The Conversation Buyers Need Before Touring Homes With Fred Glick of Arrivva

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

• The common mistake buyers make before ever touring a home
• What a Morgan Hill property reveals about location strategy, lifestyle fit, and pricing
• Why early conversations with an agent can prevent costly surprises
• What most buyers don’t know about fully underwritten mortgage pre-approvals, contracts, and financing 
• How Arrivva’s Nationwide Cashback program and flat-fee maximize buyer savings
• Why waiting for market headlines could be your biggest mistake

In this episode with Fred Glick

Before you start touring homes, there’s a conversation every buyer needs to have.

In this episode, Fred Glick of Arrivva breaks down why skipping preparation leads to costly mistakes, how early agent conversations act as a buyer risk audit, and why financing structure, contracts, and strategy matter more than market headlines. From commuter-friendly value plays to flat-fee lending and cashback programs, this episode shows how prepared buyers gain leverage in any market.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Fred Glick on LinkedIn
• Arrivva
• Active Listings
• Live Mortgage Rates
• 18471 Corte Zapala, Morgan Hill, CA

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:12] Fred Glick: If you’re serious about buying, the most important conversation is before you tour houses, our Google Meet exists to prevent expensive mistakes, not to pressure you into anything job.” ‘Cause this is exactly what those like, you know, big-haired Texan broads are saying. This is exactly, that’s their, they’re reading their hooks, they’re just doing their thing and you know, getting engagement.

[00:00:48] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Was that the beginning of We Fixed Real Estate.

[00:00:51] Fred Glick: Oh God, yes. I’m now.

I’m Texas and I have very big hair.

[00:00:58] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So, Fred, welcome to We Fixed Real Estate. We’re doing a solo show today and you are dressed like you’re going to the Arctic.

[00:01:06] Fred Glick: Okay. I’m in Los Angeles. I’ve been in San Francisco the last two weekends.

It’s California cold. You know how there’s California sober? This is California cold. This is brand new. I bought it in San Francisco. It’s just fricking unbearable. So we do have winter here people, and especially in San Francisco, it changes per block. So.

[00:01:32] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, we’ve had some really incredible weather. But even down here in San Diego, I’ve got the heater on behind me so I don’t have a coat on, but we’ve got this low fog that just tracks all the moisture that makes everything seem 10 times colder than it is.

[00:01:48] Fred Glick: Yeah. And I was flying yesterday and I could just see it, just sitting there. It’s like I’m not going anywhere.

[00:01:56] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh yeah, no. And heaven forbid you drive the I-5 in the Central Valley. I’ve done that before when they have the Tule fog. For one the whole month, it’s just been completely blanketed in this dense fog.

And that’s the type of fog that you get that those a hundred car pile ups, ’cause no one can see anything.

[00:02:14] Fred Glick: But what you should be doing is working out of your house and loving your house. Okay. So a lot of you can do that. So I have to have a little commercial here ’cause what you said, just broadly me to that. We have this listing, the one here in the middle.

It’s almost brand new house in Morgan Hill. Now Morgan Hill is, I don’t know, excuse me if I get this wrong. 15 miles south of San Jose, basically. You know not far. It’s got a Caltrain station in its cute little downtown. And this house we’re asking 4,199,888, but if this was in Cupertino, it’d be 8 million easily.

So, location, location, location, 6,000 square feet. You can stay home, have a good time, and don’t drive around in the fog. There you go. We just solved a commuter problem. Obviously, not all of you can afford  4,199,888 8, but you know, for the couple of you that might be listening and they can think about it.

[00:03:24] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s excellent advice. But what you cannot afford, no matter what price range you’re in, is waiting too long to engage an agent. And that’s the topic of our show today, is why engaging with an agent earlier, preferably Arrivva, will solve a lot of problems that most buyers don’t see coming.

