Are you ready for a mindset check as we learn to embrace change in the real estate industry? Are you tired of the “Negative Nancy” narrative? It’s time to embrace change and ditch the what-ifs and complaining. In this episode, we’re leaving behind the feeling of resistance and talking about the importance of focusing on our businesses, building systems, and staying confident amidst industry shifts. We’ll tackle toxic positivity, share stories from the trenches, and remind you why clients choose YOU. We share how hundreds of our listeners responded to our survey asking how they are feeling and what this change looks like for them. Have buyers refused to sign buyer rep’s? Did the brokers do a good job of training and prep? Are agents looking for loopholes to go around new rules? We are answering all of these questions with help from you!

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The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.

Katy 0:00
I listen, there was this lawsuit, and I’m so annoyed about it. Now they’re making us do this, and they’re saying that, realtor, you’re bad, but you’re gonna have to pay me. But don’t worry, you’re not really gonna have to pay me. No, just sign here.

Alissa 0:17
Rip this band aid off early. Yeah, get used to talking to your clients about money,

Katy 0:25
when you change your mindset, it doesn’t make those challenges disappear. It changes your ability to face them. Oh, that’s

Alissa 0:33
good. Hi. Y’all WELCOME TO HUSTLE. Humbly. It’s Alyssa and Katie, and we are two top producing realtors in the Baton Rouge market. We

Katy 0:42
work for two different companies where we should be competitors, but we have chosen community over competition. The

Alissa 0:47
goal of our podcast is to encourage you to find your own way in business, so

Katy 0:51
stop comparing yourself and start embracing your strengths. Hi, Alyssa. Hey, Katie. How are you today? Great. Actually, this microphone is kind of far from me. I’m going to be real quiet today. Okay, it’s episode 269

Alissa 1:07
we’re checking in on y’all.

Katy 1:09
I have nothing to say here. We’re gonna be we’re gonna talk about how we’re feeling. Yes,

Alissa 1:16
we have Okay, so we’ve gotten a lot of messages about how things are going since the buyer representation agreement has been

Katy 1:22
correct, implemented, yes, and you’re now listening to this. It’s been plenty long enough. Yeah, it’s been a few weeks. Yeah. So we’re gonna talk about, are we feeling good? We’re

Alissa 1:30
feeling bad. Here’s the thing, if you’re not feeling good, we need to start moving in that direction. Gonna help you get there? Yes, we’re bringing you over to the bright side. We must move into acceptance. You know, if y’all have listened to the past episodes, especially in the very early beginning, when all this was being discussed, I was stuck in anger, denial, right phase, and I am in acceptance now, great. So

Katy 1:58
put your hand out and say, Come along with us, sweet friend, we’re gonna take you over to the should we

Alissa 2:04
both do it to the middle? Come along with us.

Katy 2:08
Come please comment to accept. We’re gonna but you know what? Before we get there, let’s talk about how people are not accepting. My favorite is this photo on this Inman article that I will I will attempt to show our YouTube friends is all the ways that people are trying to loophole of telling the buyer’s agent what the commission being offered by the seller is, yes, like a little note in the lockbox, a number percentage cut into the grass,

Alissa 2:42
a decorative pillow, right? Percentage on it. Look

Katy 2:46
this one. The front yard is beautifully landscaped in a in a percentage, yes, also herbs, cabbage. There’s just like a random sign in the front yard, like a little flag, a keychain, Okay, y’all we get it like, Yeah, but I think most of these were created as jokes, yes, but, you know, doesn’t think they’re jokes. The DOJ, they’re like agents, they’re like, obviously these people can’t follow the rules. When I would like to say, as the human that I am, I always follow the rules. I like to follow the rules. Remember that

Alissa 3:18
time you wanted to take pictures when we weren’t allowed to take pictures in that neighborhood. Yeah,

Katy 3:23
that’s different. Okay, if it is a legal requirement of my career, I will 100% follow the rules, say. But my point is, almost all realtors behave that way. Yes, like, probably the majority of our listeners are like, Okay, what’s the rule, I will follow the rule they’re not cutting a percentage into the grass.

Alissa 3:44
I think a lot of my like anxiety regarding this topic was because there was so much lead up to this, and the media just had a total frenzy,

Katy 3:55
right? I feel like the agents they’re describing are the ones that there are a handful that exist. But normally we’re not shining such a bright light on them,

Alissa 4:03
right, right? It’s like they wanted to highlight the worst part of our industry, correct? So now, today, we’re checking in. We have some messages. We’re going to read some situations. We’re going to talk through perfect um, I was going to ask if you have had, if you have made any adjustments to your business, I will share the one small thing I adjusted. For example, please tell me yours in the hustle. Humbly. Trello video,

Katy 4:33
oh, what

Alissa 4:33
does it say? Next to my buyer column now is a BBA signed column. Oh, so it’s kind of like I had my pre listing. These people are official, yes. So I had my pre listing column of sellers who were had reached out, told me they’re interested working on a few things. It’s not actually listed yet, but I need to keep them on the radar. Okay? And then when they sign the listing agreement and we are active, I drag their card over to active listing fair. So now I have my buyers column, right, and my BBA signed column, Oh, I love it. And it’s, it was interesting because my buyers column had gotten pretty lengthy, okay, I probably needed to clean it.

Katy 5:21
Did you bump some of these people back to the prospect board? I

Alissa 5:24
did. I did a good little cleaning, okay, but I did. I had like 31 people under my buyer column. That doesn’t mean I’ve show houses to 31 people right now, but these are 31 people that, over the last year, said they wanted I have shown them a house. I have met them. They’re pre approved, but then maybe they were like, Oh, I’ve renewed my lease, and

Katy 5:48
now they have to be shifted to the new column. You have to add a step correct.

Alissa 5:52
So I emailed them all an email saying, Hey, if you’re getting this email, it is because I have shown you a home before.

Katy 6:01
I love it. This is actually a great check in. Yeah,

Alissa 6:06
back from a lot of people who I haven’t like I have them set up on email notifications for houses, and we may email periodically, but there just hasn’t been a house that they have wanted to go see, right? So I said, you know you’re before I can show you another house. You got to do this. We there’s going to be a form. It’s attached to this email that you’re going to have to sign. Great, I love it. One was even like, do I need to sign it now and just scan it back to you? Like? I was like, No, I’m gonna just send it to you electronically. I said, No. I was like, Don’t worry about it. I’ll send it I’ll send it to you electronically. Don’t be scared, because you sent a copy of it all attached. Yeah, I wanted them to know what it was, yeah, this is what you’ll have to sign. You’re like, where do I sign? Right? I had a few that were like that. Nobody said, No, oh my gosh. This is terrible. No, none of none of that. I then the first one that signed was like, Hey, can we get a look at this house on Saturday? And I was like, Sure, absolutely. And then she was like, Okay, great. Just send us that form.

