Beth Ruggeri: VP and Managing Broker Watson Realty ST Augustine Beach

Beth Ruggeri  0:00  
Hey. This is Beth Ruggieri, managing broker of Watson Realty St Augustine beach. If you are looking to level up your real estate business, you need to be listening to my good friend Tracy Hayes and the real estate excellent podcast.

Podcast Intro  0:13  
Welcome to Real Estate Excellence, making lasting connections to the best of the best in today's industry elite. We'll help you expand your circle of influence by introducing you to the leaders in the real estate industry, whether it's top agents who execute at a high level every day, or the many support services working behind the scenes. We'll share their stories, ideologies and the inner workings of how they run a truly successful business, and show you how to add their tools to your belt now. Please welcome the host with the most Tracy Hayes,

Tracy Hayes  0:48  
Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast with your host. Tracy Hayes, once again, I have the best of the best here today. If you are looking at real estate, thinking about being going into the real estate career, whether it's an agent or even a support position. This is the lady to know in St Augustine. She's the vice president managing bro. She is a vice president and the managing broker of Watson Realty of St Augustine beach. She is in the leadership of the St Augustine St Johns County Board of Realtors. Next year's president in 2022 she comes highly regarded by her peers, and most importantly, she brings sunshine to any room that she enters. Folks, let's welcome. Beth Ruggieri to the show. Beth, welcome. Thank you. I'm so glad. Thank you. I'm glad you were able to make it by today. And you know, I think the knowledge and experience as is of I've known you for, you know, several years now and and then, looking at your resume. I mean, anyone looking to get into real estate in St Augustine, Beth is really you are a resource for them. And I assume that Watson keeps you where you're at because you run a successful brokerage. As crazy as it can be with that many agents, I hope so. So Beth, I just want to start off the show, just so basically let everybody get to know you. I mean, where are you from? Where'd you grow

Beth Ruggeri  2:06  
up? I was born in Cincinnati and lived in northern Ohio for a while, and then my dad was a hospital administrator and got a position with Humana. So we moved to Louisville, Kentucky, which is their headquarters, and a brief stint in Illinois, and then ended up where I grew up is in Fort Walton Beach. Oh, okay, all right, the Redneck Riviera. And grew up there, I went to Auburn and graduated from Auburn.

Tracy Hayes  2:39  
What led you to go from Fort Walton all the way to Auburn? What attracted you

Beth Ruggeri  2:43  
there? My next door neighbors there were retired lieutenant colonels in the Air Force, which there's a Glenn Air Force based over there. And they were a big athletic booster supporter. She actually was first cousins with Bobby Bowden, because there's such an FSU, you know, Auburn connection, right? And when I was growing up, she used to have all the Auburn football players would be at her house and have parties. And she had, they had a plane called The War Eagle, a Cessna, and used to fly us up to the Auburn football games. So all of my friends went to FSU, except for my best friend, Tracy and me, I told my parents I'm going to Auburn, and they said, Okay, fine. So had a great time. How

Tracy Hayes  3:27  
cool is that, though? Yeah, so you're in high school. They're inviting you and your parents to fly up for a game on their plane.

Beth Ruggeri  3:35  
Well, my parents didn't go just just four seater, so there wasn't room for them. We went up and, oh, that's their daughter. Lived in Auburn. She was married to an attorney in Auburn, and just had a good time.

Tracy Hayes  3:51  
And you had the sounds like being a big booster. You probably had a VIP treatment and everything while you're there. Yes, oh, that's cool. That's really cool. So at that time. I mean, what did you envision yourself, you know, doing it? I think you Is it a business degree? I think you've at Auburn. What do you think you're doing?

Beth Ruggeri  4:08  
Okay, people that know me, they're like, what? I actually had a degree in A minor. I had marketing and fashion merchandising. My goal in Auburn was to work at the Atlanta apparel Mart, and I went to Europe and did a fashion tour. And I used to do fashion illustration, and that was my goal. Then I got engaged to someone who was from St Augustine, and I moved down here in 86 St Augustine, for those of you that have it's not a fashion market, no. And for those of you that have been around for quite some time, the roads weren't even paved at the beach. A one a was paved, the rest were dirt roads. There was nothing going on, wow. But they were building condos on the ocean, and they had signs out that said, you know, we need realtors. So I got. My real estate license, and I've been doing this since 1986

