Is That "Multiple Offers" Real? How to Spot FAKE Housing Demand

Drew Hendricks00:30

Welcome to the latest episode of We Fixed Real Estate. Fred Glick, Drew Hendricks, talking about something pretty darn interesting and kind of trying to answer the question of what is the best way to judge demand? How do you know if someone’s actually interested in this house? How you doing, Fred?

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761500:50

Great, Drew. How ’bout you? Did you go surfing yesterday with the monstrous waves?

Drew Hendricks00:54

No, and the weather’s perfect and the water’s like seventy eight degrees.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761500:59

I know it’s all it’s my kind of water. The Atlantic Coast comes to the Pacific Coast finally.

Drew Hendricks01:06

Yeah.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761501:07

But yeah, that I heard it’s like four to six ways. I mean, it’s insane. Yeah.

Drew Hendricks01:12

Yeah, no, we have that tropical depression down there that’s really trimming up the surf.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761501:16

Anyway, come on out and surf everybody.

Yeah, so the biggest problem I have and buyers have is not just figuring out

What to offer based on comps and things like that, but what to base an offer on depending on demand. And there is kind of nowhere that just says, here’s what the demand is, so there’s no easy way to find this. So it’s kind of a combination of things. Let me start with the listing real estate agent. They have a responsibility to the seller to sell the house for as much as possible.

So, what their manipulations that I’ve seen over the years is they basically make up numbers. Hey, we have 48 packages out, and 28 agents told me they were gonna write. Now, that might be right in Cupertino, but it’s not in Richmond, you know, so because the demand is not there.

But here’s some ideas of what you can do to figure out demand. First of all, I always tell people when a house is newly listed and they have an open house, go to the open house on the very first day at the very first minute, because that’s where all the very excited people tend to go. It’s not perfect, but if there’s 20 people waiting, you know it’s going to be something in demand.

Drew Hendricks02:44

Mm.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761502:45

Also, if it’s one of those houses like these agents do to just find buyers. They price something. If it’s gonna go for two seven, they price it at one four. So people think they can afford it, but really they’re just being targeted. Well, I don’t know if that’ll be that good, but I’ll be your agent and I’ll help you. Here, sign an exclusive contract at two and a half percent of the sale price without even knowing me for more than two minutes. It’s repulsive. It’s like getting married on a first date. But anyway,

That’s a good way in an open house. If there’s only, you know, you go an hour later, there’s only one other person, there’s nobody, don’t think that that’s the end all of it, and it’s gonna be no problem. So that’s kind of the best you can do, unless you wanna hang out there or put a secret camera outside to keep track of it.

Drew Hendricks03:37

Aren’t there stats in Redfin and Zillow that shows how many ha people have viewed it or loved it? sorry, I stole your thunder.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761503:41

Yeah, so that’s what I was getting to next. So, the nerve review. Zillow. And you got to do these separate. Zillow, Redfin, Homes.com, Realtor.com are going to show you how many people viewed it, how many people saved it, most of the time. I say that because every once in a while I go on there and there’s no statistics at all. I don’t know why, but it just happens. But that’s kind of your next thing. And then as you see different properties, you can kind of tell what’s going to be busy and what’s not going to be busy based on those type of numbers. Also, Redfin’s got their hot house sign and that just means they got a ton of clicks. But, you know, there’s people just addicted to houses. And they’re just going to go there just to see the interiors or they just like looking at houses online. So take that with a grain of salt.

And even the saves, take it with a little grain of salt. But you can c kind of see what’s going on with there. Now you probably build a script to do this. So anybody out there builds it, I’d be happy to get a copy. So ’cause you nerds are much better than me. I I just don’t do this stuff. I I just take care of real estate mortgages. Stay in my lane, okay? so the number of packages are gonna be a a kind of a bigger thing.

It’s then kind of figuring out, and this is the hardest thing. You can figure numbers, and I have plenty of nerds that I do deals with for my as buyers, and they want every piece of information. That’s fine, I’ll get it for them. But there’s one thing you can’t put that’s quantitative, and I’ll give you an example.

