25 Years of Jacksonville Real Estate: Laila Hassan on Luxury, Grit, and Getting Sellers More Money

REE #325 Full Audio

[00:00:00] Laila Hassan: I love helping people. I love seeing the joy on their faces. I love winning and, you know, I’m a very competitive person, not just with other people, but with myself. It excites me when I help somebody. It excites me when we’ve accomplished their goals, and it excites me to win.

[00:01:00] Tracy Hayes: Hey, welcome back to the Real Estate Excellence Podcast. Today’s guest was born and raised right here in Jacksonville, and she’s spent the last 25 years becoming one of the most trusted names in our market.

[00:01:06] Tracy Hayes: And a decade in lending on top of that. You’ve got an agent who sees the deal from every angle — top negotiator, luxury specialist, the agent local news calls when they want the real take on the market. She’ll tell you it was never about the numbers. She truly cared. Let’s get into it. Please welcome Laila Hassan to the show. I did pronounce your last name correctly, right?

[00:01:32] Laila Hassan: Hassan. Hassan.

[00:01:33] Tracy Hayes: That’s okay. Hassan. Alright. An hour is probably not even enough for you because of the markets that you’ve gone through in your lifecycle. You were coming into this market, and then you were in lending before that.

[00:01:45] Laila Hassan: Yes.

[00:01:46] Tracy Hayes: So, lending in the nineties and even in the early 2000s today is a little bit different.

[00:01:53] Laila Hassan: Yes, for sure.

[00:01:54] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, completely different. What have you seen, knowing what you know, as you were getting into real estate and what type of loans we were doing then compared to today?

[00:02:02] Laila Hassan: Thank God it’s much better today and much more regulated than it was then. I mean, you could just be breathing and get a loan in the early 2000s. So yeah, much better as far as I’m concerned.

[00:02:17] Tracy Hayes: I’m just gonna turn that mic a little bit. There we go. Okay, good.

[00:02:21] Laila Hassan: Okay.

[00:02:21] Tracy Hayes: Yep.

[00:02:23] Laila Hassan: So yeah, it’s much different than it was.

[00:02:26] Tracy Hayes: Well, in Jacksonville — and the first time I came to Jacksonville was in ’99, early 2000 — my parents were already down in Naples. By the 2004–2005 timeframe, just what was going on in Florida at the time, the prices — people would go out and paint a door and all of a sudden their house was worth $20,000 more. People thought that was a regular thing. Let’s just go buy the house, put new carpet in, and turn around and sell it for $20,000 or $30,000 more. And of course, because the lending was footloose and fancy-free.

[00:03:03] Laila Hassan: Right, exactly.

[00:03:03] Tracy Hayes: Exactly. NINA, SISA, and all that kind of stuff. I remember there was one moment — and I have to go back because I started lending in 2005 — where they were doing investment properties with 5% down on some of these NINA and SISA loans. It only lasted for a brief moment, but it got that crazy.

[00:03:21] Laila Hassan: You could even have stated income. I mean, they still have some stated income loans today, but not like that. You could have a 550 credit score and a stated income loan and buy a million-dollar house.

[00:03:35] Tracy Hayes: We would go on this site that would say whatever your profession was, and they would have this bell curve. We could use whatever — I don’t know if it was the top of the bell curve — but somewhere on that bell curve we could use that income as their income, even though they weren’t making that much. It was just their title and profession.

[00:03:48] Laila Hassan: Right, exactly.

[00:03:55] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Crazy, crazy stuff. Well, what actually got you into real estate? You’ve been in real estate for 25 years, so you got started in lending really young.

[00:04:05] Laila Hassan: Okay, so let’s backtrack a little bit. I got started in the real estate industry first and then failed miserably and went into lending. So I apologize if that came off incorrectly. No, I wasn’t that young. I started off in real estate. I got my license in 2001. I did not know what I was doing at all. I didn’t even know how to write a contract or anything like that. Then my sister, who was in lending, said, “You need to get into lending for a bit.” So I went in and I loved it. I did very well at it.

[00:04:43] Tracy Hayes: This was before the 2007–2008 crash?

[00:04:45] Laila Hassan: Yes. I was still doing a deal here or there for friends and family. Then in 2006, I had my son and I went back to work and thought, “Oh my God, I have postpartum. I can’t sell a loan. What’s going on?” And it wasn’t postpartum — the market had just gone dramatically down. So I stayed in lending until 2009 when I had my second son. Then I said, “I’ve gotta get out of lending,” because in real estate at least I would have one cash deal and one deal with a loan and it would work, instead of throwing three loans against the wall and none of them sticking. So I had to do something, and I went back into real estate.

[00:05:28] Tracy Hayes: It was a unique time. I was at Rocket at the time, working in a call center, so thank God they were at least advertising.

[00:05:36] Laila Hassan: Right.

[00:05:36] Tracy Hayes: But the retraction from 2005, when I was hired — they were hiring about 120 loan officers a month, putting you through a 30-day training and then you were on the phones because you didn’t need the licenses like you need today.

[00:05:48] Laila Hassan: Right, exactly.

[00:05:49] Tracy Hayes: By June of ’07 I went into management, and by December of ’07 they started retracting — letting go of loan officers that weren’t cutting it, bringing divisions together, breaking them up, really trimming the fat, basically. Getting real thin. Then I went back into originating because they dissolved my team. I was one of the last teams created. It was really a contraction period of time. I remember the summer of ’08 — it was crickets.

[00:06:21] Laila Hassan: Yes.

[00:06:22] Tracy Hayes: You know?

[00:06:22] Laila Hassan: Yes.

[00:06:22] Tracy Hayes: I started working from home because that was one of the options. I remember going out for walks for a half hour, 45 minutes. It was no big deal because it was crickets.

[00:06:33] Laila Hassan: I know. I remember I was never late on a mortgage payment. I was never late on a bill. That’s just who I am. And I wasn’t going to end up in one of those traps where I was in a short sale or foreclosure situation. So I just kept going and going. I was like, “I can’t do this anymore. I have to get into real estate.”

[00:06:51] Tracy Hayes: I’m gonna ask this question because you bring up a very good point, and your story may actually be added in here — not to put pressure on you.

[00:07:02] Laila Hassan: No, no.

[00:07:04] Tracy Hayes: No, that’s good. But I talk about the grit in real estate agents.

[00:07:06] Laila Hassan: Yes.

[00:06:33] Laila Hassan: I know. I mean, I remember, I was never late on a mortgage payment. I was never late on a bill. That’s just who I am. And I wasn’t going to end up in one of those traps where I was in a short sale or foreclosure situation. So I just kept going and going. And I was like, “I can’t do this anymore. I have to get into real estate.”

[00:06:51] Tracy Hayes: I’m gonna ask this question because you bring up a very good point, and your story may actually be added in here. Not to put pressure on you.

[00:07:02] Laila Hassan: No, no.

[00:07:04] Tracy Hayes: No, that’s good. But I talk about the grit in the real estate agents.

[00:07:06] Laila Hassan: Yes.

[00:07:45] Tracy Hayes: You know, I mean, how many times did you think, like, “You know what? I’m gonna give up on the whole real estate market. Let me go get an office job or something.”

