FSBO Explained: What the Industry Doesn't Tell You About Selling Your Own Home

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone, my name is Armando Perez-Carreno and welcome to the WebTalkShow. Today with us is Tim Street from Tim the FSBO Guy. How are you, Tim? Hey, nice to meet you and thanks for having me on, Armando. I appreciate it being here. It's a pleasure to have you, Tim. I know a lot of our listeners are going to get insights about FSBO, FSBO, for sale by owner. There's a lot to dig into and have a bunch of questions for you. So, let's get started by giving people a little bit of an introduction as to how you got to where you are. Yeah, great question and I'll I'll try not to take the whole show. Cuz it's a it's a very winding road. Um suffice to say after a career in startups selling tech products, I decided that I wanted to stop living out of a suitcase and so I decided I was going to become a real estate investor and in the pursuit of becoming a real estate investor, I realized like a lot of the deals that I was trying to put together were ultimately, you know, unfortunately sabotaged by real estate agents who may not have been pursuing this investment goal with the same tenacity or the same due diligence that I necessarily would have brought to the table. So, I got my own real estate license and I it was a great hack and then I started helping people buy and sell and we were very successful and I teamed up with my wife and we we did great work and ultimately after a series of events where I just found the industry kind of pulling me in a direction I didn't want to go, I decided that I was going to just take this product, this this process that I had refined and honed and sold millions and millions of dollars of real estate with and now I just kind of give it away to homeowners in the hopes that they will take that step-by-step process, save the real estate commission fees and sell this what very likely is their most valuable asset in their entire portfolio and keep 100% of the margin in their pocket. That's amazing. Not an easy thing to do if you're doing so well and just out of morality decide that you **[00:02:00]** want to do that. Yeah, that's right, Armando and and I'm blessed that I was able to make that decision because I'll be the first person to tell you and I don't want anybody listening to us to get confused. I'm not an angel. I'm not I'm not a I'm I'm a I'm a bad guy. I truly am. Like I mean, when I look at all the things I've done in my life, I am I am not a good man and I will I will constantly work on fixing myself until I go meet the big man upstairs one day. But um the reason I was able to do this is I was successful as a real estate investor. I was able to come up with another stream of income. You see, as a father, as a dad, there's nothing I wouldn't do for the health and the well-being of my children. If that meant I had to lie to you that my kids could eat tomorrow, I would lie to you, Armando. I'll tell you that right now. I mean, if if I had to do more extreme things to protect my children, I would do that. And I think all fathers, I think all parents, I think most people are like that. We will protect their loved ones even if it means sacrificing something of ourselves, maybe our our integrity to do that. I was just very blessed and thankful and grateful to God that I was never put in that position. I was able to make that switch, save my soul and not have to sacrifice it just to protect my family. So, I'm I'm a very, very blessed, privileged person to be able to do this and so this is not with any judgment that I I say this to anybody else. I'm just telling you this is something I was able to do and I'm I don't think it's because I'm a good man. It's it's because I was given blessings that a lot of people don't have. When we have the idea of spinning off something like this, whether for moral reasons or because you just want to turn it into a content game and start giving it as content because you know that will come back, right? Especially nowadays, content is king. There's still a lot involved, right? So, for for people who might be thinking this sort of path of transforming some of their IP into something that they **[00:04:00]** might give away in order to get returns in the future, what are your thoughts on what they should think about because I expect in your case you had a plan. You you figured out a way where you could do it and not necessarily lose out. You could do it, but still gain income from it in some way. Is that accurate? It is. So, this I forget what book it was in, but it it put it so well. The purpose of a business cannot be to make money, but it has to make money in order to survive. And the analogy that was driven for me made a lot of sense was a human body. The purpose of a human being is not to produce blood, but without blood it dies. And so that's how a business has to be. I when I started this this new initiative that I'm doing, Foolproof FSBO, I knew I was like, well, um sure, of course, yes, it has to make money. It it can't just it can't just survive on its own and and sure I could fund it for a while, but if I really want to get the reach that I want and I want to reach millions of homeowners, I can't afford to do that, you know, I'm I'm I'm not missing any meals, but I also can't afford to spend millions of dollars in in ad revenue just cuz I want to. So, I knew I knew that there had to be a revenue mechanism, but I knew that the way to get there was to first provide value. So, what I do is I and I I tell this to people all the time. I do have a paid product and people can use it, but I always tell them don't. Not not at first. Use my free stuff cuz I I hide nothing. Everything I say on YouTube, everything I say on Instagram and Facebook, all the videos, all the content I put out, it's the same message, it's the same value of what I put out in my paid courses. Sure, my paid courses are all compressed, they're organized, they're indexed, there's pretty spreadsheets and you know, pretty step-by-step guides and I made it gorgeous and therefore I had to charge for it, but honestly, my whole goal in this is to share value, **[00:06:00]** give people all they need to be successful on their own and for those who need a little bit extra help, yes, I'm there for them, too. That's amazing and that's a good point. There's