Flat Fees, Full-Service Excellence, and Unfiltered Insights With Fred Glick of Arrivva

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

• Fred explains how Arrivva’s flat fee model sets them apart from competitors, pointing out the benefits of a fixed fee approach for clients
• Highlights Arrivva’s success in challenging industry norms, even amidst legal battles and market disruptions
• Fred shares insights on Arrivva’s client reviews and exceptional communication
• Fred weighs up the issue of outdated communication methods used by some agents
• Drew and Fred talk about the behind-the-scenes work on crafting Arrivva’s message
• Fred highlights Arrivva’s round-the-clock assistance and commitment to client support
• Fred provides insights into the real estate market, including interest rates and prices. Advises clients to be fully prepared with a fully underwritten pre-approval for negotiation

In this episode with Fred Glick

Join Drew Thomas Hendricks of Nimbletoad as he interviews Fred Glick, the Broker, Real Estate Realist, and Founder of Arrivva, in a candid discussion that peels back the layers of the real estate industry. In this episode, they explore what sets Arrivva apart from the competition, the innovative flat fee approach challenging traditional real estate cartels, and the exceptional communication that defines Arrivva’s service. Discover how Arrivva thrives amidst industry turmoil, legal battles, and market transformation, all while letting happy clients do the talking. Get an insider’s view on crafting the Arrivva message and learn why this full-service real estate disruptor is leading the way.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: This is Drew Hendricks. We run Nimbletoad, which is the marketing firm that Arrivva uses. We thought it’d be fun today to kind of flip the script and we’re going to interview Fred so that you can go a little behind the scenes on marketing real estate. Because we come to Fred with ideas all the time, and Fred’s got some very good opinions. Fred,

[00:00:21] Fred Glick: Now you’re going, I’m good. You’re usually snarling at me. Dude, that’s not gonna work, but yeah, whatever.

[00:00:29] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, I know you got, I can’t do this, but we can try. So Fred, what sets Arrivva apart? Let’s talk about flat fees and why the other day we were talking about how Arrivva doesn’t really rank as high as some of these other competitors for something like the word escrow.

[00:00:49] Fred Glick: Yeah, here’s the thing. If you’re not part of that cartel as we’ve been calling them. And obviously, they just lost one of their, the first of the many class action suits that are against them, the National Association of Realtors and the big companies that work with them, the compass, the Coldwell Banker, it’s called anywhere now and Green Max.

Keller Williams, Keller Williams, especially. They have a minimum fee that they, each agent has to bring into the office. And it’s usually 2. 5 percent of the sale price on each side of a transaction. Meaning if you’re a representative buyer, it’s 2. 5 percent seller, it’s 2. 5%. And I came to the conclusion one day and started this back in like 2017, but wait a second.

I don’t care if it’s 3 million or 300, 000, I’m doing the same amount of work basically. And really in reality, the people who are buying the higher priced houses actually do a lot more work that we don’t have to do like running around properties and saying, “Oh, this is the bathroom.” You know, I mean, it’s just a total waste of time.

You’re looking at 20 houses. What do you need me for? You know what you’re going to like and you can always video call it. So I came up with this fixed fee. And it’s working, it’s working really well, because what happens is all these agents put up, we’re going to pay you two and a half, 3 percent of the sale price to bring a buyer in. This is the way it all was.

[00:02:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, it’s working out. It’s working out really well because this marketplace is getting really crowded from a model that you started a few years ago.

[00:02:23] Fred Glick: Yeah. So, but here’s the problem. Let me get onto the next thing. We’re doing this and we do it with absolutely completely full service, 100%.

If you need to get into a property, we’ll get you into a property. We hire agents who can open a door. You know, it’s not that hard, and you can always video chat with us if you have a question, because we’re always on Slack. We live on Slack, our service isn’t seen. We’d love to negotiate. We know what we’re doing.

We know the psychology of how to negotiate, especially with other agents who are in this fixed mindset. That’s just. It’s sometimes just really easy because there’s a playbook and we know what the playbook is and they all use the same thing and they all tell the same thing and the value that they have and their worth and all.

It’s a bunch of baloney, period. But the problem is if we don’t charge that amount, we’re labeled as discounters. They’ll come in and say, “Oh, they’re discounters. You’re not going to get anything.” But the problem with the quote-unquote non-two and a half percent people is there are two categories. There’s us.

