Sharon Alters: Excellence In Real Estate Top Jacksonville Agent

REE #274 Transcript

[00:00:00] Sharon Alters: The main three things in real estate are location, condition, right. And price. And you can't change the location, you can improve the condition, but what if you're already top shelf condition? The only thing you have is your price.

[00:00:42] Tracy Hayes: Welcome back to the Real Estate Excellence Podcast, where we spotlight the stories, drive, and dedication of top real estate professionals in northeast Florida.
Today's guest brings an incredible blend of business savvy, artistic creativity, and heartfelt service. With a background that spans award-winning advertising, film...

[00:01:00] Tracy Hayes: ...production, community leadership, and two decades of real estate success, she's helped more than 500 families navigate one of life’s biggest decisions.
As one half of the Team Alters alongside her husband Frank, she has built a trusted brand in Fleming Island, Orange Park, St. Johns, and beyond. She's not just a realtor, she's a community leader, storyteller, and professional with the highest integrity.
Let's dive into the story behind the excellence of Sharon Alters. Welcome to the show, Sharon.

[00:01:27] Sharon Alters: Good morning.

[00:01:27] Tracy Hayes: I'm glad you made it over.

[00:01:29] Sharon Alters: Glad to be here.

[00:01:30] Tracy Hayes: Crossed over the bridge this morning with success.

[00:01:32] Sharon Alters: Yeah, the bridge was okay this morning.

[00:01:33] Tracy Hayes: That's why I don't make these at nine o'clock in the morning, 'cause it would probably have taken you an extra half hour.

[00:01:38] Sharon Alters: Yeah, it would. It would. And I appreciate that.

[00:01:41] Tracy Hayes: But really interested in... and you were talking about Sharon Mills, who I had on the other...
(getting myself in my own camera here)... the other day. And when I was doing, reading your bio, and I saw a lot, like you said, you resonated with a lot of things she was saying.

[00:02:00] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm. Oh, totally.

[00:02:00] Tracy Hayes: And both of you, you know, being in the industry as long as you have, especially here in northeast Florida, the changes in the marketplace...

[00:02:04] Sharon Alters: Right.

[00:02:05] Tracy Hayes: ...really gives you a different perspective of what’s going on right now. And I'm really curious to just, you know, bring that out and then share it with the listeners this morning.

[00:02:15] Sharon Alters: Yeah, we're really kind of a little bit back to the market that I started in, in the early 2000s where it's more... it's trending more towards a buyer’s market.

[00:02:24] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:24] Sharon Alters: And sellers are having more trouble selling their houses now. It’s different reasons now, but actually the interest rate back then was about 8%, 8.5%, 9%.
And that’s one of the problems we’re having — people today are so used to the low rates...

[00:02:44] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:02:44] Sharon Alters: ...that they don’t. So I have a chart of historic interest rates that I show people.

[00:02:51] Tracy Hayes: Right. But I always—my remark when someone says that is, do you have the historic cost of the home alongside that interest rate? 'Cause that’s really what it comes down to.

[00:03:00] Sharon Alters: Well, that’s part of it too — homes are priced higher and then people are worried about homes depreciating.
And so I also have a graph that shows that homes have appreciated every year, except for the years of 2000... you know, those years. But it goes back into the 1980s.

[00:03:20] Tracy Hayes: I've told the story many times — there was a period, I think it was late '18, '19, or, you know, I was working with one of the large builders here in town, and actually started going into COVID. But the cost of construction went up.

[00:03:32] Sharon Alters: Yes. Lumber.

[00:03:33] Tracy Hayes: Lumber. Lumber went up and I—mm-hmm—I went and did some research, went on YouTube, listened to several different people talk, and really came to the consensus, and they were very direct to it. They made it very simple.
In 2000—'8, '7, '8—housing dropped below any low that we had 50 years prior to that.
And then it didn't actually make it back up...

[00:04:00] Tracy Hayes: ...until, I wanna say, 2012 to 2014 period.

[00:04:02] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:03] Tracy Hayes: To where it came back to the 50-year low.
Yep. So that—for that period of time, it was such a low, and the mills obviously lost their tail. Especially a lot of mom-and-pop sawmills around the country.

[00:04:14] Sharon Alters: Right.

[00:04:15] Tracy Hayes: And now it's consolidated into, I don’t know, like four or five different large companies that are doing it.

[00:04:22] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:23] Tracy Hayes: And their attitude—of course this is, you know, I was watching videos from 2016, '17, '18 time period—
Their attitude was: we gotta make back for our shareholders that lost their butt during that low time.
And they didn’t have an interest in, like, building another sawmill or increasing production to keep the cost—'cause we don’t have a wood problem.
It’s actually just, you know, bringing it to market.

[00:04:47] Sharon Alters: Right.

[00:04:47] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:04:48] Sharon Alters: Exactly.

[00:04:49] Tracy Hayes: And you know what I remember? Of course, then you become attentive to every truck that goes up and down 95, or every train that goes by...

[00:04:55] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:56] Tracy Hayes: ...that has lumber stacked on it.
Right? You know, and they're talking about...

[00:05:00] Tracy Hayes: ...being stacked up in the yards and so forth. But—

[00:05:02] Sharon Alters: Wasn't part of it Canada too? I thought that Canadian—that’s what I was told, anyway.

[00:05:08] Tracy Hayes: I'm sure. Well, I'm sure Canada went through the same issues we did. I mean, but they—

[00:05:12] Sharon Alters: They were sending lumber to us. Right. And it was more—and that’s what a builder told me. That may not have been true though.

[00:05:17] Tracy Hayes: I think it goes back to—they held their production at a minimal level to make—

[00:05:20] Sharon Alters: Yes.

[00:05:20] Tracy Hayes: —you know, even Canada’s—to make money.
'Cause if our housing was down during that period of time, it wasn’t because it was wood—Canada had to make back too. The same companies there. So it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t surprise me.

[00:05:31] Sharon Alters: Yeah.

[00:05:31] Tracy Hayes: 'Cause I'm sure those companies cross—they’re such large companies. Everyone knows a lot of their names.

[00:05:35] Sharon Alters: Yeah.

[00:05:35] Tracy Hayes: Like Georgia Pacific and all that kind of—I think it was one of ‘em, that type of thing.

[00:05:41] Sharon Alters: Oh yeah. I did a commercial for them.

[00:05:42] Tracy Hayes: But you spent a couple of decades, if I recall—if not longer—in the film industry.

[00:05:45] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:46] Tracy Hayes: So tell us about young Sharon. How did you—you know, what were you thinking about doing?
You went to Rollins. You know, what were you thinking about doing as a career, and then how did you end up in the film industry?

[00:05:58] Sharon Alters: So I...

[00:06:00] Sharon Alters: ...was an English major, and so I was very into liberal arts, not into business.
And I graduated from college and I was dating a guy who was a writer in the industry, and I wanted to work for this film company.
And I dropped my résumé off—and nothing happened. And I didn’t.
I instead joined the board of the Atlanta Children’s Theater, and I did their newsletter, and I kind of got my mojo out there—all the while working in attorneys’ offices. I worked for attorneys in—
And so years later, I got a job in an ad agency, and I was actually the creative producer for them, along with being the admin assistant and hiring a receptionist like every three months.
So, and I volunteered for a screen—I've always been a big volunteer.

[00:06:47] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:00] Sharon Alters: So I volunteered for the Screen Actors Guild negotiations on the producer side.
And I met the owner of this film company—the same one I had put the résumé in—and never heard anything from them.
And they had an opening for a production assistant. And so he asked me if I wanted to interview, and I did.
And when I went in the office, there was this sheet cake over on his desk and it said, “Am I still in the running?” And I was like, oh my gosh.

[00:07:21] Tracy Hayes: Somebody sent him a cake?

[00:07:21] Sharon Alters: Somebody actually sent a cake. I learned who it was later.

[00:07:24] Tracy Hayes: Must have found out he loved cake.

[00:07:26] Sharon Alters: I don't know. But what I found out is that that’s not the kind of industry where they put an ad in the paper, or where you can just...
You have to know somebody.

[00:07:32] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:07:33] Sharon Alters: ...to get those jobs. So anyway, they hired me.
And that’s how I got in the film business. Yeah. Because I was a creative person.
And in fact, I never wanted to be in real estate because all the people I knew in Atlanta, which is where I lived, that were in real estate were like really hardcore.

[00:07:52] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:53] Sharon Alters: Like, they were like—I was like, I don’t want to be like that.
So I don’t know why I thought that that many years ago, because I ended up getting into real estate.

[00:07:59] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:08:00] Sharon Alters: It’s like—

[00:08:00] Tracy Hayes: What were some of the things—some of the, if you could hit some of the high points of your film, you know, industry career? You know, maybe people you've met or places it took you?

[00:08:10] Sharon Alters: So we actually filmed a commercial at Old Faithful in the winter for Georgia Pacific—that you received—kind of made me.
And we did a commercial in—I met Sally Struthers, we did a commercial with her.
Joe Theismann—we did a commercial with him, who's a famous football player at the time.
Another guy from Philadelphia who—I can’t remember his name—but he was also very famous.

[00:08:41] Tracy Hayes: Not Dr. J or something?

[00:08:43] Sharon Alters: No. No.
But the company I worked for had an extreme level of excellence—like, so, so high—that I actually won a Clio while I was there, which is like the Oscar of advertising.
And one—we were doing a commercial for RC Cola and we went to Tampa, 'cause that's where we would film in the winter.
And we were in a park and we actually had the crew pick all the Spanish moss out of the trees in the park.
That’s the kind of stuff we did.

[00:09:10] Tracy Hayes: Right. You mentioned the word “excellence,” and in the pre-show you mentioned it—'cause obviously now you’re at ONE Sotheby’s, right, and so forth—
Is that something that you, intrinsically, you know, how you were brought up?
'Cause I think there’s certain people that have attention to detail different than others for sure.

[00:09:24] Sharon Alters: Yes.

[00:09:25] Tracy Hayes: And you kind of resonated with this, in this company.

[00:09:27] Sharon Alters: So my parents were very particular growing up.
My father actually started in real estate—in residential—and then became a developer.
My mother was like—I mean, it was like we had to pronounce words properly, our grammar, I mean, all these little things, manners...

