Zavvie Power Buyer: Tech-Driven Solutions for Real Estate Professionals

Maya Velasquez
00:00:00

When I think about a real estate agent or a loan officer, I think they have all of these tools, all of these things that they know how to do.

Maya Velasquez
00:00:05

And I think the danger is they're used to being the person that knows all of the things about real estate.

Maya Velasquez
00:00:10

When new things come, I think we can be a little hesitant.

Maya Velasquez
00:00:14

Try not to immediately discount things when they come into your orbit, whether that's an AI tool, whether that's some alternative finance model, whatever it is, just taking a minute to think about it, to do a little bit of research on it, because I think we're at a.

Maya Velasquez
00:00:27

Of a tipping point right now with technology and real estate.

Maya Velasquez
00:00:30

But I think that there is so much coming that I think the more you resist, the more dangerous it is, and it's only getting more competitive.

Maya Velasquez
00:00:39

I think it's mostly a mindset, if you're a real estate professional, of these things are coming for your job.

Maya Velasquez
00:00:44

This is a way to help you.

Maya Velasquez
00:00:45

And the more that you cannot bury your head in the sand and just take a quick second when you hear about something, to just do a little bit of research, figure out if it could be something that you want to implement, ask someone about it, versus just saying, that's new, I'm not interested.

Maya Velasquez
00:00:59

That's scary.

Maya Velasquez
00:01:00

Whatever the case may be.

Mike Mills
00:01:01

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:01:01

Number one.

Mike Mills
00:01:10

Well, what is up to all you real estate rookies and ogs out there?

Mike Mills
00:01:14

So, if your idea these days of high tech is still a pager and a palm pilot, then it is time to change your focus.

Mike Mills
00:01:21

Or you might be left behind like your local blockbuster video on a Friday night.

Mike Mills
00:01:25

So, in today's market, if you're not tapping into AI, automation, and algorithms, then you might as well be printing MapQuest directions to your next showing.

Mike Mills
00:01:32

We're going to be on fire with these 90 references, today's guys.

Mike Mills
00:01:35

So.

Mike Mills
00:01:36

But seriously, tech tools that can help you close more deals are everywhere, and sorting through them can feel like a full time job.

Mike Mills
00:01:42

The truth is, though, that these tools are not optional anymore.

Mike Mills
00:01:45

They are essential.

Mike Mills
00:01:46

And if you're not as tech savvy as you'd like to be, then don't worry.

Mike Mills
00:01:50

You've come to the right place.

Mike Mills
00:01:51

This is the Texas Real Estate and Finance podcast, where we break down everything you need to know to thrive in today's ever evolving market.

Mike Mills
00:01:58

I'm your host, Mike Mills, a north Texas mortgage banker with Geneva Financial.

Mike Mills
00:02:01

And when I'm not here throwing out nineties references like it's the golden age of grunge, I'm out there helping you.

Mike Mills
00:02:06

And your clients navigate the home loan process, making sure it's as smooth and stress free as possible.

Mike Mills
00:02:12

Think of me as your mortgage game Boy, ready to level up your real estate skills without missing a beat.

Mike Mills
00:02:17

All right.

Mike Mills
00:02:17

That's all there are.

Mike Mills
00:02:18

Nineties references.

Mike Mills
00:02:19

Maybe.

Mike Mills
00:02:19

Maybe.

Mike Mills
00:02:19

We'll see.

Mike Mills
00:02:20

Now, before we jump in, I've got a quick favor to ask.

Mike Mills
00:02:22

If you find, if you find value in today's episode, whether it's one key takeaway or a big bright light bulb moment, then go ahead and hit the like button.

Mike Mills
00:02:30

Subscribe and share it with a fellow agent or a good friend.

Mike Mills
00:02:33

Every new listener that we get goes a long way in getting our message out across all of the real estate realm.

Mike Mills
00:02:38

And, of course, if you've got a client who's ready to take the next step in their home buying journey and could use a smoothen, no nonsense loan process, then send them my way.

Mike Mills
00:02:47

Think of me as the garth to your wane.

Mike Mills
00:02:48

And together, we'll make your clients home buying journey.

Mike Mills
00:02:51

Excellent.

Mike Mills
00:02:52

So, party on, real estate rockstars.

Mike Mills
00:02:54

All right, that was the last one.

Mike Mills
00:02:54

That was the last one.

Mike Mills
00:02:55

Promise.

Mike Mills
00:02:56

Okay.

Mike Mills
00:02:56

Now, on today's episode, we're diving into how tech can help you close more deals and offer better solutions to your clients.

Mike Mills
00:03:03

Our guest is the head of growth at Zavi, a company that's redefining how agents and brokers do business with innovative tools like cash offers and buy before you sell programs, helping real estate pros stay ahead and close more deals.

Mike Mills
00:03:16

So get ready to level up your tech game and learn how Zavvy can help boost your bottom line.

Mike Mills
00:03:21

Just in time for the holidays, please welcome to the podcast, Miss Maya Velasquez.

Mike Mills
00:03:26

Maya, how we doing?

Maya Velasquez
00:03:27

Yes, I'm doing great.

Maya Velasquez
00:03:28

Doing great.

Maya Velasquez
00:03:29

It's great to see you.

Maya Velasquez
00:03:29

Thanks for having me.

Mike Mills
00:03:30

You got it.

Mike Mills
00:03:31

You got it.

Mike Mills
00:03:31

So I need a head of growth in my business these days.

Mike Mills
00:03:36

So your skills must be in high demand right now, right?

Maya Velasquez
00:03:39

I like to think so, yeah.

Mike Mills
00:03:41

Yes.

Mike Mills
00:03:41

That's good.

Mike Mills
00:03:42

So, before we dive into your journey to Zavi here, let's start off with the commercial.

Mike Mills
00:03:50

Let's talk about what is Zavvi, what do you guys do?

Mike Mills
00:03:53

How are you helping real estate professionals grow their business?

Mike Mills
00:03:57

And what kind of tools do you offer that helps them close more deals?

Maya Velasquez
00:04:01

Yeah, for sure.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:01

So I'll backtrack a little bit.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:03

And we started, and I started at savvy five years ago when ibuyers came on the scene.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:07

So first product we came out with is a marketplace that helps agents and loan officers compare what all of those different options look like to their client, whether that be selling options like selling to an ibuyer versus selling on the open market, or whether it be one of the power buyer options.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:23

Buy before sell, what that looks like compared to a bridge loan or just purchasing normally with a 30 year loan.

Mike Mills
00:04:29

So you guys had a tool that basically took other types of options that are available to buy and sell and then just kind of created like a chart or graph or comparison as to what may fit you the best, depending not necessarily with you guys, but just offering out there.

Mike Mills
00:04:43

Okay, very cool.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:44

Exactly.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:45

Actually, at that time, we didn't have our own offering.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:47

We were just outsourcing to all of the different alternative finance solutions out there.

Mike Mills
00:04:53

Like an alternative financing hub, basically.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:55

Right, exactly.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:57

Exactly.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:57

So it was super fun.

Maya Velasquez
00:04:59

I think for me, it's been fun to get the vantage point over the last five years of seeing what actually stuck.

Maya Velasquez
00:05:05

I know a lot of those solutions aren't super viable anymore, and they kind of shift and change as the market grows.

Maya Velasquez
00:05:10

So, yeah, it's been really interesting, of course, to help agents and real estate agents, but also just on a macro level, say, okay, what actually works in that space?

Maya Velasquez
00:05:18

And a lot of those companies have tried a lot of different versions.

Maya Velasquez
00:05:21

I think there'll be more to come.

Mike Mills
00:05:22

But are you still offering that too, by the way?

Maya Velasquez
00:05:25

Yeah, so we still offer that what we found when kind of on accident, when the market shifted late 2022.

Maya Velasquez
00:05:32

I can't believe it's been two years already.

Maya Velasquez
00:05:34

But I think we all, we all remember that time for sure.

Maya Velasquez
00:05:38

And a lot of the companies that were offering buy before sell, or these cash buyer options for buyers mainly weren't able to operate, lost their funding capabilities, which is a really hard time to operate that business.

Maya Velasquez
00:05:50

And so we had been operating it on a very small scale for a couple jvs of some brokerages that we were licensing our product to.

Maya Velasquez
00:05:59

And so I actually brought our own product to market at that time because just out of necessity, our customers are coming to us saying, we really like this option.

Maya Velasquez
00:06:07

Our clients need the buy before sell.

Maya Velasquez
00:06:09

They want to still make cash offers on their home to buy, but we're having a hard time because all of these companies are having a hard time operating.

Maya Velasquez
00:06:16

And so that's when we decided to scale ours.

Maya Velasquez
00:06:18

So now we really license this, like out of a box cash buyer, buy before sell solution to lenders or different mortgage companies so they can offer what looks like an in house solution, completely white labeled, but Xavi has capital and the operations behind it.

Mike Mills
00:06:34

Got you.

Mike Mills
00:06:35

So so your primary customer right now, you would say, is mortgage companies then?

Mike Mills
00:06:40

Yes.

Maya Velasquez
00:06:41

Yep.

Maya Velasquez
00:06:41

Mortgage company is probably our most primary customer as far as licensing that product.

Mike Mills
00:06:46

Do you spend a lot of time on the education side of things, helping, say, realtors understand, because a lot of times when you talk about a company that is, has a particular client base like mortgage professionals, then we have a client base, obviously, a lot of times that buyers, but also real estate agents.

