Avoid Overpaying: Smarter Real Estate Moves in Today’s Market With Fred Glick Of Arrivva

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• How one “unsellable” home with major obstacles still landed a full-price offer
• Why Zillow estimates can throw you off track when pricing or buying a home
• The truth about buyer broker fees and how to protect yourself from exclusivity traps
• The communication strategy that keeps clients informed and ahead of the process
• What really drives interest rates beyond the Fed’s influence
• Insider insights on appraisal waivers, conforming loan limits, and high-value homes

In this episode with Fred Glick and Jennifer May

Ready to buy or sell without wasting money on high real estate commissions? 

In this episode of We Fixed Real Estate, join Fred Glick and Jennifer May of Arrivva as they share proven strategies to avoid overpaying. 

From selling the “unsellable” home at full price to saving clients $60,000 in commissions, uncover the truth about buyer broker fees, exclusive contracts, and flat-fee models. Plus, insider tips on interest rates, appraisal waivers, and finding hidden deals in today’s hot market.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Fred Glick on LinkedIn
• Arrivva
• Arrivva Mortgage
• Live Mortgage Rates
• Jennifer May on LinkedIn

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Welcome to another episode of We Fixed Real Estate. We have Jen May here on the show today, along with Fred Glick, and Jen’s got some really exciting news.

Jen, tell us about yourself and tell us about this exciting news.

[00:00:32] Jennifer May: I’m Jen. I live in Arcadia. I’ve been an agent with Arriva for three years. And we just got a listing in Arcadia that sold for asking price. Even though it had a bunch of challenges that the normal house doesn’t have, it was a big lot, but it was backed right up against the 210 freeway.

It really deterred a lot of people because of the noise in the background. But for the most part, the people that came out knew the noise wasn’t gonna be a problem because we put it in the description to prevent people from coming and getting discouraged by the noise. We still get, did get a few people.

We got one guy who said that he found the outside to be deafening, but we did a lot to prep the house before we listed it to make sure that it, noise couldn’t be heard from the inside when people were looking at the house. And that the house was more suitable for more buyers. When we first saw the house before we listed it, the walls were teal, and they had wallpaper in different colors, in different rooms.

But, after talking to the seller, we convinced them to paint all the walls a subtle color, a white color. And to make the floors a lighter color too, because they had very dark laminate floors that didn’t really fit the house. So we switched over to the engineered wood with a lighter color, and it made the house look bigger, even though it was already a big house, it did help attract more people.

We even got some potential buyers who came just to look at the design of the house, to take, some pictures for their personal house. I guess.

[00:02:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It was a marquee house, or it is a marquee house. Whoever bought it. It’s getting a very famous house in that area that Einstein might have been in once.

[00:02:35] Fred Glick: Yes.

[00:02:36] Jennifer May: The original owner who built the house went to Caltech with Einstein. And they were friends. He could have possibly been at the house. We aren’t for sure.

[00:02:47] Fred Glick: Yeah. It’s the old thing back east. Everybody puts Washington, slept here kind of thing.

[00:02:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Now, the one big thing that the buyer said in the Google Review, and you got a glowing review on this, was that he could not believe that you sold the house for asking price.

What, I mean, the secret to your success, I think, was that you managed the expectations of potential home buyers when they go there, they know it’s backing up against the 220. They know that, this and that, but you also go, went on to say, we have double pane windows here, and you’ve, and you were able to advise the client to make some real key changes that would really move the needle on the asking price such as the painting, the window, painting the walls, and putting in a different floor.

 Pretty impressive expertise to navigate that listing.

[00:03:31] Fred Glick: It takes a little nuance, but these people understood. Matter of fact, here’s a little picture of the back of the house. I didn’t get the whole thing, but I should share the screen and show you that.

[00:03:42] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:03:42] Jennifer May: Some people. We should have taken some before and after photos.

[00:03:46] Fred Glick: Yeah, okay, here we go. So you see this, this picture is the 280 is kind of back this way. So it goes right up against there. It doesn’t really show real big, but you know, this was a giant yard down here.

We have the pool, the little place to go. It’s a great-looking house. Yeah. But you know, we had to get, there were some interesting things about it. The pool was saltwater. Which is pretty cool and had a cover, but you take the cover off, and it’s not as hot. It’s crazy as that sounds. But you can see the slider back here.

That was double pane. All these other windows. Double pane. Slider there. Double pane. So you didn’t even need triple pane ’cause it was still far enough away. But you kind of get the idea. But yeah, we take this with every house, you know, we look at it like a buyer would look at it. That’s all we care about.

