Jacksonville Relocation, New Construction, Beach Luxury and Pricing Right with Taylor Diaz

Tracy Hayes  0:01  
Three, two. Hey,

Tracy Hayes  0:05  
welcome back to The Real Estate excellence Podcast. Today, I'm joined with Taylor Diaz at the Keller Williams Atlantic partners here in Jacksonville, Florida. Taylor serves buyers and sellers across Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra, knockoute, St Johns County and the Northeast Florida beaches, with a background in the medical field, a passion for helping people, and more than 150 homes sold in the past five years. Taylor has built a strong reputation of delivering a high level client experience. She was also voted bold city's best real estate agent. 2024

Tracy Hayes  0:34  
Taylor, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you finally getting you on yo How old is it? You just just a few months now? Yeah, he just turned six months. Six months. Okay, running me around ragged. But yeah, what a treasure. I look back at pictures my kids there. I got one teenager, one gonna be a teen here next month. And, yeah, when you see the pictures of when they're just that big, and you know, my wife sent me this picture the other day of my 12 year old. No, coming to be 13 next month. I don't know. She couldn't, she couldn't have been three years old. And I don't know she gets mom left her alone out in the Lanai with some paints, and all sudden, they were all over the place, and she had a picture of them, and just this look on her face that's just precious times. So it goes by fast. I'm sure you've been told that 1000 times, as we all do, because it does go by fast, and treasure every moment. So glad to have you on and and, you know, I, you know, we were talking about Sarah Rocco at the beginning. I had Sarah on, obviously, one of the, you know, the first, I don't know, six, eight months that I had, was doing the show back then. And I was just amazed by what she did and her team. And I've had several people like Mr. Christmas on the show. And, you know, just the things that, the things that you guys learned there, I think it was such a amazing thing that she had going there her business. And I want to, I'm going to draw some of that out, and I hope you can expand on some of the things you learn there, and what you're using today, obviously, and your personal success now as a solo agent. So tell us a little bit about Taylor. You know, what? What did you first envisioning? You know, 1819, 20 years, what we've been visioning yourself doing? Obviously, you got in the medical field. So tell us about there and what led you

Taylor Diaz  2:31  
to real estate? Yeah, well, I will say definitely was not envisioning being in real estate. I think I actually told myself many times, because my dad was in real estate, that I would never be a real estate agent, which is even funnier, but I started off in the medical field. Always thought I was going to be a physician's assistant or a doctor of some sort, whether it was a veterinarian, an OB, GYN, a pediatrician, you name it, I thought I was doing medicine. And again, that came from a lifelong passion of loving to kind of help people, help animals, and I really thought that's what I was gonna do. And I went to school for nursing. Didn't stick with it, dropped out of that. Then I went back to school for abnormal psychology. I should have been a psychology major. Yeah, I started. And hey, the truth of the matter is, too we use real estate every or use psychology every single day in real estate. So you know, it doesn't work.

Tracy Hayes  3:20  
Tomorrow, you're gonna be using it for the next 18 years. Absolutely.

Speaker 1  3:26  
Boy, too. Sun, prayers. Now.

Taylor Diaz  3:30  
So I did end up actually working in the medical field. I worked in dermatology, I worked in post and pre operations in a hospital. I did a handful of things. I absolutely loved it, but the truth of the matter was, I hated being inside four white walls all day long, not knowing if it was sunny outside or if it was raining. I felt like I was missing out on a lot of things, even though it was filling my cup of helping people. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed surgeries. I enjoyed the cosmetic aspects of it, like it was a lot of fun there, it just wasn't filling my cup all the way, and I felt like the relationships were kind of fleeting. Like you don't have long term relationships with patients a lot of times. It's like a 1520, maybe 30 minute appointment, maybe you have an hour long surgery. Again, I was in dermatology, so it was more so like cosmetic surgeries, or smaller skin cancers, things like that. But it wasn't a long term relationship with the patients, and I just felt like something was missing. And of course, leave it to me with timing. Right as covid hit, I decided I was going to get licensed, so I took my class. I've had a lot of agents on the covid has changed the trajectory. Yes, it was, and it was, I mean, there was a couple of other things involved too, right? I was with my now husband for a long period of time. We were trying to figure out life. There was the financial aspect of it. There was a lot of factors involved. And so I decided that I was going to go get licensed, because no way in heck was I going to go back to school for another eight.

Taylor Diaz  5:00  
Plus years and have hundreds and 1000s of dollars of debt to be in medicine, even though, again, still a passion of mine, I still do miss it to an extent. But I was like, All right, you know what? We're gonna give it a go. I love interior design. I love architecture. My dad's been doing it forever. My mom's also licensed, but she works in timeshare. It's like, let's just try it and see what happens. Took the test for the class signed up for my state exam. The morning of my state exam, we get the email that the world has shut down, including all testing. And I was like, What are you Wow, God, to be kidding me. So that was when no testing centers were open. They didn't allow you to take the state exam on, I guess on Proctor's the right term. Like, not you had to be in person, proctored, still, still in the computer, but you had to be in an office space, or, like, a pearson view type thing. And it was kind of like first come first serve, when the testing centers reopened again. So, like, you didn't get an automatic placement. They were

Tracy Hayes  6:01  
only putting so many people in that space,

Taylor Diaz  6:03  
and they didn't reopen. I think it was until like, mid May. And it was like, check the testing center websites multiple times a day, every single day, and see if you can find something that pops up mid May. I found one that popped up in Gainesville, Florida for June 1. And I was like, that's an hour and a half drive from here, but there are no other options that I've been multiple days, and I need to get license. And mind you, I took my class in February, so this is February to, like, may now. And I'm like, I've probably forgotten half of the what stuff that I learned. So I crammed for like, 40 hours over the week that I had between when I scheduled and when my test was for I went to Gainesville the night before because my test was at like, 8am I think it was and I was like, Okay, well, I'm not driving from, yeah, the beaches to Gainesville the morning of an exam. Stayed at a hotel. It's when the riots were happening. Riot happens. Fire alarm goes off at midnight. I'm crying. I'm like, Oh my gosh, there's a riot Gainesville. I didn't know. Yeah, I had an hour and a half drive there. I'm staying in a hotel. I'm paying for a hotel to take this real estate exam. Taking all this time off work. I have no English.

Tracy Hayes  7:11  
Want to let you know I need a kW cup. I don't have a kW cup. You do you need

Taylor Diaz  7:15  
kW where you need a TD? Homes one. There we go. We'll get that in the word, okay. But took my exam, passed. I was so grateful. It was just like a whirlwind of emotions, and then started in real estate, like a month after that. So do

Tracy Hayes  7:28  
you actually go right to the Rocco team or, okay, so what? So this is always a, I think, one of the most important decisions in a real estate agent's career, besides deciding to get into real estate, which I think you should, you should talk to some agents, maybe even shadow an agent, before you make the decision, I agree. And then the next step is you really need to find that brokerage that you that does business, or a team leader, or whatever it may be that you are going to learn under or mentor under, that's doing business the way you're okay doing business that way, because the way Sarah was doing business is not lot of would scare away a lot of people, yeah, yeah, definitely. How'd you make that choice of where you went first?

Taylor Diaz  8:16  
So I started as a solo agent. I interviewed at a couple brokerages. I did speak with another team. Again, my dad was an agent with Keller Williams at the time, and he made the connection with our team lead here. My dad is in like the Melbourne Cocoa Beach area, so at the time, made the connection with Mark Dilworth, who was our team lead at Keller Williams at the time, at the Beach's office, I sat down with them, sat down with like Berkshire Hathaway, a couple of other teams and other brokerage and I went kW direction number one, because of the educational opportunities and the training that they have. Your dad was there too. Yeah. Number two, my dad and the relationship. Number three, it was location. It was close to my house. And you know, it is what it is. Anyhow, I'm glad I went there. And I started as a solo agent. I was a solo agent for about nine months. And initially I was like, Okay, I see this person and this person are doing this. I can do this. No problem. Totally fine. I have a large friend group. I've got a lot of people here. I've been living here for at the time, I don't know, 910, years. So I was like, this will be not easy. That is not the word I want to use, but I'll be able to get this thing moving. So you graduated from high school here, no, I graduated from college here.

Tracy Hayes  9:26  
Graduate from college. I was all right, well,

Taylor Diaz  9:29  
I thought you were younger, but so I tried to do it for about nine months again. I was still working in the medical field at that time too. I wasn't willing. My parents were super helpful, and my now husband was also super helpful with helping, kind of keep things going, from a financial perspective, on the back end, living situation, stuff like that. But I also don't like depending on people, and I was not willing to let go of my medical job full time and kind. Deep Dive into real estate. So I was trying to do medicine and real estate. And it wasn't how many hours a week were you I was only doing 20 hours in the medical field. So it was like part time and part time, essentially. But as most of us know, to be really successful in real estate, you can't do it part time. At least, I couldn't figure it out. So I was doing medicine part time. It was also, right? Was when covid hit. So of course, everybody's like, Oh, the covid market was great. It was crazy. Well, not really, if you didn't really have active customers, because not a lot of people wanted randoms helping them out, right? It was like, who you know, who you trust, who was referred to you? I didn't have a referral basis at the time. You know, I had some friends and family members that worked in real estate, like my dad, like some of my dad's colleagues and stuff like that that could refer but it was just slow moving for me. And then one of my girlfriends was in Rotary, and she said, Hey, there's this really awesome real estate agent that's going to be speaking as a guest speaker. I whatever day it was, yep, and I think you should come join. It was Sarah Rocco. And I was like, okay, yeah, no problem. I'll tune into it, kind of like it's gonna go in one ear and out the other. And I'm listening to this woman, Sarah Rocco, speak, and I'm like, dang, she's cool. You know, I was like, I really like, I like her. I like the way she works. I like the way she thinks. And I told myself that day that if I ever joined a team, it would be her team. Months passed, I never, never entertained the team thing. I was still like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. I got this. I got this. Seven, eight months passes, and I'm like, Okay, I might need to think about

Tracy Hayes  11:45  
joining a team. Introduce yourself. Did you she get to know you on Zoom?

