Ethan Gregory: REO Specialist | Top Jacksonville Agent

REE #284 Transcript

[00:00:00] Ethan Gregory:
Your real estate agent is like your advisor.
Mm-hmm.
Your professional that's gonna help you through the transaction. I mean, you can have all the data in the world, but doesn't really tell the story.
Mm-hmm. You know, that's what we're here to do.

[00:00:44] Tracy Hayes:
Hey, welcome back to the Real Estate Excellence Podcast, where we connect with the professionals who define what it means to succeed in today's real estate market. Today's guest has built a career on precision, consistency, and deep market expertise.

With over two decades of business, he has averaged 50-plus transactions annually, specializing in REO and institutional sales. They don't just navigate complex deals — they thrive in them — turning distressed properties and high-demand scenarios into seamless closings.

He's served not only the clients but the industry itself, leading as the 2025 President of the real MLS and chairing Jacksonville's Historic Preservation Commission. A true operations and leadership pro, they bring the rare combination of both on-the-ground knowledge and high-level strategic thinking.

A Jacksonville native and father of two, this guest exemplifies service, discipline, and long-term success in one of Florida's most dynamic markets. Let's welcome Ethan Gregory to the show.

[00:01:43] Ethan Gregory:
Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.
Uh, I enjoyed the podcast and I—I'm looking forward to sharing my stories with everybody in the market and hear what you had to say. Thank you.

[00:01:51] Tracy Hayes:
Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

And you're bringing a new angle to the show 'cause I haven't had anyone on here that really—that I can think of, and you're episode 284—that has specialized in this area of real estate, you know, with the REOs and institutional sales, as I guess ChatGPT defined from your bio there.

I didn't like the way it had me tripped up 'cause it was saying "they" instead of, you know, singular.
I don't know. I should have read that before. I had to create it and I scanned it, and I didn't—I should have read it out loud. I knew I would've—I would've picked up those things.

But let's kick off the show. This is the easy one, because you get into real estate very young, you know, shortly after the University of Florida. But you go to University of Florida—what were you, what did Ethan envision himself doing as a career? I mean, was—was real estate actually on your mind at that time or—

[00:02:42] Ethan Gregory:
A little bit. So I graduated from the University of Florida in 2004, and I got a degree in sociology, which—you know, a lot of people don't use their degrees, and I certainly don't technically use my sociology degree.

But I grew up around real estate. My father was a commercial real estate broker here in Jacksonville. He worked for a number of companies. He actually served with the Commercial Alliance of Realtors and on the NEFA board one year as well, too. So I kinda always grew up around it.

So when I got outta college, I decided what I wanted to do. Didn't wanna do anything with my degree necessarily, so I got into real estate and wanted to do some investing. I found a business partner. We were buying houses, fixing 'em up, selling 'em, flipping just throughout Northeast Florida here.

[00:03:22] Tracy Hayes:
And talk—speak a little bit about that time period here in Jacksonville.
Mm-hmm.
You know, the early two-thou—before 2007, 2008.
Yeah.

Were things—well, I think it's somewhere in 2006 things start to go south.
Sure.

[00:03:35] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah.

[00:03:36] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, I think we saw values peak out at that time, and all of a sudden values started to drop a little bit.
Mm-hmm.

But the opportunities—although there's still opportunities today—but the amount of homes that were there for you to do these fix and flips—

[00:03:50] Ethan Gregory:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So there were—a lot of opportunities there, and there's a lot driven by what buyers could do in the marketplace there.
Mm-hmm.

At the time, I think there were some favorable interest rates and incentives from the government following 2001.

And so there were some great opportunities there in the market in general. And, you know, there's some similarities today. We saw a great run-up in prices and a lot of fever in the market from 2020 and a few years after that. And now we're seeing a little slowdown in reaction to that.

You know, prices got a little high back then in the mid-2000s, and, you know, maybe prices got a little high here. Interest rates maybe were held low too long, that kind of thing. So we're seeing a little bit of a market adjustment because of that.

[00:04:30] Tracy Hayes:
So Dad's in the business—
Mm-hmm.
—so it gives you a little bit of a taste of what's going on.
Mm-hmm.
Opportunities there. You're able to do some—

Were you pretty much doing the flips full time, or were you practicing as a—when do you get your real estate license?

[00:04:44] Ethan Gregory:
Sure. I got my real estate license in 2004, right after I graduated.
Okay.

And yeah, I was doing the flips and I did a couple transactions here and there. You know, friends and stuff like that you meet that are, you know, willing to trust you as an 18-year-old.

You know, I was a little young-looking, so it took a little trust. But yeah, that's—that's kind of how it all got started for me.

[00:05:18] Ethan Gregory:
Did a few sales here and there. And then when the market kind of changed—you talk about 2006, 2008, 2009—
Mm-hmm.

Anybody who’s around here at that time knows the difficulties that we had. Just a tremendous amount of inventory. You know, we think about inventory right now being high and we’re just kind of like near an average—you know, historically average—amount of inventory.

And I looked at some stats maybe a while ago, like in 2010 or ’11, I think there was like a 23-month supply of homes, depending on where you’re at, which is crazy.

[00:05:32] Tracy Hayes:
Oh.

[00:05:33] Ethan Gregory:
And so—yeah. And during that time period when things changed, you know, I decided, well, I’m not making any money doing this flipping thing. I’ll just, you know, be like a regular real estate agent. And I started doing a lot of short sales with the company, and we did a ton of those.

[00:05:46] Tracy Hayes:
Speak of that—a little bit of that transition.
Mm-hmm.

Because I would imagine in 2004 and ’05, no one really knew what a short sale was.
Mm-hmm.

You’re doing the flips and you’re able—I’m sure you’re able to acquire some of these homes, 'cause they were older homes or whatever, because they had—
didn’t owe that much, or, you know, whatever. You were able to acquire ’em out. The values are going up so high, so soon as you just did any sort of, you know, new flooring, paint job, it was worth that much more, right?

[00:06:16] Ethan Gregory:
Kind of, yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think, which I like—at the time, yeah, it felt like it. I think a lot of people, you know—

[00:06:20] Tracy Hayes:
Where today, you know—
you know, obviously one of the major, major things people do in—well, in Florida—is add a pool to the house.
Mm-hmm.

Can’t get a dollar-for-dollar return on that—
No.

—in investment.

Where there, you were seeing a dollar-for-dollar return on investment for certain things that you were doing in upgrading—upgrading the house, that type of thing.

But then you start to see—when do you start to notice or start to realize, holy—this market’s changing. And it—it happens pretty quickly.
Mm-hmm.

And then—then learn, I gotta figure out how to do a short sale.

[00:06:55] Ethan Gregory:
Oh—how did I figure that out?
When I—I didn’t have any money.

[00:07:00] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:07:00] Ethan Gregory:
Most—
A lot of that.

[00:07:02] Tracy Hayes:
It gets real at that point.

[00:07:03] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. All joking aside, you know, it was a really, um, an educational thing at that point. Like, I had to figure out a new way to do business.

You know, there—people didn’t have a ton of equity. These were the sellers that could get transactions done. You had to learn how to do short sales, how to coach up your sellers to do short sales, you know, form partnerships with title companies, learn how the ropes work, dealing with the banks, you know, to negotiate the short sale down.

And then, you know, just fighting the fight and really, you know, advocating for your sellers—to keep them out of foreclosure and help save their credit, get ’em forgiven of all that debt, you know?

[00:07:43] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:07:43] Ethan Gregory:
It was—you know, I don’t want to say it was a crusade, but sometimes you felt like, you know, you were doing this to—
A lot of times, I gotta help these people. I cannot let them go into foreclosure.

[00:07:47] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:07:47] Ethan Gregory:
And that was just the—it is what you had to do at the time.

[00:07:51] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. Your brokerage at the time—were you working with Dad at the time?

[00:07:54] Ethan Gregory:
No, no, no. It was a different brokerage.

[00:07:56] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, okay. So you’re at a different brokerage. One of the topics I always bring up—everyone knows if they listen to the show regularly—is, you know, your choice of brokerage.

And obviously at this time, you know, either you’re really savvy or you have a leadership that’s going, “Hey, the wind is changing directions. We need to change the sails,”
Mm-hmm.

and to start conquering—'cause obviously I know, you know, I’ve had many great agents who’ve been on the show who went through this period of time.

Obviously, we know a lot of people dropped out of the business—didn’t want to acclimate to it—but obviously the REOs and the short sales, you needed to learn that if you wanted to thrive in that time. Correct?

[00:08:26] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, exactly.

[00:08:27] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

When—were you given guidance or was this something you—you dove in yourself?

[00:08:32] Ethan Gregory:
It was something that I really just dove into. I had a group that we worked with that just really specialized in short sales.

Like I mentioned, my father did commercial real estate—
Yeah.

So he—staying with him wasn’t gonna do me—it helped me grow my business in residential.

[00:08:45] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:08:46] Ethan Gregory:
And I didn’t really want to do commercial. It just didn’t really fit me at the time.

[00:08:50] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:08:50] Ethan Gregory:
And I—and I still really do enjoy residential. So it just was a choice at the time, and I needed to find a way to make this work and, you know, found a group to work with and we just did a ton of short sales.

And that’s when I learned about REO as well and doing some of that, and transitioned to that phase.

[00:09:03] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm. What did you learn? What are some of the little tricks and some of the things that necessarily aren’t in any books about short sales and REOs that you had to discover really quickly during this time?

[00:09:15] Ethan Gregory:
Oh man, it's—well, I always tell people that what makes a great REO agent is very different than what makes a great, like, luxury real estate agent or even what makes a great first-time homebuyer agent.

You know, any type of—whatever your niche is, you know, being an REO agent, it’s much more technical, much more detailed, a lot more paperwork-oriented. There's less, you know, marketing and handholding of your customers. Less, you know, sitting in the living room, you know—

[00:09:43] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:09:44] Ethan Gregory:
Not doing a lot of that. And so, it's just a different style. It's gotta be a little more detailed. You gotta be a little more analytical type of person. So it’s just—it, you know, being a luxury real estate agent’s great, and they may not thrive as an REO agent and vice versa—or whatever your niche is.

[00:09:56] Tracy Hayes:
Be a little more analytical.

[00:09:58] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah.

[00:09:58] Tracy Hayes:
I have an idea what you mean by that, but explain—why do you need to be more analytical to our clients?

[00:10:04] Ethan Gregory:
So, just for example, you do some valuations for these banks—and you do a lot of ’em—
Mm-hmm.
And they want to be very detailed about why you’re assessing the value in this way.

’Cause, you know, they’re not gonna pick up the phone and have a chit-chat with you and feel warm and fuzzy—

[00:10:16] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:10:17] Ethan Gregory:
—about the price. ’Cause it's just an asset to them. That asset manager may have three to five hundred of these files on the desk.

[00:10:22] Tracy Hayes:
He could be in Seattle, Washington, for all—

[00:10:24] Ethan Gregory:
And they don’t know—

[00:10:25] Tracy Hayes:
They don’t know—

[00:10:25] Ethan Gregory:
—when I’m talking about, "Oh, this street’s good, but not that street." Like, what street? Exactly. So, and they’re not a homeowner that’s sitting there with you.
Right.
So some of that detail with it and being analytical—like, one part of the job that I really like is the problem-solving.