there's so much on YouTube and other places, but Yeah. you can find whatever you want. You can learn about anything you want. Sometimes people who have never been in the content game and especially older generation, they they might be like, why why are you giving it away? Don't. Like it's your thing. Right? Even for regular stuff. And and you have to explain it's not necessarily that you're giving it all away. You're you're giving an excellent example where you can give a lot of it away and then it could be the same content that you have in your course and some people do this in a school community or wherever. Yeah. And it's could be the sort of the same material, but having it structured in a learning management kind of thing where people can actually check their progress and see which one's next and have downloadable items and lists and checklists and then all that, it's a very different experience. So, while someone could just do the free stuff and not pay for it, it'll just take a little more work, but it's free, right? So, so great. Absolutely. But but you can have this other version that might might give you everything you need step-by-step so that you can actually do something from day one, which is what other people want. So, some people value the time, some people value the money. Both get you sort of to the same place at different times. That's exactly right. I mean, I didn't go to college. I but I've spent six figures on education. I I've spent a lot of money on coaching and I've learned from great coaches and I've learned from terrible coaches and one one thing that has taught me to be a good teacher myself and try to be a good coach for my students is that when I realized what I was paying for in the good experiences I had is I was paying not for information, but for organization. Because like you said, the information's out there. You can find the information on YouTube, but to have it organized in a way that saved me **[00:08:00]** time. Ultimately, the reason I paid those bills was to if I wanted to learn how to invest in apartment buildings, yes, I could just go on YouTube, watch every video for 3 years and then get done or I could buy 3 years of my time back, pay another expert who can get me 3 years advanced in as little as a week and that to me was worth the investment. So, that's really what it is. It's you're basically purchasing your time back by by purchasing a product like like I would I would engage in. Yes, that's very true and we've talked about this in the podcast before where where there's good coaches and bad coaches, right? Oh. But yeah. But once you get a good coach, it it sort of pays for all the rest of the bad coaches that you might have had. Absolutely. It's a it's a good investment and then some people just do coaching forever and it's not about that. It's it's about finding the right person who is where you want to get to such that they can get you faster. Buying back your time like you're saying, if you can use money to do that, by all means. If you don't have the money to spend on that person, then yeah, time. Like just just spend more time doing it. And I'm all for that. The learning I love learning and everyone should love learning. It's it's so much fun. Yes. If when you were kids, we all love learning. We we were curious and we wanted to explore new things. But then it can become tedious depending on how you're getting that knowledge or that that knowledge transfer, that learning, that class. So, sometimes the experience that wasn't so great might then make you think you don't like learning so much, but it's just that you didn't like the vessel of that learning. Yeah. But if you're if you start to spark curiosity again, go on YouTube and other places and and actually try to learn, **[00:10:00]** not just watch funny videos. I mean, you're welcome to, but if you go and actually try to learn about things, whether it's gardening, landscaping, uh plumbing if you want, like real estate investing, whatever you want, you you might find that it's super fun and it's sort of addictive sometimes and you just keep going and that's where those paid programs are also very good cuz they sort of keep you aligned, focus on this thing without all the distractions here on the side. Yeah, the shiny object syndrome. And uh one of the one of the I mean, I can tell you and it sounds like you you've been here yourself. I I have taken um coaching classes that taught me so much about things that weren't even about the program. Um I I took a a a great one of the best coaching programs I ever took. Um got me like up to speed in such a quick amount of time for being a a very effective and and deadly deadly uh real estate agent. So, after you went to a program, you learned about real estate, you learned about other things that aren't related but helped you in progressing in in your goals in your life. Did you find yourself just like okay, now I'm I'm I'm great and now I'm sitting on my laurels or or did you find that now you you want to learn more and and get better every time? Yeah, I I I think the first the first time I ever got involved in a a coaching program, it was uh I I got lucky because it was a good one and it really it turned me on to this idea that I I didn't previously have that there were other ways to learn that weren't necessarily formal like college for example. Again, I went right into the the Marines out of high school, so I didn't have I didn't go to college and I because the my private sector career took off so fast, I really didn't have a chance. And if I'm being honest, I didn't have a desire either. I did not like school. Like it turns out this whole time I thought that I didn't like education. Well, no, I didn't like **[00:12:00]** school the way school was taught in Metro Detroit. It turns out I love to learn. It turns out I'm addicted to learning and when I found the uh right environment for me to do that, which tended to be more group coaching style um education, man, I I took to that like a duck to water. You know, I just loved it and so to answer the question, is it you know, do you rest on your laurels? No, because you you then find like every time you learn something in one of these programs, there's little subdisciplines that you can learn. You know, in real estate, there's sales, there's legal work, there's negotiations, there's