Welcome to Real Estate Coaching Radio, starring award -winning real estate coaches and number one international bestselling authors, Tim and Julie Harris. This is the number one daily radio show for realtors looking for a no BS, authentic, real time coaching experience. What's really working in today's market, how to generate more leads, make more money and have more time for what you love in your life. And now your hosts, Tim and Julie Harris. Three, two, one and Julie Harris. We are back. And today we're going to be talking about six of the worst income wrecking mistakes agents are making in today's market. But before we get to the first point, I think you have a really great story from our friend in LA, Federico. Yes. Who is not making the deal wrecking mistakes. In fact, this story, I hope the listeners pay attention because it's going to wind a whole bunch of things together. That's right. So we're starting off by telling you the story of what happens if you don't make six of the income wrecking mistakes with this story. And then we're going to get into the weeds as far as what you need to be avoiding. That's right. Okay. So this is a text from Federico who lives and sells in Los Angeles. He says, hi, Julie. This is hot off the presses right from maybe a couple of days ago. Federico says, I just finished showing clients a new construction community while the build rep was showing us the model, a lady walked in and asked if she could listen in on the build reps presentation. She communicated that she and her husband were looking to downsize and was asking the builder how the financing would work. Okay. So let's stop just for a second. How many of you listening in Los Angeles believe that there's no new construction around? We could just start with that point, but moving forward, uh, during that conversation, I asked her what her situation was and asked if she needed the funds from the sale of her property in order to close on the one she might be looking at. That led to the build rep stating that they would only finance her if her current home was in escrow. So there's a lot to that too. Which by the way, that's probably the build rep not really knowing anything about how to, you know, sell a house using financing because the reality of it is, is the builder wasn't actually using their own money. They were using a mortgage broker and she probably still could have worked that deal, but she was looking for the easier deals of people that had no home sale contingency. That's right. And we're using kind of a lame objection handler. No, you can't do that. Exactly. Which positions our friend Federico listening. That's right. Now, when the build rep exited the room, she thanked me for helping her articulate her points. This is the walk -in potential buyer and asked if I could email her all the information for the new build to which I responded that I was the agent for the other couple in the room, but that I would be happy to help her. That led me to, led me to asking her to, uh, how soon she needed to go on the market. When she responded, uh, we are still decluttering. I don't know where to start or how it all works. I asked her where the home was and what they were asking and asked when I could stop by and see it since I may already have someone. How many of you guys would have gone for the appointment right then and there? Think about that. She answered, that sounds great. We need to declutter first. So I won't, it won't be possible until at least later next month. Let me also work on my husband as far as the new purchase goes and then we can schedule an exact date for you to come by. I got her contact information. Another mistake that agents sometimes fall into. I got her contact information and stopped the conversation since I did not want to be rude in front of my existing clients there. When I left the showing, I called this lady. There's the immediate fallback, uh, follow up. I called this lady back to continue the conversation and to schedule a tentative day and time to go look at the property. She said that she and her husband will be going on a short trip and that we can circle back after my trip. We'll only be gone for a week. During the call, she asked me what commission I would charge. By the way, people don't ask that if they're not serious, do they? Okay. She asked about my commission to which I said, that's a great question. I actually have a flexible fee. What's the best email for you so I can send you a little bit about me and my team and about how we work. That'd be the pre listing package. That way when we meet at the house, we can focus on the items that are most important to you. Also part of the script you learned in premier coaching. It's a textbook. Totally 5 ,000 % textbook. She gave me her email, thanked me for helping her while at the new construction and expressed that she was excited to have me come by their house. There you have it. Now certainly by the way, dad, on what you said with regards to the people asking about commission that quick, 99 % of the time when they ask out of the gates like that, it's because they've got another agent in their back pocket, which it probably isn't a professional agent in the sense that maybe it's somebody they just know as their neighbor or uncle Bob who basically lists the house every thousand years or something like that, who will probably do it for free. That type of question was that the agent, I'm sorry, the seller was looking for a reason to take uncle Bob out of the equation because she really liked Federico and wanted to do business with him. Most importantly though, to your point, he used the scripts that we teach these guys to use in premier coaching and that was one of the obvious scripts that we use that you learn when you're presenting the pre -listening pack and the listening presentation. All this was woven together and what we're trying to express to all of you, so hopefully you're all understanding, is there's opportunity everywhere. You just have to go where the opportunity is and quit waiting for the opportunity to come to you. Which leads us, Julie, perfectly into point number one and remember guys, these are the top six income killing mistakes that agents are making now and frankly in a lot of cases