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Welcome to Probate Weekly. I'm Bill Gross at Bill Gross Probate and social media.
And I get asked often about how do we get started in building my probate business?
I'm really excited to have today a friend, a colleague, a fellow guest at a couple of shows that I've
sit here and watch in the last few years really help himself build his probate business and some related enterprises.
Excited to have today, Stephen Hughes, out of the great state of Utah, hardship real estate.com.
Steven, thank you for joining us today.
Thanks for having a new bill.
Now, I know I met you online on one of the coaching calls.
Give me a kind of a quick background on your career in real estate.
When did you start in real estate?
I started in real estate kind of 2019, 2020.
The story I tell people originally installing real estate signs.
I was around a lot of different real estate agents and brokers.
I wasn't looking to go into real estate.
It kind of happened.
I was very interested in it.
And I tell people, and they sometimes don't believe me,
that I had no idea really what a real estate agent did once,
because I didn't own a house at the time,
never really came across in my life.
But installing those signs, I got very interested.
So I decided to make the shift, because there's some other things in life.
Like, I'd gotten married, and I was supposed to be in the Marine Corps.
I think I've mentioned this to you before to play drums.
And that's how I got started.
but then the great pandemic, whatever we want to call it now, started.
And it's a little rough, but still to be doing well five years later.
So I thought that was the case.
And, you know, my memory was correct on that one.
So in 2019, I first met you, I think, a couple of calls.
And you were like starting out from scratch in this business,
other than doing the science, which is not exactly normally what, you know,
we use called preparation into the business.
But you had a desire in real estate's entrepreneurial.
So how did you get started?
Like, what was the first thing you did after you left putting up signs and got into the actual real estate sales?
What was your first few steps in that transition?
Well, my first brokerage I was at was a coal maker, and it was good for me.
They have the, I think at the time they called it Journey to Mastery.
I'm not sure if it's still the same name.
Essentially, your brand new agents.
You have to do extra hours of coursework within the brokerage.
It's outside of normal continuing education.
Normally, we have to do a 12-hour course as a new agent and a few other things.
Actually, you get the initial sales license.
It was 50 hours is what Colville did.
So I was doing that, was doing a fair amount of coal calling.
I'm around your FISBos, expired, hosting houses like crazy for other listing agents in the office.
And to graduate from their program, you had to have at least four transactions.
It was fun.
I ended up doing the four transactions,
within the first, I want to say five months of having the license,
which supposedly was the fastest of the company in quite some time.
So they were pretty thrilled.
Yeah, and it was the fourth transaction is how I got into mobile homes
because I was told not to do it,
but then I did it and got fascinated and started really obsessing over that.
And eventually I ended up leaving Colewell for a different company.
Because at that company, I had my first, what I would call the senior transition housing transaction.
And that one was a complete accident.
It was through expired prospecting.
I talked to this guy named Ben, and he had tried to sell a couple times.
Now, it was funny because this 2021, why was it house saying?
It was because there were all kinds of issues with trying to move him into assisted living.
He was a veteran.
You know, he'd been in the Korean War and in Vietnam War.
He had a ton of personal property in the home.
it was an aggressive collector.
Sometimes we say, right?
He was an aggressive collector.
And we talked on the phone a few times, and he kept talking about a daughter.
And I made the suggestion.
I said, Ben, I have your daughter's phone number and let me talk to her.
Well, I ended up talking to her, and she was a nurse for Salt Lake County.
And that's what she told me he was wanting to assist living in all these things.
And she was so thrilled that I had called her directly.
I was the first realtor who had called her and hit,
just tried to force her dad into a contract. So she said, hey, I don't even know you. You're hired.
You've proven yourself by calling me directly. Blitzman dad sells blah, blah, blah, time.
And it was pretty funny. We sit there at his kitchen table. And she just says, dad, just sign it.
Just sign everything. So it was kind of trial by fire. I had no idea what the state sale was. I didn't know what VA aid and attendance was. I mean, all these things.
And I started asking people around Utah, basically, if they did this, if anyone had done this type of transition work.
Of course, there's that wonderful NAR designation, the senior real estate specialist.
And that really wasn't very helpful because so much of that isn't relevant to what we do.
And it was in the journey after the transaction, I stumbled across probate because it had been suggested online.
I had to start going to the internet because I literally could find anyone in Utah that was doing.
this and they still don't exist. I keep pushing that because I'm so unique in my business. It's
just not something that brokers or even the investors focus on. I mean, you'll get a probate list
for people mess stuff out to F.Rs, but it's not like what I'm doing. But then I initially got into it,
and then we ended up meeting through the CPE program because I was just trying to learn. Because
again, just no one was doing it. That transaction opened my eyes. I thought there have got to be more people
like Ben, what did I do? What has happened here? And it was funny because so many people I talked to
said the most darkest thing that you shouldn't even do that transaction. Just handed to, you know,
let them just do it on their own. It's too much reliability. It's what led me to leave the company
I was at at the time. And ultimately, I get to wear my own brokerage. You know, and there's ups and downs
and opinions and all that. I have to be careful. That's how I got into it.
A couple of things I want to say there.
For those watching and listening, we do have people who are tuning in live right now on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and around the country.
Shout out to Matthew Price, one of our favorites.
It comes on regularly.
I get asked this question a lot, and I want you to notice a couple things of what Stevens said.
Number one, that probate real estate is really like a mega niche.
It's not a niche.
Within the probate niche, he just described to you.
He found his path to the cheese or his ability.
to help a customer that was out of all the worlds of probate was fairly narrow, right,
in terms of working with a senior, working with a family, getting them placed into a house,
dealing with mobile homes.
And so for all of us there, I think that if we settle for just buying leads and doing mailers
and waiting for the phone to ring, we really haven't worked a niche.
And that's why we probably aren't getting the success we expect because we're not creating value
for customers that they appreciate.
