How to Win Probate Listings & Network with Attorneys

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Podcast experience. Today we're talking to my friend Paige from Long Beach, California. If you're listening to this show right now, and the thought of having 600 probate transactions over the next, say, 15 to 20 years, if that's of interest to you, you're going to love Paige and you're going to love this show. So, Paige, welcome to the show, my dear.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Apps. It's about. We were talking off camera. It's about time.

100%. Yes.

Yes.

So.

So Paige has been kind enough to share inside our community and ecosystem with a lot of different people, including my little sister, about this. This terrific world of probate transactions. The do's and don'ts, the lessons, the insights. So maybe, just maybe, let's go back to sort of the origin story. So how did you. You got licensed 20 years ago. Did you just fall into doing probate deals? Was there a mentor or a journey? And. And maybe what should the listener be thinking about if they're just getting started?

I love it. So, yes, I did not just fall into probate, although it feels that way sometimes these days. But I started in real estate with my dad. He was our broker owner, actually, my very first first year as a licensed agent, he was like, you can't come work for me. Go get trained somewhere else. And so I love it. And so I did y. And I had actually worked in escrow for about three years before that, trying to figure out what piece of real estate I wanted to work in. In Beverly Hills, 301 North Cannon. We did all the deals for people on reality tv, but basically I had a foothold because my dad had been doing it, but he made me go learn it on my own. So it's really both. And the way that I did that was by networking with attorneys. So I had the benefit of knowing from him, hey, this is a pillar of business where you can create repeatable, scalable sales transactions that come year after year. Yes, I had that knowledge, but then I had to go build it on my own.

And.

And at the time that I, roughly around 2007, I transitioned back to Long beach from L. A And joined him and his business.

At that. Well, 2007, the market was crazy. You. You had to really, you know, hustle to. To sell anything. And so probate was especially attractive at that point because the sales had to happen even if they were short, the sale still had to happen because when someone passes away, you still have to close out their estate. So Ultimately, that's how I got started in the toughest market there was.

I had just seen the run up in the market, in escrow, handling all those transactions, and then I was a new agent.

So. So, Page, I like to sometimes look at things from a totally different perspective, take a few minutes and talk my listener out of even thinking they should go after probate business. Like, what are all the reasons why they shouldn't do it?

Well, there's a lot of reasons not to do it. Number one, the houses are in really bad shape. So if you are a realtor who likes to walk into pretty houses, this is not for you.

Also, the.

Transaction is usually being handled by, like, I work with a lot of professional trustees, so it's not typically in that vein. Sometimes if you're working with a family, it can be emotional, but typically I work with professional trustees and attorneys, so those transactions are not emotional for them at all. You have to answer all of the business questions, all of the number questions. So if you can't do that or are really uncomfortable doing that, don't get into this.

What does that mean, though? Is that justifying comps, sales price, how to clean up the house to get it sale ready, your fees? D. All the above.

It's justifying your fees 100%. Because in. So I live on the border of L. A County and Orange County. In L A County, probate code actually sets commission cap. So in Orange county, it's a little more negotiable. It's not set by the probate code. But you absolutely have to justify your fees. Because, in fact, right now I have a case where there are four properties in one trust. The family has someone, someone always has a real estate license in the family, right? So I have to answer to them why I'm charging a full fee for every single property in the same trust to the same family, et cetera. So you have to be able to justify your fees, but then you also have to be able to justify how you're going to market the property. So I spend a lot of time documenting my file. So that's another reason you would not want to get into this. If you don't like documenting every single thing that you do, you would not want to do it because I document all of our marketing efforts, all of our call logs. Because, yes, a lot of times beneficiaries in a situation like this, if the siblings don't get along well, they're checking up on each other. And so I field calls that are almost like straw phone calls of people Trying to see how I'm handling the listing, how I'm marketing it. I've had siblings submit fake offers trying to, like, screw another sibling. So you have to be really.

Not even aware, but really sharp on what's happening with that listing, and then also justifying every single thing you're doing. So should the property be sold as is versus paint and flooring and all those things in the fix up? That is constantly a question. And I have competitors that do the fix and flip. Right. And they typically work with the family members who see the dollar signs. But when you're exempt from any disclosures in a probate transaction, as you are in California, like, all of my advice is going to have a California perspective.

Sure.

If you're exempt from disclosure, why would you want to touch anything and suddenly create a disclosure for the trust or the probate estate? Either way? So those are some of the considerations.

It almost feels a little bit like short sale meets the tragedy of death. Right. Like, this feels like they're going to be a more involved transaction, a slower transaction. Do you find yourself usually being responsible for the repairs, getting the property ready to sell, or is that like, how is that managed?