Who does it the right way does it full service and then these guys? “Oh, we’ll only charge you a hundred dollars to do your deal.” It’s like no, they’re a bunch of idiots and they’re it’s just yeah, you think you know what you’re doing. You don’t know what you’re doing if you bought a house before, you have no idea what the contracts, the disclosures that are necessary.

You can’t do it yourself. You gotta have somebody do it. They, they on purpose, make sure that if you want agent-to-agent notes, you gotta talk to an agent to get them. If you wanted to write your own contract, guess what you can’t because you don’t have access to the contracts. You have to be a licensed to be able to get it from the California Association of Realtors.

It’s a freaking racket. I agree But I, you know, if I presented a set a different agreement of sale to an agent, they would say “No, we’re not going to accept that.” Not, because they don’t know anything about the law. They don’t get it. So we’re unique in a category where we’re getting squeezed from both sides and we’re labeled as discounters. We’re not. They’re overchargers.

And guess what by 1. 8 billion dollars that just proved exactly what I’ve been saying. And by the way, there are more lawsuits to come. The law firm was fabulous. They said after they won the 1. 8 billion, they said “Okay. We’re now doing this.” And I don’t know about another 12 different suits in different states. They already had them prepared as file save as I thought it was hysterical and they and nor still have the justice department.

Yes, the United States Justice Department is after them for all this. And it’s all going to come down soon. But the cards are gone and all these companies are freaked out because the agents aren’t going to be making as much the companies aren’t going to be making as much and It’s going to be a complete freak-out and you’re going to see even these big companies just go under I mean, it’s just, it’s just crazy.

I mean, we’re just there as the turtle, even though we have a toucan, we should have a turtle as our, as our logo, because we’re just doing it right. Doing it slow, doing it the right way. So,

[00:05:33] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, no it’s, I mean that’s, standing out is one of the big things that we do. Help you do, but a lot of the stuff we come at you with, is too generic, it’s too. And it’s very hard to like rank in the, in the things when you don’t play that game, when you don’t play the, the game of mediocrity of trying to rank for certain terms, like all these other guys are playing.

[00:05:57] Fred Glick: Right, right. So, I mean, and that’s, and that’s what we talked about recently. We’ve had these ads with the headlines. Hey, we’re flat fee, full service, blah, blah, blah. And I think we’ve talked about this and you reiterated when you talked to your other people in your industry, it’s, we’re going to go out there and just give you our, our ratings that we’ve gotten from real life people.

[00:06:19] Drew Thomas Hendricks: In fact, we’re moving to that. We’re moving to just letting, letting, letting the clients talk for us and spread the word. And it is, Arrivva does appeal to the savviest clients that can cut through that noise.

[00:06:33] Fred Glick: I know and if you go to our review page or Zillow or Google because that’s where they are and you’ll see the language that people use. It’s not like, you know, there’s there’s a lot of good agents out there and they do the job and people say hey great agent blah blah blah, give them five stars.

Okay, fine. We get stuff like stuff like, you know, how we handle things, how communicative we are.

[00:06:56] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You do see that communication is very pervasive. I mean, everyone comments about how clean the communication is. And I think that’s that part of field service that a lot of people don’t, don’t fully deliver on.

[00:07:10] Fred Glick: Right. I mean, agents don’t know what Slack is. I ask an agent when I go into contract with them and to their client, “Hey, do you have Slack Connect?” They, it seems like I asked them a question, do you have 12 heads? So they don’t get it. They’re just stuck in the past.

[00:07:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And nothing’s more stressful for a client or a customer who’s trying to buy a house and they can’t get ahold of their agent or they can’t get ahold of the listing agent.

And suddenly they’re in this limbo and a very time-sensitive transaction.

[00:07:39] Fred Glick: And we’re dealing with these agents. I’m now reading a book. It’s just like I forget what it’s exactly called, but it’s something like. Something about stupidity. Psychology of stupidity and it’s fascinating because this is some of these real estate agents.

Oh, the client is away. Well, guess what? They have email if you’re away, you know, the stuff that they use is excuses and what our clients don’t know we go through is insane. Rene is the best because he talks to them a lot. And these people, all they want to do is talk on the phone. We don’t want to talk on the phone.

What are we going to talk about? Everything in real estate has to be in writing, you know, and if there’s something sneaky going on, we probably don’t want to deal with it. So yeah, they just don’t get it. They’re living in the past and we’re, we try to adapt the people from the past. Oh, by the way, there are companies and people out there, they’re still letting their employees use AOL email accounts.