Tracy Hayes  5:03  
Wow, that, you know, and the history of St Augustine, obviously, is well, goes back hundreds of years. What I find very interesting is when you do find people like yourself that that have been around and seen the dirt roads and where we're at now in the stories, I think one of the treasures of St Augustine is going down and taking one of the carriage tours and getting your personal tour with them, because they all, there's different stories. Each time you go, there's, you know, you go down a different street, there's a different story. But you know how amazing, I mean, in, you know, I didn't, I really didn't take grass St Augustine till, really, 2009 when I came here. But, you know, people tell me, you know, route 210 were my subdivisions off of, you know, was dirt, not much earlier, you know, earlier than that, you know, and how fast things are growing here. And would you agree we're probably on another spurt

Beth Ruggeri  5:58  
right now? Oh, we are. Yeah, very much. So I

Tracy Hayes  6:01  
think the next decade, really for Northeast Florida is going to be the real estate

Beth Ruggeri  6:08  
Well, now 207 has so many new homes being built there, and then even going down into Palm Coast and the northern St Johns County is the number one school district in the state for, I think, 10 years now, right? And so many people want to come live in St John's

Tracy Hayes  6:27  
County. Taxes are great. The schools are top notch. And there's just, there really is a lot of opportunity. Jacksonville is bringing a lot of opportunity, I think, from, definitely, from the financial firm for upscale jobs, you know, for the right paying jobs. So, so you sort of with a site agent working for the condos. Or did you? Did you?

Beth Ruggeri  6:48  
I worked on there was three different condos that I was a site agent. And then my brother in law is a builder in St Johns County, Ruggeri construction, and I knew the developers of three subdivisions. We did summer island beach walk in Eagle Creek with those developers, and he was the builder, and I was the site agent, and ran those hundreds of homes we built for eight years. So I did that, and in 2002 I got my broker's license. We started our own real estate company, were Jerry Realty, which I had, which

Tracy Hayes  7:21  
was, that was on my question, yeah, how did you go into that? The the

Beth Ruggeri  7:25  
developers did these three subdivisions, and then they were looking for land, and that was right around 2003 and the market was getting more and more and more expensive, and they could not find land that they, you know, were willing to develop. So they ended up doing going down to Daytona and doing some other things. I opened up my own brokerage and bringing that for many years, and then I had to shut it down because of divorce. But that's when I went to Watson in 2010 and I've been there since.

Tracy Hayes  7:57  
So did you just start off at Watson as just a just a regular, just agent yourself,

Beth Ruggeri  8:03  
broker associate. And in 2013 the current broker decided to move to South Florida. And, bless their heart, they asked me to, well, maybe, well, I

Tracy Hayes  8:17  
mean, that's one of the interesting, you know, obviously, you know, talking to a lot of agents. There's a lot of agents that have come through the Watson channel, if you want to call it, I mean, because they obviously do, you do, do a lot of training, and, you know, for the introductory for the license and recruiting, that's his model from there. And some agents have put some serious time, and some agents just kind of flash and go. But I think you're you, you got to have a unique office there at the beach. You know, where you're you kind of, you know, in my outside opinion, you got the beach dwellers, you've got the condos people, you got the Airbnb years and so forth. You kind of got that. But you're just a stone's throw to to right over to the regular subdivision selling the elementary school or whatever in the neighborhood.

Beth Ruggeri  8:59  
Yeah, we have agents that work all over St Johns County, even some in Jacksonville, I think more the agents that grew up in Jacksonville that are familiar with it. For the most part, we concentrate in St Johns County. Some of them work Palatka wheelacca, because they grew up there and they're familiar with it, right? So, well,

Tracy Hayes  9:18  
that's that's an area I think is about to explode. Yeah, Palatka to green Coast rings on the other side of the river. When that, when the expressway is completed,

Beth Ruggeri  9:27  
and I think there's a vast Pro Shop being built by Wallach. And now, from

Tracy Hayes  9:31  
what I heard down in, well, that would be interesting. Well, that is an interesting place down I've been, yeah. I mean, yeah, my parents had were RVing in one winter, they spent the winter down there, parked RV right on the river and so forth. So obviously, we drive down there. It's, I mean, it's a great place to get away, and it's not that far away. I know it seems like a far away, but really it's not. It's just, you know, less than 45 minutes for most people in St John's County to get down there

