CV Hustle
A Podcast created to educate, inform & inspire entrepreneurship here in our Coachella Valley.
We will be talking to some of the best & brightest entrepreneurs in the Coachella Valley about how they started their journey in entrepreneurship.
CV Hustle
Ep#25-2025 Coachella Valley Real Estate Round Table
#realestate #realtor #housing #coachellavalley #2025
The 2025 Coachella Valley Real Estate Round Table with James Suer, Billy Meraz & Donovan McDaniel.
The real estate landscape has fundamentally shifted since the pandemic boom, but what does that mean for buyers and sellers in the Coachella Valley? Three of the region's most successful realtors pull back the curtain on what's really happening in today's market.
Donovan McDaniel, Billy Meraz, and James Suer bring decades of combined experience to tackle the questions everyone's asking: Will interest rates drop? Is another housing crash coming? Where can first-time buyers still find affordable homes? Their candid conversation reveals that while the "free-for-all" days of 2021 are over, opportunities still exist for savvy market participants.
The discussion takes fascinating turns into the psychology of pricing, with sellers often stuck in 2021 mindsets while buyers wish it were 2012. Meanwhile, interest rates hovering around 6.5% have changed the game – but not necessarily in the ways you might expect. The experts caution that waiting for rates to drop could backfire, as any significant decrease would trigger a competitive feeding frenzy that would drive prices up.
Perhaps most valuable are their insights for younger buyers facing seemingly impossible affordability challenges. From Desert Hot Springs' relative bargains to creative strategies like house hacking through multi-family properties, the realtors offer practical advice for getting a foot in the door. "Your first home doesn't need to be your dream home," becomes a recurring theme worth embracing.
Whether you're considering buying, selling, or even joining the real estate profession, this episode delivers the unfiltered truth about today's market realities. Follow these experts on social media for ongoing insights: Donovan McDaniel (@donovanmcdanielrealtor), Billy Meraz (Windermere Real Estate), and James Seward (@james_suer_realtor) for "All Things Coachella Valley."
What is going on? Everyone, I am Robert Mraz.
Speaker 2:And I'm Fina Mraz.
Speaker 1:And this is CV Hustle, and today's episode we've been working on for a long time. It's a real special one because everybody out there knows somebody in this industry. This industry is probably one of the biggest in our valley and we wanted to kind of touch on what's going on in that industry today. So we have three real experts in the game and today's real estate roundup with CV Hustle. So we've got some pretty special guests. We're going to have them go ahead and introduce themselves from right to left and go on, go ahead.
Speaker 3:My name is Donovan McDaniel. I've been a realtor here in the desert for seven years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm Billy Mraz. I've been here in real estate as an investor since 2008. I got my license in 2016. I'm currently with Windermere Real Estate right now.
Speaker 5:And I am James Seward in my fifth year with Keller Williams.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. So we wanted to bring you guys on here, because the real estate game is always ups and downs, and especially in 2025, I think we've all seen a lot of changes, at least in the local economy here, and I want to kind of get some experts in here and kind of get their read on the situation and what's hot, what's not. So that's what today's episode is going to focus on. So first question, and we'll start with you, donovan what kind of trends are you kind of seeing in the market that maybe have popped up in the last six months to a year?
Speaker 3:In the last six months. In the more recent past, I've seen a move back towards fundamentals right. It's not a free-for-all type market. Put it up at whatever price and it'll go. Put it up at whatever price and it'll go. It's more driven by quality of product, correct pricing, staging, timing the fundamentals of our industry.
Speaker 2:So that's where it should be.
Speaker 3:I think it's more of a norm than the previous markets, especially coming out of COVID 2020, 2021.
Speaker 2:I mean I know these guys know it was crazy 2021. I mean I know these guys know it was it was crazy. Um well, we, bobby, still pissed at me that we didn't sell the house or airbnb for like some absorbent number cash offer. But I said I really want to do an airbnb um, so he goes, okay, one year, and now it's been three years, so do you have any? I guess this would be to billy. Have you dealt with any airbnb situations like do you have?
Speaker 2:any? I guess this would be to Billy have you dealt with any Airbnb situations Like do you feel that Airbnbs are taking up a lot of homes that could be?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Cities are putting like meritoriums on them now so you can't just turn it into an Airbnb because you bought it right. So there's a whole like application process each city has Like right now I think Indio and Bermuda Dunes are the only one that allow them right now. All the other cities and Palm Springs of course. Palm Springs is kind of the leader in vacation rentals. They kind of lead the way for the Coachella Valley. The other cities kind of take suit of what they're doing. They have a whole team that they monitor all the vacation rentals. They have a hotline if, like, a rental gets out of hand and stuff like that. Some cities like the upper cities, like Indian Wells, rancho Mirage, palm Desert, they just totally outlawed them.
Speaker 2:You can't do vacation rentals there, unless it's like 30 days, right, so it's still considered short term. That's not considered a short term.
Speaker 4:30 days is long term, 30 days and more is considered long term, and so many communities are in HOAs too. So a lot of the cities just allow the HOA to govern their own communities too. So most of the HOAs are 30 days or more rentals.
Speaker 2:So with our Airbnb. I have to fill out a permit every single year and it's a pain in the ass. I mean I have to go back. How many days did I rent out what you know, the money I made? And then I get a big fat tax bill that I got to pay and I'm like God you know it's not as it's a big moneymaker for the, for the, for the city.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, especially with how the Valley's grown so much too, with all the festivals they have. I mean we're coming up on the season now with the Coachella Fest and Stagecoach. This is where the majority of the Airbnb owners make. Their money is this next month. Some of them I mean you can attest to this they make probably their whole mortgage payment in that month, so they can afford to have it sit for all year just by renting it out for these three weeks.
Speaker 2:So absolutely.
Speaker 1:James, any uh trends or kind of patterns you're seeing in the last couple of six months to a year?
Speaker 5:Well, you know I started uh real estate during COVID, so I started in the time. I didn't know anything.
Speaker 2:I was going to say why would you do that?
Speaker 5:I didn't know anything different other than the crazy market that it was. So now, according to people that have been in this for a while, this is more of a, like Donovan said, a normal market where homes are still selling, people are still selling their homes, people are still buying the homes, but there's more inventory, so they're sitting instead of going in the first week now you're seeing a lot of homes sitting 30, 60, 90 days, unless, of course, it's priced right.
Speaker 2:Well, but also because of the interest rates, right, that kind of steeped in and ruined everybody's day.
Speaker 3:Yeah affordability is an issue for a lot of buyers, especially younger first-time buyers. They're doing all they can to save up for a down payment and then they get hit with the six and a half, seven and a half percent interest rate. And add to that you have your HOA costs, not to mention the cost of insurance. Insurance is going crazy right now. That all factors into it things you have to think about.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, we're such a unique market because some of that doesn't apply to us, like that interest rate at 6.5%. Right, we're a destination location, right, there's a lot of second homes out here. People have that disposable income and they're coming from other places and you'll see a lot of cash. You see a lot of cash In the upper level, the golf course communities and stuff like that. You'll see a lot of cash. You see a lot of cash in the upper level, like the golf course communities and stuff like that. You'll see a lot of cash deals because and homes sold furnished, like we're worse, like you don't see that in other places, like we're, we're in a community where they're second homes people don't want to take their furniture with them after they sell because they already have a primary place that they have, so they don't have anything to do with the furniture. So I mean we're, we're very unique in that regard. That second homes and cash deals are. I mean you see them quite a bit, quite a bit, especially in the higher end stuff.
