KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Probate Weekly Randy Milmeister

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

Let's go. Any second now. There we are. And we're live. Welcome to Probate Weekly. I'm your host Bill Gross, at Bill Gross Probate on social media. And this is a weekly podcast you do every Thursday, 4 p.m. Pacific time. It's 7 p.m. Eastern Time, everything in between on either side.

You can sign up if you want to at probateweekly.com. And if you can watch this on a replay, I want to get notified and jump on live. I'd love to have you join live. And once you do scroll down, you can see it on other audio platforms and past episodes as well. We do this every week, and the idea is to have an interview format style where I interview most commonly attorneys, vendors, and also top performers

in our industry. And so if we see past episodes, you'll see a whole library there of opportunity. We're excited to have today a guy who I've known for a while. I would say that for some of you, those you are real estate agents looking to build your real estate business, if you're the before picture, he's the after picture I think you're looking for.

He's also a fun guy, I think most importantly really focused on what the purpose of this business is. Randy Milmeister, who is from Clark County, Nevada, which is home to Las Vegas, as well as Henderson, Nevada. Shout out to my favorite uncle Rich, who lives in Henderson. Randy, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing with us. Hey, Bill, I'm so happy to be here. And other than the lighting situation that we just talked about, believe it or not, the AC in my office, just went out a few hours ago. So if I start sweating, it's not,

don't think you're interrogating me and I'm nervous. It's the temperature is starting to rise. And I'll say for those who are watching and think this is important to know the details here, my wife's not in the house now, so I turn the air conditioning down to a meat locker ready at 65 degrees here in Los Angeles. So I'm enjoying a nice cool breeze here in my office,

so I'll try to look as cool as you can. Hey, for those you're watching on live streaming, we're live streaming this on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, formerly Twitter, Rumble, feel free to put your questions in. We'll do our best to coordinate. I see there. Stephen Hughes from the program, hey, Stephen, how you doing? And thank you for joining in. So let's talk a bit, Randy.

You've been in real estate for how long? 20 years now. 20 years. And I think I know you through the Mike Ferry program, correct? Yeah, we met years ago when you were still working. with a broker who had been with a Mike Ferry program for a long time. I believe you were a manager at that office and it was a century 21. And so for those who don't know, I would call Mike Ferry's training like the basic fundamentals of blocking and tackling of sales as applied to real estate.

He came from a training program that was one of the best on sales and wrote a program, or I should say create a program and all the accoutrements to it that really taught you about the basics of prospecting and sells techniques. And so you come from a world, and as do I, where we spend a certain amount of hours a day, primarily cold calling or cold door knocking, correct? Correct. And let me add, and I'm so glad you said that because before our call today, I was thinking, and, you know, these are just thoughts I have with my other friends and real estate who also work probate, is that it's more than just prospecting and calling and door knocking, it's the bottom line is how to communicate with other human beings. And I think, especially in probate, where we're working with families and people who are going through,

in some cases, the most challenging time in their life, just to be able to relate to them, to be able to talk in reasonable terms. Well, I think, you know, so from the beginning, that's a good point in that from a sales technology point of view, in probate, I think we do with a wider range of personalities, right? When you cold call expired listings, the personalize a little more clutter, or a little more segregated, they've already listed a house for sale, they know a realtor, they own a house,

and they've expired. Whereas in probate, we deal with people from never had a house their life and they're inheriting it to sophisticated investors and owners of large properties. So I think the breadth of who we talk to is wider, which puts a premium to your point, I think, on the soft skills of communication skills.

Right. That's absolutely. And we have another layer of professionals that we work with day in and day out and that's attorneys. Correct. So you add another level of complexity to the transactions as well as again another level of communication with the attorneys. So that's why I think this area is more complicated.

The word complicated means how many different pieces are involved in it. It doesn't mean it's harder necessarily, but it has more individual pieces. that one has to consider along the way. So do you consider yourself still today in the Mike Ferry format as far as your business or are you in some other format with your probate business or how would you describe from where you started and the nomenclature we understand to where you are today? Beautiful question. So I was a hardcore prospector phones, doors for 13, 14, 15 years. Last year, I kind of got burnt out. I was like, I don't know, because in 2020 when when COVID happened, I told myself, I'm not going backwards. Like I was I look,

I was broke like some of us. We we lost a lot, lost everything. I went from, you know, a positive balance sheet to a negative 200,000 balance sheet. And I in COVID, I said, I'm not going back there. I don't care if I have to work 20 hours a day, eight days a week. I'm going to keep working. So I worked a lot during 2020. Then 2021, the greatest market in the history of the world. Well, I can't slow down now. I got to keep going. So again, 20 hour. I mean, really like, you know, no bullshit. I was working 18 hours a day, six and a half days days a week. Because I was like, well, I'm not going to, you know, I've worked hard to build my business now. I need to keep going. Then 2022, interest rates doubled. The market changed. I'm not going

backwards, Bill. That's one thing for sure. So to answer a question last year, well, actually, a year ago exactly, I just got burned out. I'm like, I can't, I just, I can't do this anymore. Like, I need to rest. I was physically unhealthy. Right now, I, well, fortunately, because I went through that, I hired a trainer. It's really changed the way I look at everything, my nutrition, going to the gym. And I was, you know, a semi-good athlete. I started playing soccer when I was five, but I needed that transition. So I, so instead of getting to the office at 637 every day, I was sleeping in until 9.30, 10 a.m., which was berserk. Well, then I had to think, well, you know, I still, I still want to make money.

