When I think about a real estate agent or a loan officer, I think they have all of these tools, all of these things that they know how to do.

And I think the danger is they're used to being the person that knows all of the things about real estate.

When new things come, I think we can be a little hesitant.

Try not to immediately discount things when they come into your orbit, whether that's an AI tool, whether that's some alternative finance model, whatever it is, just taking a minute to think about it, to do a little bit of research on it, because I think we're at a.

Of a tipping point right now with technology and real estate.

But I think that there is so much coming that I think the more you resist, the more dangerous it is, and it's only getting more competitive.

I think it's mostly a mindset, if you're a real estate professional, of these things are coming for your job.

This is a way to help you.

And the more that you cannot bury your head in the sand and just take a quick second when you hear about something, to just do a little bit of research, figure out if it could be something that you want to implement, ask someone about it, versus just saying, that's new, I'm not interested.

That's scary.

Whatever the case may be.

Yeah.

Number one.

Well, what is up to all you real estate rookies and ogs out there?

So, if your idea these days of high tech is still a pager and a palm pilot, then it is time to change your focus.

Or you might be left behind like your local blockbuster video on a Friday night.

So, in today's market, if you're not tapping into AI, automation, and algorithms, then you might as well be printing MapQuest directions to your next showing.

We're going to be on fire with these 90 references, today's guys.

So.

But seriously, tech tools that can help you close more deals are everywhere, and sorting through them can feel like a full time job.

The truth is, though, that these tools are not optional anymore.

They are essential.

And if you're not as tech savvy as you'd like to be, then don't worry.

You've come to the right place.

This is the Texas Real Estate and Finance podcast, where we break down everything you need to know to thrive in today's ever evolving market.

I'm your host, Mike Mills, a north Texas mortgage banker with Geneva Financial.

And when I'm not here throwing out nineties references like it's the golden age of grunge, I'm out there helping you.

And your clients navigate the home loan process, making sure it's as smooth and stress free as possible.

Think of me as your mortgage game Boy, ready to level up your real estate skills without missing a beat.

All right.

That's all there are.

Nineties references.

Maybe.

Maybe.

We'll see.

Now, before we jump in, I've got a quick favor to ask.

If you find, if you find value in today's episode, whether it's one key takeaway or a big bright light bulb moment, then go ahead and hit the like button.

Subscribe and share it with a fellow agent or a good friend.

Every new listener that we get goes a long way in getting our message out across all of the real estate realm.

And, of course, if you've got a client who's ready to take the next step in their home buying journey and could use a smoothen, no nonsense loan process, then send them my way.

Think of me as the garth to your wane.

And together, we'll make your clients home buying journey.

Excellent.

So, party on, real estate rockstars.

All right, that was the last one.

That was the last one.

Promise.

Okay.

Now, on today's episode, we're diving into how tech can help you close more deals and offer better solutions to your clients.

Our guest is the head of growth at Zavi, a company that's redefining how agents and brokers do business with innovative tools like cash offers and buy before you sell programs, helping real estate pros stay ahead and close more deals.

So get ready to level up your tech game and learn how Zavvy can help boost your bottom line.

Just in time for the holidays, please welcome to the podcast, Miss Maya Velasquez.

Maya, how we doing?

Yes, I'm doing great.

Doing great.

It's great to see you.

Thanks for having me.

You got it.

You got it.

So I need a head of growth in my business these days.

So your skills must be in high demand right now, right?

I like to think so, yeah.

Yes.

That's good.

So, before we dive into your journey to Zavi here, let's start off with the commercial.

Let's talk about what is Zavvi, what do you guys do?

How are you helping real estate professionals grow their business?

And what kind of tools do you offer that helps them close more deals?

Yeah, for sure.

So I'll backtrack a little bit.

And we started, and I started at savvy five years ago when ibuyers came on the scene.

So first product we came out with is a marketplace that helps agents and loan officers compare what all of those different options look like to their client, whether that be selling options like selling to an ibuyer versus selling on the open market, or whether it be one of the power buyer options.

Buy before sell, what that looks like compared to a bridge loan or just purchasing normally with a 30 year loan.

So you guys had a tool that basically took other types of options that are available to buy and sell and then just kind of created like a chart or graph or comparison as to what may fit you the best, depending not necessarily with you guys, but just offering out there.

Okay, very cool.

Exactly.

Actually, at that time, we didn't have our own offering.

We were just outsourcing to all of the different alternative finance solutions out there.

Like an alternative financing hub, basically.

Right, exactly.

Exactly.

So it was super fun.

I think for me, it's been fun to get the vantage point over the last five years of seeing what actually stuck.

I know a lot of those solutions aren't super viable anymore, and they kind of shift and change as the market grows.

So, yeah, it's been really interesting, of course, to help agents and real estate agents, but also just on a macro level, say, okay, what actually works in that space?

And a lot of those companies have tried a lot of different versions.

I think there'll be more to come.

But are you still offering that too, by the way?

Yeah, so we still offer that what we found when kind of on accident, when the market shifted late 2022.

I can't believe it's been two years already.

But I think we all, we all remember that time for sure.

And a lot of the companies that were offering buy before sell, or these cash buyer options for buyers mainly weren't able to operate, lost their funding capabilities, which is a really hard time to operate that business.

And so we had been operating it on a very small scale for a couple jvs of some brokerages that we were licensing our product to.

And so I actually brought our own product to market at that time because just out of necessity, our customers are coming to us saying, we really like this option.

Our clients need the buy before sell.

They want to still make cash offers on their home to buy, but we're having a hard time because all of these companies are having a hard time operating.

And so that's when we decided to scale ours.

So now we really license this, like out of a box cash buyer, buy before sell solution to lenders or different mortgage companies so they can offer what looks like an in house solution, completely white labeled, but Xavi has capital and the operations behind it.

Got you.

So so your primary customer right now, you would say, is mortgage companies then?

Yes.

Yep.

Mortgage company is probably our most primary customer as far as licensing that product.

Do you spend a lot of time on the education side of things, helping, say, realtors understand, because a lot of times when you talk about a company that is, has a particular client base like mortgage professionals, then we have a client base, obviously, a lot of times that buyers, but also real estate agents.

And so if they're coming to us saying we want this solution, then we're more likely to seek out a company like you to add that to it.