Mike Mills
00:07:03

And so if they're coming to us saying we want this solution, then we're more likely to seek out a company like you to add that to it.

Mike Mills
00:07:11

So from your point of view, do you, or I should say from y'all's company standpoint, do y'all spend a lot of time on the education side for buyers and agents to understand what these options are?

Maya Velasquez
00:07:21

Yeah, absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:07:22

There are three different educational channels.

Maya Velasquez
00:07:24

As I look at it, it's loan officers, agents and their clients.

Maya Velasquez
00:07:28

And so we have.

Maya Velasquez
00:07:29

Yeah, a lot of my job is making sure when we bring on one of these companies, the loan officer needs to know how to talk to their agent.

Maya Velasquez
00:07:36

They also have to be able to tell their agent how to talk to the client.

Maya Velasquez
00:07:38

The agent also needs to be able to come to us.

Maya Velasquez
00:07:40

And then we have all of those legacy real estate brokerage partners who have real estate agents who can come to us and looking for these solutions.

Maya Velasquez
00:07:48

So, yeah, most of my, you know, part of my job is the positioning to mortgage companies.

Maya Velasquez
00:07:56

The other half is positioning to the agents and the clients, because honestly, even for me, I've been doing this for five years of all these different options, and it's still hard to keep up with.

Maya Velasquez
00:08:05

We have six products in our product suite just for these cash buy and buy before sell solutions.

Maya Velasquez
00:08:10

So a lot of it is education on what is a good fit for this type of client.

Maya Velasquez
00:08:15

What does this conversation look like?

Maya Velasquez
00:08:17

When do you bring it up in the conversation, whether you're an agent or a loan officer?

Maya Velasquez
00:08:22

And how.

Maya Velasquez
00:08:22

How do you position it and then how do you use it as a sales tool?

Maya Velasquez
00:08:26

Further up, funnel for agents and loan officers, where I think is a super fun way to talk about it as well.

Mike Mills
00:08:31

So if I was a big dumb dummy, which I am in a lot of ways, but when it comes to figuring out some of these products and what's available to you, how would you explain it to me if I was a buyer or a realtor on what these different types of products are?

Maya Velasquez
00:08:46

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:08:46

So the overarching value proposition is that these products can help make the client into a non contingent cash buyer.

Mike Mills
00:08:54

Okay.

Maya Velasquez
00:08:55

That can be true if or.

Mike Mills
00:08:57

Oh, okay.

Mike Mills
00:08:57

So again, let's.

Mike Mills
00:08:58

Let's.

Mike Mills
00:08:59

Let's talk in.

Mike Mills
00:09:00

In.

Mike Mills
00:09:01

I'm a buyer and I don't know what the hell non contingent means.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:05

Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Mills
00:09:06

So you got to dumb it down.

Mike Mills
00:09:07

I'm a 6th grade kid.

Mike Mills
00:09:08

I don't know what the hell's going on.

Mike Mills
00:09:09

Explain it to me like I'm a moron.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:11

I appreciate that.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:12

It's easier for us to get caught up in.

Mike Mills
00:09:14

We get caught up in lingo and jargon from the industry all the time.

Mike Mills
00:09:17

So.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:18

So around these terms.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:19

Yes.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:20

When you're.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:20

When you're buying a house, typically you're going to go to some type of loan officer to help you get a loan to purchase the home.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:28

That loan will be more attractive to the seller that you're buying the house from, depending on a few factors.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:34

One of those factors is called contingency.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:37

That it just means that your offer is contingent upon something else happening.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:41

Two of the most common contingencies are the home sale contingency, meaning most people that are buying right now also have a property to sell.

Mike Mills
00:09:48

Yes.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:48

If I'm putting an offer in.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:49

If you're putting an offer in, we're assuming you're the buyer.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:51

Still, you're putting an offer in on a house and you have a home to sell.

Maya Velasquez
00:09:56

Typically, it's really hard to qualify for two loans, so you're going to need to, when you're putting in this offer, make an offer that is saying, okay, assuming that I have sold my previous home.

Mike Mills
00:10:05

Yes.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:06

And so that means that you're contingent upon the sale of your previous home that sellers.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:12

The more contingencies you stack on the.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:15

The less attractive the offer looks like.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:16

The other contingency that's very common is loan approval contingency.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:21

So, you know, you being able to get approved for this loan is what's going to make you an eligible buyer.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:29

And so there's some risk there as well.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:31

So contingent just means there's something that's going to prevent you from buying the home.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:34

And the more of those that we can remove, the more attractive the offer looks to the seller.

Mike Mills
00:10:38

Perfect.

Mike Mills
00:10:39

So then I'm ready to make an offer.

Mike Mills
00:10:40

And so what is.

Mike Mills
00:10:41

What is the.

Mike Mills
00:10:42

What.

Mike Mills
00:10:43

What product is Avi going to give me to help me remove those contingencies?

Maya Velasquez
00:10:46

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:46

So there are, like I said, there are six different products in our product suite.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:50

The most common one, which I'll talk through, is what we call cash buy before sell reserve.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:56

That's way too long.

Maya Velasquez
00:10:57

Of a name, first of all.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:00

But buy before sell means that it's helping you purchase your new home before buying or before selling your old home.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:06

And so what the reserve model is, we purchase, we, being zappy, will purchase the home that you're moving into all in cash, meaning that you look like a complete cash buyer.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:17

We're putting down all cash for whatever that home is.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:21

You know, say if it's $500,000, we're putting down $500,000 in cash on your behalf to make you into a cash buyer.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:28

So we've got some language that goes with that to let the seller feel comfortable about the fact that we're nothing, just buying it to resell it.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:35

We're buying it for a real person or family.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:38

And so we do that.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:39

That means now you've secured your new home before you've even had to list or worry about selling your old home.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:44

So those contingencies that we talked about, the seller sees no contingencies.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:49

They see cash for their home.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:51

They're super happy.

Maya Velasquez
00:11:52

You're super happy because you may have a dog and a cat, two kids, a bunch of stuff in your house, and having to both time that move, and then also having to worry about selling and listing the home and then buying a new home at the same time with just the inconvenience of what that looks like.

Maya Velasquez
00:12:11

And then also what I call the in between time, which is if you find a house that you like but you can't sell your new one, what does that look like?

Maya Velasquez
00:12:19

Are you going to have to move twice?

Maya Velasquez
00:12:20

Are you going to have to put all your stuff in storage?

Maya Velasquez
00:12:22

Are you going to have to move in with your in laws?

Maya Velasquez
00:12:24

Like, what does that in between time look like?

Mike Mills
00:12:26

Yep.

Maya Velasquez
00:12:27

For most people, it's extremely stressful, especially with the low inventory right now.

Maya Velasquez
00:12:31

So this just offers a more convenient way to move and a more attractive offer to the seller that you're buying the house from.

Maya Velasquez
00:12:38

And then on the sell side, you're just selling your home like normal with your agent, like you normally would.

Maya Velasquez
00:12:44

And that process is, you know, doesn't change from our perspective, which I think.

Mike Mills
00:12:48

But now I own two homes, and I'm really worried about that.

Mike Mills
00:12:50

So how do you, how do you alleviate my stress of having two mortgage payments there?

Maya Velasquez
00:12:55

Yeah, so we are, so we own the first home, the home you moved into at the time.

Maya Velasquez
00:13:01

When you sell that previous home, which we work with the agent to make sure that happens as quickly as possible, then you buy back the new home from us.

Maya Velasquez
00:13:09

And so in the interim, there's a cost to some interest for us owning the home in the meantime.

Maya Velasquez
00:13:16

But typically that's what it would look like.

Mike Mills
00:13:19

There's cost everything.

Mike Mills
00:13:20

So there's nothing that's free.

Mike Mills
00:13:21

So yeah, it's okay to have costs.

Mike Mills
00:13:22

You're running a business.

Mike Mills
00:13:23

That's how it works.

Maya Velasquez
00:13:25

It's also comparable to like, what it would look like in between.

Maya Velasquez
00:13:27

Like does that look like an Airbnb or storage or whatever?

Maya Velasquez
00:13:30

So typically the cost kind of pays for itself.

Maya Velasquez
00:13:32

But yes, there's a little cost there.

Maya Velasquez
00:13:33

But you don't have two mortgage payments since you actually don't have the loan on the next place until you buy it back from us.

Mike Mills
00:13:39

Gotcha.

Mike Mills
00:13:39

And then as a realtor, I am also, I'm representing on the buy side and the sell side.

Mike Mills
00:13:45

So I get two transactions in that one.

Maya Velasquez
00:13:48

Yep, yep, yep.

Maya Velasquez
00:13:49

So you represent on both sides, which is nice.

Mike Mills
00:13:52

Yeah, it's always nice to get a couple little extra commission there.

Mike Mills
00:13:57

So that's your main product.

Mike Mills
00:13:59

That's the one that's the most beneficial.

Mike Mills
00:14:01

And so basically, just to recap it, it is essentially, if I own a home and I'm trying to buy another house, often if I want to do that, I either have to sell my home or I've got to go through the pain in the butt of trying to do two transactions at one time.

Mike Mills
00:14:14

And that can be a real challenge.

Mike Mills
00:14:15

And this is a benefit in both high transaction or high demand environments and low demand environments simply because depends on which side of the transaction you're on, where the benefit is.

