The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Future of Real Estate: Predictions and Market Trends Uncovered with Keren Gonen

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

The Future of Real Estate: Predictions and Market Trends Uncovered with Keren Gonen https://www.realtyexecutives.com/agent/keren-gonen About the Guest(s): Keren Gonen is a leading real estate agent in Sussex County, New Jersey. With eight years of experience, she has successfully navigated over 500 transactions, establishing herself as the county's top agent. Israeli-American, Keren Gonen is celebrated for her unique approach to real estate, emphasizing kindness and mentorship in her practice. Well-versed in both buyer and seller advocacy, she leverages her entrepreneurial background to guide clients through the complexities of real estate with integrity and enthusiasm. Episode Summary: Welcome to an engaging episode of The Chris Voss Show, where Chris sits down with Keren Gonen, the top real estate agent in Sussex County, New Jersey. Join them for an insightful discussion on the current state of the real estate market, the impact of interest rates, and how caring deeply about clients can set successful real estate agents apart. With 16 years and 2,400 episodes under his belt, Chris continues to deliver thought-provoking content with the help of his astute guests. During this episode, Chris and Keren Gonen delve into the intricacies of real estate transactions and the evolving market dynamics. Keren Gonen shares her predictions for the housing market in New Jersey, emphasizing the importance of purchasing now despite high interest rates. She discusses the consequences of waiting for lower rates and the potential for property values to climb further due to material costs and labor shortages. Keren Gonen also advocates for a shift in the real estate industry towards prioritizing client needs and maintaining ethical standards. Key Takeaways: Current Market Insight: Karen discusses the continuous appreciation of house prices in New Jersey, predicting a 3-5% annual increase, stressing the importance of buying sooner rather than later. Interest Rate Advice: Waiting for interest rates to drop could lead to buying at higher prices, leading to overall higher expenses. Client-Centric Approach: Real estate agents should prioritize client welfare over personal gain, fostering trust and loyalty in an industry often criticized for ethical lapses. Creative Living Solutions: A trend toward multi-generational living arrangements may become more common as housing affordability becomes an issue. Regional Advantages: Keren Gonen highlights the advantages of living in Sussex County, New Jersey, noted for its serene landscapes and rural charm, alongside affordable housing options. Notable Quotes: "I enjoy helping people at their most stressful time. For most people, selling and buying a house will be the largest transaction they ever do." "Buy now because the rents are going through the roof, and that's not going to change anytime soon." "I believe in God and the universe and things. Good things will come to me because I take care of others, not because I look out for myself at all times." "Houses will continue to appreciate at least in the next two to four years by three to 5% on an annual basis." "Every young couple is moving out of their parents' house into an apartment or a house, or doing whatever. What I think will happen is that younger generations will be moving in with their parents."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain.

Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hello, this is Voss here from the ChrisVossShow.com. There you go ladies and gentlemen, the earliest season that makes official. Welcome to 16 years, 24 and episodes of the Chris Voss show. And you know what? In one month, well at the end of August, the 31st I believe it is, we start our 17th year,

17 years. Do you realize we're one of the oldest freaking podcasts at this point? It's still surviving. There's millions of them that've gone to the zombie apocalypse of podcasting. So what we need you to do is we're trying to keep the wheels going, trying to stand around because we uplift people in the Chris Foss show if you haven't checked lately. So we need you to go refer your family and friends to Goodreads.com, Forge has Chris Foss, Facebook.com, Forge has Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Forge has Chris Voss, Chris Voss, one of the TikTokity, and that way we'll be here tomorrow. Don't worry,

we're going to be here for decades. We've only got like 20 years or something on YouTube, so we're not quitting yet. We love this stuff. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. And we have an amazing young lady on the show who's going to be joining us today. We're going to be talking about her insights, her experience. We're going to be delving in the world a little bit of real estate, finding out what to be with the futures, what it holds

and interest rates and all that good stuff. She's going to tell you everything you need to know in the short time we can do the show, which is gonna be hard. Anyway, that's what we do with our guests. We set them up. We have Karen Gonen on the show with us today. She's the number one agent in Sussex County, New Jersey. New Jersey.

