Future-Proofing Your Real Estate Business: Proactive Strategies by Amy Cearnal Amidst NAR Lawsuit Impact

00:00:13 - Amy Cearnal

Hello.

00:00:13 - Mike Mills

Hello, everybody. Hello to all my Realtors out there driving around searching for your next buyer or seller. If that's the case, this episode is for you. Now, this is not just for Reg real estate agents, but Realtors specifically. Do you know the difference? Well, do you know that your way of making a living is currently under attack? And it might not be from who you're thinking? Today, we're going to let you know what's going on in the NAR class action lawsuit, how it might impact, how people buy and sell real estate, and the other lawsuits that are also being filed and who could possibly be behind it other than the plaintiffs and why. So, welcome to Amy Cearnal Mortgage and Finance podcast, where every week we spill the tea on what's happening in and around the world of real estate and finance. I'm your host, Amy Cearnal, a Texas mortgage banker with over 15 years experience in real estate and lending. And today I have a special guest who is here to shed some light on what is happening with the lawsuits that are all the buzz among realtors and lenders. She's been knee deep in the discussion since the beginning and is going to share her insights with us so we can be prepared for any changes that might be coming our way. But before we dive in today's episode, remember, if you like hearing this conversation each and every week and finding real value for your business, please hit the subscribe button on your podcast platform or go check me out on Amy Cearnal mortgage and finance on YouTube for more exclusive content. Every new listener grows our community a little bit bigger each week, so please, like, subscribe, comment, share, heck, even write me a review if you want, if you got a minute. I love feedback and ideas for new episodes, so please reach out if you want to. Now, my guest today is Amy Cearnal. Amy is a DFW real estate broker with over 20 years experience in real estate title mortgage and has served heavily in her real estate community on boards and committees. Every year she's been in the businesS. She even ran for mayor last year. Didn't really have the intention of winning, and yet somehow, almost so. Plus, this will be the third time she's joining me on the podcast, which is truly her claim to fame. So, Amy, how's Philly treating you right now?

00:02:10 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, awesome. Can you believe that mayoral thing was actually this year?

00:02:14 - Mike Mills

What's that?

00:02:15 - Amy Cearnal

Can you believe that mayoral thing was actually this year? It seems like this year has gone on for a long time.

00:02:22 - Mike Mills

November, because that's the way my brain works. So it's like this year.

00:02:26 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, crazy year. And now here we are.

00:02:29 - Mike Mills

I know. I was shocked. You came on for us to talk about the mayoral candidacy and how that was going. And then I looked up when they put out the results, and you'd even told me at the time, you're like, I'm not really trying to win. I just think there needs to be another option. And I look up and you didn't lose by much. You almost won.

00:02:45 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, we did what we intended to do.

00:02:47 - Mike Mills

Yes. There you go. All right, well, let's kind of dive right into it, because I think this might be kind of a long one, and I want to kind of get through as many things as we can. So first off, I want you to explain, because you've done so much research on this and you're so in depth on this, kind of tell everybody, just explaining basically what occurred with the NAR lawsuit itself, kind of what's it about, how it started? And then where we at, we are at as far as the judgment is concerned on that specific lawsuit. Right.

00:03:16 - Amy Cearnal

Okay. So. And there are a variety of lawsuits out there right now. The one that Mike is talking about is the one that we had the verdict on, on the scariest Halloween ever for most realtors out there. It's called the Fitzger Burnett case. And that was filed in Missouri. And it was home seller plaintiffs saying that, or claiming that that was anti competitive action was taken by NAr and four major brokerages to make it where the cost for the transaction was increased unfairly, and that the seller was harmed due to that because they had to pay for the buyer's broker's Commission as part of the commission that they paid to their listing agent. So they had a variety of different, well, the class. So it's a class action suit with all of these home sellers. And the class included a bunch of people who said, hey, that percentage that they paid or whatever the fee was that they paid was unfair, it was anti competitive, and that that should result in damages to them being paid. The jury agreed with them. So the defense that NAR and the other brokerages did not resonate with the jury. So, per the instructions that were provided by the judge, and now we're waiting on the judge to comment on his injunction on. Is there a mandate for change immediately? Is this a tiered system? Is it going to be in conjunction with the DOJ? Are they going to change the award amount? Which the award amount was $1.78 Millsion that was then troubled. So are they going to change that? Before it goes, is there going to be some sort of settlement post judgment anyway. So that's kind of where we stand right now with that major case. As soon as that case ended, like within minutes, the same attorney for that home seller group filed another one against other brokerages to make it an even bigger case. There are already all these other things out there, but really, so much of it comes down to the NAR practice of cooperative compensation. And the claim that that is just an unfair act of having cooperation between the listing agent and the buyer agent, and that that has created a price fixing situation that is rampant across the country is the claim.

00:05:52 - Mike Mills

Now, what's happened with this, as far as what I've seen, especially within the last couple of days, which is surprising to me, is, and even with some of the stuff I posted about this, somebody commented on it about how basically the realtors are getting what they deserve, essentially, is what they're saying. This lawsuit has painted real estate agents as realtors, as the bad guys here, which, again, I understand the sentiment a little bit, because when you see the money that was paid, which we all knew, it's not like it's a secret. The commission structure has always been the same. And by the way, like you've said before, commissions. Well, but commissions have always been negotiable, right?

00:06:33 - Amy Cearnal

Yes, always been negotiable and agreed upon prior to entering into the agreement. Yes.

00:06:40 - Mike Mills

Right. But yet the local grandma or mom or dad that's out there selling real estate on the side, all of a sudden they're the evil human beings that are a part that are causing this issue. And I don't feel like that that's the case. Not because I work with realtors every day, but just because they operate within a system that pre existed and they didn't have necessarily another situation to operate within. And so if that's the case, if that's the issuance from NAR and whatnot, then why are the real estate agents being so vilified in this?

00:07:16 - Amy Cearnal

What do you know? I think that is the unfortunate part of this, is that there hasn't been any sort of, really, in my opinion, kind of grace on that, of saying like, hey, I know this is how you all have done it for a really long time, like 100 years anyway. And now we're going to say, hey, we don't like it like that. We don't think that that's a competitive way of doing business. We need you to change it. Now, some will say that that is what the Department of Justice has done over the last 20 years, that that's really what they did when they came in and said, hey, you shouldn't do sub agency anymore, which created this kind of way of doing it. And that that's also in their investigation that has been trickling for about 20 years, but really ramped up since 2020 that they should have said something too, to say, hey, now, stop doing it. Now. Maybe that did happen at NAR and the local people just didn't know that. It's hard to know what has really been happening on the backside of this. And I thought I should preface this whole conversation with you. So just my views. I'm just trying to read some tea leaves here. I really am trying to just present the facts as I know it. I'm not an attorney, so any of my opinions are just that.

