What if there's one thing you could do that would have a massive impact on your business? And it was something that would feel like it wasn't work? It was almost rejection-proof. And it's something that you could do every single day. Would you like to know what it is?

The answer is networking. And what I mean by networking is going to coffee, dinner, drinks, lunch, breakfast, you name it. Whatever it is where you're meeting one-on-one with someone in your sphere of influence.

There's nothing more powerful than you can do for your business in terms of marketing than that.

Now it's not going to feel like you're doing anything — you're just having fun with somebody who you like to visit with. But by stretching yourself and meeting with more people in your sphere and getting outside your comfort zone, I can promise you the result of this will be referrals.

Now it's not instant gratification. It won't instantly happen. But when you...

We know there's a wave of listings about to crash on our shores. We know it through studies that have been done recently that show 1 to 10 homeowners are considering selling this year.

63% of those are going to be selling in the next six months.

There's a massive wave of listings about ready to hit. So what are you doing to get prepared for that?

Here are four things that you could do to make sure that when you get to this apex point, all the marketing that you've done, all the social media stuff you've done, all the letters, emails, calls, texts and networking meetings don't go to waste because you blow it at the apex point — you mess up your listing appointment.

You have to be a master in that moment when it's all on the line.

This comes through training and practice — no different than an athlete on a field. If they're trying to throw that football to the end zone, they have practice that maybe a hundred times....

What are the most expensive per square foot homes in America?

According to a recent study recently done by REALTOR.com San Jose Santa Clara had the most expensive per square foot averages across the country.

Drum roll — $1,500 a square foot, not far behind are San Francisco and Oakland with $1,200 a square foot.

Now what's the least expensive in the country? Least expensive is Decatur, Illinois at $102 and Youngstown, Ohio at $120 a square foot.

There's a big discrepancy between the two.

The reason I bring this up is because we need to know what our average per square foots are in our local market. And it's going to change by subdivision. It's going to change by micro markets. But overall, you need to know what your county averages are and then your subcategories in different market segments. That way you can speak to this as an expert.

The other thing you need to be able to do is bring these into a conversation with buyers and...

Affordability is on the tip of everybody's tongues right now.

Why is affordability so important?

Well, it's a measurement of how affordable it is for the average person in America to own a home.

NAR has studied this every single month and they gave us a Home Affordability Graph. And you might expect this, but home affordability has actually been going up because of something substantial, which is interest rates going down.

As interest rates go down, affordability goes up.

That's despite the fact that we've had actually super fast rising prices, right? Prices starting to go into double digit territory across the country. And then we see interest rates going down, which pushes affordability up.

But because home prices have gotten so high recently, that's actually starting to level off and come back down. But we recently had another upswing. So we're measuring a few things when we look at affordability.

When NAR looks at...

Something super exciting happened in the last month that we haven't seen in the last 15 years:

Home prices on existing homes exceeded home prices for new homes.

Think about what I just said:

Existing home prices exceeded new home construction. So it was actually cheaper to go buy a brand new house nobody had ever lived in than buying an existing home. Absolutely amazing.

Lots of reasons behind that. But one of the reasons is normally when you're buying new construction, you're locking in a price six months earlier. And then they complete the new construction and you move in.

Well, the market has super accelerated in those last 6 months. And guess what's also happened:

Now, if you were to try to pull that off, what's happened with all kinds of lumber, supplies, and even appliances?

Prices have gone up.

So this will probably not be repeated anytime soon because now prices on new construction are beginning to rise again.

But what...

We're all dealing with multiple offers on almost every single listing that we take. So how do you approach the presentation of these multiple offers to a seller?

That's a really key consideration because a confused mind says no. So how do you help sellers not get confused?

One of the ways is by helping them simplify the process of reviewing all these offers. I like to encourage my students to use a one-page summary form. The one-page summary form will have some very simple data on the front page. And you can make that the cover page on all the offers.

So what's on the summary form?

Here's what it is:

1. Price

2. Net offer

You want to put what the actual net to the seller is. As you know, sometimes in an offer, people will put some expenses that cost the seller some money. So you want to show the price of their offering, but also the net to the seller or net offer.

3. Show if it's a cash sale or a loan

If it's a loan, what kind of...

Join this incredible podcast featuring two of the most powerful thought leaders in real estate today Ricky Carruth and Juan Carols Barreneche. During this fast moving conversation we explore #1 Way to Grow Your Business and How to Stairstep Your Success to Achieve Phenomenal Results. This conversation dives deep into lead generation, client management, target marketing, email marketing, and how to tap the incredible pent up seller demand about to be unleashed on the market. We also talk about moving past mental roadblocks that can create self doubt and self sabotage. Both Ricky and Carlos are in the trenches working with buyers and sellers daily - so this is a no holds barred, real world conversation from two agents that are walking the walk and talking the talk. This is a can’t miss episode!

What percentage of Americans would you guess paid off their home?

Think about that for a second: Completely own their home, free and clear.

In other words, when you're driving down the street in your neighborhood, out of 10 homes, how many people have paid their home off and outright own it?

Would it be 2 homes, 3 homes, 4 homes?

The answer is 38% of Americans have paid off their home in full, which is absolutely amazing.

The equity for homes in America is off the charts. It's incredible. So that's good.

Now, why do I bring this up?

The reason I bring it up is because people that have equity in their home actually have a huge, powerful advantage when it comes to moving up to their dream home.

And here's why:

They can actually do something that a lot of sellers can't. They could go buy a home and finance their second home (what they're going to buy next). And they won't have two mortgages.

So they have no pressure on themselves when it...

Sometimes a seller will say to you, "Well, just sell it to a cash buyer. I don't want to deal with financing."

Have you heard that? We all have from time to time. When you have a seller say that to you, you need to arm yourself with good information so you counter that. And help them understand that the market isn't comprised of a ton of cash buyers.

The good news is that there are more cash buyers that there has been. We've seen a huge uptake in cash buyers. But the current number as of today, in all across the country, is that 25% of the sales done in the country are now cash buyers.

But what's the reverse of that number? The reverse of that number is 75% of the sales are not cash sales. So they're involving some level of financing. Which means that when we list a property, we have to sell it four times in order to create a sale.

We have to sell it to the market, to get them excited about that listing. That's creating that...

We've just had some excellent news about where homeowners' heads are regarding selling their home.

The latest study shows that 67% of homeowners believe today is a good time to sell, which is one of the record highs we've seen with this kind of thought process.

But when we go deeper into those numbers, according to Realtor.com, it shows this:

1 in 10 homeowners plan to sell this year. 1 in 10!

Think about that when you're driving home tonight and you're driving through your neighborhoods. 1 in 10 of these homes that you're driving by is going to be listed in the next year!

But here's something that's even more exciting:

63% of those are going to be listing their home in the next six months.

The only question is... Who are they going to list with? Is it going to be with you or your competitor?

And if it's your competitor, why did they get the listing when you missed out? The reason is they did one thing that you didn't do:...