Beth Ruggeri  9:58  
and so forth. Far enough,

Tracy Hayes  9:59  
but you so. Leading a large office like you do. I mean, it's not like you have a team of four or five people you you. I mean, how many agents you have right now active? 5151 I'm sure at times it's been greater, probably other times have been a little bit less, but 50 agents that that you're overseeing now, obviously, we know percentage of them are, they're got their hang their license, they're not too active, but it takes a lot of personal development to kind of stay on top of these people and stay in front and stay in front of the industry. What are some of the things that that I mean, do you read or you listen to podcasts? What are some things that you try to do? Or does Watson provide to help you as the managing broker, to

Beth Ruggeri  10:38  
stay up front? Well, we do a lot of training and have group meetings to stay on top of current market situations. And then within my office, I have agents that have been with us for 30 years, wow. And so there's a lot of experience. I have a great admin staff support that helps out and training. We do mentor programs with new agents. So they buddy up with someone who's been at the office for quite some time and experienced to help them out. But it's kind of a mix between very self sufficient. Been in the business for so long, you know, great, kind of low maintenance. Every once in a while they have an issue that I have to help them, right? And then there's the newer agents that you're trying to help build their business and learn how to farm and market. And

Tracy Hayes  11:23  
so you're a resource for a lot of them. And obviously it's probably some of your senior agents help out as well. Yeah, who is your resource? Who do you? Who do you look up to in your position, to you know, when maybe you need some new ideas?

Beth Ruggeri  11:39  
Well, we have, you know my regional vice president, which is Mark Rosener, Ed foreman, is our president, Mr. Watson. We have a full marketing department and training and it. And you know, all encompassing at at Watson, that right helps me out when I

Tracy Hayes  11:56  
need it. And having been there now over almost well coming on to almost 12 years, 11 years, right? Plus now, right? You've become a regular fixture in their leadership room. Yeah, going back your what do you feel your biggest strength as the managing partner is, what do you bring to the office every day?

Beth Ruggeri  12:20  
I think my biggest asset is my knowledge and my ability to work with everybody in the market. I mean, most people that have been in real estate. St Augustine is a small market, and I know almost all of them and work well with them. So I think you know that, and the training and we just have such a family atmosphere. I always have a positive attitude no matter what things don't

Tracy Hayes  12:43  
get I said that in my interest, every time I see Beth, you're always smiling or, you know, or you're involved in something and bringing something to the to the room,

Beth Ruggeri  12:52  
yeah, yeah. So I think that's it. You got to be positive and focused, and just if something doesn't go right, which sometimes it does, Next, move on. Let's get something else positive on the

Tracy Hayes  13:02  
table, dealing what we've obviously been dealing with the last 18 months with covid. I'm sure, you know, we've been kind of fortunate here in Northeast Florida. Yeah, there was a moment there. I think people were hesitating, but then things exploded. But oftentimes, as even loan officers, the fear of the next change, right? Then the market's going to something's going to happen. You've been through some changes, you know, having, you know, been here, let alone St Augustine, but just been in real estate, obviously, the 2000 789, you know, collapse. I mean,

Beth Ruggeri  13:37  
totally different, yeah, something like that. I don't think will ever happen again, right?

Tracy Hayes  13:42  
Imagine you've had to coach or consult some of them. We kind of dwell to the negativity. I mean, it's natural for most people to dwell to that you bring the sunshine to the room. How have you kind of shared your experiences in the years of the roller coaster of real estate that it can be with the agents today that maybe just started three or four years ago and never seen any change, let alone, I think it's a positive change for us, because the market's so hot, yeah, but yet, there's, it's tough finding existing homes too, right?

