Just being intentional about your day.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a, that's a super huge part of your success. If you're experiencing success, you talk to a lot of these people who are doing good numbers and they have a great business, they have a system and they stick with it and they're very intentional about what they spend their time on. And, you know, for us Realtors who have to be, you know, plan ahead, you know, three months ago is, you know, you get to see what you did three months ago today.

Yeah.

You know, you can see what you did two months ago today. And if you're not disciplined enough to do, you know, the things that are going to get you business in the future, it's going to be really hard for you to navigate when the market is good and when the market is down and, you know, it's just going to be really hard for you to have any bit of consistency in your business. Yeah. You know, so for, you know, like we said, you got to parent all the time. You got to make sure that you're available. You got to, you got to be an agent all the time and make sure you're available as well and think that's one of the separators for, you know, people who just get in and think it's going to be a bunch of money. It's not.

It's not.

It's not. You got to be intentional about your day.

Boom, here we are. We're gonna skip all the pleasantries and intros and all that kind of fun stuff. I mean, I'll obviously introduce you here, but. But we're just going, we're just gonna jump right into it. I don't have any, any play on words today or freaking pop puns or whatever.

It is sponsored by Tropicana this episode. We're not. Just in case Tropicana's watching, just in.

Case they're watching, but we would love.

To, you know, we have your product. We drink it regularly for orange juice in the morning.

So they want to get to our tens and tens of listeners.

Yeah, we'll have our people reach out to your people. Tropicana.

All right, well, we are back. This is Texas Real Estate and Finance Podcast. I am your host, Mike Mills back from a probably 60 day hiatus at least. And got my good buddy Conrad Jackson here with me. Local DFW realtor, builder, investor, educator, basketball coach, family man. I mean, he does all the things. I think I always thought that I had a lot of that I did, but then I met you and I realized that I'm. I'm pretty useless when it comes to.

I don't know, man. You had your time, especially with the sports, youth sports. You had a whole organization. I coach two teams, so it's very minuscule, my. What my work is versus what you've doing for years. We appreciate that too, too. You know, my kids played in that league as well, so. But at the end of the day, Yes. I don't get a lot of sleep. My wife gets less sleep because I get more sleep than she does, and she's not happy about it. And I'm.

I'm.

You know, it is what it is.

Yes. Yeah. Well, when you have kids that are young and they're in the midst of it and you're doing stuff, you know, it's that my favorite saying I tell people all the time. It's like, the days are really, really long, but the years are really, really short. And that stuff goes by quick, you know? And I went from coaching both of my kids when they were five years old and soccer and basketball and football and baseball and whatever, and now my daughter's 17, about to graduate from high school next year, going off to college, and, you know, my son's a freshman, about to start driving, which is terrifying in and of itself. So, yeah, not. Not real. Not real fired up about where things are headed. My wife and I are gonna have to come up with a really good hobby sometime soon to get over this stuff.

Yeah, do what you got to do. I understand. I'm in the thick of it, so I'll let you. If ever you want to get back in and take my place for about a month or so, feel free to tap in.

I' I joke that. That once my kids leave, I'm gonna have to, like, start coaching at, like, the YMCA or something.

You got to do, man. I got spots. We got teams that need to coach, so if you want to. Come on, come on.

I got to stay with the younger ones because I know more about stuff than they do. Once I get to about 14, that's what my. That's where my competence starts to fall off a little bit. So try to keep it minimum.

At that point, the team is just conditioning. We're not doing plays anymore. We're just conditioning because y'all know more about basketball than I do. So let's just get this up and down.

Exactly.

Exactly.

All right, well, let's jump into a couple things, because we are in 2025, and, you know, we are all hoping that at least as far as real Estate is concerned this year that we see a turnaround. I don't know, you know, at this point if we will or we won't. Everything's kind of speculation. It doesn't look like there's going to be any kind of dramatic shifts, but you never know where the world takes you. So it's kind of hard to, you know, say for sure what's going to happen. But I wanted to start by just giving you a couple statistics, you know, that really always jump out to me when it comes to. At least on a national level. So in 2023, we had 4.9. 4.09 million existing homes. Not new, new builds, but existing homes that were sell sold. And that's a 17% decline from 2022. Okay. And in 2024, they went down even more. They dropped down to 4.06 million, which was the lowest level that we've had since 1995. Okay. In 1995, there were 3.8 million sales. All right. That's how far it's fallen. And, oh, by the way, population's quite a bit higher.

Yeah.

Since then, because that's 30 years ago. Right.

Yeah.

So just to give everybody an idea, before the pandemic, all right, now, we don't count that because those three years were just insane. So this is like normal market stuff. So before the pandemic, the sales range anywhere between like five and a half to six million per year. Okay. From 25, 2015 to 2019. And at the peak in 2021, there was 6.1 million, which was obviously, you know, when things were going crazy.

Yeah.

So when you hear stuff like that and you're a Realtor, you know, doing this job, like, what does that. What does that bring to your head?

I mean, for me, honestly, it just makes me more cognizant of the work that I got to do on a daily basis, man. Because you just don't know when this thing can. When the tap gets turned off.

Right.

And so I think that's what we saw. We saw crazy, crazy numbers where people didn't know anything about real estate and were selling tons of houses. In the year their first year, their second year, their third year, you saw people who were making income and getting income from the government assisted, you know, money that you were getting in your household and starting businesses and buying things and buying. Upgrading their lifestyles and things like that. And it was basically like throwing gasoline on the fire. And so everybody thought that time would last forever. And it came to an end.

Yeah.

And when it came to an end. It made people really, you know, understand, hey, maybe I'm not at, as, as good at my job as a real estate agent.

I had that. I mean, hell, man, I, I thought I was amazing, and all of a sudden I was like, man, maybe I'm not as good at this.

I mean, myself included, you know, houses selling, then they stop selling. And you're like, well, do I even know how to sell this house anymore? Maybe I should go back to the basics. And so I think as a realtor, it just makes you understand even more clearly that you got to keep working in the good times and the bad. You cannot get lazy. And that's one thing that I was guilty of. I think it's one thing that a lot of people were guilty of on the real estate side. And by the time we figured out, hey, the tap has kind of been turned off, yeah, it was too late. We had already not reached out and prospected for, you know, the previous three months or six months or whatever. And so now our, our pipeline was running dry.

Well, it's funny, when you said government assistance, I think that is a great term for what happened because, and, and when, when people say government, you know, they're thinking like the stimulus checks and the PPP loans and all that kind of stuff, but in our industry, I don't think people realize how much, quote, government assisted we were in that period. Yeah, only from a standpoint of when you look at where the rates went. Yeah, when they went from, you know, the, the average rate, by the way, just, just so everybody knows, the average market interest rate. I got it right here. From. Where'd it go? Sorry. In 2023, the average was 7.79% in October, and that's the highest since 2000. Okay. But during that period of time in 2021, it averaged at 3%.

Yeah.