[00:07:52] Laila Hassan: Yeah. I just remember at the time, gosh, and I wish I lived like this now, but at the time my bills were so minimal. I had to make $3,000 a month to make it. And I was married to someone that just wasn’t so supportive, and I needed to make enough money too, to take care of everything. So I just remember, “I have to make $3,000 a month. I have to make $3,000 a month.” And I just did it, right? Then I got to a point where I was like, “I’ve gotta get money saved. I’ve gotta get money saved up.”

[00:08:22] Tracy Hayes: Because you’re sweating it, because that month’s over, and you’re like, “Okay, is another month coming and I’m in the same spot again?”

[00:08:28] Laila Hassan: Yes, yes. So it was like, but I did it every month. I made at least $3,000 a month to make my bills, sometimes more, sometimes less. I was selling $20,000 houses. I didn’t care what it was. I was like, “Just give it to me. Just give it to me.” So it worked out.

[00:08:43] Tracy Hayes: I think a lot of people don’t understand, you know, we’re 100% commissions, and a lot of people fear that. Obviously there’s a huge upswing because when we do a deal, we get reasonably paid fairly well, right? But it’s because we don’t have that guarantee. And what you just explained there is, I think, a lot of people don’t understand. Real estate agents have taken a lot of heat these last few years on, you know, “They get paid too much,” and so forth. They don’t understand the sweat and the stress that you went under during that period of time, or even right now. There’s a lot of agents falling out of the business.

[00:09:17] Laila Hassan: The hours working too. I mean, I’m up, I’ll take calls at 10 o’clock at night, 11 o’clock sometimes, replying to text messages. Yeah, and it’s 24/7. I remember trying to take my first vacation, and it was so difficult. My phone was nonstop. In our industry, go on vacation if you’re not busy, because you’ll certainly become busy.

[00:09:38] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:09:39] Laila Hassan: Yeah.

[00:09:39] Tracy Hayes: Trust me, on the way to the airport, the phone will start ringing.

[00:09:42] Laila Hassan: Exactly. Yeah. I even lost a deal that I had been working on while I was out of town. Sometimes that’ll happen where you’re working a deal for a long, long time, and they end up not buying or they end up buying with someone else because you were out of town when they wanted to buy that house.

[00:14:11] Tracy Hayes: Give you suggestions.

[00:14:12] Laila Hassan: Right, give you suggestions. And believe me, especially AI right now, they’re wrong a lot.

[00:14:17] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:14:18] Laila Hassan: I mean, so yeah, I don’t see that happening, like you said, especially in our business.

[00:14:22] Tracy Hayes: Well, because there’s so much of the human element in the entire transaction. Just getting the house ready — okay, I guess maybe you could take some pictures of your house and ask AI, “How would you do it?” and it’ll probably give you some suggestions. But that’s just one little step in the hundred-step process.

[00:14:41] Laila Hassan: Right.

[00:14:41] Tracy Hayes: Taking someone from finding out what they want or how fast they want to sell, all those things that human wants, and then taking them through the process, let alone negotiation.

[00:14:51] Laila Hassan: Right, no. I mean, I’ll walk up to one of my listings to show it, and there’s a weed in the yard. I’m pulling that weed out before that client gets there. AI is not coming to pull your weeds. So, you know, you want to make sure a home is completely show-ready. AI is not gonna be able to do that.

[00:15:10] Tracy Hayes: Right. Alright, let’s go back to 26 years ago. You’re in your twenties — what gives you the fancy to get into real estate? What happens in your life that makes you decide to jump in?

[00:15:21] Laila Hassan: So, I was a corporate recruiter. I was a recruiter with a temporary agency, and I was a corporate recruiter. At a young age, I just always excelled quickly in careers. They wouldn’t let me go into sales. I wanted to go into sales, and they were like, “No, you don’t have the experience.” But I knew that I would be good in sales.

[00:15:43] Tracy Hayes: From a corporate recruiting side, what do they consider sales?

[00:15:46] Laila Hassan: So it wasn’t in the corporate recruiting side, it was in the temporary agency side — the temporary staffing side. They had account executives that would go out and get the business to get staffing.

[00:15:56] Tracy Hayes: From the businesses that utilized the service.

[00:15:57] Laila Hassan: Right, yeah, that needed staffing.

[00:15:59] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:00] Laila Hassan: And I just knew I would be so good at it, and they were like, “Nope.” So when they said nope, I said, “Okay,” and I started getting my real estate license.

[00:16:08] Tracy Hayes: Well, my immediate thought there is that’s a people business.

[00:16:12] Laila Hassan: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:13] Tracy Hayes: I don’t think you need to be this gray-haired, peppered-hair person to go in there and do the sales. Mike Reitz came from the temporary staffing business.

[00:16:20] Laila Hassan: Oh, did he? I didn’t know that.

[00:16:22] Tracy Hayes: I thought that was his background. He actually owned a company that did that. It’s really a relationship thing. You’re going in — “We have a service. They need the service. Are you going to communicate with me? Are you going to bring me great people?” That’s really what they’re worried about.

[00:16:39] Laila Hassan: Right.

[00:16:40] Tracy Hayes: It makes me wonder if they were being a little biased, like, “Hey, here’s this young lady in her twenties. Can she do this?”

[00:16:51] Laila Hassan: Right, exactly. I mean, the account executives were in their thirties and early forties at the time. I’ve always been a very social person, always had a lot of friends growing up, and I still have a lot of those friends today. But I think at the time they just said no, and I wanted to do sales, so I was gonna do it one way or another.

[00:17:18] Tracy Hayes: One door closes, another one opens.

[00:17:20] Laila Hassan: Exactly.

[00:17:21] Tracy Hayes: So tell us — you jump into real estate. Tell us about your first brokerage. Did you join because a friend was there? What led you to hanging your first sign?

[00:17:33] Laila Hassan: Now remember, I was young.

[00:17:34] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:34] Laila Hassan: Okay, so I first started at Coldwell Banker, and they got rid of me because I didn’t show up to a meeting.

[00:17:44] Tracy Hayes: That first month or two.

[00:17:44] Laila Hassan: Yeah. It was like, you know, I was playing around. I wasn’t working. Wow. And, you know, I was young and my parents had money, and I just rolled with that and let them take care of me.

But it was funny because they said, “Well, you can’t be here anymore,” because they were very strict and you had to be at meetings. It was so weird. But anyway, then I left, and one of my friends had purchased a house a few years prior with Eileen Blocker, who owned Magnolia Properties. They said, “Oh, you need to try going to Eileen. She’s great.”

So I went over there and I said, “Do I have to be at meetings?” And she said no. So I said, “Sign me up.” Then I stayed there until she got out of the business. I loved Eileen. I still love Eileen dearly.

[00:18:36] Tracy Hayes: Well, so some new agent who might be listening right now — obviously we would not want them to hear that part about skipping the meetings. Because as we were just talking about Christie’s and the surroundings there, there are some people that can go join REAL or eXp and not have an office. Although they try to gather together and have some camaraderie themselves, I think the office atmosphere is the category most people fit into because we’re used to going to school, we’re used to going into the classroom, and now you’re at work.

Talk about how important some of these meetings are. I know Cory’s been having some of these little coffee meetings or—

[00:19:20] Laila Hassan: Something.

