Winning Strategies for Competitive Bids in Changing Markets With Fred Glick and René Pérez Jr. Of Arrivva

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

• Fred and René share smart tactics to make open houses successful, even during scorching heat or holiday weekends
• Know why certain markets remain competitive and how you can still face multiple offers in hot school districts or desirable neighborhoods
• Want to make your offer stand out? Discover how an innovative cash buyer program helps you compete in hot markets
• Learn the importance of understanding escrow fees and choosing the right escrow company. Find out the hidden costs of in-house escrow services and how to avoid being overcharged during your real estate transaction
• Learn how the right real estate professional can craft winning offers and secure better deals, even in volatile markets
• The hosts expose why working with big-name brokers may not always provide the best value, sharing insider tips on how to avoid paying for services you don’t need

In this episode with Fred Glick and René Pérez Jr.

In this episode of We Fixed Real Estate, Fred Glick and René Pérez Jr. of Arrivva explore tips for navigating a cooling market and winning competitive bids during a hot market. They delve into the benefits of innovative cash buyer programs that enable quick, all-cash offers, bypassing traditional appraisal hassles. 

Learn how to select the right real estate professional who adds genuine value and debunk the myth that bigger brokers always offer better service. Tune in for insights on making strategic decisions that can give you a competitive edge in any market condition.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Fred Glick on LinkedIn
• René Pérez Jr. on LinkedIn
• Arrivva
• Inspectify
• TikTok – @laterwendy
• Selling Later
• Thumbtack

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Welcome to We Fixed Real Estate. We’re here with Fred and René. Fred is warm in the sun in Silver Lake and René is hiding in the fog in San Francisco. How’s it going?

[00:00:11] Fred Glick: Groovy.

[00:00:12] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Man, that was an animated start. We should restart this, but we’re not going to. Do we want to plug some watermelon drinks or talk about anything?

[00:00:20] Fred Glick: Nothing. I’m out of watermelon drinks. That damn company better start sending me cases.

[00:00:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So we’re recording this just shortly after Labor Day, and we’re going to talk about real-life situations today.

[00:00:35] Fred Glick: Yeah. Well, first of all, I’m going to know out there, how many of you actually went to an open house on Labor Day weekend? We did two of them. I did one. René, what did you do? No, you didn’t do one. And nobody showed. I mean, you know, it was in the eighties, high eighties, low nineties, but this weekend it’s going to be over a hundred.

Are people actually going to go to open houses when it’s a hundred degrees? I don’t know, but I’m trying to do one. I’m trying something new. I’m going to have because it’s a hot day. I have the open house and I think I did a 10 to 11:30. So it’s in the morning. So it’s not in the middle of the hot day.

[00:01:18] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You know, I think your advice has always been go tour house when it’s raining, check out all the leaks, stress test the house. If you’re going to live in Southern California, you better figure out how that house heats up. I mean, that’s good to know.

[00:01:32] Fred Glick: Or cools off.

[00:01:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Or cools off too. Like if you’ve got a nice 68 degrees, then it’s going to be a selling point.

[00:01:40] Fred Glick: There you go. I think you got this Drew. We should be open from like noon to three, make sure we’re in the hottest part of the day. Come see it.

[00:01:48] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And then, and then do some, some psychological things. Keep, have a jacket on. So it looks like it’s super cold inside.

[00:01:55] Fred Glick: Totally. We’ll get out the ski equipment. No, hockey goalie, just hockey goalie.

[00:02:01] René Pérez Jr.: I said this morning too, but I’ll say it again. I think that if a buyer is serious about home shopping, it doesn’t matter if it’s raining or if it’s really hot, they’re going to go right. So it’s using an excuse. I mean, yes, we always use an excuse of, “Oh, it’s a holiday, we shouldn’t put the house on the market on these.” It’s like, yes, you’re going to have less people going there.

But the serious buyers are still going to be out there and they even might want to bring their family over those holidays.

[00:02:30] Fred Glick: Yeah.

[00:02:30] René Pérez Jr.: I mean, there are a lot of people who, like, are on the sidelines who don’t know when to pull the trigger and they don’t want to pull the trigger.

