Andrew Michael: The Veterans Agent

Tracy Hayes  1:06  
Hayes Tracy, and welcome back to real estate excellence. I have my good friend here with me, Andrew, Michael. Both of us graduate from the Citadel. Andrew is a little bit younger than I am, so we're going to inquire about him. When he went to Citadel, there was, there was women. There no women when I'm too old for that. But Andrew is an established real estate agent here in Northeast Florida, someone that I admire greatly. And let's get to know Andrew a little bit. Andrew, let's go back to, you know, circa early 90s, right? You would graduate from high school. You're from South Florida, yep. And I know you've been asked this question because I've been asked this question a million times. Why did you go to the Citadel Military College of South Carolina? That's a good question. And yes, you do get that a lot. I always wanted a career in the military, and I just wanted to enlist right out of high school, but my father talked me into going to college, first commissioning, and going that route, and the Citadel kind of seemed like a good compromise between the two for what I wanted and what he wanted. And so that's where I went. And I graduated from high school in 96 and I graduated from the Citadel in 2000 right right now, in course, in conversation that we've had before, you enlisted in the Marine Corps just before, or actually, I think you said after your freshman year, when did you actually, I think I enlisted my third class year, which is sophomore year, yeah, I did. And then I went to Paris Island that summer, and I did my MOS schooling the summer between my junior and senior years. Okay, excellent. And I know from there, during that time period, you did do some time in Iraq, right? Yeah. Okay, so graduated in 2000 I became a Broward County Sheriff's deputy. So I was there from 2000 to 2014 but I was still in the marine reserves, and I got activated in oh three. I was a

Andrew Michael  2:58  
an artillery Scout, which is like a forward observer. So, but we can call in a naval gunfire, artillery, mortars, aircraft, all that kind of good stuff. But I was with I got activated in oh three for the invasion of Iraq, and I was in a scouting unit for second

Tracy Hayes  3:14  
tanks. So how long did you spend the entire year there? What was your tour? My

Andrew Michael  3:18  
tour wasn't very long. I was we were lucky. We got there in January. The war kicked off. I want to say in March, if I remember, it's been so many years, yeah, war kicked off in March. I want to say late May, early June, at the time, Major General Mattis, from what I understood, I wasn't part of the conversation. Sergeant, from what I understood, he wanted to keep our units and other units there longer, because we had beaten the Republican Guard in the Iraqi army. But the insurgents were starting to show up, and the powers that be in Washington said, No, there'll be no insurgency. Send them home. So not again, not me, personally, our unit, right? And so, yeah, we were back home, I want to say May or June of that year. So we weren't really

Tracy Hayes  4:05  
there that long. So about, roughly about six months, not even five, six months you were there.

Andrew Michael  4:09  
Yeah, of combat, I would say, like two to three. But yeah, what

Tracy Hayes  4:13  
would you say was your, you know, obviously being over there, what? What experience did you you get there that you still hold with you today?

Andrew Michael  4:22  
That's a good question. Yeah, it was probably one of the worst experiences of my life, as far as what I had to you know, and it's I didn't have any worse than anybody else. But what I kind of learned from it is, is you don't know when your time is coming. Might live to be in my 90s, you know, like my grandfather might not make it to my 44th birthday, which is in a couple of weeks. I mean, it's, you know, it's you don't know, tomorrow's not promised to anybody, and just live your life accordingly. Excellent.

Tracy Hayes  4:50  
Now, you mentioned you So you became a Broward County. The reserves call you up. You come back. Tell me a little bit about being a police officer. What drove you into the in. The criminal justice and being out on the beat in the street,

Andrew Michael  5:03  
that's a good question. So when I was at the Citadel, I kind of changed over to a criminal justice major. I want to say we were the second graduating class. I think 99 had the first graduates in that major. It just looked to me to be a good blend, like I knew at some point I'd want to get married and have a family and do all that kind of stuff, and at the time, and this is before 911 but at that time, with the Marines, like the miseps, who were at the Citadel, who those guys were the marine enlisted commissioning program, people who aren't familiar with it, those guys were active duty. The most of the ones that I knew were active duty infantry Marines who enlisted. They got the staff sergeant or sergeant, and now they were at the Citadel taking classes to go back in as officers, right? And what they were telling me is, like, you're only going to be home every other year. The year that you're home, you're going to be an awful all these camps and schools and stuff so you can stay competitive to prep. So it's you're going to be gone more than your home, and that was in peace time, right?

Tracy Hayes  5:54  
So that turns you off from making a career Marine Corps, exactly?

Andrew Michael  5:58  
Yeah. So that's, that's why I kind of looked at law enforcement. Look at a good blend. It's that kind of thing. It's not the same, obviously, right? But, and I could go home at the in the morning, at the end of the night, whatever end

Tracy Hayes  6:08  
of your shift, yeah, man, did my shift, right? So tell us a unique story. I know you. You know we've been at other events before, America's Most Wanted. And Andrew Michael, I was your claim to fame.

Andrew Michael  6:24  
I've got two. Actually. I was, I was in Soldier of Fortune Magazine, as mentioned in it. The article wasn't about me or anything, but my name is in it from they did an article on my unit in the war in Iraq. And in the second one was, I can't remember which season I was on, but the I was, I was, I had just been working street level narcotics. I went back to the road, meaning road patrol, and my sergeant said, hey, the, you know, the strategic investigations is doing a search warrant. They need a uniform guy to go so, so I showed up. And the reason for that was, like, when you're doing a search warrant, there's a few moments when whoever you're serving, they don't know if you're really an officer or not. These might be, you know, drug dealers trying to steal my drugs. They might be, you know, whatever, right? So they always have a uniformed officer with them, so that way, obviously, okay, it's the real cops, so, you know. So that's what I was there for, and it was, if I remember correctly, it was a warrant for child pornography. But we served the warrant, arrested the guy, and then I brought him out high and cuffed him, put them in the back of my squad car. So for the next so that was on America's Most Wanted and for the next couple of weeks, you know, normally it's like the great big deputy or officer stick and the guy, like the dramatic music, instead it was me, you know, five foot three, which is kind of funny, but instead, it was me for the couple of weeks and sticking the guy in the back seat of my squad car. That was the the intro to America's Most Wanted for like, a few weeks back then, that's

Tracy Hayes  7:41  
cool. That's cool. So you talked about the Marine Corps you've been in Iraq, and what you learn there you're now, well, you're back to being a police officer. Obviously, today you're a real estate agent. As your time as a police officer, what would you say the one greatest thing that you've took from there in your life.