Katy 7:10
She was like, You told him, okay, it’s a great time to stop and say, We do this every day. We are thinking about this all the time. Our buyers are not constantly thinking about how the process works. Even if they’ve bought before it’s probably been three to 10 years to 15 to 20 years ago, right? They don’t remember how it works. So if you say, Hey, I have to get you to sign this form before we can go see a house, they’re just like, Okay, great. Where do I sign? They don’t need you to also be like, listen, there was this lawsuit, and I’m so annoyed about it. Now they’re making us do this, and they’re saying that realtors are bad, but you’re gonna have to pay me. But don’t worry, you’re not really gonna have to pay me. No, just sign here. No. Like that delivery is not gonna get you anywhere. Very bad, very bad. But if you’re just like, This is what’s happening like most, most buyers, most consumers, don’t need that much backstory, correct? Okay, now we did ask our sweet email friends, and we got 294 responses to this survey that we sent out this week. Okay, but I wanted to just tell you one of the results. It’s just a few questions, so I’ll sprinkle them through the show. But because of what you said, in the last two months, have you had a buyer refused to sign a buyer rep agreement? So, Alyssa, in the last two months, have you had a buyer refused to sign?

Alissa 8:37
I have not yet. Okay, in

Katy 8:40
our 300 respondents, only 14.8% said yes, someone refused to sign. So the overwhelming majority, 85% of agents said no, no one has refused to sign this. Yeah. Okay, so that’s a pretty

Alissa 8:56
Yeah, a good number, especially for it being so new, yeah. And I think that 14% is only going to go down as it becomes more and more normal. Okay, great. Let’s

Katy 9:05
go to this next question before, because this plays into that. Do you feel your broker has done a good job of preparing you for these changes? The irony is not lost on me here. Y’all 84.2%

Alissa 9:19
said yes, almost the exact amount 15.8%

Katy 9:23
said no. So gonna guess if you fall into the 85% that’s having no trouble with your buyers, you probably also fall into the 85% that have been trained.

Alissa 9:34
Well trained. Your mindset is good. Can you believe that so much of this reminds me of things we have talked about all along, like, if you are uncomfortable knocking on somebody’s door, door knocking and saying, Hi, I’m in real estate, and if you need to have a realtor, I’m a realtor. Here’s my card. If that feels uncomfortable, the person that you are knocking on their door also. Feels uncomfortable, yeah, if you are comfortable communicating this, it will put your client at ease, for sure they know how you are feeling. So I was talking to an agent the other day, and she was like, you know, I’ve sold these people houses. I’ve been their family realtor, and now I have to go tell them, you know. Well, with all these lawsuits going around, and everybody’s suing everybody, like, now we have to sign this and, you know, so here, here’s the form. And she was like, would you believe they they wouldn’t feel comfortable. And I thought, well, here’s the beginning.

Katy 10:36
Like, if that is how you is that really how you gave the form? Then, no joke, they

Alissa 10:41
didn’t want to sign. I don’t think I have mentioned the word lawsuits in my delivery of this form. No, it’s more like there’s a new law. Yes, that requires buyers to have a contract with their agent. You know, at the furthest you can say that has been put into place to protect consumers. Yeah, and I’ve even told my clients, it’s all in the name of transparency. Great. The DOJ wants to make sure that everybody understands how everybody is getting paid. I like transparency, and I want to make sure you understand this is what that goes over. Yeah, the end, right. I wanted to share one person that wrote in who’s having a mindset issue. Oh, good, very clearly. I

Katy 11:23
mean bad, but please share

Alissa 11:26
and look, we did not add these are all anonymous, and we’re not picking on any of these people. No, we are reading these to let you know that there are good agents out there still struggling with this, which is why we’re doing this episode. Yeah, we’re helping you over the hump. We’re trying to get into this being thought about differently. Um, okay, so this agent said our form is four pages long for buyer representation, it’s way too long. We need it to be one page. Yes, four. I think there’s some in our market that are eight, yeah, the actual main one, yeah, for the for our Board of Realtors is eight. Our brokerage one is two or three years is small, but the actual board one is eight pages long. Yeah, that being said, Yes, it is a long form. If you don’t have our buyer representation cover sheet that has been hugely successful, very helpful to ease into the form, yeah? Just a little guide with your happy face on it, yeah, letting them know how we are going to serve them. Yeah. So one, let’s just let go of how long it is. Doesn’t matter we because I’m not sure it will be changed and edited over the next couple, at least the next year, a bunch of times. Yeah. So we just have to let go how long it is. You also don’t need to read all eight or four pages to the to your client. It is their job as an adult to read it. It is our job to explain it. Yeah, if they want explanations, yeah, they need explanations. We need to make sure that they don’t have any questions. But have you ever sat down and read the whole entire listing agreement to your seller? No thing, but to be fair, it’s only two pages. Yeah, that’s a good point, but keep going. Okay, so I think this has all been blown out of proportion. Oh, that we’re still on there. Yeah, there. That’s where she’s at. Comments right now. Okay, I think it’s ridiculous that we are talking about how I’m getting paid before they even decide if they are going to buy a house. See, this is I and you look, I’ve been here before, but now I’m like, Yes, this is what we’re doing. We are from the beginning, before we show any houses, explaining to them, the consumer, how this works, right? What kind of money do you need? Yes, how much money do you need to buy a house? Okay? She said they’re still trying. Most clients are confused with all this paperwork. They are always trying to figure out how to cut us out now, so it will be easier. I just don’t think that’s the truth

Katy 14:01
that feels very mindset oriented.

Alissa 14:06
Yes, it’s I wrote next to this message. Huge mindset issue here. Can’t say I’ve never been here before, but now that we are where we are, I think it’s important that we say we need to tell ourselves that the clients have called us to buy a house because they are seeking representation. They want to know how it works. I just got a new CPA, and I interviewed like three of them, yeah, and all three did a consultation with me. All three explain to me how they get paid,

Katy 14:37
because you have to pay them yes. So if you don’t know, how can you hire someone without knowing how they get paid? In

Alissa 14:44
fact, one of them, one of the three who I did not hire, didn’t jump into like, by the end, he was like, Do you have any questions? I was like, What do you charge? How? What do you charge? And I felt like the other two were way more upfront, up front and transparent. Share it with how everything worked, and I understood it, right? And they are CPAs, so money is sort of their job. Yes, I actually did not hire the one that beat around the bush of how this was

Katy 15:09
okay, because ultimately, again, mindset, if you’re afraid to ask to be paid, that’s going to filter how you address people. Yes, right? That CPA was nervous about telling you their rate, so they left it for the end, and in fact, they didn’t even tell you. You had to ask. We’re removing that part as representatives of buyers now we’re not going to wait for them to ask or be confused or just like, think you’re getting paid because y’all, a lot of these buyers thought your broker was paying you an hourly rate or a salary or whatever, and it didn’t matter if they bought a house or not. They thought you were getting paid. They would have been mortified if they knew that you were working for free, until they actually closed on a house, correct? But they had no clue, because nobody ever explained it. And now you just have to explain it. I just don’t super black and white to me. If I’m hiring someone for a service, I need to know how much I’m gonna be have to pay them. What if I can’t afford it? Yeah, I can’t hire a guy to mow the grass if I don’t have the $300 a month that he charges the first

Alissa 16:08
time I did my presentation. Yes, I was nervous. Now that I’ve done seven or eight, I’m like, it’s already like, why hasn’t it always been this way? Yes, very late moment. They need to understand all aspects of this. Yeah, we are not free.

