Eden Jordan: Top Clay County Florida Agent

REE #282 Transcript

[00:00:00] Eden Jordan:
I think there's a huge greed factor in this country. We were talking about before, and create that intro. And that's what it created there. And then I've been asking it, what I asked Michelle the other day — and you're the second person I said — I said, "Give me five standout qualities." It's funny that it was, "What makes you exceptional? What's unique and exceptional about Eden?" And it popped out these five things on the back here: 27 years of consistent high performance, mentorship, legacy, data-driven approach, reputation built on integrity, problem solving under pressure. Which obviously, that feeds into your model — those five. That would probably...

[00:02:49] Eden Jordan:
...sum it up.

[00:02:51] Tracy Hayes:
I—

[00:02:51] Eden Jordan:
—I hope so. They just don't see the hot mess behind it, but, you know.

[00:02:55] Tracy Hayes:
Well, it's always great to have someone so deep. I mean, this show could last for a day because of the knowledge that you're bringing and experience in the different markets that you're seeing. Just to bring everyone up to speed — obviously, you know, you come in late 1998, obviously 2008 bottom drops out. You've seen so many markets. When you are talking to new agents that have just — last two or three years — and their reaction to the current, our current situation… I don't think it's bad. It's just— it's a market. It's a market. It's a season in the life of real estate, right? How do you ease their pains, I should say, or...

[00:03:35] Eden Jordan:
...put them at ease? People forget. One other big time — and I don't know if you were in it — is 9/11.

[00:03:40] Tracy Hayes:
Mm. Yes.

[00:03:41] Eden Jordan:
I mean, that was a big deal. I was newer. I was a young mom. So I started when my youngest was in a car seat, 'cause I had worked with my mother-in-law. So they’d seen a lot of markets. I worked with a lot of people that had seen the 18% interest rate. So that’s me now. I’m that lady — the old lady — that, "Oh, back then when we did this, this, and this." But I just tell people that they pretty much have to wait it out, and it's a cycle. And I told them when it was going up: whatever came up — the higher we go up, the lower it's gonna come down. And it’s basically supply and demand. And people have a really hard time comprehending that concept.

[00:04:28] Tracy Hayes:
Well, it's because there’s so many factors, right? And it takes different— it’s not just a simple supply-demand. It’s different each one.

[00:04:34] Eden Jordan:
So I feel like we've been through four. And I had a— in college, I came out in '91, and there was a recession then too. Like, we couldn’t get jobs.

[00:04:42] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[00:04:43] Eden Jordan:
Like, I've been through recessions now. Like, we know what they feel like. You kind of know when they're coming. This is very weird because it should have happened three years ago, where it would've just— I feel like the bottom should have just dropped out, and we would've been a lot better off.

[00:05:00] Eden Jordan:
But obviously our government likes to keep things, you know?

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
They waited too long for whatever reasons. But the bottom line is, is that they're cyclical. And what we went through—if you went in, if you got in after 2020—that was... and everybody says that, and they understand, but they didn't understand when they were in it, that that was so abnormal. That there's a what—reaction? For every act... action... what is that?

[00:05:28] Tracy Hayes:
Reaction. Every—an action for every re—yeah, I know what you're saying.

[00:05:32] Eden Jordan:
But you see what I'm saying?

Tracy Hayes:
Yes.

Eden Jordan:
Yeah. And it happens, like, you've got to even it out. There's laws of economics—and of course I didn't pay attention to that when I was at college—but now I love that stuff. Like, you can watch it, you can see it with the inventory. And now we have so much more data—the public does too—to kind of feel what's gonna happen. You know, you can kind of forecast, I think, in the next couple months. Like I hear... I don't know. I follow—do you follow Logan Manami?

[00:06:03] Tracy Hayes:
No. With—

[00:06:04] Eden Jordan:
—HousingWire?

[00:06:05] Tracy Hayes:
Not HousingWire, no.

[00:06:06] Eden Jordan:
He's called the Chart Daddy.

[00:06:08] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah?

[00:06:08] Eden Jordan:
So anyway, but there's so many positive things happening now, but I think agents don't really know how to—

[00:06:16] Tracy Hayes:
—articulate it.

[00:06:16] Eden Jordan:
Read it. Yeah. You know, like... okay. They're just so in the day-to-day, like they can't see what's really going on behind the scenes. Right? Does that make sense?

[00:06:27] Tracy Hayes:
Well, uh, a hundred percent. I mean, I—I've told the story several times, it's been a while. You know, I was researching, 'cause I was working for a major builder, you know, three or four...

[00:06:27] Tracy Hayes:
...years ago. And when we got to that point, like in—I think it was in '21—where we started to get situations where, by the time the house was finished, they needed to come back and get 40 grand more for them because of the cost analysis.

And so I was—I went back, and I was doing research on why, how did that happen? Well, in 2008, we basically broke a 50-year low and went below any low that we'd had the previous 50 years. And it didn't get back up to that low point until like 2012 or 2014—I forget what it was—in housing, in construction.

So the lumber mills lost their tails, right? And a lot of lumber mills, mom-and-pop lumber mills, went under. And they—you know, these big conglomerates came in and bought 'em up type of thing.

And their attitude at the time—this is in the late, you know, this is 2018, '19—their attitude was, "We've gotta help our investors that lost their butt back in 2008 to 2012, and we're not gonna build any more lumber." It wasn’t a shortage of lumber. We had plenty of trees and so forth and lumber.

It was how—just like the gasoline—how many refineries do we have, right? You don’t have a shortage in oil. How fast can we refine it to put it in your tank, right? It’s all that. That whole valve is being adjusted accordingly.

And that obviously drove prices. COVID throws a whole...

[00:08:00] Tracy Hayes (cont'd):
...demand, which I don’t think people realize how far we are behind in housing, nationally even. Well—

[00:08:05] Eden Jordan:
But you know, you say that.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
So I get very confused by that whole statement.

[00:08:09] Tracy Hayes:
I do too.

[00:08:10] Eden Jordan:
Because I—there's a lot of vacant houses around. I think there's a huge greed factor in this country. There's a lot of people that own properties that are sitting there.

Mm. They Airbnb ‘em. For us to be in the real short now—is New York City and Los Angeles and Chicago, absolutely. But here in Florida, we are not in a shortage. There is no shortage of housing in this state. That's what I believe. Because we have so much land.

[00:08:36] Tracy Hayes:
Do we have—do we have enough affordable houses?

[00:08:40] Eden Jordan:
Well, what is affordable?

[00:08:41] Tracy Hayes:
Well, that's the main—

[00:08:42] Eden Jordan:
I mean, the builders went from the house being—right before COVID—$160K, and now that same house is $320K.

Tracy Hayes:
Well, no—

Eden Jordan:
So like, how does that happen in five years? Like, yes. We didn't just automatically raise all these incomes. There's a greed factor, and they're making a lot of money. Like, I think they are.

[00:08:58] Tracy Hayes:
Well, I think if you were running the business, you would go that way too. I mean, 'cause you're able to achieve the price point that they're being able to put out there now.

Right now I think builders are making a very slim margin because of all the incentives they're giving away. They cannot be making the profits they were making in '19 or '20.

[00:09:15] Eden Jordan:
But before—BC, as I call it—before COVID. Yeah, literally, Cross Creek, you could go out there and buy a house for $160K. They were selling them right when COVID happened. Now that same house is $320K.

So my question is—it's just like the taxes—like, where's all that money? Like, all taxes went up. Like, we didn't have that much in expenses. Like, my income—now of course, real estate agents’ incomes had gone up, but we've always kind of been leveled out. It's a rollercoaster.

No, you're based on a percentage. So—so like, my husband's income hasn’t changed. He works in mortgages. Like, I mean it changes, it's the 5% or whatever every year, but it’s not like...

So my point is: it's all controlled by Wall Street and the government and all these things. Like, if you had to say what the difference is, that's what the difference is. Government was not involved in the housing like it was...

[00:10:08] Tracy Hayes:
Yes. A hundred percent. 2008%. Yes. They should have pulled off the quantitative easing way before they did, and just in increments.

And we probably never would've reached 7%. We would've probably settled off at six. But we were getting...

[00:10:19] Eden Jordan:
...close to five and a half. 3% interest rates—weren’t we at like five and a half? They were starting to raise them to slow it down a little bit.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
Before COVID. When did you start—when did you—when you were at Quicken?

[00:10:27] Tracy Hayes:
I started there in 2005.

[00:10:29] Eden Jordan:
Right. But like, so you get to like 2000...

[00:10:31] Eden Jordan:
It was October 31st...

[00:10:34] Tracy Hayes:
...2008. The interest rate was six and a quarter on a 30-year fixed.

[00:10:38] Eden Jordan:
Right.

[00:10:38] Tracy Hayes:
After that, in November of ’08 is when they started dropping.

[00:10:42] Eden Jordan:
Because we had such a shit show.
Can I say?

[00:10:45] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. No, you’re a hundred percent right. They—yeah, they started getting—then they obviously, like you said, they keep this quantitative easing on, in, you know, two and a half, 3% interest rates.

And obviously what that—you know, it’s driving up the price of the home, or the builder can charge more for the home. You know, the lumber guys are saying, “Well hey, you know, they’re getting this price point, we can charge more ’cause we gotta make back the money.”

Now, what does the government need to do? Gotta come in, incentivize the lumber yards to—

[00:11:08] Eden Jordan:
Right.

[00:11:09] Tracy Hayes:
—make more lumber and drive the price—the cost—of building homes down.

But you’re right. When the government gets in and starts meddling too much—

Eden Jordan:
Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes:
—we go from, I think, extremes to extremes.

[00:11:24] Eden Jordan:
But I don’t think we can go to lower rates really fast right now. I think it would be a disaster.

[00:11:28] Tracy Hayes:
I believe—and everyone knows if they’re listening to the show—I believe when we start doing a 5.875 on a 30-year fixed, we are gonna—it’s gonna be a frenzy. And you’re gonna see back to multiple offers.

