Do you hate your job but worry what might happen if you quit? If so, you won’t want to miss this interview with Pat Hiban and Tim Rhode. Pat and Tim offer great tips from their latest book, The Quitter’s Manifesto, including the steps you should take before handing in your resignation letter. Listen and learn how to quit the job you hate so that you can discover a life that you love.
Listen to today’s show and learn:
Pat Hiban’s idea to write The Quitter’s Manifesto with Tim Rhode [5:40]
Interest over obligation [8:20]
Tim Rhode’s insane real estate ads [10:29]
A step-by-step guide to quitting [13:44]
Who The Quitter’s Manifesto is for [15:55]
Listeners who left their jobs for real estate [17:21]
Figuring out what you really want to do [18:20]
When Aaron finally decided to quit his job and become an entrepreneur [22:20]
Pain as a motivator for change [25:30]
Where to buy The Quitter’s Manifesto [28:39]
Tim Rhode’s inspirational impact on Aaron [30:07]
The team behind your decision to quit [38:05]
Going from where you are to where you want to be [43:23]
Where to find more from Pat Hiban and Tim Rhode [45:09]
Pat Hiban
Pat Hiban, also known as Pat Hiban, is the founder and former Chairman of Rebus University and is the former host and founder of real estate podcast Real Estate Rockstars with Pat Hiban, which has featured guests including Robert Kiyosaki and Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran.
Pat Hiban is a former real estate agent out of the Baltimore MD area, and was the owner of the Pat Hiban Group with Keller Williams. As a billion-dollar agent, Pat was awarded #1 REMAX Agent by gross commissions in the world in 2004 and #1 Keller Williams Realty Agent in units sold nationwide 2006. He was named a New York Times and USA Today best selling author, and has been quoted in Time Magazine, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and various other real estate publications.
Pat is also one of the founders of GoBundance, an adventure company for “healthy, wealthy, generous individuals who choose to lead epic lives”. Notable members of GoBundance include fellow founders David Osborn and Tim Rhode.
Tim Rhode
Tim would tell you that he got off to a slow start. After growing up in the rural town of Portola in Northern California and barely graduating high school, Tim Rhode found himself at the age of 25 working as a grocery clerk with two young children to provide for.
He eventually found his “niche” selling real estate; and from 1986 to 2000, he sold over 2,500 homes and from 1997 to 2006 he invested in over 100 properties. Tim focused on saving money, keeping his expenses low, and playing solid “financial defense” which allowed him to basically retire, and he was financially free at the age of 40.
Not wanting to play hike, bike or ski all day, Tim threw his energy into his true passion: helping people thrive and live their most fulfilling life. He founded the nonprofit 1Life Fully Lived to help people of all ages gain the tools and skills they need to thrive and also co-founded GoBundance, a high-level mastermind, with David Osborn, Pat Hiban and Mike McCarthy to help healthy, wealthy, generous people lead epic lives. We have a women’s tribe now!
Tim has also authored numerous books and has been featured on a variety of podcasts and media outlets. He now lives near his children in the High Sierras with his wife and dog.
Related Links and Resources:
Thank You Rockstars!
It might go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: We really value listeners like you. We’re constantly working to improve the show, so why not leave us a review? If you love the content and can’t stand the thought of missing the nuggets our Rockstar guests share every week, please subscribe; it’ll get you instant access to our latest episodes and is the best way to support your favorite real estate podcast. Have questions? Suggestions? Want to say hi? Shoot me a message via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or Email. -Aaron Amuchastegui
Well, folks, this spring marks a major milestone in the housing market: Annual home list prices have gone negative for the first time in years. In other words, they are actually dropping nationally.
Looking at the country as a whole, sellers have priced their homes this May below where homes were priced just one year ago. That hasn’t happened in recent memory, especially after the past few years of unprecedented price hikes. But as mortgage interest rates shot up, buyers have been unable to afford the higher monthly housing payments.
Something had to give. And while today’s price dips are slight, there are no indications that overall prices will begin rising anytime soon.
So where are home prices falling the most? The data team at Realtor.com® found out. These are mostly places where prices shot up the most during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Western and Southern swaths of the country. In most of these places, there has been a lot of new construction helping to ease the housing shortage and taking the pressure off of prices to remain quite so high.
“Those markets that got the most juiced during the pandemic—where the prices really took off—are the markets where they’re now suffering the biggest declines because affordability has been the hardest there,” says Mark Zandi, Moody’s Analytics chief economist.
