Negotiation & Contracts Episodes

Tracy Frandsen has sold real estate in Northeast Florida for 20 years — long enough to work the foreclosure crisis from the inside. As part of a Fannie Mae brokerage relationship, she handled REO properties directly: assessing homes with renters still living in them, managing cleanouts, and deciding property by property whether to sell as-is or put on a new roof. "Sometimes I felt like I worked for Fannie Mae," she says, "instead of my brokerage." That negotiation instinct never left. Now with the Frandsen Team at Christie's International Real Estate First Coast — a team she built with her daughter-in-law Holly in 2020 — Tracy talks about what it actually takes to keep a deal alive. In the last six months alone, she's had to talk three different sellers off the cliff, including one Ortega-area deal where a frustrated seller was ready to walk over a repair request. Tracy Hayes and Tracy Frandsen also get into the Clay County vs. St. Johns County decision buyers face constantly, w…

Debora McCarty didn't take a traditional path into real estate. She came to the United States from Brazil at 30, spent 25 years as a homemaker, earned her teaching certification, and taught computer education at Fruit Cove Middle School in St. Johns County before going full-time in real estate with Watson Realty in 2022. That background — immigrant, educator, community volunteer — shapes everything about how she serves buyers and sellers across Jacksonville and St. Johns County today. In this episode, Debora and Tracy cover the Jacksonville market in 2026, including why sellers are still anchored to pandemic-era expectations, how the rate lock-up is keeping inventory tight, and what it actually takes to unlock a motivated seller who's sitting on a 2.5% mortgage. They dig into Florida property tax portability — one of the most underutilized tools in real estate — and how Debora uses it to show move-up sellers and downsizers what they're really working with financially before they ma…