I don’t know if it’ll be like 2020, but even for just that, you know, ordinary home, there’s gonna be multiple offers.

[00:11:46] Eden Jordan:
It’s amazing how quick it went up, but how long it takes to go down.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

Eden Jordan:
Yeah. So it’s very—it’s very interesting how that happens. ’Cause in 2006—end of 2006—we had a bunch of investors that came in 2005.

We called them California Cocktail Party investors because they would come in, they would be at a cocktail party, and they’re like, “Oh, you can go to Jacksonville, Nashville, Atlanta—you can buy a house for $150,000, rent it out, do it as owner-occupied, 5% down,” blah, blah, blah.

So we would do that. I’d pick out houses for the people. I’d go in, I’d go to the builder, we’d pick all the colors. They’d never been here. So we had that.

And that’s where a lot of those people lost money. Again, you’ve gotta go through that layer of people.

[00:12:31] Tracy Hayes:
Well, I think the phrase I always like to use—pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

Eden Jordan:
Right.

Tracy Hayes:
Some people became hogs.

[00:12:36] Tracy Hayes:
...lost tail. I think we have a lot—

[00:12:39] Eden Jordan:
—of that here right now that has not worked its way through the system. So—because same thing.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
Just different. But—so I had a young attorney came in from San Francisco, he was probably 30, and he thought he was great, you know, whatever. And he’s like, “I’m gonna buy a house and rent, blah, blah, blah.” I was like, okay, great.

So I took him out. I went, I showed him 12 houses. All of them were vacant and none of them were gonna cover the rents.

And I was like, “Listen. This is done. I’m not putting my name on another house. I grew up here. I know what people make. This is done. You need to go home.”

And I drove him back and I said, “You need to find another agent. I’m not doing it again.”

[00:13:20] Tracy Hayes:
Well, no—and there was a pickup of the DSCR loan. It's an interesting product, but basically, you know, if you're not putting at least 30% down and you're putting 20% down for investment property, the rent covers the note—great.

But right now it's such—

[00:13:34] Eden Jordan:
Is that your LIBOR?

[00:13:34] Tracy Hayes:
Well, it's such a—no, you know, it's such a pigeonhole loan that, okay, the rent’s gotta cover principal, interest, tax, insurance, and any fees in that community.

Well, because the interest rates are so high, and you're only putting 20% down, it's very difficult to fit in. We're—this problem that you were basically having.

But you know, the Airbnb stuff is—I think to me—it’s saturated. If you're looking for Airbnb, unless you're buying an existing Airbnb that's a unique property somewhere, that you're just taking over their business—’cause whatever reason they want to cash out—great.

But if you're trying to create your own Airbnb right now, to me it's a lot of logistics, a lot of hassle, for—I don't think you're gonna—

[00:14:00] Eden Jordan:
—Huge risk.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. If somebody—

[00:14:19] Eden Jordan:
—came to me and wanted to do that, I wouldn't help 'em.

[00:14:22] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, that's true.

[00:14:22] Eden Jordan:
I don’t think it’s a good use of—
I feel like it had its day. There's—

[00:14:26] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, it had its day. I mean, St. Augustine, I’m sure, Fernandina Beach, or both—and Jax Beach—are just saturated.

[00:14:33] Eden Jordan:
Right.

[00:14:33] Tracy Hayes:
But where all these people trying to—

[00:14:34] Eden Jordan:
—we have a million—
I live in a canal. We have somebody that bought a million-dollar house—literally a million bucks—in Fleming Island, in Clay. And they rent that thing out for eight or nine hundred dollars a month—a week, I mean.

Eden Jordan (cont’d):
Yeah. No, no, no.

[00:14:47] Eden Jordan:
A night. Yeah, because it’s big. It’s a big house. But it was something that—I’m not sure—but they bought it owner-occupied, and all of a sudden they’re not moving in it, and there’s people there every week.

[00:14:59] Tracy Hayes:
There’s definitely—we can talk about scrupulous stuff. Let’s get onto some good stuff. Let’s talk about you.

You and I graduated college basically about the same time. Okay. You obviously, you know, you just got into real estate in—98. What was going on in your life? I think you went to Florida State, if I’m not mistaken, right?

[00:15:14] Eden Jordan:
Yes.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. I mean, what did you originally see yourself as doing for a career? What was your vision as a young Eden?

[00:15:22] Eden Jordan:
Well, I graduated at a weird time because, again, it came off of another recession. I don’t know what caused it. I was too young, partying in school, right?

I had worked at Disney on the college program. So I was one of the early college program kids. So when I graduated, of course I thought that I could go back and work at Disney in the corporate world. But they paid like $3.50 an hour.

And then you had to pay rent off that. So the way they did it is, when you work there, you live there, and then they took the money out of your rent—out of your rent check.

So I went back after, ’cause I was like, “Oh my gosh, it was the best summer of my life.” I had a great time. And I was like, “I’m going back. I’m gonna work at Disney.” And my dad was horrified.

So I go back, I get this little garage apartment in Winter Garden—which now I guess is some—I was just talking to somebody moving there, and it’s really like, kind of high end now. But I lived in a garage for like 200 bucks a month.

And I ended up having to get a second job because Disney was cutting the hours. So that was my first experience with “slow.” Things weren’t what they were the year before.

[00:16:00] Eden Jordan (cont’d):
So I got a second job doing sales. Like I was doing—calling for something—I don’t even remember the product, but it was cold calling. And basically I started doing that, and then the guy started bouncing my checks.

So that’s like, to me, was trauma. Right? So I ended up—that lasted me four months maybe. I broke the lease. It was some guy’s garage. It was fine. And my dad’s like, “You just need to move home.”

And I had grown up in the—my dad was a furniture manufacturer. They manufactured PVC patio furniture out of a big factory in Orange Park.

And so I grew up in a factory. I grew up going to trade shows. He was an amazing salesperson. He always educated—he sold by education, basically.

And so by that time, he was not in the manufacturing of the furniture. He was doing the pipes and fittings and all these things.

So, I’d been to trade shows. That was where all our family vacations were. I’d kind of been around a lot of sales, right? So I was like, “I’m gonna be a trade show manager.” Association management was my thing.

So I went to Chicago to the Florida Hardware Show with him. He got me an interview, and I went up there, and it scared—

[00:17:54] Eden Jordan:
...me to death. I was like, “I’m from Florida. Like, I can’t move up here.” Like, it was very—Florida Hardware—or Florida, the Hardware Show was one of, used to be one of the biggest trade shows in the world.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
So it was huge. It was really cool. There was all these things in there, but they did furniture and all kinds of stuff.

So when I came back, I met somebody—I was waiting tables at a place in St. Augustine, ’cause he lived in Llano—and I met this couple that was in association management. Well, they brought me all the magazines that they had ’cause they thought I was nice and cute, ’cause I was personable.

You know, I knew how to talk to people. And so I ended up talking to them, and then—do you want all this? I tried to figure out—so I called the Convention and Visitors Bureau in Jacksonville and I kept calling, calling, calling, calling.

And I met this lady—I got her name. You know, we used to do informational interviews. There was no research. Like, you just picked something, you called, and you said, “Hey, I’d like to learn more about your company. Do you mind if I come and, you know, ask you stuff about your company?”

Right. So I kept asking this lady—her name was Shelly Ak. She worked in Jacksonville for a long time, ran the CVB down there. I kept calling, calling, calling.

Well, I had been out partying one night, I’m sure, and she finally called—no cell phones, right? And I’m like, “Hello?” You know, and she’s like, “You have been so persistent. I will meet with you.”

[00:19:00] Eden Jordan (cont’d):
So I went down there and met with her, and she’s like, “You know, things are rough right now, but there’s an assistant—an admin assistant—and what they called an event coordinator. It was basically a babysitter at the Prime Osborne. Let me see if I can get you down there.”

So I went down there and I got the job. No benefits, nothing. You know, I made—but to me it was great. I think I made $18,000 a year, and I was like, “This is a real living. Like, I can live here.”

So anyway, I did that for a couple of years, moved around, you know, and then I ended up with a trade show company. It’s called Festivities Publications, and it was downtown Jacksonville.

And they basically taught people—they had four magazines—but they also taught people how to make gift baskets. All these ladies that did them out of their homes and sold gift baskets, and then Balloons and Parties, which had all the party arches and all that stuff, right?

So it was kind of a big deal, but it was national. And they needed a trade show salesperson. That’s when I knew I had it.

They sent me to Atlanta—the gift show—and I was supposed to sell their trade show. So they had their own trade show where they would teach everybody.

And I came home with a stack of contracts like this, ’cause I was so excited. And that’s when I knew, “Okay, you’re not just a normal salesperson.” I had what my dad had.

Tracy Hayes:
Right.

Eden Jordan:
Which, you know, I’d been around it my whole life. Right. So anyway, I did that. But then I—I was traveling all over. I was going to all different gift basket or food and fancy gift shows all over the country.

It was great. I was in my twenties. Got pregnant, you know, got married, got pregnant. So basically I ended up having a baby.

And my mother-in-law had worked for RE/MAX. She’d been with Watson for years—old school, you know, one of the West Side realtors that have been around forever.

And she’s like, someone—

[00:21:06] Tracy Hayes:
Tom probably worked with. Oh, he knows that—he’s my husband too.

[00:21:09] Eden Jordan:
So she was like, “Oh, well, you know, I didn’t want to go—”

[00:21:09] Eden Jordan:
...back to working, traveling, ’cause it was too much. Like, I couldn’t do it. And I was on the phones a lot.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
And there was no internet. You couldn’t work from home. Now, I would do that job from home.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

Eden Jordan:
But yeah, so she’s like—oh, computers were just coming out for all of them. And it was probably like where I’m at now. She was in her fifties, and she’s like—winding, not winding down, but, you know, when you do this for so long, there’s a burnout factor.

So I ended up—she goes, “You can work on my mailing lists.” And I was like, okay. So, you know, I get on the computer. I’m doing—’cause everything was handwritten, you know, we had to take all the notes, all the books she had.