“The market is trying to adjust to the surge in mortgage rates and the collapse in affordability,” says Zandi. With mortgage rates hovering around 7%, he believes the price declines will continue in the near future.
“I’d be surprised if we don’t have this same conversation a year from now and prices aren’t another 3% or 4% lower than where they are today,” he adds.
For example, look at Boise, ID, No. 1 on our list, or Austin, TX, which came in at No. 2. Both were practically synonymous with the housing market’s pandemic price pump.
People who previously had to spend their nine-to-five in a big-city office building were turned into remote workers with more flexibility in where they could live. That led many people to leave more expensive cities like San Francisco and Seattle for smaller cities where they could get more space for their money.
The big caveat here is that there are still real estate markets around the country where prices are rising steadily. These are typically more affordable Midwestern markets that didn’t see the large upswings that other markets experienced during the pandemic.
To figure out where prices are falling the most, we looked at the median price per square foot in the 100 largest metropolitan areas. Then we compared median prices in May 2023 with May 2022.
We used price per square foot as the most reliable metric to track home price movement. This means in a few instances, overall home prices in a metro might be rising while the price per square foot is falling. Price per square foot is generally considered a better indicator of prices because it accounts for changes in the mix of homes for sale. For example, right now many larger, more expensive homes are sitting on the market without attracting buyers. Since those homes aren’t moving, it’s bringing up the overall price for these metros. But the price per square foot compares apples to apples and shows that in some of these markets, it’s actually cheaper to purchase a home now than a year earlier.
We looked at only one metro per state to ensure geographical diversity. Metros include the main city and surrounding towns, suburbs, and smaller urban areas.
Here’s where home prices are down the most.
Median listing price: $609,875 Median listing price per square foot: $282 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -7.8%
Boise has been one of the poster children for the run-up in home prices during the pandemic. The area saw a massive influx of residents and soaring demand over the past few years, especially from Californians. And it’s not hard to see why.
The city checks many of the standard quality-of-life boxes that people are seeking: Homes are larger than the national average, and there’s plenty of natural beauty and outdoor recreation.
Homes in the city, surrounded by mountains, used to be a bargain. Then the pandemic hit, and from March 2020 to May 2022, prices rose 63%. Now prices are coming back down to earth.
“It’s the entry-level homes where we’re losing value,” says Boise real estate agent Rob Inman, with Boise’s Best Real Estate Keller Williams, “those homes that people got into for $400,000 to $500,000.”
That reality is rough for buyers who bought at the peak, Inman says, especially first-time buyers. The one consolation, he says, is the low interest rate they probably have on the mortgage.
But for buyers still looking for a home on the more affordable end of the spectrum in Boise, there’s a lot more to choose from now.
“Now, you can actually find stuff between $350,000 and $425,000, right in that entry-level price point,” he says. “There’s even new construction.”
Median listing price: $583,751 Median listing price per square foot: $276 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -7.7%
When it comes to pandemic hot spots, you can’t mention Boise without bringing up Austin, too. This cultural hub and capital of the Lone Star State has attracted hordes of tech companies and homebuyers leading to a surge in prices.
During the pandemic, the price per square foot for a home in the Austin metro rose around 75% from February 2020 to May 2022. The median home list price, not standardized for size, went from about $364,000 to almost $630,000. Pandemic price growth in Austin outpaced all others on the list.
Higher mortgage rates have cooled off buyers’ ability to purchase at the same price point. Right now, a relatively new, one-bedroom condo in East Austin is being listed for $420,000, with a recent $5,000 price reduction.
Median listing price: $366,075 Median listing price per square foot: $225 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -7.3%
Myrtle Beach, nestled in the center of South Carolina’s “Grand Strand” shoreline, is a popular and affordable summer destination. The city, named after the abundant wax myrtle tree in the area, was recently named one of the nation’s most affordable golf towns by Realtor.com.
With its beaches, boardwalk and amusement parks, and plenty of golf courses, it’s another spot where prices rose over the past few years and are now coming down.
Some of that is due to the abundance of new construction in the area. With so many homes to choose from, buyers aren’t under as much pressure to bid them up.
Homes in Myrtle Beach are relatively small, so if buyers aren’t looking for a colossal home, the actual median price on homes there is 15% to 20% less than the national median. This remodeled three-bedroom, two-bathroom house is on the market for $284,900 after a $15,000 price cut.
