How Christina Swyers Built a Cross-Market Real Estate Business Through Relocation, Leadership, and Grit

Tracy Hayes  0:00  
Go, 321, Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast. Today's guest is a powerhouse in cross market real estate, licensed in both Missouri and Florida, and now building a serious traction in Jacksonville and St Augustine. She's the founder of prime living properties, and leads a multi state team that specializes in relocation, new construction and investment driven moves into North East Florida, most competitive coastal markets. Beyond her transactional success, she also respected mentor, leading the success success squad inside exp Realty, a global agent network focused on leadership mindset, the sustainability of business growth. She blends strategy with storytelling across her social media platforms, and she's someone I consider a real voice for what's next in the industry. Christina swires, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks so much. Did I pronounce your last name correctly? Actually, you got it right the first my regular listeners probably like, they're probably like, because I'll on the difficult ones. I always say, okay, when they come in, make sure I ask her how to pronounce the last name. And I forgot to do that right. Appreciate you coming on. You know, little brief, and I try not to get, I get enough out of your social media, and then obviously, a little the five minutes that we spoke here before getting started, just just to trigger some real thoughts. And I think you have the experience, and obviously, you know, moving from one state to another, I'm really interested in exp. I think I've been looking at some of the top like, go go, Beth key, I've had Ricky carruthon, some real top producers and all, they're all with exp. And the question I think a lot of agents would be asking is, why?

Christina Swyers  1:50  
Oh, why? Well, I mean, I'm going in. This is my ninth year at exp. I've been licensed 11. So the majority of my career has been spent at this brokerage. And that's kind of an anomaly. As you know, in the industry, people seem to to not get it right. It takes a couple times. It's third time charm for me here, I started at a big box, went to an independent and then ended up at a cloud company, and I didn't want to do it. My husband made me,

Tracy Hayes  2:19  
well, as you told me earlier, he made you get into real estate

Unknown Speaker  2:23  
too, a lot of things. We're complete opposites. He's an engineer, he's a tech and so he lives in the future. And so when he saw this model, he knew that this was going to be something before it was, I was actually, I think, the 12th agent in my market, initially in St Louis, when I started, no one had even heard about exp, right? So people were like, exp, what is? What does that even mean? Was exp stand for, just so you know, the founder, Glenn Sanford, says that exp stands for the prefix to real estate. If you ask him what it means, that's what

Tracy Hayes  2:56  
I'll tell you, prefix to real estate, whatever. Okay,

Christina Swyers  3:00  
and he's a brilliant mind. He truly is a brilliant mind, and has created something that has fundamentally changed the business. And so when I thought, Where do I want to hang my license, two things resonated with me. One was His mission for the company, which was he wanted to make it financially irresponsible for a real estate agent to hang their license at any other brokerage. I think he's attained that. He's in a 16th year business, and they're doing really well. And the second part was, I wanted to work with a company that was going to fundamentally change the industry and do something different, because I'm different. Well, every agent is different. Well, we all say that we're different, but are we?

Tracy Hayes  3:41  
Well, I have to say I'm in the midst of writing, writing the book on everyone that I've had, not that, not that every single person is going to be in there. I'm going to try to get a quote from everybody in somewhere in the series. But I think what's one thing great about real estate is each one of you is different. How you do business, like you mentioned earlier, you you're self employed, and how you do it, and how another Gail DeMarco, who's with the XB, how she does it, is, I wouldn't say, completely different. I'm not sure you overlap quite a bit, but there's a few things in there that that you

Christina Swyers  4:19  
absolutely, I mean, I would definitely say that we all kind of have our own way. There's more than one way. I was telling my agents this the other day, there's more than one way to get to the goal. It doesn't make it right or wrong. It's just your way. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's if your goal at the end of the day is complete and it's making you happy and that's what you want to do. Does it really matter how you got there?

Tracy Hayes  4:44  
Yeah, great, exactly. I mean, as long as you didn't kill anybody, or, you know, do anything like that, it's all good. Well, hopefully some stress in there, so people had some heart attacks or strokes, but you know that. Life there, but you bring up, so I always say I should have been a psychology major. And I think, you know, as we were talking, you just as we got started, one of the important things I was like talking is what brokerage. But I also think just to kind of step ahead of that, also that I think a lot of agents need to discover what, how they need to do the business. You know, some of them come in so raw, they they don't know, or they just have that corporate mindset. They're going to show up at nine o'clock, you know, even if they put that, you know, full nine to five work day in. But they, you know, they're given an assignment where you show up and it's like, well, what do you want to do? Do you want to prospect? Do you want to go network? I mean, whatever that makes up your day, that's your choice to do. No one's looking over you. There's a lot of people to suggest. But have you found which obviously your success and you got a small team going? You found some steps that work for you in the discovery process.

Christina Swyers  6:04  
Yeah, I will say that you learn very little in real estate school. It does not prepare you for this business whatsoever. You learn the basics of how not to end up in jail, and that's about it. When to renew your license. When you renew your license, how many square feet are in whatever that is, that on a shirt or a hat, yeah. But you, you get what I'm saying. I mean, like, I learned very little on how to learn, what to do in this business, and that's the problem. Like, people want to learn so much, and there's so much information out there already, but you just have to go act. You have to take action. And the separation between people that are successful in this business and people that fail are the amount of times that you're willing to go do something without somebody telling you to go do something right, meaning you have something inherently inside of you that just says, I'm going to go try this. I'm scared out of my mind. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm willing to go fail if I need to in the process to learn what it needs to be done to make it a success. And that is really all that we are doing here in this business. You know, the tops 10% do 90% of the business. They earn 90% of the profits in real estate because they are willing to do with an other 10. You know, the other 90% won't do. They are willing to go look stupid, willing to fail, speak their mind, be authentic, and fall flat on their face until they figure it out and they just don't give up?

Tracy Hayes  7:29  
Yeah, you make a great point. If you listen any personal development books. I mean, think about it. Or just think about some successful people that we we know, and I reel comes up to me. Kim Perez. She's on LinkedIn all the time. If you follow her, I would highly suggest it entrepreneur. She was actually just doing a reel where she's she was speaking somewhere and talking about how she's failed more than actually she succeeded. And was like, Uh, I can't think of the name anyway. The bottom line is this, you you're saying. And now, can you lessen your failures by collaborating with other agents? Maybe not fail. You know, they tell you, Hey, this is what I did and I failed. Well, maybe you might do it differently and succeed. You know that that's something, but you have to fail forward in this business, you know, to be successful.

Christina Swyers  8:28  
Yeah, your network is so vital. It's the number one thing that I think that people, they don't look for, they look for, I'm going to find this brokerage because of X, Y and Z, reason because this is what somebody told me, what they're failing is it's not so much the broker, just the people that you're surrounding yourself with at the brokerage. It's the network of people. I mean, they always tell you your net worth is going to be who your network is, and that's true, and that's not just like your net worth financially. It's the information, the knowledge, the wisdom, the discernment, that you are literally going to skip light years in front of someone else. You're buying time when you are introducing yourself in certain circles. And all I've done is paid my dues to get into the right circles at the brokerage and the right events, to get in the rooms where I'm the dumbest, the brokeest person and who can I learn from and just absorb and just be a sponge. That's really what I've done and what I would suggest most agents do, but they won't do it because they think that they have to do things in a clockwork fashion. This isn't a corporate nine to five. There isn't a playbook that's going to make you successful the same way that someone else is. Two people can literally do the same exact job and have the different results. Why? Because we're different people. I don't compare myself with anyone in this industry at all. I never have. I have put my head down and and I do what works for me, and I don't focus on what other people are doing, and that has really served me well, and what I would suggest most people do, because so many people are going to give you four. Feedback, information and advice. But really, at the end of the day, you have to look inward and find that, that wisdom, discernment, that inherent gift, whatever that voice is speaking to you, telling you to do things you can't just listen to what everyone else is saying and go that path. You really have to being an entrepreneur and being in real estate. A lot of it is you don't know what the next step is. You just have to try and, like you said, failing more often than not. That's what's going to get you to your goal. It's really just not giving up. Yeah, and so that network of people that have done that, if you're surrounding yourself with people that have ran that play for years and years and years and years and years, I can't imagine the amount of time that's going to buy back. I mean, isn't that why people why people go into this and they're like, I don't know what to do. I'm going to hire a coach, right? They think the coach is going to fast track them to get the result they want. And some of that is true. But now you know, we're in this age of the internet, the age of AI, where we don't lack information anymore. The information is there. You could literally go to chat GPT or grok or one of these AI platforms and get everything you needed to know that a real estate coach will tell you what people are missing is discernment. They're missing leadership, and they're missing the network of people surrounding themselves that have those qualities

Tracy Hayes  11:18  
very well. Said you have there was, I got to cut that whole thing out right there. But you're so, you're so, right. I think a lot of agents get in and they want to, you know, they're new, so they want to hang out with a bunch of new people. Well, you know, and I've seen, and I have talked to, I know there was, there's a very large brokerage here in town, and that, I that, I, you know, seen them open an office, and I just seen how they work. Just being close to them and the new people want to, like, join their, you know, create their own little group. It's like none of you know anything. What are you going to get from each other, other than leaning at each Oh, hey, let's make some calls today. But are you? Is the person sitting next to you hearing your call and then critiquing it afterwards and say, Well, you could have said this. Could have said that you need someone. You need to hang around the five other people that are above you and be the sixth person or the fifth person, the four people, whatever that number is, which we are told time in and time out with personal development. I mean, every single one, from Tony Robbins on down. You think about all of them say that same thing. Go into that room, which it sounds like from you. You realize this in early in your career, you found this group.