strategic uh understanding of a consumer psychology. There's so many different things that wow, there's it's it's like it's like it branches off and so you never there's no laurels to sit on because every time you think you know everything, if you just take one step deeper, there's a million other things to learn. Mm. Yes, and I can see it in real estate. I remember when we were involved in a transaction, there's so many forms and there's so many things that you have to fill out and and real estate agents, typical real estate agents, they know a few of them. Mostly, they get what their broker gives them and they just follow suit, but they're not they really know the whole thing, all right? Yeah. Um in real estate investing, it is it is likely a little different. Uh people are probably a little better or more involved. What is your thought on I don't I'm trying to not make it sound bad. So, the beginning you mentioned there there's some good eggs and some bad eggs, right? And in this space. And could you give an example not not of someone, but a hypothetical example of of a type of situation that you would have seen that might have made you uncomfortable in in a transaction? Just just so that people listening can get an idea of like what really goes on **[00:14:00]** sometimes. I know it's not always, but but some examples of what could happen to to like maybe look out for. Take your pick. I mean, my gosh, I I've I don't know how much time you've got. I've got a million stories I could give you. And the the thing is is um you know, real estate agents, we have a reputation problem. And and it is deserved. Like a lot of us don't act the right way. A lot of us, you know, I I will have said this before, I'll say it again. The some of the very worst people I've ever met in my life are real estate agents. And some of the very best people I've ever met in my life are real estate agents. So, what happens is we all get lumped into this group of real estate agents. Kind of like, you know, lawyers and attorneys. Like I'm sure there's at least one good attorney out there who's a nice person, you know, but it's it's always easy to make a an attorney joke because everybody gets it. Um so, you know, the thing that I I come away with in all of that and and what I want people to hear me say is yes, there are definitely bad apples. There's a bottom 10% in every organization. Whether you're talking about real estate agents, whether you're talking about nurses and doctors, whether you're talking about US servicemen and you know, there's a there's a a bottom 10% to every organization. And a lot of times, that bottom 10% tends to be the most vocal. And they're the ones that are out there making the most noise. It's the the silent majority of good people who are kind of just minding their own business, doing their job, keeping their head down, they're not getting a lot of attention. I've seen I've seen uh it the the biggest problem for me was that a lot of folks don't recognize real estate agents work for homeowners and home buyers, home sellers and home buyers. Therefore, they behave in a way that they're incentivized to behave by. So, if you're a home seller and you have a uh septic tank that backs up every time it rains, **[00:16:00]** and you're going to sit there and not mention it, not tell the other the buyer the next buyer that this happens, you have no leg to stand on by thinking real estate agents are unethical. If you're a home buyer and you find out that hey, this person selling this home just got a new job offer in California and she's pregnant, so she's desperate to take any offer and you come in there and you tell your agent, I want to offer 50,000 less cuz I know she'll take it cuz she has to, you're not do not blame your real estate agent for being a bad person. That's you incentivizing that behavior. So, I say we all have a lot of blame to go around. You know, a a good real estate agent will push back against that and say, listen, I I can't represent you. But if again, bring yourself back to that starving single father or single mother who's trying to feed his children. Do you think they're going to have the luxury of looking at right and wrong when literally there's still their children's survival is on the table? No, they're not going to have that. And and maybe I'm being dramatic, of course, but that dramatic illustration serves a purpose cuz there's gray areas in between that. And I think a lot of people just have to be able to find what it is that they will do where they can look in themselves in the mirror, not hate what they see looking back at them, and also still maintain the respect of their wife and their children and their family and their friends. Because I wouldn't want to be known as the real estate agent who will do anything to get a deal done. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be known as the real estate investor who came in and offered 50 cents on the dollar because I knew the person was desperate enough to take I I don't want to be that guy. It has nothing to do with what other people think of me. I don't want to look at myself in the mirror and see that, right? So, that's the thing I I like to remind people of is yes, there's a lot of bad eggs out there, a lot of bad apples, but also make sure that you're not one of them who's in who's who's trying to get that real estate agent to behave that way. Yes, I can see that. When when someone is selling a home, it's very hard **[00:18:00]** to accept something that might be wrong in a property that might make it Like you said, the septic tank is an excellent example. Like maybe maybe not it's not every time it rains, but it's often enough that you know about it, but it would be very expensive to fix it and so that that gets you in that conundrum of should I tell them or should I not tell them? And of course, you do have to. The The contract say you have to. But but there's a gray area, like you said. And so so it makes it tough and I do see where you're coming from. People the seller or the buyer might be incentivizing that behavior and as time goes on, especially real estate agents that maybe don't have a lot of work or they're starting out or have had not not an excellent route yet. And so they're trying to get these deals and they keep falling apart because of things like these and so they they they start to