0:03 hello and welcome to trust and Estates weekly I'm your host Kevin bamel and we are here every Monday at 10: a.m. Pacific time to talk about all things related to Estate Planning and the administration of probates and trusts both from your own financial needs and from that of professionals like myself and my guest Bill gross who helped people with these um various facets of their Financial lives and uh so uh because I have a guest today I want to jump right into it um I bill has been a guest on one of my shows before um but I
0:40 think this is the first time you've been on trust and Estates weekly a title that I uh stole from from your show probate weekly as you know well it's a brand extension right probate weekly is my focus and trust is your focus so trust to say weekly so I I think it was brand extension well I I I did uh ask you beforehand so got blessing great but you know what they say um what is it U stealing is the biggest form of flattery or something like that so well again I mean to be honest I all King aside I don't see this thing as much as I do think that it's trying to extend the brand and the idea a couple things one
1:16 as professionals that we need to work on our craft every week I think it's one thing to Market and you can argue do it daily or every other day but I think working on your craft is something we should be doing daily and at least have a weekly set time to do that so that was my thinking when probate weekly and I think it in your case as well it works well that I watch your episodes and your your speakers and once a week I get a little more insight into trust states which is good yeah yeah ABS absolutely um I I I it's interesting I didn't think of it in that context but it really how you doing the show has really been an impetus for me to dig ever more deeply into these various issues and and that
1:53 of course is what what brings us together today so uh for those of you who haven't seen the social media posts promoting the show Bill gross is uh one of the top probate real estate agents really in the country certainly here in the state of California um and and U hopefully it won't embarrass him when I say that that Bill's knowledge of of probate is so deep and so broad it goes far beyond just those issues that that that deal with real estate um we're
2:29 working on project together and and bill has often times um you know been able to bring information to the table that was useful not just to me as the administrator but also to the lawyer who's who's working on the case and also for for The Heirs so his experience is is absolutely extensive verging on encyclopedic thank you you're welcome and and to you know for those of you who are at all involved in real estate or investing hopefully you've been following this issue there was a major
3:04 lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors and as a result of that uh the laws around Real Estate Agency Nationwide have changed and so I I invited bill on the show to talk about that so that um I think they officially changed what is it like the 15th or n 17th of last month or something like that was he yeah 17th of August yeah so so it's been it's been a couple of weeks or maybe about three weeks um we're I think we're we're at the point where there's some clarity as to how the
3:41 changes are going to work obviously it's going to play out but I think it's something we all need to be aware of both on the professional side and for our own um you know our own Investments and such so so Bill start out if you would and and and give us the background how did this come about this this lawsuit and and you know what what was the intention there and and I I don't recall now if if the lawsuit was settled or if if you know there was a holding against the N but if you'd give us that background yeah I I think that you know
4:17 I don't really want to get into a political discussion but I do think sometimes you have to watch the tides and understand the bigger picture and how things fit in and this is a a a fight that's gone for 10 years I think I would P I would say it's should we have more regulation or less in the real estate industry and as politics EB and flow we have either more regulation or less regulation depending on who's in charge and so this lawsuit was filed it's really to me uh you know of all the uh fake lawsuits we've heard about in our careers and lives this was one of the worst in that the plaintiffs claim
4:52 to be misled uh yet they're very sophisticated the husband had sold a a good-sized business and retired as wife was an executive of the company and after closing they discovered that they didn't know that they had uh as traditionally we've done for years for 100 years where the two agencies get together and agree and split the commission some of it goes to the buyer side some of it to the selling side and it been their listing contract it been their estimated closing sheet but somehow they pretended they didn't see it they hired an attorney and you know one attorney one judge one jury in one court case uh upsets the entire
5:28 industry but and I don't want to belittle it in that it is having a tidal wave effect of change every real estate company is vulnerable partially because the real estate companies are suffering separately from a 30% drop in volume so you have companies that are very vulnerable financially can't really afford to fight and they were you know facing multi-billion dollar judgments and they settled for over $400 million penalties um and then now it's interesting that this plaintive has taken that money and has his own Tech startup which I think is the endgame uh which is kind of to create a Facebook or Google equivalent of real estate agents
