Why Context Matters in Real Estate Transactions? Fred Glick of Arrivva Tells All

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:00:00

Welcome to We Fixed Real Estate. Drew Hendricks here.

Fred Glick00:00:03

Fred Glick here.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:00:04

René is circling the, circling the country, like finding a place to land. I think he’s like shortly over San Francisco.

Fred Glick00:00:12

And I don’t know what the weather is, but it’s actually, the sun is out in Los Angeles. Yay.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:00:20

I have not been outside yet today. Yeah. So in the pre-show, we were talking about AI, real estate, and AI, and how does that impact and what does it mean to you as a listener? And what does it mean to Fred as a broker and me as a marketer trying to actually do this stuff?

Fred Glick00:00:39

Okay, so here’s the thing. There’s a little chatbot on our website now, and there’s a way to text us and we get people who just come in with questions over and over again. How do you work with the buyer broker percentage in the rebate?

And how does it work? And, you know, if I sell it, but just all kinds of questions and we have them, so we know what they are. And it’s like, I try to answer every question. René does. As fast as we can, but it’s like, it’s time for the bots because it’s just going to be our brains being electrified.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:01:20

Oh, it’s just extends is extending it. So like what we did last summer, we had like a beta version of a bot for Arrivva and it wasn’t quite there primetime, we had actually backfed all the prompts, all the frequently asked questions and the bot was behaving itself. And now we’re getting ready to actually roll this out.

Cause AI has gone, it’s actually worked, woven its way to every aspect of business. In fact, any program, if you, if you’re on any sort of marketing program now, or any sort of like CRM or even like Slack, they’ll say, “Improve your writing with AI.” Like Mailchimp now, you try to put in this great, like headline instead of a headline.

And even Mailchimp will like bark back at you saying, “Are you sure you don’t want us to improve it?” Google’s the same way you produce this fantastic ad set. Then Google’s like, “Yeah, right. We’re going to try to make it better.” So it’s, it’s pervasive right now.

Fred Glick00:02:21

Nice. And that’ll keep, you know what? It’s the same technology that will refine medicine. You know, it’s just in a different way. It’s more logical.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:02:32

I think it’s easier for medicine because you remember that show House.

Fred Glick00:02:38

Yeah.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:02:38

With what? I forget his name. Hugh Laurie. Hugh Laurie, where he could solve the puzzle and he could connect all these disparate unrelated facts that actually had hidden relationships and diagnose the disease.

Well, nothing’s it used to be the human brain could do it so quickly. But now if you back-train an AI bot with the whole medical corpus, it’s going to be able to find those connections far quicker. You still need a human to like second guess it, but it’s it’s right there, especially in a field such as medicine and law.

You’re dealing with somebody that used to be populous, that used to be

Fred Glick00:03:18

No medical more. Law’s interpretive, you know, so law is interpretive.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:03:24

You’ve gotta argue it. So that’s for sure. I know a bot, the AI can already pass the LSAT.

Fred Glick00:03:29

The bar.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:03:31

The bar. Well, when it comes to arguing,

Fred Glick00:03:37

We’ll load up the law books and, you know, that kinda stuff.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:03:40

So there’s more than one attorney saying, draft me a closing argument, given this stuff. And I thought, right -. But for our circumstances, we’re trying to, what we’re doing right now is we want to take the FAQs that people are asking, like, what is what I don’t understand.

What is this fixed fee fixed rebate? How does that work? Well, It’s very easy for the bot to explain and that’s where we’re doing.

Fred Glick00:04:07

And it gives us a chance to feed the bot ourselves with our own long based answers to a question. So somebody sent me a very short little ask. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it took me like, yeah, this much space—a gigantic amount—to explain the entire context to her because there’s no like direct answer, you know, to this kind of questions. And we like elaborating on that. Speaking of context. Speaking of context.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:04:40

Oh, you have a shirt under there. Okay. Context.

Fred Glick00:04:44

There we go. Just remind everybody about context.