I have worked hard all these years and I've gained the skills in what we're doing specifically now and helping families going through probate. Is it possible to continue to do more and work less? And I thought that was, I didn't think that was realistic and I thought it was BS, that thought. But the more I laid in bed, I thought, well, how do I, instead of like what you mentioned earlier, calling and expired and getting someone off listing, how can I make one phone call or make one, create one referral relationship and create multiples? And so last November, December, I came out with a system to get into relationships with more attorneys. I started getting a relationship with attorneys during COVID when nobody else was out there working. I would go and try to meet them at their office, just like I think you were doing something similar and still going to the courthouse, whether people, anybody else is going or not.

And fortunately, as I came into January and February and March, and I'll just tell you simply, that my system was to go take lunch to an attorney's office for the whole office. So when we talked before a year ago or so, you mentioned, and other, I think, agents do this, say, hey, I'm going to take an attorney to lunch. And, like, who wants to do, like, who wants to hang out with a real estate agent, number one? And then how awkward is it to go to a lunch meeting with an attorney that you may or may not know? But I said, you know what? Forget all that. I will take lunch to the attorney's office.

The paralegal, the secretary, whoever else is in the office. And I didn't necessarily think I would get some kind of amazing ROI on it. I was like, I just want to continue to build these relationships that you and I mentioned earlier, communication. And I'm comfortable now sitting with an attorney or multiple attorneys or their whole office for an hour. How can I make it as simple and easy as possible? And so when I started to do that, the referrals started to really matriculate. So there's a lot to impact there. So let's go back a little bit, back towards the beginning, so we transition into this.

So what does your business development activity look like today? Are you, you mentioned you went from strict schedule to sleeping into what wasn't comfortable for you. What's a typical business they look like in your, from a schedule point of view today? So I'm in another transition. So in the last year, it was with me working with my assistant, let's sketch. schedule, you know, every other week, going and visiting an attorney's office. And I'll tell you, you know, there were some offices that were big offices. I didn't think about it because a lot of attorney offices, there might be one, two, three attorneys, a couple paralegals, secretary. Well, shoot,

we found out that one of the biggest probate offices in town has not only two attorneys, but they have 30 staff. So that was a big lunch. And then I went to go meet with, with the biggest trust office in town, thinking that there couldn't be more than 20 people, turned out to be 70 people. So we brought a whole luncheon. So I'm coming around to your question. During that time of putting this system together

and working it, while still, hold on, let me back up a little bit. I also in the last couple of years, you know, I'm not as advanced as you, that started building an online profile, an online asset. So between those two, I started to get referred referrals listings, not weekly, but almost weekly. So it kind of fed into my, it's okay if I rest,

if it's okay if I sleep in a little bit. I mentioned that I'm in a transition again. What my day looks like, I want to come back and prospect again, because now I want to put all of it together. So I worked hard on this system to develop relationship with attorneys. I worked hard the last couple of years to build a sound online profile, what I call an online asset. And now I want to bring it all back around and start coming back into the office at eight, well, I'm probably not going to be here at eight by nine, getting on the phone for an hour, reaching out to the families in the community to find out who needs my help, and then moving on from there. So, and you say that, I mean, I know you and I know the world of the former Mike Ferry

detox world, to hear you almost a sense of a little bit of shame. I don't mean to exaggerate it, but because we were trained, like, well, you've got to do this. You've got a phone call through for hours a day. And, you know, in so many brokers, or so many agents, their managers came from that world and kind of pushed that down on their agency. You have to call call. And I think the thing that gets lost is the reason we typically got into this business was to build a business.

It wasn't to get a job. It wasn't to be an employee on a straight commission with no benefits and no security and not much help, it was to build something of value. You mentioned the term online asset. I love that term. I'm going to reuse that one. I think that like you, what I've tried to focus on in my last five years was doing activities that leverage my experience, my knowledge, my Rolodex, and built on something that became an asset that work would work on its own. And meeting agents like you, having somebody to refer a guy to. Well, it hasn't worked out yet. Okay, well, maybe the next one will. But, you know, having relations to people like you around the country create an outlet for referrals and an inbound flow of referrals as well.

So I want to build a business that builds on that, not by happenstance or by coincidence or by paying for it, but because of earned reputation. So I think what you're hitting on is the importance of building a business. And the second thing you said, I think maybe something that you need to think about a little bit, if I could just share my experience on it, is, you know, I'm older. now. I was 60 when I relaunched. I'm 65 today. I again reorganized my business around the optimal hours for me to sleep, exercise, build my family, and business. And I worked it all together. I realized that even though I start my work day at 8 o'clock, most people can't reach them on the phone between 8 and 9. I can make East Coast phone calls then. But for me, really prime time, if I would call an attorney in L.A., if I call before 8 am wasting my time, but really 9 o'clock

is the right time to catch you in the office. So I want to build my business around the hours that are productive for me, not because some coach told me what I had to do down the road. So here you are now. You have your system. You have your marketing out to other offices with the lunches, which I think is great, your online presence. Talk about the online presence a little bit. I know you have a, you do some YouTube videos and I see them on other social media as well. How would you describe the strategy of what you're trying to accomplish with your online asset, as you call it? Well, Bill, I never thought that I would make a video and be online. That's not as a Mike Ferry agent, not how I was trained.