Andrew Michael  8:01  
That's a good question, okay? And just to be clear, as a deputy sheriff, not to correct you or anything, but just for people, yeah, I guess along there, same thing I said about the Marines is that, you know, you don't know how long you're going to be here for. You live, you know, live your life as if it's last something today's your last day. But the other thing that I learned was how to talk to people. I grew up in a kind of a religious home. We're Christians, but it was very, you know, my dad's the father, you know, I'm not. And yes, I challenged him and whatnot, but at the end of the day, I grew up in a structured environment. I went to the Citadel, which we both know is a structured environment, right? And what I quickly found out when I graduated from the police academy and I went into the streets of South Florida is the vast majority of the people do not grow up in that kind of environment. And so I had to learn very quickly how to talk to people, and not just like giving orders, but how to actually communicate. That's one of the biggest misconceptions about officers, is people think that they can just order you around and make you do things. It doesn't work that way. Because I remember one night when I was in Dania Beach. I was a pretty new deputy. I was by myself, and I told this guy, like, Hey, you're going to do this, this and this. And he turned around, and I'm not going to use the language on your podcast, but it starts with an F and it ends with a U, and then it was a, what are you going to do? And it was, he hadn't broken the law. You can't, you know. And long story short, I just learned how to talk to people and how to reason with people, and that has helped me today, because, you know, as a real estate agent, you know, if I tell you some of the things that I've dealt with today or yesterday, you'd be like, Okay, I mean, well, not you, because you're a lender, you understand it. But for the average person, they're like, Well, who cares if the House didn't appraise, or who cares if the appraisal was like, Well, no, they do care, because to them, it's a huge deal, and it is, but I have learned over the years how to talk people through crisises and how to be patient, and that is definitely something I learned on the job.

Tracy Hayes  9:51  
That's very interesting. You bring that up, and you know, obviously the different events that have gone on here over the last few, well, decades, but let. We can even concentrate really down to the last year and and things that are in the news right now and in the one of the common themes, it seems, of some of these incidences are people. They don't just respect you because you're wearing the uniform, right? Just because you are wearing the deputy sheriff's uniform, they are not just going to bow down to you and oftentimes want to rebut you, but that communication that you're talking about is very important and possibly saving someone's life, really, you know, and how you communicate with them, it is, and knowing that they're not from that structured environment

Andrew Michael  10:35  
you're talking about, yeah, no, and it's um, but yeah, no, I like to say I definitely learned how to talk to people there. It's not, I think the public perception is that, you know, officers can't, and because if you think about it, the vast majority of the public really doesn't deal with with officers, or cops, or whatever you want to call them. They don't deal with them very often. I mean, and if they do, it's because they got pulled over, right, or they did something wrong, or Hayes says that they did something wrong. So you don't really have much interaction with them. You just know what you see on the news or on TV. But the reality is, if, if you don't learn how to talk to people in that line of work, you're not going to make it right. And that's not a new development. I mean, that's, I started in 2000 so, right?

Tracy Hayes  11:12  
And that's, that's a very interesting a whole nother topic that we could go off on, but on communication. And I never thought about it until you just mentioned that about how important that is. It's not about letting the bad guys go, but sometimes this is how you communicate with them and get them to understand, you know, you're doing your job, but this, you know, how do we work together, even though they're the bad guy, you're the good guy and versus getting into a confrontation?

Andrew Michael  11:37  
Well, I mean, relevant to say this or not, but it's not always that cut and dry, like who the good guy is and who the bad guy is. I'm sure you've done things in your life you're not proud of. I have, and sometimes you really can't argue. I remember one time in particular I used to when I worked midnights. I used to get the warrant list, and so those were all the people who were had missed court dates or violated probation and had warrants out for the rest whatever, or, you know, whatever. So I would go to their house around two or three in the morning and round them up and bring them in, you know, arrest them and take them to job, because, you know, they're going to be in their house around that time. And I remember one time I was arresting a woman for, I think it was a DUI warrant, if I remember correctly. But she was, at the time, the sheriff that I was working for in Broward at Ken Jenny, he was just about to get arrested by the FBI. We all knew it was coming. It had nothing to do with me, to do with the road patrol guys. It was just high level stuff that he was involved in. It's one of those things because of the newspapers. We all knew it was coming. We're just waiting for them to do it right. And so she told me, she goes, Well, you know, your sheriff is a crook, and you're arresting me for DUI, which, okay, fine, you got me. But what are you doing about the sheriff? I'm like, Well, I can't argue with you. Yeah, put you in a bad spot. The FBI, they dealt with it, and they did, but, uh, but so sometimes, like I'm saying is sometimes that line isn't really always clear. It's not like the movies.

Tracy Hayes  12:55  
So in your stories and stories that you've told me over the years that we've known each other, you start dabbling in some real estate at this time.

Andrew Michael  13:03  
Yeah, I met my wife. Actually, I'm Christian Mingle, and she basically she wanted to come up here, which, for those of you listening, up here is St Augustine, Ponte Vedra area in Florida. She wanted to come up here. And I kind of explored it and the law enforcement at that time. I don't know if it's still true now, but at the time, law enforcement and what's now, my home makes about half what we used to make in Broward, and just for the way I lined up my retirement and stuff like that, I could go and not really miss a beat. So I've always been interested in real estate, but I just assumed I would do it after I retired from the sheriff's department, and so instead, I went ahead and I got my license, and I worked for a broker at my church, and I kind of got my feet wet, and I did really well with it part time. So after about two years of that, I think it was we moved up here, and at that point, yeah, went cold turkey.