Katy 16:26
It’s not a free resource. You can represent yourself. You always have had that option. So if you don’t have the money to pay me while I’m sad, because I’d like to work with you, I understand,

Alissa 16:38
and I think that’s a great point, too. So someone, someone said, so, if we have a buyer who has been saving for a down payment and has enough for a down payment, but not enough to pay, you do they just not get to buy a house with an agent. The answer to that is, Listen, this form explains how I get paid. There’s a percentage in here that I charge. Everybody charges something different. Yeah, you can put in a flat fee. Yeah, you could put in a flat fee. You could do a percentage. Whatever you want to do, however you want to run your business, you present your form. We’re not here to tell you how to do that part. Okay? You pick your number, then you say so. Whenever you are looking at what it takes to buy a home, we need to make sure you feel comfortable with your down payment. But how many? Okay, so you have down payment, and we need to talk about your closing costs with your lender fees and your realtor fees. Good news, Mr. Buyer, we can ask the seller to cover some of your closing costs and realtor

Katy 17:39
commission. I almost don’t see why we even need to designate them differently. Now, like, you’re going to have to have a down payment at closing, and they’ll there will be closing costs. The closing costs include paying your lender, yeah, paying your title people, paying your realtor. If you hire all these people, yeah, they will all be paid within the you know, with within the transaction. Can’t say closing costs for the sake of the loan. In some ways, yeah, like if you’re writing it into a contract, you’d have to designate it as commission, because the loan only allows so much sure closing. But even still, I think when you’re describing it to the buyer in the beginning, it’s okay to say, these are the costs associated with buying the home, right?

Alissa 18:17
So when we write an offer. Since we know your budget, you we have had that discussion. I know your numbers, you have told me. You have told me you have enough save to cover this. Yeah, we on any house you buy, we’re gonna have to ask the seller to cover this. Okay, it will need to be written into the purchase agreement. You write it in the purchase agreement, seller counters, yeah, it doesn’t cover as much as you needed. Well, Mr. Buyer, let’s write a new offer and see if we can structure this differently. Do we need to increase the price like a little bit, which hardly changes the monthly note? Do we need to ask for less here? Do we need to allow them more time in the house and as as a benefit of what they’re giving us, there’s so many different ways to negotiate it them. This is where I think I have heard agents be confused. They think that if a buyer signs that form, the buyer is saying, I have all this money ready to go in my pocket right now. They don’t have to have all the money in their pocket to sign that form. They’re saying. They understand this is how you get paid, and if you need assistance paying this, it needs to be written into the purchase agreement. The

Katy 19:35
only problem I have with that is you’re not able to write that into the form. The contra maybe in some places you can the it is a that document is a contract between you and the buyer. And in the strictest legal this terms, if you go all the way to closing and they default like they don’t go to closing, technically contractually, they still have to pay you that X percent or x flat fee or whatever, because that contract. Was between you and the buyer, even though I totally agree with what you’re saying, when you’re having this console, you can be like, Listen, I’m not saying that you’re going to cover this whole amount, but in the purest essence of the contract, they would have to have the ability to Yes,

Alissa 20:16
so we and it’s the same way I’ve always explained closing costs, right? If you so, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had buyers use the 100% financing and say, Look, I like, don’t have enough for the closing costs either. Like, I have had a handful of buyers come to the closing table with $0 yeah, one of them, in particular, years ago, had to have $7,500 of their closing costs covered if they were gonna buy a house. They did not have their closing costs saved. The first house seller was like, no, like, we’ll give you 3000 and the buyer’s like, well, I don’t have 4500 next house, okay? We kept looking, yeah, we made offers, until we found the house that ended up being the house he liked the most, right? That we wrote the offer, and I said, Listen, Mr. Listing agent, Mrs. Listing agent, this particular buyer is approved for rd 100% financing and doesn’t have a lot of savings if we don’t get the closing costs. It doesn’t work out, this seller countered the price up $2,000 agreed to all 7500 closing costs. Yeah, my buyer asked the lender to run the numbers. Everything looked good. We move forward. So it’s like, yes, we must be transparent in explaining to them that this is part of your cost, yeah, so if it is not covered elsewhere. If it is not negotiated into the purchase agreement, it will be your responsibility of your cash needed at closing. But don’t worry, Mr. Buyer, every single time we make an offer, I’m going to get with the lender and make sure you understand what that cash needed to close is before we even move forward, right? Because it still

Katy 21:58
works for you to say, Hey, you don’t owe we’re gonna write this contract and you’re gonna say you’re gonna pay me this if you buy a house, yeah? Like, if you can’t get a contract that all the terms work for your the money that you have, then you’re not technically buying a house, and you don’t owe me anything, correct? So it works, yeah,

Alissa 22:17
it must be negotiated in and that. And I think that as a new agent, I was taught very early on how to talk to them about money, as far as budget goes. You know, we had an we had a loan officer. We have a loan officer in our office who always came to our meetings. And so it was almost like I got licensed. She was introduced to me at our meetings, and it was like, This is what you do. You learn how to make sure people are pre approved before you start showing them homes that they can’t afford. Yeah. So I had another letter, a message from an agent. Great. She said, Any advice for newer agents going through this market with the buyer’s rep now thrown on top of everything. And I thought to myself, feels easier. I wish I could have started like that’s what I wrote. Easier to start from scratch then make a change. So much easier if you are a new agent, this is the only way I’ve ever known. This is the best thing. Get it. Rip this band aid off early. Yeah, get used to talking to your clients about money. I cannot tell you how much I had to work with first time buyers who are or not first time anybody, any buyer that is super tight on their budget, I was having to sit down with them and say, Okay, what is your savings? Let’s look at the numbers. Let’s sit down with the lender together. Mr. Lender, here’s a copy of the buyer rep agreement. How do we feel about our buyers? How much are we going to need to ask for for this buyer to get in a house? Yeah, it’s just adding another component to the game plan of what the buyer needs, right? And, yeah, there are going to be buyers that have more savings, that are willing to pay more cash to get the price lower. Every buyer is different, but it is our job to understand what those buyers are doing. Okay,

Katy 24:16
I’ve been seeing something that makes me laugh. All right, so if you’re starting from scratch. I’m assuming, hopefully, you’re one of the 85% that we talked to whose brokerage is training you in some way, right? Training you well, giving you some talking points, some scripts, some documents, whatever it is. But there’s the one that keeps circulating from I think it’s from NAR that I’m like, why? Oh, no. 176 ways agents provide value. Like y’all please. I personally feel like and when you start to read them, sure, sure, it’s all things that agents do. But it’s also like, had to go to my desk and write up the blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, had to, had to drive over to. The Post Office to mail the you pay off whatever you know what I’m saying, like, it’s every little tiny, it sounds weird and desperate, like you’re like, I promise I’m working. I promise I’m working. Look at this. 176 things that I am doing for you. Like, y’all, it’s like my friend Gary V says you don’t need to convince have conviction. Yeah, I know that I provide value. I do not need to go to a buyer or seller and give them a literal printed out 138 ways that I’m going to serve you documents so they’ll be like, Oh, I see I now

