Michele Tremblay: Signature Open Houses | Top Ponte Vedra Beach Agent

REE #281 Transcript

[00:00:00] Michele Tremblay: In real estate, I have this very real impact on the families that I help, and it's, you know, it's a tremendous responsibility and it's humbling and it's a gift. And I absolutely love being the person that can kind of walk them from this point to this point and get them there safely and get them there unscathed.

[00:01:00] Tracy Hayes: Hey, welcome back to the Real Estate Excellence Podcast, where we showcase the elite agents, rising stars, and strategic thinkers redefining what success looks like in the Northeast Florida real estate market. Today's guest didn't come from a traditional real estate background. In fact, she spent years captivating audiences as a professional singer, actress, performing around the world and even portraying a real estate agent in a national commercial.

[00:01:21] Tracy Hayes: But what started as a role eventually became reality, and she's made quite an impact. In just over four years, she's become a force in the St. Augustine and Jacksonville luxury markets. A solo agent, single mom, and a CEO of her own brand, she brings heart, grit, and polish to every transaction. Whether she's hosting one of her signature luxury open houses or crafting a personalized home buying experience, her clients feel seen, heard, and wowed. She's been named a 2024 Five Star Professional Rising Star, landed in the Top 500 Real Estate JAX Real Producers, and most recently ranked number 55 among nearly 12,000 agents in Northeast Florida by the Jacksonville Business Journal.

But beyond the accolades, she's building something deeper: a business that reflects her values, inspires her daughters, and delivers a level of service rarely seen in the industry. LZ, welcome to the show, Michele Tremblay.

[00:02:55] Michele Tremblay: Hi. Thank you. It's great to be here.

[00:02:58] Tracy Hayes: Yes. Lot of stuff there in that intro from your bio, and your bio really actually wasn't extensively long. You got a lot of stuff in there.

[00:03:00] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. Yeah, I had to pack it in.

[00:03:02] Tracy Hayes: Tell us, I always like to—you know, we were talking pre-show—I want the audience to resonate a little bit with you. You know, obviously, there's some very young agents. I had Willie Lane from Compass—he actually just got out of college and jumped into real estate.

[00:03:11] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:03:12] Tracy Hayes: That's very rare. Most people—we’ve had very highly successful people like yourself—that literally had another career, completely different than real estate, and jumped into it. So I want you to—what, you have a communications degree from, if I recall, the University of Wisconsin?

[00:02:55] Michele Tremblay: Yes. And, like a long time ago.

[00:02:58] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yes. We were talking, we didn’t even have emails in those—Tell us a little about what young Michele, what was your vision in getting that communications degree? Did you get into that—and just tell us a little bit about your career pre–real estate?

[00:03:12] Michele Tremblay: So, I mean, I had been acting and singing from a very young age, and all through grade school, middle school, high school—I mean, I thought I was gonna be on Broadway singing. Probably not dancing—that wasn’t my forte—but the singing and acting. And when it came time to plan college, I kind of listened to all of the reasonable thinkers around me who were like, "Uh, I don’t know if you want a theater degree. What are you gonna do with a theater degree? You need something to fall back on."

And so we started talking about communications and public relations and how that is sort of relative but, I think, can parlay into several different kinds of careers, is the communication...

[00:03:57] Tracy Hayes: Degree. Primarily, a lot of those who have the same visualization—you wanted to get into acting, you mentioned Broadway—that communications is a fallback. No, they go to theater. They actually do. They go in the...

[00:04:08] Michele Tremblay: Yes, they go and they get their theater degree and, you know, reason be damned. And for me, I just was kind of impressionable and I listened to everybody. And I’m not sorry that I did it. I think it serves me well. I think I’m a really strong communicator.

[00:04:21] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:22] Michele Tremblay: But part of that probably does come from being a performer and trying to always, you know, entertain people. So, I did for a very short time consider doing like broadcasting...

[00:04:31] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:32] Michele Tremblay: Being a news anchor or something like that. And then I looked into that and I thought, well, you have to move to a very small town to pay your dues in this little teeny, tiny person and do that.

[00:04:43] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:04:44] Michele Tremblay: And I thought, oh, that doesn’t really sound quite right either. So at some point I was working in advertising and also doing theater at the same time. And I was really burning out because I was working nonstop.

[00:05:00] Michele Tremblay: I was rehearsing, and then I was performing, and it was—and one of them had to go.

[00:05:04] Tracy Hayes: Right?

[00:05:04] Michele Tremblay: And so ultimately I chose performing. And that’s when I kind of broke from corporate America and just took off and went across country and did—wherever they would have me, I did musical theater. And I did—sang on cruise ships for a couple of years.

[00:05:20] Michele Tremblay: Traveled the world. I saw more of, you know, other countries than this country. It was a really great experience. And I would pinch myself and say, "Look at what I get to wake up and do every day." It was really a fun period of time. And although, you know, singing on cruise ships is—that’s pretty intense. It’s a very microcosmic experience ‘cause you are just...

[00:05:42] Tracy Hayes: But it was wonderful. Well, isn’t the entertainment staff like the hierarchy of the...

[00:05:56] Tracy Hayes: Right.
Oh yeah, yeah. You're getting pampered or whatever. You probably have a little bit better cabin than the—obviously—the crew guys washing the windows and serving the food.

[00:05:58] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. I was a rock star. Some of the dancers had to like go and do the shuffleboard and, you know, run some of the activities, but—right—you know, no, they used to pay me to go fraternize with the public.

[00:06:10] Michele Tremblay: In, you know, the little lounges and things like that. So it was—yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty...

[00:06:16] Tracy Hayes: Well, you meet some interesting people, I’m sure.

[00:06:17] Michele Tremblay: For sure.

[00:06:20] Tracy Hayes: Alright, so doing that kind of fun stuff. And then... and then you get into your corporate career, which you spent almost 18 years, right?

[00:06:27] Michele Tremblay: Well, so I didn’t really have a corporate career. What I did was, I stayed in acting. I stayed in acting.

[00:06:33] Michele Tremblay: And I was in voiceover specifically for a long time. And then I did some stage work. So when I was in Chicago for 10 years, that's what I did. I worked in—well, you work in fine dining, because that is what most actresses do.

[00:06:47] Michele Tremblay: And so I did that, and then I was on stage and I was in, you know, commercials. And then I was the voice of a television station in Chicago—the public television station there. So, you know, the “Coming up next on WTTW 11…”

[00:07:00] Michele Tremblay: “This program brought…”

[00:07:01] Tracy Hayes: Do you have nightmares about that? Do you have nightmares where that just rings through your head?

[00:07:06] Michele Tremblay: No, I loved it. I loved it.

[00:07:08] Tracy Hayes: No, I mean it—I call ’em nightmares. You just keep hearing it. But even today, yeah, years and years later, you also—you’re like...

[00:07:14] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, it just is ringed.
Yeah, it has been a minute. It’s been a minute, but—almost 15 years I did that. So I did that even when I moved to Southern California after I got married, and I was still doing it in Georgia. So that was a lot of fun.

[00:07:28] Michele Tremblay: And then commercials and, you know, doing the—playing the realtor. It was fun. So that’s what I did. And then, you know, when I had my girls, I was primarily stay-at-home mom. But I still kept that up all those years. Had a little sound studio in my—yeah—in my closet.

[00:07:43] Michele Tremblay: And yeah, it was really—but the industry has changed immensely. And when it came time to deciding what to be when I grew up—which is, I call, when I got divorced—when I had to, you know, figure out, “What do I do now?”
“What—how am I going to pay my mortgage every month?”
“How am I going to...?”

[00:08:00] Michele Tremblay: So I tried to sort of get back into corporate America—maybe advertising, do whatever—and I had spent so little time doing that in the past, you know, decade and a half, two decades, that everyone was like, “Oh, you're so cute. I don't know what to do with you.”

[00:08:14] Michele Tremblay: “But you have, you know, lots of world experience but nothing that we can use.” So it was difficult to find what my next was going to be—until I, you know, considered real estate.

[00:08:28] Tracy Hayes: Well, you can always go get a thing on Fiverr and do voiceovers.

[00:08:31] Michele Tremblay: No thank you. No thank you.

[00:08:36] Tracy Hayes: So you—if I recall you mentioning earlier—your husband at the time brought you to Florida?

[00:08:41] Michele Tremblay: Yes. We were in southern Georgia, small town—Newnan, Georgia. And he was here on business and called me from the beach in February and said, “I think I found our next spot.”

[00:08:53] Michele Tremblay: And I said, “Absolutely not. We're not moving.”
And then he brought me here—and I fell in love with it.

[00:09:00] Michele Tremblay: I love Northeast Florida. I love that we still have seasons. I love that—I mean, I used to say, and legitimately—it took me about nine months to meet an unhappy person.

[00:09:10] Michele Tremblay: Like everybody here is just very... and I think obviously that has a little bit to do with the weather, the fact that you can be outdoors most of the time.

[00:09:17] Michele Tremblay: You can. And yeah, no, I really—I really—and I was in Southern California too for... I was in San Clemente for about five years. And, you know, Southern California is absolutely stunning. It's beautiful.

[00:09:27] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:28] Michele Tremblay: But I prefer—I prefer Northeast Florida.

[00:09:30] Tracy Hayes: I would trade some of the humidity, for sure.

[00:09:33] Michele Tremblay: Yes, for sure.

[00:09:34] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. You're not wrong there. But—alright, so you—because you're still not in real estate yet.

[00:09:39] Michele Tremblay: Nope.

[00:09:39] Tracy Hayes: You come here...

[00:09:40] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:41] Tracy Hayes: Are you—you're still a stay-at-home mom?

[00:09:42] Michele Tremblay: Still doing—yep. Still at home with the girls. We never had family around us, so I had—whatever job I had to do. I did work at—I worked at TPC Sawgrass for just—in the clubhouse—for spending money. My own money, because this is what, as an actress, I did for many years.

[00:10:00] Michele Tremblay: And just met wonderful people and worked there for seven years, did all the tournaments...

[00:10:04] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:10:05] Michele Tremblay: And the connections I made through that actually have served me in...

[00:10:08] Tracy Hayes: Just sort of like part-time as well, type of thing?

[00:10:10] Michele Tremblay: Yes. And it was, “Hey, I can only work when, you know, my ex-husband is not traveling.”

[00:10:19] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:10:19] Michele Tremblay: And they’re like, “Okay, done.”
I was like, “Oh, really? Okay.”

[00:10:23] Michele Tremblay: So, no, I credit that—I mean, when I was going through my divorce and starting real estate, I had to really dig in. So I was dual-career for a while because I had to be, while I was ramping up real estate.

[00:10:34] Tracy Hayes: So what—what is your first taste of—you know, was anyone else in the family ever in real estate before?

[00:10:38] Michele Tremblay: No.

[00:10:39] Tracy Hayes: Obviously. I think you—what was your first taste of like, “Hey, maybe, maybe I should be a real estate…”

[00:10:44] Michele Tremblay: Well, I think—I will give some credit to my ex-husband, because he actually told me many years ago, “You should really go into real estate.” You know, we used to go to open houses for fun when we were looking for a potential home in Georgia.

[00:11:00] Michele Tremblay: We just—I had an affinity for it. And I really—I really enjoy—I'm pretty good at staging, you know, those kinds of things. So I’ve always been—I've always been interested in it, but it was never really the right time because my girls were small, we didn’t really have any help.