Median listing price: $529,450 Median listing price per square foot: $274 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -5.6%
During the COVID-19 pandemic, home prices in Phoenix got as hot as a sweltering Sonoran summer, and just as the monsoons mark the end of the season, raised interest rates have come like a cold downpour on the market. After more than 50% pandemic-era appreciation here, the median price per square foot is down more than 5%.
But the housing boom in Phoenix—as well as the subsequent correction—is nothing new for the Valley of the Sun. Phoenix was one of the markets with the biggest swing up and down during the late 2000s housing bubble and crash.
Part of the reason why is that Phoenix has the capacity for so much growth. Without a real winter to speak of, home construction can go on year-round. And the only thing surrounding Phoenix is more land, so developers can continue to build outward.
“Developers can keep sprawling,” says local real estate agent Angela MacDonald. “Without the new homes, we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand for people moving here.”
Even with the price decline, sellers still have a bit of an edge in the market. There are still many buyers and not as many homes to go around.
Median listing price: $549,900 Median listing price per square foot: $305 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -4.7%
Florida was another red-hot real estate market during the pandemic. As more folks could work remotely, many migrated to the Sunshine State with its low taxes, reasonable cost of living, and year-round warm temperatures.
Part of the reason Sarasota, about an hour south of Tampa on the southwestern coast of Florida, made our list is because it’s also one of the places in the U.S. where the number of homes for sale has risen the most.
Sarasota homes are also spending longer on the market, with the median listing on the market for nearly eight weeks. Homes were selling in about half of that time a year ago.
This midcentury three-bedroom home near downtown Sarasota has undergone a price reduction bringing it down to $499,000.
Median listing price: $635,000 Median listing price per square foot: $247 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -4.0%
Salt Lake City is another area that’s grown in popularity over the past few years and attracted more tech companies and workers. That led prices to rise—until recently.
“Buyers are holding back a little when it comes to waiving contingencies or inspections,” says Lory Hendry, a real estate agent at Windermere Real Estate in Salt Lake City, ”
That’s in contrast to the frenzy of the pandemic, when fast sales were often sealed without those protections.
Salt Lake City has the biggest homes of any metro on our list. So buyers looking for more home for their money might want to give the city a hard look. Surprisingly, it’s the higher end of the market, the larger, more luxurious homes, where high demand is still leading to quick sales and competition among buyers.
“Anything in that $1 million to $2 million price point is going pretty quickly,” says Hendry.
For people looking for a bit more of a bargain, the Ogden metro, just north of Salt Lake City, is a little less expensive and was recently featured on our list of places where the number of homes for sale is growing the most right now. The number of listings in the Ogden area has roughly tripled over the past year.
Median listing price: $238,250 Median listing price per square foot: $152 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -3.9%
Venturing outside of the West and South, the “Steel City” is the only Northeastern spot on our list.
Pittsburgh stands out on our list as a place with some of the smaller homes, with a median home size around 1,600 square feet. Combined with a price per square foot that’s about one-third less expensive than the national median, this means the price of a Pittsburgh home is quite a bit lower than in most other places.
This anchor of the Steel Belt didn’t see the same kind of pandemic-era price appreciation as others on the list. However, the overall housing slowdown seems to have pulled down prices anyway.
Buyers looking in the area can find a three-bedroom home in the South Side Flats neighborhood for $285,000. It recently underwent a $10,000 price reduction.
Median listing price: $345,899 Median listing price per square foot: $148 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -3.6%
For the previous few metros on our list, there’s a quirk to how home price data is affected by the mix of homes for sale. The anomaly is the most pronounced in the Winston-Salem metro. While the median list price per square foot has dropped, overall prices in the metro are rising.
This is due to shifting buyer preference. As mortgage rates rose and buyer budgets shrunk, many buyers shied away from larger, more expensive homes. That left these properties on the market as the cheaper, smaller homes were more quickly scooped up. The bigger homes have been pulling up overall prices for the metro even though local real estate costs less than it did a year ago.
If you were to compare the median home list price in Winston-Salem with Pittsburgh, you’d see that the Winston-Salem price is about $100,000 more. But the median home listing in Winston-Salem is more than 500 square feet larger. So buyers get more space for their money.
A nearly 100-year-old, three-bedroom home about 10 minutes south of downtown Winston-Salem is listed now for $220,000, after a $9,000 price reduction.