Beth Ruggeri  14:10  
That, I think, has been the biggest challenge. And I think for first time home buyers, or somebody doing an FHA or a VA loan, that is the biggest challenge, because the multiple offers have led up a little bit. There's not as many, but there's still, the inventory is very low. So if you're a buyer, you have to be well qualified, pre approved, right? And what I'm seeing now is mainly cash or conventional loans with a substantial down payment, right? So I think that's the biggest hurdle, and newer agents tend to work with buyers more for the most part. They're not going to get listings right away, right and so they may be working with buyers, and I have to make sure that they have them very well qualified before they're going to show property,

Tracy Hayes  14:54  
because it could be, I think a lot of agents I see it because one thing I've always when. I came out of from the call center in the last four years, being in there in the retail world, and obviously meeting you, some of these agents. They're out there showing houses, and you know, you're two ago, that's that's okay, okay. They want to make an offer call. Let's get you call. You know, within the hour you could have a pre qualification letter. But in today's market, if you're out there on a Saturday, first of all, you got to hope someone answers the phone to do your pre qualification letter, because it's on the weekend. And that seller may make a decision right there, and then they may just take two or three offers and make a decision and say, I'm done, walk away. They're not going to, maybe not wait till Monday. And you know, to get some of these, a some of these agents, I'm sure you coaching and training is, don't even really go out and show them, especially now, homes, until they're pre qualified, because you don't, don't use up your weekend.

Beth Ruggeri  15:47  
That has been, I think one of the positives to covid is agents aren't spending three or four months showing hundreds of houses to lookers. It's like, you need to be determined. I want to buy a house. And you may show them like the TV show on their three homes. Pick one, because you could, right, gotta buy one of these,

Tracy Hayes  16:07  
right, if you can get the three. But the Yeah, I've been hearing as well the cash offers coming in. I know applications are down from the mortgage side, and the builder we work with, their applications are down as they're trying to fight through what they already have in process, and then in the build process, supplies, obviously, in the new construction I think, you know, I don't even know, what do you want? The the percentage of sales of new construction to current homes in St Johns County, I don't know. I wonder what that is. I just thought of that question off top its head is because, obviously, I think in 2022 new construction is probably going to lead the way, because that's what's going

Beth Ruggeri  16:51  
to be available. It is because of all the, you know, the new super subdivisions. I call them the 900 homes, the 700 homes, the and there's just not a lot of resale inventory. And I think that's the issue with sellers right now, is they would sell their house and cash out. But where are they going to go? They, you know, unless they're upsizing, downsizing, moving out of the area, they have to be very cautious with where they're going to

Tracy Hayes  17:14  
move to. If you're consulting a seller right now on, you know, hey, we're going to put this house up for sale. You're probably going to have multiple offers. As you know, the broker you're coaching your team or yourself. What are you? What are you telling that? How are you preparing that seller of what's about to happen in the next 72 you know, 86 it was 7096 hours. Your next three or four days, in a sense of showings, offers. You know, what do you what do you coach them for? How do you prepare them for that?

Beth Ruggeri  17:50  
Well, for the most part, if the house is good and it's priced right, if they're doing an open house, or, you know, for the weekend, I tell them, be prepared to be out of the house for the entire weekend, pretty much, because there's going to be showings, most sellers are getting, you know, their offers. They may say, give us your offer by a certain date and time, and we'll review all offers. So it kind of motivates buyer's agents to get in there, show it and submit an offer if they're going to

Tracy Hayes  18:20  
Yeah, I think sometimes, sometimes I sense that some of them are moving a little, making a decision too quickly to give them give, give another day, let those showings happen to get their best dollar. But that, I mean, that's, that's a loan officer's opinion on,

Beth Ruggeri  18:33  
and I would always advise them that to give a few days and give people a chance. And there's a lot of buyers that have been doing sight unseen, yes, just look at the video tour, or have their agent go doing a FaceTime or video they make the offer. Sometimes they'll come down and look at the house during the inspection period, and sometimes they don't see it till they

Tracy Hayes  18:55  
close. That just totally scares me. Yeah, that totally blows my mind. There, that they're willing to do that. It's like you're willing to spend that much money, and you can't fly down for a day, even a few hours.

Beth Ruggeri  19:06  
We had one. It was over a $4 million oceanfront house, and the lady was from California, and she did not see it until she moved in. She loves it.

