
The Real Estate Market 2025 is here, bringing new challenges and opportunities for realtors, investors, and mortgage professionals. With 2023 and 2024 marking the worst home sales since 1995, agents must adapt to shifting mortgage rates, evolving buyer behavior, and increased competition. In this episode, Mike Mills and Conrad Jackson share expert insights on lead generation, prospecting, and digital marketing strategies to help realtors thrive in a slow housing market. If you’re looking to close more deals and grow your business in 2025, this discussion is packed with actionable strategies you won’t want to miss!
Real Estate Market 2025 is here! Discover top realtor strategies, mortgage trends, and expert predictions to navigate home sales, prospecting, and marketing.
With 2023 and 2024 being two of the worst years for home sales since 1995, what will 2025 bring for realtors and investors? If you’re wondering how to generate leads, close deals, and market effectively in a slow housing market, this episode is for you. Mike Mills and Conrad Jackson discuss real estate trends, mortgage rate shifts, and prospecting strategies to help realtors grow in 2025.
The Real Estate Market 2025 presents new challenges and opportunities for realtors, investors, and mortgage professionals. With home sales at their lowest levels in decades, successful agents must adapt their sales approach, improve lead generation, and embrace digital marketing.
In this episode, Mike Mills and Conrad Jackson discuss:
✔ Current market trends and how realtors can thrive in 2025
✔ How mortgage lending has evolved & what buyers need to know
✔ The truth behind builder incentives & their impact on home values
✔ Social media strategies for real estate agents to attract more clients
✔ How top-performing realtors are generating leads despite slow sales
If you’re a real estate agent looking to scale in a challenging market, this episode has actionable insights to help you succeed!
The real estate market is shifting, and buyers are more hesitant than ever. Realtors need to educate clients, set realistic expectations, and focus on long-term investments to drive home sales.
Cold calling is out—relationship-based marketing is in! Realtors must build trust through social media, referral networks, and consistent follow-ups to close more deals.
With new construction making up nearly 30% of sales, agents must explain the risks of builder incentives, including higher long-term costs and slower equity growth.
Loan approvals are stricter than ever, but requirements haven’t officially changed. Buyers should expect longer underwriting times, more documentation requests, and detailed credit scrutiny.
The best agents are winning business through Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn by providing educational content, market updates, and engaging video marketing strategies.
Conrad Jackson is a real estate agent, builder, and investor in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. With years of experience in residential and multifamily real estate, he specializes in new construction projects, housing market trends, and real estate investment strategies.
As a mentor and educator, Conrad shares insights on business growth, mortgage lending, and adapting to changing market conditions. He is also deeply involved in community development and youth sports coaching, balancing his professional success with giving back to the next generation.
🔗 Learn more about Conrad: https://www.conradsellsdfw.com
🔹 Conrad Jackson’s Real Estate Services – DFW property insights, homebuyer guidance, and investment strategies
👉 https://www.conradsellsdfw.com
🔹 National Association of Realtors (NAR) Market Reports – Stay ahead with the latest real estate trends and forecasts
👉 https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics
🔹 Freddie Mac Mortgage Rate Trends – Track interest rates and mortgage lending shifts
👉 https://www.freddiemac.com/research
🔹 Tom Ferry Real Estate Coaching – Lead generation and marketing strategies for realtors
📌 Official Website: https://www.thetexasrealestateandfinancepodcast.com
📌 All Podcast Platforms & Social Links: https://linktr.ee/mikemillsmortgage
🔔 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with fellow realtors!
00:00 - None
00:05 - The Importance of Intentionality in Success
03:42 - The Real Estate Market Shift: Navigating Changes in 2025
14:03 - The Shift in Banking and Lending Practices
23:00 - The Impact of Real Estate Market Changes
34:11 - The Evolution of Attention Spans and Parenting Challenges
43:14 - Navigating Social Media Intentions
50:57 - The Importance of Consistency in Prospecting
01:00:51 - Navigating Financial Decisions in Uncertain Times
Conrad Jackson
Just being intentional about your day.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah, that's a, that's a super huge part of your success.
If you're experiencing success, you talk to a lot of these people who are doing good numbers and they have a great business, they have a system and they stick with it and they're very intentional about what they spend their time on.
And, you know, for us Realtors who have to be, you know, plan ahead, you know, three months ago is, you know, you get to see what you did three months ago today.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
You know, you can see what you did two months ago today.
And if you're not disciplined enough to do, you know, the things that are going to get you business in the future, it's going to be really hard for you to navigate when the market is good and when the market is down and, you know, it's just going to be really hard for you to have any bit of consistency in your business. Yeah. You know, so for, you know, like we said, you got to parent all the time. You got to make sure that you're available.
You got to, you got to be an agent all the time and make sure you're available as well and think that's one of the separators for, you know, people who just get in and think it's going to be a bunch of money. It's not.
Mike Mills
It's not.
Conrad Jackson
It's not. You got to be intentional about your day.
Mike Mills
Boom, here we are. We're gonna skip all the pleasantries and intros and all that kind of fun stuff. I mean, I'll obviously introduce you here, but.
But we're just going, we're just gonna jump right into it. I don't have any, any play on words today or freaking pop puns or whatever.
Conrad Jackson
It is sponsored by Tropicana this episode. We're not. Just in case Tropicana's watching, just in.
Mike Mills
Case they're watching, but we would love.
Conrad Jackson
To, you know, we have your product. We drink it regularly for orange juice in the morning.
Mike Mills
So they want to get to our tens and tens of listeners.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah, we'll have our people reach out to your people. Tropicana.
Mike Mills
All right, well, we are back. This is Texas Real Estate and Finance Podcast. I am your host, Mike Mills back from a probably 60 day hiatus at least.
And got my good buddy Conrad Jackson here with me. Local DFW realtor, builder, investor, educator, basketball coach, family man. I mean, he does all the things.
I think I always thought that I had a lot of that I did, but then I met you and I realized that I'm. I'm pretty useless when it comes to.
Conrad Jackson
I don't know, man. You had your time, especially with the sports, youth sports. You had a whole organization. I coach two teams, so it's very minuscule, my.
What my work is versus what you've doing for years. We appreciate that too, too. You know, my kids played in that league as well, so. But at the end of the day, Yes. I don't get a lot of sleep.
My wife gets less sleep because I get more sleep than she does, and she's not happy about it. And I'm.
Mike Mills
I'm.
Conrad Jackson
You know, it is what it is.
Mike Mills
Yes. Yeah.
Well, when you have kids that are young and they're in the midst of it and you're doing stuff, you know, it's that my favorite saying I tell people all the time. It's like, the days are really, really long, but the years are really, really short. And that stuff goes by quick, you know?
And I went from coaching both of my kids when they were five years old and soccer and basketball and football and baseball and whatever, and now my daughter's 17, about to graduate from high school next year, going off to college, and, you know, my son's a freshman, about to start driving, which is terrifying in and of itself. So, yeah, not. Not real. Not real fired up about where things are headed.
My wife and I are gonna have to come up with a really good hobby sometime soon to get over this stuff.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah, do what you got to do. I understand. I'm in the thick of it, so I'll let you. If ever you want to get back in and take my place for about a month or so, feel free to tap in.
Mike Mills
I' I joke that. That once my kids leave, I'm gonna have to, like, start coaching at, like, the YMCA or something.
Conrad Jackson
You got to do, man. I got spots. We got teams that need to coach, so if you want to. Come on, come on.
Mike Mills
I got to stay with the younger ones because I know more about stuff than they do. Once I get to about 14, that's what my. That's where my competence starts to fall off a little bit. So try to keep it minimum.
Conrad Jackson
At that point, the team is just conditioning. We're not doing plays anymore. We're just conditioning because y'all know more about basketball than I do. So let's just get this up and down.
Mike Mills
Exactly.
Conrad Jackson
Exactly.
Mike Mills
All right, well, let's jump into a couple things, because we are in 2025, and, you know, we are all hoping that at least as far as real Estate is concerned this year that we see a turnaround. I don't know, you know, at this point if we will or we won't. Everything's kind of speculation.
It doesn't look like there's going to be any kind of dramatic shifts, but you never know where the world takes you. So it's kind of hard to, you know, say for sure what's going to happen.
But I wanted to start by just giving you a couple statistics, you know, that really always jump out to me when it comes to. At least on a national level. So in 2023, we had 4.9. 4.09 million existing homes. Not new, new builds, but existing homes that were sell sold.
And that's a 17% decline from 2022. Okay. And in 2024, they went down even more. They dropped down to 4.06 million, which was the lowest level that we've had since 1995. Okay.