Median listing price: $662,875 Median listing price per square foot: $340 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -3.4%
Sacramento, California’s capital city, may be the most expensive of any on our list, with homes priced around 50% higher than the national average. But for California, Sacramento is cheap! The state’s median list price per square foot is more than 30% higher.
The city became a popular alternative to the pricier San Francisco Bay Area during the pandemic as buyers sought out more space for less money. But as companies have been calling workers back to their offices, the area isn’t as hot as it was during the pandemic. There has also been plenty of new construction in the area.
A two-bedroom townhome near downtown Sacramento can be picked up for a little under $500,000 right now.
Median listing price: $376,000 Median listing price per square foot: $205 Change in year-over-year price per square foot: -1.1%
The real estate market in the “Windy City” is really a tale of two cities, says Compass real estate agent Amy Duong Kim.
Chicago’s dense downtown should be thought of as one market, she says. The suburbs on the periphery, where about two-thirds of the metro residents live, should be thought of as another.
“In River North and Gold Coast and the other downtown neighborhoods, they were hit the hardest during COVID,” Duong Kim says. “Unfortunately, they haven’t bounced back yet.”
The listing data backs up her point about the two different markets of Chicago. Where the larger metro area is showing a 1.1% decline in price per square foot, the city of Chicago at the center of the metro is showing the list price per square foot is down just a little more than 4%.
This two-bedroom, one-bathroom condo in downtown Chicago is on the market for $299,000.
[Editor’s note: This is an announcement for an event put on by a member of the GEM.]
As part of a new initiative to involve the greater vendor industry, Keller Williams is hosting its first-ever Research Webinar hosted by the Corporate Development team. In the Webinar, they will be examining the impact that COVID had on the residential real estate industry.
Hosted by Jeff Tamaru (Director, Corporate Development) and Luke Mizell (Corporate Development Analyst).
The Zoom webinar is taking place June 11th at 12:00 PM Central Time.
If you’re thinking about selling your home, you’ve got a lot of options.
It’s not 2012 anymore, when you simply enlisted the services of a real estate agent and went on about your day.
Or bravely went down the for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) path, a much less common scenario.
Today, there are many more ways to unload a property thanks to the disruptors.
What Is an iBuyer?
It stands for instant buyer, a company that buys your home and then sells it shortly after
iBuyers offer all-cash in as little as 24 hours
Can choose your own close date and sell property as-is
Downside is offer will likely be below traditional market offers and fees and repair costs still apply
By now, you’ve probably heard the phrase “iBuyer.”
The term iBuyer is short for “instant buyer.” These companies buy homes almost immediately, with all-cash offers generated in as little as 24 hours, and then sell them not long after.
While the valuation methods might differ from company to company, the name of the game is speed.
With some companies, you simply enter your address into an online form and provide details about your home and the computers do the rest.
They instantly run comparable sales and factor in any improvements your home has to generate a so-called competitive market offer.
Assuming you like their offer, they’ll come by your home and verify the home is in the condition described, and adjust their offer to account for any necessary repairs.
Others might come to your home after you request an offer online, and once they see the property in person, you’ll receive an offer shortly thereafter.
Either way, you’ll get an offer fast, and it’ll be all-cash, meaning there won’t be any pesky mortgage lenders to deal with, or home buyers with cold feet who walk away last minute.
These iBuyers are generally happy to buy homes in any reasonable condition, without you having to worry about finding an agent, listing it, cleaning it, repairing it, staging it, giving tours, and waiting weeks or months for it to sell.
Some of the largest iBuyers include Offerpad, Opendoor, RedfinNow, and Zillow Offers. And even some real estate brokerages are getting into it, including Keller Offers from Keller Williams.
Selling a Home Isn’t Fun
The reason iBuyers exist is because selling a home is basically the worst.
In fact, Zillow’s 2019 Consumer Housing Trends Report found that 95% of home sellers were stressed by some aspect of the process.
As you can see from their chart of despair, home sellers have a lot of worries and concerns, with not knowing when the home would sell topping the list.
It was followed closely by uncertainty about it selling for the right price, having to prep and/or make improvements, concerns the offer would fall through, and timing the sale with a new home purchase.
These are all very legitimate issues to stress about, and younger homeowners are even more likely to be stressed by it all.
Enter Zillow Offers! But seriously, it is hard to part with a half-million-dollar property for the sheer fact that it’s half-a-million dollars.