Speaker 2:What I think is kind of crazy is you guys are saying that everything's kind of tapered down and it's back to where it is, but not the rents, honey, because I mean my girls are paying so much money for a little two-bedroom condo, one bath. It's like $2,200. I'm like that's like our mortgage, that's crazy right.
Speaker 4:It's not just real estate, though. That's everything. The rents are high, but gas prices are high. Groceries are high. You go out to dinner and go to a restaurant. Are you paying what you paid two, three, four years ago?
Speaker 2:No, I just go to.
Speaker 4:McDonald's, everything's expensive and people say you know, oh, it's got to come down at some point it's got to come down. I mean, how does that come down? And nothing else comes down right. It's kind of I feel like it's got to come down together.
Speaker 5:It's going to come down and you said they pay $2,200, which is a mortgage, not today. Yeah, people that are buying today wish they had a $2,200 mortgage.
Speaker 2:Unless you put down a big chunk of change to pay that down. But we were talking about getting rid of our Airbnb, so I need Tattoo Mark, or whatever his name is, to come and get rid of all my furniture. But we were looking at rents and I'm, you know, we have a pretty nice size house and so you know I was thinking, oh how about $3,000 a month? And he's like you know right.
Speaker 1:I was like do your research, how much, how much is the market saying, you know? And then we looked and it was crazy. It was like that's the low end of, like the low end of the neighborhood. I don't think there is even a house in there that you could get for that money. So it's just crazy. I don't understand.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's sustainable, right, I mean you can't just go up and up and up and expect it to never the system not to break at some point right With the rents. The system historically doesn't ever really break. What it does is taper off. Historically doesn't ever really break. What it does is taper off. And so what you do is you get you end up with like these double digit growth years where rents are going up and up and up and then it might cool down for a couple of years, but rarely do rents come down from where they've been. So if you're getting $2,000 a month for a two bedroom house, five years from now you're not going to see that house for $1,200, for $1,500. Right now in the East Valley we're averaging about $1,000 a bedroom for rent. Wow, $1,000 per bedroom.
Speaker 3:That's a rule of thumb. So two bedrooms you're around $2,000. Three bedrooms you're around $3,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But you know what? I just can't in good conscience do that. I just can't Because do that, yeah, I just can't because I was telling him I want somebody that can pay the damn rent, right, not, that's like you know I just I can't do that. Three families living in the house right too, because then it wears and tears on the house absolutely more people yeah, wow, man, that's.
Speaker 1:This is all news to me. Yeah, that's like that's kind of why we're here yeah, that's why we're here. We're getting the inside information. So, speaking of interest rates, have you guys seen any fluctuation? I know the markets have gone kind of crazy on us here and we're hearing that the Feds are going to make some moves. Have you guys anticipate any type of movement in that area in the short term? Here, what are you hearing on the inside?
Speaker 4:Six and a half is probably where it's going to be. It's going to be in the sixes for the foreseeable future. Probably. You might see low sixes and you can always buy points down too and get them into the fives if you want. But yeah, I mean you're not going to see. Gone are the days of 2.5%, 3%. That's not coming back anytime soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Good old days, huh.
Speaker 4:That was not too long ago. That was a couple years ago. You know, the Feds had to slow it down just because inflation just got out of control, you know. So that was part of their way to curb that.
Speaker 2:So you said it's at what? Six and a half you said it's going to be. What the hell are we at now then?
Speaker 4:We're at six and a half.
Speaker 2:We're at six and a half. I made six, it's going to be about.
Speaker 4:It'll drop, you know half a point here, you know, quarter point there, you know, but it's going to hover in the sixes probably.
Speaker 3:But what people fail to mention, or not enough attention is given to the fact that, okay, so say it does drop a half a point the day it goes down to a 599, it's going to be a feeding frenzy. And all of those homes that were too high, while they were six and a half. Now you have 25 offers because you're at a 599.
Speaker 5:And everybody wants that 599. Everybody's sitting on the sideline waiting for rates to come down.
Speaker 1:Yep, is that kind of the pattern right now?
Speaker 5:Everybody's kind of anticipating that From the people that I'm talking to. Everybody says you know, we're waiting for rates to come down, we can't afford it and, just like Donovan said, you know it's. The rates come down, the prices go up. Right now you have the opportunity to be the only person writing an offer on that house. You can negotiate the price, you can negotiate repairs, you can negotiate closing cost, credits and things like that. You have three, four offers on the house and you have somebody willing to not ask for credits or, you know, pay all cash and your offer is out the window and you're looking for the next one.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's true, Absolutely. When we bought our house, billy was our guy. And how many people did we have, you know, vibing for that this is COVID time, time, I mean, it's crazy luckily you had a
Speaker 1:good realtor, that's right well, yeah, that's what we tell, that's what you tell everybody right. But yeah, I mean, but interest rates, they're kind of all relative right. I mean because if you look back to I mean you got, we're all too young to remember the 80s, but they're what in the teens, like in the early 80s, I mean those like I can remember our grandmother talking about how the interest rates on some of her rental properties like 15, 17 in the 80s and I'm like that is crazy man, that's true. So it's all kind of relative right.
Speaker 4:Well, you have to think back to. Houses were like 50 000 back then, so 16 of 50 000 was not that much. Granted, they weren't making a lot of money back then either, so it was still probably expensive for them at the time. But yeah, 15%, 16% on a $600,000 loan you'd be hurt Interesting.
Speaker 1:That's unattainable at some point.
Speaker 2:So I have a question. So what markets are hot right now? Like so is, I know it's blowing up in india, where we're at right, and then they're also bringing in all kinds of like low income places. So do you guys get deals on that can? No, right there, those are not, those types of things are not for sale. But what are, I guess? Uh, I guess what are hot markets right now, and like where to buy and where do you think the? Uh, where do you think the next deal is coming?
Speaker 4:from If we do that, we wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now.
Speaker 2:What would you?
Speaker 4:be, we'd be out making millions of dollars.
Speaker 3:I'd be retired If we could predict the future.
Speaker 2:I would not be working. You know where people are buying right now, though, right.
Speaker 5:Well for me. I work with a lot of first-time homebuyers and so the most affordable place to live right now is Desert Hot Springs, cause you can still get a nice home. You know in a nice neighborhood with incredible views in the 300 range that these homes are are in good condition. You know they're 10, 15 year old homes and you know you can you can get a house for under 400,000 out there, negotiate some credits and things like that. And one thing that I always preach to my clients when they're a lot of first-time homebuyers, they're looking for their dream home. Right, their first home has got to be the dream home. It's got to be the four bedrooms, it's got to have the pool and all those things.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 5:And I tell them, I say you know, your first home doesn't need to be your dream home. Your first home, you just need to get into something.