And to the point where Steven said, just sign the papers.
We want you to list the house.
And I think that I get that reaction a lot with the customers I've probably prepared as well.
So I want you to pay attention to that.
Second, notice his relationship with the brokers.
And he probably gives respect to the first one in the training.
And I think that's great.
And that's the role that some of those companies want to play.
I know for me, I was a very experienced agent.
And I had a prior broker.
I was at Century 21, a large franchise in the LA area,
masters of the time.
They've since gone out of business, changed their name.
And the broker would not allow us to broker land because he had had problems with.
He wouldn't allow us to do commercial business.
He would force us to refer it to another agent in the office, not because it was good for me,
because it was good for their business.
And I think that the thing that Stephen did was looked at his business and said,
well, I want to help customers.
And this is just impeding my ability to do that.
And I think our broker's job is to help us build our business or we've outgrown them
because our goal is to help our customers not fit with the parameters.
of the broker's business, that's an employee, that's not a business person. So two points that
I hope we're paying attention along the way. So I notice your focus in terms of the name
here in our chat today and your website is hardship real estate. So describe what does
hardship, how does that mean to you and how does that establish your brand and your relationship
with prospective customers? Yeah. So what I tell people is this. Sometimes it's funny,
there's some people in the industry that think, oh, you're just going to get the worst clients
or they think automatically it means bankruptcy, short sales, brief foreclosures, that sort of thing.
But what's funny is anytime I have a vendor booth or I talk to a new person, people are very
curious.
They automatically ask Bill, what does that mean?
They never assume.
And what I tell people is, you know, I named it that because the transactions I do are way complex.
They're very complex and they are harder transactions.
Maybe there's a short sale involved, but that's not something I really focus on.
These are highly specialized transactions, you know, because I do the mobile homes with
without land.
There's so many extra steps compared to your what I call general real estate.
We're talking in the residential world.
I'm not even talking about commercial.
And then you have what I'm doing where there are so many steps.
You know, it's funny you talked about, well, I said it in my story where they signed the
paperwork.
I had a listing appointment today.
And what's funny is I found out who her attorney was.
she mentioned to me on the phone.
And it's like, hey, I know him.
So I actually called him and said, hey, I helped you with this.
Could you do me a solid and give her a call?
Oh, I need to call her anyways.
She signed everything, even though she had her nephew who was going to do it for 1%,
and I still got the full commission.
It's because I offer way more in terms of service.
And she saw that because it's the trust.
But that's what the word means is it's, they're harder transactions than your typical
general real estate agent is what I say.
It's highly specialized.
The thing I like about you, I don't think I ever said this too, but so we'll do it now publicly.
You hit on the nail the attitude of somebody who is going to be successful in this niche, which is.
Most realtors, I don't know if you get these phone calls, I get phone calls regularly from agents saying, well, what's the easiest way to build a probate business?
What's the easiest way to get listings?
And I say, I have no idea because I'm not looking for the easy.
easiest way. The opposite, I think that the more problems people have, the more opportunity I have
to solve problems, I get paid to solve other people's problems. So I'm not looking for easy.
I'm not a masochist, and I don't want to work. I only work a certain number of hours. I've very
committed to my family and my community and other things. But I don't look for the easy way. I look
for the way that's going to create value for my customer. And that often means doing things other people
don't want to do so that people want to work with me and some other people. And I think you hit
that for the very beginning. I don't know if that's a cultural thing from where you live or how you're
raised or what. Let me ask you, how did you get into the concept of focusing on the customer's
needs rather than just what's the fastest way to make a commission dollar?
You know, I think it's just because it's multiple things. My wife says I'm a type A personality
or red personality. I think there's like books on this.
For me, it really bothered me, having gone through the course and watched a bunch of videos,
I really believed in what a real estate agent and realtor is supposed to be.
But then I'd see fellow professionals.
And I want to be careful here because I don't want to come off as too negative because I have a tendency to do that.
Where it really was just about a quick transaction, let me just do a contract and then I get, you know, $10,000 and $15,000.
I didn't like the fact that city agents would either do something that was outside their willhouse
and they had no idea what they were doing and they would just lie to clients
or you have clients that constantly complain, what did I pay for?
I feel like they never, I never get asked that question.
I'm like, why would I pay you?
And part of that comes from my frustrations as a consumer and it's outside of real estate.
It's like I said recently, you go.
to how many businesses and if there's an issue, they do gaslight you. And it's always your fault
as a customer. I tell new clients every time, look, if they're a problem, I really want you to
call me and talk about it. And if I made a mistake, I am going to fix it. And I said, no business
does that anymore. People think that's something that, oh, every business does that. No, they really
don't. You are always wrong with the customer nowadays. So a lot of this personal frustration,
but it's also, if I was thinking as a businessman and entrepreneurially,
I got tired of being lumped in with all these other agents that aren't very good.
And even investors, because I'm trying to break with that.
And I just keep thinking, what makes me different?
I just keep, you know, evolving and changing things and adding things.
It seemed, you know, I came up through the Mike Ferry system,
which is great training.
But one of the wrong attitudes I think that come out of that is,
if I'm not on the phone generating a new listing, I'm wasting my time.
And you see so many real estate agents who almost hide their phone number, hide their email.
And I will regularly say to people, look, you can call me time you want.
My phone number is everywhere.
My email is everywhere.
I don't always answer the phone, right?
I'm doing this podcast.
My phone's not a dude or disturbed.
But I return my phone calls every day within the same day.
And I'll get back to you.
And if you're a customer, I would say to them, I have nothing else more important in the
world than to make you happy. That's my business. If you're not happy, nothing works. If you're
happy, everything works. So I don't want you to hesitate to call me. If you don't understand something,
it's because I didn't explain it or anticipate. It's not your job to understand things. It's my
job to help you educate you and guide you and show you so that you understand things. And I think
that's the attitude. You know, when you and I started both, I think you were with Chad Corbett
through the pro master program.
