The way that Americans do this is completely nuts. honey, there's no way that can happen.

like, help me help you.

Is it impossible to buy a house now? No, it's not.

If your offer didn't get accepted because of the price, because somebody else was willing to go to some exorbitant amount of money, then you weren't, then let them.

There is no such thing as a dumb question in real estate. As an industry we are dealing with a lot of emotions.

I know that a day is like 10 years in buyer time. I'm not going to let anybody offer something that I can't go to sleep at night.

That's part of the challenge of being good realtor, which is really taking care of the client. Oh all right. Well, welcome back to Millennium. everyone.

back. Powered by Wawa Coffee.

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Every day. One

One of our goals for this year is going to be getting an audience with Wawa for sponsorship.

Yeah,

Good real estate advice meets great coffee.

Can't be a Philadelphia area podcast without having Wawa call you out. No,

area podcast without having about it. Brand. It was very

note how you didn't say the Wawa coffee or the Wawa food.

the whole thing. The whole experience, man. And now they've got gas. And good price gas.

And the fact that people don't know that of course they have gas. What do you mean? Because I'm from Delco where we had Wawa markets, that's where I used to go to get my deli meats and cheeses. Hey, run up and go grab the milk and a carton of eggs.

Wawa, we are so proud of you. We are so You've come so far, from a little market in Delco.

will say, I would love for the sliced deli meats to come back, but if you're not going to do that, can you at least get the big canisters where you get the tongs and actually get the rolls out and bag them yourself?

I don't know, have you had any Wawa pizza? Is any good?

It's good. It's fine. I would pick it over Domino's.

Oh, that's good. I, lived on Domino's in college.

Who didn't? I lived on Wawa iced coffees in college.

we, could charge Domino's to our meal plan at college. So we would just call like at two o'clock in the morning after the bars and just. Like I want 15 pizzas, 250 ways.

Oh, I would be in I'd be in my dorm at two o'clock in the morning working on my papers after we come back from Manila's when we shouldn't have been there and would go to Wawa and just get 32 ounce iced coffees.

Manila's diner. What's just a pike. Oh, that's a, no, it's in Wayne. That's in Wayne. Yeah. So what is that? What's that one? I want to watch it. Oh, squires diner.

You talking about Washington Diner?

No. There's squires

Squire. Oh, Newtown Square. Yeah, Newtown Square. That was by my high school.

All right. Now that we've covered the entire Philadelphia region, and eateries and convenience stores let's get into today's topic. So what are we talking about today?

Three things that we want every buyer to know, because we have not beaten this one to death yet.

When we were talking about this topic, we were saying that maybe we had covered this already, but there are certain things that I think we need to say more than once and beat into people's

heads We have said all of this before, but they have been across multiple different episodes. I think we're just like tying it all in together right now.

Yeah, I think we miscommunicated a little bit I think we were never We were supposed to come up with three, but I think both of us came up with our own three, right?

No. No? No? they're all the same We talked the other day about it. And it was pretty much, yeah. I, don't think Seth was on the phone call that we had together the other day. I

even remember the phone conversation. I just came up with my three this morning after I got that on the bus.

We'll put it this way. They all end up just being the same anyway, because it's the same that we

it's the same thing we agreed on. Maybe it was just in my real estate archive. Okay. So why

There are some things we disagree on that are funny, banter, disagree. But there, I think there are some three fundamental things that we always agree on, because they are fundamentally important to the way that the process for real estate

Which is why we're going to mention it more than once. And don't be surprised in the spring or the summer, we come back to these topics because people consume podcasts in different ways and they just click on different episodes. We want to try to get the good news out to the people and that is our mission. So once you hit us off on our first

don't wait, There's no such thing as too soon. Yep. But there are such things too late. That's my favorite line I think I've ever come up with and it was on the podcast.

it podcast. they are getting to a point now where They have to sell their house down there before they can buy here. And I remember when we got, when did we start talking to, them? Was it October?

A little while ago, probably.