But I'm also introvert. I'm an introvert. I really don't want to be in front of people or be popular or famous. I mean, unless I'm at like EDC with 150,000 of my favorite friends at a rate. But it's not something I ever thought of. And, you know, let's, so the online asset, just to define it, is Google and YouTube. and then maybe a website and then other online profiles. But those are the main two.

And look, if we're being honest, look, I'm no Israeli model like you, Bill. I mean, I don't think that people necessarily want to see me in videos. And when I think about that, you know, there's, you know, unfortunately our industry does so many idiotic things, meaning brokerages will hold a class saying make six figure, seven figures on Instagram. And then, you know, they'll say this agent over here makes $2 million a year. Well, that agent is a former Playboy playmate and lives in Miami and sells houses to the Miami Dolphins. So it's like it's not it's not duplicatable. So thanks to our mentor, Chad, Chad Corbett, when he had mentioned and also Kat, shoot, what's Kat's last name?

Oh, good question. She's fantastic. I've used to Kat Wagner. Kat Wagner. So thanks to them and when you were taking over and started doing this probate weekly for chat, I was like, you know what? Maybe I should like, it seems like I'm having the same conversations with people over and over and meaning what's the probate process, what is a trust, why is it important to have a trust or an estate plan? I'm like, well, why don't I just make a simple video? Maybe I'll just, maybe I'll go down to the courthouse downtown and take a video and let people know what it looks like. And when I say, started doing that, it started to get recognition from not only the public, but also from Google, and Google started to promote me online. Fast forward today, if someone searches probate,

realtor, Las Vegas, real estate, probate, Henderson, I show up not just on the first page, I show up first. And Bill, I haven't spent any, I don't spend any money on this stuff. I spent zero on my online asset, except I hired another ferry. I hired Patrick. fairy to help me so that kind of make sure I was doing this YouTube thing right and so what started to happen and this happens probably every other week I'll get a call from someone online they'll say hey saw your website you know I'd like to get together and this is a real one I'm going to take this listing on Monday and you know I went mad on last week and I said well how did you find me is mom passed and just like we mentioned earlier for most people probate is not anything anyone's ever been through

until they go through it. So I said, well, how did you find me? You didn't find my website. I mean, you can click on something and get to my website, but how did you find me? He said, well, Randy, I didn't know anything about probate. And so I went on YouTube. He's a younger guy like in his 30s and just looking for like,

what are the steps? And you were the only one that had the steps of probate here in Clark County. And I may or may not have the only video, but because of the work I've put in with building this online asset, Google promotes me to be on the at the top of most searches. So let's break that down a little bit because, you know, I've watched you from when you started this actually. I think we talked about it and we needed the court one. That's one, that's a basic one.

You know, I think that you hit right in the head the best strategy is record the things that you're saying over and over again because there's obviously a demand for that information and oftentimes I'll send it to somebody, you know, they'll type of text me a question, I can just text them back to the answer in a video format. I get a little bit of Google juice in exchange for that answer, meaning that they view my video and that helps to some degree. And at the same time, it helps me focus on what are people looking to talk about? So for those you're watching looking to build your YouTube channel, the key is what are people asking you regularly?

Record that. That means they're looking in the marketplace. There's a lot of sophisticated tools, but the obvious one is what questions are you answering all the time and two what are you doing that people are interested in and for any real estate agent the videos at the courthouse are gold because people want to see what really happened you can talk about it but when they see like I'm going to court on Monday it turns out and the parking situation's changed and the security has changed and accesses change so when we do those videos because it's changed and try to give people my customers a sense of

what's going on so today do you have a regular process that you do it or just when you're inspired you do a video or what do you do now going forward yeah that's good question so I have a list of topics that I like to embarrass you you can you know look none of us do everything we plan to do so I don't mean to hold you up as the super perfect real estate agent you're selling houses okay that's the bottom line here we're here selling houses this video I've been planning for four months okay and maybe I'll get to it next week finally but like I said I you know this last year I really took a step back I went from working you know 60 70 hours a week to maybe 20 so now I'm starting to ramp it back up to 30. I'd like to get to working 40 hours a week.

If I can do that, then my goal is to put out one YouTube video about every four to six weeks. Okay. And so, and when you say one video, again, are you going to focus on the topics that people ask you or do you have a vision of what you want to talk about? So when I started making YouTube videos, I called our friend Patrick Ferry, Mike's son, and at the time... One of Mike's sons. This has started a civil warrior, one of his sons. Yeah, I think he's youngest.