In 1995, there were 3.8 million sales. All right. That's how far it's fallen. And, oh, by the way, population's quite a bit higher.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Since then, because that's 30 years ago. Right.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
So just to give everybody an idea, before the pandemic, all right, now, we don't count that because those three years were just insane. So this is like normal market stuff. So before the pandemic, the sales range anywhere between like five and a half to six million per year. Okay.
From 25, 2015 to 2019. And at the peak in 2021, there was 6.1 million, which was obviously, you know, when things were going crazy.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
So when you hear stuff like that and you're a Realtor, you know, doing this job, like, what does that. What does that bring to your head?
Conrad Jackson
I mean, for me, honestly, it just makes me more cognizant of the work that I got to do on a daily basis, man. Because you just don't know when this thing can. When the tap gets turned off.
Mike Mills
Right.
Conrad Jackson
And so I think that's what we saw. We saw crazy, crazy numbers where people didn't know anything about real estate and were selling tons of houses.
In the year their first year, their second year, their third year, you saw people who were making income and getting income from the government assisted, you know, money that you were getting in your household and starting businesses and buying things and buying. Upgrading their lifestyles and things like that. And it was basically like throwing gasoline on the fire.
And so everybody thought that time would last forever. And it came to an end.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And when it came to an end. It made people really, you know, understand, hey, maybe I'm not at, as, as good at my job as a real estate agent.
Mike Mills
I had that. I mean, hell, man, I, I thought I was amazing, and all of a sudden I was like, man, maybe I'm not as good at this.
Conrad Jackson
I mean, myself included, you know, houses selling, then they stop selling. And you're like, well, do I even know how to sell this house anymore? Maybe I should go back to the basics.
And so I think as a realtor, it just makes you understand even more clearly that you got to keep working in the good times and the bad. You cannot get lazy. And that's one thing that I was guilty of. I think it's one thing that a lot of people were guilty of on the real estate side.
And by the time we figured out, hey, the tap has kind of been turned off, yeah, it was too late. We had already not reached out and prospected for, you know, the previous three months or six months or whatever.
And so now our, our pipeline was running dry.
Mike Mills
Well, it's funny, when you said government assistance, I think that is a great term for what happened because, and, and when, when people say government, you know, they're thinking like the stimulus checks and the PPP loans and all that kind of stuff, but in our industry, I don't think people realize how much, quote, government assisted we were in that period. Yeah, only from a standpoint of when you look at where the rates went.
Yeah, when they went from, you know, the, the average rate, by the way, just, just so everybody knows, the average market interest rate. I got it right here. From. Where'd it go? Sorry. In 2023, the average was 7.79% in October, and that's the highest since 2000. Okay.
But during that period of time in 2021, it averaged at 3%.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
So there was a period of time between 2000 and, say 2020 where interest rates were somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 to 6%. But even then, because we forget that, that was right after the great financial crisis.
And what, what a lot of people don't realize is when you look at interest rates and what the Fed was doing, it wasn't that they cut the Fed rate dramatically.
It was that they were buying mortgage backed securities, it's called qe, where they were purchasing bonds, mortgage bonds on the secondary market to artificially drive rates down. Right.
It wasn't, I mean, don't get me wrong, cutting the rates down to zero, which is what they did, obviously had an impact on interest Rates on the whole. But when it came to mortgages specifically, it was the fact that they were buying billions of, of mortgage backed securities.
So they were just creating artificial demand. So you literally had, I don't know, the Fed's, not the government mostly, but, but you know, it's still a function of, of what we do in our country.
And that entity was artificially keeping rates incredibly low, which was driving demand for all assets, not just real estate, but everything, and making it to where the prices were just going through the roof because there was just so much, you know, it wasn't like I used to say it all the time, it's not free money, but it's pretty close, right? Pretty close. So, so it's, it's one of those things where that was like a government assisted income.
So if you were a real estate professional or if you were a realtor, if you were an investor, if you were a mortgage banker, if you were a title rep, hell, if you were an insurance agent, anybody that was in the world of real estate, inspectors, appraisers, all of these people, we were all basically living on some version of government assistance.
Conrad Jackson
Absolutely.
Mike Mills
For three years.
Conrad Jackson
Everybody, you know, I won't say everybody body, but most people who were, you know, diligent and, and had a decent business were having their best years of their career.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
You know, and that wasn't the case for everybody, but for the majority, I feel like that I talked to, at least in my small circle, everybody was like, hey, this is great, you know, and it changed when we all thought, hey, it's going to keep going, it's going to keep going. Then it changed.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And then now we, we were kind of left holding the bag like, oh man, now what do we do now? And so you kind of have to get back to the basics. And I know that's what we did.
We, we got back to the basics, you know, and it was, hopefully we have scraped the bottom of that barrel and moved on. I don't know that, but I can tell you that business now is a lot better than it was four or five months ago.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Oh yeah, no, I mean, I've experienced the same thing, but it's, it's kind of like, you know, when you go from, you know, not having a drop of water for, for two weeks and then getting a thimble full, you're like, ah, we're living the high life. Yeah. Yeah.
So yeah, it's, it's, it's a challenge because you know, I think in our industry as a whole, that we all got real comfortable with the money flowing in. And even I consider myself to be a very reasonable, practical person when it comes to money. I knew, or I felt confident that this was.
That what we were going through in 2021 and 2022. 2021, you know, that whole period was not going to be sustainable, like it wasn't going to continue. Sure, I knew that. Right, you knew that.
Yeah, we knew that. But did we fully adjust our lifestyle to match that? I mean, we saved a lot of money. We did fine, which is why we were able to make it through.
Mike Mills
Sure.
Mike Mills
But at the same time, you know.
Conrad Jackson
You go back, there were things you would do differently. Yes, yes, I know. For me, absolutely. That holds true.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Because you make decisions based off of where you think things are, where they're headed, how much you have in the bank, and then you don't realize how fast when the pick, when the spigot gets turned off, how bad that hurts. And, And I mean, look, there was a lot of. I don't. The one thing I didn't look up is I don't have the numbers for nar, and I don't have the numbers.
I do know as far as mortgage bankers are concerned.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
We lost over half our people in the. In the last two years.
Conrad Jackson
I believe it.
Mike Mills
Gone. And, and then I saw something the other day.
I didn't research the validity because, you know, these days you can't believe everything you read online.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
But I saw something like 70% of realtors didn't have or had one transaction or fewer.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Last year, 70%.
Conrad Jackson
Well, I mean, that sounds startling, but that's not uncommon.
Mike Mills
Right.
Conrad Jackson
For the, For a high number of realtors. Now, 70%, that's. That's a little high. But, you know, majority of Realtors only sell one house a year. That's usually been the trend.
Mike Mills
That is true.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Conrad Jackson
So if you have one that is doing way more than that one a month, a couple a month, a bunch a month, and you need to hold on to them because they're probably, you know, somewhat decent at their job, you know, so. But, but yeah, man, I, you know, hindsight is 20 20.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
You know, we're. We are. I say 20 20. 20 20, as far as the vision as opposed to the year. But when you look back, you're like, all right, look, man, I gotta do better.
In the times where money is flowing, business is good. You know, we saw a dramatic shift in our business in the way that bankers were talking to us.
Mike Mills
Okay.
Conrad Jackson
You know, in those Years where, you know, we do a lot of investments, we do a lot of new construction, we do a lot of construction loans, things like that, rehab loans. The bankers were just, hey, what do you need? Give me whatever you need. Send me the cost estimate.
I'll make sure that I get you what you need so you can get this project off the ground. You want to do two more? Do two more. You want to do four more? Do four more. And when everything shifted, that changed.
Those conversations were, you know, the Mr. Jackson's and all that turned into, you know, hey man, it went from Mr. Jackson to hey man, we need this, we need this now.
We, we're not going to be able to do this for you. Matter of fact, we need this document. We need this extra verification. We need this, we need that.
You know, and when we were asking for things, it was a lot harder.
The tone changed across, I feel like all the financial, financial institutions and that was just another indicator of like, hey man, we gotta be prepared for this because it's not gonna be great ever forever. And when it's good, you got to make plans for the times that it's, that it's bad.
Yeah, you know, it, it changed on us in the drop of a dime and it affected our business, it affected the amount of houses that I could put out on new construction routes and, and, and plans.
It affected, you know, I was in the, in the middle of a really big development, still am, you know, and you know, the bank called our note due and said, hey, we need to do this, we need you to pay this right now. You know, and so it was like, we got to figure this out.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And so we, luckily for us, we figured it out and we're able to get through that.