It's March now when this podcast is going to

is going to be broadcast. three times total we've met with them. So that's at least three months and then like a month before that.

they were getting in the car to drive back to Virginia yesterday. and I reminded them when I had our initial conversation where I said, I want to congratulate you ahead of time. And you probably have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but you guys are doing this the right way. A lot of times if somebody wanted to sell their house in Virginia for a spring market, they would start calling. The agent in the place they want to move a lot of them would wait till January or February. But during that entire time, we have been able to get them fully pre approved. They've had some really good conversations with their family. Now that we've started the process, they just found out that they've got something that they didn't realize they had that would help their financial situation. They are completely zoned in on probably about

It's not always, it's not always either about giving yourself time, it's giving the family time too. Sometimes you actually have more resources than you think you have. And in this case I mean, you give your family time to think too. And then especially now we're in a time of gift money is very beneficial to be able to go when you're buying a house. And if like your family can spend some time to like scrap together some gift money for you or work out a different arrangement for them, whether it's like paying them back for it or Whatever system you want to work out, it gets everybody more

Yeah, and by the way, and I've said this before on this podcast, that the way that Americans do this is completely nuts. This whole individualistic, mom and dad bought their house and now the kids save and they've got to buy a house on their own. that is not typical across the world. Most families band together and help. With the home purchase because they realize that it's a long term investment. It provides stability it provides An anchor sometimes for the grandparents that the kids the grandkids will stay or stick around So it's those types of things. Keep You know pounding this point home though. Is that you know getting out ahead of this process? There's so much you can't control being able to You very deliberately check off these boxes ahead of time before you actually start writing agreements of sale. And you start really getting serious about buying is so important. And like these people are moving, they've got a little kid.

and their timeline changed too. Like it moved up drastically. They'd come and said that they wanted to get their son through with the rest of the school year and then sell their house and not disrupt school So they were thinking settle on their house sometime after he's done school. So that's June and then just move up here sometime before the school year starts. July, April and then they realized after they talked to their agent that we're partnering with down there, that. They're going away on vacation in March and what better time to list their house and when they're not home. So they just moved their listing timeline up like two months, which then moved their buying timeline up like two, three months.

that would not have been possible, I don't believe, if they hadn't done the work here in Pennsylvania. Absolutely not. That would have been so stressful That would have been so stressful. They would have been like, honey, there's no way that can happen, but we've been working with them for three, four months, and it's been like literally how many combined hours have we spent with them in person? Maybe three, four hours over the course of three, four months. And that little amount of work. Now they did the hard part. They drove up from Virginia, obviously,

But we've been talking to them like through each of those months keeping in conversation and just making sure that we're like staying up to date They were going to rent here in a short term rental situation We're keeping up with solving that problem So you have immediately when you're going to be here. I think that was our first meeting with them was seeing a house and seeing short term rental options.

Yeah.

okay, so we'll make sure like you have a plan, no matter what it is and when it making sure the conversations are going well with lender and everything like that.

whether you're a buyer or a seller it's really about being as Prepared as possible. I get the question all the time. Is it impossible to buy a house now? no, it's not We're continuing to put people into homes people are continuing to do real estate transactions And the reason is because they are Making sure that this is something that's deliberate. It's a, process that's thorough. You're getting hooked up with the right people, that type of deal. So that

and you're just following the direction that you're given and you actually make the efforts out to do it, it's going to happen.

yeah, it can totally be done. So what's the second

Ask all of the questions.

ask all of the questions. Okay. Why don't you take

this and now don't be wrong, there's times where you don't know what you don't know, but then things come up and there's a lot of like information overload at the very beginning, but don't be afraid to ask, can you go through that again? Or can you explain that another way? Or okay but what does that mean? Or what is next? And, Like why do I have to submit this document sometimes better ask the lender for that they know better but ask every single question about anything or like why would I go for electric heat over oil heat So stuff like that.

The question we got Was what do you think about oil heat? I'm like, what do you think about oil, heat, What do you know about oil heat? Wait, why are you asking? I think it was

really what, do you know about

what Yeah, what do you know

think of?

And so when we bring people into our process, it's like we want you to ask all the questions. And there are we do this all day, every day.