Tracy Hayes  13:58  
Now obviously, for many real estate agents or people thinking about becoming in the real estate market that may not have that spouse that you know really is the breadwinner, and you can go out and dabble in real estate if you sell something great if you don't. I mean, some people are in that situation. Obviously, for the two of you, you want to have a dual income. Do you recommend making that kind of part time dabble in it while you have your full time job until you can reach a certain point?

Andrew Michael  14:27  
Well, yeah, because number one, this is not like HGTV, you know, just you don't show them three houses. They buy one, and then before the credits come on, it's like, you know, fabulous or whatever, right? There's a lot more to it than that, and there's a lot of things to the industry that I can tell you, but it won't make sense to you until you're going through it, right? So yes, I would suggest getting your license, doing it part time, and just seeing if this is something that you enjoy. Do you react well to customers? Is this our clients? Is this something you enjoy? And if it is, the other thing that I would suggest is kind of like what we did you. We moved here, we had a savings account set up where, if I didn't sell a house for a year, we still would have been fine, right? We still could have paid all the bills, and we could have, we're not dining out, we're not going to Disney World, but, right? You know, the two of us could have been fine and paid our mortgage and eaten and, you know, done whatever. And as it turned out, it did go well, so, but I would always suggest, and even if you're a well established agent, you should still have at least six months, probably more of living expenses in a savings account for when, oh, I don't know, some guy in China eats a bat and the whole world goes into lockdown, but when weird stuff like that happens, okay,

Tracy Hayes  15:37  
it's interesting because I was listening to a really great podcast the other day, and this gentleman was from India, and his father set him up over here and said, okay, hey, I've got enough savings to send you to the United States for a year after that, you're on your own. And he said it gave him this, this a different kind of confidence, because he was driven. He wasn't like, oh, Dad's paying for it. Let me take I'll wait till the 11th month, and then I'll go find something to do. He actually went at it, and because it gave him that confidence. Did you feel like since you were financially secure, did that make you a different realtor and getting your first few deals done? No, I was hungry.

Andrew Michael  16:14  
Yeah, no, I was I was there early, stayed late, I did everything I could to kind of push the wheel, I guess,

Tracy Hayes  16:19  
make it work now. So what year is this? What are we talking about now? We're about now? What

Andrew Michael  16:23  
time we would have been about 2014 Okay, about it, yeah, 2021

Tracy Hayes  16:28  
it's been so long, yeah, yeah. Well, we've like 20 didn't even

Unknown Speaker  16:32  
happen. That's like this, yeah? That wasn't weird.

Tracy Hayes  16:35  
Block that off. So what really brought you to St Augustine is because your wife just desired to get out of Broward and just this area, or she took the job in neighboring county. Her

Andrew Michael  16:47  
mom and stepfather live in nakati, okay, all right, and so that was what brought them to this area. But the thing is, like Fort Lauderdale, where I'm from, born and raised, live there, whatever, but it's great when you're single, when you're young and single, and single and like, our first apartment when we got married, like, I could run back then I could actually run. I went over the bridge, the 17th street causeway bridge, went down to the beach, hung out, did some pull ups, had a margarita, ran back, you know? I mean, there's all these cool bars and stuff that you know now that you and I are married, have kids, don't really care about all that stuff is down there, and it's great. But once you get past that stage in life. Most of my friends that I grew up with, like I don't know any of them that I can think of, stayed, that really stayed, yeah, everybody else left for the most part.

Tracy Hayes  17:28  
So you most recently made a change. You were, were you? You? Were you with REMAX originally, or just when you got here?

Andrew Michael  17:38  
When I got here, I was at a small boutique brokerage in Fort Lauderdale with the REMAX when I got here, and then in mid March, I switched over to exp Realty.

Tracy Hayes  17:49  
So REMAX, well known exp, I think, is still on the you know, it's getting known nationally. I mean, it's gotten some recognition, but from the real estate perspective now I'm obviously me from the lending perspective, and I've known you, and I've seen REMAX agents, and then I know exp agents. The exp agents seem to be those more independent types. I know. I think I know what I'm doing, or I do know what I'm doing. You don't have that structured office as a REMAX or Keller Williams situation, where some of those people like to go into the office that you had an office at REMAX, you kind of kind of wore that out. What? What made you like really search to to step out to exp

Andrew Michael  18:32  
what? Well, the one thing I will say, though, is there are some exp agents who have offices. So, yes, we are virtual. We're basically, we are a virtual agent owned brokerage, and that changes a lot of the dynamics, because with, like, ReMax, I didn't own REMAX. I worked there, you know, and the person, the broker I work for, owned a franchise there, but we didn't really own it. It's with exp, we actually own the company, and we get stock awards when we do things that we do anyway, like sell houses or, you know, whatever it does, have a lot of interesting dynamics. I won't say, like one agents here, this type of agent, you know, like you mentioned, Keller Williams and REMAX, they're all great agents. I know them from all companies, and I was really happy at REMAX, to be honest with you. It wasn't until somebody showed me the model from exp, when they did, I was like, Oh, damn, because I saw it. Now I can't unsee it. And it was, but it's, can do a podcast on this alone. But one of the quick things I will say about it's interesting is it's agent owned, and so one of the one of the byproducts you get out of that is, you know, our education is on a virtual our whole office exists virtually. So if I have a question for my broker, I can call which I can do that, or if I want, like a person to person meeting, we actually log in, and I'll show you some time. But you can actually log in, walk into their office and like your avatar and them you're talking over the computer, looking at each other's avatars.

Tracy Hayes  19:53  
Interesting, yeah, but it's a fancy zoom call. Yeah. It is.