For example, I have one right now where we have code violations and fines of over $100,000.

[00:10:48] Tracy Hayes:
Oh geez.

[00:10:49] Ethan Gregory:
And you can solve that problem with the city. You just kinda gotta work it and know how the city will work with you on these things. It's just a matter of solving the problem. So I enjoy the problem-solving. So like, we talk about analytical stuff, you know—

[00:10:56] Tracy Hayes:
Well, let’s dig into this story here—this, ’cause I think, you know, any of our listeners could come upon this—
Mm-hmm.
—and obviously, you know, maybe want to contact you or put it onto you because you—you’re walking this path.

So you have a house, it's—it’s gone into foreclosure—

[00:11:16] Ethan Gregory:
This particular one we’re talking about, yeah.

[00:11:18] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what kind of violations? And I imagine these violations have been going on for a period of time to gather up to that much money.

[00:11:25] Ethan Gregory:
Years, yeah. Years. Yeah. And it can be any number of things. A lot of times, like, the grass doesn’t get cut—and that can be a violation—and the city will come cut it and there’ll be a lien.

But then the violations rack up, and they get a fine on it with the city over time. And again, like, you know, if there’s $100,000 in violations on it and the home’s only worth $100,000, you know, the city’s obviously like, “Well, we can’t just keep on fining it—nothing’s gonna ever happen with this property.”
Right.

So they’ll negotiate it and settle it. You just gotta work with the code compliance department—

[00:11:57] Tracy Hayes:
Which—

[00:11:58] Ethan Gregory:
—is not speedy. So like, you know, a lot of agents, they want an answer quick, they want to satisfy their buyers or whoever they’re working with—

[00:12:00] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:12:01] Ethan Gregory:
—to get ’em across it. And sometimes just answers don’t happen quickly. And if you’re working with the city, you just gotta have patience through it, you know? I always, you know, coach people to have a lot of patience with what I do.

[00:12:10] Tracy Hayes:
Well, the city ultimately would like someone to own that house and take care of it—
Yeah.
—anyway.
Yeah.
They’re not into collecting the fine—per se.

[00:12:16] Ethan Gregory:
Yes. Correct.

[00:12:17] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, just trying to—just encourage the proper behavior, right?

[00:12:21] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, correct. Yeah. That’s a good way to put it. Yeah.

[00:12:24] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

So this particular property—I mean, anyone living in it?

[00:12:29] Ethan Gregory:
So there was someone living in it previously, probably being foreclosed on. And this foreclosure has gone on for years—I mean, this particular case—but not currently.

So when I take over a property, it’s usually after it’s gone through the foreclosure. It’s not that there’s a foreclosure filing. It means it’s actually gone to the courthouse steps—

[00:12:44] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:12:44] Ethan Gregory:
—or online, as it is now. And it’s been given back to the plaintiff—the bank. And so they take possession or ownership of the property, and then they reach out to me or any other REO agent that they have in their database—

[00:12:57] Tracy Hayes:
—to get it up to speed and try to—

[00:12:58] Ethan Gregory:
Sell it. To go out there—

[00:13:00]
—figure out what’s going on with it, if somebody’s still living there.
Mm-hmm.
You know, to get the grass cut, you know, maintain, clean it out.

You know, people walk in these foreclosures and they say, "This looks like it needs so much work," and like—it took a lot of work to get it to just—to get it to this level. They don’t understand.

And there’s also some banks that will take it and repair the homes as well. They’ll take—if it doesn’t need, like, a tremendous amount of repairs—a lot of times they’ll fix ’em up and repair them and get ’em, like, financeable, insurable—

[00:13:23] Tracy Hayes:
You gotta kind of pitch ’em the return on investment—hey, if we spend $5,000 here, we can sell this house faster.

[00:13:29] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. It’d be financeable or something.
Yeah. Yeah. Spending five—
And there's obviously some value to that.

[00:13:33] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah. I guess what probably mind-boggles a majority of people is—how does a home get into that much? How do years go by on something like that?

Why isn’t that—you know, if someone’s living in this house, assuming they were the owner (who knows, it might’ve been a renter), but just totally—they start getting foreclosure notices, they walk away.

This sounds like this house sat for a good period of time. And, you know, obviously it’s gonna deteriorate pretty quickly here in Florida if the AC’s not running and that sort of thing.

[00:14:00]
Yeah.

I guess there’s just people that literally just walk away.

[00:14:08] Ethan Gregory:
It depends.

[00:14:09] Tracy Hayes:
And no one—and someone’s waiting for ’em to come back, and they never come back.

[00:14:11] Ethan Gregory:
Depends, yeah. I mean, there—there's every type of circumstance you can walk into.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, I’ve walked up to homes before—I’m not sure if it’s in foreclosure—and it’s just a beautiful home. It’s just magnificent.
Hmm.
You know? Nothing wrong with it.

And sometimes you go there, and it needs everything.
Right.

You know, it’s just—it’s the spectrum.

Some people deal with it better than others, going through this difficult time.

And I wanna say this too, also: when I walk up and there’s a homeowner—it's my first time visiting there—you try to have compassion and understanding for them and their situation.

I guarantee you—if they had the money, they would’ve paid their bills, you know?
Mm-hmm.
That’s the thing. Most of them are great people.
Right.
They’re just in a bad situation.

[00:14:46] Tracy Hayes:
Why do you think—again, I’m asking these questions from just being a novice, you know, bystander here, and, you know, I think in today’s market, although your prices have come down a little bit, but not like—

Dropped like they did in 2008 or anything like that—

[00:15:00]
Sure.

Where if you—they’re in this situation, is it a fear of the unknown to consult with a real estate agent and say, “Hey, we’re not gonna be able to make our payments. We really need to sell this house, otherwise, you know, the bank’s gonna take it over”?

Is it just this kind of fear of the unknown, fear of admitting maybe they’re in this situation, that they literally let it go and go back to the bank?

[00:15:25] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. Uh, so—it’s a lot of reasons.
Mm-hmm.

You know, I think us as humans—and Americans as well—we’re eternal optimists. You know, we think we can turn this around.

You fall behind a few payments—
"Okay, I’m gonna get a new job, I’m gonna do this to fix it,"
—and you try to work your way through it.
Right.

And a lot of times people can.

And so I think there’s just a natural optimism that we all have. And, you know, we don’t wanna lose our home, of course, so we’re gonna do everything we can to keep it.
Mm-hmm.

So there’s a lot of that too. Maybe there’s some people that stick their head in the sand—I wouldn’t say that’s a majority of ’em.

But also some people just do the math that, "You know, if I stay here, I can ride out this foreclosure for a while," and they’ll just stay there until it’s a problem.
Mm-hmm.

It’s any number of reasons. But I think most of the times it’s—you know, people think they can dig themselves out of it, and just—whatever happened in their life, they couldn’t.
Yeah.

Either health-wise, job-wise, family-wise—I mean, there’s a lot of reasons that people end up in this difficult situation.

[00:16:14] Tracy Hayes:
Sure.

Alright. So you—and like you said, some properties don’t need anything. You turn around and stick a sign in the yard and it’s ready to show.
Mm-hmm.
Others need some work.
Mm-hmm.

So you’re working with the bank, and at least getting it up to an acceptable speed they feel is—

Obviously you feel, obviously, 'cause you’re the feelings—you’re the eyes for them, you’re telling them—

[00:16:33] Ethan Gregory:
Right. I will say that different banks and different sellers have different priorities—
Mm-hmm.
—and different things they do. Just like any other seller.

Some will want to fix it up. Some say, “We’re not fixing a darn thing.”
You know, it’s just the spectrum there of what they want to do.

So I’m really there to serve them and what they need, you know?

[00:16:49] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:16:49] Ethan Gregory:
And I give ’em the best options I can during that time period and say, “Hey, maybe you should do this.” And they’re like, “Nope, we’re not doing this.” Or, “No, you’re not doing enough, Ethan. You need to do more,” kind of thing.
Right.
So it just depends.

[00:16:59] Tracy Hayes:
I’m sure you have—

[00:17:00]
—institutions you’d rather work with than others.

[00:17:01] Ethan Gregory:
Well, sure. Yeah. Well, like, everybody has a seller they love to work with, or a buyer they’ve loved to work with. You know, it’s okay. It’s the same thing.
Some people want to work with me, and some people don’t. That’s for sure.

[00:17:12] Tracy Hayes:
You know, you—you worked through the 2007 through—really, I mean, when do you think it—it was... two probably started in ’07, right?
Where you started to see a number of foreclosures.

When did we start to get back to—you know, obviously it spikes—
Mm-hmm.
—and then when does it get back to... I don’t know if you wanna call it a normal level.

Are we talking like 2012, ’13 before you—we’ve worked through all those foreclosures during that time?

[00:17:36] Ethan Gregory:
I remember—if I remember my numbers correctly, I think prices bottomed out sometime in 2011.
And then it was on an upward rise up until maybe a year ago.

[00:17:49] Tracy Hayes:
Right. Right. Really. And that's here in Jacksonville.

Were the banks prepared or—uh, you know, not? Because I—the answer has to be—I can’t believe they were prepared, a lot of them, for what was gonna happen—

[00:18:00]
—in ’07, ’08, ’09. I mean, the amount of foreclosures. But some were definitely better than others.

[00:18:06] Ethan Gregory:
Sure, yeah. I mean, that movie The Big Short—is it called The Big Short?

[00:18:09] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, that one.

[00:18:10] Ethan Gregory:
I mean—it shows what they didn’t know at the time, or what they thought they knew.
Mm-hmm.
And that’s just kind of—after dramatization, it’s a movie—but I mean,
I can’t tell you what they did or didn’t know or what they thought was gonna come.

I figure if they knew what was gonna come, they would’ve, you know, not had that problem.

[00:18:26] Tracy Hayes:
I think—I mean, my wife and I came—we were living in Arkansas. She’s from Jacksonville, so we wanted to move back here, be closer to our parents.

So Thanksgiving 2008, we get here. I told her to—you know, “You go narrow it down to about a half a dozen homes.” I’m working from home at the time for Quik, and so I’ve got my computer with me.

And I think we were staying at her parents’ house at the time. And—so I’m working, she’s showing up. She finds a number of homes. And the home we ended up buying—we literally made the offer, I think it was Tuesday before Thanksgiving in ’08, and on Wednesday afternoon we got an acceptance.

[00:19:00]
And I believe that was an anomaly—how quickly.

Now, from what—and I don’t know if this was true or not—supposedly the agent that we were working with, or at least the listing agent, obviously had that banking institution’s person on speed dial.

Said, “Hey, we got an offer.” Boom. They made a decision. Accepted it. Boom. We had an accepted offer in 24 hours.
Mm-hmm.

That’s not normal, is it?

[00:19:26] Ethan Gregory:
No. I usually tell a buyer’s agent, just be patient with me. I’m working with the bank, you know, it’s gonna take a while.