We also look at it for pricing because sellers think they know, you know, “My house is worth X,” it’s not worth X. ‘Cause nobody’s willing to pay that. There’s a lot of overpriced listings out there, and that’s why, ’cause sellers, either sellers want a number and the agent just takes the listing to get a listing. Or the listing agent is telling you, “Oh, I can get you X. No, you gotta price it right.” If we priced this higher, we never would’ve sold it. You know.

[00:05:18] Jennifer May: We were also up against the Zillow estimate before we listed it. The Zillow estimate was saying, I don’t, I’m not sure exactly where they got the number, but they were saying a lot more than,

[00:05:30] Fred Glick: Yeah. Because it probably didn’t take into consideration the highway noise. Zillow’s estimates can’t do that. The algorithm is generic square footage, the house square yard footage. So you gotta look at these little, little pieces of information.

But as I was saying, buyers, that’s all we care about. What is a buyer gonna see when they come in the door? What is a buyer gonna look at when they look at the MLS listing? The words have to be correct. We have to make them come to the place or want to come to the place. That’s our job as listing agents, especially when it’s going out on Redfin and Zillow, et cetera, et cetera.

And we just gotta impressed upon people that this is it, and that’s what we try to do. So we did it with this. It took, eh, about 30 days to sell. It didn’t fly off the shelf day one, but we had some people interested and interested and interested in one. And this one buyer just came in and loved it. So…

[00:06:29] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Didn’t exactly languish either. 30 days in this market isn’t too bad.

[00:06:32] Fred Glick: No, no, definitely not.

[00:06:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Now full-service representation. You helped him with all this, like, guidance and key insights to get this house sold. That he, the seller, admittedly, was surprised that they got full price on this house. All this, and what was their Arrivva savings?

[00:06:50] Fred Glick: Well, if let’s think it was two and a half, make easy math. Let’s say 3% is 75,000 bucks. We charge 15,750. So basically, around 60 grand is what they saved.

[00:07:05] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s amazing.

[00:07:06] Fred Glick: Yeah. And we did not offer any compensation to a buyer. We just said, “Hey, it’s negotiable within the contract.” And that’s what it ended up doing.

So, you know, ‘ cause here’s the thing, and it’s crazy out there. If you make an offer in the contracts in California, you actually have to put in how much buyer broker compensation you want to get. And it better match that buyer broker compensation agreement that you sign, that the agent signed with you. Now, there’s been some agents out there who found this form that you can change the buyer broker compensation later down the road. Say you go to a new construction site, and this is what they’ve been doing. Some of these companies, they blast out, “Hey, we’ll give you 2% or 3%,” or whatever. And then these people sneak around, “Oh, I can get you into this property, but there’s this form you have to sign in order to get an appointment to say…” It’s a complete lie.

[00:08:02] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Wow.

[00:08:03] Fred Glick: And these, yeah, so these people are trying to get, these agents are trying to get more compensation. Again, we don’t care because we have a flat fee, so we’re never gonna ask you to sign another buyer broker fee for a higher amount. So that it’s absolutely ludicrous.

[00:08:20] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Is that what Wendy is sellinglater?

Is that what we were talking about earlier?

[00:08:25] Fred Glick: Exactly. Exactly. There was an agent. This agent was bitching about it on TikTok that she left out on a few thousand bucks because she didn’t get the updated thing signed because this seller was offering X. Why as a seller, would you come out and say, “Hey, I’ll give you 3%.” You’re negotiating against yourself. So everybody knows kind of the format is there, except up in Seattle Washington State, in the northwest MLS, they want you to list what the buyer broker compensation is. And if you list zero, it might have a problem. Even if you put it in the notes, “Hey, it’s completely negotiable,” whatever your buyer broker fee.

And that, what that’s telling me is all these agents are still charging 2.5%, 3%. And it’s like a wink, wink situation. If we took all the Northwest MLS. Listings and looked at ’em to see what the compensation is, and I’m gonna actually try to do that and bring it to you next week. They fixed the market and they got, they got another class action suit coming against them, and they’re trying to price fix.

So, you know, all these guys doing it wrong, they get more business than us. So the question is, how do they convince you as a buyer that you should use them and not us? I don’t know. Lies, that’s about it.

[00:09:48] Drew Thomas Hendricks: To the inexperienced real estate person, let’s break it down just very simply. The first step is you find an agent, a buyer’s agent, then you’re gonna make an offer on the house.

But when you sign up with a buyer’s agent, are you negotiating the buyer broker fee then, or do you negotiate it per house?

[00:10:07] Fred Glick: No, you absolutely get one contract with one amount that says you’re gonna do this for X percent or X number of dollars.

[00:10:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Or a flat fee.