That's what separated his training from everything else I'd ever done.
It was the first time in real estate that I was shown a path
that if I just focused on this, creating value for customers,
the rest takes care of itself.
And if I don't, the business is miserable.
And that's been my experience on both sides, the good and the bad.
And when I'm miserable is because I focus on, gee, what value am I not creating?
So let's talk just real quick.
Let me do some housekeeping, kind of just share people where we are,
and then hopefully we'll get some questions from our audience.
This is probateweekly.com.
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You're going to see that.
Continue the conversation.
on our Facebook group, Probate Weekly.
We're at 3,800 members and growing.
I have agents on here who put referrals for listings or sales in other states,
looking for attorneys in other states,
and also post your probate-related content here.
I'd love to help you build your business.
I think currently Robbins has built his business
by putting his YouTube in our channel, which is great.
I'm glad to help, but you can just see how many people see his YouTube's by being in our post.
I put my own content there as well, obviously.
And then what else?
Who else is in here?
Courtney is really,
oh, Kevin Bemel, one of our friends also.
It has a Trust and Estates Weekly Podcast.
So put your content in there.
We'd love to have you promote it and make that a source of your success as well.
Typically, I do an email mastermind class on,
because I think this is the foundation of marketing.
It's only $97.
And so it's very inexpensive.
I do a one hour, small group,
and then we do four 30-minute follow-up sessions.
The idea is to end up by doubling your contacts,
doubling your frequency of email,
doubling your reach,
or opening and then doubling your platform.
So we'll help you with that if you're interested.
Our guest today is Stephen Hughes from Harship Real Estate,
hardship real estate.com.
And Stevens, I love this,
specializing of the hardest situations,
99% of real estate professionals wouldn't touch.
I love that.
Now, I'd like to think I'm in the 1%
and I think you're right.
99% people don't want to do what we do.
But my guess is you've got some stuff that even I don't do.
And then he also works mobile homes and senior housing and probate,
And then divorce as well.
And you and I talked a little bit about divorce.
I think being a married man, the last thing I'm going to do is be around more divorce situations.
We can talk about that a little bit.
And the last thing I can see Stephen as well is YouTube channels at Stephen Hughes hyphen hardship pro.
And we'll put the link in the description as well.
And so you can see him interviewing people and talking about different businesses and real estate and such.
So again, thank you, Stephen, for being on our call today.
Okay, let me take that off.
Okay.
So let's go back to some topics here.
Let's talk a bit about mobile homes.
Are mobile homes, I know you're in Utah.
Are they more common in Utah, or is it just you made the decision to focus on them?
Or how did you end up doing mobile homes?
Mobile homes, back from my very first company, it was the fourth transaction in that program I was in, Journey and Mastery.
And I was, you know, doing the cold calling thing, calling Fisvros, and I called a mobile home in a senior community.
And of course, most of the mobile homes in the Salt Lake Valley are without land.
Our MLS allows us to sell mobile homes without land.
Ends up they were mobile home dealer flippers, you know, what they call Mids,
a little investor dealers.
They could not get this thing sold.
I went there and looked at it and I don't know what I said, but they asked me directly,
have you told them all before?
I said, nope, but I'm going to figure out how to do it.
They chuckled and said, okay, we'll hire you.
And what's funny is I've almost 20 transactions with them at this point now.
Totally stumbled through that.
And again, at the time, the company was not a fan of it.
They're like, well, this is, you know, this is stigma.
It's trashy and all these things.
And I just started to develop a system because no one in the state really specialized in it.
There was kind of one guy, but he just mostly listed in one community.
I got to a point where now I am the go-to person for mobile homes in the state of Utah.
The attorney legal hotline for Utah Association Realtors, they refer people out to me because the attorneys don't know anything about mobiles.
They'll say we'll call Stephen Hughes. It's very interesting. I continue to do it because I specialize in it.
And because out of the 18,000 realtors along the Wasatch Front, Salt Lake Valley, however you want to say it, there's only a specialization.
specialize in it out of 18,000. And I'm friends with the other three people. I hope that'll happen
eventually in the senior transit house and probate area, but it hasn't yet. I think it'll take some time.
It's interesting. I know there are people who look down on, and we talk about the business,
and they'll say, well, I don't really do probates in South LA where there's, you know, local family and
ghettos and squatters and trash and gangs and stuff. And I say, that sounds like my inventory. But, you know,
what, when the extra closes, that money wires my account and deposits, you know, and at the same time,
I have a customer who I helped in many cases. My customer is living in a nursing home. That's all
the money in the world to them. Their mother left in that money, their spouse left in that money.
So I'm not at all ashamed. I don't care how messed up the property is personally. And when people
look down their nose of this stuff, it's a business at the end of the day. It's not about selling
Gucci handbag. I would sell a second, I would sell a reused handbags as the handbag business,
as long as there's a margin in it. And more importantly, as long as the customer's happy with
what they bought. I think that's what we're doing is helping people in some difficult situations.
So no stigma. So as far as mobile homes, is that related to probate?
Or those just two separate pieces of the puzzle that you're working?
You know, there's overlap. It's really funny. You mention it. So a couple of things here.
Obviously, for seniors, they still, for whatever,
and think a 50 plus mobile home community is this great downsizing option.
So that actually helps me some with senior transition housing.
It comes up a lot.
There's over there.
I have done a couple of probate deals that were mobile homes.
It's happened.
A couple bankruptcies evictions, sort of.
So I've rubbed shoulders with a couple of attorneys because of it.
There's overlap, unfortunately, because of the lack of $505 plus communities that we experience here,
not much like the rest of the country.
So the mobile home thing has changed somewhat for me.
The economics changed so much here in the past year
that outside of Salt Lake County,
mobile homes in parks where you pay a lot rent,
that market did crash.
I can say that confidently because it's not just that I'm the number one guy.