So when I walk into a listing appointment, I give the client the option. I say, look, you can be as involved as you want to be, or you can hand me the key and walk out the door right now and I'll take care of everything. Yes. So. And I find that usually in a family scenario, there's one sibling that that's appealing to and there's one sibling that that's not. And so I'm constantly balancing the interaction between siblings or, or sometimes aunt and uncle and niece and nephew. It just depends how things have evolved. But I'm constantly balancing those constraints and different personality types.

Yes. So, so if I stay. Let's, let's keep pulling on this thread. Of all the reasons why my listener who's like, what do you mean? I just popped on this because I want, you know, she did 600, and I can, I'm competitive. I'll do 900. I'm in a bigger market.

If you don't like ugly houses, this is not for you. It sounds like if you, you know, if you're accustomed to making like two sales, selling them on you and then selling the house, because this feels like maybe five or six sales dependent upon the attorney, depending upon the trustee, dependent upon multiple siblings or, you know, family members all sort of vying for what's best for them. It sounds stressful.

It is. I actually One of my coaches, one or two years ago, I told him a few situations that I had going on, and he was like, I don't understand how you're not balled up in the corner crying. And I was like, it'll turn out one way or another.

I just follow the thread through.

But ultimately, I think what. What you have to be okay with if you want to get into probate actually is. Is grief. And that's. That's really the competing challenges that I have is that everyone's grief turns into. It manifests in a different way. And so one person wants to go through every single item in the house. Yes. And another person doesn't want to touch anything, wants to walk away immediately. And I've had to actually coach my team in that because they'll be like, oh, that person, they're only about the money. They're. They're really cold. Or, oh, that person, they're too emotional. This. Or, you know, like, they've got an opinion. And I'm like, look, all of those things are valid. They're. Everybody's grief manifests in a different way. And that's. One person's coping mechanism is another person's nightmare. And so we have to find a balance. And that balance is usually creating a very strategic timeline. So we tell the clients, like, hey, okay, you need 30 days to go through all the stuff in the house, and then this other sibling needs to know that there's a date where that's going to stop. Right. So that's what we're constantly balancing with our clients.

And have you found. I mean, obviously you've done, you know, hundreds and hundreds of these transactions. So I imagine you. You probably in your mind, or maybe even documented sort of like archetypes of customers. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, it's like anyone that's dealt with, like, a divorce situation. Right. Or, you know, an angry partnership in real estate transaction. Like, everyone. Everyone gets what you're saying, but it's like, it's your primary way of doing business. Like, you know, this is. You know, you're doing this at scale. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna ask a bunch of the questions that I know, by the way, in the comments, as you're my friend listening, have you done a probate transaction? Yes or no? Let us know that in the comments. And then do you want to know how to get the attorneys and the trustees on your side? Because, you know, that's the direction I'm going. But I want to see in the Comments when I see this later. So, so let, let's start there. Let's, let's assume that my friend listening right now is like, all right, Paige, you kind of talked me out of it. But you know what, I'm trying to grow my business and this sounds like a pretty repeatable, scalable way to, you know, to serve customers. And I, you know, I'm a, I've got good empathy, I've got, you know, good discipline. I think I can do this. So how in the world do I get the attorneys and the trustees to start sending me business? Walk me through that play.

I'm so glad you asked. So there's two ways to go after probate business. And I always ask people if they've taken a disc profile, if they're self aware, to know if they're, hi, I, hi, that's me. I want to be with my people and all the time. Or are they more on the analytical side of the disc profile?

Yeah.

So you have to know that about yourself first.

Why? Tell me why.

Because there are two paths. And there's one path that is networking, and that's how I built my business.

Yeah.

And there's another path that is direct mail to the personal representative that is more like going after expireds, which I know is a hot topic right now. Yes, it is. If you are planning to go after expired, you should also do this too. But ultimately, over those 20 years, what happens is I network with attorneys and I get the referral to the client and I'll go into more of that. But when I get the referral to the client, then what happens is I walk into the listing appointment. It's really not a true listing appointment. It's an assumptive close. It's. I already assume that you're listing this house with me, and I don't really give you a presentation. I walk through and I say, we can handle this, we can handle that. And here's what we're going to do and here's the timeline and here's how we're going to do it. And then, you know, we, we send a digital listing agreement and it's done.

So it's an assumptive close. But what I've been doing over all those years, Tom. And maybe I'll have to like bring some of this with me next time I see you. Yes. But I. On almost all of those appointments, there's all of this mail that the realtors have sent in the house. So I take it all and I spread it all out on the Table. And I say, so if your attorney hadn't referred you to me or given you my name, which one of these realtors would you have chosen? And I have a. I have a drawer of all of it because they're like, take it away. Get rid of it. I'm like, happy to. Thank you very much. Yes. And so I ask every single time, which realtor would you have chosen? And without fail, like, literally 100% of the time, it is the thickest package on the table. And I'm still working on the joke that follows that statement, because there has to be a joke there somewhere.