[00:19:21] Tracy Hayes: Coffee and collaboration. I said, “Dude, would you please invite me to one? I’d like to just listen in on what’s being talked about.”

[00:19:28] Laila Hassan: So, do you know what’s funny? I show up to almost every morning meeting that we have now. It’s very rare that I don’t go to a morning meeting. But yeah, it’s important because you learn from your peers, and you learn what new changes are taking place with MLS or with NAR, and you learn about all the rules and regulations. If you’re not at these meetings, you’re not learning these things.

Those are your one shot to learn. We also have a tech meeting, so not just coffee and collaboration, which is awesome because everybody’s sharing different ideas or something that worked for them.

[00:20:07] Tracy Hayes: A situation that maybe you never come across, but when you do come across it, you’re like, “Hey, remember we talked about that last month? Oh, this exactly. Yeah. Well, how did you get that figured out?” That’s why I think a lot of people miss out.

Having come from a call center world starting from the mortgage side, obviously we’re in cubes, so we can stand up and hear everyone else around us talking and transactions are going on all around us. So you’re getting a lot of at-bats, even though it’s not your loan. When you get out here into the world that you and I are in now, you might be working on two or three different transactions, but in the call center they’re working on 20 transactions. The importance of getting those at-bats.

And I think that leads to my next question. At what point — you get in the business, obviously you got out for a little bit because the market got slow and you got into lending — but at what point did you feel the tipping point? Like, “I got control of this. I get it.”

[00:21:07] Laila Hassan: Oh yeah. I’ll tell you, the best thing for me was going into lending because I got out and I knew how to write a contract, and I knew what fees were what fees.

When I started in lending, we were closing our own loans. I mean, if you remember those days, we were literally—

[00:21:26] Tracy Hayes: No, I don’t. That was before me.

[00:21:29] Laila Hassan: We underwrote our loans.

[00:21:30] Tracy Hayes: Well—

[00:21:30] Laila Hassan: We processed our loans and we closed our loans.

[00:21:33] Tracy Hayes: Right. So Quicken — obviously Quicken, now Rocket — it was a machine.

[00:21:39] Laila Hassan: Right.

[00:21:39] Tracy Hayes: So my cog was to talk to people on the phone, get the initial docs, boom, and then it’s in a process.

[00:21:46] Laila Hassan: Right.

[00:21:46] Tracy Hayes: Whereas if you are out here like I am today — of course today I’ve got a great processor, thank God, better than having an assistant — but I can imagine you were literally taking the handwritten contract or handwritten 1003 and taking it all the way through.

[00:22:00] Laila Hassan: We did our titles, we did our own title searches, and we cleared our own title searches back when I got in it. It was interesting, and not every company was like that, but the one I started with was like that. So I learned a lot.

[00:22:14] Tracy Hayes: I bet.

[00:22:14] Laila Hassan: And it was great too because a lot of my clients that I had done loans for became real estate clients, so it worked out. It flowed really well. It ended up working out great.

[00:22:27] Tracy Hayes: I think you said it was about 2009 that you got back into real estate full time.

[00:22:29] Laila Hassan: Yep.

[00:22:30] Tracy Hayes: It’s still slow though.

[00:22:32] Laila Hassan: It’s still slow, but I was doing a lot better. And it’s interesting — I’m Arabic, and there’s a little saying that goes, “With a new baby comes new money.” I had my son, and I had C-sections on both kids, but with my second child, I had my son, they took him to clean him and weigh him and all that, and I grabbed my computer because we had to make money, right? I mean, now I have two kids to take care of.

[00:23:01] Tracy Hayes: Right?

[00:23:01] Laila Hassan: I grabbed my computer. I was like, “Hand me that little tray,” you know, in the hospital. I put it over my hospital bed. I started working right there — literally within 30 minutes of giving birth to my son. So I started working again.

But it was amazing because right after that I almost doubled my income. At the time I was making like $35,000, $38,000 a year. I literally doubled my income as soon as I had my son. Then came all these short sales, and I became really good at doing short sales, and it ended up working out great.

[00:23:35] Tracy Hayes: Did you have someone — because obviously that was a trying time and a lot of people got out — but a lot of the great agents I’ve had on that have been in the business long enough to have been through that period figured it out. Like, “Hey, we gotta learn how to do this thing called a short sale.” We gotta learn how to deal with foreclosures and the banks and get answers from them and so forth.

Did you have someone kind of walking you through it, or was it just right in front of you? Like, “Hey, this is the market. I need to learn how to do that.” Because I imagine there weren’t a lot of people teaching it.

[00:24:07] Laila Hassan: There wasn’t, and yes, nobody knew how to do a short sale. At that time a short sale would take like eight, nine, ten months — twelve months sometimes — whereas now you can get them done in a few months, you know, ninety days and boom, they’re through.

But yeah, it was quite interesting to learn all of that. I had a lot of short sale business I was doing. I became like the queen of short sales, so to speak.

[00:24:32] Tracy Hayes: So what do you think was the — obviously having your second son and the phrase you just used — but something had to click inside of you. Or was it just destiny and timing? Your son being born, you being motivated to make that $3,000 a month, and now that motivation and hungriness started to become four and five thousand dollars a month.

[00:24:59] Laila Hassan: Diapers weren’t cheap. I mean, my kids were not gonna suffer. I believed that my kids could have everything that other kids had and more. So I worked so hard just to make sure that we had everything as a family.

And because I was in lending, I was so focused on my credit. I was like, “I’m not ruining my credit.” I mean, when I was younger — early twenties — I had messed up my credit. I paid off everything, and I was like, “I’m not messing this up.”

So I racked up about $30,000 in credit card debt that I later paid off, but I didn’t ruin my credit.

[00:25:45] Tracy Hayes: Right. Well, it’s interesting — we all reach different points in our life where things suddenly just click.

[00:25:53] Laila Hassan: Yes.

[00:25:54] Tracy Hayes: And it’s because that work ethic that you had going on — “I gotta make $3,000, gotta make $3,000.” But I imagine to make that $3,000 you were making contacts.

[00:26:06] Laila Hassan: Oh yes.

[00:26:06] Tracy Hayes: Talking to as many people—

[00:26:07] Laila Hassan: As possible. I didn’t stop. I was always out there making contacts and getting to know people and understanding their situations because everybody’s situation is a lot different.

And I just truly cared, and I still do. I truly care about people, and I never want people to make foolish decisions when it comes to buying real estate. Whether they’re gonna live there for 20 years or two years, I still want them to have all the knowledge upfront and make sure they’re making good informed decisions.

[00:26:35] Tracy Hayes: Going off what you just said — the care part — if you were tutoring a young agent today, or if you were able to talk to Laila 25 years ago, what advice would you tell her based on how you approach customers, how you talk to them, the questions you ask, and so forth? What would you tell young Laila?

[00:27:01] Laila Hassan: Oh God, young Laila was so emotional about everything. It was like, “I will fight for you.”

But yeah, I guess what I would say is — you’re giving me a tough question, Tracy. You’re gonna have to edit this part.

[00:27:18] Tracy Hayes: This is the question that makes reels.

[00:27:21] Laila Hassan: Yeah, I know, right? Okay, let’s start over.

