Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY.167 | feat. Ben Gray

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Ben Gray on Sold in CNY, Building a Real Estate Team, and Navigating the Homebuying Process Host Noah Chrysler interviews Central New York real estate professional Ben Gray about his experience creating videos with Good New York, praising the team’s persistence, client care, and ability to tailor a marketing package to his budget. Ben explains his show, “Sold in CNY with Ben Gray” (soldincny.com), which educates the public on buying and selling myths and highlights behind-the-scenes professionals involved in home transactions. He discusses building a team since 2017, scaling through coaching, and teaching agents to use written systems across four pillars: attract, convert, deliver, and scale, noting client outcomes often follow a 20/60/20 pattern. Ben outlines first-time homebuyer steps—use Zillow to gauge affordability, choose an experienced agent or mentored newcomer, get lender pre-approval, tour homes, and manage a ~60-day closing—plus lender traits (teacher mindset and accessibility) and common buyer challenges around compromises and priorities. 00:00 Welcome and Introductions 00:20 Client Experience with Good New York 01:48 Sold in CNY Show Concept 03:06 Educating Buyers and Spotlighting Pros 04:04 Building and Coaching a Real Estate Team 06:36 Systems That Scale Agents 09:13 Who Succeeds and Why 11:18 Team Expansion and Recruiting 14:07 Perks of Joining the Team 15:13 First Time Homebuyer Overview 16:43 Choosing the Right Agent and Lender 17:52 From Preapproval to House Hunting 20:41 Closing Timeline and Common Pitfalls 21:54 Managing Expectations and Must Haves 23:48 How to Contact Ben and Wrap Up

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Just head to mood.com. That's M-O-O-O-D.com to get started. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Good News, York. My name is Noah Chrysler. Today, I am sitting with Ben Gray. Ben Gray is one of our clients. Ben, why don't you introduce yourself? Yeah, my name is Ben Gray. I am a local real estate professional here in central New York. Fantastic. Yeah, Ben has been shooting some videos with us for the past few months, and he is a fantastic client, and he gets in. He always comes in kind of nervous, right? But then you crush it every single time. And so, I don't know. Ben, how has your experience been so far working with us? Well, it's funny. From the very beginning, what I loved about your

company is how persistent you were. You know, Amanda that works on your team was just the most gentle nudging of, hey, are you ready? Are you ready? And that showed me a lot of professionalism that you don't just talk to somebody and then leave it alone, that you, you know, you've, the company really cares about the clients from the very front person at the door all the way up to Matt, the owner. And, and I like that. I like that. I'm not just, you know, a lead that comes in and they didn't convert. And so we push them along. Yeah. It's, hey, this is a good. person we want to work with and, you know, with the ups and downs of the process, everybody's stuck with me because we had a little start and then pulled back. And, you know, Matt and the whole

team has been really good about kind of catering to what I needed and honestly what my budget was, you know? I mean, I don't have an unlimited budget for branding and marketing. And so the team was able to craft a package that worked well for me. Yeah, well, wonderful. We appreciate that. Thank you so much for singing our praises. I appreciate that a ton. Cool. So, great. So, Ben, so your show is called Sold and CNY with Ben Gray.

Can you tell us a little bit about that show and kind of what you do during those conversations? Yeah. Well, I think everybody's selling something, right? Whether you're an employee, you're selling your skills to your employer. For us, we sell real estate. We help people buy and sell homes. And so our website is sold in CNY.com. targeted to real estate professionals or people that are interested in real estate.

And so what we're going to be doing in our show is bringing on people that are ancillary to the process of buying a home and interviewing them and helping the viewers understand a little bit more about the process. Yeah, which I think is a super valuable thing because I think for a lot of first-time home buyers, you know, it's a very foggy process. And I've never purchased a home. My cousin right now is purchasing a home. And he has been trying to buy a home for the last, like, year and a half.

