of reasons that people want to purchase homes well beyond what we normally think of, including, you know, wanting to customize homes. I don't even get me started on that. We were just talking about people that buy big, beautiful houses that are old houses, like.
Like hundreds of years old, and then they modernize them. And I'm like, they ruined the house. Why would they do that? But that's another show. We won't talk about that.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: They take the history out of it. That uniqueness from the house, huh?
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, my God. It gets me.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: So.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: So just let's. I'm not even gonna go down that road. Not even gonna go down that road.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: But it happens. It happens quite too often.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: It does.
So what makes a good real estate experience?
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Well, what do you consider personally a good real estate experience?
[00:11:42] Speaker A: So for me, I consider the closing table. You know, if it's a happy closing table, that's a good idea. That's a good experience.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: And from a buyer's perspective, I want to say, for as a. Putting myself as a buyer, putting my real estate agent cap aside, as a buyer, I want transparency.
I want to know, you know, every step of the way what needs to happen and stay on top of it.
Any little hiccups that comes up, I want to know about it on time so that we can address them so that we can set up and close at the original time frame, right? If I come in as a buyer and say, hey, I want to close in 30 days or 40 days, I want to make sure that everything is done accordingly to make sure that that happens.
You know, communication. Just let me know at all times what's happening. Stay on top of it. You know, there should not be any. As a buyer to. To ask you, hey, what's going on? Do we get this done?
You know, this.
Did we schedule the inspection? Did that get done?
What was the seller response regarding my offer?
You know, all of these things should be.
Happen smoothly and just being on top of it.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: I think you nailed it. Just communication, communication. So they know what's going on. You've explained the process to them.
A lot of buyers, even if it's not their first time buying a home, this isn't Something they do day in and day out. So they don't necessarily know the process like the back of their hand.
And it's your job to make sure that they understand everything that they're going through. So for us, it's like a broken record because we've explained it so many times, but for them, it's the first time they're hearing it. So you always have to explain it to somebody like it's their first time they're hearing it.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: And.
And as a buyer, I'm trusting the agent is putting me in the best position possible, right?
If I'm a buyer and I say, hey, I have a $180,000 or $200,000 budget, right?
I like this property. I like that property. I like this property.
As a buyer, I may be inclined to pick a particular property because I love that property. I walked in there. I love all three properties, don't get me wrong. But I like this one more than that one because the yard is a little bit bigger, you know, or it has the kitchen in this side.
But guess what? As a buyer, I'm not seeing that that particular house needs some more repairs.
It has some.
Some hidden repairs that I don't have the budget to fix right away.
You know, where the other property is, a fully renovated property. I may not have any problems for the next year or two.
And just because I fell in love with that one thing, I'm overlooking everything else over the next six months, right?
So I'm entrusting my agent to. To highlight or point out some of these things because I'm in love with this, but I'm not seeing what's behind it.
And that happens a lot.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: It does. And I think you jumped ahead in the book, because I remember that from later in the book where it talks about that.
And that's exactly our job. That's exactly our job, right? It's to be there, to look out for our clients best interest and to make sure they're protected, sometimes even from themselves. Because they tell you, this is what I need at a house, this is what I want. I always try to have a really good understanding of what it is they need, what it is they want.
And then we try to find something that accommodates those.
But a lot of times you have to like point blank be like, okay, this is what you said you needed, you needed this.
This house has what you want, but it doesn't have what you need. So can you give up what you need for what you want? And you have to talk them through that because at the end of the day, if they buy a house that doesn't work for them, who are they going to blame?
[00:16:07] Speaker B: Oh, that's you. I'm blaming you, Heather.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Yeah, Me personally. They'll blame me for every agent out there. Who are they going to blame? They're going to blame Heather.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Well, yeah, blame their age.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: No, no, no, we'll stick with me. They can blame me. They're like, we picked the wrong house. It's that Heather is a problem.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: I saw her on a video once and she told me to blame her for anything.
I'll be like, I know where to find her.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: Right? I'll be like, you know on Pirates of the Caribbean where he's like, you're the worst pirate. And he's like, but you have heard of me. So there we go. Like, like, you're the worst agent. I'm like, but you've heard of me. So.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Hey, there we go.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: So some resisting common expectations of home ownership. So real estate doesn't always appreciate in value, but building equity can be a great financial tool. That's one. The second one is thanks to repairs, insurance, taxes, etc. The true cost of home ownership can be more than estimated, like the estimated monthly costs on like Zillow and Trulia and sites like that. And then the third thing is there are closing costs and depending on your state attorneys fees associated with this transaction. So let's dive into each one of these little things and kind of talk about how those also affect not only the transaction, but psychologically too.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
The first one looks, real estate doesn't always appreciate in value.
I just heard of. It's very unfortunate, right? But just this weekend somebody called me and said, hey, I got a buyers in place in my property. A price at around $80,000 less than 1 which had it on the market.
So the transaction was cancel.