Andrew Michael  20:02  
But one of the byproducts from it, though, is they incentivize they call them icon agents, but the top performing agents, and it's a Award Level, when you get to it, they incentivize them. They give them company stock to come back and teach. I want to say it's six classes, I'm not sure to quote me on that one over a one year period in the virtual campus. So what you end up with is all these top level agents all over the country basically showing you their playbook. And so, you know, and so it's really kind of neat, because we didn't, I've never seen a brokerage that has anything like that, and they do have recorded classes as well, if you want to take them, but we have way more live campuses. I want to say they have like, 50 a week or something. I mean, it's not, you can't possibly do them, all right, but, um, but, yeah, just the collaboration and the education and the

Tracy Hayes  20:51  
so the some of the things I've seen about EXP and, you know, again, outsider, not a real estate agent, just looking. So there's some agents, which I assume, like you are, you know, very independent. But there's others that have formed some small groups, yep.

Andrew Michael  21:04  
Well, I'm a member of those groups too. What it kind of comes down to is who brought you into the organization, if that makes sense. And so we do have teams, just like any other brokerage that I know of. So like Keller Williams has teams, exp has teams, REMAX has teams. That's fine, that's all the same. So you have some agents who are on specific teams, but I myself am not on the team. And so I can go to my sponsor, though, because he him and I just met for breakfast not too long ago where he was like, Okay, this is where I am right now. These are the things I'm struggling with. Well, he's, you know, the food chain from where I am sales wise. So he just kind of showed me, okay, well, you could do this, this and this. And s and here's some things to do, and just to kind of help me get to the next level. Because, you know, he is incentivized to help me, right?

Tracy Hayes  21:48  
Yeah, helping others. So that was one of my questions. Because in you and I have dabbled in this at different times, is, you know, I know at the office you were with REMAX, or some, sir, some very powerful teams. There successful teams that have a model you have always driven the road less traveled. Let's put in my eyes anyway. What are the pros and cons for a real estate agent out there when they're looking at, hey, do I want to join this team? And, you know, and there is this whole pecking order of, here's the senior listing agent, here's a senior buyer agent, that sort of thing going on versus just doing what. You still have the same access, the same education, you can still tap into that broker the same way. What's kind of the pros and cons of the two?

Andrew Michael  22:35  
If you're looking at a team and they're not all the same, lots of teams are structured differently. So it's like, as far as the broker just go, if you're going to be successful at exp or REMAX or Keller Williams or anywhere else, you'll be successful anywhere. That's not what a lot of people realtors are going to understand this. But what the general public doesn't really know is, in my opinion, the general public is not the consumer of the real estate brokerage. They're the consumer of the real estate agent. The real estate agent is the consumer of the brokerage. Does that kind of make sense in my eyes? Yes. So if you run your So, you just have to look for the brokerage that kind of aligns with how you run your business. And then it's like anything else. It's um, what are they offering you? What are they going to give you? How much is it going to cost you? And you kind of go from there, as far as the teams go, I would look at it the same way. It's like, okay, how much of a split are they going to take from me? What are they going to give me, and what kind of training are they going to have? And you just kind of have to look to see if it makes sense or not. I've seen some of them where it's like, okay, you're a buyer's agent, that's all you can do. Well, what happens if your friend wants to sell their house? Well, you have to refer to somebody else on the team, okay, if that happens once, but if that keeps happening, at a certain point, you're like, Okay, I'm giving away business. You know what I'm saying? It's you just kind of have to look and see which. But not all teams do that. You know, like you have his book sitting on your desk. Ryan Sirhan with his team. He doesn't do that. I mean, he is his age. To my knowledge, the agents on his team are buying and selling and doing whatever. He provides some training and leads, I guess. So it just depends. Each model is different. You just have to look at it and say, does this work for me,

Tracy Hayes  24:07  
right? So, from the leads, since you tapped on leads a little bit, what is your feeling? You know, I hear a lot of talk. Or obviously you listen to podcasts. I listen to podcasts Zillow, you know, I've heard agents talk about, oh, Zillow and trailla and those, those things are going to take over the world in the real estate. Do you see that happening?

Andrew Michael  24:26  
No. I mean, there's no one universal product that everybody loves. Some people like Coke, some people like Pepsi. Some people drink water. Some people drink tea. You know, just as an analogy, it's interesting to watch what they're doing. They're definitely taking over large segments of the market, like they gone from just being a website to having

Tracy Hayes  24:42  
brokerages for it. I understand in some States Canada, there are brokerage well, they

Andrew Michael  24:46  
are. They're brokerage. Everywhere they have to be. Because what happens is, the way Zillow, for the most part, makes money, is they take, like, okay, me as a real estate agent, I list your house for sale, I take the photos, put together all the stuff, I put it in what's called the multiple list. Service. From there, it gets syndicated out to all these other websites, Zillow being one of them. Then Zillow then takes that house that I just listed, and if somebody clicks on there for more information, they're basically selling that information to real estate agents to then call them, and then it's either a bait and switch like, Oh gee, the house sold three months ago, but hey, I got this other one over here, whatever. Okay, so in order to take a referral fee, you have to be a licensed broker. So like, for you, you're not a licensed real estate agent. So if you tell me, Hey, Andrew, my friend wants to sell their house, I cannot compensate you in any way shape, right? So they have to be a brokerage to take the referral fees. So they've been brokered for a long time now. They are also listing their own homes from their eye buyer, you know, package like and, and that's nothing new either. It's you remember back before the bubble burst, and they're still around, but, uh, Ugg, buys ugly homes. The caveman, yep, okay. But in any case, there's always been a market for sellers who, I don't want to say desperate, because it sounds bad, but they're willing to sell their house for 70 cents on $1 or 60 cents on $1 so they can quickly turn around and resell it. And that's all they're doing. They're just, you know, no,

Tracy Hayes  26:08  
I literally had, what, what's the company here? Locally, locally, but there's is doing it right now here where they'll actually just call you, yep, we'll give you X amount of dollars. There's, I forget the name of the company, but I literally had a client the other day call me. They wanted to buy this other home, and they had already had talked to this company, and they're going to get that check, they're going to sign the agreement on Friday, and they're going to get, I'm like, hold on a second. You You sure you don't want to take five minutes and call an agent and list the house, because you may get an extra 10 or $20,000 because, I mean, literally, within a day, you're getting 1020 offers on a particular home. Do that. Why? Why would someone right now in this concurrent market that we have?