Alissa 25:35
I should pay you. It’s

Katy 25:38
just too weird to me and I like, we need to relax first of all. Yeah, like, we just need to relax. Take a breath, be confident in that this job has been around for over a century. Yeah, people still over 85% of buyers and sellers have chosen to use an agent in the last year. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. Like, it’s just gonna be okay. I don’t need, I don’t need any more of these documents. So

Alissa 26:06
the New York Times wrote an article, and I only wrote down the title of it because it was good. Oh, okay. It was, it was, I was worried, communicated, well, they were saying that it’s time for agents to face a new reality of discussing fees with buyers and sellers the end. That’s all it was about. Yeah, but I guess the new reality, quote, unquote, it may be new for some people, yeah. What

Katy 26:33
bothers me is that we have spent, and we’re going to try and keep this more upbeat, but we have spent all of these years of our career fighting against that we are used car salesman vibe. And bless them, I’m sure there’s some delightful used car salesman out there, right? But that what that although the headline is positive in the way you read it, I love that you framed it that way. It’s also like saying they’ve been hiding for all this, like we’ve been doing it sketchily all this time, and now doing it right that

Alissa 27:03
we got here, because there were too many specifically buyers agents that were not communicating to their buyers that that how

Katy 27:13
and when they got paid Exactly. You’re like, just slip that check over here at the end of closing. And yeah, I

Alissa 27:18
don’t really want we’re gonna let

Katy 27:20
these buyers keep thinking that my broker pays me hourly,

Alissa 27:25
that’s how we got here. And guess what? You pay me nothing. I’m free. That’s how we got here.

Katy 27:32
I’m free. And when

Alissa 27:34
we got this message of them saying, I think it’s ridiculous that we’re talking about how I’m getting paid before they decide if they’re buying a house? It’s not ridiculous. It’s the actually the foundation of what the lawsuit is on, yes, and why we are here. And we must get comfortable talking to our clients about money, not only their money, but how we get paid. It’s all in the name of transparency.

Katy 27:59
Okay, can we talk a little bit about a buzzword that I’ve heard quite a bit, and when we said we were going to try and have an episode about positivity, yeah, and not being the people in the market that are negative, hanging on to the past, it made me think about toxic positivity. Have you heard this? Like buzzword? People say toxic positivity. Okay, so I’m like, I’m gonna Google this bad boy. Toxic positivity is the belief that people should maintain a positive mindset no matter how dire or difficult a situation is. While there are benefits to being optimistic and engaging in positive thinking, toxic positivity rejects all difficult emotions in favor of cheerful and often falsely positive facade that face everything’s fine. It’s all fine, but I don’t feel like where we’re at, you and I, and what we’re trying to describe is anywhere close to that. So the people who are like this is terrible. There’s no way to spend it as positive. Things are awful. Nothing is going to be good anymore. It’s I don’t think that I’m like, you just need to be positive no matter what. Yeah, just do it. That’s going to be totally fine. What I do think is this quote that I heard on Mel Robbins in her mindset episode, which was, when you change your mindset, it doesn’t make those challenges disappear, it changes your ability to face them. Oh, that’s good. That was an August 4 of 2024, episode of The Mel Robbins podcast. Yeah, but that’s exactly right. What we’re trying to build is a mindset that can help us to handle a change, that can help us to navigate without crumbling to the ground and like

Alissa 29:42
in the delivery, everything is terrible. Yeah, absolutely. And we had a lot of people say that they’re like, how do I even present this? The first time I presented it, I was so long winded and I totally freaked out my buyer. Did

Katy 29:59
they bring. Up the word lawsuit, I’m

Alissa 30:00
sure, not necessary, not necessary. It really is like less of the backstory. Who cares about the backstory? Doesn’t matter. It is what it is. If you would like to buy a home, here’s the form. It shows all the ways I’m going to work for you and all the things that we’re going to do together. It also says you’re going to be loyal to me. So when you see a house you like you call me, you don’t call the sign. That’s what this says too. Yeah, it’s both ways, right? I’m working you’re hiring me. You’re hiring me. I’m hired. You’ve

Katy 30:34
been hired like you’re interviewing, you’re hiring we’re working together. Yeah, you’re not working with another agent. You’re not clicking the buttons. You’re not calling the signs we we’re working together. It seems super logical. Would you like to hear how our 294 respondents answered this question? You would because I love the way we wrote it on a scale of one to 1010, being great, one being the end of your career. How are you feeling about the new buyer brokerage changes. So how are these, this little sampling of our audience feeling, I feel good about this. 92 people. 31% is the highest answer. Or do you want to guess? How are they feeling? One, one to 10, 780,

Alissa 31:21
positive. Pretty good. 31% are

Katy 31:24
feeling, feeling good, at least a B, 22% were on a, on a seven, 13% were on a nine. There is a little blip here. I’ll show you the chart at at the at the five, they’re still like, 11% was like, I don’t know, 5050, yeah, maybe it depends on the day, yeah.

Alissa 31:40
How did I wake up this morning? How did today go? But I thought that was encouraging. I feel like every time I drag someone’s name from the buyer column to the buyer ref agreement signed column, I’m like, I was hired. You did.

Katy 31:51
That’s right. Because think about how good you feel when you take a listing,

Alissa 31:55
yes. Like you won the listing. You won. I feel that

Katy 31:59
you won this business, yes, and hopefully you will find a house, right? Okay, on a scale of one to 1010, being great, one being Why would anyone, why would anyone hire you? How do you feel about your buyer, presentation and delivery of your buyer, revenue, so your friends here that are struggling with the length and everything, how do you feel about it? Highest group, uh, 28% 81 people are this number one to 10, yes. How do they feel about their

Alissa 32:29
presence based on all these messages we’ve gotten, I feel like they’re not feeling very good about how they’re presenting it. Okay. So maybe a four,

Katy 32:37
an eight. Wow. They feel good. Okay, 14 people did say four. So there’s a handful. Look, five people were on, we’re out of one. Like, why would anyone hire me? Oh, I’m

Alissa 32:49
just not, not good at this for

Katy 32:51
I don’t I’m not good at the form yet, but, but the the vast majority of everyone was on the positive end of the spectrum. Yeah. Okay, so again, good job. Y’all,