6:05 to or Uber equivalent to eliminate real estate agents and I think that so this is a process that's continuing it's changing it changes state by state agency to agency it's very confusing there was a professor of law from Buffalo who analyzed and said as of now that she thinks the contracts are un are not understandable by the majority of buyers or sellers I think she's right they're very confusing I'll give you a couple uh tidbit examples one is you know in the past U many of people who've bought or sold homes went to an open house you'd walk in the door and there' be balloons or signs or something and
6:40 you'd feel welcome now when you walk in you can't go in without signing some sort of a piece of paper now you can call it a contract or a touring agreement or call it what you want but it has legal notifications it is a contract by law so you can't even tour a house now without really signing an agreement to somebody to pay somebody some it may be paying nobody nothing but you to sign agreement that says that in not good fool another example is this plaintiff who won this case is starting a new company and what he wants to do is eliminate real estate agents by charging customers to see properties I think it's $50 per view to write offers like $199
7:18 you know we've done that for free for years for customers as part of a service to get them into the deal and so I think the customers are are faced now with a whole bunch of choices early in the process who's your agent how much you going to pay them things they never thought about before and signing contracts are very confusing and so I think it's more important than ever to have to talk to trust advisors I ask questions uh uh and I and also I would say these targets are moving we issue documents uh for the California Association rers we had to reissue them all two weeks later they're still being updated as we speak it's a very confusing time and I don't mean to be negative about it I think that it's a
7:54 competitive industry and if you can learn your way through this or find good advisors you can Excel and be the competition so you know historically and maybe hopefully you can explain this but historically real estate was regulated state by state so how is it that one lawsuit in one state I think it was a Midwestern City if I'm not mistaken how how can one lawsuit have a national impact like that when uh even if it well how how could it be filed under federal law if it was and
8:29 how can federal law on real estate which really doesn't exist except for in things like Resa how can that suddenly preempt you know the laws of 50 states and you know presumably Washington DC and you know Puerto Rico Etc right well I think this is where the real fraud comes into play because in order to they couldn't just say the realtor they hired deceive them or the or the agency their claim is that every franchise in the country conspires together with with all the MLS is in a way that over that that deceives sellers into paying commissions
9:05 for buyers on his face that's a ridiculous claim but that's the claim they made and again you only have to convince one jury and have one judge willing to play along with that and as we've seen I think in a lot of issues that you know the Judiciary has become very political but the other part of that I would say the hammer that goes with this has been the Department of Justice so you know again without getting into politics but just to to tell you who the players are part of justice under the Obama Administration wanted Federal Regulation this topic and worked with this lawsuit as a hammer to try to force it when Obama was out of
9:41 office and and uh when Trump came in office in 2020 200 17 Department of Justice dropped that case because Donald Trump was a real estate developer he also was an ally of the National Association realator he spoke at their convention every year and so this has become it's kind of like well if you like them you must be the bad guy and so I feel like the you know the Democrats want to kill the Republican support and vice versa and Realtors are kind of caught in this Crossfire uh but for the last four years the bid administration department of justice picked up this case again and as a hammer has been beating on the settlement to force uh
10:16 and to threaten and use subpoena power against these agencies and so the combination of Department of Justice and uh this lawsuit and the lawsuit uh uh makes alleges uh National conspiracies it is ridiculous the whole concept when you think about I don't you know I don't cooperate uh with like you know it terms I have friends at at my company exp I also have friends at K Williams who saw my listings well I must cooperate with them as I am the ones in my own company because they're selling my listing I have to work with them to service my customer but this has been a area that I
10:53 think you know um you know uh Power hungry Regulators want more power and this is been a huge Market they haven't had their hands on and they've been working on for 10 years and I believe this is the result of about a 10e effort both uh with the attorneys the class action attorney and Department of Justice so okay so so that gives us the background of this and the result was the N uh enter entered into a settlement then that I guess is binding on all all