Taylor Diaz  11:48  
It was, yeah. So it was a zoom because it was, again, during covid, so they didn't have the big in person meetings, but, like, I could chime in, but again, it wasn't like that face to face meeting or conversation. So, you know, December comes again. I got licensed, passed my test, June 1. I didn't start in real estate until July 1, and now it's December, and I'm like, Okay, I really need to reassess on some things here if I'm gonna keep doing

Tracy Hayes  12:16  
well, are you being pulled? Because I only know of one agent that I've had on the show that I can think of that still works her corporate career, but still produces, actually at a high level. But she, I mean, what she does in the corporate world is like her jam. It's like she can do that with her eyes closed. And so there is a little bit of a passion for it, but she also has a passion of seeing what we're real estate can take her, and then she's at a different period in her life too. She's her kids are, you know, basically going to college and stuff like that. So I think it's difficult when you when you're doing something and it's not really like fulfilling your life. You know, it's, it's not completing you, you know, put a little Jerry Maguire in there, you know, it's in you're looking at real estate going, Man, I really actually like this, and the potential so high, but I got to hang on to this. And so it starts tugging you back and forth. I would imagine you were

Taylor Diaz  13:22  
going through this. Yeah, there was definitely a little bit of tugging again. Like, I always thought I was going to be in medicine. Always from i The earliest that I can remember, at first, I know I remember, it started being I wanted to be a vet, because I was animal obsessed, and like, that's the direction I was going to go. And then it progressed into humans, because I was like, I can't stand watching an animal suffer, so

Tracy Hayes  13:45  
I've cried more over dogs dying than any human. Yeah, literally.

Taylor Diaz  13:49  
So yeah, there was definitely a pull. And there was a lot of like, okay, did I make the right decision? Do I go back to school? Do I become a physician's assistant? Do I become an MD? And then that opposite pull of, like, oh my gosh, I really don't want to go to school for another two, 410, years, whatever direction I ended up going, right? And then there was also the pull of, okay, well, I was not old, but I was like, 24 and I was like, you know, like, whatever decision I make now is really going to affect what decision and like, the trajectory of my life. So like, what, where do I want to piece this together, right? But I am also so stubborn, in the sense that I was like, I'm going to make this work. Like, failure is not an option. Like, this is going to happen, whether I like it or not, is going to be a different story, but I'm going to make it happen, and then I'll make the decision on if I want to do this or not. And So lo and behold, that month, the Rocco group posts that they're hiring, and I'm like, Okay, well, maybe this is my sign. Let's just give it a go. Let's put the ego aside. You know, I okay.

Tracy Hayes  14:51  
I'm curious about this. Alright, let's get right to it. So you go over and put out there for everyone who doesn't i. I didn't really, I didn't know Sarah. I don't know if I actually even had been introduced to her before I actually had her on the podcast or not. But she, she had, she had this presence about her. Oh yeah, yeah. And I can only, I'll give you a six experience. I went to, I went to, everyone knows about this much. I went to the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. And when you're talking to a lot of the staff there, they're either under or they're either active duty, or maybe they are a veteran, but they're wearing uniform, and you're talking to colonels, and there's an air about when someone becomes a colonel, when they've reached that level of military. And that's the way I felt with Sarah, that she had this presence about her, a confidence about her, when she walked in the room, she was just that person that you look she didn't speak very she didn't speak quickly. She very, very much to me, she listened, and then when she came out, whatever she said was, you know, something to write down, you know, I mean, that that so that's just to give everyone a pretense of who Sarah Rocco was, unfortunately losing her. But, I mean, so you go to get everyone that that pre story, just so you go in to meet her for really the first time. Yeah, tell us

Taylor Diaz  16:28  
about that. I so let me our interview process was very complicated. It was like a 10 step process. The goal was

Tracy Hayes  16:38  
very she wanted to screen everybody coming on. She wanted to make sure, because she knew how she ran her

Taylor Diaz  16:43  
shit, yep, yep. It was very methodical. She, I mean, she was very direct to the point, you know, sink or get off the ship type of mentality. But when she really got to know her totally different person on the inside, which was the amazing thing about her. She was kind of a chameleon, as we like to say. But that being said, our interview process was from a

Tracy Hayes  17:02  
business, from running a business to, you know, going out and having a little happy hour afterwards or something,

Taylor Diaz  17:09  
yeah, personal perspective. So our interview process, it was a hey, I applied, then I reached out and I spoke to our executive assistant. I didn't really talk to Sarah until the actual interviews. And again, it was multiple interviews. I think in total, I had seven. And then, like there was 1010, steps total, seven

Tracy Hayes  17:29  
different times you had to go over there. Yeah.

Taylor Diaz  17:31  
Well, between, like, one was like a phone call interview with Samantha Cox, who now runs op suite, because she was our director of operations at the time, that was like a phone screen call. And then I think Sam was out for a period of time. So what interviews would have been with Sam? Normally? I actually had with Sarah, which was very scary, but yeah, it was, it was a multiple step process, so I meet her for the first time, and I will tell you she her, and I talked about this many times afterwards. A lot of people who know me know this story. I called my dad after one of the interviews, and I said, her and I are going to butt heads. I cannot do this. Like I am not, like, I am a very strong headed person, but I am also so go with the flow at the same time, it's like, a weird combination, like, I'm totally cool to go do whatever what anybody wants. I will be the person that's like, Yeah, I'm not having a great time, but I'm here. But I'm here and I'm supporting you, but like, if I don't want to do something, I'm not gonna do it like that. That intent. So I called my dad after one of the interviews, and I specifically remember saying I was driving around the South Side loop to get back on to 295 or Butler. And I was like, I don't think I can do this like I her and I are gonna butt heads. Did your

Tracy Hayes  18:47  
dad have any insight on Sarah? Did he know Sarah or no, not anything that she could give you any background? No.

Taylor Diaz  18:54  
So I was like, I really don't think this is gonna work. And at the end of every interview, Sarah kind of had this red light, green light card, if you will. It's not, wasn't an actual card, but we would just talk about it and say, like, okay, you know, if everybody's a green light, we're going to go on to the next step. If you're a red light, or I'm a red light, or we're both red lights, then it stops there, and we go our separate ways. Totally cool. And I remember at the end of we had this lifestyle interview, and the lifestyle interview was basically like, this is gonna sound really crazy, the way I say this, but like, breaking down your entire life to try and make sure that there was, like, a cultural fit involved. It was really, like, trying to get to know somebody from like, a deeper perspective, versus like, Okay, you check the box for this. You check the box for this, it's like, Hey, do you actually fit from a culture perspective? And the culture thing was a huge thing with the team, and it really made or break somebody staying part of the organization, truth be told. So we get to the end of that interview, and she looks at me and she goes, I feel like I'm on an episode of The Bachelor. And I don't know whether to give you. A rose today or not? Okay, cool, same, but cool. I don't like being told no. I can tell you no. Be told no. So, you know, we left the interview, and that was the one that I called my dad, and he's like, Taylor, you know, she's successful for a reason. She's got all these great reviews, she is where she is for a reason. She's not been in the industry long. You need to put your pride aside, and you need to learn something from her, like, see what happens if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, but see what happens.

Tracy Hayes  20:31  
Because what she evolved there in that, I'm sure was an evolution of that and bringing people on their team. Because I do know teams here. Some of them have made it through that I've known, you know, I'll take, well, we'll just say when we have talked about Christina Welch's team all the time, because, yeah, I've known Christine when she first started. It's awesome. And she's created a team totally in a different way than the what Sarah did. And I Sarah was more of a tactician, if I could use that term, she studied a lot of and went to a lot of conferences, if I remember her telling me on when she was on, so not the over. We don't want this to be the Sarah Rocco show. We want this to be Taylor show. So I want to know, what did you take in your personal development as a person, as a real estate agent, from what you learned being

Taylor Diaz  21:24  
on the Rocco team, it's a great question. There are a lot of things, honestly, that I took from Sarah Rocco herself and from being a part of the organization. I think the biggest things, and I feel like you actually hear this quite a bit nowadays with top producers, and maybe that's the key there, is you're hearing it from top producers. Is really like relationships over transactions. That is the biggest thing. And I feel like that slides through the cracks a lot, like it's not a relationship in the sense of, like, Hey, you're buying a house with me. I'm going to talk to you and pretend I'm listening, and we're going to smile and have good conversations during the transaction, and then it's gone with the wind Once the transaction is done, right? It's a hey, I really want to get to know you. You're going to get to know me. We're going to actually create a relationship. I'm going to text you on your birthday. I'm going to congratulate you when you have a baby. I'm going to send you my condolences when a family member passes. I want to be like, involved in your life, like I want to know about you. And a big part of that actually goes hand in hand with successful relationships in real estate and getting somebody in to the right neighborhood or the right community, like, what's your lifestyle? Tell me about you, tell me about your family. Like, there's so much of the actual deep dive into a relationship that's important with real estate. And I think that's like the biggest misconception with real estate, and something that Sarah was really, really good at driving into us as you have to focus on the relationship, and that's why I think she was so good at, you know, like she was an observer, right? Like you kind of mentioned, like you sit back, you watch, you listen, you take it in, and then you talk. And I think that is a big part of the skill of being a successful real estate agent that and then disc personalities was another big thing that we focused on, which I also think is really important for those who don't know disc personalities, like the D, i, s, c, disc,

Tracy Hayes  23:09  
so you analyze. She's taught you how to read your customers and start putting them into these into the categories that

Taylor Diaz  23:16  
disc, yeah, so it's an assessment that you can take. I recommend taking it. I took it, you know, we all took it on the team, and then really understanding the different personalities. Again, that kind of goes with the relationship, but it also goes again with kind of, like, navigating how you're working with buyers and sellers, right? Like you're a high I for example, like you're really personable, you're social, you like to talk, you like to get to know people. If I don't match that personality, we're not going to get along if I come in stone face, straight to the point. I don't want to chit chat. I don't want to get to know you. I'm not reciprocating things. We're probably not going to work well together. Right on the flip side of that, if you're like, hey, I want bullet points and I'm sitting here Chatty Cathy going on and on and on, you're going to be like, two now get to the point. Please leave right like, those are really important things about creating a relationship with a customer and learning how to, I don't want to say mold with your customers, but being able to better, like mesh and again, create. I'm gonna use

Tracy Hayes  24:15  
the term to be present, because when you when you are if you are trying to build that relationship, even even socially, with you. There's certain people that you can say certain things you know. There's a friends you grew up with and doesn't matter what you say, they know you, right, but these people don't know you, and you're trying to get them to know you, to obviously, not only do business with you today, but long term. And I think that is what I'm sure took Sarah to a different level too. Because I think would you agree a lot of agents come in. You dealt with at the rocker team. You had a lot of young people there. You're really only looking a few months ahead of time when. She was talking. No, we need to be talking about, what are you going to be doing next year, five years, 20 years down the road? What is your business? What is your real estate business going to be looking like? Are you going to be able to sit back in five years and literally just be getting phone calls and all you're doing is taking referrals and then going out to lunch with past clients? I mean, you and and not be worried about, you know, lead generation or anything. It's just you're going to have so much business because you made those relationships, right? It's all

Taylor Diaz  25:29  
about the intentionality behind it, like I'm intentionally listening and putting in the back of the filing cabinet in my brain, like these little things that you're telling me, versus it going in one ear and out the other and just smiling and nodding while we're there, right? It's intentional relationships.