[00:03:42] Fred Glick: That’s why we love to do Google Meets and they exist to prevent, exist expensive mistakes, not, you know, we don’t do, we’re not, as you can probably figure out, we’re not the salesy type.

You know, we’re not gonna, oh, we don’t have scripts, we don’t have coaches, you know, we’re just there to kind of go through the whole situation. What we do

[00:04:08] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It’s like a risk audit. Almost like a risk audit. I can’t even say that.

[00:04:12] Fred Glick: Risk audit. Yes, exactly. And we look, we look at different things that you wouldn’t even think of.

And this, there’s one thing specifically we tell people to do ahead of time, that they never, no one has ever thought of this. And that is remember to find yourself a good insurance person and whatever house you’re really somewhat semi-serious about, find out how much the insurance is going to be, or if you can get insurance from them.

Or do you have to go  FAIR Plan, or is there a way to do a modified  FAIR Plan or in between  FAIR Plan and you know the names, you know there are other types of reinsurance, so you don’t know. And this way, you don’t wanna fall in love with the place and then find out you can’t buy it or there’s some reason that you know there’s gonna be a problem.

So that’s one of the big things, to give you an example. But we talk about stuff especially in the contract, and the one thing that we push, push, push is pre-approvals and a fully underwritten pre-approval. You’re going to have to get the mortgage anyway. You’re going to have to get through the process.

So no one can give me a clear answer as to why not get it done ahead of time. So, because you don’t know what a lender’s going to ask for, you go through a mortgage a couple times in your life and you know, all of a sudden, “Hey, I’m a nice guy. Why are you asking for all this?” Well, they might be because they have to sell it on the secondary market, or they have guidelines they have to follow or what you think is stupid stuff, so get it out of the way.

So there are two situations, usually: a competitive situation when you’re bidding on a property and a non-competitive situation. We love non-competitive. It’s fun. It’s like, let’s see how cheap we can get it and how many contingencies we can put to protect you. Whereas if, you know, there’s houses, we put bids on this week where they’ve had 50 offers, so it’s just come in highest price, cash, settle in an hour and take it.

You know, blah blah. That’s no fun. But we want you to be prepared for both of them and that mortgage pre-approval has a lot to do with it. So if you’re going to buy a house where you’re competing against other people, realize everybody else is fully underwritten, pre-approved. So you have to at least stay on that level with that.

There’s cash buyers you have to go against. We even have a program that makes you into a cash buyer. We can go into a lot of detail that’s a separate podcast and I think we should do that. But the other thing is, if it’s a non-competitive situation, you’re gonna try to get it for the lowest price you can.

But we’re gonna give it some ammunition. We’re gonna say to the seller, “Look, you know, we want it for this price, but I’ll tell you what,” and this is maybe something you give up in a second round, “we’ll waive the mortgage contingency.” You know, that’ll make you feel better for taking our lower price. So there’s reasons to do it in both ways.

What we’re gonna do is keep going through that purchase contract and so you understand it and what you understand are important. And time is of the essence. Dates are of the essence. You’re supposed to do things. We make sure that you get alerts and counter invites for every single event that’s going to happen.

So. Again, we try to go and get you all the information from the backend upfront so that you’re ready to go.

[00:08:05] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:08:06] Fred Glick: And that you understand it.

[00:08:08] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Makes entire sense because working back from the contracts, make sure that it helps you create a more, a better offer because you know the context of that offer within the contract working backwards.

‘Cause the phrase is contracts don’t care how excited you are.

[00:08:25] Fred Glick: Exactly. There’s, I have no emotion when it comes to the contract. It’s, you know, let’s see what the best is we can get to. That’s really what it comes down to. The other thing that you will have to find, ’cause it’s state law, no matter what state you’re in, we’ve been doing this for years anyway, is signing a non-exclusive contract. Let me repeat. Non-exclusive contract, meaning you have to want to use us. We can’t force you to use us. We can’t force you to pay us, which is obscene, obnoxious, disgusting. Especially for agents who ask you for an exclusive contract at an open house that you happen to walk into.