11:28 agents or just members of the National Association of Realtors or how how does that work well actually there's multiple parties who had to who settled uh National Association Realtors along with several of the national franchise companies but some of the other large National franch companies have not yet settled they're fighting it and there's Regional companies and there's local brokerages now local and Regional brokerages have the opportunity to sign into the ner settlement to get protection through the N the way the settlement was written with n was to offer brokerages uh the opportunity to
12:06 to use their service as an umbrella um so that that's kind of ongoing and then of course the judge has to approve the settlement initially they that's what is what happened was at one point there was a settlement and then it got declined to go back to extract more blood um and so you have these these companies and and um the other part to think about is you might think of a real estate agent at a Century 21 the reality is C 21 has an international franchise company and then there probably is a local Regional company and then there's a local real estate agent who's an independent contractor and so just because the international agrees to
12:42 a settlement doesn't mean the regional franchiser abides by those terms or is liable to those terms uh or the individual practitioners so it's very complicated and I think very difficult to regulate and I think this also the other part about all this uh it shows how bad regulating by law law fair is because if you really want to improve things and pass a law that contemplates a system and puts it into place I think this is like where the debate over abortion breaks down on both sides that there's no good answer when the judge makes decisions kind of like Solomon in the baby nobody's happy when the judge
13:17 decides to cut the baby in half you have to kind of sit down and say what's the solution that the majority of people can agree to and work it out politically and here's a case I think crying for some sort of State or national regulation but just right now it's just peacee between again various National firms Regional firms local firms state agencies it's very confusing as a practitioner today um I have a choice between now my company firms my company forums and Cal Association fors that was not the case a while ago but think about it when I submit an offer now the listing agent is
13:52 another company if I use my company forms are they going to review them you know our tree spent tens of thousands of dollars forming them are they going to hire an attorney to review the forums again at the end of the day the one person who's not being helped through all this is the customer it's very confusing so so let's go back to that example you gave a few minutes ago about you know someone wants to walk into an open house just I I know people who you know on a weekend they just like to go look at houses they're not necessarily even in the market right they just they just like to look right and and you know
14:28 it sounds like depending on um you know what company is um handling that open house or what agent within that company what state they're in they could be faced with a a completely different scenario so focusing on the customer because as professionals that's what our our duty is what do we tell the people that we're working with in in terms of how to navigate that I think the key now is every customer situation is different and unique based on location based on
15:04 what they're trying to accomplish I'll give you an example I have customers who are very sophisticated investors they really don't want to ass sign a lot of unnecessary paperwork and so in their case um I guess you have two options when you go to an open house you can uh sign the form they have there saying nobody's representing me but I want to look at it or you have a form from your agent saying hey my agent's not here but it's you know Bill gross or Kevin bmel and uh they're representing me and they've they've brought this property to my attention since this is open house I'd like to look at it and so um I have investors where I've agreed just to you
15:40 know to get a contract to them and I and I say to them look we don't have to I'm willing to to negotiate this contract if you find the property I'm not going to charge the same commission as if I do but they have trust with me and so we know that that's negotiable and cancelable I think the hard part is for a buyer who doesn't have a ship to start with how do you start a relationship and trust somebody on the commission and trust that they're going to be fair well you earn that trust you don't get it right away but I would say uh so what do we do I think the answer to your question is we tell customers hey it sounds good just to pop in a house but
16:15 you might end up signing something that prevents you from getting that house or overcharges you by two and a half or three% so before you start looking let's get with a Prof professional let's put a game plan together that's going to work for you and that might mean getting an agreement signed at a low commission rate or no commission rate or cable agreement or something but at least that way you know where your options are and don't just walk in because the form you know like Zillow famously is advertising oh we have this touring agreement yes it doesn't bind you anything you don't have to use us that's true as long as you don't check the box in third paragraph