[00:11:16] Michele Tremblay: And I mean, real estate is not—you know, it’s not a 9-to-5 job. It’s not a... you have to be ready to go on a dime. You get a text, you get a phone call...

[00:11:25] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:26] Michele Tremblay: And so, your—you know, your kids need to be—if you're there by yourself with your kids, they need to be pretty self-sufficient in order to make that jump. So the age was such that they were much more independent. And so I could—you know, my oldest was old enough to watch my youngest, and so...

[00:11:43] Tracy Hayes: So would you—so, I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions of people getting in the business...

[00:11:49] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:50] Tracy Hayes: And people who are not in the business—is, when you're in our real estate world, whether you’re doing loans or you're living it—your business, you are your business. Even though I work for Planet Home Lending, it’s still me.

[00:12:00] Tracy Hayes: If it’s Saturday afternoon and you call me—or Sunday afternoon—you call me, and a real estate agent needs help or a customer needs help, like “Hey, can I get financing? I want to make an offer...” You gotta take the call.

[00:12:10] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:12:11] Tracy Hayes: And the same—it’s a feast or famine thing. Monday, no—Monday and Tuesday, no one may call you. But you gotta be prepared that Sunday afternoon, you might get three calls from people who want to list their house ‘cause they just watched the news.

[00:12:24] Michele Tremblay: 100% true. Yeah. And my girls will sometimes, you know, complain—“Oh, mom, you’re always on the phone. You’re always working.”

[00:12:31] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:32] Michele Tremblay: And I say, “But you like nice things.”

[00:12:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:12:37] Michele Tremblay: I mean, I have two girls with all the makeup, and all the products, and all the clothes, and all the... and you know, we’re getting close now where we’re thinking college. We’re thinking—so mom has to work. Gotta get your nails done—mom has to work pretty hard.

[00:12:49] Tracy Hayes: That’s the thing that blows my mind now. I don’t remember—I don’t remember when I was growing up—how big or important it was for my female high schoolers to get their nails done.

[00:12:57] Tracy Hayes: I guess they were getting their nails done...

[00:13:00] Tracy Hayes: But now it’s a thing. Now it’s like sixty...

[00:13:01] Michele Tremblay: $70 to get, you know... No, no. Yeah. But, you know, realistically, it does—it takes a lot of money.

[00:13:10] Michele Tremblay: And so your schedule is—you have to be available. And I pride myself...

[00:13:14] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:13:15] Michele Tremblay: On being available and being extremely timely and communicative. And so, whenever someone needs me, I'm—within reason. If it's, you know, midnight, 1:00 AM—no thank you. But...

[00:13:30] Tracy Hayes: Were you able to—because I think one of the important things, especially someone thinking about becoming a real estate agent—maybe they're getting their license right now—did you have an opportunity to, or did you search out some agents or meet some agents?

[00:13:42] Tracy Hayes: I mean, there’s a lot of agents, obviously—beach. There's one every other door, I'm sure. But—to really get an idea of how the business works?

[00:13:52] Michele Tremblay: Yes, yes, yes, I did. Because—I’ll tell you what happened. When I was looking for a job, we knew the writing was on the wall and I was going to have to be on my own.

[00:14:00] Michele Tremblay: And I talked to my dentist at the time and told him, you know, “Well, I'm looking for work, looking for a job, I need to…” And he said, “Well, you should be my office manager.” And I shadowed a dentist office manager—and I had nightmares. I was like, “Absolutely not.”

[00:14:17] Tracy Hayes: [laughs]

[00:14:18] Michele Tremblay: I could not do this. I am not going to code. I am not going to—like, no, no, no, no. Because I would do something wrong and someone wouldn’t get paid, and that would not be—that would not be good.

[00:14:29] Michele Tremblay: And I'm not someone who’s in front of the computer all day long. You’re like—no. So, after my cold sweat, I was like, “Okay, something else. Something else. Oh—wait a minute.” And that’s when my ex-husband said, “Well, duh—real estate.”

[00:14:44] Michele Tremblay: Right? And so I did—I had friends who were realtors and I interviewed three or four of them. Sat—bought them a coffee and said...

[00:14:51] Tracy Hayes: Before you even got your license?

[00:14:52] Michele Tremblay: Before I got my license. Oh yeah. And I said, “This is what I am thinking about doing. Would you recommend, and can you tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly?”

[00:15:00] Michele Tremblay: And you know, I'll never forget some of the responses I got. So one of them said, “Oh Michele, you would be so good at this—but you’ll never sleep again.” Like, “It is very stressful, it is...” you know, blah blah blah. And I was like, “Okay, well that’s good.”

[00:15:14] Michele Tremblay: And then another one said, “Well, it’s great, but just know that for the first year, you’re probably going to pay more than you’ll make.”

[00:15:20] Tracy Hayes: And?

[00:15:21] Michele Tremblay: And I was like, “Oh God, I don’t know about this.”
So, you know, people were very forthcoming. And it is—it takes a minute to ramp up. The people who go into it and think that they're gonna make money their first year—I did. I really did. I said, “Aw, that’s too bad that happened to you. I’m sure it will be different for me.”

[00:15:39] Michele Tremblay: But it wasn’t. I didn’t have a deal my first eight months.

[00:15:45] Tracy Hayes: I'm curious about the person who—you know, obviously talked a lot about the stress and so forth, which there is—not to discount that.

[00:15:51] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:15:52] Tracy Hayes: But with your background of—you know, 'cause I imagine your theater background goes until you were young...

[00:15:56] Michele Tremblay: Yes.

[00:15:57] Tracy Hayes: The stress of memorizing your lines and performing...

[00:16:00] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:16:01] Tracy Hayes: Versus the stress of being a real estate agent—how... compare that for us.

[00:16:10] Michele Tremblay: Well, so as a realtor, my responsibility is to just always be the calm in the storm. And transitions are hard, even on the best day. Like moving and just closing up one chapter and starting another one—it’s always going to be fraught with, you know, a lot of nervous energy, a lot of emotion, a lot of all of those things.

[00:16:30] Michele Tremblay: So I really, really pride myself on just keeping everybody—you know, talking people down off the ledge. You know, you have to put on your therapist little cap, and then you have to put—and it's—you know, I've been through it, and, you know, getting...

[00:16:45] Michele Tremblay: Divorced and selling one house and moving into my little house that I’m in now... like, I—I went through that. And so I am...

[00:17:00] Michele Tremblay: I really am very, very strategic on helping people to navigate that, like with as little of the craziness as possible. And so because of that, I kind of take on a lot of the craziness, you know?

[00:17:11] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:17:12] Michele Tremblay: So—but yeah, it’s not lost on me that these are very big events for people, and it’s a lot of responsibility.

[00:17:18] Michele Tremblay: And it’s something I take really seriously.

[00:17:22] Tracy Hayes: Well, it’s just putting that—you know, as I’m sure when you were going out on stage or even just doing voiceovers—it’s game time. You’re only as good as your last performance.

[00:17:32] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:17:33] Tracy Hayes: And if, you know, you don’t wanna blow that.

[00:17:35] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:17:36] Tracy Hayes: And there’s a level of stress to that. And then obviously, you know, when you care like you do—’cause that’s why—I mean, that’s ultimately one of the key cornerstones of your success as a real estate agent...

[00:17:45] Tracy Hayes: And understanding the importance of these moves. “Hey, I gotta get this person, ‘cause that person’s moving out and then they’re buying out.” There's this whole transition going on the day of closing.

[00:17:55] Michele Tremblay: Yep.

[00:17:56] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, and you know that it’s game time and that’s a stress—stepping up and performing.

[00:18:00] Michele Tremblay: Of course. Mm-hmm.

[00:18:01] Tracy Hayes: When you, you know—if you speak in front of people, as you know—at some point, you gotta say what the—you know—and go, right?

[00:18:06] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:07] Tracy Hayes: There’s enough—exactly. You have your little moment of whatever it is, and then it’s like, hey, it’s game time. I gotta go. ‘Cause it’s—it’s just—it’s time. It’s kickoff.

[00:18:14] Michele Tremblay: Yes.

[00:18:15] Tracy Hayes: So we gotta go. So just to revisit—so you spoke to some different agents. I would imagine from different brokerages?

[00:18:25] Michele Tremblay: Yes.

[00:18:26] Tracy Hayes: Okay.

[00:18:26] Michele Tremblay: Yep.

[00:18:27] Tracy Hayes: The importance of choosing the right brokerage. This is a point I make on every show that I can because I have seen—you know, well—we know there’s a huge failure rate in real estate.

[00:18:37] Tracy Hayes: Massive. I think a good—there’s a certain percentage—I don’t know whether that’s 5%, 20%—I don’t know what percentage it is that fail—but I believe they’ve chosen the wrong brokerage for them at the get-go.

[00:18:50] Tracy Hayes: ‘Cause some need a little bit more—you know, some people, they could survive anywhere. They’re gonna figure it out. ‘Cause that’s just who they are. They’ve already got a personality. They’re just gonna make it work no matter what. They’re gonna fight through any obstacles.

[00:19:00] Tracy Hayes: Where others run into obstacles and there’s not really that mentor or coach there to get them. What made you choose your brokerage? What things were important to you to fit your business—how you thought you were gonna run your business?

[00:19:16] Michele Tremblay: So, you know, you go into it and you really have no idea, right? You don’t have a crystal ball. You don’t know.

[00:19:22] Michele Tremblay: But one of my friends, Catherine—who got me into the business—she was the one who said, “Get ready to have sleepless nights.”

[00:19:29] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:30] Michele Tremblay: She was with Keller Williams and just had glowing things to say about that brokerage, that particular brokerage.

[00:19:37] Michele Tremblay: And it was Mark Dilworth that I had met with—Keller Williams. And, you know, I think what I liked about them was that they really focus on growing you quickly, trying to give you a really solid base of information. And they do have mentors that you can connect with and have accountability partners.

[00:20:00] Michele Tremblay: I’ll never forget when I was in the beginning classes after getting my—well, you would have this accountability, and there would be a list on the chalkboard of what you did, what activities...

[00:20:10] Michele Tremblay: What successes you had that week. And you were like, “Oh, I really wanna make sure I have something to put up there.” You know?

[00:20:17] Michele Tremblay: So—they’re very faith-based. And that is—that can—you know, not in your face, and they don’t want to convert anybody...

[00:20:24] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:25] Michele Tremblay: But it just means that they really want to put people first—and then your business. And I did really like that. It’s a great atmosphere. It’s just a great group of people, and they were all so supportive and so celebratory whenever you had anything positive that would happen.

[00:20:45] Michele Tremblay: They were just—and so I just felt like I had so many cheerleaders there. And, you know, at this point, a lot of brokerages may, you know, want to chat and say, “Are you—do you think you want to go here? Do you think you want to go there?”

[00:21:00] Michele Tremblay: And, you know, there are bells and whistles, and there are things that you’re like, “Oh, that’s kind of neat,” and “Oh, that would be nice.” Right?

[00:21:07] Michele Tremblay: But ultimately, what I always tell everybody is that I’m really—I’m not looking to go. I’m horrible with change. And I’m not looking to go and make any big changes at this point.

[00:21:17] Michele Tremblay: But, you know, we always have conversations. You have to have the conversations back.