But I was waiting for a punchline. I'm looking at my team.

Yeah. I can't. I haven't come up with one that's like, appropriate yet, but I know there should be a joke there.

I was thinking Jim Carrey. What was his funny movie? I got a package, people. How he starts, Right?

So, yes, Ace Ventura.

There you go.

Yeah, so.

So finish that thought, though.

So.

So you're, you know, you're quasi competing because they're like, we have all this direct mail from all these agents. Right, Right. But you were referred by the trustee or the attorney, so you would think you would hallucinate that. That would be enough.

It typically is. The reason I asked that question is, is I like to know what they're thinking and what they would have chosen. But the reason I asked the disc profile question is that if you are analytical and you want to mail well, then you need to know that your single letter doesn't matter. You need to create a binder package that has a profile, that has a probate timeline that has all the things in it. It actually really doesn't matter what's in it because I've looked at them and some of them are really bad. And it just matters that it's in a binder. Maybe you fed exit, maybe it's in a shiny color envelope. But if you're going to go the direct mail route because you're analytical and you want to get into probate, you need to know, you need to have the budget for that. And you can't leave that package at the door because the first thing that happens when someone passes away is if their relative is out of state, they're going to forward the mail. So all you're doing is leaving that package at the door for another realtor to find. So it has to be mailed and you have to have the budget for that. So that's what my competitors do.

And I, you know what I Love about this is that there's the connection. You need a big package. Right. Even if that package is like 50, 50, you know, prior transactions, MLS sheets of which maybe five were probate and you put a yellow sticky on them and say here's another situation where referred by this attorney, et cetera.

Yes.

I mean you're creating a marketing package. Right. So I get it. So if I'm more analytical, probably more driver, a little less expressive, it sounds like direct mail is the play. Is it easy to get a list of all these trustees and attorneys?

It is. So most of them are public record. It depends on your state. So in California, the debt certificates are public record. There's a lot of different services that provide that. In California, I recommend talking to your title representative. They absolutely have a plan for you around this escrow or non escrow states or that, you know, if they're a little bit different and you can't get title information like that, there are a hundred percent services that do this that you can subscribe and get. The personal representative, the attorney, like all the address, the email, the phone numbers, they're out there.

Hey, so before we get back to the show, I just want to take a second and express how grateful I am that you take time out of your day to listen to this show. It really means a lot to me. So check it out. I'm doing something special for you over the holidays. Super limited. It's an opportunity for you to join our core level coaching program and I'm going to make it such a no brainer for you that you're going to get like fifteen hundred dollars in savings. Plus I'm going to give you a ticket to the 2026 Success Summit in Anaheim, California. Look, I never do this. This, this is my craziest offer ever and it's the right time for you. It's the end of the year, like maybe you pay in full and you get a full tax write off, maybe you don't. And what you just do is put yourself in the position to have more success in 2026 regardless of market conditions because you finally have somebody in your corner holding you accountable to doing the work you know you need to do. So all you got to do, if you want to check it out, you go to tomferry.com forward/holiday, that's tomferry.com holiday to get all the details. So take advantage of it. Now let's get back to the show.

Hey, it's Josh Altman jumping into the podcast. If you're here to Grow your business, build your real estate foundations and get into the right mindset. Well, you're in the right place. But if you want more, I got you. Don't worry. Tom Ferry and I teamed up on Altman Adventure Vantage training program that we built for agents like you to get some early wins, big momentum, and the energy that you need to keep winning every single day. It's a behind the scenes look to what it takes to win in one of the most competitive markets in the world. And I know it will work for you if you're willing to put in the work. You ready?

Are you ready?

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Hey, I'm interrupting my show to remind all my elite clients and my team clients. January 13th and the 14th this year in San Diego, the last couple years in Orlando, Florida. Now we're going to San Diego to do our annual elite conference. You know, this is the hottest conference because it's just all of our bestie coaching clients getting together, sharing their best strategies, letting their hair down, having lots of fun, but making their commitments and decisions about how 2026 is going to be way better. So as one of my coaching clients, if you're listening, if you have not made your reservation, you need to do so asap. And if you're not one of my coaching clients and you're listening to this, you're like, that sounds like a cool conference where all these best people are sharing all their best strategies. And if you want to check it out, just go to tomferry.com, have a conversation with somebody on my team, and hey, maybe we'll see you in San Diego. January 13th and 14th at the New Gaylord Resort. It's going to be bananas. All right, let's get back to the show. Okay, so the lists are definitely available with probably just a quick AI search. And speaking of, I'm just curious as we, as we enter sort of the day and age, before we talk, I want to talk more about the networking side. So for my friend listening, who's really express and wondering why I'm interrupting Paige here, what are you finding? If anything is shifting because of, you know, the, the transformation from Google to asking AI, hey, my mom just passed away and I'm not sure what to do with that. I can just, I can just picture, you know, any, you know, person like me or you. Hey, My parents just passed away and I'm not sure what to do with the house. And it's in Long Beach, California, and I live in, you know, Dallas, Texas. And you know, what's going to be the best route? So. So I guess kind of maybe two parts. A, are you seeing it? And B, what are you doing to position yourself? And by proxy, the person listening should be thinking of how they're going to position themselves as well.