Speaker 2:Get your foot in the door.
Speaker 5:If you have the ability to do something, do something. And if you can see yourself living there for a couple years, then you use that equity, sell that home, use that money that you made from it to purchase the next one until you get to your dream home. So I'm selling a lot of homes in Desert Hot Springs right now to a lot of first-time home buyers.
Speaker 3:So of first-time homebuyers, so there's a lot of inventory out there. Then Absolutely, absolutely, huh, how far do you guys, how far can you sell? Like I tell people all the time, I have a state license, so, depending on the price point, I will go anywhere in the state literally. But my area is generally Riverside County, riverside County, inland Empire, but it all depends on the price point. Right, I'm not going to drive to ontario for a four hundred thousand dollar home, because that's a lot of commute time, that's a lot of a lot of money invested on my end for little return.
Speaker 2:So so, speaking of investment on your time, I mean I know you guys went relative I used to be in the game and I mean some of these realtors. I used to be in the game and I mean some of these realtors were spending buku bucks on advertising, right, Because you got to make the flyers, you got to get your signs, you got to buy food for open houses. Like what else are you spending money on for these places? And yeah, you know, as it does, it work Well you have to get creative right.
Speaker 3:The, the, the things that we have to spend money on, obviously, um, you know our dues and things like that that we have to spend money on our signage. Those are kind of you know fundamental things that we spend time on, but 2025 and you know a little bit before we could get creative with it. I know James is known for his chips and salsa and his um social media. Right, how much do you pay for your Instagram page? I don't pay anything for my Instagram page. My Instagram page is time invested and my reels are between seven and nine seconds and I can pump out 30 of those in a weekend.
Speaker 4:And I just post them in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love them yeah.
Speaker 3:And it costs me absolutely nothing but a small investment of time. So you have to get creative, because this economy we're operating in this economy too, our bottom line is important too. I went to a breakfast establishment that shall remain nameless and they had market price. Next to the two egg breakfast, I was like eggs Market price.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 1:That was the price. Oysters ask for the price. It's like a to be determined price. Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've not seen that before man, yeah, wow. But you know like maybe I'm just a dork, but when you watch these, what is it? Mary DeRill Estate and these kinds of shows they're putting on these big parties right Because you want to get. You guys do caravans right, so that's like, eh, that's just DeRilliter people, but how do you get people to come and see this new listing that you're really proud of?
Speaker 5:I pour into my open houses. I do tacos at my open houses Nice, free tacos. I don't met a lot of people that say no to free tacos, so I'll do the free taco thing. And then I pour a lot into the marketing around that, because to sell a house you got to get as many eyes on it as possible, whether it's the person that's coming to the open house is looking to buy it or they know somebody. But, um, you know I'll, I'll spend a good week, week and a half, marketing that open house to make sure that I get the turnout. Uh, everything from. You know boots on the ground walking around knocking on you know 500, 600 doors, uh, uh, the week before.
Speaker 2:You're Jehovah's witness too before probably not.
Speaker 5:But you know it works. It works, you know, you, you, because no knocks on on on anything like that. But you know you knock on the door and and invite them for some free tacos and say you know we're, we're giving away a 50 inch TV or something like that. Then it piques their curiosity and they just want to come out and see it.
Speaker 2:There's a raffle. Yeah, really, you know. I remember going into like open houses and smelling fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker 1:Sure, that's old school Total.
Speaker 2:I was like I'm sold, that's like when I was like hold on that's old school.
Speaker 3:That's like when I was at home. That's old school. That's real estate 101, right.
Speaker 2:So, Billy, what do you do for?
Speaker 4:Well, so what I would say for like newbies that are thinking about joining the business and getting into real estate, I mean it's a tough niche to crack. But back to what James says open houses are the sweat equity to just to meet people Like your goal is to meet people. It's a numbers game the more people you meet, the more people you jive with, the more people that you can earn their trust. Just by sitting in an open house and meeting people. You're not there as a realtor to necessarily sell the house that you're at. You're there to maybe pick up a client, right, like this house may not work for them, but hey, I got two or three others that meet your criteria and what you need. Let's go take a look at them. Right so that?
Speaker 4:and I would highly recommend somebody joining a team if they're starting out Joining- a successful team because, Like, the learning curve with being on a team is just incredible than trying to figure everything out on your own or asking your broker for nuggets along the way. Join an established team, Work under that crappy commission breakdown that you have with them. But I mean that's part of learning the ropes is doing that and learning how a successful team operates. What do they do that makes them successful? And then you can take little nuggets and put in your bag of tricks to establish your own. But when you first start out you're not going to make a ton of money.
Speaker 1:Not at all. I mean, that's any business, though. Right, you got to do the sweat equity, you got to put your thousand hours in.
Speaker 4:That's any industry.
Speaker 1:But in our bit, like out here, we have, I think, over 5 000 real estate, registered real estates here in the desert. 5 000 is that so per capita? Is that like abnormal, like you guys know that I think it's not all of them are producing.
Speaker 4:These are just licensed agents. But I think another reason for that it goes back to we are a retirement community, right. So people come here, they're retired, they need something to do. Let's get our real estate license, we can do a couple transactions on the side kind of thing. Retirement community, right. So people come here, they're retired, they need something to do. Let's get a real estate license, we can do a couple of transactions on the side kind of thing. And also they can do that because they already they're established, already financially right, they already have the insurance, they already have an income to where they don't need to work, right. So that's where you're going to see such a large number out here versus you know other places.
Speaker 2:Donovan, do you hate when nosy neighbors come to your open houses?
Speaker 1:Because we are those people. We do that all the time and I'm like oh, that tile looks like shit.
Speaker 4:You know, I'm very critiquing, but you know what do you do, Do you guys? Fight about where the office is going to be in this imaginary home that you're never going to buy Bobby's a big girl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he sure is, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean probably.
Speaker 1:You're one of those couples. Yeah, probably.
Speaker 3:Well, no, to touch on what James was talking about, absolutely not. Like I love the neighbors, so he does tacos. I do donuts with Donovan because I do mine.
Speaker 4:Oh, I like that.
Speaker 3:I usually do Saturday, sunday, early in the morning, because you know I've got kids, we're doing softball, we're doing football, we're going somewhere on the weekend.
Speaker 3:So I get my open houses done in the morning and so I have donuts and coffee and juice and that kind of thing. But before I do that I go and door knock the neighborhood, invite the neighbors. I make sure I mention donuts whenever the kids come to the door so the parents can't say no right and they're like this guy has donuts. I don't know who he is, but we got to go check him out.
Speaker 2:I would not say no either. So you need to call us and let us know where your open houses are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, and people end up picking their neighbors more often than not. So the neighbor might come in and say, hey, we've been watching this house. It's not for us, but my cousin's moving in from out of the area or my sister's coming from over here, or I have no, a co-worker that's looking for a home. And the two main things that I learned from my mentor because I started out on a team and the two things my mentor used to hammer into us is relationships and repetition. Those are the two things You're building relationships and repetition again and again and again and again. So you can't just door knock one open house. You got to door knock all of your open houses. Right, when you build a relationship, I don't want to just know you. I want to be invited to the housewarming, I want to get to know the family, I want to know who you know and that's how you expand your business. Who you know and that's how you expand your business.