Alissa 33:00
yeah. And do you know how what really helped me get to this point? So tell us, I found it cruel that the go into effect date was the same date that school started for you. Yeah? So all these amazing trainings and office things like, I just wasn’t able to be as present with because I had my children. Well, as it was approaching, I was like, I got to get in high gear and catch up, because my office is way ahead, and I feel behind, way behind, the more. So our leadership class at the board had a discussion forum at the end of that. I was like, I could feel myself changing my thinking about this, like seeing the positive side of it. And then I was able to get to some of our office meetings, and I was like, Yes, this actually does make sense. You know, it it’s like, it just started clicking good once I was having helpful discussions about it, and not just complaints about how negative it is, right? Because also, Gary likes to say,

Katy 34:00
don’t put the past on a pedestal. Yeah. And that’s what happens at first when we get one of these big changes. Because this isn’t the first time. Y’all, no, it’s not. Do you remember Dodd Frank, were you around whenever they changed the rules to the three day closing disclosure? Yeah. And everyone was like, how everyone will do like, this will never work. Nothing will ever close. Everything is gonna just crumble to the ground. I can’t imagine not having. Now, you’re like, why would I not want to know three days in advance something is going to close before

Alissa 34:25
that law came into effect? I can’t count how many closings we were sitting there waiting every

Katy 34:31
like every one I didn’t know until minutes or hours before if I was really supposed to get in my car and go to closing so just like this. Now, in two years, you’re gonna be like, how did I ever start going to do showings without having a buyer on your contract saying you’re my agent? Yeah? Why would I do that to myself? Right? It’s gonna be just like that. Yeah,

Alissa 34:55
I have. I have one to get your thoughts on. Okay? This agent said I feel like in my. Area, it is hit or miss. On if people are giving pushback to the buyer. Form, most act like this has been this way the whole time. Not a big deal. Okay, the most pushback I am getting is from my sellers. What did we get? More? No, like, Why? Why would a seller have any pushback? If anything, I feel my sellers are delighted.

Katy 35:21
So do you guys? It depends on the delivery. And look, here’s the thing. I’m also noticing every state is like, so different. So do you know

Alissa 35:28
what I learned? And you may know this, this is not happening in Canada.

Katy 35:34
Well, no, they’re not part of No, I just didn’t that. Didn’t click on their own vibes up there. Yeah, yeah. They’re just like, doing our thing, yeah, but, but yes, every state is totally the implementation per state is very different. And you can also tell like there are some states that are being a little bit more resistant to these changes, that are trying to find ways to make it the what it was. So I think, in a way, I feel very lucky that we’re in a state that’s like, this is what the rules are. We’re going to follow them. Here are the correct forms. They’re completely in compliance with what the the actual intention of these changes are. Yes, right? We’re not trying to get we’re not trying to get around them and put a number in the grass. No, we’re not trying to figure out how to make sure all of our sellers pay exactly the same thing to every single person. But to be fair, I feel like our market was already pretty spread out. It wasn’t like every single seller paid exactly the same thing. No, we had a lot of different prices, so I just we’re lucky in that way. Yeah. Okay, what’s your next one? Another

Alissa 36:40
challenge that they’re having is, I agree, the most challenging piece has been that each brokerage is training their agents differently when it comes to how the purchase agreement should be written and how everything should be disclosed. And yes, here, and I wanted to touch on that too, the agents who are, who I have spoken to, who are struggling with the negative mindset, just feeling really down and out about the industry, really down and out about the delivery they are letting, they are letting a lot of the outside noise get them there. They’re, they’re like, Did you see what so and so posted? Did you read in the Facebook group, what they said, Did you see? And I’m thinking, now’s a good time to quit Facebook for a minute. Yeah. Like, who cares if they want to put out false information, right? The only person they are hurting is themselves, right? And when we see an agent give unprofessional advice, we just need to smile and say, you know, next year, your clients will be my clients, because you won’t be here anymore, and I will be because I’m operating as a business from a professional standpoint, yeah, they will weed themselves out, and we cannot let their negativity get in, get into right? We are running our business

Katy 38:00
right, right, right? And I do think that the people who are are not just negative, but they’re also trying to find a way around the rules. Yeah, are gonna weed themselves out, because eventually the rules are gonna get more strict. They’re gonna get stricter. It’s gonna change again. It’s gonna change, mark my words, and within the next, within the next year there, could be even more changes.

Alissa 38:22
This is a perfect time to share what this listener said, please. When this first all started, I immediately jumped into getting to renewing my ABR I retook the class and was going to everything my broker was offering. My anxiety didn’t start until all of the chatter in the Facebook groups. So I have really tried to focus and leave the noise outside of my business for now. Okay, I that’s what we must do.

Katy 38:45
I love that, because I put in my notes that now is the time to keep your head down. Yeah, don’t bury it in the sand. Like, I don’t pretend like it’s not happening, but keep your head down. Work in your business. Work on your business. Set up your systems. Focus on the work, not the change, right? Like, let’s focus on actually, all right. Well, so how am I going to handle this? What is my script going to be? What are my forms that I’m using? How do I want to put those into my email template? But Katie

Alissa 39:10
their form is shorter than ours. I don’t care. But Katie their broker is doing it this way.

Katy 39:14
I don’t care. Like, I’m just going to have to figure out my like, you run your own business, yeah, as long as you’re doing it within the constraints of the rules and what your broker requires. I couldn’t care less what everyone else is doing, and I certainly don’t care what they’re saying in a Facebook group. It

Alissa 39:31
bring my favorite analogy, I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about it before, is that the racehorses, they run with blinders, they actually the ones that win. They win. They cannot see what’s going on side to side. They can’t see how close they are to being second. Yeah, like they can’t see run your race. They are just running their race as fast as they can, if you take us, if those horses take a second to glance. Not only could it be total disaster, yeah, but that second delay is all it takes for the next person to get ahead of you. They win because they stay in their lane and they’re doing the best that they can. Yeah, they can’t even see what’s going on. No time for them, and that’s what we need to do. All right, on a scale of one to 1010, being great, one being total negative Nancy.

Katy 40:24
Now that the changes are here, how are the agents in your market responding? So like these Facebook groups. How are the agents in your market responding? The there were two really close number winners. One is the highest. 25% of people answered, what number is your guess? One to 10. How many negative nancies are out there? 10 being a lot of negative. No, no one being everyone’s happy. One being their real negative, four, five. So yeah, right. Like our our listeners are feeling positive. They were eights. But

Alissa 41:02
out there, bring that number up,

Katy 41:04
but out there, out there, in the real world, the fives were hardcore. They’re like, there’s some, some negative nancies out there. It was fives and sevens, look, yeah, and a lot more over I mean, yeah, the people are, we’re not making this up, y’all. People are out there saying, and you know what the negative voices are always the loudest, right? Yeah, there’s everything in every they’re like, I’m so bad the squeaky wheel, you know? Like, they just want to talk about it. They want to yell about it. They want to get it off their chest. I don’t know what they think is going to happen. Yeah, I don’t know what’s your next one.