Christina Swyers  12:31  
Yeah, I did. So coming into exp, I really went all in. I believed in the model it was proved to me, you know, when I especially like building an organization which is a completely different side of real estate, the amount of leadership that I the skill set that I have grown into over the last nine years at this company, is only because I've accidentally, I call myself an accidental leader, but getting in those rooms, making myself go to the company events, the company events at exp, I would say, being in this industry for over a decade now, I've been to so many different real estate events, and a lot of them tend to run the same play. They run the same way. I feel like our events are what sets us apart. And it's hard if you if you're not on this side. But like you said, there's so many powerhouses at this company there, they know something that other people don't, and it's the network of people. It's the way exp does the events. It's the type of real estate entrepreneur that are in those mind, the mindset of them on the stages. And they're people that are not just in real estate. They are other entrepreneurs. They are in other businesses. They're investors like it's a very different dichotomy of mindset of realtor at exp that I have seen compared to other companies.

Tracy Hayes  13:52  
You as we were talking pre show, what you were doing before real estate and, you know, being involved in the medical field for quite a long time. You know, you said you did some, you know, medical sales and so forth. So they're having their conferences, and they're trying to educate you on, on a higher level, what did you, you know, having, you know, some background and taste of, you know, totally different industries doing this. And then give us, give us an example, just something that just when you went to an exp event, to highlight what you just said, what was it? What was the difference? What were they doing there? That was different, that an agent getting in the business right now, or thinking about changing brokerages, and I say, hey, I need to call Christina and talk about exp, because that's the place. What was it? Give us an example, one of those times where you were there and you're just like, wow, yeah,

Christina Swyers  14:45  
I definitely it's the way the events are laid out, like they really don't spare any expense. First of all, everything is Agent centric. Everything is focused around the agent the whole premise of the company is Agent centricity. So. So without the agent, they don't have a business, and they know that, and they they, they do a really good job of listening to us, taking our feedback, and then making changes. The company has always done that ran that play. Their NPS scores are always really high because they listen to realtors. And I feel like realtors, they go to these events and they want to be wooed and they want to be wowed, but I will say exp is never spared expense. Even the the CEO himself has thrown private parties and paid for things for us. And not that that's all, but honestly, in the way that the economy has been the last five years, I would say that they, they have stepped on the gas with things. Instead of pulling back or closing a lot of brokers, just like canceled conferences, they spare no expense. They really want to roll the red carpet out for the realtor, because they know without us, they don't have a business, and it really is true at our events. And now, you know, they're close to 90,000 agents in 27 countries. They have such a global brand. It's grown. I mean, you're talking when I started with this company, they didn't even have, I think there was 4700 agents. We were only in 48 states, and I think like five Canadian provinces at the time. Now we're in 27 countries. By the end of this year, we'll be in 30 and 90,000 agents. So I've seen an evolution of this, and they've kept up with it on a global scale. So now our events have gone from local agents to statewide, to nationwide, to now global. So now I'm in rooms with you know, the broker in the UK, the broker of France, Dubai, like I'm hearing this rhetoric from all different types of Agents around the world, it really makes something different. So you have excellence in real estate with the top of the top. We're wooed and wide at our events, you know, from everything from luxury to whatever they're doing at the events, and then they're getting, like, really great motivational speakers, just getting us in the room. Our referral network is unmatched, and that would be the number one reason I started going to the events was to build my referral network. I have a very strong referral network at the company, but I've taught agents to do that. I'm like, when you get in rooms and you make those personal connections, you've taken your cloud brokerage that's online and now taking it offline in person. So you've really just rinsed and repeated that process. And I've done that over the last nine years at all the events, and really had collected my rolodex. I'm going to age myself a book of business, right? Of agents, and now when they think of real estate, I want them to think of me the same way, like moving here, I wanted them to think of me Florida, right? Like restarting my whole business from scratch in the market that we've had was kind of wild, but I knew that. I knew what to do, because I have that network, and that's what most people are missing. They don't have that network. And exp has really built something special.

Tracy Hayes  17:52  
Well, I think one of the challenges in corporate America between a great Corporation and so, so that the so, so, you know, they have money. The great corporations are, you know, I use, I use the wartime analogy, the real estate agents or the loan officers. We're carrying the rifles word out there in the battle every day. And if, without us, you don't need underwriters. You don't need that. You don't need processors. It's the whole ecosystem of the of the company support. You don't need trainers and all that kind of stuff. If the real estate agents aren't doing the business. So you've got to focus right down there to the point of the sword to make it happen. It sounds like when you go to these they're really talking to you. What can we help you every day, when you're presenting, or you're, you know, writing a contract, or just your processes and things that you guys have to do, the research you have to do on properties to present them properly, they're helping you try to make that bigger, better, faster every day.

Christina Swyers  18:56  
Yeah, absolutely. The company has always been very forward. Think, you know, thought process on that they live in the future. Glenn, for sure, does when he created this model. But what they've done really well is they're very agile. I will take, like the pandemic as a very good example. You know, the whole world shut down, we stepped on the gas, literally. Then that week when the world shut down, they were in our cloud office, where we still met, our office weren't wasn't closed, right? And they showed us, well, it's a cloud, exactly what to do. They showed us how to do a zoom consultation for buyers and sellers. They helped us set that whole, that whole thing up, because before then, most people weren't doing that. That was kind of a rare thing. Unless you were a relocation, you weren't doing that, but everyone was forced to do that because you couldn't be in person. And then they literally showed us how to apply for the PPP, the idol, like all these things, if we were essential worker, if we were a non essential worker, because they were in every MLS across the country. So they literally helped us step on the gas. And so when a company is proactive versus reactive, they're going to gain way. More market share. I had friends at Big Box companies that couldn't go into an office, and they were paying for an office that they couldn't use, and here I am at my cloud office, not missing a beat. Having the best year of my collection seems like value even got better. 21 is was the still the best year of my career, right? I was never home. Asked my husband he was Mr. Mom that summer, because I was out selling real estate because I was just so supported by my brokerage that really solidified I'd been, you know, in the company for a couple years at that point, but really wowed me. And I'm like, this is where every agent needs to be. It's irresponsible for them not to work at a company like this. People need to be careful about where they're spending their money. And I still cannot believe it's only $85 a month. I mean, he's come out and said, I'm never going to change the price, because I don't need to, because this is a business in a box for realtors, and the company is essentially no debt, right? So he's done it the right way. He's agile, and he's always thinking about the future and where we're

Tracy Hayes  21:00  
going now. Would you say that? Obviously, you're well, bought into anyone listening right now says she loves exp. For sure. Is it for everybody? Is exp for everybody?

Christina Swyers  21:10  
I wouldn't say it's for everybody. I would say it's for the that business minded entrepreneur that really wants to sell real estate and do it really well. They want they're like that person that gets up every day, and they live out that personal and professional excellence. They want to be the best, they want to sell the most, they want to make the most impact. So it's not about making the most money, it's about the impact. At the end of the day, I asked my top five leaders and my organization at the company, like, if you could describe yourself in one word? What would it be? Most of the words were, you know, things that, yes, like, obviously, like, you're the best. But it's, it's things where your your qualities of the people that you are trying to attract, and what the impact you're trying to make is really what's the most important? And I just, I think this company isn't for everyone, because everybody needs a good fit, but it's, it's going to be dependent on the people that you're partnering with, right? Because you get a very different experience partnering with me versus partnering with somebody else. And I have a lot of people over the years are like, they'll come back to me and they're like, I really should have listened to you, you know? And I'm like, Well, you know, I told you, so there's always tomorrow, come back and whatever,

Tracy Hayes  22:28  
let's, let's, we always, as I mentioned earlier, I want to help some agents out there. Someone's getting in the business right now, or maybe they're at a brokerage where they're not as, anywhere near as excited as you are at exp, and they're what are some things they need to evaluate and really get down to the I call it rubber meets the road and their evaluation. But would you agree the first thing they need to do is evaluate themselves before they can go and evaluate the brokerage to find what brokerage they're actually going to match with?