Mike Mills
But you know, that'll make your butt pucker up a little bit, man, let.
Conrad Jackson
Me tell you, driving down the street and it's like, all right, Everybody's like, how's it going? My general response, like, it's good. Those days I was like, I don't know, you know, I've been better, better days.
And just, just to grasp the scale of, you know, a development, we were talking about, you know, 70 plus homes. You know, this is a big project with millions of dollars. We have a lot of money on the line.
And the bank's like, hey, yeah, we need, we need you to pay this off.
Mike Mills
Yeah, well, there's a, there's this. I think there's a misconception to some extent that the banking has tightened up. It hasn't.
So just so we're clear the like on a standard mortgage like getting a loan, there is no rules that have changed.
Mike Mills
Right.
Mike Mills
Nothing has changed. They haven't adjusted any, any requirements for credit or income or any.
But what you are seeing, and this is where banks are starting to get a little tighter in requirements.
So if you bought a home in the last 12 months, you may have felt like you were drugged through the ringer a little bit more than maybe somebody two or three years ago.
And it's not because anything's changed per se, except for the fact that banks now independent banks, whatever they are now held, being held to a higher standard by these insure, insuring entities like Fannie Freddie, HUD va.
So what happens is, is when the money's flowing and loans are coming in those entities and you insure your loan with them and they, they're basically checking your work to make sure you wrote, underwrote the loan according to their guidelines. When that happens, there's a lot of loans coming in. There's only so many people. And so things just like, yeah, yeah, this looks good.
Yeah, yeah, this looks good. Yeah, yeah, this looks good. Right. Well once that slows down and then people start maybe having some issues paying or there are other considerations.
Well now, now they've, you know, HUD has overflow of employees that need stuff to do.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And so they're like, hey, why don't we dig into these loans that we did two years ago.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And let's start seeing if there's anything that we missed. Because they could come back on a bank and say, hey, look, you didn't verify this correctly or you didn't, this is the wrong documentation for this.
Or we found this other thing on the credit that you didn't see. Now this is your loan. Now we're not keeping it or we're gonna, we're gonna penalize you for it.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And, and on that note, I, I've gotten, I, maybe in the last six months I probably gotten three letters from three different banks saying, hey, you know, we need you to verify these particular transactions just to make sure that our records are updated and kept.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And I know it's because big brother's looking over their shoulder like, hey, we ain't going to pay you until this gets figured out.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Conrad Jackson
You know, so it, it trickles down to the consumer to at some extent as well. So yeah, that's a real thing.
Mike Mills
And even on our end, like I get frustrated, you know, when we go through underwriting and stuff because they're just, they're they're getting so granular on things to a certain extent. And like, part of me obviously understands it.
Like, I get it from a business side of things, but in the customer service and the relationship side of things, it makes it that much harder because like, for me, working with Realtor partners, you know, they would call, we'd get the loan going, it'd be like smooth, easy borrowers, like, no problem. And then we're like, okay, we got to fix this thing and I got to adjust this thing.
Now it's like, what, why did this, Is there something wrong with this? Like, yeah, there's not anything wrong with this person per se. It's just now I have a few more hoops, I've got to be extra. Sure. Yeah.
On a few more things. Get a few more note, you know, notes in the file, whatever it may be.
Because when we ship this off to Fannie or when we send it off to HUD to give us our insure insurance policy, yeah, they're going to go through with a fine tooth comb and if we miss anything, you know, we're on the hook for it. So again, my point of that is just that, like lending hasn't gotten tighter in, in the regards that any regulations or rules have changed.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
It's just they're paying more attention. It's kind of like in the NBA, right? It's like a foul's a foul's a foul, but when you get to the finals, maybe it's a little looser.
And when you get into, if you're a rookie, you might get called for a few more fouls than otherwise, right?
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah. I mean, when you're like you said, when money's flowing, it's, it's good.
But you know, when it's not, then people have attention to detail and they pay attention to detail and they're, they're looking over their shoulder, they're looking over to make sure that the eyes are dotted and the T's are crossed and you can't get around it, man. Especially if you're dealing with, you know, the banking industry on a regular basis.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And you know, in our industry, man, we, we deal a lot with the banks and they have to make sure that their stuff is right, otherwise you don't get to continue to bank there or do business with them.
Mike Mills
Yeah, I, I just thought of this and this is kind of a little bit off topic, but I'm curious your thoughts because we joke about internally in the industry. We joke about this stuff all the time.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
But why does it seem like every buyer or seller when they decide to buy a house, they are changing jobs, they are going out of town on vacation, they are, you know, buying new stuff, they are changing their corporation set up, you know, six months prior Like I know life happens, but golly, man, like it's just been a rash of that stuff, you know, lately, you know.
Conrad Jackson
It'S, it's one of those things where it's like I've had people like, hey, yeah, we, we've got this all worked out and we finally got these people to agree and yeah, we can't close on that day because we're going on a cruise. But we're not just going on a cruise. We're going to cruise to, you know, Thailand.
Mike Mills
Right?
Conrad Jackson
It's like what?
Mike Mills
No Internet connection. We're gonna be gone for six months.
Conrad Jackson
You know, new three months ago you were trying to buy a house at this time. Why are you going to Thailand? You know, and it's just, it's one of those things, man. It's.
I, I wish, I really wish that there was like when people decided, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna book this cruise at the same time that we're gonna go out, you know, we're gonn dream home that we've been waiting for and we finally got the deal that they would also remember to send a referral to like five people for me at the same time. Because it's like, hey man, they can book that cruise at the drop of a dime. No. And they always forget about mentioning that cruise.
Mike Mills
Oh yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Until we've solidified the close date or solidified a date that they have to be present for some things. Oh yeah. By the way, we're gonna be out of the country for that.
Mike Mills
Well.
Conrad Jackson
And we'll be gone for two weeks. Who, who does that?
Mike Mills
That's like on lending side. Because again, we're just, we're just talking gripes here because it's the start of 2025 is we always do a whole segment on this. Yes.
We get the title company. You know, we've got everything done basically ready to go. We're almost there. And they're like, oh, we need, it's a mail out.
We're going to need this like two days in advance. Yeah. Okay, well.
Conrad Jackson
Or I didn't, I don't remember telling you this, but you know I'm not technically divorced, right? Does that count? We're separated, right?
Mike Mills
Like what? Yes. What do you mean yes? Yeah, it's a never ending.
It's it's like we went from, you know, my processor and I were joking about this the other day with Derek. You know, we went from doing, say, you know, 20 loans a month where they were difficult. Because you're doing 20 loans a month.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
To doing like five to 10. But they're just as hard. Like, you're doing just as much work. You're like, wait a minute, we were doing double the loans.
And I feel like I'm doing just the same amount of work because everything is just that much harder. It's just a little bit more difficult to get it through. And.
And I think, you know, that's something is when we, as realtors and lenders, when we deal with our clients nowadays especially, you know, we have to. We have to relay that to them. Like, okay, there is. This isn't easy in that it's not. Has people.
Because people like it personal, like, well, my credit this, and I got this income. And why would it be. It's like, look, it's not you necessarily. Right. And your. Your thing, but you have two companies that you own.
Your, you know, wife just started a new commission job. You guys just moved two months ago. You have five bank accounts that you move money in and around all the time. Like, I get it. You're.
Your credit's great. You make plenty of money. But, you know, in your bank account every month, it's there. But you got a lot of moving parts.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And when you're trying to fit everybody into the. Into the square peg, you know, and, you know, you got a round hole there. It's. It can be challenging.
So it's like, we have to prepare people going into this. Like, the fun part is shopping for the house and looking for stuff. But then, you know, the not fun part happens after that.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah. And I think that people, you know, I have to remind people on the agent side very often the lender is trying to give you this loan.
Mike Mills
Oh, we want to do the loan.
Conrad Jackson
They don't make any money unless they do the loan. So, like, they're on your side 100%. So stop getting offended when they ask you these questions. Just answer them.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
So the lender can help you figure out how to make this work.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Conrad Jackson
You know, and they come to me like, oh, man. Like, I don't. I don't know if this is the right person. It's like, what do you mean?
The next person is not going to be as nice or have as good as much personality. Come on.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Do you want the house or not?
Mike Mills
Yeah, yeah.
All right, so going into 2025, so we know 2023, 2024, you know, again, to put it in context, historically, were two of the worst years that we've had in real estate in a very long time.
