The Homeowner’s Hidden Profit Strategy with Timothy Street - Episode - 555

Now, number one, what I do, uh, with, with my homeowners, I, I give them a little bit of homework and I say, you're going to go through every room of your house and then you're going to walk around the outside with, with a notepad and a pen. You walk around and you're going to tell me everything you love about what you're seeing and more importantly, what you've done that's not apparent to the naked eye. And that's, that's the I Love Me Report. Okay.

Welcome to Streams to Impact, brought to you by Steve Talker Capital. I'm your host, Dr. Allen. If you're like most high-achieving professionals, you have mastered the art of earning. Yet the more mastery you demonstrate, the more you feel the quiet erosion of your freedom as taxes rise and time disappears. You're not looking for a second job. You are looking for your capital to step forward and finally work as hard as you do. And there is a path where your wealth grows quietly, securely, and predictably. A path the ultra-wealthy have traveled for decades through passive private placements that build multiple streams of income without demanding more hours from your life. To help you begin that journey, we have created Beyond the Paycheck, Your Financial Clarity Compass. This private masterclass is our gift to you. You can access it at www.gobeyondthepaycheck.com. steedtucker.com/beyond-paycheck. Take a breath, settle into your stride, and let your financial future expand as you step into today's conversation. Before we begin, just a brief disclaimer. All information shared on Streams to Impact is for educational purposes only. It is not to be construed as investment, financial, legal, or tax advice. All investments incur risk. You should not invest if you're not prepared to lose 100% of your investment, and you're always encouraged to consult your legal, accounting, and tax advisors before making any investment. Today's guest, Tim Street, is a Marine veteran, real estate investor, and licensed agent who teaches homeowners how to keep more of their equity by selling Without the traditional agent model. After watching families lose thousands in unnecessary commissions, Tim committed himself to showing sellers a smarter, more empowered path. His work equips homeowners with practical strategies that protect wealth and put control back where it belongs. Tim, welcome to Streams to Impact.

Thank you.

You bet. So Tim, I'd just like to begin right at the heart of the matter by asking a personal question, and that is at the point in everyone's life where their most meaningful and life mission is shaped by a moment that changes how we see ourselves. So what experience in your life reshaped your sense of purpose and Set you on the trajectory that your life is on now.

Gosh, there's well failure is such a great teacher, and so I should consider myself very learned. I tell you, there are gosh, there are several. I would say the so I going into the Marine Corps changed who I was as a person. I had failed at everything in my life. I quit at everything in my life. The Marine Corps really taught me. I was capable of so much more than I thought because I had a, I had a group of people around me who just absolutely, they would not, those, those, some of the meanest, scariest people on earth, the drill instructors, they would not give up on you. So long as you showed a bit of promise and as long as you didn't give up, they, you know, that was all you could do. And so that taught me, so it was a big transformative part of my life. Obviously it was the first thing I did out of high school and it kind of really shaped things. And the next thing was just becoming a dad. Holding that little miracle in my hands for the first time, and just ah, what a it's incredible. My mom said it best. She said it's like a part of your soul wakes up that you didn't know you had. Boy, she was right. And you know, eventually, you know, growing older, losing some of my friends in the Marines that were you know closest family to me, knowing that. One day I'm going to see them again, and I'm going to have to reckon not only with with the big boss upstairs, but also my friends who sacrificed everything, knowing that hey, you know they they left everything so that I could live a life. And is this something that's worthy of their sacrifice? And I try to live every day knowing that. And then you know professionally speaking, I can tell you that what really changed me was realizing how susceptible to stepping onto the dark path that I was. And what I mean is there. There are incredible real estate agents out there. My wife is one of them. Some of my best friends are great. And I truly like to believe that I serve my clients as well. But there was one listing in particular that was my last one I ever went on where I was dealing with a nice older couple who just sweet as the day is long. But they had had a fellow in there before me who promised them the moon and the sun and the stars, told them, hey, I'm going to get you another $50,000 for your house because I have a big social media following and I take drone photos. For those of us in the business, we know how silly that is to say, because when it comes down to it, it's almost always price. But anyway, these poor folks, they lost a lot of money going through taking bad advice. Their house stagnated on the market. You know, there's 6 months of opportunity costs, 6 months of carrying costs, and the stigma their house now has because it sat unsold. And what does every consumer wonder? What's wrong with it? But what got me is on the way home from that listing appointment, I knew I was going to lose it to that guy. And it's something that's easier for me to talk about today because I've talked about it a little bit, but I almost went that route. I said, I said, you know, I can lie to people and I can BS people just as easy as the next guy. So why aren't I? I would be so wealthy. I'd be so successful. And I say that and it sounds so terrible to say because I have the best life I could ever imagine. I have an amazing family, 4 beautiful girls, amazing wife, amazing parents. Like I've been gifted the most amazing blessings on this earth. And that one part of me still said, aha, but there's more. And it made me sick to my stomach. It really did when I realized what kind of person I almost became. And that's where I turned the path. And now I just give everything away for free. I teach homeowners for free how to do this. It's all on my YouTube channel. And my goal is to make sure that nobody ever finds themselves in a scenario like those people were that day.