So from your point of view, do you, or I should say from y'all's company standpoint, do y'all spend a lot of time on the education side for buyers and agents to understand what these options are?

Yeah, absolutely.

There are three different educational channels.

As I look at it, it's loan officers, agents and their clients.

And so we have.

Yeah, a lot of my job is making sure when we bring on one of these companies, the loan officer needs to know how to talk to their agent.

They also have to be able to tell their agent how to talk to the client.

The agent also needs to be able to come to us.

And then we have all of those legacy real estate brokerage partners who have real estate agents who can come to us and looking for these solutions.

So, yeah, most of my, you know, part of my job is the positioning to mortgage companies.

The other half is positioning to the agents and the clients, because honestly, even for me, I've been doing this for five years of all these different options, and it's still hard to keep up with.

We have six products in our product suite just for these cash buy and buy before sell solutions.

So a lot of it is education on what is a good fit for this type of client.

What does this conversation look like?

When do you bring it up in the conversation, whether you're an agent or a loan officer?

And how.

How do you position it and then how do you use it as a sales tool?

Further up, funnel for agents and loan officers, where I think is a super fun way to talk about it as well.

So if I was a big dumb dummy, which I am in a lot of ways, but when it comes to figuring out some of these products and what's available to you, how would you explain it to me if I was a buyer or a realtor on what these different types of products are?

Yeah.

So the overarching value proposition is that these products can help make the client into a non contingent cash buyer.

Okay.

That can be true if or.

Oh, okay.

So again, let's.

Let's.

Let's talk in.

In.

I'm a buyer and I don't know what the hell non contingent means.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you got to dumb it down.

I'm a 6th grade kid.

I don't know what the hell's going on.

Explain it to me like I'm a moron.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's easier for us to get caught up in.

We get caught up in lingo and jargon from the industry all the time.

So.

So around these terms.

Yes.

When you're.

When you're buying a house, typically you're going to go to some type of loan officer to help you get a loan to purchase the home.

That loan will be more attractive to the seller that you're buying the house from, depending on a few factors.

One of those factors is called contingency.

That it just means that your offer is contingent upon something else happening.

Two of the most common contingencies are the home sale contingency, meaning most people that are buying right now also have a property to sell.

Yes.

If I'm putting an offer in.

If you're putting an offer in, we're assuming you're the buyer.

Still, you're putting an offer in on a house and you have a home to sell.

Typically, it's really hard to qualify for two loans, so you're going to need to, when you're putting in this offer, make an offer that is saying, okay, assuming that I have sold my previous home.

Yes.

And so that means that you're contingent upon the sale of your previous home that sellers.

The more contingencies you stack on the.

The less attractive the offer looks like.

The other contingency that's very common is loan approval contingency.

So, you know, you being able to get approved for this loan is what's going to make you an eligible buyer.

And so there's some risk there as well.

So contingent just means there's something that's going to prevent you from buying the home.

And the more of those that we can remove, the more attractive the offer looks to the seller.

Perfect.

So then I'm ready to make an offer.

And so what is.

What is the.

What.

What product is Avi going to give me to help me remove those contingencies?

Yeah.

So there are, like I said, there are six different products in our product suite.

The most common one, which I'll talk through, is what we call cash buy before sell reserve.

That's way too long.

Of a name, first of all.

But buy before sell means that it's helping you purchase your new home before buying or before selling your old home.

And so what the reserve model is, we purchase, we, being zappy, will purchase the home that you're moving into all in cash, meaning that you look like a complete cash buyer.

We're putting down all cash for whatever that home is.

You know, say if it's $500,000, we're putting down $500,000 in cash on your behalf to make you into a cash buyer.

So we've got some language that goes with that to let the seller feel comfortable about the fact that we're nothing, just buying it to resell it.

We're buying it for a real person or family.

And so we do that.

That means now you've secured your new home before you've even had to list or worry about selling your old home.

So those contingencies that we talked about, the seller sees no contingencies.

They see cash for their home.

They're super happy.

You're super happy because you may have a dog and a cat, two kids, a bunch of stuff in your house, and having to both time that move, and then also having to worry about selling and listing the home and then buying a new home at the same time with just the inconvenience of what that looks like.

And then also what I call the in between time, which is if you find a house that you like but you can't sell your new one, what does that look like?

Are you going to have to move twice?

Are you going to have to put all your stuff in storage?

Are you going to have to move in with your in laws?

Like, what does that in between time look like?

Yep.

For most people, it's extremely stressful, especially with the low inventory right now.

So this just offers a more convenient way to move and a more attractive offer to the seller that you're buying the house from.

And then on the sell side, you're just selling your home like normal with your agent, like you normally would.

And that process is, you know, doesn't change from our perspective, which I think.

But now I own two homes, and I'm really worried about that.

So how do you, how do you alleviate my stress of having two mortgage payments there?

Yeah, so we are, so we own the first home, the home you moved into at the time.

When you sell that previous home, which we work with the agent to make sure that happens as quickly as possible, then you buy back the new home from us.

And so in the interim, there's a cost to some interest for us owning the home in the meantime.

But typically that's what it would look like.

There's cost everything.

So there's nothing that's free.

So yeah, it's okay to have costs.

You're running a business.

That's how it works.

It's also comparable to like, what it would look like in between.

Like does that look like an Airbnb or storage or whatever?

So typically the cost kind of pays for itself.

But yes, there's a little cost there.

But you don't have two mortgage payments since you actually don't have the loan on the next place until you buy it back from us.

Gotcha.

And then as a realtor, I am also, I'm representing on the buy side and the sell side.

So I get two transactions in that one.

Yep, yep, yep.

So you represent on both sides, which is nice.

Yeah, it's always nice to get a couple little extra commission there.

So that's your main product.

That's the one that's the most beneficial.

And so basically, just to recap it, it is essentially, if I own a home and I'm trying to buy another house, often if I want to do that, I either have to sell my home or I've got to go through the pain in the butt of trying to do two transactions at one time.

And that can be a real challenge.

And this is a benefit in both high transaction or high demand environments and low demand environments simply because depends on which side of the transaction you're on, where the benefit is.

Because right now in Texas, we actually have a good amount of inventory.

We're a little bit higher than we have.

And anybody that has a listing knows that those have been sitting on the market for a hot minute.

Now, that's not everywhere else in the country.

That just happens to be here in Texas and a few other states.