She's been in real estate for eight years and has successfully completed over 500 transactions. She is Israeli and American and she's about to get married for the second time in August 2025. We're going to turn 17. She's going to turn married twice. Congratulations there. I'm the the hope of the marriage lasts at least as long as her show at least That's always good Uh, I believe in helping others or she believes in helping others if I read this right her hashtag is karen cares and She loves to sprinkle kindness

Wherever she goes anything is possible If you're willing to burn your ships and give it everything you've got boy that's that we're gonna learn some stuff today She loves training new agents and taking people under wings to show them an easier way your ships and give it everything you've got. Boy, we're going to learn some stuff today. She loves training new agents and taking people under her wings to show them an easier way. She believes in hard work and propelling herself forward on grit alone. So we're going to be chatting about it. Welcome to the show, Karen. How are you?

I'm doing well, Chris. How are you doing? And congratulations on 17 years of success. My back hurts. Everything hurts at this point. Maybe it's because I'm old. The show really isn't that old compared to me, so I smell like dust. Anyway, Karen, give us your dot coms.

Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs in the sky? They can find me on karengonin.com. That's my website. It points to my brokerage, which is Realty Executives exceptional. They can find me on Facebook, Instagram under Karen Gonen broker in New Jersey and they can also find me personally on Facebook under Karen Gonen. It's just my face is there and they'll see and I actually look like my picture unlike other real estate agents that took a picture on the day they graduated high school. This is my picture. This is my face. And so I stay current with my picture for that reason specifically.

Because we see a lot of that in the world today. I was a real estate agent for six years and a mortgage company guy for 20. And it was always kind of funny, the top agents in my state of Utah, they would, you would see these beautiful women you're like hey and then you'd meet them you jump out of your shoes you're like there's 50 years between that photo and you what's going on there and there's nothing bad about it it's just you kind of feel a little you know a little you feel a little kind of cheated cheated yeah it's like yeah I totally get that and that was part of my issue and that they always didn't look anything like the picture and i'm sitting there like this is

not you maybe the day you got married 40 years ago but that's not you today and you kind of wonder what else they're gonna lie about but lie about to you you know it's kind of like dating right now we see in dating we see people using ai photos now So they're completely fake and yeah, there's sometimes you meet people and you about jump out of your shoes like oh What happened between that picture and today? So and I think it speaks to you know authenticity transparency and and stuff like that But you know people gonna do what people do so those 30000 over you, what you do and how you do it. So I love real estate but I've always been very passionate about helping people. I grew up in an entrepreneurial home. My parents had always owned their own business. It was in the shipping industry, export and import and they got

me into it as well and for decades I was sure that there are ships running in my blood instead of vessels and so it turned out that it wasn't vessels that were going through my blood it was actually houses I came into real estate it was just a perfect fit I am I enjoy helping people at their most stressful time for For most people, selling and buying a house will be the largest transaction they ever do, unless you're a multi-billionaire and you buy ships and hotels and other things that are much grander than just a house. But what I do is I like to give people the tools to make the right decision for themselves.

And so being that you were a real estate agent, Chris, you can tell us that being a real estate agent means that you're also the therapist, the marriage counselor, the dog sitter, the babysitter, the painter, the organizer, the cleaner, you are everything. And it works well for me because I just somehow happen to know all those people that are needed, top to bottom, I can connect people on a regular basis, but I also teach people that there's a different way to do a real estate transaction, and that's what I enjoy the most. The human connection with the buyers, the sellers, the other agents, I think there needs to be a big change in the real estate industry where agents for the most part are

Worried more about the well-being of their clients and not the well-being of their own wallet And I can tell you that in my area in Sussex County There are a lot of us that absolutely care more about their clients than anything else And those are the agents that do the best about their clients than anything else. And those are the agents that do the best. Yeah, there's kind of a fiduciary duty to isn't there? And being a realtor, the trademark name, there's a there's a duty fiduciary duty to represent the client, right? And that's a, that's a real important thing that people should learn and understand what fiduciary duty means. Because I can't tell you how many people in any vein of business that represents their

client, I'll explain to them what a fiduciary duty is. They're like, I'm supposed to be giving a shit? It's just like, yeah, that's kind of the law. That's kind of what you do, right. And that's the problem that ever since I started in real estate, I noticed that the agents were not behaving the certain way that I thought a professional real estate agent needs to behave, such as being ethical, being nice, not only to your clients, but to the other agent that's working with you, being kind to each other. It's almost unheard of, which is very sad, which is why generally,

