No Broke Months For Salespeople - Embracing iBuyers and Power Buyers to Win the Listing

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Sheryl Houck is the co-founder of a2d Investor Solutions; she's also an Investor-friendly agent who's passionate about saving sellers from contracting with corporations for profit without Realtor guidance.Sheryl served as the iBuyer Relationship Specialist for eXp Realty's Express Offers program helping sellers and agents embrace the tech trend.In this Live Interview with Sheryl, she will talk about how you can land your first home through iBuying.--To find out more about Dan Rochon and the CPI Community, you can check this link:www.NoBrokeMonths.com --Stop 🛑 wasting your time ⏳ or spending too much money 💸not getting the results you want in sales; I would love you to join me for the upcoming 3 More Listings Event.You will learn how to find YOUR Way to having closings every month.www.get3morelistings.com--Get your free copy of the Real Estate Evolution here:bit.ly/RealEstateEvolution_GetYourBookThis book shows you the step by step on how to:Step 1: Believe in your unknown potentialStep 2: Deconstruct persuasion techniquesStep 3: Find a business and get hired consistentlyStep 4: Be proactive in the relationship with your clients.Step 5: Learn and implement the exact steps to hire, train, lead, and train virtual assistants so that they can build, support, and guide a winning team to scale.And if you’d like to have a consistent and predictable income, like this page, and don’t forget to join the Facebook group to network with the top agents:https://www.facebook.com/groups/thecpicommunity/ To find out more about Dan Rochon and the CPI Community, you can check these links:Website: No Broke MonthsPodcast: No Broke Months for Salespeople PodcastInstagram: @donrochonxFacebook: Dan RochonLinkedIn: Dan Rochon

The biggest lesson is that 86% of an agent's general business is going to come from their sphere of influence to get your database in order and consistently and systematically and just loving on them. Welcome to the No Broke Months for Real Estate Agents podcast. Working as a real estate agent can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling, but it can also be frustrating if you aren't making the money you deserve. So if you're ready to end the stressful cycle of working hard for no results, then get started with a proven step-by-step system so that every month is no broke months. Cheryl Houck is the co-founder of A2D Investor Solutions. She's also an investor

friendly agent who's passionate about saving sellers from contracting with corporations for profit without realtor guidance. Cheryl served as the iBuyer Relationship Specialist for EXP Realty's Express Offers program helping sellers and agents embrace the tech trend. In this live interview with Cheryl, she will talk about how you can land your first home through iBuying. My name is Dan Roshan. I'm the host of the No Broke Months podcast, which is a show for real estate agents to help you have no broke months. Thanks for joining me. Enjoy the show. Today, I'm joined with Cheryl Houck, and we're going to talk about embracing iBuyers and the power buyers to win the listing. Cheryl, welcome. Thank you, Dan. How are you today?

So, Cheryl, thank you for joining me today. Tell us, what do we need to know about embracing iBuyers and PowerBuyers? Yeah, Dan. Well, it is a phenomenon. Here, statistically, in Tampa Bay, January 2012 was the bottom of our market in the last cycle, in the last reset, we'll call it. And we had seen the corporate dollars coming out in droves, just swishing up our market. And we've seen that cycle ever since. So there's definitely a player. They're a player in our industry. Our sellers are hearing the messaging all day long from the open doors, from the off the pad. And I really, I've just heard horror stories about their experiences. I can imagine when something goes wrong. Does anything ever go wrong in a real estate transaction, Ben? Ever?

I know you're a 22-year veteran of real estate sales, so I know that you have seen one thing go wrong once. They do go wrong. And try getting a corporation on the phone. I mean, and that's just one of the things that real estate agents really can come for value in this market segment. And honestly, I had served for EXP in our Express Offers program, which ties into this as the iBuyer Relationship Specialist. And in doing so, I had slept with over 100 investor partners, power buyers, doing 50 transactions a year over the past 12 months.