[00:09:47] Sharon Alters: ...which relates to the—

[00:09:47] Tracy Hayes: English major.

[00:09:49] Sharon Alters: And then I’m an English major, so I’m very, very attention-to-detail oriented. And I like to be one step ahead of people.
And so when I went to work for this company, the owner of the company...

[00:10:00] Sharon Alters: ...had a level of excellence and creative vision that just really enhanced what I already was and created the person that I am—I mean, contributed certainly to who I am today.

[00:10:13] Tracy Hayes: You made me think a little bit—we mentioned ChatGPT, we were just talking about that a minute ago—

[00:10:16] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:17] Tracy Hayes: And then English major and...
You were appreciating that, you know, I was using ChatGPT for a lot of things. And actually, a very important email for a friend of mine last night—he showed me the email he was going to write.

[00:10:29] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:30] Tracy Hayes: And I’m like, “No, no, no—let me take that.” And I put it into ChatGPT, and based on what he told me—and I put all that information in there—and asked it to write an email,
telling it, you know, “This is who's writing it, this is who it's going to...”

[00:10:45] Sharon Alters: Right.

[00:10:46] Tracy Hayes: “This is the goal of the email,” and all that kind of stuff.
Obviously, it writes in proper—hopefully writes in proper—English. I don't know, you might have a different opinion about that.

[00:10:53] Sharon Alters: Generally, it's pretty good. Yeah.

[00:10:55] Tracy Hayes: Of course, when it says it's trying to be like the person using it, right? It tries to understand your...

[00:11:00] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:00] Tracy Hayes: ...personality.
Hopefully it doesn’t write the English that I would probably write. Hopefully it writes a better—a better punctuation and everything else like that.
But what do you—just off the—because this is off the rails, so to speak—question, but...

[00:11:14] Tracy Hayes: Being an English major and expertise in AI, have you—just, what your vision is for, especially our young people, but even older people like myself or middle-aged, who may not have been an English major—to come across better when they’re writing?
If they’re writing better and let ChatGPT help them, or any of the AI programs...

[00:11:33] Sharon Alters: Help you learn to write.
I learned to write better when I blogged. That’s another story.

[00:11:37] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:38] Sharon Alters: That’s what I did to survive the short sale... all that. I did short sales too.

[00:11:41] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:11:42] Sharon Alters: But I learned to write with blogging.
But AI can definitely help. It’s an incredible research tool.
It’s kind of sad to me that they’re not using it and teaching it in public schools.
My grandson actually has the privilege—great here—

[00:11:56] Sharon Alters: —and they’re teaching them how to use AI because I...

[00:12:00] Sharon Alters: ...use it all the time for research.
I use it for my listing descriptions as a start.

[00:12:04] Tracy Hayes: Yes.

[00:12:05] Sharon Alters: So I will start, and I’ll ask it to write a conversational one, a luxury one, sometimes write one to millennials.
And then...

[00:12:17] Tracy Hayes: Interesting—depending on the price point or who you think might be a good customer for that.

[00:12:20] Sharon Alters: So I’ll feed it information about a house.

[00:12:22] Tracy Hayes: Right?

[00:12:23] Sharon Alters: And I will tell it that it’s a very successful real estate agent...

[00:12:26] Tracy Hayes: Agent and...

[00:12:26] Sharon Alters: ...has to be 800 or a thousand characters also, right? Because I need to be able to plug it in the MLS.
So I’ll give it features and then it will write, and then I will take that and look at it and kind of blend it and kind of—
Sometimes it’s a little bit too much, you know? You need to take some of the words out. They’re like over-the-top...

[00:12:44] Sharon Alters: ...words that people don’t—
And then often I will go to the seller and show them that, and then we’ll work on it together and wordsmith it.
Because my approach...

[00:13:00] Sharon Alters: ...to my real estate is that we’re a team, working together.
And so I will run it by my seller and say, “Look at this. What do you think?”
And sometimes they’ll have, “Oh, well, you know, we need to add this,” or whatever.
And it’ll be...

[00:13:12] Tracy Hayes: That is, that is brilliance, actually.

[00:13:13] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:14] Tracy Hayes: Because it gets the buy-in from the seller, right?
Because you might have forgot to mention something that they think is important.

[00:13:19] Sharon Alters: Exactly.

[00:13:20] Tracy Hayes: And the fact that you mention it—or take the recommendation, “Hey, you didn’t mention this,”—

[00:13:25] Sharon Alters: Right.

[00:13:26] Tracy Hayes: —and you add it in there, it makes them feel really good that you’re pointing out something that they think is important about the house.

[00:13:33] Sharon Alters: Yeah. It’s a collaboration. Yeah. We’re a team. That’s—

[00:13:36] Tracy Hayes: That’s brilliant.
One thing we—was Lyman Starr, the founder of Delli, who’s creating the—

[00:13:41] Sharon Alters: Lyman.

[00:13:41] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. And he’s creating the, um...

[00:13:42] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:43] Tracy Hayes: ...AI home search.

[00:13:44] Sharon Alters: Right.

[00:13:44] Tracy Hayes: We were playing with it. And he actually uploaded a picture of someone’s backyard—like a, outdoor kitchen type area—

[00:13:50] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:51] Tracy Hayes: —and said, “Write a description,” you know, “for listing this home with this picture.”
And it scans the picture and writes the whole thing.
So the one thing...

[00:14:00] Tracy Hayes: ...I was suggesting—’cause I guess one of the jokes about agents putting stuff in the MLS is like they’ll have a pool home and forget to put “pool” in the description—

[00:14:08] Sharon Alters: Drives me crazy.
This is—they’ll have a waterfront house and forget to put “waterfront” or forget to put “navigable.”
I mean, it’s like that. Don’t get me...
So I report things to the MLS a lot.

[00:14:18] Tracy Hayes: But if you forgot to do that and you sent it over to your—

[00:14:21] Sharon Alters: Right.

[00:14:22] Tracy Hayes: ...seller, he would say, “Oh, there’s nothing that says anything about waterfront.”
“Oh my goodness, I forgot!”
So you would correct it and make them feel good before you even published it.

[00:14:29] Sharon Alters: I would.

[00:14:30] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:14:30] Sharon Alters: Because I’m not perfect, you know? And I mean, I think that the more eyes that lay on it, the better.

[00:14:36] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm. Yep.

[00:14:37] Sharon Alters: Because—

[00:14:37] Tracy Hayes: It’s their house.

[00:14:38] Sharon Alters: Ultimately.

[00:14:39] Tracy Hayes: So I just—that’s a great tip for those who are listening.
Would even have it scan the pictures, but you actually have it write a couple different ways.

[00:14:45] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:27] Sharon Alters: ...and that it has to write a great description, and that it—you give who’s the potential buyer for this type of home, right?
And obviously, you know, it’s gotten to know you, I’m sure, over time, and obviously reminded that I’m a high-level real estate agent and we need to write this very professionally.

[00:15:00] Sharon Alters: Yeah. It’s funny what it says about me, because sometimes it'll say that I'm something that I'm not.
So I have to watch what I say because now it’s started saying, “You have this, this...” because I do pay for my account.

[00:15:12] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yes.

[00:15:13] Sharon Alters: So I have them on the side, and I do research about all kinds of things.

[00:15:17] Tracy Hayes: I mean, no, you do have to catch it. Like when I do the captions for Instagram or YouTube, if...
It'll—at times it'll actually put a link in there saying, “This is a link to this agent’s Instagram,” for example.
And it’s not a real link. It’s not a real link, or it'll leave a space. So if you just cut and paste it...

[00:15:35] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:36] Tracy Hayes: ...and there’s no link in there. So I’m very conscious that like every time I put a new guest on, I make sure I tell it, “Here’s their links: Instagram and LinkedIn, da da da,” and so forth. You have to keep reminding it.

[00:15:48] Sharon Alters: You have to watch it. It is a computer, after all.

[00:15:50] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:15:51] Sharon Alters: But it’s super good at shortcutting.
Like I have a Remarkable Paper Pro, and I find it really hard to get questions answered...

[00:16:00] Sharon Alters: ...so I just went there and asked it a bunch of questions about it, and it helped me.
I didn’t have to watch a YouTube video.

[00:16:06] Tracy Hayes: I'm gonna—I'm gonna go. There's an AI class over here at Landmark tomorrow.
But one of the things I’ve also been using it for is like, when I came here to Planet, I was trying to get my email on my phone.

[00:16:16] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:17] Tracy Hayes: And my previous employer—you know, we went through and we tried to clear all that out.

[00:16:21] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:22] Tracy Hayes: But it would not connect. And after I easily spent 40 minutes, if not an hour—a couple calls with IT—trying to get it to connect and I couldn’t figure it out, I went on ChatGPT and I told it what was going on.
It gave, “Here’s three or four things it could be,” and in 15 minutes, I had my email up.

[00:16:41] Sharon Alters: Yep. It really does. And it—it’ll walk you through a lot of it. Saves you a lot of time.

[00:16:42] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. If you wanna call a friend and say, “Hey, tell me how to do this,” just go on ChatGPT.
It’ll be your friend. It’ll tell you how to do it.

[00:16:48] Sharon Alters: Yeah, yeah. No, it helped me troubleshoot a problem with my pen yesterday. I think I broke my pen, so...

[00:16:55] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:16:56] Sharon Alters: Yeah.

[00:16:56] Tracy Hayes: It'll do amazing things. So dig in there.
But I do agree with you on—the schools need to start implementing it. It’s here. It’s not going away.

[00:17:05] Sharon Alters: It’s not going away. No. Show the kids how...

[00:17:06] Tracy Hayes: ...to leverage it.

[00:17:07] Sharon Alters: Help them learn how to—not just try to cheat on it—but try to use it as a research tool.

[00:17:12] Tracy Hayes: Right?

[00:17:13] Sharon Alters: Yeah. Right. I’m not trusting it a hundred percent, because it’s not—'cause I’ve definitely also caught it with things that...