Mm. I am working on that. And it's a work in progress. So it's still Google SEO, but now it's A E O, which I know you know, and I'm doing Jason Pentana's, you know, marketing AI. I'm following all of those prompts and using all of those. So I'm working on, you know, building my ranking in the engines. I'm still not there yet. I am watching it closely. And I have one competitor that I know doesn't actually sell probate, but she's ranking and it's pissing me off. And I figured out who she hired to do her Google SEO, and so now I'm hiring that same person. But we just started that, so that is in play. But ultimately it's Google SEO like you have it, but it's feeding the search engines, so you have to play that game.

I'd be curious. I mean, so. So I think the SEO side actually would be quite easy. We'd probably have to, like, analyze, you know, what are the key search terms. Like, it'd be fun to just go to answer the public. Sounds so horrible about someone that's died. Right. Like, so my friend listening, you know.

I do all of this and the thing is, is here's the thing. Yes, someone has passed away and that is that. But at the same time, and I said that a little bit glibly too, but that's. I do this a lot.

Yes, yes.

But at the same time, someone has passed away and they need help. Like, they really need help.

They need an expert.

So they do. And so I also have been training my agents on this as well to say whatever feels cringe to you, it's only because you haven't seen how badly the client needs your help.

Yes.

So that's how I get through that myself, and that's how I get my agents through it. But. But the searches are very specific. They are things like people always want to know about taxes, right? So they're going to want to know about capital gain, they're going to want to know about step up in basis. They're Going to actually I, in, in preparation, I was like, what are all the things that I can deliver a value to your audience? And like one of the things that I wrote down, I feel like this is little off topic, but I'll tie it back. Is the biggest mistake I see people make all the time is they add their kid to the title of their house. Like they add their adult child to title. And that creates a lot of problems, mostly in a step up in basis because the transfer happens when they add their child. So if the parent doesn't pass away for another 20 years, then when the child actually inherits that house, they're already on title, so they're ruining their step up in basis. The other problem that happens with that, particularly in California, is that once you put the family home into a child's name or jointly, well, if they then get divorced, that is now part of their marital assets. And so you could lose the family home over the kids divorced.

Right.

So that's. Those are the most frequent problems. And that's what I would love for realtors in the nation to be in conversation with their clients about. But the way that that manifests is those are the searches. Those are the searches that people are searching is like, they're like, how do I protect mom's house? Or. Or now with ChatGPT or the AEO, they're having a whole conversation with Chat GBT to say I'm going through a divorce and I'm on the title of my mom's house and what am I going to do? How can I protect this? You know? And like those are the searches that are coming. There's a lot more to that I could talk about.

I. Well, listen, what I would, I would just. And your pager, you're like a share Elena. I love it. You're such an open book. I would tell all my friends they should follow you on Instagram. By the way, what's, what's your best Instagram handle?

Page.charnick. and my company is Beach Equities.

Love it, love it, love it, love it. And by the way, this, this woman, if you're not watching on YouTube, is also lost 75 pounds this year and just declared, uh, she's me down 100 pounds by the time I know for sure that I will see her January 13th or 14th in San Diego at our elite event. So we're going to get to that in a minute. But first we started this by saying, how do I win the business from the trustees? How do I win the attorneys? And you basically Said, I think brilliantly. Basically, you're either working expireds or you're working your referrals. Right. And if it's going to be expireds, right. In this case, going after them with a more analytical approach. It's going to be direct mail. You got to put together a significant binder. You got to have sort of proof of concept, you know, be able to have a track record, your reviews, and you want to basically stuff it, make it as big as possible so it stands out from everybody else.

So the other. Yes, but the other piece to that is, you know, when I knew we were going to have this conversation, I asked all of my trust and estate professionals.

Yes.

I said, hey, if you could tell Realtors.

Oh, I love this.

Yes. I followed your Instagram story model. And I was like, if you could tell Realtors one thing, like, what would you want to tell them? And none of them responded in the box I gave them. Like, they all responded in, like a lengthy dm where they were. It was like a rant, and some of them were in all caps.

Yes. So give us some. Give us some insight here. This is terrific.