look like, well, maybe this time. And then maybe this time. And then it just compounds until they're a completely different person than before. It's a slippery slope. And and that's like, you know, I I know you've seen this, Armando. It's with all things in life. Maybe I'll have one extra drink at the bar tonight. And maybe I'll stay out a little bit and maybe I won't go work out today. Maybe I can have one more beer and still drive home. You know, and and pretty soon, you and it won't happen immediately. It's you're and that's that's why this is so scary and it's so it's so evil is it's little bit at a time. You get worse and worse, but you don't notice it cuz it happens so slowly, except for when you look back two years from now, three years from now, maybe five years from now and you say, who am I? Who what happened to me? You know, how how am I How am I in jail for a DUI? Or how am I 400 lb, you know, or or whatever it is? How am I doing **[00:20:00]** these terrible things at work? It's because you you didn't realize it was happening over and over the time. You know, for for you to go down a bad path, it's not just one big decision, usually. It's a bunch of seemingly harmless decisions stacked up over time. And only when you look back over your shoulder do you like, "Oh, wow, I made a wrong turn." And then when you try to turn back, that's the big hard decision, but it's worth doing. Oh, yeah. Yes, for sure. For sure it's worth it. Um when you saw this happening and even though you were doing very well, you decided to make the the flip, right? To empowering people to do their own transactions doing for sale by owner. How did that start? How How did you realize that people could do the process on on their own by themselves? I was on my way home from a listing appointment that I lost and the the I knew I was going to lose the opportunity to represent these home sellers because the person who came in before me uh did something that we know in the industry is called buying the listing. That real estate agent said, "Listen, I've got 50,000 Instagram followers. I have a drone that I could take video. I will be able to get you another $100,000 for your home." Now, it was complete It was nonsense. There's no way he was going to do that. But these people that And they were very sweet, nice people, older retired couple. They believed him. And they Of course they would want to I would want to believe that if I was in their shoes. Yes, I I would want to believe that. And so I was driving home and I was really mad about losing I don't like to lose, like I said. And I I just thought I was like, you know, if that's what it takes to get to the next level in this business is to just **[00:22:00]** tell people what they want to hear, even though it's going to hurt them in the long run. It's only going to harm those people because here's the problem. That home will never sell. It will sit on the market for 6 months until the contract expires. They will be paying monthly costs, utilities, mortgage, insurance. All those costs are going to go down the drain. What's worse is their house is going to get a stigma. It's going to get a reputation as having something wrong with it. Why? Because it didn't sell after 6 months. So when they go back on the market in 6 months, they're not even going to be able to get what they could have gotten to begin with. They're going to have to go lower. Well, why would a real estate agent do that? Well, because he got to put his billboard in the front yard of their house for 6 months, free advertising, get all the sign calls off that, and he's out there helping them buy other houses, while this house just sits and rots. And I was so upset about that, but what I what really got me, Armando, was I was driving home and I thought, "I could do that. I mean, I could also I I could say I could get people $150,000 more. I can make up any lie I want, and I'm good at it. I've lied before. I'll lie again. I'm I I'm I can do that. That's just who I am. I'm I'm I'm a good BS-er." I'm like, "I could do that." And and when I realized the story I was telling myself, and when I realized, "You're a father, dude. You're a husband. You have people who count on you. You are a Christian. You have people who are going You're going to see again. I I You know, I I lost men in the Marines that I know I will see again one day, and I'm going to have to face them. And I'm going to have to face God. And I'm I don't want them to look at me like I'm a scumbag. I don't want them to look at me and say, 'Really, that's how you chose to live this gift of a life that you have is by screwing over old people and and taking So what? You could buy a third yacht? You know, you could I'm not missing any meals. I don't I you know, it's not like I'm starving. How much more do I need? And why would I get that at the expense of somebody else?" And that's when I realized just **[00:24:00]** how flawed of a person I am. I realized how dark my soul is if I was even considering doing that, and it scared me. And that's when I realized, "I'm washing my hands of this. I'm never putting myself in this situation because I was strong enough to walk away this time. I was that time I was strong enough to realize, 'But what about the next time?'" Maybe the third time, maybe the fifth time, maybe the hundredth time. I don't know when, but I do know I would have failed one day. And when I did, I don't know if I could have come back from that. And and that scared me so bad that I just knew I was like, "Okay, we're done. I'm I'm not going to put myself in this kind of a situation ever again." And that's when I started It was about 5 or 6 days where it was kind of scary for me because this is how I was actually generating, you know, extra revenue for the family. And I was like, "Well, I knew I couldn't do it anymore. And I It just hit me one night where I was like, 'Well, why don't I just give it away? Why don't I teach people all of these things that I know that made me very successful real estate. What if I taught the homeowners directly? Because my I think of people like my parents. My dad is an amazing man. He's in his 70s and he still cuts his own grass. I don't even do that. He's a bigger man than I am. They love DIY projects. And so my parents who are retired, what could they do with an extra $30,000 that they didn't have to pay