You know, it was very old school. So we drive around with the baby in the back. She’d show me all the neighborhoods.

And we—since she... okay, so Anne McAfee, who is still around—she was amazing as a real estate mom. They saw something in me, ’cause we were at RE/MAX, and she’s like, “Okay, you need to get your license. Like, this is not working. You're gonna be good.”

So I got my license. Basically, Lilia—who works with me now—so my daughter works with me. She’s now a mom of her—now a new mom.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
And so I started there, and it was really fun, ’cause I worked with people that—listeners to this would know some of these people.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

Eden Jordan:
You know—Joy Campbell, Linda Nelson—just really great. RE/MAX was the shizz back then, right? In Orange Park. Like, everybody worked there.

So I had a really great foundation, and I learned a lot from a lot of these women and men. There were a lot of guys there too—Bob Howard.

But they were the top producers of Clay County. So I feel like I got really lucky the time that I got in because it was—computers were just starting out. So we kind of grew with it, you know?

[00:23:07] Tracy Hayes:
Right, right. Well fast forward to today—and what you’re doing today on a daily basis or what you can get done on a daily basis today—it’s amazing.

Eden Jordan:
Yeah.

Tracy Hayes:
I mean, obviously, what you can do from a marketing standpoint—obviously social media coming on—I mean, did you jump into those arenas quite quickly or did you...

[00:23:29] Eden Jordan:
I was thinking about this when we were talking. Yeah. I did social media before it was even a thing.

[00:23:32] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:23:33] Eden Jordan:
So do you remember viral emails?

[00:23:35] Tracy Hayes:
No, I can’t say that, but—

[00:23:36] Eden Jordan:
Do you remember if you got an email and it was something interesting, and you would just like... forward it to all your friends?

[00:23:42] Tracy Hayes:
Oh, okay. All right.

[00:23:44] Eden Jordan:
Well, I learned really early on to do that and put my name at the bottom, because they would forward—like, “Oh, this is going on with the schools,” or “This is going on here,” “This is going there.”

And this would’ve been before 2007—before Facebook.

Tracy Hayes:
Right, right.

[00:24:00] Eden Jordan:
So I figured that out really early on. In fact, I did something similar to this with RE/MAX back in 2007, before they sent a photographer in and camera and all that stuff.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
Because I had figured this out with all the moms.

[00:24:27] Eden Jordan:
Really. You know, all my business was on a playground. Like, I made more money in school and playgrounds.

That's another conversation. Yeah. It’s harder as you get older because you don’t have that built-in network.

So yeah, I would send out like all the information that people didn’t have, and they would forward it. Boom, boom, boom. So my name just kept going.

[00:24:37] Tracy Hayes:
It was reply and there was “reply all.” So you're getting everyone—so you're jumping into everyone else’s friends group, like you would on social media today.

Eden Jordan:
Yeah. It was before that.

[00:24:46] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. And then—

[00:24:46] Eden Jordan:
Yes. So, my 20th class reunion was in 2007, and we all figured out MySpace because we were trying to find people.

And me and another friend of mine—Bonnie Upright, who actually worked for Coldwell Banker for a while as a PR person—we got really excited. So we made this page, and we did all this stuff, and we found all these people.

And we had, like—Orange Park High School was huge. Like, we graduated almost 800 people. So we found—we had 300 people show up for our reunion. Like, not at—there was one bar that couldn’t even get ’em all in because we found everybody.

And so—’cause we had email and stuff like that.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
But so that was when that happened. And then when Facebook came on, it was just rapid fire.

Okay. I figured, “This is it.” Like—and I don’t think I got through 2008 and all that without Facebook.

[00:25:47] Tracy Hayes:
Talk a little bit about—I think you were leading into something there before the social media that I still think is relevant today in building.

Especially for new agents who are trying to just, you know—we talk about reaching out in, you know, reaching out to your warm circle of influence.

But you—you started to lead into the playgrounds and the probably the ball games of the young kids—that still can go on today. The great thing is, you can friend them on Facebook and stuff, and all of a sudden they’re following you instantaneously.

Right before, you probably were just—hopefully—getting their email address, and maybe they got on your newsletter or one of these emails that you’re talking about.

But what are some of the tactics that you used back before, again, before Facebook and so forth, when you were a young mom and getting everybody at the ball field or at the playground to know what you did?

[00:26:37] Eden Jordan:
I was very good at this. I did it without them knowing it.

So I remember being—

[00:26:37] Eden Jordan:
There was a loan officer—he worked for Wells Fargo—Chris Stockton, and he was like, we would be at the gym and, you know, there’s these bleachers, and he goes, “They are getting worked and they don’t even know it.”

Because I could gently put in—because you sat there and talked. The problem now is—and this is the biggest problem—nobody’s sitting there talking. We were just so hungry to talk to people.

[00:27:07] Tracy Hayes:
They’re in their phones.

[00:27:08] Eden Jordan:
They’re in their phones. Yeah. And so I find that—and they’re scared to talk to people, because they’re like, “Oh, they’re gonna...”

And I annoy the heck outta my family, ’cause I can talk to anybody, right?

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
I don’t want to anymore as much as I used to, ’cause it’s exhausting.

But you could literally sit there with a mom: “Hey, what do you do?”
“Oh yeah, I’m in real estate.”

And then I’d have magnets on my car that reinforced it. Like, I didn’t have to tell them what I did. They met me as a person—and then real estate was my job.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
Does that make sense?

So like, I was like, “I’m Eden. I’m Lily’s mom,” or “Ava’s mom.” But I’m also the agent. But it was reinforced.

I didn’t go, “Oh hey, I’m a realtor, and I’m gonna sell you—wanna buy a house?”

That’s not the way I did it—shove a business card in their face or something.

But—so then I was just the most knowledgeable, so people started talking. ’Cause everybody talks about real estate.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

Eden Jordan:
Like, everybody loves to talk about it. So you got four moms, you’re all at the bleachers at the thing, and they’re like, “Oh, what about that house on the street, da-da-da...” You know?

So they’ll start to ask you.

So I probably got to be the most knowledgeable person, but I was very fortunate because there wasn’t a lot of young people doing it.

Like, for me to be 28 and start—that was like, “Yeah, you’re crazy.” Right? Like, why are you starting? Nobody starts this this early, right? Especially at RE/MAX.

I mean, RE/MAX was like—you did not start brand new there. But I was like their first team member, buyer’s agent thing. So it was just a different time.

But I remember going to RE/MAX convention and being like so excited—’cause I love that stuff. And I was like the youngest person around.

I mean, there were just not very many young people. But then I looked at that as an opportunity, you know?

[00:28:56] Tracy Hayes:
Why do you think right now—I’m seeing it, you know, obviously—

Any agent that really put forth an effort in ’19, ’20, going into ’21—it was May of ’22 when rates went up. And, you know, then the—you know, our, uh...

[00:29:00] Tracy Hayes:
Inventory started to grow. Things slowed down a little bit as the rates went up. But I’m seeing some agents actually excelling in this market—they were doing good, but they’re doing better.

While others who were doing good are actually, you know, trending down. What do you think is the—what do you think is the differentiator there?

[00:29:30] Eden Jordan:
The amount of money they’re spending. And not taking their foot off the gas. I mean, I think it’s really hard to keep going full force for a long period.

And this business—it’s hard. The rejection is brutal. And I think some people—I’ve seen a lot of people do this in our area—they’ll start to hibernate.

Like, they were in the office all the time, and you would see them, and we would be at things, and we would do—and now they slowly disappear.

And you gotta get up every—not every day, ’cause I don’t get up—I don’t go in every day.

Tracy Hayes:
Right.

Eden Jordan:
But I go in most. You’ll see me in the office—especially when I’m in a funk.

I will use my friend Anne Meyers’ name, because I just told this story. She was in a funk. She had lost her mom during COVID.

You know, she’s always been a great top producer, great friend, great agent—had been at Watson for years and came over about 10 years ago.

And she was in a funk. And I was like, “Get up. Come into the— You have got to get up. Get in here. You were a great agent. You need to do—you’ve gotta make money.”

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
“What else are you gonna do? Get up.” And I did that, like, a year and a half ago. And she’s totally back on track—not because of me—but she knew it.

Right? She just needed someone to say, “Yes, this is hard. You know it’s hard. You have a huge sphere of people. Do what you know how to do.”

And so I think a lot of people are still harding. And they can’t—people that got in after ’21, ’22—rejection is terrible.

And then—you know this—if you were in ’25, you probably don’t experience it.

You sold someone a house, you made a lot of money off them, and then you gotta go back and tell ’em their house is worth, you know, 30, 40,000 less than what they paid for it.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

Eden Jordan:
That’s terrible. And we’re doing that right now. A lot of people are doing that right now.

[00:31:21] Tracy Hayes:
To kind of spin on your reaching out to your friend there and kind of giving her a little boot in the butt...

[00:31:27] Eden Jordan:
Sorry, ringing in—yeah, if you see this...

[00:31:29] Tracy Hayes:
But what have you—in the years you’ve been in—the importance of having some collaboration with some other agents. Like, you go in the office—obviously some synergy, if—

[00:31:29] Tracy Hayes:
...you want to use that word—or whatever it gives you in. But to have some of those people, because you do go through these seasons.

And I think a lot of agents, you know, you’re all your own individual businesses, and you feel like you’re on an island.

And to realize that—to actually talk to somebody—and realize they’re going through the same challenges that you are. And maybe—maybe they’ve broken through that challenge a little earlier.

What did they do right? You know, get some ideas and—and to help you. The importance of having that group around you over the years.

[00:32:10] Eden Jordan:
There’s no way I could have done it without all my friends in real estate. Like, they’re literally my backbone.

I mean, people think because you’re a top agent that you don’t have the same problems and the same fears and the same—

But we do check-ins with each other all the time. I mean, Star Keating—I call her all the time.

“Are you busy?”
“No.”
“Oh, you’re busy when I’m not busy.”

And just to really keep each other up. We have a really—I have a really great support system where I am. That’s why I’ve stayed there. I’ve been there 17 years.