And I don't say that like just to boast.
It is a fact.
But I'm also the repo manager for Vanderbilt Mortgage.
So if they do repos, I'm in charge of that.
And then I'm technically a mobile home.
appraiser for Datacom. So I know
the space really well.
Every mid, that mobile home
investor dealer has gone out of business. Even people
that were doing it for almost 20 years in parks.
They're done. They're out of business.
But still I'm doing it
because people are trying to sell, move out, and
there's different strategies to get them to
try to get real property.
One of the things that we've discovered lately
and I didn't realize this
until the market shift and I started doing research
is in a lot of rural
areas of Utah. You have manufactured
mobile homes that are on land.
So they're mobiles with land.
In Utah, you are not
required to have the affidavit for the
affidation of land. And unfortunately,
people do not know
how to apply that to title.
So all of a sudden, they go to sell this
with their agent or by themselves,
most of the time's an agent in the rural areas,
almost all the time.
And they can't get financing anywhere.
People say, oh, it's impossible to get financing.
It can only be cash. Well, with the
current economic situation, it's not as
likely to sell.
Right.
So one of the big things I'm doing now with mobiles with land is reaching out to those people
and getting to sell and it sounds like, oh, you have a title problem.
The title company and I know how to do this.
Now some people are like, oh, can you tell me what to do is if you hire me?
And then some people think that's ugly, but I have learned the hard way you can only
help people after they hire you.
Yes.
I've gotten back any time.
I'm going to help beforehand.
It's like I would love to help you, but you have to retain my service.
Right. Well, and I get that too. You know, I get both the realtors and families who call me up and ask you questions. I'll get to a point and say, listen, I'm glad to go further than that. But, you know, I wouldn't help a lot for free. But this is kind of the limit of what I do. And I'm glad to do it. Once I'm your agent, we sign a contract. And that protects me also in terms of information I give you. And as, as well as, you know, I've had customers who would try to do on their own and call me back six months.
later stuck in the mud, well, now they have a problem and can I help them with it?
I'd say, well, no, that's what, that's because you did the A, B, and C, and you didn't do D, E, and F,
and as a result, you have a problem.
And, you know, I don't deal with those problems.
I avoid them by, you know, bringing in somebody to help me to do certain things.
And so I think that that's, that it's one of those, that's a difficult conversation to
have with people.
No, I can't help you anymore for free.
I'd love to help you as your agent.
And some people respect, appreciate that, and there are the people who don't.
And, you know, I know like you, I want to help everybody.
And the other thing I do is I say, I do the podcast for free.
You can come on and ask questions.
And I'll answer them in a group setting and it's recorded and help a bunch of people.
I just don't want to have individual one-on-one coaching sessions with non-clients.
Because then, number one, I'm not going to pay.
Number two, other customers aren't being helped either.
And so it's one of those things where you have to draw the long.
mind is very difficult and I feel your frustration because you want to help people and you you
really want them to say oh okay great I'll hire you and and many do and we appreciate those
and then there are a few that don't and they're just knuckleheads I don't know what to say they want
to do it on their own and you know they they deserve you know I remember in the old days I used to
be in the mortgage business and I used to always send those borrowers who wanted to negotiate
everything for free I had a competitor I didn't like and I'd always refer them to him
And the competitor was always thank you for the referrals.
And I'm thinking, if you only knew, I'm just trying to get rid of these people.
That wasn't such a good thing to do.
I don't feel so good about that.
No, they say it out loud.
Okay, so that's mobile homes.
Let's talk about senior transition housing and probate.
So obviously, and again, I think the thing for everybody in this call is the word you use also,
which is a great word, I use a lot, overlap.
That the point of probate is, you know, people have different problems,
and some involve title and some involve this and some of all that,
and the overlap that brings you into different areas.
Let's talk about the senior housing transition and how that overlaps with probate.
So are you getting involved when people is too late?
Are you getting involved to help them do estate planning so that they move in
and set up the property properly?
How do you get involved in that process?
Yeah, so the senior transition housing, I mean, basically going to say my elevator pitch to people
because I never say I'm a senior real estate specialist.
It's one of the worst things you can say.
I never just say probate because some people don't know.
I tell people, oh, I specialize in mobile homes of all types in senior transition housing.
And people are like, oh, senior transition housing.
I see senior transition housing is where a senior has to sell their home, whether it's on the market or off the market.
They have to move into assisted living or memory care or any other such community.
Or they have unfortunately passed away or say probate or trust.
sale. That's what we do. So you tell it all together. I put it all together. I still put the
word in probate on the website just because of SEO, if I'm going to be honest. But I think it's all
related because I've had one situation where they moved someone into assisted living, started selling
the home and he passed away while we were in the middle of transaction. So then it became,
it was luckily there was a trust set up, but it became like a trust sale. So there's
overlap there. And I think sometimes there's assets they keep moving to those communities.
But when you talk about estate planning wills, it's one of the things I'm pushing now and a lot of
my marketing is. I do direct mail, of course, with just any other general client, I push them
to get a will, and then I will refer them to an attorney. But I tell the attorney, you know,
it's a job to basically upsell them. This is your show. I just did this with a client this week.
They bought a house. I'm home there. They came to me through my SOI, got them through everything. And I said, you know, you just bought this house. You've got a little girl who's not turned to. You really need to set this stuff up because I know it sounds morbid, but what if you are both in a car wreck and pass away? You've got to have the stuff set up. And it's true. It's not because I'm trying to scare them, but I've seen it. I mean, the closing I had today was with an attorney. He was PR.
personal representative because the woman who was in the house, she passed away to no will,
no trust. Her husband had been deceased for six years for no age. And so it's like,
and so whatever money is left is just going to go to the state. And it's so sad. I tell people,
it's like, wouldn't she rather her have left it to her church or her friends or, you know,
a charity or something? But no, it's just going to go to the same. Something. And you're in Utah.