And, you know, regardless of what you see from builders, and, you know, that was the thing that I think people didn't realize too, is the amount of builder transactions that occurred in the market. I mean, it was, I think we were sitting somewhere between 25 to 30% of the purchases in of, you know, the entire country were new build.
And in a typical year that's, you know, 10 to 15%.
Mike Mills
Yeah, maybe.
Mike Mills
Right. And people don't realize that there's a big shift when you have new builds versus existing homes that get sold.
And you would think, oh, well, you know, the homes are higher quality, which is not the case.
Conrad Jackson
Debatable.
Mike Mills
Debatable. In many cases.
There isn't always a situation where, you know, yeah, it seems like they're throwing this money at you, whether it be for incentives or lower rates or all that kind of stuff. But don't be fooled by that because nobody gives you money for free. Right. They're not handing you money for free. They are now.
It may help you, like, right then, Right. You don't have enough cash or you want to get your payment lower. And I'm not hating on anybody that wants to take advantage of this stuff.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
But what I think consumers don't fully understand is when you go into a new neighborhood and you're buying a house, it's a new build at that time for those comps the homes are selling in that area because they're driving sales. Right.
So there are going to be three or four or five homes that sold in that exact same neighborhood with that exact same builder that you're working with that. So your house is going to hit the value that they're trying to hit in most cases. Right.
The issue comes in when you try to move in, say, less than five years because then those homes have already sold. And now we're pulling comps from neighborhoods around that.
Mike Mills
Yeah, right.
Mike Mills
That have sold more recently because it's more important in the recency of a sale than it is in the proximity in most cases.
Conrad Jackson
Correct.
Mike Mills
I mean, it's a balance. But so now you bought your house for 450 or something like that, and you think, all right, I'm gonna sell it for 460 or whatever.
And then they come back and it's 440. You're like, wait a minute, how is My house worth less?
Well, it's not that the market declined, it's just that the values were established in a different time than when you're trying to move because they have to build in all those incentives into the price.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Builders are going to make money.
Conrad Jackson
Absolutely.
Mike Mills
They're not going to lose money, Right?
Conrad Jackson
Absolutely.
Mike Mills
So what's your experience with dealing with that, man?
Conrad Jackson
I had a recent exp. I had a recent experience with, with this development. I learned a lot in this development, in case you can't tell.
So we, we bought a piece of property for a few hundred thousand dollars.
Mike Mills
Right.
Conrad Jackson
And this is a property we're going to develop. Okay. And we bought it in two parcels.
Mike Mills
Right.
Conrad Jackson
There was a smaller parcel, about four acres, and there's another parcel about. Roughly about 16. A little less than 16 acres. Right. So the four acre parcel, I think it appraised for like 180,000, right? Yeah, for four acres.
And the, the other one, you know, it was, it was way more than that, you know, probably triple that amount. Close to.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Okay. So when we go to the loan, when things turn and the bank says, hey, we need you to pay this, pay this down, pay this off, whatever. Right.
And we are going to get an appraisal to see, hey, is there money in the equity that we put into this? So see if we can kind of structure, restructure the numbers. We had put in both parcels together for a total of 19 and a half acres.
Mike Mills
Okay.
Conrad Jackson
It barely appraised higher than the four acre parcel two years prior. The reason being is there were no comps in the area at the time that we were.
Mike Mills
Houses weren't turning.
Conrad Jackson
Right. Yes, there were significant amount of higher priced sales, but they were so far away.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
That they weren't necessarily comparable.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And so the only things that they had comparable to our size parcel or selling for way cheaper.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And so I was screaming at the top of the lungs to my lender like, hey, let's use common sense here. I'm next to a school, there's been nothing but new development all around me.
Mike Mills
Right.
Conrad Jackson
But there haven't been enough land sales. How does this property appraise for a few hundred thousand dollars less than what it appraised for just two years ago?
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Did the land just disintegrate in two years? Like did everything catch on fire in two years and now it's no longer usable? No. So let's use common sense. But they had to go by the numbers.
Common sense was kind of out of the window. And so for that Reason we had to put a significant amount of money up to pay that loan down significantly in order to keep our deal going.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And it was very frustrating. Yeah, it was very frustrating. It was very stressful time too. So it's just what you said is kind of spot on.
Hey, the recency of sales is almost sometimes more important than, you know, the proximity of where it is. Because I was in a hot location, a hot market with nothing but good stuff going on around.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Well, I mean, and it changes too because it's, I mean, and again, it can't be understated. How much of a dramatic shift just in the last five years.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Like to go from average housing market to just the craziest housing market we've ever seen.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Back to the lowest housing market, you know, the worst performing market that we've ever seen. And crazy thing about it is home prices really didn't fall.
Conrad Jackson
No. Like, no.
Mike Mills
If someone were to tell you the volume of sales dropped to a 30 year low, like prior to 2024, like if you're sitting there in 2019 and you're like housing sales dropped 30%, you know, to a 30 year low in 2024.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Like, damn. Values must have gone down 10%, right? No, no, they went up.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah. And what you're finding is just more available inventory out there for that's been on the market for longer. That's what I'm seeing today.
It's like people are like, well, we can get these prices. Well, people, you know, there are some things that the seller will do to get their home sold.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
There. It typically does not include dropping the price drastically.
Mike Mills
Right.
Conrad Jackson
It includes, hey, we'll negotiate some concessions in here. We'll pay for some things that we typically wouldn't pay for. We'll drop it a little bit.
But you know, if you want, you want it that much, you know, you're just not going to get. We're just not going to do it.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Well, and I, you know, it's a thing where the inventory issue has been there for a long time and you don't just climb out of it overnight. And it's funny, my favorite thing because I'm, I'm probably more active on Twitter than I should be, but, but my.
Conrad Jackson
Favorite Twitter still Twitter X. Sorry, I was going to say you got me confused. Did I miss something?
Mike Mills
No, no. But you know, come on. Like, it's like calling Prince the sign. Like, what? It's Prince. Come on.
Conrad Jackson
Just curious.
Mike Mills
It's.
Mike Mills
Yeah. There's still a bird floating around out there.
Conrad Jackson
Anyway, while we're on that, is. Is threads like the alternative of Twitter? Like, is this. I'm still trying to figure this out.
I'm clearly probably showing my age, but I see a lot of threads now and I'm like, is this supposed to be like the rival of the people who don't want to be on X?
Mike Mills
I think it was a thing that Zuckerberg created. So we can fall down a rabbit hole a little bit here.
But, but the whole social media landscape, right, is, Is a bunch of either you or let's just say prior to Trump getting elected or becoming enrolled and maybe even prior to Elon taking over. Yeah, was. Social media was very much a mini.
Social media platforms were very much an echo chamber of don't say anything that could possibly if hurt someone's feelings because if you do, you're. You're cooked.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Right. And, and so Elon comes along and, and buys X, which, whatever you think of that dude. Okay.
And, and some of the stuff he's done recently, I'm a little perplexed by. But like, I think we need to, I, I know we're a troll here, but let's, like, let's, let's tone it back a little bit. It's been a little surprising.
But anyway, whatever you think of the dude and his 19 kids or whatever he has when he bought X, it was a dramatic shift in how the, the public was able to express themselves in a way that without fear of getting, you know, forever banned. Now we live in a country of free speech. We always have, like, that's, you know, you can't, there's, there's, you can't yell fire in a crowded room.
And you know, you can't threaten people online and threaten to kill them, but otherwise you can say whatever you want. Now, there's always consequences for your words, right? There's consequences for everything.
And you're going to piss some people off or you're going to be on the side of other people or whatever, but you still have to be able to say what's on your mind because the only way to combat bad ideas is to have other ideas, to have better ideas. And so if you don't have a place where you can share that stuff, and Covid was a prime example, and we all know what was going on during that.
We all know what's happened since then and all the information that's come out. So when X was created or when he took over, there was like this flood of, oh my gosh, now we can say whatever we want, do whatever we want.
Well, then everybody who could be offended by something was all of a sudden like, well, I can't be on this platform anymore.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Because it's just like, I might cry today. And so they needed a place to go. So Zuckerberg at the time, who I don't like because he just flows wherever the wind blows, you know? Yeah.
He decided to say, okay, well, I'm going to create an alternative version to Twitter to where. Or X, where you can be where everybody's nicer. Right. And it's. It's the same format or setup, but we're all just happier and nicer.
And it's kind of like there's another one called Blue Sky. Have you heard of that one?
Conrad Jackson
I've heard of it, but it's like.