So the thing that Realtors need to know if they're going after this business is that, number one, the attorney does not know the property address. They do not. They don't work off of a property address. They work off of an estate name. So if you email an attorney cold or if you're mailing and you're using the property address, they don't know what estate that goes to. They have no idea what you're talking about. The best trash. Exactly.

Yeah.

And the best example I can give is kind of like in a deal, like, escrow uses an escrow number, title uses a title order number. Like everyone, the lender uses the borrower name. So you have to speak their language and use the estate name. And also in terms of speaking their language, you may have caught earlier, I said, you know, I have. I have a case where. So you need to listen in your own environment. Right. I can tell you the Southern California language, but you need to listen where you are. And when you go to a networking meeting, you need to listen to what they say. So I never say, oh, I had a deal last year or last month where XYZ happened. Exactly. I say, oh, I had a case last month where XYZ happened. You have to mirror and match their language, and you have to know what their language is. Sorry, I got a little off track there.

I know. Listen, you're speaking my love language, you know, Jimmy Mackin and I, we talk all the time about the great marketing today is personalization. And personalization means, hey, if I'm in New York City, it's different from if I'm in Long island, right? Same, same state, very different vibe, different language, board packs versus, you know, regular mls, et cetera. So I love it. So back on the referral networking, you were kind of dropping some nuggets there, saying, you know, you need to speak their language. You can't come at it like a traditional residential real estate broker. So, so what are the referral networking opportunities? Like? Is there. Are there groups that they should look to join? Is there a group in every marketplace? Is there a private Facebook page? Like, give us some insight there. Like, the person listening is like, okay, I'm in. I want this. Let's go. How do I, how do I find them? How do I connect?

When someone in your ecosystem calls me or messages me and is like, hey, tell me how to do this. Yes, I will take some time with them. And I say, okay, here are like, well, we'll share a zoom screen. And I'm like, here's what I want you to look up in your town. And we look up the bar association. Excuse me, the bar association in their city, their county. So I'm in Long Beach, California. So I'm looking up the Bar Association, Long Beach, California, L.A. county. I'm on the border of Orange county also. So I'm going to look both of those things up.

The other thing that is a national organization that is almost everywhere is a trust and estate council. Estate planning? Yeah, Trust and estate council. And you're going to look those things up also. Google that. Plus your city, your county, or if there's like a geographic area, like whatever your. You know, for example, in LA county, there's also an area called the South Bay, right? So whatever your. Your area is, and you're going to look up those associations and join them. And you have to give it at least a year, I would say 18 months. It's like a demographic farm. And you're going to go to those meetings, ideally, you're going to sponsor those meetings so that your face and your logo is there. But you can't sort of just like do that out the gate. Like, you have to build some relationships. And the thing that I always recommend in those meetings because.

Because Realtors are Realtors and so they can't help themselves. And basically what will happen is in those meetings is someone will mention property taxes and the Realtor will raise their hand to Give their comment and be like, oh, well, when I helped my client, I want to make sure the whole room knows that I'm a realtor. So let me like comment on that. Right. No. So for a while back in 2018, I was building an expansion team into San Diego. And so we were the new kid on the block. And I ended up burning that down when Covid hit. But. But it was working. And that's what I was training my agents in a new geography to do is I said, look, you need to go to the meeting, you need to meet everyone at your one table. It's Networking 101, right? Like people know this, but slow and steady. Yeah, but there are a few things that I think are sort of like deal breakers where as soon as you let the whole room know that you're a realtor, well, you kind of just turned the room off to you. Whereas if you just got to know people sitting at your table one on one, they're going to assume that you're a trusted estate professional like they are. And then later when you follow up with them and there's a bunch of follow up methods right there. There's the old school forward, like you know, your family, your occupation, you know, there's. There's like all the things you can do to network, but you're not gonna like, if that meeting's on a Thursday, don't call them on Monday morning at 8am to follow up. Like call them at another time when it makes sense. Hey, I just saw this news article. It made me think, you know, like you don't want it to be salesy, but then you get a lunch with them and then you build that relationship. One thing I'll say about the lunch, because that's how I built my business when my dad kind of threw me into the deep end and was like, go get your own clients. And actually like as, as we both age, like his clients were passing away, he was like, we need new clients.

So smart.

So, so way back when I was first building, right now, I'm defending, but when I was first building I took a lot of attorneys to lunch and I had that time blocked in my schedule. And one of the best things that I did at my lunch, and this is going to seem basic, Tom, but it really worked. I men will need to come up with a different. Maybe like a briefcase or something. But I would take a purse that was like a laptop size purse so I could fit a manila file folder in it next to my laptop and I would go to lunch and we would not talk about business. And I would ask them how they got into this type of law. I would ask them about themselves. And then at the very end of that lunch, I would talk to them about joint marketing efforts. Because, like, the flip side to this is I deal with people after they have passed away. But the flip side is people downsizing. Right. So that's another pillar of business. And homeowner seminars are crushing on that. But I would talk to the attorney about joint marketing efforts. The homeowner seminar is one of those joint marketing effort examples. And then.