Mike Mills
00:14:27

Because right now in Texas, we actually have a good amount of inventory.

Mike Mills
00:14:33

We're a little bit higher than we have.

Mike Mills
00:14:35

And anybody that has a listing knows that those have been sitting on the market for a hot minute.

Mike Mills
00:14:39

Now, that's not everywhere else in the country.

Mike Mills
00:14:41

That just happens to be here in Texas and a few other states.

Mike Mills
00:14:44

But this is still a benefit for you because if you want to move or you need to move often, it can be a challenge to sell your house.

Mike Mills
00:14:52

Finding a house is not going to be the problem.

Mike Mills
00:14:54

Selling your house is going to be the problem.

Mike Mills
00:14:57

And so if you can then find a place before you have to sell, then you have the flexibility to move with little risk in that period of time to be able to move out and then get your house listed and then, you know, go through the process of selling it.

Mike Mills
00:15:10

Now, you know, you'll have to understand that, you know, and this is a, this is a problem that agents deal with all the time, is that sellers and what they think their home is worth versus what the market is saying their home is worth typically aren't aligned often, so there's a little bit of, you know, adjustment from that.

Mike Mills
00:15:27

But.

Mike Mills
00:15:28

But otherwise, it's certainly a situation.

Mike Mills
00:15:31

Even in an image, even in a market where you have higher inventory and less listings, moving it can be a benefit for you because you can then find your home before you have to sell yours, which makes it a lot easier.

Mike Mills
00:15:41

And then on the flip side of it, if you're in a state or a market where you have low inventory, which is still a lot of places out there, and your house is going to sell quickly, you can find your home that you want to buy first before you list yours because you may not have a lot of time to get out of that place once it comes under contract.

Mike Mills
00:15:58

So there's a lot of benefits to it.

Mike Mills
00:16:02

You know, there's always, people always say, well, you know, it seems like it's going to be more expensive to do that.

Mike Mills
00:16:08

Sure it is, if you weren't going to just listen up.

Mike Mills
00:16:12

But you're also saving yourself from all of the headache and all of the storage and finding a place to live and not being able to move or missing out on the home that you want, all that kind of stuff, there's, you know, you're going to pay a premium or even just additional money when you're trying to solve problems.

Mike Mills
00:16:27

That's.

Mike Mills
00:16:27

That's what most of these businesses do.

Mike Mills
00:16:28

And that's what it sounds like this product does.

Maya Velasquez
00:16:30

Yeah, absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:16:31

I often call what you're talking about the emotional cost when I'm talking to realtors and loan officers about how you communicate that.

Maya Velasquez
00:16:37

Like, there's absolutely just the financial cost, which is important, too.

Maya Velasquez
00:16:41

Okay, what's the alternative?

Maya Velasquez
00:16:42

The alternative is, you know, you put your stuff in storage, you have to move into an Airbnb, like, whatever that looks like.

Maya Velasquez
00:16:47

We can communicate that.

Maya Velasquez
00:16:48

Also, there's the stress quotient of what's it gonna cost you emotionally to have to.

Maya Velasquez
00:16:53

Do your kids have to be an hour from their new school?

Maya Velasquez
00:16:55

Or what is the in between period emotionally, which is also expensive, especially if it's not just you who's single.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:03

It's a whole family.

Mike Mills
00:17:04

Yeah.

Mike Mills
00:17:04

All right, so that's the buy before you sell.

Mike Mills
00:17:07

What else you guys got in your, in your house of cards there in your deck?

Mike Mills
00:17:11

What you got?

Maya Velasquez
00:17:11

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:12

So I said there are six products, but they're broken down into two categories.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:16

So there's the buy before sell category.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:18

What I just ran through is the most common version of that for the cash buy category, which is the same thing.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:23

We're making you a cash buyer on your new home.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:25

The difference is there's no home to sell that we're working with there.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:29

So this is a first time buyer or someone who's looking at an investment property or someone who for some reason has already sold their previous residence.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:39

And so we have the same model of that where we can purchase your home, you buy it back from us.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:43

It just happens a lot quicker since there's no departure residence, and it tends to be less expensive and faster.

Maya Velasquez
00:17:50

And then we have a backup offer that we can help put on to the offer that you're making on your new home, which just says if anything happens with the financing, Xavi will be the cash buyer.

Maya Velasquez
00:18:02

And here's our proof of funds and the mission statement that goes with that.

Maya Velasquez
00:18:06

And so that one is the lowest cost, and you can just have something that is not quite cash, but looks almost like cash because the cash is real in the case that it's needed.

Maya Velasquez
00:18:17

And then we also have kind of an obscure product on the far end of the spectrum in terms of risk.

Maya Velasquez
00:18:22

That's somebody's already under contract on their new home, and most often there's a departure residence that they thought was under contract.

Maya Velasquez
00:18:30

No, it's not.

Maya Velasquez
00:18:31

For some reason, we're scrambling, and they're not going to be able to close on their new home.

Maya Velasquez
00:18:35

So we can come in, purchase their new home, hold it for them, and then make that possible.

Maya Velasquez
00:18:40

And then in the middle there, we have a product where we do a short term loan, and so it's actually them closing in cash in their name.

Maya Velasquez
00:18:47

And that looks a little bit different per state, but, yeah, that's kind of the short answer for the whole breadth of the product suite.

Mike Mills
00:18:54

So the benefit of that one probably comes into play more in low inventory markets, where you have more competition for deals.

Mike Mills
00:19:02

So the idea behind offering cash, quote, unquote, is that you can close faster.

Mike Mills
00:19:08

It's more guaranteed that someone that has your standard loan, so it gives someone a little bit more flexibility.

Mike Mills
00:19:13

Now, because you guys work with loan officers and mortgage companies, you're obviously not supplanting them in the process.

Mike Mills
00:19:21

You're just helping their clients win deals.

Mike Mills
00:19:24

So ultimately, they can take out the loan with their company and their client, but that they get the deal that they're trying to get.

Maya Velasquez
00:19:30

Yeah, absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:19:31

So the end loan, the permanent financing, is always with our loan officer partner.

Maya Velasquez
00:19:36

For agents that work with us, they can choose who that is.

Maya Velasquez
00:19:39

We just need to educate them on the program.

Maya Velasquez
00:19:41

But, yeah, there's a big benefit, too.

Maya Velasquez
00:19:43

We don't have in house loan officers.

Maya Velasquez
00:19:45

We never will.

Maya Velasquez
00:19:46

We just, and I like to tell loan officers as well, it's, you getting the deal is a win for us whether they use our program or not.

Maya Velasquez
00:19:54

If you use it on the front end to get a conversation with the client and they just close the 30 year loan like they were going to anyway, but they do it sooner.

Maya Velasquez
00:20:00

Yeah, because you talked about this option.

Maya Velasquez
00:20:02

That's a huge win for everybody.

Mike Mills
00:20:04

Yeah.

Mike Mills
00:20:05

All right, so let's talk a little bit about now that we kind of know what you guys do.

Mike Mills
00:20:08

You know, there's always going to be a lot of questions, like, okay, well, you know, that's great, but I got to have some deals that I can do this with first.

Mike Mills
00:20:15

Right.

Mike Mills
00:20:16

Right now, we've been kind of living in the.

Mike Mills
00:20:20

Not everybody realizes this unless you're in the business.

Mike Mills
00:20:22

But when it comes to turnover of existing homes to new buyers, the new home buyer market's a little different.

Mike Mills
00:20:28

It's still slow, but it's a little different.

Mike Mills
00:20:31

But the existing homebuyer market has crawled to basically 30 year lows.

Mike Mills
00:20:36

We've seen the lowest level of transactions that we've seen since the nineties.

Mike Mills
00:20:40

That's all the nineties references.

Mike Mills
00:20:43

So because of that, a realtor watching this or a loan officer watching this, like, all this sounds great.

Mike Mills
00:20:48

This doesn't help me right now because I don't have any deals to do it with.

Mike Mills
00:20:51

So what would your response be to that as far as, like, how can we, how can they use Avi to help find more deals?

Mike Mills
00:20:57

What.

Mike Mills
00:20:57

What's.

Mike Mills
00:20:58

What's the way that they can use it to out there.

Mike Mills
00:21:00

Go out there and actually get some stuff?

Maya Velasquez
00:21:02

Yeah, absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:21:03

So when I talk to agents and loan officers about, I talk about this as a sales tool.

Maya Velasquez
00:21:07

It's awesome.

Maya Velasquez
00:21:08

If you're just getting inbound leads and you can route them to us, we're not living in that world right now, unfortunately, anymore.

Maya Velasquez
00:21:15

So, yeah, this looks like the conversation for the agent or the loan officer to the client is giving them a call, email, text, whatever that looks like, with entry point of saying, have you heard about this product?

Maya Velasquez
00:21:29

Did you know that I can make your move a little bit less inconvenient and make you a cash buyer?

Maya Velasquez
00:21:35

No contingencies, maybe a little value prop on that.

Maya Velasquez
00:21:39

And the purpose of that is, like I was just saying, is to get them into the door to have the conversation.

Maya Velasquez
00:21:43

A lot of people, I think the crux of the situation right now is that a lot of people, with all of the economic headlines that we see, people are nervous.

Maya Velasquez
00:21:52

They do not know what's going on.