statistically speaking, real estate agents are one step up from car salespeople. And I've made it my mission to change that because if you read a little bit online about me and my reviews, you can hear what people are saying. They're saying that I actually care, which is why my logo or my hashtag line is care and cares, because I care about other people. And I believe in God and the universe, and good things will come to me because I take care of others, not because I look out for myself at all times. It's true. I mean, that's part of servant leadership. That's part of the customer service. Having a fiduciary duty, as a consultant, like we mentioned, I was in these fields of real estate before, but even in my consultancy and other things that I do with my business

operations, if I have clients, sometimes I'll open my mouth and start telling them something. Maybe they don't pay me to hear or whatever and I'll be like, hey, I'm just really kind of concerned about your finances here or I'm concerned about what you're doing here. If you don't mind, I'll give you some advice. Sometimes they'll ask me about stuff that isn't about business that are clients and they're like, well, somebody over here wants some money from me and they want this. I kind of go, well, if I have knowledge, I kind of have a fiduciary duty to my client to preserve their wealth.

I one time had a client that they got ripped off by some seminar company or some promotional company that didn't really do anything for him. And yeah, and so it hurt their business enough that they had to scale back our business with us because they got ripped off by this other person and they told me that they were gonna work with this person and I'm like okay well maybe they know what they're doing. Turns out they didn't and so that ended up hurting me. Technically that's not fiduciary duty, the way I've explained it. Don't write me, people. But I just kind of learned that I kind of have a duty to my clients to kind of help

them in their overall best interests. And sometimes I've done marriage counseling for clients, as you mentioned before. That's 100% true because purchasing or selling a house is, like I said, the biggest transaction you will ever do. And so with that being said, there's a lot of back and forth between a husband and a wife or partners. There's always something going on. And as a result of that, they enter into this transaction.

One side wants this and the other side wants that. And how you negotiate is using objective party, which is the real estate agent. The agent knows everything about the house that you're buying. They can get you all the information that you need. And therefore they can walk you through the process being completely objective to the two different opinions. And I think sometimes that's what people need. Just a voice of reason that says, hey, our purpose is to buy a house. How do we get there? Yep, and leadership pretty much too. Because you know, it's a lot of people, you know, that are professional house buyers, you know, I guess there are guys that are out there that, you know, they do it as a job.

But for the most part, a lot of people aren't into it. Now there's been a lot of rulings and things that have shaped, they've tried to reshape, I don't know how well successful they've been. You know, they try to reshape the buyer's offer and different court rulings and stuff. What's going on with that? I haven't heard where, I think, I don't know if that's still in appellate courts or what's going on with that and what impact has it had to the marketplace? with that and what impacts it had to the marketplace? So the only thing that's happened is a lot of chaos. So commission has always been negotiable ever since the beginning of real estate. It's always been negotiable except some agents did not explain that to their clients.

And as a result of that, there was that big class action we all know about against the National Association of Realtors. They decided to jump in and accept the settlement that was done by very specific brokerages already in order to protect themselves and their agents. And so as a result of that, you have a lot of people that all they did is read the headlines, commissions are no longer to be paid by sellers, agents don't have to be paid. And so when you sit in front of a seller and you try to explain to them what it is that it actually means, they're totally baffled. The only thing it means is that the seller has the option, and now it's public knowledge, the option to say, I'm only

paying for my side's commission. I'm not paying the buyer's agent. Unfortunately, what sellers don't understand is that very few buyers can pay a down payment, which is anywhere from 3.5% to 20% if they don't want the PMI, which is the mortgage insurance rate. And on top of that, they have to pay 3% to 5, which is the closing cost, and that's three to five percent of the purchase price. So that could be tens of thousands of dollars. And then on top of that, pay the commission of an agent, which is anywhere from two percent to three percent. So we're talking about buyers having another twenty, thirty thousand dollars to pay their agent and for what?

That's a lot of money. And so sellers don't realize that they're actually minimizing their buyer pool to be a very, very small amount of people that can afford all of these expenses. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's quite heady. I mean, I'm seeing some of the stuff that was going on with the courts and I think wasn't

it brought by the Justice Department originally? Yep. But yeah, it was really interesting because I'm like, wow, that may reshape the business and how offers are made and yada, yada, yada. What do you think the outlook is these days for the real estate market maybe as a whole or maybe you just want to speak to New Jersey? What do you see the outlook is and any predictions for the future of the market, interest rates, etc. etc. So my prediction is for the market as far as

New Jersey is concerned because I can only speak about New Jersey. Houses will continue to appreciate at least in the next two to four years by three to five percent on an annual basis. So that means that if you don't buy a house now, the house that you wanted to buy today for 400,000 but said, I'll hold off because interest rates are too high in a couple of years, it's going to cost you 425 or $500,000, but you held off. You didn't want to pay six or 7% on the interest rate and you wanted to wait, so the interest rate might go down,

but you're gonna buy the house at a much higher price. So you're actually kind of shooting your own foot by instead of purchasing a $400,000 house today, buying a $450,000 house in another few years and the interest rates who knows You know right now they're holding steady were in the high sixes unless you're FHA or VA Those are the loans that have the lowest interest rate But other than that by now because the rents are going through the roof and that's not going to change anytime soon.