[00:10:17] Fred Glick: That’s right. And you should never change it to go, especially to go higher. ‘Cause that, you’re just getting ripped off at that point.

[00:10:25] Drew Thomas Hendricks: The buyer.

[00:10:27] Fred Glick: You have a buyer broker fee that’s exclusive, don’t worry about it. There is no way they’re going to enforce that. Because once they do something wrong, they voided the contract. If they’re trying to do sneaky stuff to you and lies, and you’ve caught them in it, just walk away from ’em and find another broker. And don’t sign an exclusive contract. It’s like getting married on the first date.

It’s ridiculous.

[00:10:49] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So what? You sign a contract, you agreed to a buyer broker fee of two and a half percent, then you’re gonna go buy a home, and the seller has a listed buyer broker fee of 0%. How is that contract?

[00:11:04] Fred Glick: In the physical California realtor agreement of sale, to buy a property, you have to exactly list how much you want the seller to pay. So you put in there two and a half percent.

Well, if it’s a million-dollar house, the seller wants a million dollars net. And you’re asking for two and a half percent, that’s 25 grand, that’s makes their net 975. And the seller’s gonna come back of, “Okay, I’ll pay her 25 grand, but the price now is 1,000,025.” So that’s gonna happen.

You know, it’s what the seller nets, and that’s the most important thing.

[00:11:43] Drew Thomas Hendricks: The negotiations all come at the very start of the process.

[00:11:46] Fred Glick: Right.

[00:11:46] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Before you start looking for a house.

[00:11:48] Fred Glick: And look at more than just the price. Look to see, again, if it’s exclusive or not. Do not sign an exclusive agreement. There is no reason to. Zero. Okay? The agent wants you to, ’cause they want to quote unquote lock you in. You need the flexibility, and if they don’t wanna work with you with a non-exclusive contract run. Because that means they’re trying to lock you in.

They’re trying to play games with you. Hey, if you come with us and you don’t like using us for, I don’t know why, for one reason or another, or your cousin just got his license and your mother’s telling you you have to use him, or you’re gonna not be able to go to Thanksgiving dinner, you know, stuff happens.

We understand. And that’s why we have non-exclusive agreement, because we want to build your trust. We, you know, hopefully we know what we’re doing and you know, you like what we’re doing and we’re here to be helpful. And another thing, we work outta Slack channels, so the communication is insanely good. Ask your agents, they don’t even know what Slack is.

‘Cause 99% of ’em have no clue.

[00:12:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And the client that we had on two weeks ago was, says, that was one of the things he was most impressed about was the, just the thorough communications and how easy it was to isolate the different discussions on all the properties he was looking at into each one of the little channels. And it made it so much easier.

[00:13:15] Fred Glick: Yeah, exactly. And we got a lot of stuff built in there. I’m trying to automate it better. We actually have a canvas that’s gonna put you through the entire process and give you every single thing that could possibly happen and what to do about it. So this canvas is going to be the blueprint for how to do a real estate transaction once you’re in with us.

So it makes life easier.

Well, at least life’s getting easier in one aspect. I think there’s a few other aspects in life right now that are getting a little more difficult, such as the executive branch of the United States. Let’s talk interest rates. My favorite subject. Okay, number one, and let’s go back to this. No one but the actual market, for 10 year treasury, mortgage-backed securities, sets interest rates. That’s it.

Chairman Powell, nothing. Members of the Fed, nothing. All they’re doing is controlling what’s called the Fed funds rate. And that is what member banks borrow money at. Those banks don’t turn around and give it to residential mortgages; they give it to commercial mortgages. And maybe a second line of credit that you have, or a home equity line of credit. That’s it.

30-year fixed? There’s nobody who’s controlling it. So the president has decided he’s firing. You know, he is screaming and yelling that the rates should be dropped, but that’s actually not gonna help interest rate. I have seen since the day that interest rates drop by the Fed, mortgage rates go up because everybody anticipated it.

It is like the stock market. Every minute, the price can change. If a, you know, the Bank of Japan decides they’re not buying any more 10-year treasuries, guess what? The value of the treasuries goes down. The yield goes up. They need to attract a higher yield to get people to buy it. So today it went up from about 4.2 to 4.5.

So the fact that the president comes out and fires, “fires” one of the Fed governors, which is never gonna hold up. Also, the reason he said was because she committed mortgage fraud when in fact she did not commit mortgage fraud. We have people in California who buy a house, well buy, let’s say in Palo Alto for 4 million and then they’d buy a house in Beverly Hills for 2 million because their office is in both cities.