real estate agents? That would help them a lot. What you know, what would have meant to my family when I was a young man and we couldn't afford to pay for college for me? Maybe I wouldn't have had to join the Marines. Or maybe I still would have anyway, but at least it would have been my choice. You know, and so giving people the ability to have that extra money, put it in their pocket to help their families out, that's where I got very excited about all of this. That's an amazing story. It's It talks about power of will in a moment in time when it's not as easy as as one would think. You It's very easy to go the other way. Yeah. **[00:26:00]** And the fact that you didn't and then transformed it into something else is very powerful. I I was going to ask you as you were talking, I was thinking, "Why not teach realtors or real estate agents to do this?" But then you you answered it because yes, you could have decided to go either way, and you could still can, right? But the choice to empower the homeowner or the investor to do it themselves gives them that possibility to get that money back and keep it in their family. Is that That's it. Yeah, that's it. I mean, and by the way, who am I to tell any real estate agent how to behave? I'm a nobody. You know, I I I don't just because this one time where I happen to do the right thing, Armando, I could point to 30, 50, 100 times in my past life where I did the wrong thing. I always did the wrong thing. That's just That's who I was is I consistently would do the wrong thing. And I think we are all that way as human beings. If we're honest about who we are as human beings, there's many times we've done the wrong thing. And sometimes it's easier to do the right thing, and sometimes it's easier to do the hard thing. It depends on where you are in life. Um but so the first thing I wouldn't feel right about teaching other real estate agents cuz I'm no better than they are. They're they're the same people as I am. And you can't really teach anybody to do the right thing. Um And and besides, it's my firm belief most real estate agents out there are incredible people, and they earn their money. I mean, for as many as many times as I've had conversation with people who are excited to save that equity and put that in their pocket, when I tell them about the reality of what it actually takes to sell their house, a lot of them say, "You know what? No, I don't want to do that. I don't I don't want to negotiate with aggressive agents and buyers and investors. I don't want to arrange for the photography, and I don't want to talk to title companies and **[00:28:00]** attorneys. I want somebody else to do all that." And that's why real estate agents exist, because there are times when trying to sell your home on your own could be the dumbest thing you could do. And I'm very honest with people about that. Look, there are times when it's a smart idea. It's a smart idea when, like I said, you're retired, or maybe you're a stay-at-home mom, you have the extra time, and that extra money could mean a great a great great bit of difference in your life. But let's pretend you're a very wealthy cardiologist who makes $30,000 a day saving people's lives at hospitals. I'm not going to tell you to take 2 weeks off of your work to come prep your house, because that would be ridiculous. Or let's say that you're going through a divorce, or there's a legal situation. Maybe there's a will or a probate. Somebody died in the in the home, or whatever reason. Do not try to do this if you're in a legal problem. Save that money to the real estate agent and laugh all the way to the bank, because they're going to go through legal hell trying to get that home sold. So it's not a one-size-fits-all. There are many many many times where a real estate agent makes sense. Now, one thing I do for my students is if they come to me and they say, "Tim, I I tried to follow the program. I can't do it. I need to call in some professional help." I That's okay. I don't turn my back on them. What I do is I research who the top-producing agent is in their area. I personally get them on the phone and I negotiate their commissions down for my students. So either way, they're still saving tens of thousands of dollars, even if they have to use a real estate agent. Well, that's neat. And it's a good that you mention it, because it's it sounds fun to save money, but Yeah. at what expense? Sometimes Sometimes you don't you just I mean, you don't have the time, or it's not a wise investment because of the time, or how much you make. Uh but then other times, yeah, if it's if it's if you know it's a safe market, or relatively stable, or it's a very good property, and you're going to I **[00:30:00]** don't know. There There's There must be specific scenarios where it just makes sense, cuz it's going to sell regardless. And then if you can get that money back, then that's that's great. How does FSBO work? Like what's the main difference? You still have to fill out Like cuz I remember when when we did our purchase, it was like there was a ton of paperwork, and it's all paperwork that the agents provide. So, how does if someone's selling the house themselves, how do they get access to these types of forms? Is it like what's what's the route to do that? Yeah, so that they they will work with either a title company or a real estate attorney. And here's the interesting part is you you do a lot of the same things, whether you're selling with a real estate agent or without a real estate agent. You still have to fill out all that paperwork. It's just instead of working with a real estate agent, you're working with a title company or a real estate attorney. You should never try to do it on your own. That's one thing I remind people all the Never ever It's okay to save money where you can, but doing your own legal stuff is not one of those It's legally smart, but legally dumb, okay? And you will lose money by trying to do this on your You will get sued, I can promise you. Um the other place that I do not recommend people try to save money is professional photography. Your photography should be done by a pro, because real estate photographers understand composition. They understand lighting. They understand how things look. And I don't care how good your iPhone is. I don't care how many Instagram followers you have. You are