Andrew Michael  26:51  
Well, this market's a little unusual, you know, mid April, 2021 but by and large, and there's a market for that type of product, the i buyer, which is what we call it in the industry, but there are some people who need that and and I've, actually, I've worked with them. I had a client call me, and I don't want to go into particulars, but it was a very bad situation, and she needed her money within a week. Yeah. Well, in her house, had a lot of issues with it. It's, you know, to the point where I even have to be careful laying agents in there for safety reasons. Wow. Well, okay, I set her up with an ibuyer and bam, they bought the house for cash. Turned around so she had her mom within a washer hands of it. Would that work for you or me? No, but for her, it was the perfect option. So it's kind of rare that an educated consumer would do that because they know they're giving up money. And by the way, actually, exp has an ibuyer program too. I haven't done the classes on because I haven't been there that long yet, but it's kind of the same thing. So it's pretty rare. I mean, in all the clients I've worked with in the years that I've done this, I've only had one where, like, an eye buyer was actually what would have been better for

Tracy Hayes  27:54  
them. You list yourself, your email is the veterans agent. Yep, I think that was, I don't know how you got that the website, exactly why, no one ever thought is, when did you when did you acquire the veterans agent?

Andrew Michael  28:10  
Before I moved here, I actually have a knack for finding good website names. Before you have a friend of mine, him and I would just have a few beers and sit there and watch TV, and what about this website? And sure enough, we found it. We came up with a few of them. That was one of them. And kind of when I first got started in again, like we said, I am a veteran in South Florida, the real estate market is very different at that time, you know, I would get referrals for veterans, like, hey, they're pre approved for, like, two, 300,000 and basically, I had to tell them, thank you very much for serving our country, but you'll never own a home here, because the only things in your price range are these condos that either were number one or not. VA proof, which you and I both know about the podcast on that.

Tracy Hayes  28:51  
Yes, I guess I have one ready for that.

Andrew Michael  28:53  
And then the other thing with them is, is we were at the time again, this is years ago. We were having buyers from South America. The second it hit the market, bam, they're sending cash offers through. And so you, with your VA loan, are competing with somebody who's paying cash, sight unseen, for more money. You know, here in this market, it's actually a better market to work in, in my opinion, because we have anyway. Long story short, there were a lot of agents who refused to work with veterans. They wouldn't say that, but it was the fact, or they would try to talk about it using

Tracy Hayes  29:22  
there was this persona I you know, because when I first started in the business, we didn't even do VA loans. We didn't start doing them until after the crash, VA and FHA. But there was, there's always this negative persona about it in to me, agents who do that are crippling themselves financially because the VA has gotten so much better with working with the lender and getting a VA loan completed in an efficient period of time.

Andrew Michael  29:47  
You're in the lending industry. So you can answer this better than I can, but what I have encountered is that nowadays, not back then the Well, long story short, so how I got the veterans agent was, again, there was a lot of agents who did not want to work with VA loans. Yes, well, okay, I think that's kind of crappy. So yeah, I'm more than happy to work with veterans, you know? So that's kind of how I got my start. Yeah, about now, about half my clients are veterans. Half aren't, but, um, but in any case, that being said, it used to be back in the day, yeah, VA, loans were ridiculous, and getting one through a good lock. But what's happened is they've gotten a lot easier, because over the years, nobody was using the product. And so like, okay, you know, so if sellers are refusing to entertain VA loans, well then there's, you know, the program is going to go away. So they had to loosen up a little bit. And it doesn't mean like lending to people who can't afford to pay it back. It just means making the program where someone can actually use it. It doesn't have so many

Tracy Hayes  30:42  
regulations. Well, the lenders, the lenders know they're going to efficiently work the process. They didn't want to drag themselves down with with a VA loan again. That that talking about VA loans again, is a whole nother podcast. So moving on a little bit. We are in St Johns County, which is St Augustine. That's our primer. We're just south of Jacksonville, and this county is hot right now. Yep, we've got people moving in. Personally, I think we were already having people move in because of the great schools and just the atmosphere of the area. But with covid, I think it's turned it up a notch because you have these I'm a Yankee. I'm from, born in New York, raised in Massachusetts. I'm a Yankee, too. But you guys are moving down here because of the draconian lockdown, and we are the Free State here in Florida, so they're moving down, working remotely, coming down, a lot of people paying cash for homes, huge demand. What? What do you see in St Johns County over the next, say, three to five years? What? What do you got if I had told you

Andrew Michael  31:41  
if I had to come in your office, let's say at the end of 2019 and said, Hey, this guy in China is going to eat a bat in the whole world's going to go into lockdown, and you're not going to be able to buy toilet paper in Publix and, oh, by the way, the real estate, right? You would have had me committed in the hospital, but that, but all those things did happen. So you know, I would always run from an agent who tells you what's happened in three to five years, I can tell you, yeah, I mean, who knows what's coming?

Tracy Hayes  32:09  
I personally feel it's gonna be, I think we're on a little bit of a roll here, and I think it's gonna go for a little bit. I mean, I don't see, I don't have an ending, unless something tragically, they really screw up. You know, a 2008 both. Lending is different. Now they're not to me, right now, the F the government backed loans are the most forgiving ones right now, your conventional loans that you know, the making sure you know the debt ratio is there and you're making your income. They're not getting creative with that. So I see a positive thing, and we got so many good things going on in St Augustine is one of the nicest places to live in in Florida.