And so they need a place to stay when they get to Cal to LA. It’s their primary residence. You can have two primary residence. But here’s the crazier thing: you can also have a second home. And the second home interest rates are exactly the same as the primary residence. How about a senator?

Senator X from the State of Idaho. He lives out there and with his constituents, ’cause you have to, but he’s in, you know, the Senate half the year. So he is got a place in Maryland, that’s a primary residence. He lives there six months a year. He lives in the only place six months a year. So it’s not mortgage fraud, it’s politics, kids.

And the rates aren’t gonna go down because Otis says so, they’re gonna go down ’cause the market says so. So that’s, that’s it in a nutshell. So you don’t have to sit on social media anymore, hearing about all this stuff going on.

[00:16:43] Drew Thomas Hendricks: On the brighter and better news, let’s talk about the appraisal waiver over 1 million.

[00:16:46] Fred Glick: Ah, okay. So it is a deep dive, kids.

[00:16:49] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yes.

[00:16:50] Fred Glick: And found out some more reasons. So what’s going on is basically the Fannie Mae limit; if you average the 806 and the 1.2 issues, is about a million. So what it’s about is mortgage liquidity. So the markets, the buyers, all the big MBA buyer, MBS buyers, have decided that a million dollars is the only, is the max liability they want to take on a value because if it goes higher, then if the market goes bad, they have a liquidity problem.

So I still think it’s an insurance problem, and this is kind of masking it. But the bottom line is you still cannot get an appraisal waiver if your value is over 999. So if I have a $400,000 loan on a $5 million house, I’m gonna put the value at 999 so we can get an appraisal waiver. So there are little tricks if you have enough loan to value, and probably you can try it at 80%, but it’s probably safer at 75.

There’s no guideline for this. You just have to try. So if you’re refinancing, your house is worth a gazillion, but your loan is low, try the 999 value and see if you get an appraisal waiver. If not, you’re paying 456, $700. It’s a complete waste of money.

[00:18:11] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And on one last, for those people still around, we’ve got a pretty good tip going for you. What happens when you just can’t find a house and you’re SOL, you’ve got a good buyer tip for how to find a house when you’re priced out of everything.

[00:18:26] Fred Glick: One word, ugly.

Find the absolute worst pictures you could find. It’s usually you’re gonna find this in a house that’s on the market 30 days or longer. So set your search of 30 days ’cause everybody’s looking at the stuff that’s new. There’s something wrong with every house that’s priced like this, but some of them are as simple as they, they took it with their iPhone seven, the pictures and upload them.

You know, they’re still like dogs sitting around or just clutter or just, you know, from two miles away, they took a picture of the house. I’m exaggerating, of course, but you know what I mean. Go see those houses because it’s not attracting anybody. Like we talked about earlier, the whole idea was to attract people to come to the house, think like a buyer. These agents are, I don’t know what they’re thinking, but they’re not thinking like a buyer. So the idea is to take a look at the ugly stuff, and you never know.

Another thing, we have a problem in San Francisco now. I mean, it’s a good problem for a seller, but I don’t know, three, four, or five months ago, San Francisco was still, eh. And the mayor hadn’t really implemented all this stuff, and AI hadn’t really progressed as much with office space. But San Francisco’s back there are, I was at a open house Saturday out in, where was I? Way out in Richmond. And the house, you walk into the garage, you know, the typical San Francisco house, you, if you know, you know, the first floor garage, it had these two arch, it’s a duplex, actually two archaic heaters, which needed to have like guys with hazmat suits come out and remove attached to the vents that were full of asbestos.

I mean, it was just horrible. The rest of the house was just clean and neat and nice and plain. And people lived there, you know, gazillion years. And they had a tent there, just moved into a nursing home. So if this was five months ago, and I have a client who likes this kind of stuff, we could’ve gotten it for, I don’t know, million one, million two at the most. But now it’s listed in 1,400,000 and I’m sure it’s gonna go at least 1,600,000.

[00:20:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Whoa.

[00:20:52] Fred Glick: And now she can’t find anything. And it’s tough because dust, even out in the fog, people don’t care. So San Francisco is crazy. San Francisco is back. Even the condos are moving. Some of them are, some of them aren’t.

But that’s the biggest problem in real estate this week is San Francisco. Prices going up.

[00:21:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Wow.

[00:21:15] Fred Glick: There we go.

[00:21:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, this has been another episode of We Fixed Real Estate. Jen, any last words?

[00:21:21] Jennifer May: Just come out and keep looking at houses when you’re, and come use our services.

[00:21:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Persistence pays off. Totally, totally.

[00:21:31] Fred Glick: Alright, go away, everybody. We’ll see you next week.

[00:21:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Adios.