So there was a period of time between 2000 and, say 2020 where interest rates were somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 to 6%. But even then, because we forget that, that was right after the great financial crisis. And what, what a lot of people don't realize is when you look at interest rates and what the Fed was doing, it wasn't that they cut the Fed rate dramatically. It was that they were buying mortgage backed securities, it's called qe, where they were purchasing bonds, mortgage bonds on the secondary market to artificially drive rates down. Right. It wasn't, I mean, don't get me wrong, cutting the rates down to zero, which is what they did, obviously had an impact on interest Rates on the whole. But when it came to mortgages specifically, it was the fact that they were buying billions of, of mortgage backed securities. So they were just creating artificial demand. So you literally had, I don't know, the Fed's, not the government mostly, but, but you know, it's still a function of, of what we do in our country. And that entity was artificially keeping rates incredibly low, which was driving demand for all assets, not just real estate, but everything, and making it to where the prices were just going through the roof because there was just so much, you know, it wasn't like I used to say it all the time, it's not free money, but it's pretty close, right? Pretty close. So, so it's, it's one of those things where that was like a government assisted income. So if you were a real estate professional or if you were a realtor, if you were an investor, if you were a mortgage banker, if you were a title rep, hell, if you were an insurance agent, anybody that was in the world of real estate, inspectors, appraisers, all of these people, we were all basically living on some version of government assistance.

Absolutely.

For three years.

Everybody, you know, I won't say everybody body, but most people who were, you know, diligent and, and had a decent business were having their best years of their career.

Yeah.

You know, and that wasn't the case for everybody, but for the majority, I feel like that I talked to, at least in my small circle, everybody was like, hey, this is great, you know, and it changed when we all thought, hey, it's going to keep going, it's going to keep going. Then it changed.

Yeah.

And then now we, we were kind of left holding the bag like, oh man, now what do we do now? And so you kind of have to get back to the basics. And I know that's what we did. We, we got back to the basics, you know, and it was, hopefully we have scraped the bottom of that barrel and moved on. I don't know that, but I can tell you that business now is a lot better than it was four or five months ago.

Yeah. Oh yeah, no, I mean, I've experienced the same thing, but it's, it's kind of like, you know, when you go from, you know, not having a drop of water for, for two weeks and then getting a thimble full, you're like, ah, we're living the high life. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's, it's a challenge because you know, I think in our industry as a whole, that we all got real comfortable with the money flowing in. And even I consider myself to be a very reasonable, practical person when it comes to money. I knew, or I felt confident that this was. That what we were going through in 2021 and 2022. 2021, you know, that whole period was not going to be sustainable, like it wasn't going to continue. Sure, I knew that. Right, you knew that. Yeah, we knew that. But did we fully adjust our lifestyle to match that? I mean, we saved a lot of money. We did fine, which is why we were able to make it through.

Sure.

But at the same time, you know.

You go back, there were things you would do differently. Yes, yes, I know. For me, absolutely. That holds true.

Yeah. Because you make decisions based off of where you think things are, where they're headed, how much you have in the bank, and then you don't realize how fast when the pick, when the spigot gets turned off, how bad that hurts. And, And I mean, look, there was a lot of. I don't. The one thing I didn't look up is I don't have the numbers for nar, and I don't have the numbers. I do know as far as mortgage bankers are concerned.

Yeah.

We lost over half our people in the. In the last two years.

I believe it.

Gone. And, and then I saw something the other day. I didn't research the validity because, you know, these days you can't believe everything you read online.

Yeah.

But I saw something like 70% of realtors didn't have or had one transaction or fewer.

Yeah.

Last year, 70%.

Well, I mean, that sounds startling, but that's not uncommon.

Right.

For the, For a high number of realtors. Now, 70%, that's. That's a little high. But, you know, majority of Realtors only sell one house a year. That's usually been the trend.

That is true.

Yes.

Yes.

So if you have one that is doing way more than that one a month, a couple a month, a bunch a month, and you need to hold on to them because they're probably, you know, somewhat decent at their job, you know, so. But, but yeah, man, I, you know, hindsight is 20 20.

Yeah.

You know, we're. We are. I say 20 20. 20 20, as far as the vision as opposed to the year. But when you look back, you're like, all right, look, man, I gotta do better. In the times where money is flowing, business is good. You know, we saw a dramatic shift in our business in the way that bankers were talking to us.

Okay.

You know, in those Years where, you know, we do a lot of investments, we do a lot of new construction, we do a lot of construction loans, things like that, rehab loans. The bankers were just, hey, what do you need? Give me whatever you need. Send me the cost estimate. I'll make sure that I get you what you need so you can get this project off the ground. You want to do two more? Do two more. You want to do four more? Do four more. And when everything shifted, that changed. Those conversations were, you know, the Mr. Jackson's and all that turned into, you know, hey man, it went from Mr. Jackson to hey man, we need this, we need this now. We, we're not going to be able to do this for you. Matter of fact, we need this document. We need this extra verification. We need this, we need that. You know, and when we were asking for things, it was a lot harder. The tone changed across, I feel like all the financial, financial institutions and that was just another indicator of like, hey man, we gotta be prepared for this because it's not gonna be great ever forever. And when it's good, you got to make plans for the times that it's, that it's bad. Yeah, you know, it, it changed on us in the drop of a dime and it affected our business, it affected the amount of houses that I could put out on new construction routes and, and, and plans. It affected, you know, I was in the, in the middle of a really big development, still am, you know, and you know, the bank called our note due and said, hey, we need to do this, we need you to pay this right now. You know, and so it was like, we got to figure this out.

Yeah.

And so we, luckily for us, we figured it out and we're able to get through that.

But you know, that'll make your butt pucker up a little bit, man, let.

Me tell you, driving down the street and it's like, all right, Everybody's like, how's it going? My general response, like, it's good. Those days I was like, I don't know, you know, I've been better, better days. And just, just to grasp the scale of, you know, a development, we were talking about, you know, 70 plus homes. You know, this is a big project with millions of dollars. We have a lot of money on the line. And the bank's like, hey, yeah, we need, we need you to pay this off.

Yeah, well, there's a, there's this. I think there's a misconception to some extent that the banking has tightened up. It hasn't. So just so we're clear the like on a standard mortgage like getting a loan, there is no rules that have changed.

Right.

Nothing has changed. They haven't adjusted any, any requirements for credit or income or any. But what you are seeing, and this is where banks are starting to get a little tighter in requirements. So if you bought a home in the last 12 months, you may have felt like you were drugged through the ringer a little bit more than maybe somebody two or three years ago. And it's not because anything's changed per se, except for the fact that banks now independent banks, whatever they are now held, being held to a higher standard by these insure, insuring entities like Fannie Freddie, HUD va. So what happens is, is when the money's flowing and loans are coming in those entities and you insure your loan with them and they, they're basically checking your work to make sure you wrote, underwrote the loan according to their guidelines. When that happens, there's a lot of loans coming in. There's only so many people. And so things just like, yeah, yeah, this looks good. Yeah, yeah, this looks good. Yeah, yeah, this looks good. Right. Well once that slows down and then people start maybe having some issues paying or there are other considerations. Well now, now they've, you know, HUD has overflow of employees that need stuff to do.

Yeah.

And so they're like, hey, why don't we dig into these loans that we did two years ago.

Yeah.

And let's start seeing if there's anything that we missed. Because they could come back on a bank and say, hey, look, you didn't verify this correctly or you didn't, this is the wrong documentation for this. Or we found this other thing on the credit that you didn't see. Now this is your loan. Now we're not keeping it or we're gonna, we're gonna penalize you for it.

Yeah.

And, and on that note, I, I've gotten, I, maybe in the last six months I probably gotten three letters from three different banks saying, hey, you know, we need you to verify these particular transactions just to make sure that our records are updated and kept.

Yeah.

And I know it's because big brother's looking over their shoulder like, hey, we ain't going to pay you until this gets figured out.

Yes.

You know, so it, it trickles down to the consumer to at some extent as well. So yeah, that's a real thing.

