Did you know that half the listings in America aren’t selling? Yes—half.

That takes us back to the old-school days. When I first started in real estate with Century 21, I proudly wore the gold coat. I had to buy it myself, so it was a big accomplishment. Back then, I attended a class called the Two-to-One Class. The theory was simple: for every two listings you took, only one would sell. A 50% sales rate.

Now, imagine meeting with a seller and saying:

“Good news—I’ll do my best to get your home sold. Bad news—I’m only successful about half the time.”

How do you think they’d respond? Probably not too excited. I realized quickly I didn’t want a 50% failure rate—I wanted 100% success. That meant changing the conversation.

Here’s the script I used:

“Mr. Seller, you may not realize this, but in today’s market only about 50% of listings are selling. That’s unacceptable to me. I want to sell 100% of the listings I take. But that requires us to have a different kind of conversation. I ca...

I just interviewed my good friend Garrett Maroon, who’s going to be on my podcast soon. Garrett shared a powerful concept called, “The Recipe Approach.”

Here’s how it works:

We all probably have a mom, grandma, aunt, or someone in the family who’s a great cook. They make delicious meals because they have a recipe that works. For example, when baking a cake, they use the right mix of eggs, chocolate, flour, salt, and so on. They follow the recipe, put it in the oven, and after a set time, they get a delicious result.

Top real estate agents operate the same way.

They’ve each figured out a recipe for success. For some, it may be like baking a cake. For others, it’s more like muffins, pies, or cookies. The point is: they’ve found a formula that works for them.

Once they have it dialed in, they keep baking the same cake over and over. Why change something that works?

Of course, when people start out, they don’t have their own recipe. They experiment, make mistakes, or follow someone e...

Virtual showings. Let’s talk about them:

First, what is a virtual showing? When the National Association of REALTORS surveys buyers, they ask: “How many homes did you look at before purchasing? How many weeks did it take?”

For years, the average has been about 8 to 10 properties over 8 to 10 weeks.

What’s interesting is that of those 8 to 10 properties, about half are now virtual showings. Buyers perceive they’ve “seen” the home just by taking a virtual tour online. That’s a big generational shift. Roughly half of showings today are in-person, and half are virtual.

We need to explain this to sellers—and we need to offer it as a service to buyers.

Here’s what I recommend. When you meet with buyers, include this in your presentation:

“I offer virtual showings. That can mean one of two things. First, many listings already have a virtual tour option—like Matterport—where you can walk through the house online. Second, if you’re really interested in a home but can’t make the schedule w...

Hey guys, is there one giant national real estate market? The answer is no. Real estate, like politics, is all local. One market is going to be different from the next, and what drives conditions in every market across the country is supply and demand.

Supply and demand determine what sellers can ask for a home and what buyers can ask from sellers. This is true in every market in America.

If we broke the national market down, we could look at it in four distinct regions, as often done by NAR: the South, the West, the Midwest, and the Northeast. These markets are wildly different.

I live in the West, where there are currently more sellers than buyers. Sellers here are feeling the pressure—reducing prices, offering concessions, and being more aggressive to attract buyers.

In the Midwest and Northeast, it’s the opposite. There are more buyers than sellers, giving sellers pricing power. Agents in those regions might say, “What are you talking about? It’s completely different here.”

He...

We have a lot more listings nationally on the market than we’ve had in many years. That means we’re going to see a lot more expired listings, especially since pending sales are also dropping.

Pending sales are soft—we're on track for about 3.94 million sales this year, very similar to last year. This is all driven by interest rates. As they hover around 6.5% to 6.75%, the sales pace will likely persist. When interest rates drop, we’ll see a big surge back into the market. But for now, expect more expired listings.

If you're an agent looking for more listings, it's time to focus on expireds—especially as we move from summer into the fall and winter market.

So what can you do to engage these potential sellers?

The #1 strategy: Work with an active buyer.

We all have buyers. Use that active buyer to farm three key categories:

1. The Neighborhood – Target the neighborhood your buyer wants. Use that buyer as a conversation starter with homeowners there. One in 20—at least 5%—will have ...