Speaker 5:Yeah, Real estate is just all relationships. The more people you know, the more opportunity there is to meet somebody that's looking to buy a house or sell a house, or know somebody that's looking to do something like that. So the more people you can get in front of and talk to say I'll do open houses all day long.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is one thing for new agents. Yeah, when you don't have a lot of business. It doesn't cost you anything.
Speaker 4:It's free.
Speaker 3:Volunteer for open houses, go hold an open house for another agent that maybe has you know multiple listings because they can only be at one listing at a time, so they're always looking for somebody to help open houses, and you know.
Speaker 2:I'd be like, let me do the most expensive one. I'm glad you would.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, go meet some people, get in front of people.
Speaker 2:So I get noticed when we go on Instagram a lot, right Like when I go to shows and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for your industry she's a little rock star, no.
Speaker 2:I get creeped out. Yeah, I follow you on Instagram.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, okay Right.
Speaker 3:You're like, that doesn't explain why you're touching my arm, so anyway, so you don't get like bugged out like that. Um no, not really, because I'm a people person I'm yeah, you gotta ask my family. My family probably gets weirded out by it.
Speaker 2:I'm always talking to strangers regardless well, they know your person, that's just my personality right, absolutely so so what's the goal? Just? I mean, just do it consistently, right, just do it, just do it consistently.
Speaker 3:Right, just do it. Just do it consistently. Find something that you can do consistently For me. I tried a bunch of different things and what I landed on was something that was very consistent, it was authentic to my personality and it was quick.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about that, so I know what it is, but I want you to explain it.
Speaker 3:Well, I, I, in my search for for what to do, there was a phrase that kept coming up over and over again, and it was like just stop trying to follow the popular thing and just keep it real. Just keep it real. If you can do that, then you'll be fine. Do it five days in a row. Just keep it real five days in a row. Can do that, then you'll be fine. Do it five days in a row, just keep it real five days in a row. So then I just started making these videos. Funny little quote followed with the keep it real, and then that just kind of took off and my goal was to do 50 videos in a row and I think I finished with like 225. And the biggest benefit was being able to connect with a lot of industry folk from all over the country.
Speaker 3:Mortgage lenders, realtors and clients, of course, but one of the best things were folks like I. Can see your personality in the videos and I know what area that you're in, so if I have anybody that's in that area, we're going to call Very good.
Speaker 1:I mean you can't, you can't pay for that kind of exposure and that's kind of the goal of any marketing is just to be the name top of mind when they need the service Right, and I think you do an excellent job with them and cause. It's just that that's how I figured you, figured out you were in real estate all these years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, that that was part of the frustration is is knowing folks like folks that I've known my whole life. And then you see them the month after they've purchased the home Right.
Speaker 1:And that was really frustrating oh yeah, you did real estate. Oh my gosh. Thanks a lot, man.
Speaker 3:Thanks a lot, you've seen my Instagram, you know, yeah, I see you in the stories. And now, if they say that, I just say keep it real. Yeah, all right, you use somebody else. Congratulations you got a beautiful house. Keep it real.
Speaker 1:Keep it real. But social media king in the room is Mr James here. I mean this guy, he's blown up. You're probably one of the best guys in the whole valley, honestly, because I know you just from all your tidbits about what's opening up. I mean, where did those ideas come from? Were you just a marketing genius? How did that actually happen?
Speaker 5:Honestly, well, I moved out here in 2000,. Was born and raised in the LA area, and I moved out here in 2000,. Didn't know anybody, spent 25 plus years in the restaurant business, but I was always infatuated with growth. Anytime I saw fences go up somewhere, I wanted to know what was being built there, and so I'd make it kind of my mission to find out. And this was before I'll date myself a little bit before there was the internet and stuff, and so I'm trying to scour the newspaper and stuff to find out what's being built.
Speaker 5:And once I got into real estate social media is a big deal. You got to get in front of people, and so I was posting every day just a lot of real estate stuff, random things. I created a real estate page that nobody followed, because if you're not buying a house, nobody cares about buying a house. And so I just focused on posting something every day and I would post a picture of a construction site and talk about a restaurant that was being built there or whatever it was. And I got very little to no interaction, but I stayed consistent. I stayed consistent. I kept doing it. I kept doing it. It wasn't until I put my face in the video and made a video about it, talking about it, rather than just a picture with a caption, and that, uh, I thought my, my Instagram was broken, uh, because I went to bed.
Speaker 5:I had like 1500 followers and I woke up I had like 4,000 and I'm like wait what happened?
Speaker 2:It was the eyes.
Speaker 5:Well, and so I capitalized on that. I saw that and I said, oh, this is what everybody wants, this is what works. And so let me just start creating videos like that. And so I just made it my mission to find out what's being built everywhere, from Palm Springs to Coachella and everything in between. And uh, you know, I've made a ton of connections with you know, city leaders and developers, and now it's almost at the point where it's on cruise control, where I'm not even having to search for things.
Speaker 5:I have business owners reaching out to me and going hey, we're building this, oh, that's awesome, we're going to open this business. You know, we'd love for you to come and check out our new business before it opens. We'll give you a tour. And so I've had the opportunity to go and check out the behind the scenes of of all sorts of stuff that's coming. And then I just I take a bunch of video and piece it together, throw the little green screen on there. Everybody calls me the floating head. They can call me what they want, as long as they're watching the buoy in the ocean.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, but, uh, but, yeah's, it's, uh, it's worked. I've made a a ton of connections, I've got a ton of business from it, because again it all goes back to it's getting in front of people, all right, and now I'm in front of, uh, uh, thousands and thousands of people. I can't go anywhere now, anywhere, everywhere I go, and I get in trouble if I'm just reading something because it looks like I'm angry and so you're trying to see the words'll get.
Speaker 5:I'll get the little, the little nudge and like, hey, fix your face. People are looking at you right now. I'm like I'm just reading, a reading, a sign right now. But yeah. Yeah, so all eyes, it seems like, are on me all the time.
Speaker 2:I just need a plug that I just opened up a new slab studio, so you should come check.
Speaker 1:Speaking of some opportunities to do a video. But no, that's, I mean, that's amazing. I mean you kind of just took your hobby, You're already doing that, Right. And then you said hey, maybe people will enjoy this. And wow, Do they enjoy?
Speaker 5:it. It took off. I haven't, ever, I haven't spent any money on any social media or anything like that. It's all been just staying consistent, posting, and you know, some of them bombed and some of them took off, and now they're all going.
Speaker 2:I want to know what's happening at the Devanes in Indio.
Speaker 5:You got to watch the video. I just did one last week. Do you follow me?
Speaker 2:Yes, Well I know, who the builder is. It's Rice Construction and I do business with them. So I'm like hey, what's going on over at the Devane's? And then I just got silenced. I was like maybe it's a big deal Nobody's telling me about it.