And I had it when I was at RE/MAX, but everybody left. And people freak out when they leave and stop showing up. It’s really hard, you know?

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
Because—I mean, and there’s people right now I would love to call and say, “Where are you? Get up. Come on.”

Right? “You—you’re good.” But, you know, you can’t save everybody. I mean, this business is hard.

[00:33:05] Tracy Hayes:
So if you were talking to a new agent—or someone who might’ve been in the business now two or three, four years—but they’re kind of stagnant, they’re struggling through—what are some of the things that you would, you know, go:

“If you—they came to you and you did a little check-up on them: are you doing this, this, and this?”

What are some of the things that you would want to know about them to be able to evaluate their situation?

[00:33:27] Eden Jordan:
So the young people, I’m like—they say they’re too busy. But I’m like, “You need to go to every birthday party. You need to go to every sporting event.”

That’s the thing they do—they’ll go and they’ll sit in their car. That’s what my team—I’ve always had like a small team.

And you know, where people are like, “Oh, you need to cold call.” I’m like, “No. You need to go sit at the ball field and start talking to people.”

Like, if you don’t do that—the people that see you every day—’cause out of sight, out of mind, right?

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
And I think social media’s gotten way too canned and too structured—like, saturated.

People don’t really want to know all the things that you’ve sold and all that stuff. But they like being connected to a person.

Like, there are a lot of people that will just call me just because they have questions or whatever.

So being like a knowledgeable person, I think—and that takes time.

Somebody was like, “Oh, well you sell this much.”
I said, “This is 27 years of doing this. Every year. Year after year after year. This does not happen overnight.”

That’s the thing I think is the most interesting about a lot of these agents—they think it’s just instant success.

And very few people get it like that.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm. Right.

Eden Jordan:
They might get a run—but it takes three years.

[00:34:49] Tracy Hayes:
Well, as in life, we often don’t know what chapter they are in their situation.

They may come into real estate, but it’s—

[00:34:49] Tracy Hayes:
...stuff they did before, right? And then they come into real estate, and they tap in.

I know there’s some Orange Parks over there who are—you know, Jordan—you know, may now—I mean, she...

[00:35:09] Eden Jordan:
Jordan Ferria.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

Eden Jordan:
Ferry. She’s—I was her mom. Her real estate mother.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
And you know what she puts out there? She struggles too—like we all do. But yes, we mentored her all the way through.

Yeah. And she gets mad because I tell her I sound negative with all the stats.
“Dang it, Eden. You just tell it—you’re always right.”
’Cause I would be like, “Be careful.” You know?

I mean, we sat her in like, “Girl, you’re making money.” She’s a force of nature—that girl.

[00:35:38] Tracy Hayes:
Yes.

[00:35:39] Eden Jordan:
But very few had the success that Jordan has had.

[00:35:44] Tracy Hayes:
Right. Well, they try to measure themselves to someone like her—but you can’t. But she had—I mean...

[00:35:48] Eden Jordan:
She did. It was a struggle for all of it. We’re like, “Oh my gosh, where is she getting all the, you know…”

[00:35:54] Tracy Hayes:
Well, she just—I mean, obviously, whatever situation... Obviously she’s working in her backyard where she grew up. A lot of people know her, but...

[00:36:01] Eden Jordan:
Now she’s expanded. She’s like—she’s the beach. I mean, she’s doing a lot of high-end stuff.

[00:36:06] Tracy Hayes:
But she just—so I roll in and be around people like you and Kim Knapp and those people, you know, you have some very knowledgeable people.

[00:36:15] Eden Jordan:
Oh yeah. She sat across—she surrounded...

[00:36:17] Tracy Hayes:
...herself by some key components, was able to absorb it and go out and excel with it.

[00:36:23] Eden Jordan:
Yeah. And she’s very smart. I mean, she has something special. And there’s a lot of people that do—but she never gave up.

[00:36:32] Tracy Hayes:
So—

[00:36:33] Eden Jordan:
—probably a lot of people wanted her to, you know? Because it’s hard to watch that kind of huge success. But I’m very proud of her. I think she’s done amazing.

Yeah, and now I think she’s spending more time with her family.

That was my biggest thing about her that I was always checking in on: “Do not sacrifice your family for this deal.”

Like, this is not worth it. Be a mom. And I think she’s created some balance.

That’s another thing that I—when you get busy, like...

[00:37:00] Eden Jordan:
That—and you’re young and you’ve got—I... there’s times I don’t remember.

[00:37:07] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[00:37:08] Eden Jordan:
From my second one.

[00:37:09] Tracy Hayes:
Well, you never know when it’s gonna end. That’s sales.
I mean, when you’re in commission sales, it’s like—
“Well, if I stop today and then there’s nothing tomorrow, I’m gonna be broke the third day,” right?

Eden Jordan:
I know.

[00:37:18] Eden Jordan:
I called it...

[00:37:18] Tracy Hayes:
Prostitution.

[00:37:20] Eden Jordan:
It was like, “One more. One more.”
You know, I got to that burn. I mean, I was an overnight success, but I did really well young, and it was a lot of pressure.

The best thing that happened to me was 2008, because my ego got back in check.

’Cause that’s the other thing that happens—you know, this was before social media—and I remember having a meltdown. Like, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Because we were having to tell people hard conversations. It was not easy. We knew things were going south.

And best thing that happened to me—because then I had a 4-year-old, and I got back in check.

That’s when I left RE/MAX. I was running—I was paying bills—it was just a really scary time.

[00:38:00] Eden Jordan (cont’d):
My mom was sick. And I went to Pete Dalton, which was Vanguard at the time.

They were trying to recruit—everybody was trying to recruit everybody—but they were taking away—like, we were getting Facebook, we were getting—had to take all these pictures.

Like, we never had to do any of that.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
Right? You had to do flyers, and you’d have a typo, and I’d be up at night crying. And I’ve got a 4-year-old, and I was like, “I can’t do this.”

So that’s when I left and went and worked for him. I actually went as a recruiter—which people don’t really know that.

But—because he knew the complexities were coming in. He saw that really early on with all of the things—that photography was the big thing.

Because the pictures were so bad. And he’s like, “We’ve gotta sell this stuff. Like, we need to market it.”

They made the brochures—that’s where their whole concept came.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
So I was kind of a part of that.

[00:38:59] Tracy Hayes:
Because now you’re starting to see the internet—people searching for homes on the internet—because Zillow...

Yeah, we bought our home—I... she just made me think—we bought our home in... November, closed in December of ’08, and we were searching on the internet.

Eden Jordan:
Yeah.

Tracy Hayes:
You don’t—yeah. You don’t—you think...

[00:39:14] Eden Jordan:
How much did you lose?

[00:39:15] Tracy Hayes:
Well no—we bought the home at that time. We bought in a foreclosure. It’s worth three times what we paid for it today.

Eden Jordan:
Okay.

Tracy Hayes:
You know? Yeah. No, we did well, from that standpoint.

But it just made me think—’cause my wife was doing the searching. I told her, “Hey, find five or six homes you like, then I’ll go out and look at ’em.”
’Cause when you’re happy, whatever—I don’t care.

And we found out—we’re starting to use the internet at this time. And like you said, pictures are starting to become more important. I mean...

[00:39:43] Eden Jordan:
When literally MLS drove around—no kidding—and snapped a picture. Half the time they were moving in the car.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

Eden Jordan:
Yeah, that was your picture. So then we got the floppy disk cameras. Do you remember those?

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
Where it had like a disk thing in there. And then we got the little Palm Pilots. So, you know, we’ve just been through a lot.

[00:40:03] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s dig, you know... 2008 was an awakening.

Eden Jordan:
Yeah.

Tracy Hayes:
Family-wise and in real estate too. I mean, you now are like, “Okay, what in the world’s a short sale?”

[00:40:17] Eden Jordan:
I didn’t do them for the longest time.

[00:40:18] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. And then obviously, you know, dealing with foreclosures. So you had to fight through the next 2, 3, 4 years there, really.

What are some of the things that, you know—

[00:40:29] Eden Jordan:
Oh no, we went all the way through 2015.

[00:40:31] Tracy Hayes:
I—

[00:40:31] Eden Jordan:
—I think.

[00:40:31] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. At some point you had to come to reality, like, “This is the cards we’re dealt. I need to learn how to do a short sale. I need to learn how to handle a foreclosure.”

You know, at what point did you say, “Hey, I either need to get in or get out, really. I either need to grasp the situation or I need to go find something else to do.”

[00:40:48] Eden Jordan:
Well, that—and Pete Dalton will say this at almost every sales rally—“Eden Jordan said that she was never gonna do a short sale.”

You know, and I did. And then I did them.

But we had a really good—we used to get like 20 of the top agents together in the company. Which, there wasn’t that many of us, right? But, you know, you’d have Denise Dekle, Wendy Griffith—this is the people we all had—Wendy Griffith, Kim, Heidi, like all these people.

And we would go in there and talk about the banks and figure out what we were doing.

And like—it wasn’t about marketing. We had so many listings. Like, you would tell people, “No. I cannot sell your house. So this is what you gotta do if you want to sell your house.”

And so... we just kind of all figured it out.

[00:41:34] Tracy Hayes:
You collaborated.

Eden Jordan:
Yeah.

Tracy Hayes:
Because working with the—every bank was different. Who had a connection at that bank?

Eden Jordan:
Maybe Facebook post, and I’m like, “I finally talked to the bank today.”

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
You know, like—“We got approval!”
“Oh shit, the buyer...”

[00:41:52] Eden Jordan:
...walked. You know, like that kind of thing. Yeah. It was just months and months and years of...

[00:41:55] Tracy Hayes:
Oh, I mean—we knew at Quicken, because Quicken started to really dive into purchases. So probably in 2009—before that, it was just primarily a refi shop.

I mean, we would do a purchase if someone wanted to, but, you know, when someone came to a short sale, it’s like—okay, this might close this month, or it might be six months before we even know an answer.

If the contract's even accepted—the offer's accepted. And I imagine it obviously discouraged a lot of people.