And one thing they all agreed on is that they really value having a skilled real estate agent in the midst of the transaction to manage the expectation of that seller and to negotiate. We have huge value there. So they are also understanding the value a skilled agent brings in the midst of that transaction. Okay. So we know that there's a market segment out there for dealing with corporate buyers, because basically that's what the iBuyers are. They're corporate buyers. And tell us more about as a real estate agent, as a listing agent or representing a buyer, how do we connect with those? You know, like how do we use the concept of buy buyers to be able to benefit? Yeah, Dan, if you look to our Express Offers program, we as real estate agents are responding to what the sellers are hearing. If they're hearing the messaging that you can save commission, you can sell to a corporation,

they think that there's downward pressure on the commissions. But of course, we know that their service fees, they were up to 15%, which is three times the amount that you're going to pay for a realtor. So I just am passionate about us real estate agents just having the know-how, having the knowledge on how to serve up all of the options for our sellers. Let's help our sellers vet all of their selling options. Okay. And so is this something that you would advise for an agent to do in their marketing and maybe doing videos on YouTube? Is it at the listing appointment? Walk me through exactly what to do. Yeah. Well, it depends. I mean, we've got sellers, we've got agents within our Express Offers program, within eXp Realty, that will leverage the program as they come across homes. We've got other investor-friendly agents and we mastermind around this. We collaborate on this because there is definitely a need, there's a value. We can set ourselves apart from the competition by

having the Express Offers certification, having the answers that our sellers need to what do they need to know to sell to an iBuyer or a Power Buyer or an investor partner. And I'm going to break it down like this, Dan. Essentially, not all of our sellers have the goal of top dollar. In a perfect world, we're going to get convenience, we're going to get top dollar, we're going to get on our timeline. But there is a place. There's a place where if you can submit and you can get multiple cash offers from Offerpad, from OpenDrawer, from our Express Offers platform, and you put all those offers with the service

fees, with our commission on there, compared to what the open market is going to bring them with the cooperating commission, you're going to get that number where you can extract what is the price of convenience? What is the price for you to sell on your term and your timeline? Sure. Sure. And so let's go through, how do the iBuyers, how do they make money? How do the iBuyers make money? Well, that's an interesting question right now. And if you look at Zillow, Zillow is not making money, right? They have not. They're sideways.

And we also have earnings of open doors staying the same. We call them the zoos, right? The Zillow, the Auerpad, and the open doors, same, same. We call them the zoos, right? The Zillow, the Opera Pad, and the open doors. But in Express Offers, we have 150 investor partners and 50 more that are in the process of onboarding right now. And they buy and hold. So depending on the investor, depending on the investment strategy. So another reason we need to be involved in the transaction because we're going to know the goals of the seller. We're also going to know the dynamics around property. And we also need to get to know the investment strategies because you can have a home that's zoned for short-term rentals. We have investors that are salivating over five lines for those homes that allow short-term rentals.

And also, oftentimes, they're going to pay over a price value to get that property because they're making money off of the return on investment. Yeah. And from the way that I understand it, and help me see if I'm correct in my understanding of this, is that they can also, you know, they're making money off their affiliates. You know, so it's almost like a loss leader. So they lose money on the flip, for example, and they pick up somebody in their insurance company who they're affiliated with. They pick up somebody in their mortgage company who they're affiliated with. They pick up somebody in their title company who they're affiliated with. They pick up somebody in their title company where they're affiliated with. For Zillow, for example, they have a foothold in every single part of the

transaction. And so there's other ways that they're making money, even if they're breaking even or a small loss on the flip. Do I understand that correctly? Dan, that may be true for Zillow. I don't know. Well, Opera Pad may have something. And I'm not specifically talking about you have the zoos and then you have express offers. You might have your own portfolio of investors. You can marry the seller's goals with what they're looking for. And if the house fits, I'm talking about the investors, just like that, you would invest in a property. How would you look at that?

Either on a fix and flip, obviously. It's going to be a huge discount. I mean, but the numbers that some of these iBuyers are buying for, it doesn't make sense. For me to do a fix and flip, it's going to be, you know, there's going to be motivation. There's going to be distress and there's going to be a long time period that they've owned the property. Those are the three things I'm looking for. But the buyers aren't necessarily looking for those three things. No, entrepreneurial profit. Yeah. No, we're talking about investors again. Investors, we have a marketplace of investors within Express Offers. However, we also, I believe, should be submitting a seller's property to the other iBuyers,

and we should be helping them with all of their options. Of course, yeah. I have a question. Depending on if it's the zoos, it's one thing. If it's the investors, that's what they do. If they're investors, that's how they make their money. Hey there, it's me, Dan. Excuse me for interrupting my own show. I want to tell you about a coaching client who I have called John.

And John was recently working with some buyers who they ended up writing 12 offers on 12 different homes, none of which got accepted. And that could just be frustrating. But even worse than that, those buyers ended up becoming renters because they rented a home. And guess what? They went directly to the rental. They didn't even use John for his services when they rented. If I just described an experience that maybe you can relate to, and if you're struggling right now because interest rates have risen so high and the inventory is so low right now, it's just so tough to work with buyers. And if you want to learn, instead of working with buyers, how can you take three more listings right now? I invite for you to an upcoming class that I'm hosting.