Tracy Hayes  25:47  
When so you how many you said about nine months before you went over to Sarah, right? You were in the business. And just to expand on because I think this again, this is another important topic that a lot of agents have to understand, and you've expressed it. I I use the analogy walking billboard every client that's in front of you. You have to see that as a marketing opportunity, because that person, if you give, if you are building a relationship, and you, you know, you're going beyond just the transaction of the sale, you're actually are sending them the cards, and, you know, having lunch with them occasionally, you're just catching up with them, following them on social media and that sort of thing. You have a walking billboard out there, and the more billboards you put up and down, the more business you're liable to attract, right?

Taylor Diaz  26:36  
Yeah, yeah. No, I agree with that entirely. Yeah.

Tracy Hayes  26:38  
I think she get the best people in this business are hopefully building you long term. And the thing is, you don't really know. You know it's kind of that thing, the analogy, if the tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it, does it make any sound? And you don't know whether you built this relationship until it actually starts to bear fruit, correct? Until someone actually refers. Oh, I must have really pleased Sally, because she referred me somebody. You know that you don't really know, until that actually happens and and you know this the marketing that that a lot of us spend on, a lot of agents I see out there doing, spending a lot of money with videographers, which is great, but I'm telling you right now, if you are to me, if you're not in the AI space, if you're not getting back to I was telling you about my friend Jim with Reed tomato, and we're gonna, we're gonna read some of his questions here. But if you're not building that website, that's going to attract those people that are now online searching through AI for things, and you're not the expert they're citing. You're missing out. But the great thing is, it's such an infancy stage, not many people are doing it. You can jump in right now and actually be an influence in there. That's just my speech on that. Let's so you get started with Sarah. Let's, let's talk about, you're, you're locked in. Tell us about she create. She has a routine there. This is what the team's going to do.

Taylor Diaz  28:04  
Yeah, tell us about that. See what you learned from that. I ended up leaving my medical job because there was no way I could be involved with this team and try and balance both. It just wasn't possible. Because, again, it's not an opportunity where I'm in a corporate company and I'm sitting at a computer at my home, and I can flex, and I can do these things, like, I'm in an office in Portland. She wants you guys coming in for certain hours. We had to be in three days a week. So we had a meeting on Monday mornings. We had what we called wigs on Wednesdays, which are wildly important goals meeting, and then we had team lead generation on Fridays. So three days a week mandatory in office, unless you had a legitimate excuse. That was, what did you see

Tracy Hayes  28:45  
from your perspective, your time there? Because obviously, how long had she had the team by the time you got there? Oh, great question. A few years, five years, five years. Okay, so she had worked through a lot of things, and I imagine a lot of people had come and gone, but now she's very particular who she's choosing, and obviously you made that intentional, very intentional. Did you see some people who made it through the cut that didn't last long? Yes, this is very important, because you as a real estate agent, you need to find your tribe, as Patty Ketchum said, Yeah, you're you made it through the tribe. You led the tribe in the end. Others thought they were getting into a tribe, but didn't like the tribe, right? What were some of the challenges that they had?

Taylor Diaz  29:39  
I think in real estate, so many people get into real estate because of the thought and word flexibility. And yes, there is flexibility in real estate, but really not. You're one or two. That's that's the reality of it. And I think that's a huge misconception for new agents, is that you're just gonna like. Get licensed, and you're going to randomly sell a couple houses and make 1000s of dollars, and you're not really going to have to work much, and that is so not the case. So I think the biggest hurdle with those that didn't end up staying a part of the team, whether it was mutual, whether it was one party said goodbye or not, I think it was the amount of discipline that was needed to be on the team, and the amount of hours that had to be committed to because it was pretty much a full time job, if not more, like you see all those funny reels all the time that it's like, I got into real estate for flexibility, but now to avoid my nine to five job. And now here I am working 24/7 Yep.

Tracy Hayes  30:34  
Well, that's another I mean, that's an interesting just a sidebar for me to understand that real estate is a lifestyle. If you're getting into real estate, you are 24/7 you're working on Sunday afternoon. If there's an offer to be made, you know, or house to be shown you, that's when you're doing it. Yeah? And I think a lot of people that have the nine to five mentality don't

Taylor Diaz  30:55  
understand that, correct that part, yeah, because they can shut it off as soon as they leave the office, versus like it might be 10 o'clock at night, and I've got a customer on the West Coast, and it's only 7pm for them, and they're just now getting home after their kids are settled, and they're like, hey, I need X, Y and Z done, or I want to see this. I want to see that. It's like, okay, well, it's the only time you have available. So it's 10 o'clock on a Wednesday. Here we go. So I think it was a lot of the you know, the commitment that was required and the discipline that was required to be a part of the team. Like we had to sell had, I say, lightly, because, again, there were, you know, there were there were expectations, but there were also like, hey, if something crazy happened, but you worked your butt off, it's okay as well. Like, we were supposed to sell a minimum of 24 houses a year, you know, we had to have a certain amount of numbers for lead generation hit a week based on your personal goals, right? Like, people would be like, Well, I didn't hit that this week. And, you know, I'm flustered, and it's like, well, you set that goal for yourself. Like, yes, the team goal is 24 a year, and we break that down, right?

Tracy Hayes  31:56  
Tracy, Sarah, Sarah created that with the plan. Yes, that wasn't just a, let's everyone create their own goals. No, she created it to hold your

Taylor Diaz  32:05  
feet to the fire, correct? You know, it's one thing. If it's like, you know, I'm working for you, and you're like, hey, you need to sell 24 houses here. Let's work backwards, and that means you have to have X amount of conversations to sell 24 homes a year. Yada yada yada. But it's another thing to say, okay, the minimum is 24 but what's your actual goal is 35 Okay, so now you're really being held accountable for your stretch goal, and, like, you made that goal for yourself. Why aren't you hitting your numbers, right? So I think that was the biggest thing that really, like, I don't want to say, deterred people, but the biggest reason that people didn't end up staying on the team, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  32:38  
24 homes. I mean, you're, you're, you're in the top, easily, 5% easily in this area, with the average price point there. But again, I think to talk about the value of joining a team, not necessarily running the way Sarah did, but her mentorship experience. Obviously, you guys had some leads coming in, yep. So there's money being exchanged there for you to produce. Did you see people who truly just even plugged in, at the minimal level, plugged in and went after the 24 they got there? Yeah, they just had to plug in. They just

Taylor Diaz  33:21  
had to plug in. I mean, there were definitely times when, like, you know, you just had people who wouldn't even plug in, and they were just coasting, and it was like, What are you doing? You know, like, join the team. You're literally getting leads handed. I mean, the huge benefit of a team, and the reason that I joined a team, yes, part of that was quicker lead to sale, right? That was absolutely part of it. When you join a team. The biggest part of it was obviously the mentorship, the relationships and the knowledge. I did like that. Sarah still had a rule implemented called rule of three, which I still use to this day, which basically was like, Hey, if you had a question, you need to go to three other sources to find the answer before you come to me, and Sam would also use that too. So like, you know, if I had a question about something, it's really easy to turn my chair and go, Hey, Sam, you know, this came up. What do I do here? Yeah, well, Taylor, what resources did you use to find the answer? Nothing. I just got off the phone. We just use that resource try and figure it out. And if you can't legitimately figure it out, then come ask me, and we'll talk it through. And I think that is honestly, truly, one of the reasons that I became such a knowledgeable real estate agent is because I was having to do the research in deep down myself, which makes you know, like, when you say that out loud, it's like, Well, duh. Like, what do agents do when they're not on a team? But no, they still usually go ask another agent. They usually go ask a broker, and they're usually just going to get the answer handed to them. It was really like, it made you work to find the solution, to find the answers. And then I could be like, okay, you know, I went to X, Y and Z sources, and I found. This answer, does that make sense? Yes, that's correct. Or no, do it again, or, you know, whatever it was. So it like really made you become good and tactful at your job. So I really appreciated that with being on a team.

Tracy Hayes  35:13  
If we could have recorded all like we were talking pre show, recorded all of Sarah's teachings and every conversation she had with you guys into AI and made our own AI. Sarah, yeah, that would have been Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  35:30  
Lots of good tidbits from her, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  35:35  
Pull it. Pull it all together. Let's speak to some people out there who might be thinking you to get into real estate, or might be in real estate. Real estate right now, and they, you know, they like you. They went nine months or, you know, and they, they're just not getting there now. Way Sarah run her team, very regimented type of thing. Probably, she's probably on the far end of the scale of teams. She's on one far end of it. Yeah, a young person trying to get but even someone who's might be changing careers, but just doesn't have the, you know, just hasn't been in real estate long enough. How does this actually work? What is a daily life of a real estate agent supposed to be to be successful? Would would you recommend a team? And then the second part of the question, if you're going to recommend, you know, possibly joining the team, to move the needle a little bit, to dull that learning curve, how do you select what team?