Tracy Hayes  19:16  
Thankfully. She was probably downsizing to that from that standpoint, isn't it interesting? Or I've been noticing a lot of west coasters, even from Washington state, Oregon,

Beth Ruggeri  19:32  
Colorado, to a lot of California people. Yes, I

Tracy Hayes  19:36  
noticed. I dropped my kids off at the school last week, and I was just noticing driving through the parking lot as, obviously, St Johns County is hiring a lot of teachers by and noticing the license plates or where some of these teachers had just moved here are coming from. You know, all from, whether it's New Jersey or California, Texas, Washington State, whatever. You know that I found find very interesting. So we talked about this. Telling you buyers, so you're preparing, because this is where your expertise come in. I'm sure right now you're being you and your senior agents in structuring that buyer's offer, you have to be a little creative,

Beth Ruggeri  20:12  
don't you? You do now, one thing I've been seeing, and we do not allow that, we don't accept it, and we tell agents not to, is the love letter. Yes, buyers, Love Letter is a no no yes because of possible fair housing violations. But we're seeing agents from other offices submit their love letter with their offer. That's a no no. And you know, there's a lot of appraisal gaps, there's a lot of very short inspection periods.

Tracy Hayes  20:39  
Just to go into love letter for me, because I was listening to a podcast not too long ago. Great one to listen to. It's the shit that happens in real estate. It's actually, she's, she's from the Carolinas. I think she lives in Charlotte now, but she was talking about the love letter, and she says she takes it out. She says, If realtor said, she said, Don't do not why. You could send me whatever you want, but my buyer, my seller, is not going to see that.

Beth Ruggeri  21:03  
It's not going to be submitted to the seller, right, right? Because, and it is because of fair housing, because they may have something in the letter that could, you know, be discriminatory against one of the protected classes, and we just can't go down that route.

Tracy Hayes  21:17  
I mean, it is great to, you know, think that people think about, yeah, but you know, to keep housing, and I think it's a, it's a legitimate thing to put together and try to appeal to the seller. But I don't. I think the average seller, they're selling their home, they really just looking at the offer anyway. I don't. I mean, how many sellers would take a lesser offer? They

Beth Ruggeri  21:38  
wouldn't take a lesser offer. But I have seen in the past where it's a similar offer, and maybe

Tracy Hayes  21:44  
it's these it's pushes them over the edge, yeah, or

Beth Ruggeri  21:47  
you know that they have a friend that lives in the neighborhood, or my daughter would

Tracy Hayes  21:52  
well, have your friend go over, knock on their door and ask them to take your offer. Oh, let's get back, actually, in a deeper part of what do you think is the most challenging part of your day, week, month at Watson, not Watson, because it's a come with just managing that large of an office that that doesn't necessarily bring you to Sunshine, but, you know, have you have to deal with every day, but it's part of the business,

Beth Ruggeri  22:20  
I think, well, and things have changed since covid too. We used to have a lot more in person, everybody working from the office and you which I think is great, because newer agents feed off of everybody in the right. There's so many stories. There's so many helpful people, if they need help, you know, there's 10 people in the office to help them out. When people started working at home, more, I felt like some of them would get lost. And that's what I think is the worst thing for a brand new agent is to go to one of these companies that doesn't have structure training people in the office, they're just at home, lost, not knowing what to do. So I think that's it, getting the agents to stay on track focus. They have to prospect, and to make sure that they prospect every day.

Tracy Hayes  23:01  
Is right? You're trying to help them. I mean, ultimately, they got to do it. But the same thing is with the in the lending side. I mean, I the younger guys, I say you got a list. You got to be here in the office, because you're gonna hear I grew I grew up in my mortgage world 12 years in a call center. So we were all close together. You hear the deals that are getting done. Oh, you know what? So and so had a deal like that. Can we? How did that work? How did that happen? How did you make it happen? You miss those stories. Yeah, you know how you structure the deal, when that when that offer, especially right now, you

Beth Ruggeri  23:32  
know, or if you have a question or problem, or you're writing an offer or something, there's all but there's someone there to help you, right? If you have a question, and if you're just at home, you don't have

Tracy Hayes  23:41  
that, you're going to be president of the St Augustine, St John's board next year, the MLS. And you're, you obviously have some things in your mind, and you're going to go in that leadership. Maybe you're going to change or, you know, because you feel there's a better way to do it, or just, you know, maybe there's points of emphasis that you want to make that others have it in the past, as any leader comes into any situation. My question was, if you were, you know, the Florida realtor said, Hey, Beth, we want to come and have you speak at the convention. You know whether you're, whether you think you're, you know, you may all go, Oh my God, no, I can't do that. I don't want to stand in front of 1000 people. But what would be a topic you think that that's close to you, that you think it's important for not only your agents in your office, but the real estate agent, the real estate agent industry, really, in general.