Christina Swyers  23:02  
Yeah, I would say, you know, most people they look at, like, for instance, like the very first brokerage I was that was at Berkshire Hathaway, and people were like, how did you choose that? I was like, well, Warren Buffett, everything he touches turns to gold, right? Like, I thought that that's where it was. But getting into it the first eight months, I realized I wasn't a good fit for that office. I kind of stuck out like a sore thumb, and the brokerage was like, door knock, cold call, and I was like, I'm gonna go start a Facebook business page and do video before it was a thing. And that's where I got my first three clients from. So I was able to break out of the norm and do something different. And that was that's okay, like that time served me. But then I learned and moved on. I didn't just stay there. Right? So most people need to, they'll know really quickly if a place is for them. So if you are resonating with people and you're you're learning things, but you're not having success, you need to look at that, right? You can only take so many training classes at your brokerage or coaching programs before you actually have to go out and sell real estate. So after even doing this for a couple months, if you haven't sold a house in the first three to six months, you need to really re evaluate quickly. The most successful people in this business take inventory, and they make a change quickly. They do not mull over the decisions. They see what's working and they they redirect themselves if they need to, if something isn't working, what do they say? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results, right? If you're not going to get those results, obviously, when you're new, it's going to take time. But if you go on and it's been a year and you haven't sold a house, something is wrong, something is wrong. And that could be you and you need to really reevaluate yourself, or it could be, you know, a combination of the people that you're surrounding yourself with. It could be the brokerage, the broker, the agents, and who you're taking that information from.

Tracy Hayes  24:47  
Let's say there's someone on the on listening to this, whether it's tomorrow or, you know, two years from now, that's, I mean, there's always somebody who's just getting into real estate, or, like I said, they're, they're in that three to six months. And. What? What are some things they need to be asking themselves, what's going on? Obviously, didn't make the command decision that I need to find another pasture, another brokerage to go to. Yeah.

Christina Swyers  25:13  
Well, I would say some of the things that you really need to look at are,

Christina Swyers  25:19  
am I making the connections with people? Like, Am I growing my network, and am I able to make an impact and help other like, the whole point of this is to help other people and make make a living doing it right. That's that's what we're looking at. You really need to look at figure out who you want to work with. You need to do what I call a client avatar, a niche down. What does your ideal client look like, where are they every day? Where are they shopping? What kind of car do they drive? Where are they buying homes like? You need to really understand people. You know, the psychology of this business is so important. And I always tell people, the reasons a lot of realtors don't find success is because they're dealing with something personal that is transpiring into their business life. And if you really want to be successful in this business, you will do an immense amount of personal development on yourself, and that could be meaning you need a therapist, and you need to work through some stuff before. Because if your life is in shambles, I guarantee your businesses too. Very rarely do I meet people that have success in both that are not aligned in both areas, because it just our mindsets have to be right. So make take that mental note, like, are you in the right mindset, set and the right headspace with where where you want to go and what you want to do? And then have a plan, you know, lay it out. How do you want to run your business? What are the things that are non negotiables for you? Do you know that you don't want to cold call and door knock? If those are things that you know you don't want to do, what are you going to do? If you're not going to do those things, what are you going to do to get business? Because you have to do something. Everybody has to do something. Now you can also evolve. Just because you've done something one way doesn't mean you can't go over here and do it, but you have to have some proof. You have to have some

Tracy Hayes  26:58  
there's a lot. There's a layer of confidence in their

Christina Swyers  27:00  
confidence, and you get that by what do you gain confidence by keeping keeping promises to yourself and doing the things that you say you're going to do to yourself. And that could be okay. I'm going to sell X amount of houses this year. I have this goal. Am I going to hit that goal? Maybe, maybe not, but I'm going to try like hell to do it, you know? And so keeping those promises to yourself and realizing the reason why you even are doing this this business is very rare to find people that stay in you know, what do they say? There's an 87% failure rate in the first five years. That's because there are unrealistic expectations, and people aren't doing things that they need to do, the unsexy day to day tasks that are boring and monotonous that they don't want to do every day. But you have to figure out. Choose your hard, right? It's hard being broke. It's hard. Choose your heart. You figure it out, right?

Tracy Hayes  27:52  
It sounds, it sounds like you, obviously you. Way you're describing exp is they put a lot of time and energy into being out in front of the agents. In other words, adding value, which, I think any brokerage, if you go right down to just whether it's a boutique brokerage or one of the box the big, you know, the big name brokerages, Berkshire, Hathaway, etc, that broker in that office needs to, if they're any good, needs to stay in front of the agents every day. You know, adding some sort of value. There's some, there are some brokerages here in town that Well, you could tell the difference, one a their retention is high because the agents are getting value every day. But sometimes it may not be you. You might be following that good leader and thriving in that culture that they created. But as time goes on, they lose steam, and you have to come to a conclusion, maybe I've been here five or six years, I'm doing good, but I've noticed, you know, I'm not getting that same Mojo that I've gotten before, and if that really makes your your business, you know makes you click, is finding someone that's going to be that daily coach that whether it's kicking you in the butt or just motivating you wherever it is, you might have to go somewhere else.

Christina Swyers  29:14  
Yeah, I think agents need to evaluate. I mean, I'm always evaluating. I mean, I love this company, but I always tell people, show me something better. Yeah, if and recruit me. I love it. I love it. When you know people call me and they're like, Hey, want to tell you about ABC brokerage. I'm like, do it. I let them do the pitch. Because I'm like, Okay, let's see. I will never be so close minded that I will not want to know another opportunity. If I was that way, I would never have been at exp, right, right. So just keep an open mind and really understand that you, the brokerage is in business because of you, the brokerage isn't going to make money unless you are selling homes, and so that is coming somewhere, and it just depends on how they're dividing. The profits back up to you, the one thing that I love about this company. Is the fact that they are willing to share a piece of the pie instead of take it all. And I think that that has truly been a balance of I'm able to sell, I'm productive, I make a decent split or cap or whatever that is on what I'm making, but I have other opportunities to earn that back or to make money. And so the diversification at this company of how you can profit is one way that they attract top talent and keep them the first agent that I attracted into this brokerage nine years ago is still with me. The tenure is so high in my organization, and it's because I'm constantly giving value, but I'm also like helping them Wade those waters where they're like, I've been here for eight or nine years. Is there something better? I don't know. We'll go back. Let's do that evaluation. Is there? What else are you looking at? Let's talk about that. Let's see what that looks like. And I've had agents leave, I've had agents come back, but the majority of them stay, because there isn't really anything else like this model out there. It is so unique. I mean, they said almost 100 companies have tried to rip off and duplicate what they've done, and some have been successful. There have been some that have, but they're still the OG, they're the goat, they're the one that started it. And so if I'm looking at a brokerage and I'm like, going to make a move, it's not going to be a lateral move to me. It's going to be something that's going to fundamentally change my business and help me make more money, right? And so when I'm looking at company like, exp, I'm like, okay, they're the Google, they're not the Yahoo. They're doing it well. They're running the play better than any other cloud office is. And that that can't be denied. I mean, our footprint is massive, and it's because of the leadership. It's because of the way that the company has ran it, and it's because of how they started it. They haven't lost sight of the goal.

Tracy Hayes  31:47  
I think it was you who was around Yahoo. Yahoo was around before Google. I think, yeah, okay, that, but that's good analogy. You may think about that for me. All right, let's, let's dig in. Let's dig. Let's dig in the Christina in in her business? I don't know any, so I'm just gonna ask some exploratory questions to get out of you, and you can lead it. And then we'll we'll go deep. So whoever's listening, hopefully can pick up a nugget or two. What would you say? There's one thing that you need to do consistently in your business. You may have been doing it from the beginning, or it's evolved. Maybe you've picked it up at exp, con, like, oh my god, I gotta start doing but right now that you're you have to do religiously consistently, whether it's daily weekly, it's very important that it's part of your business, cornerstone.

Christina Swyers  32:38  
Meet new people. It's really that simple. It's stupid simple, right? It's simple. Isn't easy, though, for a lot of people, I mean literally, moving here, 1000 miles from my hometown, not knowing a single soul, I knew exactly what to do, and the first thing I knew to do was I need to make friends and meet people, because without people, we don't have a business every single day. That's on my radar. It's either a coffee, a lunch, a networking event, a broker open, whatever it is, and that's clients and realtors. I am constantly putting myself in uncomfortable positions to go meet new people. And that could be I'm in downtown St, Augustine and st, upstairs at the bar people watching, because there's people from all over the world. And I think Realtors get so stuck, and they're like, nobody wants to move here. Do you know that I run a business where I could literally refer you to France or Dubai? Don't get so stuck in your head that you think real estate is so local, it can be really anywhere. That's another reason I love this company. But just you need people, and so we've constantly have to be reminded of without people, we don't have a business, and that needs to be reciprocated every single day, and processed and and you need to go find new people.

Tracy Hayes  33:50  
What was interesting is I was I use AI, I use chat. GBT knows my show very well. Everything's loaded up into it. All your BIOS were loaded into and I said, Help me That intro was created by AI, and one of the questions I was had it create, just, just interesting, creative, impactful, you know, unique questions about you, but about real estate and so forth. And I gotta find it here. My thing, one of it, one of it was relocating. To a new area, which you did back in 2017 right? Well, the 2017 you start with the XP. You moved here in a year and a half ago, year and a half ago. So what advice would you give someone, and I think this could go for a new agent. Who may you, know, I think you would agree. You may think you have a large fear sphere of influence, and you're like, Oh, I know a lot of people. They're but not. They won't necessarily jump in and start doing business with you right away. You know, if you you what you were doing before, they weren't really impressed with or didn't have a high level of credibility, you now need to gain that credibility. You may know them so. So you almost got to treat them just as lukewarm. Now you got to actually meet them and actually, you know, get them to know you what kind of business you're going to deliver. So just to put kind of put that out there. So just those type of people might be listening to this, but you move into a new area, you said you need to meet people. How can you get your business up and running? You already experienced real estate agents, so you don't have to learn more about that necessarily. How do you get your business going in 30 days into in a new area?

