The Things That Keep Us Up At Night

In this episode, the hosts discuss the various factors that keep realtors awake at night, from the demands of the job to the emotional toll of client interactions and market pressures. They explore the challenges of maintaining a work-life balance in a profession that often blurs the lines between personal and professional life. The conversation highlights the mental load that comes with the territory, including the stress of competing with new construction and the intricacies of client relationships. Ultimately, they emphasize the importance of finding balance and taking breaks to recharge.

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Transcript

Things That Keep Us (00:00)
You've got to have tough skin. And you have to be able to hear some things that are hard. Like, don't do that. That's stupid.

You're putting I always say it's a tomorrow's problem. Yeah it's a tomorrow's problem. Unless it's tonight and you can't go to sleep. Then it's a tonight's problem.

I'll take that stress for them. That's my job. That's why they hire me. That's why I get paid the medium bucks

Alright, well welcome back everyone. back. Yeah, so today's episode, or this week's episode, is what keeps us up at night. Oh. And there's a lot that keeps us up at night. There's a lot. So, do we have any life updates? I'm getting ready to go on a wonderful trip to New England. I cannot wait. I have never been.

we're going to go see the fall tour. we're going go to Boston. We're going to go to Vermont. We're going to go to New Hampshire. We're going to Maine. We're going to Rhode Island. I can't wait to see some of those Gilded Age mansions, you know, because I live for the Gilded Age.

Just a road trip, the two of us. That'll be fun. Are you driving the whole way? Yeah. Well, once we fly, we're to fly to Boston. Then we're renting a Jeep. Hopefully we actually get a Jeep because usually they're like a Jeep or something similar. it's not something similar. It's a Yaris. It's the opposite of a Jeep.

We have to get away. That's important in our industry is that, you know, we, cause we work 24 seven and that's part of the thing that keeps us up at we got done, we got done filming nine, well, we got done that like I left here at nine or so. Yeah. ⁓ and then I have to go home and write an offer. I'm writing an offer. Yeah, exactly. So when you're a realtor, I always say it's not a job. It's a lifestyle.

It is. And your whole family's involved. Your whole family's involved, your life is involved, you go on vacation. You took your mom on a showing the other day. I did, I've taken my mom on showings. take mine, but she's real. When you're on vacation, you often have to take calls and write contracts. You weave your life in with your business. that's how it is. Because when people want to see houses, they want to see houses. There's some agents that do really well at...

not working when they're on vacation, but that's not me. No, I haven't figured out how to set boundaries. I know how to set them and then give in to them. Well, and I understand because I, when I want to see something, I want to see something. I'm impatient. And so I get that. And so I sympathize with my clients that way. So I think that's why I'm similar with not setting boundaries. I'm like, OK, you want to see this house? I can't. I'm about to get a colonoscopy, but I will find somebody who can show you this house today.

Anthony, are you available? Maybe. I have to wipe off this turkey poop real quick. But that kind of goes in line with what we're talking about today, what keeps us up at night. Because we never really shut off as much as we should shut off. And I know there are agents that do. When they're on, they're on. And when they're off, they're off. I don't see how they operate, I don't see it. I feel like they have to have a team to do that.

If you have a team, feel like you can do that. I am a loan agent. I am not a team agent. have my transaction coordinator and I have my support systems, but my business is my business. Same. Yeah. And I've never, you've been on a team. I have. I've never been on a team. I've always been a solo. I've been on two teams and I did not like, I did not love it. You know, the first team was... I like to be in control. I like to be in control. I would be the team.

Yeah, if you're the team leader it's different. First team I was a little newer, didn't really have a little more patience because typically on teams you get newer agents that want to learn. And that's the fun part is to mentor. And the second team I was on it was more of a collaborative group but it ended up not being a collaborative group because there were some of us that wanted to do that and then there were others of us that...

just personalities, know, just they just were not the same. Ego. Exactly. over ego. Let's circle back to episode four. don't know. And some people are just, you know, they're very sensitive. And when you're in this industry, you can't be sensitive. You've got to have tough skin. And you have to be able to hear some things that are hard. Like, don't do that. That's stupid. Do this instead. And there are some people who, you know, that are younger or...

just newer agents that when you try to give them some sort of direction and if you don't, you know, wrap it up in this pretty little fancy bow and make it really soft and gentle, they don't want to hear it. And that's not my delivery all the time. Sometimes my delivery is, that's dumb, stop doing that. And that can be offensive. So teams aren't good for me. So what keeps you up at night? Teams?