And even on our end, like I get frustrated, you know, when we go through underwriting and stuff because they're just, they're they're getting so granular on things to a certain extent. And like, part of me obviously understands it. Like, I get it from a business side of things, but in the customer service and the relationship side of things, it makes it that much harder because like, for me, working with Realtor partners, you know, they would call, we'd get the loan going, it'd be like smooth, easy borrowers, like, no problem. And then we're like, okay, we got to fix this thing and I got to adjust this thing. Now it's like, what, why did this, Is there something wrong with this? Like, yeah, there's not anything wrong with this person per se. It's just now I have a few more hoops, I've got to be extra. Sure. Yeah. On a few more things. Get a few more note, you know, notes in the file, whatever it may be. Because when we ship this off to Fannie or when we send it off to HUD to give us our insure insurance policy, yeah, they're going to go through with a fine tooth comb and if we miss anything, you know, we're on the hook for it. So again, my point of that is just that, like lending hasn't gotten tighter in, in the regards that any regulations or rules have changed.

Yeah.

It's just they're paying more attention. It's kind of like in the NBA, right? It's like a foul's a foul's a foul, but when you get to the finals, maybe it's a little looser. And when you get into, if you're a rookie, you might get called for a few more fouls than otherwise, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, when you're like you said, when money's flowing, it's, it's good. But you know, when it's not, then people have attention to detail and they pay attention to detail and they're, they're looking over their shoulder, they're looking over to make sure that the eyes are dotted and the T's are crossed and you can't get around it, man. Especially if you're dealing with, you know, the banking industry on a regular basis.

Yeah.

And you know, in our industry, man, we, we deal a lot with the banks and they have to make sure that their stuff is right, otherwise you don't get to continue to bank there or do business with them.

Yeah, I, I just thought of this and this is kind of a little bit off topic, but I'm curious your thoughts because we joke about internally in the industry. We joke about this stuff all the time.

Yeah.

But why does it seem like every buyer or seller when they decide to buy a house, they are changing jobs, they are going out of town on vacation, they are, you know, buying new stuff, they are changing their corporation set up, you know, six months prior Like I know life happens, but golly, man, like it's just been a rash of that stuff, you know, lately, you know.

It'S, it's one of those things where it's like I've had people like, hey, yeah, we, we've got this all worked out and we finally got these people to agree and yeah, we can't close on that day because we're going on a cruise. But we're not just going on a cruise. We're going to cruise to, you know, Thailand.

Right?

It's like what?

No Internet connection. We're gonna be gone for six months.

You know, new three months ago you were trying to buy a house at this time. Why are you going to Thailand? You know, and it's just, it's one of those things, man. It's. I, I wish, I really wish that there was like when people decided, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna book this cruise at the same time that we're gonna go out, you know, we're gonn dream home that we've been waiting for and we finally got the deal that they would also remember to send a referral to like five people for me at the same time. Because it's like, hey man, they can book that cruise at the drop of a dime. No. And they always forget about mentioning that cruise.

Oh yeah.

Until we've solidified the close date or solidified a date that they have to be present for some things. Oh yeah. By the way, we're gonna be out of the country for that.

Well.

And we'll be gone for two weeks. Who, who does that?

That's like on lending side. Because again, we're just, we're just talking gripes here because it's the start of 2025 is we always do a whole segment on this. Yes. We get the title company. You know, we've got everything done basically ready to go. We're almost there. And they're like, oh, we need, it's a mail out. We're going to need this like two days in advance. Yeah. Okay, well.

Or I didn't, I don't remember telling you this, but you know I'm not technically divorced, right? Does that count? We're separated, right?

Like what? Yes. What do you mean yes? Yeah, it's a never ending. It's it's like we went from, you know, my processor and I were joking about this the other day with Derek. You know, we went from doing, say, you know, 20 loans a month where they were difficult. Because you're doing 20 loans a month.

Yeah.

To doing like five to 10. But they're just as hard. Like, you're doing just as much work. You're like, wait a minute, we were doing double the loans. And I feel like I'm doing just the same amount of work because everything is just that much harder. It's just a little bit more difficult to get it through. And. And I think, you know, that's something is when we, as realtors and lenders, when we deal with our clients nowadays especially, you know, we have to. We have to relay that to them. Like, okay, there is. This isn't easy in that it's not. Has people. Because people like it personal, like, well, my credit this, and I got this income. And why would it be. It's like, look, it's not you necessarily. Right. And your. Your thing, but you have two companies that you own. Your, you know, wife just started a new commission job. You guys just moved two months ago. You have five bank accounts that you move money in and around all the time. Like, I get it. You're. Your credit's great. You make plenty of money. But, you know, in your bank account every month, it's there. But you got a lot of moving parts.

Yeah.

And when you're trying to fit everybody into the. Into the square peg, you know, and, you know, you got a round hole there. It's. It can be challenging. So it's like, we have to prepare people going into this. Like, the fun part is shopping for the house and looking for stuff. But then, you know, the not fun part happens after that.

Yeah. And I think that people, you know, I have to remind people on the agent side very often the lender is trying to give you this loan.

Oh, we want to do the loan.

They don't make any money unless they do the loan. So, like, they're on your side 100%. So stop getting offended when they ask you these questions. Just answer them.

Yeah.

So the lender can help you figure out how to make this work.

Yes.

You know, and they come to me like, oh, man. Like, I don't. I don't know if this is the right person. It's like, what do you mean? The next person is not going to be as nice or have as good as much personality. Come on.

Yeah.

Do you want the house or not?

Yeah, yeah. All right, so going into 2025, so we know 2023, 2024, you know, again, to put it in context, historically, were two of the worst years that we've had in real estate in a very long time. And, you know, regardless of what you see from builders, and, you know, that was the thing that I think people didn't realize too, is the amount of builder transactions that occurred in the market. I mean, it was, I think we were sitting somewhere between 25 to 30% of the purchases in of, you know, the entire country were new build. And in a typical year that's, you know, 10 to 15%.

Yeah, maybe.

Right. And people don't realize that there's a big shift when you have new builds versus existing homes that get sold. And you would think, oh, well, you know, the homes are higher quality, which is not the case.

Debatable.

Debatable. In many cases. There isn't always a situation where, you know, yeah, it seems like they're throwing this money at you, whether it be for incentives or lower rates or all that kind of stuff. But don't be fooled by that because nobody gives you money for free. Right. They're not handing you money for free. They are now. It may help you, like, right then, Right. You don't have enough cash or you want to get your payment lower. And I'm not hating on anybody that wants to take advantage of this stuff.

Yeah.

But what I think consumers don't fully understand is when you go into a new neighborhood and you're buying a house, it's a new build at that time for those comps the homes are selling in that area because they're driving sales. Right. So there are going to be three or four or five homes that sold in that exact same neighborhood with that exact same builder that you're working with that. So your house is going to hit the value that they're trying to hit in most cases. Right. The issue comes in when you try to move in, say, less than five years because then those homes have already sold. And now we're pulling comps from neighborhoods around that.

Yeah, right.

That have sold more recently because it's more important in the recency of a sale than it is in the proximity in most cases.

Correct.

I mean, it's a balance. But so now you bought your house for 450 or something like that, and you think, all right, I'm gonna sell it for 460 or whatever. And then they come back and it's 440. You're like, wait a minute, how is My house worth less? Well, it's not that the market declined, it's just that the values were established in a different time than when you're trying to move because they have to build in all those incentives into the price.

Yeah.

Builders are going to make money.

Absolutely.

They're not going to lose money, Right?

Absolutely.

So what's your experience with dealing with that, man?