[00:17:18] Tracy Hayes: I think it will speed up the educational process that I think has gotten into a lull,
because they can quickly go in there and say, “Hey, give me an important person from World War II who they don’t talk about a lot, but has an interesting story.”
And then boom—it’s gonna tell you to look up this person.

[00:17:31] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:32] Tracy Hayes: And then you can cross-reference with Google and all those other things, and write a short essay about someone—
and no one’s ever even said anything about—but did something very important.

[00:17:43] Sharon Alters: Right.

[00:17:43] Tracy Hayes: So great.

[00:17:44] Sharon Alters: I'm having fun with it.

[00:17:45] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:17:46] Sharon Alters: I almost think they’re dumbing down Google and DuckDuckGo to drive ChatGPT.
Or else I’m spoiled now, and it’s so—because I have trouble getting the answers that I want.

[00:18:00] Sharon Alters: Yeah.
Because also, because everybody’s paying to get what they want—to get all of what they're advertising.
And so it makes it harder to find what you really want. So I just go over there.

[00:18:09] Tracy Hayes: Exactly. Well, every day it’s growing—the migration over to an AI platform.
Because people—like I said—people want answers. I want the answer. I don’t want, right now, all this ads and so forth.
Now, alright, so you’re in the film industry.

[00:18:20] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:21] Tracy Hayes: You’re doing well. You’re in there. What changes in your life that, you know—I guess you—what makes the break from film to real? To move away from that?

[00:18:29] Sharon Alters: Yeah, so I married my husband. He was actually an actor—that’s how I met him.
And we got married and we moved back to Jacksonville because his family was here.
He was married before and he had four kids.

[00:18:42] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:43] Sharon Alters: And we wanted to be closer to his children 'cause they were still growing up—and his family.
And so we moved back here, and I had a baby, and it was like—
there was no—first of all, well, William Cook Advertising Agency tried to hire me.

[00:18:59] Sharon Alters: They called me and said, “Will you work for us?”
But I really wanted to be home with my kids, so I just took those years off.
And then my husband took a job in Orlando and then he got back into real estate.
And I was working part-time at a market research company called About Orlando,
and I was recruiting attorneys, accountants, lawyers for focus groups.
And they were paying them a hundred dollars—which wasn’t a lot, even back then.

[00:19:22] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:22] Sharon Alters: And so the owner of the company—I was in her office one day and she was talking to me, and she—she caught herself, but she said—
She told me, she said, “You know, you’re—you’re almost better. You’re really good at recruiting these people.”

[00:19:37] Sharon Alters: And so I was like, wow, I’m really good at this.
And my husband didn’t like to make cold...

[00:19:43] Sharon Alters: ...I thought.

[00:19:44] Sharon Alters: ...can get my real estate license and make cold calls to him 'cause I don't care.
And so I recoup—

[00:19:48] Tracy Hayes: Recruit buyers and sellers.

[00:19:50] Sharon Alters: Exactly. Yeah. Recruit buyers and sellers for him, and then he could take care of 'em.

[00:19:54] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:19:55] Sharon Alters: I wasn’t interested in doing real estate.

[00:19:57] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:58] Sharon Alters: But I had also read the book Who Moved My Cheese.
And so I was realizing that, you know, I’m working here and I’m being paid—I said, I bet I can make more than $10.
So that’s how I got into real estate, assuring her I wouldn’t quit my job there.
But that didn’t last long. And then I discovered a passion that I didn’t even know was there—'cause I loved it.

[00:20:16] Tracy Hayes: Tell us why you love real estate.
We’re jumping ahead, but go ahead.

[00:20:21] Sharon Alters: Yeah. You know, we can jump ahead because I actually thought about that—
on the way over here—because of watching Sharon’s video.
It’s really the people that have crossed my path that I would never have met otherwise.
It’s just fascinating.
I also love the rush of the adrenaline of bringing something together and making something happen that looked like it might not—
but with your creative negotiating and whatever, you make it happen.

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

[00:20:47] Sharon Alters: And the people—I have a gift. I’ve been told I have a gift of getting people to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do,
which came in really handy in the film business,
when we almost got kicked out of a greenhouse while we were...

[00:21:00] Sharon Alters: ...filming these little old ladies quilting in Charlottesville, Virginia.
And the owner of the house—we didn’t know it was rented—called us and told us to get out right away.
And so I was able—when somebody is like that with me—I get humble real fast.

[00:21:15] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:15] Sharon Alters: And I put on my nicest, most polite voice—

[00:21:20] Tracy Hayes: Where a lot of people would be almost—

[00:21:21] Sharon Alters: Yeah. A lot of people would be combative.
“No, we’re here, the renter—” not me.
I’m like, “Oh my gosh, we had no idea this is your house. The guy told us—I mean, we thought it was his house.
Please, please, we’re just shooting one scene and we’ll be gone and we’ll leave it better than it was before.”
And so...

[00:21:40] Sharon Alters: ...yeah, he let us stay.
But real estate—so by the time I left, we moved from Orlando back here,
I had sold a house to everybody in the marketing department at Electronic Arts,
which was the studio that—I would never have met those people.

[00:21:58] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. If I hadn’t been in real estate.
Tell us—so your husband—how long had he been in the industry before you got in?

[00:22:06] Sharon Alters: He had actually started in the industry in the eighties.

[00:22:12] Tracy Hayes: So, while you were still in the...

[00:22:13] Sharon Alters: Atlanta?

[00:22:14] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, I was still...

[00:22:14] Sharon Alters: ...in before I ever met him, actually. It was maybe in the seventies.

[00:22:18] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:19] Sharon Alters: And then he moved to Atlanta. He became an actor, moved to Atlanta, and then moved back here and got back into real estate—

[00:22:24] Tracy Hayes: Okay.

[00:22:25] Sharon Alters: —in the nineties.
And I got my license in 2000.

[00:22:30] Tracy Hayes: When do you start making this break to go from just kind of being the—I don’t know if you want to call it admin, a phone caller, recruiting—to actually going out and shaking hands and showing houses?

[00:22:43] Sharon Alters: It was really about six or eight months that I made the plunge to do it.
And so, at the time, we had three children at home—

[00:22:52] Tracy Hayes: Right?

[00:22:52] Sharon Alters: Frank was in real estate. I’m going into real estate.
We have no salary. It was kind of scary, 'cause I’d always worked for a company...

[00:23:00] Sharon Alters: ...with a salary.
And so what I said to myself is, failure is not an option.
I mean, I was not gonna fail—no matter what. No matter what. I was gonna make it.

[00:23:09] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:10] Sharon Alters: And I did. Because I loved it. But it was slow at the beginning.

[00:23:13] Tracy Hayes: Well, you kept—there’s a swing there in the early 2000s.
So obviously we hit that peak, right? I think we kind of even just started to get into 2006 before it started... seething, started to—

[00:23:24] Sharon Alters: When I first got into it, it was still a slow market in 2000, 2001.
By the time we moved back here in 2003—I mean, 2004—we had trouble finding a house.

[00:23:33] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:23:34] Sharon Alters: 'Cause the market was heating up. And in 2005 and 2006, I was still going to Orlando two or three times a week.
I had $5 million in business down there. When we moved up here—because I was still transitioning.

[00:23:46] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:23:47] Sharon Alters: And I had such a—I had two corporate clients: Electronic Arts and CHU—that I did a lot of relocation business with. I did a ton of—

[00:23:59] Tracy Hayes: It sounds like you...

[00:24:00] Tracy Hayes: ...you know, you did reach into your sphere a little bit during this period of time. Like you said, 'cause you—well, yes—you, you know, the different people you just mentioned here in the last few minutes that you—
these are people you worked with in your film industry, and now you were reaching over to say, “Hey, I’m in real estate.”

[00:24:16] Sharon Alters: Actually, no. No. No.
Because the film industry was in Atlanta.

[00:24:20] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:24:21] Sharon Alters: And I was living in Orlando.
No, I just—I was a really hard worker and a self-starter, and I had an opportunity to do an area tour for relocation at Electronic Arts.
And I told—I don’t know where I get this. You can call it chutzpah or whatever—
But I told them that I was the best person in Watson to do an area tour for somebody with Electronic Arts because I’d been in the film business.

[00:24:49] Sharon Alters: And they bought it.
So I started working there, and I did so well in relocation that people would refer other people, and I actually got...

[00:25:00] Sharon Alters: ...in trouble—

[00:25:00] Sharon Alters: ...in trouble for having so much relocation business with other agents in the office who were jealous.
But it wasn’t relocation giving it to me—it was me actually giving it back to them because I was being referred. Transferring people.

[00:25:15] Tracy Hayes: So from your—from that initial experience and your, you know, failure-not-an-option mindset that you had—
you know, a new agent getting in, or maybe someone who’s been in the business right now two or three years.
And as we know, 70-something percent of the agents last year didn’t do any business.

[00:25:31] Sharon Alters: That was incredible.

[00:25:32] Tracy Hayes: Um, so we know, you know, we know there’s a good group out there that only did a handful of business.
They're—

[00:25:35] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:36] Tracy Hayes: —they're struggling.
Did having that mindset and then putting that mindset to the road—in other words, what are some of the things that you did, maybe even coming out of your comfort zone a little bit—
Because—

[00:25:47] Sharon Alters: For sure.

[00:25:48] Tracy Hayes: —you were hungry. Failure was not an option. You were gonna make this up. What are some of the things that you did?

[00:25:53] Sharon Alters: So—I showed up every day.
Went to the office every day.
I think new agents, if they’re not going to...

[00:26:00] Sharon Alters: ...the office, it’s not good.
Because you need the energy of people around you. You need to hear the conversations of experienced agents—of deals they’re talking about.
I mean, you can osmot a lot just by talking to an agent.

[00:26:13] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:26:13] Sharon Alters: Also, doing open houses—I mean, that’s huge.
You need to be doing open houses.

[00:26:18] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:26:18] Sharon Alters: You need to let people know that you’re in real estate.

[00:26:21] Tracy Hayes: No, a hundred percent. I agree with that.
I mean, having—in 2005, I was in Michigan and actually started at Quicken Loans, which is now Rocket.
They were all call centers, a refi shop.

[00:26:32] Sharon Alters: Right.