It's online. It's free. You can join me at www.get3morelistings.com. That's get3morelistings.com. And I will show you the exact techniques and tactics that my students are using to be able to get three more listings every single month. So that's www.get3morelistings.com. And you can save yourself a seat. It's free. It's online. And I look forward to helping you get more listings. So you've been in real estate sales for a long period of time, correct? All right. What is the biggest lesson that you've learned in real estate sales? defense general business is going to come from their sphere of influence and to to get your to

get your database in order and consistently and systematically and just loving on them um i i tend to be very project driven in my in my real estate business because of um just just just the very background coming into the business 20 years ago as a property appraiser. And this is one where do as I say, not as I do. But my clients absolutely know that I will get the best outcome for them. They absolutely know that they can trust me and that I care about their outcome. So much of my business is from repeat business. But again, my ring ear, it's driving the investors. And most recently, we created a national platform in which we were helping sellers.

And I think this is going to be a huge opportunity going forward uh because one thing that's different about this market reset from last time is that we have a lot of sellers that have equity in their homes right and you but we also have we we have some some dynamics in our macroeconomic system more so more so than we have in a while and And that seller gets that notice of filing a foreclosure with spendings, and they think that's it. They think the game is over. But we as real estate agents, we can save that and hopefully tap out some of that equity that was not existent in 2008, right?

Yeah. And help them. I see a huge opportunity for that going forward. We train a platform of agents on a national level to serve in the 20 markets that the iBuyers are most active in. Okay. What are the top five markets? The top five markets, we've got Atlanta, which is a big market. Phoenix is a big market. Tampa've got Atlanta, which is a big market. Phoenix is a big market. Tampa, where I am, is a huge market.

Tampa, Orlando, Charlotte, huge for that as well. Again, probably not. No, not my market. You don't see it. No, God bless. No. But what do you think makes those markets, what do you think makes them attractive to the iBuyers? Yeah, it's interesting. I think that they've got people up there that are much smarter than I that figure all that out.

But here at Tampa, you know, I know for sure that it was affordability. It was low taxes, less governmental intervention than, let's say, in New Jersey or New York in terms of landlord laws. South Carolina is a big market green bill because they're attracting big businesses. So they're looking at migration patterns. They're looking at businesses patterns. They're looking at, you know, businesses going into the different markets. And that's really how they're determining how they're allocating money to different markets. And it's really cool to see on an eXp platform as we collaborate on a national level to kind of see that moving around.

Yeah. Okay. So there's, you know, those are some examples of some of the markets that, you know, are more advantageous or that the iBuyers are more interested in. And so you're sharing with us a little bit about like relationship and you're sharing with us a little bit about the value and the importance of relationships. And then also you shared with us about the opportunity for distressed homebuyers over the next few years and what that may look like. I don't know if you agree with this or not, but I think that there's going to be a small option for people who bought within the last two and a half years, or at least six months to two years before or six months to two years before then,

that those individuals that need to sell in the next two years will especially be opportunities that they may have to distress because those people that bought most recently bought at the top of the market. Now, I'm not sure if the market's going to go downward. I think it will flatline at the very least and perhaps go downward, but not like it did in the 2007-2009 market. Would you agree with my perception of that? So what you're saying is the buyers in the last year or two are more susceptible to having a distressed sale? They're going to more likely have the lack of equity. Okay. So the people that bought at the top of the market, for example, that need to sell two, three years from now, those would be potential short sales. The people that bought before 2019, they're going to have equity and maybe they get into a hardship financially where they lose a job or whatever the case may be and they can't make their mortgage. And then they get that notice of

foreclosure, like you mentioned, and they just like, they don't realize, well, my goodness, I got 50,000, 100,000 of equity in here. I could cash out and I'm still good even though I can't make my mortgage payment. So there's almost like two segments of potential sellers. There's the people before 2019, and then there's the people 2020-ish, 21, that will have very little equity. Yeah, you make a good point. And I heard recently on a podcast that their foreclosures were actually down a third from the levels they were pre-pandemic. Yeah. And the reason for that is because homeowners have more equity and also because realtors are offering options to them. So the bank, we're not seeing bank-owned properties

like we've seen in the past. So yeah, you make a good point because those in the last year or two that don't have equity and they got hurt, they get themselves into some type of financial fine. Yeah, short sale. We remember the short sales of yesteryear.