Well, Tim, thank you for sharing that. A lot of things to unpack in there, but I appreciate you being so open about that. Yeah, there's, you know, there often are many life-changing events. And like you say, failure is certainly a great teacher. And it is that, you know, it certainly was that way in my life. I mean, there were just so many failures that had stacked up and stacked up. And then one day there was a wake-up moment, and it was the moment that changed my life totally and completely.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, we all have those moments, I think, or at least all of those who ultimately find success. It never comes knocking on your door without failure. Well, Tim, picking up on that, that theme of helping others, you're a licensed agent, yet you have created this system that essentially removes yourself as an agent from that traditional equation. And so what led you to design a process that empowers homeowners to actually sell on their own?

So primarily it came from the realization that I'm the type of person that if you, if you give me an inch, I'm going to take a mile. I'm really always going to try to do the very best. And that was something, again, I think that kind of woke up in the Marines for me. I was never that way before. You know, I was always picked last in sports. I was never You know, I never had really anything to go going for me in that area of my life. And ever since the Marine Corps, when I, you know, I ended up, I ended up going, I went in there knowing I was going to quit. I knew I was going to fail. I figured I'm going to get on this bus in Detroit. I'm going to head out down to the recruit depot about 3 weeks later. I'll be back and I guess I'll find a job here. And I ended up doing so well down there. I graduated at the top of my platoon. I was the guy that carried the flag across the parade deck. In front of my family, it's one of the proudest moments of my life. And so I say all that because I want people to understand that where I am today is is a product of a lot of shortcomings, and it's a lot of failures. And by no means am I saying that I'm perfect, and by no means have I saying I've reached the pinnacle. I'm still trying. I'm still trying to get there. But I think what I've done is I've I've sort of changed my. definition of prosperity. I used to tie it to a paycheck. I used to tie it to, hey, you know, can I have this cool car? Maybe I could get up and get this cool airplane. And that, of course, would be great. But what I've come to realize is I have everything. I really have. I mean, I'm clearly not missing any meals. And I, you know, I have a beautiful, wonderful support group in terms of friends and family who believe in me. So, Why not? Why not take this opportunity when I can to try to do something else? So instead of pursuing that path of just cashing more commission checks, instead of pursuing that path where I'm going to be constantly tempted to maybe blur the ethical lines out there, because trust me, as a young man, I've seen me blur some ethical lines. Okay. So I know I'm very capable of it and I try to walk away from that life. And so by doing this, I think it really puts kind of a big fork in the road. So it allows, it allows me mentally to still give 110% of myself, compulsively just give of myself to a, to a good effort. But on the other side of it, it's, it's other people who are able to, well, let's say start a college account. So maybe, maybe instead of going right into the Marines out of high school, maybe their kid can go into college. Maybe it's funding a retirement account where people who were barely scraping by before, well, heck, they have another $30,000 to contribute to their IRA, that's meaningful. I think of folks like my parents. And even though this is not for everybody, don't get me wrong, I could think of a million reasons, well, that following my advice, if my advice is perceived as always sell-by-owner, that's not what I'm saying. For some people, it'd be terrible. If there's a legal attachment to the house, like if it's going through probate or estate or divorce, it's subject to legal judgment. Give that real estate agent their commission. They're going to earn it through the legal hell they're about to go through for you. Or for example, if you're a cardiologist and you're making $30,000 a day working on people's hearts, you're not going to take a week off to save a couple thousand dollars in commissions. So it's not for everybody. But the people I have in mind are folks who are maybe retired or folks who love DIY projects or God love them like my parents. They're both. My dad will completely redo the landscaping in his yard on a weekend just for fun. And they have nothing but time on their hands because they're retired. So, for those kind of folks, it's a great option.