So hold on, just to be, to be clear, so you're saying, hey, I do these events in, you know, this, this part of town, and the average person's X years old, and I always need like a guest expert, like someone like an attorney who really understands this stuff. So my clients are informed. Is that something you'd be interested in? Right, that's the ask. Right?

Exactly. And you're highlighting them. It costs them nothing but their dollars.

Exactly. Yep. And then the law of reciprocity eventually kicks in, which is great.

And they also share it to their audience too. Right. So you get exposure to their audience. But I would pitch that at the lunch. They always say yes. And so that gives you a follow up item from the lunch. But then as we're leaving the lunch inside of this manila file folder that was in my bag, I would have really an awful trifold brochure. I think the first one I made was actually modeled. I had just joined Coaching, and it was modeled after Tim Smith expired campaign.

Oh, yes, yes.

See if I can find that for you.

Like the old, the map, the transactions, some reviews. Yes, yes, yes.

So, and it would be like what others do and what we do. And so I modeled that because I had just joined Coaching, and so I would say this trifold was like, really bad. But it worked.

But it worked.

And we have a version of that now. It's a little bit better. But I feel like, I feel like.

On the show we need like a hashtag, big package.

I mean, yes, actually, you probably should.

So now she's 75 pounds lighter, ladies and gentlemen. So she's becoming the small package.

Yes, yes.

Hey, so can you, can you unpack? You made a comment earlier, and I think a lot of, you know, my listener now is like, okay, all right. Like, I got a lot of. There's, you know, like, you're, you're so joyful and fun the way you're describing all this. But they've got some really significant nuggets. And follow up to go out and do some research. But you made a comment earlier. You're like, now I'm in the defend my position. Talk to us about that. Like, once you. You've established this, you know, you got to keep hunting for clients. But then everybody else starts to realize, wait a minute, Paige has got a little cash cow here. Like, you know, I want to get after that.

So.

So how are you defending your position now in the marketplace?

So I find that I can't be everywhere at once. So I've had to scale begrudgingly, as you may know.

I know, I've heard. I've heard.

So I've had to scale.

I now have eight agents with our brokerage, and I'm hoping to have four more by the end of the year.

Good.

Not sure when this is dropping, but. But, yeah. So I've had to scale, and I've had to start transferring my skills. And that was not a strength of mine. I don't like it, but I'm doing it begrudgingly.

We're having a moment right here on the podcast, ladies and gentlemen, in case you're. In case you're wondering, lay down and tell me about your mother. Right? You have a hard time transferring your skills. So you're saying you're a control freak. The good news is the person listening is like, oh, hello, Paige. I'm a control freak also. All the best people are.

So.

So how are you defending your position?

So we have to be at all of these meetings, right? I built my business on networking, so I am now leveraging other agents to help me be in all of these meetings. It also takes dollars because we sponsor a lot. So we're annual sponsors, we're individual meeting sponsors. I just. The Long Beach Trust Council, I was just a sponsor in November. I like to do November because the pitch that I give is around gratitude. So I'm strategic about which month I pick. But basically, I had to leverage other agents and other help for me to be in all of these meetings at once. And even if I'm at the meeting myself or the conference or whatever it is.

I bring more people with me now so that I can be face to face with a client. Someone else can be at our booth or table. So I've just had to leverage people. And also, it's taking more dollars.

But I also. I had taken some time where I was really just churning in my business. And I would get one attorney to work with me at one firm, so then I would work on getting all five of the attorneys in their trust and estate department to work with me. So that was how I scaled then. Now I'm a little bit back to basics where I'm like, okay, give me the call list. Like, I have to get back on the lunches. I have to get back in the trenches, so to speak, of like, I have to be booking new clients. So leveraging, growing my team has allowed me to spend that time doing that again.

I love it. I love it. You know, the, the hard part of, of any transactional business, even if you have great channel partners, as we talk, referral partners, is eventually they die out. So you have to always. It's, you know, it's, it's the hard truth. Every day. You don't do sales and marketing. You don't do your calls and your text and your emails. You're just pushing your income out to the future and saying, no income for me today. So it's actually nice to hear that you're still, you know, in that. That's part of how you're defending your position.

Well, the other thing that I'm doing is that I'm increasing my price point. So that might not necessarily be defensive position, but 100%. I had a story in my head, Tom, that I couldn't increase my price point because these homes were in poor condition. And I dealt with wholesalers and flippers and investors. But what I have learned since probably 2020 is that there's a lot of deferred maintenance estates. So at this point, what I'm doing in my business is that I'm, I'm building the moat around, like my hoarder houses, my bread and butter, like, piece of the business. And I have agents to service that now. But I'm now going after the higher price points, the deferred maintenance estates. Last year, I sold roughly a $7 million estate on the Newport peninsula. That was my highest price point in Covid times. At that point, my highest price point had been like 4 or 5 million. This crazy 10,000 square foot house in Coto. During COVID So we couldn't like throw a party at this house that begged for a party.