Christina Swyers  35:27  
Absolutely make sure that you have those connections and the network of people to tap into. I knew exactly what to do here and knew who the people I needed to meet with to help me thrive in my business. First of all, secondly, social media is incredible. I've built a great big business using it, and I have really dominated in my stories and getting people to understand that you need to know where your feeder markets are. You know, coming from Missouri, that's a feeder market to Florida. Most people will move here. They will either eventually retire here, buy a second home, a vacation property. And so you're painting a lifestyle, right? And so I just early on, knew exactly what I needed to do. And everybody back in Missouri is like, oh, man, you make me want to move here. So whenever they think of Florida, they're thinking of me, whether that could be for themselves or for somebody that they know. But I have built such a massive referral network and realtor network over my platforms, that when I moved here, people knew to tap into me. They knew to tag me in the groups for Florida, and I just running that play like I did in St Louis over here. So meeting the right people the network and then also tapping into my brokerage resources. Exp does a really good job with the revenues program to help you kind of get started. They have some really big partnerships with some big banks and different institutions to help you kind of get leads going if you need to tap into that. I never really used it in St Louis, because I'm from St Louis, so I had a sphere of influence there. I didn't really need that. But moving somewhere where I didn't know anyone, I needed the diversification. So just being smart about that. I've never been that Zillow agent. I've never been that agent is going to go blow a bunch of money because I'm like, I feel like I can do this organically through who I am. I really believe that everybody that I come across there's a reason why that person is talking to me, meeting with me, or is sent to me. And so I have built a massive referral business from realtors and from clients, and that just kind of just keeps coming back. There's nothing better than working with a client that's been referred to you, oh yeah, for sure, like you just it cuts the fat out of so much that you're dealing with when you don't know

Tracy Hayes  37:37  
a lead, you can focus really on what you love to do, which is helping them find their place versus selling them and making sure they like you, they already have. The credibility piece is already there for the most part.

Christina Swyers  37:48  
So I would tell a realtor to make sure that you know how to do that really, really well, and then just go take that if you're going to move, people move all the time. We have military that constantly get relocated and move like people are always moving. And so was I scared. Of course, I wanted to make sure that this was going to work.

Tracy Hayes  38:06  
Give us a just a couple real nuggets. There you have. You have over 12,000 followers on Instagram. Is that kind of your main, main place?

Christina Swyers  38:17  
I would say Instagram. But also Facebook. You know, they're two very different platforms, a very different I would say, more clients follow me on Facebook, and more Realtors follow me on Instagram.

Tracy Hayes  38:27  
Okay, how are you doing that? Obviously, you're, you know, the word is top of mind. You've that's one of the main if you're marketing for real estate agents, one of the first two things has got to be staying top of mind of all the people you already know, right? What are some of the things that you like to do to keep that Referral Engine humming?

Christina Swyers  38:50  
Yeah, I love to do video and I love to get in front of people, because that's really what is going when they're scrolling on an app. That's what they're going to see. You've got to gain their attention and traction. So one of the things I did here was hire a really good videographer to do some community spotlights on different businesses, different restaurants. You know, one video I did, I think it has over 40,000 views for the restaurants and on Tiktok I haven't even posted on probably 25 times like that, one's doing really well, but so that's kind of unexpected, because I usually don't do a whole lot of Tiktok, but just depends on the platform. But I've gotten, like, a couple pre approved buyers from that, just from that one Tiktok, but I repurpose that content over all the platforms. That always does differently depending on where it is. But the whole point is that you're partnering with the business, and then when you do that, they you collaborate with them on on the reason they've got a circle that they were following, whole circle that they're bringing in. And then now, not only are you collaborating with that business, of course, they're going to say yes. Now their whole following is seeing your stuff. They get retargeted. If you if you have a listing or something that comes out, they're going to see it. Now. Allow or follow you, but then also, like they're inviting you to influencer events. You know they're in your DMS because they see that you have a platform and that's free advertising for them, but that is exactly what I would do. All right, so

Tracy Hayes  40:15  
this is not anything you know, totally unique. Very few execute on it correct? You said you got a couple of potential buyers from because he's not posting on Tiktok that much. But anyway, are they messaging you through Tiktok, or are you putting your information and they're actually going, Oh, who is this? And then opening it up and seeing the caption and going, Oh, that's Christina. I need to that's her email or whatever.

Christina Swyers  40:40  
Yeah, they're just messaging me out right, right? I'm coming to St Augustine. Where do I need to go for this and starting up a conversation? Or, Oh, I'm relocating to Northeast Florida, and I see that you also homeschool your kids. Can you tell me, like, some of the best co ops I've had that I had a great family, I just relocated here over the summer that did that same thing. So those are my client avatars. But then also, like on one of my listing reels I have right now going in Arlington, the guy was like, I like this area. I don't know if this is the right house, but I'm looking in this area. That's sparking the conversation to go, Okay, have you been pre approved? No, let me get you over to my lender, right? So they're messaging me. I'm not running ads. I'm not doing anything. It just sparks the conversation with people, how you take it and what you say to them is what the outcome is going to be, right? You have to know exactly what to say to them,

Tracy Hayes  41:27  
how you like I said you got a nice following there on Instagram. How important is it to engage, to obviously be commenting on other people's posts and so forth, to get, you know, they say one of the, one of the tricks to Instagram is, you know, you you need to be commenting on other people's posts to get to get them to push your post out further. Is that necessarily true?

Christina Swyers  41:52  
It used to be true. I don't know. Like the algorithm has a mind of its own. Sometimes even they're always tweaking it. I think even doing all the right things, sometimes you get stuff, some of the stuff that I post will get, like, very low. They think it will do really well and doesn't. And the and the reverse is the case, right? I think where most people will shine is in the DMS, like getting in and showing that day to day, and your stories being real, humanizing you in a way that others can't. Like, I'm really big. I try not to use filters. Like, I want people to know that I look like this on here, but I also look like this in real life. I don't know you can tell me I look like, yeah, I would Yeah. Like, that's really important to me. When I meet someone that they know that I'm the same person that they're seeing there. Yeah, so important. And so that strikes up conversations with people, but you really shine in the DMS with people like really that messaging back and forth and building those relationships with your tried and true followers is important. And then you have other people that are the lucky lose the lurkers that watch all your stories but never comment, never post, never say anything to you. You're always going to have that. Yeah.

Tracy Hayes  42:58  
I mean, well, it is entertainment for the most part, because

Christina Swyers  43:03  
it doesn't matter. I'm gonna I'm gonna do what I need to do every day, regardless.

Tracy Hayes  43:07  
All right, what would you say to get into the nuts and bolts of real estate? Well, let me just start off with this. Why do you love real estate?

Christina Swyers  43:16  
I love real estate because it allows me to do things my way. It's just the vehicle, right? I never knew why jobs didn't work out for me in my 20s, and I it just kept hitting brick walls, and I wasn't fulfilled. And I just I could make a lot of money doing something, but then I just, at the end of the day, didn't like being controlled, as crazy as that sounds, but I just wanted to work at a job where it was like if I was five minutes five minutes late, somebody wasn't going to go, you're fired. And that sounds crazy, but listen like this is my life, and I want to run things the way I want to do it, and so real estate has really given me the vehicle to do that. I love sales, but also selling a home, you're literally helping someone where they're going to make all of the memories over their entire life, it's usually the most expensive purchase they're ever going to make. And so I have a piece of that, and it can be a take part in that that's pretty freaking cool, like, I'm not going to lie, but also, like that, it's not going anywhere. Real Estate will always be because people will always need a place to lay their head, and they will always need a home. So it's just, it just made sense.

Tracy Hayes  44:27  
Patty, catch him. Most said is, everyone wants a roof over their head,

Christina Swyers  44:33  
hut, or, you know, an RV like you got to have roof over your head, right? I mean, I just think we have such an important job. It's the number one driver of GDP in this country that people just don't think about, and it's not going anywhere. And so our job is so important, and we need to do it really, really well. There's a lot of realtors that don't do this job very well. Don't really sell a whole lot. And, you know, last year, they said over 70% of Realtors didn't even sell a single. House. You know, how can I move here and have success in a year? And it's because I care. It's because I have a mission. I want to make an impact. And truly, it's using my gifts and talents to help other people. And that's to me, it's just like God given. It's God led.