I would say that the advice I’d give myself is to relax and really take your time and understand what a client needs. It’s so important to truly understand what they need — not just hearing them, but really listening to them.

[00:27:43] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:43] Laila Hassan: That’s what’s really important in my opinion. They’re coming to you for your advice, and how are you gonna give your advice if you’re not really taking your time to listen to what they have to say?

[00:27:53] Tracy Hayes: There are some deals where clients want to be very transactional.

[00:27:59] Laila Hassan: Right.

[00:27:59] Tracy Hayes: But I’d say that’s maybe one out of ten deals where it’s like, “Hey, I’m buying an investment property, here’s my money, let’s get it done as soon as possible.”

But nine out of ten are situations — divorces, relocations, moves, whatever. Something happened in their life and they’re having to buy or sell. And you need to understand what that situation is. Would you agree?

[00:28:27] Laila Hassan: Oh yes, for sure. And not just, “Hey, I’m getting a divorce,” but understanding how it’s affecting that particular person.

Because sometimes you’ve gotta wear a different hat. I’ve had grown adults cry to me that are going through a divorce, and you really have to be sensitive to them. Understand it’s a big move. Some of them were married 25 years, and all of a sudden they’re moving from their family home where their kids grew up.

[00:28:57] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:28:57] Laila Hassan: And buying a smaller place just for themselves. You have to be very understanding, really listen to them, and be sensitive a lot of times to that.

[00:29:12] Tracy Hayes: Alright, we’re gonna jump into our prepared questions here.

[00:29:16] Laila Hassan: I hope—

[00:29:16] Tracy Hayes: These are the deep ones.

[00:29:18] Laila Hassan: I hope you’re gonna talk about my month.

[00:29:20] Tracy Hayes: Oh, okay. You want to tell us?

[00:29:23] Laila Hassan: Don’t put that on camera — just kidding.

[00:29:29] Tracy Hayes: Well, you did have a big month. Was it March or April?

[00:29:33] Laila Hassan: It was April.

[00:29:34] Tracy Hayes: April. Had a big month. Tell us how that culminated, because agents out there are gonna see your Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram posts and think, “Man, I wish I could have a month like that.”

But it takes time. Some of those deals, I imagine, were customers you had been nurturing for years, right? And all of a sudden you have this culmination of timing, your work ethic, your knowledge — everything came to a peak, and your income increased. You had been working on some of these deals for a while, and it all culminated into a great April.

[00:29:34] Tracy Hayes: April. Had a big month. Tell us how that culminated, because agents out there are gonna see your Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram posts and think, “Man, I wish I could have a month like that.”

But it takes time. Some of those deals, I imagine, were customers you had been nurturing for years, right? And all of a sudden you have this culmination of timing, your work ethic, your knowledge — everything came to a peak, and your income increased. You had been working on some of these deals for a while, and it all culminated into a great April.

[00:30:03] Laila Hassan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I had one client that I had worked with for probably eight years before they finally purchased. And that happens a lot in our business. You stay in touch with people, you build relationships, and eventually, when the timing is right for them, they come back to you.

I think a lot of people see one big month and they don’t realize the years that went into it. It’s not just one month. It’s years and years of building trust, relationships, and constantly being available for people.

[00:30:34] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, because what people see is the closing picture.

[00:30:37] Laila Hassan: Exactly.

[00:30:38] Tracy Hayes: They don’t see the eight years of phone calls, text messages, checking in, answering questions, showing houses, maybe writing offers that didn’t get accepted, all those things.

[00:30:49] Laila Hassan: Right. Exactly. And honestly, some people never buy. Some people never sell. But you still help them because you care about them and you want to guide them the right way.

[00:31:00] Tracy Hayes: That’s the relationship side of the business that I think people miss. They think it’s transactional.

[00:31:06] Laila Hassan: It’s definitely not transactional for me. I mean, I still talk to clients from twenty years ago. Some of them have become some of my closest friends. I’ve watched their kids grow up. I’ve gone through life events with them. It’s much deeper than just selling a house.

[00:31:24] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, and that’s probably why you’ve lasted as long as you have through all the different market cycles.

[00:31:30] Laila Hassan: I think so. I think if you truly care about people and you stay consistent, it comes back around. Maybe not immediately, but eventually it does.

[00:31:41] Tracy Hayes: What do you think separates the agents that survive long term from the ones that get out after a few years?

[00:31:48] Laila Hassan: Consistency. Definitely consistency. And also being willing to adapt. Our business changes constantly. Contracts change, technology changes, marketing changes, markets change. If you’re not adapting, you’re gonna get left behind.

And honestly, I think ego hurts a lot of people in this business. You have to be willing to learn from other people. You have to be willing to ask questions and admit when you don’t know something.

[00:32:18] Tracy Hayes: That’s hard for some competitive personalities.

[00:32:21] Laila Hassan: Very hard. But there’s always somebody smarter than you in some area, and if you stop learning, you’re in trouble.

[00:32:31] Tracy Hayes: Especially now. The changes are happening faster than ever.

[00:32:35] Laila Hassan: Oh, absolutely. I mean, even just the changes over the last couple years with contracts and commissions and everything else — you have to stay educated constantly.

[00:32:47] Tracy Hayes: What’s your favorite part of the business today?

[00:32:51] Laila Hassan: Honestly, still helping people. I know that sounds cliché, but it’s true. I love when somebody calls me after closing and they’re so excited, or they tell me, “Thank you for helping us through this.” That still means everything to me.

And I also love mentoring newer agents now. I think because I struggled so much when I started, I enjoy helping newer agents avoid some of those mistakes.

[00:37:06] Laila Hassan: I'm busier with other things. Yeah, I guess, you know, I used to work with a group of people for many years. In fact, in 2023 and 2024, I had to rework my business altogether because somebody from that community got their real estate license and they went into that group. But before now, it was this whole group of people that I worked with, and it was about 90% of my business. Now today it’s about 5% of my business, but I reworked. I went out into the community and met some new people. I joined the JAX Chamber as a trustee member and haven’t really had anything off of there, but just knowing other people and then people getting to know Laila Hassan.

[00:37:46] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:47] Laila Hassan: And it’s really paid off. I’ve gotten more into the luxury side of real estate, which I really enjoy. I feel like it’s a very service-driven part of real estate. And I love to help people and I love to have success. I love to sell houses for more than, you know, the last one that sold. It just thrills me and, you know, I do a lot of listings and I always get people more money, and I love doing that. So it’s, I just think that, you know, my clientele — it’s not the new construction. The community I was working with, they weren’t big new-construction people. They had certain zip codes that they liked to live in, and then none of those zip codes really had new construction. And then, you know, now it’s just more, I guess my clientele is into cookie-cutter, so to speak.

[00:38:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Well, I think, you know, when you go into some of these new neighborhoods, like, there’s not even a tree. That just blows my mind. It’s like someone who’s a little more mature, affluent, whatever, they like some trees. Obviously, yeah, the older neighborhoods have a little bit more room between the houses. You know, some of these new construction neighborhoods, I don’t know how — like there’s barely enough room for one car in the driveway. I don’t even know how they do it.