Maya Velasquez
00:21:54

They're sitting on the sidelines because they hear scary things and they're not sure if they should move.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:00

Maybe they need to move.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:01

I think a lot of people have also been sitting since COVID feeling this way of, I got in this house, have a good rate.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:07

I'm nervous to move, even though I need more space, want to be in a different place, whatever the case may be.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:12

And so I think for a lot of people, it's what I call unlocking the transaction.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:16

It's really just a reach out point of something that they probably have not heard of.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:20

For most agents and loan officers that are reaching out to them, a lot of that top track right now is like, hey, have you heard that rates hopefully are on their way down?

Maya Velasquez
00:22:27

People don't really want to hear any more of that.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:30

Right.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:30

So I think if you can differentiate yourself and talk about something that probably the end client has not heard of, that's going to be a more interesting conversation.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:38

And then just letting yourself in the door to say, okay, that doesn't have to be the path that we go down, but here are three different paths.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:45

Let's talk about them.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:47

It may be a better time than you think, and just an education piece, if nothing else.

Maya Velasquez
00:22:51

Then, like I said, if they end up doing just a normal loan, or you just end up moving them further down your pipeline sooner than you thought, that's a big one.

Mike Mills
00:23:00

Yeah, yeah.

Mike Mills
00:23:02

If you're a non real estate professional, you're probably within the last two weeks so sick and tired of hearing from realtors and mortgage lenders about how the fed cut rates, and now's the time to go by and, you know, anything that you can say that's going to offer a little bit different story as to what you can offer to your clients other than, hey, it's a little bit cheaper now, I think it's going to be a real benefit because, yeah, every get on social media for five minutes, and if you're living in real estate, tick tock.

Mike Mills
00:23:31

Or you're living in, you know, YouTube real estate land, then all you see is rates are low, rates are down, rates are coming down.

Mike Mills
00:23:38

Now's the time to buy.

Mike Mills
00:23:39

And, you know, and the truth is, you gotta be honest with people like, yeah, rates are coming down, but in reality, they're probably coming down more soon.

Mike Mills
00:23:47

You know, it's probably something that's gonna even get better before as time goes on.

Mike Mills
00:23:51

But if you can show them, because I think there's a lot of people out there, that the prices are high, which is, which is an issue, and it's gonna continue to be an issue.

Mike Mills
00:24:01

And there's honestly not a whole lot we can do to solve that as real estate professionals other than, you know, lobby Congress to make home buying or incentivize builders to build cheaper homes.

Mike Mills
00:24:11

I don't know beyond that.

Mike Mills
00:24:12

But what you can do is you can explain to them how to solve problems.

Mike Mills
00:24:17

And because often these homebuyers are having problems because they want to move, right.

Mike Mills
00:24:23

But they know that this is going to be a challenge based on a lot of different factors.

Mike Mills
00:24:27

And so because of that, they're saying, well, I want to move, but I know I can't sell my house because two doors down, my neighbors been sitting on there.

Mike Mills
00:24:34

They tried to list it, and it's been on the market for six months or three months, and they haven't been able to move it.

Mike Mills
00:24:38

And so if you can say, hey, look, here's a way to solve that issue, you can move if you want to.

Mike Mills
00:24:44

Here's how you do it.

Mike Mills
00:24:46

And not spend so much time talking about rates and everything else, then you're going to stand out a little bit more than your competition out there because you're offering other solutions better than just the standard.

Mike Mills
00:24:56

You know, before, when the rates were high, it was by the house state.

Mike Mills
00:25:00

The rate, you know, that was my favorite.

Mike Mills
00:25:02

And now it's, you know, rates are coming down.

Mike Mills
00:25:05

It's the best time to buy.

Mike Mills
00:25:06

And so that's, that's where it really, I think, gives you a benefit and sets you apart.

Mike Mills
00:25:09

Right?

Maya Velasquez
00:25:10

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:25:10

And I think there's another piece to that, too, which you're kind of hinting at, which is that the best agent especially, you know, the changes with agent, with especially buyer's agents right now is proving value and being creative.

Maya Velasquez
00:25:22

And I think that the best agents and the best loan officers I know are always looking at, okay, this specific client, their specific situation.

Maya Velasquez
00:25:29

What does this look like?

Maya Velasquez
00:25:31

What levers can I pull?

Maya Velasquez
00:25:32

What tools do I have to make this make sense for them?

Maya Velasquez
00:25:35

And so I think if you are an agent or a loan officer out there, especially when things get hard, it's about how can I expand my tool set to be able to pull different things or be able to pull different levers or get out the wrench or the hammer when I need to, to fix a certain situation based on what's happening here.

Maya Velasquez
00:25:51

That's the best.

Maya Velasquez
00:25:52

And even just showing that you can do that with a few different tools, I think goes a really long way in.

Maya Velasquez
00:25:57

You know, if you're a loan officer communicating to agents or an agent communicating to your clients, I think that's, that's super helpful.

Mike Mills
00:26:03

Yeah.

Mike Mills
00:26:03

Well, and speaking of being creative, one of my, one of my top contributors to the show that's always joining in with us, his name's Conrad Jackson.

Mike Mills
00:26:10

He's a realtor here locally.

Mike Mills
00:26:12

He says one of his comments today was, buy a house for me and get two free basketball training sessions for your kidde, valid for 45 days.

Mike Mills
00:26:19

Limit one per purchase.

Mike Mills
00:26:20

Hey, you're getting, you are, you are getting creative and coming up with ways to set yourself apart.

Mike Mills
00:26:27

Right.

Maya Velasquez
00:26:28

That's a perfect way to be creative.

Maya Velasquez
00:26:29

I love that.

Maya Velasquez
00:26:30

That will do really well in certain markets.

Mike Mills
00:26:32

That's right.

Mike Mills
00:26:36

So now we're pretty well versed on what Xavi's doing and how they're helping everybody.

Mike Mills
00:26:40

Now, let's get into some other stuff here, because speaking of AI tools or tech tools, let's call it AI is all the rage right now.

Mike Mills
00:26:49

Me being one of the people that, if you tune into this show or you look at me on social media, I'm talking about AI all the time.

Mike Mills
00:26:54

I teach AI classes for real estate.

Mike Mills
00:26:56

I'm a big believer in it.

Mike Mills
00:26:58

But it's not a hey, this is going to replace you.

Mike Mills
00:27:02

It is a hey, this is a tool that you need to learn how to use because those who do now are going to set themselves apart from everybody else.

Mike Mills
00:27:11

So, you know, you're existing in the tech world.

Mike Mills
00:27:14

You know, I'm sure you're.

Mike Mills
00:27:17

My guess is being with Xavi, that you probably came from tech and not necessarily real estate, but you can, you can expand on that a little bit.

Mike Mills
00:27:23

But I'm curious as to your thoughts on how overall tech is really impacting our market and where it's going to go from here.

Maya Velasquez
00:27:31

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:27:32

So real quick.

Maya Velasquez
00:27:32

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:27:32

My background was in senior living and technology, which was real estate adjacent.

Maya Velasquez
00:27:36

A little bit different than completely residential real estate.

Maya Velasquez
00:27:39

But it's been fun for me, like senior living, then residential real estate, just more agent broker stuff, and then loan officer and mortgage has kind of been my trajectory.

Maya Velasquez
00:27:48

And it's been interesting coming into the space from tech outside of the real estate space.

Maya Velasquez
00:27:54

And I think, first of all, say, I think real estate gets a lot of grief for being, you know, they're super behind technologically and like, all these things, which sometimes can be true, and I think we have to.

Mike Mills
00:28:04

It's very, very true.

Mike Mills
00:28:06

I like how you're being nice about it.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:08

You can say that.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:09

Thank you.

Mike Mills
00:28:09

You can say it.

Mike Mills
00:28:10

It's very, very true.

Mike Mills
00:28:11

As an industry as a whole, we are still dealing in fax machines and MapQuest printouts, like I said a minute ago.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:18

Absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:20

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:20

And I think, and I'll counter that a little bit and say, and give a little grace here because I think we're dealing with a huge transaction.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:27

This is a transaction that people feel really emotional about.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:31

One of our board members and someone you might know in this space is Mike Delpretti, and he talks a lot about the emotional purchase of a real estate transaction.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:39

It's not super logical all the time.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:41

And so I think you have to be really careful with AI in the sense that all of the data says that the consumer is not ready to buy a home with a click of a button.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:50

They do not want that.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:51

They want to work, especially with agents.

Maya Velasquez
00:28:52

I think potentially there's more room to automate things on the mortgage side because that's more of a finance product.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:00

But when people look at buying a home, they still want a person helping them.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:06

They do not want that really quick experience, and we're just not ready for that right now.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:10

So part of it's the fear factor, I think, to be completely honest.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:14

And I see that, too.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:15

And we use specifically AI on our side to assess risk of the properties that we're buying because we don't want to end up owning them all forever.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:24

That would not be good for anyone.

Mike Mills
00:29:28

Buyers that are not around anymore.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:30

Absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:31

Absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:32

The pleasure.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:32

No names.

Mike Mills
00:29:33

We're not naming names, just never naming names.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:35

Just thank them for going first.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:37

We learned a lot.

Mike Mills
00:29:38

Yes.

Mike Mills
00:29:38

Yeah, exactly.

Mike Mills
00:29:40

There's got to be the innovators that fall down and fail first, for sure.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:43

Yeah, yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:44

Seriously, that someone's always got to first.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:45

So I appreciate that.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:47

And, yeah, so there's this, you know, you can assess risks and do all these really cool things.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:52

And I don't think that one people weren't ready.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:55

And I think the other thing is that the technology really isn't ready yet, too.