And then, you know, the holidays come up. And yes, there’s always like that, there’s that meme that rolls around about, like, “Oh, the dad didn’t want to buy the house. And now we’re not buying the house.” The opposite can also be true: the opposite of the parents saying like, “No, you know what, you should get this house,” or, “You know what, we’re going to help you with a down payment.” That happens during the holiday season.

It’s not going to happen during just like the spring market when there’s like 10 people, the parents get, you know, are going to get more panicked and, or whatever it may be, and they’ll stay away from making offers, so…

[00:03:09] Fred Glick: Okay. Let me give you the but. But as we know, it’s normally most of the time, unless it’s some crazy thing where there’s an offering to 15 seconds after the list. Most of the time the buyers are going to come back second time, or they’re going to be making a private appointment to stay at and not be at an open house.

Open houses are great, you know, it just makes it all easy for the agent, for the prospective buyers all just come at this one time. You know, but who do you know that’s going to be a lollygagger and who’s going to be serious? You know, I saw a couple people in a house a couple weeks ago and they lingered for, it was like a good 45 minutes.

And we’re not the types to sit and probe and ask you a million questions because you’re going to do what you’re going to do in spite of what we’re going to say. We’re there at the open house to answer questions about the property and to represent the seller. So if an agent in an open house starts asking you, “Do you have a house to sell? Do you have this?” And, “Oh, do you like the neighborhood?” Don’t answer that. Say respectfully, you know, “I’m just here to see this house.” And have them leave you alone because what they’re trying to do is figure out how much in love you are with the house so they can jack the price up on you when they see your name.

And they want to make you register. Forget this register stuff. Absolutely not. If they do, they put a gun to your head. Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew. You name it, put anybody, it doesn’t really matter. Absolutely give a fake number or fake email address. They’re going to tell you, “Oh, it’s required by our brokerage. Seller wants to see who comes to the open house.”

Too bad, seller, because that’s discrimination, okay? Plain and simple, discrimination. Doesn’t matter what your name is, it’s show me the money. Show me the fully underwritten pre-approval. Show me the cash. So speaking of cash, I’ll continue on this. We’ve had one successful closing so far out of one attempt because we’re new to this, but we’re starting to get more buyers asking us about our cash buyer program.

What does that mean? It means you come to either us or anybody else and get a fully underwritten pre-approval. And then we take the same mortgage application you make from the other companies or us, and that with a credit report and your income data, asset data, we send it to and a copy of the approval, and we send it to this company that approves your loan.

And what they do is they will give you an approval that we send in with the offer. that says they’re going to close in 10 days, they’re going to close for cash, they’re not going to do an appraisal, and here’s the best, they’re going to guarantee that if you don’t close, the buyer doesn’t close, they will close.

So it is better than a cash deal because the cash deal, the guy could walk. Okay? So it’s a fabulous program and it does have a cost. It costs 1 percent of the loan amount. And remember you can jack up the price and get that as a rebate, as a concession from the owner. And guess what? It’s tax-deductible.

So it’s a 1 percent plus there’s another $750 charge and that’s it. But it’s a way to win bids. There are still competitive bids. It’s not just Cupertino. We have one going on literally right now in Hermosa Beach. Not on the water. I mean, there are some views, but still a competitive school district, you know, and those prices and we have a cash buyer.

So we didn’t need to use this program, but it’s still out there. There are places around the country where the values are dropping like a rock. We know that, but there’s certain areas that are still busy and certain types of property. The single-family properties and good areas are still in demand. It’s all I got.

[00:07:24] Drew Thomas Hendricks: On the cash offer, is that similar to a swing loan?

[00:07:28] Fred Glick: No. You don’t have to have another property. With a swing loan, it’s you’re swinging from one property to the other, bridging it or swing bridge. This is just interim financing.

[00:07:39] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Okay.

[00:07:39] Fred Glick: You know, that’s all it is. Just temporary money.

[00:07:44] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So a million-dollar house, you’re going to,

[00:07:46] Fred Glick: Yeah.