not a real estate photographer. Hire that out. So, but the thing is is what I what I tell people is selling on your own versus selling with a real estate agent is you're doing more project management. You're arranging for the photographer to come. You're making sure that your title company arrangements or your lawyer legal arrangements are taken care of. You're maybe meeting the building inspector and the appraiser. You're helping schedule the showings at your home. You're hosting your own open house. **[00:32:00]** So, it's a lot of the same things that happen, but now you're in charge of making sure they happen. You know, as a real estate agent myself, I don't know. I'm not an attorney, so I don't know the legalities. I work with a title company. As a real estate agent, I'm not a great photographer. I didn't all of a sudden get a great photographic artistic ability just cuz I got my license. I work with professional photographers. So, basically all I do is I teach you how to do this for yourself. And And really that's what it becomes down to is now instead of just paying somebody to manage a team for you, you're managing that team yourself. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and saving a lot of money in the process. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It It makes sense, because for whoever has gone through the process, do you do most like you still fill out of the forms, you still have to get all the information that they give you, and so the the way you mentioned it, it's it's a good explanation. They're managing the team at the end of the day, because if you have a bad real estate agent, then you're going to be doing a lot of work anyway. If you have a good one, then maybe they might help with some things, right? To make it easier for you, or might have a way to get the forms easily done or something. They have might have better tooling for for keeping track of said forms. Like that sort of stuff helps. Um but yeah, at the end of the day, I remember feeling this when you go to the title company, the title company is the one doing all the actual thing. I I I felt like the agents were there, but then the title company was the one with the with the big thing, and they were like they were there, but really it's the title company, right? So, it's like To me, I Yeah, I would say the title companies are the grown-ups of the room. I rely on my title company like crazy, you know, they're they're wonderful people. They're They're unsung heroes, and without title companies, this business would just grow grind to a halt. That's And that's super super interesting, because like all industries, and that's what I like about this show, just we get a behind-the-scenes peek at at what **[00:34:00]** happens. And Yeah. most people, if they've never done a real estate transaction, don't even think about title companies. Like, okay, so what what are they? What What's their purpose? Um if you already have real estate agents on both sides, then what is this title company doing? Why are we paying so much money to that title company, right? So, Yeah. uh it's it's interesting how everything works. And the the photography part is super important as well. Like you said, it's Yes, someone can take very good pictures with their phone or with their camera, but but that's because maybe they are talented on their own, and that's the small percentage of people that maybe they are very talented, and they they can do it. Well, great. If that's your case, fantastic. But for most situations, the pictures that people take on their own, you can see the listings. You go on realtor.com, Zillow, Compass, whatever, and you can tell when when it's a professional setup and when it's not. And the problem that some people might not see is that whoever is browsing, looking for homes, will not even look at those ones that don't have good pictures most of the time. They'll just just go through the pictures. Oh, these look good. And so you might lose out on a lot of potential visits or potential interest. It might be a fantastic home, but they didn't even get their eyes on it because of the pictures. Oh my gosh, I'm telling you right now that it's not only that It's not only that you're missing out on views, you're attracting So, the reason why people take their own photographs is cuz they want to save money. Okay. By wanting to save money, they've just cost themselves tens of thousands of dollars, because now Do you Do you know as a as a real estate investor, we go after distressed properties. We go after properties that aren't selling for top dollar. So, real estate investors target the listings with the worst photos. So, now all you've done is not only do you not look good, you've also ensured that the only people calling you are offering you 70 cents on the dollar. All to save **[00:36:00]** a few hundred dollars. It's a terrible idea. Don't do it. That's a very good point. Yeah, that's right. And I've seen that where where people are like, "Well, yeah, the only offers I get are terrible." And it it very well could be. Their bathroom looks like a crime scene, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, that's a very good point. I hadn't thought of it that way. So, if someone wants to like start to learn about this sort of stuff, is it is it something that like they watch You have a YouTube channel, right? So, do they do they watch videos of the stuff to start learning, and then they get deeper into it, or are there books? Like what's that What's a good path for people to start sort of seeing if it maybe makes sense for them to go down this rabbit hole? So, the the first thing I tell people is it's good to make sure that you're even a candidate for this. So, I just tell people to take the quiz. I I have a a website. It's called foolproof FSBO, which is foolprooffsbo.com. And if they go there, and they go to foolprooffizbo.com/quiz, there's a 2-minute quiz. It's seven questions. And with those seven questions, I can very accurately tell you whether you're a good fit for selling by owner or not. And I'm going to be honest with you. Um so, you might not love the answer I give you, but it's going to be the truth. If you have your heart set on FSBO, but you're in the middle of a divorce, or you have a work schedule that you cannot control, I'm sorry. As much as I would love to tell you can do