Speaker 5:It's a steakhouse. They're a group out of Chicago, nice. It's going to be a steakhouse with wine, spirits and small plates.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful place. I know our brother-in-law was talking about let's put a dentist office in there, Because it's a great, great property it is.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful property. That's amazing though that story is for all you out there consistency, right. Find something that people like and just be consistent, right, yep, and you'll blow up like James over here. Well you can't be ugly, I mean crop out your face. If you would Use that filter, there's a lot of good filters.
Speaker 4:I don't know, have you been on?
Speaker 3:Instagram, yet there's a lot of good filters out there, there's some trolls over there getting big, oh really.
Speaker 5:Okay.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Must be personality.
Speaker 5:Right. Well, that's what most people are self-conscious about. Is you know their voice on camera or their face on camera? I mean, I was, I'm like, I'm not, not putting my face on on social media. You know, post a picture and a caption and that's pretty much it. But you know, people want to see, like you said, you know, they want to see who, who you are, and that kind of determines if they want to work with you or not. Is that? You know, follow a million people on on social media but if you don't hear them speak or see them speak, then you don't really know what kind of person they are. Once they do, then you go, you know, and I kind of vibe with that person. Let me, let me reach out to them. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I mean, everybody's addicted to their phone. So if you want to advertise, be there because I think. I just think it's all going digital man. People don't watch TV anymore. Our generation does, but we're the last of the.
Speaker 3:Mohicans on that. We watch TV, but rarely do we watch commercials.
Speaker 2:I just record everything and I'm like yeah, my kids fall apart.
Speaker 3:if there's ever a commercial, they're like what is this?
Speaker 1:It's like a relic of the past, right? I think you know social media is just that's where it's going, so we have a pioneer here in the building, so we appreciate you coming out so kind of. Moving back to real estate, I mean I know you guys all got your crystal ball and all with you, billy what do you, what do you see in? Like, in in the future? Like, are you for 2025? You know what? Like we're barely in april as of recording right now. We've had some turbulent days on the market, but what are you kind of expecting in terms of? You know, put your little forecast hat on and I mean we won't hold you to this, nobody nobody will watch.
Speaker 3:Nobody will watch this, nobody, nobody knows. We're just going to record it, put it on the internet right now.
Speaker 1:What do you want?
Speaker 4:nobody knows I think it's going to be more of the same, you know? I mean, I think you might see us like a slight price, slow down um, and when you say slight, like, what is that? Like five percent yeah ten percent no more than no more than more than ten percent, no more than ten percent than 10% even in the down market, down economy, 10% is our floor that's right, I think. So you're talking like within a year yeah, I'm talking next year yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 4:I don't think it's gonna go down much, you know, just because everything else like I was saying before, everything else is so high. Gone are the $300,000 single-family, three-bedroom single-family homes Like in La Quinta Cove. Those were all over the place there in La Quinta Cove. Those days are gone, they're gone. You might be able to get a deal, but I don't see it correcting much. If anything, it's going to go up.
Speaker 2:Well, it always does. There's never a right time to buy. I think you just got to do it right.
Speaker 4:If you can financially afford it and you're not strapped and you can do it, yeah, jump in, jump in. For sure, if it crashes, it's going to be something out of left field that we didn't anticipate happening, like COVID or something like that?
Speaker 2:Well, what about the tariffs?
Speaker 4:Well, when COVID hit, everyone thought it was going to tank. We thought everything was going to go down, and it did the exact opposite it skyrocketed during COVID. So that's what I'm saying you don't know, you don't know.
Speaker 2:Do you think the tariffs impact the real estate?
Speaker 4:Tariffs will drive it up. It will drive the prices for everything up.
Speaker 1:Because of cost of building, cost of building everything, cost of goods and inflation.
Speaker 2:Well, I went to lunch today with my advertising girl for KSQ and she said she had a guy who is building he's a contractor for two houses. He had coming up and he wanted to advertise and just canceled the appointment because of the tariffs. His clients were like, yeah, we're not doing anything. So that was kind of interesting to hear from that viewpoint you know, I know in my industry I'm getting a whole bunch of new price books I'm like you know, I'm working on a big job yeah, have you noticed a slowdown or anything people hesitant to buy yet?
Speaker 4:Because you're kind of related to this field, not yet, I know. And that's what's so great about real estate there's so many different avenues. You could go on in real estate for a career, right, you can be on the lending side. You could be on the property management side, you can be an investor. So there's a lot of investing.
Speaker 2:So tell us about that. Talk about boots on the ground. You like to do all the work yourself, right, I do that's kind of that's what.
Speaker 4:I enjoy the most, absolutely. Yeah, that's how I originally got into this business I was. I bought some investment properties. I was fortunate enough to buy it when it was low in 2012,. You know, around that time when things were really low and I got to go in there and fix it up myself and kind of do the sweat equity thing, you know, and we've been fortunate to hold on to them and establish, you know, a nice little passive income stream from that, you know. But that also helps on the real estate side too, when things come up like inspections and stuff like that and requests for repairs and talking your clients through all that stuff. That's kind of where I shine in that kind of stuff and having the contacts bringing in the experts to take care of a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2:So, speaking of investments, do you have any like any places that you're investing in? And same question for you.
Speaker 3:Well, definitely not as much as Billy.
Speaker 2:Billy's up to like 500. Now Billy is growing exponentially.
Speaker 3:No, we have just a small condo that we invested in years ago. But outside of that, we are looking to invest more in the future. But we're not waiting on the market to collapse to do it Right. That's not a it's not a real thing, and I think everybody has that, that kind of muscle memory of 2007, 2008, thinking that there's going to be like a 50 percent pullback in prices, and that's just not realistic. Normal corrections are five to 10 percent when the market does correct. And we've seen those. Yeah, we've seen it come down, yeah five percent.
Speaker 4:We're not off that far off of those covet prices with those like setting all-time highs like we're not. I mean we're not there anymore, but we're not that far off of them either, you know so I got the comps from my house.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 3:I was like, don't tell my husband yeah, but in any market and these guys can can speak to it too any day of the week I can find somebody that says I wish I would have bought five years ago. Doesn't matter what day of the week, doesn't matter what year it is, every time so you need to do a video on shoulda, woulda, coulda shoulda, woulda, coulda, yeah, yeah, what, what is it? What do they say? The the two best times to plant a tree were 20 years ago and yesterday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there you go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Same goes for real estate. Yeah, just get your foot in the door. Every possible pun intended, get your foot in the door.
Speaker 2:So do you have any investments?
Speaker 5:I do not, not yet. That's yeah. Exactly what started off as the plan to buy my first investment property, I realized I'm going to buy my next home and use my current home as my investment property, because I refinanced during those 2% rate days. Nice, so I have a 2% rate on my current home.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's the best way to do it. I would say anyone out there, buy it as your primary residence. You're going to get the best rates as a primary. Do everything you want to do to it, fix it up, get it beautiful, put it in that pool, whatever you want to do and then, as you establish equity, purchase another one and hold that one to either rent out or develop that passive income. You know, yeah, if you can afford, to do it.
Speaker 2:So, like us, we have young girls and you know they want to buy and they're starting their families and stuff and they're like mom, there's just nothing out there that we can afford and I'm like you need to go buy a mobile home at this point. I mean, what do young people do in this? You know.
