The Non-PC beginners Guide to Real Estate Sales

If you are “politically correct,” woke or advocate safe places…do not read any farther or you will soil your Lululemons. The following is a no bullshit, beginners-guide to real estate sales. If you are easily offended, take your pathetic ass elsewhere.

Reality is Reality. The economy sucks across the nation and is getting worse. We are looking at, nationally, 4 years of fecal tsunami. Why? The brain dead meat puppet has not allowed oil production to follow demand. Remember oil? It is the stuff that exacts control on the price of EVERY GOOD and SERVICE. Add the printing of money in a way that would embarrass tin pot leaders of banana republics and inflation and it's effects are just beginning. This is the beginning of Carter stagflation on steroids.

Because of the seemingly intentional destruction of our economy, things have changed. If you are a real estate agent or worse…a “Realtor,®” gone are the days when all you can toss an 8 1/5 by 11 sheet of construction paper in the front yard with “4 sail” written in crayon and have 3 offers by lunch. You have two choices. You can whine and pule and move on to something more in line with your abilities, say power washing repossessed single wide trailers. Or you can learn your job. Most agents don’t have a clue as to what their job is. I am serious. Most agents think they are selling real property

...Idiots. Lesson one…

Sell expertise.

Being an expert is more than having lots of data. You can read the stuff that the title companies email and spout numbers all day. Your clients don’t give a rotten rats ass about any statistics outside of their transaction. Your job is to take that data and apply it to the needs of your client. The statistics need to be distilled and analyzed by neighborhood or price point as well as comparative properties. See where the bargains are. See what areas and price points are holding. Know your neighborhoods. Become an expert. Lesson two…

Don’t suck

According to my research, 95.35% of all real estate agents are as useful as a reusable anal scab and but that is a good thing.

Why?

The answer is two-fold.

One is that they make good agents look like an oasis in a desert.

Also, the 4.65% are easy to find and they are invaluable.

Unless you suck, quality agents are not the competition…they are your tribe. Find them and create relationships.

Remember, success breeds success. Lesson three…

In Austin, real estate is always, at least, pretty good. For the last 40 years Austin has grown. As long as people are moving here (demand) housing will sell, You just have to know how to do it. Adjust your thinking. Instead of “Oh shit, there are a lot of withdrawn listings…the market is shit.” why not look at them as a huge database of off-market properties? IN ALL situations there is opportunity. Adjust your attitude. Lesson four… Forget surviving...Thrive

The 95.35% are grey noise…tune them out. They can drive an EV pretending that they are not supporting slavery. They can wear their Beto t shirts to listing appointments so as to try to prove that they support mentally handicapped. They can smoke little clove cigarettes with their hand tuned the wrong way and contemplate their pronouns.

What will that get them? Just being the victim of a strong-arm robbery for being such pathetic excuses for humans. Sure, they will probably do a few transactions with their binary friends. But will they thrive? No way, they are too busy being victims and putting cream on their ass jowls. A local real estate expert, a friend named Chris closed millions last month. M I L L I O N S. Why? Because expert that he is, and I haven’t talked to him about it, but he surely saw the shift in the market and he and his clients are reacting to it. His knowledge and information is why he ain't starving. Like Chris, I have adapted over the years. In the old days I was Mr FSBO. Why? 85% of For Sale By Owners went with an agent after failing to sell their house. Those FSBO signs we an advertisement, begging for help and even had their number on it. That shit was easy.

Then the Minimum Service Brokerages emerged, which let folks use the MLS for a fee…and that was followed by PropSmart, Zillow and the others.

Obviously it was time to shift…so I bird-dogged abandoned and distressed properties. Even though my database swelled to over 500 in Austin proper, that was a finite resource, so I shifted my focus. Having been selling those properties to builders, so those relationships brought me to new in-fill construction. We killed it like a Clinton. My usual take was 3-7% on the way in…3-5% on the way out if we made proforma…but if the builder made 90% of projected earnings, I took 90% of my %.

Why did I take a hit on my commission? Because aligning interests is key to a successful partnership. Let me say that again...aligning interests is key to a successful partnership. The building boom washed over Austin like a tsunami and builders didn’t need me to put the deal together anymore, no biggie, I shifted again. I could go on...but you get the idea. The bottom line is that you HAVE TO ADAPT. The market changes and doing what the majority is doing, and remember, they suck, is a recipe for mediocrity. Be ahead of the curve. Wayne Gretsky said that he skated to where the puck was going to be. Fuck Mike...be like Wayne! Lesson 5… Fix your client's problems

One of your clients is getting squeezed by taxes on his residential rental properties. Help him lower his taxes or move him into a NNN property. They have cash, which is falling in value like the Drachma, find them an investment. Get off your ass. I repeat...Get off your ass.

A client of mine needs to get rid of 45 properties in Austin and San Antonio. What am I doing? Making a plan to maximize his income and equity in the properties that he ends up with. If he has greater income, greater equity and an equal or better chance of appreciation, I have done my job well. Lesson 6 Don’t be greedy On one deal I will make 3%.

On another deal I will make 1.5%. Am I happy? You bet. Sometimes I have made 15%, others ½%. Why? Fairness. If I merely put a listing into the MLS…who cares what I make. It is free money. If I help someone make 150K in 6 weeks…they break out that checkbook. If my client makes a butt ton of money…I get paid a butt ton. If it is meager…my pay is meager. Be a partner in their business by aligning interests.

Lesson 7 Minimize your business with the 95.35% of shit agents If they have the buyer or the listing that your client needs, by all means, deal with them…but don’t share information with them. There is an agent in may have a working IQ of a farm-fresh root vegetable. Shockingly enough, not a KW agent. (The competent and trustworthy Keller Williams agent is as rare as a jet-powered crystal unicorn with golden hooves) She calls me twice a month because she is always looking for off-market properties. I am polite but there is no way I am offering her these deals. On the other hand, I have a few agents that I trust and I openly speak to them. Maybe 4. They get ALL of my information. And I get all of theirs. Just today, while talking to an excellent agent…I told her about 5 off-market properties, totaling about 28 million. She has buyers, we hope, for 2 of them. She is busting her ass on the rest. She told me about 3 properties that total 5 million…and I have a client driving by one of them this evening. Your network is your business. Develop it.

The agent also mentioned a property that she is targeting for a client so I am doing the research for her. Why am I working to help her sell a property that I have nothing to do with? It is better for both of us for her to sell the 2 properties that will total 20 million than try to locate an out-of-town owner. Remember that align-your-interests thing? Lesson 8 Only work with quality clients

With most of my clients I NEVER have anything in writing. Can they go around me? Sure. But they don’t. Why? We are partners. Our interests are aligned.

When some potential investor say “yeah…send me what you got” I go total Terminator.

While I don’t actually say “Fuck you asshole” I think it and delete their number. Happened yesterday with a builder. We are either partners or we don’t have a relationship. Work with quality people you will have quality transactions and quality referrals. If you read this far, you probably didn’t need to read it at all. You probably are aware of the world and are already part of the 4.65%. If not, you might as well stick with the three P strategy. But don’t worry, one of the 4.65% will get your listing after you get fired. Those clients will be taken care of just fine.