Eden Jordan:
It was so hard.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. And you had to figure your way through.

[00:42:22] Eden Jordan:
I pray we don’t go there. I swore I wouldn’t do it again.

[00:42:26] Tracy Hayes:
I believe every real estate agent has to have a level of grit in their—you know, I mean—

Eden Jordan:
I agree.

Tracy Hayes:
Because 2008—curveball. I mean, there were other curveballs you’ve had come at you, and you’ve worked your way through. Today we laugh about that setback...

[00:42:40] Eden Jordan:
...and cry.

Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. And cry. Deep PTSD, you know?

Eden Jordan:
Yep.

[00:42:43] Tracy Hayes:
We talk about it at cocktail parties.
“Hey, I did this...”

You know, it’s like walking up the hill both ways to school in the snow, right? These horror stories from the past—we laugh about it.

But I feel there’s three parts to having that grit, and that’s love, laughter, and consistency.

Why do you love real estate?

[00:43:01] Eden Jordan:
I think—I mean, I say the people—it’s so generic.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
But I have met some amazing people. But I love the deal. Like, I love getting somebody together—especially when they’re hard.

Like, I just had one, and it was like—it was a month’s worth of negotiation, and we finally got it together.

And I love doing things that other people probably couldn’t get together. Like, those deals that you go, “There’s no way anybody else could’ve done this.”

Tracy Hayes:
Right.

Eden Jordan:
So that—I probably get the... most of the easy ones aren’t as much fun.

[00:43:35] Tracy Hayes:
I mean, you appreciate them, but they’re not fun.

[00:43:36] Eden Jordan:
My best deal this year was a $142,000 house over on the Westside.

Because she was referred, and she had a disabled son and two daughters. It’s all she could afford—and dang it, we got her a house.

And that, to me, was like—I felt way more accomplished than, you know, selling a million-dollar... I mean, a million-ones are nice, but it’s a different thing.

I mean, I sell all price ranges. You know, you can be $200K, you can be—
But that was probably my favorite deal this year.

[00:44:07] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[00:44:08] Eden Jordan:
So...

[00:44:08] Tracy Hayes:
Laughter—tell us about one of those, one of those times where you really felt—I mean, almost pushed you outta real estate. I mean, you thought like, “Maybe I need to go do something else.”

[00:44:20] Eden Jordan:
That’s like once a year.

[00:44:24] Tracy Hayes:
“I don’t know how to do anything else!”
Tell—

[00:44:24] Tracy Hayes:
Tell us one of those things that really punched you in the gut or made you feel like you fell on your face—and you got out of it.

[00:44:32] Eden Jordan:
I got sued.

[00:44:33] Tracy Hayes:
Ooh.

[00:44:34] Eden Jordan:
Yeah. For something I didn’t do, and I felt very...

[00:44:41] Tracy Hayes:
Vulnerable.
Is this from a buyer or seller that you were representing?

[00:44:43] Eden Jordan:
It’s a really dumb scenario. Raymond Mines was involved.

Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

Eden Jordan:
It was before she came to Vanguard. I sold a house. There was a $100 voluntary association fee. Deal went fine, no problems.

It was an older gentleman that was moving to Riverdale or River Garden. He had been president of the voluntary association many years back.

Covenants, restrictions—we had them—but it’s Park West, so it’s a really old neighborhood. So a lot of that stuff expires out, right?

So you have deed restrictions and then you have—sometimes the neighborhoods will create, as I’ve learned, their own association.

So I ended up closing it. No big deal.
And Pete would send out these “Just Sold” cards. We had some kind of program—if you put a lender sign in the yard—they can’t do that anymore—but back then you could.

You’d get 100 free postcards that they would send out. So it sent out “Just Sold.”

Well, it hit the association president. She’s like, “How did this get past me? You didn’t get an estoppel letter.”
And I was like, “Okay.”

So I had Mosson Fulton as my people, and they had tried to reach them over and over—but it was voluntary, so they didn’t push.
It was $100 a year. One hundred a year.

And so Miranda calls her buyer and says, “Hey, I need you to sign this. We obviously missed it.”

He’s like, “I don’t wanna be in an association. You never disclosed this. I have a work truck, and these old deed restrictions say that I can’t have my work truck in here.”

And he sued.
And then he also said non-disclosure—because there was something in there.
He sued the seller, who had an umbrella policy, so they paid him like 10 grand.
Sued Coldwell.
I went through it for two years.
I had to pay, you know, it was another 10.
They go after the E&O insurance.

[00:46:48] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:46:48] Eden Jordan:
But the—

[00:46:50] Tracy Hayes:
Listing agent?

[00:46:51] Eden Jordan:
I was the listing agent.

[00:46:52] Tracy Hayes:
You were the listing agent. Okay.

[00:46:54] Eden Jordan:
So that was a really...
a disgusting time.

[00:46:59] Tracy Hayes:
For a hundred dollars.

[00:47:00] Eden Jordan:
A hundred dollars a year. Yeah.
But it wasn’t about the money. He saw an opportunity.

[00:47:03] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. As people do.

[00:47:05] Eden Jordan:
So I felt very exposed.
You see the true colors—and people can kind of turn you off.

I felt exposed and like, “What am I doing?” You know?
And I feel like that’s getting worse and worse.

Like, every meeting is like, “Oh, you’re gonna get... don’t do this, you’re gonna get sued, you’re gonna...”
I’m like, “Just let me sell a house.”

[00:47:25] Tracy Hayes:
Exactly. Right. Exactly.

Consistency—what do you feel you have done, or maybe evolved, or obviously just—it’s definitely changed in 27 years—but what do you do consistently today that you think moves the needle in your business?

[00:47:38] Eden Jordan:
I have an amazing...

[00:47:38] Eden Jordan:
I have an amazing—I don’t even wanna call him an assistant. I always have somebody behind me.

So right now, her name is Sally Sullivan.
She’s in her early thirties, super smart, wants to get in, doesn’t have a base.

And I’ve had several. I’ve always had somebody do that behind me.
I pay them like an agent—very well—and they basically keep me going.

So if I’m like this, they keep things going behind the scenes.
All the marketing keeps going, the transactions—
you know, ’cause you can’t be 100% on—

[00:48:13] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[00:48:14] Eden Jordan:
—all year, this long.
So it gives me the ability to be me.

Right now, where I’m at in my career, I really am trying to separate Realtor Eden and who is—who am I without being her?

[00:48:38] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Well, I think a lot of people who are outside our industry in real estate don’t realize that we actually wear the jersey every day.

[00:48:44] Eden Jordan:
Yeah. You’re literally—
we—24/7.

[00:48:46] Tracy Hayes:
That’s who we are.
We are a business.
We don’t check out at five o’clock.

[00:48:50] Eden Jordan:
Because some people meet me as a person and they’re like, “Oh, well, you’re totally different than I thought.”
I’m like, “Yeah, ’cause this is my work.”

Like, you’re different at work.
This is me socially and my own person.

So I’m really trying to do that.
And I think you can do that more with having a strong team behind you.
So that’s really probably the best thing that I’ve done.

I don’t touch pa—I’m terrible with paperwork, by the way.
Like, do not let me write a contract.
This whole new Florida FAR/BAR and buyer’s agent and the 15 billion addendums—
it’s about to put me in the loony bin.

[00:49:29] Tracy Hayes:
At what point did you start to bring on—or start—
did you reach a certain level where you’re like, “Man, I need to start leveraging others to help me with my full business,” doing the marketing, writing the contracts, getting the...

[00:49:43] Eden Jordan:
So when I started, Mary—my mother-in-law—loved contracts.
She loved all that part of it.

And she saw that I just loved the sales and showing property and doing all that stuff.
So I kind of started doing that.

I’ve always had it—not always—I would say 20 years out of the 27 I’ve had it,
because I know where my weaknesses are.
Like, I know I’m terrible at that stuff.

It was that way when I was working too, like in trade shows.
They just wanted me to sell.
Nobody in their right mind wants me to do paperwork.

So it’s like—when I say paperwork—I mean keeping track of all the little teeny things.
So if I can get that off my plate, I’m much better.

[00:50:31] Tracy Hayes:
You can move much faster.
No, I’m the same way. I’m much better.

[00:50:34] Eden Jordan:
Yeah, like my brain is clear.
I can’t deal with all the little things.

I mean, all the repairs and the insurance and all the—I mean, I do them and I’m aware.
I don’t wanna make it sound like I’m not aware.
I just have somebody behind me making sure—

[00:50:50] Tracy Hayes:
Well, you realize at a point that you can do it all,
but what’s actually generating the deals—again, creating the money flow—
is you spending that front-facing time, prospecting or working with a particular client,
spending more time with them and so forth,
and it’s 10x’d your business.
And that back office stuff—

[00:51:14] Eden Jordan:
There are people who love doing it—like, they love it.
Like every other company, you hire somebody.

The fact that people think that you can do marketing, sales, transactions, admin, and prospecting—
that you’re good at all four of those things—
is the stupidest thing.

Like, I think RE/MAX—real estate—is so messed up that way.

[00:51:34] Tracy Hayes:
Well, I’m sure you’ve seen this in the many agents that you’ve mentored over the years.
And, you know, in your bio, you’ve mentored them to success.
They’ve reached it.

A lot of 'em probably came to you when they were at this—I call it reaching the lid, and my listeners have heard me use this.
It’s a John Maxwell thing—
they’ve reached a lid in their business because they’re trying to do everything.

They’re doing 20 or 30 deals, but they’re not growing anymore
because, one: they’re not having quality face time with the clients they have—
and two: it just comes down to the time that they have in the course of the day.

If you had a new agent coming on,
maybe they haven’t reached their lid yet,
how do you start foreshadowing that for them?

“Hey, this is what you need to start preparing yourself for,”
and maybe now is the time to start sharing an assistant,
or sharing a transaction coordinator.

Walk us through that.

[00:52:21] Eden Jordan:
Well, I think starting with somebody—
people don’t like partnerships or teams because they’re really hard to pay in this business—
but just getting a person to help you with the overflow or back you up is huge.