So I got to keep it in the shot.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:04:50

So fixing real estate, it’s where context matters. And there’s probably not one industry that’s more reliant on context as far as pricing and location and interest rates and environment that I think real estate, than real estate.

Fred Glick00:05:07

Yeah, it’s I don’t know. I don’t have any words. I mean, it’s, it just is what it is. Here’s a story from this week. We had a sale that we made on a condominium in Long Beach. Cool place. Loft. Can’t reveal the price, of course, or any of the details. But, again, this has to do with escrow companies, and I’ve mentioned this on previous podcasts where in the L.A area the seller gets to choose, which means the agent gets to choose because the seller has no idea and doesn’t care. And because he goes with the recommendation of his agent. So here’s the scenario. We sign an agreement of sale. That’s it. And we send in their bank statements and pre-approvals. Very simple.

Send it in. We come to an agreement. They sign they send it back. Okay. We have not gotten any disclosures at all at this point. They did no inspections. Condo, you know, maybe they wouldn’t do it. And you had to use their escrow company. So they chose an escrow company. They told us who it was. But they did not give us an affiliated disclosure notice because it’s owned by his real estate brokerage.

It’s still one of those. The agent’s really nice, really nice. And I’m pushing him through it, but they sent out this contract where my client waives all their rights to anything these guys did wrong, basically. We’re not going to sign it. We don’t sign them in Northern California when we use Fidelity National, First American, or whomever up there.

I mean, because it’s all one company, escrow, and title. Whereas down in Southern California, these brokers are making money, extra money from the escrow company, which is just pushing paperwork and you have one licensed person and maybe an assistant and a computer. And that’s the whole business, basically. Relationships with title companies, et cetera.

So it’s just a money machine. I mean, there’s one in Beverly Hills that’s just gonna charge 8,000 to do an escrow. It was like, you’re out of your mind. So, I, my clients don’t even know that I do this for them. It’s like, I bitch about all these things. I’m saying we’re not signing it because nobody signs these things.

It’s just, that they’re trying to rewrite the agreement of sale to, you know, they’re going to do the addendums. No, I’m the broker. I’m responsible for that. I’m not letting a 3rd party prepare documents. You know.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:08:10

That’s weird.

Fred Glick00:08:11

It’s crazy and I can’t wait till we get out of that business. There’s no need for separate escrow.

The title company is the most important thing. They’re the company that’s worth gazillions and it’s put up so much cash reserves to get their license with the state, whereas an escrow company you need like a bond or something, but it’s not much. So, it’s just a free grab it for me. Anyway, there’s not an end to the story.

Here’s an end to the story. We agreed that we’re transferring the escrow to our company to do the single thing and it’s saving the seller money. So he’s thrilled. So all good. So that’s context.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:09:00

The question. So the seller, the person that’s the real estate firm that’s representing the seller basically told them, you know, you have to use our escrow company and the seller didn’t know –

Fred Glick00:09:13

No. I wasn’t there when they explained it to them.

So let me say that. I’m speculating that there’s a possibility of what they basically said that, “Oh, go with our escrow company. Cause they’re right in house and we’ll make it real easy for you.” And people don’t know that you can shop. They have no idea as a seller. And there are differences. And if it, you know, there’s some inside companies that are really good.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:09:41

There’s some inside companies that are really bad. There’s some outside companies that are good. There’s some outside companies that are bad, but the way I look at it is I, why not have the escrow and title in the same place it’s cheaper and they pass that cheapness on to my customers. They’re super licensed, and they do a great job, so I can’t complain. That’s good. That’s a good tip. I had no idea. I’m sure the listing guy is just like, “Look, it’s going to be simple. We do it all the time.” And he’s like, “Okay, I don’t care. Go with him.”

Fred Glick00:10:17

Okay, just a quick thing. I want to read you something. Had a little discussion on Reddit.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:10:25

Yeah.