Again, they have like hundreds of these files on their desk.
Mm-hmm.
And they’ll get to this one. It just may not be when it’s on the buyer’s agent—or the buyer’s—timeline.
Right.

But yeah, I mean, just—again, every bank’s a little different. Every asset manager’s a little different on how they prioritize things.

And maybe that one prioritized signing this thing that day, you know?
Right. So who knows?

[00:19:49] Tracy Hayes:
Well—or this person had the relationship with them to call and pull it out and say, “Yeah, we’ll take that one,” right on—maybe.

[00:19:54] Ethan Gregory:
So—

[00:19:55] Tracy Hayes:
But obviously, like I said, the asset managers—all of them have a little different—

[00:20:00]
Sure.
Attitude.
Mm-hmm.
You know, they’re looking at it—“What do we got in this? How much are we willing to lose, if we’re losing something, just to get it off our books?”
Because it’s gonna cost us this much more if we kept it on another whatever.

[00:20:11] Ethan Gregory:
Sure. Yeah.

[00:20:12] Tracy Hayes:
All those things—they don’t tell me those numbers.

But I guess my curiosity just really is—there’s no—there’s no training class for that?

[00:20:22] Ethan Gregory:
Not really. I mean, there are some institutions—
Like, for example, Five Star is one.
Mm-hmm.
They help with the default industry, is what it’s called. And they provide some training—very broad-based.

I mean—but like, some of those small details? No. That’s just what you learn along the way.

That’s just the experience you have and knowing, like, how it works.
Mm-hmm.
Or maybe you’ve worked with that particular seller a lot of times and you know how they work.

That goes for any client, really. If you know how they work, you can manage things in advance—you know, dealing with buyers, buyer agents, title companies, lenders—all those things to kind of set it up a little better, you know, and keep everybody, you know, on pace.

And again, being patient with it.

[00:20:57] Tracy Hayes:
Well, I think, you know, even the agents that are just—

[00:21:00]
—working with sellers right now, say they have an empty house—
Mm-hmm.
—and they’ve already moved away. So that house is sitting there empty.

Obviously, they’re still paying the mortgage payment, they got taxes and insurance and all—you know, those fees for the community if they’ve got ’em—going on.

And I—you know, you wonder, because even dealing with some of these sellers, like—
“Okay, if you turn down this offer, by the time you take another offer—”

[00:21:00] Tracy Hayes:
—and sell it. You’ve got houses on the market another two more months, that’s gonna cost you five more grand. So why are you—why are you walking away from five grand now?

[00:21:31] Ethan Gregory:
Right. Sure, sure. Yeah.

[00:21:32] Tracy Hayes:
The bank is dealing with that too—is the attitude of that person who is running that asset thing. Some have more power than others.
Sure.

You know the attitude of the bank or what they feel is, “Hey, we’re gonna lose $3,000, we’re gonna lose $5,000 on this one, because it’s gonna cost us that much if we keep it on another three months.”

[00:21:51] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. Maybe so. Yeah. And that’s the same thing with a seller—like a traditional seller.

[00:21:54] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[00:21:55] Ethan Gregory:
I mean, and a big thing now—I think, I looked at a stat earlier today—the number one reason transactions are falling through right now are inspections and repairs.

A lot of sellers may be thinking, “No, we’ve already reduced the price this amount, we don’t wanna do these repairs right now,” or like, “These inspections are too much,” or whatever.
“I can’t—you know, I don’t wanna do this.”

Well, I’m talking to a seller, I’m like, “Well, you’re gonna pay this, you know, $3,000 to $5,000 to hold the house another month or two. Well, this repair’s gonna cost you $2,000 and you can close this month.”

A lot of times it’s not even that, well—but you understand the math.
Yeah.
You know, like—it’s the idea of it. And it’s like, “Well, we’ll just do the repair.”
You know, like, just make the buyer happy and move on and just understand this is what the market is.

Some sellers—again, traditional sellers—may be out there saying, “You know, my agent’s not doing anything for me. There’s no offers coming through, there’s no showings.”

And I tell you—if I could get, you know, a hundred people to look at your house today, I would do it, and I’d run ’em right through there.
Right.

It’s just—they’re not there to do it as much these days.
Right.

There’s still plenty of buyers out there—it’s still very active.
Pricing is very important, you know, regardless of whether it’s an REO or traditional seller.

Pricing proactively, and then being able to work with the buyers and buyer’s agents to be able to overcome those repairs or financing issues.

A lot of affordability issues, obviously, that we’ve all seen—due to the high prices and the interest rates. Insurance has gone up. Repair costs have gone up too.

And so, you know, a lot of buyers just want a move-in-ready home. They don’t want to have to go in and fix it due to the high cost of repairs.

And so it’s—it’s working with these buyer’s agents and educating your sellers that they gotta be a little more flexible right now if they wanna get their transaction done.
’Cause there are buyers out there.
Yeah.
It’s just—you gotta be smart about the way you’re marketing the home and how you’re pricing it.

[00:23:31] Tracy Hayes:
Well, that brings up a great topic. You know, I often say, a lot of buyers right now—a lot of the agents I’ve had come on—they really want turnkey.

[00:23:39] Ethan Gregory:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:23:40] Tracy Hayes:
I’m a pre-inspection supporter.
Sure.

Because—knowing the sales process and the fact there is a lot of inventory right now—someone who gets in that home, they have a little buyer’s remorse, they’re going through the process, “Oh, there’s a repair—oh, that’s my ticket out.”

And they—that’s, you know, there—although there’s many other tickets out, but that’s the easy ticket out—
Sure.

—and say, “Oh, I don’t like the repairs that need to be done. I don’t wanna buy this house.” And they can walk away real easy.

Versus if you stamp all those out before they even—you know, order their own inspection—
Mm-hmm.
—you’re less likely to lose it because of that.

[00:24:17] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. At a minimum, your financing and insurance issues—if you can get those things squared away, the rest would just be cosmetic.
You know—
Mm-hmm.
—or maybe small issues.

Really nailing those insurance and financing issues—I agree.

Doing an inspection prior to listing—we even, it’s just a four-point even—
Mm-hmm.
—I think is money well spent.
You know—
Right.

You know, of course, you have to disclose if anything’s wrong with the home at that point, but you do kind of nip in the bud those things if you’re going for that strategy.

If you’re not going for like an “as-is” sale, for example—if you’re going for, you know, fully repaired, you have a beautiful home kind of thing—

Let’s just make sure things are, you know, buttoned up, so when the buyer comes in and does their inspection, it doesn’t give them a reason to feel uneasy about the transaction.

[00:24:54] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, yeah. There’s always something—you know, it’s on their mind.
Yeah.

[00:25:00]
I mean, just as buyers’ remorse.

From your side—representing the bank versus a normal seller—in this current market that we’re in right now, I would imagine you probably have some houses that are sitting.

[00:25:14] Ethan Gregory:
Sure. I mean—statistically, you do.
Yeah. Yeah. More so than I did a couple years ago, just like everybody else.
Right.

You know, the days on the market are longer.

You know, again—inspection, satisfying buyers through the inspection process can be a little more challenging.

And the pricing, of course.
I say “proactive pricing” is kind of the term I use.

It’s staying ahead of the market. You don’t want to chase your price—you price it high and chase your tail on the way down, because you’re gonna end up selling it for less in the long run if you do it that way.
Right.

And trying to have some pie-in-the-sky idea about the value of your home.

So, you know, it’s just being really proactive about that stuff and just being honest with your customers that—things are sitting a little longer.

It’s okay. I mean, if we get to—I think, you know, historical average is somewhere around 60 days on the market.
You know, it’s pretty normal. So we’re around that right now.

It just feels different. ’Cause if you were licensed in the past five years—which, our membership numbers at the MLS and NEFAR are that, you know, about half—maybe a little bit less than half of all of our agents were licensed in the past five years.

[00:26:00] Tracy Hayes:
Right. So there’s that turnover. So if you were licensed in 2020, 2021, you were trained up on how to just move fast—
“We gotta get these transactions going.”
“You gotta work with these buyers.”
“You gotta get that offer in quick.”

Well, you don’t have to do that now.

And maybe if you’re working with your sellers, say,
“Hey, we gotta get everything ready to go on the market, and we’re gonna get this home sold in three days”—
and that’s not the case anymore. So you gotta unlearn some of those things and learn a new way to do business.

[00:26:31] Ethan Gregory:
You know—

[00:26:32] Tracy Hayes:
Well, I think there are some houses that will sell in the first weekend.

[00:26:35] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:26:36] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, because they’ve just got the right address, everything just is locked—the right pricing, looks great, people walk, photos—and get it.

So you don’t want to—you want to have a sense of urgency there, of getting the good offer in or making communication with the selling agent—“Hey, I’m gonna make an offer,” and obviously make a good one, because you could have some competition.
Mm-hmm.

Or like you said, there’s this house that’s sitting—60, 90 days, or—someone I was talking to yesterday, there was a townhouse in St. Johns County under $300,000—oddly—it’s like pushing 120 days.

[00:26:58] Ethan Gregory:
Mm-hmm.

[00:26:59] Tracy Hayes:
Amazingly.
Yeah. But it’s there.

[00:27:00]
How are you working—so just an agent, you know, like I said, many of these agents have been in—the majority—five years or less.
Mm-hmm.
So they’ve probably never actually had a buyer buying an REO property.

[00:27:09] Ethan Gregory:
Sure.

[00:27:10] Tracy Hayes:
Walk us through some of the expectations. Now, we know sometimes you might get an answer in minutes, but it might be a period of time—
Walk us through what kind of setting the expectations.

[00:27:17] Ethan Gregory:
So you get the offer in—present it. Make sure you get your pre-approval letter and all that stuff.

It sounds pretty basic, but I have to ask for these things, you know?
Yeah.
Like, it’s a normal thing.

And then, you know, usually within 48 business hours—
People want an answer on the weekend. I usually cannot get you an answer from any of these REOs or institutional sellers on a weekend.

[00:27:37] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:27:38] Ethan Gregory:
Every now and then, sometimes—but usually not.

So just expect it only on business days. Just understand—it’s very down to business for them. There’s no emotions in it for them. It’s just all about their numbers.
Yep.

And they want a very clean and plain contract. All your brokerage addendums that your broker might require—they’re not gonna sign. They won’t sign mine, even. They’re not gonna sign yours.

And a bunch of other stuff like that. It’s all very plain. They want it all very, you know, standard.

Do your basic forms—your buyer-bar, your flood disclosures, your HOA disclosures, FHA/VA—all that normal stuff.
Yeah.
They’ll do all that stuff that they have to do.
Right.

But they’re not gonna sign all these other disclosures and stuff like that.

And as simple and plain as possible, the offer.

Most banks—actually, I’ve never seen a bank accept an offer contingent upon the sale of another home.
And that’s a big challenge for some people.

There are ways to work around it with, you know, extended financing times and things like that—

[00:28:49] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:28:49] Ethan Gregory:
But, you know, usually they’re not gonna do that.

They prefer not to do any repairs—again, depending on the bank.
Some might say, “We will maybe do repairs,” like, if they’ve already fixed the home up—
Mm-hmm.
—and maybe one thing got missed or something, they’ll do it.