16:50 but if you check that box you're paying them two and a half per of your purchase price on any house you buy well you know that's to me deceptive but you certainly it's potentially misleading and so to answer your question I would say more than ever now uh take it seriously this is a big purchase a big investment you have a chance to jump the line while the other people are confused let's get the professional and get a game plan that works for you uh put together and so describe now I mean when I was most active in real estate it it was what you described earlier where you
17:25 know a seller would agree to let's say A you know 5% commission and the listing agent generally speaking would offer half of that to what we called a cooperating agent which was the buyer's agent and I remember going through a process early in my career where at first it was there was a discussion about well wait a minute if the seller is paying the buyer's agent to whom does that buyer agent owe his fiduciary duty and eventually at least here in California it was settled that even
18:00 though he was being compensated by the seller his fiduciary obligation was to the buyer and that was clarified and then there was a form created and and it was all it seemed to me to be pretty straightforward very clear and easy for for the the client to understand what was going on you were either the sell's agent or you were the buyer's agent but in any event you typically split the commission and that was all you know that was part of the the the sales agreement now it sounds like it's it's
18:35 it's really uh a confusing situation so how do commissions work nowadays how are agents working this out um and especially for um firsttime buyers who typically are you know they're short on cash and so if they now have to come out of pocket for a commission of even you know one or two 2% that may be you know more than they can afford so what is what is the industry doing about you know those issues well that's where I think that an agent I've been to
19:11 numerous seminars this topic to hear listen to other experts I've reviewed multiple versions of various contracts I've talked to colleagues uh as you know I have an active business where I offers come in I look and see how other companies are doing it and ask questions I've talked to Brokers at competing companies to learn and so the way it falls out that as I look at it is you can customize it the way you want to as long as you plan ahead what do I mean by that so there's really three ways somebody can get paid if you're a buyer's agent there's three ways you can pay your buyer's agent who's represent I'm sorry if you're a buyer there's
19:46 three ways you can pay your agent who's representing you the traditional way you can't do anymore the traditional way was the seller said I'm paying the listing agent let's say 5% and the listing agent agrees to pay half of that and half% to the buyer agent which creates confusion because contractually now the buyer agent is getting paid by the listing agent they're getting paid by the seller the Contra limited that has gone away it's no longer allowed for a buyer's agent to be paid by the listing agency so what are your options there's three one the buyer can pay money directly to the buyer's agent as you mentioned
20:21 though if you're TI it for down payment that's an additional cost you didn't have before so there's two other options you can use to that that can work well and this is where you need to meet with your agent and come with the solution one option is you can say I'm going to pay you Mr buyer's agent but I want you to get the commission paid to you from the seller not the selling agent but from the seller that the seller agrees to pay kind of like a closing cost the buyer's commission buyer's agent commission they're not hiring the buyer's agent they're not Contracting with the buyer's agent but they're agreeing that the cost the B buyer would
20:56 otherwise pay they will pay on their PA just like they might pay for Esco fees they might pay for a loan origination fee they might pay for a home inspection fee they agree to pay the buyer commission the second way that you can do it is that the buyer can say I'll pay you my buyer's agent the fee but I want you negotiate from the seller a general concession equal to the commission let's say two and a half percent and so while the seller is not specifically paying money to the commission they're giving a concession to the buyer that the buyer can use any way they want as cash and then use that towards the commissions
21:31 now it can all be a whole or in part meaning as a buyer's agent I might say um I want to get paid 3% and if the seller only pays two and a half percent Mr buyer either you agree to pay the difference the half or I agree to wave the half and that all has to get handled in writing so it sounds complicated but those are the steps now that are required to be done in writing ahead of time and whereas 99% of all deals before were all kind of down the same way really every transaction really has to have a customized contract between the buyer and the buyer's agent and then in turn discussed with the
22:07 listing agent or the seller and negotiated and match up otherwise you have confusion so again it sounds confusing it is confusing though at the end of the day you know lawyers are this is all designed by lawyers uh and again with a professional real estate agent you can end up with the solution that works best for you so I I I remember again going back to when I was much more involved in real estate there was this idea of having a buyer representation agreement um as opposed to a listing agreement was really a seller representation agreement back then but these buyers agreements were rarely used