[00:21:25] Tracy Hayes: Well, one of the other things I’ve seen is—or I can understand that’s going on out there—of course the brokerage changes as time goes on.

[00:21:32] Tracy Hayes: It actually could be the same person running the show, but who knows—over time they just get tired or just get so in a rut that they’re not moving and staying in front of their agents.

[00:21:49] Tracy Hayes: Yes. Yeah. And the importance of—'cause we talk about Keller Williams, which I think is great—there are a lot of new agents, but certainly every office, every office has a little bit different culture...

[00:21:56] Michele Tremblay: Probably a little different dynamic. Mm-hmm. A little different culture. So I would...

[00:22:00] Michele Tremblay: I would recommend to someone who is starting in the business to align yourself with a brokerage that is gonna have really solid training for you. Because I think the training is—if you're like most people—you're gonna need to know certain things to be successful in this business.

[00:22:15] Michele Tremblay: Choose a brokerage that is going to have a really good foundational training for you, mentorship opportunities, those kinds of things. And then ultimately, make sure it’s a culture you feel comfortable with. So yeah, I would sit down with at least five and just kind of get the feel for it.

[00:22:32] Tracy Hayes: Off the top of your head, just think of two or three really important questions—open-ended questions—they really should be investigating and asking.

[00:22:40] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, because you’re interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.

[00:22:44] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:22:45] Michele Tremblay: So I would ask questions like:
“If I do all the right things, within one year, three years, and five years, what can I expect my business to look like?”

[00:22:58] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:22:59] Michele Tremblay: You know, because there are definitely stages to your career in real estate.
So: “What types of things can you provide to me that are gonna make me the most successful agent I can be?”

[00:23:11] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:12] Michele Tremblay: “What kind of accountability will you have in front of me, so that I am held to certain standards?”
Because I know that the fail rate is so high.

[00:23:20] Michele Tremblay: So those are the kinds of things that I would ask.
Because I have talked to other agents who are like, “Yeah, I don’t really have anybody that’s talking to me about what’s going on in the business.”

[00:23:31] Michele Tremblay: And I don’t have—and especially, you know, in the last year and two years, there have been so many changes in our industry. And so you need to make sure that you have access to everything that is constantly changing and understand it fully—and have training to back that up.

[00:23:48] Michele Tremblay: I mean, super important changes that are going on—legal changes that are going on—and you just need to always make sure that you're on top of that.

[00:24:00] Tracy Hayes: When you were having—I think you said you talked to like four or five agents...

[00:24:04] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:05] Tracy Hayes: ...before you even went and took your initial class?

[00:24:06] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:24:07] Tracy Hayes: Did the question about the brokerage and what was going on at their brokerage—why they liked it—just because...

[00:24:11] Tracy Hayes: Again, I ask this question because I think so many fail. Some are jumping out because they see stuff like Real, and they're looking at the split. Or eXp, or Florida Homes, or they’re more cloud-based brokerages...

[00:24:23] Tracy Hayes: LPT is another one—versus the brick-and-mortar, the Keller Williams, the Coldwell Bankers and so forth. So, for—

[00:24:32] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. So for me—and that is, I think that might be why younger agents sometimes choose the cloud-based. Because they’re very comfortable with technology.
They're very—they think they are—but they certainly are more than I was.

[00:24:45] Michele Tremblay: Right? You know, I was like, “Oh my God.” Like there’s these little, you know, virtual people that—you know—you walk into their office and you have a virtual... Like, this is like—I need an actual person, I think, you know?

[00:25:00] Michele Tremblay: But some people thought that was super cool and that’s very...
No—I wanted someone that I could meet with face to face.
I wanted a place that I could go and have that sense of community and have that sense of...
I think that was really important for me.

[00:25:17] Tracy Hayes: Well, you're a communications person. You like to communicate.

[00:25:21] Michele Tremblay: Bingo.

[00:25:21] Tracy Hayes: But how important—yeah—I mean...
And what I’m—I guess the point I’m driving is, and you can speak to this now, you’ve been in the business long enough—you’ve seen many come and go already—the importance of that choice.

[00:25:34] Tracy Hayes: Whether, you know, this person might go with a Real or an eXp—and you can fly. It might just work out perfectly.

[00:25:40] Tracy Hayes: Maybe there’s a local group that you know you can resonate with. Because I do think one of the downfalls is, many agents feel like they’re on an island.

[00:25:42] Tracy Hayes: Or four other real agents that you guys are communicating with and leaning on each other and...

[00:25:46] Michele Tremblay: Yes.

[00:25:47] Tracy Hayes: ...going to each other’s broker’s opens and all that kind of thing.

[00:25:49] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:25:50] Tracy Hayes: And talking the war stories that we do in business.

[00:25:54] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:25:55] Tracy Hayes: And there's others who like to be able to go in that office and when they have the meeting and be able to talk with, you know, 20, 30 people sitting around the room sharing those stories. It's a different...

[00:26:05] Michele Tremblay: I think the most important thing is it’s got to be a personal decision. It’s gotta be something that you are comfortable with. But the key is to have people.

[00:26:13] Michele Tremblay: Like, I have five people on speed dial all the time. And I think that they have me on speed dial as well. And it is—you know—“Oh my gosh, what would you do?” You know, “XYZ happened,” or “I’ve never come across this. What do you make of this?” And we’re each other’s people. And that’s important.

[00:26:38] Tracy Hayes: Because they’re showing proven success. They make your five because they’re actually at your level or maybe even above.

[00:26:46] Michele Tremblay: They’re out there, they’re doing it. They’re doing the same things I am.

[00:26:49] Tracy Hayes: You have a lot of people on your speed dial, and it’s great to associate. But the people you’re talking about—just for the audience and listeners—these are people, and I can probably guess a few people in the Keller Williams circle that are on that list...

[00:27:00] Tracy Hayes: But these are people that are producing, that you—some of them—you strive to be like...

[00:27:05] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:06] Tracy Hayes: Or kind of, you know, following in their footsteps, watching what they're doing marketing-wise, whatever it is.

[00:27:09] Michele Tremblay: Absolutely. And the first time I got a call from someone who wanted to use me—to ask what I'm doing—because they saw my success, I was like, “Whoa. That’s cool. I like that.”

[00:27:22] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, that’s nice. So I'm getting, you know, more people that are coming to me and asking me for mentorship now.

[00:27:29] Michele Tremblay: Which is a really—that’s a really nice feeling.

[00:27:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, 100%. One of the things—I bring up the book Grit. If you've listened to any of my shows, I bring it up regularly. Grit by Angela Duckworth. If you haven’t read it, it’s a good one. You should.

[00:27:44] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, I haven’t.

[00:27:45] Tracy Hayes: I think you should get it. She does a TEDx Talk too, so if you wanna pull it up on YouTube—you can pull up her TEDx Talk. But a lot of agents—you have to have grit to be in this business.

[00:27:56] Michele Tremblay: Oh God, yeah.

[00:27:57] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. You, as a single mom, you have a huge amount of grit just right there.

[00:28:00] Tracy Hayes: But the grit in real estate—I break it down to three different things. I call it my LLC.

[00:28:05] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:06] Tracy Hayes: And that's: You’ve got to love it. You’ve got to be able to laugh about it.

[00:28:09] Michele Tremblay: Oh yeah.

[00:28:10] Tracy Hayes: And then what are you doing? Consistency.

[00:28:11] Michele Tremblay: So true.

[00:28:12] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:28:13] Tracy Hayes: Tell us why you love real estate.

[00:28:14] Michele Tremblay: You know what—I really feel—I was just telling someone this the other day. So when I did voiceover, I would pray for like a pharmaceutical ad. Like, I would be like, “Oh, that would just be the end-all be-all. That would be so amazing.”

[00:28:28] Michele Tremblay: It’s on TV all the time, you just get—you know, because you’re getting paid every time it plays.

[00:28:32] Tracy Hayes: Every time it plays.

[00:28:33] Michele Tremblay: And, you know, it wouldn’t matter at the time what it was for, what it was hawking, what it was—you know—it was just like, “Oh, if I could get one of those…”

[00:28:42] Michele Tremblay: And I think to myself, what if I had gotten one of those just crazy big ones, and it had been for something that people don’t need? That in fact, now it’s in litigation because it was bad for you, and it was...

[00:28:55] Tracy Hayes: And so it’s all your fault, ’cause you told them about it.

[00:28:57] Michele Tremblay: [laughs] I said, “Trust me, this is great.”

[00:29:00] Michele Tremblay: So now I feel like what I do impacts lives so much more. Now, as a performer, I was like, “Oh, I’m giving people joy,” you know—it was a nice feeling. You’re up on stage, you’re like, people are smiling, they’re laughing, they’re being affected.

[00:29:15] Tracy Hayes: Right?

[00:29:15] Michele Tremblay: That was a really nice thing. In real estate, I have this very real impact on the families that I help.

[00:29:22] Michele Tremblay: And it’s—you know, it’s a tremendous responsibility, and it’s humbling, and it’s a gift. And I absolutely love being the person that can kind of walk them from this point to this point—and get them there safely and get them there unscathed.

[00:29:36] Michele Tremblay: And it’s just—so that part—I have a servant’s heart. And that part is absolutely phenomenal.

[00:29:44] Michele Tremblay: I also love it because I do get to be creative. I do get to be, you know—I get to call on these gifts and these transferable skills that no one else could...

[00:30:00] Michele Tremblay: ...use in the corporate world.

[00:30:00] Michele Tremblay: ...and if you don’t have—you know, maybe you can survive because you have three.
But in real estate, I can use them. I can be, you know—I call it “show ready.” You are show ready whenever you have—whenever I have a listing. Like, that listing is show ready if anybody goes to see it.

[00:30:20] Michele Tremblay: It is not—you will never find—and I shouldn’t say never—you will rarely find a listing of mine where you’re gonna have to go in, turn on the lights, you’re gonna have to do the... It is absolutely show ready so that when someone walks in, if I’m not there with a glass of champagne—

[00:30:37] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:38] Michele Tremblay: —which is very unusual—but if I’m not there, it’s at least going to be—you’re gonna walk in and it’s gonna feel like home. It’s not gonna feel like, you know...

[00:30:46] Michele Tremblay: ...an empty place that you have to kind of... So that’s—you know, I’m making—creating experiences, whether it’s for a buyer or a seller. I’d like it to be something that people aren’t going to forget.

[00:30:58] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Well, it’s nice that people—one, your personal taste, that sort of—you know, you say you’re pouring that onto them a little bit, getting a house ready. But now you’ve been doing it enough years, your professional recommendations—people are listening to you and taking your advice, and then being successful with that advice—is always obviously a great compliment, right?

[00:31:19] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:20] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:31:20] Michele Tremblay: Absolutely.

[00:31:20] Tracy Hayes: Alright, so the second part is laughter.

[00:31:23] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:31:24] Tracy Hayes: Alright. So—I think...

[00:31:25] Michele Tremblay: Oh, you have to laugh or you’ll cry.

[00:31:27] Tracy Hayes: Yes. You have to be able to laugh at—give us a situation—and this is where laughter comes into my vision of grit and how I see it in my life...

[00:31:36] Tracy Hayes: I look back now, and there’s times—whether it was something I did when I was 18 years old, or 28 years old, or 38 years old—something stupid I did, or just some setback where I really felt I was, you know...