But AOL.com it’s like, really, I mean, for 15 bucks a month, you get the whole Google suite. And you get, you know, spam filters so much better than everything. And they just won’t spend 15 bucks a month, but they want to make two and a half percent commission on 3 million. Give me a break. I’m venting here. People. I’m sorry if I’m boring you, but it’s

[00:09:03] Drew Thomas Hendricks: No, this is, this is the behind-the-scenes discussion on how we, how we craft the Arrivva message.

[00:09:09] Fred Glick: Yeah. So that’s kind of what we’ve been doing and try to do that. We’re obviously getting more on podcasts. Our socials are coming up to the problem with our socials is throwing it out there and there’s maybe it’s a one in a million people actually ready to buy a house, see it, and then act on it because we’re only looking to talk to you if you’re ready.

And understand how to be prepared because the other thing we’d love to do is negotiate and we’d love to negotiate with strength. And if you’re a strong buyer, you’re prepared. You have your bank statements. You have your fully underwritten pre-approved. You’re all set to go. You’re going to get a better deal.

You’re going to get it for a cheaper price. I got one guy who says I want the lowest price and I want you to make these lowball offers but he’s not pre-approved and he won’t give me a proof in front. So why would I do that? I look like a complete idiot.

[00:09:58] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Wasting everyone’s time.

[00:10:00] Fred Glick: Exactly. Oh yeah, they’re going to, they just put it on the market.

It’s 600, 000. They’re going to take your 450 offer and you’re not going to give them proof, pre-approved, or proof of funds. Why would they do that? Tell me why. And if you can come up with a good answer, I’ll be happy to submit the offer.

[00:10:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s the thing trying to get people how to how to get things and how to get people to get things is one of the biggest challenges that we have. And I think this, like even this podcast that we’re doing right now, and we’re helping you with the podcast, it’s having this frank discussion, this authentic discussion that isn’t manipulated through copy or through advertisements. It’s just really unfiltered reality.

[00:10:38] Fred Glick: Yeah. Well, what I’d like to have is a side-by-side thing of what, say chat GPT would do with this compared to what we actually did.

[00:10:46] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Hello, sir. I hope this message finds you well.

[00:10:51] Fred Glick: Yes, we are happy to help you at any time. Oh, that’s the thing. 24 7. We kind of almost mean it because Rene goes to bed really late and I get up really early.

So we’re pretty much anytime between say midnight and six, we might be tough to get, but there’s no emergencies in real estate that needs to be done at those times. That’s the other good news. But yeah, we’ve got Slack on the phone. We got Slack on the computer. It’s everywhere. It’s it’s Slack is our life.

[00:11:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Good. Well, as we’re wrapping down this episode today, Fred, what’s the good word?

[00:11:33] Fred Glick: First of all, interest rates are coming back down. If you hadn’t seen it, they were up near eight and now they’re up below seven. So that’ll bring more people back in the market. Maybe, but also prices aren’t kind of going anywhere. I’m talking Northern California, crazy stuff, but you know, there’s other places where it’s really slow and there’s stuff on the market. And what I can say to everybody is just be very, very prepared. Just have a fully underwritten pre-approval. Nothing less than that. You’re going to have to get the fully underwritten approval anyway.

So get it done in advance so you can negotiate better. Agents, hey, send your buyers to us. We’re happy to get them fully underwritten, and pre-approved by our lenders. And obviously, if you’re in California, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas, I don’t remember those four States, we, you’re doing the fully underwritten pre-approval and we do a flat fee by the way, on the mortgages, which no company does absolutely zero.

They all use a percentage of the loan amount. So. We’re having a nice, low-flat cake. Makes sense.

[00:12:45] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Fantastic.

[00:12:46] Fred Glick: That’s enough.

[00:12:49] Drew Thomas Hendricks: There you go.

[00:12:50] Fred Glick: This is what happens behind the scenes.

[00:12:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: – That was the end of the episode.

[00:12:56] Fred Glick: Exactly. Reminds me of that episode of Sex in the City with the closed door on Carrie’s closet. They played this music and at the very end. She just came out and said “It’s over. Go away.”

[00:13:08] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, you guys got to even hear the post-mortem.

[00:13:12] Fred Glick: Yeah, there you go.

[00:13:13] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Okay. Okay.

[00:13:14] Fred Glick: We’re over. Done. Goodbye. See you later, everybody. Arrivva.com.