Not his favorite, not his least favorite, I think. So I asked Pat, I said, I said, look, I'm getting this, like this guy, you know, Bill and chat are recommending I make videos. I don't know anything about this stuff. Can you point in the right direction? He recommended a book called They Ask You Answer. I can't think of the author off the top of my head. It's They Ask You Answer. So just like you said, there's.

people who have questions, they're going to go search them on Google or YouTube. So just answer the questions on people's minds. That's what they want. And if you do that, Google will support you because they want to keep people on their platform. If you give relevant content, which we could call it educational content, we could call it Evergreen, we can call it, there's a number of different terms for it. But if you'll give people what they're looking for, we will help you, meaning Google will help small business. including realtors, including whatever the business is, we will support you. We'll put you in number one because you're giving, you're helping people to stay on our

platform. If they're set on our platform, we could sell more advertising. Right. That's all they care about is getting people on there. So whether it be, if you want to compete in the space with the naked women, there's that section and people stay on the platform for that. Those of us who are realtors and probate, there are people looking for that. As long as we're the ones satisfying those customers, we're going to get that attention

on our space. So one way is that book, Marcus Sheridan's book, they ask you an answer. It's a great tool. Another one I recommend is, you know, with Chad GPT or Gemini, you can put in,

what are the ten most common questions people ask about probate real estate? That's what I did. And I just got a list of them. And I said, well, I get that one, I get that one. I don't really get that one very often. Like I just,

I knew, I knew by being in the business a little bit what made sense for me. And the other thing I always tell people on this call is there are great providers of content, executorium is one of them, trust and will.com is another one, where they have blogs and you can literally just read what they're posting. These are professionals who spend time and money creating this stuff, and you can just talk about that topic and video

self talking about it. So don't let the lack of ideas hold you back, get into action. Let me ask you how hard was it to get started, like that first video, second video, how hard was that to do? I would say on a level of one to ten, one is it's almost impossible. I would say was like a six or a seven like because I just didn't know how to act in front of a camera and you know the great news about all that is my presentation my listing presentation my presentation in front of anyone my presentation just being on on here with you has improved dramatically so in the beginning if I had a camera in my face I like I thought it's almost like I felt like I had to act or something which I've now learned just be natural be myself look half people are going to like me and have people

I'm not going to like me. There's not much I can do about that. But if I'm genuine, then it's more likely the people who connect and resonate with me are going to connect and want to do business. Well, it does both. I think the people who aren't going to connect with you, avoid you, which saves you the time of doing with people who aren't going to connect with you. And I think that's fine. I don't want to waste my time or their time if they don't appreciate my style. And I don't know, I would say that half, I would say maybe a quarter. you know when we learned Mike Ferry there was the the four quadrants as far as personality types and that doesn't mean that I only want to be one I wouldn't be aware of how to

communicate to everybody but as far as my video presence I would be authentic that was the word you used and I agree with that and so they're going to meet me at some point I'm going to be authentic so I might as well put myself out there and I think the more you do it the more you find your voice so do you find that now that you've been doing it for a while is you know it was a sixth when you started most people say it's a higher number so you're probably pretty disciplined and focused. Do you find it easier now to do videos? I know there's the work you're involved.

Yeah, it's, well, yeah, so my problem is I'm analytical. So I want to do a bunch of research on something that doesn't need a bunch of research. Right. So like I said, so this next, so my videos have evolved. My first probably six, seven videos were all probate estate planning. I interviewed, I copied your protocol, I interviewed an attorney. In the last number of videos, I've really just been, I've been talking about number one, market over the last couple of years because you and I are like the I know we're

not the only two but you were the only two I know who have told the truth about what's happening in real estate despite all the fake news and and bullshit around it about the housing price crash and all this other stupid stuff and I you know so I'll go on to say well these are five reasons that there's not going to be foreclosures these are five reasons that that that not only our home price is going to be stable prices are going to go up and here in Las Vegas prices have increased nine percent in the last year so I've made a few videos about the market, and then I started talking about Las Vegas.

So I started thinking, I was like, what did, I really believe Las Vegas is the greatest city in the world. I grew up here. I was born in L.A., but I grew up here, and it is really an amazing city. So I said, why don't I talk about that? But what are people don't know? So this next video is, I don't know if, well, it says solar and mining. So the next video is going to be about Las Vegas and Nevada impact on solar and mining. And I don't know if you know, Nevada, if it was a country, would be the, like the number one or two mining country for gold and silver and other elements on the planet.

So those are things I'm starting to expose. Also, Nevada is a number one, how do you say, employer for solar in the country per capita. So it's just these things that maybe people don't know about it. And everybody knows about the strip and, you know, gambling. But I just want to expose all the number one, why Las Vegas and Nevada are so great. And two, why we can expect that prices are going to increase, considering we have over 3,500 net migration a month. The net migration is due to these other factors. Right.

Yeah, actually, I've been paying attention to the mining in, I think it's more northern Nevada, but it's just tremendous business mining, lithium, lithium processing. It's spilled over to California in our desert because it's a couple hours drive to Nevada, processing some of these things in mining and such. So it's an amazing change opportunity. And look, it's obviously when you talked about it, just for anybody who watched this, you like lit up. You know, you enjoy talking about that. And I think the key, one of the things I always tell people is,

whatever your business generation idea is, do something you enjoy. Whatever your video topic is, talk about something you enjoy. Because it's to come across, you know, if you go, I have to do a video. Oh, my God. It's on the real estate market. Oh, sales are up. Sales are down. Oh my gosh.

You know, it's miserable. But when you talked about Nevada, your sales being up, the reasons for it, just your facial demeanor changed. And I think people want to see that, they want to see that energy. And for anybody watching, again, as a real estate agent, we can choose what we talk about. You don't have to talk about the whole market. You can talk about the part you like. And now I will share with you.

I enjoy talking about the parts I don't like. I enjoy making fun of the news industry in our business because I just think that it's so lame. I mean, it's just, it used to bother me, but myself, I said, I said, well, why should I keep this in? I'm going to share it with some friends. And guys like you would give me feedback to my uncle Richard, who lives in Henderson. He's my favorite reader.