Tracy Hayes  45:16  
What would you say is your? I'm going to use this phrase that a lot of people, what's your what's your jam? What is it? What part of real estate do you find? Is it negotiation, showing the how, what is, what part of the many parts that you do that you feel is like one you love doing it, and you're really good

Christina Swyers  45:38  
at it. Oh, the art of the deal. And just the project manager. Project management of it, people don't realize without, like you said earlier, without us, nobody gets paid. We are literally managing every single part and every single person in the deal, because if they aren't doing their job, we can't do ours and fulfill so nobody gets the house. Nobody makes the money. Nobody sells the deal, whatever that is. I love the negotiating part of it. I love that no two days are ever alike. I was just talking to a realtor yesterday about this, how you could literally be doing this job for a decade and tomorrow come across something that you don't have the answer to, or you don't know what to do, or a scenario that you never have done before, or your broker is like, Oh, I don't know. That's never happened before, right? Let's figure out how to problem solve. I'm really good at solving people's problems, and I realized you've got to fall in love with the challenge of it all, the day to day of it all. If you don't love the day to day, you will not find success in this. Like that is, that is the key. Like, you've got to fall in love with the day to day of this. And this is a challenge of it, and being a good problem solver we make. The level of the money that we make in this business is commensurate to the level of problems we're able to solve. For people, yeah, the harder problems we're able to solve, the more money we'll be able to make. Yeah. And so I just love that. I love the challenge of it. I love not having a ceiling to my income. I love shattering those glass ceilings, or whatever you call those goals, like, you know, being able to, like, really, just wow myself, because I come from humble beginnings. I didn't come from that. I would say I'm probably like, the black sheep of my family. I've always went my own way and done my own thing and learned a lot of hard lessons in life and real estate is just so suiting like it just

Tracy Hayes  47:27  
says, Alright, let's, let's give, let's give some, some color to your favorite Tim. How do you I think this is a good teaching moment for because I think negotiation I've been hearing pretty much here regularly from everyone that comes in just a recent situation where they had the real agent on the other end, is like almost battling with them versus trying to collaborate and find a win win for the buyer and seller, that kind of thing. When you have what your experience, you're like, oh, this inspection report came back bad, whatever. This is going to be a tough negotiation, but you're excited, because you like to make you you're you get a high off the success of the negotiation, so you're excited about taking it on. But what is your mindset? What are some of the things that we can give a scenario, if you think of recently, maybe I would imagine the first big one is always, you know, the bad inspection report. Now we've got to figure out, how do we move these parts? What's your How do you prepare yourself? What are some of the first things you do when you, you know, get that, that news, and then how you're going to react and communicate in on that negotiation.

Christina Swyers  48:44  
The first thing I do is I don't do anything. I sit and process what I'm dealing with. You know, working with some really good inspectors over the years, I look at the meat and potatoes of that report, right? Especially if we're running, like, on an as a sale, or somebody's like, don't ask for anything. And then you come back and

Tracy Hayes  49:02  
you ask for all the I never understood that contract because I'm like, who actually moron?

Christina Swyers  49:10  
You know, that doesn't mean they can't ask for it, right? We're just doing what our clients are asking of us. And so I think you've got to find a fine line in between managing the other realtor and their personality, and knowing, like, what your clients are willing to do, and you have that conversation with

Tracy Hayes  49:29  
your client, and the unknown is this, yeah, the client that you don't ever talk to, yeah, right? You talk to the agent, but you don't know the other client at all personality.

Christina Swyers  49:35  
You don't know what makes them tick. You don't know what's most important to them, right? And so you need to go back and try to have that relationship with that other agent on the other end and say what's most important to your seller or what's most important to the buyer. Let's work together so we can we both are trying to sell a house here. That's the goal, right? And how do we get there together? You know, my clients usually where I Veer, especially if I get an inspection report. Or and it's just like, highlighted lit up like a Christmas tree. So many bad things. Let's look at health and safety, right? Let's look at the things that are going to make the most impact, the most expensive things, the roof, the the electrical, the plumbing, the sewer, like, those are things that are big, big items, usually expensive items to fix, repair, replace, or health and safety, like, if we're dealing with, like, a mold report or termite like, let's look at the basics, and then all the other things, like a GFCI or a loose handle, like, right? Like, let's put things into perspective. And I help clients put those into buckets, so it's, like, the most important here, or things that I can just throw out, or I could have a handyman do right? So just like, know that you can ask for things that doesn't mean they're going to give you everything you want. And just if you can stick with that, you're more likely to get to the closing table.

Tracy Hayes  50:51  
That's solid advice, putting them in buckets. The more serious the health and safety things, the expensive things, like a roof, breaking them down. So you by the time you get to the third bucket, which is the loose handle, they're like, whatever. I mean, if we can, we can get those other things done. Yeah.

Christina Swyers  51:07  
And what most clients do when they hire me? They're like, why should I hire you? I'm like, because I'm already negotiating those things to happen before you ever even write the offer. I know how to write the offer to get things that you need before we even get to the inspection report. That's what experience gets you in this business. Yes, you know exactly how to write that contract to where something comes up on that report and you're going back on that notice. You've already gotten them closing costs. You've already gotten them something big that was already highlighted, that you saw out of the gate before the report ever even happened. So just there's a lot of prequel to real estate, and a lot of being able to see and identify things on a showing, or going through the MLS and reading the notes, like most Realtors do not pay attention to detail, and I would say that's what sets me apart. Is the high attention to detail, a high level of communication and really being solid with writing offers and understanding that contract, you really need to know that contract. You cannot rely on an attorney just to know the contract. That is part of your job, not not telling you to interpret the law to your client. That's not your job, but your job is to understand this paragraph and be like, what does this mean, and how to explain that to our clients, because they don't know, they really don't know. They're so green with that they're airing on you. They're hiring you to help them through that process.

Tracy Hayes  52:29  
Well, you know, as a lender, when I get the purchase contract, and obviously there's certain areas that I'm looking for, you know, seller concessions, who's paying for this, and that, that sort of thing. And there, there are sections in there, some places almost two thirds of a page where it just looks like a bunch of black ink. And you're like, Okay, what's this saying? Only a Section C, a one is checked, you know, all this other stuff and but, but you're right. The it doesn't take long to get to know it, and I think we haven't talked about it recently, but I know in a lot of earlier my shows, you know, years ago, we talked about, you know, take the contract course from multiple different people teaching it, because they're all going to highlight a different area that they think is important or that they're comfortable talking about. And hopefully, and then you probably want to do it every year and go in and hear the questions from the newer agents that are asking, because those are possible questions your clients are going to have.

Christina Swyers  53:30  
Absolutely. One of the first things I tell an agent, if they're brand new, is you need to have good lender relationships and find out how they work so they can educate you on loans. And you need a great title company, and you need an attorney that's going to going to sit there with you and go through that contract together. So there aren't any, like, red flags that you don't know about, like those are, so Realtors just don't even think about that. They're like, oh, I need to do my head shots, and I need my brand and my signs. Yeah, you need those things, but you need this other stuff more. Yeah, you need this other stuff more because this is, at the end of the day, what's going to make the most impact in your business?

Tracy Hayes  54:03  
Well, I think goes back to that word we used earlier, confidence. Yeah, you I think most people, you know, they education, hopefully gives them confidence because of this. Now they can, they kind of have an idea what's going on. Maybe they could have someone, they can have a conversation with someone who's not in the business, for sure. Now, whether it's the conversation that you would have

Christina Swyers  54:25  
the markets doing, they can answer that question, right? That's the number one thing most people ask, how's the market right?

Tracy Hayes  54:30  
And get some subtle way. So you've got to gain your doing a, you know, headshot, which I've seen some of these ladies, I swear to God, I think they're doing it, like, every three or four months. I see them in front of a camera and they're showing it on Instagram. I'm like, Okay, you haven't aged in three or four months that we noticed the difference. You know, now there are some that have those headshots that are so open because they've walked in here, and I'm like, is that you are? You are? So how is your are you? Are you a real listing heavy agent? Are you blend both? Buyer, I imagine, obviously you work with both. But tell us a little about your business there.

Christina Swyers  55:10  
I've always aired more like listing heavy, like 6040, I do work with a good amount of buyers, but I really like to focus on sellers and listings because list to last. They always say that's how you can procure more business. Like, my job is to get as many listings as I can, stack those listings and sell those listings, and then in weave in between buyers and those, but also bring buyers to the deal, you know, being licensed in another state, where you can do dual agency. I've done a lot of that, and I never had any issues. There are a lot of realtors that it's all in how you do it. So you can literally gain more business and more market share by leveraging listings and you can buyers. You know, your time is just spent differently. So there are a lot of people that get scared, you know, when they get in the business, they're like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to be a listing agent out of the gate. But really, that's where you need to focus yourself.

Tracy Hayes  56:01  
Well, you've only been here a year and a half. How? You know, obviously people who you're listing now have been here longer than you have. Yeah, you know, for most, for most of many ways, should be been in their house longer than you've been here in Florida. How are you gaining their confidence? Well, one, that's one question. But first, what are you doing to get that appointment? What are some of the things that you're doing to say, hey, we need to call Christine and have her and talk to her about something.