00:08:38 - Mike Mills

Will you explain a little bit why the judge's ruling specifically on what his interpretation of this is, why that's so important? And we don't have that yet, which, by the way, I thought we would at this point, but we don't, so why does that matter so much?

00:08:51 - Amy Cearnal

Right. So the jury has given their verdict, but we're still waiting on the judge to basically ratify those numbers as well as give the process of how that would go. So there's no chance for an appeal or anything like that until that happens. NAR, Heather, National Conference this week. On Monday, their attorney spoke and said that that likely is not to come until the spring, potentially the late spring, that there are a series of post trial motions that have to go back and forth. And really, it sounds to me like from the information that we've gotten from NAR, is that they really are trying to get the entire verdict overturned in more of a mistrial situation rather than waiting for an appeal. But they have said that they are planning to appeal if that does not work. So it would be like this late spring, we would get guidance, and then within 30 days an appeal would have to go out if that was what NAR decided to do. The concern among kind of people looking at this is the question of, does NAr have the ability to file an appeal because a bond would have to be put up? That bond has not been decided. That would be part of the judge's orders as well. But if it was that full amount, the Millsions of dollars that the current judgment sits at, if that bond had to be put up, how would NAr fundraise to get that? Do they have some sort of insurance policy? Are they selling some sort of assets? Are they going to ask their members for more money from some sort of special assessment or something like that. But what would that look like? And there's been zero guidance on that yet. It has been more really of the same from NAR of saying, you all don't worry about it, we've got it. This is really not an issue. The whole Thing is going to go away.

00:10:50 - Mike Mills

Well, and even that 1.8 Millsion basically is what it rounds up to. They don't have that kind of money, obviously. How much do they collect in dues every year? Is something like a couple 6 million. How much do they collect every year?

00:11:05 - Amy Cearnal

So we've got 1.5 million realtor members and dues are like, I don't know, 100 and something a year. And then they also have some other streams of income, like some data feed situations and some ex ancillary fees that come in. And some of that they bring in.

00:11:29 - Mike Mills

$250,000,000 a year in revenue.

00:11:31 - Amy Cearnal

I think that would be a fair guess.

00:11:34 - Mike Mills

Yeah. That's not paying $1.8 Millsion in damages. No way. So do you think plaintiffs get to a place where with some of these appeals where they accept, maybe they actually bring it down in order to actually get money versus making it so astronomically high that there's no way that they could even pay it at any point?

00:11:53 - Amy Cearnal

It's hard to say. It gets back to, was this an altruistic thing from the class of home sellers saying, hey, this was really not about me getting my little percentage back, but I want to do what's right for the American people and I want to change this practice? Or are they coming after actual dollars and they want their piece of the pie?

00:12:14 - Mike Mills

Even what we were talking about before we came on here, though, I think what I read the other day, there was 500,000 people, again, we're talking about the Missouri one specifically, but there were 500,000 people involved in that class action lawsuit and they were getting 1.8 Millsion, let's call it, well, even if the attorneys took no money, which we know is not going to happen, but even if they did, in that case, each person only gets like $3,500. They don't get hardly anything. And then if they award the treble.

00:12:45 - Amy Cearnal

Damages, hardly anything to us or hardly anything to that. I mean, that's the problem, right? When you get into a class action like this, like if you use baby powder and now you were damaged for it, and even if you're only getting $30 or whatever, do you stand up in line to get your $30 or do you not? And if this goes to a national platform. Who pays that $30? How does this get going on that yet to be seen, and we're still.

00:13:17 - Mike Mills

Not going to know that. And we may not know that for some time. Right.

00:13:20 - Amy Cearnal

You're exactly right. So really there has been a lot of guidance coming for us as realtor members, which we still are right now, of saying, hey, don't worry about it, just keep doing things the same way. Of course, commissions are negotiable, which they always have been. Just continue to communicate that to your clients. And I say that commissions are negotiable. And I struggle with that because I think there's this thought that it's like haggling over a used car, that you would go in and meet with a real estate professional and they would say, hey, my fee is this. And then you would say, well, no, I want to pay this. And then there'd be this back and forth. I see it as negotiable as just like if I go to an attorney, what one attorney charges and another attorney charges may be different, but it's not necessarily that that attorney that I'm going to is going to negotiate their rate down to match somebody else or to do something else. Everybody has the right to charge what they feel like is right for their value proposition, for their best practices. So I think some of that is getting lost in translation. I'm hearing a lot of concern from realtor members of like, well, I can't charge what I used to. Well, were you supposed to be charging that? Was that something that you felt like and your consumer felt like was a good value for the money? If it wasn't, then, yes, you should have never been charging that. But if it was, and you can help explain that and you can help explain your reasoning on that, that's not necessarily something that just changes. So it's just some nuance that happens with some of that negotiability.

00:15:00 - Mike Mills

Well, and I want to get into, a little bit later, I want to get into more of what agents should be doing and how they should be prepping themselves going forward. But before we get there, talk a little bit about, so you said the nationwide lawsuit was filed essentially right after, and then there was another one filed recently that's caused a lot of news, which is in Texas, but that one is actually even different because they're actually going after the boards directly, is that right? Like Metro Texas being listed in that one. So can you speak a little bit about.

00:15:30 - Amy Cearnal

Yes. So let me talk about one other national one before we get to the Texas, and that was the name. I think it's Burton. There was one that was filed by home buyers. Basically the same thing, basically the same situation as the home sellers were saying. But now the homebuyers are also saying that they were damaged during the process. So that's another big one that's happening as well. So the Texas one is similar to Citizen Burnett. It is a seller that is coming against, and they just filed on Monday. This one came against Texas Realtors. And then I'm just going to read through some of these awesome board of Realtors, San Antonio Board of Realtors, Metro Texas and Houston association of Realtors, and then a variety of other brokers in Texas. So we've got like Alibeth Almond, Berkshire Hathaway or Penn Fed subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Ebbie Dave, Amy Cearnal, Keller Williams Fathom side Realty, Austin J Par Monument Real, plus Magnolia, and some other even just teams like Hexagon Group, Logan Group, Heil Group. So they're getting more granular. They even have one just solo agent listed in here as well. So it is a different group of defendants than what we've seen on the national side. The national side really has been kind of going after only really big brokerages and nar. And now we're seeing this move down to the state level as well as the local board.

00:17:15 - Mike Mills

Well, that individual agent sure pissed somebody off if he's being listed specifically.