We have a tendency to speak in jargon that we're just used to and tend to get into our zone like anybody does in their own profession. You end up just like speaking within like your own like knowledge of things without considering the fact that like this that's, right. This isn't common knowledge and that's totally okay. And that's why we're here to educate on it. And so if we're not like emphasizing on something or we're not stopping to explain something, then ask us to, cause we're just going on with the assumption that you might know, but you're not supposed

to. Yeah. Something I say to my clients is I don't want you to get back in the car and then you turn to each other. What did he mean by blank? because we do this all day, every day, we have a tendency to blow past things because like we know what it is I'm sure you're very good at what you do all day, every day. And it's not, buying and selling real estate. So please just ask the

That's I was on a call with our lender, Mike and a friend of mine, she's starting to look at houses and he was going through the initial illustration with her. And I absolutely loved when she was like, Actually, can you go over that part again? I didn't really quite understand that. And he's yeah, no problem. Absolutely. And I'm like, yes. Thank God. It like, it puts me at ease knowing that if you actually don't understand something that you're going to ask.

Yes.

Yes. Because I want you to understand if you're not asking, I assume that you understand.

So we create a safe space for dumb questions and there are no dumb questions. There is no such thing as a dumb question in real estate.

If it's a question that you have right now, the chances are it's a question that I had when I was buying my house, when I didn't know anything about anything.

Yeah I guess there are some dumb questions. Are there dumb questions in real estate? Yeah, What is the roof

That's Would you continue to work with a client if they

I would.

Yeah. Okay.

I would, it's like, how does it win? How do windows work? There are people that they ask they think it's a really dumb question, but it's not like, when do I actually get the keys to my house? Someone asked me that. I said the minute, that everything is signed at settlement, you get it at settlement and that's what settlement is but because no one thought that he's that's it. Is that a dumb question? I'm like, no, it's not a dumb question. they

did they have a run back situation Or

did They have like a run back situation or anything? If that would be helpful to you. Or

if that would be helpful to you, yeah, let us know. Yeah, let us know.

you.

telling me that we're doing this, and I like the idea, but if you think it's absolutely godforsakenly

We're doing it, we're doing it, guys, we're doing it, we're doing it, you don't even have to ask us.

even up for, it's not even up for discussion. We're doing it. Sorry, not sorry.

But no, but he was wondering because he's like, wait, I'm giving money deposit. And then there's inspections. He's like, do I and then there's a walkthrough and there's and he's like, when do I actually get the keys?

a lot of people know what the purpose of the deposit is for. They're like, why am I shelling over like tens of thousands of dollars? I think that's also a PA thing is I've, I learned this year because my cousin is a real estate agent in Delaware. She had somebody that she was sending up to me here and they had already been looking at houses down in Delaware. And when we went to go write up an agreement of sale, and I'd said okay, deposit. So it's typically about two or 3 percent of the offer price that you're putting in. They should've taken it back and was shocked. And I'm like, why are you shocked? But like genuinely what what is the shock factor? But apparently they had been putting in offers where a earnest deposit. was only like 1, 500 and to define what the deposit is for you put in a deposit basically secure your stake in making sure that you have something on the line to actually see this deal through

and

to your terms so that if you do not hold to the terms of the contract then the seller gets to keep that deposit money if you don't hold up your end of the deal.

Every state has different thresholds. So some states it's yeah my buddy in South Carolina, he says, oh yeah, he's two 1500, two grand hold like any, property. And I'm like, I don't get that. Like, where's the anchor for the buyer?

mine was

That might be because I mean, your house was below 200, 000. And we're talking like a 600, 000 and outside of Charleston, South Carolina, it's yeah, 1, 200, 1, 500, like 600, 000. I'm, we're coming with 15, 18 grand. I usually bump it up because you can, demonstrate how much you want the property by giving more money over

and again, in Pennsylvania it's not required, but it's standard practice generally to send over the BFI, which is the buyer's financial information. that's something that the buyer has to fill out. You have to fill out yourself to just list your assets, your liabilities just basically where you are financially, and then It shows basically that you have enough money to actually buy the property to cover like the expected, they don't know what your closing costs are, but like a, you'll have a general idea and their agent will guide them towards deciding if you can do it or not. Whatever. BFI are separate from what I'm actually saying. I think we disagree on. What? You like BFI's I hate them. Good. we're good. We're if they see that you have 20, 000 to your name and you're putting a 10, 000 deposit down, that weighs a lot more heavier than somebody shh, Yeah.