Imagine I'm in California. Imagine how messed up that is.
Yeah, so it's a big part of my business now.
And it's funny, they talk about that saying the probate mastery,
but I never could figure out how to do it.
But now, like I've experienced, it's just you talk to people,
you put it in all your marketing.
It's one of my big marketing pieces now because here's what I know.
It's such a move of good will to say, do you need a will?
I will set up a free compensation with the attorney.
I sit there with the attorney.
And, oh, my gosh, the attorney loves me.
for it. I mean, this attorney I refer to you. He used six other realtors and investors before me,
and I'm the only one who's ever referred something to him, ever. It's a big deal. It helped me a lot.
But I didn't just to get more business from him. It's a plus. But it's, and this is where it's a
hard thing to teach people. We talk a lot about having your own motivation and having a heart and things.
I don't think you just teach someone, hey, go into business and care about people. I think for me, at least,
I had to have some experiences to feel that.
I had to have experiences.
I couldn't just go and do it because I just was told to do it by a coaching program.
I had to see it.
And I'm like, no, I know what it's like.
You know, it's the same with the reason mom needs to get out of this house because they're stairs.
Because, you know, I had one situation where she wouldn't sell.
She tripped, fell, hit her head on an auction bank, and they didn't fit for three days.
So I've just seen stuff.
You know?
It changes you.
It changes you.
Yeah, I mean, I haven't got through that,
but I know in my case,
my father-in-law,
blessed memory, was sick in the hospital.
They had an estate plan.
This was back years.
But they did it in Florida.
They didn't do it in California.
It didn't cover certain medical permissions
so that his wife, my mother-in-law,
couldn't get certain things done as efficiently.
And in those moments, like,
even though you might say it's not a big deal,
she took an extra couple of days,
but in those moments, it's everything emotionally.
And watching even that,
watching, you know,
some of other personal situations along the way.
And I have, you know,
the two biggest clients in my career
were real estate investors who passed
with substantial portfolios
with children,
no estate plan,
nothing, nothing.
One with 500,
pieces of land in Texas and about 20 properties in California and one with about 20 properties
in California plus stocks, bond securities and a property management firm, nothing. And the thing is,
it's so hard to get a hold of these businesses and get the banks change just to keep things
moving and paying the bills so you lose things in foreclosure. And imagine you're grieving and
worried about losing your house because you can't get the bank account that's in the name of the
decedent into somebody else's name. So I think for everybody to call, these are real things either
talk to your customers, talk to your friends' family, you know, find stories about just, in fact, just this week, famously here in L.A., Jay Leno put his wife in a conservatorship.
Now, they've been married, I think, 46 years.
So if you go back in time, they didn't plan out an estate plan.
She's not competent mentally due to age.
And he had had to go to court to get control of her, to get a conservorship put in place for her.
So these are things that they happen.
and they're difficult, they're painful, they're public, which nobody really wants that.
And so I think it's really good if you to point out we all need to kind of pay attention to those
stories because that's what gives us the ability to help people solve the problem going forward.
And that's fantastic.
So also on your website you have on here divorce.
Now you guys talk about this a little bit.
We're both married, right?
You've been married for how long?
I got married in 2019, so, you know, it'll be our final anniversary.
She's still breaking you weight, it sounds like.
Oh, probably, yeah, probably.
I've been married since 1986, so that's what, 30, coming up for 38 years, 3, 7 years.
And for me, now, so do you do divorce, well-says that become part of your business?
There's some overlap there, or is that just on your website and you're fishing for it?
Yeah, so I kind of feel almost as if I'm backtracking in some ways from our last call in any
even recently. The senior transition space, I've gotten into a couple other new things there.
Like you keep talking about how this is, you know, huge, which with your micro niches.
Well, those areas just keep growing and growing. I have felt the pressure of divorce.
I'm actually in a transaction now where there's overlap. He has Alzheimer's. They've been
divorced for six years, but there's an ugly attorney on one side. And I don't know what's
going to happen. The house is going to foreclosure. A roof is caved in because of one.
damage, all kinds of things. That situation plus some of the reverse moral stuff you and I've
talked about, I said, you know, I really don't have the time to market for it. I don't really like
it because it does affect me. But the other thing, and I've been saying this lately, and this is
going to go against some of the stuff that's taught online, and I don't know if you'll agree. I don't
feel like the value proposition as a divorce real estate expert is nowhere is nowhere is equal.
sorry, how do I say this?
What you offer when you were specializing in divorce is not as deep as the senior transition housing.
Because in divorce, basically, you're limited by whatever the decree is.
If there's a TRO restraining orders, you have to do that, and you record conversations.
That's about it.
And you have to have the ability to testify in court if it has litigation.
But I don't feel that is anywhere as deep as complex as complex as.
as like probate or, you know, the senior transition housing.
So I have some, you know, reservations there.
Additionally, divorce is on the decline.
More attorneys I talk to are getting out of it or they're mixing in state planning
and probate.
So there's a business decision.
However, what they call silver divorces, knowing how to do it is relevant.
Because unfortunately, divorce is a reality in senior transition housing.
And it comes up more often than you think.
I mean, I'd say almost every other transaction that's somewhere in the history or that's what's going now.
You just have to know it.
Kind of like I say with, you know, brief foreclosure, short sales with the changing market, you probably just need to know it.
Even if you're focused, you just have to.
Yeah.
Because it overlaps.
It gets into that old up.
You know, a few things you say that are right on.
What is it's a fascinating mathematical reality.
The number of divorces is declining dramatically in America.
it's because less people getting married,
but the percentage of divorces continues to increase,
which then means that older couples are more likely to get divorced
post-50 years old, post-6 years than ever before.
So more and more, you're getting couples who are getting divorced
to 50s, 60, 70s, that never happened in America 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.
That's a new phenomenon.