This was during COVID where we had to make appointments to see houses. So I was standing outside with my buyers and we’re the next to go in and this couple walks out and the wife is about, I don’t know, seventeen and a half months pregnant. I mean, she was just gigantic. And she just said to her husband, I don’t care what you pay, I want this house.

And you’re never gonna know little things like, hey, is this house for my parents? Because I live two doors away and I’ll overpay because I want them here. So it depends obviously on the area, but there are things you just can’t judge, and you just gotta say, okay. and then you develop a pricing strategy, and also we develop a strategy for what to do with the buyer broker fee because

All these agents, especially if it’s listed by your typical ComComCast, Compass, Cobalt Banker, Keller Williams, agents who are part of Realtors, who are part of the cartel, the ones that were sued for $1.6 billion, they’ve already told their sellers, expect 2.5% to be requested by a buyer broker. So that’s where we have an advantage, and obviously any of our buyers have an advantage.

Sometimes I say, let’s throw the two and a half in and then on round two we get rid of the two and a half and then you as the buyer can pay our buyer broker fee. Or we just ask them seller to pay ninety seven fifty. So it’s a couple of different ideas of what to do and depending on the strategy, but the demand is the hardest thing to find. So.

Drew Hendricks07:17

Flesh that out. How does that work? Like I I conceptually know it because I’ve been working with you for years, but talk about that two and a half percent and then taking it off the table the next round. Give us a givea give me an example. Mm-hmm.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761507:27

Yeah, so we submit an offer, let’s say for a million dollars, andwe ask the seller to pay two and a half percent, twenty-five grand. What they do is say, okay, there’s a second round, and there’s a multiple counter offer, come back with your best offer.

So my buyer comes back with a million dollars, same price,

but no buyer broker fee. So in essence, competitively he’s bidding a million twenty-five. See the idea?

Add that to compete against everybody else’s bid.

Drew Hendricks07:59

I see.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761508:00

And the seller ends up paying lower transfer tax, lower title insurance if

they’re paying it.

and lower commission to the listing agent. Shh. I’ve had to put it in some of these deals, like we went to a price without the commission, but the sale for commission purposes is based on this higher price.

Ego or they’re trying to get the next listing and trying to impress people by what they did. You know, listings are something. These people come up with a million different things, but you know what it is? It’s two things project management and marketing. Okay? If we can market the property better, it looks beautiful, we know what we’re doing, blah, blah, blah, everything’s fine.

that’s the beauty

of using Ariva, because we’re only ninety seven fifty and everybody’s expecting two and a half.

go ahead.

Drew Hendricks08:50

especially when you can

judge demand. Those high demand projects or properties are really where you need the project management, the expertise, and the tips and tricks of years of experience that can actually allow you to get a competitive offer.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761509:03

Exactly. I mean we love to win offers and I I had one the other day, there were four offers and the guy said the sell this is great.

There was another offer pretty much exactly like ours, but the seller said, I want to take their offer, meaning us, because we’re not being pigs about the buyer broker fee. He liked our buyer broker fee, which is very interesting. First time I’ve heard that. And we’ve we did all the documentation, we did all we signed all the disclosures, there was no contingencies, so it was like boom.

Let’s just basically just go to closing if it was a cash deal, it’s actually a mortgage, but that’s all we gotta wait for. So yeah, it’s it’s something when you interview agents that you’re never gonna ask and they’re never gonna tell is like show me agreements of sale that you’ve written. You know, blank out the names, and you can even blank out the address, but show me the agreement.

And tell me why you did that agreement. Put in an AI and say, is this a good contract to be able to get a property under under contract?

Drew Hendricks10:11

Yeah, ’cause

you’ve got some you got one of the biggest secrets of contract escrow agreements in Cal if you’re in California.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761510:22

you’re talking about the escrow companies in Southern California and listings? that’s we’ve talked about that a

Drew Hendricks10:26

Yes. The ESCO

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761510:28

million times. That came up this week too. We had a buyer.

We had a cash deal, we put in, we wanted Fidelity National, which is the company we use up in Northern California that’s a title company that just does escrow with it,

as opposed to the Southern California escrow companies that find the title.

