Epic Real Estate Investing - BIG Changes at Zillow.com and What They Mean for YOU | 270

Episode Date: June 5, 2017

Welcome back to Epic Real Estate Investing! Today we talk about some big changes at zillow.com and discuss the consequences for you and your business. Does this change your approach in marketing to FSBOs? What do these changes suggest for the future of real estate investing? Listen and find out. ______   The free course is new and improved!  To access to the two fastest and easiest strategies to a paycheck in real estate, go to FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com or text “FreeCourse” to 55678. What interests you most? • E.ducation • P.roperties • I.ncome • C.oaching Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Broadcasting from Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. And welcome. Welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. This is the place where I show people how to escape the rat race using real estate. And if you're just getting started and or you're looking for new and creative ways of making money in real estate, I've put together a free course just for you. including a checklist on how to find motivated sellers, property owners that are willing and able to sell you their property at a discount.

So to access that free course, go to free real estate investing course.com, free real estate investing course.com. All righty, nice to be back. Took a week break after the Epic Intensive, and it was an event that I would definitely describe as epic as we covered the weapons of mass production for your real estate investing business and with just one small and simple strategy, we had people in the room as promised,

created bonafide leads in 60 seconds or less. And those that didn't receive invaluable feedback and how to modify their message and approach so they can generate those leads in that manner. Now, if you miss the epic intensive, I highly encourage you to attend and get to the next one. And please, if you can, make it a trip for you

and your significant other. Bring your husband, bring your wife, bring your partner, significant other. I mean, I just can't stress how important it is that a couple be on the same page when it comes to finances and doing what's best financially for the family. What's doing best for what's best financially for themselves. And by attending educational events together, like the Epic Intensive, it really is the easiest and most efficient way to do so. It's a shortcut to financial growth for you and your family, you know, two people working toward the same cause

in the same manner, doesn't just increase your speed to wealth by two, but by three, at least. And this is so important because the people that go over and they talk to Mercedes at Cashflow Savvy, where we have this done for you service where we'll go ahead and put, you know, investment properties together for you. We'll find them. We'll fix them up. We'll put tenants in place. We'll coordinate the property management.

And then just hand them over and sell them to you as a cash flowing asset. you know, Mercedes has, I don't know, half a dozen, sometimes to attend those conversations a day. And just about everybody takes that next step, moves forward. And those that don't, now there's a lot, there are various reasons for them not taking that next step. But I would say hands down the number one reason that they don't move forward. And not just with us or any real estate investing at all is that their spouse just doesn't agree with the move. or is scared to take that move or they just have different ideas about how wealth is created or what they should do with their finances. So if you've got division in your household, division under your roof with how you are going to get your finances to work for you or how you're going to save or how you're going to invest,

you've got to get on the same page. You can't have these opposing energies working against each other, expecting to achieve optimum results, if any really. awesome results at all. So at the Epic Intensive, I want you to be there. Please join us. And if you decide to make this next trip, please do whatever you can to bring your spouse, your significant other, your partner with you. Your financial future will certainly thank you for it. And a year from now, you'll be grateful that you did that. All righty. So I've got two opportunities for you. put it on the calendar, save the dates, August, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. It's coming up already.

It's just a couple months away. August 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. The next intensive, it's already on the calendar, and we're moving the intensive east. Yep, we're going east by popular demand. So the Epic Intensive is, it's going to St. Louis this next time, August, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'm hoping to have the website Epicintensive.com revised by the time that you hear this. Not sure if I'm going to be able to pull that off. I've got a lot to do here in the next 24 hours, but I'm going to do my business.