So there's less divorces, but they are increasing in percentage terms,
and that overlap is real in the probate space or in the estate planning space or in the senior housing space.
And so I think you're right on.
It's an area to know and learn about it.
And I also agree with you that it's very hard.
I know these companies sell this as a niche to market.
And I disagree.
I just don't think you know I spoke about the fact we're both married that the last thing I want to do is add more customers going through divorce.
Right.
I have all kinds of family friends who are getting divorced.
It is one of the traumas of being married today, one of the most difficult parts of being married in my experience.
The harsh part the last five, ten years is having our friends around us divorce and how nasty people get and try to keep that friendship and be of service to those people, but keep that toxicity out of my marriage.
Very challenging to do.
And if you can do that, congratulations.
You're a better, stronger person than I am.
And I think the other part you hit it right in the head, which is it's hard to find the value you create for your customer.
So you're just a better postcard sender with divorce postcards and other postcards.
I'm really good, I think, at negotiating and working with multiple attorneys in a case,
but that's just not enough to create value that I see.
And so I just don't see how do you create a experience for customer where they're going to say,
I want you to help me, certainly a divorcing spouse who needs handholding,
somebody to trust, I'm trustworthy, but that's hardly a compelling.
value proposition, I think, in real estate.
So I'm with you 100%.
I think it's important to know and learn the areas.
But, man, I would not want to be, I don't need any more divorces.
I have a couple I'd like to get rid of.
Well, and what's crazy is even though you tried to say you're a neutral third party,
don't tell me, don't tell me.
Oh, they just want to keep talking about it.
And because they're talking about it, they're going to assign what team you're on.
even if you don't comment then it's a well you don't care about me you don't believe that you think that's a good thing
I shouldn't do a voice but it's just it's a no end situation I could agree more you know I think that
you one of the challenges we have my wife and I is we you know we try to be you know keep our friendships
to divorce it's been one of the one of the you know strategies we've got together to say listen
And just because they're getting divorced doesn't mean we have to pick sides.
Now, there's, well, to be honest, in my life, I don't think we've ever had one that was
clearly in the wrong.
It's just, you know, marriage is difficult, and they whatever reason, grow apart.
And so we don't want to hate on the wife or hate on the husband because they're getting divorced.
And yet when they talk to you, they want you to be on their side.
Like you say, pick a team.
And I would say, look, your ex-wife was a good friend of mine for 10, 20 years.
She's still a good friend of my wives.
And, you know, you can vent to me, but I'm not going to get into the game.
of jumping on board and putting her down because it just it doesn't help me, doesn't help you,
doesn't help her.
As a real estate agent, it's difficult because the customer wants you to be on their side.
They want you to be, you know, especially in divorce lawsuit.
They really want you to be part of, you know, the attorney team and beat up on the ex-spouse.
And it's just toxic.
I just don't want to get involved in that.
But anyhow, okay, so there's that.
So let's move on to just kind of general business, your real estate.
state broker, you're an investor, you're not entrepreneur. Obviously, there's a turbulent times in
real estate. You know, our overall markets down 30%. My business is about the same last year, maybe
a little more in a couple of areas. So I would say net up a few percentage points, not as much
I wanted. Where do you see the market in 2024 and with all the drama of an election,
of possible wars and the NER lawsuit, where do you see as an entrepreneur, how you'd
kind of assessing the market and what precautions or changes are you making in terms of your business
to accommodate that?
Yeah, you know, there's a couple of things there.
In terms of my business, I have felt my business continue to grow.
Maybe it's because the times are hard or I've gotten smarter.
There are some things that I just keep figuring out that are really working for me.
And it seemed like I'm somewhat impervious to the problem of the market.
Because in the end, people still sell real estate.
I'm not having the hard times other people are.
I get so many things really bad for realtors.
I get the lenders that call me and say that.
And I say, well, not for me.
That's probably what you're calling me, right?
And it's a little insulting because I'm like, you know,
right now along the was that's front out of the 18,000 agents,
in terms of total number of transactions, I'm number nine.
Wow.
For year to date.
And last year, I finished, you know, somewhere around there.
And I want to keep those numbers.
So I push, push, push.
And there's a lot I have going on in terms of the marketing and things within these niches.
And it's, I mean, it's important for me to have an appointment every day and some other things.
In terms of the general real estate market and the NAR lawsuit, the NAR stuff does not affect me because it just makes us commercial agents or people in Australia.
I think in the end, it's going to get out of the make a lot of people who are.
part-timers and inexperienced to finally leave business.
We have way too many of those people in Utah, just like anywhere else.
I need those people out of the business.
They give me a bad name.
You much out harder.
It makes it very difficult.
I think in terms of real estate and economics, some of that is outside my pay grade.
I think things are going to get harder before they get easier for Americans.
I do think the war is happening.
I imagine in the next couple of days, based on what I'm reading.
I was also in the military, not just for music, but even like I was going to be an officer and other kinds of things.
There's two different times in my life for that.
So I follow for wars very, very closely.
It's kind of, I mean, it's a hobby or obsession of mind.
And I'm fairly sure we will, but at war.
And it won't be just like Afghanistan and Iraq.
This is going to be a very big deal that we haven't experienced in decades.
And that will affect our economy and ways that people have imagined.
So for me, I always try to pay down debt.
I try to pay things in bulk or I try to combine things.
I mean, it's like I'm making good money.
I'm about to change my phone plan to bundle it with my internet plan to save like 30 bucks a month.
And some people laugh at that stuff.
I still drive a car that's been two wrecks.
People again, like, why don't you buy a new car?
It's like, well, because I don't want to spend the money on that right now because I don't know what's going to happen in six months.
A little paranoid, you know, and it makes it hard because saying it out,
allow people can give you weird looks and stares.
I think for people in the business,
it's time to commit to be a full-time professional or get out.
And I really mean that on the investor side and on the agent's side,
commit to being a full professional or get out.
And that's not because I'm afraid of competition.