That just comes with the territory – as a homeowner, you’ve got responsibilities that renters do not.
You need to maintain your home, make repairs, keep it updated, pay lots of bills every month, property taxes, homeowners insurance, and so on.
And when it comes time to sell, you’ve got to do a lot of things to ensure it sells for the right price. Or you can use an iBuyer…
The Pros of iBuyers
You can sell your home very quickly
You don’t need to find a real estate agent
You don’t need to clean it, repair it, stage it, or hold open houses
You can choose your own closing date to coincide with a new home purchase
As noted, iBuying is all about speed and convenience. We can actually use Zillow’s list from above to highlight the many advantages to using an iBuyer.
First, you can choose your closing date with an iBuyer, so that completely eliminates the fear of a property selling in a desired time frame.
Next, they tell you the price upfront, so if you’re happy with said price, there’s no stress.
Third, iBuyers will make repairs themselves, so you don’t have to make them. Of course, there’s a cost, but savvy home buyers will also make requests for repairs, so it’s somewhat awash.
See Curbio for an alternative to paying for repairs out-of-pocket prior to listing.
Fourth, you don’t have to worry about the offer falling through because it’s a large company paying with cash that has done its diligence and isn’t going to have second thoughts.
Fifth, and perhaps one of the biggies to iBuying, is timing the sale of your home with the purchase of a new replacement home.
They totally alleviate this concern because your offer is guaranteed and you get to choose your closing date.
This also covers the lack of control with the selling process and timeline, and not knowing if the buyer is “serious.”
You also completely forego the touring (open houses), staging, and cleaning necessary with a traditional home sale.
In terms of negotiating, most iBuyers will probably say the price is the price, but you can still argue if you’ve made improvements and disagree with their assessment.
But you’ll likely find that they aren’t willing to budge much if at all.
The Cons of iBuyers
The price will likely be well below what a traditional buyer would offer
There are still fees that must be paid to the iBuyer in lieu of real estate agent commissions
Repairs will also cost you even if you don’t need to complete them yourself
Buying and selling homes shouldn’t necessarily be rushed
We’ve highlighted some of the pros of iBuying, namely the quick and easy process, and the all-cash offer. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?
Unfortunately, there’s a cost to the convenience. Sure, you can have the valet park your car instead of walking a block to the restaurant, but it’ll cost you $5.
That might be worth it though – with an iBuyer, the price could be significantly more devastating to your wallet.
You might miss out on $25,000 or more because of the inconvenience of selling yourself. Ouch!
At the end of the day, your competitive offer from an iBuyer is likely going to be significantly less than what the home might appraise for and/or what a traditional real estate agent would sell it for.
Additionally, iBuyers charge fees in place of real estate agent commissions, which while seemingly offsetting one another, probably don’t because of the lower offer price.
The old cliché is that a real estate agent’s commission is covered via a higher sale’s price. So even if they get paid 5-6% of the sale’s price, the home sells for that much more.
That’s the theory at least.
When all is said and done, you’ll likely receive less in your pocket if you use an iBuyer to sell your home, once factoring in their fee, the in all likelihood lower offer, and the cost of any repairs.
The question you need to ask is if it’s worth the price. There are a lot of things we probably don’t want to do, which we could have someone else do for us.
But there’s a cost involved. And when we’re talking about a very large transaction, the price is likely going to be steep.
Of course, you can always take the iBuyer up on their free offer to see if it’s close to what you’d get going the traditional route.
In some cases, it may be worth the convenience, especially if you’re trying to buy a replacement home.
But do your homework. You might need those extra proceeds for that subsequent home purchase.
An alternative might be to use a flat-fee listing company like Reali, which uses traditional real estate agents but doesn’t charge the percentage fee.
If you’re thinking about selling your home, you’ve got a lot of options.
It’s not 2012 anymore, when you simply enlisted the services of a real estate agent and went on about your day.
Or bravely went down the for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) path, a much less common scenario.
Today, there are many more ways to unload a property thanks to the disruptors.
What Is an iBuyer?
It stands for instant buyer, a company that buys your home and then sells it shortly after
iBuyers offer all-cash in as little as 24 hours
Can choose your own close date and sell property as-is
Downside is offer will likely be below traditional market offers and fees and repair costs still apply
By now, you’ve probably heard the phrase “iBuyer.”
The term iBuyer is short for “instant buyer.” These companies buy homes almost immediately, with all-cash offers generated in as little as 24 hours, and then sell them not long after.
