What To Say Now: Episode 3 - Unresponsive Leads, Potential Foreclosure Spike, And The CARES Act

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Brian Rayl: Hello, gang. My name is Brian Rayl. This is Maya Paveza. We are Happy Grasshopper and this is what to say now, episode three. Dan wanted me to apologize for him. He had a previous commitment that he wasn't able to make, but we as Happy Grasshopper made this commitment to you to be here every Monday at 2:00 PM Eastern standard time. So that's what we're doing. We are here. Maya, say hi to the group.

Maya Paveza: Hi, group.

Brian Rayl: All right. So what to say now? For those of you who are new, and if you are new, please post a comment down in the chat box. We'd love to meet you.

Maya Paveza: Yeah. And our third musketeer, Melissa McKone, is out there somewhere.

Brian Rayl: Yes.

Maya Paveza: She couldn't get on Zoom.

Brian Rayl: Technical issues. You got to love them, right?

Maya Paveza: Yes.

Brian Rayl: So what we do here is we try and do some group think about how to answer some of the difficult questions that are facing us, not only as real estate agents, but as human beings during this time. And so, that's what we do. You're watching this. You should be watching this on the Happy Grasshopper business page. We do have a group for this, and we will post the link down in the comments below, but it is facebook.com/groups/whattosaynow. All one word, no spaces. Please jump in there. There's a ton of people in there that have a ton of industry knowledge to help. And they have a lot of life knowledge also. So they can help with a question regarding real estate. They can help with a question regarding life. So, that's what we're here. Think of us as the Dear Abby of real estate issues.

Maya Paveza: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Brian Rayl: We are here to help you answer those questions. Maya, what do you got for us? Anything?

Maya Paveza: Well, I saw an interesting story. I mean, a lot of agents are kind of wondering ... I think agents don't wonder, because I think real estate agents like you and I know that business is really booming right now, but Pennsylvania was completely shut down and I live five minutes from the border. So it's crazy to see. I'm dual licensed there too. They just reopened and one brokerage near the Pittsburgh area in one week sold 525 houses. So, in one week, 525 houses. That was the pent up demand. So I mean, I think that one of the right things to say right now is it's still a good market. I mean, it really is.

Maya Paveza: I've been watching things going on with the brokerage war of my licensings and I see the emails and it's, "I need this and I need that." And I have buyers looking for this and there's nothing out there. So, it's kind of surreal to see that happening while lock downs and all these other situations. But it's harder right now to say anything, and if you don't know what to say, the best thing to say is, "Hey, I hope you're good. If you need anything, let me know. Just reach out." Right?

Brian Rayl: Absolutely. It's hard to believe. Today is June 1st.

Maya Paveza: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Halfway through the year.

Brian Rayl: We are really looking forward to 2020 being done because it's been a crazy year.

Maya Paveza: Yeah. But didn't you say that about 2019 and 2018 and 2017? Because I know I did.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. This is true. This is true. So, there's a whole lot of things going on in the world right now. It all affects real estate, but most importantly, it affects life. And that's one thing. One of Dan's favorite sayings and he says that he should have this tattooed on him, but he doesn't, is express sincere concern. And that's one thing that a lot of people in real estate don't think about when they think about marketing. It's not always a sales call. It's not always a call to action. What sometimes you need, and the majority of the times you need, is a call to conversation.

Brian Rayl: And by expressing sincere concern, you can do that. It's not, "Hey, I haven't talked to you in a while. Are you in the market to buy a new home or sell a new home? Hit me up." No, sometimes it's a matter of, "Hey, coming up on the one year anniversary of your home purchase. The world has definitely changed. How are you doing?"

Maya Paveza: Yeah. I mean-

Brian Rayl: Anything I can help you with?

Maya Paveza: I don't know about you Brian, but when I was actively selling, and I felt this too when I bought my house before I was in real estate, you feel like your agent is your buddy or your friend, because you spend so much time with them in this such an important decision. And what they don't understand is they're supposed to feel like your only client, but at the same time you might be working with five, 10, or 15 other people. If you have a team, who knows how many? So, when we close that deal and we're not in that multiple times a day communication with them, they feel like they're abandoned.