22:45 so what do you anticipate about um you know buyers representation Agreements are they going to become commonplace do you think or or or do they have to become commonplace and so how is that all going to evolve yeah uh uh buyers and Buyer Agents will have to have a written agreement on every single transaction before they even look at a property you know by law there you know there's certain information that can only be transferred to a consumer by a license e what's the price how many bedrooms how many bathrooms even though
23:20 it's in the advertisement some of this information requires a license in order to convey to the buyer what's the zoning what can I do with the property can I had an Adu all these are things that require license and so for a buyer to be protected as a result of this settlement um there has to be a Clarity at least as to who their agent is and the clarity is either it is when you go look at the property either is the agent in the open house again and keep in mind there has to be an agent of the seller in the open house legally to hold it open so since that's an agent there's possible
23:55 confusion are they representing just the seller or are they also representing the buyer most commonly bu uh agents in open houses are not the listing agent they're part of the listing agency they're there to meet buyers and to gather them up and represent them so a buyer is is you know is inclined to think the agent is there giving them good representative information but now that has to be clarified in writing so to answer your question uh every single buyer is going have to sign an agreement before seeing any property period going that now that agreement now two things the agreement
24:30 might be limited in scope it may or may not deal with commissions and contract and also there'll be there'll be open houses and listing agencies that don't comply by these regulations that's a whole another area what do you do when you know somebody you know will there be people who violate the law of course there's people who you know sell heroin uh and and trafficking guns right so of course there's people going to hold open houses not require a license relatively speaking they're low on the Chon pole of criminals it's not criminal it's civil it's not even civil it's a uh it's a potential lawsuit so will there be agents who don't know the law and
25:06 violate the law yeah I've gotten offers and you and I've seen some of these I think on a couple of these where they they have no idea what to write so it it's just a matter I think of being professional and from a buyer's agent you probably have to sign something before you see any property at all so on the you know I remember again when um it used to be that when you represented a buyer if you typically did not have an exclusive agreement to represent that and so you would have um real estate buyers who you know they they could be working with who knows two
25:41 five 20 agents right so will this improve um from a from a real estate agent standpoint having to have a a buyer representation agreement will this help solve that problem of potentially doing a lot of work to help someone and then finding out that they've you know bought a property with another buyer's agent in other words are these exclusive Buyer Agents typically or or what's happening in that regard right well the agreements offer various levels of exclusivity so I would say depends on
26:16 what the buyer and the agent agree on I think there'll be Buyer Agents who make the decision they only want to work exclusively and there be other Buyer Agents who'll say like I'm one I don't care if you don't want to work with me don't if if I show you a property and after helping you you decide you don't like working with me I'd rather you work with somebody else through the transaction then be stuck with me for the 90 days of going through the transaction because it just gets gets worse if we don't communicate well I don't want to tie you in because of a contract I learned that a long time ago and that's why I never used buyer agreements because I just felt like either you want me to represent you you
26:51 don't and if you don't you know no offense that's probably a you problem not a me problem um and I'm busy enough without it but I do you think for newer agents they're trained to think that they want to get people signed to these contracts and I and I just think it's a big mistake to think ever that the contract binds the customer to you yes legally it does but do you really want to run your business based on legal entanglements or do you want your business to be based on creating value and I think this is the point I'd make to kind of wrap up that question which is all of these complications they sound complicated and un necessary they may be
27:28 but really the the professional agent looks at this as the opportunity to sell their customer on the value they create one of my primary jobs as an agent is to explain complicated things to my customer so that they get it not that they trust me but that they understand it and can make help both of us make the best informed decision for them and so this is the opportunity up front to start the process and I'd like to think that uh when I talk to people at the end of that they go wow you're explaining a way that no body else could that's why I want to work with you not because you signed me some stupid contract that's