have normalized. That's right. So point number one or mistake number one, and we're also going to have some action steps how to fix these problems ASAP. Mistake number one, playing the waiting game, waiting for the market to crash, waiting for interest rates to come down, waiting for inventory. Waiting doesn't get transactions into your pipeline, nor does it help your clients and prospects to achieve their goals. You must take control of your day, your week, your month, your quarter, and your year in order to defeat the waiting game. Say this at least 10 times, if it's meant to be, it's up to me, and then take control. We're going to give you some action steps here. All right, so first action step on this mistake, accept the fact that there are zero indicators that the market's going to crash. Zero. Remove it from your head. While there are some price ranges in some markets this year where it's set to, I'm sorry, where there are some price reductions is what that should say in some markets, this year is set to close with between five and 9 % increase in home values. I wonder how many people actually know that. I mean, with all these headlines that are supposed to basically make you think there's a housing crash, do you all know that real estate in the mainland United States is increased in value by at least 5%, in some cases around 10 % year over year? So yes, despite the headlines about prices falling, home values have still increased. That's right. Now, low inventory, stable demand, lots of new construction, and rising prices are not indicators of a housing crash. Those things do not exist in a housing crash. Now, if any of that changes, you can hear about it here, we'll let you know. So it's important that we remind them that we are at, what, a 20 or 30 year low for the number of mortgages that are in any sort of distress? Yes. It's like less than 3 %? It's less than 3%, a historic low, and that includes all of the forbearances and things that happened around COVID. That's all baked in at this point. Do you remember all the people that were, you know, of course, these real estate prognosticators were trying to sell you lists on how to get into REOs and all this other stuff? How they were saying, oh, you wait until all those people on mortgage forbearance, all those COVID mortgage forbearances, those houses are all going to default. None of them defaulted, did they? You see how there are some people, guys, who only think that they can make money, only think they can help people when the market's going one particular direction. So what they do is they wait around and hope and pray that the sky falls so that they can be right. And that is, I suppose, a business model. But the reality of it is you can help people make money no matter what direction the market is going. You don't just have to wait for the direction that it's been going. For example, a lot of you, to Julie's point, were waiting around for their interest rates to lower, waiting around for the mortgage stuff to clear, become easier, inventory to increase. Stop waiting around. There's inventory everywhere. It's not just where it's like what Federico discovered. It's hidden, in essence. You have to go to where it's at. You have to go to where the market opportunity is. Stop waiting for the market opportunity to show up on your computer screen. Yes. And when you go to new construction where he went, especially in those price ranges, go where the buyers are looking. You will also find listings. That's right. OK. So again, we're back to the waiting game. So you said that. So we have to drill down. Because I always have to remind myself and you that we have people that are maybe listening to us for the first time ever. And yes, this is the number one Listen To Dilly podcast for real estate professionals in the United States. Tens of thousands of people downloading it. But for the one person that's discovered this for the first time, defining what Julie just said, if you're going to, as Federico did, go look, essentially show buyers or go to a new construction area where the new construction is, say, $800 to, say, on up, chances are the person purchasing one of those new construction homes, they're going to have a house to sell. So that means that probably realistically 90 % of the buyers, air quoting here, that are interested in new construction actually also are sellers. But how many of you think like that? How many of you think buyer or seller? You can't be both. Always assume that your buyer is actually a seller and where you focus your energy is on the listing side of things, because that's what's going to be the juggernaut to them moving forward with any, you know, like they're not going to buy anything but to sell the home most likely. So you can't, if you just focus on the buy side of the conversation, you're never going to get to where the real opportunity is on the list side. Once you have the listing, you will obviously sell that house, well, we've done studies on this, you'll sell an average of six other houses off one listing. With a buyer, you will sell a buyer a house. So open your mind to the opportunities that are all around you. Stop thinking and stop sitting around waiting for, you know, something to change. You're the change that needs to happen if you're not liking your, you know, your project, your your momentum right now into the new market. Yes. And you uncovered another mistake, which is assuming that, you know, it's just it's another buyer. I already am up to my eyeballs and buyers and there's no inventory. So why would I want another buyer? You're missing the point. Buyers bring listings and in those price ranges in the right range, you can get buyers who have a listing that are less expensive than the new construction and more expensive than the new construction downsizing. You can actually work both ends of that. Well, it's a frustrating it's frankly the wrong way to go about it. If you're trying to sell a buyer a house and try to find them the right house, the perfect house, all the rest of it, yet they have a house to sell. I'll give you a little advanced coaching here. None of them are going to emotionally commit to purchasing something unless they happen to have the cash to pay for it, which is