00:17:19 - Amy Cearnal

Wow. So I've been listening to a lot of podcasts, looking at a lot, so I can't verify this, but I did hear that there was something that was said on social or something that was what brought him to the case on this. So I don't know if that's true, but I do think it know we've got to be careful and help both our clients and help the public understand what we're doing and what our position is on.

00:17:49 - Mike Mills

Yeah, so, okay, so on the Texas one, too. Another thing that I found interesting was that the actual plaintiffs weren't buyers or sellers per se, but it was a builder. And I think they're publicly traded development company. I don't know if they're a venture capital firm, but they're certainly not an individual. I even have it written down here. Who was it? My points LLC, which is a community development company. And then the other one was like.

00:18:24 - Amy Cearnal

There was a QJ Team LLC, which.

00:18:28 - Mike Mills

Is just a local builder in they.

00:18:31 - Amy Cearnal

Were, they were both selling property. But yes, it was not just know Bob and Susie over here that were harmed. It was more corporate action. Yeah.

00:18:40 - Mike Mills

So now it's corporate action that's being placed. So it's not just on behalf of the individual consumer. Now there's actual companies that are coming after these brokerages, which I find ironic in and of itself because they're a part of that mix as well. It's like you're involved in that whether you were paying agents or not. So how is it that you feel like you were damaged in this circumstance? That really is confusing to me.

00:19:01 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah. So they're starting it, but they're not the ones that are finishing it. They're the ones that are saying, hey, everybody in the class, which, let me read to you what the class is defined as. It says all persons in Texas who from November 13, 2019 through the present, used any defendant or their affiliates, with the exception of Keller Williams Realty, Inc. As the listing broker in the sale of a home listed on an MLS and who paid a commission to the buyer's broker in connection with the sale of the home. So it's not stopping with just those people. It's potentially including anyone in the state of Texas who did business with these people, which that's where it is hard to see how this ends with these kind of cases coming up and with the jury finding for Citrus Burnett. It does feel like there's potential for the government to come in and step in and maybe take some action to try to stop some of, you know, I don't know. Again, guidance from NAR is just still, hey, you know, don't worry about it. Just keep doing business.

00:20:08 - Mike Mills

Well, it feels like there has to be something that's going to have to occur at some point, whether it be from NAr, whether it be the Department of Justice or whatever, on saying, okay, well, because I think that's why the ruling from the judge in that very first case might be so important because they have to give some indication. There has to be a precedent or whatever you want to. All it's set to say, hey, here's what you can do. Here's what you can't do. And then they can come in, interpret after that how they want to pursue any other. But I don't know how you can just kind of leave it open ended without it just being chaos with everybody suing everybody and stuff flying around all over the place.

00:20:38 - Amy Cearnal

Right, right. Yeah, I agree. At some point. So there were some comments made. So Inman has been the one who's really been reporting a lot of this. If you're an agent, you don't have an Inman subscription. That really is the source of a lot of the information coming out. But in there they said this week they were at NAR to get comments that the NAR council was giving in their speech that they gave to the NAR national conference this week. That was less than an hour. So that was the guidance that we got from counsel then that was backed up with an interview with the lead attorney for Burnett. And he like, they're just not taking this seriously. We're still coming for them. This is not over.

00:21:36 - Mike Mills

All right, let's talk a little bit about then what could be the possible impacts of this. And I know it's very hard for us because the hard part about this is until you know what the actual guidance is and until they tell you what can or can't be, a lot of this is speculation. So you don't want to say that up front. We're kind of just totally in heRe. We don't know what's going to happen because until these rulings come down, until the appeals happen, there's really no way to know for sure. But just based on what you've seen so far, what do you think? Let's say we're twelve months from now and to some extent, let's operate under the fact that, let's say that the buyers can no longer be compensated. Excuse me, the sellers can no longer pay the buyer's agents at all. Right, let's say that. That's what they say. So what could our world look like then in real estate as far as the day to day operations for an agent and a broker?

00:22:36 - Amy Cearnal

I think that is potentially an outcome that we really should talk about. Is that like, hey, what if that what we call internally a BAC or buyer agent commission that is offered as part of the listing price. And so the seller is signing a listing agreement. They're saying, hey, we're going to pay you listing broker a big piece. And then the listing broker is saying, hey, but we're going to take a small piece and then we're going to credit it to the buyer's broker for compensation for them. So I disagree with some of it that the seller is paying it directly because to me it is this flow through, through the listing broker. So what happens in that is if we can't do that, then that means that the buyer would have to pay those funds to a representative for them out of their own pocket. There are some ways that they could do that. They could just choose to pay it. And I think there is a segment of the population that would do that. I always say that just like Turbotax is right for some families and hiring a CPA is right for some families. There's not just a broad like everybody fits into one box. So there are some people that would pay cash. There are some people that would need to finance it if they wanted to pay for that and have that. And right now, as you know, there's not a mechanism within the current financing systems just nationwide to allow that to happen. So there is thought know more immediately or in conjunction with this injunction that the judge of Missouri and the DOJ are working on that they are on the back end working with the mortgage servicers and those kind of things to provide something like that.

00:24:20 - Mike Mills

We don't know conversations going those are happening right now just to see what the options are.

00:24:26 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, could be happening. So that could be an option. But keeping in mind with that option, with both of those options we just talked about, it still does mean that the buyer has to say, I am going to write you a check, I'm going to pay that fee for that full amount. There's not a credit coming from somebody with that. I am going to take responsibility of that whole thing. And I think there is lots of conversation around about that. The realtor members that are representing buyers have got to really help those buyers understand what they do for that money so that the consumer can make that choice and say, yes, I need that, or hey, I don't think it's really worth that. I would be willing to pay this for it. So I think there'll be a lot more conversations about that as it goes forward. There is also this other thing I.

00:25:14 - Mike Mills

Want to say before we go to the next thing is just so if anybody's not clear, because I know with newer agents that listen to this or anybody that's not in the business directly when it comes to mortgages and costs, I hear people, they ask me all the time, I just want to roll my costs into my loan. Okay, well, with a purchase you cannot do that. With a refinance you can, but with a purchase you cannot. None of the costs can be rolled into the loan. Where that comes from is sometimes lenders will pay the cost by raising the interest rate and covering the cost, but it's not rolled into your loan. If you buy a $300,000 house and you have a VA loan and you have no money down, your loan is basically $300,000. There are FHA, you can roll in mortgage insurance, VA, you can roll in funding fees, but other than that, there's nothing else. So there is no current, like you said, no current mechanism that allows you on a purchase to add any costs that you don't have to pay out of pocket. So just to clear that up.

00:26:09 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, and in theory that wouldn't immediately be like, hey, buyer, you're having to pay that 3% because the price of the homes would drop by 3% to compensate for that. So there is some pricing theory on that that it really isn't a harm to the consumer, it's just shifting. Who has that obligation for payment.