I had a recent exp. I had a recent experience with, with this development. I learned a lot in this development, in case you can't tell. So we, we bought a piece of property for a few hundred thousand dollars.

Right.

And this is a property we're going to develop. Okay. And we bought it in two parcels.

Right.

There was a smaller parcel, about four acres, and there's another parcel about. Roughly about 16. A little less than 16 acres. Right. So the four acre parcel, I think it appraised for like 180,000, right? Yeah, for four acres. And the, the other one, you know, it was, it was way more than that, you know, probably triple that amount. Close to.

Yeah.

Okay. So when we go to the loan, when things turn and the bank says, hey, we need you to pay this, pay this down, pay this off, whatever. Right. And we are going to get an appraisal to see, hey, is there money in the equity that we put into this? So see if we can kind of structure, restructure the numbers. We had put in both parcels together for a total of 19 and a half acres.

Okay.

It barely appraised higher than the four acre parcel two years prior. The reason being is there were no comps in the area at the time that we were.

Houses weren't turning.

Right. Yes, there were significant amount of higher priced sales, but they were so far away.

Yeah.

That they weren't necessarily comparable.

Yeah.

And so the only things that they had comparable to our size parcel or selling for way cheaper.

Yeah.

And so I was screaming at the top of the lungs to my lender like, hey, let's use common sense here. I'm next to a school, there's been nothing but new development all around me.

Right.

But there haven't been enough land sales. How does this property appraise for a few hundred thousand dollars less than what it appraised for just two years ago?

Yeah.

Did the land just disintegrate in two years? Like did everything catch on fire in two years and now it's no longer usable? No. So let's use common sense. But they had to go by the numbers. Common sense was kind of out of the window. And so for that Reason we had to put a significant amount of money up to pay that loan down significantly in order to keep our deal going.

Yeah.

And it was very frustrating. Yeah, it was very frustrating. It was very stressful time too. So it's just what you said is kind of spot on. Hey, the recency of sales is almost sometimes more important than, you know, the proximity of where it is. Because I was in a hot location, a hot market with nothing but good stuff going on around.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, and it changes too because it's, I mean, and again, it can't be understated. How much of a dramatic shift just in the last five years.

Yeah.

Like to go from average housing market to just the craziest housing market we've ever seen.

Yeah.

Back to the lowest housing market, you know, the worst performing market that we've ever seen. And crazy thing about it is home prices really didn't fall.

No. Like, no.

If someone were to tell you the volume of sales dropped to a 30 year low, like prior to 2024, like if you're sitting there in 2019 and you're like housing sales dropped 30%, you know, to a 30 year low in 2024.

Yeah.

Like, damn. Values must have gone down 10%, right? No, no, they went up.

Yeah. And what you're finding is just more available inventory out there for that's been on the market for longer. That's what I'm seeing today. It's like people are like, well, we can get these prices. Well, people, you know, there are some things that the seller will do to get their home sold.

Yeah.

There. It typically does not include dropping the price drastically.

Right.

It includes, hey, we'll negotiate some concessions in here. We'll pay for some things that we typically wouldn't pay for. We'll drop it a little bit. But you know, if you want, you want it that much, you know, you're just not going to get. We're just not going to do it.

Yeah.

Well, and I, you know, it's a thing where the inventory issue has been there for a long time and you don't just climb out of it overnight. And it's funny, my favorite thing because I'm, I'm probably more active on Twitter than I should be, but, but my.

Favorite Twitter still Twitter X. Sorry, I was going to say you got me confused. Did I miss something?

No, no. But you know, come on. Like, it's like calling Prince the sign. Like, what? It's Prince. Come on.

Just curious.

It's.

Yeah. There's still a bird floating around out there.

Anyway, while we're on that, is. Is threads like the alternative of Twitter? Like, is this. I'm still trying to figure this out. I'm clearly probably showing my age, but I see a lot of threads now and I'm like, is this supposed to be like the rival of the people who don't want to be on X?

I think it was a thing that Zuckerberg created. So we can fall down a rabbit hole a little bit here. But, but the whole social media landscape, right, is, Is a bunch of either you or let's just say prior to Trump getting elected or becoming enrolled and maybe even prior to Elon taking over. Yeah, was. Social media was very much a mini. Social media platforms were very much an echo chamber of don't say anything that could possibly if hurt someone's feelings because if you do, you're. You're cooked.

Yeah.

Right. And, and so Elon comes along and, and buys X, which, whatever you think of that dude. Okay. And, and some of the stuff he's done recently, I'm a little perplexed by. But like, I think we need to, I, I know we're a troll here, but let's, like, let's, let's tone it back a little bit. It's been a little surprising. But anyway, whatever you think of the dude and his 19 kids or whatever he has when he bought X, it was a dramatic shift in how the, the public was able to express themselves in a way that without fear of getting, you know, forever banned. Now we live in a country of free speech. We always have, like, that's, you know, you can't, there's, there's, you can't yell fire in a crowded room. And you know, you can't threaten people online and threaten to kill them, but otherwise you can say whatever you want. Now, there's always consequences for your words, right? There's consequences for everything. And you're going to piss some people off or you're going to be on the side of other people or whatever, but you still have to be able to say what's on your mind because the only way to combat bad ideas is to have other ideas, to have better ideas. And so if you don't have a place where you can share that stuff, and Covid was a prime example, and we all know what was going on during that. We all know what's happened since then and all the information that's come out. So when X was created or when he took over, there was like this flood of, oh my gosh, now we can say whatever we want, do whatever we want. Well, then everybody who could be offended by something was all of a sudden like, well, I can't be on this platform anymore.

Yeah.

Because it's just like, I might cry today. And so they needed a place to go. So Zuckerberg at the time, who I don't like because he just flows wherever the wind blows, you know? Yeah. He decided to say, okay, well, I'm going to create an alternative version to Twitter to where. Or X, where you can be where everybody's nicer. Right. And it's. It's the same format or setup, but we're all just happier and nicer. And it's kind of like there's another one called Blue Sky. Have you heard of that one?

I've heard of it, but it's like.

The, you know, super blue version of like the far left version of. Of Twitter or whatever. Or not Twitter, but that kind of platform. Yeah.

And so are people nicer on Threads? It just seems like just a different platform. People say the same stuff.

Yeah. It's not.

I mean, that's just from what I've seen, I've seen very little, but still.

Well, it pulls from your Instagram feed, so if you go to my Instagram page, it's all real estate.

Yeah.

So when I go to Threads, it's all real estate.

Okay.

So it's all the same. It's just instead of pictures, I mean, I think you're all. The platforms are kind of homogenizing. It's funny because they all start out a lot different. But, you know, as soon as TikTok came out with all of their 1 minute, 2 minute videos, the. Then Facebook had reels and Instagram had reels and YouTube got YouTube shorts and now LinkedIn has friggin, you know, shorts and videos on there. Yeah.

Short interviews.

Yeah. I mean, it's.

Short resume.

Exactly. Yeah. Our attention span is so terrible. Like, I. We grew up in a different era. I'm a little bit older than you, but not much.

Yeah.

And you know, you don't want to do the good old day thing. Like back in my day, my kids hate that. But. But we didn't have, like, I always use the long car ride.

Yeah.

Right. If. If we were taking a trip to see grandma or we were driving to the, to the beach or whatever.

Yeah.

You're in a car for six hours.

Yeah.

Right. There's no phone. Right. Best case, you had a Walkman.

Yeah.

And you could listen to music, but even then you're looking out the window, you're whatever with your thoughts, you know.