What do you really value, Cheryl? What do I value? I value hard work. I value it so much that I now, thanks to years of working hard, thanks to the EXP model, thanks to investing wisely, I value being able to spend my day the way I want to spend my day? And isn't that the true value of success? That's awesome. That's awesome. So tell me more, because of the eXp model, that helps you to be able to do that. How so? Yeah.

Well, I grew up watching my parents work really hard on the time trade. And no matter how hard they worked, it was still very, very difficult. And I didn't have the, I didn't know about, they did what their parents did, you know, a long lineage of farming families off of the earth, not too far from you, Hershey, Pennsylvania. You grew up on a farm where we picked up arrowheads and I coughed them at my sister, and since yet, the value of those things uh but nonetheless and you know we see people working on the current trade and and and there's a better way that there's there's a better way um because living paycheck to paycheck and living hey it keeps us in survival

mode and it's hard but you know what's interesting is everything that when i discovered exp in june early 2017 i partnered with them in june of 2017 i quickly realized i'm like okay so all of this time i've been working in real estate on the hustle on the hamster wheel only as good as my last impact and i quickly saw the brilliance inherent in the system that would help a lot of agents free themselves from that. And it just is a beautiful thing. And I think after you do something for 20 years, it's the natural progression that you want to other people and you want to lift them up. And that is exactly why we're here today you know collaborating and helping helping ajax um you know think about different ways to do business and i i always believe that you know i like to

swim in the the blue ocean uh where the opportunities are i'd love to hone in on the opportunities the market is always changing um. And go to those opportunities where instead of the shark-infested wires, right? Hey there, it's Dan. Excuse me for interrupting my own show. I just wanted to do so because I wanted to share with you, I was having a conversation with one of my buyer's agents, Lucia, the other day. And she was sharing with me she had a client that wrote an offer in today's market on 12 different homes and she did actually end up getting the last offer accepted so they didn't go and rent but maybe right now you may be in that same situation and maybe you in that same situation they did end up renting and I know that that can be like that can just suck well let me tell you since 2008

there hasn't been a single month that i've missed a closing in real estate sales on an average of 10 and i want to share with you in the last one year i've taken 79 listings by attending 93 listing appointments i don't say that to brag i say that to share with you that I know how to take listings in today's market. And I want to invite you if you want to learn how to take listings in today's market to join me at the five day listing challenge coming up. You can visit www.fivedaylistingchallenge.com and learn how to take listings in today's market without having a cold call, door knock, or beg. That's www.5daylistingchallenge.com. Now, back to the most awesome real estate show ever, CPI Real Estate Podcast. Cheryl, so what failure would you say, and I hesitate to use the word failure, but learning

opportunity would you say that you've learned from the most during your real estate sales career? Oh, gosh. You know, 2000, 2008 taught us a lot. Those of us that have been in the business, and you're right, you know, we don't use the word failure. I wouldn't trade a thing in terms of the value that I really took away from that. Newer agents that haven't seen those times, you know, they can turn to veteran agents like yourself that have been in the market

and try and guide them to, you know, just invest. You know, don't be living paycheck to paycheck. You know, that Land Rover that you just bought last week, you know, over leveraged. You know, the downturn of 2008, I was not prepared. Now, granted, I was a single mother. My son was born November 1st, 2005. Okay. And I was doing primarily property appraisal back in the day.

And 2006, at the top of 2006, you know, I started to feel it a little bit. So I was limited margin, you know, I was limited time. I couldn't go out and get a part-time job to keep me afloat because I have limited time being a single mother. And of course, you know, the funds at some point, and again, I'm not comparing 2008 or 2007 to today because they're two entirely different things. But that, that, those were some really hard years. Those were some hard years. I didn't have passive income, leveraged income. I didn't have rental properties. So we mature in our money management, I'd say. Got it. Yeah. I think we're on the cusp of a tough market for sure. I don't think it's going to be the same tough market, which is interesting because we're

going to have to learn different skills. We're going to have to, you know, embrace, you know, as you mentioned, you know, the iBuyers, the PowerBuyers, and to be able to, you know, be investor friendly and to be able to understand that we're in a different, not only are we in a different time and market, but we also have technology. We have artificial intelligence. We have big data. We have commoditization that are all inbred into our society,