[00:31:47] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:48] Tracy Hayes: ...fell on my face or whatever. But today, we laugh about it. Whether we just personally think about it and laugh about it, or we’re telling the story at a cocktail party—
“Oh man, when I—I was really stupid as a kid, and I did this...”

[00:32:00] Tracy Hayes: Tell us a real estate situation that you’ve had in the last four years that really kind of punched you in the gut a little bit, and really made you question—or even sweat out, “Am I gonna be able to give these people this great service?” But then you ended up turning it around, and today you laugh about it or talk about it at a cocktail party.

[00:32:16] Michele Tremblay: Well, I mean, I will go back to my first year in real estate. My first year and a few months was COVID.

[00:32:23] Michele Tremblay: And I did not have listings, because I was new-new. And people weren’t—you know—none of my friends or family were selling houses that could say, “Oh, well you’re here, we’ll let you do it.”

[00:32:34] Michele Tremblay: Eh. So I had buyers. Because nobody else wanted buyers. Because, you know, you would plan to see 10 houses and six of them would be off the market by the next day when you were going to see the houses.

[00:32:53] Tracy Hayes: Or somebody wouldn’t let you in because of COVID.

[00:32:56] Michele Tremblay: Oh—I mean, all the things. Right?

[00:33:00] Michele Tremblay: And then, if someone went in and saw it and it was like, “This will do,” which was—basically, during COVID, if you found a house that was just, you know, maybe okay, you put an offer on it. Because it was gonna be gone tomorrow.

[00:33:15] Michele Tremblay: Right? So these are the people who are selling and moving now, by the way.

[00:33:19] Michele Tremblay: But I had a client in California, and we put offers on—I went and did virtual showings for them for several, several houses. And we put in—I think it was four or five offers on different houses.

[00:33:34] Michele Tremblay: And, you know, we thought we were giving these amazing offers. And I look at it now—and the last one, the last straw—he was like, “Alright, this is it. If we don’t get this house, we’re just gonna stay put. This is it. Let’s do an escalation clause. Let’s put an obscene number on it. This is the one. If it’s not this one, we’re just done. Done.”

[00:34:00] Michele Tremblay: So, you know, we made the offer. And of course—we did get it. And it went up to the very top of the escalation clause. I mean, it was just insane.

[00:34:10] Michele Tremblay: He’s there now. He loves the house. I’m so happy. But at the time, I was like, “Okay, now we got the house—now he has to see it.” Now he has to come and see it.

[00:34:20] Michele Tremblay: We closed on it before he ever even stepped foot in the house.

[00:34:23] Tracy Hayes: Wow.

[00:34:23] Michele Tremblay: Yes. So I was stressing that out.

[00:34:25] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:34:26] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. So that was one where you just had to kind of—with every loss of a house—you just had to kind of, you know... There was more crying than laughing at the time.
But now we’re able to look back and go, “Oh my gosh, can you remember what it took to get to that final house?”

[00:34:42] Tracy Hayes: I think there’s a little stress there that a lot of people don’t realize in that case.
Because here—here he took your professional opinion: “This is the house.” You put the escalation clause in, so he’s paying more than asking...

[00:35:00] Tracy Hayes: He gets the house. He hasn’t even seen it yet.

[00:35:03] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:04] Tracy Hayes: And he shows up... and he doesn’t really like it.
Now, most people say, “Well, he closed on it. He signed. It’s his. That’s his problem.”

[00:35:12] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:35:12] Tracy Hayes: But if you have any care in what you do...

[00:35:14] Michele Tremblay: Oh, it would’ve been...

[00:35:15] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. That would—that hangs on you.

[00:35:17] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, it would've been terrible. So—I knew it was an amazing house, so I was pretty sure he was gonna love it.
But yeah, those kinds of things are kind of crazy.

[00:35:27] Michele Tremblay: The craziest thing that’s ever happened is that I was working with a gentleman and his wife—someone that I met at TPC, actually.
And they were up from Boca three times with me, looking at houses. This was the final time they were gonna come and look, and they were no-shows.

[00:35:42] Michele Tremblay: And I was texting him and calling him, and I just couldn’t figure out why—

[00:35:45] Tracy Hayes: In person? Because they were supposed to meet you at a house at a certain time or something?

[00:35:47] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, they were supposed—well, we were trying to figure out what our plan was. And we were—and ordinarily we would have everything sort of...
Anyway, I ultimately—a week later—I still had not heard from them. And I was sending them messages like, “If you’ve changed your mind and you’re not moving here, it’s okay. Just let me know.”

[00:36:04] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:36:04] Michele Tremblay: I googled his name because I was getting worried—and legit, he is a missing person. Still has not been found. Went out for a walk that morning... never came back.

[00:36:16] Tracy Hayes: Him and his wife?

[00:36:17] Michele Tremblay: No, his wife—and this is the thing—I never communicated with his wife. I always communicated with him. I don’t even have her phone number.

[00:36:25] Michele Tremblay: But I talked to the detective like every month for a year saying, “Anything? Oh my gosh... anything?”
Yeah—literally disappeared into thin air.

[00:36:35] Tracy Hayes: I want to ask this question a little more directly, because... well, you grew up in acting and so forth—it was something you had a passion for.

[00:36:42] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:43] Tracy Hayes: Obviously—and still have.

[00:36:44] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:36:45] Tracy Hayes: Communicating—and I think when people define “communicating,” whatever they have—it was natural for you.
And obviously, you took it and made money from it—you know, your voice or whatever, your type of thing.

[00:37:00] Tracy Hayes: I imagine, though, in all those years of you doing it professionally, you took some different trainings, listened to different people, whatever it may be, to improve your craft.

[00:37:06] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:07] Tracy Hayes: Tell us—when you’re working your business today—you may not even realize it because it’s just natural, it’s ingrained in you.
But some of the things that you do that may separate you from another agent because of your background—communications, passion, and background.

[00:37:27] Michele Tremblay: So I think one of the things that I am very comfortable doing is walking someone through—on a video—walking someone through and talking about the home and talking about the...

[00:37:36] Michele Tremblay: I will do videos with some of these young, kind of hip videographers—so, not young and hip myself—but they make the video very young and hip, and just visually striking. Just really cool.

[00:37:48] Michele Tremblay: And I am very comfortable, because I used to do those kinds of...

[00:38:00] Michele Tremblay: ...you know, training films or, you know, commercials or whatever—where I would be walking and talking and doing the—you know, that’s... I did that.
So it came very natural to me. And so when I do these video shoots, the videographer’s always like, “That was one take. That was great.”

[00:38:15] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:38:16] Michele Tremblay: “Alright, let’s move on to the next one.” And they’re always just kind of like, “Whoa, okay. I had a lot of time blocked off for this, but I think we’re done.”
Right? You know?
So I think that that is—that’s a really nice benefit, is that I have that sort of in my back pocket.

[00:38:31] Michele Tremblay: I thought I would do more voiceover for my own things. I thought I would be in the studio and just kind of do... it hasn’t really worked out that way.
And maybe I still will incorporate that. I did start a YouTube channel that I thought, “Oh, this is right up my alley too.”
I just don’t have time to do it now.
I wish I had the time—or a virtual assistant—that could just kind of throw those together. But...

[00:38:52] Tracy Hayes: Next week I have a guest on—she’s actually local here—she has 60,000 YouTube followers.

[00:38:56] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:38:57] Tracy Hayes: She’s doing real estate on YouTube. You should make sure you tune in to that.

[00:39:00] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. I will, yeah—it’s crazy.
So I did like the first—the first few. I think the one that has the most views was “Why Not to Move to Ponte Vedra Beach.”
And then it’s faux reasons why not to move there, but it’s really about what a great place it is.

[00:39:15] Michele Tremblay: So I thought, “Oh, this is great.” I would love to...
But I just got into the intricacies and making sure the video looked perfect and—it’s just too time-consuming. So I didn’t really do it.
But that was—you know, things like that come naturally to me.

[00:39:32] Michele Tremblay: The other things that come really naturally to me—I think that do set me apart a little bit—is that I see things and I figure out how to incorporate it into my business.

[00:39:40] Michele Tremblay: So, the little things that I do for my open houses or my showings...

[00:39:46] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, how did you—we said that in the open, actually—when I was reading: “Your signature luxury open houses.”
Define that.

[00:39:53] Michele Tremblay: So...
I mean, I usually have like, you know, some sort of a—I’ve scaled back on the big spread of food or treats or whatever, because a lot of times people...

[00:40:00] Michele Tremblay: —it gets wasted.
People don’t partake.
I will always have some kind of a specialty mimosa going on for those that want to partake in that.

[00:40:10] Michele Tremblay: But mainly it’s the little things that I do. I have a coloring page for the kids that come in that’s of that house, and then they can color it in and sit there and color while the parents go and look.

[00:40:22] Michele Tremblay: I do little champagne bottles that they can take with them that have a picture of the house on them and the address and my phone number—but they’re really kind of elegant and pretty.

[00:40:31] Michele Tremblay: I have cookies that have the address and the actual front door of the house.

[00:40:42] Tracy Hayes: Now you’re not doing this for every one of your listings?

[00:40:44] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:40:45] Tracy Hayes: Every one?

[00:40:45] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:40:46] Tracy Hayes: Even the three or four hundred thousand?

[00:40:48] Michele Tremblay: Well, the three or four hundred thousand ones... it depends. Like, I just recently sold one that was definitely a fixer-upper.
I mean, it was built in... it was a friend of mine, it was her in-laws that had passed away.

[00:41:00] Michele Tremblay: So this was definitely like wall-to-wall pink carpeting, and—I mean—it was original from 1978, I think.
And a great little house, but something like that—not the most appropriate for that... champagne.

[00:41:13] Tracy Hayes: Champagne glasses.

[00:41:14] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.
So, you know, for those, I just made sure that they had all of the information. And I did photos that showed the house after a renovation—what it could look like.

[00:41:24] Michele Tremblay: And so for that—that’s really specific. Something that I can do. And I think that made the difference. As people were scrolling, it was like, “Oh, that’s what it looks like.”
“Ooh, that could use a little... oh, well that looks nice.”
So that could be...

[00:41:37] Tracy Hayes: Talk about that a little bit—on what you’re using to do that. Because I think, you know, being on the lending side—and we do renovation loans—and, you know, I was talking with Julian Grant-Johnson. She does a lot of VA, and...

[00:41:48] Tracy Hayes: ...like, “Oh hey, there’s agents out there that won’t put VA as a possible loan option, because they think there’ll be problems.”
The real VA has a renovation loan.

[00:41:56] Michele Tremblay: Right.

[00:41:57] Tracy Hayes: But when you take it to the level that you’re doing—where you’re saying, “Yeah, I realize this kitchen probably needs to be redone, and they don’t have the money to redo it or whatever—but here’s what it could look like...”
And I imagine—do you get some broad numbers too?

[00:42:10] Michele Tremblay: I do not do the broad numbers. That’s a little beyond my scope.
And I think people who are looking at homes like that, in general, are investors who kind of know.
They’re like, “Okay, that’s gonna cost X.”

[00:42:20] Michele Tremblay: The people who are smart—who would buy that house and fix it up for two years for themselves and live in it, and then maybe sell it or keep it—those are the people that tend to probably need a little more insight of what that might run them.
But...