And it is, it was a huge learning curve for him. And he's still, you know, struggling with the market right now, trying to find something. But I don't know. What do you think is, you know, as you think about creating more episodes of that, what are you, are you excited for, you know, diving into any specific part of the process or what gets you excited when you think about making that content? You know, that's a great question. What honestly gets me excited is two things. One, educating the public, because there are.

so many myths around buying and selling a home. And not just new home buyers. You know, we're working with a client right now. She's been in her house 51 years, Noah. Wow. 51 years. And now it's time for her to move on to the next stage, downsize, first floor living. And so there's still a lot of questions around every different process from a first-time home buyer to a move-up buyer to a real estate investor. So helping to educate the public around that. But then honestly, introducing some of the people I work with to people because, you know, we sell a lot of homes. We have a lot of connections. And most of those connections are people that work in the background that our clients never get to meet, you know.

And so being able to share their stories a little bit, it's exciting for me. Yeah, wonderful. So also let's talk about that, right? So one of the goals that you talked about when we first started working together was that one of your goals is not just to sell more homes and to attract more local buyers, but also to grow your team, right? And so after we've talked more and after we've made some content, it seems like you know a lot about, you know, developing a real estate sales team and that sort of thing.

Can you tell me some of the things that you've learned in that domain over the last couple of years? Yeah. Well, when I first started building the team in 2017, had some challenges. So I've been licensed since 2009. 2017 started building the team, had a lot of challenges. Hired a couple of different coaches that, you know,

help me build the business a little bit, but ultimately not where I wanted to get. And then in 2019, hired a coaching company. And they really helped me scale and build. And so I've learned so much from them. And part of what I see in our industry is it's easy to get into the industry. It's hard to stay in the industry. And so we want to be a conduit for the information that I've learned to the people that need to learn the information to help not just grow a business, because not everybody wants a team, Noah, but to do more deals so that you can do it full time and help more people. Because I think most real estate agents get into the business because they like helping people.

If you look at real estate agents that do really well, they come from a service background of hospitality or food and beverage, personal training, law enforcement, not to say somebody with an economics or finance degree is not going to do well in our industry, but you have to really have a passion for people and helping people because, you know, you have to really have a passion for people and helping people because we're the one business or industry that helps people before we get paid. And so there's a lot of really good people in our industry. They get the license because they want to help people.

And then they just kind of fall flat because the license doesn't prepare you for the hard work that is real estate and building a business. A lot of agents can sell a few houses a year, but taking that and turning it actually into a business with systems, it's not easy. I've been doing it for a long time, and for me it's still not easy to have challenges. So if we can take some of our experience in the coaching world where I've coached hundreds of agents around the country

helping them build their business and give it back to the agents in central New York and help them raise their industry standards, it's better for everybody. Yeah. When you're teaching a new real estate, agent, the things that you're coaching them on. What are they typically struggle with? What are some of the things that you're kind of hammering into their minds to change their paradigm a little bit at

the beginning? Yeah, I think the biggest thing, and I had the problem too, was understanding how systems play a role in your business. And a business is a system of systems. And so the first thing we want to do is help them understand what a system is. A system is a process. A system is not a system if it isn't written down. But when you do things in your real estate business or any business in general, Noah, when you do something and you do it more than once, it should be turned into a system. And so in most businesses, there's four kind of blocks of systems. And we break it down like this. You need to, first you need to attract leads, then you need to convert those leads. then you need to deliver a world-class Ritz-Carlton experience.

And then you need to be able to scale that. So we always go back to attract, convert, deliver, and scale. And inside of those four pillars, we have these different systems, you know, attracting leads, what are, you know, five or ten different types of ways to attract leads and build systems out into that. How do we convert leads? What does conversion look like? And so that's kind of the broad picture of helping agents understand how to take their skills.

of helping buyers and sellers and turn it into a business where you can make the money you want to make and have the lifestyle that you want to have. Yeah, that is wonderful. I think that growing up I watched my father build his own business. You know, he runs Chrysler Treasure Automotive here in Syracuse and he struggled early on, right? Like he was like constant headaches all the time. He used to basically have him and one other guy kind of in the back of the shop. And but, you know, after he took more training courses and he went to more night courses and things, right? He's learning technical skills, but he's also learning, you know, how to work on the business. instead of working at the business, right? Building out those systems that you're describing, you know,

and I've seen his business grow and I've seen him change to as a person. And that was a very powerful thing, right? Because early on he was doing exactly what you're describing, right? Being one of those like he was a bartender for years, right? And very service-oriented. But I think just that that systemization process changed him and he saw a lot of benefit from that. Do you see, so from the people that you've worked with, have you seen changes in them?

