This is a tough market. In order to keep up with it, you just need to be ready to make moves and you need to start being decisive. Do you think that it's because people think that they will feel pushy if they are like pushing processes?

No, I think people are just already disorganized. I believe that people need guidance and the generational studies have shown that millennials and Gen Zers are more driven towards guidance and people telling them how to do things. when you give so many choices to a consumer, they make no choice.

Welcome back to another episode of millennia. All right, jumping right into it. If you're watching this one, it's either because you're a loyal fan. Thanks. Or because one of us sent it to you because it's about buyers consultations. So some agents do this. Some do not, some just jump right into it at showings. Personally I prefer to sit down with somebody in person, most preferably, and just have a consultation, just to give an idea, and a guideline of like how things work, and it's pretty, basically the the sit down of, here's everything, so while it's happening, it's not the first time you're seeing it, or hearing about it. So let's just jump into it.

Yeah what is a buyer consultation, Jen?

Okay. Definition buyer consultation is it's a client consultation with buyers. No, it's a sit down. It's to consult about like your hopes, your dreams, your wants. Your needs and to give you your roadmap and strategy session, really, if you will. It's really where I like to go into the strategy and, educate a little bit more about how the process is going to happen without information dumping and overloading. So like getting in as much as I can without overwhelming. And it's really just more of an introduction to everything that we will be. Doing and using through the process. And not so much as a, a dump and expect to remember everything. Yeah. So like at buyer consultations, what I like to do is we've got a little buyer's packet. It has a lot, but it's again, more to reference. And if you're bored and need to fall asleep at 11 o'clock at night,

buyer packet is a lot more than mine does.

yeah, Seth and I do disagree on what should and should not be in a buyer's pocket

Ooh, disagreement.

I been dying on my hill of what I like to, there's very specific things that I know that we're going to disagree on. I like having like sample contracts. So the way that mine is currently set, we're making adjustments to them. Adjustments in the market means adjustments to our strategies and some really good things that are coming into them, which I'm really excited about. But typically I'll have a little bit of like glossary of if we're using words in our, vernacular that we're used to hearing, and you may not, it'll be there for you. You'll be able to say it. But what I really like to be able to know that people have seen before we are like firing out offers is the documents that I will be sending over to you and DocuSign when we're putting in offers. I want you to see them ahead of time.

I Don't disagree with sending them I don't know, if that is before first conceal that's might it be, that is I think that document is scary and I think that,. They can be confusing and there's not a lot of context of that first meeting. So my first meeting, I like to just have an open conversation. I like to have a talk. I want to, like I always tell you, God gave you two ears and one mouth and you use them in proportion. So I like to listen a lot.

I just said that to somebody

It's a great line. It's a great line and it's true. But no I agree. So continue. I just wanted to. Disagree with you?

Shocker. But no, not to say that we're gonna go sit down at the table and I'm gonna just fire out it line. Yeah. And be like linebacker

Has a buyer ever asked you to go through an entire agreement of sale?

So.

I went line by line, took me an hour and a half I had a mom of a client, and he was 22, and she's I want to go over the agreement of sale with you, I was like, sure, I like, I set aside 15, 20 minutes, she's I just want to let you know we're going through this line by line, I want to know what each paragraph says, and I did it we skipped over timber rights,

coal rights.

Coal rights, in Pennsylvania, there are coal rights, but not anywhere near where we work, but No, I had to go through each line. It was a lot. And she was all, she was here for it. She

Pennsylvania Agreement of Sales, 14 pages, just so you know, single space, words aren't very big.

and all written by attorneys.

Yeah. So like I said, what I do in mine, I highlight the very key things that I'm going to need to know from you when putting out offers. So I will highlight the offer price. I will highlight the deposit money amount, your closing debt date. And, which will pretty much really be subject to what your timeline is and the seller's timeline is. And I'll highlight inspections. And that's, those are like the real big things of it. And then, like as things happen and talk additional terms and stuff like that, but that's a different thing. It's really it helps everybody because it helps, that like when we're putting out an offer, we've already had this discussion, we've already talked about it and I'm impatient. And when I send something out, I want it back really fast because chances are I don't have a lot of time from writing it to submitting it. And I want as few questions as possible when it's actually happening. So it is for you, but it's also for me. I'm sorry.

Yeah, it's self serving. It's self serving. It's self serving. It's fine.