Yeah. One of my friends tells me, he's an electrician and he wires everything from normal average homes to luxury. And he tells me that with the tariffs and kind of the uncertainty in the market right now, he's seeing almost 100% increase of his prices and costs, like the wires and at least 30 to 50 to 100% of the wiring and the goods he buys to do the home. And he says- And he's got it casted on.

Yeah. And he says, Chris, this is going on across the board. This is all the stuff, the lumber, everything. He goes, I wouldn't be surprised if houses doubled in the next few years because of the tariffs. I wouldn't be surprised either. And the problem is that people don't think of that. So I can tell you, I have a flip in Greenwood Lake, New Jersey, which is part of West Milford, New Jersey, Passaic County. And when we first started the project, we were thinking that it was going to cost about $500,000 for the renovations we were doing the project, we were thinking that it was going to cost about $500,000

for the renovations. We were doing an addition. We were doing a bunch of new stuff. Well, it turned out that the house at some point had been burnt down to a crisp and somebody covered it up. Not the current owner, not the owner prior to that, the owner before that. So probably the original owner, he just hovered it up with sheetrock. Well the problem is that now the walls are open and the contractor looked at the wall

and he's like, I can't cover that up. That's not structurally sound. So he ended up taking everything down. And from a flip where the renovation was supposed, excuse me, was supposed to cost 500,000. It ended up being 1.3 million. Oh my gosh. And that's renovation alone. Yeah. That's crazy. I mean, imagine, is there any way you can sue the prior owner for not disclosing that? I mean, I suppose the- No. Really? It's not the prior owner. It's the owner before that one. Oh my god. Yeah. Wow That's a that's a that's that's why you pay realtors and title agents and all that stuff trying to make sure that All this stuff gets taken care of and stuff. That is wild. That is just wild But yeah, that sounds like a job for the attorneys

Well, you know what instead of that house being listed at 1.5. It's gonna get listed at 2.75 Yeah, well the thing is well, so that will so that Really wow, okay There are no other options Chris. We burned the ship We've run this out and all the money's in the house and now you have to sell it. Yeah Well may not sell at the price you you you want it to maybe I don't know What's New Jersey like these days sell us New Jersey Sam get out there in the audience I'm considering to maybe you know Jersey might be an option to move to well

What's out there other than me just hanging around outside? Tony, what's this face, this name from the Sopranos? So it really depends on where you want to be in New Jersey. Over in Sussex County, Warren County, Hunterdon counties, those are the more land counties. So we have a lot of forest, a lot of lakes, a lot of farms, a lot of serenity and a lot of peace. But the moment you leave that area of New Jersey, because of course, the armpit of America, there's a reason for that. People are different. They have a lot less time. They're all up in your face for whatever's going on. But the thing is that they're always true to your face. If they like you, you know it. And if they don't like you, you know it. And so it really just depends if you're looking for a more rural

area or for a more suburban area. I personally, being in Sussex County, I live on 21 acres. I would not switch for the world. I don't care where it is, I'm staying there for the rest of my life. I appreciate my fresh air, my land, my lake, that's all I want. Just leave me alone and let me do my thing. Pete Slauson Leave me alone and let me do my thing, yeah. That's what I say all the time. So what are some benefits of moving to New Jersey

over say other states? I don't know if you wanna throw rocks at New York, but what are some benefits that make New Jersey in your area unique? In New Jersey, well, we have the best diners, the best bagels and the best pizza. Oh boy, I think we got shots fired across the bay there. And that's okay, they can keep their pizza

where they're at and I'll keep ours. So is New Jersey pizza more like New York pizza or is it more like Chicago? No, it's more like New York. Oh, okay, I'm gonna get hate mail from Chicago. Because we have cleaner water. Oh, you know, I was talking about a friend this the other day, He was from New York. I was

my Lyft driver yesterday or two days ago. And he was from New York and he moved out to Utah. And I was like, boy, you really came for the culture clash, didn't you? And he was, you know, we were talking about it and I was asking about the water and you know, that bagels thing that New York has, they claim that bagels because the water. Nope. We have that bagels thing that New York has they claim that they have the best bagels because of the water? Nope. We have the best bagels in Jersey. But the best bagels in Jersey, so your ears are better than the New York ones and it's the water. I think so. I could tell you when I lived in California for five years. I hated the bagels and I hated the pizza.