He always replies to everything I say. And it's fun for me to kind of make fun of some of these articles or make fun of Redfin. I know you shouldn't put down the competition, but making fun of Zillow of my favorite activities. So well, good. So let's talk a little bit as you have general real estate. One of the topics that everybody seems to want to talk about,

that to me is just not a topic for today, is the NAR settlement. So where are you on when people ask you, I mean, for example, the first question, do any sellers or serve prospects ask you anything about that? No, I'm, I don't know, I don't think any customers are gonna say,

I'm charging more now, charging more on the list side. So I used to average, let's say the last couple of years, two and a half percent on the list side and offered two and a half or two and a quarter. Now I'm taking listings on the list side. I'll take it at three, four percent because I feel that's my value. And I'm offering as a co-op two and a quarter, two and a half. But does anybody ask about me? No. I mean, it's just I believe that there are people out there

who ask about it. For me, I don't, it doesn't affect me or my business. I don't, it's just, it's just, It's just life. It's just, you know, we can't, things are not always going to say, the one thing we can count on is that things are going to change and that's okay and just move on. Yeah, and I think that I have, I've had a customers ask, well, can you do it for this? And I've had, you know, attorneys say, you know, number one, there are some courts that limit commissions, LA County specifically on court confirmation cells, which is stupid, limits the commission to 5% rather than what used to be the more common 6%, probably 5% is the most common. now in the LA market, but to limit it to me on those, it should be the opposite, limit the

non-core confirmations and pay extra because there's extra work on core confirmations. But you know, our listing agreement California has always had the breakdown, gross commission 5% listing agent, this percentage, I'm sorry, the buyer's agent, this percentage, and so it forces to have that discussion and have it signed off. In Nevada, do you guys have that on your standard listing contract? Do you normally, when you list probably disclose, what the gross commission is and the breakdown? In our listing agreement, the gross commission is identified, but how its co-op does not. Uh-huh.

Now that may be changing. I believe our local MLS or NAR, Nevada, Association of Realtor's just coming up with new forms. I haven't seen them yet. Again, regardless. We had them lined up in California, and the DOJ stopped. it and so we have not released some of the two forms because the Department of Justice isn't letting us right right so and and you know and for me I don't get a lot of pushback I mean the last few years I you know there's one out of ten maybe I'll get pushback

on commission but I I can express my value so we're you know especially with probate especially with the additional layers of probate let me give you one I have an escrow right now so the decedent passed last fall it was a son, mom and brother live in Alaska. When they came out to the property, squatters had broken in and done like $100,000 damage. I mean, it was a disaster. Well, guess what? You know, they're not going to stay in town forever.

So they went back to Alaska. I'm here. Now we, I don't know if responsible is the, the most proper term, but I'm taking care of the property. Squatters got back in. I had to call the police. I had to have my handyman come over and board up all the windows and make it airtight. So they couldn't get back in.

So there's, there's, there's a, there's additional work to be done that I know how to do. And this is an attorney referral, this particular listing. And the attorney told me, oh, I knew you were the right one to be able to help get this one sold and the family. And now I'm thinking it's like, you don't have to give me all the hard ones. Like just because I'm capable, like, it's, you can give me a laydown once in a while. But the bottom line is, I have the reputation of like, whatever it is, I'm going to take

care of it. I'm going to get us to the finish line. Right. Well, that is that, that is the challenge that when you're really good at, solving problems and you end up getting a lot of those problem files and so you have to be careful how you position yourself and and how you take these deals I know you and I think I had a referral for you about a year ago and you know you really helped save the vendor who referred me the deal because I think you drove the property and discovered it was I think torn down to the

studs and I mean it was yeah it was anybody could just walk in both all the doors were open I I don't remember if it had windows on it. I mean, it was like, I don't know if there was a fire there. Yeah, I think there was a fire, and I think the fire department must have torn it down to the studs. Brian Nolan says the public code in California states that the agents can't charge more than 5% without extraordinary circumstances, they can't charge over 5.

You have to get approval from the court. I don't think that's right, Brian. I think that's the local rules for L.A. County for court confirmation. sales I don't believe that's the probate code I if you have to know the code number I'd love to see it and be corrected and give you proper credit but I don't believe the probate code specifies the commissions I think the only code limits I know orange County I know limits it to 6% LA County limits to 5%

I don't know the limits on commissions for that but thanks for joining in Brian and again if I'm wrong please let's follow up on that and I'll make sure you get proper credit for that okay so so yeah it's the any art thing I I think it's one of those things where like everything else in life, you've got to focus on what you focus. I remember seeing famously former president of Keller Williams, what's the guy's name is out, San Diego. He was a great Mike Furry agent years ago. And he said during his prospecting time that he told his wife that if the house, if somebody's breaking in, call the police or the FBI and the house is burning down, make sure you call the fire department before you interrupt his prospecting. I think you have to control the controllables and not worry about the things you can't.