But this is still a benefit for you because if you want to move or you need to move often, it can be a challenge to sell your house.

Finding a house is not going to be the problem.

Selling your house is going to be the problem.

And so if you can then find a place before you have to sell, then you have the flexibility to move with little risk in that period of time to be able to move out and then get your house listed and then, you know, go through the process of selling it.

Now, you know, you'll have to understand that, you know, and this is a, this is a problem that agents deal with all the time, is that sellers and what they think their home is worth versus what the market is saying their home is worth typically aren't aligned often, so there's a little bit of, you know, adjustment from that.

But.

But otherwise, it's certainly a situation.

Even in an image, even in a market where you have higher inventory and less listings, moving it can be a benefit for you because you can then find your home before you have to sell yours, which makes it a lot easier.

And then on the flip side of it, if you're in a state or a market where you have low inventory, which is still a lot of places out there, and your house is going to sell quickly, you can find your home that you want to buy first before you list yours because you may not have a lot of time to get out of that place once it comes under contract.

So there's a lot of benefits to it.

You know, there's always, people always say, well, you know, it seems like it's going to be more expensive to do that.

Sure it is, if you weren't going to just listen up.

But you're also saving yourself from all of the headache and all of the storage and finding a place to live and not being able to move or missing out on the home that you want, all that kind of stuff, there's, you know, you're going to pay a premium or even just additional money when you're trying to solve problems.

That's.

That's what most of these businesses do.

And that's what it sounds like this product does.

Yeah, absolutely.

I often call what you're talking about the emotional cost when I'm talking to realtors and loan officers about how you communicate that.

Like, there's absolutely just the financial cost, which is important, too.

Okay, what's the alternative?

The alternative is, you know, you put your stuff in storage, you have to move into an Airbnb, like, whatever that looks like.

We can communicate that.

Also, there's the stress quotient of what's it gonna cost you emotionally to have to.

Do your kids have to be an hour from their new school?

Or what is the in between period emotionally, which is also expensive, especially if it's not just you who's single.

It's a whole family.

Yeah.

All right, so that's the buy before you sell.

What else you guys got in your, in your house of cards there in your deck?

What you got?

Yeah.

So I said there are six products, but they're broken down into two categories.

So there's the buy before sell category.

What I just ran through is the most common version of that for the cash buy category, which is the same thing.

We're making you a cash buyer on your new home.

The difference is there's no home to sell that we're working with there.

So this is a first time buyer or someone who's looking at an investment property or someone who for some reason has already sold their previous residence.

And so we have the same model of that where we can purchase your home, you buy it back from us.

It just happens a lot quicker since there's no departure residence, and it tends to be less expensive and faster.

And then we have a backup offer that we can help put on to the offer that you're making on your new home, which just says if anything happens with the financing, Xavi will be the cash buyer.

And here's our proof of funds and the mission statement that goes with that.

And so that one is the lowest cost, and you can just have something that is not quite cash, but looks almost like cash because the cash is real in the case that it's needed.

And then we also have kind of an obscure product on the far end of the spectrum in terms of risk.

That's somebody's already under contract on their new home, and most often there's a departure residence that they thought was under contract.

No, it's not.

For some reason, we're scrambling, and they're not going to be able to close on their new home.

So we can come in, purchase their new home, hold it for them, and then make that possible.

And then in the middle there, we have a product where we do a short term loan, and so it's actually them closing in cash in their name.

And that looks a little bit different per state, but, yeah, that's kind of the short answer for the whole breadth of the product suite.

So the benefit of that one probably comes into play more in low inventory markets, where you have more competition for deals.

So the idea behind offering cash, quote, unquote, is that you can close faster.

It's more guaranteed that someone that has your standard loan, so it gives someone a little bit more flexibility.

Now, because you guys work with loan officers and mortgage companies, you're obviously not supplanting them in the process.

You're just helping their clients win deals.

So ultimately, they can take out the loan with their company and their client, but that they get the deal that they're trying to get.

Yeah, absolutely.

So the end loan, the permanent financing, is always with our loan officer partner.

For agents that work with us, they can choose who that is.

We just need to educate them on the program.

But, yeah, there's a big benefit, too.

We don't have in house loan officers.

We never will.

We just, and I like to tell loan officers as well, it's, you getting the deal is a win for us whether they use our program or not.

If you use it on the front end to get a conversation with the client and they just close the 30 year loan like they were going to anyway, but they do it sooner.

Yeah, because you talked about this option.

That's a huge win for everybody.

Yeah.

All right, so let's talk a little bit about now that we kind of know what you guys do.

You know, there's always going to be a lot of questions, like, okay, well, you know, that's great, but I got to have some deals that I can do this with first.

Right.

Right now, we've been kind of living in the.

Not everybody realizes this unless you're in the business.

But when it comes to turnover of existing homes to new buyers, the new home buyer market's a little different.

It's still slow, but it's a little different.

But the existing homebuyer market has crawled to basically 30 year lows.

We've seen the lowest level of transactions that we've seen since the nineties.

That's all the nineties references.

So because of that, a realtor watching this or a loan officer watching this, like, all this sounds great.

This doesn't help me right now because I don't have any deals to do it with.

So what would your response be to that as far as, like, how can we, how can they use Avi to help find more deals?

What.

What's.

What's the way that they can use it to out there.

Go out there and actually get some stuff?

Yeah, absolutely.

So when I talk to agents and loan officers about, I talk about this as a sales tool.

It's awesome.

If you're just getting inbound leads and you can route them to us, we're not living in that world right now, unfortunately, anymore.

So, yeah, this looks like the conversation for the agent or the loan officer to the client is giving them a call, email, text, whatever that looks like, with entry point of saying, have you heard about this product?

Did you know that I can make your move a little bit less inconvenient and make you a cash buyer?

No contingencies, maybe a little value prop on that.

And the purpose of that is, like I was just saying, is to get them into the door to have the conversation.

A lot of people, I think the crux of the situation right now is that a lot of people, with all of the economic headlines that we see, people are nervous.

They do not know what's going on.

They're sitting on the sidelines because they hear scary things and they're not sure if they should move.

Maybe they need to move.

I think a lot of people have also been sitting since COVID feeling this way of, I got in this house, have a good rate.

I'm nervous to move, even though I need more space, want to be in a different place, whatever the case may be.