But yeah, you’ve got to get an assistant.
Like if you’re doing more than 10 or 12 deals a year,
I just don’t know how people are doing it.

It used to be 30 deals was the line where you had to get somebody,
but I don’t know where that break is now,
’cause things are complicated.

I mean, we work less, I say—
but there’s way more back stuff you have to do.
There’s so much you have to take care of.

[00:52:59] Tracy Hayes:
Well, do you think the competitiveness in the industry—
especially from a marketing standpoint—
do you think social media has actually put more load on?

[00:53:05] Eden Jordan:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Social media.

Because back in the day,
you just had the magazine that went out,
and a website with all the listings.

It’s just way different.
Way different.

But I think too—like—I did everything organically.
I didn’t go watch some trainer on how to do any of this.
It just kind of happened. Right?

That’s why I struggle.
Like, a lot of people are into Ninja and some of the other things now.
I did really enjoy Brian Buffini when he started,
but then—it’s just very canned.

So I don’t even like going to all that.

[00:53:56] Eden Jordan:
...stuff. ’Cause I get very in my head.
Like, “Oh, you have to be doing this, this, and this and this.”
And I start doing that and then I’m like, Eden, you’re obviously doing something right. Don’t mess with it.
Because that’s what happens—
I get in my head and I start all this stuff and I buy crap that I don’t need.

[00:54:00] Eden Jordan (cont.):
When really, I just need to be me, which is what I do.
And I can’t can it. Like, you ask me what I do?
I don’t really know what I do.

[00:54:08] Tracy Hayes:
Well, I think Buffini and the trainings that you’re talking about are good for someone who’s coming into the business—
like, “Hey, what are some things I can do?”
Those are ideas that you can do. And there’s some people—

[00:54:20] Eden Jordan:
Wendy. She’s a big Buffini follower,
and actually—

[00:54:23] Tracy Hayes:
I think she’s one of their trainers.

[00:54:25] Eden Jordan:
Oh yeah. She’s amazing.

[00:54:26] Tracy Hayes:
She’s dove into it and done that.
You’re doing your own Buffini.
You’re just doing Eden’s.

[00:54:32] Eden Jordan:
I did Eden’s Buffini before I did it—before it was a thing.
But then when I went to his first things back in—
this was before COVID, before 2008—
I was like, Oh! Someone who gets it.

You know? But he also said something very interesting.
Going to Orlando in 2007,
we would all say, “But our listings aren’t selling,” and “They’re priced right and ready.”

And he’s like:
They are not priced right. Everything will sell if it’s priced right.

[00:55:00] Eden Jordan (cont.):
And that was the beginning.
That was the eye-opener.
Because it didn’t matter what they paid for it.
It didn’t matter what the last one sold for.
You had to embrace the fact that these houses were not worth what they are.

And I think we’re coming into that. You are seeing—

[00:55:19] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. You had to.
I mean, there was a whole perfect storm of things going on.
I think a lot of people are hesitant right now.

You and I know—
I would imagine that you recommend someone goes out there now,
and they’re like,
“Oh, I don’t wanna buy. The interest rates are too high.”

[00:55:40] Tracy Hayes:
I'm like, okay, well—if the interest rates go lower, you're no longer gonna be able to negotiate the sales price, the, you know, buy-down, or whatever the buyer's market it is right now. That could quickly go away.
Interest rates drop three-quarters of a percent and boom—like I said, that 5.87, 5.3 30-year fixed—you got a seller’s market again.
And I think people don't realize—

[00:55:58] Eden Jordan:
Yeah. I think there's a lot of overpriced listings, and it is not the sellers. It is a lot of the agents because they don’t want to see these prices go down.

[00:56:11] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. No, no, I agree with you.

[00:56:14] Eden Jordan:
I’ve sold—I don’t know my numbers this year—but I will tell you every seller that listened to me and did the work, and did the cleaning up and all, have sold for more than what they would have sold if they didn’t listen to me.
So my point is, it's like Brian Buffini said—everything will sell. It's just at what price.
And I think agents have a really hard time.
Anytime somebody says, “This house is priced right. It's getting showings.” If it hasn’t sold—it's not priced right.

And the best—
a lot of listing agents are bad about not showing property.
Go show 10 houses in the same price point.
They stand out.

[00:57:00] Eden Jordan (cont.):
The good ones just stand out.

[00:57:02] Tracy Hayes:
It’s because of our psychology.
The agents too, but definitely the sellers—they have this psychology because someone told them their house was worth so much. Or someone down the street sold six months ago—let alone two years ago—for a certain price.
And they think they're going to get that.

And it’s like—well, this is a different time and place.
You know, the interest rates were percent lower.
So the payment, the buying power of that person, was different at that time.
Where now, the interest rates are higher. So people are looking at—What am I willing to pay for that house?

Whether it's on a dollar amount on a purchase price, or obviously the payment situation.
And they get stuck.
And I think what's the—I find the funniest thing is—

It’s like the stock market.
You know, you buy a stock—
I was on the IPO of Facebook.
Now should I have bought a hell of a lot more shares?

[00:58:00] Eden Jordan:
Yes, you should have.

[00:57:57] Eden Jordan:
We wouldn't be sitting here right now.

[00:57:59] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, exactly.
If I went all in and just took everything and went on Facebook…
When it was in the high four hundreds, I think I told my wife, "Let's sell."
Now it’s like 700-something, or whatever it was the other day, or type of thing.
And it, you know, it’s unforeseen gain.
And the value of the homes going up in what they have in the last, you know, few years is unforeseen gain.

Now all of a sudden reality sets in and it's like, oh, you know what, you really are 20, 30…
You know, we're not talking now—I don't know—maybe if you're in the million-dollar range, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars off.
It's not huge for the average home.
You're 20% or 30%, you know, something like that—you’re off.

And it's like, you had unforeseen equity.
If I sold the stock—Facebook—today at $700, I would look great.
But I didn’t sell it today and tomorrow it could be at 650.
And, you know what I mean?

And I think people get too caught up like, “Oh my god, I lost money.”
No—you just—you stayed in the home for reasons.

[00:58:54] Eden Jordan:
Well, and if you look at inventory, which is very interesting—I use Fleming Island 'cause it’s easy to look at.
So I was just showing it to somebody today.

Back at our lowest point, we had 19 houses on the market—active.
Now we’re at 154.

Same amount of houses are selling—there’s just less buyers.
There’s not enough buyers for the amount of inventory.

But we need to be here, because that was normal.
During 2008, it was 300 to 400.

So—it’s all in perspective.
Things are not that bad.

[00:59:28] Tracy Hayes:
Do you feel there’s pent-up—
I mean, a lot of buyers on the sideline right now?

[00:59:31] Eden Jordan:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.

I think—I’m hoping 2026 is gonna be our year.
We said, “Stay alive till 25.”
But that’s not really the case.

[00:59:41] Tracy Hayes:
Well, we start—I mean, if people are gonna get smarter towards the end…
Hopefully they'll find the house they want.

They get tired.

[00:59:47] Eden Jordan:
Yeah, for sure.

[00:59:50] Tracy Hayes:
Definitely people are tired.
And I think there’s sellers too—
I mean, I’m sure you experience it—we had a lot when interest rates were, you know, three, 4%,

People were doing a lot of internal moves—whether
I’m moving to Nat, or moving out of Nat.
I’m moving, you know, moving…

[01:00:13] Tracy Hayes:
We don’t really have a lot of that going on because they have a low interest rate,
but at some point they’re gonna get low enough in their anxiety or whatever—
they’ll be like, “Okay, that’s low enough, I’m gonna make the move now.”

Hopefully they have enough equity, they can make a larger down payment,
and then, you know, the payment difference is not that big.
And they’re willing to accept that—
they move to the house they want to.

[01:00:22] Eden Jordan:
I worry about layoffs though.
I’m getting a couple phone calls and that—that bothers me.

[01:00:26] Tracy Hayes:
There has been some sporadic—yeah.
I got one last night.

[01:00:29] Eden Jordan:
Yeah.
I was like, “Ugh.”
I knew she had, you know—and then I… yeah.
The layoffs worry me,
and the reality that people bought more than they could afford with these payments.

We’re seeing a lot of that in Clay County and Green Cove—
like their payments are what I would’ve paid for my $500,000 house for $300,000, you know?

[01:00:53] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, no, it’s—it was…

[01:00:54] Eden Jordan:
Taxes are—

[01:00:55] Tracy Hayes:
Insane.
Again, when I was with the builder’s lender,
I mean, you know, to have a payment with your taxes, insurance, and everything—
in the $2,000s…
Now when you’re starting quoting $3,000s—

[01:01:09] Eden Jordan:
$3,000+ payment.
I know.
And then I told—the one that called me that got laid off—
I’m like, “You bought your house for $435K in 2020.
Your payment’s $2,300.
That same payment’s—what?
Say they sell for $650K.
For someone to rebuy it—it's gonna be like $4,500.”

[01:01:24] Tracy Hayes:
How much?

[01:01:25] Eden Jordan:
Yeah, $4,000.
I don’t know.

[01:01:28] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.
You know, I love our veterans,
but them buying at 100% and they’re buying five- and six-hundred-thousand-dollar houses—
I’m like, dude, you’re borrowing—
Why is the payment so high?
Because you’re borrowing $500K or $600K.
Yeah. It’s crazy.

Talk a little bit about—you’ve mentored a lot of agents over the years—
the importance of an agent who might be listening right now,
who’s either new or just, again, treading through,
not really moving forward in their business—
the importance of finding a mentor.

[01:01:58] Eden Jordan:
Well, I think…
So the way I’ve done a team is, I usually have—
that person will sell and work with me, and they follow me everywhere.

So my opinion is:
Find—latch onto an agent.
Tell them you’ll work for free.

It’s college.
You’re gonna learn more by hopping in a car and following them around—
help them clean up, you know, behind each other.