28:03 going to force you because I'm not going to sue you in court for my commission who who's gonna do that like how embarrassing to go to a judge they don't like me they wanted to ditch me but I want them to pay me my commission legally might be entitled to it but who wants to live a life that way but I think the opportunity always is and the thing I train I train a lot of real estate agents every week and I I say to them you know I'm really a ninja real estate agent I'm I'm the guy that if if you're walking through the streets you want me as your security guard to protect you keep the bad guys away from you if you want something done to get it done and the contracts are my sword and my knives and my my stars and if you use
28:40 them properly you use them to protect your customer and if you use them improperly uh they get into trouble and I don't want to use the forms just protect me that gets to be a very lonely and uh frustrating business how is so shifting gears a little bit how is we're we're both here in California and and but this we could ask this you know 50 times how is the Department of real estate here in California dealing with this this change presumably they're weighing in somehow not really you know what's really what there's good news and bad news I think
29:15 we're very fortunate in California to have the California Association Realtors we're the only Association I'll give you one example as a expert in Probate and Trust out of 50 states no other state even has a forum that discloses the buyers or sellers the risks and unique possible scenarios of appropriate transaction now it's true California's more complicated but other states do have court confirmation other states do have probates where somebody has to be appointed to have the authority they don't put that uh air forms which are used nationally for commercial the default form says this is not a probate well what do they use when
29:51 there is a probate apparently nothing because there's no addendum or they go to an attorney to write some sort of customized form so I would say that we were very lucky in California the Califor California Association Realtors has been very proactive has worked very hard updated the forums I think they've done a great job I think there was clear as anything I've seen uh and I do work with agents across the country other states have really been much more um uh because our states aren't as regulated uh haven't needed as much as we have in California but again I think because this thing is becoming a national court
30:26 case and the Department of Justice is a National Organization I think these other states are going to have to do some catch up in this area and this is an area that they're scrambling other states are scrambling in some states they even have a state Association the mls's are putting out individual forms or the companies are putting out individual forms and and I'll show I'll share with you a funny story you know you and I were working on a case and the attorney when I explained to the attorney the settlement he quite properly said to me well we should put verbage in that we're not pay the commission to the buyer agent meaning we didn't want a buyer agent to later come
31:01 back and say Hey you owe me money this transaction we wanted to put upfront no you need to work out with your buyer what you want to get paid that's common in commercial and so to protect my client and the attorney recommended it I thought it was great I'll just put the MLS s neither seller nor seller's agency agrees to pay any commission to buyer's agent or buyer that violates the settlement that would have cost me $2,500 I got notified by my broker uh we actually put those listings up a few days before the 17th and my broker reached out to me and said hey uh you can't you you can't put the clarifying
31:36 words the truth that you don't want to pay that you have to act as though it's negotiable and then when they give you the offer you'll clarify it on the back end and so it it just shows how confusing we're but we to answer your question again I think California the the our department is so backlogged that and again a case you and I worked on as simp Le change of uh management for a brokerage license took I think six months when we filed it before they approved it and the company meanwhile is operating with this temporary license either they're covered they're not covered you know the attorney gave us
32:12 some advice we did what the attorney recommended but that's really weird six months to change one name of a license to another um that's how backlogged our Regulators are in California so no we're not lucky at all but I think the association has filled that void and I think in our case has done a really really good job so I I I want to expand this now um and and and get a little bit beyond um the just the the real estate so I think this is a larger issue and and if we if we look historically you
32:47 know going back a hundred or so years ago when there weren't Departments of real estate you know agents acted completely unregulated and I I I think we would both agree that there was quite a bit of of of Fraud and such that would go went on and and that that was the impetus for the creation of Departments of real estate and and a lot of other um a a lot of other agencies um now it seems like though that in general and and I I don't mean to drive this in a political Direction just from a business