Maya Velasquez
00:29:58

It's still new and we're still testing and we see, we try AI for things.

Maya Velasquez
00:30:02

We're like, hey, that didn't really, I think, specifically like generative AI.

Maya Velasquez
00:30:06

Sometimes it doesn't work the way you think it's going to.

Maya Velasquez
00:30:09

And so there always needs to be, in my opinion at this time, human interaction to check some kind of check or balance to make sure that what we're doing is correct.

Maya Velasquez
00:30:21

Maybe sometime in the future, we'll get there, but I think that you just have to be careful how you talk about it, especially with transaction that's as important.

Mike Mills
00:30:29

Oh, yeah.

Mike Mills
00:30:29

Well, I mean, in, you know, one of the main themes of the class that I teach to agents on how to use AI is that it very much.

Mike Mills
00:30:37

Isn't this all encompassing?

Mike Mills
00:30:40

You know, what is it?

Mike Mills
00:30:44

The Terminator.

Mike Mills
00:30:45

Right.

Mike Mills
00:30:45

It's not, this isn't.

Mike Mills
00:30:47

Brain just doesn't work sometimes.

Mike Mills
00:30:49

What was the big overarching thing that they called it?

Mike Mills
00:30:52

I can't remember, but, you know, in the Terminator movies, they had the, the whole thing that was like it was going to take over the world.

Mike Mills
00:30:57

So it's not that.

Mike Mills
00:30:59

Right.

Mike Mills
00:30:59

It, what AI has become in most industries right now is very task specific.

Mike Mills
00:31:05

So I often relate it to humans in the sense that, you know, I know how to do mortgages, but I don't, I'm not a plumber, and I don't know how to work on cars, and I don't know how to represent someone in a court of law.

Mike Mills
00:31:21

Right.

Mike Mills
00:31:22

So, so just like human beings, we have incredibly complex brains and we're capable of a lot of things, but the more specialized we become in certain things, the better our, the better off we are overall.

Mike Mills
00:31:32

So when you look at AI models these days, instead of thinking it as this all encompassing thing that's going to take over the world and have the, you know, the general artificial intelligence, we're not there yet.

Mike Mills
00:31:43

I mean, at least as far as we know, by the way.

Mike Mills
00:31:47

Yeah, yeah, we're not there yet.

Mike Mills
00:31:48

But what it is is it is specific tools that you use that complete specific tasks.

Mike Mills
00:31:54

It's like chat.

Mike Mills
00:31:55

GPT right now exists, and it'll help you with a lot of different functions.

Mike Mills
00:31:58

But if you wanted to make an image or edit a video or create a spreadsheet or do whatever, it's going to have a lot of limitations on that because it's a language model, whereas there's a ton of tools out there that I can take this podcast in an hour long video, and I can upload it to a site called Opus Clip, and it will kick out 15 different clips from this that I can use to promote on my social media, to promote the podcast.

Mike Mills
00:32:21

Well, if I try to do that with chat GBT, it look at me and like, think I'm crazy.

Mike Mills
00:32:25

So, um, at least the tools that consumers are, have access to right now.

Mike Mills
00:32:29

I can't say what everybody else has access to, but at least to what we have access to.

Mike Mills
00:32:33

That is what AI is doing.

Mike Mills
00:32:34

For you.

Mike Mills
00:32:35

And the better you get at understanding it and playing with it and learning it, the more successful you're going to be in your business.

Mike Mills
00:32:43

Because like you said, these are tools.

Mike Mills
00:32:46

These are things that you have to learn how to use.

Mike Mills
00:32:49

If you were a carpenter or you were building homes and you were still using a hammer and a nail and had never used a nail gun or didn't know what a drill was, you're going to be behind everybody else.

Mike Mills
00:33:00

So you've got to learn how to use these tools.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:03

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:03

And I think that's the thing.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:04

You know, there's the, what I call the fear factor is very real, and then it's on the other side of that.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:09

That means, I think people are so nervous, especially in something like, we have a lot of agents who've been doing this forever, right.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:15

And they're like, I have a process.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:16

I don't need this other thing.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:18

And I think if you can take, like you're saying, just pick one thing.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:21

This is what I tell people on my team.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:22

Let's pick one tool, and we're going to learn how to use this tool.

Mike Mills
00:33:26

Yes.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:27

And then if you can learn this tool and it doesn't help you at all, great.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:30

Don't use it again.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:31

But first of all, I don't think that's correct, so we'll try it anyway.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:35

But it just, I think the.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:37

Yeah, you can't let the fear that I understand is really real completely stop you from using any of these tools.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:44

And I saw that a lot, especially with just all of these options that are out there.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:48

I understand it is a lot.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:50

There's a lot of technology, there's a lot of new stuff, a lot of new shiny objects.

Maya Velasquez
00:33:55

And so I feel for agents and because they have to decipher through all of this mess and decide what makes the most sense.

Mike Mills
00:34:03

Yeah, no, it's very much a one bite at a time approach.

Mike Mills
00:34:06

Eat the whale.

Mike Mills
00:34:07

Um, you're.

Mike Mills
00:34:08

You're not going to be able to take everything on at once.

Mike Mills
00:34:10

But, you know, the, the hard part is just like anything else.

Mike Mills
00:34:13

I mean, it's no different.

Mike Mills
00:34:14

The process is no different.

Mike Mills
00:34:15

I also work with a lot of agents on how to do social media or how to promote their business online.

Mike Mills
00:34:21

And, you know, a lot of them will say, well, I just, I don't want to be in front of video.

Mike Mills
00:34:24

I don't like the way I sound, I look stupid, whatever.

Mike Mills
00:34:27

And, you know, a lot of that, first off, is like, well, that's your problem because nobody else is thinking about that.

Mike Mills
00:34:32

But but second off, sometimes you just have to do something a few times and you become much more comfortable.

Mike Mills
00:34:39

So, you know, if you don't want to make videos, okay, fine, you don't have to.

Mike Mills
00:34:43

But if you understand the value of it and you think you should, then, then what you need to do is just make a video.

Mike Mills
00:34:48

Don't spend 6 hours writing a script, don't spend, you know, whatever.

Mike Mills
00:34:52

Just go on Facebook Live or record something on your phone, in your car and post it to your story, which is going to disappear in 24 hours.

Mike Mills
00:34:59

Put it up there, sound stupid, do dumb stuff.

Mike Mills
00:35:02

Because guess what?

Mike Mills
00:35:02

First off, nobody's going to see it.

Mike Mills
00:35:04

And second off, people that do see it are the people that like you and they're maybe, you know, they're not going to make fun of you for doing it.

Mike Mills
00:35:10

And then if you do that enough times, then you start to be comfortable with video.

Mike Mills
00:35:13

Then you start to learn how to use the tool and how to, how to do hashtags and how to do descriptions and how to use editing software on your phone and all that kind of stuff.

Mike Mills
00:35:20

But it doesn't start until you first do your first video.

Mike Mills
00:35:23

So, you know, if you want to start using AI tools, then just pick one and start working with it.

Mike Mills
00:35:28

Go to chat GPT, create a free account and start talking to it.

Mike Mills
00:35:31

You know, I, my wife's a realtor and she, this is not a joke.

Mike Mills
00:35:38

You know, I'm 45, so I'm not that old.

Mike Mills
00:35:41

She's 44 and she still, like, for the last couple of months even to rise up to recently, will write down something on a post it note, okay.

Mike Mills
00:35:52

And literally tape it on the back of her phone.

Mike Mills
00:35:54

And I'm going, wait, wait, what?

Mike Mills
00:35:57

I don't understand this.

Mike Mills
00:35:58

Like, that's what the phone is for.

Mike Mills
00:36:01

You have a computer in your hand that will literally save that.

Mike Mills
00:36:05

And you don't have to write it and say no, but she still does it because she's just what she's always done.

Mike Mills
00:36:10

She likes writing things, whatever.

Mike Mills
00:36:12

And I recently got her.

Mike Mills
00:36:13

Cause I use chat GPT all the time.

Mike Mills
00:36:15

And I recently got her on starting to use chat.

Mike Mills
00:36:17

And I'm like, when you have a thought, whatever that thought is, just tell chat.

Mike Mills
00:36:22

Because by the way, it has a voice function now.

Mike Mills
00:36:24

Yeah, yeah, Conrad.

Mike Mills
00:36:24

I post it note, tell chat.

Mike Mills
00:36:27

It has a, it has a function where you can talk to it and just say, hey, I'm thinking of this or I need to remember this or whatever, and it will record that, save the chat.

Mike Mills
00:36:38

It will give you, you know, it will even outline your random thoughts of whatever.

Mike Mills
00:36:42

And then I got her to do that a couple of times.

Mike Mills
00:36:44

And now fast forward two weeks later and she, like, is on that thing constantly.

Mike Mills
00:36:48

Because once you get comfortable with it and you know how to use it, then you start using it more and more and more.

Mike Mills
00:36:53

You just have to take the first step.

Maya Velasquez
00:36:55

Yeah, I even tell people, like, put in your grocery list on it and ask for meal recommendations.

Maya Velasquez
00:37:00

Like, use it for, if you don't want to use it for works.

Maya Velasquez
00:37:02

I mean, use it for something else just so you get used to prompting it.