And so I think for a lot of people, it's what I call unlocking the transaction.

It's really just a reach out point of something that they probably have not heard of.

For most agents and loan officers that are reaching out to them, a lot of that top track right now is like, hey, have you heard that rates hopefully are on their way down?

People don't really want to hear any more of that.

Right.

So I think if you can differentiate yourself and talk about something that probably the end client has not heard of, that's going to be a more interesting conversation.

And then just letting yourself in the door to say, okay, that doesn't have to be the path that we go down, but here are three different paths.

Let's talk about them.

It may be a better time than you think, and just an education piece, if nothing else.

Then, like I said, if they end up doing just a normal loan, or you just end up moving them further down your pipeline sooner than you thought, that's a big one.

Yeah, yeah.

If you're a non real estate professional, you're probably within the last two weeks so sick and tired of hearing from realtors and mortgage lenders about how the fed cut rates, and now's the time to go by and, you know, anything that you can say that's going to offer a little bit different story as to what you can offer to your clients other than, hey, it's a little bit cheaper now, I think it's going to be a real benefit because, yeah, every get on social media for five minutes, and if you're living in real estate, tick tock.

Or you're living in, you know, YouTube real estate land, then all you see is rates are low, rates are down, rates are coming down.

Now's the time to buy.

And, you know, and the truth is, you gotta be honest with people like, yeah, rates are coming down, but in reality, they're probably coming down more soon.

You know, it's probably something that's gonna even get better before as time goes on.

But if you can show them, because I think there's a lot of people out there, that the prices are high, which is, which is an issue, and it's gonna continue to be an issue.

And there's honestly not a whole lot we can do to solve that as real estate professionals other than, you know, lobby Congress to make home buying or incentivize builders to build cheaper homes.

I don't know beyond that.

But what you can do is you can explain to them how to solve problems.

And because often these homebuyers are having problems because they want to move, right.

But they know that this is going to be a challenge based on a lot of different factors.

And so because of that, they're saying, well, I want to move, but I know I can't sell my house because two doors down, my neighbors been sitting on there.

They tried to list it, and it's been on the market for six months or three months, and they haven't been able to move it.

And so if you can say, hey, look, here's a way to solve that issue, you can move if you want to.

Here's how you do it.

And not spend so much time talking about rates and everything else, then you're going to stand out a little bit more than your competition out there because you're offering other solutions better than just the standard.

You know, before, when the rates were high, it was by the house state.

The rate, you know, that was my favorite.

And now it's, you know, rates are coming down.

It's the best time to buy.

And so that's, that's where it really, I think, gives you a benefit and sets you apart.

Right?

Yeah.

And I think there's another piece to that, too, which you're kind of hinting at, which is that the best agent especially, you know, the changes with agent, with especially buyer's agents right now is proving value and being creative.

And I think that the best agents and the best loan officers I know are always looking at, okay, this specific client, their specific situation.

What does this look like?

What levers can I pull?

What tools do I have to make this make sense for them?

And so I think if you are an agent or a loan officer out there, especially when things get hard, it's about how can I expand my tool set to be able to pull different things or be able to pull different levers or get out the wrench or the hammer when I need to, to fix a certain situation based on what's happening here.

That's the best.

And even just showing that you can do that with a few different tools, I think goes a really long way in.

You know, if you're a loan officer communicating to agents or an agent communicating to your clients, I think that's, that's super helpful.

Yeah.

Well, and speaking of being creative, one of my, one of my top contributors to the show that's always joining in with us, his name's Conrad Jackson.

He's a realtor here locally.

He says one of his comments today was, buy a house for me and get two free basketball training sessions for your kidde, valid for 45 days.

Limit one per purchase.

Hey, you're getting, you are, you are getting creative and coming up with ways to set yourself apart.

Right.

That's a perfect way to be creative.

I love that.

That will do really well in certain markets.

That's right.

So now we're pretty well versed on what Xavi's doing and how they're helping everybody.

Now, let's get into some other stuff here, because speaking of AI tools or tech tools, let's call it AI is all the rage right now.

Me being one of the people that, if you tune into this show or you look at me on social media, I'm talking about AI all the time.

I teach AI classes for real estate.

I'm a big believer in it.

But it's not a hey, this is going to replace you.

It is a hey, this is a tool that you need to learn how to use because those who do now are going to set themselves apart from everybody else.

So, you know, you're existing in the tech world.

You know, I'm sure you're.

My guess is being with Xavi, that you probably came from tech and not necessarily real estate, but you can, you can expand on that a little bit.

But I'm curious as to your thoughts on how overall tech is really impacting our market and where it's going to go from here.

Yeah.

So real quick.

Yeah.

My background was in senior living and technology, which was real estate adjacent.

A little bit different than completely residential real estate.

But it's been fun for me, like senior living, then residential real estate, just more agent broker stuff, and then loan officer and mortgage has kind of been my trajectory.

And it's been interesting coming into the space from tech outside of the real estate space.

And I think, first of all, say, I think real estate gets a lot of grief for being, you know, they're super behind technologically and like, all these things, which sometimes can be true, and I think we have to.

It's very, very true.

I like how you're being nice about it.

You can say that.

Thank you.

You can say it.

It's very, very true.

As an industry as a whole, we are still dealing in fax machines and MapQuest printouts, like I said a minute ago.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I think, and I'll counter that a little bit and say, and give a little grace here because I think we're dealing with a huge transaction.

This is a transaction that people feel really emotional about.

One of our board members and someone you might know in this space is Mike Delpretti, and he talks a lot about the emotional purchase of a real estate transaction.

It's not super logical all the time.

And so I think you have to be really careful with AI in the sense that all of the data says that the consumer is not ready to buy a home with a click of a button.

They do not want that.

They want to work, especially with agents.

I think potentially there's more room to automate things on the mortgage side because that's more of a finance product.

But when people look at buying a home, they still want a person helping them.

They do not want that really quick experience, and we're just not ready for that right now.

So part of it's the fear factor, I think, to be completely honest.

And I see that, too.

And we use specifically AI on our side to assess risk of the properties that we're buying because we don't want to end up owning them all forever.

That would not be good for anyone.

Buyers that are not around anymore.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

The pleasure.

No names.

We're not naming names, just never naming names.

Just thank them for going first.

We learned a lot.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

There's got to be the innovators that fall down and fail first, for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Seriously, that someone's always got to first.