00:26:28 - Mike Mills

Yeah, well, that was one of the things I read in one of them that says we overpaid because the commissions that were involved made the price of the home higher. And it's like, that's not even close, at least in my mind, that's not even close to how the price is set on a property because commissions are factored in. I mean, your commission gets deducted obviously from the sale of the home, but that's not how the price is determined. That's another piece of it which was very surprising to me and how some of these people are interpreting it.

00:26:55 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, I think there is some thought like that the way that we do market analysis and just the way that the consumers pay for the home, that they will ding those homes for that 3% because they're having to come out of pocket for that cost. In a similar way to what we've seen of the impact of the rising interest rates that has resulted in some lower cost to the lower prices to the seller because the buyer is having to pay more. But anyway, but there's this other camp that is like, hey, if the buyer is presented with the option of I pay or I don't pay, that they're going to choose, that they don't pay and that they are going to choose to go unrepresented and that they are going to be potentially harmed for that. And that is a big part of NAr's conversation of saying, hey, we have tried this before in the US and it did not work. We need those buyers to have an advocate for them so that they don't get taken advantage of by the big bad seller out there that is going to have all of the dollars and they're going to be the ones that can afford to hire representation because they're about to sell their house and get a check. They're not coming to the table with all that money. And that's really the origin story of all of this, right? Is that it was a hope to make it fair for both sides. But the reality is when you look at worldwide at how the real estate market works is that this practice is really a US situation and that in most other areas of the world the way that we have buyer representation is not the main. So you know, again if we go back to that, then that may be even our commercial real estate world really doesn't work like this with that buyer seller always on that too of representation on both sides. So it is this very likely situation that we could go to world where more buyers choose to go unrepresented on that which then impacts the sellers and the listing agents and how do they go forward and do business like that as well?

00:28:55 - Mike Mills

Well, and then this is another thing we kind of chatted about beforehand and what I talked about in the beginning is you look at this and go, okay, well, who's driving this boat? Who's out there? Because this was moving along for years and good. Whether you say it should have been this way or shouldn't have been this way, regardless, it's been this way for a very long time and all of a sudden we have these things popping up all over the place and now realtors being vilified and these local MLSs are being vilified which everybody says and has been saying since the dawn of time that real estate is local and it is because when you look at national trends and you say okay, well median home prices are here or purchase applications are down in this you're talking about know the whole country. But when you look at specific areas like California's housing market's terrible right now, but Texas is know just depending on where you're at because of whatever's happening in the. So real estate is local, we know that. And yet we are trying to get to a place or it seems like companies, Zillow has been trying for years to, I don't want to say get rid of agents necessarily because most of their Revenue comes from agents buying advertising and buying leads. But they certainly would like to minimize their role or take a portion of their role because of the amount of money that's involved in those commissions. I feel like that there's a driver behind this and there is a more nefarious idea out there when it looks at what we're trying to do with agents. And you had mentioned something that you showed some mail that you've been getting a lot lately, so talk a little bit about that and why. I'm not necessarily.

00:30:31 - Amy Cearnal

You know, I think it's been talked about for a long time of local MLS and why don't we have a national MLS. And why is it that the MLS has to be membership driven and some of that, and for a lot of good reasons, it is the way that we've had it. It does create some control. It makes sure that only licensees can see some of the information that we've got on the back end and that they can really get in and interpret what's happening on the back end. But some of these things that are happening within Nar and within these lawsuits do indicate that there might be, again, maybe somebody on the back end that is really promoting this to happen, that we need to have a breakup of the national MLS. And just in the last two weeks, I've received this kind of mail at the office. So look at this one. This is cool. It goes up and down. All this stuff is like major mailers that are all coming from one party. And it's homes.com. We started talking about homes.com at our company a few months ago because they were purchased by a costar and they have really just been on the rise. They have already overtaken Realtor.com as far as traffic and are coming for does. To me, it does look like there is the potential for a national MLS coming. Again, I'm not advocating for that, but I'm just saying if we're looking at where the dollars are being spent, there are some major dollars being spent on this side. They aren't in any sort of defense right now. They're only on the offense. And we're definitely in a defensive posture on all of this.

00:32:21 - Mike Mills

Well, I've said this a couple of times because it's unfortunate the way we might be headed with this because right now it's not as impactful because the market is slower because there's less transactions happening. So you don't see, I think it's just like anything else, for stuff to really take impact, there has to be a lot of transactions to occur before it starts really seeing what's going to happen. And so we're in a spot right now where we're probably going to be business as usual for a little bit. Like it's going to stay that way because again, we don't have the judgment. We don't know exactly what's going to happen. But I've told the story a couple of times. It's like imagine we get to a place where interest rates go back down sometime towards the end of next summer, and all the people that have been bent up holding, waiting for rates to come down, and they're not going down to two or three. So I think that's going to happen. It's not maybe five mid fives, high fives, something like that, if things get nasty enough. But that's where we're at. And then at that point, we still don't have enough inventory because they're still not building enough homes. Foreclosures are the lowest they've been in decades. So that's not anywhere that's on the horizon either. So we don't have enough inventory of homes to buy. So we get back to a place, not like it was last year or prior, two years, where it's 30 offers on every house, but we could certainly be in a place where there's four or five offers every house that pops up, right? And if we've been operating business as usual and the buyer's agent has been like, I've got my good friend Mills here, and I've been showing him houses, and we've looked at this and we've looked at that, just haven't quite been able to get under contract. Well, then I find the one that I want, that family's dream house. And I've been helping Mills and his family find a house. And there's four other offers, and they all don't have buyer's agents on them that are asking for the buyer to be paid. So Mills, my friend, comes to me and says, Mike, this is the house that we really, really want, and I'm willing to pay you whatever, $1,000, $1,500, 2000. Or I may say, I don't have it because they haven't changed those rules to where they've come into play, to where I can finance it or whatever. And so because he's my friend, I say, you know what? It's fine, Mills. Don't worry about it. I want you to get this house. I want this to be for you so you don't have to pay me for this. We'll try to get it on the next one, right? And then the week later or two weeks later, my phone rings and it's another friend of mine. And they're like, hey, ready to go buy a house? Will you be my buyer's agent? Am I going to take that offer? Am I going to take that job because I just lost out on the other one? No, I'm not. I'm going to go find someone else. And then enough transactions that occur like that and the buyer's agents just go away. And to Ashley's point, who put this up a minute ago, because the buyer's agent plays such a pivotal role in helping a buyer who does not do this every single year. They do this five times in their life, once every ten years, whatever the case may be. They're in there operating in a space that they have no understanding of and don't know what to do, and they can't watch enough YouTube videos to figure it out. So something has to fill that void, right? Something has to fill that void. So if you're homes.com or you're another arm of zillow and you're like, hey, buyer, pay us $250 and we'll help you fill out the contracts and we'll help you do all this stuff and make sure that you're covered. And it's kind of like, yes, you're being covered, but you're being covered, like you said, in a turbotax form or something else. That's much, much less to where you don't get all the figuring out that this is the right neighborhood that you should have been in because you walked up and down the street and there were 70 cars in every single parking, parking or in every single driveway, and you had an agent before there going, hey, this isn't where you want to be if you have kids because of this or that or whatever. So that's the world that I see that could happen if we don't figure out how to make this work. And I don't know that there's a way out of that world, can you give me some hope to say that there is a way that we can figure out how this solution is going to happen to where buyers are still going to be represented properly?