While the valuation methods might differ from company to company, the name of the game is speed.
With some companies, you simply enter your address into an online form and provide details about your home and the computers do the rest.
They instantly run comparable sales and factor in any improvements your home has to generate a so-called competitive market offer.
Assuming you like their offer, they’ll come by your home and verify the home is in the condition described, and adjust their offer to account for any necessary repairs.
Others might come to your home after you request an offer online, and once they see the property in person, you’ll receive an offer shortly thereafter.
Either way, you’ll get an offer fast, and it’ll be all-cash, meaning there won’t be any pesky mortgage lenders to deal with, or home buyers with cold feet who walk away last minute.
These iBuyers are generally happy to buy homes in any reasonable condition, without you having to worry about finding an agent, listing it, cleaning it, repairing it, staging it, giving tours, and waiting weeks or months for it to sell.
Some of the largest iBuyers include Offerpad, Opendoor, RedfinNow, and Zillow Offers. And even some real estate brokerages are getting into it, including Keller Offers from Keller Williams.
Selling a Home Isn’t Fun
The reason iBuyers exist is because selling a home is basically the worst.
In fact, Zillow’s 2019 Consumer Housing Trends Report found that 95% of home sellers were stressed by some aspect of the process.
As you can see from their chart of despair, home sellers have a lot of worries and concerns, with not knowing when the home would sell topping the list.
It was followed closely by uncertainty about it selling for the right price, having to prep and/or make improvements, concerns the offer would fall through, and timing the sale with a new home purchase.
These are all very legitimate issues to stress about, and younger homeowners are even more likely to be stressed by it all.
Enter Zillow Offers! But seriously, it is hard to part with a half-million-dollar property for the sheer fact that it’s half-a-million dollars.
That just comes with the territory – as a homeowner, you’ve got responsibilities that renters do not.
You need to maintain your home, make repairs, keep it updated, pay lots of bills every month, property taxes, homeowners insurance, and so on.
And when it comes time to sell, you’ve got to do a lot of things to ensure it sells for the right price. Or you can use an iBuyer…
The Pros of iBuyers
You can sell your home very quickly
You don’t need to find a real estate agent
You don’t need to clean it, repair it, stage it, or hold open houses
You can choose your own closing date to coincide with a new home purchase
As noted, iBuying is all about speed and convenience. We can actually use Zillow’s list from above to highlight the many advantages to using an iBuyer.
First, you can choose your closing date with an iBuyer, so that completely eliminates the fear of a property selling in a desired time frame.
Next, they tell you the price upfront, so if you’re happy with said price, there’s no stress.
Third, iBuyers will make repairs themselves, so you don’t have to make them. Of course, there’s a cost, but savvy home buyers will also make requests for repairs, so it’s somewhat awash.
See Curbio for an alternative to paying for repairs out-of-pocket prior to listing.
Fourth, you don’t have to worry about the offer falling through because it’s a large company paying with cash that has done its diligence and isn’t going to have second thoughts.
Fifth, and perhaps one of the biggies to iBuying, is timing the sale of your home with the purchase of a new replacement home.
They totally alleviate this concern because your offer is guaranteed and you get to choose your closing date.
This also covers the lack of control with the selling process and timeline, and not knowing if the buyer is “serious.”
You also completely forego the touring (open houses), staging, and cleaning necessary with a traditional home sale.
In terms of negotiating, most iBuyers will probably say the price is the price, but you can still argue if you’ve made improvements and disagree with their assessment.
But you’ll likely find that they aren’t willing to budge much if at all.
The Cons of iBuyers
The price will likely be well below what a traditional buyer would offer
There are still fees that must be paid to the iBuyer in lieu of real estate agent commissions
Repairs will also cost you even if you don’t need to complete them yourself
Buying and selling homes shouldn’t necessarily be rushed
We’ve highlighted some of the pros of iBuying, namely the quick and easy process, and the all-cash offer. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?
Unfortunately, there’s a cost to the convenience. Sure, you can have the valet park your car instead of walking a block to the restaurant, but it’ll cost you $5.
That might be worth it though – with an iBuyer, the price could be significantly more devastating to your wallet.
You might miss out on $25,000 or more because of the inconvenience of selling yourself. Ouch!
At the end of the day, your competitive offer from an iBuyer is likely going to be significantly less than what the home might appraise for and/or what a traditional real estate agent would sell it for.