Speaker 4:It's tough right now for young people. I think we're going to have a lot of problems with that, with young kids coming up and wanting to purchase that home and just not having the credit, not having the financial backing to be able to do it. I think you're going to see people staying living at home longer while they're building up a down payment. It's just unfortunate reality, I feel like.
Speaker 3:What I like to tell young folks, and what I'm kind of counseling my kids on doing, is think outside of the box, right, you don't have to buy. Like James touched on earlier, your first home shouldn't be your last home. You know, whenever you buy as a young person you should use that as a stepping stone, starter home. I'm I'm really big on house hacking, um, and telling younger folks like, hey, you're single or it's just you and your girlfriend and the dog. Buy a triplex, live one side, rent the other two sides out. Build the equity right, you can get a better rate and better terms because it's owner occupied, stay in it for two years and then you move out of your unit. Keep the investment, use the equity to roll it into something else. I mean, if I had to do it all over again right now, my first home would definitely be multifamily. It would be a two or three unit something somewhere.
Speaker 2:I've been trying to tell him if we sell the Airbnb, then I'll only sell it if we buy a triplex or a fourplex. I keep trying to get him to move into that and he said no, oh hell, no we have too many big-ass kids, man, I don't want to live next door to them.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to get.
Speaker 4:I'm trying to get farther away from the kids not closer to them it'd be a family compound.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they'd have the next, we'd be losing money already. Ty and mason would pay no rent. So I just yeah, no thanks. I'm too old for that stuff, maybe. Maybe like 10 years ago I don't.
Speaker 3:I don't know that I would necessarily rent to family but, to live in one side and rent the other two out.
Speaker 3:I know I know I'm thinking of a specific person. Where they rented and they own the building. They lived in one side. They set up an LLC and then the LLC ran the building and so when the two other neighbors were out front complaining about the landlord, they would just jump in and complain about the landlord too, even though they were the landlord. The other two folks didn't know until something needed to be fixed. They called the 800 number and the landlord called the plumber. The plumber showed up, not the landlord. A lot of folks are worried about that. I don't want my neighbors to know that they're paying me rent and that I'm not paying. They don't have to know.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I have a question. So your kind of niche is in like DHS, right. I don't know where yours is, but I know, and where's yours, I know it's your.
Speaker 4:So you kind of get established into like a certain area right, you want to, like, as you get more established, you don't want to be driving, like Donovan was saying, riverside County, you don't want to be driving to Beaumont, out to, I mean, you ultimately want to work in your backyard, like that's the goal, right, so you're not having to drive everywhere whenever you get a call, kind of thing, right, so yeah, so I've kind of focused in South La Quinta.
Speaker 2:But you're within kind of what's the name of it?
Speaker 4:The Citrus you're within kind of what's the name of the citrus? Yeah, the big and the citrus, uh, um, citrus, trying to go into rancho, la quinta mountain view, uh, pga west, I have one right now in tradition, so just just trying to stay, just trying to stay in that those communities. So I'm not driving, you know, ever, you know, all over the place.
Speaker 2:So I'm working on two spec houses right now, in tradition oh yeah, there's a.
Speaker 4:There's not many going up, so I probably pass by it every day?
Speaker 2:do you have a particular neighborhood you like or I mean I, I prefer my backyard.
Speaker 3:I love bermuda dunes. I love north la quinta palm desert, indio there's nothing wrong with with indio, I mean all parts of indio, bring it on, I love it. Those are, those are, those are my areas. But also, um, when I was first licensed was before I moved back to the desert, so I was in sacramento. So I still get calls from northern california every now and then. And and for the right person, the right client, the right referral. I have no problem driving back and forth. I'll do it so call me crazy.
Speaker 5:My niche is definitely not Desert Hot Springs, I'm sorry. What is?
Speaker 1:it? What is it? I'm sorry, I would make that clear he was all good. That hurt him, that hurt him.
Speaker 4:What the hell did you say?
Speaker 5:I was going to wait until they were done.
Speaker 4:speaking, I wanted to make sure I clarified.
Speaker 5:No, I work with a lot of first-time homebuyers. First-time homebuyers okay, and that's the most affordable place for them to live, but as far as just like them, I prefer my backyard. I live in North Indio, I love Indio and so that's where the majority of my listings and my clients work and live is in Indio.
Speaker 2:The new North Side or the old?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:The real North Side or the fake, yeah, yeah the real north side or the fake north?
Speaker 4:my my, uh, yeah, no, my fiance's um dad lives in the old or the original.
Speaker 5:I guess the original, and so that's, that's a, that's a hot button for him. Anytime I say north india or somebody says north india?
Speaker 4:oh yeah, that's not north india yeah, that's not.
Speaker 5:I'm north india, that's north of the freeway.
Speaker 2:So what do you call it then? The North North.
Speaker 5:I mean I call it North Indio. That's north of the freeway. There's a big sign there now that says North Indio.
Speaker 1:No, don't, yeah, let's not go there.
Speaker 5:Let's not bring those gang wars back from the 90s.
Speaker 4:That we all grew up in from Indio.
Speaker 1:But yeah, there's some contention on the north side of indio right now. What is the?
Speaker 4:real north indio you know, but that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I think you guys all kind of have your own, is that? So that's that. Traditionally, what happens in real estate is you guys kind of just find your niche, your niche areas and, yeah, typically, they'll start.
Speaker 4:When you get coming into the business. You start as a buyer's agent. Typically, you work. You work with buyers, you work with buyers, right. So what happens with buyers? They buy a house, right. They live in the house for X amount of years, they become sellers, right. Well, who do I know that can sell my house? The person that helped me buy it, right. So the natural progression is, as you progress in your career, those buyers turn into sellers and you become more of a listing agent at that point and that's ultimately what you want. You want listings because you can control a lot of the narrative and stuff like that when you have a listing.
Speaker 2:What's so funny about that? Because it doesn't hurt to double in that sucker here. It doesn't.
Speaker 4:It doesn't for sure. If you can, yeah, Speaking of listings wasn't there.
Speaker 1:so correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a federal ruling a year or two years ago that kind of changed your guys' commission scale and how the whole industry works? Is that something that is still going on? Is that something that's changed the game? I mean, I kind of vaguely remember detail. I'm sure you guys know exactly what the details are, but has that changed everything or is it still business as usual?
Speaker 4:They try to change. I mean, yeah, it has, it's changed the way we do business here. For sure it wasn't anything California had done. They just got lumped into a national lawsuit with NAR, National Association of the Realtor. Some of the southern states I think Missouri was one of them, A couple others were accused of like price fixing commissions and stuff like that. And then also another one sellers got upset for paying the buyer's commission, the buyer's agent commission. It's like why, as a seller, am I paying somebody to negotiate against me? That doesn't make any sense, you know. So there was a big lawsuit and NAR ultimately settled with this lawsuit and in turn the national NAR changed a lot of their regulations and stuff. So we had to follow suit with it. California is the most litigious state in the country.