Yeah. Just agree. Just agree and move on, Jen.

Anyway, it shows more that they're putting more on the line than somebody who is putting 10, 000 down, who has 200, 000 in the bank. Nobody wants to lose 10, 000 bucks, but it's okay, if the person who has 20, 000 loses 10, 000, that's going to be a lot more credibility to actually stay to the terms of the contract versus somebody who's 200, 000. And it's it's ten grand, like it sucks, but I'll live.

You, are passionate about escrow and BFI. Obviously.

just trying to define it. I don't

define where that

ask all the questions, so I'm answering the questions.

So what's the next one? I'll answer this next one. This one is born from a client that we've been working with. I spent a fair amount of time on Sunday with them. they're very nervous. There's a baby on the way. The timeline doesn't help. There's some pressure. There's some, moving about with jobs and but they know that they want to buy a house and that's a good place to start. They are definitely in the all the questions camp. We've made it very, welcoming for them to do that. But in the end, I talked to them a ton about mindset and we always joke in the real estate industry that we're like psychiatrists, marriage counselors, financiers. Morticians, like I feel like when I have to call, a buyer's agent or buyer and tell them that they didn't get the property where I'm a listing agent, I have to tell the buyer's agent, morticians, I'd say. No, but it's the same, it's the same type of deal though.

friend compared that to being a doctor and having to give bad news

news to

member. And I was like, okay, I I feel strong for doctors are having to go through that. And I wouldn't say it's like.

It's not that bad if you list a lot of property, like I do, and I have to have those conversations and like each one, I have to have that conversation six times and then it's fairly often it's, it would be like a very shitty cardiologist who's like always giving bad news, so it can weigh on you. But having the right mindset when you're in the buying mode, we try to lay as many expectations as possible. You should not expect when you go to buy a house in this market, at least in Philadelphia, you should not expect to get the first house that you place an offer on. it can happen, but it's not very typical and you need to get yourself into the idea and Understanding that like there's more than one house that you can find happiness with That there are you know, quote unquote other fish in the sea, the end though, it's about having the right mindset. She was very nervous about getting into bidding wars. Understanding them. And I think there's a lot of pride that gets involved with this, where people are like I've done everything I'm supposed to do. I went to college. I'm saving. I'm starting a family. I've worked really hard at my job. And I think people take it really personally, I think there's our other partner Julie and I are working with a client who's it's very personal to them and they do not like rejection, they just don't like

it,

but getting yourself in a, mentality that you're going to have to churn a little bit, you're going to have to get out and see some stuff, you're going to maybe have to get rejected a couple of times.

This is one that we did an entire episode on mindset and how crucial that is. So yeah it's going to take some like getting out there and seeing things and yes, getting rejected, but it's odd to know that the right one's going to work out and just know that it does, like you'll get disappointed. And usually when I have to call and make the sad call to say sorry, we didn't get it. I always include in there listen. Take the rest of the day, or if it's the morning, take today to be sad, be disappointed about it. Like we'll pick back up tomorrow. Feel your things today. It is a bummer, but it is not the end of the world. And that's, this one didn't work out. So the right one will. there's like some real emotions where it

be

bummer. And I say, you know what? Go, be bummed. That's totally fine. We'll pick back up and hit the ground running in the morning and keep going at

I think a lot of people don't understand too, that like when you, when a buyer gets rejected, They're also they've placed an offer on a house and a lot of times they've told family, they've told other people, and then they got to go give the bad news. And so it is, it can be an emotional thing for people. And so what we do is we try to get set as many expectations as possible and make sure that they understand. It's listen, we, yeah, you're going to get rejected probably a couple of times, but I will say that I think between the two of us, I'm almost always unless they're full of shit, they're telling me I'm, usually able to get the buyer like, pretty close.

If

if we're not the winner, like we're in that worst, like we get to see at the table Top, yeah, top 30%, which if there's five or six offers, that's top two. I just can't believe how many agents don't call, like I'll be a listing agent and I just get like an offer and then a text being like, please confirm receipt. I've never heard from them, never had a conversation with them, and then they never call. Like when, if we set an offer deadline, they never call back and say, Hey, The thing I've always told you guys to say is, do we have a seat at the table at review time? And if they're like we've got a lot of offers and be like, okay what do we have to do? to make it, so you're mentioning my offer and you guys are really like considering our offer with the seller. And a lot of listing agents will tell you and frankly they, should because They're, given an option to improve an offer for their seller.

they don't have to, because they have the fiduciary to their seller to have confidentiality, but that's why I go to my sellers and say listen, I am not obligated to tell them anything about all the offers that are coming in or anything that is like your. information that I am bound to keep confidential unless you tell me otherwise.