Beth Ruggeri  24:28  
Well, what we are working on now, and I see this as the future, is like a regional data share for the MLS, for Northeast Florida, for our board, for Flagler boards, or Gainesville just joined stellar, which is Orlando. Of course, Miami, South Florida is huge, and we really need to make it easier for the agents to have, you know, data in one source. So we're meeting with nefar, the board, with the nefar board, and to try to work on that. Of this coming

Tracy Hayes  25:00  
year, because right now, unless they belong to nefar, they can't access their MLS. Am I correct? Is that how that works? Okay,

Beth Ruggeri  25:07  
correct? I'm vice versa, member of three, a member of nefar, St John's and Flagler MLS, right? Which is a lot. So we're trying to make it easy. And, you know, and and then agents, if you're looking in the neighborhood, you can say, Okay, I want to look at, you know, San salito, and there might be one, and then you have to go into nefar, because there might be a listing into that, or that might be a listing from Flagler County. And so you have to do that.

Tracy Hayes  25:31  
So I know it was funny, not knowing much about the boards, but that was probably one of the first things that an agent sort of that I remember saying, you know, the challenge between the St John's, St Augustine board and nefar and having to belong to both. Matter of fact, I know ages, you know, like yourself, you belong to both, because that way you can access both, yeah, to not have those at one fingertip, touch, you know, and see everything at one time. And obviously, that's technology, and it can, obviously, can be done. I can be

Beth Ruggeri  26:00  
there's a there's a cost involved, and there's a cooperation from the board. The board's involved needs to happen. So that's what we're really focusing on next year at the board, also with the I'm chair of the Education Committee, so bringing new classes to the board and we raise funds for the scholarship right Fund, which,

Tracy Hayes  26:20  
which the golf tournament is October 29 if you haven't joined already, on bills are on Facebook, contact the St John's, St Augustine board or Beth. And for sponsorship opportunities are just, just to play. Yeah,

Beth Ruggeri  26:32  
we're looking our sponsors are getting kind of full, but we still do have opportunities available. And golfers, you can always come out in golf. It's $85

Tracy Hayes  26:40  
or 324, and this is going to the scholarship fund for the schools in St Augustine, you know, to give some kids a few $1,000 or whatever. How that breaks down? Yeah, to that. And I think your goal, if I heard you correctly, the other day, you were on there with Berta, about you guys try to raise about 10 grand for that.

Beth Ruggeri  26:58  
Yeah, we've given away $10,000 in scholarships every year since, gosh, I want to say 13 years, probably. And so we give 10 scholarships St Johns County high school students. They could be from any of the public high schools. They can be from private, deaf and blind school, home school, and they can use it for whatever they want to. They could use it for books, a laptop, part of their tuition.

Tracy Hayes  27:23  
I want to step, you know, we're talking about the different boards because, you know, realtors say stuff to me. I Some of the things I understand and don't understand. But I really, you know, I think someone said that. Well, why should St Augustine, St John's have, you know, their own, but why they just belong under nefar? And I really disagree with that. I think the board down there, as I've gotten to know people st, Augustine is Old Town. St, Augustine the beach. It's a separate just like Fernandina Beach, they need to have their area there. Nefar can't cover it all. Your office is centrally located in Jacksonville, but for someone living in St Augustine beach to go, to go to the NE far office is a is a

Beth Ruggeri  28:04  
trip? Well, people like we like to have our local board, and

Tracy Hayes  28:08  
there's things going on in downtown St Augustine as Airbnb and so forth in the political spectrum right now and the rentals, it's important to have that board there to represent and be close for the education part. Yeah, in my opinion, yeah, yeah. I would not. I would never agree to give that up, or suggest to give that part up. What's been the most influence in your career?

Beth Ruggeri  28:29  
Oh, gosh, most influence on my career. That's a tough one. I really, I mean, I really think working, honestly, working when I first started in new construction and development. There was people that were there that had been in that business for so long, and they were my mentors, and taught me so much about the whole construction process and about sales and marketing. And I think that's really how I got my beginning.

Tracy Hayes  28:55  
Really launched your career to take you right? Yeah, what is the most fulfilling part of your profession?