[00:39:01] Laila Hassan: Right. No, I know. They’re extending with pavers on each side, and I’m just not a fan of new construction myself. I guess that maybe is why — I don’t know if I manifest not selling it or what it is.

[00:39:14] Tracy Hayes: Do you get some of your luxury buyers looking to possibly — well, whether it’s build their own custom home, you know? Go to a custom-home style or even, you know, if — when I’m told somewhere there’s some places out at the beach in Atlantic Beach or whatever where you have some of these older, you know, old cinder-block homes that actually — they want to buy it and they want to either renovate it or level it and build a whole new—

[00:39:39] Laila Hassan: Usually leveling it. Yeah. But yes, and they’re nice homes that they’re building on those properties and just really, you know, high-level finishes and things like that. Yeah. I’m just not a fan of your typical shaker cabinet, and I just, you know, I don’t want to walk in a house and every house have the white shakers and have the subway tile and have the quartz countertops that all look the same with the gray veining. I mean, it’s just, you know, I just prefer, I guess, yeah—

[00:40:08] Tracy Hayes: Whatever the trend is.

[00:40:09] Laila Hassan: Whatever the trend is for that at the moment.

[00:40:11] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Tell us, when you’re dealing with the luxury client and what you’ve learned in 25 years in the business — because obviously there’s a lot of agents that would love to say, “Yeah.” You know, they all want to increase their price point. I would love to do larger loans because I get paid on the size of the loan, right? You want to sell the highest-price-point home that you could possibly sell if you find a client that has that kind of money. But when you’re working with those buyers, what are some of the things you’ve learned over time and in working with numbers of those level buyers? I’m talking probably definitely north of a million, but you know, million-five, two-million, three-million-dollar price-point homes or higher. What are some of the things, as an agent, you need to be on top of your game with with them?

[00:40:59] Laila Hassan: Well, I mean, I’m like a concierge service when it comes to—

[00:41:04] Tracy Hayes: That’s exact — I’ve used that word so many times. It is like you listen to my show.

[00:41:08] Laila Hassan: Well, I’ve seen a few episodes. But no, you have to be like a concierge service. You have to be prepared to do whatever they want you to do. And, you know, it’s so interesting because people at that level, they’re so much easier to work with sometimes.

[00:41:29] Tracy Hayes: Is it because they give you more control? They lean on your professionalism?

[00:41:33] Laila Hassan: Well, of course. I mean, I think they know that, you know, an attorney that’s been an attorney for 20 years knows more than an attorney that’s been an attorney for five years, you know? And people want the 20-year attorney. They don’t want the five-year attorney, so to speak. Right? So I think that, you know, they trust you. They know that you have a reputation for getting things done, and they just let you ride, where someone, you know, sometimes someone in the $550 price point is on your case every day calling you. And let me just set this straight: in the higher price points, you’re taking a lot less percentage as far as commission goes. So yeah, overall the check is more, you know, and sometimes the time that it takes to get a property sold is a little bit longer. Sometimes it’s easier to do four $400,000 or $500,000 deals than one $2 million deal. But I think that they are a lot more understanding and easier to work with, I guess I should say, sometimes.

[00:42:33] Tracy Hayes: Well, yeah, you’ve had to have that one client, though, that probably had something really quirky. And the reason I think — I don’t know if you’ve ever read Ryan Serhant’s books?

[00:42:41] Laila Hassan: No.

[00:42:42] Tracy Hayes: He talks about, in one of his books, how I guess this guy went through this multimillion-dollar whatever in New York, and there was a blanket on the couch or something.

[00:42:54] Laila Hassan: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:55] Tracy Hayes: And it turns out the blanket actually was made by someone in the family. It had some sentimental value to it, right? But the buyer wanted it. He said, “I’m not doing this deal unless I get that blanket.” And it was just some crazy—

[00:43:10] Laila Hassan: Right.

[00:43:10] Tracy Hayes: Like, that blanket means nothing to you, but it means something to somebody, right? Because maybe their mom or grandmother made it or whatever it was. So there’s always a little quirky one. Can you recall just something a little — you probably overcame it — but just something really odd that they maybe got hung up on or that they requested, but it’s like, “Dude.”

[00:43:29] Laila Hassan: Tracy, no. They listen to me so well. I think I tell them, “No, you’re not getting the blanket.”

[00:43:37] Tracy Hayes: I think they listen well, and for the agents who are listening, there’s two parts to that. One: your presence, your professionalism, and so forth. Right? And then when they make the commitment to hire you, they’re hiring you to do a job, right? Just like they — many of them are CEOs or whatever company — they hire that person, they expect you to be able to do the job. So they’re saying, “Okay, you go out and find out whatever and come back and tell me what your report is,” and they put it on you.

[00:44:00] Laila Hassan: Right. I mean, I try to — and I’m this way whether it’s my listing or my buyer — I try to be fair, you know, when it comes to the repair requests. Like, “Hey, we’re not throwing this slight socket on the repair request. It’s stupid, right? Go get somebody to come change it. It’ll cost you 50 bucks, 100 bucks. Like, let’s not be silly.” And I do it on both sides. Or if a repair request comes in and my seller’s like, “I’m not repairing that.” No, you need to repair this, this, and this. These are important items. Like, let’s be fair. You know, they’re giving you a good price for your house. Let’s not be ridiculous.

Yeah, I did have one recently, and I’d rather not say because I’m sure they’ll be watching this. But I had someone recently get a little sideways, and, you know, I handled it.

[00:44:47] Tracy Hayes: Handle it well. Tell us, you know, what is your mindset in handling it? I mean, is it straight talk or doing a little reasoning like you were doing right there? Like, “Come on, that’s a little silly.”

[00:44:56] Laila Hassan: That’s what I do. I just reason with them. Like, put yourself in that person’s shoes for a moment. I mean, if you’re buying a $3 million house, do you want to be repairing — you’ve got 3 million for this house. We were asking 3 million. You thought we were going to get 2.7.

[00:45:13] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:13] Laila Hassan: You are getting $300,000 more. Let’s not—

[00:45:15] Tracy Hayes: Spend a couple thousand dollars—

[00:45:16] Laila Hassan: And fix it. Let’s not be ridiculous. And even if I don’t think the buyer’s going to walk away, turn your house over in good condition.

[00:45:22] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we know that doesn’t always happen now, does it?

[00:45:25] Laila Hassan: One hundred percent.

[00:45:26] Tracy Hayes: Have you ever emptied out a garage on a house you sold because the seller just left the garage full? Just garbage.

[00:45:34] Laila Hassan: I’ve had that. I recently actually just closed a deal recently and we pull up to do the final walkthrough, the lockbox is gone, the key is hidden somewhere — not even told me that the key was hidden somewhere — and garbage cans are full and things not the way they should have been inside the house. And, you know, I called the person. They’re like, “Sorry.” Like nothing really. And it was just frustrating.

[00:45:59] Tracy Hayes: You were the buyer’s agent.

[00:48:00] Tracy Hayes: So we know that that’s one factor in every decision-making process, especially for people who need to borrow money. Why do you think that some of the more mature, experienced, top-producing agents are actually almost excelling in the market, considering the situation where there’s a lot of agents who were just kind of so-so? They were making a living being real estate agents, but they’ve gone in a downturn. Some of them have gotten out.