But usually they’re not.

[00:29:03] Tracy Hayes:
It’s under some sort of dollar threshold, I’m sure, to get some sort of—

[00:29:07] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, they’re—they don’t tell me. Like, I don’t get to look at their backend.
Right.
I’m there, you know, to serve my client and help them get the home sold for the best value possible.
Right.

Whatever their business model is.
Mm-hmm.
You know, it’s just like whatever motivates a traditional seller too. Like, I can’t always know what their motivations are. They just may say, “This is what I want to do,” and it’s okay.

[00:29:23] Tracy Hayes:
I would imagine a lot of the REO homes are empty.

[00:29:25] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. Right.

[00:29:26] Tracy Hayes:
So, from a buyer’s perspective—a buyer’s agent coming to you and saying, “Hey, we want to make an offer on this”—from a closing perspective, should they expect, “Hey, this might take 60 days,” versus going, “Hey, we want to close by the end of the month and we’re three weeks out”?

[00:29:47] Ethan Gregory:
No. By the time we have a home on the market—once we have an accepted offer—we should be able to close within 30 days, if not faster.

[00:29:54] Tracy Hayes:
Okay. So they’re—

[00:29:55] Ethan Gregory:
—snap, when it’s ready.

[00:29:55] Tracy Hayes:
It’s usually the title.

[00:29:56] Ethan Gregory:
Unless there’s a title issue. And usually they would’ve cleared that up ahead of time, prior to us listing the home.

They have—these banks that go through the foreclosure with them—they also are usually the title company for them.
Mm-hmm.

And so what they’ll do is, they’ll do like a preliminary title search, you know, but after they get the foreclosure, to clean up all the things we gotta clean up. That’s part of what I do.

[00:30:00] Ethan Gregory:
Mm-hmm. Um, helping with like, pay any outstanding fines like we talked about, or—or if there was, you know, something that didn’t get signed correctly, you know, we’ll chase a lot of stuff down.

[00:30:07] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:30:08] Ethan Gregory:
So we—we try to nip those things in the bud before we ever get to the point of listing the home for sale.

So we go with marketable title when we go on the market.
Mm-hmm.

That said, you know, sometimes things pop up, things happen, things fall through the cracks—
Right.
—or whatever the situation is.

But you should be able to close within like 30 days pretty typically.

[00:30:40] Tracy Hayes:
Okay. So after they accept the offer, they’re actively working that file now. Got attention to it.

We’re—
[00:30:45] Both:
—we're going to the title company.

[00:30:46] Tracy Hayes:
We’re ironing this out and—let’s get it off our books.

[00:30:48] Ethan Gregory:
It goes just like to a regular title company.
Title company works with the buyer’s lender to get those things squared away.

Obviously, the buyer does their inspections and everything—so appraisals, you know, good stuff like that.

[00:30:59] Tracy Hayes:
What is—again, from the buyer’s perspective—coming to you, some of the things that they need to know upfront when buying an REO property?
Mm-hmm.

Because, you know, there was a period of time there—obviously because of, we had so many short sales and foreclosures during the, you know, ’07 to ’12 period of time—
People were like, “Oh,” they’re thinking they’re getting some great deal if they buy an REO property.

[00:31:26] Ethan Gregory:
Mm-hmm.

[00:31:27] Tracy Hayes:
Is that always so?

[00:31:28] Ethan Gregory:
I mean, you can find a deal anywhere. You know, I mean—

[00:31:29] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:31:29] Ethan Gregory:
Well—

[00:31:29] Tracy Hayes:
—I know the deal is sometimes in your mind, but REO—

[00:31:31] Ethan Gregory:
—could be a deal, yeah. I mean, sometimes there’s good values there.

I mean, the reason these banks hire me or hire another real estate agent is ’cause they want to maximize their value.

I’m there to make the transaction work for them, be their boots on the ground—I’m kinda their eyes and ears. But also it’s to make sure I’m maximizing their value, getting the best offer possible, negotiating as well as we can for them.

I mean, if the buyer thinks it’s a deal, then it’s a deal. You know?

Like, maybe they can make money off it by fixing it up and selling it—great, you know? That’s their prerogative.

Sometimes I’ve seen buyers purchase homes and I’m like,
“I don’t know if that’s really gonna work as an investment property,”
and sure enough—I was wrong. They turned around and sold it for quite a bit of money.

So—it is just how that goes.
Mm-hmm.

So it’s really—
I try to maximize the value for these customers and sell at the best price possible.

It’s not really to get a deal for some investor, you know—
Right.
—that’s here locally. I’m hired by the seller here.

[00:32:26] Tracy Hayes:
Well, again, every asset manager’s different.

They may just want to cover their losses and go. Another asset manager might say,
“Hey, I can actually make a couple dollars on here because I lost a couple dollars on the other one, so I need to, you know—
—and I can hold out on this one,”
type of thing.

I can imagine those kinds of business decisions are going on and people have to realize—yeah, they’re looking at,
“Hey, I lost that one, I need to win over here.”

[00:32:51] Ethan Gregory:
Maybe so. I don’t know—I can’t—
That’s their own business.

[00:32:54] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, they’re just—whatever their boss is telling them.
“Just clean it off my books,”
depending on what’s going on, and so forth.

What have you seen in your realm change—from regulations to processes to whatever—from 2007, when you roughly started doing them, to today?

The process or regulations behind the foreclosure process and the REO—
What’s changed or gotten better or worse?

[00:33:19] Ethan Gregory:
So—two things. And they kind of go hand in hand.

Really, a lot of the banks—and especially this goes for some of the GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—
Very concerned about being a quality neighbor.

You know, maintaining the house.

For example, I remember Fannie Mae would always say that,
“We want to—when we put this home on the market—we want to make sure when you drive by the home, it looks like a nice home on the street.”

They’re gonna cut the yard correctly, they’re gonna do the bushes, mulch it, pressure wash it—make sure it looks nice.
Mm-hmm.

Being a good neighbor—not just like letting it go.

Yeah. That’s a big thing that kind of grew up out of that time period.
’Cause there were so many foreclosures at that time—
Mm-hmm.
—that it was like a drag on a lot of neighborhoods. And they were blaming, you know, these banks or GSEs for all these problems.

And so—

[00:34:00]
—they really took that to heart. And being good neighbors and a good business, they changed that.

Another change that kind of goes hand-in-hand with that is—
You know, previously they would just foreclose on it—
“Let’s cut the grass and we’ll put it on the market.”

[00:34:00] Ethan Gregory:
Like—they didn’t do a darn thing. Everything was sold as-is.

[00:34:03] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:34:04] Ethan Gregory:
Nowadays a lot of ’em will fix it up. They’ll try to maximize that value.
A lot of ’em didn’t do that back then—and now, nowadays, a lot of ’em do.

And they’re—you know, some properties are better candidates than others for that.

[00:34:25] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:34:25] Ethan Gregory:
But they do.
That’s been a big push, you know, in the past—
since, you know, let’s say the middle of the 2010s.

[00:34:31] Tracy Hayes:
Right. Well, it sounds like they’ve become a little more savvy in that.
Mm-hmm.
And you’re right—I mean, we had a neighbor—well, not only our yard, ’cause I don’t know how long our house went,
it wasn’t a short period of time—I think it was over a year.

Our yard went—and here in Florida, if you’re not treating that St. Augustine grass—

[00:34:49] Ethan Gregory:
It’s fried.

[00:34:50] Tracy Hayes:
Weeds—it was gone in no matter of time at all.

And then the house literally next door—we were there a couple years, I think they got divorced—
she just walked away from it.

Literally left, like, her wedding dress in the closet.
They had to send—you know, ’cause they—I’m sure you experience this—
where they send over a crew to clean out the house.

[00:35:00] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah.

[00:35:00] Tracy Hayes:
And it was full of everything.
She literally just walked out of the house—
Yeah.
—and left it.
Of course, the yard—you know, went.

The new people who bought it—and they’re still in there now—had to resod the entire yard and everything.
Yeah. That kind of stuff was going on. But they—
yeah, they were bad neighbors.

[00:35:27] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah.

[00:35:28] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[00:35:28] Ethan Gregory:
And it hurts. I mean, HOAs obviously are, you know, fining them or giving them problems about it.
Neighbors are unhappy. You know, it hurts the values in the neighborhood—
Yeah.
—those kinds of things.

And a lot of the banks took that to heart and—and did their best, you know.

[00:35:39] Tracy Hayes:
Well, that’s good news.

[00:35:40] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, they tried. They—I mean, most—again, like, it’s kind of the same thing with the people that foreclose on: they’re good people. They’re in a bad situation.

[00:35:49] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:35:50] Ethan Gregory:
And these banks—you know, they would prefer that the homeowners would pay their bills on time, every time.

[00:35:54] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:35:55] Ethan Gregory:
But they’re stuck in a bad situation of having to take this property back and try and do the best they can with it, you know?

[00:35:58] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:35:59] Ethan Gregory:
And that’s kind of the way I—the perspective I take with it, is that everybody’s just trying to do the best thing they can.
You know? Like, it’s a difficult situation.

You know, this is not always the cleanest and easiest transaction to work through.
But if you go in with the mindset that people are trying to do the best thing and make it right as best they can in a difficult situation—
you have a different perspective and realize that, you know, maybe we can work together to solve these problems.

[00:36:23] Tracy Hayes:
Right. I imagine you—you have some investors on speed dial—people who are, you know, you know, especially—
well, I guess really for anything, whether it’s a good rental property—
Mm-hmm.
—or whether it’s a truly distressed property that, you know, needs a complete gut—
Sure.
—that kind of thing.

Where you—the investors in the areas where you have companies that that’s what they do.
Mm-hmm.
I would imagine you kind of might work with them, or they’re—they’re always checking with you what might be coming on.

[00:36:54] Ethan Gregory:
I might with some customers that we use.
But I mean, with these bank-owned homes—and institutional investors as well—
Mm-hmm.
they’re gonna require me to put the home on the market.

It’s gonna be seven days on the MLS prior to them accepting any offers.

[00:37:05] Tracy Hayes:
Oh, okay.

[00:37:06] Ethan Gregory:
They don’t let me just, like, pass it on to someone.

[00:37:08] Tracy Hayes:
Is that like some sort of guideline or just something they need internally?

[00:37:10] Ethan Gregory:
Sometimes it’s a guideline and sometimes it’s just their business strategy.
It’s a guideline for—for example, the GSEs require that—
Mm-hmm.
—you know, that it be on the market—I think it’s still seven days—prior to them accepting any offers.

’Cause they want exposure to the market and all buyers to have a chance to see it.
You know—
One, for the maximizing their profit standpoint—
Mm-hmm.
—but also as a fairness.

[00:37:31] Tracy Hayes:
Right. Well, they’re a bank. They gotta show their fairness. Certainly that’s just part of the—

[00:37:33] Ethan Gregory:
Well, a lot of these companies are publicly traded companies.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they have guidelines to follow.

[00:37:34] Ethan Gregory:
It’s a compliance thing.
People wonder why they won’t sign this or they will sign that or why these things have to be that way—
You know, they are trying to be compliant.