unlikely. You know, they're not going to have the cash without the sale of their current home. So they won't emotionally commit to anything until at least their first their existing home is listed for sale, let alone in contract. So this is the type of, you know, thinking you need to adjust towards and realizing that the best opportunity is always going to be on the listing side of the business. That's right. So here's the thing back to a point or mistake. Number one, waiting around. Well, what about interest rates? Interest rates will eventually get lower, but are not likely to go below five and a half to six and a half percent, maybe even for the rest of your career. What we just went through is not the norm. So stop wishing for the old market and embrace the new market. Now, that said, there was an interesting there are some political hubbub that's floating around about the fact that, you know, different politicians are starting to lobby for the idea that there's going to be I told you about this. I heard that crazy permanent 30 year mortgages at three percent, which I mean, it sounds great, right? Even if it were four percent, it would be pretty interesting. Well, yeah, they're going to sell like 100 year bonds and finance it and the whole thing and that could stimulate something. Oh, my gosh. But it's also going to well, so let's think about this. You're going to massively increase demand. And what that's what is that going to do to the cost of real estate as well as inventory available? Right. So you might have a low interest rate, but, you know, the four hundred thousand dollar house you're interested in buying is now worth two million. So anyway, I would circle the wagons back probably to new construction if that happens. We'll see. We'll see. We'll monitor that. OK, so the weighting gain. Learn about several ways to achieve a lower rate and a lower payment. What rates are higher than a lot of people want? Refer to last week's podcast about three ways to achieve lower mortgage interest rates. Learn about what the builders are doing. Many new home loans are closing today in our times where rates are over seven. The new construction loans are closing the mid five, five and a half range right now. So take action to find out where in your market is that actually happening? All right. So mistake number two, there was a lot wrapped up in number one, number two, expecting your buyers to send you what they want to look at versus finding the right homes for them yourself. We've done so many podcasts. I know, but this is such a mistake. You know, yes, we know that buyers can find listings online. There's five million different resources. But what happens when they take them to you? Isn't it already in contract? Aren't there already multiple bids? And then you believe there's nothing and you wait for them to go discover something. It is not their job to find something. And furthermore, well, let me get in my points. I probably talked about this. So get and use the buyer presentation, which drills down on specifically what your buyer clients desire in their next home. That can be a mistake is not knowing the specifics. What is a deal maker and what's a deal killer? Are both people on the same page? If you're working with a couple, can you handle objections like I want to wait for rates to come down or prices to come down or both? We talked about that previously. Now, once you know what they need, that they are motivated and they're qualified, it is your job to find them the right home. Think out of the box. Refer to our podcast series about how to find inventory. So, for example, consider changing the type of property, single family to maybe a town home or a condo or vice versa. And the price range, in fact, sometimes going a little bit down market can actually find good alternatives, expanding the geographic search or looking at new construction. And there's a counterpoint here. I've been working on this with coaching clients, OK, which is when a buyer does send you that magic listing. I got to see that. They're really juiced up about it. And that's the only thing they sent you today. OK, so why that one versus everything else that they saw? Ask them why that one and then have two or three backup houses set up. You can always cancel showing appointments. Right. Because what if they're wrong? What if the MLS pictures didn't have the power tower in the backyard? Have another plan. You have a showing appointment. Go sell something. Does that make sense? It does, of course. But I mean, I just we could talk forever about this point because there are so many different places where they can go and look for homes that are officially for sale. But really, I was thinking if I are coaching somebody right now, this you're gearing a lot of your points towards too many buyers, basically. Yeah. And your last point, I really like because you're in essence saying, well, make make it so that the buyers are working with because there's never a true have to buy buyer. There's always want to buy buyers. In other words, there's never a buyer. There's buyers will always change their mind. That's the problem. They're always going to say, I'll wait till next year to raise the fall, wait for pigs to fly, whatever it's going to be. Whereas if you're focusing on a listing, the sellers actually have to sell usually for financial reasons or, you know, whatever it just overall right now, obviously you're going to make more money and have more leverage and freedom if you're focused on being a listing agent. So what would happen if you decided to actually become a coaching client, actually follow our system, actually build up to your magic number of listings, which for many of you is maybe five or seven listings, sometimes depending on your price point, might only be three. And the only buyers you work with are those are the sellers that want to buy something. In other words, stop working with buyers that don't actually have homes to sell. Start valuing your time more and you'll get far better results. But it's also going to force you to become a far better listing agent, far better, you know, proactively generated for the sake of listings. And you're going to get vastly better at prequalifying because you're going to