[00:26:33] Tracy Hayes: And there is a big difference when you’re sitting in those cubes and you’re hearing about the deals going on, how you’re gonna save a deal, or overcoming an objection and all those kinds of things that go on.
And especially—so many agents, they get in, they really don’t know anything about real estate.
They get their license so they know, you know, I guess when to renew—
And some of the other crazy things they ask you on the test.
But when it comes down to the functionality of being a real estate agent and how to handle people...

[00:27:00] Tracy Hayes: ...and—I mean, obviously you’ve been in the business a while, but I’m sure new things still come up, 'cause every transaction’s so different.

[00:27:06] Sharon Alters: Oh, for sure.
I mean, part of—
I mean, we wear a counselor hat.

[00:27:10] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:11] Sharon Alters: You know, that’s one of the many—I mean, there are so many aspects to what a real estate agent does.
And to your point—I bring my producer background into real estate,
because every real estate transaction is a mini production.
So you have all these different components that you have to deal with.

[00:27:27] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Well, actually that tails into it, 'cause we were—we were talking a little bit...

[00:27:28] Tracy Hayes: Pre-show—I always like to get, you know, how that previous career and that mindset of how you were doing business...
How did film production and your routines that, you know, we all create in our life to try to make things easy—create these routines—translate into real estate?

[00:27:48] Sharon Alters: Well, just show—

[00:27:49] Tracy Hayes: Show. Tell us a little about that.

[00:27:50] Sharon Alters: Yeah. Well, being in—I was incredibly organized.
I mean, I have an incredible attention to detail.
And because I was...

[00:28:00] Sharon Alters: ...working at such a high level creatively, I also have a very high level of detail to photography, to what’s in the house.
I mean, I have a stager that I work with—we work very closely together—and practically every listing that I do is staged, in some degree or another.
Because of my background, I know how important the very first showing online is.
So that comes from my production background—of knowing what the camera sees and knowing that you have to have a beautiful photograph.

Somebody told me once that, “You know, photography will not sell real estate.”
Well—maybe not. But it’ll get people in the door that maybe otherwise wouldn’t get in the door.
So does it assist? Certainly.

[00:28:44] Tracy Hayes: Well, there’s a stat out there—and the builders know—that their model, people have looked at it a handful of times before they ever actually entered.

[00:28:51] Sharon Alters: That’s right.

[00:28:52] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:28:53] Sharon Alters: Exactly.

[00:28:53] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Well, it kind of—when you first said that—it made me think: everyone thinks real estate’s gonna go to online and AI, right?
The real estate agent gets out of the equation. Well, if that’s true, then a lot of things are gonna be—90% of the deals are gonna be done by pictures.
Because they can’t go and live in the house before they actually buy it.

[00:29:08] Sharon Alters: No.

[00:29:09] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah.
So just—it’s contradictory.

[00:29:13] Sharon Alters: It’s very, very contradictory.
And, you know, as to us going away—
A real estate transaction is incredibly emotional for the buyer and the seller.
It’s one of the top most emotional things that people do.
And because people don’t do it every two weeks, or every year—

[00:29:31] Sharon Alters: —or even every five years or ten years, some people—
It’s important to have someone guiding you through that.

[00:29:44] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
I think—you know, we were just talking about Lyman and the AI home search—
the last mile of the transaction has to be carried on by humans.
It’s the only way, whether it’s the title work and the closing and explaining—it’s still a human signing the document and so forth.

[00:30:00] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.
And the real estate agent still needs to—you know, every, as you know, every negotiation is different.
Because every house is different. Every address is different.
It might be the same model house—'cause we have a lot of those subdivisions—but the address, the view, everything, and who took care of it before or didn’t take care of it—I mean, it’s just...

[00:30:20] Sharon Alters: Yeah.

[00:30:21] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Uh, you need that human touch.

[00:30:24] Sharon Alters: You do.

[00:30:24] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:30:25] Sharon Alters: You really do.
I mean, and there are things that we know—there are pro tips that we know—that people don’t know.
There are things—I love new construction also, I’ve done a lot of that.
And there are things that I know, that like, if somebody’s building a house—I mean, they do it now, but they didn’t used to do it—you know, like you want to put outlets to do Christmas lights.
Little, little tiny things like that.

[00:30:47] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:30:48] Sharon Alters: I want—when upgrades—I ask, is it the level of upgrades that the other homes are doing in the neighborhood, so that they don’t over-upgrade or under-upgrade?
And I’ve had...

[00:31:00] Sharon Alters: ...people over-upgrade.
And I’m like, “You know that you’re over-upgrading. You’re the white—

[00:31:04] Tracy Hayes: Elephant now, and you’re not—

[00:31:06] Sharon Alters: —gonna get your money back.”

[00:31:08] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:31:08] Sharon Alters: Especially not in five years.

[00:31:10] Tracy Hayes: Well, since we’re on new construction—and we have so much, obviously, here in Northeast Florida—

[00:31:13] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:14] Tracy Hayes: —and will continue, especially on the other side of the river, as the expressway...

[00:31:17] Sharon Alters: Oh yeah.

[00:31:18] Tracy Hayes: ...goes across there, it’s just gonna... just mushroom.
What are some of the things that you do that’s maybe unique—because of your experience—
you know, seeing the last, you know, 20–25 years in Northeast Florida, the quality of construction today versus 10–20 years ago, what people are getting...
What are some of the things that you do or you kind of help guide or insist that your buyer does?

[00:31:45] Sharon Alters: So—gosh, that’s a loaded question.
I haven’t done much relocation lately, to be very honest with you.
But I definitely guide the buyer through...

[00:32:00] Sharon Alters: ...questions like the specific lot that they’re buying.
And I help them think about resale,
because most people are not buying their forever home.
And if I have one more person tell me one more time, “This is my forever home...”
'Cause I just sold two forever homes this year.
I’m like, I’m not buying it, you know?

But especially if it’s a first-time homebuyer, they’re not thinking about that.
And I guide them to do the structural options that they need to do now and maybe not do some of the other upgrades.
I tell the story, for example—well, I’m gonna tell you a story.

[00:32:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Okay.

[00:32:36] Sharon Alters: Of the president of Morrison Homes in Orlando—bought a house in a beautiful gated [community].
She had vinyl floors and carpet put in, and Formica countertops.
And the day she closed, all that was pulled out.
And she put in hardwood floors and granite and upgraded the house.
But she didn’t do it...

[00:33:00] Sharon Alters: ...with the builder, because the builders make most of their money on their upgrades.
And so I let my buyers know that.
And also, if they have the money, then they should put in the lower level and then upgrade it themselves later,
which some people do when they're move-up buyers—not first-time buyers.

[00:33:20] Tracy Hayes: Do you occasionally do a kind of cost analysis on that though?
I mean, because obviously, you know, putting in hardwood—I mean, some of this is labor-intensive if you’re doing something like that, or it—

[00:33:29] Sharon Alters: It really depends on somebody—yes.
Yeah, of course we do cost analysis, and it depends on someone’s tolerance.

[00:33:34] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:35] Sharon Alters: Because some people would rather put it in the mortgage.
And if they want to put it in the mortgage, that’s fine.

[00:33:39] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:33:39] Sharon Alters: But I had a lady last year who was a first-time homebuyer and built a house.
And I talked to her and she chose to do cabinets—which, cabinets are hard to do—structural options.
She chose to elongate her porch—structural option.
And she gave up putting in the fancy quartz countertops...

[00:34:00] Sharon Alters: ...which I said, “You can do that later.”

[00:34:01] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:34:02] Sharon Alters: That’s exactly—

[00:34:03] Tracy Hayes: What’s your attitude toward having an inspector during the new construction process?

[00:34:08] Sharon Alters: Always.

[00:34:08] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:34:09] Sharon Alters: Always.
In fact, I recommend that they do a slab inspection.
I recommend that they do all the inspections. Not everybody does: slab, pre-drywall, and then punch list.

[00:34:20] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
The horror stories—and just to save a few dollars.

[00:34:23] Sharon Alters: I know.

[00:34:24] Tracy Hayes: And if you talk to some of the inspectors—you know, everyone goes, “Well, I got a warranty.”
Well, yeah—if you find the problem within the first 12 months.
It could be something that doesn’t show up for two years later and there’s a pipe broken or whatever.
I’ve, you know, heard some really...

[00:34:39] Sharon Alters: So builders—site agents—often will tell the buyer,
“Well, you can get an inspection at 11 months, right before your warranty is up.
You know, and you can do that then, and we’ll fix everything.”
And I’m like, you know, you have more leverage now.

[00:34:56] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:34:56] Sharon Alters: Because once you’re at 11 months, you’ve already bought the house.

[00:34:59] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Yeah. And I don’t think people actually calculate the...

[00:35:00] Tracy Hayes: ...inconvenience.
If it’s something large that comes in—like, “Oh, hey, there’s a leak and there’s mold.”
Oh—now I gotta move out of the house, right?
I’m out of the house for—who knows? Hopefully it’s only a couple weeks. It could be—you just don’t know.
I think people discount the logistical nightmare that it becomes, because you’re actually in the house at that time too.
They just discount that out.

Alright.
You’ve worked with, you know—like I said pre-show—some of the iconic brokerages here in town, and now you’re with ONE Sotheby’s.

[00:35:31] Tracy Hayes: For agents out there—again, new agents, maybe someone’s struggling, hasn’t met their...

[00:35:31] Tracy Hayes: ...because I—I do believe a broker, a good broker—or good people in the office—it doesn’t necessarily have to be the brokers,
but good leadership. And that could be just a top-producing agent that gives back in the office.

[00:35:44] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:45] Tracy Hayes: How important is it to surround yourself or find that “tribe,” as some people like to say, in the brokerage...

[00:36:00] Tracy Hayes: ...where they’re always adding value and helping—looking after—trying to make you a better person or better real estate agent?

[00:36:07] Sharon Alters: Absolutely.
And both Watson and Coldwell Banker do that, and Sotheby’s does as well.
But I think—there are a lot of small brokerages, and I’m not as familiar with them.
And I’m sure that some of them do offer training, but I mean—let’s face it, it costs money.