[00:48:29] Laila Hassan: So, and I’m glad. I hope more of them get out. I mean, I’m not trying to be ugly, but to me, you need experience in this industry today.

[00:48:38] Tracy Hayes: Raise the bar to get into this business.

[00:48:42] Laila Hassan: Raise the bar to get into this business. I mean, I will say the reason I think that more experienced agents are excelling is because people are becoming more knowledgeable and not just hiring their brother’s best friend or whoever to do real estate for them anymore. And I think that a more experienced agent has proven themselves time and time again.

[00:49:06] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. No, I like the “more knowledgeable” part. Yes, that actually will probably be a good reel. I think you’re right. Obviously, we already know for years, ever since the internet, that people are doing a lot of search. They’ll see a home numerous times before they actually physically enter it by going online, looking at the pictures or whatever, or doing virtual tours. But as technology gets better, the information is now at their fingertips. They’re asking more questions, so to speak, and doing that research before coming.

Your ideal client owns a $2 million-plus home and needs it to be sold fast for top dollar. Walk me through the first 72 hours after you take the listing. What are you doing that the average agent isn’t even thinking about?

[00:49:54] Laila Hassan: I am on the phone with any agents that have sold in that direct area and letting them know, “Hey, I’ve got a home popping up in San Marco. Who do you have? Let’s try to get them ready to get in there when it hits the market.”

I guess when you say first 72 hours, are we already on the market?

[00:50:16] Tracy Hayes: Either way you want to play it.

[00:50:18] Laila Hassan: I’m starting before the home goes on the market. I know a couple weeks in advance at least if I’m putting a home on the market. So I’m already selling that home immediately. I’m saying, “Hey, I’ve got this house coming up. It’s fantastic. It’s got three bedrooms downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. It’s fully renovated,” or whatever it is.

And I’m pushing that listing ahead of time to all the agents that have sold in that area, whether it’s a top agent or not, because at some point somebody sold in that area. So I try to hit the top agents that have sold within a half-mile of that area and say, “Hey.”

[00:51:00] Tracy Hayes: Because at that level of a $2 million home, those people are not just running in and making a decision over the weekend. They’re not running into a model new-construction home. They’re looking to be in a certain area with a home that has certain criteria. So oftentimes they’re willing to wait until it comes available, right?

[00:51:23] Laila Hassan: Oh yes, for sure. A lot of these homes that are moving faster or moving for asking price are in a very desirable area. So if it’s a listing in a desirable area, I’m giving people heads up to get their clients ready so we can build up some excitement about that listing.

[00:51:45] Tracy Hayes: Christie’s sells itself obviously, to be that more affluent buyer, I guess. Just the Christie’s International persona, right? How often are you doing this? Obviously all your fellow Christie’s agents know, “Hey, I’ve got this listing coming down.” Anybody runs across something, “I’ve got this coming up in two weeks,” or whatever it might be.

How has that been a benefit — just say some things about Christie’s and the level of clients where you started to make some phone calls or sent an email out to your teammates saying, “I’ve got this coming on,” and someone’s like, “Hey, I’ve got someone interested in that.”

[00:46:01] Laila Hassan: I was the buyer’s agent. I looked at my buyers and I said, “What can I do to make this better for you guys?”

[00:46:09] Tracy Hayes: I think one of the few things that everyone should build into their process — especially if you’re out there listening — is to have the house professionally cleaned. Get out of the house and have somebody go room by room.

[00:46:19] Laila Hassan: One hundred percent.

[00:46:20] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:46:20] Laila Hassan: And plug the holes from your pictures. Like, plug those up. Come on.

[00:46:25] Tracy Hayes: I have another story. We don’t have time to talk about that part.

So, you’re the local agent the news calls when they want a take on the market. What’s the question reporters keep asking you that you think is the wrong question, and what should they be asking instead?

[00:46:40] Laila Hassan: Well, I think that a lot of times they’re calling to see if the market is in shambles. For some reason, everybody wants some drama.

[00:46:48] Tracy Hayes: Some drama.

[00:46:49] Laila Hassan: For some reason everybody — Redfin or whoever — is reporting all these numbers that don’t make sense. Because I’m out there working it. Jacksonville just came in as the worst large market in Florida or something like that. They came and interviewed me, and I was like, “I’m closing.”

I closed almost $16 million — and this was at the beginning of May — I said I just closed almost $16 million in one month. I don’t understand.

And it’s not just me. Everybody’s busy. We had a lot of top producers in April, and Christie’s as a whole has broken records every single month since January. To break our records is insane.

[00:47:37] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, because Christie’s sets some bars.

[00:47:40] Laila Hassan: We close over $100 million a month. I mean, with 148 agents, I think so.

[00:47:47] Tracy Hayes: Well, it kind of brings up a question. Since May of ‘22, when rates started to come up — and obviously right now we’re at a two-month high where interest rates are — we know that’s one factor in every decision-making process, especially for people who need to borrow money.

Why do you think some of the more mature, experienced, top-producing agents are actually excelling in the market, considering there’s a lot of agents who were just kind of so-so? They were making a living as real estate agents, but they’ve gone into a downturn. Some of them have gotten out.

[00:48:29] Laila Hassan: And I’m glad. I hope more of them get out. I’m not trying to be ugly, but to me, you need experience in this industry today.

[00:48:38] Tracy Hayes: Raise the bar to get into this business.

[00:48:42] Laila Hassan: Raise the bar to get into this business. I think the reason more experienced agents are excelling is because people are becoming more knowledgeable and not just hiring their brother’s best friend or whoever to do real estate for them anymore.

I think a more experienced agent has proven themselves time and time again.

[00:49:06] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I like the “more knowledgeable” part. That’ll probably be a good reel. Obviously people have been doing a lot of research ever since the internet. They’ll see a home numerous times before they physically enter it by looking online, seeing pictures, virtual tours, whatever.

As technology gets better, the information is now at their fingertips. They’re asking more questions and doing that research beforehand.

[00:59:56] Laila Hassan: Well, I have to say the last one—

[00:59:58] Tracy Hayes: I was gonna say, yeah, I was just—

[00:59:59] Laila Hassan: That’s done. Let’s go to the next question.

[01:00:01] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, that was too— I didn’t know you actually can do that. You actually went back to the buyer?

[01:00:09] Laila Hassan: Well, I had somebody call about it. I mean, I don’t think — oh gosh, don’t play that video if it’s not—

[01:00:15] Tracy Hayes: Don’t.

[01:00:18] Tracy Hayes: Let’s go to the next question. You said your network — well, you’re in sales, and I think a lot of people forget that you’re in sales.

You’ve got them on the hook at 1.9. If you came back and said, “Yeah, we’ll take it,” they would have signed the paper that night.

There are some moments, and obviously because of your knowledge, your experience, your presence in that whole situation, to not rush to “I got your 1.9, let’s sign it and go.”

You actually ended up doing a huge service for the seller that was above and beyond, and I can only imagine that person — I mean, I’m sure you knocked him off his chair when that closed.

Because where the others were saying you’d drop to 1.5 — oh my goodness.

[01:01:04] Laila Hassan: Yep.

[01:01:04] Tracy Hayes: You said your network of friends and family in Jacksonville is how you sell properties quickly — buyers and sellers connected before a home ever hits the market.