Andrew Michael  32:49  
So one of the things is too as long as I've been in real estate in Florida, between Fort Lauderdale and here, I have always helped people from either Canada or up north, really, when I say up north, like the DC beltway, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, you know, whatever. I've always helped them move to Florida that that's not a new phenomenon. It's probably been going on for like, 5060, 100 years. What's different right now is just the volume. But what's happening too is we've always had a very even market, like the super competitiveness. It's unusual for us in St John's County, but where I'm coming from, in South Florida, that's actually normal. So like years ago, when no one even knew what covid was, it was not unusual to have multiple offers and all that, I mean. Or in California, they're used to it there too. So it's just unusual in our area. And I do think, you know, they can only build so much more here. You know, we do have, like, silver leaf and we, you know, we do have a few other big communities. Naka T is wrapping up. Valencia is done. I mean, there's no new construction going in there. So I think in St John's County, it probably will stay hot just because there's no more land to build. Well,

Tracy Hayes  33:53  
I mean, you're going to start branching out the Hastings. I mean that. But you know, you're going to start going out that 207, and get along the rivers. The only thing I can think of is kind of should be the next area for a Naka T style, if they wanted to go that

Andrew Michael  34:06  
route. The thing with that is, okay, the world has changed. Where Naka T, which, for those of you don't know, it's in Ponte, VRA, North St Johns County. It was a bedroom it is a bedroom community for Jacksonville. So normally what happened is, you go to work in Jacksonville, you go home to knock atee in St Johns counties right there, but now that you can work remotely from anywhere, you know, and if that trend continues, then I would agree with you, because the thing is, with Hastings, nothing against it, but there's just nothing there, right?

Tracy Hayes  34:32  
No industry when you're driving 30 minutes just to get to 95 for example. Yeah, you're through cow

Andrew Michael  34:37  
pastures. You're about three hours probably to get to Jacksonville, depending on where in Jacksonville, if you were coming Jacksonville, if you were coming from a Hastings ballpark, Maybe nobody's that far out there.

Tracy Hayes  34:48  
But it's not a daily drive that you

Andrew Michael  34:50  
would No, no, it's gonna want to make that so if the trend continues, that a lot of people can work remotely, then I would say, yes, it will take off out there. If it if it doesn't, who?

Tracy Hayes  35:00  
What do you still get the buyers? You know, we've tapped on this before in different discussions, you know, because there you get calls people, well, I want to build my own home. And, you know, the things involved in building your own home from scratch, a custom build. And then where can you afford the land? Because a lot of guys are sitting on land because they're getting prime dollar for it. But if they started going to me, if they start going out, you know, the route 207, and going into towards Palatka Hastings area, and had, you know, building PUDs planned urban development communities, just with larger lots, it would attract those people who want to, you know, have that big barn, or, you know, two car garage, big garage where they can actually pull their RV in, that type of thing, because you're there's not, there's a few places here, but not anymore. We're in the North Star section County.

Andrew Michael  35:49  
There's a few here, there in North St John's County. Yeah, you're right, but

Tracy Hayes  35:52  
they're older. They're older, they're not new No, there's no new community. Not

Andrew Michael  35:56  
all of them are in communities. Some of them are just lots, right? They're not in a community which is kind of hard for people to wrap their mind around, like when you're struggling those homes, like I was just at one not too long ago. It's beautiful house on four acres. It's got a nice barn, but you have to drive through a bunch of mobile homes to get to it that are kind of falling apart. But what's happening over time is those mobile homes are selling to people who are coming in, tearing down and then building custom built homes. I would say I actually sell more custom built homes now than I used to, because it used to be people told me that's what they wanted. I'm like, Okay, here's what David weekly is going to charge you for your house. And you know, 20 Mile knockout team, here is what a custom builder is going to charge, and it's way more for the custom and so almost always they went back to the big Track Builder, especially

Tracy Hayes  36:41  
because they want geographically where they wanted to be, yeah, exactly, yeah. They wanted to be amongst the David weeklies, the dream finders and those types of subdivisions, but wanted to build their own custom home and that. So they were going to pay high dollar for that lot versus going out 30

Andrew Michael  36:54  
miles. Well, you can build custom homes. There are some subdivisions that have it like plenty. There's not where the Lennar homes are, but some of the other homes, and there's not too many of these sites left, there's lots are kind of vanishing, right? But you can buy some of those lots, and you can build a custom home, and it's in a neighborhood, and all the homes there's Architectural Review, yeah, whatever. And you're familiar because you've been on CD boards you don't talk about so there are some of them where you can actually build your custom home and have somewhat similar homes around you. They're not all kind of like what you and I were alluding to, like in Hastings or nothing wrong with it, but where you have one house over here that's like a mobile home, another one that's like a McMansion and another one that's like none of those two. Yeah, exactly, exactly. There are some that have like, you can go in and buy your lot and build your custom home in it.

Tracy Hayes  37:40  
I know, I even know King and bear, because I'm down there a lot in that community, you know, was early, 2000s probably when there's still lots in there. Now, obviously they were bought by somebody, and that someone's sitting on it and but I have there is actually, you know, I don't even go all the way back, I'm sure there's other but there's a few homes still being built in there, because those people bought those lots and sat on them,

Andrew Michael  38:04  
and now they're is building something in it. Last time I saw I looked in there in a little bit. But yeah, yeah. And they're custom builder.

Tracy Hayes  38:10  
I think the the World Golf Village area is, you know, with that new high school, there's still plenty of land there. The developers are slowly developing, obviously, that's connecting into silver leaf from the south side there. But obviously that's, that's the next area for the next at least four or five years on. But I'm waiting. And I do know there's, there is development going on down in 207, and I guarantee that, you know, obviously the developers are already, I mean, staking their lands, what they can grab there for the five to 10 year time frame. So, all right, I call these a two minute warning questions. I'm a football referee, so I I'm going to use the football analogy. Simple answer, is it more important who you know or what you know?

Andrew Michael  38:56  
It's a good question. I would say who you know,

Tracy Hayes  39:03  
I agree. I agree with that. I think of you. And actually, I wanted to try they didn't. I had the question, but didn't get to it, because you don't buy leads, or if you have, you've never bought you have been homegrown and worked, you know your thing. You always talked about going out and meeting different people, and you've never spent the hundreds of dollars a lead at Zillow or whatever. You've homegrown your business and been very successful with it. We tapped on this next question a little bit, and I kind of know where you're I assume I know where your answer is independent.