You know this.
That's tough right there.
And in value, think about it from a buyer's perspective. Yes, he doesn't appreciate us always in value as consistently at the same value.
But if you put yourself as a renters, what are you gaining from that, you know, as a renter compared to home buyer?
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
So, and I mean, I've experienced this personally, like with my house for my divorce, we listed a year later than I wanted to and it cost us a lot. It cost us a lot of money that we could have made if we sold a year before. Just because of the way the market fluctuates so much that the great and worst thing about the market is just that that it fluctuates and so it could go up, it could go down. The key is that you, you own the home and if you own it and you can ride out a market, it's going to come back up eventually. So just buy the property, whether it's for investment or to have it just to build the equity. As long as you've got that equity in the home, you're doing okay.
I know the second one has a lot of people get tripped up here when it comes to pears. It comes to insurance, taxes, income, HOA fees and this stuff isn't even including, once you move into the house, heating that house, the air conditioning, you know, you've got your gas, your electricity, your water, all of those bills, trash, sewer, all those bills are going to be on top of your mortgage payment.
The lender that I work with, I have a great lender and I always have them run the numbers and then they tell my client exactly what their payment is going to be. They make sure they have the taxes in there. They know that if there's HOA fees so we give them as good as an idea of that we can of what that monthly payment is going to be. Because a lot of people just go buy Zillow and they're like okay, you know, 1500amonth, 1600amonth, I can do that. In reality, when it's all said and done, you're looking at closer to like 2000. And they weren't really expecting that.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Always keep in mind, I always mention as well that your pre approval doesn't mean you have to purchase by that.
Right.
You just got to sit down and crunch all those numbers. And what is the monthly payment that you're happy, that you're comfortable with?
You may be Pre approved for 400,000, 500,000, but you're not happy with that, that payment on a purchase of that capacity. Right.
So get your number, sit down, play your numbers, calculate your taxes, everything that's going to be on a monthly basis and then let's go, let's find that property that made those numbers.
Otherwise you don't want to get in position as you know, a, that's a little bit too high.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: And, and also don't be afraid to ask your lender. And again, it depends on the market, it depends on the purchase price that you're wanting to buy, depends on if there's a lot of offers, how competitive that property is. But for your to your point, if you're not wanting to spend the full amount that you're qualified for, let's say it's 300,000 and you're like, I don't want to spend 300,000. I'm buying a townhome. I only want to spend around 250. Right.
So you see a townhome and it's for around 250. So you're like, yeah, I want to offer, you know, 250 on this townhome. I don't want to go to 300. For me, I don't always want to send over a pre approval that says 300,000 because if there is any kind of, you know, push back on the other agent side, they're going to tell their clients, well look, they're, they're pre approved up to 300.
So what I, what I do sometimes for my clients is we ask the lender, we say, hey, cut us back a little bit on that pre approval and just, just do it for the purchase price of the house or like 10 over or something like that. Something they're comfortable with so that it doesn't show they have so much buying power.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I've seen it happen and I've done that.
So it's important to get those numbers straight up before we dive into signing the contract on the type of property. Make sure those numbers are in line with what you want to pay on a monthly basis.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: And again, that's not always a good move to make. It really just depends on the situation, the offer and the house and your clients. That's something you got to discuss with your clients. It's just something that in a specific market I have done before and worked out very well, Very well for us.
The last one is the closing costs and depending on your state attorneys fees associated with the transaction.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Yeah, this is all conversations that needs to happen up front. Right.
All these fees are associated with the transaction and the buyers need to be aware of what's happening. And as you know, you can get an estimate what those, those fees are, Put them up front so that they are aware of what's going to come up. And, and then nothing comes up as a surprise like, hey, where did this thousand dollars came from? Why do I got to pay this? Why do I have to pay that? You know, it's all these conversations need to happen up front so that we are on the same page and the game plan is set from the beginning so there's no surprises and there's clear communication and it's a smooth process all the way through.
So you need to sit down and have this hard conversation, ask the hard questions and put it on the table.
You know, the more, the clearer and the faster you get all these on top of the table, the better game plan you're going to set for your clients and the smoother the transaction is going to be.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: And in Georgia at least I have a little packet that I give out and a little board game that you can look at. It's really cute. So map thing. But we have our upfront costs that we have to pay for towards our closing costs. So you have your earnest money, you have to put down your earnest deposit and then you have your appraisal and you have your home inspection. And I always make sure they know about those up front and I like to overestimate how much they're going to cost. That way if they come in under that, it's a happy surprise that they don't have to pay that much. I would much rather over tell them how much they're going to have to pay and then they end up not having to pay that then under say how much and they have to pay more because they're going to be upset if you tell them, oh yeah, your appraisal will be like 100 bucks and the appraisal comes back more than 100 bucks. They're not going to be happy with you. So don't under promise how much things are going to cost them.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: You have any crazy stories for us on that Andres, with like closing costs or anything?