That’s how I’ve trained.
Like, I don’t sit here and say,
“Oh, let’s learn how to do this, this, and this.”
But you can…

[01:02:35] Eden Jordan:
Follow me for a week and you will learn more than you do—I mean, everyone that's done it, they're like,
“Oh my gosh, this is great.”

You're there—go on your buyers, the consultations, go on your listings.
Yeah.
You listen to the spiels, you hear the, you know—

[01:02:43] Tracy Hayes:
—the questions that you're being asked.

[01:02:45] Eden Jordan:
Right?
But agents are so competitive, they don't want to do that.
They're so afraid of—I don't know, maybe I'm wrong—
but people don't do that.
And I've offered people getting in,
I'm like, “Hey, ride with me, go.”
I offer, and they don't take me up on it.

I'm like, do you know?
Like—and that’s not me being egotistical, right?
It’s just—you can't learn this in a classroom.
Like, I don't know. I drag 'em—
“Hey, look at this stucco like this.”
“Oh God, we need a roof.”
Or “Oh Lord, you know, let’s put these numbers back.”

You just hear what’s in the process of the transaction—like the art of the transaction.
You're not gonna learn that…

[01:03:23] Tracy Hayes:
Well, you obviously know—and you don't even have to be in the business very long—
every transaction’s different.
It’s so different.

And you’ve gotta see every one of these pitches that are coming,
whether it’s a roof problem, inspection problem, negotiation—
you know, the seller's got what they want, the buyer wants what they want—insurance.

How are you making all this work?
Insurance.

[01:03:40] Eden Jordan:
Insurance.
Oh God.
It's killing us.

[01:03:42] Tracy Hayes:
And although the person that you’re mentoring—
their transaction is gonna be a little bit different—
but it’s because you saw so many other different things,
you're able to put it together.

[01:03:51] Eden Jordan:
Right.
Yeah.
You can totally learn by doing that.
And then you can talk the talk.

Like, you can be at a party and you can say,
“Oh, well I did this and this,” and I’ve always, like, let them own my deals.

[01:04:00] Eden Jordan (cont.):
So like, Sally owns my deals.
Lilia has 'em.
You know, they all look like they're in them—and they are, 'cause they’re seeing them.

That's how my daughter—she was with me five years and she's still working,
but she's selling pretty much just her friends and, you know, her sphere,
'cause now she's been in it five years.

But yeah, she can talk the talk with all these young people.
So she's already—you know, they understand,
“Okay, she knows what she's doing,”
because she's been exposed to so much.

[01:04:27] Tracy Hayes:
I was talking to somebody the other day—
actually, I saw this new agent online and I was like,
“Oh, you know what would be great…”

[01:04:40] Tracy Hayes:
Is to have a very new agent come in with their top-producing mentor.
And I asked her, I said, “Do you have a mentor?” And there was like, “No.”
And I'm like, “Do you want me to recommend?”
And then they’re like asking me who I was.
I’m like, “Well, I’ve only interviewed 260, 270 of the top real estate agents in the area.
I don’t know all the top producers—I’m still getting there—but I know a lot of ’em.”

But the fact that you just joined a brokerage,
you haven’t been in the business but two weeks,
and the broker you joined hasn’t actually connected you,
and you don’t know squat about real estate—
that really disheartens me about some of the brokerages out there.

[01:05:14] Eden Jordan:
Yeah, I mean, it’s hard.
I always tell people—
you know what my real estate number is? 9,343.
You know what they’re on now? Like 89,000 or something like that.

So it’s very hard being a stable agent in the brokerage to see so many people come through.
So typically what I’ll do—and that’s how Sally got me—
she watched me.
She was like, “This girl needs help.”

Like, I do great work behind the scenes,
so I need to watch and see if you’re really the real deal.
'Cause so many people come through the doors—like, it’s hard.

[01:05:53] Tracy Hayes:
No, well—I mean, does that make sense?
I think one—so like,
I’m sure you’ve had many people who you’ve given advice to
and they never even—

[01:06:00] Tracy Hayes (cont.):
—like, never touched it.

[01:06:01] Eden Jordan:
Nope. They never touch it.
Yeah.
Now, like there’s some people—Judy Fields in my office—
her son and daughter-in-law are getting in it,
and they’re super aggressive, super smart,
and they’re gonna work off her.

But Judy doesn’t really wanna train.
So like, I’m like, “Hey, ride with me.”
Like, I would totally take you.

So he will do that—like I’m confident he will do that.
But my point is, not very—I wouldn’t do that for everybody.
Not right out of the box.
Does that make sense?

[01:06:32] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. It’s a lot of energy, right?
Well, you wanna see what the buy-in is.
Are they coming and asking you questions and so forth?

Like, “I want to be better at this business,”
versus you reaching out to someone sitting on the bench.
They’re like, “Well, you’re sitting on the bench,
I’m not even gonna talk to you.”

Get off the bench and come talk to me.

[01:06:47] Eden Jordan:
I pay them as an admin.
That’s what I do.
I’ll pay them as an admin,
and then you do what I need—

[01:06:59] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[01:07:00] Eden Jordan:
But you have to be like part of my person.
I'm not gonna say I'm not easy,
but I'm actually really easy and nice to work for.
But I'm flighty.
And so, like, but that’s what makes me probably good.
So if somebody’s behind me making sure that I’m doing what I say I’m gonna do—yeah, then it’s good.

But I do like to pay.
And people are like, “You pay too much. Why are you doing it?”
I’m like, “Because it works for me.”

[01:07:29] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[01:07:29] Eden Jordan:
So if you can work for an agent and then just absorb everything—
but a lot of agents don’t wanna pay.

[01:07:37] Tracy Hayes:
Do you think a lot of agents, especially the newer ones—
it goes back to the broker thing—
every agent does their business differently.
Every brokerage does their business a little differently.
Whether you’re at Coldwell Banker, Real, eXp, Keller Williams—whatever—
they’re all doing something a little bit different.

How important is it to find that brokerage that does business the way you see it being done?
You know, obviously the office at Coldwell Banker is a big strength of yours.
You like going in there.
You feel the energy.

Someone goes to Real—you know, it feels more like an island.
Although they kind of do something, they don’t have an office they technically go to.
So you—
that might sound good ‘cause the split might sound better over there,
but there's always a—

[01:08:20] Eden Jordan:
A dance there to be like, okay, am I using all the things?
I love where I’m at, but you know, things change over the years, right?
People change, leadership changes.

But I do think you need to be somewhere that you can collaborate.
I don’t think this business being on an island is—
it wouldn’t be as much fun.

In my opinion. But that’s just me.

[01:08:44] Tracy Hayes:
Well, I think many agents who start to think about it—
it actually comes to their mind that they are on an island.

They need to start finding the collaboration—
the things that we’ve been talking about.

Find—if you—
then that means you’re probably not surrounded by four or five agents
who you are pouring into and they’re pouring into you, right?
If you are feeling alone.

Now, the data-driven approach—
we’ve touched on that a few different times,
but obviously today with listings staying on the market—
you were talking about one listing you had before the show that’s been on the market
a little bit longer than it should be—

How are you approaching these sellers
without overwhelming them with your knowledge of data?
Yeah, I can do that too,
but softly giving it to them in a way that they’re actually going to eat it.

[01:09:29] Eden Jordan:
Yeah.
I’ve been using—have you heard about pricing benchmark?

It’s part of ShowingTime.
It’s pretty cool.
It shows them how many houses are on the market.
It puts them on a timeline, like on a line, and says:
here are your price, here are other homes in your range.
This is how many have sold.

It’s just really pretty, the way they’ve done it.
But I am a big months-of-inventory—

[01:09:55] Eden Jordan:
Inventory. Active.
I’m really pricing right now on active listings, not solds—
which people kind of struggle with,
'cause they're like, “Oh, well, there’s comps…”

But I’ll typically—
there was a speaker, her name was Jackie Leavenworth,
that we loved.
She was around for many, many years,
and she would do a shopping cart.

So she’d put all the listings in the area in a line and say,
“Okay, these are all your competition. These have sold. These are pending.”
She didn’t use expired—
“Yeah, these failed, like, these listings failed in the market.”
And it really helps people get an idea of where—
like, “Where would you go? Which would you look at?”

So I overwhelm them a little bit with data,
but not in a way—
just mostly like keeping them up to date.

Like, “Here, this is everything.”
ASAP they're getting every listing that's making a change.

But most people now are more knowledgeable.
They see it.
Like, if you’re not on Zillow—
you signed up for Zillow.
I don’t know about you, but I get like
notifications for tons of stuff from them.

I don’t know.
It’s really—
it’s kind of hard.
I don’t even know if I answered that question.

[01:11:07] Tracy Hayes:
Well, you’re having to have a more reality check with some of these sellers.

And I think the big difference between—
we talked earlier about some agents right now are excelling and some agents are fading.
A lot of it has to do with these conversations, I think.

Not saying all of it has to do,
but I think the ones that are excelling are better at the conversation.

They’re better at either setting expectations,
pricing the home right—
'cause it is, right?

I mean, if you do price it right and you have all the other amenities of the house,
then it should go in a reasonable period of time,
versus others not getting any showings. I mean—

[01:11:42] Eden Jordan:
We’re definitely staging.
Like, I am getting them—
I would say if these homes don’t look right,
if they’re not clean or updated—
and I’m getting to where I’m like,
“Okay, if you’re not willing to do what we gotta do,
I don’t know if I want to take it.”

So we’re gonna get more select.
I think agents will get more selective about listings.

But we’re doing that,
and I help contribute that too.

Right?
With the commissions. 'Cause I think it’s—

[01:12:01] Eden Jordan:
…part of the marketing plan.

[01:12:07] Tracy Hayes:
You mentioned the staging—
and you had talked about that earlier too—
and clean,
because the buyer right now—
what the buyer’s ideology, the buyer’s mindset that you're seeing—
that you have to feel staging is more successful now than it was even.
It's always been successful,
but more important now than ever.

And I use the—

[01:12:28] Eden Jordan:
Word "staging"—
I call it house prepping.
Like, I have a house prepper.