Alissa 41:39
Let’s see. Let’s see. So this one, she said she was getting frustrated because it was like, the day that the agreement came into law, the date is here, you must compensation has been removed from MLS. Okay? Everybody is having different stances on, like, it’s D Day, D Day, it’s here. Okay? So she’s like, I would love to have help with what to say when other agents are asking dumb questions, like, Hey, thanks for scheduling a showing on my listing. Please send me a copy of your buyer brokerage agreement so that I know you have one

Katy 42:13
wait listing agents were saying that’s actually

Alissa 42:17
not correct. Like, you actually don’t have to share that. I mean, yes, you should have one, but we don’t share our listing agreements, right? No,

Katy 42:24
yeah, you should do that. Just respond with that. Okay, no problem. Will you send over your listing agreement? Yeah,

Alissa 42:31
once you send me your listing agreement, show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.

Katy 42:36
That is so funny, but, but look, that’s real. What if they were like, you can’t show it, so then you would have to be like, listen, you’re not, you’re not. Well, we’re not a policing or, yeah, organization, like, I only have to provide it to my broker and to our MLS or whatever’s going on in your market, right? I don’t have to provide that to you. It’s a contract between me and my buyer, yeah? But I do have one, I can tell you I have one sure.

Alissa 43:02
I think that we are going to have, especially the hustle humbly listeners who we want to be, the agents that people want to work with, the professional agents. We’re not going to be rude. No, don’t be rude. But we need to find ways to professionally say, you know, that’s actually not correct. This is the rule. I would probably work out all of that you need to ask your broker. I would just be like, hey,

Katy 43:24
you know, I know it’s a lot of changes right now, but according to my broker, we just have to have one filed with her. I wouldn’t need to send it over, right if you need your broker to call mine, go for

Alissa 43:36
it. Have you found that before agents show your listings, they’re messaging you, asking, Hi, Katie, is your seller willing?

Katy 43:43
I’ve only as of this recording, I have just taken a new listing, and the first several, all of the first showings, not a single one asked me if my sellers were offering anything. I think that’s great. Now I have not gotten an offer yet. I prepared my seller that it may be in there, sure, but I haven’t gotten one. Did you have someone in there that was talking about multiple offers?

Alissa 44:08
I had a personal story. Okay, let’s go. There was one here. Let me find her. And you

Katy 44:14
have stories in here too? Yeah, I

Alissa 44:15
did a good story. Not good, interesting, not bad, just interesting. Okay, one of our agents wrote in and said that she is feeling nervous and in her head about, you know, when a seller’s not offering to pay or offering to pay less, or, what about if it’s a multiple offer situation? Yeah, what do you do? So I wanted to share I just had one of my listings have a multiple offer situations. Okay, I thought, well, this will be interesting. I’m curious to see how it goes. So this particular seller has opted to Yes. He’s not giving a exact percentage. He’s saying I am negotiable and willing to work with the buyer’s agent whatever the buyer needs. Overall, everything needs to be in the. Purchase Agreement, yeah, so I can evaluate the total offer and respond accordingly. So we get an offer, the first offer that. So we’re not competing yet, right? We get the first offer. It is full price with, I don’t know what I’m allowed to share with a buyer. With a buyer, percentage agreement, percentage written in it, okay? My seller was like, great, we would like to move forward with accepting it. I said, Okay, before we do, let’s just check with these other showings and make sure nobody else wants to make an offer. Okay, so I alert all the other agents, and one agent is like, yes, we want it. Okay. Well, they sent in an offer, but they sent it in too late, so we ended up just accepting the first offer that came okay, because I had given them a deadline, nothing came, okay. Hours after the deadline, the new offer comes in that was supposed to be competing, okay? So it’s 3000 over list price, right? With a reduced buyer’s agent commission. It was just not it was less than the other one, yeah, reduced from what we already had. Okay? It was a lesser so higher price and a lower commission. Okay, number. So I responded and said, Hey, I’m so sorry. You know the deadline was this. We have already accepted the other offer, but I will be happy to put you in place as a backup offer. She’s like, Okay, well, if that’s going to be the case, then I’m going to just send you a new offer, because I was only willing to reduce my fee if we were in a multiple offer situation. So she said, Don’t accept this offer as it’s written as a backup, because I’m going to just send you a new offer, right? So let this one expire. New offer is coming your way. Okay? So she rewrote the offer and upped the buyer agent commission that she originally asked for, which my sellers accepted, and she is now in place as a backup offer,

Katy 47:03
because it and they took off the 3000 over and they took off the 3000 so it was now the exact same offer as what your it was

Alissa 47:11
it when she sent the revised it was full price, okay, with a buyer broker fee that matched the first, okay. So it was, but I thought it was interesting, because she’s like, I was willing during a multiple offer to, like, shave some off to help, but if it didn’t help, and we didn’t get chosen.

Katy 47:29
But you know what? Also, I think is fascinating about that, if it really was a multiple offer situation, I I guess the number they could have not put it in at all. They have a buyer agreement with the buyer, if the buyer wanted to pay their agent, if they didn’t want to ask the seller. Do you know what I mean, like, yeah. But it’s like, Well, Mr. The other agent, had it in there. I think that both of these buyers needed it, needed assistance from the seller in order to keep their agent, yeah, employed. Yeah. Got it. Kind of got it okay. Do you want to hear? Here’s our last survey question. Do you feel agents in your market have accepted the change, or are looking for loopholes any way they can, percentage, just a percentage. So what percentage say they’ve accepted it?

Alissa 48:19
I think 60% have accepted it,

Katy 48:22
very good. 65 okay, but 35% is still a pretty big number that

Alissa 48:28
are looking for loopholes. They’re still planting flowers in the yard in the shape of numbers 35%

Katy 48:32
that’s a lot that are like, yep. People are still doing that. Yeah. I thought that was interesting. Interesting. Okay, that’s all of our survey questions. And thank you. If you did, if you were one of the 300 people that responded to our survey, that was super helpful to see where everyone’s minds are at and what their markets are doing, since it’s so different everywhere.

Alissa 48:52
Oh, this one. This was a funny comment. You wrote it. I can’t wait this agent said, so far, everyone in real life has been pretty chill. It’s

Katy 49:01
all the fictitious heat, but those hypothetical people really bad, yes.

Alissa 49:08
So everyone in real life has been pretty chill. The only experience I have with any negativity is not even from other agents, but people on Reddit who can’t buy houses. Anyway,

Katy 49:21
Reddit is getting set. Reddit is sassy about everything, though. Like, what did you expect if we were when you were on Reddit? They are all sassy. Yeah, I don’t really that’s that. That was all of my questions. The only other thing I just wanted to say is that the grass clippings, the memes, people like to share, the meme of all the ways you could secretly find the loophole. I just don’t think they’re funny, yeah, because you’re actually just raising a big red flag and being like, DOJ, look at us. We don’t know how to follow the rules. This isn’t enough. We’re gonna keep trying. Yeah? So maybe don’t do that.

Alissa 49:58
Can we end with a situation I would love. Love to Okay, and I put on here, and I need to ask Katie about, oh, I can’t wait. Okay, it’s a little long ready. I live in Florida. Let’s

Katy 50:06
take a deep breath.