Additionally, iBuyers charge fees in place of real estate agent commissions, which while seemingly offsetting one another, probably don’t because of the lower offer price.
The old cliché is that a real estate agent’s commission is covered via a higher sale’s price. So even if they get paid 5-6% of the sale’s price, the home sells for that much more.
That’s the theory at least.
When all is said and done, you’ll likely receive less in your pocket if you use an iBuyer to sell your home, once factoring in their fee, the in all likelihood lower offer, and the cost of any repairs.
The question you need to ask is if it’s worth the price. There are a lot of things we probably don’t want to do, which we could have someone else do for us.
But there’s a cost involved. And when we’re talking about a very large transaction, the price is likely going to be steep.
Of course, you can always take the iBuyer up on their free offer to see if it’s close to what you’d get going the traditional route.
In some cases, it may be worth the convenience, especially if you’re trying to buy a replacement home.
But do your homework. You might need those extra proceeds for that subsequent home purchase.
An alternative might be to use a flat-fee listing company like Reali, which uses traditional real estate agents but doesn’t charge the percentage fee.
Plenty of real estate agents struggle to find clients their first year in the business. Still, there are some agents who manage to put up big numbers right from the start. Jacob Valdellon is one of them. In his first 13 months, Jacob closed 31 deals. On today’s podcast, Jacob shares exactly how he did it. Listen and learn how to capture and convert leads via social media, what script to use when seeking referrals, and where to find motivation when times are tough.
Listen to today’s show and learn:
Life in Rancho Cucamonga [1:45]
Jacob’s start in real estate in 2020 [1:59]
How Jacob chose his first brokerage [3:15]
What makes real estate special [5:07]
Jacob’s first listing [6:10]
Jacob’s sales stats [7:02]
What to expect on profit-share deals [8:58]
What turned Jacob’s life around [12:27]
How Jacob overcame ego and embraced being present [17:11]
SOS – A warning for agents who find fast success [22:13]
Life-changing events and books [26:32]
Where Jacob gets his deals now [28:34]
A simple script for getting referrals [30:23]
How to engage potential clients via social media [33:03]
A trick for creating high-quality real estate videos with ease [37:30]
Real estate topics to cover on social media [38:00]
Rapid-fire advice for new real estate agents [40:49]
Other sayings that helped guide Jacob’s success [43:29]
Jacob’s final thoughts for listeners [47:15]
Jacob Valdellon
Jacob Valdellon is a 24 year old Filipino American young entrepreneur, he grew up playing baseball since T-Ball and all the way until high school. His junior year of high school he was cut and decided to turn his passion from sports to business. He began his entrepreneur career at 19 years old and joined a Financial Marketing Company and was working as an inside sales agent for Keller Williams and Century 21. He went to his first Driven Event in 2018 and is now apart of our Ambiance Team. He’s here to give you Service for Lifetime. His passion for helping people, his meticulous attention to detail, and his willingness to go above and beyond to fight for his clients is what separates him as an AMAZING REAL ESTATE AGENT. His faith has continued to allow him to work from inspiration (in spirit) and will work tirelessly to get you into your dream home. His customer service and business candor is exceptional and will make you feel special when working with him. He has his friends at The Mortgage Guys to assist him to hold your hand through the entire sales transaction.
On his free time he enjoys working out, spending time with his family, he is the second eldest sibling of 5 brothers and sisters, and really loves to serve his community. He has coached the local little league teams for his little brother and continues to give back to his community through church. His mission in life is to empower others to empower others to live a happy, healthy, and wealthy life. His favorite quote, “Everything you want in this life already exists, all you have to do is go after it everyday relentlessly. There is a clear path to what you want so dream big and go after it!”
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According to Realtor.com, the median listing home price in Tempe, Arizona, in April of this year was $500K in April, a figure down by -2.9% year-over-year. The latest reports also show that the average listing sells within 31 days, which is up from this Summer’s figures in the 20-day range. The region’s tech boom in 2022 made prices and sales shoot through the roof, but the economic slump has hit this town like most others in the U.S. The downturn is all the more reason to get the best of the best for buying or selling. With this in mind, here’s a list of some of the top real estate professionals in the area.
George Laughton has an outstanding sales and review record on Zillow. Two thousand seven hundred seven clients gave the Tempe/Phoenix agent’s team 5-star reviews on the platform, and Laughton made 1194 sales in the past year. His “My Home Group” team also has excellent reviews and individually exceptional profiles, each to his or her’s efforts.