[00:07:47] Drew Thomas Hendricks: $10, 150. You can be an all-cash offer for that million-dollar house.

[00:07:53] Fred Glick: Million-dollar mortgage. It’s the mortgage amount.

[00:07:57] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. So if you’ve got a mortgage and you’re offering all cash, so you might already have 300, 000. So you might have some of the money, but they’ll, this will allow you to get the rest of the money. The part I didn’t understand is right and – the close.

[00:08:12] Fred Glick: Because they do, they have an approval. They know what it’s worth. They do AVMs. They check. Not like you can just, they don’t do a real appraisal. But, you know, it’s in the realm. It’s going to appraise, they’re not worried about it. And also what you do is after the day after you close escrow, you go to any lender and refinance their loan as soon as possible.

So that’s the second step of this. ‘Cause you’re gonna pay them interest for the money while they’re holding it until you pay them up. And it’s in like 9.99. It’s an ugly rate. But the idea is they just wanna get the money and get out. But think about the business concept. Let’s say they can lend a million dollars once a month and charge 1%. So they’re getting 12% on their money. Okay? And plus the other. Extra 9. 99 for the interim financing. It’s a great business model. If you just got cash lying around, you know, there’s regulatory approvals and especially in California, but I mean, it’s just great because you know these people are already qualified, ready to refi, it’s not a problem.

They’re doing it right away. So you’re in the same market, it’s not like the market’s going to collapse later. So that’s why we like it. There’s other programs out there that sort of kind of do this, but they do it where the company buys the property and then sells it back to you. It’s totally stupid. Got lots of transfer taxes and things like that.

So we never liked taking the house away from the buyer. It’s your house. You’re putting the money out, so…

[00:09:56] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And those are all the strategies that a lot of people don’t know about. Why you want to know a company, why you want to go to somebody that adds value to the transaction, because you may, especially if you’re in a hot competitive market, you don’t want to just an average, average person just submitting an offer for you.

You can say, “Hey, here’s some creative ways that it’s going to be stronger.”

[00:10:18] Fred Glick: Yeah, because there’s been a lot of talk with the commission thing about, “Oh, I can just get a lawyer and do this and or do it myself.” There will be people who will try to do it. But the homeowners, you know, most of the homeowners need the full guidance and they don’t mind getting the guidance.

Although we’ve heard and we just had a call with a guy from Georgia who said he talked to like three or four brokers. They all wanted 3 percent from him. And they all said, “This is my value.” And he said, “They all sounded the same.” So they’re all going to the same person who’s teaching them no matter what companies go to.

And he says, “I love you guys. You’re refreshing. You’re real. You’re not like…” You know and here’s our price and that’s it. And that’s what, here’s what we do. And we explained it to him and he loved it. So I guess I can announce we’re actually going to get, we’re licensed in Georgia, but we’re going to get active probably by the end of this week.

So, Georgia, here we come. The peaches were great this year, by the way.

[00:11:17] Drew Thomas Hendricks: They were.

[00:11:18] Fred Glick: Very tasty, yes.

[00:11:20] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I actually made a peach cobbler over Labor Day with the peaches.

[00:11:25] Fred Glick: Yeah, the white peaches were just outstanding this year. Congratulations to the California peach growers. You didn’t get to Georgia, but I’m sure you can get one at some point.

[00:11:37] René Pérez Jr.: Are they growing in California?

[00:11:39] Fred Glick: Oh, yeah. Matter of fact, I went to the farmer’s market in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been going there for years and actually know some of these people, and, you know, I know it’s real and it’s organic, and it’s just amazing, amazing stuff. If you ever get to San Francisco, you’ve got to get there on Saturday morning and go to the Prairie Building.

I mean, just do breakfast and lunch and just do as much food as you can possibly do. It’s delicious there.

[00:12:10] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Back to strategy is value and how you guys add value to the transaction. It’s not just. What a lot of the brokers say, local knowledge or friendly. I mean, you actually help create and craft an offer and figure out.