Yeah.

So our attention span. I could sit down and watch a movie and get into the movie and, and take a three hours journey and be fine.

Yeah.

But now, you know, I, I, you can't. Because I can't get my kids to sit down and watch a movie. I can't get my wife to sit down and watch a movie.

Yeah.

I can barely. Sometimes I get there and I'm like, all right, what are we doing here? Yeah, I'm already bored with that. It's sad. It really is what it's turned into. But, but that's what it is. And, and, and that's why, like, the news cycle's so crazy because stuff happens, bad things happen, and then another bad thing happens two days later and all of a sudden we're moved. It's like we had, you know, perfect example, we had the Maui fires.

Yeah.

We had the hurricane ripped through North Carolina.

Yeah.

Then we had California get destroyed with the fires. Right. And then yesterday we had the plane crash. Right. And all of those things, if you were to ask somebody on the street, like, you remember, you know, Maui, they're like, what? Yeah, I went, how long ago was that? It was like four months ago. Like, wasn't even that long. Yeah, right. But we just move on because this, this world is created for us.

Yeah.

Yeah, I, I agree, man. I, I remember when we were in school as a, as a kid, I was in private school probably up to about sixth grade, and we had to sit on the, we had to have our hands folded on the desk, right. As our teacher would instruct us throughout the day. And we had to, this is how we had to sit. I mean, hands folded on the desk. And if you were slouching with, you know, hands swinging or whatever, you actually got in trouble.

Yeah.

And I'm thinking, man, my kids would feel like that was prison right now if they had to actually like, sit and pay attention. You go into school now, like, I have, I still have kids in elementary, so I'll, if you go into school now, you'll see, like, there's a small group over here where they're doing like, cutting out things. And then there's a group over here where they're on the computer doing their lesson. And there's a group over here on the floo that's reading. And then the guys in the back have earned their point, so they're doing the treasure chest. And then they're playing the games on the floor. And it's just like how, like this is controlled chaos, but it's chaos. Like, there was no way I would have been allowed to do any of these things in school. So it's just, it's. It is part of how the, you know, the society has evolved to what, how we're going to teach.

And now. And now in high school, we're punching out teachers. You know, Like, I'm ashamed to say that a lot of my Instagram and Twitter feed is filled of fights. I don't know why. Like, I guess because Algorithm. Yeah, the algorithm.

You look at it longer, so it's like, here's another one.

Feed the Beast. Like, oh, golly, that guy knocked out cold. Like, I see too much of that. But it's like, man, there are kids everywhere just knocking people out for no reason in classrooms. And then we wonder why we can't get teachers to come and we wonder why we can't have umpires.

And you know, I'm a firm, I am a firm advocate of the teachers need to be paid like triple. They need to be paid triple of what they're getting paid now.

Yeah.

To raise yalls bad kids. Because my kids are good, but y'all's bad kids. Oh my goodness, these kids are. They're horrible. You know, And I'm just like, come on, man. Like you. So, yes, they need to be paid triple. Their lives are in danger. Dang near every day. They have to deal with the sickness, they have to deal with your kids attitude. And then if they respond to your kid's attitude, they get fired. Like, oh, man.

Like, well, and it sucks. And it's kind of back on the topic. A little bit of, of working and making money and, and trying to support yourself. We're, you know, when, when my parents grew up and when. Even when. Not so much when we were kids, but I think. Because that's when it started to change. But you know, in the 60s and 70s, dad could work.

Yep.

And mom could stay home and take care of the kids and they could live a really good life that way. You could have a house, you could have a car. You didn't need two, you know, because there wasn't shuttle in from here to there. You stayed in your neighborhood and look like, I'm not, you know, I don't want to get into the whole gender role of who needs to do what. Who, whatever. Like make your money to support the family. But one person could support a family of four.

Right.

Very relatively easily.

Right.

And they had pensions and they had jobs. And so there was so Much more of a focus on, on taking care of people. Well, now we live in a world where because everything is so expensive.

Yeah.

And because we also have created this place where we have to have all this stuff.

Yeah.

Right. And I'm just as guilty as everybody else. I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. That we're in a place where you have to have both people in the household working to some extent in many cases.

Yeah.

Which means they're not there monitoring the kids every day. And because they've created iPads and cell phones and social media, like as a parent. And again, I did it too.

Yeah.

But you're driving down the road and your kids screaming and kicking the back seat and they're hungry and they want this and that, whatever. And you hand them that screen and you're just like, I just need 30 minutes.

Yeah.

Like, just leave me alone for a little bit.

Yeah.

Right. You give them that and then it becomes a habit for them and they're in front of it all the time and their attention spans are short and they don't listen and they get influence from other places other than just in the household.

Yeah.

And then we send them to school and we're like, not my problem.

There you go.

Like you figure it out, you know, and then we want to. And then we allow, you know, the school systems and, and other parents allow the, the, the kids or the, the parents to blame the problems on the schools.

Yeah.

Oh, it's the school issues. If we just fixed the schools and the teachers, then our kids wouldn't be terrible.

Yeah.

And none of that is the case. You know, it all starts at home. Yeah.

You gotta, you gotta educate your kid. You know, you have to parent one way or the other. You, you gotta either parent your child at home or you got a parent that screen that you gave them and make sure that what they're watching is something that's gonna actually give them some value of life as opposed to watching and nonsense and things that are sending subliminal messages and injecting hate and stuff like that into their day to day, you know, discourse. So that way they, when they go to school, they're spewing all that stuff out because that's all they've been watching all day. Yeah. You know, so it's, it's just one of those things where it's like, man, well.

And you know, that's a good segue to a certain extent, because I think when it comes to doing your job as an agent or a lender or anybody that's a professional of any kind that, you know, all of this stuff that we're hating on right now, these tools that we have at the end of the day are just tools.

Yeah.

And. And you create the world that you want. Right. But you have to be deliberate about it.

Sure.

And because if you just float through the day and you just get up out of bed, open your phone, start scrolling through Tick Tock or Facebook or Instagram or whatever you look at. Yeah. Twitter, whatever that sets the tone for your day. Because now you're just, you're just mindlessly.

Yeah.

Flowing through stuff and you're gonna see whatever your brain decides to look at for a little bit.

Sure.

Whereas if you decide to wake up in the morning and you say, okay, I gotta get my body going, I gotta get my mind going and handle a few things that, that put me in the right mindset, then I can start getting on my devices and electronics and emails and all this other stuff. But anytime I look at social media or anytime I have to scroll through Twitter, anytime I look at, you know, Instagram or whatever, I have to be conscious of when I see something related to my business or when I see something related to a way that I want to be right. I know people, and I was one of them that got bogged down or, you know, gets gross about, like, oh, you just gotta push through and work hard. You know, the motivational stuff like that kind of wore me out. But. But it works, man. It really works.

I mean, just being intentional about your day.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's a, that's a super huge part of your success. If you're experiencing success, you talk to a lot of these people who are doing good numbers and they have a great business is they have a system and they stick with it and they're very intentional about what they spend their time on. And, you know, for us realtors who have to be, you know, plan ahead, you know, three months ago is, you know, you get to see what you did three months ago today.

Yeah.

You know, you see what you did two months ago today. And if you're not disciplined enough to do, you know, the things that are going to get you business in the future, it's going to be really hard for you to navigate when the market is good and when the market is down and, you know, it's just going to be really hard for you to have any bit of consistency in your business. Yeah. You know, so for, you know, like we said, you got a parent all the time. You got to make sure that you're Available. You got to, you got to be an agent all the time and make sure you're available as well. And I think that's one of the separators for, you know, people who just get in and think it's going to be a bunch of money. It's not.