Taylor Diaz  36:32  
Great question. So I'd say the biggest thing if you're going to try and be a solo agent, right off the bat, aside from having obvious connections to, like, getting the process started. And what I mean by that is, like, if you you're kind of like me, where you were getting into real estate in an age where not a lot of your friends were buying houses, where, you know, you really had to, like, go and put yourself out there, compared to maybe somebody who's my age now in their 30s, and, like, okay, everybody's buying houses or upsizing downsizing. Parents are relocating to be close to grandkids, whatever the situation is. And you don't necessarily have, like, Sure, foot traffic that's going to be coming through, if you will, for customers, you have to really make sure you're really self disciplined. And when I say self disciplined, it's not like, Okay, today I'm gonna go door knock 10 houses, or tomorrow I'm gonna go do X, Y and Z. It's a blocking out your calendar. Time blocking your calendar, I should say, like, even to this day, not being on a team as a solo agent, I time block my calendar, you know, like, okay, for two hours Monday through Friday, at these times of the day, whatever it is I'm doing my lead generation. What lead generation am I doing that day? Am I cold calling? Am I door knocking? Am I circle prospecting? Am I going through my sphere or my database? Like, pre schedule it out for yourself, for lack of better words, so it's not like, Okay, I wake up today, what am I going to do? Or, okay, I told myself I was going to lead gen today, but now I need to take 1015, 20 minutes figure out what lead

Tracy Hayes  37:59  
gen I'm going to do. All right, so I told you, I've got the grit book finished. I'm almost finished with one that actually is just talking about open houses, and I believe it's in that one where actually AI asked me to said, You need to input something because we were talking about time blocking or being consistent. How important is it that you are time blocking because you need to be doing X amount of hours of whatever that task is that that makes real estate agents successful, whether it's calling whatever it is to that you are time blocking that in every week, whether it's daily or once a week, or whatever it is, because you got to consistently do it over time to really measure is it moving

Taylor Diaz  38:47  
the needle correct? So let me start off by saying what works for me might not necessarily work for this agent, and what works for this agent might not work for me. In other words, we might not see the same results, because my personality might really excel at this, versus somebody else's personality might really excel here. So some people like cold calling. Some people love it. Some people like to knock on doors too. Yeah, exactly. So like, when new agents ask me what exactly worked for you, I love to share, but I'm also like, Don't get caught on the fact that that worked for me. If it doesn't work for you over a period of time, because you might be really, really good at farming, or maybe you want to focus on farming, and I'm really, really good at cold calling, or whatever the situation is, right. So typically, the rule of thumb, and a lot of people have heard this, is 3060 90 days. It's a 3060 90 day rule. What you are doing today, you are going to not yield those results for 3060 or 90 days. Real estate is a time game. When have you ever met a customer today, got them under contract today and closed and got your paycheck today? Never right? It just that that's not how real estate works, right? You could meet a customer and get them under contract today, which is incredible, but it's still going to take you 30 days on average, not the norm. You. Yeah, or maybe, if you're lucky, in their cash, 15 ish days, right? But, like, that doesn't normally happen. You're usually trying to build a pipeline. You're trying to keep your bench warm the entire time you're not you don't want to get on this roller coaster kind of trajectory that, you know, we always call it, where it's like, okay, February, I sold five houses. Heck, yeah. March, none. April, one may, zero, right? Like, it's like, it starts to get like this, and you're like, cool, I got paid all this, and then the next month I'm making zero, and oh my gosh, I'm back to, like, worrying about, am I going to be able to feed my family? Right? Like you want to, you want to consistently keep your bench warm. And so the consistency with your lead generation is so so, so important. And I we always used to say, like Sarah, always had us pick three lead measures or lead sources that we were fixated on, not fixated focused on, right? Like Mine are agent referrals, my fear, slash past customers. I have a ton of past customer repeat business and referrals, and then that kind of one that I do a little bit more like reaching out, if you will, are typically like, open houses, circle prospecting, that

Tracy Hayes  41:08  
kind of stuff. And you may rotate these three. They might they're not you don't like these are your three for life. You might say this one's not working. I'm gonna kick it out, bring another

Taylor Diaz  41:16  
one in, correct but I try and give it a valiant effort of at least 90 days to see if it sticks or not for a measurement, because by the end of 90 days, you're hopefully starting to see things trickle. But again, especially if you're just getting started, at the end of 90 days, you might only have one result. You might not have five or six or seven results, like you may after years in the industry. So it's all about, you know, perspective, measuring, setting your goals up in advance, like if you want to sell one home a month? How many conversations do you have to have? How many appointments do you have to have? How many calls do you have to have, like working backwards almost?

Tracy Hayes  41:48  
So how important it is. And this is something I talk about in the open house book, the people who are who make open houses, one of these three, that you're tracking everything you do, when? How much social media did you put out? How many people did you personally invite? How many signs did you put out? Yep, what time of the day? How important is it to

Taylor Diaz  42:08  
track all that? It's very important, especially during different times of the year, which is what I think a lot of agents forget with open houses a lot too, because, like, if you try and do an open house middle of the day in July, you're not going to get anybody because they're going to be out on boats, they're going to be at the beach, they're going to be doing something outdoors or in the air conditioner somewhere, yeah, or they're going to it's not likely that they're going to be just waltzing into your open house on a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning, 11 or noon, right? So there's definitely different strategies involved with open houses, the tracking, making sure you're doing advertising at a certain like, period of time in advance. Like, yes, a lot of traffic from open houses comes from signs, but if you're marking it appropriately in advance, you're also going to get a lot of traction from that. Like, if you're planning to do an open house the day your listing goes live, and it wasn't incoming soon and you couldn't advertise it prior to then, you're really only going to get signed traffic. So you really better be strategic about where your signs are being placed and the time of day and day that you're doing it.

Tracy Hayes  43:06  
So I believe, I believe, just like the successful agents are, you know, like, you know, whatever the number is, 1% of the agents make 90% of the money, or whatever, something like that, the people who are doing open houses really well are a very small percentage. There's a lot of open houses, but there's a lot of they just show up, you know, a few minutes before stick half a dozen signs and some corners and hope someone shows up and you you really are wasting your time. We're a new agent who has time, can really take advantage of you even sitting someone else's open houses by executing a play from the start of the week, starting on Monday with a Saturday open house, executing a play to get some people to show up and create some energy around

Taylor Diaz  43:56  
it, door knocking, circle prospecting, mailers. There's the there's multiple things that you can do. I mean, I had an open house about two months ago now, and granted, it was a pool home. I mean, it was an attractive house that was going to get attention regardless. But we had 30 attendees at the open house. Like, if you do it right, you're going to get traction. We didn't have 30 people come in just from science.

Tracy Hayes  44:19  
I because I actually this is a question I need to be answered for my need to be answered for my dad into my book. So maybe we'll, we'll, if you, if you got a, if you got an answer for this, which I think you do, you've been in the business long enough to to bring in, especially if you're doing a broker's open or something like that, you know, during the week, or something, to bring in a title company or a lender or something that in support. Can you tell me a story where you've brought in one of those, Inspector, whoever it was, brought them in and because of their presence, because of the people they know, because you, you know, it's great for us to hey, here's 100 Dollars to get food for the thing. Okay, what does that do? But really, as we know, some title companies do have a huge influence, because of the people to help that broker open or that open house to be better when you when you used a vendor, and it really made a difference at your broker, opener or open house,

Taylor Diaz  45:19  
yeah, so I did again, I'm going to revert back to covid times a little bit, because this is when I feel like it was like, it's still important, don't get me wrong, but I saw the most benefit from it, which I think is still important, when we're starting to see big fluctuations or pushback from customers regarding interest rates, I always bring in a lender, because I think the biggest misconception a lot of times with buyers is like, can't afford it or renting makes more sense, which we hear a lot of times, especially in this market. And what a lot of buyers don't understand is that the interest rate, which some buyers do, obviously, but the interest rate is going to have such a bigger pull on your monthly payment versus, like, the sales price. So a lot, you know, obviously there's a middle ground there, but a lot of times, like during covid, I would bring lenders into open houses with me, and I would have a breakdown of from the lender, not for me. Of like, what third party validation, you know, like at this sales price, with this general amount down and this average interest rate disclaimer, you have to get pre approved and make sure this is your interest rate. You know this is approximately what your monthly payments would be. And then I would have a side by side of if you got your interest rate bought down, this is what your monthly payments would be, and it would show buyers okay, even at the same price. If this is something that we can negotiate on the back end, ie a seller pay for your closing costs, or you can work something out with your lender that your monthly payments could adjust by like 100 200 $250 a month. And they're like, Okay, well now that's actually in the ballpark for me, right, versus not. So I think bringing in vendors who are going to help you, educate and help leverage you is super important in open houses.

Tracy Hayes  46:58  
Would you agree when you're, you know, because when you're initially talking to a buyer. So a lot of times, the question a lot of agents ask is like, Oh, well, what you you know, what's your price range? And they'll throw out a number without any real like, Okay, well, why is it that much? Yeah, well, because I only have this much to put down, okay? And it's really down to that payment they want to get to a certain loan amount, because first in their mind, there is a payment. But it's actually not in the front of their mind. They are thinking, oh, I need to be at 500,000 Why do you need to be at 500,000 well, I need my payment to be here. Well, you and I know, depending on what community you move into, where they got a CDD, or you're in Palm Coast, the taxes are higher, all those things play factor, and it could swing your payment several $100 it could be the difference of $50,000 on the price point, 100,000

Taylor Diaz  47:55  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think. And that is actually from both buyers and sellers. So sellers, it's like, I feel like a lot of times, especially in this market of sellers, like, I have to get 600 for my house. And I'm like, Well, what's magic about 600 Well, I don't know. That's just a number I have in my head. Okay, well, let's go through your closing cost. Let's add in your mortgage payoff. Let's see what your actual net is. Does this net look good to you? Oh yeah, that's the $70,000 higher than I thought. Okay, great,

Tracy Hayes  48:22  
because that's long term thinking, yes, because they have a number in their head, but really deep down, they have a number they want to walk away with correct that's

Taylor Diaz  48:30  
truly what you want to be talking and a lot of times, sellers don't understand what the associated closing costs are with selling a house. And then sometimes they forget about Commission, or sometimes they forget that they have mortgage payoff, or they don't realize, like, x, y and z has to be done. And then sometimes they're like, oh, wow, that nets a lot lower, and maybe it financially doesn't make sense to sell now, or it's a lot higher, and they're pleasantly surprised, and we have

Tracy Hayes  48:50  
more room to work with. I think there's a question in our in our strategic questions here, about that, actually, right there. So let's dig into when a client asks whether Jacksonville is a buyer's market or sell a market right now, what do

Taylor Diaz  49:04  
you tell them it is definitely a buyer's market right now. So especially for people who are relocating from out of state, I think they get into a little bit of a, I don't want to call it a sticker shock, but just shock in general, because, like they're coming from, we're still having tons of people relocate from markets like Washington, New Jersey, New York, California, where their market is still like 30 days or less, where our market is like 73 days or more on average, depending on what area, what neighborhood that you're in, right? Like, I just have a listing where the average days on market was 126 days in that particular area, particular neighborhood. Yeah. So, you know, it's a very we are in a much slower paced market right now. It is absolutely a buyer's market. We have over seven months of inventory. If I just pull up listings on the MLS, we have over 9000 listings on market right now. Like, we've again, all things encompass, not just single family homes. Like we've got a lot to choose from that being said, what I always throw. In there to buyers, as well as if the house is attractive to you, it's probably attractive to other buyers. And if it's priced appropriately, and it's in a highly sought after area, or it's got like, bells and whistles, like a large yard or a pool or things like that, they're gonna attract a lot of people. It might not sit for the average that we're seeing, because

Tracy Hayes  50:18  
there are homes still there. The right homes that you're just talking about are selling in their first weekend,

Taylor Diaz  50:23  
right homes and still priced right, right key there, yes. So even if it's the right home, but it's way overpriced, it might be sitting for a minute, right? So yes, I mean, it is buyers market, but if you find the right house, don't bank on it just sitting there for forever.