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Not yet. Not yet.
But, but, but I'm not surprised that there's many stories out there that some of these cuts coming up last minute and, and buyers or seller asking the question what's going on here?
You know, I'm, I'm not surprised if it happens on the road.
But again my goal is to explain everything up front detail so that there are no surprises. But you never know.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: Speaking of never knowing, this says in a study performed by Bankrate, 18% of homeowners cited unexpected maintenance as their top regret when purchasing a home. So basically what that means is they bought the home and then maybe not immediately, but pretty close to immediately something happened and there was an unexpected break of some kind and now they have maintenance in the home. So what this is talking about, it's saying sometimes you have to advise your clients to not buy a house. Basically talk them out of buying a house, which I, me and Tony have done numerous times, talk people out of buying a house, which I know sounds totally against your job, right? You're like, hey, you're supposed to be helping them. You're supposed to be selling houses, not talking them against houses. But it's not about selling a house, it's about putting people in a home. And you don't want to put them in something that's going to fall apart.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Just like I mentioned earlier, it looked like I jumped the wagon. But as a customer, as a buyer, this is what I'm expecting from my agents is to. Even if I'm in love with this particular property and they see some potential of repairs coming ahead that I foresee because I've been renting, I've been in an apartment.
When you are living in an apartment or renting a home for so long, you get into a comfort level where so a lot of this maintenance you don't have to worry about.
You know, it's totally different. You're moving into your own house now. Everything is up to you now you got to cut the line now you gotta. If something happens with, you know, electricity, plumber, water, it's all up to you to get it done. Get a fix, get a repair, find the resources. Right.
So this is jumping into a home and having some of these things come up.
It could be a very emotional and disrupting situation. Like you just paid all your life savings into getting this and now I gotta fix this.
It could be, it could really overlook the entire process of buying a home.
Even if you had a great experience getting into there the moment something happened, especially if it's for you within 90 days, let's say it could, it could completely change that referral business. Because Heather didn't tell me, Heather said nothing about this.
You know, and, and also why it's so important to do the inspection. Right.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: With a company that will have your.
I think most of them do like a 90 day warranty.
Don't have your uncle, cousin's friend's neighbor who's a carpenter come and do the inspection and they said everything looks good because they're not going to come fix those 18% of unexpected maintenance that happens because they're not qualified to do that.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
But also it's an opportunity. Also in some situation. The home warranties, right.
You have the home warranty that you can purchase to protect you the first year or two years.
Protect you in some areas.
It's another way to help facilitate and give the buyer some comfort as if something were to happen.
You have some support there.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: And that's also something you can ask for too in your amendment to address concerns. You can say, we would like you to purchase a home warranty for the Home. So everything is negotiable. Everything is a no unless you ask. So ask for it if you feel like that's something that you need and see what the other side says.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's so important for us to communicate that and be able to show that all of these substances are available. And as a home buyer, just to feel more secure about the process, certainly I do not want to see any maintenance in that property within the first nine months, man. Within the first year. I don't want to deal with it.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: Right.
You're like, I just spent all this money on this house. Nothing better break.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Hey, but the thing is, you see it even happen on new homes.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Oh, I was just gonna say that. Even. Yeah. Even new construction, brand new.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Even new. Even new homes happen. So it's. It's nothing new. It's just a matter of communicating as much as details and guiding that buyer into the breast situation possible.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Yep. Well, we are halfway through the book, which I think is a good stopping point for us today. We can pick back up on Thursday, finish out the book. So if you guys are listening, want to follow along, make sure you scan that QR code at the top to get your copy of a closer look at the psychology of home buying. And we can wrap up the rest of the book on Thursday. Any last parting words of wisdom before we sign off, Andres?
[00:30:10] Speaker B: Oh, this is great. This is a great content. I'm excited we're going to be sharing all these books on a weekly basis and be able to, you know, go into different details, whether some buyers, sellers, as a real estate agent. This great content that we're going to put out here, too.
But I'm excited. I'm excited for what's ahead. I'm excited for.
To finish the book on Thursday and carry on.
I mean, it's. It's the last month of the year. Huh?
[00:30:37] Speaker A: It is fast. This year went by really fast.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: I got a feeling next year it's gonna be even faster.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Let's see.
I'm still trying to get through this year. Andres, stop trying to rush me into next year, damn it.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Hey, next thing you know where next year. There.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Oh, my God. All right, well, guys, don't forget to give a. Like, subscribe, follow, and share, so you never miss an episode. Follow us at www.realtalkha.live and. Oh, and Andres is gone. Andre said, peace out, guys. Wait, he's coming back.
Okay. I thought you were like, okay, your outro is taking too long. I'm out of here.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: It was not intentional. It was the signal. It gave me enough to finish the show.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Right? You're just trying to get to next year already. You're like, shut up, Heather. I'm in next year already.
All right, guys, we'll see you guys Thursday. See you later. Bye.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Take care, guys.