It's not.

It's not. You got to be intentional about your.

Well, and for anybody, you know, that hears this and is like, you know, I try to caveat things all the time and say like, you know, we all know the right things to do.

Yeah.

But many of us just don't do them. And I'm just as guilty as, like I said, you know, it.

And it's, it's, honestly, it's a little harder nowadays because like, especially the social media takes up so much of your time.

Yeah.

Right. But for us, you know, a big part of our business is social media.

Yeah.

And so you. That being intentional, like when I get on Instagram in the morning is to make sure that the people know that I'm still a Realtor.

Yes.

And that I'm still good at my job and I can still help you get educated on real estate things.

Yeah.

And you try to do that without getting caught up in, oh, this popped up. Let me watch that. Which turns into. This turns into. At 30 minutes gone.

Yes.

You know what I mean? So it's difficult. I'm not going to sit here and act like I'm great at it. You know, I do well enough. But not, I could be much better with my time management when dealing with social media promotions and marketing and things like that. But you need it. So you, you can't just eliminate it.

Well, and that goes back to being intentional in that if you like, let's just, let's say for example, you decide that Instagram's gonna be your thing. Like you're gonna, you spend all your time on Instagram or whatever social platform, like that's what you're gonna do. Well, then learn how to use Instagram for sure. Learn the best methods. Learn, you know, what, what gets the most engagement. Learn how to communicate with other people. Dm, you know, like comments, share all the stuff that, that goes in there. Make your videos, do whatever. So, and then when you're looking, when you have downtime. Right. And you're sitting at your kid's game before it starts and instead of just scrolling through.

Yeah.

Just, just doom. Scrolling what they want to. Whatever they want to call it.

Yeah.

Go like watch a three minute YouTube video about how to best practices for Instagram or whatever. Just spend your time educating yourself.

Here's a question for you.

Sure.

I'm very guilty of this, okay. And I don't know why, but it's just how I am. And I want to know if you're the same, right? So when you're watching a video, right? Or you're watching something that you like, or you see something that you like on. On one of these platforms, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, right. Are you very select? I'm super, like, ultra selective about what I'm gonna double tap and heart.

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Like, I am. Like, it could have made me laugh for 20 minutes, but if I don't like that person, I ain't double tapping. You gotta work to get these likes.

Well, not only that, but see, what I don't know, that everybody knows that it's not the double tap, per se. I mean, that. That's like. That's like putting it on steroids. Yeah, but it's how long you spend. Like, they're watching your eyes. They're seeing how long you spend on that particular thing. I mean, it is a. It is just examining everything. It's a psychological tool. And if you like, if you're like, man, I never liked fight videos. I don't watch. Like, I don't subscribe or follow those channels or like them. Why do they keep showing up on my. Because that's the one. I'm like, what? And then I watch it. I'm like, damn. You know, so. So, yes. Like, yeah, I'm. I'm also actually, I. I'm kind of the opposite. I'm like, if I get too many of these that start coming up.

Yeah.

Then I start the most boring post that I'm not really wanting to see, but it's like real estate related or finance related. I'm like, like, share my comment. I'm like, yes. I'm like, give me. I need more of that balance.

Yes. I feel. I feel like I'm like, super snobbish and uppity when it comes to, like, I'm gonna actually acknowledge that this was good, you know? And I just want to know if other people are like that too, because it's like, all right, this could be somebody that, you know, has done something or just you posted something that somebody said and it was hilarious. But I don't really fool with you like that.

Yes. Yes.

You ain't getting my life today.

Yeah.

And then when I do, it's like a Bruno Mars concert. It's like, ah, that performance was amazing. Here's your life.

Here's your button for the day. Congratulations. Aren't you so happy that I liked your post? Look so lucky.

You should feel good as a content creator. You walk away.

You got me today.

You got me today. Good for you.

So it's good to know I'm not the only one out there.

No, I, I definitely, I definitely use it as a, as a weapon for sure, to either change my algorithm or, you know, try to boost something with somebody or whatever the case may be. But I, I, I think that's a, honestly, I think that's somewhat of a guy thing to some extent. And that, yeah. That we just kind of scroll through like. Okay, yeah, okay, that was good. That was good. But we're not going to take any action to like, actually, you know, whereas like, like women more so like, especially my wife. You know, I, I'm sure you're like this because you're, you and your wife are friends on Facebook, but half of my alerts.

Yeah.

Are my wife commenting on someone's post. You know, Susan commented on this post, Susan said this, Susan did that. And, and so like, that's half of my like alert my, my notifications or whatever is her doing stuff because she's like, oh, this is great and this is amazing and congratulations. And then I feel like a bad person. I'm like, like, I am happy for him. I'm glad that, you know, they, they got all district or that they won their tournament or whatever. But I saw it, I'm like, cool. And then I move on.

Yeah, it's like out of sight, out of my, Appreciate it.

Good job.

Yeah, I had a conversation with a buddy of mine yesterday. We hadn't spoken in a while and we were just chit chatting about some stuff and he was like, man, you know, I, I, it's my fault. We need to keep up. You know, I should have called you and chatted some more and I'm like, man, it's me too. Like, you know, I could have called less. I was like, you called me last. I didn't call you. You know, it's funny, next time I called you. Yeah, but, but it's also like, you know, I think guys a little bit more. We're like, we could not talk to each other for six months and then we just fall right back into it and there's not a lot of like.

Well, you know, you didn't, we had, yeah. We had to like, figure out why and, and work through our, our distance.

Right. Right. We gotta go. All right.

Hey, man, what's going on?

I'll talk to you a little bit.

Yeah.

You know, like, any of my posts or say hello to me or whatever, you know, it's like, look, man, we all believe busy lives, you know, so we just don't get as. I think that's the same, like, same methodology when it comes to, like, social media scrolling. It's like, yeah, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. But I'm not gonna, like, overly go, you know?

And is it counterintuitive? Like, we're supposed to be social and we're like, I know. For me, I always feel like this. I'm like, all right, well, I ain't commenting on that, even though I should have. I probably could have, but I had some insight, but I don't want to do it, you know? And, like, am I not being social in social media?

I think so, because I deal with the same thing. I'm. I'm generally. I think you and I are similar to a certain extent, but I think this is a lot of guys in that, like, if we're gonna go somewhere. Yeah. Or go hang out, whatever. Cool. Let's go. Let's go to a concert. Let's go to this party. Let's go do whatever. Right. Like, I'm down. Like, you'll never. I'll never be like, I don't want to go. Like, let's go. But am I gonna actively seek that out and try to, like, do that? No, not really. Right. So it's like when I. I would go through phases where I would get on Twitter because I'm like, all right, I wanna, like, with the podcast stuff, like, I want to grow the podcast. So I'm going to comment and, like, other people and share their stuff and engage and all this other. And then I'll get on there and I start commenting and. And sharing and engaging and all this stuff. Well, I mean, it comes back. Like, they're.

Yeah.

You know, I'm getting alerts, and then, like, I'll do that for like a.

Week and then it's over.

And then I'm exhausted.

Yeah, that's a lot of work.

I just don't care anymore. I just don't care. I don't want to engage with this person. He keeps going back and forth. I don't even know you, but I'm just trying to. It. And it's the same thing on all the platforms because it's just. I just. I just don't care that much, you know, that's me.

That's me. So I was Good to know that I'm not the only one out there. Yeah, absolutely. Failing at life with engaging on social media on a regular basis, it, look.

