How To Go From 352 Homes Sold To Over 1200 With CEO Steve Rider

Stephanie Lindamood: (00:00)
Hey guys, it's Stephanie and welcome to another episode of the glam life of real estate podcast. As usual, I am super excited that you are here today. We're going to talk about all things real estate. I had a real estate guru, Steve Rider. He is amazing. So he's going to join us here in a little bit. We're going to talk about how to grow your business, all things real estate, how to succeed, how to shine in a saturated market, how to block out the noise and grind it out, all the things. So I do want to read a really quick review. Um, we're going to read a review from Jamie. Rick, really good insights and helpful info. Stephanie is great at what she does. We are still lucky that she is sharing so much great info with us, as well as bringing guests who are the best at what they do.

Stephanie Lindamood: (00:44)
Great content that will a hundred percent help if you build your business, if you implement. So thank you so much Jamie for that awesome review. So true. You do have to implement for you to see any changes and results in your business. And we do have an amazing guests on the show, so we will get to Steve here in a second. If you haven't already had a chance, go ahead and pause me. Hit the subscribe button so you're notified of future episodes. If you haven't had the chance to submit a review, it would be awesome if you did that. So that's how the podcast players know that you're liking the content. Share with me what you want to hear more of so that I know and that way they will serve the show to more people. So without further ado, let's get to Steve.

Steve Rider: (01:24)
You're listening to the glam life of real estate podcast where we talk about everything from productivity tips, social media strategies, business hacks, and more to get ahead of the curve and crush it as a real estate sales professional. Whether you office out of a model home or your car where leopard print and high heels never go out of style. Here's your host, top producing real estate agent, social media strategist and Ferb baby mama. Stephanie. Linda mood.

Stephanie Lindamood: (01:57)
All right guys. So today we have the privilege of having a real estate celebrity in the house. We've got Steve Ryder, he is the CEO of the national builder trade in program. He is the owner of the Rider Elite Team and his team is number two in the world, which is really awesome. So today we're going to talk about how they went from 352 units to over 12 hundreds. So welcome Steve. Thanks for being on the show.

Steve Rider: (02:22)
Thank you. It's my pleasure.

Stephanie Lindamood: (02:24)
So to kick it off, if you want to start with your background, kind of your career in real estate and then we'll go from there.

Steve Rider: (02:30)
You bet. So I've been in real estate since 1977. I'm actually a second generation agent. Um, my dad was in the business and I just intended to get into the business for the summertime before I went to college to wrestle. And uh, I sold about 50, $60,000 worth of houses back in 1977 decided that I would rather be in real estate than go to college.

Steve Rider: (02:55)
I got

Steve Rider: (02:55)
started and worked with my dad for about, uh, 10, 12 years, then went to 100% company and it was in 1998 that I actually switched to Keller Williams because I had really been stuck for about eight years in what we call a scaling of achievement. I basically, I was making about 142 to $144,000 a year for eight years in a row. And knowing that I was stuck, I was just looking for different alternatives and went to a, a event called MegaCamp at Keller Williams and got the interview with Gary Keller and he quickly showed me the error of my ways and uh, I think the rest is history. Once I joined Keller Williams, my career really took off.

Stephanie Lindamood: (03:40)
That's awesome. And you guys are out of Arizona, correct?

Steve Rider: (03:43)
Yes, we uh, started in Arizona and in 2004, my wife Beth rider came and joined the team and so we worked together from 2004 to about 2013. And that's in the Phoenix metroplex. We basically have a builder trade in program working with builders throughout the, uh, metroplex of Phoenix. And in 2013 I decided that I would like to take my builder trade in program nationwide so I could help agents throughout the U S and their markets that were robust with a new home sales. And so it was kind of interesting. I, uh, sent a message to Gary Keller and said, Hey, I'd like to take my program nationwide. What do you think? And within about two seconds I got a reply that said, why just w H Y question Mark? And, uh, I quickly fired back. Well, that's easy, Gary. Number one, I like to teach. Number two, I like to share.

Steve Rider: (04:41)
Number three, I'll probably learn more than they will. And number four, if I make a buck or two, God blessed me and he quickly fired back right answers in the right order. So of course with Gary, that doesn't mean that you're off to the races. I had to do to beta test in two different markets. One, we were able to help an agent that hadn't been in the builder business. Do 32 transactions in a six month beta period. And then down in Tucson, Arizona, we had another agent that did 12 transactions in a six month period and they only had 212 transactions for new homes that year. So, uh, gathered 10% of the market in six months, uh, was a true Testament to my tutelage and my education. So after that I was off to the races and I've opened up a about 21 markets across the U S and just really given back to my industry, helping the best agents, uh, in their area, work with builders.

Stephanie Lindamood: (05:41)
That's a story. So for those that don't know or aren't familiar, can you give him just a quick background of who Gary Keller is?

Steve Rider: (05:48)
You betcha. Gary Keller is the CEO of Keller Williams international and he's probably most recognized for a couple of books he's written in 2005 and 2006, he wrote the real millionaire real estate investor in the millionaire real estate agent. Uh, the real estate agent is the red book that's most commonly referred to as the encyclopedia for how to make 1 million bucks. And I'm a student of the game. So I made sure that I read all the materials that were available. And it was very quickly after joining Keller Williams that we got into the top, uh, agent mastermind with Gary Keller where you're typically somewhere in the 30s as far as nationally or worldwide ranked. So, um, Gary is really a student of the game. He's been in the business about as long as I have. And it's interesting when he wrote the books, he was a millionaire when he wrote the millionaire real estate investor in the millionaire real estate agent. And here it is about 12 years later and he's now a billionaire. So that's certainly a Testament to the growth, not only of Keller Williams that's gone from Oh, about 5,000 agents when I joined, uh, to 178,000 worldwide now. So we've grown quite a bit.