Alissa 50:07
I live in Florida. I have a family member. I had a family member refer me a client who lives in Texas. He has to sell his home in Texas so that they can purchase in Florida. Okay? He stated his home in Texas is not ready, not on the market, and they have actually not come to a final decision on what their deadline is and if they’re moving. Okay. However, he came to Florida to visit family. He called me while he was in town and wanted to go view some homes. Okay, without a pre approval, okay? He said he just wanted to get a feel for houses and make sure he wants to live here. I let him know about the industry changes and that I would need to have a signed agreement to show him a home. I advise that he also really needs to get pre approved with a lender prior to touring. I even offered to send him open houses, but he was only available on a day when open houses were not happening. He is not in a rush to get pre approved. His logic is he just wants to see houses. First, after telling him this, he sort of ghosted me. Then he followed up with me to let me know. He called a Zillow agent who was willing to show him houses and did not require him to sign an agreement or be pre approved. He stated that this agent showed him houses on this date with no signed paperwork. I understand that he wanted to work with me, and he was a serious buyer who would have signed. He just said he wasn’t ready yet. He used the Zillow agent to show him around, and I feel bad that he may have felt that I just wasn’t willing to help him. It’s not that I wasn’t willing, it’s just that I was following the law. That agent may end up with the client. This potential buyer came from a family referral, and that could have turned into more referrals, and I’m just feeling really bummed out.

Katy 51:47
Okay, I think some of what this person said would be really helpful to just say to the buyer and probably the referring family member, hey, I know that you ended up talking to a Zillow agent. I’m so sorry we didn’t get to meet in person. You know, this is a transitional time when these rules have just gone into effect. Unfortunately, you’re the agent that met you at these homes was actually breaking the law, and I just don’t feel comfortable doing that. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to work with you, right? Like, I would really love the opportunity to still work with you, since you haven’t signed anything with him. Yeah, still good for me. So whenever you’re ready and you feel come but maybe then it’s also like, hey, I can understand your trepidation about signing a form. I’m attaching the form. I’m attaching my buyer brokerage cover letter. Here’s some descriptions of what this actually means, and whenever you are ready to seriously start looking, I would still like to be considered for that job. Also, I think you could say, and I’m happy to zoom or meet in person and do a buyer consultation. It doesn’t mean you have to be pre approved or you have to sign anything. I just can’t show you homes without you signing this. Yes. So like, I’m not against seeing you or meeting you or starting to build our relationship, but I’m going to tell you a story. Okay, I cannot tell you how many times I have said, Hi, Mr. Buyer, Mrs. Buyer, Mr. Seller, Mrs. Seller, while I’m at the pre listing interview, these are all of my is all my information. These are all of my materials. Look at my buyer folder. Look at my seller folders. At the end, I’ll be like, this is the agency disclosure pamphlet. It explains what agents do. It explains what dual agency is. It explains what a client and a customer is. And I point out all of the things, and then I say, right here, it says your signature, in no way enters you into a contract, but it shows that I have given you this information on agency law, so I’ll need you to sign right here. And then they’ll be like this. And then if I know they’ve interviewed other people, or if I know they’ve seen houses with someone else, I would say you may have already signed this with another agent. And they’re like, No, I haven’t. I’m like, well, that’s funny. I’m required to get this signed by law. And they would be like, Oh, well, oh, those agents weren’t following the law. I don’t want an agent that doesn’t follow the law, right? You know what I mean? Like, Yeah, that guy, that situation, the Texas guy to Florida, who may never move to Florida, so don’t cry over too much. Yeah, he wanted to see houses that day, and he would do anything it took to see houses that day, right? And because you followed the rules, doesn’t make you look unprofessional to him, it makes you look very professional. But I do think it’s worth a reach out to say, Hey, I’m bummed that it went down this way. This is a transitional time. I would love to work with you, but I can’t break the like, this is a law, right? And I have to follow the law because it’s the law. And this is what my broker tells me I have to do, and this is what the legal system tells me I have to do, right? What would

Alissa 54:51
you do? So I heard of a situation of a good friend of mine who’s with another company, and she was telling me that she. Got a signed call on one of her listings. I have not been in this situation yet, okay, where I’ve had a random stranger call me to see one house as at the time we’re recording this, where I’ve had to implement this. So I said, What did you say? And she’s, she’s good with words. She’s like you. But she said, You know, I just tried to keep it very casual, and say, Absolutely, I would love to show you the home. Can I ask you a few questions? Did you have an agent you were working with? Have you signed anything with anybody? No, we haven’t. You know, we just kind of started our house hunt. And she says, Okay, great. Well, there as of this date, there is a form now that is required by law to sign before I can open a door for you. And she was like, Would you be willing to sign a form so that I can show you? And they were like, Well, how long of an agreement is this form for? And she said, Well, why don’t I bring it with me today, and we’ll meet and we’ll sign it, and we can just sign it for one day, and I’ll show you my listing. She said, you also have the right to be unrepresented, but we can sign this one form, and after today we can evaluate. And they said, that’s fine. So she shows up with the form, meets them, they sign it, they go in the house. She spends like 45 minutes in the house with them. It’s a big house. It’s like one of her luxury listings. It goes very well. And they at the end, they said, Well, you know, it wasn’t the house for them, but thank you so much for explaining everything to us. What where do we go from here? And she said, You know, I can send you this form, just in a more extended version. We can extend this deadline. Now that you have met me and we have interviewed each other, she said, I feel like y’all would be a good fit for me. Y’all are the type of client I would want to work with. So if that is reciprocated, then I can just send you the next level of this form for three months, six months, however long you want to put and they said, Sure, that would be great. And they signed an extend. She called it the extended version of the form. Was

Katy 57:05
the first form, a ministerial AX form, or was it actually it was a buyer? Rep agree

Alissa 57:10
it was an actual buyer. In the blank, they just put that one day, and in the low, what did they put

Katy 57:16
in for the fee? Did she tell you? Like, was

Alissa 57:18
it a percentage? It was a percentage? Okay, she didn’t, yeah, okay, so she put a percentage there, and they understood. So okay, they were wanting to work with her. And so after that relationship was formed, they signed the longer version. They got pre approved, and she’s showing them houses as buyers now, yeah, and

Katy 57:36
I think what I’ve heard in some places, or maybe all of them. I know Zillow is offering this touring form, right so they can meet the requirements. Ish, right, as best, as close those

Alissa 57:48
they can. And I don’t know what their form said, but I think it got rejected. Yeah,

Katy 57:52
I think some states were like, no, no, not good. This isn’t gonna work. But so I think that’s still and they’re the touring form, or whatever would be like a seven day period, or just for one house, or just whatever I mean. But if this person who wrote in the Zillow agent, didn’t even do that, they’re just like, Yeah, I’ll be right over. And

Alissa 58:11
I do think that we are gonna see like, a year of cleaning house. Yeah, our local boards, like professional development department and mediation arbitration department, like the Louisiana Real Estate Commission, everyone is cracking down ready to for these tell