It'S never not going to be important. And it is, you know, a thing that we, we both know and we both preach to people that we talk to about it and we're, we're hot and cold on it just like everybody else. We do it a lot sometimes. We don't do it at all sometimes. And that's how it goes. But, but the, the importance and the, the critical nature of what it is can't be understated.

Yeah.

And, or overstated. And it's, it's a situation where if you're not, I mean, we talked about this before we got on. Like, if you're not in front of people on a regular basis and you're not telling them what you do and it doesn't have to be, call me, I'm a realtor, call me, I'm a realtor. Or call me, I'm a lender, or call me, I'm a lender. It doesn't have to be that. It could just be like, I, I'm alive.

Yeah.

I exist.

Yeah.

Here's some that I'm doing today.

Yep.

And oh, by the way, you know.

Yeah.

Give me a call.

Give me a call if you need something. Right. Like that's all it is. And I think we all overthink it because we want it to be perfect and great.

Yeah.

We want it to be, you know, the, the best script and the best lighting and the, you know, the funniest post and all this kind of. And don't get me wrong, I mean, that plays a role. But, but consistency and doing it on a regular basis, even if you fall off the wagon from time to time.

Yeah.

Like I did. Not doing this for two months. You just got to get back on the horse, man.

Yeah.

Because the critical nature of what you're doing, if you're selling to people, whatever it is that you're selling.

Yeah.

Homes, mortgages, you know, carpentry. What. It doesn't matter if you're doing that. People spend most of their time on their phone.

Yeah.

Looking at social media.

Yeah.

And if you're not on there on a semi regular basis and then you wonder why business is slowing down because you're not going out either.

Yeah.

Man. I'll tell you, this is a little bit off topic, but I had, like, it made me feel so terrible about my prospecting efforts. I had a, we had like a Uber Eats or something. Delivery. A food delivery to the house, right?

Yeah.

And I just happened to be like, walking out of the house to get something out of the garage when they were, you know, pulling up to the house. So, you know, I met him in the driveway. Hey, thanks. Appreciate that. Got the food, whatever. They take their picture, boom, proof that I actually gave it to you. And then as I'm walking away, like, hey, here. Here you go too. You know, just so you know, we do like, paint, drywall, all this good stuff. And I'm like, yeah, God dang it. If the person delivering my fast food.

He's better.

Is willing to prospect and promote their business.

That's a hustler.

And all I'm doing is here, is sitting here eating fries. I gotta be better. I'm like, man, I never even thought about that. I don't even know if that's allowed.

Do you know who David Goggins is?

I don't think so.

Okay, so he's a Navy SEAL guy. He got big from being on Rogan, but he is like, he does a lot of speaking events and stuff. And basically, like, he runs ultra marathons. And he's like, you know, leads, he has the world record and pull ups. Like, he's just like this Super Workout America. Yeah. But he's like, you know, he says all the time. Yeah, like, he's like, dude, you know, like, there's no. There's no sugar cone stuff. Stuff. Anyway, he. And I've heard this before, but I just heard it from him recently. He was talking about. Because he was in the military, he's talking about battle. He's like, you know, if there's a hundred soldiers on the battlefield, he's like, 20 of them just might. Might as well not even be there. He's like, 80, you know, or the 60 of them are there to. Or like 70 of them are there, you know, just because they have to be. And they're gonna die, it's some point.

Sure.

He's like, there's 10 guys on the battlefield that are there fighting.

Yeah.

And he's like. And there's one of those guys that's a warrior.

Yeah.

And he's like, I'm trying to be that one guy. And that's his whole mentality. And it's like, like, you have to constantly think to yourself, okay, what do I got to do to be just a little better today? Yeah, a little bit better today, right? Like, that dude handing you his card, it's like, hey, man, I'm driving Uber, eats or whatever. Right. And some of us would go, well, I mean, I don't wanna, like, I don't want this guy to call me dudes because I'm delivering food or whatever. And yet that dude's going, okay, I'm making, I'm hustling, I'm doing something.

And from my perspective, I'm like, man, if I need something, I'm gonna call him. Because if he's willing to give me his business and give me his opportunity or try to get an opportunity for me while he's doing this, that means he really cares about this.

Yes.

So I want that guy.

Yes.

You know?

Yeah.

And there's not a lot of people out there that are like that because, you know, we get, again, we get comfortable in our roles, we get comfortable in our world, and we don't want to, you know, rock the boat or, or swallow a little bit of pride and be like, hey, man, I need, you know, I need some. I, I do this, I do that. You know, I do all these things. And it's, it's so freeing, I think, for a lot of those people. Because when you put your head in the right spot and it's, and it's not the. I hate the mindset stuff, but I do. And more and more to be said about it. When you look at quantum physics.

Yeah.

Like, if you just want to get into the science of it.

Yeah.

When you can sit there and go, okay, so you're telling me that we know that particles, okay. That exist in the world.

Yeah.

That when they're observed, they behave a certain way.

Yeah.

And when they're not observed, they behave another way. Right. So that means just the, just pure observation on something and focus on something changes the way that it behaves. It literally changes matter.

Yeah, right.

Literally. Like, this isn't science fiction, this is real. So if that's the case, how far do you have to go? Do you get to the place of. If I think that I'm going to be successful and I think that I'm going to close this deal, and I think that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and go do my workout and I'm. I'm that person. Is it unrealistic to think that. That you won't be that person?

I don't think so. I mean, like, ultimately, I let me dumb it down for our audience because that was like high level stuff. And we usually are not that much high level. Okay. So I relate everything to you sports. So for me, that's like me telling my sons, okay, well, you have to see this shot going in mentally before you shoot it.

Yeah.

Okay. And if you. Every time we step up to this free throw line and you shoot this basketball and you visualize it going in and you shoot it the right way and we shoot enough of those every day, eventually you're just going to be automatic from here. It's not. It's going to be second nature muscle memory, you know, because you've already trained your mind to that. This is what's going to happen when I do these things.

Yeah.

And you still get some of the world's best trainers in that sport and other sports that say that, you know, you have to visualize. You have to see this happening for it to actually happen.

Yeah.

You know, so there's something to be said for that.

Well, there's actually. I don't remember if it was either Harvard or Stanford did a study. Not. I mean, it was probably 10 years ago, but they took three control groups. And this was athletics specifically. And they. I think it was. It was free throws. So they did free throws. They had one group. Group that didn't, you know, they. They basically shot free throws. And they had one group that didn't shoot any free throws at all for like a week. They had one group that practiced shooting free throws like every day, you know, and then they had one group that didn't touch a basketball, but just sat and thought intentionally about what it looks like to shoot a free throw, to see the ball going in. They were very specific about how to work through the process of thinking about it.

Yeah.

And when they came back and did like the next round of shooting, the guys that shot every day only did just slightly better than the ones that never picked up a basketball, but thought about it in their brain and I mean, like, intentionally.

Yeah.

Like, not just like, oh, that'd be nice, but like, where's my form? Where's my elbow go? How do I push through? I see the ball going through the net, not hitting the backboard, like that kind of stuff, like. And it was, I think they had. It was something. It was a small study.

Yeah.

You know, maybe a couple 500 people or something like that. But. But they showed, like, obviously the guys that shot every day were better. Yeah, but it wasn't. It was like statistically insignificant.

So what you're saying is I need to get my son to visualize the Kyrie Irving double behind the back, in and out, step back into the jump shot every day and then he might be able to pull that sucker off in the game.