Like, if your front door looks like crap,
we’re gonna paint it.
If the light fixtures or fans are falling—
you know—fix the fans.

So we go in, and typically, it's kind of—
I'm not paying $10,000,
but if I can convince a seller to put 10 grand in,
you know, like putting door hardware on the cabinets,
taking down wallpaper border,
taking down the curtains,

Doing the—
you know, rearranging—
if they’re furnished—
they rearrange the furniture,
we box everything up.

So we've—
and I started doing this a lot more with our seniors' houses,
’cause I do a lot of senior moves,
and it worked.

But now it's kind of working for—
like, I know this house that I was talking about earlier—
if I can get my hands on it,
it will sell.

The bones are great.
The yard’s great.
The house is great.
It’s just, you know,
it has a lot of older furniture in it.

[01:13:24] Tracy Hayes:
What do you—
what do you think is the mindset from the buyer?

[01:13:27] Eden Jordan:
When you walk in and you're looking at 10 houses—
which is very—
we showed a guy,
we sold—
showed him like 22 houses.

And when you walk into one and it’s like—
it feels good,

It doesn’t matter really what—
you know—
people like that.
It just—
the lights are on,
it feels good,
it’s nice.
It’s like going to the prom.

[01:13:58] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[01:14:00] Eden Jordan:
And when you walk into a nicely staged or furnished, clean home,

[01:14:00] Tracy Hayes:
They see themselves.

[01:14:02] Eden Jordan:
They see themselves there too.

I mean, my other one I had, we had that done—
they had a blue wall when you walked in,
the pool needed to be re-marked,
the furniture was kind of hodgepodge because they'd moved out—
and my sellers—
because I’m agent number two,
which I like being—
and they took my price,
and they did everything we told them.

And it sold.

Like, I had so many people at that open house.

[01:14:24] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[01:14:25] Eden Jordan:
So they just have to look good.

It’s online dating.
That's what they do.

[01:14:31] Tracy Hayes:
I'm gonna close with this.
We pulled out one of your standout qualities—
problem solving under pressure.
That's one of your thrills.

[01:14:38] Eden Jordan:
Yeah.

[01:14:39] Tracy Hayes:
That's one of your highs.

[01:14:40] Eden Jordan:
Yeah.

[01:14:41] Tracy Hayes:
Tell us a situation where you had some problem-solving under pressure—
here to close out.

[01:14:51] Eden Jordan:
Oh, I got a good one.
All right, I just did it.

So I had a listing,
and it was a million dollars—1.2—
which in Fleming is a lot.
That's the highest price, right? Not on the water.
So, high, high, high-stress customer, very OCD,
everything’s perfect,
wants to be at every single showing.

[01:15:13] Tracy Hayes:
You're representing the buyer?

[01:15:13] Eden Jordan:
I have the seller.

[01:15:14] Tracy Hayes:
Oh, the seller. Okay.

[01:15:15] Eden Jordan:
So—well, this is where it goes.

We get showings. It’s overpriced—we knew that.
We reduce it. I'm out of town.
My seller, who is very involved,
somebody's driving by—
she’s running out like,
"Oh, I gotta get the mail"—
because she can see them driving by.

So she goes out.
They go inside.
One of them has a real estate license—
inactive.

So they meet.
He calls and says,
“Hey, I just wanna let you know I just sold the house.”
He negotiates the whole house in the living room
with everybody.

[01:15:54] Tracy Hayes:
This passerby?

[01:15:55] Eden Jordan:
Mm-hmm.

[01:15:56] Tracy Hayes:
This guy—just someone who saw the for-sale sign out front?

[01:15:59] Eden Jordan:
Well, they saw it on Zillow.
So they end up talking,
come up with the price.
Oh, and by the way,
“I think I’ll represent him since I have my license.
And, you know, the commission will be this, this, and this.”

So anyway,
commission became a big issue—
which is a big thing right now.

So I bring them in.
I said, “Okay, well I’ve gotta meet with this person.
So let me meet with them.”

I literally felt like I was on that Million Dollar Listing show
where they’re running back and forth from room to room.
Because what they negotiated—
it's never just a number, right?
There’s always way more to the deal:
furniture, all these things.
Like, “We'll throw in this, this, and this.”

Anyway, it was a very—
oh, and the buyer was an engineer.
He came in with a list of questions—
and I’m not kidding—
eight and a half by eleven,
single spaced,
10-point font,
every single question.

So anyway,
of course, what my seller had told him
wasn’t really what they—
we had to really negotiate all of that together.

And—God—I got it.
It didn’t appraise.
It didn’t—you know—all the…

[01:17:01] Eden Jordan:
Things happened.

[01:17:02] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[01:17:03] Eden Jordan:
But we closed, and it was good.
The buyer and the seller—
the seller got sick,
ended up in the hospital.
It was a lot.

[01:17:16] Tracy Hayes:
Oh my goodness.

[01:17:17] Eden Jordan:
But—

[01:17:17] Tracy Hayes:
So how did you work—
so the seller said he—
Sally—who has an inactive license—

[01:17:21] Eden Jordan:
Well, I think it was active,
but he’s not practicing.

[01:17:23] Tracy Hayes:
Right. Said he was gonna represent the buyer?

[01:17:25] Eden Jordan:
Oh yeah. He was like,
“Well, if it means about paying, I’ll pay.
I’ll just represent him.”
I’m like,
I can’t represent you here,
and you represent him here.

[01:17:35] Tracy Hayes:
Right. I was gonna say—
can you actually, if you're an agent,
represent someone buying your house?

[01:17:39] Eden Jordan:
I can’t do this for free.

[01:17:40] Tracy Hayes:
Can you actually represent someone buying your house?

[01:17:43] Eden Jordan:
Yeah, I mean—yeah.
I mean, if I sold my house by owner,
but...
it wasn’t gonna work.

[01:17:49] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[01:17:50] Eden Jordan:
Anyway, and they needed me.
They needed me for the emotions,
the negotiations,
and all the things.
They needed the mediator in the middle.
They needed that.

[01:18:00] Eden Jordan:
So anyway,
I got a fabulous review from the seller afterward,
and she said that—
you know—
Anyway, my point is:
that was probably my hardest.
And even Sally or anybody was like,
“I don't know how we got that all together.”
'Cause there's no way
they would’ve dealt—

[01:18:14] Tracy Hayes:
With each other.
You were outta town, right?

[01:18:15] Eden Jordan:
Well, no. Just when they called—
when he called the first time.
Yeah. I couldn’t run over there and be like,
“Oh, okay, let—” Right.
No.

[01:18:21] Tracy Hayes:
I could just—
I'm just imagining your face.
You're wherever you're at,
you get this call,
and the seller’s going through all these things,
“Oh, I negotiated...”
And you're like—

[01:18:33] Eden Jordan:
Oh. Oh, God.

[01:18:35] Tracy Hayes:
The—

[01:18:36] Eden Jordan:
Three hours in,
back and forth,
getting it to work out.
Oh. So anyway,
that was probably my most recent.

[01:18:43] Eden Jordan:
But there's been a lot.
I mean, there's been a lot of hard ones lately.

[01:18:46] Tracy Hayes:
Negotiating is key.
I think if there's one—
one of those things that every agent should know—
and maybe there's a list, you know, for a new agent coming out—
every deal is different,
and you're gonna have squirrely ones like this.
And then a newer agent may not obviously be able to handle it,
but to have someone like you to call and say,
“Oh my God, I got this situation…”

[01:19:07] Eden Jordan:
What am I—
and I get a lot of that.

[01:19:08] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.
'Cause you've done so many and you're able to say,
“Well, you know, this is what we did over here.
It'll probably work over here.”
Right?
And a lot of times, that’s true.

I think if there's two things here—
or one particular thing that every agent listening here is surrounding—
and I’ve heard this, this is kind of an ongoing thing I’ve heard recently,
not that I didn’t hear it at the beginning,
but I’m paying more attention to it—
is the importance of finding four or five other agents
who are preferably better and more experienced than you.
Be the fifth person in the room.
And that you can call on and say,
“You won’t believe this,
but I just got this deal with a seller who just literally…”
Oh my gosh.

Because I guarantee there are a couple other agents
that have had a similar situation,
and how did they back that seller off?
'Cause they’re on their—
you know, their thing.

You had to back 'em down a little bit.
Say, “Okay, hold on a sec.
This is how we’re gonna have to rearrange this here.”

[01:19:58] Eden Jordan:
I think the other advice I can give to new agents—
and I tell people all the time—
it's never about the house.
Negotiations are never about the house.
It's always about their situations and their emotions.
And when you take that out and remember
that it’s not you, it’s not the house,
it’s what’s going on in their life—

[01:20:27] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[01:20:27] Eden Jordan:
That’s the hardest thing for agents to get over.

[01:20:32] Tracy Hayes:
That is some really wise advice right there.

[01:20:32] Eden Jordan:
'Cause they're stressed.
Like, there’s other things going on.
And you’re not gonna—
it’s an onion.
It’s gonna unpeel itself.

[01:20:36] Tracy Hayes:
Yep.

[01:20:37] Eden Jordan:
As it goes.

[01:20:38] Tracy Hayes:
Well, I’m sure that leads back—
and we didn’t get into it—
but when you’re having some of these initial consultations,
to dig...

[01:20:38] Tracy Hayes:
...to peel the onion back, like you say, a little deeper,
because when it comes down to actually having—
you know, the only person that can break from “Do Not Disturb”—
when it comes down to finally finding a house,
and then you're negotiating,
if you know what's under the peels of the onion early on,
you know how to guide that—

[01:21:00] Eden Jordan:
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And like this one really—
there was a situation—
like he wasn’t well,
but I didn’t know that when I started.

[01:21:12] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[01:21:12] Eden Jordan:
So that's kind of—
I talk a lot of agents off the ledge with that.

[01:21:17] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.
No, that’s solid.
That’s solid advice.
It’s not them.
But solid advice.
This was fun, Eden.
I appreciate you coming on.

[01:21:25] Eden Jordan:
Okay.
Thank you very much.