So I've been, in terms of my personal business, have been pushing my price point up in the same trust and estate world where people are still lacking planning. Those might be a trust sale where there's a professional trustee appointed or someone appointed by the court. So I'm building new pillars inside of this one.

It's so, you know, I think for, for every listener, you know, do you have your Trust. Done. Do you have a trustee, you know, or have you just, you know, said, hey, Uncle Larry, I want you to take care of this for us? I think about my friends at like JP Morgan Chase Banking, you know, partners I have there at formerly Merrill lynch, at Wells Fargo, they all have these giant trust departments. Have you cracked into some of the banking relationships to find leverage and opportunity there? Because if you're going to raise your price point, it would be go to the banks with all the wealthy people.

Yes, I have. I find that institutional clients are much harder to crack. They also already have. They have some in house people as well.

But I do have those relationships and I've built those over time. Actually, one of the things that I did to leverage that, that Newport Peninsula listing is we, we launched the weekend of the boat show and we didn't have a dock. We were on the other side. Yeah. And I took all of my marketing and everything about this property and I gave it to one of my financial guys who was going to entertain clients at the boat show. And so then I took his marketing for, well, I won't say his company, but I took his marketing. It's one of those big ones as well. And I had all of the financing options, which, I mean, a lot of things trade in cash, but I was like, here are the other options. So it was a trade of marketing materials, and it was beautiful. And I was also defending myself really hard with the beneficiaries in that transaction, and they loved that. So it was a big sale. So, yes, I have gone after that business. I know that some of those people have put my name in rooms that are competing with some Bravo liberties people you've been partnering with lately. So I'm, I'm getting there, Tom. I'm, I'm climbing, but working it, girl.

I'll refer you all day long. All day long.

Thank you.

So, all right, so as we get near sort of ramping up this conversation around probates, obviously they should follow you on Instagram. You know, you are delightful to follow there and, you know, part of the journey, which I want to talk about in a minute more, the personal stuff, but obviously they can DM you there if they want to go deeper and ask questions. But you've shared a lot, like, how'd you get started? You tried to talk them out of it because I asked you, you know, talk him out of it. You gave them the how do you win? You know, the attorney side of the business.

One, one last business question before we jump to the personal stuff. How do you justify your fees with attorneys? And what in the hell is going on with all these attorneys bitching about agents fees when they charge sometimes even more. But how do you do that? Give me, give me an example. Like is it, is it a objection or is it a condition or is it like a strangle them? How do you do it?

So honestly, it's not usually the attorney per se that's objecting to your fee because they charge quite a few fees themselves. It's usually that they have to justify to the beneficiaries and the family. Got it or fee.

Got it. Okay, that's fair.

You have to help them explain to their clients why. Yes. And, and then you have to know the constraints in your own county. Right. So I have to know the difference between an LA county probate and an Orange county probate. And those things.

Ultimately I use an assumptive close. Like I really don't have a lot of pushback on my commission.

I have been steadily raising it actually and I have constraints in LA county, but when I'm outside of LA County I've been raising it and I assumptively send it. Sometimes I will, like if we're staging a property, which I've been doing a little bit more frequently, I will cover half of the staging, which I think a lot of agents are doing.

But acting assumptively, I don't get a lot of pushback. So I think when you, it's the same thing with the listing as with your fee, as with anything. When you assume you have the business and you assume you have the number and you assume it and there's no question in your mind about it, you don't get those questions back. But for a person struggling with that, what I would say is that.

You dive into the data right now, you can pull, at least in our mls you can pull what the standard fees have been in the last 30 or 60 days. Like I just dump data on them. Yes. And that usually will defend your position as long as you're within the data ranges. So that I hope that answers.

Yeah, that's perfect, that's perfect, that's perfect. And I'm almost thinking, and again I want to ask you this personal question and I'm going to be mindful that we both committed to a time frame on this, but this has gone by really fast and I want to interview Paige like five more times. So just so I was going to ask, I think about Randy Burra, great, like fantastic New York City real estate broker. He broke into expireds by calling on expireds and then calling one of the best agents in the city and saying, I've got this appointment at, you know, whatever, Madison Avenue, whatever, you know, Upper west side. Would you come with me on the appointment? And he would win the business and then do all the work and split the fee, and he basically was just trading on another agent's name. I'm curious, have agents done that with you?

They have, even in the ecosystem. I did that within the last couple years with Monica Carr not too long ago. Yes. And I think what she learned from that is that she didn't want to do probate because she recently referred a deal to me. Like, we disclosed it. She's like, here you go.