But yeah, no, and the buyers, it's a multi multipurpose meeting. So it is to go like over all of that. It sounds very boring to go through that. It's really, it's, that's not, it's interactive. You get to ask your questions, but it is also to sit down, talk about, your whys. Why are you even doing this? Like where do you want to be? What's your timeline looking like? Or like just answer your questions about is this even for you? Like it could be a buyer's consultation without you even buying in the immediate future. It could be. I would like to own a house. I don't know if that's really possible right now. And we have a consultation, we sit and talk about it. Your buyer consultation can look different depending on where you're at. But, you could be more ready than you think or, but it's your chance to be able to ask a lot of the questions or have questions answered that you didn't know you had. And just be able to sit down and just have an open conversation and get more information for yourself.

and how do we do that, Jen? Our proprietary buyer questionnaire.

Oh my God, I thought you were going to say by eating the elephant one bite at a time.

No, I'm saving that one for later.

Thank God. Okay. Yes. The buyer questionnaire, our newly revamped and beautifully executed buyer questionnaire.

Four?

Didn't we up it to, I thought I got to seven

seven pages?

I think that's the new one. The old one was

We've been working on so many of our processes and everything. I can't remember, but yeah.

We have a buyer questionnaire. We have a seller questionnaire. We have a sliding scale visual. There's, we've got a lot of

We have a lot of visual aids for people because that's how 80, 80 percent of people are visual learners.

may use all of them. You may use some of them. You will use some of them though for your benefit. What we're going to do with the buyer, with the consultation is there's buyer questionnaire. And if there is more than one person purchasing, so like you and a spouse or whoever it is buying with you, you do it together. You don't each get your own, do it together. It's a really good way to you find out what you agree with each other on and you also find out what you disagree on that you didn't know that you disagreed on. And it's a matter of like bringing all of every opinion that could be had in a home buying process. From preferable locations, and there's a part in it that says like the rank your top. Six places you want to live in priority order. And that's a really good time for you and your partner to be able to look at each other and say, Oh no, that I wanted to be here over there. And then there's some like, where do you really not want to be? And it helps align the purchasers and align us with the purchasers so that weren't because nobody likes to waste time. you don't want to waste your time and you don't want to waste our time. That's the biggest pushback that we get actually. And a lot of the reason why people who like want to buy but then drag their feet on doing it is because they say they don't want to waste our time. This is the perfect tool to waste nobody's time because it gets everybody all on the same page and it avoids conflict at any point in this. Now. Not to say that it doesn't change. So what you fill out the very beginning and what you say you want or need or don't need, that's just a starting point in your baseline. Cause then once we start getting out and seeing things. That's when your opinions might start changing. And a couple of times we've had some clients who have gotten a little stuck during their process, we send another one and have them fill it out again. Because then you find that after seeing certain things, your opinion start changing.,

they were fine there wants and needs, they think they want something and they realized that, and last time they send it to help us, but last time we send to them so that they can have a note set down together.

we generally probably know, but it gets, it's a conversation tool is what it ends up

Do you send the buyer questionnaire before the consultation or do you send it after?

Not after, because that's just another sit said, no.

Why not

Why not send it out of the gate and give somebody time to think? I don't require it back right away, but.

interesting how we do things slightly different Yeah.

Two inches on. Then

There is a right and a wrong way and obviously

just not do it is the wrong way, but no, and I'm curious enough what people think as far as what they'd prefer, but for me, and I don't mean for it to be pushy. I would just rather have people have the information and the time to think about it. And even like I tell people too, I'm like, listen, I'm sending this across for you to start thinking about, even if you don't write everything out, when we go to sit down together and to talk about it. I'll have it in front of me, you'll have it in front of you, and it's a topic of discussion. And fill it in as we

the real magic happens though, because we are able to send that questionnaire to our lender. So our lender also understands.

That was a big thing I said, it was a couple weeks ago when I was, we were talking and I had said there were times where we we ask our certain questions, whether it was a buyer questionnaire or we're just having our initial phone call, like introductory call. And. The buyer or the client says to us like certain things, whatever the information is that we asked for and then The lender has the lender call with them and then just ends up being the exact same phone call and it seems redundant and then it just it is perceived that the lender and us don't talk to each other, but we do and it's can we just streamline this? So and it's annoying for the clients. Like I have to say the exact same information over and over again. So typically I'll send the buyer questionnaire over in an email, CC'd with the lender. And then when you send it back, everybody has the information. We can just skip that.

if They're part of the replay all movement. Please be a part of the replay all movement. This is the I'm very passionate The corporate world is so divided on this because if you're not a big corporation is like please don't replay all Because like they conspire out of control. But in real estate, we love replay all

I love replay all

the replay all is great because it keeps everyone in the, it saves everyone from extra texts and again, explaining everything once again. So we really try to condense

was even a situation recently where somebody was not a part of the replay all movement. It only went to me. It didn't go to Seth and I got in trouble because I got it and he didn't, and I missed it and oopsie oopsie

Yeah. all replay all with Jen, just replay all, just say you're and don't call her Jenny. Don't even And make sure you spell her name with two N's in that one.