Speaker 4:So we have all kinds of documents and stuff. You know both sides sign that, stating everything's negotiable. You know commissions are negotiable. You know commissions are negotiable. So, but in order to satisfy you know, big national, social, internet realtors, california kind of fell in suit and changed the way we do. You know, do real estate here Like what's in the contracts and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Has it changed anything in terms of like?
Speaker 3:what you guys are bringing back, or is it? Is it changed? It just changes the paperwork. Yeah, so a lot more paperwork, really, is that the?
Speaker 1:end. Is that really the end game of all this? Is you gotta do more?
Speaker 4:I feel like it's gonna change. It always does. We were doing this donovan and I were talking about, we were doing this back, uh, during covid, with these peds they're, uh, you couldn't go into a property unless your client access disclosure yeah they hadlosures. Yeah, the clients had to sign them because of COVID.
Speaker 3:Yeah, have you had a fever recently, right? So they had to sign these.
Speaker 4:So there's always things like this the game's always changing, there's always forms being thrown in. The forms are always changing. They change probably monthly, but the way it works. I mean it's just up to us to be more diligent with our clients and explain to our clients, like what's going on and what's happening. Right, so you go and do a listing for a seller, like hey, the total commission is 5%, right, like I don't care how you want to break it down.
Speaker 2:Is that 6% anymore? It's not, it hasn't been 6% for a while, since I used to be around.
Speaker 4:Just because the prices are so high now, commissions are increasing as well. So somebody will do 5% all day long and even in the coast, you're going to see maybe less than that, going to see maybe less than that, you know. But we, basically you have to explain to your seller why it's in their best interest to pay the buyer's commission, right, why is it in their best interest? Like, why do I got to pay the buyer's agent? Well, this is why, mr Seller, because if you don't pay that, nobody's going to come look at it.
Speaker 2:They're not going to see it. He found the buyer right.
Speaker 4:He's not going to show it to you. There's two or three other properties that they'll take their their clients to that are paying the commission. So it does you a disservice not to pay that, that, that commission essentially so, um, and then also they can make up for having to pay the commission in their purchase price too, right? So it's just on how you explain it to your clients and making sure that they understand, but it but it's pretty much the same.
Speaker 1:So it hasn't affected the industry like they said it was going to. I remember when that first came out, I think the Wall Street Journal was saying it's going to kill the real estate market.
Speaker 3:The headlines kind of made everyone take a deep breath for about 30 days, because nobody knew what was going on, because all they were getting were the headlines thrown at them. And then, once everything came out, and we got our yeah, we got our contracts and everything was kind of finalized. Then it was like oh okay, it's just, it's another disclosure. Read, read this. This is what it means, this is what it meant before. Basically the same thing.
Speaker 4:But it's just like it's just paperwork, yeah it's in the, yeah, it's in the. In your purchase offer you just write commission to be two and a half percent and I've never seen a seller squawk at that or whatever your commission is Never. They're like okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:So and and like you said, in California, we've always disclosed more than most states to begin with Right and the commissions have always been negotiable, always you just brought something up. What's that?
Speaker 2:You have to disclose that somebody died in the house.
Speaker 4:Disclose, disclose, disclose, within, I think, three years.
Speaker 2:Two years or three years? Three years, yeah. I couldn't do it. I don't think I could do it.
Speaker 3:When in doubt write it out Disclose. I like it If there's a question on whether or not you should disclose it. You should disclose it.
Speaker 2:And then how do you guys decide what escrow company to use or what? Because I know sometimes the buyers excuse me, whoever the agent is will be like we're going to use this, but then there's also clients that are like no, we're going to use this person.
Speaker 4:Client relationships. You won't hear that from clients?
Speaker 3:Yeah, not from clients. Usually it's agents that have their preferred team. What do you want? You won't hear that from. Yeah, not from clients. Usually it's agents that have their preferred team.
Speaker 2:What do you prefer about them?
Speaker 3:I prefer the way my escrow company handles my clients. Every time there's a phone call to be made, an email to be sent, they're a point of contact. They represent my business and my style of business as much as I do to contact. They represent my business and my style of business as much as I do so, from my lender to my inspector, my escrow company. I'd like all of that to look uniform.
Speaker 2:Seamless yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and they can make or break transactions because they all offer similar services. But they're not all created equal, not at all. Title agents, especially title agents, title agents help out with that day-to-day advertising and getting information on properties and that kind of thing that nobody else can really do.
Speaker 2:Like oh, you got a $50,000 lien right or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or these guys probably know this term. You have an uninsured deed. You're not allowed to actually sell this house, mr Seller. You have to go through and legally get yourself onto the deed in order to sell the home, just because your dad gave it to you 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:Don't work like that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff, there's a lot of stuff. So who you work with matters, and you know me being a lot newer than these guys in the business. Like I started, you know I asked my fellow agents who they used, and you know I went through a handful of different companies before I found one that I liked, I got along with, obviously right. And if you're going to work with these people on a day-to-day basis, for each transaction, you're going to want to have some sort of good rapport with them and relationship where you can call them and speak to them and know what you're going to get and, like Donovan said, the relationship that they have with your clients, because that's a representation of you. So I, uh, I filtered through a lot of different companies before I found the ones that I said, okay, these, these are the people that I want to work with.
Speaker 2:So All right good.
Speaker 1:Child in there, man trial in there. You guys got any good stories about a listing or open house or something entertaining for our audience before we get any good. I know you guys got something, man something. Oh, there's always something, I know. I know donovan got some good ones.
Speaker 3:I've had I've had probably I don't, I can't say the most surprising showings, but I've had some pretty shocking showings before, where you go to open up house and the alarm code is on the listing and it doesn't work.
Speaker 4:Oh nice, and you know, you set the alarm off in a house and of course the listing agent's not answering and you're standing there in front of your clients and the super doesn't work because they have like a, a timeline, a time restraint on it. You can't open the lockbox and you have clients sitting there like are we getting in this house?
Speaker 2:and I don't know if we're getting this house break this window real quick.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah I can't tell you how many times I've shown houses with just people in bed sleeping.
Speaker 3:Yes, in one of the rooms Happens all the time, what In?
Speaker 1:bed. They're a teenager. They couldn't get the teenager out. No, it's like a rental.
Speaker 2:And the landlord didn't tell the tenant.
Speaker 4:There was a showing or something like that, and he told us it was good to go. No one was going to be there, but he's junk passed out on the bed, butt naked like just not just not going to that room, you showed that house to me. Here it is.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna stay out of that room, yeah you see the rest of the house, yeah I showed the house one time where there was a caretaker in the shed in the backyard. So I'm showing it's an empty house, there's no furniture or anything right, and I stopped. I start to smell smoke and like fire and I'm like what's going on? And I walk in the backyard and I can see by the shed there's a little fire. It's in a little barbecue pit, but it's not like he's starting a grill, it's an actual like fire.
Speaker 3:And then all of a sudden the shed door opens and a guy peeks his head out and he looks at me and he just kind of does a nod and he goes you one of them. And I said it depends. He's like, oh, I'm watching the house, and he closes the door and goes back in the shed and so I just locked the back door and told my clients hey, time to go, time to go. And then I called the listing agent and I'm like hey, did you know about that? And she's like oh yeah, that's Francisco. He does that and I'm like you couldn't communicate that.