So I appreciate that.

And, yeah, so there's this, you know, you can assess risks and do all these really cool things.

And I don't think that one people weren't ready.

And I think the other thing is that the technology really isn't ready yet, too.

It's still new and we're still testing and we see, we try AI for things.

We're like, hey, that didn't really, I think, specifically like generative AI.

Sometimes it doesn't work the way you think it's going to.

And so there always needs to be, in my opinion at this time, human interaction to check some kind of check or balance to make sure that what we're doing is correct.

Maybe sometime in the future, we'll get there, but I think that you just have to be careful how you talk about it, especially with transaction that's as important.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I mean, in, you know, one of the main themes of the class that I teach to agents on how to use AI is that it very much.

Isn't this all encompassing?

You know, what is it?

The Terminator.

Right.

It's not, this isn't.

Brain just doesn't work sometimes.

What was the big overarching thing that they called it?

I can't remember, but, you know, in the Terminator movies, they had the, the whole thing that was like it was going to take over the world.

So it's not that.

Right.

It, what AI has become in most industries right now is very task specific.

So I often relate it to humans in the sense that, you know, I know how to do mortgages, but I don't, I'm not a plumber, and I don't know how to work on cars, and I don't know how to represent someone in a court of law.

Right.

So, so just like human beings, we have incredibly complex brains and we're capable of a lot of things, but the more specialized we become in certain things, the better our, the better off we are overall.

So when you look at AI models these days, instead of thinking it as this all encompassing thing that's going to take over the world and have the, you know, the general artificial intelligence, we're not there yet.

I mean, at least as far as we know, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, we're not there yet.

But what it is is it is specific tools that you use that complete specific tasks.

It's like chat.

GPT right now exists, and it'll help you with a lot of different functions.

But if you wanted to make an image or edit a video or create a spreadsheet or do whatever, it's going to have a lot of limitations on that because it's a language model, whereas there's a ton of tools out there that I can take this podcast in an hour long video, and I can upload it to a site called Opus Clip, and it will kick out 15 different clips from this that I can use to promote on my social media, to promote the podcast.

Well, if I try to do that with chat GBT, it look at me and like, think I'm crazy.

So, um, at least the tools that consumers are, have access to right now.

I can't say what everybody else has access to, but at least to what we have access to.

That is what AI is doing.

For you.

And the better you get at understanding it and playing with it and learning it, the more successful you're going to be in your business.

Because like you said, these are tools.

These are things that you have to learn how to use.

If you were a carpenter or you were building homes and you were still using a hammer and a nail and had never used a nail gun or didn't know what a drill was, you're going to be behind everybody else.

So you've got to learn how to use these tools.

Yeah.

And I think that's the thing.

You know, there's the, what I call the fear factor is very real, and then it's on the other side of that.

That means, I think people are so nervous, especially in something like, we have a lot of agents who've been doing this forever, right.

And they're like, I have a process.

I don't need this other thing.

And I think if you can take, like you're saying, just pick one thing.

This is what I tell people on my team.

Let's pick one tool, and we're going to learn how to use this tool.

Yes.

And then if you can learn this tool and it doesn't help you at all, great.

Don't use it again.

But first of all, I don't think that's correct, so we'll try it anyway.

But it just, I think the.

Yeah, you can't let the fear that I understand is really real completely stop you from using any of these tools.

And I saw that a lot, especially with just all of these options that are out there.

I understand it is a lot.

There's a lot of technology, there's a lot of new stuff, a lot of new shiny objects.

And so I feel for agents and because they have to decipher through all of this mess and decide what makes the most sense.

Yeah, no, it's very much a one bite at a time approach.

Eat the whale.

Um, you're.

You're not going to be able to take everything on at once.

But, you know, the, the hard part is just like anything else.

I mean, it's no different.

The process is no different.

I also work with a lot of agents on how to do social media or how to promote their business online.

And, you know, a lot of them will say, well, I just, I don't want to be in front of video.

I don't like the way I sound, I look stupid, whatever.

And, you know, a lot of that, first off, is like, well, that's your problem because nobody else is thinking about that.

But but second off, sometimes you just have to do something a few times and you become much more comfortable.

So, you know, if you don't want to make videos, okay, fine, you don't have to.

But if you understand the value of it and you think you should, then, then what you need to do is just make a video.

Don't spend 6 hours writing a script, don't spend, you know, whatever.

Just go on Facebook Live or record something on your phone, in your car and post it to your story, which is going to disappear in 24 hours.

Put it up there, sound stupid, do dumb stuff.

Because guess what?

First off, nobody's going to see it.

And second off, people that do see it are the people that like you and they're maybe, you know, they're not going to make fun of you for doing it.

And then if you do that enough times, then you start to be comfortable with video.

Then you start to learn how to use the tool and how to, how to do hashtags and how to do descriptions and how to use editing software on your phone and all that kind of stuff.

But it doesn't start until you first do your first video.

So, you know, if you want to start using AI tools, then just pick one and start working with it.

Go to chat GPT, create a free account and start talking to it.

You know, I, my wife's a realtor and she, this is not a joke.

You know, I'm 45, so I'm not that old.

She's 44 and she still, like, for the last couple of months even to rise up to recently, will write down something on a post it note, okay.

And literally tape it on the back of her phone.

And I'm going, wait, wait, what?

I don't understand this.

Like, that's what the phone is for.

You have a computer in your hand that will literally save that.

And you don't have to write it and say no, but she still does it because she's just what she's always done.

She likes writing things, whatever.

And I recently got her.

Cause I use chat GPT all the time.

And I recently got her on starting to use chat.

And I'm like, when you have a thought, whatever that thought is, just tell chat.

Because by the way, it has a voice function now.

Yeah, yeah, Conrad.

I post it note, tell chat.

It has a, it has a function where you can talk to it and just say, hey, I'm thinking of this or I need to remember this or whatever, and it will record that, save the chat.

It will give you, you know, it will even outline your random thoughts of whatever.

And then I got her to do that a couple of times.

And now fast forward two weeks later and she, like, is on that thing constantly.

Because once you get comfortable with it and you know how to use it, then you start using it more and more and more.

You just have to take the first step.

Yeah, I even tell people, like, put in your grocery list on it and ask for meal recommendations.

Like, use it for, if you don't want to use it for works.