Christina Swyers  56:28  
Well, because I have such a referral heavy business, you know, a lot of times my person, the person's referring me, is teeing me up in a way, but also just how I'm talking to people, the questions I'm asking them on the phone. Am I staying in control of the conversation? Am I asking the right open ended questions and then setting an appointment like, literally, this is just a math equation. The data, the more people you connect with, the more phones that ring, the more people that pick up, the more appointments you set, the more clients you're going to get, the more hostage you're going to sell. It's literally, goes back to math, right? So when I when I talk to somebody, and I meet with them in person, it's really important that I have that confidence, because people are buying that that's what you are selling. You are not just selling. I can sell your house. Anybody can sell a house, anybody can stick a sign in the yard. It's you are able to solve their problem, and they are confident you are the right person to do it. Have I done a good job at relaying confidence to the client. At the end of the day, I can say I'm pretty good. I'm very direct with people. I'm high in communication, and I have a No BS attitude about getting things done. I don't make excuses for things. If I feel like something's off with my clients, I make sure to reel them back in along the process, because as you know, sometimes things can take longer to sell in this business, you know, and if inventory is at a certain level, and it's you're on the market for, you know, 5060, 100 days, how do you manage that? It's just a different level of management working with sellers versus buyers. But people are buying the fact that they know that you can eventually solve their problem. And if you've been doing this for a long time, and I, like me, I've sold hundreds and hundreds of homes. Like it doesn't matter where I sold them. I know what I'm doing, and I could, somebody could literally drop me in the middle of Alaska, and I will sell a house.

Tracy Hayes  58:10  
What are so when you you're whether you're meeting with a buyer or seller, it sounds like you want to convey you know you're obviously your your confidence. You have your confidence from your experience, how when you're going in now, I'm sure it's routine to you now, but, and you probably don't even really think about it, but if you were to look back, what are the important things that I have that Christina has been doing to portray or express that confidence in that experience. What? How do you because no one wants someone to go in there and just, well, I've got all these numbers. I've got all, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, some people, obviously, most people probably be impressed. But I think the average consumer is like, they don't necessarily know where to stick that on the wall because they're talking to somebody. A couple of weeks ago, I sold $20 million last year. What average person doesn't is that good? Is that bad? We don't know. No, the consumer doesn't know. But how, when you go in there, what are some things that you want to make sure that sometime during that conversation, you're going to take a few moments to get some couple of these points across, and what are those points that you like to get across about you?

Christina Swyers  59:23  
I would say it's less about me and more about them. I listen more than I talk, and I am willing to figure out what is the most important thing for that client by listening and taking taking note. A lot of times, when I go into a listing appointment, sometimes commission doesn't even come up because they know that I'm the right person for the job. And it could be whatever percentage it is, they want to hire me. You again are going back to it's psychological. Do do they want to work with you? Is there a good alignment there? Everything is is your body? Body language, your tonality, how you're dressed, like all of it, are you fitting the bill of who they think that they need in their mind? Because they already have, like a sketch of you, but the data, unless they're like an engineer, semantics, right? Like, your comps don't really mean a whole lot. They only are like a guide really, because sometimes you could have the best comps and then a home not sell, and you're like, oh, I don't know. It's an anomaly. Like, I have no idea. I thought we priced it right. We're in line with square foot. So really, it just goes back to, are they in alignment with you as a person? Are they getting what, what you're putting out? Like, what are you guys? Are you fun? Like, I bring good energy. Like, is that matching? I know that sounds kind of hokey.

Tracy Hayes  1:00:43  
Well, let me, Did it come naturally to you or you've you are very good at, well, I wouldn't say you were failing, but looking back, hey, my last conversation, I need to do this better, and then do this better, and then obviously you got better and better and better at every at bat that you had. Yeah.

Christina Swyers  1:01:01  
I mean, obviously, like, you take what doesn't work and you change it, yeah, you have to go, Okay, what went wrong in that deal? Like, if I had a deal go sideways or it was crazy, because I it's rare that I get that to happen, they just tell the agents, literally every deal is a dumpster fire. And I'm like, Is it you, or is it how is every deal you're doing a dumpster fire, right, right? Are you putting this out into the universe? Like, what's happening here? But like, go back and evaluate. What was it from the gate? What are things that I could have changed? Like, the last deal I did that was not very pleasant, it went back to the lending part for me. Like they weren't given the level of customer service to my client, but we were so far in deep I just had to manage that. Yeah, it was really difficult, and it made me go, I never want to work with this lender again. Isn't that terrible? Like, I don't ever want to say that, because I want to do what's right for my client, and at the time, that was what was right for them. But looking back, I don't think my client will ever use them again either, because of the experience. So it's like, sometimes we just have to take evaluation and then do things different. Don't do the same thing. All right, since I'm

Tracy Hayes  1:02:06  
a lender, I have to ask, yeah, what was it that that was going on there? That was that that customer was upset about?

Christina Swyers  1:02:13  
Yeah, so it was a very big corporate bank. They were not open on nights, weekends, holidays, five o'clock, the phone's off. Oh my gosh, it's my number one pet peeve. And when I knew I was moving here, I was like, I need good local representation. It matters so much. If you are listening to this and you are thinking about buying a house, it matters so much who your lender is using. Rocket Mortgage might get you the right rate, but it might get you the worst experience and mental health of your life, like and I'm not just saying that just because, but you want to use someone local because of reasons like this, where I need to talk to somebody at eight o'clock at night on a Saturday about a deal that's supposed to close Monday, and there's no disclosures that have went out, right? And we know we have a waiting period or whatever that looks like, the communication was very poor. The processor even admitted to me that they were overstaffed, or understood understaffed and overworked, right? And I'm like, Okay, this isn't good. And so that's her load was heavy, and so it may be not have been her fault, but from a corporate standpoint, you just feel like another number. So you feel like another number. And I don't want my clients to feel like that with me, and I don't want my clients to feel like that when they're working with they're working with the lender I'm using, inspector I'm using, or a title company. I don't want them to feel like a number. I want to feel like I care about them, because I do. And I want my team, you know, my lender is part of my team. I want them to feel like they are getting that same cohesive experience, because it does all matter. At the end of the day, this is a very stressful situation. They say buying and selling real estate is one of the most stressful things you'll

Tracy Hayes  1:03:47  
ever do. Little tip for those who were just listening to what Christina just said, If rocket I worked for Quicken Loans the first eight and a half years when they were Quicken Loans, any of those outside lenders give you a rate quote, come to the local lender and say, This is what they've offered me. Can I get your great service and get this great rate? 99% of the time they're going to say, yes, we'll match that, and let's move on right very now. Occasionally you get some pie in the sky quote that they're like, if they're going to deliver that to you, great, because we're going to lose money if we do that, but 99% of the time, and that's and I tell my clients that, I said, Hey, if you want to shop, that's, you know, your prerogative. You're probably going to get phone calls or whatever. Trigger leads are supposed to end in March or whatever. But anyway, you're going to if you want to shop, when you get under contract. Now you can actually get a rate quote and lock it in. You can't do anything when you don't have a property yet. And I could tell you anything because you don't have a property yet. So get your pre approval, get to get the property the day you get the contract. If you feel you need the shop, make those couple of phone calls the. Agent referred you to me for a reason, because they know this. They know I'm going to make them look good, because I'm going to I've delivered good service before. Go get your rate quote, bring it back to me. I can. I am only. I'm a loan officer. I can only give you the best rate that I'm allowed to give you. But that manager over there, they may, they may go at skinny it's like any business, we don't want to be the cheapest guy out there, because we'll be out of business. We've got to hold a margin, but we'll, we'll look at that loan and say, We got to move that just that little bit, okay, we'll take that, whatever that that little bit further. We'll go, we call it going short. We'll go that little extra short. We'll match that. And now you have the best rate, and you have the best lending experience, hopefully,

Christina Swyers  1:05:41  
yeah, well, you know, they say about the cheapest, sometimes not the best.

Tracy Hayes  1:05:44  
Well, they're eventually going to be out of business. All right, I want to jump into these rapid fire here on these, what's the wildest relocation story you've had where everything almost went off the rails?

Christina Swyers  1:05:56  
The wildest relocation story probably my own, I will say, because when I started here, I thought I wanted to build and things that I didn't think about before moving here was, like the taxation, the taxes and like cdds, cdds here, not every community across the country has CDD Fees, like you have big HOAs, big CDD, so you choose, do you want, like, the heavy taxes plus that, or do you want to be in a non HOA? And so I didn't know what. I didn't know. I thought that's what I wanted, until I saw what my payment was going to be on that. And so I would say myself, using myself as an example for a future buyer or person relocating, would be to look at the millage rate and look at the taxes and look at the HOA and CDD, if you're in a plan community, versus

Tracy Hayes  1:06:47  
for your just being in the county is a non Hoa, you know, area, yeah,

Christina Swyers  1:06:51  
I learned so much about that. And like, as you know, like, a lot of this reform is coming. I'm following like, these bills. There's about six or seven different variations of these bills that we're supposed to get this fall to vote on for property tax reform. It's going to be interesting to see what that is going to look like and how that's going to change things. Because, you know, taxation is like a buzzword now. Everybody is like, we're over taxed, or what's happening with taxes, you know,

Tracy Hayes  1:07:16  
because we're seeing all the fraud. You

Christina Swyers  1:07:20  
know, I've lived in my house for X amount of years, why am I still paying property tax? What is that going to are they taxing for what and or necessity? And so I think we're going to start to see a lot more consumers get educated on that part. But I was also, you know, looking at that, and I think I should have done a better job when I relocated here of looking at that, because it depends on your county, right? Can we get very vastly different?