[00:36:19] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:20] Sharon Alters: And resources.
So I aligned myself—Watson had excellent training, and that’s where I started in real estate in Orlando.
And then we moved back up here, and then I had an opportunity with Coldwell Banker, and they had an entire marketing department.
And that was just like—for me, with my production background—I was like, oh my gosh.

[00:36:47] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:36:48] Sharon Alters: So I think that newer agents really need to look at their broker and what kind of a culture are they going to offer them.
Because a lot of people say, “We have training,” and they say, “We do this,”...

[00:37:00] Sharon Alters: ...but they don’t really have the support.
Really, you know?

[00:37:05] Tracy Hayes: Right. Right. Yeah.
It’s one—I think, yeah, there could be this gadget—you guys are throwing stuff all the time, right?
“Oh hey, yeah, we just got this new stuff.”
But how’s it actually—

[00:37:16] Sharon Alters: If you don’t implement it and have support in learning how to use the new gadget, then people don’t use it.

[00:37:24] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:37:24] Sharon Alters: And it doesn’t do any good.

[00:37:25] Tracy Hayes: I think CRMs are one of the biggest—one of the challenges I think in the mortgage business.
I’ve told different...
You have all this technology—

[00:37:34] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:35] Tracy Hayes: But if you don’t have someone who’s actually daily implementing...
Because as salespeople—a real estate agent, mortgage loan—we’re soldiers.
We’re out there.
We’re primarily—we are doing a lot of marketing, but you need that person who’s kind of in that—who likes to sit in the cube...

[00:37:52] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:53] Tracy Hayes: ...and who can, you know, fire off these things, create these nice emails.
And obviously, you know, this leads to my next question...

[00:38:00] Tracy Hayes: ...you saw a need and went to Coldwell Banker—or saw value and went to Coldwell Banker roughly 15 years ago.
But 15 years later, now you’re at Sotheby’s, 'cause things have changed.

[00:38:10] Tracy Hayes: Right?
You know, tell us what was—you said, I think you said marketing was one of the things—you went to Coldwell Banker, 2010-ish.
What was marketing like then, and then obviously today it’s probably—you’re, what you’re doing is totally different.

[00:38:23] Sharon Alters: Oh, yes.
We’re doing a lot more videos today and aerials.
And one of the things about Sotheby’s—I don’t know—Sotheby’s is just very elevated and sophisticated.
They do sell all-level properties. It’s not like, “Oh, well we won’t take your house.”
For me, and where I was in my career, it really appealed to me.

[00:38:54] Sharon Alters: Plus the girl that recruited me was in the film business.
And as I told you, I wasn’t looking to change brokers.

[00:38:59] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:39:00] Sharon Alters: And she called me, and we got to talking about the film business. And I was like, “You know, I’ll just have lunch with her—talk about the film business.”
But then she started telling me things, and she showed me this relocation book that just like blew me away.
And that was one of the things that we didn’t have anymore—was a relocation book.

[00:39:16] Tracy Hayes: Right.
Well, agents are—you know—they move brokerages.
Some—I’ve seen—do it a couple times, three times in a year.
They’re looking for something.
You spent time at Watson and Coldwell Banker. You spent a significant amount of time.

[00:39:31] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:32] Tracy Hayes: If they don’t think they’re getting value at the current brokerage they’re at right now,
what cautions would you put forth to them before just making a hasty move to something that may just be another place where they’re not gonna find the value?
What are some of the questions—some of the investigation—they should do to really find, hopefully, the next one is one they’re gonna spend some time at?

[00:39:54] Sharon Alters: Well, I think you need to definitely interview with your broker manager—
the person who’s going to have your...

[00:40:00] Sharon Alters: ...back. The person you’re going to have to go to to get approval.
And find out what their availability is.

[00:40:04] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:05] Sharon Alters: Are they available?
Or are you going to be calling them and leaving voicemails, and they’re not going to get back to you for a few hours—or late that night or the next morning?

[00:40:13] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:40:14] Sharon Alters: I also think the culture of the office—going to sales meetings or just if you can—
It’s kind of hard, you know, when you change brokerages...
You can’t just go tell everybody, “I’m thinking about changing a brokerage.”
Or even when you do it, you don’t talk about it either.

[00:40:27] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:40:28] Sharon Alters: You just kind of leave.
And then people are like, “I haven’t seen so-and-so for a while.”

[00:40:32] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:40:33] Sharon Alters: So—

[00:40:34] Tracy Hayes: Or they’re calling you going, “Oh, we didn’t know you, you know, had this issue.”

[00:40:37] Sharon Alters: Right. Exactly.
But the other thing is, when you change brokerages—every time you change—you’re the new kid on the block.

[00:40:43] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:40:44] Sharon Alters: So if you keep doing that, and then you get a reputation for being somebody that doesn’t stay around long—
So is anybody really going to invest in you and want—

[00:40:58] Tracy Hayes: That’s an interesting...

[00:41:00] Tracy Hayes: ...concept there.
Now—

[00:41:00] Tracy Hayes: ...a lot of agents in the area—Real is one of our, mm-hmm, cloud—if you want to call them that.
[00:41:08] Sharon Alters: Yep.
[00:41:08] Tracy Hayes: Is fairly hot right now. They—
[00:41:08] Sharon Alters: Are.
[00:41:08] Tracy Hayes: But what I am seeing is a lot of newer agents going over there,
and that's kind of my caution to the wind, 'cause that’s concerning to me.

[00:41:16] Sharon Alters: Yeah, because they don’t have brick and mortar.
And so where is their culture?
Like, where is the place they can go to anchor themselves and to talk to a seasoned agent?
I have agents that—I mean, we collaborate all the time, you know—like text each other, just kind of questions and sounding boards
because real estate—I mean, you get into some complex situations in negotiating and with people and,
you know, “How do I handle this situation?”

[00:41:47] Tracy Hayes: The importance—because you just mentioned brick and mortar, where we—you gestured to it earlier—
the importance of going to the office, going to the sales meetings.
'Cause I think, you know, you're on that side of the industry.
There is a lot of collaboration. There can be sharing tips and things.
But sometimes when things change in the industry and you’ve got the latest thing—
If you're in a cloud-based brokerage and your other people are like,
“Oh, I don't want to tell anybody just yet. They'll figure it out, and then we’ll talk about it when they do,”
you may be missing—because you don't have that broker who’s out in front, making sure you have the information at the time it actually gets out there—
and at lightning speed, you know?
Kind of like 24/7 news.
I mean, are you getting the information that you should need?

And especially right now, as I think our market is—
It’s really changing, evolving every day.
Okay, the houses are sitting on the market longer. What do we do?
Oh, it’s this price point. What do we do?
These are things I imagine you're talking about in those sales meetings.

[00:42:49] Sharon Alters: Absolutely, yeah.
And well, one big, big thing that happened last year was all the forms that changed, right?
With all the lawsuits—all the buyer broker agreements, the showing agreements, the pre-touring agreements.
We went to the FAR-BAR contract.
So we changed that, and that has like 24 addenda.
I mean, it’s like—
And what do these people do?

Well, I’ll tell you what they do:
When people like me get on the other side of people like them, we coach them and help them through the transaction.
Yeah.
And even to the point of saying, “Did you really mean to, you know, check that box? Because actually, you’re not gonna be paid a commission if you do that.”

[00:43:28] Tracy Hayes: Right, exactly.
And well, I was going over it at the time—’cause I did some podcasts on that,
with some people to give some insight—and I went and sat at some of these kind of open mastermind sessions.
And so you had a potpourri of different people in there, right?
Coming from different brokerages.

[00:43:45] Tracy Hayes: And when you said that, it made me think of a couple people who weren’t sort of connected.
They weren’t at a Watson or a Coldwell Banker, where you know you’re having that sales meeting, you have someone like Kim—

[00:43:45] Tracy Hayes: ...Kim Knapp.
[00:43:46] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:46] Tracy Hayes: You know, making sure everybody knows what they need to know.
[00:44:00] Sharon Alters: Oh yeah.
[00:44:01] Tracy Hayes: And the statements that are made because they’re hearing something—where did they get that information?
I think if you weren’t listening to Florida Realtors and their videos—more factual, like, “This is how it is”—
and then going to your broker and saying, “Well, how does that actually meet the road?”
You know, you could have—
which, well, we know people were lost for—and still lost.

[00:44:29] Sharon Alters: Oh, they’re still lost. Yeah.
And they’re going to be, because they don’t have anybody that they can go talk to—
that they can actually walk in their office and show them a document and say, “You know, what’s up with this?”
Now, when you get to where I am, it’s not as important.
Like, I don’t go in the office very often.
I never did before either, but I don’t need to.
But I have my network of people that I can pick up the phone and I can text and I can collaborate that way.

[00:44:52] Tracy Hayes: Right.
So—but back in your early part—you had years of experience before you started getting further, further away,
and obviously technology’s changed to where you can communicate or Zoom calls or something.

[00:45:00] Sharon Alters: Right. And Zoom meetings—yeah—become more important.

[00:45:04] Tracy Hayes: Let’s dig a little bit into your mindset of being a real estate agent on a daily basis.
What are some of the things that you have created?
Are you a time blocker?
How do you structure your business and run it like a business?

[00:45:20] Sharon Alters: So I mentioned Ninja.
I went to the Ninja Installation in 2020.
Coldwell Banker brought them to us.
And I fell in love with that way of doing business—
so much so that I’m actually coaching now.
And so much so that I’ve been to the Ninja Installation six times.
And the seventh time—God willing—I’ll go next year again.

And now we have a group of us that goes to Colorado, to Larry Kendall, Fort Collins.
And so I model my business after that.
And that is a morning routine where you:

• have gratitudes,
• affirmations,
• you write notes to people,
• you make sure you have a number of people that you talk to,
• you keep in touch with all your people.

It’s a system to build relationships with your people.
And that’s how I run my business.
And yes, I do time block my business.
I work on my business in the morning.

[00:46:00] Sharon Alters: This is an exception that I’m here, okay?
Because normally—unless I have to, I mean, if I have a closing or an inspection, you know?
But I try to do that—
and then work in my business in the afternoon.