33:24 standpoint it seems like more often the agencies that are charged with regulating a profession are behind the the professional organizations in terms of keeping up with changes that are coming either because of technology or because of um I don't know Market forces Etc so how how do we deal with what is it seems to become an Ever widening gap between what needs to be done in essence to be
34:02 successful as a professional but not you know find oneself in some kind of regulatory hot water yeah you know I think that um I'll never forget when I was a first realate agent and we had a purchas agreement form there like five or six pages and I was doing some business in Nevada where their purch gement was one page thought wow you know it's a whole different world um you know I will say that um and again the association forums are are our Industries uh attempt to protect us and
34:37 protect our customers and so the fact that the forums created by the Association of so long I think are just that they're giving us a very extensive set of tools and I believe they do them in a way that's very efficient as an agent they're just constantly improving them and making it easier for me to complete the form in a way that protects my customer I think the regulatory body you know it's like everything else um they always default towards more power whether not more power is good or bad you can debate if you think you the government needs more control in real estate housing then then okay but but I would say to you the same people that
35:13 were trying to say should solve our housing problem takes six months to change the license of a corporation from one approved broker to another and and I just think in California our governmental regulation system is completely broken it's is in every aspect of what they do uh they are ineffective as a as a uh based on results just looking at what are they trying to do we we've built less housing and not more housing with a population going up the results are they're not capable of handling it at the same time with have more regulations in a never toughing environment and you know I I
35:49 don't know where it ends or does it end and of course that gets into some politics um but I would certainly say that's the challenge and as a professional and that's true in all our businesses as a as a professional our job is to learn about those regulations and find the way to steer ourselves and our clients clear of that um you know I on one hand I say to my I say myself and to others I don't really care one way the other I'll beat my competitors and I'll do real well and I'll help my customers I then had to look around me and I see a lot of people struggling and suffering and as a Californian in particular uh I feel really bad over what I see is decline of the state that
36:25 I've grown up in so I don't know where it ends um but it certainly uh seems to me that some point people need to realize that the people who promis to solve problems by regulating them at the state level that's not the solution that that's always been the opposite of the case I think so last question because um unfortunately we need to wrap this up but so you mentioned that for small offices Regional Offices they're not necessarily a part of this national settlement so let's let's you know let's take used to be very very common here in
37:00 in California I think across the country you know um a real estate agent he works for FS for somebody else he gets his broker's license he starts his own firm he's a he's a one office shop and you know he's he's he's doing well he he likes the freedom and he doesn't want to have to be part of a a large company um on the other hand he also doesn't have the resources to you know fight a you know an National lawsuit so what what advice do you have for that you know single office operator or maybe that
37:36 operator who's got you know two or three offices you know in a in a you know you know one one area of of whether it's California or Florida or you know Ohio so I think one of the challenges of Regulation is that forces a consolidation in the industry you look at any business and you know where you have intense regul automobiles you have a few companies whereas you know if you follow history in the 1920s 30s and 40s we had hundreds of companies manufacturing Automobiles and as regulation got stronger it it Consolidated down to the players we have now and I think that's happening in real
38:12 estate as well not just with real estate agencies but kind of hybrids or offshoots like Zillow and redin are bigger and bigger pay no federal taxes because they're Venture Capital funded and yet destroy the real estate agency business so to answer your question what does individual do my solution was to affiliate with a large National company exp realy I'm a broker associate I run my own business I delegate to them certain regulations and certain administrative tasks and as a result for a very small fee I operate U my business the way I want to within the umbrella of their organization and that gives me a