Mike Mills
The, you know, super blue version of like the far left version of. Of Twitter or whatever. Or not Twitter, but that kind of platform. Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And so are people nicer on Threads? It just seems like just a different platform. People say the same stuff.
Mike Mills
Yeah. It's not.
Conrad Jackson
I mean, that's just from what I've seen, I've seen very little, but still.
Mike Mills
Well, it pulls from your Instagram feed, so if you go to my Instagram page, it's all real estate.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
So when I go to Threads, it's all real estate.
Mike Mills
Okay.
Mike Mills
So it's all the same. It's just instead of pictures, I mean, I think you're all. The platforms are kind of homogenizing.
It's funny because they all start out a lot different. But, you know, as soon as TikTok came out with all of their 1 minute, 2 minute videos, the.
Then Facebook had reels and Instagram had reels and YouTube got YouTube shorts and now LinkedIn has friggin, you know, shorts and videos on there. Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Short interviews.
Mike Mills
Yeah. I mean, it's.
Conrad Jackson
Short resume.
Mike Mills
Exactly. Yeah. Our attention span is so terrible. Like, I. We grew up in a different era. I'm a little bit older than you, but not much.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And you know, you don't want to do the good old day thing. Like back in my day, my kids hate that. But. But we didn't have, like, I always use the long car ride.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Right. If. If we were taking a trip to see grandma or we were driving to the, to the beach or whatever.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
You're in a car for six hours.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Right. There's no phone. Right. Best case, you had a Walkman.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And you could listen to music, but even then you're looking out the window, you're whatever with your thoughts, you know.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
So our attention span. I could sit down and watch a movie and get into the movie and, and take a three hours journey and be fine.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
But now, you know, I, I, you can't. Because I can't get my kids to sit down and watch a movie. I can't get my wife to sit down and watch a movie.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
I can barely. Sometimes I get there and I'm like, all right, what are we doing here? Yeah, I'm already bored with that. It's sad. It really is what it's turned into.
But, but that's what it is.
And, and, and that's why, like, the news cycle's so crazy because stuff happens, bad things happen, and then another bad thing happens two days later and all of a sudden we're moved. It's like we had, you know, perfect example, we had the Maui fires.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
We had the hurricane ripped through North Carolina.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Then we had California get destroyed with the fires. Right. And then yesterday we had the plane crash. Right.
And all of those things, if you were to ask somebody on the street, like, you remember, you know, Maui, they're like, what? Yeah, I went, how long ago was that? It was like four months ago. Like, wasn't even that long. Yeah, right.
But we just move on because this, this world is created for us.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah, I, I agree, man.
I, I remember when we were in school as a, as a kid, I was in private school probably up to about sixth grade, and we had to sit on the, we had to have our hands folded on the desk, right. As our teacher would instruct us throughout the day. And we had to, this is how we had to sit. I mean, hands folded on the desk.
And if you were slouching with, you know, hands swinging or whatever, you actually got in trouble.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And I'm thinking, man, my kids would feel like that was prison right now if they had to actually like, sit and pay attention.
You go into school now, like, I have, I still have kids in elementary, so I'll, if you go into school now, you'll see, like, there's a small group over here where they're doing like, cutting out things. And then there's a group over here where they're on the computer doing their lesson. And there's a group over here on the floo that's reading.
And then the guys in the back have earned their point, so they're doing the treasure chest. And then they're playing the games on the floor. And it's just like how, like this is controlled chaos, but it's chaos.
Like, there was no way I would have been allowed to do any of these things in school. So it's just, it's. It is part of how the, you know, the society has evolved to what, how we're going to teach.
Mike Mills
And now. And now in high school, we're punching out teachers.
You know, Like, I'm ashamed to say that a lot of my Instagram and Twitter feed is filled of fights. I don't know why. Like, I guess because Algorithm. Yeah, the algorithm.
Conrad Jackson
You look at it longer, so it's like, here's another one.
Mike Mills
Feed the Beast. Like, oh, golly, that guy knocked out cold. Like, I see too much of that.
But it's like, man, there are kids everywhere just knocking people out for no reason in classrooms. And then we wonder why we can't get teachers to come and we wonder why we can't have umpires.
Conrad Jackson
And you know, I'm a firm, I am a firm advocate of the teachers need to be paid like triple. They need to be paid triple of what they're getting paid now.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
To raise yalls bad kids. Because my kids are good, but y'all's bad kids. Oh my goodness, these kids are. They're horrible. You know, And I'm just like, come on, man. Like you.
So, yes, they need to be paid triple. Their lives are in danger. Dang near every day. They have to deal with the sickness, they have to deal with your kids attitude.
And then if they respond to your kid's attitude, they get fired. Like, oh, man.
Mike Mills
Like, well, and it sucks. And it's kind of back on the topic. A little bit of, of working and making money and, and trying to support yourself.
We're, you know, when, when my parents grew up and when. Even when. Not so much when we were kids, but I think. Because that's when it started to change. But you know, in the 60s and 70s, dad could work.
Mike Mills
Yep.
Mike Mills
And mom could stay home and take care of the kids and they could live a really good life that way. You could have a house, you could have a car. You didn't need two, you know, because there wasn't shuttle in from here to there.
You stayed in your neighborhood and look like, I'm not, you know, I don't want to get into the whole gender role of who needs to do what. Who, whatever. Like make your money to support the family. But one person could support a family of four.
Conrad Jackson
Right.
Mike Mills
Very relatively easily.
Mike Mills
Right.
Mike Mills
And they had pensions and they had jobs. And so there was so Much more of a focus on, on taking care of people. Well, now we live in a world where because everything is so expensive.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And because we also have created this place where we have to have all this stuff.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Right. And I'm just as guilty as everybody else. I'm not pointing fingers at anybody.
That we're in a place where you have to have both people in the household working to some extent in many cases.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Which means they're not there monitoring the kids every day. And because they've created iPads and cell phones and social media, like as a parent. And again, I did it too.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
But you're driving down the road and your kids screaming and kicking the back seat and they're hungry and they want this and that, whatever. And you hand them that screen and you're just like, I just need 30 minutes.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Like, just leave me alone for a little bit.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Right.
You give them that and then it becomes a habit for them and they're in front of it all the time and their attention spans are short and they don't listen and they get influence from other places other than just in the household.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And then we send them to school and we're like, not my problem.
Conrad Jackson
There you go.
Mike Mills
Like you figure it out, you know, and then we want to.
And then we allow, you know, the school systems and, and other parents allow the, the, the kids or the, the parents to blame the problems on the schools.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Oh, it's the school issues. If we just fixed the schools and the teachers, then our kids wouldn't be terrible.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And none of that is the case. You know, it all starts at home. Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
You gotta, you gotta educate your kid. You know, you have to parent one way or the other.
You, you gotta either parent your child at home or you got a parent that screen that you gave them and make sure that what they're watching is something that's gonna actually give them some value of life as opposed to watching and nonsense and things that are sending subliminal messages and injecting hate and stuff like that into their day to day, you know, discourse. So that way they, when they go to school, they're spewing all that stuff out because that's all they've been watching all day. Yeah.
You know, so it's, it's just one of those things where it's like, man, well.
Mike Mills
And you know, that's a good segue to a certain extent, because I think when it comes to doing your job as an agent or a lender or anybody that's a professional of any kind that, you know, all of this stuff that we're hating on right now, these tools that we have at the end of the day are just tools.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And. And you create the world that you want. Right. But you have to be deliberate about it.
Conrad Jackson
Sure.
Mike Mills
And because if you just float through the day and you just get up out of bed, open your phone, start scrolling through Tick Tock or Facebook or Instagram or whatever you look at. Yeah. Twitter, whatever that sets the tone for your day. Because now you're just, you're just mindlessly.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Flowing through stuff and you're gonna see whatever your brain decides to look at for a little bit.
Conrad Jackson
Sure.
Mike Mills
Whereas if you decide to wake up in the morning and you say, okay, I gotta get my body going, I gotta get my mind going and handle a few things that, that put me in the right mindset, then I can start getting on my devices and electronics and emails and all this other stuff.
But anytime I look at social media or anytime I have to scroll through Twitter, anytime I look at, you know, Instagram or whatever, I have to be conscious of when I see something related to my business or when I see something related to a way that I want to be right. I know people, and I was one of them that got bogged down or, you know, gets gross about, like, oh, you just gotta push through and work hard.
You know, the motivational stuff like that kind of wore me out. But. But it works, man. It really works.
Conrad Jackson
I mean, just being intentional about your day.
Mike Mills
Yeah. Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
That's a, that's a super huge part of your success.