I mean, use it for something else just so you get used to prompting it.

Yeah, you can see the value pretty quickly.

That's hilarious.

About the post it mode.

I can.

I still write things down on paper because I can't stop.

Yeah, it's.

I mean, I do like writing stuff on paper.

It's, it's not something that I don't do, but it's certainly, I do find that, like, what'll happen is, and I'll give you examples.

So, like, when you and I spoke a while back, when we were getting ready to do this episode, we were talking about kind of coming up with a theme, what we were going to discuss, and I'd written down a bunch of notes.

Well, a couple of problems with that.

One is that I have pieces of paper everywhere and trying to figure out where it is and what it's for.

And then I don't write in complete sentences and I write in just bullet points and thoughts.

So then I go back and read it a month later and I'm like, I don't.

What does that mean?

I don't know what I wrote down.

It's so ridiculous.

Well, I started changing my process in that.

And so now I use chat literally.

I interviewed or I talked to somebody yesterday.

We were going through just kind of a theme of the episode we were going to do next month.

And I still wrote down on piece paper because, you know, you don't be typing while they're talking.

And then once we got off, I went right into chat and I just stream of conscious consciousness it right into chat GBT.

And then by the time I was done, and you don't have to write complete sentences, my grammar was terrible.

I spelt half the stuff, stuff wrong.

Doesn't matter.

But by the time I wrote all that out, I said, I hit enter and it's like, cool, this is what you want.

And it's given me an outline of what I was thinking and my thoughts on the opinion, whatever.

And then I labeled the chat.

And then when I go back to get ready to do the episode in a month, I can go back to that and it's all organized and ready for me to go.

Yeah, not to one up you, but I started, I was just thinking about this because it's been a year since I've used this, but on all my video calls, I have one of those videos called, I call it my AI assistant guy, and takes all the notes.

So, like, when I go in, I cannot believe that a year ago I was writing all the notes, putting them in the CRM, uploading them, having to tell them to somebody else, whatever it was.

Now I go in after the call, it can automatically send the email if you want.

They're already in my CRM.

It's so lovely.

I was actually in person with someone, not taking notes out of just talking with someone in person.

And I had the thought in my head, oh, you don't have your AI thing here recording this, Maya, you need to actually write some stuff down for this one because I'm so used to just doing that.

But that took me a while and it took somebody on my team saying, I really think you should try this once.

And I never looked back.

Yeah, well, and it's not something you realize.

I mean, well, we know, like, look, I'm a very, I consider myself to be a very tech savvy person, but there's still a lot of archaic stuff that I do on a regular basis that wouldn't make any sense.

And even just like I was telling you a minute ago, with the note taking, what you're saying, like, I know, and you know that that's the best way to do it, right?

But sometimes we still don't do it that way just because habit, human nature, you know, whatever the case may be.

And so it's just one of those things that until you get yourself into, you know, changing some of your personal processes to integrate these tools, you know, it's not something that happens overnight.

Nobody's perfect at it.

You just have to keep working at it.

And, and I think that, you know, using those things to enhance, again, it's a tool.

And like we were saying in the beginning, this is something that isn't going to replace you.

It's just going to make you so much more efficient at your job and what you do and all of the stuff that you spend hours, you know, like you said, reminding yourself in your meeting what your notes were about versus recording the meeting, uploading it into an AI software, it, outlining everything that you need, putting it into your CRM automatically because you can do that with Zapier and Google Docs and all kinds of stuff, that it goes in there on its own, then if you learn how to do that stuff, then that is such an efficiency hack that a task that used to take you 2 hours or you would have to hire somebody to do, now you can knock out in ten minutes.

So that's the power of what these tools can do.

So from the tech world being in it like you have, what do you see outside of Zavi, obviously, what do you see?

What tools are coming or what tools do you think are out there that could really help real estate professionals streamline everything that you do?

And where do you see all that stuff heading?

Yeah, I definitely think, like you're saying, I think starting with basic everyday tasks is the place to start in terms of AI and technology.

But I really think, again, for, when I think about a real estate agent or a loan officer, I think they have all of these tools, all of these things that they know how to do.

And I think, you know, the danger is they're used to being the person that knows all of the things about real estate.

When new things come, I think we can be a little hesitant.

And so I think whether it's my biggest takeaway when I talk to agents and loan officers is try not to immediately discount things when they come into your orbit, whether that's an AI tool, whether that's some alternative finance model, whatever it is, just taking a minute to think about it, to do a little bit of research on it, because I think we're at a kind of a tipping point right now with technology and real estate, and I do think we're accelerating.

We joked about at the beginning, the industry, perhaps historically, has not been great at adapting these items, but I think that there is so much coming that I think the more you resist, the more dangerous it is, and it's only getting more competitive.

There's a lot changing in this industry when I think of just the, I think it's mostly a mindset to shift for if you're a real estate professional, of these things are coming for your job, this is a way to help you.

And the more that you cannot bury your head in the sand and just take a quick second when you hear about something, to just do a little bit of research, figure out if it could be something that you want to implement, ask someone about it, versus just saying that's new, I'm not interested.

That's scary, whatever the case may be.

Yeah.

Number one.

Yeah.

Well, I agree with you.

And you said this a little bit ago about, you know, the idea that AI or any type of tech is going to take real estate, you know, real estate agents, jobs, it's just not simply because there's so much that you can't do and on a personal level and just understanding human nature and what people really look for because they say one thing but they mean something else.

Or I, the best example I always give is because I went through this myself personally, is you walk down a street and you're looking at homes.

The house looks great, the house is the right size.

It's got all the amenities that you want.

When you look at it from a technical perspective, neighborhood, school district, all that stuff, it checks all the boxes.

But then you walk down the street and you see 50 cars lined up and down the street, right?

I'm parked on the side, you know, two or three cars in the driveway, et cetera.

And then you look at that and you go, wait a minute, like it's you and your family.

There's a lot of people that live on this road, right?

And there's a lot of reasons because those houses do check all those boxes.

If you're not, if you don't have a real estate professional to point out to you and be like, okay, just so you guys know, you know, these are probably multi generational homes.

These are probably people that, you know, have, have pooled resources to live together in the same house and nicer neighborhoods, good school districts, which is nothing wrong with that.