In 2026, Zillow and the MLS run the show. How much business is still actually happening off-market, and how does an agent build that kind of network from scratch?

We talked about it a little bit. Obviously you know what you’re doing with pre-showing, but let’s change the question just a little bit since you gave a lot of information a question or so ago.

New agents maybe are working for a small boutique brokerage where they only have a half dozen agents or whatever, right? What is something they could start doing today with their very next listing before it goes on market to start selling it before it actually goes live?

[01:01:55] Laila Hassan: Like I said, just calling agents and saying, “Hey, I have a listing coming soon in this area.”

I go after the half-mile radius of what has sold in that area and who sold it. And I start calling.

“Hey, I’ve got one three doors down from where you already sold. Do you know anybody else? Do the people that bought that house know anybody that’s possibly looking to move?”

[01:02:19] Tracy Hayes: So when someone goes and makes an appointment to see a house — another agent for a buyer — is that information being retained anywhere?

[01:02:32] Laila Hassan: I’m sorry, say it one more time.

[01:02:33] Tracy Hayes: So you’re listing a house in a neighborhood, and a buyer’s agent is making an appointment through the system to request a showing. Is anyone retaining that information? Because obviously they have a buyer who’s looking in that area.

[01:02:51] Laila Hassan: We wouldn’t know that. Only the listing agent would know who’s made appointments there and what agents have called.

[01:02:57] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, because that would be an immediate lead source.

[01:03:00] Laila Hassan: That would be amazing to have that information.

But even just calling the buyer’s agent that sold that particular property and saying, “Hey, your buyer that bought there — see if they know anybody. Maybe you can represent them, or maybe you have somebody else looking in that neighborhood.”

[01:03:19] Tracy Hayes: Right. I think if anyone’s going to leave with a tip today that you can do right now on your next listing, it’s that. I’d be very curious if we took a poll of how many agents are actually doing something prior to it going on the MLS.

[01:03:35] Laila Hassan: Christie’s agents are.

[01:03:36] Tracy Hayes: Yes. That’s why they’re great.

You said the biggest mistake buyers make is working with their sister’s brother’s best friend’s cousin who just started in the industry. That happens every single day in this market and has since the beginning of time.

What’s the conversation a buyer should be having with that family-friend agent before they sign anything? And what do you tell people who’ve already made that mistake?

And I want to put this out there because everyone has to start somewhere.

[01:04:09] Laila Hassan: Right.

[01:04:09] Tracy Hayes: There’s no doubt all of us have had a family member be our first client. It could’ve been selling Girl Scout cookies — mom buys the first box. Everybody has to get started somewhere.

[01:04:26] Laila Hassan: I agree. They do have to get started somewhere. I think they need a mentor. I think they need to say, “Hey, come help me with this transaction. I’m going to give you 50% to help me with this transaction.”

And I need them to co-list it with you, or whatever.

I do not think a new agent should be doing a deal by themselves. Period. You are not doing the customer a service at all. You are hurting them.

I don’t care how many courses you’ve taken — you don’t learn until you go through transactions. And I think not just your first transaction needs somebody helping you. You need to have 10 transactions with somebody helping you.

[01:05:17] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. It goes back to raising the bar in the industry too. I agree with you.

When you want to become an appraiser, you’ve got to go through all these apprenticeship hours and so forth. A real estate agent doesn’t need any of that.

[01:05:33] Laila Hassan: Right.

[01:05:33] Tracy Hayes: What are some experiences you’re having right now — and you’re talking to agents who might be listening to the show — especially newer agents who are trying to improve and learn something from you?

What would you say to them? Find a mentor, find someone senior in the office you can lean on.

But also, what are some of the things — whether it’s contracts not filled out correctly — because I should have my wife write down every time she tells me one of these stories where she’s working with somebody on the other end who literally does not know what they’re doing.

[01:06:17] Laila Hassan: So frustrating. There are certain companies where you see the agent and you just automatically know they don’t know what they’re doing.

Honestly, I think — going back to the appraiser thing — they have to do that because they want to protect the bank. The bank needs protection.

[01:06:38] Tracy Hayes: Okay. So they, yeah, they're the eyes of the—

[01:06:39] Laila Hassan: So, right. So the appraiser has to go through this mentorship. Who's protecting that consumer?

[01:06:45] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[01:06:46] Laila Hassan: And I think that the consumer should be as protected as the bank because ultimately, if the consumer's protected, then they're gonna make a wise decision as well and may not end up in a short sale or foreclosure or something like that by having, you know, purchased this at the right price. Making sure that—like, how do you do comps when you're a new agent? Yeah. How do you—you are gonna go in and you're gonna see, “Oh, well this house sold for this amount. Okay, this house is worth that.” That house was fully upgraded. It had a turf backyard with a putting green, and this one has got weeds all in the yard and everything else. I mean, you know, it's not the same house, right?

So I just think that—I definitely think that agents need mentorship.

[01:07:28] Tracy Hayes: No, I totally agree with you. It would raise the bar in the industry, the—mm-hmm—the whole thing on, you know, “agents make too much money,” the thing that we squabble about over the whole NAR thing, which everyone tells me now they're making more money because of the buyer broker agreement. But the reality is, if you want to protect the consumer, like you were just saying, you wanna protect the consumer. The consumer is going to save or make more money by having that experienced agent.

[01:08:00] Laila Hassan: One hundred percent.

[01:08:01] Tracy Hayes: In—

[01:08:01] Laila Hassan: In theory, one hundred percent. You know, yeah.

[01:08:04] Tracy Hayes: You said that you don't like to be hounded. You don't like to be left alone to do what you do best in an industry that preaches constant communication and accountability check-ins. How does a top producer actually run a business that way? And what do clients need to understand about hiring you? Okay.

[01:08:36] Laila Hassan: First of all, there's checking in, and there's checking in. Okay? I mean, I don't want you hounding me. You're not gonna call me twenty-four seven to ask me, you know, “What do we have going? What's the—gimme the feedback, gimme the feedback.” The feedback is—I hate the feedback, okay? The feedback is they didn't buy your house because they didn't like your house. I mean, in some cases, yes, feedback is great, and you wanna get feedback.

[01:09:00] Tracy Hayes: If the feedback was important, you're gonna tell them like, “Hey, we need to paint that room.”

[01:09:07] Laila Hassan: Yes. Right? Mm-hmm. But if they said they just didn't like the house, then they just didn't like the house. It's not the one for them. They found something they liked better, you know? I don't wanna be—you know, when I'm working, I'm working, okay? I'm in this zone. You don't have to tell me to go to work. I'm the only breadwinner in my family. I've got a son at UF that I pay his room and board. I've got two boys driving and two boys’ car insurance. And I don't know if you've ever paid car insurance for boys, but, you know, you've gotta make money. I mean, rates are crazy.

So it is like—I don't need somebody sitting on me. It only puts more pressure and gets me—it puts me full of anxiety, and it's not a good frame of mind for me to be in to get your house sold. So I just tell people, like—and I think people know me well enough now where, like, if they're hiring me, they know who I am and, mm-hmm, like, I'm gonna get it done. But you need to relax, and you need to be just as positive about selling your house as I am because you being negative isn't gonna get it sold. That's just my opinion.