[00:12:27] Fred Glick: Yeah, I mean, we understand it’s a business, you know, and our job is to get the best deal for our client, have our knowledge as deeply as we can about things and use that knowledge, find new things like we found Inspectify, and when they found today for one of our respective sellers, some luring company going out of business, you know, it’s whatever we can do and give you over to professionals.

You know, we’re good about, you know, we don’t have like the guy to fix plumbing in a certain area, because you know what, with Thumbtack and all those types of sites out there with reviews and pick your own, pick who you’re comfortable with.

[00:13:12] René Pérez Jr.: Well, there’s a big misconception on like, let’s say you pick a big broker right then is like the biggest, you know, sometimes we work with someone like, “Oh, have you heard of this biggest broker in San Francisco?”

And it’s just like, yeah, sure. So like, that means that they probably have like 10, 15 different assistants. So it’s not like that “big broker.” And I put, you know, hands and I put quotes on that “big broker.” Because it, it’s just probably their name on the listing, but they won’t probably be hands-on all the entire time, but secondarily, they’re so big that sometimes they lose touch on the consumer and they might just be going to the same person over and over for their work without really vetting whether they’re actually the most affordable and not even the cheapest, right? Per se.

But that actually is not, yeah, ripping off consumers, right?

[00:14:04] Fred Glick: The guy who throw the money.

[00:14:05] René Pérez Jr.: Like, I have my staging person. It’s like, okay, well have you, but have you like, so since you’ve used them for 10 years, have you verified that they’re actually pro-consumer or are you just using them because it’s easy and it’s said and done? So that’s why it’s important to look.

For to not be focused on, “Oh, I’m a big broker and I know a guy.” It’s like, yeah, well, we all know guys, it’s not hard to find someone. It’s harder to actually, like, go through the motions of getting different bids. We have different programs that we can hire that are tech-friendly, tech-oriented. Finding out who was the, you know, the contractor for the person, for the house that was repaired a block away, right?

And who are the vendors? Who are in the area? And then put them against each other, right, for price points. What you wanna focus on is on them having the licenses to do the work.

[00:14:56] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Mm-Hmm.

[00:14:56] René Pérez Jr.: Because that’s where the liability comes in play later on. “Oh, who did the work? Oh, they weren’t licensed. Oh, well that means that you’re screwing me over on me having to buy a house that doesn’t have the right permits.” Right? That’s a little bit worse than the pricing.

[00:15:12] Fred Glick: Yeah, we know what the end game is and we work backwards. We know what a city can do to you. So you don’t want to do things. So we’re able to warn people.

I mean, that’s the way I always do everything. You got to look at what’s the end game and work backwards and see what works. What results we want to accomplish. It’s that simple. What else is going on? You know, this is kind of ties in with my friend laterwendy on TikTok, among other places, who’s just a consumer advocate. She’s not even an agent. She’s great.

[00:15:44] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Really? I thought she was an agent.

[00:15:47] Fred Glick: No, just 100 percent consumer advocate. She runs a site. She runs a website called sellinglater.com and it has people like us who are fixed fees or transparent and reasonable. So it’s great. She does. And she also does a cool thing.

She figured, she gets all the agents and sees all the sales and figures out who the loan, who they sent their mortgage to. So like she has all whatever 67 deals we’ve done. I don’t know how I’m making that number up, but it shows like this one went to Wells Fargo, this one Bank of America, this went through us, you know, but it’s not like they all go through us.

So it’s a pretty cool thing. So it’s the same thing that René was talking about, which obviously would make a great clip. You know, compare the plumbers, like compare mortgage people and don’t be forced to use just the in house mortgage person because, you know, what kind of these guys in DC with the title companies, we have escrow nightmare. I mean, it’s just. Don’t just let them give you one person. That’s it. Especially for mortgage, you know, they have their in house company. And if you’re a seller for escrow and can pick the escrow company for escrow, if it’s their in house escrow company, they’re going to make you sign this form.