The team’s website leaves much to be desired where SEO and aesthetics go. A score of 50/100 for an agency of this caliber is shocking. Likewise, Facebook is a bit of a surprise. Even though Laughton has over 3.8k followers, the team has not posted anything in over a month.
At LinkedIn, we see the focus of Laughton’s leads effort digitally. His 3k plus network, his membership in the LI Social Media Management Group I belong to, his posts, and his endorsements tell the tale. Then there are the team’s YouTube efforts, including a top-rated (by me) channel, ads, and broadcasts on other real estate channels. Unfortunately, Laughton’s YouTube effort has dropped off in the past few years. However, his media outreach and Zillow Premier Agent efforts seem to be ramping up. Zillow recently included Laughton as an expert in a recent press release. Good work, George. This is how agents should get it done.
Website, Facebook, Contact # 1-623-266-3806
Right behind Laughton, Shawn Rogers and his West USA Realty have garnered over 1,000 five-star reviews from Zillow users. The group only has 92 sales in the past 12 months, however. Nevertheless, where Facebook is concerned, Rogers eclipses the competition with over 12k followers and timely, interesting postings nicely conveying the brand.
Like Laughton, Rogers also has an impressive LinkedIn effort with over 2k followers and meaningful, contextual postings regularly. The West USA Realty boss also has a stunning YouTube channel with 1.25k subscribers. This is a massive number for a real estate agent, maybe the highest we’ve seen (I will have to check). Rogers is on gaining media mentions like his competitor above, as well. The only surprising thing about his super-professional effort is that his website has the worst SEO score we’ve ever mentioned. 13% out of 100% is horrific. And the site is pretty nice too.
Website, Facebook, Contact # 1-480-313-7031
Keller Williams Realty’s Katie Baccus has 1.7k Facebook followers, a great company and personal (private) Instagram effort, and the best website of all those in this group aesthetically and by search engine optimization (78/100 from Neil Patel). Baccus has almost 200 perfect Zillow reviews and sold nearly 60 properties in the past 12 months. Her team is in the top 1% of agencies in Arizona, according to their website. Baccus Group also gets its share of local media mentions.
Baccus’ YouTube channel only has 80-something subscribers so far, but what’s presented is helpful and very professional. This channel should be pushed more because Baccus is superb on camera and offers like a top TV hostess. In addition, her company’s Instagram feed has some of the best real estate related videos we’ve seen.
The blog on the website has not been updated in some years, but since the site gets so little traffic, this is a minor thing. Too bad some effort is not being made to make the domain a valuable part of the marketing funnel. Baccus also has an excellent Twitter feed, but it’s been abandoned for some time. Her LinkedIn effort could also drive more leads, but it’s in placeholder mode for now. This agency could beat the competition with more commitment to digital marketing reach.
Website, Facebook, Contact # 1-480-206-4336
Terri Witte, the team lead of The Jason Witte Team at eXp Realty, does not tick all the boxes for real estate digital marketing. However, she and her team have five-star reviews on Zillow and elsewhere, 1.6k Facebook fans, and a nice engagement by Jason Witte on LinkedIn. In addition, the team is also featured frequently in local and regional media.
The team’s website has a 20/100 on-page SEO score. This is a shame because it’s one of the better-looking and functioning sites in the group. Plus, no social buttons are always negative. She made this list because of 88 sales in the past year. Jason Witte’s team could rise a lot in sales.
Website, Facebook, Contact # 1-480-286-1884
Phil Butler is a former engineer, contractor, and telecommunications professional who is editor of several influential online media outlets including part owner of Pamil Visions with wife Mihaela. Phil began his digital ramblings via several of the world’s most noted tech blogs, at the advent of blogging as a form of journalistic license. Phil is currently top interviewer, and journalist at Realty Biz News.
Are you a first-time homebuyer in Dallas? Learn from local real estate agents and get 11 valuable tips to make the transition from renting to owning smooth and stress-free. Find the perfect property for your needs and budget with expert guidance.
The post Buying a House in Dallas? 11 Tips from Local Real Estate Agents appeared first on Redfin | Real Estate Tips for Home Buying, Selling & More.
The number of homes for sale in Southern California has fallen to start the year, a reversal of normal trends as high mortgage rates keep sellers on the sidelines.