But if that's not what you want, then you need to make sure that you're aware that this is what this neighborhood probably is, because you only get a small glimpse, you know, when you're looking at homes, to go out there and see them, you know, go at nighttime, go to during the day if that's the one that you want, see all the stuff that you need to be aware of.

And a real estate professional that's been doing that job for, you know, 20 years or ten years or 15 years or whatever it is, they're going to know these things and be able to tell you, whereas you can't scan it with chat GPT and go, what do you know?

Anything weird?

It's just not going to happen.

Now.

My job and what I do doing loans and mortgages, I don't know.

I'm a little more concerned about my job than I am about my wife's.

But that's not happening anytime soon either.

But it's a slow process.

But either way, don't be afraid of these tools embrace them, learn from them, learn how to use them properly, because the faster it's an opportunity, if you're in an industry, if you understand that your industry historically is slow to adapt to change in technology, but you in that industry can be someone as an outlier that is quick to adapt to change in technology, you will have a significant advantage.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think especially when you think about the most people looking to buy homes is the millennial generation, which is more tech savvy.

I think there's a big opportunity there as well.

Yeah.

Do you feel like with the market the way it is?

Because right now we're in a higher rate, not low rate, but not high rate, but just mid level rate range that's probably coming down, but everybody's kind of frozen right now.

Not many people want to get out there and buy a house.

And what do you think looking at it, because you're from the younger generation, where do you see real estate going?

Are you concerned about your generation's ability to buy homes?

Like, what's your take on all that?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I'm fortunate in that I own two homes in Colorado.

I would say I got fortunate with when I was able to purchase those.

And most people that I know who I'm in my thirties, most people of this age range are either stuck in a home that they bought with a low rate that they maybe shouldn't be in or wish they weren't in, or they're terrified to enter the market because again, they're hearing all these, all these scary things from the media, from their parents, from every one of their friends saying that, how are we going to afford this?

So I think it's more of a, and I think part of that's true, and I think part of it is a mindset.

And so I think people in the real estate industry, whether you're a loan officer or an agent or leadership at one of these companies, I think your job is to educate the consumer on what's actually happening.

And I think a good way to do that is saying, hey, guys, I know what you're seeing in the headlines.

Let me tell you what's actually happening, whether that's in a text, whether that's on socials, because people think that they know.

And then I've told friends, I'm like, okay, you say you can't buy a house.

Have you talked to an agent?

Like, oh, no, never.

Okay, so do you know that you can't buy a house?

Have you talked to a loan officer?

No, never.

So, okay, so you actually don't know.

And then just that mindset shift of, oh, I guess I don't know.

And so, yes, I am worried about that.

I do think, and what I always say is I get excited by how much capital and intelligence there is behind solving this problem.

And I think that when I look at my peers in the, in the tech industry and the real estate industry, that's what keeps me going, is there's a lot of smart people and a lot of money that can be put behind trying to solve these problems.

And so I really have an optimistic version or vision for the future while knowing that, of course, I wish it was easier right now because I do not think it's fair.

I agree one other.

Okay, so then I want to ask you this, because this is something I want to start.

I'm asking a lot of my guests these days is a lot of people will say, I am waiting for prices to come down because prices are too high.

And when those prices come down, then I'll be ready to buy.

What would you say to someone that said that?

My first question would be, how long have you been saying that?

Right.

Probably it's more than the last six months.

And so.

Okay, let's look at a chart.

What have prices done in your market in the last, you know, if you go, you know, five year, they haven't gone down.

So I think that's one thing.

And the other thing that, and someone told me this when I was purchasing my first home, is a lot of it is about entering the market, of course, doing that responsibly.

But if there is a way to enter the market, you're almost always better off, I think.

I can't remember the exact statistic, but I think it's almost 40 times the net worth of people who own homes versus don't own homes.

That is insane.

Gap.

And it's growing.

And so I think that there's just, again, it's, is it your mindset or is it real?

And sometimes it is real, and sometimes it's a little bit of both.

But I do think that, like I said, with a creative option, especially, there are opportunities a lot of times that people don't know.

And so I think there's a bit of a challenge there that I would pose to that person of how much do you know?

How much have you investigated?

Who has helped you?

And if you've exhausted all those options and you still know that it's not the financially responsible decision, that's great.

And you're smart for not taking that leap.

However, I do think that a lot of people just are wrong in that, honestly.

And why are they wrong?

Why are home prices not going to crash or come down dramatically anytime in the near future?

Yeah, I think that.

I mean, the great thing is we just don't know.

That could absolutely happen.

I do not have a crystal ball.

We have 100 years of history that could indicate.

Yeah, that's pretty good evidence, but, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, sure.

And you could wait for that.

And if you are waiting for that, I think that's a really dramatic thing to wait for.

And so, again, I just think it's checking your options.

And what I would say is there's one school of thought is, like, I'm gonna wait for this thing to happen, da da da, whatever that looks like.

And I'm, like, waiting for this point.

The other thing is, if you can afford to do it now and it makes sense for you now, let's talk about that.

And both things can be true, right?

Prices could go down in the future.

There could be a huge crash.

But I think you get, it gets dangerous for me when I see people looking at, like, I'm gonna wait for this very specific event in order to make that decision.

Yeah, well, the, the issue that comes up a lot nowadays is, you know, the Internet's awesome and it's terrible all at the same time.

And it's because you.

Whatever information you're looking to find, or whatever validation of opinion you're looking to find, you can find.

It's pretty, pretty easy to find it.

There's plenty, there's plenty of people online that will tell you that we're just imminently on the verge of a housing crash.

And I would say in that circumstance, first off, if you go back in history and you look at the one time which is in, everybody was alive that's currently alive, where this happened, where we saw the biggest crash in housing specifically, was back in 2008.

And even back then, home prices fell about 20%.

In the worst markets in Texas, they hardly didn't fall at all.

They bout stayed flat.

But in other places, California, Florida, Arizona, there was.

There was a 20% fall off.

Well, if you look at that house today and see what it's worth today, that fell off 20% back in 2008, 910 or whatever it was, it might be double the price of what it was back then.

Now, could there be a circumstance where prices just come crumbling down?

Sure, there can.

Any, anything can happen.

But if that happens, by the way, then we're all in a world of trouble, because that means it's a bigger.

Problem than your house.

Yes.

That means there's some significant economic event that just wrecked you.

Right.

So is it possible?

Of course.

Is it likely?

No.