This division that handles these REO properties—they’re having to be compliant.
When they’re audited, somebody’s gonna pull this file. And if we didn’t do something correctly, then it’s a problem for that department, that asset manager, and possibly for me.

[00:38:00] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:38:00] Ethan Gregory:
You know, so there’s a—there’s a reason for it.
It’s like if anybody used to work in the banking industry, they’ll understand that—you know, you gotta check these boxes.
If we get audited, it’s gonna be a problem.
And that’s what they deal with as well.

[00:38:21] Tracy Hayes:
Right.
So there’s—there’s different levels to it, and there’s usually a reason why I’m having to ask for something or—or not do something.
And just gotta help explain that.

That makes total—I mean, it makes total sense.

I mean, we know a local banking institution that got hit hard here a couple years ago.
The banks have big—I think a lot of people don’t realize—banks are required to do so many or do such activities relative to the community.
Mm-hmm.

And obviously, putting a house—making sure—it’s not gonna accept any offers until it’s out there a week, giving plenty of people the opportunity to come in and make an offer on it.
Versus—you know, you could be simply turning a lot of these places over to investors—
Mm-hmm.
—and they’re not maximizing their possible profitability on a retail sale versus more of a wholesale, where someone’s trying to flip it and—

[00:39:00]
—make more money, you know, type of thing.

[00:39:00] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. Again, here to—that makes sense.
Here to maximize, you know, their profits for the seller.

[00:39:02] Tracy Hayes:
Alright, let’s—let’s change directions.

Let’s talk about the real MLS.
Mm-hmm.

But let’s start with—because you mentioned your father earlier, and he was involved at NEFAR—
Yeah.
—you know, and that type of thing.

For the agents out there that are listening—the importance of getting involved in the board in one way, shape, or form or another.
Maybe that’s—not gonna say, “I want to be president of the real MLS” or even be the leader of any committee—
But to be part of what’s going on.

To come, to go down to the association occasionally—whether it’s to take a class or, you know, even just participate on some of the volunteer activities that are—

The importance of that in—relative to the industry of real estate.

[00:39:49] Ethan Gregory:
Sure, sure.

I mean, there’s a lot of ways to say this, but—you know, the more you give, the more you get back in return.

I feel like the time that I’ve given to the MLS and NEFAR has been given back to me so much more—
[00:40:00]
—in just the knowledge I’ve acquired, the people I’ve met, you know—
Just being around some people that are tremendously more talented than I am is just a great experience that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do.

[00:40:11] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:40:12] Ethan Gregory:
And so, anybody that’s out there thinking about volunteering with the MLS or NEFAR, it’s a great way to serve your industry.

It’s a great way to realize there are people out there doing business differently than you—and it’s all—and you can still work with them.

You know, what’s interesting about real estate is that, you know, we’re all competitors, but we all work together.
Mm-hmm.

You know, and so we can work together with people to serve our industry, learn what’s going on in the market or learn what’s going on in the industry—
Changes—and be ahead of those changes.

You know, for the MLS I’ll say specifically—the past two years have been a tremendous time of change.

I mean, we’ve had the change where you can’t have brokerage compensation in the MLS anymore.

Around that same time, we got rid of our NEFAR forms and went to FAR forms.

And at that same time as well, we launched the coast-to-coast data share—where we are sharing MLS data with other MLSs in the state.

We’re not taking over their MLSs, we’re not trying to be their MLS—
We are sharing data with them.

And so we can—we want to take down the artificial barriers to the data throughout the state of Florida.

So if you’re licensed in the state of Florida as a real estate agent, you should have access to the information on these homes.

And that’s what we’re trying to do—by sharing the MLS data between us, St. Augustine, Space Coast, and Daytona and Hernando County, and hopefully more soon.
Mm-hmm.

So—it’s a time of change.

And so, you can be ahead of those changes, you can know what’s going on.
You can help craft some of those changes that are good for your marketplace.

And, you know, some of these changes that we vote on—on the board or other places—
May not be good for me business-wise, but it’s good for the marketplace in general.

And that’s what we’re looking for—is to make the marketplace function, provide the information, the forms, the data, the technology for agents to succeed.

And so that’s been a really eye-opening thing for me—
Is, you know, there’s so many different ways to do this business and so many ways to be successful.

And serving will give you that perspective—
That things are bigger than you, you know?
Mm-hmm.
I’m sure you’ve had other people say this too, but—having a heart to serve, you know—

[00:42:13] Ethan Gregory:
…is part of it. And you gotta want to do it, you know.
And that can be at whatever charity you're interested in too.
I mean, it doesn’t have to be MLS.
I enjoy that part of it.

[00:42:14] Tracy Hayes:
Um, I would imagine you’re an RPAC supporter.

[00:42:17] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:18] Tracy Hayes:
And I like to bring that up whenever I have someone in here who I know could speak with knowledge—
Mm-hmm.
And you, which you've just expressed—the importance of RPAC and making your donation.

If you don’t want to actually put your time in, then come up with at least some financial dollars.
Because of how important it is to have a representative in Tallahassee, to have a representative in D.C.

[00:42:43] Ethan Gregory:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s tremendously important.
You know, again—the past change over the past year or two, people have been kind of down on NAR, you know, and the REALTOR® brand.

And part of that’s some of the changes that we’ve had, like I mentioned.
But it’s also just a function of maybe NAR not telling the story—
[00:43:00]
—of the victories that they have.
These legislative victories—
And some of them, you know, maybe happen in lobbying behind the scenes,
But some of them are real victories—
About taxes, local regulations that are going to hurt homeowners.
Mm-hmm.
Any number of things that are happening—either with legislation that’s come out or with things that are just being stopped that would potentially hurt property rights.
You know, that’s the big thing.
Property rights are very important.

And NAR, FAR, and NEFAR as well—
We all try to stand up for those whenever we can.

[00:43:34] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.
I think because, yeah, a lot of times it’s not put out there on the front page—
Of their victories, or even, you know, their challenges.
Which obviously, you know—insurance right now—
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I imagine the representatives that are—
That is a topic agenda on every meeting you’re having—is something to do with insurance.

[00:43:53] Ethan Gregory:
Insurance—it goes right into the affordability question.
Insurance is difficult.
Like, I joke with people that I have more trouble with—
[00:44:00]
Obtaining insurance and satisfying an insurance company than I do dealing with a lender or an appraiser.
You know?

It seems like they have these little things.
They’re always going to find something—especially if you’re dealing with older homes.

They can be a real challenge.

So, you know, the association standing up for—
You know, crafting legislation that would help with insurance and stuff like that.

For example, we talk about the flood disclosure that we now have to use as of last year when we sign a contract.

I’m sure that FAR had a hand in helping craft that language in there—
To make sure it was reasonable and met the law.

Which I think is a good law.

Yeah.
It’s a good thing to have to disclose to people that homes have flooded or not.
I think that’s a perfectly reasonable thing.

But just doing some of those things—
People—or members—may not always realize that.

You know, there’s all these wins going on.
There’s all these things happening that are making our industry better.

That they are doing along the way that just aren’t front and center.
That aren’t seen necessarily.

And they see that we can’t put compensation in the MLS anymore, and they are mad about it because things are different.

But I can tell you—things are still moving along just fine.

People are still closing sales.
Agents are still being paid.
You know, it’s a business.
You just gotta explain your value as a buyer’s agent.

[00:45:07] Tracy Hayes:
Well, I had Cindy Hayden on a year ago or so.
And obviously, she’s deep into insurance—
Mm-hmm.
That’s kind of her thing.

And she was on the NAR committee, I believe, if I’m not mistaken, a couple years ago—

And things just like the lookback period when it comes to flood and being in a flood area—
And how the lookback on your claims that you’ve made—
Yeah.

Versus, I think, the value of the home if I’m not mistaken—

But how every county was a little different there.
And this is going down to the—
She was—
'Cause she has a house on the beach—
Mm-hmm.
Over on the Gulf—
And every county was different.
Those county commissioners—
They’re not necessarily real estate agents.

They may be developers—
Yeah.
But they’re not thinking about the homeowner, per se, as a real estate agent who’s out here on a day-to-day basis—
In the trenches with homeowners and mortgage people and everybody else—
You know, to make that house affordable and so forth.

And sometimes they don’t think of some of these things like—
Oh, hold on a second—
That lookback period?
That’s not going to work.

'Cause you gotta get a permit to put an HVAC system in.
That might cost fifteen, twenty thousand dollars on a house on the beach.
And then all of a sudden, you don’t have any room—

Due to the lookback period.

Or—
You know, it’s little things like that.
They need someone who’s on the ground to advise.

[00:46:25] Ethan Gregory:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

You know, you can’t expect everyone to know everything.

So your local council person or your state legislator—
I mean, they could be extremely knowledgeable people about a lot of things.
But they can’t know everything about real estate—
And how one little change they make may affect the business—
Or affect homeowners.

And so that’s exactly what those RPAC dollars go for—
Is to lobbyists.

And also when we, as an association or FAR, go down there—
You know, for the week down in—I think it’s March—
We go meet with state legislators and senators—
And kind of explain, “Here’s the big issues that we have.”

And so those kind of things—they make a huge difference.

[00:47:00]
Mm-hmm. They do.
They do.

And you don’t always see it, but they’re there doing it.
And that’s why, again, those RPAC dollars are important.

[00:47:07] Tracy Hayes:
Yep.

Alright. New agent coming on.
Your standard consumer out there who’s not in the industry—
Let’s talk about the importance of real MLS.
Mm-hmm.

I would think—
You know, a lot of people on the outside are like—
“Well, why does every association have their own MLS?”

And of course, now you’re trying to—what’s the term you use?
'Cause I know not data share—

[00:47:28] Ethan Gregory:
Data share.

[00:47:29] Tracy Hayes:
Data share with the others.
Why does everyone have their own?
Is there actually different technology?

[00:47:39] Ethan Gregory:
It's a historical thing.
Yeah. You know, why was it always this way?
I mean, it used to be—this is prior to, you know, computers and whatnot—
People would, um, you know, they would submit their listing to the service, and they’d print out a book and deliver it to every brokerage.
And the scope of that was only so large.
Right.
You couldn’t do a whole state.

And so when those MLSs that were compiling the books got the technology and things came out, they started putting it on the internet, and you still had your multiple listing service here in your local area, and they would service those people.

And that still worked for a while.
But nowadays, technology is different.
The speed of technology and the quality of the technology that is needed on the scale—

[00:48:21] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:48:21] Ethan Gregory:
So there's a lot of moving parts there about, you know, why it still is the way it is.
Some of it's territorial.
And so that’s what we’re trying to kind of break through.
You know, we’re trying to get through this territorial-ness of your data.
We’re trying to make it accessible where you can choose your MLS of choice.
You can still access the data.
As long as you’re licensed,
You should have access to real estate data across the state of Florida.
Mm-hmm.
And that’s our goal at the end of the day—
To share data with any other MLS that wants to with us.
You know, we're kicking down those arbitrary barriers.

[00:48:52] Tracy Hayes:
The term that comes to me is the old guard.
Yeah.
I imagine that’s probably been used in your meetings—
The old guard wants to guard it.