00:36:11 - Amy Cearnal

I don't have it. I'll tell you, I am really struggling with it. It's something that we've been very nervous about. But ultimately, if this is what is kind of chosen, maybe not for the buyers themselves, but because of all of this, this is just the path that it would have to go. It's kind of like not being able to go directly to a farmer to buy a zucchini because he's concerned that he's going to get a lawsuit about the pesticide that he used or something like that. And it all has to go to these giant farms or do something like that. It's going to end up somewhat like that because that's where I look at from all this is when does the litigation end? When does our liability end? I mean, at some point we're here to help a consumer make grown up decisions and do this, but I can't know everything about everything. I want to, I want to be a guide and I want to do, but I need to be able to charge a fair fee for my services, but I also need some limitation on that services. And I think that's where really the realtors have not done a good job, is we said we do everything for you. We are going to 100% cover you through this. We can't do that for a limited amount of money. If it's an unlimited amount of money, sure, I guess. But at some point we've got to have some reins on this to figure out what is our role in this transaction going forward.

00:37:34 - Mike Mills

Yeah. What are you telling your agents inside your brokerage right now to do? Because the only thing I think that's going to happen right now is people are going to start asking questions. Right. There's going to be questions. Okay, what does this mean? HOw do I pay you? There's going to be those questions that have come up, especially buyers are in like high demand, but they're not a ton of buyers right now, but there are people listing their homes. So a lot of agents are going after sellers. Well, if I'm a seller right now and I hear all this, well, this is probably one of the first questions I'm going to ask. So what are you coaching your.

00:38:06 - Amy Cearnal

And they should be. Yeah, and really they should be. So this is putting a lot more work on the consumer that they're going to need to really interview potentially a lot of agents to try to drill down to, well, what are you charging and what are you providing? And if their agent can't answer that, well, then they need to move on to somebody who can. And that's what we're all going to be asked to do is to be a little more unique in what we're doing, which we already were. But there might not have been enough differentiation in pricing so that we can say, hey, because I'm coming to the table with 20 years of experience, I charge this, and maybe somebody coming with two years of experience may charge a different amount. And maybe the platform that I have with staging and professional videography and drones and those kind of things, maybe that's at a different price point than something else. But I think it's this blow up of what? Anything that could have ever been called standard, not that we ever had that, but even from a what do we offer? It's got to be this, of what do we offer and then what do we charge for that? And the realtor member has got to be able to stand up and say, that is what I am, this is what I charge. And if you want to work with me, consumer, I would love to work with you, but if you don't, that's okay. And maybe even like, hey, you should call Tamara over there because she's going to do a great job for you. And that is similar to what she charges in the platform that she's so. But it's going to be different for every consumer as they go for. And they're going to have to figure out which agents they want to work with that best fits their needs.

00:39:40 - Mike Mills

Yeah. And that's going to be the, I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing, because I can see it in both ways. It's a bad thing in that I think it's going to be harder for newer agents to break into the business because now, because compensation, the most likely outcome of this of anything is that compensation is going to vary for everybody. It's not going to be the same. There isn't going to be a blanket. You're going to make 3% or 2%. It's just going to be, it depends on the brokerage, it depends on the person. It's going to be a big variable. If that's the case and you're a new agent trying to break into the market, you don't have the experience, you don't have the knowledge. And unfortunately, in our business, mortgage and real estate, your knowledge comes from transactions. You learn by doing transactions multiple times because you could sit in a class all day as long as you want and learn about as many things as you can. But at the end of the day, until you put it into practice on a regular basis, you're not going to get the same kind of knowledge base as someone who's been doing it for 15 years. So you're going to have a really limited, it's going to be a much higher barrier of entry, I think, than it is right now. That's the downside. The upside is, though, is that if you're already in the business and you've been doing it for a long time, then you are going to bring the days of your past clients losing somebody to their brother who just got into the business that just started a month ago, and that's why they're not using them to list their house again. I think those days might start to go away a little bit, because now that seller is not going to feel comfortable going with somebody who's only done three transactions in their life. And maybe that's a question. Ask.

00:41:11 - Amy Cearnal

Unless they can go to homes.com and list the home themselves.

00:41:14 - Mike Mills

But, yeah, there you go. Hey, I'm trying to be rosy here as much as I can.

00:41:19 - Amy Cearnal

Sorry to be Debbie down there. Yeah, I know. But, yeah, no, I do think there is some unintended consequence of this that could be a really big benefit for both the consumer and the agents. It does potentially slow the amount of agents that are getting into the business. It does potentially limit the amount of agents that are in the business. Now we're sitting at 1.5 million. Is that too many? Is that not enough? And so I think the market will shift some of that out over the next couple of years as we see this judgment come down and guidance from that, which again, and it may be three years before we really hear what the outcome is on it. It also may be that more and more brokerages decide to make more voluntary moves that try to come in line with some of the guidance from the court specifically and kind of abandon the Nar. Not abandon NAR 100%, but abandon some of the NAR mentality of, like, the way that we've been doing it has been fine, and say, no, I do need to do things a little bit different. I need to clean up my house. I need to make sure that the consumer really understands what I'm doing for them so that that way there can be a better match of the consumer expectation and what my service that I'm providing to them.

00:42:33 - Mike Mills

Right. So, I mean, if you're an agent right now and you were in the slower holiday times, I would say it would be a good recommendation for you to really sit down and figure out what is your value proposition. Truly, what are you offering to every client? And you need to have it dialed in pretty good. Would you say that that's correct?