Stephanie Lindamood: (07:07)
Yeah. And we're part of Keller Williams here in Dallas. Um, so when you had that plateau in your career, what do you think that it was that got you to the next level?

Steve Rider: (07:17)
Uh, it was an interesting thing when I was talking with Gary, he said, you know, um, you need, when you hit a ceiling of achievement, you need to either develop some systems or uh, introduced to your team. Some models, uh, have high accountability or a purposeful style. And a somewhat as a joke, I said, I'll take a purposeful style for 600, Gary. And it was kind of a joke that I was just, you know, going to be purposeful. But you know, being an ex wrestler, purposeful encompasses accountability models, systems that really incorporate incorporated everything. So unbeknownst to me, my purposeful style is absolutely 100% propelled myself and my wife to where we are today, which like I mentioned early, we're now number two in the world with Keller Williams with over 1200 transactions and over 400 million in volume and, uh, over 6 million in gross commission income.

Stephanie Lindamood: (08:22)
Wow. So when you were in this stage, when you were in the plateau, did you have a team at that point or were you an individual agent?

Steve Rider: (08:31)
So I was an individual agent. When I hit my plateau, I had two agents that were somewhat working with me part time and uh, we had lost it all quite candidly. They say in this business, you need to lose everything at least once or twice before you really get hardened. And so I have lost it all twice. In 1989, we lost our and had to start from scratch all over again. And then 2006 when we had the great depression that everybody pretty much remembers. If you've been around over the last 10 to 15 years, uh, almost lost all again then. But at the end of the day, it just makes you stronger. It allows you to take a look backwards. And I really always believe that you asked two questions. Number one, what did I learn? And number two, what would I do differently? I'm not one of those that dwells on failure. I just look at failure as a stepping stone. But I think probably the most unique thing that I do versus a lot of other people is just like a Albert Einstein, you know, said if you keep doing the same thing, obviously you're going to still get the same results. So after every failure, I always say, what did I learn and what would I do differently? And I can honestly say that's what's propelled my career to where I am today.

Stephanie Lindamood: (09:52)
That's amazing. So how did you go from being in an individual agent? Losing it all? Going through all those transitions to now having the number two team at Keller Williams,

Steve Rider: (10:03)
that is absolutely 100% accredited to my wife and the systems and models within Keller Williams, my wife being in the corporate world with Lockheed Martin and uh, going through the training processes, going through the hiring processes, um, really understanding how to do that. She knew exactly the systems and models to implement, but realtors quite honestly are a little different breed. So she had to learn to take a realtor interview with them and really discover what's their big why. And I think once you discover what a person's why is, if it matches the value systems that you have within your team, then you've got a candidate for life. And so she's really the one that helped me build the team. I had two agents that were builder trade in specialists when she came aboard. Uh, we explored, expanded that to seven agents, followed the ink block theory.

Steve Rider: (11:06)
And the ink block theory is something that Walmart did way back when. So really Gary professed that before you expand nationwide, make sure you expand in your own backyard. So that was the first step and it took about a year, year and a half. And as we're doing that in our local team and Arizona, I was also expanding in different marketplaces where I could actually take and teach teams to do better. So by being able to, like I said, with the third thing, I'll probably learn more than they will. When I originally had my conversation with Gary by watching and mentoring and working with other teams, I was able to take the things that they did best and share those with my wife Beth, which enabled our to grow exceptionally fast with 25 to 40% growth per year. So it was a combination of her implementation and me masterminding with various teams around the U S that allowed us that kind of exponential growth.

Stephanie Lindamood: (12:10)
Wow. So talk to me about teams because during that time, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't teams pretty new in the industry of real estate in general from the standpoint of for so long they were, you know, the way they real estate was run was being an individual agent doing as much as you could. Maybe you had an assistant, but the team concept is kind of a new thing in the last maybe decade or so.

Steve Rider: (12:37)
Yes it is. And we actually, my father and I developed a system back in the, uh, late seventies, early eighties, where we started, uh, having a Rainmaker and the Rainmaker was taken after the term from attorneys and meaning like a partner in a law firm. And that partner is typically referred to as a Rainmaker who generates more business than they can possibly handle. And then the junior partners and the executives take over from there. So we had one Rainmaker with, uh, three to four marketing agents at that time. Uh, buyer's agents hadn't been really developed yet, so we had, um, agents that would help us do the actual marketing at the properties, which allowed them to lead, generate through the listing and with the Rainmaker, but not have to have their own listings. So we found that system worked extremely well. So we had experienced, um, teams back in the 80s.

Steve Rider: (13:40)
And like you said, it didn't really become prevalent till the early two thousands. So when we took a run at it again, it was easy for Beth and I to look and see what we had done before, do a little bit of a hybrid. So you just don't have a buyer's agents standing there with their hand out. They actually have marketing to do and, and uh, ways to generate leads through listings, which is always the key. So that enabled us to have the most productive team in the world. And the reason I say that is we have, uh, currently seven, uh, rainmakers. We have four marketing agents. So we, our team consists of 11 people that are in the sales side. Uh, obviously in the administrative side doing 1200 plus transactions. We have about 15 to 20, including our VA's in the Philippines. But if you look at our numbers versus number one, any of the other teams, most teams go for bulk versus, um, production. Most of teams that we compete against have anywhere from 75 to a hundred agents on their team, which is like a small brokerage. So we believe keeping it lean and mean, but making sure our guys average two to $300,000 each per year. So we've been doing it for awhile and the systems seem to work very well.

Speaker 4: (15:11)
[inaudible]

Stephanie Lindamood: (15:12)
that's awesome. So when you guys decided to create the team here, the most recent time, did, what were your goals? Like? Were you trying to expand at that point to other markets or were you just trying to get to where you guys weren't doing all the day to day stuff or kind of what was the catalyst for that?