If you're experiencing success, you talk to a lot of these people who are doing good numbers and they have a great business is they have a system and they stick with it and they're very intentional about what they spend their time on.
And, you know, for us realtors who have to be, you know, plan ahead, you know, three months ago is, you know, you get to see what you did three months ago today.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
You know, you see what you did two months ago today.
And if you're not disciplined enough to do, you know, the things that are going to get you business in the future, it's going to be really hard for you to navigate when the market is good and when the market is down and, you know, it's just going to be really hard for you to have any bit of consistency in your business. Yeah. You know, so for, you know, like we said, you got a parent all the time. You got to make sure that you're Available.
You got to, you got to be an agent all the time and make sure you're available as well. And I think that's one of the separators for, you know, people who just get in and think it's going to be a bunch of money. It's not.
Mike Mills
It's not.
Conrad Jackson
It's not. You got to be intentional about your.
Mike Mills
Well, and for anybody, you know, that hears this and is like, you know, I try to caveat things all the time and say like, you know, we all know the right things to do.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
But many of us just don't do them. And I'm just as guilty as, like I said, you know, it.
Conrad Jackson
And it's, it's, honestly, it's a little harder nowadays because like, especially the social media takes up so much of your time.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Right. But for us, you know, a big part of our business is social media.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And so you. That being intentional, like when I get on Instagram in the morning is to make sure that the people know that I'm still a Realtor.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Conrad Jackson
And that I'm still good at my job and I can still help you get educated on real estate things.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And you try to do that without getting caught up in, oh, this popped up. Let me watch that. Which turns into. This turns into. At 30 minutes gone.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Conrad Jackson
You know what I mean? So it's difficult. I'm not going to sit here and act like I'm great at it. You know, I do well enough.
But not, I could be much better with my time management when dealing with social media promotions and marketing and things like that. But you need it. So you, you can't just eliminate it.
Mike Mills
Well, and that goes back to being intentional in that if you like, let's just, let's say for example, you decide that Instagram's gonna be your thing. Like you're gonna, you spend all your time on Instagram or whatever social platform, like that's what you're gonna do.
Well, then learn how to use Instagram for sure. Learn the best methods. Learn, you know, what, what gets the most engagement. Learn how to communicate with other people.
Dm, you know, like comments, share all the stuff that, that goes in there. Make your videos, do whatever. So, and then when you're looking, when you have downtime. Right.
And you're sitting at your kid's game before it starts and instead of just scrolling through.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Just, just doom. Scrolling what they want to. Whatever they want to call it.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Go like watch a three minute YouTube video about how to best practices for Instagram or whatever. Just spend your time educating yourself.
Conrad Jackson
Here's a question for you.
Mike Mills
Sure.
Conrad Jackson
I'm very guilty of this, okay. And I don't know why, but it's just how I am. And I want to know if you're the same, right? So when you're watching a video, right?
Or you're watching something that you like, or you see something that you like on. On one of these platforms, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, right. Are you very select?
I'm super, like, ultra selective about what I'm gonna double tap and heart.
Mike Mills
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Conrad Jackson
Like, I am. Like, it could have made me laugh for 20 minutes, but if I don't like that person, I ain't double tapping. You gotta work to get these likes.
Mike Mills
Well, not only that, but see, what I don't know, that everybody knows that it's not the double tap, per se. I mean, that. That's like. That's like putting it on steroids. Yeah, but it's how long you spend. Like, they're watching your eyes.
They're seeing how long you spend on that particular thing. I mean, it is a. It is just examining everything. It's a psychological tool. And if you like, if you're like, man, I never liked fight videos.
I don't watch. Like, I don't subscribe or follow those channels or like them. Why do they keep showing up on my. Because that's the one. I'm like, what?
And then I watch it. I'm like, damn. You know, so. So, yes. Like, yeah, I'm. I'm also actually, I. I'm kind of the opposite.
I'm like, if I get too many of these that start coming up.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Then I start the most boring post that I'm not really wanting to see, but it's like real estate related or finance related. I'm like, like, share my comment. I'm like, yes. I'm like, give me. I need more of that balance.
Conrad Jackson
Yes. I feel. I feel like I'm like, super snobbish and uppity when it comes to, like, I'm gonna actually acknowledge that this was good, you know?
And I just want to know if other people are like that too, because it's like, all right, this could be somebody that, you know, has done something or just you posted something that somebody said and it was hilarious. But I don't really fool with you like that.
Mike Mills
Yes. Yes.
Conrad Jackson
You ain't getting my life today.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And then when I do, it's like a Bruno Mars concert. It's like, ah, that performance was amazing. Here's your life.
Mike Mills
Here's your button for the day. Congratulations. Aren't you so happy that I liked your post? Look so lucky.
Conrad Jackson
You should feel good as a content creator. You walk away.
Mike Mills
You got me today.
Mike Mills
You got me today. Good for you.
Conrad Jackson
So it's good to know I'm not the only one out there.
Mike Mills
No, I, I definitely, I definitely use it as a, as a weapon for sure, to either change my algorithm or, you know, try to boost something with somebody or whatever the case may be. But I, I, I think that's a, honestly, I think that's somewhat of a guy thing to some extent. And that, yeah. That we just kind of scroll through like.
Okay, yeah, okay, that was good. That was good. But we're not going to take any action to like, actually, you know, whereas like, like women more so like, especially my wife.
You know, I, I'm sure you're like this because you're, you and your wife are friends on Facebook, but half of my alerts.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Are my wife commenting on someone's post. You know, Susan commented on this post, Susan said this, Susan did that.
And, and so like, that's half of my like alert my, my notifications or whatever is her doing stuff because she's like, oh, this is great and this is amazing and congratulations. And then I feel like a bad person. I'm like, like, I am happy for him.
I'm glad that, you know, they, they got all district or that they won their tournament or whatever. But I saw it, I'm like, cool. And then I move on.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah, it's like out of sight, out of my, Appreciate it.
Mike Mills
Good job.
Mike Mills
Yeah, I had a conversation with a buddy of mine yesterday. We hadn't spoken in a while and we were just chit chatting about some stuff and he was like, man, you know, I, I, it's my fault. We need to keep up.
You know, I should have called you and chatted some more and I'm like, man, it's me too. Like, you know, I could have called less. I was like, you called me last. I didn't call you. You know, it's funny, next time I called you.
Yeah, but, but it's also like, you know, I think guys a little bit more. We're like, we could not talk to each other for six months and then we just fall right back into it and there's not a lot of like.
Conrad Jackson
Well, you know, you didn't, we had, yeah. We had to like, figure out why and, and work through our, our distance.
Mike Mills
Right. Right. We gotta go. All right.
Conrad Jackson
Hey, man, what's going on?
Mike Mills
I'll talk to you a little bit.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
You know, like, any of my posts or say hello to me or whatever, you know, it's like, look, man, we all believe busy lives, you know, so we just don't get as. I think that's the same, like, same methodology when it comes to, like, social media scrolling. It's like, yeah, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
But I'm not gonna, like, overly go, you know?
Conrad Jackson
And is it counterintuitive? Like, we're supposed to be social and we're like, I know. For me, I always feel like this.
I'm like, all right, well, I ain't commenting on that, even though I should have. I probably could have, but I had some insight, but I don't want to do it, you know? And, like, am I not being social in social media?
Mike Mills
I think so, because I deal with the same thing. I'm. I'm generally. I think you and I are similar to a certain extent, but I think this is a lot of guys in that, like, if we're gonna go somewhere.
Yeah. Or go hang out, whatever. Cool. Let's go. Let's go to a concert. Let's go to this party. Let's go do whatever. Right. Like, I'm down. Like, you'll never.
I'll never be like, I don't want to go. Like, let's go. But am I gonna actively seek that out and try to, like, do that? No, not really. Right. So it's like when I.
I would go through phases where I would get on Twitter because I'm like, all right, I wanna, like, with the podcast stuff, like, I want to grow the podcast. So I'm going to comment and, like, other people and share their stuff and engage and all this other.
And then I'll get on there and I start commenting and. And sharing and engaging and all this stuff. Well, I mean, it comes back. Like, they're.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
You know, I'm getting alerts, and then, like, I'll do that for like a.
Conrad Jackson
Week and then it's over.
Mike Mills
And then I'm exhausted.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah, that's a lot of work.
Mike Mills
I just don't care anymore. I just don't care. I don't want to engage with this person. He keeps going back and forth. I don't even know you, but I'm just trying to. It.
And it's the same thing on all the platforms because it's just. I just. I just don't care that much, you know, that's me.