this, I'm not going to comfort you with a lie. I would rather disappoint you with the truth. So, um I'm going to be honest with you. Now, like I said before, Armando, let's just pretend somebody comes to me, and they are not a good fit to sell by owner. If they get in touch with me, I will still as if they were a student of mine, I will still call and find their top-producing agents in their area, make an introduction, and I will get that agent to sell their home at a reduced commission. I will still honor that, even if I can't work with that person. So, that's that's a service that I do for people, and I'm **[00:38:00]** happy to do it. But that's probably step one is let's even find out if this is good for you. Now, let's pretend that you this is a good step for you. At that point, yes, absolutely, I would introduce them into my YouTube channel. I would show them some of the materials we have. I've got um for sale by owner checklists and guides that I've created over over the uh the time here to give people a better understanding of what it looks like to sell their own home. And again, some people are going to say, "Yep, I've got it," and then I'll never hear from them again. Um some people will say, "This is great. Uh I but I can't just do this on my own. I need your help." And then they become full-time students. And then other people say, "Tim, I can't I can't do this. I love the idea, but I just don't have the time. Can you call an agent for me in my area?" And I do. And then I I make the introduction. Either way, just by knowing me, they're still saving tens of thousands of dollars, which is my goal. I want to be able to figure out how do you get more money back in the pockets of of everyday home sellers. That's amazing. Do you see people after their first transaction as for sale by owner to continue doing it afterwards? Like not for a resident, like their main home, right? But maybe they have multiple properties. Is this something that people get a hang of, and then they're like, "Ooh, let's just do this more." There was a There was an old movie called Interview with a Vampire. And in that movie, after the the the vampire got his first bite, the whole world changed, and it became colorful, and he could see and hear things. His senses were elevated. That's how I I make When people realize that they can actually sell their own home. When they realize what tools that they have at their disposal that have been hidden because all right, the real estate industry, we make hundreds of billions of dollars by convincing homeowners that it's too scary to sell your own home or **[00:40:00]** you're not smart enough or it's too legally dangerous. You're going to get sued. Whatever it is. We make a lot of money by keeping homeowners scared. And when I'm able to get people to cast off that fear and learn the truth. The truth is if you can follow a step-by-step instruction, you are capable of doing this. It's it's simple, but it's not easy. It's like running a marathon. Running a marathon is simple. It's putting one foot in front of the other for 26.2 miles. It's that easy. It's not easy, but it is simple and you can do this. So if you're able to follow that instruction, once people do that once, they will never use a real estate agent again. That's just how they are because they realize like, oh, I could do this. And it's a it's a skill they take with them for the rest of their lives. Oh, that's very interesting. Is there any software that people can use for this sort of stuff? Like, you know how real estate agents, well, brokers give real estate agents access to software that allows them to keep track of all the stuff and it's pretty neat in terms of just keeping you um settled in in what you need to know. Is there anything out there that or do you know of anything out there that can help someone that's doing for sale by owner to keep track of their progress or is it mostly like completely DIY? Yeah, what are what are my favorite tools is just the Google suite. Um so if you were setting up a uh a property tomorrow, let's say it's 123 Main Street, you know, you would be 123 Main Street at Google at gmail.com and you'd have your own Google Voice phone number that's dedicated to that and you would put that on all of your print material. So anytime somebody called in, you would know, oh, this is a Google Voice call. This is a real estate lead. I better answer this. It's not somebody trying to sell me a a credit card. Um you know, every time so yeah, that's the most important part is being able to have your leads tracked and you know, routed the right way. You know, if you're real estate agent and you have 20 listings, yes, you're going to need a very complicated CRM. You're only what one person selling one **[00:42:00]** product. And so really you need Google Calendar, Google Voice and Gmail. Those three things are primarily it. And then, you know, you can get into really cool stuff. You can start putting your QR code that takes you to a dedicated website for your home. 123 Main Street at, you know, www.123mainstreet.com. You know, you're going to have to put in probably a city or state, but you get your own URL or you buy one of these uh you put a URL on somebody else's host and maybe it's, you know, citypages.123mainstreet washingtondc.com. Whatever it is, but you have your own property specific URL. That way Zillow's not taking your lead and selling it to other people and trying to get you to use their system. Um so that's one of the things I love using. It's just Google stuff um for for the for the homeowner. You know, when it comes to finding your pricing, how do we do a comparable market analysis where we compare our home to other homes? I love using Redfin. Redfin is free. Um it allows you to look at sold homes and draw a map around your area. I mean, it's it's very simple technology and and these are things that most people are very comfortable using. Oh, okay. So you don't necessarily need access to the MLS. You could use tool like Redfin to get most of the data that you need for for making a CMA and and other That's that's super interesting. I like the phone the phone bit. So I remember the a while back we helped someone that was going to list their property just a relative. We're like, yeah, let's just make a landing page for it, right? And then like we build a little pretty landing