Steve Rider: (15:31)
So when I stepped out of production, it was important to make sure that I put someone in my place that not only have the ability to continue on, but was truly a one percenter. And that was Ray Sullivan. Um, I interviewed and talked to him for almost a year before asking him to join our team. And once I got Ray in our team, um, I've promised them that he would make more money, uh, uh, with us on our team than he ever had made in his lifetime. And that did come to fruition. And once we were able to get Ray in there, uh, we quickly were able to bring in a couple of other agents. And it's all about training. At the end of the day, what we do is extremely easy, yet extremely hard. And I say easy because it's a relationship business and if you maintain those relationships and you go deep on those relationships, then you're going to get business for life.

Steve Rider: (16:32)
The hard part is keeping competitors out of our market. And you know, just lately, Stephanie, probably 2016 so it's, it's been, uh, three to four years now. We've had a whole new disruption in the industry and that's called [inaudible]. I buy it. We do. Yeah, you do a guarantee trade in. They started saying, well, we'll buy the house mr builder and you know, we're not gonna charge any fees. And you know, from the, from the appearance standpoint, it looks like they don't charge very much. But when you really dig into it, you're taking somewhere between a Oh 12 to 15% discount. But even with the prevalence of open door and offer pad and the big beam with Zillow, we've still been able to grow by nurturing those relationships and just staying in front of our people at the end of the day, you know, the old saying, out of sight, out of mind. So, uh, we're very vigilant and making sure that we not only maintain our relationships, but we enhance them weekly by going to visit our agents.

Stephanie Lindamood: (17:41)
And I think you bring up a really good point where you're talking about the success of the team is you had to have a really good backend system and it sounds like Beth really spearheaded that with her corporate background to create the ecosystem to support the business. But then you also have them have the front facing business, whether it's, it sounds like you work with a lot of builders where you're out there nurturing those relationships for the business to come in. But then you've got to have, like I said, the ecosystem on the backend to be able to support that. And I think in real estate that's rare because like you said, agents are just a different breed and we can do anything kind of the way we want to to a point. And I think that's kind of gets some of us in trouble.

Steve Rider: (18:27)
You're absolutely correct with best expertise in the corporate side. Uh, her ability to keep and hire and upgrade and continually, uh, continuing to build the bench if you will. On the administrative side, we have a ministration that's been with us for seven, eight, nine years and you just don't hear that in the real estate industry. So I give her a ton of credit for uh, building the systems on the back end and really, really right now what she handles is uh, all pricing. So she 100% has her finger on the pulse when it comes to the local market and pricing and then she negotiates all contracts. So for doing just two things extremely well, it allows her to know the pricing on the forefront and what's going on up front. And then also what's the net end result when we actually get a property under contract.

Steve Rider: (19:29)
And then being able to have a transaction coordinators and listing managers, three full time photographers, all of that stuff is just a fine tuned, well oiled machine. And I give her a hundred percent credit for that. And it is mocking the corporate world and using the systems and models that are in place that run America. Um, which again, like you mentioned before, is not necessarily, uh, what real estate agents do. They, they are kind of like flying by the seat of their pants and can, you know, you can have 10 teams and 10 different systems. So I think that's probably one of the biggest issues.

Stephanie Lindamood: (20:09)
Right. No, I see that as a huge differentiator for you guys because a lot of agents think, or you just in sales in general, even with the builders, I think, Oh, we'll just go out and get more business and sales cures all. But if you don't have a way or a mechanism in place on the backend or a structure to facilitate that over time, you're not gonna be able to keep up.

Steve Rider: (20:28)
Well, and the way you mentioned, um, working with builders, I just want for all the agents that are out there listening to this, uh, it doesn't matter if your niche is builders. It's the relationship that we have with the builders. So a substitutes, sphere of influence for builders. Um, same basic process. You're going to work with your sphere of influence, you're going to nurture your sphere of influence. You're going to understand what they like, what are their favorite meals, where do they, you know, their favorite flowers, this, that, and the other thing. I'm at the end of the day, uh, we know our builders as well as we would know. Any clients, any siblings, you name it. We have those relationships and they're 100% on purpose. Right? I think, you know, when we first came into your market, we did a tremendous amount of guerrilla warfare. Not only, uh, going out and seeing what's going on in the market, but knowing who your competition is way before they see a common. Um, and it's definitely a strategy.

Stephanie Lindamood: (21:33)
Yeah. And I think that, um, the way you said you approach with Beth being specialized, that's what we've done on our team as well is instead of someone trying to do everything in the entire life cycle of the process, we do what we're good at and then we hire people to do what they're good at to where if I'm in an a listing appointment, I don't have to worry about taking a call from an appraiser because I have a transaction manager that handles that. And I think that's a really key point that in those listening may or may not be aware of as something that they could incorporate into their business. Because I don't necessarily think it's taught in real estate, it's taught in corporate America, right? Like if you are, if you work for a builder, you're in charge of building the home where you're in charge of selling the home. But in real estate, a lot of times the agents historically have worn every single hat during the process. And that's not effective as well as we do more volume and want higher levels of customer service.

Steve Rider: (22:27)
You're absolutely correct. One of my wife's favorite phrases is stay in your own lane. So at the end of the day, like you said, if you do what you do best and you're actually good at it, a interesting statistic, you can take a seven someone that's, you know, pretty good at something and make them a 10. But if you take someone that's not that good in that specific subject, and there may be a four or five, the highest they'll ever get is a six and a seven. So, um, if you work to someone's strengths and you put the right button in the right seat, so to speak, you're going to get not only, um, more production, but you'll have a much, much better environment for the people that work for you.