[00:42:33] Michele Tremblay: That’s such a smart investing strategy.

[00:42:35] Michele Tremblay: But yeah, no—I hire photographers to go ahead and create those images for me.
And I think it’s worth the investment. And I think they look...

[00:42:36] Michele Tremblay: A lot more realistic. And I know that there are some AI things that you can use...

[00:42:40] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:41] Michele Tremblay: ...that will do that for you, that might not be exactly spot-on. So, I don't know. That's—the things that I—I tend to just...

[00:43:02] Tracy Hayes: Trust the pros to do.

[00:43:03] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:43:04] Tracy Hayes: Well, if you're doing—I mean, you're out there now. Nocatee is new. Nocatee is new, but Viera is not, and there are homes in Viera where people have moved on—haven’t been renovated in who knows how many decades.

[00:43:17] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[00:43:18] Tracy Hayes: And you—I’m sure as any agent that’s shown any amount of homes...

[00:43:21] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:22] Tracy Hayes: ...have—if you had a microphone listening to some of the people walking through...

[00:43:25] Michele Tremblay: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:26] Tracy Hayes: “Oh, is this room big enough for a king-size bed?”
“Oh, I don’t like the color of the paint.”
And so they don’t even—they’re not interested either.

[00:43:33] Michele Tremblay: It’s hard to have a vision sometimes.
So it’s really key to help people with that vision.
And there are businesses out there—there’s a guy that I work with, and he runs a company called Renovation Sales.
And he will go into those listings and he will update them—and you can pay at closing—so that they look, you know...

[00:43:53] Michele Tremblay: Because right now there’s a lot of inventory out there.

[00:44:00] Michele Tremblay: When I started, if you looked at how many homes were available in Nocatee—it was nine homes. In all of Nocatee.

[00:44:07] Michele Tremblay: And now there are 360-some-odd.
And some of those are the new construction for the remaining couple of communities. But I mean, that’s a lot. That’s a big difference.

[00:44:14] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:44:14] Michele Tremblay: So in Ponte Vedra Beach, there are more listings than there have been in probably years.
And if it’s not scroll-worthy, right—if people don’t stop on it and start scrolling through the photos—you’re lost. You’re not gonna get showings.

[00:44:30] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:31] Michele Tremblay: So you’re gonna have to have something.
I’m a firm believer right now in staging—even if it’s soft staging, you use their furniture and have someone who is a professional.

[00:44:42] Michele Tremblay: I help stage some houses myself just with, you know, some things I’ve learned to do from the stagers in town.

[00:44:48] Michele Tremblay: But legitimate staging, where people are coming in and they’re creating the scenarios, the vignettes, the looks—you know, it’s a feel. It’s...

[00:44:59] Tracy Hayes: Buyers want turnkey right now.

[00:45:00] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. If not turnkey, it has to look like it can be.

[00:45:05] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:05] Michele Tremblay: So I think that—or it has to look like, “Oh, all we need to do really is change the wall color in here and maybe...”
You know, I just think it’s my job to...

[00:45:16] Michele Tremblay: Especially if I have out-of-town buyers—I walk them through a property. I do personal tours.
I know they’ve got the videos that are sleek online.
I know they have maybe the 3D video walkthrough that sometimes can be like, “Oh my god, I can’t get out of this room!”
You know, like it’s very—it’s very hard to navigate sometimes.

[00:45:34] Michele Tremblay: So I will go and I will do as many virtual tours as it takes.
And I will come in and I will say, “Look what you could do here.”
“This is—you know—you could do this, you could do this, you could do this.”

[00:45:46] Michele Tremblay: I just try to give people a little bit of the vision of what it can be, if it’s not already, you know, amazing.

[00:45:52] Tracy Hayes: Let’s transition. Let’s really talk shop and hopefully share some things that you do—you’ve learned...

[00:46:00] Tracy Hayes: Actually—well, actually—we never got to the “C” part. The consistency part.

[00:46:03] Michele Tremblay: Oh, consistency.

[00:46:04] Tracy Hayes: We went love and laughter...

[00:46:06] Michele Tremblay: Yeah!

[00:46:07] Tracy Hayes: What are you doing consistently in your business right now that you feel moves your business—that you have to do—whether it’s something daily or something you do weekly, but that really moves the needle?

[00:46:14] Michele Tremblay: Daily, I would say I am on my hot sheet.
I am reaching out. I have buyers right now who would love this thing—and it’s not out there right now.

[00:46:26] Michele Tremblay: So weekly, I am putting word out on Facebook groups, word out to specific agents I know that might have, you know, those things...

[00:46:33] Michele Tremblay: Coming—or working with someone who...
And so I am consistently—in fact, I may be annoying—because I will just appeal:
“Do you have any oceanfront right now?”
“Do you have any oceanfront?”
“Do you have any oceanfront?”

[00:46:49] Michele Tremblay: Because I have someone who really wants to buy oceanfront, but it has to kind of be within these parameters, and it’s not on the market currently.

[00:46:55] Tracy Hayes: So...

[00:46:55] Michele Tremblay: I do those reach-outs constantly.
Because—and now people are coming to me, and they’re saying, “Hey, I’ve got this. Would this appeal to your buyer?”
Or, “I have this...”

[00:47:00] Michele Tremblay: So, you know, a lot of real estate gets done that no one ever sees.
There’s a lot of real estate deals that happen and you don’t see it—unless people are putting it in as “comp purposes” in the MLS.

[00:47:11] Michele Tremblay: And so if you have someone who’s like, “Find me this unicorn”—a lot of times, those unicorns are never going to be advertised.

[00:47:31] Tracy Hayes: How important is that in your business? Especially because we—you know, I think, I don't know, I'm gonna say a handful just to use a word—but that are dealing in that true luxury market.
The Ponte Vedra Beach, you know, Jacksonville, South Jacksonville, the very—the oceanfront.

[00:47:48] Tracy Hayes: The oceanfront. And then there’s some select communities that obviously are there that—you’re saying this business that’s not out there...

[00:47:56] Tracy Hayes: But you learn quickly who are the players in this world, because you need to reach out and say, “Hey, do you have something?” Or maybe, “Do you have something coming on the market soon?”

[00:48:09] Tracy Hayes: And in the years you’ve been doing it now—the collaboration that you have with them and kind of—I assume some of these people are part of your five?

[00:48:17] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, of course.
And, you know, I think that it’s—like to your point—the consistency and just making sure that you are available when people are asking you the same things.

[00:48:29] Michele Tremblay: It's this open communication, and it’s the idea that there’s enough success for everybody.
And that you—like, I may be competitive, but I’m competitive more with myself than with, you know, with any other agent.
Because I feel like there’s room for success for everybody.

[00:48:47] Michele Tremblay: And if somebody ever asks me for help with something—just the other day someone was considering making a change in realtors.
And I went to see the property and I did some investigative work, and I sent him pictures and I said, “Here’s why I think it’s not selling.”
And I said, “If you don’t use me, feel free to just take those things and give it to the person that you decide to stay with and use that. But these are the things that are, you know, I think dinging your listing—where people might not even consider making an offer.”

[00:49:22] Tracy Hayes: Right. It’s not getting any—

[00:49:24] Michele Tremblay: Any action. Yeah.
So I just think—I like to think it’s just always doing the next right thing. Just do the thing that’s gonna help somebody.

[00:49:35] Michele Tremblay: And I know someone who just recently got into the business, and he said, “Oh, you know, my mother’s friend wants me to find this home for her, but she doesn’t want to use me as an agent.”
She wanted him to do something where it wasn’t necessarily going to benefit him.

[00:49:51] Michele Tremblay: And I said, “You do it.”
I said, “Do that—because then when she is going to need you legitimately, or one of her friends is going to need you legitimately—she’s gonna say, ‘Oh, he was so helpful to me, and he didn’t even really get anything.’”
Do the next right thing so that—that comes back to you at some point.
And it will.

[00:50:03] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, yeah. That goes through everyone’s mind, and the only thing you can do is give. And...

[00:50:08] Tracy Hayes: You know, what’s the phrase? I used it the other day:
“If you love something, let it go. If it doesn’t come back... you hunt it down and kill it.”
[laughing] You know?

[00:50:15] Michele Tremblay: [laughing]

[00:50:16] Michele Tremblay: I’m a huge believer in open houses, as you know.
And I try to make them really special and memorable.
But I am not in your face and I will not chase you after an open house.

[00:50:27] Michele Tremblay: I will send you a thank-you for coming.
I do this cute little thing with my little picture in front of the house or the kitchen or whatever, and I say, “Thank you for coming. If you have any questions or would like to make an offer, call me.”
And then I don’t continue to chase them down.

[00:50:43] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:50:43] Michele Tremblay: Because I think if they want the house, they’re gonna reach out to me.

[00:50:46] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:50:47] Michele Tremblay: And—why did I bring that up? I brought that up because... open houses...
Oh, for Pete’s sake, I lost it.
Just that open houses are—oh, I know! They’re memorable.

[00:51:00] Michele Tremblay: So you have to just—
So consistency with that. Consistency. Consistency.

They’re a chance for me to just establish rapport, relationships with somebody.
Right now, it’s really tricky ’cause people are just trying to feel out houses, and open houses are a great way to do that.

[00:51:12] Michele Tremblay: Because they don’t necessarily want to align with a buyer’s agent yet. They’re just—

[00:51:15] Tracy Hayes: Warming up.
Yeah, they’re using up their time ’cause they’re really not hot at the moment.

[00:51:17] Michele Tremblay: Yes. Mm-hmm.
And so I had someone who called me in—I think maybe March—and they said, “Michele, we met you last year at an open house.”
And I was like, “Wow. Which house was that?”
And they gave me the address and I said, “Oh yes! You were from Cincinnati!”
They remembered me for a year, kept my information for a year and said, “We are ready now. We weren’t quite ready then.”

[00:51:43] Tracy Hayes: Was this one of the special open houses? You had the champagne bottles?

[00:51:48] Michele Tremblay: Those are all my open houses!
Yes. Yeah, it was. It was like a $1.4 million house, I think it was.
But I mean, I did the same thing for my $700,000 house that just closed. Like—it’s a feeling when you walk in.

[00:52:00] Michele Tremblay: I tell people—a house feels differently when you have a glass of bubbly in your hand.
It just—it hits a little different.

[00:52:09] Tracy Hayes: So you—you’re...
I want to try to get through everyone here in this, say, next 10–15 minutes, about how your business has evolved.
’Cause I imagine what you’re doing—well, the market conditions obviously have completely changed.
From the COVID time, 2021, and now—we’re in, you know, with all the listings that are out there today.

[00:52:28] Tracy Hayes: But how have you evolved your business?
But try to express to those agents who are listening—how are you, or what are you doing on a daily basis?

[00:52:37] Tracy Hayes: I think some of them get lost on what they’re supposed to do every day.
And maybe they don’t have that broker that’s like, “Hey, if you don’t have this to do, you should be doing that.”

[00:52:49] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. If no one’s cracking the whip—
Are things getting done? Or are you headed out to the beach or whatever?

[00:52:53] Tracy Hayes: Tell us a little bit of how you started your business.
’Cause it sounds like you had some pretty good success early—although many people would say, “Well, it’s 2020. You stuck a sign in the yard and you had multiple listings,” right?

[00:53:05] Michele Tremblay: That wasn’t me, remember. ’Cause I had the buyers!