page and and it helped, right? It just having that extra step that most properties don't have. But when you said the phone number, I I'm just thinking out loud cuz we do a lot of voice AI that in our in our business. And And like, yeah, why not? Just set up like Vapi or LiveChat or whatever retail set up a voice agent for your property that has all the specs and the frequently asked questions and and be **[00:44:00]** able to get those everyone calls you, you can take it. Whatever the the voice AI can take the call, give them all the answers, book appointments for visiting and all that good stuff. And that's something you can do on your own. I mean, you can hire someone, of course, but but the tooling is getting better every day. And so like you said, keeping it simple, like just building things that make that property more appealing and faster to get the information. That's that's super smart. Yeah, that's a great idea. I I love the idea of having AI agent who's intelligent about your property. You know, I call it, I say, hey, I I I was looking on the flyer and I I didn't see, do you have a pool? And the AI says, yeah, we have a pool. It's heated. Or it says, no, we don't have a pool or or whatever. Hey, what's the what's the closest school to you guys? Oh, it's Tropical Elementary. You know, whatever it is. Hey, that's a great idea. And by the way, you you you said something before that I wanted to touch on. I highly recommend people get on the MLS. But here's the truth. You don't need to hire a real estate agent in a commission uh relationship to be on the MLS. There's flat fee MLS providers. You can pay $89 and get your entire listing on the MLS and that's great because now you're syndicated on Zillow, on Redfin, um and and it's one, you know, small step of effort and then your name and your email address, your phone number shows up on the listing. So when people find it, they're calling you, not an agent. Oh, that's great advice. So you can you can do like a flat fee, get on the MLS, you get all the benefits, but it's not that you need an agent in order to do that. I I thought we needed to have an A That's great. That's that's super great advice. Awesome. So if someone is like a they follow your quiz. They're like this is great. Then they they watch the video. Oh, the video's on YouTube and and they love the idea. They're they're thinking about doing it. What does your program look like? I'm trying to to envision like, what does it look like to **[00:46:00]** be in Tim's program? What do I learn? How do we interact? Is it is it like call-based? Is it reading-based? Is it video-based? How does that work? Yeah, so I I have a couple of different levels. Obviously, the at the lower levels, you get access to my entire video library, all of the calculators, spreadsheets, all the stuff that I've kind of put together that's going to get you down the path toward a kind of a DIY. Um I I also have a done-with-you path where we're actually on regular live phone calls and, you know, that's that's you know, that's the thing that I have to start charging for because it takes my time. So um at that point, that's the that's more of a paid product. And but that's where we go through and, you know, we are on the phones talking about, okay, um Armando, where are you at? All right, George, where are you at? Oh, you're taking offers. Great. Let's talk about how you take offers. Hey, um Bill, you're trying to figure out what to go live at and as far as pricing. Let's talk Let's review the CMA material in the course because you know, when people come to me, they've probably already watched all my videos in the course and they are still saying, hey, I still need some extra hand-holding. Um you know, and then they go ahead and they upgrade to something more live. But a lot of it is, you know, I I tell people this again. You don't need me. Don't pay me a penny. Just watch the videos on YouTube. If you have to get the course, great. Get the course. Course is very inexpensive. Get that and only then after you've done those two things, if you still need help, I'm here for you. But that's at that point where it's it starts costing. But yes, we, you know, my goal at the end of all this is to make sure that nobody ever has any questions as to whether they could do this or not. Yeah, that's amazing. And also, it's like they get the best of both worlds cuz they can get advice from an experienced agent to be able to do it themselves, get all the benefits. They don't they don't get the commission. They might pay for the product, but they don't have to pay the commission, which is likely going to be a little more. Then it's **[00:48:00]** uh yeah, sounds sounds sounds good. Yeah, I mean, the uh the average home these days is $500,000. So 6% of that if that was what was agreed to paid. Yeah, that's 30 grand. And, you know, so for paying a tiny tiny tiny fraction of that commission, I'm going to try to teach you how to do it yourself. And so far, it's been it's been great. We've been very successful. So we're I'm I'm thrilled to keep the message getting across and, you know, if if anybody's out there even thinking about this, my first step I always recommend just take the quiz. Excellent. All right, Tim. If um they want to take the quiz, you said the URL is It's foolproof FSBO, which is FSBO. So foolprooffizbo.com/quiz. Excellent. And then And I'm also on YouTube and and Instagram. Yeah, if if you go to if you look up foolproof FSBO on any of the socials, you'll find me there. Excellent. I'll put those in the show notes as well so that people can find you. It's excellent material. So I think we we can all learn a little bit about what goes on even if we don't do FSBO. It's it's always good to learn something new about these these industries. Thanks so much, Tim. You've given us excellent advice and I'm sure our listeners will be very glad to hear it. Oh gosh, Armando, thanks. It was such an honor to to appear with you. Thanks for putting up with me and I look forward to talking again. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much. And for those listening, if you haven't liked and subscribed to the show, please do so so that you can learn whatever we have episodes with amazing people like Tim here and make sure to like and subscribe to his channels as well. Thanks, everyone, and we'll see you in the next one.