How do you get consistent with lead generation as a real estate agent?

This is the greatest challenge most agents face: consistency. That’s the word we’re at war with every single day: consistently showing up, consistently generating leads.

If you want to take control of your business, it starts with committing to one hour of lead generation every day. And the only way you’ll follow through is by scheduling it.

You don’t do what you don’t schedule. You don’t prioritize what you don’t schedule.

So, take out your calendar right now and block one hour every working day to lead generate.

That’s step one.

Step two: know exactly what you’re going to do during that hour.

What’s your goal? What specific actions are you taking?

These are your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). They’ll vary based on your strategy, but here are some examples:

• Call 10 people in your sphere
• Call 10 FSBOs
• Handwrite and mail a few notes
• Post on social media
• Schedule an open house and start farming or n
...

If you own a brokerage or you're a team leader, I’ve got a question for you:

How much of your time each day is spent recruiting? And why is recruiting such a high priority for the top offices and team leaders in America?

The reason is simple: top leaders understand that at the end of the day, we don’t actually sell real estate—the agents who work with us do. What we do is provide the environment, support, administrative resources, marketing, and tools necessary for agents to succeed.

We don’t sell real estate—we help people who sell real estate.

That leads to a big mindset shift. If we’re not serving buyers and sellers directly, who are our customers?

Our customers are the agents.

When you reframe your business like that, it changes how you grow. Just like your agents grow by serving more buyers and sellers, you grow by serving more agents. That means recruiting more agents is how you scale your business.

One of the biggest mistakes office leaders make is this: They think that i...

As a real estate agent, you're probably looking for ways to generate leads in a unique or different way.

I'm going to give you one of those strategies right now. It’s completely outside the box, and I hope it gets your wheels turning and inspires a fresh perspective on your business.

Let me start with a fascinating statistic I first came across in The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley. I’ve researched it myself over the years, and it consistently holds true:

90% of all millionaires—and people who will become millionaires—have volunteered or are actively volunteering in a charitable organization within their local community.

So, ask yourself:

Are you modeling that behavior by getting involved in local charities?

If not, what would happen if you started?

Here’s what happens when you do:

You begin networking with great people—people who are already successful or on their way to success. You’re also giving back to your community in a way that aligns with your passions.

If you’re ...

As a REALTOR, you've heard the word farming, right?

Well, I want to give you a different thought process on farming that I think will be really unique:

Instead of doing a shotgun approach where you're sending out a generalized postcard or letter (which can be effective if done right), I want to introduce you to what I call “Vertical Farming.”

So instead of reaching out to 200 people, reach out to 20. And with those 20 people, go deep.

Here’s how: I might send them a CMA or a neighborhood report (both of which you can generate for free at NAR.com if you're a REALTOR). That system allows you to create a beautiful 81-page report on someone’s home anywhere in the country.

You can choose between a seller report or a neighborhood report (which might be shorter, maybe half the size).

Then, add a cover letter that says something like:

“Hi, my name is Jim. I'm with ABC Real Estate. I'm reaching out to a select handful of people in your neighborhood today to give you a quick update on you...

Let’s say you meet a buyer at an open house, online, or at an event, and you think, "Hey, I’ve got a hot lead here." Then they cool off. Ever have that happen?

Here’s the issue: Most buyers are not immediate buyers. About 75% of buyers are in the buying cycle for six to nine months before they actually close. Only around 25% of the people you meet will buy within the next 30 days.

The problem is, most agents don’t have a strong follow-up plan.

Your follow-up process should have at least five touchpoints during the buying cycle—and for many of us, it probably needs more.

Think about your follow-up: How often are you reaching out? And how many different media channels are you using?

Sure, you can just call. Or just text. Or send video texts. Or rely on social media. Or mail letters.

But really, you should be doing all of it.

The one thing I want to emphasize today is the concept of a video drip campaign.

This is a system anyone can implement, yet almost no one is doing it.

Even ...