Maya Paveza: So it's really important to have those regular touches, these keep in touch touches and just a random reach out and say, "Hey." It matters. It makes a big difference. And even a handwritten note card on the anniversary of buying a house. Send them a note card. But it's never too late to reengage, even if you haven't talked to a client in a long time, you. Before you see them list their house with someone else, reach out and reengage and it's hard, because people don't know what to say, and sometimes it's easier not to say anything after a certain period of time passes, but that's not why we're talking about this.

Brian Rayl: Yeah, exactly. That's a perfect segue into our first question that was posted in the what to say now group. Again, if you're not a part of that group, the link is down below. Make sure you click on it and join the group. Laura Granger asked, "How many times should I reach out to a past customer/client who has not responded to my just checking in messages?" She said-

Maya Paveza: Never stop.

Brian Rayl: She sent a note card. She's sent texts and voicemails. What do you say to elicit a response? And that's really where that expressing sincere concern can come into play.

Maya Paveza: Yeah. And I think that's a situation where you're sending a note card. You're not ... Or you're making a call and saying, "Hey, I hope things are okay. I've been reaching out and haven't heard anything back. I'm not sure if I did something to upset you. I would love to catch up. Please let me know. I can't get better if I've upset you and I don't know what I've done." We're professionals, we're not taking this personally. And people are afraid of confrontation sometimes. So, you kind of have to place blame on yourself for something. "Hey, I'm sorry I've not been in touch and I've been meaning to call you and it kept slipping away. So, here I am." Just take ownership of whatever it is and take the pressure off of them, which we seem to say every week.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. And I think the other part of that is what has been said so far, because if you're keep in touch campaign is nothing but a bunch of market updates or newsletters.

Maya Paveza: Yeah, that's not-

Brian Rayl: Or something like that. None of that is a call to conversation. And I mean, look at the last time you got an email that had market stats in there. Did you hit the reply button and say, "Oh cool, thanks." No, of course not.

Maya Paveza: No, not unless you're really interested in it. And that's 1% of the time.

Brian Rayl: And even if you were really interested in it, unless it was written really, really well so that there was a call to conversation in there, then there's no reason to reply to it.

Maya Paveza: Well, I think people have to realize too, I know for some reason my personal email address ends up in spam filter. I think I've been in your spam filter and it's for whatever reason, and it's a Gmail address and it's my personal one. So, I always will ask people. I'm like, "Did you get my email?" And more often than not, they haven't. And they're like, "Oh, there it is in the junk file." As long as it hasn't been deleted. What?

Brian Rayl: Oh yeah. It went to junk. Hold on, let me pull that out real quick. Wink wink.

Maya Paveza: Yeah. Whatever. Oh, I didn't watch. I didn't see it. Yeah. We've all been in there, but yeah. But I mean, I think it's worth it. You have to give them a reason to communicate in value. Honestly, I'm not in his market, but I love the emails that Jeremy Blanton sends. I mean, it may be because our writers did them, but I liked them before I worked for Happy Grasshopper. I always opened Jeremy's emails before I knew he was a Happy Grasshopper client and I still enjoy opening them, and it's just funny. I'm like, "Ha, I wrote that." So, you have to bring something of value to the relationship. And I think just those little touches. Sincere concern.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. I mean, it could be something as simple as saying, "Hey, what a crazy time we're going through right now. Can you believe everything that we're having to deal with? How are you doing? I want to make sure everything is good. Give me a call or reply to my email. I'd love to hear from you."

Maya Paveza: Yeah. And I mean-

Brian Rayl: Like that is a call to conversation. It's not sales. It is completely conversational, friendly, concerned. So, something like that, again, in Laura's case, it all depends on what had been sent before. It's a crazy time. So, some people have a lot of free time on their hands. Some people don't.

Maya Paveza: No, I mean, if you're a dual career household and then have kids in school and you're suddenly a home schooling person that ... You've got to police everybody. It's a crazy time, but like you said, and I think that was good advice. Laura, look at the emails you've sent before. If it's just all been market updates and information like that, then I wouldn't be too concerned. If you sent them a card, I would say send them another card and write a nice note. Say, "Hey, I haven't heard from you. I just want to make sure everything ..." Or just stop at the house sometimes. You know where they live. You may want to just pop by and just say, "Hey, everything okay?" And give them a bottle of hand sanitizer or something.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. So I really like to know if you're not in the group or even if you are in the group and haven't replied to it, either go find that thread or right here on the Facebook page underneath this video in the comments, let us know how you would address this. How do you reach out to those people that have been perhaps unresponsive to your emails or your phone calls, or your letters? How would you respond to that? Let us know down in the comments below.