Andrew Michael  39:41  
You want another meaning of life. I don't know. When you're in love,

Tracy Hayes  39:44  
independent or a team. For me personally, yeah, I'm independent. Yeah. Do you feel I think different people have different personalities. I think you and I have personalities that we kind of want to drive our own chip, so to speak. Week, we don't want too much interaction where there are people who want to get in the business, who want a little more structure, so to speak. Yeah, would you agree? And it

Andrew Michael  40:09  
depends on what stage of your career you're in, too whether to answer that question, there's nothing wrong with teams. I think in an agent's progression, it's kind of normal to either be in one or start one at some point, because at some point you're going to get busier than you could be. So then you need to have those relationships. Like the way I do it now is I just have relationships with other agents who I know will take good care of my customers. So when I get that phone call and I'm out of town, hey, a house just and in this market, if a house is the market, you need

Tracy Hayes  40:36  
to be there. Does your sister cover for you? She's still at REMAX, she still covers for you, even though you're at exp, yep, no, no issues there, crossing the leg. That doesn't matter. Yeah, that's fine. Okay,

Andrew Michael  40:45  
yep, now there's no difference there whatsoever.

Tracy Hayes  40:48  
So you worked originally at a, what you call boutique,

Andrew Michael  40:53  
boutique brokerage, boutique brokerage,

Tracy Hayes  40:55  
versus a REMAX, and, of course, now exp, franchise or the mom and pop if you were to do your own thing, which which way you think you would go

Andrew Michael  41:05  
honestly, neither I would just, I like exp, and I have my broker's license, and I was contemplating opening my own mom and pop office, and they offer way more than what I could potentially offer agents. So if I bring an agent into exp. I can offer them way more through exp than I could if I just open, you know, Andrew, Michael, real estate or something, right? So, yeah, honestly, I think the model that I'm with now is the best is better than either one.

Tracy Hayes  41:32  
I agree with that same point, I think, in my, my career, in where I'm at now, and obviously being able to do this, this is me putting out content, sharing Andrew with everybody, yeah, do I have 15 years experience? Go with my own brokerage and have to deal with the minutia of that, non actually selling, part non actual marketing and going out and actually gaining the business, which I think we're the hunters that we not really interested. We'd have to find a partner to do

Andrew Michael  42:02  
the back office. You still have to do like you still have to do your marketing. You still have to do all your stuff. But it's like, for instance, if I opened my own office, well, I have to come up with my own way to educate the new agents and to do this and that we experience offers app because I was telling you what their icon agent program, I mean, there's you'd have to quit work to take all the classes. It's not humanly possible to take the courses that they

Tracy Hayes  42:22  
have it right? So they're in your back they're your back office, yet, giving you all the freedom to do what you do, and that's to go out and get the next sale or list the next home service.

Andrew Michael  42:30  
I'm just there to service clients. You know, I'm not buying leads on Zillow. This is the long game. I'm staying in touch. You know, if I've sold your home years ago, you know, I'm still in touch with you. And if you have issues with the home I'm still in your corner to help you with it. That's an

Tracy Hayes  42:42  
interesting question, because I think everyone does this a little differently. How do you, you know, going back what you say 2014 ish is when you started? Yeah, how do you stay in touch with those clients, year in and year out? What's a couple just things that you personally like to do that's worked for you.

Andrew Michael  43:01  
If what I try to do and I just switch systems is once I sell a home, let's say I have the buying side of it. Well, buying or selling, I call the next day. Hey, is everything fine? You know what's going on? Okay? If it's the buying side, then I usually continue to call them once a month for about a year, if it's a new construction home, and then I'll come back for the one year inspection, which I'm a big believer in, because if there's any issues the house, like you don't know, if you have a roof issue, you don't go up there and look at it. You don't go up any attic or something. So it's good to have that inspection. I'm there for all that stuff, and I'll help you go in front of the

Tracy Hayes  43:34  
builders. Another opportunity for you to be in front of them. Well, it's an opportunity for me in

Andrew Michael  43:38  
front of them, but it's just a good I think, if you I think people want to refer business because I think people want to refer to their friends and family. They just have to feel confident that you care about them and that you have their best interest at heart, not the sale. And I've talked a lot of people out of buying a house, which financially is not my best interest, but it is in the long term, right,

Tracy Hayes  43:58  
right? So that's, that's excellent excess. Excellent advice, dolphins or Jaguars?

Andrew Michael  44:05  
Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. I watch both. Sometimes I'm not a big football fan. Hopefully you'll forgive me one thing that we just went over to YouTube TV. We're used to watching the dolphins games, like when we lived in South Florida, and just a few months ago, we went over to YouTube TV, we dropped cable, we put it on, and all sudden, we get the dolphins games again. Like, what is this? Yeah, I guess it doesn't matter where we are. See, I'm going virtual all the way. Excellent, good. How about you?

Tracy Hayes  44:34  
I'm a Giants fan, actually, Giants. Yeah, I don't, I don't, really don't watch either the dolphins or the Jaguars, unless they're playing the Giants. But you know what? We get into a whole I last year, I don't think I watched a full football game. Yeah, the

Andrew Michael  44:47  
only thing with football is we have an agreement in our house. As you know, my wife is a gator, and we haven't the Gators, excuse me, the University of Florida and the Citadel haven't played each other during our relationship, but eventually they will. It wouldn't. Do, it's gonna be a bloodbath. I mean, it's not even gonna be close. I mean, the Citadel is gonna kill him. So the agreement is, whenever that happens, let it go.

Tracy Hayes  45:10  
What is on your travel bucket list Hawaii? Why? Yep, what is it? What is it in Hawaii you want to see? Just never been there. To me, to me. I mean, obviously Pearl Harbor would be kind of, I'd have to if I was going to be out there, and have to do that. Interesting. Why St Augustine? Why do we move here? Why would someone say, Why should I move to St Augustine? What is it about St Augustine?