Yeah, well, I'm not sure they're the people for pizza and bagels and I don't think bagels is really even the thing in California. It should be. I'm trying to think of a joke for California because they grew up there but I don't really have one. I think you just mostly sand and drink beach water. It's mostly what I did as a child. So people should check out Jersey.

What's the prices like? I know Utah right now is like the ninth highest, most expensive real estate in the state. Is there a good pricing and maybe if you get into the real areas, maybe there's some good value out there? Absolutely. So in our area, a young couple can get a bi-level three-bedroom, two-bath for less than 400,000. What? You cannot get that anywhere else in New Jersey, but you can in Sussex County, New Jersey. Oh, wow. Yeah. It sounds like something. Probably can't get that anywhere. Even North Dakota, which no, it is crazy how house prices have jumped since

COVID. It really is insane. I can tell you that the median for our county used to be 220 five years ago and it's currently 360. Damn, that is crazy. In just a few years. Yeah. What do you see with the interest rates? It's kind of crazy right now where our current political environment wants to change the pal out from the Federal Reserve and it might be kind of interesting if they get control and they start mucking about if you've ever studied how, if governments just decide to politicize the Federal Reserve, what happens to an economy and a nation actually. We watched Venezuela do that with their leader back in the 90s and the 2000s.

He got ahold of the Fed and they mucked about. I think there's another South American country that decided to move off the dollar or off their local dinero or whatever it was to Bitcoin and that didn't go well either. No. So, what do you think on interest rates? And I mean, I think basically from the gist of our conversation, you think waiting is bad, that real estate is going to continue to go up.

You might as well grab on, but you can't. Absolutely. I do think that. And I think that interest rates might go down but I don't see it happening before the end of the year. And so by the end of the year, our prices are going to go higher. So it's kind of like what came first, the chicken or the egg. Should we hold out for the interest rate to go down half a point but then we'll buy the

house for an additional $20,000 or should we just buy now and call it a day and stop paying our landlord's mortgage? Yeah. And that's true. You can, you know, you're not putting any money towards equity. A lot of folks aren't. And then, you know, you just, you just, real estate to me, I mean, last time I checked and this was a year or two old data, We were like seven million houses short to supply demand

We're in five point five million right now five point five million So we're catching up a little bit But I think is probably most of those homes everything I see being built right now is apartments like everything so I don't know if apartments heat up some of that, but I know that I know that homes have done the thing but I I really think with tariffs and the higher prices on goods and a lot of home building materials, and then in places like Florida, you've seen raids where now there are real estate properties

sitting empty or sitting unfinished. I was watching a video of someone recently and they're bringing in crews of normal Americans, I guess, and they're just standing around talking to each other most of the time, evidently. That's probably going to have an effect on prices too, what it costs to get the labor. So I would anticipate it's probably easy to see with the next year or two with tariffs and the labor issue, home prices doublingbling which is crazy to think about really I think the other thing we need to consider is that people are going to start moving in with their parents and grandparents

So the extended family model will be a lot more feasible and will be more than norm than it is right now Because right now every young couple is moving out of their parents' house into an apartment or a house or doing whatever. What I think will happen is that younger generations will be moving in or buying with their parents and they're all living together. Because they just don't have enough houses and houses are going to be just too expensive for a couple to buy by themselves. They're going to need other people's income in order too expensive for a couple to buy by themselves, they're gonna need other people's income in order to qualify for a mortgage. And that's what people don't think about. Buy now while the prices are still at this price,

even if your interest rates are too high, buy now. And you can always refinance in a few years if it goes down, but if you don't have a house to buy What are you gonna do then? Yeah, you can also refinance, you know if the if the if the price is sore like they did in 2020 and they kind of have to I mean If if you know with the tariffs these costs with the labor attacks on you know, people who work in the homes You know even then a lot of the...