Stephanie Lindamood: (23:10)
No, that's a great point. So with all, like you've mentioned the disruptors and the eye buyers, with all the disruptors out there with the way real estate's changed with technology, how has your business changed in the past few years?

Steve Rider: (23:25)
You know, that's a good question. I think at the end of the day, what, uh, uh, what hurts you and makes you stronger? I think is the verse in the song. So as we started seeing the disruptors come to our market, I think the first thing you look at is, uh, your first to get a little bit mad and then you get a little judgmental. But if you can put your ego in your pocket and truly look at the landscape of what's going on, it was a consumer need to have a one more choice. At the end of the day, we've always had their traditional market where you meet with the seller, discuss the price, make sure they're not going too high, but go high enough that you can maximize their opportunity and then you try and get it sold for the least amount of hassle, uh, and get it closed. Where as with the new disruptors, the eye buyers, Zillow, open door, offer pad, knock ho tech, there's probably about 10, 15 of them now.

Steve Rider: (24:29)
Uh, honestly what it did is it gave us a whole new awakening that for convenience, some consumers are willing to take a little less money if they don't have to do a double move, for instance. Uh, if they don't have to put their house on the market, they can actually just get it sold and stay there and rent back for five or six months. It's a little stressful trying to sell a house and buy a house at the same time. So I can honestly say that the disruptors came in because there was a need. And what that has allowed us to do, Stephanie, is now go directly to the consumer with a true traditional model as well as a, what we call a safety net price. So they know what they could maximize their opportunities and they also know, worst case scenario, if I need to go ahead and cut and run, I have a safety net. I have a value that I can live with and that allows them to have the best of both worlds. Don't you agree?

Stephanie Lindamood: (25:31)
Totally. Well, and I think you bring up a good point, which is regardless of what industry you're in, obviously we're talking specifically about real estate here. There's the chapters everywhere, right? Like for a while we thought the post office was going to go out of business and lo and behold, Amazon comes out and now they're cranking and delivering packages. So I think it's really genius. The, instead of you guys looking at the disruptors and saying, Oh my gosh, they're going to replace us. You said, Hey, great, let's incorporate what they're doing and do what our offerings and our services could be kind of like a menu for the client and say, Hey, if they want it, great, we'll put it on our menu. Maybe do it a little bit better and see what happens.

Steve Rider: (26:11)
You're absolutely correct. And again, you look statistically, if the numbers and you say, well, if parade O's law is always going to be parade O's law, there's going to be an 80 20 type of relationship. So at the most you're going to have 20% of the people going with a low ball if you will offer for convenience. And so if you have 10 people that are trying to buy a new home, two of them will take the convenience and eight of them will want to get maximized. Uh, the want to maximize their and maximize their net dollars. So there's always now going to be a place for uh, the disruptor. I don't think it'll ever go to the point where it is flipped where you have 80% internet type of action because at the end of the day, selling a house is super personalized and super emotional and the handholding process, the being able to actually go see a house, a walk through the house, Mel the house, see what's around the house. These are um, these are very, very important things. And so the eye buyer I think will be around for the foreseeable future, but the face of real estate is still going to be a belly to belly person to person type of industry.

Stephanie Lindamood: (27:30)
I agree with you and I think, I think if anything, the disruptors and even the internet in general has been a disruptor, right? I think in, in a sense they will take out the agent that is the door opener, right? Or the is the listing agent that doesn't know how to price the home or give advice. I just want to show up and write a listing agreement. I think that those will be fleshed out because buyers can go online and see the value of their home. Like they don't need someone to come to their house to get a generic value. Now when you meet with them and see the condition of the home, you're going to get a lot better value or idea value from the agent with their expertise. But I think it's really opening the door up for the experts to come in and shine because that's what clients are wanting there. They know enough because of the internet and the information out there. It almost make them dangerous, but they don't know what's true cause there's so much conflicting information. And so I think that's where the role of the expert coming in is really going to allow those 20% agents to shine because that's what the public is thirsty for.

Steve Rider: (28:37)
You're absolutely correct. And, uh, again, Gary Keller and Keller Williams teaches this, and it's really the difference between being a functionary agent and just doing the functions, like you say, opening the door and that kind of stuff to being a fiduciary of fiduciary is a person that trusts, uh, there's someone with integrity and they're always going to do the right thing. They don't have an ego concentric model where they're worried about themselves, they're worried about their clients first. And that group of us, that 20% is going to be able to, it's called a commission back to you when you have the sucking sound coming out from the 80% that are not doing a good job and not truly doing anything more than their functionary duties. The air, so to speak, in the commission balloon goes right back over to the 20%. So they're going to grow and the 80% is going to shrink. But at the end of the day, the consumer is going to have a much, much better experience and it's going to be a little shakeout in the industry. But I think overall there'll be a better opportunity for agents that actually listen to podcasts that go to training, that know that our industry changes daily. And if you're not focused on training and staying up to date, you're absolutely going to be left behind.

Stephanie Lindamood: (30:02)
Totally agree. And I want to get to the builder conversation here in a second, but a followup to what you just said. Where do you see the market right now? So we're recording this January 20, 20. This episode will probably air sometime in February. It's an election year. We've had low interest rates for quite a while. There's been rumblings that we should have a recession, but we, everything looks awesome as far as unemployment and job growth and all of that. So where are you seeing real estate maybe for the next two to five years?

Steve Rider: (30:30)
Ah, the proverbial crystal ball.

Stephanie Lindamood: (30:33)
Oh wow.