Well, you have this phrase, the $30,000 agent tax. For the average homeowner who hears that, how does that number actually break down in real life?

Sure. So, it's sort of a colloquialism. What I've done is just taken the— even though there's not necessarily— and I think as a licensed agent, I'm actually legally prevented from saying something like customary commission. But I've heard people say, Allen, that people sometimes pay 6% in commissions. The average home sale is somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000 here in the United States. So just that simple math right there is about $30,000. But there are some other expenses that a lot of people don't take into consideration. And I touched on it briefly with that last experience I had. Number one is I like to remind people of something called carrying costs. And these are, this is the mortgage and the insurance and all the utilities that you're going to continue to pay as your home sits for sale. There's also, again, opportunity costs. Opportunity costs is defined by what gains would you have had put in the market if you put that equity that you had in that home and put it into the market or into whatever investment you're going into next? Maybe it's precious metals, maybe it's Bitcoin. I don't care if it's tulips. There's an opportunity cost there to having your equity tied up in an asset that sells slowly. So the reason I like to bring all that up is I like to get people thinking a lot bigger than just commission. Because if you sell by owner just to avoid a commission, it's kind of like going on YouTube and learning how to pull your own tooth. I mean, you can do it. It's probably painful and it would be a heck of a lot more worth your time and money to just go to a dentist. So if your whole goal is just saving a commission and that's it, you're thinking too small. What I like people to do is I like people to think of this as a life skill. You know, I teach negotiation, I teach presentation, I teach marketing, I teach sales, I teach what it really— what really matters. Once you take all of these other costs that most people don't consider, what happens if there's an appraisal gap? So when the buyer comes and brings their lender and you agreed to sell your house for $500,000 and the appraiser says it's only worth $480,000, well, the buyer comes back to you with this handout and says, hey, Allen, I need another $20,000 to make this happen or I'm walking. And a lot of sellers are pressured into that. So I teach them techniques on how to make sure that never happens in the first place. What happens when the buyer's home inspector comes through and gives him a laundry list that looks like a telephone book of all the things wrong? And these range from, you know, a live wire sparking in the attic that nobody saw before to paint peeling on the wall. And they're going to come to you expecting you to fix it all. So it actually could be much more than just the commission that we're talking about here. And that's where I talk about the $30,000 agent tax, not because it's agents necessarily exclusively in the commission that's costing you, but it's all these other lost things that you're sort of blinded to. So at the end of the day, the commission is just one small part of a laundry list of expenses if you're not savvy.

Yeah.

Well, and it's— I mean, that certainly is understanding why a lot of people feel very intimidated about selling without an agent. Because there are all of these different issues that you mentioned. So from your experience, what are these real dangers? Or I guess you've listed a number of them. So how can the homeowner who is doing a for sale by owner, how can they prepare themselves to mitigate these or even to avoid them?