best and keep checking and you're going to want to keep checking because the first 25 people to register will be admitted for free. So as soon as you hear registration is open, you're going to want to move fast and that will be at Epicintensive.com. I'm going to make every effort to get that done before this is, this episode goes live, but that only gives me about, let's see, it's 12, 12, it only gives me 12 hours from now. Yep, it's Sunday at noon right now. So that's your first opportunity, keep your eye out open over at epicintensive.com. First 25 people with that register will be in for free. Second opportunity is this week I'll be holding a live encore of the Epic Intensive. I'm going to be doing that online. And that is totally free to everybody. So I'll be

doing my best to cram in the very best of the three-day event into a 60-minute online mentoring session. There are four times this week to choose from. So if you'd like to join us, go to Epic online Coaching.com to reserve your spot epic online coaching.com. That's this week only. And then we are moving on to the next intensive. St. Louis, here we come. All righty, lots of whispering out there and lots of concern, lots of worry about what's going on over at Zillow. Zillow.com with regard to for sale by owners.

And if you know Zillow, they're always changing everything. And this time they're making some significant changes around FISBOs. First thing is, you can't, the first challenge. that everyone's kind of concerned with because it's a strategy that we use here in the academy and of which students have had great success with is you just can't initiate contact with a private custom email message anymore we had a really great formula inside of the academy of a message that always got a response and would always start a conversation with a seller and you know that like i said that puts a little bit of a damper on one of these epic attraction marketing

strategies that we use and then the second thing over at zillo is the news service that Zillow is rolling out to FISBOS where people want to go sell their house on their own, where an initial broadcast will first be sent to, I think the number is 15, 15 different financial institutions. In other words, they're going to expose FISBOS to Wall Street first before you and I get to see it, of which these institutions, they're going to have first dibs on submitting an offer. And then once their time is up, I think they've got seven to ten days. Once their time is up, Zillow, then opens it up to realtors to submit CMAs and go for the listings.

Then that means the private investor like you and me, we get to see what's left over. And I know a lot, there's a lot of concern out there by that. It's still in beta, but I think it's only in two or three markets right now. But don't be surprised if this goes nationwide and goes very soon. So, yeah, seemingly bad news for the private investor. Or is it, right? What can we learn from these Zillow moves, the Zillow move, what Zillow is doing? Well, first, let's talk about the first one.

The no more private messages to FISBOS. I don't see this as that big of a deal. It was a very big shortcut that we just kind of stumbled upon and all of a sudden started creating results with it. But I don't see this as that big of a deal because in most cases, Zillow has not removed the seller's phone number. The private seller's phone number is still posted. So rather than submitting your private epic messages that we teach inside the academy through email,

why not just through a text message or a voice broadcast? Or, hey, maybe you could just pick up the phone and call the seller and have a conversation with them and ask if they're open to cash offers. There's a novel idea, right? And another thing to consider here is the more difficult it is to find and reach a seller, the less competition there is for that seller's attention. So I'd say celebrate when easy approaches to this business get more difficult when they get replaced or where they just get flat out eliminated. Celebrate that.

It's going to cut out a lot of competition for you. And just with a little bit of extra effort, you're going to find more opportunity there. I mean, you've got to keep your finger on the pulse of the market and the industry if you plan to thrive in real estate long term or really in any industry. Because guess what? Nothing stays the same. and with the types of changes like this, all it means is that you'll have to change as well. I mean, it's the very reason that I am in real estate.

Maybe this isn't the best example, but looking back, I certainly see things or other things I could have done, but, you know, when people stopped buying compact discs and they started downloading music, that, you know, just turn the whole music industry right upside down

and, you know, people had to find other ways to go make a living. But are there people inside of the music industry still making a living? Yes. Are they making a great living? Yes. They were able to adapt and overcome those changes and they were able to survive. And there are a lot of people that panicked and just ran for the hills. I was being one of them. But looking back, now I see, oh, I could have done this. I could have done that. I could have done this. And this is no different. So things are always going to change. So get used to it. And all that means is you're going to have to change with it.