Steve Rider: (30:35)
Honestly, I can tell you that I thought we might have a dip in the market. Um, some of the leading indicators were, uh, within the new home industry, lack of labor, um, lack of materials, uh, red tape and permits going costs going through the roof. So it really looked like we could have a wall and maybe even a downturn, but because the interest rates were able to come down and because, uh, we have a Republican, uh, in the office, we've had some aggressive, um, you know, policies that have not only helped from an economic standpoint, we, it's helped from an interest rate standpoint. It's helped from a longterm effect on, uh, jobs. So you take all those things and it's certainly, uh, we got three roses right now. So I'm thinking that those three roses will, uh, turn up for the next year or two. Inevitably we will have a downturn of some sort, but because we have such pressure on inventory and has such a low amount of inventory, I don't think that even a recession or a downturn, if you will, will be earth shattering.

Steve Rider: (31:53)
I think what we'll do is just kind of equalize and create a little bit more equilibrium within the market, allow more properties to come on the market as prices adjust. And truly the one thing Stephanie, that I think a lot of people just don't think about is during 2007 to 2013, the Blackstones of the world that came in and bought residential homes. We're talking hundreds of thousands of homes and those properties are still off the market and will stay off the market for some time. Now if the market starts moving downwards, you could see a trend that these um, investors start dumping the property cause they got home at such great value. Um, but they may go for even a longer term hold because the um, rental rate has gone up up to about five to 7% per year over the last five to 10 years. And that's a direct greater return for these investors. So I don't see them just plummeting anytime soon, but certainly we could have a, a little softening.

Stephanie Lindamood: (33:04)
I don't know if you guys are seeing it in Arizona. I feel like, I feel like the market in Dallas is relatively healthy. I see a ton of apartments being built. We actually have areas of town where they're building homes for rent from the get go, which is at least in our market is something new that we're seeing. I think it probably has to do with affordability because to be in DFW and be under that two 50 Mark in field in Atlanta position that's close to where you want to live, it's tough. You've got to get on the outskirts of town to really find anything in that, in that value range. So I feel like, you know, if the builders can figure out how to keep pricing where more of the masses are demanding it to be and needing it to be with income levels, they're going to be fine. But as we inch up past that four 5,500 Mark and some sub markets, it gets a little bit tighter.

Steve Rider: (33:57)
Yeah, you're absolutely correct. And the jury is still out on the, uh, rent to own or neighborhoods that are 100% rental neighborhoods. Uh, historically, um, there's not pride of ownership and just a rental property. And so historically rental properties need a lot of deferred maintenance. Uh, the average renter only stays about 10 months. Uh, even on a 12 month lease, they stayed 10. A cost of repair can be anywhere from five to seven, eight, $10,000. If these models switched to a lease to own and gave an opportunity for pride of ownership and the possibility of owning the home someday. We found when we had, uh, over 200 rental properties that when we switched them from rentals to lease options with at least with an option to buy, we went from that 10 month, uh, period to two years, nine months on the average average cost of repairs was somewhere between a thousand to 2000, because the people took so much more pride of ownership.

Steve Rider: (35:09)
So hard to say. I mean, a lot of things are changing out there. We have a tremendous amount of money that has come from China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and quite candidly, they're just throwing money at these different ventures with no idea, um, exactly how that's going to work out. The IPOs right now are extremely overvalued. So if we look back to right before the dot bust, we do have similar indicators right now just because of the, uh, wild, wild West in the IPOs. And some of these companies like Uber that are just plain losing money, right? So eventually the need to show a profit. And so we'll see. Time will tell, uh, exactly what's going to happen. But I think the combination of, um, interest rates eventually going up a new, uh, election and a possible new president, there's going to have be some uncertainty in the market and we'll eventually see that will definitely be at the top. We'll have an adjustment period for anywhere from a year to two years. And when that adjustment period, I mean, we're 21% over what we were in 2006. And I'll never forget, Stephanie, go on on appointments and Oh, six Oh seven Oh eight saying to people the market will be bad guys. That'll absolutely come back. And they used to look at me and said, no way.

Stephanie Lindamood: (36:34)
Right? Well, we're underwater.

Steve Rider: (36:37)
Yeah. Well our market ever come back. And I said, bye.

Stephanie Lindamood: (36:40)
Well, especially your market.

Steve Rider: (36:43)
Yeah. It'll come back and they've all come back and we're now 21% over pre-recession pricing. So that's good news for all of us.

Stephanie Lindamood: (36:52)
So what do you think with this new generation coming up, do you, I mean there's talk that the new generation, the millennials, and I'm barely a millennial, um, doesn't value home ownership like generations previously as far as it being like the American dream or an aspiration. Are you seeing that or is that just something that media is telling us?

Steve Rider: (37:15)
I really feel that millennials are educated. Number one, they're time driven. Number two, meaning they don't want to spend a bunch of time and they know how to avoid spending a bunch of time by utilizing the internet. So you have a more savvy group of people. Um, they're actually a little bit more frugal and not spending nearly as much as the generations before. And because some of them had to move back in with their parents and most of them saw their parents with an economic downturn that they'd never seen before. It's scared not only parents, but it scared the kids that are today's millennials. And when you see your family lose it all. I mean, I can tell you for sure the most disheartening time and my life was going into an REO property and seeing, you know, toys and stuff just left behind where people, families just basically deserted the house and left everything behind and lost millions, thousands upon thousands of dollars.

Steve Rider: (38:23)
So it was, it was certainly probably the most disheartening time in my career over 40 years. Um, but like they say this too shall pass. So I think that is going to play little bit of it, a part of it. And then obviously the financial burden that they're under, uh, because a lot of them have gone to college. And so again, if you take credos law, you've got 80% of them that have student debt out the wazoo, that's going to take them five to 10 years to pay back. And that's if they're trying to pay that, you know, 50 to a hundred thousand dollars or more. If you've got to pay that back before you, you know, save your down payment, you're just not going to be buying for awhile. Plain and simple.