[00:48:59] Ethan Gregory:
Well, [00:49:00] people—
You know, people get territorial about their space.
Yeah.
And that’s okay.
You know, like, we’re not here to tell you how to do your business.
Right.
You know, we just—we believe at real MLS that we should take down those artificial barriers—
Mm-hmm.
That are holding you back.

You may say, “Well, I’m an agent. When am I ever gonna sell a home in Hernando County?”
And you may not.
I’m not driving to Hernando County to sell a home.
Mm-hmm.
I’ll just refer it out.
Right.
And that’s where the value can be shown there.

[00:49:27] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[00:49:27] Ethan Gregory:
So let’s say you have a seller who is, you know—
“Hey, we gotta move, but we’re moving to Hernando County. Can you sell our home here in Jacksonville?”
Sure. Gotcha.

“Do you know anybody in Hernando County, though?”
Well, no, but let me look.

So you start searching—who’s in that area, the price range they want, kind of what they’re looking for in a home—
You can find an agent there that’s doing a lot of business in that area.

[00:49:47] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[00:49:47] Ethan Gregory:
Talk to them.
See if it’s a good fit.
And refer your customer to them.

And you brought value to the transaction then.
Yes.
You didn’t just pick a random name out of the hat and stick them with them.

What you did is you talked to the person, saw they were a good fit, they’re talented, they’re smart—
Mm-hmm.
They’ll work with your customer.
And you can refer that person out then.
So you brought value and you helped your customer.
Right.

And that’s just one example of how the data share can work.
But really, the goal is to set the data free—
You know?
Mm-hmm.
To let it be available.

[00:50:16] Tracy Hayes:
What is—
Because I know you’ve heard the old guard saying why you shouldn’t—
And I know you use it—
“Well, they want to guard the data.”
What reason are they into guarding the data?
Because people can get the data in alternative ways.

[00:50:31] Ethan Gregory:
Sure.
It gets put onto like, you know, the third-party websites—
Yeah.
You know, for—

[00:50:36] Tracy Hayes:
Exactly.
Because they have—
They're linked into those MLSs.
And that’s why we want—

[00:50:39] Ethan Gregory:
The data share to work.

If you’re a licensee,
You should have access to the best information in the MLS.
You shouldn’t have to go to this third-party website to access the data.

And that’s what we’re trying to solve for.
You know, this isn’t going to be solved tomorrow.
It’s a long-term process.

But it is an initiative that we’ve been working on.
We call it a healthy marketplace initiative.

And why do some other places not want to do it?
I mean, that’s—you’d have to talk to them. You know?

[00:51:03] Tracy Hayes:
I just think—
Yeah, it’s—
Having worked recently with a gentleman who has come out with an AI home search—
And some of the agents in town are adding it to their websites—
Where they can actually go in and under natural language, just like you’re using ChatGPT—
Or you can use ChatGPT, and his company will come up.

But if they use it on their website, you know—
The listings—'cause he’s—
They’re connected with the IDX feed—
Is that the right word?

[00:51:27] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, yeah.

[00:51:28] Tracy Hayes:
With the listings that are fitting the description, they start coming up.

So we started talking.
So I’ve been kind of dabbling in and talking to him and learning about this part of the real estate industry.

And I think these, uh—“old guard” is the term I’m going to use—
Referring to these people who are naysayers, who are slow to the gate—
They’re not benefiting themselves.
Mm-hmm.

Because people will get the information.
Yes.

And I’d rather—
I think every agent, just like a loan officer—
We’d like to be those people’s servicer—
You know, their go-to person for real estate, for mortgage lending, for their life.
Mm-hmm.
That’s an ideal situation.
They refer you, they buy three houses, it’s all been through you.

Sure.

But in this case, they’re going over to Hernando—
Why not let them go onto your website because they trust you—
And they go on and search homes in Hernando if they want to.
Because you’ve got the connection going over.

[00:52:00] Ethan Gregory:
Sure.

[00:52:27] Ethan Gregory:
Sure. Well, sure. You know, and like, I could think that, you know,
Your real estate agent is like your advisor.
Mm-hmm.
Your professional that's gonna help you through the transaction.
I mean, you can have all the data in the world, but it doesn't really tell the story.
Mm-hmm.
You know, that's what we're here to do.

I gave a presentation at Realm last month for our new members, and I kind of explained that we’re the technology and data company at MLS.
And we bring all that data in there, we sort it, we make a presentation out of it and make it look pretty—
You know, it's sorted, collated, all the good stuff looks nice.
But a chart doesn't tell a story like you can to your customer.
You can hand them a sheet of statistics or you can hand them an MLS sheet—
It's not gonna really tell the story about this property or this transaction.
Mm-hmm.
And that's where they need—
That's where we step in here.

So just like you in the lending business, you can tell them what the interest rate is, but you're just not gonna tell them the whole story about how this whole thing's gonna work—
To be able to get the loan, and the life of the loan.
And so that’s where I hope that, you know, customers see the value in what we do.

You know, people think a real estate agent might just be someone who opens the door—
And that's one thing we do out of the thousand things we do.
And I like to think that they work with us for the transaction and we can kind of explain the information that is coming to them.

So if they're going to these third-party sites—
Those third-party sites have an agenda of their own and what they're gonna do with your data and your information if you click on a button.
Mm-hmm.
They may sell your data, they may put you with their agent who you don't know from anybody—
And maybe you don't work with them well—who knows?
Right.

And that's fine.
That's their business model.
They're running a business.
Right.
They're taking our housing information and repackaging it and putting it out there—
And that's fine.
That's their business model.
No issue with that.

But I think just the information is limiting.
If you only have the information, you need a professional there to help you along the way.

[00:54:14] Tracy Hayes:
We're moving into this period of time where we're getting a transition from the Google search—
Or even going, like you said, going to one of these third-party sites.

Of course, if you go on Google and you put something, the first ten things on there are all those third-party sites that want you to get on there.
Sure, sure.
People are paying money for their stuff to be put up front.

But we're starting the swing toward the younger generation—
I think the sub-30s from what I understand, and in the statistics—

Just ChatGPT—
700 million people are using ChatGPT.
That was a few weeks ago, so who knows where it's at today—
It’s growing on a daily basis.

Your reign as president—
You’ve got five months left, roughly—four months left, whatever.
It’s not gonna probably happen in the next four months of yours—
But is the Real MLS starting to talk about how are these people finding the homes, getting into the data through AI?
And is that something that, you know, there's some sort of integration that is coming down in the future?

Right.
And I ask that question 'cause I know a lot of these agents have been trained to do their listing descriptions using AI.
Mm-hmm.

And obviously, when you're searching AI—
I hear the number one thing that people use as an example all the time:
The house may have a pool, but the agent forgets to even put it in—
It’ll be in the pictures, but it’s not in the actual description.
Sure, sure.

How do we improve that situation?

[00:55:46] Ethan Gregory:
So, at Real MLS, I mean, it’s certainly a point of discussion.
You know, we're—AI, I think, will be in the background of everything we do technology-wise—
Not just on the MLS, but really everywhere.
Yeah.

It’s gonna be in the background of what we're doing.
Mm-hmm.
So I think Real MLS is gonna position ourselves to do that.

You know, for example, you talk about the listing description thing.
I mean, those are integrations that could be put into the MLS system.
We don’t have those yet, obviously—
Ones that can take all the photos—
If you have a set of photos you upload, it can write a description off the photos.
Yep.
You know, all those things.

[00:56:16] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[00:56:16] Ethan Gregory:
And so I think that’s something we have talked about.
It’s nothing that we have implemented yet.
I’m not sure there is a product that integrates with our MLS right now that does that specifically.

So that’s the thing—
Like, we’re not a software development company.
So we are not developing—

[00:56:33] Tracy Hayes:
You're a software user.

[00:56:35] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah.
Well, we are the technology and data side of it.
Yeah.
You know, it’s not necessarily that we have a team of software developers—
Right.
Back there just pumping out new products.

[00:56:43] Tracy Hayes:
Well, like any company though, that uses a software—like we use Encompass
Mm-hmm.
For our loan origination stuff—Encompass has gotta be constantly—
Yes.
Looking for bigger and better updates, right?
Mm-hmm.

[00:56:54] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, and we lean on our vendors to see what they're doing as well.
Yeah.
That's part of it as well.
I think that it is something that’s coming.

I mean, how cool would it be if you could open up your Real MLS app on your phone, and you're out showing a house with a customer and they really like it, right?
And you say, okay—while they're in another room looking at something—
You talk to your Real MLS AI chatbot and say, “Find me three comparable sales in the past six months for this house that I'm showing right now.”
And it would just pull it up on your phone—

[00:57:34] Tracy Hayes:
Exactly.

[00:57:35] Ethan Gregory:
Versus you having to get your computer out and do the search—
And then if it just did it for you right there.
Doesn’t take you away from going back to your desk and doing a real CMA market analysis—
But it does give you some information right there at your hand.
You know, it's almost like your assistant.

[00:57:48] Tracy Hayes:
It's the speed of technology. The speed of the way—
You know, Lyman Starr, who is the founder of Usedeli.com, which has created this AI home search—
I told him, I said I really see—because he originally created it for real estate agents to find other property for them—
Just to type in, “Hey, we're looking for this, this, and this.” Boom—
All of a sudden, the properties come up.
But then someone asked him, “Well, let’s get it to the consumer.”
Mm-hmm.
So he's been marketing on that angle.

But I could see someone showing a house—and you and I know, being in real estate long enough—
People don't tell us everything.
Mm-hmm.
And all of a sudden you're in the house showing it and they're like, “Well, we’d really like this.”
Well, you didn't tell me that before.
Sure.

Now I sit back in the car and I could talk in natural language—
“Hey, we need to add this criteria to the house. Narrow my search down or find me a house that has that,” because I just learned that—
And boom—
Those listings are coming up.

I think things are gonna happen that fast.

[00:58:29] Ethan Gregory:
I agree.

[00:58:30] Tracy Hayes:
In the very near future.

[00:58:31] Ethan Gregory:
I agree. It's an exciting time to be a part of and to see the changes that are coming—
Not just in our industry, but every industry.
There's changes that are coming in the speed of which we can do things and information.

You talk about listing descriptions—every real estate agent’s doing that.
Mm-hmm.
The only thing I worry about with AI is it becoming kind of… page one of Google.
You know, it's always just like the basic information—
It’s the standard stuff.
You know, it can only take you so far.

You have to have that professional knowledge.
And I still think that's why real estate agents and mortgage professionals will still have jobs.
They need somebody who can navigate the ins and outs—
All the information—
Local, very specific information or loan-specific information—
That may not be available in just, you know, the first page of Google, or the first initial search with your ChatGPT chat, you know?

Mm-hmm.
Maybe it'll find you three comps—
You know, like my example I told you earlier—
But they may not be the best ones.

[00:59:26] Tracy Hayes:
Right, exactly.

[00:59:27] Ethan Gregory:
You don’t know.
You know that and you can't tell.
And maybe it will in the future, I joke—
But maybe AI can tell what's a good layout versus not.
I can't tell you that, you know?