And so I do pay attention to the forums when they're being released and when to be on top of them, but I don't want to worry about it. I think that's the distinction is be prepared, do we need to do, but there's no reason to worry about what you can't really control. Of course. So let's talk about the general real estate market then because in addition, you know, one of the things that was interesting, my wife one day said to me, it must be great that you are having this niche that it will be unaffected. People are still dying and they'll always be probates. And I said, well, the truth is I think that more and more agents are getting in this niche.

thinking it's an easy way to get some business. I don't know that it's easier. It's been productive for me. How do you see the overall real estate market today in Las Vegas? And as a business person, you know, not that you necessarily need to project your customers, your projections, but, you know, your businessmen, make assumptions. What do you see happening in the next six months to a year? And how does that affect your business planning or does it? Yeah. So what I didn't say earlier, when I said I had mostly taking the year off the last year of prospecting is that I'm having my best year ever in spite of working half as much as I was a year or so ago. Well, there's a clue. There's a clue you better figure out. Yeah. And in spite of just like I think it's the same out in Southern California as

Las Vegas, overall transactions are down 30, 35%. So my transactions are up about 8 to 10%. And that's me with not working. So that's something where I'm excited to get back to work. Because there's there's always it doesn't matter what the look like you said there's things are people have always going to buy a house okay they're got people are going to need more space they're going to they're going to downside and need less space people are going to pass away marriage divorce life happens and so houses are going to meet need to be bought and sold my predictions just like i predicted if anyone goes and looks at my youtube from two years ago when we were seeing you and i were seeing 10 12 20 news reports today that there was going to be a housing crash

at the end of housing price crash, not volume crash, price crash at the end of 22. It'll be by the end of 23. It'll be by mid-24. I was saying, just like you, during that entire time, there are not going to be foreclosure. Prices are not going to come down. My prediction is that prices will continue to increase here in Las Vegas about between 0.5% and 1% a month. So by the end of the year, I would expect that prices increase another 5% or 6% and prices are back in 2022. I think we all had our ultimate high in price peak. Prices three months ago for

condos and townhomes peaked all time high. And just this last month, a single family has peaked. And I believe for all of those sectors, that prices will continue to increase, while overall volume, I think this is just it. You know, this is not that we're not going, there's, man, you know, I hate using these cliches. and terms that people overuse. But there's no normal or new normal or whatever the hell people want to call it. It just is. The volume that is today, which is 30, 40% less than what it was five years ago,

what we would say a normal market, is going to stay like this for a number of reasons. I can, you know, we'll just talk about a couple of them. If interest prices, interest rates come down a little bit, home prices will go up. If home prices go up, the same people are not able to afford a house. Going to staying with interest rates is that someone who has, and I own two homes, one's at, I think, three and three-eighths and one's at four and an eighth interest rate, I'll never sell them. I'm never selling those houses.

So how are real estate transactions less, 30% less, while the population has grown 30% in the last 20 or 30 years? So people are there's going to be more people. So why aren't there more houses? Because home builders are not going to build more houses because of how expensive it is. And there have been less homes built in the last 10 years than there have been in any decade since the 1960s. So when you mix in all of these factors and now, you know, and, you know, liberal media. So now in the last month or so, all the articles, not all the articles, a lot of articles, a lot of articles, are that, you know, someone needs to stop the greedy corporations or buying all these homes for rent,

which you and I were talking about years ago. They were buying homes for 15 years. It's not like that, you know, and where was anybody complaining 15 years ago when there was 24,000 homes on the market here in Las Vegas compared to, you know, there's like 4,500 today. Like, no one was complaining. No seller was complaining when they're getting, they're able to sell their home and a corporation was buying it. But now the new thing is because of the corporations, homes are unaffordable.

That's not the case. there's at least a dozen, if not 50 more factors that comprise the cost of a home. And then I tell somebody, if you think it's so, you think homes are so expensive, why don't you go try to build one? And regardless of the- Build one. Try to build one. I'm working.

I'm moving and, you know, evolving my real estate profession where I'm now getting into development. I bought a piece of land a couple years ago. I've been working. It's taken two years. And we haven't even gotten our. our plans approved yet for plans for a six unit apartment building. I'm doing my part.

I am doing the one that's saying, well, why don't I build something? And it's going to be workforce, affordable housing. I'm doing what I can. And it's taken two years. And I haven't put a shovel on the ground. Yeah. It's interesting. I heard somebody remarked, you know, Alon Musk built his gigafactory in Texas,

from the closed the deal to buy the property to opening. was a year which is an amazing engineer as far as building the factory but in California we're taking twice that just to get the premise so if you wonder why we're not building many houses in California it's because we don't I think that's my premise on my my podcast on that I do on real estate market update which is the reason we're not building houses is because we as a institution in the California have decided not to build houses it's not a mystery we for whatever reason and we can argue the reasons. They're not going to be honest with you and tell you their reasons.

I can guess why I think the reasons aren't. But the reality is, population is going up, but we're not building more houses. Well, in any business, you have more customers or prospective customers and the same product, the price has to go up. There's no place else for the price to go, but up. And when you look at those numbers at some point, it makes a lot of sense. Okay, so let's talk a little bit back to probate then, because obviously some of these people, you know, who have houses are going to die.

and these people have are incapacitated. Is your business focused on the probate side? Do you do much with estate planning? Do you present ways for your customers to avoid probate through proper state planning? Where are you in that niche? Anybody who will listen, which is almost nobody, I tell, you need to get in a state plan. I have the best attorneys in town. It will take great care of you.