Yeah.

And I tell them pros and cons. And it's up to you how much or how little you want me to say to other

Yeah. Yeah. It

can be a benefit in your favor. You try to keep it fair nothing worse than just pinning somebody against each other just to screw over somebody else.

if I'm asked as a listing agent, the direct question, I want to improve our offer. So it's as good as possible for the seller. I think fiduciary kicks the opposite way where it's I'm not gonna be like, okay, I have a 675, 000 offer with no inspections. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm just saying listen, based on your offer, you're short. You need to come up with more money.

What I hate is when people just say sorry, I can't disclose that. I'm like really? Anything I'm trying to like, help me help you help us help you. and

that is very much from like a Normal market in this market. I don't think that really plays Everyone's out there trying to do the best they can and buyers Like there's I think as a flip it on the other side buyers Oh it to their clients to make that call

there's on the other side too, if we're not sure that we're even going to have a seat at the table and we, the buyers willing to offer on it versus what we might think that it would go for, that's when I make the call to the agent and just say. Okay, listen, I'm more than happy to write this up, but you tell me, is this with what you have in hand, is this even going to compete whatsoever? Let them know. And if they say no, that could compete. Oh, absolutely. Put that down. But some people say it's not even going to compete anywhere close to what we

And then you get the stick in the mud agents who are like you just need to write it up and I'll present it.

And not even me, but save my buyer. The heartache of having to wait because it's yeah, it takes my time, but it's my job and that's okay. But it's more the buyer's sitting there and waiting and literally, and I tell the agents all the time, even when I'm a listing agent, I'm like, listen, I know that a day is like 10 years in buyer time. So I'm not trying to drag this out. This is where we're at. Try to just keeping communication with the ones who are keeping in communication with

me.

And let them know, we are working to get, I'm keeping it fair to keep, get the rest of these in. But when I'm buyer's agent, I'm like, okay, you also understand that every day is like 10 years

my take has always been since the very beginning of my career is, about protecting the consumer experience. And obviously this market's very competitive and there's so much that we can control. And there's also so much we can't control. So there's things we can't control I always push for, when I'm a listing agent, I tell every buyer's agent like, listen, man, like I'm on the other side of the table, all the time. and I tell them literally to the buyers agents, I'm like, I'm very cognizant of the, like a consumer experience in this country. And I will not leave you hanging, please text me if I ghost you or something, or you feel like I've ghosted you just I like lit I was like, who am I kidding? I've got my phone in my hand all day. I said, I won't ignore you or whatever. And because I do believe as an industry we are dealing with a lot of emotions. the thing we didn't even talk about with the mindset, I don't, discount this at all, is that buyers tell their kids. And they show their kids the house and that has happened where I had a gentleman I was helping By a house a couple years ago, and he showed it to his son and his son was not like four. His son was like 10 and it was awesome. It had a pool. It had a big open field. they were a baseball family. and the kid got his hopes up for the house. And I called the listing agent. I said, I want to be at the table at the end. And I said, what do I need to do? And I called my client and I said, listen, this is what we need. And he says, I'll call you right back. And he went to his son to have a conversation about like, how much do you want this house? Do you really love it? Do you really love it? And my client called me back and said, do it. He's whatever it takes. I want it.