00:42:51 - Amy Cearnal

Yes, 100%. I actually spoke at a panel a few weeks ago, and I was giving that advice, too. All agents should be going through and really detailing out what their value proposition is and being able to communicate that to a client. Don't just copy and paste something and put it on Facebook and think that that now just told all your clients all the 90 things that you do for them, help them really understand what you're doing and do that each time. Don't like, oh, yeah, well, I normally do that, but I forgot to do it on this one. You've got to get very diligent about what you're doing on every file and make sure that your clients know that I will tell you for our shop, I'm having to blow up business planning and those kind of things. We normally business planning is a little bit on autopilot for me that I'm like, well, hey, close this money and do this and then this, then we're good. But for 2024, I think everybody needs to be digging into that value prop and then matching it with an appropriate pricing model that they feel like their consumers will react well to.

00:43:52 - Mike Mills

Yeah, well, in one of the viewers here, Coach Bugbeatana, she also says get testimonials, which I agree with, in that when you can provide reviews, surveys, whatever it is that you can get from your clients, showing the people that you've worked with in the past, I mean, that is really going to be going forward. When you sit down and have a buyer's rep meeting or you have a listing presentation, those type of things, you're going to have to have a really good presentation going back to the PowerPoints of the world. I mean, you may have to get into that mode again because if you're an educated seller, you're going to be talking to multiple agents. I have to do that now, by the way, because I think this happens more on the lending side that it does with real estate because when I talk to a buyer because they're all concerned about rates, rates, rates. Well, I'm going to call this company about rates. I'm going to call that company about rates. I mean, we've been doing that for years. That's just what we have to do. So there's going to be an adjustment for you all on the other side.

00:44:48 - Amy Cearnal

Yes, and that's probably valid. That needs to happen and we need to get a little more dialed in on that. We need to not have an assumption, know Uncle Mark is going to transact with me just because if that's not a good fit, what I do for them. And to me also, the unintended consequence is that Uncle Mark may have to understand that I may not be the right agent for them because I charge too. You know, there's going to be some change on that too, where just some more acknowledgement of what are we worth and how can we go forward. And I think that it's going to end up really potentially great for both the consumer and the agent. It's just there is some grief in between here and then to get to that place. And some questions of do we do that with an MLS? Do we do that with Eno? Do we do know, how do we do that going forward?

00:45:36 - Mike Mills

Well, I think that's a big thing right now, is just because there's so much uncertainty, which is why somebody like the DOJ or somebody has to come in and really put some guidance down. So everybody knows what's going to happen because we don't know what the adjustment is going to be until we get some of that guidance. Because right now everybody's just kind of, I don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what do you think is going to happen? Or again, saying we don't know. But just based off what we know at this point, the zillows and the ibuyers of the world, how do you think the impact is going to affect them with any of these rulings?

00:46:13 - Amy Cearnal

I don't think there'll be a huge change on mean. I think blood's in the water with zillow with their model of just scraping money out of the agent's pockets. So that's not going to know a real fruitful plan going forward. Ibuyers, I think there's a place for them in the market. I just think there'll be a portion.

00:46:33 - Mike Mills

Of the market, but not the whole, to help. I didn't think about how that would hurt Zillow, just simply because the vast majority of their revenue comes from agents buying leads. And if you have a lot of agents that, A, leave the market because they are, and then B, don't have the budget to be able to put that much money into buying a lead that you may convert one out of 100, that's going to be a really tough business model to manage going forward.

00:46:56 - Amy Cearnal

Well, and most of those leads were buyer leads. And so if that is not there, then, yeah, and that's where I think Costar and homes.com sees that, too, of like, hey, we can come in and leapfrog them over. Same thing with Realtor.com, same thing with like, they're nothing. We've got it. We've come to market with it. And honestly, I don't know why Zillow didn't before. It's been surprising for a lot of us that they didn't get into a more consumer direct model than what they already did. They did have agents and those kind of things, but we thought they would do more than that. You know, again, hard to say what's coming from the consumer direct, but there definitely will be more consumer options going forward. I mean, that's going to be the name of the game.

00:47:41 - Mike Mills

Well, I could certainly see Zillow getting into. I think the only thing that may have prevented them from doing it previously was they didn't have a catalyst like this. There was no catalyst like this is basically created that they were trying to figure it out on their own, whether it be offering their own brokerage service, which they did, or offering their own lending, which they did. And none of that really kind of took off and they were still making a good amount of revenue from Realtors purchasing.

00:48:04 - Amy Cearnal

There you go.

00:48:05 - Mike Mills

Yeah, I mean, the model wasn't broken at the time, so they were making money. So it was like, all right, well, we can spend a ton of money trying to reinvent the model or we can just keep making money like we are. And I think they were fine with that. But like you said, I think they're going to have to change. And I think that's probably know one of the ones that you could easily see, I mean, it might be a homes.com and a zillow war as to who becomes the buyer's rep in this situation, because unfortunately it seems like that that's where things would ultimately, I, I.

00:48:35 - Amy Cearnal

Wouldn'T bet on Zillow with their stock price falling and all this stuff going on with them right now. Yeah. Sorry, guys.

00:48:41 - Mike Mills

Well, where did homes.com come from? Have they been around? I mean, I'm not incredibly familiar with them. Have they been here for a little bit?

00:48:50 - Amy Cearnal

Costar has, but homes.com is very quick on the rise. So this has all been within the last twelve months. To See this much increase in web volume is pretty unbelievable. But I mean, when you pay for it, you get it.

00:49:06 - Mike Mills

Do you think this has any implications for the current situation that we're in when it comes to inventory and housing in general? And we talked about this the last time you were on, just about how it seems like, again, because this is where my conspiracy brain gets going, is I look at this situation, I go, okay, there's a large company behind these lawsuits. They're not behind it as far as they don't have a cabal meeting, but they're certainly putting money towards it. Maybe they are, I don't know.

00:49:36 - Amy Cearnal

I don't know.

00:49:40 - Mike Mills

But on the other side of that too is we're already in a situation where we don't have enough single family homes, we don't have enough builders that are incentivized to build affordable housing. Regulations that you get in different cities and towns make it unaffordable for builders to build affordable housing as it currently stands. So we're moving more and more into a place where even owning a home is going to be challenging. Not to mention the fact that now you don't have representation to help you get there. And so what does that mean for housing as a whole over the next ten or 15 or 20 years? I've been saying forever that I think we're moving towards commoditizing housing anyway because they've done that with everything else, energy, water, media, all of that stuff has happened. And I'm surprised it took home so long because that's such a cash cow for the GDP. But what do you think about all.