And they the escrow company runs it all and takes a fee based on dollars per thousand of what your sale price is. Why?

I don’t know. It’s the same amount of work, the same amount of liability. So I beat up this escrow CEO. And you should see their website. I’ve been doing this for a hundred million years, and here’s 10 of our people, and blah blah blah. They have like two assistants. And by the way, the assistant made two mistakes. They gave my buyer the wrong amount for the escrow deposit.

And then they sent out this form and they didn’t send it out in a PDF. So it’s like, what is this? I don’t even know what it is. It’s unconscionable how old school and overcharging they are. So, you know, one of our big pitches in Southern California is we’re gonna save you as the seller money. because here’s what happened: the buyer, what they did is they listed their full price on the buyer side, but that’s a courtesy discount so that.

Because in the contract it says seller and buyer will pay 50-50, pay their own fees. So the seller never complained about the fee because his his agent got him, you know, this is what his agent does, and he trusts his agent. Don’t trust your agents, unless it’s us. Because besides the commission, we’re gonna save you on the escrow fee. And it was like $1,800 we saved them. Why give it away when you don’t have to?

Drew Hendricks12:18

Yeah.

No, that’s a that’s a good secret.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761512:19

I mean that buys

yeah, so these are important things.

Drew Hendricks12:23

Since we like to since

we like to rant on this show, I will rant about something that you this escrow CEO that had X number of years of experience. Nothing drives me up the wall more than when a company says like four hundred and ninety years of combined experience where they just add up everyone’s tot it doesn’t mean y you may have five years

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761512:41

So

Drew Hendricks12:42

of good experience and four hundred and eighty five years of incompetency.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761512:45

Right. Well this guy’s had forty years of experience

of ripping people off for a high price number that he knows he’s doing. He knows he’s doing it, but he’s not gonna suggest to you know, his company and he starts telling me when he was complaining about what I was asking for, says, Well, you know, I have overhead and all that. Well that’s not my problem that you have two

Drew Hendricks13:04

Ha ha.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761513:05

assistants. We deal with Fidelity National.

The woman that we deal with has no assistance. She’s a licensed escrow person. She handles everything. I deal with some of these escrow companies. They got two assistants. I gotta email three different people on everything. Yeah, I sound like I’m bitching and moaning and complaining, but you know what? It’s not good for you as the consumer, and that’s all I’m there for. I could, you know.

Drew Hendricks13:28

No

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761513:29

I could care less about

that. He has overhead. Well, you don’t know how to run a business. So I so of course I went on Claude and I I came up with a thing to to actually put together an escrow company that basically does it through AI. So working on it, but it’s not fully vibe coded. But that’s the way it should

be. This is automated

Drew Hendricks13:48

Yeah.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761513:49

stuff. There’s no personalization for an escrow company. Send

Drew Hendricks13:53

Mm-hmm.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761513:53

us the escrow deposit. We get the title insurance. We clear out everything. We send you the final.

fees that we hook up with the lender on to make sure they’re right and then send out a notary. That’s it. That’s it.

Drew Hendricks14:04

yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense.

but onto something that’s not a rant. We’ve got a great update for one of our gu one of our guests and one of the partners that we have with Arriva, Kobai, has come out with a new a new angle.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761514:21

Well, I’ll show you

what it is. Here it is,

Kobai. So they’ve taken one of our listings actually. This is the first one they’re doing. And Kobai is a company, just so you’ll see it. they’re if you’re buying and you’re not married, you need to get into a contract between yourselves about all different things: ownership, money matters, risks, admin.

Rights and responsibilities and an exit strategy. And that’s what Kobai does. It’s fantastic. So go to c O B U Yo, cobai.io to get all the details.

But what they’re starting to do is now putting actual properties and giving you different things. Like this supports three to five adults sharing with each with a private seat. Sh yeah, private suite. This has five private

Drew Hendricks15:11

Wow.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761515:11

suites, this place. One giant

Drew Hendricks15:13

Wow.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761515:14

main bedroom and then four others.