You’re not even going to know what you’re signing. It’s one of the million forms. And we have you know, by law, everybody signs it when they’re a buyer and a seller with us. That says we have these affiliated companies and it says like the last deal we just did with Remax had the company that was the escrow company. They own a hundred percent of it. Surprise. The seller picked that company. I’m sure if you go down the list and they’re expensive, really expensive. No, no. Well, I shouldn’t say that. For the price point, they’re expensive because they’re doing the pricing based on a percentage of the sale price for an escrow company.

It’s like, why there’s absolutely no reason, zero reason. They don’t have more, a lot more or less liability depending on the sale price. We use and they’re fabulous as Fidelity National people. It’s a fixed fee, fixed escrow of $2,000. A $1,000 for the buyer, $1,000 for the seller. Super reasonable. And they’re doing all the title insurance. All in one place. It’s fabulous.

There’s a couple other companies, you know, that are all over Northern California. It’s all the escrow companies. I mean, the title companies are like that. They do escrow. Smart, but all these external escrow companies are making a fortune because they do it per dollar and it’s nuts, absolutely nuts. But c’est la vie for now.

[00:18:36] Drew Thomas Hendricks: C’est la vie.

[00:18:37] Fred Glick: It’s season five of Emily in Paris, I highly suggest it.

[00:18:42] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Season five? Wow. We just…

[00:18:43] Fred Glick: I believe it lasted five seasons already? Wow.

[00:18:47] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Or is it season four? Season four. I’m sorry.

Not watched one. Just watched the last episode of Downton Abbey though.

[00:18:56] Fred Glick: Really?

[00:18:58] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:18:58] Fred Glick: Congratulations. Now you have to watch the movie.

[00:19:01] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, we actually just watched the movie last night. So we have one more movie.

[00:19:04] Fred Glick: So you’re done? Okay.

[00:19:06] Drew Thomas Hendricks: We have one more, but they’re making a third movie for next year.

[00:19:10] Fred Glick: That’s right. They made a second movie.

[00:19:12] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, the second movie, I guess they’re going to the South of France or something.

[00:19:16] Fred Glick: Yeah, that’s it.

[00:19:18] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Or I guess, I know the movie came out like three years ago, but…

[00:19:21] Fred Glick: Something like that. I don’t even remember seeing it.

[00:19:23] Drew Thomas Hendricks: But check out this.

[00:19:25] Fred Glick: Glad you’re carrying me out. René, any recommendations for your screen? Movies, TVs film festivals, music festivals, the Coachella.

[00:19:39] René Pérez Jr.: Oh, yes, there is , yes. AFI Film Festival down in LA, October 23rd to October 27th, I believe. So it’s a really, really good films out there. So that would be my recommendation.

[00:19:55] Fred Glick: There you go.

[00:19:56] René Pérez Jr.: I have to buy, they have different passes. I want my friends to join me in getting like the whole like weekend pass.

[00:20:04] Fred Glick: Super VIP thing.

[00:20:05] René Pérez Jr.: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So they have like the, they have a few happy hours and you get to meet and greet some people and it’s just like, it’s just a couple hundred bucks. Could be fun, but we’ll see. But if not, like it’s super accessible. You can just purchase tickets like to watch like single movies.

[00:20:21] Fred Glick: Is it in a bunch of different theaters around LA?

[00:20:25] René Pérez Jr.: I believe so, but they’re all close by, so it’s one of those things.

[00:20:28] Fred Glick: Yeah. I figured.

[00:20:29] René Pérez Jr.: Jump around like the Napa Film Festival is really cool in that way too when they used to have it where it’s like it’s just walking distance from each other.

[00:20:39] Fred Glick: Cool.

[00:20:42] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s a good tip.

[00:20:43] Fred Glick: All right, let’s get out of here.

[00:20:45] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Go enjoy a nice cold beverage and we will talk to you next week.

[00:20:49] Fred Glick: Yeah, stay cold or warm or whatever you need to be.

[00:20:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Be where you need to be.

[00:20:54] Fred Glick: Oh, wait one more thing.

[00:20:56] Drew Thomas Hendricks: There we go.

[00:20:57] Fred Glick: Go Birds.

[00:20:58] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Go Birds. On that note, We Fixed Real Estate.