Tracy Hayes  50:38  
I put out a little if you want to call it an ad, I, you know, my on my Facebook, obviously you're always trying to remind people that, hey, I'm in the business. I'm real estate agent, loan officer, and my topic today was, you know, seller concessions, and it's a buyer's market. You need to sit down with your agent. Sit down with your loan officer. This is the money I have available. This is what we want to buy at. Where do we want to be, and how to negotiate seller concessions or negotiate the price. Which is better? Do you have cash or do you not have cash? Do you want to come you might have cash, but don't come off it, right? So both. So you want to strategically sit down with with the two, with the three of you, if you're doing financing, and you'll strategize to get where you want before you make that initial offer. Yeah, it always takes a few minutes, because they just need to know where you want to be. And they'll you and I will tell them how to get there exactly.

Taylor Diaz  51:30  
Well, I think too, though, the other big thing with a buyer's market that just needs to be said is, yes, there tends to be more room to negotiate in a buyer's market, but that doesn't mean that sellers are just going to give away their house, or it's a time to be like, really, really greedy. So I think that's a big misconception with a buyer's market.

Tracy Hayes  51:47  
Well, that goes in the pricing. Yeah, so when you're doing a listing, knowing that it is a buyer's market, you want a price, right? But you also want to build in, because they obviously have in their head, hey, I need to walk away with this much, or maybe just cover the mortgage. Maybe they don't have a lot of equity. Whatever that number is that you have to be prepared, because the buyer is probably going to ask for something, so you got to pull it a reasonable amount of flex in that price. Yep, what? Here's the next question here, What does it really cost to sell a home in Jacksonville right now.

Taylor Diaz  52:22  
So on average, I would say, for most sellers, you know, you have Florida's a little bit different than a lot of other states. I hear all the time, like, sellers will will start going through, like, a closing cost net sheet, and a seller is, like, I didn't have to pay for that in North Carolina. I didn't have to pay for that in California. I'm like, That's great. We're in Florida, so yes, very good point. Yeah, and every state's different, so if you don't know, you need to ask, ask questions. And hopefully your agent is going through an estimated like seller net sheet breakdown with you. It's really going to depend, obviously, on price point. It's going to depend on commissions that are negotiated and agreed to.

Tracy Hayes  53:00  
Again, you got to build a little bit in there yep, to be prepared for that Yep.

Taylor Diaz  53:05  
And then, of course, if you have any type of mortgage payoff, but the fees it it varies pretty widely, honestly, pending what your sales price is and what commissions and things like that are agreed to. So again, I'd say on average, currently in the state of Florida, at least in our area, we are still seeing a lot of sellers pay their agent around 3% and then on the buyer's agent side, on average, more. So you're seeing around two and a half percent. So after all those changes happen, then our settlement, we won't get into all of that, but again,

Tracy Hayes  53:36  
you're not seeing more than six so you could start there and work your way down a little correct from a commission

Taylor Diaz  53:41  
perspective, on average, again, I'm seeing about two and a half percent on buy side and still 3% on the listing side.

Tracy Hayes  53:47  
And I will add the what part of Florida you are in, what customary 95% of it's the same. I did a deal down in Palm Beach County. It was the first time, I don't know. Well, one of the first times I've done one in Palm Beach County, and I put, I don't know. I think it was the lender, title insurance anyway, it was something more that the the buyer was responsible. We're here in Northeast Florida. It's more of the seller. So you do want to make sure your agent, obviously is aware which they should be if they're working that area, they should know who's customary to cover

Unknown Speaker  54:22  
the title fees. Probably.

Tracy Hayes  54:24  
I personally, I don't understand why sellers aren't responsible for the survey, though

Unknown Speaker  54:30  
they used to be. Not anymore.

Tracy Hayes  54:31  
Yeah, I don't, I don't like that. I think you they should be selling the home. They should, they should have a survey showing what they're selling.

Taylor Diaz  54:39  
I agree, but I think the reason behind it is because you want a survey that has your information on it. So like, when you go to sell the property in the future, you don't have to get another survey. So like, You got us, you're getting a survey. If you're selling your house and I'm buying it, I'm paying for the survey, and now I have the survey with my name on for my name on it, because it's going to be my property that I'm selling in the future. Instead of me then giving a survey to my buyer that has your information and name on it, I think that's the thought process behind it, genuinely Well, I mean, no, but it makes sense to me in

Tracy Hayes  55:09  
that way. I mean, we know a lot of you, a lot of what we sell here, especially in St Johns County, is all PUDs anyway, all HOAs, yeah. So unless someone put a fence in or put a pool in, then you need to get that up survey updated there. But why should a buyer choose new construction over resale, and why does having an agent matter with the builder?

Taylor Diaz  55:30  
Great question. So first and foremost, we have tons of new construction here in Northeast Florida. I think it's really going to be customer dependent. Like new construction is not for everybody. But I think one of the big draws and the big benefits of new construction for most buyers, number one is the peace of mind, especially in this market, especially the way interest rates are when you're already paying a quote, unquote premium monthly, it's nice to have the reassurance and peace of mind that you're probably not going to have to go and replace an AC within three months of being in the property. And if you are, hey, guess what? It's covered under warranty, same thing with the roof or any other major system, if glass breaks in a window that might be covered under the one year builder warranty. Like there's lots of benefits in that perspective, to where you're not paying a high monthly payment, plus having to ensure you have cash in hand to do these big maintenance or upkeep changes, things like that second part of that, builders right now are offering tons of incentives, and whether it's to buy down your interest rate and help those monthly payments, whether it's to give you large amounts of money towards design or structural options if you're building a house from dirt, whether it's literally just negotiating sales price down, there's lots of opportunity in the new construction world. Again, we have a lot of Master Plan communities here. You get the benefits of lots of amenities and everyday conveniences at your fingertips. There's lots of things that new construction offers you that other things like older houses that might not be as energy efficient, or, you know, need have lots of wear and tear, things like that need. Now working with an agent is super important in new construction number one, because the site rep, yes, they are agents that they work for the builder. I'll repeat that again. The site rep works for the builder. Okay, yes, they do. So with that, yes, they're gonna tell you, and they're gonna make things feel like, all rainbows and butterflies. They're gonna be like, Oh yeah, don't worry. I got you. We're gonna give you this great deal. They're not giving you a deal. Okay? They're just like, nixing down what the builder has already told them they have free range to next down, not going the extra step of saying, hey, no, you can actually negotiate these things a lot further. Or, Hey, if you you know, they're also not telling you we can't negotiate on so, like, sometimes buyers will fixate on, like, I really want to negotiate this, and the site rep will go, Okay, let me go talk to them about it, and I'll see if I can get it to work for you. That's not going to be some going to be something they can negotiate anyway. They're going to come back and say, Listen, I fought really hard for you, but it didn't work, and we can't get that down. Versus an agent who really understands new construction, who's been around the block a time or two and working with that builder, and no, yeah, knows that that can't be negotiated on. So they're not going to waste their breath, and we're going to focus on the things that actually can be worked through. Other big thing with agents, especially who've worked with these builders and been in the design studios, a lot is a lot of times you'll see buyers go in and they get fixated on light fixtures, and it's like, I understand you want the house to be turnkey when you move in. I get that. But let's focus on the big things that are going to be really hard or cumbersome or costly to do after closing, ie, countertops, cabinets, flooring, especially tile. Like, you don't want to have to like, you don't want to pick floors, yeah, you don't want to pick the basic builder grade if that's not what you really want. And then have to deal with jack hammering up tile after you move in and deal with the mess and things like that. Like, okay, if you're deciding you're going to want to do a less costly LVP in this room at a later date, go ahead and put the basic builder grade carpet in there, right? Like, do the basic builder grade carpet and do the LVP with an outside contractor for less money. Post closing, do the light fixtures, post closing. Do the hardware just, just let the basic builder hardware

Tracy Hayes  59:05  
get put in? Likely can go down to home beat Depot and Lowe's and have a bigger selection for half the price, correct?

Taylor Diaz  59:10  
Well, like, even hardware, like on cabinets. Like, people are like, Okay, well, I don't if they're gonna put the basic builder grade one in. I don't like that. I'm just gonna pay the extra for this. No, let them put the basic builder one in there, so the holes are already in place. That way you don't mess up the holes, installing the hardware later. If they mess it up, they've got to repair it, replace it, and then go pick the hardware that you like later, right? Like, there's little nuances, like solid,

Tracy Hayes  59:33  
solid stuff, wow, that is but that's why you should be we should be working for Taylor if you want to buy, I was just see you. I mean, that was an infomercial right there. You have Jax beaches on your areas that you like to work. What is actually happening right now? Jacksonville Beaches in the luxury market space, you know, and I am, I don't. Agree that luxury is a service. I believe when people get luxury certified, they're getting certified to work with clients at a higher price point. You know that have a different have different demands than the Track Builder customer. Yeah, what's going on at Jacksonville Beach in the luxury market?