You do that.

I think she learned she didn't want to do it anymore. But I did co list a re. Actually, it was a really complex, legally complex probate with her recently, and I do co list. And the pitch to the client is this. You're getting the probate expert, and you're getting the local expert for the same price.

Yeah. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. All right, so, Paige, if I didn't ask you on the pod, because I'm so proud of you, you've lost £75. Right. What was the turning point? Like, what? Like, I don't know how much you want to open up and talk about this, but you were like, I saw your Instagram. So I'm like, all right, like, anything goes.

Talking about it. Yeah. So.

So what was the inspiration? Like, did you hit a certain weight and finally say, enough is enough? Have you done every crazy diet on the planet? And if you want to disclose what you actually did, that's on you, you know, but, like, help us understand, because that's, like. That's a monumental feat that not many people conquer.

Thank you. So I had vertical sleeve gastrectomy surgery on June 17th of 25, and I'm down 75 pounds in about 20 weeks. And this. This is how it came about. So August 2024, I went to Summit, and I was celebrating. I had closed my highest transaction ever. My husband and I had just bought a house in our. Well, a fixer house in our dream neighborhood.

And right after Summit was, like, my birthday with USC football in Las Vegas. It was like a trifecta. It was great.

Yeah.

So I was like, okay, I've learned from you. Celebrate when it's time to celebrate. And so I did. I was very stressed and almost couldn't make it, but I made it and celebrated with the people who understand those celebrations the most. And it was amazing. I got the photos back and I was like, okay, I've reached all of these goals, and this is, like, everything I've been trying to achieve. And I hate these photos. And also, I had just had the experience of this luxury listing over that summer. And as I went into the fall, my mom was having significant knee pain. She's in her mid to late 70s, and she had knee surgery in February of this year of 2025. And she was in so much pain that I had just bought a new house four blocks away from her, three blocks away from our office, and she couldn't get into my house. Like, she was in a lot of pain. Yes. And she has me and my husband, and I don't have kids. And so I started looking at what I had accomplished, what it meant, what the future looked like. And I had just celebrated a birthday, and I was moving into late 40s. And everyone told me, like, yes, you've lost the weight before, but it's going to be a new journey this time around. Your hormones are against you is basically what I learned. And then I saw a gal sharing her journey on Instagram where she lost £200 in two years. And I was like, okay, this is the play that works. And I knew she was a real person. Like, she was a friend of a friend through my Cycle Studio. And so that helped. And I had the consultation in September. And my thinking around, I realize that's a lot of background information, but my thinking about it all was this. This is the one thing this is. You've accomplished all this other shit, and it's great, and you celebrated. And then I'm one of those people that always moves the goal post. So I was like, now that all doesn't mean anything. Like, now I need a new goal that means something. And I also, like, have on my bathroom mirror and on my steering wheel in my car, like, what are you doing it all for? Because one of the journey. Like, I've been on a grief journey as well. And one of the lessons out of that was, it's okay that you are the reason that. Because when you ask people, like, what are you doing it for? And you ask large rooms this question all the time, the answer is always the kids. Right? And my husband and I don't have kids. And that was a long journey, and we have closed that chapter. And so it had to be okay for the answer to be me. I'm doing it for me.

Yes. Yes.

So that's how I got there. Long story short, or long story long.

And I, you know, I appreciate you. I think about, like, Tyler Whitman in New York City who, you know, shared a similar path and, you know, lost a ton of weight, and shout out to Tyler if he's listening to this, or Glenda Baker or, you know, like, some of these. Some of these friends that, like, really, Glenna didn't have the surgery that I'm aware of. I'm just. Tyler and Glenda are, you know, tight.

Yeah.

Look, it's not for everybody, but. But I appreciate you being open and transparent about it. And, you know, you know, I've been a fan of yours for a long, long time. So I. I like. I like the fact that I can now say I look forward to seeing less of you all the time.

And you will.

Yes. I'm really proud of you. This is. This has been a killer show. It went by that fast for me, which that's always a good sign for me, like, when the. When the person asking is like, I want to ask more. I want us more. So, Paige, I know some people are going to reach out on Instagram. I hope they ask you a million questions. I just want to say thank you so much for, you know, just your openness around both of these subjects, both, you know, probate and. And your health journey. And I can't wait to see you, hopefully in Southern California, I don't know, between now and the end of the year or worst case, in San Diego in January at the annual Elite. So until then, thank you so much. And for my friend, Listening, man, make sure you follow this gal on Instagram. And it'd be great to just follow her health journey. And if you're thinking about doing anything probate related, my goodness, you just got a massive education. So, Paige, thank you. And for my friend listening, thank you so much. We'll see you on the next show.