Tracy Hayes  1:07:45  
Flagler versus St John's is a big difference, and

Christina Swyers  1:07:49  
Duval even versus St John's. But also, like, people need to understand, like, if taxation gets removed for primaries or for homesteaded properties or Reformed like, is that going to increase values? I absolutely think it will. I think, I don't think prices will go down. I think prices are going to go up. And so there's a fine line in between, like determining, do I, do I sell now or move, or do I wait until this vote happens? And so,

Tracy Hayes  1:08:13  
yeah, no, yeah, there is some, I'm really curious about that. And just they've DeSantis has gone into a lot of these counties and done some Doge work and see how their butt and they're blowing in their the course is making housing unaffordable. It's part of looking at that whole thing you're juggling Missouri and Florida markets. What's the moment where that double duty nearly broke? You have you had that happen?

Christina Swyers  1:08:35  
Broke me, I would say for sure, when I decided to move to Florida and knew that I had to protect my business. I was always that forever solo agent. I never wanted to start a team until I decided I wanted to move and then I had to protect the decades long business that I had. And most Realtors don't realize when you do that, the only other option you have is to refer your business out, which is not a business model. So I had to do some soul searching on starting a team what that looked like, and creating a microstructure that can be ran out of state. And so that's another reason I love exp is because they're one individual.

Tracy Hayes  1:09:12  
I'm sure there's a lot of people in that category are multi

Christina Swyers  1:09:16  
license, they move and then they're like, Wow, I built this business. I don't want to lead this, so I need to protect it, and so that's what I did. I hired two agents that were already working with me my organization at exp I already knew them for many years. They were great fits, and they pretty much helped take over that brokerage operations when I moved. And they're, they're doing great, like they're they're literally running the play. They're serving the clients the way I would serve them. I've got systems and processes with that micro team structure in place. I i The best thing I ever did was hire a fractional coo to help me build that out those systems. And then now I'm getting to the point here in Florida where I'm going to start hiring for my team here and run that play here. So it's been been pretty cool,

Tracy Hayes  1:09:58  
but because of where you were. At you had people you could pull some advice from, who actually have done it before. Yeah, and made you comfortable. And you know, hiring, hiring this person and helping you make that happen. What mistake did you make early on in real estate that still makes you cringe today, but taught you something big.

Christina Swyers  1:10:19  
What mistake just run? Running with the wrong people, thinking that I had to keep up with the Joneses in this business, thinking that it mattered that to get on the magazine or get on the podcast or do all the things like everybody else was doing, instead of just focusing on what was most important to me, like we all get so tied up into the accolades and the posts and selling all the stuff at the end of the day, we forget, like, why are we really doing this? Like, what's the whole point? Are we really happy doing it?

Tracy Hayes  1:10:51  
And is it a money making activity? Yeah, is it an activity that's actually going to drive, you know, make your business better, right?

Christina Swyers  1:10:57  
Yeah, I would say, I wish I would have learned that a little bit more early on, but you don't know what you don't know in the beginning.

Tracy Hayes  1:11:03  
This is an odd question. I don't know how this this one here pulled up, you know, because it's evaluating you, and it came up with these questions, ever had a builder ghost you bid transaction because have you ever had a custom build that went awry?

Christina Swyers  1:11:15  
I wouldn't say I had a builder ghost me, but I've had builders not want to work with us, because it's not serving their bottom line. You know, builders, over the last couple years have gotten like their chest puffed, you know, from pandemic times. And a lot of people move in here and think then they had control.

Tracy Hayes  1:11:34  
Well, then, then there was a there was a period, because I was experienced, I was working with large builder, and all of a sudden, cost of things. They could not predict them as good as they could before and now. And so a lot of them actually went to doing custom to spec homes and that, because now they could fix their costs and they could sell it for the right, yeah, you know, yeah.

Christina Swyers  1:11:53  
Well, the biggest change is, you know, the housing affordability is, builders have built now for profit and not for for need. And so, I mean, that's changed the landscape of real estate over the last 10 years.

Tracy Hayes  1:12:05  
This one here is interesting. What's the one thing you refuse to tolerate anymore in this business? I just

Christina Swyers  1:12:13  
don't work with people I don't want to work with. Yeah, I don't. And if I feel like it's not, if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no. Like, automatically for me, and that that's with everyone, that's with clients, that's with lenders, that's what title companies, that's with other agents. Like, for me, I've been doing this long enough to know, like, if it's a good fit, it's a good fit, I don't need to squeeze, you know, a round peg into a square hole. Like, I'm not looking if it's like, gonna break me in any sort of way. I'm not looking to rock the boat on things. I'm looking for alignment. I'm looking to make an impact, and I'm looking to really help people get to their goals. And if there's an issue in between somewhere and it's just not a good fit, that's okay. Like, I'm not for everyone, like I I'm okay with walking away from whatever situation or business that I need to to to keep my peace.

Tracy Hayes  1:13:06  
What's something clients believe about Florida? Real estate that drives you absolutely nuts.

Christina Swyers  1:13:12  
What's something that clients believe about Florida real estate that drives me nuts?

Tracy Hayes  1:13:17  
Is there any old wives tales out there? You must get some people like, in Missouri, like, does everybody have an alligator in their backyard? Or something

Christina Swyers  1:13:25  
with the alligators? I'm like, they're like, Is it, is there gators in there? I'm like, Well, if it's wet, there's gators. And everybody's Florida, man. But, you know, I just, I'm not out there going to be wrestling an alligator.

Tracy Hayes  1:13:41  
Tell me about a deal that completely fell apart, and what you wish you've done differently.

Christina Swyers  1:13:46  
Well, it's rare that I have deals that fall apart. But like recently, I had my own property where I thought that it was going to work out, and I was competing with the builder. They're still in their building, and so I never my life, had a property before I moved here, on the market over 100 days ever in 10 years. And then I moved to Florida, and it's like, oh, well, this is different here. And I actually just got the property that I'm thinking of. I just got under contract. It was on the market 197 days. But it is in a community where I'm still dealing with the builder, yeah, in their third phase of building out. And that was frustrating. It's been frustrating. Yeah, so, you know, a lot of clients are coming in. They're like, Okay, well, the builder can do this. What can you do? Or why should I buy your house when I can go over here to the builder and they're going to give me this interest rate, these closing costs, this bond paid off. Like, how can you compete with that? So you just got to get patient. Have patience. Yeah, it's, it's

Tracy Hayes  1:14:43  
well, when you're right now, if you're selling someone into a neighborhood, especially if it's a neighborhood that just broke ground this year, and go, Well, how many homes they building here? They're projected to be here for the next five, seven years, whatever, 10 years building in here, you have to ask. You need to really. Get down with the buyer. Go, Hey, are you in the service? And you might get transferred two years now and then you're going to try to sell this house, you could be eating. There's some people that are eating there, you know, even from what they paid for it, not just the equity that they thought they had, and eat that that's like, okay, they're they're just trying to hold what they have in the home, what they paid for it. Yeah, problem right now, yeah, always be prepping the buyers moving into new construction. You can't. You have to let them, you know, get that picture, or otherwise they're they will hate you, and that's what you don't want them that, yeah, exactly. You mentor a lot of agents, what? What's a moment where someone surprised the hell out of you?

Christina Swyers  1:15:43  
Oh, surprise the hell out of me when I was mentoring them. Yeah, well, I don't really get a lot of stuff. I know that's kind of boring you want to hear for your podcast. I just, I do a lot of like up front like to see if I even want to mentor somebody to know how things are gonna go and so I don't get a lot of wonky stuff, like, I set the expectation so firm and clear in the beginning before I decide to mentor somebody. Like, I don't get a lot of that. So I would say, probably, like, not knowing, like, new construction that they needed to register their clients, and you're like, Oh, now you're not gonna get the sale because you didn't go in and register your client. Register your client. You're like, What are you talking about? Well, you should have asked me, you don't just send them willy nilly, like, you just don't know things when you're brand new.

Tracy Hayes  1:16:29  
Well, I had, actually, the first time ever I had a site agent on a couple days ago, and we were talking about that in it. And, you know, a few years ago, as you probably experienced when you first got here. I mean, maybe during covid, the builders didn't even want to talk to agents. They're like, get away from us. Get away from us. Now they're begging you to bring them clients. You need, if your client has any intentions, you need to be calling. You need to find out the phone number to that and call and say, Hey, I can't be there. If you can't be there, or you need to be in there and walk in and greet and meet the site. Agent, you need to collaborate with that site. Agent, don't you know? Yeah, there's, there's money on table, and there are some builders that will fight you if you didn't get them registered.

Christina Swyers  1:17:12  
Absolutely. This is with your name beside it. Really big deal back on my team in Missouri, like there's some builders that just won't because that the markets are so different, but here I would say most are good, like I that mentor, the mentee that I'm mentoring that had that happen, she did go back, and my vice her was, have your client call and let them know that they didn't know. But honestly, the client told the builder that if I don't get my own representation, I'm walking and so they allowed her to come back in and

Tracy Hayes  1:17:39  
yeah, you basically have to say that. You have to threaten them because, yeah, almost have to, but

Christina Swyers  1:17:44  
I think it's necessary, but you just don't know that. And people, you know, this was a military family that literally came here. He's getting ready to deploy. They didn't have a lot of time. They literally got here from the hotel, went from the hotel straight to the builder to get that get a house, because his wife's pregnant, so like, they need a home now, and so they just kind of skipped and bypassed, oh, I need my realtor. I need my own realtor, not the builders representation. And so people just don't think about that. The public doesn't think about that. They don't really realize. Don't go there. You want your own representation. You want your own inspection. You want your own stuff in the deal. Because they're not representing your interests. They're representing theirs.