In front the corporate people, not Microsoft teams. things that keep me up at night. Do you want me to go first? Yeah, you go first. If you let me, I'll just talk this whole time and it can be annoying. So my brain is just a mess. I'm always thinking. So the shower and when I lay down for bed, those are where my brain goes 100 miles an hour thinking about reliving the day.

Or the past 10 years. Yeah. Because whatever. And so with that, I think about the emails I was supposed to send to clients, the follow up that I was supposed, And I put it off, I put it off until I can't put it off anymore. And so I think of,

was supposed to let them know the sales for the neighborhood last year, know, for my listing or, so that's one of the things. And then the other is whenever I'm doing a contract, like when we're under contract with something is. Did I, did, did we hit the deadline? Did, when is our option period up is, you know, those things. know you, transaction coordinator puts in my calendar, excellent transaction coordinator, and you know, all of your deadlines and you are actually very good at follow.

But you're being harder on yourself than you actually are. mean, but but that's how it is. You know, you're just picking through every detail and second guessing it. And I was talking to a client this morning that I showed them some houses this last weekend and she's like, Anthony, you're really good at details and you knew every detail about every house we looked at. And I was like, well, I try. And she's like, no, don't doubt yourself. You're amazing at it. And I was like.

You really are and I think you get in your head. Well, there's a lot that goes through my head. And you second guess yourself when you shouldn't because you are so spot on and know, you know, your stuff. really do. And that's what I told her. said, it just comes with experience. and this last week, there was a lot that kept me up this last weekend. I had a lot going. I think I was telling you, I probably showed five or six people with a total of

houses and I probably put a thousand miles on my car. And when you're running that fast and in your car that much it's when you get home you start thinking of everything that you should have done that day. You're putting I always say it's a tomorrow's problem. Yeah it's a tomorrow's problem. Unless it's tonight and you can't go to sleep. Then it's a tonight's problem. What was it the other day I couldn't I woke up at five o'clock in the morning and I was and had to be somewhere at

And I was like, well, I'm just going to stay up at this point, just get my day started because I know I can't go back to sleep. I've done that before where I'm just thinking over this problem with work. Comps, know, how are we going to list this house differently in this struggling market? So the market keeps me up a lot at night. Just how am I going to set my houses apart from all the other houses that it blends in with?

All of the new construction that it's competing with, that's the hardest one is how do I compete with new construction? I really can't with resale. I just can't. are totally... home is just unique and they'll have to love it. New construction is a different seller. mean, they are a willing seller. They have a commodity and they can buy the rate down. So they got to move product. A homeowner is not that kind of seller. They're emotionally attached. They have time.

and this is their personal home, they've got to get as much money out of it as possible. And so that keeps me up. Like how do I compete with something that I really can't compete with? And how do I differentiate my client's home that might not really have an amazing, unique selling feature? So when you have a house that's like got this crazy selling feature and you price it right. We call them unicorns. We call them unicorns or cream puff homes.

Those are usually a little bit easier, but when you just, you know, you have your normal, suburban home in a neighborhood that's got a lot of inventory, how do you differentiate that? So I'll just sit up at night running through all these different things. And sometimes I just get up and I start marketing. It's just easier to do and then to try to, go to sleep and let it go.

Because you get really good ideas when you're laying down and you're like, ⁓ man. And I even have like a pad of paper and pen next to my bed to write ideas down. But then sometimes I've misplaced that because I've taken it up to my office or whatever. So I send myself like 17 emails at night. And I just put everything in the subject line. So call this, do this, here's a script for a new, you know, like a marketing ad.

I just, send myself emails all night See mine's all in my notepad on my phone. okay. But they're so random. When you're going through them, the notes are, like I have a podcast one that I like add stuff to that I wanna talk about and then they're just random. They're random. Codes to lock boxes. And something else that keeps me up, speaking of lock boxes, is did I lock that door? When I'm showing, you know, you're showing you're in a...

rhythm, you're going to the next property. And then when you lay down at night, you're like, did I lock the door to, we use a Glinda line? One, two, three, Banana Street. Oh, one, two, three, Banana Street. One, two, three, Main Street. Shout out to Glinda. Shout out to Glinda Baker. I think about that too, because I'm so paranoid about it. Checking all the doors, checking everything. I honestly think that.

I care less now. It used to keep me up so when I was showing in Georgetown, the owner was so impressed that I turned off the lights and locked all the doors. And I was like, this isn't common. That's kind of a low bar. You know, it was a more luxury home too. And I guess with, there's a lot of light switches.