But it’s not a feel.
You walk into a home and that's what people like.
And maybe it could in the future, I don't know.
Mm-hmm.
But for right now, it doesn't.
And that’s—
It’s a difference there.
And like in valuing a home, I think you're meeting with a seller—
“Hey, this has a tremendously better layout than the 10 houses on the street there.”

[00:59:51] Tracy Hayes:
There’s a lot of trust that goes on.
And I don’t know if anyone has that faith or the trust in the technology yet—
[01:00:00] You know, it's why we still have appraisers.
Mm-hmm.
Who are gonna go out there and be the eyes and everything else for the lender, so to speak.
And obviously put a value on it—
And to go in there and say, “Well, find me three houses within a mile that are similar,” blah blah blah, “and give me comps.”

There's always a human that's gonna look at those and make a judgment call whether or not those actually are good comps.

[01:00:23] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, correct.
Yeah.

[01:00:24] Tracy Hayes:
And—well, I don’t—I would say always—
I don’t know if in our lifetime there’s gonna be that trust gap…
There’s always gonna be a human that's gotta verify:
“Mm-hmm, yeah, you gave me three good comps. We can use those.”
Mm-hmm.
Okay, yeah.
You know, it’s not gonna be, “Yep, those are the comps, and that’s the end of the game.”
Mm-hmm.
You know, type of thing.
That's what you were leading into there.

We were just talking about the listing descriptions.
Talk, if you could, a few things for the agents who are listening right now.
Because good agents will complain about newer agents or lazy agents who are not really good at putting these listing descriptions—
Or just cutting and pasting ChatGPT without even reviewing what it actually said.
Sure, sure.
Type of thing, yes.

What are some things that you're seeing down there?
What are just some tips that could help improve the search process and improve the Real MLS and what it actually is serving back?

[01:01:17] Ethan Gregory:
So, education is one thing.
Take the classes, learn how to enter the information.

We always have new products coming out—like a new one called Raze.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s in our MLS under the dashboard there.
It’s a really cool buyer thing.

But education on new things coming out.
You know, again, we had this data share that came out last year, the new FAR forms—
So there was a lot of education that went on.

And so, entering the more information really, the better—
As long as it's accurate information.
Mm-hmm.
If you can put as much as you can in a listing description that’s accurate and sounds good—great.
If you want to measure every room and put that in as the size of the room—great.

[01:02:00] Ethan Gregory:
That's more data, the better. You know, but you have to have a bare minimum of information—
Some like the required fields on Real MLS and what those are, of course.
The standard of like square footage, bedroom, bath, you know, general stuff like that.
But just being a professional—
Getting your disclosures from your sellers, providing that information to them—
And the more data, the better.
Obviously.

[01:02:13] Tracy Hayes:
I'm gonna ask this more direct.

[01:02:14] Ethan Gregory:
Okay.

[01:02:15] Tracy Hayes:
Because you're doing listing descriptions for your own properties.
Yeah.
You're president of the Real MLS.
Mm-hmm.
You're using ChatGPT to help you—

[01:02:21] Ethan Gregory:
Be more articulate.
Yes, exactly.

[01:02:27] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, then you edit it to just sound like a voice of you, you know?

[01:02:30] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:02:31] Tracy Hayes:
So walk us through, for those—that novice agent who again is just cutting and pasting—
What are some of the things that you do in the steps of creating that listing description via ChatGPT, I understand, and pasting it?

[01:02:45] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah.
So like, you know, even before doing ChatGPT, I’d always kind of had this perspective when I would write that listing description:

For example, like—
Who is gonna use this house?
Who is gonna live here?
Is it, you know, investor, or is it gonna be a homeowner?
What are they gonna do with this house?

If there's a three-car detached monster garage, you know, maybe this house would be good for someone who has a small landscaping company.
Maybe it’s good for someone who has an RV—
You know, whatever these things—

[01:03:00] Tracy Hayes:
Boat, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Boat, whatever.
Mm-hmm.

[01:03:02] Ethan Gregory:
And you try and build your description around some of those features of the house that deal with someone's lifestyle and what they want out of the house to do for them.

You know, a house is like a home—
But it’s also a thing that’s gonna function as a part of your life that fulfills whatever life needs you have—
You know, vacationing in your RV or boating or your landscape company, for example.

And so I kind of take that perspective when I put in my prompts—
ChatGPT, or if I’m writing it myself even—
Is taking into account who’s gonna use it, and how are they gonna use it?

And then ChatGPT helps my grammar.
Yeah.
It actually makes it sometimes a little too fluffy.

[01:03:38] Tracy Hayes:
You're not that fluffy dude.

[01:03:39] Ethan Gregory:
I’m not that fluffy dude. So I try not to over-embellish it, but sometimes it can.
So you gotta tone it down a little bit when you use it.
And it depends on which—
You know, ChatGPT, or Claude or Gemini—
Whatever you're using, you know?

[01:04:00] Tracy Hayes:
Right.
Now, have you personally created a GPT for your listing, or are you just going in randomly in a chat?

[01:04:04] Ethan Gregory:
No, I haven’t created my own.

[01:04:09] Tracy Hayes:
No? Okay.
So for those who are listening, this is what I learned—
This is Carrie Vey, who I’ve had on the podcast—she’s from Canada—
She’s the AI expert for eXp.

She can train you on this and has actually a GPT for you to use for—
Already set up for you to do listing descriptions.

But here’s what I learned about ChatGPT.

I wanted to create a GPT so that when I do a show—
You know, I’ll have a bunch of reels done—
But I only will ask for the caption when I’m ready to post the reel.
Mm-hmm.

So what I did is I went into—
First I asked in a chat, “How do I create a GPT?”
Mm-hmm.
It tells you how to create a GPT.
And then you are going to sit there and initially go through everything that you’re gonna—
Every listing description or every caption for Instagram—
Every, you know, all the things I do.

I say, I want these links put in.
I want the podcast link put in.
I want the guest’s social media links—
Mm-hmm.
So someone sees that and they want to contact that—

[01:05:00] Tracy Hayes:
It’s on there.
And so I created that basically foundation.
So now what I’ll do with the material from this podcast is I will—
I will take it, I will—
I’ll get a—
Which I’ve already started—
Your GPT just for your show.
Mm-hmm.

What I thought at the beginning was—
I had my GPT called Social Media Assistant for Real Estate Excellence Podcast, RERE Podcast.
That’s what it’s called.
But you don’t click on that every time.

What I did is I clicked on it and said—just like starting a new chat—
Mm-hmm.
I said, “Call this Ethan Gregory.”

[01:06:00] Tracy Hayes:
So now Ethan Gregory is in my ChatGPT over here, but it is the GPT every time I click 'cause that’s where I started it, and so it knows all this stuff—'cause I've already preloaded "this is what I want" on every one I do.
Mm-hmm.
Now, I still have to go back and say, "Did you forget to do this?" and it rewrites it for me.
Right.

So if you're doing listing descriptions and wanted it to learn you,
You create a GPT and say, "This is for listing descriptions."
And then when you go in and you start that new listing description, say, "Call this 123 Main Street," and everything you do about 123 Main Street, do in that GPT.
And it’ll start, after correcting it a few times, start doing it the way—'cause you're gonna correct it.
Like you said, "Don't so much fluff."
So it'll start correcting itself.
Mm-hmm.

So then every time it spits out—it wants to please you—
Mm-hmm.
And spit it out correctly.
Yeah.
Yeah.

So that's my little tip of that, as I had to learn—
That's awesome.
Through some trial and error.
It’s not that hard to create a GPT.
Just go in there and do it, since you guys are on there all the time.
Yeah.

[01:06:55] Tracy Hayes:
I know. My wife uses it for everything.
I’ve created—
I was telling—
So I had to get an exception, an underwriting exception—
Mm-hmm.
And so what I did is I went into ChatGPT, said:
"Write an email to an underwriter, 'cause I need this exception.
Here are the benefits and why I should get the exception," and all that stuff—
And it writes eloquently.

[01:07:00] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, it does.
I know.
It’s pretty cool to use.
Yeah. Yeah.

[01:07:05] Tracy Hayes:
It's great for HR because that way you're not putting your emotions into it.
Yeah. It’s a great filter.
Yeah. Great filter.
Don't be so emotional.
Be, you know, whatever.
Right.

[01:07:17] Ethan Gregory:
One cool thing I do on ChatGPT is—there’s Sora, which is their image/video creation.
You can take like a listing photo—
Right.
That you've paid for, you know, have a professional photographer—
And you can put it through there and you can say,
“Make the trees blow in the wind,” and, “Zoom in to the front door,” and so—
And you need the aspect ratio to make sure it looks good on your phone, like a story or something—
Mm-hmm.
And so you just see that, and it zooms in, and the leaves are blowing, and it goes,
"123 Main Street," you know.
So that's one of those—for everybody out there—

[01:07:48] Tracy Hayes:
Oh, see, so you—some trial and error, and you found that out.

[01:07:51] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. Yeah. It takes prompting correctly. It takes a little work to work it in. But it’s pretty cool.
It’s an easy way to like, you know, come up with a little social media content.

[01:07:55] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.
We could go on and talk for hours for that.
Sure, sure.
Let's conclude, finish up.
Is there anything else? Did we not cover anything here?

[01:08:00] Ethan Gregory:
No, I’m here. I'm here to serve you and this amazing—

[01:08:02] Tracy Hayes:
Thank you.
Well, let's talk about—'cause I know Alan here is one of the—what do you call him?
He's not on the board, but he is one of your committee members, I guess.
What do they call the—

[01:08:12] Ethan Gregory:
He's on the board of directors, yeah.
Yeah.

[01:08:13] Tracy Hayes:
It’s like a—I’m not sure the correct term, but he’s—
How many—how many people volunteer though?
You have the four or five board members—

[01:08:21] Ethan Gregory:
We have 12 board members, I believe.
Yeah.

[01:08:22] Tracy Hayes:
Okay. The importance—as someone who’s interested in participating in NEFAR—
Why they might come by and even talk to you, say, “What’s the benefit of—
You know, what can I add to the Real MLS?”
Mm-hmm.
What can they bring to the table to help it, as you guys are, you know, an ever-changing, constant—
You know, things are thrown at you.

What are the type of topics you guys are talking about?
If someone’s interested in being part of the real estate industry at a level—
Whether it’s Real MLS or one of the NEFAR things—
What can they do at Real MLS to add to the—?

[01:08:53] Ethan Gregory:
So, large and small things.
Some of the small things you can do—
If you have a suggestion for MLS, please send it to:
📩 suggestions@realmls.com.
I mean, we’d love to get those.
And if they’re good, we can, you know, talk about them and integrate them.

[01:09:05] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[01:09:05] Ethan Gregory:
We did focus groups recently from different groups—
Like brokers was one group, you know, large high-volume agents,
And a couple different other ones.
And we got some great ideas from there too.

[01:09:17] Tracy Hayes:
Share with us something that came up that was so—just…

[01:09:19] Ethan Gregory:
Again, a small thing, like some—
And I can’t remember her name—
But she had this wonderful idea.
And I don’t know why we’ve never done it.