Oh,

And we didn't get,

Oh, And I, oh, did you tell the listening agent too that it was the son that he was doing it for his Make decisions based off of

I, didn't, but it was a crushing Thing for the kid. And so

Oh, God. was hard, man. did you ever tell me that? I

I told you like that week, I think I got on and I was like, man, that is fucked up. And so

wow. Talk about a reason to me to never want to have my client's kids on showings. I never thought of it that way. The kids, Good.

the, buyer, my client showed it to him because he's like, Hey we're going to potentially move to this house. I

a showing with my mom. We were thinking about moving when I was some young eight. I was probably in I don't know middle school or something like low middle school I don't even know where this came from I think we saw two houses and then I think it was done I don't really know how much further it really went. We were looking

up buying a house or you never moved?

we never moved We were looking, And I went to his house and I was like, Oh my God, wow, I think it had a pool outside. And I lived in a row home in upper Darby with like concrete jungle and like a front patch of grass and this had a yard and it was a I would probably hate it now, but the rooms were too small and they were like, my parents had a, I don't know if they still had their water bed then, but they had a

but they

Yeah.

Does anyone out there still have a waterbed? think all popped by now. I love that thing.

really?

Not that I sh

Do people buy

buy a waterbed anymore? Like people sell like new waterbeds.

New

I don't know. That's

interesting. Okay,

if you own a waterbed, could you let us know?

Oh, my sister had

My sister had a waterbed in the city. But I didn't have one at my house.

one at my house. Yeah they were fun to sleep

they were fun until the water started coming all

And then it did and I remember them draining it one day, but I was this got so off topic But to get back to a point that you were saying probably like five minutes ago with getting rejected and mindset That I think you started to say and then somewhere down the line we got

waterbeds.

we sure did Was that with every rejection? I don't think there's ever been a time where like my buyers didn't At least learn something from it to apply to the next one. And that's the most important part. so like typically you will find out why you didn't get it if the listing agent has any kind of a heart. And then you've take that lesson that you learned of life. So here's what we missed out by. Typically you won't know, like by how much, and that's always the first question I get back from the buyers is like how much did we miss it? Bye.

Yeah.

We're not allowed to know yet. There is reasons for it. Say the deal doesn't go through. And then they have to put it back on market.

That is a violation of fiduciaries is letting an exact number, but if you have enough conversations with that listing agent, you know where

you have a ballpark But anyways, so then you are able to say if it was a terms thing then or if it was a well, it was like against this kind of financing or Like they were able to close this amount of time or they didn't have a home sale contingency or you know Whatever amount of other terms that it was you end up like taking your lessons from that and applying it to the next one Right now the biggest one's inspections But we've talked about workarounds for that

inspections, but uh, we've talked about workarounds for that too.

not want to

They don't say, I don't want to know why my offer got missed. some buyers are a little more hesitant to take that feedback, especially the like the more principled ones that are like That's all the money I have. So I don't know what to tell everybody, so sometimes you can exhaust the buyer a little bit, but I

when I tell people, I'm like, listen and when we're deciding on what the offer should be, I'm not going to let anybody offer something that I can't go to sleep at night.

Of course not. Of course not. I'm just saying some people get a little bit More defensive about their rejected offer than others and that's and but there's always a lesson to be learned

But I'll tell people though, if your offer didn't get accepted because of the price, because somebody else was willing to go to some exorbitant amount of money, then you weren't then, let them,

I Say this all the time to my buyers. I'm like guys. I can't let you spend that money I just can't like we were going in on a house was like 500 and some thousand dollars. Thing wasn't worth a penny over like 460. and I think it got escalated to 505 or 510. I said, guys just can't let you spend that money. I just can't let you do it. I said, there's going to be other houses. If this was like the end all be all house, you had to be in. Okay. or there's like a house where I'm like, I cannot let you waive inspections. or I cannot let you take this house without stucco inspection or a septic inspection or something like that. And that's part of the challenge of being good realtor, which is really taking care of the client. Oh

yeah, I just said that to our clients when I was out with them last weekend. they asked me my opinion on one of the houses after I looked at the disclosure. I said, there are times where I feel more comfortable with electing the showing consult inspection over the full home inspection. I said this is one of those cases where I would highly encourage you to elect for the full home inspection. And if you didn't get it because of that, then that would be okay because I still wouldn't feel comfortable with you going forward with that one because there are too many unknowns and red flags that popped up.

Okay. So let's recap here, wrap this up. So we got a mindset.

Backwards,

Let's go backwards.

go Mindset, ask all the questions and. No such thing is too soon.

that's it. That's all we got today. I think we're gonna talk about

Yeah. Three things we want sellers to know is next week.

Sellers on the hot seat next

Yep. See ya. Bye.