Taylor Diaz  1:00:18  
So I'm gonna argue that with you a little bit both, right. I think luxury is absolutely price point, but it is also a service. And what I mean by that is like here in Northeast Florida, we classify luxury as $720,000 or higher. So if you sell a certain amount of luxury homes per year, you're luxury certified. I'm luxury certified because I sell a certain number of houses over $720,000 a year. That being said, I also do think it's a service in the sense of, like, if you came to me and said, Hey Taylor, my budget's 200,000 or you came to me and said, Hey Taylor, my budget's 1 million. I'm not treating you as a customer any differently, other than, hey, we're looking at different types of houses, and I might have to go and do extra steps one way here or the other, right? Like, yes, there are going to be some nuances that are different at certain price points, but I'm not going to treat you differently as a customer because of your price point, if that makes sense. Now, that being said, luxury market in Jacksonville, number one, it's a wide range of luxury, right? So what, I think there's been a big misconception where a lot of people, again, are relocating to the area, and they go, Okay, it's Florida, it's Jacksonville, it's not Miami. I can get in and get a 3000 square foot house for $700,000 No, you can't, right? Like, our prices for luxury are starting to, quote, unquote, catch up to other areas of Florida that you see. We're also seeing lots of new construction come into Jacksonville Beach. So if you start to actually pay attention to our market, we're not seeing tons of people just renovating, you know, the 50s, build homes and making them look luxury. We're actually having lots of builders and contractors come in and tear down and build these 1.2 1.3 1.4 plus million dollar houses in Jacksonville Beach. So if you actually start to look at what's on market in Jacksonville Beach, for a million plus, no longer are they just the small block homes that have been flipped for lack of better words, or have additions onto them, they are actually brand new construction houses, which is great, because I think then again, you're getting a little bit more bang for your buck in the sense of, you know, like them being newer them, you not having to worry about, like AC crapping out on you in short order things like that, like the quality of the build is actually there. You know, once you cross a one a or Third Street. It's a totally different caliber of luxury. Again. North Jacksonville Beach is going to be mainly like hotel and commercial and things like that, but in South Jacksonville Beach you do have some luxury east of Third Street as well. But we are definitely starting to see prices come up, even though we're in a buyer's market for luxury price points at the beach, and there's just, like a wide variety

Tracy Hayes  1:03:03  
of it's, well, it's a unique space, because there's only that space, right? And there's only that home. And so it doesn't necessarily flow so much as you know the four or 500 $600,000 you might have in the next area I want to talk about, which is silver leaf. And the question there is, how are you helping buyers think through the silver leaf, or even Naka T, another fast growing community that are still being built out?

Taylor Diaz  1:03:32  
Okay, so silver leaf, I kind of refer to it as Naka T, 2.0 and what I mean by that is, it's a large master plan community like Naka T, but totally different caliber, if that makes sense. So there silver leaf is going to be the largest in comparison Master Plan communities to knock it t from anything else. So, like, it's going to be larger than river town. It's going to be larger than shear water. It's going to be larger, obviously, than beacon Lake and beach walk and things like that. So it's kind of a smaller scale of nakati, but there's going to be six amenities centers within silver leaf. There's no CDD Fees, which is a huge one for silver leaf, which is great because Naka T and a lot of the other master plan communities, you have that additional CDD fee that you have to kind of incorporate within your payments. Or just think about silver leaf has tons of different neighborhoods within the community, tons of them, and there are

Tracy Hayes  1:04:28  
different levels. You have townhouses to correct.

Taylor Diaz  1:04:30  
You have an apartment complex in silver leaf. You have Courtney oaks, which is going to be a higher end luxury subdivision within silver leaf, it's gated. You have really large lots in there. It's going to be at a luxury price point, 3000 4000 square foot houses. And then you have the smaller subdivisions in there, like silver landing, where there's going to be houses 1015, feet apart from each other, like we see a lot of our new construction here. You can get larger lots in there as well, but they're going to be more of like your first time home buyer, average buyer. Or, you know, like, lower makes more sense, price points for most people, yeah, more like, you know, from five hundreds, four hundreds up to like seven or 800,000 in there. So there's a wide variety of styles of houses in silver leaf. You're going to, again, have those six amenity centers spread throughout. So it's going to kind of spread up, spread out the families and kind of reduce that amount of congestion that you see in no case amenity centers. So it's a very different lifestyle than not

Tracy Hayes  1:05:29  
the T I would say. I'm going to give you my two cents on CDD versus HOA. Yes, CDD all the way. And this is why, at the HOA, they're doing stuff behind and behind closed doors. They are they're talking outside the meeting. They're not in the sunshine, as in the state of Florida, everything needs to be in the sunshine, and the CDD falls into that. So when you have a amenity center that costs a lot of money to maintain and the landscaping and the roads and all that kind of stuff going on. You want a board when they meet, there's a lawyer there. Hoa is don't have a lawyer there all the time. And so the lawyer is going to keep the board member from board member from doing something out of it. Now, can they there? Are certain they can say, right for the board, we all agree. We're going to go with this vendor. We're not even going to put it out. If it's a small, bit large. Bids have to go out, because that's the state law. The lawyer is there to say, Hey, okay, just want to make sure that's what you want to do. And he's basically telling you he doesn't recommend that, because it could come back on the board or come back on that individual. So you're in that community, and you're in a CDD. It is collected with your taxes. It is, does it cost a little bit more, maybe 10s, on the community. Ultimately, What's it cost you per month? You might have a high HOA fee and no CDD, or you have the CDD fee in little to no HOA. It all gets down there, but the CDD is under the sun, is under the Safe Florida laws and on the sunshine when you vote for your CDD board members, or at the elections in November and all that kind of stuff, Hoa condos and HOAs, oh, you know, giving them too much money is, yeah, not good. That's just my two cents. I'm gonna add that in there because I served on my board for 11 years, board, so I saw all this stuff going on and and I do own condos, and I've seen that condo association try to pull off some stuff like, hey, yeah, it's gonna cost us $150,000 I talked to this guy, yeah, hey, why don't you just give me authority to take care of that? No, no, we're gonna get multiple bids, and they're going to come in and educate the board on why their bid is best, and then we'll choose who's going to get that $150,000 yeah, that's the kind of stuff that goes on to just boards. That's my little passion there. All right, how early should buyers be thinking about insurance and how much can it change and what they can really afford?

Taylor Diaz  1:08:00  
It's a great question. So insurance, I actually a lot of times you don't have to start this early, but a lot of times I will get a quote from right way insurance, I work with Chris Huebner a lot, and I'll send him over a quick tax and just say, Hey, I have a buyer that's really interested in this property. Do you mind giving a ballpark? Because it's always a ballpark until they actually plug and play things estimate on what insurance would be based on this property, because insurance can drastically change monthly payments, whether you know it's the age of the house or the roof, the location of the house, flood insurance, if it's required or not like it can really affect monthly payments by a few $100 a month pending the situation. So a lot of times I will reach out to my insurance contact before we even under contract, just to give them a general idea. And truthfully, the lenders like that a lot of times too, because then I can give them that, and when they're working in, like the fee sheet for the buyers, so they can see exactly what their monthly payments and stuff are going to be, they have an actual insurance quote versus guesstimating. So I start pretty early, but typically, you know, once you're under contract, within the first week or two, you typically want to start shopping.

Tracy Hayes  1:09:05  
Yeah, solid advice there. I would actually say contract signed, you're recommending some home inspectors. The same email should be going out for the insurance person because it but even doing it before, especially on an aged, you know, little bit older home, because the I don't think people realize these insurance companies are tapped in. They know when every permit was pulled. You got to pull a permit to put in a hot water heater. You got to pull a permit to put in a new roof. They have. They know when all this stuff went on, and it might actually affect how you make the offer correct, having that

Unknown Speaker  1:09:42  
information, or what's being negotiated,

Tracy Hayes  1:09:45  
or things like that, 100% because roof water heaters are two right now are the biggest things in Florida, what you're dealing with for insurance and knowing the age of it, and we all would think 10 years is a young roof. If not all insurance companies agree with you in Florida anyway, which I think is crazy, four point inspection. And then we talked about, we talked about condos to the insurance involving a condo, not all lenders want to deal with condos. Are condos that are hard to lend on. And one of the things that the Florida's put in, and I hopefully they pull this back, but because of the disaster down in Miami, I don't know how many years ago was that that? Yeah, well, that the high rise that had the deferred maintenance done. Well, now, every 36 months they have to have a basically, they call it an appraisal, appraisal slash survey, where they evaluate the property. What's the cost of all these amenities should be? They be wiped off the face of the earth. Is the insurance enough to cover it, and they have to keep that updated. So if the condo complexes doesn't have it updated, you may or may not be able to get a loan on it right, which affects pricing of it as well. How do you help clients who are buying and selling during a major life transitions? And obviously, we know these might lead your life to get divorced, death, obviously, maybe just getting married. It was something hopefully positive there. But have a child like yourself here recently, how do you maybe even give us a story, a little bit of just a free humor? Obviously, names are not, not necessary. But how do you, how do you handle that? Yeah, I think

Taylor Diaz  1:11:21  
it really, again, goes back to that relationship focus that we talked about before. I think again, really understanding not just what is happening, but how it's affecting them. Can really, can really play a big role in how your relationship with that customer kind of pans out for lack of better words, and then you can better, better help them with the either sale or purchase. So like selling for divorcees tends to be a little bit more difficult, since you brought that up. You know, some other avenues, because you're

Tracy Hayes  1:11:56  
not dealing with one party a couple. You are dealing with two parties, the

Taylor Diaz  1:12:00  
lawyers involved, or the attorney. So, you know, it really depends on, again, what the whole picture is, are they excited because they just welcome their first kid and they're looking to upsize they need more space? Or maybe in, like, my situation, I have a two story house and now a six month old and all the bedrooms are upstairs, and I want a single story myself, right? Like, yeah, you know, like, what's the reason? What are they intending their lifestyle to be? How? Like, how can you just take all the pressure and weight off their shoulders, or as much as possible? Because, you know, no matter what, no matter how much you offer, that people are going to worry it's our natural tendency to right. But like, how much pressure can I take off their shoulders and just navigate the process for them? Like, I have a seller right now as an example, who went through a divorce. They don't live here, and this is a second property for them, and there's stuff that needs to be done, and they've got little kids, and it's just too much for them to handle. So I'm out here going and getting, like, all vendor estimates, I'm handling all of the repairs that need to be done up front. Like we're I'm getting a lot of stuff done up front for them, and all they have to do is basically give approval. Yes or no I'm agreeing to that, and then I'm handling everything, and then it'll be done and ready on market. Like, there's lots of little nuances. This actually goes

Tracy Hayes  1:13:18  
back to the one of the questions we had earlier about luxury, your luxury clients, for the most part, they want that concierge service. And since you're used to delivering that to those higher end clients, doing a lot of things like, how much is it going to cost us to redo this kitchen? You already have people on your speed dial to have if you don't already have the answers for them, because if you're the listing agent, you should have those things readily available because, you know, the kitchen is or the bathrooms or whatever, or something a buyer is probably going to renovate. You should have those things at least reasonably in a period of time to get them those answers. And that's the concierge service. A luxury home, custom built home, has things about it that the track home doesn't have, and you need to know about those things. But that goes back to the dealing with these people in their transitions. You may have to handle a lot, because you got two people in a divorce butting heads, and you know, you got to have these things be done. So you're you're the mediator in the middle, and you're going and getting them done for both parties. Or you've

Taylor Diaz  1:14:16  
got a really tired mama who has a newborn, and you're having to give gentle nudges and reminders of like, hey, let's do this, you know, like, you know, being able to flex and ensure you're handling the conversations appropriately based on the customer and what life changes they're going through.