[00:46:35] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:46:36] Tracy Hayes: Some people would say, you know—well, there’s actually a couple questions there.
Can you reach out to someone too often?
How do you, you know, when you're touching—like you say you're touching your people, your sphere—
What is a routine?
Do you chart like, “Hey, I spoke to so-and-so”?
You do? So you don’t, like, call 'em again next Monday like,
“Hey, we just talked last week. Oh, great. You have a great weekend. Yeah. Okay. Oh. Okay. Oh.”

[00:47:00] Sharon Alters: That's a great question.
Yeah, I do. I have a database, and I take notes in my database, and I keep track of my people.
And I love what Sharon said, and I really took that to heart, and I’m gonna think about that—about some people—because
one of the things that I've learned about in real estate—and I think everybody should know—is personality profiles.
The DISC profile.
You’ve got your power people, you’ve got your fun party people, you’ve got your accountant-type people, and your very peaceful people.

[00:47:36] Sharon Alters: And with a high-driving D personality, they don’t want to talk to you every—whatever.
In fact, they don’t want to talk to you at all until...

[00:47:36] Tracy Hayes: They’re ready to do something.

[00:47:37] Sharon Alters: ...until they’re ready to do something with you.
Yeah.
So with those people, I’m gonna rethink that, and I’m gonna talk to my coach about that.
Because yes—my top, like, hundred people—I need to keep in touch with them way more often and see them and have lunch and dinner with them and just keep in touch with them.

[00:47:54] Tracy Hayes: What are some of the things that you do?
Because I imagine with your time and experience, you have some people who are truly a billboard for you.
They are definitely driving business or giving you whatever amount of referrals a year, or just over time have been your cheerleader—sharing you with others and obviously referrals.
What are some special things that you do with them to, you know, recognize?

[00:48:20] Sharon Alters: Mostly it’s social, because I’m very social.
I love—I’m a foodie—so I love taking them to really good restaurants.
I introduced some buyers and sellers too to CENA.
It’s a restaurant in Murray Hill.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it—

[00:48:46] Tracy Hayes: No.

[00:48:46] Sharon Alters: But it’s incredible.

[00:48:47] Tracy Hayes: That’s right—that’s the thing.
I haven’t heard of it, but it’s amazing.
It doesn’t even have a sign. It’s one of those things—

[00:48:51] Sharon Alters: I think you—I was gonna ask you that.
Is this the—you like—have to make a reservation?
There’s no sign up, but it’s the greatest Italian food.

[00:48:58] Sharon Alters: Oh my gosh. It’s amazing.
And the owner makes everything, and he’s—

[00:48:56] Tracy Hayes: What’s the name of it?

[00:48:59] Sharon Alters: L-A-C-E-N—La Cena.
And it’s on Edgewood Avenue.

[00:49:04] Tracy Hayes: And you have to call and make a reservation only?

[00:49:06] Sharon Alters: You have to make a reservation only.
And if you make a reservation and you don’t go, he’s gonna block you.
He told me that—like—you’re never gonna get in again.
I mean, he takes it very seriously.
I asked him about the sign one time and he said,
“Oh yeah, we had a sign and it blew away in a storm.”
And I’m like, “That’s because you don’t need a sign.”

[00:49:26] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, I’ve heard about that place before.
Yeah—I’ve gotta go there.

[00:49:31] Sharon Alters: Oh, you need to go there.
And I think it’s actually important for probably anyone listening—

[00:49:36] Tracy Hayes: Probably—what is he doing that is—
Because, you know, there’s a lot of good food, and I’m sure his food is above and beyond, but it's gonna be something else he’s doing in there.

[00:49:47] Sharon Alters: He’s very personal with the people. It’s not a big restaurant.

[00:49:50] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:49:51] Sharon Alters: And they just serve beer and wine. They don’t serve alcohol.
But he hand-makes many of the noodles.
I mean, the dishes are dishes that you won’t see on any other Italian menu.
So, I mean, it is his personal touch and the way that he exceptionally cares about his product.

[00:50:12] Tracy Hayes: Taking that…
Because I can only assume your success—and then having talked to so many successful real estate agents—
There’s a little bit of that.
Now, you're not making your people noodles and stuff like that,
but when it comes down to it—and you listened to Sharon the other day, Sharon Mills—talk about,
you know, really how she just builds that relationship with them, gets great confidence.
You know, one of the things we were talking about was sometimes she’s come back and said something to customers, even the other agent’s client,
and at just the right time because she’s earned that respect, she’s earned that confidence and so forth.

[00:50:58] Tracy Hayes: But tell us a little bit what you found and what you've put into your business to really, I guess, kind of create that relationship with a client.
Because the more experience, the more confidence you have,
you know, in theory, in your ability—what you can say and ask and start to…
I don’t want to say “control,” that’s not really the right word for the client—but really guide them better.

[00:51:15] Sharon Alters: So, it’s important to be honest with people.
And if they ask you a question and you don’t know the answer, you need to let them know you don’t know the answer, but you’ll get it for them.

[00:51:25] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:26] Sharon Alters: And it’s also important to stay one step ahead of people.
If you can anticipate what they’re going to be asking or needing—like, when I go out with buyers and they see a house for sale and they’re like,
“Oh, look at that one,” or “What’s sold in the neighborhood?”—
I already have all of that for all the neighborhoods that we go to.

With sellers, you know, I just don’t know when to quit.
That’s kind of Tom’s saying—I have a heart the size of Texas.
I just overdo everything. Like, I just don’t know—I just want to keep going and going and going and going.
And I just think I do things other people don’t do.

I have a seller right now—a listing that’s under contract—and the seller told me—’cause I helped them buy the house—
He said, “You know, I’ve bought a number of houses over my lifetime,” and he went on to tell me about them.
And he said, “You’re the first real estate agent I’ve used twice.”

And I was like, “Wow.”
And he’s like, “No—you earned it.”
Because of the attention to detail that I gave—because it was a very difficult transaction when they bought their house.
And I really—I always go to bat for everybody.
I mean, it’s just who I am.
It’s how I’m wired.
It’s how I’m made.
I don’t know how to do it any other way.

[00:52:59] Sharon Alters: …tell me that he thinks I do my business like a ministry,
because, you know, if I make a mistake, I pay for it.
I don't ask them to pay for it. I pay for it.
It costs me money out of my pocket, but my reputation is priceless.

[00:53:02] Tracy Hayes: Right. Right.
When you talk about the attention to detail—
going the extra mile, as I’d call it—giving ’em 110%.
For someone who hasn’t had enough transactions—
now, I’ve had some agents on that have said they actually try to find something that they can demonstrate that they’re going the extra mile.
They just try to find something, whether when they’re listing the house, just to do something that is above and beyond that
they know the average agent’s not going to do.

Give us a couple things that—like, probably a thousand—you have 500 transactions to choose from,
but just some of the things that you’ve done that you feel is that extra mile and has obviously wowed the customer.

[00:53:46] Sharon Alters: A buyer packet for buyers before you go out.
I have a buyer consultation with buyers before I go out with them,
and I talk to them about what they want.
And if it’s a couple, I have each one write down things they want in the house and then star like their top three and what are their deal breakers.
And we know about that before we go out and look.

And I talk about—I used to talk about the 80/20 Pareto Principle—
that you can generally find 80% of what you want in a house.
And then Ninja talks about 85%, so we talk about that before we go out.

[00:54:30] Sharon Alters: And I think that is one thing that sets me apart—setting expectations.
Because when people understand we’re not gonna find 100%.
And Bobby Jean said not even when you build a house—and that’s true.
You never get 100%, even with an unlimited budget.
There’s always something that you’ll have to do in your next house.

[00:54:46] Tracy Hayes: Well, do you think that helps resolve future possible conflicts that they’re gonna have?

[00:54:52] Sharon Alters: Yes.
[00:54:53] Tracy Hayes: Even within themselves?

[00:54:54] Sharon Alters: Correct. Yes, because then they know upfront.
Like I have some buyers I’m working with now, and I did a buyer consultation with them a couple of years ago,
and they decided not to buy.
And now they’re buying—it’s their first home.
And I showed them houses—I went ahead and started—and then I realized, wait a minute,
we need to have a timeout.
And so I have an appointment with them Saturday to refresh their consultation.

[00:55:20] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:55:21] Sharon Alters: They’re not on the same page.

[00:55:23] Tracy Hayes: And for agents out there—'cause this happens a lot—
you know, especially if the husband and wife are, you know, it’s like,
the husband will say, “Oh, my wife’s gonna make all the decisions”…
until he does.
You know?
Until all of a sudden the decision needs to be made and all of a sudden he intercedes and—

[00:55:40] Sharon Alters: Yes.
[00:55:41] Tracy Hayes: And then throws a whirlwind in it.
[00:55:42] Sharon Alters: Exactly.

[00:55:43] Tracy Hayes: But because you could waste a lot of time if not—
even lose a buyer.
Right now, everyone has a lot of listings. They go, “Send me a buyer, send me a buyer,” right?
You could lose them because they can analysis paralysis themselves into not doing anything.

[00:55:57] Sharon Alters: They can.

[00:55:58] Tracy Hayes: And obviously if you—they’re not on the same page—to get them on the same page so you can do what you do, right?
Which is guide them and show them, you know, what the best homes out there are for what they want.

[00:56:11] Sharon Alters: Right?

[00:56:11] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:56:11] Sharon Alters: Yeah, because sometimes the home is not—and I’m honest with people, you know?
And sometimes people don’t buy a house because I’m not gonna be… I mean, I’m gonna be completely honest and transparent with—

[00:56:23] Tracy Hayes: I was—

[00:56:24] Sharon Alters: I don’t count my money before I have it.
I don’t even think about it.
I think about helping people.

[00:56:30] Tracy Hayes: Well, it’s an ism at Rocket,
'cause Dan Gilbert was big on isms.
I can’t quote it perfectly, but basically it’s:
Do the right thing and the money will follow.

[00:56:39] Sharon Alters: Exactly.

[00:56:40] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Going the extra mile. And then obviously,
because I think—and I say this a lot on the show—I think a lot of agents,
you know, probably, of the—probably those 70% out there that didn’t do a deal last year—are only because they’re running their business only looking 30, 60, 90 days in advance.