I don't think it's good for your family.
Like you either have to do this full-time
or you have to go get another job to help your family and yourself.
And I mean, that's just pure economics.
I mean, that I hope that interests your question.
Yeah.
No, thanks for sharing that.
You know, I don't know that I agree with your intents of the eminence of war,
but certainly it feels like at any moment,
I feel like the rubber bands pulled very tight,
and whether it breaks next week or next month or next year or two,
it definitely feels like it's going to break and it's going to be ugly.
It's going to be more like my mother described the depression
than what we went through in 2008, 2009.
And I couldn't agree more.
And so, yeah, I think if you're making good money, I have no debt.
I have my car is a paid for blank.
We have two paid for blanks.
And, you know, I bought a Tesla.
I bought it through my stock plan.
I bought more, enough stock to buy Tesla.
And I make good money on the stock because I love to drive a Tesla,
but I don't want the money tied up in a car.
I want the money making money for me.
And I work hard and provide for my family.
My family depends on me.
My community depends on me.
And I believe, just like the COVID was more emotional,
there were going to be people who need us help financially.
And I want to be the person that, a person that can help and do all that.
So I think financial prudence, if you're worried about the market,
then do something about it.
Cut costs, make more money, invest your money, get some value for it.
And I'm big on saving money too.
I don't, we don't have any streaming services.
We, I mean, I can go through all the things like,
it's funny where I live I live a block for a major boulevard in west Los Angeles so we live there
because it's a Jewish community where we can walk to synagogue so it's kind of a whole
Jewish community of in you know a tear-down lot is sells about two million dollars in my
neighborhood so it's a nice neighborhood but there are a lot of people like us who you know can
barely stay in it and we're here and we're not going anywhere but we're not buying a new house here
we're here 25 years but the workers who work at Pico Boulevard I get the dry cleaners
the workers of directors all drive nice to cars with me.
Like the housekeeper who my wife has a housekeeper come once a week to help clean the house,
she always buys a drink of Starbucks.
I make my own coffee.
I mean, could I buy a Starbucks?
Of course I could.
But, you know, I think that for those real estate agencies, if you're really worried about the market,
or if you're really feeling pain, this is the time to tighten up and have some cash on hand.
It's going to go, it's going to be a value.
Cash, gold, whatever, Bitcoin, whatever you believe in, real estate.
this is the time to take advantage of the opportunity rather than just cry about what might happen to be scared.
So I appreciate your sharing that, Stephen.
And like I said, I don't know if I agree with your prediction as far as the imminence of war,
but it definitely feels like something bad is about to happen.
And it, you know, at 65 maybe my sense of soon is a year or two because time goes really quickly.
If you're not doing something, time moves really fast.
So, okay, so that all said, we're just.
do you plan to be with your business, let's say, over the next five years, or do you have a plan in
place that with some kind of future goals? You know, it's funny. I have a pretty big goal in the next
three years to have 10 rental units that are, you know, that's, for me, that's a big deal. And then,
of course, there's income goals and there's transaction goals. I'm not as moated. I'm surprised by
this. And I think this is what helps me.
I'm more motivated by a number of transactions than say by GCI or, you know, like, oh, I make a million dollars, two million.
It's more about the number of transactions.
That motivates me way more.
So last year, I did somewhere in the 60s, I think.
I can't remember.
I have to looking up because now, like this year, I'm close to 21.
And I want to get to a point about 75 or 80.
I need an assistant at some point.
I don't want really any other agents underneath me.
Maybe one who's Spanish speaking, maybe, but even then I want a, and I don't want a T.C.
I have an opinion.
No.
No, I want an administrative assistant.
I think there's a difference.
They may do some T's a task, but at least out here, the T.C. model and laws and the brokerages, it's very odd.
They have to have a real estate license.
It has to be at your brokerage.
And so that makes it difficult for me.
Additionally, yeah, our division is very strict about it.
They can only, I mean, they really are paper pusher.
Like they can't fill out context.
Let's just make sure if we sent the title here and there.
The problem is I've had to in the past and I had to fire both of them because I always had to double check them.
It was, what did I pay $6,700 for?
So I'd rather have an administrative assistant who can do other things I need done plus that.
Sure.
you know that i'm going to train specifically from my business because again i'm not a generalist
so yeah the 10 units um of course i want to finish paying off my house have about 75 transactions a
year which i'll probably i might i think i'm going to do that this year so maybe i'll push to 100 i don't
know um i feel satisfied with 75 or 80 i feel very happy with that uh because for me again i'm not
motivated by make a million make a million and i have to pay more taxes so i'd rather figure
out a certain range and how to use that money properly. I think the other big things I really want
to be known primarily for the senior transition housing. I am trying to create a probate services
business. I mean, we're going to do the website. It's essentially all the stuff I'm doing now,
except we'll offer hard money to estates for bills and such, because it's a big problem.
Nice. And we'll have, I want to put an attorney directory on it and a few other things. I do own the
estate sale company, which helps me.
me get leads and that's part of the all-a-cart business where we do these sales and say liquidation
clean out so the home then move them so there's there's things like that that are these complementary
businesses as call it that will help to build out the senior business that takes time and i want that
to be so ingrained in the culture here and oh you have to call company they're the ones that do it
that's those are my goals that's what i see the business going and what i want
It's so interesting because we deal with the same issues maybe from different angles, right?
I have a TC.
I've had TC nonstop, but just to do the PC paperwork, and I'm fine with the limited model.
I have eight virtual assistants, no employees.
I am never going to hire an employee again.
Now I'm in California.
It's a little different here than other places.
I have 47 agents in my downline, but I don't have any agents that work for me.
They're just colleagues at the company, and I help them and help them build
of business, but I'm with you when focusing my attention on my time. And then the peripheral
services, it's interesting. You talk about the same things I focus on and we're taking maybe a little
different strategy. Estate sales. I work with vendors, third party. You own yours. Interesting.