Maya Velasquez
00:37:04

Yeah, you can see the value pretty quickly.

Maya Velasquez
00:37:06

That's hilarious.

Maya Velasquez
00:37:06

About the post it mode.

Maya Velasquez
00:37:07

I can.

Maya Velasquez
00:37:08

I still write things down on paper because I can't stop.

Mike Mills
00:37:11

Yeah, it's.

Mike Mills
00:37:12

I mean, I do like writing stuff on paper.

Mike Mills
00:37:13

It's, it's not something that I don't do, but it's certainly, I do find that, like, what'll happen is, and I'll give you examples.

Mike Mills
00:37:20

So, like, when you and I spoke a while back, when we were getting ready to do this episode, we were talking about kind of coming up with a theme, what we were going to discuss, and I'd written down a bunch of notes.

Mike Mills
00:37:28

Well, a couple of problems with that.

Mike Mills
00:37:30

One is that I have pieces of paper everywhere and trying to figure out where it is and what it's for.

Mike Mills
00:37:36

And then I don't write in complete sentences and I write in just bullet points and thoughts.

Mike Mills
00:37:41

So then I go back and read it a month later and I'm like, I don't.

Mike Mills
00:37:44

What does that mean?

Mike Mills
00:37:45

I don't know what I wrote down.

Mike Mills
00:37:46

It's so ridiculous.

Mike Mills
00:37:48

Well, I started changing my process in that.

Mike Mills
00:37:50

And so now I use chat literally.

Mike Mills
00:37:53

I interviewed or I talked to somebody yesterday.

Mike Mills
00:37:55

We were going through just kind of a theme of the episode we were going to do next month.

Mike Mills
00:37:58

And I still wrote down on piece paper because, you know, you don't be typing while they're talking.

Mike Mills
00:38:03

And then once we got off, I went right into chat and I just stream of conscious consciousness it right into chat GBT.

Mike Mills
00:38:10

And then by the time I was done, and you don't have to write complete sentences, my grammar was terrible.

Mike Mills
00:38:15

I spelt half the stuff, stuff wrong.

Mike Mills
00:38:16

Doesn't matter.

Mike Mills
00:38:17

But by the time I wrote all that out, I said, I hit enter and it's like, cool, this is what you want.

Mike Mills
00:38:21

And it's given me an outline of what I was thinking and my thoughts on the opinion, whatever.

Mike Mills
00:38:25

And then I labeled the chat.

Mike Mills
00:38:27

And then when I go back to get ready to do the episode in a month, I can go back to that and it's all organized and ready for me to go.

Maya Velasquez
00:38:33

Yeah, not to one up you, but I started, I was just thinking about this because it's been a year since I've used this, but on all my video calls, I have one of those videos called, I call it my AI assistant guy, and takes all the notes.

Maya Velasquez
00:38:46

So, like, when I go in, I cannot believe that a year ago I was writing all the notes, putting them in the CRM, uploading them, having to tell them to somebody else, whatever it was.

Maya Velasquez
00:38:54

Now I go in after the call, it can automatically send the email if you want.

Maya Velasquez
00:38:57

They're already in my CRM.

Maya Velasquez
00:38:59

It's so lovely.

Maya Velasquez
00:39:01

I was actually in person with someone, not taking notes out of just talking with someone in person.

Maya Velasquez
00:39:06

And I had the thought in my head, oh, you don't have your AI thing here recording this, Maya, you need to actually write some stuff down for this one because I'm so used to just doing that.

Maya Velasquez
00:39:15

But that took me a while and it took somebody on my team saying, I really think you should try this once.

Maya Velasquez
00:39:20

And I never looked back.

Mike Mills
00:39:21

Yeah, well, and it's not something you realize.

Mike Mills
00:39:23

I mean, well, we know, like, look, I'm a very, I consider myself to be a very tech savvy person, but there's still a lot of archaic stuff that I do on a regular basis that wouldn't make any sense.

Mike Mills
00:39:33

And even just like I was telling you a minute ago, with the note taking, what you're saying, like, I know, and you know that that's the best way to do it, right?

Mike Mills
00:39:42

But sometimes we still don't do it that way just because habit, human nature, you know, whatever the case may be.

Mike Mills
00:39:48

And so it's just one of those things that until you get yourself into, you know, changing some of your personal processes to integrate these tools, you know, it's not something that happens overnight.

Mike Mills
00:39:59

Nobody's perfect at it.

Mike Mills
00:40:00

You just have to keep working at it.

Mike Mills
00:40:01

And, and I think that, you know, using those things to enhance, again, it's a tool.

Mike Mills
00:40:09

And like we were saying in the beginning, this is something that isn't going to replace you.

Mike Mills
00:40:12

It's just going to make you so much more efficient at your job and what you do and all of the stuff that you spend hours, you know, like you said, reminding yourself in your meeting what your notes were about versus recording the meeting, uploading it into an AI software, it, outlining everything that you need, putting it into your CRM automatically because you can do that with Zapier and Google Docs and all kinds of stuff, that it goes in there on its own, then if you learn how to do that stuff, then that is such an efficiency hack that a task that used to take you 2 hours or you would have to hire somebody to do, now you can knock out in ten minutes.

Mike Mills
00:40:47

So that's the power of what these tools can do.

Mike Mills
00:40:50

So from the tech world being in it like you have, what do you see outside of Zavi, obviously, what do you see?

Mike Mills
00:40:58

What tools are coming or what tools do you think are out there that could really help real estate professionals streamline everything that you do?

Mike Mills
00:41:05

And where do you see all that stuff heading?

Maya Velasquez
00:41:08

Yeah, I definitely think, like you're saying, I think starting with basic everyday tasks is the place to start in terms of AI and technology.

Maya Velasquez
00:41:16

But I really think, again, for, when I think about a real estate agent or a loan officer, I think they have all of these tools, all of these things that they know how to do.

Maya Velasquez
00:41:25

And I think, you know, the danger is they're used to being the person that knows all of the things about real estate.

Maya Velasquez
00:41:30

When new things come, I think we can be a little hesitant.

Maya Velasquez
00:41:34

And so I think whether it's my biggest takeaway when I talk to agents and loan officers is try not to immediately discount things when they come into your orbit, whether that's an AI tool, whether that's some alternative finance model, whatever it is, just taking a minute to think about it, to do a little bit of research on it, because I think we're at a kind of a tipping point right now with technology and real estate, and I do think we're accelerating.

Maya Velasquez
00:42:00

We joked about at the beginning, the industry, perhaps historically, has not been great at adapting these items, but I think that there is so much coming that I think the more you resist, the more dangerous it is, and it's only getting more competitive.

Maya Velasquez
00:42:16

There's a lot changing in this industry when I think of just the, I think it's mostly a mindset to shift for if you're a real estate professional, of these things are coming for your job, this is a way to help you.

Maya Velasquez
00:42:29

And the more that you cannot bury your head in the sand and just take a quick second when you hear about something, to just do a little bit of research, figure out if it could be something that you want to implement, ask someone about it, versus just saying that's new, I'm not interested.

Maya Velasquez
00:42:44

That's scary, whatever the case may be.

Mike Mills
00:42:46

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:42:47

Number one.

Mike Mills
00:42:48

Yeah.

Mike Mills
00:42:48

Well, I agree with you.

Mike Mills
00:42:49

And you said this a little bit ago about, you know, the idea that AI or any type of tech is going to take real estate, you know, real estate agents, jobs, it's just not simply because there's so much that you can't do and on a personal level and just understanding human nature and what people really look for because they say one thing but they mean something else.

Mike Mills
00:43:13

Or I, the best example I always give is because I went through this myself personally, is you walk down a street and you're looking at homes.

Mike Mills
00:43:24

The house looks great, the house is the right size.

Mike Mills
00:43:26

It's got all the amenities that you want.

Mike Mills
00:43:28

When you look at it from a technical perspective, neighborhood, school district, all that stuff, it checks all the boxes.

Mike Mills
00:43:34

But then you walk down the street and you see 50 cars lined up and down the street, right?

Mike Mills
00:43:41

I'm parked on the side, you know, two or three cars in the driveway, et cetera.

Mike Mills
00:43:45

And then you look at that and you go, wait a minute, like it's you and your family.

Mike Mills
00:43:49

There's a lot of people that live on this road, right?

Mike Mills
00:43:51

And there's a lot of reasons because those houses do check all those boxes.

Mike Mills
00:43:55

If you're not, if you don't have a real estate professional to point out to you and be like, okay, just so you guys know, you know, these are probably multi generational homes.

Mike Mills
00:44:02

These are probably people that, you know, have, have pooled resources to live together in the same house and nicer neighborhoods, good school districts, which is nothing wrong with that.

Mike Mills
00:44:10

But if that's not what you want, then you need to make sure that you're aware that this is what this neighborhood probably is, because you only get a small glimpse, you know, when you're looking at homes, to go out there and see them, you know, go at nighttime, go to during the day if that's the one that you want, see all the stuff that you need to be aware of.

Mike Mills
00:44:27

And a real estate professional that's been doing that job for, you know, 20 years or ten years or 15 years or whatever it is, they're going to know these things and be able to tell you, whereas you can't scan it with chat GPT and go, what do you know?

Mike Mills
00:44:39

Anything weird?

Mike Mills
00:44:39

It's just not going to happen.

Mike Mills
00:44:41

Now.