It’s like, “Let’s get married.” Seriously. So, you know, and you’ll wanna have this conversation with us before you tour homes. We’re actually gonna teach you how to go to open houses. I’m gonna, I’m gonna let that be suspenseful and not give it away. But when you come and talk to us, we’ll explain it all. It takes a little while to, but there’s some great things that are gonna save you money in an open house.

So again, if you’re serious about buying, the most important conversation is before you tour homes. Our Google Meets exists to prevent these expensive mistakes and no pressure. And that’s where our states that are licensed in. But we do have something interesting for the rest of you, right?

[00:10:01] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yes, we do.

It’s called Nationwide Cash Back.

[00:10:05] Fred Glick: That’s right. So here’s the story.

Let’s say you’re looking to buy a house in Philadelphia. So right now I’m not licensed in Pennsylvania. Licensed to mortgages, but not real estate. We’re getting it back, but I thought it cost fair in Philly. ’cause I know Philly, I grew up in Philly.

Go Birds. It’s, you know, get arrested for not saying  Go Birds. Anyway, so you’re looking to buy, let’s say you’re looking at Rittenhouse Square. You found this nice house on Pine Street, 2200 block. So it’s really fiddler or writ fit. The argument goes on forever where the borderline is.

So you’re looking to buy and you need an agent. So what you do is you contact us, and here’s what we’re gonna do for you. We’re gonna say to you, ” All right, we will help you find an agent. We will help negotiate comp.” Meaning, you know, they can’t get away with bullshitting me. But they can bullshit you.

I shouldn’t say it like that. We’re gonna, is this a PG podcast or we can bleep it.

[00:11:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You can say bullshit. I just heard that in a high school play this weekend. You can say it.

[00:11:25] Fred Glick: Okay. So Trump said bullshit is okay to say now. Okay, that’s great. So anyway, we find an agent, we help negotiate comp and, or let’s say, “Okay, we found a great agent, but they charge 3%, but they’re amazing.”

And we say, “Okay, fine.” Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m going to negotiate with that agent a referral fee, which has been going on for years behind your, everybody’s back. But here I’m kind of twisting it all around. I’m trying to help you get it. And what happens is we get that 25% referral fee. It’s normally 25, could be more.

It could be less. We only take $750 for helping you do all this. And you get the rest as a rebate. It’s money…

[00:12:14] Drew Thomas Hendricks: The agent wouldn’t have gotten previously.

[00:12:16] Fred Glick: The agents are happy to give away these 25% referral fees just to get the business. It’s a cost of doing business. So, okay, fine. We’re gonna help you.

We’re gonna try to vet them. We’re gonna go through, what’s Wendy’s thing? These ethical agents, this association that we’re involved in, that register.

[00:12:40] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Housing Rebel.

[00:12:41] Fred Glick: Housing Rebel. Thank you. I’m too cold to remember. Housing Rebel. So, you know, we’ll go through those agents ’cause we want to give them the business ’cause they are, you know, more ethical.

But whatever, we’ll find an agent anywhere, but they’re happy to give the 25% out anyway, so we might as well give a nice chunk of it back to you. It is tax free. Enjoy it. And we’ve researched it and because they’re referring to us who, who is a California company who’s not licensed in Oregon. We can give you people in Oregon rebates. How’s that? So it’s a way around the law, I’m sure.

[00:13:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, loophole not a technical rebate, but the fact that you’re in California, you can.

[00:13:31] Fred Glick: Yeah, we’ll call something else. Okay. So sue me, you know, it’s like, hello.

[00:13:36] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So $750 is a very inexpensive price to pay for the negotiation tactics, the guidance, any of the tips you provide and the handoff.

And then you, you’re basically saving what you would’ve been paying the buyer’s agent over there. And the buyer’s agent’s happy because they’re still getting 75% of the commission.