Conrad Jackson
That's me. So I was Good to know that I'm not the only one out there. Yeah, absolutely.
Failing at life with engaging on social media on a regular basis, it, look.
Mike Mills
It'S never not going to be important.
And it is, you know, a thing that we, we both know and we both preach to people that we talk to about it and we're, we're hot and cold on it just like everybody else. We do it a lot sometimes. We don't do it at all sometimes. And that's how it goes.
But, but the, the importance and the, the critical nature of what it is can't be understated.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And, or overstated. And it's, it's a situation where if you're not, I mean, we talked about this before we got on.
Like, if you're not in front of people on a regular basis and you're not telling them what you do and it doesn't have to be, call me, I'm a realtor, call me, I'm a realtor. Or call me, I'm a lender, or call me, I'm a lender. It doesn't have to be that. It could just be like, I, I'm alive.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
I exist.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Here's some that I'm doing today.
Conrad Jackson
Yep.
Mike Mills
And oh, by the way, you know.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Give me a call.
Mike Mills
Give me a call if you need something. Right. Like that's all it is. And I think we all overthink it because we want it to be perfect and great.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
We want it to be, you know, the, the best script and the best lighting and the, you know, the funniest post and all this kind of. And don't get me wrong, I mean, that plays a role.
But, but consistency and doing it on a regular basis, even if you fall off the wagon from time to time.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Like I did. Not doing this for two months. You just got to get back on the horse, man.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Because the critical nature of what you're doing, if you're selling to people, whatever it is that you're selling.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Homes, mortgages, you know, carpentry. What. It doesn't matter if you're doing that. People spend most of their time on their phone.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Looking at social media.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And if you're not on there on a semi regular basis and then you wonder why business is slowing down because you're not going out either.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Man. I'll tell you, this is a little bit off topic, but I had, like, it made me feel so terrible about my prospecting efforts.
I had a, we had like a Uber Eats or something. Delivery. A food delivery to the house, right?
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And I just happened to be like, walking out of the house to get something out of the garage when they were, you know, pulling up to the house. So, you know, I met him in the driveway. Hey, thanks. Appreciate that. Got the food, whatever.
They take their picture, boom, proof that I actually gave it to you. And then as I'm walking away, like, hey, here. Here you go too. You know, just so you know, we do like, paint, drywall, all this good stuff.
And I'm like, yeah, God dang it. If the person delivering my fast food.
Mike Mills
He's better.
Conrad Jackson
Is willing to prospect and promote their business.
Mike Mills
That's a hustler.
Conrad Jackson
And all I'm doing is here, is sitting here eating fries. I gotta be better. I'm like, man, I never even thought about that. I don't even know if that's allowed.
Mike Mills
Do you know who David Goggins is?
Conrad Jackson
I don't think so.
Mike Mills
Okay, so he's a Navy SEAL guy. He got big from being on Rogan, but he is like, he does a lot of speaking events and stuff. And basically, like, he runs ultra marathons.
And he's like, you know, leads, he has the world record and pull ups. Like, he's just like this Super Workout America. Yeah. But he's like, you know, he says all the time.
Yeah, like, he's like, dude, you know, like, there's no. There's no sugar cone stuff. Stuff. Anyway, he. And I've heard this before, but I just heard it from him recently. He was talking about.
Because he was in the military, he's talking about battle. He's like, you know, if there's a hundred soldiers on the battlefield, he's like, 20 of them just might. Might as well not even be there.
He's like, 80, you know, or the 60 of them are there to. Or like 70 of them are there, you know, just because they have to be. And they're gonna die, it's some point.
Conrad Jackson
Sure.
Mike Mills
He's like, there's 10 guys on the battlefield that are there fighting.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And he's like. And there's one of those guys that's a warrior.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And he's like, I'm trying to be that one guy. And that's his whole mentality.
And it's like, like, you have to constantly think to yourself, okay, what do I got to do to be just a little better today? Yeah, a little bit better today, right? Like, that dude handing you his card, it's like, hey, man, I'm driving Uber, eats or whatever. Right.
And some of us would go, well, I mean, I don't wanna, like, I don't want this guy to call me dudes because I'm delivering food or whatever. And yet that dude's going, okay, I'm making, I'm hustling, I'm doing something.
Conrad Jackson
And from my perspective, I'm like, man, if I need something, I'm gonna call him.
Because if he's willing to give me his business and give me his opportunity or try to get an opportunity for me while he's doing this, that means he really cares about this.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Conrad Jackson
So I want that guy.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Conrad Jackson
You know?
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And there's not a lot of people out there that are like that because, you know, we get, again, we get comfortable in our roles, we get comfortable in our world, and we don't want to, you know, rock the boat or, or swallow a little bit of pride and be like, hey, man, I need, you know, I need some. I, I do this, I do that. You know, I do all these things. And it's, it's so freeing, I think, for a lot of those people.
Because when you put your head in the right spot and it's, and it's not the. I hate the mindset stuff, but I do. And more and more to be said about it. When you look at quantum physics.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Like, if you just want to get into the science of it.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah.
Mike Mills
When you can sit there and go, okay, so you're telling me that we know that particles, okay. That exist in the world.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
That when they're observed, they behave a certain way.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And when they're not observed, they behave another way. Right. So that means just the, just pure observation on something and focus on something changes the way that it behaves. It literally changes matter.
Mike Mills
Yeah, right.
Mike Mills
Literally. Like, this isn't science fiction, this is real. So if that's the case, how far do you have to go? Do you get to the place of.
If I think that I'm going to be successful and I think that I'm going to close this deal, and I think that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and go do my workout and I'm. I'm that person. Is it unrealistic to think that. That you won't be that person?
Conrad Jackson
I don't think so. I mean, like, ultimately, I let me dumb it down for our audience because that was like high level stuff. And we usually are not that much high level.
Okay. So I relate everything to you sports.
So for me, that's like me telling my sons, okay, well, you have to see this shot going in mentally before you shoot it.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
Okay. And if you.
Every time we step up to this free throw line and you shoot this basketball and you visualize it going in and you shoot it the right way and we shoot enough of those every day, eventually you're just going to be automatic from here. It's not. It's going to be second nature muscle memory, you know, because you've already trained your mind to that.
This is what's going to happen when I do these things.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
And you still get some of the world's best trainers in that sport and other sports that say that, you know, you have to visualize. You have to see this happening for it to actually happen.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
You know, so there's something to be said for that.
Mike Mills
Well, there's actually. I don't remember if it was either Harvard or Stanford did a study. Not. I mean, it was probably 10 years ago, but they took three control groups.
And this was athletics specifically. And they. I think it was. It was free throws. So they did free throws. They had one group. Group that didn't, you know, they.
They basically shot free throws. And they had one group that didn't shoot any free throws at all for like a week.
They had one group that practiced shooting free throws like every day, you know, and then they had one group that didn't touch a basketball, but just sat and thought intentionally about what it looks like to shoot a free throw, to see the ball going in. They were very specific about how to work through the process of thinking about it.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And when they came back and did like the next round of shooting, the guys that shot every day only did just slightly better than the ones that never picked up a basketball, but thought about it in their brain and I mean, like, intentionally.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Like, not just like, oh, that'd be nice, but like, where's my form? Where's my elbow go? How do I push through? I see the ball going through the net, not hitting the backboard, like that kind of stuff, like.
And it was, I think they had. It was something. It was a small study.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah.
Mike Mills
You know, maybe a couple 500 people or something like that. But. But they showed, like, obviously the guys that shot every day were better. Yeah, but it wasn't. It was like statistically insignificant.
Conrad Jackson
So what you're saying is I need to get my son to visualize the Kyrie Irving double behind the back, in and out, step back into the jump shot every day and then he might be able to pull that sucker off in the game.
Mike Mills
Maybe I'm not saying he won't or.
Conrad Jackson
He'Ll be slightly worse than the guy who's practiced that. He'll be closer.
Mike Mills
Right? He'll be closer to it. I mean that I. Look, I tell my kids that all the time.
I'm like, look, whether you believe that thinking positively and being, Being optimistic and not focusing on, like, the doom of life. Right. If. Even if you think that's mumbo jumbo. Right. Even if you think that's voodoo and it doesn't work and that's stupid or whatever, fine.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
But if there's even a chance that it works, what's. Why not? Yeah, why not do it?
Conrad Jackson
Just give it a shot.
Mike Mills
Give it a shot. See how it goes.
Conrad Jackson
Because that could happen.