So and they were all on when we got there, but I feel like it's common courtesy to turn them on I usually text the agent and say do you have other showings today? Would you like me to leave the lights on or turn them off for you? Yeah, and then I just you know do whatever they prefer I honestly think that kind of won us to the deal because the owner brought it up that no other agent has done that and she liked me Well, whatever we can do sometimes especially when the markets tight. I can write a letter about the oak tree in the front yard, too, but

I always get so distracted when I'm looking at a home with my clients and we're talking and they're talking and we're trying to make sure we're doing all the things, right? Turning on the lights, turning off the lights, locking the doors, checking all the sliders, and then they're continuing to talk to you. And so sometimes it's easy to just miss something. And I hadn't missed a locked door in years and then I missed one and it was a front door.

And I was with the other agent to you out. Yes. Yes. I got chewed on that one. You got chewed and spit out. I did. I did. And you know, they weren't wrong for doing it. And I just I was with a large group of people. Were they wrong, though? Because in one of our other episodes, we talked about that you need to have that relationship with other agents. And that could not be a really good. have done it in a nicer way. Their realtor as well.

Yeah, they they went ahead and you know told me I was an idiot and that I had no business showing homes and that. So did your people like the house? They actually really liked the house, but it was already under contract and it updated active under contract as soon as we got there. And so the static they just and it was one of those where it was out in Sun City.

And those agents are hard to get in touch with and all that good stuff. And it was vacant, go. So I didn't check the status before I went. We were seeing about eight homes that day. this was the recent one. Yeah, yeah, it was very recent. It was a couple of weeks ago. And I was, know, my group I was with, they're chatty. They're my friends, clients, you know, the whole nine yards. I always check the door. But I guess on this one, I just didn't. And some of these doors were sticky and weird.

We've already talked about trying to get into the Yeah, exactly. so, yeah, so I guess I missed it. And the agent sent me this whole long thing about from the seller how she had this feeling that there was something wrong. And she went to the house and sure enough, the door was unlocked. And then the agent copied and pasted this all to me. And how the seller doesn't understand how a realtor could miss that, that is their main job.

This is a disgrace and I'm an idiot. And the agent just kind of said, so FYI, for your information, you miss this. And I said, man, you know, I haven't missed a locked door in years. I really sincerely apologize. Let your client know. but in my mind, I'm thinking there's just a nicer way to go about this. We all kind of make mistakes sometimes, but thank God it was vacant. Then gosh, it was in a really, you know, protected neighborhood.

And since then, like I've gotten even more paranoid because I have not made that mistake really ever. I've always, I've never not had a lock up. That was my first time ever. Yeah. I'm sure I have, but not that I know of. Yeah, no, I just, so now I'm like, oh, double check, double check, double check. But it's just, I hate to get my ass chewed. It was not fun. So speaking of which, I had a listing, it's kind of off topic. I had a listing in Smithville where...

The buyer pulled up the carpet in the whole closet. They took up all the carpet in the closet. Oh my gosh. And I text. So did they have a contract on the house? No. Were they the buyer? No. They were buying, but they had no contract. were just looking at the They were just touring. they decided I was at the house the day before. And my friend went and showed it that morning. And then this other agent showed it. And so I text the agent because I knew it wasn't that way. And I said, hey.

Are you aware of this?" I sent her a picture of the carpet torn up and they didn't even put it back. They just folded it over. And she said, Nope, it was that way when we got there. No accountability. And you know, my, my sellers are mad obviously, but we just let it be. It's just interesting things that happen during your showings, but. And I understand we can't control them. No. But you can own up to it.

You can own up to it. sorry, I didn't realize they were doing that. Or I told them not to and they continued to. What do we need to do? Nothing. Nope, it was that way. And you didn't even chew her for that? No. That's good of you because we did talk about it. It's good to get along with other agents. There's nice ways to say, hey, that wasn't the nicest thing for you to do. I sent probably a text message that was probably direct but not mean.