00:50:30 - Amy Cearnal

Mean? I'm with know, I think we talked about last time that in Arlington, where I spend most of my know, we are seeing a big uptick in this build to rent situation and it just breaks my heart. Actually, one of the neighborhoods that's very close to my parents house just converted from, it was going to be a build for sale and it just converted to a build to rent neighborhood. And I just don't see if the government doesn't come in and stop it, the market is going to take there because there is just so much more money on that side. And I don't know that that's government way. I'm also not a heavy government person of saying, hey, they should come in and put their hand on it. But man, the scales are going to be hard to tip the other direction if we keep going farther than where we are. So like in Arlington already, just for us, we're at a 50 50 split between renters and owners and there's no indication that we'll be headed towards more owners when the only product that's coming on the ground is rental.

00:51:36 - Mike Mills

Well, and it works out better for investors right now that the rates are so high because it does make it a barrier to entry for individuals coming in and trying to, you're going to get a mortgage on a $350,000 house and it's going to be $3,500. Whereas the investor that has big cash, which are these venture capitalist companies and large, some of the ibuyers, but they come in and they can buy that house cash. They don't have to pay 8% interest and owe by way. They can now turn that around and rent it for a little bit less. So now you just go, well, I could pay $3,500 for that mortgage on that home or I can pay $2,500 and I can rent it. But what you forget is that you pay 2500 this year, then you're going to pay 2600 next year, then you're going to pay 2700 the year after that. I did broke down this company. Now I forget their name, real page, I think, is what they're called. But they are a software company that creates rental software for investors. So they go into certain areas. They've been very targeted in how they've done this. And they go to small investors and big investors. And essentially what they do is they get everybody on the same technology platform that gives you data that they share. So you know what rent is, and it becomes rental price fixing, essentially, where they can say, okay, if we have 70% of the homes in this area on this platform and we want to raise rent 5%, well, then it's going to be very difficult for a renter to go, well, I don't want my rent raise, I'm going to go somewhere else. Well, thEy're charging the exact same. It doesn't seem to be a lot of antitrust lawsuits flying down for that, but this is the type of stuff that's happening with housing. And like I said in the very beginning when I promoted this, it's like we're under attack right now. It's like from all angles because there's no inventory. And you have people coming in, large companies that want to have control and they have more power and influence and money than the average consumer does. And we're kind of just know, hoping that it works out and that, yeah, to that too.

00:53:42 - Amy Cearnal

If we're talking, know, big government coming into doing it, I mean, the Fed's doing it too. With this interest rate throttle being the mortgage, why, we have never had that before. And now that we have that, they're just outright saying, hey, that's what we're going to use as our throttle point for the economic engine that is the US economy. That, yeah, well, no wonder some of this stuff is happening on that. And again, I mean, I'm not trying to throw stones on it, but ultimately some of this, we do need to protect this idea of homeownership. And if we get rid of all the advocates for that because we're so scared of being sued, it's kind of like not having doctors because they were so scared of being sued, at some point government had to come in and say, okay, well, yeah, if you're a bad actor, yes, you can get sued. But if you're not and you're trying to do what's right for your people and you're trying to charge what's right for your people, maybe that is okay. And so there may have to be some sort of agreement to try to preserve some of what we're doing from a bigger picture perspective.

00:54:43 - Mike Mills

Well, and you said, even before we got on, know when you were talking about the lawsuits being thrown around, know, I was surprised and I guess I shouldn't know because you look at it and it's Keller Williams and it's remax and these are big national brokerages. But you said even on the local level from brokerages, if everybody gets lawsuit happy, then even the local people can.

00:55:03 - Amy Cearnal

Be at risk and at more risk. I mean, our pockets are not deep. And so it doesn't take very much to really destroy companies and destroy people's livings for not just brokerages, but also for other agents too. If buyers just choose to not participate or sellers choose to not participate in this, it just does mean that we're going to have this constriction of the market, putting some companies out of business and putting some agents out of business too. I hope that doesn't happen. But I also think that it's just right there. There's not a whole lot of steps.

00:55:44 - Mike Mills

To mean, I don't know where the advocacy comes for agents realtors going forward, because if NAR is the primary focus of this, and they were the ones that were advocating for agents on a government level for so many years, does that just go away and now there are no advocates anymore and it's just a slow burn until the whole thing. I'm not trying to.

00:56:11 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, there's some conversation about that too, is that there could be an advent of another type of NAR that would be our next advocacy arm. Agents would have to choose to spend on that. And just like I'm not sure that buyers are going to choose to spend, I'm not sure that agents would choose to spend that right now. It's just going to depend on kind of what's the income and what the outflow. That lobby has been so big for so long that it's going to be a change on.

00:56:43 - Mike Mills

In it. This is things I don't know that the average agent understands, but NAR was the one that allowed agents to keep selling during the pandemic, that could keep earning their income. They allowed agents to be a part of the PPP program, which there could be good or bad to that, obviously, because a lot of money got thrown around without a lot of oversight. But all of those things, that's what they did. And when you have a group that was that influential and that powerful that then goes away, it creates even a less of an enticement to get into selling real estate because there is so much uncertainty and there is so much attack on the income and commissions that you were making before, and now they're basically telling you a, you're not worth it, and you probably did something wrong. And it's like, wait a minute, I was just trying to help my friend buy and sell their home.

00:57:34 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, it feels like those first few weeks after COVID, when we were all sitting around like, oh, well, we can't sell houses anymore. We can't even go into other people's houses. We're going to be out of work. But we knew, like, well, but really, it's going to be okay on the other side. And I think we're still like that. I will tell you, for me, and I think a lot of our team, there's still going to be consumers that need us. There's still going to be people that need us. We've just got to figure out how to do some of that. And that's what we're working on. We're trying to be as proactive as possible and make sure that that makes sense for the consumer and for us going forward. But it is this kind of unsettled weirdness in the market, though, too, of like, but maybe not. I don't know that we had after COVID, I think it's anytime you're in this 100% commission situation or business ownership situation and there's a big shift, there definitely becomes this, like, what the heck are we doing on this?

00:58:34 - Mike Mills

Do you get a good sense? Because you're paying attention to all this pretty in depth. Do you get a good sense on when we might actually get some answers on how even just from the judge ruling and then what Nar is going to say? Are we thinking the end of this year, first quarter of next year, when can we at least have an idea of when their answers might be provided?

00:58:53 - Amy Cearnal

My guess is that if the DOJ comes in and does something, that it will be late and. But it's likely that it will be more March April. And my gut, too, is that March April is getting really close to November. And so it may be Q One of 2025, I don't know, or 2027. If we go straight into appeal from March, then we're taking the can down the three years unless the DOJ comes. So I don't mean that it's just.

00:59:33 - Mike Mills

Business as usual and everything keeps going the way it has been. I mean, how does that impact it?