Have they reported good positive growth and things? And I don't know. Have you seen anybody kind of transformed their businesses and their lives a little bit? Yeah, that's a good question. And here's what I'll say, you know, out of the however many agents that I've helped coach, it stacks up pretty well to the 80-20 rule. And even the 80, I'm sorry, it stacks up pretty well to the 20-60-20 rule. So, you know, out of a hundred of our coach,

coaching clients, 20 of them just crush it, Noah. They get it. They put the work in and they do really well. 60% in the middle 60, they do okay. They understand the systems. They get a little bit implemented. They start to get busy. And then they kind of like they're happy with their success in these stop.

And then the bottom 20%, like they just don't want to work. You know, everybody wants the magic pill in business. Hey, just give me the silver bullet. Give me the magic pill. What do I need to do? And then you tell them, hey, you need to do the work. And they're like, oh, I don't know if I want to do the work. And you're like, the work works.

You know, everybody says that. And it's so true when I sit down to do my new business development or my prospecting or lead follow-up, whatever you want to call it. And I make those phone calls and reach out and the text messaging, I get business. And when I don't do that, I don't get business. And so 20% of the clients crush it. just absolutely crush it, 20%, they do nothing with it, you know, because it's work. Yeah. No, I think that there's a lot of wisdom in that too, right?

It's like with weight loss, right? Everybody's looking for the key, you know, magic weight loss thing. And it's like, you know, hey, go to the gym, eat fewer calories than you burn. And, you know, over time, like, if you change your lifestyle, like, you will become healthier. And, you know, you can say that a dozen times. But if people don't put in the work, that it doesn't change. Or they take Ozempic, which is magic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But even with that, like, you know, that might be kind of a shot in the arm, but then you still have to, like, have those healthy habits, you know. Right. Exactly. Or else it doesn't stick around or, yeah, I agree with that. Cool. You mentioned that your team is expanding, yeah? Can we talk a little bit about that? Sure, yeah. Beautiful. Yeah, so I'm a part of this large organization called Place. Place.com and some of the top real estate teams around the country are part of this. It's a fast-growing company. And we have a lot of leverage behind. us. Goldman Sachs invested $100 million into the business about five years ago. And so our goal is to go public at some point. And so the company is putting a lot of effort into growth right now. And so part of

that is we are constantly adding marketing expense within reason. You know, we want to be profitable because that's why you run a business is to make money. But we are... Let's be honest. buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated, sketchy, or low quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com. That's M-O-O-O-D.com. Mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door. No medical card, no hassle.

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Just head to mood.com. That's M-O-O-O-D.com to get started. I also want to grow. And so as we put that money into marketing systems, we also need to have the people to service the buyers and the sellers that we have. So more money's been going into marketing, more business has been coming through. Unfortunately, Noah, some of that business slips through because we're busy. And so, you know, if there's agents out there that are not doing the business that they want to, they can reach out to us and we can get them plugged into our processes and our systems and help them grow their business.

Cool. What do you look for when you are recruiting an agent to work with you guys? That's a good question. And so, you know, we want agents that understand this is a sales job. As much as we're out helping people, it's sales. And sales means follow-up. And so you have to be able to do that follow-up. It's not about showing houses.

A very small piece of the job is showing houses. It's about sales and follow-up. And so we're looking for people that have some kind of sales background or some kind of background in helping people, like we talked about earlier, and then have the drive. Like, you got to have some grit in this business. I worked with a client for months and months, showing them, I don't know how many houses. And then in the end, they said, hey, you know what, I'm just not going to buy. And that hurts. And if I was to just go salk around, I wouldn't, you know, do any deal. So you have to have the grit for the business. And so I think that's a couple of things.

You know, we want growth-minded people that want to win. We want people that want accountability, you know, because I think that's a big part of it. I run a team. I'm accountable to somebody. Agents on our team are accountable to somebody. And so we want somebody that has that spirit, you know, of like they want to win and they're going to do what it takes to win. Yeah. Cool.

I mean, that sounds wonderful. The, the, what are some of the perks? Like, you know, why should I join Ben Gray's? sold in C&Y team. Like, you know, I mean, like, what do they get into it for? What do you typically see in your new recruits? Well, I think one of the perks is that they get to come in here and do some media with you guys.