[00:57:00] Tracy Hayes: They don’t realize that that person in front of you is the best marketing
after you—they close with you—and they have that great transaction. That’s the best marketing you could have.

[00:57:08] Sharon Alters: That’s right.

[00:57:08] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:57:09] Sharon Alters: Yeah. They’re living paycheck to paycheck.

[00:57:11] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:57:11] Sharon Alters: And they’re counting their dollars.
That’s why a lot of people get their license. They’re like, “Wow, you made $10,000.”
“Wow, you made this.”
Well, yeah. But they don’t think about all—they’re just thinking about a paycheck.
They’re not thinking about everything that goes into it.

[00:57:25] Tracy Hayes: To be honest—drive around, show a house, spend a few hours doing that and get a—

[00:57:29] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:29] Tracy Hayes: —a check.
I always like to talk about grit. You might’ve picked it up in a couple of my episodes 'cause you listened to it.

[00:57:34] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:35] Tracy Hayes: Angela Duckworth—I throw her name out there all the time. But it’s a great book for people to read.

[00:57:38] Sharon Alters: Yeah.

[00:57:38] Tracy Hayes: I’m gonna have to listen to that.

[00:57:58] Tracy Hayes: ...taking my knowledge here—obviously from the podcast—doing a book, and obviously, you know, you go and you speak, and I really wanted the underlying meaning.
'Cause all the agents that I’ve met—there’s a huge level of grit.
You had a huge level of grit when you said, you know—

[00:57:59] Sharon Alters: [00:58:00] Failure’s not an—

[00:58:00] Tracy Hayes: —option.
Failure’s not an option. That’s a huge level of grit to say it at the beginning, you know, to set that standard:
“I am not going to—I’m not failing at this.”
And you were gonna do whatever it took to win that. That’s a level of grit right there.
And Angela talks about, you know, all the different things, but the one thing we don’t know is really how to—and she admits—there’s no real way to measure it.
She has statistics that say, well yeah, these people that showed really good grit, they did have this, or they did this in school, they belonged to this, or whatever.

You know, some things, some correlations—but there’s no definition of how to be a “grit-ful” person, I guess you say that.
But I break it down—when I was trying to do the Talk LLC—we talked a little bit earlier about why you love real estate.
I think you have to have a level of humor. I call it laughter. So that’s the second L in my LLC.
Because you are—comes up with challenges. You get into business and all of a sudden you’re starting to get going, and all of a sudden 2007, 8, 9 come around.
You have to almost reinvent yourself.

[00:59:00] Tracy Hayes: Reinvent.

[00:59:01] Sharon Alters: I did.

[00:59:01] Tracy Hayes: How do you do short sales and stuff? Nobody knew how to do them and—

[00:59:04] Sharon Alters: I did them and nobody wanted to.

[00:59:06] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:59:06] Sharon Alters: So I was like, bring 'em on.

[00:59:08] Tracy Hayes: Well, that’s why you’re still here.

[00:59:10] Sharon Alters: That’s exactly why I’m still here.

[00:59:12] Tracy Hayes: And blogging.

[00:59:13] Sharon Alters: Yes.

[00:59:14] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Tell us a time that maybe you—you probably share at cocktail parties now—
Just some transaction that really just hit you sideways, maybe punched you in the gut.
Maybe you even challenged yourself—"Why am I even in real estate?"
Or maybe even a point—you know, the laughter part—is probably even a point of almost firing a client.
Because you obviously rectified the deal, saved it, but you laugh about it now when something like that comes up.

[00:59:43] Sharon Alters: So early on in real estate, I had a guy—this is when I lived in Orlando and I was doing a lot of relocation—and he was coming in with a company,
and he was incredibly demanding. I mean, he had OCD [01:00:00] badly.
But a nice guy. But just...

So I wrote five contracts for him.

[01:00:05] Tracy Hayes: Do you get the Jekyll and Hyde conversation?
Like one time he talks to you and he’s really nice and the next time he’s like—

[01:00:10] Sharon Alters: He was always—he was always on.
So anyway, I wrote five contracts for him, which—I’m very—because I worked for attorneys and I understand contracts,
and I very much protected myself and said, “You’re gonna have to have a binder for each one of these contracts. This one binder doesn’t—”
And something that I did that set me apart from the very beginning is—

[01:00:30] Sharon Alters: The contract that we were using at the time—which was the FAR/BAR—it had an addendum section, but it wasn’t in...

[01:00:46] Sharon Alters: —discretion, all that—and get their deposit back.

[01:00:47] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:48] Sharon Alters: And he picked this house
and
there was one termite tunnel like in the garage—gonna buy that house—and he
didn’t buy that [01:01:00] house.
And he got his deposit back because I had that in there.

Whereas 99% of agents at that time—in fact, my broker didn’t teach me—I just picked up on it and started doing it.
And so I still think about that. I still think about that attention, those little things that
I put in. And just like now—we’ve changed our contract—and we had a new way to request repairs,
but it didn’t have the language of the old repair. It was just kind of blank. And so it didn’t say,
“Well, you have to have it done by a properly licensed person,” and “It has to be done to workmanlike standards”—
things like that that I pick up on.

Yeah. I don’t know if I answered your question, but—

[01:01:38] Tracy Hayes: Well, I imagine to this gentleman, you probably looked good.
Although the little repair—it probably would’ve been made to correct the termite thing. Well, it was—

[01:01:46] Sharon Alters: Termite.
Well, he thought that—he was moving from up north.
And so people from up north are terrified of termites and alligators.

[01:01:53] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[01:01:54] Sharon Alters: Right? I mean, there’s so much bad press around both.

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

[01:01:57] Sharon Alters: And [01:02:00] hurricanes.
But he was convinced that the house was gonna fall down.
And so he did not want to buy, you know, that house.

[01:02:08] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[01:02:09] Sharon Alters: Even though there was probably nothing wrong.

[01:02:11] Tracy Hayes: With the rest of it. Yeah.

[01:02:12] Sharon Alters: Yeah.
But I’ve never forgotten that, because if I hadn’t done that, it would’ve been a whole different—it would’ve been bad. Ugly.

[01:02:19] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
The C is for consistency.

What do you—again, this may have evolved over—well, I’m sure it has over time—
but what are you doing today consistently that
you feel moves the needle in your business—keeps moving it forward?

[01:02:35] Sharon Alters: I keep in touch with my main people,
and I think that consistently moves the needle forward.
I don’t lose track of my top people that refer business to me.
And frankly, that I love. I mean, there are people, you know—I mean,
you know, you bond with some people more than others.

[01:02:51] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.
And some people—I mean, they’re great people—but, you know, you just don’t keep as close in touch with them.
But I keep in touch with [01:03:00] people, and I have a CRM and I keep up with my CRM.
I think that any real estate agent who doesn’t have a database is making a big mistake.
Because how are you gonna keep up with your people? How are you gonna know—
remember that you called somebody two weeks ago?

[01:03:14] Tracy Hayes: Right?

[01:03:35] Tracy Hayes: You were already diving into AI and you were—you’re far enough along in your business—you probably could have...
You really—I wouldn’t say you really didn’t need it, 'cause I think there’s agents out there—“Well, I’ve been doing this so long, you know, let the new kids on the block, let them play with that AI stuff.”
But you have opened your eyes to it and said, “Hey, how can this save me some time? Make my life easier?”

[01:03:57] Sharon Alters: So that’s my person. I’m a serial learner.
And I have to guard myself, because I want to learn about everything. And I have to have my—what do you have time for?
When I have time for—which, I don’t have time for everything.

But for instance, when I got into real estate and we moved back up here, people were—
So I got into real estate right after those books. Thank God I never had to do the books. It was on [01:04:00]—and everybody had pagers, you know.
Well, I had a cell phone. Baby cell phone. Clamshell.

And the women—the older realtors—were complaining,
“I don’t want anybody to call me. They can page me, and I’ll call ’em back.” And I’m like...
And I thought to myself,
“You guys are dinosaurs. You’re not gonna be around long.”

And surely, they all faded by the wayside.
Well, I still feel the same way.
I think that real estate is evolving.
I have to continue to reinvent myself to stay relevant.
Because as soon as I quit learning and reinventing myself, I’m gonna fall behind.

[01:04:34] Tracy Hayes: It’s actually common sense, but I don’t think enough people actually—

[01:04:38] Sharon Alters: No, they don’t.

[01:04:39] Tracy Hayes: —grasp it. Because the reality is this: where are your customers at?
Do your customers expect you to answer the phone today in 2025?

[01:04:46] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[01:04:47] Tracy Hayes: Or if they got something like, “Hey, enter your number, ’cause this is a pager.”
They’d be like, “What?”

[01:04:54] Sharon Alters: Yeah.

[01:04:54] Tracy Hayes: And they’d hang up the phone. ’Cause they—

[01:04:55] Sharon Alters: Would.

[01:04:56] Tracy Hayes: One of the—whether you’re in the mortgage business or whether you’re in the real estate [01:05:00] business—
One of the first things to say is: answer your phone.

[01:05:03] Sharon Alters: Right.

[01:05:03] Tracy Hayes: That’s like the number one requirement—
I think probably in any sales—is:

[01:05:06] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:07] Tracy Hayes: You gotta pick up the phone.

[01:05:09] Sharon Alters: People don’t.

[01:05:10] Tracy Hayes: You’re not the only one out here.

[01:05:11] Sharon Alters: Right.

[01:05:12] Tracy Hayes: Selling real estate. There’s other options.

[01:05:14] Sharon Alters: That’s right.

[01:05:15] Tracy Hayes: In being proactive—how are you—
We talked about it a little bit pre-show.
We were talking about how are you using AI in your business right now?

[01:05:35] Tracy Hayes: Directly, or even—and I won’t say that’s—
Because I think a lot of us are on the edge of like, how can we use it more effectively?
We talked about the listing descriptions and so forth.

[01:05:42] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:43] Tracy Hayes: That’s kind of 101, I guess, in how real estate agents are using it.
Are you digging into any other areas?