Speaker 3:You didn't want to bring that up beforehand.
Speaker 4:You meet some interesting people. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, when people want to list their home with you, what know what's the? What's the pain in the ass? I mean, I would imagine a hoarder right Trying to get them to part with their stuff. But what? What is a pain in the ass, seller for you?
Speaker 4:I would say somebody who's unrealistic on price. They have like the price set in their head and you know like there's no way you're going to hit that number and what's going to end up happening is, if I take this listing at that price, you're going to end up happening is if I take this listing at that price, oh, you're fine, you're going to be pissed at me six months from now. Why hasn't this sold? And then you, it just develops bad blood, you know. But then so you kind of like you take that with that risk, knowing that hopefully they self-realize like, okay, maybe my house isn't worth that much, let's drop it to get this thing sold because you want, ultimately you want the listing and you want to sell the house, but you know it's like so you kind of got to fill it out up front. So that's what is the biggest complaint I have with sellers it's just unrealistic.
Speaker 2:Out of how many like 10 sellers? How many are doing that?
Speaker 4:Three? Yeah, it seems to be. Why are you laughing?
Speaker 2:He's like a lot he's like I can offer you some more chips and salsa.
Speaker 4:Some tacos. He's like a lot. He's like I can offer you some more chips, yeah, yeah, so tacos. Well, we're coming off of covid all the all-time high right. So people are still in that mindset, like, oh, they sold that like two years ago.
Speaker 3:I can, I can get that you're like uh, no, there's things I think it's 2021, buyers think it's 2012. Yeah, yeah, it's neither.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're having a tough time getting together, so there's got to be a lot of uh concessions made from everybody to get there. That's kind of what we're seeing this.
Speaker 5:pricing is tricky because nobody really sets the price right. The sellers want to set the price. They want to ask you what you think the price should be and, at the end of the day, it's the market that sets the price. Your house is worth what somebody's willing to pay for it, and that's a tough pill to swallow, a lot of times for a seller who's lived there and put the money into it. And this is their number and you know when the results speak for themselves. If people aren't coming to see it, it's the price. If people are coming to see it and not writing any offers, something about the house. If people are coming to see it and not writing any offers, something about the house. So it's tricky.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like anything the market will tell you the truth, right? Yeah, it's like anything in business Every time the market does not lie, it'll tell you. We're kind of running up against time here, but we always ask our entrepreneurs what advice they would give to a young kid, maybe trying to get in the game or thinking about getting in the game. So let's start with you, donovan. What would your little kernel of advice be to somebody?
Speaker 3:My advice is is always consistency. Just just be consistent. One of the best pieces of advice, of advice that I heard was long, long time ago. One of my old coaches said that consistency will get you places that motivation won't. There's going to be days where you just don't. You don't want to get up, you don't want to work late, you don't want to do any more. But if you can get that consistency down, that'll carry you through those down times. So that's what I would go with, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you know what Realtors are, always on right, doesn't matter what time it is or what holiday or anything. So that's a hard one it is Billy any words of advice?
Speaker 4:Yeah, somebody I mean obviously somebody's coming into the business. They don't have any of those connections typically, right? So, like I said before, sweat equity and open houses is a big one. Join a team. But also like I wouldn't quit your job right away too, because most of the time you have bills to pay, right, you need you put you know steady and you need a steady income Right.
Speaker 4:So this business, when you do it you're not going to get that, it's going to be all over the place. You could work, I think James said, seven months before he got a paycheck right. So I would do it on the side first until you get kind of more established and start having a little more consistent income, and then, if you feel comfortable in your good financial spot, then pull the trigger and do it full time.
Speaker 2:So have a side hustle.
Speaker 4:For sure, that's it, got it. Got it full time.
Speaker 2:So have a side hustle For sure, that's it.
Speaker 5:Yep, got it, got it, yeah, yeah. You know the perception is this business is really easy and you'll make a lot of money. It's just selling houses. When I started, my coach asked me how many homes I was going to sell this year and this was in December for the next year and I said 12. One a month. I can do that. Seven months went by and I had zero.
Speaker 5:So you know it's um, uh, it's not, as it's not as easy as it looks.
Speaker 5:Uh, every day you wake up in this industry, you're, you're unemployed, you have to, you have to go and find your next paycheck, you have to go and find the next person that wants to work with you, and it's tough. My biggest challenge was going from my entire life working for somebody, clocking in, clocking out, getting a paycheck every two weeks. And so the challenge of, like they said, I don't have to wake up early today, I don't have to make those calls, I don't have to knock on those doors, I can do whatever I want, and the end result of that is there's no paycheck coming in. So why I got into this business was you get out of it what you put into it. So if it's somebody that's willing to work hard and do the work and do all the things, you can benefit from it. But if you're somebody that just thinks it's going to be a breeze and it's all going to fall on your lap and be handed to you, it's going to be a rude awakening for sure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's some good tips there, guys. So we got three of the best in the game. Where can our listeners or people watching on YouTube? Where can they find you guys? So I'll go Donovan, where can somebody reach out and kind of contact you if they want to speak to you more about this or obtain your services?
Speaker 3:Well, I live on Instagram, so you can find me at Donovan McDaniel Realtor on Instagram. I'm at DonovanMcDanielexprealtycom. Those are the two quickest and fastest ways. I'm usually on the DMs, donovan McDaniel, so you can DM, dm, hit me up, so you work for EXP right. Yep.
Speaker 2:Okay, got it.
Speaker 3:Did I miss that in the beginning? Yeah, I missed that in the beginning. Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Billy, where can people find you? I know you're not the biggest social media guy.
Speaker 4:No, yeah, I'm with Windermere. You can always reach or you can give me a call directly 760-333-1884. Email me to billy at morasspropertiescom. Is that a?
Speaker 2:landline, I thought it used to be. I am the desert.
Speaker 4:That was when I was with the team, when I first started, oh you've grown since then I was with the team when I started. Yeah, that's why I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 1:All right, james, everybody should. Who where to find you, but for those of you under a?
Speaker 5:rock. Where can they reach out? And kind of, yeah, um, instagram. Instagram is where is where I live? Uh, working on building out a youtube channel on facebook as well. Everything across the board is james sewer realtor. All things coachella valley awesome.
Speaker 2:yeah, he's pretty easy to find people, you can be like I'm James Seward and I'm the doer New tagline.
Speaker 4:Just don't.
Speaker 3:Google that phrase.
Speaker 4:You don't want the images on that one, you don't want those results. You don't want those images, disregardful.
Speaker 2:You don't want those results in your history Right.
Speaker 1:Well, this has been really fun. A lot of great tidbits in there, guys, and I can't thank you guys enough for coming in. We wanted to do this for a long time. I think there's a lot of good things to learn. You have to watch this one twice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we're going to get ladies next Ladies in the house, we'll do a ladies roundtable coming up, so thanks for tuning in If you found some value today.
Speaker 4:You guys know the routine like subscribe and follow and we'll see you next time on CV Hustle.