Altogether, I've got, I've got about 17 of these, but I'm going to give you 2 of my favorites right here and right now, because this is something that I think anybody who's owned a home before and has, has gone through the home buying or home selling process is going to appreciate these. So I talked about before, 2 of the big hazards are appraisal gaps and due diligence inspection laundry list fixes. And there are a just— there's just a cottage industry of homebuyers, investors, and real estate agents who represent buyers who really specialize at using the listing inspection, or I'm sorry, the buyer's inspection as a cudgel to just beat the poor seller over the head with and say, we want all this fixed or we're walking. And here's the problem. By the time it gets to that point, you as the seller have to make a big decision. Number one, am I going to cave and see the deal through to its close? Or number two, am I going to walk I have to go back on the market. And when I do that, everybody around me is going to say, hey, look at that, 123 Main is back on the market. I wonder what fell through. I wonder what's wrong with the house. Fairly or not, the consumer always blames the home. They never think that the buyer might have been a bad guy. They never think that the agent might have not been worth his salt. But the— so the house always takes the blame. So now you've let go of all your leverage and now you're going back in the market with a diminished reputation. So I like to avoid that with 2 big things, and I'll get to it right now. Number one, what I do with my homeowners, I give them a little bit of homework and I say, you're going to go through every room of your house and then you're going to walk around the outside with a notepad and a pen. Or I guess it's 2025. You can use your iPad if you want. But you walk around and you're going to tell me everything you love about what you're seeing. And more importantly, what you've done that's not apparent to the naked eye. And that's, that's the I Love Me Report. Okay. Why is that important? Because in a situation where a buyer is getting financing, the lender is going to send their appraiser out to the property. While the lender is there, I counsel my home sellers to go be very polite, very respectful to the lender and say, hey, Mr. Lender, my name is Tim. Listen, I know you're super busy. I made this package for you. And what this is, it's a collection of enhancements we've made to the Most of which you can't see with the naked eye, but we wanted you to be aware of it so that it can, you know, better inform your appraisal. By the way, we've also included 5 comparable sales, which we use to justify the market value of this house. I'm telling you right now, appraisers love that. Some people think they're going to get offended. You've just done his job for him. He has now a justifiable way of giving you market value for your home. So no, it's It's a wonderful thing. I've never come across an appraiser that didn't appreciate that. As a matter of fact, I will also say using that tactic, I've never once had a listing have an appraisal gap problem. Not once. That's pretty good. On the other side of the equation, we have the buyer's inspection that happens during their due diligence. So what's the best way to address that? We beat them to the punch. We do something called a pre-listing inspection. We hire a residential building inspector to come through as if they were representing a buyer and give your house an A to Z report. And in there, you're going to find three buckets of items. Number one are immaterial cosmetic things that can be handled by a handyman. Number two, we're going to find things that are maybe a water heater that's toward the end of its life, but it's still functional. Maybe an air conditioner that's toward the end of its life, still working fine. And then the third thing we're going to find is. What I had alluded to before, which is maybe a leaking roof, maybe it's a foundation crack. So basically we're talking about things at the top that can only be addressed by a licensed contractor, things in the middle that are subjective, and things at the bottom that can be addressed with a handyman. And my advice is to address everything on that list that can be done by a handyman. The second you're in the territory where you have to pull permits, it's better off to give a seller credit. Or simply incorporate that deficiency into the market value of the house. Because if you tell the seller and they see it and you tell— or I'm sorry, you tell the buyer, hey, I'll fix this, the buyer's not going to be very confident because we're probably just going to find the lowest bidder. We don't really care about the long-term quality. So the buyer is always more comfortable with seller credits at closing. So anyway, to get to the best part of that story, after we fix everything and we incorporate all the deficiencies into our asking price. We then ask that residential inspector to come back out and do a reinspect, which almost all of them will do for free. We get that clean bill of health. Now, every time someone comes to see our home and they want to make an offer, we give them that report. It does a couple of things. Number one, it makes you stand out over every other homeowner because every other homeowner out there, they're trying to hide every flaw. They're trying to act like their house is perfect. I got news for you. Even new construction homes aren't perfect. So a 70-year-old farmhouse is going to have its share of deficiencies. And that's okay. People don't want perfect or they'd be all buying new. So giving them that list and say, please, by all means, perform all of your due diligence, have your chosen inspector come. But just so you know, we price the house according to this report. If you find anything else, we'll be happy to talk about it. And wow, what a difference that makes. Now, now you're coming at it from a position of authenticity. And when the inspection occurs, if they do find anything and they come to try to beat you over the head with that inspection report, you're able to say, well, well, hold on, Allen, we— I gave you the inspection report. You knew about all these. In fact, all of these issues are on the— what changed? And it really produces like a cognitive dissonance in the buyer's mind, and they simply can't justify asking for any money off. Some try, but it's much easier to hold firm when you've been open and honest upfront about it. Right.

Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, that brings us to this aspect of pricing a home, which is always a challenge. Uh, even for experienced agents. So how do, uh, for sale by owners, uh, go about pricing their home confidently? Because, you know, not only can they lose money on commission prices, but they can certainly lose money by undervaluing their home. And just like you were mentioning earlier, they can lose money by overvaluing the home. Because it's going to sit on the market for months and months and months. So what's the best way to go about evaluating a home?

You're right about that, Alan. The— in fact, I'll share a couple of scary stats with you. The first stat I'll share is 90% of the people who attempt to sell by owner fail and they end up using a real estate agent. So they'll call me and they'll say, hey, I tried selling by owner. And I've had many of those clients, actually. The second thing that's even kind of worse is Those who succeed end up selling for about 11% less than their agent-assisted counterparts. So when you hear those 2 pieces of data, you wonder who in their right mind would ever sell by owner. And I would agree if that was the whole story. I would agree. But it turns out there's more to the story, and it sounds like this: those people were going to again YouTube University. They were. Getting a million different opinions on how to sell, how to price, how to market. Do you market? Do you try to find a flat fee MLS? Do you not do that? Does it taint your reputation? How do you find buyer's agents? How do you work with buyer agents? How do you not scare them away? There is so much complexity into this. And so of course there's a 90% failure rate. Gosh, I can imagine what the failure rate of the driving test would be if there's no driver's ed. You throw some poor 16-year-old kid in a Cadillac and say, good luck, happy trails, clear the sidewalks. That's a bad day for everybody. So it's because it's not because homeowners are somehow inept, and it's not because real estate agents are magic. It's because real estate agents have a sequence. They have a blueprint for the way that we do things. And so I'm very capable to teach that very blueprint to homeowners. And here's the best part: it's my belief that homeowners are the subject matter experts of the product that they're selling far more than I could ever be. They know what rooms get the best natural light. They know do you have to close the curtains at dinner time because the sun's blasting in your eyes? What what rooms are best in the in the winter that that don't get too cold? There's so many beautiful aspects that homeowners can bring to the conversation that even the best real estate agent on this planet cannot, because because that's their lived experience. So if we are able to teach them this process, teach them so for example how to price, it's a very very complex process. I shouldn't say that. It is it is sophisticated. It's not complex. And what I mean is all you have to do is you go go to. Zillow, find all the homes that sold within the last 6 months within a 1-square-mile radius of you. And then we're going to take all the like-for-like homes. So if you're selling a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home with a pool, we're not going to compare it to the price per square foot that they got for the mansion down the street or for the trailer at the end of the block, right? We're going to find similar homes of similar make, model, and year, almost like we're car shopping. And then, and then what we do is we compare those homes Come out with an average. And then what I— it's always worked for me. And in fact, when I was a licensed real estate agent, one of my claims to fame was that my list-to-sold price ratio— and it's a funny way of saying how much money I was able to get for my clients versus what they initially hit the market at— was 102.3%. And what that meant was I was actually getting people above asking price on their homes. Well, Tim, how the heck do you do that? Well, That's through having a multiple offer situation. Well, how do you get a multiple offer situation? It was called strategic underpricing. So in order to get excitement on an asset, because the reality is the homeowner doesn't get to decide how much their home is worth. I, as a real estate agent, didn't get to decide. The only entity that got to decide was that collective market of buyers and what they were willing to write a check for for that asset. They were the only entity that got to decide. So when you realize who it is that you have to get excited and what it is that excites them, what excites them is a bargain, not— don't underprice by 50% because people think it's, you know, a crack house, but a strategic underpricing where you're slightly coming in below your lowest competitor. You automatically launch yourself to the top of the interest list. And now you have people looking at your home who weren't even going to look at it before. But something else magical happens when we haven't outgrown much of our toddler brains. And I don't know if you've ever seen 2 kids playing with a toy, but you can make one toy very valuable by giving it to one child and the other child immediately wants that toy. This is the same way in consumerism today, and especially in real estate. When a couple walks through a home and they see 4 other couples that look, walk, talk, and act like them, all excited about this asset, it spikes the value in their brain. And then they get into their car and they're writing an offer right on their steering wheel with their agent on the phone because they do not want to lose out. It spikes the scarcity. and the urgency of the situation. So by doing that, if you follow these steps, you're not only going to do as well as other real estate agents about you— because average real estate agents, their list-to-sold price ratio is about 89%. So my belief is not only can you get to my numbers, which is around 102.3%, you're going to get even more because of your commission savings.