You don't even have to call them. I will have their office call you and schedule an appointment. Nice. And even when I do that, it's maybe one out of 50 that I can get in front of it. And Bill, let me, this is real. I sold a, you know, probate. This must have been four years ago. I think it was 2020.

It was still COVID time. So, like, took nine months. And so I tell the estate, the executor, I said, Lou. We just went through all that shit. It was an effing nightmare. Let me have Jennifer's office call you, go meet her and get an estate plan for you and your family. You know, he has kids and married. Oh, yeah, yeah, all, Randy.

You're right. I should do that. Bill, six months ago. And I keep in touch with them a couple times a year, but this is six months ago. Randy, need you to come sell a mom's house. Okay, great. I'll see you. Well, Lou, while I'm here, yeah, I'm going to sell this house.

It'll be gone in a couple months. When do you want me to have Jennifer's office call you to get your estate plan done? Oh, you know what? You're right. It's been on my mind. This is four years later. I call him a month ago. Lou, what do I need to do?

Like, so this is someone who's been through it who's been, when dad passed four years ago, um, has a family knows the end, has been through the nightmare of what probate is. And it's, it's still a struggle. And so, yes. So I really have a, I don't, how am I going to describe, like a part of my mission is to help people avoid probate. So any chance I get, I mean, look, there are some I'm able to help. I had a, you know, I referred a friend of mine a month or two ago to one of the attorneys that I work with. Every day I'm thinking of who do I know that I could at least have the conversation with an attorney to save theirself,

the time aggravation and expense. And I tell them, look, it's going to be like three, four, five, ten times more costly to your family and estate to not have this estate plan. So I hope that answered your question. I don't know any other way, anything else that I can do. Well, no, I think I share your frustration. I have this channel. I interview attorneys all the time and talk about the topic.

And, you know, I think, you know, you confirm what I experience and yet I still keep pushing people. I've been in court with a customer who just, we settled up a sale of a $2.5 million property. The guy has about $10 million estate where his father had no plan. It was litigated. It was a nightmare with siblings and all that. And I said to him, you know, now that you want all this, you need to put a plan together. And otherwise, you're going to be in the same spot. Your kids can be the same spot. And so I hope you lived 120, but you probably aren't and you better plan on that. And I call him back, you know, regularly about once a year in check. in with him and he hasn't done it and then I have other customers I had one where my best probate attorneys called me up and asked me to help find a case

where was a probate 40 million dollar estate I was a real estate investor he had ten properties he owned he had property management company and other assets securities and such and he had gone to estate planner and had a binder and never executed any of the documents wow yes we paid I don't know but the retainer I'm sure is three five thousand dollars for state that size and it was complicated, and there's different things he had to do. And so in California, it's as though he never did anything. So he has a pretty binder, but he didn't fall through on it.

And so I think as a real estate agent, anybody listening, this is my mission is to get more people into that. You know, I'm not what you call a social justice warrior, but I've gone to L.A. County Courthouse enough to see one of the challenges, particularly in the African-American community in Los Angeles, is their wealth being destroyed at probate court. because they were ruled or two era families who got together and they bought a house and they raised kids and they paid off the house and they passed and they passed on the house their kids hoping the wealth would stay in the family and the kids one ends up squatting there and fighting and there's attorneys and by time they're done at least half the equity's eaten up between fees and and legal fees and such and it just it breaks my heart and I'm going to go again on Monday

and see another case like this and so anything I can do I'm open to anybody's suggestions and how we can help our customers take the time but look at a plan it's not for everybody but I think almost anybody owns a house in California should have an estate plan some sort probably trust if you have kids you should have something to how you want your kids raised if something happens to you so I'm on that same mission okay so let's last talk about how you make your real estate business fun because you know now I will full disclosure my social life's a little boring My wife and I pretty much our whole life is we sit around waiting for a daughter to tell us she needs us to help with one of the two grandkids.

So that's kind of where we are in our life. Our vacation was staying here all week and our grandkids were here three days Monday through Wednesday. It was a lot of fun. But I see your life and some of the things you're doing. Is that just because you and our friends? Is that something you share as part of being a real estate agent? How do you share that, how do you make that distinction with what you share yourself as a real estate agent with clients versus personal friends? So I mentioned earlier, you know, I just want to be genuine.

And I, you know, I learned that. I would say when social media came out, you know, Facebook came out like 15 years ago, 16 years ago now. And, you know, I think there was some, like, cognitive dissonance is like, what should we share on Facebook? Like, should we, like, you know, try to be for professional or like, what are we trying to do? And what is professional? What does that really mean? And then a number of years ago, I just took the trajectory of I'm just going to be myself. I like to party, meaning party, I like to go to raves and festivals and concerts.

I just got back from four days in Mexico. And I like to share that with whoever's interested in seeing it, whether it's clients or the attorneys I work with. or, you know, I share these stories. And this, coming back to being a real person who someone can connect with, for me, that's, that's for me. I, you know, I wouldn't say everybody should or would do that. But my, part of my purpose and living is to have the most amazing experiences that the planet has to offer.

And when I do those things, I want to share them. with everyone around me, whether it's a client professional relationship or not. And coming back to just the authenticity, there are some people are just not going to like, look, I cuss, Bill. There are people that don't like cussing and there are people on here saying, hey, what the hell of what's the matter with this guy? He's online and on a podcast. And, but you know what, Bill, there's a lot of fucking business people who cuss all day every day.