Brian Rayl: I want to move onto this second one. It is from Mark Gorez or Gorez, not sure how that's pronounced. Sorry, Mark. So, "Your opinion. Do you think next year will be the better time to buy? How do you capitalize on foreclosures post-pandemic?" That is a question that was proposed to him and he would like to know how to answer that question.

Maya Paveza: I mean, I think the foreclosure market is going to remain what it's always been. I think you're still ... You're going to have more of the predatory cash buyers out there. I don't think we're going ... I think we're going to see a lot of delay in that and there's going to be a lot of lawsuits due to the entire COVID situation. But no. Now it was a great time to buy. I mean, interest rates are low. They're trying to keep you in the market and buying. We don't know where we're going to be in a year from now. Real estate historically goes up, even if you have a one year low.

Maya Paveza: If you're planning on keeping your property for more than three to five years, it doesn't really matter what you pay for it because you're still going to see an increase in ROI in the long run. You may hit another high and, say, then come down 25%, but still, as long as you're above your purchase price and you're gaining equity, it's still going to be less than rents, because it rents in a lot of the places are going higher and higher. So, there's no reason to wait until next year. I wouldn't.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. And the thing with foreclosures and obviously, we try and be very sensitive about what we talk about. Everyone should ... We should be doing that. But there are [crosstalk 00:14:09].

Maya Paveza: Yeah, if you're a realtor, you're not allowed to have an opinion. Just listen and empathize.

Brian Rayl: There are these questions that people will propose to you and you have to ... You're the expert in your area. You know what's going on in your area. You know how the market goes. So number one, you think about the CARES Act. The CARES Act has allowed it so that people can file for a six month deferment from having to pay mortgage.

Maya Paveza: Thanks for reminding me to turn my ringer off.

Brian Rayl: So that started in April, assuming that most people were able to make their April payment, which may or may not be a good assumption. So let's just say April, May, June, July, August, September. October would be the first missed payment. They're not [inaudible 00:15:06] 30 days behind.

Maya Paveza: Yeah. But I think they're going to probably end up extending it. I don't think it's going to stop after the six month period.

Brian Rayl: And that was where I was going to get to is the whole process at the earliest couldn't start until October, November.

Maya Paveza: Yeah. And depending on where you are, it what? Texas is expedited, isn't it?

Brian Rayl: Yeah. Texas is a fairly quick foreclosure, but even then, it takes 60 to 90 days.

Maya Paveza: See here, it's 18 months.

Brian Rayl: Yeah.

Maya Paveza: So, it all depends, but ...

Brian Rayl: Yeah. So, if the whole process doesn't start until December. I mean, then you're looking at 2022 before the foreclosure is even finalized in your area. So, waiting until next year is going to be a loss because you're going to lose out on the low interest rates that you have available today, and there is a lot of demand for housing right now, but there are people who are in situations where maybe they've lost their jobs, not able to afford mortgages, who might be willing to sell their house, not at a discount, they're going to sell it for market rate, but they're going to be motivated to sell potentially.

Maya Paveza: Now have you heard about ... There's a company out there now where they'll buy your house and you can rent it back. We need to look into this because for some future show, because I saw an ad somewhere or something. But I mean, I think if you've got buyers out there, the smartest thing people can be targeting right now is rental investment properties. Because I think fewer people are going to want to own after this. And some people are probably ... I mean, if you're near a major metropolitan area, I've already heard from a lot of folks I know either in New York or Philadelphia or ... They're moving out of the city because they're not getting trapped in a high rise condo with two kids or three kids again if this happens.

Brian Rayl: And who knows how many people in the apartments above, below, and next to them have some contagious virus or whatever it happens to be?

Maya Paveza: Right.

Brian Rayl: And a lot of people are trying to get out of the rat race and move out to those little bit further out areas where maybe they have more space, maybe [crosstalk 00:17:17].

Maya Paveza: Where they can control their own environment better. Yeah.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. And they can get a bigger property for less money because they're not in the middle of downtown or in those big areas where cost of living is extremely high sometimes.