Yeah, everything in Millenniup is double N, Jen is double N, Millenniup, double L, double N double

L, double P. No, but we have done a really we spent a lot of time in the last two years streamlining our processes because we have lots of clients and they've, we want to give them the best care possible, but we also We need to make it manageable for ourselves. So we have integrated the entire lend, like onboarding process with our lender. So everybody knows what's going on. Everybody has an idea. We get on our calls with the lender when you have your initial call, because again, it's a two way street. There's no sense of you telling the

I'm having a call with the lender later. And I said, yeah, I know I'll be there. Yeah, I'll be the ghost in the background.

And because there's no sense of you having a call with a lender and then the lender reports back. And we were doing that. And I just said to our lender, I said, this is ridiculous. Like, why don't we all take the 15 minutes for that first call? And then there's a second call with our lender, which is really going over numbers that we, we go over a sample property, that type of thing. That's really where the magic happens because. After that call is when we get our marching orders to shop. They look at the property, they look at the numbers for the property and they say, are you comfortable with this rate? And it's okay, this, these are our parameters. And then Jen and I go to work on getting you out. And we don't talk to the lender again. And really until we start making offers.

a delay it would be to start, we do our process. We talk about what you want, what you need, all that. We start going to see things. And then find that what we're seeing is not anything that you

totally inefficient. It's not a proper way to take a consumer through and experience. And there's, there are lots of areas where we can vary our approach, not only with the properties that we buy, show you and the loan products we have, but we really stick to this process to make it as easy for you as it can possibly be, because you're busy and You do this maybe three to four times in your life.

to get you as prepared as possible to. This is a tough market. It's not gonna lie about it. And I always tell people like the market moves fast, but so do I. I'm not intimidated by it, but In order to keep up with it, you just need to be ready to make moves and you need to start being decisive. And all of these things are to be able to put you in a position to be decisive, but well educated in order to be decisive and not make rash decisions or things that you haven't thought about.

because that all catches out with you. You put in a, you, you find something two days, you put in an offer. There's always that little voice in the back of your head, but we can in 24 hours get you really like ready. Because we've gone through the questionnaire, we've gotten you with the lender, we know, and get you to a level of understanding and really a level of understanding about the boiler plate stuff, like the docs and how the process works or whatever. So you can focus on the property and make sure that it's the right decision for you.

And something else too that we didn't even talk about, which is a big one that I will always talk about in a buyer consultation, I think might be the other most important thing to accomplish is I'll go through the, like our working relationship and what that is. And there's something called a consumer notice and we're just give that to you at our first like talk of real estate.

It doesn't have to

be signed the first time, but we have to issue it. And that the benefit for you, the reason why the consumer needs to have that is just to be able to see what different they're called agency relationships you're entitled to and what it can be going throughout the process. Standard, if you're a buyer, it would be buyer's agency, and that's when we're, once the buyer's agency agreement is signed, that's a different contract, we'll get to that in a second, that means that we are bound to a fiduciary service to you, so your confidentiality if, We can have a whole episode on what that is, or you can come to our buyer's consultation and I'll tell you all about it. But it also goes into what dual agency is and that only some states, it's not allowed Pennsylvania. It still is. For now, we'll see how that goes. It's because dual agency means that you represent the buyer and the seller, fiduciary service. By the book, yes, but by practice it can get,

very, get very hard.

I've done it. I've

times and I've not enjoyed it any of those

and I've not enjoyed it any of those times. We're both highly ethical people, so

Yeah, we're both highly ethical people, so we can navigate it,

it's still,

still yeah, and I always think I just hope they don't think that I'm holding, I am holding certain information back because this is my job for confidentiality.

and say that to them too. And

Oh no. I lay it out very clearly. I'm like, listen, I don't work for you. Like I work for both of you. I am more or less, I'm a dual agent, but I'm really just a transactional person. Here I can offer you some advice,

So you know, as our, as a team, Seth and I, we do try to do, there's also called designated agency where if you do come in, so Seth and I did this, was that last year? Yeah.

I don't

Okay something like that, like a year and a half ago. There was a property I was listing. We both had, we were sharing buyers, working on buyers together. They ended up purchasing my listing and so Seth and I just broke into designated agency where we designated Seth as just the buyer's

Got a good discount on that one too. I got a good discount on that. Are you talking about the Pottstown property? Yeah. Yeah. Love that one. Yeah, Seth

It was reasonable.

a deal for the client which I liked.