[01:10:06] Tracy Hayes: Well, to go back to that agent who might be listening right now—and I think I'm the same way—you know, if you wanna casually send me an email, hey, you know—right. Because to me, an email is, you know, you can respond to it right away or you can sit on it for a little while and say, “Well, okay, I'm gonna respond to them because I need to wait a few hours ‘cause I'm waiting for something to happen, and then I'll answer them.” Because, right, you know, it's not urgent. Obviously, someone calling you—that's urgent. Right, right. They want to talk to you right there and then.

But the agents that are out there right now that might be listening—and obviously, your personality or your way you do business is because you've been in it for a while—

[01:10:43] Laila Hassan: Right.

[01:10:44] Tracy Hayes: A newer agent, or maybe somebody who's only been in here three or four or five years, you know, how do they set that tone with a new client that maybe they haven't worked with before, but to kind of set that, you know, “This is how we're gonna do things”?

[01:10:56] Laila Hassan: You know, you just have to say it. You have to say it, and you have to say it with confidence. You know, I have agents that'll come to me in my office or ask my advice on certain things, and I'm like, “Well, did you tell them that it's not gonna sell for that price?” I mean, did you have that conversation? “I tried.” No, it's not “I tried.” Like, you have to say, “This isn't gonna happen.”

Like, I won't take a listing that I know isn't gonna sell. Mm-hmm. You know, I'll take a listing that might be a little iffy, but I'll tell them right away, “If we're not getting showings in the first two weeks, we're doing this price reduction.” It's right there in the listing agreement. Like, this is what we are reducing to in two weeks because I'm not investing my money—because, you know, it's not just about pictures. I invest a lot of money to get a house sold these days.

[01:11:47] Tracy Hayes: You invest a lot in Christie's. Yes. Christie's gets their cut.

[01:11:49] Laila Hassan: Yes. Yes.

[01:11:50] Tracy Hayes: The marketing and so forth together.

[01:11:51] Laila Hassan: Well, yes. Yeah. And I'm, you know, paying for pictures, drones, videos, twilights, you know, all these different things. So, you know, it adds up in the end. And then I'm doing a showcase home on Zillow and, you know, it's not cheap either.

So if I'm gonna invest a couple thousand dollars and my time into doing this, we're gonna do it right, or we're not gonna do it at all. And you just have to tell them up front. Like, I know the market well, so because I know the market well, I'm able to tell them, “No, this is the way it is,” and I know I'm right. Like, you just have to say it with conviction.

[01:12:25] Tracy Hayes: Say for a newer agent listening here, one, they gotta get to that confidence level. They've been doing this for a long time. They know enough—they know a lot more than the person they're in front of, their client. And, you know, obviously you have a lot of conviction there in this. They need to have a little confidence and conviction in it and say it in a polite way, you know, back it up with some stats and figures or whatever it is.

[01:12:48] Laila Hassan: I think you've gotta have the knowledge.

[01:12:50] Tracy Hayes: You gotta tell them what they need to know.

[01:12:51] Laila Hassan: So, in my opinion, on a new agent, the best thing they can do is keep going to classes, keep building up as much knowledge about the market they possibly can. Keep researching MLS, keep looking at houses—whatever area you decide you wanna work, get to know that area. Don't try to get to know all of Jacksonville. Get to know that one specific area and work on that.

And to me, when you have the knowledge, the confidence comes with it.

[01:13:15] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. If you had a choice of more classes or a mentor, where would you go?

[01:13:21] Laila Hassan: I would go for a high, high-producing mentor.

[01:13:24] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:13:25] Laila Hassan: Go for a high-producing mentor and give them half your money because it's gonna pay off big. You know, I had a team for a little while. I realized that I probably do better without a team just because I am not a great trainer, so to speak. But they learned so much off of me.

[01:13:43] Tracy Hayes: Just by watching what you're doing.

[01:13:44] Laila Hassan: Yeah.

[01:13:44] Tracy Hayes: And listening to your phone calls.

[01:13:45] Laila Hassan: Exactly. And they told me, they're like, “You know, I learned so much just by being next to you.”

[01:13:51] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:13:51] Laila Hassan: And listening.

[01:13:52] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. There is so much to be said for whether it's listening to your phone calls or obviously going out on your listing appointments or buyer consultations—that, you know, again, it sets those at-bats. You're getting into that bat. Right. But sitting beside you, like I said, it's well worth it.

After 25 years, tell me about one transaction that stuck with you. Not because of the number, but because of what happened in the room.

[01:14:17] Laila Hassan: I read that correctly?

[01:14:19] Tracy Hayes: Yes.

[01:14:19] Laila Hassan: Oh, goodness.

[01:14:20] Tracy Hayes: Everyone has that one transaction they always like to tell at a cocktail party. That's the way I describe it. Well, it would be—you’re always going, “Oh, I remember that client. I gotta tell you this one.”

[01:14:30] Laila Hassan: Yeah. Oh, I've got a great one, and we're actually friends today. This was back—I would say it's probably been 10 or 12 years ago. And, you know, he was going through Wells Fargo to get his mortgage, and the mortgage was presenting many challenges.

And he took the frustration of him not getting his loan approved quickly out on me. I remember one day he was on the phone with me, and I was standing outside of my office, and he says, “If I don't get this house, you are gonna be looking for another job.”

I was like, “You just said that to the wrong person.” I mean, I was a lot more emotional back then. I started screaming at him. I said, “Don't you ever”—couple choice words—“Don't you ever threaten my livelihood again.”

And I just said, “Don't you ever do that to me. I'm a single mother, and I am taking care of my kids. Don't you ever”—and a couple more choice words.

[01:15:44] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[01:15:45] Laila Hassan: And I am literally livid, screaming at him to the point that my broker called me in and she's like, “Laila, the neighbors were complaining about you screaming like that.”

I was like, “Well, Eileen, you don't know what happened.”

And a couple years later, I sold him a liquor store. A couple years later, sold him another liquor store, and we're good friends today. But I really believe that if I didn't fight back at that moment, he wouldn't have ever used me again.

[01:16:16] Tracy Hayes: Probably, yeah. You probably gained his respect because I think when you have emotional people like that, he realized you were being emotional because he was being emotional. Right. He was frustrated, so he said something to you he shouldn't have said, and he realized that.

[01:16:32] Laila Hassan: What I should have done then, if I was like I am now, would've said, “Calm down. This is how it is with loans. You need to relax. You don't mean what you just said.” Like, I mean, I would probably handle it a lot differently today.

[01:16:45] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Well, that's definitely maturity and experience there. Yes.

Alright, I'm gonna finish up. Toughest question of all.

[01:16:50] Laila Hassan: Oh shoot.

[01:16:51] Tracy Hayes: Why do you love real estate?

[01:16:53] Laila Hassan: Oh my gosh. I love helping people. I love seeing the joy on their faces. I love winning and, you know, I'm a very competitive person—not just with other people, but with myself. And it excites me when I help somebody. It excites me when we've accomplished their goals, and it excites me to win.

[01:17:15] Tracy Hayes: Excellent. Appreciate you coming on today. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:17:18] Laila Hassan: Thank you.