So entrepreneurs have been bobbing and weaving for years, and that's just never going to change. You have to roll with the punches. You have to keep fighting. Don't be so quick to wave the white flag just because an unexpected obstacle got thrown in your way. You know, more millionaires and billionaires have been created in real estate than any other industry, any other investment vehicle, way before that little Zillow feature ever existed. Okay? So just because it's gone, has not removed the opportunity, has not removed the potential for you.

Second Zillow change. I was first a little bummed and annoyed, irritated, frustrated, whatever you want to call it, when I learned of this new service that Zillow is rolling out for Fisbo's, seemingly handicapping the private investor by giving Wall Street and realtors first crack at private sellers. But then again, I got over it really quickly at first read and first notification of that. You know, I cringed a little bit and I was like, eh, no big deal. Here's why. When I became a realtor back in 2001, technology in every industry was really taken off, just like I mentioned, the music industry, and the same thing was happening in real estate.

And the brightest minds in Silicon Valley were trying their hardest to remove the realtor from the real estate transaction. They're still trying. And they're trying to remove people flat out from every industry, trying to make everything really automated and seamless. They're putting artificial intelligence and everything. And maybe one day will happen, but it hasn't happened yet. So what they were doing with real estate was they were really trying to reduce the transaction to the push of a button. There was one company I remember that even promoted their slogan was, click a mouse, buy a house.

And the fact that we have nearly the exact same amount of licensed realtors, 1.2 million of them in the United States as there were just prior to the 2007 bust, that was what, 10 years ago? And they started doing it 10 years before that. I mean, that's 20 years of the brightest minds of Silicon Valley trying to remove realtors from that whole process. And we have the exact same amount of realtors today as we did in 2007 at the peak of licensees, which means that that technology hasn't made too much progress in this department, right? So to me, this is just Zillow or the company, DeJure, his attempt to streamline the real estate process.

Will this one work? I don't know or won't it. I mean, who knows? And it does remain to be seen. and I imagine one of them is going to get it right eventually. But if they are successful with this latest approach, it's going to take a long time for it to stick. Because it's something entirely brand new.

It's going to take a long time to train the general public. And not just some of the general public. I mean, for this to really have an impact on us in the foreseeable future, it's going to take a long time to train the bulk of the public, the majority of the population, how to take advantage of this option. Additionally, it still has to be a good service, right? It still has to prove to be satisfactory to the client, to the seller.

And that's another thing. That's another big obstacle for Zillow to overcome. I mean, you know, my thoughts on this are one. I mean, we've all experienced how customer service drops in a people business like this. The more technology is introduced and the more that people are removed. Just try and deal with the phone company. have to go through their phone tree for 30 minutes. I mean, you want to just throw the dang phone right out the window.

And you want to go switch carriers right away. We've all been through that. And, you know, that's basically just the more that technology has introduced, the lower customer service drops. Second is, you and I, we're looking for distress sellers, aren't we? That's the only way we find discounts. They've got to have distress or be in some sort of distress for them to sell their property discount. otherwise there's no reason for them to sell it at a discount. There's no reason for them just to walk away or give their house away.

So when we find people under financial distress or personal distress or the property itself is under distress, that's who we're looking for. That's where the discounts are. That's where the money is made. And Zillow is not the first stock or first option for a distressed seller to find a distressed seller. Certainly, worked correctly and with consistency and persistence, there are some deals to be found on Zillow. and even on the MLS.

But neither Zillow or MLS or really any other website are a top five source for my deals. And I'm willing to bet they're not a top five source for yours either. Certainly not top three, depending on how many sources you have for finding your deals. It's not where you're finding your best deals and you're not finding there consistently. If they are and you are, then I'd have you consider you're paying too much for real estate. There are better ways to do this, okay? Another thought that came to mind for Zillow to give Wall Street exclusive priority on FISBOS, it's likely not because Zillow wants to remove you from the process or kill your opportunity.