Tracy Hayes  1:14:31  
What is Jacksonville's migration boom doing to neighborhoods, inventory and long term value. So actually, I think we could probably throw in how the interest rates

Taylor Diaz  1:14:45  
are affecting part of this too. Yeah, so we saw a big boom, as many people know, a few years ago, and then it dropped back down, and now we're getting an influx of people relocating from out of state again, like almost. Every single customer, buyer that I'm working with right now is relocating from out of state, mostly from New Jersey and New York. It's effect, I wouldn't say it's really affecting neighborhoods too much specifically, other than I'm noticing a lot of customers, depending on where they're from, are all wanting to go to the same neighborhoods, like a lot of people from New York and New Jersey are really wanting to go to, like, St John's nakati, specifically, area, which happened in the last boom that we had as well. So I would say when the change that we see there is, like, obviously a lot of influx of people coming from one area to that same area, but then we also see the trend of those people getting here and being like, Okay, I read about all this online. I thought, based on online, this is exactly where I wanted to be. And we just kind of jumped the gun and got a house here. But now that I'm here and established, wait a second, maybe I really like Mandarin more, or maybe I really want to be in Ponte Vedra Beach, or Jacksonville Beach, or, you know, St Augustine or something like that. So there's actually trees, yeah, there's actually trees and some character in house, right? Anyhow, you know? So I would say, like, that's the biggest shift that I typically see with like neighborhoods. When we see a big boom or influx of people coming in from out of town, obviously, interest rates are always going to play a factor. So again, that also drives a lot of people to go to those newer construction communities like we talked about before, where, again, they're coming in from out of state, prices in general might be a little bit higher than they actually thought they were going to be, because they're coming from New York, they're coming from Jersey, they're coming from Washington, California, places where price points are higher and they're expecting to come here and be able to get the same caliber house for a lot less expensive, which is not necessarily The case. So then they try and find areas or communities, ie a lot of new construction builders, where they're offering tons of incentives and they can get lower interest rates and or they think they're getting a quote better deal on sales price. So we do get a lot of draw to new construction, and especially the St Johns County area, from people relocating from out of state. Interest rates always a big driver for that.

Tracy Hayes  1:17:01  
The last part of it was long term value for the people you have. So, I mean, what can you tell them about the value at home? Because there is some doom and gloom news out there. You know that, obviously people like to get attraction on social media, whatever, by talking about, oh, Florida's gonna blow up. You know, that kind of thing, specifically about values. What can you put out there to the to the customers that you already have and already in homes about their values?

Taylor Diaz  1:17:28  
Yeah, value can be a tricky, tricky conversation, depending on the customer, depending on the area, right? I get asked a ton of times like, am I going to see more return on my value with new construction or resale? Well, where is the house? How soon into the build are you getting in? Like, for example, because we brought up silver leaf and knock atee Earlier, silver leaf, you're probably going to see more return on your investment than Naka T in the long run, because you're getting in earlier, where you tend to have a lower sales price, like the more phases that come about, typically, the sales prices go up versus knock atee, where they're at the tail end of your build, and you're probably getting in higher, however, Naka tees closer to the beach, and probably has a higher average price point than silver leaf is right? So long term value, I would say, is really going to be dependent on where, where you are, how much you're getting in for. And then, of course, like any type of improvements and things like that that you're doing on a

Tracy Hayes  1:18:19  
property and Well, I think long term value from the standpoint as overall, we have a demand, because we do have those people moving from those particular states. And actually, there's maps being thrown up all the time, you look right now of what states are losing population and what's obviously Florida's gaining, as well as other states, those people are moving exactly from those states. Yeah. Got to watch out for buying in a new construction community if you plan to sell or might have to sell into

Taylor Diaz  1:18:49  
short orders. Yeah, yeah, especially if you're military and you know that that's going to be an option. Always keep that in the back of your mind. You never want to buy at the top end of budget and or a new construction because

Tracy Hayes  1:19:01  
we're finding, for those who don't know, who might be listening this, we're finding that house. There's still construction going on, next phase, next street, whatever. Now they got to sell it, so they're competing against the builder who's putting all these incentives in there, and you're trying just to get what you paid for it a lot of times and a lot and we are, they'll sit on the market for a long period of time, unless you're willing to make some sort of offer that would compete with the builder, and then hope the builder just doesn't have any models available right now, and somebody wants to move in, they're like, Okay, I'll take that house because it's the only thing available. Yeah, really tough situation. Agents are

Taylor Diaz  1:19:34  
dealing with their resale in new construction that's still building, or even right around new construction that's still building, not in the same community, if it's a similar style, size, age, house, but you're not in that main subdivision. It can be really, really hard, because you're competing with builders that are giving this when you might only be able to afford to give this most

Tracy Hayes  1:19:53  
popular question out there right now for buyers wanting waiting as and I'll tell you right now, for those listening to you, it. Is middle of March, or near the end of March of 2026 and we've basically with the Iran conflict going down, oil prices going up. Rates have basically gone up a half a percent over the last few so we're really no points interest rate on a 30 year fix. You're in the mid sixes right now. So for buyers waiting on rates to come down, what do you tell them?

Taylor Diaz  1:20:21  
I say, don't Okay. So it's a double edged sword, right? Because there are absolutely situations for somebody where it literally financially does not make sense right now, and that's okay, there's going to be a time, there's going to be a place, but it's don't fixate on the interest rate. Fixate where you are financially and what financially is going to make sense for you on a monthly perspective, if a lender is telling you can afford 500,000 What's the next question we'll tell you before monthly payment, you know, like, Okay, you're you could be told that you can afford $1 million but again, if you want your monthly payments to be 303,000 or under, you're not going to be at a million dollars. I think the

Tracy Hayes  1:21:00  
actual right turn Ford is actually not the right word that, although it's used just like you said, it's actually what can you get approved for, and we can generally approve you for more than what you actually can afford, yeah,

Taylor Diaz  1:21:12  
or what you should afford, what you want to afford, right? So, you know, if, if everything else makes sense, and the only thing that's holding you up is, well, the interest rate is 6.5 instead of 5.99 or I heard my friend has a 6.25 Why am I at a 6.5 right? The reality of it is, once interest rates do drop, if they do drop, when they drop, the market's gonna go crazy, right? And then what happens when the market goes crazy is there's more buyers that you're competing against, and sales prices are going to naturally go higher. So yes, you might end up with a 6% or a 5.99% interest rate, as opposed to 6.5 but the sales prices have now gone up, so you're basically at a break even when it

Tracy Hayes  1:21:55  
comes to your monthly payments. Just what you have felt here in the last couple of weeks with buyers who have you talked to? Versus the previous two or three months, where we started to see you on the conforming, the VA and stuff, was getting into the fives. Now that's up to 6% but you started to see, you know, 5.875 5.99 5.75 you know, depending on everyone, anyone's particular situation, their attitude and ready to buy, versus just what you've seen the last three weeks.

Taylor Diaz  1:22:25  
Flip the switch, yeah, flip of the switch. It was like, rate started to go down just a hair, like, not really affecting your monthly payments drastically. And buyers came out of the woodworks, like, Okay, I'm ready to buy. And then we had multiple offer situations, even again, which we haven't seen in a minute. So like, I had a listing that went $15,000 over asking price. Prime example, right there, right tons of tons of interest. Rates went down. We hit it perfectly with market spiked interest competition, 15k over asking now, again, all this other stuff's going on. Rates went up a little bit. And I don't want to say it's become crickets, but things have definitely slowed down again. You're getting a lot more hesitation, a lot more buyers are going, Okay, well, like, let's maybe just wait a month and see what happens. Sellers are saying all right, well, I want to hold a little bit longer, because I know all this is going on, and I know this is buyers mentality. So prices aren't, per se, dropping with a lot of sellers right now. So it's kind

Tracy Hayes  1:23:21  
of a double edged sword. There no 100 there's a if you're waiting, there are others waiting to buy, and when they just they're thinking the same way. There's a trigger I always said in the last years. So 5.875 is going to trigger a buyer to go. I will say, if you think you can afford that payment, at least for the next 12 or 24 24 months. Sometime in there, you are going to likely refinance, because rates will drop. And the amount of loan you know, you know right now, if you're putting money down, you're putting 20% down, and you want to refinance in six or 12 months because the rates have dropped a half a percent or whatever, most likely you're not even going to need an appraisal. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are waving a lot of appraisal. Waving a lot of appraisal because they have all this data now this technology has gotten better and like, Yeah, that's fine. You were paying them. We're gonna give them a lower interest rate, which is the mentality of the VA and the FHA loans. Why they have streamlined processes is because they just want you to afford your payment. They're not, they're not worried about making the interest, trust me, after that loan goes to a servicer, the servicer is getting the same now, the investor gets something different, but they're not, you know, the investor is getting the servicing. Doesn't care whether you refinance or not, right? I mean, they do. They really, because someone's at 3% there, they want someone to keep paying that loan. They don't want someone to pay that off and go to another you end up going to another servicer, because whether it's a 3% or 6% that service are still getting the same amount. It's the investment guys on the back end that that you don't see or hear about. But anyway, slight change of pace here, a little bit from our questions here, how has your medical background helped you hand. Hard conversations in the market? That's a good question.