[00:13:58] Fred Glick: Yeah, exactly. And look, you know, be honest, we’re licensed to do mortgages in Pennsylvania. If you’re gonna get a fully underwritten pre-approval for free from us,it’s free until you, unless you go with us.

If you go with us, obviously we have a fee and you have to pay for the credit report. So, but you’ll see our rates are better and I’ll tell you why. Here’s the quick explanation. If you have a $500,000 loan, usually a mortgage banker broker will charge you one and a half to 2%, as their fee. Now you may not see the fee because you’re gonna have a higher rate with no points or maybe a rebate, but it’s always built in there.

We have a flat fee of $5,750 for our mortgages. So especially when you get into the higher amounts, we’re ridiculously cheaper. So, and we know what we’re doing with purchases. You go to a mortgage person, they just kind of know what’s going on in the mortgage business. They don’t know what’s going on in the real estate business too.

We do this every day. So, you know, we throw that in as an extra, you’re gonna get my knowledge. I can’t, you know, I’m not licensed. I can’t do licensed activities in the state, but I can guide you on things that aren’t.

So there you go. You get all me and we do it in a Slack channel. Make life easier.

[00:15:23] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, that’s fantastic.

Yeah, it’s great communications. That’s good. So that is rolling out. And also one thing on rates, if you wanna see live rates, go to arrivva.com/rates and you can sign up to get live rate notices. Which brings us to the common thread on this show. The Fed. Fed headlines do not help you buy a house, ignore the Fed.

[00:15:48] Fred Glick: No. Ignore every mortgage and real estate person who starts out their social media with, “The Fed lowered by a quarter or a point today.” That tells me they didn’t even like, understand simple, basic economics of kind of how the whole system works, the mortgage system. You gotta kind of know that. I mean, the mortgage licensing system, it’s not an easy course and test.

It’s, you know, if it was, everybody would do it. But I’m not gonna even explain it. Don’t worry about it. Rates change every day. They change on a whim. They change because somebody made up something. They change on a lie, they change ’cause oil tanker got seized. They changed because the president farted in the wrong direction.

Anything could change rates. So the Fed’s got nothing to do with it. Exactly. 10 year treasury, 10 year mortgage backed security. That’s how the world works. Okay. Period. Done. End of sentence. Let’s stop talking about it. But don’t go to these people anymore is my points.

[00:16:54] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Just to put another little bullet point on. I mean, if you’re sitting there waiting for the perfect thing and you’re depending on the Fed, you’re gonna miss out on the home, you like, you’re gonna lose negotiating ever leverage, and you’re probably gonna end up overpaying in other ways. The only thing you can really control is the purchase structure, the agent compensation, which with Arrivva, we’ve got it taken care of for you, inspection posture and yeah. Gotta just, you gotta stop making decisions based on the Fed headlines. Mortgage rates don’t work that way. Control what you can, the structure on the costs, and stop waiting for perfect conditions.

[00:17:31] Fred Glick: And you know what, the Arrivva tie in is the flat fee, cashback, to reduce the cost regardless of where you go.

And that’s, that’s real control.

[00:17:42] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That is, yeah. 9750. It doesn’t matter if rates are 20% or 10% or 5% or three, you’re still gonna get the same cash back, or you’re gonna get, depends on the housing price.

[00:17:53] Fred Glick: You know, I have some developers who come to me and they love having the cash back because the bank, you know, wants, they have to borrow money to do construction.

And they say, “Okay, let’s jack the price up a little bit and ask the seller to give us 5% back.” And I take 9750. They get the rest, they got some money to work with that they don’t have to pay interest on. So, developers, this is why you use us. Money, money, money, money, money. So, especially commercial deals, by the way, we will do commercial deals.

So in California only for now.

[00:18:30] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Sounds good.

[00:18:31] Fred Glick: Okay.

[00:18:32] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, this has been a good episode. I’ve learned a lot just in this conversation. I think this has been a great episode of We Fixed Real Estate.