And the reason it's not likely is for the same reasons that have been since the dawn of time.

It's basic supply and demand.

The only way that you're going to see home prices come down significantly is if there's a significant amount of supply that comes to the market.

And right now in Texas, we have had an increase in supply.

All right.

But what people forget is that we were operating from a one to two month total supply, which is as terrible as you could possibly imagine, which is what made home prices go up 50% over two or three years.

We came from that to now we're creeping back into the four to five to six month range, which just gets you back to what we call a balanced housing market, where the buyer and the seller have equal leverage in the transaction, the negotiations, because nobody's too desperate.

But until we get to a place where we're sitting at eight to ten months and now sellers are just trying to offload homes, we're not going to get there.

And the only way that you get there is we have a bunch of job losses, which possible, but it would have to be very, very significant.

We would have to have, because you got to realize people have more equity in their home right now than they've had at any point in history.

And so that's the last thing that they're going to unload or foreclose or get rid of.

You know, this isn't like, again, back in 2008 when people got on into all these loan products that had them upside down on their equity and they were having a short sale and all these foreclosures were happening, et cetera.

We're not seeing that.

It's just not happening.

And if that doesn't happen or if people, you know, there's, there's another thing called the silver tsunami.

Have you heard about this yet?

Yes.

Where this is like the baby boomers that everybody's planning on them to die off, like, well, they're not going to die off all of a sudden or move in.

Like, this is going to be a slow thing that happens.

Not all at the same time.

No, it's going to be over time.

Right.

So that could happen over time.

And the only other thing that adds the supply is that we build more homes.

Well, if you look at builders right now, they're not building more homes.

They're building to keep up with pace, but just to keep up with what the sales are, because they don't want their price points coming down.

And the only thing that they're building where they have lower price points is if you want to live in a 900 square foot house in San Antonio, you know, and pay $180,000 for that, well, there are options that are showing up there, but that's it.

And I don't know of a ton of people that want to do that.

And, you know, I hear, it's funny as a side note, but I hear a lot of, you know, people in the media talk about your generation, specifically millennials and Gen Z, that, you know, home ownership isn't as important to them.

Like, they don't really care about that that much.

They'd rather be mobile and move from place to place.

Now, you said you're in Mexico City right now, so that's, you know, I'm.

Not the best example of that being.

Untrue, but I'm assuming.

Don't know.

I'm assuming you don't have children yet.

I do not.

Okay.

So what I would tell you is that those desires of being mobile and moving from place to place and having flexibility go out the window when you have a family, because now you want stability.

You want to be where you're going to be.

Now.

Families are forming later, which is part of where this bleeds into is now.

You know, like, I got married at 22 or three or four years old.

I had my kids before I turned 30.

And then, you know, now I've got a 17 year old and a 15 year old that are on their way out into college.

And so, so all of that changes.

But now that's happening later.

People are having children later on.

They're forming families later on for many different reasons.

And so the demand for these homes is also a little bit lower.

So there's a lot of factors going into play for that.

But ultimately, you're not going to see prices come down in a dramatic fashion unless you have a dramatic glut of supply.

Right.

And I think the main thing, like you were saying, is over time, it's almost always better to have entered the market if you look historically.

So I think that's the thing that people forget.

It's easy to have a shorter lens on it.

Yeah.

And when you said earlier about when you can afford it, it's like, well, when you say that to somebody, they'll say, well, I can't afford it, or I don't.

I mean, and I'm saying, well, okay, looking at your household budget.

And I tell people this all the time, and I'm preapproving.

Like, listen, I don't tell you how much house you can afford.

I ask you first how much you want to afford, what you want, your payment to be what you want, and then I will tell you, based on what I can do, what you can.

Your maximum level is.

But let's start with what you want, you know?

And, like, I want a payment for $2,000, and I like this $500,000 house.

We'll have to talk about that.

But either way, you have to start from your own personal budget.

But everybody stretches themselves a little bit in the beginning.

It's just.

It's.

It's.

It's normal.

When I bought my first house, I don't want to tell you how much I paid because it'll make throw up.

But when I bought it, even then, because everything else was also cheaper, stepping up to that first mortgage payment was scary.

From where I was coming from, renting an apartment with my wife, it was.

It was almost double.

And so that was a scary thing.

We didn't think we could do it.

We still managed to figure it out.

But it's you.

If this something that you want to do, you don't have to.

Not everybody's cut out to own a home, but if it's something that you want to do, you got to enter at some point, even if it's not, quote, affordable.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think it's about, you know, getting all of that information, which I think people are just scared to even get to that point.

So as much as real estate professionals can do to help people get to that point where they feel like they can reach out or raise their hand, I think that's.

That's their first job as an agent or a loan officer.

I agree.

I agree.

Well, Maya, I really, really appreciate your time today, hopping on and going through all this tech fun stuff with me.

I know it's.

It's scary for a lot of folks, but it's definitely something they have to start learning and they have to start getting into, because if you don't, then you're going to be left behind, and maybe you'll be left behind slower in our real estate market because everybody else is of the same mindset.

But you can certainly have an advantage if you can figure out a way to start leveraging those tools.

Before we go, let everybody know again where to find you, company website, what you guys are doing for everybody, and then we'll take off.

Yeah, for sure.

Zavi is spelled.

This is the main thing how it's spelled, Z A V V I E.

Lowercase Z, by the way.

Lowercase.

Yeah.

Because we're an annoying startup tech company, everybody.

It's so funny.

Every startup tech company I see now has a lower.

There's no capital letters.

You guys hate capital letters.

Yeah.

In running their marketing, it's like sometimes the bane of my existence, but yeah.

So zavvy.com.

my name is Maya.

Maya, zavy.com.

if you have any questions or are interested in partnering, and we are pretty active on LinkedIn, posting success stories and things like that, would love for you to reach out.

And if you want more information, that's great.

If not, I hope you learned something today.

Thanks for having me.

Yes.

And if you are, you know, if you're in a mortgage company or own a mortgage company or part of one, these guys can help you out.

So reach out and find out and they can kind of guide you along the path.

So.

All right, well, I want everybody to have a great rest of your week.

I'll be back with a market update next week, talking about rates and all kinds of fun stuff.

So we'll be back with that.

And I look forward to seeing you guys again.

Everybody have a great week, and we'll see you soon.

Thanks, Maya.

Bye.