as well as our industry. And artificial intelligence, candidly, and big data have not really yet gotten involved into real estate sales, but they will. Because none of us can, you know, if I would have told you 10 years ago that you can, that you can, you know, pick up a little gadget here and you can have a steak dinner delivered to your doorstep by a drone in the next 45 minutes, you'd be like, all right, that's a little bit wacky. But because we know that it can happen today, we also know that in the near future,

that this right here, this phone is going to know when our buyers are going to buy before they know. Are going to know not only that, but where they're going to buy, what they're going to buy, and be able to start pinging them before it even happens. Yeah, Dan, I think that's here. I know of a couple of portals, real estate platforms that are using artificial intelligence. We have Katie Core. There's artificial intelligence inherent in that. So yeah, I think it's here. And I also wanted to circle back because we had mentioned

that you really don't have the influence of the big three iBuyers in your industry. However, Express Offers, I'm certain that you have investor partners in your marketplace in Virginia. Well, if anybody is in Virginia right now that's looking for an investor partner, call me. I'll buy it. If it's a deal, I'll buy it. Yeah. Well, if you're in the business,

get yourself into the Express Offers Program. Cheryl, so tell us more about the Express Offers Program. Yeah. So essentially, eXp being the forward-thinking technology company, in 2017, they started to examine the iBuyer space. It started at the hotbed. It's really Phoenix, Arizona. And we opened door, was launching there, and we had done some research. Obviously, we needed to know what was going on in the iBuyer space. So we found out some interesting things. Back then, we had found out that only 2% of the sellers that would put their property

into the technology would actually convey ownership. So what does that mean? That means like a Zillow, 98% of them serve as seller leads. However, we saw them gaining momentum and they have gained momentum. You know, national on a national level, maybe not so much because as you're saying in Virginia they're not as prevalent however if you're talking about their top 24 markets in Atlanta for example in Q1 25% of the sales were from power buyers cash power corporate power buyers in3, it is now 10% because it's moving with the market too. But nonetheless, eXp responded to this dynamic and they had created our Express

Offers platform. So it's a marketplace of investor partners and they're vetted. They're all cash. They had to do 50 transactions in the prior 12 months to get into the platform. I understand now they're making some exceptions because they're having to fill more remote areas. However, it is a fantastic tool for agents that want to learn how investors think. And if they want to, they can log into the platform and there is a certification required for it. But there's marketing paraphernalia. Our marketing department has created an entire suite on how to just set yourself apart, having this unique selling proposition that not only can you handle a seller on the open market, but you have other options. Now, let me help you with this. So it really is powerful. As I said, we have 150 investor partners on a national platform and

there's 50 more in the process of onboarding. So yeah, I just love how our company is always responding to the needs in our industry. So if you are an agent and you want to learn more about the program and if I want to reach out to you, how do I get in touch with you and learn more? Yeah, a good place to start is to go to the Express Offers community on Workplace. And in that pin post, you're going to find everything that you need to know about the program, a knowledge database, links on how to get certification, and everything you need to know

is going to be on that pin post. And then, of course, it's an interactive community. You're going to see people that are getting certified on there, people that have questions. So it's a great place to get that. What if I'm not an eXp agent? If you are not an eXp agent, then I am very active on, I'm going to give away my age, Dan.

I have Instagram, but not nearly as active on Instagram that I am on old-fashioned Facebook. But I do have a business page, Cheryl Howck, eftrealtureforlife. And on Instagram, Cheryl Sells Florida. And of course my name Cheryl Houck on Facebook. And that's S-H-E-R-Y-L-H-O-U-C-K. So S not C. So Cheryl, thank you so much for being our guest today and for sharing your wisdom with us.

And I appreciate you. Thank you again, Cheryl. God bless you. Thanks so much, Dan. I appreciate the collaboration. You're welcome. Thanks so much for listening to the No Broke Months podcast today. Until the next show, I invite for you to be grateful, make good choices, help someone,

have the best day of your life, and go find a listing. I'm very excited about the conversation we're about to have. I want to introduce you to Dan Rochon, who is the owner and co-founder of Greetings Virginia. I am so excited to introduce my next guest, Dan Rochon. He reads, he writes, he does improv. A frequent speaker and often quoted about the real estate market. I'm going to bring on a guy that is a winner. We had some really cool conversations before going live with this show. We have Dan Rochon.

So I'm going to encourage for you to think big. I'm going to encourage you to think big and then multiply it by two and then take huge action. Because whatever you want, you're only five years away from that.