38:47 lot of coverage a lot of resources and support I'm sure there are other companies in addition to XP that people might explore I've been with them five and a half years it's work for me I couldn't imagine being independent today for that reason that the regulations and the um things move so quickly uh that I need to have access to forms and and guidance you know I go into our broker room once a week to talk to my colleagues there to get updates as and strategies and how to handle things the case you and I are involved with where there's multiple properties is it a vacant lot or is a commercial lot you know who really knows uh but we have to make a decision so these are things that
39:23 I think are you know um and I have are of missions insurance I've never been sued so it's not like I'm running away from the law but I think to give the best service and to do it with you know uh clear heart clear clear conscious um the answer I've come up with is it's hard to be independent I don't see the advantage anymore of that I was at one time uh and that's why I feel with a larger company to maybe give me some coverage on these important regulatory issues well um on that um I mean it I I don't mean this as a criticism of you but it it it's it's almost it almost
39:59 sounds you know a little bit unamerican right because we think of America as being the place where the individual has opportunity and and unfortunately it may be that you know the real estate business is following so so many others the the medical business and such where you know conglomeration is is just the necessity for for survival unfortunately so seems like that's a very good example I think you know you I know you've had some uh recent invol the milk industry if you haven't it's not like it was 10 years ago uh it's a whole different industry and it I don't think it's good for the
40:34 consumer it is it good for the doctor or not I don't know but I don't think it's good for the consumer that just to get an appointment with the doctor now is so challenging yeah I mean based on my what's happened with me and talking to my doctors I don't think they particularly like it either but in order to survive this is you know what they what they have to do so yeah it's it's a you know this is this is part of a larger discussion of such of sort so well you know hopefully we'll we'll have you back maybe in about you know three to six months something like that as as this whole situation develops and we can bring more clarity to it because I think
41:11 that um we're only at the beginning and and who knows how in the end this is all going to shake out you did mention that there are some companies that are still fighting um presumably if if somehow they Prevail then maybe we'll see another tectonic shift um so that's that's possible as well well I think if the court decision you know is Ed then they're going to be held liable to what the judge decides it's only those who agree to the settlement they'll avoid it so I guess you could try to outrun that for Peri time at some point their attorneys were in the business of tracking you down and forcing you to pay the fee so um I wish
41:49 them good luck I'm not saying I want to see them caught but I wish them good luck yeah well Bill thanks so much for coming on the show today I I really appreciate it and uh for all of you who are are are watching thank you for for joining us if you have any questions um I will bill I'll put your contact information in the show notes and and you can contact Bill and he'll he'll be happy to answer your questions and and not just about real estate agency about real estate in general I know I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday that I had referred to Bill and he was telling me that he had set up a meeting
42:24 and and because of a family emergency had to cancel but he's got to reschedule it because you know it's it's important for him to get the advice of of a qualified professional before he makes a decision and and in his case it's a pretty complex decision that he needs to make so so you know do Bill can't say this because he's my guest but I can say it shamelessly you know if you have questions about real estate do get in touch with Bill um I I we've known each other now for gosh over three decades right I think it is um which which is
42:59 pretty amazing since we're both only 25 I'm a little older 25 so am I true disclosure yeah okay so um before before I sign off just uh real quickly uh tomorrow at um 10: am Pacific time is my show business lessons from the military and I'm going to be talking about shrewd risk-taking looking at MacArthur's success at the Battle of
43:34 inchon and then on Wednesday at 10: am is my show people making money and I'm gonna be talking about the spiritual dimension of business I don't think I've ever addressed this topic before but I I think Faith plays a profound role in our professional lives and so this is a a subject that I I want to explore with you and then on Thursday is my every other week show jiggers his place at 5:00 pm Pacific time and our topic is treating people kind or nice and it seems like
44:12 lately I have that discussion with somebody people two three times a week and and it's it's I I had this discussion with my nephew last night very he was very disturbed by what he SE going on so I invite you to join me again 5:00 pm Thursday Pacific time for a cocktail and and a discussion about all those things that make life worth living besides our professional and business lives so again bill um thanks so much for for joining me I'll have you hang on just for a moment after after we
44:48 we go offline and for all of you out there watching again thank you wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do Marie darling you are my bell you really are courage at all times my friends