Maya Paveza: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right. And so, make sure we all work our relationships with those agents in those major cities, if you're not one.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. So my answer, and I posted this into what to say now group is be honest. You know your market. What are the different pros? What are the different cons? The cons right now are all of the unknowns. We don't know if the CARES Act is going to get extended. We don't know if there's going to be some kind of a mortgage rebound. We don't know what rates are going to do in a year.

Maya Paveza: But did we see this coming six months ago? No, not really. Okay. Maybe six months it was getting close. But the point is you don't know what tomorrow is and I think it's also okay to say, "I don't know. Let me look into it." That's the most important thing. If you don't know, tell somebody you don't know and tell them you'll find out.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. One of my favorite sayings is always, "Unfortunately my crystal ball was broken last week. So, I don't know what the future holds. I can share with you kind of what I foresee, but there's no guarantee. There's a lot of unknowns. And what we do know is the market right now. We don't know what it's going to be three, six, nine, 12 months from now."

Maya Paveza: Yeah. And they're usually pretty good indicators. But I think that right now though there's so much in the media about everything that's not real estate, and what I've seen has been surprisingly negative about real estate on various websites. It goes against everything we're seeing. They're like, "Oh, it's not a good time to buy." It's like, what are you talking about? So why ... Companies having record numbers in one week. Companies are up over last year's number. So, I think that the problem is that you've got so many people that aren't in the industry giving opinions without having the actual expertise. I mean, I saw what was coming in '08. I saw it before it came and I advised clients to drop their prices. An agent, if they're watching their market, they're going to see a problem coming before it gets here. There are going to be indicators if the market freezes or activity slows. You just have to pay attention to all those statistics, because if you're the one who knows the most, well, your clients are going to tell everybody else. Right? Yeah.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. And if you help them to protect an investment or take advantage of an opportunity or anything like that, they're going to remember that. They're going to tell their friends and it's a great way to earn referrals. But most of all, you want to make sure that you protect your client-agent relationship as well.

Maya Paveza: Yeah, which never ends in most places.

Brian Rayl: Yeah. So, those are the two big questions. For those of y'all who have not seen the show before, we like to keep it nice and short, not waste your time. So, those are the two big questions that we wanted to get answered on the air this week. Maya, did you have anything else?

Maya Paveza: No, I think we're going to be back next week and hopefully it'll be probably you and Dan or Melissa and Dan. And then, I know we've got some webinars coming up too. We're going to be doing one next week to talk about a special that we're running. The nine for $90 ... Or no, I'm sorry. $9 for 90 days. Wrong way. Much better deal. And then, I know what? There's with Chris Dryer. Dan's going to be doing a webinar with Chris Dryer from what?

Brian Rayl: On Thursday.

Maya Paveza: Yeah. So we've got a lot of interesting stuff coming up, but yeah. Just join the group. Post questions, have a discussion, let us know what you want to talk about. And if you don't agree with us, that's great too. We appreciate it for sure. And if you haven't checked out the free content on Happy Grasshopper, stop by. And if there's content you need, tell us. I've had people ask specifically for messages and I help them get exactly the message they want. So if you go there and you need something and it's not there, ask us because one of our writing team will write the right message for you and even take multiple hits at it. Right?

Brian Rayl: That's right. All right. So, thank you all for joining us. We appreciate it. We look forward to seeing you back here next Monday at 2:00 PM Eastern standard time.

Maya Paveza: Oh, and one more thing. If you don't know what to say about something, just say, "How are you? Are you okay?" Yeah. Don't have an opinion.

Brian Rayl: Express sincere concern. Make sure to follow the Happy Grasshopper business page, facebook.com/Happygrasshopper. And all of these links are down in the comments on the video, Happy Grasshopper ... I'm sorry. Facebook.com/happygrasshopper. That's the business page. And then the what to say now group, we really encourage you all to get in there because there's a ton of experience and a ton of knowledgeable people in there. And everybody's looking to help everybody else. That is facebook.com/groups/whattosaynow. And that's also linked on our business page. If you are watching this on Facebook, please give us a like, please follow the page. If you're watching this on YouTube, please subscribe, ring the bell, get the notifications, all of that fun stuff. And if you have any questions for us, please don't hesitate to ask. Maya anything else?

Maya Paveza: That's it. Stay good, stay golden, and stay real.

Brian Rayl: Absolutely. Stay stafe.