[01:05:47] Sharon Alters: I am.
I actually used it to do some research on pool companies in Jacksonville last week for a buyer who’s looking at a house that doesn’t have a pool and they wanna add a pool.
I am interviewing for a riverfront listing where they had a new kind of dock—a flow-through dock—

[01:06:00] Sharon Alters: And I used it for research on that and cost of docks.
And it just saves me a lot of time, because you can pick up the phone and call, but I’m the type of person that likes to have a little background first.
Because I can have a better conversation when I do pick up the phone and call the pool company and talk to them.
Because I like—
I’m a control freak.

[01:06:22] Sharon Alters: You could call me that, because I don’t like for somebody to just pick up the phone and call some random whatever company.
I like to have some research on companies.

[01:06:30] Tracy Hayes: Start to think of some questions you might want to ask.

[01:06:32] Sharon Alters: Exactly.

[01:06:33] Tracy Hayes: When you have that conversation—that’s actually brilliant.
You know, yeah, you’re calling them, you know, because AI’s gonna point out what are the benefits of this, what are the cons against this,
you know, and then be able to ask questions against them and see what their response is.

[01:06:46] Tracy Hayes: To get the human part of it—as someone who’s actually touching and feeling those docks—to understand that, and actually, so you can then transfer it over to your clients.
I mean, that’s actually brilliant.

[01:06:58] Tracy Hayes: We talked a little bit about, you know, obviously you being an English major, so you responding in emails—

[01:07:00] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:01] Tracy Hayes: But for those—I was just thinking, a tip—if you’re not an English major like myself and squeezed by in college as far as English is concerned…
When you are telling ChatGPT what you want your email to say—

[01:07:13] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:14] Tracy Hayes: You start pulling back, so you maybe don’t come across as offensive, right?
Because you’re telling it what you want versus you doing it and your emotions are going right through your fingertips, onto the keyboard, and into the email.

[01:07:27] Tracy Hayes: That having ChatGPT review your email, rewrite it in a softer tone or something—
Or, and obviously tell it, what is the goal of the email? What do you want to happen at the end of this conversation?

[01:07:39] Sharon Alters: Yeah. Because email’s very flat.

[01:07:41] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:07:41] Sharon Alters: And texts are very flat.
And it’s easy to miscommunicate.
And so I definitely think that restraint is good in emails. Less is more.
And yeah, I use ChatGPT for emails as well.

[01:07:54] Sharon Alters: I also used it—I have a marsh-front listing up in Nocatee, and it’s kind of…
It’s in an area where there aren’t many sales, and trying to get comps—
And so I was hoping that ChatGPT might be able to help me find something that I haven’t up there—something that had sold that wasn’t in the MLS.
I can’t find it in public records, you know?

[01:08:13] Sharon Alters: Because I can’t wait for Lyman’s search.
Because that’s exactly the—that his search—

[01:08:23] Tracy Hayes: Right. You could really drill it down.
Mm-hmm. “Hey, this is the area.”
Yeah. “I need to, within so many miles,” and that sort of thing.

[01:08:29] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[01:08:30] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
'Cause that's where it's going. You know, Tom and I were talking just this morning—
You know, it may not be tomorrow because it is—
But in two to three years, this is how the majority—I think it’s gonna be the tipping point.
And people are—it’s—

[01:08:43] Sharon Alters: We’re just there.

[01:08:44] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
Anything else you’d like to add today, Sharon?

[01:08:47] Sharon Alters: Gosh, I don’t know.
I mean, this is super fun. We could talk for hours.
We can definitely talk for hours. Yeah.
I mean, this has been really—it’s been fun.

[01:08:56] Tracy Hayes: Let’s finish with this.
We’re in a different market right now.

[01:09:00] Tracy Hayes: What is your listing strategy?
How are you—you know, 'cause I imagine you’ve got some listings.
Some of them may have been sitting.
There’s other homes that come on the market and they’re just the perfect address, it’s the ideal price point, and it’s gone that weekend.

[01:09:13] Sharon Alters: Mm-hmm.

[01:09:14] Tracy Hayes: That still does happen.

[01:09:16] Sharon Alters: I had multiple offers on one recently.

[01:09:18] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
What is your mindset when you’re going in on that listing consultation
and prepping your clients who are trying to sell their home?
And it may be the million-dollar home in Nocatee—which there’s a lot of them, it’s starting to grow out there.

[01:09:32] Tracy Hayes: And there’s quite a few listings, for example, at a price point that’s not—it’s not 300,000.

[01:09:38] Sharon Alters: Right.

[01:09:38] Tracy Hayes: You know, where almost, you know, most reasonable people can buy—
300 to a million, you’re in a totally different clientele.
And you have so much competition.
What—how do you prep yourself?
What’s the mindset?
What do you like to—at the end of that consultation—
I guess what the word I want to get to is:
How do you get that client to understand your confidence, your professionalism—
that, “Hey, okay, we need to do a price reduction if we…”—you know,
how do you set the tone? I guess that’s probably the word.

[01:10:05] Sharon Alters: Today’s market is a market again where we have to look at what’s available
and what’s on the market, and what our competition is—
for going price, instead of going up in like it was in 2022.
Because you can’t really look in the rearview mirror,
because what sold in the rearview mirror—
your home may sell for less than that.

[01:10:21] Sharon Alters: And so I do talk a lot about original list price
as opposed to what houses actually sell for.

[01:10:58] Sharon Alters: Many sellers, and I compare original list price to what a house sells for. And
I've—in one particular neighborhood, I just told a seller this a couple weeks ago—
the people that sold in that neighborhood who actually closed,
they actually came down 10 to 12% over their original list price.

[01:11:13] Tracy Hayes: Wow.
Because the main three things in real estate are location, condition—

[01:11:18] Sharon Alters: Right.

[01:11:18] Tracy Hayes: —and price.
And you can't change the location.
You can improve the condition,
but what if you're already top shelf condition?
The only thing you have is your price.
And there have been a lot of houses that have been overpriced right now and that need to come down.
And I've done it with a couple of my listings, and thankfully everything sells.
But then I've had other listings that were like cream puffs that had multiple offers.

[01:11:41] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.
So do you think the agents out there that are listing some of these houses over—
is it just they don’t have the confidence,
or the market’s just changing so fast, it’s like the rug being pulled out from you?

[01:11:54] Sharon Alters: The market’s changing.
Because here’s what happens:

[01:11:58] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[01:11:59] Sharon Alters: There are people who need to move.
They’ve got to sell their house,
and so they’re gonna do whatever they have to do to sell their house.
And if it’s not selling at this price,
and they’re not gonna change the condition of it,
they’re gonna have to come down in the price.

[01:12:12] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[01:12:13] Sharon Alters: And so that’s what we’re seeing.
And then all of a sudden, you have a new comp.
And so you have to look at that new comp.

[01:12:22] Tracy Hayes: So a new agent maybe has only listed a few homes in their entire career—
what are some things that they should be doing before running out there on that listing?

[01:12:30] Sharon Alters: I think that they should go preview the listings that are comparable to that,
if possible—anything that they can get—
go out and actually physically look at the homes,
including ones that are under contract,
including active contingent listings.

[01:12:46] Sharon Alters: I had a listing this year in Avondale that I did that with,
because when you get into historic homes,
the level of—I mean, people will say,
“Yeah, we redid our wiring. Everything’s fine.”

[01:12:55] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[01:12:56] Sharon Alters: Yeah. There’s no cloth wiring—

[01:12:58] Tracy Hayes: Except in that room.

[01:12:59] Sharon Alters: —there is.
When you do the inspection,
“Oh, we forgot about that.”

[01:13:04] Sharon Alters: So really—and also I talk to other agents.
I would tell a new agent
that you will get your most valuable information by talking to other listing agents.

[01:13:12] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[01:13:13] Sharon Alters: And if you talk nicely to them and get a good rapport,
they will tell you things. And sometimes they will—maybe they shouldn’t.

[01:13:20] Tracy Hayes: Yep.

[01:13:21] Sharon Alters: But they’ll give you a lot of information.

[01:13:22] Tracy Hayes: Or mistakes they made so you don’t make that same mistake in there.

[01:13:31] Tracy Hayes: Right. So you said, if I heard you correctly,
house was under contract,
but you still went over and actually previewed—still made an appointment to preview it.

[01:13:36] Sharon Alters: Yep.
Because it was listed here,
it sold here,
but now you have that information, and you can actually tell your client,
"I went over and saw that house.
They listed it at that—a million.
They got under contract at 950.
Here's the situation,
here's how your house compares to that house."

[01:13:52] Sharon Alters: Yeah.
And I can tell that to other agents too.
And I can tell that to the appraiser.
So when I have an appraisal on my listings, I pull the lockbox—
not because I'm mean—
but because I wanna meet the appraiser, and I want to be sure that they get all the information
that I have about the listing.
And also, if they have time, I would like to have a conversation with them and gather some information from them.
Because again,
if you have a con—
you can learn a lot from an appraiser
about how they’re valuing things.
So I just—everywhere I can learn, I—

[01:14:09] Tracy Hayes: Learn.
Which at times it's more important than others. And yes,
they're doing it consistently.
You’ll have that rapport, right?
And so forth with them.
And obviously, I think one of the immediate benefits of, you know, having that conversation,
having that relationship with the appraiser,
is being able to transfer that information to your buyer or seller in confidence:
"This is why we're listing it for this," or, "This is why we should make the offer at that."

[01:14:39] Sharon Alters: Exactly.

[01:14:40] Tracy Hayes: Because I know—
you know, 10 years of talking to appraisers and so forth—

[01:14:43] Sharon Alters: Right.

[01:14:44] Tracy Hayes: —you know, that work this area,
this is what—

[01:14:46] Sharon Alters: This is what the values are.
This is why we do it.

[01:14:49] Tracy Hayes: I appreciate you coming on today.

[01:14:51] Sharon Alters: Thanks.

[01:14:52] Tracy Hayes: Thank you. It's been fun.
It has been a great conversation. Like I said, we could definitely talk for hours.

[01:14:57] Sharon Alters: We could.

[01:14:58] Tracy Hayes: But we have—we have life.
We have schedules.
Appreciate you.

[01:15:00] Sharon Alters: Thank you.