00:59:38 - Amy Cearnal

I think agents are going to choose to make some voluntary changes, and brokerages are, too. I think maybe the eno carriers are going to force our hand on some of that too. I don't know. I still haven't heard anything from our eno carrier. I was talking to Spencer, my husband and business partner, earlier today, and I was know, I guess maybe I need to reach out and ask some more questions. Luckily, we don't have any claims in right now that I've had to be working with them. I'm sure they're overwhelmed with all the other, but that's a big piece of this, too. Trek hasn't really come in with any guidance at Texas Real Estate Commission. So there's just a lot of pieces to this of how can we still protect the consumer but also have advocacy for them and have it where there's a system in place and I don't have a huge gut right now on which direction that will be.

01:00:30 - Mike Mills

Well, it sounds like we don't have a lot of answers. That's what it sounds like. It sounds like we have so many more questions and not a bunch of answers. And unfortunately, that's not where anybody wants to be. But we're in this situation where it's just what it is. Right?

01:00:48 - Amy Cearnal

I think it is what it is. And I think we can be forward looking as business owners and start playing out like, well, if this happens, then this, and if this happens, then this, and maybe I want to make some of those changes now, and then I want to do this. So I think there's going to be some of that happening. But as far as somebody coming in and coming into our house and saying, hey, you need to start doing business this way, that may be long. Incoming.

01:01:15 - Mike Mills

Wow. What would you tell agents that are planning for 2024? As far as not just with this, but also with where the market is headed? As far as like, hey, how are you planning your business and what kind of income can you expect to make? Because that's really what it all boils down to. I think a lot of agents are asking themselves right now, am I going to continue to be a realtor or do I need to go find another profession? Unfortunately, we've already had a bunch leave and it's a question they're asking themselves, so you got to plan for it and know what's coming.

01:01:47 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, I agree. I think they've got to start getting real serious about what their plan is for 2024. How are they going to do business development? How are they going to explain their value proposition and how are they going to price and what team do they have behind them to do that? And that could be team from brokerage team, marketing team, mortgage partners. How do they create this client experience that's going to be the best fit that makes a consumer want to pay for this service, not feel like they have to in any way, but that they are just so desirous of this because they feel like they are going to be better off for working with you than not. And so that may take some creativity. It may take doing something different than what you've done in the past. And so I would just encourage all agents to do that, to really take this next, even 45 days between now and the end of the year, to really seek out as much information as you can. I would say talk to friends in the industry, not about like, hey, let's fix our price at this. Don't do that. But talk about is your brokerage offering a business planning seminar? Are there any sort of resources that you can go to to help craft a business plan and a strong value proposition so that then you individually can say, okay, this is what I do and this is what I feel like is the fair price that I charge to the consumer for that. And that's what I feel like I can go to market with and I'm going to go with this marketing strategy. Business Planning this year is going to be completely different. Like I was saying earlier, this is something that if you're doing things the same old way, if you're going to the same old classes or same, you've got to change it up and figure out how can I be relevant in this new world and what do I want to have that look like? Don't let this happen to you. You want to happen to it.

01:03:36 - Mike Mills

Yes. Those that are proactive will have the success that they're looking for and those that are waiting to see what's going to happen or not. And that's why you have to be thinking about this stuff. You can't just take your head in the sand or pretend like it's not happening.

01:03:48 - Amy Cearnal

And there are going to be a lot of people that are going to take some of the guidance that we've gotten from our partners mean, you know, Nar saying, hey, it's just business as usual right now. You don't have to change. That's real easy just to say like, I'm not going to change. Everything's going to be okay. And it may be you could stay on that path and it could be that the Department of Justice or the president or somebody comes in and says, hey, home ownership is so important. We are not changing anything with realtors. This is exactly how it's going to stay. But there's also this possibility that it's not. And if you're not prepared for that, what does that mean for your family going forward?

01:04:22 - Mike Mills

Yeah. Can you believe like 18 months ago our entire industry was just, they could just sit by their phone and their phone would ring and someone would want to buy or sell their house and they really didn't have to do very much. And here we are less than two years later and our entire industry has been kind of flipped upside down due to market conditions. And with stuff like this, I don't know if there's been too many industries over the last 30 or 40 years that have seen such a change in such a short amount of time as to what their impact is. I can't believe it. In some cases it blows my mind.

01:04:58 - Amy Cearnal

Change creates opportunity though. So there's going to be a lot of cool opportunities in this market. And so if you just leave, you're not part of the party. There's going to be stuff to do, it's just a matter of how do we do it. And how do we do it?

01:05:10 - Mike Mills

Well, yeah, like I said, I don't know if I said this before we started or with the end, it's like there used to be someone that would ride down the street and put the little lamps out with their little candle holder and they would turn off the street lights at night and then the electricity showed up and that person didn't do that job any more. But they still had a job, they still found something else. And people are always going to buy and sell homes. That's not going to go away, at least not anytime in the near future, at least not in our life.

01:05:34 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah.

01:05:35 - Mike Mills

So it's, how are you going to fit into that model? Where does your role play? How do you make money there? Where's the opportunity there? And the only way to find that stuff is to be conscious of what's happening. You have to know what's coming, what could happen. You can't just say, I'm just going to keep doing it like I've been doing it and just hope it works out okay, because that's not the.

01:05:54 - Amy Cearnal

Yeah, and help educate the mean. When I started in the business, I worked for a married couple in Denton while I was going to college. And they got their first computer and needed me to come in and help print off everything because they weren't going to search for homes online. That was kind of crazy. They wanted the book to flip through and then that was how they were going to present those to their know. Things change and it's just part of it. And this is a big one. This is bigger than we've had before. But just like the mortgage industry changed with Doddfrank and some of these things that mean it changed, you're still here, you're still writing loans, and it's going to be okay.

01:06:33 - Mike Mills

Just got to be aware. Just got to know what's going on. Well, Amy, thank you. So, me, I appreciate you coming in and talking with me about this because this is a topic that's on everybody's mind right now, and we don't have any resolutions for it. We're just trying to provide. Here's what happened. Here's what we think could possibly happen. But at the end of the day, until some stuff is given, some judgments are thrown out there and we know where guidance is given, then we're just not going to know. But you still have to keep involved, you still have to keep informed, armed, and you still have to keep working because you got to pay those Millss. So you just got to figure out what that looks like. Thank you so much for popping on with us for a little while.

01:07:12 - Amy Cearnal

Thanks for having me.

01:07:13 - Mike Mills

Maybe once we get some judgments down, we'll maybe get back together and try to figure out. Okay, where do we go from here once we have a little more guidance, but until that happens, we just got to keep floating along.

01:07:23 - Amy Cearnal

Sounds good.

01:07:24 - Mike Mills

Good to talk to you, Millsy, and we'll see you next time.

01:07:26 - Amy Cearnal

Thanks. Bye.