be, guess what, choosing who you're going to work with. So if you're finding yourself emotionally and financially burning it at both ends, it's probably because you just don't have any standards. It's probably because you're working with just about anybody. You're willing to pay referral fees. You're buying all your buyer leads. You're not really running a business, guys, in the sake that, you know, you're going to have any kind of, frankly, security going forward. So really pivot your thinking and ask yourself, would I rather be a really amazingly strong listing agent or buyer's agent? Every single one of you want to focus on being a listing agent in a lot of ways. You have to kind of choose because the buyers will suck up all your energy and your time. Now, if you want to transition from being one to the other, go back to the fact that, you know, you need to prequalify better. You need to actually ask those buyers if they have homes to sell. Depending on the price point, you're going to discover that most of them do. And then guess what you do? You pivot and focus on the listing side of it because that's when you're going to create the leverage. Joining our premier coaching program is free. The link to join is below, along with all the notes from today's show. So just scroll below and you'll see if it's on YouTube, Spotify, Stitcher, it doesn't matter where. Scroll down their notes for today's show. Yes, Julie and I create outlines for every single podcast we do. For you. We do it so you guys can go back and you can read what we said. That way you can actually implement what we're asking and suggesting that you do. And while you're there, do join premier coaching. It costs you nothing. The link is right there below. Or you can just, frankly, go to premier coaching dot com or text the word premier to 47372. All right, Julie, let's roll up to mistake number three. Mistake number three. Yep. All right. Not having enough leads in the first place. Speaking of lead generation, if you're struggling with lead generation, it's time to get some help before it's too late. Now, more than ever, it's critical that you generate more leads than you think you need in order to do the business you need to do. To your point that no buyer ever actually has to buy. So you have to overdo your lead generation so that you can find those listing leads in particular. Well, if you want to sell, for example, if you want to sell 10 houses in the next six months or maybe it's the next 60 days or next 30 days. And normally, let's say you are you know, let's assume that you're somewhat efficient and you know, you have a ratio. Let's say, for example, if you have 10, well, let's say you have six seller leads, you know that statistically three or four of those are going to list with you in the next 30 to 60 days. You're going to need to double that in a market like this because people are there's going to be a lot of a lot of headwinds that you're not necessarily going to be able to control, mostly with lack of inventory. So you're going to have to pace out your expectations and increase the number of contacts and increase the number of leads you're working with. But it always goes back to really drilling down the leads you are working with. Otherwise, what you're going to quickly discover is that you have hundreds, if not thousands of unqualified, unmotivated, quote unquote, leads, and none of them are doing transactions with you. And why? Because you're not taking the time to go in there and prequalify them. If you're one of these agents who have falsely believed that the way to win this game is by having massive amounts of leads, I challenge you to do this. Go in, grab our seller prequalification script or our buyer prequalification script, which turns into the seller prequalification script, and call every single one of your leads. You'll discover many things. Number one, the ones you've been dripping on for a long period of time. Some of them don't even know why you're messaging them or have never even seen your messages, let alone know who you are. Number two, some of them already transacted months ago, but you didn't call them. So they didn't transact with you. Number three, you're going to find people that are actually motivated and they're waiting for you to call. You've been treating them like a buyer and sending them home buyer tips and all the rest of it through your drip campaigns. But now because you have them on the phone, they'll actually commit to working with you. You've got to stop being passive with your life, but especially with your lead generation. Well put. So that all goes back to not having enough leads in the first place. So sign up for Premier Coaching with our Harris certified coaches because they're going to start by asking some specific questions like, where did your past five transactions come from? Was it luck and hopium or did you connect with those clients through a proven system or strategy? If it was a proven system or strategy, why did you stop doing it? How many leads do you actually have in your pipeline? To your point, what your story, you were just saying, what I was thinking is a lot of agents think that they're leads, but they're just contacts. They're just people in your database. Why are you calling them leads? You don't know if they're a lead or not because you're not talking to them. Now you also might have a lead conversion issue versus a lead generation issue. That's something that the coaches drill down on. Where are you spending money to generate buyer and listing leads and what is that conversion ratio and how many contacts are you actually making daily where you're speaking with a decision -making adult about real estate? That's just the beginning of great coaching questions to drill down on why you might not have enough leads or appointments. Well, where you're spending money to generate buyer and listing leads. I mean, obviously it was assumptive, right? In other words, she's not suggesting you spend money to generate buyer and seller listing leads. Uh, but she's suggesting that you actually go in and question, frankly, uh, whether or not that money that you're spending to generate leads from those sources actually makes any sense because we know you're doing it.