Stephanie Lindamood: (39:07)
And unfortunately a lot of the jobs are getting, are making it for that student debt. There's still that in shoe level salary. Like we all have to start somewhere and then they still have that to pay off. So yeah, I think you're right. There's going to be a delay on that timeline.

Steve Rider: (39:24)
You bet. So tell me a little bit about the Dallas market and what's going on there.

Stephanie Lindamood: (39:29)
So in Dallas, you know, we're humming along, we saw prices increase from about, I would say about 2012 to probably about 2017 they went up around 50% and that timeline, which for Dallas is a lot. Um, and so we definitely seen some leveling out. You know, back in, I think it was 2015 I had my best listing year, I listed 141 properties and, and that was awesome. It slowed down a bit since then. Cause I think a lot of people were getting out from being underwater. Like you said, like they were in that 2008, 2009 mud where they were underwater and upside down in their house and the kids were growing up and they finally hit a stride where they could sell and make a profit. So they did. And so we've leveled out a little bit since then. And now what I'm seeing is, um, the prices in certain areas are stabilized.

Stephanie Lindamood: (40:26)
We're having to have conversations with sellers, letting them know that unfortunately, we're not still going up at 10 or 12% a year on their home, which is good because the homes they're buying aren't going up at 10 or 12%, but they would love to have that upside on their existing home. Right. And so we're seeing more, um, my business partner, Leonard McManaman and I, we're seeing more clients that we're relisting, we're inheriting listings where the original agent didn't necessarily get the job done for whatever reason. And we're having to go in and kind of reeducate the seller, look at what happened, you know, and frankly the biggest area we're finding is buyers have boughten brand new neighborhoods and they're selling couple of years later, like maybe they bought in a first time buyer neighborhood and they're ready to move up or their status has changed and they're wanting something different.

Stephanie Lindamood: (41:11)
And if the builders are still in those areas, we're having to educate them on how to price accordingly because with interest rates being so low, if they don't, the buyers are just going to go buy from the builder. Right. So it makes sense if you're trading in a car, right? If I got a Corvette last year and I've got 5,000 miles on it and I turn it in and the new ones are selling for the same price I want, well that's going to make sense. But when sellers are needing to get a certain amount out of their home, they don't really see that they're focused on what they need to make their goals and to get their family to the next chapter in their life. And we're having to look at the market and say, look, if the builders are selling homes at 300 minus incentives and upgrades, then we've got to be below that bottom line number and really educating them on that so that they understand what they're looking at.

Steve Rider: (41:59)
Well, and that's truly your role as a fiduciary to be able to go in and educate them. Like you said, if you're in a community that the builder is still in, you're going to have some direct competition. You're going to have incentives that you have to deal with a quarterly, annually, depending on how their sales are going. But conversely, if the builders are building in a new area and there's not a lot of competition, I know we just had one that they were a little bit nervous about bringing their price down and they were going to get about 20 to $25,000 less than they really hoped for at the top of the market. Um, so to them, they said to me, Steve, you know, it looks like we're going to lose $25,000. I said, well let's just look at the new one and see what would it cost if we were to have to go buy that new house again with a brand new lot. And it had gone up $117,000 to lose to make 117 again as our fiduciary duty to let them know the whole picture. Not just look at one side but look at the whole picture.

Stephanie Lindamood: (43:11)
No, that's totally, that's a great point. Cause we'll have that same conversation. If somebody, maybe they're, you know, selling their existing and looking at an inventory or build or what have you and the offer comes in on their existing home and they're like well this isn't really exactly what I wanted. And I said okay, but you're buying an inventory home and you're getting 30 grand off the price because they wanted to close next month and you can lock in your interest rate right now versus if you build, they might say this low, which I, and I don't ever want like to sell my fear. Right. I just try to educate my clients cause at the end of the day, the way we run our business, my, my car payment is not based on them closing, right? Like this is our career. We have a pipeline of sales to where they can do whatever they want.

Stephanie Lindamood: (43:51)
I just want to educate them and so I'll tell them, look, if interest rates are going to stay where they're at, right? If they don't, they'll probably go up a hair. What does that going to cost you? And as long as you make that decision, knowing all the facts and as much insight as we can, then great. Right? That's my job is to educate you on all the possibilities. Like you said earlier, nobody has a crystal ball, but we can use our best guess based on how the market's performed in the past, what's going on currently to then make decisions for the future. So we have to also show them that you have to look at this holistically, not just what you're getting from the builder, separate from what you're doing on your existing homes so that they really get a good snapshot of everything. So I'd like to transition now and can you give the audience an idea of some of the coaching services and the education and training that you offer. Steve,

Steve Rider: (44:41)
that is the case, which is why you are, you and I are on today. It's always about educating and giving back to our industry. And I just wanted to mention Stephanie, that I am doing some coaching now and I do two coaching sessions in there. It's always outside of Keller Williams. So if you're a Keller Williams agent and you're listening to this, you don't get the free coaching. But if you're outside of Keller Williams, I do two sessions. One is, uh, how to figure out your big why, which is what makes you tick and what makes you get up every morning. And the second coaching session is how to plan for a five year goal versus a one year goal. Cause so many agents specifically way overestimate what they can accomplish in one year in way underestimate what they can accomplish in five. So I've made it my mission to give back and explain the big why and sit down with an agent and to go over that, whether you're a brand new agent or whether you're a veteran, uh, you know, trying to go to the next level, I'd be more than happy to, uh, coach you and you can always find me two ways, either Steve writer@kw.com and that's R I D E R or my toll free number is (877) 875-8749.

Steve Rider: (46:01)
And I just truly want, um, any of our listeners to know that for me in my career, it's all about giving back and serving the industry that I love. And just like working with you and Leonard. Um, it's what makes me get up every morning is to be able to educate others, share the insights of what we do personally, but also be able to give back to the industry.