They're not out to get you. There's nothing in that fight for Zillow. That doesn't make them any more money or improve their bottom line. But rather, it's likely because Wall Street has probably stroked a nice check in the background somewhere to Zillow in exchange for that initial exclusivity. and what that means to me, Wall Street doesn't see a real estate bubble or burst in the near future. Wall Street still wants real estate. You know, the aureos and the HUDs and, you know,

and the foreclosures and all that stuff, that's all but really dried up. It's certainly not anywhere near the numbers it was in 2008, 9, 10, when all the hedge funds in Wall Street was moving into each market and just buying up everything. Those don't, there's not. there's not enough of them out there to keep them in business. So they're going to the next best place to buy properties at a discount directly to the seller.

Now, they don't have the manpower to go knock on doors. They don't have the manpower to send mailers and set appointments and sit across the kitchen table. They don't have that. So they're going through this alternative approach with Zillow and getting first priority over the FISBos. Again, we know distressed seller's first option is not to post their property on Zillow. So I don't think this is going to be a big loss for the price. private investor. And also, I think it paints a very optimistic picture or optimistic future for real estate as an investment. I mean, Wall Street's going all in. They're looking for alternatives.

Things have changed, right? So they're looking for different ways. They're changing their approach to buying real estate. And I'm willing to bet my life on what Wall Street sees is. And I've been saying it right here since day one of this podcast is, there are more people walking. the planet right now, then there are homes for them to live in. And the biggest chunk of that population is entering house buying age right now. 60% of the population is under the age of 30, and I think Wall Street sees that. I mean, I know they see that. I mean, if I can see that, if I can interpret the small little data that I have, they've got gobs and gobs and gobs of data, so certainly they see it as well. It's really simple. It's nothing more complicated than supply and demand.

Zillow recognizes that or Wall Street recognizes that. And they have probably stroked a check or done some sort of favor for Zillow for in order for Zillow to give them first exclusivity on people that post their properties privately to sell on Zillow. Fisbo's. Okay. So really, the purpose of this entire episode is really to tell you not to let change get you down or discourage you because it's not going anywhere. So, you know, you're going to have a very frustrating future. if every time something changes, you get all depressed about it and you throw in the towel. Don't do that.

I mean, here's a perfect example. You know, cash, excuse me, cash flow and note investors. They were really singing the blues when Dodd Frank came into effect. I remember the buildup that knowing that Dodd Frank was coming, everyone was kind of panicking. And we're like, oh, my God, there goes the whole seller finance industry. This is how I make my living. I'm not going to be able to make a living anymore because of this dumb Dodd-Frank act and blah, blah, blah. I mean, a lot of people either left the business entirely or they changed their investing strategy

completely from seller financing to something else. And here I am, as well as many Epic Pro Academy members, absolutely crushing it using seller financing, both as an acquisition and exit strategy. I'm doing more seller finance deals as an exit strategy than I've ever done before. Before Dodd-Frank even existed. The point being, there's always a way.

Don't bow your head in depression when change comes along. Hold your head up high. Open your eyes. Open your ears. and look for the opportunity. Where there is crisis, there is cash flow. And if you don't believe me or don't know what I'm talking about, I want you to jump on this next live online mentoring session this week

at epiconlinecoaching.com. And I'll show you exactly what I showed all of the attendees of this most recent epic intensive. Go to epiconlinecoaching.com. There's four times to choose from this week. It's this week only. This week being the week of June 5th. And I'll show you exactly how it's.

this works and how we're able to use seller financing as a method or a strategy of generating cash and cash flow with every single deal that we do. And that's one of the things we covered. I mean, that was really just a two-hour portion of the whole Epic Intensive. And I'm going to show you as much as I can of everything else as well. All righty. So go to Epic Onlinecoaching.com and I reserve your spot for this week, four times to choose from this week only. Okay, so that's it for today. I will see you next week on another episode of Epic, Realize. estate investing. God bless and to your success. I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream. You've been listening to Epic Real Estate Investing, the world's foremost authority on separating

the facts from the BS in real estate investing education. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to visit iTunes and share your thoughts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time here at Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.