[00:53:06] Tracy Hayes: You didn’t have any listings. You had the buyers. Yeah, yeah.
But tell us how you evolved—and how you’ve created and evaluated what you’re doing today on a daily basis, weekly basis—to set your schedule.
To make sure you obviously are spending face time with your buyers and sellers and all that.
But also—you’re obviously prospecting, as needed.

[00:53:26] Michele Tremblay: So I mean, I will tell you how I ramped up as quickly as I did.
And it was not a big moneymaker, but it got my foot in the door.
And then in another door. And then in another door.

[00:53:36] Michele Tremblay: And that was by offering to do—well, first off, I reached out to a friend of mine who was in real estate.
And at the time—during COVID—she just had her hands full with all the listings and did not want to spend the time with the buyers.
Because they were a headache.

[00:53:49] Michele Tremblay: You know, you had to put in all of that time. All of that—all the showings, all the offers, all the...
And so I said, “Hey, any buyers you don’t want to work with, send them to me. I’ll give you the referral.”

[00:54:00] Michele Tremblay: And so I did that for a handful of her buyers.
I did not—you know—I gave 30% to my brokerage, 25% to her.
And then I had—

[00:54:11] Tracy Hayes: But that was—like you say—you got your feet wet.

[00:54:13] Michele Tremblay: Yeah!

[00:54:14] Tracy Hayes: You got some at-bats.

[00:54:15] Michele Tremblay: 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

[00:54:19] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:54:20] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.
So 100%—I worked with buyers that nobody wanted to work with.

[00:54:24] Michele Tremblay: And the other thing that I did was—I called up everybody that had houses that I wanted to list or would’ve liked to have listed.
I said, “I’ll do your open house. Let me do your open houses.”
So I did open houses.

[00:54:37] Michele Tremblay: And I—you know—there were open houses where someone came in, they ended up buying it, and I represented them.
So those are kind of the strategic ways that I...

[00:54:56] Tracy Hayes: How did you evolve the—your open house though?

[00:54:58] Tracy Hayes: So you started doing these open houses. Obviously it started to click.
Did you think, I’m going to make this an event?

[00:55:03] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, yeah.

[00:55:04] Tracy Hayes: Because I imagine you didn’t do that from day one. I imagine you evolved that.

[00:55:07] Michele Tremblay: No.

[00:55:07] Michele Tremblay: Not really, no.
I just kind of looked at what other people were doing, and that’s kind of what I was doing.
And then ultimately, I was like, “Oh no, I think we can make this really—”

[00:55:17] Tracy Hayes: Special.
Hot. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:55:19] Michele Tremblay: So I always—
You know, I always have music playing. I always have, like—it’s always a feel when you walk into, I think, one of my open houses.
So I did open house after open house.

[00:55:35] Michele Tremblay: I mean, I still do that. But I will tell you—the business that I have gotten from open houses is kind of crazy.
It’s kind of crazy.

[00:55:45] Michele Tremblay: One more recent listing—I had four couples that came to the open house.
All of them wanted to buy the house. All of them had to sell a house first.
And one of the couples was so, so wanting to buy the house that they were willing to try to do a bridge loan, try to do all of the things—and it was going to cost them so much money.

[00:56:00] Michele Tremblay: So they’re like, “No, we’ve got to sell our house.”
And I said, “Well, it’s kind of a race, you know, to see who can sell their house first.”
And then they asked me if I could list their house.

[00:56:12] Michele Tremblay: And so I listed their house in Anna Beach, and we sold it in two weeks.
And then—

[00:56:19] Tracy Hayes: Sold them the new one?

[00:56:20] Michele Tremblay: Went under contract on that one.
So those three, basically, transactions came from one open house.
And then one of the other couples used me to also sell their house and then buy another house.

[00:56:35] Michele Tremblay: So open houses are so fruitful—if you go in and you are very genuine with people and you are not—
You know, people just say, “Well, we felt like we could trust you.”
And that is because I am not a pushy salesperson.

[00:56:53] Tracy Hayes: Are you doing any sort of unique marketing or anything to drive that traffic for those couple hours that you’re there?

[00:57:00] Michele Tremblay: Well, I mean, I’m a Facebook queen.
I mean, I just am out there doing pretty ads, pretty things in the groups that I know people are trolling to find potential houses.

[00:57:11] Michele Tremblay: But that said—I mean, people use the “Z word” all the time for their open houses.
They look on [Zillow] and they see how many open houses they can hit and—
You know, they plot it according to that.

[00:57:23] Tracy Hayes: How are you—
Because I imagine when you—especially when you're in some of these higher-end homes, they’re really nice.
And there are people who are just dreamscaping.

[00:57:33] Tracy Hayes: Right?
It’s not actually something they could ever—
Don’t want to say ever—
Before—could.

[00:57:37] Michele Tremblay: Yes. Looky-loos.

[00:57:38] Tracy Hayes: How do you—neighbors—how do you sift through those?

[00:57:41] Michele Tremblay: Well, I mean, the people that come in that just want to—
I mean, and some people come for the food.
I’m not kidding.

[00:57:48] Michele Tremblay: Some people come in and I have—

[00:57:51] Tracy Hayes: Let’s go out to Ponte Vedra Beach and see some open houses, ’cause they got good food apparently.

[00:57:54] Michele Tremblay: There’s this family—
I’ve seen them at three of my open houses.
And they’re all, like, different price points.
So I know that they’re not necessarily—
Maybe they’re house hunting, but I don’t think they’re really house hunting.

[00:58:11] Tracy Hayes: They’re following you on Facebook to see, “Hey, where’s Michele at this weekend?”

[00:58:16] Michele Tremblay: And that is fine.
Because you know what—one day, they may want to buy a house.
And then hopefully they will come and use me.

[00:58:23] Michele Tremblay: But yeah, I think that I try as much as I can to—
And this was something, you know, even when I worked in the restaurant for years—
This is maybe the acting, maybe the communication, maybe intuition—I don’t know.
I just customized my service for whatever I intuitively thought they wanted.

[00:58:44] Michele Tremblay: So for instance, in a restaurant—here’s the analogy.
There’s people that come in—they don’t want to know anything about me.
They just want their food.
They want to chat with their guest.

[00:58:54] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:54] Michele Tremblay: It’s either a business meeting, it’s a romantic thing—whatever.
And then there are people that come in and they want to know everything about you.
They want to know your story.
They want to know everything about everything on the menu.
They want the attention and the communication.

[00:59:00] Michele Tremblay: And then there are people who are somewhere in between.
And it’s kind of the same when people walk into the open house.

[00:59:14] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:14] Michele Tremblay: Some people are like, “I just want to look around.”
And you’re like, “Oh, absolutely. And if you have any questions, you know where to find me. All the information is up front.”

[00:59:23] Michele Tremblay: And then there are people who are like, “Oh, so tell me about this neighborhood, and tell me about this, and tell me about that…”
So you just kind of customize what you’re putting out there for the different people that walk in the door.

[00:59:34] Michele Tremblay: I think there are people who—
I just ask questions.
You know, Phil Jones—like, I like to ask—

[00:59:42] Tracy Hayes: What’s your icebreaker though?
Because people come in and say, “Oh hey, welcome,” but to kind of see if they’re going to open up—
Because obviously the person who interacts with you more probably is more likely either to possibly use you, I would say.
Or is possibly actually really interested in the house.

[00:59:58] Michele Tremblay: So after, “Would you like a mimosa?”—I say that’s an opening—
I say, “Well, where are you now?”
Because then people are like, “Oh, well, we’re renting,” or “We’re doing this,” or “We’re trying to figure out the right area for our family,” whatever.
Or, “We’re actually up north. We’re just here kind of looking for our second home, and then when we retire, we want it to be the last place we end up.”

[01:00:27] Michele Tremblay: So, “Where are you currently? Where are you now?”
I know a lot of people say, “Well, what brings you in?” and that gets people talking sometimes.
But I like—if you find out where people are now, I feel like that organically leads to the next question, and then the next question, and the next question.

[01:00:45] Michele Tremblay: So that’s what I do.
But oftentimes, people come in and they just kind of spill it, you know?

[01:00:49] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:00:50] Michele Tremblay: And they’re like, “Oh, my daughter sent me this house—”

[01:00:52] Tracy Hayes: Just tell the life story.

[01:00:53] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.
“This—my daughter sent me this house and she thinks it’s perfect. They live down there…”
You know, whatever the case.

[01:00:56] Tracy Hayes: Where do you see, right now, most of your business coming from?

[01:01:02] Michele Tremblay: I would say it is partially open houses, partially it’s social media.
The fact that I’m out in social media is so tricky for me—
Because I don’t want to be a braggy realtor on social media.
Like, I’m just like—no, no.
I just don’t want to be out there—

[01:01:19] Tracy Hayes: Just closing $2 million, whatever...

[01:01:21] Michele Tremblay: Splashing, splashing, splashing.
I very rarely put numbers on. I very rarely—
I just try to tell the story of what happened.
Of, you know, “That family—so excited for this family because they wanted to do this, and we were able to do this, and now they can do this.”

[01:01:40] Tracy Hayes: Yes. People resonate with that.

[01:01:41] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.
And it’s—I was watching—

[01:01:43] Tracy Hayes: It’s the story.
The lady I’ve got coming on next week, who’s got 60,000 YouTube followers—
Yeah, and that’s how she’s doing her business. It’s amazing.
I was watching one of her videos and I’m like—listen—
She’s expressing, being very authentic—

[01:01:57] Tracy Hayes: And just expressing:
“This is the situation. This is what’s going on.”
She’s educating and she’s providing value and telling the story.

[01:02:04] Tracy Hayes: Not bragging about how she sold three homes last month, or how much they were—
It’s just, “I’m sharing information.”
And she’s rolling it off every day and obviously people are listening to it.

[01:02:12] Michele Tremblay: Absolutely.
And so that’s where consistency, you know, has definitely benefited her.
And that’s where—my YouTube channel is not a YouTube channel that anyone knows because I’m not consistent with it.

[01:02:24] Michele Tremblay: But the things you are consistent with are the things—
And you know, the whole adage that if you want success, you do the things that other people don’t want to do.
And that is kind of how I run my business.
People are like, “Ugh, open houses.”
I’m like, “Oh good! An open house.”

[01:02:40] Tracy Hayes: Would you say—because we know like, you know, 77% didn’t even do a deal last year—
But really, if you think about it, probably less than 5% overall actually did more than 10 or 12 deals or so.
Or actually are making a living—

[01:03:00] Tracy Hayes: —as a real estate agent and prospering that way.
That those less than 5% is because they’re doing a lot of things that others won’t do.

[01:03:09] Michele Tremblay: I concur fully.
So—but I will say this, because my business is not—
I am not like a 50 to 100-deal-a-year agent.
I don’t want to be. And I don’t—
Because I can’t give that same level—

[01:03:27] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:03:27] Michele Tremblay: —of service if that’s the number, the quantity that I’m dealing with.
For me, I really try to limit myself to the number of deals that I know I can do with white gloves.
Because I don’t want to win the award for the most transactions.
I want to win the award for the best-handled transactions.
The happiest families.

[01:03:52] Michele Tremblay: I want to win the award that says—
And right now, it’s fortunate because the quality of my transactions and—

[01:04:00] Michele Tremblay: You know, the price tag of them is such that I—you know, it’s—

[01:04:03] Michele Tremblay: Strategic, but I—that is why I'm able to do a lower number and just do it a little bit more high-touch.