Taylor Diaz  1:25:06  
I think the biggest thing with having a medical background and being able to handle tough conversations in the real estate world is I think I like to think I have a little bit more tact to those. But also, I think in an educational way too, it's not like I'm just coming out and saying, like, yay or nay, this isn't going to work for you. It's like, Hey, this is the problem we have at hand. We have all these solutions, and let me help educate you or advise you on what the best option is for you, or at least help you get to that conclusion. Because I think, like, as I like to say, like, nobody goes into medicine to be like, I'm going into medicine because I want to tell people I have cancer, or they have cancer. No, nobody goes into medicine for that reason, right? They go into medicine to be like, okay, this person has cancer. Now, how can I help them beat this? Solutions, yep, solutions. Can I provide them? How can I help relieve the pain so on and so forth? And I feel like I have been able to really come from, like, articulate things enough to come from that manner of like, Hey, let me help, whether it's a buyer or a seller, be able to kind of break things down and understand what they might need to hear in a tactful way versus what they want to hear. Because I think that's a lot of a big thing in real estate too, is you have to have those tough conversations.

Tracy Hayes  1:26:29  
What are sellers getting wrong when it comes to preparing their home for today's market?

Taylor Diaz  1:26:34  
Oh, talking about physically preparing for it, preparing it, or pricing preparing it.

Tracy Hayes  1:26:41  
From what I hear a lot is, you know, a lot of your buyers want turnkey. They're not into getting a renovation loan, although it's a great product for people you know, could find the right address. Maybe that, you know, it's not quite perfectly the way they want it. So get a renovation loan and do the renovations. Lot of people don't want to look that far.

Taylor Diaz  1:26:56  
Yeah, I think that also goes back a lot to the way that interest rates are currently like, again, the covid market, you could slap a for sale sign out in the front yard and vacuum the house, and I'm still going to get multiple offers and be gone in 24 hours. Now, especially the way that interest rates are the slower market, like the buyer that's coming in and looking at your house is probably looking at 15 other houses. That's the reality of it, if not more, right? And they don't want, like you said, to either have to take out a renovation loan or to come in and be like, Okay, I gotta replace the carpets. I gotta paint the whole house. I've got to deep clean it, because you didn't, you know, like, buyers want something right now that they can just pick up their stuff, put it in there and start just like they're moving into a new apartment complex, correct? Everything is taken care of for them. And I know that's a it's a hard pill to swallow, especially for sellers, but I also like to say, like, imagine if you were a seller and you were moving into a new house. You don't want to have to clean up after your after that person, like you want to just be able to move in and start your life. So the reality of it is, if you have dingy walls or carpet that's stained or especially smells like pets, do spend the extra couple $100,000 and paint it and replace carpet. It's going to get you quicker traction. It's going to get you more realistic offers. You're going to hopefully avoid the really low ball offers that we're seeing in this market. It's just, it's

Tracy Hayes  1:28:20  
just, it's amazing what a little paint will do. It is crazy with the NAR settlement and AI search changing the business last, really, 1218, 24, months. What do buyers and sellers still need from a great local realtor?

Taylor Diaz  1:28:36  
Okay, well, the Narr settlement, as we all know, commission is negotiable. It always has been. But with that, I think the biggest obviously pushback that we still see is, you know, paying a certain amount of commission. And I feel like that's a question that I don't get very frequently, occasionally from agents. Is like, or agents, excuse me, occasionally from a seller, for example, like, why should I pay you 3% Why should I pay this? Why should I pay that right? And the reality of it is, and I know people are leaning on AI a lot, AI, can't do every single thing for you. I had an agent the other day that was, I'm gonna say, arguing lightly, arguing with me something about a contract. And I said, Where did you get that information from? Can you please point it out to me in the contract? Said, Oh, no, I chat. GPT to, first of all, it's wrong. Second of all, please don't use chat GPT for contracts. And I think that's where people start really leaning on AI like things like chat.

Tracy Hayes  1:29:32  
So clarify that for me. What? So what did she what was the actual thing? She asked

Taylor Diaz  1:29:36  
chat a deadline. She didn't know the deadline for the contract. Okay? And I had reached out saying, like, hey, our deadlines coming up. What's the update here? And basically

Tracy Hayes  1:29:48  
was, like an inspection or something.

Taylor Diaz  1:29:51  
No, it was the time that the contracts expire at, technically speaking. So, like, she made an offer.

Tracy Hayes  1:29:59  
And hey, you have told. Six o'clock tomorrow

Taylor Diaz  1:30:01  
night to correct but there was no time. So it's the standard time that our contracts expire, which is midnight. And she was like, Well, I have until 7pm tomorrow. And I'm like, No, you have until midnight tonight. Like, where? Yeah, you know. Anyway, so long story

Tracy Hayes  1:30:17  
short, yeah, okay, so I just because I'm an A I'm good.

Taylor Diaz  1:30:21  
Like, those things are great. Don't get me wrong, I use chat, GBT and those things to state virtually, stage houses and like to, like, fix my listing descriptions and stuff like that, and that is great, but you still need a person on the other end of the computer or phone handling these things for you. Like the negotiations, the contractual details. Honestly, just the ins and outs of everyday life and how things like AI, again, we're, let me backtrack here. We're hired to remove emotion from the process, right? We all know that as an agent, you are not supposed to be getting emotionally involved. If you are, let's have a conversation. Ai removes that, which is great. However, if I have to go and I have to negotiate through bet on homes.com I'm annoyed that I can't actually speak with the listing agent or a representative on the other end, because our job as real estate agents is to get the deal done, to get something together that makes sense for both parties, and if you just implement AI, you're just going to get a black and white

Tracy Hayes  1:31:25  
yes or no answer. We're all assuming we asked AI the same question. That's where she went wrong. She uploaded her contract and had to analyze it and said, Hey, based on the Florida contract, yep, this doesn't have an expiration. When is the expiration? Hopefully would have given the right answer, which is, maybe we might want

Taylor Diaz  1:31:43  
to test it. We should test it. But like, that's a great example, too, because, like, if I you know all these things that are constantly trending on social media, like, oh, make a caricature of me, and what you know about me, right? And like, everybody's posting, not everybody, a lot of people are posting, like, okay, their caricature looks a certain way, and it's doing this, this and this, and then you see a random person or, like, I'll do that, and I'll get mine. And it's like a cartoon, bobblehead animation versus, like, the actual caricature. So it's like, what, what source are you using? How did you ask the question? Like, there are certain things that you just cannot rely on. Technology is great when technology works the way it's supposed to. And that's what I also say to like buyers when you're doing MLS searches, the MLS only works as well as the agent who inputs the information on the other side, right. Like I did a condo search the other day, and my buyer specifically wanted a condo with a garage. I had to nix the no garage field because I was seeing all these condos that blatantly had garages that weren't being pulled because the agent put no garage. And I'm like, that's a huge selling point for I've

Tracy Hayes  1:32:49  
heard that it's a big problem. And it's like, with even pools, yeah, the house might have a pool and it doesn't even mention it.

Taylor Diaz  1:32:55  
It's not in there, or square footage, is another big one, right? Like, you know, there's certain things that you just cannot rely

Tracy Hayes  1:33:00  
there's, there's still the human element for it. And two things just, well, one thing, we're scan your when you're doing a listing description, have it scan, scan your pictures. Load up, load up the pictures of the house. But you'd be amazed what it sees that you may not be mentioning that people are searching for in your area, but you're not mentioning them, right? And just like that, if they scanned all the pictures, it would show it had a garage. Maybe you forgot to put the garage on, but it saw it would recommend, Hey, did it have a garage? Oh, I forgot about the garage, right? So just one way, it's all how you ask the question on AI, and then, you know, obviously there's, there's, there's humans involved, but you've got to start using it to me and my that's, I mean, I've, I'm just amazed at some of the stuff. It's great. It's a

Taylor Diaz  1:33:48  
great tool. It's a great resource. I don't think it should be something that is or will if she

Tracy Hayes  1:33:55  
asked the question, if she asked a question, this would be interesting, actually, to test it to see and ask the question, I'm buying a real estate in Jacksonville, Florida. I'm using, they're using the Florida contract. There's nothing the blank you so give it those specific details. Not just, hey, because every state's different, we don't know. And it's trying to pull all the stuff from the internet, or, if you be very finite, it's going to go to the finite information and pull what you're actually asking for, versus all this, who knows what's going on in Washington State. They might say, if you don't put a time in there, may you have until they sell it. Someone else, right?

Taylor Diaz  1:34:30  
Who knows? Yeah, all the little nuances, yeah, like, it's technically 11:59pm you know. Like, not technically midnight, you know. Like, there's those aspects of it too. So I want to

Tracy Hayes  1:34:40  
finish up. This is last this is the biggest question of the day. Oh, boy. Why do you love real estate?

Taylor Diaz  1:34:45  
Oh, I love real estate for a multitude of reasons. Number one, I still get to fill my cup of helping people and keeping those longer term relationships. Again, it's not a 1530 minute hour appointment with a patient. Patient. It's weeks, months, sometimes years, of working with somebody and really getting to know them. Yes, there's an aspect of flexibility once you get to a certain point where I love that. Because again, with you know, my son, I was thinking about that the other day, like I have a girlfriend who has a baby that's too much younger than my son, and she had to go back to work in an office nine to five when he was three months when she was three months old. And I'm like, I am so lucky and blessed that I have the ability to still stay at home with my son and or to take him with me, because a lot of paid or a lot of customers are like, Yeah, bring him with you, you know, like, whatever. Like, having that kind of flexibility of being able to, like, still raise my son and things like that. And also I just really love the stories that honestly come with helping people find and or sell a home like whether it's opening a chapter or closing a chapter in their life, I think that's just it's a really awesome and special experience to be able to go through with people awesome.

Tracy Hayes  1:35:55  
Appreciate you coming on today. Thank you really good show. Appreciate you having me. Yeah. Finally, we created some great, great content. All the Taylor's information is in the notes. Whether you're you're looking at this on Instagram or YouTube or wherever, wherever it's at, just go down the show notes, you'll see her contact information. If she resonated with you. She's one of the top real estate agents here in Northeast Florida, and I'm sure she'd love to work with you. Appreciate you. Thank you so much. Applause.