Fred Glick00:10:25

I actually asked the question. This is great. I asked the question and we can put a link in the thingymajiggy. I talked about timing adjustments cause I wanted to actually have them explain it. I’ve talked about it before, but I wanted a real appraiser to do it.

So I said, my question was, “I’m a real estate broker. I work in California where properties in places like Cupertino go up every single week. I’ve heard that the appraiser is to justify the values by having a time adjustment. I’d love to be able to explain to my buyers exactly what that is and what it encompasses. Can anyone help?”

 So, here’s the 1st answer, and I’ll bore you with the rest. No, I won’t bore you with the rest. “Typically, we’d look at the median sale price trends for the prior 12 months. If the median sales prices show a month-over-month increase, we would take an upward time adjustment from the contract date of any dated sale and use as a comp, for instance, reflecting the most recent 3 months reflects a medium sale price of a million, but sales over 6 months reflect a medium sale price of 950 and a comp sold 8 months ago. That would justify an upward time adjustment of about 5 to 5.5%.”

That’s kind of how they do it. , here’s the answer. It’ll make for great micro-content. I forget that. And there’s some guys who comment a few other things, but it’s on there. I like Reddit.

It’s a lot of fun there.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:12:13

So is there a saying? So the median sales price is 1 million and then it’s.

Fred Glick00:12:17

It was 950.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:12:20

3 weeks later, you’re going to be able to adjust that million up to 1,030,000.

Fred Glick00:12:26

Yeah. Yeah, basically. And our, you know, we have buyers that just don’t believe us and it’s like, no, you finished last, dude.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:12:37

I do think the best thing about Reddit is you can vote on the response.

Fred Glick00:12:41

Yeah.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:12:41

And if you’re just trolling or you have a stupid response, it’s just going to get downvoted and it’ll be moved around and

Fred Glick00:12:46

You’ll have to leave the island. Yeah.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:12:49

That’s interesting. I see the one guy that talks about how prices across the country aren’t going up, so don’t worry about it. That one got downvoted.

Fred Glick00:12:58

Yeah. Oh, well. All right. Hey, quick thing on Miami, Florida, you’ve probably heard, but I’m going to repeat it. There’s a lot of companies going in there, Apple, Amazon, et cetera, et cetera, not enough housing, of course. But here’s the bigger problem. There’s not enough schools for the amount of people that are going to be coming in. So, it’s going to get pricey and crazy down there.

René is trying hard quickly to get licensed down there. We will be there soon. We do have mortgage brokerage there. So, just give us a place with insurance. That’s the number 1 criteria.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:13:47

That’s the other hard part there is it’s hard.

Fred Glick00:13:49

Yeah, it’s still crazy.

And different parts of the state are doing differently, different types of houses. I mean, it’s just, and climate change down there. I mean, it’s just horrible, horrible. But anyway, good luck in Miami.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:14:05

Featured on a podcast the other day Meet in 20 or Less.

Fred Glick00:14:11

Ah, with Wendy.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:14:12

Yes.

Fred Glick00:14:13

Oh, that’s the Wendy.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:14:14

Get her on this show.

Fred Glick00:14:15

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been trying, you know, she’s a busy mom and hardworking and she’s the greatest. So yeah, Wendy has a website. Can’t remember what it is, but I’ll find it and put it in the notes, where it’s 100 percent pro-consumer referral network, for mortgage people, real estate people, et cetera, et cetera.

And she vets them, and she interviews them, does a video and we did the video a couple of weeks ago, and now she spliced it up and gave us the YouTube link and she puts it on our website and it’s cool. You know, I’m not shy.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:14:56

Yeah, we’ll put the, we’ll put the YouTube link in the, in the show notes, so you’ll be able to see it.

Fred Glick00:15:02

Cool.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:15:03

Good. And I really wish René was on the show, because I saw today that the entire town of Campo, California is up for sale for 6.5 million.

Fred Glick00:15:12

Where is it?

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:15:13

Campo, it’s east of it’s right on the, it’s about a mile from the Mexican border in East San Diego. René would know exactly where it is.