Maybe I'm not saying he won't or.

He'Ll be slightly worse than the guy who's practiced that. He'll be closer.

Right? He'll be closer to it. I mean that I. Look, I tell my kids that all the time. I'm like, look, whether you believe that thinking positively and being, Being optimistic and not focusing on, like, the doom of life. Right. If. Even if you think that's mumbo jumbo. Right. Even if you think that's voodoo and it doesn't work and that's stupid or whatever, fine.

Yeah.

But if there's even a chance that it works, what's. Why not? Yeah, why not do it?

Just give it a shot.

Give it a shot. See how it goes.

Because that could happen.

Statistically, you're probably going to do better anyway.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. It's like the people that are like, well, like, I don't know if I believe in God or believe whatever. But, but, but I mean, might as well because, you know, hedge my bets. Right. I mean, it's. It's kind of the same idea. Like, it, it doesn't hurt.

Yeah.

To try. So. So if you're going into 20, 25 and you're trying to figure out, okay, how the hell am I going to get out of what happened in 24 and 23 and try to support my family, pay my bills so I don't have to change professions because I love doing this job. Right.

Yeah.

What are you going to do?

Yeah, ultimately, you first. First thing you need to do is what we just talked about. Visualize what it looks like for you to be on the other side of that and be successful. You definitely got to be intentional.

Yes.

You definitely got to be intentional about making sure that you are available. Like the NFL says, best ability is availability. Right. Like, you got to be that if you're going to be an agent, you're going to be a lender, you're going to be, you know, whatever it is, title rep that's trying to get more business. Like, you got to be intentional about that also. And then you got. You got to make sure that you plan for the future.

Yeah. If we've learned anything, learned nothing else.

Like, hey, when you do get to that point where this stuff is rolling in and it looks. Looks good and it feels good, and we. We've gotten to a spot where we've gotten almost. Or maybe we are comfortable, let's make sure that we make some preparations for those times that we're not going to be as comfortable.

Yeah.

I think those and Then you have to know social media. You have to be intentional about that too. So I think we went like around the world in a, like a whole bunch of different things today. But I mean, if you miss those, those there they are like that. And, and we're sponsored by Tropicana.

Tropicana.

We're actually not, but we would love to be. So. Tropicana, if you're listening. Tropicana, if you're listening. Listening. I guess I gotta get the name right. If you're listening, we would love an nil deal or something. We are here and open for business.

We got, we got kids that need to pay for college.

I'm not even a host of this podcast, but I like it.

Keep chilling.

Try to get these sponsorships.

Well, and just to, because we talked about so many things today and we're, we're almost right at an hour here. I do want to, because, you know, I put a bunch of stuff in the description. Oh, we're going to discuss this. I think we got to maybe 1% of it. But I, I do want to say, because, you know, I get the question all the time, what are going to happen with rates and what's going to happen with the housing market? Market. Okay, yeah. Here's my opinion on it. My opinion on it is that if you're expecting rates to drop dramatically anytime soon, I would not bet on that. And I would also say that it's possible, but the only way that it's possible is if we have a significant economic collapse of some kind.

Yeah.

And that's not anything that anybody should wish for because we don't want that. And I would also say that, you know, Mr. Trump, President Trump, who is in office right now, he for no other reason other than his own self interests. Right. Wants to make sure that the, the American economy is highly successful during his presidency. And he will do whatever it takes, maybe make do stupid stuff that he shouldn't do. I don't know, things he shouldn't probably do. But, but that's going to be his goal, I assure you of that. So to expect or hope for a collapse even puts it at a greater unlikelihood. Because the person that's in charge right now, that's the last thing that he ever wants to happen. Not that anybody wants that, but so, so I wouldn't expect rates to change any dramatic, I mean, I think best case, you know, you maybe get by the end of the year if we're, if we're sitting in the low sixes, we're probably doing pretty good.

Okay.

Right. And when it comes to home sales and market shifting, I think it has picked up because I think we're living in the norm of this is where rates are.

Right. Yeah.

This is where home prices are.

Yeah.

We're not waiting any longer because I got to move, I got to change my job, I got to get a bigger house or downsize or whatever the. The need is. So I, I do expect transactions to pick up.

Yeah.

But I wouldn't expect them to pick up, you know, dramatically.

Yeah.

I have seen an increase in, in. In buyers and sellers on both sides. I have seen a, A significant increase. So the activity is there, the transactions are there. You know, will it be what it was? Probably not, but it is significantly greater than what it was four months ago.

Yes. Yes. And I think, if anything, we. All the. The hope we want to have is, you know, stock market keeps going up. We want jobs to stay plentiful, and we want the economy to do well, regardless of who's leading it, because it's better for all of us.

Yeah.

And, you know, and inflation is still a concern and still an issue. And I think if there's two ways we could go where you could say you either going to have a collapse or you're going to have inflation go through the roof. I would bet on inflation going through the roof.

Yeah.

That. That's where I'd put my money. I hope we stay in between that.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

But, but if I had to pick an extreme, I would pick the economy doing really, really well, but things being really, really expensive.

Yeah.

So keep that in mind, you know, when you're making financial decisions.

Yeah, for sure. And if you learn nothing else, discipline yalls bad kids at home.

Yes.

So let your kids go to school on these teachers that not making enough money. Take them kids home and discipline them. Please, please, please not bring them back kids to school. I'm tired of seeing it.

I'm gonna wear the bring back the bullies T shirt. That's what I'm gonna start. I'm okay. Like, can we have just like, can we get the happy medium of like, you know, I got anybody getting hurt. But. But I need. It's okay to like, make fun of people. Like, like, if you wear some stupid pants, like, tell them like, it's okay.

How are we gonna learn if we don't, you know, he's our constructive criticism.

I mean, you know, it's all right. Like, you know, I got picked on as a kid. I picked on other kids like, It's. It's part of life.

I roasted a lot of people. Yes. So, yes, it is what it is. Now my kids roast me. So, yeah, coming full circle, that's how.

You learn how not to say dumb. Right? Because when you say dumb people like, that was stupid. And then you're like, oh, yeah, I guess it kind of was my bad.

The delivery was. Wasn't good.

Yeah. But if somebody's like, oh, no, it's okay. We just want to know how you feel.

It's like, oh, good.

I can say whatever the hell I want.

No, no, breeze. He gave us. Gave Mike. He didn't give us a shout out. He gave you a shout out, so maybe you should give him a shout out. I'm not, you know, he didn't shout out to me, so I feel a certain type of way. But we appreciate you watching and listening to our nonsense.

All right, guys. Well, like I said, this was a get back in the saddle episode. You know, we're definitely gonna. I'm going to do more housing stuff. We're going to continue. I'm not going to fall off of that, but, you know, I want to keep it a little more casual going forward. I like having good conversations with people. That's why I always like having gone right here. Because we can just shoot the and talk about a lot of different things. We kind of chase rabbits occasionally and, you know, maybe it's not the most content filled information. I'll still do my market updates every week, so we give a little bit of updates on what's happening. I will start kind of keep those a little more local. So we're going to do a little bit more Texas and DFW in big cities in that area. But. But you know, I'm back and we'll keep doing this and you know, Conrad will keep joining us. Have more guests coming your way. But I appreciate everybody that listened, stuck around and I hope everybody has a great 2025 and Tropicana, we will tag you.

Tropicana. We appreciate the future partnership. That's right.

That's right. Bring it. Let's go. All right, Conrad, Have a good week, everybody. Take care and we'll see you next time.

Appreciate it.

All right.