Stephanie Lindamood: (46:25)
No, I love that. I appreciate that. So now as you guys are number two, what's next for y'all? What do you guys focus on for 2020?

Steve Rider: (46:34)
Chancellor stain you say that? I think Gary Keller, a video that I did back in 2016 and I sent it to him and it was me and my team walking across the stage being in the top three in the world. And he sent back a little, a quick comment that said, Oh, funny video, I like it. And then say, yeah, no, a lot of great goal or anything like that. So yeah, no big deal. But here it is 2019, uh, last year we were number three. This year we're number two and we're walking across that stage again for the second year in a row. And I think truly for me to accomplish what I want to accomplish over the next five years is building businesses and building teams, businesses like title and escrow, uh, buying franchises. Um, looking into the mortgage industry a little bit more in depth, all the vertical integration that we could possibly do and then giving back, helping over the long term, uh, agents that just don't really know where they'd like to be.

Steve Rider: (47:43)
Uh, show 'em our model and how you can have a agent on your team make an average of 250 to $300,000 instead of, you know, 20,000, cause you've got two or 300 people on your team. So everything that I planned to do in 2020 and beyond is to continue to give back to my industry. I have wrote, I've written a book, it's called change and you can find it on Amazon. It was the number one best seller in the inspirational category. It's a small book and a very quick read. But I find it, um, insightful from the standpoint of everyone goes through a change, whether it be a big dramatic change or a small change. We all have times in our life where things pop up and we're a little uncomfortable. But I can tell you two things, Stephanie. Number one, you can think back to the last big giant problem you have that you thought would never be solved. And it's, it's, it's in the past and your life didn't and then everything went forward. So remember that this too shall pass. And the statement I made earlier about the success of a five year goal versus the lack of success on a one year goal, I think will bring a whole different insight to today's real estate professionals.

Stephanie Lindamood: (49:05)
Got it. So I'm about to wrap up and ask you five questions that I ask each guest. But the last takeaway I want to give the audience, I try to have tangible, tactical things that they can take away from an episode and actually implement and see a difference in their business. So if you were to give one piece of advice on how to niche down, because I felt like that's really, besides the systems that you guys adopted and implemented and created in your business, you guys niching down and really being clear on your strategy as far as who your client was, who are you, you're going to be working with, who you are going to be serving, what advice would you give an agent, whether they're established, whether they're just starting out on how to determine what direction to go in for your niche and how to kind of figure that out?

Steve Rider: (49:51)
Great question. So I teach two classes. Um, one is a buyer's class, so this is going to be an answer for anyone who's just getting into the market. And that class is called 100 days foundation to success. And it's a buyer course. And I always say that buyers, uh, are easier to work with than sellers. It's like drawing blood versus doing brain surgery. So if you're a newer agent out there, I would advocate that you get a dollar productive system, a use a weekly calendar stick with the basics on being able to meet people. The we call these Mets versus unmet. And the whole base for your foundation should be open houses. It's predictable, it gives you predictable outcomes. And 99.9% of all rookies of the year did it through open houses. So if you'd like to do another session where I can provide that information, a hundred day foundation for success, I'd be more than happy to provide that link for some of the newer agents.

Steve Rider: (50:56)
And then for the agents that are seasoned that want to drill down, um, you don't know what you don't know when you first start. So that's called an unconscious incompetence. But once you're a listing agent, you now know that you want to work with sellers. You know that you're not going to work with buyers nearly as much if you can. And so now you need to pick three forms of lead generation. And the categories would be anything from a for sale by owner door knocking expireds, a lot of people call expires, the few call canceled, few call temporary off the market or hold off the market. And these are people that historically take them off, you know, right around November cause they don't want to go through the holidays with their house on the market. But whether it be door knocking expired phizzbo working with builders, pick three legs of lead generation and one always needs to be your sphere of influence. So you just need to drill down on two more. And then path the 10 million. What I teach is try all of the listing activities and once you've done each one for a week and you've gone and done that over a four week period, pick the two that you hate the least

Steve Rider: (52:14)
and do them religiously for the rest of your life. It is called work, it's a four letter word. So when you wake up in the morning, if you're a listing expert and you need to focus on lead generation three hours a day, five days a week. And again, I do some coaching on that as well. I'm a little bit more of a specific type of coaching that you need to understand the leverage behind listings. I'd love to be on for another podcast and go into that a little bit more in depth sometime with you.

Stephanie Lindamood: (52:46)
Yeah, no, that's great. Absolutely. And we'll link a lot of the things that you just mentioned in the show notes and I'll get you guys that link here in a little bit. So let's wrap up real quick. I'm going to ask you five questions that I ask each guest. First question is, what's one thing that most people don't know about you?

Steve Rider: (53:01)
That I am extremely shy.

Stephanie Lindamood: (53:04)
Oh,

Steve Rider: (53:06)
I've spoken in front of as many as 12,000 people. Uh, and when I'm speaking in my element, I'm extremely confident and hopefully I come across, uh, you know, certainly like I am confident, but behind the scenes I'm about as shy as anybody else. So think that I'm some superstar. I put on my pants one leg at a time, like everybody else.

Stephanie Lindamood: (53:30)
So if you're an introvert, you can still rock it out as an agent or a sales professionals, whatever.

Steve Rider: (53:35)
Yeah, you got it.

Stephanie Lindamood: (53:38)
Awesome. So question two, it's two part. First part is what's the best piece of advice you've ever gotten?

Steve Rider: (53:43)
Best piece of advice is never give up.

Stephanie Lindamood: (53:47)
And the second part is where you're at. Now, with all your experience and knowledge, what's the best piece of advice that you would like to give the audience?