We've talked with a lot of tradespeople over time. A lot of the Gen Zers and some of the millennials, they just want to be Instagram and TikTok stars. And they didn't really want to go into hard labor, the dirty jobs sometimes they call them. And so there's not a lot of people that are coming in for trades. I think the thing we heard last year was for every seven tradesmen, which are like journeyman level, they have a lifetime career of their trade, I mean these people are the expert of experts, for every seven of them that retire, there's only one person to replace them. And that one person to replace them usually is a new person coming into the business. So we have a real people problem in that scale. I guess we need to force more TikTokers to work or something.

I think the other thing we need to consider, Chris, is that a lot of people, young couples that are buying houses are not planning on having any children. What's going to happen to the birth rate in the US? I mean, obviously we have immigration. I mean, we've seen it in the last four years, double and triple, but you need to consider the fact that Americans are not reproducing. I mean, if you look at China, if you look at Holland, if you look at different countries around the globe, their birth rate has dropped immensely. And that's one of the things that I'm concerned about. Because Germany, for instance, I think they're at 0.75 birth rate.

Gary, what do you do when all the old people die? How do you cut the rest? They're going to disappear. I think there's a good book that's out that someone analyzed this stuff. And you quoted the 1.7, I think,'s a good book that's out that someone analysis stuff and you quoted the 1.7 I think, 1.75, that you have to be above I think two or 2.10. Yeah, otherwise you're a dying nation. Otherwise you're a dying nation. You know, Japan's been going through this.

Japan, I believe, if I saw rightly, because you know, I saw it on the internet, basically it's invoked like a penalty tax for guys who aren't knocking up women, I guess, or getting married. There's like a bachelor tax or something. I already pay the bachelor tax here in America. I don't have any exemptions. So I already am paying a tax. I've contributed to Americans.

I'm done. So I'm just saying two is all I wanted. And China is now going through that. Their one child policy really backfired. And by the time they got to turn around, it's too late. A lot of countries, the one guy I'm citing out of the book, we tried to get him on the show. He was on Sam Harris's shows where I heard him.

But he has some really interesting data. But he cited that a lot of European countries are gonna disappear, like Germany. It will just not be a power of anything. It's in decline. You kinda see that, I think, in Italy, where they're like, hey, if you move here, we'll give you a house for a dollar.

We may gotta move out to the sticks somewhere where there's no McDonald's or Starbucks, and that's not really appealing. But is it that bad, Chris? I don't know, compared to prices here in America, it might be a good idea. I'm just saying, you know, if you look at older Americans, they're all moving to warmer climates, cheaper living. What difference does it make if your American friend lives next to you here in Jersey or

next to you in Santorini. Who cares? Yeah. Where we want to live. And imagine, I mean, a lot of people, they like the rural stuff. I like rural stuff. I mean, I've been surprised how much of some of the areas that I grew up in, of course it's been 40 years, but have just grown massively. Like there's some areas I've lived in with Vegas and Utah where I'm like, Jesus, this is getting like California. I love California, but I left over the traffic, you know? Anything 15 minutes away, it takes two hours to drive. You know?

Yeah, absolutely California. When I lived there, and like I said, I lived there for five years. That's actually where my kids were born in, oh geez, what county was it? In Ventura County, California, in Thousand Oaks. And if you had to go a half an hour, but you were going on the 101, it was going to take you somewhere between an hour and a half to three hours, depending on how many car accidents there were on the way.

So everything is a function of traffic where here in Sussex County things might be further distance wise but they're not further because of traffic. It doesn't take you more time. So when the GPS says I'll be there in 38 minutes, I can usually shave off three minutes so I'm there in 35 minutes I'm not stuck for an hour and a half in traffic and I'm actually driving and looking at forests and farms and lakes and who can get upset at that? Yeah, I mean I like to go for country drives in the rural parts of the country or up the canyon. You should come up to Vernon. Yeah, get away from get away from it all Because the noise, the beeping and all that stuff. And nobody is here.

So Karen, as we go out, tell people how they can reach out to you, find out more about you, ask you questions, et cetera, et cetera. Absolutely. They can always catch me on my cell phone. I'm literally surgically attached to it. My cell phone number is 551-262-4062. They can also look me up on Instagram and Facebook under Karen Gonen, real estate broker in New Jersey.

Or they can email me at gonen.karen, that's all E's, one at gmail.com. Well, thank you, Karen, for being on the show and giving us an update on what's going on in the real estate world. We certainly appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. It was a pleasure. Thank you. And thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. Chris Foss won the TikTok and he owns crazy places. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that's going to sound good.