Mike Mills
00:44:41

My job and what I do doing loans and mortgages, I don't know.

Mike Mills
00:44:46

I'm a little more concerned about my job than I am about my wife's.

Mike Mills
00:44:51

But that's not happening anytime soon either.

Mike Mills
00:44:53

But it's a slow process.

Mike Mills
00:44:55

But either way, don't be afraid of these tools embrace them, learn from them, learn how to use them properly, because the faster it's an opportunity, if you're in an industry, if you understand that your industry historically is slow to adapt to change in technology, but you in that industry can be someone as an outlier that is quick to adapt to change in technology, you will have a significant advantage.

Maya Velasquez
00:45:23

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:45:24

Yeah, absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:45:24

I think especially when you think about the most people looking to buy homes is the millennial generation, which is more tech savvy.

Maya Velasquez
00:45:32

I think there's a big opportunity there as well.

Mike Mills
00:45:36

Yeah.

Mike Mills
00:45:37

Do you feel like with the market the way it is?

Mike Mills
00:45:40

Because right now we're in a higher rate, not low rate, but not high rate, but just mid level rate range that's probably coming down, but everybody's kind of frozen right now.

Mike Mills
00:45:53

Not many people want to get out there and buy a house.

Mike Mills
00:45:57

And what do you think looking at it, because you're from the younger generation, where do you see real estate going?

Mike Mills
00:46:05

Are you concerned about your generation's ability to buy homes?

Mike Mills
00:46:08

Like, what's your take on all that?

Maya Velasquez
00:46:10

Absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:46:11

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:46:11

I'm fortunate in that I own two homes in Colorado.

Maya Velasquez
00:46:17

I would say I got fortunate with when I was able to purchase those.

Maya Velasquez
00:46:20

And most people that I know who I'm in my thirties, most people of this age range are either stuck in a home that they bought with a low rate that they maybe shouldn't be in or wish they weren't in, or they're terrified to enter the market because again, they're hearing all these, all these scary things from the media, from their parents, from every one of their friends saying that, how are we going to afford this?

Maya Velasquez
00:46:45

So I think it's more of a, and I think part of that's true, and I think part of it is a mindset.

Maya Velasquez
00:46:50

And so I think people in the real estate industry, whether you're a loan officer or an agent or leadership at one of these companies, I think your job is to educate the consumer on what's actually happening.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:00

And I think a good way to do that is saying, hey, guys, I know what you're seeing in the headlines.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:03

Let me tell you what's actually happening, whether that's in a text, whether that's on socials, because people think that they know.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:09

And then I've told friends, I'm like, okay, you say you can't buy a house.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:12

Have you talked to an agent?

Maya Velasquez
00:47:14

Like, oh, no, never.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:16

Okay, so do you know that you can't buy a house?

Maya Velasquez
00:47:17

Have you talked to a loan officer?

Maya Velasquez
00:47:18

No, never.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:19

So, okay, so you actually don't know.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:21

And then just that mindset shift of, oh, I guess I don't know.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:24

And so, yes, I am worried about that.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:26

I do think, and what I always say is I get excited by how much capital and intelligence there is behind solving this problem.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:35

And I think that when I look at my peers in the, in the tech industry and the real estate industry, that's what keeps me going, is there's a lot of smart people and a lot of money that can be put behind trying to solve these problems.

Maya Velasquez
00:47:46

And so I really have an optimistic version or vision for the future while knowing that, of course, I wish it was easier right now because I do not think it's fair.

Mike Mills
00:47:58

I agree one other.

Mike Mills
00:48:02

Okay, so then I want to ask you this, because this is something I want to start.

Mike Mills
00:48:05

I'm asking a lot of my guests these days is a lot of people will say, I am waiting for prices to come down because prices are too high.

Mike Mills
00:48:14

And when those prices come down, then I'll be ready to buy.

Mike Mills
00:48:17

What would you say to someone that said that?

Maya Velasquez
00:48:19

My first question would be, how long have you been saying that?

Maya Velasquez
00:48:23

Right.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:24

Probably it's more than the last six months.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:27

And so.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:27

Okay, let's look at a chart.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:29

What have prices done in your market in the last, you know, if you go, you know, five year, they haven't gone down.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:35

So I think that's one thing.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:37

And the other thing that, and someone told me this when I was purchasing my first home, is a lot of it is about entering the market, of course, doing that responsibly.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:46

But if there is a way to enter the market, you're almost always better off, I think.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:51

I can't remember the exact statistic, but I think it's almost 40 times the net worth of people who own homes versus don't own homes.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:59

That is insane.

Maya Velasquez
00:48:59

Gap.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:00

And it's growing.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:01

And so I think that there's just, again, it's, is it your mindset or is it real?

Maya Velasquez
00:49:06

And sometimes it is real, and sometimes it's a little bit of both.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:10

But I do think that, like I said, with a creative option, especially, there are opportunities a lot of times that people don't know.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:17

And so I think there's a bit of a challenge there that I would pose to that person of how much do you know?

Maya Velasquez
00:49:22

How much have you investigated?

Maya Velasquez
00:49:23

Who has helped you?

Maya Velasquez
00:49:24

And if you've exhausted all those options and you still know that it's not the financially responsible decision, that's great.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:30

And you're smart for not taking that leap.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:32

However, I do think that a lot of people just are wrong in that, honestly.

Mike Mills
00:49:36

And why are they wrong?

Mike Mills
00:49:37

Why are home prices not going to crash or come down dramatically anytime in the near future?

Maya Velasquez
00:49:44

Yeah, I think that.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:45

I mean, the great thing is we just don't know.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:47

That could absolutely happen.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:49

I do not have a crystal ball.

Mike Mills
00:49:51

We have 100 years of history that could indicate.

Mike Mills
00:49:55

Yeah, that's pretty good evidence, but, yeah, go ahead.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:57

Yeah, sure.

Maya Velasquez
00:49:58

And you could wait for that.

Maya Velasquez
00:50:00

And if you are waiting for that, I think that's a really dramatic thing to wait for.

Maya Velasquez
00:50:04

And so, again, I just think it's checking your options.

Maya Velasquez
00:50:06

And what I would say is there's one school of thought is, like, I'm gonna wait for this thing to happen, da da da, whatever that looks like.

Maya Velasquez
00:50:13

And I'm, like, waiting for this point.

Maya Velasquez
00:50:14

The other thing is, if you can afford to do it now and it makes sense for you now, let's talk about that.

Maya Velasquez
00:50:19

And both things can be true, right?

Maya Velasquez
00:50:20

Prices could go down in the future.

Maya Velasquez
00:50:24

There could be a huge crash.

Maya Velasquez
00:50:26

But I think you get, it gets dangerous for me when I see people looking at, like, I'm gonna wait for this very specific event in order to make that decision.

Mike Mills
00:50:35

Yeah, well, the, the issue that comes up a lot nowadays is, you know, the Internet's awesome and it's terrible all at the same time.

Mike Mills
00:50:41

And it's because you.

Mike Mills
00:50:44

Whatever information you're looking to find, or whatever validation of opinion you're looking to find, you can find.

Mike Mills
00:50:50

It's pretty, pretty easy to find it.

Mike Mills
00:50:52

There's plenty, there's plenty of people online that will tell you that we're just imminently on the verge of a housing crash.

Mike Mills
00:50:59

And I would say in that circumstance, first off, if you go back in history and you look at the one time which is in, everybody was alive that's currently alive, where this happened, where we saw the biggest crash in housing specifically, was back in 2008.

Mike Mills
00:51:15

And even back then, home prices fell about 20%.

Mike Mills
00:51:20

In the worst markets in Texas, they hardly didn't fall at all.

Mike Mills
00:51:22

They bout stayed flat.

Mike Mills
00:51:23

But in other places, California, Florida, Arizona, there was.

Mike Mills
00:51:27

There was a 20% fall off.

Mike Mills
00:51:29

Well, if you look at that house today and see what it's worth today, that fell off 20% back in 2008, 910 or whatever it was, it might be double the price of what it was back then.

Mike Mills
00:51:42

Now, could there be a circumstance where prices just come crumbling down?

Mike Mills
00:51:47

Sure, there can.

Mike Mills
00:51:48

Any, anything can happen.

Mike Mills
00:51:49

But if that happens, by the way, then we're all in a world of trouble, because that means it's a bigger.

Maya Velasquez
00:51:55

Problem than your house.

Mike Mills
00:51:56

Yes.

Mike Mills
00:51:56

That means there's some significant economic event that just wrecked you.

Mike Mills
00:52:00

Right.

Mike Mills
00:52:01

So is it possible?

Mike Mills
00:52:03

Of course.

Mike Mills
00:52:03

Is it likely?

Mike Mills
00:52:04

No.

Mike Mills
00:52:05

And the reason it's not likely is for the same reasons that have been since the dawn of time.

Mike Mills
00:52:11

It's basic supply and demand.

Mike Mills
00:52:13

The only way that you're going to see home prices come down significantly is if there's a significant amount of supply that comes to the market.

Mike Mills
00:52:22

And right now in Texas, we have had an increase in supply.

Mike Mills
00:52:26

All right.

Mike Mills
00:52:27

But what people forget is that we were operating from a one to two month total supply, which is as terrible as you could possibly imagine, which is what made home prices go up 50% over two or three years.

Mike Mills
00:52:40

We came from that to now we're creeping back into the four to five to six month range, which just gets you back to what we call a balanced housing market, where the buyer and the seller have equal leverage in the transaction, the negotiations, because nobody's too desperate.