Well, Tim, for someone who is thinking of selling their home What is the very first step that they should be taking right now?

I would tell you, check out our quiz. So, we have a 2-minute quiz on our website. If you go to fullprooffsbo.com/quiz, it's a temperament quiz and it's a situational quiz. And all it's going to tell you is, are you well-suited to sell by owner? Because as we talked about before, sometimes we're not. And that could be situationally, that could be personally, or that could be because of the product itself, the asset. We're going to be honest with you. We're going to tell you, yep, it's a great idea, or no, this is probably not something you're going to want to do on your own. However, for those folks who have to pick path B and still go the agent route, what I will do is just contact me. I have agent networks throughout this whole country. I'll call who I have in your area and I'll personally negotiate a reduced commission on your behalf. So even if you use an agent, you're still going to save tens of thousands going through my network. And that's a promise I'm going to make to your listeners. If they're If they want to go the for sale by owner route, I have a very— you can get all of my information for free. For those who want a more step-by-step, they don't want to pore over YouTube or go through my Instagram, I actually have a course available. It's called The Blueprint. They can subscribe to my course and we have weekly live coaching calls. I have a 9-module step-by-step video program. By the end of it, I can have their home listed in as little as 7 days, ready to take offers.

Well, Tim, if you imagine the impact of your work years from now, long after the details of your system are forgotten, what do you hope people remember about you and the way that you chose to show up and to live your personal life and your professional life?

Wow, Alan. Geez. I know that dead air is not good for radio. I'm going to have to process for a second though. My, my, my go-to answer for pretty much all things in life. And it was, it was made very clear to me what mattered when I, when I held my first little girl. I just hope that my, my, regardless of what I do professionally, I hope my daughters never once wonder, did they have a dad who loved them? Did they have a dad who would literally do anything, give anything up to, including and more than his life? I would trade everything I have for their Safety and well-being. So with that said, if I can, man, if I could ever be the reason that one of those kids who would have not otherwise gone gets an education, maybe it's a family who gets to retire, or it's a family who, you know, they have somebody with not long to live and they want to do one final big family vacation together and they're able to do something like that because it None of the things I'm doing today in terms of my physical stuff, an article I write, a video I create, that's not going to matter. But if we can enable people to create memories and create legacies that way, that's the kind of stuff where I believe real true immortality comes from. And I don't think I'll ever be somebody who will be remembered more than one or two generations after myself. But for what I can be remembered for, I hope I can make a difference.

Well, what a powerful conversation today with Tim Street. And he showed us how homeowners can reclaim control, preserve more of their equity, and navigate the selling process with confidence rather than with fear. So this approach blends practicality with empowerment, and it reflects the deeper values that guide his work, which are service, clarity, and helping families build strong financial futures. So if you want to take the next step with Tim's system, here are 3 different ways that you can engage with Tim. He mentioned the Take the Spirituality Quiz that can be found at www.fullprooffsbo.com/quiz, or you can download the 7-Day Launch Guide ebook. At www.foolprooffsbo.com/ebook. And finally, you can request a one-on-one meeting with Tim also at www.foolprooffsbo.com/meet. And before we close, I want to remind you of the gift we shared at the beginning of the episode. High-achieving professionals like you deserve options that put your money to work without demanding more of your time. And that's why we created Beyond the Paycheck, your financial clarity compass. You can access this private masterclass at www.go.stetaker.com/beyond-paycheck. And that's our free gift to you. So thank you for joining us on Streams to Impact. Until next time, keep building the purpose, the prosperity, and the freedom that allow you to live life on your terms.

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