[01:04:10] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:04:10] Michele Tremblay: So I don't wanna have 10 listings at the same time. There's no way that I would be able to.
And at that point, then maybe I would have to look at trying to align myself with somebody—maybe do a team or something like that.
But they would have to be like me, and they would have to have that same sort of, I think, luxury feel.

[01:04:33] Tracy Hayes: Well, I mean, some businesses cater to certain clientele.
And you found that niche for you.
What you do works for them. You resonate with that buyer or seller.
Some of the buyers coming in the area—are you, in this luxury market, kind of inter-market—are you seeing some clients from outside the area? And where are they kind of—

[01:04:52] Michele Tremblay: Outside the area.
New Jersey. The ones that called me and said, “We're ready now, Michele,” from a year ago—that was Ohio.
There’s Chicago, there’s California.
So there are people that are migrating still to Northeast Florida.

[01:05:09] Michele Tremblay: I think COVID kind of put us on the map.
I feel like a lot of people didn’t think of Northeast Florida as a destination prior to that.
Right?
I don’t think people ever even had heard of Ponte Vedra Beach.

[01:05:23] Tracy Hayes: And you know, there was an elite—
An elite club, let's put it that way.
I would say a very unique club, which I think is amazing.
You know, I’m trying to think of the island just north of us here in Georgia. Jekyll—Jekyll Island. Yeah.
And when you go on there and you hear the stories—
These people, these rich guys from New York would come down on a boat in like the early 1900s, before there was even power there and all—
And you’re like, where did these guys find this?
But those were elite clubs that they were forming.
These guys would find these things.
And I think Ponte Vedra—

[01:05:56] Michele Tremblay: I think golf had a lot to do with it.
Because people knew that these golf clubs existed.
And it was kind of a draw for them.
And they could still golf all year round, but they wouldn’t necessarily have to deal with as many people as were in South Florida.
So yeah, I think that—
But there are a lot of people who are already here.

[01:06:18] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:06:18] Michele Tremblay: And they are either renting or they are in a house that doesn’t work for them anymore—
Because maybe they bought it during COVID and it just was something that they needed to get right away.
And now—or, you know, it’s all the things, right?
It’s the divorce, the—

[01:06:38] Tracy Hayes: Death, divorce.

[01:06:39] Michele Tremblay: Divorce, death—yeah.
So these are the—

[01:06:42] Tracy Hayes: The Triple D.

[01:06:43] Michele Tremblay: Divorce, death—these are the reasons that people make the move.
That they do. So a house isn’t working for them anymore, or they’re upsizing, they’re downsizing, they’re doing whatever.

[01:06:52] Tracy Hayes: Well, I imagine.
And what a percentage right now are you getting—because I mean, a lot of these luxury homes are being sold cash.
I think the true evaluation, especially in this area—it’s definitely, probably not—can’t say nationally for sure—
But 50 to 60% of the deals going on are cash.

[01:07:09] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, I would say the majority of mine have been cash.

[01:07:11] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:12] Michele Tremblay: Which is really—that’s a blessing.
Because—you know.
But I think what’s happened is that people who need to finance—

[01:07:24] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:07:24] Michele Tremblay: They need to be—and this is something I’m sure that you utilize—
Is that the people that are financing homes either have to adjust the rate or adjust their expectations.
So if people want to buy a house that they could afford four or five years ago—
It’s not the same conditions where they’re going to be able to afford that house.

[01:07:49] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[01:07:50] Michele Tremblay: And that house probably has gone up, you know, double in value if it’s in this specific area.
So I think what I really recommend for buyers and for sellers who are financing—
And sellers who are looking at buyers that might not be able to be paying in cash—
Is that you gotta do the rate buy-downs.

[01:08:10] Michele Tremblay: You gotta offer it.
You gotta say because—

[01:08:13] Tracy Hayes: Because it's a buyer's market today anyway.
[01:08:15] Michele Tremblay: It's a buyer's market. Make—
[01:08:17] Tracy Hayes: —it the seller to get that—pay for that buy-down.
[01:08:20] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, exactly.
[01:08:21] Tracy Hayes: A hundred percent.
[01:08:22] Michele Tremblay: Exactly. And as a buyer—
I have—my last couple of buyers that did finance, we asked for that as part of our offer.
Is that, you know, we need this amount to make it more affordable—to buy down.
Because people don’t realize, right, that if you take that amount, that same amount off the price, it doesn’t even move the needle.
But if you take it and you apply it toward that rate, then you’ve got like a $400, $500 difference in their monthly payment.

[01:08:50] Tracy Hayes: Right? Yeah. So it's just—
I just worked one yesterday up for an agent and it was—for the first year, it would've been $500 less in payment.
And I think most people feel that we are gonna see a softening in rates.
You know, I think we’ve already started to see a hint of it.
Obviously, the Fed funds rate in September—it's like 80–90% that they're going to lower that, which changes the cost of money.
And yeah. So if you're putting that away for two years—you got two years that hopefully, within that two years, the rates drop.
Which I think the expectation—and I think you would agree with this, or at least give us your overall—even though you don’t have a lot of people financing:
We get below 6%, it's gonna become a seller’s market again.

[01:09:44] Michele Tremblay: It is.
[01:09:45] Tracy Hayes: You see 5.875 in a conventional 30-year fixed, we have so many people in pent-up demand on both sides.
Sellers who want to move but the rate’s not low enough for them to make that move.
But with a lot of buyers over here just waiting to jump in.

[01:10:00] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. And I think right now—a little bit—the optics, right?
So, I’m in the sixes, I’m in the sevens, and it’s—
It's daunting. It's very daunting.
And so whatever you can do to get them down where they're comfortable—
Whether that’s the rate buy-down or they have to look at a lesser-cost house—
But people don’t want to do that. Buyers don’t want to do that.

[01:10:09] Tracy Hayes: You and I are old school.
There's too many people today who want to buy a home that’s like their parents have, but it’s like—
Dude, you’re 20. They’re 50. They’re probably on their second or third home, and you’re trying to buy your first home.
You have to be a little more—

[01:10:24] Michele Tremblay: No. And you’re right.
And the people that have spent that and are in those homes—some of them are, you know, they're scraping.
They're scraping right now—
To make sure that they can still pay for everything.

And everyone who three years ago, four years ago—did their loan modifications, went ahead and got their lower rate—
We have a lot of people who are sitting on a lot of equity in their houses.
And so those are the people that—if they are selling and moving into something that they can buy in cash—
Those are the people right now that are being successful in selling.

[01:11:11] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I’ve been recommending—and I’ve expressed this to buyers—
I’m like, you know, right now—yeah, maybe you're gonna take this higher rate if you don’t negotiate a buy-down.
Which, you know, sometimes it’s a little bit over people’s heads when you try to explain that whole situation.
Or their fear is, “Oh, my rate’s gonna adjust.”
No—your rate really is here, but they’re just gonna pay the difference in the interest for you, for the first two years.
But the reality is—you can buy now, at buyer’s market.

That rate goes below 6—I think healthy is somewhere in the high 5s, 6%—a healthy interest rate—
It’s now gonna flip to the seller’s side.
And now, where you were gonna get $20,000–$30,000 in a rate buy-down or seller concessions or negotiate off the price—
Whatever floats your boat—that’s gone.

[01:11:55] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.
[01:11:56] Tracy Hayes: Like that.
[01:11:57] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.
Because you're gonna have more—and it's gonna drive up the price.
That’s the thing. Like, if people are on the fence now, the smart thing is to buy now.

While you have all this choice, and most sellers are amenable to fixing things—
To giving more concessions in selling their house.
The ones that are really serious about selling.

Now, you have people who are—you know, there’s two things, right?
There's: Do you want to list, or do you want to sell?
Because those are two very, very different things.

So if you want to list, and you just wanna see—
You want to dip your toe in the water, you want to see—
“If I get the right number, I’ll sell it.” Yeah, yeah.
And there are people like that.
And they don’t have to sell. And so, by all means, if your house is that special and that spectacular—
Maybe you're gonna get someone who just sold their house up in New York, and they wanna move down,
They’ve got this cash, and they’re like, “Oh, that’s a bargain.”
Maybe. That’s a big maybe.

So if you want to sell, you definitely have to be strategic about where you're pricing it,
About how you're marketing it, about how you're—

And then—so that’s: Do you want to list, or do you want to sell?
And then there’s also—oh, I had another one and it’s gone. Isn’t that terrible?
List and sell… and then the other one was… it’s gone.
Sorry.

[01:13:12] Tracy Hayes: I’m gonna give—I think a lot of agents, I’m gonna use the word "envy," but it’s not—I'm gonna say envy—but they look up to an agent that’s had your success in this luxury market.
[01:13:22] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.
[01:13:23] Tracy Hayes: Which—say it’s not a price point. To me, it's a price point. I don't care what you say.
Yeah, yeah. If you're regularly—your average home sale is over a million dollars, and you're starting to get, you know, some $2, $3, $4 million listings—that sort of thing—in your portfolio in a year...

When you're going in from a listing side—
First question: Do you find most of them actually will interview—truly interview—agents?
'Cause I imagine obviously they get referrals too, but truly interview agents.

But when you go in there, what are some—you think—are some important things that market, those people, are doing?
And then when you do win the actual listing—going in and getting that home ready—what are some of the things?
Are you doing pre-listing inspections and so forth?
Walk us through that process with the luxury, you know, $1.5M and up type seller.

[01:14:11] Michele Tremblay: Okay, so—I remembered what it was!
It was—do you—oh God, it's gone again.
Is it—it’s when people say, “Is this a good time to buy a house?”
And you say, “It’s a good time to own a house.”
[01:14:23] Tracy Hayes: Yes.
[01:14:24] Michele Tremblay: Always a good time to own a house.
[01:14:25] Tracy Hayes: I like that.
[01:14:26] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, yeah. I like that.
It’s always a good time to own a house.
But anyway...

So for those listings—first of all, when people call me and they say, “We want to sell our house, we’d love to talk to you about…”
I just assume I’m the only person that they’re interviewing.
And then it comes to light afterwards that they’ve talked to five or six other people.
I just assume it’s like—you assume the sale.
They’ve chosen me.

I go in and I say exactly what I’m gonna do, and when I’m gonna do it.
I say, “Well, the first thing we’re gonna do is this, and then we’re gonna do this, and then this is how I’m gonna make sure that we…”
And I talk about it like I already have the job.

[01:15:11] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
[01:15:12] Michele Tremblay: And I mean, I’ve hired myself as people’s realtor before.
When I know they're looking for a house, I just keep sending them things.
And I’m just like—at some point you’re gonna say, “Oh gosh, that’s great. And that came from her. Of course I’m gonna use her.”
I just try to add value wherever I can.

[01:15:27] Tracy Hayes: Well, statistically—you have to have the confidence.
You’re doing great things, and if you’ve done it before—go in and do the presentation like these people—
Because the average agent walking in there, statistically, isn’t going to do what you're gonna do.

[01:15:42] Michele Tremblay: I—
[01:15:43] Tracy Hayes: In the way you do it.
[01:15:44] Michele Tremblay: I don’t think so. Right?
Because no one can do it exactly the way I do it. Right?
And so I just have to say that the way I do it—I think—is successful and is gonna add value.