Steve Rider: (53:55)
Why don't you finish the task, whether it was successful or not? Ask yourself these two questions. What did I learn and what would I do differently? And I say that tongue in cheek because if you're successful you say, well what did I learn? You learn that it's just a matter of doing it. If you do something and you finish it, you will start on the path of success. So what did I learn and what would I do differently? What would I do differently? Whether you had success or failure, you must do something differently. So if you had success, you're going to tweak it just slightly. You're going to tweak. It just slightly reminds me of the quote you know who invented the telephone and the everyone says Allah grant Alexander Graham bell was actually a German scientist that had invented the phone. He just couldn't get the human voice to come across and Alexander Graham bell turned one screw one 16th of an inch and invented the telephone, so it's always about tweaking just a little bit. The thing that we implemented in 2020 is how to get a referral from every single referral and we begin, we begin by having that. The last question we ask on our referral sheet and the first thing that we mentioned when we get to the house and then when they're at their pinnacle of happiness, we asked again to get that referral. Imagine if you could get a referral from every single transaction. If you did a hundred last year, you can do 200 this year, so that would be my advice to someone.

Stephanie Lindamood: (55:34)
Great. Third question, what's one of your favorite books or the one that's had the greatest impact on you?

Steve Rider: (55:39)
That would be Dr. Wayne Dyer and the 10 secrets to success. And it is a very easy read. Dr. Wayne Dyer has passed, but he has some tremendous books on psychology and the way you think and truly how to have a happiness and success in your life. And I would recommend him to everyone listening. Now there's a new one I just picked up. It's called five and it is the basis of a five year goal. And that's the one I just read. So whether it be Dr. Wayne Dyer or five, um, and if you have one of my coaching sessions, I will be giving you a free copy of five as,

Stephanie Lindamood: (56:23)
Ooh, there

Steve Rider: (56:24)
you go. All right, number four. What's your current morning routine? I practice what's called a millionaire morning. It's a acronym called savers. And the S stands for silence. The a is for affirmations, the V is for visualization, E is for exercise, R is for read, an S is for scribe. And I can truly say out of all of those, the only one that I fall down a little bit on is describing. We're supposed to journal daily. Um, I've always been very cerebral. I lost my mother at a very early age. So I learned a lot in my memories into the greatest tool we have, which is our brain. And I've also been able to tap into my brain and have tremendous recall. So I try and just live a great life and keep those memories inside. But uh, to truly finish off the savers, I should be doing a little bit more scribing so I can leave that information as a legacy for my family and my son.

Stephanie Lindamood: (57:25)
Yeah. And they've got systems now where you can, they've got systems where they can, they'll reach out to you and ask you certain questions and you can record them in your voice or you can write them and then it'll put together like a book or something for your loved ones. And it's kind of a cool cause they'll ask you things that you would never think to talk about. You know what I'm saying? Like kind of like a legacy box that millionaire morning, is that millionaire morning? Is that how, how L rod

Steve Rider: (57:52)
a millionaire morning is, there's about three or four different versions of it. It's um,

Stephanie Lindamood: (57:58)
the miracle morning, right? Yeah. Miracle morning. Miracle morning. Okay.

Steve Rider: (58:04)
Yeah, that's been changed to millionaire morning to billionaire.

Stephanie Lindamood: (58:07)
Oh, gotcha. Cool.

Steve Rider: (58:09)
Eric Hall, I always consider it a miracle to wake up everyday. Quiet.

Stephanie Lindamood: (58:16)
Nice. I love it. Okay, last question is how do you unplug and unwind

Steve Rider: (58:20)
red wine at night? Earthing during the day?

Stephanie Lindamood: (58:25)
Love it when you're not selling houses or running a team.

Steve Rider: (58:30)
Yeah, I mean quite candidly, if you've never surfed, there's nothing like it. The minute you paddle out, you'd leave all of your worries and troubles behind and you're just out there in your own element in Nirvana you against the ocean, which is a, uh, an extremely tough struggle. And then obviously unplugging at night. I enjoy a little red wine with my wife. Just kind of chill and relax. Uh, so if there were two things that I could suggest, you know, obviously, uh, exercising is a good way to blow off steam, but I try and get out of my head and the two best ways is out in the water or with a glass of red wine.

Stephanie Lindamood: (59:12)
Perfect. Well anything else you'd like to say before we wrap up the show?

Steve Rider: (59:16)
I just want to say thank you very much for allowing me to be on your show and you've asked her a tremendous amount of really great questions and as I've listened to other podcasts, I think that is lacking from a lot of podcasts. So I thank you not only for having me on but for your preparation to get all the great questions out.

Stephanie Lindamood: (59:37)
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Well it has been a pleasure. I will be linking all the um, information on the social handles and the show notes, so I appreciate your time and we'll talk soon. All right,

Steve Rider: (59:49)
thank you Stephanie. You have a great day. Okay,

Stephanie Lindamood: (59:51)
thanks Steve.

Stephanie Lindamood: (59:53)
So much great information from Steve. I hope you guys got so much out of it. You guys can find the show notes at the glam girl, boss.com/episode eight that's the glam girl, boss.com/episode eight it's just the number eight. You don't have to spell it out and I'll have links to all of Steve's trainings, his website, all the good stuff so that you guys can check him out and if there's anything else you guys want to hear about real estate related, don't forget to hit me up on Instagram. You can find me at miss Stephanie Lindamood. Also, don't forget to subscribe. I know I say it all the time, but it's super important that way you know when an episode drops and then if you haven't already taken the time, go ahead and go on and submit a five star review rate the show, send in a quick review. Let me know what you guys want to hear and also don't forget we do have the Facebook group community that you guys can join the insiders group, so the glam life of real estate. Just search that in your Facebook groups search bar. We would love to have you. Thanks for joining us today and we'll talk soon.