Just where I called her out without being rude. The other thing that I had a client, 2023, again, that was a tough year for me. 2023 was a very good year for me in real estate in terms of production and business. It was a very successful year for me.

but it was emotionally a really tough year for me with clients. ⁓ that was the first year after everything was kind of going crazy that the breaks hit, that's when the rates got up to 8%. And so I felt like, again, everybody had lost their mind. Buyers, agents, sellers, everybody. think they still have lost their mind. And I had a really great

repeat client of mine and I think they were equally going through a hard time and we had a very tough transaction. We were trying to set a record in one of the hardest markets but when we set out to set this record, the market was in a very different place and real estate is like that. It's not risk adverse. There is risk to it and markets can change on a dime as we have learned and so this particular house we're trying to push a record

in a challenging market, there we have an agent on the other end that is not super experienced in the area. And also just, I mean, I wondered if he was in the beginning stages of dementia, to be honest. Yeah, I really did. And so I had a lot of sympathy for him. And then I realized, no, he this is his tactic is to be kind of confusing.

and then push things on other people and then say he said something and then he's talking both sides out of his mouth, essentially. You know, and he's just writing the, he's telling me one thing, somebody the other thing and he's really stirring the pot. He was probably one of the most unethical realtors I've ever worked with. And I've worked with a lot of unethical realtors about saying something. I was really saying something. It's so crazy how many unethical.

And the crazy stuff they do. he was really, he was just, it was bad. And so that kept me up at night. That deal kept me, I got to a point where I didn't take any more business. I said that's it, I'm not doing any other, I'm not taking buyers, I'm not taking any listings. I am focusing 100 % on this house. And I am gonna get this house sold if it kills me.

And I cannot do anything else. And it kept me up at night. I got shingles. I got shingles from this deal. From the stress? Mm-hmm. I didn't know it was shingles. I thought it was just like a sciatic nerve thing. And then later I found out, you know, was like, what is this? And I got shingles from it. And it was just that deal. I was so wrapped up in it. And I couldn't separate myself from it at that point.

And it wasn't that I started with no boundaries or something like that. It was just one of these deals that was just so hard. So hard. consumes all your time. It does. I have one right now. As you know. And it's... I still have time for other transactions, but it's taking a lot. It's taking a lot of your soul. sucks it. Yeah. And I was so happy when we closed. We ended up breaking a record. Good. And we appraised.

Every agent told me, you're never gonna appraise. You're never gonna get that number. And I was on vacation. My husband's driving through the mountains of Georgia. And I'm on the phone with the appraiser for an hour, going through everything that we did to that house. That's a good appraiser. Yeah, and I told him all the materials that were used, all this, everything. He fully appreciated it. He understood the value we put in, and we appraised.

We praised for more than contract. Wow. And so many people told me that was never going to happen and I was crazy for even trying this. And so when we closed, we had broken a record. But my client- And I want to go back to one of the things from the beginning of our episodes. That's a good real truth. Aw, thank you. I've had to fight for some appraisals lately. And it's a lot of work. And see, on my end, I've been buyer heavy.

For my buyers, want the lower price, I've gone to bat for a lot of appraisals lately. And it's a lot of work that your sellers don't know. And they don't need to know that. They don't need to be bogged down with those details. To an extent, I think when we're talking about price and setting the price, it should be a conversation that we yeah. Up front, it's always a conversation. Yeah. And it's these are the risks that you might end up back where I told you that we should have been.

Exactly when you're pricing yeah, you may want that but are we gonna appraise so we always have that conversation up front But then once we're in the weeds and we're you know Under contract I try to do everything I can to appraise But I don't necessarily tell my clients how hard that process is because I want them to think it's easy peasy and not free for them Yeah, I'll take that stress for them. That's my job. That's why they hire me. That's why I get paid the medium bucks

That transaction ended, even though we broke a record and it was amazing house. It was one of those closings where it was bittersweet. My client was left not feeling happy despite everything that we did or I did or could do. And I understand why, because it was just one of those deals where it was ugly. Yeah. And as much as I tried to protect, I couldn't protect.

⁓ And since it was also a friend of mine, I feel like all my clients are my friends at some point. It hurt especially hard for me that I couldn't protect him from everything, but I was still glad that, hey, we broke a record. Right? He's like, yeah, whatever. He's not having it. Like I have shingles. I'm dying over here. But that one, those are the deals that keep you up at night. It's.

This one has all weekend. Yeah, you've been not sleeping all night for this one too. And that's why we have to go on vacation. Where we started. Sometimes you need that break so you can separate yourself, reset, come back and be able to not sleep again at night. This is good to talk about. Well, thank you for joining us and listening to what

gives us insomnia. If you're another realtor out there, may comment, tell us about your stories that keep you up at night and like and subscribe and all that good stuff. share and. Until next week. Yep. See y'all next week.