And those are people I connect with. And, you know, unfortunately, I've given up trying to make everybody happy a long time ago. I will say I don't cuss because my daughter is upset and I'll get less grandson time if I cussed for the grandson. So that is the ultimate leverage of my life. And I also would say it's just so interesting because you and I in some ways are similar in some areas and some areas totally different. I would never go to a rave. I went to music events when I was younger. Would never go now.

Would never go to Mexico. I love Mexican food, Mexican culture, Mexican people. Don't like Mexico as a place to go to. But I like watching you do those things because I like to see the passion, the excitement of your life. And you and I are friends. And I think that's the thing you have to get is you have to kind of get over judging other people. if they're your friend, you want to see what they do. And I think that's the part about being, like you say, authentic.

Like I said, I would never go. I saw your pictures in Mexico with some music festival. I would never go with you. In a million years, if you paid me, I wouldn't go. But I enjoyed watching you. And I read a little bit of the post and saw the pictures and looked like fun for you. And, you know, as I'm sitting, you know, waiting for something to happen, I happen to see it, and I'm going to do that.

But again, that's the part is I think we worry too much about what people think, as long as we're authentic. And look, if you're an evil person, you know, I mean, that's a different situation. I don't know, you know, if you're doing something really bad, then, you know,

but I will say, there are realtors who do business with people really bad. I mean, I guess if that's your gig, good luck with that, but be careful who you attract, because, but anyhow, it's a lot of fun.

I do enjoy, I do feel like I probably would consider Henderson, you know, Nevada area, or Las Vegas area, but Henderson in particular, if I was to move. And so I like to keep track through you and keep track of my uncle and such. So I like the question.

And I want to the question of how do I make real estate fun? So like now, you know, I mentioned earlier, it's like now I finally, I don't know the right term, like snapped out of my rest phase of this last year of not prospecting. And because I was able to the systems I put together, a lot of my business was automated. And now I'm excited to come back to work with the skills that I've earned over the last few years to go out and find people in the community who I can help sell real estate and go and enjoy with different people from, you know, I have friends, some great, where is Jack? Shoot, I think he's in Toronto. He's one of the top agents in Toronto. Him and his family and everybody, they're going to, the biggest rave on the planet is in Belgium called Tom.

Tomorrowland. And he's taking 20, 20 people to Tomorrowland for like three weeks. And I'm like, dang, you know what? That costs money to do stuff like that. So I'm excited, you know, with the friends that we both know that do these amazing things in the world and on top of doing fun things with family. Look, it takes money to go to Disneyland, right? You want to take your grandkids and kids. This stuff takes money. So I'm excited again because I started thinking of all the the great experiences that me and the people around me are going to have. Well, yeah, I took my family vacation last year in Florida to very expensive surfside, very expensive restaurants. You take kids out for pizza. It's like a hundred buck dinner for five

people, which to me, I'm old, I guess. It sounds like a lot of money to me. I guess today. It's a lot of money. But whatever, but to take the time off and to be able to do that, that's why we work hard. I think it's important to make sure that you do things that you enjoy along the way. And I just, for those listening, you know, I think there's a lot of lesson here that we want to make sure we right size our business for ourselves. I know Randy, I know a lot of agents, I know personally, who chased after what other people set up as a destination or as a process. And I think the goal is to develop income that you don't have to work for all the time. And I know that today, you know, a third to four percent of my income coming in

monthly is from prior business. I don't do anything to generate. And I want that to get to, you know, it's going to be one day 100% of my income. So I want that number to grow. But that's the goal of this thing, is to build income that happens, leads that come in, processes that generate business without you having to do the work yourself,

and people calling you rather than you having to call the people all the time. So that's the goal. And I think Randy has found some of the secrets towards that, and I know that's what I work on regularly. And Randy, just kind of in closing, I just want to say thank you for sharing really some of the deep insights in your business

and you give us a real look behind the curtain. into Randy Land. Thank you so much for sharing your time today as always. You're welcome. I'm thrilled to be here and look forward to the next time. And so just a quick wrap up, Randy Milmeister, if you want to see his YouTube channel, his website is Clark County NVProbatehelp.com and I, oops, that's a wrong spot. And there's his website. I just searched Randy Milmeister and that popped up. I'll put the link down in the description below. Check out his videos. and like it in session.

You'll see I'm already subscribed. This is Probate Weekly. We do this every Thursday, 4 p.m. Pacific Time. You can go to probate weekly.com, put your email address in. You'll get notified when we go live. If you want to come on the Zoom call and ask questions, and then also you can see the past formats and audio, I'm sorry, the audio formats or past episodes on YouTube.

Love to have you do that as well. If you will get touch with me, I'm Linktree, linkttttr.e slash Bill Gross, all the different programs I'm working on in different ways to reach me and follow me if you're so inclined. if you're so inclined. And then Randy again is at Clark County NV, probate help.com because he's in Nevada.

He's in Clark County, which is where Las Vegas founded. A lot of great probate content there as well. Or you can see him on LinkedIn as well. So again, Randy, Bill Monster, thank you so much for being on the call today. I really appreciate you sharing your insights and the rest of you participated. Thank you, Brian, for commenting.

And maybe we can chat offline sometime and join Stevens. Thank you so much, everybody. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Bill. Thank you.