Lending to estates, I do, I'm very involved in that business. I don't know if you follow me,
but I had a class on that and I have my own probate advancement. Very involved in. Maybe you should
talk about that offline sometimes, but you should just kind of share what you're doing what I'm doing.
think what you're doing the same thing I am, which is you have a customer with any one of 10
problems and they all have to be solved somehow. It doesn't mean you have to do them all,
or maybe you do do them all. And I think those are things like any business, do you do it in
house? Do you broker it outside? Do you refer it out? How do you handle it? And I think those are,
to me, that shows me your focus is really on the customer as opposed to just cold calling a list
of probate leads and trying to sell the most of the house with you. I think, again, to go back
that same premise, this is about being customer focused and service and value, not just
chasing leads.
Yeah.
Let me ask you this.
I'm going to make some assumptions, but rather than to do that, how much time do you spend
following up on leads of people you've talked to?
And how much do you really spend on people kind of coming to you or coming back to you
after you're making your initial presentation?
Send that last part of the question again, I'm not sure I understood.
How much time do you spend following up on leads?
You talk to somebody and have to call them back every 30 days or 60 days?
versus you reach out to people and then they come back to you at some point in time of the future.
Gotcha.
You know, it's the, I started off when I first got into real estate doing the dialer and all that.
I still make some calls, but it's not, it's not what I do.
Honestly, maybe I'm mean for this.
I pretty much just tell people how it is.
Or if I go out to their house, I come, hey, I'm there to do the presentation, I'll tell you.
But I bring the paperwork and you basically,
either agree to do it or we don't. I'm not going to spend all this time follow up. I have
clients and businesses that I have to build out. I don't have time for that. I mean, I might follow
up with someone for, you know, maybe a month or sometimes you follow up because there are
circumstances. So I don't really feel like it's following as much as checking in. But if you're
talking about like the old, the traditional sales thing of, yeah, I had a follow up eight to 12
times to get them to convert. There's like some Grant Cardone stuff, which I like and I agree with.
I don't do it because I don't have the time. And honestly, I'm kind of, my energy's past that.
I know. I'm just past it because it's like I know there literally is no one else who is going to do what I do.
So it's like if you want to go work with cousin Tiffany, go ahead. But I've gotten calls.
It's what you're going to ask. I've gotten calls. Stephen, we work with cousin Tiffany.
Blah, blah, blah. Do you have a paper work with her?
Yes. Well, you know, unfortunately, I can talk to you about it because you retained her as your agent.
I had that with a guy the other day. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know what she's doing. Well,
once the contract expires, or if you choose to cancel and fire her, please give me a call.
But as of now, I just can't help you. They made their bed. But it doesn't happen all the time. It happens.
I want to work with people who want to work with me. Now, sometimes I get referrals from attorneys who want to work
me, but their clients are just knuckleheads. I actually have two right now. One, I listed,
we have an offer full price, ready to go, and I just can't get her to sign the offer. And I know
that at some point we have to close the escrow. There's a lot more work to do. She's just
too lazy, inefficient, unproductive, crazy. I have another one where the guy, I sent him a listing
package, a CMA, and he insists on me meeting with him, a person, which I really, really really
even do anymore. And I agreed to because it's a great attorney. The customer
counseled the appointment an hour beforehand, told the attorney my commission was too high,
which was 5% pretty common in my market, not higher than average. People do six and seven
on probate. But he's never to my phone call. I've called it because of the attorney,
I've called him 30 times, text and email. And the attorney recently said, you know, have you
talked to him? No, he's never true my phone call. I don't do that for the consumer. I do
attorney to say, I'll kill for you. If you're my attorney, I'll do what I can to help you out.
But the end of the day, as I said to him, you need to find another agent. He doesn't want to work with me.
And that's okay. I can't make him want to work with me. And that's his mistake. And the attorney
knows it. In fact, that's why the attorney keeps coming back to me. I'm trying to get rid of the deal.
He keeps bringing him back because he, the attorney knows I'll carry his water for the deal and the other
agent doesn't know what he's doing. But that that's what it is. Well, look, Stephen, obviously,
You might talk quite a bit, and we could talk for hours here, but we're coming up the end of the hours.
So let me just first say, I really appreciate your sharing throughout our relationship in the last five years,
your path, your growth, your success, your setbacks.
And I think sharing as well those helps people understand this is not a straight path towards growth.
But in the second, congratulations and everything you've did.
It's been very inspiring and exciting to watch you grow and build a business from, go from scratch.
Thank you.
For those you on the call today, if you want more of Stephen Hughes,
hardship real estate pro, his website is hardship real estate.com.
And there's a picture of his smiling face.
And there's all kinds of buttons to click on, more information.
And if you click on there, you'll get his YouTube channel as well,
which is at Stephen Hughes hyphen hardship pro.com.
He has some great content on there as well.
As a YouTube guy, I watch his YouTube's and appreciate what he does.
And I'll admit I do research some of his material and put that into my YouTube channel as well.
again, Stephen, thank you for time today, and thank you for everything you've done along the way.
I really appreciate you.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
And for the rest of you, just want to thank you for joining today.
It's Probate Weekly.
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Feel free.
Those guys in the chat box, Brian Nolan, I like what Bill's preaching.
You know, even though I'm a religious Jew, I should be a Christian preacher.
I just, I've always loved when I've gone to church, I've always loved the evangelical
call at the end of the session.
Thank you for using that word preaching.
And then Wayne Phillips says life is too short to drive crappy cars.
You know, you got to drive a safe car, but I would say this.
Life is too short to drive a lease car.
I just feel like maybe when you're starting out on life, you have to.
But especially with the times ahead of us, we need to be smart with our money.
And the goal of all this, just remember, the goal for all of us was to increase your income and build our wealth.
So thank you, everybody.
Have a great week.
Make today your best day ever.