So it can it they give it a grade, and then they tell you how it grades for sharing, depending on who you are and what you are. and then they keep going. It talks about the property. Here we go. So if there’s two co-buyers, you would each come up with 12 grand a month and come up with four thirteen, eight seventy-five down payment each, assuming twenty percent down payment. You know, he’s got to make some assumptions, but it with five people.

You got a startup. Everybody pays five grand a month. You come up with $165 each, and you’re able to buy the property. And then, you know, it’s showing the photos and all that.

Drew Hendricks15:58

that’s incredible.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761515:59

Yeah, it’s really good stuff. So he’s not a brokerage. So what he’s doing, if you want information about this, contact the listing agent, which is us, and it goes to our main page, current main page. Although that’s changing too, thanks to Drew.

but yeah, it’s really cool. And if you you can go back and Google the our podcast for Kobe for Matt. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so

Drew Hendricks16:27

Yeah, we’ll put a link we’ll put a link to that episode for anyone that’s interesting. Especially people cohabitating.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761516:33

so this is pretty good. I mean, this is a very expensive property to do this with, but you know, you’re gonna do it with a five hundred thousand dollar property in Washington or something, it you know, might make sense. You

Drew Hendricks16:45

Mm-hmm.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761516:45

know.

After college, you you got your same friends from college. You partied with them, you did stuff with them, maybe now you want to continue and live with them while you guys are working and have money now. So it’s another way to do it. So it’s very cool. Very, very cool stuff.

Drew Hendricks17:02

That’s fair.

Th that is the b that’s a great chart. I remember when he was on the show, it took me a minute to really get the idea around Kobay, but s h having it listed out there is that that’s gold.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761517:14

Yeah. one other last thing for the podcast we want to tease.

Drew Hendricks17:19

yeah.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761517:21

In a couple of weeks, we will have the CEO of this company on who used to be my or was my buyer, him and his wife. they’ve come up with something called overassessed, meaning your property taxes might be too high in California. Well, they have a system to help you appeal your taxes. He’ll go into all the detail.

And we’re giving away you know, usually they he says to agents they’ll give like ten bucks or something for each click. But we’re giving

Drew Hendricks17:51

Uh-huh.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761517:52

that back. We don’t we don’t take money when

Drew Hendricks17:54

Ha ha.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761517:55

you click on things for us and get little five dollar this and ten dollar that. We pass it on to you. It’s like stupid. So there’s some agents making, you know, drug money or something from these kind of things.

There you go. It yeah.

Drew Hendricks18:08

Well that’s cool, I’m excited for that to happen. Or excited for

that guest. especially over I feel over assessed right now, but you wouldn’t know.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761518:15

There yeah,

’cause you don’t have a sidewalk. You’re definitely overassessed.

Drew Hendricks18:19

I’m the only person that didn’t get a sidewalk.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761518:21

I know, you’re being discriminated against. I I would file a discrimination suit against the city.

Drew Hendricks18:26

I although I do have to there there is one three blocks down that’s e ha has a worse sidewalk than us and they didn’t get one either. So now I have the

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761518:32

sh don’t tell don’t tell but

Drew Hendricks18:34

second be second worst sidewalk on the street.

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761518:36

Yeah, but if you’re assessed

the same amount as your neighbor and you got the exact same house and they have a sidewalk and you don’t, you’re overassessed.

Drew Hendricks18:43

You’re right, you’re right. And that ties

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761518:45

Got it.

Drew Hendricks18:45

a complete circle. Tune in for a quick upcoming for an upcoming episode. Well you’re gonna learn if you’ve been overassessed. Or how to figure out if you are. Well at

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761518:56

Or something like that.

Drew Hendricks18:57

any rate, this has been the end of We Fixed Real Estate. And yeah, that’s it. No, it’s not the

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761519:01

Not the end end, just today’s episode.

Drew Hendricks19:03

end. No, it’s not the end. This is the culmination of this the culmination

Fred Glick CADRE#0150761519:06

He always screws this up. Okay, sh start again.

Drew Hendricks19:08

of this episode has concluded.

Stay tuned next week for something even more exciting.