Mike Mills
00:53:00

But until we get to a place where we're sitting at eight to ten months and now sellers are just trying to offload homes, we're not going to get there.

Mike Mills
00:53:08

And the only way that you get there is we have a bunch of job losses, which possible, but it would have to be very, very significant.

Mike Mills
00:53:17

We would have to have, because you got to realize people have more equity in their home right now than they've had at any point in history.

Mike Mills
00:53:23

And so that's the last thing that they're going to unload or foreclose or get rid of.

Mike Mills
00:53:27

You know, this isn't like, again, back in 2008 when people got on into all these loan products that had them upside down on their equity and they were having a short sale and all these foreclosures were happening, et cetera.

Mike Mills
00:53:38

We're not seeing that.

Mike Mills
00:53:39

It's just not happening.

Mike Mills
00:53:41

And if that doesn't happen or if people, you know, there's, there's another thing called the silver tsunami.

Mike Mills
00:53:46

Have you heard about this yet?

Maya Velasquez
00:53:48

Yes.

Mike Mills
00:53:48

Where this is like the baby boomers that everybody's planning on them to die off, like, well, they're not going to die off all of a sudden or move in.

Mike Mills
00:53:54

Like, this is going to be a slow thing that happens.

Maya Velasquez
00:53:56

Not all at the same time.

Mike Mills
00:53:57

No, it's going to be over time.

Mike Mills
00:53:59

Right.

Mike Mills
00:54:00

So that could happen over time.

Mike Mills
00:54:01

And the only other thing that adds the supply is that we build more homes.

Mike Mills
00:54:04

Well, if you look at builders right now, they're not building more homes.

Mike Mills
00:54:09

They're building to keep up with pace, but just to keep up with what the sales are, because they don't want their price points coming down.

Mike Mills
00:54:14

And the only thing that they're building where they have lower price points is if you want to live in a 900 square foot house in San Antonio, you know, and pay $180,000 for that, well, there are options that are showing up there, but that's it.

Mike Mills
00:54:27

And I don't know of a ton of people that want to do that.

Mike Mills
00:54:30

And, you know, I hear, it's funny as a side note, but I hear a lot of, you know, people in the media talk about your generation, specifically millennials and Gen Z, that, you know, home ownership isn't as important to them.

Mike Mills
00:54:41

Like, they don't really care about that that much.

Mike Mills
00:54:43

They'd rather be mobile and move from place to place.

Mike Mills
00:54:46

Now, you said you're in Mexico City right now, so that's, you know, I'm.

Maya Velasquez
00:54:50

Not the best example of that being.

Mike Mills
00:54:51

Untrue, but I'm assuming.

Mike Mills
00:54:54

Don't know.

Mike Mills
00:54:55

I'm assuming you don't have children yet.

Maya Velasquez
00:54:57

I do not.

Mike Mills
00:54:58

Okay.

Mike Mills
00:54:58

So what I would tell you is that those desires of being mobile and moving from place to place and having flexibility go out the window when you have a family, because now you want stability.

Mike Mills
00:55:07

You want to be where you're going to be.

Mike Mills
00:55:09

Now.

Mike Mills
00:55:09

Families are forming later, which is part of where this bleeds into is now.

Mike Mills
00:55:12

You know, like, I got married at 22 or three or four years old.

Mike Mills
00:55:16

I had my kids before I turned 30.

Mike Mills
00:55:18

And then, you know, now I've got a 17 year old and a 15 year old that are on their way out into college.

Mike Mills
00:55:22

And so, so all of that changes.

Mike Mills
00:55:24

But now that's happening later.

Mike Mills
00:55:25

People are having children later on.

Mike Mills
00:55:26

They're forming families later on for many different reasons.

Mike Mills
00:55:29

And so the demand for these homes is also a little bit lower.

Mike Mills
00:55:33

So there's a lot of factors going into play for that.

Mike Mills
00:55:36

But ultimately, you're not going to see prices come down in a dramatic fashion unless you have a dramatic glut of supply.

Maya Velasquez
00:55:44

Right.

Maya Velasquez
00:55:44

And I think the main thing, like you were saying, is over time, it's almost always better to have entered the market if you look historically.

Maya Velasquez
00:55:50

So I think that's the thing that people forget.

Maya Velasquez
00:55:52

It's easy to have a shorter lens on it.

Mike Mills
00:55:55

Yeah.

Mike Mills
00:55:55

And when you said earlier about when you can afford it, it's like, well, when you say that to somebody, they'll say, well, I can't afford it, or I don't.

Mike Mills
00:56:03

I mean, and I'm saying, well, okay, looking at your household budget.

Mike Mills
00:56:06

And I tell people this all the time, and I'm preapproving.

Mike Mills
00:56:08

Like, listen, I don't tell you how much house you can afford.

Mike Mills
00:56:11

I ask you first how much you want to afford, what you want, your payment to be what you want, and then I will tell you, based on what I can do, what you can.

Mike Mills
00:56:19

Your maximum level is.

Mike Mills
00:56:20

But let's start with what you want, you know?

Mike Mills
00:56:22

And, like, I want a payment for $2,000, and I like this $500,000 house.

Mike Mills
00:56:26

We'll have to talk about that.

Mike Mills
00:56:28

But either way, you have to start from your own personal budget.

Mike Mills
00:56:31

But everybody stretches themselves a little bit in the beginning.

Mike Mills
00:56:35

It's just.

Maya Velasquez
00:56:35

It's.

Mike Mills
00:56:35

It's.

Mike Mills
00:56:36

It's normal.

Mike Mills
00:56:36

When I bought my first house, I don't want to tell you how much I paid because it'll make throw up.

Mike Mills
00:56:39

But when I bought it, even then, because everything else was also cheaper, stepping up to that first mortgage payment was scary.

Mike Mills
00:56:46

From where I was coming from, renting an apartment with my wife, it was.

Mike Mills
00:56:48

It was almost double.

Mike Mills
00:56:49

And so that was a scary thing.

Mike Mills
00:56:51

We didn't think we could do it.

Mike Mills
00:56:52

We still managed to figure it out.

Mike Mills
00:56:54

But it's you.

Mike Mills
00:56:55

If this something that you want to do, you don't have to.

Mike Mills
00:56:58

Not everybody's cut out to own a home, but if it's something that you want to do, you got to enter at some point, even if it's not, quote, affordable.

Maya Velasquez
00:57:07

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:57:07

Yeah, absolutely.

Maya Velasquez
00:57:08

And I think it's about, you know, getting all of that information, which I think people are just scared to even get to that point.

Maya Velasquez
00:57:13

So as much as real estate professionals can do to help people get to that point where they feel like they can reach out or raise their hand, I think that's.

Maya Velasquez
00:57:22

That's their first job as an agent or a loan officer.

Mike Mills
00:57:25

I agree.

Mike Mills
00:57:26

I agree.

Mike Mills
00:57:26

Well, Maya, I really, really appreciate your time today, hopping on and going through all this tech fun stuff with me.

Mike Mills
00:57:33

I know it's.

Mike Mills
00:57:34

It's scary for a lot of folks, but it's definitely something they have to start learning and they have to start getting into, because if you don't, then you're going to be left behind, and maybe you'll be left behind slower in our real estate market because everybody else is of the same mindset.

Mike Mills
00:57:49

But you can certainly have an advantage if you can figure out a way to start leveraging those tools.

Mike Mills
00:57:55

Before we go, let everybody know again where to find you, company website, what you guys are doing for everybody, and then we'll take off.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:05

Yeah, for sure.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:06

Zavi is spelled.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:07

This is the main thing how it's spelled, Z A V V I E.

Mike Mills
00:58:10

Lowercase Z, by the way.

Mike Mills
00:58:11

Lowercase.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:12

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:12

Because we're an annoying startup tech company, everybody.

Mike Mills
00:58:15

It's so funny.

Mike Mills
00:58:16

Every startup tech company I see now has a lower.

Mike Mills
00:58:19

There's no capital letters.

Mike Mills
00:58:20

You guys hate capital letters.

Mike Mills
00:58:22

Yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:22

In running their marketing, it's like sometimes the bane of my existence, but yeah.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:25

So zavvy.com.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:26

my name is Maya.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:27

Maya, zavy.com.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:29

if you have any questions or are interested in partnering, and we are pretty active on LinkedIn, posting success stories and things like that, would love for you to reach out.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:39

And if you want more information, that's great.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:42

If not, I hope you learned something today.

Maya Velasquez
00:58:43

Thanks for having me.

Mike Mills
00:58:44

Yes.

Mike Mills
00:58:44

And if you are, you know, if you're in a mortgage company or own a mortgage company or part of one, these guys can help you out.

Mike Mills
00:58:50

So reach out and find out and they can kind of guide you along the path.

Mike Mills
00:58:54

So.

Mike Mills
00:58:54

All right, well, I want everybody to have a great rest of your week.

Mike Mills
00:58:57

I'll be back with a market update next week, talking about rates and all kinds of fun stuff.

Mike Mills
00:59:02

So we'll be back with that.

Mike Mills
00:59:04

And I look forward to seeing you guys again.

Mike Mills
00:59:07

Everybody have a great week, and we'll see you soon.

Mike Mills
00:59:09

Thanks, Maya.

Maya Velasquez
00:59:10

Bye.