Tracy Hayes  1:18:22  
Since we're on that topic, Inspector new construction, you highly recommend

Christina Swyers  1:18:27  
absolutely do not just use their PM, yeah, you need an outside inspection. Things still go wrong and new construction, 100% pipes are backwards. Grading isn't done right. Sewer lateral can be backed up. No hot water. Things are disconnected, no insulation. I mean, I have seen that ran the gamut over the years of things that can go wrong in new construction.

Tracy Hayes  1:18:47  
And I think people, what they do is they discount, because some of the things you just mentioned are like, well, you know, they've got a warranty on it. They're gonna do anything that needs to be with one well, yes, but now you're moved in, and then there's an inconvenience. Your toilet starts backing up and your kids are screaming and all these things are going on versus having it done correctly. Now, some of these things that were in the things that you mentioned, or some of them are serious things in a home that if they're not done correctly at the stage that they're done, like the slab, for example, and it's not done correctly, they're having to crack up that slab or do some changes to it. And that is the foundation of your home. What's your mental thought about that? If you knew there was slab work done after the house was built on the house you're buying? You know, matter of fact, I was just talking about, my wife was talking about, there was a house, and what? And I don't think it was even just a couple years old, but whatever they did, that house settled. When you walked in the house, you can see the the houses. You got a crack down the middle, basically. And like, I feel sorry for those buyers. You know, obviously there's work that can be done in. Guys can get on there, but there's 1000s of dollars, a lot of inconvenience, that it's just not worth it to spend, you know, whatever the $1,000 or whatever that, I don't know, what do they charge for a new and new construction inspection?

Christina Swyers  1:20:13  
I mean, it can be anywhere, depends on what you're doing having them do, but you're like, anywhere from 500 to 1000 on it. So it's like, it's so worth doing. Oh, my God, peace of mind. And I always tell my clients, though you're hiring me not just to represent you, but to help guide you on this process. And so we're going to do a pre drywall before they put those walls up, inspection to look at the electoral to look at the plumbing, to make sure that we can proactively catch these things while they're building your home, to get those fixed and identified now, not later, because otherwise, then we're cutting behind dry wall. We can't see behind the drywall, so we there, there is and the builder is going to do everything they can to shoo you along the process and not do that, because I don't want you to find they want you to get to the closing table. And not that all builders are bad and think that way. But when you sell some of these homes, you kind of realize, like, that's their goal, right at the end of the day. And if you don't catch it like it's kind of on you, how

Tracy Hayes  1:21:05  
far can they go? How far can they go without you noticing it? Sometimes, I one story. I've shared it a couple times, but they literally, and this is Florida, they forgot to put the air conditioning condenser, you know, where the moisture goes out to the side, out of the side of the house. They forgot to put it in the slab. So the house is now built. So what they had to do was run it up to the second floor, between the two floors, first and second floor go out to the side of the house, and then down the side of the house. So now you got this pipe coming down the side of the house. This looks like hell. And then they had to put a pump to pump the water up, in and out. So now you got a pump, you have to rely on that that pump fails, which you will probably somewhere along the line. It's going to and you don't know about it until it starts, water starts coming out somewhere in your house, and who knows it could be mold for years, and all of a sudden, now you're talking catastrophic situations, 10s of 1000s of dollars to mediate that situation and but if that home had an

Christina Swyers  1:22:10  
inspector, they wouldn't, they would realtor, and they would say, No, we're not doing this.

Tracy Hayes  1:22:14  
Well. They that you have that too. You know now you got to battle with the builder, and so you want your real estate agent almost to kind of be like the lawyer, and go back 100%

Christina Swyers  1:22:22  
that's what you're hiring. That's where my skill set comes down and say, No, this is not the way that this home is supposed to be built. This is not how you build your homes. None of the other homes in this neighborhood have been built. You made a mistake. You need to go back. It sounds like it's going to be expensive for you to fix it the right way. But my clients aren't moving forward until you fix it. Yeah? This is not what they signed on for, yeah. And so they don't know that, the clients are like, Oh, they're just gonna fix it, yeah? But this is gonna look like it's gonna look bad, yeah? Create more problems, more issues, and more money down the road to have to fix this. Also, you go to sell the house, the next new buyer is looking at that, going, what the hell is that? And I don't want to buy this home. What is that? It doesn't look like any other the homes in the neighborhood. They're just slapping a band aid on a situation instead of fixing it.

Tracy Hayes  1:23:03  
I never, I never understood why the builders their quality control like they don't have their own inspector who's going out there. Because, I mean, you could be a large builder in town. There's only so many slabs being poured today that that guy can't go around and check every slab that was done, because the plumbing and has all this stuff that's done the slab. Obviously, when that concrete settles. It's settled. Now you got to drill into the concrete to move stuff. Now you the integrity of the house, that's all but yes, I am total support. Every new construction should have a home inspector. It's actually going to make it's probably going to save the builder money, because if they find a mistake, the builder can fix it at that stage, versus getting to the end stage and realize, Oh, we don't have a air conditioning condenser, you know.

Christina Swyers  1:23:44  
But what a lot of builders won't tell you is that they don't want you to use your own inspector. And some of them even make it very Yeah, they make it difficult. They make it really difficult. And it's because it's not to their advantage, because they know that that inspector is going to go through that house like through a fine tooth comb and find every single thing that could be wrong with it, and which is their job?

Tracy Hayes  1:24:03  
Well, I think when you say that, they don't think it's into the benefit. We know there's corporations in this country to do very well, because they manage that, and they know the long term effect. What does it cost them to fix the repairs versus What's it cost them to employ that and they're smart enough. I think there's too many builders who are, I don't know how you want to you're good old boys. And they're like, Hey, don't get don't mess Don't tell me I did something wrong when it's like, no, tell me what's wrong so I can fix it now, because if I have to fix it later, it's going to cost me, and I've already paid for it to be done once. And you know, these contractors that they bring in, you know they're they're getting paid based on the volume of homes are being done. They're bidding on a contract that they know, hey, I'm going to paint 30 homes in the next 30 days, so I'm going to give you a really good number. So they're in there just slapping paint around because they're only getting paid so much per house, and it's not the prime. Eight well, and

Christina Swyers  1:25:00  
we know when things aren't done right, especially at a mass level like that with some of these big builders, lawsuits happen. I mean, we see them every day, yeah?

Tracy Hayes  1:25:06  
So, and that cotton, you also need the agent to go through that contract with you with the builder, because that contract the builder gives you is not our contract, yeah, it's not, it's not a nefar contract or Florida contract. So, Christina, I appreciate you coming on today. Is anything like you like to add to the show here.

Christina Swyers  1:25:25  
I mean, I appreciate you having me, and I feel like I'm the new kid on the block. Yeah? I mean, I just, I'm here to make an impact in real estate, in the industry. I love helping agents, like, figure out their next steps. I feel like my career is kind of like evolving into that after I've been in, you know, sales for over 10 years now, so many Realtors come to me and they they want to know, like, how I've done, what I've done, and I just, I shouldn't say coaching, because there's so much ick and coaching. We could do a whole nother podcast on that, right? But it's really more so like, How can I show future Realtors like how to care more, how to make an impact, and make a lot of money doing it and rent and repeating that process really just becoming good leaders. That's what I want to get out to the public and get out to agents.

Tracy Hayes  1:26:16  
Well, the race to raise the bar in the industry, to raise the

Christina Swyers  1:26:19  
bar, and like I said, there's a there's a reason why the top 10% will do most of the business is because they care the most. It's not just don't generally because they're the best or they sell the most. It's because they care the most and they want to make an impact, and they're, they're doing it in their own way, being themself, and that's okay, well.

Tracy Hayes  1:26:38  
And I also think it goes back to that what you said, why you like negotiate? You like the process? Yeah, you get high on the process. And then obviously the, you know, the winning, going to closing, getting a check, is, you know, your your measurement of that, yeah, but it's the process that that excites you every day to get going.

Christina Swyers  1:26:56  
It's a process. And then the evolution with realtors is like that, to see them come to me and have the problems that they're having in their business, and then see them grow a team and like, become leaders and grow their own organizations. And seeing that has been so incredible for me, to be able to be like a part of that that's so special. I really, truly love mentoring realtors in that and that space that are are so ripe for it, like they need it so bad. They just have been given misdirection or misguidance at a different brokerage or with another mentor, and they come to me and they're like, I'm ready to get out of the business, so either I'm going to sink or I'm going to swim, what? What's going to happen? And just helping redirect their mindset. And it's just been, it's been really fun to watch that over the last couple years.

Tracy Hayes  1:27:39  
Well, hopefully this will, you know, get out, get some more agents to get to know you. And obviously, you know, in the show notes and everything that we put out, the reels and everything your information, your links, are going to be on there so they can contact you. And, you know, have a cup of coffee with you, find out what you're doing. I would love it all right. Appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us.