Katy 58:30
them what our fees are, our citation fees in Louisiana when

Alissa 58:35
they first announced our fees, the first time that first offense of not getting your buyer to sign. The first offense of showing a house in Louisiana not having the form signed was $1,000 the second offense was $2,000 the third offense was $3,000 and a suspension of your license. So these are not petty numbers. They are taking this very seriously, but then they backed them down. They did. But I think that people were like, what? And so now it’s 500 1000 or something? Yeah, I think you were not 500 Yeah. The people, I

Katy 59:15
guess, were like, no, yeah. But

Alissa 59:16
why if it’s 500 or 1000 don’t do it. Follow the law, but some

Katy 59:21
people right, just like some people break any law, right? Like, if that’s not something you’re gonna do, then it does look if someone else is breaking the law, that is not my problem. However, if someone’s stealing your business by breaking the law, maybe you need to turn them in. Yeah,

Alissa 59:35
and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her. I get people report everybody. It’s so frustrating, like, if you accidentally have, like, a corner of a sign and a photo or anyways, so I think during this time, it’s actually our duty as the professional agents to report bad behavior, because we are doing everything we can to keep this. Industry’s reputation, right? High? Yeah, you know, we started hustle humbly in 2019 with the hopes of bringing professionalism back. We were making some really good progress before all of this went down. But at the same time, it’s like we had to take like, 20 steps backwards, but I think it’s gonna catapult us forward for sure. Like, give us a year and look around and see who’s still here and how they’re operating. And it is gonna be good. I think, I think so. I have one more question for you. Oh, great. Okay, this agent said, How can I get a consumer to come into the office or meet at a coffee shop for a buyer consultation? I have had several ask for a showing, but then they refuse and cancel once the conversation rolls around to signing anything. The general public has no knowledge of this lawsuit, which I initially thought could be a good thing, but is kind of negative. Several people simply refused to speak to me further, saying, I’ll find someone else to show me because this was their past experience. Any guidance is appreciated. I think that there is not a one size fits all answer to this question. I think it’s going to be very situational, just like in the example I gave with my friend who was a listing agent with the sign call that conversation went well. She said what she needed to say, and they agreed, yeah, and they agreed to abide by the law and sign the form. And it worked out, yeah, it could have easily gone the other way. But

Katy 1:01:35
look, this is no different than you being the type of agent who only shows to pre approved buyers. Yes, you would still be getting calls. And sometimes buyers would say, Well, if you won’t show me, I’ll get someone else who will I don’t want to do my pre approval now. And what would you have done then? Right? You would have just been like, Okay, well, this is my policy, right? I

Alissa 1:01:56
say, you know, it is my policy that when I show a home, I am making a commitment to the seller that my buyer has been vetted and pre approved, and can actually buy your house if they like it. I’m not going to bring a stranger into your home that hasn’t been vetted. I also think that the response to this form is going to be very different depending on who your clients are, yeah, if this is repeat referral business, you are going to be just fine, right, right? You’re going to be just fine. If it is some sort of lead source, it is going to be much harder to get a stranger. It’s

Katy 1:02:30
not you’re not. You have no know like and trust. They don’t know you. They do not trust you. They don’t want to sign a form with you. They want to see a house, yes, but this is the law, and so all you have to say is, you know, I start all of my buyers off with a consultation. We can do it via zoom or at my office or at this coffee shop on, you know, this day or these hours or whatever. Let me know what works for you.

Alissa 1:02:54
I think that you cannot let the fear, yeah, of losing somebody right be what makes you like the rules. Break the rules or adjust how you run your business. This is how I run my business, right. Your boundaries

Katy 1:03:11
and your buyer rules are gonna have to be more firm than they ever were. I’m

Alissa 1:03:16
not going to make exceptions. Yeah, of how I run my business out of fear that I’m gonna lose you when I don’t even know you. Yeah,

Katy 1:03:24
and it’s a lot. It’s this is easier. This isn’t just my role. It isn’t just what I’ve I want everyone to be pre approved. This is the law. I’m required to do this by law, right? Unfortunately, if I don’t have you sign this document and I show you this home, I can be fined $1,000 yes, or whatever, or lose my license. And I really love being an agent, so I definitely don’t want to lose my license. Yeah, if I lose my license, I can’t serve

Alissa 1:03:50
any buyers, right? It’s just not worth it. It’s just not worth it. And

Katy 1:03:54
people are going to push. People are going to push to see if you’ll bend the rules or if you’ll break

Alissa 1:03:59
and when you lose that client, you need to say that was a close one. Yeah, I can now focus on people that respect how I run my business, and I’m open for business that is with people who respect how I do it, right, right? I have two messages to end with, great. First one, I just love you all so much. Oh, my God. Well, thank you. Y’all are always so encouraging. And between my incredible broker and y’all, I feel I was so prepared for this. Oh, I

Katy 1:04:27
love that.

Alissa 1:04:28
Thanks for all the great info. Turns out it was way scarier when it was in the future than it actually is now, that’s how I feel. It’s not that hard now that it’s here. I’m just like, let’s do this. When you just rip that band aid off. Okay, the second one. We are realtors. We can do this. We overcome challenges. This is good for our clients. Yes, for our clients. Y’all, it’s not about us. Stop whining and deal. Let’s serve our clients and be the best we can be so that we can help our clients achieve. Their goals, right? It’s about them, right? Get educated, understand the rules, follow the rules, right? Know who you are representing, and stay on your side. We’ve got this. We are the professionals. Thank you, Katie and Alyssa, for all you do to help us.

Katy 1:05:15
Well, you’re welcome. I hope this was helpful. I know there’s so many scenarios we didn’t even get to we’re gonna cover a bunch during community, yeah, during our community live, which will happen after this air date. So if you’re not yet in community and you want to hear the other stories from this list, from our sweet friends who wrote in, you can join hustle, humbly podcast.com/membership, perfect. So join. Then you can see our faces while we talk about

Alissa 1:05:42
we can have a real portion, real back and forth. Okay, let’s

Katy 1:05:46
hear a toast. Okay, great. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 1:05:48
Hey there. This is Sheena York from Prineville, Oregon, and today I would just love to toast my very good friend and office mate, Jessica lay Jess, thank you so much for constantly being inspiration and just bringing so much light and joy to the office and answering questions and just being such a great friend and mentor, and you’re an inspiration. Thanks girl.

Alissa 1:06:09
Thank you so much for tuning in to the hustle humbly podcast. If

Katy 1:06:13
you enjoyed this episode, please go to rate this podcast.com/hustle, humbly and leave us a review or drop a comment if you’re listening on Spotify. If

Alissa 1:06:21
you have an episode topic or someone you’d like to toast on the show, please email us at team. At hustle humbly podcast.com,

Katy 1:06:28
find us on social media at hustle humbly podcast, don’t forget to find all of the free resources at hustle humbly podcast.com/resources,

Alissa 1:06:36
see you next week. This

Katy 1:06:40
is the good life.