Yeah, cool. If our agents are hitting their goals, their KPIs, if they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, they're going to get highlighted on social. You know, they're going to have the opportunity to get on camera more and build their brand. We're going to help them build their brand. So that's one of the perks. The other perk is, you know, we have some phenomenal.

stock options in a couple of companies that we are a part of that our agents get to benefit from that in the future could turn out to be really exciting. They could turn out to be like some stocks and tank, but they have a lot of opportunities around that. We offer health care and certain things. Wonderful. Beautiful. Cool. Maybe we can get off of this. Thank you for entertaining me, though, bad. I appreciate it. No, it's good to, it's cool to talk about what you're actually doing, right, and what you're actually working on because I think that that's always where the most interesting stuff is. But beautiful. If we were to take a bird's eye view perspective, let's say I have never purchased a home, which is correct. What for a first time home buyer, you know, can you give me a bird's eye view perspective of what the process is usually like for someone who has never purchased a home?

I'm on Zillow. If I was to go buy a home, I'd probably go fire up Zillow and be like, oh, cool, okay, 300 grand. Maybe I'll figure that out. I don't know, boom. And then maybe go to a bank or something. I don't know. What is the first time home buying experience like for most people? Right now? Yeah. It's like getting your teeth kicked in. once a week because you find a house you love and you put an offer in and you don't get it because somebody outbids you or they pay cash. So it's challenging. And so having a real estate professional that is not pushy that can really guide you to make wise decisions is the place to start. But I think just picking up the phone and I'm going to get some hate. I'm going to get some hate right here. Picking up the phone and looking at Zillow is a great place to start. Looking at Zillow. Looking at Zillow and just pulling up that house for $300,000 and say, hey, what's my monthly expense? Oh,

$2,500. What am I paying now? I pay $1,000 and I can't afford much more. Then you're not going to be able to afford that $300,000 house. So starting looking at Zillow is not a bad option. Just don't click any buttons on Zillow, Noah. Because there's agents that pay for those leads. Sure. And, you know, you may or may not want to work with those agents. But yeah, I think looking at Zillow is a great place to start. Got it. Cool. If I were to do the right thing, if I was to find a reliable, trustworthy agent, what would be some tips for me doing that? Yeah, I think it's just having conversations, interviewing agents, you know, hey, tell me about your experience. How many homes have you sold? Oh, you've only sold two homes? That's not a problem. There's a lot of agents that get their

license and they've never sold any homes. Okay, you have a mentor. You know, most agents that get in the industry don't have a mentor. So if they have a mentor and they haven't sold any homes, you could still work with that agent because that mentor is going to help them. And so just knowing what their support system is, I think is really important. Like on our team, we have two full-time assistants. That's all they do is help our agents, write contracts, handle, you know, things that come up with inspections, stay in touch with the attorneys. So finding somebody that either has experience or has a mentor that's overseeing them. Yeah. No, I bet that's a huge game changer when they know what they're doing or can go and ask someone who knows what they're doing. I bet

that that's a big game changer. Cool. Let's say I get my agent. Then what does the process look like for me after that? Let's say I find the right person. I hire Ben from sold and CNY. What does the process look like? Yeah, we've got to find out how much you can spend if you're buying a house. All right. And spend comfortably. You know, you don't want to be house poor. We saw a lot of of foreclosures and it's an ugly thing. So you want to find a price that you're comfortable with and to do that you usually need to talk to a lender. And so, you know, any real estate agent can connect you with a lender. You get a pre-approval letter that says, you know, we know how much we can spend. And then it's going back and looking at houses. And honestly, you just have to go into

houses. There's a lot of really good photographers right now. And some of them make the houses look pristine and you walk inside and they're not great and vice versa sometimes you know the houses don't look good online and you walk in and they're like wow this is really nice and so you just have to go in and look at houses and and you can't feel bad about um having asking your realtor to go in you know that's what we want to do we want to help you in the process so you know we'll show 100 houses if we have to we shouldn't need to because you know we should understand what you the buyer wants and really hone that process down. But yeah, you have to go look at them

and then kind of work through what you like and what you don't like. Interesting. What is your favorite type of lender to work with, right? Are you like a local credit union type of a deal or are you like, no, hey, big international bank type of a deal? Like, does it matter?