Andrew Michael  45:32  
You love honestly, I love it here. We're close to the beach. It's small town. Ish enough that you get to know people. And that was one of the big surprises when I came here from Fort Lauderdale, like in Fort Lauderdale unless, like, we're both cops, or we're both whatever, you don't know. You know, unless you're in the same circle of friends, you don't know each other, right? Well, here everybody does know everybody, but we have so we have a good balance.

Tracy Hayes  45:51  
That's quite everybody, but it's for size area. You're right. I agree.

Andrew Michael  45:56  
Yeah, you know what I'm saying. And even with all the new people, so you it's very welcoming to people to come in. It's not like, I'm sorry, you know my grandfather's been here since, or my family's been here since 1800s although I just met somebody at the gun range who that is the case that you seen a family if you're familiar with very rare that you act Yeah. In fact, he's one of six families from what he told me out of all of the ones in St Augustine. But everybody here is from somewhere else, and so they're friendly, they're open. It's a great place to live or close to the beach. I love the historic district at this stage of my life, I'm well past the bars and nightlife hot spots. It's right place to take the kids and relax. You don't have to worry about like, silliness or something bad happening, and great restaurants and, yeah, just, it's just a great place to live.

Tracy Hayes  46:37  
Yeah, no, I would agree. I mean, if you have never been to Downtown St Augustine. I mean you, I mean the amount of restaurants, if you just want to just go walk around, you have guests in town. You can it's always guaranteed everyone enjoys just, just the atmosphere down

Andrew Michael  46:52  
there. Are you a beer guy? My beer guy, yeah, like you drink beer.

Tracy Hayes  46:56  
You wouldn't call it beer, because I know you make your own beer. I'm a Bud Light guy.

Andrew Michael  47:02  
Get my stuff out of here. I'm done. All right. Well, I'm

Tracy Hayes  47:08  
gonna wrap we're gonna wrap it up. I got just, just one more question, and then we're gonna, I want you to put on here information. How people are going to contact Andrew the veterans agent, if I'm going to list a home, I'm talking about listing,

Andrew Michael  47:20  
why should I call Andrew Michael? You probably shouldn't. Well, what I do is I have a process when I'm working with clients to either buy or sell, and first step is I'm going to send you a pre marketing package in the mail, so before I set foot in your door, you're already going to know how I'm going to market your home. The paperwork that's involved, you can review it. There's not going to be any surprises. You know, you'll have all that stuff before I set foot in your house. Once I come into your home, we'll walk it together, come up with a reasonable price range of what your house will sell for, and from there, I recommend a stager, and I actually pay for the stager. The stager is not there to rent furniture, although we can if we need to, but usually what she ends up doing is a, you know, you know, you and Jen have like, 50 pictures of your kids on this wall. That's kind of down to three, yeah, you know, because you clutter a little bit, you may think, yeah, and you may think it looks amazing, and maybe it does, but on photos, it's going to look very different. And so we're kind of looking at it from the professional standpoint of how we'd make your home appeal to the most buyers, so we can sell it for the most amount in the terms that are to your advantage. So we go with the staging. I also am a strong believer in pre listing home inspection. Yes, okay, yeah. Have that done. Once all that stuff's done, we do the virtual tours, videos, photos, yeah, but I have a very linear process that I use from getting from the time that we talked to getting your house. So there's no surprises. You know, you are very rarely any surprises, and there's some things that are outside of my control, but for the most part, you know, if there's any issues with your home, we know about it before it goes on the market. And sometimes we find stuff that we weren't anticipating. I've seen houses with six years old with, like, bad roofs that need to be replaced. Wow. And you know, we didn't see that coming,

Tracy Hayes  48:59  
do you? And I hate that said that was going to be the last question I got this particular one, because I feel, unfortunately, too many people don't interview their agents, and a lot of times when people say, Oh, I don't like real estate agents, it's because they chose, they didn't take time to choose the last one. They had to form that opinion that they didn't take time, like if they took time to have you come over and make this professional presentation, versus just saying, Yeah, Sally, you know, she lives down the street. Leonard, just lists my home. You know, obviously, right now, anyone can list your home, and they're going to get, you know, if they can handle the offers coming in. That's their competence level. But when, when you have a different market where you really have to sell the home?

Andrew Michael  49:41  
Well, it comes down to, yeah, correct. And I want to say, in a normal market in our area, the average, and again, it's going to vary. Are you talking about a luxury home? Are you talking about, like $150,000 townhouse? Remember, we discussing, but by and large, the average days on market can be 30 to 90 days. And I would say, probably. Be maybe 20% of the homes don't sell at all. You know, they're on the market and they come off and in, yes, in this current market that we're in, any agent could probably sell your home. But I have seen some that did not sell. I've seen some that have expired because they've over priced any number of reasons. It could be overpriced, it could be a bad marketing. It could be any number of things. And the thing is, to your reputation as an agent matters, and a lot of people, what I think confuses the general public is like, if you and I went to work at Verizon or something, we both work for Verizon, and we both do the same thing, or we don't, but it's very clear what we do with agents. We're independent contractors. And so even within exp that, say, if you interviewed me and three other exp agents, you're going to get three very different presentations. Now we're getting

Speaker 1  50:44  
three different levels of experience, three different perceptions of how to do

Andrew Michael  50:47  
it exactly so to answer your first question, the best way to get in contact with me is my website is WW, dot the T, H, E, veterans, v, e t, e r, a n, s, agent, A, G, E N, t.com, the veterans is plural. The agent is singular, and my cell is 904-460-8501, excellent.

Tracy Hayes  51:09  
And Andrew at the is that we're back on at that email. The email address, by the time the show goes out, you will be the Andrew at the Veterans, Agent calm.

Andrew Michael  51:18  
The problem is that sometimes in my email, people miss off an S or something, and so just shoot me a text again. Texting is past 904-460-8501,

Tracy Hayes  51:28  
excellent. Andrew, thank you for

Speaker 2  51:30  
coming out. Thanks for the invite. Buddy. Excellent, sir. You have a great day. You too.