Beth Ruggeri  29:00  
I think seeing people succeed, and new agents, and, you know, they reach their their goals, or, you know, the first year, they may do a few million, then go to five, then seven, then 11, and then, you know,

Tracy Hayes  29:12  
change their entire lifestyle. Yeah, there's no, I mean, I'm sure, you know, we threw names back and forth. I know some of the people you're talking about, and, you know, yeah, having seen them stick with it, stick to the test, and also start breaking through. And now, you know, living a lifestyle they probably even didn't dream about, they dreamt about it as a real estate. Now they're even beyond that.

Beth Ruggeri  29:32  
Oh, I know. And it's hard work, and a lot of them that are so successful now they said, I never thought it would be this hard of work, but I never thought I could make this kind of money, either? So it's a combination.

Tracy Hayes  29:43  
All right, I have my two minute warning questions as we wrap up. All right, yeah, we'll wrap up. You know, I officiate football, so I call them two minute warning. Some call it, I don't know different names other podcasters, but I call it two minute warning. It's more important who you know or what you know.

Beth Ruggeri  29:59  
I think, I think it's who you know, because it's all connections. It's you know, like, I tell newer agents, it's a people business, and it's networking. We can teach you the rest, like, don't worry about the contracts or the listings. We'll help you with all that. But you got to get out there and

Tracy Hayes  30:15  
shake hands, kiss babies. Yeah, exactly. If you were going back to just being an agent, would you? And you had to choose listing or buying which? Which side would you take? Listing 100% plant the seeds. I always call them. I call them traps. Each, each house is a trap, and you let the agents come in through and sell it. I've

Beth Ruggeri  30:36  
always told agents, you list to last, and your lifestyle is better. You control the market. You control your destiny, and you're not driving all over the county.

Tracy Hayes  30:46  
I still see people doing open houses right now in this market knowing that they don't even really have to do it. Yeah. What are you recommending to your agents right now?

Beth Ruggeri  30:55  
I've had a lot of agents that have built quite a good business from doing open houses. The problem is lack of inventory, but I do encourage them to do it and safety precautions and social distance. So

Tracy Hayes  31:06  
even though they're going to get multiple offers, you know, it's going to sell in three or four days, still do that open house to

Beth Ruggeri  31:13  
well, to me, it shows if that agent is doing an open house, it shows that they're a hard working agent. And I've gotten in. Other agents have gotten offspring business from having an open house. A seller that lives right down the street might say, Hey, I'm thinking of selling my house, or the buyer comes in represented. Not very often do you sell that particular house that you're holding the open house in, but you get business from it. Sure. What is on your travel bucket list? Hawaii? Why? Never been there. I've never been there either. The only thing there, the only thing right now, I would attract me there. I obviously, you know, as I do want to go to France, to go to the beaches of Normandy, is go to Pearl Harbor there, but definitely wouldn't mind going diving in Hawaii. I just would. I mean, I've been all over Europe, and Greece was the favorite place I've ever been in my life, and it's beautiful. And I would love to go back, but I've just never been to Hawaii.

Tracy Hayes  32:03  
So well Beth. As every guest that I come on, I give a gift to and you already told me you read, sell like sir. So I've got Ryan's latest book here, big money energy, which I think was sometime last year that came out. So this copy is brand new to you. Thank you. I appreciate you coming by. Look forward to the golf tournament. October 29 contact the St John's board. St Augustine, St John's board. For the chair. It's a charity, charity, and I think a lot of people, oh, $85 it's a charity. They're raising money, and you're obviously

Beth Ruggeri  32:34  
but you also get golf cart. You get drinks, food, entertainment,

Tracy Hayes  32:39  
prizes. You go to golf cart when you do that, right there. Yeah. So there. Yeah. So jet home loans is a sponsor there. We're honored to do that, and hopefully, look see a lot of the the agents, as well as other supporting affiliates as us. It'll be a fun event. Yes, for sure. Thank you. Thank you. Beth, thanks again. Thank you. You

Podcast Intro  33:04  
this may be it for today's episode of Real Estate excellence, but we both know your pursuit of excellence doesn't stop here, to connect with the best of the best and really take your skills to the next level. Join our community by visiting Tracy Hayes podcast.com where you'll meet more like minded individuals looking to expand their inner circle and their personal experience that's available at Tracy Hayes podcast.com, Tracy.