I got the house sold for my client. But yeah, no, so they also got a full inspection report that was done before they came in

That's why I loved it. I didn't have to do anything. I just, I saw it and I wrote it up and we got a great deal.

I work my ass of for that deal.,

you did it. Wait, I'm like, what are you doing at this property

what was I doing to that property yeah,

you were painting it

I love my friends. They're my friends. I was looking out for them. They had to very quickly. Anyway, that aside Back to what we're

above and beyond, but that was way beyond.

to Above to Infinity and beyond that's me, call me Buzz Lightyear. But yeah, getting back to what the document we're talking about is so we will really explain that and then also go into, at what our working relationship is, the services that we're providing, what you're receiving, and then, we'll be transparent. How do we get paid? We're going to talk about that too. So you know The standard is that the seller pays buyer's agent commission. Sometimes they don't. I'd rather get all that up front with you and show you the lines of what explains it and in what scenarios each would start activating the other. Those are really important things to go over in a buyer consultation. And then we get into your wants, hopes, dreams, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

yup!. So no, I think that this was important to go over. I feel like the real estate industry, some of the agents that I encounter, they fly by the seat of their pants. And when I talk to people that don't use me, they're obviously crazy and off their meds. But in the end, I feel that. There's a lot of Realtors out there without a process. It's all Hey, yeah, that sounds good. Let's get you hooked up with the lender and we'll get you out. And we'll feel it out as we go wherever. And it's like this market you do, at least in the greater Philadelphia area.

I feel it. Do you think that it's because people think that they will feel pushy if they are like pushing processes?

No I think people are just already disorganized. And I also think that there are a lot of Realtors out there who don't do nearly the amount of business we do. And like they can afford to clumsily. And disorganizedly, if that's a word, get through and like muddle through with a client. I respect people's time too much. I believe that people need guidance and the generational studies have shown that millennials and Gen Zers are more driven towards guidance and. People telling them how to do things. Everyone thought millennials were just going to be like these, Oh, I'll just get on my app and follow the bot. And he's going to tell me everything I want to do. And that's not at all the case. And we work so much with young people that I had to develop, or we had to develop a process here to get people like through. These initial stages of home buying and we have a home selling side to, it's not, we're not gonna talk about here, but I have too much respect for people's time and I want people to be happy. And I don't want them going to bed, like wondering about this, wondering about that. And there will be those instances just because things pop up during a real estate transaction. But I want people to feel like they are well cared for. And also I want to make our lives not miserable by having a bunch of questions from left field all day, every day from clients

who finds out something like two months down the road that could yeah, it could have out in five

Yeah, like we have a client that we're working with who we didn't realize has a a mother who might be coming to visit and dad has implications for the house that they want to buy. Even through our process. I don't think we really got a hold of that until maybe our third showing. But then once we did, it changed the way we were looking at property. We bring up different things at property. There are realtors who will show 10 properties before they really, truly know what the buyer is looking for. And I say, let's just go out and just explore and discover

also gets really confusing for you. Like I really like to cap showings at tops for a day and not because I can't keep going, but it's like you start confusing them together and it's Oh, which one was that? Oh what? And then you start like merging like houses together and is that the one that had this? And it just it becomes a lot to process and remember.

the Philadelphia market. You're really lucky if you even have more than four, but what you're talking about is the paradox of choice. Like when you give so many choices to a consumer, they make no choice. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that the confused mind says no. But the brain like it's overwhelmed with options. It tends to shut down. So that is something where whether you're showing them lots of property or they're confused and don't know what they're looking for in the first place, it's like you can spend, so much extra time in the car out seeing property, spending lots of fee sheets to the lender and all that good stuff. So we, I'm really proud of what we've created. I think it's going to be 2024 is going to be it's going to be busy just like the last few years have been. And anybody who needs help, that's what we're here for.

Yeah. And if you're curious about what all goes into these sheets and. Packets that we have, just reach out, happy to go through them and show what we've come up with.

Ever changing market means ever changing processes.

It's about to be come a time where, you know, the more that you have to offer to be able to help the consumer and it helps everybody. The well, more well off everybody is going to be.

So, Brian Buffini whos a real estate coach he said, he's been saying for the last two years and he's absolutely right. it is becoming a professional's market. Can't just muddle through. You have to have. What's that?

Bless up. Bless

bless up. Yeah. So I'm I've taken that advice and I feel the whole team has and I'm excited for 2024.

Yep.

All right guys. I'll see

Bye.