And then if the next agent that comes in—if there’s a next agent—is going to present all the numbers and all of the statistics and, you know, their success rate and how many houses they’ve sold and how blah—

[01:16:07] Tracy Hayes: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[01:16:08] Michele Tremblay: This is that.
I can’t compete with that. That’s not me.
Because I don’t have 300 listings that I have sold.

[01:16:16] Tracy Hayes: You’re probably not competing against someone like that anyway, 'cause they’re successful in their own right.
[01:16:20] Michele Tremblay: Or they've been doing it a really long time.
[01:16:21] Tracy Hayes: Right.
[01:16:22] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.
And so, no—I think part of it when I go in and I talk to people, I think people like that I’m still kind of fresh and different—new.
I still consider myself fresh.
You know, to this day I still kind of feel like I’m a new, you know, 50-something-year-old agent—just like a teenager, you know?

But I feel like I have a lot more confidence now because I’ve seen what I do works.
So I go in and—I get nervous because—
You know, just before I would go on stage, I would get nervous.
I’d be like, “Do I remember those words?” “Do I make sure I say this?”

[01:17:03] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
[01:17:04] Michele Tremblay: But it’s not about that.
It’s really about the relationship.
So when you walk in the door, it’s about asking the right questions.
It’s about finding out—what is their “why”?
Why do they want to move?
We all know they want to sell their house.
Why do they want to sell their house?
What’s important to them?

Do they want to sell it really quickly because they have this to get to?
Or can they take a little bit more time because, actually, they’re waiting for this to happen?

Finding out the reasons why.
Letting people talk about their house and what they love about it.
Letting them show you the things—walk you through the memories, walk you through—
And some of them might have that. And some of them will be like, “Oh, well this was not our forever house, and so we just need to get out of this one to get to that one.”

Sorry if I keep bumping this.

So I think it's—I think it's personality.
It's pointing out what you’ve done that’s been successful, that’s different.
You know, when I go in to talk to somebody, like I said, I assume it's just me.
And I say, “Well this is what I’m gonna do. I don’t have 30 listings. I have you—and a few others—and you get my full attention.”

And that is how I can be here for showings, pouring the champagne.
That is how I can be here doing these special touches for people to make it very experiential.
When they walk through the door, they experience your house.
They’re not just looking at your house.
They’re experiencing it.
And I think it’s important.

[01:18:40] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:18:41] Michele Tremblay: And other than that, it's just talking and just making sure you have personality.

[01:18:45] Tracy Hayes: They—they hire you.

[01:18:46] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[01:18:47] Tracy Hayes: What are some things—just some general things that you do, especially with that price point of home? Because obviously, prepping it—prepping it for... obviously we know we're gonna get a, you know, inspection gonna come.
'Cause those are always tickets for buyer’s remorse to jump out, right?

[01:19:00] Tracy Hayes: What are you doing to make sure that when we get somebody on the line, under contract...

[01:19:05] Tracy Hayes: ...they—we ain’t gettin' out?

[01:19:09] Michele Tremblay: I think some people are fine with doing a pre-listing inspection. I think it’s super smart to do.
And other people will be like, “I am fastidious in maintaining this house. There is nothing wrong with this house.”

[01:19:26] Tracy Hayes: Of course.

[01:19:26] Michele Tremblay: You know, an inspector’s always gonna find something—that’s their job, right?

But I do think that’s a smart thing to do.
But what I do is—I walk through a house, and I walk them through the house.

[01:19:36] Michele Tremblay: First, I let them walk me through the house. Then I walk them through the house as a buyer.
And I say, you know—

[01:19:45] Tracy Hayes: Good tip.

[01:19:46] Michele Tremblay: “If you're a buyer and you're walking into this house, say this house is not your house. It's not your memories, it's not your...”
You're walking through. What would you think if you saw this?
What would your opinion be? Your impression?

Because right now, the first impression is the only impression.
They have too many choices.

[01:20:05] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[01:20:05] Michele Tremblay: So you have to make sure when someone walks in the door, that immediately—
If there’s a funny smell... if there is a wall color that is not for everybody... if there’s wallpaper...

[01:20:14] Michele Tremblay: And wallpaper is a big trend right now.
And even some of the old wallpaper, right now people are like, “Ah, that’s cool.”
It’s 'cause everything old is new again.

[01:20:26] Tracy Hayes: But—

[01:20:27] Michele Tremblay: But I do—I think that the things that you can guide people to do to make sure that they are seeing their house the way it's going to be seen—
By the people that want to invest a big chunk of money to buy it.

And then the other thing I think is that I really appeal to the people that I know are going to already have those buyers.
I tell every seller, “I would love to bring you the buyer.”
And so I’m gonna put it everywhere I can.

[01:21:00] Michele Tremblay: I'm gonna use, you know, Keller Williams Luxury.
We're gonna get it in Mansion Global, we’re gonna get it—you know, we’re gonna get it in all the places where people are seeing your house and being exposed to it.

If people are looking at a house in that price point in this area, they’re gonna see it.
It’s gonna come up on whatever platform they're using to search.

[01:21:17] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[01:21:17] Michele Tremblay: So it's finding the agents that you know have those buyers typically, and reaching out to them personally.
It is putting it in these—you know, these groups, these “Moving to Florida” groups, these just specific realtor groups that you have, the networking groups, and then the groups that are just all about that area.

And you are putting it out there so that people are like, “Oh, there's a new one. Oh wow, that’s pretty.”

[01:21:41] Michele Tremblay: Now that’s the thing—
You have to have it looking really spectacular.

So yes—the staging.
Yes—changing some of the things that make it just more palatable to everybody.
But then you have to really focus on delivering great photography, great video.
I don’t skimp on that.

[01:22:00] Michele Tremblay: I make sure that I use someone that is going to make it glow.

[01:22:06] Tracy Hayes: Well, I’ve always said—I mean, the staging and the photography, that’s your reputation.
Someone Googles that house three years from now, your pictures may come up.

[01:22:14] Michele Tremblay: Mm-hmm.

[01:22:15] Tracy Hayes: So you don’t—that’s your billboard.
That’s out there forever.

Tip that I picked up there—which some agents may do already, but not actually word it the way you did—
was walking your sellers through the house as if they were buyers.

[01:22:30] Tracy Hayes: And asking them what they would think about that.

And I think people with an open mind—one, they’re gonna look at you as the agent who's doing it, like:
“Holy shit—she knows her stuff.”

Because 999,999 out of a million other agents wouldn’t do that.
But you really—you gain a credibility right there.

[01:22:50] Tracy Hayes: You already have ’em—they’ve already signed you.
But now you're walking them through, they're like:
“We made the right decision.”

Now they wanna refer you.
Because they feel like they just found the—
[01:22:59] Tracy Hayes: —you know, their goddess to lead them to—
[01:23:01] Michele Tremblay: Their unicorn.

[01:23:12] Michele Tremblay: That's what you hope. And sometimes you have to give a little tough love.
Sometimes you do. Sometimes, you know, because ultimately it's about success. Ultimately, it's about selling the house and accomplishing what they want to accomplish so that they can go on to do whatever they want to do.
And if I'm helping them to purchase their next house, if it's in the area, then I'm gonna do—

[01:23:35] Tracy Hayes: You're showing your—

[01:23:37] Michele Tremblay: —same thing—

[01:23:37] Tracy Hayes: —attention to detail.

[01:23:39] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna do the same thing for them, representing them as the buyer when we're walking through the houses and we're gonna do the things.
So, yeah, I think it's—and, you know, it's funny because I've had some people call me because they saw my open house signs every weekend for like, you know, whatever it was.
Because I keep having them. I keep having them.

Some agents will do it like the first weekend and maybe, you know, one other weekend.
I keep doing them because there's always fresh people.
Like, I was always so impressed that there were always people coming.
There were always people rolling through the door, and they were people that either maybe just moved there or that was the weekend they could make it there, and they didn't really wanna, you know, reach out to a buyer’s agent yet.

People right now are just kinda like—they don't wanna necessarily... you know, if someone has a buyer’s agent, then they are very serious about, you know, buying a house.
And not everyone coming to the open house is.

[01:24:44] Michele Tremblay: But I’ve had so many now that have come.
And I had a house that just went under contract yesterday, and they had come to my open house on Saturday—and now—

[01:24:44] Tracy Hayes: Nice.

[01:24:45] Michele Tremblay: —we're under contract.

[01:24:46] Tracy Hayes: Nice.

[01:24:47] Michele Tremblay: So, I mean, I—I know that open houses work.
So I focus heavily. And this couple saw my signs. They lived in the same neighborhood.
And that's why they called me. They were like, “We know that you hustle, because we saw your signs. You hustle every weekend.”

[01:25:00] Michele Tremblay: “We saw your—”
And I had another person, you know, have me list their lot for sale in River Landing.
And he was like, “You are a hustler. You hustle and grind.”

And I said, “Yes. I have teenage daughters. This is—this is what I do.”
“This is my—I’m gonna be selling real estate 'til I’m 90.”
“I’m gonna be in the walker showing people around.”
This is my—
But thank goodness, I really love it.

And, I—there are things of course that happen where you're like, “Oh my God, this business.”
Like my friends and I, like two of the five—we're constantly sending each other these memes, you know, that are like—

[01:25:48] Michele Tremblay: You know, “Oh, life in real estate,” you know?
It can be very challenging.

But the key is when somebody says,
“Michelle, you made it so easy.”
That’s like the highest compliment someone can give me.

Because it wasn’t necessarily easy—

[01:25:58] Tracy Hayes: Right? Just made it look that way.

[01:26:00] Michele Tremblay: Yeah, exactly.

[01:26:00] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:26:00] Michele Tremblay: So the people who are like,
“Oh, oh, you’re a realtor. Oh, you just sign things and open doors and you do—”
And I’m like, “Yeah. No.”

But the fact that someone thinks that it’s that easy is a compliment.

[01:26:14] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. 100 percent.

[01:26:15] Michele Tremblay: Yeah.

[01:26:16] Tracy Hayes: Michelle, I appreciate you coming on today.

[01:26:18] Michele Tremblay: Oh yay.

[01:26:18] Tracy Hayes: Anything you'd like to add here as I close out?

[01:26:20] Michele Tremblay: Oh gosh. No. I mean, I think—
Buckle up.
Because I do feel like there are things happening in the world, and there are things happening financially.
And there are—you know, it’s just one of those things where we just have no idea where life is gonna take us.

And so, you know, if you are gonna be buying or selling a house, make sure that you choose someone that can be, you know, that voice of reason, that calm in the storm.

Because, you know, I think that it's gonna be really important going forward that you have someone that can just be—

[01:26:59] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. You've actually—several, I mean, I think for the agents out there that are still listening—
Stop by one of Michelle's open houses and let's see.
Let’s see what’s these champagne glasses—I gotta see this.
And—and get a cookie with the house on it.

[01:27:12] Michele Tremblay: Yeah. I’ve had—I’ve had some people after showings, you know, they’ve led their people through and they’ve said, as they leave the showing, they’ll say,
“I’ve gotta up my game.”

[01:27:23] Tracy Hayes: Appreciate you coming on.

[01:27:24] Michele Tremblay: Thanks for having me.

[01:27:25] Tracy Hayes: Thank you.