Mike Mills
Statistically, you're probably going to do better anyway.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Right. Yeah. It's like the people that are like, well, like, I don't know if I believe in God or believe whatever.
But, but, but I mean, might as well because, you know, hedge my bets. Right. I mean, it's. It's kind of the same idea. Like, it, it doesn't hurt.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
To try. So.
So if you're going into 20, 25 and you're trying to figure out, okay, how the hell am I going to get out of what happened in 24 and 23 and try to support my family, pay my bills so I don't have to change professions because I love doing this job. Right.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
What are you going to do?
Conrad Jackson
Yeah, ultimately, you first. First thing you need to do is what we just talked about. Visualize what it looks like for you to be on the other side of that and be successful.
You definitely got to be intentional.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Conrad Jackson
You definitely got to be intentional about making sure that you are available. Like the NFL says, best ability is availability. Right.
Like, you got to be that if you're going to be an agent, you're going to be a lender, you're going to be, you know, whatever it is, title rep that's trying to get more business. Like, you got to be intentional about that also. And then you got. You got to make sure that you plan for the future.
Mike Mills
Yeah. If we've learned anything, learned nothing else.
Conrad Jackson
Like, hey, when you do get to that point where this stuff is rolling in and it looks. Looks good and it feels good, and we. We've gotten to a spot where we've gotten almost.
Or maybe we are comfortable, let's make sure that we make some preparations for those times that we're not going to be as comfortable.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
I think those and Then you have to know social media. You have to be intentional about that too. So I think we went like around the world in a, like a whole bunch of different things today.
But I mean, if you miss those, those there they are like that. And, and we're sponsored by Tropicana.
Mike Mills
Tropicana.
Conrad Jackson
We're actually not, but we would love to be. So. Tropicana, if you're listening. Tropicana, if you're listening. Listening. I guess I gotta get the name right.
If you're listening, we would love an nil deal or something. We are here and open for business.
Mike Mills
We got, we got kids that need to pay for college.
Conrad Jackson
I'm not even a host of this podcast, but I like it.
Mike Mills
Keep chilling.
Conrad Jackson
Try to get these sponsorships.
Mike Mills
Well, and just to, because we talked about so many things today and we're, we're almost right at an hour here. I do want to, because, you know, I put a bunch of stuff in the description. Oh, we're going to discuss this. I think we got to maybe 1% of it.
But I, I do want to say, because, you know, I get the question all the time, what are going to happen with rates and what's going to happen with the housing market? Market. Okay, yeah. Here's my opinion on it.
My opinion on it is that if you're expecting rates to drop dramatically anytime soon, I would not bet on that. And I would also say that it's possible, but the only way that it's possible is if we have a significant economic collapse of some kind.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And that's not anything that anybody should wish for because we don't want that. And I would also say that, you know, Mr. Trump, President Trump, who is in office right now, he for no other reason other than his own self interests.
Right. Wants to make sure that the, the American economy is highly successful during his presidency.
And he will do whatever it takes, maybe make do stupid stuff that he shouldn't do. I don't know, things he shouldn't probably do. But, but that's going to be his goal, I assure you of that.
So to expect or hope for a collapse even puts it at a greater unlikelihood. Because the person that's in charge right now, that's the last thing that he ever wants to happen.
Not that anybody wants that, but so, so I wouldn't expect rates to change any dramatic, I mean, I think best case, you know, you maybe get by the end of the year if we're, if we're sitting in the low sixes, we're probably doing pretty good.
Mike Mills
Okay.
Mike Mills
Right. And when it comes to home sales and market shifting, I think it has picked up because I think we're living in the norm of this is where rates are.
Mike Mills
Right. Yeah.
Mike Mills
This is where home prices are.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
We're not waiting any longer because I got to move, I got to change my job, I got to get a bigger house or downsize or whatever the. The need is. So I, I do expect transactions to pick up.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
But I wouldn't expect them to pick up, you know, dramatically.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Conrad Jackson
I have seen an increase in, in. In buyers and sellers on both sides. I have seen a, A significant increase. So the activity is there, the transactions are there.
You know, will it be what it was? Probably not, but it is significantly greater than what it was four months ago.
Mike Mills
Yes. Yes. And I think, if anything, we. All the. The hope we want to have is, you know, stock market keeps going up.
We want jobs to stay plentiful, and we want the economy to do well, regardless of who's leading it, because it's better for all of us.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
And, you know, and inflation is still a concern and still an issue.
And I think if there's two ways we could go where you could say you either going to have a collapse or you're going to have inflation go through the roof. I would bet on inflation going through the roof.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
That. That's where I'd put my money. I hope we stay in between that.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
Right.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
But, but if I had to pick an extreme, I would pick the economy doing really, really well, but things being really, really expensive.
Mike Mills
Yeah.
Mike Mills
So keep that in mind, you know, when you're making financial decisions.
Conrad Jackson
Yeah, for sure. And if you learn nothing else, discipline yalls bad kids at home.
Mike Mills
Yes.
Conrad Jackson
So let your kids go to school on these teachers that not making enough money. Take them kids home and discipline them. Please, please, please not bring them back kids to school. I'm tired of seeing it.
Mike Mills
I'm gonna wear the bring back the bullies T shirt. That's what I'm gonna start. I'm okay. Like, can we have just like, can we get the happy medium of like, you know, I got anybody getting hurt. But.
But I need. It's okay to like, make fun of people. Like, like, if you wear some stupid pants, like, tell them like, it's okay.
Conrad Jackson
How are we gonna learn if we don't, you know, he's our constructive criticism.
Mike Mills
I mean, you know, it's all right. Like, you know, I got picked on as a kid. I picked on other kids like, It's. It's part of life.
Conrad Jackson
I roasted a lot of people. Yes. So, yes, it is what it is. Now my kids roast me. So, yeah, coming full circle, that's how.
Mike Mills
You learn how not to say dumb. Right? Because when you say dumb people like, that was stupid. And then you're like, oh, yeah, I guess it kind of was my bad.
Conrad Jackson
The delivery was. Wasn't good.
Mike Mills
Yeah. But if somebody's like, oh, no, it's okay. We just want to know how you feel.
Conrad Jackson
It's like, oh, good.
Mike Mills
I can say whatever the hell I want.
Conrad Jackson
No, no, breeze. He gave us. Gave Mike. He didn't give us a shout out. He gave you a shout out, so maybe you should give him a shout out.
I'm not, you know, he didn't shout out to me, so I feel a certain type of way. But we appreciate you watching and listening to our nonsense.
Mike Mills
All right, guys. Well, like I said, this was a get back in the saddle episode. You know, we're definitely gonna. I'm going to do more housing stuff.
We're going to continue. I'm not going to fall off of that, but, you know, I want to keep it a little more casual going forward. I like having good conversations with people.
That's why I always like having gone right here. Because we can just shoot the and talk about a lot of different things.
We kind of chase rabbits occasionally and, you know, maybe it's not the most content filled information. I'll still do my market updates every week, so we give a little bit of updates on what's happening.
I will start kind of keep those a little more local. So we're going to do a little bit more Texas and DFW in big cities in that area. But.
But you know, I'm back and we'll keep doing this and you know, Conrad will keep joining us. Have more guests coming your way.
But I appreciate everybody that listened, stuck around and I hope everybody has a great 2025 and Tropicana, we will tag you.
Conrad Jackson
Tropicana. We appreciate the future partnership. That's right.
Mike Mills
That's right. Bring it. Let's go. All right, Conrad, Have a good week, everybody. Take care and we'll see you next time.
Conrad Jackson
Appreciate it.
Mike Mills
All right.
Realtor/Investor/Property Manager/Developer
Conrad Jackson is a seasoned veteran and top-producing realtor on the David DeVries Team. His knowledge base includes a Bachelor's Degree in Real Estate from the University Of Texas at Arlington, and he as been working exclusively with the David DeVries Team for over a decade. Conrad Jackson is a force to be reckoned with in the real estate industry. With a diverse range of roles under his belt - realtor, developer, property manager, investor, and even a budding YouTube star - Conrad knows how to make the most of every opportunity that comes his way. He's not afraid to think outside the box and find creative solutions to common problems in the industry. Conrad's journey started with a rundown, graffiti-covered house that he and his partner transformed into a profitable rental property. Since then, he has continued to expand his real estate portfolio and explore alternative revenue streams. His ability to navigate the ups and downs of the market and continually find success sets him apart as a valuable guest on the podcast. Conrad's insights and experiences will inspire and motivate real estate professionals to think beyond the traditional buying and selling model and explore new avenues for growth and success.