Like:
If price changes—
Setting automatic price changes.
Let’s say you have it listed at $100,000, and if it’s not pending within 17 days,
You want the price to go down.
So you could plug that in, set that in there—
How cool would that be?

[01:09:42] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[01:09:42] Ethan Gregory:
It seems easy.
Why don’t we do this already?

So that’s just one small idea that came out of there.
You talk about like some big things—like integrating AI—
That’s a big lift.
That’s a big thing.

[01:10:00] Ethan Gregory:
You know, that's not something that we're gonna take lightly or just quickly throw in there, you know. So, we do have the board of directors of course, but there's also—before that—we have our committees, like our Technology Committee, our Policy Committee, Broker Engagement Committee.
And so there's ways to be involved there.
Provide feedback, and again, information. If you have ideas—again—we'll take any good ideas.

[01:10:16] Tracy Hayes:
Is there disciplinary—
Can someone—you know, obviously, I don’t know, they don’t call it “Disciplinary Committee,” but if someone complains about thinking someone’s doing something unethical at, say, NEFAR, how—
Are there things that, in Real MLS, where agents can get in trouble?
Is there really?

[01:10:31] Ethan Gregory:
Sure.
So NEFAR, of course, has the Ethics and the Grievance Committee and stuff like that—
Yeah.
That’s grievance, that’s kind of a different thing.

[01:10:37] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah.

[01:10:38] Ethan Gregory:
Ours is more technology and data related.
So, let's say you market it as “waterfront” when it's not really waterfront—you made a mistake, right?
You're gonna get an email from MLS and our Data Integrity department.
As well, your broker's gonna get the email, and you have like 24 hours just to change it.
Click the button—right? It's not a big deal.

[01:10:56] Tracy Hayes:
Right.

[01:10:56] Ethan Gregory:
The only problem is if you don’t change it—you just ignore it, you know, and just don’t do it—
Well, then you might get a fine potentially.
And those are kind of like the small things.

And then there’s also big things that are just big no-no’s. They’re like immediate fines.
Like putting broker compensation in the MLS—don’t do that.
Nowhere in MLS can that be. That’s a big deal. You cannot do that.

And we actually, since the implementation of that last year—not that many people have done it. Really.
It's not really been a big problem.
We've had a few people do it and they've corrected it, but it hasn't really been that big of an issue quite honestly.
Yeah. Surprisingly. I thought it would be more of a problem, but it wasn’t.
So kudos to Real MLS and NEFAR for educating our members on that.

[01:11:33] Tracy Hayes:
Yeah, it’s been awesome.
Amongst the many affiliates—I mean, even Landmark Title across the road here—
Mm-hmm.
And so forth—classes, a lot of masterminds—
A lot—
You know, and I went to some of them—
Mm-hmm.
And a lot of discussions between agents in the know.
I know I went to one and I had watched the Florida Realtors—you know, the lawyer there—
That was, you know, going through it, you know, before the August date, you know?
Mm-hmm.
And obviously Patty Ketchum—you know, I've had her on—and so forth.
Yeah.

[01:12:00] Tracy Hayes (continued):
Yeah. So there was a huge collaboration in trying to educate as many agents as possible.

[01:12:05] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah.
And, you know, I kind of mentioned it earlier, but I think, you know, the market has evolved and changed.
And real estate agents have figured it out.
And they're educating their consumers—buyers and sellers—about how this works now.

And, I mean, maybe there was a little speed bump along the way when it first happened,
But it just kind of chugged along as regular, you know?

What’s been really interesting about the compensation has been really market-driven, I feel like.
Mm-hmm.
And I think that’s gonna be how it works.

Are you bringing value to the transaction as an agent?
Can you show that value to your customer, and are you worth that value?
Then your customer will think so—or not.
Yeah.

[01:12:48] Ethan Gregory (continued):
Just like—if somebody walks in the store and thinks, “Those bananas look good or not.”
You know, am I willing to pay that much for bananas?
Mm-hmm.

But also, you know, working with sellers—
If you're asking the seller to pay some of the buyer's broker fee—
Then, you know, what's the market like?
Does the seller have 10 offers?
Maybe they're less negotiable—
Right.
—on the buyer's broker fee—

[01:13:00] Ethan Gregory (continued):
—versus if they haven’t had an offer in 120 days, you know.
Like, it's all just very market-driven.
Which—mm-hmm—I think was, you know, maybe not necessarily the goal of what some of the plaintiffs had there,
But maybe it’s been a good thing about how free markets work, you know,
In our capitalism world that we live in.
Yeah.

[01:13:17] Tracy Hayes:
No, that's a very good point there.
I agree with you.
I think—one, it's—
And I think that's why, you know, one of the things we discussed, I mentioned before the show,
Why some agents are thriving in the market right now,
And some who were doing well are not doing so well.

And I think part of it is stepping up and giving that value.
Mm-hmm.
How to sell it or how to express it—how to communicate what they're going to do.
The other agent may be doing the same thing, but they're not communicating.

'Cause you and I know—there’s a lot of things agents do that their customers never see.
Yeah.
But it is being done.

[01:13:48] Ethan Gregory:
To plug that a little bit—I mentioned earlier—
It’s a pro—it's an app on Real MLS that just came out recently—called Raise.

[01:14:00] Ethan Gregory:
I would urge anybody working with buyers to start using Raise—R-A-Y-S-E.
You can put your buyer’s information in there and log all the tasks you’ve done for them—going over the buyer-broker agreement, having a consultation, showing homes, making offers.
You can input all the properties they’ve viewed.
Then, by the time you get to the end of the transaction, you can show them:
“We looked at X amount of homes, I’ve done these 200 things for you, I’ve spent this much time on the phone with you...”
Even down to talking them off the ledge once.
It’s a great tool, especially for buyer agents, to show your value.
We’re one of the few markets in the country—like number five, I think—that’s started using this.
It’s really amazing.

[01:14:51] Tracy Hayes:
I’ve said it so many times on the show—agents need to have a notebook and track what they’re doing.
But now with Raise, you can actually log it and really understand how much time you're spending.
A seasoned agent might retrace their steps from experience, but a newer agent starting today—they’re trying to budget their time.
With Raise, they’ll be able to look back and ask:
“What did I do? What could I have skipped? What could I have done better?”
“What could I have prepared for earlier that would’ve saved me hours?”

[01:15:26] Ethan Gregory:
I didn’t even think of it that way, but it really is an accountability tool too.
You’re holding yourself accountable.

[01:15:31] Tracy Hayes:
Exactly. It’s like reviewing game film.
You watch the replay and say, “We ran these plays, but next week—don’t run that again.”
Especially when you’re up against a different kind of defense.
But seriously, this is your tape—a way to analyze where you’re spending your time and how to be more efficient.
If you want to do 50 transactions a year, you have to be efficient and track where your time goes.
Otherwise, you’ll never get to sleep.

[01:16:00] Tracy Hayes (continued):
To wrap things up—aside from the ongoing MLS data-share project, is there anything else Real MLS is working on?
Any big projects coming up to stay ahead of the technology?

[01:16:26] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah, the technology is always evolving.
Raise, for example, is brand new.
We’re definitely trying to stay on top of AI—what integration could look like, how it might help us in the MLS.
The data share is a huge initiative, and personally, it means a lot to me.
I think it’s incredibly good for our local and statewide market.

[01:16:43] Tracy Hayes:
Mm-hmm.

[01:16:43] Ethan Gregory:
And then we’ve got something else coming—
I can’t share too many details yet, but we’ll call it Stats 2.0 for now.
Right now, you get basic stats—days on market, beds, baths.
But what we’re working on is a new tool that’ll provide real-time data.
Not just looking back 30 days—real insight into what’s happening right now in your market.
It may not be ready until next year, but the goal is to really dial it in.

[01:17:00] Tracy Hayes:
That makes sense.
Because some agents are saying right now—you can’t base value on comps from 60–90 days ago.
You’ve got to look at what sold two weeks ago.

[01:17:12] Ethan Gregory:
Exactly.
You want to be in tune with what’s going on in real time—not what was happening months ago.

[01:17:20] Tracy Hayes:
What’s listed around you right now? What price point?

[01:17:24] Ethan Gregory:
Like, you know, concessions. I think if you look at single family homes, like half or a little over half of all single family homes are selling with some sort of seller concession. And that’s due to affordability issues. Keeping up with what that is—and the amounts the concessions are for—is super important.
So if you want that real-time data, we’re looking to move it in that direction.
So hopefully next year, we’ll have some...

[01:17:52] Tracy Hayes:
That’s cool.

[01:17:53] Ethan Gregory:
Some products that’ll be a little more up to date, and we’re not always just looking back.

[01:17:58] Tracy Hayes:
You know, real-time data I think is important right now.
Having sat some open houses with some agents and stuff and talking about how they’re pricing and staying—
Rest—
I had another...
Gave me another thought there, but I’m gonna forget it.
It came—it went through my mind...
Golly, where’d it go?
It had to do with the techno—this whole—the importance of that—of real-time—and making them better agents.
Oh, I know—as soon as I hit stop, it’ll come to me. Happens like that.
I appreciate you coming on today.

[01:18:36] Ethan Gregory:
Yeah. Thank you.

[01:18:37] Tracy Hayes:
Ethan, this was a great show.
And anyone who wants to know more about the Real MLS—what the board does—if you want to do something and the Real MLS is something you think you can, you know, give input to, contact you or any of the other board members.
You’re all listed there on the site, right?
So it’s RealMLS—is it .org or .com?

[01:18:40] Ethan Gregory:
I believe it’s .com. Yeah.
And so, yeah, anybody that’s looking to volunteer, give back to their industry—we would love to have you.
Again, we’re a technology and data company at RealMLS, and if you have a passion for that kind of thing, if you care about it, or if you have a background in it—we’d love to have you.
We always love differing viewpoints as well.
You don’t have to agree with everybody, but as long as you’re professional and provide good feedback—we really want it.

[01:19:04] Tracy Hayes:
How often do the members change?
Is there a certain part of the year where people can be nominated to be on there?
How does that work?

[01:19:11] Ethan Gregory:
Sure.
So I believe—where are we at now? We’re in August.
So, there are three-year terms. Like, for the board of directors, it’s three-year terms.
Committees, I believe, are for one year at a time. I’d have to double-check that.
But I believe we’ve already gone through the nominating—that was a couple of months ago.
I think the voting already happened for that.
So, if you’re gonna apply, I would say spring of 2026.
I know that NEFAR and we are always looking for committee members.
I think I saw NEFAR putting out applications for committee members.
Probably the same thing with RealMLS as well.
So, listen—if you want to volunteer and you find a place that you really have a passion for, we’ll find a place that gets you in there.
And we’ll absolutely welcome you with open arms.
We are here to serve our members, and our members provide the best feedback.

[01:19:53] Tracy Hayes:
A hundred percent.

[01:19:54] Ethan Gregory:
So we want them to participate if they can.

[01:19:56] Tracy Hayes:
Appreciate you.

[01:19:57] Ethan Gregory:
Thank you, man. Thank you. I appreciate it.

[01:19:58] Tracy Hayes:
Yep.