You know what? To me, my favorite type of lender is going to be twofold. One, to me that has a heart of a teacher that is going to answer any question you have because the lending process can be a little cumbersome. And so you want to be able to call them up and ask them 100 questions and get 100 answers without somebody blowing you off because they don't have time for you. So it has the heart of a teacher.

And then the second thing is that they're accessible. There's a hot market right now in central New York. If we need to get a pre-approval changed on a Saturday or a Sunday, you want to be able to get in touch with them. And so I think those two things, whether it's, you know, we're working with a buyer right now and they came in with a mortgage broker for a company that I typically wouldn't work with. But this guy is on the, he's on the ball. I mean, he's getting us everything we need. And so, I mean, it's nice to work with local lenders to keep everything in central New York.

I think that's great. But it's really, you want to find somebody at a heart of a teacher and, you know, we'll call you back or, you know, answer. your text messages quickly. For sure. I love that. Heart of a teacher, right? Hey, I got questions. Help me understand this and help me give me my answers. That's beautiful. Cool. Okay. And so let's say I find my lender. I find sold in CNY. I hire a real estate agent from Ben Gray's team. I find the right lender. We go, we visit 100 houses and I find the perfect one. What is that closing process kind of look like? What happens to get that to happen? Yeah, the big part of it is you're going to have to supply a lot of documentation to your lender, pay stubs, tax returns,

bank statements, things like that. And then in the background, there's work that the lender is doing with bank appraisers and attorneys. Attorneys are looking over all the legal work and stuff. The whole process, NOAA, it takes about 60 days right now. Sometimes it can be a little faster. Sometimes it can be a little bit longer, depending on the situation. but the big thing is, you know, making sure that you're getting back to the people that are requesting stuff.

So if the lender needs something from you, getting it back to them, if the agent needs something from you, getting back to them. And then, you know, not going out and buying the new car or buying, don't go buy the furniture on a credit card before you close because that'll jack things up. I love it. Yeah, that's great. Buy now, pay later. Come on, Ben. It's great. Cool. Well, cool. in the process, what do you think, you know, kind of as we wrap up here, like what do people typically struggle with the most? Like what is some of the biggest problems and things? And what is your guys' approach to help them through those problems?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, you know, we have this. When we start out, we go through their wants and needs assessment. And we have this huge list of everything we want. And then, you know, unless you have an unlimited budget, you know, you're not going to get that. even our clients in the million dollar range, NOAA, still don't always get everything that they want. And so kind of narrowing it down and taking things off of the list that you feel are a necessity. And, you know, sometimes you can't get a pool or sometimes you can't get four bedrooms. You can only get three bedrooms.

So that's the biggest thing is just going and saying, hey, I'm okay not getting everything I want, but getting into a house, starting to build equity, and knowing that you can sell and eventually get to that dream home is the, that's the biggest thing. So understanding this is temporary, it's not forever, and you might need to give up some things. Now, when I moved here, my non-negotiable was a garage.

I was not going to not have a garage. And there's a lot of people that live here that don't even park in the garage. But for me, the non-negotiable was a garage. Sure. With all the snow, you've got to have a garage. Yeah. When I moved here, I was not used to.

I grew up in Nebraska and I thought I knew snow. Yeah. And my wife's family is like, oh, no, you don't know snow. And I'm like, I know snow. And then I moved here, Noah, and I didn't know snow. Yeah, no, yeah. Syracuse is, I think one of the snowy cities in the United States, right? I think it's like we are definitely in New York.

I think we're in the United States. We're definitely in the top something. I don't know. Yeah, it's brutal. Yeah, for sure. Well, cool. Ben, thank you so much. if people want to work for you and or buy a house from you.

What do they do? What do they type in? Go to soldincenCNY.com. There's all of our contact information on there, and we'd love to have a conversation and see if it's a good fit. Beautiful. Guys, thank you so much for watching. My name is Noel Chrysler.

This is Ben Gray. Thank you so much to Ads on the Go. Get Ads on the Go.com. Thank you so much, guys. Have a great day. Bye-bye. See you next time.