I’m going to bring it up next week.

Fred Glick00:15:22

Oh boy. Okay. Anybody knows anyone in the cartel looking for a space in the U S

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:15:28

30 homes, 30 homes. It is the entire town. And I guess the guy in Las Vegas bought it and failed to kind of revitalize it. They’ve got a great train, train station or train museum down there.

That was the last time I was in Campo.

Fred Glick00:15:44

You know what it could be. Okay, here I’m gonna give this idea away if somebody wants to do this. I’ve had this idea since I think the nineties. And I, you know, you know you have ideas and it just never happens. It is just one of those ideas in your head.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:15:59

Mm-Hmm.

Fred Glick00:16:00

It’s called the jackominium. Jackominium. You have some kind of housing. The housing doesn’t really matter except that it’s got to be modern, great internet, flat screens everywhere, beer flowing, whatever, you know, kind of a party-ish atmosphere and you build athletic fields, indoor stadium, basketball court. I mean, just go all out.

And then you get the kids who just graduated from college and are just so jonesing to have that life back. And what you’re doing is you own it and you rent it. And you just own the whole town that way. And you had then started these in different cities and they can compete against each other.

Or if you need to go to Phoenix, you can stay in the place in Phoenix, you know, just put them everywhere.

Put them near universities and one in Raleigh Durham. That would do it there. Perfect. There’s a perfect one. So anyway, if somebody wants to do that, there you go. Build it in the middle of the fricking desert, sports world.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:17:21

That’s pretty good.

Fred Glick00:17:22

Yeah. Okay.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:17:24

Let’s see. What else do we have on our list this week?

Fred Glick00:17:27

I don’t know. I think we pretty much covered it.

I was bitching about something, but I don’t remember why that’s there. Oh yeah. Please stop with the pictures in your emails. Everyone just end this, please.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:17:47

I agree. Your logo does not need to be in your email and images. Have you ever seen how you do the reply, reply, reply, and then suddenly they’ve got 45 pictures of themselves in there.

Fred Glick00:18:01

You know what, let me just say the last one I just got, she was with an escrow company in Southern California. That’s how behind they are. They’re expensive and they’re behind the times.

Asking what Slack Connect is? No idea.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:18:19

I was just at a charity meeting last night, and they wanted to bring the whole board into the, into Slack, because three of us run Slack, no one could know. It was a nonstarter. But you’re doing a good job of educating your customers, I mean.

Fred Glick00:18:39

Yeah, we have a couple of holdouts. But we’re trying.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:18:45

So much easy.

Fred Glick00:18:46

And that’s why we need the bot to talk to everybody who wants to type in.

And should we get the bot to be something? Should we, should we have the bird talk to people? There we go.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:18:57

Yeah. If you’re

Fred Glick00:18:58

A little animation.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:18:59

I’m in on YouTube, let us know what we should name this bot.

Fred Glick00:19:02

Yeah, you gotta use the bird.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:19:06

You gotta use the bird.

Fred Glick00:19:07

Toucan. Toucan stand.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:19:11

Bird.

Fred Glick00:19:12

The bird is the bot. Bird bot.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:19:15

Bird bot. It’s the Arrivva bird bot where context matters.

Fred Glick00:19:19

There you go. See? See, you’re right in the marketing meeting, this is what people do. They just sit around and brainwash, brain, whatever.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:19:29

We’re already here today. We’ve got the Birdbot, where context matters.

We’ll give it some sass. We’ll have a little bit of friendship. A little bit of sharpness to it. Maybe I won’t sing, but that’s, you never know.

Fred Glick00:19:44

It can squawk or something.

I don’t know if anyone’s actually going to see this.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:19:50

This has been a stellar one.

Fred Glick00:19:53

Dude. Now, I want you to get up, go outside, get some air. All right. That’s it, right? We’re done. Context.

Drew Thomas Hendricks00:20:04

I think that’s it.